Hardman's Bar

By Hadrian Howell (Hardman)

Chapter 17

“Oh…. Kay,” Jonathan said with a raised eyebrow. “And YOU would be?”

The robot wore blackish red armor, and his head was topped with a shock of red hair, with dull red eyes staring out from behind equally red shades. “Wow, he did a number on you guys, didn’t he?”

“What are you talking about?” Classi demanded.

The robot shook his head. “I can’t really explain it all here in the open. Come with me.”

“Why should we?” Lennon asked.

“Because it’s the only way we’re getting out of this alive.”

“Compelling argument, but it still doesn’t explain anything,” Raijin commented.

The kid I was holding by the collar stirred a little bit. He coughed, blood coming out of the corner of his mouth before he got his feet under him and started standing under his own power. “You could’ve warned me this one was Hadrian, Gauntlet.”

The robot shrugged. “He’s the only drunk looking one in the bunch. I thought you could figure that much out for yourself.”

‘SD’ supported himself on my shoulder and I loosened my grip on him. For some reason he knew my name. This was something I thought needed further investigation. “So who are you guys?” I asked, my voice still scratchy.

“Again, not here,” the one called Gauntlet said, throwing conspiratorial glances up and down the street. “Inside.”

The rest of us looked at the frozen bodies of the crowd and the persistent grey light that drifted in and out of vision. “Well,” Jonathan said after a moment, “I’ve got nothing better going on.”

A silent agreement was made as we shuffled into the building Gauntlet led us into. It might have been a theatre at one point, but it was so run down the only evidence left was the rows of seating caked with debris and the wide, empty stage. The robot climbed up onto the stage and motioned for us to sit down.

Seven seats had been cleared away before the stage, all next to each other, and we all squeezed in. Jonathan and I were careful because of our injuries, and ‘SD’ was moving rather carefully as well. I’d obvious done a lot of damage to him, even though I hadn’t really meant to.

Gauntlet looked at us all as we sat there. “Wow… So this is what we are, at our core…”

“Cut the crazy talk, robo-dimwit,” Lennon snapped. “Get to the point and get to it quick.”

Gauntlet smirked in an unamused sort of way at Lennon, and then launched into a speech.

“You all have a memory of a life you’ve been living up till now, but it’s not complete. There’re holes in your mind you can’t comprehend and you can’t seem to fill. There may even be some sort of mental roadblock preventing you from accessing your memories.”

We all shifted a little uncomfortably. This was very close to the mark, and nobody was sure how to react to it.

“Let me assure you the life you think you’ve been living is an amateur’s fabrication. A sad, pathetic attempt to forge a lifetime’s experiences and memories for eight different people to distract you from the truth.” Gauntlet’s gaze met each one of our own in turn as he spoke. “You think you’re a human being, who might have a career, might be homeless, or might even be a worthless drunk,” Ouch. “but let me assure you that isn’t who you really are.”

“Okay then,” Psycho interrupted, “Who ARE we, genius?”

“You probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Gauntlet sighed, “but there is a way to show you first hand what you really are. You have to trust me on this, because we’re a team and we always will be, and this is the only thing that’ll work and get us all out of this nightmare.”

‘SD’ feebly raised a bloody hand. “So what do we do?”

“There are eight places in this city which all hold a special meaning to one of you. That place is somewhere you held dear in your real life, and it’s the place he’s using to tie you down to this endless dream.”

“You keep mentioning a ‘he,’” Classi muttered, “but you never give us a name or a reason or anything. We’re just supposed to believe that our lives are lies because you say so?”

Gauntlet looked at her and shook his head, moving forward to sit on the end of the stage. “I guess I can’t ask that of you, no. But I can ask you to give it a shot. What do you have to lose? Besides… there’s somewhere in the city of Monsteropolis that made your head hurt to look at, wasn’t there?”

Classi gave him a questioning look before slowly nodding. “It was some kind of tree, but what-“

“You need to go there and find out for yourself,” the robot said.

I remembered the bar we’d passed in the limo. That place had been a migraine all its own for me. Was that what he was talking about?

Either way, he was right. Something hadn’t felt at all right to me since I’d gotten here, and now I was beginning to understand why. Since there were memories I couldn’t get at, and feelings about the people around me I couldn’t explain, I obvious didn’t belong here. Or at least, in this capacity.

What would I find in that bar?

I stood up slowly, and made my way to the door.

“Where’re you going?” Lennon asked. I turned my head enough to see the rest of them were looking at me.

“I hate bein’ tied down,” I said in a voice that might have been mine. It was deeper. Somehow more metallic, but it was mine. It came out of my throat, and I felt the pain of it doing so. “So I’m gonna do somethin’ about it.”

Gauntlet simply nodded. “Good luck.”

Ignoring the odd looks I was getting from the others, I staggered out the door, the pain in my ribs dulling to a small fire in my side as I walked out onto the street. Something about the city felt different. EVERYONE on the streets and on the roads was looking at me. Even the smaller children.

There was hatred in their eyes.

I tried to ignore them as I staggered down the sidewalk, back toward the bar I’d barely seen. The crowd seemed to thicken as I made my way, so much so it became hard to walk at all. I tried ‘excuse me,’ and ‘pardon me,’ but they only packed in closer. The angry, almost rage-filled looks I was getting were starting to annoy me.

“Lemme alone, people,” I muttered, “I ain’t done nothin’ to ya…”

I heard it before I caught it in my hand. A little girl, couldn’t have been older than ten, had swung a lead pipe at me with all her might. Which was more might than she should’ve been able to muster.

It occurred to me in some sort of subconscious way that this was the first full swearword I’d been able to use in a situation like this in a week.

“Aw, son of a *****,” I grumbled as the crowd turned violent.

A rain of fists and kicks, both human and robotic, slammed into my body as I went down. In a desperate move, I flung one of my arms sideways, and they started to topple like dolls. I watched as the angry, shouting faces of the people I’d hit go past, and then seem to shatter into a thousand pieces. My mind threatened to shut down at the absurdity of what was happening around me, but my body wanted to do something else.

Some sort of instinct launched me out of a crouch and into a dead run through the throng of people, my arms powering from side to side in front of me, knocking them away like leaves in a pile as they split apart into countless shards. For every one I knocked away, though, two more took their place. Even at a full run I was starting to get bogged down, and the pain in my side flared like a volcano as I clenched my teeth so much they hurt.

Through the red haze of pain, I saw something blurry that stabbed into my forebrain like a knife. I faltered a little before coming up again, slamming people into walls and throwing them out into the street with a might that couldn’t have been my own. For some reason, it never really occurred to me to kick them. Punching just seemed natural.

Another sweep of my arm brought a doorway that invaded my pain receptors into view. I’m sure I screamed as I pushed toward it, the pain threatening to kill me there and then, but then I laid a hand on the door.

I was suddenly inside of the bar.

The last few hands and fingers that had been grabbing at my cloths faded away as my eyes adjusted to the darkness. It had to be a bar, since I could see the bar itself, and the drinks behind it. There were no tables, though, leaving the whole room looking like an empty tennis court. Breathing hard, I took a few tentative steps forward, and something stood up behind the bar.