Chapter 44 Ronin Vs. The Mechanist John had been running for hours, keeping a steady pace over rough ground while he tried desperately to focus. He knew that Wallace had been taken because of him. John finally had Rosie and now Wallace had paid for it. Every time he caught a glimpse of her, John thought of the home coming he wanted for them both. Now he'd put her at risk as well. Rosie stopped at the treeline. John knelt and started looking through binoculars that Rosie didn’t need, apparently. The trees and soft ground gave way to open concrete, like a moat surrounding the old factory. Long and wide, red brick with a flat roof, the simple shape hiding its purpose. In what seemed like a cruel joke, the steel lettering on the wall read ‘RobCo Industries.’ The pre-war company that earned Robco his moniker. “It’s a bot factory.” John kept the worry from his voice. “I know.” Rosie sounded excited and that made him angry. “Comms are jammed, probably running the signal through the structure.” “Wait here, if Wallace comes out, take him home and I’ll catch up.” John saw Rosie disagree but didn’t give her time to argue. “If he’s not here in ten minutes, go in through the roof and find him.” John stopped as Rosie nodded. “Wallace is smart, he’ll know help is coming so watch out for a sign.” John took the light machine gun from his back and gripped it tight. “He’ll ask you something, well lots of things probably. Show him the pipboy and tell him,” John tried to think of something that they shared. “Tell him the night we met, his Buddy gave me a Nuka Cola.” John smiled hoping Wallace would too when he thought about the walking fridge bot. “I…” John didn’t say what he wanted to, he said what he needed to hear. “Good hunting.” John felt Rosie’s eyes on him as he walked out into the open. Husks of cars were stacked two and three high around the tall folding metal doors. The company name just visible on the dull green, and a large, red M precisely painted over it. Everything had a mechanical neatness. Even the sections cut from the cars and the steel over the windows. On a metal table, placed deliberately, sat an object John half recognised. A single wire running from it along the ground. It started to make a ringing noise and John picked up the handset. Sharp screeches, clicks and beeps spewed from the pre-war phone that hurt his ear. So much that he pulled it away for a moment. “Where’s Wallace?!” John growled down the phone. He heard a hiss and crackling, then the voice with a modulated and cold tone. “You do not ask the questions here. I do.” “Send the kid out.” John heard slow laughter, eerily repeating. “You do not give commands here. I do.” “Let me speak to him, once I know he’s ok I’ll put my guns down.” The looped laughter came again. “We both know you don’t need guns, not with the device.” “You can fucking have it, just give me Wallace.” John froze as he heard pointless struggle and a small voice that hid the fear well. “John?” Wallace’s voice brought relief and fury in the same instant. “Third floo—” The line went dead. A double stack of seemingly scrap cars shifted, screeching up and open, then splitting in two. Parts of the scrap cars now served as armour on the sides of a Sentry bot. The single red eye illuminated, the thick arms clunked into place and began to hum. John let rip with a burst from his machine gun before darting for cover. The lumbering bot returned fire in a chaotic fashion, the impacts tearing chunks from the ground and stacked cars alike. It didn’t roll on wheels, it scraped and dragged with slow steps on tripod legs. By now it had reached the corner and started a turn. John took a loose lump of metal and tossed it in the opposite direction. It pinged and clanged, drawing the scrap covered bot so John could see the back. The extra weight of the cars made it slow, the haphazard design made it work harder, and that gave him an idea. A burst of fire to the rear of the bot kept it moving, as the returned fire did for John. He led the bot through the stacked cars, firing, feinting, and repeating. He began to see that the Sentry bot didn’t fire bullets, but hunks of scrap metal, propelled with magnets. Some of them the size of a cap, others big enough to sever limbs. John led the bot round, making it work to chase him. He fired off the last bullets in the belt and switched to the armour piercing magazines instead. The light machine gun would eat through these quickly, but John had little good cover remaining. A burst of well placed shots penetrated at the rear leg, pinging around inside till oil poured out. The extra strain needed to turn finally overheated the scrap covered bot. The car parts that hid the bot dropped from the back, steam venting and fusion core exposed. The fear of charging the bot head on brought the nightmare, dreamlike state out. The steam hung like clouds as John drew the multi-tool, the hammerhead Wallace designed attached. He swung it under the hot clouds in a flat curve, smashing the fusion core housing and knocking the bot’s only power source free. John saw the red light start to dim and the heat registered across his face. He fell and scrambled away as time snapped back, drawing his pistol in cover and silence. John peered round the stacked cars, seeing the Sentry bot slumped and dormant. He let out a deep sigh and found a moment of calm. “That was just a taste.” John turned and aimed, hearing the cold and modulated voice, convinced someone spoke in his ear. Nothing?!. He twisted again to aim at thin air as the repetitive laugh sounded right in his ear. “What is this?!” John tried to keep the fear from his voice. “You are not worthy of the device.” John shut his eyes in a moment of pure fear. He had connected the pipboy to the eyebot shaped trap, then he'd answered the phone. Now the voice had access. “You stole a kid from his family. What are you worth?” John played for time as he found the nearest door. “Fool. The Mechanist knows all, sees all, hears all. And soon, will control all.” A door sprang open and John entered, trying to make sense of a name he’d read in a comic book, now brought to a terrifying reality. Inside the factory buzzed with activity. Crudely built bots worked along a broken conveyor belt. Assembling more badly built bots, carrying parts between breaks in the line. When the machine reached the end of the belt, they started walking and joined the others. John reasoned that although he could hear the voice, whoever spoke couldn’t see him, or simply didn’t care. The bots paid him no attention as they created flawed copies of each other. John pushed it from his mind, making for the stairs at the rear. The second floor held long rooms on either side, with gangways between them. Bots that were little more than arms and an eye sparked and soldered components, flicking them to the next one along. Something with arms, legs, and a head, sat bolt upright from a table. A red light powering up. John fired and shattered the exposed head. The not quite right Assaultron kept coming, a round eye from another bot gripped in it’s tripled pronged claw. John sidestepped a swing as the bot span right round from the waist. He struck at the knee with the bladed edge on the hammerhead, smashing gears and toppling the bot into a clattering crash. It took half a magazine to the back before it stayed down. John made it to the next long room, and two more bots sat bolt upright. The first metal skeleton started spinning right away. No head or eyes, chains for arms that whipped and tore at the air. John took a step back, unclipped the light machine gun, and hurled it at the whirling bot. Chains wrapped tight and the added weight shook the bot in half. Pistol rounds did nothing to slow the second, armoured bot. No head, round metal eyes embedded in the torso, front and back. Arms span and the waist rotated, attacking in a way that a person couldn’t. Claws slashed at leather sleeves, glancing of the chainmail as John felt himself being directed to the next room. He ducked under a swipe and sensed the kick coming before it struck. John gabbed the leg under his arm and span, hurling the bot into the door. The impact rang out as the bot lost balance. He opened the sliding door, shoved the bot under it, and closed it again. The hydraulics groaned and strained, then cut the bot in half. John hammered at the chains wrapped around his machine gun, trying to think. The attacking bot had already improved from one room to the next, the challenge increasing. Like the kill house, John thought, remembering his training. He freed the weapon and reloaded, moving with it levelled at the door, already hearing activity behind it. Cheat, he thought, and turned from the door. “What are you doing!” The cold voice lost some of it’s composure, and John knew he had the right idea. Glass smashed as John started to cheat the deadly game he’d been forced into. He cleared the sharp points from the bottom of the window, and used it to climb up. John dragged himself along girders that held the suspended ceiling, the noise covered by the flurry of activity below. The bots in the room started clawing at the tables and shelves, badly joining scrap into long poles they stabbed at the ceiling with. John didn’t allow himself to fear the tight space as he moved through it, dodging the occasional jab from below. He soon realised that the bots were attempting to drive him into some sort of wide lift. John pulled himself as far as he could before hinging up a panel from the ceiling and slipping through it. Outside of the long rooms he saw a staircase. Third floor. He made straight for it. At the top of the stairs he saw two of the sphere bodied, triple armed, Mr Handy bots hacked to pieces. A sign of Rosie’s passing. A metal handle with a rubber grip stuck out from the spilt metal. John wrenched the slightly curved handle free. An axe. A sharp edge on one side and a hook on the other. John wished he’d had it sooner, before wondering if Rosie got Wallace out. A burst gunfire zipped past, breaking the worried thoughts. John peaked from cover to see a pair of complete bots. Arms, legs, and heads, one reloading, one covering the other. They moved like he did, carbines levelled. The pair weren’t Assaultrons. The chest armour looked flat, the head smooth and without features. “Look upon my works.” The cold voice bragged in his ear, somehow. “Soon a thousand more will march forth.” John slipped into a room of dusty servers and reel to reel databanks. “All will bow before the might of The Mechanist!” John couldn’t believe what the voice seemed to have total conviction in. “You’re insane.” He knew that didn’t matter, not if the voice really could build a thousand of the featureless, humanoid machines. John heard the bots drawing in, then the repetitive laugh. The pair entered tactically, as he would have done. Sweeping and clearing the paths between the servers. John stayed ahead of them, just, trying to find an advantage in the room. With his own trap set, John bolted from cover and ran right between the bots. Bullets cracked behind him and the bots stopped before hitting each other. It confirmed what he suspected. John slipped his coat off, rattling it, luring the bots into a narrow space. He swung the axe down at an elbow joint, splitting the metal and catching the other arm with the hook on the way up. The clawed forearm broke free as John pulled the bot across his chest and fired from the hip. Muzzle flash lit up the identical bot as bullets tore into the smooth torso, unable to fire back at its counterpart. A swift kick and a few axe blows took down the armless bot. “What else you got?” John taunted the cold and unhinged voice, hoping to keep the attention on him. “You will see. Come.”