I Am Automaton: A Military Science Fiction Novel (2 page)

There was a cartel member standing between him and his men. He was holding the burlap sack that was just removed from Peter’s head. There were two men with AK-47’s guarding the door, and another to Peter’s right polishing a machete with a dank rag.

Peter looked around and guessed that they were in some kind of a shack. It was close quarters, the walls were made of dilapidated corrugated tin
,
and through the chinks in the walls and
joints, he could see daylight and hear nothing but the breeze.

They were out of the city.

His head was spinning, but he recalled storming the store. He remembered shots being fired from within the store as soon as they breached the front door. He remembered his men being cut down.

The Navajas had gotten the drop on them. There would be no reinforcements. Not in time for what was left of them.

The man with the burlap sack spoke first.

“Well, good morning, senor.”

“My name is Sergeant Major Peter Birdsall of the United States Army…”

“I know who you are, pig.”

The other men chortled.

There were four of Peter’ men left kneeling in front of him. They had their hands on their heads and their legs crossed. They were in a perfect row. This was to be an execution.

“There are others on the way. If any harm comes to my men, you will be hunted to the ends of the earth.”

Peter tried to sound confident and forceful while trying not to choke on the dust flying around the shack.

The man tossed the burlap sack into Peter’s lap. “Senor, you are out in the middle of nowhere, no one knows where you are, and you are all alone.”

“
Well, I suggest you run now while you have the chance. Reinforcements are closing in.”

“Oh, we have enough time, you gringo pig.”

He produced a pistol and brandished it behind the captive soldier’s backs. Coward.

“When your reinforcements do show, they will see that it was not wise to interfere.”

He turned, placed his pistol to the back of one soldier’s head and—before Peter could voice any protest—pulled the trigger. Blood and grey matter sprayed the wall of the shack in front of them.

It was Corporal
Apone, husband and father of two young girls. Hell of a pool player. Peter’s friend.

“You BASTARD
…”

The man smirked and proceeded to stand behind the next man.

“STOP. I won’t tell you anything you want to know. Shooting my men will be useless,” Peter said hurriedly.

All of the Navajas laughed out loud. The man with the pistol spoke.

“Know? I don’t want to
know
anything from you, Sergeant.”

And he pulled the trigger. Private Wilson. Only child. Practical jokester and squad clown. Just last night he was trying to hit on a pair of rather buxom blonde twins and making a spectacle of failing at it.

Peter felt helpless. He could do nothing to slow this down. The man was going to shoot his squad in the head one-by-one to save time for working on him. Peter knew the machete was reserved for him to send their message.

The man walked up behind the next soldier who was now sobbing so hard that he was shaking violently. It was Private Rodriguez. Husband and father of three. Two boys and one little girl.

Peter didn’t know what to say.

“My name is Command Sergeant Major Peter Birdsall of the United States Army. Be advised that reinforcements are en route
…”

“Is that so?” the man mocked, and he blew Rodriguez’s brains out.

The last man, Private Wilcox, must’ve decided that he would rather chance an escape than be shot execution style in the back of the head.

He did not even make it to a standing position. The man with the machete buried it in his neck. Wilcox dropped to the ground and began writhing around and squirting blood all over the walls and dirt.

These savages were using nineteenth century melee weapons, farmers’ tools. It was their reputation, and it was supposed to serve as a deterrent to government, police, and outsiders.

The screams. Peter would never forget those screams that seemed to go on for minutes, his own personal eternity. The machete landed one final blow
, silencing them forever.

The man with the machete was wiping the blood off the blade with his rag and grinning wickedly at Peter. Peter now lost his cool. All of his men were gone, and he knew what was coming next.

“I’m going to kill you bastards!” His mouth foamed as he spat his very well meaning but futile threats, “Goddamned sons-of-bitches!”

His captors and would-be executioners laughed. One
of the men by the door to the shack cracked it open and peeked out.

“Nada.”

“Well,” gloated the man with the pistol, “it looks like your friends are not coming for you. You’re alone.”

That word was like a dagger in Peter’s heart. It sealed his fate, and any will he had left to survive evaporated in the hot summer air.

No. He had to keep strong. He had to remember his training. It was all he had right now. He attempted to focus on his surroundings.

He noticed some farming tools hanging on the walls, rusted blades hanging all around him. His chair was rickety and in all likelihood could easily be broken. The ground consisted of dry dirt that could create dust when disturbed.

The two men watching the door now came around to either side of Peter. They grabbed him by his shoulders and restrained him, pressing him hard into the seat of his chair. The chair creaked in protest and wobbled under the weight.

The man with the machete was now brandishing it, toying with Peter like a cat toys with a mouse before the kill. He pulled out his own Mini-com unit, toggled the rotator button with a filthy thumb, and pressed play.

The shack was filled with the sounds of loud music. Trumpets blared as a man wailed over them in Spanish. The song was meant to camouflage Peter’s own wailing. In his terror, Peter almost found it comical.

The man put the Mini-com on the dusty floor and walked up to Peter. But Peter remained silent, and he struggled against the grip of his restrainers, testing their strength. He was seated, and they were putting all of their weight on him. There was no way he was shaking loose.

“Well, mi amigo,” jeered the man with the pistol, “you have the honor of being our message to the United States to stay out of our business. Now how about you give me head.”

The other men chuckled at the pun. At least Peter hoped it was just a pun.

Peter did not look at the machete. He kept it in his periphery. He glared at his tormentor, who nodded to the man with the machete.

The two men holding Peter bent him forward in his chair, sticking his neck out. Peter’s pulse was pounding in his ears. His muscles wanted to tense, but he used his will to keep them loose. It was important that he stayed loose.

The man with the machete stepped forward, lining the blade up with Peter’s neck. Peter began to slacken as the man brought the machete over his head.

All of
a sudden, Peter lurched upward. The two men restraining him reacted by pushing him down with all of their weight…

And he let them.

The chair broke apart under the force, sending Peter crashing to the ground and his two restrainers falling over him as the third man brought the machete down on them.

The one on Peter’s right had the back of his neck cleaved. The shack was filled with more blood and shrieks.

Peter rolled from underneath the other man, snatching up dry dirt in his hands as he stood, and he threw it in the eyes of the man holding the pistol.

“Matalo!”

Peter, hands still bound, sidestepped a machete strike and double hammer-fisted the attacker, breaking his right clavicle. The Navajas dropped the machete as his right arm became useless.

Peter snatched the machete from the gang member’s limp arm. He turned and slashed at the man with the pistol and then the other man who had restrained him in the chair in a frenzy of self-preservation…

Peter, covered in other men’s blood, caught his breath, as he stood in the red-spattered room full of slain men to the sound of a bad trumpet solo.

Grateful that he was alive and the singer was taking a break, he kneeled in the dirt. He placed the machete in between his knees, blade facing up. He rubbed his bindings back and forth until they were severed.

He stood up, machete in hand, and stumbled to the door of the shack. He peeked outside and saw that he was in one of several tin shacks on the side of a steep dirt hill. At the top was a house.

He had to move, as there would be other Navajas. The music likely served its purpose, and they probably heard nothing.
However, once they found their dead compatriots in the shack, they would be looking for him.

He summoned what was left of his strength, and he crept out of the shack. The bright sun stung his eyes, and flies buzzed around his ears.

He made his way down the hill, stumbling to keep his balance, kicking up dust as he went. He tried to run from shack to shack, minimizing his exposure to those that might be watching in the house above.

He was weak, his muscles ached, and he likely had a concussion, but he staggered down the hill. Behind
him, he heard men yelling in Spanish.

He made it to street level and began frantically waving his arms for cars to stop, but they only swerved around him. He was nearly run down by a car flashing an advertisement for coffins on its hood holo-panel.

He crossed the road, passing cars be damned, and descended another hill and began to wander towards town.

***

Peter wandered into town, and having put some distance between himself and the Navajas house, he began to slow his pace so as not to draw attention to himself.

En
route, he had stripped down to his undershirt. Walking in camouflage pants and a sweat-stained undershirt, he looked like a local…or so he hoped.

He thought he heard a commotion down the block behind him, so he ducked down an alleyway where a prostitute was with a man behind a dumpster.

He shambled past them, his exhaustion catching up with him, and they did not pay him any regard. His head began to pound, his muscles ached terribly, and the alley before him began to spin.

As he collapsed to the ground and leaned against the
wall, he fingered his broken teeth. The dumpster now blocked his view to the street and the street’s view of him. He leaned his head back against the wall as he listened to the sounds of the couple struggling next to him.

A young woman, another prostitute, poked her head out through a shabby storm door into the alley and saw Peter lying against the wall. He figured that he must’ve looked awful.

She said something to the other prostitute in Spanish, who gave him a quick look, shrugged, and continued her work. Her customer was now looking uncomfortable at the sight of Peter.

They all heard yelling from the street—Navajas—and the customer pulled himself away from his date and fled the other way down the alley. The abandoned girl, having already accepted payment, only shrugged casually at the premature evacuation.

The one in the doorway yelled something to her. Peter thought he heard the word “Navajas,” but in his condition, he couldn’t be sure.

The other one was arguing with her, huffing in protest, but in the end
, both girls hoisted Peter up and threw each of his arms around each of their shoulders. They half-carried, half-dragged his sorry carcass into the cathouse.

Peter slipped in and out of consciousness. He remembered being lowered onto a bed. As they undressed him, he saw a pile of used towels huddled in a corner.

When he woke again, he was naked, and the girl who poked her head into the alley was washing him with a wet rag.

He tried to speak, but she put her fingers to her lips and said “Shhh.” He did not argue. He closed his eyes.

He was jolted awake by some kind of commotion in the front of the house. He picked his head up and looked around at the cracked plaster walls painted in a faded yellow. There was a condom advertisement flashing up on the wall next to where he lay. He was alone.

He wanted to call out, but given the commotion
, thought better of it.

The girl who was nursing him burst into the room and started telling him something frantic in Spanish. She was holding his Mini-com Multi-tasker in her hands trying to operate it, but she didn’t know how. She wouldn’t—it was army issue.

“Ma’am, what are you doing with my…”

She was muttering to herself in frustration until she finally pressed a button and the payment kiosk by the bed registered with a tone indicating that payment had been made.

She began to take off her clothes. When he tried to say something, she shushed him again. She was young and firm and in her early twenties. He was so confused. Why was she…?

She got onto the bed and mounted him, but she did not move. She only looked anxiously at the doorway, waiting.