CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
SILENT WATCHER
Tiger did most of the murderbot cleanup as they followed Daedalus’ directive, beginning their cleanup from Sixth Avenue. Sixth Avenue was cluttered mainly with shops, and had one theater and one orphanage. The theater looked to be where most of the bots had converged, particularly since civilians had taken to the theater’s halls for shelter and barricaded themselves in there. Tiger and Wombat arrived at the Sixth Avenue Metropolitan Theater just as the bots were about to break into one of the viewing halls, and Tiger eliminated them instantly.
Afterward, they went on ahead to make sure no one in the halls had been hurt and ushered them out, pointing them in the direction of safety.
“Get to your homes, stay inside,” Wombat instructed. “We’ll continue the cleanup out here.”
“You two look just like kids,” said a man whose back was slightly hunched, the hair on his head gray and thin with age, his eyes a little weary, skin slightly wrinkled. “In fact, you don’t look a day older than my grandkids. Why you doing this?”
“Someone’s gotta protect the city,” Wombat responded. “Now go!”
The man eyed them for a moment, then gave them a grateful nod before turning around and running in the same direction the others were going. One of the kids who’d just been rescued from the theater, a boy who couldn’t have been older than nine, walked up to Wombat and Tiger, holding in his hands action figures of the both of them.
He held it up so they’d see. “It’s you,” he said, his voice a tad squeaky.
Wombat felt his heart flutter a little, and he exchanged glances with Tiger. He gulped and crouched in front of the kid, taking his action figure from the boy. “Man, I didn’t realize they were making these of us.”
“They’re not,” the boy shook his head. “My dad, he had a 3D printer. I made him make these for my eighth birthday. You guys are superheroes, aren’t you?”
“Something like that, yeah,” Wombat nodded.
“And these robots in the city, they’re the bad guys?”
Tiger nodded. “Yeah, kiddo. They are.”
“Are you going to win?” the boy asked, sounding rather fearful. He pointed at Wombat’s damaged hand, at the cables wrapped around it. “You don’t look like you’re going to win. You look hurt.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Wombat smiled warmly. “We’ve got friends working with us, and they’re pretty strong too. Besides, most of the danger is gone. By the end of the night, the city will be back to normal. Now, why don’t you run along?” He returned the action figure to the boy. “Tiger and Wombat will take it from here.”
The boy looked a little like he didn’t believe Wombat’s attempts at reassuring him, but then he nodded with a brilliant smile on his face before joining the crowd making their way away from Sixth. Once the boy had vanished from view, Wombat straightened and looked at Tiger, beaming rather proudly.
“Did you see that?” he asked excitedly. “Action figures! Of us!” he squealed.
“Yeah,” Tiger smiled. “It was pretty rad.”
“Mine was cooler,” Wombat said smugly
“Whatever you say, buddy,” Tiger snorted. “Now come on, let’s hurry along with the cleanup, still got a few more streets to hit.”
The two of them went on, clearing up street after street. On Charleston Street, a horde of murderbots had converged around the Charleston Church. Tiger had created a wind vacuum that pulled all of the murderbots into one position, so Wombat could incinerate them all with a blast of intense heat from his good hand.
With Charleston taken care of, they moved on to the next. As they went, Wombat felt a shiver down his spine, felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and he came to a stop instantly, a dark feeling creeping on him. He clenched his fists, and glanced out of the corner of his eyes, curious to see if they were being followed.
He turned around, stared at the rooftops they’d left behind them, at the alley entrances. He glowed his eyes, scanning for heat signatures, but the only ones he could pick up on were the countless civilians they were rescuing. Nothing that stood out to him.
He stopped glowing his eyes and produced a breath of relief.
‘’Are you okay?” Tiger asked, having stopped now too, giving Wombat a look of concern.
“Yeah, yeah,” Wombat turned back to her and continued going. “It just felt for a moment back there like we were being followed.”
Tiger looked over a shoulder too, scanning the coast, listening to the wind. She shook her head. “I think we’re clear.”
The next street looked, at first glance, to be relatively undisturbed. That is, until they heard screams coming from within a large building, all of whose windows had been shattered, the holes in the windows appearing oddly murderbot-sized.
Wombat frowned at the decidedly familiar building, trying to figure out what it was. And then he saw the toppled over Helping Hands sign, and his eyes widened at once, his heart skipping a few beats. “Tiger,” he said.
“The orphanage,” Tiger said, having also realized that was Anna’s shelter.
The two of them surged in the direction of the building at once, Wombat feeling adrenaline coursing through him once more, dulling the pain in his damaged hand. An aura of flame engulfed him as he flew at the shelter.
Tiger shot in through a window and he zipped in after her, did a flip in the air and then landed just beside Tiger, their backs up against each other.
Shards of glass cluttered the floor of the orphanage and all of the furniture in there had either been overturned or blown to bits. The murderbots were hovering around, eyes glowing red, lethal weapons at the ready. Most of the kids had gathered in a corner of the shelter’s ground floor, and Anna was right there in front of them, hands outstretched, as though offering herself up as a shield for the children.
Wombat looked at the stairs, at the kids who cowered behind the railings, gripping onto them rather firmly. He imagined there must have been more kids upstairs too, perhaps in hiding, no doubt at Anna’s instruction.
But he couldn’t think about the kids now, the murderbots had to be the focus of his attention. Having to deal with the bots in a cramped, occupied space like the orphanage meant he couldn’t burn too hot, lest he run the risk of scorching the kids in there.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
He drew a deep breath and willed his flames to calm. Slowly, the aura around him reduced, going from blueish-gold to just plain orange.
He rubbed the back of his neck and then cracked his knuckles. “Alright, robots,” he grinned. “Which one of you wants to burn first?”
The murderbots turned their attention to Wombat and Tiger and then, all at once, they attacked. Wombat snorted and surged at them, actively being careful to refrain from burning too wildly to avoid hurting the others. He flew straight into three of the bots, dropped to the ground with them and hastily blew off three of their heads.
The heads, now fire coated, were his to control, and he willed them at other bots, launching it at them like projectiles. The heads struck three other murderbots right in the chest, blowing holes straight through them and sending sparks of electricity flying in every direction.
A murderbot nicked Wombat from behind. He spun around and crashed a flaming fist into the murderbot’s chest, sending it hurtling through the air. The bot crashed straight through a wall and into the kitchen. The bot must have hit the gas or something because the next instant, there was a powerful explosion that caused the entire building to rattle.
The kitchen went ablaze, orange flames crackling dangerously. The orphans in the place began to whimper, eyes wide with fear as they saw the fire spreading.
“Wombat!” Tiger yelled.
“I know, I know,” Wombat nodded. He sucked in an extremely deep breath and then, as if he’d become a vacuum, the fire started to pull toward him. In, the flames went, through his nostrils, through his mouth, through his ears, through the pores on his skin.
He absorbed all of it, and then exhaled loudly, his eyes glowing orange as he did.
Tiger made a waving gesture with her hands, sending out a slightly powerful gust of wind, enough to disperse all of the smoke inside.
The last of the murderbots, seven in total, all went for Tiger, seeking to catch them off guard. Wombat’s eyes widened and he prepared to surge to her rescue, at least until he saw Tiger crack a smile.
He stopped in his tracks, watched, saw Tiger make a simple gesture with two fingers.
At once, a rotating blade of wind formed, sweeping out and slashing all seven of the murderbots in half, all at once.
The pieces of the murderbots dropped to the ground, not quite deactivated yet. Tiger willed the wind and swept up all of the murderbot pieces, launching them out a window, high into the air. Wombat grinned and shot out the window too. He stared upward, at the murderbots, all of which had been perfectly lined up for him.
He squeezed one eye shut and pointed two fingers at the bots as though he were aiming a pistol. At his fingertips, a small orange ball formed.
Here goes, he thought to himself.
He felt the energy coursing through him, concentrated it at his fingertips. He smiled. “Incinerating Arrow,” he commanded.
A concentrated beam of fire akin to a laser exploded forth from his hands, shooting through the air at near light speed and piercing through the lined-up murderbots. Immediately, all of the robots exploded like fireworks in the air, pieces of scrap metal raining back down onto the streets and pelting against the rooftops of nearby buildings.
Wombat allowed himself a moment to take in the beauty of his fireworks, and then he turned around, returning to the orphanage to join Tiger.
Anna was on her feet now, as were all of the kids. A number of them swarmed around Wombat and Tiger to express gratitude, addressing the two of them by their regular names—Daniel and Megan, which felt a little odd to the heroes since they weren’t used to being addressed regularly while out on the job.
Anna approached the two of them, and placed her hands on either side of Daniel’s face. “Thank you,” she said, her voice a little shaky. “Truly. I’m not sure what would have happened if you’d arrived just a second later.”
“It’s fine,” Wombat smiled. “Glad we could help.”
“Where’s Dang?” Anna questioned. “The others?”
“They’re taking care of those pesky little machines elsewhere, slowly making their way in this direction. But they’re fine. Everyone’s accounted for.”
Anna let out a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness. This stuff that’s going on out there, is this what Dang mentioned a couple weeks ago? This is the invasion?”
“We believe so, yes,” Tiger answered. “And if all of these murderbots are on our world, they need to have some sort of base of operations here already. Once the city’s clear, we’ll regroup and focus on trying to find wherever it is they’re operating from. If we can take the fight to them, we should be able to weather this storm, quell it before there’s any more significant destruction.”
Wombat had been about to chime in when he noticed one of the kids was acting a little odd. It was a silver-haired boy with bushy eyebrows, and he recognized him immediately. Caleb.
Caleb was standing rather oddly, craning his neck in every direction, his eyes narrowed, cold, a little lit up. He watched the boy breathe mist into the air, watched him point his finger at a corner that appeared empty, nothing but an open window there.
“Stop hiding,” Caleb spoke softly.
This drew everyone’s attention, Wombat and Tiger’s especially. Wombat frowned at the kid. “What are you talking about?” He glowed his eyes. “There’s no one—,”
He trailed off, because two heat signatures popped up in that corner when he glowed his eyes. One looked to be of a tall man, the other of a smaller boy. Both figures had their hands on their waist. The taller one had his neck craned a little.
“What the hell?” Wombat’s heart skipped a few beats.
Caleb sighed. “If you won’t stop hiding, I’ll have to make you.”
The boy flicked a finger in the direction of the corner. The air seemed to crack as he did so, reality seeming to distort in a straight line, a line that tore all the way to where the two figures were cloaked. The line reached the corner and then came a powerful explosion, one that caused the wall, ceiling and floor in that section to disintegrate entirely.
Wombat’s mouth dropped open at once, eyes widening in awe. He stared at Caleb, at loss for words, mind blown by the little kid’s power.
Caleb’s twin, Chase, stepped forward then too, standing right next to his brother. Wombat knew Dang had mentioned that the both of them were gifted but now, staring at the two kids, Wombat couldn’t help but feel somewhat intimidated. There was something deeply intense about the aura coming off of both of them.
But then came a cackle out of the dust and debris stirred up by Caleb’s explosion and Wombat’s attention snapped in that direction.
“My, my,” a thick voice spoke out of the slowly-clearing debris. “Such power. And you were able to see through my mirage too, that’s impressive for such a little boy.”
The debris cleared thanks to a little wind manipulation from Tiger and the two figures came into view. The taller of the two had shoulder-length brown hair streaked with gray. His eyebrows were thin and curved, his eyes gray and narrow. His nose had an odd curvature to it and his lips were thin.
He was clad in what looked to be a uniform of sorts—blue for the most part, with interconnecting lines of gold, and padded sections in black and white. There wasn’t much about his appearance that came off as threatening or intimidating, but somehow, his mere presence still sent chills down the spines of everyone else.
The man’s company looked a little younger. If Wombat had to guess, the taller dude was somewhere between nineteen and twenty-one. But the scrawnier one looked somewhere between fifteen and seventeen.
The boy had blond hair tied back in a ponytail, dark bushy eyebrows and a somewhat round face. He wore an identical outfit to the taller man, except he had a gauntlet on his left hand that glowed and pulsed with energy.
He had a bored expression on his face, and a certain emptiness in his light blue eyes that made Wombat a little concerned about the threat he could pose.
“Who the hell are you two supposed to be?” Wombat demanded.
“Spectators, admirers,” the older one answered, his voice raspy, his tone cool. “Watched you make your way here. Impressive, the both of you. I see now why this world was marked as high priority. So much potential here.”
“I’d leave if I were you,” Wombat warned, glowing his eyes. “I’ve still got enough fire left in me to put up a fight.”
“Is that really what you want to do?” the younger boy asked, his voice chilly. “I’ll give you a chance to walk away. Take it and live. Refuse, and die.”
“Kai, that’s not what we came for.”
“Speak for yourself, Caden,” the younger one, Kai, responded. “But I will not stand by and have them address us as though we are equals. They are beneath us and need to be taught their place.”
Caden sighed and shrugged as though it would be futile to attempt to calm Kai. “Well, do what you want,” he said. “But do not hurt those two,” he gestured toward Chase and Caleb. “I’m intrigued by them.”
He took a step toward the twins but Wombat was quick. He dashed in Caleb and Chase’s direction, a trail of flame in his wake. He came to a stop right in front of both of them, and held out both hands.
“I won’t warn you again,” he growled, his eyes burning. “Leave. Now.”
“So, you’ve made your choice then,” Kai spoke softly, his eyes glowing ever so softly. “Very well. I’ll make this quick.”