The Apocalypse Club (39 page)

“Roger that,” I croaked.

The two of us ran to the top of the two ramps. “Which one is it?” I asked. With all the echo, it was impossible to tell which one the C-Mech was using.

“I think it’s this one,” Violet said, pointing to the one closest to her. “Why don’t you take the other one? You spot it, give a yell.”

The thought of running into Hudson’s C-Mech with not even a semblance of a weapon that I could use to defend myself was not a lot more frightening than the thought of running into it with only a century-old spear gun that may or may not actually fire, but just enough that it tipped the scales in favour of my refusal to do it.

“Uh uh,” I said. “I think you’re right. It’s that one.”

It wasn’t.

We got almost all the way to the bottom of the ramp before we realized we had picked the wrong one. By the time we got back to the top, the C-Mech had entered the control room and was advancing toward Max and Tristan. Max was leaning protectively over Tristan and holding out the grenade in a manner that the C-Mech obviously considered not threatening in the least.

“Stay back or I’ll blow your fucking legs off!” Max shouted.

The C-Mech just laughed and kept moving. The only advantage to this was that its back was turned and so it had no idea that we were there. Violet quickly raised the spear gun, aimed, and fired. The spear shot out of the mechanism and straight into the machine’s throat, where it buried itself up to the hilt.

Or that was what I was sure it was about to do right up until the fraction of a second before impact when the C-Mech spun around and grabbed the spear straight out of the air.

“Nice try,” the C-Mech rumbled. Its appearance had changed quite radically since the last time I had seen it. Half of its face appeared to have fallen off and the other half was hideously scratched. It looked like it had also had a run-in with the PKs. I had a feeling that the PKs had probably not fared as well against the machine as they had against Ida, though. “What exactly do you think you’re doing? You think you’re going to damage me with your father’s old dart gun?”

The C-Mech looked at the spear for a moment and then tossed it aside and jumped at us, getting close enough to swat the spear gun out of Violet’s hands.

“No,” Violet said, backing up. I saw her reach down and remove another grenade from her belt. She shifted her hands behind her back and adjusted some sort of switch on the side.

“Then what are you going to do, little girl?” the C-Mech growled.

“Actually,” said Violet. “I think I’m going to kill you.”

Violet quickly put on her helmet and activated the suit, disappearing. Suddenly, I was backing away all by myself.

The C-Mech laughed. “I can still see you. Who do you think designed this technology, you stupid little bitch?”

Violet’s voice came from somewhere over on my right. “That would be the same person who designed this. Hope you like it, asshole.”

I heard a thunk and looked down to see what looked like a grenade rolling along the floor. The C-Mech reached down to grab it, but as soon as the grenade got close enough, it zoomed up into the air and latched itself on to the machine’s leg at the knee. The C-Mech looked confused and reached down to try to pull it off, but the grenade wouldn’t budge. I just had time for my brain to realize that it must be attached magnetically when the grenade went off. In the echo chamber of the control room, the bang was deafening.

The C-Mech roared and fell sideways. As the smoke cleared, I could see that its leg was still there, but the servos had gone completely dead. Instead of limited mobility in the joint, it now had none.

The remaining leg and arms, however, seemed to work just fine. In a single leap, it jumped across the room, swatted me out of the way like a mosquito (although the hand had an area roughly equivalent to only a medieval knight’s shield, it felt like being hit by an armoured truck, with the associated level of discomfort one would expect from such an event) and grabbed what looked like thin air. There was a crack and a buzz of electricity as the cloaking device failed and Violet became visible again. The C-Mech had her gripped around the waist in one of its massive hands.

I tried to get up, but my own legs didn’t seem to be getting the message. I could lift my head, but that was about it.

“No!”

That was Max’s voice. I saw him jump on the C-Mech’s back and grab hold of its face, which was a dripping mess of loose tissue, blood and circuitry. He appeared to be holding the grenade in his other hand and was trying to stuff it in the C-Mech’s mouth.

“Swallow this, metal dick!”

The C-Mech looked so surprised that Max almost succeeded in getting the grenade to its target, but the machine twisted its left arm around at a shocking angle and managed to grab him instead. It now had Max in one hand and Violet in the other. With evident effort, it got back up on both feet.

“First you can watch your daughter and these fools die,” it said, turning toward where Tristan was lying on the floor. “And then I will watch you die.”

Except Tristan wasn’t lying there anymore.

Tristan had worked his way over and was leaning against the table, where he had somehow managed to reload the spear gun, which was pointing directly at the C-Mech’s throat.

“I think not, Henry,” Tristan said. “Please consider this to be the end of our collaboration.”

There was a snap as the spear gun fired. The bolt shot out and went straight through the C-Mech’s throat just above where the breastbone would have been on a normal person. The expression on the C-Mech’s face did not change. Its entire body seemed to lock in place and start to shake as what began as a low electronic humming rapidly escalated to mechanical shrieking. Bolts of blue electricity shot out and began curling around the surface of the machine. What was left of the flesh caught fire and dissolved as the circuits blew one by one.

I managed to finally get my legs to sign for the package that had been sent by my brain and staggered up to pull Violet and Max out of the machine’s grip before they were fried as well. Violet’s Ghost suit seemed to protect her from the worst of it more than Max’s survival suit had done.

“I think that fucking thing fried off all my pubes,” he said after we managed to pull him loose. “I swear, man. Anyone like roasted nuts? I got ’em.”

“For which future generations are grateful,” Violet said.

The C-Mech twitched one last time and then fell flat on what was left of its face. The spear was still sticking out the back of its neck. It didn’t look like it was going to be getting up again. The three of us ran over to Tristan, who had used up what was left of his energy and was also lying flat on the floor.

“Nice shot, T!” Max said. “Kudos, man! You really saved our butts.”

“I have known George Hudson for a long, long time,” Tristan said, his voice little more than a whisper. “A brilliant scientist, but, in all other respects, an irretrievable asshole.”

“Take it easy, dad,” Violet said. “You’re going to be fine.”

Tristan tried to laugh, but the corners of his mouth barely twitched. “Ah, my dear. Our work has necessitated the telling of many falsehoods in the past, but I believe the time for that is past, now. My work has concluded. What sights I have seen! Your work is only just beginning again. You will see and do things I cannot even begin to imagine, and, as you know, I can imagine rather a lot.”

“I think we can manage one more for you, Lord Smythe,” I said, getting up. “Don’t give up on this little experiment just yet.”

I walked over to where the C-Mech was lying and crouched down next to the back of the head, pulling at the connections until I managed to get the clear cowling off and remove the sphere. I had never actually held one in my hand. It was surprisingly light and seemed to tingle in my hand. How much exposure was required before it would start to affect me? I wondered. Would I now live to be 100 years old, too?

I shuffled the question aside. If that was the case, I’d have plenty of time to think about it later. I got up and started walking to the floating table, but only got a couple of steps when I felt something large grab me by the leg.

It was the C-Mech. Somehow, it had come back to life and grabbed my left thigh.

“Argh!” I yelled, falling sideways.

“Mark!” Max yelled. He jumped up and grabbed the spear gun, which he swung wildly at the C-Mech’s head. Sparks flew where he made contact.

The C-Mech lost its grip and sagged back to the floor. I cradled the sphere on my chest and scooted back on my butt.

“I think it’s done,” Max said, examining it closely. Although I was sure the C-Mech was about to jump back to its feet and grab Max by the throat, it didn’t. “Just a blip.”

Keeping one eye on the machine, I got back to my feet and walked over to the edge of the table. It was so wide that I couldn’t reach far enough to just drop the sphere into the notch in the centre, but the table curved downwards like a funnel. If I just put the sphere on there, I figured, it would roll in there by itself.

I placed the sphere on the edge of the lip. Instead of rolling straight down the way I expected it to, it just sat there.

“That’s weird,” Max said, leaning down to try to look under the table. “Maybe there’s a switch or something.”

I was just about to reach out and pick up the sphere to try to drop it directly into the hole when it started to glow. And it started to move. It wasn’t moving down, however, it was moving sideways.

Specifically, it was moving in a slow orbital arc around the centre of the table, which itself was starting to glow.

In fact, the entire ship was starting to glow.

The view over our heads changed. The lip of the crater disappeared. Then the clouds. Then the sky. A moment later, we were looking at stars. More stars than I had ever imagined existed in my life.

“Wait a minute,” Max said, holding out his arms to steady himself. “Are we…moving?”

“Fascinating,” Tristan said, then closed his eyes.

I went to sit next to Violet, who was sitting with her father’s head on her lap. Tears were streaming down her cheeks.

“Sorry, Violet,” I said, awkwardly putting an arm around her shoulders.

“Call me Elspeth,” she said, wiping her eyes. “Or Elly.”

“Okay. It might take me some time to get used to that, though.”

I felt something move. It took me a moment to realize that it was my cell phone, which was still stuck in the left pocket of my jeans. This took me by surprise for a couple of reasons. First, I had forgotten that it was there. Second, I was positive that I had turned it off. I dug the phone out of my pocket. A message was displayed on the screen:

PLEASE RECHARGE PHONE

IMMEDIATELY

“That’s weird,” I said. “I thought I had turned this off.”

Violet looked at the screen. “Is that your usual recharge message?”

I thought about it. I had always been super anal about never letting my phone battery drop below 50%, so I didn’t know what it did if the power got critically low. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen it before.”

I tried to access the phone to see how much battery power I actually did have left, but for some reason, it was refusing to recognize my pass code. Instead, it just kept defaulting back to the same message. “What the hell? Now it’s not letting me in! Did somebody reset my phone on me?”

Violet – sorry, Elspeth – took the phone out of my hand and examined it for a moment. “I don’t believe it,” she said.

“What?”

“It’s not your phone,” she said. “It’s Hudson.”

“It’s
what
?”

She looked from the fallen C-Mech to my phone and then back again. “It must have been when he grabbed you. He realized that the C-Mech was dying and he jumped to the only other available connection.”

“My
phone
?”

Elspeth nodded and handed the phone back. “Looks that way.”

“You’re saying that asshole jumped out of that thing over there and now he’s in my phone?” I could just picture Hudson in there browsing through my search history, looking at my photos and reading all my emails. The thought of it made me want to barf. I tried to turn the phone off. Instead of shutting down, it presented a new message:

GH: LET’S DISCUSS THIS, MR SIMMS

“Discuss this?” I said. “Is he out of his fucking mind?”

Elspeth nodded. “Well, he did transplant his consciousness to a machine and then your phone, so, technically, that is precisely what he is.”

I typed:

MS: GO FUCK YOURSELF

A reply came momentarily:

GH: ALL MY KNOWLEDGE AND POWER CAN BE YOURS

“Do you believe this guy?” I said.

MS: KEEP IT, ASSHOLE

GH: I CAN MAKE YOU RICH AND POWERFUL

MS: SEE ABOVE

GH: RETURN TO EARTH. I HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY TO SAVE BILLIONS

“He’s lying,” Elspeth said. “Even if he did, he would never use it. As soon as we got back, he’d put himself back into the network and kill everyone still alive who knew what he’d done, including us.”

“I know that!” I said, a tad defensively. “Max! C’mere a sec, would you?”

Max had been standing at the table, almost hypnotized by the way the sphere had been going round and round the table. He snapped back to awareness and limped over.

“What’s up?”

I held out my hand. “I need to borrow the spear gun for a second.”

“Sure.” Max handed it over. I walked to the middle of the floor near the ramp and put the cell phone on the ground.

GH: PLEASE RECONSIDER

GH: I AM A REPOSITORY OF ALL KNOWLEDGE ACQUIRED BY MANKIND

GH: I BEG YOU

I reached down and typed in my last message:

MS: TTFN

Then I stood up, raised the spear gun up with both hands and brought the butt end down on the screen. It shattered with a satisfying crunch. I hit it a couple of more times before I was satisfied.

“Geez, man,” Max said. “Why not just pull the battery?”

I left the remains of the phone where it was and sat down again next to Elspeth. “Any idea where we’re going?”

“No,” she said. “None whatsoever.”

“I hope they have women there,” Max mused. “And food.”