Bread and the Circus

Chapter 15, Part 2

Plunging my hands into the brazier, I forced the other burning detritus to the sides as I scooped up a double-handful of red-hot coals.  Letting my arms go limp, my hands almost touching the ground, I twisted myself at the waist, building up tension as fast as I could.  I had to hurry!  I had to save my friends!  Then, right when I felt as though I would burst with the strain…I let it all go, my upper body spinning like a top, arms extended, hands flying.  Timing the micro-relaxations of my fingers just so, my eyes fixed on the cyber-demon as my onboard scanners outlined it clearly, making it, for me, into a target as obvious as any barn’s proverbial broad side, I let each of those stinging, searing missiles fly straight and true, my aim alternating between high and low as I pelted the beast again and again, making it shriek in agony as it rounded on me, eyes blazing with all the fury it was programmed to muster against its enemies.

That was enough of a distraction, and just enough, as Mac and Neph rushed it from either of its flanks, Mac brandishing a knife in one hand now, and Neph still holding his spear.  I saw its great arm swinging just as they thrust their weapons forward, felt the impact as it connected with my springy middle parts, still nice and flexible from the deliberate unlimbering I’d performed to let me pull off a feat that now reminded me of something as silly as an antic from one of the children’s cartoons I’d enjoyed in the waiting room before going to see the Ringmaster.  They must have been lingering in the back of my mind for me to even briefly entertain such a ridiculous idea.

While I didn’t see the blades of the two weapons go in, I heard them, right before my audio receptors fuzzed out for a moment as I went flying into the air with the impact of the cyber-demon’s blow.  Had I been a creature of flesh and blood and bone, I would surely have been shredded by such a blade-edged and mighty strike.  As it was, I still saw little flecks of metal – my body – flying in all directions, even as I arched upward and back, my eyes tilting back to stare up into the shadow-shrouded ceiling, so very far above.

How do I know so much?  Or, to be more precise, how am I able to act as though I were someone of far greater physical age than my manufacturing fate would indicate?  Regular data transfers, of course.  I have access to the whole of countless libraries, all stored on the Circus and accessible through the countless threads connecting the information network that holds the Pan-Galactic Republic together.  At any time that I am able, any time when I am not being assaulted by artificially-created demons in the middle of an artificially-created dungeon designed to bring about a very real demise to anyone foolish enough to enter it, I am seeking to expand my cultural education.  While I was waiting inside the treasure chest where Mac and Neph found me, I was reviewing the general history of the PGR, as well as some of its more important audiovisual works – cartoons, if you really must know; I’d developed a taste for them after my brief initial exposure in the Ringmaster’s waiting room – and now that I am among Humans, I have every intention of accessing the cultural works of their homeworld, Earth, so that I can better understand my two “parents” and friends.

I wonder if Earth has cartoons too.  That would be very nice.

Ah, but back to the present moment.  A present moment that has slowed down for me, right to a crawl.  I’d seen that slowing down happen in numerous shows, but had just assumed it was done for comedic or dramatic effect.  As it turns out, yes, time does seem to slow down in a moment of crisis.  My onboard chronometer had registered less than a second of time having passed, and yet my thoughts were racing, perhaps even exceeding the speed of light (if such a thing were even possible within the micro-circuits of my body), or at least feeling like it.  I could consider cartoons, and future plans, and getting along with my friends, before my maintenance systems had even finished determining if there would be an opportunity for future plans.  On the one hand, I was in a highly limber state when I was struck by the cyber-demon’s claw.  On the other hand, I’m not very sturdy.

I suppose I would just have to wait and see what happened when I landed.

Oof!

That was not the sort of landing I expected!  Or wanted!  The skeleton king had been hurrying forward during the fight with the cyber-demons, and while I was still in midair, he came up behind me, almost as fast as my rapidfire thoughts, his ribs swinging open, then snapping shut around me, trapping me inside like a bird in a cage.  And there was another skeleton inside that ribcage, one from a species I didn’t immediately recognize (a former contestant?), the point of the spear piercing the large skeleton encasing us both impaled right through its middle.

Well, at least the landing hadn’t been too jarring for all that.  And in this position I could even look out at Mac and Neph as the skeleton king lumbered toward them, surprisingly quiet for all his size.  They turned to face the new enemy, then split to either side, running up the stairs while it stomped down, overturning the metal brazier, ripping it right out of its moorings in the stone of the flagstones and sending burning coals and sizzling kindling everywhere.

“Aleph!” Neph was crying out, and for some reason his voice sounded…distant, reduced.  Were my audio receptors still on the fritz?  “Al!  Are you all right?”

“Say something, Al!” yelled Mac, and I could just catch glimpses of them as the skeleton king rounded on them and went barreling up the broad steps after the pair.  “Let us know you’re still alive in there!”

“Yes, I’m just fine,” I called out.  “His majesty broke my fall by catching me.  Actually it’s not that bad in here, though I can’t say much for the company.”

“Company?”  That was Mac’s voice.

“Oh yes,” I replied, feeling strangely ebullient, and perhaps even a little squiffy (if such a thing were even possible with my systems; it must have been a result of the jostling-around I’d just endured).  “There’s another skeleton inside the big one, and he’s the one holding the spear in place.  He’s actually got his hands around it and everyth-“

My voice died off, and so did the lighthearted feeling, as the little skeleton turned its head and looked straight at me.

“Al!”

“Aleph!”

I couldn’t stop the screams as the skeleton’s mouth snapped open, and spewed long, slimy tentacles.  They were all over me, grappling me, covering me everywhere no matter how much I fought and kicked!  And then…and then they were forcing their way into my power unit, latching onto that part of me that kept the rest of me going.  They were sucking out my life!

“Neph!  Mac!” I screamed.  “Help me!  Neph, help me, oh God, oh Makers, it hurts, it hurts so bad!”

And it did hurt!  It hurt in ways that I’d never thought were possible.  Pain until that moment was just another stimulus, a form of data – albeit an unpleasant sort of data – that helped to inform me of environmental hazards.  But I’d turned off my pain feeds before I picked up those hot coals, and so I knew they weren’t active until that moment.  Did…did this creature turn them back on somehow?  Or was I experiencing something else entirely, something that went beyond the mere input of stimulus?

Was I going to go to robot hell?

Was I already there?

Outside the skeleton king I could see Mac and Neph being attacked.  Yes, attacked: those cyber-demons were tougher than we’d thought, and two of them were back up, keeping my friends from being able to save me.  That was just the start of the troubles, too, for I could just barely make out more zombies, probably escaped from some chamber past this one, summoned to fight for their ruler, the skeleton king, once more.

Mac was saying something to Neph, something subvocalized.  But I was so far away from them both, and this horrible monster was eating my heart while I was still alive to feel it all, and I couldn’t hear them, couldn’t even guess what they were planning.

At least, I couldn’t guess until I saw it in action.

With Mac keeping the two cyber-demons occupied, dodging and hacking like a fiend herself, her eyes wild, her face set in berserker fury, Neph came running straight at the skeleton king.  Through the ribs, I saw him run up the overturned brazier, vaulting upward, using the height difference from the leap down the stairs to aim straight for the center of the ribcage that held me trapped.

Wait…where was Neph’s spear?  Where were any of his weapons?  Had he lost them while fighting the demons?  I could see one knife still hanging from his hip, but it wasn’t in his hand.  What was he doing…?

He was grabbing the spear, the shining silver spear sunk through the chests of both the skeleton king and the vampire skeleton that was in the process of eating me alive!  I could hear him yelling, an inarticulate cry of raw fury and determination, as he gripped it tight…then yanked it free!

It was shining so brightly that it seared my optical receptors.  What was that spear?  Surely…surely it couldn’t be…magic?  There was no such thing!

Was there?

Then the spear’s searing hot tip came smashing right through the ribs that had held it fast for so long, shattering them with force I’d never expected from Neph (dear soul he might be, and kind of cute, but his arms are a bit on the noodly side).  Through the ribs, and right into the skull of the monster that had been devouring my soul.  My vision fuzzed around the edges when I got too close to the tip, and it was then that I realized what was going on: it was stat suit-compatible technology.  In other words, it was part of the “loot” in this dungeon, a weapon fitted with the same nanotech that made up the stat suits.  When it came in contact with Neph’s suit, its abilities activated, in this case a highly-focused electromagnetic pulse, a pulse contained by a force field around the spear itself.  And when the tip of the spear impacted a target while it was so energized, it released the full force of that pulse in a shattering burst of force.

To say nothing of the havoc it was wreaking on my poor circuits, and it hadn’t even touched me!  That thing was a robot killer!

As my vision came back, the static fading into the edges of my eyes, I blinked up at Neph as he used the spear to pry open the skeleton king’s ribcage, now gone limp as its brain had been ruined by the EMP in his spear’s thrust.  Thank the Makers and God that I had some hardening in my construction, or that could have been me too!  Still, it took some effort to muster up the presence of mind to wave him back.

“Don’t worry, Neph,” I told him, letting my own information systems interface with the very tentacle that had just been sucking my life’s essence, cutting straight back to its source: the power core of the skeleton king.  “I’ve got this.”

Now I was the skeleton king!  I felt huge, mighty, looking out from far above as I peered out through the gemstones of my eyes.  What could withstand such might?  Nothing!

Gently setting Neph down, I beat my chest, then went charging forward with a bellow of challenge.  Mac turned just in time to gape, awestruck, as I plowed right past her, fists swinging as I landed in a fighting furball right in the middle of those cyber-demons.  They’d learn what it meant to get picked on by somebody bigger than them!

Except, well, the lesson didn’t last that long, and soon I was turning, facing down the hordelet of zombies milling up the stairs.

“Perfect timing,” I chortled, loving how my voice sounded so deep and tough as it reverberated through the vocal chambers of this mighty form.  “Reach for the sky, you sidewinders!”

Had I seen some cowboy cartoons while I was waiting in my treasure chest?  Those were from Earth, I knew that, and quite suddenly I could remember quite a lot of information involving gunslingers and similar fare, so I must have seen something along those lines.  Not that much of those memories had anything to do with spreading my arms wide and just tackling a small army of the walking faux-dead, but still, quoting from them had seemed like the right thing to say at the time.

Vaguely, as I battled the oncoming mindless hordes, fists swinging, indestructible and safe within the shell of my new body, I could hear Mac and Neph subvocalizing to each other, just standing there side by side at the top of the stairs, looking down, watching me.

“Look at her go,” said Mac.

“Yeah,” agreed Neph.

“She’s certainly enthusiastic, huh?”

“Yeah.”

A long pause.

“Nice spear.”

“Thanks.”

Of course, a power trip like that wasn’t going to last.  As I’d finished pounding the last of my opponents to the ground, and was just beating my chest in victory, quite suddenly I felt the power of the skeleton king give out.  The computers up in the Circus had finally noticed that he wasn’t functioning anymore, and had shut him down!

When that power gave out, so did my new body, and I screamed in shock as I fell right on my big boney face.

Almost half a standard hour later, Mac and Neph finally finished digging me out of the tangle of ceramic bones that had once been my new body, and then my prison once more.

“I’m all right,” I said with a slight sigh.  “Just…a little let down, is all.”

“The really fun rides never last very long,” agreed Mac with a sympathetic nod, before offering me her hand.  Naturally I took it.

“There’s more past this chamber,” Neph said as he stood a little away from us, looking to the far side of the room.  “The dungeon seems to go all the way into the depths of the mountain we’re under.  There’s no telling what other stuff we might find.”

“You really wanna keep going?” Mac asked, incredulity showing on her face, and I had to admit, I couldn’t keep my own body from shuddering all over at the thought, making a light clattering sound like rattling dishes.

“No,” Neph answered with a sheepish grin back at us, holding his new spear close to his side.  “I just thought I ought to mention it, is all.”