Contractor (15 page)

Daniel dodged another crushing blow.

The extractor hit so hard its arm stuck in the

concrete. Daniel threw a powered punch at

the trapped limb. His knuckles banged off the

iron. He winced and ducked back a few

steps. He’d made a solid dent, but it felt like

it was hurting him more than the extractor.

The machine drew itself up and

considered Daniel for a long moment. From

the corner of his eye, he could see the girl

collecting the crackling sphere over her

head. A small sigil rotated under the light. It

was slow going; she had to be tired.

The extractor’s legs flashed neon white.

Daniel barely got out of the way of a

spinning kick. The leg planted itself

unnaturally fast, and the second leg came up

faster.

Daniel blocked with both arms, all his

magic shoved between him and the robot.

The kick took him off the ground. His

forearms went numb. He landed on his heels,

stumbling to keep his balance.

It was on him a second later, moving at

least twice as fast as it had been. He tried to

circle behind it, but its torso kept moving

independent of its legs, always facing him.

He knocked it a couple more times, but it

was scratch damage at most. He was reduced

to skipping around it like a fly. He drew

back a few yards to think of a new strategy.

The extractor went for the girl. Daniel

bent his legs and sprinted forward with

everything he had. The world zipped by. He

jumped into a kick just as the extractor turned

back. He caught it in the chest with both feet,

body fully extended. There was a boom as

his white magic impacted the inscribed

armor. It crashed down with Daniel standing

on top of it.

He wasn’t able to get away before it

caught him in a giant hand, snatching one of

his legs. Light pulsed down the steel of its

arm, and a twisting black glove wrapped the

steel. He slapped at the hand, doing a little

damage, but it didn’t shake its grip. The

darkness grew, hungrily stamping down his

light. He braced himself for pain.

A roared battle cry echoed over the

street. The glowing red sword sliced through

the automaton’s shoulder like butter. The arm

and Daniel dropped to the ground. Daniel

pried the fingers open and jumped back as

the extractor righted itself.

The machine charged another fist attack

with its remaining hand and punched at the

swordsman. The man lifted his kite shield;

the red glow of the sword faded, and his

defensive barrier shone bright gold. He took

the extractor’s attack straight on.

There was a flash as they connected.

Gold light snapped and arced across the face

of the shield. The man grit his teeth and dug

in. The extractor pressed its fist down. The

man’s knees buckled.

Daniel zipped in from behind and

attacked the arm with a rapid series of jabs.

Dents cracked in up to its elbow. The arm

crunched inward. Daniel’s momentum took

him out of the danger zone, and the man

shoved his shield up against the

compromised limb. The robot was forced

backward.

Daniel ran up to the man’s side as the

extractor reoriented. He and the swordsman

exchanged a glance, then moved shoulder-to-

shoulder. The robot’s torso swiveled

between them, deciding on a target. It

stopped on the warrior; its feet started to

glow again.

The girl finished her spell. The

thunderbolt rolled off her hands and slammed

into the extractor’s backside. Its

enchantments flickered. Its bad arm twitched

and creaked.

Daniel smelled opportunity. He pushed

everything he had into his fist and threw his

body into a punch, catching the machine as it

fell. His fist punched a hole in its shoulder,

and he followed through, slamming it back

down and onto the asphalt.

Daniel jumped on top of it and started

pounding its body. It reached up to attack

with its dislocated arm, but the warrior

swatted the limb off with his sword. Daniel

kept pounding, denting the armor one way,

then another—and his last punch plunged into

the core of the robot, through its iron shell,

and crunched something fragile inside of it.

Its enchantments flickered and died. It

fell limp. Daniel drew his hand back. His

knuckles were bloodied and raw, and

bruises ran up his arms. He couldn’t feel

them at all.

The machine crumbled to dust. Daniel

stood in the middle of it. A storm of dark

clouds whipped his clothes. A sickly green

sigil twisted and glowed under his shoes, a

bigger spell to absorb a larger amount of

magic. The ache in his arms and legs faded

as he sucked in the power. The cracked skin

on his hands wavered, swam, and knitted

itself up. The bruises faded.

The spell vanished. The warrior and the

girl stared at him like he had three heads.

Their friend was still out cold, tossed over

her shoulder. Daniel slowly backed away

with his palms raised.

"…a necromancer?" the man muttered.

"Necro…" Daniel stopped. "If sucking

the life out of things counts, yes."

"How could you do that to yourself?" the

girl whispered.

"Look," Daniel said, "can we all agree on one thing? You’d be in a bad way if I

didn’t help. Right?" They said nothing.

Daniel cleared his throat. "I go my way, you

go yours. I just wanted to -" The warrior

shifted in front of the other two. The girl

charged a bolt in her hands. Daniel took

another step back. "Take it easy! I just -"

"You just want to prey on us while

we’re weakened, you disgusting piece of

shit!" the girl shouted. "While these things were attacking us!"

Daniel’s eyes went wide. He shook his

head. "What the hell are you talking about? If

I wanted that, I would have just stabbed you

in the back at the start!"

That gave the man pause. He glanced at

the girl. She didn’t take her eyes off Daniel.

"…we’re alive because of you," the man

said. "Get out of here. And consider the debt

paid in full."

"Captain," the girl started, "we can’t just

-"

"Megan. He has a point."

"But he’s -"

"I didn’t ask for an opinion, private."

The girl’s mouth snapped shut. "If he hadn’t

intervened, we’d probably be dead right

now." The man lowered his sword. "I’ll be

reporting you to the Ivory Dawn. If I were

you, I wouldn’t come back to Cleveland.

Leave. Now."

Daniel ran, and he didn’t look back. He

made it to the edge of the barrier and

suppressed his power as hard as he could.

He worried there for a while, wondering

whether to stick it out or try to smash

through, but it wasn’t long until it vanished.

Maybe getting rid of the extractors had

something to do with it.

Time restarted. He could smell the wind

off the river. Leaves rustled in trees. He

heard car engines moving down streets. He

sprinted to the bridge and all the way back to

Aplington as fast as he could.

****

The next day, Daniel couldn’t resist

going to the track. There was a marked

increase in his top speed. His reflexes were

sharper than ever. He could make a dent in

steel with a solid punch. 1,705 spawn, 1

extractor.

He expected something on the news.

They’d blown a hole in the wall and left a

few craters in the street. Nothing was

reported. Whoever the Ivory Dawn were,

they must have cleaned up. Or they

controlled the media.

His adventure in the city taught him two

very important things—first, that he really

was an outcast. That girl was advocating for

his death just because of the spell, right after

Daniel saved her life. Even the man hesitated

to let him go. He couldn’t expect help from

anyone.

It didn’t bother him that much. He hadn’t

gotten much help from anyone in years.

More importantly, he was an idiot for

trying to fight that thing at close range with

bare hands and no protection. Granted, he

hadn’t planned on taking one on in the first

place, but in less than a week, he’d be taking

on Aplington’s extractor alone.

He searched for a weapon online. The

first thing that came to mind was a sword,

like that knight. An hour’s worth of research

told him that learning to work a sword with

more finesse than a baseball bat took a good

deal of time—time he did not have.

But the thought gave him another idea.

Why try to slice up his enemies when he

could bludgeon them to death?

He decided on something simple,

effective, and used the world over: a baton.

He ordered a 26 inch telescoping iron stick,

and, after it arrived two days later, looked

up some training videos. It was a

straightforward weapon, but there was

definitely a right way and a wrong way to

use it. He didn’t expect to be an expert in

time for the fight, but he could at least try to

avoid beginner mistakes.

Now he needed a place to train. He

found the perfect clearing a few miles out in

the backwoods near Aplington. It was

overgrown with grass, and there was no

trash, no footprints—no one would be

bothering him. He lugged old tires from a

junkyard a few miles outside town and

stacked them up for target practice. He tied

one of them to a tree branch to give himself a

swinging target.

A test tire was ripped in half by his

magically enhanced attack, so he just used

the baton normally to get the motions down.

His speed was good, but he couldn’t win a

fight by running fast. He needed agility.

During the day, he practiced. He pushed

the swinging tire to give it some life, then

circled it, imagining it like a fist coming to

hit him. He focused on perfecting one basic

attack—a simple one-two strike, one swipe

from off his shoulder, then a second hit back

the other way. It made a solid smacking

sound against the tire. Quick and powerful.

He slammed the tire, and it swung away

from him. He stepped forward, slapped it

again, then ducked under it before it could

swing back down.

The branch creaked behind him, and for

a fleeting instant, Daniel could see the world

behind himself. The tire swinging back at

him. A push of air as it came down its arc.

He spun, his toe twisting in the grass,

and came back with the baton just as the tire

reached him. He landed a hearty thump

against the rubber, and it rotated up and

away from him. He followed it again, and

slammed it in the side, and it swung left. He

backed up a step, turned, and smacked it the

other way.

He stared at his baton. The steel rod felt

comfortable in his hands. What was that he’d

just done? He didn’t really see the tire

coming back so much as feel it.

He waited until the tire lost momentum,

then gave it a hard whack across the front. It

swung away from him. He turned his back on

it and waited.

It came again. A jitter down his spine,

telling him to turn, to react. Something was

there, coming at him. A restlessness in his

fingers, working the baton, his hands glowed,

move now, NOW!

His baton shone like a pale gold track

light. When the tire reached the bottom of its

arc, he made contact. His weapon hit so hard

he could see the rubbed bend in half. It

blasted back into the air, and there was a

crack like a gunshot, and the tree branch was

going with it. The tire, rope and branch

together, sailed above the trees and fell into

the woods.

"…the hell?" Daniel worked his hand on

the baton. Did this have something to do with

his senses getting sharper? It was like…a

premonition.

He practiced until it was too dark to see,

and then trudged home. He loaded batches of

police training videos from the web and

watched them at night, most of them multiple

times. He’d stop them, rewind, watch them

again, memorize the motions. Common sense

stuff, but he needed every variable on his

side.

On a whim, he tried a few keywords to

search for something like what he’d felt

before. The closest thing he found, aside

from bogus psychic research, was that the

reaction time of experienced martial artists

was different than normal people. From

extensive training and long experience, they

could read their opponents almost as if they

were reading minds. But it was a matter of

speed, not magic.

In a way, it made sense. His eyesight

and hearing were better—why not the rest of

them? He was reacting faster, too. And it had

come right after absorbing the extractor.