"So it walks, it talks, and it shoots rockets. Y'all gonna teach it how to piss next?" he asked her. She flinched in the face of his crude query, then laid a possessive hand on the arm of the golem.
"He'll do what we want him to do, Jericho," she said. "He will perform admirably for the Army testing and they will contract for a hundred or more just like him."
"I will not," the golem declared in its curious voice. Ashley snapped her eyes back up to the visor to discover it was looking down at her. As it spoke, tiny wisps of steam jetted from the mesh facemask.
"I'm going to Melancholy," it said.
"Melancholy?" Jericho asked. Musgrave, now staring at the golem, answered in a distracted tone.
"The town an hour's ride west of here."
"Let me guess, that's where you found the brain?"
"He was a cattleman," Ashley said. "We contracted to have his brain delivered to us after his death."
A queer chuckling sound drifted from the golem, and Jericho decided that the sound of the machine laughing was one of the worst sounds he had ever heard. At least when it spoke it sounded emotionless.
"Your suppliers lied to you," it said. "Easier by far to take me off the gallows than dig up your cattleman."
Jericho felt his mouth fall open as he turned to regard the Professor. "You bought a brain to put in a killing machine and you didn't even show up to make sure it was the right one?"
"I... I..."
"Thank you kindly for the new body. It'll make killing them all so much easier," the golem said. With a creak of metal, it took one long step forward with its left foot. Tubes and wires that had been connected to the back fell away, some with a series of sparks and others with a gush of fluids. Ashley fell back, her hand coming up to cover her mouth as she stifled a scream.
"Golem, please!" Musgrave called, his voice cracking.
It reached out to brush him aside, the long claws on its gauntleted hand gleaming in the brilliant light of the workshop. Jericho took a leap forward, knocking the Professor to the floor before the claws could rip his flesh. The pair crashed into the floor and slid as the golem moved forward. It bulled its way through the door and into the laboratory. The sounds of shattering glass soon overpowered even the hiss of released steam and clanking of heavy metal feet.
"Sounds like your boy's got plans," Jericho said. He stood and looked into the next room. Charting the progress of the machine was not difficult. It left a trail of wreckage in its wake, and he was confident that the story would be the same once it reached the house. After that it would exit and continue heading west until it reached Melancholy. The fact that the human portion of the machine had been executed there did not bode well for the citizens therein.
He pulled a bandana from his pocket and fixed it over his nose and mouth. Taking a deep breath, he turned and ran through the laboratory. The vapors that rose from the mixtures of chemicals stung his eyes, and he was glad that he would not be breathing them. He continued straight into the house, almost immediately tripping over a low table and ending up sprawled in the floor. His back and chest burned with sudden pain at the impact, and he remembered why he was here in the first place.
"Worst damn luck, I swear," he muttered to himself, peeling the bandana down from his face and making his way toward the open door. He could see the golem still, but it had put on a burst of speed and was fast becoming a smaller and smaller image on the horizon. He grabbed his hat from a peg near the door and bolted down the porch steps, looking left and right. To his right he saw the stable. He ran there and found Gideon. The powerful horse whinnied a greeting at him.
"And it just gets better," Jericho said, shaking his head as he saw his saddle draped over a log at the front of the stall where Gideon stood. He sighed and grabbed the blanket that was folded beside it, snapping it to full size and spinning it in the air so that it landed on Gideon. He straightened it with a practiced hand and then gripped the saddle, stepping into the stall and placing it on top of the blanket.
"This shit never happens in those dime novels, Gideon," he complained, squatting and working leather straps through buckles. "The good guy always just jumps on his horse and gives chase."
Gideon looked back at him with what could well have been sympathy, and then turned to snatch one last mouthful of oats before Jericho picked up his bridle.
Three minutes later Jericho led Gideon from the stall and mounted the saddle, drawing the Winchester rifle from its boot and verifying its load. He tapped at Gideon's flanks with his heels and guided the steed around the edge of the stable. Both the Professor and his daughter had emerged from the house as Jericho rode past. Neither of them looked happy, and he could not blame them. They had unleashed their mechanical killer and it had run away, apparently to finish business in the town that killed him.
"Please do not let him reach Melancholy," Musgrave begged.
Jericho spat on the ground at his feet. "This is your mistake. You should be the one chasing after it," he said. He wheeled and spurred Gideon into a trot and then into a full gallop. Behind him, Ashley yelled something, but her words were lost to the sounds of his pursuit.
Jericho pushed Gideon, following the trail of deep footprints and damaged landscape. It was definitely not the hardest tracking job he had ever undertaken. They had just leaped over a fallen tree scarred by what Jericho figured to be the climbing claws of the golem's feet when the back of the machine came into view ahead.
"There you are," Jericho said. He lowered himself over Gideon's neck as the horse picked up the pace just a little bit more.
They had closed to within a hundred yards when the golem stopped and turned to regard them. The smoked visor was impassive, but Jericho wondered what the brain behind it was considering. He slowed Gideon's approach and raised a hand to signal that he was not there for hostility.
"I came to talk," he called. The metal head swiveled slowly from side to side and the left arm came up, the hand making a cutting motion between him and the golem.
"Go back," Jericho heard. The words were barely audible at the distance separating them, as the machine did not seem inclined - or was possibly unable - to shout.
"Look, I don't even know what to call you," Jericho told it, drifting a few yards closer as he spoke.
"Tried to warn you," he heard. The right arm came up and Jericho jerked hard at Gideon's bridle as flame spat from the golem's hand. He could hear the discharges coming one after another as he rode hard for the nearest cover, the edge of a string of pinon pine trees that flared out nicely and would provide dense protection.
"Run, Gideon!" Jericho shouted, glancing behind them to see a line of impacts spit dirt as the golem wheeled to keep tracking its quarry. They passed into the stand of trees and Jericho worked Gideon deeper into the wooded area. He wanted to get at least a few trees between his horse and the hulking metal beast. He dug into a saddlebag and pulled out a box of spare ammunition for the rifle. He poured a handful of the cartridges into his vest pocket.
"Why is it this always happens to us, Gideon? Some folks go their whole lives and never have anything weird happen. I think we got all their supply of weird handed to us," he said, taking a sip from the flask that had been displaced from his pocket to make room for the rifle rounds.
"Stay here," he said, patting the horse on the side of the neck. "Well, you know, unless that big thing comes in here trying to kill you and so on. If that happens, you go on and run."
He slipped through the trees, staying low and cutting a path back in the direction from which they had just come. Reaching the treeline, he knelt and peered around the bole of one large pine. He looked left and right, alert for any hint of metal or movement. He saw nothing more than the grassy swale they had been in before abandoning their route in favor of cover. There was no sign of the golem, and that worried Jericho. It could be in the trees even now, clanking its way through --
Clanking! That was it. There was no sound of clanking. The golem could not be all that close i
f it could not be heard. He relaxed and breathed a sigh of relief. A part of him really wished he hadn't left the flask with Gideon.
His ears picked up a rushing sound, like a sudden wind through the branches, a second before the world turned upside down in a ball of fire and noise. Limbs, pine cones and dirt filled the air as Jericho tumbled backward and landed on his back, rolling over once in the process. He could see all manner of debris falling from the sky toward him as his back spasmed in protest. He tried to sort out just why he was in the position he was in as bits of sticks and a very surprised squirrel landed near him. Directly overhead, a large piece of tree was dropping straight toward him.
A series of cracking sounds filled the air, barely audible over the loud ringing in his ears. As he rolled to evade the falling tree, it occurred to him that he was hearing the repeating pistol of the golem. That meant that it was close by, and he mentally kicked himself for having forgotten the rockets that the thing carried. He glanced back at the shattered tree and the devastation which still surrounded it and marveled. Pressing his fingers to the earth, he thrust himself up and into a running stance, cursing after one step and leaping back to retrieve the Winchester.
Slugs were ripping through the woods around him, and Jericho dropped again to a lower position, trying to home in on the source of the gunfire. A thick pall of dust from the explosion still drifted on the air, obscuring his vision. He crept on knees and elbows until he was behind the shattered trunk of a pine where the occasional burst of fire was coming from in front of him. He rested the Winchester atop the fragmented stump and waited.
A glimpse of muzzle blast was visible as a trio of shots cracked his way, and Jericho squeezed the trigger of the rifle. The butt slammed back into the edge of his right pectoral, reminding him yet again that he had only recently been the proud owner of an authentic handmade arrowhead. Grunting against the pain, he cycled the lever to chamber another round and fired once more, hearing the whine as his bullet caromed off the metal body of the golem.
The response was a sustained burst of at least a dozen rounds, chewing the surroundings into bits as Jericho huddled behind the trunk. He felt three of the bullets hammer into the wood he was pressed against, and he stabbed a loose rifle cartridge into the loading gate before jumping to his feet and making a dash further into the trees to his left. He sprinted as hard as he could, intent on leaving the killing field behind him. He vaulted dead trees and narrowly avoided dropping a heel into an animal burrow. At the sound of additional gunfire, he took a flying leap headfirst into the undergrowth, skidding to a halt beneath a pine that towered a good seventy feet above him. He threw himself over onto his belly, pointing the Winchester back in the direction of the shots. He struggled to control his breathing after the run.
Between two trees he could see the walking form of the golem as it approached the stump behind which Jericho had so recently been concealed. It took the reasonable precaution of putting a few more slugs into the area surrounding the trunk as it neared.
"How many rounds does that thing hold?" Jericho breathed. He looked across the sights of the rifle, settling them in the middle of the creature. The Winchester thundered once more a second later. Jericho rolled to the right, letting his body go through three complete rolls before regaining his feet and moving fast into the forested space once again. If he was to have any sort of a chance against this monster, he would have to rely on his speed.
Behind him the forest erupted once more in response to one of the short rockets. The concussion hit Jericho, but this time his distance saved him. It was little more than a pressure against his back. He had been slapped harder.
He skidded to a halt in a small depression, aiming back along his path to the area he had abandoned. As soon as he saw the golem moving toward it, he hammered another shot into it. This time he was rewarded with a high-pitched shrieking sound and a cloud of venting steam.
"Got ya!" he said, launching himself from his position. The woods ahead of him exploded, sending a tree's worth of kindling spraying into his intended path. With a curse, he planted a heel and turned back, throwing himself back into the depression in the earth.
"You're bleeding power!" he yelled. "Even if you kill me, you'll never make it to Melancholy."
The air above him was split with the passing of several slugs as the golem fired a burst. The steam engine was whining now louder than the discharge of the arm-gun.
"If you run out of steam, what happens to you?" Jericho shouted. As he spoke, he slid cartridges into the rifle, topping off the tubular magazine. "What's left to keep your brain going? Looks like you're gonna die after all! Well, y'know, again."
No responding shots met his threat, and as Jericho listened, he realized that the sound made by the damaged steam engine was getting farther away. He chanced a look up over the edge of his cover and while he could not see the golem, he could certainly make out the trail of steam it was leaving behind, thin at first and gaining strength the closer he got to where the metal beast should be, although his line of sight to the golem itself was blocked by the features of the landscape. It was moving fast, and the direction left Jericho no doubt as to the intended destination of the creature.
"Or I suppose you could go back and see what Professor Idjit and his crazy daughter can do to fix you up," he said with a shake of his head. He looked around himself, taking a moment to orient himself once more based on where he had entered the short stretch of woods. Gideon would hopefully still be where he had left him, although Jericho knew he would be blameless if he had moved to a more hospitable and less bullet-ridden area. The whistling steam discharge was no longer audible, and Jericho figured he would be hard-pressed to catch the golem. He set off at a march.
Soon, the land was flying by as Gideon's hooves thundered against the ground. Jericho stayed low and let the Appaloosa do what he did best, which these days seemed to be ferrying Jericho from one bizarre misadventure to another. Phoenix had ghosts, and that had been strange enough, but this Professor and his insane invention was going to be hard to top.
The house came into view ahead, a thin trickle of a red smoke drifting from the open door of the laboratory. Jericho looked around but did not see the golem anywhere close. Hoping that meant he had beaten it to the property, he ran Gideon hard up to the edge of the porch and dismounted, leaving Gideon unsecured. If the golem attacked, the horse might well need to flee. Before he moved he ripped the Winchester from its scabbard.
He ignored the front door and ran around the side of the house, making a beeline for the damaged laboratory. As he expected, the Professor and Ashley were both still at work trying to salvage the contents of the building. A stack of books and papers had been set outside, as had numerous jars and boxes from the shelves. A box labeled 'magnets' took up space next to empty glass tubes. Bottles had been placed in an ordered fashion next to a haphazard collection of hoses and tools. Both of his former hosts were wearing some kind of face mask with goggling eyes and a long snout-like tube that connected to bronze canisters strapped to their backs, apparently as protection from whatever was producing the red-tinted smoke.
"He's coming back," Jericho told them.
Despite the heavy distortion of speaking from behind the mask, the tone of Ashley's voice was cutting. "We heard gunfire and explosions. What did you do?"
"Me? That tin-plated critter of yours opened fire when I got close enough to talk. I barely got out of that forest alive."
"What brings it back here?" Musgrave asked, stepping between Jericho and his daughter. He sounded a little less confrontational.
"I got a lucky shot in. Hit the steam thing."
Even behind the glass of the lenses, Ashley's eyebrow arching was visible. "Oh, the 'steam thing'," she said, rolling her eyes. "So fortunate for us we keep a spare steam thing handy. It's shelved beside the whatchamacallits and the doohickey."
"Lady, I didn't build your damned machine," Jericho said, using the barrel of the rifle to point back the way he cam
e. "I don't give a damn what you call it. That thing's got more steam coming out than a San Francisco bathhouse."
"Again I am fortunate to be unaware -" she began, but Musgrave cut her off.
"So he is coming back here only for repairs?"
"That and some more ammo, I reckon. Now you and Ashley, you get the hell out of here. When that golem gets back here it's gonna slaughter you both."
"Nonsense. We are no threat."
"We are, in fact, his only hope for repair," Ashley said. For the first time, she did not sound derisive. Jericho guessed it was pride of some kind.
"Oh, so you fix it first and then it kills you. Got it," he shot back, turning to look back. He could see sunlight glinting off the metal frame of the thing in the distance. Not close enough for another shot, but certainly far closer than he would have liked it to be. When he turned back around, Musgrave had pulled aside his mask and was looking at the golem through a brass spyglass.
"Ashley, it seems Mister Sims here has damaged the transfer sequencer as well as breaking the primary connection between the suit and the boiler. The boiler is hanging half off of the golem's back. It appears he is holding it up with his left hand as he walks. Note that so we can upgrade for the future."
"Yes, Father," she replied, dutifully filling in space within her notebook.
"How may we be of assistance?" Musgrave asked Jericho. He smoothed the front of the stained white laboratory coat. "I cannot allow him to return to Melancholy with a full complement of arms."
"Then we're gonna have to shut that thing down," Jericho said. "I don't think it's gonna let you sabotage it if it wants to get fixed."
"Doubtful at best. It will have a well-developed sense of self-preservation."
Jericho looked back again to see that the golem was getting closer. He could make out the shape of the thing now. Soon enough he would be able to see features, and after that it would be close enough to use the rifle. The only problem he had was that shooting it was essentially wasted effort. Soft lead bullets had no real chance against the steel armor of the beast, and he had nothing more effective. His gaze fell once more to the supplies that the scientists had stacked outside and a sudden smile lit up his face as he saw the box of magnets.
Golem: A Jericho Sims tale (The Adventures of Jericho Sims Book 1) Page 2
