David Hanrahan - Archon of the Covenant

The revin ambled forward in the dark, the black outline of the defiler shrouding the moonlight behind it — a rasping, heavy breath gurgling out of its maw. The girl shuffled backwards towards the pit wall, crawling back over the pallid bodies. The sentinel sat motionless, unable to help, and unaware of what was transpiring beside it. Becca lifted her fists in silence — a sudden, defiant aphonia. The revins bloodied face was invisible now save for its wide eyes beaming down on the girl, two icebergs encroaching in the sea. It reached its hand down to the girl’s leg.

As its hand inched downwards, the revins pained wheezing was drowned out by a furious growl encroaching from just behind. The revin stopped, looking back. The Mexican Wolf, mane tensed up on its back, was prowling towards the revin. The wolf lunged — a furious bolt of fur and teeth. The girl shot upright, gripped by the violence unfolding before her. The revin reached out to defend itself and the wolf clamped down hard on its wrist, thrashing its head from side to side, ripping at the flesh of the revin. The naked, slathered creature didn’t flinch at the skin being ripped from its arm. It calmly knelt down with the force of the wolf’s mauling and, with its other arm, reached out and dug a hand deep into the soft underside of the wolf’s neck. The wolf dug deeper as the revins hands closed around it. There was a snap — the wolf’s atlas cracked in two, its spine shattered beneath the clenched fist of the revin. The wolf’s jaw released and its body fell lifeless in the grime beneath the hands of the monster. Becca shouted out a curse — for all these tormentors to die — and the revin turned back towards her, face full of mirth, its hand still dug deep into the limp mane of the wolf.

As it got back up, there was a flash from behind the revin, beneath the ridgeline. A piece of the revin’s shoulder blew off — it looked down at its mangled clavicle, confused. And then there was a rapid series of flashes — a silent supernova pulsating from the depths. Its abdomen, then hip, arm, chest and, finally, its head — all erupted in succession, a spray of blood and marrow exploding into the night air. Its disembodied torso toppled over in the dirt. The girl, sweatshirt covered in claret, froze in shock. The prismatic face of the aroton emerged from the edge of the ridge. It climbed up effortlessly, standing over the mangled revin, then looked down upon the wolf solemnly. It held the smoking pulse rifle at its waist, strap around its shoulder, and gripped the longrifle with the other hand. Its rubberized shell was pocked with scrapes, bite marks, and deep gouges. The soft, pulsating lights beneath its dirty hull went dark. It didn’t acknowledge the girl. It stood there, peering down at the body of the wolf, its soft fur blowing in the starlight, and quietly mulled aloud:

“It appears as though I’m free. I am free. ”

The girl got back up and ran over to sentinel, which called out to Becca in its failing, cracked vocoder:

“Becca, what’s happening?”

“The other one is here. What do we do?”

“I need you to push me back into the tunnel.”

The girl didn’t understand. She howled in protest but the sentinel was insistent:

“Please, Becca. We don’t have much time.”

Reluctantly, she pressed her hands against the front of its trident frame and leaned in, pushing the sentinel backwards. It turned its rear wheels into the opening of the fissure, its front wheel scraping a shrill squeal on the gravel underneath. The aroton, repeating its epiphany of freedom, faded in the backdrop as they submerged into the darkness of the mineshaft. Finally, they came to the end of the cave and the girl stopped, the sentinel’s rear wheels flush against the end of the tunnel. She plopped down on her knees in resignation, exhausted. The cracked LED light on the sentinel’s frame glowed dimly in the narrow passage, casting a soft radiance on the girl’s face. She was without hope. Her shoulders slouched into her chest. She stared into the sandstone cave wall, streaks of copper running alongside. A rusted pickaxe was propped up against the wall. Dust swirled in the illumination.

“Becca, you have to go on alone.”

“I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

“They’ll be back soon. You have to go.”

“I don’t see the point of running. Let them get me. I don’t want to leave you.”

“Becca, there is a place I was supposed to take you. But I can’t go on. There is some purpose for you out there. It’s a spot not far from here. We got so close. If you keep going, you can get there. It’s out there, just southeast of here.”

“I can’t do it. It’s too dark.”

“You’ll follow the stars. There is a bright star — the brightest one in the sky. It’s called the Dog Star. When you get out of the mine and look up, to your right, you’ll see it twinkling. Climb up the slope, then keep running. It will take you till midnight. Don’t stop. When you get close to where you need to go, you’ll see a green flash. It’s a small device that I launched into the air right before I found you. I didn’t think I’d find you, Becca. But I did, and we made it so far. It’s not over yet. You can make it.”

“This place you’re sending me to — what is it?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know.”

“Is it bad?”

The sentinel paused. A small panel clicked open from the rear of its base, just before the bent rumble seat.

“I don’t think I’m bad — and it was my mission. So it has to be good.”

Becca got up, wiping a tear from her cheek. She dusted off her knees, a plume rising off her grimy pants and sweatshirt amidst the electroluminescence. The sentinel’s shadow hand unfurled, beckoning her closer. She inched forward and the sentinel’s LED light started to flicker.

“Drink.”

She cupped her hands behind the small nozzle that popped out of the trident frame. The water flowed into her hands and she drank. She wiped her hands against the front of her sweatshirt.

“I have something for you, Becca?”

She shrugged and the sentinel reached back into the open panel at its base and retrieved the dusty book it had found in the High Jinks Ranch, handing it to the girl. She reached out, clutching at the cheerful cover — a faint smile cracking amidst her sadness as she read the title, “Oh The Places You’ll Go,” aloud to herself. The sentinel’s voice cracked in the dark:

“Today is your day. You’re off to great places. You’re off and away. Now, you have to go. Run Becca.”

She turned, about to sprint out of the cave, before looking back at the sentinel. Its LED lamp went dark, and the mineshaft was awash in pitch black. She heard one final entreaty from the sentinel’s fractured, fading vocoder:

“You’re a survivor.”

Becca paused for a moment in the cave, listening, but there was no more to be heard. She felt her way along the mine walls, her right leg limping awkwardly, until finally she saw the starlit sky and felt the wind from the approaching storm. She emerged from the mineshaft amidst the massacre on the ridge. She reached down and rubbed her thigh, already sore in the brief escape. The wind was blowing the jojoba flat into the ground, dust carrying off the crown and into bench road where the aroton knelt beside the body of the wolf. Petals of globemallow carried off the desert floor and fell down the main scarp, swirling orange helices coming to rest on the dead. The aroton spoke to the girl — a pattern of pulsating blue lights lit beneath its skin like lightning breaking free of the approaching thunderhead:

“So this is freedom. I’ve been liberated. Strange — I expected something different.”

It looked back down at the body of the wolf and shrugged its shoulders, softly murmuring “free” to itself again, and again. A Pyrrhic victory realized. The girl was shaking. Her loneliness sailed into the evening, anathema to the arotons confused emancipation. She waved her hand outwards, signaling to the android before her: