Draft 1.19
Golem Project In Progress
Wessel was impressed. On the spot, Ethany had realized exactly what they needed to do, and she’d run it by Wessel in step-by-step detail. She clearly understood the value in knowing what you were doing.
How could he ever have doubted her?
Charlie bought into her proposal hook, line, and sinker. Within half an hour, announcements were blasting over the crackling radio speakers, drunk spectators were cheering and jeering, and Aizi was ready to step in the ring.
And not only was she ready, she was running at full power with a golem-supporting houseplant.
Ethany had hyped up the fight, enough to convince Charlie to buy into this. The houseplant was a loaner, but it would give them the edge they needed. Wessel’s heart was still beating at a million miles an hour, but he knew Aizi. She could handle this, right?
Standing tall in the other side of the small caged ring, a one-armed man with a half-shaved head and a prominent black tooth lifted his arm and shouted incoherently. The crowd cheered his name, over and over again.
“Jarus! Jarus! Jarus!”
Wessel was just close enough to make out the golem mark on the man’s bare arm. It was a symbol he’d researched before, when looking up everything he could about Golems.
Victory.
This man had picked his golem based on fighting with it, and only for that purpose. The announcer confirmed it.
“The champion of the Golem Pit with a record of sixty-three battle won, and one unfortunate loss, we have in our ring today Jarus Rodney!”
Feet slammed into the metal bleachers, the rumbling overcoming every other sound in the room. Wessel shrank back in his side of the ring, wanting to hide behind Aizi. But no, it was just him and Ethany, alone.
“Jarus and his ‘victory’ golem, known in these here parts as The Screamer, is ready to take on all challengers, every day! And today, to close out our hour of rumbling, we got one!”
The attention turned to Wessel.
“An unknown middle school kid, new to the golem business, vouched for by our very own Black Queen! We get a lot of young challengers, especially to The Screamer’s title, but this one is going to be different!”
Ethany nudged Wessel. “Show him that arm.”
Wessel, shaking, pushed up his sleeve, displaying his own tattoo.
The crowd hushed just a bit, and then the announcer cried out, “Lookit there, three symbols at once! I don’t know what none of that means, but neither does The Screamer! This’ll be a match unlike any other!”
The cheers returned, along with jeering and boos. The Screamer was a favorite, clearly. That was okay. Ethany said they could make it out of this safe. Wessel wouldn’t even be in the ring, once the fighting started.
The announcer began to say more, but Wessel’s attention was only focused on one thing. The Screamer had just entered the arena. And he was huge.
Clearly, this Jarus guy had modified his golem. The golems were meant to be non-lethal protectors, law enforcers, servants, and drivers. The key word being non-lethal. Yet ‘The Screamer’ was, in Wessel’s estimation, super-lethal. It stood over fifteen feet in height, with circular saws lined up down its arms. Each saw screamed to life every few seconds, offset to give the golem a constant grinding and whirring sound. Each of the knuckles in the golem’s large, black metal hands had reinforced bars on the back of them, with what looked like built-in flamethrowers. Here and there on the body were extra metal plates, that seemed to be detachable.
Under all of it, Wessel could see the simple, fast-moving black golem. He knew it was capable. But with the modification, the extra armor, the brass knuckles, the saws, the gleam in its red eyes and the steam hissing through the cracks in its armor, he knew he was looking at a genuine monster.
Aizi had no such modifications, not on the outside. She was unbound from her owner’s thoughts and rules, able to make her own way forward. She could think faster than any human or golem. But would that be enough when she was facing this monster?
“We need to go,” Ethany shouted over the crowd, tugging at Wessel’s arm. The announcer had finished his spiel, and now the crowd waited for the carnage. Wessel hadn’t noticed. “C’mon, Wes!”
“But—” Wessel followed her. “Will she be alright?”
“It’ll be fine, Wes, now move it!”
The two ducked out of the arena.
A horn blared, and the fight was on.
With a screech of spinning metal, the large ‘victory’ golem thundered forward, each step making even the concrete floor vibrate. Wessel turned halfway, not wanting to watch, but unable to abandon Aizi by completely turning his back. What he saw amazed him.
Aizi moved like flowing water. Panels and joints within her armored carapace allowed her to extend, thinning, then contract as she dodged aside. Her steps were silent, landing on the ground as if they were always there… or as if they weren’t there at all. With surgical precision, Aizi reached out with a long, pincer-like arm, and plucked one of The Screamer’s armor plates off its body.
The Screamer whirled, striking with a blur of speed, power, and noise. There was no way to avoid the length of arm that swung in, sawblades spinning. Aizi’s armor flattened, then dipped inward, forming a concave valley in her armor. The blade that struck her body did little more than leave a scratch, unable to dig in to the fluid panels.
Aizi dodged a punch, molded herself around another punch, then blocked a swinging blade with the armor plate she’d grabbed. One leg snaked out and swept at The Screamer’s leg, but the blow didn’t have enough power behind it, and Aizi was thrown off her feet by the resulting blow.
“Aizi!” Wessel screamed.
But she was already on her feet again, moving, dodging, climbing. She began to tear off pieces one by one, bent a flamethrower before it could spurt fire at her, moving through the carnage with a grace that no human could even mimic.
Her hands deftly clamped down on two spinning buzz saws and, with a flick of her wrists, bent them. The spinning blades turned on the larger golem, tearing themselves free of its arms. In the ensuing distraction, Aizi slid around behind her foe and plucked at a few small parts of his armor, eliciting sparks and crackling static.
The Screamer slumped, then slowly toppled. The red lights in-between its remaining armor plates flickered and failed.
For the first time, the crowd was utterly silent. A few still moments passed where Wessel could feel his own heart pounding. He met Ethany’s eyes, saw her give him a fierce grin.
Before the announcer could officially end the match, another sound echoed through the underground ring. The sound of howling sirens from outside. Wessel’s smile vanished. He’d never heard this sound before. It wasn’t like the ghostly wail of the storm sirens from earlier. This noise was fast, crowded, overlapping itself. It raised to ear-splitting pitch, then warbled and stuttered and started again.
“Power down!” the announcer all-but-screamed.
The lights snapped off, one or two bright bulb-tubes flickering and sparking at the sudden change. Golems moved in the darkness, people talked, some yelled, the whole area fell into pandemonium.
“What’s going on?” Wessel asked, then felt himself scooped up by a warm metal hand. The glow of Aizi’s blue eyes showed him that Ethany was picked up as well, and the three of them were headed away from the exit.
“I’ll explain in a minute,” Ethany hissed. “What are you doing? We need to leave!”
“We don’t have the camera houseplant yet,” Wessel said.
“We can’t just take it!”
“Charles promised that we could have the houseplant after the fight. The fight is over. So we can have it.”
“Regardless of the circumstance, we need it,”Aizi added privately to Wessel, then stopped to pull open the door to Charles’ office. It was empty, the promised power source sitting on the desk.
“Grab it and hide,” Ethany said. “We’ve wasted time, can’t leave now.” She hopped down and closed the door behind them. “Under the desk, Wessel!”
Wessel eased himself down and grabbed the houseplant, then slid under the desk. “Is it another storm?” he asked. “Why is everyone leaving?”
Ethany checked the lock and then dove under the desk with Wessel. She was so close he could feel her breath on his neck.
“Aizi,” she said. “That was your name, right? Aizi? Play dead, for just a few minutes. If you trust me at all, please, play dead.”
Aizi hesitated, showing no reaction.
Do it, Wessel thought.
Aizi’s eyes flickered out, and she stood motionless, much as she had in the middle of the street. Out of power, dead.
“On second thought,” Aizi said, and she reached out to open a panel on Aizi’s chest. She plucked out the small houseplant they were using for the battle, and stuffed it under the desk with them. With a flick of her finger, she tapped the off switch and the coil slowed to a stop. “Okay, I think we’re good.”
“Please tell me what is happening,” Wessel said.
“Cops,” Ethany replied, dropping her voice to a whisper. “Police. They’re like emergency persona, but they also claim to protect people that don’t got golems of their own. They keep things going outside the power zone.”
“Out where there are animals,” Wessel said. He’d lived his whole life in parts of the city, except for a vacation to New York City. Even then, he’d just flown there. These ‘cops’, though he’d heard of them, were completely new to him. “Then they’re good guys, right?” he said, trying to climb out from under the desk.
Ethany tugged on his shirt, dragging him back closer. “Sometimes,” she said. “Sometimes they can be good. Other times they aren’t. And then sometimes we aren’t.”
“Did we do something wrong?” Wessel asked.
“Technically,” Ethany said. “Golem fighting is technically illegal, and on top of that, I’m pretty sure operating power sources on this scale is frowned upon. ‘Specially when them houseplants could be used for keeping the city moving.” She took a peek over the edge of the desk, through the office window. “That’s why they’re here. To keep the city running until we get power back. Oh, they’re here.”
Ethany ducked next to Wessel just in time. A powerful light hazed past the window, lighting up the room for just a moment.
“Then we can ask them to catch our thief,” Wessel said.
“They ain’t here for that, trust me,” Ethany whispered back. “If they catch us here, we’ll be fined, and our houseplants will be confiscated ‘for the good of the city.’”
Wessel frowned. “Are you sure—”
The door burst open. Ethany’s hand moved over Wessel’s mouth, and her eyes met his. He froze. The look on her face was that of absolute fear. It made his heart skip a beat, his breath catch. No, he wouldn’t say anything.
The man who’d just entered the room spoke into a box on his arm. “Golem here.” He moved forward, rapped his knuckles on Aizi, then checked that same compartment Ethany had cleared out. “Dead one. Must have abandoned it earlier.”
The box spoke back, free of static. “Well, come on then. There are people escaping with live golems, with enough power to jolt the water plant for at least an hour. Get movin’.”
The man sighed and jogged out of the room, leaving the door ajar behind him.
“They don’t care about helpin us,” Ethany said. “They’s in for the big picture, getting the city back up. They’ll find anyone here, fine them for technical illegal junk, and take their houseplants and power cells and stuff as a compromise. Unless you wanna be one of those people, we need to get out of here.”
Wessel narrowed his eyed as Ethany removed her hand. “You got me in something illegal,” he said.
“It worked, neh? Let’s go.” Ethany moved out from under the desk, but Wessel was slow to follow.
“I am a little slow,” he said. “But it is not right for you to take advantage of that to make me do things. You need to apologize.”
“I got you what you wanted.”
“Against the law. Apologize.”
“Wes, is this really the time?” Ethany said, looking out the window. “Coast is clear for just now.”
Wessel said nothing, staring.
Ethany sighed. “Alright. I’m sorry. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think you’d go for it, and I wanted to help. It’s your thing, I shoulda let you make the call. So, what, you going to leave the illegally-gotten plants behind?”
Wessel scooped up the plants, then put one back into Aizi’s compartment. She crackled to life at the touch, eyes burning blue.
“I didn’t say that I wouldn’t have done it,” he said. “This is important. I just need to know the truth.” Wessel looked up at Aizi and smiled. “Almost there,” he said.
“I should be able to get us out of here,” Aizi whispered into his mind. “With the power plant, I can operate at peak efficiency for hours.”
Wessel coordinated to lift himself effortlessly onto Aizi’s shoulders. “Thanks for the help anyway,” he said to Ethany. “You are still c-coming with us, right?”
“Duh. I’m not just in this ‘cause you got a cool robot or nothing. We’re detectives today.”
Aizi offered Ethany an arm, and the older girl took it. With Wessel riding piggyback and Ethany nestled in her arms, Aizi made her escape from the underground ring.
The cops, in the middle of chasing and catching up with scattering patrons, never heard a thing.
Kyle Adams 