13-3: Charles

Charlie clung desperately to the rails of the secret lift as it did its best to separate him from his stomach. Meanwhile, beside him:

‘…number three, if they try asking you anything about politics, economics, or the moon, those are all fucking huge red flags. You’re all too young to have worthwhile opinions on politics, so what they’re actually doing is sounding you out for… oh, here we go.’

There was a brief and glorious moment of peace as Charlie and his stomach reunited. Then the doors opened, and a twitching metal tentacle leg thing flew past his shoulder and embedded itself in the lift wall.

‘Could use some help here!’ yelled somebody. Hayley?

What he could see was: Sapphire and Hayley, and in front of them a wall of pure black, Kat holding it up on the right. Behind her, the one they all fancied, doing her best to sing a cheerful song while her voice trembled. Every so often, something came through the wall. Sometimes it was a robot thing. Sometimes it was some sort of projectile. A whirling figure eight of Sapphire’s light swords ran through anything physical that made it through, but it didn’t look like she had many left. Meanwhile Hayley was making signs in the air with her hands.

‘What the fuck?’ yelled Daz, from beside Charlie.

‘There’s a horde of robots,’ gasped Sapphire, clearly tiring. ‘They have lasers. The darkness makes the lasers weaker… Ya!’

The glowing stream ripped through a flying intruder. A couple more swords shattered.

‘But then we can’t see where they are,’ said Kat through gritted teeth.

‘So we just take them out as they come through the wall,’ said Hayley. ‘And I’m trying to destroy some on the other side… Top left!’

A robot on four tentacles climbed through the darkness on the left of the ceiling.

‘Mine!’ Daz shot off towards it, hands grabbing.

‘They explode!’ yelled Sapphire.

Daz screeched to a halt, kicked it down the hall and back onto the other side (seconds later there was a muffled bang), and started to rub their foot in pain.

‘But there’s too many of them,’ wheezed Kat. ‘We’re only just holding on.’

‘No we are nooooot, we’re going to wiiiin,

‘You can make suuuuuuure they don’t get iiiiiin,

‘With your dark waaaaaaall still holding truuuuuue,

‘Oh dearest Kaaaaaaaaat…’

Caitlyn spluttered to a stop and coughed up something. Charlie wasn’t entirely sure this was a bad thing.

‘Okay what do I do?’ said Daz.

‘Blow them away with your wings or something,’ said Sapphire.

‘Okay!’

‘…not my swords!’

‘Sorry!’

‘Charlie, any chance of some support?’ yelped Hayley.

Oh, right. Charlie shut his eyes, clasped his hands together, tried to feel the concentration of negative energy in them, and felt…

…nothing.

He was storming the offices of an evil corporation, in the presence of five really cool people, including the girl who’d taught him that you could be gay and cool at once. They hadn’t treated him like a stupid kid either: they’d given him important roles to play. Going off on his own to let Daz in, the screwdriver, the camera… The latter two making him feel, for the first time in possibly forever, like his prosthetic arm was a positive rather than a constant reminder of his dad’s death.

Speaking of which, he’d come down and up again in the lift with Daz. They were cool to him, cooler than he deserved, even though he’d tried to kill them and called their mum a murderer. She had still been that. But Daz had asked about school, and were there any boys he liked, and was it possible any of his teachers were spies for Brytech or the World Government, and three easy ways to tell… Daz wasn’t their mother, Miriam had reminded him. No, Daz was… his friend? Maybe?

All of which was to say, even with a bunch of lethal robots (lethal robots! How cool was that!?) bearing down on him, he was happier than he’d been in a long time. Far too happy to do more than chill the air a little.

Shit.

‘I… can’t… hold it!’ gasped Kat.

The darkness began to fizzle.

It occurred to Charlie that however happy he was to be here, he might die. They all might. A little painful darkness formed in the pit of his stomach.

‘I’ll distract them!’ yelled Daz.

‘They have lasers Daz, don’t be an idiot,’ snapped Sapphire.

‘I’ve always been an idiot Saph. Why stop now?’

They flew through the top of the darkness, whooping and hollering, just as Kat slumped to her knees. The dark vanished.

Charlie saw for the first time just how many robots they were. They filled the hall, stomping on the bodies of their fallen comrades in their hurry to get to the students. They filled the air, they swarmed on the walls. Everything the eye could see was a sea of swarming metal parts, flashing lights, and piercing deadly lasers.

The painful darkness sprang into a fire. He felt it, focussed on it, nurtured it, thought how absolutely certain it was that he was going to die aged fifteen before he’d had his first kiss… and thrust his hands forward.

That was when the building began to collapse.

Content Warnings: ageism