by Tim Marquitz
“Quite so,” Spyder said, glaring at Montez. “I promised your death wouldn’t be quick.” He waved Rambaldi forward. “Proceed, Doctor.”
Rambaldi walked to Montez. “Forgive me,” he whispered, “but this is our only chance.” He opened the metal box and withdrew a large syringe. Montez saw a deep blue liquid inside. Rambaldi pushed the agent’s head to the side and pushed the needle into his neck. A withering rush of pain exploded within, and Montez felt himself falling into black oblivion.
He couldn’t be certain how long he’d been out. When Montez opened his eyes, his vision was double, like two transparencies atop one another. It was hard to discern what exactly he was looking at.
“Don’t move,” Zita’s voice implored. “If you do, they’ll know. Don’t talk. Just listen.”
Even if he’d wanted to, Montez didn’t think he could move. His body felt like a slab of cold lead. Whatever precautions they had taken to bind him this time, they weren’t taking chances. No, it was more than that. A rush of panic swept through him. Montez realized he couldn’t feel anything. His entire body was numb, no sensation at all. He couldn’t feel whatever was binding him, couldn’t even feel the pressure of whatever surface he was lying on. The nano-bionics! The injection had paralyzed him!
Through his double-vision, he could barely discern Zita leaning over him, pressing her head against his chest. Was she listening for his heartbeat? Was he that near death?
“I said, don’t move,” she whispered. “Not until you understand. The nano-bionics have spread throughout your nervous system. They are transmitting your thoughts to Theseus IV and receiving relays from the robot’s sensors. If you concentrate, you will be able to separate the relays from your own senses.”
Montez closed his eyes, tried to focus his mind. When he opened them, Zita and the command center were almost gone, just a faint, misty suggestion of shapes. Instead, he saw an outside view of the command center and the hangar beyond. He saw the vast reptilian bulk of Mecha-Mishipeshu stretched out along the far side of the vault, engineers and technicians still crawling over the hull. He saw the steel framework of the ceiling overhead, the catwalks where Fenris guards patrolled.
“If you try to move,” Zita said, “you might cause Theseus to move.” She paused. When she spoke again, there was a desperate hope in her voice. “If you focus, you will make Theseus move, understand? You’ll be able to use it as if it were your own body. Spyder isn’t expecting that. Shh. He thinks Theseus is disabled, inoperable. He thinks the nano-bionics injected into you are engineered to control a small prototype on the workbench.”
Montez was impressed. By using the scientist to salvage parts from the older robot, Fenris had unwittingly given him the means to create a weapon to use against them. All he’d been waiting for was the opportunity.
Now, it was all up to Montez. He had to work fast, shock the terrorists with a display of sudden and overwhelming power. Watching the world through the sensors of Theseus IV, he knew what he had to do. Clenching his teeth, fighting back the disorienting protest of his own body, he concentrated on the metal giant.
First, he flexed the fingers of his hand. He could sense the robot’s steel talons responding. It wasn’t enough. He had to be sure. Focusing, feeding every speck of his determination, Montez raised its arm, lifting the gigantic limb until it was within the scope of the robot’s optic relays. Auditory receptors conveyed to him shouts of confusion and alarm from workers and guards who saw the supposedly disabled robot moving.
With no time left, Montez set the hulking colossus in motion. Lurching out from its dock, the giant took a lumbering step across the hangar. Dimly, he heard Zita scream, heard the crack of a pistol. Montez didn’t let the noise distract him. Intent on his purpose, he brought Theseus to the side of the command center in a mere two steps, then the robot’s mammoth fist crashed through the outer wall.
Bedlam reigned within the command center. Terminals and databanks flew across the room, terrified technicians and their guards scattered in every direction. A few of the terrorists, under the fierce shouts of Spyder, trained their rifles on the robot. The spray of bullets glanced harmlessly from the hull. A swipe of Theseus’s hand swatted the guards aside like insects.
Spyder scrambled across the destruction, throwing Rambaldi to the floor. The commander seized a metal box from the same cabinet he’d taken the syringe of nano-bionics from. Vengefully, he aimed his pistol at the prostrate scientist. Before he could fire, Zita lunged at him, driving her shoulder into his back and pushing him across the room. Montez sent Theseus IV’s steel talons after Spyder before he could recover. The attack missed the villain, but it did manage to break his resolve. With the case of nano-bionics thrust beneath one arm, Spyder turned and fled the command center.
With the robot’s optic arrays, Montez peered into the shattered command center. A few of the captive technicians emerged from hiding, but of the terrorists, there was no sign. He focused his attention on Zita and Rambaldi. With her hands still tied behind her back, all Zita could do was kneel beside her injured father. It took Rambaldi a second to recover his wits. When he did, his first action was to slash his daughter’s bindings with a handsaw. His second was to snatch a large microphone from his workbench.
“Montez, you must act fast!” Rambaldi cried into the microphone. “Spyder has taken Johnny and the nano-bionics. He intends to activate Mecha-Mishipeshu.” The scientist paused, a tremble in his voice. “Montez… he shot you. I don’t know how long you have.”
Montez turned his focus from the scientist towards a table in one corner of the room. His mind reeled as he saw himself—his physical body—strapped to the table. Zita arrived there and began trying to stanch the blood-flow from a wound in his chest. Spyder had known his best chance to stop the rampaging Theseus IV was to kill Montez and cut off the intelligence commanding the robot.
Montez forced Theseus to turn away. Rambaldi was right. There was no knowing how much time he had, how long life would keep flowing through his body. Whatever time was left, he had to use it to stop Fenris from mobilizing their ghastly creation.
Theseus was the target for the frantic gunfire as it strode across the hangar. From catwalks and gantries, even the superstructure of Mecha-Mishipeshu, a withering fusillade of bullets hailed upon the robot. The small arms fire simply glanced off the armored hull. The robot’s retaliation was far more effective, smashing gantries and pulling down catwalks with each swing of its fists. Guards spilled from the crumpled walkways, crashing to the concrete floor dozens of feet below.
Ahead, the sinister serpentine mass of Mecha-Mishipeshu waited. He observed Spyder hurrying down a walkway, an entourage of guards dragging Johnny with them. Montez fixed his attention on Theseus’s weapons systems. One after another, he found them disabled, cannibalized for parts. Rambaldi’s efforts to conceal the functionality of the robot had only gone so far. He’d been unable to mitigate the looting of the weapon platforms.
Montez would have to improvise. Snatching a forklift from the floor, Theseus hurled the crude missile. The forklift smashed into the metal framework just inches behind Spyder and a few feet ahead of the guards carrying Johnny. The terrorist commander tumbled down the steps, sprawling into Mecha-Mishipeshu’s shadow. The guards with Johnny had been thrown back, the boy lying on the crumpled span.
Theseus covered the distance at a thunderous jog, sending tremors through the facility. The robot ignored the gunfire rattling against its armor plates from terrorists positioned across Mecha-Mishipeshu’s back. Using Theseus’s shoulder to shield Johnny from enemy fire, the robot smashed the recovering guards on the walkway with one goliath fist. The other hand carefully took hold of the platform Johnny was sprawled across and slowly pulled it free from the walkway.
“Dr. Rambaldi, I’ve got Johnny,” Montez said, the words issuing not from his own mouth, but from speakers built into Theseus IV’s helm-like head. It was strange hearing his words magnified and distorted by the mechanistic ca
dence of the robot’s machinery.
He brought the robot back to the command center, gunfire continuing to rattle from its armor. Cautiously, Theseus reached through the shattered wall and set Johnny in the room. Zita rushed over to her unconscious brother. Rambaldi’s voice crackled from the microphone, relief and guilt warring for control of his words.
“Johnny is safe. Johnny is safe,” the scientist repeated over and over, as though trying to convince himself that it was true. “Montez…the bleeding…”
“I know. I have to act fast,” the robot droned. “The hangar is still infested by Fenris.” Theseus turned from the command center, optics focusing on the muzzle flashes. There were still dozens, mostly grouped around Mecha-Mishipeshu, in the scaffolds around the metal monster, and across the thing’s back. It would have been a simple matter to pick the men off, had any of the weapons been operational, but without bullets or rockets, the sophisticated targeting systems were useless. Montez would have to deal with the enemy the old-fashioned way. Fists.
Rounding on the gunmen, a savage howl of defiance boomed from Theseus’s speakers, a mechanistic echo of Montez’s rage. The hulking robot took several steps towards the terrorists, wading through their fusillade, but then, a flash of silver caught Montez’s notice.
A long, serpentine tail whipped around to crack against Theseus’s leg. The brutal impact shuddered through the huge robot, sending a pulse of pain through Montez’s mind. The steel juggernaut staggered, one arm clawing out to brace itself against the hangar wall and arrest its fall.
A dolorous hiss rasped across the steel jaws of Mecha-Mishipeshu. The reptilian cyborg shifted its head around, the lenses of its optics glowing balefully upon Theseus IV. Fenris guards screamed in horror as the mammoth machine began to move, spilling them from its hull and smashing the scaffolds where more gunmen lurked. The silvery mastodon was oblivious to the men strewn across the hangar floor, crushing them underfoot as it lunged for Theseus.
A grinding pain flashed through Montez as Mecha-Mishipeshu brought its talons raking across Theseus’s chest, gouging the armor and exposing the network of wires and cables beneath. The reptilian behemoth reared back, its jaws dropping open to send a blast of napalm searing into the robot. Without conscious thought, Montez brought Theseus’s arm sidewise to protect the exposed mechanics, letting the chemical flame wash across the armored limb.
“It’s Spyder!” Rambaldi’s voice crackled through the audio relay. “He’s taken the nano-bionics himself. He’s activated Mecha-Mishipeshu on his own.”
Montez could have guessed as much, though the knowledge was of small comfort. He’d seen the commander’s murderous ruthlessness. Now, that diseased mind was controlling a monster such as mankind had never seen, wielding it with the same deadly felicity as Montez controlling Theseus IV.
The eyes of Mecha-Mishipeshu glared at Theseus with an intensity that mirrored that of its malignant master. The cannon mounted on its back opened fire, sending artillery shells slamming into Theseus. Montez felt his armor crumpling, felt the eerie sensation of communication systems shutting down and rerouting themselves.
Theseus retaliated with a speed that surprised even Montez. The robot seized one of the roof supports overhead, wrenching the steel span from its moorings. Like a javelin, it flung the jagged length of twisted metal at Mecha-Mishipeshu. The crude weapon didn’t have the force or power to pierce the cyborg’s titanium hull. Instead, it cracked against the monster’s shoulder and crumpled, becoming a confusion of warped steel beams locked around the beast’s foreleg, locking the limb in place.
Mecha-Mishipeshu fired another salvo while it tried to bring its tail around to drag the crumpled debris away from its leg. Theseus dropped to its knees under the barrage, hands stabbing into the concrete floor to tear out heavy slabs. It flung them at the monster’s guns.
The first three throws were random, simply glancing from the cyborg’s armor, but the fourth, directed by the robot’s targeting computer, smashed into one of the gun emplacements as the shell was leaving the cannon. The force of the blast was directed back at the battery, delivering an explosion that ripped through the silver reptile’s side. Smoke and flame seeped from behind the titanium plates as fires raged within its body.
The giant monster reared back. The head whipped around, pointing towards the command center. From speakers ranged across Mecha-Mishipeshu’s hull, the sneering voice of Spyder bellowed. “Surrender, Montez, or I burn Rambaldi and his brood to cinders!”
Montez had already had a taste of how well the terrorist’s word could be trusted. He didn’t need Rambaldi imploring him to fight over the comm’s relay. Grimly, he brought Theseus leaping up from where it crouched on the floor. One massive steel hand slammed down on Mecha-Mishipeshu’s back, smashing two of the gun emplacements. Its other hand clutched the bottom of the cyborg’s jaw and drove it upwards. When the blast of napalm streamed out from the machine’s mouth, it scorched the roof of the hangar instead of the command center.
Raking pain flared through Montez as the cyborg visited fresh damage on Theseus. Mecha-Mishipeshu brought one of its hind claws raking along the robot’s leg, stripping away an entire section of armor and severing a half-dozen hydraulic cables and coolant pipes. The monster’s tail lashed out again, tearing a deep hole in Theseus’s side. From the reptile’s hull, a pair of gun batteries continued to fire, their shells punching clean through Theseus point-blank.
Montez resisted the urge to black out, fought down the clamor of alarms and warning messages flooding his brain. He forced himself to focus, to concentrate on what Theseus was still capable of, not what systems were failing or already lost. A shaft of light streaming into the hangar from where Mecha-Mishipeshu had blasted the roof gave him the inspiration he needed. Firming the hold it had on the cyborg’s jaw, Theseus reached back and seized the join between tail and body. Tightening its grip, defying the damage the monster continued to inflict upon it, the robot activated the immense jet thrusters built into its back.
The hangar roof erupted as the two gigantic machines burst through. Theseus IV, arms locked about the jaw and tail of Mecha-Mishipeshu, rocketed into the sky for a few hundred feet. The thrusters built into the robot had never been intended for long flights, only short hops to enhance the unit’s mobility. They had certainly never been designed to lift both the robot’s bulk and the colossal weight of a reptilian cyborg. So, their momentum quickly dissipated, and they came slamming back to earth, crashing near the edge of the gaping hole where the underground hangar lay hidden.
As they fell, Theseus was battered by Mecha-Mishipeshu’s slashing claws, titanium talons raking armor, tearing its hull to steely shreds. The cyborg wrenched free, propelling itself away as the two machines slammed into the ground, the reptile’s lower jaw still clenched in Theseus’s fist.
The dazzle of bright sunlight confused Montez after the dull synthetic gloom of the hangar. Theseus’s sensors fed him information about his surroundings, yet it was difficult to blot out the befuddlement that racked his mind. He understood in a detached, distant fashion that they’d crashed down in an industrial park. There was a broad strip of macadam crowded with speeding cars and trucks to the left while, to the north, he saw blocks of close-set apartment buildings and a scattering of strip malls. Beyond, some residential sections and green fields. In the dim distance, mountains and foothills, one of the slopes marked by a giant stone arrowhead.
Realization struck. He knew this place. They were in San Bernardino. Decades ago, an Air Force base had been there, decommissioned during a drawdown of the US military. For years, city council had debated over what to do with the facility and, after years of letting the base sit derelict, they’d decided to rezone it for commercial use. Fenris must have had a hand in all those years of debate and indecision, bribing politicians to keep stalling while they built their base beneath the old hangars and airfields.
Montez put aside his thoughts on the depth of Fenris’s intrigues. Theseus IV had
crashed on its back, smashing its jets and spilling propellant across the streets and buildings. Mecha-Mishipeshu had fared better, landing on three of its reptilian legs. The fourth, the one locked in position by the beam, had almost been folded in half beneath the violence of the cyborg’s fall, yet the monster was anything but crippled. It turned towards Theseus. Smoke and flame flashed from its throat, though without its lower jaw to direct and focus the fire, the napalm expanded in a blazing cloud, much of its violence blown back into the reptile’s face by howling winds.
Face blackened by napalm, Mecha-Mishipeshu circled the downed Theseus, crushing cars beneath its clawed feet. Like a true panther, it stalked its prey, glowing optics fixed upon the struggling robot. With a snarled hiss, the cyborg stopped. Panels in its chest slid open, exposing a battery of missile tubes.
With one arm pushing against the street, Theseus went into a roll. Offices and cart ports were smashed beneath the machine’s weight as it tumbled across the commercial park, all the while its speakers projecting a high-wailing siren, a sonic disruptor designed to confuse the targeting computers in the cyborg’s missiles. The barrage exploded against the ground behind the robot, gouging craters in the earth and rupturing water lines and gas mains. Fires shot up into the sky as jetting gas was ignited.
Theseus dropped back into the hole leading down to the hangar, its hands clamping against the jagged edge of the pit. A great blast of ignited gas screamed across the opening, scoring the robot’s fingers. The havoc the blast would have wrought on the electronics exposed by Mecha-Mishipeshu’s claws would have been far worse. Montez prayed that the edge of the pit would hold.
Rambaldi shouted something into the comm-relay, but Montez had no time to listen. The edge of the pit was crumbling, any second it would break off and pitch Theseus down into the hangar. He couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t leave Spyder free to ravage the city. Theseus IV was the only thing between the cyborg and hundreds of thousands of people.
