Metal and Ash (Apex Trilogy) (18 page)

Shiner felt the entire village encroach on him and his sensors showed an increase in endorphin levels and pheromones amongst the survivors. Violence was literally in the air.

“I am made from a substance called biochrome,” Shiner had answered honestly since he had no reason to lie. “It is how most of the rest of the world is built. An organic metal alloy.”

“Organic metal?” the leader asked as he tapped Shiner on the chest. “Like you’re alive? Not just some robot programmed to do tricks and shit?”

The survivors had laughed. The joke was lost on Shiner.

“It is funny,” Shiner said, laughing lightly to join in with the others. “I was discussing this with my companions and they do not believe I am alive whereas I do. What would your assessment be?”

“My assessment?” the leader laughed harder. “My assessment? Hmmm, let me see.” Then he pulled his shotgun and placed it to Shiner’s head. The trigger was pulled and Shiner’s smooth face became a wide hole. “My assessment is that I could get something real nice for a hunk of metal like you.”

Shiner had really wished the man hadn’t done that. He thought about the faces of the villagers, how they were covered in sores, crusted with dirt, showing definite signs of malnutrition, disease, slow death. He had felt sorry for them. That was true. He felt it.

So when his head had self-repaired in a split second he did not attack. He remained calm, knowing that the leader had done what he had to to help his people survive.

“I am not scrap,” Shiner had said. “So you will not be able to get a real nice hunk for me.”

They grabbed him. His head was a giant hole one second and then perfectly fine the next and the people still thought grabbing him would be a good idea.

“I don’t know what you are,” the leader had spat. “But you killed two of mine and that can’t be forgotten.”

“I regret that,” Shiner said. “But they attacked me. It was self-defense.”

Shiner felt bad about that lie. He could easily have subdued them without killing them, but he did not have the patience to wait for their cooperation. He felt he’d needed to make a statement to move things along.

“I am becoming more dangerous,” he said to himself as he continued to walk and revisit what had happened. “I am becoming more human.”

That troubled him deeply. But not quite as much as what he’d done.

“You keep talking,” the leader had said. “But you ain’t getting’ it, man. You’re already dead.”

Shiner had needed to make another example. He hadn’t had time to mess with the man and come to an understanding. The microfilament shot from Shiner’s face, pierced the leader’s right eye then spread into a thousand smaller microfilaments and turned the man’s brain into jelly.

It happened in less than a blink. The group that held Shiner didn’t notice a thing until the leader collapsed onto the ground, blood pouring from his eye socket, his ears, his nose. There was no stunned silence, just instant violence. The group switched from restraint to destruction and had started to beat and hack at Shiner.

Anyone that was within two feet of Shiner was pierced through again and again as the bioborg shot microfilaments by the thousands from its BC skin. Screams were cut short as skulls were pierced. But many screams lingered as vital organs were punctured, leaving the victims to a slow, agonizing death. Although, as Shiner had though about it, a faster death than the slow one most were experiencing from their pitiful existence.

That was all well and good, Shiner thought as he looked ahead and saw the ridge where Campbell and LaFrance were holed up in a fairly secure cave. But his next thought he didn’t have an answer for. Because the more he thought about it he couldn’t figure out why he’d turned and slaughtered the rest of the survivors. No more had tried to attack him. Instead, most had fled, realizing that their leader had gone too far and they were on there own.

The last one, the man that had tried to plead with Shiner, ask for him to show mercy, that one stuck with the bioborg. He tried to wipe the man’s bloody, bruised, terrified face from his database, but it would not leave. The man’s face was there, ready to pop into visual, despite Shiner’s CPU override.

He shook his head, as he’d seen human after human do time and time again, and he finally understood what the motion meant. And the more he tried to shake the feeling away the more it stayed. He struggled for a description of what was happening to him, but his limited knowledge of what he even was was not enough to explain it.

Shiner climbed the ridge, supplies bundled to his back, and walked into the cave, so many questions on his mind. The dogs barked once in greeting then slowly started to growl as they smelled the blood that covered him.

***

“Guilt,” Campbell said. “You feel guilty.” She slowly scraped a flat rock across Shiner’s body, trying to get some of the blood off. Water was too precious to waste on nonessential tasks. “That’s a good thing.”

“It does not feel good,” Shiner admitted. “It feels distressing. Like I should do something about it. It is a feeling that demands action, but there is no action I can process that will eliminate the feeling. How do you get rid of it?”

“You don’t,” LaFrance said from his place on the cave floor. “You just learn to live with it. You decide what really bothers you and what doesn’t and then you move on.”

“Is that not a self-deception?” Shiner asked. “Humans may be able to be trained and taught this way of living, but I am not a human. I cannot escape the facts of the events. They are there, stored, always accessible.”

“Then close them off,” LaFrance moaned. “Set ups some firewall or whatever.”

“OC,” Campbell scolded. “Don’t teach him that.”

“It is alright, Engineer Campbell,” Shiner said. “I would not do that. That would be another self-deception.”

“More enlightened than me,” LaFrance smiled weakly. He picked up a hunk of what he assumed was dried meat and took a small bite. “But it sounds like you were justified. They attacked you. We needed supplies. You did what had to be done.”

“But it was not a fair dispute,” Shiner said as Campbell finished scraping. “I knew before approaching their camp that I would kill them if they acted poorly.”

“Then I guess they shouldn’t have acted poorly,” LaFrance grimaced as he chewed the meat. “What is this?”

Shiner turned to LaFrance. “I do not believe you want to know,” he said. “It is not human, though, so you have not resorted to cannibalism.”

“I’d gladly resort to cannibalism,” LaFrance said. “If this shit tasted better. You really aren’t going to tell me?”

“I really am not,” Shiner replied.

LaFrance shrugged and kept eating, forcing himself to chew and swallow the mystery meat.

***

“Any suggestions on how we contact the Americans?” Campbell asked as she sat down next to Shiner at the mouth of the cave, the sun’s light just fading from view.

“No,” Shiner said. “Not without being discovered.”

“You picking any broadcasts up?” Campbell asked. “I know you have your com on and are scanning all frequencies.”

“That is a valid assumption,” Shiner said. “And I have picked up some faint chatter. But it is not from the north. The shield is interfering with any communications coming from Canada.”

“Damn,” Campbell swore. “I was hoping we’d catch a break there.” They sat in silence as the sunset faded, faded, was gone. “What chatter are you picking up?”

Shiner didn’t respond for a while and when Campbell stood to go back into the cave he finally spoke, “The wasteland is about to be torn apart.”

“Hasn’t it already?”

“No,” Shiner said. “Not in the slightest.”

Twenty-One

“Monterey!” Blue shouted over the com. “You have to get a team to Monterey!”

The satellite connection had gotten progressively worse once Blue and the other Americans had discovered that the Council had aligned with the Three.

“Capreze?!” Blue yelled. “Did you get that?!”

“Yes!” Capreze said through the static. “What about the Canadian override?”

That part Blue wasn’t sure of. He knew where the override was, a Canadian outpost called Tango Charlie, but that was all he knew.

“Blue?” Capreze said. “What about the override?”

“Do you have a team that can get there?” Blue asked. “I have detailed maps of the tunnel structure that can get you through the shield.”

“Send the maps!” Capreze said before an ear piercing squelch of static nearly knocked Blue off his feet. “I’ll…team…assured.”

The connection was lost.

“What the fuck?” Blue yelled as he pounded his fist against the com control panel. “Someone tell me the maps made it through!”

“Possibly, sir,” a tech said. “But we have permanently lost the satellite uplink, so no way to know.”

“How permanent?” Blue asked as he started to pace the bridge. “Give me fucking facts!”

“Permanent, sir,” the tech repeated. “The jamming was the first step. I believe the satellite has actually been knocked from orbit and is burning in the upper atmosphere.”

“Then we were lucky to get that message through,” Blue said.

“That would be the bright side,” the tech said.

“Yes, it would,” Blue frowned. “The brighter side would be Capreze and his people figure out how to take down the shield. With those subs right on us we are sitting ducks. They won’t wait forever.”

“They want us to take the shield down,” Beth said as she stepped onto the bridge. “They can’t get to Monterey, Capreze can. He hits that switch and they don’t even bother with the override. The whole thing comes falling down and those subs are on us. They wipe us out and then land their forces and take the wasteland.”

“So much for the bright side,” Blue said as he stared out at the ocean waves and the land beyond them. So close, so out of reach. “So how do we stop the subs? Any thoughts?”

Beth smiled. “That’s why I’m here.”

***

“They’ll stay alive in there?” Blue asked as he watched the shock suit morph and Charlie stepped clear of the BC.

“It will,” Charlie said as he wiped the sweat form his eyes. “But I don’t know for how long. It gets very disorienting down there.”

“The depth is the issue,” Melissa said as she picked up Charlie’s shock suit from the ship’s deck and looked it over. “I can keep them from getting crushed by thickening the layers, using my mass warping genius-.”

“Eh-hem,” Beth coughed.

“-our mass warping genius,” Melissa said, sticking her tongue out at Beth briefly.

“Girls,” Blue sighed. “Get on with it.”

“Grumpy today, Colonel?” Melissa asked. “Trying to save the world getting you down?”

“Bretton, you are walking on thin fucking ice,” Blue snarled.

“They need to be able to come up on the subs by surprise from below,” Desmond said, stepping in to rescue the situation. “But to stay off their sonar they’ll need to dive deep and come up fast.”

“And to make the BC the correct density to handle the pressure and to make sure their oxygen levels remain stable,” Beth said. “The suit will have to be thicker. A lot thicker.”

“And that will trigger their sonar,” Melissa added. “And we are right back where we started.”

“Then I guess you need to keep working on it then don’t you?” Blue said, his patience completely exhausted. “Like right fucking now!”

Everyone present stood stock still and watched Blue huff off.

“Not his best day,” Charlie said as he stepped back into the shock suit. “Let’s add 10% more mass and see where that gets us.”

“Okay, but let me know the second you hit problems,” Beth said. “I’ll get you out of there fast.”

Charlie gave her the thumbs up as the suit wrapped about his body and engaged his jack points. He walked to the edge of the ship and stepped over into the slightly churning water below.

***

“Colonel?” Desmond called as he followed Blue down into the ship. “Sir? May I have a word?”

“A short word, Lt. Hale,” Blue said. “That’s all I have time for.”

“Everyone’s a little on edge right now,” Desmond started. “And I know that’s not your fault-.”

“Nice of you to point that out, Hale,” Blue snapped.

“-but maybe you could address everyone and get them up to speed?” Desmond finished. “Even with the news that we’ve lost com with the mainland, I think folks just need to know where we stand. Doesn’t have to be all flowers and rainbows. Just a briefing.”

Blue stared at Desmond for a very long, uncomfortable minute. “Fine,” Blue said finally. “You should do that.”

“But, sir-!”

“You suggested it, you brief everyone,” Blue said. “Tomorrow at 0630. Tonight I prep you.”

“Colonel, I don’t understand,” Desmond said. “I’m not second in command. I think they’d rather hear it from you.”

“You may not be officially second in command, Hale, but you are the person most of these folks look to,” Blue said. “You survived the Dead Zone. You are very close to Ghost Bretton and Vessel Laughlin. That makes you privy to info many are not.”

“I get that, but-.”

“Hale? Shut the fuck up and listen,” Blue ordered. “If I give the pep talk then there will be questions. I am not going to lie to anyone, but I’m also not going to be put in a situation where I do have to lie. You give the talk and if you don’t have the answer then no one will think you’re hiding it. Because I’m only going to tell you what you need to know.

“Ok. Fair enough, sir,” Desmond said. “Your quarters? What time, sir?”

“I’ll let you know,” Blue said as he turned and stalked off. “And just you. Keep that pain in my butt Bretton busy somewhere else.”

***

The seats were full well before the briefing was to start. Tech had set up a holocast so that all ships in the small American navy could be part of the briefing. Desmond had worried about security, but Blue had waved him off.

“The techs have it under control,” Blue had said.

Desmond cleared his throat and the room grew quiet instantly.

“Good morning, crew,” Desmond said. He had known what he would have liked to say, but his meeting with Blue had taken a different turn. He hoped he could pull it off. “I’m Lt. Desmond McHale.”