Rupture (24 page)

She heard the sound of his team firing in the distance.

Outside, twilight was falling into a mélange of purples and oranges that cut across the western sky like splayed fingers. Fireflies were already popping up and winking out, and the sounds of cicadas filled the air with an orchestra of noise. She watched as the team member carried her daughter like a sack of potatoes into the dark.

She followed him over the pine ridge to the farm, her night vision lighting everything in clear shades of electric green. They passed the barn and saw the silos, even though a heavy darkness had settled over the fields. They arrived at the tall cylinders and set to work right away. Another team member was already there. She had a basic support harness, which she put on Simone. It only took the team a few minutes to climb up the outside ladder on the far silo with Simone. Yancey followed.

The team members at the top of the silo attached a rope to the harness, then waited for Yancey.

She nodded. “Go ahead.”

They withdrew a small mask and oxygen tank and attached it to Simone’s face. Then they opened the grain door at the top and gently set her inside. She lay peacefully on the unstable material. “Give her a few feet of play. It’ll be better if she’s submerged.” Yancey checked the rope tied outside to a rung. It was secure. “Shut the door.”

She climbed back down, thinking that had to be the best place to put her on the entire campus. The stink of the silos should mess with the incursion Zamps’ sense of smell. Realspace was new to them, and they could be confused easily.

Rigon’s team nodded without asking any questions.

Yancey went to the other side of the silos, found a deep shadow, and opened her mind. The person society called a psy-sorceress emerged, and Yancey became something else most people would consider evil. Her entity, ever near, was ready.

When Yancey walked out of the dark, rippling with channeled energy and ready to summon, a shadow followed her, masking her step. Her entity Myrmidon was eager to help.

She owed it this conflict after teasing it in the auditorium and forcing it to leave the flesh so quickly.

It waited in the shadow, the most powerful weapons and armor system a human being had ever wielded. She felt the calming deadness of a blanketed mind. She set herself at the base of her daughter’s silo and waited for the first contenders to steal Simone’s soul.

* * *

Wally struggled with the Megamech. From the moment that first leg moved, he knew this would be difficult. But the other leg followed, and soon they were forging a path through the woods, leaving a wake of busted trees behind them. The problem started when he tried to steer. It turned but kept turning. They must have walked in a circle for hours.

When they’d almost smashed into Captain Picham’s cabin, he’d yelled and hollered and jumped up and down for Wally to watch out.

“Sorry,” Wally said, for the gazillionth time that day.

“Just keep going. See if you can right her.”

By evening he’d succeeded but then had a problem correcting from the other direction.

“Okay, Wally, we got to get serious now.” Captain Picham said. “She was built for one thing, and that one thing is here. The goddamn Rogues have found Sterling.” He pointed. “We need to go east and only east.”

Wally tried to steer the massive machine with his mind, but she wasn’t listening to him. When he heard the explosions and heard Hutto exclaim how cool they were, Wally remembered what Hutto had said about his brother, Almont, the Megamech pilot ... complete domination is required to win control.

Wally stopped the machine and refused to go farther, unless she cooperated. He even threatened to get out of the chair. He felt her fear he would do it. With its powered lights creating strobes in the darkness of twilight, the USC-Kraken finally started to respond to the little Transhuman in the pilot’s seat.

Pushover
.

He saw a heading arrow appear on his HUD and leaned in the direction of the Ag Farm. The mech did as he wanted. The captain zoomed, and everyone saw the Dread Walker in the moonlight.

“Speed it up,” the Captain said. “Head for the barn.”

* * *

Yancey moved with lightning speed as the first of them emerged out of the darkness. Three Zamps using the barn for cover came charging up the road.

Yancey stood before the silo ladder, spread her arms, and completed her dance to fully summon Myrmidon. The martial way of her entity that called its energies from the ground and air filled her until she glowed, and the beasts changed direction for her.

She was a giant, iridescent creature laced with flickering fire. She was scaled, and horrific, and glorious. Myrmidon was an older, more-seasoned version of her daughter’s entity, and it was eager to fight. The species was an ally of humanity, and her entity was joyous to be in battle again.

I am here
, Myrmidon said,
in the flesh
.

She struck out and sent an eruption of fire.

The Zamp beasts erupted into howling balls of flame ten meters from her and careened into several bales of hay, setting them on fire. Soon the air was thick with acrid smoke, and the stench of charred flesh. The three beasts continued to burn as if dipped in oil. Then the others came.

As she fought them with the channeled power of Myrmidon, she heard Rigon’s guns in the distance. She knew he was trying to dissuade them from crossing the fields and, maybe, even distract them from their mark. And she loved him for this, although the Zamps had smelled her out. Soon, her son’s firing stopped, and she sensed his temporary victory, and his unease.

I’ve found the Walker,
she heard him say.

The night quieted, as she watched the smoldering embers. She felt her entity’s desire to hunt the enemies, but she calmed it, and made it wait. Then she heard the battle begin again. The sound of constant firing again meant Rigon was in a fight for his life. And he wasn’t talking. The longer the engagement went, the more dangerous it was for him. When she heard him cry out, and the firing stop for a moment, she knew he’d been wounded.

Rigon!
But he didn’t respond.

She stepped forward from the silo in the form of Myrmidon. She looked up, arms raised, even though she shouldn’t expend the energy to
see
. She could do nothing else from this distance. When the firing started again, now angrier, she felt relief, but the concentration and frenetic movement meant he was in trouble.

Yancey steeled herself. The explosions that followed meant something big was coming. He was using his last resort.

Rigon!
she said once again, unable to help herself.

* * *

Rigon saw the Dread Walker’s movement beyond the tree line before it emerged. It was big, bulky, and had cut a path as if it were a huge lawnmower. Massive trees burst asunder and pines exploded as if detonated. When he saw the spider-like thing, a house on articulate legs, pause at the edge of the field, he knew it had seen him.

Six mobile Dread Killermechs also appeared, as if choreographed, from the woods. A squad of Zamps followed and raced forward. He moved at an angle to the beasts, but kept his eyes on the mobile armor. The Killermechs surrounded him before he finished off the last Zamp. He knew he should take out the fast mechs before the Walker moved in range. But that’s what they were expecting.

Instead, he headed straight for the Walker, firing, all systems primed for attack. The Killermechs closed at once. He broke off as his initial salvo damaged the Walker, creating a huge rent in its exterior. Then he was under ground-shaking fire, and he felt his frame sustain damage. Before he fell, he brought down all of the Killermechs but saw the Walker begin to move again.

He used his last bit of energy, before his core imploded, to send his mother a message.

Dread Walker damaged ... I hope that slows it down enough. Protect Simone, Mom. You have to protect her now. See you in a few months.

* * *

The psy-sorceress and Altertranshuman, Agent Yancey Wellborn, now in a safe place behind the presence of the powerful Myrmidon, looked out through its eyes, and cried in anguish. She heard the explosion in the distance and felt her son’s presence fade.

She was in command and so she raised her face to the sky and to what lay beyond—with all its powers—and mumbled the mantra to elevate her to her most powerful state. Her entity, already summoned, now bolstered her with its own psychic powers. She felt herself combine with its presence and knew the battle would be fought on two fronts because she rarely let the entity touch such a delicious thing as her full self. Myrmidon was an obedient servant, but a prickly one. She saw the wreckage of her son’s armored self lying in a huge hole in the ground.
 

Rigon!
 

We are one
, Myrmidon said.
I am you. 

Yancey said,
And you will do my bidding, Myrmidon
.
Or you will pay.

A moment of defiance before she felt it succumb under the weight of her being.

She stepped back onto the dirt road again, still fully transformed into the alien thing. Her Bodyglove’s unique properties that allowed it to expand during slow transformations had mysteriously disappeared. It was replaced by scales and fine-fitting armored gear forged in some other world. Fully in the flesh, Myrmidon cooed its pleasure as it flexed its talons and arched its back. Yancey asserted her control and snapped its jaws shut, as it tasted the air. Her transformed body was now as much a killing machine as was her mind. She was a psy-sorceress Alter with an entity fully channeled and summoned. This was what her husband had built.

We will protect her
, she said with its voice.

Yes we will
.

The Dread Walker came into view. It was easily as big as the barn it passed by on articulated legs. Spider-like, it scurried forward, faster than she would have imagined, each leg digging into the earth and sending up sods of dirt and grass. No lights shown from the matt-black machine that housed the Rogueminds wanting dominion over the earth. The fabrication of the Walker must have taken months hidden in the forest, she knew, and she could feel its concern for its own wellbeing.

As it moved closer, it passed under a street lamp along the main dirt road that ran through the farm, and she could see damage. Twisted metal, a blasted hole in the carriage, even a missing limb.

Thank you, Rigon
.

It paused fifty meters away, righting itself.

She moved forward.

The battle will be here
, she told herself, and Myrmidon listened. Myrmidon walked slowly, sensing they weren’t in danger yet. The Walker wouldn’t be so foolish as to simply fire at the powerful creature approaching it.

As a show of force, Yancey bellowed fire from her eyes and mouth. Even in her highest mantras she still felt sharp sorrow that her son’s body was gone, even though his mind still lived. But she had to put that aside.

The Walker was designed for physical battle with cyborgs and cymechs; the Rogues had fabricated one big enough to handle an entire squad. She glanced once more at the silo. They wanted her daughter’s genosoul, that mysterious essence needed to completely remake a person, but they had to get her body first. To destroy the silo would be to lose the game. Killing her wasn’t the goal for them. They needed to
copy
her.

She walked to the mechanical beast and reached out with a clawed hand. It had settled on the ground, its legs still retracting. She caressed hot metal and felt its lifelessness. She continued around it, as if looking for something, everywhere she touched, traces of her ethereal self lingered like mist from dry ice. She saw the huge rent in its armor plating but passed by, knowing the time wasn’t the right for anything to come crawling out.

No, the Rogues, are suckers for formalities
.

After circling it once, she stepped back, and waited.

She felt her entity agitate to attack. She channeled its aggression like a woman in a kayak riding down a river of rapids, letting it sniff toward the Rogue AI mind, but curbing it away at the last minute.

A corn-like stalk popped out of the ground, except apples hung from it. Then three more, each with a different fruit.

This is no simple rational attack
, she whispered to Myrmidon.
This will be something else
.
Be patient.

She heard Myrmidon growl.

She grabbed an apple and took a bite. Tasted normal enough. Myrmidon wanted more.

A child’s ball appeared, then began bouncing without ever hitting the ground.

“Ah, you like to play, do you?” she asked the Rogues, who she knew were watching. “Realspace’s laws mean nothing to you. You won’t be able to keep that up for long, will you?”

More stalks appeared, now crowding the outside of the road. She walked through them, no longer flaming. A chess set appeared in the middle of the road, except the board had white-and-black circles within circles instead of squares.

“
Clever. I bet there’s no way to play it.” She kicked it aside.

But the manifestations were moving closer to the silo.

When a statue appeared, she stopped, thinking the moment had come.

The sculpted thing was humanoid, bipedal, but alien. It looked like it had been smoothed out and flattened, or maybe was being smashed by a cosmic wind. The eyes were large, the mouth small. Several limbs with multiple digits extended from its body. Not that different from what she looked like now, she thought.

She wavered, feeling Myrmidon prepare to attack. Myrmidon believed what it was seeing was a real representation of a real species.

“
Very clever,” she said again to the Rogueminds in the Dread Walker, which she knew could hear her just as you’d know someone unseen but listening on the other end of a phone could hear your voice.

She waited to see if they would use this form to speak.

Nothing.