Machine Man (serial)

The first shot thumped into my left bicep. I felt it not so much as a physical pain as an insult. I hadn’t realized how deeply offensive it was to have someone deliberately injure you. I shouted, “Hey!” and my voice was thick with outrage. I was going to march up to this guard and explain I was a human being, dammit, with hopes and dreams and an ID card, and you can’t just shoot people. You can’t just kill them. Which may have been a little rich, given I was standing next to the mangled body of the Manager, but I didn’t think of that at the time. I was aflame with indignation about my violated bicep. The only thing that drove this plan from my mind was the realization that this bullet was not the last of today’s insults; that many more insults were heading my way within the next few seconds, unless I got out of there as fast as mechanically possible.

So I did. My legs fired. My neck snapped back. Something passed by my head so close it sucked my hair into its wake. I grabbed at the sides of the bucket seat, afraid of falling out, which should have been impossible but that’s not what it felt like. With each step, my legs stretched out before me and my hooves drove into the lawn. They almost slipped once, and then we reached the sidewalk and I felt them settle. They liked concrete. I think we both did. I clung on, cars and trees blurring past me, until the security guards were far, far behind, and I was safe, and I realized I had left behind something very important.

92.