Gabriel’s Watch - Book One: The Scrapman Trilogy (20 page)

The assemblage of intricate circles was the same as that on her arm, given to her by the same space-dwelling species that had come with such good intent. We’d previously decided the symbol stood for hope, but as I watched it being magnified onto the building’s wall, simmering to a scorched blackness atop that porous structure, the symbol’s meaning appeared to be up for debate once again.

Alice released the trigger and lowered her arm, seemingly pleased with her finished masterpiece. She nodded in approval, smiling a bit to herself.

“Nice touch,” I agreed, “but we’re tempting fate now. We have to move.”

“Not yet,” Alice insisted. “We haven’t gotten to the finale.”

She raised her Hellburner once more, training it at the last SUV in line, and sent a thin strip of brilliant crimson to settle onto the vehicle’s underbelly. The following moment seemed to last an eternity.

I went to throw myself on top of Alice, but the eruption knocked us both over before I had the chance to do so. I’d felt it first in my chest as the explosion sent forth an impact wave worthy of jarring a few senses, leaving my eyes hazy and my ears ringing.

I scrambled to my feet, taking just a slice of an instant to see the flames bellowing from the vehicle’s broken windows before I ripped Alice from the ground. The sprinkling of busted glass could be heard just beyond the roar of the fire, skipping across the pavement and clanking against various objects, as I shoved her into a sprint.

“Go!” I shouted. “Go!”

Zeke led the way, running just fast enough for me and Alice to keep up. Crossing City Hall and reaching the dwindling perimeter of encompassing trash-light, we neared the alley where we’d left the Kawasaki. That was when I heard a second explosion, this one much sharper than the first. Had another vehicle caught flame and reached its flashover point? But the sound had sent a conditioned chill swiftly through my spine. And soon there was a third explosion, then a forth, and then a fifth, each one emitting its own abrupt flash of clear-white light, when I realized the sharp eruptions hadn’t actually come from a vehicle.

They came from gunfire.

Alice swung herself behind a pillar at the edge of City Hall as I dove beside her.

“Where’s it coming from?” I asked, coming to rest my shoulder opposite hers.

Alice thrust her thumb toward the adjacent side of the pillar. “Over there.”

I looked around, discovering we were a robot short. “Did Scraps ditch us?”

She shrugged, “I would assume he’s handling things.”

There was another shot fired, the accompanying flash of light, and the sound of a bullet whizzing past.

“I hate assuming!” I shouted. “And what the hell were you thinking back there?!”

But to my astonishment, even beneath the impending chaos, Alice actually smiled.

“This is just a minor hiccup,” she said. And as I looked at her, flabbergasted, she simply closed her eyes, took in a deep and steady breath, and held it for just a moment.

“There you are,” she whispered faintly.

“What?”

She spun around, pulling the Hellburner’s trigger, and brought flame to a man nearly one hundred feet away. I heard him yelp first in surprise, then soon shriek in pain and terror.

Alice stood to watch for a moment, lifting herself from a crouched position, before raising her weapon to end the man’s misery. She sent a quick jolt through the air, an impossible shot, but still caught him right in the head, twisting his neck and collapsing his body. The fire, without further objection, had been free to lick away at his lifeless and indifferent remains.

“Holy shit,” I said.

“C’mon.” Alice grabbed me as we rushed back toward the darkness from which we’d come. We found Zeke waiting for us by Kawasaki alley.

“And where the
hell
have you been?” I started to scold the robot, but Alice tapped me on the shoulder before I had a chance to continue. She pointed just beyond the kinetic entity, and there on the ground, with limbs broken well beyond repair, laid a good half-dozen men. Zeke crossed its arms and tilted its head, a motion that I interpreted as:
you were saying ...

Then we heard the distant commotion of voices on the rise as a flood of agents must have exited the building a block away. They were shouting at the top of their lungs, coming together to form one hellacious melody.

“Okay,” Alice agreed finally, “now we can go.”

Upon reentry into the cavern, Alice requested that Zeke show her the inner city. The robot obliged, and in the hologram we could see the SUV, still occupied by a healthy fire, and those swarming the streets around it. The audio, at the time, was not necessary; their body language provided enough interpretation.

They circled the vehicle, palms held upward, as they motioned back and forth. Some knelt to retrieve the pieces that Zeke dismantled, shaking their heads and sharing the discovery with others. But most of them were too busy studying Alice’s artwork to be bothered by the rest.

They stood, necks craned upward, as they seemed to be relishing every detail. A few of them, venturing farther, had already found the smoldering carcass of one of their own, as a couple more were about to discover the gruesome assembly just a block away. None of the men had moved an inch since last I saw them.

“What happened there?” I asked, pointing toward that disturbing group of six.

“I’ll show you,” the kinetic entity insisted, tilting its head as it communicated the request to Arcturus. The visual altered as time reversed in that digital window, taking us to the moment when Zeke had come upon the government agents.

I’d never witnessed Zeke in real action, only the impressive aftermath, but watching the replay of the robot’s performance made me respect the tactical machine on a whole new level. Both its speed and agility remained vastly unmatched as the kinetic entity, in the heat of battle, seemed to function on an entirely different spectrum of time.

The others attempted to fight, but each intended movement was violently intercepted—wrists snapped, legs broken, and ribs concaved. Only two shots were fired during that sad skirmish, both of which wildly missed their marks.

I then saw a seventh man, much younger than the rest, who had been vacant from the pile I saw just before our departure. Once Zeke quickly vanquished the other six, the robot seized the kid by the jaw and thrust him against the nearest wall. The kid’s body bounced like a rag doll as he wrapped his hands around Zeke’s wrist, trying to wrench himself free; but the robot’s hydraulic strength would surely appear limitless against its blood-driven adversary.

The kid continued to struggle nonetheless, even as Zeke lifted him from the ground and extended its mechanical arm to hold him there. The kid then spoke as his entire head moved up and down due to the placement of Zeke’s hand, which hindered the hinging mechanism of his mouth. It looked as though some words were exchanged as a small conversation between man and machine had ensued.

“What’s he saying?” I asked.

Given that Arcturus, like every military spy satellite before it, was nestled deep in its geostationary orbit within the Clarke belt, and far too high to gather any audio, Zolaris had engineered Zeke to record any data that might be worth relaying back to base. Zeke had Arcturus reverse the visual feed just far enough for the kinetic entity to add the requested soundtrack:

“I’ve done enough killing for today,” Zeke had told him. “Have to leave some of you for later.”

“What the hell are you?” the kid asked, still squirming.

Zeke lowered him to the ground and released him with a toss. The young agent landed on his heels and skidded to his back, then scrambled upward to stand before the machine. He looked like he wanted to flee but just couldn’t bring himself to turn his back to the robot.

“I’ve had so many names,” Zeke told him. “The ancients called me ‘Charon,’ but I’m better known now as ‘The Reaper.’ ”

Zeke then did a half-lunge toward the kid as the agent tripped over his own feet just to do a precarious kind of sprinting shuffle down the alley.

“Run along!” Zeke shouted at him. “And tell your friends I’ll be back for them!”

“The Reaper, huh?” I raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that a little melodramatic?”

Zeke pointed to Alice. “Her idea.”

Alice crossed her arms when I turned to look at her, ready to defend the strategy she had chosen.

“Yes, well, we’re at war and war is as much about finding a mental weakness as it is a physical one.” She pointed a slender finger at me. “You proved that at the diner yourself, Miles. So we give them superstitions, show them their weaknesses, and infect them with a fear that spreads like a virus.” Alice looked to Zeke, who was nodding in agreement. “Fear is like an acid,” she continued, “and it will weaken them from the inside out.”

T
he following morning arose long before we lifted ourselves from some much-needed rest. Fate rewarded us for our achievements with another delicious rabbit—this one white with blotches of chestnut. I mimicked Mohammad’s butchering strategy, finding myself in need of much practice. While grilling the mammal I discovered I was not alone. Turning at the sound of footsteps, I found Alice standing behind me. She smiled and lifted her face toward the sun, closing her eyes as its warmth caressed her skin.

“That feels so good,” she said, “almost cleansing.”

It had been unusual for her to leave the safety of the cavern. But with the coming of the kinetic entity our comfort zone had vastly expanded, giving Alice the peace of mind to venture out during the day. She opened her eyes to look at the spacecraft, still hovering there above the horizon, as she planted one hand on her hip and moved the other upward to shield the sun.

“Still there,” she proclaimed.

“I know,” I said, turning back to the rabbit. “It’s our guardian angel.”

“I can’t wait to hear what they’re talking about out there.” Alice came to take a seat beside me. “We’ve got the Grim Reaper downtown and a demon at Dingy Pete’s!” she laughed. “No one knows what to believe.”

“You seem pretty proud of yourself,” I observed.

She leaned back a bit, deciding her response carefully. “Yeah, I’m proud,” she agreed, “and rightfully so.”

I pressed down on the piece of meat, letting it sizzle momentarily, before flipping it over to reveal the darker side.

“You really impressed me out there,” I said. “Your accuracy with that thing—it’s amazing.”

“Thanks.”

“And when you hit that guy without even looking— that was unbelievable.”

“Thanks.”

“How did you do that?”

“I could hear him,” she said, “and that was all I needed.”

I shook my head. “If we weren’t friends, Alice, I think I’d find myself afraid of you.”

“Friends?” she asked, smiling softly. “After all this time, is that what you think we are?”

I shrugged. “I guess it’s complicated.”

Her smile widened. “Only for a human.”

“Touché, Alice, but what’s that supposed to mean?”

I could hear Zeke clanking up the steps, surely coming to bask its metal body in the morning sun. Alice and I watched as it stepped through the refrigerator door to come and meet us by the grill.

“It means we’re family, Miles,” Alice answered finally. “It means we’re family.”

“I see,” I said, gathering up the cooked rabbit to take downstairs, but Alice didn’t move. “You comin’?”

“Let’s eat out here,” she insisted, stretching her hand to me. “We always eat down there. I think it’s time for a change, don’t you?”

I shrugged. “It’s up to you—either way’s fine with me.” I handed her a leg and a rag. Alice took them from me, putting her mouth to the rabbit and tearing off a savory chunk of meat. She voiced her appreciation through a series of semi-erotic moans.

“Oh—fantastic!” she said, still chewing.

I, too, took a bite. Here was breakfast, and not only were we enjoying it, but we were doing so outside— something I’d been extremely opposed to, up until recently. But there were no agents coming, and it was even entirely possible that the government wouldn’t get the nerve to venture out past the confines of its hive today, for fear of something unknown.

Not only did the knowledge of this feel incredible in itself, but thanks to the rabbit, it also had been given a delectable taste and aroma. Alice continued to smile as I smiled with her, allowing much time to pass before either of us said anything. We found that words were no longer necessary in this place. And this newfound freedom we’d earned, this temporarily carefree space in time was indeed intoxicating, and something well worth defending—worth fighting for.

As we faced each other, feasting silently, I couldn’t help but wonder what she was thinking; just what did she have in mind for when the government regained their gall and came back for trouble?

I watched as Zeke reached down to slide the tips of its fingers across the grill’s auburn surface.

“Scott used to have a grill like this,” it said. “He had two sons. I remember.”

Alice and I looked at each other, clearly puzzled. “What?”

“Lieutenant Scott Stratford,” the robot clarified, but both of our questioning expressions remained unquenched.

Zeke nodded, understanding the need to elaborate: “The science of artificial intelligence had not been perfected until leading Zolaris scientist, Nikolai Anatolievich Novokov, discovered a way to map the human psyche and create a digital copy to serve as a programmable foundation.” Zeke tapped lightly at the side of its cranium. “Scott Stratford is part of my foundation.”

“You have his memories?” Alice asked.

“Not all of them,” Zeke said. “It’s more of a glitch. I’ll receive one randomly from time to time.”

“Interesting,” I nodded.

Alice raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, he’s only
part
of your foundation?”

“Yeah,” I agreed, “how many people you got in there?”

“Seven,” it answered.

“Seven?!” I blurted.

The robot nodded calmly. “Yes, it was called the chimera method—the careful selection of seven individuals combined to create an alternate form of consciousness.”