by Tim Marquitz
“Finally,” I said as some of the tension went out of my shoulders.
“My boy,” my father’s voice cracked out of the speakers over the rest of the noise. “Have you considered perhaps it was not I who called you here?”
My father’s question sunk in as the interior workings of the Dakkar whined and growled—as fresh as when they had been first assembled—making short work of the ocean debris that coated its exterior over the last several decades.
“If you didn’t bring me here, then who?” I asked, shouting over the now cacophonous sound outside the Colossi. “The Dakkar itself?”
“Worse,” he said, grim tiding in his tone. “I fear you have been misled, summoned by that which I have kept at bay.”
“Kept at bay?” I asked, confused. “Dad, you went down a hero, losing your life in defeating one of our enemies!”
“Hero,” he repeated with a heavy sorrow in the single word. “No. A hero would have done more than simply go down with his Colossi. He would have fought, and he would have won.”
“You did win,” I reminded him.
“No,” he said. “I merely bought humanity time. The other horrors that rose from the depth, those were merely vanguard to the creature that I felled. Felled, mind you, not defeated.”
My mind flooded with unbidden but familiar images that haunted me most of my life, the ones that thrust upon me the claustrophobic loneliness my father had experienced trapped in his downed Colossi. These new thoughts twisted and became something more as they worked their way into my head. I was now my father, trapped as he was in the days after his battle while his foe outside the Dakkar telepathically twisted its way into his brain like a rotten root through a foundation. The mental invasion slowly drove my father mad as it fed on his thoughts, learning what it could about the live and young boy my father had left at home.
I pushed the mental intruder’s thoughts from my mind.
“You didn’t bring me here,” I said with horrified realization. “It…whatever the hell it is…summoned me.”
“I was too strong to corrupt,” my father said. “It—she—could not break my will. But you, my boy, she’s had a lifetime to work on you, to draw you in. I am sorry that I have dragged you into all this.”
The blackness outside the windows of the control room swirled, replaced by crumbled bits of the encasing reef and the creature’s green-black hide pulsating from where it had lain hidden beneath the Colossi. The Dakkar rocked and shook with the motion as the massive creature stirred beneath it, fighting to free itself.
“Your heart rate is elevated again, Finn,” Julia Two chimed in my ear.
I gripped the control gloves and tried to shake the Dakkar free. “Good,” I said. “I think I’ve a right to be a little pissed. Finding out some gargantuan fuck has been toying with my mind all these years, summoning me… I started drinking to numb the dreams, costing me my own. I must ask myself, would I have failed out of Colossi training? Would I have become an obsessive salvager? All because I lack my father’s fortitude.”
“It would do you well to relax, Finn,” she said.
“To hell with relaxing,” I said, a new fire awakening in me. “I’ll relax when I finish salvaging my father’s Colossi. Not a moment sooner.”
Tentacles. Everywhere the external lights of the Colossi fell, tentacles writhed like those of a giant squid. The amorphous green-black mass of the creature absorbed the meager light of the vessel, but at times the shadows looked like a gigantic humanoid. Whatever the figure truly was, I needed to get through the swirling chaos of suction covered limbs that posed a more immediate threat. My arms worked with those of the machine, the raw power of its mechanics enough to pull away several of the tentacles that were working to ensnare me, but for each one I removed another took its place.
“You need something stronger,” my father said as one of his custom keys lit up.
I hit its thumb toggle.
SAW INITIATED lit up in the corner of one of the monitors. I held my breath as I waited to see if it would actually deploy after decades of dormancy down here in the deep. Panels along the left forearm of the Colossi creaked open, some slower than others. Bladed teeth as tall as I was cut their way through the rocky mass of barnacles covering them.
Even from the control room, I felt the whirr of the blades coming to life, the water outside turning a crimson black, clouding the creature outside while the Dakkar’s left arm tore free. Triumph filled my soul, but when the motor running the saw hitched and ground to a halt moments later, that sensation died. I flicked the thumb toggle several more times to try to bring it back on line, but it was no use. When the blood and ichor cleared, I saw the problem.
Several severed tentacles spasmed throughout the surrounding water, but others, older and tougher, had risen to take their place. The teeth of the machinery stuck in the creature’s thick hide, unmoving.
“Shit,” I said.
“It appears that part of your weapons system has been compromised,” Julia Two chimed in.
“I know,” I said, unable to hide my irritation. “My dreams never made it seem like this was going to be easy, all right?”
“You cannot hope to defeat this creature,” my father spoke through the interior speakers of the machine. “Not her. Not alone.”
“Fat lot of good that does me down here in the depths,” I said. “The dreams summoning me always showed me pulling off this rescue salvage as a solo mission. I grew up greedy enough to not want to share the spoils with anyone, and…well, here I am. Crew of one. My only other companion is a friggin’ robot several thousand feet above us on the surface.”
“I am sorry you have come here,” my father said, “only to suffer the same fate as I. No man wants that for anyone, especially their own child.”
“I’m not dead yet,” I said. “I may be a shit pilot, but I’m an excellent salvager and I’ll be damned if I’ll end up stuck here or reduce this Colossi to scrap. Jules, talk to me! What’s weaponized and ready on this?”
“Saw is disabled, along with much of the hydraulic power to that arm,” she said. “As far as other operational systems, the best option would appear to be the ion cannon mounted in the front torso directly below the control center. It appears to be on line and working within acceptable parameters.”
“Try and blow a hole through this sea she-bitch,” I said with a grim smile. “I like it.”
“Won’t work,” my father’s voice spoke with sadness in it. “The chest beam is how I first downed her. It powers directly from the atomic core of the Dakkar. It was enough to stumble her so I could drag her to the ocean floor, but it did not kill. Hence my predicament in staying with the Dakkar all those years ago.”
“Yes, but I’ve got something you didn’t have,” I said. “You touched on it a moment ago when you said I couldn’t defeat her alone. That’s just it. I’m not alone down here. I’ve got a ghost in the machine.”
“Ghost in the machine,” Julia Two repeated. “I do not follow. There are no substantiated records confirming the existence of ghosts, let alone ones of a mechanical nature.”
“Tell that to the Dakkar,” I replied, not bothering to explain the idiom to her.
The Colossi shook as the tentacles outside the cockpit slid across the tempered glass of its windows, the creature’s grip tightening.
“Unlike decades ago, we’ve not only got the power of this Colossi, but we’ve got more than the usual solo pilot on board now. We’ve got the ghost of a legend at the helm with me. You wired this Colossi to your personal tastes, Dad, and however you’re still here, there has to be an advantage to that.”
“You truly think we can stop her?” my father asked.
“I’ve got to believe in something,” I said. “Other than a watery grave.”
“When I downed the creature, I dumped most of the core into her,” he said, unsure. “What more could we possibly give?”
I didn’t have an answer for that. Not yet, anyway. I sat in sile
nce, searching through the displays and controls. I went over every option imaginable but came up with nothing viable.
The Colossi rocked and stumbled from its struggle with the creature, shaking me out of my thoughts. As I fought to free the Dakkar from our enemy’s grip, an eldritch glow arose outside the ship. Two dead pools of light that could only have been the creature’s eyes stared through the windows to meet my own. Her foreign thoughts once more pressed like a thumb at the front of my brain. I shook them off, but not before a forceful wave of depression wormed its way into my mind.
“Maybe it’s pointless to even try,” I said, unable to resist the intrusive mood.
“No, we can destroy it,” my father insisted, a grave quality filling his every word. “As you said, I am the ghost in the machine. If we need more power to take this creature down once and for good, then I’ll be damned if I can’t muster it out of my faithful old Colossi here. I willingly went down with the Dakkar once before…”
His tone had gone dark, his words trailing off. He didn’t finish. He didn’t have to. Whatever he was about to do to help our situation, every ounce of energy his spirit possessed would be expended in his efforts to help our situation.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked as the left arm controller when lifeless in my hand. “We’re not even sure it will work.”
My father chuckled, the sound echoing throughout the cockpit. “A chance to save my boy and to release me from this grave?” he asked, a lightness to his voice now. “Why, I might even start believing you when you say I’m called a hero.”
“You were a hero,” I said, a desperation rising in my voice. I wished I could freeze time. “You are a hero. There’s so much I want to ask you—”
My father’s words cut me off. “Warm the ion cannon, son,” he said. The harsh finality of the order was softened only by a sweet sorrow in the way he called me son. “You know all you need to from me. I’m sorry I could not have finished this job decades ago and spared you the life this creature’s call set you on. Let it be enough to know I always wanted the best for you. Let me free you from the maddening dreams of this monster and give you back your life. Let me do this for you. Please.”
I couldn’t speak. With silent resolve, I set about sequencing in the power routing to the Colossi’s atomic core. I could only hope the atomic core still held up as fully operational.
“Goodbye, my boy,” my father’s voice called out.
I held my breath, hoping for something more, waiting for a better solution to come over the speakers, something that would take back my father’s last goodbye. As the static died on the line and the speakers went dead, all the gauges on all the screens went haywire with power spikes twitching their needles like a metronome gone wild. As the ion cannon’s indicators filled, alarms and light displays fired up within the cockpit, the sound deafening.
“Jules,” I called out, choking back my tears as I struggled to take control of the situation. “I hope you’re still patched in. What the hell’s happening? Everything is redlining here.”
“Exterior damage to the hull is compromising the Colossi,” Jules Two said, calm as ever. “As far as the atomic core, the Dakkar is now operating above and beyond its regular operational parameters, Finn. The Colossi is not rated for such power.”
“Dad…?” I called out, but there was no answer. Apparently, my time of seeking answers from one of the most legendary pilots in the Colossi program was at an end. Whatever happened now was entirely on me but, really, there was but one choice: to follow my father’s wishes.
The only way to deal with the exceeded power levels on the Dakkar was to fire before the Colossi melted down.
I kicked the safety cover off of the ion cannon’s firing mechanism and hit the switch. The roaring energy building within the Colossi threatened to crack my eardrums, but just as it peaked, a blue-white flash of light shot off outside from the array mounted on its chest. The deafening sound travelled with the beam, exiting the ship with the rushing crash of a waterfall until the energy depleted and the Colossi went silent, all systems going off line.
Only the soft blue glow of the hard case pack I had pulled from the Lobster filled the room. The only sound of functioning machinery came from the clamshell over my ear.
“Finn?” Julia Two asked. “Report, please. I am showing no energy signature in your previous location.”
In the dim light, I felt around the control panels for the jump primer switch.
“Dead in the water,” I said. “Trying to rectify that. Hold on.”
My fingers found what they were looking for and I flicked the switch several times in rapid succession, but to no result. Unable to get a response, I slammed the console with my fist in frustration.
“Looks like a second generation of Lawlors dies at sea,” I said, unable to control the morbid humor I saw in my situation. “How many of us will have to die here before we can count it as a family curse, I wonder? What say you, Jules?”
“Insufficient data for a meaningful answer,” Julia Two said. “I can however alert the authorities to our position.”
“Don’t bother,” I said with grim resolution. “By the time anyone could even get here—let alone dive down to my depth—the last of the life support will have run out.”
“I am sorry,” Julia Two said with what sounded like genuine care in her words.
“No, you’re not,” I said, managing a smile. “You can’t be. That’s just a bit of programming to make me feel better. I appreciate the effort though.”
“You…” a voice called out. My father’s, but not through the speakers. The systems were still offline, but his voice echoed throughout the cockpit as if he were standing there by my side now. “You will not die.”
“Dad?”
“Live, my boy,” he said, his voice fainter than it had been a moment ago and fading. “Live.”
Before I could speak again, the indicator lights of auxiliary power flickered on. One by one the systems came back on line, sections of the console lighting up, screens running through their computational boot cycles. Last to come on were the exterior lights which now revealed the surrounding water to be the color of green ichor, torn bits of tentacle everywhere.
“Dad?” I called out, but was met only with the soft hum of the Dakkar’s systems running. Exhausted, I leaned back into the chair and let the sound envelop me.
“Readings show that the Colossi is functioning within acceptable parameters,” Julia Two said, “if you wish to ascend.”
“Gladly,” I said, thrilled that the pounding at my temples had started to abate as soon as the dark creator of my dreams had become nothing more than bits of sushi floating outside the Colossi. I took to the controls once more, righted the Dakkar, and pushed off the ocean floor. By the time I kicked in the thrusters, the intense throbbing had fully faded. “When I surface and we hitch this baby up, I’m putting you in charge of piloting us back to land.”
“Noted,” Julia Two said.
Despite how shot my nerves were, I couldn’t help but feel a hint of hope despite the bitter sweetness of claiming the Dakkar. I had never really known my father but, for this one fleeting moment, I had discovered everything I could have ever possibly wanted to know about the man. There was a calming peace to be had from our all too short a time together, a peace I had never known.
“The other salvage jobs can wait,” I said, my eyes fighting to keep from sliding shut. “I’m looking forward to my first good night’s sleep in a long time.”
Mala drifted to sleep to the sound of distant war. Great thumping explosions, felt more than heard, shook loose rubble from the cliffside. The hiss of medusa rockets snaking their way from one side of the great battlefield to the other, ending with a noise like the pounding of the brigand drum. Rending of metal, whirring motors twisting the mec’s great limbs to pull spider legs from an opponent.
The boy had heard it all before. The war that never ended. The battles that came and went, that h
e could hear even from his little cave, miles away. He knew the sounds. He could picture it, put the sounds to the sights he’d seen when he’d scaled the massive tree in the northern forest, looked out over the scorched and twisted outskirts of a place Da said was once called Atlanta, and watched the men and machines in the far distance slaughter each other.
He drifted asleep to the sound of that battle now, the booms blending into the sound of the ocean waves crashing against the rocks far below. The sound seeped into him, so he dreamt of mecs, the servants of the A-Eye, soulless machines built to kill and destroy, all lethal grace and unthinking precision. And for one disorienting moment in the dream, he was the mec, standing at the cliff side above the ocean, his limbs formed of metal, every sinew bristling with power, the human tanks and soldiers tiny beneath him. He raised his arm, the A-Eye’s instruction clear, his weapons primed.
Illustration by NICOLÁS R. GIACONDINO
A sound louder than thunder jerked Mala from his dream. A clanging, crashing sound, like someone had slammed a god’s hammer into the face of the cliff and sheared half of it away. It shook the cave and jolted him from his hammock. He landed in a coward’s crouch on the dusty rock floor, sweating, Danting.
Then silence. Deep and enduring. His heart was pounding so loud it filled the sDace, booming with every beat. His breath came in fast Dants, echoing in his ears.
But the sound that had woken him was gone.
Mala’s eyes darted from side to side as his mind worked, clawing its way out of the dream, back into reality.
Whatever that giant crash had been, it was close.
Too close.
Mala forced himself to calm his breathing, like Da and the hunters had taught him. The sound didn’t come again. When his heart was calm and his breath came slow, he eased his way to the entrance of his cave and dared to look out.
Waves pounded the rock far below. The ocean stretched out to the horizon, ripples of silver moonlight in a cone down the middle. Mala looked up. The brilliant moonlight illuminated the narrow Dath in the near-vertical cliff face that he used to climb to and from his cave. And on that Dath, there was no sign of motion. No one was coming. No one else in the village dared make that climb, not even Da. He looked up, beyond the cliff, scanning the sky. There was no sign of fliers, nor any glow of flames along the cove that might tell of a crash.