by Kevin Holton
“Feisty?”
“…of a dickhead, but sure. The mech can reconfigure its weaponry loadout based on the user and some morphogenic components, so if, say, Grover put it on, it’d change from its death gaze to giant flamethrowers.”
Science had never been my strong suit, so I didn’t question how such a feat could be possible. As the unofficial historian, I just collected the details.
Besides, Damien didn’t talk much, so who knew if he had the same insecurities about his battle style as Grover. All I knew was that he worked alone, and apparently fought alone, despite being our leader.
If we were going to face Medraka soon, though, we had to be ready, and that meant rallying the troops. All of them. “And Allessandra… think she’ll be up for fighting the big one?”
She shrugged, her huge shoulders grazing her earlobes. “Dunno. She’s never seen ‘it’ before. Never had to fight the big one. So… I can only hope.”
A faint hint of old-world masculinity begged me not to ask my next question, but this world was no place for pride. “Think we should be scared?”
Slugging back the rest of her still-steaming coffee, she put the mug down on a nearby table. “You’d be crazy not to be.”
Footsteps drew our attention as a radio boy jogged up. “Uhhhh sir, ma’am, company, uhhh we got a, uh, problem.” His voice broke, his pimple-studded face slick with a nervous sweat.
“Medraka.” Lisa narrowed her eyes. It wasn’t a question.
“Y-y-yes, spotted just a hundred and twenty miles out. It attacked Cincinnati.”
“Oh, god, there are so many people there.” Shadow Fox had distracted it from obliterating Chicago, but still, any city would be a terrible loss.
“Status?” she cut in.
“N-no survivors, people think. No one’s sure. The city is… the city is gone, ma’am. It’s gone, the whole thing!” Panic edged into his voice. “It appeared on the edge of the city, did something with its arms, and p-p-p-poof, no more city, all its people, all of everything, gone!”
“Okay, calm down. Breathe. We need everyone focused. Does anyone know which way it’s heading? Or did it disappear again?”
Like Ebola, Medraka was known to vanish, sometimes for huge stretches of time, only to reappear without warning and wreak complete havoc.
His voice steadied, but not with calm. He blanched, drooping toward shock. “It’s heading this way.” It could be at our camp by the end of the day. Lisa and I exchanged a look, barely a second long, if that. We’d been preparing ourselves for this since the moment I got here, and separately, a lot longer.
“Damn. I’ll get Damien and Steve, try to finish the arm fast enough to still get everyone ready. We need all troops at ready alert one.” Heavy ordinance hadn’t worked so far, but who knows: every new weapon bore a little hope that this’d be the one to kill it.
“I’ll get the other core members, and the Nanites, too. Maybe they’ll have some idea in that collective of theirs.” It was worth a shot. Besides, they were already here, and they had two options: run the hell away, or get in there and fight. Considering that Medraka was a threat to the continued survival of every single species, human or otherwise, I had a good feeling about the choice they’d make.
We split up, instructing the radio boy to take a second to get his thoughts together, then help prepare. Medraka had clearly been getting more powerful. First it teleports itself, then a missile, and now a whole city?
I sprinted up the vantage point stairs to Grover, who didn’t need me to say anything. If I was running that fast this early, the reason was clear. He looked over when I arrived, nodded once, and raised his arm, shooting a flare into the sky.
Flares no longer meant ‘help needed here,’ so much as ‘may the gods help us all.’
We darted through the camp, figuring Mari was with the Nanites, because we didn’t know where else she would be, and just had to hope everyone was in a relatively predictable location so we didn’t run in circles looking for them. She was, in fact, there, as was Allessandra, which was surprising but not unwelcome. They sat in a circle, or a pentagram, depending on how you drew the lines, eyes shut, meditating. It was a little eerie seeing them all in the same posture, legs crossed, fingers touched to thumbs, hands on their knees, but seeing Allessandra with them was the strangest part of all.
“Hold on, maybe we shouldn’t, I dunno, wake them up,” Grover said. “Are those the right words? Wake them up?”
“If we don’t, there’s a chance Medraka rips them to pieces or turns them inside out, so whether those are the right words or not, do you really want to leave them here?”
He gave a solemn nod of agreement, then approached them, speaking in his calmest possible voice. “Hey, dudes, I don’t mean to interrupt, but we’ve got a two-headed dimension-manipulating kaiju stomping its way over here, and you should probably get up before it murders the unholy fuck out of you.”
Mari cracked an eye open. “Seriously?” Scowling, she uncrossed her legs, hopping up. The Nanites did the same, in unison, a moment later. Allessandra seemed to have difficulty uncoiling, so I helped her up.
“I used to do yoga,” she sighed. “And now, I can’t even sit on the ground without my muscles locking up.”
“Stiff, huh?”
She nodded. “I don’t think I could ever be a Nanite, but there’s something… enviable about the way they are. A swarm of nanobots in the shape of a person, able to rearrange, move like water, a fluid solid. Could you imagine never needing to stretch again?”
“I don’t stretch now, so it wouldn’t be too much of a lifestyle change.”
We walked toward the center of camp, a few paces behind everyone else as Grover filled the rest in on the situation. Her head cocked toward an unheard whisper. “Life is so regimented these days. Flexibility is, perhaps, a dying art. Yoga and war don’t exactly mix. Not these days, at any rate.”
We stepped into the edge of our main meeting area, the others standing around holding small conversations about what to do next, and how to best prepare themselves for the coming assault. “How’s this, then: when we finally kill Medraka, we’ll go on a retreat, and practice being as connected and mindful and fluid as possible?”
Allessandra slowed. “We?”
My heart skipped around. “You know. You, and whoever else you’d like to go with you.”
She smiled, open and happy with just a hint of sad. “We it is, then.”
Damien stepped into the center of the area, getting up on the small ledge of the fire pit to add another foot of height to his already imposing frame. “Listen up, everyone! Listen, listen now!” he called, the hubbub of commotion gradually dying down. “Most of you already know what I’m about to say based on the rumors flying around, the flare,” he pointed upward, “and the radio crew screaming it, even though we’ve discussed that there’s a chain of command to how information gets out.” He paused to glare at the underlings, but didn’t berate them long. One was about to slip into unconsciousness, one looked physically ill, and the others were on the verge of tears. They’d never seen this thing up close, and they knew there was a good chance of it killing them. No matter what we did, it stood a good chance of killing everyone.
Wheelchair Kid looked as resolute as he could, given the situation and his limitations. He looked around, as if for the Smug Boy who didn’t survive yesterday, but quickly stopped.
“Medraka was last seen at Cincinnati, and Cincinnati has not been seen since. It’s gone, just… The whole city, vanished. We’re not sure what happened, exactly, but likely the same reality crap that it pulled with the missile a while back. It’s getting stronger, and it was last seen walking this way. Because it’s actually walking, we have maybe six to seven hours, or it might warp here, or it might vanish altogether, so get your gear. Be ready. This thing… you know not to take any of this lightly. Reconvene here in three hours for further instruction. I have work of my own to do.”
Stepping down, he nodded to
Lisa and Steve, who walked off. Some of the recruits milled about until Grover and Mari began ordering them around. I didn’t see the Nanites anywhere, so I asked Mari, who explained that Damien sent them off, being fine with peaceful conversation, but refusing to fight by their side—but, that they told her, privately, that the crew would return with greater numbers, because nanobots or no, three of them wouldn’t be an overwhelming force.
“I sort of hope I’m not there when they show up to fight it, too.”
Allessandra looked over. “Where do you intend to be?”
I shrugged. “Safe, far away, or standing on Medraka’s corpse.”
We were walking off toward my section of camp, because getting ready meant training with blanks for me, and focusing her mental reserves, which she could do anywhere. “There’s something wonderful about how they are. Harmonious. Operating on the same frequency, all the time. Their minds reporting back to one single server… It’s… almost like evolution.”
“Thought you didn’t want to be a Nanite?” I said as we arrived at my tent, which, like every other, was a pointy eight-foot-high piece of canvas, except this had ‘Hennessy’ written over the main flap.
“I don’t. I… I’m not even sure I could be,” she said, without elaborating. “But humanity has always operated that way, just more subtly. The collective unconscious, or so Jung called it. Others refer to it as the one hundred monkey theory. The idea that humans share all information on an unconscious level, like little extensions of a single source. Tributaries flowing off a single river, or ants in a colony, all sharing everything, linked through their queen.” She tapped her chin. “The ant metaphor works better.”
Her ideas were clear, but her point wasn’t. “So… who’s the queen?” I stepped inside and picked up my rifle case. It wasn’t my only gun, but the others didn’t go in cases, because this one was the best. No room for using subpar equipment in a time like this.
“The queen is… That’s just it: the queen is. There will always be a queen, somewhere, somehow, but who or what it actually is doesn’t matter, so long as it exists.” She was losing me. “So we all share information back to this, let’s say presence, but we fight. We argue. We kill. We can’t agree on what the right information is, so people freak out and have to prove to this presence that they’re the correct one, the best source of information. But, with the Autonomous, they all review that information at one time, because unlike the rest of us, they understand, they recognize, they’re part of this queen, that they’re not separate from the queen, that the queen is everyone. That’s the queen, actually. The queen is the hive mind, and they… they’re so much more effective, because they serve that queen, while we all run in circles with our eyes shut, claiming to know the color of the sky.”
I put a hand on her shoulder. “Allessandra, I hope this doesn’t come off as rude, but I don’t understand what you’re saying. At all.”
Her gaze tried to meet mine, but her eyes were focused on something distant. She didn’t reply until they focused in, a little watery, finally connecting back to me, and she smiled. “That’s my point. You and I, we serve the same queen, but our information is different. We try to give two different sets of commands, and the army’s in disarray. The Nanites don’t have that problem. But it’s okay, Hennessy. Don’t worry. You don’t have to understand right now, because someday, you will.
“But for now,” she put her hand on my shoulder, too, “all you have to worry about is killing Medraka, and not getting killed yourself. Let’s all focus on that, each and every one of us, so the queen knows exactly what to do next.”
Her hand slipped away, and she walked off. I didn’t know what her original diagnosis had been, or what meds she could no longer get, but I did know that her powers stemmed from her mind. Sure, I acknowledged the possibility that she’d been making sense I really hadn’t understood her, but there was also a chance that she was losing it. If her sanity gave way, what would happen to her? Or to us?
Chapter 6
Medraka arrived ahead of schedule, so we were all very briefly grateful that Damien’s policy was to get ready in fifty percent of the time you think you have. We were battle ready and at our stations when our scouts gave a yell that they could see it approaching from the south-east, not that we needed their help by that point. You don’t miss something that huge.
Even miles out, we could feel its footsteps. Not simply hear, but feel. Each stomp of the dreaded beast shook the earth, sending shockwaves that rent leaves from branches, branches from trees, and trees from the soil. Birds took to the skies, though some, whether dying of fright or going mad at the sight of the creature, spiraled out of control, either plummeting to the ground or savaging their own flock.
Blood, feathers, and dirt sprayed our windshield as we bounced along, rocketing toward the source of the noise in armored vehicles. Damien’s mech ran alongside us, though due to range limitations, he had to accompany us, and was seated in the front seat, while Grover was driving. According to Steve, Cindy had always been an aggressive and somewhat unpredictable driver, which was dangerous in mainstream society, but very useful here. I sat up top in a gunnery seat, ready in case Medraka, or its swarm of Phranna, decided to come after us. Allessandra sat with us as well.
The other car, driven by Lisa, had Mari in the passenger’s seat and Steve up top, prepared to annihilate with a bevy of explosives. Much like Grover, Lisa wasn’t exactly a calm driver, but her training and great reflexes allowed her to swerve around obstacles with ease. We didn’t need calm here anyway.
In the distance, I could see a few cadres of other militia vehicles, as well as some actual members of the military, which was reassuring. They might’ve failed against Medraka before, but they could handle the Phranna well enough with their high-budget arsenal. I tried not to dwell on the fact that, worst case scenario, they’d also serve as a great distraction to let us run away with our hides intact.
We crossed each other’s paths a few miles outside city limits. There was enough time to push it back, or at least annoy it into forgetting what it came here to do, not that any of us knew what it wanted, beyond ‘smash, kill, ravage.’
“Hey, NAFTA,” I said into my Bluetooth. “How’d Lisa’s modified cannon work out?”
“No idea. I left to prep while she and Damien finished the final design. Think they got it though. Even if they didn’t, I’ve got the original in the back.” He tapped the truck, then turned to look at our target.
Nothing ever prepares you for seeing it. Even seeing it before can’t lessen the horror. There’s no inoculation, no adaptation, no getting used to it. Looming at easily a hundred and fifty feet tall, Medraka’s mash of leathery yellow-brown skin bulged and rippled like an ocean during a storm. Two spindly legs pounded the earth, body splitting at the waist into two massive half-torsos, each with two arms jutting off the same side—two right arms for the right side, and ditto, left for left. The flesh between its two halves oozed, as did the stumps where its two heads should’ve sat, red and raw.
Explosions rocked the air. A different crew had begun shooting at it, using heavy ordinance of their own. Regular grenades and RPGs flew through the air, leaving no trace of damage. In response, Phranna tore through its skin, pouring out onto the ground and swarming toward that other militia, still wet with their grotesque afterbirth. There were three cars in their group at first, but some moron tried to run over one of those bugs, and it sliced clean through the hood, causing the engine to explode. The explosion killed the Phranna too, but they’d already lost a third of their crew and the battle had barely started.
“Hey, Heartbreaker.” Grover came onto the channel, barely audible over the rush of wind and roar of the engine. “Have bullets ever worked on that thing?”
“No.”
“Think they will now?”
Shrugging, I took as steady an aim as I could, leveling my sights on it. I’d attached a thermal scope in hopes of seeing some hint of organs, and yes, both sides
showed a section that appeared to be a heart. Breathe… and bang! The bullet flew, and Medraka appeared unharmed. It didn’t seem to have even noticed my attack.
“No.”
“Damn it!”
“Its skin’s too thick, I think.”
“Fucking Medraka! Why can’t this asshole just explode like every other god damn thing!” Steve yelled, ducking into the car to put his grenade launcher away. He came back out with his kinetic cannon as our vehicles got within a few hundred feet of it. Many stayed away, fearing what would happen if they got underfoot, but this part of the strategy had been my idea, forged from the fires of watching it kill way too many times. Medraka didn’t notice those close to it, the way sonars don’t always detect something that’s already right on top of you.
Really, we had no other plan. Get close, then improvise. A few Phranna swarmed our way, but Steve blasted them back with the kinetic cannon, or Allessandra would tear one apart, though I noticed her doing substantially less than in the previous battle, as if she was just there to observe. Most times, I caught her gazing rapturously at Medraka, eyes wide, mouth slack.
As a swarm approached, Mari clambered onto the hood of Lisa’s vehicle, arm blades out, slicing at those that got too close. A razor arm bounced and lodged itself in the roof a few inches away from me, almost causing me to drop my rifle. That would’ve been a mess, but a lot less of one than if I’d been beheaded. Damien’s mech stomped, blasted, or even smacked the Phranna out of the way, but was still getting gouged pretty bad by those he didn’t see. One jumped on the mech’s back and managed to carve halfway into the right shoulder before I shot it off. He fired off insults, none into the mic, but loud enough to be heard anyway.
I thought back to the biofeedback loop and guessed he hadn’t gotten the chance to work that part out. The angrier he got, the angrier the helmet would make him, and if there’s one thing about combat I knew better than anyone else, it’s that rage makes you sloppy.