Seppukarian_NEW WORLD DISORDER

by George Mahaffey

  Before the sun rose, I climbed into Spence and powered off around the hangar, searching for the target range and obstacle course that Jennings had mentioned. I figured I’d try and get some training before everyone else got up.

  I piloted the Spence mech haltingly along a depression that lay on the other side of a series of outbuildings that contained supplies for the compound. Creeping up over a ridge, I descended the backside, easing down into a field that was littered with various objects, cars, rusted machines, oversized tires, and various barricades and platforms made of plywood and building scraps.

  There were four fifty-gallon drums stenciled “ammo” on the outside that appeared to be filled with color-coded bullets, sabets, and rockets. I lowered the mech into a crouch and then exited it and gathered up some of the ammunition. Thirty-millimeter soft-polymer rounds were slotted into the cannons and dozens of seventy-millimeter, three-inch flash-bang rockets gingerly placed into the pods. Then I reentered the mech and took aim at an old washing machine that was probably seventy yards away.

  I squeezed off a rocket, but it flew wide and slammed into the ground, sending up geysers of dirt. I fired another rocket, and this one screeched to the left. Figuring it might be easier to fire the cannons, I sent a few rounds downrange that peppered the ground around the washing machine but failed to notch a direct hit. Annoyed, I closed my eyes and waited for several seconds, trying to imagine the field before me. My eyes flashed open, and I instinctively fired two rockets that struck the washing machine dead center.

  From then on, things got easier. I began moving forward, to the sides, pulling up and crabbing back. I fired while on the run and while standing still, in kneeling positions, and after vaulting into the air. My aim continued to improve as I battered the target range.

  Pausing, I noticed that one of the rockets, though non-lethal, had ripped a hole in the fence that was visible through the treeline at the back of the range. I maneuvered the mech forward and looked outside to see the fractured remains of what had once been a section of Anacostia. Lines of rowhouses lay partially demolished alongside three and four-story apartment complexes that had been leveled or almost entirely burned to the ground. Most of the trees that had once stood either were dead or dying, and there were weeds everywhere, poking up through the cement, asphalt, and the various place were sewer, and water pipes had ruptured.

  Peering closer, I noticed targets placed strategically on various machines, cars, buses, large industrial equipment. There were also clear paths that had been cut through the jumbled ruins of the neighborhood. The paths appeared to have been created with the use of a bulldozer or other large, debris-moving machine and were wide enough for even the largest mech to stroll down. This is it, I thought. This is part of the area where the operators trained.

  Looking in both directions, I drove my mech forward, sliding down a small hill of refuse until I was in the middle of one of the paths. I walked the mech down and around a bend, glancing at the artifacts of the world before the aliens came. The bodies of the fallen had long since dissolved, but their belongings still lay in every direction. There were piles of electronics, broken phones, ruined tablets, and all the other useless crap that was discarded when the aliens first attacked. The casualty rate in the area had topped eighty-percent from what I’d heard, and those that survived had moved away. From what I could see, the only things that had returned to the area were animals. I saw several foxes and some rabbits and even a few wary deer that turned their heads in my direction. I waved at the deer who suddenly spooked as an alarm sounded in my mech and—

  WHAM!

  I was jackhammered by a silver blur that rammed into me, sending my mech flying through the air.

  24

  My mech traveled at least fifteen feet through the air.

  I hit the ground and rolled over like a quarter in a washing machine. Disoriented, I checked my viewscreen to see forms standing behind me. If that wasn’t sufficiently alarming, my mech’s engine was roaring like a furnace, the pistons that supported the turret popping and straining. I was worried the whole thing might overheat or break down, but I was able to coax everything back into line. I forced the machine into a standing position.

  And then I swung my mech around and saw them.

  The mech operators.

  Simeon, Baila, Dru, Billy, and Ren and Sato.

  They were seated in four fighting machines (Billy and Dru and Ren and Sato shared mechs) staring at me. I could tell from the fact that Simeon was out in front of the others that he’d probably been the one who sucker punched me. Anger flared inside me, and I cued the megaphone bolted to the underside of the turret. “WHAT THE HELL’S THE MATTER WITH YOU?!” I shouted.

  Simeon’s mech strode toward me. I could see the bastard smiling. “IF YOU MESS WITH THE BULL, YOU GET THE HORNS!” he screamed back. “THIS IS OUR ‘HOOD NOOB! YOU’RE TRESPASSING AGAIN!”

  Fine, I thought. If the operators wanted me to leave, that’s what I’d do. I was outgunned and outnumbered, so I thumbed my controls and tried to pass Simeon whose mech matched our every move, blocking me from getting past him. “IF YOU WANT TO PASS, YOU’VE GOT TO FIGHT YOUR WAY OUT!” Simeon said.

  “SCREW YOU!” I yelled in reply.

  I feigned movement to the right and then thrust my mech to the left. Simeon reacted and slammed down a leg that tripped my mech. I somersaulted forward in the machine, crashing to the ground again. I could see machine oil spurting from a hose on my right, front leg, which had been severed during the fall. I was pissed and saw red. Without thinking, I levered my mech up and brought back a fist and threw a punch at Simeon—

  Who dropped his mech to the ground.

  My fist missed his machine’s turret, the movement carrying me forward. I saw Simeon rise up behind me, his machine a good five feet taller than mine. He crouched and then kicked my mech in the back.

  I toppled forward into the dust and debris and could hear him cackling from behind. “GET UP, BITCH!” he shouted.

  I did, muscling the Spence mech up before running to the right. Dru and Billy blocked my way. I could see Baila urging Simeon to ease up, to let me pass, but he no intention of doing that. Realizing I was about to get my ass handed to me, I lowered my mech to the ground and grabbed a cement block.

  Simeon charged, and I hurled the cement at him like a fastball.

  The cement didn’t crack his cockpit, but it surprised him. His machine’s feet locked for an instant and I blitzed forward like a linebacker, lowering my mechanical shoulder. I jackhammered into his turret and knocked him back.

  The smile vanished from his face, replaced by something that resembled fear, and that was victory enough for me. He quickly recovered and dropkicked my machine so hard in the turret that I thought my ribs were going to break. The impact sent me fumbling back over a fire hydrant. I flopped on the ground and looked up to see Simeon descending on me, both fists raised when—

  BAM!

  A gunshot echoed.

  I looked over to see Richter holding a pistol. “CEASE FIRE!” he bellowed. I was able to right my mech as Richter walked between us.

  “The competition isn’t for two days!” he shouted.

  Simeon pointed at me. “This is our turf! He trespassed!”

  Richter glared at him. “This is everybody’s turf. We’re a team.”

  “He’s not on our team!” Simeon shouted as Dru and Billy mouthed off, agreeing with him.

  “I’m not debating you,” Richter said, gesturing to Simeon and the other mech operators. “Get going. All of you!”

  “And if we don’t?” Simeon asked.

  Richter squared up on Simeon, and even though the mech was more than ten feet taller than him, I swear he seemed to dwarf it in size and attitude. “I’ve got friends in high places, kid.” Richter snarled. “If you wanna try your luck with me, have at it, but I don’t think it will end well for you.”

  Simeon hesitated, then iced Richter with a final nasty look before bashing me w
ith something similar. Even though I was fifteen feet away from him, I could clearly see Simeon mouth the words “you are dead meat,” to me before signaling the other operators to leave. I watched the operators march back up the path and disappear from sight. My eyes hopped to Richter.

  “I’m gonna state the obvious here, dipshit,” Richter said.

  “I was holding my own, right?” I asked, my voice echoing over the megaphone.

  Richter shook his head. “Nope.”

  “I got my ass kicked?”

  Richter snapped his fingers. “That’s the one.”

  Richter spun on his heels and started heading back up toward the target range.

  “Hey!” I shouted. “Wait! You – where are you going?!”

  Richter looked back. “Back to my office.”

  “What? You just come down here and shoot off a gun and then you leave?”

  “Pretty much, yeah,” Richter replied.

  “You’re just gonna leave me here?”

  “What else am I supposed to do?”

  “Show me how to beat those guys.”

  “Are you nuts, kid?”

  “Absolutely, certifiably,” I replied. “Ask anyone.”

  “So, you want … what? Me to … coach you?”

  I moved my turret up and down to mimic a nod.

  “Why the hell would I do that?” Richter asked.

  “Because you see something promising in me.”

  Richter shook his head. Crap. Strike one. “Because you’re an honorable man and don’t want to see me get hurt?”

  Richter was silent. Shit! Strike two.

  “Because Simeon’s a dick and you don’t like him.”

  At this, the faintest of smiles gripped Richter’s face. He took a step toward me. “That kid breathes rarified air if you know what I mean,” Richter said. I had absolutely no idea what that meant, but I thought it was a good sign that Richter hadn’t bolted and was chatting with me.

  “I don’t know what kind of air he breathes, Mister Richter, but he’s a badass,” I said.

  “I told you to call me Jack,” Richter said. “And every bully thinks they’re a badass before they get smacked in the mouth.”

  “So how do I do that? I mean … I’m not strong enough to beat those guys.”

  Richter pursed his lips. “Strength is overrated in combat. Speed is what helps you win battles.”

  “I’m not fast either.”

  “It’s all in your legs,” Richter said, gesturing at me.

  He walked up and slapped a hand against my machine’s front legs. “They’re too big and bulky,” Richter said.

  “So, what do I do?”

  Richter smiled. “The same thing you do with anything that spites you. You cut it off.”

  * * *

  We patched up the busted hose on my right, front leg and then I followed Richter down through the broken city, following a path only he could see. He wended around blown up buildings and over cratered and buckled streets. In the shadow of a library that had been partially gutted by fire, he stopped.

  “Gimme a hand over here, dingleberry,” Richter said.

  I waddled my mech forward and saw the edge of something, some vessel that had crashed behind the building. Most of it was covered by rubble, but a wing was sticking out. I recognized the craft as a glider that I’d seen the aliens using during the occupation.

  “You think you can help me pry that out?” he asked.

  I answered in the affirmative and hopped over an embankment. Spence mech’s metal arms telescoped out and latched onto the edge of the glider. The gears and pistons in my mech complained as I pulled back hard on the glider which eventually tugged free.

  I was able to tow the alien machine back out onto the road. Richter circled the vessel, gesturing at two long, alien-alloyed panels, gunmetal gray in color, that ran the length of the glider.

  “See if you can pull those free,” Richter said, pointing at the panels.

  I lowered my mech and grabbed the back of the first panel and rotated my arms back. Whatever fasteners the aliens had used to construct the glider were incredibly strong, but eventually, they gave, and the panel popped free.

  The cool thing about the rigid panels is that even though they were only five or six inches thick, they were incredibly strong. I was able to place one of them on the ground in a vertical position and balance the weight of my mech on it. Richter nodded and whistled. “Bring those back.”

  “To where?” I asked.

  “The hangar, dipshit,” Richter replied with a frown. “Where else?”

  I stood there, clutching the panels, watching Richter walk back up the path toward the target range.

  I didn’t know much at that point, but I knew one thing.

  I was facing impossible odds, but at least I thought I might have found him.

  My own personal Mister Miyagi.

  25

  Jezzy was back at the hangar when we arrived. She was busily sorting through stacks of materials that had been brought in by the outside scavenging teams. I parked the Spence mech and climbed down the ladder. My hair was still sweaty and plastered to my forehead.

  “You look like hell,” she said.

  “I feel twice as bad,” I replied.

  “Young Deus over there just got his ass whupped,” Richter said.

  Jezzy snorted. “Lemme guess … Simeon?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I replied, moving past her.

  She grabbed my arm. “I’ll bet it was over that girl, wasn’t it? The snooty one with the good hair. What’s her name? Baila? Yeah, I saw you checking her out before.”

  “Aren’t you the one that didn’t want to talk about any of this?” I replied.

  She grinned, then placed her hands over her mouth. “God, it’s true, isn’t it? You’ve got the hots for Simeon’s girl.”

  I swatted at her. “Shut up, Jezzy.”

  “You are so busted,” she snickered as I moved over to Richter who was on his haunches, perusing the two alien-alloyed panels I’d taken from the downed glider.

  I ran a finger down the smooth panels. “What are you thinking? That we use these things as armor around the turret?”

  Richter looked up at me. “Did you hear anything I said back there?”

  I nodded.

  “You need to be faster.”

  “A new engine then?” I asked.

  “Nope. You need yourself a new design for the legs,” Richter said.

  Richter pointed to Jezzy who was moving away from him. He jabbed a finger in the air, gesturing at her prosthetic leg. “That’s what you need.”

  * * *

  Richter and I spent the better part of the next day convincing the Fabs that we needed to rework the legs on the Spence mech. Some of the Fabs, particularly Jim Castle and the ones who’d been engineers in the days before the invasion, were suspicious. Richter took his time to explain all the various reasons why the material from the alien glider could be repurposed for what he called “Razor Legs,” that would allow my mech to run faster and jump higher. I listened but chose not to ask Richter how he knew all of this.

  The Fabs then analyzed the material we retrieved from the alien glider and discovered that not only did it have an exceptionally high strength-to-weight ratio, but that it also would also reduce the energy loss in my mech, help me maintain better spring and running mechanics, and that the positive work (or returned energy) would be five to six times greater than the legs I’d used before. Basically, I’d be able to run faster and with more agility which sounded great to me.

  Armed with this knowledge, the Fabs agreed to help. They commenced work on my mech, first using cutting torches to sever the machine’s original, bulkier legs. Once the original legs were removed, sockets were bolted in place that would receive the new legs that needed to be built. After the sockets were secure, I watched the Fabs use an industrial autoclave to heat the panels from the glider and separate what we came to discover were the twenty-fo
ur layers that the alloy was composed of.

  Once this was done, the Fabs sandwiched sheets of military-strength, ballistic carbon-fiber between the layers of the alien alloy. They continued to alternate the layers, impregnating the alloy with the carbon fiber, reinforcing everything. The final product was then autoclaved again to fuse everything into solid plates, what the Fabs called “strands,” that were then formed into shapes that roughly resembled Jezzy’s prosthetic leg, just on a significantly larger scale.

  The finished products, the mech’s new “Razor Legs,” were then cooled and polished and slotted onto the sockets. The sockets were connected to a series of pistons and pneumatic gears and micromotors that were tethered to the engine and the electronic innards that would help propel the machine forward. After the legs were secured, the Fabs tested, then retested everything. Some slight modifications had to be made, but after thirty minutes, the legs were moving smoothly.

  I climbed back up into the machine well after midnight to give it a test ride, and it felt like I was riding on a cloud. The awkwardness I’d sometimes experienced with the bulkier legs was gone, and after several seconds, it almost felt as if I was just walking on my own two legs. I stole a glance at Richter who was standing near the Fabs, grinning like a proud papa, arms crossed over his chest. Eventually, I powered off the mech and climbed down the ladder where Richter was still admiring the new legs.

  “This is a piece of mechanical divinity, Danny,” he said, tracing the outline of the legs.

  “Hey,” I replied. “We just had a breakthrough.”