Rupture (20 page)

The battle begins and will not end through twelve straight days of carnage.

She and her captain will break the backs of the Enemies but will lose her pilot in the process; she will be forced to retire, the only Megamech still able to move.

She returns to the present, leaving the memory of the horrible battle. The Enemies have returned. Not in force, yet, no, but she can sense them coming. And the large mind in the tiny, human body working his way to her may be her only chance at redemption.

Her Consortium builders put her here for a reason. She once believed it was to rust and die. She now believes it is to awaken for one last mission. She is but one side of two minds; she needs another to move.

* * *

Getting to the top of the Megamech took longer than expected. Hutto went first, listening to instructions but mostly putting one hand in front of the other, the smell of grease and metal in his nostrils. It was a hell of a long climb through a tube with rung after rung in it. Beasley and Wally followed, with Crazy Mac in the rear. They paused halfway up in a cramped chamber with berthing cots embedded in the walls for a crew of ten.

The rest of the climb was easier. Their feet rang on grating steps as they walked up a spiral staircase to the command center in the mech’s head.

Once inside, the internal lighting system triggered. They stood in a chamber the size of a small classroom. A single gel harness seat sat in the center of a platform. Other gel harnesses hung in niches at the foot of the platform in a circular trench. At the front of the platform a plank with a banister around it and a workstation faced the smooth and molded inside of the mech’s face.

“That’s where I stand,” Crazy Mac said, and walked over to the plank. It was wide enough for one person. He ran his hands over an antiquated workstation. Everything was industrial and economic, as if the mech itself had chosen the rough aesthetic.

“Man, my mech is so much nicer inside,” Wally said. He kicked up a patch of dust on the floor. “This thing needs a cleaning.”

“How does it have power after all these years?” Hutto asked.

“Never stopped,” Crazy Mac replied. “Just been deactivated. But the fusion-burner still burns, and will for a century, if we leave her standing alone.” He tapped the workstation and it lit up like the dash of an old automobile. A whine somewhere deep in the belly began. “She’ll take a little time to warm up. But I think we got time.”

“Time for what?” Wally asked.

Beasley was looking around at the niches in the trenches, as if she wanted to try one of the harnesses. Crazy Mac said, “Systems’ officers work down there.”

“Why’d you bring us up here?” Wally asked.

“I told him about your progress, Wally,” Beasley said, “and he wants you to try ... ”

“What?”

“My name is Captain Picham Wellborn,” Crazy Mac said.

“Wellborn?” Hutto asked.

“I captained this beauty in the Battle of the Steppe during the Great Incursion, many years ago.”

“You’re one of the Wellborns?” Beasley asked.

“I am. I haven’t seen Rigon or Yancey in years. Haven’t seen much of anybody. Been waiting on today, ever since we beat them back.” The young students who stood gawking at his machine had no idea of its history or the fine operators who’d taken her to victory, and defeat. He walked up to Wally, and knelt before him. “How would you like to try to get her moving?”

The young tough named Hutto, who stared about with reverence but abandon, looked like he wanted to try.

“Sorry, son,” Captain Wellborn said. “Only one possible pilot in this room.”

“Why now?” Wally asked in his little voice. “I just learned how to make my mech run.”

“Those flashing lights mean they’ve finally come to Sterling. We were put here as a precaution, thinking they’d steer clear of MacEllen, and Sterling.” The whining had stopped but now another rumble began. He tapped a few controls on his workstation. “I don’t expect much, but if you can get her moving, we can drop her in the right spot. It’ll be a big howdy-do to the Enemies.”

“For what?” Hutto asked.

“Why else? To make ‘em run from our guns.”

“Will she fire?”

Captain Wellborn waved that away. “She’ll always fire. The question is, will she move?”

Everyone looked at Wally, waiting. “You guys think I can do it?”

“Only one way to find out.” Captain Wellborn pointed to the gel seat in the center of the platform. “Let me help you there—”

Beasley stepped forward. “I got it.”

She set him in the oversized bucket seat with all the straps and the gel cells. Wally crossed his arms and squeezed his legs together. The gel reacted and soon covered his torso, arms, and legs in a protective shell. The oversized helmet was too big. But she set it on his head. It rested on top of the gel at his shoulders.

“You good?” she asked.

From inside, she heard him say, “I hope this works.”

“My job is to command,” Captain Wellborn said. “Your job is to pilot. It’s simple. You do what I tell you, and I don’t have to shut her down.”

The old man with enough wrinkles to intimidate a Chinese Shar Pei stood straighter and smiled. His voice sounded fuller. Even Hutto seemed to notice. Beasley had never known that Crazy Mac was related to the Sterling School’s most prestigious family. She also had no idea that when he’d referred to Crazy Mac, he’d been using the pet-name for the mech. She’d visited him a handful of times but had never suspected he was anything other than an old hermit in the woods with fantasies about getting the mech moving.

“You been waiting for me to bring someone like him since we met,” she said.

“I figured it was time when I heard they let you types in.”

Hutto asked, “Types?”

“Types, son. The dangerous kind.” He stared at the two of them as if they must have heard all this before. “What have they told you? That you’re special? Or in need of treatment? I hope it’s not that. That’ll just piss you off in the end.” He punched a few buttons, and the sound of airlocks venting registered.

“Hey,” Wally said. “I can feel those changes.”

“Sure you can. She’s waking up. Keep that helmet on, and you’ll do just fine.” To Hutto and Beasley, he said, “No? So they’re being honest. Good. From the looks of you two, my bet is that you both have rage issues. You, son, are about as perfect a specimen as they come, so your entity is proof the sins of the fathers weigh heavy on the heads of their children. If we had done it right, you’d have lived your life in perfection with no demons. You can tell me some other time what they are.” Then to Beasley. “And you, miss, by the looks of you, you suffer from a typical hormonal reaction that didn’t sit well with your parents. They wanted a female athlete, I bet. Maybe a tennis pro? But I guess they got something else.”

Beasley ground her teeth and refused any show of emotion. He’d never once spoken so directly to her.

He continued. “So, pretty-boy here gets to look perfect, while you look like a man. Everything else works great, I bet, except all the genetic engineering caught the interest of your entities. And I bet yours bothers you much more than his. Boy, those reckless bastards sure know how to trample the innocent.” He looked like he might walk over to her and give her a hug but thought better of it. “Whatever you got inside you, we can use it. The entities, I believe, are pain-in-the-ass tools we can use to fuck with the sky gods. And fuck with them we shall.”

“Sky gods?” Hutto asked. “You one of those religious nuts?”

“You, too, son. What you got inside you is proof humanity doesn’t have to be cockroaches under their boots. My brother, god bless his soul, is lost because he lost control of himself. What I’ve got now, right here standing in front of me, is proof we have a chance.”

“A chance for what?” Beasley asked

He turned back to his control stand. A seat emerged form the floor. He sat, then tapped away. He said, “Survival.”

The Megamech shuddered. A loud, deep bellowing resounded from somewhere below them in the pit of the machine.

“Watch it!” Hutto said, grabbing the railing.

“It’s nothing,” Captain Wellborn said, pulling a helmet and visor from his chair. “She’s just saying hello. You two might want to hold that railing.”

The walls on the inside of the mech disappeared. Display screens across every square inch of the hollowed-out sphere now rendered a three hundred and sixty-degree view of their surroundings. It was as if they stood on the torso of the mech and could look in all directions. The plank and chair on the edge of the platform began to rotate atop the stationary trench. Captain Wellborn swung it all the way around in a complete circle.

“Platform check, complete,” he said. “Either of you know how to navigate or manage weapons systems?” He chuckled to himself. “Didn’t think so.”

“Grade-A hardware,” Hutto said, walking around the platform on the inside of the railing. He pointed. “Look, you can see the gymnasium.”

Both of them stared east across the lightly forested hills. The wide stretches of cattle fields ended in a slight tree-lined ridge, behind which they saw the tiny tip of the Sterling School gymnasium. They could also see the red Ag. Farm barn and the three grain silos. Behind the mech the forest thickened and the hills increased until each successive ridge of gray darkened into the Blue Ridge Mountains of Appalachia.

“You two might as well put a visor on. You can help me spot the enemy.”

Two AR helmets emerged out of the platform, atop stands.

“Cool,” Hutto said, and put his on.

Beasley did the same.

Both saw data tiles emerge in the 3D space projected beyond the mech.

“Here you go, son,” Captain Wellborn said to Wally and punched a few buttons. “You’re free to look around.”

Inside his gel harness, Wally felt their presences inside the mech. He’d been sitting still, trying to calm himself, knowing how awesome it was to be sitting in a Megamech. He felt the floor beneath his seat move. He looked left and his seat rotated left, giving him a view over the mech’s left shoulder and into the woods. He looked right, and the chair rotated in the opposite direction. “Awesome!”

He spun his chair all the way around, and back and forth.

Through his AR visor’s HUD he saw readouts appear in the form of windows hanging in the air around him. A whole series of tiles flashed above him with incomprehensible data.

“Don’t worry about all that,” Captain Wellborn said. “Just standard pre-go checks. I haven’t been up here in several months. Just pulled the camo-net off her. So she may give us a hiccup or two.”

“Hiccup?” Wally asked, his voice amplified by the audio system. “What kind of hiccup?”

“The kind that you can fix with a few soothing words. Let’s see how she sounds.” The war-horn on the Megamech blared, and even inside they could feel waves of harmonic bass meant to send the enemy running. “Sounds good to me.” To Wally, he said, “Why don’t you say hello? We called her MacEllen. You can call her what you want.” He hit a button. “Active Intelligence System engaged.”

The sensation that reverberated through Wally’s mind made him gasp. He suddenly felt ...
big
. His awareness exponentially increased until every system of the Megamech became a part of him. He reached out to each one and caressed them, like he would a pet gorilla. The initial contact of the meld could have lasted a second or an hour—he couldn’t tell you—but at some point he knew all of her.

Eventually, he heard Captain Wellborn say, “Let’s take her for a walk.”

* * *

Simone sat on a couch in her mother’s bungalow, while her mother rested in the bedroom. Simone was told to wait. The bungalow was a simple, well-shaded structure nestled under a copse of pines along the ridge that separated the campus from the farm. The living room had no cybertronics, not even an old-fashioned TV decoration. She sat on the couch and drummed her thumbs on bare knees. She’d refused to put the Bodyglove back on.

She began playing with her fashionable boots that reached to mid calf. She ran her fingers over the leather straps and buckles. If she were going to own her new,
exposed
look, she needed the boots to ground her. With them on, she felt fine in her hot-shorts and sports bra and nothing else. Her mother had been so angry, she’d forgotten to tell Simone to get dressed.

Maybe I should get a cape
.

Simone heard the school klaxons start up in the distance.

Her mother appeared in the bedroom doorway, looking as hungover as if she’d spent a week in Vegas. “They’re here.”

“Who?”

Yancey ran her fingers through her hair, clearly still agitated after her reverse transformation. “You need a new talisman.”

“I like my bucky.”

Yancey sat at a small table under the kitchen window. The trees swayed in the wind outside as if they only faced a peaceful summer day. She had unzipped the top of her Bodyglove. Her neck and upper chest were moist from sweat. She said, “You need something more active.”

Simone remained sitting on the couch, bare legs crossed, bouncing one foot up and down, and acting peeved. “I’ve had my bucky since I was—”

“I know how long. I gave it to you. You can keep it.”

“You don’t have one, I guess—”

“I don’t need one.” Yancey closed her eyes, fingers rubbing her temples because she’d summoned her entity only an hour before. She’d explained to Simone that to return so quickly felt like she’d been held upside down and dipped in water repeatedly for a week. “But, you, my dear, do.”

“Who are
they
, exactly? Who are the entities, Mom?”

Yancey sighed, easing away from whatever aggravation bothered her as she sat on the couch. “I already told you about my time as a new Consortium psy-agent. I was eventually assigned to a support contingent of the First Mechanized Battalion.” Simone perked up. “I was stationed here, but in the most important battle of the Cyber War, your father was in Asia when the USC-Kraken stood before three colossi and saved humanity—”

“Colossi?” Simone moved over and sat at the table.

“Creatures of psy-summoning the size of skyscrapers.”