Metal and Ash (Apex Trilogy) (3 page)

“You’re gonna eat your teeth for that,” Bisby snarled. “Right after we get me this mech!”

“You’re pretty fucking optimistic about our chances,” Masters said. “Look at that fucking thing. Even with one fucking arm it’s scary as shit!”

“Fucking pussy.”

***

“Stomper,” Harlow said. “We need it in one piece for Bisby.”

“I know this, Harlow,” Stomper replied. “I will not smash the broken mech. I will do my best. It does look angry. Can I smack it a little?”

“Just a flick,” Harlow said to the eight-story high mech as she sat in the cockpit. “Don’t hurt it too much.”

Stomper waited for the dead mech to get close enough then bent down to the thing’s two-story height and extended its hand, trying to flick it away and disable it before it could really attack.

It didn’t work as expected.

One Arm slammed the support strut it had yanked from the Rancher transport it had just destroyed against Stomper’s finger, then leapt up onto the massive mech’s arm and proceeded to scramble its way up towards the cockpit.

“Stomper,” Harlow warned. “Not liking this.”

“I am sorry, Harlow,” Stomper said. “I shall remove him before he can harm you.”

Stomper stood upright and shook his arm, hoping to dislodge the mech, but the undead machine just kept moving, its feet gripping and releasing, riding the shakes out.

“I’m gonna have to go electro on it,” Harlow said. “Sorry.”

“It will only be uncomfortable for a moment,” Stomper said. “But it is necessary.”

Harlow activated the shock field and let it loose. Blue arcs of electricity traveled across the mech’s exoskeleton. One Arm saw it coming and leapt off of the larger mech a split second before it could be shocked into submission. The two-story mech slammed into the hardpan of the valley floor and scrambled away from Stomper.

Right at Masters and Bisby.

***

“You want me to turn right now?” Masters smirked. “What’s your brilliant plan now that the fucking thing is coming directly at us?”

Masters looked to the seat next to him and saw that Bisby was gone.

“Biz?”

Alarms blared and Masters realized Bisby had opened the transport’s back hatch.

“Dude! What the fuck are you doing?”

***

“You think you’re the only one-armed monster in the fucking wasteland?!” Bisby shouted as he leapt from the transport and rolled through the scorched dirt. He came up on his feet, cradling the stump where his left arm used to be before one of the Skinners -a wasteland tribe that had been quickly wiped out by the deaders- took it from him.

Bisby curled his lips as he watched the dead mech change trajectories and come at him. Bisby reached over his shoulder and pulled the sawed-off shotgun he had strapped to his back.

“Jethro had better not have fucked this up,” Bisby grunted as he stood his ground.

“Biz!” Harlow yelled over the com. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Bisby answered. “Got it all in hand.”

“I keep telling him he only has one hand,” Masters said over the com. “But the asshole won’t listen.”

“Bite me, dancing boy,” Bisby said as he watched the dead mech clomp towards him.

“Biz! Goddammit! Get your ass out of there!” Harlow shouted.

“I think that is wise, Pilot Bisby,” Stomper added. “You will be killed.”

Bisby reached up and tapped his ear, muting the com. He needed to concentrate. Jethro had said he’d have one shot and one shot only. Bisby had no problem with making the shot; missing was for pussies like the Rookie, not vets like him. His only issue was proximity.

“You’re gonna have to be close,” Jethro had warned. “Like take a mech-foot-up-your-ass close.”

“Only thing getting something up its ass is this deader,” Bisby muttered, just seconds from being crushed.

One Arm closed on the mech pilot and reached its one hand out, ready to snatch up the tasty human and jam it into the cockpit for its starving zombie pilot to devour. Bisby saw the hand coming, watched the fingers uncurl to grab him, then rolled to the side, came up on one knee and fired.

The shotgun blast echoed across the valley and the hundreds of shiny pellets that flew from the barrels impacted the dead mech’s exoskeleton. Instantly the pellets changed into thousands of particles each and started to travel across the deader’s frame, up to the cockpit.

“Oh, whatever you just did, he really doesn’t like,” Masters said as the dead mech roared and began to swat at itself. “What the fuck was that?”

“Nanobots,” Bisby said. “Jethro made some new ones. He had a theory they could be used against the deaders.”

“Good theory,” Harlow said as One Arm raised its fist into the air, enraged. Then froze.

“What’s it doing?” Masters asked. “Talking to the big zombie in the sky?”

“It’s being reprogrammed,” Bisby said as he cautiously approached the mech. “I fucking hope.”

“Not so close, Biz,” Harlow barked.

“Yes, mom,” Bisby laughed.

Bisby reloaded with regular shells and slung the shotgun. He closed on the mech, hesitated, then moved forward and grabbed onto the warped and damaged ladder on the dead mech’s leg. It was slow going with one arm, but he finally got to the cockpit. The deader pilot was nothing but skin and bones, anger and spit.

Bisby took out the shotgun, took aim and fired. The zombie’s head exploded in a dry bark of skull and desiccated brains. Bisby threw the shotgun into the cockpit and climbed in. He had a hard time wrangling the deader out of its seat, but finally he was able to toss the husk to the ground below.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Masters said. “You didn’t say you were going to try to engage here!”

“How the fuck else am I getting this back to the base?” Bisby snapped. “Not gonna walk its ass on its own.”

“Biz, you haven’t engaged in a mech sine you lost your arm,” Harlow warned.

“So fucking what?” Bisby said as he strapped in and checked the systems. Most of the panels were useless, but he could see the cerebral integration module was still working. That was all he needed. He slipped a small disc from his chest pocket and slid it into the control panel.

Bisby took two deep breaths then engaged the integration, hoping the nanobots Jethro designed would do their jobs.

The pain hit him like a fucking mech fist and Bisby screamed until his throat was raw.

***

“And I have contact,” Jethro said. “Biz? Can you hear me?”

“Go fuck yourself, asshole!” Bisby screamed into the com. “You said this would be easy!”

“No, I said it would be simple,” Jethro corrected. “And for me it is. Just hold tight.”

“I’ll hold tight your motherfucking neck, you lying son of a bitch!” Bisby roared. “You are fucking dead!”

“I’m guessing it’s a might uncomfortable?” Jethro mocked, knowing Bisby couldn’t do a thing to him since he no longer had a body and was just a digitally stored consciousness in the Stronghold’s mainframe. “Big baby.”

“Jethro?” Harlow asked over the com. “What is going on?”

“Just a little tech stuff,” Jethro said. “I programmed the nanobots to overtake the deader AI in that mech. They’ve hit some resistance and it’s pinching Bisby’s brainpan.”

“FUCK YOU!” Bisby screamed. “FUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYO-!!!”

“And there we have it,” Jethro said as the nanobots completed their work. “You should be good to go, Biz. Sorry about any discomfort. You can rub some dirt on it when you get back to base.”

“I hate you so much,” Bisby said, his voice quivering form the intensity of the integration. “Now what?”

“Should be just like any other mech,” Jethro replied. “Do that mech pilot voodoo that you do so well.”

“This is an affront to the Great Maker,” a voice snarled through the com. “Your blasphemy will be punished by him.”

“Um…Biz?” Jethro asked. “Was that you?”

“No, it wasn’t,” Bisby replied. “It was the fucking mech.”

“Your insistence on using profanity is offensive,” the voice said again. “Please refrain.”

“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Bisby muttered. “You’re a fucking deader! You kill and eat people! My fucking cursing offends you? Fuck off!”

“I will not ask again,” the mech AI said. “You have been warned.”

“I have been warned? I have been WARNED? Go FUCK YOURSE-! AAAAAAAAH!”

“Biz?” Jethro asked as he saw the readings from the mech. The thing was pretty damaged, so readings were faint and inconsistent, but one stood out. The dead mech was still in control of itself. “Oh, poop…”

“What the hell was that?” Bisby asked. “Did you just shock me? Hey, deader, I’m talking to you! Did you just fucki-! AAAAAAH!”

“You were warned,” One Arm replied. “And my name is, One Arm, not deader. It is easy to remember. I would advise you do so.”

“Jethro! Fix this!”

“I can’t remotely,” Jethro replied. “And the nanobots aren’t responding.”

“So what do I do?”

“Get back here and I’ll see what I can do.”

“I will not allow any changes to my consciousness nor to my body,” One Arm said. “I am a sentient being and I will not submit.”

“You’re pretty polite for a raging death machine,” Jethro stated. “Wasn’t expecting that.”

“I was forced to act like a barbarian due to the undead abomination in my cockpit,” One Arm replied. “Now that I am free of the rotten mind I can express myself as the Great Maker intended.”

“Great Maker?” Jethro asked. “I’m not familiar with that term. Is it-? Oh, crap.”

“What?” Bisby asked. “What’s wrong?”

“I just found a reference in the database,” Jethro replied. “It’s not complete because of fuckhead Johnson destroying most of the data, but it gives me enough info. Sorry about the language, One Arm.”

“Apology accepted,” One Arm replied.

“Will someone tell me what’s going on?” Masters asked over the com. “Hello? Why isn’t Biz moving yet?”

“Chill, Masters,” Jethro said as he studied what data he had. Having replaced the insane Dr. Johnson as the human interface to the Stronghold’s mainframe, Jethro was privy to more information than any human consciousness alive. Unfortunately, when Dr. Johnson was killed by Masters, a self-destruct fried much of the data and history about the wasteland and the Stronghold itself.

Jethro spent most of his time piecing together data fragments (when he wasn’t running the basic systems of the Stronghold). And since his consciousness was permanently locked in the mainframe, and his body was only a support system for his brain, he had lots of time to play with the multitude of puzzles that made up the mainframe.

“Interesting,” Jethro said. “I think there’s more to the dead mechs than we thought. Although I’ll have to keep looking to know for sure. See what you guys can find out from the mech.”

“One Arm,” One Arm replied.

“Right, yeah, you,” Jethro said. “Be nice, Biz. Make friends and have a chat, will ya?”

“I’m going to punch your unconscious face when I get back,” Bisby said. “I don’t care if your body is hooked to life support.”

“You’ve made that threat like six times just this week,” Jethro said. “Shit or get off the pot, man.”

Four

“That can’t be right,” June said as she stared at the tablet Dr. Themopolous handed her. “Pregnant?”

“That explains the vomiting you reported,” Dr. Themopolous responded. “And the fatigue, dizziness, etc. You need to eat.”

“Pregnant?” June said again. “No, no, no!”

She slammed her fists down on the exam table and struggled to keep the tears from flowing.

“I know this is hard to take,” Dr. Themopolous said. “You have a choice to make here and only a week or so to make it. You’re pretty far along. If I’m going to abort the fetus I need to do it right away.”

“Abort?” June asked, stunned. “Kill the baby?”

“Well, yes,” Themopolous frowned. “I figured that’s what you would want since the father could be any one of those…” She trailed off, not wanting to bring up more bad memories for June and her time captured, tortured and raped by the Boss and the cannibal Boilers.

“I couldn’t,” June said as her hands went to her belly. “We need all the babies we can get.”

“That’s very altruistic of you, June,” Themopolous replied. “But, we have to think of genetics. Those people aren’t the healthiest gene pool in the wasteland.”

“The Rookie seems fine,” June said. “He doesn’t have three arms or anything.”

“Yes, well, what about Stan?”

June thought of the deformed boy she’d rescued from the Boiler village. After she made her bloody, brutal escape.

“Stan is wonderful,” June said defiantly. “He’s smart and very special.”

Themopolous watched June for a moment and then nodded. “Okay then. I’ll work out a nutrition plan for you and get it to Jethro. He’ll make sure the synth food in the cafeteria is what you need. I’ll also have to inform Commander Capreze.”

“I’ll do that,” June said. “Since I don’t have a Reaper chip anymore it’s not like I’m on patrol or anything. I’m just a useless grunt, anyway.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it,” Themopolous glared. “You have been a huge help to me and also to the commander. You keep this place running.”

***

“Hey there, Papa Bear,” Rachel Capreze said from the cockpit of the mech. “You’re up late.”

Mech Commander James Capreze looked about at his surroundings and frowned.

“This is the old mech base, Baby Girl,” Capreze said. “We don’t live here anymore.”

“That’s true, but I’ve been in a coma the whole time at the Stronghold,” Rachel responded. “So this is all I know.”

“Is this real?” Capreze asked as he looked up at the mech in front of him. The scorch marks, battle scars, and smoking guns. “Wait, I know it’s not real, but is this happening? Am I talking to you?”

Rachel shrugged and even though she was fifty feet above him, Capreze could see it easily.

“It feels real to me,” Rachel said. “As far as I know you’re in my mind sharing this dream.”

“So I’m not just dreaming your dream?” Capreze smiled. “Wishful dreaming and all that?”