Act Two, Scene Two
May 26th, 2013
Act Two, Scene Two
When Victoria reached the intersection of Leipzig and Bang, she drew her knife and considered her options.
The Tyrant had placed automated food dispensers at major intersections between the districts and left robots to guard them - four Levy-I drones as walking cameras and crime suppression and one bigger, normally a Juggernaut-V that carried anti-tank weapons, in case any knights were unwise enough to try to interfere with the Levies. Yet here she was at the Seventh-Eighth boundary and someone had interfered with not merely the Levies but also the Juggernaut so thoroughly that its head was six feet from its body. The join, she noted, was roughly torn. The dispenser was disgorging ration bars at an astounding rate, but that it hadn’t yet finished meant that -
Yes. From the next guarded intersection she could hear the sounds of more combat.
Victoria considered her options. She could walk away; this was none of her concern. A fight with a superhero would risk her plans, possibly slow them down considerably. But had the Tyrant become great by waiting? Had Ilderia?
The hole in the body of the Juggernaut didn’t reach all the way through it, which meant that if she moved the machine it could cover up anything she wanted to stash if she - (she grunted as her muscles worked) - turned it against the ground. There and it was tilted slightly open so there was only room enough to reach into the hole, and began filling it up. Combat knife first, then phone, then blaster, then her wallet, then loose coins, pocketknife, metal keys, Bowie knife from her left pant leg, lockpicks, belt with Krugerrands, holdout pistol from her right pant leg, flashlight, hip flask, the spare knife in her right boot, emergency call button, the copper coiled armbands from under her sleeves, and finally, carefully, the locket hidden under her shirt wrapped in her handkerchief, and she then turned the Juggernaut so no one without her strength could lift it up to get at what she left.
And then she was running. When she arrived at the next dispensary it was to the sight of the guardian juggernaut bursting into four pieces, aimed at the levies. The man behind it wore mottled tones - grey like concrete and black like asphalt, splashes of color distorting his shape - and as she saw him he was pulling his hands apart, throwing his arms wide as the machine burst. His face was invisible behind his grey mask, the cowl around it distorting his appearance to make it harder to read his shape.
Victoria’s feet were pounding and she was almost on him when he saw her. With a gesture he sprang back, twisting the levies into giant metal spikes and slamming them into the ground between the two of them to form a metal fence.
He smirked and then the expression vanished as she moved. Instead of smashing into the wall she leaped straight up, charged her feet with lightning, grabbed the still-smoking top of one spike with one hand and, turning, sprang off it to hurl herself feet-first into the superhero. She hit hard and toppled, and she kicked off him as he fell. He hit with a crash like dropping a box of frying pans on a solid floor but then she heard the sound of him accelerating along the ground, and as she landed perfectly balanced her charged fist descended to the ground where he ought to have been.
He wasn’t there. Instead he was hovering, arms folded, smirking down at her. A box of nails slid out of his pocket. Her mind traced the arcs in the air, calculated the force he could apply to each of them.
Cover. Before she saw the wrecks the streets had been busy but now they were deserted, all doors closed and all bolts shot. She rushed for the nearest door, smashed it open with enough force to splinter the wood around the bolt and ran inside, kicking it closed as she did. From outside she could hear the nails driving into wood, one hammer-blow apiece, as well as a scrape that did not sound like wood so much as flesh and bone.
Where was she? Inside an empty apartment lobby; one sleepy clerk was still at his desk. She gave him her patented smile and he dropped under the desk. Good reflexes.
She dismissed the elevator immediately. “Which way to the stairs?”
“To your left,” came from under the desk and then she was into the stairwell heading up the fire stairs, up one, up another, up a third, and again and again and by the time she reached the sixth and found the roof exit she could see that he was gone, leaving nothing but rubble behind.
She realized that her left ankle felt damp and glanced down. Blood. Damn. She still had work to do.