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As Walker and Alvin made their way back towards the cave mouth through the maze of tunnels, Walker turned the events of the last few days over in his mind, hoping to finally make sense of it all before their confrontation with the Machine. He found it easy to disconnect from the violent reality unfolding all about them and turn to introspection, whilst stumbling around in the blackness trying to find a way out. The darkness was calm and soothing now, rather than something to be feared. He knew the real danger would be up there, on top of the mountain, waiting for them to find their way to it.
He could hardly believe that up until a couple of days ago he had been so obsessed with the trivialities of a failing career and his mistaken view of what he assumed was a worthless life. Now that he had seen so much death and suffering up close, and now that he had witnessed real courage, (some of it even his own), he was a changed man. He told himself that if he ever got out of this nightmare alive, he would live the rest of his life without ever again wasting so much as a precious hour in complaint or regret. He would do this in honour of his dead friend Johnny and the way he had led his life. He would do it for himself. And if he was lucky, he might one day say how he learned and changed and even grew from these three days spent in hell.
It was dusk by the time they reached the mouth of the Machine’s cave and stepped out on to the cold mountainside to see the remains of the day sinking behind the rocks. The departing sun left a reddish orange halo around the summit like the dying embers of a fire. Alvin and Walker waited at the gaping maw of the cave’s entrance, as the older man scanned the surrounding terrain for signs of the Machine or the remaining two soldiers. It didn’t take him long to pick up the trail. Both of them could clearly hear the terrified screams of a man, coming from the mountain’s summit, some thirty or forty yards above their heads.
Alvin stared at the last ragged and rocky slope leading to the mountaintop with tired eyes. Then back at Walker.
“Let’s be clear about this,” he said. “You want to shoot that major. That’s fine. He deserves it. But we try to take down the Machine first.”
“I want that bastard,” said Walker, shaking his head.
“But we take down the Machine first. I can’t die knowing that crazy thing’s still running around torturing people. Not after I helped make it that way.”
“OK, but if things go bad, I’m shooting the major.”
“If things go bad you won’t have to. We’ll all be dead.”
*
Walker and Alvin picked their way up towards the summit between craggy outcrops of bare rock, as the bruised sky at their backs split and leaked yellows and reds across the horizon. Walker did his best to block out the jarring pain from his injured leg that had so plagued him on the main ascent, telling himself it was merely foreplay compared to what the Machine would do to him if he didn’t focus on the job in hand. They quickly reached the small plateau nestled at the top of the mountain despite their injuries and their exhaustion. There, they were greeted with a large, mostly flat ledge that stretched for about fifty feet, cutting deep into the top of the mountain and capping part of it. The very apex of the mountain rose another thirty feet above that, reaching its pinnacle in a jagged jumble of rocks and bulbous boulders worn smooth by the elements.
There were several figures up on the mini plateau at the mountaintop, all cast in the warm, reddish glow of the dying sun. Flashback Jackson still hung from his X-framed cross; weary and dehydrated, but somehow still alive, slowly writhing and moaning against his bonds in a state of delirium. Several feet from him, Walker saw the marine sergeant that drew down against them in the cave. There was no such danger from him now. In the short time since their last meeting, the soldier had lost both arms; the offending limbs presumably pulled out by the Machine and cast from the mountain, as they were nowhere to be seen. Now he stumbled across the plateau in a daze, looking like a living bust, with his fresh, bright meaty stumps squirting arterial arcs of red over the bare sandstone. The shocked soldier saw Walker and Alvin and grinned inanely at them. He giggled for a moment, then toppled forwards, smashing his face into the rock as he went down. The two men just watched the dying marine twitch and tremble as he lay face down, jetting the last of his lifeblood out against the ground until he was spent and still.
Walker and Alvin heard the choral hum of one of the HERFs being fired and looked up beyond the armless dead man, towards the summit, where Major Garris was facing off against the Machine, alone. Garris appeared to be trying to back the C19 up against the cluster of boulders that formed the highest point of the mountain and hold it there, attempting to consume the Machine’s protective field and shut it down with an EMP burst. The Machine, still dressed in the rags of Dr. Shelly’s stolen hide, seemed to be cowering back against the rocks. Walker wondered whether the HERF actually caused it pain as it drained its protective magnetic field, or if it was just aware of this erosion of its armour and therefore fearful of it.
The Machine slowly turned to look at Walker and Alvin with its torn mask, and the moment it saw them, its fear evaporated. It straightened up against the diffracted waves of force bombarding it and stared at Garris. Then it advanced on him. It strode towards him, unconcerned by the HERF’s effects, as the major struggled in vain to make the disruptor work faster. In seconds, the Machine was looming over its victim, more than a full foot taller than Garris. It stretched its hands out to take hold of him by both wrists and hauled him off his feet and into the air.
The Machine then began squeezing, and Garris started screaming.
Walker looked on in horror and fascination, as the Machine’s grip tightened around the Garris’s wrists and crushed them. Garris howled and dropped the HERF, but the Machine persisted. The man’s flesh gave against the enormous pressure being applied, lopping off both hands at their wrists. Garris flopped to the ground, screaming and curling into a foetal ball, trying to cradle his lost hands. The Machine stood over him, watching, taking time to savour its triumph. Finally, it leant forwards and picked up Garris’s severed right hand, with the HERF still in its grasp, and enveloped both in its own grip. It then squeezed again, crushing flesh and circuitry, until blood ran from its closed fist. It then dusted off the fragments of bone and plastic and pulps of flesh, scattering them over the sobbing major.
The Machine turned to face Walker and Alvin again, and just stared at them for what felt like the longest time. Then, with its eyes still on them, it slowly raised its hands to its head and tore what was left of Shelly’s sagging, ripped face away from its own mechanical features and dropped it to the ground. Two soulless black eyes stared out at them from the Machine’s smooth, scarlet, metallic face, as it denied its claim to human heritage, and waited for them to make their move.
“What now, Captain?” said Walker.
“I think it wants to play,” said Alvin.
“We don’t have a chance. It’s too strong, too fast.”
“Yeah, but it’s got a weakness.”
“What?”
“It’s insane.”
Alvin slipped the stolen HERF out from his combat jacket and handed it to Walker.
“What’s this for?” asked Walker.
“Try and get that one working too. I guess two will drain it faster than one.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Just be ready,” said Alvin, with a wink. “I taught it. I guess I should be the one to discipline it too.”