Gabriel’s Watch - Book One: The Scrapman Trilogy (25 page)

I was the first to enter the cavern. Alice and Zeke stayed above for another few minutes, so I was caught off-guard when I heard my name called from within.

“Miles,” the voice beckoned in a whisper. “Miles, are you there?”

It was Claire, her voice resonating through the small radio device. I snatched up the unit and brought it to my lips, pausing for a moment.

“Claire?” I said. “What do you want?”

“There you are.” She sounded relieved. “I was hoping to catch you when the two of us could be alone, or rather when
I
was alone.”

I couldn’t be sure of her honesty. It could have been a clever ruse designed by Saint John, a lure to get my guard down. I heard him trying to summon me a few times on that unit, but those calls had purposely gone unanswered. Still, despite all of Saint John’s henchmen and firearms, Claire was certainly the weapon with whom one should be most careful.

So I proceeded with caution.

“How is it going in your neck of the woods, Claire?”

“Madness,” she exclaimed, “but I’m doing my best to keep the beast at bay.”

“Yes, that’s quite a beast you’ve aligned yourself with,” I said, bringing to mind that Alice had once compared Saint John to the minotaur of Greek mythology, dwelling deep within the labyrinth that was Dingy Pete’s Café.

“I know,” she said, “but he’s really not the monster he portrays himself to be.”

“Really?” I asked. “The ability to cleave a man’s head from his body, whether that man is alive or dead, counts as a monstrous act.”

“You don’t know what he’s been through, Miles.”

“I know enough. What do you want, Claire?”

She let out a small sigh. “I’m having visions, Miles— dreams; and they are about you.”

“What dreams?”

“Something is watching you from above—like a hawk might observe a rodent, it watches you—calculating, careful, and thorough—and it waits patiently.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. She was referring to the Vahana as cryptically as humanly possible. I’m sure you could spook just about any paranoid survivor into believing that thing was watching them personally.

“Ha! Good one, Claire. That thing in the sky is just for me, huh?”

“Do not mock me, Miles.” Her voice grew firm. “There is something aboard that thing, a dark and powerful figure. And it awaits the coming of something—something horrific.” She spoke the words with an audible shudder. “I’m afraid something terrible is going to happen to you, Miles ... you and your lady hybrid.”

Her words shot through me like a bolt of lightning, all my fears solidifying at the back of my throat in that awful instant. “You don’t know anything,” I told her. “You’re just a crazy, old hag.”

“Please, Miles,” she said, her words gentle as ever. “I’m just trying to help you.”

“Saint John put you up to this?!” I shouted. “Is he there? Tell him I’ll slit his throat if he comes looking for us. Tell him I’ll—”

“Miles,” she said, “calm yourself.”

I forced my mouth shut, clenching my jaw tight, and took a deep breath in through my nose. I then discovered my shaking hands, trembling from the very pounding of my heart.

“You ... can’t know that,” I said. “No one ... can know that.”

“And no one will,” she assured me. “You’ve kept her safe for all this time, but she’s not safe anymore, Miles.”

“She’s fine,” I said. “You don’t know what you’re talking about; we’re safer here than anywhere else in the city.”

“Miles, please,” Claire began to sob, “if you stay there, you both will die.”

I
switched off the receiver and tossed it across the workbench. It skipped twice and fell to the floor. Claire knew the truth this whole time; she knew my darkest secret, and she was in league with someone I could never trust. Something had to be done. Something had to be done—and fast.

Alice could tell before she even made it all the way down that something was terribly wrong. I told her everything, and she also grew troubled. Whether Claire’s visions were factual, or rather something designed to make us slip up, didn’t really matter in the end. The only thing that mattered was her knowledge of Alice.

“What do we do?” she asked.

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

“We silence her,” Zeke proposed, rounding the workbench to join us.

I looked at the machine with utter disdain, while Alice appeared to be thinking on the idea.

“You gotta be kidding me, you’re actually thinking about killing her?”

“She’s at the head of a militia, Miles. You’re the one always talking about loose ends.”

“Maybe we can trust her. You might wanna think about that before you think about ending her life.”

“You rely far too much on the trust you have in people you hardly know. Mohammad knows
exactly
where to find us, and now Claire apparently knows
exactly
what I am. We are no longer the ones in control, Miles.” Alice shook her head, overcome with frustration. “And now the question is: how can we change that?”

“I will go,” Zeke said, “and I will make it swift.”

“Hold it, Scraps! No one said we’re killing anyone!”

The robot twitched a bit when I yelled at it, the side of its head jerking to the right, accompanied by the sound of winding gears. It turned abruptly and walked down the hallway.

“You hurt his feelings,” Alice observed.

“Since when does that thing even
have
feelings?”

Alice shook her head. “I don’t know what to do, Miles. I don’t know what to do and that scares me.”

I let out a deep breath and put my arm around her. “I don’t know either, Alice, but we’ll figure it out.” I brought her closer to me. “I promise we’ll figure it out.”

She turned and put her face on my chest, the warmth of her breath forming a circle of heat below my neckline. I lowered my lips to the top of her head and kissed her there.

And it was then we heard a shriek like nothing I’d heard before. At first it sounded like a woman’s scream, but the next moment I identified it as an entirely separate species altogether. Alice leapt from my arms as we both stood, stunned.

The cry was coming from Dinah.

She was in intense pain.

I bolted down the hallway, running toward the source of her cry, and found Zeke in Alice’s room. The machine appeared to have scooped the cat up from her common resting place at the foot of Alice’s bed. It had its back to us, gripping Dinah in both its hands, as the cat’s tail tossed furiously about.

“Zeke!” Alice shouted. “Put her down!”

The robot turned slowly to face us, its head tilted ominously to one side; one of its hands around Dinah’s throat, the other clamped to the back of her head.

“Zeke!” Alice lunged forward but I caught her by the arm and yanked her back.

“No, Alice,” I said, pulling her behind me. “No.”

“My f-father had a cat like this,” Zeke said, something quivering in its voice chamber as it assembled the words. “I h-hated that cat.” The machine took Dinah’s head and twisted it backwards, silencing the feline, then dropped her to the floor. The cat hit the ground with the sound of Alice’s scream. Zeke wrapped its metallic hands over its head and knelt for a moment. And then, enhancing the terror, the machine screamed as well, letting out a cacophony of vocal wavelengths. It sounded as though multiple voices were screaming through the thing simultaneously.

“All the voices!” it shouted, pounding at its cranium. “All these voices!” It then brought one of its hands to its eyeless face and examined it there, actuating the solenoids that moved its fingers. “What ... what have you done?” it asked. “What have you done to me?!”

“Alice, run.” I shoved her back into the hall. “Run!”

Zeke came after us, tearing through the curtain suspended from Alice’s doorway, as we shot past the workbench. Alice was in front of me, she managed to climb halfway up the stairs when I was seized by the ankle. The machine swung me upward and slammed me hard onto the workbench.

Again Alice screamed as she stopped to look back; I wanted to tell her to run, to leave me behind, but I couldn’t talk. Instead I rolled and fell onto the floor, my body emitting pain in the various places that were injured as I tried to get back up. My ribcage sent a sharp rod through me and I buckled back over, trying to crawl in the opposite direction of the machine.

It was then that I saw it, slumped against the bottom of a bookshelf, where it had been tossed when I’d landed on the table.

Alice’s Hellburner.

I reached out for the weapon, fighting to change direction and crawl towards it, but every motion was torture. I could hear the machine behind me, clunking about, rambling on about its father. I turned my head to see it there, pacing back and forth, along with the horror that had shaped Alice’s face. She stayed frozen on the stairway, the machine lumbering between us, where she would be forced to watch me die.

“Miles,” she cried, “Miles, I’m sorry.”

I took another pathetic motion toward the Hellburner, but like a dream the weapon seemed to move farther away with each small attempt. So this would be my end, after all I’d been through, sprawled out on the floor, killed by the very thing we’d worked so hard to create. I took another motion, followed by another colorful burst of pain.

“Are you listening?!” the machine shouted, coming to stand over me.

I looked up at it, trying to ready myself for its final blow; the one that would ultimately separate body from soul or spirit; the one that would deliver me to a place where pain no longer exists.

Then a gunshot rang out through the cavern, along with its flash of light. The bullet sparked off Zeke’s metallic skin, as the machine turned to find Alice holding my 45. She took another shot, and another. The machine growled as the bullets continued to skip off its surface. Zeke leapt for her and she dodged its attack, taking a final shot that severed a hydraulic line. Fluid spewed from behind the thing’s head as the machine howled at her. Alice pulled the trigger another couple times, but only empty clicks returned. She tossed the gun to the floor, lowering herself as Zeke swung at her. She kicked it hard in the leg—a useless strike, as I tried to make another reach for the Hellburner. But it might as well have been a mile away.

“Alice,” it hurt just to talk, but I managed to point, “get it.”

She leapt over the workbench with the machine clawing at her heels. The thing came down on top of her, smashing through a row of bookshelves on the far wall, and burying the Hellburner beneath it and the raining literature. Alice was able to slide herself out from the debris and rush to my side. She put her hands around me, trying to lift me from the floor, but I screamed in pain.

“Come on, Miles,” she pleaded. “Get up!”

“I can’t,” I told her. “Alice, I can’t. Just go.”

Zeke rose from the floor, taking the step that smashed the only device that gave us any hope for survival. I heard it crunch beneath the weight of the machine.

“I love you,” she said, wrapping her arms around me. “I love you.”

We held each other as the thing approached us, leaking oil as it walked. Alice buried her face into my neck.

“I love you, too,” I told her, shutting my eyes ...

And together we waited for the welcome of eternity.

Then, through closed lids, I saw a flash of bright light ... and another. I opened my eyes to find Zeke still standing over us. The machine took a step back, tilting its head in the opposite direction, and reached its arm toward us. Zeke’s outstretched hand sent an expanding wave of brilliant purplish energy, spanning from the epicenter that was its point of contact, revealing a bubble that separated Alice and I from the machine.

Zeke, furious, began to smash its fists against the energy field, but was unable to pierce it. There was then another flash of light—not purple, not like that emitted from the energy shield, but an awesome, electric blue. The bolt of light sliced through the cavern, leapt into Zeke’s body, and wrapped the machine in thousands of tiny electric tendrils.

Zeke shook violently for just a moment, then growing completely stiff, toppled like the falling of a great statue, as if it were one, solid piece of metal.

With the kinetic entity suddenly vanquished, Alice lifted herself from me.

“What just happened?” she asked, putting her hand in front of her, trying to touch that curtain of energy.

“Don’t be alarmed,” a voice said from seemingly nowhere. “I mean you no harm.”

“Who are you?” Alice asked. “Show yourself.”

“Alice,” the voice said, “I am like a brother to you. We are cut from the same cloth, you and I.”

“Who are you?” Alice repeated.

Just then the silhouette of a figure appeared, the surrounding light bending only slightly around it. The figure, once entirely visible, stepped forward so Alice and I could look on him unhindered. He smiled at us. It was a kind smile, one I’d seen countless times before.

Alice turned to look at me, her expression revealing her similar state of astonishment—her jaw hanging completely open.

“No,” I said. “No, that’s impossible.”

“Believe it, Miles,” Mohammad said to me. “Believe it.”

T
he Fijian walked over to me, stepping over Zeke’s metallic carcass, and knelt by my side. He placed his hand on my chest, looking solemn.

“You need medical attention, Miles,” he said. “I’m afraid you’ve got some broken ribs.”

“What the hell is going on here?” Alice demanded. “Where did you come from?”

“I’ll explain all that I can,” Mohammad reassured her, “but right now we need to fix up the human.” He placed his right hand, which was covered in some kind of intricate glove, over my eyes. “Rest now, Miles,” Mohammad said. “Rest.”

And, quite impossibly, I did.

I awoke beneath a bright, white light, feeling incredibly, and uncharacteristically, relaxed. I was very comfortable, and judging by the warmth of my skin upon my well-rested muscles, I’d been comfortable for quite some time.