Tempus Regit

by Edmund Hughes

  He swung his Frequency Claymore in a whirling, continuous arc, similar to how he’d originally been taught by Vivian. Many of the fingers fell to the attack. Archer pushed forward, sweeping his weapon over his head in time to sever one of the legs of the fabricant as it tried to step down on him.

  The missing leg unbalanced the monster, and it collapsed halfway down into the street. That was all the opportunity Archer needed. He jumped and swung his sword, watching as the eyes of the fabricant as it realized there was nothing more it could do.

  His blade cut through the monster’s torso and chest, cutting it in two. It didn’t die immediately, however, going into thrashing, seizure like contortions instead. Archer hurried down the alleyway and shepherded the people there out, sending them up the street and into hopefully safer territory.

  “Archer!” Vivian’s voice was sharp and panicked in his ear. “There’s more of them organizing outside of the breach. The Watchers are trying to make a stand, but there is almost nothing they can do.”

  “I’m on it.”

  Archer sprinted through the city, trying to ignore the chaos of what had once been his home. It would take weeks for the people of the coal district to clean up, and longer to move past the trauma and fear that would remain in the wake of the attack.

  He reached the breach, and it was worse than he’d thought. There was nothing that he could think of that would be able to block a hole so wide. Five or six rail cars could have fit through it, side by side.

  Just as Vivian had said, the Watchers were trying to make a stand and getting destroyed. Outside of what little illumination leaked out from the city, the only lights against the night’s darkness were the tiny, handheld ones the Watchers carried, which flickered out periodically as the man or woman holding them went down.

  “Get back!” shouted Archer. “Get behind me!”

  There was no way they could hear him, at least not the ones that needed to hear his command. People were screaming and dying all around him. Gunfire echoed through the air, useless against the fabricants and their shielding fingers. Men were attacking bare handed, or with hammers or mechanical tools or whatever else they could find, barely inflicting any damage before being knocked away by a leg or stripped of their flesh by the nanobots.

  And at the center of it all, standing boldly, like the star of a movie, was the Knight Fabricant. He was watching and waiting, sword at the ready. Archer approached slowly, bringing his Frequency Claymore up to a dueling stance.

  It hasn’t even been a day since we last fought, and I haven’t gotten any better.

  He attacked first. The Knight Fabricant wasn’t caught off guard, and parried easily. Archer fell back a step or two. A fabricant chasing after a group of Watchers brushed by him, and he was distracted.

  The Knight Fabricant attacked with blinding speed, his sword feinting one way before slashing another. Archer managed a weak block, but the force of the strike was enough to knock him off balance. He fell, and rolled as soon as he hit the ground, dodging a stab that would have gone through his armor skin like an empty soda can.

  “Archer!” screamed Vivian. “You can’t win against that thing! Retreat and try to gather materials to block the breach.”

  Archer barely heard her. He was slowly rising to his feet, all of his attention on his opponent. The Knight Fabricant attacked. Archer parried and counterattacked, feeling a moment of elation as his blade made it past his opponent’s guard and nicked its strange, metallic shoulder. The Knight Fabricant swept in close to him, grabbing Archer by the neck through his armor skin and tightening his grip.

  Pain surged through Archer’s body, unlike anything he’d felt before. He screamed, unable to think, unable to even see through the depths of agony the Knight Fabricant was inflicting on him. He knew that it was something to do with the skin’s artificial nervous system, and that the pain was empty, not reflective of actual damage that his physical body was taking. He knew, and it didn’t matter.

  Trevor… What would you do?

  Four of the Watchers leapt out of the darkness, none of them carrying flashlights and hidden from sight because of it. They tackled the Knight Fabricant, knocking it to the ground with their combined weight.

  Archer fell into a limp heap as the monster released its hold on him, and then the rest of the pain hit him. He tried to sit up, but black stars weaved across his vision. All thinking came to a stop, and he passed out.

  CHAPTER 41

  Archer turned the device over in his tiny hands, frowning and trying to figure out which part of it might be the most useful. He was eight, and Trevor was twelve, and both of them worked one of the simple, low paying jobs that was both easy enough to be done by children and pointless enough to be passed over by most adults.

  “Stupid…” he muttered. “I don’t know what this is.”

  He briefly considered tossing it back into the massive mound of trash to be recycled. Trevor was next to him, however, humming a song from his favorite show broadcast from the public TVs. Trevor would get mad at him if he tossed it back.

  “You don’t know what it is,” said Trevor. “But guess what?”

  “What?” asked Archer.

  “None of the people in the citizen’s district do, either,” he said.

  “That’s not true!” said Archer, defensively. “They’re really smart.”

  “Do you think they’re smarter than us, Archer?” asked Trevor. “Or the same?”

  Archer frowned, thinking about the question and knowing the answer Trevor wanted, but not being able to parse out the reasoning behind it. He’d always assumed that there was a reason why they were in the coal district. It only made sense, in his young mind.

  “I don’t know,” said Archer.

  Trevor reached over and took the little electronic device from him, turning it in his hand in the light of the sun.

  “See?” he said. “This part of it right here. It’s a motor, definitely still good and still usable, even if the cover is broken. Just snap this off, and pull this out… It’s like solving a little puzzle, Archer.”

  “Trevor…” said Archer. “Why do we live in the coal district, then? If they aren’t any smarter than we are, why doesn’t everyone just live in the same district? Or wherever they want?”

  Trevor shrugged.

  “It’s not that simple,” he said. “None of us are in a very good situation, Archer. This isn’t normal, even though it seems normal to us. It’s not the way things should be, like how they were in some of the books mom reads to us, you know?”

  Archer nodded, though he didn’t really follow. He picked up something else, cutting the inside of his hand on a sharp, metal edge he hadn’t noticed.

  “Ow! This is stupid, I don’t want to do this anymore.”

  “Just go slow,” said Trevor. “Solve each one like a puzzle, like I said before.”

  “I wish we didn’t have to work,” said Archer.

  “We’ll always have to work. And when you get a little bit old, you’ll see that the work is for real. To survive, not just to make enough money so we can buy our own lunches.”

  Trevor looked toward the outer wall, which loomed in the distance. The sun was at an angle that left most of the buildings nearest to the city’s edge in the wall’s shadow.

  “This might not be fun, Archer, but outside the city is even worse,” said Trevor. “People have to fight to make sure we have even just this, a chance to pick through trash to find junk to sell.”

  Archer listened, but he wasn’t really sure if he was hearing what his brother was saying. The cut on his hand wasn’t that bad. He found something a little easier to pick at and got back to scavenging.

  ***

  “He’s waking up…”

  Archer flailed, kicking one leg and pulling both of his hands up to shield his face. His entire body felt sore, the muscles worn out, energy exhausted. He let out a groan and tried to remember what was going on.

  I was fighting… And I lost.
<
br />   “What… happened?” He blinked his eyes, focusing and recognizing the room he was in. It was Karen’s office in the North Compound. He was in one of the medical beds, the sheets pulled up across his chest.

  “Do you remember what happened with the breach?” asked Vivian. She was standing next to his bed, looking as though she’d gone without sleep for far too long. Tiny bags hung underneath both of her eyes, along with a couple of premature wrinkles across her cheeks.

  “I remember,” he said. “The Knight Fabricant… was choking me.”

  “The Watchers rushed him,” said Vivian. “They managed to draw its attention away from you, and another group of ten or fifteen dragged you and your armor skin back inside the wall. It’s been about eight hours since then.”

  Archer nodded. He had a headache, and started massaging his temples in response to it.

  “After that?” he asked.

  Vivian smiled, though it was a truly sad thing.

  “We pulled back,” she said. “There was nothing we could do to stop the attack, so we… pulled as many people back into the citizen’s district as we could.”

  Archer listened, feeling numb.

  “The coal district is lost,” said Vivian. “And… there’s more. One of the fabricants made it in through the gate into the citizen’s district.”

  “What?”

  “It cost us almost a hundred Watchers, but we managed to take it down,” said Vivian. “Eventually. It attacked several buildings, first.”

  He closed his eyes. His heart felt leaden and cold as he thought about all of the people he cared about”

  “My mother?” he asked.

  “She’s okay, as far as I know,” said Vivian.

  Archer nodded, taking a slow breath and thinking furiously.

  “Where are the other Metal Knights, Vivian?” he snapped. “There should be four others, beyond me, you, and Bart. You said they were out on defense patrols, and guarding trade routes. Why the fuck aren’t they back here?”

  Vivian took a slow breath, the question clearly a sensitive one for her.

  “They’re missing in action,” she said. “Most of them report back at least once a week. All of them are currently overdue, and that… isn’t something that happens normally.”

  This is all going to hell. I need to do something, anything.

  Archer resisted the urge to ask Vivian what they should do. The fact that she was there, with him, spoke volumes about where she was placing her hope. Archer took a slow breath and sat up, rubbing his hands together.

  “My armor skin?” he asked.

  “It’s still operational,” said Vivian. “I have the techs working overtime on repairing mine, but it’s still going to be another few hours.”

  “Is there anything else I should know?”

  Vivian was quiet for a couple of seconds. She seemed older, as though she’d aged a decade in the span of a night.

  “The realists took responsibility for the terrorist attack,” she said. “The Overseer has rounded up as many as he could find, including your attendant. He’s going to execute them… along with Ada.”

  Archer gritted his teeth.

  “No, he isn’t,” he said, standing to his feet.

  “Archer.” Vivian moved to block the door. “I’m here to watch you, and make sure you get enough rest to be ready to fight. There will be another fight.”

  “Vivian, think about what you’re saying,” he said. “Ada was your captain! You knew her for even longer than I did. You can’t let the Overseer execute her.”

  “I can’t do anything to stop him,” she said, softly. “And… we just need to follow orders. The only way for us to get through this is as a group, without fighting against our leadership.”

  “Ada is our leadership!” shouted Archer. “More than the Overseer, or the Senate ever were. I won’t let them touch her.”

  It wasn’t just Ada, but Leigh, too. She’d been pulled into the chaos through her position as his attendant. She was just like him, doing what she had to in order to take care of the ones she loved. And know she would pay the price for it, unless he did something soon.

  “I’m not letting you leave,” said Vivian.

  Like hell she isn’t.

  Archer walked up close to her, calling her bluff. Vivian didn’t move, and met his gaze with the same fierce determination he’d seen in her eyes on the first day they’d met. It was as though she was channeling a bit of Trevor, his anger, and his energy.

  “Get back in your bed, Archer,” she said.

  He thought for a second, and then shook his head.

  “No,” he said. “And I don’t think you’ll risk hurting me by trying to stop me with force.”

  “Archer, please…”

  “If you can’t trust me to make decisions about what’s best for the city, we’re already fucked,” he said. “If the Overseer executes Leigh and Ada, I’ll kill him the next time I get into my armor skin.”

  Vivian looked away for a moment, regaining a bit of her composure as she turned to meet his eye again. She gave a singular quick nod, and released her hold. Someone had changed Archer out of his undersuit and into thin hospital clothes. He changed as quickly as he could without tripping over himself, and then hurried out into the armory.

  All of the techs looked defeated, and broken, but they all still gave Archer their full attention as he ran across the floor. He slipped into his armor skin, powered it up, and hurried toward the elevator.

  “They’re doing it in the street,” shouted Vivian. “In the center of the tower district. Where everybody can see.”

  Archer didn’t stop to reply, immediately setting the elevator’s mechanism to bring him back to ground level. He waited, knowing that what he was about to do would change the course of the city’s history, and perhaps what was left of the world along with it.

  CHAPTER 42

  The citizen’s district was packed with people. Archer had never given much thought to how much larger the coal district was than the inner districts. This scenario had never been something that he, and likely any of the elites, had ever entertained.

  Families crowded into alleyways, sharing scraps of food, and what little water they could find. The general atmosphere was depressed and defeated, lacking anything resembling hope. Even as Archer made his way toward the center of the city in his armor skin, the character of the looks he drew was more akin to curiosity, or even pity, rather than faith in their sole remaining Metal Knight.

  A ring of about a hundred Watchers surrounded the condemned, with the Overseer standing on a small platform behind them. Archer spotted Leigh almost immediately, wearing sweat pants, a t-shirt, and looking scared. He could see Ada behind her, too, resolved and angry. There were probably about two dozen other people, a few realists Archer recognized from Emily’s flock, but not Emily herself.

  The Overseer was giving a speech into a microphone, stressing the strength of the people of Tempus and their refusal to abide by what he considered to be the ultimate betrayal. The crowd watching seemed entranced, and Archer had a sudden, lucid realization about how what he was about to do would come across if he didn’t choose his words very carefully.

  “We can move forward from here,” said the Overseer. “But not without purging the evil from our own ranks!”

  The crowd broke out into applause. Archer waited until it was starting to die down, and then stepped out from the building he’d been behind. The Overseer’s eyes locked onto him instantly, and he went silent, watching as the crowd cleared a path for him. Archer made his way up onto stage, and waited for the Overseer to react.

  It will be easier for me if I give him the first say.

  “And here is our hero!” shouted the Overseer. “Our hope! He fought to save us today, even though this is all still new to him! Even though we doubted him in the beginning! Archer Clark represents everything all of us need to be, in this time of crisis.”

  Archer nodded, saluted, and then gestured for the Over
seer to pass him the microphone, which he did with some hesitation. A small echo of feedback came from the mic as he brought it in a little too close to his armor skin’s outer speaker.

  “This is indeed a time of crisis,” said Archer. “The wall has fallen. That one fact changes everything, including where power lies in the city, and who needs to be making decisions.”

  A murmur went through the audience. Archer’s face was hidden by the armor skin, and he knew that added a second level of uncertainty to what the people were hearing.

  “That’s why I, the sole Metal Knight left defending the city, am declaring martial law,” said Archer. “There’s too much on the line for a civilian to be left in charge for the next few days.”

  The Overseer looked livid. He raised a hand up. All of the Watchers had their eyes locked on the stage. If they fired their ballistic weapons, enough damage would still be inflicted to take Archer down. But it would doom the city, and all of them knew that.

  “Stand down,” said the Overseer. “He’s right. We will abide by martial law until this crisis has ended.”

  Archer was surprised by the ease with which the man said the words, and relinquished his own power. Overseer Tensmoth was a politician, and this was a tactical move on his part. He was stepping back from a fight that he couldn’t win.

  “My first order is for all of these people to be released,” said Archer. “We’ve already lost too many people to kill more of our own, especially when some of them are innocent of any crime.”

  The Watchers hesitated a moment before moving from person to person, unlocking all of the prisoner’s handcuffs. Overseer Tensmoth took a step closer to Archer while everyone else was watching the release.

  “Very bold move,” said Tensmoth. “But you must know that you can only take this so far. The people will demand their rightfully elected leaders back in due time.”

  “Assuming we survive this,” said Archer, away from the microphone, “I’ll let them have what they want. I’m not a dictator. Just a man protecting the people he cares about.”