Kill Machine (The Hroza Connection Book 6)

by William Vitka

  A kerfuffle of Keefs appears up at the ridge east of us. At the Henry Hudson Parkway. Along with flesh-towers and stilt-walkers. They howl. Moan. Start down the hill toward the Beast. More approach from the north and south. A few small hordes of monsters.

  I grab the radio inside the control room. Punch over to the internal speakers. “Ladies and germs, we’re here. Gunners, fire at fuckin will.”

  Survivors turn the West Side Highway and Washington Heights into Iraq. Zombies burst into liquefied gore from cannon shells. Plasma blasts scorch the heads from stilt-walkers’ slim bodies. Melt the skull. The neck. Flesh-towers are chopped to pieces by mounted chainguns. Their limbs crash down. Their throats erupt.

  It’s beautiful.

  Blood flows like water. Cascades.

  It’s the clearest we’ve seen traffic in ages!

  * * *

  The plan is simple.

  The goal is ridiculous.

  Clear out the entirety of Manhattan. Maybe get to work on the other boroughs. Queens. Brooklyn. Ugh, which’re connected to Long Island, so we’ll need Plissken’s huge barriers. I know. I know. Geographically speaking, they’re all parta Long Island. Shut up. The Bronx’s connection to the mainland kinda fucks us there. Staten Island I don’t give a shit about, so the parasite can have it.

  So...Manhattan. Twenty-three square miles of land on the surface. More than three times that when it comes to the subway tunnels. Then there’re the tunnels we’ve forgotten about. Then, hooray, all the buildings.

  It’s gonna be fun on a bun.

  I may finally get to raze Times Square.

  It’s not like there’ve ever been real New Yorkers there anyway. Oooh! And raze Williamsburg. And Wall Street.

  Duh.

  Plissken hovers beside me at the railing. We’re alone. Staring at the city I knew and loved and which also tried very, very hard to kill me. The rain pitters and patters against his hull.

  I say, “There any uninfected humans on the island?”

  “There haven’t been in over ten years. I would hope you remember some of your time here, in spite of the alcohol consumption. Why?”

  “Dunno.” I shrug. Cross my arms. “Everything in Manhattan that isn’t us is gonna die. Guess I wanna make sure we don’t kill dumb shits who wandered in thinking it was safe.”

  Plissken’s silent for a moment. “You’re creeping me out. Are you feeling all right?”

  “Yeah—what? Why?”

  “You’re showing unprecedented levels of give-a-shit-ness.”

  “That a scientific term?”

  “Yes. Highly scientific.” He bobs in the air. “Highly.”

  I stick an American Spirit cigarette between my lips. “Sure. I can tell.” Light it. “What do you think is down there?”

  “We didn’t explore that much when we lived here for ten years. But we were the dominant predator. So to speak.” The bot whirs. “It’s hard to say. The parasite reacts to emergent. The acid inside some of the larger forms is, I think, a response to the capabilities of your blood. A neutralizing agent.” He dips his forecurve toward NYCZ. “The city still crawls with infected. Take ten years of them reacting to us, then six months or so of unchecked evolution...”

  I blow smoke. “Could be six shades of batshit insane underground.”

  Hipster joke!

  Plissken says, “Scientifically speaking, yes... And let’s not forget about the cockroaches you told me about.”

  17. A Sound of Anger

  New York City streets are tight for the Talos warframes. Like walking through a small hallway for em. So I reposition the big motherfuckers. Put em on overwatch.

  Valerie Swift, with her new warframe, is gonna take the northernmost point. Inwood Hill Park. Sarah’s got Saint Nicholas Park, in Harlem. Booker’s got Central Park, where the baseball diamonds used to be south of “The Lake.” Around Eighty-second Street. I put Athena in Washington Square Park. Aiden in Battery Park.

  Daniel Thompson’s gonna fly recon with the four other choppers.

  We’ll stretched a bit thin when it comes to warframes, but...

  Why’m I not in a Talos?

  I’m going in with the troops.

  I can’t ask these people to do something I wouldn’t.

  Jack, Catarina, and DeVille are coming along too.

  Why doesn’t NYCZ have a biomass?

  Cuz: reasons.

  I have no idea. Not all Keefs turn into other bastards. The lines of mutation ain’t set by anything. The parasite just does what it has to do.

  What concerns me right now is the fact that these motherbitches in NYCZ are among the oldest. Creatures—pundits, celebrities, and fashionistas excluded—tend to get smarter the longer they’re around. Or crazier.

  Neither possibility fills me with glee.

  Upshot to this nutty shit is new toys. Specifically trimmed-down power armor. Pegasus Armor. Designed more for close quarters battle and speed. Carbon mesh with carbyne plates that operate in conjunction with a mini-nuke pack on our lower backs and a slim, fully sealed helmet. Ain’t the damage sponge the old armor is, but we need maneuverability.

  I keep the squads loose. Don’t wanna dictate how our people fight. Nitpicky. Like some cranky parent. Ain’t my job to do that. The survivors’ll kill whatever they gotta kill. I’ve got some faith in that. We just gotta arm em properly. I mostly let em make their own rules. What weapons they wanna take.

  Of the eighteen hundred survivors, a thousand are ready to invade.

  And for every uninfected man and woman, there’s a robot ready to go too.

  I look out across the crawler deck. Itself shiny with rain. I see an army two thousand strong. The humans in second generation power armor. Toting explosive-tipped 10mm pulse rifles with 40mm underslung grenade launchers and shotguns. Hellion machine guns with 6.5mm rounds. Flamethrowers. Railguns. Charged plasma cannons.

  Man, just all kinds of high-octane weaponry.

  I look up. There are the pilots and their shiny saucers. Waiting.

  Jack, Catarina, DeVille, Plissken, Harryhausen, Jade, Lovelace and Turing stand behind me. Jack looking pissed cuz he can’t wear his cowboy hat under the helmet.

  I feel like General Patton. Gotta make a speech for the troops.

  You’ll be fine. Just don’t talk about your murderboner.

  I tuck my helmet under my left arm. Dig into the tactical vest over my Pegasus suit for my smokes. Find it in a pouch on my chest above the mags for my pulse rifle and the loose rounds for my revolver. I move a few bullets to grab my Zippo. Light my American Spirit.

  Two thousand human eyes watch me. Sixteen hundred more if you count all the other survivors gawking from the structures the bots built. Fuck even knows how many mechanical sensors are on me.

  I blow smoke from my nose. “I told you people I wasn’t gonna bullshit you. That I was gonna be honest. And I have been... Even if it took a bottle of Palmer’s goddamn rotgut whiskey to get there.”

  That gains me a few chuckles in the crowd.

  I find Madison and Gunnar’s faces in the sea of soldiers. Nod to em.

  They grin. Nod back.

  It’ll be good to fight alongside those two again.

  I tell the survivors: “I don’t know how many of you are New Yorkers. Shit, I don’t know if any of you are New Yorkers. But that...” I furrow my brow. “None of that matters anymore, does it? The cities. The states. Even the countries. The sexes. Religions. Races. The species.” I tilt my head toward Plissken and his children. “This is about us. All of us. This is about our planet. This is about our home.”

  I point out over the cityscape. “That used to be my home.” I drop my cigarette. It hisses on the rain-soaked deck. I nod to the survivors. “Soon, it’s gonna be your home.” I raise my fist. “Our home.”

  The army
chants: “Our home.”

  “You gonna take our home back?”

  The army cheers.

  I shout. “You’re goddamn right.” I secure my helmet. “Give these motherfuckers hellfire.”

  DeVille steps to my side. She barks at the survivor soldiers. “Helmets on, folks. You know where you’re supposed to be. You can’t be infected, but the monsters can tear you apart. Fight smart. Watch each other’s backs. Don’t just kill the parasites—ruin em.”

  I smile. Grab DeVille’s hand. Chuckle. “Yeah, fight smart. Let us do the really stupid crap.”

  18. D-Day

  A massive gangplank extends from the mouth of the Beast. It settles on the parasite massacre at the Henry Hudson Parkway. Two thousand men and women and robots march onto Manhattan Island.

  All of em ready for murder.

  All of em lead by me and my family.

  Talos warframes flank us. They gleam. The big beautiful machines push forward. Leave craters in their wake. Cast shadows that cover us in waves of darkness.

  Choppers surge overhead.

  A group of Keefs stumbles toward us at 178th Street. A couple dozen shamblers. Explosive rounds from pulse rifles turn the undead into bloody mulch.

  We emergent don’t fire a single bullet.

  The survivors take a moment to savor their victory.

  Zombies ain’t quite as scary now.

  I let em build their confidence against a handful of stilt-walkers that fall almost as fast. That shriek and scream as their emaciated bodies are obliterated by my pissed off militia of people who’ve lost everything to the parasite.

  The survivors’ first flesh-tower gives em pause.

  But DeVille’s there. Shouting orders to the troops armed with heavy plasma cannons. “Take a knee to stabilize yourselves. Give it three seconds to charge. Track your target. Release and fry some fuckers.”

  Blue beams blast holes through the flesh-tower. Meat on the monster’s twenty-foot form sizzles. Cooks. A final shot carves out a tunnel between the thing’s shoulders. It stumbles. Slams into the pavement. Leaking. Stinking. Dead.

  More cheers follow.

  It’s safe to say the survivors have a taste for murderboners.

  Not even sure what to say to that, honestly.

  Would “murderclits” be more acceptable?

  Please stop.

  Takes us about an hour to secure the area east of the George Washington Bridge. The aboveground area, anyway. From the Hudson to the Harlem River. From 181st Street to 173rd. Ain’t much, but it’s something.

  I walk with DeVille and Turing to the 175th Street A-train stop. Where they’re gonna start their underground sweep. North, make sure the tunnel’s sealed, then double-back south.

  She takes her helmet off. Looks me up and down.

  Is it goddamn ridiculous? Her pregnant with twins, getting ready to assault mutants in the dark tunnels below?

  Yeah.

  She’d kick the shit outta me if I told her to stay on the crawler, though. She’s a fighter. This is what she does. Best I could do was convince her to at least start near a relatively safe zone.

  That and bring Plissken’s son.

  I take my helmet off. Meet DeVille’s eyes. I reach my hand out and brush her cheek. “Make em pay, kitten.” I move my palm to her belly.

  She grabs my hand. “You too. Don’t get dead.”

  I smirk. “Ain’t found a way to kill me yet.” I nod to Turing. “How you doin, bud?”

  Turing taps his chest. The display panel there shows: .

  “Good man.” I pat his shoulder. Then I watch the two of em descend the drab green stairs. They disappear.

  I resecure my shit. Stare down the long stretch of Fort Washington Avenue. I never spent any time here, so I don’t know a damn thing about the neighborhood.

  Still strangely comforting to walk these streets again.

  And what a longass walk it’s gonna be to Midtown.

  Jade’s voice sounds over my shoulder: “I hope Turing makes it through all right.”

  I turn to her. “You guys dating or something?” She’s got a 30mm chaingun in her hands. A Fiske Industries bullpup rifle slung over her shoulder.

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “Nothing, it’s just...” I lift an eyebrow at her. “Well, it’s fuckin weird. Robo...sexuality. How do you—”

  “Fuck?”

  “Yeah.”

  “The mind is a wonderful thing. You should try using yours sometime.”

  “Hey, you know how messy it is in my head.”

  Lovelace struts toward us.

  I call out to her while pointing at Jade. “You know about this?”

  Lovelace’s chest display is: .

  “Guess so.” I glance back to Jade. “Not exactly a ringing endorsement.”

  Jade says, “She’s just pissed cuz she hasn’t found a mate yet.”

  “Well, you’re one mech suit away from being a brain in a jar, and you managed all right.” I tell Lovelace, “Even an asshole like me managed. You’ll find a partner. Don’t worry about it.” I offer her a reassuring smile.

  She’s: .

  Jack, Catarina and Plissken join the weird discussion. Though they don’t have much to say.

  Catarina says to me, “We’re posting fifty troops at Site Alpha—twenty-five humans, twenty-five robots. And we’ve got five drones in the air over it. As we take more areas, we’ll do the same. Five soldiers per block should do the trick.”

  I nod. Say nothing. Take my helmet off again cuz I feel the sudden need for nicotine. Light a cigarette.

  Jack pats my shoulder. Tries his hand at being a dad. “It’s working, kiddo. It’s gonna work. We’re gonna take New York back. We’ve come too far to get shaky. To fail.”

  Sounds familiar.

  I nod. Breathe smoke. Eyeball my parents. “You both gotta know how dangerous hope is. Hasn’t worked in our favor too often.”

  “Let’s try it on. Just this once.”

  Catarina says, “You ready to lead this parade downtown?”

  I stomp out my stogie. Check the magazine in my pulse rifle.

  Nod one more time.

  * * *

  I stalk Broadway. Other teams take Audubon Avenue. Amsterdam. Fort Washington. The robots secure buildings as they go. Run through em like crap through a goose. The survivors are a bit slower on the uptake. Still angry. Still destroying monsters. Just lagging behind the bots.

  Hell, who wouldn’t?

  The pops and cracks of sporadic gunfire float through the air. So do moans. Screams. Roars. The sounds of large bodies hitting the pavement.

  The hills are undeeeaaad with the sound of mooooonsteeers.

  A fleshy earwig-centipede looking motherfucker twenty feet long scuttles down the front of a combined Chipotle-Starbucks—which sounds like a great way to shit your brains out. The parasite’s beige, like the building. It hisses. Six human eyes roll around its skull. Its chitinous appendages pierce the concrete walls on its speedy journey to the street at 168th.

  I raise the pulse rifle. Squeeze off a short burst that batters the beast’s exoskeleton. The explosive rounds punch grapefruit-sized holes that spew ichor. Leave puddles of gore.

  The earwig snaps its pincer-heavy tail in the air. The pincer click click clicks. Dives at the survivors. Most are able to juke outta the way. One guy isn’t.

  The scuttling nightmare snaps him up. Snips him in half.

  He doesn’t have the time to scream. Just a surprised “Urk!”

  The poor bastard’s torso goes one way. His legs another. Ropes of intestines whip in an arc. Drippy pink party streamers.

  I keep the fire on. So do the others. We break the earwig’s armor down. Down. It starts to look like chunky clam chowder. But it won’t stop fuckin moving.


  Jade stows her chaingun. Rushes the earwig.

  Survivors hold their fire.

  The bug’s mandibles try to clamp around Jade’s waist.

  She catches em. Grabs em. Twists em. Jade puts a metal boot against the earwig’s forehead. Pulls.

  The bug’s deadly click-click tail rises up.

  Lovelace runs up. Uses Jade’s back as a ramp. Stomps along the top of the bug lengthwise. Cannons in her palms blast away. Make potholes in its carapace with 20mm rounds. She stops firing. Flicks her wrists. Produces two five-foot blades from her forearms.

  In a single scissoring motion, she circumcises the earwig’s biggest weapon.

  The wounded tip whips. Spurts goo.

  Jade disarms the bug of its other weapons with a crack and a splortch. She tears its mandibles out. Holds one in each hand. Turns em so they’re like daggers. She punches and stabs and rips and tears at the earwig’s face till it’s choking, stuttering, sputtering.

  Dead.

  I hear Jade laugh. She says, “Glad you still need hardcore bitches like me. When I saw all you monkeyfuckers in those fancy new suits, I was worried I’d be out of a job.”

  I sniff. Shrug. “I’m not seeing where that’s a possibility.” I shout to the survivors. “Flamethrower units, torch this thing. No reason to give the carrion-eaters a free meal.”

  On that creepy note, I walk toward the top half of the fallen survivor. First to die in the assault. I check the name on his chest plate. Reads: CLINES. Mutter, “Sorry bud.” I radio the base. Let em know.

  Least he died in combat. Not as one of the infected.

  Least there’s that.

  I tell the survivors, “Redistribute the weapons and ammo. Cremate the body.”

  First one down.

  Won’t be the last.

  In a different time, I’d like to give families a chance to decide what to do with the remains—though, when I was a journalist, there wasn’t even any fuckin space left in the cemeteries.

  Anyway, this ain’t a different time.

  This’s how it is.