Bulletfoot One

by Marshall Rust

  Not hiding in a dark hole with a knife to his wrists. One never really knew where one would end up, after all.

  Hammerhand felt the prick of the blade against his skin. He closed his eyes and took a slow, deep breath. He would join his friend soon.

  Tinker’s face was the one he saw now. The man who had resisted the idea of surrender in the tunnels, who had thought they had the option of dying in battle instead of being slowly worn down by a life in prison. The man who would not stand for him ending everything simply because he didn't feel there was any hope to be had during a seemingly endless wait in a prison.

  Without a doubt, his friend would outright slap him for that. He'd done it before when he thought he was being stupid and needed a little sharp reminder to wake him the fuck up.

  He didn't know what he believed when it came to life after death, but if there was the smallest of chances for him to join his comrade, he wanted that reunion to come when the man wasn’t likely to simply kill him again out of frustration.

  The thought of Tinker possibly watching him from the afterlife allowed him to reach a decision, at least for the moment. Quickly, he tucked the blade into his sleeve. Out of sight and temporarily out of mind. His eyes closed and he leaned back against the wall of his cell and tried to put the thought of Tinker's death out of his mind.

  It wasn't easy, but sleep gradually pulled him in. He had no way to tell precisely, but it seemed like only a few minutes had passed before footsteps approached his cell. His eyes snapped open and almost immediately, Hammerhand knew what he would do next. It seemed impossible not to act on the decision his mind had made of its own volition. His pulse raced and the thudding in his chest increased speed as he straightened, his body ready to act as the door was unlocked and swung open.

  The false daylight was a little blinding but he adapted quickly. His eyes adjusted to the change in brightness in seconds, and as the two men entered the cell to yank him out, he surged forward. His shoulders collided with them both and with a roar, he drove them out of the cell.

  One lost his footing, rolled, and struck the wall behind him as the other tried to take hold of the prisoner, hoping to shove him back and find some way to stop him.

  He twisted, ducked under the man's hands, and drew the knife from his sleeve.

  There was nothing grand about this. He’d formulated no tactical plan and had nothing to fall back on if he didn’t succeed. Failure was not an option at this juncture.

  The knife flashed and sliced easily through the body armor the guard wore. It was designed to protect against bullets moving at high velocity and did little to stop the knife that slid easily into his gut.

  The man groaned and clutched his wound as Hammerhand straightened, grasped the guard’s hair, and jerked his head back to expose his throat before he slid the blade across it. The keen edge found the artery and red sprayed across the hallway and splashed the other man who struggled to stand and drew his attention with the movement.

  He focused on the second man, who tried to retreat and wiped the blood from his eyes. In his haste, the guard tripped over his own feet and landed hard while still partially blinded, which opened him to a swift attack. The knife did its work cleanly and sliced into his throat, preventing him from shouting to raise the alarm.

  In moments, his struggles ceased, although there was far more blood now than ever. Hammerhand wiped his hands clean and pushed to his feet.

  Thankfully, it didn't seem that anyone had heard the struggle. The guards had been eliminated before they could shout for assistance, and the two dead men weren't wearing any radios that might have had a silent alarm on them.

  Despite this, alarms started to ring in the distance and were quickly picked up by those in the prison and possibly the rest of the city too. Hammerhand paused only to wipe the knife blade clean on one of the fallen guards’ sleeves before he straightened and readied himself to see this through.

  It was time to see if Scar and his men were still willing to help with his escape. He retrieved the keys from the belt of one of the dead guards and made his way toward the other cell blocks.

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  "Do you ever get tired of being called Jessica13?"

  She looked up from her work and narrowed her eyes at Robert7, who was digging beside her. "I… don't know. Do you ever get tired of being called Robert7?"

  "I don't know either. Like, have you ever had a nickname that you use? Maybe in the middle of a fight when saying the whole name might be too time-consuming?"

  "Well, Hammerhand and Tinker call me Jessie, but it always feels odd when I hear it. I was always Jessica13 to myself, so I got used to saying it quickly."

  "Huh. I suppose that makes sense."

  "Why?" she asked. "Do you think I should call you something else? Like…Bob7? Or only Bob?"

  "I don't know. Maybe Rob? Something like that? I like my name, but I would like to have something shorter."

  "So only Rob, or Rob7?"

  "Just Rob."

  "You two had better be working out there," the Prophet shouted from where he continued with the repairs to his Argonaut. "I would be a little more concerned, if I were you, as I doubt our FEMA City friends are sitting around waiting to be attacked."

  He wasn't wrong, of course. FEMA City hung over them as an ever-present threat and wasn’t something to be ignored, and the Prophet knew he had no choice but to see if Robert7 had told the truth. The people of Auburn had similarly agreed to those terms and allowed the FEMA City pilots to remain alive after he had convinced them to do so.

  Fifteen of them had come to the coordinates the young pilot had given him, including Jessica13 and Robert7, to dig for the secret entrance that would lead them into the city. The Prophet and two of his men had accompanied them but would join his main force once they had located it. While the young people used the tunnels to reach their target undetected, he would lead his Desert Warriors in the planned frontal assault.

  The idea had at least seemed promising, although it was more difficult than anticipated. The knowledge of the location was all well and good, but when it was hidden underground, there was nothing else to do but dig until they located it.

  And thus far, none of them had any luck. Jessica13 couldn't help the niggling doubt that her trust in Robert7 had been misplaced. She didn’t believe he had intentionally betrayed them but maybe his memory of the exact position wasn't quite as good as she had hoped.

  "There's nothing out here," she said, scowled, and looked at where Mini had put the Minato to work as well. They had discussed having her inside the mech, but time was of the essence. Letting him do the work with the mech and her doing what she could on her own would at least slightly increase their work rate.

  It wasn't by much and at the moment, it seemed it wouldn't make any difference anyway.

  "Are you sure this is the place?" she asked and grimaced when sweat began to soak into the pilot sleeve. "We have been digging around here for a while."

  "They had the records of the secret entrance at the Hall," Robert7 explained. "These are the coordinates, down to the minute, but…I don't know. They put the damn things in over a hundred years ago before the Invaders. There could be a hundred different places by now. Or they could be fucking buried."

  "That sounds suspiciously like you're having doubts."

  "Well, given the stakes we're working against, I think I would be crazy not to have doubts."

  He wasn't wrong in that regard. If there was ever a time to doubt oneself, it was when one's life was on the line.

  Or maybe that wasn't quite right, but she had those doubts as well, so she couldn't judge him for them. All they could do was keep looking and hope they eventually stumbled on something. Their lives depended on it.

  "Jessica13," Mini called from the Minato's position about twenty meters to their left. "I do believe I've found something."

  "Wait…what?"

  A hint of elation touched her as she jogged to where the AI stood over a g
roup of bushes. He'd pulled them up from the ground and dug into the dirt less than half a meter before he discovered what could only be described as a steel hatch that led underground.

  The AI stepped closer, grasped the handle, and spun it slowly. The rusted steel groaned under the strain and left her fearful for a moment that it would break, but after a few long turns, it moved a little smoother.

  "Nice work, Mini." She chuckled, unable to hide her relief.

  "Your compliment is noted and appreciated."

  "How were you able to find it?"

  "I…" The pause was uncharacteristic since the AI was almost never at a loss for words. "Data not found. If I were to venture a guess, I would say I might have been here before. I will need to conduct further tests to establish for certain whether that is correct."

  The Prophet approached as Mini worked the Minato to heave and pull the heavy hatch open and reveal the darkened entrance to a tunnel.

  "Nice work. I began to have my doubts as to Robert7's trustworthiness."

  Jessica13 shook her head. "You and me both."

  "What was that?"

  "Nothing. But I think that we should all wear the protective gear if we go down there. Bunkers usually only isolated these locations when they used them to dump the radioactive waste from their reactors back in the day, so the chances are that whatever is down there won’t be healthy for us."

  "That is a good idea, Jessica13," the man said and her team began to pull the hazmat suits on. It was slow work but eventually, they were ready to enter.

  "May the sun guide you through the darkness," the Prophet said as Jessica13 adjusted her protective gear. "And may we see each other on the other side."

  She couldn't help a small smile. "Right back at you. And thanks. You know, for believing in us."

  "I will thank you when you complete your mission."

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Ten minutes prior to the prison break

  She had heard of places like this in the past. Most of the bunkers had them for when they needed to flood the reactors. Maintenance was usually an issue since it was almost never needed, which allowed most of the locations to fall into disrepair over the years.

  While she’d never paid the information much attention, she'd never thought it would be like this. The fact that there were branches of tunnels was already a little alarming. It meant these led to a variety of reactors that would lead them to more than one entrance into the city.

  Only a few meters in, Jessica13 could already hear a cacophony from the Geiger counters they'd brought. That alone told her their decision to descend while already wearing the protective gear had not been in error.

  "Mini, why don't you run scans into the tunnels to see which one is likely to bring us out closer to the central control facility of the city?"

  "I could, but…the radiation interferes with the scans. These passages lead in various directions. We should head into the second tunnel from the left."

  "Wait, I thought you said you can't see that far?"

  "Once again, data is not found, but we should head down that tunnel anyway."

  She had never seen the AI act like this before. Then again, he had never talked about having been somewhere before either. There was no reason for her to trust this sudden impulsiveness from him.

  Then again, there was no real reason not to. Who was she to say he didn't know what he was doing?

  It seemed more sensible to trust him, so she walked in the front of the group and directly behind Mini as they continued through the narrow passages. Hammerhand had been right, and if they ran into any defenders in this area, Mini's ability to get her and the rest of them out of trouble would be severely hampered.

  What had happened to Hammerhand? And Tinker? And the other Knights? The Prophet had said he and his warriors had been led into a trap which they had barely escaped but that the Knights hadn't come out either. They'd been separated, and there was no telling whether they were alive or dead.

  There wasn't much in the world that could kill Hammerhand, that much she knew. Tinker was a tough fucker too. If there was any way they could get out of whatever trap had been arranged for the Knights, they would have found it and gotten clear. The only question was whether they had tried to retreat or had pressed forward and attacked the city as planned.

  Jessica13 shook her head. Her mind needed to be grounded in the present and there were enough dangers out here for her to deal with. The tunnels themselves were neglected and the arches had already begun to decay and fall apart. The coolant liquid seeped through the cracks, dripped onto the floor, and covered it in a light film that already started to steam. This, in turn, made clear vision almost impossible the deeper they went.

  The clicking from the Geiger counters accompanied the unceasing drips of the coolant fluid in a way that made her skin crawl with every step. The suits they wore were effective against radiation, but there was always a chance that something would go wrong or the suits would reach a point where they soaked in too much.

  She wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible.

  All they had to go on were the metaphorical gut instincts of the AI that piloted her mech. She had trusted Mini with her life in the past and there was no real reason to doubt him at this point. Nevertheless, a hint of concern pushed at her, a nagging feeling that something was wrong.

  They were already a considerable distance from their entry point when she realized that the pools of coolant liquid had become steadily deeper as they progressed. Jessica13 scowled and shifted her gaze to where it was leaking, while the faint nag of concern steadily became a demanding alarm at the back of her mind.

  "What's the matter?" Robert7 asked when he noted her distraction.

  "This is way too much coolant fluid to be missing from the reactors. Something's gone wrong—and I mean very wrong."

  "How do you mean? Have you worked with these reactors before?"

  "No, but in my bunker, they drilled us in emergency procedures that had to be implemented if there was ever a reactor meltdown. The first problem that always arose was when the coolant fluid evaporated too quickly or leaked out. That led to the containment starting to melt."

  "You would think they would know about it," Robert7 said, but his eyebrows raised in full realization after a few seconds. "Unless a whole group of them were arrested during the coup and left unqualified people to simply keep pouring more liquid in."

  Jessica13 shrugged. "I guess the bright side to that is they don't have anyone guarding these tunnels. On the downside—"

  "We can expect there to be far more radiation here."

  She knew for a fact that she preferred dealing with guards than the radiation, but there was no way to change anything.

  They continued through the underground labyrinth and to confirm her misgivings, the fluid beneath their feet grew noticeably deeper. She was reluctant to complain about it yet and possibly stir the others to panic, but the counters grew noisier with every step forward. Her feeling was that they now approached one of the cores, and she wasn’t sure it was a place where they wanted to be.

  Mini stopped suddenly and raised a hand to make sure everyone could see him in the mist that thickened around them.

  "There is a cave-in ahead," the AI alerted them. "We must find an alternate route. Calculating now."

  Jessica13 approached the mech and placed her hand on the armor. "How are you doing in there, Mini? Is the radiation affecting any of your core functions?"

  "Not as yet, and your concern is appreciated. All my core functions have been thoroughly shielded from radiation and other calamities that might damage them. There is always room for error, of course."

  "We’d better not stick around and wait for that to happen. Let's find our alternate route."

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  The radiation spiked even higher as they pushed on and Jessica13 couldn't help the rising feeling of anxiety with every click from the counters. Sweat traced rivulets down her spine
, rather like an insect crawling down her back with every step.

  "Mini, are you sure this is the right way to go?" she asked as he led them forward and the team waded cautiously through pools of the coolant.

  "It is the only path I can detect that gets us into the city at the assigned location, but we might face difficulties as we get in closer."

  "You mean we'll be swimming through this fucking liquid before the end?"

  "That is unlikely. But we do appear to be approaching the source of the radiation in these tunnels and the reason why it appears to be spreading."

  She wanted to know more but assumed Mini probably didn't know more than what he had told her. They would have to find out personally.

  They reached the end of the tunnels but instead of a cave-in, the section was intentionally walled off with a solid concrete slab blocking their path. Thankfully, there was a steel stepladder that led them to a small yet heavy steel door. They needed the Minato to pull it open, and she noticed that rust had begun to form on the hinges.

  When the Minato opened it, they stepped cautiously into a small control room. She could make out more than a few different control features, all of them antiquated by well over a hundred years. The reactor and the control room had likely been put in place many, many years before the Invaders—probably before their first attack.

  "Well, that explains why they haven't maintained this place," she commented and moved closer to the controls. They were a little beyond the mechanical engineering she understood, but the basics were the same. From there, it wasn't difficult to tell what the controls were for and what the gauges measured. They had all been made by the same hands, after all.

  "What are you looking at?" Robert7 asked and peered through the sealed and laminated windows of the control room. The steam outside made it difficult to see anything in particular, but a deep blue light source remained out there and cut through the mist.

  "Temperature measures," she replied, cleaned a few of the gauges, and tapped them to loosen the needles from the dust that had collected inside. "And I think there are some old-fashioned Geiger counters to measure what's going on inside."