Chapter Fifteen
MANIFEST DESTINY
“Any change in their conditions?” NoMan asked, scanning the horizon as he stood on the building’s roof.
Archie Goodwin, now wearing the scarlet armor, ran the rest of the way onto the roof. “Warden just reverted; his five hours were up. They’re both still unconscious, but I think we’re out of the woods. Brain waves are normalizing. What have you got?”
NoMan was staring at the expanse of the ocean. “Evidently an aircraft carrier tripped the parameter sensors. Probably a support vessel that accidentally veered too close.”
“That’s forty miles, we might...”
“There,” NoMan said and pointed near the horizon.
Red Knight swiveled his head. The armor’s New Genesis circuitry heard his unspoken order and magnified the visual on the helmet’s display plate. Five hulking humanoid robots in flight came into view. They were perhaps 50 feet tall, purple armor gleaming. Their impassive, menacing faces glared back at him.
“Sentinels, I presume…” Red Knight said.
The robots’ chests bulged outward and irised open, unmasking the sharp angular projections of weapon pods. The largest missile in each robot’s pod leapt from their guide-rails and ignited, spearing toward the clinic, itself.
Oh, God, Archie thought. They know they’re here.
Red Knight was instantly in the air. He cracked the sound barrier a second later. He thumbed the communications stud on the wrist of the armor, opening a channel to NoMan. “I’ll hold them off for as long as I can. Call whatever’s left of the JLA for help.”
“Affirmative.”
“I don’t need to say it, Anthony....”
“They will be safe. You have my word.”
His last conversation with his friend completed, Archie clicked the communication system off and concentrated on the five missiles speeding towards him. He rubbed his palms and aimed. A white-hot energy beam lanced from each palm, spearing two missiles, blowing them up. Red Knight then swept the beams up toward the surviving three missiles. As the beams approached them, the missiles dived and dodged in complex evasion patters, worming around the rays and speeding past the Red Knight.
Red Knight turned around in the air and chased after them. He heard an urgent “ping” in his head and looked up. Two armored American Knights dived at him from out of the sun.
Red Knight jinked madly from side to side, weaving between four sapphire blue laser beams that left steaming trails in the ocean water far below.
“Your day is over, Goodwin,” Red Knight’s radio hissed in his ear.
The voice was young, arrogant. Archie had heard it before; Benjamin Cole. Archie had read the file NoMan had prepared on him. He was part of the second series of American Knights. While the first three American Knights were honest, if misguided, soldiers, all five of the second series were like Cole: Legion’s warders on the team. Cole was an ex. SEAL and CIA assassin with ties to atrocities and Sunderland Corporation adventurism throughout the globe; a man who was now, through the largess of Legion and AIM, precisely what the psych. screenings indicated his borderline sociopathic personality always lusted after being: A superhero.
“It’s our turn now. In a few years, no one will even remember that you were ever here,” Cole said.
Red Knight ignored him and increased his speed. The three missiles bore down on the island ahead of him.
Red Knight fired his left particle cannon in a continuous beam at the first missile. The missile swerved around it and directly into a single shot from Red Knight’s right hand cannon. Archie smiled grimly behind the helmet: They could dodge one beam, but not two.
Red Knight repeated the process with the second of the three missiles. As the missile exploded, Archie’s back suddenly became uncomfortably hot. He looked back and despite his polarized sensors, he still saw a brilliant blue glare coming from behind.
The American Knight who wasn’t Cole started giggling over the radio.
The last missile raced downward toward the clinic. Archie smoothed his descent and steadied his aim. He felt the skin of his back blistering. A warning alarm buzzed in his right ear and the message “Danger: Overheating” sprang up in the center of his visual display.
“Clear!” Archie hissed and the message went away. He was too close. If he missed the missile now, he’d hit the clinic.
“Where are your jokes now, Goodwin?” Cole asked. Braying laughter from the other one now.
Archie could hear a faint sizzling reverberating through the armor as the lasers reached the last layer of armor plating.
He had time for one shot.
Steady.
A shrill siren rang. Fire poured onto his bare flesh. “Warning: Armor Breach!” blinked urgently on the display.
Archie screamed and fired a single pulse from each gauntlet. The missile exploded into a cloud of fire directly in front of him. Red Knight dived down toward the water, laser beams flashing behind him, finally loosing their target.
As his back roared with agony, Archie wondered if he was playing possum or not. One of the American Knights, the giggler, wafted leisurely down towards him. By now, his laughter had mellowed into a husky chuckle. He ignited his force sword.
Red Knight, still hurtling downward, suddenly spun around in the air as the American Knight drew back to deliver a killing blow to Red Knight’s damaged back.
“My turn,” Red Knight said, now facing the American Knight.
He unloaded both particle cannons at full power right into the American Knight’s chest at a range of about twelve feet. The last thing Red Knight hit this hard was Magneto’s fortress. There was a bright white flash and a quick screech of feedback over the radio, and the American Knight was utterly gone.
“You’re dead, old man,” Cole growled and plunged after Red Knight. Cole’s force sword sprung to life in his right hand, its white energy blade humming.
Every muscle groaning in protest, Red Knight pulled out of his dive and skimmed the water’s surface. He snapshot a particle blast from his right hand at Cole, but missed. Red Knight then rolled, bringing his left hand up, and fired again.
Cole arched over the swerving beam like a high jumper just edging the stick. He moved like an eel in the air, closing inexorably.
Red Knight continued firing stubbornly for a second too long and let Cole get too close. Red Knight pulled back at the last second, but it was too late. A shower of sparks erupted from the front of the Red Knight’s armor as Cole sliced a section of the chest plate away.
Red Knight tumbled, his legs dropping into the water briefly, power cutting out for a microsecond as linkages reconnected to compensate for the damaged sections. Not another integrity breach, but a bad hit.
Cole’s momentum carried him away from his target. He spun in the air and brought his sword back up into a ready position. “You’re getting sluggish, old man. You’re not fit to wear that armor. You’re just Irish gutter trash.”
Red Knight gained some altitude and a broadsword blade of translucent yellow and orange fire extended and solidified from his clenched right hand.
“Oh, good,” Cole said cheerily, slowing his approach. “I’ve seen footage of your dead predecessor’s sword-play. You’ve never had an ounce of his panache, you know. He was still just an amateur, of course, but at least he was a talented one. You never deserved his mantle.”
Red Knight brought his flaming blade up, two-handed, and hovered still in the air. Archie’s back still screamed with every motion. His breath was ragged.
“I was on the Olympic fencing team, you know?” Cole said, drawing ever closer, yet staying in a relaxed defensive posture. “I’ve been looking forward to this. I’m so very glad you brought out your force sword.”
“It’s... not a.... force sword....” Archie managed to croak and lunged at Cole.
Cole stifled a chuckle at the wounded man’s graceless attack. With one hand, Cole almost casually brought his force sword into place to parry his opponent’s downward swing. Cole was already planning his fatal riposte as he watched Red Knight’s magical, ethereal blade of elemental fire pass right through his own force sword of simple energy and cleave his right arm off at the shoulder.
Archie didn’t have to hear Cole’s shriek, as Cole’s radio cut out instantly, his armor’s power system breaking down. Angry, sharp shocks of blue electricity swarmed over Cole’s stump.
Archie watched dispassionately as the American Knight plunged into the cresting waves far below. Archie wondered if he should feel something, but couldn’t. He was numb. His back was constant, livid pain. It hurt to breath.
Large shadows then passed over him. He looked up. It was the Sentinels, flying overhead, continuing for the island.
The Red Knight hit his boosters. His sword disappeared and he charged his particle cannons. He fired on the first Sentinel, blasting a ten-foot diameter hole through its chest. It fell, burning, into the ocean. It submerged and a moment later a huge plume of water jutted into the air as salt water flooded the Sentinel’s exposed, over-heated batteries, causing them to rupture and detonate.
The other four Sentinels turned in the air to face the Red Knight. Orange force beams flashed from the robots’ hands. Red Knight dodged three of the Sentinel’s blasts, but the fourth one hit him square.
Red Knight’s world exploded. Once, he wouldn’t have even felt a shot like this, but the armor was now damaged; hell, he was now damaged. It felt like his bones were being smashed to powder and his back flayed. He ignored it all, fixated on the four hulking targets in his HUD. Knocked backward, he recovered and resumed his course, firing again. His particle beams pounded at the closest Sentinel, but were stopped by the robot’s now-active energy shield, the portion of the ghostly sphere that intersected the beams momentarily illuminated in a bluish halo of hyper-charged particles.
The Sentinels returned fire.
**********
Even in the secret underground hanger a mile from the clinic building, NoMan could still hear the faint sounds of explosions rumbling through the caverns.
With Annette slung over one shoulder and Warden over the other, both still unconscious, NoMan ran towards the aircraft that sat on the elevating platform in the center of the chamber. The aircraft was a pet prototype project of Tony Stark; an experimental jet that had the remarkable ability to take off, hover and land like a helicopter. Tony called this versatile airplane a VTOL craft, for Vertical Take Off and Landing. Everyone else called it the Humming Bird, and kept it fully fueled and ready to go at a moment’s notice should the need for a quick getaway ever arise.
Built for a pilot, co-pilot and passenger, NoMan loaded Annette and Warden into the cockpit and strapped them in. He ran over to a metal cabinet next to the hydraulics that would lift the platform to the island’s surface and retrieved two helmets. He returned to the Humming Bird and put a helmet on both of his passengers. NoMan then slid himself into the pilot’s seat and pulled the cockpit shut. He flipped four switches on the cockpit and the engines rumbled in response, warming up. He put on a headset and adjusted the mike near his mouth.
NoMan flipped on a screen to his right as then began activating the Humming Bird’s navigational systems. The screen on the right was tied into the island’s security system, and as the static resolved into a real image, NoMan was pleasantly surprised to see that the clinic was still standing--although to be honest that had stopped mattering the moment NoMan had gotten Annette and Warden into the emergency tube. Red Knight was still doing a Herculean job of holding the Sentinels off. From just the flash of the battle NoMan witnessed before he switched external cameras, Red Knight’s armor was horribly battered, but he was now only facing only two Sentinels.
NoMan cycled through the security camera circuits until he found the camera located twenty feet above him, surveying the camouflaged horizontal hanger doors, almost utterly indistinguishable from the rest of the ground. NoMan tilted the small joystick underneath the screen and watched the outside view tilt upward toward the sky.
Three new Sentinels sped toward the island from the North. Archie had his hands full keeping the other robots occupied.
Obviously, NoMan was prepared for such a contingency.
NoMan removed a small remote control box from a pouch in his orange jumpsuit. He extended the antenna and pushed the box’s single button with his thumb.
At the other side of the island, a small, covered speedboat shot into the ocean and away from the island at top speed. It hadn’t taken NoMan very long for set up the autopilot or the two small space heaters under the boat’s armored canopy that would mimic two human beings’ thermal signatures.
NoMan watched as the three new Sentinels approaching the island suddenly veered in the air and turned to intercept the boat.
NoMan instantly hit the control lever for the hanger doors. Above, the camouflaged metal plates slid open, revealing the clear, blue sky above. Not even waiting for the hydraulic platform to raise to the surface, NoMan brought the engines to full burn and carefully lifted the Humming Bird up through the open doors and into the air.
NoMan checked the radar. The three fresh Sentinels were still headed back out to sea, intent on their quarry. The only Sentinels now close enough to intercept the Hummingbird were dancing in the air with Red Knight above the clinic building.
NoMan switched the craft’s flight moods and g-forces pushed NoMan and his unconscious passengers against the back of their seats as the Humming Bird sped over the island and gained altitude, nothing in front of them but blue sky and freedom.
**********
Pain!
The saltwater flooded over the jagged stump of Cole’s right shoulder. The Red Knight’s blade had instantly, neatly cauterized the wound, fusing together scorched flesh and melted steel. The pain was excruciating and only exacerbated by the armor’s emergency seals plunging into his shoulder a few inches above the stump, cutting off circulation from what was left of his arm.
Cole was starting to bob at the water’s surface. He only numbly realized that the armor’s emergency flotation system must have deployed; probably the armor’s disaster beacon had tripped, too. There was even a chance he would be rescued before he drowned in the armor from the water slowly leaking in from around the emergency seals at he shoulder. Not that he cared either way.
Cole’s mind
was a blood-rimmed fog of pain, rage and shame. Beaten! underhanded tricks... miserable little Mick... not a real
hero....never a real hero... didn’t deserve....
Cole’s HUD flicked on in front of him as the armor’s emergency batteries activated. Status indicators flashed and wavered uncertainly. The suit’s internal circuitry had been damaged and several primary systems were off-line, including his boosters and contra-grav. He barely noticed.
Beaten! He had to cheat....
Tricked.... Just a dirty mick that sleeps with kikes.... Just lucky....
Unpatriotic... Dirty....
...beat me....
His head lolled to the side and he looked out over the island. Suddenly, a small, strange looking jet aircraft lifted straight up into the air.
Cole’s eyes widened. He was fully briefed on his targets by National Security Advisor Sunderland, himself. Cole knew who was on this island; he knew who Archibald Goodwin was protecting and what she meant to him.
Cole knew who was trying to escape.
Cole lifted his left arm out of the water as the plane started to streak overhead. He made a fist, his arm shaking with pain. His HUD was still blinking diagnostics warnings; the armor had suffered a massive system shock, odds were his weapons were down.
Please.... God, please....
A blue thread of light lanced up through the air and shot through the aircraft’s fuselage.
**********
Sparks sputtered from the Humming Bird’s control panel and smoke filled the cockpit. NoMan’s face betrayed nothing except grim determination. They were loosing altitude and the engines were on fire, but at least the controls weren’t frozen.
Yet.
NoMan knew he could not ditch in the water, not with unconscious passengers onboard. He struggled to turn the Humming Bird around, scanning the water hoping to find the source of the surprise attack that had clipped their wings. He saw an armored figure with only one arm, limply floating off the coast of the island. NoMan tried to jink a little, in case the American Knight opened fire again.
A moment later the Humming Bird was over the island and going down fast. NoMan popped the deceleration parachutes and pulled back on the control stick with all his enhanced strength.
Trees and grass rushed up at them. At least the ground looked somewhat level. In a display of true optimism, NoMan lowered the landing gear and hit the flaps. As he surveyed the terrain, it appeared they would be crashing not terribly distant from where they took off.
NoMan had a healthy appreciation or irony, but now was not the time.
The Humming Bird’s landing gear touched down and almost instantly snapped. The aircraft’s silver nose plowed into the ground. NoMan bounced against his safety belts, and killed the engines. The Humming Bird skidded across the grass, spraying divots of dirt into the air. The left wing ran into a tree and was sheered off, the sudden shock sending what remained of the airframe briefly back into the air, pulling to the left. It crashed back down a moment later, the nose now pointing 35 degrees left to the direction of motion, and slid, sideways, to a stop.
NoMan tried to open the latch on the cockpit window, but it was stuck. He responded by punching off the top of the cockpit with one blow. He quickly unbuckled his two charges from their seats and examined them. Some bruises, but no broken bones, nothing serious.
He flung them both over his shoulder again and jumped down from the cockpit onto the ground. He ran for cover in case the plane exploded, but it didn’t.
The situation was becoming dire, but tactically simpler: NoMan had to keep Annette and Warden safe until either Red Knight had the opportunity to fly them all the safety or reinforcements from the Justice League arrived. The problem was NoMan had no idea when, or even if, either of those events would occur. Even without travel time factored in, the JLA had their own problems to deal with right now. As to Red Knight... The last NoMan had seen of him, he was starting to look a little ragged.
No matter. NoMan’s life had been defined by the belief that difficult tasks were the only ones worth doing.
NoMan ran over the flat land. They couldn’t stay out in the open like this. His invisibility cloak couldn’t hide all three of them. He hoped to make it back to the entrance to the underground hanger. The caverns would at least be a little safer.
NoMan heard a low rumble and looked up. He saw the three Sentinels, returning from chasing NoMan’s decoy boat, flying over the top of the island. They were headed for where the Humming Bird had crashed.
In other words, they were headed right for them.
NoMan regarded the Sentinels cutting them off carefully. J-13 sensor packages probably. AIM construction. Cheap, shoddy, low-resolution; even in enhanced combat mode. There was a good chance the Sentinels hadn’t yet even differentiated three separate targets at their current range.
The three purple goliaths landed not too far away. Not much time to think, but also not much time to regret. NoMan tested the well-oiled pistons in his arms and legs. They moved smoothly, with muted hums. He ran a quick system check just to make sure his last body had no hidden flaws that he should know about.
His last body.
If NoMan could have chosen how it was to end, this would not have been the way, but what he wanted had never really been important. That’s not what his life--flesh and plastic; human soul and sophisticated AI playing pretend--had ever been about. In his arms was the possible salvation of America and quite likely the world. It was clear what his duty was.
He placed Annette and Warden under an outcropping of rock and swathed the unconscious bodies in his invisibility cloak. They instantly winked out, leaving NoMan alone. He’d have to distract the Sentinels of course, divert them from looking over this area more closely, but that wouldn’t be difficult. NoMan ran over a small hill and down the grassy plane that lay beyond, toward the lumbering behemoths.
The three Sentinels watched him approach dispassionately. Their tiny CPUs were momentarily puzzled by this little robot’s sudden urge for suicide. Its attack was illogical, almost comical. It possessed no weapons that could scratch a Sentinel’s armor and it wasn’t strong enough to pose a physical threat. Although a structural scan indicated enhanced reflexes and speed, it was only slightly more durable than a normal human. It might evade them for a short time, but inevitable the Sentinels would adapt and crush the little tin man.
The Sentinels’ confusion bought NoMan precious seconds. He jumped in the air and landed on the side of the first Sentinel. He scurried up to its head, finding purchase for his fingers between purple armored plates. As he did, the Sentinel only dimly became aware of the danger.
NoMan braced his legs against the robot’s massive chin and pried off the seal plate covering the octagonal charge port that had unwisely been left open and primed by a maintenance tech. at the plant. NoMan wrenched a redundant positron coupling from his own right arm’s servo assembly and plunged it into the charge port’s connector array.
As the Sentinel’s hands moved toward NoMan, they shuddered. The Sentinel’s head began to smoke and sizzle. Blue St. Elmo’s Fire poured out of the fused charge port, filling the air with ozone. NoMan swung up into a crouch on the already dying Sentinel’s left shoulder.
The second Sentinel was standing too close to the swirling electromagnetic chaos that had signaled the destruction of the first. The discharged energy was playing havoc with its sensors. NoMan was right in front of it, looking right into its great unblinking black eyes, but the second Sentinel couldn’t see him. The third Sentinel, however, which stood some distance behind the second, could see NoMan.
It was just as NoMan had hoped.
Timing was critical. NoMan watched as the force canon in the palm of the third Sentinel charged and was raised toward him. The second Sentinel was still in an electromagnetic fog, blindly swiveling its head from side to side. The third Sentinel had a shot, but it had to fire around the second one, requiring precision fire control. NoMan allowed himself a grim smile.
NoMan calculated when the third Sentinel’s force cannon would have to discharge. Then, 3.47 milliseconds later, NoMan leapt upward from the first Sentinel’s shoulder just as the deactivated robot started to fall forward.
NoMan tucked and rolled in the air. The third Sentinel raised its arm, palm glowing white, and plotted the android’s trajectory, anticipating his position in the air, adjusting, predicting....
The moment before the Sentinel fired, NoMan came out of the roll and speared toward the ground, accelerating his fall. In full tracking mode, the third Sentinel jerked its arm downward at the last second to compensate for this unexpected move, neatly slicing off the top of the second Sentinel’s head with a spear of orange energy.
NoMan hit the ground hard, but came up fast. There was some minor damage to his legs’ support struts, but he was still functional. Sentinels toppled over like trees in front of and behind him.
The remaining Sentinel studied this situation. After some good, deep thought it came to the conclusion that the little robot was a threat after all. Immediately, system resources were reallocated. The weapon pod mounted on the Sentinel’s chest opened like the bud of an immense, gunmetal flower.
NoMan recognized what the pod housed instantly. DEFRACTS tracking missile clusters. Not cheap, not shoddy. Probably Sunderland Corporation black tech. derived either from the Patchwork Man’s research or from stolen prototype blueprints drafted by the Soviet’s visionary weapon’s designer, Ivan Shivanov. Not that it mattered. Still, the Sentinel had to bring out its heavy weapons in order to deal with him. It was, in a way, quite flattering.
NoMan puzzled the Sentinel one last time by smiling a great, hungry grin and lunging towards it. The Sentinel opened fire and twelve high-explosive projectiles converged on NoMan’s very last android body at just a fraction under the speed of sound. The Sentinel could not grasp the android’s actions or his motivations, but NoMan understood them and that was enough. It had come down to duty, and if there was one thing Dr. Anthony Dunn ever truly understood, it was duty.
To the bitter end.
**********
The Sentinel squeezed his right hand and Archie felt a wet pop in his side as another rib gave out. He didn’t scream. He only thought to himself almost idly how long it had been since he’d felt himself slip into shock. The armor had been good to him.
It had been a nice run.
There was some comfort in these thoughts, in their finality. Everything was going silver and everything looked and felt so far away. His cracked visual plate, whose lower left quadrant now filled with static and rolled occasionally, only amplified this perception. The Sentinel was raising red Knight above its head, giving him a nice view.
The Sentinel was hovering some hundred feet above the water and certainly hadn’t escaped its fight with Red Knight unscathed. Its armor was burned and pocked all over. Its left arm hung limply at its side, complete shorn of armor plating and revealing the still sparking chrome endoskeleton beneath. The lower half of its right leg was completely gone.
It slowly dawned on Archie that the Sentinel was going to hurl him into the water below. He wouldn’t survive that, not with all the integrity breaches there were now in the armor. His arms were held fast by the Sentinel’s merciless grip, his strength gone. The armor was now so damaged it was becoming unreliable. This was it.
He then looked down and saw flashes from the island below; flashes near where he’d seen the Humming Bird go down earlier. Annette and Warden were down there.
Archie suddenly came back to himself.
No!
With the armor malfunctioning, Archie wondered if it would still be immune to the effects of his flaming sword. Considering how his arms were trapped, if the sword could now hurt him, the very act of calling it into being was going to be like performing seppuku.
How appropriate.
The flaming blade sprouted through Red Knight’s chest and up through the top of the Sentinel’s thumb. Red Knight was unaffected by the blade—to him it was a ghost. The Sentinel wasn’t as lucky.
Red Knight swung down. The robot’s immense fingers sparked and dropped away. As he began to fall from the Sentinel’s now mangled grasp, Red Knight pushed with his legs against the robot’s palm. Red Knight turned to face the Sentinel as he dropped and extended his blade, slicing an unbroken slash in the Sentinel as he was carried by gravity straight down. The cut extended from the top of the robot’s head to the bottom of its torso. Not quite cleaved in two, considering the length of the blade, but it was enough.
It took three tries before the armor responded and Red Knight pulled out of his dive. The Sentinel fell past him into the ocean where it slowly and quietly sank beneath the waves.
Things started to go silver again, but Archie couldn’t black out yet. Not yet.
Maybe later.
The Red Knight sped toward the other side of the island.
**********
Warden’s head pounded. In fact, it pounded rhythmically. Every few seconds.
He groaned and opened his eyes. He was lying on the ground outside somewhere, underneath an outcropping of rocks. In front of him were some tall palm trees. Looming over them was a giant, purple armored robot. Every few moments, it took another step, the ground rumbled and Warden’s head pounded. He appeared to be looking for something.
Warden instantly knew what.
Warden suppressed a gasp and then noticed that he felt like he was covered with some sort of smooth, silky cloth. He felt it was there, but he couldn’t see it. In fact he couldn’t see his body, either.
NoMan.
Warden felt someone lying next to him. But the body was warm; not the android, probably Annette.
His eyes darted from side to side, looking for NoMan. He couldn’t see him. Somehow Warden knew that he was gone.
The Sentinel turned toward them and took a step. It paused. And then took another step. And another.
Warden was a bright boy. He caught on almost instantly: The robot couldn’t see them, but it could hear them breathing.
Warden strained to become Mentalon, until his head felt like it was going to split open. No luck.
The robot continued its careful advance, but then looked up suddenly. Two red energy beams shot down from the sky and exploded a few feet above the robot’s head. As the two rays continued to fire down, a translucent bubble surrounding the robot appeared and began to glow. The robot flew up into the air, the beams still fixed on it and the bubble glowing brighter and brighter.
Warden looked up and tracked the beams to their source.
**********
Red Knight poured it on. The Sentinel’s shield was pulsating with energy, Red Knight’s particle cannons pounding away relentlessly. As the Sentinel flew up towards him, the robot’s shield popped like a balloon and the last vestige of the Red Knight’s blasts leaked through, scoring deep burns into its chest plate.
It may have had a few understandable glitches earlier, but ultimately it was just as Jonathan always said; the armor would always come through when you needed it.
His particle cannons utterly exhausted, Red Knight called his blazing sword into being and dived toward the Sentinel.
The Sentinel held up its left hand and an orange blast erupted from toward the Red Knight. Red Knight dodged underneath it and the Sentinel pointed its right hand back toward ground. Five projectiles, one from each of the robot’s fingers, shot toward the island.
Where each projectile hit, clouds of billowing black smoke began to fill the air.
Archie felt his scalp tingle and his stomach drop away. There was only one thing it could be. The nightmare stories had begun to come out of Southeast Asia even before the coming of Legion: Sunderland’s Black Lotus nerve gas. Just a drop inhaled or absorbed through the skin would kill in under a minute.
The Sentinel closed in and grabbed at Red Knight.
Red Knight yelled in rage. His broken ribs and burned back protesting, Red Knight hurled his flaming sword right into the Sentinel’s head. The sword bored into the armor titan’s skull and disappeared. Red Knight was already on his way straight down.
The Sentinel watched him descend and was in the process of turning to chase him when its head exploded in a fireball that eventually consumed the entire top half of the robot.
Archie didn’t even notice.
The black smoke was spreading fast, rising. Suddenly, Warden and Annette popped into view near an outcropping of rock. Warden was standing and waving his arms, while Annette was on the ground, not moving. The black cloud was quickly sweeping in from all sides, surrounding them.
A thick cloud of black caught an up draft and passed between Red Knight and Warden and Annette. Red Knight tried to circumvent it, but it was spreading too fast. There were opening on the other side of the cloud, but by the time he got there, it might close over before he could get them out.
No choice. No choice at all.
Red Knight dived right through the thick black smoke. He skidded to a landing right beside Warden.
“Need a ride?” he asked hoarsely.
Warden started pulling Annette to her feet. Her eyes were flickering open at last. “She’s better, Mr. Goodwin! I did it! I told you I could!”
“I knew you would, son,” Archie said. He was feeling hot. “I always believed in you.”
Archie helped Annette into his arms. She shook her head sleepily and opened her eyes again. Archie looked into them and could see that they were clear and bright.
It had been so long.
Archie tasted cinnamon and his heart was palpitating. He picked up Warden and put his arm around Annette’s waist.
Annette looked at the battered helmet and smiled in confusion. “Jonathan?” she mouthed.
“Hi, honey,” Archie said softly. “Nice to have you back.”
Joyful tears filled Annette’s eyes and she threw her arms around the Red Knight’s neck. The Red Knight looked up at the one remaining patch of blue sky visible, surrounded by inky, black smog. It would be enough.
Archie smiled as he lifted off, eyes fixed on the way out. “I missed you,” he whispered to Annette.
His vision blurred and the thumping in his chest began to hurt. His ears started to ring louder and louder, but over it he now heard something else.
Ping.
Ping....
ping....
ping....
....
And the armor came through for its owner one last time.
Chapter Sixteen: “And Justice For All”
A single, sharp
sob broke the silence.