Broken Hero Read Online Free Page A

twisted mess. The shoulder Clyde injured now ends in a ragged stump of broken metal, hemorrhaging black oil and something blue that could be antifreeze. Its chest is horribly ravaged—the bronze sheet that covered it contorted, half buried in the gears. I hear them scraping against the tattered metal, the grinding of axles bent well out of true. Half of its bronze skull cap has been torn away exposing chittering gears behind the wide insectile eyes.
    In its remaining hand, it still holds the wooden beam. And its eyes are fixed on me.
    “Oh crap.”
    Over the protests of my injured shoulder, I grab the bartender with both hands.
    The robot lurches forward, an ugly half-hop.
    I heave on the bartender. My shoulder screams. To keep it company, I do too.
    The robot hops again. It raises its fist, its wooden beam.
    Behind it more of the ceiling gives way. A creeping roar of descending debris, slowly filling the room.
    With a bellow, I stop hauling the bartender toward the door and reverse direction. I slam into him, putting my good shoulder into his midriff. It’s like running into a cow. At least, I assume it is. I’ve done some weird stuff because of this job but never that.
    My face is buried in the bartender’s side. The world around me is just noise. It doesn’t sound good.
    Then the bartender starts to move, sliding. Then his shoulders and head are off the bar, and he’s falling down, collapsing onto the floor. I sit down hard. I look up.
    I stare into the robot’s glass eyes.
    It stands directly above me. It holds the beam up high.
    And then it brings it down.

3
    This is far from the first time I’ve been in a life-threatening position. My whole job description at MI37 seems to largely involve being more carefree with my will to live than most people consider healthy.
    Actually, one time I really did die. Well, I might not have done. I got a do-over. Maybe. I’m not really sure how parallel timelines work. But it didn’t stick. Hence my being here, watching my life expectancy shorten dramatically.
    And the thing about repeatedly exposing yourself to terrifying, life-threatening danger—you sort of get used to it. Once you’ve crash-landed one mangled aircraft in an irradiated ghost town, you’ve crash-landed a hundred mangled aircraft in a hundred irradiated ghost towns. I don’t think it’s really a healthy adaptation—in a very literal sense, actually—but I suppose it’s a natural one. There’s probably even a biochemical reason for it involving the desensitization of adrenaline receptors in the body, or something similar. I imagine Clyde could go on about it at great length.
    So, at this point, when death is more proximal than I’d like it to be, I do sort of expect to find myself shrugging, saying “Oh bollocks, not again,” and fighting my way free.
    So I fight. My legs scramble for purchase on the floor. My arms scramble for anything to hang onto, to drag myself away.
    And I don’t find anything.
    I’m caught completely flat-footed. My weight is wrong, and I am too slow, and the club is coming down just too fast.
    I am helpless.
    And sitting on my arse on the bar floor I am suddenly, horribly struck by the inevitability of my own death.
    It will not be in an attempt to save the world. It will not be sacrificing myself for a noble goal. It will not have great philosophical meaning that will resonate through the lives of friends and strangers alike. It will simply be short, blunt, and very, very messy.
    The club descends, adrenaline dragging the moment out in slow motion. I can see the grain of the wood, the jagged splinters. I can see the oil in the knuckles of the robot’s hand. I can see each individual lens of glass on its large eyes.
    My stomach is a knot. I think I’d vomit if I had the time, but there isn’t. Maybe that’s a good thing. No one wants to be found dead in a pile of his own yak.
    They say your life is meant to flash before your eyes at times like these. I wish it did. I