Tin Men

by Christopher Golden

  She tried to tell herself this new smell came from the sea, that it was the stink of low tide. But she knew that wasn’t it.

  “Now you see the world as I see it,” Hanif Khan said.

  Alexa flinched and looked up to see him watching her through the gap between the second row of seats.

  “Who says I didn’t already?” she sneered.

  Trav hit the brakes. “We’re here.”

  Alexa climbed up onto the seat as the Humvee slid to a halt. She popped the door and climbed out, breathing deeply of the salt air. Seagulls cawed overhead as she stared out across the harbor, watching the boats bobbing on the water. The ravages of the past two decades of sea level rise were immediately evident. Some buildings that had once been elegant hotels and restaurants at the seaside had been partly submerged, others torn down. Whatever the harbor had looked like two decades before, most of it seemed to have been removed, a new harborside district created and new docks and piers built to adjust to the changing tides.

  A fresh coat of paint to mask the rotting face of the world.

  Running up the stairs in the little hotel, Danny had to remind himself that Haifa was not Damascus. Whatever whispered suggestions the population of Damascus had received about evacuating, the people of Haifa hadn’t gotten the memo. There had been plenty of civilians in the street and he’d seen faces through windows. Some of the hotel guests would be hunkered down in their rooms.

  “Watch your shots,” he said as he hustled up the steps after Hawkins. “No more civilians.”

  Hawkins reached the third floor landing and spun to face him, weapon aimed at the ceiling.

  “We didn’t kill those people,” Hawkins said. “Mavrides did.”

  “He’s one of ours,” Danny replied.

  Hawkins looked disgusted. “He’s not mine, Kelso. You want to claim the kid, go ahead. Yeah, I took him under my wing, but that doesn’t mean shit to me now. I’m a soldier first and last.”

  Danny shrugged by way of explanation. “I had you pegged wrong.”

  “You think I fucking care how you ‘pegged’ me?”

  Hawkins yanked open the door to the third floor and moved into the carpeted corridor. Danny followed and in a second they were back to back, weapons aimed in opposite directions. Three rooms along, a door opened and a man poked his head out. Bearded and olive-skinned, Danny might have mistaken him for a Bot Killer if not for the way his eyes widened with terror.

  “Back inside,” Danny whispered. “Keep your head down.”

  The man nodded and retreated, slamming his door.

  “This way,” Hawkins said. “I saw two of them in a room up here.”

  Danny followed him as Hawkins counted doors, trying to figure out which room the Bot Killers had been in.

  “I’m more worried about the roof,” Danny said.

  “I’m worried about anyone pointing a rocket at me,” Hawkins said quietly as he stopped in front of a door, gestured for Danny to stand aside, and kicked the door in. Wood splintered and the frame shattered.

  Hawkins darted away from the open door. Danny heard the scream of the rocket and then it streaked from inside the room and across the corridor to strike the opposite door. The explosion blew Danny and Hawkins into the wall and Danny dropped to the carpet, grateful that his audio receptors automatically adjusted for volume. He turned to see Hawkins already on his feet.

  “I’ve got this,” Hawkins said as he ducked into the room.

  Automatic weapons fire greeted him, but it lasted only seconds before Hawkins managed to take out both Bot Killers in the room. Danny turned to look at the wreckage of the hotel room across the corridor, where a woman knelt by her bloodied husband, trying to scream her horror but unable to find her voice. She turned to look at him and he wondered why they hadn’t just made a dash for the harbor. Maybe no more running had been a terrible idea.

  “The roof,” Hawkins said as he came back into the hallway.

  “Let’s finish this,” Danny said.

  He took the lead, running ahead of Hawkins to the emergency exit. The sign on the stairwell door said ROOF ACCESS: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Danny pushed through it and took the steps two at a time. His footfalls echoed around him and he thought again of his father, the image of his old man by the side of the road. He wondered if the whispers he heard were his subconscious telling him that he was closer now to his father than he had ever been. Closer to the land of the dead than the land of the living.

  He had spent most of his adult life convinced that he was alone in the world—that alone was the only way he could survive. It troubled him to think of anyone, even ghosts, observing him as he went through his life. It hurt him to think that his decisions might matter to someone. Maybe that was what it really mean to be haunted.

  With Hawkins behind him, Danny reached the top, where a steel door bore the same ROOF ACCESS sign he’d seen a floor below. He dropped his shoulder and hurled himself against the door, which tore off its hinges with a shriek of metal. Sunlight splashed into the stairwell as Danny lunged and dropped into a roll. A pair of rockets shrieked a duet across the rooftop. The Bot Killers had known they were coming and laid in wait.

  Rockets struck the doorway and exploded, blowing apart the entire exit structure. Danny had a second to think of Hawkins, but then he was up and taking aim. There were four Bot Killers on the roof. He ignored the bullets and focused on the two rocket-men who were already reloading, hoping to take another shot at him. Danny shot one in the chest and the other in the pelvis and leg. Rocket launchers clattered to the roof and Danny turned to the two who were armed only with guns.

  “Die!” one of them said, his accent Turkish or Kurdish. “This is not your world anymore.”

  Danny shot him first in the left shoulder and then the right and the man cried out and collapsed to the roof. With medical attention, he would live, but it would be a while before he could effectively wield a gun.

  The other looked German or Scandinavian. He stopped shooting, only stood and glared at Danny, waiting for his death without a glimmer of fear in his eyes.

  “Go ahead,” the blond man said. “Kill what you don’t understand.”

  Danny froze, staring at him as the Turk moaned and writhed in pain.

  “You’re American.”

  The blond sneered at him. “I was born there, but I surrendered my citizenship. I couldn’t live with being part of a system that kept the entire world oppressed.”

  Danny strode toward him. The blond backed up toward the edge of the roof.

  “You little puke,” Danny said. “We protected the world from anarchy—“

  “Anarchy is exactly what the world needs!” the blond spat. “Self-determination.”

  Danny holstered his weapon. “Well, you got what you wanted then. I guess you win.”

  He grabbed the blond by the throat and crotch, lifted him up and hurled him off the roof. The man screamed on the way down. Danny stood at the edge of the roof and watched him hit the ground, watched him die. He hated himself for such brutality, but he hated the traitor more.

  “Hey!” someone shouted.

  Danny spun and saw Hawkins clambering out of the smoking ruin that had been the stairwell door, his carapace scorched and blackened far worse than before.

  “Next time, maybe tell me what you’ve got in mind so I can duck?” Hawkins said.

  Danny gave him a nod. “Sorry about that. Got carried away. Glad you were able to get out of the way.”

  Hawkins waved off the apology. “Jumped down a flight of stairs.”

  Danny turned to scan the street below, spotted Zuzu and Randall. Broaddus stood silhouetted in one of the bank tower’s shattered windows across the street. Kate and Mavrides came out of the office block a couple of buildings over. The gunfire had ceased, but all of the Tin Men were watching rooftops and windows, hesitant to call this a victory until they knew there were no more Bot Killers, no more rockets.

  Hawkins came to stand beside him. “Kelso.�
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  Something in his tone made Danny turn. Hawkins wasn’t scanning the street below or the rooftops; he wasn’t looking at the Tin Men down on the road. Danny bent forward to peer southward, and he saw what had grabbed Hawkins’ attention.

  Four blocks away, two black Humvee-TSVs were coming around a corner.

  Hanif Khan’s men had followed them all the way from Damascus. The sounds of battle had drawn Khan’s Bot Killers in. Danny felt that dreadful ice spreading further within him as he watched those Humvees advance.

  The fight wasn’t over, but it was about to be.

  As Kate and Mavrides emerged from the office building, she heard voices shouting above and ahead of them. She glanced up and saw Danny and Hawkins standing on the edge of a hotel roof four stories off the ground. They were pointing, alarmed by something.

  “What’s up with them?” Mavrides asked, his voice full that familiar tough guy swagger.

  Other Tin Men had begun to move toward them, returning to the street after pursuing and eliminating the Bot Killers who had ambushed Lieutenant Randall’s squad. Kate narrowed her eyes and stared at Danny and Hawkins, then glanced along the road past dead cars and an abandoned delivery truck.

  When she saw the first Humvee-TSV come around the corner, four blocks away, she swore quietly.

  “Son of a bitch,” Mavrides said.

  Kate glanced around at the others. She saw Randall and Zuzu and Birnbaum.

  “Let’s finish this!” she called. “Move over the rooftops or through the back streets. Don’t leave any of them standing!”

  Birnbaum started back into the bank building, obeying her orders, but Randall hesitated and Zuzu did the same, taking his cue from his commanding officer. Lieutenant Randall outranked her.

  “This way,” Kate said to Mavrides, and started toward the little hotel.

  “I don’t think so, Sarge, but you have fun,” Mavrides sneered. “See you at the harbor, if you make it.”

  Kate stared after Mavrides as the kid turned tail and ran westward, keeping in the shadows of the buildings. She almost gave chase, but the shriek of a rocket forced her to turn toward Randall just in time to see the rocket hit the ground beside him. It tore him open, spilling coolant and bullets from blown magazines and blasting shrapnel that struck both Kate and Zuzu. The secondary explosion of Randall’s power core blew Zuzu off his feet and he rolled hard up against the outer wall of the bank.

  Kate rose. “Zuzu, go!” she cried. “Inside. Use the buildings. Right through the damn walls if you have to.”

  Zuzu might not have had much of a sense of humor about the flowers painted on his chassis, but he was no fool. Randall had just been taken off the chessboard. That made Kate the ranking officer, and he didn’t even hesitate as he crashed back through the bank entrance.

  When Kate heard the next rocket, she barely had time to turn toward the sound.

  Danny and Hawkins ran along the little hotel’s roof, weapons out, intent on killing the Bot Killers in the TSVs. When the rocket took out Randall, Danny stopped and turned to see Kate standing in the road, shouting something at Zuzu…and a second rocket streaking toward her.

  He roared her name, took two strides, and hurled himself off the hotel’s roof. As he plummeted four stories he saw Kate spin toward the rocket and try to dart out of its path. The rocket struck her left shoulder and exploded. Her body pinwheeled through the air.

  Danny hit the ground in a crouch, the impact buckling the sidewalk beneath him. Something cracked in his right leg. Kate’s bot lay in a scorched, blackened sprawl. He screamed and ran toward her, hobbled slightly by a new limp.

  “Kate!” he shouted, but she wasn’t moving.

  He stood over her, staring. He had joined the army hoping that he had finally found the purpose he’d sought, that a guy who always felt alone might be able to help protect those who were lucky enough to have someone else to live for. His girlfriends—even Nora, who had lasted the longest—had never been able to make him feel necessary. Desired, yes, but not alive.

  Danny felt as if the rocket had struck him instead of Kate. He stared down at the blackened carapace and the thin cables jutting out of the shoulder socket, the jagged metal where the arm had been blown off, and he hated the robot—hated what he had become—and yet he hated the human part of himself as well, for giving a damn.

  Gunfire erupted down the street. He turned to see one of the Tin Men crash out through a third floor apartment house window and slam down on top of the lead Humvee. Across the street, Hawkins jumped down to street level and opened fire on the two vehicles. A rocket shot toward him but it had been hastily aimed and went far wide, striking one of the structures along that side street.

  Other Tin Men crashed out of windows. With Mavrides rabbiting and Kate gone, that left only five, Danny included. Khan’s lunatic minions had gotten too close this time. They weren’t going to quit until they had completed their mission. Well, neither would the Tin Men, and their mission priority had just changed.

  “Kelso,” came the weak rasp of a voice behind him.

  Danny spun, squinting against the low sun, and stared at Kate’s scorched remains. Except that they weren’t her remains at all. Her charred face had turned toward him and with the sun behind her he could see the glint of light in her eyes.

  “Don’t just stand there,” she said quietly. “Go finish them.”

  For a second he couldn’t take his eyes off of her.

  “Stay right there,” he said.

  She raised her remaining hand in half a shrug: Where would I go?

  Danny smiled. “That’s a good look for you. ”

  Gunfire ripped through the air back along the street. Two more explosions shook the ground in quick succession.

  All she said was, “Go.”

  Danny went. The harbor awaited them, and a whole world of trouble beyond that. He didn’t want any of it following behind.

  ~20~

  Alexa climbed out of the car, staring at the blue-green Mediterranean waters glistening in the afternoon sun. Despite all she had endured and all she feared might await them across the sea, she allowed herself to be calmed. They had seen the working port of Haifa just to the south, but only merchant vessels and fishing boats were docked there. Trav had driven north for a mile before he pulled over and now here they were, parked at a marina where the wealthy and the ambitious had docked their boats in the world of yesterday.

  Her father’s body still lay in the back of the TSV, but while Torres muscled Hanif Khan from the back of the vehicle and Trav climb out of the driver’s seat, Alexa kept her back to them all. The weight of his death lay upon her shoulders, a heavy yoke, but she would not let grief destroy her. Her mother would be counting on her, and there were others as well.

  “Most everyone cleared out, I guess,” Trav said, coming up beside her.

  Alexa scanned the marina. Half the slips were empty.

  “Everyone who could have,” she agreed. “Everything with a sail must’ve been pushed out by hand.”

  Down along the dock an old woman sat on the wooden boards, leaning against a piling. She had three children around her, one boy of about thirteen, the other two perhaps five, twins. The boy wore jeans and a lemon yellow t-shirt, the girls tank tops and shorts and mismatched bows in their hair, one red and the other purple. All three dark-haired children stared out at the water, as if salvation might sail in at any moment.

  The old woman did not look toward the sea. Instead, she stared at the Humvee that had drawn up at the dock and the robots who had climbed out. She did not speak or beckon in any way, made no effort to ask for help. Neither Alexa nor Trav mentioned the old woman and the kids, as if they were ghosts each of them was afraid the other could not see.

  “Is this just us getting lucky?” Alexa asked.

  A massive trimaran bobbed out in the bay beyond the marina, where the darker water hinted at greater depth. Alexa had seen a hydroptere before but she had never sailed on one. The speed frighten
ed her, yet it would be a gift to them now. Her mother would have said they needed the wings of angels. Alexa wondered if the Pulse had killed the last of the angels when it shut out the lights of the world…or if instead, perhaps, it had woken them up. Time would tell.

  “I don’t think it’s luck,” Trav told her. “It’s a complicated vessel. I’d figure there were three or four of them anchored out there, along with half a dozen larger sailing ships. But l’hydroptere requires at least someone on board to know what the hell they’re doing. My vision is better than yours, but if you look closely, you’ll see there are people on that boat.”

  Alexa flinched. “What?” She walked a dozen feet onto the dock, staring at the hydroptere, and confirmed what Trav had said. Two figures—no, three—moving about on the span of the trimaran, one on the aft of the central float and two others on the right wing.

  Heart racing, she spun and stared at Travaglini. “What if you’re wrong? What if they know exactly what they’re doing?”

  “They would’ve been out of here by now,” he said. “But just in case, we ought to get out there. Bring it in.”

  Alexa strode back to him. “Do you know how to sail it?”

  Trav tapped the painting on his chest of the World War II-era blond riding a rocket. “I’m an old-fashioned guy, kid. I’m walking around inside modern tech, but I don’t understand any of it. Birnbaum, though? In college she was on the sailing team. Grew up in Newport, where sailing is all rich people care about.”

  “She’s rich?”

  “Filthy. And I’m sure she’s crewed a hydroptere before. Captained, no, but we’re damn lucky to have her.”

  Alexa glanced past him. Torres stood at the back of the Humvee, weapon in hand. Kahn sat cross-legged on the ground nearby as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Both of them were watching the road to the south, waiting for the others to catch up.