Ravagers [03.00] Deviate

by Alex Albrinck

  His.

  When he heard the chamber spin as she depressed the trigger, Micah moved.

  Even with his reflexes, he couldn’t move faster than fired ammunition. He dove to the side and felt the breeze as the bullet Sheila fired tore through the empty air occupied by his head a fractional second earlier.

  This wasn’t a game; that wasn’t a warning shot. She wanted him dead.

  He must survive, and not just for his own good. He must survive to ensure Sheila’s long-term survival. True, he’d pay the ultimate price if it ensured her survival.

  But this wasn’t the time for such a sacrifice. That would come later.

  He predicted her next moves. She’d fire a second shot immediately after the first, hoping to catch him off guard. He hit the ground and rolled back in the direction from whence he started.

  A second thunderclap erupted. He felt the ground reverberate as the bullet passed through the wooden flooring. The robot staff screamed around him; he’d little doubt their concerns stemmed more from the eventual cleanup required after Sheila’s shooting rampage than over his personal safety. Between the dust from the exploding sheetrock behind him and the new collection of wood splinters and shavings, they’d be busy.

  He hoped he’d be around to help with the cleanup.

  As the second bullet shattered the floor, he adjusted his roll and bounced back to his feet, then dove behind the nearest sofa. It gave him both physical cover from her far-too-accurate shots and visual cover. She wouldn’t risk firing until she could see him, and she couldn’t see him now. Her weapon had limitations. He knew that each magazine carried only six bullets, and she’d already fired two. And while he didn’t know if she had a spare loaded magazine readily available, it didn’t really matter.

  She’d never get the chance to reload.

  He measured her steps, sensed the difference in intensity as each footfall brushed the surface, and assessed her likely location. She approached the edge of the sofa to his right, nearest to where his original dive terminated. He scooted in silence to his left, meaning to circle around behind her. If she moved to the far side of the sofa, he’d shove it into her leg and knock her off balance.

  “Where are you, Micah?” Her voice, just above a whisper, had a whistling quality to accompany the menace in her tone.

  “Sheila Clarke, have you lost the General?” Whiskey squeaked. “He is on the ground on the opposite side of the sofa from your present location!”

  He nearly groaned aloud. Damned piece of metal would need a serious tweak to his loyalty code when this confrontation ended.

  He threw his shoulder into the end of the sofa, blasting it in her direction. The furniture slid across the wooden floor, the legs screeching as they tore gouges across the polished surface.

  Like Sheila’s bullets, his projectile didn’t find its target. She’d taken Whiskey’s information and spun around toward the front of the sofa, anticipating his effort. While the sofa didn’t upend her, it did force her to hop to the side to avoid his cushioned missile. The shot she’d lined up missed Micah once more, still frighteningly close. One of the smaller cleaning robots wheeled over toward Micah, directing a suction-based vacuum in its body to the pile of sawdust near Micah’s hand, and slurped the mess up.

  The hilarity of the earnest effort to maintain a basic level of cleanliness distracted both hunter and hunted. Micah felt a bit of affection for the little guy. Sheila watched, startled at the bots appearance near Micah and the whisper-quiet sounds of the suction removing the dust.

  Micah noted her distraction and burst to his feet, sprinting for the open entry door of the cabin, diving to the ground as his sensitive hearing detected yet another bullet coming his way. The bullet whistled over his head, embedding itself in the frame of the front door. Micah risked a quick glance back. The cleaning robot squeaked at the new mess and began its arduous journey toward the entryway, no doubt cursing both of them in its own binary fashion. Micah didn’t wait around. Sheila had one more bullet, and he hoped she’d waste the last one as he burst through the open doorway.

  No such luck. She’d wait to ensure she had the perfect shot before she fired that final bullet. He listened. No sounds emanated from the cabin. He also hadn’t heard the sounds of her ejecting the nearly empty magazine to get another six bullets at the ready. That likely meant she didn’t have a spare.

  Micah thundered across the wooden front porch of the house and leaped down the stairs. He’d made it nearly to the tree line before he heard her making her way through the door, her heavy breathing drawing attention amidst the relative silence of the forest clearing. He risked another look back at her and noted the expression on her face.

  Yep, she wanted him dead. She wanted to destroy what she could not understand.

  He couldn’t allow that.

  Micah raced into the trees, slowing as the thick brush gave him the visual cover he required. Once beyond her range of vision, he slowed his pace, moving left and hitting a well-trod path, one worn bare of dried leaves and twigs through the robot staff’s gathering of daily supplies. Once on that path, he could move in swift silence, expanding the distance between them. If he stayed clear of her long enough, she might calm sufficiently on her own to listen to reason.

  He turned back as he moved, checking if she’d made it to the path yet, searching right and left for his retreating form.

  With his visual attention thus occupied, he failed to notice the low hanging limb before him. He rammed the side of his head into it and, startled, fell to the ground with a loud thud. Birds in the tree he’d rammed squawked and took flight in a flurry of feathers and noise.

  He rolled from his back to his stomach and put his hands on the ground to push himself up. He’d risen mere inches from his prone position when he felt the heavy boot upon his back, slamming him back to the earth.

  He heard the hammer click.

  That wasn’t good. “Sheila Clarke, as your commanding officer, I order you to drop your weapon.”

  He heard her snort with derisive laughter. “I no longer recognize your authority, Micah.”

  “Does that mean you’re going to shoot me in the back of the head, Sheila?”

  He could sense her hesitation and indecision before she knelt, putting her knee against his spine to keep him from flexing upward and dislodging her. “Turn and face me, Micah.”

  He did, forcing his face to adopt a look of serene calm and acceptance.

  Sheila leaned down, the end of the barrel an inch from his temple. She looked him straight in the eye as she pulled the trigger.

  Nothing happened. He watched the gun as she pulled the trigger again. And again.

  Nothing.

  Not one to miss an opportunity, Micah reached with his right arm and grabbed Sheila’s wrist, squeezing to immobilize her hand and free the weapon, yanking her toward the ground and spinning toward his left at the same time. She flew over him, landing on her back with an audible oomph, trying desperately the whole flight to pry his iron-like grip from her wrist.

  Then she did something he’d not expected.

  She rolled toward him, bending his arm at an odd angle, forcing him to loosen his grip. Sheila ripped her wrist free of his grasp and continued her roll until she straddled him. Before Micah recognized the threat, she smashed the hot barrel of the gun against his face.

  The sound of clanging metal filled the small island forest. The few birds remaining nearby decided life would be best preserved elsewhere, and rose into the sky.

  An eerie silence surrounded them.

  Micah heard nothing. He could do nothing but watch Sheila’s face as she tried to process what she saw.

  She saw nothing. And that was the part that so baffled her.

  He knew what she didn’t see. No bruising. No blood. No gashes. No reddening skin as the hot gun burned his flesh. No glassy look in his eyes as the blow rendered him unconscious.

  No evidence that she’d just smashed several pounds of hot metal into his
face.

  Her eyes went wide and her jaw fell open.

  She looked at the gun in her hand.

  Smashed. Useless.

  She dropped the gun and scrambled to her feet.

  And now the look on her face was the one he’d feared he’d see when she found out the truth.

  Hurt. Betrayal.

  He sat up and held up his hands. “Sheila, I can—”

  “No,” she whispered, backing away, her boots snapping twigs at each footfall. She held out her hand and pointed at him. “Don’t… don’t talk to me…”

  “Sheila—”

  She started screaming.

  Something welled up deep inside of him, something he’d never realized himself capable of until now. He felt strong emotion. When had he developed that ability?

  He got to his feet and stepped closer to her.

  She stepped back. “Get away from me, you… you… you demon!”

  He stopped moving and held up his hands in a sort of surrender. “I’m not a demon, Sheila.” He kept his face impassive, aware that any hint of a smile would be seen as mocking. “I can assure you of that.”

  “Much like your rank, your assurances now mean nothing to me!” The hurt in the words hurled at him in a scream stung far more deeply than the gun smashed into his face.

  He nodded once. “That’s fair. Enough has happened that I need to regain your trust.” She said nothing, but her backward pacing had slowed. She put one hand behind her, using it as a third eye to ensure she didn’t run into a tree. “I’ll ask you a question then, Sheila. Do you want to know the truth? Do you want to know why, when you smashed that gun in my face, it didn’t hurt me? Do you want to know why the gun was damaged instead?”

  “It’s more than that!” She jabbed her finger at him once more. “You never got tired! You had me on your back running at a sprinter’s pace, and you never slowed down or breathed heavily! And I kicked you in the face so you’d put me down and you didn’t even break stride. You didn’t even break a sweat.”

  He couldn’t deny it, and remained silent.

  “We carried that heavy box of Ravagers down the steps in the Bunker to that damned tank and you weren’t tired then, either. I wasn’t carrying half the weight when we did that, was I, Micah?”

  He shook his head. “No, you weren’t.”

  “And now, now I smash you in the face with a gun and there’s no mark on you, and…” She paused. “And it looks like I shot you, too.”

  He glanced down. Sure enough, he spotted a hole torn in his shirt, just below his left collarbone. “Good aim.”

  Her elbow connected with the side of his head while he glanced down at the hole torn through his clothing. “How are you not bleeding, Micah? I shot you!” She screamed the words of frustration, and pain, and betrayal, that he’d hidden something so critical from her for so long. Yet even as she yowled in response to the physical pain in her elbow, though, he watched her eyes and saw there a look he’d come to know well in their years working together. Sheila was assessing and weighing the evidence before her to reach conclusions—accurate conclusions—that few others could.

  Her left hand went to her right elbow, squeezing, trying to ease the pain. Micah knew the elbow was dislocated; he’d need to get the medical bots to check on it. “With all of the evidence, Micah, what else should I think? You being a demon of some sort makes sense. You can’t be hurt or fatigued. You callously order the deaths of your own staff and stand by while plans to exterminate the bulk of the human population proceed without interruption. You have a staff of freaking robots maintaining your lake island home, and you sent me here in a car that drives itself and can travel under the damn water.” She shook her head, and he noted the glistening tears moistening her cheeks. She’d suffered a lot, and it wasn’t just physical pain that dampened her face. “What other explanation could there be, Micah, than that you’re some creature spewed forth from the bowels of Hell?”

  He glanced at her. “I could tell you. But I won’t. I’ll show you instead. You have the evidence you need. You just won’t accept what it means. So I’ll show you the truth… and then you’ll understand and accept that truth.”

  Without waiting for her agreement, he moved his left hand to his right wrist and found the pressure points. He pushed his fingers into his wrist and heard and felt the click as the clasps disengaged.

  And then he pulled his hand off. Turned it so that she could see the inside of the wrist, see the metal skeletal structure and cable and wires. He held up the stump of his right arm so she could see a similar assortment of innards there, completely devoid of blood or bone, muscle or fascia. All metal. All wires. All cables.

  He looked at her. “Do you understand now?”

  She looked at him, no comprehension registering in her features.

  “I’m not a demon, Sheila. And I’m not a man.” He sighed. “I’m a robot.”

  —3—

  RODDY LIGHT

  AS CONSCIOUSNESS RETURNED, Roddy’s mind vaguely noticed the faint pressure along his back, thighs, calves, and heels, barely registered that such pressure indicated that he lay on his back. His focus moved to the fiery heat in his head, searing through his mind like molten lava. Roddy tried squeezing his eyes closed, tighter and tighter, in an effort to expel the pain from his mind. He succeeded only in grinding his teeth.

  His fingers scrabbled for something, anything, to squeeze, to crush, to transfer the pain from his mind to something outside his body. The tips of his fingers grazed something soft, something that felt like a simple sheet, and then found the edge of a thin mattress. His grip pincered closed, with a vice-like intensity that would shred the mattress if he pulled his arm back. The grinding of his teeth barely covered the sound of someone whimpering.

  Him.

  He’d withstood all forms of physical torture as part of his Special Forces initiation. They’d all withstood and delivered it to prepare themselves for a war that had never come, to ensure nothing would entice them to give some key piece of information to an enemy that would take any edge and use it for the West’s destruction. But that was physical pain, physical torture. This was mental pain, something deep below the level of conscious thought, a sensation that they’d probed and prodded his very soul.

  They’d not been gentle.

  They were Oswald Silver, his boss and arguably the richest and most powerful man on the planet, and James Delaney, Roddy’s one-time Special Forces colleague and Silver’s sidekick. Roddy had known the latter as Gambit, learning the man’s real name only after reaching this place. He’d learned more than that, though. Delaney had been engaged to Deirdre Silver, only to see that arrangement terminated without warning or consultation by Oswald Silver to free Deirdre to marry someone else.

  Roddy.

  It had all been a sham. She’d never loved him, which now made the hurt and betrayal he’d felt at learning of her of infidelity a bit… confusing. If she’d chosen Delaney, was Roddy the other man who’d inserted himself between two people who’d committed themselves to each other for life? Delaney clearly thought so; he expressed his frustrations through his fists and boots any chance he could, something Silver didn’t discourage. Oswald Silver seemed to find the whole situation amusing.

  What Silver didn’t find amusing was the fact that Deirdre was still back on the surface. He, Roddy, and Delaney existed in comfort and safety—though Roddy would question that last adjective in relation to himself—in a city-sized space station. Meanwhile, Deirdre and those left behind faced the Ravagers, a weapon that reportedly allowed no chance of escape or survival. Oswald didn’t care that millions of others had died or would die due to the deployment of that weapon. He didn’t care that Deirdre had murdered his lover, Audrey, moments before they’d left Diasteel Headquarters for this sanctuary in the sky. Life mattered only when it was his daughter.

  The pain in his mind gradually subsided, the ache replaced by more memories. The coppery smell of blood and the scent of a fired weapo
n as he’d located Audrey’s body behind her desk at Diasteel, eyes open and unblinking. He recalled his decision to remain at Diasteel rather than chase his fugitive wife, leaving her behind so he could spend the latest “business trip” deciding how to confront her for her crime and her affair. Turning on his phone and watching the video of her confessing her feelings for a man he’d never before seen, the undeniable confirmation of the infidelity he’d feared. The shock at the journey beyond the atmosphere, the weightlessness, the seizure of his ship by the remote space station, and Oswald’s bored indifference to the whole thing. The realization that Gambit had been working for Silver for quite some time.

  He blinked a few times, squinting as his eyes adjusted to overhead lighting that might as well be a supernova, and finally sat up.

  Through all of that, and through the confession of the active progression of a genocide against the majority of the planet’s inhabitants by the most powerful man in the Western Alliance, what stood out in his memory was the last question they’d asked him before he lost consciousness.

  They’d asked where he’d been born.

  He couldn’t answer that question because he didn’t know the answer.

  Why couldn’t he remember? Why couldn’t he answer such a simple question? It was that nagging sense that he didn’t know his true identity that weighed most heavily on his mind, as if the deaths of millions and the loss of his marriage and wife all in one day were mere trivialities to be shoved aside as unimportant.

  Roddy wasn’t certain how he’d gotten here, but knew that survival required that he get up, move, assess his predicament, and determine his next actions.

  He slid his legs down off the small table—it wouldn’t do to call it a bed—and let them dangle off the side. The movement made the world spin, and he swayed a bit as his brain reoriented and stabilized itself. He fought back the nausea, gripping the sides of the mattress once more in an effort to maintain stability. Seconds passed, and he finally felt his mind clear to a sufficient degree to examine the room.