Ch 2 - Stumbling in the Dark

Tripp manages to escape the rooftop, only to find something far more dangerous in the warehouse.

Chapter Two

“Can I help you, boy?” said the voice from the man-shaped machine in a metallic rasp. Its gaze bore into my own with an intelligence, and dare I say it, malevolence I did not know automatons could possess.

I struggled for a breath and when I could finally manage one, I croaked, “You could set me down.”

Then, it laughed. Gods below the machine actually laughed at me. And not just it, but a collection of the same type of machines found my predicament particularly hilarious. As best I could tell, there were four others. Three were roughly the same size as the one that had me, but one was small. Smaller even than the mine-dwelling dwarves I had read about in old children’s stories, back when I had the leisure time to read.

Beyond that, I could not see outside the small circle of light being thrown down from the busted skylight above. I was surrounded, as best I could tell. All I knew of my surroundings was the pile of busted boxes behind me and darkness all around. And in that darkness, a deadly predator was stalking about.

All five had eyes of burning red crystal that lit their faces ominously. Their heavy footfalls bespoke of a weight that would probably crush any human that was unlucky enough to be beneath them.

“Stinking fleshling,” the lead machine growled with obvious disdain. “At least you’ll entertain us for the moment. Sadly, we can have no witnesses here.”

A mirthless chuckle spread around the group as they advanced. The lead one awkwardly threw a punch that missed my head, but made new hole in the side of the building. They were slow and clumsy, but frightfully strong. I had no intention of trying to fight this hand-to-hand.

In my haste to escape Angus and his men, I had left without the aid of a weapon, either gun or knife. Not that either would do much damage to these hulking beasts. The remainder of the group closed in and I thought for certain I was going to be a fleshy pulp any minute.

But my worry was for nothing, as shots rang out from above me, the rounds slamming into the heads of the mechanical men surrounding me. As one, we all looked up to see Angus’ head and arm sticking through the skylight. Poor, stupid Angus, he did not have a chance.

“Tripp, I get to kill you, you b*****d!” He screamed, more shots ripping harmlessly against the metallic skin of my attackers. Angus, you are a mother-sodding fool. Gods bless you for that.

The quintet, as one, unleashed a variety of projectiles into the ceiling. In the chaos, I could see one firing raw electricity, another a powerful cutting beam, and yet another fired a quick succession of small, but fast flechettes. The automaton that held me loosened his grip as he shifted me to one side in order to join the fight. I could not make out what was happening to Angus, but it was pretty clear from the state of the ceiling that either Angus had fled, or was gone for good.

A mad impulse seized me at that moment. Clearly, these five far-too-intelligent automatons meant me no good. I had no weapons, save for my mind. And that I had tried to hone to a sharp edge. I put two fingers into my mouth and, with all the air I could muster, blew a shrill, long whistle.

This time the cat-like creature unleashed a scream of frustration as it tore out of the darkness and lunged at me and my captor. I managed to slip his grip as the mechanized cat clamped its unnaturally strong jaws onto the automaton’s face. The two machines went down in a jumble of limbs, tail, and metallic screeches.

With the two combatants distracted, I ran parallel to the wall until I was around the battling machines, then sprinted full speed into the dark of the main part of the warehouse. Shots were returned from the ground level and I looked up to see a very-much alive Angus pull back and the area in and around the skylight ripped apart and giant hole open up, spilling more light into the nearly vacant warehouse.

I say nearly empty, as I soon collided with the only piece of freight left standing in the building. There was a large insignia on it, three intertwined gears. I was familiar with the makermarks of all the Makers in Illisport, having stolen from them or one of their customers. I did not recognize this one.  Aside from that, there were no other markings or labels on the crate. The shape struck me as odd. Rarely, if ever, in all my less-than-legal forays into the docks, had I ever seen one that looked just like a coffin. A coffin, albeit a huge one, that stood up on one of its narrow ends. Despite how hard I hit it and how narrow the base was, it did not move or wobble on inch. Whatever was inside it was incredibly heavy.

“What is this?” I asked no one in particular. I took a tentative step forward when a voice, booming and metallic startled me from my left.

“Ah, ah. No touching, little mouse,” it said.

I wheeled about to see who spoke. I took several involuntary steps backward, until my back pressed into the crate. “Oh sweet gods above, have mercy on me,” I said.

Glaring down at me were two more burning red eyes. These were far bigger and far higher up than the previous pairs I had seen that night. As the behemoth stepped into the light, fear gripped me. It was a genuine, throat-closing, bowel loosening fear. The thing was fully two stories tall, covered in dark, battle-scarred armor. In its right hand was gripped an evil-looking mace that was taller than a man and probably several times heavier.

It swung the mace with surprising speed and deftness and I barely managed to stay in front of it. The enormous alchemechanical beast let out a scream of frustration and swung it wildly, this time smashing deeply into the floor around the coffin. Splinters and shards of wood flew in the air, landing all over the place, showering both me and the giant automaton.

It tried in vain to pull the large club from the wreckage, and then switched to smashing the ground with its fists. As I dodged these, I noticed that the smaller machines had given up on blasting the ceiling and were now trying to free their compatriot from the angry snaps and claws of the guard cat.

“Having fun?” I called to them. If there was a response, I did not catch it as a pair of blows hit, one on either side of me. Changing tactics, the big machine brought its hands together, pinching me and several chunks of debris between them.

“Caught you, little mouse,” it said with a laugh, lifting me up. I managed to get my good arm free, taking a nice, sword-sized piece of flooring in my hand. It pulled me close to examine me more closely. I quickly tucked the wood behind my back. “Little mouse?” It asked, bewildered by whatever I was hiding.

“The name’s Carver. Tripp Carver. Nice to meet you,” I said, then thrust the makeshift weapon into his left eye, then his right. Shards of glass exploded and sparks flew as it dropped me and grabbed at its face. Several of the other machines ran to the larger one’s side, trying to help, but it just flung them away in rage. As it stomped about, one foot found the cat-like creature and it was crushed into a slab of iron and glass. My initial captor was close by, staggering about while holding the side of its face.

Meanwhile, I cast about for an exit and found none. At least none was illuminated enough for me to see.

“Little man, you will die!” the giant automaton’s voice echoed off the walls. I spun to see its left hand split and fold apart to reveal a glowing green cannon barrel.

“Oh gods,” I whispered, “have mercy,” I ducked the blinding shot of green energy that singed the air above my head and blasting a hole in the wall behind me. A large hole. A larger than man-sized hole.

The gods had shown me mercy. But, more importantly, they had shown me the exit.

Author's Note

Still engaging? Enough descriptions?

Reviews

[Lekhak]

I just went through the three chapters quickly and I think the plot has good potential.

I haven't read any steam-punk genre books so I might be wrong on this but purely from a realistic point of view I think the two storey robot is too powerful for Tripp. While the existence of such a robot does create excitement in the story environment, the fact that tripp could so easily escape by poking its eyes makes the story more cartoon like, i.e. tripp seems invincible, despite being underdog and as a reader I don't fear for tripps life. But as I said if this is a style used in Steam-punk themed stories then it's perfectly fine.

[Brian Rollins]

Thanks. The lack of danger (or his ease of escaping it) has been nagging me. Latter on in the book, he doesn't have such an easy time of things. I'll look at rewriting his escape.

Steampunk is more the setting than anything else. The conflict, characters, and so forth can be as varied as any other work.

[Lekhak]

Yes I know, sometimes writing can get restrained due to the technicalities involved. I guess you could scale down the robots in size and strength, but maybe better to give Tripp some skills, like in Iron man you have a genius weapons maker maybe Tripp could have some unique weapons of his own, but off course loading Trippp with too many awesome weapons can equally make him seem invincible