hand through the narrow gap between spindly neck and armored chest. His fist came out clutching a handful of wires and a hose squirting oil. The robot’s legs collapsed and it toppled over, but Toru wasn’t finished. He grabbed the rectangular head in both hands and wrenched it around backwards. Metal tore and rivets popped, until the head was hanging loose and useless. The light flickered and went out.
Toru stepped off the dead robot. “You call this garbage a mechanical man? Cumbersome, slow, poorly balanced… The Tanaka Engineering Works’ gakutensoku is superior in every way. Your Cogs should be ashamed of this inferior design.” Reaching down, he took hold of the machine gun arm and pried open the metal casing. “I need this more than you do, my metal foe. Hmmm…” Toru tore out the Browning 1919 machine gun and a long belt of ammunition. “Though, I must admit that you Americans gave yours a bigger gun,” he admitted begrudgingly.
The Healing spells on his chest were certainly earning their keep tonight. Sullivan got to his feet. The lack of noise from the courtyard indicated that his team gotten all the mechanical men. “Thanks.”
Toru just grunted a noncommittal response as he lifted the feed tray to check the condition of his borrowed machine gun. They didn’t see the final robot inside until it turned on its eye and illuminated the Iron Guard in blue light.
Sullivan’s Spike reversed gravity, and the gigantic machine fell upward to hit the steel beams in the ceiling. Sullivan cut his Power and the robot dropped. It crashed hard into the floor where it lay twitching and kicking. The two of them riddled the mechanical man with bullets until the light died and it lay still in a spreading puddle of oil.
“Normally, this would be the part where you thank me for returning the favor and saving your life.”
“Yes. Normally… If we were court ladies instead of warriors,” Toru answered. “Shall we continue onward or do you wish to stop and discuss your feelings over tea?”
Sullivan looked forward to the day that the two of them would be able to finish their fight. “Let’s go.”
The only other passenger still aboard had a. 38-caliber hole right between the eyes, so Francis used his mind to steer the rudder while he hid in the front of the boat. There was a tarp, so Francis covered himself, got low, and waited to hit land. The OCI on shore had more than likely heard the gunshots. If he was lucky, they would come running to investigate when they didn’t see their friends, and even luckier if they didn’t have a Dymaxion.
Behind him, Mason Island was on fire and there was so much gunfire it sounded like Fourth of July firecrackers. As he got closer to shore, he saw that to the south the Washington side of the bridge was burning. It was quite a ways off, but the sirens of the police cars stuck there could be heard. Closer now, he pulled the tarp over his head and waited.
He was terribly nervous, but his Power felt ready, which meant that there was probably no Dymaxion here, or at least if there was, they hadn’t turned it on yet. There was a crack of wood against rock, and the whole craft shuddered hard. The boat slowly turned sideways and ground against solid earth.
Footsteps. Somebody was running this way. There was swearing, and Francis could only assume that they were playing a hand torch over the boat. The boat shifted as some weight landed in the middle of it. Francis pulled down the tarp just enough to see. A man in work clothes stood over the body of the thug Francis had shot in the face. Francis hesitated, because he had no way of knowing if this man was OCI or not.
Keeping his light on the dead man, the stranger grabbed a handful of hair and lifted. He swore again, then turned and shouted back toward the truck. “It’s Pete. They shot Pete!”
That’ll do. Francis shot him through the tarp. It wasn’t like he could use the sights that way, but they were nice and close. The first bullet hit him low in the back. He grunted in surprise and stood straight up. So Francis adjusted the muzzle upwards and fired again. That one got him right between the shoulder blades, but instead of falling over, he started climbing out of the boat. This was a perfect example of why Francis preferred a. 45 to a. 38. The man landed on the rocks, shouting that it was an ambush while reaching into his pocket. He came out with a little pistol and popped off a couple of wild shots at the boat before turning and running. Francis sat up, and since he couldn’t see the sights in the dark, pointed and squeezed off his last shot. That time the OCI man threw his arms wide and fell on his face.
There was more shouting from the truck. Francis could easily hunker down here and wait for help… But that truck was part of a bigger plot, and the way Bradford Carr had talked about it, innocent people were going to die if he didn’t stop them. “Time to be heroic.”
Francis clambered over the side. Water splashed up to his knees, but he quickly moved up the rocks. He was out of ammo and needed to find items that could be weapons with his Power. The more something weighed, the harder it was to manipulate. The further away it was, the harder it was to control, and if something was more than forty feet away, it was pretty safe. Sure, he could throw something further than that, but good luck hitting anything.
Sadly, the truck was parked nearly twice that far away and there was absolutely nothing between him and it worth hiding behind. He concentrated on the downed man’s dropped pistol and it zipped over to him. Francis snatched it out of midair and ran for the truck. Somebody moved in front of the headlights and a gun boomed. The shot was so close that he could hear the bullet whine past his ear. Francis raised the unfamiliar pistol and fired wildly. He had to get closer.
Suddenly, Francis was falling and couldn’t figure out why. He landed hard on his face, and then he felt a searing flash of heat in his thigh. He’d been shot. The son of a bitch shot me!
He had to get up. These men were about to do something terrible and he was the only one that could stop them. Francis was far more furious than scared, and he shoved himself right back up. Pain flared through him when his foot hit the ground, but it didn’t matter. He had to get closer to use his magic. Limping forward, another bullet clipped him. This time the pain radiated up his arm, and Francis looked down, astonished, to see a hole right through his left wrist. Then it was as if somebody had taken a spear and driven it through his chest.
Shit. I’ve been shot in the chest. But he was still alive. Good thing it was too dark for proper aiming or that one might have been in his heart. He kept on limping, raised the little pistol and cranked off the rest of the magazine in the general direction of the truck. There was a clang of metal and one of the headlights went out. The shadow in front of the truck seemed to be reloading while the door of the cab opened and another person leapt out.
It was close enough. The cheap little pistol clicked when Francis pulled the trigger on an empty chamber. Francis opened his hand and let it fall, but he reached out and took hold of it with his Power. It floated in the air while he concentrated on the shadow in front of the truck, then Francis shoved it with all his might. It wasn’t nearly as aerodynamic as a serving tray, but the pistol blurred through the air, guided precisely, and Francis steered it directly into the OCI man’s face. Teeth shattered and the gun hit so hard that the slide broke off and the recoil spring shot out the side.
Francis limped closer. He was having a hard time breathing. It was too dark to spot anything else to throw. The ground was just grass. Everything seemed blurry. The rocks at the shore were too big to lift. The truck driver had pulled a gun. Desperate, Francis reached out with his Power and slapped it down. It was too far to hit the driver very hard, but the gun discharged into the ground at his feet. Closer. The process repeated, only this time Francis hit him a little bit harder and the next round struck the dirt. Closer. Francis was losing blood, but he’d never been this mad before. The gun came up again, and Francis surged his Power desperately. There was no subtlety, and instead of a careful invisible hand, this was a mighty fist. A wave of telekinetic force slammed into the OCI man’s hands so hard that Francis could hear bones break across the beach. He’d never done anything like that before. The gun fell from ruined hands. Closer.
His lungs ached. It was like breathing fire. The first one was getting up, spitting out mouthfuls of blood and reaching for his gun. Anger filled Francis, and this time his invisible hands reached out, took hold of the man’s eyeballs, and squeezed. He screamed, so Francis gave his Power one extra shove and was rewarded with two sickening pops.
He stumbled. He had to stop the bleeding soon or he was going to die. Closer. He was next to the truck. Both of the OCI men were screaming their heads off. One blind, one with ruined hands. Francis spotted a pistol on the ground, tugged on it, and it flew over. The driver tried to run, but Francis shot him in the back and he fell. Then he turned and shot the blind one in the head.
Blood was pumping out of his leg. He’d seen enough combat to know that a leg wound bleeding that much was really bad, but he couldn’t stop to look at it yet. There might be more men. Francis made it to the back of the truck. Whatever was back there was heavy, and the big truck was sitting low under its load. The bed was covered in canvas tied shut with ropes. He ripped apart the knots and flung the canvas open with his mind before spinning
