What do I do? he thought, but he knew the answer to his question. Fight. Yet he could not fight. Hide. Yet the places to hide were dwindling fast. Flee. Yet where would he run, and could he ever escape what he had just seen? Could he ever escape the memory of the machine man that was once the man he loved?
Brooklyn scoured the area, lifting up debris that would have been too heavy for him in the past. The pumps continued to pour out smoke, a personal smog, and he wandered through the rubble like a moving city, a little Blackout of his own. How Rommond wished the smoke hid Brooklyn completely from sight. How he wished he could not see.
Then he saw something else. Standing across the street, gun raised, was Soasa, as rough as she had ever looked, her short brown hair unkempt, her clothes grey with dust, her eyes dark and grim.
“No!” the general cried, as he heard the trigger of her gun. He charged out towards her, knocking her down in time to avoid Brooklyn's answering round. Yet he knew he was not trying to save her; he was trying to save Brooklyn instead.
He turned as he heard the diamond bullet strike Brooklyn in the arm, severing one of the cables connecting the gatling gun. Brooklyn faltered for a moment, and it seemed that he was leaking oil and blood. He looked up, confused.
“Get off me!” Soasa cried, pushing Rommond aside. She reached for her gun, but Rommond seized it from her.
“No!” he said. “Do you not recognise him? Do you not see?”
She turned her hardened gaze upon the man, but all she saw was a machine. She knew Brooklyn, but she did not know him like Rommond did. She did not know the creases on his skin, the little blemishes, the tiny idiosyncrasies that mapped his face.
“It's Brooklyn!” Rommond bellowed.
She looked again, but clearly she did not see it. “Are you mad?” she asked. “That's not him.”
“It is,” the general replied, nodding firmly, and holding her arm to stop it reaching for the gun. “It's Brooklyn. I'm telling you, it's him.”
“If that's his body, Rommond, that's all it is. It's not Brooklyn any more.”
Rommond looked at the man, who was attempting to repair his arm. All Rommond could think of was Brooklyn working on his machines, on the landships, on the Hopebreaker and the Lifemaker, on everything the Resistance had used to date. God only knew what the Regime had him working on, before they had him working on himself, on the ultimate machine called man.
“Do you not see it?” Rommond asked, and he felt the waver in his voice. “That's him. It's—”
But a hail of bullets stole his voice. A group of civilians, armed with the fallen guns of the Regime, and empowered by Jacob's rallying words, charged into the square, firing as they went. The bullets went everywhere, almost into Rommond and Soasa, almost into themselves. They struck Brooklyn, mostly out of luck, or sheer mathematical probability, for the frenzied mob fired everything they had, hoping to mow down the mechanised man that stood like a sentinel in the centre of the square.
But the bullets that struck him, struck the metal casing, and though a few wires and tubes were severed, they only slowed him—they did not stop him. He turned his iron gaze upon them, just as their bullets ran out, and then turned the newly-repaired gatling gun on them, with ammunition that seemed would never be depleted.
The civilians fell, not one by one, but dozens at a time. Their stolen guns returned to the ground where they had found them, and their blood joined the blood of Regime soldiers that already coated the cracked and weathered paving.
The bullets ceased, and the barrel of the gatling gun slowed its spinning. Then he turned again to Rommond and Soasa, who dived in opposite directions as the bullets sprang anew.
“Do you not see?” Soasa shouted to the general. “He's not a man any more, Rommond. Look at what he did to those people. Brooklyn wasn't like that. He made tools of war. He wasn't one himself.”
She took a stick of dynamite from her belt, and he knew instantly what she was considering. She'll never make it, he thought. She'll never get to him in time. What he did not know was if she would fall to Brooklyn's gun, or his own.
“Either you end this now, Rommond,” she shouted, “or I will.”
Then they both saw another figure on the opposite side of the square, emerging from the haze. It was Jacob, and he had another diamond-loaded gun. He ducked behind cover before Brooklyn could see him, but the general had seen him, and knew what that gun could do.
* * *
Jacob hid behind an upturned truck, just in time to avoid the mechanical man's probing eyes. He looked just like the rest, steam for breath, pistons for limbs, wires for arteries, and oil for blood. It was hard to tell where the man ended and the machine began. He shivered at the thought of what it must have been like, and if that part of the creature that was still man was aware, if it knew what it was doing, and if it complied willingly all the same.
Jacob had seen Rommond and Soasa before he ducked for cover. They appeared to be arguing, but it was not clear what it was about. Perhaps they're fighting over who gets to make the kill, Jacob mused. For him, he think he would have said, “You go first.”
He felt the gun in his hands, larger than a normal pistol, with all of those extra bits and pieces that Rommond had assembled. It was an ugly form, an obvious makeshift design, that betrayed that Rommond had little of the skill that Brooklyn had. The latter, though Jacob had never met him, clearly had a way of finding the beauty in the inanimate, though from what the general had told Jacob, it seemed that Brooklyn would have found something animate in it too.
Jacob peered over the edge of one of the truck's wheels. The machine man appeared to be repairing itself. Across the way, Rommond and Soasa continued to argue, but this time he was holding her back.
And they say chivalry is dead, Jacob thought.
He looked at the Iron Guard once more, wrench in hand, repairing itself like a mechanic might repair a vehicle. It was not normal. It was not natural. This made it a fitting guardian for the Iron Emperor, and a fitting means to wrestle control of Blackout from the Resistance, and crush the dwindling rebels once and for all.
I guess this is my moment then, Jacob pondered. He knew he had to act, while Rommond and Soasa seemed so preoccupied. If that creature finished its repairs, it would be the end of them. The gatling gun span and stopped intermittently. In time it would spin much longer, and when it stopped, all of them would be dead.
Jacob flicked the safety off and stepped out from behind the truck. The mechanical man caught sight of him and gave him a passing glance, before returning his focus to the work at hand. Jacob raised the gun, but knew he was too far away to get a good shot. There was only one diamond-encrusted bullet in that ammunition tray, only a single payout left. Jacob was a gambler, but he was down to a single chip. No matter what he did now, he was going all in.
He stepped closer to the villain, to the wired monster. Still too far, he thought. Just … one … more … step.
“No!” Rommond cried out, with an anguish that was an ammunition of its own.
Jacob felt his heart slow, his breath stop. Time seemed to crumble away into nothing, so that every moment lasted a lifetime, and the lifetime of all was there for everyone to see.
From his peripheral vision he saw Soasa break free of the general's grip. She reached with one hand for a stick of dynamite as she ran, and with the other for a match. She struck it off the back of her head, where the hair was short and rough, and the match ignited. The fire seemed so much more powerful in that moment than it ever did before. It had the power of life and death.
Simultaneously, he heard the click of the gatling gun's barrel, and then the strike of the spanner on the concrete ground. He turned his head but an inch, just enough to see the mechanical man turning its own head just one inch more, just enough to lock them in its vision. Jacob's gun was raised, and the Iron Guard's was now raising.
The general let out a ferocious roar, which drowned out the sound of the hissing fuse of the dynamite in Soasa's
hand, but would not drown out the roar of the explosion that would follow. Jacob joined the aural war with the firing of his gun, a single drum beat followed by the many beats of the Iron Guard's gatling gun.
The bullet of Jacob's gun began its course for the mechanical man's head, while the never-ending stream of bullets from the creature's gun hurried towards the charging woman with her swiftly-ending charge. Those pellets stuck her first, puncturing her torso, but the force of her sprint urged her forward, into more bullets, and, she hoped, into the Iron Guard as well.
But Jacob's bullet missed its mark, for his aim was rattled by Rommond's cry, and the frenzy that followed. Jacob threw himself to the ground to avoid the iron hail, and then he tried to clamber away to avoid the fiery storm that would soon follow.
In his retreat, he saw Rommond racing up after Soasa, but the bullets felled her, and Jacob watched in disbelief as the general ran straight past her and dived into the mechanical man, knocking it from its feet, and rolling with it down the mound of debris, and away from the massive explosion that soon followed.
30 – DYNAMITE
Jacob kept his head down until the ringing in his ears subsided. When he looked up, the dust was thick, masking the debris. He rolled over gently and was relieved to find that the worst of his injuries were a few cuts, scrapes and bruises.
Then he thought of Soasa. He had to find her. He had to see if she was still alive. If the bullets had not gotten her, the bomb surely did. He clambered up and stumbled through the haze. He heard moaning nearby, but it was still difficult to see.
He heard Rommond struggling with the mechanical man. He might have ran to help him, but the general could take care of himself. Soasa was injured, perhaps dead.
And then he found her. He raced towards her blood-soaked body. The parts that were not bloodied were coated in dust. Bricks and rubble surrounded her, with some lodging her in place. She did not move, but she groaned, a weak and fading sound.
“Oh God,” she said, when he climbed up to her.
“It's okay,” he said. He knew it was very far from okay.
“I can't … feel … oh God.” She struggled with the words, with her breath, with everything.
Jacob tried to remove some of the debris, but then he saw that her legs had been blown off. He closed his eyes and looked away. He could not tell her. He could not show her. He left the rubble there, hiding the wounds.
“Jacob,” she said, but it was just another struggle.
“Yes. I'm here.”
“I'm dying, Jacob.”
He bit his lip, to stop it from trembling.
She tried to reach her hand up to him, but she did not have the strength. “I'm fading,” she said. “Guess I get to retire early.”
“You can still make it,” he said. But he knew that she could not.
“I never got to ...”
“Never got to what?”
“Never got to tell her.”
“Tell who? Tell her what?”
“Taberah,” she said, and she smiled. “The only woman I ever loved.”
Jacob forced a smile, and grabbed her hand, that weak and bloodied hand.
“Do you want me to tell her now?” he asked.
“No,” she said, spluttering blood. “I wasn't brave enough. I lost my chance.”
“You didn't lose it. I can tell her.”
“No. It's better if she doesn't know. It was always … unrequited.”
Jacob did not know what to say. It seemed that his own feelings for Taberah were largely unrequited, and he felt guilty for even thinking this, for thinking of his own needs instead of Soasa's. He focused his attention on her, and found that she was also losing focus.
Then Jacob felt a hand upon his shoulder. For a moment he thought it was Rommond's, but it was too soft, too gentle. He turned and saw the Regime nurse, who knelt down beside him. She did not say a word, and he had few words left inside him to say. She inspected Soasa's wounds, and he looked to her with pleading eyes, but when she looked back, and gave a slight shake of her head, he knew that there was no saving Soasa.
The nurse did all she could, which was not much. She gave Soasa several painkillers, and then she produced a syringe full of a deep yellow liquid. Jacob did not know much about medicine, but the colour did not seem good. When the nurse administered this drug, Soasa's eyes grew wide.
“I see it,” she said.
He shook his head. “See what?”
“I see … the light.”
Perhaps it was the sun, which shone directly overhead, as overbearing as it ever was in that desert waste. Perhaps it was the pain or the adrenaline, or the substantial loss of blood, or the drugs that coursed their way through her collapsing veins, creating illusionary glimmers. Or perhaps there really was some other light, some glimmer from the afterlife, like a lighthouse, a beacon to guide the wayward soul to newer lands, to newer shores.
Jacob would never know, for she never spoke again.
He closed her eyes, but he left her smile. He did not know why she smiled. The pain must have consumed her so, that she was delirious. Or maybe when it reached such an extremity, it became like Mudro's favoured pain-numbing leaf.
He found it difficult to look upon her mangled body. She was already half-buried, and soon the other survivors could come to bury the other half.
What a way to go, he thought. Perhaps that is how she wanted it. No dull end. No slow decline. Her death was as explosive as her life. She went out with a bang.
31 – TARGET 001
Rommond fought with Brooklyn, and he could almost not believe it. That gentle soul was now rough. That soft voice was now course. The violence of his movements, of his struggle, shocked the general, and forced him to fight back. Brooklyn had been his compliment, his opposite, the other half to make him whole, but now he was an enemy, an opposer, an “other” that made him feel divided more than ever, that made him feel empty inside.
To subdue him, Rommond had to resort to force. He did not use his gun. He did not want to end Brooklyn's life. But he used his fists, and he used his might. He pulled wires from their sockets and bashed Brooklyn's left arm into the ground, until the gatling gun fell off in pieces.
And still Brooklyn fought. A human, even a demon, would have given up by then, would have surrendered, would have begged for mercy. But Rommond was not destroying the parts of Brooklyn that were human, and there was no demon there to destroy, but there was machine, and so the mechanical parts of him fought for survival, until there was little left of them to fight.
Rommond was aware of Jacob and Soasa upon the mound of rubble further up, but he could not look to them, or speak to them. Whatever battles they fought, with life, with death, he fought his own, until his muscles ached, and his mind was overcome with fatigue. What ailed his soul, he did not fully know, for he tried hard to ignore it.
Rommond lay there for what seemed eternity, looking up at the sky, that same sky that Brooklyn looked to, that same sky that Rommond had ruled, had shook, had conquered. How they had fallen, like angels fallen out of grace. The sun still shone, but the dust thrown up by the explosion created many false clouds, which dulled those vibrant rays.
He heard Brooklyn attempting to repair himself, but he did not have the means to make those repairs. Rommond had caused significant damage. Of all the people he thought he could never hurt, Brooklyn was number one. What injury he had caused was only magnified inside his heart.
* * *
The battle for Blackout was won, but it had come at a heavy price. Many were dead. Some close friends, close colleagues, even loved ones, had not made it through. That was the cost of war, and though it was a high one to pay, it paled in significance to the alternative of total destruction, of complete eradication.
Rommond ordered the Copper Vixens to take Brooklyn back to the Skyshaker, to see what Mudro could do for his body, and what Alakovi could do for the parts of him that were no longer biological. Everyone was shocked to hear that Brooklyn was
still alive, and then disturbed to find that in that form he was now in, he was barely living.
Rommond paid his respects to Soasa, and apologised for not saving her, for choosing Brooklyn instead. Jacob knew that if she could hear his words, she would understand.
The day passed slowly. It was not a day of victory, though the historians would in future times claim it was. It was a day of mourning. It was a day dedicated solely to the dead. The city's streets were filled with them. What losses the Resistance faced were multiplied exponentially by the citizens. Jacob almost wished he had not rallied them, and yet he knew that if he had not, he and they would all be dead.
* * *
Night came, but no one slept. The battle continued in their minds, slaying sleep. Jacob found Rommond alone around a campfire, creating little people out of straw, and then casting them into the fire.
“Resorting to witchcraft?” he asked as he sat down beside the general. He took up one of the figures and span it by the arms between his fingers.
“This is an ancient custom of the Ootana tribe,” Rommond revealed. “They make a little straw man for everyone who died, and throw it in the fire. It helps them find their way into the afterlife, into the place of their ancestors.”
“Do you believe that?”
“I don't know what I believe,” Rommond said with a sigh. “I believed in science. Progress was my god. All those vehicles, the Hopebreaker, the Lifemaker, the Skyshaker, they were my churches, my sacred places, my holy ground. The machinery was my altar, the wires and cables my rosary beads. But look at Brooklyn. Look at what he has become. That is the product of science. Religion has its own gods and devils, and it seems that science has the same.”
Skyshaker: A Steampunk Dystopian Adventure (The Great Iron War, Book 3) Page 15