Hammers and Nails

by Andrew Vaillencourt

  Roland had arrived.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Roland’s entrance into the fray had knocked everyone off their feet and sent men and weapons clattering all over what remained of the APC. Lucia was the first one up, and seeing the look in Roland’s eyes, determined in short order that exfiltration should be her priority. She grabbed Sid and roughly hauled the sobbing woman to her feet. With no respect paid to Sid's compromised emotional state, she shoved the woman past the growling war machine to the safety of the street.

  Mindy and Paulie were only a fraction of a second behind Lucia, and they resumed their fight as if nothing had happened. Both unarmed, they appeared to be rather well matched. Even with his practiced eye, Roland could not tell which of them was getting the better of their exchanges. More to the point, he did not care. The walls of the truck were just wide enough to accommodate him, but removing the roof had allowed him to stand up, to his full height. The big cyborg stomped forward and bellowed an order to Mindy, “Go!”

  Mindy did not miss a beat but disengaged to retreat backward into Roland, who lifted her with a giant hand under her buttocks to toss her over his shoulder. She landed like a cat and took off with long strides to back up Sid and Lucia.

  “Stand down, Paulie,” Roland was willing to give the man one chance. Not because Roland was seriously considering letting him live, but because he knew Paulie wouldn’t stand down, anyway. It was all just a formality because this man had touched Lucia, and that had put Roland in a murdering mood.

  Paulie never lost his smirk. The easy confidence seemed incongruous with his precarious position. The mercenary was trapped in the back of the truck with Roland, and the only ways out were retreating through the cab or trying to go through a thousand pounds of techno-organic killing machine. To Roland, it looked like the scruffy merc’s choices really just boiled down to “fight and die” or “give up and still probably die.”

  Paulie obviously saw things differently. He held out his hands, one palm forward, the other hand clenched in a fist. “Easy there, Corporal. We ain’t quite done just yet.”

  Roland frowned, “Oh? I think we are.”

  Paulie didn’t budge, “This truck is rigged with enough nasty shit to crater the whole damn intersection. Maybe that’s enough to put you down, Breach. Maybe it’s not. But a lot of folks are gonna die if you don’t back off.” He opened his hand to reveal a small detonator, his thumb depressing on the button, “It’s a dead-man switch, hero. If I go down, we all go up.” The mercenary began to back through the access hatch back into the cab, “You can just sit tight while I get clear, whereupon I’m gonna blow you all to hell, or you can run, whereupon I’m gonna blow this intersection all to hell.” He stopped, a wicked grin on his face, “But weren’t you a combat engineer? I bet you could use this time to find and defuse the explosives. As long as you get it done before I’m outside of the blast radius, everybody gets to live.” The merc feigned a woman’s voice “My hero!”

  Then Paulie darted through the cab and out the driver’s door, laughing like a hyena. Roland did nothing at first, he paused a full second to think, and something the man had said did not ring true. Every part of tonight’s operation had been meticulously planned. The squad of mercs had been ready for him at every turn, and the indiscriminate use of explosives in a vehicle their own leader was riding in felt very much out of character.

  On a hunch, Roland leapt from the back of the truck and grabbed the vehicle by its frame. With a heave that strained his wounded shoulder, he tipped the ten-thousand-pound vehicle onto its side and inspected the undercarriage. He saw nothing that was not supposed to be there. No bombs, no satchel charges or mines. Just electric motors and wheel assemblies, all exactly where they were supposed to be.

  There was nowhere else to hide enough explosives to do what Paulie had said. As Roland suspected, it was all a trick to buy time. The big cyborg did not pause to congratulate himself on his cleverness, but rather took off at a run after Paulie. The mercenary’s ten-second head start had gotten him across the intersection, and Roland almost missed the sight of him slipping between two buildings. Roland thundered like a freight train into the gap a scant three seconds behind his quarry and saw the gray-clad figure scurry across another street to slip between another set of buildings. A half-ton of military hardware pursued with singular abandon, and Roland had closed the gap between himself and the clever merc to less than one second when he stepped on the mine.

  If he had been looking for it, he would have seen it. If he had been thinking clearly about his opponent’s obvious attention to detail and flawless planning, he might have been looking for it. But Roland was angry in a very deep and fundamental way. His thoughts were on catching the mercenary and adjusting for the poor performance of his damaged leg and arm while doing it. When Paulie dropped a proximity mine just inside the second alleyway, Roland never even noticed it.

  The explosion was enough to hurl Roland from the pavement and send him sprawling into a line of parked ground transports. His impact smashed a pastry delivery van into a crumpled heap of scrap and sent him tumbling into the wall behind it. He smacked the unforgiving surface with a muffled thud and dropped to the street like a sack of potatoes. Swearing with unrestrained vigor and snarling like an enraged gorilla, Roland shuffled to his feet with the singular goal of continuing his pursuit. Three hobbling strides later he was forced to abandon the chase as hopeless. His target was an augmented superhuman who could run, jump, climb and scurry at phenomenal speeds. Thanks to a railgun spike and a land mine, Roland’s right leg was just not going to keep up with his prey. Without his helmet, Roland did not have access to onboard diagnostics, so he could not ascertain the exact extent of his injuries, but the right leg was struggling to support his weight and he could already tell he had lost calibration on the force-feedback system that helped him walk, run and a balance himself. The race was lost.

  In a fit of childish pique, Roland roared and punched the delivery van as hard as he could, sending it tumbling across the alley where it collided with the other wall. This is how he left it, squeaking and teetering on its roof, while he hobbled and dragged his nearly useless leg out of the leaden shadows of the alley and into the well-lit streets of The Sprawl. His mood was darkness itself, and he looked every bit like a war had been fought over his body. His expensive evening attire had been reduced to smoking tatters. The coal-black skin of his body, still sealing itself from the night’s misadventures, bore the ghastly marks of horrible wounds wrought by railgun hits. The weeping creases traced lines from his abdomen to his chest and out the top of his drooping shoulder. Worst of all was his right leg. Punctured by a flechette first, and then mangled by a mine, it dragged like a ship's anchor as he walked, and numerous rends dripped silver nanite transport gel with each shuffling step. He left metallic footprints like some sort of mercury-sweating monster in a series of streaks as he hauled the near-useless appendage along.

  Then there was his face. His face was unmarked and undamaged, but when Lucia finally caught up to him, his face was what frightened her the most. His injuries were obvious and concerning, but he was tough, and she knew he would recover physically. But when she saw the set of his jaw and the endless emptiness behind his eyes, she feared very much for the soul of the man still driving that manufactured body. Roland was not just angry. But he was not quite furious, either. His eyes did not seethe or blaze with anger. His scowl did not smolder with vague threats of violence to come, nor did his expression flash with the white-hot rage so often described by those prone to comparable situations.

  The face was locked into a tight mask of pure indifferent hatred. It was an unfeeling and uncaring face. A face devoid of passion or emotional investment. He wore the ambivalent look of a man who was going to start killing people and not stop until all the right ones were dead. It would be a mechanical process executed by a machine, and his expression spoke of one who has made his peace with that. She had seen this face before. He had worn it
when they raided Marko’s compound to find her father. He had worn it when he went to deal with Marcus “Grim” Roper on a pirate ship those few months prior. It was the face he wore under his helmet when he went to war. It was the face of Breach.

  She ran up to him and threw herself into his arms. It was not in her nature to stand by and watch Roland surrender to the machine. She knew it for what it was: a retreat to a simpler time and an easier way of thinking. He was giving himself permission to be a monster, and she would never let him get away with it. Lucia understood exactly why he was reacting like this, and she knew how to shut it down, too.

  “Hey! I’m all right! It’s all right!”

  “You’re not hurt?” He asked softly, picking her up from the street like a child and examining her.

  “Scratched my wrists getting out of the cuffs, but other than that, I’m fine.” She grabbed both sides of his head, “Are you okay?”

  His eyes met hers, and she felt rather than saw something inside him move a little, “I’ll get better.”

  Lucia heard a catch in his voice, and she pressed on, “Stay with me Roland. Don’t you go dark on me. The team came together, and we all got out fine.”

  “You could have—”

  She didn’t let him finish, “But I didn’t. Mindy was there, and then you were there. Hell, I was out of the cuffs already by then, anyway.”

  “Lucy,” he stammered, his icy mask cracking under the intense heat of her presence, “I couldn’t take it, I mean, I’d uh, I just can’t lose you, all right?”

  Lucia had learned to present complicated emotional concepts as simple differentials with Roland. “So don’t lose me. Don’t lose me to assholes with guns and don’t lose me to the things the Army put in your head. Both are ways to lose me, understand?”

  “Roger that, Boss,” he mumbled, and he put her down. Lucia noticed he still carried the look of someone who might engage in spontaneous physical violence about him, but it was less prevalent now, and she decided it was time to focus on getting back home.

  “Come on,” she said, “let’s ping for a car.”

  Roland grunted and pointed to his leg, “Probably should call your Dad, too.”

  Lucia grimaced, “Yeesh, yeah. You ain’t kidding!”

  “Sid and Mindy get clear, I assume?”

  “Yeah.” Lucia nodded, “They’re heading to one of McGinty’s safe houses. We figured that was safest.”

  “Good call.”

  They waited in silence until a car capable of handling his weight responded, then they filed inside and rode back to Roland’s apartment. Donald Ribiero was already there, and he awaited the pair at the top of Roland’s stairs. The older man’s face wore the creases of deep worry lines as his greatest creation poured himself out of the cargo area of their rented ride. The half-hour trip had given Roland’s internal repair systems enough time to seal any new ruptures in his dermal mesh, but his right leg remained stiff and unresponsive.

  “Oh, dear,” the older man moaned from atop the landing, “what have you gotten into now, Roland?”

  “Long story, Dad,” Lucia answered for him, “Right now we need to figure out how to get him up the stairs!”

  “I can make it,” Roland groused and hauled himself up the steps, using his hands to pull himself along and drawing pained groans from his railing. Still, it took a long time to accomplish the ascent, and Roland collapsed into his favorite chair immediately upon achieving his goal. His face had relaxed, and his regular demeanor reasserted itself. “Lucy?” he began a polite interrogative.

  She replied by wordlessly handing him a beer and patting him on the arm.

  “Oh my god, thank you.”

  “Just one, though,” she teased, “I know what happens when you drink while your internal repairs are running.”

  Under normal circumstances, Roland was functionally incapable of getting drunk. But when his systems were taxed by extensive damage, maintaining sobriety found itself relegated to a lower priority level by his internal machines. With less than ninety pounds of organic material to dilute it, Roland’s tolerance for alcohol was almost nonexistent.

  “Plugging in, Roland,” Donald announced, and fitted the plug to the access panel in Roland’s abdomen. “You are very lucky they missed the port, Roland. I’d have had to repair it before starting if they had.”

  “Oh yeah. I’m a lucky man,” Roland grunted.

  “What happened?” It was an innocent enough question, but Roland was not volunteering to be the one who told Donald his daughter had very nearly been kidnapped. Dr. Ribiero was the only person left who knew how to fix Roland, and more to the point, he was a doting father who knew better than anyone how to unfix him.

  “The party got attacked, and Roland went after the attackers,” Lucia started the story, omitting the details about her own participation.

  “They were ready for me,” the big man added, “Railguns, Don. Anti-armor shit. I pushed them to the basement and there was a goddamn industrial heavy waiting for me there.”

  Lucia’s eyebrows rose. Roland continued, “I had to bail at that point. I was already banged up, and it was one of those four-legged things they use on high-G worlds. I took a few swings, but he had me cold. They got away.”

  “And that is when those men grabbed my precious daughter?” There was a bite to the words, an edge of concern mixed with anger, “I monitor your comms, you know.”

  He shook his head, hands still working on Roland’s injuries and setting up equipment. He did not look at either of them as he spoke, “I put those machines inside Lucia to save her life. Not so she could go get killed playing at war games with you, Roland.”

  “Don...” Roland started but the old man cut him off.

  “No, Roland. This isn’t about you." He looked at his daughter. "I nearly died tonight, you know.”

  “Dad...” Lucia tried, but he wasn’t having it from her, either.

  “Lucia! Losing your mother nearly killed me. I broke the law to save you from a worse fate. I can’t stop you from doing this, but you need to know that there is more going on here than you realize!”

  It was never wise to challenge Lucia, and her eyes blazed, “You cannot tell me how to live, Dad. I know what you sacrificed to help me, but that doesn’t mean you own me!”

  “I don’t want to own you, I just want you to be safe and happy!”

  “I’m sorry Dad, but I can’t go back. I’m good at this. I’m useful and helpful. I’m actually changing this town for the better. And now I've seen too much of what goes on behind the curtain to stop now. I can’t be both safe and happy at the same time anymore. This is what I’ve chosen.”

  Donald nodded. It was a sad, defeated jerk of the head followed by a guilt-ridden proclamation.

  “No. It’s what you’ve become.” His voice fell to a whisper, “And that may be my fault, too.”

  Lucia and Roland both looked up, surprised.

  Donald spoke quietly, still attending to Roland, “I think your nanobots may be changing you. They learn, you know. They adapt. I think they are making you more and more comfortable with the violence and the danger. They might be overriding your normal aversion to high-risk behavior in an unhealthy way.”

  “Really?” was all Lucia could manage. “What about Roland? He has them too!”

  “We did extensive psychological testing of all candidates who applied for Project: Golem. I promise you, Roland had no aversion to violence or danger to begin with.” He looked up at the old soldier, “No offense, my friend. We were looking for warriors who could tolerate the conversion and its consequences without dissociation. We took only the most hardened.”

  It rang true. Roland Tankowicz had been a born soldier and fighter long before the program ever got a hold of him, and he dismissed Don’s apology outright, “I was damaged goods when you found me, Doc. I’ve never blamed you for that part.”

  Lucia felt the niggling alarm bells of an anxiety attack beginning, “So these things are changin
g my personality?”

  “They’re changing your brain chemistry, yes,” Donald wiped his forehead, “They always have been. In some cases, they are your brain chemistry. Your condition means we had to build a whole new crop of synthetic brain cells for you. It’s why you can be so fast without other side effects. But your anxiety was always as strong as or stronger than the machines, and since you weren’t giving them the stimulus to adapt to, they weren’t affecting your normal fear and adrenaline responses.”

  Roland sighed, “But six months of working with me, and now they’re making her fearless and violent?”

  “I think they may be, yes,” Donald agreed. “Lucia, any other person who had been through an evening like you just had would be an emotional wreck. They would need counseling and probably go through a lengthy period of PTSD or depression.” He paused and looked intently into her eyes, Roland’s wounds all but forgotten, “How do you feel?”

  “Honestly? I feel fine. Shaken yeah, but not out of control or anything like that. Hungry, mostly.” Lucia set her teeth, the fear of what might happen to her finally manifesting with a meek plea, “But isn’t that a good thing?”

  “In a disposable super-soldier? Yes. Not so much for a wealthy corporate VP,” Roland growled with a bitterness that could not be disguised. Donald winced, but did not argue the point.

  Lucia’s response was a small thing, quiet and unsure of itself, “I really don’t want to become an amoral murder-bot, Dad.” She was reminded of the look on Roland’s face when he limped out of the alley less than an hour before.

  “I can make adjustments, but,” Donald shrugged, “it might mean more feedback problems. It took years to get them calibrated to this point. From a purely neurological standpoint, you are better than perfect. It’s the personality I did not account for. Making adjustments for such things means starting over, and the problems with your brain they were meant to fix may return in some small way. You might lose coordination or speed, or you may get migraines again. Your panic attacks may increase, or the seizures return.” He threw up his hands in defeat, “The damn things were experimental when I used them on you. The Golems were the only baseline I had, and they just weren’t very good baselines.”