James Axler – Freedom Lost

No, this was no factory mint sec droid hidden away to be liberated from within the confines of a redoubt, like the band of five that Ryan had once inadvertently activateda costly mistake where the one-eyed warrior had merely walked down the wrong hallway and sent them lurching into action with his genetic imprint tattooed on their sensors. After that, Ryan always figured he’d already had his worst experience with the killing machines.

“Hey!” Ryan bellowed into the lights. “Nobody said anything about fighting a bastard droid!”

“It’s up to you. There’s still time to call this off. You forfeit your entry fee, but you can back out and slink away,” the appointed referee of the match yelled back from the observation box mounted high over the onlookers.

Back down below, Ryan eyeballed the robot. He knew the onboard computers and data banks that gave the commands to the head and limbs of the droid were housed in that broad chest. His job was going to be figuring out how to pry off one of the patches for a look inside without having the droid’s mace crush his skull or, even worse, ending up with a bladed foot sunk up to the ankle in his crotch.

Still, those plates had been cracked open before, in battle and in the repairs he knew a combat machine such as that would have required.

Ryan debated. He knew his comrades would understand if he passed on this deadly duel. No one had expected his foe to be a sec droid. Ryan felt tricked, placed in the situation of being between a rock and a hard place. They needed the jack he’d ponied up as an entry fee. J.B. needed new peepers, or they would have to get used to running around with a near blind man in tow.

“I can take this bastard,” Ryan whispered to himself.

“What’s your decision? Fight or hide?” The ref’s query was amplified by the former stage’s still functioning sound system.

For a second, Ryan felt the world tunneling in on him, as if a camera lens was zooming in on his own grim visage and he was also outside himself, witnessing it.

He had to make a decision. “I’m staying,” he yelled, to the happiness of all the watchersexcept his companions’.

Inside his head, a voice seemed to be repeating, “Killer robot, killer bot”

A rubber ball wrapped in a strip of white cloth was dropped down into the pit, where it bounced, up and down, up and down, and off one of the curved walls before rolling to a stop near Ryan’s left boot.

The sec droid lurched forward the instant the ball stopped moving, causing the crowd above to cry out in anticipation and joy.

“Nothing like live entertainment,” Ryan said under his breath as he readied himself for the endurance test to come.

One hesitant step forward, and already Ryan could sense his earlier estimation was correct. This droid had seen better days. One foot up, then down. Left foot, then the right. The arm weighed down with the mace remained motionless, but the second one telescoped outward, the scalpel like pincers opening and closing.

Yelling ferociously, getting his blood up after the shock, Ryan sprang forward, waving his arms. “Piss off, you clanking piece of junk!”

The droid stiffly hopped back in a defensive maneuver.

Odd. He’d heard these things could exhibit learned behavior, but against a single man? Perhaps the programmers had made this a fairer fight than Ryan would have believed upon first seeing the droid.

“Come any closer and I’ll rip off those skinny arms and shove them sideways up your metal ass!” Ryan bellowed.

The onlookers exploded in appreciative laughter.

In response, the sec hunter again took another step toward Ryan, its glass head turning slowly from side to side as if making sure no other attacker would be coming out of hiding or from the guard rails of the pit above.

“Fuck you, One-eye,” the droid said in an inhumanly flat and mechanical tone that came from a hidden speaker buried deep inside the creature’s thick neck. The deadly metal teeth moved in synchronization with the words. “You’re nothing to me but fresh red meat, you dumb-ass outlander.”