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Alvin, Walker and Johnny retreated to the relative safety of the saloon and watched the wind tear through the street outside, whipping up the sand and dirt into a frenzied storm. The gales came quickly and violently, battering the tired wooden structures of Folly so that they rattled and groaned and threatened to collapse. Walker remained close to the dirt encrusted windows, staring out at the seething mass of sand that roared down Main Street, but it was impossible to see, despite the blazing inferno across the street. The sandstorm was so thick and fast that he could barely make out Tyson’s bulk just beyond the walkway, even though moments before it had been a gleaming, imposing statue beneath the moonlight. It was difficult to hear anything above the howling wind and the bumps and creaks of the shifting building as it gradually failed around them. Nonetheless Walker tried to remain alert. He knew that something else was out there in the storm.
Something that would soon be coming.
“That fire’s going to be useless in this,” said Johnny. “I don’t know how good that thing’s sensors are, but I doubt it’ll be able to see it through the storm.”
“I don’t know,” said Alvin. “I’ve seen it pinpoint camouflaged targets in the desert from a couple of miles away in training.”
“Maybe the storm will help us,” said Walker, turning away from a rattling window.
“How so?” said Johnny.
“Well, it’s cover for Marlowe and the rest, isn’t it? If the Machine breaks out of the facility and finds itself in the middle of the storm, surely it’ll wait it out or...”
“Or...?”
“Or if it wants blood so badly, it’ll come into town looking for us.”
“Right,” said Johnny frowning. “Great.”
*
It walked through the gales, ignoring the forced air pressure against its chest and the grating bite of sand whipping at its stolen hide, protected by its own toughened surface beneath. It pushed on towards town, imagining all the delicious things it would do to the transgressors there. It could have run, it could have charged down to the town from its birthplace, but it didn’t want to. It wanted to take its time, it wanted to savour its revenge. As much as it needed these nightmares out of its head, it enjoyed the purging process and relished its acts of judgement as it cleansed itself. The Fathers were only half their original number now, and they themselves had ended The Great Father’s torment, denying the Machine its own right to revenge, as well as its chance to unlock the Great Father’s secrets. If it was to punish The Fathers for this, and of course it would, it would need to enjoy every last moment of this punishment, for soon, they too would be gone. Their deaths might cleanse its mind, but they would also spell the end of its dark pleasures. If the purge was successful, it suspected that reloading clean sanity into its AI would mean forfeiting the games these men had taught it. Games it had grown to love, to need. One last ecstatic orgy of violence would have to be its final memory from this beautiful age of madness.
It raised its head towards the blinding storm, unable to see the buildings that lay ahead, or the approaching figures, yet sensing them nonetheless. Sensing them and their weapons, anticipating their clumsy tactics. These were the ones made in its creator’s image, yet found lacking by that same creator.
The inferiors.
It would have the last of its fun with the remaining Fathers at length, but these machines, these it could afford to dispatch quickly. In fact, the more it thought about it, it decided it must take these inferior aggressors quickly.
It was a matter of honour.
*
Walker heard the distant gunfire and hobbled towards the window. He pressed himself against the glass, eager to see the clash between the machines.
“Better move away from there,” said Alvin, checking his pistol.
“I can’t see anything, but it sounds close,” said Walker.
“All the more reason to stay back.”
Walker moved to the side of the window frame and continued to peer into the raging storm outside. He felt the heat of Alvin’s disapproving stare at his back and flashed the old man a nonchalant look.
“Hey, so I catch a stray bullet,” he said. “I’d say that’s better than getting skinned or crucified.”
Alvin sighed and moved forwards to the other side of the same window frame. He stared through the whirlwind of sand and dust tearing against the glass.
“Can’t beat them, join them, eh?” said Johnny, limping forwards, one hand holding his aching, strapped ribs, the other carrying an assault rifle. He took up a spot by the next window, leaning against the wall there. “Might as well settle in and enjoy the show.”
More sporadic bursts of gunfire competed against the raging storm to be heard, each exchange sounding a little closer than the last. Walker and the others stared deep into the maelstrom, straining to see some sign of the Wardogs or the Machine hunting them.
“Sounds like your boys aren’t doing too well,” said Johnny, all trace of a smile now gone from his lips.
Another brief crackle of gunfire broke above the screaming wind, sounding alarmingly close.
“Look,” said Alvin, pointing through the window.
Out in the centre of the street, amidst the grainy haze of whirling sand, Walker could just make out the outlines of two figures backing together. From the way they held their rifles Walker could tell they were Wardogs and that they were closing in on each other, back-to-back in a defensive position, covering both ends of the street.
“Is that all that’s left?” said Johnny, his previous bravado giving way to his nerves. “We’re down to two already?”
Walker looked at his friend and saw him backing away from the window, raising his rifle. The weapon shook in his trembling hands. Then something pulled Walker’s eyes back to the glass. At first, he wasn’t sure what. The two Wardogs outside had stopped a couple of feet from each other, still facing outwards, ready for an attack, but there was nothing else visible out there against the storm. Then he recognized it. He tuned into that sound emanating from within the sandstorm, that dreadful, familiar noise bleeding out above the high winds. It was the furious buzzing of swarming insects on the warpath, and it was rising, like the high whine of a chainsaw as its metal teeth tore through something tough and unyielding.
“It’s here,” said Walker, his eyes wide and nervous.
Outside in the street, a shadowy figure dropped to the ground in the dead space between the two oblivious, retreating Wardogs. Walker flinched as he caught sight of the C19. Even though he could only make out the Machine’s vague silhouette against the storm, it was the Machine nonetheless. There was no mistaking its malevolent, spidery movements. The Machine advanced on one of the Wardogs, just as it turned and released a burst of rounds into the C19’s chest. A split second later, and the Machine was on it, wrenching the weapon from the Wardog’s hands and clamping an arm around the unfortunate automaton’s neck. The Machine squeezed then quickly pulled back and upwards, until the Wardog’s head popped free, its body flailing and collapsing in the sand. Walker then saw the Machine whirl around and turn the stolen weapon on the second Wardog, as it in turn took aim. The second Wardog fired at the Machine as it advanced. More useless rounds struck the Machine, dead centre in its chest, only to ricochet off into the storm. The Machine responded by raising its own stolen assault rifle and pushing it into the Wardog’s reflective faceplate at point-blank range. The Machine then unloaded the full clip. The Wardog shuddered and vibrated, as tracer fire flared and spat at its face, flashing against the surrounding storm like a distant lightning strike. The rounds rebounded off the Wardog’s chrome skull and flew off at different trajectories. Several stray rounds hit the window in front of Johnny, penetrating the glass, but not shattering it. Johnny stumbled back against the wall and sighed deeply.
“You OK?” shouted Walker.
Johnny looked at him with startled eyes and then nodded quickly, words still beyond his reach for now. When Walker turned his attention back to the events outside, he could see the Machine straddling the fallen Wardog as it writhed against the sand. The Machine then reached down and ripped out one of the Wardog’s arms as if it were breaking off a chicken leg. The Machine hovered over the Wardog, snatching again and again, until it had plucked out all of its enemy’s limbs, leaving just a mutilated head and mechanical torso wriggling about in the sand like a fat worm.
“Fuck...” said Johnny, peering around the edge of the window frame.
The Machine stood over its fallen adversary, watching its desperate attempts to escape. The Machine cocked its head, perhaps intrigued, as the limbless Wardog floundered like a fish in the dirt.
Perhaps it’s gloating, thought Walker.
Then the Machine raised a foot and stamped down hard, driving it straight through the Wardog’s chrome head. The C19 then slowly turned and looked directly at the frightened men pressed against the saloon’s window.
It began to advance on them.
“Run!” said Alvin, as he stumbled back from the window, firing through the glass at the approaching Machine, more out of instinct and fear, than any real belief that he might harm it. Walker froze, watching the Machine’s advance. As it emerged from the raging sandstorm, he could see that it was once again wearing Shelly’s stolen hide. The scientist’s skin was now ragged and gaping from combat and the effects of the storm. Large, exposed areas of flawless crimson alloy showed beneath looping ribbons of flailed skin that hung loose on the Machine’s form.
The approaching Machine seemed to focus its efforts on Alvin, making straight for him, ignoring Walker and Johnny. Walker saw Johnny struggling towards the bar for cover and decided to do the same. He silently backed up, slipping into the shadows, as Alvin retreated across the saloon, still firing the Beretta at the Machine. The Machine walked calmly towards the locked doors and through them, effortlessly snapping them off their hinges in its relentless pursuit of the old soldier. Alvin continued to blaze away with his sidearm until the pistol clicked dry. He looked up at the Machine, stunned, watching it draw nearer, neither faltering in its direction or its pace. He automatically backed up, his huge eyes still on his enemy, until he found himself trapped against the back wall of the saloon. Then the old man took a deep breath and straightened up, bracing himself for the inevitable.
Walker watched from the corner of the room as the Machine closed in on his friend. Something more impulse than courage finally compelled Walker to break out of his fear trance. He carefully pulled on the Titan gloves and display goggles, powered up the system, and began hobbling forwards, knocking over several chairs and a table at the far side of the bar. The Machine stopped in its tracks and turned to stare at Walker. Then the front of the saloon burst inwards as Tyson crashed through the wall there. Broken planks and smashed support beams flew across the bar, as the fifteen-foot-high Titan waded through the debris towards the C19, copying every move made by its human driver on the other side of the room. Walker tried to concentrate on the rolling view through the heads-up display, as the mighty armoured soldier took huge jerky strides towards the C19. Walker stared into the Machine’s cruel, black eyes and saw it cock its head, as if surprised by the presence of its redundant predecessor. Then Walker threw the best right hook he could muster. Fortunately, Alvin saw what was coming and ducked away to the side, as Tyson’s enormous fist swung towards the C19 and made contact with a huge clang, driving the Machine back through the rear wall of the bar in a cloud of dust.
Alvin staggered to his feet and stumbled over the top of the bar counter to join Johnny behind it, as Walker forged ahead, directing Tyson to press the attack. Howling, violent winds tore in through the space where the rear wall had once been and swirled about the smashed saloon. Walker scanned the rising dust and wreckage at the back of the building, but could see nothing.
Then there was movement.
Walker and Tyson took a step back as the Machine slowly rose from beneath a pile of splintered wood and broken furniture. He watched it stare back at him through Tyson’s eyes and wondered if it knew that he was controlling the psychedelic giant. Then he pushed all such thoughts from his mind and struck the Machine again. Walker raised his hands together above his head and then watched Tyson bring both fists crashing down on the C19, hammering his opponent, driving it through the snapping floorboards like an oversized nail.
Walker didn’t wait to see if he’d managed to damage the Machine, he pushed forwards, making Tyson stride through the remains of the rear wall, demolishing it totally, and stood over the hole in the floor made by his previous blow. Walker then tried to make Tyson reach beneath the floorboards and haul the C19 out for another pasting before it could recover. But he couldn’t. The hole in the ground in front of Tyson ran too deep and Walker couldn’t make the robot stretch its arms down the twenty feet necessary, because his own hands were stopped by the intact floorboards in front of him. As a result, the robot in his charge could only repeat a series of shallow scoops, unable to fully reach down into the hole and claim its prize.
Walker tilted his head so that Tyson stared down into the black hole in the floor, worried where the Machine might be lurking. As the luminance level in Tyson’s “camera eyes” automatically lifted and rendered the image bright enough to see, Walker saw he was staring down into a large cellar that had been dug out beneath the bar.
“Shit,” he said.
Not only could he not see the Machine, he realized he had to be very careful where he made Tyson tread now. Considering the size and bulk of the war machine, it was a miracle that it hadn’t already crashed down through the remaining floorboards and into the cellar under its own dense weight. He was beginning to understand why the Titan class had been scrapped in favour of something lighter and more manoeuvrable.
He stared down deeper into the darkened hole, trying to guess how far under the saloon it ran, and where Tyson might safely step to backtrack and take the battle outside. As Tyson peered over the edge, Walker detected a slight movement down below in the shadows. Before he could react, the Machine leapt up from the darkness, clawing at Tyson’s cameras like a demon escaping the pit. The C19 struck Tyson in the face and held on, riding the mighty robot’s chest as it was knocked backwards and then over, crashing down through the floorboards at its rear to disappear into the dark cellar below.
Walker caught flashes of blurred red in the heads-up display, attacking through the rising dust, as the Machine went to work on Tyson. He lashed out, making the large robot flail against his enemy, but the Machine was too fast. Walker and Tyson looked down to see its own chest being ripped open and the inner workings rabidly torn out. Walker slipped the goggles from his head and let them fall to the floor, as he drew nearer to the precipice. He tried to power down the remote gauntlets, but when he looked they were already lifeless, the red power lights having died along with Tyson. Walker took the gloves off and let them drop to the floor. He stood at the edge of the crater made by his champion and peered inside. Down in the cellar, Tyson lay inert on a bed of splintered barrels, his gutted chest open and the cavity beneath empty. The C19 emerged from the shadows like a victorious gladiator. It tossed a jumble of circuit boards and wiring to one side as it stared up at Walker defiantly.
Walker saw the Machine crouch and flex its mechanical muscles. He instinctively backed away, then rushed for cover behind the bar on the other side of the room. But the C19 sprang up out of the hole and landed directly in front of him, blocking his path. It stared at him for a moment, cocking its head to one side again, as if curious. Walker remained perfectly still, trying to imagine what the Machine was thinking. As he watched it, once again he was convinced the Machine was heaving, as if it were a man out of breath or consumed by rage. And when he looked into the Machine’s black eyes, themselves boring though his skull, he was convinced it was definitely the later.
“Mcready,” said the Machine, in a shrill, flat, mechanical voice. “Mcready.”
Alvin slowly rose from behind the bar, looking dishevelled and defeated. Having registered his presence, the Machine then appeared to ignore Alvin. It turned to look in Johnny’s direction when he staggered to his feet next to the old man.
“Name,” it said coldly.
“Better tell it your name,” whispered Walker.
“John,” said Johnny, trying not to look at the ruined, dead man’s face that had addressed him. “John Clark,”
“Clark,” it repeated.
The Machine stared at him for a moment, scanning him with those black orbs that sat deep within the hollow of Shelly’s now sagging eye sockets. Then it smoothly turned its ghastly features towards Walker.
“Walker,” it said.
Walker didn’t reply. He just waited and felt sweat crawl down his back.
“Mcready, Walker, Clark,” it said. Then after a moment it took a few steps back and rotated, carefully examining the rest of the wrecked saloon. “Mcready, Walker, Clark.”
The Machine looked at them and then began to walk slowly in a small, tight circle, its eyes roaming the remains of the bar again.
“Marlowe,” it said. “Marlowe, Blane, West, Thorpe.”
It stopped dead, its head facing away from Walker, though he could tell it was still “staring” at them with a hundred other senses.
“Marlowe, Blane, West, Thorpe,” it repeated.
“Nobody say a word,” whispered Alvin.
The Machine slowly turned and advanced on the old man, looming over him, the rotten skin stretched across its bullet-torn chest only inches from his face. Alvin held his composure, concentrating his unflinching gaze on Shelly’s decaying hide, as rivulets of sweat ran down the sides of his face.
The Machine did nothing. It merely waited. Then its head suddenly shot around to the right, before slowing to finish the turn. Walker wondered what it was doing, then he remembered the tiny cameras all over Folly and out in the desert, and the way they slowly panned back and forth; the Machine’s electronic eyes keeping watch over its domain. The Machine’s panning head abruptly stopped after completing a quarter turn and then began gliding back again in the opposite direction.
“West,” said the Machine.
It broke out of its panning movement and turned its whole body to face the three men.
“Wait,” it said without emotion, despite the fact it seemed to be trembling with rage beneath its stolen skin. Then it suddenly turned on its heels and marched out through the gaping, exposed front of the saloon, disappearing back into the storm outside.
Alvin slumped against the bar with relief. He wiped away a thick sheen of sweat from his face. Walker sighed too and felt his own body sag as if his bones were made of lead.
“It’s found them, hasn’t it?” he said. “It’s tracking them with the cameras.”
Alvin rubbed his bleary eyes.
“Maybe.”
“What can we do?”
The old man looked at him and just shrugged. Johnny Clark stared at both of them, his features now pale and drawn. For a moment all that could be heard was the sound of the wind whistling into the bar where the wall had once stood.
“Looks like the storm’s dying down,” said Johnny.
“No,” said Alvin. “It’s just beginning.”