“So, we have a minute until the dragons from the castle get hungry,” Isaac muses dryly, sitting cross-legged and pulling one of his feet into his lap, tugging at the lacing on the boot, whose heel doesn’t touch the ground anymore. “So…let’s stop and form a plan.”
“…Props and Costuming…has useful things…” Ozzy intones, still staring up at the Halloween moon with rapt devotion.
“I’m not going back through the loading dock so you can fill your pockets, Locomotive Breath,” the eyeless man growls, prying open his boot.
“Well, the service hatch is our only way down,” I point out. “We’d have to go back through, anyway.”
“Is there a fire escape?” Isaac asks, Harlequin climbing onto his shoulder to stare at the moon.
“Was,” I answer, looking down the side. “Looks like a tank or something took it out.”
“Well, that’s great,” the eyeless man huffs, pulling off his boot to reveal a mass of writhing, blackish tentacles, his toes having done much what his hands did, his heels arched slightly, like mine, like Ozzy’s.
“When did that happen?” he shrieks, gesturing at his squirmy, wiggling toes, some of which seem raw and inflamed, probably from being crammed into the boot. Ozzy snorts with laughter, emitting a puff of lemon.
Remembering my own discomfort, I place a finger under the straps in the worst place, shivering as red-hot pain runs along my ankle.
Isaac flops backward, spread-eagled on the roof of the building, his tentacles flapping in the breeze, Harlequin squeaking as she lands on his chest.
A chill runs through me as I feel a few drops from the smear of clouds, partially concealing the giant jack o’lantern in the sky.
“It’s too cold to stay up here,” I point out. “Can we climb down?”
“I mean, maybe?” Isaac postulates, holding his long leg above him to look at his tentacles, flexing them exploratively. “I might…Ozzy, probably…can you?”
Ozzy, having heard me complain about the cold, has turned his attention away from the moon and to the buttons on his coat.
“No, keep it,” I tell him. “It’s yours.”
“Props and Costumes…useful things…spare costumes…” he suggests again.
“Do we wanna take risk on…whatever this is still happening?” Isaac asks. “What if…like…you put on a pair of horns or whatever, and now you have horns?”
I look down at the scales that used to be gloves. “Does it work that way?” I ask. And if it does, how great would it be if we could take it off? But, no, I can’t get under my scales, and just get a pinch for my efforts.
“I was supposed to spend the night standing next to a mechanical horse, scaring passers-by with my formidable claws,” Isaac replies dryly, holding up one of his hands, wiggling it like a forkful of noodles. “I don’t know how any of this works.”
I watch Ozzy, having finally looked away from the moon to survey the patchwork destruction around him. The moon’s pale, yellowish light illuminates his distinctive silhouette, snouted and wheezing, broad shoulders to swing the shovel, nimble feet to perform the dance steps. He balances on the edge of the building, unbothered by the height, returning to his hand-raised supplication to the grinning, orange moon.
“Um…why are we…like this,” I ask the eyeless man. “And he’s…like that?”
Isaac sits up on his elbows, evidently looking at Ozzy, standing on the edge of the building, moonlight glinting off his scutes, tail lashing pensively, a very catlike mannerism.
“He was performing when you saw him, yeah?” Isaac considers. “I wasn’t on duty yet. I’d just gotten out of makeup.”
“So…you weren’t in character…he was in character…and I don’t have a character,” I observe. “Do you think that made a difference?”
Isaac settles back down, fingers folded into pillows, the knee on his shoeless right leg drawn into a tight triangle, face fixed upward. “Maybe? I guess…yes? He’s still…he’s still doing his thing, isn’t he? And the clowns…they’re just…being psycho circus clowns. Except now the blades are real.”
“So…permanently stuck in our costumes,” I muse, “and permanently stuck in character.”
“Seems about like it,” Isaac replies, listening to the sounds of gunfire below. “I…need candy corn in the worst way.”
“Diner…below us…” Ozzy points out. “Food…drink…shelter…”
“And clowns, and mutants, and whatever’s coming off the rides,” Isaac answers, nibbling his bracelet. “Front entrance is probably out…that’s probably where everyone went running to.”
“Do you think this is happening all over?” I blurt, hands shaking, thinking of my mom and my friends, still at home. “Outside the park?”
“I don’t even want to think about that right now,” Isaac huffs. “Can’t even close my eyes…”
My friends decorated. Some of them have yard décor. There’s trick-or-treaters.
I look up at the front entrance, past it and into the parking lot. What’s happening out there?
“Civilians, up on the roof!” someone below shouts.
Isaac sits up, hastily pulling off his remaining boot. Metal squeals as someone below pushes the fire extinguisher into a haphazard, but better than nothing, position.
“I count two, no, three,” the person below continues. “Carrion bird, park guest, mutant.”
A second voice shouts up, “Remain calm! We’re coming to get you!”
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“Yeah, that doesn’t make me feel calm,” Isaac growls, getting to his feet and pulling his mask low for Harlequin to climb back inside.
After a moment, a young soldier armed with a rifle appears on top of the twisted metal that used to be a fire escape, heaving himself onto the rooftop, and offering a polite salute, mechanical fingers barely touching the copper fitting of his telescopic eye, casting a red glow where he looks.
His right side is mostly mechanical, with the eye and robotic hand. Both legs are mechanical, with animal-like feet, and a mechanical tail to help him balance, shifting beneath his dark blue greatcoat.
“Lance Lake, Monsterland infantry,” he introduces. “You people alright?”
“Sure, tonight has been great,” Isaac replies, somehow rolling eyes he doesn’t have.
The partially-mechanical soldier looks him over, eyeing the wrench still clasped in Isaac’s long-fingered hand.
“You a mechanic tonight, Seymour?” the soldier asks, a distantly workplace-friendly tone.
“…Sure.”
“Good. We got wounded in need of repair,” the soldier smiles. “We’ll get you people down and somewhere safe.”
“Safe…right…” I murmur, looking over at where the pirates seem to be dragging a canon toward the castle.
“It’s alright now,” the soldier beams, pulling a glowing, blue bracelet out of his pocket, which makes Isaac and Ozzy visibly recoil. “The army’s here.”
He slips the bracelet around my wrist. Seamless and cool to the touch, I can’t find a power switch or battery case.
“Keep it on,” the soldier advises. “Keeps most of the more…ghoulish at bay.”
“You got more? For my friends?” I ask, glancing back at the scareactor and haunt slider, Isaac looking a little green at the suggestion.
“They won’t want it,” the soldier laughs, then offers me his hand. “Everything’s going to be alright, ma’am, just hang on and we’ll get you down.”
Keeping my arms folded tightly against my chest, partly modesty and partly chill, I follow him to the edge of the building. Steamborg soldiers are holding it in place, one with the dog-sized tank, some with robotic hands, or claws, or tails.
Ironically, the soldiers are the more human of the ones we’ve seen. They were regular people who were…upgraded by the master computer, to serve it personally.
The computer.
I bolt backwards to Isaac, who wraps a protective arm around me, even though I can tell it makes his skin crawl to do it, inches way from contact. He seems to be having the same thought: are they going to feed us to the machine?
“What’s going on up there?” someone below shouts.
“Hesitation, sir,” the soldier replies. “It’s okay, we’re not…” He falters for words to adequately explain it.
Ozzy has his back, and therefore his rucksack, full of tiny pumpkin people, angled possessively away from the soldiers, his smoke smelling of cinnamon and eucalyptus, but gaining a bleach smell as the soldier advances, hands up, palms outward.
“My squad and I were…” the soldier begins, trying to form an easy smile under his red, mechanical eye. “We’re not…”
Isaac, in particular, does not want to take chances on Steampunk Singularity, and find out how beholden he is to the story.
“We’ve been through a lot tonight,” he growls tightly.
“I understand, sir, but we’re just here to help,” the soldier insists. “We’ve got command of the diner. We…there’s survivors down there.”
Ozzy wheezes, a touch of vanilla in his scent mix.
“…Weapon…not drawn…” he whispers.
True, the brass rifle slung along the soldier’s back is present, but he’s holding his hands up to show he’s not reaching for it. It could be out of ammo, though, but the bayonet remains. But what’s a bayonet going to do against a spitting cobra, chemical-spewing plague doctor, and wrench-wielding mutant, all at once?
“You can’t stay up here all night,” the soldier advises gently. “She’s getting cold, and the weather’s only going to get worse.”
“Your weapon, Lake,” Isaac growls. “Take it off and put it on the ground. Kick it over to me.”
“You’re not in a position to…” the soldier retorts.
“We ain’t got all night here, Lance!” someone bellows.
“Fine, fine,” the solder replies, sliding his rifle free and kicking it toward Isaac, who grabs it with his foot, passing it up to his hand.
“He will…try…” Ozzy suggests, watching Isaac examine the weapon, then turning toward the newcomer, hands raised. “Good Gunsight…he is…remanded to your custody…”
Ozzy approaches the soldier, his misting turned off, for the time being, like he’s scoping them out, ready to turn something noxious on if he doesn’t like what they do.
“Okay, the haunt slider’s coming down first,” the soldier tells the people below as Ozzy disappears over the side.
After a few minutes, sitting on the side of the building and watching, the soldier beckons me over.
“You next, ma’am,” he says, waving me over.
Isaac gives me a reassuring nod, still holding the rifle. Isaac’s more likely to be able to climb down on his own if the structure collapses, and he can keep an eye on how they treat me from above.
“Go slow,” the soldier advises me in a calm tone. “Your friend’s waiting for you below, and Seymour’s right behind you.”
“Yeah, sure,” I mumble, watching Isaac with one set of eyes and Ozzy, waiting expectantly below, with another.
The structure is unsteady and shaky, the soldiers doing their best to keep it upright long enough. When I’m about halfway down, feeling like I’m watching from outside my body, the soldier waves for Isaac to come next.
As soon as my feet touch the ground, Ozzy is on me, leading me away from the fire escape, his gaze turned away from the bracelet, his fingers recoiling slightly from my touch. He flares the hem of his coat around me, as close as he can get to touching me, guarding me from the somewhat leering looks of the soldiers.
Soldiers gonna soldier, I think, flaring my hood and hissing.
The one, Lance, tries to take his rifle back from Isaac, who jerks it away defensively, brushing past the soldiers to join us, getting out of the way as they lower the wrecked fire escape.
“You two okay?” he asks in a hushed tone.
“…Might be…telling…the truth…” Ozzy ponders. “Maybe…not…performing?”
“In costume, not on duty, like me?” Isaac asks. “Possibly. Lance does the rifle drill team most nights. They might have been getting ready to go out when…when things got real.”
There’s people in the diner, that’s for sure, huddled in the middle of dining area, but watching closely.
I hold my hands up at my face and breathe on them to warm them, rubbing my scaled palms together.
“Yeah, we need to get you inside either way,” Isaac states. “Ozzy, if things go south…can you…”
“He can…clear a room…” he chuckles, emitting a minute dose of ammonia to prove his point. “Be ready…near doors…it will be…unpleasant…”
“Right, let’s see what the have say,” Isaac says.
