David Hanrahan - Archon of the Covenant

“They’re coming in!”

The sentinel turned its railgun and optics back to the altar. A dark face peered back at the machine from the portal, a densely happy sneer. With one more push, the altar would be tipped over.

The shouts from each side of the mission echoed throughout the nave, bouncing off the high cupola and shaking the canvases lining the gray walls. The uproar had reached its crescendo. The sentinel rolled back over to the girl and leaned down to her, beneath the pews.

“Okay. This is it. Hop on and close your eyes.”

She crawled out from underneath and quickly climbed aboard the rumble seat, strapping the seatbelt into place, stuffing the cup in her front pocket and wedging the blanket behind her. She looked over to see the altar shoving inward just behind them — one mud-caked arm reaching in, grabbing at the frayed cloth atop the wooden altar.

And then the front of the church became suddenly quiet — the hands at the front doors slipping out and disappearing. The barricade fell still. A single cry came from just on the other side of the panel door, deep in the hallway beyond. And then a different noise welled up. Some panic was ensuing amongst the unseen throng. The shouts of the revins distanced — they were backing away from the wall. There was a moment of silence. From high up, outside the rose windows lining the smaller domes, some soft whir could be heard on the horizon, arcing the sky from one side of the mission until it faded in the reach on the other side.

Now, the mass outside was shrieking — blood curdling, panicked cries. Some cries cut short — twisting, distorting. A rhythmic thud shook the ground in sharp lines just outside of the complex — a zipping, buzz saw sound. One hit the outer wall, racing up the baluster, cracking like a whip, piercing the sky. This went on. The sentinel switched its optics — infrared, then a blurry x-ray. There was no satellite image. They were still in the dark, waiting there — the girl aboard the rumble seat, wondering, like the sentinel, what unknown drama was unfolding just outside. A pool of blood seeped in through the threshold of the mesquite doors ahead, trickling though the grooves of the dusty narthex tile.

It was midday now. They waited there, unsure what to do. The bedlam outside had quieted to muffled moans in the expanse surrounding the mission. The sentinel refocused its x-ray optics, transfixed on something outside. The girl looked up and, likewise, was captivated at the still door seeping blood.

“What is it?”

“Something is coming.”

An explosion ripped into the upper joint of the left door. The eruption deafened the inside of the mission and the girl cupped her hands over her ears. Another explosion, on the lower joint, and two more on the other side. The nave filled with a cloud of dust and grime that rolled over them like a black tide. The massive, mesquite entranceway collapsed and the blinding light from the midday sun filled the vestibule. The girl shielded her eyes and then held one hand aloft, blocking the light as the outside came into view. A mass of bodies were piled beneath the shards of the broken door, some still writhing — they were riddled with holes, blood streaming forth from one carcass to the next.

A solitary figure stepped forward into the church, veiled by the sun. It held over its shoulders a colossal, smoking longrifle — nearly the size of the figure itself. The sentinel raised its railgun at the silhouette, drawing aim at its core. It took one more step forward and slowly came into view. Its translucent, elastic skin redirected the sun like a prism, enshrouding an oscillating network of phosphorescent fibers stretched around the lithe, microlattice machinery of an automaton. Its face, pulsating in soft blue lights beneath synthetic skin, appeared before them. A bi-pedal medusa looking upon the petrified inhabitants of the Gorgon cave. It was the aroton. Outside, across the horizon, the same three drones from the Catalina foothills soared in formation, circling some broken revin husks in the cortile. The lead drone dipped forward, mini-gun tracers arcing towards the ground ahead.

DDC39 looked for the aroton’s wireless signal — to find some way to communicate with it — but was blocked. The aroton detected this semaphore in the brume and looked directly into the optics of the sentinel, then at the girl. Slowly, it lifted its hand towards them, pointing one finger ahead and then shifting it from left to right until it bore straight at the Mexican Wolf, which was cowered in the shadows beneath the reredos. The aroton spoke — its processed voice filling the room as the dust particles swirled upwards into the half-light of the rose windows high above:

“That’s my wolf.”

The aroton stood before them, guarding the front exit, awaiting a reply or acknowledgement to its simple edict. Its wolf. Its wolf. They stood before each other for a tense eternity. The aroton studied the wolf — its shuddering motions and fleeting glances back at the girl, who nudged the unmoving sentinel, which continued staring straight ahead at the aroton. The sun was beginning to hang low in the western sky — the bright interior of the mission now turning coral and dahlia.

The sentinel could not communicate with the aroton — or would not be permitted. The standoff left few options. DDC39 had little charge — its solar armor having only a brief glimpse of the errant morning light.. The wolf, curled in a tense repose in the corner, suddenly got up and walked slowly over to the girl, reclined on the rumble seat, and nudged her elbow. She looked down at the wolf and gave it a shrug before looking back at the aroton, which lifted the rifle off its shoulder, setting the butt on the tile. It spoke out loud, to no one in particular:

“Astounding. Well, it appears this stalemate is concluded. You win. Shall we depart?”

The girl and the machine looked at each other, each one unsure what happened. The sentinel looked back at the aroton, who was walking through the smoldering archway of the mission — it paused, looking over its shoulder at the pair near the chancel, in the depth of the church.

“Well? There are thousands more on their way. I’d recommend we make haste.”

With that, the aroton stepped out of the Mission San Xavier del Bac — digging its heels into the carcasses of the revins piled at the front steps. The crunch of bone and wet grind of skin tearing at the corner of open wounds. It exited the outer wall, passing through the arabesques and coat-of-arms of St. Francis, and into the dirt patches south of the church. The sentinel moved forward and the girl blurted out:

“Be careful!”

“We have no choice but to get into the remaining daylight.”

They rolled over the open flesh of the perforated revins — a putrid odor of blood and excrement choking the air past the vestibule. The girl gagged at the noxious smell wafting upwards, cupping her hands over her mouth. The sentinel spun its wheels forward and they were freed of the mission.

They rolled towards a circular etching in the sand in the distance and looked west. They saw, for the first time, the scene that had unfolded while they were gathered at their captive mass inside. The circumference of the mission was pocked with soiled bodies in every direction. Flies and gnats began to cloud the air above each smoldering carapace. Some were huddled against the outer wall, ripped open as they knelt, paralyzed, against the white bulwarks. Others were riddled with dark, seeping wounds in their backs — caught in the open as they dashed away from the chaos erupting behind them. DDC39 cautiously approached the aroton at the sand mound ahead of them — the sentinel’s wheels rolling softly in the gravel, a single kestrel cawing from the balustrade high atop the broken mission. The drones were gone, absconded in the amaurosis of the heliopause.