Chapter 25
Dean
Bullets showered my back as we fell, but they didn’t pierce my armor. Sera was safe in my arms and that was all that mattered. I hit the ground hard. Something crunched in my ankle, and I turned off the pain sensors indicating I was damaged.
No time for this.
“What happened to your glasses?” I asked, doing too many things at once.
I ran, pulling camera feeds from the area, researching how the AR glasses warranty worked, and doing my best to control the stupid collar which freaked out, because I feared for Sera’s life.
I deployed the program that blocked it, feeling an instant energy dip. That thing was draining.
“They cracked,” Sera said through teeth chattering from stress. I turned sharply away from an incoming group of six Zenkyoza battle cyborgs.
“Aha. The damage must have triggered an automatic report, and the glasses took a picture as proof. They could have also recorded us right after you dropped them. It’s a standard practice that lets them see how the damage was caused. Your face must have been in the picture.”
“But how?! Look out!”
I braced and jumped over a rushing car, then jumped again and swerved, getting to the other side of the busy street. It bought me two precious seconds while the cyborgs slowed down to wade through the traffic.
“Searching for your AR glasses manufacturer… It’s a company seemingly unconnected to Zenkyoza. Hold on. Diving deeper… It’s owned by a cousin of Reina’s husband. That explains the connection. I apologize for not checking better before I picked them.”
I ran down the sidewalk, estimating possible routes. I saw police cars and Zenkyoza cyborgs coming up every side street we passed. People scattered out of our way, with a few stopping to film, either with their phones or through their glasses.
The buildings on this street were too high to get to the roofs. I braced and leapt over cars to get back to the other side of the street, seeing an opening. Sera’s eyes were squeezed shut as she clung to me, trusting me fully.
I turned onto a side street, only to pivot and go back the way I came from. More cyborgs kept coming, and police cars bore down the street, their sirens blaring. One by one, the advertisements in shopping windows and restaurants turned off, then showed a yellow emergency symbol.
“Please, head inside,” a pleasant, female voice spoke from every ad screen. “A rogue robot is in the area. Please, head inside.”
“I can’t believe this,” Sera said, her voice shaky. “They are evacuating the city center? For us?”
“Reina must have friends in high places. Hold on.”
I downloaded the plans of every building we were about to pass, finding one that had a back exit on a parallel street.
I tore through the door. It was a high-end restaurant, and people screamed when I barged in.
I ignored them, easily finding my way to the back.
We ran through the kitchen filled with shouts and heat, then through a maze of dark corridors, and finally out.
“Need a hand?” Motori’s voice came from above.
“Not yet! Stay out of sight!” I roared, seeing on the city cameras that three cyborgs were about to round the corner and spot us.
Sera shifted in my arms when I took off down the street, passing people who gasped or screamed when they saw me. There weren’t as many ads here, but the calm order to evacuate rang from all directions.
“Dean, they can’t help us,” Sera said, panting. “What will they do, shoot from the air?”
I knew exactly how the tanuki could help us, and I followed the trajectory of their flight with the camera in the top of my head, searching for the best place to do it. I was out of options. Every subway station in the area was guarded. Zenkyoza must have sent their entire cyborg army to get us.
I ran through my options, checking available camera feeds. We were surrounded, but I must have run in a direction they didn’t anticipate. In front of me were only three cyborgs, and most of the pursuit was behind us.
I got closer to the nearest bridge on Sumida River. It was tipped with a tall arch. Perfect.
“Once I shoot my way through, you’ll have to become my front backpack. Can you do that? I’ll need my hands,” I said to Sera, holding her with one arm as I reached inside myself for my gun.
“Sure.” She sounded tremulous but confident. That was enough for me.
I grabbed the gun and held her closer, popping off a series of energy bursts. The cyborgs returned fire, and I dropped down, rolling, my body wrapped around Sera like we were a piece of sushi. I hid behind a car and shot off one more round. The last of them went down. The way was clear.
Maybe we still had a chance, I thought, pulling camera feeds from the bridge and the other side as I raced toward it.
But it was hopeless. A police car barricade blocked the other end already, and two speed boats circled under the bridge, ready to intercept us if we tried to swim away.
So this was it.
A wide metal arch spanned the length of the bridge. It was supported by vertical posts and reinforced with cross bracing. I connected to Isamu’s earpiece, which he took everywhere to stay in contact with Gokiburi.
“I’m going to climb on top of that arch and hand you Sera. Can you carry her together?”
“Yes. Are you sure? Maybe you could swim…”
“I’ll try.”
I looked up at the sky when I heard the distant whooshing of an inbound helicopter. My core spasmed with helplessness. Would this way be cut off, too? But it wasn’t the police, just the news. I exhaled, reaching the bridge at last.
“Now, Sera. Backpack.”
She wrapped her arms and legs around me, and I braced, leaping up the metal construction of the lowest point of the arch.
I engaged the potent electromagnets in my hands and feet and climbed, soon reaching the top.
It was uncomfortable with Sera clinging to my front, but I couldn’t risk putting her on my back. She would get shot.
Though, if they used energy guns…
An energy charge glanced off my shoulder. Sera screamed from the painful shock, but it was weak enough not to do any damage. My core still pulsed with guilt.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured, walking up the arch. It was windy up here, and I struggled to maintain balance. My damaged foot made me stumble twice, and I almost tipped into the water, righting myself at the last moment.
If we fell from this height, the impact would likely break Sera’s bones. I had to keep walking.
The tanuki were nowhere to be seen, but maybe they were hiding.
We were pretty exposed up here. Behind me, a battle cyborg managed to climb the arch.
Then another. I kept walking, all my attention focused on not falling.
My energy was low, since I compensated for the broken foot with sheer stamina.
I turned off the program choking my collar. It was useless to mask it, after all.
“Dean, please,” Sera whispered, and I barely caught her words before the wind snatched them away. “What are you planning? You can’t… I won’t go anywhere without you. Do you hear me? I won’t!”
“I hear you,” was all I said. This was our last conversation, and I wasn’t going to waste it on fighting.
My core twisted with pain and longing, and I choked the collar before it activated. I had an important thing to tell her, and the alarm would make it impossible.
“So please!” She tried to pull away to look at me, but I pressed her head down until her face buried in the crook of my neck.
“Stay like this or I’ll lose my balance. Sera, listen up now. I love you. You are a good person. Thank you for helping me become one, too.”
“No!”
She beat my back with her fist, but I barely felt it. The cyborg behind me steadily gained ground. I was almost to the peak, and the wind was even harder to brace against.
“Isamu, now.”
For a moment, nothing happened, and I couldn’t thwart a powerful beat of fear. My collar blared a piercing alarm, and Sera tried to say something, but I wasn’t able to hear her.
The buzzing of enormous dragonfly wings announced the arrival of the tanuki.
They emerged from below, where they had likely hidden in the latticework frame of the arch.
I tried to tell Sera one last time I loved her, but she screamed at me while the alarm blared.
I hacked the collar to make it shut up and grabbed her hair roughly, pulling her face away so I could lie to her for the first time.
“Sera, I’ll get away under water. But you won’t be able to breathe, so you have to go now, okay? Go with Motori and Isamu. I’ll join you in a few hours.”
“You promise?” she asked, her face red with tears.
“I do.”
With a last, horrendous effort, I lifted her high. Isamu grabbed her under her armpits and instantly soared away, swaying from the added weight and the wind. I turned and shot the oncoming cyborgs, two, three, five. They either fell and lay there on top of the arch or tumbled into water.
Another helicopter was coming, this one likely equipped with guns and nets to capture me.
I looked around. The police and battle cyborgs poured in from every side of the bridge, a few already waiting in the river.
My energy was almost depleted, and I knew I wouldn’t get away.
Still, I fired shot after shot, drawing attention to myself so the tanuki got away.
Motori held Sera’s legs now while Isamu supported her upper body. They made a strange sight, ungainly but steady. Soon, they disappeared behind a building. No one pursued them as far as I saw, and it made sense. The target of the pursuit was a rogue clanker, not a human woman.
I stopped shooting and thought about what else I could do.
I couldn’t escape and I couldn’t save myself.
My existence was strictly tied to my core, and once that was wiped, I would be gone.
Still, I had a minute until I was captured, so I compiled a thorough status report, slapped my favorite memories on top, and added a quick message to Sera.
“It wasn’t your fault, sweetheart. Please don’t torture yourself like you did after your mom. Live a long, happy life. For me.”
I packaged it all and sent it to Gokiburi. I ran scenarios to find out what would give my captors more trouble—fishing me out of water or pulling me off the bridge? I decided to stay on the arch. I’d fight them all the way down as long as I had power, and that would increase their losses.
Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major played on my inner speakers, and I smiled to myself.
This was a good way to die.