Katie sank to her knees in the center of the painted black street and heaved. She threw up...not once, but twice. "Oh, this sucks," she groaned. Wiping her mouth with a jacket sleeve, Katie lifted her dark eyes upward and warily glanced about. She shuddered. The Roach Hotel was a place she had seen many times before on television, but had never once ever even wished to visit in person...and for good reason. A 'pair-of-red-eyes' kind of reason. And if on cue, the two crimson glowing objects appeared in the darkness and turned her way.
"Shit!"
The digital, undulating growl of R.R.O.A.C.H. One sent cold chills down the young woman's spine as the machine emerged from the shadows and into the light. It crept toward her, the armor plating covering its body shimmering under the red overhead streetlight.
She could not help herself. She screamed.
Katie's fear momentarily arrested as the waves of nausea once again returned to slam against the shores of her midsection. Shakily she attempted to stand and run, desperately wishing to escape the ever-approaching threat of the R.R.O.A.C.H.
The final killing machine jumped forward and into the air, its sawblade teeth rotating to life. Like a missile, it flew toward the young woman's head.
Katie succumbed to the cramping in her abdomen and her knees buckled. She fell back to the ground and began heaving.
R.R.O.A.C.H. One sailed harmlessly over Katie, barely missing its vomiting, intended target.
The young woman lifted her blood-shot eyes just in time to witness the killing machine zoom over her head and crash violently into an old newspaper stand behind her.
Two gunshots rang out and Katie flinched.
"Whoever you are, stay down!" a man barked from the dark.
Katie turned her head at the issuance of the command and witnessed two people emerge from a side street. She could see it was Parker followed closely by Addy...just like on television. The pair immediately split with Parker running toward the R.R.O.A.C.H.'s head and Addy toward the rear. They were both apparently attempting to keep the machine away from her.
Unit One bellowed. It spun and turned its attention away from Katie toward the more lethal threat of the two neutrino ejecting targets quickly approaching it; the one with a weapon.
Katie, forcing the nausea and fear away, suddenly remembered something. She clawed at her jacket pocket and eventually extracted the energy pistol. "P-p-parker..." she whimpered. Katie sat up and cleared her throat to try one more time. "Parker!!!"
<<*>>
Three times, Parker pulled the trigger on his 9mm. He did not hear the girl shouting his name over the gunshots that echoed through the empty streets.
Click. Click.
"Shit!" Parker exclaimed. "I'm out of ammo, Addy, but I might have some more in my bag...whoa!"
The killing machine lunged forward toward Parker, only missing him by centimeters.
"I'll get its attention. See if you can find another clip!" Addy shouted and put her fingers to her lips to whistle. "Come and get me, Roach!"
"Parker Raymond!!! Use this!!!" yelled a feminine voice from behind him.
Parker turned. He nearly fell backwards as his eyes landed on the woman calling him from the middle of the street. "What in the hell!?!! Kate? I, uh...""
"Here!" the young woman said as she stood up and tossed the pistol toward him.
The weapon hit the immobilized Parker in the chest and then clattered to the ground. The action did not seem to shake him from his oddly frozen state.
"Idiot! What are you doing!?!! Pick it up!" Addy yelled as the R.R.O.A.C.H. quickly turned its attention toward her. She darted to the left and ran behind an old taxi to avoid being minced by the R.R.O.A.C.H.'s buzzing teeth. "...pick it up and kill this damn thing before it kills us all!"
"Right," Parker said, and slipped his 9mm pistol into the waistband in the small of his back. After taking one additional confused look at Katie, snatched up the weapon from the road. The R.R.O.A.C.H., now, with its mid-section on the roof of the taxi cab and its head looming over Addy, had its back to Parker. The young man squeezed off a volley of blue energy blasts into the exhaust louvers covering the machine's rear engine.
With an electronic cry, the R.R.O.A.C.H. began to quake. It slinked from the rusty automobile and spun, attempting to locate the source of the energy blasts.
Parker pulled the trigger on the energy gun with one hand and as he did, removed the haversack from his body with the other. He turned his head. Over his shoulder he could see the girl that looked like Kate, her face illuminated by the blue electrical expulsions of the pistol in his hand. "Hey, you! Here. Please, don't drop this!"
"Okay."
Parker tossed the bag toward Katie's outstretched fingers. "Look for a clip of bullets in ther..."
"Oh, it's Broadway! You're still alive!!!"
"How did she know about Broadway, unless...unless she was from somewhere outside and had been watching this whole thing. Who was she and where did she come from? Why in the hell did she look like Kate?" Parker was confused, but kept firing even as the R.R.O.A.C.H. continued to advance. "...I need those bullets!"
Taking a knee, the girl removed the frightened, fidgety Broadway from the bag and held the furry kitten against her chest tightly. She searched Parker's haversack with her free hand for a few seconds and then stopped. With a look of triumph, the young woman extracted a clip of bullets. "Here!"
Parker began backing up and reached behind him indicating she should hand him the clip.
With the magazine of bullets now in hand, Parker yelled at Addy. "Take this, Addy!" Realizing the R.R.O.A.C.H. was now too close to the girl and Broadway, Parker ran toward it and then angled to the left. The mechanical beast turned in place and charged after him.
Parker chucked the energy weapon toward Addy. Next, he extracted his 9mm, ejected the spent magazine, and shoved the new one in place. "Time to end this!"
Addy opened fire on the R.R.O.A.C.H. Its legs faltered.
Parker raced toward a park bench and jumped. He placed one foot on the back of the wood and metal seating and leapt even higher toward the brick wall of a building. Bounding to the bottom level of a vertical row of fire escapes, Parker stopped and looked over the railing. He waited until the R.R.O.A.C.H. was immediately below him and then jumped.
<<*>>
Someone in the Roach Hotel audience yelled out, "It's Katie! Katie Fentz...you know the girl who won the car!?!!"
"...how did she get in there!?!!" yelled another man wearing an orange Roach Hotel shirt and bandanna over his face. He un-balled his fists as he continued to watch the video monitors.
"Hey, look! She's holding Broadway!"
The fighting began to subside as curiosity swept the combatants.
Even the U.N. Riot Squad lowered their batons and backed away in sudden, confused interest.
All heads turned toward the screens lining the walls inside and outside of the studio. Every man, woman, and child gasped and held their collective breaths as Parker launched from the fire escape.
YOU ARE READING
Voynich Shift - Season One (COMPLETED)
Science FictionParker Raymond recently inherited his estranged grandfather's large plantation home in Savannah, Georgia. The Spanish Moss hanging from the estate's large oaks, its massive gardens, and a near endless bank account were, in the end, not what captured...
