Peace in an Age of Metal and Men (8 page)

“A what?”

“If we lose, I shoot you in the leg and have our surgeons give you some new equipment.” He smiled. “See, you win either way.”

I looked at his four artificial limbs. “You don’t win too many of these wagers, do you?”

“I’m much better than I used to be.”

Rosa let out a sharp laugh.

“When do I talk to Court?”

Legs’s voice got serious. “When I say so.”

“You have yourself a bet.”

Drones drifted up into the night sky, illuminating the broken asphalt with spotlights. The effect was worse than nothing at all, since my eyes would have adjusted to the light of the nearly full moon. With the spotlights, the light fluctuated wildly, maintaining a constant state of disorientation.

“See that ball down there on the fountain?” Legs asked, indicating an orb resting precariously at the top of a dry fountain about a hundred meters away.

“Yup.”

“That’s what we want. We just grab it and put it in this here bucket.” He waved his pistol casually around, his finger on the trigger and the safety off. “You see anything move, you shoot it. It’s worth points. The bots’ll try to get in the way and slow us down. Tricky part is, once we get the ball all the bots kick it up a notch. Just get me the ball, since I’m the quick one. You hold them off while I run for it. Any questions?”

I didn’t want to sound dumb, but there was one question that bugged me. “When’s the part where I shoot you?”

He grinned and looked at Rosa. “You don’t, I hope. It’s a cooperative game, Sheriff. Nobody gets killed. If we win, we both win.”

“That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard.”

“One more thing. Don’t give the bots too long. They’re slow and they’re using small-caliber rounds, but they aim for your face, so it’ll still sting like hell if you get shot, even with the best modded skin.”

“I don’t have modded ski—”

A buzzer nearly blasted out my eardrums.

Legs took two long steps to the right, then jumped four meters up onto the crumbling wall of the building, drawing his rifle as he went. He landed in a crouch, sighted through the scope, and shot something near the fountain that I couldn’t even see.

Spotlights shifted from above and I saw the first bot. It was a slender thing, human shaped with long, gangly arms. On its head was a cowboy hat and on its breast was a deputy’s star. It had entered the street around halfway down and hadn’t yet turned the piercing lights of its eyes my way.

I held my metal arm in front of me like a cross brace, resting my pistol on it for stability. The shot lined up perfectly through the pistol’s crosshair scope. I aimed right for the bot’s star.

It turned my way.

I fired.

The pistol kicked like a mule, and a puff of rock and dust flew off the fountain far behind the bot. I’d missed.

The bot reacted to my shot. Its movements became quick and jerky. Glowing eyes spun to face me and it raised its pistol.

I fired again, sending another shot wide to the right. My hand shook.

The bot’s pistol was pointed right at me. Its eyes seemed to meet mine.

A shot rang out.

The bot’s pistol spun off into the night in an explosion of sparks. It turned its piercing gaze up to the rooftops, but Legs was already gone. When it turned back to me, so was I.

I ran hard, gasping through the pain of my injured ribs. I needed cover, a good line of sight, and maybe a couple months to practice. I settled for cover.

My back slammed hard against the brick of the nearest building. I hazarded a look around the corner, crouching down so I’d be somewhat less conspicuous. There were two bots in the street now. Where were they coming from? One was still twenty meters away, but the newest one was just across the street, well within pistol range.

The pistol’s sights must have been wrong. I took a deep breath. They’d need to be sighted in later. I needed to shoot from the hip. The gun was too high-tech for me. The firing mechanism didn’t make any sense, and there didn’t seem to be any way to know if there was a bullet chambered or any ammo left. My breaths came in big gulps even though the run had been short. Blood loss was still affecting me or I was out of shape. Probably both.

Fighting was a matter of faith. Faith in the weapon you hold, faith in your partner, and faith that you aren’t going to get a bullet to the brain when it’s all over.

What I needed was faith in myself.

Stepping out of cover, I squeezed off a few rounds at the closest bot. The first missed by a mile, the second was closer, but the third knocked its damn head off.

Another bot emerged from the side of the street, its piercing eyes scanning the space around it. Ignoring it, I ran straight for the first bot, ducking into the darkness between spotlights. It turned my way.

I dropped into a slide. I fired into its chest, melting its core with several solid shots. It fell, and I caught its red-hot body with my metal hand.

The third bot fired. Flecks of hot metal stung my cheek. I returned fire, blind from pain and fear. My shots hit something metal. Something dropped. Far ahead, Legs fired several quick shots from his rifle.

“Get the ball,” Legs shouted.

I heaved myself up and staggered to the buildings on the right side of the road, heart pounding. The domed buildings offered terrible cover, but it was a wall and I needed something. My vision returned, and I crouched low against the side of the hogan.

There were still thirty meters to go.

“You say it gets tougher?” I shouted up to Legs.

Legs laughed like a maniac.

“Glad someone’s having fun,” I muttered.

The plan of walking down the middle of the street wasn’t going to work. My pistol had an effective range of around five meters, but wide-open spaces in the middle of the field guaranteed nothing would be approaching from less than ten. It’d be hard to close that distance each time. Better to stick to the tight corners and obstructed sight lines along the side alleys between buildings.

Crouching low, I dragged the bot along with, for use as a shield. I made no attempt to be silent. Silence was never really my strong suit. I was about as stealthy as a rockslide on a firecracker factory.

The hogans didn’t offer great cover, but many of them were cracked and broken. With a quick hop, I ducked into one from the side, creeping through it to exit out the back. There was a bot there, its sharp, glowing eyes tracking back to where I’d entered. A quick double tap with the pistol took the back of his head and the center of his chest. It clattered to the ground in a heap.

The next hogan was intact, so I skirted around the outside of it. Most of the spotlights from above shone into the main street, so the darkness fell like a cloak around me. Once, I saw Legs jump from one hogan to the next—a flash of silver in the moonlight.

The crack of a rifle sounded up ahead, followed by the clatter of falling bots. The fountain was just a few meters away, and I could see the gleam of the metal ball shining in a dedicated spotlight.

Two bots stood on either side of the ball, scanning the surrounding area. These bots seemed faster, their movements harder to predict. I was hunkered down behind the remains of a brick wall, peeking over it with my hat off. Legs was up a short distance away, trying desperately to wave me forward. He didn’t have a good line of sight to the fountain, or I expect he’d have already dispatched the bots. Once he popped up from hiding behind the rise of a dome, he’d be a sitting duck for anything we didn’t drop immediately.

Putting my hat back on, I signed to Legs that there were two enemies and that he should take care of the farthest one.

Legs gave me a confused look.

I held up two fingers.

He nodded.

I motioned that on the count of three he was to jump up and take down the farthest bot with his rifle.

He gave me another confused look.

I shook my head. Using the still-glowing eyes of the bot that I carried, I checked on the pistol. There still wasn’t any good indication of ammo count. Everything seemed to be in order, so I met Legs’s eyes and mouthed, “One, two, three,” then jumped over the wall.

The closest bot shot me before I even hit the ground. My metal arm jerked back, ringing out a clear note and throwing me slightly off balance.

I whipped the bot that I was holding up in front of me and let out a slow breath to steady my aim.

Another shot rang off of my left arm.

I fired. My target’s head exploded into a shower of sparks. The bot behind it took a few plugs from Legs’s rifle and ate dirt.

“Just grab it and toss it to me,” Legs hollered from the roof. I could hear movement of more bots. There must have been dozens of them nearby, moving in on us. It sounded like we were surrounded. “I’ll run it in while you hold them off!”

I looked down at the ball. It was a shining, silver thing with two dull eyes sunken into a painted face. I licked my lips, grabbed the thing, and pulled back to throw it.

A bullet whizzed past my ear. I ducked on reflex, almost dropping the ball. Instead of throwing it, I tucked it under my arm.

That’s when the bots moved in.

First a few, then ten, then more than I cared to count. They sprang from the ground, emerging from the dozens of manhole covers that dotted the street. A wall of them formed between the bucket and myself. More swarmed from among the buildings. Rows of pulsar eyes pierced the dark blotches of night.

I dove behind the fountain, just as the first volley of bullets washed through the square. Dust and concrete kicked up around me.

There was no space, no room to maneuver in order to throw the ball to Legs.

But the buildings behind the fountain were clear.

Another wave of bullets scoured the square. The wall of bots was marching forward.

I ran for the nearest building, crashing through its ancient wooden door into a plaster room covered in dust. It was empty except—

I panic-fired three shots before I realized I’d come face to face with a mirror. Shards flew everywhere from the impact of the energized bullets.

The room only had one other doorway, so I took it. I worked my way back through the building—some kind of retail front from long ago—and exited into an alley.

My breath rasped as my lungs ached for oxygen. My poor heart pounded in my chest and I fought off a wave of dizziness. The bots scraped and clomped closer, circling around the building and moving through. There wasn’t anywhere else to go.

I looked down at the ball.

It looked back up at me.

An idea worked its way into my thick skull. There wasn’t any time to decide if it was a good idea, so I went with it. I stuffed the ball under my shirt. The bots were targeting eyes and that thing had a pair. I dropped the bot that I had been carrying as a shield and used my metal hand to rip the sleeve off of my shirt to make a makeshift blindfold. Once I was blind, I picked up the bot again, rubbed its face in the dirt as best I could, and then held it as far away from my body as I could.

I rounded the corner of the building by sticking the bot out first. The twang of bullets tugged at it a few dozen times. Good. They would target the makeshift decoy. Hopefully they would ignore me if they couldn’t properly see my face.

The bots were close, and I pushed past the first wave of them. They’d shoot again soon, and I needed to move.

Another round of shots hit the bot, some missing and ricocheting off of my black metal arm. Others must have slammed into the bots behind me, because I could hear several of them start to flail and malfunction.

Fear kept me moving. It was impossible to know what their programming would make them do. Running might trigger more bullets. Maybe they got smarter as I got closer. Talking might trigger an attack.

“Hey, Sheriff,” shouted Legs from the rooftops. “Toss it up here!”

Dozens of gunshots rang out and Legs screamed and dropped somewhere into the darkness.

I walked, ears guiding me. All of the bots were behind me now, so I turned and walked backwards so that I could hold the bot up where everything could get a good look at its pretty eyes. They were good eyes. Good for seeing; good for shooting.

Then they got shot.

I felt the bullet thunk into my bot’s head, then there was the whump of an explosion.

My ears rang and my big metal hand was empty. The wide expanse of the street no longer felt all that comforting.

I turned, whipped off the blindfold, and ran. Ten meters to go, I knew my timing was bad. They’d shoot before I made it.

I pulled the ball out from under my shirt, cupped it in my hand, and tossed it.

It lobbed through the air in a lazy arc.

The bots raised their pistols.

My left leg caught behind my right, and I went down in a great cowboy heap.

Shots rang out, whizzing above me.

The ball hit the bucket and went in.

Silence.

Pistols dropped.

I rolled over onto my back and didn’t move until a somewhat pained-looking Legs stood over me.

“Good game,” he said. He had a grin that damn near split his head in half. “You sure aren’t much of a team player, are you?”

Rosa said to me, “He’s been looking for a sucker to play that with him since he got Jared killed. I don’t think he’s ever won.”

Legs offered a hand, and I took it. He hauled me up to my feet.

“Mind if I talk to Court now?” I asked.