The people Nox faced gave him names by the dozen, and maybe the constructs would do the same. In the Rust Valley, he wasn't just another victim, another flesh-covered soul in a world of metal. He'd made their most coveted metals his armour, and one by one he'd gunned them down, as if they were flesh and blood. Maybe they'd called him the Rustkiller, and fear him just as much as the other peoples of the Wild North.
This was a test of if it all worked in action. As he surveyed the scattered parts and broken pieces, he felt he'd passed.
25 – MORE SCRAP FOR THE HEAP
Luke hadn't found his sister. When he travelled into the Rust Valley on the monowheel, full of drive and passion, a large part of him believed that he'd find Laura. That part of him was growing smaller now.
The monowheel was fast, far faster than he expected, and he had trouble holding on. The engine roared beneath him, as if it knew he was not its master. He felt his bones rattle inside his skin. When the vehicle tilted this way and that, he almost closed his eyes, expecting it to topple over completely. He didn't have the body weight to push it back. It seemed to adjust on its own from some interior balancing mechanism. He knew he was lucky it was the Coilhunter's vehicle. Others weren't made with so much care.
But the thing about luck in the Wild North was that it was usually bad. Like most things there, any sliver of good luck you got ran out quick. Just like the fuel inside the monowheel.
The vehicle stuttered and slowed, before it conked out entirely. Luke banged his fist off the chassis, partly out of frustration, partly out of remembering what he'd seen most men do in similar situations. Just like those times, it didn't do much good.
And then it got worse. Without the movement of the wheel, which was linked to the balancing mechanism inside, gravity got a hold of it and began to pull it down. Luke tried to kick the stand out, but it wouldn't budge. He hopped off and tried to prop the monowheel up with his body, but the weight of it was immense, and it just made his feet skid across the sand. He yelped as he threw himself out of the way as the whole thing came crashing down on its side.
He sat where he landed for a moment, wondering what he was doing here. This was precisely the place he didn't want to be, and instead of being here with his sister, or with the Coilhunter, he was alone. He thought maybe he deserved it. He was a fraud. Maybe Nox should have had a poster with his face on it too.
But there was no time for self-pity. He knew his sister was still out there, somewhere in this maze. He blocked out logic, which said there were too many paths she could have taken. He only let hope and perseverance through.
He got up and grabbed a hold of the wheel. He leant back, trying to let his body weight haul the vehicle upright. It was hopeless. It barely moved an inch. He circled around it, scratching his head. He didn't like the idea that he'd have to walk the rest of the way. He hadn't even considered what the Coilhunter might do to him if he didn't get his monowheel back.
He wondered if the vehicle might be able to right itself if it had more fuel. He saw the diesel canisters on either side of the box at the back. One of them was pinned between the monowheel and the ground, but the other was free. Luke grabbed a hold of its handle and tried to yank it free, but just like everything else with that vehicle, it weighed a ton. It took everything he had, with both hands on the canister and both feet pressed against the hull of the vehicle, to dislodge it. When he did, he fell backwards with it, and the canister leapt from his hands, crashing on the ground. The lid burst and the oil spilled out.
“No!” the boy cried, racing over to it and pulling up the almost empty canister. He shook it, hearing the barely audible slosh of a dribble of liquid inside. It wasn't enough. If you had a water canister like that, those last few drops wouldn't do much to stave off death. These last few drops of diesel wouldn't do much either.
He looked at the pool of oil in front of him, winding its way between the cracks, running away from him. He felt a different fuel well inside him, and he swung the canister away with a shout. It bounced, casting away its final droplets. He clenched his fists and stomped the ground. Then he grabbed a metal bar that stuck out from one of the nearby piles of debris and tossed it across the way, where it clanged off one of the scrapyard walls.
He sat back down, panting. He wanted to scream at the top of his voice, but he knew it'd do no good. Nothing he'd done so far had done any good. His mother used to tell him he had to find a way to channel his anger. He thought of Nox and how he'd channelled his. He wondered why he couldn't do it, why he kept choosing the wrong path, doing the wrong things. It just made him angrier. He tried to hide it, tried to bury it, but it just came out worse than ever.
Then he heard a sudden ping of metal, and he started. He glanced around rapidly, expecting to see one of the Clockwork Commune. Instead, he saw the little hatch open at the back of the monowheel. The small ramp extended and the wind-up duck waddled down, halting at the end.
“No. Go back inside!” He shooed it with his hands, but the little duck just looked at him blankly. Luke paused and bit his lip. “You're gonna blind me, aren't you?”
The duck didn't move. Its beady eyes didn't blink, and yet they almost seemed like they could see. He didn't know how the Coilhunter did it. Maybe it came to him like the drawings did to Luke, through some higher inspiration. Maybe if there was some divine power, that was how it spoke to the world. Or maybe they were both just crazy.
Luke didn't try to run. He was tired of running. If the duck killed him, then that would be the end of it. He didn't want to die, but at least it would kill the anger too.
The duck tilted its head away. It seemed to be staring off in the direction where he'd thrown the iron bar.
“What?” Luke asked. “Do you see somethin'?”
The duck kept staring.
Luke felt suddenly on edge.
He got to his feet slowly.
“What is it?” he whispered, unsure why he even asked. Could the duck even speak?
Luke looked where the duck was staring. He couldn't see anything but the usual metal junk. The entire place was an iron graveyard. You could barely take a step without hitting a grave. He didn't like that thought right now, because now he wondered if he might find his own.
He felt suddenly defenceless. He glanced around, spotting another iron bar sticking out from one of the walls. He yanked it free, though in the process it loosened many other random metal bits, which toppled to the ground with a clash and clang.
He cringed at the sound, backing away slowly.
Then he thought he heard something else.
His eyes darted in the direction the duck looked. He gulped. Then, as he watched, he thought he saw part of the wall move. He clenched his mouth to stop his gasp. What at first looked like just another part of the wall far ahead now turned to him. It was tall and black, and hunched over. It seemed to have half a head, with just one eye, which glared at him with a kind of intensity he had never seen. He thought he knew anger, but this thing knew hate.
26 – BOYS DON'T DIE
Luke stood motionless, until the construct shifted. The boy flinched, dropping the iron bar on the ground. In his head, he'd envisioned bashing the creature, but now that it came to it, he knew he couldn't really fight it. He had to run.
The creature bounded forward, half-limping, half-leaping. It seemed that one of its legs didn't work properly, so it had to drag it along behind it. Yet even then it moved at a tremendous speed.
Luke raced in the other direction, panting, and trying hard to contain his scream. He jumped over piles of rubble, tripping and tumbling, before dashing off again. He skidded around a corner, barely able to stop himself, and then halted suddenly in front of a wall of metal.
It was a dead end.
He looked around frantically, trying to spot some little crevice to squeeze through, but the walls were packed tight. He couldn't even wiggle through the door of a vehicle, because they were all crushed together under the tremendous weight.
H
e heard the creature rattle behind him, and then it gave a terrible wail that sounded like nothing Luke had ever heard in his life. He'd heard the other kids tell tales of these creatures, of how you heard their howls at night before they took you away. It brought back his childhood terrors and mixed them with the horrors of the moment.
He tried to climb the wall of junk. There were lots of jutting bits to grab and stand on, but many were sharp, and others shifted under his weight. As he clambered up, breathing frantically, he heard the whole wall groan, like a wail of its own.
Then he heard the little duck's quack, and he barely had time to brace himself against the wall when everything exploded into blinding white. His eyes burned, even more than the last time, because now they went from the dark of the Rust Valley to the light of the Coilhunter's weapon. He clenched his teeth and held on tight. He couldn't see anything, not the jutting iron bars and steel beams, not the crumpled hulls of vehicles, not even his hands. He could feel it, the coarse, sharp edges, the rusty patches, the rivets and screws.
He wasn't sure what to do, to drop back down or continue his climb, or to just stay there, clinging onto the metal as if it were life. He hoped the construct was also blind, but he knew what his mother had said about how differently they saw. The duck couldn't distinguish between man and machine, so it tried to blind them equally.
But it was not equal.
He heard something dragging across the ground beneath him. He tried to hold his breath, to silence those loud pants and heaves. He felt his hand almost slipping and had to adjust. The wall groaned, as if to give him away.
Don't notice me, he prayed. Don't see me. I'm not here, I'm not here, I'm not here.
Then the construct wailed.
It saw him just fine.
Luke reached up, feeling his way for the next thing to hold. He grabbed at something, like the edge of a door. He hauled himself up, then felt his foot slip as something gave way beneath him. He cried out, dangling for a moment before he managed to get a foothold on something else. He reached up again, but felt nothing but air, and then the sheer, slippery side of a chassis. There was nothing to grab onto.
Yet for the construct below, there was plenty. It reached up with its three-fingered hand and seized the boy by the ankle.
Luke shrieked. He tried to kick it off, but the grip was firm.
Then it pulled.
Luke felt his own fingers strain and buckle. He screamed at the top of his lungs. He let go, but caught something else, and kept flailing his legs below him, trying to shake that iron grip.
Then it pulled harder, and he came tumbling down to the ground. He clattered off the side of the creature's torso and rolled to the ground with a thud, landing on his back. He groaned as he lay there, battered and bruised, and still very blind.
He heard something stab the ground beside his head, tearing a little whimper from him. Then something leant close to him, close enough that he could hear the ticking inside its shell. He knew this was it. This was the end. This was why he didn't want to come here.
Then his vision started to return. He blinked rapidly as the white became less blinding. He saw the silhouette hovering over him. There was no doubt what it was. It was the lumbering construct, there to add another set of bones to its belt of trophies.
The creature raised its barbed arm to strike, and Luke raised his own to shield his face.
27 – THUNDER
The gunshot was like thunder. The construct never even wailed. It never had a chance to. Even though Luke could still only see in silhouettes, he could see through the gigantic hole in the creature's head. It slumped down on top of him, halting mere inches from his face. He climbed out from under it and got to his feet.
Even in silhouette, you could recognise him. Even though now he seemed bulkier than before, Luke could spot the Coilhunter. It was as if he had already drawn an outline in the journal of his mind. It was a reassuring shape in a world of shadows and jagged edges.
“So, here you are,” Nox said, his voice as full of grit as ever, though now it seemed even more muffled than before. Luke tried not to think of how that must've sounded to the bad guys, and tried even harder not to think that maybe now, in the eyes of the Coilhunter, he might be one of them.
The boy looked to the ground, ashamed. When the image of the Coilhunter grew clearer, he saw that awful visage, now encased in its own iron shell, as if he'd joined the Clockwork Commune. It stopped the boy's breath and locked away the words fighting at the back of his throat.
The duck waddled up to the Coilhunter's foot and looked up at him, and then back to the boy. Nox looked down at it.
“And here you are,” he added. He flicked open a panel on the inside of his wrist and pressed a button. The duck waddled back to the fallen monowheel and climbed inside.
“I hope you're not mad,” Luke said.
“I thought you were the one who was mad.”
“I was, but—”
“But now you're not?”
“I don't know what I am.” Luke could feel his eyes welling up. “I just want to find my sister.”
The Coilhunter's shoulders rose and fell noticeably, and a puff of black smoke came out from his mask.
“This'll get ya killed, boy.”
Luke nodded slightly.
“This'll get me killed.”
Luke thought it better not to nod to that.
“I'm not leavin',” Luke said. He thought maybe that was a stupid thing to say. Most people wouldn't care if he left or not—and yet here was the Coilhunter. He wasn't like most people at all. “I'm not leavin' without her.”
The Coilhunter stared at him for a moment, and Luke stared back, defiant. He quickly rubbed a stray tear away, a little betrayal in this war of wills. Most people never got to fight a war with the Coilhunter and win. But then most people never walked the Rust Valley.
Nox spun his revolver, and Luke flinched. Then he holstered it and turned to the monowheel.
“You made a right mess outta that.”
“Sorry.”
“Let's hope you're as good at destroying the Clockwork Commune.”
Luke perked up. “So, you mean you'll help me find her?”
“Come on, boy,” Nox said, starting off. “Before I change my mind.”
28 – THE CULTURE CACHE
They wandered for what felt like hours, meeting no more metal monsters, contenting themselves with the monsters in their imagination. It was hard not to look at the scrapyard walls and see faces in the shapes, and then glance again and find it was just some junk.
The owl scouted the way for them, shining its twin spotlights on the refuse of the war that waged across Altadas. Those burnt-out vehicles, those trampled trucks, those blasted landships. They all ended up here. Some said the Regime sent them. Others said it was the Resistance. Others yet said they both conspired together, making this little offering to the Clockwork Commune, keeping them at bay.
“Nox.” Luke tapped a bar in his hand as he went. Every few yards, he threw it away and picked up a new one.
“Yeah?”
“Are we gonna die out here?”
“If you mean the Wild North … then … some day.”
“Today?”
“No.”
“How're you so sure?”
“You're with me, boy. How're you not?”
Luke dropped the iron bar and found yet another one. There was no shortage of them here. They were like guns were to the other parts of the Wild North. There were more of them than hands to hold them. The boy cringed at the sound of the metal hitting the debris below. It seemed he never quite thought that through. But it seemed he hadn't quite thought through coming here either. That was the problem with many. Hell, the problem with most. Everyone was caged by the here and now. Well, here and now was enough to think about.
They continued through the winding passages, stumbling into dead ends, trotting after the owl when it seemed to fly off more suddenly, or braving the dark when it slo
wed down too much. Nox gave the boy one of his metal gauntlets to replace the next iron bar, which let the Coilhunter make some small adjustments to his wristpad with one of his tools. He couldn't be all things to all people. Right now he needed to be a mechanic. But when he faced those constructs again, he needed to be a killer. An armoured one.
“Look at this!” Luke cried, casting aside the glove and racing over to a fallen hot air balloon. It draped over one of the smaller piles of junk, with its basket on its side. The contents were sprawled across the ground.
Luke picked up a painting that was almost as big as him. There was a tear in the canvas, but you could still see the picture well. It looked like an old noble, staring off to the side. You couldn't see where he was staring, because it no longer existed. Those days were gone. Likely, that man was gone too.
“Isn't it pretty?” Luke asked.
Nox strolled over to his discarded glove and scooped it up. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Why's it in here? Surely they wouldn't throw it out.”
“It's supposed to be in the sky, boy. A culture cache, a saving for a rainy day.” Nox smirked at the notion. There weren't many rainy days in the desert. “The Clockwork Commune must've pulled it down, searchin' for metal.”
Luke looked around at the discarded artworks. “I guess they didn't find any.”
“No.”
Luke dusted off the bottom right-hand corner. The painting had a signature, but it was badly faded. That was probably a good thing. Signatures on art were like signing your own death warrant, at least when it came to the Iron Empire, or, as the Resistance called them, the Regime. That was why people came up north. You could do the things here that you just couldn't do elsewhere, and get away with it. That meant the good, and the very bad. All of it was bad in the eyes of some, and good in the eyes of others. People left their morals on the borders of the Wild North. The Coilhunter taught them new ones.
Rustkiller - A Science Fiction Western Adventure (The Coilhunter Chronicles Book 2) Page 8