from its own breastplate. The winged robot shuddered,
sparked, and fell to the ground, revealing Taz standing
behind it, a look of shock on her face as the jagged metal
scrap was pulled from her hands. It was covered in blood.
“Are you hurt?” Up asked sharply, taking her hands,
turning them over, checking for injury.
She shook her head, and pointed.
Blood, real human blood, was bubbling from the robot’s
chest where Taz had impaled it. Up stared at it for a
moment, then knelt and pulled at the robot’s neck, seeking a
latch, a clasp, a way in.
A whirring sound, and the robot’s head opened up to
reveal a young man, blond, round-faced, dead. It wasn’t a
robot at all.
There was a terrible retching sound as Taz threw up
behind him.
The Rangers whispered of it, a human within a robot,
their enemy suddenly made flesh before them. They
wondered where it had come from, whether there were
more, whether he had joined the robots willingly or if he
was a brainwashed prisoner of war. They sent the corpse
and its metal exoskeleton off to the wartime headquarters,
and tried not to think about how many more of their own
they might be destroying, might have already destroyed,
with each grenade, each rocket launcher, each zapper blast.
In an effort to take their mind off of it, Up moved their
base again, this time to the ruins of an ancient Mayan
fortress. Once a tourist attraction with ticket booths and
fences, it was now forgotten and lonely, a sentinel
overlooking the stormy Caribbean sea. He liked the idea of
it, making it a fortress again, its blackened stones serving
their protective purpose once more. It was better than
digging another trench, at least.