Hard Luck Hank Screw the Galaxy(22)

While there were small red emergency lights here and there, and the latticework shed some light in this direction, it was fairly dark for the most part.

I took the point and walked to the…I don’t know what you call it. I guess they’re all over the station, but it’s just one of those things you don’t pay any attention to. They’re maybe four foot tall cylinders a foot in diameter, spaced out along the sidewalk every few blocks.

This one in particular had been opened. Inside it showed all kinds of circuitry and cabling. I looked closely at it as the soldiers made a perimeter around us.

“This is where the Dredel Led tapped in,” Garm whispered.

“Should I put the cover back on it?” I asked her, not having any better ideas.

She made a series of hand gestures to her men. One squad headed off the way we came, guns at the ready. The rest fell in line behind me.

She then pointed at me and then pointed down the road.

I went to the center of the street and began to walk. It seemed fairly pointless to me since there was clearly no one around. Did she expect the robots to crack open the panel, do their tinkering, and then take a break up the street?

We scouted for a good hour. I know, because I was checking my tele. I ate some of the leftover rations I had in my pocket. These things were so good. They didn’t even make you thirsty.

“Okay, Hank, let’s call it,” Garm said finally.

Everyone relaxed and we turned and headed back towards the cars. Just then I heard what sounded like a combination whistle and deep roiling. That wasn’t so unusual as much as its point of origin, which was above me.

I looked up in time to see an object fall at what must have been fifty miles an hour right in front of me. It hit the ground, bent its knees and back to absorb the impact, and immediately stood up straight.

It was a Dredel Led.

I could tell it was a robot. Not because I recognized it from the video, but because there was something just not right about it. Colmarians can look pretty different in a lot of ways—clubfoots, clawed hands, faces of every imaginable type—but this thing was just off. Like how little kids draw people with coloring sticks. Eyes were uneven, hair was a scraggly mess, nose and mouth weren’t aligned. It had three joints in its left arm instead of a single elbow, and had way too many fingers on both hands. Its clothes were also off. It wore a big boot on one foot, a sandal on the other, bright shorts that hung past the knee and a puffy winter coat with fur trim cut off at the shoulders.

“Hank!” I heard Garm say from somewhere behind me.

I looked back and saw nothing. Where’d they all go?

The robot was standing maybe ten feet ahead.

“Eat suck, suckface!”

I pulled out my shotgun and aimed. The gun has two triggers. The first one fires the top two barrels, left to right. The second fires the bottom the same way.

I pulled both triggers at the same time, which was something I’d never done before. About 200 foot-pounds of recoil hit me and the gun twisted to the side, but I held on. I jerked it back and pulled both triggers again.

So in a blink I launched eight ounces of metal at nearly 1,500 feet per second at this thing.

Other than the smoke, the bangs, and the fact I’d ruined its jacket, there was no discernible evidence that I had done anything at all.

Standing alone in the middle of the street facing a malevolent fairy tale…I ducked.

The Dredel Led made some movement, I heard a noise, saw a brief light; then I saw the superstructure above, then I saw a building, then I saw the road, then I saw another building. And I thought: “This is weird.”

Then I saw nothing and tasted blood. I was pretty sure it was mine.

Your body is good at telling you stuff to do and most times you should listen. It tells you when to eat. It tells you when you should go to sleep. It tells you when you’re doing something painful and to quit it. It tells you when you’re afraid and you should run like hell.

My body was telling me—screaming at me—to shut down and hope whatever unfortunate thing was going on would pass me by. I felt a dark cloud enveloping me. But it was a good cloud. It took away the pain and made me feel warm and pleasant.

No.

I didn’t want to feel warm and pleasant. I didn’t want to forget what was happening. I wanted to be neck deep in it. I’m too stupid to lie down. You’re going to have to make me!

I climbed up out of the pit that was my mind and opened my eyes to a bright reality of anguish. I found myself on the ground, propped against the side of a building and the sidewalk, my arms and legs splayed outward. My whole body shrieked like grinding metal as I slowly righted myself and tried to comprehend my environment.

There was gunfire. Lots of it. I couldn’t quite place who or what was firing and where they were. I heard some muffled, urgent noise and realized it was Garm yelling at me a foot away from my face.