Jeff screamed silently as he started to lose control of his body, sinking to his weak leg of flesh as he tried to sustain the connection. He opened his mind even further to the other reality, to the point where it was hard to remember to breathe. He could hear Darwin shouting to him, but the voice, the name, didn’t belong with the rest of what he was witnessing. All he heard was a disembodied voice bouncing around in his head as he watched the spectacular display.
Somehow, a bomb had found its way among the peaceful flowerworks, exploding not far from him. Jeff felt his body spin about, careening out of control as more and more of the flowerworks turned out to be deadly projectiles.
The flowers disappeared from his mind completely; instead, he was back on top of Darwin, locked into place on the Apostle’s body as thousands of deadly attacks filled the air around them. They pummeled Darwin as the Apostle continued to shoot down hundreds of attacks every second. The ground was approaching quickly now, but it was hard to see past the onslaught of energy blasts. Spinning wildly out of control didn’t help either. A particularly large attack hit Darwin’s right thigh, blasting a chunk of its white armor back into the sky above them but straightening them for a brief moment.
He needed to help. His brain hadn’t completely recovered from the last bout of pressing, but Jeff knew that if he didn’t act now, they were going to die. He didn’t stand, or hold out his arms, or even shut his eyes. Instead, he found a reality where he had hadn’t been able to block any of the attacks. He connected with it immediately, and he focused on several chunks of Darwin’s body.
They were incredibly complex structures, but they were small enough that he was able to press them into existence. They appeared in the air above them, drawing homing attacks away from the real Darwin. Jeff froze as the glimpse of his torn body from another reality floated across his mind. It wasn’t something he was prepared for, and the connection with the other time line shattered.
“Hold on,” Darwin’s voice filled his mind again. For the first time, Jeff didn’t hate hearing the Apostle’s voice. It was a reminder that he was still alive. He felt dizzy and sick. Explosions filled the air around him, sending shrapnel smashing into his white armor, but he couldn’t be bothered to look at it. His brain felt tired and sick. He never wanted to press again, but even more than that, he longed to be in a different reality, one where flowers rained from the sky, not death.
Force-field wings sprouted from Darwin’s shoulders, pushing them higher into the air, slowing their descent to a point where they wouldn’t be a splatter on the ground when they landed. It also had the added benefit of allowing them to dodge a few explosives. That benefit didn’t last long—a red-hot projectile punctured the left force-field wing.
But they were going to make it. He couldn’t believe it. They were close enough to the ground now that most of the deadly varieties of attacks weren’t able to target them. He could see a giant landing pad, with hundreds of what looked like metal humans, below them. They were in the heart of the mountains now, and the trees around the platform burned from the falling embers.
“I’ll have to cut through the closure,” Darwin said. “It will take a few minutes.”
“What about all of those things?” Jeff said. He was surprised his mind had settled enough to speak coherently.
Two force-field swords, each fifteen feet long, appeared in Darwin’s hands, even though one of its arms hung limp, with huge portions of armor failing to heal itself.
“We’ll have to take care of Bud’s mine workers quickly. Other Apostles are already on their way.”
Jeff could see Bud’s humanlike leeches swarming below them near the opening to the mine, with more of them appearing from around the mountain every second. His brain wasn’t working clearly, so he worked by instinct now. He pressed in some specialized force fields that covered his fists. Deadly force-field spikes sprouted from his knuckles. Darwin oriented its feet for landing, causing Jeff’s back to be parallel with the horizontal mine door.
Jeff unlocked from Darwin’s body and used his suit to launch him away from the Apostle as it spun around, swinging its massive swords to cut through a dozen mine robots. Jeff flipped through the air, clearing Darwin’s swords and landing on one knee between a group of mine workers.
They moved at once, desperate to tear him apart. Jeff expected to dodge the first one with ease, but his reaction was slow. The robot locked onto his metal arm, holding it in place. Jeff used his other force-field-covered fist to smash through the worker’s metal arm, freeing himself, just as another robot grabbed him from behind and tossed him backward.
He bounced off robot parts until he came skidding to a stop. He punched the leg of the closest mine worker, sending the robot to the ground, but he wasn’t able to roll out of the way before another miner landed on top of him.
His armor protected his ribs, but the robot knocked the breath out of him. Jeff managed to throw the robot off with his force-field fists, but another kicked him backward into another that locked Jeff’s arms behind his back. Everywhere he looked, there was another identical opponent ready to kill him.
He wasn’t used to fighting so many opponents at once. He’d been able to fight two or three men with relative ease back in Fifth Springs, but these robots were bigger, faster, and stronger, and they were many more of them. He was still trying to clear his mind of the realities he had connected with to save them during their fall. Carlee and Stefani had been right about the costs of pressing, and he was feeling them all right now, as his usual fighting instincts were absent.
Jeff head-butted the mining robot holding him, smashing his helmet through the worker’s inferior chest. But before the miner could fall, another one took its place. He wished his mentor and friend were there to help him now. The pang of regret he felt at missing them hurt worse than the robot’s punch that connected with his face.
Another robot ripped a boulder from the ground and hurled it at Jeff’s chest. His armor held, but he wasn’t sure his ribs did this time. But he couldn’t focus on the fight. All he could think about was Stefani and her sister-in-law. No matter how horrible his reality was and the crimes he had committed, they were good. He didn’t deserve them, but they had been kind to him. He cracked a smile thinking of them as two different robots snared his arms and started to pull him apart.
If he was going to die, he didn’t want it to happen while he was thinking about time lines where he had never existed. This was his reality, his time line, and he owed it a debt. He focused on it—on Stefani, on Carlee, on the vagrants—every detail he could remember.
A third mine worker closed in on him; this one held a force-field mining tool. It would be enough to pierce his armor, and he knew exactly what that meant. But he also knew how to dodge it.
Jeff cranked his neck to the side, dodging the deadly pick. He then pulled on his right arm and shifted his weight, throwing the robots holding him off-balance. In all his years of fighting, he had learned one thing: if he could get someone off-balance, then he was going to win.
He twisted and freed himself from the robots. He jabbed at the nearest miner, punching its neck, severing the head of the mining robot from its body. Without hesitating, he spun around and smashed through another leech, his force-field gloves meeting little resistance.
The other mining leeches around him seemed to back away as if they were seeing their opponent truly for the first time. The fight was over; they just didn’t know it yet.
“You pile of bolts should have gone after Darwin instead.”
He dodged forward, catching glimpses of other time lines where the miners were able to hit him; he used that to alter his course. Jeff swirled around them, smashing mechanical workers with almost no resistance. Their brittle metal bodies were no match for Jeff’s abilities. Never in his life had he felt so overpowered in a battle—they couldn’t slow him down as he broke through them. Every punch, swipe, and kick destroyed the mindless slaves of Bud.