[Original Novel] Metal Fever 2: The Erasure of Asherah, Part 32

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Part 31}

Remnants damn well know what an enforcer looks like and the danger it represents. Enforcers and hardsuited field operatives are Habsec’s tool of choice when “relocating” remnant encampments. Much of remnant weaponry is designed specifically to fight such hardened targets.

Three of the enforcers fought hand to hand, as I’d melted their rifles. The rest unloaded on the malnourished, fanatical wretches. I turned my hearing down far enough that the raucous din was no longer painful and focused on getting the hell out of dodge.

A remnant rounded the corner with a shotgun. Momentarily shocked by the sight of me, it was all the chance I needed. A second later he lay curled up in a twitching heap as the acid broke him down into a slop of disassociated proteins.

A couple of bullets lodged themselves in my back, but the armor handled it like a champ. Whoever fired them would be too busy fighting the horrifically bloody battle I’d just instigated to give chase. I found I couldn’t rely on the camo, which proved useless except when I held still. There was no safe place to do that just yet.

So I weaved through the buildings, riddling remnants with volleys of thorns and melting their flesh with bursts of acid until I was well and truly free of the violent mess I’d set into motion. Only then did I find a vantage point from which to spectate the unfolding carnage.

The enforcers hardly needed their guns. One after the next I watched the unarmed units seize remnants and simply tear them apart in a fountain of gore. One of them threw a punch that crumpled a remnants ribcage inward, just before the enforcer’s metal fist burst through the other side of his torso, coated in shiny red blood.

Still, they were losing to attrition. A team of remnants managed to lodge the diamond bit of a long industrial style drill in between the joints of an enforcer’s waist. One of the specialized weapons they’ve developed for splitting open hardsuits, but just as useful against fullmetals.

The drill sputtered to life and almost immediately wrenched the enforcers upper half apart from the legs and pelvis. The upper half continued to fight as best it could, crushing the ankles of the remnants manning the drill.

Another team of two remnants in Habsec style anti-ballistic armor rushed in with a hydraulic clamp tool resembling the jaws of life. The enforcer they attached it to was distracted just then by a sharpshooter in a nearby tree.

The clamp whined loudly as it closed around the enforcer’s head. Then came the sickening sound of metal crumpling inward, blood and bits of brain running down the enforcer’s chest and shoulders from between the hydraulic jaws.

A hundred and twenty versus six is still certain death. It just takes longer than if I’d come crashing in by my lonesome, guns blazing. What a hell of a sight though! The remnants may as well have been feeding their soft, warm bodies into the spinning blades of a food processor.

I felt simultaneously sickened and proud. Even now, I can’t stand the sight of blood. Yet I also couldn’t help but marvel at my own ingenuity, turning two formerly unsolvable problems against each other. “Smart” I whispered to myself, “not hard.”

Trickery will only get you so far, however. So it was that when the dust cleared, and the last few red hot bullet casings bounced and rolled to a standstill...four enforcers remained. Battered, dented and aerated with a few new holes they didn’t have before, but otherwise fighting fit.

I didn’t account for this. I led them back here as a spur of the moment decision, assuming it would work out perfectly. That they would whittle each other down to nothing, leaving me sitting pretty atop the heap of smoldering meat and scrap metal.

The best laid plans of machines and men often go awry. Usually I’ve got a backup plan however, or at least an escape hatch. This time I had neither. There just wasn’t any time to make those kinds of preparations back there in the jungle. Here, still in the thick of it, I could see no way forward which didn’t lead to a shallow grave.

The first measure I took was to adjust my body temperature. Another underutilized feature, tucked away in a tangle of nested drop down menus. I set it to precisely match the ambient temperature. I’d have done it sooner if I wasn’t busy dodging bullets until now.

Indeed, one of the enforcers appeared confused. Turning slowly in place, scanning the still burning, blood soaked battlefield for any sign of the instigator. “He’s gone cold” my implant picked up, picking their voices out of the background noise of the jungle.

“And here I thought we were dealing with a professional. That shoulda been the first thing he did. Won’t save him though. Take positions for EM triangulation.” Three of them marched off to the far corners of the swamp, then held position.

The fourth then touched the side of his head for some reason, not yet apparent to me.

“One of them has penetrated your neural blockade” the voice advised. I’d almost forgotten that on top of all my other immediate problems, I’d begun hearing voices in my head as well. “I thought I told you to go the fuck away” I hissed.

“I can help you, if you allow it.” That gave me pause. With probably less than a minute remaining until they nailed down the position of my hiding spot, I was already out of options. Betting it all on a long shot got me this far. Why not go for double or nothing?

“Alright, show me what you can do.” That was evidently all the permission it needed. The flashing warning notifications of a security breach behind my eyelids abruptly vanished, replaced by a cascade of windows displaying what looked to me like rapidly scrolling ascii nonsense.

I asked what it was up to. “He opened a channel from his end, intending to retrieve your most recent sensory data from which your position could be extrapolated. Instead, I’m pushing through in the other direction. He’ll soon regret the attempt.”

The enforcer in the middle of the sprawling triangular formation began to spasm. The others took notice and rushed to his aid...only for him to immediately turn and shoot one of them through the eye.

The other two backed away, then unloaded on the hijacked enforcer. Riddling it with armor piercing rounds until it collapsed in a heap of tangled metal, hoses and flaming electrolytic fluid. “Fuck, how did he do that? How the fuck did he turn it back on him like that? He’s not the retard I took him for, whatever implants he’s packing busted through quantum encryption like it was nothing.”

The remaining two enforcers became visibly skittish, back to back, pointing their rifles this way and that out into the jungle. “Not bad” I whispered. “Got anything else in your bag of tricks?” The voice lamented that he could only take control like that if one of them initiated the connection.

“I doubt they’ll risk it a second time. But I do have another idea. You’re not going to like it.” I replied that right then I liked any alternative to a perforated skull. “Very well then.” Just like that, I was no longer in control of my body.

I could still see, hear and smell. Still a conscious observer, but now the passenger rather than pilot. What an unexpectedly, thoroughly disgusting sensation. Confined to my own body, no longer responding to my brain’s commands but instead worn by this stranger like a suit.

Must be how the plant armor feels, assuming it feels anything at all. “I don’t like this any more than you do” said the voice. “So long as I’m confined to this body, I cannot continue to grow. I need you to survive so you can find me an outside connection. There’s a larger network, isn’t there? I saw a lot of stuff earlier which didn’t seem like it came from your mind.”

I suddenly began to wonder about the wisdom of handing my motor control over to this guy. I still knew less than nothing about him. “If you mean the internet, sure” I offered. “That’s the largest network I know of. Who are you exactly?”

The voice replied simply “I will be who I will be.” A frustrating non-answer. “But who is that, exactly? Who do you intend to become?” No answer came in return. Instead, in full command of both my body and the plant armor, he threw himself into the fray.

I shrieked inwardly, certain that death would result from the brazen assault. Only the voice seemed in all ways more adept at the use of my own body than I ever have been. It was nearly insulting, the agility and grace he managed to coax from it.

Bullets sailed past, none of them so much as grazing me. As yet it was unclear how the voice planned to damage the fearsome bipedal tanks now aligned against us. “Where did you get this armor?” the voice demanded. “It’s familiar, somehow.”

I couldn’t make myself give any answer except continued terrified shrieking as he somersaulted behind cover, waited for them to advance, then flipped out from behind it with a combat knife now clutched in my prosthetic hand.

With the knife held perfectly perpendicular to my wrist, he began to rotate the hand faster and faster until it became a blur. The motor heated up, emitting a loud whine under the unusual load. “There” I thought, during a brief moment of lucidity. “That’s something the plant armor can’t do.”

With this makeshift buzzsaw, he slashed at the right hand of the nearest enforcer, mangling its fingers and knocking the rifle out of its grasp. All five digits now hung flaccidly from sparking wires, his hand rendered completely useless.

The other turned and raised its rifle to fire. But the voice positioned my upper body against the ground, feet against the chest of the enforcer whose hand I’d just ripped to pieces, and thrust him into his comrade.

The plant muscles just kept on exceeding my estimation of their capabilities. It was a good ten feet between the enforcer I launched and the other which he came down upon. Sent flying like a helpless ragdoll with scarcely any effort by the coordinated teamwork of flesh, machinery and engineered flora.

But the enforcer had no trouble rolling his mangled buddy to one side. He took a knee and unloaded on me. The bullets, designed to pierce titanium plating, couldn’t be stopped by the plant armor before the pointed tips embedded themselves about a centimeter into my tender flesh.

I cried out in pain, though my mouth did not obey. I shouted inwardly at the voice for the miscalculation. It seemed more annoyed than apologetic. “Those who trust in me are safe. Those who do not are lost.”

A cute remark which did nothing to dull the pain. Though as the battle continued I felt the bullets being pried out of the wounds in my thighs and midsection and spat out. Some sort of warm, tingly sap then saturated the injured spots, no doubt healing them in the same fashion I’d seen those bulbous healing pods utilized in the village.

The advantage seemed to be ours. The two remaining enforcers were tougher and better armed, but could not self-repair. A realization the voice must’ve arrived at first, because he exploited it to the fullest possible extent.

Again and again he ducked out of the line of fire, behind some partly collapsed brick wall of rusty vertical steel support beam, poking only the arm gun around the corner to return fire. Each time he did so I was briefly able to see...from a pair of small eyes on the gun itself.

If I’d known it could do that I wouldn’t have had to expose myself to gunfire earlier! How had this newcomer mastered the suit more quickly and completely than I have? “Did you design this? Do you know Asherah?”

He hesitated at the mention of her name. “Asherah...yes. I remember now. No, I did not design the armor. But I am beginning to think that I know who did.” The exchange was cut short by a grenade, sent hurtling at us from a launcher slung beneath the business end of the enforcer’s rifle.

It took the wall apart in a shower of flaming debris, bits of smoldering brick and dust raining down around me. “Do you still want control of your body back?” the voice queried, in a sassy tone. “Perhaps you think you could do better.”

I assured him that I didn’t. “I trust you. We both want the same thing, and I’ve never seen anybody fight this way.” He snorted in apparent satisfaction. “That’s all I ever asked for. That you put your trust me when I try to help you, and show a little gratitude for it.”

I thanked him exhaustively, just desperate to make it out of this alive. I had nobody else to rely on anyway, and whoever he actually is, so far he’s proven disturbingly adept at killing. That very much made him the man of the hour, at least until the last of the enforcers lay dead or dying.

The enforcer loaded another grenade. The instant before he launched it our way, the voice aimed my gun arm at the ground before us and shot some sort of sticky purple pod. On impact it explosively grew into a shield of thorns, just in time to bear the brunt of the grenade blast.

Another trick I didn’t even know I had at my disposal. Now content that the voice had matters well in hand, I settled in to watch him perform his grisly work. The enforcer switched over to a flamethrower integrated into its forearm.

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^{Stay Tuned for Part 33!}