And then the thing kinda looked at me.
Its metal eyes, it was hard to explain, but in that moment they really seemed human. They seemed like they were showing regret.
Its lips curled up to speak. I really wanted to hear what it had to say so I let it.
“K-kill me…”
I was stunned. And then its silver eyes widened at me, almost pleading.
“P-please…”
I nodded. I think I understood. And I opened fire.
As I stood up I realized something. I’d done a lot of killing over the years. Cattle, wolf, whatever. Animals. Mankins don’t count – they’re just robots. But these Bions. They’re not just robots. There’s a human in there. And I’d just killed one. Several. I felt like I was one stop closer to being exactly like my father. And I liked it. And I knew my life would never be the same.
I looked up in time to see Pace killing the last of the Bions with their own weapon, easily cutting through its exoskeleton. I wanted to yell out – no, don’t shoot ‘em! There’s a man in there! But of course I didn’t. Mine wanted to die. Maybe they all did. Maybe we were helping them out. Putting them out of their misery. Maybe their inner hesitation was the only reason why we weren’t all dead.
I wondered how the hell anyone could be turned into a Bion. And what kind of man exactly Shādo Shay was.
“You okay?” Pace shouted. That kinda brought me out of it. I nodded and turned toward Birkin. He was alive, breathing well, just knocked out cold. Pace hovered over Priestly. Then I saw Pace lean down and check Priestly’s pulse. Then Pace removed his white hat and held it over his heart.
I didn’t care much for Priestly, that’s for sure. But he fought for his friends when it mattered. He was worthy of being a Disrupter after all.
I lowered my hat and walked over to the body. We all stared at the carnage for a second. What’s that expression – it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt? Well, yeah. We knew the risks of bank robbing. But this – it never seemed possible.
My ears were ringing from all the shotgun blasts, but I could still hear in my head the sound of Priestly’s neck breaking. Wouldn’t forget it anytime soon. I’d heard that sound when I’d been butchering. But it wasn’t some cattle this time.
After a time, Lister showed up. Turned out he had run away. Lister couldn’t even look at Priestly. Guilt is a funny thing.
“This the way you handle adversity?” Pace asked.
“It was good strategy,” was all Lister could reply.
Pace persisted. “Good strategy to let one of your friends die while you run away?”
“It wasn’t like that. I got a bad concussion.”
Pace got in close to Lister. He pulled down his kerchief so he could see his face. “Priestly might not be like this if you hadn’t run off. Think about that.”
The wrong one got killed. No question about that. But I pulled Pace back off of Lister anyway. Pace was right but no point in pressing a finger in the wound.
Soon Birkin came to, and I gave him some water from my canteen. He held his aching head, happy for a second just to be alive. But then he looked at all of us and did some counting. He was good at math. Birkin’s horse was dead too. Poor animal deserved better. Birkin started to gag so we turned his head so he wouldn’t choke on his own vomit.
By this point, I was half expecting the Nuggets to turn against us. One of theirs was dead. No gold. No honor among thieves. And I was right.
“This was your fault anyway,” Lister sobbed. “You set us up. You knew there was no gold in there!”
“We didn’t set you up,” I replied. “Shādo Shay set us up.”
Lister drew his pistol and pointed it at my head. “I don’t know who Shādo Shay is and I don’t care.”
Birkin put his hand on Lister and pulled him away from me. Then Birkin looked at me. “I’d be dead if not for you,” Birkin said. “So for today we part company. But if I see you again, I’ll murder you where you stand.”
He’d never get that chance. Others would beat him to it. Ha.
“You’ll take Priestly’s body and give him a proper burial?” I asked.
Birkin nodded.
And with that, the Disrupters disbanded. Almost before we ever banded together in the first place.
Pace and I were alone. For good.
“The Disrupters are over,” I said.
“Nope. So long as you and me are together, the Disrupters are still going strong.”
And that suited me fine.
11.
Before we left the battlefield, Pace and I hastily picked up what we could. Ammunition, weapons. We took as many of the Bion guns as we could carry, which was two apiece. We would’ve taken the transport but since I’d scared off those horses, we had no way of moving it. Even that part of our plan failed.
I noticed there was writing on the side of the Bion weapons. I had Pace read it for me. It said PERSUADER. "So they're called Persuaders. Very persuasive."
So we each had two Persuaders apiece. I figured out they had a safety to keep the weapon from firing accidentally. I pried off the safeties. Never did much like safeties.
“What now?” I asked. “It doesn’t seem smart to keep toying with Shādo Shay.” Pace agreed. One thing was clear. We were out of options. It was time to leave the Great Plains once and for all. “We should listen to Becca and just leave,” I said. “Take what we have right now and go.” Then I hesitated for a moment. “Course we can’t do that.”
“No, you’re right,” Pace replied.
And then we spoke over each other.
“We have to go after the gold,” Pace said.
“We have to go after Becca,” I said.
We laughed a little. We were both right, and we were both wrong.
“We have to get our gold,” Pace pleaded. “As much as we can carry. That’s the only thing that will buy our freedom.”
I didn’t want to agree with Pace, but he was right. I reluctantly agreed.
We reached the edge of the Old City. Wasn’t gonna take much time to get to our hideout. By now, Charon and Flashbound knew their way past those crumbling skyscrapers. We dismounted right outside our hideout. Looked like everything was where we’d left it.
“Need anything from here?” Pace asked. “Because we’re not coming back. Sorry Ash, this was a great hideout.”
I nodded with appreciation.
We tossed some food into the saddlebags, leaving plenty of room for gold. Tossed in whatever blankets and clothes we could find too. Weapons as well, whatever we had. But we holstered those Persuaders and pocketed the charges. Every other weapon was really second best.
We were ready to get our gold.
We left our horses in the makeshift stable to give them a rest – they’d be strained enough carrying all that gold on them. We walked in the direction of our stash. I noticed it was a fairly warm day, and what little sun we got shining in between the skyscrapers was pretty bright. I prefer the cold I suppose. I took a sip of water from my pouch. Noticed I wasn’t carrying much, but there was more in the saddlebags.
“Our best bet is Billings,” Pace said. “I hear their bank is pretty big. Maybe we can find another transport there. Move on from there.”
“Suits me fine,” I replied. It didn’t really. This was what Becca was pleading us to do. We were doing it, only without her. Didn’t seem right.
We walked another block when I noticed something wasn’t right. I could swear I heard something.
“Could be Boze and his Nuggets,” Pace suggested quietly. “Maybe they forced Rebecca to tell them where we are.”
“Nope. What I’m hearing is… definitely robot.”
That got Pace’s attention. We stopped for a second and then walked a few steps. Definite faint sound of metal wheels spinning. We stopped again, and the wheels stopped again. Pace and I exchanged a glance.
Pace was pissed, I could tell. “Mankins. Damned things followed us didn’t they? All the way from the t
ransport! That was Shādo Shay’s plan all along, wasn’t it? If we escaped we’d lead him straight to the gold.”
That sounded about right. I was frustrated we hadn’t thought our plan through. But so much for that. Mankins were nearby. Couldn’t ignore them just cause I was annoyed. “If we can get to a higher elevation maybe we can see how many Mankins we’re dealing with. We’ve got the Persuaders. Maybe we’ve got the advantage.”
Pace nodded and we looked around for an appropriate spot. I pointed to a fire escape. It looked barely attached to a nearby building but maybe it was sturdy enough to handle us. “Just pretend like that’s where our gold is.” We walked over and I leapt up to grab hold of the fire escape. The whole thing shuddered as metal on metal scraped against each other. I quickly let go. That thing wasn’t gonna hold my weight. “I’ll try it,” Pace said. He was lighter, it was a good idea. He jumped up and grabbed onto the fire escape. It seemed to handle his weight a little better. I gave him a boost as he climbed up a few rungs in the ladder until he could jump onto a landing. Fortunately that held his weight too. He crouched down, pulled out the field glasses and looked around.
“How many are there?” I asked. Pace was silent for a second. I figured maybe he was counting. “Pace? How many?”
“All of them.”
“All of ‘em? That’d be a lot.”
“Aw shit!” Pace cried. Pace lowered the field glasses and looked at me. “They spotted me.” Then he quickly grabbed onto the fire escape and made his way back down to the ground.
“They headed this way?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Should we take a spot and wait for ‘em? Gun ‘em down when they get here?”
“That’d be a great idea if there was just a hundred or so. Maybe even a thousand. But like I said, it’s all of them.”
Not sure what else to do we just started walking forward. But those Mankin wheels got louder and louder. They were gaining on us. Pretty soon I looked over my shoulder and I could finally see ‘em. Sure looked like a lot. We started to sprint, then full on run. But those wheels were spinning faster too. It would’ve been easier to escape on horseback.
“Follow me!” Pace shouted as he turned a corner to the left. Wasn’t sure what he had in mind but I followed. Not much else to do. Quickly though I figured out where we were headed. Straight toward the flooded section of the city. Right. Mankins don’t swim, they just go right in and drown. We just needed a safe place to urge them forward. Fortunately we both saw an old electrical pole that had fallen in between buildings. There was a pool of diseased water right underneath it. Not sure how many centuries that water’d been collecting there, refilling from rain whatever it evaporated. Mosquitoes were all over it. There was all kinda green algae growing in it. Probably some bacteria or something like that calling it their home. Not something I wanted to go anywhere near. But I didn’t see a better choice. We reached the snapped base of the electrical pole and scrambled halfway across. That took us maybe thirty feet off the ground and maybe thirty feet away from the water’s edge. I looked down at the dead electrical wires dangling into the diseased pool below us. Didn’t want to fall off our perch. The fall wouldn’t kill us but parasites surely would. I clung tight. Fortunately there were hand rails.
Mankins rounded the street corner and wheeled right for us. Pace was right, there was a lot of ‘em. Too many to count. They started shooting their laser weapons but they were too far away to connect. “Don’t fire until they’re in range,” I said. But by then, I hoped they’d be waist deep in muck. Sure enough about fifteen of ‘em reached the edge of the pool but then they stopped, lining up fifty deep behind them. I held my breath, hoping they’d commit suicide. Instead they opened fire. We were still just barely out of their weapon’s reach. They could do the math. They were probably dying to wheel a few feet forward. But why weren’t they? Instead just more and more of ‘em lined up behind ‘em. “This is another one of those Mexican standoffs,” I remarked.
“Doesn’t have to be,” Pace replied. He hugged the pole with one arm and pulled out one of his Persuaders with the other. The pole kinda wobbled as he did that. Wasn’t real happy with the sturdiness of our support. He fired a couple times, and the good news was the Persuader had a longer range than the Mankin weapons. The Persuader blasts took out maybe twenty of ‘em at a time, their metal body parts shooting backward, knocking over or damaging Mankins behind ‘em. Unfortunately, the recoil from the Persuader kept shaking the electrical pole.
“Try to keep it steady,” I suggested. But I had to abandon my concern. There were just too many of ‘em. Any Mankins who were killed were just quickly run over or shoved out of the way by their kin. So I hugged the pole tight with my left hand and managed to pull out my Persuader with my right. I started firing as well.
The Mankins stopped firing at us. Finally they got it. Their little brains whirred and clicked. Then their gun turrets rotated to a spot by the diseased water. They opened fire again. But they weren’t firing at us. They were firing at our electrical pole. Those effers were learning to adapt. That sucked. Our pole took a direct hit and dropped a fast ten feet. I could smell that diseased water. One more hit and we’d be kissing it. We were also just maybe within range of their weapons. Either way, they suddenly had the advantage.
“Climb higher!” Pace called out. We inched along like caterpillars, humping the pole between our legs as we climbed, firing our Persuaders when we could. The other end of the electrical pole was smashed into what used to be a window on the third floor of some skyscraper. If we could make it up there, maybe we’d escape. But the pole buckled under us again. I was sure it was gonna snap in two.
Finally Pace made it to the top of the pole. He holstered his Persuader and pulled himself through the open window. I was right behind him. As my weight left the pole, I felt it falling beneath my feet. Then the whole thing crashed into that goop. Was really glad I didn’t fall down there with it. We crouched by the window and saw all those thousands of Mankins craning their little heads up toward us. We aimed our Persuaders and just opened fire, blasting away at them.
“Now this is more like it!” Pace said. Wish he hadn’t said that. Cause just in that moment, the floor beneath us gave way. Tends to happen when a floor hasn’t seen any weight in two hundred years. We fell straight downward to the second floor. Landed ass first on the wood floor. Course that floor hadn’t seen any weight either so that cracked open too. We fell again, this time thankfully to the ground floor. Splinters and shards of wood scraped us up and battered our bodies. If not for the adrenaline surging through us it probably would’ve knocked us out cold. Instead it just hurt a whole bunch. Could’ve used a rest in that moment but I heard those Mankin wheels turning. They’d be on us in a minute. So Pace and I helped each other to our feet and started limping, then running back out onto the street. And the Mankins were right behind us.
“Let’s get back to the horses,” Pace suggested. “Then we can outrun them.”
Sounded good to me. We ran as fast as we could back to Central Avenue. Pretty quickly we saw our yard. The makeshift stable right in front of us. Charon and Flashbound were just where we left ‘em. I ran for Charon. And then the ground in front of me just blew up. Knocked Pace and me back twenty feet. Heat from the blast singed my face. When my eyes adjusted I saw a Bion step out from behind the horses. The thing had damned near taken us out in that blast too. But since it missed us, it was eager for another shot. It aimed its Persuader right at us. Fortunately we had him outgunned. Pace and I both opened fire, careful not to hit our horses. Persuader fire cracked right through that Bion’s exoskeleton with ease so it didn’t take much to knock it onto its ass. Most likely dead. We ran toward the horses and got a closer look. They were fine. “We gotta run” I said. Mankins were wheeling up near us.
“Maybe we should go inside our hideout,” Pace suggested. “Make it our last stand-” But just as he said that, more Persuader fire came upon us. Turns out our hideout was swa
rming with Bions. They were firing at us from the lobby, from atop the stable, from through the fence. Pretty much everywhere. I untied our hoses and set them free so they could run to safety. Then I grabbed Pace and we ran. There was too much Persuader fire everywhere though. One lucky shot nicked Pace in the heel. He howled in pain and tumbled to the ground. I quickly picked him up, put his arm around my shoulder and carried most of his weight as we ran away. I turned the first corner I could to get out of the firing range. We were lucky it was just Pace’s heel. Could’ve been worse.
“Can you run?” I asked.
Pace looked at his wound. It’d already sealed right up leaving behind just a red mark. He put a little pressure on his heel. “It’ll hold.” Not sure I believed him but we didn’t have much choice. We ran north up 2nd Street. Pace was hobbling but he was managing. “Let’s get to Riverside Park,” he said. “We’ll have an advantage there.”
We ran four blocks, hearing Mankin wheels whirring and Bion jackboots stomping behind us. Didn’t make much sense to turn around and check on them. They’d be shooting us in the back soon enough. It seemed like forever by the time we reached the edge of Riverside Park. We ducked underneath some branches and climbed into the thick forest. That was a definite advantage. Wasn’t sure how the robots could get in there unless they blasted their way in. We took whatever seconds we had to go as deep as we could. Then we heard the first explosion. They’d burn down the whole park just to get to us. Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea.
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