Kill Machine (The Hroza Connection Book 6)

by William Vitka

  Well, the biomass in the Milwaukee Deep might want a vote too. Ditto the pilots.

  Those assholes don’t get one.

  Jack says, “The cockroaches are New Yorkers.” He stops. Squints at the floor for a second. “Or the New Yorkers are cockroaches.” He shakes his head. “One of those. They’re not creations of the parasite. Not the same way the skinnies are.”

  Catarina nods. “The cockroaches are like us. Well, more like us.”

  Jack giggles. “And what’s New York City without cockroaches?”

  I sigh. “So we’re fine with wiping the skinnies out.” I grimace. “When I met the bugs, they had babies. A couple—” I wiggle my fingers in the air like antennae. “They even cuddled up to me. I haven’t met the skinnies. Dunno if it’d be the same deal, but we’re talking about eradicating a species. Y’know...” I click my tongue. “These’ll be the first inhuman creatures I kill who can beg for their lives.” I scratch the side of my head. Light another American Spirit. “There were never any moral implications with killing infected. Beyond the perceived shit. Right? Maybe it used to be someone you knew, but once they went undead, it was open season. So fuck em. Same shit in the movies with Nazis zombies. Easy villains. Good and bad. Black and white. All Rah-rah, go team garbage.”

  Jack says, “I always voted for Bub in ‘Day of the Dead,’ but I get what you’re saying.” He grabs my shoulder. “One thing I didn’t lie about on the bridge was that this is all for the species. We can’t trust the parasite. It’s them or us.”

  Catarina says, “We’ve gone from billions to under two thousand. If we want peace...”

  I take a deep breath. “Yeah.” Suck a drag from my American Spirit. Grab the helmost for my Pegasus suit. My pulse rifle. “Yeah. All right.”

  “If you’d feel more comfortable, we could have the robots—”

  “No. No. I’m not gonna pretend the blood’s on someone else’s hands.”

  Fuck it.

  23. Adaequatio Intellectus Nostri Cum Re

  The assault on the skinnies is swift and brutal. We only bring people who don’t give a damn. Killers. Gunnar’s with us. No Madison.

  No DeVille.

  Docs at the Beast are still taking care of her.

  Word is: Soon.

  Problem is, nobody knows what the means exactly.

  So I’ll just keep telling you what I see. Hear. Feel. Do.

  Plissken says the skinnie hive is under the Lower East Side—which makes a wretched kinda sense. So we go there. Fifty humans. One hundred-fifty robots.

  Terminator squads.

  Me and Plissken take the F-train stop at Second Avenue. Right next to First Park. Perilously close to my old watering hole, THE THING.

  First thing I see down the dark stairs is a rat and a skinnie. Before the turnstiles. Again. Except this time the skinnie is wrecking the rat. Parrying attacks. Driving a spear into the rodent. Into its neck. Till the skinnie severs the spine. Lops the rat’s fuzzy face off with a makeshift machete.

  The skinnie looks up to me. Unsure. Spear held defensively against its chest. It cocks its head to the side.

  I level the pulse rifle at it. Shake my head. “Sorry, dude.”

  Explosive rounds tear it to pieces.

  The skinnie screams in the gunfire. It’s head erupts. Then all that’s left is goo. Charred remains. Outstretched fingers around a makeshift weapon.

  I mutter to myself. “Feel like I just murdered a confused puppy.” I unconsciously check for the M1911 on my right thigh, the Colt revolver in its new home at my left.

  Plissken scans the ruined flesh of the skinnie. “I think you did. That was a young one.”

  “Great. Feel free to lie in the future. Tell me the next skinnie is their Hitler or something.”

  “Could be.” Plissken pops out his plasma cannon. “Incoming.”

  I watch the broken turnstiles opposite the MTA’s money-sucking fare machines. “What, huh? What’s incoming?” I shoulder my rifle. Pan it back and forth.

  “Apes. Apparently they fight with the skinnies and you declared war.”

  “Unilateral executive actions suck.”

  Three apes appear on the other side of the bars. Shit that used to be there to prevent deadbeats—or your lovely hero—from dodging payment for a subway ride.

  The multi-headed parasite simians grab the bars. Shriek. Grunt. Pound their chests. Their eyes glow green in the night vision.

  I switch the pulse rifle from full auto to burst. “This’s a shitty zoo.” I pop their heads. Split their skulls. The bars ain’t an issue cuz the big boom-boom 10mm rounds explode on impact. No ricochets. Just shredded flesh and broken bones.

  “Assholes.” I hop the turnstile.

  Sure got over that “confused puppy” thing quick, huh?

  Apasites just don’t do it for me.

  Plus I got all this confused shit in my brain.

  I wait a beat. Say to Plissken, “Mark it as clear.”

  Plissken drops a strobe and a chemical flare. “It’s going to get worse the closer we get.”

  “Yeah.” I hop the turnstile. “Kinda always the way, right?” I check my left and right. Nothing. “Where we going?”

  “East.” Plissken hovers near me. “We follow the F-line east and south. The skinnie hive has a large presence at Delancey and Essex. Command or—” He bobs. Zips along. Leaves a faint trail of blue thruster exhaust for me to follow.

  I clamber my way down another set of stairs. End up on the Brooklyn-bound concrete island platform. Surrounded by blue steel beams that’re only blue cuz I know they are without my night vision.

  I mumble to myself. “Could take this to Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn. Transfer to the R-train. Ride that bitch to Bay Ridge...”

  A derailed subway car near me rocks. Knocks me outta that dumb thought.

  Something inside the metal enclosure roars.

  Can’t see the damn thing, but I know whatever’s in there is weird and pissed off.

  Some creature that got stuck and grew and mutated.

  Probably starving.

  Tasty, tasty flesh.

  I load a high-explosive 40mm grenade into the underbarrel of the pulse rifle. Add three more for good measure into the magazine. Four total outta my ten. Rack the shotgun-style action. Jog back thirty or so feet to put some distance between me and the boom. Pull the forward trigger.

  The grenade round cracks as it leaves the gun. Explodes against the double doors of the subway car. Blows em open.

  A spider trundles out. Onto the platform with me. Big sonuvabitch. A melded-together abomination of three or four people. Huge mouth at the front. Ringed by foreheads and eyes. Its torso a mash of rib cages. Its appendages all arms and legs from humans. Some broken. Some whittled down to sharp points and droopy flesh.

  The spider glistens. Oil and water and blood on its skin. The beast drips. Screams. Slobbers. Skitters forward. Rears up.

  A few 10mm rounds chew up its legs. Shatter bone.

  Then I gotta jump. Dive to the side. Dodge its scrambling legs.

  I land hard. My ribs don’t appreciate the impact.

  I turn on my back. Keep firing into the mad thing.

  Bullets burst one of the foreheads. Send skull fragments spraying. Slopping against the dirty tiles.

  I roll. Scramble off the side of the platform. Get down to the tracks. Just move. Try to put some distance and obstacles between me and the spider dick. Or bitch. Whatever floats your boat. Haven’t been able to identify any dangly bits yet.

  My brilliant plan of “don’t get dead” is going well.

  Right up until a skinnie scurries onto the tracks from a side tunnel and tackles me to the ground. Beats on me a bit. Straddles me. Tries to stab me with a metal shiv.

  There’s plasma fire nearby. A lot of it.


  None of this helps me.

  I release my pulse rifle. The sling keeps it tethered to me. I catch the pale prick’s wrist with my right hand. Punch it in the temple with my left. Once. Twice.

  The skinnie pushes more. Harder. Its black shark eyes peer into me. It scowls. Grunts. Its breath fogs the visor on my helmet. The tip of the shiv glances against one of the Pegasus suit’s carbyne plates.

  I grunt back. My lips pressed together. I let hate take over. “For a goddamn string bean, you’re strong.” I grip the side of its skull head. “But not strong enough.” I jam my thumb into its eye. Hard. Deep. Till the skinnie yowls and blood cascades from the wound. Splashes against me.

  The spider dick-bitch plucks its howling form up. Multiple arms bend and break the skinnie. Cram the parasitic tribal into its yawning mouth.

  The spider dick-bitch gobbles the skinnie. Munches. Dribbles gore from its face.

  I ready the pulse rifle. Rack the grenade launcher. Send a 40mm round into its drooling mouth.

  The gory eruption is glorious. Ridiculous. A Gallagher “comedy” if he was smashing decayed brains instead of watermelons.

  Most of the spider dick-bitch’s body pops. It shits out a stream of bones and blood. Faces that still scream. Not totally digested. It burps. Vomits up the remains of the skinnie it cracked like a lobster.

  The whole mess lands like a sticky chowder meteor at my feet. I inch backward on my elbows. “That’s just uncalled for.”

  Spider dick-bitch tumbles. Slams against the side of the subway tunnel. The eyeball it has left stares at me. Blinks.

  I offer the eyeball a 10mm burst.

  The abomination collapses. Farts. Pisses on the tracks.

  Talk about your third-rail nightmare!

  Yeah. I’m doing an imaginary golf swing right now.

  Got a great shew for everyone tonight...

  Enough, Ed Sullivan.

  I climb back onto the platform. Hear another few plasma shots go off. Scan the area. Shout, “Plissken? Plissken.”

  He hovers over to me. “Yes, my fucking liege?”

  “Yeah, hilarious.” I lick my lips. “Where were you? There was a whole...thing going on over here. Spider...dick...bitch kinda thing.”

  Plissken bobs. Motions over what one can take as his shoulder. “I’ve been busy.”

  There are thirty some odd skinnie bodies back on the other island platform. The uptown side. All of em with plasma burns. Some’ve been lobotomized by Plissken’s whirling saw blades.

  I nod. “Okay then.” Check the rounds on my mag. Seven. They’re caseless, so I might as well waste this one and pop a fresh one in. “I know what you’re doing.”

  Plissken says, “I know you’re conflicted. You don’t want—”

  “What? Blood on my hands?” I shake my head. “Bud, we’re way passed the point on that.”

  “If I can finish?” He waits a second. Stares at me. “You don’t want or need an emotional breakdown. Stop being an asshole.” Plissken puffs his thrusters. “Let me help you.”

  “Why’s everyone trying to make me feel like an old man?”

  “Trying?”

  “You’re all fuckin adorable.”

  * * *

  We creep along the tracks. Follow em east. Then south around the bend.

  For the first time in my life, I try not to step on any cockroaches.

  Any subway cars we pass, I torch. I shoot out the windows. Toss in an incendiary grenade. I smoke thirteen cars this way till one’s got something in it.

  Dunno if skinnies count as “someone.” But they scream. Cry.

  Shit.

  I don’t have a reason to hate the skinnies. Not quite yet. So I kinda... I’m killing the slim motherfuckers cuz I have to. It’s like putting down a litter of cancer-riddled kittens.

  I nod to Plissken. “Do the needful.”

  He pops into the car. Ends the creature’s suffering with a plasma bolt.

  Mercy.

  You better get used to this boyo. There’s a lotta skinnies. Enough to give those big cucarachas problems. And there’s bound to be kids.

  I know. They gotta go so the pilots don’t nuke the last of the human race. I get it. And I’ve killed for less.

  Ain’t supposed to anymore though.

  Plissken says, “Skinnie warriors ahead. Eight guarding. Plus four apes. Just before Delancey station.”

  I poke my head out from an alcove. See the pale pukes in a line. Spears in-hand. Apes in front, like attack dogs. “Yippee.” I bring the pulse rifle up. Urge to get this shit over with takes over.

  I pull the pin on an incendiary grenade. Hurl it at the warriors and their apes. The fire bomb plonks against one of the chest-thumping simian’s forehead. Explodes. Bathes all but two of the warriors in flames.

  The smoking skinnies and their apasite pets do their best burning match impressions. They scatter. Flail. I introduce 10mm rounds to their skulls. The fire eats up their bodies. Their flesh bubbles and chars.

  The two unfucked skinnies stomp forward. Stop. Pound their spears into the ground. One of em says, “We fight.”

  I nod. Sure.

  Shoot em both. Erupt their bodies. Their faces.

  You don’t feel bad slaughtering em cuz why?

  They asked to fight. And, c’mon, we’ve all seen “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

  Plissken says, “More. Incoming.” He charges his plasma cannon.

  I count twenty warriors. Ten apes behind em.

  I tuck the pulse rifle against my thigh. Load three more HE grenades. Quick-like. Pump the slide. Pop em off. Get two downrange that chunkify the running skinnies. Their apes.

  Bodies bounce. Bones and butts break into wet stains against the tracks and the walls.

  “More,” Plissken says. “Still fucking more.”

  I blink. “Cockfucks.”

  Yes. Wee! Hate. More hate!

  I switch the pulse rifle to full-auto. Step into the center of the tracks. Watch thirty warriors charge. Scream. “Hola, bitches!” Spray in short, controlled bursts. Light em up. Their forms snap under the onslaught.

  Plissken unleashes his massive plasma bolt. It lands in the middle of nine. Melts em. Down. Their figures claw forward until there’s nothing left but goo.

  I watch their flesh melt away from their skulls.

  Their throats still screaming in agony.

  Hate, bub. Hate is what wins wars. Dehumanize the enemy. Then the soldiers are killing monsters, not people.

  And if they really are savages?

  You keep on killing till there’s nothing left.

  A handful of the final warriors get within spitting distance. Six of em at forty feet or so. They hurl their spears. Good aim. Solid. On-target.

  The spears feel like heavy punches.

  Punches that flop to the ground when they hit my armor.

  I tear my helmet off. Sick of the damn night vision. Shit’s giving me a headache...

  Plissken illuminates the tunnel with a flare. The place goes white.

  The skinnies put their slender hands over their eyes. They swivel their heads. Confused. Both where this bright light came from and why I ain’t a pincushion.

  I solve the problem for em. Put a burst of explosive rounds in each one’s head. Drop my mag. Reload.

  The shapes of another gang threaten the edge of the flare’s glow in the tunnel.

  Plissken says, “More.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Dunno what the body count is. Dunno how many grenades I have left. “Why won’t these fuckin things just die already? Give up?”

  Would you?

  Fine. Fuckin field goal for the skinnies.

  Doesn’t change how this ends.

  Yep. More adrenaline for you.

  Two more of my 40mm gr
enades fly. I reload. Three. Four. I stuff the remainder of my grenades into the pulse rifle’s underbarrel magazine.

  The launched grenades explode the skinnies’ front ranks. I ruin ten. Fifteen. Hard to tell. Too many limbs flopping around the place.

  Plissken fires another uber-plasma shot. Gets twelve.

  I think.

  Five others run up on me. Surround me.

  I motion for Plissken not to melt the whole lot of us.

  He says, “Couldn’t if I wanted to. Those plasma blasts degrade my power by forty percent each time. I need to recharge if I want to keep all my other processes running. I may have mis—” His lights sputter. He clangs onto the tracks. His voice is weak. “It will take me a little while to recharge.”

  I look to the five skinnies around me. My back against a tunnel wall.

  Hate hate hate.

  I tell em, “You can’t kill me. I’ve tried to die.” I point to my head. “We’re not even sure a bomb could kill me.” I laugh. “Put me in pieces.” Sling the pulse rifle. Dig a cigarette outta my vest. Light it. “Yeah, c’mon. C’mere.” I wave the skinnie bastards over. Blow smoke.

  Doesn’t this just feel better? The old brutality?

  Two of the skinnie bastard warriors charge. I duck the first one’s makeshift knife. Drive a knee up into its side. Bring my elbow down on its elbow. Crack the bone. Grab the knife. Stab it in the throat. The face. Parry the second one’s blade. Push my blade under the second one’s throat. Grab its blade too. So I got one in each hand.

  Now there are three skinnies watching me.

  All three come at once.

  I scream. My cigarette sticks to my bottom lip. I plunge both blades into the dark eyes of the first one that charges me.

  The two others clothesline me.

  My cigarette tumbles from my lips. Bobbles in the shit and muck.

  I don’t know why I don’t draw my sidearms. My Colts.

  I really don’t.

  You don’t need the guns. Ruin the parasite. Get that blood on your hands.

  The skinnies hold me down. One tries to shove a knife through my Pegasus suit. The other succeeds in slamming his blade through my cheek.