Gruefield 18 (Tarnished Sterling Omnibus)

by Robert McCarroll

  "What's-" Jennifer started. A string of explosions along the face of the force bubble cut her off. They looked tiny, but it took some heavy ordinance to be visible on a bubble that was miles across. I glanced at Jennifer as she pulled her phone out. She hit speed dial for someone near the top of the list. "Granddad, what's going on?" she asked, switching the phone to speaker.

  "The sound is awful," Torquespiral said, "Am I on speaker?"

  "Yes," I said.

  "Who's nearby?"

  "Travis, Irvin and myself," Jennifer said.

  "Arclight caught Pax Carnifex," Torquespiral said. "Now he has all of Firegod. We had to put up the city-shield to prevent him from blowing a hole in downtown."

  "What's the plan?" I asked.

  "Are you guys inside the shield?" Torquespiral asked.

  "No," Jennifer said. "We're at the Mercer Clinic."

  "Everyone outside the shield is to rally at Gruefield. It takes a little over a minute for the shield to cycle back to ready after we drop it, so for the time being anyone inside New Port Arthur will stay put. Once we know who's outside the shield, we can put a plan together."

  "Got it," Jennifer said. Torquespiral hung up. Jennifer tipped her head towards the front of the grounds. "My car's in the lot. We should get going."

  We bolted for the parking lot. I was reaching for the driver's side handle of her little coupe when Jennifer swatted my hand away. I circled around and climbed in the passenger seat. I noticed that Irvin had climbed in the back, but I wasn't sure where he was supposed to be. I belted in and clutched the handle as Jennifer peeled out of the lot. Her driving was just as terrifying as ever. Traffic was headed entirely in the other direction - away from New Port Arthur. The suburbs had to be emptying out.

  We took a back roads 'historical' stone bridge over the river. It was barely a lane wide, and linked two hilltops that had gotten too close to the banks. All of the bridges by the city were on the other side of a shield designed to shrug off orbital bombardment, so the narrow stone arch was our only choice. I just wish Jennifer hadn't flown over it. The shield was not terribly far from the TNT Research gates, at most a quarter mile down the Gruefield highway.

  Jennifer swiped in and we rushed through security. Pam snagged us as we started to head for the residential dome out of habit. She led us into the command center. I knew there was an operations room in the command center, I'd been in it before, once. I just wasn't all that familiar with it. Built in a thick crescent along one edge of the first floor, its outer wall was dominated by three massive display screens. Currently, one showed a map of the city and the surrounding suburbs. A circle marked the extent of the shield, and a blinking red dot marked 'Firegod' moved along the edge of the circle. Another display showed a second command center, though from the people in it, I guessed it was in Sterling Towers. Neutrino loomed larger than life over us. The third display was blank. A holograph table sat in the middle of the room, idling.

  On our side, the three of us joined Pam, Nick and Donny. Xiv snuck in and engaged Irvin in a contest to see who could look more amazed at the other. Could Irvin talk mentally like Serar had? I don't know. It didn't really matter at the moment. "Get into costume before you get into trouble," Neutrino said. Jennifer and I hurried off to get changed. Pam looked slightly embarrassed.

  When I got back, Photovolt had joined us in the command center. Ixa, however, was at Sterling Towers. The holograph table showed a cel-shaded animation of a walking tank. Flat-topped and wide shouldered, it had two weapon arms and a protruding cockpit in the front. If the cockpit was its face, then the small turret containing four machine guns was its beard. The right weapon arm was a single large bore device highlighted in red. The right arm had a three barreled rotating weapon of some kind with a snub-nosed launcher under it. The legs were fat and heavily armored.

  As the animation turned in place, the back came around to me. Along the top was a string of vertical launch missile tubes, angled slightly forward. Below that, also in red, was a circular object with a yellow core almost as wide as the entire machine. The support struts connecting to a center ring made the yellow section into the universal sign for radioactivity. I guessed it was the power plant. A thick channel linked it to a cylinder on the back of the right weapon arm.

  "These specs are out of date," Torquespiral said. "Recent progress reports listed features not on here. They appear to have been added after the fusion module increased the power output."

  "What sort of features?" I asked.

  "Anti-missile lasers and redundant lighting shields," Torquespiral said. "No details as to how they operate, but we can make an educated guess as to what they do."

  "What are the odds that those lasers can track flying people?" Nick asked. He looked in severe pain, as if he shouldn't be standing.

  "No idea, but we can't rule it out," Neutrino said.

  "So what's the plan?" I asked.

  "We've begun evacuating the civilians from the TNT Research building," Torquespiral said. "But Firegod will be in range before then. Technically, he's in missile range now, but he only has ten missiles left after the earlier barrage."

  "I don't think it's a case of conserving ammo," Pam said. "I think he's not sure which side of the shield we're on."

  "I may have missed this part, but what does he want exactly?" I asked.

  Photovolt turned to the display that wasn't in use and fiddled with it. A moment later, it lit up. The still image was of Arclight in costume in what might have been a rock quarry. The boxy frame of Firegod was partly visible behind him.

  "He was kind enough to send us a video, which he also sent to pretty much everybody," Photovolt said. He clicked play.

  Arclight adjusted the camera to better catch the shape of Firegod in the background. "Before this mess is over," he said. "I'd better get my side of the story out there. Sure, their propaganda machine is going to spin this and no one is going to watch this tape, but I have to do it."

  "I am a licensed hero, and I have no powers. For the past two decades I have designed and built gadgets to help other unpowered people bring to justice those who would abuse their gifts and endanger the lives of ordinary people. I did this to make my own mission easier, and through the Community Fund, distributed those devices to people of a similar bent. As a result, the Community Fund has made a small fortune. The only recognition I got was in the form of Fund Credits. Do you know what Fund Credits can be used for? Buying stuff from the Community Fund. Most of which I could make myself. I put up with this because I was in it to make the world a better place."

  "Recently, I was asked to help a Japanese Mega-corporation build that." He gestured towards Firegod. "Ostensibly it was to fight the last remaining Kaiju, which do plague the Japanese islands from time to time. It will do that, but my counterparts insisted on adding features which were of no use against giant monsters, but which were invaluable against human threats. So we built the Japanese a giant walking tank. Had I still been possessed of my blind idealism from my younger days, it'd strike me as odd that we made such a thing. But I've been ground underfoot for too many years to believe the honeyed words painted on the murals anymore."

  "It wasn't even being turned into a weapons designer that was the last straw. I've made weapons to fight powered criminals before. It was not much of a stretch. What really got to me is right there." Arclight pointed to the red painted cannon that formed the right arm of Firegod. "On the back end of that thing is a waste heat and neutron radiation recycling system. More concisely, it is a fusion generator. If retrofitted into a nuclear power plant, it can produce even more cheap electricity. And, it has the advantage of being rapidly throttleable. Demand goes up, just crank up the generators. Demand goes down, ease back."

  "It's a major achievement, not a fully independent fusion plant, but a significant enhancement on what we have today. You kno
w how the Community Fund recognized this historic achievement? They gave me Fund Credits and then sued to prevent my name from being attached to the breakthrough. Fund Credits aren't money. I can't buy a house with them. I can't retire on them. I can't upgrade to first class with them. They're taxed as income, but I can't even pay my taxes with them. I am in debt to the IRS for bringing an engineering marvel to the world. And they won't even let me put my fucking name on it."

  "Oh, they can't risk my secret identity, they say. Fuck my secret identity!" Arclight pulled off goggles and black wig. Peeling the long mustache from his upper lip, he tossed it aside. "My name is Walter Arroyo, and I made a fusion generator that runs on waste neutrons and syngas." He slipped his goggles back on. "I've invented a suspensor, the lightning shield and a personal teleporter. For decades I've been shit on in the name of the greater good. Now I have Firegod, and they're going to have to pull out all the stops to prevent me from extracting justice from their super-powered hides."

  In a crack of green lighting, he vanished, reappearing in the open cockpit of Firegod. As the cockpit closed, the scale of the machine started to dawn on me. It was the size of a building, five or maybe seven stories tall. Green lightning crackled around it, with three small objects rising to the top of the field as it did. They were disks, or maybe orbs, with a ring of Tesla coil shaped protrusions. The three were tethered by thick cables to the roof of Firegod's torso. They repelled each other and the ground as the lightning cascaded down from them.

  An ominous red glow built up inside the cannon barrel that was Firegod's right arm. A ruby-red bream lanced out, wreathed in an aura of pale blue flame. It shattered the rock where it struck, and Arclight cut a swath across the ground. As the beam passed near the camera, the video cut out.

  "He swore less than I expected," I said.

  "When he reaches TNT Research and sees that it's outside the shield, he'll level the place," Neutrino said. "I don't know if that main gun can reach Gruefield Eighteen, but it's firing core plasma from the fusion generator."

  "Why's it red then?" Jennifer asked.

  "Non-fusing carbon from the syngas filters the light emitted from the plasma itself," Photovolt said. "That's probably what that blue aura is, the carbon monoxide combusting as it mixes with air." A few surprised gazes turned his way. "What? I am the technical adviser. I know a thing or two about science."

  "Even if it can't get this deep underground," I said, "It can still melt closed all the entrances."

  "You need to at least delay it until the evacuation is complete," Torquespiral said.

  "I'm open to suggestions on how," Donny said. "Giant robots are new ground for me."

  Nick picked up his sheathed sword and held it out to Donny. "This is all I've got for fighting robots. And I can't swing it right now."

  "How am I going to get close enough to use it?" Donny asked.

  I took the sword. "Photovolt, can you bring the night?"

  "You mean overpower the sun?" he asked.

  "Just in the immediate area of the parking lot."

  "And here I was thinking you were going to ask for something difficult," Photovolt said, his voice laden with sarcasm.

  "In order for us to properly engage that thing, someone has to break through the lightning shield and disable both it and the defensive lasers. The rest of the armaments point forward. Somehow I don't think it turns on a dime. If we can get the light levels low enough, I can make a bid for it."

  "I think I see where this is going."

  "Whatever happens," Torquespiral said. "We can't breach the main reactor. It doesn't have all the safeguards of a normal nuclear plant. The radiological disaster-"

  Neutrino cut him off. "I think they get it."

  "Once the shield is down, we need to flank it and knock out its weapons. Then we pry Arclight out of the cockpit and shut down the power plant," I said.

  "Great," Donny said. "Well put. But you left out the part where anyone hit by the giant walking tank is deader than dead. We've got no cover outside the buildings, and he's going to be shooting the buildings. Gruefield is a big empty patch of grass."

  "What we need are decoys, something to draw his fire that isn't one of us," I said.

  "Uh," Irvin said. "I can do that." A platoon of genderless obsidian figures coalesced around the room. An envious look crossed Jennifer's face.

  "Does he even have a license?" Nick asked.

  "In an emergency circumstance, the BHA tends to turn a blind eye to that," Torquespiral said. "Provided he doesn't do damage himself."

  "Xiv, Miss Pain," I said. "Keep Irvin out of harm's way while his constructs distract Arclight away from the evacuees. Stamp, Baron, keep in reserve until we get those defenses down. Photovolt, you're with me."

  "What am I supposed to do when the defenses are down?" Donny asked.

  "Stop whining," Jennifer said. "Do whatever you can."

  I affixed the sword belt about my waist as I waited for the elevator to arrive. The wait gave me time to think. That moment of idle thought betrayed me. What we were doing was insane to the point of being suicidal. The plan consisted of attacking with melee weapons a giant tank built to kill even larger monsters. Did we even have a backup plan? I guess it didn't really matter to me, since I wouldn't be involved should this plan fail. Why in the world would anyone want to be a hero again?

  The arrival of the elevator interrupted my morbid train of thought. We climbed on board and pushed the button for the surface level.

  "What do we do if I can't make it dark enough?" Photovolt asked.

  "Whatever we can," I said.

  "That really isn't helpful guys," Donny said. "There needs to be some contingency in case our weapons are useless. Because I've got a hard time doing anything to armor plate."

  Part 32

  The parking lot filled in the otherwise open ground between the garage, the helipad and the TNT offices. It was littered with cars and people trying to get into cars. Two people physically barred the exit towards Route Fourteen with their arms outstretched, while others tried to motion the cars towards a narrow service road out the other side of the property. It took a moment for the reasons to register. North on Fourteen would be headed towards Firegod. South was cut off by the edge of the shield. The radius was such that it looked like a straight line where it cut across the road.

  The service road they were being directed to was only a gravel trail the military had laid out when Gruefield was a working missile base. But the alternative was to take city cars over soft ground. The drainage ditch between the parking lot and the helipad would have stopped most of the cars dead. It hadn't existed before the builders had set out to grade the parking lot. I'm not sure where exactly it drained to, but that wasn't my biggest concern.

  "Any minute now, Firegod should be visible," Nick's voice said in my earpiece.

  I hurried towards the garage, Photovolt not far behind me. Running along the front of the building, I stopped at the eastern corner and flattened myself against the wall. I peered around the corner. The first thing I saw was the glow. The ruby light was like a wash of blood over the landscape. Wherever it went, flames licked at the sky. Some blue, but mostly orange fire. A haze of black smoke rose from the conflagration. I felt its footsteps, the ground trembling under me. A green crackle danced within the fire, arcing to ground and back to the sky. The myriad colors danced over the angular, battleship gray form as it climbed to low rise towards the road.

  The bright, ruby-red light of its main weapon felt like it seared my retina as it left streaks across my vision. In my right eye, most of the world went dark save for the line where it played over the shield. I blinked rapidly out of reflex, trying to clear the multicolored streaks from in front of my left eye. As my right eye readjusted, it became apparent that while the shield held, the radiant heat off the beam had set the
asphalt in the road on fire. Gobs of black smoke streamed off of orange flames as the Gruefield highway burned.

  A scream rolled through the people still in the parking lot like a wave, carrying panic with it. Those who hadn't gotten their cars moving ran, while others tried to drive over the grass. A few found patches dry enough to hold their cars, others bogged down, or found a ditch. The line of machine guns under the cockpit turned towards the lot. They remained quiet as the whole machine rotated at the waist, bringing its main weapons towards the TNT Research compound.

  "We need to hit it, now," I said.

  "We don't have any decoys," Photovolt said.

  "We don't have any choice."

  Photovolt gave a nod, then brought his hands together in front of his face. He was soon enveloped in shadow, becoming a dark silhouette against the bright background. The blotch of darkness on the ground extended towards me. As it overtook me, I tried to wrap myself in shadow. To my eye, Photovolt reappeared, his colors flat, uniform. I looked down at my claws, which did not look as substantial as they should be.