Machine Man (serial)

I ran through traffic, passing cars. This didn’t sit very well with Better Future’s stated goal of keeping me out of sight, but I wasn’t sure how they thought I was supposed to do that. Also, it was their goal, not mine. My goal was to rescue Lola and get her back to Better Future before her heart stopped. I ran through a few possible scenarios of how this confrontation with Carl might pan out, cars honking and tires screeching around me, but I couldn’t help feel I was over-thinking it. The facts were, I had speed, strength, smarts, and a gun. Carl had a couple of magic arms. What was he going to do, punch me in the head? Actually, maybe yes. I should guard against that. But that was about the extent of the danger he represented. All I had to do was keep him at a distance.

A tingling ran down my gun-arm. At first I thought this was my arm getting excited. Then I heard the speaker, barely audible over the noise of me tearing up asphalt. “Dr. Neumann? Your armament is online.”

So they could activate me remotely. That wasn’t terrific news. It implied they could deactivate me. But that was hard to focus on, because I had an online gun-arm. That wasn’t the kind of thing I could let sit there. Once, early in my career at Better Future, I made the mistake of purchasing a new cellphone the day before a project’s final results were due; I thought to ignore it for 24 hours, then have a play as a reward for my hard work. Around three the next morning, still discovering new features, I decided to call in sick. This situation was like that, only attached to me, and with bullets. I should test it, I thought. Because I couldn’t wait to discover how it worked until Carl was running at me, swinging sledgehammer arms. That would be really poor planning. I looked around.

Coming up on the right was a giant billboard. On it, an attractive couple in bright clothes laughed or danced or wrestled. Possibly they were playing a Wii game. I thought: That.

Imagine a chainsaw. An ear-splitting, bone-rattling chainsaw chewing up all before it. That is about right.

Pieces of billboard fell around me. As I ran through them, I thought: I am a Lola-rescuing machine. And my parts said, I am a Lola-rescuing machine, and I smiled, because if that wasn’t an echo, it was kind of clever.

162.