Broken Hero

by Jonathan Wood

  “What did he do?” I ask. I feel helpless.

  “Don’t know,” Tabitha says, not looking at me. “Too much.” She is not slapping or shaking him now. Her fingers are soft as they explore his skin.

  “Arthur!” Hannah yells from behind me. “Now!”

  At first I don’t understand the words. I am too caught up in the disaster before me. This is not how this was supposed to go down. I am the one who is supposed to die. Not Clyde. This is the time for my noble sacrifice, not his. I am meant to die to save him. That’s the whole point. To save my friends. Now is the time for my sacrifice. Not his.

  Now.

  Now.

  “Now!” Hannah yells again. “We have to move!”

  Oh God. She means… this is it. This is the moment. And I am not ready. But I have to be ready. I have to…

  I stumble away from Clyde, not quite able to take my eyes off him. The pool of blood around his head is too big. Is too much.

  I hit the stairs, stumble, try to right myself. I can see down into the pit below.

  Hermann has driven himself at Friedrich. The hand of his splinted arm has torn through the devastated armor plating covering the giant Uhrwerkmänn’s stomach, and his fist is buried among the cogs beneath. Friedrich is smashing great blows down on Hermann’s shoulder, like a blacksmith at the forge. With each blow Friedrich’s damaged fist flakes great shards of metal, but still he crushes Hermann’s joint out of recognition.

  With his remaining good hand Hermann delivers a pile driver of a blow to Friedrich’s exposed chin. The ragged metal gives way. The jaw unhinges, tears away. Gears and oil gush out. Friedrich gives an inarticulate roar. His blows redouble. But Hermann drives his feet forward, pushes the giant back.

  We are halfway down now. I look back, search for Clyde, but he has disappeared behind the lip of the stairs. I stumble over one step, another. He has to survive. He has to pull through. He has to be alive so I can save him. I have to save all of them.

  That thought gives me the strength to keep my feet steady beneath me. Hannah reaches out, grabs my wrist, helps pull me forward, onward, down.

  An Uhrwerkmänn sees us coming, steps to block the bottom of the stairs. But then Kayla is there. She swipes her sword across the back of its knee. It topples.

  Then we are on it. Hannah and I leap together. My feet strike the Uhrwerkmänn’s toppling back, and then I am scrambling and slipping down, jumping over its tangling legs.

  Then we are in the thick of it. Running pell-mell across the battlefield. Hannah’s hand helps propel me. We run parallel. Then I am ahead. Then I am leaving her behind. There is a moment of panic. With two of us, this seemed more manageable. But navigating the field of smashing limbs alone… But then I remember: she has to drop back. She has to be ready to take the shot. This is on me.

  I skid beneath a flailing limb, hurdle a rogue leg. I twist between two clashing bodies, pull up short as two Uhrwerkmänner crash through my path, then dive forward as flaming oil arcs through the air toward me.

  I set my sights on my goal. Volk’s blunt corpse in the heart of the Uhrwerkgerät. The structural weak point beside him.

  Wait.

  The structural weak point.

  That Clyde is meant to destroy. Clyde who is unconscious and bleeding out above me.

  How the hell am I meant to take down the Uhrwerkgerät? It’s massive. A welded monstrosity of steel girders and titanic bronze bodies. And I am not equipped with explosives, a grenade. What the hell do I do?

  I want to slow down, to call a timeout so we can all think this through rationally. But the momentum of the moment has me, is pulling me forward. There is no stopping this now.

  Shit. Shit. And shit. And balls.

  A final Uhrwerkmänn lunges in front of me. It aims a claw-like hand at me, swipes. I skid to a halt, tottering on the tips of my toes. The claws whisper past my stomach. I am less than an inch from having to carry my bowels with me as I run.

  The Uhrwerkmänn steps forward, ensures the range is more disembowelment-friendly.

  And as if in response to the invitation, Kayla is there, disemboweling the machine.

  I am struck by how similar the moment is to a human death. An oil slick chain slips from the wound, drags larger clots of gearwork with it. The Uhrwerkmänn stands staring for a moment.

  I stare at Kayla. “Where did you…?” is all I can gasp.

  “Get the feck on with you!” Kayla shoves me forward. I fly a few additional feet closer to the Uhrwerkgerät.

  “I can’t,” I say.

  “Can’t?” She stares at me as if assessing me for signs of a serious mental defect. “The thing’s about to feckin’ go. Can’t you feel it?”

  This is as desperate as I’ve ever seen Kayla. And it’s that alone that makes me pause, take stock. And she’s right. I can feel something. An ugly pressure in my sinuses, behind my eyes. The first quaking warnings of a headache that will split my skull. Oh shit.

  “The weak point,” I say. “The structural weak point. We can’t…” I am too out of breath to get it all out.

  “Clyde,” Kayla snaps. And he was indeed the plan.

  “Down,” I pant back.

  Kayla rolls her eyes. “Want something done…” she says. And starts to accelerate toward me. I brace for impact.

  Somehow another Uhrwerkmänn manages to insert itself into the space between us. Kayla’s blade whips out fast enough to make the air crack. Then the Uhrwerkmänn is no longer between us.

  She is beside me. “Come on.” And then we are running together. Her grip is like a metal band around my arm. My feet fly over the ground, barely making contact.

  And then we’re there. In the heart of it. I am staring up at Volk. At what is left of Volk. Bathed in the cold blue light of him.

  The pressure is greater here. The pain in my sinuses has sharp edges. There is a buzzing in my ears and the edges of my vision are blurred. I grit my teeth. The sounds of the fight beyond seem distant, muffled. As if they’re happening elsewhere. Or not everywhere that I am. Highly reality permeable. That was how Tabitha described this bomb. And the blurring at the edges of my vision. It comes clear for a second. Other realities lying over this one. Other fights. Other forces. Robot fighting man. Man fighting man. Other, more exotic encounters. And a blank room. And no room at all; just rock; everything buried in rock.

  I clutch my head.

  “No feckin’ time for that shite.” Kayla’s voice is more present, more insistent than the fight. She’s close to the core with me. Everywhere and everywhen that I am.

  She grabs a hold of one girder, flips her body horizontal, suspended above the ground, braces her feet against a cross-beam and starts to heave.

  I can’t understand what she’s doing at first. Because it’s absurd. Impossible. And then I see the welds. Fat and fresh, holding the beams together. And it’s still absurd, still impossible. She is trying to force the girders apart, through sheer force of muscle. And even for her…

  There is an ungodly popping noise. A crack like the sky splitting. The ground shakes beneath me.

  There is a crack in the weld.

  Kayla’s entire body is taut. Her skin is a red that puts her hair to shame. Muscles bulge. She makes an anatomical model of herself. A dull moan of effort slips between clenched teeth, adds itself to the background rumble of distorting realities.

  And that crack got the Uhrwerkmänner’s attention. I can see them turning, staring.

  Another earth-shattering crack. The split in the weld is larger now. The pain in my head spikes sharper, the pitch of the buzzing in my ears is higher. The flickering of other nows almost blinds me.

  Overlaid over it all, Kayla drops to the ground in front of me. “Come on,” she says. “Feckin’ help already.”

  “I…” I stare at the beams. I shrug at the impossibility of it. “I’m not like you.”

  “You have to be the one, right?” Kayla says, voice urgent. I can see Uhrwerkmänner starting to move to
ward us through the tangle of the bomb’s infrastructure. “That was the whole point of your talk up there, wasn’t it? You have to bring it down?”

  “I…” I say. “I don’t know.” I can’t remember now. There’s too much chaos within and without.

  “Well it’s a bit feckin’ late to gamble.” Kayla reaches over her shoulder, pulls out her sword. “Jam this in the gap. Use it like a lever.”

  It’s a ridiculous thing to ask. Like I could contribute anything that wasn’t utterly insignificant. But maybe insignificant is enough. It will be a contribution. I don’t know the rules I’m playing with here. But I do know that the Uhrwerkmänner are closing in on us.

  I jam the blade into the crack. One inch of the sword’s tip finds its way in. I push to no avail. Kayla takes up position on the far side of the girder. She strains.

  I heave. I feel like a fool. What can I expect to do?

  The Uhrwerkmänner are closer now. They are too large for the going to be easy or half as fast as our entrance, but they will still get here and get here soon.

  Another crack. The fabric of reality seems to shimmer in front of me.

  Not yet. Not another future echo yet. This was meant to be quick. A single strike. This is giving reality too much time to drop a brick in its pants.

  “Come on!” I urge no one in particular. Thankfully Kayla is too busy grunting with exertion to take it personally. “Come on!”

  Another crack. The blade sinks six inches into the seam. I heave, even as reality roils. I can feel the blade flex. But… is there something else too?

  Kayla is screaming now, barely audible over the whine of the Uhrwerkgerät as it starts to go critical. Another sound. Less of a crack and more of a crunching, ripping sound. The blade jerks beneath my arms, I stagger back.

  The girder has given way. A great bend in it. Above us metal starts to buckle. The Uhrwerkmänner slow in their approach, suddenly wary.

  Kayla drops to the floor. Sweat has soaked every inch of her. Her hair is matted to her scalp and shoulder.

  “All you now,” she pants. “One last heave.”

  I yank on the blade. It’s as ridiculous as it ever was. I feel the blade flex dangerously.

  “Not feckin’ yet!” Kayla snaps. “Wait ’til I’m feckin’ clear.”

  “I can’t,” I say, trying to wipe intruding realities from the corners of my eyes. Kayla is a blur. “The blade will break,” I try to explain.

  “So let it feckin’ break.” She shrugs. “Renny fair piece of shite. And anyway, what am I going to do? Kill you?”

  Oh God. This is it. This is genuinely it. My stomach drops and keeps on going. There is no bottom for it to hit. Just the endless maw of eternity opening up before me.

  Kayla turns away. I grab her shoulder. “Tell Felicity,” I say. “Tell her…” I don’t have the words. There’s too much to tell. “Tell her everything.”

  “Aye.” There’s surprising softness in Kayla’s voice. “I’ll do that.”

  I smile, grateful. “Hell,” I say, “if there’s any way you can patch things up with Ephie in the next eight seconds and have her save my ass, that would be great too.”

  “Feck off.” And then Kayla is gone, speeding away, a blur of motion of shimmering realities.

  I am on my own, surrounded by Uhrwerkmänner. They restart their approach. And this is it. This is the end of the end.

  79

  I take a breath. I grab the sword. I heave.

  Why the hell didn’t I move in with Felicity? What sort of jackass am I?

  The blade starts to bow. Above me metal cracks and crunches, welds popping, girders buckling.

  I got so caught up in dying. God, I really screwed MI37 over. They’re going to be rolled into MI6. Because of me. That’s my goddamn legacy. Jesus.

  I heave harder on the blade. I reach the maximum pressure I can exert. I swing my legs up, mimicking Kayla, legs braced against the cross-beam, hanging almost upside down, heaving on the sword handle, punching metal with my legs.

  Give. Give way, you bastard beam.

  Hannah. I should have been better to Hannah. If I’d just listened to Felicity I could have left something so much better behind.

  The blade bows further. The feel of something shifting beneath me.

  Shit. Hannah. She has to shoot me. She has to… God, she has to kill me. I’ve lost track of her in the chaos. I search the crowd but it’s out of focus, the Uhrwerkgerät screaming too loudly in my head to let me see.

  Can she see me? Can she take the shot? God, this could be an awful mess.

  One last heave. And something gives. Something breaks. I feel it the instant before the consequences hit me. Time is warping, becoming strange and sluggish. The blade breaks. A clear ringing sound, a beautiful counterpoint to the static of the Uhrwerkgerät.

  The beam beneath my feet gives way. With a noise to end the world.

  I smash to the ground. Pieces of Kayla’s sword spatter the metal plates around me.

  And above…

  I see the first girder give way. It looks like it’s falling in slow motion. Clanging against another, knocking it free. Turning end over end. Another then another. All of the Uhrwerkgerät coming down on me.

  And then, beyond that. A flicker of motion, up on the ledge of the stairs. Back where I left Clyde and Tabitha. But not a scruffy collegiate man. Not an angry Pakistani goth with her short hair molded into devil horns.

  A beam hits the ground beside me. Plunges through an Uhrwerkmänn, unseaming it. Another strikes, crushes two of the robots.

  I barely pay attention. I am trying to see. It’s someone else up there. A girl perhaps. Flowing hair. A bright yellow and pink summer dress billowing about her.

  I pick myself up on one elbow, raise myself even as everything else collapses.

  A girder eclipses my vision. A yard away. It is the face of oblivion.

  And then Hannah’s bullet smashes against my temple and buries itself in my brain.

  80

  AFTER?

  God, oblivion blows.

  I mean, for starters it can be really goddamn painful. It arrives, it drifts—the pain—swirling over me. And I am buried by it in the dark. And then it fades, melting away, some warmth flooding my veins. Only the darkness remaining. And then time passes in its own vague meaningless way. And then it all starts again.

  Yes, oblivion is excruciatingly repetitive. That’s another thing I dislike.

  It strikes me that I had a lot of regrets when I died. That I had made a lot of poor decisions. So perhaps this is hell. It seems a little low budget compared to what was advertised, but I can imagine an eternity of this really starting to grate.

  The next time the pain comes it brings other things with it. A dull beeping, which does little to improve the atmosphere. And an uncomfortable pressure all over my body. It strikes me that the pain is gaining specificity. My head, my legs, one arm. The pain is sharper there, duller elsewhere.

  At least it’s a change.

  Time passes. The pain comes again. But this time, instead of burying me it brings light. A sharp crack of it that I try to shy away from. But it pursues me. There is the beeping, but other noises too. I get the impression of being surrounded by enormous amounts of activity. And I don’t want any part of it. It is too much. I think of the falling girders.

  Oblivion, I think, is taking a turn for the worse.

  CONSCIOUSNESS

  “He’s awake!”

  Whoever is shouting is doing it too loudly.

  I blink. The room is a smear of too-bright color and sound. Beeping, and chairs scraping, and voices, and feet slapping on a vinyl floor.

  “He’s awake!” The same voice again. The same volume. But I know that voice.

  I blink more, try to bring things into focus. I feel like I have been too confused for too long.

  Aren’t I meant to be dead? Wasn’t that part of the deal? I seem to remember being sure about that.

  Didn’t I get shot in the h
ead?

  I try to raise my hand, to feel for the spot where pain bloomed. It comes again, sharp and hard, leaving me gasping. My arm flops to the bed. It feels weak.

  The bed.

  I am in a bed.

  More blinking.

  “Arthur? Arthur, can you hear me?”

  A shape. An oval. A silhouette. And then a face. And then a face I know.

  “Felicity?”

  “Oh thank God.”

  And it is her. And with that recognition everything else starts to snap into focus. Details of the room. Details of everything that happened before coming together at once.

  A hospital bed. A hospital room. No, a ward. And more than just Felicity here. Others too. And windows and light. It is day, and I am alive.

  “I’m alive,” I say. I don’t understand it. This should be impossible. If I’m alive reality should be dead. So either way… Well, I should be dead.

  “But you’re not.” Felicity kisses my forehead. Her lips feel sweet and cool, tamping down the fire of the pain there.

  I’m not.

  I’m not and Felicity is kissing me. After everything I did. After everything I failed to do. I do not deserve this.

  I try to twist away, but my body feels sluggish and it makes my head hurt. Still she pulls away. There is concern in her eyes.

  “Are you—?” she starts.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. It needs to be said. “I’m so sorry. I screwed everything up. I got… I got everything twisted. I made everything worse. MI37… Moving in…”

  She shakes her head. “There’s nothing to worry about. We’ll talk about that later. When you’re feeling better.”

  Nurses and doctors are entering the room. Other people are leaving. I should be paying attention to who they are, but I only have eyes for Felicity.

  I jerk my hand about, find hers, squeeze.

  “I don’t know why I didn’t move in with you,” I say. “I can’t think of the reason why.”