The Pandora Index (Older work)

The South Passage

Daniel Walker

I looked up at the sky and I felt a few small raindrops fall on my face. I sighed. Just perfect, as if this day couldn't possibly get worse.

The guy in android armor who was carrying me suddenly tripped over a pallet and we both tumbled over each other. We landed in a cold, dirty puddle and since my hands were tide I couldn't do anything but lay there in it. Thankfully though, the rag in my mouth had come loose and I was able to spit it out.

"Damn, are you okay?" The woman asked, not specifying to which of us she was asking.

The man grunted and nodded. He bent over to try to pick me up again.

"No, no!" I swatted at the man with my boot, "Just let me walk on my own! I don't feel like drowning in a puddle today!"

The man in the grinning mask looked up at the woman, "Heavier... than he looks."

"Fine." The woman said. She pulled a small blade out of a pouch that was clipped on her belt, crouched down in front of me, and cut the cables around my legs in one swift motion. She glared at me with her dull blue eyes through the skeletal mask. The Cordigral Ring around her pupil was a dark green color, "Don't do anything stupid." She ordered.

I glared back at her. I'm soaked in piss-smelling water, surrounded by murderers, and not in the best of moods, so making things worse for me wasn't exactly at the top of my to-do list. The man pulled me up to my feet with one hand. The word "walk" was all the encouragement I needed.

We kept walking for about ten minutes before my captors suddenly stopped. We stood there in silence for a while. The sound of a rescue android's gears shifting and grinding came from around the next corner. I was tempted to just run over to it, but I still don't know the woman's ability. She could be able to melt people with her mind for all I now.

"We need to go back, now." the woman whispered.

We turned and started going back the way we came we suddenly stopped in our tracks.

At the end of the alley was an abomination of an android. It looked like a hunchback that had three claw-like arms which revolved around its one circular red eye. It stood crookedly on four legs that resembled a mechanical cross between a horse and a lizard.

Its eye was focused on us. Two of the three arms deployed triple barreled guns and were now pointed in our direction. It let out a piercing wail and another android came around the corner behind us.

This one looked like a normal security android but it behaved just as viciously, it made shrill clicks and squeals. A crude red and black paint job formed the a letter "P" on its chest.

Garbled words burst from the smaller android's faceplate, "Searching for subject: Walker, Daniel."

The man quickly placed a large hand over my mouth.

The android continued, not noticing the sudden movement, "Identity code: eight, three, five, eight, zero, six."

There was silence for a while. The only sounds were the clicks and whirs of the androids' engines. The larger android suddenly uttered a low foghorn-like sound, a grid-like laser projection quickly flashed across each of our faces -or rather just my face, since I didn't have a mask, and a loud garbled message erupted from its face.

"HOSTAGE IDENTIFIED, TERMINATING HOSTILES."

The android monster's tri-barreled miniguns began spinning and gunshots echoed through the dark alley.

...

I opened my eyes and looked up to see the woman. She was standing with her arms outstretched towards the androids.The walls around us were crumbling from the impact of the bullets. Whatever she was doing was redirecting the bullets away from us.