David Hanrahan - Archon of the Covenant

The revins came at the sentinel in waves. They climbed up in groups from beneath the ridge, and DDC39 would hit them in the skull with one, well-placed shot. They would come from the right and, when their outline loomed in the darkness beside the sentinel, a pop burst out — their atrophied craniums emptying out from the nape where the uranium shell exited. They were confused and frightened in the darkness — a pile of bodies beginning to crowd around the ridge. They’d slip on the bloody limbs and, as they got upright, found themselves falling back again, unable to get back up. They’d see themselves from just above as the blood rushed out of their body. They’d suddenly be looking down upon the carnage from overhead. Fathers, brothers, sisters, grandfathers — they kept rushing forward into perdition.

The sentinel’s uranium shells were dwindling. 45, 40, 30, 20, 15. The assault took on a paroxysmal state. The revins at the bottom of the ridge were diminishing in numbers but seething in outrage at the sight of the others falling to their deaths from the heights above. The revins to the right were pushing at each other to edge forward while a polyandrium materialized before them. They surged and the growing pile of bodies toppled over, spilling down the crumbling embankment. The sentinel came back into view to the group at the right. The last shells of the railgun were expended in quick succession. The gun barrel twisted furiously from left to right as it locked on to each revin at its perimeter. Like the last kernels popping in a simmering pan of oil, a series of skulls exploded in the darkness and the scene grew suddenly quiet as the sentinel fired its last shot. Eight men fell where they stood at the eroding ridge. The others paused momentarily as if they might, just maybe, retreat. The only sound was a steady trickle of blood and spinal fluid washing down the gravel and into the swirling silt pond below, spilling past the feet of the last standing revins at the bottom.

Someone shouted a pained, spasmodic cry. The small panel at the center of the sentinel’s trident frame flipped open and the banshee disk began to hum as it charged up. They came up in one final group, together — the stragglers at the bottom joined before the sentinel with the fury of the pack at the right. The sentinel released the scream of the LRAD system in its core, panning from left to right at the shapeless mass falling towards it. They were paralyzed, briefly, but set upon the sentinel nonetheless, fighting through the pain searing through their bones. They crashed into the base of the machine, tackling it into the dust.

The girl heard the eruption of the LRAD and sprinted forward in the darkness of the cave. She shouted out towards the mine opening and the sentinel yelled back:

“Becca, don’t come out here!”

She tripped over some loose beam in the ground, skinning her hands on the bedrock. The mouth of the cave was coming into view, a dull blue swirling in the void and the metallic smell of blood choking the air around her. She got back up, steadying herself in the cave and peered out, unable to see what was unfolding. Outside, one of the revins reached down and, with one anguished jolt, ripped the banshee disk out of the sentinel’s frame.

DDC39 deactivated all of its secondary systems. It was being upended. They were pulling at its optical array, ripping the railgun off its servo rotor, and tearing at the polyurethane tires. A faint charge flickered around the trident frame, lapping at the hands wrapped around it. They tore at the sentinel furiously — its assembly began to rupture and the panels around its chassis bent and pulled off, exposing the bundle of wires and valves underneath. A single tesla arc cracked at the air and then several rippled through the squirming, smeared crowd. They abruptly seized, eyes rolling back in their heads, hands white-knuckled, teeth shattering in their jaws. The current flashed once and disappeared. Hair singed and muscles tensed. The revins fell backwards from the shock and crumpled around the sentinel, which crashed to its side at the mouth of the breach. The mineshaft glowed momentarily from the flickering current then fell dark again. The expanse of the manufactured canyon went quiet. A rush of air blew north across the crown, rattling the jojoba sprouting out of the pit walls, then swirled around the caldera before gusting off into the dark. The smell of creosote filled the air and the wind cooled — a front moving in ahead of the thunderhead rolling north. Becca felt the gust of air rush into the cave and sprinted out to meet the portending calm. As she ran, tears were rolling down her cheek. She emerged from the mouth of the tunnel into the dusk and swirling fetor. She froze, turning white, at the sight of the flesh tide of the dead. The mound of carcasses amassed beside her undulated in the black, emptying into the dirt, limbs shifting beneath them. One lifeless body, with its cranium obliterated, slithered off the ridge and fell, limbs flailing like a ragdoll, tumbling down the pit wall. The girl teetered backwards in shock and then saw it — the sentinel, turned on its side, wrecked. She gripped her hands together and pleaded:

“No, no, no. Please.”

She planted herself in the black grime next to the machine and peered into its exposed panels -- a tangle of wires protruding from the casing. The pile of electrocuted revins loomed over her as she wedged herself in between the limbs jutting inwards from the brute cairn. The lifeless hands and blank eyes reached into oblivion. An ossuary to encephalopathy, erected amongst the oxidized currency of the old world. Becca felt the isolation of the world like the ground falling out beneath her. She wiped a blood smear away from the sentinel’s carriage. Its optical array was torn away, railgun ripped from the mount, front tire shorn off, and its frame was badly battered. DDC39 was destroyed. A faint, crackling voice emanated from its sub-frame speaker:

“Becca, can you push me upright?”

“I can.”

Becca dug her hands deep in the filth beneath the sentinel’s sunken skeleton, grasping at its underside. She took hold of the frayed wires and bent panels sunk in the shit, her arms tensing, then pushed her knees in the dirt and hoisted the heavy, still frame of the sentinel until it was vertical, its unsheathed front wheel pinned in the dust. The heavy truss of the sentinel’s tri-axel shook as it hit the floor, swaying softly from left to right. It was a mess. It could no longer see Becca — its optical array lying in a heap to the side. The girl stifled her sobs as she looked over the broken body of her only friend. She reached her hand out to a bent panel jutting out from its frame then recoiled:

“We should get going.”

“Becca.”

The sentinels voice cracked and trailed off — its battery charge near empty. They sat there, unmoving, the girl unsure what to do and the sentinel unable to do anything. The pile of bodies slithered beside them — the weight of the sodden carcasses shifting as they bled out from the skulls. The valley of the pit mine breathed softly — the oncoming front blowing the stench of shit and blood to the north. Becca looked around despondently, desperate for some way for them to go on together. She proclaimed:

“I could push you out of here!”

“No Becca, that won’t work.”

As they talked, the pile of bodies to the left collapsed, spilling over the ridge — the lifeless hulks tumbling down the pit wall. The broken bastion of the necropolis. The girl watched the plunge of bodies then turned back to the sentinel. As she faced the machine, a revin stood up from where it had been buried beneath the others, wobbling in the darkness, planting its feet atop the limbs of the few dead that remained on the bench road behind the girl. The face of this man was awash in blood — a gaping hole in its forehead, a tangle of tissue spilled forth from the wound. It looked upon the girl and the machine and cocked its head to the side, listening, its face contorted, eyes wide open. It stumbled forward, reaching its hands out to the girl. She heard the slogging footsteps behind her and jumped to the side, turning about to face the creature trudging towards her. It took a pained gasp of air, a clump of blood and viscera expelled from its mouth. The girl took a step backwards, terrified, and tripped over the leg of a suppurating corpse.