Kill Switch: Final Season

by Sean E. Britten

  Madaki moved from side to side, running. He carried his shotgun in one hand and had unsheathed his vibroblade machete in the other. The two mechs on the right followed him. The mech with the two missile pods seemed to be having trouble tracking him as he moved, so Madaki circled toward the rightmost one with the minigun. It was tan and sandy in colour with long, chickenlike legs. Some bold artist had spray painted a tag in bright orange and green across the side of the mech. Its bullets sprayed wildly, its aiming system definitely off.

  Madaki circled to the left, staying just out of the minigun’s path. Once he was close enough, the man changed direction and ran straight at the looming machine, just like he had done with the first mech. At the last moment he dropped, sliding under the mech’s feet.

  The mech moved as if trying to stomp on Madaki. He rolled and swung his machete into one of the mech’s legs. The impossibly sharp blade bit deep into what passed for the mech’s ankle. Madaki wiggled it loose, making sure he wasn’t stepped on, and then hit it again from the other direction. The foot came loose with a thump and the mech’s leg lifted free without it. Unsupported on its left side, the mech tilted sideways and its sparking stump hit the ground but it couldn’t find its balance. Madaki scrambled to get out from under it as it fell. Spraying its minigun wildly in all directions, the mech crashed to the ground.

  The missile-toting mech stalked closer. One of its pods thundered and a rocket streaked into the mech Madaki had just taken down. The blast enveloped the damaged mech and ripped away part of its armour, flipping open the top of its carapace. It fried enough of the damaged mech’s inner workings that it stopped juddering and firing, smoke pouring out as it collapsed. The shockwave knocked Madaki on his back, heat having scorched his ritualistically scarred face. He scrambled to his feet and backed away as the mech circled him.

  More concrete fell away from the pylon where Du Preez was hiding, revealing bones of rebar. The remaining minigun mech had fixed all its fire on the pylon. Electricity crackled from the end of Du Preez’s lightning gun. He couldn’t do much while bullets were ricocheting to either side of him. Du Preez toed a large fragment of concrete that had rolled around to his feet. He kicked it, sending the piece of concrete skittering across the dirt. It was small but the mech’s attention was drawn to the movement. Like a massive dog, the mech started after it, legs whirring. It kept firing, barrels spinning, and more bullets tore up the ground chasing the piece of grey rock.

  Concrete dust hanging in the air, Du Preez rolled around the other side of the badly damaged pillar. His weapon sent out powerful arcs of electricity. Crackling lightning moved over the mech’s armour and the mech seemed confused. The sparks clung to the gaps in the mech’s battle scars. It turned back on Du Preez, barrels whirling, but Du Preez kept coming.

  The mech moved stiffly, like a puppet. Trembling, it took one step back and then two, minigun jerking spastically. It was only due to the broken sections of the mech’s armour that the lightning gun was working. Du Preez’s weapon let out a warning whine, close to overheating, and grew hot in his hands, but if he let up for even a moment the mech would recover. Suddenly the mech stopped, going inactive, as if a switch had been flipped. Slag ran out of the rents in its armour as its internal workings melted. Du Preez released the trigger and smoke poured in a thick cloud off the mech. The lightning gun was almost out of power and would need time to recharge. The mech remained standing but was dead as a statue.

  Meanwhile, Madaki ran across the uneven ground toward the missile-toting mech. Another missile flared and blasted out of its leftside missile pod, hissing toward Madaki and streaking past him. It blew another huge crater out of the ground behind him. If he was hit, the blast would just disintegrate him.

  Cocking his arm back, Madaki hurled his heavy machete like a throwing knife. It whipped through the air, end over end, and its vibrating point embedded itself in the mech’s ‘face’. Sparks erupted from out of the mech’s head as several of its cameras exploded. Madaki kept striding forward, levelling his shotgun at the mech. The .45 slugs in Digger Dundee’s submachine gun hadn’t been able to scratch the mech’s armour but luckily for Madaki his shotgun was loaded with even heavier twelve gauge slugs with explosive heads. He fired two blasts into the mech’s head, already damaged by the machete. The mech reeled and another one of the muzzles of its brick-shaped missile pods glowed, about to fire. Madaki aimed and fired several more shots at the missile pod, emptying the shotgun. One slug hit the missile just as it left its barrel, halfway out of the missile pod, and caused it to explode prematurely. An orange fireball blasted the missile pod and half of the heavily armoured mech to pieces, the shockwave pounding Madaki. Huge chunks of armour and machinery rained out in all directions and the mech staggered sideways, collapsing.

  “That is how we do it, where I come from.” Madaki yelled to Du Preez.

  xXx

  Only two teams had come down in the City Center section of the arena, after Schrei and Adani hadn’t made it to their chutes. The middle section was dominated by a large and empty marketplace. A few blocky office towers and apartment blocks were scattered through the section, along with low-lying buildings, but they weren’t as looming or overgrown as those in the nearby Towers section. Everything was scarred with battle damage, roads and buildings littered with bullet holes and bomb craters.

  Half an hour earlier, Quickdraw Quilton and El Carnicero had descended through the sky with their GPS-guided parachutes flapping. Across the central section, Quickdraw had seen the other City Center team’s chutes going down. Although they were quite some distance away, Quickdraw had identified the pair as Boche and his partner, Uzi Kahneman. The Nazi supersoldier’s long, black coat was distinct. They’d gotten off the flying ship quickly and would reach the ground first. Automatically, Quickdraw tried to pull at the ropes of his chute to steer it further away from where the other team was landing. The parachute didn’t deviate and Quickdraw could hardly steer it very well with only one arm. Boche, as a towering genetic science experiment made for killing, would be far too dangerous to tangle with. His partner, Uzi Kahneman, was an ex-Mossad agent according to the display up on the ship and would be an incredibly deadly combatant as well, assuming he and Boche didn’t kill each other.

  Short and balding with a dark beard, Quickdraw Quilton was thick with muscle and covered in scars. A gaping metal socket took the place of Quickdraw’s right arm at the shoulder. Delicate threads of circuitry filled the concave abscess. Scars surrounded the metal joint, tissue growing around it like melted candle wax, and tore down his side. Under his body armour and dark clothing, several metal ribs pushed through Quickdraw’s skin. An American bounty hunter before his accident, Quickdraw had embraced a new identity and gone into mercenary work. As in previous seasons with amputee contestants, Quickdraw had his bracelet and kill switch on his left arm since his right was missing.

  Quickdraw’s boots hit the ground, chute billowing behind him, and El Carnicero came down beside him. Carnicero was a head taller than his partner. Broad shoulders filled his pale grey, sharkskin suit with an apricot shirt covering his bulletproof vest. Carnicero was sharply dressed compared to most of the contestants and next to the grizzled Quickdraw he was also model handsome, clean shaven, chiselled and with a gleaming shaven head.

  The pair’s weapon crates beeped from the shadow of a nearby building. Stripping off their chutes, Quickdraw and El Carnicero ran for them. Quickdraw already suspected what his weapon would be but a wave of relief went through him as his crate hissed open.

  “Oh, Betsy baby, come to Papa.” Quickdraw said.

  Quickdraw pulled his custom prosthetic right arm out of the box. It attached to his shoulder socket as if magnetised. The arm, Betsy, was dark metal and primitive-looking. It ended in three large, revolving barrels with gaping muzzles that glowed as Quickdraw activated the prothesis. A knob and controls ran along the inside of the arm.

  El Carnicero had been rewarded with a pair of machetes and a singl
e handgun. He hung the sheaths for the machetes under his suit jacket and clipped the handgun to his belt.

  “You and me, we ain’t going to have any problems, are we?” Quickdraw said.

  The barrels on Quickdraw’s mechanical arm turned as he moved it. As the screen during their introductions had shown, Quickdraw had worked the border region between Mexico and the New United States during his time as a bounty hunter. He’d shot and killed many of those whose only crime was trying to make a new life by crossing into the promised land.

  “No, no hay problemas.” Carnicero said.

  For the next half an hour, Quickdraw and Carnicero circled their section of the arena. They threaded through the honeycomb of ruins and boobytraps, energy concentrated on avoiding the other men, Boche and Uzi Kahneman. Quickdraw and Carnicero were both experienced killers but they prefered to run like rabbits than face the other pair. When the maps on their forearms updated for the first time though, they showed that Boche and Kahneman were closing in.

  “We’ve got to keep moving! They’re-, fucking, they’ve got our position and they’ll be coming straight for us.” Quickdraw said, “We got to get to one of those tunnels and move on to another part of the arena. Being in here is like being stuck in a box with a couple of mountain lions.”

  Quickdraw and Carnicero took off through the middle of City Center, rather than continue around the outside where Boche and Kahneman were following. Passing around the large marketplace, they saw a strange tableau in one intersection. An enormous scorptank was poised to strike. The huge armoured vehicle was shaped like a giant scorpion with six jointed legs, two arms and a long tail. As if frozen in the middle of battle, the scorptank was surrounded by several regular tanks with their armour blown open, their main guns bent and treads unravelled. One of the scorpion tank’s arms ended in a multi-barrel missile launcher. The other ended in an actual claw, a three-pronged pincer shaped like Jaws of Life with a cutting laser in the middle. Tail arched over the scorptank’s back, a hulking anti-aircraft minigun replaced the stinger with a belt of ammunition hanging heavy off its side. It and the tanks surrounding it all looked like statues, like they’d been hit with an EMP that shut them off mid-battle.

  There was a noise, a mechanical rattling that grew into a rumbling roar. For a moment, they thought it must be the scorpion tank. Quickdraw and Carnicero both turned as the Fourth Reich supersoldier, Boche, moved out from behind the shell of a shot-up bus. The man was tall and heavily muscled, although his shoulders and frame seemed narrow under his tightly belted coat. Pale blonde hair was slicked back from his chiseled face. Boche was carrying an orange chainsaw with a long blade, revving the engine loudly.

  “Shit, motherfucking Nazi with a chainsaw!” Quickdraw said.

  Quickdraw grasped the knob on the side of his arm cannon, turning it to its most powerful setting. Boche stayed back. His weapon was cumbersome and incredibly loud. It was a distraction, Quickdraw and Carnicero realised almost too late. El Carnicero threw himself into Quickdraw and both men sprawled to the ground.

  Uzi Kahneman sprung up from behind a small hill of rubble. The man had a pair of his own namesake weapons, T-shaped Mini Uzi submachine guns. He opened up both weapons with a couple of loud, ripping tears. Kahneman was shorter than Boche but well-built, with olive skin and a mop of dark curls. He was wearing a brown bomber jacket over a red shirt and body armour. Bullets sprayed across the ground between Quickdraw and Carnicero. Brass cartridges hosed out of the guns and scattered across the rubble.

  Crouching, Quickdraw straightened his weapon out in front of him and fired. A purplish blast of plasma roared from Betsy’s three barrels and pulverised a torso-sized section of rubble off to Kahneman’s right. Uzi Kahneman dropped back, still firing his twin guns. Carnicero squeezed off a few rounds in Kahneman’s directions as well with his handgun, bullets ringing off the ruins. Quickdraw fired again, a crater exploding out of the rubble filled with crackling purple light.

  Chainsaw roaring, Boche darted around the bus and ran at the pair. Bluish smoke poured out of the body of the chainsaw and its jagged teeth spun. Quickdraw fired again and the purplish plasma blast punched through the bus Boche had been hidden behind. Boche was closing the distance between them.

  Left-handed, Quickdraw grabbed at the knob on the side of his right arm and dialed it back to a lower setting. The most powerful blasts fired too slowly. Opening up again, the arm cannon thundered with softball-sized balls of light as the barrels turned, one at a time. Boche weaved around the shots, one just clipping the tail of his long coat, and they hit the ground and walls behind the Nazi.

  Kahneman popped back up, twin Uzis blazing. Carnicero fired one-handed while drawing one of his machetes with his other hand. One of of Carnicero’s bullets clipped Kahneman’s jacket but was caught by his body armour. Boche and Kahneman had the two of them in a box. If Boche had a better weapon then Quickdraw and Carnicero would probably be dead already.

  Boche closed in and lunged, getting inside Quickdraw and Betsy’s range. Chainsaw howling, the Nazi led forward with a tremendously powerful kick. It hit Quickdraw in the chest like a shotgun blast and flung him backward into another pile of rubble. The supersoldier moved with easy power, swapping the heavy chainsaw from hand to hand far more easily than a normal man could have done.

  Quickdraw was gasping for air as Boche swung the chainsaw down at him. Quickdraw raised his weapon arm to defend himself. Teeth screamed off the side of the barrels, scarring them, and sparks sprayed across Quickdraw’s face. He kicked at Boche’s legs to no avail. The big Nazi was toying with him. A psychotic grin split his face, with a few thick strands of pale blonde hair falling across his forehead.

  “Untermensch.” Boche said.

  Uzi Kahneman dropped back to reload his two guns. Carnicero turned on Boche and fired, putting several bullets into his back. They were stopped by the supersoldier’s body armour but distracted Boche for a moment. Free from Boche’s chainsaw, Quickdraw raised his arm and fired. The blast caught Boche in the chest and it was his turn to be catapulted backward, across the cratered street.

  “Nice one!” Quickdraw said.

  Snarling, Boche sat up where he had landed. Part of his coat had been turned into slag and melted onto his body armour, but the lower level blast hadn’t penetrated the armour itself. Revving the chainsaw, Boche suddenly whipped his arm around and released the weapon so it went flying through the air. Its teeth were still spinning in a jagged blur.

  Before Quickdraw knew what hit him, the chainsaw slammed into his neck, blade-first. The weight of the weapon as well as the gnashing teeth and power of the throw caused the chainsaw to tear Quickdraw’s head straight off his body. Blood and gore sprayed in a fountain through the air. The chainsaw clattered to the ground, covered in blood, engine still rumbling. Quickdraw’s head bounced across the rubble while his decapitated body flopped.

  “No! Motherfucker!” Carnicero said, “Cabrón!”

  Uzi Kahneman reappeared, firing. One of his bullets ripped through Carnicero’s leg, causing it to start pissing blood, but he didn’t seem to feel it. The kill switch on his arm started wailing, injecting him with chemicals and adrenaline. Carnicero whipped his handgun around and unloaded it in Kahneman’s direction. Kahneman dropped and shielded his head as bullets chipped the rubble surrounding him.

  Boche was back on his feet and circling around Carnicero, and Quickdraw’s headless body, trying to get back to his bloody chainsaw. Seeing him, Carnicero didn’t bother to reload his pistol. He tossed the empty gun aside and started toward Boche with his machete. Boche tucked his head low and charged Carnicero, hitting him with his shoulder. With Carnicero pumped up with chemicals, the two were almost evenly matched. Boche managed to shove Carnicero back and get around him. He dipped and got his hand ahold of his still-running chainsaw.

  Carnicero whipped around with his machete and Boche used the chainsaw to block. He hit the trigger and the teeth spun, sparks spewing off the mismatched weapons.
Boche barrelled forward but Carnicero stood his ground. More sparks flew off the blades. Boche lashed out at Carnicero’s already wounded leg. His knee crackled but Carnicero didn’t seem to feel it. He lashed out and his blade sliced a red line across the Nazi’s perfectly chiselled cheekbone.

  “Get away! Get away from him!” Uzi Kahneman yelled, “He’s only got to outlast you! As soon as he dies, the bomb attached to his kill switch will go off and kill you!”

  El Carnicero grinned, his plan discovered. Suddenly, he lunged forward and landed right on top of Boche’s chainsaw blade. Howling, the blade chewed through Carnicero’s body armour and rib cage, blood and gore churning out of his torso.

  Boche lifted Carnicero off his feet, chainsaw shrieking. Realising what his partner had told him, Boche spun and threw the other man off. Blood streamed through the air. Carnicero hit the ground and tumbled as Boche ran for it, moving to take cover with Kahneman. Although he had wanted to die quickly, Carnicero’s body couldn’t help taking several wet, gasping breaths, the bloody abcess in his chest rising and falling. When he finally collapsed, the kill switch on his wrist triggered a second time and his body disappeared in a fiery blast, the orange fireball enveloping the surrounding ruins. The shockwave hit Boche and threw him the last couple of metres into the pile of rubble.

  After the blast faded, leaving a smoking crater where Carnicero’s body had been, Boche picked himself back up. Stopping the chainsaw, he shook the blade. Streamers of red splattered against the dusty asphalt. Burnt, battered, with blood dripping down the side of his face, the big Nazi looked embarrassed and angry. T-shaped submachine guns swinging at his sides, Kahneman moved around the rubble and joined him.