by Mark Lingane
No power.
Gavin and Isaac halted, staring at the blocked passage. The roof had collapsed, filling the tunnel with rubble. Black marks pocked the roof. Explosives. Getting to the batteries was impossible …
“Finish it,” Sebastian said.
@redFive aimed the laser at Sebastian’s head. His image flashed on the tinyIris with KILL.KILL stamped across his face. Just like in Talinga. They had got what they wanted. He was a fool to ever think he could do something about it. Then @redFive lowered the laser.
“You come home. We stop.” The cyborg reached out for Sebastian.
Sebastian’s eyes went wide. “Why should I believe you?”
“Iris lie to all. Me, too. You destroy Iris.”
They had his mother. He could walk over to them, and they would all walk away. No one else would be hurt.
He glanced over to a cyborg pinning Melanie down with his hand around her throat. Her desperate eyes stared back. “No, Sebastian.”
They said he was one of them. Were all teslas a standard deviation away from the cyborgs? Maybe it was just him. The ground was littered with the dead. Bodies from both sides lay strewn across the ground. It had to end.
Sebastian stood tall and stared at the towering cyborg. He could do nothing. The power hadn’t come.
“This is deliberate,” Isaac said. He scraped desperately at the mound of debris.
“What do we do now?”
“Kill.kill her.”
“No!” Sebastian screamed.
Merv charged toward Melanie, lying barely conscious on the ground as the air was crushed from her. An enormous leg from the behemoth smashed directly into him, knocking him through the air. He landed heavily, just as the cyborg drove the knife into Melanie’s stomach. She cried out in pain.
@redFive lifted Sebastian into the air and extracted his sword.
“No one will save you now.”
“We’re not there. We can’t save him,” Isaac said. Tears filled his eyes.
“You’re right. No one other than me.”
He closed his eyes, finally feeling the surge of power from the battery store. It lifted him, freed him, and erupted. He channeled it directly into the creature beneath the hill.
“We both know how to play this game,” he spat.
The nearby cyborgs collapsed, frozen as the electromagnetic wave rolled out. The ground shook, and the peculiar mound in the heart of the battle ripped open. @redFive’s circuits failed, and he dropped Sebastian.
The roar could be heard for miles, so loud it was solid. The war machine ripped out of the shielding and rose, towering above the city, its golden skin reflecting the sun. Its head, shaped like a dog’s, roared, as the body stood up tall on the reptilian legs. It lifted its great gorilla-like arms into the sky and swatted the dragons out of the air in mid-flight.
Its tail whipped around, carving through hundreds of the cyborgs, as it ran with thunderous steps that shook the ground. The beast glared over the advancing army with its mechanical red eyes. A stream of fire erupted from its mouth, so hot that the sand melted to glass.
The behemoth charged toward the war machine, rising up. Machine versus machine, they grappled, tearing and smashing each other, arms swinging from side to side. Black versus gold. The war machine brought both claws together, crashing into either side of the behemoth, clutching at the slippery surface. But the opponent slipped through the war machine’s claws, causing it to over-balance and topple. The behemoth pushed down and was on top of the war machine, ripping away at the golden skin, pinning it under its many legs. Smaller insect-like arms crawled up and fastened around the war machine’s head. The arm of the behemoth extended out into the throat of the war machine, crushing the flame throwers. It pushed its advantage, sinking its claw-like feet into the undercarriage of the war machine. It didn’t detect the tail rising up. The tip speared into the heart of the behemoth, locking it into position. The war machine’s mouth clamped on the insect-like arm, its arms reached up and twisted the behemoth’s body, ripping it in half. Metal and fluids spilled out onto the ground as the war machine rose, lifting the two halves of the behemoth and smashing it onto the dirt.
The war machine roared, its eyes glowing. It stamped on the still form of @redFive, crushing it flat. The wrecked city stood, victorious. The sun reflected off the dented and scarred golden panels.
Sebastian ran over to Melanie. Blood trickled out of the bright red wound.
“Help will be here soon,” Sebastian whispered. He wiped away the tears from her face.
“Hold my hand.” She raised it.
Sebastian clasped his hands around hers. She was cold.
“Medic,” he shouted. “Please, be quick.”
“I like your friend,” Melanie said. The war machine stood above them, looking down. Its head tilted as it examined them.
“I’m going to call him Rex.”
“You should call it Melanie.”
“There’s only room for one Melanie in this world.”
“Exactly.”
Her breathing quickened. A young medic knelt beside her and quickly assessed the injury.
“Is she going to be okay?” Sebastian said.
“It depends on how tough she is.”
“She’s the toughest person in the world.”
The medic patched her wound and slipped her onto a stretcher. The runners gently picked her up and slowly made their way toward the city. He wanted to help, placing his hand on the edge of the stretcher. It wasn’t a help, but it was something. The medic pushed him aside.
“We’ll take it from here. You’ll only get in the way.”
Merv and his team had turned their talents to hacking apart the remains of the behemoth and chasing down the fleeing cyborgs as smoke drifted over the battlefield. The farmers’ exclamations cut through the dense air. Sebastian stood uncertainly in the center of the carnage, his mind scrambling from the horrors that lay around him.
“You’s right, Seb?” Merv shouted. The axeman’s voice clawed him back from the gloom. “You’s should check on the young lass. We got this covered.”
“They said I couldn’t go.”
“And you’s listened to them? Whose friend is she?”
Sebastian’s head snapped around. Merv, as always, was right. He caught up and followed the medics as they scrambled over the charred terrain and through the buckled gates. The crowds milled around, seemed uncertain, afraid to feel victorious. The injured thronged around the hospital, but parted as Melanie was lifted through, held high as a victor, if not of the war, then at least the battle.
The waiting was torture. Experts examined her, then checked their watches and many shook their heads. In the end, they were placed in a queue of many waiting for their turn with the surgeon. Some didn’t make it, a sheet covering their faces as they were solemnly wheeled away. Sebastian sat beside Melanie, holding her hand and staring hopefully at the great double doors of the operating theatre.
The surgery doors burst open and Dr. Rodgers staggered out into the long corridor, tears in his eyes and blood coating his uniform.
“You did your best,” said one of the orderlies. “The odds are against us today.”
The doctor slumped into a chair opposite Sebastian, holding his head in his hands. Eventually, he glanced up and saw Sebastian sitting next to another body, in the sea of bodies. He blinked as though he was trying to make sense of the scene in front of him. Then his eyes lit up and he snapped his fingers. “You’re the boy. The friend of Melanie.”
Sebastian glanced sideways at her still and pale form. The doctor jumped up and pulled the sheet off her body.
“No, not her. She will not die today.” He shouted for the medical team to reassemble and then ushered her into surgery. Sebastian went to follow. The nurse stopped him from entering.
“You can’t come any further. Your sister will be fine.”
“She’s not my … okay.”
The door closed and he paced the corridor
s, his feet leading him without him thinking. Sebastian stepped outside, a voice echoed in his head. He ran back to the western gate and clambered up to stand on the edge of the great wall. Rex lowered its head. Sebastian reached up and placed his palm on the beast’s face. They stood looking at each other for a long time, lost in some kind of understanding. Eventually, the beast lifted its head. It stepped backwards and turned.
Welcome back, came the echo. The great lumbering war machine stomped off toward the distant mountains.
The medical teams toiled away in the midday heat, recovering the injured. It all suddenly seemed so distant, like he no longer belonged. He didn’t know where he belonged anymore.
He found Isaac next to him, and patted his friend’s arm. “It couldn’t have been done without you and Gavin. Thank you.”
Do I tell him we didn’t get there? Isaac thought. He smiled and nodded.
39
IT FELT AWKWARD sitting on the top of the living quarters without Melanie. It was their spot. Sebastian had stayed at the hospital until they’d kicked him out. The nurse promised she was going to be okay, but he still stole back in. In the end, they set a guard. He had wandered the streets, seeing Gavin, Isaac, and the other teslas cautiously accepted by the wider population, the rift slowly dissolving. He struggled to find things to do. Now, he and Nikola watched the boiling sun drop below the horizon.
“You may not know how much you’ve changed things,” Nikola said. “You’ve given a new meaning to teslas, and you may have saved us all. The world may not know it was you yet, but they will. But until then, the other teslas can be part of the community, no longer feared and despised. You’ve given them a home.”
“There are things I need to know,” Sebastian said. He felt numb and empty.
“I can understand that.”
“Does that mean you’re not going to tell me.”
“Correct,” Nikola replied. He sat quietly, sipping on water, lost in thought. “You don’t know how sorry I am about Isabelle.”
“We need to do something.”
“Yes.” He glanced back over his shoulder at the smoke drifting over the city. “Uncertain times lie ahead. But rushing in will cause more problems than it solves.”
“Was there any truth in what Iris said?” Sebastian asked.
“The truth is only relevant to who’s speaking. Parts were how things could be perceived, and some parts were deliberately left out. There are two sides to every story.”
“Will you tell me the truth?”
“I won’t lie to you.”
Sebastian remained quiet for several moments. He kicked some loose stones, which rolled off the edge of the roof, and stared steadfastly out to the bleak horizon.
Eventually he spoke. “I’ll get her back.”
Behind them, the Potenza tower rose into the skyline, surrounded by broken buildings and twisted train tracks. The tower had taken a beating, but stood steady. The narrow staircase twisted up to the barred and locked door on the fifth floor. Light flickered through the gaps in the wood. Inside, in a hollow carved out of two floors, a large stalk of twisting lightning thrashed, snapping around in the confines of the building.
DECAY
I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and what thou seest, write in a book …
“I know you’re there,” said the guard. The darkness engulfed the shadows, leaving nothing but blackness, complete and eternal.
“This is a trap.” He tried to summon courage into his voice. “We’re prepared, and we’ve been waiting for you.”
A thin red beam of light burst from the corner of the room. It zeroed in on the guard with deadly precision. The guard gasped.
Out of the shadows stepped a slight figure, a solitary figure, a recognizable figure. The red beam was emanating from a helmet strapped to the figure’s head. It cast an eerie demonic glow over the wearer’s face.
“A trap,” said the figure. “I’d been counting on it.”
“You!” said the guard. “But why?”
There was no response, only the click-click-click of the pistol as it emptied its contents, leaving only the smell of flint and damp.
1
SEBASTIAN AIMED HIS rifle, and his target swung into focus down the long barrel. The sun glinted off the bronzed metal blemished with heat spots; the reflections danced around his face. He took a couple of slow breaths, steadied his nerves and squeezed the trigger. In his mind the lead cyborg died a grizzly and painful death as the bullet pierced his heart.
In reality the bullet sailed through the air and missed the can perched on top of a rock—stand-in for an invading cyborg army—by some considerable distance.
Isaac lowered the binoculars and handed them to Sebastian. He shook his head. The wind instantly blew sand into his eyes.
Sebastian handed Isaac a rag he had tucked away in his tunic. “Take this, it’s very nearly clean.”
Isaac groped for the material, clasping it then rubbing it across his eyes. He slid his own goggles down over his eyes. The sun rose behind them, spreading bright, early-morning light; the dark lenses instantly transformed the sunlight into twilight.
Isaac repositioned his rifle and settled it into his shoulder. A lone cloud drifted across the sky and momentarily concealed the sun. The deceptive shadows disappeared in the temporary gloom and he took the opportunity to establish a clear target. He took a couple of quick breaths, held then pulled the trigger.
The gas chamber latch at the front of the rifle snipped open and the gas expanded, blasting the small bullet out into the desert. It hit the base of the can, knocking it spinning into the air and leaving a significant splash of water over the rock surface.
“Good shot,” Sebastian said, dropping the small set of binoculars and aimed his own water rifle for another attempt.
He pulled his goggles tight as the wind picked up, blustering the sands into whatever crevice they could find. He pulled back on the large brass lever that was attached to the bulbous chamber comprising most of the rifle. Gas hissed from the large cylinder on his back and pumped hydrogen into the rifle chamber. He waited for the hiss to stop. Aiming a little higher than previously, he steadied and prepared to pull the trigger.
Much to everyone’s amazement, including his own, several months previously Isaac had had an idea. He had toiled in the city forge, pounding away on fine metal using his hereditary blacksmith’s artisan skills until he had crafted a weapon of such deadly intent that it instantly misfired, extinguished the furnace fire and blew the roof off the small building.
During many previous trials and observations, it had been discovered that a well-placed blast of water had a debilitating effect on the cyborgs. It didn’t kill them, but it did render them inert, leaving them staggering around like zombies.
Isaac had wanted to be the first to fight back against the cyborgs using cutting-edge technology and ideas. After his third attempt, and with some well-received advice from Albert, head of the Physics and Wild Hair Department, the weapon finally worked. It wasn’t lethal, but it worked. It was the only weapon the authorities allowed Isaac to carry, and the first to inflict pain on someone other than him.
Isaac and Sebastian were perched on top of a large rocky outcrop. This was one of their favorite places to hang out. It was secluded and within the radius of the permitted area. Some devious mind had worked out a distance-measuring device that could detect if its wearer had ventured too far from the Steam Academy’s tesla towers. If the signal became too weak, the device tripped and a loud siren sounded, triggering the launch of flying search-and-rescue automatons to track down the missing person or persons.
The official term was “missing person” but those who wore the proximity devices felt more like prisoners.
Isaac bumped Sebastian and his shot went wide.
“Hey! I was definitely going to hit the target that time. You ruined it.”
“Sorry, it was a twitch. Does that mean I’m still leading five to one?” Isaac raised h
is rifle and took aim.
“I never said anything about counting.”
“You did when it was one to zero in your favor.”
“I was joking.”
Isaac lowered his rifle and stared out at the infinite horizon. The occasional cloud drifted across the impossible expanse of blue sky. The air was still, and the ground cool. Nothing moved.
“It’s quiet out here today,” he said. “I thought Melanie might have come with us.”
Sebastian sighed. It felt like an age since they had all ventured out together. He missed Melanie. He especially missed her fury when they got into a tight spot. But he had to admit that times had changed, and so had the people. The city had become a depressing place of desperate survival. They were at war and they were losing. The Academy command was escalating younger and more inexperienced people up the ranks to cope with the constant skirmishes.
“She was given her own detail last week,” he said.
… Melanie stepped forward, saluted and received a bright gold band to wrap around her arm. The surrounding officers applauded and saluted back …
“No way!”
Sebastian picked up a small rock and rolled it down the steep slope in front of them. He watched it tumble all the way to the bottom, then bounce off into the sands. “Yes, way. They seem to think she’s capable of leading a bunch of big tough guys around. As if they’d listen to her.”
… Melanie kicked into the air and wrapped her arm around the tall, well-muscled soldier’s head. He cried out in pain as they both tumbled to the ground. She twisted, brought her pistol around and aimed it at his ear. They remained locked in position until he weakly nodded. She got up and threw him a rag to wipe away his tears …
