Metal and Ash (Apex Trilogy)

by Jake Bible

  Four more guards came into the room and surrounded him.

  “All this force for a coma patient?” Stone laughed. “That must have been some coma.”

  “Your outburst earlier wasn’t acceptable, Mr. Stone,” Ms. Isely said. “The trauma you’ve suffered means you aren’t quite yourself, I’m afraid.”

  “You’re right there,” Stone said. “These fools would be dead already if I was myself. Maybe I should eat and get my strength up more?”

  The fear he wanted to see flashed across Ms. Isely’s eyes.

  “Gentlemen,” Ms. Isely said and the guards escorted Mr. Stone from the room.

  He went from a white room to a grey corridor. Mr. Stone knew the color of that grey.

  “A ship?” he asked. “Yes, a ship. Now I can feel the stabilizers. Good tech considering the size of the vessel. You’d never know you were at sea.”

  Ms. Isely didn’t respond as they walked down the corridor, taking random turns. Mr. Stone knew they were random; he’d used the same tactic many times to disorient prisoners. And Mr. Stone had no illusions that he was anything other than a prisoner.

  “Really working up an appetite,” Stone said after the twelfth turn. “You sure know how to make a coma patient feel welcome and rested.”

  They came to a door and something about the way Ms. Isely paused to compose herself told Stone that what was on the other side of the door held her tits in a vise. He was to be shown and approved of or Ms. Isely would be facing quite a scolding.

  Stone hoped that scolding meant a bullet to the back of the fucking bitch’s head.

  The door opened from the inside and Ms. Isely walked in, followed by Mr. Stone and the guards. Not that the guards were needed since the entire conference room was lined with muscle and guns.

  “Mr. Stone!” Mr. Continental said. “So nice to see you again.”

  “You three,” Stone sighed. “I didn’t expect to see you again.”

  “We defy expectation,” Mr. Plain said. “Please, have a seat.”

  “You may go, Ms. Isely,” Mr. Brown Eyes instructed. “Thank you for escorting our guest.”

  “But I thought-.” Ms. Isely began.

  “Which was a mistake,” Mr. Plain interrupted. “We’ll let you know when we need you to think again.”

  Ms. Isely didn’t protest, just nodded and left.

  “A seat, if you please, Mr. Stone,” Mr. Plain insisted. “That way we can have a nice, civilized conversation.”

  Stone grinned and took the seat held out by one of the guards.

  “I have to apologize,” Stone smiled.

  “What for, Mr. Stone?” Mr. Continental asked.

  “For scaring the holy shit out of you lot,” Stone said as he waved about at the guards. “I’m not sure any of this is needed.”

  “Probably not,” Mr. Brown Eyes said.

  “After all,” Stone continued. “I am just one man.”

  “Yes, of course you are,” Mr. Plain said. “Of course you are, Mr. Stone.”

  “Right. Of course I am,” Stone parroted. He clapped his hands together and half the guards aimed their rifles at his chest. Stone grinned. The first true, honest grin since he’d awakened.

  “At ease,” Mr. Brown Eyes instructed. “He’s playing with you.”

  “Which brings us to why you are here,” Mr. Continental said. “We need your skills again, Mr. Stone. We need you to play that game you play so well.”

  “And what game is that?” Stone asked, leaning back in his chair.

  “Hide and seek, of course,” Mr. Brown Eyes answered.

  “Or, as we like to call it,” Mr. Plain added. “Hunt and kill.”

  ***

  “What?!” Mr. Gein shouted as his door chimed. “Can’t you fucking read? It says do not disturb!”

  The door chimed once more and Mr. Gein pushed off his bed and stomped to the door. He slammed his hand against the release and the door slid open.

  Stone and Mr. Gein stood there and studied each other.

  “They did a right good job patching you up,” Mr. Gein said finally.

  Stone rolled his eyes and stepped past Mr. Gein into the room. Four guards tried to follow, but Mr. Gein blocked their way.

  “I’ve got this, gentlemen,” Mr. Gein said. “Go have a vapor stick aboveboard. I’ll call you when he’s ready to leave.”

  The guards hesitated, but were forced to acknowledge that Mr. Gein was their superior and left.

  Mr. Gein turned around and Stone was seated on his bed, frowning.

  “Not like you to be all messy like this, Gein,” Stone observed. “Feeling blue?”

  Mr. Gein pointed to the ceiling and then his ears. Stone nodded.

  “I’m glad you made it, Stone,” Mr. Gein said pleasantly. “You came close to being lost a few times.”

  “I’m starting to get that,” Stone replied. “Yet I’m still puzzled why I’m here at all.” Mr. Gein looked about the room in alarm. “I’m not talking about my resurrection, Gein. I could really give two shits about that. I’m talking about why I was resurrected.”

  “Don’t keep using the word resurrected, Stone,” Mr. Gein smiled. “You’ll get a messiah complex.”

  “Will I?” Stone said, matching Mr. Gein’s smile. “Can I heal the sick and walk on water? Or perhaps change water into wine? That would be a handy trick.”

  “Ah, my manners,” Mr. Gein said. “Would you like a drink, Stone?”

  “If you have one at hand,” Stone replied. “Scotch would be preferable.”

  Mr. Gein got up and rummaged through the clothes and papers on his dresser. “Ah ha! I do have scotch.”

  “Good for you, Gein,” Mr. Stone mocked. “I hope I’m not depleting your rainy day stash.”

  “There is always more alcohol to be had, Stone,” Mr. Gein said as he poured two glasses.

  “Yes,” Stone nodded as he looked at the wreck of a room. “I can see that.”

  Mr. Gein handed Stone a tumbler of scotch and sat back on the bed.

  “You want to know what we want with you?” Mr. Gein asked. “Didn’t the Three already explain that.”

  “A mission,” Stone replied as he sipped the scotch and grimaced. “This is rubbish. They won’t spring for the good stuff? What’s the fucking use in ruling the world if you can’t get decent scotch.” Mr. Gein shrugged and Stone continued. “I’m to infiltrate the wasteland and find Capreze. End him and the mech resistance falls apart. A simple job, just like the thousands I’ve done before that.”

  “That’s it in a nutshell,” Mr. Gein said as he finished his scotch and poured a second. “So what’s the issue?”

  “I’m dead, Gein, that’s the fucking issue!” Stone roared as he threw his glass against the wall and grabbed Gein by the shirt. “I should be in Hell right now paying for my sins! WHY THE FUCK DID YOU BRING ME BACK?!”

  Thirty-One

  His back against a wall, and a wall of deaders coming at him, Dog raised his sharpened bone, and newly found hefty rock, and braced for the attack. He sized up the first row of deaders and quickly figured he could brain at least three of them and probably decapitate another two before he was taken down.

  Not that being taken down was his plan. Not that anything that had happened at Eden was part of the plan. And as Dog waited, his body tense with violence, his mind wondered what his plan had ever been.

  He’d spent his whole life running: running from the Boiler village hell he had been born into; running from the cage fight prison he’d been sold into; and running from the lie he’d created to become a mech pilot. He had found people in Capreze’s crew that accepted him, called him a friend and colleague, but he couldn’t help but wonder if being just another mech pilot was where he wanted to be.

  Of course, all of those thoughts flew through his mind as he prepared to battle for his life yet again.

  That seemed to be the plan that had always been forced on him.

  The smell of the undead filled the dead end of the Maze
he had become trapped in, but Dog was beyond giving a shit. He gripped his bone until his knuckles popped then lunged as the first deaders reached for him, their broken nails and gnarled fingers hoping to rip chunks of flesh from his face.

  The point of the bone stabbed through the cloudy eye of one of the deaders, punching a hole through the back of its head. Dog spun the thing around and tossed it towards the others, yanking the bone free. He crushed the skull of two deaders with his rock then kicked out, knocking three back and to the ground.

  He barely dodged the snapping jaws of a deader as it went for his arm, but was able to get that same arm around its neck and snap the head off with an upward yank. He lost his rock when it lodged in the cranium of a particularly pungent deader, spoiled brains spilling out around the stone. The bone bent then snapped in two when he twisted it through the throat of a deader that swiped at his face over and over.

  Dog slammed with fists, kicked with feet and roared at the deaders with a rage he’d come to rely on in the Maze. But, within minutes of the attack, the deaders had him pinned and it was all he could do to keep their infected teeth from tearing chunks out of his warm flesh.

  “DUCK!” a voiced raged from behind the deader horde and Dog didn’t even think about obeying; he hit the ground as fast as he could.

  The sounds of spines ripping, necks snapping and skulls being split open filled the Maze. Dog punched at the few deaders that were still trying to get at him until they were pulled back and dispatched. He blinked up from under the pile of motionless zombies that had built up around him.

  “Hey, baby,” Jenny grinned as she held out a hand. “Did you come to rescue me?”

  “Uh…yeah,” Dog said. “How’d I do?”

  “Well I’m here and alive,” Jenny smiled as she wiped the gore from Dog’s face and kissed him hungrily on the lips. “We’ll work out who gets the credit later.”

  “This is your man?” Agnatha asked as she scrutinized Dog. “He seems capable. He made it further than most.”

  “What?” Dog asked. “How many actually make it?”

  “Not many,” Agnatha replied.

  “Jeezus,” Dog swore. “That’s fucked up.”

  ***

  “You have got to be shitting me,” Jenny said as she helped Dog out of his blood-soaked clothes. “You actually want me to call you that?”

  “It’s my name,” Dog said. “It’s who I am. I have to face that if I’m ever going to find my place in this fucked up world.”

  “So no more Rookie?”

  “No more Rookie,” Dog smiled as he stood there naked in front of Jenny. “I’ll never be anything but a beginner, a faker, with a name like that. I gotta be me.”

  “I like you,” Jenny said as she wiped the gore from Dog’s skin. “Whatever you want to be.”

  “Thanks,” Dog replied.

  The rag Jenny used became saturated and she rinsed and squeezed it out, moving in closer as she got the crusted blood from Dog’s neck and chest. Their eyes met and she grinned at him.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” she smiled as she lowered the rag to his muscled stomach.

  He matched her smile and leaned his face close to hers. “This is turning you on, isn’t it?”

  “I like the change,” she replied, licking her lips, the rag moving lower. “You seem more solid.” The rag stopped. “Literally.”

  “Good one,” Dog laughed as he took Jenny’s face in his hands and brought their lips together. They kissed hard, their tongues playing then pressing against each other. They parted and Jenny sighed quickly. “That was good too.”

  Jenny tossed the rag aside and reached around and grabbed Dog’s ass, pulling him fully against her. His hands found her shirt and yanked it over her head, freeing her breasts so they could press against him, hot skin against hot skin. She slid her pants down and wrapped one leg up around his waist. Their mouths met again and the kiss was intense, passionate, forceful.

  Neither of them had to voice that they needed each other; that they didn’t know if they’d make it from the Maze alive. They both just knew that that was the moment they had to have each other because the moment could never come again.

  Dog lifted Jenny up and she eased her down on him, letting him fill her until his head pressed against her, deep inside. She moaned and arched her back while Dog braced his legs, more than willing to hold her weight as her hips began to grind. Dog let her move on him, let her find her rhythm before he started to add his own, thrusting slowly but firmly.

  Jenny bit her lower lip and whimpered as Dog’s thrusts became stronger and stronger, faster and faster. Soon she had to wrap herself about him; her legs locked behind his waist, her arms about his shoulders, her face buried in his neck. Dog’s breathing became ragged and rushed as he pounded inside Jenny, their chests heaving against each other.

  “Yes,” Jenny whispered as she felt herself build to climax. “Yes. I love you. I love you so much.”

  Those words brought power to Dog. They were words he’d never heard before. His body sang with electricity as he gripped her ass, his fingers pressed deep into the soft flesh of her buttocks, his thumbs hooked up around her hips. He doubled his effort and soon Jenny was no longer whimpering, but crying out as Dog rammed in and out of her.

  “Oh, god!” they both shouted at once as their bodies climaxed in unison.

  Jenny gripped herself around Dog, squeezing him, keeping him deep in her. She told herself this was the moment that defined them; that she’d never let him get away. She had lost much in her life, but she wouldn’t lose him.

  At that instant of body uniting climax, Dog thought the same thing. She was his and he was hers and he vowed never to be away from her side. He had had sex a lot -as rewards for fights won in the cage, as lessons forced on him at a young age by his father on how you took a woman, as casual encounters while escaping through the underworld of Foggy Bottom-, but for the first time, even beyond the sex he and Jenny had had before, he felt the physical expression of love.

  He held her to him, refusing to let her go and down to the ground. He stayed in her just as willingly as she held him to her. Their bodies had become one and neither would be the first to uncouple and let the love go.

  “Good,” Agnatha said as she came into the stone room. “You two got that out of your system. Get dressed and get out here. We have to decide what we’re going to do with him.”

  ***

  “You want to stay down here?” Dog asked, completely taken by surprise. “Seriously?”

  “We are slits and the Maze is where slits belong,” Agnatha said. “Otherwise Eden will become a place of the weak. We must be the strength that holds our people together.”

  “But you want to stay here?” Dog repeated. “I mean stay stay?”

  “You checked him?” Agnatha asked Jenny. “He hasn’t been bitten? Or wounded?”

  “He’s fine,” Jenny said. “He just doesn’t understand. I don’t really either.”

  One of the other women spoke up, “If we stay above, stay in Eden proper without a husband then we will just be the women of old that undermined her sisters to get at what she thought she wanted.”

  “Girl drama,” Jenny said. “Yeah, I get that.”

  “We wouldn’t be looking to make our selves survivors,” the woman continued. “We would be looking to men to save us. To make us theirs. We would be competing with each other.”

  “But don’t the men save you down here?” Dog asked. “I thought that’s how wives are chosen, by the men braving the Maze and rescuing a slit.” Dog winced at his own use of the word.

  “Did we act as if we needed saving?” Agnatha asked angrily. “Did we?”

  “No, but-.”

  “No!” Agnatha insisted. “We do the saving! We are alerted when a man enters the Maze. We have safety stations throughout meant to aid the man so he can fight his way to the center here. If he makes it then a wife is chosen for him. We make sure the man is paired with a s
lit who will be compatible with his personality.”

  “You can tell a guy’s personality from how he fights?” Dog asked.

  “You can tell everything about a man by how he fights,” Agnatha said. “Everything in life is a fight. Strip away the ego and release the animal and then you know who the man is.”

  “And who am I?” Dog asked.

  “You are a leader,” Agnatha said. “A man that does not quit. A man that would take a woman and make her his equal.” Agnatha shook her head. “Which is sad.”

  “Really?” Dog asked, grabbing Jenny’s hand. “How is that sad?”

  “Because a man like you has no place up there in Eden,” Agnatha replied. “The Mayor would never allow slits to become wives of equality. Not fully.”

  “You know him that well?” Dog asked. “Not that I’m disagreeing with you.”

  “I know him that well,” Agnatha said. “He is my brother. I watched him grow. I watched him change. I know what kind of man he is.”

  Dog smiled brightly. “His sister? You’re his sister?” he laughed for a few seconds, irritating the women. “Sorry, sorry. This just gets better and better.”

  Thirty-Two

  The night air whipped about the Great Maker as he sat on the edge of the canyon: his red eyes seeing the squirming horde below perfectly even with only a faint sliver of a moon above.

  “Beautiful, aren’t they?” the Pope said as he joined the Great Maker. “I come here often just to watch them in motion.”

  “I prefer machines to flesh,” the Great Maker admitted. “They are simpler.”

  “I don’t see the Disciples as difficult,” the Pope replied. “Or complicated.”

  “Yes, but with the flesh you have decay, you have breakdown,” the Great Maker countered. “It is a process that can’t be stopped. They may regenerate as they feed, but only slightly. But with machines they can be kept in perfect order forever. All they need is maintenance.” The Great Maker looked up at the Pope. “You should let me show you. I could improve your Disciples greatly.”