Earthbound (10 page)

“You know they did no such thing. Bank
regulations. When there’s a change in personnel, headquarters must
send a representative to change the combination on the safe. And
that hasn’t happened yet, has it?” Frank nodded his head yes, but
that slowly gave way to no. “So how many people alive know the
combination? You? And… me?” Frank nodded his head yes. “Down on the
floor Frank,” Pace instructed. “Face down. I’m not going to shoot
you, but my partner would. He wants to, actually. Doesn’t like your
face much.” Frank took a look at me and believed Pace. He leapt
down to the floor and covered his face in his hands. Pace took a
moment to lean down next to him and pried a hand away from his
face. “But I like your face Frank. It’s a good face.”

“Pace,” I interrupted, “want to get going on
this?”

Pace nodded, hopped up and headed to the
safe. He turned the dial effortlessly, as if he’d opened the safe a
hundred times. Which, of course, he had.

As he turned the crank and pulled the door
open, I was a little surprised by what I saw. I dunno, I guess I
expected the safe to be much bigger. Instead it was maybe two feet
deep, with a couple dozen shelves filled with containers of gold
coins. I guess our settlement was poorer than I thought.

Pace grabbed a couple of shoulder bags that
were resting on a chair behind a nearby desk. He filled one of them
with coins until it was full, and then stepped over Frank’s stiff
body to hand the bag to me. I placed it on my shoulder. It was not
quite as heavy as I’d expected, but I liked it.

I felt Mrs. Johnson squirming a bit. Wasn’t
sure if it was fear, or something else. Some things are best not
considered.

Pace filled the other bag to the brim with
coins. He hoisted the bag on his shoulder as he took the few
remaining coins and placed some of them in his pockets. Then he
leaned down and placed a few in Frank’s pocket. “A little something
extra in your paycheck this month,” he whispered in Frank’s ear. “A
bonus for being Employee of the Month.” Then Pace stepped over
Frank, but Frank somehow had the balls to grab Pace by the boot. He
wasn’t trying to stop him though. He just wanted to be heard.

“You sure you want do to this, Pace?” Frank
asked.

Pace didn’t hesitate. “Oh yes I do.” With his
foot released, Pace crossed to Mrs. Johnson, took her hand and
placed a bunch of coins in her palm. “Mrs. Johnson, I was once your
star pupil, wasn’t I?” She nodded with agreement. “How’d I turn
out?”

Pace flipped the sign back to OPEN, unlocked
the door and stepped outside.

I moved away from Mrs. Johnson with my back
toward the entrance. “I’ll be waiting until Pace brings up the
horses,” I announced. Don’t move until you hear our hoofbeats run
off. Remember, I’m standing outside with my gun.” I lied. I was to
do no such thing. I tipped my hat to Mrs. Johnson. “Mrs. Johnson,
don’t feel badly about how things turned out. I appreciate your
efforts.”

And with that, I exited and closed the door
behind me. I concealed my revolver and saw that Pace had this
shit-eating grin. We untied our horses at the hitching post.

“That was easy,” I said.

“Like I said. It was a good plan.”

“Can you believe – Mrs. Johnson. Of all
people.”

“We’re going to give that poor lady a
complex.”

“How much do you think is in there? Two,
three hundred?”

“Does it matter?”

Before we mounted our horses we both heard
something. An alarm bell started ringing. We glanced at each
other.

“That shit Frank pulled the alarm!”

“What do we do now?” I asked. I knew that
alarm would trigger Boze and his Nuggets going to the armory and
breaking out the rifles. And there was no telling which townsfolk
might want to try to stop us beforehand, even unarmed.

We mounted quickly. “Which direction? North
or south?” I asked.

“I’m not sure, we didn’t get this far into
planning… north? Back into town. No one knows it’s us yet. Just
keep smiling.”

We rode calmly up the street. Some townsfolk
started heading toward the bank. They were looking at us funny.
Maybe it looked funny that we were the only ones walking away from
the alarm. I remember smiling and nodding to the townsfolk as we
passed. That’s expected from Pace, but from me – they must have
thought I was up to something. And, of course, I was.

“Let’s ride up past the General Store, then
we can break for the river.”

Maybe that was a good plan, I dunno, won’t
ever know because it got interrupted.

Hoofbeats.

“Boze!” I shouted. I tugged at the reins to
have Charon start running, but in what direction? It sounded like
the hoofbeats were coming from every direction. Cause they were.
Boze came down Main Street from the north. Other Nuggets came up
from the east and west. Pace and I turned our horses south, the
only available direction, but one of the Nuggets rode up quickly to
block that path. We were surrounded.

Pace remained smiling, cool as could be.
“What seems to be the problem, Boze?”

Boze pointed his shotgun at us as the other
Nuggets did the same.

“The bank alarm rings, and here are you two,
conveniently riding up Main Street,” Boze said. “Saddlebags looking
mighty heavy. Mind if we take a look?”

I’d never been in a shootout before. Never
seen one either. My dad did of course. Didn’t work out well for
him. Probably wouldn’t work out good for me either. Hah. And as
much as Pace might like to think, there’s no plan for this sorta
thing. I reached under my coat and put my hand on my revolver.

“Hands where I can see ‘em Ash,” Boze
said.

Didn’t like that much.

“Now Boze,” Pace interjected, pouring on the
charm. “Whatever makes you think we have anything to do with the
bank robbery?”

Boze just started back and nodded his head in
a direction behind us. There was good old Frank, standing on the
front stoop of the bank, pointing his bony finger at us. Thanks
Frank, thought we were pals.

Pace and I exchanged a look.

“Jail’s not an option, right?” Pace
asked.

“Nope,” I said. So we both simultaneously
drew our revolvers. I hoped our target practice was enough. It was
time to find out. See how many we could shoot before they could
shoot us.

This was the moment I’d been waiting for,
right? A weapon in my hand. Ready to be like my father, just the
way everyone expected me to be. A part of me wanted it too. Wanted
to feel what it would be like to take a human life. All I had to do
was squeeze the trigger.

But that didn’t happen. I almost wished it
had. It would have been easier to handle than what happened
next.

We heard a new sound. Kind of a low rumble at
first, hard to hear over the high-pitched ring of the alarm bell.
As it got louder, it was clear it wasn’t the sort of sound we were
used to hearing. It was coming up from the south. I looked down and
saw that some of the townsfolk had stopped cold and were staring
out behind us. Others were walking – no, running – in the other
direction.

Pace and I glanced at each other.

“What is that?” I asked.

“No idea,” he replied.

I saw the Nugget to the south looking behind
him, Lister his name is, dumb as dirt. Lister started squealing
like a pig and then right quick he rode off to the west. What the
eff scared him off? By that point, pretty much everyone was running
anyway. And then that’s when it hit me. Or nearly hit me. A scorch
of heat that grazed my arm. I’d been shot at. But not by a gun. It
wasn’t a bullet. It was something else. And the sound that
accompanied it. Like a high-pitched wheeze. There was another. Then
another. I felt blasts of heat getting closer and closer to my
body. I looked at Pace, who was as confused as me, and then we both
turned around.

We saw a sight I had a hard time
understanding. On the horizon was metal. Lots of metal. Dulled
metal to be sure. And it was moving toward us, at kind of a low
speed but it was steady. And whatever it was sent blasts of heat
toward us. One blast connected with the ground at my feet. The
earth sizzled. And that metal kept getting closer.

“What the eff is that?”

As I would soon learn, they’re called
Mankins.

I would come to understand them, but in that
moment I just feared them.

Keep in mind, I’d lived my entire life in
that settlement, and never had I seen anything remotely like that.
No one had. There were so many questions – what were they, were did
they come from, why were they there. But I couldn’t think about any
of that. Cause I was about to get fried by laser fire.

One by one the Nuggets hightailed it away.
Our pathway to freedom was clear if we weren’t sandwiched between
Boze and whatever was coming towards us.

“W-what is that?” Boze stammered. What a
lawman. He’s an embarrassment, that’s what he is.

Another volley of laser fire came our way.
Pace and I instinctively rode our horses out of the way of the
blasts – me to the left and Pace to the right. We both hid behind
the sides of buildings, for what good that would do us. The
building I was behind took a few hits – I wasn’t sure it could
handle many more.

And dumb Boze just sat on his horse there, in
the middle of the street. I think the expression is paralyzed with
fear. In that moment I learned what that looked like. And it’s
effing stupid unless you wanna die.

“Get the eff out of the street!” I yelled to
Boze.

“Y-yeah!” Boze feebly responded before he
managed to turn his horse around and escape to the north. Dumb
effer. At least our path to freedom was clearer. Sorta.

“Pace!” I shouted. “I’m supposing you weren’t
expecting this!”

“Nope!”

Footsteps caught my ear. I saw Frank running
toward us. Or to be more precise, he was running away from those
approaching robots. Mrs. Johnson was hustling along right behind
him, holding her dress up to try not to trip over it. They were
just trying to get away, fearing that those metal things would
destroy anything in their path. And I think that’s just exactly
what those robots were going to do.

“Frank!” Pace shouted. “Where did those
things come from?”

“Oh my God!” Frank whined. “Don’t let them
kill me-”

Then Frank hit the dirt road face first. One
of those lasers had nicked him in the heel. He’d be all right I
suppose. Or at least until those robots trampled over him. Mrs.
Johnson screamed. She wasn’t a fast enough runner. She was in some
danger. I promised her I’d keep her safe.

Pace and I caught each other’s glance. We
both knew what we had to do.

We both dismounted in unison. Pace rolled to
the dirt, avoiding laser fire as best he could, until he reached
Frank. As he tried to grab hold of Frank’s wiggling arms, Frank
couldn’t stop squealing. “You did this! You brought them here!”

Pace protested. “I did no such thing!” Then
Pace wrangled Frank against his will, like a loose hog, and dragged
him to the relative safety of the nearby front steps of the
blacksmith’s shop. At least there was a wrought iron fence around
the porch to hide behind.

As for me, I’m not really nimble enough to
roll to the ground. So I did what I do. I just ran into the firing
range, hoisted Mrs. Johnson up over my shoulder and ran her over to
blacksmith’s porch where Pace and Frank were jockeying for cover.
As I dropped her to the wood floorboards as gently as the situation
would allow, Mrs. Johnson caught my eye. She seemed almost soulful.
I swear I thought she was gonna kiss me. But there wasn’t time for
that, regardless of how I felt about it. I grabbed Pace by the
shirt collar.

“Those things want
us
,” I yelled. “Let’s pull their fire away from these
people!”

Pace nodded. We drew our revolvers and pulled
back the hammers. We exhaled deeply and ran back out into the
street, firing freely.

Those metal creatures were getting close
enough to take shape in my eyes. They weren’t that tall, maybe four
feet. And they were fairly lean, with cylindrical torsos maybe I
dunno a foot and a half wide. Their weapons, some kind of gun
turrets I’d never seen before, were mounted on either side of their
shell. And when they fired, it looked like their whole upper torso
seemed to swing left or right for aim, like it was rotating its
axis on a ball bearing or something. It had what resembled a head,
which I figured probably housed the robot’s brain or something like
that. And they just kept rolling forward on multiple wheels
spinning around on metal tracks.

Despite all that fancy technology, the one
thing that was keeping us alive was their targeting system. It was
weak, almost haphazard. If they didn’t improve their aim, we’d have
a chance to beat them.

I picked out one lucky robot for some target
practice. My first couple of shots connected in its torso. That did
seem to momentarily slow it down but not stop it. Then I aimed for
one of its weapons and my bullet was able to bend it and make it
blow out smoke. I guessed that worked, but it still kept coming. So
I took aim at its brain. Blam. It shot backwards, its wheels
spinning off of its tracks.

“The heads,” I shouted. “Shoot for their
heads!”

I had to reload, so I had a second to see how
Pace was handling himself. He was putting too much of his arm into
his shots, but not bad really. I’m not sure he was good enough to
actually aim for their heads but he did manage to fell a few,
either by chance or on purpose.

One thing I noticed – the robots were grouped
very close to each other. Maybe I could use that to my advantage. I
shot one in the side of its brain. It fell to the right, crashing
into the robot next to it and knocking that one over too. Kind of
like dominos. This was the kind of game I could grow to like.