Proxima Riven:

by Harmon Cooper

  [New target acquired.]

  Success!

  Boy howdy does it feel good to fire a blast directly at the big bruiser on the left. The red beam does little to tear through its metal body, but it does knock it backwards into a spattering of trees.

  It springs back up and a shield forms on its forearm. Meanwhile, Doc is continuing to shoot at the small, Rocketeer-like Air Enforcers swarming all around us and Sophia and Aiden are engaging the other Steam Enforcer.

  Our Steamzord rocks back and forth as Aiden’s blade meets the blade on the Steam Enforcers arm. The steel grinds as they try to overpower one another.

  “Come on, come on … ” I say as the particle beam cannon charges.

  The damn thing! It’s cool down time is killing us. I’m tracking the incoming palooka and if it doesn’t charge soon, the big bastard will definitely have advantage over Aiden, who is completely engaged with the Steamer up front.

  “Hurry up!”

  [The particle beam system is in cool down mode.]

  “Um … transfer backup power to particle beam cannon!”

  [Transferring backup power to particle beam cannon. Please confirm.]

  “Hurry!”

  [Please confirm.]

  “Confirmed!”

  I cut into the incoming Steam Enforcer. The blast does little to tear through its shield, but it does send the rustier, beefier version of K-2SO to the ground. It also momentarily cuts our power.

  “What the hell did you do!?” Doc shouts as we free-fall for a moment.

  “Had to rearrange the backup power! Hostile was incoming. Shit, someone do something!”

  “System backup reboot, standby power engage! Auto-shield sequence initiate!” Sophia cries out.

  My viewing pane flashes.

  [Backup power system reboot. Standby power engaged.]

  [Auto-shield sequence initiating … ]

  [Auto-shield sequence online.]

  Everything flashes green and we swoop up and away from the lake just in time. Water sprays into the air and the tiny Air Enforcers rally their forces. They come at us full throttle, and the towering Steam Enforcers hang back for a moment, allowing the little guys to do their damage.

  Their bullets ding loudly against the Steamzord’s exterior defense.

  Aiden swipes a good baker’s dozen away with his mahoosive sword. Their bodies split in two and like a balloon having its air let out, they spin away.

  [Shoulder particle cannon is nearly operational. Currently at 85% capacity.]

  “Hurry, dammit!”

  As Aiden and Sophia engage the small Air Enforcers, and Doc lays down a wall o’ bullets at the biggest of the two Steam Enforcers, I bite my lip, waiting anxiously for the cannon to fully charge.

  My target now stalks us, tearing up soil and root as it paces back and forth.

  Suddenly, the Steam Enforcer drops to its haunches. As it gets into position, its head and mouth open up. A large, directed energy weapon protrudes from its mouth; a blinding red light spins around it as it begins to charge.

  My reticle blinks.

  Shit …

  [Attack system update. New target acquired.]

  The reticle spins counterclockwise as it homes in on the Steam Enforcer’s open mouth. As I steady the cannon, a cascading series of numbers starts up on my viewing pane. On the ground, a large charge swirls around the Steam Enforcer’s body as it prepares a …

  Throat cannon?

  Now!

  I fire the blast. The Steam Enforcer swallows most of it and not three seconds later, its core pulses, glows lava-red, and explodes.

  Frances Euphoria: Yes!

  “Whoo hoo!” If I had a cowboy hat I’d toss it in the air right about now. One jolly steam giant down, one more to go. I swivel the shoulder cannon so that it faces forward and begin tracking the other enforcer as the cannon charges.

  [Ammunition at half capacity.]

  Before I can ask if this means me or this means the all of us, Doc answers my question: “We’re at half capacity. Sophia, Quantum, and I will concentrate fire on the remaining Steam Enforcer. Aiden, keep swatting the flies. Let’s finish the job!”

  “Roger!” Aiden says.

  “Affirmative!” says Sophia.

  “Let’s murdalize the big goomba!” sez I.

  Doc and Sophia concentrate their fire on the Steam Enforcer. Aiden keeps cutting down itty-bitty Air Enforcers as he slides left and right in an attempt to dodge as many bullets as possible.

  In any other galaxy, I’d experience nausea as everything whips past me and around me. Here, I’m in my element, watching anxiously again as the charging icon lets me know we are good to go.

  “How’d you blow the last one!?” Doc asks as our target continues to block our shots.

  [Shoulder cannon ready.]

  “It turned itself into a mortar, opened its mouth, and I aimed for its tonsils!”

  “Well this one isn’t doing that!” Sophia’s voice is like a shiv in my ear. I cringe and listen as she finishes. “We need to do something to it!”

  “Just keep firing at it!” Doc shouts.

  We waste a lot of ammo trying to take the last Steam Enforcer out, enough that we get a new warning about five minutes later.

  [Ammunition at 25% capacity.]

  “Damn!” I say as I fire yet another blast at the Steam Enforcer, which knocks it back but doesn’t do much else.

  Meanwhile, Aiden has more or less mopped up all the Air Enforcers. Their quickly deflating bodies rest along the shore of Lake Crankcase and a good many float in the water. The water is also filled with prisoners in orange suits. Some swim, others try to use Air Enforcers as rafts, and others have made it to the shore, where they have begun looting the dead Air Enforcers and taking their weapons.

  Still no female Steam Breeds.

  “Someone do something Power Ranger-y!” I call out.

  Aiden’s voice this time. “Bean shooter mode it is!”

  A prompt scrolls across my viewing pain.

  [Reroute shoulder cannon power supply to melee weapon?]

  [Please confirm verbally.]

  “Yes!”

  [Verbal confirmation accepted. Rerouting power supply.]

  [Manual override initiated.]

  [Confirm new artillery mode.]

  “Confirm!” all four of us shout.

  My charge bar disappears and automatic controls take over and lower the craft to the ground. The sound of gears whirring and metal on metal contact echoes in the leg cavity that holds my body. Light flashes across my face as parts move all around me.

  “Frances, can you give me an exterior view of what the hell is going on?”

  Frances Euphoria: All of you should now have a bird’s eye view.

  The bird’s eye view shows Aiden lowered onto one knee – aka me – and hoisting the second largest missile launcher I’ve ever seen to his shoulder. My cannon is gone, as are Sophia’s nipple cannons and Doc’s Gatling gun arm. Everything has been transmogrified into a massive golden shoulder-fired über zapper.

  I’d pump my fist if my arms weren’t locked down like I’m in some sort of sarcophagus.

  “Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em!” Doc hollers.

  The Steam Enforcer charges at us. It continues to fire, its bullets cutting into our shared life bar.

  A pixelated loading hourglass appears on my viewing pane.

  [Steamzord Bot Banger initiating … ]

  “Bot Banger?” Doc snorts.

  I almost say that’s my nickname for Sophia, but I swallow the joke. Damn, it would have been good though.

  The hourglass keeps rotating as the approaching Steamzord gets even closer.

  “Come on, come on,” I say as I watch the loading hourglass. The tiny squares slowly transfer from the top to the bottom. “Let’s go!” I shout. The Steam Enforcer is almost on top of us and its bullets are still tearing into us.

  “Charging takes time,” Sophia reminds me.

  “We’re ab
out to get a big foot in the face if we don’t do something soon.”

  “Almost there!” Aiden says. “Come on … ”

  “Patience, young Proxima learner,” Doc says. His tone of voice as changed; he’s completely in his element, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a cheek to cheek smile across his face.

  [Steamzord Bot Banger is now ready.]

  [Fire at will.]

  The power around me dims and a static line whips across my viewing pane.

  “Shit … ”

  Everything goes black and white.

  A blinding orange light fires from the Steamzord Bot Banger.

  I watch in the bird’s eye view as the blast completely vaporizes the running Steam Enforcer. By the time the blast is finished, all that’s left is a hazy cloud of drifting particles.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I’d love to pat our big Steamzord on the back, but I’m currently stuck in the leg, so no can do. Instead I go with the verbal congratulatory message.

  “Before you start celebrating,” Doc says, “let me remind you that we still have to find this guy’s daughter and get her back to Akrasia. Frances. Some help here?”

  [Ammunition at 18% capacity.]

  [Steamzord cool-down mode initiating … ]

  Frances Euphoria: Here’s a schematic of Alcatraz. I believe she’s in the underground bunker, marked on your schematic.

  Similar to what happens when I wear my reaper skull, a three-dimensional outline forms on my viewing pain. The target is buried in an underground bunker, which means we’ll need to blast our way in.

  “All right, who’s ready to do some digging?”

  Sophia barks in my ear, “Initiate excavation mode!”

  [Appendage-based melee weapons will be disabled.]

  Gears and pulleys clank above me as the Steamzord’s arms rearrange themselves into two yurt-sized rotating saws.

  [Excavation mode initiating … ]

  [Excavation mode ready.]

  The Zord lifts into the air and the sound of rushing steam roars in my ears. We skip right over Crankcase Lake and head to the prison yard.

  “How about a swan dive?” Aiden asks.

  “Better than a cannonball!”

  Aiden steers our craft up and hooks over and drops towards the ground. He lands hard on the badminton court and lifts both rotating saws into the air.

  The ground shakes and a crack forms in the pavement.

  We jump backwards just in time. The ground caves in and dust sprays into the air. My targeting reticle tracks the female Steam Breed as she leaps out the hole.

  Frances Euphoria: That’s her.

  Doc’s voice this time, “Melee weapons engage!”

  [Melee weapons initiating … ]

  More gear grinding and metal on metal contact as the Steamzord’s arms return to their normal status.

  [Melee weapons ready.]

  I’ve got the She-Hulk lined up in my reticle, even though the dust has yet to clear. She’s motionless as she waits for us to act.

  “Hands where we can see ‘em,” Aiden tells her in his booming, Steamzord voice.

  Seconds later, the dust settles and we’re greeted by a solid slab of flesh and mechanical amalgam. The female Steam Breed wears an orange prison outfit that just barely fits. Her chest is a chiseled set of pecs that tells me she’s been doing a lot of pushups in solitary confinement. There’s nothing female or dainty about her, aside from the fact that she’s wearing ruby red lipstick. The red indicator over her head flashes blue, then red.

  She’s a marauder and a player character, just like her old man.

  “We’ve come here to return you to your father,” Aiden says.

  “My heroes!”

  Her voice does not match her body in the least bit. It ain’t quite as sexy as Dolly’s, but it’s pretty damn close. The visual that accompanies the sound is all off, however, like a poorly dubbed Samoan e-porn.

  As expected, her ironic grin flattens. “My father sent you, is that it?”

  “That’s it,” Aiden says, “and we will be escorting you back to Tent City.”

  “That’s sooooooo far.” She crosses her arms over her chest and huffs. “Like, too far. I’d almost rather stay here. How ‘bout I stay here, tall and handsome.”

  Is she … ?

  No, I’m imagining things. She must know that there are four of us in the Steamzord.

  A dwarf prisoner who had been hiding behind a large hunk of rubble pops his head up and takes off. The tween Steam Breed leaps into the air and comes down hard right behind him, causing the dwarf to stumble forward.

  He faceplants on a jagged bit of rubble and steam sprays out of his mouth.

  “Poor guy,” she says as she picks the dwarf up by the back of his prison garb and throws him over her shoulder.

  Frances Euphoria: She’s crazy!

  Me: Just like I like ‘em!

  “Aiden, any way you can let me do the talking?” I ask aloud.

  “You always do the talking,” Sophia reminds me.

  “That’s ‘cause I have a way with words and my voice is simply buttery. Aiden, let me man the vox.”

  “Fine, fine.”

  [Steamzord vocal interface initiating ... ]

  [Initiated.]

  [Please begin speaking.]

  My voice booms out of our Steamzord’s metal mug. “Heya, toots, we got places to go and people to see, and one of those people is your daddy, who’s gonna be happy as a steam clam to see you, believe you me! So howzabout you make this easy on us?”

  She turns to the Steamzord and gives it a curious look. “Are you going to make me go?”

  Are we going to make you go? The nerve of this one.

  “Pappy Steam didn’t say anything returning you dead or alive, but I’m going to make an edumacated guess and assume that he’d be more interested in seeing alive. To answer your question: yes, we are going to make you, yes, it will hurt, no, it won’t kill you, and as I said previously, places to go, people to see, plus I feel like you owe us for busting your ass out of prison here.”

  “I busted myself out of prison,” she reminds me.

  “Parsing matter, sure, I get it and I agree with you. So what do you say – you coming with us or are we making you come with us?”

  “Fine, but we’re definitely not walking there and if you can’t already tell,” she flexes her neck muscles, “I can’t fly.”

  ~*~

  I’m sure a good many of the misguided denizens of Steam got an eyeful the day they saw a Steamzord flying through the air with a prison garbed Steam Breed riding horsey.

  Now I know how Mirror feels.

  “No cowboy shit!” I shout, but my vocal privileges have long been taking away. Nope, Aiden is back at the horn, or the gramophone, and he does little to provoke or entertain the tween Steam Breed.

  Frances Euphoria: More screenshots. Rocket will love this.

  Me: He totally will. That kid will be jealous as hell when he sees what we’ve been up to while he was held prisoner.

  Frances Euphoria: Poor guy :-(

  Poor guy is right, I think as we fly over a tiny village that looks like it hasn’t had a drop of rain in ages.

  The soil is dry, the grass is dead, and the river demarcating the town could barely be considered a trickle. Why’s Ray so against lushness? Sure, the world can be Steampunk, but does it have to be a Dune-esque desert world in parts as well? The constant smog, the consistent dusk around Locus, the corrosion simply for stylistic purposes – it just seems like a lot of work for nothing.

  I’d love to bitch to Rocket about that. If the kid were here, I’d fire off a snarky message about Ray Steampunk being a tool, a rusted tool at that, and how the God Emperor of Steam seems pretty damn insecure if you ask me.

  But the kid ain’t here, and no one else on the Steam Team wants to hear me grumble.

  “Now that’s something.” Doc says as we pass over the remains of an airship. I forget that we’re both getting
the same view of the ground below. The rib-like, skeletal remains of the ship are gone before I can get a good look at them.

  My mind wanders off for the next thirty minutes or so.

  I briefly recall seeing the Lost Pines below and having to change altitude once or twice, but I’m all but zoned out by the time we fly over the one of the walls that keeps Akrasia from the rest of Morlock. I get the notion to fire my shoulder cannon in the general direction of the prison city’s shopping district, but think otherwise.

  Ps and Qs – you gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em.

  We blast the barrier separating Tent City and the rest of Akrasia and my control panel flashes.

  [Initiating landing and undocking sequence.]

  [Ready at command.]

  “Um … how are we supposed to drop the big broad off if we’re separating?”

  “I sent you a message about this like five minutes ago.”

  Sure enough, a written message from Sophia blinks on my viewing pane.

  “Why don’t you ever check my messages!?”

  “I do,” I assure her, without reading the message. “So what are we supposed to do?”

  Doc says, “Affirmative, initiate landing and undock.”

  [Landing and undock initiating … ]

  Insert Transformer sound here.

  There’s enough clanging, clanking, and clunking to give a mechanophobiac the screaming heebie-jeebies. The tween Steam Breed jumps just in time and lands in the center of the courtyard in the center of Tent City.

  Now separated, our Steamsuits land around her in a half circle. I believe I am the only one who strikes a cool pose as I cross my arms over my chest and ever-so-slightly turn my back to Sophia.

  “Where’s your daddy?” I ask as the big Steam Breeds gather. And yes, I almost asked ‘who’s your daddy?’ but again, I’m approaching forty and it’s time to up my maturity.

  More Steam Breeds surround us.

  Why do all these guys and gals look like they have a screw loose? There’s enough Bubba and Cletus faces in the crowds to cast a Steam-based remake of Deliverance.

  As he did before, the old Steam Breed pushes his way through the crowd. He opens his arms wide. “Samantha!”

  Her name is Samantha? As they hug, I get to wondering about their relationship. If they are both player characters, are they actually father and daughter or mother and son and just playing a role? Perhaps they are friends, and one decided to be the other one’s daughter.