At The Hands Of Madness

by Kevin Holton

  “What’s your point?” I yelled over the Collective’s howling.

  She hit enter, and a box popped up reading, Calibration complete. Unplugging the helmet, Mindcrusher held it against her chest, taking a quick look at the screaming mass in the center of our camp. Then I got it. Calibrate to their frequency and take control. Using them like you’d use any other machine—except this one came with an extreme biofeedback loop that amplified the user’s brainwaves.

  Allessandra would be way more psychic, but also way more dangerous.

  I reached out to stop her, but my hand hit a wall. Her eyes flitted my way, a single, scathing, disappointed glance, then she raised the helmet.

  “My point is,” she lowered it onto her head, “that the hive needs a queen.”

  Chapter 15

  As soon as she put on the helmet, the screaming stopped. Mouths sealed themselves closed again, arms stopped waving, eyes vanished back into its body, seismic quaking ceased. The helmet fit her perfectly, and not just in size. The instant it touched down, a look of surprise crossed her face, settling quickly into one of rapture. With it on, she held herself differently. Her back straightened, shoulders eased back, head high. No longer twitchy and quiet, Allessandra smiled with the confidence of someone who could start or end a war with the snap of her fingers. A regal aura surrounded her, Allessandra comporting herself like the queen of which she so often spoke.

  She approached the mass, and it stiffened, becoming solid, unfurling into a massive humanoid, not unlike Medraka. Four arms revealed themselves, extending from a rapidly thinning body, two long, spindly legs supporting a smooth torso. It had no muscle definition, no curves, yet conveyed indomitable strength and, somehow, queenliness, like it only existed as an extension of its user.

  I tried to remind myself that this was a mass of people, an amalgam of hundreds of lost souls, but my instinct told me what Akila had feared: they were all gone.

  Allessandra looked over her shoulder and beckoned me forward with a single curl of her hand. “My whole life, I haven’t fit in my own head. Too many ideas, too many trains of thought, like trying to see the world through stained glass. I knew I wasn’t crazy, but I had no better explanation than the one psychiatrists forced upon me.”

  Atop the towering Nanite beast, a head formed, long and cavernous as a desiccated cow’s skull found lying in the desert, baking beneath a noonday sun. Only this wasn’t fleshless, it was pure mechanical flesh, and its empty sockets sent goosebumps along my arms because, despite the lack of eyes, it clearly watched us.

  “There have always been cruel, blunt, hopeless people whom we’ve judged, throughout history, as less than human. Whether from barbarism or imbecility, they simply haven’t met the minimum humanity requirement. Does it not stand to reason, then, that some people are more than the maximum?” The Collective lowered its nearest hand to the ground, allowing Allessandra to back onto it. “That’s the real problem. People like me simply can’t be contained. We’ve been tapped into humankind’s collective unconsciousness for so long, piloted by the swell and surge of a genetic ocean, of a species that can’t stop destroying itself, so that we, too, destroy ourselves. Well, no more. I’m done being controlled by the waves. From now on, I will be the moon.”

  She and the Collective looked off to Great Bend, both setting their sights on Medraka.

  They spoke in unison, her voice amplified by the giant’s mouth, tinny and echoing across our camp. “May god help that which dares defy my gravity.”

  Opening her arms, she invited me onto the hand with her. “Let’s go. It’s time to put a new queen on the throne.”

  How could I join her? Being around Medraka must have had a stronger effect on her than any of us had realized. We were too distracted by Damien’s funeral, and the Nanites, and all the other events to see her degradation. Or maybe this sudden shift from a mere queen analogy to full-blown grandiose narcissism had something to do with the helmet’s feedback loop. I really couldn’t be sure. Either way, refusing her request might endanger more people to Medraka, but I didn’t want to enable her. I’d risk sending her down a rabbit hole from which she might never escape, and I’d lost enough loved ones to this war.

  I hadn’t considered the fact that not answering was still an answer, and when I didn’t immediately reply, she snarled through gritted teeth. “I’m. Not. Asking.” One of the Collective’s fingers lashed out, a snare that grabbed me by the ankle and dragged me into, not merely onto, the mass’ hand. It forced me to stand up next to Allessandra with restraints to keep me upright, yet preventing me from interfering.

  “Was that so hard?” Her hot breath in my ear made my blood run cold. “You, of all people. You, who encouraged me every day you’ve been with Hyperion, refusing to view me as a hazard, or a limitation, you have the audacity to hesitate? To do anything other than give me your full, unabridged support?”

  The hand rose up and turned, merging into the upper arm, then to the top of its head. Nanobots shifted, carrying us to the center of its skull, the hand returning to its normal position as if we hadn’t just been transported by the biological equivalent of sentient quicksand. My heart pounded from the idea that it might drag us down into its body and suffocate us at a moment’s notice. Who knows how much control she actually had over this thing?

  We started off toward Great Bend, where massive, echoing crashes sounded off. They came in a staccato burst. One and pause, one two pause, one and pause, as if it were conducting a symphony, playing the soundtrack to our destruction.

  “Hear that? The sound of so many people screaming, suffering, dying? The fate we’ve all worked so fucking hard to prevent? You would’ve allowed this. In the face of a solution, an answer to all their prayers, you froze, because you’re afraid, Hennessy. Afraid of what I am, and what I can do.”

  We reached Great Bend, where smoke rose in thick ropes from the smashed buildings. Fires broke out along the streets. A faint clanging below tipped me off to Grover and Steve running around below. They patched in over the Bluetooth with general exclamations of awe, but were overall a bit too busy to stop and stare.

  Allessandra tilted her head, and the Collective looked down. I nearly threw up, stomach lurching as we stared at the ground over a hundred feet below, when something caught my eye. Nanites, swarming out from the main body, scurrying like ants into the nearby buildings.

  “That’s right. I can operate the whole, and its parts. Pure gestalt. Through my oversight, we, I and they together, can kill the beast while simultaneously saving all those hapless people running in circles down below. Do you still have any objection to this? Or is this where you draw the line?” Her hands grabbed on tight to my shoulders as we watched her workers. I got a sense I could keep her from falling, if she didn’t send me to my death.

  I swallowed hard, afraid for her. “Didn’t you say that having too much power, making new enemies to fight, was what got us in this situation? That Medraka is our darkness made real? Because I understood that. I believed that. All the centuries of creating demons, we were bound to fight a real one. But all this talk of a queen, of everyone being steered by some superbrain, that… that…”

  An earthquake laugh sounded from behind me, the first crack of tectonic plates colliding. “You are scared, because if I’m right, then I have control, and you don’t.”

  We stepped onto Main Street, and that’s when I realized the Collective wasn’t making any sound. Its steps were utterly silent. This, somehow, scared me more than the creature she’d created. What was it doing to defy physics like this? Was it a product of technology, or her psychic ability?

  I turned to look at her as she faced Medraka, readying herself to fight, a wicked grin tearing her once placid face wide open. Thousands of liquid fingers grabbed me from behind as I was lifted from the Collective’s head, but I knew better than to cry out in protest and risk giving away our element of surprise, no matter how much it freaked me out. Being grabbed by nanobots felt the way it’d feel to
be covered in ice cold worms.

  “Shhh…” Allessandra said, head lolling toward me, a finger to her lips. “The show’s starting, and I want you to have the best seat in the house.”

  She dropped me on the nearby roof of a not-yet-destroyed building, roughly half the height from the head to the ground. At this height, I heard more screaming. Sometimes, I heard words, cries for help and mercy, none of which I wanted to remember. All of which I would.

  The Collective’s arm withdrew to a length roughly equal to the other arms, approaching Medraka from behind as it leaned forward over the fleeing Main Street crowd. I didn’t have my rifle, or even a scope, but still could see panic turning to havoc. People began to brawl, tearing into each other, clawing flesh from throats and skin from bone. Its power came close to absolute, given that it could turn any army against itself with a wave of its sickly gray hand.

  But it only came close.

  Forming from its flesh, four swords materialized in the Collective’s hands, which it twirled lackadaisically, casually, its silent steps going unnoticed even as a few of the remaining sane residents down below pointed and shouted. Medraka wouldn’t have noticed the commotion, so her amplification must have allowed Allessandra to psychically mask herself.

  Whatever she did, it worked well. With a ballet-like grace, the upper right arm spun its sword and drove down, impaling Medraka’s lower right hand. Before it could react, another twist sliced the arm clean off, eliciting a spray of black, septic blood.

  The kaiju stumbled forward, almost toppling to the ground, but vanished. To my revulsion, the Collective formed another face from the back of its skull, its lower limbs twisting to face the rear. Its spindly legs split in two, so it faced backward and forward at the same time. When Medraka appeared ‘behind’ the Collective, it simply raised its blades, impaling it through the torsos.

  Scrabbling for purchase against its formless foe, Medraka writhed, eventually resorting to pushing the Collective away. The wounds didn’t bleed much this time. If anything other than psychic power and rage kept it fighting, it would run out pretty soon. Medraka disappeared again, moving to Allessandra’s side, getting in a few punches and scrapes that sent the Collective stumbling. When she fell back against a building, it raised its three arms, sending percussive shockwaves that rocked our nanobot giant like a boulder in a koi pond, the building beneath it imploding as it crashed to the ground.

  The Collective reabsorbed its swords, coming to stand in moments, dragging much of the building’s debris away in the process. The nanobots were programmed to absorb certain material for replication, and a whole building had to have at least some of that material. If anything, Medraka had probably made her stronger, so I could only wonder why she was putting the weapons away.

  My answer came quickly. Levying a hard one-two punch, her lower fists connected with Medraka’s hips, bone cracking loud enough to be heard outside the city limits. Undeterred, it reached for her, aiming for the little human atop the metal monster it fought, but the Collective’s upper arms grabbed on tight, wrestling it.

  Everything about you works in duality. Two arms for each of two bodies, equal parts physical and psychic power, an existence in our world and your own. Well, I suppose two really can play at that game, can’t they? Allessandra’s voice came as a whisper, but I’d hear it over any amount of distance. Her words echoed inside my head.

  “What the hell was that?” Cindy’s voice came over my Bluetooth.

  “Fucking god damn shitcocks, if we have to fight ghosts too, that’s it, I’m blowing my brains out,” NAFTA said in response.

  “Hey.” I tapped in. “Guys! Are you nearby? Are you seeing this?”

  The Collective threw Medraka to the side, sending it crashing into a three story Hard Rock Café. It appeared she was no longer concerned about human casualties.

  “Heartbreaker, that you? Yeah, I mean, kind of. We’re rescuing survivors. Wasn’t that the deal, I stop throwing fire while the Nanites fuse into Voltron and take it out? What’s all the noise?”

  Allessandra piloted her amorphous horde over and started kicking Medraka repeatedly in the ribs before leaning down and pummeling it with her fists. The ground shuddered and cracked beneath the assault, street lamps toppling and sparking as sewer grates exploded with steam. A rogue electrical current lit a gas spill, setting a fire that traced back to a nearby car, which set off chain detonations all down Main Street.

  “Seriously, what the hot, fiery hell are you up to down there?”

  I shook my head, unable to believe what, and who, I was watching. “You just… just get your asses to my position. I’m, uh, on the roof across from 477 Main Street. Be careful, and avoid the giants.”

  “Giants? Plural? By Thor’s electric dick, did they really pull it off?” NAFTA chirped, practically giddy.

  When I didn’t reply, they went silent. The Collective reached down, grabbing Medraka and hoisting it off the ground, hurling it into another stretch of businesses. Realizing it was physically outmatched, Medraka turned back to psychic tactics, firing debris at Allessandra, no doubt hoping to knock her from her perch, but the shots flew wild.

  She’d tired it out. That had been her plan. Literally beat the damn thing into submission.

  A heavy clang resounded as my roof shook, followed by a far lighter thump of someone jumping off a tall object. Two footsteps, one faint and one thunderous, came to my side. “Heartbreaker, look, I know you’re all about vantage points, but seriously, you don’t even have a gun, and—wait oh holy fuckin’ balls on rye, what is that?” NAFTA’s jaw dropped, his exoskeletal arm raising to point at the Collective.

  “That would be the Nanite Collective. The little person on top is Allessandra.”

  Cindy came over, draping his arm across my shoulder, his smoldering black hand giving off a slight heat mirage. The orange veins had cooled, but the blackness remained. “Heartbreaker, would you kindly explain why Allessandra is riding fifty tons of nanotech kaiju?”

  “Actually, that’s why I asked you up here. She’s… controlling it.”

  “Okay, so what?”

  I shook my head, as if I could wake up from this nightmare within a nightmare. “Somethings wrong. When she put it on, she… changed. You know how it’s meant to enhance and amplify the user’s neurological make-up?”

  “Oh, come on, god damn it.” NAFTA scowled.

  “Exactly. You see where I’m going.”

  Medraka reached for the Collective, and she pounded her fists down into its torso, causing its legs to kick up into the air behind it. She grabbed them and turned, flipping it overhead and slamming it back into the ground.

  “Don’t get me wrong, this is awesome. I’ve dreamed about this since I was a little kid.” NAFTA couldn’t tear his eyes away. “But are you telling me her psychic shit is amped fifty times over now?”

  “Sounds like if you fired me into the sun,” Cindy said. “Pun intended.”

  “I know!” My intention hadn’t been to yell at them, but god damn, time and place. “I know pun intended. You never have to clarify ‘pun intended,’ because you always intend it, every time! Now, look, you see what’s going on. There’s a good chance humanity comes out on top today. Finally, for the first time in over a year, we might sleep easy at night. Might. I don’t know what’ll happen after. I need you to…”

  The Collective reared back as Medraka vanished again, staying away longer this time, but reappearing right where it had been before as Allessandra looked the other way. It raised a building overhead and fired it into the Collective, which absorbed chunks of the debris, a near-visible bubble appearing around the head as she shielded her real body before turning on Medraka with her extended Nanite body.

  “I need you to be prepared for a contingency.”

  After a moment of only hearing two giant monsters brutalize each other, and my not knowing which would ultimately be the worst disaster, should the survivor rampage across the earth, Grover cleared his throat. “Y
ou want us to assassinate your girlfriend?”

  “I—she’s not—that’s not what I’d call her, and no, that’s not what I’m saying. Melt the helmet, knock her out and take it, release, like, thirty flashbangs, I don’t know.”

  “Why not just ask your girlfriend to take the helmet off?” Steve said.

  “Because not everyone has the healthy, life-affirming relationship you two have.”

  “Hey, hey,” Cindy said, “my hetero life partner and I will do whatever needs to be done. We make jokes, but yeah, we get it. I mean… Look at her go.”

  The Collective raised its hands, weaving them as Medraka often did, lancing its other lower arm through with a steel beam before telekinetically ripping the limb off. It barely bled at all, but I didn’t expect it to anymore.

  “That’s… too much, and she’s never been the most… all there.” He tapped his skull with a soot-colored knuckle. “We’ve fought this hard to make the world safe, not just replace one monster with another.”

  Allessandra kicked Medraka hard, and it flew down toward us, colliding with the buildings on the opposite side of the street. It tried to pull itself from the wreckage, fell, and stayed on its knees. One torso turned toward us, almost as if it could see. It might’ve been giant, and monstrous, but this creature was just another animal. My vision shifted. Again, I saw its head. I saw it as it had been, long before nearly split in two by some terrible wound, its mouth twisted in pain.

  I swear it begged us for help.

  Then the Collective bore down on it, grabbing it tight and yanking it up. Medraka raised its hands defensively, and she grabbed them in the Collective’s upper hands, tightening her grip until we heard its bones splinter and break. It sank back to its knees as she ground them to dust, then her lower arms lashed out as tendrils, coiling around where they attached to its torsos, and slicing them free.

  This time, Medraka had very little reaction. It didn’t stumble, or fall, or even bleed. It sat still, a god finally acknowledging it had died long ago, the source of its unnatural power severed. The Collective’s lower arms merged into the upper, and those raised overhead, becoming one long sword.