This did little to stir up favor towards Silvio, but the assembly began concerning itself with other questions for a time. “So, what's this robot going to do? Wrestle with the Colossus? The thing is unkillable. Our bombs don't touch it. What makes you think this robot's really going to do the trick?” asked one of the attendants.
As though he'd anticipated this question, Aderhold gave a firm nod. “That is a very good question indeed.” He turned to Trask. “Please, the footage?”
Trask made his way to the nearest computer and brought up a brief video clip on the main screen. It was only twenty seconds in full, and on first sight was rather difficult to make out. It'd been shot in a low light setting, and a bright orange glow in the far corner blurred all of the other shapes in frame. Heavy metallic sounds could be heard. Hammering. Then, as Silvio squinted, he realized what he was looking at.
It was an enormous sword.
From all angles, dozens of men were crowded all around it, each of them marching from end to end, striking it with large hammers. The sound of hammering never ceased in those twenty seconds of footage and the orange glow never lessened.
Aderhold pointed to the display. “It will seem rustic, perhaps, however in studying your recent military failures, we have begun to devise a different weapon for this particular application. ARTEMIS is not outfitted with guns or explosives of any kind, but will carry this sword into battle. If mere melee attacks are not sufficient to bring the creature to its knees, then this sword will surely dispatch it. It is crafted of the same revolutionary alloy as the ARTEMIS unit itself, tempered in the lava of an active volcano, Hekla, and fashioned by thirty-six of the most renowned swordsmiths in the world. It has been worked on around the clock for thirty days, and work on the weapon has only just wrapped up. It has been transported separately and will be arriving at this facility within the hour. This weapon is the sharpest thing known to man. If anything can pierce the creature's hide, it is this sword.”
The assembly was incredulous, but a few were intrigued. “Now, this is an interesting gamble,” said the General with a sardonic chuckle. “You're going to send this guy in, inside of the robot, carrying this giant sword? He'll be a regular Saint Michael versus the Dragon, eh?” He shook his head. “This seems ludicrous, but... I'm almost willing to authorize it.” Sensing discord among his colleagues, he put up a hand. “No, hear me out. We send this one guy in and maybe he pulls through. Otherwise we're back to square one with this, sending in more troops who are only going to get their asses handed to them. We've got nothing to lose, and if this fails, we're looking at nuclear weapons as a last result.” He nodded. “It can't hurt to try.”
Deliberations raged on loudly for some time. Various members of the group voiced doubts about Silvio, or about ARTEMIS' capabilities. Still others balked at the massive amount of research money Aderhold was asking for in his contract. Some mocked the idea of a sword, comparing the scenario to something out of a cartoon.
In time however, the assemblage came to realize just how badly their hands were tied. Short of turning Lake Liliana and the surrounding area into a radioactive crater, this was their best bet.
And so the contract was produced, signatures were given begrudgingly and the deal was made official. In his contract, Aderhold had dictated but a few demands. First, Silvio would be paid a handsome salary of $1.5 Million for his participation, to be paid in a lump sum by the committee. This was about the only good news that came out of the entire meeting. Furthermore, both Silvio and ARTEMIS would be lent to the committee, along with the three-man research team of Dr. Conway, Dr. Deal and Emil, the mechanic. While under government care, the ARTEMIS unit was not to be disassembled or studied; its design was a trade secret and failure to comply with this stipulation would render the contract null and void. Only Silvio and the three members of the research team would be allowed access to the thing, unless they required outside help. Dr. Conway would be put in charge of the unit, acting in a supervisory role. Lastly, upon successfully defeating the Colossus, the committee would make a donation of US $1,000,000,000 to the Aderhold Corporation, to be used in furthering research and development.
The terms were strict, but after a bit of waffling the document was signed.
With that, the meeting was adjourned and the conference room began to empty.
Silvio was left sitting in his seat, unaware of what he'd just been signed up for, or whether he'd even agreed to participate in the first place. He was sweaty, lost in thought, till Trask came up behind him and slapped in him the arm. “Quite the pay-day you've gone and earned, Mr. Echegaray,” he said with a grin. “It's like being a proper champion, wouldn't you say?”
Aderhold had already left the room. He was busying himself in the hall, chatting loudly with government officials. After a time, it was only Trask and Silvio remaining.
Silvio didn't have a response in store for Trask and merely nodded.
“Glad to have you onboard. I hear your training went terrifically.”
Silvio gulped. His memories of the rigorous training in that godforsaken concrete complex were anything but “terrific”.
“Anyhow,” continued Trask, looking at his watch and starting towards the door, “we'll have you escorted from here and dropped off at home. Someone will be by to pick you up tomorrow in the morning.”
“W-what for?” stammered Silvio.
Trask gave a laugh pregnant with something like annoyance. “Why, tomorrow you and ARTEMIS are going to be shipped out to Michigan. We have a makeshift command center set up some miles from Nanterre. Tomorrow, the hunt for the Colossus begins.”
He could have wept. “But I... I only just got back. I haven't even seen my girlfriend... my daughter.”
Trask seemed unconcerned. “Yes, yes. I understand. But can you really sleep at night knowing that this creature might make a break for it and wreak havoc on countless millions across the country? And won't they be proud to know that you're off to fight this noble crusade, a gallant dragon slayer?” He grinned. “Well, actually, I guess they can't know, can they? You're not supposed to tell them. Confidentiality and all that. But I'm sure they'd be tickled pink if they knew.”
Silvio gripped the armrests of his chair. He fought to stand but his legs wouldn't work. “I don't... I don't know if I'm up to doing this. I'm not sure I can handle it.”
“Nonsense,” replied Trask. “You're a fighter, with a fighter's instinct. The best man in the world for the job, really, and you've completed the requisite training.”
Silvio recalled what Aderhold had said about the other test pilots dying during their training. So that was why Dr. Conway and Dr. Deal had been so tight-lipped, the reason why the staff had teased him upon his arrival at the lab. He tried to push the thoughts out of his mind but somehow couldn't keep himself from imagining the awful deaths the previous pilots must've suffered within that cockpit. Perfect darkness, needles digging into their spines, electrodes zapping their flesh and sending currents surging through them. There were a million ways to die inside of ARTEMIS, and none of them were pretty.
More than that, something else concerned Silvio however. More than his upcoming bout with an apparent monster, or the strain of hopping back into the cockpit, he wondered how he was going to tell Sarah about his. He played through the scenario again and again in his head, but nothing came to him. There was no way to sugarcoat this.
What can I tell her? he thought. 'Sorry babe, I know I just came back, but uh, the company's sending me half-way across the country now in a giant robot so that I can stab some mile-high monster that withstands real-life missiles. So, what's for dinner?'
14
As though his gaunt and weathered appearance weren't shocking enough, Silvio's announcement went over like a punch in the mouth. Any happiness the two of them may have shared that evening was robbed by the knowledge that, in the morning, he'd be stolen away again by the same work that'd seen him absent for the past three months. She'd done up her hair, gone through
the trouble of finding a babysitter and had reserved a table at their favorite restaurant. She'd even made him a little homecoming card, which had been put on display proudly beside their drinks.
And then he had to go and say it.
Sarah nearly spit out a mouthful of ice water. “T-tomorrow?” she stammered.
Silvio glanced at his dinner thoughtfully, giving a feeble nod. “That's what they said.”
Within the space of an instant, a celebratory dinner had been ruined. He'd neglected to fill her in on the big news until he absolutely couldn't hold it back any longer. When pressed on the reasons why his bosses saw it fit to so flippantly send him across the country to a place where an incredibly dangerous creature was known to run riot, he evaded. “They need my help... I'll be cleaning things up,” he said, as though Aderhold Corp had been training him up to be some sort of janitor. But the truth was too frightening, even to him. He tried to sweeten the news by discussing the massive pay-day he'd be earning, and while this excited Sarah a great deal she remained largely morose for the remainder of the evening.
For three months she'd missed him, and now that he was finally back he was getting shipped off again to a virtual war zone. It was a cruel twist of fate, even if a lucrative one.
She'd asked him about the kind of work he'd done in Iceland. He'd had no choice but to lie. He made it sound like boring office work, as opposed to the grueling daily trial he'd lived out on that chill, desolate island. He talked about testing robotic parts, practicing movements. Put generously, it was an enormous stretch of the truth. She'd asked him, too, about his sickly appearance. He attributed it solely to the rigorous schedule he'd been forced to keep. Of the daily, hours-long training sessions, drug cocktails, lack of appetite and spinal infusions, he said nothing.
Sarah left the remainder of her food untouched and seemed to daydream, cringing intermittently, as though she were imagining Silvio getting stomped on by the Colossus. Silvio's own thoughts were not so different, except he mainly concerned himself with the logistics of taking ARTEMIS into battle against the tyrant. He was a trained fighter, used to taking on human opponents. A monster was out of his league entirely. Though ARTEMIS was a mighty machine, he thought it unlikely that he'd be able to compete with the Colossus' Earth-shaking power, even while at the helm. More likely, he figured, he'd end up getting smacked around the cockpit.
It didn't even make sense. Things like this shouldn't exist. Where had the Colossus come from? How could such an enormous thing live on this Earth? How had it gone undetected for so long? Silvio wondered if he hadn't hallucinated the footage he'd been shown of the creature. It was too insane to believe.
He'd been promised a huge payday by a roomful of top government officials, though.
In his brief time back home, he'd already heard a handful of people mention the creature in normal conversation, a clear indicator that he was the only one who doubted its existence.
Sarah had no shortage of things to say about what she'd seen on the news. She talked about the Colossus as though she hoped to dissuade him, as though some nugget of news might serve to keep him from going. He nodded politely, but he'd already heard the very worst of it from the government itself. He'd been told first-hand about how many troops had been massacred, how many civilians had been slaughtered and how many millions had been squandered in trying to stop the beast. What he hadn't been told, but had inferred from the nature of the meeting, was that he didn't have a choice. He was going to participate in this operation whether he liked it or not. There could be no backing out, no changing his mind. He was committed, and his signature on some form was merely de rigueur, a pleasantry.
Silvio didn't feel like a valued member of the Aderhold team or the NDC that'd approved his mission. He felt like something disposable, a last-ditch chance at a solution that didn't involve nuclear weapons. He was the proverbial canary being sent into the coal mine, blind. That he would emerge from the mine unscathed seemed improbable, and everyone knew it. Still they were urging him on, paying him a great sum to hop into the cockpit and put his life on the line.
Why was he doing this at all? He had half a mind to call up Aderhold and back out. Of course, there might be repercussions for doing so. One did not back out of deals with top government representatives without suffering some degree of blowback. Moreover, though it seemed a complete suicide mission, he was the only man capable of piloting ARTEMIS. Many others had tried, only to meet their fate in the cockpit. He'd been strong enough, made of the right stuff. If anyone could handle this job, it was Silvio.
It was the pain in Sarah's eyes, the thought of leaving her and Leah behind again that gave him pause, made him want to throw in the towel and weather whatever consequences might come. He wavered a bit, debating whether he should step down and allow Aderhold to find some other chump to throw his life away against the Colossus, but the more he thought about it, the more he found he wanted to go through with it. The reason was clear enough.
Glory.
At ARTEMIS' helm, Silvio felt he could do anything. It was miserable, painful, draining work to pilot the thing, it was true, but the power it gave him, the way the machine served as an extension of his own body, carried a certain intoxicating allure. Stepping into that cockpit was the only way he'd ever feel the rush of the ring again. If he took part, he'd be celebrated, would have a chance at grasping more glory than any local bout had ever given him. It was like suddenly being offered a spot in the World Heavyweight Finals. He couldn't find it in himself to turn it down, even though he knew he had precious little chance of succeeding.
Someone would end up facing the thing. Silvio was hungry enough, stubborn enough, to give it a good shot. If anyone was going to claim that glory and go down in the history books as a hero, it may as well be him.
And so he spent the night trying to calm his nerves, centering his mind and climbing back into that familiar headspace he always dwelt in prior to big matches. He'd been out of the ring a little while, but his conditioning hadn't suffered much, thanks to his training in Iceland. He'd lost some muscle, but ARTEMIS had more than enough for the both of them. He needed only to trust in his own instincts as a fighter and in the machine.
When they could no longer pretend to be happy at dinner, the pair decided to return home, relieving the babysitter of her duties and taking Leah to bed. The three laid down in the darkened bedroom. Before he knew what'd come over him, Silvio was asleep.
He slept soundly, more deeply than he had in months. Being back home he felt comfortable, safe. He felt Sarah's warm body beside his, sensed his daughter stirring and felt, for the first time in a long while, that everything was fine, stable, happy. As he gave in to sleep, the worry of the previous day slowly ebbed away, receding into the back of his mind and leading to wild, colorful dreams. He dreamt he was walking through deep snow, a scene like something out of a Hokusai woodblock print, towards a dimly-lit hut in the distance. Then he dreamt he was looking up at a blue sky, merely watching the passage of the clouds. He did so with both eyes, forgetting for a time that he'd lost sight in one. It was a freeing hallucination. It made him feel whole, like he didn't have to lean on ARTEMIS to bridge that gap.
Before waking, an airy thought drifted through his head and provoked a smile. It was hard-going and brutal, but anymore he felt most alive, most human, when at ARTEMIS' controls. The machine made him whole, replaced the sight he'd lost. He gave it movement, a sort of consciousness, and it returned his sight to him and gave him unimaginable power. This was how they helped one another. It was symbiotic, a perfect sort of relationship despite the struggles.
The alarm clock sounded, waking him violently. It may as well have been an air raid siren for the way he bolted up and batted it affrightedly from the night stand. Dread flooded his gut where the even breaths of a good night's sleep had been dwelling just moments before and he stood up, trembling slightly in the dim room. Sarah was awake, laying on her side and looking up at him from behind heavy eyes. It looked as
though she hadn't slept at all. Leah, stretching out across Silvio's spot, buried her face against the pillow and snored.
Like he was preparing to get shipped off to war, Silvio took a quick shower, dressed, packed and took one final jaunt around the apartment before looking timidly out the window for the black sedan that would be by for him. To his horror, it was waiting there the first time he chanced to look. How long it'd been parked there, the driver waiting patiently for him, was impossible to say. White-faced, he turned to Sarah in the kitchen and pointed to the door. “I... I guess they're here.”
Holding Leah in her arms, Sarah nodded sullenly and approached him. “Stay safe,” she said, her eyes searching his entreatingly. She wanted him to bail on the job, to stay home. It was written all over her face. She studied his emaciated features with a deep sadness and then let him go with a kiss. Silvio paused a short while to say goodbye to his sleepy daughter before finally stepping through the door and towards the black sedan that idled at the curb.
He told her as he left that he'd be back soon, safe and sound. He told her that when it was done, he'd be home, maybe for good, and that they'd have enough money to live off of for a long time. He said there was nothing to worry about.
None of what he said was necessarily true, however, and as he said it from the doorstep, he couldn't bear to turn and face her.
15
The plane ride to Detroit was brief, complete within the blink of an eye. He'd been driven to the same private jet he'd taken to Iceland, and was even served by the same stewardess.
This time, he knew better than to ask for a beer.
The flight had terminated in Detroit, letting him off at an abandoned airfield. There, he'd been guided by two imposing men in dark suits and sunglasses he didn't recognize. That was the story of his life these days; grim-looking roughs and black cars with tinted windows. A long car ride along highways and country roads led eventually to a wide road blocked off by orange partitions and a pair of tanks. After the checking of some offered document, the driver of the black sedan was admitted and Silvio was chauffeured into the outskirts of Nanterre.
Bonecrusher: A Kaiju Thriller (The Armageddon Tetralogy Book 1) Page 9
