MECH

by Tim Marquitz

  The three men wore black uniforms of a cut somewhere between that of a chauffeur and a Marine’s dress blues. Their faces were muffled by a set of tinted goggles and a crimson scarf up over mouth and nose. In their gloved hands, each held an AK-47, the business-ends trained on their prisoners. The guns, however, weren’t what frightened Montez—it was the insignia each of the men wore on his tunic, a gray wolf’s head with a globe clenched in its jaws.

  “Fenris,” Montez groaned.

  “So, you recognize us,” a sneering voice snarled from behind the three guards. A fourth man stepped into the light. His uniform wasn’t dissimilar to that of his men, though of a deep brown color. He didn’t hide his pock-marked face behind goggles and a mask, brandishing the cruelty stamped across his features. A peaked cap with a shiny black brim covered his head, a golden wolf-head badge pinned to it.

  Of all the possibilities that occurred to him regarding who had abducted Dr. Rambaldi, Fenris was the one he’d neglected. Among the terror groups that savaged the nations of the world, there was none more reviled. Where other groups perpetrated their crimes trying to force change or empower their own ideology, the monsters who served Fenris wanted only destruction. An outgrowth and successor to the Werwolf movement that emerged from the ashes of the Third Reich, Fenris sought nothing more than revenge. Revenge for the destruction of the Reich, for the obliteration of the Nazi dream. Revenge against a world that dared stand against them.

  Montez glared into the officer’s icy eyes. “I’ve seen the dossier. Not the kind of stuff you read before going to bed.”

  A withering smile crossed the officer’s face. “Good,” he said. “That will make things much easier.” He looked aside at the guards. “At first, I was angry my men allowed you to live. Now, it seems you may prove useful. If you know who we are, then you know we aren’t people to trifle with.”

  “I wasn’t aware you were people,” Montez smirked. Before he could pull back, the officer brought a leather riding crop slashing across his cheek. He felt blood stream from the cut.

  The officer stared at the bloodied weapon, turning it over in his hand. “Cliché, I know,” he apologized with mock severity, “but often the old ways are best. You may call me Commander Spyder.” His eyes bored into Montez. “Do not think I won’t kill you, Mr. Montez. And, if I choose to, do not make the mistake of thinking you will die quickly. I am not known for mercy.”

  Before Montez could growl a reply, Zita crept out from behind him. “What have you done with Johnny and my father?”

  Spyder tapped the riding crop against his leg, a nasty smile crawling onto his face. “I haven’t done anything to them…yet. As for where they are, I am taking you to them now.” He waved the riding crop at his gunmen. “Get them to their feet. Take them to the doctor. Emil, follow at a distance. If any of our visitors gets the notion to fight or flee, shoot them. Knees and lower. We do not want fatalities this early in the game.”

  The men stepped into the room and pulled Montez and Zita to their feet none too gently. Montez was thankful he’d made no effort to break his bonds. If the Fenris gunsels found him free, they’d likely shoot him on the spot. He’d need to wait for when they weren’t watching.

  With one guard behind each of them, they were marched out of the cell and into a large warehouse. Montez saw his guess had been right. Steel cargo containers were stacked throughout the structure, interspersed with stacks of machinery and tools, electrical components, and immense loops of cable and wire. What it was all for, he couldn’t say, but if it had any bearing on whatever Fenris was up to, then it couldn’t be good.

  Montez and Zita were led into a large freight elevator. Once their escorts were on the platform, Spyder flipped a switch and they descended. For about forty feet, all Montez could see were the bare concrete walls of the shaft. Then, the elevator lowered into a gigantic hangar.

  A gargantuan machine stood beside the metal framework of the elevator shaft. A construction of steel and titanium, a mechanical colossus. Fifty feet at the shoulder, the machine’s shape was that of a man’s, with two pillar-like legs supporting a blocky pelvis, to which was fitted a broad armored torso. Huge arms hung from the shoulders, each ending in an articulated metal hand. A helmet-like head rested atop the steel titan, fabricated in such a way as to suggest an ancient Greek hoplite with its narrow face, thick side armor, and sloping crown. Upon the forearms, Montez saw rectangular housings for missile batteries. On the shoulder above the join to the left arm, a bulky gun array was fitted, the oversized cousin to the Vulcan cannon. The machine was more than merely a robot—this was a weapon of war.

  “A trifle,” Commander Spyder noted upon seeing Montez’s interest. “A project your government canceled some time ago. The right senator under your thumb, anything is possible in the decadent democracy of America.” The man laughed, a knife scraping bone.

  “That’s a Theseus,” Zita said with a shudder. “My father was involved in—”

  “Your father designed the control apparatus,” Spyder said. “When the project was defunded, Fenris took an interest in seeing your father’s vision realized.” The officer made a dismissive wave of his hand towards the massive machine. “That is, until something better came along.”

  Montez twisted in his guard’s grip and faced Spyder. “If you aren’t going to do anything with Theseus, why snatch Rambaldi?”

  “His knowledge is still useful, of course. We’ve been using this one for parts, and Dr. Rambaldi can help ensure they are compatible with the new platform. We’re still interested in the control system he designed.” A cruel glint shone in his eyes as he studied his prisoners. “Yes, you may even prove more useful than I considered.”

  The elevator was level with the Theseus’ shins. A door slid open and they were herded onto a gantry overlooking the cavernous hangar. Montez had a glimpse of something huge and silver stretched out across the far side, a small army of technicians and workers scrambling around it like ants. Mixed among them were more black-uniformed soldiers. His guard used the stock of his rifle to prod him towards a glass-faced building built into the hangar’s rock wall.

  “Dad!” Zita shouted as soon as they were inside the building. Her guard was too slow to prevent her from dashing towards a gray-headed man sitting at the center of a bank of computers.

  Dr. Rambaldi looked up. His weary face glowed with joy for a brief instant, then the horror of their circumstances smashed him low again. He drooped in his chair, head sagging against his chest. Zita rushed to him, but with her hands bound behind her, there was little she could do but lay her head next to his.

  A surge of fury boiled inside Montez. “I guess this makes you feel powerful,” he snarled. The terrorist brought his crop slashing across the agent’s face. He glared at Montez for a moment, then smiled and turned away.

  “What do you think of our command center?” Spyder asked. He waved his riding crop, pointing out a dazzling array of consoles, terminals, and data banks. To Montez, it looked like something out of a comic book. The words Spyder used to describe the equipment were just as fantastical. The only thing of real consequence, as far as he was concerned, were the frightened, beaten-looking people at those stations and the retinue of Fenris guards watching over them.

  “Your people seem as happy in their work as Dr. Rambaldi,” Montez said. “What’s wrong? Don’t they share your insane dream?” Behind his back, Montez worked his watch around so he could bring the face close to his bindings.

  Spyder walked towards Montez, his boots echoing as he marched across the floor. “Any man initiated into Fenris shares the traditions and obligations of our society.” He shook his head and gestured with his crop at one of the lab-coated technicians. “This project required specialists in very exacting fields. It was necessary to appropriate them from some of your universities. Oh, there’s a bit of turmoil the first month or so when they disappear, but you Americans are so inundated with crime, desensitized to degeneracy, that you quickly lose interest a
nd move on to the next atrocity your media peddles on the nightly news.” The evil grin crawled back. “You might like to know a good deal of the funding for this enterprise was likewise appropriated from your universities. Why else do you think these institutions charge so much to teach so little?”

  Zita looked up from her father, who had sunk back into his chair, seemingly lifeless. A mix of panic and burning hatred was in her eyes. “He’s dying! You’re killing him!”

  The terrorist commander glanced at a large screen set into the wall, then rushed over to Dr. Rambaldi. Shoving Zita aside, Spyder pressed two fingers to the scientist’s neck. He grabbed Rambaldi’s lapels and yanked him up from the chair. “You won’t die on us until your work is finished, Doctor! If you do, it will be most unfortunate for your daughter…and your son.”

  Rambaldi, bleary-eyed, focused on the pock-faced terrorist as a cold horror grew on his features. He gazed at Zita, then Montez. “You don’t know what they’ve made me do.” He shuddered. “You don’t know what they intend to do with the…abomination…they’re building.”

  Spyder laughed. “How unfair to describe your crowning triumph as an abomination, Doctor. What you have helped us create is nothing less than the eighth wonder of the world. People everywhere will speak of it. In such time as is left to them.”

  Montez worked his fingers on the face of his watch. Now that it had been rotated close to his bonds, he had to get that face to twist off. It was a slow process, one that had him gritting his teeth against the pain soon-to-come from his exertions. He tried to keep that hesitance from his face as he addressed Rambaldi. “What is it these monsters have been making you work on?”

  “Monster,” Rambaldi repeated, his voice like an audible shadow. “Yes, that is the word. Monster!” He pointed an accusing hand at Spyder. “They’re building a monster, and God help me, so have I.”

  Laughing, Spyder walked to a terminal and had the technician seated there enter a few commands. One of the screens in the outer wall slid back, affording a panoramic view of the hangar. Montez’s heart went cold at what he saw.

  The vast silvery object was exposed as a gigantic armored chassis, a steel juggernaut cast in the ophidian image of an immense serpent. Enormous clawed legs protruded from the sides and a long-bladed tail extended behind it. The head was blunt and draconic, great horns sweeping back from a narrow face and mammoth metal jaws. Gargantuan turbines, jet thrusters of near indescribable force and power, ranged down the sides of the articulated horror’s back. Gun batteries big enough to service a naval cruiser were grouped at the middle of the monster’s back, while the menacing tubes of missile launchers stretched along the side of the hull. Fitted beneath the thing’s jaw, embedded in its throat, was a diamond-like lens of reflector frames—the mesh-work of a laser weapon that KRII still believed to be in the earliest stages of development for their anti-Kaiju defense systems.

  More horrible than the size and scope of the menacing machine, more threatening than its brutal weaponry, was the hideous familiarity of its shape. “You made a robot copy of Mishipeshu,” Montez said.

  Mishipeshu, the legendary water panther that had emerged from its primordial prison to ravage the Great Lakes and decimate the city of Chicago before being slain by the thunderbird Animikii. Thousands had been slaughtered by the reptilian monster during its rampage, a rampage most modern weaponry had been powerless to thwart.

  “More than a robot,” Rambaldi shivered. “Within that hull is the carcass of Mishipeshu itself. The living flesh of the monster.”

  Alive? Montez shook his head in disbelief.

  Mishipeshu had been killed by Animikii, the thunderbird had fed upon the water panther’s corpse. What was left had been dissected and removed for study at a secure facility; yet, after seeing Fenris in possession of the Theseus robot, what was truly secure from them?

  Spyder gestured at the reptilian juggernaut. “My favorite philosopher once said: ‘that which does not kill us makes us stronger.’ The monster’s regenerative properties persist, biological activity has never ceased within its body. It lives, perhaps not in the way we understand it, yet in a way that lends itself to this project.” The vicious smile returned. “You might call this a Mecha-Mishipeshu. An improvement on what nature—or God, if you like your fairy stories—developed.”

  Rambaldi wrung his hands in a helpless fashion. “They are using the monster’s nervous system as a control network. Electric shocks prevent the brain from regenerating.”

  “And your nano-bionics replaces neural activity?” Zita asked. “But that would mean a human being would be—”

  “Yes, Miss Rambaldi,” Spyder laughed. “That would mean a person would be subsumed into Mecha-Mishipeshu. Your father’s technology worked well enough to allow an amputee to control a cyborg arm or leg, but for something as ambitious as the Theseus project, the operator would have to lose their own identity! They would become the machine! Liberated from the distractions of their own body.” The terrorist shook his head. “That was why it was so easy to get Theseus cancelled. Democracies can be so squeamish. That is why, in the end, people always destroy themselves.

  “That is also why we’ve trusted you this far, doctor.” He turned to Rambaldi. “After all, if your son is to operate Mecha-Mishipeshu, I know you will do everything to ensure the machine is operational.” A cold glint came into his eyes. “Then again, perhaps your foolish humanitarianism might assert itself. Maybe you don’t trust our promise to rehabilitate your son once his purpose has been accomplished?”

  The screen Spyder had looked at a few moments before came to life with the image of a man in black robes, his face hidden beneath the folds of a dark hood. Across the breast of the robe, the wolfshead of Fenris had been sewn, its eyes a pair of rubies, the globe in its jaws formed from sparkling stones of jade and sapphire. This was a man wanted the world over, the leader of Fenris, known only as Lycaon.

  The hooded tyrant’s voice slithered through the command center. “Report,” he demanded, the word snapping like a whip.

  Spyder stepped closer to the screen, placing himself before the camera mounted above it. “Dr. Rambaldi has produced the nanobionics. Construction of Mecha-Mishipeshu is almost complete. We can be ready within a week for the next test.”

  With the terrorist’s attention focused upon his master, Montez gave his watch the final twist, breaking the sealed capsule hidden inside. Burning acid dripped from the casing, searing his flesh but, more importantly, melting the plastic bonds. A few moments more and he would be free.

  “Two days,” Lycaon hissed. “The weapon must be unleashed on the anniversary of our defeat. I want the world to shudder at the might of Fenris. They must know why their cities burn! Two days, Commander. You know what it means to fail me.”

  The screen faded black. Spyder turned and snapped orders, dispatching two of his troops to retrieve Johnny and bring him to the command center. His face was savage when he turned back to them. “We no longer have the luxury of time, Doctor, which means we are going to test your nano-bionics now.”

  Rambaldi rushed towards Spyder, but was intercepted by a guard. “Not my son!” the scientist begged, his cry taken up by Zita. The terrorist’s smile was ophidian in its coldness. He turned as the troops returned, pushing Johnny ahead of them. The boy had his hands bound behind him, and the clothes he’d been wearing when Montez last saw him were gone, replaced with a loose-fitting coverall. More disturbing was the fact that the boy’s head had been shaved—readied for whatever interface Spyder intended to use to control Mecha-Mishipeshu.

  Spyder pointed his crop at Johnny, savoring the look of terror in the boy’s eyes. “This is a test, Doctor, so your son won’t be necessary. At least, if everything works.” He reached down and grabbed Zita’s chin, forcing her to look at him. “It had been my intention to use your daughter to test your obedience.”

  The villain turned away, then waved his crop at Montez. “Fortunately for you, Doctor, other options have made themselve
s available. We’ll test your nano-bionics on Mr. Montez. If they work, you will be sparing your daughter a most excruciating experience.” At a nod from Spyder, two of the guards moved to seize Montez.

  It was the moment he’d been waiting for. As the guards came close, Montez snapped his bonds and lashed out. His fist cracked against the jaw of one terrorist, stunning the man and knocking him to the floor. His other hand closed about the barrel of the second guard’s rifle. As the terrorist pulled the trigger, Montez used his momentum to spin his foe around. The spray of bullets stitched a tattoo across one of the banks of computers. Guards and technicians dove for safety.

  A kick to the back of the knee and a brutal jab of his elbow into the guard’s throat allowed Montez to capture the rifle. Darting behind one of the terminals, he just reached cover as the other terrorists began firing. A half-dozen rifles riddled the guards he’d knocked down, the shooters indifferent to the slaughter of their comrades. Bullets drilled into the metal terminal, punching through in a spray of sparks and debris. Montez leaned out from his fragile cover, squeezing off a shot that caught a terrorist in the head.

  “Enough!” Spyder’s shout echoed above the roar of assault rifles and the crackle of burning electronics. “Lay down your weapon, Mr. Montez.” The agent peeked out from behind the terminal to see Spyder with a snub-nosed automatic in his hand, the barrel pressed against Johnny’s temple. “I will count to three. What happens after that will be your responsibility.”

  In disgust, Montez tossed his rifle into the open and stood. He could have shot Spyder, but one twitch of the dying terrorist’s finger, one nervous spasm, and Johnny would be dead. Despite the horror of what Fenris was seeking to achieve, he couldn’t have the boy’s death on his conscience.

  “Very sensible” Spyder said with a sneer. He looked at the surviving guards. Raising his riding crop, he seemed about ready to give the command to execute Montez.

  “Wait!” Dr. Rambaldi shouted. The scientist scrambled out from beneath the table where he and Zita had taken cover. He rushed to a cabinet and withdrew a long metal box. “You said I could test the nano-bionics on him. Let us use him.”