Deadly Backlash Read online

  Deadly Backlash

  Part 6 of the

  Sleep Writer Journal

  © 2019 Keith Robinson

  Published by Unearthly Tales

  on April 12, 2019

  Cover by Keith Robinson

  No part of this book may be reproduced without permission from the author, except by a reviewer who may quote short excerpts in a review.

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  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  COMING NEXT

  Author's Website

  Chapter 1

  Liam, Medic, and Optics stumbled away in shock as one of their crew, the overconfident Armory, dissolved into a pile of ash.

  The mob of time grubs pursued them. The Ark Lord had said they never attacked unless provoked. With the disappearance of most of their army, led away through the town by a screaming opera singer and leaving the building unguarded, it seemed these remaining few considered themselves provoked.

  “This isn’t possible,” Medic gasped as they jogged in a wide arc around the building as per Liam’s earlier suggestion. “Armory saw himself in the future! He can’t be dead.”

  “Looks like the future’s not set in stone,” Liam said. “Which makes us about as much use as everybody else in the universe. We’re not invincible at all. The Ark Lord was wrong.”

  “Or he lied to us,” Optics said. “He might have chosen us because he knew we’d believe his logic. Nobody else would have been so stupid.”

  “That’s not true, though,” Liam said. “He threatened our families, our homes, if we didn’t do as he said. That kind of threat would work with anybody whether they’d seen their own future or not.”

  Inexplicably, Medic’s blue light was flashing as she charged ahead. “A glimmer of hope while going into battle is better than no hope at all. That’s what we have. Or had until just now. Hope is a powerful motivator. Hope and love for our families.”

  “Anger’s pretty powerful, too,” a voice growled. It was Hammer, listening in on the conversation and evidently aware of what had just happened. “Why don’t we just forget the whole thing? Runner, take us to the Ark with one of your wormholes. How about we cut off the Ark Lord’s head instead?”

  The idea was tempting—or at least the first part was. Going to the Ark instead of invading the building seemed a much better option now.

  “Where are you, Hammer?” Medic asked.

  “Miles away. I just put the music box down and ran off to the side. The grubs are massing around it. I’m heading back your way in a minute. If you’re going to the Ark, don’t leave me behind.”

  At that moment, Liam clutched his head as a booming voice rang out. “Nobody is coming up to my Ark until your mission is complete!”

  Liam faltered and stared at Medic and Optics, who had also stopped dead in their tracks. The dozen or so time grubs would be on them within the next thirty seconds.

  The Ark Lord spoke again. “If you think I’ve been sitting here twiddling my synthetic thumbs wondering how you were all doing, you’re gravely mistaken. I’m keeping tabs on each of you—every word you say, everything you see, even what you’re calculating in those robot minds of yours. Your brains are your own, but the rest is mine. And if you’d care to test me by abandoning your missions, I’ll be happy to press a big red button and cause you to self-destruct.”

  “Run,” Medic urged.

  The three of them continued running just before the grubs reached them. They screeched with annoyance and slowed, looking like they were giving up the chase. The building was a straight shot away, currently unguarded. If Liam and his teammates sprinted, they would have a few precious minutes to find a way to the roof.

  “And if your own personal lives aren’t enough reason to get on with the task at hand,” the Ark Lord went on, “think of your poor loved ones. I can very easily cause misery to them, too. A deluge of monstrous creatures on your properties? Or perhaps I’ll just obliterate your homes.”

  Liam imagined a massive energy ray from space coming down and turning his house to a pile of rubble. He shuddered. “But we can’t complete this mission if we’re not invincible! These grubs are too dangerous.”

  “Nonsense,” the Ark Lord chided him. “You’ve succeeded in drawing them away—quite ingeniously, I might add. I’m watching the action from here, six different screens showing me every angle.” A pause, then: “Five, now. Armory is simply a casualty of war. Get over it and move forward.”

  “But his future changed!” Medic said.

  “So I was wrong about that,” the Ark Lord blasted back. “It was all theoretical anyway. Now you’ve proved that timelines can be changed. You all witnessed your futures using echo projectors,, but now Armory has altered what will come in the lives of those around him. It’s fascinating stuff, really. I suspect this was only possible because of these Gorvian time grubs. They have the power of actual time travel. Just a few seconds at a time perhaps, but more than has been achieved anywhere else in the universe. They draw their power from their king, and with the king’s head in my possession, I may be able to unlock the secret of true time travel.”

  “But the king will be dead!” Medic protested.

  The three of them were still jogging along in a wide arc around the hotel. The grubs had fallen behind. The hotel loomed in the darkness, its walls still unguarded.

  “The king’s head is all I need,” the Ark Lord said. “His brain, to be precise. I’ve researched this, my brave warrior friends. I need his brain, and I need it alive. Now go while you have the chance. The building is within reach. And Stealth is right now looking up at an emergency ladder in the shadows. Climb to the roof and destroy the ladder so the grubs can’t follow.”

  All at once, he was gone.

  Hammer’s voice broke the sudden silence. “I’m nowhere close yet, but if you have a chance, take it while you can. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

  Filled with mixed emotions—anger at being used this way, terror at the idea of being utterly vulnerable after all, and a sense of urgency to take advantage of their opening—Liam allowed the reckless, unthinking part of him to make a decision. He bolted sideways and ran for the building.

  Sprinting three times faster than his teammates could manage, he made it to the shadowed hotel in no time. The stone walls were old and weathered, every nook and cranny coated in sand from numerous storms that had blown through over the years. Through the equally dusty windows, shrouded in the darkness, he spotted a huddled mass of the sinister black grubs, crammed together in the corridor. Even if Liam broke the glass to enter, he’d never get to the stairs alive.

  He darted around the corner, wishing he had Optics’ bright lights to show him the way. He paused and waited for his teammates to catch up. They came pounding across the plain with a screaming mass of grubs way behind.

  “Move it!” Medic shouted.

  Optics’ lights came on, illuminating the heavily shadowed alley between the hotel and the next building. Liam realized too late he had infrared vision installed, but when he briefly activated it, he decided he preferred the ordinary search beams after all. They grounded him in humanity better, reminding him that he wasn’t some kind of cyborg from the Terminator movies.

  Stealth waited at the foot of a metal-rung ladder stretching all the way to the roof. “Our ticket in,” she said as the trio approached.

  Without waiting, she climbed quickly, her metallic feet clanging noisily.

  “Can grubs climb?” Liam asked.

  Medic snorted. “W
ith all those arms? You betcha.”

  She went up next. Liam followed close behind, and then Optics. About halfway up, the first of the grubs came shuffling around the corner, screeching angrily, tongues lashing. Once in a while, a grub would vanish and reappear a little farther back. If their tongues had accidentally hit a fellow grub, it didn’t seem to have any effect on them. Apparently they were immune to their own dust-rendering weapons, which made sense considering how they crammed together in tight spaces.

  Once safely on the roof, the four robots looked down over the parapet as the stream of grubs started up the ladder, looking rather like a single giant millipede.

  “How do we destroy the ladder?” Medic demanded. “Ideas? Come on, guys!”

  “If only Armory were here,” Optics mumbled.

  “Or Hammer,” she agreed.

  The situation grew more and more desperate with each passing second. The grubs were halfway up already. Liam searched his own databanks and system to find something of use. He could create wormholes and run really fast, neither of which could help him right now. Medic had an array of medicines and antibiotics, easily dispensable via handy needles in her forearms. Optics could scan for heat signatures, view objects at long distance, study tiny things at a microscopic level, and shine a dazzling light on their dire situation. Stealth could . . . well, she could creep about. Oh, Liam thought as data popped up on his screen, and she can change color like a chameleon.

  None of them were equipped to undo some rusted bolts.

  “Useless,” he blurted. “We’re all useless!”

  As the grubs streamed higher, Liam rattled the top of the ladder, hoping he could loosen it by sheer brute force. He failed.

  “Anyone got a built-in wrench?” he cried, knowing it was already too late for that.

  The first grub reached the parapet, and the four robots backed away. Even something as simple as pushing the creatures off one by one seemed impossible. One lash of those tongues and—

  Glinting in Optics’ dazzling beams, something shiny roared out of nowhere and slammed into the parapet, crushing the first grub and taking a giant chunk of the wall with it. Rubble flew in all directions, metal screeched and tore loose, and the dead grub slid horribly out of sight, leaving a trail of crimson gore. The ladder, severely buckled, teetered on one remaining bracket as more grubs hurried up.

  “Thanks, Hammer!” Medic yelled with delight.

  “You’re welcome,” the giant rumbled over the intercom. “I’m a long way off, but I thought you could do with a hand. Here’s another.”

  A second shiny object slammed into the ladder, a little below where the first had hit, and the ladder toppled sideways and outward under the weight of its grub-heavy load. One creature remained, scrambling desperately on the crumbling wall. It managed to pull itself over, its eight arms reaching all over the place for handholds.

  In the darkening sky, Liam spotted both fists flying back to their owner somewhere in the distance. He sighed with relief.

  And continued backing up as the surviving grub climbed to its feet and advanced on him.

  Chapter 2

  Liam edged backward, his eyes fixed on the advancing grub. Up close like this, the dull-black, hairless creature filled him with terror. Small eyes gleamed, whiskers twitched, and quivering lips dripped with saliva as it bared small, pointed teeth. Worse, no less than sixteen spindly arms moved in unison, reaching for him with awkward-looking three-fingered hands. With its stumpy, wide-spread legs, the grub shuffled forward rather like a penguin.

  “Spread out,” Stealth suggested.

  When Liam glanced toward her, he blinked in surprise. She was backing toward a bank of machinery, what looked like four rusted air-conditioning units, and her plastic casing had changed color to match the paneling. She blended in almost perfectly, especially with the purple night sky and moonlit shadows.

  Medic gave Liam a gentle shove sideways, and he altered his course, backpedaling at a faster pace. To his right, Optics was slinking away, his beams fading.

  The grub’s eyes flickered back and forth between the four teammates. Or three of them, anyway; Stealth had now utterly vanished in the gloom.

  “Someone check the door,” Medic whispered. “Runner, you’re closest. See if it’s open.”

  He glanced over his shoulder. A squat brick structure stood ten feet away. It looked like an outhouse, though it was actually a stairwell, its solid metal door firmly closed. But was it locked? He continued backpedaling, trying not to draw the attention of the grub.

  It focused on him anyway. With a hiss, it darted forward. Liam yelled and bolted, not caring how much of a coward he looked. This was literally a matter of life and death, and he preferred life.

  He ran for the door, threw himself at the unyielding handle, gave up and leapt sideways around the corner of the building. The grub came after him, shrieking now, its tongue whipping out and causing sparks to fly. Liam was a Runner, and right now he thanked the Ark Lord with all his heart that he hadn’t been made a Crawler or Absent-Minded Thinker or something equally slow to react.

  Circling the building at top speed, he spotted Medic running toward the door—but then he was past her and beginning his second lap, leaning into the corners and hurtling around. He was so quick he almost lapped the grub. When he came upon it around the next bend, he faltered and thought, What the heck?—but then Medic threw something toward him, and he reached out without thinking and caught it deftly.

  “Stick it!” she yelled.

  She was half a thought ahead of him, and by the time he caught onto her plan, she was already trying to distract the grub. It had slowed a little, and when it changed direction to pursue Medic, Liam put on a burst of speed and came up behind it with a handheld syringe extended.

  It sensed his presence and swung around, but Liam stuck the needle in its neck and plunged it with his thumb. Whatever was inside squirted into the grub’s bloodstream, and it reacted by lashing out with its tongue.

  The tongue made contact with his shoulder.

  He felt nothing, but his circuits went haywire.

  Everything fuzzed out.

  ****

  His screen rebooted, and he looked around.

  Everything was dark, but in the background he heard muffled thumps and occasional gunfire. He blinked and tried to make sense of the situation. He stood on the roof by the open door to the stairwell, and several yards away lay the grub he’d attacked. Apparently he’d killed it, but all he felt was relief that he hadn’t been killed himself.

  He frowned down at a pile of dust and ashes on the moonlit paved roof. The grub had gotten someone with its tongue before dying. Surely not Medic! Fighting a wave of dread, he looked around some more, wishing he had Optics’ bright lights to illuminate the rooftop. He found no more telltale piles of dust, but one was enough. Who had died? He hated the idea that it might have been Medic, but she had been the next closest and seemed the most likely target . . .

  Yet he’d somehow survived the tongue-lashing himself.

  Meanwhile, something was happening down on the ground. He rushed to the edge of the roof and peered over the parapet, but all he saw were occasional flashes of light accompanied by bangs and thumps. More gunfire sounded, and this brought screeches of rage. Then something sizzled and roared, like a firework shooting horizontally through the streets.

  Hammer? he guessed. A distraction while the rest of us complete the mission.

  Liam wondered where the giant-fisted robot had found the weapons. Maybe this small town had remnants of artillery stashed away somewhere.

  Befuddled, he headed for the open stairwell. He couldn’t figure out how he’d escaped the wrath of the Gorvian time grub, but right now he needed to catch up to his teammates.

  The metal door to the stairwell looked battered, its handle wrenched loose. Hurrying inside, he paused at the top of the steps to listen. Down below, a cacophony of shrieks sent a chill down his mechanical spine. Were his robot teammates th
e cause of all that ruckus? Were they cries of fury? . . . or triumphant celebration?

  He lingered there, uncertain and confused. The more he thought about it, the more bewildered he grew. What had happened on the roof? The grub’s tongue had struck him, and then . . . what? He remembered nothing except blacking out for a second and then waking up again. Rebooting. He’d still been standing, and his teammates had vanished. With any luck not literally vanished, just . . . gone. Gone downstairs? Gone to complete the mission? But why had they left him behind?

  He pulled up the wormhole generator on his screen. It would be so easy to leave right now and head home. Had it been forty minutes since he’d opened the last tunnel? If not, he figured he might need to close it before he opened another right here on the roof. He could escape, go home, close the wormhole and be done with this mission.

  Except he couldn’t, because the Ark Lord would wreak havoc on his house. And Liam, if he survived, would still be a robot.

  Sighing, he started down the stairs. The shrieking rose to a crescendo as he descended into the gloom, and he took comfort in the fact that the din masked his clunky footfalls on the metal steps. The only light came from weird glowing insects that floated around the place. They seemed harmless, like fat fireflies the size of his palm, each with a green aura.

  The emergency stairwell seemed oversized, much wider than he’d seen before, with ceilings that towered above. The steps were a good couple inches higher than usual, too, making his descent feel awkward. When he reached the third floor, he marveled at the size of the doorframe and concluded the people of this planet—the Gorvians?—had to be a foot or two taller than humans.

  Good thing this place is abandoned, he thought with a shudder, though in fact he had no idea whether Gorvians were friendly or not.

  Stepping out of the fire escape and into the hotel proper, he squinted and finally remembered to switch on his infrared vision. Then he grimaced at the state of the carpet—thoroughly embedded with decades of dust and animal feces and probably a number of decomposed rodents. Every stain seemed magnified by an enhanced, digitized rendering far superior to his human eyesight. Various colors were overlaid to highlight organic material, and he hurriedly turned that feature off to normalize his view as much as possible. A simple red tint was enough.