The Last Hercules

by Ron Bender

  “You’re saying that he may be full of surprises?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I thought the bastard was gonna get a shot off,” Bransen says. “That would’ve been bad.”

  “You can’t have been that concerned.” He steps around Bransen and I get a look at him. It’s weird to see someone who looks like me. But he’s had modifications done in the last few years. His were done in a full shop, by military technicians. His eyes are under a fully sealed visor, and his shoulder mounted weapons pods look like they carry more ammo than standard. They swivel to point at me. “You and Phil checked us all out. You knew that all of the Hercules have EMP shielding as standard gear. You knew what would work.”

  Other voices grow louder behind me. “Hustle people. We need those chains down here. The clock is running. He’ll come around quicker than you think.”

  The sounds of chain being hauled down from an overhead winch echo around me.

  I’d been hit with some kind of EMP producing round. It had penetrated my plates, right where the shielding unit had been located. The heavy pulse of electromagnetics overwhelmed my electronics and tripped an emergency cut-off. Vic was right in his understanding, but wrong in his thinking. I had been forced to find parts. But just because I lived in the dust didn’t mean I hadn’t installed upgrades. Almost all of the pulse had been converted into electricity and dropped into my power cells fast charger. The rest of the spike’s juice was bleeding out as heat. The unit I’d found brand new; it handled more juice, had a faster switching times, and higher shunt values. The downside was its size. It used more than double the volume over the original part. I ended up having it installed in a different location than what my design specs laid out.

  My systems had almost finished a hot reload. My modified electrostatic musculature wasn’t responding and the medical nanites read off-line.

  From where I am, I watch Bransen walking away. “I’m gonna move the girl down to the chamber. I want him to see her when he wakes up.”

  Vic rolls me over and leans in. His optical rails glide and dilate under his visor. I force myself stay still.

  He whispers, “You should’ve taken Bransen’s deal instead of making him waste time like this. Now he’s in a hurry, and that means now it’s going to get ugly with your little girl.”

  Chains hit the gantry behind me.

  “Hayworth, keep that big-assed rifle on him.” Vic stands up. “Get him chained, hooked and hoisted. Don’t mess around. He needs to be up there and strapped in ASAP.”

  Two unarmed technicians drag the hoist chain past Vic who turns and moves to the center of the gantry. Near the door Bransen used, is a heavy weapons operative. Looking up I can see the opening that they want to hoist me up to.

  Timing is critical. Training kicks in. I trigger my signal jammer at full power and start to move. I feel slow, but my hands move quicker than the technician’s mouths. They make no noise as I grasp, and crush their necks in clenched fists.

  Hayworth, the heavy weapons man near the door yells as I roll and stand in a single motion. I throw one of the dead techs at him while closing range on him. I keep the second corpse as meat shield. Bullets pepper the body until I’m almost on him.

  Vic is close behind me. I know it.

  I leap at the gunner, tossing the second corpse under my legs as I fly forward. I’m hoping the human debris will slow Vic down and buy me a fraction of a second more time.

  One arm goes across Hayworths throat, slamming him into the doorframe. His weapon is useless, pinned cross body between us. I grab his belt and yank him around.

  The stiff fingered jab Vic was releasing at me kills the gunner instead, tearing through his floating ribs and ripping into his vitals.

  I can’t stay here pinned to the wall. Letting Vic stay entangled with the corpse grants me two hard blows, one to either side of his head. His sealed visor cracks with the first blow, and shatters with the second. He shakes his head violently to clear the broken glass from his optical rails.

  I duck away trying to make a grab at the heavy machinegun on the ground. I miss my chance as he flings the feebly moving body aside. His weapon pods swivel to follow me but they don’t fire. At least for now they still want me alive.

  “Why the hell are you fighting, Lee?” Vic says, “Your kid could be living the good life. We could all be working together again. Have a purpose laid out, nice and clear.”

  I back peddle out onto the gantry with my scanners identifying a specific short-link frequency .

  “You’re not going to answer me?” he warily advances matching me step-for-step, just out of easy striking range. “I know why you’re still fighting. The government hid programming inside us, Lee. They built us so we couldn’t help but do it their way. You don’t have a choice. You can’t not fight. Bransen and his boss can clean all that shit out of your head. Think about it, Lee. You aren’t your own man right now. You haven’t been your own man in years. None of us have been.”

  As he talks, I keep backing up until I know he can’t get off the gantry in a single jump.

  “You know what Vic?” I say. “I’m not fighting because of some secret program in my head. I’m here because your new boss kidnapped my daughter, and killed her mother.”

  He hesitates a second. I end up risking that whoever messed his head up during their hack, had left enough of the old Vic intact.

  I feint a leg sweep.

  True to form, Vic goes airborne to avoid the blow. My shoulder-first surge is half tackle, half push. He hammers into the gantry rail and spins over the top, taking a long stretch of it with him.

  I trigger the maintenance codes. The huge trams below us switch on with a roar.

  They surge to forward just as he lands on his feet among them. As they accelerate, he scrambles between them.

  The mini rockets in his shoulder pods need range before they arm and go live. Instead they pop-off and spin away as duds.

  He’s tight in the jumble of moving heavy steel. His final yell is lost in the echo of rumbling wheels, crumpling metal and massive churning motors.

  There’s no time to survey the damage. I recover the heavy machinegun and sprint to the chain. Triggering the hoist to rise, I sling the weapon and climb hand-over-hand. On the way up I pressurize my air tanks again.

  The machinegun wouldn’t let me link to it and I have no idea how many rounds are left in it but it’s what I’ve got.

  Rising up over the lip of the chamber opening I have a fraction of a second to evaluate the area; no railing, one rifleman, one technician, closed door, restraint table, brain hacking unit. No Maggie. No Bransen.

  The rifleman is ducking to hide behind the medical tube. My gyro kicks in. I’m a stable firing platform. A quick burst hits him in the head as he starts to duck. The technician is partway to the door. I tear off another short burst as I swing and leap over into the carved-out chamber.

  His momentum carries him forward. Dead before his next step lands, his body sprawls against the door and bounces away.

  Bransen will be here any second. Keeping the machinegun on the door I make my way first to the rifleman take his weapon, check it, and put one round into the middle of the brain hack unit.

  The door cycles open as I approach. Any surprise I might have gained is wasted as the sounds of the trams running behind me echoes into the passageway. When I check the passage, I spot merc, a dozen yards down. He sees me, pulls up his rifle, and snaps a short burst at me. Chips of stone and of dust blow out of dimples in the wall where my head had been. If Bransen wants me alive it’s a memo that the rest of his men haven’t gotten. My software recognizes him as one of guys from the breakers yard.

  “I know you were in Texas.” I yell. “I survived that. I’m here for my daughter and to kill Bransen. My fight’s not with you. If you leave right now and I won’t hunt you down and kill you.”

  A second burst rips along the door frame. That’s his answer.

  I swing my arm out and tear off two sh
ort lines. I wait, listening, letting my hearing filter out the sound of the trams. I hear what could be the sounds of someone slumping. I check. He slides down the wall, trailing a line of blood. I conserve my ammo and step out.

  Maggie and Bransen have to be close. He’d said he was bringing her to this room in a medical transfer tube. I can hear the cable lift start up to my right, just out of view.

  I nudge the body to make sure he’s dead and strip off two full clips and a morphing karambit from his belt. Blades like this aren’t normally my thing. I flip it through its action. The knife handle is a little small for me. It’ll do.

  The only other thing I do is take his short-link radio. After accessing the radio system to start the trams I know that Bransen can track where specific radios broadcast from. He followed me using my headset signal. I toss my radio back into the room. Let him think I’m in there.

  I slip the new radio on and make my way to the cable lift area. The sounds of my footfalls on the raised walkway are muted compared to the spooling rush of the lift ahead of me.

  “I’m in the lift.” Bransen comes on the radio. “Vic, is he secured yet?”

  There isn’t a lot of time to form a reply. I strip four words out of my event recording. I play Vic’s voice back. “Yeah. All chained up.”

  There’s a second where Bransen doesn’t reply.

  Maybe the chunky audio cut and paste wasn’t good enough.

  “Good job.” He finally says. “Get him hooked up. We’ll be there in two minutes.”

  I look up the cable lift shaft. The cage is still descending. I open the door, step in, and pull it closed behind me. Grabbing the far cable run I let it lift me up one more cut. I squeeze through the door and watch as the cage drops past me.

  I catch a glimpse of Maggie, asleep in the transfer tube. Bransen and one guard accompany her.

  The top of the cage is made of expanded steel, it may even be bulletproof. There’s a safety hatch and by law it has no lock….

  I sling back onto the downward scrolling cable and ride about twenty feet above the cage. It slows and stops. “Let’s hope he breaks quick,” the Texan says. “The shit show unfolding in the city isn’t gonna get better soon, and I’d rather have Lee moving with us under his own damned power than fighting us the whole damned way.”

  “And the girl?” the guard nods at Maggie.

  “That depends on him.” Bransen says, “Lee breaks all the way we end up in a position to decide; do we keep her as leverage, or do we get rid of her and pull those memories outta of his head.”

  “We can do that?” the guy sounds spooked.

  “Son,” Bransen snorts. “I don’t think there’s much that Townsend can’t or won’t do to win.”

  The guard pulls the cage doors open and tugs the end of the medical tube out. It’s a matter of seconds before they realize that the guard in passageway is dead.

  How fast Bransen walks determines my time line.

  He unslings his EMP spike weapon and hand loads it. He doesn’t have many lefts in his pocket and the gun holds one shot at a time….

  He pushes the medical tube from the rear. As the tube rattles over the lip onto the raised catwalk I move.

  As I drop onto the roof of the cage, I power up my jammer. He hears me and spins.

  His com signal is snuffed by my gear but he’s still fast on his feet.

  The guard starts to haul his rifle to fire. I ignore him.

  Bransen is who I’m after.

  The big Texan yells and fires.

  Targeting software calculates his aim and jerks me violently aside as the round is fired. Without a correctional guidance system in spike it flies by my chest. I come close to tumbling off the cage and plummeting to the bottom of the mine. I crank my gyro back on, snapping upright, one hand solidly locked onto a metal cross brace.

  My movement bought him time to retreat to the other end of Maggie’s tube. Bullets from the guard’s rifle scatter across my chest. I lift my arm to cover my face as I leap off the cage to the ground.

  From under the tube’s gurney style legs and wheels I drill a burst into Bransen’s legs.

  His pants flay to threads and he howls from the impact but he doesn’t drop. I put a burst into the guard’s legs, and then finish him as he drops and writhes around. Maggie, in her medical tube is the only cover I have. The longer I’m not on him, I’m blind to what he’s doing. He has more spike rounds and it doesn’t take that long to chamber single shots.

  We both stand up fully at the same instant.

  I take the only action he won’t expect.

  As I duck to one side, both legs rams hammer open.

  The end of the medical tube hits him full force knocking him back.

  The heels of his gator skin boots catch on the steel mesh. I put everything I have left into a standing long jump.

  He rolls to get his weapon on me. I vent my tanks and I fire full auto at his weapon.

  He twists away to my left an instant before I land. The weight of my impact dents the mesh under me. He throws his ruined weapon at me. I block it with my forearm. I can feel the material of my arm pop concave midway to my wrist.

  Like me, he now understands there’s no choice. It’s him or me.

  My weapon clacks onto an empty clip.

  He scrambles away on all fours, trying to stand. I overhand the rifle onto his head and shoulders. Once and then a second time.

  He flattens with both blows. On my upswing the stock breaks off and slide detaches to clatter off the rounded ceiling overhead.

  I fling myself onto him, free hand yanking the karambit out and flipping its action open.

  He rolls and throws a handful of mine dust and debris into my eyes.

  My optics lock solid.

  He grabs my arm with both hands as we struggle for control of the blade. He’s strong, physically, and his augmented arms are new. I widen my legs and keep him pinned under my weight. I can’t see anything clearly at all. I can only intuit his movements

  He surges, almost breaking free of my hold. I head butt him until blood spatters from both our faces. I end up having to let go with one hand just to keep him under me.

  If I have to, I’ll crush the life out of him. My hand comes down on a tapered cylinder.

  Voices rise and fall from either end of the passage we fight in. Gunfire erupts around us.

  He grins through clenched teeth as the blade twists in my hand. “You die now, you fucking relic.”

  I ram the EMP spike into his chest and lean on it burying it into his flesh and blood heart. He bucks once. As his arms suddenly tense, I lose my one-handed grip on him. The karambit slams into my exposed throat.

  Withering fire still echoes around me.

  The cut is deep. Too deep for my medical systems to cope with. An automatic system switches me to internal air. I can breathe until I bleed out ….

  My head sags against Bransen. Both our radios cut in.

  “Bransen. Phillip here. I’ve cancelled our contract. It’s over. I’ve got no regrets in hiring you. You kept the heat off of me for a time and I’m grateful. But, since I got what I was after, and since I can’t afford for you to become a free agent again, I sent some men into the mine to kill you. Nothing personal. You’ve been a terrific pawn. Good to have known you. Goodbye.”

  Bransen rattles out a final breath, “Pawns.”

  Maggie.

  I get partway to my knees with a surge of pure adrenaline.

  Troops in unmarked US military gear swarm by me. A young soldier shoves a rifle with a cam mounted on its front rail up to my face. “Sir. It’s a match. This is him.”

  “Let’s get him out of here.” An older man yells, “Get those specialized corpsmen over here right now. All troops prepare to withdraw.”

  I point frantically at the tube while trying to slow the flow of blood from my wound. I slump against the wall. I manage to gurgle her name, “Maggie.”

  “Secondary objective located.” The officer barks, �
��Fallback for exfil. The drone explosives are already on their way in here.”

  3.33

  Beyond Repair

  The truck moves through traffic. I feel it all; the starts, the stops, the corners. I know we go through a few check points because I can hear the drivers voice and others arguing outside. I keep my pistol trained on the doors. I suppress the urge to scan through the sidewalls. I’m unsure if what kind of gear they have. The pick up on my scan and they might open fire just because.

  Whatever the driver says at each stop is convincing enough to gets us though. A short while later we angle downward. We were descending … trouble was there were no valleys with kind of slope anywhere close to the city. I plow through the map I have stored, software backtracking seconds between straights and turns; calculating my approximate location. We’re north of the city.

  As the truck sways through a series of tight feeling switchbacks I realize exactly where I am. I’m on my way into a secure mining facility.

  Internal sensors blink at me. Uranium.

  The truck slews tightly around and stops.

  Sounds of heavy machinery echo dully around me. The driver bangs on the doors as a warning, and unseals them. He starts to swing one open but I grab its edge and hold it firm. The sounds are far louder and they force him to speak loudly. “Get out, and be quick about it.”

  I open the doors and climb out cautiously. This area is designed for trucks to pick up drums full of uranium yellow cake. The area is lit by industrial sized spotlights. Blazing cones of light glow through the dust. Everything else fades into perpetual darkness.

  The sounds of the mill, conveyor belts, and other heavy equipment will only get louder the further in I go. The cumulative effect is that I’ll lose the advantage of enhanced hearing. I could come under fire and not even hear the shots.

  A single building made of corrugated metal juts out from a barrier that forms the opening to the mine. Cams and two turrets are slung from the overhead support girders. The main gate is a huge slab of reinforced metal.