We Aimless Few

by Robert J. Crane

  The automatons lurching at us were nothing like that.

  The smallest, single units were fastest. As they combined, they sacrificed their speed and agility—the hawklike bot was still lumbering toward us, hulking but damned slow. The smaller amalgams were swifter—but fastest of all were the little units, the single boxes with lone arms or cables or hooks or draggers.

  A wave of these leapt at us all at once.

  I brought up the spear—

  Beside me, I had the briefest flash of Heidi lifting the cutlass—

  And then my entire world was afire with pain.

  I wasn’t exactly sure the course of events. It happened so quick. Afterward, I kind of got it untangled though: the automatons crashed headlong into me, throwing me backward and simultaneously burying me under their bulk. Decidian’s Spear probably didn’t make a dent in even one of them.

  I had a sense of rolling amidst the force bearing down on me, like an entire train using my body to brake with. There was wetness—the rain? Blood? Couldn’t tell—and I was shouting, or maybe that was just my body—or someone outside of me?

  I hit the ground hard, flat on my back at last.

  Automatons sprawled over me. Others rolled off, their momentum carrying them past, to land with heavy metal thunks, like an automatic rifle with the trigger pressed down, the bullets unloaded into a steel wall.

  “MIRA!” someone shouted. Mum? Dad?

  “I’m okay,” I wanted to say. But I didn’t have the breath for it. Actually, I wasn’t entirely sure I still had teeth, for my tongue to press to and conjugate the sounds.

  Rolling, dazed, I spat.

  No teeth. Just blood and spit. That was good. Fine.

  And then a robotic arm whipped out, snagging itself around my arm. It pulled me around, so I was face-to-shell with a hexagonal unit, three blinking lights on the top of it. It had two arms, but only one was the dark color of its hull. The other was bright, a shimmering silver sheen oiled with rainwater—scavenged from one of its felled companions, perhaps.

  “SUBMIT, MIRA BRAND,” it ordered, electronic voice manic and high.

  I gritted my bloody teeth. “No.”

  Its arm tightened. “SUBMIIIIIT.”

  “She said no.”

  Feruiduin’s Cutlass swung down, and sliced the arm gripping me clean off.

  The robot let out a loud trill, sounding the alarm for others to join and meld with it—

  Heidi drove the cutlass into one of the pulsing lights atop the robot, silencing it. It fell back, its arms clattering heavily to the rooftops.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “Not exactly,” I said, letting her help me to my feet. “That hurt.”

  “Looked like it.”

  “They didn’t get you?”

  She shook her head. “It’s you they’re after.”

  “Of course it is.” I took a moment to assess myself—bleeding, most definitely bruised. My ribs ached. I hoped none of them were broken—or worse, after an impact like that, driven into my lungs. But I was still mobile, still functional, and as long as the adrenaline pouring through my veins kept coming, I’d be able to see this through—at least until we were totally overwhelmed.

  And that wouldn’t take long. The rooftops were increasingly filled with automatons. The smaller units, the ones that had thrown themselves at me, were now righting themselves, coming forward again. The larger ones formed another battle line—and then there was the hawk thing, lumbering forward, and—

  “Uh—is that thing combining with more?” I cried, panic rising.

  As it lurched toward us, opportunistic automatons were latching hold of it. They clambered up its legs, along its body like mites, then found places where they glued themselves to the mech’s form. So every step it took—it grew larger and larger still.

  Its birdlike head twisted. Its beak opened, revealing a hellish red and spinning motors, interlocking like gears, whizzing around with such speed and force they’d grind our bones to dust.

  It boomed, “CEEEEAAAAASE.”

  “You know,” I shot back, “I’d very much like it if you would just—”

  Another wave of automatons threw themselves at me.

  Heidi lunged in, Feruiduin’s Cutlass drawn—

  She cleaved through one, nicked another. But there were too many, coming from all angles. I managed to duck them, just—but another slammed me in the shoulder, punching me backward. I staggered—and then the little box, with four small arms, two on the top and two on the bottom, flipped over, and delivered a powerful punt to my chest from underneath.

  I shrieked, sailing end over end—

  I landed on my feet, somehow, staggering backward—

  Arms caught me. Soft, human ones, not the metal of an automaton.

  I twisted, confused. The world spun. “Borrick?” I asked.

  “I’ve got you,” he said.

  “Mira,” Dad breathed. “We have to get you out of here. They’re not going to stop until—”

  “They kill me?” I asked. “Yeah, I’d noticed.” Doing my best to shake the mounting nausea off only made it worse.

  Automatons slinked forward, the clink of metal on solid ground echoing all around.

  “Get back,” Borrick warned.

  “Go away!” Mum yelled. Her voice was shaky though. She’d gripped my wrist—but what protection could she give? The best she and Dad had between them was a remote control with a gemstone for a light on the top, and that was no longer working.

  “What exactly is happening here?” I demanded. “Quick. I need to know so I can figure out how to deal with it.”

  “Deal with it?” Dad’s eyes widened. “Mira, you can’t hope to. They’re modular. Every unit that combines gives them greater intelligence, and greater strength. It’s how they’ve been able to override my control—by building that thing.” He pointed to the mech approaching, others still fusing with it, growing it larger and larger still. It had a real pair of wings now, likely not functional, but very much reminiscent of a hawk’s, extended and flexing under the storm clouds.

  “CEEEEAAAAAAASE.”

  “We have to get out of here,” said Dad. “I can cut us a gate, and we can leave this place behind.”

  “Oh, sure, and leave your nightmare monster lurching around for the next idiots to make their way here? Very responsible. Besides, there’s a temple here. We need to get the relic inside.”

  Dad’s eyebrows creased with curiosity. “A temple?” He quickly shook it off. “We can’t. We need to get out of here—right now. Before it—”

  No more. The hawklike automaton loosed a booming scree, the scream of a bird pitched down very low. It flexed its new wings—and then it slammed the pair of them down on the roof underfoot.

  The vibration it unleashed was catastrophic. The quake ripped right through the building’s roof, splitting it in two, metal tearing where the shockwaves flowed at maximum strength. A terrific shearing sound rent the night, overpowering the booming of the automatons, the assault of the rain, and the distant rumbles of thunder from the storm raging overhead.

  The roof shifted under me. I staggered—

  A tear opened between me and Borrick.

  Light poured out, a bright orange-red glow, like the building under us was a tall warehouse for a volcano’s lava—

  The building canted. The side with me and Heidi tilted, pulling away—

  Leaving Borrick and my parents on the other.

  The divide widened.

  “Mira!” Mum screamed, throwing her hand out. For a moment I thought she’d leap over and grab me—

  Borrick clutched her, Dad on the other side. “No, Ileara!”

  My rapidly descending section of roof tilted farther. Theirs remained—it was like three quarters of the building had been cleaved away from a final corner, which remained standing while the rest crumbled.

  And the rest was crumbling. We fell lower and lower—I stared, horrorstruck, over the yawning chasm growing b
etween myself and my family—

  “Mira!”

  Heidi grabbed me from behind.

  I twisted—the city was coming into view again as the skyscraper fell—my eyes bulged—and she stared back, stricken, face pale as the canting building shuddered under us, the shearing noise growing louder and louder—automatons were gripping it for desperate purchase now, rather than pursuing us, holding on with all their might before they too were thrown off—

  “Your line launcher,” Heidi breathed, “can you—”

  “CEEEEEAAAAASE,” roared the hawk.

  And then the roof finally gave in. It snapped out from under us, fracturing in an instant as the stresses grew too much for it to remain whole.

  We fell, screaming, into the sodium glow spilling out from the building’s core—

  And then the hawk swooped in, a hundred cables gripping it into place amidst the falling steel building’s walls, as it boomed a final, “CEEEAAASE.”

  I spun in the air, gripping Heidi—

  The hawk opened its mouth—

  And we fell into the churning hellscape.

  26

  The beak opened around us, and into it we fell—

  Heidi screamed—me too—

  Red light, like the automaton was powered by veins full of blood, like our own, painted us in the crimson flames of hell.

  Motors below churned—

  I acted on pure instinct. Releasing Decidian’s Spear, I reached into my back pocket, clutching Heidi’s arm tight with free hand, and drew out—

  The Tide of Ages. The orb’s internal wave swum madly, churning like a whirlpool in miniature as I brought it around—

  PLEASE—

  And just a moment before we fell face first into the spinning gears—

  Time stopped.

  We hung there, both of us stationary, like we were dangled into the mouth of this monstrous creation on a set of strings, a pair of marionettes thrust into mortal peril.

  Except unlike the first time the Tide of Ages had activated, it was not just me who was cognizant of it. Heidi was unfrozen too.

  The scream in her mouth died. She’d slammed her eyes shut—but now, dangling there, she opened them slowly.

  She stared at the frozen motors in the hawk’s mouth.

  And then her eyes found the Tide of Ages in my hands, the wave inside it just as frozen as the outside world.

  Her mouth dropped.

  She turned to me.

  “That’s—the Tide of Ages.”

  I nodded. I’d taken it when we first returned to my hideout, after the Antecessors guided us out of the Spurn Wyle and back to Trafalgar Street. Hadn’t known exactly why I was doing it then, if it was just a waste of time … but the Antecessors had wanted me back there for something. Now, falling into the mouth of the hawk amalgam Laknuria’s automatons had combined into, I knew exactly why: to grab the Tide of Ages, which could stop this from happening.

  I wasn’t sure whether to curse them or feel a begrudging sort of thanks to them. They’d drawn me back into this game when I’d put it behind me—and rather than take some sick joy in watching me die in one last fight, they’d given me the means to escape it.

  Escape it—right. That was what we needed to do.

  I turned the Tide of Ages upside down—and as it rotated, time floated backward. We rose, and the motors turned backward … Decidian’s Spear leapt back up toward me—

  “Grab that, would you?” I said.

  Heidi reached out for it, still wide-eyed. It met her palm, and she clasped it tight, Decidian’s Spear in her left hand and Feruiduin’s Cutlass in her right.

  We rose out of the hawk’s mouth—

  Then its booming, “CEEEEAAAAASE,” came in reverse, as we climbed higher, the hawk rearing backward and away, its inward swoop mirrored to take it away from us—now there were roof fragments beginning to come together again as we ascended in the sodium orange glow that filled this fractured building—

  “Hold onto me,” I said, unlinking my arm from Heidi’s.

  She grasped me like she was terrified that the moment I let her go, time would resume its usual pace for her and her alone, and she’d crash headlong to a very painful demise.

  Of course, it did not—but the reversing time was slowing. The Tide of Ages’ effect was diminishing. In mere seconds, time would freeze once again—and then begin to run forward at its normal pace.

  I shoved the Tide of Ages into my back pocket again. Then I retrieved the line launcher, taking careful aim at the cleft running down the outside of the building, between it—

  Our upward momentum finally ceased.

  “Brace yourself,” I said. “And hold on tight.”

  I held my finger against the trigger, pressing against a mechanism that was as solid as a rock—

  And then we were falling again.

  Heidi screamed again, her arms wrapped around my free one as we shot downward—

  The button of the line launcher depressed.

  An arrow burst out of it, elvish rope streaming behind it in a perfect silver line—

  “CEEEEEAAAASE.”

  The hawk swooped in—Heidi’s scream reached a shrill pitch—

  And then the line launcher caught. The line went taut—and then we were being jerked along it, out of the path of the hawkbot, its beak snapping against suddenly empty space—

  “YES!” I shouted. “YES! EAT IT!”

  “MIRAAAAAA—!” Heidi shrieked as we flew—

  We passed through the cleave in the building’s edge, flying out onto the street once more—

  We hit it hard. I buckled my knees to absorb the impact, but our landing was still hard. I ended up rolling, carting Heidi over with me. It robbed her of grace for the first time perhaps ever: she clattered over, losing both Decidian’s Spear and Feruiduin’s Cutlass, sending both flying off at opposite angles.

  “Heidi,” I said, scrabbling over to help her up.

  “That was,” she began, clambering to uncharacteristically unsteady feet. “That was …” She gawped at me, wild-eyed.

  “Kind of cool?” I suggested.

  “That was—not the first time you’ve used that, is it?” Her face was all dark accusation, as if somehow she'd found time to be quite put out in the midst of all this madness.

  Ohh. Caught out.

  Flashing an insincere smile, I said, “Let’s talk about it later, shall we? We’ve still got company.”

  The building the hawk had cleaved in two had fully split into two sections now. The rear corner of it remained largely intact, not even warped. But the front had crumpled, coming down at an acute angle, metal shearing and twisting and then breaking into segments in places. Fortunately, unlike a brick building it couldn’t totally collapse into rubble; the metal crumpled on itself, piling up and finding some strength in its newly contorted structure, keeping it from splintering entirely and raining down upon the concourse.

  Unfortunately, the hawk was now clawing its way through the ruined shell of the building—and flowing out around it were dozens more of the smaller automatons, still dead set on making me...well, dead.

  Heidi gave me a peculiar look. She wanted to pursue the issue, I figured—but with the automatons still hot on our trail, she hadn’t much of a choice about waiting. Scrambling to her dropped cutlass, she snatched it up, then tossed Decidian’s Spear to me. I caught it in a bloody palm—damned cheek was still pouring—and then said, “Right then. Any ideas?”

  “Me? I was hoping you had some sort of plan.”

  The first of the smaller automatons lurched at us. The damage to the building had done a number on it: its single arm was ripped apart, frayed at one end and sparking wildly. It trilled with its high-pitched alarm sound, heralding others to come aid it, to meld—

  I stabbed it with Decidian’s Spear, burying it deep in its servos. It shuddered, whining louder, and then died.

  But more were coming—and they’d fared better.

  And then there w
as the matter of the hawk.

  I sighed. “We have to get out of here,” I said.

  “But the Instrumentum—”

  “We’ll find another way,” I said, backtracking to stab out at another bot—

  Heidi swung the cutlass, slicing the gripper from another stumbling toward us like somehow the robot had gotten drunk. “But my mother—”

  “CEEEEAAAAASE!”

  “We’ll come back,” I said. “I promise. We have to get out of here now though—right now.”

  She looked fraught. But then there was a shearing noise again, like the cleft that had broken the skyscraper apart. We jerked round to see—the hawkbot had torn open an exit. Now it lumbered out, head thrown skyward as it boomed. Its beak opened to emit the low roar.

  The motors that had almost ground us into a paste of bone and flesh whirred madly.

  Heidi swallowed. “Right. Let’s go then.”

  I unsnapped the compass, pausing to thwack another small automaton with the spear. Then I was jogging up the concourse, Heidi at my side.

  “Don’t be fussy,” she said as a robot launched itself at us. She carved it in two with Feruiduin’s Cutlass—but still it whipped over my head, the wind it kicked up licking the back of my soaking wet neck. “Just cut us through anywhere, will you?”

  “Fine. Tokyo do it for you?”

  “Be my guest!”

  I stowed the compass. Talisman in hand, I swept my hand down on the edge of a building, opening a shimmering gate—

  “You first,” I ordered Heidi. “I’ll cover you.”

  She nodded and vanished.

  I gripped Decidian’s Spear in my slick hands, thrust out at another automaton—it reared backward to avoid me—

  I whipped the spear around to cut a leg off.

  It shrieked, alarm whining as it fell backward.

  “MIRA BRAAAAND,” it bleated—

  I silenced it by driving the spear through its shell.

  And then I stepped into the gate.

  Color danced in the darkness—

  And then I was out in the darkness again—a darkness that was lit up by skyscrapers rising into the darkness. Not Laknuria—and how funny that would be, if the Antecessors just redirected us back into the city—but Tokyo, alive with neon lights and signs and kana—advertisements and storefront signs, littered occasionally with an English number or word—“24” on one, I can only assume a twenty-four-hour place because people were still drifting in and out despite the hour; “GOOD VIBES!” on another.