Anti-Hero

So I've been pretty busy lately. I had a job interview, and it went pretty well. They say they just need to process my paperwork and I take that as a good sign. Hopefully I'll hear back from them by Thursday. I have a bunch of new videos up on my Youtube page. Some of them are me, but all of them are pretty cool. I got to hang out with my next door neighbor finally, and she is pretty awesome. My sleep schedule is pretty well wrecked right now, but I can get that fixed soon. Anyway, enjoy the next installment of Steel.

Wade ticked off the seconds as he waited for Sally to finish rebooting. They must have hit us with some sort of electromagnetic pulse weapon, he thought as he drew a KA-BAR knife from a sheath on his armrest. The flat black of the wicked looking blade rendered it almost invisible in the dim light of Sally's instrumentation. Once upon a time, Wade had doubted the engineers for not including an actual view screen in the cockpit. Since Sally's eyes became his anyway, a monitor wasn't absolutely necessary. As he listened to the tortured screech of Sally's armor failing under the onslaught of a cutting instrument, he counted his blessings: No monitor meant there would be no loss of vision when his compartment was breached. A warm glowing line formed just left of the center of the front of the chamber. He needed three more minutes before Sally could move, and he didn't have it.

"I'm almost through!" yelled the camo-clad figure wielding the power saw. One of the remaining three crooks sauntered over and unslung a bag from his back. It hit the ground with a heavy thunk. The two remaining men took turns firing potshots at the cops and the news helicopter. "Get out the Jaws-of-Life. I've got us a hole."

Sparks flooded Sally's cockpit, and Wade squeezed his eyes shut. This was bad enough without getting shavings of whatever glittering alloy Sally was made of in his eyes. Two minutes. This was going to get hairy. He unbuckled his harness and leaned as far to the right as he could. In the near darkness, he saw a pair of worn steel prongs enter the slash in Sally's body. He heard someone say, "Alright, start it up," followed by the sound of an air-compressor kicking on. If the noise was any indication, it was an extremely compact model but it was apparently powerful enough to do the job. Sally's carapace creaked as the pneumatic prongs forced the gash open. Wade tensed, waiting. One minute left. "Ok, let's have a look," the saw-wielder said. The splinter of light went dark as he pressed his face to the hole.

"See anything?" his companion asked. Gunfire still echoed from the other two men, as they unloaded staccato bursts of metal into the police positions.

"It's dark, but there are some red lights. I can't make out anything."

"Let me look," the other man said. He climbed up to the hole. He pressed his face into the darkness and cupped his gloved hands to block out the light. "I think I see a—" Wade twisted at that moment and drove the point of the KA-Bar into the man's eye socket with an overhand left. The point speared through his face and lodged in the frontal bone of his skull. He jerked back with an ear-splitting howl, clutching at the handle. "Ohgodohgodohgod, it's stuck!" He collapsed backward off of Sally's prone frame and fell to the floor, still writhing and screaming. The other man stood straight up in shock, but quickly recovered and shouldered his rifle. Inside Sally, Wade watched the startup progress. Twenty seconds. The saw-wielder returned to a crouch and poked the barrel of the rifle into the hole. As he squeezed the trigger, Wade reached out and grabbed the barrel. The gun fired, and Wade's vision went white. The bullet burst through the back of his hand even as he shoved the gun out. The man outside toppled backward and slid off of Sally. Wade screamed through clenched teeth. The bullet had blown through his hand and his shoulder. Blood poured out of the trio of holes, soaking his jumpsuit. The world started to come back into focus. Ten seconds. The uninjured man on the floor recovered his footing and started to mount Sally again.

"Where the hell is our ride?" He shouted. "There's a fucking pig in here!" He remained standing this time, and let loose a burst of metal into the breached cockpit.

"Six blocks and closing. Get over here. This ain't exactly a bus stop. We gotta jump it!" shouted one of the gunmen. He rolled his shoulder to keep the black duffel bag full of cash in place. All three of them looked back as the heap of metal shifted and rose to its full height. Ceiling panels clattered to the ground and the supporting framework was torn asunder as the sensor cluster pressed upward. Sally's claws whined and clicked as they flexed like an angry wrestler and mechanical shoulders rolled.

Minutes ago, Iris had been frozen on the couch as the news helicopter bobbed up and down outside the bank building. As she watched, she wasn't focused on how difficult holding the chopper steady was under those circumstances; she was squinting and trying to make out details from the scene. The reporter in the vehicle kept prattling on about Sally, but all she was doing was repeating how little she knew. Iris could make out a rifle, but she didn't see it fire. As Sally collapsed in a heap near the burning cop car embedded in an interior wall, she sucked in a sharp breath. Five minutes, she thought. Leave him alone for five minutes.

". . . Seems to be taking out some sort of power tool. It looks like a saw. I think they are going to try to cut the machine open," the reporter said. A shower of sparks shot out and away when the blade contacted the shell, and the camera went dark as the auto-focus tried to adjust to the light. Seconds ticked by as slowly as years. Iris didn't dare blink. She hit the display button on the remote and checked the time. Two minutes left. The man with the saw had stopped, and another was pulling out a jaws-of-life. Iris' jaw clenched.

"Be careful, Wade," She whispered. The men were forcing the wound in Sally's armor open and taking turns looking into the hole. The news chopper was maneuvering around like crazy, making it hard to decipher the proceedings, but she could still see one of the men pitch backward and disappear behind Sally's inert mass. His companion shouldered a rifle and fired into the hole, then fell backward. "Shit!" Iris grunted, and bolted for her computer. She flashed down the hallway, and into the bedroom. She collided with her chair and it rolled her up to the desk, spinning. She mashed the keyboard with one hand, and fumbled around with a nest of wires with the other. The monitor blinked on as she untangled a cable from the nest and plugged it into the USB port. She fished out the other end and felt around for the plug behind her ear. She was really going to be in trouble later, but she didn't care. She slid the plug in, and started up the remote operations client on her computer. Red text filled her vision, and a vital sign monitor opened in the lower right of her field of view. She was no doctor, but the flashing text that read "Alert!" was enough to confirm her fears. Sally was booted up, but Wade wasn't giving her instructions.

Iris concentrated, and her fingers flew over the keyboard. Sally shifted and stood up. She heard the crooks say something about a ride being on its way over the din of her crashing the sensor cluster through the ceiling. She flexed the robot's arms as the cheap paneling fell to the floor in a cloud of dust and debris. Sally's vision became Iris's and she spoke. "You aren't going anywhere," she breathed.

I've come to terms with running out of steam at dramatic moments. I do wish I was writing this faster. I've decided to try and guilt myself into working harder on it using some time-tracking software. We'll see how that works out. As I mentioned before, my circadian rhythm is in defib. It's 4 AM, and I should probably hit the hay.

I've been working on a lot of things lately, so I'm sorry it took so long for me to get more of this written. Thanks to everyone who read the last part. Hopefully this second installment will not disappoint. If you didn't read the first part, scroll down a bit. This will make a lot more sense if you read it.

Elsewhere, Iris turned on the television. The news had cut in on a reality-television show. Iris chuckled to herself as the notice scrolled across the screen. The irony was not lost on her. Her smile faded though as she figured out what she was looking at. Footage from a helicopter on the scene showed a familiar iridescent giant crouched between two concentric rings of police cars. There was no sound, but it looked as though a swarm of fireflies had come to rest on the robot. The reporter was saying "… looks as though the robbers have now opened fire on the SWAT officer with small arms. The city has thus far declined to release any technical information on the new equipment, so we don't know what will happen." Iris knew more than the reporter at this point, but only because the "new equipment" sat in her garage at night. She watched as Wade and Sally stood and turned to face the building. Suddenly, a stream of smoke shot out of the building. As the line of burned propellant connected the bank building to Sally, fire erupted. Iris covered her mouth. Nothing was visible in the cloud of smoke for a moment, but then an armored claw emerged and plunged into the nearest police cruiser.

"They shot me with a rocket." Wade was irritated now. He had just washed Sally, and there was going to be a whole new set of scorch marks that he would have to scrub off. He dug Sally's claw into the nearest police cruiser. Normally, the city wouldn't like this, but the car had been perforated by gunfire already. Insurance claims were no doubt being filed as fast as the news broke. He'd never seen a man-portable rocket launcher be reloaded in less than ten seconds, so he counted. He could see the man re-shoulder the oversized weapon. As the criminal took aim again, Wade rotated Sally's upper body in a complete circle and released the cop car. Metal screeched as Sally's claw ripped free of the sheet metal, and Wade's stomach churned. He hated spinning like that. The man with the rocket launcher pulled the trigger right as the police cruiser took flight; the rocket connected with the car, transforming it from regular wreckage flying toward him into burning wreckage flying toward him. The blazing hulk hit the defenseless man like a meteor, burying him in a landslide of cubicle and automotive components, all on fire.

Wade didn't wait to see what was next. He spurred Sally into a crouch and leapt into the building. The last thing the news copter could see was a streak of quicksilver vanishing into the gap left by the thrown car. "Drop your weapons," Wade commanded over the loudspeaker. Even as he said it, he realized he could not see anyone. He switched to Sally's thermal sight. "There you are," he whispered. Four red blobs crouched behind as many desks on the far left side of the room. Wade reached out and started clearing a path through the office furniture and partitions with Sally's massive claws. He switched his optics back to standard. "You are under arrest," Wade proclaimed. One of the men popped up from behind his cover holding a rifle with what looked like a dish antenna on the end. A thick cord ran from the dish to a bulky rectangular bag at the man's hip. He squeezed the trigger.

Wade's vision went dark. There was no more overlay of information in his vision. He could feel Sally pitch to one side and fall. The big machine came to a rest on its left side, hydraulic arms and legs akimbo. "What the hell?" Wade cursed as he flipped power switches off and reset Sally's breakers. He counted slowly to ten for the second time in as many minutes, and then flipped the main power switch back to the "on" position. The comforting hum of renewed mechanical activity was music to Wade's ears. He had another problem though… It took five minutes to boot up Sally.

Outside the scorched shell, four heavily armed men in ski masks and flak jackets scurried out from behind the desks with armloads of gear. Among that gear was a large and heavy circular saw. The blade protruded out of the front and had no safety guard. The whole saw assembly was mounted much like a chainsaw. As the bank robber approached the fallen metal giant, he revved the saw up to full speed. It whined like a hurt puppy, but the pitch dropped an octave as he touched the blade to the surface of the egg that housed Wade. The now-lower whine was accompanied by a rooster's tail of sparks being launched into the trench dug by the thrown car. The other three men took up defensive positions while they waited for the fourth to finish.

I know, it's another cliff-hanger. This was just the cleanest place to break for the time being, as I have to be off to work. More as soon as I can make it happen.

So I got out of the shower and I had a good idea. It's not presented in its entirety for two reasons. 1: I can probably stretch it into a couple of posts. 2: My creativity waned so I'll be finishing it when I get out of the shower tomorrow. For now, please enjoy. Also, please feel free to tell me what you think.

Wade reached down and turned on the faucet. The black rubber hose went taut as the water filled it, and a tiny geyser squirted out where a pressure nozzle attached at the end. Wade grabbed the nozzle, and dragged the hose across the plush green grass of the lawn. He passed through a crater in the yard and stepped onto the driveway. He yanked the hose one more time to give himself some slack and opened the nozzle. Water gushed out, making a splattering noise as it impacted the machine. Splash-back dotted his jumpsuit, which hung off of Wade's waist. It was ninety degrees out, terrible weather for wearing a black long-sleeved garment of any kind. Wade smiled and stepped closer. He needed a bath anyway. Water ran in rivulets down his lean frame and the stainless steel of the machine. The main mass of the device was ovoid, with axles protruding near the top to produce artificial shoulders. Each arm was roughly human shaped, but terminated in massive, three-fingered claws. The top of the gleaming egg had a cluster of cameras on a swiveling mount, as well as a small set of antennae. The bottom had a shaft extending to a set of artificial hips. The legs were each intricate sets of hydraulic rams ending in feet that only touched the ground at four points apiece. Silt and mud pooled at the feet, and the sun glinting off the robot was dazzling.

As Wade sprayed down both himself and the robot, a white jeep pulled up to the curb in front of the single story white house. A woman stepped out, took a look at Wade, and laughed. "Are you washing that thing off, or just playing?" she asked. Wade chuckled.

"Quiet, woman, or I'll turn the hose on ya!"

"Don't you dare, mister! I just got this dress!" She twirled, letting the yellow sundress flare out around her. "You like?"

"I love it," Wade grinned. He leaned in carefully so as not to get Iris' new dress wet and kissed her. "I was just cleaning up Sally, here. I'll be in in a few minutes. Promise."

"You on call tonight?" Iris asked.

"Yeah," Wade sighed. Iris frowned, and went back to the jeep. She reached in through the passenger window and pulled out a bag.

"I got dinner. You think they'll leave you alone long enough to eat?"

"Probably," he smiled.

"Good," Iris said, and went inside.

Wade turned off the nozzle on the end of the hose and coiled it around one lean but muscular arm as he walked over to the faucet. The handle turned off with a squeak, and the tiny geyser on the nozzle faded to a trickle. He dropped the coiled hose and reached into his damp pocket, retrieving a tiny black box on a set of keys. He pushed a button, and "Sally" beeped twice. Satisfied, he turned and entered the house.

The few minutes ahead of him that Iris had come in were more than ample time to flood the small house with the smell of fried chicken. Wade loved fried chicken. He stood in the doorway and unlaced his boots. As he removed one and then the other, they each fell to the grey carpeted floor with a thump. He finished unzipping his black jumpsuit, and peeled the sodden garment off. Wade tossed it in the corner with a slap. He stretched to his full six feet and spread his arms. He loved his job but that robot wasn't especially roomy. He looked down and sighed. He remembered his glory days of being carved in stone, and the slight thickening of his midsection was a sure sign that he'd have to hit the gym. He was still in excellent shape though, so he didn't contemplate for too long. He heard Iris tapping away at the keyboard, so he knew he had a few minutes to finish cleaning up before dinner.

Now nude, Wade walked past the kitchen down the hallway that led to the bedroom. The bathroom was about halfway down the hall, and the shower called his name. Not one to disappoint a waiting hot shower, Wade opened the blue flowery shower curtain and stepped into the tub. He turned on the two knobs to a well-memorized position that would get him the water temperature he desired and waited. The water pressure didn't slowly build; rather, it came out of the showerhead like a fist. An ice-cold fist. Wade's jaw clenched. The water temperature shifted dramatically, and became scalding. Wade gritted his teeth. Finally it leveled out at a tolerable temperature, and Wade relaxed. He grabbed the bottle of shampoo Iris had bought. She said it'd be good for his short black hair, but he seriously couldn't tell the difference. As he ran his fingers through his hair, he felt the round metal receiver behind his left ear that let him plug his mind into Sally. He let the shampoo sit in his hair while he used the body soap that Iris had picked out for him. Once again, he didn't really care, but she was the one who had to like the way he smelled. He rinsed off and grabbed his towel off the towel-rod.

Wade was still drying when Iris poked her head into the foggy bathroom. "Hey, Stud. You hungry or what?"

"Yeah, babe. I'm almost done in here." He wrapped the towel around his waist. "Lemme get some pants on."

"Aww, too bad," she winked. "I'll get plates out."

"You're the best, you know"

"Yeah, I do know." Iris disappeared into the kitchen.

Wade stepped into a pair of blue sweatpants with holes in the knees and pulled a white tank top over his head. He stared into the mirror for just a moment, and pale green eyes stared back. "No wonder she can't resist me," he murmured. Then he laughed and shuffled off to the kitchen. Isis had already made him a plate when he got to the table. He kissed her. "You didn't have to do that," he said.

"I know," she replied.

He gazed at her. She was a natural brunette, with straight hair cut short to follow her jaw-line, although it was much longer in the front. Her eyes were a warm chocolate, and her features were very fey. Iris blushed a little under the scrutiny. "I really do like the dress," Wade said. She smiled and took a big bite out of her chicken. Suddenly, there was a frantic beeping from the other room. Wade rolled his eyes. "Figures," he muttered. He took his own massive bite of chicken, then set the plate down and hurried off to the bedroom.

    "Damn them," Iris said to herself as she watched Wade run off to get changed. Why couldn't there be more than two people in the state that could pass the pilot's exams for that damn robot? She continued to eat in the living room on the couch while Wade thumped around in the bedroom. Iris spotted the soggy jumpsuit on the floor by the door, and frowned again. Now wasn't the time to be mad about that, but it still irked her. Still, at least he didn't track muddy water through the whole house. Wade came dashing out of the bedroom in a clean black jumpsuit, and skittered to a stop at the door. He plopped down and laced up his boots, the grabbed his wet clothes and dashed back to the bedroom. Iris smiled.

Wade bounced back out of the bedroom and halted in front of Iris. "Off to save the world. Love you ," he said.

"Make sure you come home. I love you too, honey." Iris kissed him, and patted his behind as he dashed out the door. He pushed a button on his remote and Sally beeped, then hissed. The robot had been in the equivalent of a slouch before, but now the legs went rigid and its posture became a crouch. The egg hissed and opened to reveal the pilot's chair and controls. Wade jumped up into the seat and spun into the grooves. He reached back and found a cable that hung down by his head. He stuck the plug into the jack behind his ear. Abruptly, his vision was overlaid with red text and symbols feeding tactical information from Sally and Dispatch. He typed his pass-code on to a keypad and Sally's body closed. Wade took in the information flickering behind his eyes. Bank robbery in progress. Suspects heavily armed. He hadn't had one of these in a while. Usually it was a bad car accident that required heavy lifting, or an apartment fire. Sally stood to her full fourteen feet and stretched, at Wade's urging. The diagnostics read "all systems go," but Wade liked to check for himself. Sally's weight shifted forward, and she stepped into the crater in the front lawn. Wade always jumped from the same place, and never from the driveway. Not since the first time, when he'd turned the pavement into a spider's web of cracks and fissures. Iris had been unhappy with that, but then again, so had he.

Wade maneuvered the three ton robot so that it was facing downtown and went into a low crouch. In the blink of an eye, pressure gathered in the hydraulics, and pistons fired. The feet pressed down hard, and the crater got a few inches deeper. The stainless steel giant shot into the air.

* * *

The bank was a looming grey building with alternating bands of glass and stone. It had a revolving door flanked by two sets of regular doors. Most days there would be a steady stream of people entering and leaving, and most nights it would be deserted. This particular evening found this particular bank surrounded by squad cars. There were two concentric rings of police cars as Wade descended toward the scene. Sally's enhanced cameras showed him a reflected view of the inside ring of cruisers. Every one of them was riddled with bullet holes. That would explain the two rings, he thought to himself. Sally also showed him that the second floor was missing a set of windows on this side of the building. His most recent jump was bringing him down right between the circles of cars. Sally hit the ground with a thump, and the pavement promptly buckled. "Officers, I'll be taking it from here. Please secure the area." He hated giving the speech. The blues already knew what to do when they called in Wade.

Wade decided he'd been spotted. Sally wasn't the one who clued him in though. The second floor was alight with flickering lights and bullets were chiming off of the plating on most parts of his robot. It was only a matter of time before they brought out something bigger. He knew it was coming, because they didn't interrupt his dinner with his wife for anything less.

To be continued. I promise that I'm not just trying to do the cliff-hanger thing to keep you coming back. Although the thought had crossed my mind…

To prepare to write this, I watched a terrible movie, talked to a beautiful woman, and then put on some of my newly acquired collection of Motley Crue. Hopefully the result is readable…

She lay there on the tiny mattress as the man collapsed backward off of her. He leaned against the wall with a thump. I'll bet he looks drained, she thought. He was still breathing hard, and it was the only sound in the dark room. She could feel the surface of the mattress on her skin telling her that the bed had come unmade again. That happened even when they just went to sleep. He was a restless sleeper, but it didn't bother her; she didn't wake up for much of anything. She didn't know if the rivulets of sweat that trickled off of her were her own or his, but it didn't matter. She was growing cold all the same. She groped around for the corner of her errant quilt, and drew it over herself.

She watched him lean forward and stand up as well as she could in the darkness. His silhouette passed in front of the window for a brief moment. He was heading toward the trash can. The darkness failed to conceal that he was a bit unsteady on his feet, and he had to brace himself against the wall as he removed the spent condom. She got up and passed behind him to the window and slid it open; true she was still cold, but she needed a cigarette and did not want to put clothes on. The man returned to his position on the bed and leaned back once more, his breathing much calmer now. The room took on a chill as the outside air flooded in, but she didn't care. She grabbed the pack of smokes from the nightstand with one hand and a lighter with the other. Her lips wrapped around a protruding butt and the cigarette stayed with her as she replaced the pack on the nightstand. As she lit up, the flame illuminated the man in a soft orange glow. He smiled at her. "You're beautiful," he said.

"Shut up, "she said, and giggled. She didn't like being told that. She didn't really think she was, and besides, if he could resist compliments then so could she. She smoked in the silence, and he shifted to be under the blanket as well. Neither spoke, so the sounds of the night flitting in through the open window dominated the conversation in the dark room. The woman contemplated the man in the dark. He didn't think he was much to look at, as he was quick to remind her. All the same, she was quite attracted to him. The soft dark hair that dominated his chest and ran in a line down around his navel to below his waist, his broad shoulders, and his… She blinked in the dark. Man, it was too bad he was gonna fall asleep soon! She sighed again, exhaling a plume of smoke. He coughed. That was the problem with non-smokers. Well, that and the holier-than-thou attitude most of them copped with her. This guy was different about that too. She snuffed the remainder of her cigarette. "Man, it reeks of sex in here," she said, and he chuckled and pulled her down to the pillow.

It was still fairly early in the morning, so the line at the airport security checkpoint wasn't especially long yet. In that line, a twenty something white male waited to be allowed into the terminal. He stood about six feet tall, with a mane of blond hair pulled back in a ponytail that still reached halfway down his back. He wore a black hooded sweatshirt with the logo of some metal band to protect from the frosty Iowa morning, and black cargo pants. His shoes used to be white, but looked as though they had been worn every day for the better part of a year. He scratched at his unshaven face as the TSA officer waved the next person in line to the scanner. As the man shambled forward with the rest of the unusually well mannered zombies, he pulled his wallet out of his pocket. About eighteen inches of chain came with it, terminating at a belt loop on the man's pants. He unfastened the chain and placed it in a red messenger style bag he had slung across his back. He clasped his hands together, and when they separated again, the ring he had been wearing was loose in the right hand. It too was deposited in the messenger bag. Still shuffling ahead, he pulled his belt out of its loops and coiled it up. Once again he dumped the removed item into the bag. His pants sagged awkwardly now, but that would have to be tolerated. He pulled off his necklace, watch, and sunglasses, and placed them in the bag. By this time, the four people ahead of him had gone through the metal detector's plastic frame as one bored TSA agent watched the indicator light and the other hunched over a monitor with a glazed look as she inspected the x-rayed image of carryon luggage being conveyed through the scanner. As the man put the messenger bag into one of the grey plastic bins to be x-rayed, the agent watching the metal detector got out his wand. The man was used to this by now, but he still rolled his eyes. He hitched his black pants back up as he stepped through the metal detector, and waited. "Sir, would you please step over here?" asked the TSA agent. The man handed over his driver's license and a plane ticket which functioned as both a stand-by ticket and a red flag, apparently, and stepped to the shoe-removal area. "Please remove your shoes and stand on the footprints," the agent instructed. The man did as told and stood with his arms extended in the pose of an interrupted aerobic exercise and waited.