Chapter Forty-Six

Marek

Marek’s group makes good time underground after snatching their two captives from the apartment. He’s only had to hit Marco a couple of times to keep him in line, however, Valerie has been much more difficult to manage. The first time she screamed out loud, Brent almost got two of his fingers bitten off covering her mouth. They’ve had to gag her, but that’s only done so much. Since it’s requiring two of them to carry her the entire way, while she’s fighting them, they have to take short breaks when they can.

Like clockwork, as soon as they start moving again, she puts up another big fight. When Brent switches off with his partner and tries to pack her over his shoulder, she squirms hard and head butts him right in the ear. In return, he punches her straight in the mouth as hard as he can. The sight of how much blood she’s dripping on the ground has quite an effect on her resolve. He’s still impressed with her though. She hasn’t whimpered even once, but she has only just started to cry now. The fear in her eyes makes him doubt everything they’re doing.

“Brent, I’ve seen enough. You take the old man, I’ll handle her. You’re making this worse than it has to be.”

Brent stops in his tracks and dumps Valerie off his shoulder, carelessly letting her head hit the ground. “What was that? Are you fucking telling me how we do this? You don’t know shit little boy.”

The last thing in the world Marek’s going to do is take any shit from any of the guys about his age. Calling him a boy is not something he’ll let slide, especially not from Brent, who’s a head shorter than he is.

“This is my run, my responsibility, and you are fucking it up.” He stands chest to chest with Brent, waiting for an excuse to put him in his place.

“You’re already gonna be in some deep shit for this. I’ll probably get to whip you like a dog when we get back.”

He shoves Marco over to Brent and then picks Valerie up off the ground by hooking his arm in under hers. The other two are not happy when he cuts the tape wrapped around her ankles. They brace to run after her when she kicks the shit out of him, but she doesn’t. He takes the time to look her in the face and level with her.

“Valerie, look at me. I am not fucking around here. You know you’re in trouble right now, but do not make it any worse. I’ll give you back to Brent if you piss me off.” She quickly shakes her head no, and then yes.

Though he and his group has successfully acquired two of their targets, there’s a huge uproar about it when they get to camp. They were not supposed to make a move on the apartment for at least another couple days, to make sure they knew what they were getting themselves into, but he did it tonight anyway. When all of the robots left the apartment at the same time, the two scientists were left with their asses in the wind. They had to take the opportunity when it came. It was much safer to do it while the group was separated.

After explaining himself, there’s no more fuss made about his choice, except from Brent, who only wants to get him in trouble. Despite his being new to the group, there’s still strong respect between all of the members. Whether they are senior or not, there are no idiots among them, and that fact is respected. He has played his part and now the rest of the group has to do theirs.

Even though they haven’t captured any of the assassin robots yet, they’ve made swift progress in their mission. They have two high-value Werker employees who will be telling them everything they want to know. Kidnap and ransom is not something that’s taken lightly by any of the homeless communities, but this will be justified once they get damning evidence against the robot industry.

After convening for a few minutes, the senior members of the group return from the back rooms to deliberate on the next course of action. Everyone’s voices are low and serious.

“Marek, since you’re the most… educated… in robotics, we have agreed that you’ll be the best one to ask the questions of our guests.” When the white-bearded man turns his eyes to Brent, his brows turn down. “Since he’s already set the tone, Brent will be in charge of making sure they answer your questions.”

The snotty look Brent is giving him just about makes him sick to his stomach. “I don’t think that’ll be necessary, but I’ll certainly call on him if he’s needed.”

“Marek, I have refrained from reminding you of your rookie status, or calling it that for the matter out of respect, but do not assume that our recommendations are options for you to choose from at your whim.”

“I understand.” To make his unsaid point to Brent, he casually pulls the front of his duster open, exposing the handle of his knife.

Marco pleads to them and tries to shove himself between her and Brent when he comes for her. “You don’t need her. I’ll answer anything you ask, just leave her alone!”

Brent immediately backhands Marco across the face and then boots him to the ground. “Don’t you speak another fucking word! You will only speak when I command you to! Now… let me explain how this is going to go since you wanna be stupid.” He looks around at everyone. “We will in fact question Marco first since he seems to be so kind as to have volunteered. When he is done answering, we will ask her the very same questions.” He drops down to his haunches, grabs Valerie by her jaw, and squeezes until it clearly hurts her. While he glares into her eyes, he speaks to Marco. “If she answers anything differently than you, she will scream, and you will hear it.”

Brent grabs Marco’s wrists, where they are taped together behind his back and yanks them up. Marco is not strong enough or able to get up off the ground that quickly, so his shoulders get cranked back hard. Everyone watching cringes at the sound of his shoulders when they pop. He is in so much pain, he can hardly breathe.

Marek is already beginning to wish he wasn’t involved in any of it. The disdain he thought he had for the two is no longer there to back up what they’re doing to them. Together, he and Brent take Marco into the barren concrete room that the elders came from and set him down in a folding steel chair. He sits by the door, on a box of supplies, while Brent shifts about, making Marco as nervous as he can.

He sets a small audio recorder on Marco’s lap and asks his first question. “Marco Greco, are you and Valerie Morgan the ones that built the robot that killed the four men out in the farm country a month ago?”

Marco hangs his head low. “I couldn’t have imagined spending my last morning alive with a pair of rat, cock sucking, shit-wads like you.”

With his elbows on his knees, Marek buries his face in his hands and lets out an upset sigh. He wishes he could just get the hell out of there right now. He can’t look up when he hears the slap of Brent’s fist against Marco’s flesh.

By the minute, Aaron is getting more and more worked up about everything that’s been happening. Mikel is the one that sparked all of this chaos into a nightmare, but it appears that the rats have been onto their scent from much earlier on. People often forget that it’s not just cameras that are watching everything in Welan City.

The four of them are already at the edge of the industrial sector of town when Mikel’s phone lights up on the dash again. He can’t hear the person on the other end of the line over the drone of the engine but he can at least still hear what Mikel is saying.

“Under that huge old iron bridge?”

“Yeah, right.”

“No, I won’t name you.”

“Trust me, a lot fewer people are going to get hurt so long as you help.”

“Get fucked.”

He already knows the place Mikel is talking about. It’s where all the derelicts convene and deal their shit. Everyone knows the place is for rats only, and they do not welcome outsiders. It’s a real-life black market and anyone that’s not a well-known derelict gets thrown out on their asses, or worse. It’s their way of keeping informants, undercover agents, or anyone else, out of their way of life. Mikel lied about fewer people getting hurt. This is not going to turn out well at all.

Luckily, the four of them are already less than a mile out from the spot. Mikel knew to head into rat territory one way or another. Now that he knows where he’s going, he puts the pedal to the floor and shouts over the noise. “We’ll be looking for a specific trader named Migo. He’s one of the local area’s leaders and he should know what’s going on.”

“Were gonna have to try and stay out of sight as best as we can. These folks are real skittish. The second they notice us, everyone’ll begin to scatter like…rats.”

“Yeah, good luck with that Aaron, we’d probably be noticed less if we drove this truck in there. So, this Migo is an average height older man with the top of his graying head being bald, like a friar. He’s gonna look like most any other trader out there, but he’s supposed to have a wide yellow stripe on his hood.

“Whatever you do, do not ask for him by name. The others will alert him much more quickly that way. We just need to be quiet and swift.”

Both Five and Arma are completely lost as to what anything he and Mikel are saying. Sometimes they still forget that they only have pretty limited experience out in the city so he does his best to give them something to go on.

“Rats are just people, but they refuse to follow the rules everyone else does. Kind of like you, Arma. People will usually tell you that these people are stupid, but that’s not always true. These people are dangerous.”

While Arma is trying to decide if she disapproves of his comment, Five is more concerned. “How do we know who’s a rat or not?”

“They don’t dress like the rest of us. You’ll be able to tell. They, I don’t know, look like they crawled out of a dumpster?”

Arma’s eyes go wide at what could also be considered another back-handed comment at her if taken in the wrong context. “What’s a trader look like?

“Oh, right. Traders usually wear a big long heavy cloak, with a hood on it. Kind of like a poncho thing made out of an old tarp.”

“Five, you and I’ll go together. Arma, you and Mikel will be together. I think that makes for fair teams by size. We’ll need to protect each other.”

Arma is not in the least bit excited about the pairings and is already absent mindedly stretching out the collar of her tank top. She’s been hanging her hand from it in annoyance. Mikel pulls off the road into a small parking lot a block away from the bridge.

The structure is so big, they can see it over all the other buildings in the area. It spans a huge cleft in the cliff rocks over the river before it reaches the dam. The old bridge was made two wars ago when steel was overabundant and everything seemed to be being made in record sizes. The bridge had been made so heavily it’s reported to have survived a direct nuclear strike. The entire thing is made of giant cast structures, spanning a hundred feet above the land and water. It’s wide enough to make a shelter for hundreds of small camps on the rocks and slope beneath it.

Mikel recalls the old pictures of its construction down at the tavern. The cast pieces of steel were so big, they could only send them down the river on a barge one at a time. The first of the truly giant robots were used to assemble it. He’s always wished he had grown up during that time, so he could’ve seen such things. He shakes his head when he thinks about how those robots were made for such greatness but were then used for the ultimate horror in the end.

Before getting out of the truck, they notice a few other people milling about nearby. They only look like some teenagers, up to no good, but that’s all it might take to make things difficult for them. Before they get out of the tuck, they agree to take opposite sides of the bridge and quickly work their way down toward the canal. Together, they all hop out of the truck and start walking in the direction of the bridge. It takes all of two seconds for them to get noticed.

“Holy fuck, dude, run!” Two of the teenagers that were standing across the parking lot from them are pointing at Arma.

Aaron looks at her and puts his hand to his face. “Arma.” She is standing there with the big polished metal knife in her hand, hanging down at her side.

Mikel snaps his fingers in the direction of the youngsters running away. “Both of you, grab those little punks!”

The two of them are so fast, they are upon the kids before they even make it out of the parking lot. Neither he nor Mikel can make out what Arma says to them when she and Five snatch them by their jackets, but they stop flailing real quick and don’t even scream for help.

When he and Mikel look at one another, all they can do is shrug in wonder. When the girls get back to the truck, they shove the two boys down on their knees in front of him. Arma grabs her’s by the head with both hands and forces him to look up at Aaron.

“Now, I’m not goin’ to have her pop your little heads off your necks, so long as you keep your mouths shut and don’t piss me off. We are looking for a specific trader, and we know he’s bound to be under the bridge. How might one find such a man there?”

The two quickly nod their heads before speaking. “Traders are usually old guys, so probably around the fire. Yeah, traders hang out around the fire mostly. If its drugs you’re looking for, you’ll have to go farther in, down towards the canal.”

Mikel pushes the teenagers over onto the ground with his boot, making them start to whimper in panic. “You little shits had better run faster this time, and you’d better not stop for a couple of miles either.” He points in the opposite direction of the bridge, to ensure they don’t cause them any more trouble.

Aaron looks at Five and Arma and lets out a deep breath. “Now that I think about it, Five, Arma, I think you two should probably wait in the truck this time. Four of us are just going to attract too much attention.”

Five gives Arma a scornful look as if she’s spoiled all the fun. Arma rolls her eyes right back at her. Five is always being a little bossy with her so she pokes fun back at her by resting her forearm on the top of her head. Five swats her arm away, embarrassed. She’s often jealous of Arma’s size and strength over hers.

Being normally dressed, both he and Mikel start drawing a lot of attention to themselves as soon as they get close to the bridge. When people start to stir around them, they’re forced to pick up their pace. Quite a few rats have even begun to parallel them wherever they walk. As soon as they spot the fire pit up ahead of them, they hustle towards it, getting the drop on the crowd around it. When someone shouts “intruders”, people start pouring over one another to escape.

He’s able to spot the yellow stripe on Migo’s hood pretty quickly and darts for him. The man is facing away from them, still unaware of what’s going on. Before the man can turn around and see what’s happening, he snatches hold of him. He spins the old man around, grabs all the slack in his cloak, and yanks it tight over his head like a sack. Migo screams, but it’s muffled by his cloak. The poor man has no choice but to hold on for dear life while he drags him across the ground. He looks at Mikel and smirks “Easy peasy.”

The crowd behind them is not as cowed as they were expecting. There are shouts and people starting to circle. “Intruders! Stop them!”

He kicks one of the nearby fire barrels as hard as he can, sending sparks and burning trash everywhere. The barrel helps clear a path for them to start running. He picks Migo up like a child and gets a move on.

The first person ballsy enough to try stopping them is made an example out of. The rowdy looking guy rushes in front of them swinging a length of two-by-four at his face. He holds up his forearm to block it without ever flinching. With a dull “thunk” the post stops dead, right across his arm as if he’d hardly noticed it. Even Mikel is just as alarmed as the other guy.

With the same arm, he snatches the man by the top of his hair and starts dragging him along too, wailing and screaming. He waits till the guy has a good enough hold on his wrist with both hands and then swings him up off the ground in front of himself. He tosses the guy out in front, sending him careening into a group of others that have also gathered up junk to hit them. No one is stupid enough to get too close after that, but then they all start gathering things to throw, forcing him and Mikel to run as hard as they can.

When they reach the truck, there are at least two dozen rats surrounding it, trapping Five and Arma inside. They’re all shouting and rocking the truck back and forth. Five has her finger pointed in Arma’s face, obviously telling her to not kill anyone. One of the thugs climbs into the truck bed and then there is the sound of one of the cab windows getting smashed.

Absolute rage, as he has never felt in his entire life lurches up in him. He throws Migo over to Mikel and grabs the first person within arm’s reach of him. He picks the man up over his head and hurls him through the air towards the truck. “Runner! Hit those fuckers with your claws!” He’s so glad he added foul language to its database right now.

The man in the back of the truck gets hammered hard and is slung over the top of the cab, spilling his blood down the window and across the hood. His limp body flops down into the crowd, knocking a couple of others down with him. A big vacant zone immediately forms around Aaron, so Mikel takes advantage of it and starts pulling Migo towards the truck behind him.

“Arma, you can come out now, and bring that knife.” Five looks out at him as if he’s making a huge mistake. She reaches out after Arma, pleading with her one last time.

Arma launches a man to the ground with her door when she kicks it open, and then leaps onto him with the knife over her head. They all cringe following each dull “clank” of the knife as she swats person after person with it. Only seconds have passed by the time everyone is fleeing for their lives as quickly as they came. After every last rat has vanished into the night, there are still six men lying on the ground motionless at her feet. The one that got hit by Runner and most of the others seem to have gotten packed off by the crowd.

When he scrambles over to Arma’s side of the truck, he notices the strange and complete lack of blood that should be everywhere. She didn’t kill any of them but instead had conked each of them over the head with the flat side of the knife. A few of them have distinct scrape marks from the saw teeth, but no one seems to be too badly injured.

Mikel belts out a laugh at the sight of them and pats her on the side of her shoulder. “Arma, you did the right thing, you know.”

Aaron feels like he might pass out with the amount of rage that’s built up inside of him. All he can think to do is round up all the people on the ground and try waking them up with his fists. Still, he fights to hide what is happening to him. He knows something has gone wrong and he needs to get hold of himself. If Five and Arma have learned to handle themselves, it’s not as impossible as it feels.

“It was a very special thing you did Arma, giving them a second chance like that. If the tables ever turn, I hope these might remember that you had compassion for them.”

Five, who is still in the cab, peeks out at them while sweeping the glass off the rear bench seat. “I don’t think they’re gonna remember any of this.”

Aaron picks Migo up off the ground and stuffs him into the back of the cab next to Five, where he’ll be between her and Arma. Once they’re all in the cab, Mikel rallies the truck back out onto the road and puts some distance between them and the scene they’ve just made. They stop in a dark alley and turn the headlights off, but keep the engine running. When Migo’s cloak becomes un-scrunched on its own and starts to fall back down, he very slowly reaches up and keeps it up over his face himself. He knows better than to get a glimpse of them.

Aaron doesn’t look at him, but just sits back and thinks of Valerie before he asks his questions. His voice is only as calm as he can make it. “Migo, you’d better answer my questions right, or I am gonna start crushing your bones.”

“What if I don’t know!” Migo is visibly scared and the inflection in his voice is of true dread.

Mikel lightly smacks him in the front of the face, making him squeak in surprise. He starts to slink down onto the floorboards, dodging his head this way and that, trying to squeeze himself into a tight space. Arma wraps her long slender fingers damn near around his neck, pulls him back upright on the bench seat, and holds him firmly still.

“It’s been said that you know the whereabouts of the group that took our folks tonight.” There’s a long pause before he answers. He knows that they know he knows, and there’s nothing he can say otherwise. Arma tightens her grip and starts to force his neck sideways.

“Ok! OK! Please, I’m begging you, don’t…” He starts wailing and spilling his guts to them.

“Shit, um, ok, yes, a group was assigned to find out what happened out in the country, after there was mention of maybe a robot having done it. Those people out in the country are our folk too, so we cared. Um, and then there were rumors about a couple of new robots around. Just a couple, but they were… different. They move different, looked different, and act different. This group, they connected the dots.”

“You know a lot Migo. Tell us where this group is.”

There’s another long pause, but this time, Arma lets loose of his neck a little. “We will honor our word and let you go if you tell us. All we want is our friends back. The sooner the better. If they get hurt, you all get hurt.”

Remembering that the group already has the device they got from Alexis, he figures it’s the best chance they all have either way. Marek’s group is already armed and they’re the only ones that’ll have a chance. It’s either them or a whole lot more others.

“The guys you’re looking for are camped out in the old industrial park, in an old steel mill I think. That’s all I know, that’s all ANYONE knows. They’re real careful and secretive. I swear that’s all I know!”

Arma does not sound like she is joking and it is hard to tell if she is serious, or bluffing the man. “Not good enough, not even close. Let's go and get some more of his friends.”

Aaron lets Migo bawl for a moment before gently patting him on the shoulder. “I think I know the place, but we’re taking you with us.”

While Mikel turns the headlights back on and pulls out onto the street, he takes the cloak and hood off Migo’s head. The place he’s talking about is only about a quarter-mile away. The huge mill has a busy looking infrastructure and is old enough to have been there since the dawn of the city. Most of it is still active, but there are bound to be parts that are not in use.

Everything at the mill is made of heavy steel, concrete, and has pretty much all been turned the same dark rusty brown color. The entire place smells of hot oil and steel slag. As old as it looks, nearly any of it could be a rat haven. Though all the huge buildings in the area are dingy, most of the place is still fairly well lit. Even inside the truck, they can hear the heavy rumble and shrill whirring of machinery inside.

The mill site is a very busy complex of buildings, pipes, catwalks, oil silos, and stairwells leading every which way. Mikel points out that they could be sneaking in through any of the seldom-used doors, vents, or even windows in the area. If they don’t have more to go on, they’re probably fucked.

“This is some bullshit Migo, you think we’re some stupid sheltered-ass townies, huh?” He swats him in the face again.

Migo immediately cries out and squirms about until Arma has to clamp down on his neck again. “I’m telling you the truth! Please god! There’s no way these guys would ever share their location! It’s the best I could do, I swear!”

Aaron opens his door about an inch before looking back at Arma for a second. “Arma, you and I’ll search the entire goddamn place, if that’s what it takes. Same as last time, but keep me in sight this time, eh.” He puts a hand on Migo’s shoulder. “If it turns out we’re too late, god help your people, Migo, ‘cause I’ll tear them all the fuck apart.” He hops out and pokes his head back in through the broken window. “Mikel, you go ahead and ditch this fucking loser somewhere a ways off and then come back and hang tight.”

“Alright, but take your monster tiger thing with you, in case you need to hit the bricks all of a sudden.” As soon as Mikel feels Runner’s weight come out of the back, he takes off down the road.

After they cross the street, Aaron has Runner crouch to the ground and crawl under a heavy grate-steel stairwell that is jutting out the side of the nearest building. The thing is too noisy to sneak around for the moment, so he’ll have it wait behind. He looks Arma up and down, noticing how well she blends into the area. The black exercise shorts she has on are fine, but the white tank top has got to go.

He puts his hands on her shoulders and gently pushes her backward into the shadow under the stairwell, watching her almost completely disappear. As if reading his mind, she sticks the big knife up under her shirt and slices the front of it all the way open. Her bare chest heaves as she rolls her shoulders back, shrugging the top off her back. All he can see now is a few glints of light reflecting off her skin and her brief indulgent smile.

“They can fuckin’ try and kill me this time.”

“What are we gonna do if we find Valerie and Marco? Do we get them first?”

“If I find them here, I don’t know, I’m gonna be pretty upset, Arma. I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep it together. You know what I mean?” He wonders if she does. He hopes she does, but then he also hopes she doesn’t. When she smiles back at him, he understands it’s the latter.

Every time he moves ahead, she waits for him before slipping into the next patch of darkness. Together they head counter-clockwise through the outside perimeter of buildings. Every so often, he pauses for a minute, to watch the area and look for anything that might be a good place for derelicts to move in and out of. After only ten minutes of moving slowly and quietly, he’s already starting to lose his composure. Every minute that goes by is a minute that these creeps could be hurting Valerie. His body is beginning to tense up from all the anger again. He feels like a steel cable pulled way too tight, ready to snap and rip apart the first thing it touches.

Every time he looks back for Arma, he cannot find her, but he can somehow feel that she’s there. Whenever she knows that he’s looking for her, she’ll just barely poke the tip of her knife out into the light, and then smile. He can’t help but smile too. It helps keep him cool. It takes him a bit of logical thinking to keep himself in check, to make sure that he’s not just some psychopathic murdering machine that doesn’t know the difference. All he needs to do is think of Valerie, and everything can be justified. He loves her.