Lesser Gods (19 page)

Abruptly we were on top of each other in a clash of steel. My lance went wide, sliding off Huntington’s shield and then slicing thin air.

Huntington’s lance also glanced off my shield and nicked my helmet, but I escaped unharmed.

We continued the mad dash to the end of the fence, then my horse slowed at the end of the list and I pulled the reins, turning it through a tight circle so I again faced my opponent.

After a pause during which our squires checked our lances, we suffered another discordant trumpet blast. Huntington and I charged each other once again.

Our second bone-jarring crash saw my lance sneak past Huntington shield to smack him squarely across the high collar of his breastplate. I had the momentary satisfaction of hearing him yelp in pain and for a moment felt hope instead of despair when he missed me entirely. We continued to the end of the list, each turned, and prepared for another charge.

My hope of besting Huntington became my undoing. In my optimism I failed not only to hit him on the next pass, but also to lift my shield high enough for full protection.

His lance slid across my shield and hit against the hardened iron of my breastplate, scraping for a few inches before gaining purchase and cracking through the hardened shell of my armor. A searing pain cut through my chest as the lance shattered, its sharpened end emerging from my lower back to impale me to my saddle, all in the twinkling of an eye.

Our horses carried us past each other, my steed slowing its gallop. Warm liquid spread beneath my armor and I felt suddenly weak and short of breath. I reined my horse to a stop and turned, fighting to keep my balance. Casting my lance to the ground, I struggled to wheel my horse around to face my enemy who I heard approaching behind me.

My eyes focused on Huntington. He raced toward me with his two-handed broadsword at the ready for a quick
coup de grâce
. I fought to retrieve my war hammer from its loop, my gloved hands making the task nearly impossible. Huntington was on top of me before I could retrieve my weapon, his blade whistling through the air and glancing off my shield as I reflexively raised it for protection.

Taking advantage of the sword’s momentum as it bounced from my shield, Huntington swung the blade through a wide circle, back over his head, and then brought it toward me again before I could recover. The sharp edge of his weapon traveled straight for my neck.

I closed my eyes and heard Alice scream.

Alice Liddell

Dear Diary:

Mom always said that stupid girls ran after losers while the smart gals picked the winners and stuck with them, no matter how boring their life became. So what is it about “bad boys” that makes them so attractive? Simple: They’re exciting and fun.

I know I’d rather have fun with a bad boy rather than some stiff-necked twit that will become a corporate type. Or even worse, become one of those Frenchies with their powdered wigs. (What’s with those guys?)

One thing for sure: Mom wouldn’t like Ralph. She would tell me that people like him are why we have the expensive security system on our house.

But he is exciting. And I like the way his goofy face looks when he sees me. And that funny little yell he makes when he’s scared out of his mind.

I may still end up with Mom’s dream guy for me because I haven’t seen Ralph in any of the games for days now, and I have a terrible feeling he’s either blown a gasket from Jet, or that the OEK (One-Eyed Kreep) has finally got him.

I’ll miss Ralph. I cry every time I think about not seeing him again. I know that’s silly but the thought just breaks my heart. I don’t know what it is about him, but I find myself thinking about him a lot.

I’ve found that sometimes I can outfox the OEK. I’m not sure how it works, but if I put my mind to it, once in a while I seem able to change the rules of the game a little, the way he seems to be able to. Only I’m not nearly as good at it.

Sometimes I think the OEK is watching me even when I’m not in a game. I know that’s just my paranoia showing. But that’s how I feel, and I think a gal has the right to be a little crazy and intuitive from time to time, anyway. So that’s just how it is and I will never apologize for what I am and feel.

Got to run now or I’ll be late for school. Today is tryouts for the school play and I’m hoping to land the lead part. It has kissing, so even though I don’t need any practice with that, I pretend the male lead is Ralph.

I might not get the part. I hate to even consider that possibility. I think I’m good enough, but sometimes teachers choose the stups who kiss up rather than the people who deserve the part. I just have to get this part because it’s my last semester before going out into the world, as they say.

Ralph Crocker

I found myself being escorted down the prison’s concrete hallway by a metal automaton with a permanent look of concern etched into its face. “How are you today?” it asked.

“Okay,” I answered, confused as to where and when I was.

“Only okay?”

“Nothing a little freedom wouldn’t cure.”

“Freedom from drugs is freedom indeed,” the machine told me. “And coming down off addictive drugs isn’t easy.”

That I knew.

“Are you still having cravings for the drug cocaine?”

“I’m not here for cocaine abuse,” I said, hoping to correct the machine’s mistake. “I was a jet user. But I’m not a user any more.”

“Learning to admit your addiction is the first step toward recovery. You need to realize that there’s nothing wrong with admitting your addiction to cocaine….” A pause and then it sort of hiccupped and continued, “To cocaine. That’s an important first step.”

“But I’ve never used cocaine. Only jet. And I’m off it now.”

“Stay on the green line to avoid punishment.”

Green line? I looked for the green line and saw only the red line we’d followed in. I started to protest that I didn’t see any green line, then noticed the faint smudges of green on the floor; apparently the years of heavy mech and human foot traffic had worn the paint off the center of the hallway, leaving only an occasional green splotch on the floor. I did my best to follow the faint trail and was doing fine until we reached a stretch where four tunnels met. I made a guess and started down the left fork.

“Stay on the green line,” the robot warned me, gently gripping my right elbow in its strong rubberized fingers, pulling me to the right. “Another failure will necessitate shocking you.”

For a moment I wondered if there might be a way to take advantage of the glitches that plagued the mainframe running the prison, rather than having the errors work against me.

I had an idea.

A rather fateful idea, as it turned out. “I’m colorblind,” I ventured, hoping perhaps there was some sub-routine in the machine’s programming that would cut me a little slack.

“Colorblind?” the machine asked, coming to a halt. I heard the sound of gears deep within the mechanism, and then it spoke. “Blind. Unable to see. You must be injured and are in need medical assistance.”

“No,” I said. “Colorblindness is a condition that makes it impossible to differentiate between red and green.” At least I thought it was. I wasn’t so sure about that now that I considered it, but decided to do my best in fabricating what sounded like the truth.

“Don’t try to confuse me,” the mech warned. “Stay on the yellow line.”

“I thought you said green.”

“We are now traveling the yellow line. The yellow line leads to the medical area of the prison. I am overriding our previous orders with a medical emergency since you have become blind. Now I will escort you to the medical area.”

My compliance was easier since the yellow line hugged the wall and was still visible most of the way. I was about to congratulate myself for my stroke of genius when we made a turn down a narrow hall that branched from the main tunnel. We had only traveled a few yards when we entered a sickly yellow room with dirty floors and the stench of death.

There were dark splotches on the walls that looked ominously like dried blood.

“You’ll be in good hands here,” my escort assured me, shoving me into the middle of the room and then stepping back to block the door, thereby preventing any possible escape.

“How are you today?” a mechanical voice with all the throaty beauty of a hungry buzzard asked.

With a shock I realized that the mass of tubes and wires that I’d mistaken for a pile of junk was actually a medical bot that had seen better days.

Before I could say anything, my mechanical warden explained, “This man is injured and in need of medical help. Symptoms are…” There was a lengthy pause, the whirring of gears, and then the machine continued. “Colorblind eyes that fail to see red or green.”

The med-bot approached me, scrutinizing my face with a sensor on the end of a snake-like metal feeler that apparently augmented the lens on its head.

At least this machine can see,
I thought. And most likely it would catch the medical error of the guard that had brought me here, getting to the truth of my life and properly sorting my improvised disease into the “no need for treatment” category.

Or so I hoped.

“Bad eyes are so hard to work on,” the machine confided in me.

“My eyes are fine,” I protested.

“We always do our best here in the medical wing, and I will fix your eyes the best I can.”

“My eyes don’t need any work,” I said, beginning to have doubts about fast-talking myself out of my predicament.

The medical bot reverted to the canned nonsense all the mechs in this hellhole were programmed to offer: “Blindness is nothing to be ashamed of and there’s never any excuse to abuse drugs. Freedom from drugs is freedom indeed. But the withdrawal from addictive drugs isn’t an easy process.”

“I’m perfectly fine. Just can’t differentiate between colors too well. Colorblindness — you’ve heard of that, haven’t you?”

The machine stood frozen.

“Isn’t colorblindness covered somewhere in your medical dictionary?”

The machine paused its inspection of my eyes and its voice took on a darker tone. “Blindness: The inability to see.” Its eye zoomed to within inches of my nose. “Pupils dilated uniformly and eyes appear functional. Babbling about blindness may indicate brain damage or psychological trauma.”

“I’m fine.”

The machine took my head in its hands and twisted me back and forth, giving me a good idea of how an egg feels just before it becomes an omelet.

Then it released me and announced, “No external signs of concussion. Stand clear for X-rays.”

“The X-ray machine is non-functioning,” the mainframe announced from a ceiling speaker.

That seemed like good news to me. At least I wouldn’t be bathed in 800 REMs of X-rays, a happenstance easily imagined, given what had occurred thus far in the comedy of malfunctions.

Yet this news didn’t phase the med-bot. “It will be a few minutes before the X-ray results return.”

Ohhhh kaaaaaay. “Maybe I could come back later then and we could —”

My head was jerked to the side and the machine’s sensor came to within inches of my face. “You seem to have abrasions on your head.” A steel appendage snaked along the scab that had formed on my temple, then rooted under it and jerked it away, causing me to yelp.