Landquaker

by Dean F. Wilson

   As the Conductor crawled out onto the roof, several of the bikers started firing shots at it from the ground. They were not diamond-tipped bullets, but it was a welcome distraction. It was just a pity the Conductor was mostly machine, because it did not distract so easily. Its eyes were firmly planted on Rommond. It remembered his face. It remembered his number on the target list. 001.

   The general trudged on, his breathing laboured, the pains in his body holding him back. He fired a token shot behind him, not stopping to take aim. He heard it clang off the metal casing that surrounded the Conductor's torso, and knew that soon he would feel the breaking of his own.

  On the ground, Lokk saw the Conductor leap onto Rommond. He barely knew the man, but he knew his mission, and he knew why Alakovi had come to him. If the general died, the Resistance would lose its focus, and the Regime would refocus to take down the next in line. It would not take them long to get to Ana, or get to him.

   Lokk revved his engine, and drove straight towards the Landquaker. To anyone watching, it looked like suicide. They might have thought he was trying to crash into the railway gun and ignite his engine. They might have thought he had given up hope, or was trying to hide from the Conductor in the shadow of the train. Instead, he leaned back, and the front wheel came off the ground. He drove on one wheel, the front one rising higher by the second. When he was close enough to the railway gun, he pressed a button on the handlebars, which sent a grappling hook up to the top of the vehicle. It locked into place, and the spring force pulled the bike up into the air, right onto the roof of the Landquaker, right into the body of the Conductor hunched over Rommond, knocking it off the other side, where it sent up a plume of sand like a mushroom cloud.

   Lokk reached down and offered his hand to the general. “Where you headin'?” he asked with a voice as thick as thunder, as if he guzzled down diesel as well as beer.

   “Halfway up,” Rommond said, clambering onto the back of the bike. “The control room's there.”

   “Hold on,” Lokk replied.

   They sped across the roof, skidding momentarily as the Landquaker started to move again, as the vessel rocked and rattled on the tracks. The sound of the bike must have alerted the soldiers inside, for here and there hatches opened, and soldiers popped up with guns at the ready. Lokk fired his shotgun at them, and Rommond took a second one from a cradle at the back, unloading a round at the next fool to inspect the noises on the roof.

   Rommond could see Nox's signature on the handle of the gun. It did not need it. The whole design had the Coilhunter written all over it.“I've got to get one of these,” he said, patting the barrel.

   Lokk smiled through his thick black beard. “You just did.”

   Another guard cast open the hatch door ahead of them, and Lokk jumped the bike right over the cowering man's head. Rommond clung on with one hand, while firing a shell with the other. He had lost a lot of blood, but he had not lost his aim.

   They continued across the roof, halting when Rommond indicated they were near the control room. Boy was he glad he did not have to hobble the entire way. He was even happier that the Conductor was not chasing him for his ticket.

   “Here,” Lokk said, casting Rommond a box of shells. “You'll need these. Nox is good, but he hasn't quite gone full revolver on these yet, so you run out quick.”

   “Thanks,” the general said, tipping his cap.

   “Don't thank me,” Lokk replied. “I'm only here 'cause of Ana. We do our own thing, the Oxen, but today we're doin' the same as you, tearin' down the Iron Wall.”

  32 – QUAKE

  Rommond lowered himself down the hatch, listening carefully for the sound of troops. It was very quiet, a lot quieter than he expected. It was more unsettling than the sounds of war, because he knew the war still raged around him.

   He peered around corners, finding his way back onto the main corridor, with not a soul in sight. He found he had to use the shotgun for support. The fatigue was really kicking in. He was so close to the control room now. He could feel the heat of the furnaces.

   He turned another few corners, and found Brooklyn there.

   “Come on, Brooklyn,” he said, hobbling on. “Let's finish this.”

   Perhaps he should have been paying more attention. There was something off about Brooklyn, something different.

   Rommond walked on, and Brooklyn followed. They reached the control room, which was sealed tight. The door was thick. Bullets could not pierce it. Even sound could not get through. Rommond placed his shotgun on the floor, groaning as he bent down, and then took his cannister of thermite from his belt. He got ready to break the seal.

   “I'm glad I have you with me for this,” he said, though he did not turn around, and therefore did not see the blank expression on Brooklyn's face. “This is the end of the road.”

   He grabbed the lid of the cannister and prepared to turn it open. Then he felt something at the back of his head. He knew it well enough to know that it was a gun, and he knew guns well enough to know that it was the pistol he had given Brooklyn.

   He sighed and closed his eyes.

   “Think about this, Brooklyn. This isn't you.”

   It did not matter who it was. It only mattered that they had a gun.

   Brooklyn's voice crackled. His timbre was lost in static. “Target acquired,” he said. “Target 001.”

   Rommond glanced at the shotgun on the floor, then to his holster, but knew he could not reach the revolver in time. He thought he could drop or dodge, but Brooklyn's gun was too close. Then he wondered if finally his time had come. He had escaped death before, probably more than his fair due. His debts were finally to be collected.

   He closed his eyes, and heard that tiny click, the mechanical equivalent of a death knell.

  The bullet felt like fire, a burn that pierced inside, branding him.

   Brooklyn fell, dropping his own branding iron. The shot fired, entering the wall. When he hit the floor, Brooklyn saw what at first looked like a Regime soldier, but then looked like Taberah, her hair partly tied up and partly tumbling, her uniform unkempt, her gun still smoking.

   Rommond turned. He already had his gun ready. The show was over. He did not want an encore.

   Brooklyn moaned and squirmed upon the floor, clutching the wound.

   “I didn't want to have to do this,” Rommond said, shaking his head.

   Brooklyn had no words, just murmurs of pain.

   Taberah kept her gun pointed at Brooklyn, and kept her finger ready to twitch.

   “Put that away,” Rommond told her.

   “You told me to keep an eye on him,” she said. “That was my task, and that's what I'm doing.”

   “He's down,” the general replied. “You can stand down too.”

   “You've got this?” she asked, with a hint of doubt. Then again, she always thought he did not have what it took to lead the Resistance. He never doubted her in that regard.

   “I've got this,” Rommond said, nodding slowly.

   “Don't blame me if you die,” she said. “I've enough ghosts haunting me.”

   She left the room, and for a moment it seemed like she stood outside, waiting to hear some attack, so that she could storm in and finish what she started, and get to say “I told you so.” It never happened, and her silhouette passed on the next fight, the shape of her gun still raised, and her finger undoubtedly still itching on the trigger.

   “Your first bullet,” Rommond said, crouching down to Brooklyn. “I remember mine. Oh, I'm surprised I do. So many years ago. I've had quite a few since then.”

   That faded look passed from Brooklyn's eyes. Rommond could see the man again, as if an invisible armour had fallen off. He was unplugged again. It was just a pity that a bullet was needed to sever the wires.

   Brooklyn looked like he wanted to talk, but could not, as if the machine in him prohibited it. Rommond wondered what he might have
said. It hurts, he thought, remembering his own first branding. It hurts like Hell. He watched Brooklyn's laboured breaths. Taberah got him in the back, like she often did, but this time she did it on orders, the kind of orders that Rommond hated to give. It knocks the breath out of you, he thought. He just hoped it knocked the Regime out of Brooklyn too.

   “Let's get you cleaned up,” Rommond said.

   “No,” Brooklyn said with a sigh. “Just let me bleed.”

   Rommond's brow furrowed. “I would have taken that bullet in your gun. I would have taken it for you. Would you have let me bleed?”

   Brooklyn could not hold his gaze. “I would have made you bleed. That is why I should bleed instead. Let me leave this world, Rommond. I do not belong here any more. I am not me any more.”

   Rommond did not stir. “I believed in you when you stood in Blackout among the Iron Guard. I knew then that deep beneath the wires, there were arteries that pumped blood—your blood. I believed in you then when I could barely see your face. Don't tell me to give up on you when I can see you more.”

   “You see a memory,” Brooklyn said. “I see it too. But it is fading.”

   “It is stronger than it has ever been.”

   “You believe. I wish I could believe it too.”

   “Don't give up on me, Brooklyn. I won't give up on you. I gave up before when I thought you were dead, when I should never have given up. I should have stayed strong for you. I should never have trusted their words, their lies.”

   “You should have never trusted me,” Brooklyn whimpered. “I told you I would betray you.” He held up his hand, which, though it was metal, quivered before him. “This … this is not my hand. This is theirs. They made it. They own it.” He pointed to himself with his other hand. “They own me.”

   “They don't,” Rommond said. “Their devices make up only a portion of you. The rest of you … is still you.” He tried to hold Brooklyn's hand, his real hand, his human hand, but Brooklyn took it away, as if the Regime had ordered him to.

   “They own enough that it does not matter.”

   Rommond shook his head violently. “What about your mind? What about your soul?” He paused, then placed the palm of his hand on Brooklyn's chest. “What about … your heart?” There was a waver in his voice, which he tried to bury.

   Brooklyn looked at him this time, instead of away from him. There was resignation in his eyes, that same look that so many saw in Rommond when he thought Brooklyn was dead. It was the same look, because Brooklyn thought that he was dead too.

   “Stay with me, Brooklyn, please,” Rommond begged. “I can't lose you again. I'm not sure there's enough of my heart left to break.”

   It was not the voice of a general, a commander, a superior. It was the voice of a partner, a lover, a confidante. It was not so certain. It was not so stern.

   “How can I stay?” Brooklyn asked. “I do not know who I am any more.”

   “You're Kia-ooba-lukassa,” Rommond said softly. “You're Brooklyn.”

   Taberah came back in. It seemed she had not gone far, and was listening at the door.

   “You're not alone, Brooklyn,” she said. “I lost myself, and I'm not sure I've found me again. Sometimes things just stay lost. And sometimes you just need to search harder.”

   Brooklyn shook his head. “I do not know where to look. I feel I am in prison. Why search if I can only search my cell?”

   “Then let's find your jailer first,” Taberah said. “Let's set you free.”

  33 – ALMA MATER

  Alakovi saw the Conductor as it fell to the ground, and she also saw it get back up just as quickly. She knew that Lokk could get Rommond where he needed to be, but not if that mechanical beast was chasing them. It had to be stopped or slowed. That was her task.

   She pressed the horn on her bike, sounding the alarm, issuing the biker battle cry. The other Copper Vixens turned and rallied to her, abandoning whatever they were doing. There was the sound of revving engines, and the sight of steam, and the smell of oil. All of the Vixens converged on the Conductor, with the Copper Matron leading the charge.

   She fired from her shotgun as she approached, but the bullets bounced off the metal plating. The force of the blast pushed it back, but it only stalled it. It was not her idea of a solution, but stalling would have to do. The bikes circled around it, creating a whirlwind of dust, as if they too could summon dust devils to mask their travel. The Vixens pummelled the machine creature with bullets, some of which almost struck their own on the other side. But still the Conductor stepped forward, ignoring the iron and the sand.

   It seized one of the Vixens as it approached, tearing her from her bike, knocking the other one off, and letting the bike spin off and topple over. The woman screamed and kicked as the metal gauntlet closed around her throat, muffling her screams and weakening her kicks.

   The sound was like an alarm of its own to the Copper Matron, who stopped her bike and turned once against to the Conductor, casting aside her shotgun, placing both hands firmly upon the handlebars. Instead of a bullet, she fired her bike at the beast, driving straight into it as fast as she could. It tumbled, and she tumbled, and the dead Vixen tumbled from its hand. She rolled in the sand for a moment, but as she rolled she saw the lifeless face of one of her own. She clambered up, letting out a terrible roar, and she raced over to the Conductor, which was now attempting to climb up the side of the Landquaker. She seized it with her strong hands, hands cracked and weathered, conditioned by harsh life, hands that might as well have been iron. She dragged that ton of metal limbs from the railway gun and flung it through the air. As soon as it landed, it began to straighten up again.

   The Vixens circled it once more, but this time the Conductor grabbed two of them and held them up by the shoulders, before driving their heads together with such force that it crushed their skulls. The bellow Alakovi let out then was like the combined cry of every mother who witnessed the death of their child at the hands of an attacker. It was a wild cry, and the Copper Matron felt the wilderness welling up inside her, struggling to get free.

   She charged, her feet cracking the parched earth beneath her, her boots leaving little graveyards in the sand. Despite her size and stature, she moved like lightning, and she growled like thunder, and when she struck the Conductor, her grasping claws outreached, she hit like a tidal wave. It fell, and she fell upon it like a hammer. If it was an anvil, it was about to be crushed.

   She punched it with her fists, striking metal and wire and tubing. It struggled with her, grasping her arms and kicking her from it. Then it restored its eyes on Rommond on the roof. He was the priority. He was Target 001.

   It marched back to the halted Landquaker, and began to climb again, creating climbing hooks by punching the tips of its fingers through the chassis. Yet as it climbed, Alakovi came upon it once more, tearing it down, leaving the markings of its claws in the hull. It tried another time, but she pulled it down, and another, but she took and it held it to the ground this time.

   The force with which she punched its face, or whatever it was it had for a face, broke her own fingers and knuckles, and left huge dents in the metal. Sparks spat from the wounds, as if to solder up her own. She yelled through the stabbing pain, using that pain to stab back with her buckled hand.

   But the Conductor did not feel pain, and it had no empathy to feel hers either. It had nothing but its mission, which made it more deadly than a human or a demon. It grabbed her right arm and snapped it. She cried out, and the Vixens heard her cry, and the Conductor heard it, but it was completely unmoved by it. While the Iron Wall fenced off the Regime territory, the Conductor was its own kind of wall, falling upon and crushing people, feeling nothing but their bodies beneath its iron bricks.

   She wrapped her left arm around its right one and tugged it from its socket, pulling out wires, freeing the tiny sparks from the prison of its body. It did not cry out, but she cont
inued to bash it, as if somehow deep inside her she thought she might find a part of it that could feel pain. She had already made a vow that it would. Now she was just fulfilling it.

   Yet it only needed one arm to throw her from it. She landed upon one of the fallen bikes. From there she could see several of the Vixens driving their own hogs into the Conductor, keeping it from the Landquaker, keeping it from its mission. In that moment she thought that perhaps that was pain to it, being unable to fulfil its sole task. But she wanted something more, something tangible.

   She grabbed a broken metal bar from the bike and launched herself at the Conductor again, whacking it across the head, hearing the awful clatter of crashing metal, and feeling the vibration rising into her one good arm like the aftershock of an earthquake. Again she pounded it, adding dints inside the dints, making it look more like the monster that it really was.

   Her fingers bled. The broken bones shattered even more, but still she bashed the creature with the splinters. With her other hand she clawed at wires behind the Conductor's head, tearing out everything she could. The fires in its eyes weakened, but they did not fully go out.

   Its right hand twitched, but did not reach to strangle her, but its left hand still had all its strength. It reached for her face, seizing her by the nose and chin. It clasped so tightly that she felt her jaw shatter, and her nose broke in place. She screamed out and shook its claw from her, before it kicked her once again into the sand.

   It rose up, but now its walk was disjointed. Its right arm hung from its tendons made of wires, and oil leaked out from it like blood. It clutched the side of the Landquaker, even as it started to shift, but Alakovi was there again, clutching it in turn. She head-butted the back of its head with such force that its face went through the hull of the train. It struggled to dislodge itself, and the railway gun pulled it along slowly as its wheels ramped up. Alakovi was dragged with it, and she struggled to break through its own hull, reaching in to the delicate wiring beneath.