by Jake Bible
“Tag Holcomb in the targeting system,” Clay said.
“Clay, I’m not an AI in the mech,” Gibbons said. “I’m just a meat bag strapped into the jumpseat. You have to tag him in the targeting system yourself.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Clay snapped as he entered in the command and the tweener that Holcomb rode turned a different color than the rest on the targeting system’s display. “I really need to get you back in this mech.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying since day freaking one!” Gibbons shouted. “Pay attention!”
“Sorry, sorry,” Clay said as he opened fire with the belt guns, ripping a dozen tweeners and riders to shreds.
Blood, flesh, metal, and clothing went everywhere, swept across the wet ground by the storm’s whipping wind. Clay turned and fired into a second group, but the belt guns whirred empty before he could decimate that set of riders. They saw that as an opportunity and all took aim with their rifles.
“What? Did they forget about the plasma cannons?” Clay asked as he took aim. “Amateurs.”
Clay killed another dozen riders, their bodies fried and atomized by the power of the direct plasma blasts. The riders never saw their deaths coming.
But the rest did, and they quickly moved to avoid the battle mech’s cannons. Clay fired a rocket at a group of riders, but they steered their tweeners away in time and all that Clay got for his effort was an explosion of mud and a smoking crater.
“Left ankle servo is fried,” Gibbons called out. “Hear it grinding?”
“I hear it grinding,” Clay said. He did. It was impossible to ignore.
The battle mech’s agility was hampered fast. No quick turns or well-timed pivots were possible on that side. Clay had to overcompensate by spinning all the way around from the other side to avoid the barrage of rifle fire that came at the mech. It was a disorienting move and he would have been a dizzy mess if he wasn’t such a seasoned pilot.
Even still, his stomach lurched as he had to continue the move to keep the mech from getting its other side blasted into uselessness.
“Now I know how a bear feels when he sticks his nose in a beehive,” Clay said as the bullets kept coming. “These rifles are annoying as hell.”
“Yeah, but they are doing a good job,” Gibbons said. “We just lost long-range scanners. We won’t know if that siege engine gets free and heads this way until it’s too late.”
“We won’t be here long enough to find out,” Clay said. “I’m pointing us at the horizon and getting us out of the Midlands.”
“What about your hat?” Gibbons asked.
“I don’t want to think about it,” Clay said.
“If you say so,” Gibbons replied.
Clay aimed the mech for the horizon and prepared to get them the hell out of there. But Holcomb had other ideas.
The man brought a line of riders to stand directly in front of the mech, their rifles firing over and over and over. Clay cringed as bullets assaulted the cockpit hatch. In seconds, cracks began to appear, making visibility very difficult. One of the hatch’s panels finally shattered and bullets ricocheted about the cockpit.
“Son of a bitch!” Clay yelled as he turned the mech around, putting the machine’s back between him and Holcomb’s firing squad.
“Take us back in,” Gibbons said. “Take us back in the cavern and we’ll regroup from there.”
“You have got to be kidding,” Clay responded. “We’ll flank the riders and—”
The loudest klaxon yet filled the cockpit. Along with a good deal of smoke.
“Clay!” Gibbons shouted.
“Right, right, I know,” Clay said, sounding completely defeated. “We go back in.”
“Once we’re inside, I’ll take over,” Gibbons said. “I saw how the cavern closes up. We’ll need the mech to close the blast doors, they’re that big, but I can do it.”
“What am I going to do?” Clay asked.
“Sit in the jumpseat like a bitch,” Gibbons said. “Just like I am now.”
“Ha ha,” Clay said as he limped the battle mech inside the cavern entrance.
The rifle fire never stopped as Clay spun the mech around. He sent the last of the rockets firing out into the riders and held the trigger on the plasma cannons until they shut down before overheating.
Gibbons smacked Clay on the shoulder, and they switched places. Clay had barely strapped into the jumpseat before Gibbons was reaching into a recessed pocket on one side of the cavern entrance and pulling out a massive blast door. The thing was made up of hundreds of riveted panels and looked as solid as anything Clay had ever seen.
Gibbons pulled it until it stopped halfway across the entrance then repeated the motion with a hidden blast door on the other side. A half a dozen riders made it into the cavern before Gibbons could get it locked down and they circled the mech, firing up at the cockpit until their rifles clicked empty.
“Morons,” Gibbons said as he brought up a foot and sent it down over and over until nothing was left except rider and tweener pulp.
Smoke was filling the cockpit, and Clay undid his straps so he could go open the hatch and let more air in and the smoke out.
“Take us to the main cavern,” Clay said to Gibbons as he leaned out over the cockpit hatch’s edge and breathed deeply. “We’ll do what repairs we can then assess the situation.”
“I think we already know the answer to that assessment,” Gibbons said. “But, yeah, we’ll fix what we can then deal with reality.”
“You make it sound like I’m not dealing with reality,” Clay said.
“You sent us into one hundred armed riders over a hat, Clay,” Gibbons responded. “Do you really want to argue reality?”
“Shut up,” Clay said as he gripped the hatch edge with both hands in order to keep from tumbling out.
The mech wasn’t exactly gliding along with smooth steps. It was limping and listing to one side, and Gibbons struggled to keep it from falling over as strut after strut started to bend and give out. They barely made it into the main cavern before several servos seized up and the mech froze in place.
“You check systems while I get the scaffolding in place,” Clay said as he climbed out of the cockpit and made his way down to the ground. “How are we on power?”
“Power isn’t the problem for once,” Gibbons called down from above. “Everything else is!”
“Great,” Clay muttered as he started wheeling the huge scaffolding up against the mech.
He locked down the wheels and repeated the same motions with the rest until the mech was surrounded and they had platforms on all sides and levels to work from.
“Where are we starting?” Clay asked.
“You name it,” Gibbons called. “I’m still running a damage report. This ain’t good, pal.”
“I figured,” Clay replied.
That pained wail echoed from one of the passages and Clay sighed.
“How long will the report take?” Clay asked.
“Hell if I know,” Gibbons said. “We’re looking at damage to systems, subsystems, subsubsystems. I might be able to reroute some so that all we need are mechanical fixes, but that’s pretty optimistic.”
The wail continued.
“While you do that, I’m going to see what the hell is up with the ghost in the cavern,” Clay said. “Give a yell when you’re ready to start work.”
“Oh, I’ll be yelling,” Gibbons said. “Don’t you worry.”
Clay left the scaffolding-surrounded mech and crossed the cavern to the passageway where the wail was coming from.
“Barnes? That you in there?” Clay called out. He waited, but no answer. “Barnes?”
The wail stopped.
Clay peered into the passageway, but it was pitch black after only a couple meters.
“Dammit,” Clay muttered as he went back out into the main cavern to find a flashlight.
When he’d fetched a halogen torch, he returned to the passageway, cocked his head to li
sten to any clue of what he might find, then shrugged and entered.
It took him a good five minutes to make his way to the end of the passageway. When he was finally at the end, he switched off the halogen and went to set it on a cart to his left. He missed and it clattered to the ground, but Clay didn’t pay any attention. He was too occupied staring at what the unfamiliar cavern held.
Flesh mechs. A dozen flesh mechs all easily the size of the one that had been left to rot out in the prairie.
And sitting at the feet of them was Morley, the dismembered corpse of Paige cradled in his arms. But it wasn’t Paige’s head on the corpse, it was the head that Clay had seen in the tank. Ginger-haired and white-skinned.
“Barnes?” Clay whispered.
The old man looked up and sniffed back a line of snot that streamed from his nostril.
“It didn’t take,” he moaned as he rocked the body back and forth in his arms. “It didn’t take!”
“What didn’t take?” Clay asked as he slowly approached Morley.
“The transfer,” Morley replied. “I couldn’t get my Paige’s consciousness to transfer to the new head. The chip must have been bad.”
“Paige’s chip went bad?” Clay asked.
“No, you fool!” Morley snapped. “The chip in this head!” Morley smacked the top of the ginger-haired skull. “It became corrupt or the brain wasn’t compatible. It happens. It’s happened before, but we always had backups. I didn’t have any backups this time. There were no other heads I could use.”
“Oh…damn,” Clay said. He crouched in front of Morley. “I’m sorry, Barnes. I’m sorry she’s gone.”
“Gone?” Morley asked and blinked back tears “Paige is not gone. I said I didn’t have any more heads to use, I didn’t say I couldn’t transfer her somewhere else.”
Clay stood and took a couple of steps back. He had a suspicion he knew what Morley meant.
“Barnes? What did you do?” Clay asked as he looked from one flesh mech to the next then to the next, his eyes searching them all for signs of what he feared had happened. “Barnes, please tell me you didn’t do what I think you did.”
“I did it,” Morley said. “It was the only way.”
One of the flesh mechs shifted, turning until it faced Clay head on. He saw the mismatched arms. It was the Prometheus.
“Paige?” Clay asked.
The flesh mech wailed, and Clay clamped his hands over his ears.
Thirty-One
“Okay, this is bad,” Clay said as he backed away from the flesh mech that was Paige Barnes. “Barnes! How do we fix this?”
“We can’t!” Morley yelled. “This isn’t full integration! This is total, complete, permanent integration!”
“Are you freaking joking?” Clay shouted. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“I was thinking I could save my daughter from oblivion!” Morley yelled.
“How did that work out for you?” Clay responded.
“She needs help!” Morley said. “She needs someone to guide her through her transition!”
“Don’t look at me!” Clay shouted.
The wail was becoming more than painful.
“What the holy hell is going on in here?” Gibbons asked as he hurried into the flesh mech cavern. “Whoa…”
He stopped and stared at the organic battle machines, his dead eyes taking it all on. Then he turned his attention on the wailing flesh mech and cocked his head.
“Sweet nuts and bolts,” he said. “Is that Paige? Is Paige in there?” He looked at the corpse in Morley’s clutches then back up at the wailing flesh mech. “Oh, for the love of belt guns, please tell me what has happened hasn’t actually happened.”
“It happened,” Clay said. “Can you make it stop?”
“Me?” Gibbons asked, looking as stunned as his dead features would allow. “Oh, right…me.”
He held out his hands and approached the wailing flesh mech.
“Paige? Hey there,” he said softly. “I’m going to come aboard and help you get through this.”
“Please, she is in so much pain,” Morley said.
“You shut your dead trap, old man,” Gibbons snarled as he walked by Morley. “You have no idea what you’ve done to your daughter. No idea. Trust me.”
Gibbons approached the flesh mech and the cockpit hatch above opened like a mouth, the wail increasing in volume, in intensity, nothing but total and complete agony. Clay was brought to his knees by it, his head ready to explode.
“Gibbons!” Clay shouted.
“Go work on our mech!” Gibbons shouted back as he reached the flesh mech’s leg. “Get out! This is only going to get worse!”
Clay didn’t argue. He staggered to his feet and stumbled his way out of the flesh mech cavern, down the passageway, and into the main cavern where the battle mech waited for much-needed repairs.
With the wailing behind him, yet far from silent, Clay managed to pull his hands from his ears and take a deep breath. He studied his mech and almost collapsed to his knees again at the sight of all the damage. He’d need hours to get it fixed up.
And from the sound of the gunfire still pinging against the blast doors of the cavern entrance, Holcomb and his riders weren’t going to give him hours. He knew it was only a matter of time before they tried to test the blast aspect of the blast doors and blow them inward with whatever explosives they had. Clay wasn’t under any illusions that they didn’t have explosives. You didn’t build a set of locks like they had without blowing some holes in the ground.
He had to prioritize. Which wasn’t easy to do since it required concentration. And concentration was in short supply as Paige’s wail filled every nook and cranny of the Barneses’ cavern system.
“Ignore the insane flesh mech woman and bust some ass,” Clay said to himself.
Struts. He looked at the struts that were warped and broken. All were around the knee joints, and he knew the mech wasn’t going to be able to do jack squat if he didn’t repair those. But he didn’t have the parts to do it. Despite Barnes’s insinuations, Clay wasn’t a master mechanic that had control over the outlawed metal alloy that made up much of the battle mech’s structure.
He’d have to do it the old fashioned way: scavenge.
Clay spent over an hour finding and moving every last hunk of metal in the cavern system over to his repair staging area. He stood there, panting and sweating, after dropping the last load from the rickety wheelbarrow he’d found.
Iron, steel, rusted something, more iron, even what he feared was poly painted to look like steel. If it was poly, then he’d have to be very careful. That stuff got in your bloodstream and wreaked havoc with a person’s circulation. One day happy and breathing, the next day dead from a brain aneurysm.
Clay got to work.
He concentrated on the struts, banging and hammering what he could save into a semblance of their actual forms. Then he set about welding in the pieces of metal he thought would work best. Having the scaffolding helped like hell. A good hell. It wasn’t like being out on the open range and trying to strap in with ropes and a harness. All he had to do was walk over to the place that needed repairing and do the work.
It took him another hour to get the struts around the knees looking like they wouldn’t collapse under a brisk jog. A third hour was spent hammering armor plating back into place and patching the approximately five thousand bullet holes that peppered the mech’s surface. That wasn’t so hard, merely a systematic, time-consuming job of going over each and every hole.
The last job he absolutely had to do was fix the burned-out servo in the battle mech’s ankle. The knee struts were barely up to par; without that servo working, one of the battle mech’s legs would be a stiff hunk of metal that dragged on mobility. He needed mobility if he was going to get him and Gibbons out of the cavern and running across the plains.
Which was the plan. He had no intention of fighting Holcomb and his tweener riders. They’d already showed they could put
a serious hurt on his battle mech. He had no desire to go through that again. Clay wasn’t sure if he was going to make a deal or just blast his way through and run like a bat out of Hell. He was sure that a fight wasn’t gonna happen.
No sir, no way.
He was about to climb up into the cockpit and fire the mech up to see if his repairs held, but he stopped as he noticed something.
Silence.
That was either good or bad. Didn’t matter too much to Clay, it was the Barneses’ problem to deal with.
Clay got the mech started and smiled at the sound of the power cells. He was really in awe at how well they hummed. If Barnes had done one thing for them, it was to yank out the bison brains Holcomb had installed as alternators and get the power cells in tip top shape. For that, he was grateful. Still didn’t offset the other insanity, but it was a check mark in the plus column.
“Get me in there,” Gibbons said as he slowly walked his automaton ass out of the passageway and over to the mech. “I mean in there, in there. No more meat bag, Clay. Get me back in my matrix now.”
Clay set the battle mech to idle, turning off main systems and keeping all ancillary systems, such as the AI matrix drives, at full power. He leaned over the edge of the cockpit and smiled down at Gibbons.
“Ready to get the hell away from this nightmare?” Clay asked and shook his head. “Screw the Midlands, buddy. We’ve got other things to do.”
“We ain’t leaving yet, pal,” Gibbons said. “We got a fight to win.”
Clay blinked a few times then his shoulders sagged.
“Oh, come on, Gibbons,” he said. “You can’t be serious. This isn’t our fight.”
“Clay, I just had to merge with a dead woman’s mind in order to get her to integrate with a flesh mech’s systems without going totally insane,” Gibbons said as he stopped at the base of the scaffolding and looked up at Clay. “I’ve seen things, man. I have seen very awful, horrible things.”
“We both have, Gibbons,” Clay said as Gibbons started to climb up. He was slow and slightly shaky. “You need a hand there?”
“Get me in the mech,” Gibbons insisted when he was almost to the cockpit. “Get those drives ready and hook up the cables.”
