Driftmetal IV by J.C. Staudt

Author:J.C. Staudt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: adventure, flying, steampunk, pirates, robots, airships, cyborgs, antihero, floating cities, blimps
Publisher: J.C. Staudt

6

Committing my most selfless and foolish act so far that day, I turned back and lunged for Pearson’s hand as the robots came thundering toward us. With a hard yank, I lifted Pearson toward me just as the first robot’s foot slammed the step where his lower leg had been. I shoved him up the next staircase and shouldered my way through the third-floor access door.

I heard the robots making cookie-cutter shapes out of the door frame behind me as I sprinted down the hall. It wasn’t that I had wanted to leave Pearson; it was that I’d wanted to get him out of danger. But no good deed would spare me its punishment today, it seemed. The form of a burly man stumbled into the long hallway ahead of me, a woman’s scream echoing from the room behind him. Zilch, I realized at once. The big dumb jerk had climbed into the hotel instead of lowering himself to the ground outside.

“Get out of here, you dummy,” I yelled, making a clearing motion with my arms.

He stood dumbfounded while I bolted toward him, as if he’d never seen such a good-looking fellow before in his life. It was the mob of nut-heads on my heels that had garnered such a reaction from him, of course.

“Are you deaf?” I said. “Move!”

He got moving just before I reached him, forcing me to sidestep his stunted acceleration. I hooked his arm and dragged him along with me, slowing down to match his stride even though the robots were gaining on us. When the right moment came, I was ready.

A man opened his door and poked a curious head into the hallway to see what all the commotion was about. When Zilch got there, I lowered my good shoulder and sent him sprawling through the doorway. He and the man both went tumbling out of sight seconds before the robots lumbered past. That’s the last good deed I’m doing today, I vowed. I’m going to get myself collared if I keep being so nice.

There was an identical stairwell at the far end of the hallway. I was getting tired, and I still had seven more floors to cover. Without my two meat-headed friends to slow me down, I used the handrails like ski poles and practically threw myself up the remaining flights. The robots never lost an inch of ground. So when I finally threw open the door to the roof and tore across the pebbled surface like a marathoner on his last quarter mile, there was no time to stop and decide whether I thought I could make it across the gap between this building and the next.

I couldn’t. I absolutely couldn’t. But I tried.

When my foot hit the ledge, I sprang off my hydraulics with the medallion’s green juices surging through me like water through a firehose. It was the furthest non-solenoid-assisted jump I’d ever made, and my body seemed to hang in the air for a duration approaching infinity. Behind me, the robots stopped short and bunched together like a three car pile-up.

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