by Thomas Hall
Brett edged a little closer. There were three Machinists sitting on the station platform. Their faces were disguised by what at first looked like masks. In fact they were mechanical face pieces. One of them had a red dot instead of an eye, the other seemed to protrude from its face like a miniature telescope. Another had no mouth, only a grill, the third had had its ears replaced by blackened mesh. They appeared to be male, but it was impossible to be sure. He found himself wondering whether the Machinists even had a gender.
He thought they could be guards of some kind. They could be guarding Samuel.
It was a slim chance, but slim chances were all he had. If Samuel wasn’t there, then at least he had eliminated one possibility.
He watched them for a few minutes more and they never turned towards him. He had no way of getting past without them seeing, so he had to disable them. He raised the Blaster, aimed, said a short prayer and then squeezed the trigger.
The noise was negligible. There was little in the way of light. The effect on the three Machinists was instantaneous. One moment they were sitting upright, the next they were slumped over.
Brett took a quick look behind him to make sure there was no one watching, and then pushed himself onto the platform.
It was narrower than it had appeared from the tracks. The three motionless Machinists seemed to watch him as he passed. But, even if they were still conscious they couldn’t move or communicate.
He kept close to the wall, feeling for a door. He found several more tunnels, but ignored them and kept going until he reached the end of the platform. There were no doors to secret prisons.
There was no way of knowing which tunnel would lead to Samuel. He walked back along the platform and then through the first tunnel he reached.
It was dark and cold and he could hear water dripping. An inch of moisture covered the ground and he was sure that his footsteps would give him away.
The tunnel curved around a corner and upwards. When he reached a set of stairs he stopped and looked back. The tunnel disappeared after a couple of metres and he couldn’t hear anything.
After a short breather, Brett began to climb the stairs. He looked up, hoping to see sunlight, but instead there was only darkness. He forced himself to keep going. He was doing this for Sam. He owed it to him.
Although that wasn’t the full truth.
A big part of him was doing it for himself.
Not because he wanted to be anyone’s hero, but he wanted to know that he still could be. He’d spent a year hiding from the Machines and his past. He wanted to know that the time hadn’t turned him into a different man. He wanted to be soldier again.
He reached the top of the stairs and paused for long enough to get his bearings. It appeared to be another station. Ahead of him the barriers were open and he could see the way out to the street.
He edged forwards, keeping his back to the wall and his Blaster out. Brett made it three steps before he saw movement in the shadows.
He stopped and stared into the darkness but his eyes had adjusted as much as they were going to. Whatever was there, he couldn’t make them out. There was a high chance that it was a threat. So he did the only thing he could think of. Brett raised his Blaster, aimed it in the direction of the movement, and squeezed the trigger.
The voice that cried out was human, but that no longer meant he was safe. He waited for them to return fire, but they didn’t. After a moment, he moved towards the mumbling noise and found them laying on the floor in the middle of the station.
The Machinist looked as if it had once been a woman. It was difficult to tell now because of the short hair and the circuits that covered most of the body. He looked down at them and they spluttered curses up at him.
“Where is he?” Brett said.
“Fuck you!” it said.
Brett raised the Blaster and pointed it at the Machinist’s face. “Where is he?”
“Shoot me,” it said. “I’m not telling you anything.”
Brett couldn’t hurt her with the Blaster so he took a step back and then kicked the Machinist as hard as he could in the side.
It gasped for air which confirmed that it’s lungs were still functioning.
“Where is he?” Brett said.
The Machinist shook its head.
Brett paused, hoping the reluctance was because the Machinist didn’t have air to respond. When he had given it a minute, he asked again.
“I can’t tell you,” it said.
“Why not?”
“They’ll kill me.”
He took a step back, ready to kick the Machinist again.
“Okay!” it said.
He paused.
“Okay, I’ll tell you.”
He didn’t lower his leg. “Tell me then.”
“Through the passage to your left, in the ticket office.”
“Is it locked?” Brett said.
“Of course it is.”
“How do I get in?”
“I don’t know,” it said. Even in the darkness Brett could see fear in its eyes, sure that he was going to kick it again. “I’m only a guard, I didn’t put him in there.”
He nodded, to himself more than the Machinist. It made sense. He lowered his foot, turned and went to find Samuel.
He found the ticket office. The door was on the left of a set of glass windows, which he expected would be shatter proof. He didn’t stop to test them. It was likely that there was someone guarding Sam on the other side of the door.
He kicked the door to no effect.
“Sam?” he called out. “Sam are you in there?”
There was no response.
“If you can hear me, get away from the door.”
Again, there was no response. He counted down from five in his head and then raised the Blaster and fired.
He heard something heavy fall to the floor and hoped that it wasn’t his friend. Then he went to the door and barged it with his shoulder. As he had hoped, the door swung open.
He blinked in the light.
The room wasn’t much larger than two men and the floor was fully occupied by one of them. The other was standing in the corner.
“Brett?” Sam said.
He nodded, hardly daring to believe that he’d done it. Somehow he’d managed to get past the Machinists, find his friend and rescue him.
“What are you doing here?” Samuel said.
Brett shook his head, there would be time for that later. “Are you okay? Can you walk?”
Samuel nodded, Brett reached over the unconscious machinist and grabbed his arm.
“There’s no time to explain, we have to go.”
Samuel allowed Brett to lead him out of the room and through the station. Brett didn’t fancy their chances of making it back through the underground. Instead he took Samuel towards the boarded over doors at the entrance.
The Machinist who he’d shot was still shouting, but so far there was no sign that anyone had heard them. Brett knew that they were on borrowed time.
They broke down the door and recoiled from the sun. Brett forced themselves to go out. It was difficult to tell how far they were from the station he had started at. They both picked the same direction and hurried through the streets.
CHAPTER 19
THEY FOUND THE REST OF THE GROUP WHERE Brett had left them. Joanna and Lisa were asleep. Richard was arguing with Victoria about what they were going to do when night fell. Neither of them noticed when Brett and Samuel came towards them.
“We can’t wait until night,” Brett said.
They turned to look at him and did a comical double-take when they saw that Sam was there as well.
Richard’s mouth opened and closed, as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t make his voice work. Victoria put her arms around Samuel, holding him close.
Lisa and Victoria woke up. Brett explained what had happened and why they needed to leave. None of them seemed convinced. Such was the phobia about going out during the daylight hours.
“We’ll be fine until morning, won’t we Sam?” Lisa said.
Samuel looked at Brett.
“Are you sure there’s nothing else we can do?” Joanna said. She addressed herself to Brett.
He shook his head. “They’ll find out Sam’s missing and then they’ll start looking for him. I don’t know if they realise we’re here, but it won’t take them long to work it out.” He shrugged as if he hadn’t given the idea his undivided attention since he’d got Sam out of the room. “We want to be as far away as we can before that happens.”
There was silence for a moment.
Then Richard spoke: “That’s good enough for me. Come on, let’s get moving.”
They grabbed what little they had and made their way to the station entrance. They slowed as they stepped into the sunlight, but no one stopped. Brett got them to the door without further discussion.
It had been years since Brett had walked in the daylight. He enjoyed the warmth of the mid-day sun on his skin and the gentle breeze that ruffled his hair.
They walked in silence but kept close together. Brett walked at the front, Samuel immediately behind him. For a while nothing happened and then they began to hear a noise.
It was like something from a nightmare; a terrible screeching, like animals in pain. Brett looked up and saw a dark shadow coming straight towards them.
“Everybody down!” he shouted.
They obeyed him without question and that was the only thing that saved their lives.
He hit the ground hard. A moment later he heard an explosion loud enough to burst his eardrums. The ground shook beneath him.
Everything was quiet. When he looked up, Brett saw shadows coming towards them and the ground continued to quake.
He forced himself to stand, and dragged Samuel up. The others saw what he was doing and followed suit. They grabbed each other and started to move at the same time, edging along the road as if they were doing the conga.
Brett tried to speak to Samuel, but it was clear from the way he shook his head that they were as deaf as each other. The only thing he could do was lead from the front.
He looked in the direction the shadows were coming from, but there was no sign of what was generating them. If they couldn’t even see the enemy, then they couldn’t fight back, which meant they had to find somewhere to hide.
Brett hated hiding again, but he didn’t see that there was any other choice.
He led them towards the nearest building. The walls looked shaky but they couldn’t afford to be picky. It wouldn’t keep them safe for long, but little was better than nothing.
The ground continued to shake as they made their way through the front door and along the narrow hallway.
The hall led to the kitchen, which seemed like as good a place as any to stop. Joanna was the last one in and closed the door behind her.
For a moment, all they could do was mouth words at each other and gesticulate. Brett could hear nothing except the ringing in his ears.
He let them get on with it and tried to come up with a plan. Their new hiding place was temporary. He needed to get them out and back on the road, but that was going to be difficult. He didn’t even know what kind of danger was outside.
Richard’s voice was the first one he heard: “What the fuck was that!”
Brett shook his head, hoping that he could feign deafness for a while longer.
“What was it?” he said.
“I don’t know,” Brett said. “Nothing I’ve ever seen before.”
Richard threw up his hands. “Great! So, the one person here who’s supposed to know what’s going on and he doesn’t have a clue! That’s perfect.”
Brett didn’t answer. He turned his back on the group and walked out to the hall. The ground had stopped shaking, which he guessed was a good sign. It might also mean that whoever had attacked them was preparing to come into the house.
He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked up. Now that his hearing had returned he could confirm that no one else was in the building. He pushed the feeling aside and started to climb.
The rooms contained no furniture and no sign of who might have called the place home. Brett checked each of the rooms in turn but found nothing in any of them. When he’d finished, he made his way to the window.
Two of the corrupted Machines stood in the shadows of the building opposite
He swore under his breath and stepped away from the window. At least, he thought, it made the odds that they were alone better. As far as he had could work out, the corrupted Machines were no longer part of the Nexus. Which meant they couldn’t call on others for backup. Of course, that didn’t explain the shadow bombs, and it didn’t explain how they had found them. Unless...
He stopped himself before he could give shape to the thought. It wasn’t possible that the corrupted were working with the Machinists... was it?
The idea made some sense. The corrupted Machines were like nothing Brett had encountered before. So what if they weren’t? What if they weren’t even Machines at all, or at least hadn’t started out that way. What if they had been human once? Could they be the natural conclusion of the Machinists ‘upgrades’?
He found himself pacing back and forth across the room. If they were up against the Machinists, then what did that mean? Did it change anything or was it business as usual?
He took out his Blaster and then put it away.
He walked back to the window but could still only see two corrupted Machines.
Brett decided that he needed to talk to someone else. This was too big of a decision to make on his own. They could run, but to do that they needed to know what they were running from.
He left the room and went downstairs to see what the others made of his guess.
CHAPTER 20
THEY WEREN’T IMPRESSED.
RICHARD TOLD HIM THAT THE idea was ridiculous. He spoke as if he didn’t believe the Machinists existed at all. Joanna turned away from him and started crying. Victoria only took the idea seriously after she’d spent five minutes trying to talk him out of it.
In the end Brett shook his head and sighed.
“Look,” he said. “You’re right, I don’t know it’s them. But you don’t know it isn’t. We do know that the corrupted Machines are out there, so we should deal with them.”
They nodded and at least he got them to agree to that.
“We can’t stay in here for much longer. We need to get back to the tunnel or that medicine won’t have a chance to do any good.”
“So we’re leaving?” Richard said.
“Yes, we’re leaving.”
“Good,” Richard said. “Let’s go.” He started walking towards the door, his Blaster was already in his hand.
Brett put out a hand to stop him. “We can’t go that way.”
“Why not? What other way are we supposed to go?”
“We’ll go through the back; we can circle around once we put some distance between us and them.”
He looked at Samuel for a response. He nodded.
“Okay,” Brett said. It wasn’t the perfect plan but it was still a plan and an imperfect plan was better than nothing. “Follow me then.”
The back door wasn’t locked which saved him having to find a key or break it down.
They made it to the back fence without incident, but there was no gate so they had to climb over. Brett went first, vaulting over the top as he had done when he’d been a soldier. He landed in thick mud on the other side and it took some effort to pull his boots free.
There was a narrow muddy path that ran behind the fences. On the other side there were overgrown trees and bushes and beyond them he could hear the trickle of a river.
They walked for fewer than five minutes before realising that they were not alone.
A dark shape moved behind the trees and instinctively they all stopped.
Brett moved towards the shape and stopped when he reached the edge of the path. It was close enough to see the
two corrupted Machines standing on a bridge.
He stepped back.
“What is it?” Samuel whispered.
Brett shook his head and hoped that Samuel got the hint; now was not a good time to talk.
“The Droids?” Samuel whispered.
Brett nodded. He took out his Blaster and the others did the same. Then he turned back to the bridge and led them towards it.
Brett crouched down so that he could see the bridge. He had a clear line of sight but he didn’t shoot. There was something fascinating about the two corrupted Machines. He still didn’t have proof that his hunch was correct. If they were human, then there was nothing left of their original bodies to see.
The limbs were thin like a normal droid, they stood at around seven feet tall and their heads were long and sloping. It was only the paint and extra spikes that made them different.
The others crouched down around him. Richard came forwards so they were together at the front.
Brett raised his Blaster, drew a bead on the furthest droid, and started shooting. After a moment, the others did the same.
The two Droids reacted immediately. Their bodies jerked from side to side as the pulses hit them. Their arms flailed, their bodies rocked. They looked as if they were dancing.
They continued to fire for a full ten seconds. Almost every shot hit the Machines, but Brett still worried that it wouldn’t be enough. They couldn’t risk letting their Blasters die. He stopped shooting and raised an arm so that they knew to do the same.
He watched the two Droids fall to the ground.
Nobody moved. They continued to crouch on the ground until Brett got to his feet. He needed to check that the Droids were dead. It seemed impossible that they could have won so easily.
“Wait here,” he said as he started to move.
He stopped in front of the Droids. They didn’t move. Their eyes were dark and there was no sign of power left in them. But that didn’t mean they were gone.
