Previously: Digger arrived in San Francisco and called Cole Chen, Whiz’s brother, who is also a superhero named Metalord. Cole set up a meet and said Digger would know the place by the explosions. And now…
“Wait, what explosions?†Digger asked, but by then, Chen had said, “See you there†and hung up.
Digger’s foot pressed down on the gas, but he had to remind himself that he wasn’t that guy anymore. He wasn’t the nearly invulnerable guy who had fought his way back from Hell, saved the world, and beaten up half the Big Apple Corps with his bare hands and a baseball bat. He was just a norm in a rented car. He slowed down again with an effort and kept the speed pegged at just under the limit as cars whizzed by him on both sides.
[blockquote type=”blockquote_quotes” align=”left”]They were strange machines, half-insectile in their design. The copters had buzzing wings on either side like huge dragonflies, while the robots had buglike faces with dome-shaped eyes and legs with multiple sets of knees. ..[/blockquote]He kept his eyes on the sky ahead as he exited onto the Southern Embarcadero Freeway. At first, he saw nothing but distant contrails and a lonely blimp circling over downtown. As he drew nearer, he saw small helicopter-like vehicles rise up, six or seven of them, and then giant robotic heads appeared above some of the buildings along the waterfront, five in all.
And then lightning lanced up toward one of the helicopters, which barely managed to jink out of the way. One of the robots fell a moment later, attracting strafing runs from a couple of the helicopters.
And then, the explosions: a column of them, a growing cylinder, curving like a tentacle made of bits of blooming fire and smoke, like an invisible string of huge firecrackers detonating. And when that tentacle touched one of the helicopters, it went down in pieces.
Digger watched the battle, rapt, barely seeing the cars weaving in front of him, barely hearing the horns honking in his wake. He glanced down at the speedometer once to see it spiked all the way to the right, but he didn’t really register what that meant as he looked up once more to watch the battle in progress. More lightning, cars and other debris flying into the air, and that bizarre exploding pseudopod curling around on itself, chasing down the helicopters one by one.
And now he was off the freeway and on the Embarcadero proper, where he could better see the three remaining copters, the two remaining robots. They were strange machines, half-insectile in their design. The copters had buzzing wings on either side like huge dragonflies, while the robots had buglike faces with dome-shaped eyes and legs with multiple sets of knees. They could adjust their height from less than 20 feet tall to over 50 in a mere second; one shot up to full extension and took a swing at the exploding tentacle as it passed over him. It drew back a smoking stump for its trouble.
And then a car smashed its head off. Both head and car spun in the air, flying toward Digger. He watched them as if hypnotized, and then they smashed to the ground right in front of him.
He yanked the wheel hard left, shot down a side street toward safety.
Until another robot stepped out right in front of his car.
This looks pretty bad, especially considering the name of the chapter. Be here tomorrow for the least surprising surprise ever in the next episode of Run, Digger, Run!
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