by S D Tanner
If what Joker had said about using gravity was right, then there would be more production lines below the room, and he only needed the one making their guns and armor. Given the base of the city was used to make beacons, but the vats were high in the city, it stood to reason there were other production lines close by.
Just rescuing Jessica was no longer enough for him and arming the Dead Force was the last thing he needed to do before taking the five cities he already considered his own. The manufacturing city was key to both starving their enemy of supplies while adding to his own arsenal. Since waking all he’d done was lose and he desperately wanted a win, if only to restore his flagging confidence.
“Move out! Pick up the tempo!”
Rok adjusted the KLAW harness by hitching it higher on his shoulder. “What’s the rush, boss man? Late for a date?”
Chuckling at his own joke, Rok stomped toward the wall looking for another gap, only to vanish with a loud yelp.
“Rok!”
“Crap…son of a bitch…dammit!”
Edging cautiously toward the spot where Rok had disappeared, Judge was peering at the floor. “Well, at least we know he’s not dead.”
Rok’s progression could be tracked by the endless cursing, meaning not only wasn’t he dead, he was running at the mouth.
“Rok! Say something useful!”
The hole Rok had disappeared into was almost impossible to see. A white floor led to a white tunnel, which added credibility to Joker’s theory they used gravity to feed the contents of the vats into the production lines below.
The next words from Rok sounded more surprised than angry. “Woah. Cooool!”
“Rok! Make sense, will ya!” He shouted.
“You gotta get down here.”
“Why?”
“It’s Santa’s workshop.” Sounding disappointed, Rok added unhelpfully, “No elves, though.”
Looking across at Judge, all he did was shrug. If they wanted to find out what was making Rok so happy, they would have to fall down the rabbit hole with him. Crouched over the gap in the floor, he dropped to his rear and then slid into the hole. Joker wasn’t wrong when he said they could use gravity to move whatever was inside the vats. The hole felt like it had been greased with butter, and gathering speed, he was spun around each time he ricocheted against the sides of the tunnel. Grabbing at the walls, his hands slid above his head until he was dropping like an arrow.
“Crap!”
Twisting inside the tunnel, his knees and boots slammed against the walls, but all they did was slide away. Every time he reached for the sides his hands slipped as if they were running across sheets of ice.
“Shit!”
His landing was softened by something thick and gooey, like melting marshmallow or a bed of sticky pillows. Sitting upright, he peered over the edge of a low barrier surrounding him. What he saw made him reach for his gun, only he slipped on the soft bed, unable to gain any traction. Rows of armored suits greeted him, but the helmets were hanging against the chest plate like decapitated heads. Leaning against the legs and strapped to the waist was an EMC-8, and underneath the matching set of boots was a box he assumed contained their ammunition and blades.
“Niiiice,” he drawled appreciatively.
“Comin’ down!” Judge shouted.
Realizing Judge was about to use him as a landing pad, he grabbed the edge of the barrier, only just managing to throw himself over it before a set of boots splashed down behind him. Hanging over the barrier with his ass in the air, he heard Judge’s disgusted voice.
“Get your ass outta my face, Tag.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Killer Clones
By the time the other four troopers landed inside the large warehouse, he and Rok had already opened one of the boxes at the feet of an empty armored suit. Inside was ammunition, the weapons belt they all wore containing blades, frags and a handgun, plus a neatly folded tactical vest. It was the same gear they’d found inside the locker room on the Prognatus, so he guessed it was standard issue.
“How many sets have we got?” He asked.
Each suit hung from a hook that was connected to a track on the ceiling, and Judge had disappeared between them. He suspected the track moved, probably dropping suits into some sort of transport, or maybe the aliens simply teleported the gear wherever it was needed. In front of the box they’d landed on was a long bench covered by different hoods, much like the one at the base of the city, only it was narrower. Behind the first row was an identical bench with hoods. Rising to his feet, he counted at least fifty benches, meaning this was a large production site, probably capable of making thousands of armored suits and guns.
“Pay dirt!” He said with more than a little satisfaction.
The suits behind him rustled, and Judge’s helmet appeared between them like a decapitated head without a body. “I reckon we’ve got a few thousand in here, plus around eighty KLAWs.”
“That’s what I call a good start.”
An armored body followed the head and Judge emerged from the row of suits. “It would help if we knew how to use the production equipment.”
“Joker can suss it out, but first we need control of this city.”
Grunting in what he assumed was agreement, Judge waved at the troopers standing next to the production lines. “Don’t stand around looking stupid. Start laying the pulsers.”
The room was quite possibly the entire width and breadth of this part of the city, making it the size of five side-by-side football fields. Joker had told them the pulsers needed to be a maximum of ten yards apart for the teleportation grid to work, which meant they would need to lay close to one hundred of them.
“Judge, split up. We’ll each take twenty and start laying them. This will be our extraction point, so return here once you’re done.”
Joker’s voice sounded through his earpiece. “No can do, amigo. I’ve got no room for that much gear.”
Although Rok had been right to say Santa had been good to them, he hadn’t expected to find such a large haul. “Tap Ash. Organize a drop off at his location and then pick us up.”
“Roger that.”
Judge was already handing out bundles of pulsers to each of the troopers. Walking over to him, Judge gave him a small bag filled with the puck-shaped units. Taking the bag from him, he turned toward the production lines and then made his way to the far wall. Although the pulsers were usually attached to a wall by a sticky base, he wasn’t sure it would work on the strange fabric inside the cities. Placing the first on the floor against the wall, he counted steps until he was ten yards from the last and dropped another one. To his left were identical boxes with hooded benches, and he suspected the clones knew how to work them.
Something about the alien’s set up didn’t make sense. They were only hybrids made of human and alien DNA, and nothing about them was superior to the fighting ability of the Dead Force, or even Merc’s poorly trained army. The Dead Force were held under the flimsiest of control through their protocols, which Jessica had broken, therefore proving the aliens weren’t infallible. For such a smart species, they’d made an incredibly simple mistake. Had they fluked taking control of Earth? It would have been easy to assume that was true, but the cynic inside him didn’t think so.
It was while he thoughtlessly dropped one pulser after the next, counting his steps between each, that the first of the robot gunners materialized in front of him. He didn’t wait for it to aim its gun and, dropping the bag of pulsers, he ran headfirst toward it.
“Guuunnneers!”
His cry was met by more shouting from his squad. The gunner’s attack was sudden and thorough. Gunfire erupted from the squat robot in front of him, but it shot wild and the bullets pinged against the hoods on the production lines.
“Protect the gear!”
Rok’s voice sounded strained. “Way to show leadership, Tag. What about us?”
If he lost the production lines then he wouldn�
��t have an army. “Don’t care about you. Save the gear.”
The robot gunner corrected its aim, pointing its gun directly at his chest. He dropped to the floor, skidding on his hip until he crashed into the robot’s stumpy legs. The weight and momentum was enough to make the robot rock backward, but its feet were broad and it didn’t tip over the way he hoped it would. Caught between its feet, he wrapped his arms around one of its legs, yanking sharply, but the flat, wide foot didn’t even slide on the smooth floor. If the robot had testicles he would have punched upward, except all he could see was a smoothly curved undercarriage. Without a head or waist, it couldn’t bend over to see him underneath it, but as it stepped backward he was dragged along the floor. Clutching onto the gunner’s leg, he skidded with every step like a needy toddler refusing to let go of its Mama.
At any other time, the situation would have been funny, but another robot gunner materialized in front of the first. Without any regard for its identical twin, the gunner took aim and fired. All he could do was slide around the back of his gunner’s front legs, but the bullets still thudded into his armor. He reached for the back legs and pulled himself behind them, hoping they would provide enough cover, but the gunner he was clinging to had no maternal instinct. Its four legs began stomping up and down until one heavy foot hammered his shin. The next foot stomped on his hip. Seeming to find its rhythm, the gunner began dancing from foot to foot, forcing him to slide left and right on the slippery floor.
“Tag, two troopers down,” Judge shouted.
Although he was sliding all over the floor, being trodden on by a flat-footed gunner, he needed his men safe. “Joker, casevac.”
“What about the rest of you?”
Kicking against the gunner’s raised leg, he grunted with the effort. “This…is…my…city.”
“I’ve got three gunners here who beg to differ!” Rok shouted.
He wanted the gear more than life itself and, raising his leg again, he slammed his boot into the gunner’s stumpy one. The gunner tripped and lurched to the left, landing heavily onto one of the boxes on the production line. It should have been a victory, only it wasn’t, and bullets from the second gunner slammed into his torso and helmet. His armor was good, but his faceplate wasn’t designed to take a headshot and it cracked under the impact. One more well-placed shot and a bullet would go through his head. Although his brain was part mech, he didn’t want what little remained blown out the back of his skull. The robot he’d managed to trip had tipped into the box so its four flat feet were waving in the air. He wouldn’t have minded, but he had been using its legs as cover and now he was exposed.
Time was slowing down the way it always did in battle. He heard the click of the bullets loading into the chamber, and the whirring of hydraulics while it adjusted its aim. Twisting on the floor, desperately trying to sit upright, he was tugging at his gun, but it was trapped underneath his body. There was no way he’d get his gun in position before the gunner spewed another volley of bullets. All he could do was keep rolling over in the hope he could get behind the box before the gunner opened fire.
“Joker…”
Aware his head, that was now only protected by a cracked faceplate, was still in the line of fire, he heard the rat-a-tat of the automatic weapon. Wincing, he prepared for the impact, only it never came. A blur of movement, which he assumed was the gunner stuck inside the box, swept in front of him. When blood splattered across his armor, he stopped moving, stunned by what he was seeing.
Clones were dropping from the ceiling, bouncing straight out of the box and into the line of fire. They were so close to him that one fell backward and landed on his chest.
“Joker, emergency evac!”
It was a relief to see the off-white nothingness inside of the teleportation tunnel, and he wrapped his arms around the injured clone. Looking up, he was shocked to see the barrel of a gun above him. The end of the gun was so close to his head, it must have been touching his helmet when Joker had teleported them. He was landing hot with a wounded man and a pissed off robot gunner. Teleportation must have deadened the sound of the gun firing, but there was no mistaking the impact of the bullet. His head rocked forward and fell to his side still clutching the injured clone.
When he materialized onto the floor of the docking bay, the gunner fired at his head again, but the bullet skidded across his helmet. Finally, able to gain traction on the grid floor of the bay, he grabbed the barrel of the gun, twisting it sharply. The gunner continued firing and bullets slammed into the deck.
“This…is…my…ship!”
Judge and Rok pounded across the bay and slammed into the robot gunner. The force drove the barrel from his hand and the gunner tipped backward. Together they tore at its fat body, ripping off chunks of metal until it could no longer fire. With the robot lying in pieces, he stepped back and felt something soft beneath his boot. The wounded clone was lying on his back with his arms over his head. He dropped to one knee, pulling off his glove as he did. Although the jumpsuit was red, it didn’t hide the bubbling blood oozing from the wounds on its chest. Whatever he thought of the clones, this one had sacrificed himself to save him. They might not be able to speak, but in his book, actions spoke louder than words.
“Hold on, buddy. Help is on the way.”
Joker burst into the docking bay with Robert and the clone they’d found on the beacon. Raising his hand, Judge flicked up his faceplate. “Where are the wounded troopers?”
Joker slowed to a stop, surveying the scene inside the docking bay. Two troopers were on their feet, seemingly confused by what had just happened. The robot gunner lay in pieces, clearly disabled, and he was hunched over the bleeding clone. “In the arterial corridor. We’re loading them into pods.”
He waved Robert toward him. “We’ve got a man down here.”
Before Robert could reach the man on the floor, the rescued clone bent over him. Pulling back, he wondered if the clone might have some magical way of healing one of his own. The clone ran his hands across the bloodied chest, seeming satisfied with what he found. He placed his hands on either side of his identical twin’s head before jerking it sharply to the left. The harsh crack of snapping tendons echoed around the docking bay.
Standing in stunned silence, no one moved until Rok broke through their shock. “Holy shit! Did he just kill that guy?”
He couldn’t believe what he’d just witnessed and he grabbed the clone’s arm, hauling him from the floor. “Why did you kill him?”
The man’s head was twisted to the left at an unnatural angle and his mouth was hanging open. The other clone looked at him blankly, and then his mouth twisted upward in what he assumed was a smile.
Looking down at his identical twin with a strange affection, the clone said softly, “Good.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN: Single-minded
“What are we supposed to do with him?”
Considering the clone had just murdered one of his own, Joker’s question was a fair one, but nothing in his training prepared him to deal with this sort of problem. What was he supposed to do with a murderous clone?
Unable to answer Joker’s question, he asked one of his own. “Where’s the gear?”
“In the city with Ash.”
Like an obedient puppy, the clone was standing next to his command chair, intently listening to their conversation as if he understood it. The clone’s shoulders were relaxed and his hands, that were still stained with blood, hung loosely by his side. Less than fifteen minutes earlier, those hands had snapped the neck on a man identical to him in every way. Nothing the clones did made sense to him. They never defended their beacons when Hawk’s flight squad took command of them. Inside the city, they’d slid down the tunnel to save his life by sacrificing their own.
“Joker, have you got any footage from the city?”
“I’ve got it all. What do you want to see?”
“Show me what happened when the clones turned up.”
/> Rok shot him a surprised look. “I didn’t see any clones.”
The main screen flickered to life with a still picture of the production room. Joker played the footage in slow motion, starting with him lying on the floor with a gunner bearing down on him. A clone slowly tumbled from a hole in the ceiling and into the box, expertly using the soft landing to bounce between him and the gunner. Bullets from the gunner left the barrel and hit the clone in the chest. One, two and then three slammed into the clone’s body until he fell on top of him.
“Why did the clone do that?” Judge asked.
The clone on the Bridge left his side and was staring at the screen with a wide smile. He ran his hands over the image of the wounded clone on the screen. “Good.”
Turning and beaming a happy smile, the clone patted his chest and then the screen. “Good.”
Almost as slowly as the action on the screen, his brain offered up an answer, but he wasn’t sure he believed it. Walking to the screen, he tapped the image and then jabbed the clone in the chest. “Is this you? Are you only one person?”
A dopey grin spread across the clone’s face. Touching the wounded clone on the screen with his left hand, he used the right one to pat his chest. Bringing both hands together in front of him, he said tonelessly, “Good.”
“What’s he saying?” Judge asked.
“I think they’re the same guy.”
“What? Like a hive mind.”
“Maybe only one mind.”
The clone nodded enthusiastically. Patting the back of his neck, he made the motion of ripping in the same way he’d torn out the star-shaped creature. Pointing at the clone on the screen, he repeated the movement. “Good.”
Roks’ face twisted in confusion. “I don’t get it.”
He wasn’t sure he did either, but if he were to hazard a guess then the clones were one mind with many bodies, meaning whatever one knew so did the others. “I think he got the other clones to remove the thing that was controlling them.”
