by Tom Harem
Downtown was a wide-open circle, surrounded by skyscrapers of still-lit businesses, a few technology stores, and one or two convenience shops. Behind a wall of buildings, facing us, the flames roared, an explosion rebounding at several lower levels, but steadily closing in on us. In the silence of the night, a sound rose. Loud steps, craters opening on the ground, and the earth shaking. They were getting louder and louder. The beast howled, the thick metallic voice distancing itself from its body, not losing its strength, echoing throughout the city and causing Maggie to gulp.
"This is going to be a tough one." She said, "I think it's coming from there." And she pointed to the left, above one of the convenience stores with the lights off, whose windows reflected only a thick blue line that came from the ceiling of one of the companies.
"Are you ready? It's close." I said and took my gun out of the holster.
Gordon had made some modifications to it over the two weeks. Not only were the bullets more powerful, with acix tips, a rare metal, even stronger than steel and discovered just under two years ago, but he had calibrated it to a 99% infallible aim. After using it three or four times, I ended up asking him how he had gotten that material. He replied with a sarcastic smile and a plain answer, "Damien is not the only one who knows where to get rare parts and materials. I still have a couple of underground contacts and, truth be told, Ashen has amassed quite a bit of money."
My thoughts were interrupted by metal scraping on the plastered roof of the humble shop. A double-legged monster that made my legs look like a toothpick, with an orange carcass as its belly and sharp tweezers as its hands. Basically, a huge metal crab under two legs, with a flame thrower in the middle of its right shoulder. Good, it wasn't as if the blending of a wasp and a spider or a hare with a horn on its forehead weren't strange enough. I had never dealt with such a huge monster, much less one capable of destroying a building with just a right hook. It sliced the store apart and walked through the gap, knocking down the electrical wires along the way, the sparks rebelling through its body and electrifying the air. It opened its mouth to release a screech and its spiking teeth salivated oil to its orange chin. We were still contemplating the magnitude of the monster when gunshots flogged the air, straight to its chest, a few bouncing off the carcass and falling flat on the ground, others getting stuck up there, but not before catching its attention.
Shit. A bunch of policemen were in the middle of the square, shooting until their barrels were empty while motivating each other until the last involucre hit the metal chest and freefallen without even having made a scratch on it. Morale dropped. Silence imposed itself on them as well as the mask of death in the face of the beast' shadow that befell them after it got close. I didn't think she even noticed us.
"We have to get them out of there," I said, awakening Maggie and Kendra from a dreary sleep.
"How?" Kendra asked, "We're too far away. Look at them, they're paralyzed."
And she was right. The five men and woman had not taken a step. Their legs trembled, their knees frosted with fear and their eyes widened, blinking and closing for two seconds, as if they believed that the third or fourth time, they opened them, they would wake up in their beds, in one piece, and it would all have been a nightmare.
"We must draw the beast' attention."
"We're going to lose the element of surprise," Maggie said, extending her hand, a spark hovering over the glove.
"I don't think it would make much of a difference against this monster either. Normal bullets don't even tickle him," I answered.
"Very well,” Kendra sighed.
"All right, are you ready? You know what to do." I said and watched as they stayed away from me. I remained in the middle and, in a few seconds, we had surrounded the beast, "Now!"
Kendra's whip cracked the air, the forked end hitting its metal back. Maggie's fireball, three times as big as the day I met her, slammed against the closest thing the monster had to his nose, a slight sprain in the center of his face. It didn't seem to have a lasting effect. It looked at the half-moon and roared, tapping with the solid part of its hands, that small part before the clamps, on its chest. He was pissed off. The wounds were only superficial and scorched metal that looked like a puberty pimple.
I only had 7 acix bullets left and Gordon had told me they would have to last until the end of the month before he could get more. Having the party on Friday and knowing the dangers we could be facing; I couldn't risk spending them all. I closed half my eye, aimed, the gold stripes sticking out under the night rug, and fired as soon as the sight centered on the exact spot where Maggie had also hit. The bullet was halfway there, and I stopped hearing everything else. My vision took the form of an elongated tunnel and the rest became blurred.
I knew that Kendra and Maggie had rushed to the police and helped them get out of there, but I saw no more than a niche of distorted colors, running down the open street until they reached a black spot. Even the sounds were muffled until I finally heard the "click" when the bullet hit the monster and didn't stop until it ripped a crack in his face. Electric wires danced over the air, sparks spattering on his face, but nothing changed. I hadn't done enough damage to it, or hit a vital spot, to stop it. The beast stopped and turned to me. Under the light of the tallest building in town, whose floors in the center were still lit, I could see it had two black eyes, a spinning camera in the middle of them, and a secret compartment on its left shoulder. It had four lines stamped on the metal that had not yet been opened.
The beast moved, its monstrous legs spinning in the same place, and kept its empty gaze on our car. It rubbed its clamps against each other, and, for a moment, I could have sworn that I saw a smile on its rectangular mouth.
We were no match for a rank B, not without Elisa's experience and prowess. The most we could do was to inflict enough damage to slow him down. It stretched its robotic arm, two parts connected by black and visible wires, and knocked down another building. The floors tumbled upon each other, like a Tetris game, until there was nothing left but dust and cluttered debris.
"What now? What do we do?" Kendra asked, still a few meters away from me, along with Maggie and the cops.
"We have to keep him in this area. We can't let him go to the suburbs," I replied, facing the beast, with the gun taped to my hip, "Don't you happen to have a missile launcher at the station? Something that can cause the slightest damage?" I asked the officers. They were still frightened but some had already started to recover their composure, the metaphorical ice fading away.
One of them, the tallest, with a chunky beard on both sides of his face and a thick mustache covering the entire space between his thin upper lip and curved nose, took a step forward, "Sorry... That was all we had. We’ve never been attacked before. We didn't expect it to happen. We know it's our fault."
"It's the Reapers' fault. Not yours. It's better if you go back to your family. We'll take care of it." I answered, trying hard to smile, even though I didn't have that desire in me.
The ground kept shaking with every step of the beast. A thunderous rattling sound, the pavement stones arising and shattering the nearby glass into thousand-fold pieces.
The beast spotted the policemen escaping through one of the narrow streets, but he did not swoop in. The eyes followed them but showed them as no threat. He walked to the center of the street and rushed towards us. It certainly was his running. His broad legs scraped over each other and his metal head swung sideways.
"Move!" I yelled, and so they did.
The beast never stopped. I didn't think it could make a stop or sudden detour at that speed. He stomped on and obliterated Ashen's car. It jumped on his car until it was so dented that it could be mistaken for a blackboard returned to the factory because it had been scrapped. He kicked what was left of the seats against the floors' windows that brightened up the place. One by one the lights disappeared, and the night enveloped the place, the soot dispersing in it. A drizzling rain dropped over the place. Enough to lower the
fire level but not to extinguish the flames. The sulfur smell rose to the skies, and, among it, there was also the burnt metal odor.
"I don't think he even wants to run away," Kendra said, the whip rolling out until the metal hit the sidewalk.
"He wants us. Only us. We're the targets." Maggie added.
"Well, at least we don't need to worry about him getting out of here," I said, but I regretted it soon after. It wasn't the right time to indulge in sarcasm, "Don't let him come near you. Let's keep the distance and the attacks constant. We better focus on the right leg. He can't do anything if he can't walk."
The first to attack was Maggie. Three fireballs, in a straight line, hitting the beast's leg and scorching him. In return, it waved its leg until a portion of the ash was carried across the skies, took what was left of the car, a thin three-dimensional slice, and swept it in Maggie's direction. It was moving at an impressive speed and she barely escaped. She hurled herself to the ground, peeling her knees and hands, and tearing her dress as she rolled off the sidewalk. The beast didn't stop there. He walked, in double step, down the street, closing in on her, without Kendra and I having time to remove her from there.
"Run away." Kendra still screamed, but her voice was muffled by the earthquake that was each step of the beast.
Shit. I couldn't let him catch her. I started running parallel to the beast, steered to where Maggie was, sweat streaming down my face, hair sticking to my forehead, strands falling over my eyes. My heart was beating, my legs were aching as I went beyond my limits, going further than ever before. She got up. She had blood leaking down her legs, but she stood up and put all her strength into one part of her body, while the other one remained down, with her knee bent. She wiped her bloody hands on the dress just before throwing two more fireballs, albeit weaker, at the beast, who, in a single gesture, hid its waist behind one of the clamps. The flames faded as soon as they hit the lighter orange. I seized the opportunity the tiny brown cloud of dust that burst out provided and held Maggie by her hip one-handed and continued to run, firing two bullets along the way without even being sure that the aim was in the right spot.
Only when we stopped, a few meters ahead, under the roof of a five-star hotel, I noticed that one of the bullets had scraped the beast's shoulder and left behind a black streak under the sash of orange. The other one had hit the crotch. The beast was still behind us, but now slower and nonetheless as scary as before. It didn't suffer, it didn't wail from agony, it didn't go backward. He wanted us and he wouldn't stop until he pleased himself with us.
"Are you okay?" Kendra asked, trying to buy us some time.
She lashed the whip at the beast. The handle stretched out, cracking the air, the metal spike in and out of the beast's body. It created small holes in the leg that didn't seem to affect its normal functioning. It had nothing inside but cables and, at the same time, a deadly instinct. He rotated only the upper part of his body and fired one of the clamps, fastened by a string that went from his shoulder to the four fingers that he had, all the way to Kendra. She tried to dodge but was hit by it. Her body was thrown against a building's door, knocking it down, the nails loosening and falling to the ground, as well as the door itself.
The wind was getting stronger. The rain accentuated the ever more prominent blend of scents. Behind us some buildings were still burning, the flames not dissolving and daring to face the water. There were no stars in the area. One or two bright spots in the sky and all that remained was darkness. The fire siren rang out through a secondary street accompanied by the police. Time dragged on without seeming to have an impact on anything around us. The seconds were passing but no one moved. I heard the water gushing over the buildings and the flames being replaced by black smoke, rising and mixing with the night.
"We don't stand a chance against it." Maggie said, her voice sounding strange, almost powerless, "Where the hell is Elisa?"
"I have no idea. There's no reception and the communicators don't work. We can handle it until she arrives. We have to endure it." I said and took a deep breath, the salty sweat dripping on my tongue.
"What if she doesn't arrive?"
"She’s never failed us. We must be confident. It shouldn't be much longer." I said, even though I didn't believe my own words. She was taking longer than usual. I knew why or at least I had a vague idea. Something, or someone, on the council, was consuming her. A thirst for destroying them that gradually took over. A fire in herself that was used to climb up the ladder, but that now burned her up. When the subject was council, everything around her disappeared and I still didn't know why. Our nights were spent between lust and pleasure and the work left outside the lifeless house, except for a few goodies that she afforded herself the luxury of owning.
"He's coming over! What do we do?" Maggie said, clinging to my cloak' sleeve, the voice already hoarse.
"We fight. We're Hunters. That's what we do." I said and held my gun until the joints between my fingers became red and sore from the cold, "I have an idea. I still have 4 bullets. When I tell you ‘now’ you run towards Kendra and check on her, okay? On the way there throw as many fireballs as you can into the ground next to the beast and his eyes."
"But what about you? There's no way you're going to risk your life again. I won't let you commit the same madness twice!" Maggie told me, an exasperated voice, the dampness of her eyes mixing with the rain.
"Trust me. This won't be like last time. And you are close to me. I really can't fail, can I?" I reassured her and, before she answered, I kissed her. Her lips were wet, fresh with a delicate lemon flavor.
"I trust you." She said. She adjusted her dress and tore the fabric below her knees, "I run faster like this. It's time to be a real Hunter." She winked at me before racing down the street, soaked, targeting the places I had told her until the fog rose and the monster's field of vision darkened.
It was now or nothing. I had the outline of a plan in my head and it would have to work. I looked at my pistol, the same one that had accompanied me since the first day with them and freed a "don't fail me now".
"Four bullets" my mind replayed, the hollow voice echoing throughout me. The ground was soaked. The beast had returned to the center. Around it the floor was cobbled but in that exact spot, the floor was flat and contained two overlapping triangles drawn on the floor.
With that body and tweezers that only reached its knees, it would never be able to get down to catch me if I went underneath it. It was the only solution. I took off my cloak and was left with only a black sweater, which I rolled up my sleeves on, and a pair of tight black pants. Maggie hadn't stopped firing fireballs yet. Each new one smaller than the previous one, the flame already a flare that faded before it got there. I drew all the strength I had left. I thought of my father. How he might have given me a hard time for doing it, but at the same time he would say it with a smile in the corner of his mouth, proud that I was willing to risk my safety for the well-being of both the townspeople and my people. It would not be my last action, not now that we were so close to discovering the whole truth.
My legs moved before my brain. By the time I got back to myself, I was halfway there. Running down the street, not looking around, seeing only the smoke over the buildings through the corner of my eye. The beast closed the curved upper part of the clamp against the lower one as if it was hoping to catch something in the air. Little did it know that my plan was totally the opposite. My feet touched the flat part of the floor and I bent my knees until I slipped inward from there. The cold raised my hair and made my fingers tremble on the gun, almost dropping it twice. My knees scratched on the floor, my pants almost peeling off, leaving only a thin fabric separating the flesh from being completely skinned. The smoke in front of the beast's face dissipated right in front of me. My heart imploded. I could not fail. I wasn't going to fail. I glanced at Maggie already with Kendra in her arms, her hand sliding down her face under the building light where she was. I closed my eyes for one second and when I opened them
again, the beast was looking at me majestically, from above, trying to reach me but it was too late. It was firing its clamps at the ground, trying to hit me, but I was already in the wolf's den.
I fired three shots at it. There was nothing but the two legs on my side and between them a kind of oval bottom. The acix bullets broke the beast's defense where it was weakest and went up through its body, destroying everything they found along the way. When I reached the other side, I put my hand on the freezing floor ground in order to break and using my feet to turn my whole body to the beast one more time, I fired my last bullet, from the bottom to the top, hitting its neck. The bullet went up through its face and head and exited from the other side, carrying dozens of wires with the edges still electrified.
"Get out of there!" Maggie screamed.
If it wasn't for her warning I wouldn't have remembered. If the electricity touched the flat wet ground where I was, it would spread across the circle and I would be electrified. I left as soon as I got up. I ran towards them as I watched the beast fall. First, on its knees and then on the ground, crushed, its legs trembling before they stopped for good. My hands were tattered, and my knees were naked. We had lost our car and clothes, but we had saved the city. We had defeated a level 6 on our own. Just us, without help. Kendra already had one knee on the floor, one leg tilted and her chest gasping.
"You did it!" She said, the words being plucked out of her mouth.
"Luckily. We better collect the experience points, call the pickup and get the hell out of here. An air-conditioned evening and Gordon's snacks await us." I said, smiling, moments before helping Maggie to lift Kendra, "You were great. I still remember when you didn't want to be on a team, Kendra."
"And I still don't, unless it's with you. And, well, Elisa, but where the hell is, she?"
