Metal Deep: Infinite - Damsels in Distress: Episode 1 (4 page)

Tragedy strikes people all over the world, every minute of every day. You know who does it? Life. She has an entire arsenal at her disposal, and she’ll hit you with the same club she used on some poor Schmo halfway across the world. Most of the time, things end the same, and while her random victims may never know one another, their story winds up reading like a cookie cutter pamphlet of sorrow. They lived, they died, and life goes on for everyone else. Sometimes however, there is that One Guy, where that One Thing happened, and while Life is wandering around with her baseball bat smacking good hardworking people over the head like moles in a kids game, fortune allows that single individual to temporarily extend the story with a luck more incredible and impossible than any other of those who suffered the same affliction were afforded.

I am that One Guy.

You know that dream where you try to run, and you’re mind tells you you’re using all your strength to move as fast as possible, but you’re actually moving in slow motion as if you were under water? Well, this was worse.

I have no idea how long I was under. I felt as if it could have been a lifetime. There was a barrage of dim lights, sounds of metals scraping, and pain. Intense, sharp, and excruciating horror crawled over my subconscious. For seconds I would become lucid, it was like having been rolled under an ocean of torture, and as one wave would cough me up long enough to catch a breath, I was sucked back under to start the roiling nightmare all over again. There isn’t much room for actual thought in that situation. You have to rely on instinct, but I do remember, just one second where I could summon cognizance enough to regret. Regret what? I couldn’t remember that. All I could do was regret.

The first memory I had where I felt as though I was me, actually me, and not some spirit lost in a void, all I could do was hear, and what I heard was a howling wind that sounded like a thousand banshees moaning for blood. Water trickled down my cheek, each drop sent cool refreshing vibrations down my spine. After a few more minutes of adjusting, my vision slowly returned. It wasn’t like waking up and having someone slowly raise the lighting level until you could see. Rather, it was as if two small white dots appeared in front of each eye, and with a hum, the dots shot out into horizontal lines that squealed opened into gigantic movie screens of pure white brilliance.

I wish I could remember more detail about my emergence back to reality, but all I could do was listen to the echo as my deep searching breaths filled my head as if I were in a barrel. I stood, at least I thought I did; it felt more like my body was floating, my legs were under there somewhere. I stumbled from a metal box through a torn open door and out into the banshee wind that raked frost covered nails over my naked body. I fell again onto gravel, the sounds of more metal scraping rolled across a debris strewn parking lot.

The best I could do was pull up to my knees to see the Street Viper trailers torn from one end to another as if cut upon by a very large can opener. The trucks that pulled the trailers burned, and while there were no bodies, off in the distance there was the unmistakable rattle of gunfire thumping on the wind.

My mind grasped like a drowning man clutches for a life preserver to get a handle on what was happening. The best I could do amidst the blur of it all was to run toward a nearby tree line. I did a pretty good job for the first two steps -it was the third that gave me trouble. I hit the edge of the paddock, I tumbled over the threshold of a very large hill. The good part about being so numb that you can’t feel your hands or most of your legs is that you don’t feel the fall when you slide down a fifteen foot embankment.

I tried to stand again, checking myself for scrapes, but everything seemed fine. A little slower, I finally found some sure footing and sped my way through snow covered trees as fast as I could. Though I wore no clothes or shoes, I tread across rocks and branches as if they were as smooth as tile. The longer I traveled the more detail I started noticing in the woods around me. I could see snow hares hundreds of yards away through billowing snow crystals of intricate fingerprint-like patterns. The hares bounded away from me as I plodded through thick brush until I overtook them and then left them behind. Branches snapped into splinters as I waved them away with a light swing of my arms, and though the snow beat across my face, and the cold was present, it never became unbearable. It felt more like sitting in a car during the winter with A/C blowing. It’s not pleasant, but it wouldn’t kill you either. It was only when I came across the clearing of a frozen lake that I saw the full moon watching overhead. It was the middle of the night. Until then I thought it had been day, or at least early evening. I could see through almost any shadow.

For the record, I hate the snow. That’s one of the things I love about the deep South. There is little to no snow during any given winter. There was a light dusting that settled mostly up in the trees, and a few armies of swirling crystals floated across the little lake. Considering my very naked state I was concerned about frost bite, but while I was not completely comfortable, I wasn’t freezing either. I assumed by the tubes that had been hanging from my arms, that I was full of drugs that kept me from feeling it, and while it didn’t hurt, it didn’t mean I wasn’t unknowingly freezing body parts off right then and there. I checked myself, everything seemed fine and mostly warm, though I had to admit, something felt a little… off.

Either I had managed to distance myself from the fighting or it had stopped. In the silence I decided to take a break, not that I felt like I needed one. I could have kept on running. I wasn’t getting winded. In retrospect that should have freaked me out, but the small percentage of my already-freaked-out mind assumed that it must have been the adrenaline, and so my priority list moved on to more pressing things like escape, survival, and of course, clothing.

I took an undignified bow at the water and sipped what must have been half the lake of its icy goodness. The water tasted better than any drink I had ever tasted before. I felt as though I had not had a drink in months. Judging by the winter around me it was possible that was an accurate assumption since it was spring when I had gone to the fairground to see the Street Vipers. After I had my fill of water, I took my newly found super sturdy stance just in time to be hit in the head by a falling duffle bag. Guess my reflexes still needed some work.

I didn’t have to be told, despite a mysterious electronic voice from on high ordering me to, “Get dressed.” I dug through the bag and found some black running shorts and a red T-shirt which I wasted no time putting on. It wasn’t exactly weather appropriate, but I was happy to have anything at that point.

The mind is an incredible tool. I don’t know if it’s because I was in some kind of survival mode, or if because all those stupid stories, which may not have been as stupid as I originally thought, had in some way prepared me for the strange and outlandish, but as I stood barefoot in the snow, barely feeling the cold, I hardly batted an eye when before me, from the sky, appeared a woman wearing white and silver armor. She just dropped in from a perch up in the branches of those enormous evergreens that towered over us.

When I say armor, I don’t mean that bulky stuff you see in the history books of plate covered chainmail where the wearer looked more like a struggling-to-move robot as opposed to the nimble warrior before me. She wore a black underlay like a wetsuit, only it was scaled, and it protected the vital joints not covered by an elegant metallic shell of pearl marked with intricate silver patterns. Though her face was hidden, it was definitely a “her,” because the armor maker was kind enough to allow ample room along the bust, and her pelvic area was covered by the plated pearl. It was fashioned to look more like a woman’s bikini bottom. Thigh coverings met just under it, and the shingled abdominal-extension locked in above it keeping her protected while making the look seem like an almost seamless single unit while still allowing for impressive movement and agility. When you’re a guy as practiced at observing and appreciating the fairer sex as I, you notice the little things like that.

She wore a dual crossed scabbard on her back that was built seamlessly into her armor. The hilts of her swords curved outward at the bottom. I wanted to see her pull them. By the way the handles and the blades curved, she would have to bear them with the blades flowing up the length of her arm, as opposed to the more traditional grip one normally would use with a sword. Very cool.

The helmet was round taking an upside down tear shape. It had a few hard angles at the top which gave the “face” and “head” portions their proper dimensions. The face was a perfect mirror plate that slid down from the crown of the head. Nothing like being distracted by your own reflection as you parried away with a fighter, whose armor was made to reveal her smoking hot form. I don’t mean to be chauvinistic, but if it’s a spade, call it a spade. Distraction was a tactic as good as any other. The second I laid eyes on her, despite the fact that I had yet to see her face, I was tingling in all the right places. If I had to fight her, I would lose.

There was yet another stare off for me. I was starting to feel like the Wyatt Earp of eye contact, as she studied me from the anonymous safety hidden away behind the mirrored face plate of that fantastic armor. I was okay with losing this one. “You saved me.” I said matter-of-factly.

“I did.” She replied. Her helmet translated her voice into a synthesized creation. There was a twinge to her voice that made it sound non-American. Of course, my first instinct was to assume Australian, but considering what was happening around me, I made concession that she could have been from Mars for all I knew.

I don’t know why, but as a guy, the instinct to flirt comes at any and all times, no matter how inappropriate the situation might make it. “Well that makes you my knight in shining armor then, doesn’t it?” I tried my best sexy wink. She laughed, but I don’t think it was with me, so much as at me.

“And I guess that makes you the damsel in distress?”

Oh so she’s a funny girl.

I ignored her so I could keep working my mojo, “Would it be too much to ask to look my savior in the eyes? Would you consider removing the helmet so I could thank you appropriately?”

I have no game.

I really didn’t think she would. She was a warrior woman with cool swords and badass armor. All the comics I had ever read would have demanded that a secret identity be paramount to keep, so would you believe she granted my request? She pulled at silver latches on the back of each side of her face plate. There was a slight hiss before the helmet came undone. She took it off, and with the shake of a head, lava red hair spilled out to the side, settling across her right shoulder piece.

“Awesome.” I admired.

She spun like a school girl trying on her Mom’s dress for the first time. “You like it, really?” Not the reaction I was expecting, but I went with it.

“I do. You totally look Snazzy.”

She raised a curious eyebrow. I internally imagined murdering whatever part of my psyche still holding on to that stupid word.

Emerald eyes of isle fire met mine. She dismissed me with a laugh as I made not the tiniest effort to hide the complete and total enamored tickle I felt crawling all over my face. “If I promise to get in trouble tomorrow will you save me again?” I said with a cheeky grin. “I’d be willing to get kidnapped over and over if meant repeating this moment.”

Maybe I have a little game?

“Aye,” she said in a thick Irish sounding tone. Not Australian, but twice as hot in its delivery. I was suddenly in love with a new culture. “Though next time I think I might leave you to fend for yourself.”

“Then perhaps we switch roles, and I save you.” I did feel a little guilty. I was the one who wanted to be a knight after all.

She laughed
again
. Every time she laughed was like the touchdown of touchdowns. “Perhaps,” she pulled a device from her belt which had been connected to the piece of her suit I had nicknamed the Armored Thong. “But I’m afraid I haven’t finished saving you yet… My
Damsel
.” That stabbed a little.

“Take your time.” I insisted as she stuck the piece of unfamiliar super technology up to my arm.

“What do you see?” She asked perplexed while she analyzed the readings on the tiny screen.

“You.”

She sighed, “I mean on you?”

“I see me.” I replied looking over myself wondering if something had gone wrong. Had I somehow missed something during the frenzy of my escape through the snowy woods? “I mean I feel a little different. I’m not cold when I should be in the throes of hypothermia. I think I might have gained a little strength because I totally snapped some huge-ass limbs as if they were twigs as I ran here. But I guess my extremities do feel a little on the numb side, and it’s not because of the cold. Other than that, I feel fine. Oh and I can see a lot better than I used to as well, and maybe hear too.”

She looked confused. “I need to take you somewhere.”

As much as I was willing to go anywhere with her, I had somewhere else I needed to go first, “I need to get home. My Dad has probably crapped enough bricks to build his own Great Wall in China. Do you know how long it’s been since I was taken?”

She said nothing. Whatever was happening on the screen she studied it, stared at me, and then went back to surveying the information scrolling down her device’s readout. It was mildly frustrating. I sighed in protest of being ignored.