February 22nd, 2010
Facing the Unkillable Foe
The last song I heard before I sat down to start writing music was “The Whaler” by Thrice, which is why I went with 5/4 as the time signature. Thankfully, I didn’t just rip that song off.
When I showed the first minute and a half to my friend Don, he said it sounded like “a prelude to an epic boss fight,” hence the title.
This whole thing came about because of the list I made a couple weeks ago (more on that list this week).
Facing the Unkillable Foe by
Matt Smyczynski is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
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November 5th, 2009
The Evolution of Ezekiel Wallace
Ezekiel Wallace slips into the dirty two-story building at the corner of third and main. He’s wearing a trenchcoat, padded to make his shoulders look bigger, and a baseball cap pulled low to hide his eyes from the security drones. The internet cafe is on the second floor; he opts for the stairwell, since the retina scan on the elevator will surely alert the police to his location.
All but one of the computers are empty. He takes the one closest to the window so he can keep an eye on the hulking steel police bot across the street. Its attention is focused on the street. Good. He slips his flash drive into the ancient computer and waits. Within seconds, he is connected to the prison network and scanning their database for
Name: Wallace, Joshua
Age: 6
Offense: Jaywalking
Medical conditions: None
No. Joshua needs medication. That was why Zeke had gone to the prison in the first place, to make sure his son got his medication. That’s all. But they accused him of smuggling contraband, so he’d fled.
If he could just change the records…
There is the tiniest amount of lag as he saves his changes to the database. Most users would attribute it to the machine. He glances out the window.
The police bot is looking through the window, and as it recognizes Zeke’s face, it begins its slow march across the street.
He jumps to his feet, knocking his chair over. The only way out is the way he came, the way the bot is coming. Down the road he sees a bus. There is a bus stop outside. The bot’s footsteps are coming from inside the building. It is headed toward the elevator.
Zeke picks up his chair and slams it into the window until the glass breaks. The bus has stopped. He throws himself out the window and onto the roof of the bus stop shelter, startling the passengers who are just getting off. As the bus starts to pull away, he leaps onto it. The police bot is peering through the broken window. After a moment’s calculation, it leaps into the street and begins chasing the bus.
His ride is heading toward the outskirts of the city. Good. Those rednecks’ll blow up any robot that enters their territory.
But the robot is gaining as the bus slows down for its next stop. Zeke jumps down and runs, shedding the coat and hat as he turns the first corner, hoping the change will disorient the robot. He tells himself that it worked and weaves his way through the mob of workers going to or from their lunch breaks.
He knows he is in the “nobot” zone instantly — the houses are boarded up, anti-robot graffiti on the outer walls as a warning to the machines and the ones who use them.
The bot’s footsteps are still behind him. He risks a glance back and sees its red eyes focused on him, only yards away. His lungs burn, but he pushes on. Just a little farther. Just a little.
An explosion knocks him off his feet and sets his shirt on fire. He lands — hard — on his right arm, feeling the bone snap, then skidding across the pavement to land next to a pair of shoes. The pain explodes in a sea of reds, blurring his vision, merging and dividing until he sees his wife, trapped in the burning building, feels the cold grip of the robot on his arm, preventing him from running to her. The building collapses; she screams. He screams.
He awakens in a dark room. His body aches, but not nearly as much as he expected. A voice tells him to sit up slowly, as he’s been out for a while and the movement might make him dizzy. He listens. They know his name. They know that his son has died.
The lights turn on. Zeke looks at his arm. Flesh and bone has been replaced by titanium. They tell him the metal runs under the skin of his torso. They’ve had to modify some of his internal organs. He asks why they bothered. They tell him it’s because he has nothing left to live for except revenge, and that makes him uniquely qualified to help them.
Ezekiel Wallace flexes his new arm and begins to laugh.
The Evolution of Ezekiel Wallace by Matt Smyczynski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
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