Machine Man (serial)

Carl punched me in the stomach. I staggered backward and sat down on the hood of a car. Its windscreen imploded. The surprising thing about this was the weakness of Carl’s punch. I had seen the blow coming and tried to ride what I expected to be a massive transfer of momentum, but wasn’t. Sitting on the hood of a red sports car, I realized that compared to me, Carl’s arms were not very strong. Of course they weren’t: he had organic legs. There was no way he could carry around my kind of hardware. I didn’t want to let him get those things near my face, but they weren’t solid enough to punch through titanium. He couldn’t pick me up and throw me. He could barely push me.

I got off the car and swung at him. I did this so slowly that Carl not only had time to deflect it with his arm but first give me a patronizing look. My rage blossomed. I backed up, trying to put enough distance between us so I could use my gun-arm to insert a lot more metal into Carl than he already had. My heels hit the same car again, and it screamed, metal on concrete, folding up against the low retaining wall behind me. I raised my arm and Carl knocked it aside again. The car behind me popped and banged and suddenly there was less resistance than there had been. I staggered backward. A gap opened up between me and Carl and I squeezed fury through my arm. For an instant I thought I had him, then he stepped inside my reach and punched my arm upward. Chunks of ceiling rained down on me. The air filled with dense, choking dust. I was still staggering, trying to find solid ground behind me, and I discovered the reason the car was no longer pushing back on me was that I had forced it completely over the retaining wall, sending it tumbling end-over-end to the alley below, and the way I discovered this was all of a sudden so was I.

166.