Machine Man (serial)

Page 42.

“Lie down on the floor!” Carl said. He looked nervous. I didn’t like Carl nervous. Not when he had a gun pointed at me. “Let her go and lie down!”

Lola Banks squeezed my hand. I looked at her. She didn’t look like she wanted to be let go. There was fear in her eyes, which made me angry, because a second ago she had looked so happy. She had been radiant, and Carl had ruined it.

“Lie down!”

In retrospect, it was foolish to have imagined Better Future wouldn’t track me to the cafe. I had fled their premises wearing about eight million dollars worth of equipment. I hadn’t really thought about how that would look, from their perspective.

They weren’t approaching us, though. They hovered at a radius of twenty feet, bristling with guns. I realized that as far as Carl knew, my legs could fire lasers. I wished they could. I wished I could blow them all away and carry Lola out of here.

“Don’t let them take you,” Lola whispered. “Don’t go back there, Charlie.”

I heard a noise behind me, and turned my head. I was wrong about the security radius: two of them were sneaking up on me.

“Pull him out of those legs,” Carl said, “and put him on the floor.”

“No!” shouted Lola. She jumped forward and threw out her arms, like she was going to fly toward Carl and wrench thehis gun away from him,away, or call down the wrath of the gods.gods, or something. I don’t know. All I know is Carl pivoted fractionally and shot Lola twice in the heart.

42.