A flash of light hit me followed by the familiar whine of the teleporter and I was surrounded by one of my suits. The combat suit. The very same variety I'd used just a few weeks before when I was going toe to toe with Fialux.

  But this one was what I liked to call the Galactica special. No way for any computers to communicate with the thing and cause trouble for yours truly. It was off the books and out of the systems CORVAC had access to. Hidden offsite so he wouldn’t find it in any inventories.

  One of many insurance policies I’d put in place when I started working with CORVAC, and boy was I glad I had a healthy sense of paranoia now.

  Sure the thing hadn’t been enough to defeat Fialux, but I figured it was probably one hell of an asset now that it looked like we were on the same side and the only thing I had to go up against was a computer whose ego was bigger than any of the guns he was packing in that giant death robot chassis.

  "Damn," Fialux said.

  I turned to look at her, adjusting my suit, and saw her eyeing me. Which was distracting. It was a look I appreciated, a look that sent a jolt of warmth running through my body, but at the same time it was a look we didn't have time for right now.

  "I never thought I'd say this," I said. "But we don't have time for that. There's a giant robot attacking the city and only we can stop it."

  I winced. I hated how heroic that sounded. I didn’t do heroic, but here we were.

  Fialux nodded. "You're right."

  "Computer," I said. "Can you teleport us about two hundred feet in the air over the house?"

  There was another bright light, the familiar whine and the rush of blood to my head that accompanied teleportation, and then I was floating a few hundred feet above the house.

  Well, it would be more accurate to say I was falling from a point several hundred feet above the house. I frantically switched on the antigravity parts of the suit and slowed my descent.

  Right. No automated systems to do that for me. I was going to have to get used to doing everything the old fashioned way. And build new automated systems that didn’t rely on CORVAC.

  Still. I’d done everything manually before. It was like riding a bike. Or driving a stick shift.

  A massive explosion from the city center drew my attention. Damn it. I guess my calculations had been off, or CORVAC hadn’t stuck to the original plan to return to base. No, he went for the destruction as soon as I got back to the lab under the assumption that once I was there he would be able to deal with me easily enough.

  Stupid CORVAC.

  I turned and looked out over the city. Sure enough, there was the giant death robot making its way downtown. It looked like it'd already cut a path of destruction that led past some of the docks, through the university, and now it was going straight for the city center.

  I guess the students were going to get the day off of classes after all. Assuming they survived the robot’s run through campus.

  I rolled my eyes. Of course it would be going straight for the city center. CORVAC had no sense of style. No originality.

  Fialux flew down and floated next to me.

  "Okay Night Terror, how do we defeat that thing?"

  I cocked an eyebrow at her. Was she serious?

  "What are you talking about?"

  "That's a giant death robot do you designed, right?"

  "Well yeah…"

  "Then I'm sure it has all sorts of nasty tricks up its metallic sleeves to defeat me, right?"

  “All the stuff I built to defeat you went into my super suit. Not that it did me a damn bit of good. If we're being perfectly honest with each other? There's nothing on that thing you couldn't take care of easily. There's a reason I never actually deployed it. Although I don't think CORVAC knows that…"

  The giant death robot idea really had always been CORVAC's baby. He seemed obsessed with the idea of wading into the city center and destroying things left and right from the depths of a hardened military grade robot.

  The idea really took hold after he discovered some old Japanese monster movies that I never would’ve added to my media library if I'd known it would get him started on that waste of resources. But because it was CORVAC, because I respected him, and partly because I feared that if I didn't meet his demands he’d go rogue just like he was right now, I built the damned thing.

  But I never voiced my suspicions that the giant death robot wouldn't last more than five minutes against Fialux when she showed up. He liked it so much, enjoyed going on about how he’d be able to defeat the world's greatest hero and I wouldn’t have to bother with the Anti-Newtonian stasis field if I'd just let him go play with his new toy, that I never had the heart to point out several of the severe design flaws.

  And let me tell you, I was glad now that I hadn’t pointed out any of those numerous flaws.

  Like the fact that the hardened outer shell was steel that was only about one feet thick. Which was about what you’d expect from old school battleship armor. Ask all the ships anchored at Pearl on December 7, 1941 how well that worked out for them when technology and tactics marched on in one day of infamy.

  If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

  The point being that wasn’t nearly enough hardened armor when Fialux could fly out of the sky and ruin your day like a Mitsubishi Zero whose task force got the go ahead to climb Mount Niitaka over the radio and was about to relegate Alfred Thayer Mahan to the dustbin of history.

  Look it up. That one’s a historical banger. Promise.

  “But you built it,” Fialux said. “Some of that stuff you built into your suit gave me a really hard time.”

  Damn. Maybe I got closer to fighting her off than I thought. Or maybe she was flattering me now that we were making out with each other.

  “I’m flattered to hear that, but honestly? The thing's a paper tiger as far as you're concerned," I said. "Well, I guess it's a reinforced steel tiger, but you get the idea."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "You'll see," I said. "Just zip in there, blast it with your heat vision or whatever the hell it is you do with your eyes, and go to town."

  Fialux grinned. "I think I could have some fun with this."

  I held up a hand to stop her before she went zipping off towards the city. "Wait!"

  She skidded to a halt. Well, saying she skidded to a halt probably wasn't the proper terminology considering we were floating midair, but you get the idea.

  She floated back, her hair blowing in the breeze and her clothes looking amazing attached to that tight body.

  "What's up?"

  "Can you wait until I give you a signal to blow him to smithereens?"

  Fialux shrugged. "Sure, whatever you say."

  And with that we were off. Fialux shot off towards the sound of distant explosions and I followed.

  I was surprised to see that the antigrav units built into my suit were apparently more than enough to keep up with her, though I wasn't sure if she was deliberately slowing down to allow me to keep up. I'd have to ask her about that later.

  Even before we reached the city proper we saw signs of a giant death robot on a rampage. Telephone poles were thrown to the side like toothpicks. Houses had been flattened, looking for all the world like footage of a tornado going through a trailer park that had called down nature’s wrath. Only tornadoes didn't leave the telltale signs of focused energy blasts charring the sides of the houses it flattened.

  Luckily it was the middle of the day and I figured most people were still at work. Unluckily "still at work" meant they were all in the city which was where the giant death robot was currently rampaging.

  That really sucked for the work from home crowd. No doubt some asshole was going to use this as proof that people needed to return to the expensive commercial real estate they were paying rent on. Never mind that the commercial real estate got attacked way more than the suburbs.

  Suburbia gave way to the outskirts of the city proper, and here the path of destruction started to get more noticeable. A path of destruction didn’t feel quite so destructive when it was moving through big open spaces like golf courses and dog parks, but it got a hell of a lot more noticeable in the city where destructible material was way more densely packed.

  I hoped people managed to get to the city mandated shelters before stuff started to go down. Targeted destruction in service of a plan to take over the world was one thing, but the wanton and indiscriminate destruction CORVAC was engaging in was another thing entirely.

  I wondered what his game was. I wondered if maybe we were walking into a trap. Nothing drew in a hero faster than wanton and indiscriminate destruction.

  But no time to worry about that. I caught a glimpse of the university flash by, including the journalism building which looked slightly different with a large chunk ripped out of it.

  I frowned. He did that on purpose, the asshole. The path of destruction was a straight line from the suburbs then a jagged line leading to the university. Of all the vindictive petty things.

  He saw how much time I was spending in the journalism building and purposely went after it, though it looked like he’d also hit a couple others. Surprisingly the goddamn Applied Sciences building looked no worse for the wear. I would’ve given a pretty penny to have drone footage of whatever saved Dr. Laura’s domain from certain destruction, but CORVAC had probably commandeered all my drones for his nefarious business.

  The bastard. Then campus was gone in a blink and we were over the city again and heading downtown.

  We rounded one of the mid-rises that gave way to skyscrapers and I caught a glimpse of something spherical and metallic out of the corner of my eye. Fialux must have seen it too, because she darted off in that direction.

  As she rounded the other side of a skyscraper a blast of high energy from a beam weapon slammed into her. Only she didn't miss a single beat. No sooner had the weapon hit her than she was charging forward. Flying forward.

  Whatever. She moved towards the robot. Like I said, terrestrial analogies tend to break down when you’re talking about a superpowered dogfight a few hundred feet above ground level where it was nothing but pigeons, skyscrapers, heroes, villains, and giant death robots created by villains who were really regretting that decision.

  And let’s not even get started on how charging into downtown to fight a giant death robot on a path of destruction wasn’t very villainous. I could worry about that existential crisis later. After I’d dealt with the very real crisis waving metallic arms and firing missiles and beam weapons indiscriminately.

  I decided it would be better to take a more pragmatic approach considering how CORVAC seemed to be flailing with beam and charged energy weapons.

  I was pretty sure my suit could stand up to some beam weapons, but I wasn't covered entirely. I had shielding for my exposed bits, sure, but not having the advantage of invulnerable skin meant I was in danger of getting one hell of a sunburn if I managed to walk into the path of that particular light ray and the shielding proved inadequate to the task.

  Plus I couldn’t shake the feeling that CORVAC’s partner in crime might be out there somewhere waiting to spring a surprise on us while we were otherwise engaged trying to fight off the giant robot.

  So I flew to the top of the skyscraper Fialux had just rounded and looked down.

  And my breath caught. Sure I might be out here to destroy this thing. That humanoid robot chassis might contain a malevolent artificial intelligence who’d done his best to kill me, even if his best wasn’t all that great.

  Still, I had to stop and appreciate my work. That robot was a thing of beauty. All deadly brushed metal curves that scattered any light that played across it. Flailing armored tentacles springing out of small circular openings. Other circular openings appearing and disappearing just as soon as they’d launched a missile or an energy blast.

  And above it all was an eyestalk with a single malevolent glowing red eye that gazed down on the city and fired off deadly beams indiscriminately.

  There was going to be no death star flaw on this beauty. That was for sure. CORVAC had been very clear on that after forcing me to watch a mix of Star Wars, Gundam, and the giant robot portions of Power Rangers, the one from the mid ‘90s, so I could see a good starting point with how he wanted his giant death robot to operate.

  I’d never pointed out the hypocrisy of him wanting a giant death robot with a humanoid shape when he seemed hellbent on destroying all humans because he saw us as inferior.

  I couldn’t help but admire the thing. Just for a moment. It was a thing of beauty, and its only flaw was I’d engineered it to take on the caliber of hero who’d been in Starlight City before Fialux came along.

  Boy was I glad I hadn’t tried updating the design in one of my schemes to take her out. I’d never trusted CORVAC to work point on any of those schemes.

  And now it was time to kill my computer and this work of villainous art I’d created for him to pilot.