Broken Praetorian
Her heart is about to burst. A few blocks behind, someone starts to scream. Thumping waves of deep bass precede shattering glass, crumbling walls, then silence. Her breaths are long and loud. The overpass road ahead wraps close to the street she is running on, but both roads are extremely high up, and the jump will be a long shot even for an adult. She doesn’t slow down at all, and would have missed spectacularly. A young vagabond standing within the girders of the overpass sees what she means to do and leaps to her aid just as her hands sail past. They dangle and desperately grasp each other for a few moments as a cargo hauler speeds by a few highway levels down. The wind sucks her legs into a wide pendulum and he pulls them into a heap. The boys face is ashen and streaked with tears. Gasps of air become dumbfounded chuckles. They start to unwind their bodies and he barks a laugh of stunned surprise that she has survived. She returns the smile for a moment, and then his head explodes. Across the gap of roads is a very large machine, bristling with weapons. It resembles a huge cat, and strides towards the urban cliff between them. It’s head and optic bulges track her position steadily. The leap that the girl barely made becomes a lazy hop as the machine advances on her. It draws close, shoving it’s head toward her. She doesn’t move but she starts to sob. One of the protrusions on the robot’s head makes a snapping motion, getting a close look at her body. Then, almost like a monkey, the robot rolls back on it’s haunches, and begins to look around, completely ignoring her. She looks down on the boy, tears blurring the horror of it. He was older than her, maybe 16. He obviously slept here, on a mat, on this giant I-beam. She was sick of crying. Rage takes hold, repaints her face. “Bad!” She screams at the monster. “No! No! No!”. She waves her finger, and only when she tries to hit it, does the robot move, blindingly fast, away from the small fists. It snags her arms, and holds them until she stops thrashing. She eventually sags onto it’s great big hands, as it holds her up. Like a parent it carefully extracts itself. It stands up, and vaguely looks like a massive man spreading his arms waiting for a hug. Panels on the machine’s torso, arms, and legs retract, each space within is sculpted to perfectly accommodate her body. “I won’t do it!” She yells up at the hulk. She looks miserable, ready to cry again. It doesn’t move. Sirens begin to wail in the distance. It’s head snaps to watch the approaching lights, and various objects on the robots body begin to whir and hum. The cops wouldn’t know what hit them. She turns around and lets the metal beast wrap her within it’s limbs. “Get us out of here.” February 2011
by Paul Weaver, Copyright © 2011
