Landquaker

by Dean F. Wilson

 They opened another door, and jumped back when they found Taberah there, sitting down on a chair, arms folded. The soldiers who had tied her up lay dead upon the ground, strangled by the ropes that previously bound her. They had not tied them tight enough.

   “Finally,” she said. She was a little bruised, her fiery hair plunging out of her cap. She looked a lot more like the leader of the Order then, and the image in the Wanted posters.

   “You!” Azrion cried.

   “Just me,” she replied. “Next time don't leave children to restrain me.”

   Azrion raised his gun. “There's another prison you can't escape from.”

   Jacob pointed his own at Azrion. “Put it down, Lieutenant. I can vouch for her.”

   “She's in on it with Tardo!” Azrion protested.

   “Trust me,” Jacob said, “she's not.”

   Azrion turned to Lorelai, as if he could sense the demon in her. “What do you think, Elizah?”

   Taberah's eyes lit up, and she might as well have been ablaze, for a rage burned through her, and she leapt at Azrion, knocking him to the ground. His gun went off, but it fired into the ceiling, and she knocked the gun away. Her hands flayed, and her hair flayed with them. She bashed and clawed at him. “You don't get to say that name!” she roared. “You don't get to say it!”

   Jacob tried to drag her off, but she pushed him back into Lorelai. She kept bashing Azrion until her knuckles were bruised and bloodied, and his face was worse. At any other time he might have overpowered her, but years of sorrow gave her strength, and she used it all on him, as if he was singly responsible for it all. As she broke his nose and bloodied his eyes, she saw Domas in his features, and crushed them even more.

   “Help me,” he called out weakly to Jacob.

   “Sorry, mate,” Jacob replied, “but I warned you that there were Resistance commandos on board.”

   In time, he had to pull Taberah off the bludgeoned lieutenant, but by that time he was already dead. Her hands were covered in blood, and it was impossible to tell which was hers. The reality was that most of it was his.

   “Are you okay?” Jacob asked, helping her to her feet. He handed her his handkerchief to wipe her hands clean.

   “I am now.”

   “Maybe that was … a little overkill.”

   “For these demons, Jacob,” she said, glancing at Lorelai, “that's just what they need.”

  They continued on, catching up with Brooklyn and Whistler, who were strolling through the corridor. With no more Regime soldiers under his command, Jacob was finally able to focus on the real mission: finding the control room, and wrestling back control of the railway gun.

   They searched several more rooms, a few empty, a few others housing soldiers priming weapons for the gun ports. To these Jacob made a vague, unobjectionable command, and gave the now familiar salute. The soldiers were so focused on the battle, they did not realise it waged inside as well.

   The next room the team searched was not empty. They found someone hiding behind several barrels.

   “Stay back!” Tardo shouted, firing a token shot in their direction.

   “Stand down, soldier,” Jacob called out.

   “Long live the Resistance!” Tardo cried.

   Jacob laughed. “You know, we're actually on your side.”

   He dodged another bullet. Maybe not.

   “You can kill us, but more will take up the banner!” the soldier yelled. He sounded like a new recruit. Resistance veterans just were not that enthusiastic.

   “Hell, Tardo, we are the Resistance!” Jacob shouted back.

   There was silence for a moment, and then Tardo peeked out. “You are?”

   “I'd try to prove it to you, but I'm currently … you know, undercover.”

   “Well … uh … what's the password?”

   “There's no password, idiot,” Taberah replied.

   “Right. Just checking.”

   “Look, Tardo, we're trying to take back this thing,” Jacob said.

   “Landquaker,” Brooklyn said.

   Saying that name helped. Few in the Regime would utter it, as if the very name might make the Iron Wall crumble.

   Tardo came out slowly and approached even slower.

   “We're the commandos I was talking about,” Jacob explained.

   Tardo's face lit up. He pointed at Taberah, his hand shaking. “You're the Scorpion!” He looked at Jacob. “I don't really know who you are. I expected Rommond to have a moustache.”

   “I shaved it off,” Jacob said.

   “Really?” Tardo exclaimed, his eyes widening.

   “No,” Jacob said. “I'm not really anybody, Tardo, but if you have to put me on a Wanted poster, you can call me Spider.”

   Tardo bit his lip. “Sorry about … hitting you back there.”

   “Join us and we'll call it even.”

   Tardo gave the Resistance salute.

   “Yeah,” Jacob said with hesitation. “Probably better to stick to the other one in here.”

   “Oh!” Tardo said. “Y-y-yes! Of course!”

   “We need to keep moving,” Taberah urged.

   Tardo's excitement was palpable. “Oh, I heard you were full steam ahead!”

   She glared at him.

   “Maybe you can help us,” Whistler suggested.

   “We're trying to find the control room,” Jacob added.

   Tardo shook his head. “You won't get in there.”

   “We have to.”

   “Don't worry,” Taberah said, holding up a small cannister of thermite that she had strapped to her belt. It could burn through almost anything. “We brought our own key.”

   “It's not opening the door I'd be worried about,” Tardo said. “It's the Conductor.”

  29 – THE CONDUCTOR

  The length of the Landquaker was patrolled by the elite of the elite, a masterpiece of the Iron Guard. They called it the Conductor, and it was more machine than any of its kindred, having undergone many transformations at the hands of the Regime's mechanics and surgeons. It was one and a half times the height of an average man, its spine elongated, its ribs replaced with metal plating, its skull an iron helm, its eyes mere openings into a furnace, so that when it stared at someone, they only saw fire. There was so little left of the man beneath, and people were not entirely sure if it was just one man that was the basis for this creation, or if the parts of many were used, swapped out like cogs in a machine.

   The Conductor walked through the isle of the train, turning its head from side to side as it passed by the cabins, creating a metal rhythm as its iron feet struck the ground. Its back was hunched, and its legs were arched, suggesting a kind of stalking motion as it walked. Its arms swung like pendulums, and its hands were formed into eternal mechanical claws, ready at any moment to seize those who should not be on board.

   Rommond had warned Jacob's team about this threat. Normal soldiers might fall for their disguise, but the general knew that the Iron Guard would not. Their memory was enhanced, to help them more easily identify their targets, but in the Conductor's case, it helped it remember who was a genuine soldier, and who was an imposter. Jacob could not just walk by. He had smuggled his team on, but he would have to smuggle them through as well.

   They had to get to the control room, which was close to the centre of the vehicle. They were slightly closer to it on this side of the Landquaker, but that meant nothing when the Conductor was in their way.

   “I'm kind of wishing I had one of Rommond's fancy guns right now,” Jacob said.

   “They'd be no good against the Conductor,” Taberah replied. “He's the toughest of the lot.”

   “Kind of wish Soasa was here then.”

   Taberah let out a tiny sigh. “So do I. But for now, I'll have to do.”

   Jacob smiled. “I'm sure you're more than enough.”

  They continued on slow
ly, averting their gaze when troops marched past, and doing a little forced marching of their own. Every cabin now seemed occupied, and they dared not search them, knowing they might find the barrel of a gun.

   Tardo led them forward, telling them how close they were getting to the control room, yet constantly reminding them that they would not make it. Even the Regime crew feared the Conductor, and did not stand in the way of its patrols.

   Then they felt it. There was a shudder in the grating below their feet, a rattle of any metal not fitted tightly enough. They heard the reverberating footsteps of the Conductor approaching, and it seemed like it was treading on their hearts. Panic swept through them, as if it were an ally of the Iron Guard. It struck Tardo most of all, and he trembled where he stood.

   “Quick, we need to hide,” Jacob said.

   They ran in all directions, pulling at doors, racing back down the way they had come. At first it looked like some of them were running together, but when Whistler found himself in someone's bed-chamber, he found himself there alone. Almost alone. There was sleeping passenger behind him, whose loud snores were only slightly reassuring.

   Whistler held his breath as the giant silhouette of the Conductor passed slowly by. It was such a daunting shape, a monstrous form, that it seemed to seep into the room. At the very least, it stayed in Whistler's mind.

  Jacob rushed into the next room, closing the door quickly, and panting out a sigh. He turned to find three commanders hunched over a table with a map of the battlefield. One was frozen mid-pointing, while the others looked at Jacob in surprise.

   The smuggler immediately straightened up and marched to the table. “Sorry I'm late,” he said. “There were … pressing matters to attend to. Now, where were we?”

   “Who are you?”

   “Gainsley. Albert Gainsley.”

   One of the commanders furrowed his brow. “Isn't he dead?”

   Jacob could see the realisation in their eyes, and their shifting hands reaching for their guns. He dived at them, knocking one of them to the ground, barely evading the bullet fired by another. He rolled around just in time for the commander on top of him to receive the second bullet. He struggled up, even as the first commander was reloading, only to be seized by the second and thrown across the room, where he whacked against a chest of drawers, which broke apart behind him. He scrambled up, grabbing a splintered plank and knocking out the armed commander. The other one charged at him, pressing him into the wall, where he left a mark. They tossed and turned with each other, pushing back and forth, breaking almost every piece of furniture in the room. The walls were imprinted with the highlights of the fight. Then, when the final commander had Jacob pinned to the floor, lying upon the tattered battle map, Jacob reached out around him, trying to grab anything, until he found a glass paperweight, which he promptly smacked the man in the skull with. He fell, dripping blood upon the miniature battlefield.

   Jacob pushed the commander off of him and struggled up. He looked a lot more dishevelled now, not befitting of someone of his rank. More like my old self, he thought, as he gathered his breath.

   He thought he better get out of there. The uniform did not amount to much if he was caught standing in a pile of commander blood. He wondered what happened to the others, if they had made it away in time, or if the Conductor had made them pay the highest fare of all.

  30 – GHOST TRAIN

  In her retreat from the Conductor, Taberah also found herself alone. She was not sure exactly where she was on the Landquaker. The interior was bland, and it looked like the walls had been stripped bare. The corridor and the rooms all looked the same. This was Rommond's baby, not hers.

   The lights seemed a bit darker in this part of the carriage. The oil lamps were low. She could no longer hear the shudder of the Conductor's footfalls, but she did not fancy turning back. She thought Rommond must have had some ventilation shafts installed somewhere. Maybe she could find her way around.

   She stopped in her tracks. She thought she saw something out of the corner of her eye. She thought it looked small, and a little bit like her. She thought it looked a lot like a little girl.

   She turned quickly, but it was gone. Perhaps it was never there to begin with. But there was a different feeling in the carriage, the kind of feeling she had many years before, when she was chasing ghosts throughout Altadas.

   “Elizah?” she called out, her voice quivering.

   There was no answer.

   She pressed forward, slowly, her boots sounding louder against the floor than they did previously. Every sight and sound was accentuated, as if it had to be to see those subtle sights and hear those barely audible sounds that came from the spirit world.

   Then she saw her, a little girl, maybe five or six, her fiery red locks tumbling down her shoulders. She had pudgy cheeks, just a little of the baby left in her, and she had a smile, the kind of smile Taberah saw in her dreams.

   Taberah fell to her knees. “Elizah,” she whispered.

   The girl approached, and the lights flickered as she walked. It seemed like she was walking too slow and too fast all at the same time. Maybe in the spirit world, there was no time.

   “I failed you,” Taberah said.

   Elizah placed her tiny hand on her mother's cheek. “You didn't fail me, mommy.”

   “I tried to save you,” Taberah sobbed. “I tried to bring you back.”

   “You can't do that,” the girl replied.

   “I know, but I tried, and I keep thinking maybe if I tried harder, if I fought harder—”

   “Fight for the other ones,” Elizah said.

   “The other ones?”

   “The other children, the other little lights they make go out.”

   “What can I do?” Taberah begged. “Tell me what to do.”

   “Find the ones who cut the cords.”

   “The Birth-masters?”

   “Do to them what they did to us.”

   Taberah paused, looking at her hands, which looked a little redder than they did before. “Kill them?” she asked.

   “Everyone has a mission,” Elizah said. “This one is yours.”

   The lights flickered again, and the girl was gone.

  31 – STAMPEDE OF THE OXEN

  The biker gang drove furiously through the sand, and the sound of their diesel engines preceded them. They drove in formation, with their leader, Lokk, at the front, and Ana Alakovi next in line. There were grim men and women there, the finest of the Oxen clan, but there were also several of the Copper Vixens, two women per bike, one driving, one brandishing a four-barrel shotgun.

   Alakovi was a big woman, tall and broad, with bulging arms and hands, but the bike she rode was bigger. It was made for the biggest and the best. She revved the engine as she drove, her rainbow-streaked hair flailing in the wind, her face grimmer than it ever was before. It bore several fresh scars, as if she had more than earned her new ride. It was a black bike, with silver between the chassis. They all were. Black was the colour of the Oxen clan. It was the colour of their bikes, and it was the colour of their leather. A wave of black rolled across the yellow sands.

   As the gang drew close, ports on the side of the Landquaker opened, and Regime soldiers pushed through machine guns. They began firing, but so did the bikers. Lokk took out the first gun, and all its gunners, with the first of his shotgun shells. The casing span into the desert behind, and Lokk loaded the next shell with a flick of the gun, keeping one hand firmly on the handlebar of the bike, and both eyes on the next port that opened up.

   The riders split in several directions, Lokk heading towards the front, Alakovi heading towards the rear. The Regime gunners spat bullets by the dozen, taking down several bikers as they passed.

   Bullets struck everywhere around the railway gun. Windows shattered, and people inside ducked and cowered. The giant barrel of the Landquaker could not reach the tiny gnats that roamed about
it, but there were many other barrels locking into place.

   Alakovi saw a port open near her, but she knew she could not shoot in time. She prepared to duck, knowing she was not an easy target to miss, and at the moment when she expected the click, she heard a commotion inside the railway gun. With a glance back she saw the machine gun hauled back inside, and she thought she heard Taberah's voice. What irony that it should be her that saved the Copper Matron.

  Rommond had barely crawled aboard the Landquaker when he was forced to evade the watchful gaze of the Conductor. The general dripped blood like breadcrumbs, so he knew that he was not so much hiding as fleeing. He just had to flee in the right direction.

   He knew the railway gun better than anyone, and found his way quickly through several passages that led to a hatch in the ceiling, which in turn led up to the roof of the vessel. He felt like he had been opening far too many hatches that day, but he knew that this was a quicker way to get to the control room. He could slip or fall, and it was a long enough way down, but at least he would not have to worry about the Conductor up there.

   He was wrong.

   As he hauled himself up, he heard the metal footsteps of that machine man drawing closer. The fear gave him new strength, and he clambered through the hatch all the quicker, and tried to get the door back on in time. Then he saw the top of the Conductor's gleaming head, and he froze, trying not to move or cast a shadow. Then a drop of blood betrayed him and leapt from his wounds, landing on the iron skull. The Conductor looked up, and the fire blazed brighter in his eyes.

   Rommond knew he had to run. He threw the hatch door away, where it almost struck one of the bikers below, and he hobbled up the ramp leading to the main roof. Even as he moved, he could hear the sound of metal fingers on the ladder behind him, the kind of metal fingers that might soon be around his neck.

   He raced on, his legs joining the conspiracy against him. In his mind, he was running. In his body, he was barely even limping along. At this rate he knew he would not make it. But if he got the Conductor out of the main hallway, he could at least buy the others some time, if they were even still alive. He wished somehow that someone could buy some for him.