Learning to Dance

with anger and fear, but more than anything, defiance. It
was a girl.
His soldier’s instincts made him turn back.
The scene was bizarre as any he’d come across. Half a
dozen robots in a circle, dead bodies and spilled cake and in
the centre, trussed and hanging upside down from the
branch of a tree, the girl. She spun slowly, giving the same
dreadful battle cry with each twist of the rope. She was
wearing the remains of an elaborate, smoking dress, and her
tangled black hair fell loose, reaching for the ground. Her
face was blackened and swollen. She had put up a fight.
She hadn’t noticed him yet, and neither had the robots.
One stepped forward, tapping a two-by-four against its
palm as if it was a piñata stick. “Hush, little hu-mahn,” it
said. “We are just wanting to play a little game with you.”
“Ha. Ha. Ha,” deadpanned the others.
“I’ll see you all burn in hell! Hijos de puta!” the girl
bellowed, and the force of her efforts turned her again. Her
eyes met Up’s, and widened. The robots turned.
Up moved. It was quick, and if they had been human, it
would have been bloody, but that wasn’t a problem when
your enemy was made up of soulless automatons. It was
over in less than a minute, and amidst the smouldering
metallic remains, the soldier turned to the girl piñata.
She was watching him with very large eyes. He was
breathing heavily, and it sounded far too loud in the sudden
silence. Finally she said, in a thick Mexican accent, “Aren’t
you going to cut me down?”
He did so, making sure he was close enough to catch her
before she hit the ground. She was tiny, featherlight, and in
pain, that he could tell from the gasp that escaped her when
she landed in his arms. “Are you all right?”
“What the hell kind of question is that?” she asked,
gritting her teeth. He looked around. He supposed it was a