Mechanical Maniacs: Life After Life

By Hadrian (Hardman) Howell

CHAPTER 18: Collapse

The metal of the ship gave away easily under a Hard Press, and as soon as I was upright again, I found myself inside the ship. Admittedly, it was upside down, which was a little disconcerting, but I've been in worse places.

"So, what way do we go? Sparkchan asked as she climbed down through the hole I'd punched into Cityman's back.

"If I had ta guess, I'd say we look fer another big batch o' Macrobots an' trace 'em back ta the ammunition," I said as Geminiman followed her lead.

"And get attacked by that antibody system?" Geminiman asked incredulously. "No, I don't think so."

"What, ya sacred?"

"No, I'd just rather not deal with it unless we have to." He took a look around. "The fuel will probably be stored near wherever the engine is-"

"Wow, Gem, ya figure that one out all on yer own?"

"- and all we have to do is set that off and go home."

I opened my mouth to crack another deragatory joke (because revenge is sometimes so so sweet) right before the floor exploded into angry cables. My comment instead mutated into a mangled swearword as I was forced to move before the things wrapped around my ankles.

All three of us moved, and we all completely failed to notice what the Macrobots were actually doing. As another swarm of tendrils pierced the floor behind us, the floor groaned with the sudden lack of support and the wieght of the bodies upon (specifically mine). Before any of us fully comprehended what was about to happen, the floor (or cieling or something) gave away and we fell into the cavernously hollowed out interior of the ship. I hit something alive, or at the very least writhing, on the way down, bouncing off it and hitting a pile of rubble that must have fallen into the area through a hole high above my head.

I groaned and stood up, looking around. I didn't see Geminiman or Sparkchan, and I swore under my breath. "Guys? Where'd ya go?" I tried over the team comm. Only now did I notice the column of worm-like Macrobots over my head. I must have hit it on the way down.

"The floor is pulsing. This is very disturbing," Geminiman replied in my head. He and Sparkchan must still have been up on the column. The two of them stood up and quickly joined me down underneath the mass of Macrobots.

"Okay, now what?" I asked for what felt like the dozenth time.

"I say we follow the column back to wherever it's getting the ammo from," Geminiman said. "Cook off the ammo to slow him down, and then work on setting him on fire."

We all began to walk, picking our way around the scattered rubble, and soon we found ourselves in a smaller area, where the various sections of the column branched out. We picked one to follow and soon we found ourselves in a room full of pipes that were covered in Macrobots.

"Okay, why aren't we getting attacked?" Geminiman asked.

"Shush," I told him. "Do NOT tempt fate."

"Guys, does this look like a fuel line to you?" Sparkchan spoke up from a different part of the room.

I shrugged and punched it with a Hard Knuckle. The pipe snapped and a thin, yellowish liquid poured out. "Does that look like fuel?"

"YES," Geminiman said, reaching up and hitting me on the back of the head. "What the hell were you THINKING?"

"What? We wanna blow him up anyway."

"With us still IN here?"

"Well I'LL be fine... Oh," I said. It hadn't occured to me that just setting fire to Cityman wouldn't be enough. Gemini and Spark were goners if they got caught in here when everything blew. I'd be fine, probably, but the word 'incineration' would be all-too-easily applied to them.

"Okay then," I said, moving carefully over to the wall and punching it a few times until it gave way. "We'll jus' find you two a quick exit an' then do this an' go home."

"Will it even work here?' Geminiman asked. "I thought we'd have to find an actual tank of fuel, not just a pipeline."

"Oh, no," Sparkchan said. "These ships use a very watered down version of liquid plasma for fuel. It conducts electricity even better than it combusts. In theory, if I hit this part with enough electricity, the electrical current will travel up and down the pipe faster than the fuel will combust, meaning I can cause a whole huge chunk of the ship to explode at once."

"O' course, we gotta hope like hell it'll be enough ta take this thin' out, cause th' two o' ya are gonna be on yer way out th' monster b'fore yer in too much danger from th' explosion." I kept punching through walls as I spoke, finally breaking through to some manner of daylight. "THERE we go," I said in a satisfied tone.

"Oh....kay," Geminiman said. "So, um, let's do this, then?" I walked back toward them and gave Sparkchan a nod. She put one slender hand into the crack of the pipe and concentrated. Her hair began to stand on end as she built up and electrical charge that would probably power a whole city block for a day, and she let the surge loose into the fuel line.

She leapt backwards toward me as green flame rocketed out of the fuel line, and I grabbed both her and Gemini by the shoulders, spun on me heel and took hasty aim, firing both Hard Knuckles toward the gap I'm made in Cityman's side. They flew out into the open air about the time my world became force, noise, fire, and lots and lots of explosions.

To walk you through exactly how effective this turned out to be, I'll have to give you a rough report compiled by one of the MPD's top forensics guys a few weeks later. The electricity traveled long the fuel lines as planned, lighting it all up like a volcano as it did so. The electricity found its way to both the tank and the engine, flash-combusting all of the plasma-fuel inside both and tearing a very LARGE section of Cityman's flank out.

At the same time, the remains of the surge that Sparkchan had literally forced into the fuel lines traveled through the metal of the ship and into the other ship that made up part of Cityman's torso. Enough of the voltage made it through to THAT ship's fuel lines to start a merry fire, which burned very hot and very fast. Add to that the fact that Macrobots apparently burn like sawdust, and Cityman's sollective innards burst into flames mere seconds after Sparkchan and Geminiman literally flew out his side.

As the Macrobots burned and died, and whole chunks of Cityman exploded and collapsed, gravity lost its meaning for me as the multi-story monster tumbled to the ground, a lifeless colletion of wrecks. Somewhere in the cacophony of tearing metal and screaming architecture, my hands came back to me. After that, I remember a whole lot of black.

CHAPTER ERROR: Found

I admit it. After all this time, I still think about her.

I guess it's one of the indulgences of my old age. Every once in a while, when I'm falling asleep, or knocked unconscious (and alarmingly common occurance, actually), I think back to all of the times, both good and bad, I shared with her.

It's kind of silly, really. I mean, it's not like they two of us were in love or something crazy like that, but we'd been through a lot together. More like comerades in arms than anything else. We understood each other, where our decisions and opinions came from, and why we did things the way we did things. In fact, the more I think about it, the more she was, toward the end, and extension of myself. Some other half of me that saw things differently. A brighter outlook.

I needed that, back in the good old days, battling my demons in the bottles and trying so hard to keep myself from spiralling out of control. A quiet, approving voice that held me in such high regard that it didn't matter what I did wrong, she always believed I could turn it around. And with her help, I usually did.

Come to think of it, I STILL need that. I need it now more than ever.

But she's not here anymore. And I have a stunning opportunity to reflect on that as I stand in front of the gravestone.

The sun's gone down, and there's a chill in the air. Autumn. With it's colorful wiles. She loved this time of year. I always prefered the stormy Spring, but Autumn was her time. The bar would get redecorated in oranges and browns, both natural and not, only weeks before the pumpkin carving began. My bar's freezer was always so damn full of pumpkin puree this time of year.

That said, her pumpkin pies drew in a LOT of customers.

But really, I don't know why I still come out here every year. The past is the past, and while it deserves my respect and all dues should be paid, but I also know, rationally, that if I just stopped making the trek up this damn hill, I could finally move on and start truly enjoying the family I have now.

But even then... probably not. I did kind of force the issue of naming our daughter after her. Probably a bad move in hindsight. That's what the therapist says, at least.

I make my way back to my Jeep as the sun dips below the horizon and the temperature drops almost instantly. I still have that ratty old trenchcoat with the blood stains on the inside. My wife keeps insisting I throw the damn thing away, but I like it. Keeps me warm and reminds me of harder times. Reminds me how good I have it now.

My own little utopia.

I note with a little agitation that my son still hasn't raked the yard when I get home. His mother is goign to be upset. Well, maybe she will be. Maybe I can coax the kid into doing it with me before we lose the last vestiges of daylight. Of course, I probably can, as long as I promise he can jump in the leaf pile when we're done.

Sigh. Six-year-olds. Whaddaya gonna do?

I go into the house and check on the little one. She's still fast asleep, right where I left her. I can hear the rapid-fire taps on the keyboard in our office. The wife's still working. Good, that means all I need to do is pry junior away from whatever the hell game he's playing right now and get the raking done before she notices it's time for dinner.

So, yeah, my life's been reduced from grand battles between good and evil to menial chores. Suits me fine, so shut yer mouth.

Right after we finish raking, the kid convinces ME to jump into the leaf pile, and he throws a whole bunch of leaves on top of me, laughing the whole time, burying me in darkness...