[STATUS: Lost but Empowered]

  Before beginning his search, and still feeling rather pleased with himself, Remi opened his character sheet. He had one unspent point. It was a simple choice. He tapped it into Intelligence, raising the stat to 14, in quiet tribute to the book he was about to pursue. The Codex, after all, had to be earned.

  The problem that Remi faced when he looked at his mini-map was that there wasn’t a library. He wasn’t surprised, as most school boards had spent the last decade phasing out actual libraries in favour of places they called Maker Spaces or Learning Commons. Educational Newspeak, he thought. A glossy rebrand intended to cover up the fact that the system no longer wanted to invest in books. Most of these spaces had purged their shelves, replacing reading material with empty tables and sterile whiteboards. Long gone were the card catalogues and rotating paperback carousels. A school was lucky if it still had a real librarian. Those that did were nearing retirement, and once they left, they weren't replaced.

  Most of the books in a school now lived in secret book rooms, secreted off of hallways, tucked into forgotten corners like contraband. Dim, sealed spaces. Places to store the now forbidden materials of a classical education.

  That was where the Codex had to be. He surveyed his map again, and this time, was rewarded. As he concentrated on what he wanted, the faint outline at the edge of the basement inked itself onto the floor plan. It wasn't labelled, but focusing on that space caused one to flicker into focus:

  BOOK ROOM - B03 (Restricted Access).

  

  It was wedged beside the furnace room. There was no hallway access. The only way in was through the photocopy room. It would have appeared as a dead end, unless you knew where to look. Fortunately for Remi, he now did. Currently on the second floor, he needed to find the nearest stairwell to move down. It was south of his current location, down the main hallway by a few classrooms and then to his left. The walk to the photocopy room was uneventful. There were no more bugs, and certainly no more Monster Wheels zipping around.

  As he entered the room, Remi was forced to squint. There was almost no light. The only visible source being a narrow window on his left. It reminded him of the aperture in his bathroom at home; it gave the illusion of outside access but lacked the functionality of a real one. You couldn't escape from it if there was a fire, making it more of a gesture than a passage.

  Beneath the window sat a small desk that held a Scantron machine and a paper cutter. The long shadow cast by the monochrome behemoth’s cutting arm stretched across the room, as if it reached out to the photocopier itself, which rested opposite. A few teachers’ desks lined the walls, suggesting this space doubled as a teacher workspace. Specs of dust float in the amber light bleeding through the window. A box of paper sat half open, and directly in front of him stood the door to the book room.

  Remi tried the doorknob. The small light in the door’s centre buzzes red. Locked. He sees that there is a note taped to the wall beside the door.

  ACCESS VIA COPY CODE ONLY — SCAN FILE REQUEST FORM.

  

  He looked up at the roof. “Really?! Archie. Why not just have a sign that reads I want you to touch the photocopier. No one is going to believe that the door access is tied to the copy machine.” There is no response, but the copier blinks, waiting for input.

  In yet another moment of forced suspension of disbelief, Remi walked to the copier. He could forge a form; making up paperwork was a straight-up teacher move. There was plenty of paper. Nice. There was also a pen on one of the teacher desks. The form he created was a rudimentary one. It was more like a note he would have sent a student with to book an appointment or work in the Learning Commons, but it would likely work to meet whatever bureaucratic ritual this space demanded. He signed it with a flourish and put the pen in his shopping bag; a good pen was gold.

  Remi then placed the sheet on the photocopy glass, and having no other option, used his own code from work on the machine. Beep! Beep! Beep! BEEP! The interface glitched, and the screen changed from the number pad to a welcome message.

  [ACCESS GRANTED]

  [DUPLICATION PROTOCOL ACTIVE]

  The machine groaned awake, the sound of gears grinding on plastic. The machine almost sounded—oh, shit!

  He retreated a few steps. The drawers started to open and slam shut. The feeder tray whirred to life, and toner bled from the machine’s crevices. He could see his reflection briefly appear on the scanner glass as the lid lifted. The panel slid to the front face of the machine, two red circles glowing ominously. The entire copier lifted itself upwards, supported by grotesque paperwork legs, formed from reams of paper that spilled out of the copy tray. Ragged arms extended from the side bins, with menacing fingers from crumpled papers, half-copied handouts, spare detention slips. The lid lifted again, up and down, up and down.

  [MINI-BOSS ENGAGED]

  Narrative Conflux Class C Detected

  NAME: THE PAPER AUTOMATON (PHOTOCOPIER)

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  TYPE: DUPLICATION-CONSTRUCT / ADMIN CLASS

  THREAT LEVEL: 2

  RESISTANCES: SLASHING

  WEAKNESSES: FIRE, TONER CORE, BLUNT FORCE, OVERLOAD

  HP: 250/250

  [YOUR STATS: HP: 45/45 | Mana: 38/50 | XP: 770/1000 | INK WELL: 38%]

  Screeching mechanical chatter, reminiscent of dot matrix printers, echoed from the center of the golem. But it wasn’t just the grinding staccato shriek of the machine; it was a modulated, and terrifying computer voice. “Your duplication has been denied.” The voice rasped from the tray vents. The Automaton rose fully now, its paper limbs creaking, red sensor-eyes blazing, and the scent of scorched toner filled the air.

  [Combat Initiated!]

  If there is a singular focal point, symbolically speaking, of teacher frustrations, it is the photocopier. Apparently, Remi’s dream of teacher on machine violence was finally coming true. The continued to rise like a visor. Inside the cavity, wires hummed and toner steamed. He knew these things took forever to boot up, giving him a small window for action. But the lights on the scanner bar were flickering to life; one arm twitched as a ream of missed paper morphed itself into the semblance of a whip. He didn’t have long.

  The whip had to go. There was no way he was going to let it to lash him to death, especially when he had a lashing of his own. Remi wasted no more time. He knew the casing was dense, hard plastic and metal and bundled wires; that was armour that would be difficult to crack. It was a tank designed to withstand some periodic smacking. But the decision to make its limbs from misfed pages and bundled cables was a poor one. It was paper masquerading as strength, so it was the arm holding the whip, the right one facing Remi, that became his target. It was fortunate that there was also a paper cutter close by to help him shred some documents.

  Remi’s lashing snapped out, coiling around the targeted cutter arm like a tether. With a grunt and with a vision of Kratos in his mind, he yanked, ripping the blade free in a burst of splinters, springs, and screws. It wasn’t the Blades of Chaos. More like the Blade of Classroom Reluctance, rusted from disuse, chipped by decades of budget-saving paper segmentation. A blade that was old, and worn like Remi himself, yet still had a few last cuts to give.

  The blade soared through the air as he swung it like a slashing chain blade towards the unsuspecting limb. But God of War he wasn't. Instead of the cinematic whip-crack that he imagined, it was more of a clunky THWUMP! The arc was wobbly, and the form all wrong, but it had worked. Although the copier’s HP only dipped slightly, the arm and whip collapsed onto the floor in a heap. The blade clattered to the floor behind the golem.

  He wasn't sure if paper had tendons, but the hope was to sweep the leg. Remi tightened the mana lash, drawing it taut. His muscles coiled as he pivoted low and pulled sideways, dragging the industrial paper cutter arm along the ground and across the copier’s Achilles tendon. As the cutter arm scythed across the golem’s rear leg like a metal guillotine, the blade caught under the knee joint, sinking into paper flesh. He yanked again, and the copier buckled. It toppled onto its left side, limbs flailing, with a THUD! Toner bled out like black blood across the tiles. Its impact was punctuated with an “ERROR! Replace the drum unit.”

  Pressing his advantage and continuing to improvise, Remi attempted to cast a spell through the meter stick. Using it as a focus for the spell. He’d only begun to dismantle this thing; it was far from over. Remi swung the meter stick like a billy club, stepping into the copier with full-body momentum, but instead of just striking, he channeled a mana pulse through the stick.

  He focused the spell on the part of the stick that was likely to make contact, the tip, and he hoped he could turn the weapon into a spell conduit and melee weapon. Success. The stick connected with the side of the golem’s casing. Cracking into a seam near the toner hatch, just as Man Pulse flared from the tip at contact. The jolt of kinetic force was sent directly through the copier’s torso. There was a satisfying crunch as the toner canister ruptured, releasing a plume of black powdery mist into the air.

  [SYSTEM MESSAGE: INVALID USE]

  Yelling to the room, “But I used it! Too late now!” The response sounded resigned, reluctantly acknowledging the truth of the situation it now found itself in.

  [NEW COMBAT CHANNEL GRANTED]

  “Thanks! That is what I thought!”

  Remi could see the blade was now under the golem, and the lashing, seemingly still active, going through the chest cavity of the creature. He could only assume that it was still connected to the blade. Drunk on his success, he slipped into the melodramatic. It was fun, and he couldn’t help himself, lost in the moment. So, like Scorpion from Mortal Kombat, Remi shouted: “GET OVER HERE!” He retracted the lash, thinking about ripping the blade through the golem and into his hand.

  There were two shrieks. One of metal and plastic being torn, and one from the modulated voice box of the copier, as the lash snapped taught and the blade punched through the golem’s chest cavity. It tore through wires, fuser cores, and the glowing-toner heart at its centre, showering the room with bits of wire and shredded plastic. The copier jolted, cables vomiting from the gaping wound in its front.

  [ERROR: Drum Malfunction. Overload Pathway Ruptured]

  The blade flew forward, smoking and still tethered, stopping just short of Remi’s hand. He grabbed it. Too easy, he thought to himself.

  When he was in college, drinking with friends, watching WWE and eating cheap chicken wings at the bar. There were occasional instances, because of the adrenaline of the night and the impaired judgement of the alcohol, when Remi would know he should stop what he was doing. But he just couldn’t stop himself. He was fine; what was one more shot of tequila? It was the type of drunkenness that he was feeling right now. The kind where a momentary lapse of judgement ends up with him curled over a public toilet thirty minutes later, throat raw from vomit and second-hand chicken wings.

  Blade in hand, he should have just finished the job, but he hesitated. Maybe it was to glory in his success, or to admire the blade that now sat comfortably in his hand, or maybe, just maybe, it was because the fight had felt a bit too natural, almost effortless. But that was his mistake. The tequila shot finally caught up with him.

  The golem might have been twitching and broken, but it wasn't dead yet. It did what photocopiers do after a long loading pattern; it sprang to life and then jammed everything up. It spasmed as it lurched forward and into a sitting position. Remi had moved too close when retrieving the blade, and so the copier could bite down on the mana lash that looped from Remi’s hand to the blade.

  He felt it snap tight. Not physically, but in the pacing of the moment. Momentum was suddenly shifting, and he was now on the wrong end of that pendulum swing. He knew it before he could feel the burn travel up his arm, that the machine wasn't trying to hit him; it was trying to connect to him.

  [SYSTEM MESSAGE - LINK ESTABLISHED]

  The teether was now between them, not between Remi and his blade. Its normal blue colour had shifted to red, and the connection now felt wrong. Out of his control. Pain spiked in his forearm, and he could feel the machine reach through the connection and into himself. The blade turned; the edge moving to align with his own face. Just when everything looked good, it always seemed to jam.

  Remi needed to get control of this situation right quick. If the thought of the whip had been bad, the idea that he was seconds away from burying a chopper blade into his own skull what monumentally bad. He tried to just let go of the blade and have it tumble to the floor. There was the sound of the scanner sweep from the machine. As if in response.

  [ACTION INTERRUPTED]

  [SYSTEM MESSAGE]

  You bound this spell to the moment, and you made it personal, and you improvised it.

  We can’t just allow you to let it go.