Attack on an Evil God

by Ásgrímur Hartmannsson

TTT: synopsis

Maggi, a university student, accepts an offer to join the Lookout Beaver Club for something to do in his spare time. The club is dedicated to thaumaturgical research, which Maggi views with skepticism. He soon finds himself threatened by supernatural creatures, magical robots, and malicious goons working for a high government official who has ties to other entities not of this universe.

Chapter 18: Train Ride

Hansi was startled by thunderous blasting in the courtyard below. Looking outside, he was stunned to see other people there. He had not been expecting them. He wondered who they were. One lay smouldering on the ground, on fire. Hansi deemed it unlikely that he could ever identify that one.

He noticed that the firing died down almost immediately and went back to his window to check it out. He saw the robots pick up and carry gas tanks and put them inside the train. It was fun to watch those bulky things climb into the train, but Hansi was in a hurry. He ran out again, and down around the corner.

One robot looked at him, and Hansi took care to aim at its head. It exploded into tiny fragments when he shot it. The other robot was inside. Hansi shot at it repeatedly, and it came rolling out of the end of the train, crashing down on its belly. Hansi watched it, but it didn’t move. He reloaded the shotgun, and went into the train.

The robots had put about half a dozen gas canisters in the train car. They looked to be about fifty litres each. Hansi couldn’t tell what sort of gas it was, but he had seen welding equipment and guessed it was either oxygen or acetylene. Or something else that would be flammable. What luck, he thought. But the gas made sense. There would be lots of welding to be done.

He picked the explosives from his bag. He had four kilograms of the stuff and placed all of it, rigging it to a timer. That done, he started wondering how to make the train go. There were some controls up front. Sure enough, they were simple and straightforward. Just one stick to make it move backwards, forwards, or slow to a halt. Easy.

The train was sufficiently slow on the uptake for him to put it on full power and expect to jump out safely. He was about to jump out when Fannar jumped aboard and attacked him. Hansi hit the front windshield.

The attacker was going for his shotgun, but it was stuck to Hansi by a sling. He turned around and swung at the guy. He swung again and again until he connected, right in the jaw. That hurt both of them. They were wrestling about for the shotgun when shooting started from outside, and they lay on the floor.

Robots were pacing them, taking shots at the train. They burned the sheetmetal on the sides, broke a few windows — the ones Hansi hadn’t shot out — and tried melting the wheels and motors, but to no avail. They tried jumping aboard, but that proved impossible after four of them had tried and fallen off and rolled to a stop.

Fannar had Hansi under, both hands on the shotgun, and leaned on him. Hansi managed to roll him off, and they wrestled a bit. The shotgun went off. It made a hole in the side of the train and caused tinnitus but nothing more. Fannar tried twisting the shotgun away, causing it to go off again with the same general result. He lost hold of it, and Hansi managed to turn it and shoot him in the foot.

Fannar rolled in pain. Hansi looked outside. The robots were there, and more were coming. He saw one run in front of the train, probably trying to slow it down. It was thrown away with a loud noise. Hansi saw it roll away.

Another robot tried to do the same, and then two more, with the same result. Hansi felt the train rattle a bit with each impact, but it kept going at the same rate. Two robots shot at the front wheel assembly, one from each side. There was a screeching noise and a lot of ozone smell, but the train didn’t appear to be slowing down.

Hansi reloaded the shotgun, keeping an eye on Fannar. Fannar made faces at him, still writhing and clutching his foot. He was probably missing most of his toes. Hard to tell.

Hansi took to shooting the robots. Carefully, one at a time. They started keeping their distance, except the ones that had lined themselves up on the tracks. The train hit one roughly every five seconds now.

Hansi looked and saw the evil god ahead. It looked like a huge potato. It was in a hole, with about a quarter part sticking up, and that quarter towered over like a four-storey building. It had several arms, but they were human-sized, sticking out at random, and eyes and mouths here and there, sometimes in clusters. It had once been one of the local entities before it became all of them.

Hansi looked at Fannar. “You are about to hit your friend there. Good luck,” and he jumped out of the train. He immediately regretted doing that, but there seemed nothing else to do.

The train went all the way into the evil god anyway, sinking in upon impact. Hansi could feel the evil god roar. But it made no sound. The robots rolled past him, ignoring him. They came from all around, grouping at the train car, poking at it, clawing at it.

Fannar had been thrown backwards into all the canisters, and sat holding one of the lumps of C4, wondering what the blinking red light meant.

“Join me,” the evil god communicated to Hansi.

“It’s a bit too late for that, I believe,” replied Hansi.

The C4 blew up the gas canisters and the train car. The escaping gas expanded, then exploded again. The shockwave threw Hansi two hundred meters from where he lay.

Proceed to Chapter 19...