The Troll (24 page)

To
beat The Pilot, it would take a little more courage on his part. He
evaluated the situation. The Pilot would inevitably catch and kill
him unless he caught The Pilot off guard first. All around him, the
pavement was cracking and the fire from the plane was melting the
asphalt. If they stood in one place, the whole bridge would
eventually collapse and kill them both. At the very least, The Troll
would take that over his own death and The Pilot walking away a
victor.

The
Pilot’s features didn’t move. Behind his sunglasses, his
eyes were fixated on his target. The Troll wasn’t a fighter. If
he did happen to throw a punch or two, they would be weak and not
enough to catch The Pilot off guard. He certainly couldn’t beat
him to death like The Pilot clearly could to him. There was one end
to this and it ended with The Pilot in the river below.

The
Troll searched the ground for an opening and spotted one that was
uncomfortably close to the plane. Under the left wing, a crevice had
formed and the ground was continually crumbling with bits of cement
and rock breaking away and hitting the steel beams that held up the
bridge before tumbling into the water below. The opening was enough
to fit through, as long as The Troll could move quickly before the
whole area was covered with heat and flames.

He
looked up to see The Pilot coming at him faster.

“
How
about you give me another shot?” The Troll said. “I
wasn’t really playing the game before, but I will now. What fun
is this for
you if I’m
just caught and killed like this?”

The
Troll kept moving toward the broken ground and The Pilot kept walking
without response.

“
Isn’t
the thrill of the hunt supposed to be more of a…thrill? Don’t
you want an opponent who genuinely wants to beat you? I needed some
time to get on board. I’m there now. Let’s start over.”

The
Pilot kept coming. The Troll stood against the wing, the broken
propeller at his back. He could feel the ground below him where the
cement was busted.

“
Alright,”
The Troll said. “If you want to finish this now, we’ll
finish this now.”

The
Troll quickly fell to his stomach and rolled under the plane and
slipped through the opening.

The
Pilot stopped, his expression never changing, and stared at the
opening. After a moment, he followed.

Fifty
yards to her left, The Troll disappeared from Iris’s view. Far
up the street to her right, The Guide was long gone as well. She was
only left to contend with The Poet, and deep down, she knew that was
what she was supposed to do. Rainbow had been her obsession ever
since she learned of it’s existence. She would never have
believed that she’d ever be so close and that the only thing
that stood between her and it would be The Poet. It was…actually
quite poetic.

He
was the weaker of the bounty hunters in her eyes. Usually, they
carried some kind of strange gadget or built in super-power, but The
Poet seemed to just be a hateful man who owned a persona.

She
once again turned both ways, but her friends were gone; maybe
defeated. She hoped not, but if they were, she still had a mission
and if The Poet were gone, the coast would be clear. She could cross
the river and start a new journey with the end of Psi in hand.

The
Poet was built well. He stood six foot two inches with curly blond
locks that were well tended to. His smile was fake, but
well-practiced and pleasant to someone who didn’t know any
better. He wore what looked like blue Victorian-style garments and
usually stood in some kind of pose: akimbo or with a hand on his hip
and an index finger on his chin. He was the personification of his
name, and though he seemed harmless upon appearance, what really
scared Iris was just how confidently he approached.

“
My
flower,” he said. “You are far too delicate to fight.
What say you and I come to a truce?”

“
Okay,”
she said, her back turned to The Poet. “How
about
we…” In a flash, she spun and shot out her heel, kicking
him square on the arm. Rainbow flipped over his shoulder and landed
on the ground behind him. He was already surprised, and further
hesitated as he struggled between going after Rainbow or Iris. In
those moments, Iris took the opportunity and moved in on him,
throwing punches, all landing on The Poet and catching him off guard.
He stepped away, trying to gain some footing, but every punch sent
him further off balance until he landed on the ground and winced in
pain.

Iris
reached out and grabbed Rainbow but The Poet recovered fast and
hurried toward her, grabbing around her body and diving to the ground
with her in his arms. They landed on top of Rainbow and Iris could
feel it under her leg.

She
realized her arms were wrapped tightly in his and he held her there,
flexing to tighten the grip. She tried to move but realized she was
losing feeling. “Let. Me. Go!” she yelled through deep
breaths, but he held tighter, expertly squeezing the wind out of her.
She tried to head-butt him but couldn’t find the energy. She
realized that they had escaped an impossible situation only to be
defeated moments later. This couldn’t be the end.

She
couldn’t allow it, but she couldn’t overpower him. All
she could do was fake dead or…

She
suddenly leaned in and kissed him, hard and deep. It threw him off
guard and his grip loosened but not enough. He pulled back. “I’m
not falling for…”

She
leaned in and kissed him again and though he would never fall for the
trick, it was enough to loosen the grip further. She had a split
second before he would regain his grip. Instead of pulling away as
he’d expect from her, she moved her body upward, shot her knee
between his legs and hit him with everything she had.

His
grip let up completely and the look on his face told her that he
wouldn’t be on his feet anytime soon. She rolled away but
quickly turned back to grab Rainbow. Though The Poet wouldn’t
be able to fight, he knew there was one thing he could do. With one
hand, he covered his privies to protect them from further harm, but
the other fell over Rainbow and he wrapped his fingers around it
protectively.

“
Let
it go or I’ll do it again,” she said.

His
eyes went wide at the suggestion and he backed away from her, toward
the edge of the bridge. She tried to find an angle of attack but he
was a toss away from sending the memory stick over the edge and
ending their quest forever. Though she’d crippled the man, he
owned the advantage.

She
came to a halt and froze, hoping he would do the same. She wished
she’d moved faster, or hit him twice.

“
If
you throw that over, I will kill you,” she said.

He
held his hand at the edge and looked back at her with fear and pain
in his eyes. “Stand back,” he said.

She
stepped backward slowly, keeping her eye on his hand as he allowed
himself to recover. “You don’t want to drop that,”
she said.

“
And
you want to stand back!” he shouted. His pain had warped into
anger. “Walk to the opposite side of the bridge!”

She
reluctantly complied and found herself facing him from the other end
of the street. He repositioned himself and held his hand farther off
the bridge. She almost stepped forward, but he shot her a look as if
to say ‘don’t you dare’.

“
What
do we do about this?” she asked, afraid he’d give the
answer she thought he might.

“
You’re
going to jump,” The Poet said. “Or this is gone forever.”

The
Guide entered the warehouse with the robots on his tail. Each player
was full of sharp edges and blunt surfaces. If they descended on him
at once, he’d be a goner, but The Guide had only one ray of
hope left: They were trying to thrill kill him. They were hunting
because they didn’t want him to be killed by the players. They
wanted The Mortician to put his hands on him and suck the life out of
him slowly.

The
bots were exhausting though. With each nudge, they cut or bruised him
and he hadn’t even gotten a chance to fight yet. He was limping
and sweating and outrageously outnumbered. As badly as he wanted to
go after The Coach and Mortician, he had to lose the bots first. He
tried to wipe away the metallic gel but only succeeded in smearing it
into his skin and clothes. He’d ripped off his shirt and tossed
it aside, which distracted a few of the bots, but the remainder
followed the scent stuck to him.

The
factory was a clutter mess of cages, chains, metal stairs, and a
caged elevator in the center, which was suspended by chains and
pulleys. He searched the walls for a fire alarm, but the building was
long abandoned and not even close to being up to code. He could see
the sprinkler system attached to pipes that ran the length of the
brick walls and up across the ceiling, which was four stories up. If
he were on the fourth floor, he could bust a pipe and wash the gel
off his body. He started for the elevator, but from the opposite end
of the building, The Mortician entered and began walking toward him,
putting himself between the elevator and The Guide.

Instead,
he ran for a spiral staircase, only making it a few feet before one
of the bots put a sharp edge through his shin. Blood began to stream
as he pushed himself up with his arms and began running with most of
the weight on his other foot.

The
Mortician was in the elevator, pushing a button at a time to follow
the floor that The Guide was on.

“
Dammit
,”
he muttered. He ascended the stairs, and watched the elevator, seeing
The Mortician’s eyes glued to him as he worked his way to the
top of the factory. Below, at the foot of the steps, The Coach began
climbing, two bots orbiting his body as he moved.

A
third bot suddenly hovered past The Guide’s feet below and up
around the stairs, and suddenly zooming by at The Guide’s feet,
it’s full weight hitting his hip and knocking him to his side.
He caught a look at The Coach’s face as he fell to the nearest
platform and wincing as his body hit the metal links that made up the
surface. Somehow, the bots were programmed to move like a team,
following formations and working in sync of each other.

“
Why
not a fair fight!?” he yelled, but his voice only echoed in the
factory without response.

He
pulled himself to his feet and watched as bots hovered at either
side, but sat waiting, inviting him to keep moving so they could
tease him later with an unexpected strike. He knew he wouldn’t
make it to the top. He tried to swipe some gel to the ground to throw
them off, but there was nothing remaining. He tried to use his sweat
to rid himself of the gel, but it did very little for his cause.
Every time he smeared a mixture of sweat and gel on a railing, the
bots would stop for just a second before moving toward him again.

He
carried on, hurrying to the stairs again, but a floor above, the
elevator was stopped and The Mortician stepped outside the doors and
began walking in his direction. He picked up his pace until he was on
the same floor and began sprinting.
Mind over matter
, he told
himself as he made a wide circle around The Mortician to dodge his
touch. The Mortician only walked, following his direction. The Guide
wanted to be in the elevator, but The Mortician guarded the door with
his body, keeping close to it but following The Guide as he tried to
maneuver around him. He was finally back at the stairs and welcome to
move up, but as The Mortician got into the elevator, he quickly
switched his plan and stayed on that floor. He had little time before
The Mortician would switch the direction of the elevator. He ran for
it, grabbing a metal rod on the way and just as the elevator stopped
on that floor, he wedged the rod between both doors. In that moment,
The Mortician reached out and their hands touched, but The Guide
pulled away and fell to the ground, rattling the metal below him.

The
Mortician reached for the rod but it was out of his grasp. The Guide
ran for the stairs again, ducking as one of the bots came close to
hitting him in the side of the head. It spun past and stopped in mid
air and began to follow him slowly again. He made an inventory of the
warehouse, searching for bots, and discovered they were all hovering
near him—any one of them could suddenly move in his direction
and batter him.

The
Coach was nearing his floor as he began moving to the next. Without
The Mortician to stop him, he could burst a pipe and get the bots off
his tail, but he would still have the bounty hunters to contend with
and his energy was low.

A
bot was suddenly in his face, blocking his entry to the fourth floor.
Instead of ducking or dodging, he wrapped his arms around the metal
and ran forward with it in his arms, sharp edges of the bot digging
into his skin as he hugged it tightly. He reached the fourth floor
just as the elevator was almost to the top. He tossed the bot above
the elevator and watched with satisfaction as it was crushed between
the wheels and elevator as it reached the top.