Escape from Metal
Chapter 20: Targets Eliminated

The dust was thick it was as if it was sightlessness personified. It ubiquitously surrounded them as it continued swirling all around them. The man was still dragging her forwards slowly with the one beeping device on the side of his head leading them through the dust storm.

Solita struggled against the strong winds as the pushed and pulled at her. The dust felt old and hard, it was as if dust the very measurement of age had grown even older. It scratched her skin as it flew by. She didn’t want to think how long it was going to take to get the dust out of all her clothes.

Solita tripped and bumped her toes on the jagged pieces of metal sticking out from the floor. She nearly impaled herself on one large chunk that had been ripped from the floor.

“We’re nearly there.” The man holding her arm said. She was barely able to hear him through the whistling of the wind. Never mind the crashing and clanking of loose pieces of metal.

They walked for several more minutes like this until they reached what seemed to be a piece of a spire that had fallen off of the main spire. The third man with them pushed open what seemed to be a heavy metal sliding door.

Once inside she had joined the other in shaking all the dust out of her clothes and more importantly rubbing it out of her eyes.

“Look what we found in the wastes.” One of the men said.

It was the man that had saved her. He had a rough look about him and mostly wore clothes for functional reasons. A belt with rope and other assortments of tools on it. She reasoned it’s what they used to scavenge in the wastes.

“Hey… did you hear anything we said?”

“Uh, no sorry I…”

“Don’t sweat it, I get you’re a little shaken up. The way you battled it out with one of those wretched machines.”

Solita visibly grimaced.

” Well, don’t worry you can hang here for a while or forever if you feel like it. After all there aren’t many of us let after the machines. I’m Xander, the one with the beeping sensor on his head is Trigger don’t ask how he got that name, seriously don’t. Our local giant door opener here is Alex and the two ladies sitting there are Stacey and Pam.” Xander said as he gestured towards the back of the room. Both of the comfortably lounging on a coach.

“And you m’lady what might your name be, you don’t want me calling you m’lady for the rest of well however long we might be here.”

Solita hesitated for a second. Should she give them her name after all she was on a mission but so many of them had been taken. The chances were low that they had ever met, even with all the time they had spent on the planet. If they did she hoped they didn’t remember her.

“I’m Soli… You can call me Sol.”

Sol wasn’t sure how to feel in the situation. She kind of grumbled under her breath and maintained a ironclad stare at the floor. It felt like a lifetime ago that she spoke to actual human beings and even longer since she talked to ones that were nice.

“Well, the full introductions and all that can wait for later, for now though. Why don’t you get some rest. There’s a room right next to the couch it isn’t much but it’s a room.”

Sol looked at the door to the room and back at Xander as if looking for his permission to proceed but instead of paying her any mind he carried on with talking to Alex and Trigger. She decided she would head to the room. As she walked though, she started to feel as if she shrunk. Her mind had spiraled deeper and deeper into how insignificant she felt her. How out of place.

As she was about to open the door Stacey slammed her hand on the door.

“Let’s get one thing straight, even though Xander said you can stay here for as long as you want. He wasn’t speaking for all of us. I want you out tomorrow. Just like before we got taken, I didn’t like bugs and I always crushed tiny insects under my boot, got it shrimp?”

“I’m talking to you shrimp.”

Sol’s anger was back. She had almost forgotten about it. She remembered now why she hated the others. They were all like her before the rebellion. Everyone was a Stacey to her.

Her fists clenched and the corner of her mouth pulled further back as she tried to contain her anger. She needed a night’s rest before she could continue on her assignment. She needed to control herself otherwise another room might just have one less occupant.

“Fine, don’t answer me. Your pathetic anyway, I don’t need you to respond. Just know that this group of people. I’m the one keeping them going. Without me they’re all history, especially you shrimp.” Stacey said putting special emphasis on the last couple of words.

“Without me we’ll never get off of this metal prison.”

Sol kept staring at the door and not moving a muscle. Stacey’s gaze was fixed on her opponent.

Finally, Stacey relented and moved her hand.

“I see you’ve had quite the fit body Stacey. Must really be proud being the best looking in the room.”

“How would anyone like you know anything about looks but yes I…”

“I wasn’t done talking, Stacey. I know why you are so good looking and fit. It must be because you’re always running away the fastest from all the robots.” Sol said as she slammed the door to her room.

“Well, I’m no machine and I’ve always liked a good chase.”

All the while she had not looked at Stacey once but simply stared in a completely different direction and judging by the frantic chatter between her and Pam on the other side of the door she sure had the desired effect on her.

Sol couldn’t understand how she had gotten so flustered. She was able to kill the strongest rouge machines she encountered, survive a planetary rebellion but couldn’t look any human in the eye. She could feel her rage boiling as she thought of what the others had done and now even as everyone was dying, she still met people like them. Like Stacey.

She clenched her fists hard as she thought about them, all of them. Every single other person. They all hated her. A few tears raced down the side of her cheeks and silently dropped from her face. This only made her will that much stronger. They would feel how she felt.

They would feel all her rage, all her pain.

Then as she thought about all the pain they had caused, a memory to snuck in. The memory of how those three men saved her and risked their lives to save her. They must’ve watched the entire fight between her and the Tripod. How kind Xander had been and… and.

One good did not erase thousands of bad. She would root them all out.

For now, though she would have to rest. She hadn’t realized how much the fight with the Tripod had taken out of her. She had gotten rusty. When she found her targets, she would get the chance to refine her skills.

She fell onto the bed and almost immediately fell asleep. No matter how hard the bed was, today it was as soft as a cloud. As she drifted further into sleep her thoughts turned to replaceing the hunter unit the next day.

*

Sol woke up as if she hadn’t slept through the night. She felt like her mind had been working throughout the entire night. Her mind ran rampant with the previous day’s events not the fight with the Tripod, no. She thought about Stacey. She thought about what she had said. She had already started fantasizing with ideas of what he could do to get back at her, but she had to replace the hunter first.

Outside of her room she could see no light come through the ramshackle shutters they had built over a hole in the wall. She had woken up before sunup. She quickly checked everything she needed as she prepared to leave. She also had to look for some form of a jacket or coat, it was unusually cold in the lounge area of their home.

As she was about to push open the monstrously heavy door. She saw some sparks coming from a room at the end of the hall.

Sol sighed as she slowly slid her hand off of the dust covered and rusting door.

“One more advantage of being a robot they aren’t curious.” She whispered to herself.

Quietly as she could she inched through the hallway. The closer she got to the sparks the more she realized this is where the rest of them slept, in the rooms adjacent to each other in the hall. She carefully listened to their breathing patterns and walked at a speed according to how much she could hear them.

As she finally approached the sparks filled room, she could hear someone humming to themselves. She slowly opened the door and saw that Xander was trying to cut something open.

“Hey, didn’t expect you to be awake yet Sol.” He said as he continued. “You know I didn’t want to tell you yesterday because you looked like you didn’t want to talk all that much, but you have some pretty cool clothes with that cape and all. Where did you get it?”

“Uh, a friend gave it to me.”

“Well, that sure must be some friend to have something so fancy in a place like this.”

“Yeah, they have a pretty big collection of clothes.”

A few minutes of silence passed between them before Xander broke the silence.

“You know yesterday seemed pretty traumatic experience for you, are you sure you’re all right.”

Sol seemed to be mulling over in her mind whether she should tell him anything about what she was doing.

“Actually, it wasn’t the first time I’ve done something like that.”

Xander didn’t flinch or stop what he was doing like she expected him to. She was a bit surprised by his reaction. He just kept working. Perhaps he didn’t hear her over all the noise of cutting.

“Xander. What are you working on?”

It wasn’t uncommon for people who had survived the rebellion and had managed to carve some form of a life in the deteriorating wastes. To become skilled at working with robots and metal. After all it was one of the only two resources present on the planet. Minus the people.

“Oh, we found this yesterday. After you decided to go to your room the dust storm finally stopped. So, me and the other guys decided to go and look if we could replace any parts from that Tripod but instead, we found this beauty.” Xander stop cutting and lifted his cutting hood up to reveal the same smile head had when they first arrived at the base yesterday.

Sol however she was in shock as her eyes widened.

“Get away.” She yelled as she pushed Xander.

“Woah, Sol what’s the problem. It’s just a hunter.”

Sol bowed her head as she was crouched over the hunter. She had shown part of her hand. They were probably going to realize who she is now and then, then they would try kill her.

“I know… I just like them in their mint condition. You know to tinker with.”

“I get it, that’s pretty radical.”

Sol quickly found the hunters access panel and opened it.

“Pretty impressive I was just going to cut it open.”

“Could you give me some space? I work better when I’m alone, maybe I can get something from the hunter.”

“Yeah, sure. M’lady.” Xander said doing a curtsy as he left the room.

This was the first time Sol had a chance to really get a look at the workshop they had setup here. Most of the walls were lined with what seemed to be experimental weapons and tools Xander had probably been building all this time. The rest of the workshop was mostly composed of workbenches, scrap mostly stuffed into a corner and pieces of robots that they had salvaged.

She had to work fast before they realized what she was really doing. She quickly connected her wristwatch to hunter through a connection port in the access panel. She really did need the hunter this time. Usually, they were just good for intimidating her targets or helping her herd them. This time though her wristwatch had gotten damaged in the fight.

She hadn’t noticed yesterday she was too focused on Stacey but this morning she saw it had some cracks and couldn’t display her targets or any information about them.

The hunter however did have the targets and their information. She just hoped it didn’t get damaged as well otherwise she would be suspended forever or until the machines had another use for her but that could be hundreds if not thousands of years from now.

The connection to her wristwatch was successful. At least that was still working.

‘Initiating hunter reboot.’

‘System damage… Minimal.’

‘Reboot failed… Initiate forced reboot?’

‘WARNING, forced reboot may cause hunter instability… Proceed.’

‘Starting forced reboot… Standby.’

After waiting for a few seconds, the hunters red eye came back to life slowly as it re-activated.

“Hunter unit initialized, warning memory corruption detected. Corruption level minimal. Corruption detected at… Core commands. All other systems nominal.”

Sol looked the hunter over.

“Obliviously all your sensors aren’t working one of your blade arms are damaged. I’ll fix that later.” Sol said as she looked over more of the hunter. “Hunter display target list.”

“Target list status… intact. Displaying targets.”

Sol quickly looked over all the targets on her wristwatch. A small smile creeped its way onto her mouth the way a small animal would move closer to you thinking it hadn’t been seen by you.

Sol quickly donned the hood from her coat over her head.

“This is going to be… fun.” She said examining the tip of her knife. “Hunter, engage support hunting mode.”

Sol slowly opened the door to the rest of the base with the hunter looming over her. It made her seem tiny by comparison.

“So, you did get it working then I assume. Not sure how you got it moving again.”

Sol remained silent as she looked past Xander.

“I’m sorry but this is… this is the way it must be. Don’t worry I’ll make it quick.”

Before Xander could respond Sol threw a throwing knife at his face. Xander quickly dodged the throw.

“Sol what the hell are you doing?” Xander said as he quickly hid behind the corner end of the hallway.

The commotion that they were making woke the other up as they slowly came out of their rooms. Pam was the first to emerge from her room, as she half-awake stumbled out of into the corridor.

“Hey, what’s all the noise abou…”

The next moment Pam slowly touched the side of her neck. Her breath stuttered as her hand came into contact with the handle of the throwing knife. Her eyes widened as she took one final look at Sol and dropped to the ground. Her body spasmed as it tried to compensate for the increasingly less and less blood.

Xander screamed in shock. Sol didn’t care this was just another assignment she had to finish, and she had to hurry before the others woke up or got in her way, but it was too late for that now. They had to have heard Xanders scream.

“Hunter block the door.”

The hunter quickly obeyed Sol as it held the closest doors at bay. Sol could hear cursing and banging on the door as whoever was behind the door tried to escape. Sol couldn’t be sure who was in that room. She couldn’t decide if they were luckier for getting to live longer or unlucky at seeing all their friends die.

Trigger was the next one to emerge from his room. Only difference being is that he had a knife in hand and was already wide awake and ready for her. Sol wasted no time in closing the distance between them.

Sol immediately went for a jab. Trigger quickly stepped back and barely avoided her strike. She struck again this time from the side Trigger deflected her strike with a reinforced metal gauntlet. Sol took a step back. She waited for a moment to see what Trigger would do.

He swung wildly at her. One, two and three she counted. He had overextended his first swing and he left his right side exposed. Now was her chance but she waited for a moment and decided to instead throw a throwing knife at his side. Although, it was a bit close for comfort to really through a knife at full force.

The knife hit its mark but instead of a grunt sounding or Trigger dropping his knife in pain she was met with a metal clank sound.

Did…did he sleep with amour on? They weren’t as careless as she initially thought. This wasn’t Sol’s first knife fight. She had stopped counting after her 50th assignment but she was sure the relay unit kept track of how many targets she had eliminated.

She had to be careful what she did now Xander was standing a few meters behind Trigger and could step in any moment. She was thankful for the narrow corridor even if she hated to humiliate her opponents by beating both of them alone.

That’s when she noticed something Trigger was hesitating somewhat not much, but it was enough if she exploited it. That was one of the positives of having giant death robot standing behind her.

Triggers momentary hesitation was over as he struck again one, two but before she could count the third strike, he kicked her in the shin. She crumbled onto one knee. She had to quickly deflect his next strike.

Sure, enough Trigger tried to stab her from above. He put all his force into the strike. She only just managed to hold him back by creating a cross with her arms. He would overpower her and soon he was much stronger than she was.

She had to think quick. She had to do something, or she was done for.

“Give up Sol, I don’t want to kill you.” Trigger said grunting as he tried pushing the knife down closer to her face.

Another lie. She would not fall for their tricks.

“Hunter, micro-flare vision impairment.” Sol yelled.

The hunter responded by open the micro-flare compartment in its shoulder and shooting one of the micro-flares straight into Triggers face. He quickly stepped back and clutched his face as he screamed in pain.

Sol wasted no time. She quickly got up and drove the knife straight through the bottom of his jaw. Trigger dropped to the floor.

Xander didn’t make it sound but she could see the hate in his eyes. She had seen it before every time she saw herself in the mirror. She saw that fire burning, the inferno of hate.

Suddenly, Alex burst through the door rammed into Sol and knocked her into the next room as she flew through Triggers flimsy metal door. She hit the exterior wall of the building hard. The hunter had been pushed aside as Alex broke through the door.

She couldn’t breathe and it was hard to move. This was bad she had forgotten about Alex as she danced with Trigger. She was properly immobilized at least for the time being. She couldn’t think of anything to do. Alex was far too big and combat ready for her to overpower or outsmart.

The hunter however had other priorities than just holding the doors. It was here to protect her after all. Before she could realize what had happened the hunter had burst through the relatively small door and driven its three remaining arm blades through the mountain of a man. Alex dropped with a thud.

Sol would survive a few minutes longer at least. As she coughed trying to breathe again. Her next problem now was. Stacey and Xander was faced against her and the hunter. Stacey already hated her and would be very interested in killing her. Xander seemed like someone who brought down his totality of fury when crossed, she would have to plan her next moves carefully.

“Hunter deploy smoke and breach the main door.”

The hunter quickly dropped smoke pellets and started storming towards Xander who was standing at the end of the hallway. Xander knew the hunter wasn’t going to stop and metal moving at several kilometers an hour was much deadlier than a person. He quickly side stepped the hunter as it ran past him and ran through the front door with the full force of its momentum.

Sol had to act quick. She followed the hunter’s rough path through the smoke. Xander anticipated this and stepped back in her way. She couldn’t tell what was in his hand, but he had a weapon in his hand and she didn’t want to replace out what it did.

The was a curious silence as she came closer to Xander. They didn’t go berserk like most she had met or go into a absolute mental state of panic. She had underestimated how much she had just made them hate her. So, much so that it overrode all their other emotions. At least now it would be a fair fight.

As she was a couple meters from Xander she launched herself into the air as she did a horizontal flip. She could see Xanders eyes through the smoke so close were they. Time seemed to slow as they looked into each other’s eyes. She must have miscalculated how far away he was.

Before Sol knew what had happened, she was clutching her face and laying outside the main door. As she groaned in pain, she realized what had happened. She was so focused on the foreign weapon in front of her she didn’t bother to look at the knife in his other hand. Did he pick up her throwing knife from Pam’s neck?

He had cut her right eye. She would have to worry about the extent of the wounds damage later right now she had two very angry people charging her down.

“Hunter, defensive mode rear guard.” Sol said as the hunter quickly moved to her backside.

Before they could come any closer Sol started running away from them. As she ran, she cut some of her cape off and wrapped it around her eye. She kept running until she could see the edge of the floor. Apparently, this is where it stopped collapsing yesterday.

The hunter would be useless in rear guard now Sol thought to herself.

“Hunter, engage left flank guard mode.”

Before she knew it Stacey was right in from of her with a coilgun pointed at her face.

“You know what this is?” Stacey screamed as tears ran down her face. “Yeah, I can disable your precious hunter, or I can fry you. I think I’ll do both… she… she was my only friend, and you took her from me.”

Before Stacey could charge the coilgun enough to fire Sol threw one of her throwing knives at her face. See was expecting it and quickly moved her head out of the way.

Sol quickly ran to close the distance between them. Stacey realized what she was doing and started firing half-baked panicked shots at her. Most whizzed past her and dissipated as they hit the inorganic planet but one or two hit Sol’s shoulders, but their charge wasn’t built up long enough for it to completely immobilize her.

Sol made sure to stay low as she ran following a sort of zig-zag maneuver as she dogged Stacey’s shots. The jagged pieces of metal were not making it easy to run to her.

Once she got close enough Sol launched herself in the air as high as she could and grasped her knife in both her hands ready to kill Stacey. She was looking forward to It more than usual.

Right as she was about to land the killing blow, Sol heard a loud bang, and her knife flew out of her hand. She was shocked for a second but quickly turned to the source of the sound.

It was Xander he had some sort of gun?

“Where did you get that the machines have never built any human weapons?”

“I was actually aiming for your head, but I guess I have some tinkering I still need to do.”

“You built a gun?” Sol said as her one eyebrow raised. “I must say I’m impressed, I might even keep it.”

“You’ll be even more impressed when I shoot you or I will be because you’ll be dead.” Xander smirked as he loaded another round.

“Hunter front shield now.”

Sol back-pedaled as quickly as she could while the hunter ran to her front as fast as it could. They quickly assembled into a new formation before Stacey could get up again and start shooting again. With Sol standing behind the hunter in a more tactical role while the Hunter stood in front of her absorbing shots and deflecting what it could.

Realizing what Sol was doing Stacey started firing again forcing the Hunter to move backwards ever closer to the edge.

“Hunter, you better keep you distance from her, or the closer shots will fry you.”

“Affirmative.” The hunter said.

Sol and the Hunter kept moving forwards with the Hunter deflecting the occasional shot from Xander with its blade arms. It seemed Xander hand hadn’t finished making the gun however as the reloads took quite some time and when he did actually shoot it was very inaccurate.

“Those arms are pretty annoying, allow me to alleviate you of your pain.” Xander said.

His next shot rang clear, and he struck a vital part of one the Hunters arms. The Hunters arm slouched the next moment. Just like his fourth arm. Now he only had two arms to deflect with and they were starting to flank them on both sides. Another shot his second last arm slouched.

Sol stopped as she heard metal creaking and straining under their weight. They had reached the edge of what remained of the ally way. If they took any more steps back, they would fall into the abyss. They couldn’t move forwards either as both Xander and Stacey had a ranged advantage on them. If they did choose to engage them, they would just be shot in the back.

Like earlier Sol thought this was it. She was going to die.

The next moment everyone’s eyes went wide at what they saw. Someone came stumbling out of their base. Pam was clutching her neck as she wobbled forwards. She looked like a ghost, white as snow. She could barely stand as she walked.

In that moment Sol decided, Stacey wasn’t the strongest like she thought she was. It was Pam she was dead Sol was sure of it she’d seen her fall to the floor. She must’ve summoned an incomparable amount of strength to stand back up.

Sol saw her opportunity and ran towards Stacey as she was staring at Pam in shock. It was over before she even knew what had happened one clean stab in her left lung. Forced her body to crumble to the floor as it desperately tried to breath. Stacey was like a fish on land desperately trying to get to the water. Only thing was there was no water for Stacey.

“Hunter attack.” Sol shouted to the Hunter as she started to charge Xander.

In an instant it had happened. She had run towards Xander with the Hunter as they were closing on Xander. Xander tried to fire at her, but she dodged his shot. The Hunter missed his strike and Xander managed to get behind him. Without thinking, without considering.

She slammed into Xander but before she could wrestle him to the ground her boot got caught on a piece of metal. Good thing too because the last thing she saw before she hit the ground. Was Xander’s terrified face as he fell into the gorge and then he was gone. Pam had collapse too hopefully for the last time.

“It was a good fight… Xander. Now my favourite fish.” Sol said as she approached the still suffocating Stacey.

“I never did like people.” Sol whispered into Stacey’s ear. “But I could tolerate most. Not you. No, no, no, no. You are just as bad as most of those savage rouge machines. Not that anything matters now. Not to you. “

“Goodbye, Stacey.” Sol said as she got up from her crouch position. She left Stacey still drowning in her own blood.

Sol decided to scavenge for any interesting trinkets inside Xander’s workshop. She mostly found papers and notes, but she decided they might be worth examining later.