DEATH ANGEL
Havok “Rampage! Monsters vs. Robots” Contest Finalist
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By Katherine Briggs
A freight elevator dropped us into the abandoned warehouse. The metal doors squealed open, and I faced a stinking crush of tattoos, piercings, curses, and black-market weapons. So many of us.
My heart rose and fell. Remain strong, Raija.
The lieutenant governor’s handsome voice dripped over intercom. “Assassins, criminals, bounty hunters, I’m skipping formalities. And trials.”
The crowd clamored and roared.
“I shall awaken our Angel of Death. Your execution begins now.” The intercom crackled dead.
Locks churned. A hidden door lifted to our fate. The crimson sunset behind cliff edges glowing with electric barriers and encircling a deep pit—the smoking graveyard of a ruined society Earth swallowed during the Final Wars.
A shrieking bomb arced through the sky before throttling ground far below and throwing us off our feet. An eerie roar curdled the atmosphere. The world shook… and shook…
Panic scattered us.
Memories from stolen glimpses of history books choked me. Nothing could survive these ruins but… “Hide!” I screamed, just as a rough grip trapped my hands behind my back.
“Raija,” my ex-boyfriend hissed. Byrn pushed me down a hidden trail. My vision blurred with the ground’s shuddering, then cleared to a massive cave mouth formed from the bones of broken buildings. We scrambled inside and climbed the jagged walls to an outcropping.
Byrn pushed me to crouch beside him in the cool darkness. His chest heaved with strength, sweat dripped from his ice-white hair, and my eyes followed ink that trailed from his temples and across his arms.
His warm whisper made my skin crawl. “What’s their ‘Death Angel,’ Raija?”
I expected my voice to tremble. It didn’t. “Llevion. The largest, most intelligent, extravagantly created robots designed to protect the leaders of the fallen Alliance. They programmed their blood into the llevion so that, if wounded, they could be extracted from a battlefield. If its operator were killed, the llevion went rogue and killed everyone. A safeguard against assassination.” It survived the wars, without battery or rider, for a century, and politicians play it like a toy.
Humans wailed. The earth’s shaking grew.
“You always find a loophole, Raija.”
“These things are game over. But… everything has an off-switch.”
Our world swayed and boulders tumbled. A dark, massive shape blockaded the cave mouth.
Its metal shoulder was fanned with razor-edged panels like giant’s daggers. This machine possessed technological power like none could imagine. Tarnished gold and broken jewels covered the powerful, man-like form. One gigantic fist slammed into the cavern floor, and the other curled to the robot’s chest clutching… its master’s skeleton.
Empty eye sockets shined a dull, red light and scanned for heat signatures.
The space around Byrn pulsed. Shock rattled me. He wore a magnetic forcefield suit, and his eyes filled with tears. “Raija, I’m not nobody like you.” He exhaled. “So, you’re bait,” and shoved me.
I cried out, crashed down rocks, and hit the floor. I pushed my torso up with one hand and stared at the rusted metal of the monster’s foot before Llevion’s thick, red light covered me.
Warm blood trickled down my neck. I covered my head and waited for death.
Llevion took a step, rattling my bones. My sight filled with stirred dust. I coughed on the haze and saw a massive, gilded hand lower over me. My insides flipped as the behemoth lifted me, and then I peered into the monstrous, gaping void of its left eye. Its palm tipped, and I tripped into its eye socket, into a cool, metal corridor facing a vault-like door. The door whooshed open to a cockpit and advanced control board that snatched my breath. Screens lit to life, and I saw real-time footage of Bryn drenched in red light.
A crisp, professional voice surrounded me. “Welcome, descendant of Dr. Insliem Samal III. Your bloodline is identified and recorded.”
Shock coursed through me. This couldn’t be real.
“Shall we proceed with destroying the enemy?”
“Let… him go.” I touched the pilot’s seat. Tears dripped off my chin. “Get us past the electrical barriers.”
“Death Angel” originally appeared in Havok July 2018. Digital and physical copies may be purchased here.
Photo by Javier García on Unsplash
