Assault or Attrition (26 page)

My right hand
flew on impulse. My fist caught McGarrity flush on the cheekbone,
rocking his head back. He reeled and massaged his jaw, spitting a
wad of blood and saliva onto the tile at his feet.

Without warning
he lunged forward and buried his shoulder into my gut, tackling me
into a hedge behind the bench. Using what little mixed-martial arts
training I recalled from last summer, I pushed him off my chest and
kicked away, allowing me enough space to stand and regain my
footing.

We squared off
for a moment – teeth grinding, fists clenched – when Brynja stood
in between us and shouted, “Enough!”

“What was
that?
” Peyton said sharply, glancing towards McGarrity, and
then back at me. “Valeriya is picking us off. We can’t afford to
start killing each other and making her job even easier.”

Peyton placed
her hands on McGarrity’s face, tilting it towards the light to
inspect the damage I’d caused. It was in her nature to immediately
run towards whoever was in pain – she’d done it her whole life, and
it was at least in part why she’d become a veterinary student. And
in a crisis (like most people) she felt most comfortable returning
to what she knew. Whether she was acting on instinct or not, it
still pissed me off.

I exhaled
loudly and marched away. If I had to look at his pasty white face
for one more second I was going to plant my boot into it.

Brynja jogged
to keep up with me as more distance stretched between us and the
warzone.

“There’s
something about that guy I don’t trust,” I grumbled.

“You mean
there’s something that you don’t
like
,” Brynja was quick to
add.

“Stop reading
my mind, Brynja”

From the corner
of my eye I noticed her lips curling into a tiny smile. “Didn’t
have to.”

McGarrity was a
cocky, brash, self-centered dick – but what was eating away at me
was the simple fact that he was right. I couldn’t save Mac, and I
couldn’t save Chandler. Two more lives had been lost, and I was
powerless, once again, to do anything about it. And maybe if
McGarrity had been there, he could have.

The
wide-open space beyond the hedges
was a Zen garden, stretching
the entire width of the castle’s courtyard. A sea of sun-bleached
pebbles filled the garden, all precisely raked into calm swirling
patterns, each of them four grooves wide. It must have taken days
to create this intricate series of patterns, if not weeks. There
was a walkway comprised of dark rounded stones that led to a small
patch of grass in the center. I carefully and deliberately ignored
it. In my state of mind it was more satisfying to trample the
garden, kicking apart the patterns with each angry step.

“We’re burning
time,” Brynja said, following me through the stones. “I know he
pisses you off but he’s our best chance of making it to the
tunnel.”

“And
you
like this guy,” I grumbled, turning to retrace my steps.

Brynja reached
out and grabbed my shoulder, halting me in mid-stride. “
No,
”
she said emphatically, “but I trust him. I’ve been reading him
since he appeared in the rain forest. He’s clean – the kid just
wants to help.”

“He’s an
asshole.”

She nodded in
agreement, before adding, “He’s an asshole who can produce a giant
sword by bending light...and in case you haven’t noticed, at the
moment we’re a little low on firepower.”

It was a fair
point. Steve McGarrity was definitely an asset, but I worried that
his recklessness – and complete lack of respect for the obstacles
we faced – could get us all killed. He had no concept of the danger
we were in. I could see it in his every action, and hear it in his
every dismissive comment.

As a pro gamer,
McGarrity likely spent every waking moment engaged in a virtual
simulation of a swordfight or shoot-out. The blood, the bodies, and
the loss of life – it clearly meant nothing to him; all he saw were
clusters of pixels, and the option to re-spawn somewhere safe once
his heath meter had been depleted. If this idiot wanted to commit
suicide in pursuit of an adrenaline rush I honestly didn’t care,
but I had a responsibility to get Peyton and Brynja down to the
tunnel and out to safety. I’d already lost too many people along
the way.

“Make nice,”
Brynja said calmly. “He’s on his way now, so shake his hand, fake a
smile and act like you don’t want to smash his face in.”

McGarrity
emerged from the hedges with Peyton, and Melvin padded along
behind. The blue fur around the manticore’s jaw was stained black;
I assumed that he took a bite out of the overcooked shape-shifter
before realizing that it wasn’t the delicious meal he’d been
expecting. They made their way through the Zen garden, and without
a word I extended a hand.

Without
hesitation, McGarrity stepped towards me and spread his hands wide,
raising his eyebrows. “So are we gonna hug this one out, or...”

“Don’t push
it,” I said coldly. He accepted my original offer of a handshake,
smiling once again – the same self-satisfied grin that caused me to
slug him in the first place.

“There,” Peyton
said sweetly, like a kindergarten teacher resolving a spat in a
sandbox. “Doesn’t it feel better now that you boys are playing nice
again?”

“Maybe we can
continue this rom-com a little later,” Brynja suggested, tapping
her wrist. “Ticking clock and all that?”

“Oh, right,”
McGarrity said, slapping himself in the side of the head. “I almost
forgot. This was in one of the caskets I found out in the hills.”
He dug into the front pocket of his tattered jeans and yanked out
an ancient pocket watch. He dangled it from the short chain and it
glistened in the overhead light.

I extended an
open palm and McGarrity dropped it in, allowing me to inspect it
more closely. I removed my gauntlet and dug my fingernail into the
narrow groove, flipping open the cover and exposing the watch
inside. Tiny silver cogs meshed together, visible beneath the
ornately designed hands – but they didn’t move. I assumed the watch
was broken, though I was about to discover that it was awaiting an
external power source.

When light
streamed into the face of the watch it glowed from beneath the
gears, causing the hands to spin rapidly in opposite directions. I
tilted the timepiece upwards and allowed additional light to flood
inside. A rumble from beneath buckled our knees. The tremors rocked
the entire castle, causing the walls to shake and dust to jar loose
from the brickwork. A large cylindrical tube emerged from the grass
at the center of the garden, tearing through the turf, just as the
pods did on level one. But this cylinder wasn’t a pod which would
transport us to the third and final stage of The Spiral – it was
much wider around, and twice as tall as everyone who surrounded
it.

The brushed
steel casing hissed and popped open, slowly rotating into several
pieces before retracting back into the earth. The platform that
remained was obscured by billowing white smoke (which looked
somewhat like dry ice, as if it had been added intentionally for
effect). The outline of a massive structure was beginning to take
shape behind the veil of smoke. When it finally dissipated, a
familiar sight remained. It was an exact replica of Fudō-myōō: the
armored exoskeleton that Cameron Frost had worn into Arena Mode.
The suit he’d been wearing when I ended his life.

“Holy shit,”
McGarrity whispered. “That thing looks even bigger in person.”

Every detail
was the same; the shimmering silver casing, the red circular discs
emblazoned on its shoulders, the glowing power core embedded into
the breast plate, and the two expressionless red eyes that peered
out from its rounded helmet. The suit’s design was another one of
Frost’s nods to his favorite culture; in this case, the fictional
robots known as ‘jaegers’. In Japanese cinema, jaegers were
constructed to fight the oversized monsters that routinely attacked
Tokyo, called ‘kaiju’. The most well known kaiju was a
skyscraper-sized lizard named Godzilla, but he was just one of
many. Over the last century, every movie monster imaginable had
attempted to demolish the small Pacific island; from giant moths to
fire-breathing gorilla slugs, there was always a new threat on the
horizon. And each time the threat appeared, a giant robot
controlled by fearless pilots was there to fight it off.

The almost
seven-foot Fudō exoskeleton was nowhere near the size of its
on-screen counterparts – and unlike the jaegers, it required only a
single pilot (most jaegers needed two, for reasons I never quite
understood). Despite its slightly smaller scale, it was no less
intimidating.

With a sudden
jerking motion and the sounds of grinding gears Fudō burst to life,
causing us all to leap backwards. It reached over its shoulder and
snatched the long curved katana from its back, and its eyes,
glowing a menacing shade of red, peered down at us.

“Welcome to the
end of level two,” Frost’s digitized voice boomed from within the
armor. “As you know, I elected not to participate in the second
annual Arena Mode tournament, so unfortunately, I can’t be there to
join you on the battlefield. I can, however, provide a worthy
adversary: the crowning achievement of my company’s robotics
division stands before you, and it has been outfitted with an AI.
It will be more than capable of testing your skills.”

I scanned the
surrounding area, and not a single pod was in sight. There was
nowhere to run, and we had no alternatives. If we wanted access to
the third and final level, we had to fight Fudō; and from what I
recall, the monstrous exoskeleton had very few chinks in its
eight-hundred pounds of reinforced armor.

The robot
stepped from the circular pedestal and readied its sword, gripping
the braided handle with both hands.

I tore the
grenade launcher from my back and fumbled with the barrel, rapidly
attempting to twist it apart and load one of the two remaining
shells. I wasn’t sure if the blast would be enough to stop it, but
it would buy us some time.

“Without my
guidance,” Frost proclaimed, “Fudō will not have the same reaction
time as I did, and will no doubt lack my grace and swordsmanship.
However, as Miyamoto Musashi, the second-greatest samurai of all
time once said, ‘Today is a victory over yourself of yesterday;
tomorrow
is your victory over lesser men’. And remember that
the only reason a warrior is alive is t—”

Frost’s barrage
of historical quotes was cut short when McGarrity produced his
broadsword, carving through Fudō with a single swipe. The top half
of the robot slid to the ground, arms still gripping the sword,
while the legs remained standing.

McGarrity shot
me a sidelong glance. “I don’t blame you for killing the bastard,”
he said, “The guy never shuts the fuck up.” He clapped his hands,
and with a flash of light the broadsword was gone.

Brynja
cautiously approached Fudō’s bisected torso and prodded at its head
with the toe of her boot. The glowing red eyes faded to an icy
grey, and a few errant sparks popped and fizzled from inside the
breastplate.

The circular
disc where Fudō first appeared sank into the ground, replaced with
a flat grey obelisk, engraved with the same handprint outline as
the one we’d encountered before. I stepped towards it, and in the
path between myself and the obelisk appeared a hologram. Once again
it was Valeriya.

“How are things
going, Matthew Moxon?” Her tiny pink lips twitched at the corners
as if she was suppressing a smile. She resisted, though the gesture
would have been unnecessary; her eyes told the story. She was
gloating, content with the emotional damage she’d caused me and
everyone I swore to protect. “The shape-shifter made for a good
show, although the Fudō armor was...disappointing. I expected more
from the mind of Cameron Frost.”

“Sorry you
didn’t get to see more people die,” Peyton said sharply.

Valeriya took a
few short steps towards Peyton and gazed upward, brushing the long
platinum curls from her face. “You misunderstand me,” she said
politely, her eyes widening; she acted as if her feelings had been
hurt by the accusation, though I doubted that was the case. “It is
not death that pleases me. It is justice.”

“
This
is
justice?” Peyton shouted incredulously.

“It is the only
kind left,” Valeriya replied swiftly, turning her gaze towards me.
“It is all we have. People like Matthew Moxon, the elite, have more
wealth than entire countries. He does what he wishes: he buys and
sells the poor at his leisure, trampling the small without looking
underfoot, and even kills those he—”

“Save the
propaganda,” I interrupted. “The idiots in the Red Army might eat
this shit up with a spoon, but you’re not going to convert anyone
down here.”

“You might be
correct,” Valeriya said. “Although I wonder what the ghost thinks
about her chances of escaping with her life. Perhaps she can he
persuaded.” She turned her attention towards Brynja, strolling in
her direction with her hands clasped behind her back. “It is not
too late for you. Call off your creature, and return to the
surface. No harm will come to you.”

“No harm?”
Brynja laughed. She crouched down to make eye contact with
Valeriya’s holographic projection. “Oh, that’s rich.
I’m
the
one who killed your brother, remember? And you’re going to let me
walk? Just like that?”

Valeriya
nodded. “That is what my brother stood for. Love. Redemption. You
can be forgiven if you simply ask for it. Just say the word, and
you will have whatever you wish.”

Brynja studied
Valeriya’s innocent face as if she were actually considering the
offer. “And you’ll sweeten the deal with some Kashstarter money,
I’m guessing?”