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Other-worldly characters, fights with robots, and a lot of sass. Enjoy this sci-fi short story by 16-year-old Brook Mischke. This story won third place in our 2020 Short Story Contest.
Another Day at Work by Brook Mischke
“River, move!”
Hearing Mona’s warning, I ducked behind a car as a piece of the abandoned clinic flew over my head. Mona sprinted over to me and slid under another piece of rubble that was launched at her. She stopped next to me and I pulled her towards me as a bullet narrowly grazed her ear. We both put our backs against the car and took a quick breather. I winced as I heard the car next to us being destroyed and looked at Mona. “So… this is a little more trouble than we signed up for, right?”
“You kidding? This is way more fun than the messenger runs we’ve been having to do.”
“Really? Nearly dying every other second is your idea of fun? I would hate to see what your birthday parties were like.”
“You and I both know I’ve never gotten a birthday party, and even if I did it wouldn’t be this dangerous. I’m just saying that it’s nice to fight something that can really fight back for once.”
Suddenly, I felt the car being lifted up from behind us. Mona and I looked up to see the robot holding the car above its head with one hand and aiming it’s cannon at us with the other. Mona whistled and I glanced at her, “maybe not this much though.”
Mona shrugged and ran out of the way as the robot dropped the car. I held my hands out and created a wind barrier, which stopped the car from falling on top of me.
“A little heavier than you accounted for?” Mona called out, amused.
“Oh yeah, definitely. It would’ve helped if I got an instruction manual with my Ter.”
“Well, you didn’t. Now, are you going to keep talking, or are you going to trash that thing?”
Concentrating, I looked back up at the robot and threw the car at its chest. The robot was thrown backwards; I stood up, shaking my hands out as Mona approached.
“Trashed enough for ya?” I asked.
“Eh. I’d give it a seven out of ten,” Mona shrugged. “But you’re not done yet.”
As I turned, I caught a glimpse of the car flying back in our direction. I quickly drew a wall of concrete up from the ground and the car crashed into it. I held the wall up as the robot started pounding on it. “Okay, I think I’ve got a plan,” I said.
“Then let’s hear it,” Mona replied.
“I’ll fight this thing and see if I can’t draw out ‘technological genius,’ Gunner. Once I do, you’ll have one chance to sneak up on him before he realizes that you’re not with me.”
“And how do I sneak past the giant robot to get to him?”
I raised my eyebrow at Mona and she sighed. “Fine. Not the time for jokes I presume.”
I nodded and Mona rolled her eyes as she faded into the background. I turned back to the earth wall and let it fall to the ground. The robot came flying at me and knocked me into a lamp post. I winced as I hit it and stood up shakily. Trashing this thing may be a little harder than I had thought. Maybe it’s time for me to call on Bayou and get some Wae Wolf backup.
I shook out my shock and looked up just in time to see the robot swinging its arm at me again. I aimed my palms at the ground and propelled myself up and over the robot with jets of water. At the same time, I quickly summoned Bayou, who appeared next to me. We both landed on our feet and spun around to face the robot. Bayou shook out his fur and looked around at the situation before nodding to me; “What do you need me to do ma’am?”
“First, don’t call me ma’am, we’ve talked about this. Second, is there a way we can fry that thing’s circuits?”
Bayou studied the robot as it turned around and then he pointed his snout towards it’s chest. “I can see some sort of energy source behind that glass. If you hit it with a strong enough jet of water you should be able to penetrate its core, shutting it down.”
“Should? If I don’t?”
“Call Zeru. He does seem to be the more destructive type.”
“I feel like you mistake destructive with powerful.”
“More like you’re the one mistaken ma’am.”
“Dude. If I wanted sarcasm I would’ve called Adan.”
Bayou nodded and sat down at my feet as I looked at the robot, which had started to run towards me. I held my hands out, aimed, and fired two strong jets of water. They both hit the dead center of the robot’s chest, smashing through the glass easily.
The robot stopped dead in its tracks and started to spark up as the water flooded through the gears. I stopped the jets of water and the robot exploded. The force of the blast threw me backwards as I landed on my back in a small crater that the robot made from earlier in the battle. I blinked a few times and tried to see through the dust and smoke that was being swirled around in the wind. I was about to stand up when I heard a gun being loaded and looked up to see Gunner, pointing a gun at me.
I put my hands up slowly and nodded slightly to the remains of the robot behind him. “You should build better weapons dude. That thing was way too easy to take care of.”
“You seemed to have had some trouble,” Gunner replied angrily.
“Hey, I wasn’t trying my hardest, alright?”
Gunner glanced back at the sparking remains of his robot and started looking a little unstable. He whipped his head back around to me and hissed, “That bot took me years to build! It took you less than ten minutes to destroy it with your bare hands, when it would have taken any normal man an army to even slow it down!”
“I’m just that good I guess.”
“Do you have any idea what you’ve cost me?”
“Um, a really expensive robot?”
“I built it specifically to take down you Terrors…”
“Well. It did a fantastic job.”
“Shut up! You people don’t deserve what you were given!”
“Oh, so now we’re turning this into a privilege thing? Listen buddy, we didn’t ask to be experimented on. I would’ve happily traded places with you if the option was given, but sadly, it wasn’t. So get over it.”
Gunner looked like he was about to snap at any second, and I know I’m not fast enough to block a bullet at point-blank range. I suddenly saw the air shift strangely in front of Gunner’s gun and sighed in relief. Gunner looked confused for a second, and then shocked as Mona appeared in front of him seemingly out of nowhere. She knocked the gun out of his hand and hit him across the face. Gunner stumbled back, staring at Mona in panic.
Sidenote – Mona is known for being one of the scariest and dangerous Terrors that the Resistance has ever recruited. Not just because she has a Ter that allows her to turn invisible, but also because her Ter includes limited dark matter manipulation.
Mona glanced back at me and I gave her a thumbs up. She nodded slightly and turned back to Gunner with her hands in front of her. She started charging up a shot as she said, “You’ve got two options Gunner. One, come with us calmly, or two, get blasted.”
I stood up and pointed to Gunner, “I’d go with option one dude!”
Gunner looked like he was trying to cover up his fear with anger, but was failing miserably. I picked up Gunner’s fallen gun as I walked up behind Mona and crossed my arms as Gunner’s eye flicked from me to the ball of dark matter in Mona’s hands. I raised my eyebrow and motioned to the ball; Gunner sighed. He put his arms up and hung his head, “Fine. You win.”
I grinned and Mona dissolved the ball in her hands. She took out a pair of handcuffs and went over to cuff Gunner. I looked around the area we demolished and felt a little satisfied. “What Sector are we in again? R7?”
“R4. Ranger is taking care of R7.”
“Aw.”
“Why?”
“I just really wanted to absolutely destroy R7.”
“I feel the need to ask again. Why?” replied Mona.
“Because that’s one of the Sectors Mazda claimed.”
“Oh. That makes sense. For a second I thought you just wanted to destroy a random Sector, which is my play, so I was about to get defensive.”
Once Mona finished cuffing Gunner, she nodded to me and I hit him over the head with his gun. Gunner crumpled onto the ground as I took the gun apart, scattering the pieces. Mona took out her notebook and flipped to the middle, scratching Gunner’s name off our list.
“So, who else do we have to pick up today?” I asked.
“Nobody.”
“What? Really?”
“Yep. Gunner was it.”
“I thought Cardinal gave us more to do than that.”
“No. But I’m sure that if you ask her, she’ll give you more to do.”
“Okay, so you clearly don’t know how she acts around anyone who isn’t you,” I explained, “she doesn’t like it when people ask her stuff.”
“Oh, come on, I’m sure that’s not true.”
“You’re only saying that because she’s your girlfriend.”
“Don’t pull the whole ‘girlfriend’ card on me Riv, or else I’ll do the same thing,” she threateningly joked.
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Oh, I would totally dare.”
Mona and I stared at each other for a few seconds before we burst out laughing. We both knew that neither of us really meant anything about pulling the dating cards. It was just something to get on each other’s nerves. But Cardinal and Ranger’s reactions are pretty funny whenever they come across us arguing about them.
As we both calmed down, we heard a howl and looked up to see Bayou standing on top of a pile of rubble. He jumped down and walked over to us. He stopped in front of me, sat down, and dipped his head. “Well done ma’am,” he commented.
“For the love- stop calling me ma’am! I am CENTURIES younger than you so please, don’t!”
“If that’s what you wish… ma’am.”
Mona snorted a laugh and I shot her a glare before saying, “Bayou, the bane of my existence, return to the water.”
Bayou winked at Mona before disappearing in a swirl of water droplets. I crossed my arms and looked at Mona in annoyance. She ignored me and poked Gunner with her foot before lifting him up.
“Alright, come on grape head. Let’s get him back to base.”
Mona started walking towards our truck and I followed in protest, “I thought you were supportive of the purple hair!”
“I was. But I didn’t think you were going to go emo purple! That’s my brand!”
“I always thought emo and goth were two different styles?”
“I can’t believe we’re having this discussion.”
“Hey, you started it!”
Mona threw Gunner into the back of our truck and dug in her jacket pockets for the keys. Once she found them, she tossed them to me and walked around the truck. I caught the keys and opened the driver’s door. I jumped up into the seat and started the truck as Mona got in. I grabbed the seatbelt and buckled it, then glanced at Mona, who wasn’t buckled. She looked at me and raised her eyebrow in confusion. I motioned to her seatbelt and asked, “Buckled?”
“Oh my gosh- drive, emo!”
I smiled to myself and put the truck in drive. Placing my foot on the gas, I drove through the remains of Sector R4 and towards home.
