Tin Men

by Christopher Golden

  “It’s me,” the girl said.

  “Who the hell is this?” President Matheson asked as he tore off a strip of his shirt for Danny to use as a tourniquet on his arm.

  The girl didn’t give Kate time to answer.

  “Alexa Day, Mister President. My father was your ambassador to Syria.”

  Matheson’s expression darkened. He understood the implication of the past tense. “I’m sorry.”

  “Enough talk,” Rostov said, turning to Kate with his bloody, ruined eye still uncovered. “You said you had a boat. Why are we standing here?”

  “Broaddus!” Kate shouted, ignoring the Russian.

  “Here, Sarge,” Broaddus said, coming out of a side corridor with her guidelight on.

  Broaddus had Hanif Khan by the collar, gun against the anarchist’s back. He’d been shot full of morphine to deal with the pain of his wound, but still looked sweaty and pale with pain and trauma.

  “Our friend had to piss,” Broaddus said. “Ready to go now, on your word.”

  A rocket exploded nearby and the building shook with the blast. More gunfire punctured the darkness outside and she hoped the rest of her squad would be safe as they tried to destroy the rest of the anarchists.

  “Mister President,” Kate said. “Sergeant Kate Wade, sir. This is Hanif Khan. He led the Bot Killers who came after us in Damascus. They were working with the anarchists behind the Pulse. He may know something useful to you.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Matheson said, glaring hatefully at Khan. For a second, he looked like he might be sick.

  Rostov smiled. “My cat, Igor, likes to catch birds and bring them to me, drop them at my feet. You remind me of him, Sergeant.”

  Kate looked at Matheson. “We can just shoot him, sir, but if you want to keep him around, we’ll bring him with us.”

  Matheson strode over to Khan, eye to eye. Kate tensed, thinking Khan might attack him despite the gun at his back, but the anarchist only stared at the president with his crocodile eyes.

  “Bring him,” Matheson said. “Now let’s get out of here.”

  A fresh torrent of gunfire made them all flinch. Too close, Kate thought. She turned and saw a pair of anarchists racing through the moonlight toward the Agamemnon’s front doors and then a burst of gunfire stitched into them as they stumbled and flailed through the doors. Dead, they slid and tumbled just a few feet into the lobby. One dropped a handgun that skidded across the floor toward Alexa Day, who scooped it up.

  “Alexa,” Danny said.

  The girl looked up at him. “I know how to shoot.”

  “As long as you know who to shoot,” Kate said. They didn’t have time to argue about it. “Go! The marina’s right outside, Mister President. Go left. Our boat’s at the end, beyond the sea wall.”

  Trav and Broaddus led the way, making Khan run ahead of them. Trav still carried the blond, though she protested that she could do it herself. Kate figured she’d lost too much blood, that she’d slow them down. She hoped the same wasn’t true of President Matheson. If Rostov didn’t make it, that was no skin off her nose.

  “There are gonna be a lot of injuries on board,” Danny said as he came up behind her, running with Alexa. “I hope the first aid kit’s got what we need.”

  They reached the glass doors at the rear of the lobby and shoved through. The marina lay before them, its huge circumference dotted with docked pleasure craft, all bobbing dead in the water. A handful of sailboats remained, sleek toys for wealthy owners.

  Trav had gotten ahead of them on the circular track that ran alongside the marina. Broaddus had Khan by the back of his shirt and marched him forward like a puppeteer, faster than a wounded man ought to be moving. The wind had picked up and Kate could see the hydroptere bobbing in the water at the far end of the circle, out past the sea wall. Still there, she thought. That’s something at least.

  Alexa appeared beside her. “Come on,” the girl said to Kate and her father. “Let’s keep up.”

  They picked up speed, but both presidents were wounded and they had started to lag.

  “I’ve got POTUS,” Kate told Danny, Alexa, and her father. “You three catch up with Trav.”

  Danny took Felix’s arm and the two of them raced on. Alexa gave Kate a worried glance and then picked up speed.

  “You all right, Mister President?” Kate asked. “I can carry you if—“

  Matheson shot her a dark look. “I’m good. But Kazimir. His depth perception—“

  “Is fine!” Rostov snarled. “Go!”

  Kate wanted to leave Rostov behind. She could just pick Matheson up and double her speed. Danny could carry her father and Alexa if it came to that, and Rostov could fend for himself. Except POTUS seemed to want the Russian president to live, and she couldn’t question the orders of her Commander in Chief.

  “Trav, slow down!” Danny shouted. “POTUS is priority one!”

  Exactly, Kate thought, wondering if the blond had brought out Trav’s damsel-in-distress syndrome.

  They hurtled along beside the water and a kind of glee began to glow warmly in Kate’s chest as they ran past dock after dock, the echoes of gunfire chasing them all the way.

  Then the gunfire became more than echoes.

  “Move it, Sarge!” a voice shouted.

  She glanced back and saw Birnbaum appearing from the street where the battle was being waged—a street which ended on the eastern edge of the marina, dovetailing right into the circular drive around it.

  The battle followed Birnbaum. She turned and fired and then the fight spilled out into view. Hawkins and Torres and one of the President’s Tin Men had run out of bullets and were killing anarchists with their bare hands. With their inhuman speed, they crushed skulls and broke arms and shattered ribs, but still there were twenty or more anarchists flooding around them, all armed and taking aim. For the moment they were shooting at Hawkins and the others, but in a second they would see the presidents—their prey—and realize how close they were to fulfilling their mission.

  Kate scooped President Matheson up in a fireman’s carry and kept running, leaving Rostov on his own. Both men roared at her to stop but her focus was on Danny and her father and Alexa, straight ahead, and Trav with the blond in his arms. They had to make it to the boat.

  Bullets sprayed wildly, hitting the dead boats and plinking into the water. Kate glanced back and saw that the enemy’s numbers were dwindling. She hesitated a second, thinking she should tell POTUS and the others to take cover, that the Tin Men together could easily kill the remaining anarchists…that she’d been going about this all wrong.

  The she saw the way Birnbaum had stopped to stare up at a rooftop, followed her line of sight, and saw the three rocket-men perched there at the corner of the roof. Birnbaum tried to take a shot but she was out of ammo.

  “Get down, sir,” Kate said, setting the President on his feet. “Take cover.”

  She lifted her weapon, targeting system locking on the nearest rocket-man, and fired. Her bullet struck him dead center and he fell backward, dropping his launcher. The one next to him fired before Kate could sight on him. She shouted and ran forward as the rocket streaked down from the roof, headed for the marina.

  Trav turned, wounded blond in his arms, and then the rocket struck him, blowing him apart and rupturing his power core. The blast tore apart the Secret Service woman he’d been carrying and hurled Alexa and Kate’s father off the path and to the water’s edge.

  “God damn it!” Kate screamed, running to the place where Trav had been.

  All that remained to show he’d been standing there were ravaged bits of metal, a burnt bit of pavement and the splash of the woman’s blood. Syd, Kate remembered. Her name had been Syd.

  “Damn it, Trav,” she said, staring down at the blood and the scorch mark. He’d been a good friend and an honorable soldier, a man she’d always trusted to have her back.

  “Kate!” Danny called.

  “Go!” she said, waving him onward. “Get them
to the boat. I’m going to help kill the rest of these fuckers.”

  Then Danny called her name again and this time she heard something in his voice that drew her attention away from the dwindling battle in the street. She turned and saw the expression on his face. He glanced to the right, toward the water, and she followed the look.

  At the water’s edge, in the shadow of a rich man’s pier, Alexa knelt over Kate’s father.

  Numb, Kate ran to them, splashing into the water and kneeling there.

  Alexa looked up at her, bereft. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Daddy?” Kate said quietly, hating the sound of the word coming from her robot mouth, spoken in a voice that was hers but not hers.

  A broad, jagged piece of Trav’s chassis jutted from her father’s chest. Blood soaked into the ground and spread into the water, diluting, ebbing and flowing with each small wave.

  Yet his eyes still had a light in them.

  “Katie,” Felix Wade rasped.

  Still alive.

  Grim, her heart darker than it had ever been, she turned toward Danny.

  “POTUS is yours. Try to keep Alexa alive,” she said, with the girl still staring at her.

  Kate lifted her father in her arms, his blood dappling her carapace, and she turned and ran for the sea wall. Ran for the boat, ignoring the dwindling sounds of gunfire.

  She had always loved to run.

  Until now.

  They were going to make it.

  Danny ushered the presidents onward. Kate had gotten way ahead of them, no longer waiting for anyone. He saw her sprinting along the arc of the marina’s circle and knew she had hope in her heart. But he had seen the size of the shrapnel in Felix’s chest and the severity of the wound, and he knew her hope was delusion. Broaddus had her gun on Hanif Khan, nudging the anarchist forward without getting too far ahead of the wounded presidents.

  Alexa ran in front of Danny for a few steps and then paused to look back at him. Felix Wade’s blood stained her hands. The dead anarchist’s gun looked large and heavy in her grip.

  “Go,” he said. “Get on board. I’ll be along.”

  “Come with us,” the girl said. “They don’t need you. It’s over.”

  Danny glanced back across the marina and saw that she was right. Torres, Birnbaum, Hawkins, and one of the President’s Tin Men had been brutally effective. Only nine anarchists remained. So many others had been killed that the survivors had given up their objective of killing Matheson and Rostov and instead were attempting to defend themselves against the robot soldiers with assault rifles and handguns. Danny scanned the rooftops and saw no more rocket men.

  Over, just as Alexa had said. Yet he felt as if their struggle had only begun.

  He turned to Alexa. “Let’s go.”

  The girl began to run, quickly catching up to the wounded presidents, and Danny kept pace with her. Alarmed by the sound of their approach, Rostov turned, stumbled and fell. Cursing, he rose shakily, and Danny saw the smear of blood that painted his cheek below his ruined eye.

  “Kaz!” President Matheson called, returning to help Rostov to his feet.

  Rostov glared at his American counterpart for a moment and Danny thought he would refuse the aid. Then some silent communication passed between the presidents, a grudging respect, perhaps a recognition that they were more powerful together than alone. It occurred to Danny that these two men led lonely lives, that each might be the only person in the world who could truly understand the other. Whatever politicking and posturing their jobs usually entailed had become obsolete. Whatever treaties were made from now on, they would take shape due to mutual interests…or mutual fear.

  As Danny and Alexa strode up to them, and Broaddus shoved Khan back in their direction to make sure POTUS was safe, Rostov allowed Matheson to help him up. The President winced at the pain in his wounded arm.

  “We’ve got a long journey ahead, Peter,” Rostov said, and it was clear he was not talking about the trip back to Germany.

  Matheson only nodded. For a moment all sounds of gunfire died away, echoing across the waters of the marina. Then the two presidents turned to make their way to the sea wall and Danny nudged Alexa to follow. Ahead of them, Broaddus began to turn, but Hanif Khan stood motionless, hatred and misery in his eyes.

  Khan roared and slammed into Broaddus hard enough to stagger even a Tin Man. He lunged forward and struck Rostov in the face, just inches from his injured eye. The Russian reeled in pain and Khan grabbed the gun in his hand, twisted hard and stripped it from him.

  Danny shouted, taking aim, but Rostov was in the way.

  The whipcrack of a gunshot echoed across the water.

  “No!” Broaddus barked as she brought her own weapon up too late.

  They were both too late.

  President Matheson staggered back a step, staring down at his chest, but no blood appeared there. It made no sense until Broaddus reached for Khan and the anarchist collapsed, his legs failing him. Khan spilled to the ground with one hand over his heart, blood pumping out between his fingers.

  Confused, Danny looked around.

  Alexa Day stood off to his right, a dead man’s gun clutched in both hands, still aiming at Khan just in case she needed to shoot him again.

  “Holy shit, kid,” Danny said.

  “I’m not a kid,” Alexa replied.

  “Apparently not,” President Matheson said.

  Alexa looked at him, her eyes hard. POTUS or not, it was clear she didn’t need his approval. She walked over to Khan, gun aimed at his face. The anarchist tried to speak but no words passed his lips, only a froth of blood as he gasped for air.

  “It’s like you said, asshole,” Alexa said, her eyes filling with tears but her hands rock steady. “We have to make our own choices about justice now.”

  Danny went to her and gently placed his hand on her gun. “Why don’t you let me have that?”

  Alexa shot him a dark look. “I think we’ve got a long way to go and chances are good that I’m going to need it.”

  Broaddus and Rostov watched them, but President Matheson only stared down at Hanif Khan as the anarchist died, a last expulsion of bloody foam dribbling from his lips.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Danny said. “We really believed he had information that might be vital to figuring out who was behind all of this.”

  Matheson looked up at him. “Does it matter? It’s a level playing field now, soldier. All the power is gone, and the race is on to see who can be first to get it back.”

  “Kelso,” Broaddus said, gesturing inland.

  Danny turned to see the rest of the squad jogging toward him. The ruin of Torres’s missing eye was an echo of Rostov’s wound. Birnbaum stayed with her, Hawkins and the Secret Service bot bringing up the rear. They carried a multitude of guns—assault rifles they had retrieved from dead anarchists.

  “Mister President,” the Secret Service bot said, “if we’ve got transport, it’s time to go. We dealt with the group that attacked us, but there are likely others in the city.”

  “We’re going now, Chapel,” Matheson said. “What about Bingham?”

  “Rocket launcher,” Chapel replied.

  “One of ours, too,” Danny said, glancing at Hawkins, Torres and Birnbaum. “Trav.”

  “Fuck,” Hawkins muttered.

  Birnbaum took Torres’s hand and squeezed.

  “We lost a lot of people today,” Broaddus said, turning to the President and Rostov.

  Cradling his wounded arm, Matheson walked to Alexa.

  “We all did,” the President said.

  After a long moment, Alexa glanced up at him and nodded. Matheson turned to glance at Danny and Chapel.

  “I’d like to never see Athens again,” he said. “How fast can we get out of here?”

  Danny gestured toward the sea wall, beyond which the hydroptere bobbed and rolled upon the sea.

  “Faster than you think.”

  Distant gunfire made him flinch. They all froze a moment
, expecting another attack. When it did not materialize they quickened their steps, rushing together to the end of the circle and onto the sea wall. Zuzu had tied off the trimaran with a pair of lines but Kate hadn’t been able to get her father on board by herself. She had set him down on the rocky wall and waited for them, stroking his hair and talking softly to him.

  Hawkins and Broaddus took the lines, braced themselves, and began hauling the hydroptere toward the wall. Birnbaum, Chapel, and Torres were there to help Alexa and the presidents over to the boat, but he only half-cared about any of them right now.

  “Hey,” he said softly, going down on one knee beside Kate and her father.

  Felix had gone dreadfully pale, his features slack. His breath hitched in his throat and his eyelids fluttered as if he were attempting to keep himself awake.

  Not awake, Danny thought.

  Then Felix went still. His eyes ceased their fluttering and his breath its hitching. His body seemed to relax, the peace of death upon him.

  Danny saw Felix die, saw the sorrow on Kate’s features, and a sudden understanding came upon him, so powerful that he felt helpless in its grip. For so many years he had fought the idea that he might ever need someone. Even before his father’s death he had seen love and real compassion as weaknesses that the universe would exploit if he ever indulged in them. His dad’s cancer had only cemented that view. Danny had told himself that he had to be a shark, had to keep swimming or he would drown.

  Now he saw Kate’s pain and he knew that his own fears no longer mattered. He might not have wanted to need anyone, but he hadn’t been able to prevent her from needing him.

  “I hate it,” Kate rasped, head hung as she held her father’s right hand in both of her own.

  “I know,” Danny said.

  She turned to him, robot eyes gleaming. “I mean the bot. I hate this!”

  Anguish turned her voice into a wail and she released her father’s hand and began to beat at her chest.

  “I hate this!” she said again, gazing desperately at Danny. “I held him, but not in my own arms. He said he was so happy he got to see me, but it isn’t me he saw! Not me, but this! I wanted to comfort him but…when I touched him…”