With each step the ground shook; with each gaze, fear was struck into the heart of man and even machine, as the beast of the thing, the apex of all machines, had no equal.
“You will all die now,” Apex Machina screamed as his eyes glowed a violent red and as he tipped his head forward.
“Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!” With that phrase, beams of red crashed into dozens of men, slicing them into two, three, or even an assortment of indecipherable pieces. The unstoppable streaks of red gave their victim a final brief and painful glimpse of life before it was taken from them in one of the most painful ways possible. Worst of all, there was nothing they could do about it as the bursts raced on at the speed of light.
And when the lasers and the beams had finally faded, Apex’s arms jetted out of their sockets like rockets as if they were coiled up inside him, strapped to thick, heavy wiring. The springy arms shot out fifty yards, ripping, maiming, and tearing whatever they got their claws on in a massacre of destruction.
Within only five minutes, the tides had begun to turn for the machines as Apex had killed nearly fifty men. And not only that, but the element of fear and the unknown was back in the machine’s favor. Cipher stepped away from the canister that originally housed Apex Machina with a smile, a daunting, despicable excuse of a grin, taking joy in the misery of his enemies. His 3-D vision scanned the battlefield—the flames, the destruction, the end of fathers and even mothers who would never see their children again—all brought Cipher great joy, for it meant the hour of triumph was upon him. His glorious creation had no equal. And as Cipher peered upon the others, basking in their misery, he did not feel evil, he did not seem evil, and he did not even consider it, for to the machines, the humans were nothing but a virus, a deadly destructive race destined only to abuse, destroy, and move on to their next victim.
“Hello, soldiers,” Apex said. “How would you like to die—electrocution?” Apex’s head spun around like he was a demented cloud.
“No, that’s fine; flames it is then.” And with that phrase, Apex unleashed a wave of red, yellow, and blue, sizzling to the touch and incinerating all that dared cross its path. The heat wave soared like the tide of the ocean, but instead of a bobbing rock, only death and pain followed in a scorching tomb of undoing.
As Apex easily dismantled each and every one of his human competitors, it was clear that the machine victory was closing on inevitability. He was now but footsteps away from the generals.
General Stein gazed around the battlefield, horrified. His soldiers—his men and women—were being torn to shreds, and there was nothing he could do about it. And despite this, he did not flee, and he did not falter even though he probably should have as the danger now approached him. Instead, he remained atop his Clydesdale.
From the ground, “Look out,” General Max called to Stein as a large block of hunking steel riddled with spikes whizzed through the air. One hit from that, and it would be the end of Stein. Apex had swung it, his arm attached to the other end of the chain.
“Goodbye, general,” Apex said.
Stein did not bother covering up; instead, he closed his eyes and kept a stern expression, prepared to the end. If this were to be his final moment, then he was glad that he could die in the battlefield along with his soldiers.
Smash—the sphere of death, the spiked ball of mayhem, crashed down on its target as a cloud of smoke encircled the area from the sheer intensity of the impact. Max fell over on his side but immediately jumped to his feet, having to know what happened to his fellow general, his dear friend, despite how gloomy things looked.
Strangely, when the dust finally disbanded and the smoke cleared, the general was alive and still on horseback. The ball, the spiked sphere of death, was paralyzed in the air, held back by a man—no, not a man, but a machine of blue.
“Daniel?” General Stein said.
Daniel stood with his feet pressed back against the surface and his torso leaned toward Apex’s attack, holding the mace of a thing in his hands, seemingly struggling for the first time.
“Sorry I was late, General, but I thought you needed a hand,” replied Daniel, who threw the mace-like object back at Apex, nearly knocking the monster to the ground.
“But how?” General Stein said, “And why? A machine helping us against other machines—it can’t be.”
And that was exactly the point. Stein may have been the machine’s biggest critic, one who would only take pleasure in the machine’s downfall and them sticking to their serving roles, but he was perfect for the moment. If Daniel could show respect and tolerance to the fiercest of his critics, to one of his most vile defilers, then that would show the rest of the humans that machines would be willing to work with anyone in lieu of the atrocities of the past.
Apex Machina, despite suffering his first minor setback, jumped to his feet, more surprised than hurt, as he did not believe anyone, even a machine, could stand before him and strike back.
“Come on, you hunk of garbage. Why don’t you try your little tricks on someone your own size?” Daniel paused, seeing Apex standing across from him, growing only as the monster took one step closer. Within seconds, it was obvious that Apex towered over Daniel by nearly two feet and was twice as wide. “Okay, maybe not your size, but at least your strength.” Daniel placed one of his feet behind the other as he raised his fist and straightened his posture. Not once had Daniel been intimidated before, but seeing this hulking brute and how even the beast’s shadow covered Daniel like he was an ant at the side of a tower.
When Apex finally got in striking distance, Daniel gulped and loosened his shoulders. “Okay, maybe this is going to be harder than I thought,” he said to himself. It was like David and Goliath, except if Goliath had machine guns for hands, lasers for eyes, and an eternal desire to kill for a personality.
Daniel screamed, his war cry echoed through the air as he rushed forward, jabbing Apex in his torso, then the side of his neck, then his face, then his left and right legs, then his torso again, and again, and again, and again, but it was no use; the beast, the machine king as he was infamously called by Cipher and his crew, was not budging.
“Are you done?” Apex said, still smiling.
Daniel did not respond except he huffed and puffed, something that never happened to him before. No human or machine in the past could ever keep up with him, but now, it was like the roles had reversed.
“Good, my turn,” Apex said. With one blistering punch and with one burst of eternal rage, Apex launched his fist forward, colliding with Daniel’s arms, knocking Daniel back, and with a second shot, smacking Daniel from his feet and sending him hurtling toward the pavement.
Apex did not spare a second; with another burstful step forward, his eyes started to glow a hot, steaming red, a blaze that all who stood before had died seconds later.
“Goodbye, useless blue man,” Apex said, and with that phrase he unleashed a stream of pure, energetic, electrically compelled terror, a blast so furious that air molecules in its path exploded violently on impact, creating a sonic boom-like effect. The measly particles could not get far enough out of the way before erupting in a chain reaction.
Daniel fired off a blast of his own, a red laser out of his palms, the one he had easily overpowered Cipher with prior. The beam collided with Apex’s projection; the two menacing convulsions clashed in the air, generating an eardrum-rupturing bang and creating a large, gaping hole in the ground beneath where the blasts had collided. It was red on red; the two most powerful and devastating ranged attacks known to battle slammed in a stalemate for what seemed like seconds, almost even.
However, the power, the true strength of the Apex, could not be undone, and it was only a matter of time before Daniel’s blast was undoubtedly overpowered.
Daniel stepped back, drove his feet into the gravel below, and leaned forward, but it was no use; the more he tried to fight his enemy’s fire, the more tired he got and the weaker his own attack became.
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“It’s over, machine; you fought pathetically, the strongest competition I have seen, but pathetic nonetheless,” Apex said as he stepped forward, still firing his laser vision.
And with that final phrase, the blasts had collided on Daniel’s body, erupting in a mini nuclear explosion of the mind, sending Daniel flying through the air, shredded down to seemingly nothing. Daniel’s blue flesh was torn and falling off, and now his cold, metallic machine interior was completely exposed.
After flipping seemingly twenty times, Daniel landed facedown on a pile of dirt, a place where a city garden was supposed to be, but now it would probably serve only as a burial, assuming the humans would allow such a thing, which was highly unlikely.
Apex raised his fists in the air in victory as he unleashed a mechanical shriek of terror, the sound altered from mind-numbing lows to electronic, peak-frequency highs.
But Daniel was not done yet as he drove his fists into the ground, propelling up his body like a hydraulic press pushing against the surface below. And as he stood, he gazed into a piece of shattered glass on the ground; the image, the haunting thing that stood back, was not Daniel, but a mechanical, robotic thing in its place. Daniel had always known he was a machine, but for some reason, due to his upbringing, he always felt more human, being with Junie and Lehman and having been treated so well, but now seeing his true self, his inner being, in the reflection of the glass came as a shock to him.
Daniel shook it off, rocking his head, before staring down at Apex while bracing his body and moving back into a fighting position. His fists clamped forward, with one leg behind the other, as he had to focus on the task at hand.
“Is that all you got?” Daniel said.
Zoom! From overhead, the sound of a Mach-speed fighter jet whizzed by, pelting both Daniel and Apex with a wave of high-caliber rounds. Daniel dove for cover, whereas Apex looked up, raising his fist, seemingly daring the fighters to come again. It was almost as if the jet shots were nothing to Apex but some gentle tappings.
From Apex’s comms, a commanding voice sparked to life. “Apex, get back to the Grid now! Break into this facility before the humans send any more reinforcements!”
Apex Machina paused and went to turn as if to comply. However, he randomly stopped halfway. Instead, he looked off into the distance, almost as if he was thinking.
“Why?”
“—Why? Because that’s an order, machine.”
Instead of listening, Apex only laughed.
“I’ll come over there once the blue man, the blue machine rather, is nothing but dust.”
“But the jets,” Cipher said in Apex’s comms, “I don’t know if even you can take a direct blast.”
Apex stepped forward, rolling his shoulders as he did, “I’ll take my chances.”
“No, you fool, come back to the Grid now so we can end this!”
Apex responded by ripping his comms from his ears and breaking them in his hands, silencing Cipher’s shouts and commands. Apex then smiled.
Daniel, still roughly a hundred yards across from Apex, jumped to his feet, and he ran forward, and Apex did the same. The two were destined to collide in the middle in one big bang, one large clash of steel and metal. With each step Daniel took, he felt the weight of the world sinking him closer and closer toward the ground. If he failed here, then the old world as everyone knew it could be lost.
As Daniel approached, a human soldier jumped in front of Apex, firing off a volley of rifle pellets. The soldier stood in his position, unloading his entire clip into Apex’s sidewall. The automatic rifle gave all it could bear before clicking, signaling the end of its ammunition. Still, the surprise attack, although courageous, did nothing but leave the most minor of scratches in Apex’s sidewall.
“Give me that,” Apex said as he grabbed the weapon out of the soldier’s hand. He then ripped it in two like it was a faulty toothpick.
“Now for you.” Apex reached for the soldier, lifting him off the ground by his neck. Apex then placed his other hand over the soldier’s head, preparing to squash it like a grape.
“Please,” the soldier said, “I have a family.”
Apex only laughed. “I don’t care.”
And just when Apex was about to end, the soldier Daniel collided with Apex, knocking Apex to the ground. Daniel then jumped toward Apex’s grip, the restraint around the soldier, and applied all his might to pry it open. At first, he was not even close, not budging the locking mechanism an inch, but then he planted his feet into the ground and looked up toward the sky as he screamed to his apparent celestial creators.
“Give me the strength to do this,” Daniel said. As Daniel screamed and as he puffed, using all his energy, throwing himself into the ground as he did, he finally got the will to endure. And eventually Daniel was able to break the locking hand, freeing the soldier.
The soldier got up, reaching his hand out to Daniel to offer him a hand.
“No,” Daniel said while shifting back to his feet. “You get out of here; get to safety. I will deal with this.”
The soldier paused with his mouth held open in shock. This soldier had never seen this kind of bravery even from a human, and from a machine it was even more inconceivable. The soldier, like so many other humans, did not think it was possible, as machines only existed to serve. The soldier in particular would only ever refer to them as “its,” “items,” or “things to be owned and comply unconditionally,” not even close to equals. Many of his contemporaries believed the same.
“Thank you—sir. I won’t forget this,” the soldier said, before sprinting off the battlefield.
“Sir?” Daniel said to himself with a smile. That was, enlightening.
After a brief mental victory, Daniel turned back to Apex, ready to end this for real this time.
“Let’s finish this,” Daniel said.
“You dare help the humans, the ones that enslaved you, you sorry excuse for scum,” Apex said. “You will die for this, even more so than before.”
Apex ran forward, and so did Daniel. They immediately collided in the middle, trading blows—right hooks, left crosses, laser blasts, hydraulic pounds of rage, and even missile shots?
—What?
From Apex’s back a stream of missiles erupted, blasting upward into the sky, swarming and colliding with jets and helicopters in the air, and nearly missing others. Some of the impacted planes whizzed for a bit before exploding, or they crashed to the ground and then exploded. A few of Apex’s missiles even hit Daniel, whipping Daniel back.
“I’m stronger than you,” Apex said as he hit Daniel with a right hook.
“I’m faster than you,” Apex added, as he dodged Daniel’s attack and countered with his own.
“I’m smarter than you,” Apex added as he precisely calculated Daniel’s weak points and even Daniel’s next moves in his mind.
“I’m better than you in every way!” Apex slammed on Daniel’s back, smashing him to the ground and nearly crippling Daniel’s internals.
“And I’m just getting started.” With that final phrase, Apex took Daniel and threw him across the battlefield.
In the background Stein rose to his feet as he gripped his radio in hand. “This is perfect,” Stein said. “We have them both right where we want them. When they are trying to kill each other, we will blow them both to bits.”
Stein shifted to a few of his top snipers, who currently now held rocket launchers, the highest grade and the most powerful the military had to offer, much stronger than the prior blasts used to hit Apex. The one problem with these rockets was that they only had very limited quantities, so they could only be used when deemed absolutely necessary.
“Take your shots, men; make sure neither of them is left standing.”
“But, sir,” one of the rocket wielders said as he remained straight, eyeing his targets, and not facing General Stein.
General Stein marched forward, full pace, toward his disobedient rocketeer.
“What is it, soldier? I gave you an order, and your job is to comply immediately without hesitation or question.” Stein paused before continuing, “Didn’t you pass basic training?”
The rocketeer stood his ground, still facing forward and prepared to fire. “I think you are mistaken, sir; the blue one, the blue machine, just saved your life, and he even risked his own life to save one of our peers. I think our rockets would be better spent focused on the big one.”
“You son of a bitch,” Stein said as he rushed toward the soldier. “You give me that fucking rocket, and I will fire it off myself if you don’t have the spine to follow a simple order from your superior.”
“Hold it,” General Max said, stepping onto the scene. “Soldier, you have a lot at risk here; you could face dishonorable discharge and jail time for not complying with a top general’s orders.”
The soldier stood firm, still completely focused on his targets. “I know, sir, but it doesn’t feel right.”
Stein threw a canteen at the soldier, which slammed the soldier in his side. “We don’t pay you to feel, soldier; we don’t pay you to think either; we just pay you to follow orders. Now fire now, or I am going to make sure you never see that no-good rotten family of yours again.”
The soldier got into position and said, “Yes, sir.”
Max stepped between all his rocket soldiers. “All of you, you know what you have to do.” He then turned to them all to smile. “Do the right thing.”
“Yes, sir,” the soldiers said in unison.
And with that, at the end of that discussion, the rockets launched off, heading straight for Apex and for Daniel. Apex may have been able to take them, being made of the topmost anti-missile materials, but for Daniel it would have been lights out, and he had no means of dodging them either.
Daniel looked at Apex and then toward the missiles as the sound of them coming closer ripped through the air. He did not know whether to sit down and give in or put his arms up to block his face, for no matter what, the end result would be the same.
Apex laughed. “For all you’ve done for them, they still hate you. Now you die at the hands of your believed human creators.”
Daniel closed his eyes, and Apex braced his fists.
“Come on,” Apex said.
The rockets came in at mind-numbingly fast speeds, five for Apex and five for Daniel. They were now microseconds away, and Daniel just stood his ground, frozen, ready to die for his cause.
“I’m sorry, Father; I failed you,” Daniel whispered, and just when he said that, the rockets destined to incinerate him were almost here.
Just as the rockets neared, at the last second, they did the strangest thing as they—curved. They spiraled out of control, shifting upward around Daniel, and all ten of them crashed into Apex Machina, knocking Apex off his feet and sending him flying on his ass, tumbling three hundred feet back.
General Stein stood silent, prepared to scream. “That’s it, soldiers. All of you who misfired are done for once we get back—”
“Enough,” General Max yelled, “you may be my superior, but our men did the right thing.” Max turned toward his squadron. “Soldiers, let loose, tear the big one to ash, and give the blue one—give him—all the support you can.”
“Yes, sir,” the soldiers all said in unison as they nodded. They then jumped into position and fired off consecutive rounds.
