[Post-Apocalyptic Sci-Fi Webnovel] Machined Hearts: Lost Empire - Chapter 2: Resonance
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Knight’s heart raced. She had the willpower to face the mechanical horde lurking. Handling frigid temperatures took effort. Even the hunger didn’t bother her. But five eyes blinking independent of each other, staring through her made Knight’s stomach drop, sapped her strength. With reaction to the beast spinning around with a snap impossible, it jack-kicked her square in the chest. The carbon polymer plate carrier beneath her hoodie made the impact of slamming into the concrete pillar on the far side of the basement worse.
Slumped forward from the recoil, Knight pulled herself onto her stomach, gasping for air. Her ears rang. Legs tingled, weak. Copper taste filled her mouth. To slide upright, a struggle. The lieutenant clawed towards her gun, dropped from impact. A flightless hummingbird charging between the pillars, the wolf-lion darted over her head, bouncing off support columns. Keeping its momentum, pausing for two heartbeats, it stood on the near wall behind Knight. Its snout, nostrils bobbing, zipped between the group, sizing up the remaining standing crew. A miner charged, swinging his shovel at it, a resounding whiff broke the silence. The creature corkscrewed over him, straightening its hind parts mid-backflip. The elongated hind legs caught him square between the shoulders and sent him flying toward the center of the room like a sack of flour launched from a trebuchet.
Strength in Knight’s chest returned. She dragged herself across the floor to grab her weapon. Halfway there, a whir caught her attention and snatched her hand away. A stray pickax tumbled between her arm and the pistol. She looked over, finding the second digger disarmed and stumbling off-balance, the creature swinging the back half of its body at him. It landed on all fours and squared off with the staggered man. In one fluid twisting motion, a repeated pounce caught the miner’s center of mass, and threw him against the generator cage at the farthest corner of the room, the chain-link fence frame threatening to buckle by the impact. By the time he hit the ground flat, the beast completed several laps around the enormous sub-basement.
Continued desperate tugging put Knight within reach of her sidearm. She stretched, pushing and twisting to her limit, groaning as her tendons screamed sore. As fingertips touched stippled grip, it rattled away. An icy chill overwhelmed her nerves, the hairs on the back of her neck standing at full attention, deep vibration threatened her beating heart. Her mouth dried. Metal scratched against concrete, like a sedan colliding with a median barrier. Grease burning permeated the room.
“Get…” winded, Knight gathered strength to gasp a full breath. “… Get out!” She boomed, the cry evoking a shudder, casting a wild gaze toward those yet standing.
With a final resonating thud, the basement stilled for a moment. The lieutenant took a gulp of air and turned toward the vibration source. With a pinpoint stop across the space, the beast locked onto the metallic cacophony.
The doorway exploded. A chunk of concrete the size of her body crashed down, stopping within inches of Knight’s face. The rest of the room bathed in stone and gnarled lengths of iron. The creature spread the quills of its mane, arching its back, its dripping maw opened wide with a hiss as the cone of a spotlight shined on it through the thick dust.
Knight found herself two arms from the closest appendage. Long and lanky, the metal leg shimmered a dull blue from the refraction in the fog, six thin roller toes pointed square at her neck with a low hum. She struggled not to cough, burying her nose in her elbow. The whole machine undulated a deep hum. Through the dust, a set of red and green lasers scanned the room at human chest-level. The rays skimmed the creature’s forehead and the boxy mech lowered its stance, the quiet constant idling electrical motors traded for the scream of acceleration. The toe rollers spun and dug into the concrete floor, kicking up more flakes that bounced off Knight’s head.
Within her reach, one of two 25mm auto cannons attached to thick armatures descended, pointing at the creature as a crescendo of beeps rang out from the crab-drone. Rotary barrels spun next to her face, dousing the rest of the machine’s internals.
“Shit!” Knight shouted.
Hot bullet casings rained upon her, the machine opening fire. The muzzle boom coupled with the echo of the gunfire rattled her brain. She felt the whir from fragments of ricochet bouncing off the walls. More dust kicked up as the beast darted and ran on the ceiling. Shrapnel peeled chunks from the support beams. Knight wrapped her head in her arms and pulled her knees up to her chest, tucking her chin tight.
Through the gap in her elbows, she watched as the creature spiraled outward with a leap from above, its talons extended. It slammed the drone square in the main sensor array, landing square between the two weapon appendages. On impact, the mech bucked back, lifting four of its six legs up in the air. The beast clutched the machine’s face and swung its hind parts beneath the torso, latching on, jack-kicking like a cat playing with a ball of yarn.
Pinned between the collapsing drone and the floor, the monster continued to thrash at the machine as its momentum carried the two toward the destroyed entryway. With a single kick, the creature retracted its claws and launched the three-quarter-ton mech, creating another hole into the stairway just next to the former doorway. Then the room fell silent.
The strike of a shovel against the rubble pierced the stillness of the area. Footsteps kicked rocks. Still tucked closed, Knight felt a grip tightening around her collar. She looked up to find Pierre yanking on her jacket. With weak legs, she swept beneath her rising torso. She snatched her gun out from beneath the wreckage before her. As she rose, the lieutenant fought the desire to duck and tuck as a stray volley burst through the far hole in the wall. Another explosion followed with debris flying into the room sent both her and the lead miner prone with heads covered. Knight landed face-to-face with the second explorer. Dead.
“We got to get out of here.” Pierre huffed as he low-crawled out to peer through the gap.
Unable to look away from the explorer’s contorted lips, Knight locked on her compatriot’s face, held in place by an invisible fishing line. His bottom lip pulled down and to the side, touching his jawline, his mouth unhinged. The corpse’s back arched, and head tilted back against his spine, but his jaw reached his neck. His throat shriveled and filled with a thick layer of dust. Just above that was a withered tongue that warped around his front teeth, a rotten berry on a dried vine. Color escaped his eyes, his pupils nonexistent. His nose disappeared, exposing a crusty sinus cavity. The rest of his body showed no sign of bone. A human-sized paper doll.
A soft touch on her shoulder made her jolt. She threw her head over to find Pierre staring at her. “Lieutenant, we need to go. Now.” He muttered, his brow furrowed.
She gave a slow nod and stood, pulling him to his feet, glaring at the corpse as she helped the miner upright. He produced a sharp whistle and first explorer uncovered himself from the rubble, sprinting over to them. They rushed toward the double doors opposite the holes in the wall, ajar. Pierre stopped at the doorway and turned, evoking another shrill call out to the basement from his lips. A gentle sigh came from him as he panned his gaze across the area. He ushered Knight forward with a deep frown and a delicate shake of the head.
Around the corner, they found the whole stairway collapsed, a mountain of broken bricks and frozen snow in its place. Most of that part of the structure was missing, revealing the open sky. The sun was hugging the mountains.
“The other staircase is on the North side of the building,” Knight stared out at the gaping hole, “We need to get back. Now.”
The way through was nothing but a gap between massive chunks of concrete. As the lieutenant helped the miner over a knee-high rock, he paused and sat down, “I need a moment,” Pierre panted, shovel shaking despite holding it with both hands.
She motioned towards the explorer to go through, sitting next to Pierre and facing the way they came. Searching for words was hard labor. A cornucopia of thoughts tumbled through her head. Her ears rang. Her legs still shaking. Despite pain, she fought the temptation to return to the body. She could look at it more. How did it happen? Did he catch a new disease? Was she infected? Were they all now infected?
Pierre’s muttering snapped out of the Mobius Strip of thoughts that rolled on like an old film machine.
“What?” Knight cocked her head.
He cleared his throat. “Oh, just talking to my wife.”
Knight rotated in full, looked at the tower of debris in front of them, then cast her gaze toward Pierre. “You feeling alright?”
“Alright is relative, lieutenant. I haven’t punched out yet, if that’s what you’re getting at.” Pierre swallowed hard.
Her brow dipped for a moment, “So… who’re you talking to then?”
Pierre cleared his throat and straightened his winter coat, “…I’m speaking to my wife,” he flicked his tongue and stuck his chin out, “as I usually do when things get rough.”
She turned back, loosening her posture. Knight and her husband attended church with Pierre’s family. She knew the situation with his wife. Cancer. The slow kind.
“Does she have any advice for us right now?” Knight said with a gentle tone, hunching forward and folding her hands, elbows resting on her knees.
Pierre chuckled, followed by a hard swallow, “Oh, I’m sure if she were here, we’d be quarreling about something or other.”
Wind driving above them pushed a dusting of snow upon them, a long silence creeping in with the chill. The old miner wiped his face with his flannel sleeve, “Why ain’t they take me instead? It’s like they’re just torturing me.”
It was a wonder that Pierre still lived. He had an injured leg from the infantry. The same shrapnel that took his knee and eye. Lucky for him, the doctor saved his arm. He was a hero in the First Red Dragon war 30 years ago. Infantry. Held a linchpin position against an overwhelming force. Got pinned the Medal of the Republic, the highest honor in The Coalition. An honor Jace shared with him for what the captain did in the Second Red Dragon war.
“Maybe in my younger days I could have endured, but watching these kids die is eating away at me,” Pierre gripped his shovel with both hands, trembling.
Knight remembered when she found Pierre. In the early hours of The Fall, they opened the church as a shelter and had him monitor those seeing refuge. She was grateful Pierre survived.
“More and more people aren’t waking up,” Knight tapped her toes, “between the cold, the hunger, the machines…” She sighed, “…I don’t blame them for surrendering.”
There was another lengthy quiet.
“I want to believe we’ll get through this.” Knight said.
Pierre looked over his shoulder.
“It’s easy to fall into despair. I do too, you’ve seen it. There has to be a reason we’re not dead yet. We’re here, there’s a plan. There has to be.” Knight said.
“When we were at Hill 374…” Pierre began.
A sudden burning pain in Knight’s arm distracted her. She threw her opposite hand up her sleeve and hiked it to her shoulder. The agony from the cloth dragging on her skin was unbearable, like jabbing an array of syringes in and pulling it upwards. She wanted to vomit. Three shallow scratches. She shook her head, trying to regain her composure. Panic evokes imaginary symptoms. The mech slung enough 25mm in that room to kill an entire battalion. Maybe a ricochet injury. Though her clothing remained unmarred.
“You alright?” Pierre leaned to find her hunched and staring at her arm.
Knight sat up, rigid, “F- fine. Just a scratch.”
“Well, make sure you wrap it up. Don’t want it getting infected.” Pierre turned away.
Infected.
No, definitely not infected.
A thought washed over her. The image of the torn man. Her spine threatened to curl. Was she next?
She straightened her clothing, and buried her hand in her hoodie pocket, closing her shoulders tight. No. Not infected. No infection here. It’s just arm tingles. Neck pain. Like from training, from getting used to the Plug Injections. Not an infection, no.
“We ought to get moving. It won’t be long until it gets dark,” Pierre struggled to his feet.
Knight rolled over the rubble, stumbling forward and latching onto Pierre’s shoulder. With one and a half good legs between them, they limped through the collapsed hallway. The side of the structure gone from a near-miss, likely a toe-strike from traction loss. Upper levels of the stairway still held together. The gap stretched from ground level into the sub basements. Concrete flooring layered in a hard snow hid treacherous steps. With a warm inner wall and brutal winter gusts, patches of ice lay in wait for the beleaguered two. The lieutenant pinned herself against the remaining wall and they moved forward with care.
After surviving slipping and collapsing, the two hobbled to the far end, finding the expedition volunteer dangling his legs over the ledge, bobbing his legs, staring off into the distance.
“It’s time to head back, son,” Pierre said with a grunt, sizing up the gap, “Did you check up top?”
He nodded.
“Good. Now check it again,” Knight put a hand over her arm.
The explorer rolled his eyes and disappeared as he stood and tip-toed up the steps. The building kept an eerie quiet. Waiting was an unbearable eternity. Knight and Pierre passed glances before leaning over and looking up the staircase. The first set of steps destroyed, no rubble. Remnants, a jagged lip of stone hanging from two corners of the room. The metal pipe railing torn and balled in the far corner. A moment later he returned, descending with conscientious feet. He laid prone on the edge of the broken landing, offering his hand. Without so much as a look, Pierre pushed Knight forward. “go on then.”
Knight muscled up with help from the explorer. The building rattled. An explosion echoed from the deep. She scurried and both of them lay flat and ready to pull the old miner to them. A massive icicle snapped and smashed into the rubble behind Pierre, startling him. He turned and traced the origin. His eyes widened and as fast as his bad leg and shovel could carry him, he backtracked, throwing himself to the ground and tucking. Knight followed his gaze. An enormous piece of structure dangled from the corner of the marred wall. Pierre crossed the threshold, marked by a shadow, when the chunk shifted. The building groaned, metal scraped against stone. Ground shaking, the debris crashed, blocking the way back.
She called out to him through the rubble, climbing on top, trying to peer through the gaps.
“I’m fine.” Pierre shouted back.
“We’ll get you through!” Knight tugged at the rubble, making no progress.
“Just go, I’ll make my way. We’ll meet in the lobby,” Pierre said.
Another groan from inside the building rang out. Knight continued to yank at the debris with little effect.
“I said get out of here!” Pierre hollered. The clank of his shovel echoed from under the pile.
Knight clenched her teeth at the sight of massive chunks of steel and concrete layering the stairwell. She pursed her lips and looked at the explorer, “climb!”
As she stood, Knight felt shooting pains rocketing from her spine to her toes. Her leg locked straight, agony surged from her hip, then dulled to numb. After stumbling and falling onto the next flight of stairs, she hobbled up a few steps before the volunteer ran and ducked under her arm and they ascended with a distinct lack of haste. By the time they reached the top, she gasped for air and sweat poured out of her.
They had two options to get back: the double doors and the maintenance tunnel. She felt light-headed and her vision blurred. Darkness lingered, through the dizziness, she wrangled her thoughts. Drones fit through the ground floor main hallways, and the shortest way out. She didn’t know if enough daylight remained to take the backside passageways. Still out of breath, she raised a lazy hand towards the exit when it burst open, the wolf-lion tumbling into the stairway. It swung hind legs around, about-face. With a single leg, it kicked them both through the closed passageway door as it spun.
A blast of machine gun fire followed the beast, ricochets bouncing throughout the stairwell. The mech exploded through the doors, destroying it and sending debris flying out of the building. It ceased firing and turned to track the thing as it ascended up the broken staircase, burrowing its claws into the concrete walls and bounding from surface-to-surface. It aligned and continued dumping bullets at the monster.
After losing its target, the machine raised one side of its body and tapped its legs against the wall. Knight flicked her eyebrows up at the explorer and motioned to exit with her chin. The mech began slamming its rollers into the concrete, causing the whole stairwell to groan. With a second jab, the crab limbs pierced the structure, and it lifted the other four feet off the ground, wagging its guns upwards, the ammunition belts smashing into its exoskeleton as it pivoted. The two slid on their backs into the maintenance shaft. As the door clicked closed behind them, a barrage of gunfire bore a hole into the metal, the ricochets taking out the ceiling-mounted lights in the maintenance tunnel. A roar echoed.
Knight drew her pistol to the ready. Her arms shook, expecting the machine to burst through the doorway. The crumbling building drowned out auto cannon fire. And then, stillness. The only light came from the water tanks and digital monitors still running. Chain-link fence at the hall’s end separated a longer section lined with pipes and conduit. Dripping liquid rang out, slow and constant in the distance. She stopped focusing on the door and lowered her aim.
Under her forearm, the gashes glowed a faint emerald through her clothing. She recoiled, losing her grip on her gun, close to dropping it in a rush to pull bandages from a pouch on her hip. A gasp escaped her.
“Lieutenant, are you alright?” The explorer asked.
“I’m fine!” She mustered the will to catch her breath. “I’m fine.” Knight’s hands shook as she pulled tight on the cloth strips she wrapped around her arm. “I… I caught my hand on the door is all.” The dressing threatened to cut off circulation. “Go clear the hall.”
“Yes, lieutenant.” The explorer said as he rose.
She tensed her fist as she looked at her wound. It was getting hot. The gauze was burning her. As she flexed, each clench tore the bandage more.
“No sign of anything up ahead.” The volunteer said. Knight shuddered and snapped her attention toward him.
She reached out to grab onto the wall and hoisted herself to her feet, leg still locked in place, but the pain was much worse. With a lone step, she stumbled forward. The explorer caught her and swept under her shoulder. Knight put weight against the concrete.
They rounded the corner into the fenced-in area and pushed farther into the maintenance halls. More narrow walkways and thick steel piping. The deeper they went, the hotter it became. Knight was desperate to find the stairs. They had to be only one story below ground level. The more they traveled, the sweatier she grew. It took more and more for her to push forward. It was sweltering.
“I- I need to stop for a second,” Knight panted.
The explorer set her against the wall and her legs gave out. The volunteer slipped on ice as he stepped back, grabbing for and holding onto a pipe for stability. She sat there slumped over, concentrating on her breathing.
“What should I do?” He asked.
“Go…” Knight gripped her injury, struggling to catch her breath, “…find the stairs out.”
The explorer hesitated for a moment. He looked her over, his brows raised and eyes wide, before disappearing deeper into the hall.
Ripping her clothes off wouldn’t be enough to get cool. Her innards were boiling. The sweat on her body long evaporated and her throat filled with sand. Blinking was a painful labor, like there were shards of glass behind her eyelids.
“Mom?” A little girl called out to her.
Knight closed her eyes. Her brain must have been melting. There was no way.
A cheerful giggle perked her lids open. Bouncy blond curls were the first thing to catch her eye. Knight wanted to cry, but no tears flowed. Death alongside the hallucination of her daughter, a mercy. She was in her choir dress, her daughter’s favorite.
“I tried to get to you. Please believe me.” Knight said.
The girl smiled and bowed her head for a moment, placing a gold heart pendant in her mother’s hand.
Knight doubted it was real, despite being cool to the touch. Her daughter pressed the latch, opening it to the picture of Knight, her husband, and Sarah together in the park. It was a birthday present. She caressed the image with her thumb. Her daughter reached over and snapped it shut, drawing blood as she pinched Knight’s finger.
“Come find me.” Her daughter whispered. She turned and bolted farther into the tunnel.
Knight shouted for Sarah.
She summoned the strength left in her to turn herself over upon her knees. Struggle came from pulling herself up using the piping. She threw one foot forward with a grunt. Her breaths were shallow and rapid, her vision blurred.
Starting her crawling ascent on the first few steps toward the next hallway segment, she heard a rumble.
“Yes, mommy, this way!” Sarah’s voice called.
Her legs, numb. Her arms filled with thunderous shakes from her shoulder. Despite this, her pace quickened. Each limp hammered hard against the concrete. Her hands sank into the structure.
The wolf-lion burst through the wall beside her, taking up the hallway, and began growling.
“Do not follow!” The beast said with a growl.
With it in arm’s reach, Knight raised her wounded arm and swung it wide across her body. The creature yelped from the impact and tumbled sideways, rolling through the hole to the lobby.
“Get out of my way!” Knight grit her teeth. Every inch of her skin felt as if thousands of needles jabbed her.
It wagged off the blow. Its quills shuddered as it roared, taking a few steps away, “You don’t know what you’re doing! Turn back!”
Knight trudged forward. She figured it wasn’t far. She could hear her daughter. They’d be together soon. It grew easier to move her legs. The wall was much friendlier to grip, like caressing warm beach sand.
Thinking about finding Sarah brought more kind thoughts. Maybe there were more New Canterbury survivors. Maybe that bunker was overkill, they could all go back to the city. Everything would return to normal. Knight looked at her wound. It scabbed in a gem-shaped emerald shape. Sarah’s favorite color, green.
The wolf-lion continued to bark and whine as he trailed her, moving deeper into the maintenance tunnel.
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