Carmody and the Electric Dragon
Chapter 18

“Here they come!” Nata shouted to her companions and stepped out from behind the games stall that had concealed her. Suki and Dog joined her, all of them watching the line of Sentinels marching in perfect unison onto the Festival grounds.

“Lacerata” she intoned and her short bladed sword flared into brilliant blue light, sending shadows dancing around them. Suki drew her Katana shaped from Bonded Ceramite, a substance that allowed her sword to be stronger than steel and sharper than a razor. Dog drew his own preferred close combat weapon, a hand forged steel battle axe paired with a Bonded Ceramite round shield, about fifty centimetres in diameter.

“How did you know they would be sending modified Sentinels against the school?” Suki asked the Sister, who just smiled and said “A little bird told me”.

“Stay close, watch your backs, destroy them all!” Dog shouted and the three of them met the line of mechanical men in a clash of blades.

Nata claimed the first kill, her sword arcing down at an advancing Sentinel. It lifted its own bladed arms to block her strike, yet with amazing speed she literally bounced her sword off and around, sweeping under its arm and shearing the body in half.

Suki sidestepped the fast slashes of her own opponent, her body moving nimbly out of the way of its blows and cutting into the back of the Sentinel. Without conscious thought she drew power into her Divine Strike and the Katana split the armoured spine of her target. It staggered a few steps with the remaining power in its cybernetic muscles then collapsed to the grass. With a Banzai cry she severed the head from its body, making sure it stayed down.

Dog found it ironic that he was fighting Sentinels, the very machines he and his Guard siblings had been created to replace. Without a seconds thought he blocked the strikes of two of the robots using his shield and the metal haft of his fighting axe. With a strength nearly the equal of the machines, he pushed one backwards with his shield, giving him time to disengage his axe and split the metal skull of the other.

The undamaged one came charging back in, blades flashing in from both arms as it rushed him. He met the charge solidly with his shield, the Bonded Ceramite barely scratched by the power of its blows. He stepped forward, hooking his foot around the metal leg of his opponent and pulled it off balance. As it rolled clumsily and went to stand up again, his axe took the head off in one sweep.

“Thanks for inviting me Nata!” he called out to the young Sister as she fought another Sentinel. “This is the best training session we have had in months!”

=====

The sun was gone below the horizon, with automated lights illuminating the school’s playing fields, now a scene from a horror movie. Abandoned cans, bags and food of all sorts lay strewn about the torn up grass. Stalls had been toppled, merchandise spilled everywhere, chairs and tables overturned.

Still the robots came on, hunting with single minded purpose any living beings. They found two in the midst of the food stalls, a slender girl on an elevated stand and a grim faced man in a black suit. Around them like a wall lay smashed and broken drones and robots, some modified with blades and spikes, others innocent supply drones and mechanicals thrown hastily into battle.

“Sorry Hammers, I am out of Drones” Angelina called out to her companion and guardian. “Just some supply robots left. I am bringing them over from the recharging station now”

“They won’t be in time, Miss Angelina” her butler replied, bleeding from a number of cuts and puncture wounds. His own pistol had long been emptied and he was wielding a metal stake from one of the tents as an impromptu spear. “I think it is time to retreat” he suggested, looking up at her hopefully.

The girl was bleeding from some shallow cuts herself, exhaustion slowing her reflexes as another drone hurtled towards her. She caught it with her Ability and flung the machine into the ground, breaking its rotor blades.

It was the final straw that broke her, that last summoning of her Telekinesis. She had wielded it more in a single evening than she had ever done in a month of Testing Days. With a slow stumble she toppled over the safety railing of the stand and fell to the ground.

With reflexes that would have impressed any of the Enhanced, Hammerton threw his makeshift weapon aside and caught the girl before she was injured.

“You’re Okay, Miss Angelina” he said to her fondly, just as the Sentinel reared up behind him and drove two pairs of vicious blades deep into his back. The butler barely grunted in pain and pulled himself off the blades, staggering towards the school buildings with his precious cargo.

Hammerton made it most of the way there, thick dark blood running down his back as he carried Angelina. Yet even he could only do so much and collapsed to his knees on the grass, laying her down as gently as his fading strength allowed. As darkness overwhelmed him, he saw a Sentinel pick up his beloved Miss Angelina and carry her away.

“Miss Angelina.....” he began and then said no more.

=====

Carmody’s wild cry caught the attention of the Sentinel and it came to meet her, its mechanical legs driving like pistons into the grass and throwing up divots of soil. The red eyes in its head were fixed on her and the two bladed arms were raised to strike, sending a pulse of momentary terror into the young girl.

Her cricket bat seemed to respond to her terror and she swore she felt a rush of calm rise up her arms and into her body. She was the Dracoris Terminus and some little machine man was no match for her!

At the last second she swerved to her left and the Sentinel overshot her, its right hand blades missing her by scant centimetres. It struggled to slow and turn around, the momentum of its heavy body carrying it unstoppably forwards.

Nimble as a rat, her dad often used to call her. She changed her own direction and rushed up behind the slowing mechanical, her smaller and lighter body making the turn much more easily. She ran up behind it and delivered a cracking blow to its head. It staggered like a headless drunk for a few paces and dropped to the ground.

Carmody turned at a shout of warning from F-Fourteen, now slumped to one knee over her father’s prone form. One of the other robots, a low ground hugging machine with eight spidery legs and a long spike at the front, charged into her, driving its wicked point into her left calf.

The cricket pads she had borrowed from Vance for her Sir Donald costume took the blow, the spike driving deep into the padding and lodging there. Carmody felt the point just sticking into her flesh, but it was barely a scratch she reckoned.

With an enraged “Hee-Yah!” she plunged her bat straight down, channelling power once more into her Kinetic Enhancer without a thought. The spider robot was squashed flat into the grass, sparks flying as it died. She kicked it away from her, the spike pulling clear of her cricket pads and rushed towards her father.

The last robot was wheeling in circles around the Guard clone, forcing him to almost spin like a top to keep it in front of him. By the lights shining from the building and on poles set around the grounds, she could see F-Fourteen was in bad shape and so was her father.

“I’m here, Fourteen” she called out and the attacking robot seemed to pause, as if uncertain whether to attack her or keep circling the two wounded people. The Guard clone saw her and seemed to almost smile, relieved she had arrived at last. He toppled slowly to one side, lying next to her father.

The robot lunged in, but Carmody was quicker. Love is a powerful incentive and there was no way a girl like Carmody would ever allow her family to be harmed. She came charging in like a hurricane and swung Excalibur low and hard.

If there had been anyone to measure it, her shot set a new school record as the robot was smashed clear over the school building to land in the front courtyard. Its tiny robot life was ended as soon as she hit it, which was just as well as the landing at the other end sent the pieces flying over a twenty meter radius.

Carmody knelt beside the two wounded men, laying her bat to the side. Her dad was bleeding from a cut to his scalp that was messy but did not look deep. He was probably concussed she realised from her first aid training. She quickly went to F-Fourteen and saw the terrible gashes and cuts over his body, his armour vest protecting his major organs but he had lost a lot of blood she thought.

“Eric!” she called out on her earpiece. “I need a Paramedic on the oval urgently. My father is wounded and I think F-Fourteen is Critical”

“Copy that” he replied calmly. “The Guard are enroute with reinforcements and medical teams. They will be here in minutes. Hold on as best you can”

“Okay” she said and felt tears forming in her eyes.

“Hey Sis, is dad going to be alright?” she heard Vance say, walking hesitantly up to them.

“Um, yeah, he’ll be fine” she said. “Just wait over there Okay?” Vance went and sat a short distance away, his eyes wide as he watched his sister work.

She ripped some pieces off her shirt and tied some makeshift bandages around her father’s head and the worst of the wounds on F-Fourteen. The clone soldier stirred as she tended to him and his eyes opened to regard her.

“Miss Brentwood” he said quietly. “Did we manage to save your father and brother?”

“Yes, we did. You fought really well to protect us all” she told him.

“It is what I was made for” he assured her weakly. His eyes closed and for a horrible moment Carmody thought he had succumbed to his wounds.

“F-Fourteen! You don’t have my permission to die yet!” she shouted. The clone coughed some thick red blood and opened his eyes once more.

“Copy that” he coughed then looked into her eyes with his cybernetic one and his organic one. “May I ask a favour, Miss Brentwood?”

“Call me Carmody” she answered. “And you can ask me for anything”

“Will you grant me a name?”

The girl looked deep into his eyes and saw herself reflected in them both. She had already thought of a name for him earlier that day, but had not had the opportunity to tell him before now.

“How about Francis?” she suggested.

“I like that, Miss Carmody” said Francis and closed his eyes.

A silence had fallen over the school grounds she realised, the alarms finally ended. In the distance she could hear the whine of massive engines as a flight of Guard VTOLs flew over the grounds. Further off were the sounds of Emergency Response vehicles, rushing to their aid.

The Halloween Festival had ended, but the night was not yet over.

=====

Bob Two surveyed the streams of data coming back to him from the school festival and was satisfied. The two primary targets had remained out of their reach, although it had come close with the Dracoris Terminus.

It did not matter though. His Sentinels had achieved an important victory, capturing alive a close friend to the Dracoris Familia and the Dracoris Terminus. This girl would be excellent bait, allowing the Emissary to draw the enemies to him at a place of his choosing.

The round robot clapped his claws together in almost human delight and the fragment of the Emissary inside of him wondered at that. As a mere fragment, he was not meant to feel any emotions or desires. Yet Bob Two found himself thinking more and more of what it would be like to continue living in this human world. Perhaps to even overwhelm a human host and experience life in a flesh body, not a machine one.

Bob Two rapped the side of his mechanical body with a tentacle, trying to drive out the strange thoughts that occupied him more and more. It had only begun after he absorbed the life and Soul Spark of that Wall Runner, the one who called himself Hud Dawes.

It was not as if a fragment like Bob Two could be anything but a servant to the Abyss. No, such a future was impossible thought Bob Two and rapped the side of its body once more, scratching the yellow paintwork.

The last of his retreating robots and drones arrived and he ordered them to descend into the tunnel network from whence they had come. Now would come the most important part of tonight’s plan, the destruction of the Dracoris.

And after that, perhaps a change of command with a new Emissary in charge. If Bob Two had possessed anything resembling a mouth he would have smiled.

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” he tapped on the roadside pavement, then clambered down into the tunnel access, pulling the hatch shut behind him.

=====

The holo-projectors in the school cafeteria had been turned off and the interior lights set to maximum brightness. Intense light revealed a scene from a disaster movie, with students and adults alike sitting or lying on the cafeteria tables, many with bleeding cuts and stab wounds.

Moving through the dense crowd, trying to administer what aid they could were Miss Kansari the School Nurse and Paramedics from the Emergency Response teams. Armed Guard clones and Police Auxiliary Officers stood sentry at the doors and in the crowded hallways, keeping order and reassuring the frightened people that they were now safe.

Carmody was seated beside a table on which her father lay recovering, the impromptu bandages made from her shirt replaced by sterile ones a Paramedic had applied. The female Officer had assured Carmody and a tearful Vance that their father would be fine, although he would need to take a week off work.

“Hey Vance, can you stay here and watch over Dad?” she asked her little brother, perched at her side on one of the recycled plastic chairs that filled the cafeteria. “I need to go and check on my friends”

“Okay, Sis” he said and took her seat closer to their father’s head. The little boy reached out a tentative hand and their semi-conscious father clasped it weakly. Carmody was about to walk away when her father’s voice called to her softly.

“Hey, Kiddo” he began, “Just wanted to say thanks for saving us both out there tonight. You were a real hurricane, fighting those robots. I am really proud of you”

Carmody smiled at her father and he returned it with one of his own.

“I didn’t think you saw any of that” she said quietly. “It’s just lucky I am a Kinetic Enhancer so I could smack them really hard”

“You’re wrong, Kiddo” he replied. “The Ability just helps you to achieve what you need to do. What I am proud of are the choices you made in the first place. Don’t ever be afraid to be brave”

The girl laughed softly at her father’s words.

“I am not too sure if that last part makes any sense” she said with a giggle.

“Hey, I am still concussed” he told her. “But you know what I meant”

“I do, Dad, and thanks”

She gave him a quick kiss on the forehead where it was not covered in bandages, then a similar peck to her brother. With a final grin she shouldered her cricket bat, the mighty Excalibur, and went looking for her friends.

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