Apocalypse Machine (19 page)

19

Despite the crash of the C-130, the deaths of all those Rangers and my own close call with the brink, the moment I entered the vision-state, the environment surrounding us was calm. I had time to think and observe, to wipe away ash and test a theory—that physical contact allows human beings to somehow communicate with the aberration…the
Machine
. While the theory appears to be validated, Kiljan had his toe impaled by the creature’s spine and experienced nothing more than pain. All of this comes and goes through my thoughts with the brevity of a top quark’s lifespan, measured in yoctoseconds, and is replaced by a louder, more desperate set of thoughts that coalesces into a simple, three-word expletive. “What the shit?”

I’m on my back, looking up at an ash-filled sky. But I’m not lying still, I’m sliding backward, bouncing over the shell’s rough surface. Graham is dragging me with one hand, yanking my body over jagged imperfections while firing his tan SOPMOD M4 assault rifle in regular three-round bursts.

What is he shooting at?
I wonder, as the vision-fog lifts. Our situation doesn’t seem to have changed much. We’re still on the Machine’s back, and I seriously doubt bullets will do the megalithic creature any harm.

“Science Guy!” Graham tugs harder, shaking me, driving his fist into the back of my skull.

“Oww!” I shout, and I’m dropped.

“Get up!” Graham says. “Tangos at your six.”

I’ve never been in the military, nor have I ever really played military video games, so I’m not very familiar with military terms, unless they involve some kind of tech or advanced science. But I’ve seen enough movies to know that ‘tangos’ means ‘bad guys’—though I’m not really a fan of dehumanizing enemies with terms like Charlie, Gook and Haji. And I know ‘my six’ is behind me, which is also Graham’s twelve.

Did another military force land on the Machine’s back? If so, why would Graham be firing at them? His is the only weapon I hear, so if there are people here with us, he’s either pinning them down or slaughtering them.

I roll to my stomach, push myself up and get a good look at what’s coming our way.

They don’t have guns, but they’re not human either.

The best way I can describe them is giant, eight-legged mites, or hairy crabs. Their shells match the Machine’s back in color and texture, and if they weren’t moving toward us, I doubt I’d ever notice them. I don’t see any pincers, but their mandibles look prehistorically powerful. In fact, everything about them feels ancient.

Every time one of Graham’s bullets strikes a creature, it hunkers down, looking more like a stone than a living thing. But there are no bullet holes. The rounds are being deflected, not even leaving scratches. And once the barrage ends, the struck creatures get back to their sharp-tipped feet and continue toward us. Individually, I would find them no more threatening than a large crab, but these…Crawlers…have a malevolent look in their six, small, black eyes.

And they outnumber us a hundred to one.

Graham swaps out his spent magazine for a new one, his movement fluid and practiced. He aims at the encroaching horde, but holds his fire. “Ideas?”

He’s asking me?

But then I realize he’s already exhausted his options. Brute force isn’t going to help.

“Where did they come from?” I ask.

He motions with the rifle’s barrel, at the rear of the advancing wave of Crawlers. Small pore-like holes pock the vast exoskeletal shell. The smaller creatures must have been huddled inside the divots. “They came out just after you went down and started mumbling.”

“What did I say?”

“How should I know?” he says. “Sounded like Latin. That’s hardly pressing, though, don’t you think?”

I focus on the creatures, hoping to glean some kind of clue about their purpose here. I find it in their appearance. Like mites. “They’re symbiotic organisms,” I declare. “Living off the Machine, scavenging material that collects on its surface, the way pilot fish swim around sharks, picking off parasites. Or the way actual eyelash mites do, eating old skin cells and oil.”

Graham takes a step back, standing next to me as the Crawlers close in. I can’t see his facial expression behind his goggles, facemask and helmet, but his body language exudes tension. He’s doing a good job not losing his mind, though. I feel close to becoming unhinged, but finding a way to classify these things helps.

“So what are
we
, in this scenario of yours?” he asks.

Wishing I had a weapon of my own, even though I know it wouldn’t do any good, I say, “We’re a food source. Given the size differential between us and the Machine, a better comparison might be bacteria, in which case the bacteria that’s already made its home here—” I motion to the Crawlers, now just twenty feet away, “—sees the new bacterial strain—
us
—as invaders. These things might be part of the Machine’s physiology.”

“You keep calling it ‘the Machine.’” He turns his head toward me, and though I can’t see his eyes behind his goggles, I feel his gaze like a weight. “You know something I don’t?”

“Just something I heard.”

“At the White House?”

“In a…” I nearly say vision. “In a dream.”

“Well, that’s incredibly
not
helpful.”

I see a blur of motion reflecting in his goggles.

“Look out!” Before I understand what I’m doing, I shove Graham out of the way, putting myself in the projectile’s path. I have just enough time to turn my head and see that the thing flying toward my face is a Crawler. The creature sprang into the air with the energy of an enlarged flea. Its underside flexes wider, and its eight limbs spread open to envelop my face. Of all the ways I imagined myself dying on this mission, being killed by something so much smaller than me wasn’t on the list.

Just before the creature strikes my mask, a three-round burst drowns out the sound of my scream and punches into the Crawler’s underside. Limbs explode outward, trailing tendrils of white and luminous red gore, which slaps against my facemask. The consistency of toilet paper dunked in milk, the goopy guts stick, until I brush them away. Through the smeared visor, I see the shell spinning by my feet.

There’s a pause, as the small creatures seem to watch their fallen comrade’s corpse spin around, flinging a pattern of white and glowing red slime that reminds me of the spin-art toy Mina bought the boys a few years ago.

Then, all at once, they start tapping their little legs with frantic urgency. Their undersides flicker red and then glow, like miniature undercar lights.

Graham backs away. “That can’t be good.”

“I think we should run,” I say.

“That’s your scientific opinion?” he asks, and I hear the sarcasm.

“Common sense,” I say, and then I make a break for it. It’s probably not nice of me to run without a consensus, but my odds of survival are much lower than Graham’s. Most of my photographers over the years have joked that the best way to survive a dangerous encounter is to be faster than the writer you’re working with. It was funny the first time, as the photographer and I stared down a grizzly bear, and the second time, when Bell said it while we squared off against mice in the attic, but it hasn’t been funny since. And now, as I stumble-run over a rising, falling and tilting landscape, I suspect that there is a nugget of wisdom buried in the cliché.

When Graham easily overtakes me, I’m sure of it.

“Where are we going?” I shout.

“Hell if I know. You’re the one who picked the direction.”

“Straight line,” I say. “We’ll reach the edge sooner or later.” I take a quick look back. The Crawlers aren’t crawling any more. They’re scurrying. Leaping. Building speed as we put a little distance between us. But I don’t think they’ve reached full speed yet, and there’s no way to know how far they can run without getting tired.

At my best, I know that I can run miles when certain death is chasing me. I learned that on the glacier. But that was just a few days ago, and I’m already starting to feel the ache return to my muscles. I’m not ready for a long distance slog.

Graham on the other hand, looks like he could run around the globe, his posture and pacing perfect, like he was engineered in Germany.

I shouldn’t be here.

I should have said ‘no.’ Stayed with my family.

Why didn’t I?

A shrill beeping fills my ears.

“Is someone trying to contact us?” Despite being thirty feet ahead of me, Graham has no trouble hearing me over the comms, which is where the beeping is coming from. He slows to a stop, staggering a little, as the ground beneath our feet slows to a stop and starts rising again. He bends his knees, absorbing the shift in direction, as he looks down at his chest.

What is he looking at?
I think, and then I look at my own chest, where I see the radiation detector. A small red light is blinking in time with the beeping.

Shit.

I look back at the Crawlers, now surging straight for us.

Shit, shit, shit.

An almost sexy, robotic voice fills my ears. “Radioactive isotopes detected. Cesium-134 and Cesium-137 have both been detected in unhealthy levels. At current levels, prolonged exposure could result in fever, muscle weakness, vomiting and other flu-like symptoms. Recommend immediate evacuation in a southeasterly direction.”

I look to the sky, trying to find the sun, but it’s nowhere in sight. I am lost, in every sense of the word. But Graham is still in control. Consulting a compass on his forearm, he turns around and points. “Southeast.”

“Rock and a hard place,” I say.

“Killer rocks and a radioactive cloud. But it’s a simple choice. I can’t shoot radiation.” And with that, he charges directly at the incoming Crawlers.

20

Graham moves with the swiftness and agility of a running back despite the armor and gear he’s wearing. I can’t pull off that level of physicality, even without gear and armor, but I do my best to follow him. Any other path might lead directly to my demise.

Two groups of Crawlers are tick-tacking their way across the shell-back, scrabbling over the imperfections stumbling me up, with ease. Their broad, flat-bellied bodies and eight legs are tailor made for this environment. The hordes are closing in on us from both sides and zipping together behind us and pursuing.

We can’t stop.

Can’t change direction.

We’re either running toward freedom or directly into a trap.

I flinch when Graham opens fire, squeezing off one round at a time. The bullets ping off the shells of the nearest Crawlers, doing no real damage, but triggering their crouching instinct, allowing us to pass by without being leapt upon.

We run like this for several minutes, with me breathing heavily, Graham shooting any Crawlers that make it past the mental line he’s drawn and the Crawlers inexorably closing in behind us. We’re a little bit faster than they are, but with the zipper still closing behind us, the horde is just ten feet back, nearly close enough to leap on me. And that’s what keeps me moving, despite the ache in my side, the burn in my lungs and invisible knives stabbing into my thighs.

“Science Guy.” Graham sounds a bit winded himself. Or afraid. Neither possibility comforts me. He slows a little, letting me catch up. He shoots a Crawler making a mad dash toward him, forcing it to the ground, squelching the red light from its underside. Then he points straight ahead.

A dull line of pink light stretches across our path.

“Is that more of them?”

“I don’t think so. It’s not moving.” He takes another shot, and then swaps out his magazine for a fresh one. “Looks more like a wall.”

“How many more of those do you have?” I motion to the magazine he’s just loaded.

“After this, just one more. Do you think that’s a problem?”

At first, I think he’s talking about the limited amount of ammunition he has, and I’m about to declare that yes, clearly, that could be a problem. But then I realize he’s talking about the line of glowing pink ahead of us. “Only one way to find out,” I say, and I’m proud of how nonchalantly brave it comes out sounding.

“Copy that,” he says, and keeps on running.

It’s hard to focus on what’s ahead when the Crawlers are closing in, too many for Graham to shoot. He picks up the pace, and I’m forced to follow. I don’t think I can keep it up for long, but we’ll reach the line of pink, which looks like a deeper rose color, now that we’re closer and seeing it through less ash. The ground beneath us drops down, making me feel lighter, but when it slows to a stop and rises back up, my weight feels doubled. My knees quiver for two steps and then give out.

I hit the ground hard, but haven’t even stopped moving when Graham opens fire. The rapid fire staccato tells me he’s switched to full auto, and he’s unloading on the horde like Rambo. When I get back to my feet, the nearest Crawlers are crouched down, while the rest attempt to scrabble past.

Graham swaps out his last magazine and says, “Try not to do that again.” Then he heads for the glowing wall.

If I could see myself from the outside, I’m pretty sure I’d look like Igor, hobbling after his master, desperate and pitiful. But it’s the best my breaking body can manage, and we’re nearly at the wall of now red light. The color matches the Crawlers’ undersides, which is disconcerting, but I don’t see any immediate threats…not including the sea of giant mites still pursuing, and maybe gaining on us.

On the plus side, the radiation detector alarm hasn’t declared us dead or poisoned yet. The red blinking light means we’re still in the danger zone, but if our armor does its job, we should have time to get away. That is, if we can get back to solid, unmoving land and commandeer a vehicle. Getting to the actual ground might be enough, though. If we’re miles high, it’s possible the radiation in the atmosphere hasn’t filtered down into the Ukrainian landscape. Then again, last I knew, the Machine was closing in on Rivne Nuclear Power Plant. When it gets there, we need to be long gone.

Graham arrives at the luminous wall first, takes a moment to look it over and then turns toward me, raising the rifle. I flinch when he fires, hearing the buzz of a bullet cutting through the air beside my head.

A Crawler snaps back, spinning end over end, spraying its brethren with its slick interior. The slime-covered creatures stop and begin wiping themselves clean. The rest stay on task, closing the distance.

Graham takes a few more shots, slowing the front runners. “Ten seconds. That’s all I’m going to give you.”

I’m confused for a moment, but then see the ‘wall’ and understand. We’ve reached a kind of fault line, where one massive plate overlaps the next. The massively thick, top plate tapers down to what looks like a razor’s edge, but it’s the stuff between the plates that is really interesting. It reminds me of a glowing pink version of the lumpy green Jell-O salad my mother used to make for Easter. Chunky white cottage cheese-like fluid oozes from the wall, slowly spreading. It’s followed by gelatinous red, the bioluminescence’s source. And then there are countless clear spheres with what look like…

I gasp.

“Holy shit.”

“Hurry it up!” Graham says, squeezing the trigger a little faster now.

With shaking hands, I free my sample bag and tools, scraping some of the white and red goo into a small vial and following it up with a single—for lack of a better word—egg. This mash of glowing goop most closely resembles a wad of frog eggs.

There’s a hiss from the goop, then a loud crack that shakes the shell beneath our feet. The top plate rises an inch, and more of the eggs fill the gap. It’s expanding. And then I realize there is a better analogy for the eggs: Fiddler crabs, who carry their gelatinous mash of eggs between layers of shell before flapping them out into the water.

I’ve just finished twisting the cap back onto the vial when Graham takes me by my belt, giving me a wedgie and hoists me three feet up, onto the upper plate. He climbs up behind me, and he’s nearly back on his feet when a Crawler springs up onto his calf. Its sharp limbs clamp down, eliciting a shout of pain from him.

On my feet, I wind up and kick the Crawler’s side. If not for the military boots I’m wearing, I think the impact would have broken my toes, but instead, the force knocks the creature free and launches it, tumbling back over the side. I help Graham back to his feet as more Crawlers jump from one plate to the next, continuing their relentless pursuit.

Graham takes two limping steps and says, “That’s it. Screw this shit.” He removes a grenade from his vest while limp-walking backward. He pulls the pin and says, “Fire in the hole.” Then he rolls the thing over the edge and takes a few more steps back, pushing me with him.

The grenade explodes with impressive force, launching Crawlers into the air and hopefully buying us some time.

Without another word, we both turn and hobble away, our pace nearly perfectly matched now. Ten minutes into our flight, I glance back. There are a few Crawlers still in pursuit, visible through the ash only because of their glowing underbellies, but the horde has either been dissuaded entirely, or delayed enough that we can no longer see them.

The radiation detector chimes and declares, “Radiation levels within safe limits,” which means we’re not going to melt, for the moment.

It’s a full half hour later that the plate beneath us shifts in a downward direction, hinting that we’re nearing the thing’s edge. And it’s another full hour before we find it.

The rise and fall of the behemoth upon which we stand is dizzying, now that we’re standing near a precipice. It’s like the world is flat and has come to an end. The Vikings were right all along. As the Machine rises hundreds of feet, I find myself clinging to Graham’s arm.

He looks at my hand, and then my facemask. “You know we have to jump, right?”

“I’d rather jump than fall,” I say.

He shrugs. “Fair enough.”

We inch toward the edge, shuffling forward slowly. When we reach it, both of us deflate.

“Damnit,” Graham says, looking down. The plate we’re standing on doesn’t just drop away, it angles downward, disappearing into the ashen gloom. If we jump over the edge, we won’t fall, we’ll slide, hitting who knows what on the way down.

“What now?” I ask, and I’m surprised when Graham launches over the edge. I’m about to curse him out for being impulsive, but then I notice the Crawler clinging to his facemask.

He didn’t jump.

He was
tackled
.

I look back.

Flickering red lights switch on in rapid succession, revealing the Crawler horde’s arrival. They’ve been following us this whole time with the bioluminescent giveaway shut off.

Smart little bastards.

One of the nearest creatures launches at my chest. I lean sideways, evading the strike, and the Crawler sails out over the drop off. With one last look back at the encroaching swarm, I follow it off the edge and begin sliding down the rough, black surface of a giant, descending toward who knows what kind of hell, and pursued by a wave of Crawlers that flows over the edge after me like a living waterfall.