Chapter 59

The trio scrambled off the bike towards the start of town. Clare was asking about the plan, and Lilly was pestering him about the people in town who were going to get killed. Yes it was likely Porter would go around shooting up every other living thing before he got to them, and letting that happen would be inefficient and doing things wrong.

He turned to Clare. "Tell everyone to get into the jellyfish building or beyond," he ordered. "You live here. They'll listen to you." Luckily the buildings with the space jellyfish, and the antigravity, were sort of near the edge of town. Most people would live closer to the center, by Nora's tower and the hospital.

"I guess," Clare agreed.

"Get moving!" he snapped. He turned to Lilly. "We're going to the jellyfish building."

He moved in that direction, not waiting for an answer.

"Why?" Lilly asked, though thankfully she was following him.

"If you can't figure it out, I'm not explaining it."

They dashed into the building and Pride managed to shove her off the platform into the zero-gravity air around them. He also moved off the platform, but he grabbed the platform and pulled himself under it, out of sight.

As he waited, he examined his broken wrist until he knew enough to mend it. Then he clapped (a painful process) and healed the bone. It was still burnt. His face might be too, where Porter had grabbed it. It felt really warm. But from what Nate had showed, they had very good medical technology here. If they all lived through this, burns wouldn't be a problem.

The room filled up with a few more people Clare managed to bring in. The space jellyfish above didn't have faces, but they sure seemed to be watching with interest. If anyone noticed him, he put a finger to his lips. They had to keep quiet.

Outside were the sounds of explosions. It seemed Porter had taken to blowing some buildings up even if no one was inside them.

Then the sound of whirring metal entered the room, along with heavy uneven footsteps Pride was used to hearing in the TARDIS. He pressed his palms together and put them against the platform, disattaching it from the wall with sparks of alchemy.

"What the-?" Porter asked, turning behind him.

As the platform left the wall, Porter began to float up, no longer under the effects of gravity. Pride also came into sight as the platform floated away. He smiled.

"Pretty fun room, isn't it?"

"I'm not sure what you hoped to accomplish from this," Porter said. "I can shoot you here as well as any place else."

And Porter did fire, and the blast did move towards the ground, but Porter also moved up, pinwheeling away as the weight of the metal spun him.

"Funny thing," Pride said. "Equal and opposite forces are in effect in zero gravity." Well, close enough to zero gravity.

Porter glared. Blood began to stain his shirt, around where his metal half ended. It seemed firing with such an uneven body, in a room where recoil was far worse, had really done a number on him.

Clare smiled above them. She pulled out what looked like a knife, that apparently also shot bullets. Her aim needed work though. She shot Porter in the shoulder blade. The metal shoulder blade. The bullet embedded itself there, and seemed to do no damage.

"Clare," Pride said, exasperation showing.

"The heart is supposed to be on the right. Where else am I going to shoot?" Clare asked.

"Literally anywhere else?" Pride suggested.

Porter might not be able to fire his weapon, but his metal limbs were still super-heated and super-strong. It would hurt if he started physically fighting him. And he turned to glare at Clare. But, he no longer seemed to be looking at her. Porter smiled. He fired up. But why? He wasn't aiming at anyone.

Then his blast hit the wall, sparks appeared from it, and abruptly, the antigravity stopped working. They all fell towards the ground, some screaming. Pride hit a beam, one of those arches across the first floor, and promptly had the wind knocked out of him.

From up here he had a good view of the chaos going on. Porter fell, but landed on his feet, putting most of his weight on the metal foot to absorb the landing. The space jellyfish drifted down slowly. Apparently, their thin circular bodies made for a slow decent, but they were going down. Porter let it happening, smiling as they fell. Most of the space jellyfish were big enough they hit an arch and didn't fall any further. (Was that why the arches had been there in the first place?) But one or two fell all the way to the ground. Clare screamed under one of them. Evidently, the tentacles had hit her. Pride grimaced. That hadn't gone to plan. He could still consider it a success if this was as bad as it got, but he wasn't sure what to do from here.

Porter looked around, but it seemed he didn't see where Pride went. "A good effort," he addressed the room at large. "But it's over now."

Then the door on the first floor opened. Pride couldn't see who stepped into the entry way. He was nearly directly over it. But the voice gave her away as Nora. "I think that's enough, don't you Porter?"

Porter turned to her, and his flesh eye widened. (The glowing mechanical eye, if anything, narrowed.) "You. You are the intern. You lured me into the government's little trap, made me what I am today. Seems it's been longer for you than it has for me."

"Yes, I suppose that's time travel for you. But you've finally found me. You can kill me, if you like. I won't stop you. But then, you can leave this planet alone."

Porter looked taken aback for a moment. His body went comparatively slack and he took a step away. Then he shook his head slightly, glaring at the ground stubbornly. He turned back up, smiling.

"Leave? And go where, exactly? There's no life to return to. No new one I particularly care to create. No. I will destroy everyone on this planet, and then use it for my own purposes. And letting you watch all that will be a far better revenge than killing someone who only has a few years left to live."

"You-you can't do that," Nora objected. Clearly she hadn't seen that coming. "You have a reason to want revenge, but you're not a monster." She spoke like she was begging to be right.

Porter looked like he was trying to grin, but he was so angry, it wasn't working. "You know what? I am actually!"

Well, Pride still had essentially no plan, but he was out of time. He pressed his palms together. Porter stretched out his metal arm. Pride pressed his palms to the beam, and it broke into multiple large pieces of rubble that came crashing down, with Pride coming down right after it.