McCoy looked out at him from the hatch incredulously, then barked to the drivers. “Well, go on! Follow his ass!”
The MRAP roared to life and took off behind Silvio.
Rounding the first of the warehouses, the shining metal titan came into view. There she is, he thought. ARTEMIS, I'm on my way.
19
ARTEMIS' left arm swung side to side through the air as the crane sought to bring it to the body. A number of technicians clung nervously to the railings of their respective cherry pickers, grasping tools and looking all around for the source of the shaking. They didn't have to look long; when it'd grown close enough, there was no mistaking the sight of the Colossus lumbering towards them. The men fell into a frenzy, some redoubling their efforts and reaching out to the limb as if to draw it closer to the body, while others lowered themselves and took off running. As Silvio approached, seeking out Emil amidst the chaos, he heard Conway and the others close behind him.
The sturdy young mechanic hopped down from the lowered cherry picker and wiped at his hands with a handkerchief. Before Silvio even had time to ask him, he bellowed, “One hour. I'll need one hour to get that arm attached. And even then, we need to run tests to make sure it's on right. Unless you want it to fall off, that is.”
“Not good enough,” Silvio heard himself say, pushing past Emil and looking up at the machine, whose body glowed with the last traces of the sun. Something needed to be done. There could be no waiting. Pointing upward, he turned to Emil. “Power her up, I'm going in.”
Conway stamped his foot down. “I forbid you from using the suit under these circumstances,” he said, taking hold of Silvio's shoulder and giving him a shake. “To do so would be irresponsible. Sheer stupidity.”
Silvio pulled away, pointing towards the hill, where the sight of the Colossus drew ever nearer. With every passing moment it became easier to see, its terrible characteristics coming to light. In the dusk, the black spires that protruded from its craggy body cast baleful shadows. “We don't have time,” he said. “I need to go, and I need to go now. Hook me up already!”
McCoy agreed, pushing Conway back with an open palm and returning to his red-faced baseline for a moment. “He's right. He needs to get his ass up there, and now, else we're all fucked, got that? I'm in charge here, and I say he goes!”
Conway grew more forceful then than Silvio had ever seen him. “ARTEMIS will not be used in such a way! This is a suicide mission; the unit still lacks one of its arms. There's no way it'll be able to keep up with that monstrosity! I forbid it,” he reiterated, raising a fist and preparing to attack the commandant if necessary.
Dr. Deal tried to smooth things over. She looked utterly frightened, her white face standing out against the dusk. Her eyes quivered as she looked to Conway and McCoy, trembling hands raised. “Gentlemen, please, it's not ready. It would be irresponsible to--”
And all the while the shaking continued. It was becoming so that they could hardly keep their footing. Everything about them rocked with the creature's every step. Trucks and MRAPs shuddered on their suspensions, trees quaked and the hastily-built buildings began to sway on their shoddy foundations.
Rushing to ARTEMIS' side, Silvio turned to the group and climbed into a cherry picker. “We're out of time. I either go now or we're all going to die here. Understand?” He looked to Dr. Deal, waving her over. “Hook me up, damn it!”
Though Conway tried to stop her, Dr. Deal broke away and sprinted into the nearby complex, seeking out a packet of medical supplies. Joining Silvio in the cherry picker, Emil raised them up towards the cockpit. Silvio tossed his shirt away, letting it fall to the ground. “This isn't how it's supposed to go. It's reckless, insane,” she said, fumbling as she tried to keep hold of the supplies in her hands.
“Go on,” he said, baring his back to her. Along his spine the scabby marks left behind by their training remained. The skin was tough, calloused, abused.
She rummaged through the packet in the dying light, finding a small vial of iodine. “Emil,” she shouted, “Tell them to start her up. Silvio, open the cockpit.”
Silvio reached out of the basket for the latch on ARTEMIS' exterior. Pulling it roughly, the cockpit hatch gave, opening to reveal the now-familiar black seat, the controls, the mess of wires and the spinal apparatus. Kicking off of the railing, he dove into the cockpit. Dr. Deal followed, dousing his back in a cold wave of iodine. Then, her hands shaking almost too hard to get the job done, she began matching the needles to their corresponding areas along his vertebral column. When they'd been quickly sanitized, each one was placed, followed by the series of sharp, grabbing clips. He winced as they pinched at his flesh, grasping the back of the chair as they did so.
All the while, the doctor continued to warn him. “Silvio, this... this isn't safe. This is a bad idea. ARTEMIS isn't ready yet, and--”
He would hear none of it, however.
The warehouse nearest them was shuddering something fierce now. At any moment it seemed poised to crumble. Only ARTEMIS appeared firm in the face of the oncoming monstrosity, her tremendous feet sinking slightly into the earth and anchoring her.
When the apparatus was on, Dr. Deal scrambled about in the cockpit, digging a number of vials out of a hard case. These she loaded into a pump near the control panel. When she'd stripped the caps from them and placed them into specific compartments, she slammed the covering down on the pump and quickly slapped several electrode patches onto him. She checked their placings only briefly, setting them across his temples, his neck, his back, chest and wrists. When she thought them in the right places she struggled with the tangled leads, hooked him up, and then made her way out of the cockpit. Emil waited for her in the cherry picker and helped her over the railing.
Silvio felt a familiar burn along his spine. It started off hot as fire, then waned into something like a tingle, a cool sort of shiver. His muscles began to twitch, his heart began to race. And then he could taste it in his mouth. The infusion had begun and his body was coursing with a dose of God knew what.
All he knew was that it made him feel good.
Silvio felt powerful now, felt like more than a man. Stretching out, running his palms against the control panels, he loosed a shuddering sigh. His slick skin was dotted in gooseflesh as a chill breeze whipped by.
Dr. Deal gasped as she reached the cherry picker, falling to her knees and pointing over the other side at something that loomed darkly now over the roof of the nearby complex by several hundred feet. Emil hastened to lower the cherry picker, dropping towards the ground as quickly as the mechanism would allow. When they were down, they joined the rest of the scrambling folk below, seeking some kind of shelter.
Silvio tapped a square button on the console at his side. With that, the cockpit was closed with a hiss and a pop.
Sitting now in the perfect darkness, the creature but a stone's throw away, he shouted. “Turn her on!”
As he panted in the dark, his muscles contracting till they felt rock hard, he leaned forward. The main display flickered on and ARTEMIS slowly came to life. One by one the consoles were lit. The sounds of the unit's various systems powering up was like a symphony to him. It was more than sound; he could feel each part of the machine coming on as though it were an extension of his own body. It was like becoming cognizant of his limbs again after a long sleep. “Hello, old friend,” he said, taking a deep breath and looking to the display. The back of his neck tingled and something pulsed in his temples.
Now, for the first time that day, he could see everything before him. ARTEMIS' optical relay sent signals to his brain which were promptly translated into something like sight.
The titan stirred. Looking from side to side, Silvio noted the marked lack of a left arm. He flexed the unit's right arm, balled up the fist and made certain it was responsive. Then, taking a step forward in the thing, he yanked it free of any remaining wires and pushed a few cranes to the side. It'll be messy going in one-armed, but I'll handle it. He
studied the controls for a moment before glancing back up at the display and, subsequently, at the thing that stood before him.
They were separated now by less than two hundred yards. The Colossus had stopped near the foot of the hill, but would easily crush it underfoot with its next step. Its great and terrible face wore something of confusion or curiosity as it appraised the metal titan, her body reflecting the lights of the surrounding camp with no little sharpness.
When the unit moved, the creature's interest took a marked turn into aggression, however.
Raising ARTEMIS' one arm, Silvio watched the display as the Colossus began rushing forth, its tremendous claws slamming into the ground below and its lengthy tail shooting up from behind it like the tail of a scorpion. Its eyes, a brilliant yellow, cut through the young night and inspired a revulsion in him as it batted away one of the warehouses. The ground quaked beneath them as though the entire continent had been rocked by its advance.
Silvio tensed, exhaling hard and preparing to intercept. Here we go...
20
From the very first, he felt outgunned. Here he was, Earth's greatest hope, forced to head into the ring with one arm tied behind his back. It was a strange sensation, a feeling of absence where he should have felt his left arm.
He had no time to think about it, though.
The dust kicked up by the sudden demolition of the warehouse cleared in an instant as the monstrosity lurched towards him, claws outstretched. A terrible noise escaped its maw as it mounted its first bestial strike, a noise so hoarse and massive that the whole of ARTEMIS' body, and the earth below, began to vibrate. That yawning chasm of a mouth looked big enough to swallow an aircraft carrier.
Silvio grit his teeth, urging ARTEMIS forward and bringing his forearm skyward to meet the two sets of claws that were now crashing down towards him like twin hammers. This creature was simply beyond imagination from close-up. Its mile-high bulk cast a shadow on ARTEMIS from so close-by; that anything on Earth should dwarf the machine boggled his mind.
The claws that had swiped so many jets out of the sky met his own arm and gave ARTEMIS' circuitry a run for its money. The impact was tremendous, causing the pockets of metal in the machine's arm to groan as though they might fold. The resilient alloy did not give, and by some miracle Silvio's mental force was sufficient to keep the metal limb in place, sparing him from getting hammered by the two claws. Nonetheless, it required every ounce of focus he had to maintain his footing and defend against the strike from above, so that, when the obsidian tail came from behind, he was hopeless to stop it.
This tail, tipped in a jet-black spike like a tiny mountain, swung from the creature's left and batted ARTEMIS to the side, disrupting her footing and sending her to the ground. Silvio gasped as the mech slammed the earth, the impact jostling him to his very core. His bare chest was dug into by the harness he wore and a bit of tension developed in his spine where the infusion mechanism was placed. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered, urging the machine to stand and wheel around to the creature's side.
The Colossus roared again.
His ears ached for it.
Wiping the sweat from his brow, Silvio narrowed his gaze and zeroed in on the creature's center of mass. It'd taken a swipe at him. Now it was time to see how the creature liked getting hit. So far, nothing on Earth had been able to put a dent in it. As he commanded ARTEMIS' hand into a fist and wound up a haymaker, he was determined to break that streak.
Stepping forward so as to build momentum, Silvio loosed a scream and let it rip.
The Colossus flinched.
He almost missed it in his wild rage, however the creature, which had wreaked havoc without opposition for so long, reared back as it saw the gleaming metallic fist rushing towards it like a bullet train. The strike met the monstrosity's right side.
The effect wasn't quite what Silvio had hoped, though. The sound his punch produced as it met the craggy surface of the Colossus was enough to leave him temporarily stunned. It was awful, a sound like a hammer hitting solid concrete, and as best he could tell, no observable damage had been done. The creature was knocked back very slightly by the blow, but it was clear that Silvio's offense had been nothing but a minor distraction.
Realizing that he didn't have another arm to block with, he quickly bounded back, building a bit of distance between himself and the beast, lest he leave himself open to a strike.
Holy shit, he thought, flexing his hand in the cockpit. What is that thing made of? He knew ARTEMIS' body to have been constructed of a patented alloy, strengthened with nanoparticles that made it nigh unbreakable. ARTEMIS should have been able to smash through just about anything with a punch like that one, no questions asked. And yet, the beast remained before him, apparently unfazed. How can that be? Not even a fucking scratch? Seriously? A punch like that would've killed a guy on the street. With ARTEMIS throwing it, the bastard ought to be on his knees!
The surprise on the beast's craggy face lasted only an instant. Its yellow eyes were narrowed in a scowl, and it leaned down towards the machine, appraising it from above, before grunting. Then, tearing through the air with its claws, it swung a monolithic arm upward, attempting to catch ARTEMIS in a savage undercut.
Silvio shifted out of the way in time, used to catching such unpracticed moves in the ring. He grinned, clicking his tongue as the mech side-stepped the blow. “Nah, you're going to have to do better than that, you ugly son of a bitch. This ain't my first rodeo. Haven't taken one of those since I was in the schoolyard. You're sloppy!”
With a perfect opening to the creature's other side, Silvio clenched ARTEMIS' fist and delivered another blow, his brow furrowing intensely and the systems whirring to life. The air in the cockpit crackled with energy, both electrical and psychical, as his thoughts were transmuted into action. The metal titan reared back and then thrust its fist into the side of the creature before it, the impact generating that terrible sound once again.
ARTEMIS' entire body was set vibrating for that single punch, leaving Silvio a bit disoriented. When he gained his bearings and steadied his footing, he glimpsed out at the beast, noting its carapace remained unscathed. Man, that's a tough hide. Nothing is going to bust through that mess. How am I supposed to hurt it if it's covered in that shit? Maybe a strike to the head? A few quick jabs to bust up those pretty teeth it has? Hell, ARTEMIS could even poke it in the eyes. There's no ref around here to chew me out for fighting dirty.
While weighing his next move, he felt a heavy impact from down below.
“What the--” The world outside was flying by, and he was promptly jostled around the cockpit, his forehead striking a nearby panel. The skin burnt, and before he even brought his hand to it, he could feel a trail of warm blood trickling from it. “Shit,” he muttered, looking up through the display.
ARTEMIS was on the ground, knocked from her feet by the Colossus' tail. That damned tail had snuck up on him, swept his feet out from beneath him before he'd even known what was up. It was like fighting two people; that appendage had a mind of its own, could answer for the creature even as the rest of its body was occupied.
Before he could straighten himself out in the cockpit and shove away the mounds of tangled wires he'd accumulated during his fall to the ground, Silvio caught sight of the creature through the display. It stood directly above ARTEMIS, and was rapidly sailing towards the ground, arms outstretched.
“Oh, shit-- he's going to pin me,” spat Silvio, trying to take a swing at the thing as it descended upon him.
It was useless.
ARETMIS' only arm was batted into the ground by one of the Colossus' claws, and the rest of the monster's bulk crashed into the machine, anchoring it in place. Silvio tried to shift the legs, the arm, from beneath the creature's weight, but no amount of mental energy could move the thing. Its weight was incalculable, and it was only the alloy that comprised her body that kept ARTEMIS, and Silvio, too, from being flattened like a pancake. Just how long could the mech put up
with this strain? He had an entire mountain perched atop his chest and there was no way to get it off.
The Colossus pinned ARTEMIS with its two forearms so that the mech began to sink into the earth. Then, in a sudden leap that saw the ground shake like mad, the creature let its incredible legs sail into the air. Using its grip on ARTEMIS to keep steady, the Colossus brought its immense, saurian heels down in tandem, aimed squarely for ARETMIS' core.
Silvio shrank against his seat, blanching as the sight of the creature's feet took over his display.
He was about to get stomped on by the Colossus. Its two feet were crashing towards him with all the power of an atom bomb.
He gripped the armrests of the chair and squeezed his eyes shut.
ARTEMIS had had a good run, but this creature was simply unstoppable. The machine had somehow sustained the creature's weight, but a blow of this kind would crumple the thing like a tin can. There was no way ARTEMIS could survive this stomp. The craggy pads of its feet were headed straight for Silvio, blotting out everything else on the display.
He could picture it, the creature's feet tearing through ARTEMIS' armor, pounding his puny body into a red paste.
At least he'd die quickly, he thought.
21
The earth-shattering blow came.
He could feel it in his bones.
He could feel it in ARTEMIS' bones, in the way the entire construct wailed and groaned beneath the stupendous weight of the Colossus' onslaught.
The display flickered terribly, the scene on it temporarily disrupted as though he'd been punched in the head.
But Silvio did not die.
The Colossus took a few opportunities to pound ARTEMIS into the ground, nudging it deeper and deeper till its metal bulk was half-buried in the soil, but for all its effort it could not destroy the mech. Shuffling off with a roar and thinking perhaps that its opponent had been defeated, the Colossus stood upright.
Bonecrusher: A Kaiju Thriller (The Armageddon Tetralogy Book 1) Page 12