A golem, that’s what they called it; Franklin recalled this as the clouds in his mind cleared, just in time for him to duck the colossal fist that hammered into the wall where he had previously been slumped. He rolled to the side and fumbled for his sidearm. Standing, Franklin took a moment to aim at the behemoth before him. This ‘golem’ was the culmination of Professor Ivan Meldvasser’s research into biomechanical adaptive construction. He’d created a humanoid figure standing at close to eight feet in height and combined a mixture of actual preserved tissue and muscle with flexible copper cabling and brass plating to create synthetic muscle mass and limbs and powered by a gyroscopic dynamo linked to preserved brain matter to process, regulate and transmit the electrical signals throughout the body. The whir of gears could be heard through the beast’s body as it stood upright once more and turned to face Franklin, its eyes glistening with the white-blue crackle of the residual electricity within its skull. Franklin pulled his trigger; the faint hiss of compressed gas being released from the vent at the side of his pistol whistled as he loosed three bolts from his sidearm.
Two of the bolts pattered harmlessly off the golem’s chest plating, but the third lodged in the flexible material joint that linked its neck to its clavicle. The golem gave an inhuman howl as it staggered back. This was Franklin’s chance; he knew he had to lure the beast away from the museum. Whether this creature was here by accident or had been sent here for some ulterior motive was irrelevant to Franklin, he just had to distract it, and that bolt in the neck finalised the monster’s attention, securing it firmly on Franklin. This was both good and bad, he mused as he reloaded his hydraulic crossbow pistol; good in the sense that he could reduce the amount of collateral damage from the golem, but bad because this thing hit hard; he’d already experienced a right hook from the golem that had left him seeing stars.
After reloading the drum of his pistol with eight fresh bolts, he flipped down a small microphone from his bowler hat and clipped an earpiece into place, “Kro, are you listening? Kro! Get off your arse and help me out here. This thing hits harder than you and is tougher than your mother’s suet dumplings...” He ducked behind a pillar and peered out to see if the golem was pursuing. It was. He span out from the pillar and fired off two more quick shots accompanied by the familiar whistle of escaping gas and the cycling click and thud of his ammunition drum rotating around. Again, the bolts seemed to have little effect other than frustrating the golem further. It paused and picked up a bust of someone; Franklin didn’t have time to notice who as he ducked to avoid said bust as the golem threw it at him. “Bollocks. That’ll probably get charged to me somehow. Doesn’t this thing have any idea how valuable these art pieces are?” Franklin continued to run and mentally paused to ponder why he was talking to himself, putting it down to the adrenalin and anxiety of the situation.
“Kro, I swear, if you’re not here to help me out then I’m going to have to-“ Franklin never got to finish that threat as a door crashed off its hinges and slammed into the golem’s side. Through the dust stepped a large, muscular framed man with jet black hair, startling emerald eyes, torn leather trousers and heavily worn boots. Upon the man’s broad chest was a heavy iron chain bound around it like a vest of mail and in his hands was a shaft, also iron, roughly five feet in length and tipped with a machete blade at one end and the other was crowned with a double head, one being a wickedly heavy sledgehammer and the other, a large crescent axe blade. “Well, you took your bloody time Kro. Look at this mess! You’ve done nearly as much damage to this place as the bloody golem!” Kro looked to him and grunted before advancing towards the golem as it recovered from the confusion of being blindsided by a flying door. Kro roared and swung his weapon in a wild overhead arc, slamming the hammerhead firmly into the golem’s chest and leaving an immense dent in its wake. With a twist and an upward thrust, Kro proceeded to slash through the copper tendons at the golem’s left hip before then spiralling on the spot, twisting his weapon once more and following through with a vicious axe swing that collided in precisely the same point as the machete blade, tearing through the tendons and material joint casing, sheering off the whole leg of the golem. It crashed to the floor and scrabbled around, gears and pistons whirring and whining, sparks flaring from the wound and its eyes as it tried to figure out a way to right itself.
Franklin sighed, wiped his brow and strolled over to the lamed construct. He levelled his pistol and placed a bolt firmly into one of the eye sockets, rupturing the brain tissue and causing the golem to cease its functions. He exhaled with relief and looked to Kro, “Okay, fine, I admit it. Without you that would have been a little bit harder.” He recovered what few bolts he could and replaced them into the drum. Kro grunted and clipped his weapon into a harness upon his back before looking to Franklin, “You owe me. I expect extra on my cut for this.” He cracked his knuckles and gave a hearty chuckle which, from a man his size, was almost as unsettling as facing up to the golem. Franklin removed his hat to check the transistors of his communication relay, “Well, this is working fine, so you were bloody ignoring me.” Kro just smirked and adjusted the chain around his chest, “You still owe me more.” Franklin placed his hat back on his head and dusted off the lapels of his jacket before straightening his cravat, “Well I can’t bloody pay you more, because this isn’t a paid job.” He yawned and looked at the rubble around the wreckage of the golem, “Would you believe I just happened to be here to look at the paintings?” Kro gave him a disbelieving stare, “What? I like art. I am a man of a modern cultural palette. Is that so hard to believe?” Kro simply shrugged and pulled a hatchet from his belt before he hacked away at the golem’s face casing, “Consider this my cut then.” He gave a disturbing smirk at his pun as Franklin quirked a brow and watched, “What’re you doing? That’s evidence. The ol’bill’ll be here in a bit and they’ll want to know why the thing that wrecked the Royal Museum and Art Gallery is missing its ruddy face!” Kro shrugged once more as he held the brass face casing over his own face, “Trophy. Besides, this will help if goons start thinking sense and aim for my head.” Franklin chuckled, “What, thick skull like yours? You shouldn’t have anything to worry about, y’lummox.”
So that's just a small morsel of what I already have written. I'd very much love some feedback on this one as I'm hoping to properly get this project off the ground. I might even post a bit more of this in the future, if I feel like it.
But for now it's adios from me,
God bless!
Craiggy.
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