Corpies (Super Powereds Spinoff Book 1) (63 page)

“It wasn’t random,” Titan told Deadlift, even as he held up his hand for the other Hero to stop advancing. “You need to hang back here. There might be something ready to fire as soon as I turn the corner, and I’d rather not have you caught up in the blast if it’s explosive.”

“If we hadn’t just walked through a valley of mechanical death, I might call you paranoid.” Despite the sass, Deadlift came to an immediate stop, even going so far as to take a few steps backward. “What’s my cue that it’s safe to follow?”

 “Depends. I might just yell for you, though there’s always the chance that the room will be soundproofed, so I may come back this way or pass a message through Dispatch. Just be ready to move if I give an order. Especially if that order is to run.”

“Consider me raring to go,” Deadlift replied.

Titan started forward again, but Deadlift’s voice caused him to stop as it yelled one last question from behind.

“If it’s not random, then why did you pick the middle hall?”

“Just a hunch built on experience.” Titan’s mind swam back through the years of busting into bases, lairs, and dens of criminal activity. They didn’t always have time to prepare defenses, but when they did, most followed a similar pattern.

“Everyone almost always puts the bulk of their defenses up the middle. And there was no way I was going to let someone else have all our fun.”

              120.               

Though he was braced for attack, the light from around the corner wasn’t coming from any sort of cannon, bomb, or even menacing robot. That would have made sense. No, what Titan found awaiting him as he headed down this new bend of the hall was far stranger than a mere defense mechanism. It was a catwalk, half-rusted steel stretched out over a deep hole before several elevators. He tested the metal carefully, expecting it to give way under his sizable weight, but found it didn’t even wobble. Looking closer, Titan realized that while the initial structure had aged poorly, new parts had been rotated in to secure everything in place.

With each step, he waited, sure something from the dark chasm beneath his feet, where elevator rails went deeper than he could make out, would come leaping up to attack him. Yet his movement was greeted only by the barely-audible echoes of what sounded like some sort of distant activity.

“Dispatch, put me in everyone’s ear,” Titan said. Without bothering to wait for confirmation he continued, “Deadlift, you can go ahead and follow me in, just be careful. I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure I walked into the top floor of a mining operation.”

“Oh please don’t tell me this whole thing was just Old Man Caruthers digging for diamonds and trying to throw people off the scent,” Aether sighed. “If we unmask a
Scooby Doo
villain after all that destruction I’m going to be so pissed.”

“Just throwing out a guess, but they might have been digging for ore,” Jeremiah said. “They probably dug out as much as they could and bought up the rest on the down low. Robots take metal, and unless you’ve got access to a really gifted Super, metal doesn’t make itself.”

“That would have to be a lot of ore,” Gale told them. From her side of the mic, Titan thought he could pick up the muffled sounds of wind and a small explosion. “Also, I met a welcoming committee. Not many of them yet, but stay on guard.”

“Yeah, be glad you’re not with us.” Aether’s voice was full of something that was not quite awe but certainly a sense of being impressed. “We found the factory section that’s churning those bots out. Things are up and running, though most of them are incomplete. I think they sent every bot they had out after us today.”

“Well, almost.” Jeremiah’s tone was about as close to worried as Titan had heard it since the giant mechs dropped from the sky. “I found what appear to be spare parts for a pretty sizable bot that doesn’t look like anything we’ve fought so far. Smart money says this place has a watchdog that was left behind.”

Titan heard the sound of footsteps on the catwalk and swung around, ready to beat back whatever mechanical guardian had been sent to stop him. Instead, he found Deadlift, who took a very healthy step back even though he was well out of punching range.

“Sorry,” Titan mumbled, forcing himself to relax. “I’m a little on edge.”

“And why wouldn’t you be? We’re just poking around a hidden, massive robot factory, standing atop a patchwork walkway over what sure looks like an infinite hole to nowhere.” Deadlift took a careful peek over the side, then immediately pulled himself back to the center of the catwalk. “Okay, seriously, how in the hell did a place like this get built under our noses?”

“From the looks of most of the stuff here, I think it was made a long time ago,” Jeremiah told them. “A lot of this equipment is crazy high-tech, but everything non-essential is still rusty and broken. This place might have been built back before Brewster was ever much of a metropolis. Old lair of a criminal who either went to jail or was buried is my guess, probably found by someone who didn’t mind a fixer-upper.”

“Not the first opportunistic squatter I’ve had to oust,” Gale said. “When this is over, we probably need to catalogue this place and see what all is here. If it was a villain’s lair, there might be useful files or documents.”

“Hey, don’t go stealing my lines. I don’t run around kicking the shit out of bad guys from midair,” Jeremiah replied.

Titan ignored them, not because he disagreed, but because his focus for the moment was on making it across the rest of the catwalk. Near the middle, things had gotten a bit shakier, and while the catwalk continued to hold his weight, Titan again found himself looking down to the empty gulf of darkness at his feet and wondering how long it would take him to climb back up. More importantly, he tried to figure out how he’d save Deadlift if the metal floor did give way.

Mercifully, he didn’t need to think up an answer, as they both eventually made it all the way to the end of the catwalk and set foot back on the shiny silver ground. Titan continued forward until he reached a fork in the path. He began down the right side, holding up his hand so Deadlift would wait. Within a minute he could feel the heat coming from up ahead. If they were mining ore then they’d need a forge, and while it was possible his prey was hiding in there, Titan found it highly unlikely. This much heat from this far off meant the temperature in the forge was more than any human without enhanced endurance could comfortably withstand. It was possible, true, but his gut said to check the other branch first before going after long shots.

Backtracking to Deadlift, Titan headed down the left path, which after a minute proved to be absent of the wall of heat. He called for Deadlift to follow, who did so at a safe distance. They wound their way deeper into the hidden base, passing a few dusty workstations that had held up surprisingly well and one ancient computer that looked like it weighed more than the desk it was sitting on. Along the way they got progress reports from the others, who were encountering similar findings.

One thing worried Titan as they made their way farther through the halls: the others were dealing with patrols. Never too many and none so strong that they weren’t easily handled, but still, the other Heroes were fighting robots. Meanwhile, he and Deadlift continued to encounter a whole lot of nothing. It was unnerving, all the more so because Titan had thought this would be the most perilous path. Why was this one seemingly undefended?

As it turned out, the answer to that question was waiting for him a few turns further down the hallway. In one angled step, Titan left the ubiquitous shiny hallway and entered a massive room with a dome-shaped ceiling. From the number of shattered chairs and retro couches, Titan guessed that once upon a time this had been some sort of break or social room. That was long since passed, though. Standing amidst the wreckage that it must have created while opening up the area was a nine-foot-tall robot unlike any that Titan had seen before. Thick limbs, glass eyes pulsing with green light, and all manner of small devices adorned the various nooks and crannies of its body.

Titan didn’t even bother to turn; he trusted that Deadlift would take one look at the situation and know to stay back. This thing wasn’t like the smaller robots. This was something special, maybe even a new model, a sneak preview at what would have come with the next encounter.

“Hey guys,” Titan said, moving carefully into the large room. “Got a hunch that I found the watchdog.”

As his foot crossed from the hallway over the room’s threshold, the robot bolted forward. That, Titan had been expecting. What came next, however, took him by surprise. Its unwavering gaze stayed trained on him as its mouth parted and a thick, electronic voice echoed around them.

“
You!
”

121.

Of all the things Titan had seen the robots do since their arrival in Brewster, talking had never been among their bag of tricks. Hearing the robot angrily yell at him in recognition was enough to take even Titan by surprise, which was why he was a few seconds slow in raising his arm to stop the giant metal fist surging toward him. He managed a half-block, not that it made much difference. The blow sent him spiraling through the air until he crashed into a nearby wall, leaving a sizable dent in the dense material.

If its talking had been a surprise, then the robot moving him was an outright shocker. True, he hadn’t been properly braced for the attack, but he still should have been able to compensate for such a strike. It hadn’t even felt that strong, really, at least not compared to attacks from some of the more powerful Supers he’d brought down through the years. Yet he’d gone sailing like he was still fresh out of the HCP, and that was no small feat for anyone to accomplish.

“Do we know each other?” Titan asked, hurriedly rising to his feet and getting into a proper fighting stance. A surprise attack was one thing, but he’d be damned if he let this metal bastard toss him around so easily again.

“I know you. Ever since you appeared, the game has been tilted. You are an unbalanced resource and must be removed from the board. Father searched the enemy archives for every bit of data and video about you, Titan. Then he gave me strength and knowledge so that I could destroy you.” Again, the robot charged, not even missing a syllable in its rant as it dashed across the floor. Another punch flew, this one on track for Titan’s head, but the metal opponent no longer had the advantage of surprise.

Titan grabbed the fist as it drew near him, spinning the arm over his shoulder as he aimed to throw the robot into the wall. It tried to counter instantly, showing that perhaps the speech about knowing his moves hadn’t been a bluff. Unfortunately for it, every counter it attempted relied on taking control of the movement or breaking Titan’s grip, and the strength difference between them was just too much for it to overcome.

A loud cracking filled the air as the robot’s torso smashed into the wall, eclipsing Titan’s dent with one of its own. Rather than lie there or try and break the firm grip Titan still had on its arm, the robot kicked its legs against the wall. It was a small motion, and at its current angle leverage was almost impossible, which was why Titan was all the more shocked as they both went spinning through the air. In his moment of confusion, the arm in his clutches slipped away, and they both landed on the ground several feet apart.

“You’ve got one of those gravity distortion things,” Titan said, understanding finally setting in. “That’s how you sent me flying before.”

“One of the many tools I was equipped with to bring you down.” The robot couldn’t smile; its facial features weren’t constructed in such a way to accommodate expressions. All the same, Titan could swear there was something like a grin on its face as he watched the indentation of his handprint on its arm slowly undent. Great; this one had the self-repair capacity, too.

“You are an improper variable, Titan. The abilities you possess alone are imbalanced, but far worse is the effect you have on other enemy resources. Small threats became larger and non-threats became tremendously unbalanced assets in their own right. The common link at the scenes was you. You can sway the tide of engagements, and so I was made especially to counteract your presence.”

“Yeah? They should have put more pistons in your arms then; I can barely even feel your attacks,” Titan replied. Something wasn’t sitting easy with him. This robot had to know that in terms of power, it was massively inferior to him. Yet it didn’t seem rattled in the slightest. If anything, it was cocky. That was strange enough: who built dickishness into a simulated personality? But obviously there was some hidden card yet to be played, and the robot seemed to think it would turn things around.

“Not even with all the resources Father collected was he able to fashion a creature to match your strength,” the robot agreed. “But not every engagement needs to be won by force. And not every punch is just a punch.”

His feet were off the floor before he had a chance to so much as grab for the ground, not that it would have helped. As he rose rapidly into the air, Titan groped and spun, trying to wriggle free of whatever force was holding him captive. The trouble was that there didn’t seem to be anything to fight against. It was like the strings keeping him anchored to the ground had been cut, and now he was just drifting in place with no method of moving forward.