Chapter 48
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
NORA
She was ripped from her thoughts as a rainbow mass of fluff barreled toward her at full speed, crashing into her legs, sending her down.
“He sent you after me, huh?” Nora pulled Lucky’s claws out of her shirt as he aggressively tried to climb her body and lick her face. His tail wrapped around her arm, helping her up. “Airik is…okay, right?”
Lucky trilled—not a happy one—peering into her eyes.
She laughed nervously, hoping he wouldn’t somehow push an image of Airik’s face into her mind. “Let’s just walk nicely for a little longer and make sure I don’t accidentally get us killed.”
He made a yelp of acceptance, then slowed to match her limping pace.
They walked down what must’ve once been a main thoroughfare, lit by scrolling, unearthly scripts on screens. Hauntingly benign announcements in an alien language drifted through the doors, which opened and closed in response to their passing.
None of it helped with the nausea taking hold as visions of Airik gripping her hair in tears, unwilling to let go, replayed in her mind like a broken screen incapable of showing anything else.
Light-years of distance from the source of pain, and unable to break from any of it.
She turned left at a corner, then another left. Her ankle pulsed with pain. Well, damn. She’d thought it had healed, but she’d been wrong.
The sound of crunching metal came from around the next corner.
Nora froze.
One of the adorable round landscaping bots went flying past them, sparking and mangled.
Lucky dashed in front of her, puffing out his body. Nora stepped back as Lucky’s growls and barks grew more vicious. If she hadn’t known him, she would’ve thought he was a predator the likes of a bear or a lion.
“It’s gonna be okay—”
He turned, saliva dripping from his mouth, giving Nora what could only be interpreted as Shut the fuck up and stay behind me.
Her hand dropped, and for the first time, she noticed his teeth, which suddenly seemed too long to fit in his mouth. Had her sweet little friend always had such long fangs?
He hissed, turning back toward the sound, his eyes laser focused.
A loud screech. Not Lucky’s voice. Not Airik’s.
Her stomach dropped, and she took another step back.
A man rounded the corner. He was green, huge, and disturbingly well-muscled. Fabric hung in tatters from his body.
He stopped, his body perpendicular to them, then turned his head in short jerks, like an antique clock’s hands, until he faced the two of them. He waved two things at his sides—short arm stubs.
Nora’s blood turned to ice. There wasn’t supposed to be anyone here. That was what Airik had told her. And what she’d seen for herself. No evidence of anyone but small animals and birds. And robots.
Even though she had no hope of outrunning this man, she turned to run back. Lucky caught her wrist with his tail, then tugged her into an alley instead.
Her heart raced. The walls were so close she could touch both sides if she stretched her arms. Kudra would be just on the other side.
Nora pressed flat against the back-alley wall, Lucky in front of her, pushing her back.
She allowed herself a breath of relief that there was no yellow glow in the periphery of her vision.
A long shadow dropped in front of the alley, shuddering with each step the man took. He stepped into the alley entrance.
“It’s gonna be okay,” Nora whispered, patting Lucky’s head.
The man’s head snapped in her direction. He let out a long, metallic screech.
Lucky released Nora’s arm with a firm tug. With a threatening rumble, he bounded toward the man, his tail flaring like the streak behind a star. He collided with the man’s chest, but he might as well have hit a brick wall. Lucky went down in a scramble of claws. The man stood, unbothered.
Bouncing upright, Lucky shook himself out. Nora watched, strangely numb, as his teeth lengthened to twice their length. “L-Lucky?”
He lurched forward, and his teeth came hard on the man’s neck.
The man swung his arm stubs, the sleeves of his shirt waving like flags. He managed to knock Lucky off, but the ooshi caught himself, then wrapped his tail around the man’s torso so he couldn’t be thrown again.
Like a hurricane of pinks and blues, Lucky scratched and bit, the strange sound of metal echoing with the hard clamps of his jaw. Each time the man managed to work an arm between Lucky and his body, he pulled out tufts of his fur. And her little friend, undeterred, barked and kept biting.
Nora edged toward the corner of the alley. There was no blood—the man should have been shredded with how much Lucky clawed at him. The man, perhaps figuring that Lucky could not be thrown off, started to pummel him with his arms.
Lucky was going to get himself killed.
“Stop!” she cried out.
Both the man and Lucky swung to look at her.
Before she could command Lucky to get off, the man rushed toward her at inhuman speed. The clanging sound of metal tore down the alley, matching his odd gait.
“Oh, fuck,” she gasped.
He stood before her, trapping her in the corner. Lucky still tore at him, though slower, more exhausted.
And then the man opened his mouth and squealed.
She ducked down and covered her ears. It was only then that she noticed that he wore no pants—only a long, ripped, stained shirt.
The man’s skin bubbled and shifted as his face contorted into a “grin.” As his face moved, skin peeled and fell away, revealing a metal matrix of wires and whirring gears. His eyes were not really eyes at all but orange apertures that expanded and collapsed, focusing on her.
Behind his “eyes,” yellow glowed bright, as if he were a demon about to collect a soul.
Kudra.
She backed harder into the wall, the cold and gritty metal and concrete biting into her skin.
“Nora!” Airik’s voice came from the alley opening. He had his sword drawn, but the moment he saw the android, his arm dropped. Even Nora understood why—there could be no risking opening its skin and releasing kudra.
Her heart soared anyway that he had come.
She heard Lucky let out a strange cry, then his body slammed into her belly. Nora doubled over, heaving and clutching her stomach. The bot balanced on one leg—it had somehow kicked Lucky away from itself.
Lucky lay at her feet, trying to get up. But just as he regained his footing, the android stepped onto his leg with a horrible crunch. It lifted its arm stubs, then lunged forward, pinning Nora between itself and the wall.
“Nora,” Airik said, beside her now.
She could not focus on anything else but Lucky, who had clamped onto the android’s ankle, shaking his head back and forth to make it budge.
A slit opened between the android’s legs, and a large spike emerged, with torn globs of soft material still clinging to its base. As it extended and locked into place, glowing yellow-green dust wafted out of the pocket, whirling in the light breeze.
A penis—its tip long broken off, leaving behind a sharp point.
A sexbot. Powered by kudra.
Her eyes darted to Airik, wide with panic.
He stared at the ground where the dust settled in front of her naked toes, next to Lucky’s trapped paw. Airik’s throat bobbed as he looked back at her. “Pull your shirt over your face. Cover your nose and mouth.”
Nora quickly did as he asked, yanking her collar over her face but exposing more of her thighs close to where the kudra rained.
The bot smiled wider, its teeth somehow still pristine and white, placed in a jaw stuck at the hinge.
“Everything will be all right. I will fix this,” Airik said. But a sheen of sweat on his forehead and chest betrayed him.
He sized up the android—about the same height as him, but the android’s torso was longer than Airik’s. “I can’t cut it down. The sword will pull kudra up. I can’t push it away by force or disturb what it has already spilled.”
“I thought it was a fuckbot—why is it trying to kill me!”
“Broken Kudra is powering it, making it mad, and it needs to do its purpose.”
Her gaze fixed on the android, which she now understood was trying to…service her. “Airik—”
The android’s mouth moved, a voice emerging from its throat. Airik shoved Nora aside, saving her from the android’s first hard thrust.
A sharp sensation flared on her side as the pointed penis tried to penetrate her but missed, pinning her shirt to the wall and pinching her side. If the android hadn’t been so tall, it would have stabbed her in the hip.
“I don’t want this!” she screamed, hoping her voice would reach its programming.
The robot tilted its head. It backed away from her, its mouth chomping as it tried to speak. A sickening smell of burning wires wafted from its mouth.
Airik used the extra space to leap between its arms, lodging himself between her and the machine, pressed flat against her, face-to-face. He planted one foot on top of the kudra and the other beside Lucky’s head, who had gone worryingly silent.
Her mouth fell open, staring at him. The bot’s member protruded from between Airik’s legs, worryingly close to his body. “What are you—”
“I won’t let it hurt you.” Airik kissed the top of her head. “You’re mine.” He gave her a wonderfully inappropriate smile, as if he wasn’t about to have his guts ripped out by a crazed sexbot’s rusted, toxic erection.
The android ticked, its joints grinding like an unholy time bomb.
Airik wrapped his fingers around its arms and pulled, groaning deeply with effort. The android rammed forward again, and Airik was slammed into Nora, both of them being crushed by an android supercharged with unstable, endless power.
Airik smashed his hands on either side of Nora and pushed, his arms quaking under the pressure. He backed away from her. Just an inch. Just enough space for her to crawl out.
“Go,” he said. Sweat beaded off his nose and dripped onto her lip.
Metal screeched as orange and red sparks flew with the android’s effort to reach Nora. The yellow glow flared brightly from inside the android’s face hinges, its head trying to push over Airik’s shoulder, much too close to his open mouth.