by Jake Bible
But Railers weren’t ground fighters and they didn’t last very long.
She got one last look at her train before her skull was crushed and the life left her eyes.
***
“NO!” Jay roared as he watched the Railer train get taken. “MOTHER FUCKERS!”
Any hesitation he had had before about getting into the thick of the fight was wiped from his mind. Without even considering any plan or next moves, Jay began to eradicate anything that walked, ran, or shambled by his mech. He let all control leave his mind. He didn’t care what he killed as long as it stayed dead.
Capreze and Rachel had to put as much distance as possible between their mechs and Jay’s in order to keep from catching any collateral damage. Deader bodies flew everywhere as Jay kicked out. He bent down, grabbed up handfuls and slammed them together, crushing them between his fingers.
Deaders swarmed his mech. They climbed his exoskeleton, their senses telling them that there was flesh inside somewhere. Jay diverted power to his frame and electrified anything unlucky enough to be on his mech at that time. Dead flesh smoked and cooked, adding to the ever present smell of burnt deader that covered the battlefield.
Minutes went by and the deaders didn’t stop coming and Jay didn’t let his blind rage slip away. If he even came close to tiring he just pictured Marin’s death. A friend he’d known longer than anyone else in the hell of the wasteland.
That drove him on.
Sixty-Three
“Styles!” Melissa called. “Get your ass over here and pick me up!”
“On our way, pretty lady,” the Styleses all said.
“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Melissa growled. “Just one of you!”
“That would be my privilege,” Styles 1 said. “Heading your way now.”
The BTT shot back towards the Stronghold and was hovering over Melissa in just two seconds.
Melissa grabbed Charlie by the arm. “Come on!” she shouted as she glanced towards the deaders that didn’t care about the fiery mounds anymore and were busy climbing over and coming straight for them as they were the two tastiest things in sight.
“What are you thinking?” Charlie asked as the cargo bay shut and Melissa knelt down, placing her hands to the floor of the BTT.
“I’m thinking we need to put these things to real use,” Melissa answered. “The missiles are creating as much havoc for us as they are for the deaders.”
“What ya doing down there?” Styles 1 asked. “I’m getting structural warnings left and right.”
“I’m giving you some new toys,” Melissa said. “Let me know if the changes affect your flying.”
“They already are, but I am more than enough pilot to handle them,” Styles 1 replied. “And holy crap! Are you sharpening the wings?”
“I am,” Melissa answered as she grinned up at Charlie. “Don’t know why I didn’t think of this before.”
“Just be careful,” Styles warned. “Too thin and this baby won’t be able to stay stable. We’ll flip right over into the mess down there.”
“Don’t worry,” Melissa said. “I have it under control.”
***
Leaping from one BTT to the next, Melissa made as many alterations as she could as fast as she could. She hoped that she had all of the dimensions and calculations right in her head. Styles 1 had been right, if she was off by a little then the BTTs would not fare so well.
Styles 1 brought his BTT over the last BTT Melissa had altered. Charlie, hooked to the inside of the cargo bay, extended his hand and helped pull her up inside.
“You’re good to go,” Melissa said. “Clean sweeps and you can wipe these fuckers out!”
“That’ll buy some time until Capreze can get the hangar back open,” Charlie said. “If he can get it open.”
***
The Great Maker tried to keep his form insubstantial, to meld with the ones and the zeroes. But Beth was having none of that shit.
“Come here, motherfucker!” she shouted as she manifested a barren plain that held nothing but the two of them. “You aren’t running anymore, bitch!”
“Such foul language and a foul attitude from a such a young lady,” the Great Maker tsked. “Not very becoming.”
Beth rushed the cyborg and her fist slammed against his steel reinforced jaw. His head snapped back and Beth smiled at the sound of vertebrae cracking.
“Power,” the Great Maker said as he straightened his neck, setting the vertebrae back in place. “But not experience.”
Beth blinked and he was gone. She spun around and caught his foot across her cheek. She tumbled to the ground then tried to push herself back up, but the Great Maker was on her. He grabbed her by the hair and jerked her head back. His other hand clutched her about the throat and began to press into her soft flesh. The tips of his fingers stretched and sharpened, drawing blood instantly.
“I have been in the digital world for most of my life,” the Great Maker laughed. “I used to play in this mainframe like it was my own special oasis. You think a young bitch like you can defeat me here? Ha! This is MY domain! This is where I learned about the purity of the machine and the blasphemy of the flesh!”
The Great Maker tore Beth’s throat open and blood sprayed across the digital landscape. She clutched at her throat, her eyes wide with fear, and turned to look at the Great Maker. He just smiled down at her, his red eyes incapable of pity.
***
LaFrance watched the flashing images on the vid screens and cringed as he saw Beth’s body slump to the ground, her life draining through her fingers.
“Lesh!” LaFrance ordered. “Kill!”
The dog understood that. She leapt at the Great Maker’s body and landed on his chest. The eyes popped open just as a bolt of electricity shot down and sent the dog flying across the room. She skidded across the floor, landing hard against Stan.
The boy stirred and pushed himself to his feet. He looked about, saw June against the wall, Lesh singed and barely breathing at his feet, and LaFrance stuck in his wheelchair.
“Care to hand me that?” LaFrance asked, pointing at June’s sidearm. “I have a job to do.”
Stan looked at the pistol and then picked it up. But instead of handing it to LaFrance he walked over to the Great Maker and pressed the barrel against the cyborg’s head. Electricity shot down again, but Stan took the bolt and didn’t budge.
“You’re different, eh?” the Great Maker said.
Stan didn’t answer with words. He let the gunshot do his talking. Brain and metal exploded from the side of the Great Maker’s head. His last breath left him and his body went slack. Stan nodded then walked over and handed the pistol to LaFrance.
“Uh, thanks, kid,” La France said.
Stan nodded and went and sat down next to June, wrapping her arms about him. She stirred slightly, but didn’t wake up. Stan closed his eyes and rested his head against her chest.
“What the fuck?” LaFrance said.
***
“My body,” the Great Maker said as he looked down at his digital form. “My body is gone. Now I am truly free.”
“You’d think that, wouldn’t ya?” Jethro said from behind him. “But it’s a funny thing about this mainframe. It gets kinda crowded quick.”
Jethro ripped the Great Maker’s head off of the cyborg’s neck and tossed it back over his shoulder. The Great Maker’s corpse flicked, flicked, then flashed into nothing.
Jethro walked over to Beth and extended his hand. “Need some help?”
Beth was too busy choking on her own blood to answer.
“Not real,” Jethro said as he tapped his head. “Only this is real. Stop bleeding and get up. We have work to do.”
Beth pulled her hand away and was surprised to see not a drop of blood on it. She took Jethro’s hand and he helped her to her feet.
“You know, we’re just making all this shit up,” Jethro said. “I’m not really holding your hand. We aren’t really seeing each other. It’s just a figment-
.”
His words were stopped as Beth grabbed him and kissed him hard.
“That real enough for you?” Beth asked.
“Uh, yeah,” Jethro said. “That kiss kinda brings up other possibilities.”
“Keep it in your digital pants,” Beth said. “We have work to do, remember?”
“You know, technically we control the time flow in here,” Jethro grinned. “We could spend what feels like a year here and it wouldn’t even be a nanosecond out there in flesh and bone land.”
“Maybe later,” Beth said as she gave him one quick peck. “After we save some lives.”
***
The BTTs cut swaths through the deaders, their sharpened, lengthened wings acting as massive scythes. Thousands died with each sweep, but it still wasn’t enough. There were still so many that Capreze ordered everyone to the Stronghold to make a last stand.
“Riders!” Capreze shouted. “Get back here!”
But they were too busy.
All of the living riders of Eden had formed a tight group and slowly rotated out, fighting and killing every deader that came at them. They kept the group flowing, constantly changing, so that one rider couldn’t get bogged down. It was an ingenious display of hand to hand combat against overwhelming odds.
“Sorry, Commander,” Dog said as he tore out the spine of a deader and shoved it through the skull of another one. “We got our hands full at the moment.”
“You’ll be safer back here,” Capreze stated. “We’ll protect you with the mechs.”
“No offense,” the Mayor said over the com. “But your mechs aren’t doing as well as the riders. Well, except for your Chief Mechanic.”
That was surely true.
Jay hadn’t slowed down at all. His mech stomped and ground deaders into the dirt, melding their rotten flesh with the bits of gravel and sand that made up the wasteland. But even with his never ending rage, Jay was making only the slightest difference in the numbers.
“Fuck,” Capreze muttered as he saw the futility of it all. There were just too many.
“Hey, boss man,” Jethro said. “Bet you’d like to come in and put your feet up for a bit, eh?”
“Son of a bitch!” Capreze yelled. “Where the hell have you been? What have you been doing in there?”
“Oh, just taking a nap,” Jethro replied. “Why? Did I miss something?”
“Open the fucking hangar door, Jethro,” Capreze ordered.
Jethro complied and Capreze took up a defensive position with Rachel, their mechs blocking as much of the door as they could.
“Inside now!” Capreze ordered. “That’s an order!”
“I’ll get them,” Styles 1 said.
The BTTs stopped their zombie mowing and flew to the riders. They dropped down, smashing deaders under their BC and opened ramps.
“All aboard Styles Airlines!” Styles 1 laughed. “We will be departing right the fuck now!”
Dog, Immy and the others didn’t argue. They all sprinted to the closest BTT and climbed inside. The BTTs took off, strafing the ground with gunfire as they headed to the hangar.
Capreze and Rachel stepped aside and let the aircraft fly right inside.
“Jay!” Capreze yelled. “Come on!”
Jay saw what was happening, but he didn’t care. He was in a mindset of violence and rage. Mythical creatures could have fallen from the sky and he wouldn’t have noticed. All he saw or heard was the blood and moans of the undead.
“Go get him,” Capreze said to Rachel. “He’ll keep going until he runs out of power.”
Rachel ran her mech to Jay and grabbed the massive battle machine by the arm. Jay lashed out, but Rachel ducked the swipe and slammed her mech cockpit right up against Jay’s.
“HEY!” she shouted. “Get it together, Chief Mechanic! We need you alive, Jay! So get your fucking ass inside that Stronghold right now!”
Jay blinked for a moment and shook his head.
“Rache?” Jay asked. “That is you, isn’t it?”
“Always has been,” Rachel replied. “Now move your fucking old ass.”
Jay looked about at the undead he’d ripped to shreds and smiled. “I kinda lost it.”
“It happens to us all,” Rachel replied as she started to jog back to the Stronghold, crushing deaders as she went. Jay followed right behind.
Capreze was the last to get inside and he breathed a huge sigh of relief when the hangar door locked shut. Railers and riders took aim and put down the few dozen deaders that had made it inside before the door closed and the hangar smelled like gun powder, blood and grease.
Capreze smiled as he climbed down from his mech.
“Reload, make repairs and take a shit if you haven’t already in your pants!” he shouted. “Because we’re going back out there in fifteen minutes!”
“You think we can take them now?” Rachel asked as she hopped down the last few feet from her mech.
“I think we’re going to try,” Capreze said. “Otherwise we’ll be trapped in here forever.”
“We kicked their asses!” Dog said. “We can whittle them down, easy!”
“Jethro?” Capreze called out.
‘Yeah, Commander?”
“Show them what’s happening outside,” Capreze said as he turned to one of the massive vid screens in the hangar.
Everyone went quiet.
“Did you all forget where we live?” Capreze asked as they all watched images of their friends and family as they reanimated. “This is the wasteland, people. There’s always bigger numbers out there than in here.”
Sixty-Four
“Are those guys wearing pajamas?” Bisby asked as One Arm walked up to the battlefield.
“Battle suits,” Mathew said. “Must be BC from Melissa.”
“They don’t look like they’re fighting anymore,” Bisby said. “At least not for our team.”
“The dead always rise again,” Mathew said. “Wasn’t that some war slogan or something?”
“Fuck if I care,” Bisby said. “How do we get past all those dead fucks and get to the Stronghold? One Arm can barely walk.”
“Not true,” One Arm said as he snapped the welded struts from his leg. “I am repaired.”
“Repaired? How the fuck did you do that?” Bisby asked.
“The nanobots that you infected me with when you took me over,” One Arm said. “They never left my system. I just ordered them to make the repairs needed. While I shall never forgive you for the offense you have done to my person, I shall thank your Jethro for his invention.”
“Ha!” Mathew laughed. “That’s gotta burn!”
“Fuck you, Jespers,” Bisby growled. “So now what?”
“Now we fight,” One Arm said casually.
“You do realize there’s still hundreds of thousands out there, right?” Mathew said.
“Good,” One Arm said as he started to run into the thick of the deaders. “Then it will not be over too soon.”
***
“Holy shit!” Jethro said. “Look who’s here!”
“How the hell…?” Jay asked. “I thought that thing went down when Biz and Harlow took on the Canadian mechs?”
“Well, it’s up and fighting now,” Jethro said. “And readings show two humans inside.”
“Jeezus,” Capreze smiled as he watched the one armed mech dive into the deader horde and start smashing and ripping everything that came at it. “What are we standing here for? Let’s get back in it!”
“Just give me a second,” Jethro said. “I’ll make some room.”
***
Floodlights illuminated the nightscape once again, changing darkness into light. The Stronghold gun turrets whirred to life and took aim at the thousands of deaders that pressed against the hangar door. When they opened fire the undead became a black-red mist that lifted into the air, swirling about the floodlights like a one-colored rainbow.
In just seconds Jethro had cleared enough space for the hangar door to open and the mec
hs to come rushing out.
“We’ll be right behind you,” Dog said.
“Negative,” Capreze replied. “Lock everything down. This is a mech fight.”
“Then give me a mech!” Dog shouted. “Jay, you have to have another mech I can use!”
“You can’t have it both ways,” Capreze said. “You’re in charge until we stomp the fuck out of these things. Keep the Stronghold safe and everyone calm.”
“He’s right, boy,” the Mayor said over the com. “Your place is no longer in a mech.”
“The voice in the ear thing is getting old,” Dog grumbled to the Mayor, but didn’t offer up any more arguments.
***
One Arm was in control and Bisby and Mathew had no problem with that. They were both experienced mech pilots, but One Arm had more experience dealing with massive hordes of deaders. After all, he was a rogue mech from the wasteland.
With his one fist, One Arm gripped a broken transport and slammed it down again and again, creating stamps of crushed deaders. He spun about, sweeping the transport to clear the area directly around them and then started in again with the smashing.
Bisby perked up when he saw the other mechs come running out to help. The com was still down, but he was pretty sure they would know that One Arm was friendly. Anything that attacked deaders with as much joy as One Arm had to be seen as an ally.
***
“I’m getting nothing,” Capreze said. “Jay?”
“Their coms must be fried,” Jay replied. “We’ll just have to get close enough to shout.”
“Then let’s get to crushing some fucking deaders,” Rachel said. “There’s a lot between us and them.”
There were thousands upon thousands between the three mechs and One Arm, but those numbers dwindled quickly. From a few hundred thousand down to just a couple hundred thousand. The mechs, all four of them, used everything they had. They were horribly outnumbered and should have been overtaken within minutes, but they refused to yield.