I Am Automaton

Chapter 15

Carl, Smithe, Munger, and Barnes burst out into the storm and they were immediately assailed with debris. Carl and Smithe ran ahead, being tossed to and fro like rag dolls in the wind. As they jumped from spot to spot in the powerful gusts, they looked like astronauts walking on the surface of the moon.

Munger walked with Barnes, the weight of the massive man helping to steady their course, but the winds had their way with them as well. It was dark, there was very little visibility, and before he knew it, Munger was being pulled down by Barnes. He suddenly felt cold and wet, and he was choking on water.

They had been blown into the swimming pool, and apparently into the deep end. Barnes was flailing his arms and grabbing onto Munger so tight that Munger wasn’t able to get his head above water.

Munger pulled and pulled, and finally wrenched himself free. He gasped as he breached the surface, and he reached down, grabbed Barnes around his tree trunk of a neck and pulled his head above water.

Barnes choked as he struggled to keep his head above water. Munger paddled over to the shallow end dragging Barnes with him. He pulled them both against the wall of the pool, and they waited there catching their breath for God knows what.

As Carl neared the building on the right, he was blown right into it. Before he knew it, he was thrown onto a ground floor balcony on his back, his boot breaking the glass sliding door as he landed.

Smithe was blown somewhere off course and out of sight. Carl got up, kicked the glass out of the frame, and stumbled into the hotel room landing face first onto a queen size bed.

Palm leaves and dirt were blowing into the room as Carl hoisted himself off the bed and walked into the bathroom. He stepped into the shower stall and sat down hard on the wooden bench. He tried to clear his head as the wind roared and detritus blew into the room.

He wondered if the others had made it to safety when he heard a loud explosion that shook the entire bathroom. It was the steakhouse. It actually blew. Carl only hoped that the explosion took out more than a few of the marauding ID.

The water in the pool thrashed about in the storm when Munger heard the boom. The whole pool shook with the force of the blast. Carl’s plan worked.

He thought he heard Barnes say something, but his ears were ringing from the explosion, and the dull roar of the storm blocked everything else out.

A great ball of flame rose into the air followed by a vast cloud of black smoke. Underneath, the restaurant was on fire, but it did not seem to be spreading to the rest of the Business Center. Little movement was in the wreckage, and what little there was ceased within minutes.

Munger saw movement outside the building, however. Stranded ID were being blown about in the wind outside. He pulled Barnes closer to him and waited, shivering in the pool. He didn’t want to move and be caught by any ID that would be blown into them.

Carl sat in the shower stall contemplating his next move when he heard footsteps in the hall outside his room. Carl strained his ears, and he thought they were growing closer.

He got up, knife in hand, and stepped into the room in front of the door. He put his eye to the peephole and saw a shadowy figure walking slowly down the hall.

He braced himself, raising the large knife above his head and putting his hand on the doorknob. The footsteps slowed by his room, and the figure stopped in front of the door. It was waiting, listening.

Suddenly the doorknob began to move. Carl tightened his grip on it and yanked the door open as the dark figure fell through the doorway and landed on the floor in front of him.

Carl began to bring his knife down.

“WAIT.”

But it was too late. Carl brought down the knife on Smithe, missing his head as Smithe turned over, but burying it deep in his neck.

“Aaaaaaah! Shit!”

Smithe was writhing around on the floor squirting blood everywhere. He was screaming and grunting in pain.

Carl threw down the knife and knelt over his comrade. “I-I thought you were one of them.”

Smithe was rocking back and forth on the floor ranting hysterically. “I-I heard the…wind…I…figured you…made it in…through this room.”

“Jesus, Smithe. I’m so sorry!”

Carl got up and threw the comforter off the bed. He pulled off the sheets and began cutting strips. He went into the bathroom, grabbed a towel, and placed it over Smithe’s wound. He then began to wrap his neck in the strips of sheet.

“Christ, I’m not a medic. I’m doing the best I can.”

Smithe was losing a lot of blood. Carl wrapped the wound as tightly as he could. The blood soaked through quickly, and the more pressure Carl applied, the quicker Smithe seemed to bleed out. In frustration, Carl threw his back against the wall behind him and slid down to the ground.

He put his hands to his face and stifled the overwhelming urge to scream. He choked it down in violent, tearless sobbing that shook his body like convulsions.

He didn’t know what to do. He wished his big brother was there to guide him. He wished Barnes was there to guide him. Hell, he would’ve even settled for Jorge, the hotel manager, at the moment.

But he was all alone.

As the night passed, the winds grew calmer and the night quieter. He held Smithe in his arms, but Smithe was cold and still.

The eye of the storm was approaching, a brief respite. There had been no further incident since he struck Smithe. When things quieted down, he figured he’d go outside and check things out.

It was 00:10 when all grew silent. He awoke with a start, unaware that he had succumbed to sleep, sitting in a pool of Smithe’s blood. The room smelled of copper.

He slowly rose to his feet, every part of his body aching terribly. His head was pounding as if he was experiencing a vicious hangover.

He picked up his knife, wincing as he bent over, and wiped Smithe’s blood off on his face. He smeared the blood on each of his cheeks like war paint.

He didn’t know what made him do it. All he could say was that, at the time, it was the only thing that made sense when one’s mind teetered on the brink of madness from extreme exhaustion and psychological trauma. He was going to war with the ID, and he wanted Smithe with him. Blood begot blood.

He left Smithe’s body on the cool tile floor and opened the door. He stepped out into the hallway and stretched his neck, rolling his weary head around on his shoulders.

He heard the echo of footsteps down the hall, but they were not the footsteps of a human, nor the shuffling gait of an ID. They were small footsteps ending in clicking against the tile. They were clawed footsteps.

A slinky form materialized at the end of the dark hallway. It stopped for the moment, appraising him in the darkness, sizing him up in the context of the long corridor.

Carl remembered that the hotel grounds bordered a wildlife preserve. This was wild life. It let out a low, menacing growl, and it slinked closer down the hallway.

Carl, drained from adrenaline exhaustion and at this point completely unconcerned with his safety, turned to face his new adversary.

The creature drew close, paused, whipping its tail around behind it in darting motions…and then it leapt at Carl. He let it take him, sending them both crashing down to the hard floor.

He quickly rolled over on top of it and slit its throat with his knife, spilling its hot blood on the cool tile. The fight was over in minutes.

Carl stood up triumphantly over his kill. The feeling was primal, and gave him a perverse rush through his mind and body. He no longer thought. He was animal. He was a deadly automaton, clinically detached and unfeeling. His sole purpose was to kill.

He walked back into the room, stepped over Smithe’s body as if it wasn’t even there, and stepped through the sliding screen doors. He hopped over the balcony and tasted the cool night air on his tongue. The grounds were silent. He walked up to the swimming pool in the moonlight that passed through the hurricane’s eye, casting its pale light on the devastation all around him.

He looked down at the pool and saw Munger and Barnes floating on the surface of the water, faces down. They were no longer with him, casualties claimed by the violent frenzy.

Carl stood alone, the only survivor, and gazed dispassionately as several harried flamingoes dashed past him away from some unknown horror. They sidestepped him in their flight, the monochromatic moonlight dulling their wild pink.

That’s when he saw them.

A dozen ID were ambling in the silence of the pale moonlight in his direction. Calm and steady, he withdrew his knife from his leg sheath and gripped his baton.

He looked around and saw a replica of a Mayan temple not too far away. It was the sort of thing that hotel guests and tourists posed and took pictures on.

He waited for the ID to get near. They saw him and picked up on his scent, his sanguine war paint wafting in the air. It grabbed their attention like a dinner bell.

When they came within fifty feet, he smiled a depraved come hither and turned, walking toward the replica of the Mayan temple.

They pursued in earnest, as he knew they would. When he reached the temple, he began to climb the steps. He made it to the top and gazed down as the ID reached the bottom and began their clumsy but unremitting ascent.

That’s right. Come and work for your food.

There was a barrier of clouds in the near distance, the inner wall of the storm’s eye, lined with numerous little lightning storms. The air was electric as the wind began to pick up.

Carl began to step down toward his predators, now his prey, and he began to stab and smash away at their heads, necks, and backs. He stuck and moved, kicking down bodies of ID, some silenced and some who would make their way back up for more.

He worked his way from step to step and around the temple, herding them into a spiral. He worked his way down the spiral stabbing and crushing heads.

He moved like lightning, and the drones could not keep up. They tripped on the steps and over themselves as the warrior automaton put them to shame with his single purpose.

After a half an hour there were no more drones moving, but a dozen motionless bodies strewn all over the steps of the mock temple.

Carl stood on its zenith, triumphant and looking for more adversaries, but there were none left. He had won, and the storm was regrouping, gathering its strength for one last hurrah before leaving the area.

Carl casually stepped back down the temple, passed the pool, and re-entered his building. He stepped into the room where Smithe’s body lay in rest, and he lay wearily down on the bed. He closed his eyes and let the thundering roar of the storm lullaby him into deep slumber.