Shield and Crocus

by Michael R. Underwood

  “I’ll comply, but I don’t think you’ll enjoy my experimental methods.” Aegis dropped into a fighting stance, left leg forward beneath the shield, the lantern held off to the side to illuminate his opponent.

  “Statement: challenging COBALT-3 directly is maladaptive. With subject’s fatigue and armament, a one-on-one engagement has only a 1.73% chance of success at this moment.”

  Aegis smiled. “That’s more than I had guessed. Thanks for the encouragement.” he leapt forward with a shield slash and COBALT-3 raised an arm to defend. The clash of metal against metal produced a rain of sparks as the shield slid up her arm and deflected over her head. Aegis spun and stabbed an elbow into her metallic torso.

  The lantern flapped wildly through the air as he held tight with his right hand, casting the room in shaky, jerking shadows. The elbow connected, but didn’t dent her armor.

  Aegis pulled in the shield and slammed his weight into her, trying to push his way out into the hallway.

  She was right. He couldn’t take her on his own. Not when she’d set the terms.

  His slam failed to knock COBALT-3 off her feet, but it did move her. He slid through the opening and past the android. He took a kick to the kidney on his way, which knocked him into the wall on the far side, cracking the stone.

  Bad trade. Can’t breathe. Keep going, move it.

  Aegis gasped for air as COBALT-3 advanced across the hall, but his lungs wouldn’t expand. He scrambled on the floor, trying to find his feet. He heard COBALT-3 clanging behind him and turned, ducking behind the shield. The android’s blow pushed him into the corner. His breath still hadn’t returned. Aegis scrambled down the floor, pushing off the wall and rolling to his feet. His head felt light, empty.

  Aegis backpedaled as COBALT-3 came at him again. He gasped again, and that time, his lungs filled.

  She advanced on him with slow, inexorable steps. “Assertion: it is in your best interest to surrender. Aegis Shield-selection protocol investigation holds a higher priority than field-test hypothesis investigation. Reinforcements will arrive in seventeen-point-four seconds.”

  “You’re so helpful, you know that?” Aegis smiled and rolled backward, turning as she found his feet. He jumped up and started running at a full sprint down the hall, taking deep breaths. Aegis knew he could outpace COBALT-3 in a dead run, but navigating would slow him down. Still, better a running battle than fighting cornered and overwhelmed.

  After a few turns down nearly-identical corridors, the alarm started blaring, red emergency lights flicking along the walls, drowning his soft lantern-light. Here they come.

  COBALT-3 was close behind him, pistons pumping as she stormed down the hall.

  Aegis slid on the marble as he turned right at full speed, the tyrant close on his heels.

  A trio of halberds rushed up on him as he faced the corridor. Aegis raised his shield and pushed aside the blade of the nearest automata. He leapt towards the wall, took three steps along the stone, and jumped, slamming shield-first into the guard on the near side. Aegis tucked into a roll as the pair of them hit the ground. He found his feet again and kept running.

  Aegis heard his father’s voice again, urging him on. Keep going. Get two turns ahead and you can turn this into a cat-and-mouse. Behind him, COBALT-3 shouted at her soldiers. “Order: open a pathway, pursue in flank position. All guards converge in laboratory wing, hallway seven. Subject Aegis bearing south in escape attempt.”

  And now I know where I am, Aegis thought. He turned at the next left and stared down the hall at green doubledoors. An industrial-made sign overhead said “Front Wing” in bold script.

  Brilliant. he ran in long, even strides down toward the broad green doors. The Front wing doors were aged wood rather than the metal pervading the laboratory wing. COBALT had taken over universities and hospitals during the early years, building on existing infrastructure.

  The double-doors opened as he approached, revealing the lower halves of two giant automata.

  Less brilliant.

  Without any more time to react, Aegis dove, sliding his arm out of the straps and kneeling onto the shield, head down, hoping to slide under the automata. Instead, metallic fingers clamped around his ribs and lifted him into the room. The automata had a squished cubic head with two glass bulb eyes glowing red, set atop of a tenfoot wide grey cylindrical body.

  The Thresher automata were COBALT-3’s largest creations: one of them was usually enough to keep two Shields occupied. But two of them, with COBALT-3 and guards in tow?

  I hope the next Aegis does a better job.

  Not ready to give up, Aegis slammed his shield into the Thresher’s wrist, tearing through the weaker articulated metal. The Thresher lifted Aegis high in fingers as wide as the Shield’s bicep. The hand squeezed, threatening to collapse his lungs as its other hand moved in. The Thresher’s exhaust pipes vented steam, which seared his eyes but flushed the spoiled hospital smell out of the air. Small blessings.

  Aegis wrestled the shield free as the Thresher’s crushing grip squeezed tighter. He filled his lungs as he strained against the hand. Then he let out all his breath and slid down through the hand before it could contract.

  He grabbed the automata’s smallest finger, turning his fall into a swinging kick to its face. The Thresher’s grip closed again, crushing Aegis’ ribs and shoulder.

  He heard COBALT-3’s voice again, gloating—as much as an emotionless psychopathic android could gloat. “Order: do not struggle. You are endangering your validity as a test subject. Without your scientific merit, you are only useful as raw materials.”

  Was that supposed to be a joke? Aegis wondered.

  “You say the nicest things,” he lifted his legs and wrapped them around the automata’s wrist. Pulling at the weakened hand, he heard the pained groan of tearing metal. Wires snapped apart as the hand broke at the joint, and the pressure vanished.

  But the hand was still attached on one side. The Thresher swung its arm, hurling Aegis into a wall with a dull thud. The Shield slid down to the polished hardwood floor in a heap beside the metallic hand as COBALT-3 approached, looming over him. His ribs hurt. His arms hurt. He could barely breathe, and he had no time to recover.

  Sorry, Dad.

  At least now he’d get to see his mother.

  A crash echoed across the hall. Aegis looked to the far side of the room and saw familiar silhouettes back-lit by sunlight.

  City Mother be praised.

  His father’s voice carried across the long hall, every bit as strong as it has always been. “Get away from him, you heartless monster!”

  COBALT-3 straightened up, looking almost happy. “Opportunities: 1) comparative analysis of the capabilities of racial paragons. 2) Possible obviation of necessity of upcoming summit.”

  The android tyrant pointed at the Shields. “Order: Subdue.”

  The Threshers turned to face the group, leaving COBALT-3 and her guards to surround Aegis. He threw the detached Thresher hand at COBALT-3 while he limped along the edge of the corridor to rejoin the team.

  Ghost Hands flew over the heads of the Threshers, dodging out of the way of the construct’s probing hands. Blasts of telekinesis forced the Thresher back, its shaky balance keeping it from being able to use its size. Steam vented as the Thresher changed calibration to deal with the threat.

  Sapphire charged the other Thresher head-on, hurling herself into the cylindrical torso. The Thresher staggered back, and Aegis could feel the Freithin’s joy.

  Sabreslate used her Jalvai stone-shaping talents to shift a section of the concrete wall into daggers, then hurled them at the guards that had targeted her partner Ghost Hands.

  Sapphire leapt at the Thresher again, landing on its chest. She pounded a hole in the metal, then tore it open to get to the machinery within.

  Aegis was still humbled sometimes by their power, the casual ease with which they fought. At the sight of Sapphire, his throat caught, but he shook it off and focused.

  A
red blur crossed the corridor in an instant, passing Aegis to deal with the smaller automata. Always happy to dive into a mass combat, Blurred Fists merrily dispatched the guards, finding amusing ways to disable COBALT-3’s endless army of automata.

  With his grapple gun hooked to a chandelier, First Sentinel swung across the room and landed at Aegis’ side.

  “Get out, we’ll follow you,” his father said as he drew his fighting staves. First Sentinel twirled them in a defensive pattern and stepped forward to meet COBALT-3.

  The android laughed her hollow laugh, a dispassionate mimicry of real emotion. It seemed she’d learned that this was an appropriate time for someone in her position to laugh, and so she did.

  She’d never be quite real, despite COBALT-2’s genius. Just a machine playing out its original design.

  But then again, am I much more than a creation of the first Aegis, carrying on his crusade? Aegis pushed back the doubt and circled the tyrant, determined to help despite his injuries.

  COBALT-3 spoke again. “Datum: I have defeated and seriously injured you four out of six engagements. Datum: You continue to fight. Hypothesis: You are no longer capable of learning, given your decrepit age and foolhardy ideals.”

  First Sentinel lashed out with a kick to the knee as he threw her diction back at her. “Datum: You have failed to discover the secret of the Aegis. Datum: You have failed to kill any of us.” with each line, the elder Shield threw another blow, forcing COBALT-3 to break off her assault on Aegis. “And datum: I am going to rip out your power core and use it to run my refrigerator.”

  He isn’t usually funny unless he’s really mad. If we make it out of this, I’m in serious trouble.

  COBALT-3 answered as if First Sentinel’s comment hadn’t been a joke. “Datum: My power core is incompatible with conventional electronics, given its tri-band vicite core.”

  First Sentinel chuckled as Aegis continued circling. Out of the android’s reach, he swung the shield at COBALT-3’s back. The blow caught her shoulder, pushing her offbalance and spoiling her own strike.

  “Get out, now!” his father said.

  That was the frustrated parent voice. This isn’t the time for protectiveness, father.

  “We leave together,” Aegis said as he planted a foot on COBALT-3’s back and kicked her into the wall, splintering the ancient wood.

  “Correction: none of you will leave,” COBALT-3 said.

  First Sentinel pulled out one of his shock-gloves, slipping it onto his left hand. “You’re not welcome in this conversation. Why don’t you go back to playing with your toys?”

  A quick look over the shoulder showed Aegis that one Thresher was shattered, the other buried to its chest in the stone floor.

  “We’re clear!” Sapphire shouted from the other end of the hall.

  First Sentinel landed an uppercut with the shock-glove, grounding COBALT-3 with a charge of magical energy. Aegis broke off and ran for the exit.

  COBALT-3 recovered quickly, chasing them the entire way. Reaching the exterior door, Sapphire kicked it open and the Shields flooded through. As father and son ran through the doorway, First Sentinel drew a skeleton key from his belt, one of the seemingly endless artifacts he designed over the years. It could make one door impassable, but only for a minute.

  Looking around outside, Aegis saw they’d exited onto an open-air veranda on the second floor. First Sentinel turned and snapped the key in the lock to seal it. He stepped back from the door, still at the ready. “Scatter and regroup at the safehouse.”

  The group split, each taking their own way out. Sapphire took a running start and leapt across the street to another rooftop; Ghost Hands took off and flew hundreds of feet above the street; First Sentinel fired his grappling gun and swung away; Blurred Fist ran over and then down the wall of the compound.

  Aegis reached down for his own grapple gun, but his hip was bare, the device lost during his capture.

  Sabreslate reached out a hand to Aegis. “Come with me.” he nodded. He took the Jalvai’s hand, and together they leapt off the roof and sank into the ground. They waded through the cobblestone and into the earth below as if it were water. Using Sabreslate’s Jalvai stone shaping, they swam a block through the stone and then emerged so Aegis could breathe. The street was clear, and they submerged once more.

  Safe. For now. Until we get home and Father bites my head off.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  First Sentinel

  He’s safe. I haven’t failed Aria again. Not this time, not ever again.

  When Wonlar arrived at the coffeeshop, Selweh was already there, sitting on one of Douk’s plush couches. His son was tearing into loaf of bread so fresh it released steam when his son ripped off a chunk. The boy stood as Wonlar walked in, and the two embraced. Wonlar did not let go for a long time.

  “Don’t you scare me like that ever again.”

  Selweh’s tone was sarcastic. “I’m sorry, dad. It’s not like I knew I was going to get kidnapped and tortured.”

  Wonlar knew that sarcasm, it came from Selweh’s mother. She’d never be done with a conversation until she’d gotten a clever jibe in. He was barraged by emotions from all sides: longing, regret, love, and relief.

  “You can let go now,” Selweh said.

  “If I never let go, you can’t run off and nearly get yourself killed again.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “Black Wind taunted me with the fact that COBALT-3 had you when I went sniffing in The Corner. After that, it was process of elimination. The lab with the biggest guard force was bound to be the one.” Wonlar pulled back, hugged Selweh again, and then let him sit back down to eat.

  “City Mother be praised,” Selweh said.

  “When you’re rested, we have a lot to talk about.”

  Selweh nodded, and Wonlar’s shoulders dropped, relaxing. He gave a silent prayer. City Mother, thank you for your gift. Thank you for giving me back my son.

  Wonlar took a seat and Douk appeared with dounmo and several pastries. Father and son talked for an hour. Wonlar filled his son in about their abandoned apartment and Nevri’s offer. In turn, Selweh shared the information that had gotten him caught, about the lengths Nevri was going to in order to make the summit happen.

  If she’s pushing that hard, if she’s the lynchpin, then what happens if we let slip that she arranged to have the Rebirth Engine destroyed? Smiling King pulls out, and the other tyrants wonder what she’s got planned to weaken them. Instant chaos, and we get some breathing room.

  In the corner of his eye, Wonlar saw Rova come in to visit with Fahra. They played hide-and-seek and Rova joined the girl in drawing. Douk brought down more scones and held them captive for twenty minutes with his stories of hob-knobbing and shoulder-rubbing with the elite of the city, the rich and collaborating.

  For a fraction of a day, stolen from the world and the rebellion and the coming summit, they were a family again. Even the tyrants can’t take that away from us. Not all the time.

  * * *

  The next day, Wonlar was back in the safehouse unpacking papers while Selweh digested the events of the week. Wonlar watched his son’s mind racing as the young Shield sat in a chair, deep in thought.

  “They didn’t jump you at the brothel, which means she’s at least in for a long con. And if she actually shows up for the pickup, that’s a display of trust on her part. She’d have to bring an army to be confident that we couldn’t take her then and there. But if she’s telling the truth about the Rebirth engine, we have to destroy it as soon as we can. How long has the Smiling King had this thing?”

  Wonlar opened another box. “Since the end of last year, we think. I checked my records of the Spark-storms, and the frequency spiked not long after the new year.” The box revealed more flatware, half of them cracked. I’ll need to ask Sarii to help us with these. For all her contrarian ways during meetings, she’d always been happy to help with crafting and mending.

  Selweh sighed, scrunching his ey
ebrows in the manner Wonlar knew meant frustration. “So even if we eliminate the machine, the storms will continue.”

  Wonlar nodded. “Unless we have enough time to figure out how it works before destroying it.”

  “Not much chance of that happening, unless we eliminate Onyx and the majority of the guards before getting to the chamber with the device.” Selweh stood and began pacing, counter-posed to Wonlar’s own path. Father and son passed each other as they orbited the dinner table, not bothering to turn to speak. They thought out loud, bouncing ideas back and forth.

  “Can we bring anyone else in on this?” Selweh asked.

  “Who’s even left?”

  “What about Jong?”

  A long-time Shield-bearer and part-time Shield, Jong was committed to the cause, but Wonlar knew that the Ikanollo carpenter lacked the mettle to be a real Shield. One day, maybe, but not yet. The Shields’ attrition rate was high, and recruitment was far from easy.

  “We can’t count on him for anything that major.”

  When they started, the Shield of Audec-Hal had just been Aegis and a couple of idealistic kids who refused to let the city change around them without a fight.

  Bira, Aria, and I knew nothing when we started. Without Aegis, we would have gotten killed within a week.

  Shields had come and gone over the years, but they’d never had more than seven active at a time.

  We will have to be enough.

  “What about this Millrej girl?” Selweh asked.

  In her time with the girl, Rova had discovered that Fahra had an incredible talent with drawing.

  “I don’t know. I think Rova may be putting more importance on her than is warranted. Yema isn’t the sort to do things randomly, but I don’t see the pattern. The child is talented, but how does an art prodigy fit into Yema’s plans?”

  “Good question. Depends on if she really does have a power. Until we can find out, it’s a hanging thread. We need to concentrate on the Rebirth engine, set the ball rolling to stop the summit.”