Hammers and Nails

by Andrew Vaillencourt

  It was a holding action at best. The armature scuttled backward, the pilot showing respect for the full power of Roland’s undamaged right arm and avoiding the worst of the blows. Even injured, Roland was by far the faster of the two and he employed this advantage to seek undefended angles of attack. The other cyborg, relying on the superior strength and durability of his mech, appeared content to retreat under the barrage. When Roland paused, he advanced swinging heavy blows bent on murder or reaching with grasping clamps to ensnare his prey in a fatal vice grip. Roland increased his intensity as he observed the squad filing into the tram. He poured as much speed and fury into his attacks as his bedraggled frame could manage, but his opponent was cagey and strong. Roland’s strikes threw sparks from reinforced appendages and clanged off of armored surfaces with little effect as the giant armature played a strategic defensive game.

  This dance did not go on for a long time before Roland had to accept that he had failed. The raiders had finished loading into the cargo tram, and he would lose his fight with the giant machine if he persisted. The prospect of trading blows with an enemy seven or eight times his mass and three or four times his strength would have been daunting under the best of circumstances, and in his current condition he had little to no chance at all of victory.

  His opponents knew this, too. Everything that had just happened had gone according to plan, and that plan had been flawless. With his team loaded, the armature retreated toward the tram on plodding yellow feet. Roland bit back his pride and disengaged to let him. A grin split the face of his opponent when he saw this. The old man behind the canopy knew as well as Roland did that he had won this round handily. A voice, tinny and crackling over damaged speakers, broke the tension of the dim, post-battle silence. “You know, I really thought you’d be bigger. Too bad you were all banged up. I was hoping for more exercise.” Roland was surprised to find the man’s tone respectful.

  “Another time, then,” Roland promised the big machine with a snarl.

  “Count on it, soldier,” said his opponent over his PA system. “Rest up. I don’t want any asterisks in the book when I bring you down.”

  “Count on it, merc,” Roland agreed.

  The armature sidled into the cargo area of the tram and saluted Roland with one giant claw. Then the door slid closed, and the tram lurched off into the darkness of the New Boston underground.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Lucia and Sid ran through the hallways of Belham Tower. They were most of the way out when the first sounds of battle shook the walls and the screaming of the building alarms hit their ears. Lucia was running and calling people on her comm at the same time, and the result was far less speed than she could have accomplished otherwise. Dragging Sid along with her ridiculous heels didn’t make it any easier, either.

  Lucia realized something was wrong by the time they had hit the fifth floor. Being far too cagey to risk the elevators, she had opted to bring them down a back stairwell, assuming they would be safer there. But on the fifth floor landing they encountered a pair of men in unadorned gray combat armor lugging bead rifles. Their helmets covered the top half of their faces, but Lucia could detect a lascivious sneer on each as the men caught sight of two very attractive women in cocktail dresses hurtling down the stairs.

  “Now just wait right here—” one started to bark. He did not get to finish because Lucia cut him off with a brutal chop to the throat. He had obviously expected the women to skid to a halt and surrender, and no small quantity of dismay accompanied Lucia’s rude interruption. The man did not understand how the short-haired one had covered the distance so fast, and he was not given the opportunity to ponder it. Lucia’s forearm, already compressing his larynx, drove with so much force he felt his feet leave the floor. He was just beginning to comprehend that his opponent was augmented when his back struck the metal railing with a clang. Having only a split second for an abrupt scream, the hapless man sailed over the railing and spun into the empty space of the stairwell. He did not drop the entire five floors to the ground level, but rather began a banging, cracking, clanging ricochet off the various railings as he descended to the bottom like a fleshy slinky. The armor kept the fall from being fatal, but the random directions in which his twisted limbs were splayed, and the throaty wet rasps huffing from his gaping mouth when he came to a halt indicated his days as a professional mercenary were likely over.

  Lucia saw none of this, because she had snagged the bead rifle from the flying man and turned it on his partner. She worked the trigger in rapid three-round bursts, putting six beads into the other man’s chest at a distance of less than two feet. Silently, she prayed the man’s armor would prevent this from killing him because she was still not very big on killing. But she found herself becoming practical about it. She realized this when she clearly saw the first bead exit from under the man’s armpit in a spray of arterial blood, and could not muster any feelings stronger than disappointment over his death. She knew her army of nano-bots was managing her brain chemistry to keep her sharp under stress, but she also wondered if she would care much later, either.

  Lucia turned to Sid and saw the woman’s face agog with conflicting awe and horror. “Come on!” she shouted and grabbed her arm, “Move!”

  They made it the ground floor, and Lucia stepped over the still heaving body of the man she had thrown from the fifth-floor landing. She poked her head out of the doorway to see if they could clear the lobby, but four more mercenaries cornered them at the stairwell. A hail of beads shredded the doorframe as Lucia tried to emerge and forced her back into the narrow alcove. With a snarl of focused determination Lucia’s commandeered weapon spat return fire in neon streaks, but she was going to run out of ammo before she would ever push back four well-trained opponents. She paused to grab some more ammunition and a grenade from the downed man, and then shoved Sid back into the stairwell yelling, “Keep going down!”

  She tossed the grenade back through the door to the lobby to buy time, and was rewarded with panicked swearing from the pursuing men. There was a blast that shook the floors and more screaming, but Lucia and Sid could not stop to inspect the damage. The pair descended a further two flights before Lucia tried another door. It was locked, but two powerful front kicks bent the bar of the old-fashioned hinged model and the door swung open to reveal some service and maintenance tunnels.

  “In!” she shouted to Sid and the pair scurried off into the darkened tunnels beneath Belham Tower. Lucia stopped only briefly to re-close the door and do her best to bend the locking bar back into place. She had the strength of a champion weightlifter, but the mangled piece of metal was too bent to lock all the way into its proper place. It would not slow down any pursuers who chanced to try it, but at a glance it was not obvious it had been kicked in, either.

  The women ran down narrow maintenance tunnels for several frantic minutes. They lost track of how many times the paths twisted and turned, and Lucia directed her focus to making as many right turns as she did lefts. She hoped this meant she was moving away from the battle, but she could not be sure. Before long, Sid called for a stop, her chest heaving like a bellows as she tried in vain to catch her breath. They were completely lost, but Lucia supposed they had likely outrun any pursuit at this point, so she acquiesced.

  They settled in an alcove where dozens of conduits all ran into a large panel. It had the look of a power junction, or maybe a telecom relay. Lucia knew very little about such things, but it looked important. Sid put her back to a smooth section of wall and slid down to the floor with a thump as she gasped for air.

  Sid’s breathing calmed after a minute or so, and she looked up at Lucia sheepishly, “So... out... of... shape,” she wheezed, “Sorry!”

  “It’s all right,” Lucia replied, “I think we’ve lost them for now.”

  “What the hell was that?”

  “Unless I miss my guess?” Lucia shook her head with a sneer, “The last dying gasp of The Combine.”

  “Will Roland be okay?
”

  Lucia threw her a sharp look, “Don’t you worry about Roland. He’ll be all right. Why are you so worried?” She had not meant for it to sound like an accusation, but despite her overall intelligence and sophistication, under stress Lucia could find herself behaving in a less than mature manner.

  Sid’s dark eyes looked to the floor, “He told you, huh?”

  “Roland never lies, Sid.” Lucia didn’t not want to sound feral, but she was just in a running gun battle, and her mood was not at its most cordial.

  “I’m really sorry!” Sid sounded sincere about this. “When Roland comes knocking uninvited, it usually means he is going to hurt someone or break something.” She gestured to Lucia’s pilfered rifle, “I don’t have what it takes to stop him, you know.” She pointed to her cleavage and gave Lucia a sad smile, “I only really have one set of survival skills. I didn’t mean anything by it, but," she shrugged with a small guilty smirk, "I’ve always been able to handle men that way.”

  “I figured as much. So did Roland.” Lucia sniffed and tried to soften her features. It was hard, because her brain was still operating in combat mode and controlling the millions of anxieties trying to drive her insane was using up all her willpower. “He struggles with that sort of thing, you know. It hurt him because he knew you were just scared, and that you were scared of him.”

  The loan shark looked confused. “Everybody’s scared of him!”

  “Not me,” Lucia replied softly.

  Suddenly, Sid understood. Not the intricate details, but she knew men the way Lucia knew business and Roland knew war. “I see,” she smiled again, softer now, “There’s a scared little boy in there isn’t there?”

  “More like a wounded old soldier,” Lucia corrected. “I can’t go into details, but the things that were done to him to make him,” she paused, searching for a tactful version of it, “... what he is were horrible. He carries a lot of rage and self-loathing. He lives in constant fear that he is some terrible monster. Talking to a woman in an office or killing a woman on the battlefield he can manage, but god forbid one ever show interest in him. He just assumes it’s a con to manipulate or control him. When you tried to seduce him out of fear...”

  Sid finished for her, “All I did was make him hate himself even more?”

  “Exactly.”

  “So you aren’t contemplating beating the crap out of me because I hit on your man, but you are contemplating beating the shit out of me because I hurt his feelings?”

  “Bingo.”

  Sid sighed, “You gotta cut me some slack, here. No one knew he even had feelings.”

  It was a fair point, and Lucia acknowledged it. “I guess. He can be scary as hell, too. But he is a good man, and he’s trying to be a better one. You didn’t know what you were doing, but still,” she winked at the buxom woman, “stay away from my man. I like this one and I can’t rock a gown the way you do, all right?”

  Sid put her hands up in surrender, “Not a problem! All yours!” Then she changed the subject, “How are we going to get out of here?”

  “I called for back-up eleven minutes ago. I’ve also been pinging my location since then. I have no idea if these tunnels are going to suppress the signal, though.”

  “Should we keep moving?”

  “I’d rather stay put at this point, we do not appear to be in any danger here, and letting things settle for a bit is probably a good call. Let me try the comms again,” Lucia grabbed her handheld.

  Before she could key any of her team, they heard the clumping of booted feet moving down the tunnel.

  Sid gasped and Lucia posted up behind the rifle and swept the hall with the muzzle, scanning for targets. She saw a lean man in full tac armor and a receding hairline moving down the hall with steady, unhurried strides. He was not concealing himself, nor was he paying any special attention to moving quietly. He was staring at a device in his hand that illuminated his craggy face with the blue-white glow of a viewscreen.

  “Hold it right there!” Lucia barked in what Roland referred to as her ‘command voice.’ The man jumped in startled confusion and held up his hands.

  “Whoa! Sid! It’s Paulie! Tell this bitch not to shoot me!”

  “It’s okay Lucia, he’s with me,” Sid’s voice radiated pure relief.

  Lucia lowered her rifle and waved the man over. He put his scanning device into one of the dozens of pouches on his tactical harness and trotted over to their alcove.

  “Good to see you’re okay, Boss,” he addressed Sid. “The action upstairs is over. That big fixer sent the fuckers packing. We are all just getting sorted out with NBPD right now, but I figured you’d rather avoid that part, right?”

  “That would be nice, yes,” Sid did not have a great relationship with the Uptown constabulary.

  “All right,” Paulie replied. “I have a car waiting two blocks down. These tunnels run all over this section of town, and I had the maps sent to my handheld."

  “Where’s Roland?” Lucia interrupted.

  Paulie gave her a look communicating clearly how little he cared for her concerns over the big man. “He chased them into the cargo area, but they got away from him.”

  Lucia scowled, “That’s unusual. Once Roland starts chasing someone, they rarely get away from him.”

  “Rumor says there was a heavy armature waiting. Not sure how it ended.”

  A careful observer might have noted a small, almost imperceptible element of satisfaction in Paulie’s voice as he conveyed the information. Lucia missed it.

  “Let’s get out of these tunnels,” Sid reasserted control of the conversation and the trio trotted down the dim maintenance tunnels, following the mercenary’s digital map to safety. It was only a few hundred yards and a couple of twists later that Paulie directed them to a ladder leading directly to a round metal hatch in the ceiling. He went up first, and cranked the access panel open with a shriek of protesting hinges.

  “Come on,” he grumbled, “up you go!”

  In heels and cocktail dresses, the women had more trouble scaling the ladder than he had, but nevertheless they ascended in short order. The hatch opened into a parking garage, and Paulie had obviously known the precise location they would emerge because a personnel transport was waiting. Four men with guns awaited them. One of the armed and armored men extended a hand to Lucia, “Let me lug that, ma’am,” he said, indicating her bead rifle.

  Lucia declined, “I’ll keep it, just the same.” She was nominally polite. It was not his fault he didn’t know she was more than strong enough to sling the weapon without assistance.

  Paulie frowned, “Ma’am, we’d prefer civilians not be armed once we take over. Just let us do our jobs and everything will be fine. It’s crowded in the APC, and I’d hate for there to be an accident,” he shrugged, “Procedure, ya know.”

  Something was tugging at her subconscious, and Lucia’s brain, processing a dozen scenarios at once, would not stop beaming electric lances of fear to the front of her thoughts. She could not find the thread that led to total comprehension, but part of her powerful cognitive faculties was telling her to hang on to the rifle no matter what.

  Am I just scared of being unarmed? It was a logical fear. The rifle had been instrumental in getting them out of the building, and it made perfect sense she would want to keep it. But it felt deeper than that, and she dismissed the easy answer. She decided to change the play entirely.

  “You know what? I’ll find my own way home from here, guys. Thanks for the exfil and all.” She pulled her comm to try a call, and time slowed down to a crawl when several things happened at once.

  First, Paulie’s hand darted forward and struck the comm from her hand. Lucia was beyond fast, but Paulie was fast, too, and he had the advantage of initiative. The small black handheld was still drifting in a lazy upward trajectory when Lucia started to raise the rifle to her shoulder. One of the waiting men grabbed a stupefied Sid and clamped a hand over her mouth while he dragged her to the truck, but Lucia
couldn’t do anything about that because she was fully engaged with Paulie and the others. Paulie ignored everything but the rifle and his lunge pinned it to Lucia’s side before she could bring it to bear. The other two men closed and tried to restrain the woman, but Lucia surprised them by abandoning her weapon to slip free of their leader’s grip.

  Paulie found himself holding the rifle while his target was already firing low kicks to his knees. The grizzled merc was neither slow nor weak, but the kicks were landing faster than he could avoid them. Her kicks did little damage, as his knees were clad in level II ballistic armor, which he was suddenly thrilled he had bothered to don before leaving on this op.

  Lucia turned away from Paulie when she realized she wasn’t hurting him. Kicking armored knees with bare legs had proven a poor decision, and her feet and shins were throbbing with the promise of deep bruises to come.

  She changed tactics and spun to address the other men trying to ensnare her with short chopping blows to their necks. Enjoying some success with those, she followed with stomping front kicks to their guts to create distance. The furious woman was elated to watch one armored mercenary tumble backward and crash over the hood of a parked ground transport, where he landed gurgling and coughing on the deck. The second backed away from her assault and Lucia was too canny to pursue. She whirled again to engage Paulie, who was pressing his attack with lightning fast punches and kicks of his own.

  They are trying to take us alive! Lucia realized. There had been plenty of time for Paulie to shoot her in the back if he had wanted to, considering what Lucia now suspected about his own augmentations. But he had not drawn his pistol and was still trying to outfight his stubborn prey with dogged determination.

  Lucia struck low, hoping to find a soft area to hurt, but Paulie was far too well trained. He had already figured out he could not match her speed, so instead of dodging he was content to angle himself so his armor took the blows he wouldn’t be able to avoid anyway. It was a good plan, and Lucia’s flurries did little more than glance off his gear.