Bread and the Circus

Chapter 19

Chapter 19

“Well, this is another fine mess.”

Glancing over at Neph for just a moment, I turned my eyes back to the wreckage that was once our base camp.  The monsters might be unpleasant, but they never tried to wreck our stuff.  Their job was to give us a challenge, try to kill us if they could, and generally make our time on the Arena planet “interesting.”  This, though, this was mean and it was on purpose.

“I’d say somebody just threw down the gauntlet, wouldn’t you?”

This time I don’t bother looking at Neph, but just at all the splattered fruit – the entire harvest of the tree, ruined – the ripped up baskets we’d been weaving to make backpacks, the shattered and scattered spare weapons and other works in progress...and Al’s bow, snapped right in two, along with all its arrows, as though bitten by a huge set of jaws.  My eyes narrowed, and I nodded.

“Somebody’s gonna die for this.”

For a moment, I almost give in to the temptation to look at my suit’s self diagnostics again.  I don’t, though: I’d looked them over umpty-leven times already while cutting my way through the lizard-things that tried to stop me from getting here, and I knew I wasn’t doing good.  No, not at all.  The stat suit acted as a natural compress, keeping my cracked rib-bones and assorted internal organs in their proper places, but what I really needed was time for rest and recovery.  Even with the stat suit, I might need some surgery to fix up all the stuff inside of me that’s been wrecked by that hit from the Lizard Lord.  Keeping going at my present pace was pretty much a guaranteed one-way trip to the Circus morgue; as Murphy’s Laws of Combat Operations put it succinctly: “A sucking chest wound is nature’s way of telling you to slow down.”

But Al needed us.  She needed us now.

“No rest for the weary,” I growled, doing a quick search of the camp with Neph and collecting a few pitcher plants that had somehow escaped the general havoc of what had once been our nice, neat little camp.  “How long ago do you think this happened?”

“Judging from Aleph’s last signal,” Neph responded as he uncorked one of the pitchers, getting ready to knock back what might be a last meal, “I’d say they’ve got an hour’s head start on us.”

“Enough time to get to the morlock lair,” I said with what started out as a long sigh, but immediately turned into a hiss of pain.  “More’n enough time, if they’re even halfway decent robots.”

Neph just nodded.  He was dead silent now, and dead serious, and I don’t blame him one bit.  I mean, the girl he was crushing on’s just been abducted by killer spider-beetle robots and dragged off to some awful fate in their lair; that he’s as calm as he is a wonder, but I’m guessing it’s a case of still waters running deep.  Somehow, I figure I’m going to have to keep an eye on him, because if I don’t, he could go right off the deep end.

Like Neph said, we got a transmission from Al about an hour ago.  A little more than that now, actually, but whatever.  Me’n Neph had just met up on the edge of the grasslands, and started following the river that would take us eventually all the way back to home base, when we suddenly heard her voice in our ears.  More subvocalization, except it’s pretty natural for her, something she can do without thinking about it, while me’n Neph have to concentrate a bit to do it, and still forget most of the time.

“There are robots here,” she said, and we got a flash of an image of what she meant, but only just a brief glimpse, enough to know they were big, black, shiny beetle-spider-things, and really scary-looking.  “They’ve been sent by the one I told you about.  The one who noticed me back in the first dungeon.  It’s found me now, and I don’t think I can resist these creatures for long.  They’ve got magnetic shackles, and parts of me are composed of ferrous materials, enough that they can actually…ah.”

The “ah” was almost an intake of breath, or maybe a gasp, if Al was actually physically capable of doing either.  Still, the sound was a close enough approximation, enough that I could feel my heartrate spiking with anxiety for her.  I can’t even imagine what Neph went through then...what he’s going through now.

She sent a few more messages, brief things, enough to make sure we knew exactly where she was going, and that she was pretty sure they weren’t going to hurt her…yet.  Al also mentioned that she guessed that she’d be able to contact us again if we could get inside the morlock lair; she could sense that it was blocking signals in and out, but doubted the robots could function together very well if they couldn’t communicate once they were on the inside where they belonged.  So, ipso facto, signals can’t go in, and can’t go out, but they work just fine once you’re past the main gates.

Neph finishes up his last long drink of slushy fruit, and I take some sips of water (I don’t dare any more than that with my insides the way they are), and that’s it for us.  We share a final look, a nod, and then turn our faces toward the gleaming white walls of the morlock lair, visible somewhere on the edge of the horizon.

The plains all around us are quiet.  There’s no wind, no rustles of wandering monsters, and of course there’s none of the host of harmless life, of birds and bugs and cute little critters that make up the majority of living things in a natural environment.  I mean, it’s eerie how absolutely silent this whole place is, not even clouds up above to break up the monotony.  I grew up most of my life in the teeming metropolis back on Earth, and I’ve never in my life been this alone.  This absolutely, utterly, completely alone.

Well, except for Neph, of course, but he’s not much comfort right now.  He’s in no mood to talk, and I can tell that with just a look, so I don’t bother him.  We’re supposed to be focused right now on just two things: saving Al, and getting out of that place alive.

The sun’s just starting to set when we reach the morlock lair.  Yeah, it’s big all right.  Bigger’n it looked from the landing pad, that’s for sure.  It’s kind of Romano-Grecian, with the flawless white marble gleaming in the sun, the huge pillars and pilasters holding up the shaded overhang around the edges, and all the creepy bas-relief sculptures all over the place.  And I do mean creepy!  They all show robots fighting people, of an assortment of the races of the Pan-Galactic Republic, or enslaving people, or sacrificing people on altars, or doing weird, sick things to them that turn them into sorta-kinda robots themselves.

“Love the décor,” I growled softly as we started up the stairs.

“Just means we don’t have to feel any guilt when we kill this monster,” Neph answered, his voice colder than I’d ever thought possible from the kid.  I mean, I knew he was the serious sort, but this…this was scary.  “We’ll find him, and we’ll kill him; he’s not going to escape us.  Not if he’s hurt Aleph.”

Right about then, I could have pointed out that we don’t know if this “entity” Al picked up was male, female, or something else entirely.  Also right about then, though, I didn’t think Neph would have appreciated any noise from the peanut gallery, so I kept the opinion to myself.  Instead, we strode up to the big double doors of the place, all bright bronze-looking metal on hinges I was sure Neph would’ve called “cyclopean” if he was in the mood to say much of anything right then, and put out shoulders to them.

There was a crick, and then a creak, and then the doors started to open before us, nice and slow.

“…not sure how much of this you’re picking up, but I think I’m about halfway through the labyrinth now,” came Al’s voice crackling to life in our stat suit communicators pretty much the moment we got the doors open enough to see how dark it was just inside the place.  “They transferred me onto a magnetically-charged slab as soon as they got me inside, and now I’m all splayed out, and can’t really move anything.  Fortunately my neural systems are based on crystalline structures rather than ferrous ones, or I couldn’t keep talking to you; I think it’s all that’s keeping me from panicking right now.  One moment while I upload a map of what I’ve seen so far: you’ll need it to make it through this place.”

In the corner of my eye, I could make out a loading bar, but I didn’t really have a lot of time to pay attention right then.  See, the moment we had that big double door cracked wide enough for us to maybe fit inside, that’s the moment that we both saw a host of bright red eyes light up.  There were bug eyes, and round eyes, and square eyes, and scary slanted “angry” eyes, and eyes that were just slits, and who knows how many more right behind.  Instantly I was reminded of one of Al’s cartoons, and if I wasn’t pretty sure I was about to get murdered, I would have laughed.

No, scratch that: I did laugh, right before I let my new claws extend from the backs of my hands with a metallic shing noise, and started walking right into the gaping jaws of Dante’s Inferno itself.  I knew Neph was right behind me, and also knew he’d have been right beside me, except there wasn’t enough of a gap in the open door for us to get inside except in single file.

Here’s a really cool thing I learned about my new weapon, which is pretty much a copy of the weapon that was used by the Lizard Lord, and probably has most of the same features he was using, which explains how he was able to keep going for so long: it gives me some better living through biochemistry.  See, besides looking like a pair of Hell’s vegetable peelers, which is pretty cool in itself, there’s this little gauge on the left wrist, which gradually fills up when I’m not using it actively (I think it picked the left wrist as an adaptation to my being Human, since our heart is on the left side, and that’s the body’s big pump).  Besides letting me pick its color (I settled on a wicked purple), the gauge tells me how much of my own body’s adrenaline and endorphins and whatever else have been harvested by the new structures in my suit, and then souped up into something way, way better.  Then, when I need the stuff for a boost to my fighting ability, I can turn on the pump, and go into overdrive.

I figured this all out while I was fighting lizard-things back on the way down from the hill, and discovered that not only wasn’t I hurting, I was moving faster, hitting harder, and more aware of my surroundings than I’d been before.  Of course, once I ended that first fight, all the pain and fatigue and everything came back with a vengeance.  So the whole trip down was a series of yo-yo bounces, up and down, which isn’t a pleasant feeling, let me tell you.  As for long-term effects, I don’t even want to begin to think about those, and all I can do is hope and pray this stuff isn’t addictive (I mean, I’m only guessing that it’s made up of my body’s natural chemicals, enhanced by the suit, since that makes the most sense to me; for all I know, though, it could be making the stuff out of space magic or unicorn burps or something like that).  All the same, I don’t think I could have made it without the boost, not all messed up inside like I am right now.  And right now, as I rush forward, I know I couldn’t do it while laughing, my blades making wide arcs that shine in the darkness as I carve into crackling robots carapaces.

The shine, of course, is from Neph’s sun spear.  We’re back to back in a heartbeat, and I can feel the hum of the electromagnets that give that thing its punch as he lunges with it, shattering a dimly-seen robot’s head, before the rest of its body starts to jerk and spark as the sun spear does its deadly work on its insides.  That thing was made for killing bots!

Then Neph is spinning, and I’m ducking, and we’re switching places, the swing of his spear taking off the top bits of another of the shadowy robot-forms, while my claws snicker-snack out, gutting another, sending a spray of sparks and embers sizzling around my head and shoulders, making a couple strands of my hair smoke for a second or two.  His spear’s haft lunges past my ribs while he’s fighting the ones in front of him, and catches a bot that came to replace the one I’d downed.  This stuns it for the moment I needed to rip its arms off, giving me the instant I needed to rest my wrist on Neph’s shoulder and open up with my force blaster, taking out one that had been coming at him from a diagonal, just out of the immediate thrusting reach of the spear.

We’re dancing.  That’s the best way I can describe it.  Sort of a reverse waltz, facing away from each other rather than toward.  Cut-two-three-four, jab-two-three-four, black-two-three-four, and switch.  The action’s a lot more mobile than your typical waltz, too, with a lot more ducking and weaving and the occasional panicky moment or two where we lose contact with each other to handle a special situation that comes up.  As soon as it’s over, though, we’re back-to-back again, making sure not to be separated for longer than absolutely necessary; not in this nightmarish dark, where the only light comes from the gauge on my wrist, the glow of the sun spear, and the blazes of hate from the eyes of the robots all around us, or from their inside parts when they get jerked to their outsides, sparking and fizzing and popping.

Suddenly I’m on my knees, fighting with all my might just to get a breath.  That’s how I know that the danger’s over: my new chemical boost came to a stop before the gauge got past the halfway mark, and that means I must’ve instinctively turned it off, knowing there wasn’t anything left for me to fight.  Which means I’m in several different worlds of hurt.

“You okay, Mac?” Neph asks, and now the sun spear is glowing brighter, filling up the antechamber where we’d just had out battle royale with the welcoming committee.  I look around, and I see bots built like beetles, like spiders, like humanoids, even like stuff I’ve never seen before…and I…I…impressed!

“Couldn’t be better,” I get out through shuddering laughs and half-coughs as I force myself back to my feet.  “Did you see us, Neph?  We were awesome!”

He’s looking at me like I’m crazy, and maybe I am.  Actually, I’m probably getting close to delirious, considering my body’s torn-up state and the chemical cocktail running rampant in my weakened system.  But that’s not really important right now.  What’s really important is...

“Neph?”

Al’s voice again, and she sounds like a scared little girl, and my heart is melting for her.  “Neph, they’re taking me into a central room.  I…I don’t think I got the map through to you; I think they intercepted the file, and corrupted it.  Don’t open it, or there might be some sort of virus inside now.  Delete it.  Then…then get out of here.”  The words are filled with terror, but also with all the courage that poor little robot girl has in her body.  “He knows you’re here, and he’s got everything in this place out to get you.  I mean that: they’re not staying in one place like they’re supposed to; they’ve hunting you, the whole dungeon’s denizens, and I think he’s sent out some more robots to leave the lair and call on some of the local monsters, too.  He can do that, I think; hack monsters, I mean, the same way he hacks robots.

“The same way he’s going to hack me.”

There’s a long pause, and we can both hear the soft sounds of sobbing in the background, sounds Al’s trying to keep us from hearing, but are coming through anyway.  And then, ever so faint, we hear:

“I don’t want to die.”

We look at each other, and in the light of the spear I can see the places where Neph’s suit’s been torn, and how his breastplate, the old bone breastplate we got back while fighting the lizard-things in Ginchis Deep the first time, just shattered all to heck and gone, with just string and splinters left dangling from his shoulders.  I can even see a few glimpses of his pale skin, right before the suit mends itself over them, and the bright red of the blood that had been flowing.

I don’t look down at myself; not when I know I’m not gonna like what I’d see.

“C’mon,” I say, turning to the one big archway leading out of the antechamber, “let’s go get Al back.”

“Yeah,” he says, and the word is almost a whisper.

We turn a corner, and there’s a bot ready to jump on us, but I take its head off, before Neph runs it through the chest.  Another corner, and there’s three of them, and my vision gets a little blurry as I leap into the middle of them, not caring about the cut I feel on my arm and then on my outer thigh as I rip them to shreds, Neph taking one off my back with the spear when it latched there, out of reach of my slashers, and then finishing off the ones I’d sent to the ground, keeping them from crawling after us and causing more trouble.

Another turn, another fight, brief and brutal and b****y (for us).  And another.  And…

And then we’re stepping out into this huge place, a long, high-ceilinged corridor, with all sorts of cool carvings on the walls, really old-looking history like what we’d seen back in the Ginchis Deep dungeon, probably the stuff put in place by the Arena’s actual designers, rather than whoever or whatever it is that’s turned this place into its personal funhouse-c*m-abattoir.

I’m kind of bummed, though, that we aren’t going to get any time to check out the décor.  I mean, there’s this huge demon on the other end of the room, all horns and spikes and teeth and claws and freaky cyborg bits all over the place.  A baddie like that, it kinda takes up your whole attention, you get me?

Then it’s running at us, and I can tell that something’s wrong.  I mean seriously wrong.  For one, it’s fast.  No, I mean fast, no restraints on it like the other stuff we’ve fought.  They all had these little pauses right before they did something lethal, getting their orders straight from the computers up in the Circus satellite.  This red-skinned demon thing, though, it doesn’t have that hesitation.  Instead, it moves like a jungle predator, all speed and lethal purpose.

This thing was made to kill us, I realize with a sense of sick horror, dulled into the background only by the red haze that had become whatever remains of my life.  Whatever it was that stole Al from us, it knew we’d come, and it made this thing specifically to make sure we failed.  This is why Al tried to tell us to run.  But now it’s too late.

Before I know quite what hit me, I hit the ground, skidding back until I bump up against the lintel of the door we’d just come through.  From where I’m now lying, I can see the demon darting around Neph’s outthrust spear, way faster than anything that big has a right to move.  Seeing it like this, now that I’m able to sit back and adopt an objective posture, I can clearly see that it’s no typical Arena monster, its movements so much fluid grace, it’s terrifying.  The thing’s almost…stop-motion, actually, like one of the old Harryhausen movie monsters Al had such fun showing us between cartoon features back at camp.  The way it flows smoothly from one action to the next, with Neph as the live action dude whose presence doesn’t really matter, really hits me in a spot that would start to shudder like crazy…if I didn’t want to avoid messing myself up inside any more than I already am.

Another instant, and the sun spear goes flying to one side as the beast smacks it from Neph’s hands, and it sticks in the wall.  Neph’s got that deer-in-headlights look, that moment of hesitation that comes when everything you’d been planning suddenly doesn’t mean anything anymore, and you realize that you’re dead, and after that nothing much matters.  I’m on-edge myself, to be honest, and know that when Neph goes, I’ll go right after, just as soon as the demon gets around to handling me.

No.

I decide right then and there that I’m not going to go so easily.  I’m not going to let Al suffer in here!  She’s my friend!

Before I’m really aware of how I did it, I’m back on my feet, screaming my head off as I race down the corridor, claws extended, chem-gauge dropping like mad as I burn through the stuff.  It’s about all that’s keeping me upright, I guess.  Well, that and being generally evil-minded, I suppose.

Just when the demon’s distracted, and Neph’s making a grab for his spear, and I’m about to die – which I know is about to happen just from the casual way that big scary red dude extends his clawed hands, ready to end me and then get back to the business of killing Neph – I see something big, and I do mean big come out of the archway behind the demon.  It’s not quite as big as the demon, but it’s plenty big enough.  Whatever it is, it’s got horns too, and it’s covered in dark brown fur.  It doesn’t have any weapons, and its hands don’t have claws, but those horns it’s got seem like they’re more than enough.  I know this, because the next moment those ivory whites are sticking out of the demon’s chest.

The new guy just impaled the demon from behind.  And now he’s lifting the demon up into the air, shaking him like a terrier worrying a rat, before giving a heave, and sending the big red monster tumbling and then smashing into the far wall.

Of course it’s not over yet, but me’n Neph are just observers at this point, as I crumple, and he catches me, his hands under my arms.  I think Neph’s calling my name, and he sounds pretty worried, but I’m kind of past the point where I can say or do much, except watch the show going on in front of me.

And what a show!  I’d seen a few professional wrestling exhibition matches some local boys put on for the neighborhood, and that was fun, but it’s got nothing on this.  I mean, these big monsters were good.  The demon was bigger, and obviously a lot stronger, and had a lot more in the natural weapons department.  The big horned thing, though, he had the advantage of skill, and boy did it show.  He might be shorter, but he knew how to close the distance, land a few good hard hits, maybe throw a knee, then spin pat and out of the way like I’d been shown while studying soft-style martial arts.

A few minutes of this, and the demon was too flustered to think straight.  I mean, I know these monsters have computers for brains, but whatever filled the gap that was this demon’s mind, it was being thrown into overload, and its body, too, as it started slowing down so visibly, even me’n Neph could see it.

That was when the big guy with the horns stepped in to finish the job.  A shoulder lunge, then a hard throw, and the demon was on the ground, before the big guy stepped over him, and wrapped his powerful arms around the demon’s neck.  There was some manly grunting, and then a loud roar, and finally a c***k! that I could feel in my bones as I watched the back of the big guy tensing, all the muscles standing out in sharp definition.  Then he was standing up, letting the limp body of the demon drop to the flagstones, before he turned to face us.

We looked at the big guy, and he looked at us, and we all just stayed where we were for a while, not saying anything.  I mean, what was there to say?  For all I knew, this big guy was like all the other monsters we’d met, speechless…but somehow I felt there was more to him than that, just from looking into his big brown eyes.  There was something there, a spark of reason that I hadn’t seen in anything else around here, certainly not in the eyes of any mere monster.

That’s when me’n Neph were both floored, ‘cause the big guy, he spoke.

“Are you going to try to kill me?”

The voice was a deep, pleasant baritone.  Kind of relaxing, actually, the kind of voice you could imagine crooning out these old showtunes.  I looked at Neph, and he looked at me, and since I wasn’t up to much right then, Neph acted as our spokesbeing.

“No, sir.”

“Good,” said the big guy, his shoulders relaxing.  “I do not like to hurt children.”