Fighting Iron 2: Perdition Plains

by Jake Bible

  The cables. Clay looked behind him at the intestines that were still stinking up the cockpit.

  “Great,” he said and got to work hooking them into the AI matrix drive ports.

  Gibbons climbed into the cockpit and sighed.

  “Clay, I don’t think the Barneses know who they are,” Gibbons said. “Morley has been transferring them from body to body for so long that he’s forgotten most of what he knew. He’s invented his own history, pal. He’s created a story of who he and Paige are, but he doesn’t really know. I think I know. We ain’t gonna abandon them. We’ll fight off the Perdition Plains folks and give the Barneses a fighting chance.”

  “Why?” Clay asked as he held the ends of the intestine cables in his hands, his stomach lurching at the smell and feel. “It don’t matter who they are, buddy. We have some place we need to go. We have a mission.”

  “A mission given to us by secret coordinates in a battle mech,” Gibbons said. “Even I don’t know the full extent of what they mean or what we will find there. But I think I know a place that might have some answers. And now I have those coordinates.”

  “What? Where?” Clay asked as Gibbons took the intestine cables, opened the coverall he was wearing, and jammed the ends into a couple of not-so-healthy-looking ports in the automaton’s dead body.

  “I’ll tell you once we kick some Perdition ass,” Gibbons said. “Not bef—”

  He stopped talking and went completely rigid as his dead eyes rolled up into his head.

  Clay caught him before he could fall, but it was obvious that the automaton body was not Gibbons any longer. It was a stiff hunk of dead meat.

  “Toss it out,” Gibbons’ voice said from the cockpit speakers. “Let’s get to work. This ain’t gonna be easy, pal.”

  “Never is, man,” Clay replied as he hefted the automaton to the edge of the cockpit and threw it out into the main cavern.

  It hit every part of the scaffolding on the way down, and Clay had to turn away as it came apart like a flesh piñata. Clay sat down in the pilot’s seat and strapped in as he brought the battle mech up to full power. A couple systems complained, but he shut off the warning buzzers and concentrated on mobility and weapons.

  “Nice patch job,” Gibbons said.

  “Thanks,” Clay replied. “And, by the way, you have no idea how good it is to hear your real voice. Zombie Gibbons I can do without hearing for the rest of my life.”

  “You and me both, pal,” Gibbons said.

  Clay shoved and kicked the scaffolding out of the way then turned back towards the main entrance.

  “How do you expect us to hold up against the riders?” Clay asked. “They’re just gonna start shooting again.”

  “We’ll have some help,” Gibbons said. “Just get us outside and you’ll see.”

  Clay’s blood ran cold.

  “You don’t mean…do you?” Clay asked.

  “I do,” Gibbons said.

  “Sweet bloody hell,” Clay said. “Is she up for it?”

  “No,” Gibbons said. “Neither is the old man. They built flesh mechs because they had to build mechs. The people they used to be had that in them so strong that that’s what has stayed with them for all these centuries.”

  “Whoa,” Clay said. ‘Centuries?”

  “Later,” Gibbons said as the battle mech reached the blast doors. “Now, we fight.”

  “You do know I’m the pilot, right?” Clay asked as he double checked that the plasma cannons were powered up and ready to fire the second he needed them. He grabbed the right blast door and prepared to shove it into its recess in the cavern entrance wall. “Gibbons? You know I’m the pilot, right?”

  “You keep thinking whatever you need to, pal,” Gibbons said, his voice sharp and cold. “If that’s what you need to get you through this fight.”

  Clay sighed and shoved. The blast door flew into the side of the cavern, and all hell broke loose.

  Thirty-Two

  The riders were ready for them.

  They opened fire the second Clay stepped the battle mech outside the cavern.

  But he was ready for them too and ripped into their ranks with an onslaught of plasma bolts. The energy blasts tore apart rider and tweener alike. They were sliced in half, incinerated, turned into smoldering piles of flesh and burning bone. Heads exploded from heat, torsos burst into flame, limbs went flying.

  Yet the riders didn’t retreat, they kept up the attack and their rifles barked bullets again and again, undoing much of the hard work Clay had spent hours repairing.

  “Is that backup coming or what?” Clay shouted as he dove over a regiment of riders that had tried to flank them on the right. The battle mech wasn’t graceful, but it managed the dive and the roll, coming up in a crouch where Clay could grab up half a dozen riders in the battle mech’s fists and slam them together into a tweener soup. “Gibbons?”

  “I heard you, pal,” Gibbons said. “Yes, the backup is coming. Just be patient.”

  “Patient?” Clay snapped. “We’re not going to last long out here, buddy!”

  “We’ll last just fine,” Gibbons said. “Relax.”

  “Relax? Oh, you are so going to get your memory wiped when this is all done,” Clay said.

  “Oh, you are so going to get your memory wiped when this is all done,” Gibbons mocked in a sing-song voice.

  “I take it back,” Clay said as he smashed two riders into the wet earth with a pile driver of a punch. “I prefer the monotone Gibbons better.”

  The storm had pretty much passed. Flashes of lightning now and again lit up the landscape in sharp relief, but the thunder was kilometers off and the rain had slacked to an annoying drizzle. It didn’t mean the ground was any more maneuverable. It was still a muddy mess, and Clay fought to keep the battle mech from succumbing to the mucky suction underfoot.

  A familiar sight caught Clay’s eye, and he instantly had the targeting system lock on. He wasn’t going to fire, but he wanted the target tracked. No way was he going to lose it.

  “The hat, again?” Gibbons sighed. “Man, you are obsessed.”

  “Shut up,” Clay said. “I’m targeting Holcomb.”

  “If that was true, you would have fired on him already,” Gibbons said. “Left side!”

  Clay spun the mech about and sent six blasts from the plasma cannons down at the riders that were trying to flank him there. They were torn to shreds and hunks of rider parts flew into the air. The smoking body parts sizzled in the wet earth where they finally landed.

  “Forget the hat,” Gibbons said. “Concentrate on the fight.”

  “I am,” Clay said. “I can do both. I want my hat.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Gibbons said. “You haven’t exactly been hiding that.”

  The scanners barked a warning, and Clay frowned at the readings.

  “I thought that was a thunderhead on the horizon,” Clay said. “That’s not a thunderhead on the horizon.”

  “They got the siege engine moving again,” Gibbons said. “I don’t know how, but they did.”

  As the mighty machine grew closer, the scanners were able to pick up more detail. Both Clay and Gibbons saw how they got the siege engine moving again. They didn’t have time to react right away, though. Holcomb made his move, tearing their attention from the impossible sight.

  It was a classic wedge formation. All of the tweeners and riders moved into position and attacked, heading straight for the mech’s legs. It was a simple, brilliant move, utilizing the superior numbers to take down an oversized foe.

  Except Holcomb was thinking like an engineer, Clay saw that right away. He was thinking along the lines of basic physics and gravity, force meeting force. Clay was thinking like a fighter. He saw the solution before the attack had moved ahead two meters.

  The plasma cannons dug a deep, wide trench directly in front of the wedge, and Holcomb never stood a chance. If the ground had been hardpan, then the tactic wouldn’t have worked, but it wasn’t hardpan, it was soft
and wet.

  When plasma energy hit soft and wet, it cut deep and created a massive amount of steam.

  The wedge was blind until it was too late.

  Tweener and rider after tweener and rider fell into the deep trench the battle mech had cut, piling on top of each other until the entire wedge was stuck. Almost the entire wedge. A dozen or so riders realized what was happening and reversed course, turning to meet the siege engine.

  “Nice move,” Gibbons said.

  “Yeah, but my hat is at the bottom of that pile,” Clay said.

  “Oh, come on!” Gibbons snapped. “Forget the hat!”

  Clay let it drop and focused on the approaching siege engine instead. Or tried to. Some of the riders had managed to survive and were climbing out of the trench, their rifles up and firing. Clay roasted them with a wide, arcing blast of plasma. If there were any riders still alive in the tweener pileup, they quickly figured out that keeping a low profile and playing possum was the best strategy for survival.

  “Look at that,” Clay said as he once again could focus his attention on the siege engine rolling towards them. “These Perdition Plains people have some ingenuity in them, I’ll give them that. Too bad they use it to do the bidding of some living corpses like the folks in charge. If they’d just kick those decrepit assholes to the dirt, they might actually build a life for themselves.”

  “I agree,” Gibbons said. “Too bad we have to take those lives from them.”

  “Maybe not,” Clay said. “Open a channel.”

  “It’s open,” Gibbons said. “But you’re wasting your breath. These are fanatics, Clay. Their brains are so warped by the folks in charge, not to mention their very nature as lazaroti, that they won’t listen to reason.”

  “I ain’t gonna give them reason,” Clay said. “I’m gonna give them an option. Or one of them, at least. That person, ghoul, whatever, can choose it or not.”

  The siege engine rolled closer. Clay watched as it moved along the bodies of the tweeners that were meant to pull it. It was a crude version of log roll locomotion, but it worked. The truly amazing part was that the tweeners could handle the load of the siege engine, get up, run to the front of the massive machine, lie down, and prepare to get almost crushed all over again. Clay really wanted to know the engineering behind those things. It was brilliant.

  “Hello, siege engine driver, or pilot, or whatever you are,” Clay called over the com. “This is Clay MacAulay, and I’d like to strike a deal with you.”

  There was no answer.

  “Listen, whoever you are,” Clay continued, “I have something you might be interested in. Just for you. Stop that machine dead, power it down, destroy the controls, and I’ll give you something I know you want.”

  Clay pulled the pouch of Reaper chips from his pocket and shook them.

  “They can’t see that,” Gibbons said. “And, wait, what are you thinking?”

  “Hush,” Clay said. “Listen, pilot person guy or gal, I have a Reaper chip. It can be yours. Know what that means? Your masters know what that means. It means immortality. You won’t have to stay in that dead body if you don’t want to. You can move your consciousness from form to form just like the Barneses do.”

  “Clay, that’s not how it works,” Gibbons said. “I was trying to tell you that.”

  “No, you said we’d talk about it after we won the fight,” Clay said. “Doesn’t matter, I’m not giving any one of them a modified Reaper chip. Not a chance in Hell. But I know the message will be heard and passed on to Perdition Plains. Those old crusty sons of bitches will be hearing this and we’ll have an answer soon.”

  The siege engine continued to roll towards them, never slowing, never showing that anyone inside had received Clay’s communication.

  “But, just in case this doesn’t work,” Clay said. “When exactly is that backup getting here?”

  “Any second now,” Gibbons said. “The machine needs to be a little closer, is all.”

  “I would rather it wasn’t a little closer,” Clay said.

  The sides of the siege machine were dotted with holes. Clay saw them for what they were: rifle slots. There had to be close to five hundred slots. One by one, a dozen by a dozen, the slots were filled with the barrels of rifles of various sizes. The Perditions had put their all into the attack, Clay would give them that.

  “Mr. MacAulay,” a reedy voice rasped over the com. “I have been told you are in possession of a Reaper chip.”

  “I’m assuming I’m speaking to Thaddeus Perdition,” Clay replied.

  “You assume correctly,” Thaddeus replied. “While I do not appreciate your attempted bribery of one of mine, I do applaud your courage. To think you thought you had a chance to survive this. You would have been better served if you’d stayed hidden behind the Vernacht and let all of this play out on its own.”

  “I doubt it would have played out the way you wanted it to,” Clay said.

  “One Reaper chip does not interest us, Mr. MacAulay,” Thaddeus replied. “I am in need of all of them.”

  “Yeah, I kinda figured that,” Clay said. “Good thing I have all of them.”

  “Clay? What the hell are you doing?” Gibbons hissed. “You cannot give these people the Reaper chips. Do you know what will happen if the Perditions become immortal? They’ll rule the Midlands forever and this place will always be a—”

  “Hush now, Gibbons old buddy, old pal,” Clay said. “Trust me.”

  Before he could say any-more, there was motion from behind the battle mech. Every warning klaxon in the cockpit went off and Clay had to scramble to shut them down before his ears started to bleed.

  “Gibbons! Call her off!” Clay yelled. “Stop her!”

  The flesh mech sprinted from the cavern, directly at the siege engine, its cockpit open, the former wail of pain now a full-throated battle cry. Which confused the hell out of Clay since he wasn’t sure where the flesh mech even had a throat to make a cry like that.

  The flesh mech closed the distance and leaped at the siege engine all in the blink of an eye. It was like a pinkish gorilla clambering around a box. A box with rifles that started to fire. But that didn’t stop the flesh mech. It waged war with simian fury and slammed its fleshy fists against the rifle slots, crushing weapon after weapon.

  “What is that?” Thaddeus cried. “What abomination have you wrought upon our land?”

  “Yeah, not me, Teddy,” Clay said. “That’s Barnes’s doing. I’ll get the mech to stop its attack if we can come to an agreement.”

  “I don’t think you can get her to stop,” Gibbons said. “She isn’t exactly the most reasonable mind any longer.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Clay said. “I just need something to bargain with. I have an idea, and if it works, we won’t have to worry about the Perditions, or flesh mechs any longer.”

  “Mr. MacAulay!” Thaddeus shouted. “Stop that thing! Now!”

  “If you promise to give me time to repair my mech fully and give us safe passage from here,” Clay said. “I’ll stop the mech and give you the Reaper chips.”

  “I do not make deals when the other party is in an obvious place of weakness!” Thaddeus growled.

  “A place of weakness!” a woman’s voice chimed in.

  “Weakness!” another said.

  “Oh, we have the whole family on the line,” Clay said. “How nice. This is good because I’m not done yet. Not only do you promise us safe passage, but you give up fighting the Barneses. They stay safe as well. In return, I will make sure Morley Barnes uses his skills to implant the Reaper chips properly into the people of your choosing. There are a limited supply, but I have a feeling you know already who you’d like to take with you into immortality.”

  “We would have liked Holcomb to come with us,” one of the sisters said.

  “Yeah, well, sorry about that,” Clay said. “Maybe you should think first before attacking a skilled mech and its pilot.”

  “Thanks for calling me skilled,�
� Gibbons said.

  “I said the mech was skilled, not the AI,” Clay replied.

  “Dick,” Gibbons said.

  “Love ya too, buddy,” Clay replied. He cleared his throat. “Perditions? What do you say? Call this attack off and we can work together. You get your everlasting life, and I get to leave this crap ass place.”

  There was some mumbling over the com. Clay rolled his eyes at the fact the Perditions didn’t mute their talk or use an internal channel to communicate. That was second nature when he and Gibbons spoke. Amateurs.

  “We will make the deal,” Thaddeus said after several minutes.

  Clay and Gibbons had occupied themselves by watching the flesh mech tear holes in the sides of the siege engine and throw riflemen and riflewomen out onto the soggy ground. Those that stayed still, lived. Those that got up to fire again were met with brutal violence. Clay had heard the term “flesh confetti” used before. That description fit the fools’ fates perfectly.

  “Stop that mech from destroying our machine,” Thaddeus ordered. “Do that and bring us the Reaper chips, with Morley Barnes, and we will grant you your wishes.”

  “He’s one hell of a creepy genie,” Gibbons said. “Granting wishes. Please.”

  “You got yourself a deal, Mr. Perdition,” Clay said.

  The flesh mech that housed Paige’s consciousness continued its destruction of the siege engine. Clay watched it for a minute then sighed.

  Thirty-Three

  “This isn’t going to be easy, is it?” Clay asked.

  “Why would you think it would be?” Gibbons said. “The point was for the flesh mech to fight the siege engine, not for it to stop fighting the siege engine.”

  “Can we reason with her?” Clay asked.

  “What do you think?” Gibbons asked. “Look at her go. I helped her transition into the flesh mech, but at a cost.”

  “That cost was her sanity, right?” Clay said.

  “It was her humanity,” Gibbons said. “She may regain some semblance of it over time, but right now she is primal. You are looking at raw everything there. In order to give her focus and not just be a machine of violence bent on destroying everything in sight, I had to program a goal in there with her.”