MECH

by Tim Marquitz

  The instant the blazing sheet of gas swept past the pit, Theseus pulled itself back up and out. Braced to confront a fresh assault from the cyborg, Montez was shocked to find the monster was gone. It had turned away, heading into the residential area to the north, smashing and clawing its way through apartment complexes and tracts of what had once been military housing. Spyder wasn’t sparing with the machine’s ordinance either, firing missiles into the crowded freeway and loosing salvos from its gun batteries at a school.

  Theseus charged across what had once been the perimeter of Norton Air Force Base, hurdling shattered homes and burning neighborhoods in the cyborg’s wake. Both of Theseus’s hands closed into steely fists as it came within range of the monster, and it drove it upwards in a mighty leap. Theseus slammed onto Mecha-Mishipeshu’s back, fists obliterating gun batteries. The robot grappled the cyborg, but a flick of the reptile’s tail sent Theseus flying, crashing down into the rubble of a housing tract.

  Mecha-Mishipeshu swung around, leaping to press the attack. Montez saw that the cyborg’s lower jaw had regenerated, the titanium mandible replaced by a scaly mass of black flesh and yellow fangs. The leg that had been crumpled and useless against the monster’s side was now buckled outwards, torn from its mounting by a lean, muscular mass of reptilian muscle and bone. Montez literally watched the new leg thickening, becoming more defined, a process as incredible as it was hideous.

  Stunned by the monster’s regeneration, Montez wasn’t quick enough to direct Theseus against the beast. The cyborg’s claws slammed into the robot, bowling it over and swatting it across the grassy expanse of a soccer field. Theseus’s head crashed through the decaying roof of a decades old hovel, its optics momentarily befouled by the wood shingles and clay tiles disintegrating under its metal weight.

  While the robot was blinded, Mecha-Mishipeshu brought its tail whipping down. This time, it employed one of the horrific weapons engineered by Fenris. The crest running along the top of the tail whirred and vibrated rapidly, spinning like the teeth of a saw. The appendage slashed Theseus’s side, gouging armor and ripping through the robot’s superstructure.

  Biting down on the riot of pain flaring through him, Montez brought Theseus’s hand beneath the whipping tail. Seizing it, the robot threw every dreg of its incredible might into bending the tail back, forcing it against the cyborg’s regenerating leg. The beast howled as its own tail shredded through the leg with the sickening squish of tendons and nerves severed.

  The cyborg collapsed. It writhed on the ground, claws tearing at the rubble as it mindlessly lashed out. The reaction wasn’t that of a machine, but a living creature.

  “Montez,” Rambaldi’s voice crackled across the communications relay. “Mishipeshu’s nerve tissue is organic. It still has the reactions and instincts of a biological organism. If you can disrupt the electric barrier preventing the brain from regenerating, Fenris won’t be able to control the monster, even with Spyder injected with nano-bionics.”

  The image of what would happen if the electric cage was brought down rose within Montez’s mind, the water panther’s brain tissue flooding into the command bridge, obliterating Spyder and the machinery that gave him control of Mecha-Mishipeshu. It was a ghastly image, but one the terrorist deserved.

  Spyder employed the cyborg’s mechanical components to overcome the agonies of its organics. Mecha-Mishipeshu turned on Theseus IV, the silvery reptile slashing its tail and nearly catching its enemy across the chest with the blade. The attack, however, was a feint. The jet engines mounted into the cyborg’s back burst into life, propelling the beast skyward.

  Theseus lunged, closing one hand around Mecha-Mishipeshu’s clawed foot. The slashing tail struck down, grinding against the other arm. Montez fought to retain consciousness as he experienced the sensation of the arm being slowly, relentlessly sawed away. Still, he managed to maintain focus, keeping his grip on the cyborg.

  Mecha-Mishipeshu’s silver hull gleamed in the bright Californian sun as it streaked across San Bernardino’s downtown. The weight of Theseus dragged at the immense cyborg, taxing the might of its engines. Foot by foot, the creature was dragged downwards. Its tail caught in the twisted mess of the robot’s arm, the monster raked at Theseus’s armor with its claws and spat gouts of fire into its enemy’s face. Nothing could break the hold.

  Dipping lower, the dangling body of Theseus smashed into the top floors of a towering hotel, sending a deluge of glass and brick raining into the street below. The violent impact caused some of the robot’s steel plating to tear away, exposing some of the circuitry in the arm gripping Mecha-Mishipeshu. A blast of fire from the reptile’s jaws washed over the vulnerable section, shorting out the electronics governing the robot’s hand. Abruptly, steel fingers lost their grip.

  The cyborg sped away from the stricken hotel and the damaged robot sprawled atop the structure. The jet engines, taxed past safety by the effort of carrying Theseus, sputtered and died. Mecha-Mishipeshu dropped from the sky, hurtling into the superstructure of the opulent city hall.

  A pillar of dust and debris erupted into the air as the hulking reptile plowed through the building. The havoc visited by the initial impact was eclipsed by the carnage as Mecha-Mishipeshu stirred from the crater caused by its plunge. Like some primordial mastodon, the cyborg lashed out, knocking down walls, sending Roman columns hurtling through the sky to come slamming down in derelict offices and abandoned storefronts. Flames billowed from the monster’s jaws, immolating the streetscape. Asphalt turned into streams of bubbling tar, cars were reduced to heaps of molten slag, people withered to blackened husks. The parkland outside city hall flared up in a pillar of smoke, fire scorched the decrepit façade of an abandoned shopping mall, glass exploding in the blistering heat.

  The vengeful laughter of Commander Spyder rasped from the cyborg’s speakers, adding the terrorist’s mockery to the carnage. Mecha-Mishipeshu ripped itself out from the rubble of city hall, its crippled tail slapping aside the surrounding fences and gates, flinging police cruisers and ambulances through the air. The metal monster reared up, its optics glowering at the masses of people fleeing into the streets.

  Before the monster could massacre the refugees, a metallic roar ripped through the sky. The cyborg was flattened as Theseus IV leaped from the crumbling spire of the hotel, slamming into Mecha-Mishipeshu with the elemental fury of a volcano. The silver reptile’s body buckled beneath the impact, the joint between tail and body sundered. Like the severed limb of a lizard, the disembodied tail flailed and thrashed in a spasm of mindless agony.

  “Why won’t you die?” Spyder’s voice bellowed from the cyborg as he brought Mecha-Mishipeshu’s claws tearing at Theseus’s hull. The assault managed to rip open one of the chest plates and hurl the robot into the burning shopping complex.

  Montez fought against the compulsion to surrender, to give in to the fury of pain assailing him, wracking his mind. He felt every injury visited against Theseus as though it were inflicted against his own body. Every synapse cried out in pain, pain that the agent would have believed impossible for anyone to experience. To lie down and die, to let the horror end, this was a temptation that urged him to submit. Duty drove him on, the knowledge that, if he died, if Theseus fell, then the horror wouldn’t end. It would simply be transferred to the untold thousands Mecha-Mishipeshu would slaughter.

  Drawing upon that fierce determination, Montez commanded Theseus out from the inferno. The robot’s body was mangled, its systems responding sluggishly. The arm that Mecha-Mishipeshu’s tail had savaged hung limp and useless. One leg dragged behind the robot, every circuit in the limb burned out. The arm the cyborg had charred was barely functional, the fingers of the hand twitching of their own accord whenever Montez didn’t focus on controlling them. It was this machine, damaged and crippled, that presented the only real means of stopping Mecha-Mishipeshu.

  Theseus’s optics relayed to Montez the reality of his conviction. A wing of Marine fighters pursued Mecha-Miship
eshu as it slithered westward across the city. Missiles and machine guns raked the cyborg, but the damage was largely cosmetic. The monster responded by revolving its head on the swivel joint at its neck, staring across its own back as it directed lasers built into its horns against the planes. One after another, the heroic pilots were blasted from the air.

  The distraction offered by the futile Marine attack slowed Mecha-Mishipeshu, allowing Theseus a chance to stalk after the cyborg. A battalion of National Guard assembled on the asphalt lanes of the freeway presented another obstacle to the monster’s rampage. Savaging the tanks and armored cars lined across the highway took Mecha-Mishipeshu mere minutes. Spyder was too sadistic to allow any of the soldiers to escape once their resistance had been broken.

  Theseus caught up to the cyborg just as it rent the last of the tanks with its jaws. Already a long length of sinuous flesh grew out from the stump of its severed tail. Other damaged sections of the machine were likewise being consumed by reptilian growth. Montez thought once again about the water panther’s brain and the electrical cage preventing its regeneration.

  Throwing Theseus into such a charge as the crippled robot could muster, Montez renewed the attack. Seizing the beast by one of its horns, Theseus wrenched the titanium appendage free, then brought it slamming back into the brute’s neck. Sparks crackled from the spot where the horn penetrated and a terrible shudder passed through the cyborg. The left optic in Mecha-Mishipeshu’s face winked out, losing the hostile glow.

  Mecha-Mishipeshu rounded upon its ambusher, coiling its body around Theseus and knocking both machines to the ground. Houses, scrapyards, and thrift shops disintegrated beneath the metal gargantuas as they rolled through old neighborhoods west of the freeway. When their struggle brought them slamming through the walls of an ice plant, a great burst of coolants caused the combatants to separate. Mecha-Mishipeshu glared at Theseus through the chilly mist, a stream of venom trickling from regenerated fangs.

  Theseus drew back, limping from the rubble of the ice factory and into the trainyard beyond. Dragging its crippled leg, the robot presented a vulnerable target too tempting for Spyder to resist. With a hiss, Mecha-Mishipeshu lunged.

  Theseus met the leap. Whipping its torso around, the robot brought the train car it had lifted from the rails crashing down into Mecha-Mishipeshu’s head. The already paralyzed side of the monster’s face collapsed, the blank optic cracking away to expose a gleaming yellow eye. Theseus pressed the attack, relentlessly beating the cyborg with the car.

  Montez had no delusion such a desperate attack would overcome Mecha-Mishipeshu. What he hoped was to drive the evil terrorist into a frenzy. An angry enemy was the best ally he could have for what he planned.

  Snarling in outrage, Mecha-Mishipeshu swatted the car from Theseus’s hand and blasted another gout of fire at the robot. Theseus limped away from the furious cyborg, stealing further into the trainyard. The monster wasn’t to be denied. Coiling its body, its regenerated tail whipping from side to side and knocking train cars into the surrounding streets, the beast readied itself for the kill.

  As Mecha-Mishipeshu lunged, Montez brought Theseus’ foot kicking towards the power generator that fed electricity to the repair yard and train station. Thousands of volts crackled through the robot’s hull. As the cyborg crashed into its enemy, the current raced through its own hull. Electricity sizzled through the machine’s circuits and computers, frying systems and melting wires.

  The ghastly scream that sounded from Mecha-Mishipeshu’s speakers told Montez his plan had worked. It was a shriek of mortal terror, the death scream of Commander Spyder as the unleashed mass of Mishipeshu’s regenerating brain flooded the control room.

  Theseus staggered back as the cyborg’s flailing tail smashed the power generator and broke the current. Montez could see Mecha-Mishipeshu sprawled across the rails, smoke rising from its body. The creature struggled to right itself, moving with a chilling animation that was devoid of the mechanical awkwardness it had exhibited under Spyder’s command. The beast, however, moved only the leg and tail it had regenerated. The mechanical components of the cyborg remained immobile. Without the nano-bionics, the water panther couldn’t control the artificial components. The beast glared at Theseus, gnashing its lower jaw in impotent fury.

  Montez felt a wave of relief. Mecha-Mishipeshu was down, its rampage over. “Dr. Rambaldi, the cyborg is immobilized. I’m certain Spyder is dead. We’ve won.”

  Rambaldi’s voice was strained, carrying a solemn note as he responded to Montez. “This city, my family, perhaps the whole world is in your debt,” he said. “A debt none of us can ever repay.”

  A terrible sense of foreboding gripped Montez. “That’s well enough, doc, but how about deactivating those nano-bionics so I can start thinking in my own body again.”

  Rambaldi started to say something, then broke off. When a voice reached him again over the relay, it was Zita’s.

  “Curt,” she said, “Dad can’t deactivate the nano-bionics. He can’t let you back into your own body.” Her voice broke off in a sob. “You’re… you died. Spyder’s bullet… you died before Theseus ever left the hangar.”

  Montez’s mind whirled. It was impossible. He could still think, still feel, even if it was just with a steel body and computerized sensors.

  “Somehow your consciousness…the link between yourself and Theseus…”

  Montez didn’t hear the rest of Zita’s words. He was too busy staring at the inert mass of Mecha-Mishipeshu, thinking about the living creature trapped inside that metal shell. He was too busy pondering an old proverb, one that warned when fighting monsters, one must be careful not to become a monster.

  For Curt Montez, the proverb was more than a warning. It had proven to be his doom.

  Illustration by FRANKIE B. WASHINGTON

  Sometimes my sister and I play a game.

  In that game, we pretend they never came, that they were just make believe. We pretend that the world is normal, that we’ll grow up, meet someone and fall in love, get married, have children. We pretend the world is still beautiful, and that human beings are still the dominant life form.

  Of course, the reality is that we may not ever get to fully grow up, at least not in the way the older people talk about.

  It’s unlikely we’ll meet anyone, let alone fall in love. It’s hard to meet eligible men when they’re all dead or headed to their deaths. Harder to fall in love. Well, maybe not harder. More emotionally dangerous. Because falling in love with someone you’re going to lose to war sounds much worse than never finding someone to fall in love with in the first place.

  And children? Why would we ever want to bring children into this world? There’s nothing but death and terror here.

  Still, we’re eligible. Honestly, more eligible than most. Because of what we do, what we are. What we will be.

  “Missy, are you ready?” My sister Beth isn’t normally ready before me, for anything. She says it’s because she’s the younger and so she’ll always come to whatever after me.

  But today, she’s ready first. I’m not sure if this is a good sign or a bad sign or no sign at all.

  We’ve become very superstitious these days. Our grandfather says it’s because when humans are put into terrifying positions they can’t understand or can’t control, they revert to the old ways, where all things are in the hands of the “Gods” or “Luck” or “Fate” or similar. He may be right. I’m not in any position to be sure.

  I don’t know about fate, and I’ve learned not to believe in luck. I’m certain there are no gods, though. Other than those we’re fighting. And these gods don’t care about us. I’m not even sure they know we’re here. Except when we fight. Then they know.

  “Not quite.” I have a ritual, right before we head into battle. When we’re still in our apartment. I put on my underwear, which was our mother’s. Then I put on the unisex bodysuit that protects from both heat and cold, which was our father’s. I tie my hair back with the bri
ght pink hair tie that was our little sister’s. Then I put on the St. Christopher necklace that was our grandmother’s. Lastly, I put on the power gloves that were our older brother’s.

  It’s all we have, the only things left of them, which is why I wear them into every battle. Just in case.

  Beth doesn’t do this. Her superstitions are different.

  My ritual finished, I head to our living room. It’s a sign of how much status we have that the three of us are able to live together, not to mention that we can live in more than one room. Our apartment has four rooms and a bathroom. According to our grandfather, it’s the size of what he calls “a spacious studio apartment.” No idea what that was, but we put beds and one dresser in three of the rooms, and have three chairs in the living room.

  We all eat together with everyone else in our compound in the commissary. It’s cheaper, easier, and there’s no room in any living quarters for the luxury of a kitchen, not even ours. We have a tiny refrigerator that sits in our living room. It’s another sign of our status, that we can have cold drinks or snacks here.

  Grandfather and Beth are waiting for me in the living room. He doesn’t fight anymore, but he still commands New Phoenix’s armies. He was in the First Great Conflict, when they came and destroyed the entire coast of the Pacific. The ocean survived and came back to our shores. According to Grandfather, Old Phoenix was in the middle of the desert. But we weren’t born when all that happened.

  “Today’s a big day,” Grandfather says as he checks us to make sure we haven’t forgotten anything. He knows our rituals and approves. “We have word from New Houston they’re ready to send new mechs.”

  New Houston is where we manufacture the only things that give humanity a fighting chance: giant robots we call mechs. Well, until we’re inside them. Then we call them something else.