PROTECTOR Episode 19

///PROTECTOR///
Episode 19
Dusk


     Chris continues following the four legged robot as it enters one final doorway.

     Chirping something in its mechanical language, it turns and illuminates a large piece of machinery with the beam of light coming from its head.

     The wolf tugs on a sheet of metal, the guess revealing a mass of wires and switches, “You want me to repair this mess?”

     The drone nods its head, rapidly bobbing the light from ceiling to floor.

     “Fine! Fine! Just hold the light still, I can’t see anything while it moves around.”

*******

     An explosion rocks the ground as the building on 21st and Main falls to one side, colliding with an apartment building. The superstructure tears into glass and cement, dragging the evolved house with it to the ground.

     In a matter of moments all that is left is a large mound of rubble.

     “Pleased with yourself?” A voice asks.

     “Just as much as always,” Zar replies through his heavy breathing while resting against a lamp post on the sidewalk, “yourself?”

     A female with orange hair sits down next to him, pressing a syringe filled with red liquid into his arm, “I’m still bringing medical supplies to the people who need them.”

     “How did you find me?”

     The liquid empties from the canister.

     Throwing the object away, the woman wraps his arm behind her head in order to help him up, “It’s not that hard to find you: you have a habit of leaving a trail wherever you go.”

     Her scaled arm reminds him of what she was, an experiment.

     Experiments were creations of a robot, the ultimate goal of which was to artificially create a half-demon-half-angel. After the only successful product had escaped the machine was caught in an endless loop: continuing to create life forms in an attempt to complete its task.

     When it was destroyed, the people it had created spread out among the fledgling Earther society.

     The teenager’s mind snaps back to the present as he feels himself being moved forward, “Where are we headed?”

     “Where do you think?” When he doesn’t respond she answers the question, “They’re gathering an army; Everybody is needed.”

     They wouldn’t be traveling on the main road though. It was because the only true safe way to travel from place to place during this war was by remaining in the shadows of buildings, that way you could get to cover without having to run very far. However, the real fear of the highway running through the center of the town was that it was the only thing that separated the Ulai from the Earthers.

     The road would most likely be the final battleground.

*******

     Chris places the last two wires together, causing a spark, “bingo.”

     He taps them a few times before the generator kicks in, before twisting them together with an electrical tie. All of a sudden the machine shuts down, causing him to kick it with full force while shouting a string of expletives, on contact the turbine starts, and continues to run.

     “Just like a car.”

     The lights overhead slowly begin to illuminate the room, increasing in intensity until rendering everything visible.

     “The one question I have is why a service droid couldn’t repair the damage itself?” He shoots a glare at the robot.

     “I was not able to access the blue-prints to the ignition due to the power outage.”

     The wolf smacks his forehead, “Great… a robot who doesn’t obey his own self-updating programming. I assume, based on the fact you’ve developed free will, you’ll want to kill me now.”

     “Oh please, I’m a total of six freaking inches high. What are you expecting me to do, bite your foot? If you had used your eyes and whatever logic resides in that thing you people you call a brain you would have noticed how very little I could possibly do to you.

     The robot clambers out the doorway. When the wolf doesn’t follow, its voice shouts out, “Well, are you coming or what?”

*******

     Kara’s feet repeatedly impact with the road as she runs, her eyes darting from side to side as she looks for any of the town’s inhabitants. Her claws rapidly scraping against the asphalt pathway was the only noise she could hear.

     All of a sudden she stops, turning to glance in one of the windows.

     No signs of life.

     A deep cackle arises, causing Kara to turn around, trying to find the source. Heart racing, she draws her handgun, the feel of the cool metal an attempt to calm herself in the rising sea of chaos. A sudden spike of iron pierces into her brain as it becomes apparent the demonic laughter is from within her, the pain forcing her to her knees.

     High-frequency buzzing quickly appears in its place, a flash of white blinding her vision for a moment.
She looks up, seeing the preacher and the residents staring down at her, “Convert, before the demonic influence inside you takes complete control. Convert, if just for the sake of the child.”

     Her form darts backwards, towards the metallic disk, as fast as she can move. Kara’s arm wraps around Sarei as she leaps over the side of the floating island, wings jutting from her back and keeping the two aloft.

     The only word pulsing in her strangled mind is: ‘Run’