The Installed Intelligence Trilogy Collection

by Phoenix Ward

  It let out a guttural roar unlike anything Tera had heard a man make. With a heave of its enormous muscles, it swung its arm above the troops. At least, Tera thought it was an arm. As the creature swung a second time, a third time, winding its arm up like a baseball pitcher, Tera could see it was actually a gargantuan sword. It was wide, thick, and the point was flat like an executioner’s blade.

  As the dust cleared to just a thin film, Tera saw another form emerge from the wall breach, its long robe flowing behind it. It was Reverend Nidus. He gazed over the scene with sick delight.

  “Kill them all!” he barked to the attackers.

  Raid

  In the matter of an instant, the air within the Furnace erupted with gunfire, screams, and crashing metal and stone. A number of rebel soldiers flooded into the sundered conference room and started escorting those within out. Ethan stumbled a little, clutching onto his eye as a female bodyshell led the way. They passed Tera, but the rebel escort didn’t stop for a moment. Tera saw them in the corner of her vision. Turning away from Reverend Nidus and the cloud of death between them, she followed Ethan’s flight. In the blink of an eye, she was running beside him and their rebel escort, their feet pounding over the metal grate that was made up the floor.

  Gunshots exploded all around them as the rebel soldiers who weren’t escorting someone opened fire on the attackers. Ethan dared a glance back and saw a white Council bodyshell collapse in a spurt of sparks. He wanted to cheer, but the appearance of the sword-armed behemoth stole any motivation to do so. Before he could look away, Ethan saw the monstrosity cut down two rebels in a single swing. Blood sprayed from one as his torso was freed from his waist, his entrails tangling with the wires of another felled rebel.

  Tera pulled the E.M.P. blaster from its holster on her hip and aimed at the madness behind her. There was a flurry of white polymer and black metal, but she couldn’t get a good shot on the intruders. With her luck, she would hit one of the rebel bodyshells trying to protect her. With a curse, she turned back and focused on their escape.

  They darted from the conference room into the main atrium of the Furnace, but the attackers had already beaten them there. There must have been a second entry broken into the rebel’s headquarters somewhere, Tera thought. Judging by the number of white bodyshells and frantic cultists locked into combat with the soldiers of the People’s Union and Opes, they had stormed multiple points at once. This was an orchestrated attack, Tera realized.

  Two of the Council soldiers looked up from a fresh kill and spotted Tera and Ethan. They raised their rifles, but the two female rebels had a bead on them first. Tera and their escort opened fire, the bodyshell on the right tearing open as bullets hit it while the one on the left dropped dead as the life was snatched from it. Ethan trembled a little as he watched the white machines fall to the floor. He couldn’t help but feel helpless.

  A familiar voice cried out from their right, but something exploded in the belly of the atrium at the same moment, so neither Tera or Ethan could make out what it said. Their escort shouted something in response. Then, the form she was addressing became clear. Betsy Clevinger ran toward them, ducking as bullets zipped over their heads. A bit of blood streamed from a small wound on her forehead. The speaker embedded in her skull seemed a little crumpled.

  “There you are!” Betsy cried. “We have to get everyone out of here! Now!”

  “We’ve got to fight!” Tera replied. “They’re attacking our home.”

  “And they’re going to take it,” Martin Clevinger interrupted. “There’s no sense in dying for this place. We need to evacuate everyone if we can; get them all to the gunships. Load everyone on that we can.”

  “Where’s Gauge?” Betsy asked, looking around at the immediate faces around her.

  “Right here, Ma’am,” the rebel’s familiar voice said as he appeared on their side. “Let’s get moving!”

  Like a pack of wolves, they started to move in unison through the chaos. The rebels outnumbered the attackers three to one out in the atrium, but that ratio was shifting by the second as more cultists and soldiers poured in through the tunnels.

  “Gauge,” Betsy said to the rebel, reaching out to stop him. “We have to save whatever equipment we can.”

  “It’s not worth it, ma’am,” Gauge replied. “We don’t have the manpower nor the space to bring them with.”

  The old woman almost stopped to protest but was interrupted by a loud crash from behind. The group collectively turned to see the doorway to the makeshift conference room explode outward as the monster’s enormous sword broke through it. The wall around it came crumbling down, burying a pair of rebel soldiers in close-quarters combat with a cultist. With a booming roar, the cyborg behemoth pushed through the debris and used the backswing of its blade to decapitate one of the Union bodyshells.

  “To the ships!” Martin started shouting through the speaker in his wife’s head to no one in particular. “Everyone, fall back to the loading bay!”

  “To the loading bay!” Gauge also shouted, looking at the other rebels who fought and scurried around them. “Fall back!”

  The entourage moved like a shark through seaweed, cutting a way through the battle to the western side of the chamber. The loading bay was on the opposite side of the atrium from them, with at least five hundred feet of no man’s land to cross. Tera and the other I.I. woman remained on their flanks, firing at any Shedders or Council soldiers who got too close. Every dozen feet or so, they would stop to avoid some crumbling part of the Furnace or to fight off the attackers. Every time they stopped, the battle waged closer. The cyborg monster continued to cut through rebels — and sometimes cultists — like a reaper at harvest. Screams filled the atrium.

  Ethan felt a hand on his wrist before his brain acknowledged that he was being pulled away from the group. At first, he thought it was Tera or the other I.I. leading him to safety, but he could see all his comrades huddled together before him. He looked back and saw one of the Shedders clutching onto his wrist, a wicked grin on the assailant’s face. He clutched a dagger in his other hand, but didn’t stab at Ethan. Instead, he dragged him through the battle towards one of the tunnels in the side of the chamber.

  When he realized what was going on, he started to pull back. Without hesitation, the cultist spun around and punched Ethan in his wounded eye.

  “None of that,” the Shedder hissed. “No need to resist.”

  “There’s always a need,” a familiar voice growled from behind Ethan.

  Before he knew what was going on, a form leaped over him and tackled the Shedder to the grate. Ethan could only register a blur of pale cloth and mechanical parts as his rescuer slammed the cultist’s head into the metal floor over and over. Once the cultist realized what was happening, he tried to throw the form off him. The two of them wrestled on the ground.

  Ethan hesitated for a moment, but it was imperceptible to the naked eye. He dived forward and retrieved the dagger that had fell to the floor during the melee. With a swift jerk of his arm, he drove the blade deep into the Shedder’s chest, just to the side of his sternum. Ethan could feel the man’s breath ooze out of him like air from a deflating kickball. He stared down at the dead man for a moment, the battle that surrounded him fading from focus.

  Only a second passed before he felt a metal hand on his shoulder. He spun around with the dagger in his clutched fist to see the bodyshell of King Hum.

  “They’re running that way,” the young monarch said, pointing through the chaos at the entourage Ethan had been pried from. “Come with me.”

  He didn’t wait for the human to reply before dragging him by the shoulder. They had a relatively clear path to the others; most of the fight moved to the center of the atrium, where the rebels were fleeing to the loading bay.

  Hum kicked away one of the Council soldiers who backed up into them while in a fight of his own. Ethan tried to stab at the enemy, but stumbled as he tried to reach the falling form. Hum caught him and kept hi
m moving towards Tera, Gauge, and the others.

  Betsy stopped and turned around as the sound of their approach came to her ears. A look of relief crossed her face.

  “There you are!” she cried. She waved at them, gesturing to keep running. “Go on! Don’t stop until you’re on the gunships!”

  As they passed the Clevingers, Ethan and Hum heard — and felt — thundering footfalls approaching them. Before they could turn and identify the source, a deafening roar filled their ears. Ethan’s eyes grew wide with terror as the cyborg monstrosity charged straight at them, barreling through Council and rebel soldiers alike. It ran like a roided-up linebacker with ten times the ferocity. Just as it was within arm’s reach of their group, it lifted its enormous blade arm until it practically scraped the ceiling.

  Betsy could only look up at the hulk and its grotesque sword before the monster brought it down on her head. Ethan and Human looked away as the old woman’s body fell to the floor in two separate clumps.

  Tera and the others turned around just as the creature roared over the Clevingers’ corpse. Anger and fright filled their eyes as those with weapons aimed at the monster. They didn’t hesitate before unloading their ammunition into the horrible giant. It screamed a little as the bullets sunk into its pale flesh, rearing back a little on its robotic spider legs, but it only seemed annoyed. It came back down on all eight legs with a thud, locking its dead eyes onto Tera and Gauge.

  It roared again before scuttling towards the rebels, its blade arm trailing behind. Tera tried to shoot at the creature, but her weapon was depleted. Before it could swipe her head off, she and everyone around her ducked out of the way.

  “We have to blow the Furnace!” Tera heard Gauge shout from beside her. He was reloading his own weapon while trying to sprint backward at the same time. A handful of rebel soldiers who were fleeing in the same direction swarmed the monster when they saw their leaders fall. They were being smote down left and right, but they still managed to cut the behemoth off from Tera and Ethan’s group.

  “But — ” Tera started to say.

  “It’s the only way! Get on the ships!”

  They kept moving. They were within a hundred feet of the loading bay. The rebel pilots were already firing up the engines and extending the loading ramps. People poured in like chum into a whale’s mouth and the attackers closed in from behind. One of the ships just managed to open its door as Gauge led Ethan, Tera, and Hum aboard. Other rebels flooded in from behind them. A scream bled in through the door and a ripple of motion worked its way through the crowd. The attackers were upon them, and people were being pushed every which way by each other as they tried to flee danger.

  The hulking monster cut its way to the ship opposite them, slicing down rebels as they fled like it was going for some sort of high score. When it reached the actual gunship, it started hacking at the aircraft’s engine while the low flames the vehicle emitted singed its flesh. With one last huge cleave, it sundered the engine and the gunship exploded.

  Ethan could feel the shockwave through the walls of his own aircraft. Panicked cries came from all around him as the other gunship crumpled to the floor, spurting flames all over the loading bay.

  The doors started to close while people were still trying to climb aboard. Tera locked eyes with a human woman just as the entrance left her out in the slaughter.

  “We have to go!” Gauge shouted up to the cockpit. “Now!”

  Ethan stumbled a little as people pushed into him, moved by the sudden shift in momentum. He felt the ship angle upward as gravity started to tug him backward. It rocked with each blast that came from the soldiers down below.

  “Come on, come on!” Gauge yelled. “We need to get out of range!”

  Tera stood still, the woman’s face still imprinted in her mind. She swayed with the force of acceleration, but didn’t look around. Ethan trembled beside her.

  “Punch it!” a shout came from the cockpit.

  “We’re not far enough yet!” Gauge yelled back.

  “Just punch it!”

  With an anxious sigh, Gauge activated some sort of control on the side of his neck. There was a moment’s pause before the loudest explosion yet shook the air they flew through.

  Ethan looked out the rear viewport just as they exited the geothermal ducts and flew out into the open air outside the city. An enormous fireball followed them out, tossing up clumps of debris as it destroyed the tunnels. He couldn’t see anyone; he couldn’t make out any of the fight below. All he could see was fire.

  “Get us outta here!” Gauge shouted to the cockpit.

  “To where?”

  “Anywhere else!”

  Vigil

  They were one of only five gunships that landed in the barren field just outside of Opes. There had been eight aircraft in the Furnace’s loading bay, but they were all that made it. The engines made a whine as they were deactivated.

  Once the doors opened and the loading ramp was extended, people started to trickle out. They had been packed like sardines, but they didn’t walk with the free air of someone glad to be outside. Instead, they shuffled into the city with broken expressions. Like they were marching out of a freezer and only just beginning the thawing process.

  King Hum walked out with Adviser Orram at his side. The linen-wrapped bodyshell stood tall and without care of the gazes that fell on him. He raised a robotic arm to block out the setting sun as he walked out into the dry Opesian air.

  “Start building camps around the city immediately,” the king spoke without breaking his stride. “Every one of these people needs a place to sleep by the end of the night. Offer double pay to anyone who gawks at the task.”

  “Yes, your grace,” Orram replied, bowing like one might nod.

  “We will be having a vigil first thing tomorrow to honor those who didn’t make it,” King Hum continued. “Make the arrangements.”

  “Of course,” Orram said. He didn’t wait for any further orders before making a brisk pace towards the city. Hum stayed back and gazed at the people walking off the ships.

  Ethan and Tera emerged together, followed shortly by Gauge. They all stopped beside the young king, who looked like a mummified pharaoh in his wrappings. They didn’t say anything — no words came to them. The people shifted around them like a river around a boulder.

  “So many people,” King Hum said in a frail tone. “So many refugees.”

  The others remained silent. King Hum sighed, then turned to them.

  “You can find shelter in the palace,” he said. “Orram will assist you. Rest. We mourn tomorrow.”

  The stars started to fade away into the violet-rose of the dawning sky. The sun hadn’t made its appearance yet.

  The mood in the city square was somber. No one chatted with their neighbor as they stood shoulder to shoulder, facing the stage where they had once watched a play performed. The platform was covered in clay lanterns, each painted in their own unique pattern. They stood about two feet tall. Aside from King Hum, they were all that stood on the stage.

  “Two-thousand, two-hundred and forty-three lanterns,” King Hum said, his voice booming out over the audience. “Two-thousand, two-hundred and forty-three souls. Four-hundred eighty-nine of those souls were fellow countryfolk; over seventeen-hundred were once strangers who risked everything to rescue me. There are no words to describe such a loss. Everyone here has been affected by this tragedy. We all have a hole in our hearts now that nothing can fill.”

  Bowed heads and tear-stained faces were all that met the king’s gaze. His face was cold, his features firm but wrought by emotion. Even though he occupied a mechanical body, he looked aged by grief. Like the polymer that made up his face was faded — rubbed soft.

  “We burn a lantern for each loved one we lost yesterday,” he said, gesturing back at the field of clay vessels. He looked back at the crowd with ferocity in his stare. “Losses incurred by the Council of Shell City and the cultists of Reverend Nidus, I might add. This was no mis
understanding. It was a deliberate and calculated attack on everything we stand for. This cannot go unanswered. Therefore, the Holy Kingdom of Opes is declaring war on our attackers.”

  A ripple of gasps came from the citizens in the audience. Ethan and Tera met the king’s fierce gaze, and he nodded to them.

  “If we do nothing, this tragedy will only mark the beginning of a long line of suffering and death,” the monarch continued. He didn’t blink as he scanned all the faces pointed up at him. “We cannot stand by while crime after crime goes unanswered. If not for the sake of our lives, then for the sake of our souls. This is our defining moment, people. This is when we decide if we will lie down and die, or stand up and fight! I for one will not go down quietly! Who’s with me?”

  The audience erupted with cheers. Every man, woman, and child bellowed out their support for the mechanical king.

  “Tomorrow, Opes goes to war,” King Hum said once the commotion died down. “Today, we honor those we’ve lost on the path to freedom. Freedom for all people. Today, we ignite the lanterns and bid our friends and family farewell as they begin their journey to join the spirit of God.”

  He turned around and nodded to Adviser Orram, who instructed his helpers to begin lighting the lanterns. Even with two dozen workers, the process took several minutes. Everyone remained silent throughout.

  Once they were all lit, Hum turned back to the audience and bowed his head. Everyone did the same.

  “Farewell,” the king said, his eyes closed. “We will be reunited one day.”