Metal and Ash (Apex Trilogy) (48 page)

“Commander, what are you doing?” Jethro asked. “I don’t think it’s-.”

“All you do is think, right Jethro?” Capreze smiled. “So let’s show that to Ms. Bretton.”

***

The conference room was thick with tension, fear and excitement. Dog, Jay, Marin and the mech pilots all rested in their chairs, feet up on tables, eyes closed. They were used to it. Lt. Murphy was going over data on her tablet, checking the readings of the enemy and working with different attack scenarios. The Pope sat with his back straight and eyes studying everyone in the room. Styles was busy cleaning some lint from his cowboy hat. Engineer Campbell and OC LaFrance were back in the corner, there to listen and advise, but not part of combat operations. Which left Shiner, the only one of the mechs that could fit in the human areas, standing in the middle of the room, patiently waiting for Capreze.

“Sorry I’m late,” Capreze said. “Kinda busy today. Go figure.”

“Hurry the fuck up, Commander,” Bisby said. “There’s a war I have to get to.”

“Not that you’ll be much good,” Capreze grinned. “You look like shit, Biz.”

“I feel a ton worse,” Bisby replied. “Which is when I’m at my most dangerous.”

“I thought you were at your most dangerous when you ate those synth-blueberry muffins,” Mathew said.

“No, that’s when he’s at his most gaseous,” Masters responded. “Which is ten times more deadly than his mech piloting. We got any of those fucking things around? We could feed them to Biz and drop him in the middle of the enemy.”

“An ass bomb,” Mathew grinned.

“You folks done?” Capreze asked. “Good. Let’s get to work. Lieutenant?”

Lt. Murphy activated the main vid screen and it mirrored what was on her tablet. “This is what we’re looking at, people. See the red mass there? That’s those deader soldiers. From what Campbell and LaFrance have told us they are dead just like our deaders, but aren’t brain dead. They have retained their living reasoning and thinking skills.”

“How the fuck can they do that?” Bisby asked.

“It’s the fucking nanobots,” Jay growled.

“Yep,” Murphy replied. “And these nanobots are worse than the ones we faced. They can actually repair the soldiers, making them almost indestructible.”

“So how do we stop them?” Harlow asked.

“Permanently?” Campbell said. “Phosphorous. Melts them completely and keeps the nanobots from executing any repairs.”

“Uh, we don’t have that much phos,” Marin said. “Not even close.”

“Then you crush them,” Campbell said. “Obliterate them. Make it near impossible for them to self-repair.”

“Jeezus,” Mathew swore. “So a head shot won’t work? We have to blast them apart?”

“Yes, and make sure they can’t self-repair,” Campbell said. “If they do then they come back as the mindless monsters you are used to. But faster and stronger.”

“We have to kill them twice?” Harlow asked. “Kill them dead and then undead.”

“Worst case, yes,” Campbell replied.

“Fuck,” Harlow said and all the mech pilots nodded.

“But we have good news,” Murphy said. “Jethro may have an answer to the nanobot issue.”

“I do,” Jethro said. “It’s more nanobots.”

“More?” Dog asked. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve worked with Johnson’s design and come up with a design of my own,” Jethro replied. “Basically if we can infect the soldiers coming at us with my nanobots then they should be able to override the other nanobots. Or at least keep them occupied so that the soldiers can’t self-repair.”

“Nothing like a little hot nano on nano action,” Masters said. No one laughed. “Ah, come on! That was gold!”

“Shut up, Mitch,” Harlow said.

“So who kills the nanobots that kill the nanobots?” Dog asked.

“Yeah, I was waiting to see if someone would catch on to that,” Jethro said. “That is the risk. That the default programming of my nanobots will come out once they interact with the other nanobots. I have no doubt mine can kill theirs, but I do have doubts about how well they can be controlled after that.”

“A technological plague, then?” the Pope asked. “How very wasteland.”

“Can’t you just kill the default programming?” Masters asked.

“No, dipshit, it’s why it’s called default,” Jay responded. “I know Jethro isn’t the brightest, but even he would have thought of that.”

“Gee, thanks, Jay,” Jethro said. “Fuck you too.”

“We can lay down a rain of hell on them once the nanobots take hold,” Styles said. “It won’t be phos, but it will be nuclear. Y’all will just need to be clear when that happens.”

“Your aircraft have nukes?” Mathew asked.

“Our aircraft are nukes,” Styles said. The room got the implication and Styles grinned. “Listen I know what you’re thinking. Y’all think that’s suicide. Trust me, it ain’t. The Stylses know what they’re made for. As long as one of us makes it then we’re all good.”

“Seriously?” Mathew asked. “None of them care?”

“Oh, fuck yeah they care!” Styles laughed. “We just want to see this shit finished. This isn’t the first time we’ve tangled with these techno-zombies. Bastards are near impossible to kill.”

“ETA?” Harlow asked.

“We’re taking the fight to them,” Lt. Murphy said. “They are about four hours out.”

“That’s pretty close to be setting off nukes,” Bisby said.

“That’s where I come in,” Jay said. “Styles here has given me specs for the environmental containment shields.”

“The shit Rachel just died for?” Mathew snapped. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Smaller scale,” Capreze said, catching Mathew’s eye. The mech pilot calmed down.

“I can get it set up close to the battlefield,” Jay said. “If the nukes go off then all I have to do is contain the fallout and let the shield do its work. The area will be clean in just a hundred years or so.”

“Oh, that’s all,” Mathew grumbled.

“Let’s move on from this,” Capreze said. “Jethro has full specs for the nanobots and the containment shield on all of your tablets. Study them quickly as soon as we are done. What’s next?”

“The Three,” Murphy said. “As you can see they made landfall at Monterey and are getting close to us. They’re a half day out, but coming from the west. That means they can flank us or come straight at the Stronghold.”

“How many are there?” Harlow asked.

“About twenty HAVs, those are like super transports,” Lt. Murphy said. “Each HAV can hold about forty troopers.”

“We’re going at them,” Dog said. “I have three hundred riders. It’ll be better for us to handle the living than the dead.”

“Speaking of the dead,” the Pope said. “Where do you want my Disciples?”

“I need them as a wall,” Capreze said. “Spread them out so that they create a deader barrier between anything that gets past the others. If the undead soldiers get through and we can’t nuke them then we’ll need your Disciples to fight them off until we can regroup. Same for the Three’s troopers.”

The Pope nodded, but didn’t say anything else. Capreze watched him for a moment then turned his attention back to the group.

“That’s where we are at, people,” Capreze said. “Study your tablets. Dog and his riders are going at the Three’s HAVs. Everyone else is going at the…what did you call them? Techno-zombies? Those things. We head out in one hour.”

Everyone was quiet as they got up and left the conference room.

***

“What the fuck am I looking at?” Melissa asked as she stepped into the mainframe room with June. They each held a side of the gurney that Beth was on. “Jesus…”

A Railer tech was busy with a handful of wires behind a bank of vid screens while a Railer medic checked Jethro’s life support systems and made sure his body was stabilized.

“Is that…?” Melissa trailed off.

“That’s Jethro,” June nodded as she wheeled Beth over to an interface hook-up. “We are able to keep his body fairly healthy while his mind is in the mainframe.”

“When does he come out of the mainframe?” Melissa asked, eyeing the tubes connected to his body. “That can’t be good long term.”

“No, it isn’t,” June said. “And he can’t come out. The integration is permanent.”

“Whoa!” Melissa cried. “And you’re going to hook Beth up to that? Fuck that shit!”

“No, it’s different,” Jethro said. Melissa stared at his body, watching the still lips. “I’m on speaker. It’s magic!”

“Knock it off, Jethro,” June said. “Be nice.”

“Listen,” Jethro said, his voice serious. “Beth will be safe. All I’m going to do is hunt around for the biochrome manufacturing info. Once I have that data I’ll be out of her head. She’s designed for this so it isn’t like I’m breaking new ground here.”

“But there’s still danger, right?” Melissa asked. “You could fry her brain, right?”

“There’s danger everywhere,” Jethro laughed. “Welcome to the wasteland. But you have to trust me here. What I’m going to do is perfectly safe. Hell, it might even help her.”

“We’ll see,” Melissa said.

June finished placing the nodes about Beth’s head. “All set. Ready?”

“Ready,” Jethro said.

“No,” Melissa said. “I’m not.”

June and Jethro ignored her as Jethro began the cerebral integration process. The vid screens all went blank for a moment then came alive with visuals streaming across them.

“Is that normal?” Melissa asked.

“Holy shit,” Jethro whispered. “This can’t be.”

“What?!” Melissa asked. “What did you do?”

“Jethro?” June asked. “What is that? What are we looking at?” June watched the images flash by. Many were of scenes she knew, of places she knew, of people she knew. They were images of life at the mech base. “Jethro?”

“I just called the commander,” Jethro said. “I’ll wait until he gets here to explain.”

Fifty-Three

“All satellites are up and feeds are coming in,” a Canadian tech reported.

“Good,” Norton replied. “Let me see our troops.”

An image came up on the main vid screen. Norton studied the thousands upon thousands of enhanced troopers that marched towards the Stronghold. Mixed in with them were close to sixty mechs and about twenty transports. The man smiled at the force of power that was going to crush Capreze and all of the mutant inhabitants of the wasteland.

“Where are the Three’s HAVs?” Norton asked. The view turned, zoomed and changed, showing the group of HAVs speeding across from the west. He frowned at the small dot that was a few kilometers ahead of them. “What is that?”

A tech studied some readings and a data report that was sent to them. “Rogue, sir,” the tech replied. “That’s all we know. They are painted as enemy combatants.”

“Then why doesn’t that Reginald guy catch up and blast them?” Norton grumbled.

“They can’t catch them, sir,” the tech said. “The mag-skiff they are driving is actually pulling ahead.”

“They’ll reach Capreze first,” Norton stated. “They better not be important.”

***

Mr. Gein awoke with a start and spun about in his seat, his eyes on the pursuing HAVs.

“I’m surprised you haven’t passed out yet,” Mr. Gein said as he checked readings on the HAVs.

Stone turned and gave him a withering look. “Did you have a dream about being stupid and forget how to think, Gein?”

“What? What are you blabbering about?” Mr. Gein asked.

“I’m not human,” Stone stated. “I don’t sleep, asshole.”

“Oh, right,” Mr. Gein said. “I forgot. Ms. Isely did such a great job in the fabrication. Your BC body looks real.”

“Oh, it is real,” Stone replied. “I can eat, fuck, shit and puke. Or not. Depends on what I want to do.”

“Jesus,” Mr. Gein said. “And I thought you were scary when you were flesh and blood.”

“No one has any idea how terrifying I can be,” Stone grinned, sending shivers up Gein’s spine.

“Are they going to catch us?” Mr. Gein asked. “They don’t seem to have made any ground.”

“They haven’t,” Stone replied. “I was able to change the power structure of the skiff. We’re running off the electromagnetic field of the wasteland and also solar. The second the sun came up we added a 35% boost. The HAVs are too heavy to catch us now. We’ll lose them in a couple hours.”

“I need to piss,” Charlie said groggily from the back of the skiff. “Want to pull this thing over?”

“The jack awakes!” Stone laughed. “Wasn’t sure if you were going to make it back there. Good to know our ticket to safety didn’t die in the night.”

“You really think they’ll let you live?” Charlie asked. “From what I know of these people they don’t shy away from brutality. This isn’t the UK. No tea time in the wasteland.”

“They aren’t complete animals,” Stone replied. “Or they would have died out long ago. The intel I have on Capreze says he’s rational and compassionate.”

“But he doesn’t know me,” Charlie said as he sat up. He adjusted his shock suit and angled his piss out of the mag-skiff. “He isn’t going to risk anything for a stranger.”

“We’ll see,” Stone said smugly. “Try not to get any piss in the skiff, will ya? My sense of smell is considerable. I don’t want your stink to be all I smell for the next few hundred kilometers.”

Charlie almost sprayed the inside of the skiff with his urine, but decided he didn’t want to smell it for hours either.

“You got anything to eat?” Charlie asked. “Or some water? My head feels like it will explode if I don’t hydrate.”

“Mr. Gein?” Stone asked.

“Why are you asking me?” Mr. Gein frowned. “I don’t have anything.”

“Your luck is shite today,” Stone laughed. “Jack.”

“The name’s Charlie,” Charlie replied. “Stop calling me jack or I’ll rip your head off.”

Stone reached back and grabbed Charlie by his shock suit before he knew what happened. The BC started to shrink and constrict.

“Don’t ever assume you can tell me what to do, jack,” Stone said as he gripped Charlie’s suit. “Or I crush the life right out of you.”

“What the fuck are you?” Charlie gasped.

“The future,” Stone said. “Shut the fuck up and I’ll let you live to see it.”

***

“Who the fuck are you?” a Railer tech asked, shocked at the sight of the Great Maker walking towards him in one of the lower maintenance corridors. “What is that shit on-?”