H.E.R.O. - Horde (23 page)

I heard in the distance, "My dear, must you do that?"

A beautiful voice sadly sang, "If you insist...."

It was as though a moon crossed in front of her sun as she slid sunglasses over her eyes.  I blinked and wondered how long I'd been staring at her.

Lady Celeste said, "You wondered how we were doing?  We will be fine once we find those behind these red men."

"I agree."

"Thank you for coming to the aid of my club.  I know you weren't here before the red men entered."

"I had a feeling people would need help.  They didn't look like cookie salesmen."

"No, they didn't.  I almost wonder what the city is doing with them all; their jail must be getting fairly full."

"Could that be the intent?  To fill the jail for some odd reason?"

"We need more information before we know.  I am fairly certain there is not much more to learn tonight.  Thank you again."

"Glad to help."

My eyes were drawn again to Rapture.  Whatever her power, the eyes drew one in the most; her glasses appeared to mute the effect.  The rest of her was so eye catching that it was still hard to look away.  She appeared to be very interested in my wings.

Her hair was identical in color to Psystar’s odd gold hair with the metallic tint, but this mutant’s was only slightly wavy rather than kept curly as the heroine kept hers.  Her lips were a pinkish-red shade of lipstick.  She had painted her fingernails and toenails bright pink.

Her upper torso was covered only by two pieces of jewelry – an intricate dark gold choker around her neck and a brassiere that failed to completely cover each breast.  Each side was a circle with varying length ornamentation resembling small tentacles curving around each breast.  The bottommost inner ‘tendril’ had a chain connecting the two together, along with a chain that went around her back.

A similarly patterned bikini-style loincloth was around her waist.  A gold oval connected the metal chains on each side, with a too-small gold-colored cloth coming down in front, and a long thin piece of cloth barely covering anything in the back.

She wore heels that resembled sandals, with a gold lattice wrapping around each calf, it matched the rest of the set.  Similar pieces were around each forearm.

Last were her wings – these were very similar to my own, but instead of a dark gray coloration, these were of bright golden coloration, not overly different from her hair in color.

When I finally looked away from her, I realized that I had to leave or I would just stand there staring at her.  I bid them goodnight and left Blacklight.

Chapter 20 - Escape

Greg Paffen’s Viewpoint

It took hours before the woman returned to the rooftop.  I tried to move as little as possible.  Most of the time when I did move the eye creatures focused on me and repeated their "It move!" line while staring for a while.

The heroine climbed over the side of the roof, took off her shirt and wiped some of the makeup off her face with it.  Then she changed back into her costume. 
Whoa, I wish I were human right now....

She said, "Are you boys ready?"

A chorus of "Arr." came from them.  They slid their phones into arm holders on each of their right crab claw tentacles.

She began running across rooftops, occasionally hanging onto Fluff when the height was more than a story difference.  At one point, she stopped at a small convenience store, leaving the creatures outside.  She walked out with a bag, jogged across the street and leaped up onto the one story building we hovered above.

The heroine took out three candy bars from the bag, opened each and handed one to each of the creatures.

"You were brave boys tonight.  Oh, and Gruff, you earned combat XP tonight from the fight, don't you feel tougher?"

"Arr."  He made a flexing move with his claw arms.

Fluff said, "Fluff get most XP."

Gruff said, "Fluff
always
get most XP."

"Fluff tougher."

"Fluff suck."

"Gruff suck."

The woman interrupted them, "Boys, be nice.  Stop fighting."

Hmm, what's the relationship between these odd creatures and the girl?  She obviously commands them, and they willingly listen.  And then there's the dragon - where does a dragon come from, much less one covered in fur?

They continued moving fast for a while until they came to a residential area and entered a garage.  After closing the large door, they used a door in the back and went through an underground tunnel for what seemed to be a great distance, finally moving up into a basement of a house.

The place looked comfortable, with a large couch that had a dozen or more stuffed animals facing a large screen TV currently showing a late night movie.  Many of their heads turned and watched the group I was with as Rayna walked through.  The woman stopped and scratched a furred, winged snake for a moment before leading the way upstairs.

She stopped in the kitchen and threw the store bag away, keeping something in her hand.  Then she walked through a foyer, kissed a statue of a gargoyle on the forehead, and walked into the living room. 
Cool, she's got a full size gargoyle?

The living room was also very pleasant, with two large screen TVs and many more stuffed animals on the various pieces of furniture.  The green dragon lay on its back on the center couch, its wings spread out for balance as it used its hind legs to hold up a game controller and the front legs to manipulate it.  It was currently playing a medieval game.

The woman said, "Hiya Kar.  Look, I have your quest reward."

She held up the stick of meat in her hand.  The furred dragon quickly paused the game as she sat down next to it.

Kar said, "Woot!  Quest reward!  No coin for this one?"

"Sorry, this was XP and food only - but it was good food, right?"

"Yup.  This is the stuff that gives a lot of health back."

She rubbed its yellow belly as the dragon cut away the outer casing with a claw.

She said, "Kar, help me puzzle something out.  Something is changing people, possibly a drug they are taking or a chemical put in their food or drink.  I mean, they look
really
different."

"I remember - I was there last night."

"Right.  So how do people get changed into those red guys without everyone else in a tavern freaking out?"

"Perhaps it is an illusion?"

"No, they really are red brutes."

"Hmm, mind control?"

"Could be, but if the drug is causing mind control, why isn't everyone else reacting?"

"Mind control over the others."

"You mean a telepath?"

"Could be.  Or hypnosis, my bard can hypnotize crowds."

"So maybe there is more than one bad guy here.  One doles out the drugs, another hypnotizes people?"

"What if the drug is not instant, the people leave and change as they move to their destination?"

"Ugh.  That complicates it.  Thanks a lot, Kar.  Keep thinking of ideas, I'm going to clean up and crash for the night.  Don't stay up all night."

She walked out of the room.  The dragon wrapped its tail around its reward and returned to playing the game while munching on a bit of meat.

The ball holding me dropped me on the couch, picked up a stuffed animal and hit the smallest orb with it.  I took the opportunity to crawl behind the cushion and then out the back of the couch.

I hadn't seen any other robot type toys around to take over.  I realized I had a conundrum - how to open a door when I was two inches tall?

I snuck under the couch and surveyed the room.  Damn girl, she had a lot of stuffed toys, several game controllers, a pile of game discs, and fantasy statuettes of sprites and such. 
Ugh, come on, there's got to be something better to shift into.

The stereo and TV were electronic, I debated trying to take one of them over, but I wouldn't be able to move.  She had some TV trays out, the legs on that could move ... kind of.  It might be possible to take that over as well, but something in my mind told me that a simple table just wasn't right to take over.

Why couldn't she be a guy?  They'd probably have a remote controlled car or something on hand, or better yet, a robot....

She had a deck on the back of the house, with a large patio door leading to it.  I was concerned about simply walking about the room.  The floating balls seemed to be extremely perceptive.  They'd caught some very slight movements of my head already.  They had to be able to see out of all five eyes simultaneously.

After perhaps an hour of hiding under the couch the eye creatures floated out of the room in the direction the woman had walked, and the dragon shut the TV off.

I walked over to the patio door, the only thing that appeared to be locking it was a piece of wood on the floor.  I picked up one end of the wood and shoved it out of the way, and then pushed with all my might on the door.  I had to shift to have my back against the wood frame and use my feet to push on the door before it inched open.

I wished I could have watched myself do it.  The sight of a tiny robot doing this stuff on its own would have been pretty cool.

All I needed was an inch, and I moved past that door, pushed open the much lighter screen door and ran to the side of the deck, leaping off as soon as I could.

Just after me, the door opened and the dragon's voice said, "Who goes there?" 
Come on, go away....

I hid in the grass and waited.  Shortly the dragon closed both doors and I heard the wood as it was kicked back into place.  I would have sighed if I had a method to make noise.

I felt like I was in an 'I've Shrunk!' type movie.  The grass was taller than I was.  I began moving in the direction I hoped was home, it would be the equivalent of a massive trek at the pace I could put up as a tiny robot.  I needed a larger form.

I saw a bicycle by one house, but if I fell over I wasn't sure how I'd get back up, even assuming I could take it over.  Then I saw a car.  It had moving parts, and in many respects was like a robot, simply with wheels instead of arms and legs.  I ran toward it.

I looked around when I reached the vehicle, but it had to be perhaps 2 A.M. and the neighborhood was quiet.  I sat against the wheel of the car and attempted to transfer into it.

After a moment of disorientation, the world had a different look to it.  I felt the larger body, the wheels, engine, all of the many parts I could move at will. 
Hmm, what to do when I get home?  I can't exactly drive a car into my house.  I need the little robot with me.

I opened my left door.  I was about to shift back into the robot when I realized I had free movement of the seat belts as well.  I stretched one out the door, but it wouldn't reach far enough to pick up the tiny robot.  I moved it to hang out the door and then shifted back into the robot.

It took a moment before I had control again, but I was once more in the robot's body.  I wished I had a face to smile with.  I climbed onto the seatbelt and sat as securely as possible before shifting back into the car again.

It took moments to wrap up the robot and pull it up.  I was cautious, for if I dropped the robot onto the ground out of touch of the car I didn't know how I would get back into it to try again.

I played with the various parts on the car for a moment.  The doors opened and closed at will, as did the trunk and hood.  I turned the lock mechanism to unlock, although I chose not to start the car at the moment.  Then I shifted the car into neutral and tried moving the wheels under my own power - everything worked like a charm.  Even better, because I didn't require fuel - or engine noise - to move the vehicle.

In a minute, I was rolling down the road. 
Yes!  Oh my god, this opens up possibilities.
  I didn't understand how I was able to shift my view around, but somehow I saw from the front of the vehicle, and the rest of it was simply my body.  It didn't make sense, because there obviously weren't a set of eyes on the front, but I debated that I might be doing it subconsciously to make sense of having a vehicle be my body.

I activated the lights, and was pleased to be able to make them work as well.  I wasn't positive if they were drawing power from the battery or not.  At least I wouldn't have an officer attempt to stop me for the lights.

The vantage point of
being
the vehicle was very odd as I moved along the road.  Fortunately, I was able to sense the speedometer inside me, and keep under the speed limit.

I finally reached my warehouse - I'd left both the huge robot and a few smaller ones there while playing around, so I had options.  I pulled up alongside the security box, opened the window and used the seatbelt out the window to push the buttons and open the door.  Then I drove around, entered the building and carefully moved up to the exoskeleton I'd been practicing with until I barely bumped it.

Once I shifted I went about moving a backup robot to the floor to ensure I could touch them with something should I be stuck in a tiny body like that ever again.

Now that I wasn't paranoid about being stuck in a tiny body, I had to think about what I would do next.  My body was dead, that meant that at some point someone would clean out my apartment, tools and robots.  I needed to collect everything and find a new place to work out of.  I also needed a body that would be similar enough to a human body to do fine work.

The exoskeleton mostly covered that.  I needed joints to mimic human hands to do it right.  In addition, I could hear, but I needed a speaker system so I could talk.  That part would be easy; I just needed some speakers to attach.

Now, who the hell are those red mutants?  Assholes killed me and one of my best friends, I'm not about to walk away from that.
 That meant I needed to finish the big bot that would be tough enough to take and dish out a lot of punishment.

Last, I needed a new name.  Greg Paffen was dead.  I thought about Mechman, or Mechz, Mecha, Cyborg, and in the end I decided to call myself Borgz. 
I'm kind of a cyborg, right?  Well, human mind, robot body.  Okay, maybe not a true cyborg with no flesh.  Whatever, cyborgs are cooler than just robots and mecha, and I want people thinking that there's something human in here so they don't just try to destroy my bodies....