Broken Hero (33 page)

“Get out!” Hermann rails. Friedrich’s forces begin to ring our ruined amphitheater. Some push onto the central stage, surround what’s left of Volk.

For some reason they ignore us. Perhaps we are not a threat. I certainly don’t feel like one. Kayla may feel differently though.

“You betray all that we strove for!” Hermann is still shouting. “Everything we achieved when we walked away from our father. You are capitulation. You are cowardice.”

Hermann, it seems, has big old brass balls.

Actually, I realize, it’s possible that he literally does have them.

“I am success.” Friedrich enters the ring. His voice crashes against Hermann. “I am victory. I am everlasting. And you are defeat. You kneel at my feet.”

“I will nev—” Hermann starts.

Two Uhrwerkmänner kick out his knees. There is a violent crunch of metal, the sound of something thick snapping. Plates in Hermann’s legs buckle as he slams down to the ground.

“You kneel.” Friedrich’s voice is rich with satisfaction. “As Volk told me you would. As Volk promised me.”

The operator in my gut hits the down button. It plummets toward my ankles.
Volk?
Oh no. Oh crap.

“You lie,” Hermann spits.

“Volk wanted this. This moment. He believed in this. He saw the futility in you. In all of you.” He sweeps one colossal arm around the room, at all the Uhrwerkmänner. “He saw your doom. And I welcomed him to my fold. But he said, no, he would not come with me. He told me he would remain here, to guide you toward me, toward this moment. Toward the victory of our race over death. Toward apotheosis. Toward
becoming
.”

“No,” Hermann is saying over and over again. “No, no, no.”

“How was I always able to find you?” Friedrich asks. “How was I always one step ahead of you?”

God. It’s far from being the worst part of this, but all I can think is that Hannah was right. I am never going to hear the end of this.

“The tunnels…” Hermann starts, but his defiance is finally waning.

“You believed that?” Friedrich scoffs. “Then madness already eats at your reason. You are already lost.”

Goddamn it. I believed that too. There’s a chance that having had reality ripped out from under my feet so often, I have become a touch gullible.

But Volk? Of the two Uhrwerkmänner it was
Volk
who betrayed us? Shit and balls. God, if I survive the next few minutes I’m going to be left with some serious trust issues.

I glance over at Hannah.

OK… with worse trust issues.

Hermann himself has lapsed into silence. The rest of the Uhrwerkmänner are silent, horrified spectators.

Friedrich smells victory, switches back to his original topic. “Volk knew in his core that our father would not abandon us. That his love would triumph over his evil in the end. He knew the promise our father had made us.”

Friedrich steps forward, standing directly at the base of Volk’s body. His legs are set wide, his massive chest pushed out. Every inch the conquering hero. He bends, picks up Volk in both hands. Without any discernible effort he hoists several tons of metal above his head.

“Behold,” he booms, “our absolution. Behold the Uhrwerkgerät!”

Beside me, Felicity groans. “Oh, you have to be kidding me.”

Everything we fought for. Everything we strived to prevent. And we just handed it to Friedrich on a silver platter. We bloody crafted the Uhrwerkgerät for him in front of all the people we were meant to save.

And I let it happen. I knew we were rushing this. I knew Clyde and Tabitha were dysfunctional. And I let events ride over me. I let fear rule me. My goddamn fear of death. And it’s that fear that’s brought the future echo’s promise closer.

I am such a fucking jackass some days.

“This!” Friedrich bellows. “This is the power inside of us. This is the power of
becoming
. Volk has embraced it. One of the best among us. The one you trusted. He saw this truth and ran toward it with open arms. Do not betray him. Do not betray yourselves. We were promised more than decay and dysfunction. And we can embrace that promise. Come with me. Redefine this world. Reclaim yourselves. Your birthright. Be all you can be.”

A solution
. Lang was writing about a solution. But Lang’s concept of a solution is a fucking reality-destroying bomb. And we didn’t take the time to get the context, to get the level of understanding we needed. We just plunged in. Because we’re desperate.

Hell, there might not even be another solution to the Uhrwerkmänner’s problems. We only have their word that there was one. And if we’re desperate, what are they? They stare at Friedrich now. A broken people. This last scrap of hope ripped away from them.

And they’ll go to him. Volk’s betrayal, real or not, has broken Hermann. There is no voice of resistance. There is no path to take other than the one Friedrich offers. Transform themselves into this bomb, to the vague hope it promises, or just lie down and die. God, in their place that’s probably the straw I’d grasp at.

Unfortunately, in the place that I’m actually in, that all leaves me rather fubarred.

Friedrich lays Volk’s limbless body down on the operating table, slowly, almost reverentially.

He’s going to keep talking. He’s going to keep going until he convinces them. And we’re just standing here watching him.

Why is the right thing to do also always the really dumb thing to do?

I step forward, out of the huddled ranks, pushing between the legs of Friedrich’s loyal Uhrwerkmänner. Felicity tries to pull me back, but I twist away from her.

It takes a moment for Friedrich to register my presence. I am very aware that I am surrounded by twenty or more robots all of whom could kill me with almost no effort whatsoever.

But something has to be said.

I clear my throat. It’s hard to read Friedrich’s expression, but there’s a chance it’s more amused than murderous.

“You realize this is all bullshit, right?” I say. My voice sounds pathetically small in the wake of Friedrich’s colossal boom. But I keep going. Because I don’t know what else to do. Because even in the face of death, we keep on thrashing. Some idiot response built into the lizard brain and reinforced by too much Hollywood bullshit.

“I know you lot have been buried down here for a long time,” I say, “but up on the surface we have this thing called an infomercial. It’s where a slimy fucker does his best to sell you something you don’t want. And he’ll go on and on for hours, and he’ll say anything he can, tell any lie he thinks is feasible, just to sell it to you.” I point straight at Friedrich. At his knee caps, actually. “That’s this bastard.”

I take a breath, hold it for a moment, expecting some great foot to come down like it’s the end of the
Monty Python
credits, to be reduced to the simplest of slapstick humor.

But it doesn’t come. I don’t know why the hell he’s doing it, but Friedrich’s giving me the floor.

“This Uhrwerkgerät he’s so excited about. It’s just a bomb. That’s all. A big one, yeah. I’ll give it that. But that’s all it is. It goes boom. Things die. And you know the thing about bombs? There’s not much left of them at the end. They don’t ever get a chance for an encore. Friedrich says he’s got your best interests at heart but—”

And that’s as far as I get.

It’s not a violent end, not a savage one. It’s laughter. Friedrich’s laughter simply drowns me out.

“Look at him!” Friedrich booms. “Look at how small he is. How pathetic. Look at your oppressor. You live down here in squalor. Because of him.”

Which seems a little unfair.

“He says he has your best interests at heart. But since they first bombed us, shot us, hounded us, killed us, when has humanity ever had our best interests at heart?”

Ah, now I know why I’m still alive. I’m the straw man. The argument to be torn down.

Friedrich stares at the assembled Uhrwerkmänner. “He is scared now. Because he knows this is his end. The age of man is done. It is our time. Our time to rise. To
become
.”

“I’m fucking scared,” I shout back, “because I know where this ends. Sure, yes, with my death. But I’m not alone. We all die. You blow up reality itself. You pull the thread on the whole goddamn tapestry, you self-righteous jackass. You end everything. Me. Them.” I point at the assembled Uhrwerkmänner. “You.” I point at Friedrich. “We all die. Because you know what you’re doing about as much as I do.”

That was the future echo’s promise to me. This ends badly. For everyone. I just got the heads up first. Lucky me. I am the guy with the sign reading “The World’s Ending” standing on the street corner preaching to the uncaring crowds.

Except maybe, just maybe, this time they’re desperate enough to listen. And sometimes people just need something to cling to as their reality fractures.

Friedrich is laughing again. “He is pathetic,” he booms. “He is desperate. His time is over.”

And he raises one massive hand.

Oh shit.

Because I am not the straw man. It’s simpler than that. I’m the fly, and he’s the swatter.

Friedrich’s hand descends.

For a moment I am back in a bar in Scotland, watching a wooden beam come down. Watching death coming, unavoidable.

A massive crash. Steel on steel.

And I’m alive.

I look up. And there is Hermann. His right arm is a mangled ruin. But it holds Friedrich’s fist a yard or more above my head.

“No,” Hermann says.

“No?” Friedrich sounds more curious than annoyed.

“No,” Hermann grunts, arm creaking down. The gap between my skull and imminent death becomes noticeably narrower. I scramble backwards.

Even as his right arm is crushed, Hermann twists and smashes his left fist into the side of Friedrich’s skull. “You are a liar!” He lands a blow. “You are death!” Another. “You are betrayal.” Another blow. “And I will fight you until I fall.”

“Then you shall fall.”

Friedrich lands a massive backhand across Hermann’s midriff. The Uhrwerkmänn sails over my head, lands with an epic crash.

And that’s it, that’s the moment.

It’s on.

Friedrich’s troops fall upon the cowering Uhrwerkmänner. Many go down, hunkering. Metal hands clutched over metal skulls. Friedrich’s troops grab them. Like so many neanderthals claiming their brides, they drag them across the floor by legs and arms.

Other Uhrwerkmänner turn and simply flee as fast as they can. Not many make it far. Their own limbs betray them. Decaying gearwork makes them slow. They limp, and they hobble, and they are brought down.

And a number simply surrender. Hold up their hands, bow their heads, and start marching to the beat of Friedrich’s drum.

And a few, just a few, stand and fight.

It doesn’t go well for them.

I see one Uhrwerkmänn, ten feet of bronze and steel, land a titanic blow. A steel chest plate buckles beneath his fist. Gears burst from its edges spilling glittering onto the floor. Friedrich’s footsoldier stumbles back, grabbing at his gut. Oil spurts rhythmically from its mouth. The Uhrwerkmänn raises a fist in victory.

Three of Friedrich’s men pile on to him. Their fists rise and fall, a steady rhythmic pounding. One of them stands, heaves on something, twists. The Uhrwerkmänn’s victorious arm is ripped from its socket. Friedrich’s man starts to whale on the Uhrwerkmänn, using the limb like a massive flail.

“To me!” I yell to MI37. “To me!”

The place is chaos, and we are barely even bystanders. The scale of this fight is beyond us.

Someone probably should have mentioned that to Kayla.

She ignores me utterly. Sword out, she flies at one of Friedrich’s Uhrwerkmänner. Her sword lands in a hip joint, and she twists like a gymnast, hoisting her whole body six feet up into the air, standing upside down on her hands, clenched on the sword’s hilt. Her legs smoothly wrap around the Uhrwerkmänn’s neck and she pivots her body up, sword wrenching free through pneumatic tubing that whips and curls in the aftermath. She uses her momentum, spinning around the Uhrwerkmänn’s neck, until she sits astride its shoulders. She leans back, hanging upside down for a moment. Her sword lies along the length of her body. Then her stomach muscles flex and she sits bolt upright, the sword blade finding the joint at the base of the Uhrwerkmänn’s skull, driving home, until it bursts out from beneath its chin.

The Uhrwerkmänn stumbles forward a step, then crashes to its knees. Kayla rips her sword free and rolls down its back as it falls face first into the dirt.

OK, so maybe we are still in this fight.

Tabitha and Clyde are with me. Felicity and Hannah too.

“Here,” says Felicity, “catch.” She reaches into a jacket pocket, tosses me a matte black cylinder.

I catch it, stare. “Is that a grenade?”

Felicity nods. Her penchant for carrying grenades with her at all times is beginning to worry me. I mean… does she take them to the supermarket? Is she ready for facing down an enemy emplacement somewhere in the frozen goods aisle?

Hannah looks at Felicity expectantly.

Felicity grimaces. “I’m really sorry. I only have two.”

Hannah shakes her head, somewhere between resignation and disbelief. “Fucking typical.”

I scan for Friedrich. There’s a bastard who could really use a combustible suppository. Something to shift that rod out of his arse.

He’s halfway across the room. Volk… the Uhrwerkgerät tucked under his arm. And that’s not good. We need that back.

I take off at speed. Around me, massive bodies smash and crash against each other. I dart left, right, trying to keep on as straight a course as possible, trying to gain on the massive Uhrwerkmänn. But with legs three times as long as mine, he doesn’t even have to try to outpace me.

Two Uhrwerkmänner stumble into my path. I twist between the legs of one, bouncing off one limb, twisting to avoid being crushed by the other as it scissors back, the body above rocking back under the impact of a hammer-blow punch to its jaw. Then the legs of the second Uhrwerkmänn block my path. I plunge right. The first Uhrwerkmänn sweeps the leg. I hurdle its oncoming limb, land, glance up to see the second Uhrwerkmänn has been less nimble. It totters above me.