Equalize

by Ryan DeBruyn

  Azoth got a word in first, helpfully letting Rocky know that the top was completely open, which was punctuated by Sela who whispered, “We could try to use the ropes and climb over. I just don’t think it is a great idea during the daytime.” The answering silence was an obvious rebuttal as everyone scrambled for a less dangerous plan.

  They clearly needed to get in there before the beacon was fully set up. Otherwise, they would have a much more significant threat to deal with. Possibly the entire world would.

  Joe came up with quite possibly one of the only more dangerous plans that existed. “Why don’t you two stay in Stealth and I just walk up to the gate, asking to speak to Corsair. Maybe pretend I want to join his motley band of hooligans?” Rocky immediately wanted to dismiss the idea, but an inner part of him knew it was probably the best option they were going to have.

  The looming deadline of the beacon completing also led to the decision, but they all agreed that Joe’s plan was the most likely to succeed. Even though it probably had the highest probability of death if it failed, the group approached the gate, two of them hopefully unseen. The gate guards called to others on the wall as Joe approached, and soon, they had twenty high-end laser rifles pointed in their direction.

  To the trooper’s credit, he didn’t stop. He just continued forward and yelled, “I’m here to see Corsair.” This was the riskiest part because he had been the one giving orders after the reveal back at the hospital. When Rocky raised this point, he pointed out that any of the traitors that had been close enough to see that fact were dead. The ones who had the highest chance of escape would have been much further from the initial meeting.

  Rocky now watched on as the moment of truth arrived, breath held, fingers crossed behind his back. So when one of the guards yelled back, “What do you want to see him for, Joe?” his entire body relaxed as their chance of success rose another degree.

  The slight smile that crossed Joe’s face was just right for the situation, even if the guards misinterpreted its reason. Joe simply said with mild amusement and disdain, “I want to join your ranks. We had it good under Corsair, and I don’t want to let those idiots ruin my chance at life.” With the last, he indicated over his shoulder, pointing in the general direction of the hospital.

  A few of the men on the wall knew Joe, and they had shared a few moments around the cooking fires with the friendly man. As whispering broke out up on the wall, the head guard made a motion to someone down below. The motion was followed by the sound of electric locks turning, and Rocky breathed a further sigh as the doors hinged open.

  Now, as long as they don’t have anything like those robots that can see me.

  The group had decided that this was a low probability or they would have been aware of them already.

  Joe walked forward with purpose through the middle of the gate, but Rocky and Sela snuck in at the edge of the doorway. Soon after, they were away from the entrance, off to set charges around the interior. They both were also on the lookout for anything that looked like a long-range beacon.

  Both placed four of their five charges, keeping the final in reserve, as Joe was led to the central building that the wall surrounded. Joe had removed his new equipment and weapon for this plan, and they all hoped it wouldn’t cost the man his life. As the doors closed behind Joe, Rocky sent up a silent prayer for the man before he continued his exploration of the space contained by the walls.

  It was at this moment that Azoth said something that made Rocky swear under his breath, “Many peoples on the roof playing with shiny stuff. Should I go take shiny from them?” The fact that Azoth thought taking the metal from the people was a game came through clearly in his tone. The image of Azoth crashing into the roof and ripping a large, long piece of metal from a human, probably killing him in the process, was funny enough that Rocky choked back laughter.

  That would be the last resort, Rocky figured before whispering, “It's on the roof, Sela Let's find a way up.” He followed this statement by changing his sword into two daggers. It was a skill that had become very easy after his morning's retribution upon the captured mechanoid. It turned out that you just had to envision what you wanted in your head, and the Soul Blade would understand and adapt.

  Rocky began stabbing the daggers into a recessed portion of the wall that left a ninety-degree corner he could climb up from the edge. The building was only three stories, and before he knew it, he had reached the roof, which was bustling with activity. Men were moving pieces of alien metal around, attempting to set up some sort of base for a component he couldn’t see.

  Moving to a place a charge dead center on the machine, he suddenly bumped into something, and only the grunt over the comms stopped him from lashing out with the daggers. “Sela?” he said in a voice so soft it was barely a whisper. The answering hum of something invisible made him smile as he placed his charge.

  Whelp, that was easy.

  In his mind, he was already planning the next steps of the mission. If Rocky had learned anything from the previous plasma grenades, it was that they didn’t want to be in the area when the mines exploded. Unfortunately, his errant thought brought on the curse of speaking too soon.

  “Crap, it’s a trap!” came Joe’s voice over his comm device before a loud screech which suddenly ended in a boom.

  The contraption they had just placed mines on suddenly seemed to spring to life, going from a triangular supporting base to a cage in a matter of moments. Unluckily for Rocky, he was still standing dead center and the pen, which was ten feet across, formed around him. His heart began to pound, and he felt an irrational need to act. Instead, he forced down his rising emotions and queried his comms, “Sela?”

  “Don’t tell me you got caught in there,” was her response, her voice full of concern. Using her response, Rocky managed to further calm down, knowing she was on the outside. Between her and Azoth, he had a few more options, and in his hand, he still held two Soul Daggers, which may prove superior to the alloy caging him.

  Deep, steadying breaths allowed him to begin to calm down as his mind was a whirl with half-formed and discarded plans. Finally calm enough, Rocky hit on something he thought might work. As the men on the roof looked questioningly at the seemingly empty cage, he approached a wall of crisscrossing steel and used Shadow Clone. As had happened before, his clone popped into existence right in front of him, which meant it was on the other side of the cage.

  The clone winked and then sprinted to the edge of the roof directly behind it, leaping off of the border and vanishing as the guards around the rooftop began screaming and firing ill-aimed shots. Many approached the point that the clone had jumped from and gazed down, maybe hoping to see a foe who had committed suicide. Unfortunately for them and the ones radioing in the sighting, it wasn’t going to be that easy.

  Now feeling a little smug, Rocky looked around his cage and began realizing that it had a few options that might work for escape. First, his Soul Blade may be able to sheer through the metal, but if not, the bolts that held the contraption together looked to be a much more common alloy—probably something akin to steel, if not actually steel. This contraption had bolts holding swinging parts and corners together, and Rocky was sure his class blade would go through them like a hot knife through butter.

  His blood froze in his chest as two things became apparent to him. First, there was some sort of massive battery attached to the entire device with electrical cords, and looking down, he confirmed he was standing on a possible conductor. Second, a red mechanoid walked on to the roof, towing Joe’s bloody and mangled body.

  This machine-human hybrid was far different then the three they had fought yesterday and seemed to have no skin anywhere except for the area where his face resided. The metal also was blood red and appeared to have a strange pattern, almost like that of Damascus steel. What little Rocky knew about Damascus steel told him that those lines might increase the metal’s tensile strength and flexibility significantly.

  Thank you,
world’s deadliest warrior.

  Corsair (Jack Jameson)

  Level 47

  Master-Mechanoid

  Health Points 1310/1310

  Rocky’s eyes widened momentarily, and he grimaced, seeing the strength of his enemy. He also noticed that this time, Analyze had provided an additional piece of hidden information in Corsair’s health pool. This must be his skill up in Analyze paying dividends.

  The panicking soldiers calmed as the machine sporting Corsair’s face walked towards the point they all congregated. Each man was snapping to attention and giving a clean salute as they stepped back to make room for the imposing figure. Corsair’s arm, which held Joe by the back of his neck, flung forward and dangled him over the edge of the roof.

  A sudden, booming voice could be heard not only from the man but from speakers located all over the compound, “I am so glad you could join us! We have been expecting you since your first attack and set up a few presents for you. I would suggest you show yourself to my guards now or I will first drop this blood bag and then trigger a surprise for the remaining survivors around Ottawa. I will count to ten!”

  Thinking quickly, Rocky sent a mental command to his clone, hoping that his deception would continue to work. Then he transformed his daggers into a single, short, serrated knife and began silently working on the bolts he had seen, watching as his consumption of Ether increased as the Stealth skill worked to cover the noise. Just as Corsair reached eight, a group of soldiers down below at the base of the building, shouted as a form appeared directly in their center.

  Having broken through a corner and already working on a second, Rocky heard the gasps and shouts up to Corsair. Mentally, he queued up Azoth to be ready and asked him to inform Sela to get clear of what came next. That was when Corsair began to laugh, and Rocky was shown pure evil.

  Corsair threw Joe’s body on to the floor of the roof behind him and then said, “You shouldn’t have given yourself away. Was his life worth the lives of everyone in the city?” As he finished, explosions from every direction began, and the soldiers all plunged daggers into Rocky’s shadow clone. Rocky used the noise and distraction to extricate himself from the now compromised cage and sent out a silent prayer for the people of Ottawa.

  It had been a few hours since dawn, and he hoped it had been enough time for the loyal militiamen to remove survivors from schools. Regardless, the psychopath that stood on the edge, laughing as Rocky’s Shadow clone died, yelled one final game changer as he threw something round and the size of a watermelon into the air. “Before you die, I want you to know that you failed. My patrons are the pinnacle of technology! Yet, you thought they would need a large structure for the beacon. What a fool you are!”

  Pointing at the spinning object he had just thrown, which was beginning to spin faster and ignoring gravity, Corsair continued, “The signal will be sent, and we will run the world–” It was at that moment that a roar sounded and cut off the windbag. Azoth streaked through space where the whirling device hovered, seeming to be a blur due to his proximity to Rocky and the roof.

  As the Chimera winged away, something was clutched in his slowly closing talons. The orb whined and screeched as the mechanism attempted to keep working despite the massive increase in pressure. A moment later, the sound couldn’t be heard anymore as ionized discharges overrode the fading screeches. Barrage after barrage was sent after the Chimera’s retreating form. Rocky mentally urged his pet to stop climbing and increase his speed by diving and coasting near the Earth.

  This significantly reduced the number of soldiers that could see the fading dot of Azoth as he descended under the wall’s line of sight, at least for Rocky and the soldiers not on the wall.

  That was when six propulsion systems were activated, and mechanoids, including Corsair, took off after the Chimera. During the confusion, Rocky had managed to make his way to Joe, and he had quickly poured a health potion down the man’s throat, then dumped his new equipment on the ground around him.

  Since every soldier had been preoccupied, no one noticed as Joe seemed to shimmer and disappear after donning his new cloak. Rocky whispered, “Get clear,” to seemingly empty air and then dove off the roof’s edge starting his own slow count of ten. Sela, who had been watching and waiting, heard his whispered words to Joe and dashed towards a small building, knowing it hadn’t been rigged to blow.

  As it was the only small building in the direction Azoth had flown and close to the central building, the other two had chosen it as a safe spot also, and the doors that opened and closed seemed to be admitting a procession of ghosts. Rocky, who had been second to enter, assumed Sela was inside,dropped his Stealth and helped her dispatch the few guards. When Sela noticed Rocky, she also removed her own Stealth to avoid an errant sword strike.

  The two high leveled individuals had killed the six guards before Joe had even arrived, which took seconds, and the shock on his face upon exiting technical invisibility was a stark reminder to the two of how far behind he was. Realizing that everyone was safe and accounted for, Rocky triggered the mines before he reached the count of ten. The noise around him cut off as ten plasma mines triggered, destroying the central building and at least one section of the wall.

  Mentally, Rocky told Azoth to change course and head in the direction of their egress so they could intercept the robots. He then quickly used Shadow Clone again, smiling as his clone took a small bow as if preening from a performance. The group opened the doors to pandemonium and began running through the enclosure. Rocky had requested that his clone lead the way without using Stealth, so they all had a figure to follow.

  The logistics of using Stealth in groups was going to have to be something they started discovering because Rocky was getting really sick of not knowing where each person was. Maybe the Atlantian System had a party option? Rocky doubted that or Sela would have suggested it, but perhaps there was some skill that could be purchased.

  As the group sprinted out of the now flaming and crumbling fortress, Rocky began seeing huge flashes as Corsair and his lackeys sent far superior laser charges at a fleeing Azoth. While he was able to dodge the projectiles because of the distance, that distance was shrinking as they watched. Making a decision because of the direction they were headed, Rocky mentally sent, “Azoth try to get to the center of the city. Then crush and drop that thing as close to a large golem or crocodile as you can.”

  Azoth responded happily, “Azoth does this. Azoth done playing with metal men.” With that, he sped up, increasing the distance between him and the robots. Rocky, who had assumed the mechanoids had been gaining on the creature because they were faster, was chagrined as he realized the birdbrain had been playing tag with the soulless creatures.

  Rocky attempted to change his order but wasn’t quick enough because, a moment later, Azoth mentally mimed a phrase Rocky had said to him often, “Drop it!” while simultaneously sending an image of a colossal golem, which was unmistakably the assumed territorial leader.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The situation could have been much worse, as Azoth confirmed that the device had landed in and amongst a large group of hostile golems, which included the assumed leader of the Territory. The fact that the entire group of Corsair’s flying tinmen stopped and began hovering above the area Azoth had recently vacated confirmed it was on the ground. That they didn’t go down to get it right away suggested that the creatures may be too much for them to handle.

  Rocky spoke to the two invisible individuals around him, “Let’s go scout the perimeter of that zone and see what they might have to deal with.” Since he heard two quick grunts, he assumed assent and the group continued towards the downtown core of Ottawa, where they could already see massive golems moving.

  As soon as the trio and Rocky’s clone arrived, he realized that something was vastly different than when he had scouted the area in the past. Each golem he saw had a layer of soil and grass overlaid on top of what used to be just materials such as wood, rock, and metal
. “It looks like the second Ether wave has increased the golems’ size and strength,” he informed the others solemnly as he analyzed one of the largest nearby enemies.

  Museum Golem

  Journeyman-Crusher

  Level 49

  Bio-Enhanced

  Health Points 4315/4315

  This was easily the highest leveled Journeyman monster Rocky had seen, and a quick check of the others showed him varying classes but similar levels. The three of them together would probably be unable to destroy a single one of these powerful golems, and these were the ones on the edge. He had to assume the ones closer to the titanic shape of the leader in the background were even more powerful.

  Azoth sent a mental update, telling the group he was landing at the cave for a break. Rocky mentally responded, “Azoth, was the beacon working when you dropped it or had you managed to crush it?”

  “Crush? What crush mean? Azoth drops shiny metal ball near large golem. Azoth does good!” was the sleepy response Rocky received. Azoth’s response didn’t inspire confidence that the birdbrain had managed to destroy the beacon. It didn’t specifically mean that it was working either, but if Rocky knew for sure that the beacon had shut down, he could just leave it and let the golems handle Robo-dummy and his goonies. However, if the beacon was still starting up or worse, already transmitting, they needed to go shut it down now.

  Taking a look around, Rocky exited Stealth and dejectedly stated, “We are going to have to go in there and make sure that contraption is shut down. Azoth doesn’t know what crush means and may not have destroyed it.” Two other forms exited their own states of invisibility and blankly stared at him, the same look mirrored on both of their faces.

  Sela spoke what the two were thinking, voice dripping with sarcasm, “So you think we need to sneak through the ten-story golems to approach the forty odd story one in the middle? Yeah, that sounds like a good plan. I can’t see anything wrong with it…” She finished by brushing her hands together like it was settled.