Dead Mech

by Jake Bible

  Masters groaned and sat himself on the bare floor. “Oh for fuck’s sake! What now?”

  “Oh, no that would ruin the surprise pilot!” Johnson scolded. “And I love surprises!”

  ***

  “If I were to gain access to any of the stronghold’s mainframe jack points I could easily create a sub-net routine and upload my consciousness there for safe keeping,” Shiner said. “At least until the technology could be worked out to return me to a mech.”

  Capreze’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “You’d want to stay a mech?”

  “Don’t you want to remain human?” Shiner replied. “I was born into this form and this is the form I was meant for.”

  “Fair enough,” Capreze agreed. “Let’s see what we can figure out.”

  Capreze walked his mech up to the stronghold entrance.

  ***

  The train compartment door slid open and the Rookie stepped inside. “You need me, Doc?”

  Themopolous turned form Jethro’s bedside and nodded to the other bed in the room. The bed holding a pissed off Bisby. “I need you to watch him.”

  “I’m not a fucking kid!” Bisby growled. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

  “No, but you need an armed guard!” Themopolous responded. “Can you watch him for me? He keeps insisting he’s needed outside.”

  The Rookie laughed and looked at Bisby. “If they don’t need me they don’t need you, Biz.”

  “Fuck you Rookie,” Bisby snarled.

  “No thank you.”

  ***

  Stomper shifted uncomfortably, but let the Commander approach the stronghold.

  “Hello? Outsider? Or should I call you Dr. Johnson?” Capreze asked.

  There was no response. Capreze powered up his plasma cannon and blasted three of the gun turrets on the mountainside.

  “How dare you!” Johnson roared. “Do you want to die little man?!?”

  “No, thank you,” Capreze answered casually. “But, now that I have your attention I’d like to talk. Maybe we can work something out?”

  Johnson laughed heartily. “Oh, you’re records weren’t exaggerating! You sure have balls!”

  “Last time I checked,” the Commander quipped. “Now, how about that talk?”

  ***

  Themopolous stepped from the train and made her way past the burning piles of zombie corpses, her hand covering her mouth and nose, trying to hold out the stench. She approached Shiner/Mathew and looked up at the cockpit.

  “Can I come up?” she yelled.

  “Here, let me give you a hand,” Mathew shouted down, lowering the mech’s right hand for Themopolous to climb aboard. Mathew brought the doctor eye level and smiled. “Coming to check up on me?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m doing. You’ve been in a mech for several days and I’m sure your body is taking a beating.”

  ***

  “Frame like a house, frame like a house, tiny little body, small as a mouse,” Jethro mumbled over and over.

  The Rookie watched the mechanic. “Wow, his mind is going fast isn’t it?”

  “Yep,” Bisby responded curtly.

  “Has the doc come up with any way to help him?”

  “Nope,” Bisby said, turning away from the Rookie.

  “What’s your deal?” the Rookie asked, annoyed.

  Bisby’s eyes flared with anger. “My deal? Are you fucking blind? I’m missing an arm asshole!”

  “Yeah, but you’re alive. You can get a new arm, Jay will see to that.”

  “I don’t want a new arm!”

  ***

  “Look at your Commander!” Johnson said. “He’s actually trying to bargain with me!”

  One of the vid screens zoomed in and Masters could see Capreze’s lips moving.

  “You’re talking to him right now?” Masters asked. “While you’re talking to me?”

  “Of course!” Johnson replied. “Haven’t you figured out by now that I’m a god! A digital Zeus and this is my technological Olympus!”

  “Whatever,” Masters sighed and lay back on the floor. “What’s he saying?”

  “Oh the usual about how we surely can find some common ground and our capabilities could be mutually beneficial to each other, blah, blah, blah…”

  ***

  Themopolous choked at the smell coming from Mathew’s cockpit. “Dear God, Matty! How do you stand it?”

  Mathew smiled weakly. “It isn’t easy, trust me. If I get out of this I’m so going to kick Shiner’s ass.”

  “That is technologically impossible,” Shiner responded. “While my physical self may have a posterior, my true self, my AI does not. You could no more kick my ass than kick a cloud.”

  “Is he always like this?” Themopolous asked, smiling. She took a deep breath, held it and climbed into the cockpit.

  “Yes, he is,” Mathew said as Themopolous checked his vitals.

  ***

  The Commander finished talking and waited. He was met with silence.

  “Did you hear me, Dr. Johnson?” Capreze asked.

  “Yes,” came Johnson’s curt reply.

  “And? Do you believe we can work something out?”

  “No, of course not. That’s a stupid question. Go away.”

  Capreze waited a minute more. “Is that all? Go away?”

  One of the turrets opened fire, riddling the ground in front of Capreze’s mech’s feet with bullets.

  “Yes, go away,” Johnson said. “You’re going to want to get your team together. The real fun is about to begin!”

  Proximity alarms blared in all of the mech cockpits.

  ***

  Alarms rang through the Railer train’s cars. The Rookie jumped to his feet. “What the fuck?”

  “Sounds like we have company,” Bisby said.

  “Can you watch Jethro?” the Rookie asked Bisby. “And stay here, out of trouble?”

  “Fuck you again, Rookie,” Bisby responded. The Rookie locked eyes with Bisby. The older mech pilot sighed and waved the Rookie away. “Yeah, you can trust me. I’ll keep an eye on Jethro.”

  “Thanks,” the Rookie said quickly before dashing from the compartment.

  “Frame like a house, frame like a house, tiny little body, small as a mouse,” Jethro repeated.

  “Whatever,” Bisby grumbled.

  ***

  “What is it?” Timson asked.

  “Dead mechs, lots of ‘em,” Jenny said.” They’re coming up over the ridges right at us.”

  “Jeezus! How many?” Timson said, trying to keep the alarm out of his voice. He may not be as cool and collected as Capreze, but he was a leader and couldn’t crack now.

  “All of them would be my guess,” Marin responded. “Looks like, twenty, maybe thirty.”

  Jenny gulped and looked at her father. “We’re fucked, huh?”

  “Not yet,” Timson said. “Get the guns up and get everyone armed. We’re going to need every bit of firepower we’ve got.”

  ***

  “Holy fucking hell!” Jay exclaimed, his eyes not believing his scanners. “That’s a shit ton of dead metal coming at us!”

  “No shit!” Capreze responded. “I need weapons reports stat!”

  “I’ve got full plasma charge, but my 50mms are at half load and my RPGs and charges are almost gone,” Rachel reported.

  “I don’t really have shit,” Jay said. “This is a salvage mech, not a battle mech. I’ve got a plasma cannon at full, but other than that I’m looking at just the 50mms and they aren’t even at half load.”

  “Can you sonic blast them?”

  “I can try.”

  ***

  The Special Ops team looked up as the Railers began to shout and the mechs’ movements changed, their stances becoming battle ready.

  “I think we’ll need to put the burial on hold,” Lieutenant Murphy said looking down at Specialist Sol and Grendetti as they stood in the grave intended for Austin, already three feet deep. “We’ve got incoming.”


  “We can’t just leave him here,” Sol said, glancing at Austin’s body at the lip of the grave.

  “We can and we will, Specialist,” Murphy ordered. “Get it together and soldier up. You’ve got a job to do!”

  “Yes, sir!” Sol responded.

  ***

  “You’ll want to see this,” Johnson said.

  Masters propped himself up on his elbows and looked at the vid screens. “What now?”

  “The big climax! I called some new players to the stage.”

  Masters’ eyes widened and he got to his feet and stepped closer to the screens. He looked from them to Johnson and back to the screens. “Are those fucking deaders?”

  “Yes, they are.”

  “I thought you couldn’t control them. They weren’t inoculated.”

  “True, but since I was using them as communication relays I decided to maybe put a couple thoughts in their rotting heads.”

  “What thoughts?”

  “Food.”

  ***

  “I hope that disc is ready to go!” Capreze yelled over the com.

  “It is, Commander,” Jay said. “Just give me the word.”

  “You’ve got the mother fucking word! Fire that thing and take those deaders out right now goddammit!” Capreze roared.

  “Got it! Jenny! Hit the button!”

  “Done!” Jenny shouted back over the com. “Disc activated!”

  Everyone felt the pressure of the sonic pulse release and most held their breath, waiting for the dead mechs to fall.

  They didn’t.

  “Jay!” Capreze roared. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s the mechs!” Jay cried. “The cerebral integration must’ve altered their pilot’s brain frequency!”

  ***

  “They’re going to be annihilated!” Masters yelled, reaching for his side arm. “You dirty mother-“

  A bright bolt of blue electricity shot from the ceiling, connecting with Master’s chest. The mech pilot dropped, convulsions violently shaking his body.

  “Tsk, tsk. I told you there was more than just guns in here,” Johnson said. “You didn’t think I’d let you kill me, or that I’d kill you while there was still so much fun to see, did you?”

  Masters groaned, his bladder releasing as after shocks racked his body.

  “Eeeew,” Johnson laughed. “Don’t worry, you’ll be good as new in minutes.”

  ***

  Hatches atop each train car opened, revealing large caliber gun nests. Railers scrambled to ready their weapons, targeting the guns on the now visible dead mechs cresting the ridges surrounding the stronghold.

  “Aim for the leg joints!” Capreze ordered over his loudspeaker. “Go for the cripple shot, not the kill! You’ll conserve ammo better!”

  The Rookie burst from the train and sprinted towards the stronghold entrance.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Capreze yelled.

  “I’m trying to help,” the Rookie shouted, stopping at the feet of Stomper. “Hey! Big guy! Let me up!”

  “Masters said not to move,” Stomper responded.

  ***

  “What the fuck, Marin?!?” Jay yelled. “You had those topside boomsticks all this time? Why the fuck didn’t we use them when that fucking dead mech attacked back in the waste?”

  “Well, Jay, you can’t really activate large caliber gun nests when you’re moving a train car all the way to the front of the line. That’d be just stupid, wouldn’t it?” Marin barked back. “You want me to put them away? Are they bugging you?”

  “Anything I need to know?” Capreze asked.

  “No, Commander. Your Chief Mechanic was just bunching his pretty panties,” Marin joked.

  “Am not,” Jay sulked.

  ***

  Masters pushed himself to his feet. “That fucking hurt.”

  “It was supposed to, Mitch,” Johnson said. “Like I said, I couldn’t have you ruining the fun. It’s like my supervisors did when they took my tech. They-“

  “Supervisors? I thought you were in charge of tech?”

  “Oh, no, I was just in charge of my project. Which they took from-“

  “Are kidding me? My Harlow died because some middle manager got his feelings hurt?!?”

  Masters had his pistol drawn and half the rounds fired before he knew what he was doing. He stood there in a cloud of gun smoke.

  ***

  Claxons shook the mountainside as a digital voice boomed from the stronghold. “SELF DESTRUCT INITIATED. T MINUS THIRTY MINUTES AND COUNTING UNTIL NUCLEAR DETONATION.”

  Capreze’s blood ran cold. “Guess we have a deadline!” he called over the com.

  “I’ll be glad if we make it fifteen minutes with those things coming at us!” Jay shouted. “They look fucking pissed!”

  The dead mechs, thirty of them, charged down the ridges, barreling at their prey, the hunger for fresh flesh driving them into a berserker frenzy.

  “Hey Papa Bear?” Rachel called.

  “Yeah, Baby Girl?” Capreze responded.

  “I love you.”

  “You too sweetheart.”

  ***

  The booming of the stronghold claxons shook the train compartment.

  “That ain’t good,” Bisby said getting to his feet and moving towards the door.

  “Frame like a house, frame like a house, tiny little body, small as a mouse!” Jethro cried.

  “Dammit,” Bisby muttered turning from the door and walking back to Jethro’s side. “Calm down, mechanic. Just chill.”

  “FRAME LIKE A HOUSE, FRAME LIKE A HOUSE, TINY LITTLE BODY, SMALL AS A MOUSE!” Jethro screamed at the top of his lungs, sitting bolt upright, fixing his eyes on Bisby’s. “Biz! You’ve got to get me to the mainframe now!”

  Chapter Twelve

  Part One- Countdown

  Masters stared at Johnson’s corpse, knowing what he had to do, but unsure if he cared anymore. The red emergency lights of the room turned the blood pooling below Johnson’s chair black and Masters watched the pool ripple as each new drop fell.

  He rubbed his face then placed the barrel of the pistol to his temple. His hand shook uncontrollably and he closed his eyes.

  “HAAAAAARRRRRRRRLLLLLOOOOOWWWWWW!”

  He whipped the gun away from his own head and fired, placing a bullet squarely between Johnson’s eyes, insuring that the Outsider was truly dead. Masters lowered the smoking pistol, turned and left.

  ***

  Timson seated himself in the chair of the double barrel, 85mm gun turret and powered up all systems. He grabbed a pair of ear defenders and fitted them on his head, muffling the sounds about him.

  “Are spotters ready?” Timson yelled over his com.

  “Yes,” Jenny shouted back. “We’ve got eyes on all deaders! Just keep firing!”

  “Will do!” Timson shouted back. He whirled his guns about and took aim on the approaching dead mechs, his target locked on the knee joints of the closest one. “Let’s take ‘em out!”

  He slowed his breathing, narrowed his eyes and started firing.

  ***

  Mathew lowered Doctor Themopolous to the ground behind the Railer train.

  “Get inside now! This is going to be rough!” Mathew shouted.

  “Be careful!” Themopolous yelled.

  Mathew laughed as he and Shiner clomped away. “I think we’re well beyond careful, Doc!”

  “Doc!” Bisby yelled from the train car. “Get your ass in here! Jethro’s gone bug fuck nuts!”

  “What do you mean?” Themopolous cried.

  “Get in here and see! He wants us to move him inside the stronghold!” Bisby answered. “He wants to be taken to the mainframe!”

  Themoplous grabbed the hand bar and pulled herself into the train car.

  ***

  “Back to back or solo?” Rachel called over the com.

  Capreze watched the Railers’ bullets stream by, the many tracers lighting up the battlefield. “Split up! Try to draw group
s of them together, so the Railers can concentrate their fire!”

  Shiner/Mathew ran past Capreze and Rachel’s mechs heading straight into the oncoming dead mechs. “I’m on it!”

  Rachel watched in awe as Shiner/Mathew ducked two swipes of a dead mech’s arm, fired a plasma blast point blank into the deader’s mid-section then spun about, clothes lining a second deader as it lunged for him. “Holy shit my man’s got skills!”

  ***

  “Come on!” the Rookie shouted at Stomper. “Let me up there so we can take these deaders out!”

  “No, I cannot,” Stomper replied stubbornly. “Masters would not like it.”

  “Fuck Masters!” the Rookie screamed. “We’re all going to be dead if we don’t stop these fucking dead mechs!”

  “The stronghold’s self destruct has been set. We will die anyway,” Stomper responded. “I must wait for Masters.”

  “AAAARGH!” the Rookie cried, fists clenched in frustration. “Don’t make me come up there!”

  “You are funny,” Stomper said. “Masters likes you.”

  The Rookie stood stunned. “Oh, my god! You’re like a fucking kid!”

  ***

  “Jethro can you hear me?!?” Themopolous said, rushing to the mechanic’s side in the train compartment. Jethro sat straight up in his cot, sweat pouring down his face, the veins of his neck bulging.

  “FRAME LIKE A HOUSE, FRAME LIKE A HOUSE, TINY LITTLE BODY, SMALL AS A MOUSE!” he bellowed.

  Themopolous grabbed Jethro by the shoulders and shook him slightly. “Jethro! Can you hear me?” She whipped her head towards Bisby, eyes filled with alarm. “How long has he been like this?”

  “Just a couple minutes, Doc,” Bisby answered. “He told me he needed to get to the mainframe.”

  ***

  “Jay? It’s Themopolous,” the Doctor called over the com.

  “Little busy right now, Doc,” Jay responded. “Kinda fighting deaders and all that.”

  “Bisby said Jethro was lucid for a moment. That he wanted us to get him to the mainframe. What does that mean to you?”

  Jay sidestepped a charging dead mech, planting his elbow in the monsters back as it passed, slamming it to the ground. “Not a clue! You’re the Doctor, I’m just a… Mainframe? Fuck, why didn’t I think of that? Oh, yeah, because I was occupied by civilization’s impending doom. Meet me at the stronghold entrance!”