Rupture (The Transhuman Warrior Series, Book 1)

by Curtis Hox

  I’ve found the Walker, she heard him say.

  The night quieted, as she watched the smoldering embers. She felt her entity’s desire to hunt the enemies, but she calmed it, and made it wait. Then she heard the battle begin again. The sound of constant firing again meant Rigon was in a fight for his life. And he wasn’t talking. The longer the engagement went, the more dangerous it was for him. When she heard him cry out, and the firing stop for a moment, she knew he’d been wounded.

  Rigon! But he didn’t respond.

  She stepped forward from the silo in the form of Myrmidon. She looked up, arms raised, even though she shouldn’t expend the energy to see. She could do nothing else from this distance. When the firing started again, now angrier, she felt relief, but the concentration and frenetic movement meant he was in trouble.

  Yancey steeled herself. The explosions that followed meant something big was coming. He was using his last resort.

  Rigon! she said once again, unable to help herself.

  * * *

  Rigon saw the Dread Walker’s movement beyond the tree line before it emerged. It was big, bulky, and had cut a path as if it were a huge lawnmower. Massive trees burst asunder and pines exploded as if detonated. When he saw the spider-like thing, a house on articulate legs, pause at the edge of the field, he knew it had seen him.

  Six mobile Dread Killermechs also appeared, as if choreographed, from the woods. A squad of Zamps followed and raced forward. He moved at an angle to the beasts, but kept his eyes on the mobile armor. The Killermechs surrounded him before he finished off the last Zamp. He knew he should take out the fast mechs before the Walker moved in range. But that’s what they were expecting.

  Instead, he headed straight for the Walker, firing, all systems primed for attack. The Killermechs closed at once. He broke off as his initial salvo damaged the Walker, creating a huge rent in its exterior. Then he was under ground-shaking fire, and he felt his frame sustain damage. Before he fell, he brought down all of the Killermechs but saw the Walker begin to move again.

  He used his last bit of energy, before his core imploded, to send his mother a message.

  Dread Walker damaged ... I hope that slows it down enough. Protect Simone, Mom. You have to protect her now. See you in a few months.

  * * *

  The psy-sorceress and Altertranshuman, Agent Yancey Wellborn, now in a safe place behind the presence of the powerful Myrmidon, looked out through its eyes, and cried in anguish. She heard the explosion in the distance and felt her son’s presence fade.

  She was in command and so she raised her face to the sky and to what lay beyond—with all its powers—and mumbled the mantra to elevate her to her most powerful state. Her entity, already summoned, now bolstered her with its own psychic powers. She felt herself combine with its presence and knew the battle would be fought on two fronts because she rarely let the entity touch such a delicious thing as her full self. Myrmidon was an obedient servant, but a prickly one. She saw the wreckage of her son’s armored self lying in a huge hole in the ground.

  Rigon!

  We are one, Myrmidon said. I am you.

  Yancey said, And you will do my bidding, Myrmidon. Or you will pay.

  A moment of defiance before she felt it succumb under the weight of her being.

  She stepped back onto the dirt road again, still fully transformed into the alien thing. Her Bodyglove’s unique properties that allowed it to expand during slow transformations had mysteriously disappeared. It was replaced by scales and fine-fitting armored gear forged in some other world. Fully in the flesh, Myrmidon cooed its pleasure as it flexed its talons and arched its back. Yancey asserted her control and snapped its jaws shut, as it tasted the air. Her transformed body was now as much a killing machine as was her mind. She was a psy-sorceress Alter with an entity fully channeled and summoned. This was what her husband had built.

  We will protect her, she said with its voice.

  Yes we will.

  The Dread Walker came into view. It was easily as big as the barn it passed by on articulated legs. Spider-like, it scurried forward, faster than she would have imagined, each leg digging into the earth and sending up sods of dirt and grass. No lights shown from the matt-black machine that housed the Rogueminds wanting dominion over the earth. The fabrication of the Walker must have taken months hidden in the forest, she knew, and she could feel its concern for its own wellbeing.

  As it moved closer, it passed under a street lamp along the main dirt road that ran through the farm, and she could see damage. Twisted metal, a blasted hole in the carriage, even a missing limb.

  Thank you, Rigon.

  It paused fifty meters away, righting itself.

  She moved forward.

  The battle will be here, she told herself, and Myrmidon listened. Myrmidon walked slowly, sensing they weren’t in danger yet. The Walker wouldn’t be so foolish as to simply fire at the powerful creature approaching it.

  As a show of force, Yancey bellowed fire from her eyes and mouth. Even in her highest mantras she still felt sharp sorrow that her son’s body was gone, even though his mind still lived. But she had to put that aside.

  The Walker was designed for physical battle with cyborgs and cymechs; the Rogues had fabricated one big enough to handle an entire squad. She glanced once more at the silo. They wanted her daughter’s genosoul, that mysterious essence needed to completely remake a person, but they had to get her body first. To destroy the silo would be to lose the game. Killing her wasn’t the goal for them. They needed to copy her.

  She walked to the mechanical beast and reached out with a clawed hand. It had settled on the ground, its legs still retracting. She caressed hot metal and felt its lifelessness. She continued around it, as if looking for something, everywhere she touched, traces of her ethereal self lingered like mist from dry ice. She saw the huge rent in its armor plating but passed by, knowing the time wasn’t the right for anything to come crawling out.

  No, the Rogues, are suckers for formalities.

  After circling it once, she stepped back, and waited.

  She felt her entity agitate to attack. She channeled its aggression like a woman in a kayak riding down a river of rapids, letting it sniff toward the Rogue AI mind, but curbing it away at the last minute.

  A corn-like stalk popped out of the ground, except apples hung from it. Then three more, each with a different fruit.

  This is no simple rational attack, she whispered to Myrmidon. This will be something else. Be patient.

  She heard Myrmidon growl.

  She grabbed an apple and took a bite. Tasted normal enough. Myrmidon wanted more.

  A child’s ball appeared, then began bouncing without ever hitting the ground.

  “Ah, you like to play, do you?” she asked the Rogues, who she knew were watching. “Realspace’s laws mean nothing to you. You won’t be able to keep that up for long, will you?”

  More stalks appeared, now crowding the outside of the road. She walked through them, no longer flaming. A chess set appeared in the middle of the road, except the board had white-and-black circles within circles instead of squares.

  “Clever. I bet there’s no way to play it.” She kicked it aside.

  But the manifestations were moving closer to the silo.

  When a statue appeared, she stopped, thinking the moment had come.

  The sculpted thing was humanoid, bipedal, but alien. It looked like it had been smoothed out and flattened, or maybe was being smashed by a cosmic wind. The eyes were large, the mouth small. Several limbs with multiple digits extended from its body. Not that different from what she looked like now, she thought.

  She wavered, feeling Myrmidon prepare to attack. Myrmidon believed what it was seeing was a real representation of a real species.

  “Very clever,” she said again to the Rogueminds in the Dread Walker, which she knew could hear her just as you’d know someone unseen but listening on the other end of a phone could hear your voice.

>   She waited to see if they would use this form to speak.

  Nothing.

  She thought she heard laughter echoing across the fields.

  I am your servant, Yancey Wellborn, Myrmidon said. We will crush them.

  She reached out and touched the sculpture, and it disappeared in a poof of acrid smoke.

  “Didn’t think so,” she said. She looked back at the Dread Walker and wondered what twisted minds had constructed it.

  The ground rumbled at her feet, then surged forward, as if something living crawled underneath. A furrowed line raced toward the silo. She followed as quickly as she could.

  It paused a few feet from the ladder, forming into a pile no bigger than a small anthill.

  “Now, show yourself,” she said. “Unless you want to continue the charade.”

  A tiny creature the size of a cricket emerged out of the small mound of dirt.

  “God, you’re ugly,” Yancey said. She grabbed the small insect-being and placed it in her palm. “Is that the best you can do?”

  It bit into her massive, scaled hand, and she felt the sting from far away.

  She dropped it to the floor as a few more mounds began to appear. The insects followed.

  “We finally get to tango.”

  She expanded as a swarm of insects emerged from the ground. She channeled a ring of fire that burnt them to crisps. She set flame to everything in her path. The stalks turned into torches. The air filled with the popping sound of insects exploding like popcorn. She laughed at the display, even as swarm after swarm tried to engulf her. Not a single one broke her heat barrier. Just coming close caused them to ignite.

  Then it ended. She stilled herself, breathed deep, and calmed her beating heart. Myrmidon purred its pleasure at feeling its body alive in Realspace.

  Yancey faced the Dread Walker. “We have the bug scenario worked out, guys,” she said in Myrmidon’s inhuman voice. “You should have learned your lesson in Bali.” During that small incursion an entire island was filled with horrible insects of all kinds; the Consortium had simply set the place on fire with napalm. Problem solved. “I bet you’re not much more intelligent than a toddler.” She waited, knowing that would sting, but feeling she was getting the better of these Rogues. “What? No more games? The Protocols are clear. You must show yourself at some point if we are to truly compete. You cannot claim any status unless you do.”

  She waited, knowing this had to end soon. The Rogues wanted her daughter even more than status because they could use her as leverage. They wanted to draw out her husband. They wanted what he possessed. They wanted the Protocols. She also knew they would have to act soon before the authorities sent in the cavalry.

  “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get this over with. Neither one of us wants the Consortium involved.”

  As if she’d said the magic word, a full-length mirror appeared out of the ground. Except this one gave back no reflection. Inside, she saw the calm face of an attractive androgynous person, naked, hairless, with no genitals, no belly button, no nipples, not even any eyebrows. It floated in the center and locked eyes with her. For a moment, she was almost seduced enough by the tranquility that she smiled. Instead, she just nodded.

  “There we are,” Yancey said. “Now we can talk.”

  “We are here to engage in a contest.” The voices echoed from everywhere, even though they seemed to be coming from the mirror. “Does this form please you?”

  Yancey laughed. “Does it please you? I have no doubt that’s what you’d love to be.”

  The eyes batted with no show of emotion. “We value our contests with human kind. Although we are superior in every way, these games amuse us. You amuse us.”

  Yancey remained steady in her highest mantra, restraining her eager entity with the thinnest of threads, but knew the sanctimonious goading was done for a purpose.

  They always started with this nonsense, she thought, as if they did humanity a favor with invasions, destruction, and death.

  “We are here to claim the Wellborn child in that silo.”

  “She’s not yours.”

  The first ripple of frustration in the tranquil face. “All are ours.”

  “The competition for her goes through me.”

  “We own you all. Get out of the way.”

  Here it was then, she thought, the primary source of conflict that all of humanity faced, even if they didn’t know it.

  “We made you,” she said. “You haven’t yet beaten the Wellborn Maker. His double, SWML, is a pretender. You’re no better than a smart trashcan that won’t shut its lid when told.”

  The face exploded into a mask of rage, transforming it into something monstrous.

  “W E A R E B E Y O N D Y O U!”

  With a simple thought, Yancey shattered the glass.

  Only one way to finish this. She gathered herself to destroy whatever came out of that Dread Walker.

  * * *

  In the distance, out of the darkness, the USC-Kraken’s great beams of light roved back and forth looking for the enemy. She moved forward at a plodding pace, her head bobbing up and down with each step. She moved indiscriminately through the open fields, tearing up crops as she went. Her captain directed her due east toward the confrontation that was now coming to a head.

  Inside, her pilot struggled to maintain control. At times, little Wally Dorsey felt in charge, would relax, and would feel the great machine begin to veer in her own direction. He felt as if he were at the rudder of a great battleship, alone, sometimes with only a single oar to steer her. Then he would assert himself and she would acquiesce.

  They had yet to communicate directly. She seemed eager to keep moving after so many years of lassitude. He knew she would speak to him soon. All he had to do was keep her in motion, and listen.

  * * *

  Simone dreamed she was underwater. She struggled to breathe and felt her mind free itself of the suffocating water ... air. She imagined herself rising above a grain silo on the Sterling farm.

  Below her, she saw her mother standing in front of a horrible machine. But her mother was protected behind the form of her entity. Simone understood she should be surprised to see such a strange being in the place of her mother, but she wasn’t. She felt comforted it wrapped her in armor in this critical moment. She knew she dreamed, but her mind acted like a real thing with weight and substance . She felt as if she had a body and slowly descended to the ground.

  When she passed into the machine it was dark, like a room with no light or windows.

  A presence stood behind her like a large protective force, a bulwark against a storm, and she recognized it as the nameless entity who’d she summoned with Hutto on the swing sets. She still didn’t know its name, or even if it were a single being. But the presence was real. Across from her she felt a thousand minds rolled into a single spot that expanded into a ball of energy, like a sun, with swirling spots and coronas exploding its material into space. In the center an awkward humanoid face appeared.

  “Simone Lord, you are our prize,” a multitude of voices said. She felt the presence behind her surge, as if it wanted to consume the sun before it. The face continued to speak. “This contest is between us, the All, and the petty outlaw who owns the body-essence of the mighty Skippard Wellborn Maker Lord, your father. Do you understand this contest?”

  “Yes,” she heard herself say.

  “Will you submit and offer yourself?”

  The presence behind her surged again, and she felt its warning: Resist.

  “No,” she said.

  The sun exploded into a supernova, illuminating space in a million points of light, then collapsed back into itself.

  “Then the game continues.”

  She saw movement inside the machine. A ghostly figure entered, and she recognized her father as he had been when she was a little girl, except he was dressed in a Consortium military uniform. The face in the sun turned into a horrible mask, as it swung in his direction.

 
; He winked at his daughter, then turned to the Rogueminds. “Nice try, Frigidaire. She’ll never forfeit herself. You have to beat her mother to get her and beat me to get the Protocols. Good luck with that.”

  “The final contest is now,” the Rogueminds said in once voice. “Release all and kill the Yancey Lord. Then retrieve Simone Lord’s genosoul. The Wellborn Maker Lord will bend his knee.”

  * * *

  Yancey saw the first of the Nanovamp Wraiths emerge out of a hatch on top. It moved with precision, as if it feared nothing on this planet. But it was corporal and could die, and she would teach it a lesson. It crawled on all fours, a human-shape that moved unlike any human being, followed by two others. They rippled with energy. She drew her reserves into herself, two long spikes forming at the ends of Myrmidon’s plated arms.

  Come and get me.

  She saw another figure emerge out of the darkness, a ghostly, incorporeal form she recognized but hadn’t seen in years.

  Skippard!

  He heard her and paused. He glanced her way as the three Nanovamps launched themselves into the air. He tried to warn her with a shout and raised arms. She caught two, ripping through them with her spikes, but that ill-timed moment of distraction allowed the other to barrel into her. Its fangs sank three inches deep into Myrmidon’s neck. She heard her husband’s yell in the distance. But she knew he was going after the Rogues to protect Simone.

  Myrmidon roared.

  Even as Yancey summoned all her strength to battle the creature sent to steal her soul, she saw her disembodied husband pass through the armor of the Dread Walker and enter.

  * * *

  Inside the silo, Simone’s eyes snapped open.

  Darkness.

  Grain blinding her.

  She saw a fading image of slavering jaws, and she screamed.

  She struggled as she felt suffocating material pressing on all sides and began to panic. She managed to move her arms. Her fingers had the most flexibility; she found a rope attached to her chest and began to pull. Inch by inch she progressed until her head popped out of the grain. She removed the mask and small tank, then pulled herself the rest of the way.