by Brian Cody
Hello again, Bryen.
As that text flashed, Bryen shook. He jumped from the desk as the text was obscured by an image—a jagged inscription of an uppercase pi, radiating blood-red. Bryen stared at that symbol, unblinking, rigid, and his chest thrusting.
“Yo, B”—Bryen gasped, his shoulders slouched, and his right ear tensed as he picked up footsteps. He spun to the door as David stepped in, with his form darkening into a silhouette as he stood before the window. “Everything good?” David asked.
“What?” Bryen replied as he shook his head, his eyes glancing back to the screen and then to David. “Yeah, I was just_”—Bryen’s words stopped as he was diverted to a sight beyond David, beyond that window, and in the open sky—a flash of azure light which shot across the backdrop and then turned while brightening. “Dave, move!”
David started to turn as that azure glow reflected off of his back, but, before he could angle his head over his right shoulder, it had impacted. The windowpane behind him was pulverized, but neither the earsplitting blast nor the wooden and glass shrapnel registered in Bryen’s mind until David had already shot past him. Bryen blinked as David was hammered through the far wall at supersonic speeds.
As that second eruption sounded behind Bryen, David slammed into a third wall, passing over the stairwell and then through the opposite wall. David’s eyes were closed as he sped through the first room on the hallway’s right side, and his mouth hung open with jaws tightened as he slammed through the opposite wall of that room in the next instant, then drilled through the second room. A whirlwind of debris followed David from the displaced air pressure, while a vise-grip held firm around his chest and back. David inhaled, in order to brace himself and then to retaliate, but, within the next instant, he slammed through the final wall, leaving the house and entering the night’s air before descending. That tight hold, once subjecting him to precipitous motion, loosened and allowed David to continue his dizzying fall.
He slammed into the ground, one hundred feet south of the house, in a geysering tremor. With his form eclipsed in a light burn, David opened his eyes and lifted himself to his knees, while a stronger and more strident impact rumbled fifty yards behind him. Coughing, David clasped the sides of his crater and heaved himself onto level ground while looking to the cloud of dust descending before him, and to the silhouette kneeling within that ashen plume. The shape reared up as David stepped back, and the shape moved in a stomp that trembled the earth and pulsated the hovering dust. It stepped, pushing out of that cloud and into view, and David tensed and shook his head to ensure that he wasn’t still dazed—to ensure that that form was as he saw it.
It’s not human—that was the most immediate thing David could discern, but it took several moments more before he could convince himself that the figure was, indeed, of an artificial nature—a machine, but a machine carved in the likeness of man. It had two arms, and two legs, a torso, a neck, and a head. Its frame, elongated and tone like the frame of a professional sprinter, stood at six and a half feet. Its shoulders were of a moderate width and ended in sharp rectangular points, and its arms were long, with a total wingspan, as David estimated, of seven and a half feet. Its upper body was composed of three overlapping segments for what would have been, in a human, the chest area—a rectangular mass; the abdominal region—two rounded cylinders atop one another and decreasing in width; and the hips—a trapezoidal mass from which the two legs sprung before ending at toe-less feet.
Its head was a stretched oval, flattened at its top and pointed at the chin, while its face was the simplest portion of its body. Where there would have been a mouth was a molded line forming the illusion of two lips; the nose, too, was but a pointed convex, while the eyes, dark-silver orbs, moved like human eyes, with irises that glowed an electric blue and pupils that dilated and contracted by spiraling parts. Almost the entirety of the machine’s body was like alabaster smoke in coloration and visible texture, while the joints along the arms and legs were a glossy silver. However, along the machine’s outline was a miniscule layer of turquoise light, a luminescence which the machine produced and which covered its form in a diaphanous gleam. To David, the added glow caused for that machine to appear to have been molded from a diamond, and it too seemed as hard as he found that form, at first glance, unscathed from the impact. However, he found a flaw: an opaque crack darting across the chest that branched into two smaller lines along the left shoulder.
“Did the impact do that?” David muttered, “Or_?” The machine lunged, rushing in a cadence of stomping but alacritous paces, lifting its arms, squeezing its fists, and swinging at David. David stepped back and ducked under a right jab, with the speed of that machine, despite its apparent weight, driving him to lift his arms for defense. With a swipe of his left, David deflected a left swat, while his body slid to his right. David then stumbled as the machine swung. Then, as he locked onto an unguarded space, he stepped in and jabbed at the machine’s chest. The machine remained in one piece as it slid for ten feet, and, as David looked on, he found that crack unchanged in size or width. He then took another step, but paused to shake his right hand, with the tops of his knuckles burning. “Frick!” he roared as the machine rushed.
***
“What hit him!?” Shawn inquired as he followed Bryen down the steps.
“I don’t know”, Bryen replied as he dashed for the front door, “it was too fast for me to see”, he said before stopping and glaring at the doorway’s locks. “Freakin’ door”, Bryen groaned as he extracted another piece of his shadow.
“Move away; I’ll break through”, Shawn called as he stopped in front of the stairwell and pulled his catcher’s mask from his bag. He fastened the item onto his head and leapt for the entrance. A grating clangor from his left stopped him, and a phantasmal blur speeding by and plowing through the wall on his right drove him back. Shawn looked left, to the human-sized gape along the house’s wall, and he then spun to the right, making note of the identical opening leading to the field. “What was that?” Shawn asked as he stepped back.
“That was Piekarsky!” Bryen exclaimed. “Hurry, open the door!”
“Forget the door!” Shawn replied as he grabbed his duffle bag and spun to the rightward gape.
***
David coughed as he bounced once. He moaned through his teeth as he bounced a second time; and he seized as he slammed into the earth and rolled to a stop one hundred yards from the house. He dragged himself to his feet, looking to the house and the surrounding plane, and then to the stream of blue exhaust illuminating the atmosphere, surging from the soles of the alabaster machine’s feet, and propelling it in a subsonic dive towards David. The machine deactivated its propulsive flames and landed feet-first, its condensed girth tearing through the ground as it decelerated. As David rushed to meet it, the machine outstretched its right and squeezed its fist, with a series of clanks sounding from its form and ending in the extraction of a double-edged, white blade, almost a yard in length, from the top of its forearm.
The machine jumped and swung for David, and David lifted his left arm to block. That won’t do anything…—yet, as the machine swung to its left, and as David eyed the bluish glow trailing behind the blade’s cusp, suspicion and trepidation flooded his mind. Move! David lowered his left, with the blade slicing past his sweatshirt and nicking an inch of his flesh. David’s breaths ceased as his mind replayed that contact and imagined what would’ve ensued had he kept his arm in place. In those milliseconds, as the machine followed through and simultaneously landed, David looked towards the blade and towards the acicular tip; then, he scanned that weapon, and, then, he located another imperfection—the right edge of the machine’s sword bore a rectangular gap halfway down its length, as if a portion of that strange metal had dissevered, or, as David recalled its shape and its texture, as if it had been rent.
David blinked and found himself below the George Wade Bridge, beside Sterling Blue’s corpse, and looking to the glossy white fragment w
hich had fallen from his grasp. It’s a perfect…
He blinked again as the machine landed, and he jumped back as the machine rushed. It’s the same blade! David’s visage tightened and became consumed with a furious brew. As the machine rushed, David tensed his legs, knelt, and bolted in a low, blurring flight, but the machine, acting with near-equal speed, rocketed into the air. It spiraled as David passed underfoot and, with the full outstretching of its left leg, it fired its shin into David’s back and hammered him into the ground. The machine then landed and turned, but David bolted for it. The machine pointed its left at David, then squeezed its fist, causing the top of its wrist to open in an expanding slide, and, in a series of expedient turns and connections, causing a group of parts to combine into a three-inch barrel, that, as David closed in, radiated red light.
A scarlet beam bellowed from that device and slammed into David’s chest, scorching his clothes, singeing his flesh, and launching him backwards for ten yards before surceasing. As David hit the ground, his chest expanded in shivering pulses, and his eyes remained agape as his mind hovered within a daze. After watching David remain in place and after analyzing his form, the machine strode twice and lunged for him. Yet, as it reached its zenith, a silhouette appeared to its left, and, before it could turn, a caliginous hand slammed into its side and rammed it to the ground. The limb retracted, spiraling past David and diving into Bryen’s silhouette as he and Shawn—then adorned in his catcher’s armor and with a chain of papers in grasp—charged.
As the alabaster machine jumped up, Shawn slid to a halt and pitched his bleached chain. In a serpentine blur, the paper length wrapped around the machine’s chest, while the remaining fifty feet tightened as Shawn yanked the machine towards him. The machine drove its blade through Shawn’s adamantine papers and severed them in a clean slice. It then lifted its left and caused its left forearm to open and to extract a silver rocket. With a pyretic burst, the rocket sped groundward. First tensing as they realized the proximity from the machine and the miniscule odds of evading its dart, Shawn and Bryen stepped and then lunged apart, and the rocket continued for fifty yards before slamming into the field and erupting in a torrent of flames powerful enough to launch them farther.
Before either could breathe, the hard stomp of the machine landing across from them drove them to their feet, and, as it charged, they jumped to opposite sides. “Piekarsky!” Shawn bellowed as he hovered ten feet in the air and fired another chain, only to have it sliced in half as the machine turned to him.
“I’m pretty sure he’s out!” Bryen exclaimed as he swung his arm to loose a jabbing length of his shadow, against which the alabaster machine evaded. “That laser could probably vaporize a normal body. I’d be really surprised if one strike didn’t kill either of us”, he finished as he leapt back and slid on his shadow, while the machine turned to him.
“Shoot”, Shawn groaned as he dove for the machine, but then stopped and bounded as the machine fired its laser at him. “B!” he called as he rushed through the air.
“Hi”, Bryen yelped as he wound back both hands and swung them in rapid succession, with his shadow expelling two more limbs. The machine sidestepped the first and then lunged over the second.
“I have an idea!” Shawn continued as he landed next to Bryen, grabbed him by the shoulders, and flew him into the air as the machine fired its laser.
“I’m open to ideas”, Bryen replied as they descended.
“Can you hold that thing off?” Shawn asked.
“Incredibly doubtful”, Bryen replied as they landed, and the machine rushed from forty feet.
“I just need a few seconds!” Shawn called as he soared for the house.
“Shawn, are you_!?”—Bryen spun to the house but then spun back and ducked as the machine lunged at him. He stumbled past it, spun, and back-kicked his left, with his shadow launching another limb.
***
Shawn landed beside the house and looked into the gape that David had been launched through. “Please tell me Sterling Blue kept all of his receipts”, he muttered as he spread his arms, opened his hands, and concentrated.
***
Bryen lunged back and the machine swung down, its blade cleaving through the ground before it reared up and sprinted for him. Bryen lifted both arms as he landed, and fired another duet of shadowy limbs, but the machine countered in a flash of red light, incinerating Bryen’s first limb and then driving its blade through the side of Bryen’s second. “O-kay”, Bryen grumbled as he retracted his second into his silhouette, jabbed, thrust, and hooked his hands. Six phantasmal limbs exploded from under him and darted for the machine, slamming into it and driving it back for thirty feet before it jumped away. Bryen retracted the limbs to spiral around him, stepped, and flung them once more. With a thrust of his left, he directed one of the jagged hands in a diving shot; with a swipe of his right, he directed two more of the limbs in a diagonal swing.
Then, with a hard clap of his hands, Bryen caused three of those limbs to slam into one another, to spiral around one another, and to congeal into a serrated javelin. Bryen then pulled back his right to hold the amalgamation overhead. He held his breath, tightened the muscles in his right arm, and swung. The obsidian harpoon bolted past the other three limbs and speared against the machine’s gut. As the automaton was thrust rearward, Bryen pushed further, driving it across fifty yards before his javelin slid off and reared up.
Gasping and leaning, Bryen retracted his projectiles into his silhouette, while the machine, on its feet, stepped forward. Bryen then removed his glasses and dilated his pupils to search for damage—something miniscule but large enough for him to ensure that his battle wasn’t futile—yet, as he found his javelin’s contact point, and as the machine stepped, Bryen found a smart but a few inches in length and, at most, a millimeter in depth.
Things which I have cut through: glass, wood, a boulder, assorted metals, probably military grade steel, and yet… “Lame”, Bryen groaned as he lowered his glasses over his eyes. He reached behind his right shoulder, to the top of his back, where he squeezed his fist but tensed as he felt only the handle to his book-bag. “Why waste book money on a sword if you keep forgetting it?!”
The machine charged. It cleared that gap in a triple-digit sprint and aimed its left at Bryen. Bryen, with a thrust of his left, fired three of his shadowy projectiles in a spiraling formation. With a flash, the machine loosed and then swiped its laser, severing all three of the limbs and dissipating them into an expanding black mist. It jumped, lifted its blade, and swung, but Bryen crossed both arms overhead, causing a line of his shadow to rise from behind and cascade over him. The sword was driven back, and the machine landed in front of Bryen, but then leapt into a rocket-accelerated flip. It swung its left leg as it moved, inverted, to shatter Bryen’s veil and to throw him aside.
Before he could hit the ground, Bryen spread his legs, decelerating in a rough drag and sliding backwards as his shadow expanded underfoot. The machined sprinted, while Bryen spun and swiped his legs to propel himself backwards. The machine, in retort, jumped and blasted forward in a fiery jolt, its speed doubling and then tripling, and the gap of one hundred yards being cut down within moments. The machine dove from above Bryen, and it pulled back its right arm with the cusp of its blade aimed at Bryen’s chest.
Bryen blinked, against his own conscious thoughts and his own preservative instinct, and, in the same moment, a strident knock sounded in front of him as another object slammed into the machine and diverted its course into the ground, where it reared up and bounced across the field. The alabaster machine then back-flipped onto its feet and spun to its interceptor—a second form cloaked in white.
That seven-foot form was human within its core, while, surrounding, engrossing, and expanding upon that human were scores of layers of papers, compacted and congealed into the likeness of a segmented, angular, and muscular armor that eclipsed everything under Shawn’s neck. “And so much more”, Shawn recited as he lifted
his armored hands, both a foot in width, tightened them into fists, and knelt.
The machine retracted its blade and bolted for Shawn, and Shawn sprinted to meet it, accelerating to sixty miles per hour. The machine jumped, and Shawn did the same; the machine wound back, and Shawn did the same; and, as they collided one hundred feet over the field, they let fly, the automaton’s expeditious throws slamming into Shawn’s armor, but causing little more than small dents. Shawn pushed the machine away as they descended, and then he retorted, countering the machine’s throws. Then, with one last wind-up, Shawn uppercut the machine’s chest. Then, while landing in a cratering kneel, he watched the machine hurl towards the tree line on the opposite side of the field.
“It would be a little more efficient if you just flew”—Shawn looked back to Bryen gasping and walking to him with his hands in his coat pockets. “You could fly after it and keep hitting it; hopefully beat it so we can leave.”
“I can’t”, Shawn replied as he stood. “I’m putting so much concentration into maintaining this ‘Prime Armor’, and it’s simultaneously so heavy, that flight is basically impossible”, he explained as the machine’s impact thundered across from them.
Both turned and watched the machine, still unblemished from three consecutive bouts, stand and rocket along the ground. “Don’t you worry; I got this!” Shawn exclaimed as he charged. By outstretching his left and squeezing his fist, Shawn blasted a sortie of papers that folded into a swarm of four-pronged shuriken and sped for the machine. The machine covered itself with its right, with the papers impacting but only scraping its armor, and as the barrage continued in an unremitting, but ineffective, hail, and as the two foes closed in, the machine outstretched its left and fired its laser, incinerating the remaining projectiles. Shawn spiraled to his right to evade and wound back to swing. The machine deactivated its exhaust, flipped over Shawn, and, with its legs aimed, reactivated its propelling flames. Shawn crossed his arms over his head, with the surges pounding into his armor but only burning the outermost layer. Shawn then pushed against the machine’s flames to drive it back, but the machine stabilized with a turn. Shawn then pushed off, ramming into the machine and leaping into the air.
