Hardman's Bar

By Hadrian Howell (Hardman)

Chapter 37

“Of course. You can always give up.”

“So, what, I just sit here and let you kill me?”

There was a silence. A long silence. And then Siegema’am spoke again, but there was a different feel to her voice. “If you were to surrender, you would no longer be a threat to Master Hakushaku, and I would therefore no longer be forced to terminate you.”

“You’d stop stabbing me with that thing?”

“Correct.”

“Oh, come on, Hardman, you can’t believe her! She’s the bad guy… girl, whatever!” Geminiman shouted at me.

“Yeah, she’ll probably just kill you anyway,” Snakeman shrugged.

I thought about it. Siegema’am seemed pretty personality disadvantaged, but she’d been very honest up to this point. A kind of cog-in-the-machine honesty. No illusions about the job it has to do and perfectly honest about it, because there’s really nothing else to be. Although this logic for not having to kill me caught my interest for the obvious reason, but it also made me think of something else.

“You… you really don’t want to kill me, do you?” I asked her.

“Huh?” Geminiman and Snakeman said at the same time.

I ignored them. “You thought about your offer before you gave it to me, so while you really want to obey orders, some part of you really doesn’t want to kill me.”

Siegema’am just stood there, motionless. I heard Sparkchan gasp.

“What is it?” Gemini asked her.

“I just figured it out!”

“Figured what out?”

“What they did with her!”

“Her who?”

“Cassandra!”

The word hit me hard, and I felt my whole body go cold. “… what?”

“Cassandra, that IS you, isn’t it?” Sparkchan asked.

The black behemoth that had been knocking me around like yesterday’s chew toy remained immobile and silent, but on the very edge of hearing, I could hear something. I’d swear I could hear something.

“When Mesmerman left that note at your apartment…”

“WHAT?” I shouted. “What was that?”

“Yeah, we kind of got ambushed by Wily before you got there,” Snakeman shrugged. “The thing we thought you should see was a note left by Mesmerman, which said ‘Pawn Takes Queen,’ or something like that.”

I mentally cursed a foe that never seemed to actually die. “It couldn’t have been Mesmerman! I crushed his head! Don’t tell me he’s back…”

“He is,” Siegema’am spoke, and everyone else fell silent. “He is the Terror of Perception, and he has returned, like they say.”

“Cassandra?” Sparkchan tried again.

“Cassandra…” Siegema’am trailed off with a note of sorrow in her otherwise unfeeling voice. “I’m sorry, Hadrian… no… Hardman. I wanted to be someone… like you were… you became Hardman, and all the sudden you were famous and important and… I just wanted to follow you down that road, but…”

“Believe me, lady, he’s anything BUT famous and important,” Geminiman, never one to miss the opportunity to take a stab at someone, smiled. He was rewarded by a kick in the shins from Sparkchan, which was impressive, considering they were still tied up.

“Cassandra…”

“No,” the motionless machine shuddered, “ NOT Cassandra. I’m not that person anymore. I am Siegema’am, loyal follower of Master Hakushaku, without compassion or feeling, and devoid of emotion.”

“Dammit!” I shouted. “I’m NOT losing you!”

“Oh, the drama!” Geminiman shouted in a mock wailing voice.

Ignoring Geminiman had become a habit for me by now, and I kicked on the jet engine in my lower half which was still functioning perfectly, leaning forward, I let myself get propelled forward, a lot faster than I anticipated, as Siegema’am brought her spear arm up to counter my charge. Shouting an animalistic defiance over the roar of the engine, I fired my one remaining Hard Knuckle straight ahead, the powerful punch combining with my own forward momentum to smash into the spearhead and crush her arm all the way to her shoulder. She barely had time to rock backward before I hit her.

Normally, when I do a Hard Press, I’m coming straight down on someone. This was the first horizontal Hard Press I’ve ever done, and now I know why.

My head slammed into her chest like an asteroid, and she immediately lost her footing, and we both careened into the wall, slamming into it with a force great enough to make a crater in it almost twenty feet in diameter, and sending cris-crossing cracks all throughout the rest. The impact shook the chamber so much the pillar the others were lashed to shook free and crashed to the ground.

I staggered backward as Siegema’am slumped to the floor. Her own chest plate had a hole the size of my head in it, and her body was going limp. From out of the hole, a face I barely recognized gave me a weak smile. Her hair had been replaced by miniscule control cables, with one of her eyes gouged out to feed in an optics cable. Below her neck was covered in a myriad of cords, wires, and circuits that fed into the rest of Siegema’am’s body.

I recognized all this RIGHT before the resounding boom of the headache split my head open on the inside. I immediately slammed my hand on my head to stop it exploding and looked at Cassandra. Blood flowed freely out of her mouth.

“S… sorry, Hadrian…” she coughed, tears flowing out of her eye.

I couldn’t find anything to say. I honestly couldn’t.

I still can’t.

“Mesmerman… took control of me… made me fight you…” she cried. “I’m so sorry…”

I found my voice. “What can I do…?”

Her eye closed, tears tracing the only line of liquid down her face that wasn’t blood. She was getting so pale… I knew what she wanted, but I just couldn’t do it. She sobbed, and I closed my eyes. I couldn’t stand it. I really couldn’t.

“please...” she whispered.

“I can’t harm a human,” I managed between shuddering breaths.

Siegema’am’s right arm twitched. The hand closed into a fist. The knees began to bend.

“please… before it takes over again…”

The right arm and hand began to pick themselves up.

“Hardman!” I heard Sparkchan shout behind me.

“I can’t… Not her…”

I felt my left arm click back into place. It was totally undamaged.

“This can’t be real…”

“please… kill me…” Cassandra pleaded.

“This has to be a dream…”

Siegema’am’s right arm made a fist and started to draw back.

“DAMMIT!” I shouted, twisting at the waist and putting all my might into crushing Siegema’am’s right shoulder. Cassandra’s face was a mask of pain before she went limp inside the monster of Siegema’am.

I didn’t care anymore. I let the world know how hurt I was.

I broke down and I cried.