Kill Machine (The Hroza Connection Book 6)

by William Vitka

  28. Slowly I Turn, Step By Step

  You catch up with em in Pittsburgh?

  No. Niagara Falls...

  At some point, my children, and humanity’s children, are gonna rediscover or recreate Vaudeville. The Three Stooges. The Marx Brothers.

  You’re trying my patience.

  You oughtta try mine some time.

  And it’ll be glorious.

  My puns will make sense to someone.

  Ye gods, the human race might even gain a sense of humor again.

  I can see myself watching Animal Crackers or Horse Feathers or, whoa, Duck Soup with the twins. Maybe some classic cartoons.

  Both of em on my knee.

  Long as I don’t get myself vaporized. Not sure I can recover from that.

  I can’t. We can’t. Current pilot weapons were designed to deal with the parasite. That’s why they don’t leave anything but ash. That palm blaster crap? Even the central cannon on their saucers. What they used against the Hroza in Alaska.

  Yeah. So. Hey. That’s a thing.

  Best chance I’ve got is to pretend to give myself up.

  I figure if the Collective wanted to study me so bad as a newborn, the pilots probably do too. Best way to bring the armada down to the surface.

  Science, bitches.

  And chances are, whoever’s leading this dipshit expedition of theirs ain’t Bugs Two. It’s the guy on the far side of the moon telling Bugs and his Looney Tunes buddies what to do.

  Cocksuck politicians declare wars.

  They don’t fight em.

  This’s just what my gut says. But...

  I’m not usually wrong.

  I offer myself up for study. Get the pilots in a spot where they think they’ve got the key to...me. Mr. Blue Pol Baddy comes down to get me personally.

  Good photo op.

  “Politician” is “politician” in any language.

  Fuckin aliens.

  Fuckin politicians.

  We’ll ruin em. Take their shit.

  Save our own goddamn selves.

  Then what? Where are we going? Are we there yet?

  I have no idea.

  There’s still the issue of that biomass in the trench. Dunno what to do about that big bastard. Maybe burn it out with the pilot ships. Depending on what it does. Unless it’s coring through the planet like an insect in a rotten apple. Then we’re screwed.

  Now I got six and a half days to get everything together.

  Or, no: There are six and a half days for Plissken to get his virus spam in order. For maybe one or two more survivors to get combat-ready in their Talos warframes.

  Can’t let DeVille know about this. She’ll freak the fuck out.

  In a weird way, it’s good the twins are keeping her knocked out.

  Your own adorable little parasites.

  29. I Know What Your Kids Want For Christmas

  Takes Thompson and Fiske a few tries, but they do manage to get qualified for the Talos warframes.

  The depressing part is decommissioning Jack’s. Watching it get torn apart by worker bots inside the Beast’s big engineering section.

  There’s no weepy ceremony or anything. Just plates of armor coming off. Computer systems. The wires and digital strands that made up the Talos’s neural network. All the stuff that connected my dad to his machine.

  I keep one piece.

  A customized portion of the chest armor that reads “FRONT TOWARD ENEMY” in tall letters. Have it secured onto my own Talos. Clyde.

  I look down at my wrist. A thin strap there I can use in an emergency to call Clyde to my position. Plissken told us about back when he first showed us the warframes. The panic button. Haven’t had any reason to use it yet. But it does gimme an idea.

  Whoa. Two ideas at the same time? Slow this ride down, son. You’re giving me whiplash.

  I count available Talos pilots on my fingers. Me. Catarina. Athena. Aiden. Booker. Sarah. Swift. Thompson. Fiske. Nine warframes against fifteen saucers.

  DeVille’s gonna be pissed she ain’t part of the action.

  Jade. Jade can probably use DeVille’s warframe. That’ll be ten.

  Better.

  Plus Turing. Plus Lovelace. Plus Juliet.

  Plissken and his family have always been pretty fuckin good when it comes to tricks up their robotic sleeves.

  I walk deeper through the factory. Marvel at the machines the machines make. A lot of it’s basic shit. Beds. Bunks. Bunkers. Everything including the kitchen sink. Then I pass wall-sized presses pumping out ammunition. Guns. Missiles.

  Something nudges my back.

  I whip around.

  See Harryhausen floating there. He chirps.

  I smirk. “Hey bud.” I scratch my cheek. “I was looking for...I dunno, actually. Plissken and his kids. See what they’re up to.”

  Harryhausen hums. Chirps again. A series of notes. What I hear in my head is: Why the fuck don’t you ever use the comms?

  I shrug. “Those little things that go in your ears?” I shudder. “Hate those things. They itch.”

  Harryhausen groans. Makes a fart noise. Chirps. Bobs. Then he putters off.

  I follow. Duck my head under pipes. Drones the move supplies and equipment from one part of the factory to another.

  I also get the idea, real fast, that this place wasn’t meant for humans to hang around in.

  Sparks from welding machines burn my arms. My hair. A whirring blade almost takes one of my fingers off.

  Safety hazards ahoy.

  We get to a point where, to be honest, I don’t have a fuckin clue about my location. The bowels of the Beast. Some dark warehouse-sized large intestine amid a series of warehouse-sized spaces.

  Halogen lights above me flicker on. They ktchunk into brilliance one by one. Line by line.

  Till they cast their illumination on another one of Plissken’s projects.

  Forty-foot tall warframes for his family.

  I actually recognize Lovelace and Turing. Both are a deep blue. One’s got a big “L” on her chest. The other with a big “T” in a matching spot. Their emoticon screens are still there too.

  Third one’s gotta be Juliet. Big tank momma. She’s a gleaming white with red trim. Sorta like a bitchin race car.

  This, y’know, I kinda expected this.

  What I didn’t expect is there are two more.

  One blacker than midnight. The other grey with chrome.

  Jade walks out from behind their legs. Always funny to see how diminutive Alpha is compared to the warframes. Still a badass mech that saved my ass at Sikorsky. Just...she’s so little now.

  Jade says, “They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”

  I nod. “Yeah. Sure are.” Point to the black and chrome ones. “I figured you’d ride in your mom’s warframe—cuz, hey, genetics. Her Talos won’t reject you. But who’re these other two for?”

  Jade scoffs. “I’m sure if you think about it for thirty seconds, you’ll put something together.”

  Harryhausen chirps.

  Jade says, “Yeah. Our hero here is a bit thick. I spent time in his brain.”

  I squint at both “friends” of mine. Raise an eyebrow. Shrug. “I got nothin.”

  “Holy shit.” She gestures to Harryhausen. “Please educate this dope.”

  Harryhausen chirps. Shoots up. His little plasma thrusters kicking him high over my head. Over the warframes.

  Metal in the neck of the midnight black machine hisses. Opens for him. He slides his form in. More like a computer component being fit into its home than anything else.

  What I’ve always assumed was a baby bot is now a giant kill machine.

  Sniff. They grow up so fast.

  Being Plissken’s protégé will do that.

 
; Ah...shit.

  I say, “The fifth Talos is Plissken’s.”

  Jade says, “Winner winner, chicken dinner.”

  “Dunno if I want him doing that.”

  “If there’s one person who can take care of themselves, it’s Plissken.” She laughs. “Hell, he’s kept everyone else alive too.”

  I cross my arms. “Yeah. People used to think that about my dad. My uncle.”

  Jade doesn’t give me any shit after that. Her voice calms. “So it runs in the family.” She’s almost pleasant now. “That ain’t a bad thing.” She laughs again. “And we are all family, huh?” She spreads Alpha’s big arms around her. “One big crazypants family.”

  I grin. “Spose so.” Pop a cigarette between my lips. “How do you feel about that, anyway? I don’t even know what the fuckin dynamic is gonna be.”

  “Doesn’t seem that complicated to me. I’m gonna be a big sister. It’s fuckin awesome.”

  “Yeah.” I light my stogie. “Real big sis.”

  “Hey man, times’ve changed. Traditional family kinda went out the window a long time ago.”

  “For the better, at least.” I shrug. “Strangely nice to be related to robots.”

  “Maybe. Till you piss my mom off and I tear your balls off with angry mechanical hands.”

  I scoff. “Your mom’s threatened to take my balls off, like, dozens of times.”

  Plissken hovers into the room. Lovelace and Turing flank him.

  He says, “I seem to have picked a particularly strange time to walk in on a conversation.”

  I shake my head. “Nah. Just having a chat with one of the DeVille women about how my berries might be forcibly removed from my body.”

  “So it could be any hour of any day.”

  “Pretty much.” I gesture to the grey and chrome warframe. “I hear you’re gonna be on the front lines against the pilots.”

  “Well...” Plissken bobs. “It was supposed to be a surprise. But, yes. Fifteen warframes for fifteen saucers. I thought it might be wise to even the odds.”

  I smirk. “Other than me not wanting you exploded, it’s a good idea.”

  “I assure you that not a single member of my family wants to be exploded.”

  Turing walks by his father. Gives me a nod as he passes. He locks his big mitts in Jade’s for a moment. Just a moment. But since they can communicate at the speed of thought, they could be taking a quick vacation in their heads for all I know.

  Then Turing releases her hands. Nods. Chest screen a: .

  He and Lovelace scale their warframes.

  Unlike the Talos the survivors pilot, there ain’t no cockpits on these five. So it’s the same deal for Lovelace and Turing as it was for Harryhausen. Plates in the armor of the neck and skull separate. Make nice Lovelace- and Turing-sized holes. The bots secure themselves. The armor closes again.

  Three of the massive machines are active. Unmoving, but active. Only way to tell is the totally badass running lights along their chests and shoulders. They’re giant special effects in my little science fiction-horror-action epic.

  I’m totally fine with all this.

  Plissken puffs his thrusters. Zips up. Over to Juliet’s warframe. Says, “It took me a little while to clone her systems. Make sure I left one of her in charge of the Beast while I install the real her here.”

  Juliet’s white and red frame shudders to life. Her enormous hands flex. She shifts her weight from one titanic foot to the other.

  “She’s excited,” Plissken says. “This is the very first time she’s been in a bipedal body.”

  I smoke. Smile. “Guess I shouldn’t go patting her hinder.”

  Juliet turns toward me. Shakes her head. Slow.

  I arch my eyebrows. “Man. It’s so much fuckin creepier now that you can react to me being a pig.”

  Plissken says, “I’ve noticed that the women in our lives tend to tolerate you more than enjoy your presence.”

  “Quiet, you. I’m way better than I was before.” I grit my teeth. Bite my bottom lip. “You get your ninja transmitter up so we can spam the aliens?”

  “No. Soon.” Plissken settles into the skull of his own warframe. His voice booms from his new immense form. “We still have time. And I want to make sure my family is comfortable in their skins.”

  Jade says, “I’ll meet you guys there in my mom’s machine.”

  I hold up a hand. “Wait, where are you going?”

  “We’re gonna go play in Williamsburg.”

  30. Well, At Least They Won’t Be Able to Film “Girls” Anymore

  I sit in DeVille’s room aboard the Beast. Next to her bed. I’ve got a holopad in my lap. So I can watch my extended family rampage through Brooklyn.

  It’s impressive.

  Especially when they stomp through my old stomping grounds. Bay Ridge. Under the shadow of the Verrazano.

  Sure, it’s a test-run, but holy crap.

  That place’s seen some weird shit. Maybe it’ll see more in the future. Right now, though, Plissken and his kin are fuckin smiting it. Burning it. Smoking any remaining parasites out.

  I think briefly about the bars I’ll never go to again.

  Plissken grabs something in the water of the Narrows off the Belt Parkway. A wretched lamprey with pudgy, rudimentary flippers and feet.

  He punches its head into bony mush then burns its body with a blaster in his palm.

  Guess my guy’s been taking hints from the pilots.

  Dunno if my Talos has that. Or if it’s, like, Plissken Clan-exclusive.

  At this point I realize I’m not fighting alongside my friend. No fuckin clue the last time that happened. I’m...just a viewer. A passive asshole. It’s depressing.

  Hanging out here where it’s safe.

  Shit. That doesn’t sit right at all.

  Armchair apocalypse quarterback.

  DeVille stirs. One hand on her chest. One on her belly.

  I stand. Lean over her. Brush her cheek with my hand.

  Her eyes flutter open for a second. She smiles. Then grimaces. “I smell cigarettes.”

  I smirk. “Not in the room. I swear.”

  She smiles again. “When is your dumbass gonna quit?”

  “I’ll quit when this is done.” I grip her hand. “Try to, at least.”

  DeVille groans. “That’s cheating.” She sneers. From pain. Props herself up on her elbows. Opens her eyes wide. Stares at me. Inhales and exhales slow. “That’s cheating cuz this might never end.”

  I hold the holopad out in front of her. “Not so sure about that.”

  She squints as she follows the action in Brooklyn. Blinks. “Are those—”

  “Yeah. You...” I pinch the hologram. Pull it back so she can see all the warframes. “You are watching—” I point out everyone I can “—Juliet, in her new bipedal body, Harryhausen, Lovelace, Turing, Plissken, and—”

  “Is that my fuckin Talos? What the fuck is my Talos doing out there?”

  I take a breath. “Well, Jade is—”

  “You put my daughter in a goddamn warframe?”

  Uhh...

  “No. You put your daughter in Alpha. Now your daughter is rocking shit in your other machine. This is what she wants.”

  DeVille’s lips quiver. She pounds the bed. “I wanna drive my Talos. Everyone’s in the fight except me right now. Me. And I’m so fuckin good at killing things.”

  I can empathize. “Watching Plissken and his family are kick ass, trust me, I feel about a million miles away from it all. Sucks.”

  DeVille grumbles. “Yeah.” She turns her gaze to the ever-present holograms of the twins. “They’re watching us.”

  They are.

  These two globs of baby-shaped Play Doh. Orange and blue in their digital recreations.

  T
heir eyes weren’t open before.

  I don’t think they were open until DeVille looked at em.

  Or maybe till me and her started getting kinda pissy with each other.

  How should we know?

  Not like these squishy bastards come with an instruction manual.

  What a charming way to refer to your children.

  They are bastards.

  Me and DeVille ain’t gonna suddenly find religion or get married or anything.

  Shit, I’m a bastard.

  DeVille says, “What the hell is going on?”

  “Uh...” I try to think of a good lie, but can’t. Quite. “Plissken’s making sure his family’s used to their new Talos.”

  “Why? We have plenty as it is.”

  “...Cuz. Of reasons.”

  Oh, you goddamn idiot.

  DeVille cocks her eye at me. “Define ‘reasons.’”

  “I think I have a way to get rid of the aliens. This is one part of Plissken’s end. Fifteen warframes to deal with fifteen saucers. If I can get em down here.”

  DeVille blinks at me. “That sounds exceedingly stupid.”

  I do my best Marlon Brando impression. “I’m gonna make em an offer they can’t refuse.” It ain’t a very good impression, but it’s all I got.

  “You’re not filling me with confidence.”

  I grunt. “All right.” Could go for a smoke right now... “Me and Plissken talked to Gordineer. The pilots do have shield systems. But we think we can disable em. And I think I can get the blue bastards down here for a conversation. We get all of em landed. Plissken’s virus takes out their tech. The warframes neutralize the saucers.”

  DeVille’s eyelids grow heavy. She sighs. “Sounds slim.”

  “Well, it’s this or it’s adios muchachos.”

  DeVille’s eyes slide shut. “Remember—”

  “I know, I know.” I kiss her forehead. “Don’t die.”

  * * *

  The shitty part of this—aside from the obvious—is that there’s nothing for me to do except wait. I can’t do dick.

  Gotta wait for Plissken. Gordineer.

  So I visit the cockroaches.