The Awakening (The Hyperscape Project Book 1) (34 page)

Just as the
woman’s scream was splitting the air, Kael’s fist rammed into the Sulcrum’s
inner thigh.  As expected, the Sulcrum’s leg buckled.  As it began to
fall forward, Kael drew a thick, short blade from the sheath in his boot and
used his entire body to swing upward toward the weak neck point.  The
arm-blade the Sulcrum had raised at Kael’s head retracted backward, shortening
in length as the Sulcrum automatically repositioned to strike another blow at
Kael, this time aimed at his belly.  Kael’s forward thrust was abruptly
shortened as he side-stepped the blade, but he managed to thrust sideways and
connect with the Sulcrum’s neck.  He missed the weak point but managed to
sever at least one energy conduit.  Steam poured out of the Sulcrum’s neck
as it reeled backward, its shiny chrome-colored metal arms wheeling to regain
balance.   He watched the seven-foot tall machine as it began to
right itself.  Made of ulbinium, the strongest metal on his planet, the
Sulcrum was nearly indestructible.  Kael would have to be quick and
precise to take it down.  The odds were stacked against him, but Kael was
one of the best fighters in his region.

The woman at the
flower stand screamed again.  Kael’s heart skipped a beat a split second
before the Sulcrum’s head began to turn in the woman’s direction.  In an
attempt to block the Sulcrum’s gaze, Kael launched himself into the air and hit
the Sulcrum sidewise with a double-footed drop kick.  Even with all Kael’s
weight and forward momentum, the Sulcrum was barely moved by the blow. 
Besides which, it was too late.  The Sulcrum’s gaze was on the
woman.  A nearly imperceptible blue beam of energy shot out of both eyes,
spanning the ten-yard distance between the Sulcrum and the woman.  Kael
watched helplessly while the Sulcrum ran a full scan of the petite blonde.

Kael bounced off
the Sulcrum and hit the pavement with his shoulder.  People were already
scattering away from the area, terrified of the huge manlike machine that had
suddenly appeared in their midst.  Everyone was in movement and everyone
was screaming as the scene took place in front of them.  But the woman
didn’t move.  She stared at the Sulcrum, watched it start to right
itself.  Kael lost track of what she was doing.  Instead, he used the
opportunity, while the Sulcrum was occupied scanning her, to pick himself up
off the street and thrust his Strongblade into the Sulcrum’s neck.  His
biceps straining with the effort, he twisted the blade with his right hand
while using his left hand to push hard against the helmet of the Sulcrum. 
The Sulcrum’s right arm swung around hard to the right and caught Kael
mid-abdomen.  The force of the blow nearly broke Kael’s ribs and sent him
flying backward away from the huge metal hulk, right into the flower stand.

The girl
shrieked as she ducked away from being hit by Kael’s body as it sailed over
her.  She fell to her knees, hands over her head, and peered out from
under her forearms as the Sulcrum quickly walked toward the destroyed flower
stand.  Kael lay amongst a pile of flowers, vases, splintered wood and twisted
metal.  He saw the Sulcrum heading his way and braced his hands backward
behind his head against the pavement, drew his knees to his chest and waited
two beats before kicking out as hard as he could.  His brain registered
the fact that his blade was no longer in his hand, nor was it in the Sulcrum’s
neck, just as his feet connected to the nearly indestructible machine.  It
was like kicking the side of a building.  The shockwave traveled up Kael’s
spine, sending pain careening through his body and through his skull, making
him feel like his bones were going to shatter.  Although his bones were
much denser and stronger than human bones, a Sulcrum could snap him like a
twig.  Kael’s kick barely swayed the hulk.  The Sulcrum’s gyros were designed
to rebalance the metal body under even extreme circumstances, which left it
nearly invulnerable to physical attacks.

“My blade!” he
roared in the woman’s direction.

She winced, as
if startled by the sound of his voice, then quickly looked around.  The
blade lay four feet away, hovering on the edge of the sidewalk, precariously
balanced above a storm drain.  One wrong move and the blade could fall
down that hole, never to be recovered.  Kael’s brain worked over the
problem as he raised an arm in defense against the Sulcrum’s attack.  He
was still on the ground, still reeling from the pain in his body.  As the
Sulcrum swung his arm downward, the sharp blade extending from its arm glinted
in the wintry sunlight.  The blade changed length and size as it
approached Kael.  Kael grabbed the Sulcrum’s wrist with both hands, swept
the hulk’s right ankle joint with his right foot, and rolled hard to the left,
using the downward force and the roll of his body to both absorb and deflect
the shockwave of the blow and pull the Sulcrum off its feet.  Kael managed
to throw it about ten feet distance from him.

“My blade!” he
roared again as he jumped to his feet and put a little more distance between
himself and the machine.  The Sulcrum was already getting to its feet and
turning back toward him.  Kael glanced in the woman’s direction.  She
had his blade in her hands, but she appeared to be afraid to approach
him.  Kael didn’t want to run in her direction; she might be accidentally
injured in the process.  Sulcrums didn’t care about collateral
damage.  They weren’t programmed to care.  They were programmed to
kill.

The girl
hesitated for a fraction of a second, her eyes darting to the Sulcrum, and then
she threw the blade in Kael’s direction.  Kael took three giant strides
toward her, one arm outstretched to catch the heavy Strongblade, leapt into the
air and used one leg against a nearby lamppost to stop his momentum and turn
himself around to face the Sulcrum.  He caught the blade neatly and deftly
turned it in his hand, his fingers clenched around the metal hilt.  Still
in motion, he launched himself off the pole and met the Sulcrum as it hurtled
toward him.  The blade sank deep into the weak point just below the
Sulcrum’s chin and stuck out the other side.  Kael gave the blade a violent
twist left then right and stepped sideways as the forward momentum of the
Sulcrum’s body continued past him and rammed into the glass window of the very
store Kael had been standing in front of just minutes earlier.  Shards of
glass flew in all directions as the heavy metal body of the Sulcrum came to a
halt in the middle of the now destroyed store display.  The woman stared
at the machine’s head as it fell at Kael’s feet.

For a moment,
Kael stood with his arm still outstretched, blade extended outward, muscles
tensed and bulging, and his chest heaving as he worked to catch his
breath.  His eyes were glued to the woman.  A second later, he
vaulted towards her, grabbed her by the hand, and began running away from the
storefront as fast as he could drag his baggage behind him.  She was small
and couldn’t keep up with him.  Frustrated, he stopped.  She
immediately slammed into the back of him.

“Ow!  Damn
you!  Where are you taking me!” she yelled at him.

“Away from
here,” he yelled back.  Without saying another word, he picked her up like
she was a sack of potatoes, dumped her over his shoulder, and ran down the
street with her bouncing against his back.  She wound her fingers into his
shirt and held on tight to try and stop the mind-numbing bounce of her head.

“I...w-want to
kn-know...where the hell you’re t-t-taking me!” she shrieked, her words coming
out in gasps as her stomach bounced painfully against his shoulder.

Just as the last
word was leaving her lips, the Sulcrum exploded in a massive ball of fire that
sent bricks, glass, metal, and parts of mannequins flying across the
street.  Kael kept running.  The woman was too winded to scream when
the explosion ripped through the store.  Sirens howled in the distance,
fire trucks and police cars already trying to make their way through the city
streets to get to the odd scene that citizens had surely reported.  Only
minutes had passed since the Sulcrum’s arrival, but there was enough chaos and
damage on the street to make it look like a terrorist attack.

Another
explosion rocked the atmosphere, the sound reverberating off the tall buildings
around them.  The Sulcrum’s head, exploding just minutes after the body’s
self-destruct. 

Kael kept
running.  He had to get as far away from the scene as possible, as fast as
possible.  He ran a mile before he finally stopped and put the woman
down.  Tears streaked her cheeks, and her nose was red and wet from
crying.  She wobbled on her feet and shoved her long blonde hair out of
her face to get a good look at him.  Kael was barely panting from the long
run.  Running with her weight on his shoulder hadn’t even winded
him.  His luminous green eyes stared down into her face, assessing her
emotions and her physical state.

“What the hell
was that...that...thing back there!” she demanded.

“A Sulcrum,” he
answered succinctly.

He reached for
her hand.  She snatched it out of his way so that he couldn’t take hold of
it.

He
frowned.  “You must come with me.”

“The hell you
say!  I don’t have to go anywhere with you!  You nearly got me killed
back there!”

He reached for
her hand again.  Again, she moved out of his grasp.  “I want to know
why the man in that armor was trying to kill you, and why you are running with
me!” 

“There’s no time
for that.  We have to get as far away as possible, as fast as
possible.  Every delay could mean the death of us.”

“Why?  And
why
we
?  Why do I have to go with you?  What the hell is going
on?”  She ended in a near-scream of fury and frustration.

“The Sulcrum is
not a man.  It’s a machine.  A very deadly one,” Kael explained.

The woman
glanced at him nervously.  She looked dazed, confused, and he could smell
the terror thrumming through her bloodstream.

“You’ve been
imprinted,” he stated.

“Wha-What does
that mean?”

“It means that
you are in danger.  You must come with me.”

Her eyes were
beautiful.  He’d just noticed.  Deep as a crystal clear blue spring
on Trinoor.  Her hair the color of the corn silk he’d seen stripped from
the ears in the farmers market.  Skin fair, smooth, and clear.  Next
to his 6’ 5” frame, she was tiny, probably no more than 5’4”.  Not that it
mattered.  She was under his protection now.  Like it or not, he
couldn’t leave her.

She opened her
mouth to say something, but the words were cut short when he grabbed her by the
hand and pulled her down the side street.  “We must get out of sight.”

She tried to
twist her hand out of his, but his grip was too firm.  “Why should I come
with you?”  She yelled the words at the back of his head.

He turned
abruptly and put a large hand over her mouth to shut her up.  Leaning down
close so she could look into the depth of his eyes, he said very clearly, “If
you want to remain alive, you will follow me to the ends of your planet if need
be, without hesitation and without argument.”

Her eyes were
wide with fear, and he could feel her heart thrumming hard against his
abdomen.  The energy of it beat the air between them, reaching out to
strum his nervous system.  His senses were at high alert, and he could see
everything about her, smell everything, feel everything, like no human ever
could.

“I’m going to
let go now.  And you’re going to be good and not scream.  If you hold
me back any longer, I will have no choice but to leave you behind, to protect
myself.  If I do that, you will die.  Do you understand?”

She nodded
feebly, her cheeks pinched up above the meat of his palm.  She looked like
a pathetic little cartoon character on some earth show.  When he didn’t
let go, she nodded more emphatically and grunted something from beneath his
hand.  He slowly lifted a few fingers.  She didn’t scream, so he
withdrew his hand, but he remained vigilante.  She gasped once for breath,
straightened her shirt, swallowed hard, and nodded again.

“Alright. 
I’m following you.”

Kael assessed
her eyes to determine her truth.  Satisfied that she would give him no
more trouble, he looked around at his surroundings.  Microwave and cell
phone towers jutted from the tall building next to the abandoned one they stood
beside.  He turned and peered into the distance.  The energy plant was
too far away.  This building would have to do, for now.

He went to the
door and looked through the glass.  A small hallway led to an empty
lobby.  He jimmied the door and stepped inside.  Old broken glass
crunched beneath his boots.  He pulled the girl in behind him and closed
the door, locked it, and turned back to look around at the graffiti-covered
walls.

“What is this
place?” the girl asked from behind him.

“An abandoned
office building,” he said.

“How do you
know?”

“I observe.”

Moving silently,
his senses heightened and alert, he led her upstairs to the third floor. 
Glancing around as he went, he eased down the hallway until they came to a
small room at the end of the hall.  The girl followed him inside, but when
he closed the door behind them she seemed wary and nervous.  Kael ignored
her and assessed the room from ceiling to floor, then went and peered out the
dirty window at the street beyond.  Satisfied that he would not be
battling his way through any more Sulcrums, at least for a short while, he
turned to the only desk that sat to one side of the room.  He crossed the
room and sat down slowly in the dust-covered swivel chair.

The girl looked
around the room.  “Why would anyone leave their office furniture behind?”

“You ask a lot
of questions.”

She
shrugged.  “I’ve always been curious by nature.”

“Questions can
get you answers that you won’t like to hear.”