Hard Drop

by Will van Der Vaart

  “Worth what?” Shelley countered. “Your pay, your colleagues? Your time?!”

  “What pay?” Hog mouthed quietly, without smiling, but he ignored her.

  “It’s worth all that, and more.” He turned to face the group, manic energy shining through every pore of his skin. He stared at each in turn, settling on Flip with a hungry cruelty.

  “You’re new, aren’t you?” He said. “You’re not as broken as the others.” Chip flared his nostrils in fury, but Shelley pushed on. “Why did you join?”

  She hesitated, looking involuntarily towards Tyco, and Shelley pounced, smelling blood.

  “If you had any brains, you wouldn’t be a grunt.” He said, and pointed at Chip and Hog. “Them, they’re killers. They’re no good for anything else. But you – what the hell are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to make a difference.” Flip said, simply. Hog and Chip turned away, trying to hide the bitter embarrassment in their faces and failing.

  “You’ll have your chance.” Shelley said, coolly, strangely pleased with the response. He broke away from the team and headed for the ramp, savoring his victory in gloating silence.

  They made their way down the spiral ramp, going deeper and deeper into the structure until the landing above was almost invisible, obscured by the thin fog that rose from the seemingly bottomless shaft. It thickened as they went deeper, the moisture condensing and thickening, beading and rolling off the walls like dew as the temperature fell.

  They passed an array of slim, locked security doors, barely visible cracks in the smooth wall, marked only by the briefest interruption in the smooth lines, and a slight leveling of the ramp. Ten, maybe fifteen security gates melted away behind them, disappearing from sight sooner than they should, the optical illusion making them one with the wall again as soon as they passed.

  Still Shelley led on unbendingly, sure of his destination, muttering to himself quietly as he went. The team followed steadily behind, cautious as they navigated the ramp. The way down was easy, their boots providing good traction on the ramp underneath them, but Chip glanced unhappily back over his shoulder at the slope they had left behind. Their return would be decidedly harder.

  Shelley slowed, at last, in front of a nondescript door on an unmarked landing. They had descended at least ten stories, Tyco calculated, but the ramp showed no signs of ending below them. They might be halfway into the facility’s depths, probably even less than that, and his display was already breaking up, losing its link to the satellite above. He shook his head slowly, stunned at the scale of the structure.

  The door opened with Shelley’s clearance. The interior was familiar by now: the same dim, red emergency lights presided over the same orgy of vengeful destruction, the floor awash with twisted metal and broken glass. But the composition of the debris was different here.

  Metallic limbs, broken, morbid eye sockets, and dull glass eyes peered out from below, disturbingly lifelike and human. Wiring was ripped from metal skulls, limbs twisted and burned, lying in dismembered heaps. It reminded Tyco of the highway underpass and the grim carnage they had seen there, only transposed onto digital forms. If anything, it was even more vicious here, as if the attackers had taken pains to separate these creatures from any trace semblance to humanity. In the process they had made them macabre, unperishing victims of a bloodless genocide.

  The humanoid figures were not alone. There were others, smashed and broken as well, with strange, grotesque animal features. A ribbed, crab-like exoskeleton lay broken into segments. Next to it, a scorpion's tail lay, coiled eerily as if ready to strike even in death. Long, spindly legs, their surface area dotted with smashed sensors, were scattered over the floor, remnants of a mechanical horror Tyco could not put his finger on. He shook his head, marveling at the ruined ingenuity on display, trying to piece together what each model been made for. He gave up, finally, the pieces too many and too broken to recombine in his head, and moved towards the locked, battle-scarred security door at the far end of the room.

  “You should have seen it before they came through.” Shelley said, proudly, brushing aside a thin, fractured wing with his foot. “This was a cathedral of scientific advancement. This was the nerve center. This was my laboratory.” He glared back at the team with proud defiance. “This alone would have been worth your…sacrifice.”

  He stood in the middle of the room and turned to them like a teacher at an art exhibition, worried his students were not following. He looked from trooper to trooper, settling on Chip, ignoring the blank apathy stared back at him.

  “I doubt that.” The sniper said, hurling the words into Shelley’s face.

  “Of course you do.” Shelley concluded, deflated. “That’s how it started, here, in this facility. With too many people and too little vision. They were like you, exactly like you, always looking for threats when all I gave them was opportunity.”

  Tyco stared at Shelley, taking in the man's proud, defiant expression, considering the angry set of his jaw. And then, little by little, the picture came into focus.

  “It was MAP-11.” He said, with certainty, the truth dawning on him unquestioningly. “This rebellion wasn’t an accident. MAP-11 caused it.” And he looked at Shelley, waiting for the confirmation he knew would come. “I don’t know how, but that weapon caused it. That’s why the army deserted, isn’t it?”

  Shelley smiled with sickening superiority. “I like you.” He said. “You’re the clever one. Maybe you’ll understand what you’re about to see. Maybe you’ll be wiser than the others.”

  And he turned towards the security door, brushing past Tyco.

  “You’ll need my help for this one.” He nodded over his shoulder, his fingers nimbly locating a small latch in the wall.

  A console emerged, raising a small biometric scanner from the control panel. Shelley bent low over it, letting the red eye read his own. The sensor came to life, shuddered, and beeped. The light over the door shifted abruptly, from a dim red to a bright white, until it finally turned a solid green. The door behind it hissed open.

  “Showtime.” Shelley said, and chuckled darkly as the door slid open.

  SEVENTEEN: DISCOVERY

  They entered a long, narrow chamber, high and vaulted like the antechamber of a cathedral. It was lit by the dim glow of the blue fluorescent liquid running through a dozen interconnected machines lining the metal walls. Tubes snaked out of each, twisting and interconnecting, running the length of the room until they converged at a central console, a platform framed by a series of display panels, at the far end of the chamber.

  The machines were intact, miraculously: the destruction had not made it this far, and the equipment was functional and untouched, other than a small, steady leak from the tubes above.

  The same was not true for the bodies on the floor. A dozen soldiers lay in small clusters, surrounded by spent casings, still clutching their weapons in their hands. They were dead, long dead, there was no question about that. Their limbs were draped at horrific angles, bodies mangled and broken as if by some sudden, unexpected impact, eyes wide with fear.

  “Chip.” Tyco said in a calm monotone, and nodded towards the corpses.

  Chip bent low over one, brushing aside his collar, searching for a mark on his neck. There was none. “Clear.” He announced. “These are ours.”

  Tyco nodded grimly, indicating for Hog and Flip to fan out. They did, as much they could in the tight space, eyes straining to peer into the shadows.

  “I made only one mistake with MAP-11.” Shelley said. “Just one.” He had continued forwards, pressing on quickly into the chamber, still certain of his destination. He turned, now, to face the troopers, convinced of the solemn gravity of what he was about to say. “When we finished, I insisted the whole facility should have a small demonstration.” He shrugged in grudging apology. “That was my mistake. I was just…proud.”

  “Lesson learned…” Flip muttered under her breath. Hog looked at her sidelong, nodding her approval. She
watched warily as Shelley continued his lecture.

  “But that doesn’t change the fact: a hundred years from now, two hundred, everyone will know what happened here.” He stopped significantly, a smile spreading across his face. “They will know my name.”

  Hog rolled her eyes, but Shelley, distracted, didn’t see it. Something ahead had caught his eye, and he set off at a run towards it.

  “Doctor - !” Tyco shouted, in warning, but he waved him off, sure of himself, slowing only slightly as he approached the central console, covered and surrounded in one large pile of bodies.

  Tyco gave chase, catching up quickly as Shelley came to a stop, staring down at the corpses draped over the control panels.

  “Doctor,” He repeated, more quietly. “What the hell is going on here?”

  But Shelley didn’t answer, just kept staring down.

  “Chip, check the angles!” Tyco called as he swung forwards.

  Chip whirled around quickly, sweeping his rifle over every corner of the chamber, double-checking to ensure they were not threatened. “Clear.” He said, hushed, but loud enough for Tyco hear.

  And then Shelley began pulling at the corpses, his frame shaking as he strained to move them, digging at what lay beneath them. They slid off slowly, horrifically, falling limply to the side one by one.

  Heavy breathing broke through the sound of Shelley’s efforts, muffled at first, but swelling ever louder as the bodies fell away until it filled the room, the metal floor shuddering with every shallow breath.

  Shelley pulled away the last body and stood, red-faced and breathing hard, staring down at what he had uncovered. “What have they done to you?!” He breathed in anguish, slowly extending his arm towards the form at the center of the pile.

  Tyco stepped forwards, eyes going from Shelley to the form and back, unable to see what doctor was reaching for, tensed and ready to leap into action at the slightest provocation. Every piece of their current situation sounded alarm bells in his head, and he was not going to be caught by surprise. The rifle in his hands felt light, the heaviness from earlier now gone. They had reached the moment of reckoning at last, and Tyco was ready. He stared as Shelley’s hand dropped lower and lower, until it finally touched the cold metal below with strange and exquisite tenderness.

  The pile exploded in a blur as the form erupted to full height, shaking of the remaining bodies and launching itself up at its tormentors. Tyco moved to cover Shelley immediately, shoving the doctor aside and raising his rifle to fire. He stared into the writhing mass before him, unable to find any point of focus or articulation. His rifle sight was a blur of shining metal, uncoiling seemingly without end, catching what little light there was and flashing brightly, unevenly in the darkness.

  And then it turned, and Tyco got his first glimpse into a shifting mass of scales, a roiling length of armor that culminated in what looked like a helmet. It reared and reached its full height, staring down at Tyco through a solid black, impenetrable visor. He hesitated, finger freezing on the trigger of his rifle as he stared up to meet its gaze.

  An arm whipped out in the dark, heavy and metallic, catching Tyco around the midsection and throwing him across the room before he could react. He landed against the wall with a dull thud, rolling to his knees instinctively, his chest heaving as the wind was knocked out of him.

  Every safety in the room unlatched as the creature groaned and turned towards the team, hulking and angry and malevolent.

  “Cap, Cap, you ok?!” Hog shouted, and Tyco wheezed, trying to regain his breath.

  Shelley stood frozen at the front of the room, small in the shadow of the creature towering over him, staring up at it with a mixture of wonder and pride. It stepped forwards into the light, coming into clear view for the first time.

  It looked human, recognizably so, but it was enormous: a good head taller than any of the team, its arms and legs giant and rippling, muscular under their armor. The armor, too, was imposing: the scales Tyco had seen were myriad, a thousand, even a million interlocking parts, shifting constantly, overlapping and joining into a vibrant, impenetrable wall.

  But the true magnificence of the mass now towering over the team was neither its armor nor its build: it was the movement of the thing inside. Clumsy as it first came back to life, it stepped forward now with a heaving grace and economy of movement that rivaled Ghost’s. It was a far cry from the clumsy machinery they had passed in the laboratory antechamber: this creature had been made to fight.

  It stood tall in the center of the console, breathing hard, a mere thirty yards from the team, its dark visor swiveling slowly to take in the room. Only now they saw the blood caked across its armor, the chips and bullet marks skidding and screaming across the metal surface. Flip glanced at the corpses below involuntarily, the brutal wounds in their flesh suddenly coming into stark focus.

  “Cap, can we fire?” Chip shouted, finger already squeezing the trigger.

  Shelley went purple with anger, stepping forward in front of the group.

  “No! He shouted. “No! Stop this instant!”

  The team froze, waiting on Tyco’s word, weapons raised and ready to fire.

  “Drop your weapons!” Shelley continued. “Or it will attack.”

  No one did. Tyco rose to his feet slowly, determined fury in his eyes.

  “What the hell is this, Doc?” He demanded, staring directly at the creature unflinchingly.

  “This.” Shelley said with distinct pride. “Is Mechanical Android Prototype-11.”

  Tyco nodded slowly, and brought his rifle to his shoulder. “MAP-11.” He said, as if he had expected this all along.

  But Chip stared, disbelieving, looking from Shelley to the creature above.

  “This is your weapon?” He gasped. “This is what you’re so proud of?” He stepped towards it, gun still raised, completely unafraid. “This is what we’ve died for?”

  Shelley stared at Chip in outraged silence, the shock of Chip’s outburst leaving him unable to speak. He stared at him furiously across the room, mouth moving in an agonized stutter, the words unable to keep up as his mind went wild with fury.

  Chip laughed harshly, his laughter rising to fill the narrow chamber.

  “Nice one, Doc.” He said at last. “It’s a machine on stilts!” He shook his head and the same weary frustration that had spilled out in the city below was back in full force. “It’s not worth it,” He said with threatening calm. “It’s never fucking worth it.”

  The creature turned its head to focus on the sniper as he clenched his teeth with fury, identifying the primary threat in the stunned, tense silence of the chamber.

  “I’ll put it out of its damn misery.” Chip said, at last, and took aim with full, lethal intention, racking his rifle with grim emphasis. “Step aside, Doc.” He said, aiming the barrel directly through Shelley.

  The creature stirred, bending forwards and crouching low until it was eye level with Chip, staring him down across the distance between them. It turned its head first one way, then the next, as if taunting him. Playing a calm, malicious game of chicken.

  “You couldn’t if you tried.” Shelley fired back. “You can’t begin to know what it is.”

  “We know exactly what that thing is.” Hog said dismissively, finding her voice. “The briefing was right: it’s a weapon, nothing more than that.”

  “And what are you?” Shelley demanded, standing his ground. “The only difference between you and it is that it’s faster, stronger – and better.” He stared at Tyco, ignoring the rest of the team. “It’s not just a weapon, it is the perfect weapon. It is a flawless machine, and – unlike you – it does not fail.”

  “If that’s true,” Hog said, “Why are we here to save it?”

  “You’re so naïve.” Shelley said, seething with fury, the self-righteous anger inside him reaching its boiling point. “But I guarantee you, if you don’t drop your weapons, you will learn quickly.”

  MAP-11 stirred as if to punctuate his word
s, rising from its haunches and stepping past Shelley and out onto the metal walkway.

  “Cap!” Chip called out, desperate to fire.

  Tyco had found his feet and now stood, head pounding, staring up at the snarling beast before them. It was massive, brutish, and threatening; he could see now why the rebels had turned. It was dangerous, that was clear, wild and out of control, and it had attacked. If it was a weapon, it was unpredictable, and his training screamed for him to give the order, to put it down with everything they had, Flip’s launcher included. Shelley’s defense did nothing to convince him otherwise, and he raised his rifle to his eye.

  But there was something else, something that caught his eye through the scope, and Tyco hesitated. The armor glistened as it shifted in the darkness, its surface shining a dull black against the blue light. Something slick and dark ran down it, dripping onto the floor below.

  This mechanical, robotic creature was bleeding.

  It took another step, shaking the structure under its weight, closing the distance to the team quickly. Its limbs twisted as it did, wrenching as the creature’s massive weight caused it to shudder with every step. Not only was it bleeding, it was in pain.

  “He’s…human.” Tyco said, confused, his voice trailing into the darkness.

  “Yes.” Shelley said, pleased. “But better than that.”

  Without taking his eyes off of the beast, he turned slowly towards Shelley. “You created…life here?”

  The creature continued its advance, its dark visor now threatening and ominous overhead. Tyco stared up at it, nodding to himself slowly. “That’s what started the rebellion.”

  “Nonsense.” Shelley answered tersely, staring at the team in fury and derision. “This is an advancement, a wonder of modern science. The rebellion was the work of human frailty, nothing more. Now drop your weapons, before it’s too late!”