Machine Man - Max Barry [68]
A Better Future Hummer skidded around the corner, its engine screaming. Its tires tore up chunks of turf and spat them across the grass. It fishtailed one way, then the other. Its grille centered on me. I stood frozen. Then I put up my hands. I did not want to get shot. The Hummer accelerated and a part of my brain informed me that it was doing so well beyond its need to reach me in a hurry. I ignored this information because surely that couldn’t be right, until it was incontrovertible and too late to address.
There is an expression: When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I had a hammer. I had a servomagnetic lithium-powered titanium hammer. So when the Hummer fell upon me, I kicked it. It went up on two wheels. The other two passed over my head. It sailed a drunken twenty meters, teetering on the brink of tipping over, like it was in a circus. As it wobbled toward the Better Future building I realized the driver faced two mutually exclusive objectives: to bring the car down onto four wheels or to not ram a ground-floor meeting room. This was really an either/or decision but the driver tried to accomplish both and the Hummer hit the building at a thirty-degree angle and disappeared halfway inside. Glass and brick dust burst across the lawn.
Arguably, I deserve no credit for this. My input was limited to being very sure that I did not want to be run over. The Contours took care of the rest: bracing of one leg against the ground, timing of the swing, delivery of the correct amount of force. But then again, that was my code. I had written it without this particular situation in mind, but the fact remained, they were my instructions. From this perspective, I deserved plenty of credit, even more than someone whose body was grown for them. So I looked up. I located Lola’s balcony. I jumped.
Glass flashed past my face. Wind pulled at my clothes. I squeezed shut my eyes and gritted my teeth and tried not to die. It felt like I might. The g-force eased and I opened my eyes to see whether I was anywhere near where I needed to be to survive and saw my hooves clear a balcony railing by two inches. I landed as gently as if I had just stepped off the lowest rung of a ladder. I understood the physics, but still. I sucked in air. I was alive. I looked at my Contours and had never felt so much love for an object.
The balcony door slid back. “Charlie!” Lola came out of the suite. I was on the right balcony. Spatial skills: I had them. She threw herself at me. Inside, through the glass, I saw cats in lab coats everywhere. Jason and Mirka among them. I saw the nurse. They began to hastily empty the room. “Did you feel that? I think it was an earthquake!”
“That was me.”
Lola leaned over the balcony. “How did you get here? Did you jump? Did you jump?”
“We need to get out.”
“What’s that smoke?”
“Lola. It’s important we get out of here as fast as possible.”
“Okay.” She took my hand, the biological one. “I knew you’d come back. I knew it.”
I threw a glance at the suite. It had cleared out. Those damn cats. Then I realized I couldn’t jump out of here. Not with Lola. The moment my legs touched the ground and I began to