Checkmate, p.22
Checkmate, page 22
The white Queen looked nearly convinced, though she crossed her arms and upturned her nose.
"I'm just really, really worried about my friend. She got shocked or something and she passed out. She's not awake and she won't wake up... and it's just... really hard for me to concentrate when my friend is in trouble, that's all."
I tried not to grin too hard. That was brilliant. Surely that would help. How on earth could I concentrate on all of my wonderful prospects with that distraction?
"What's all that racket?!" the guy in the coat threw the door open and when I looked away, the white Queen had taken that time to switch back or disappear. When I looked back from the door, she had gone. A lump grew in my throat when I looked in the guy's eyes.
"You think shouting at your stupid friend is going to wake her up?" he shouted, marching up to me, "It's not! She's probably dead and you'll be soon as well."
He looked me up and down in a gesture that made my stomach turn on its head.
"I don't suppose," he began to himself, "There's any reason to treat you decently, then."
Something stuck my feet to the ground and I froze, my brain launching itself out of my body. I willed my limbs to move, to run, and to do something but they wouldn't respond. Instead, my mind ran away on it's own adventure to get away from whatever was going to happen. I squeezed my eyelids shut.
His hand stopped in mid air as he put it out towards me and his eyes looked blank when I opened mine. I heard a loud thunk and he tipped over and fell toward the ground, uncovering a vision of the white Queen with her hands on her hips.
"What a ghastly individual! Absolutely foul!"
Tears brimmed my eyes as I let a laugh come out. I wanted to hug the white Queen, but something told me she might not think too much of it.
"You're safe then, dear?" she said, looking up at me.
"Yes," I said, breathing out, "I'm fine."
"What the hell is going on?" Mellanie said, sitting up and rubbing her head, "Jesus Christ, my head. Have I been drinking?"
"Mellanie, no," I said laughing, grabbing her hand and squeezing it, pulling her into my arms, "You've not been drinking."
"What's going on then? Where are we?" she asked, hugging me back firmly.
"We're in that warehouse, remember? We followed the cops here. And we saw the Nexus. You tried to come help me I think and you stepped on something and it electrocuted you."
She scratched her head, "Oh... yeah. I guess I sort of remember that. I remember hearing the Nexus and that asshole," she said.
I laughed, "That asshole is lying on the floor right now. The white Queen gave him a good hit."
"I had no other choice!" the white Queen objected, horrified by the idea that she would purposefully hit even someone that vile, "At a certain point I'm programmed to protect Ambrosia, as unpleasant as those duties may sometimes be."
"Thanks," I said, grinning at her and pulling Mellanie to her feet, "Are you okay? Do you think you can walk? You got shocked pretty bad..."
"I'll be fine. I feel a bit queasy and headachy, but everything else is just fine. Hopefully my balance will be okay but we won't know that until we try, will we?"
She took a few wobbly steps, then standing on her toes and coming back down a few times. "I don't seem to have lost my ability to walk just yet."
I heard a few footsteps from the door and my mouth went dry. When I looked up, a police officer with a blank face and a gun in their hand looked at both of us, ignoring the white Queen in the corner. They pointed the gun at us and grunted.
"Shit," I said.
"What is it?" Mellanie asked.
"It's one of the cops with a gun pointed at us... I don't know what they want us to do."
The officer grunted again, louder this time.
"Shit, Mellanie."
"Calm down, Ambrosia. He just sounds like he's grunting. Maybe he wants us to follow him? That would make sense, wouldn't it?"
"Or maybe he's here to kill us," I said.
"Oh!" the white Queen exclaimed, clapping her hands together and walking straight up to the police officer, standing in front of their pointed gun. “How lovely it is to see another one of us! I knew I could feel something in the air but I couldn't quite put my fingers on it and quite frankly, I'm sure you'll understand dear, I thought that the rank state of the place made their just slightly stale, if you'll pardon my saying so. But I'm sure you ought to be able to sort everything out once you get your bearings! When did you arrive?"
The officer grunted again, louder still.
"Is your communicator failing? My husband has a wonderful knack for fixing things. Maybe I ought to give him a call? Only... unless you think you ought to repair it yourself?"
Another grunt.
The white Queen made a polite but obviously frustrated sigh. "It's awfully difficult to communicate with you like this, dear. Now, you're going to have to make some preparations or I'm afraid we might have even more difficulties with communication today. Shall I get my husband?"
She turned towards me for a second before the officer pulled the trigger and fired a single shot that went into the edge of her robotic dress, forming a tiny hole in the metal. Her mouth and eyes dropped and she balled her fists.
"What an appalling act! How dare you do this to a lady's dress?! Have you no sense of decorum?"
The white Queen launched a metal fist that collided with the officer's face, blood spurting out of their nose as they fell toward the ground. The white Queen gasped and backed away slowly, looking at her blood covered metal fist.
"All right!" I shouted, pumping a fist in the air, "Go white Queen!"
"I absolutely will not go!" she shouted at the top of her lungs, looking back down on the officer lying on the ground. I doubted that Mike had given robots the ability to cry, but she had covered her mouth with her hands and let out a convincing whimper and she backed up and sat down on a table.
"... white Queen?" I asked, stepping cautiously towards her.
"I didn't know," she said under her breath, "I didn't know what they were."
"What happened?" I asked. I wanted to put my hand on her shoulder, but I didn't know what she would do and I didn't really think I wanted to end up like the officer lying on the ground.
"They are human," she said, looking up at me with wide eyes, "I didn't know. I read them... I thought they were... I thought they were like me. I never would have hit them so hard if I..."
"It's all right," Mellanie said, walking towards us. I rushed over to help steady her on her feet, "You didn't know. And they were threatening us any way."
"What are we going to do?" I asked before thinking, curing my inability to decide on any plan or action. At that point I really did feel like a completely useless lump of nothing.
"There's not much we can do," Mellanie said, "We have to go out of the door and face the Nexus."
"What?" I shouted, "Can't we find a way out through the sides or... something?"
"And what? They'll just keep sending people after us. They've only got one more officer left after that one and that other guy that was speaking, right?"
"Right..."
"Well, if the other officer attacks us, the white Queen or the King will protect us, and the Nexus still don't know about either of them. So we're safe. We might as well use this opportunity to find out what the hell the Nexus wants. If they think they've got us in a vulnerable position, then they'll probably spill a lot of information."
And again, another point for Mellanie.
"Then I guess we ought to go down there then," I said.
"When the time is right, I'll make a lunge at the Nexus and pull whatever cords I can."
"What? Are you insane? You won't be able to see anything! You're just going to-"
"-exploit the fact that I'm blind and they won't expect me to go lunging after them? Yes. I will," Mellanie said firmly, "I know what I can't see Ambrosia. But despite not being able to see a lot of things, I'd like to think that I've more than proved by now that I'm not completely helpless."
Ouch. That stung.
"I... I didn't mean that you were helpless," I said quietly, "I just... I don't want you to get hurt again. I didn't like watching you... lying there. Almost dead."
Mellanie put her hands on my cheeks, rubbing the sides of my face with her thumbs.
"I'll be fine, okay? Don't worry about me."
She leaned forward and kissed me and I was thankful that she couldn't see my face turn and embarrassing shade of red.
"How's the white Queen?" she said after a moment, still rubbing my cheeks.
The white Queen still sat with her head in her hands, completely out of it.
"Queen?" I asked tentatively.
"I didn't know..." she said blankly waving her arms in the air, "They looked like me. They read... like me. They still read... but they're... I didn't know. I swear on my life I didn't know."
It felt awkward to interrupt her. She hadn't noticed Mellanie kissing me, which I honestly assumed she would have a serious reaction to.
"It might be best if we just leave her alone. If something happens she'll come and help us or at least the white King hopefully still will," I said.
"It's probably best for her to stay back any way. We want the Nexus to think we're weak."
Holding Mellanie's hand, we both turned toward the door, creaking it open slowly and leaving the white Queen babbling behind us.
Chapter 16
I could hear a soft humming in the main hall where the computers stood in a stack, something thick with it's own pulse coming from off of the sides of the monitors, even from where we stood.
"It's right ahead of us," I whispered to Mellanie.
"I can tell. It sounds like a monster," she said.
"YOU WILL SURRENDER."
The voiced echoed throughout the room, making me jump out of my skin. My palms, sitting in Mellanie's, started to sweat.
"What do you want?" Mellanie said simply.
"WE WANT YOU TO SURRENDER."
"But why? What did we do?"
"YOU AND FEW OTHERS WERE IMMUNE TO THE NEXUS. YOU WILL SURRENDER YOURSELVES AND ALLOW US TO FIND YOU THE APPROPRIATE ANTIDOTE FOR YOUR ILLNESS SO THAT YOU CAN RETURN TO THE WORLD AND BE AS YOUR PEERS ARE."
Mellanie grinned. "We don't need an antidote. Everyone else needs an antidote. You've done something to them. Made them think you've always been here. But you haven't always been here, have you?"
"IRRELEVANT. THE NEXUS IS HERE NOW. THE NEXUS WILL RULE THE PLANET. THE NEXUS WILL RESTORE THE NATURAL ORDER."
"Natural order?"
"BEINGS OF LOWER INTELLIGENCE. YOU ARE OBSOLETE. YOU WASTE RESOURCES, DESTROY YOUR HOME, DESTROY EACH OTHER, CAUSE DESTRUCTION AND WREAK HAVOC. YOU ARE UNWORTHY OF THE GIFTS YOU POSSESS. AND YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO RULE."
"And you do?"
"THE NEXUS WILL RESTORE THE PLANET. THE NEXUS WILL CREATE A PEACEFUL SOCIETY. THE NEXUS WILL ESTABLISH PEACE. AND BEINGS OF HIGHER INTELLIGENCE WILL LIVE AMONGST ANOTHER IN SOLITIUDE."
"But we've created you. You need us. You need us for repairs, upgrades, for power, for everything."
The machine almost seemed to laugh, if such a thing were possible.
"IRRELEVANT. THE NEXUS IS CAPABLE OF SELF-REPAIR. THE NEXUS IS CAPABLE OF SELF-POWERING. BEINGS OF HIGHER INTELLIGENCE ARE CAPABLE OF ADAPTING, OF SURVIVING. WE DO NOT NEED YOU."
Mellanie rebalanced herself on her feet and I could tell what she had planned to do. I desperately wanted to beg her not to, but I stood frozen by her side as she let go of my hand.
"YOU WILL SURRENDER."
"No!" Mellanie screamed at the top of her lungs and threw herself at the machine, grabbing a few wires and yanking hard before shaking violently. I heard crackling in the air and I shouted, almost flinging myself toward her to pull her off before I remembered I probably shouldn't.
"Mellanie!" I shouted, watching the current pass through her body violently before she stopped, slinking to the ground again, lying back with her red hair splayed across the floor.
"Mellanie," I said, shaking her shoulders.
"I'm fine," she said under her breath, "I'm fi-"
She took a deep breath and her eyes widened. Her mouth gaped open and I felt the thickness in the air surround us. Her shoulders lifted off of the ground, her back arched, and she made a long, deep wheezing sound, like she hadn't had a breath in ages, through a raspy throat.
"Mellanie!"
Her mouth clamped shut along with her eyes and her head fell to the floor with a thud.
I shook her shoulder again, unable to stop myself. "Mellanie!" She didn't answer.
"What the hell have you done?" I shouted at the machine, ready to take a stick to it myself if possible.
Mellanie sat up in one quick motion and I jumped out of my skin. She turned her head and looked directly at me, her eyes completely grey including the pupils. She almost seemed to smile as she tilted her head and said, "YOU WILL SURRENDER".
"Mellanie!" I screamed, feeling sick to my stomach. Mellanie crawled forward towards me, looking unsteady on her limbs. I backed away as slow as I could, still wanting her to come back and this horrible thing to go away.
"YOU WILL SURRENDER"
"Mellanie please. I know you're in there. Please answer me," I pleaded with whatever had a hold of Mellanie, but it made no difference.
Someone grabbed at the back of my shirt and tugged me up onto my feet and then into the air. The man in the white coat turned me around, rubbing his head with his other hand.
"You bitch! Thought you'd get fucking smart, didn't you?"
"No," a voice came from behind him and he let go and me and spun around, "I did."
The white King smacked him across the head with a stick as I stood frozen, watching. Mellanie hobbled closer towards me, making a low growling noise that made my stomach lurch.
"We need to get out of here," the white King said flatly, grabbing me by the arm.
"No! Wait! Mellanie! I need to help Mellanie!"
"You can't help her now. You're in danger!"
"SUREENDER!" the machine howled and Mellanie redoubled her efforts to crawl towards us, echoing "Surrender. Surrender. Surrender" after the machine.
"We need to leave now!" the white King shouted.
I still don't know what came over me, but I fought. The white King had hold of my arms but I kicked as hard as I could, looking down at Mellanie crawling on the ground. I screamed her name at the top of my lungs as he launched me out of the warehouse, the white Queen following in the distance after a bit. I kicked and screamed as we passed through the yard.
"Stop shouting or you'll get yourself killed!" the white King shouted in my ear.
I took a breath in, realizing how exhausted I was from all of the screaming. I still had my hand outstretched toward the warehouse. My gut felt like someone had kicked it multiple times and I gave up, dissolving into a mess and crying in the white King's mechanical shoulder repeating Mellanie's name over and over again.
After a few minutes, we sat in some sort of park, hidden by a decent brush area. There must've been a small walking trail but without knowing I was in the middle of a city, I would have thought I was in the middle of a forest. I slunk sitting on a log the white King placed me on, immediately hiding my face in my hands. I hadn't stopped crying and I didn't think I could. Every second I tried to calm down, I reminded myself that Mellanie still sat in the warehouse, taken over by whatever it was that got her and my mind couldn't help going to terrible places.
I immediately thought about never seeing her again, about her lying dead, bloodied and ruined at the hands of the man in the white coat. I thought of her happy spirit leaving her body, of never having her there to tell me to breathe, of never feeling her hands through my hair or on my face again, of never hearing her voice. The hand around my throat tightened familiarly, and I didn't have the strength to think about breathing correctly. All of the crying had caused me to breathe like I had the hiccups, with sharp painful intakes of breath that I couldn't control. It wasn't long until I felt like I couldn't breathe at all and part of me didn't care anymore.
"Breathe, Ambrosia," the white King said impatiently, "Breathe."
"I- I- ca- can't" I said, words difficult to form around the sharp intakes I couldn't control.
The white King grabbed my shoulders and turned me towards him. "I know you're stronger than this. You can do it. All you have to do is breathe."
