Metal and Ash (Apex Trilogy) Read online

  “Oh, yeah, it’s really fast,” Norton replied, missing the sarcasm completely. “But I couldn’t even put a speed on it. It’s like Shiner becomes one with the mech itself.”

  “I was a mech,” Shiner stated. “Before I came to the snow and was uploaded into the bioorganic metal that is called biochrome. I was a mech of the wasteland. I have always been machine. There is no separation.”

  “Don’t you need to power down somewhere or something?” Morris asked. “Save that super computer brain of yours for tomorrow’s tests?”

  Shiner turned his head towards Morris, his body staying perfectly still. The effect gave Morris the shivers and he had to look away since all he saw was his own face distorted in the reflection off of Shiner’s shiny, blank faceplate.

  “Shouldn’t you secure the outpost, Security Chief?” Shiner asked, his voice dropping half an octave.

  Morris took a couple of steps back and moved towards the door. “Yeah, I think I’ll do that,” he said as he left the room. “Metal freak.”

  “Is it wrong that I enjoy upsetting Security Chief Morris?” Shiner asked.

  “You enjoy it?” Norton inquired, spinning in his chair. His face was only inches from Shiner’s and he put a hand against the bioborg’s chest. “Whoa, man. Scoot it back, will ya?”

  “My apologies,” Shiner said as he straightened and stepped back, giving Norton some room. “Is that better, Malachi?”

  “Much,” Norton smiled. “Now what’s this about you enjoying it? Explain.”

  “Would you like me to jack into the system so you can study the data of it?”

  “No, actually, I’d rather you tell me,” Norton said. “This is new territory, man. I want to hear it in your own words.”

  “Why will that matter?”

  “Because an AI with emotions is fascinating,” Norton said. “As far as I know you’re the only one.”

  “That would not be correct,” Shiner said, shaking his head. “There is Stomper. And many of the dead mechs in the wasteland and the Womb. They can think and feel. They all have AI emotions.”

  “Well, I can’t talk to your buddy Stomper,” Norton responded. “Wait…the Womb?” Shiner didn’t respond and Norton knew from experience not to push. “Okay, whatever. I’m not going anywhere below the containment shield and into that hellish wasteland to talk to any of those mechs, so you’re all I got.”

  “All I have,” Shiner corrected.

  “Don’t start, man,” Norton smiled. “I don’t need you correcting my grammar.”

  “Proper speech is important to clear, concise communication.”

  “True, but I think we communicate just fine.”

  “Because I use clear, concise speech.”

  Norton stared at Shiner for a couple of seconds. “Are you fucking with me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good one,” Norton laughed. “You’re learning.”

  “I enjoy fucking with you,” Shiner said as he attempted a tinny laugh.

  “Yeah, let’s not say that too much around the outpost, okay? That could be taken the wrong way.”

  “Of course, that is why clear, concise speech is important,” Shiner nodded. “It could also mean I am having sexual intercourse with you.” He paused briefly and waited as Norton took a sip from a water bottle near his workstation. “In your butt.”

  Norton spewed water everywhere, most of it coming out of his nose. “You asshole!” he grinned at Shiner. “You’re worse than Morris!”

  “Morris has sexual intercourse in your butt?” Shiner asked.

  “Knock it off!”

  ***

  LaFrance sat staring up at the gray ceiling of Outpost Tango Charlie’s meeting room, waiting for the answer.

  “But you haven’t told me if we can trust him,” LaFrance said, finally looking back at the personnel, seated about table.

  Morris and Norton were there, so was Special Teams Leader Gregory Knobel, LaFrance’s second in command, and Cassidy Campbell, outpost engineer and dog handler. Morris enjoyed calling her the “Mutt Slut”, but never to her face. Ever.

  “How do you know if you can trust anyone?” Norton asked rhetorically. “I expect Morris to snap at any second and kill us all in our sleep. I’ve even mentioned it to you, OC. But, yet, he’s still here.”

  “I’d never do it in your sleep,” Morris said as he shook his head. “The rooms are too spread out. I’d wait until we were all in one spot together. Get you idiots in one blow. Less work.”

  “Dogs don’t mind him,” Campbell said. She looked at everyone, bored. “I trust the dogs.”

  “That’s all you trust,” Morris said. “Your precious dogs.”

  “They don’t like you,” Campbell grinned. “So they haven’t let me down yet.”

  “Can we get back to the issue of Shiner?” LaFrance asked, tired of the bickering. “Is he stable?”

  All eyes fell on Norton.

  “Short answer: yes,” Norton responded. “He’s stable and I do trust him. Long answer? We can’t ever really know if we can ever trust anyone. I’m just glad he’s on our side.”

  LaFrance nodded, accepting the answer. “Good, good. Then let’s move onto the Americans.”

  “The ones in the boats or the ones in the wasteland?” Knobel asked. “The wasteland ones are being monitored at all times. I know nothing about the ones in the boats.”

  “I’ve got that covered,” LaFrance said. “I’ve spoken to their commanding officer Blue Masterson and their ETA for hitting the west coast is one week.”

  “Not a lot of time,” Morris said. “Will the shield be down by then?”

  “No,” LaFrance said. “And we can’t get it down from here.”

  “I’m sorry, what?” Knobel asked. He turned to Norton. “You can’t flip a switch?”

  “It’s specifically designed to not be switchable,” Norton replied. “It takes a coordinated effort from the shield station in what used to be Monterey. Although the shield station hasn’t been checked in forever. Who knows what it will take to get the shield down.”

  “That means we have to send someone down to coordinate with Capreze and his crew,” LaFrance said.

  “You want us to head into the wasteland?” Knobel asked. “That’s a lot of Hell between here and there. What the hell do we tell them?”

  “I’m going to work that out with Masterson,” LaFrance replied. “We have to keep Capreze informed, but we don’t know how much we can trust him. He and his crew have been under the impression that they are all that’s left between the human race and a few hundred thousand of the undead. If he knows how much they have been deceived for centuries he may not react well. I wouldn’t. He’s a Mech Base Commander and used to going to war as a first response. This will need to be handled delicately.”

  “What does Control have to say?” Morris asked. “Surely they should be the ones handling this.”

  “Control handles politics,” LaFrance laughed. “They don’t handle logistics. We get the grunt work while they negotiate with Masterson about how this will all shape out when we come out on top.”

  “If we come out on top,” Campbell said. “The League of Monarchies’ forces have us all outnumbered by ten to one if the sat scans are correct.”

  “They are,” Norton corroborated.

  “But we aren’t dealing with the LOM anymore,” LaFrance said. “It is now the Three that run things.”

  “Three what?” Morris asked.

  “We aren’t sure,” LaFrance replied. “Control says they have lost all contact with them. The Three must have assumed we’d side with the Americans.”

  “Strategically it would have made more sense for them to ally with us,” Knobel said. “We could swoop down and take the UDC Stronghold by surprise and then work our way out into the wasteland, neutralizing the remaining pockets of survivors.”

  “It would not be so easy,” Shiner said from the doorway. “The mech pilots are not to be underestimated.”

  “Ther
e’s only a handful of them,” Campbell said. “Thousands of us.”

  “Please join us, Shiner,” LaFrance offered. “I’d like to hear your take on this.”

  Shiner walked in and took a seat. The chair groaned under his weight and he shifted his BC mass to allow for better distribution.

  “The mech pilots are a team that is beyond military thinking,” Shiner explained. “They are trained for combat, but they are…a family.”

  “So?” Morris scoffed. “That’s more a weakness. It’ll distract them.”

  “No, you are wrong,” Shiner said, shaking his biochrome head. “It is their motivation. One goes down and they all fight harder, faster, smarter. You would be wrong to think otherwise. They do not mourn and hurt like others. Only after they have won do they let themselves feel.”

  “Well, it’s a good thing we’re going to be fighting with them and not against,” LaFrance said. “Anything else?”

  “Yes, sir,” Shiner said. “I should be the one to go to Monterey and deactivate the shield. I know the wasteland. I know the deaders.”

  “And he knows the dead mechs,” Norton said. “You all have seen the footage.” He looked at Knobel. “You’ve even seen them up close on mission. There’s a reason Capreze’s people are nuts. They have to fight those 50 ton monsters.”

  Three

  “ON YOUR MOTHERFUCKING RIGHT GODDAMMIT!” Bisby shouted at Masters as they maneuvered the transport down into the valley, trying to flank the dead mech One Arm while Mech Pilot Harlow and her oversized mech, Stomper, took the machine head on. “DO YOU KNOW HOW TO FUCKING DRIVE?!”

  “Stop fucking yelling at me, Biz!” Masters shouted back. “You want to drive? Oh, right, you can’t because you have one fucking arm!”

  “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 se
e 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.”