An armored truck drove across the desolate landscape. Rusty pieces of metal and jagged rocks protruding from the parched land scraped and raged against the dusty vehicle, but its wheels flattened them, letting the journey continue. Withered vines covering the gray sand turned to dust, and the passengers had jumped more than once in the transport containment when the driver drove over several cracks in the ground. Encasing their heads in helmets, the group agreed that the man must be having fun.
Their transport lacked outside cameras, but slits littered the metal wall, and Ratcatcher opened one of them, examining the outside. Yep, little more than dead creepers, farm ruins, and destroyed machinery. Her eyes widened, and she transmitted a picture of a group of people sawing apart a sizeable tank, trapped by a fallen rock. The battle vehicle lay in ruins, and the people, comprising Trolls dressed in shorts and T-shirts and Normies in industrial exoskeletons, extracted its engine, letting out a cheer at a still intact energy cell. She sent the team a picture of several parked heavy trucks.
“Private scavenger companies,” Esmi said. “These people venture into the wild, taking apart the abandoned stuff. Metal gets smelted down and costs peanuts, but the Oathtakers buy every intact piece of machinery.”
“And weapons too!” Edward added. “These teams are normally operating illegally in the Ravaged Lands and the Wastes. Kind of like us, but they get caught more often. I bet they never expected to be working here, of all places.”
The sand that their vehicle left behind blended with the sand that the Avengers’ three hovering transporters had kicked into the air. These smooth pyramids moved several meters above the ground, each capable of holding fifty crusaders inside. In times of war, energy would coalesce in one of the many spheres on the pyramid’s outer hull and shoot out a ball of plasma capable of traveling faster than bullets. Jumail asked the crusaders, and they let him fire it once, leaving a torso-sized hole in a rock formation to the cheers of the rest of the team. Even Vasily clapped, immediately trying to ask questions about how exactly the thing worked. His inquiry was rejected, and the teen spent the journey furiously searching the Net for answers.
Eighty crusaders set out to escort them, a force capable of conquering an entire city. Ratcatcher learned of it after Elina made them sit and watch the news about the pacification of the abandoned cities. Twenty crusaders arrived at the headquarters where several gangs had gathered, intending to fight back against the returning Oathtakers.
Lightning bounced off the power armor, dispersing across the absorbers. The Abnormal who fired it had his top shaved off by a single laser beam. Then the crusaders charged, kicking down a massive steel door leading to the former army base. Flame and explosion greeted them, and they ran through it, their cloaks withstanding the intense heat that started melting the very stone. Bullets ricocheted off the armor, bone spears broke against the reinforced alloy, and then the Avengers reached their foes and unleashed a slaughter. The news sugarcoated nothing; it showed every detail. Backhanded blows liquidated skulls, and armored legs driven down like jackhammers turned thugs to paste.
It didn’t take long for the survivors to break and surrender in the wake of this horror. The governor ordered the hanging of their leaders at the main square and sent the rest to prison. Word spread, and thugs in other towns surrendered in droves, willing to atone for their crimes through manual labor and hard work—anything to save their lives.
And the starving, shaken, and abused population rejoiced at the sight of convoys bringing food and police. At first the cheering was faint; few could believe the nightmare was over. And then, as if someone had flipped a switch, the cheers erupted into a thunderous roar. There were tears, hugs, prayers, and celebrations throughout the night, and the next day, the restoration effort had begun. If this was staged, whoever did it was a genius. The scene tugged at every heartstring. Children were reunited with their parents, the authorities punished the tyrants, and order and hope returned.
Ratcatcher felt a bit bad having the entire Avengers unit escorting them. These people needed to be out there, not babysitting them! What if the bad guys return? She ignored the nagging thoughts and joined Vasily in preparing the equipment.
After another fifteen minutes, the driver came to a stop at the edge of the large canyon opened by the fight between Lord Steward and the Chosen Prince. The driver, a heavily tanned elderly man in his sixties, asked if the trainees needed any help. Upon hearing their thanks and assurances that they could do everything on their own, he closed his cabin and started snoring, planning to sleep through the entire training.
The Avengers planted their pyramids some distance away, not bothering to unload from their transports. Augustus didn’t come out. She wondered if the instructor was busy playing cards with the crusaders or if the man sat in the operator’s compartment, monitoring their every move. Both possibilities could be true.
Ratcatcher stepped closer to the edge, clicking her tongue at the distance to the other side. Sixty meters at least, maybe sixty-three. She can’t jump over that. Both walls had uneven surfaces and tapered towards the middle. Good, that’ll make climbing out a breeze. To the north, she spotted huge pipes leading to Stonehelm and called up information on her terminal while she waited for Vasily to secure her with the other trainees.
Several food production facilities still worked, producing valuable nutrient paste. That mass passed through these pipes, arriving at a complex in Stonehelm, where workers checked it for signs of contamination and redirected it. True enough, far in the distance, she saw a walled complex. Unlike farms, it produced production within growing vats stationed in vast chambers.
“Ready?” Elina asked the team, and her voice snapped Ratcatcher out of her research. They nodded, and she made one last check.
A long wire, capable of supporting a weight of three tons, connected the trainees. Each of them had a bag of supplies and climbing gear on their backs, in case the armor failed. At Elina’s insistence, they also took a set of old-fashioned radios with them. All carried guns loaded with live ammunition. Ratcatcher strapped two energy pistols to her waist, remembering how that bastard Hustler had dodged her darts.
“Great. Ratcatcher, if you’ll be so kind.”
“Aye-aye, ma’am!” Ratcatcher saluted.
And she raced to the edge of the gorge, leaping into the darkness with her arms and legs outstretched. Her tail slipped out of her back, letting the girl feel the cool air rush past her as gravity carried her deeper and deeper. There was no worry; for so long she had been afraid of the blue sky falling on her, but now she was plunging into the void she felt at home.
What was there to be afraid of, anyway? A fall is certainly nothing compared to an indestructible murder bot chasing you around. Her hands cupped around the rocks, preventing the wire from fully stretching. That was the trick. If she had buried her fingers in the rock, it would have shattered the surrounding area, creating the possibility of a small avalanche. By breaking her fall with a gentle grab and wounding her tail around a stuck-out piece, she had dissipated the weight of her body over several surfaces.
Night vision kicked in and Ratcatcher scanned the area, recording everything for the mission. Nothing out of the ordinary; the walls were uneven, a perfect place for climbing. In natural habitats, fierce winds and rains often smooth the surface of a canyon, making it necessary to use tools to proceed. In a few years, the same will happen here. But at a moment? Child’s play, no more.
“Everything is safe down here; c’mon in!” Ratcatcher shouted, enjoying the echo of her voice bouncing off the walls. It stirred a few insects, making centipedes to emerge from their hiding spots, and insectoid drones scurry away in fear, only to fall prey to more patient spiders. Nature could thrive everywhere.
Jumail rushed first, treating the almost vertical wall as a floor. The hair on his legs let him stick to the stone, and sharp hooks ensured that even a sudden misstep would not see him falling. He could’ve carried them all to the bottom with ease, but the point of this exercise was to learn, and learn they did.
Rowen led the group; he could catch a falling trainee and return them to the wall. He moved confidently, crawling down headfirst like Ratcatcher, compensating for what he lacked in experience with calmness and steadiness. Edward and Vasily moved slower, not out of worry but because they couldn’t help but stop to examine any ruined vehicle or unknown insect skittering about, adding the information to the catalog. Elina ventured in their tracks, supported by Esmeralda. The two admitted outright their inexperience at rock climbing, and the group slowed their pace to let the girls adjust. Carlos brought up the rear, lightening the mood with jokes.
“Hey, do you know what a sand reaper says to a sugar cane mill?” Carlos asked after Elina’s hand almost slipped off a rock.
“No,” she grumbled.
“Nice gnawing you!” The joke elicited genuine chuckles out of the group.
“And what does a Barjoni say when he gets fined a few thousand for parking in the wrong spot?”
“Blasted commoners are trying to rob me?” Edward suggested.
“I am being defunded?” Elina guessed.
“He calls his lawyer,” Jumail stated.
“Nah,” Carlos replied in a smug voice. “He says: Take your bloody change and piss off already!”
Ratcatcher grinned and set about her duty. Prior to the mission, she had installed cameras on both palms—not the product of the nanomachine armor, but a separate device enveloped by elastic-created metal. She used it to film inside the cracks and fissures in the wall, updating the map of the location. Even with her enhanced eyesight, she had to use the zoom of her helmet to see the bottom. There was still quite a way to go.
Jumail skittered around the group, letting Ratcatcher see through his cameras. She used it to pass some advice to the others, warning them of a potential weak stone ahead and instructing them to increase or lessen their grip before a rock could shatter. Esmeralda held the worst out of the group, too tense and afraid to mess up. Ratcatcher cheered her on, telling the girl not to worry about falling.
“It’s the best thing about climbing, trust me.” Ratcatcher swung into a small tunnel leading into the darkness and slipped inside. “That feeling of “Oh, shit!”—the wind brushing your hair—a throbbing sensation in your temples. Your heart beats faster, and boom! You fall, hear the crack of your pelvis, and grimace in pain as acidic waste licks your legs and a sharp piece of your pelvis enters…”
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
“That Scrapyard of yours was a hellhole!” Vasily snapped.
Aw. He listened when I told stories about my home. How nice. Ratcatcher thought.
“Are you trying to give me a heart attack?” Esmeralda squeaked.
“Oh, sorry! The point is, you are connected by a wire with the others and armored. That little distance to the ground? Ain’t a problem…”
She darted aside, relying more on instinct than vision. A body sprang at her from the darkness—an insectoid drone whose carapace mimicked that of the stone walls. All six of its sharpened legs lunged for the visor, missing the girl’s shoulder by a hair. Ratcatcher caught the thrashing creature, slamming its head twice against the ceiling. Green ichor showed from under the carapace plates, and she dropped the body.
“You okay in there, Ratty?” Esmi asked, worried by her sudden movements.
“Yeah, had to squash a bug. As I was saying…” Ratcatcher hesitated, her mouth watering at the sight of the dead bug. Meat! Oh, if only she had time to make a small fire and… Her eyes widened, and she pushed forward in the narrow tunnel, turning her head to the side and leaving the backpack and her weapons behind. “Shiny pebbles! Shiny pebbles!” she blurted out.
There they were! Shiny stones—a small cluster of them—lit up the darkness in an enchanting composition of green, purple, and pink. Well, lit was too strong a word; they gave faint luminescence, but that was beside the point! Geodes, and not the ordinary kind! Ratcatcher almost grabbed them, but then restrained herself and put a hand on the small cluster.
“Eddie, is it safe to take these?” she asked.
“A moment,” Edward hushed, ramming his toes against the wall. The boy checked a database, tapping at his wrist impatiently. “I can’t say,” he admitted at last. “The catalog has nothing on it.”
“Aw.” Ratcatcher prepared to go back. She wanted the stones so much! But what if they are hazardous or something and harm one of her friends?
“Sensors aren’t picking up any radiation or glow from them. Grab a sample; maybe geologists will name them after you,” Edward joked. Things like that had happened in the past; countless unknown minerals had appeared in the post-Extinction world and continued to do so, keeping scientists busy for centuries to come.
And none of that mattered.
“Yes!” She reached into her backpack, pulled out a small, secure container, and broke several pebbles from the formation. Not much—two for the research and two for her own collection.
The rest of the journey was uneventful. They spent fifteen minutes traversing the wall, stopping at a circular area large enough for them all to stand and rest. The group took sips from wattle bottles, stretched their arms and legs, took a bite of dried meat, and marked the spot as a suitable place to rest on their way back. Slowly, they updated the map, pointing out landmarks for future explorers.
And there was a lot to explore! Buildings and vehicles got swallowed up during the battle, and many of them littered the slope. Carlos found a tag in an all-terrain army buggy. Only bones remained of its drivers; the poisonous fumes had had licked away all their flesh. The trainee pocketed the tag and took a femur bone, planning to handle it for identification. In another place, stuck between stones, they found a safe. Jumail pried it open, finding five hundred crests, a family photo, and a sealed envelope inside. They took it too; perhaps someone in the city would know who it belonged to.
Vasily and Jumail almost wept at the need to leave perfectly working generators and engines behind. These weren’t post-Extinction things, the boys explained, these marvels of technology dated pre-Extinction times. The Oathtakers assembled them, but where the machines broke down, the systems inside endured. Given proper maintenance, they could work almost indefinitely.
“Babes.” Jumail pushed a tank engine onto the ridge to keep it from falling. “It’s… It’s not right to leave them here, in the dark, alone, unattended, unneeded, and uncared for.”
“Don’t worry, once the army crushes the bad guys, there’ll be more than just expedition teams; the Oathtakers will excavate the entire area to preserve them!” Ratcatcher tried to cheer him on. Iterna sold nothing of the same quality beyond its borders, so for the locals, such things were the stuff of veneration. Sure, one day they’ll find a way to replicate the wonders of the past. But for now, it costs an arm and a leg. “Wait!” She cried out, noticing something strange below.
They stopped their descent. Below was the culmination of the destruction that happened above. Cars, tanks, houses, concrete from destroyed roads—everything cascaded down in a catastrophic shower, creating a long line stretching at the bottom. They had originally planned to traverse west across the bottom, but Ratcatcher noticed something odd.
Two spots. Two spots looked too clear, and as she zoomed in, she saw what looked like tank tracks coming out of the base of the slope and disappearing into the other wall, creating a whole new round tunnel leading somewhere. Too round to be natural. And something pushed aside the nearby rubble or bulged it into the ground.
“You jinxed it with your talk of sand reapers, Carlos!” Vasily gulped, reaching for his grenade launcher. “I bet it’s some sort of underground monster or an ancient murder bot stirred by the eruption.”
“Perfect timing; the boredom almost overtook me!” An SMG appeared in Carlos’ hand. “Give me a sec, I’ll check it out…”
“Wait!” Ratcatcher grabbed the boy by the shoulder. “Something is off. What kind of monster leaves footprint threads behind?”
“A mutant?” Esmeralda suggested.
“No, Ratcatcher is right. Countymeister Wivin?” Elina called in the Avengers. “Please respond; this is the Iternian Special Investigation Group.”
“Countymeister Wivin Magthildis, at your service, gentle ones.” Her pleasant voice filled the helmets. “Have you concluded your training or found anything of interest?”
“No to the first, yes to the second, ma’am.” Elina sent her the image. “Is this one of the… bumps we should expect on our mission?”
“No.” Wivin’s voice changed. “This isn’t one of the obstacles…”
Her voice cut off, filling their communications with white static. Elina tried to contact the countymeister again. Ratcatcher reached out for a pistol, and the twins climbed on Jumail, halving their sniper rifles and reassembling them into high-powered assault rifles. Elina, too, picked up her shotgun, motioning for everyone to join a secure channel. They still didn’t get any response from the instructor or their allies, but being so close together, they could talk with no one else hearing them.
“Bumps?” Vasily asked.
“Oh, come on, it was clear that they had something prepared to spice things up,” Elina replied. “Everyone, up. Jumail, can you carry us all?”
“Not going to investigate?” Ratcatcher asked.
“We don’t get paid for it, so let the adults handle the business,” Carlos said.
He broke a stone with his grip upon hearing a shot, looked around wildly, and almost fell, but Ratcatcher caught him. The sound of gunfire broke the silence, and the trainees tried to become one with the wall, their hearts pounding. The sound of bullets hitting rock and the barking of rifles echoed along the canyon’s edges, making it hard to pinpoint the exact location.
Suddenly pebbles started falling off the tunnel leading into the darkness, and a man in an orange jumpsuit ran out of the passage, holding a hand over his wounded. At first, she thought him to be a shambler; who else could be stuck here in the dark? But the man’s moved with the fluidity of a living soul, his breath hard out of fear, and he looked like people from the factories who visited the market to pick up something for a daily snack.
“Mister, here!” Ratcatcher called, leaping off the wall and unfastening the wire around her waist. Her landing flattened a car, making the man shake and fall onto his back. “Are you injured?”
“Help…” the worker whimpered, crawling to hide behind a wreckage, and something else stepped out of the wall.
A shambler stepped out of the tunnel, limping forward with a still-steaming rifle in its armored hands. The undead wore a full suit of rust-covered power armor; a joint on its leg was destroyed by a shot, slowing it, and groans emanated from the grill of its helmet. The thing’s finger closed on the trigger, producing clicks. It swayed, clearly searching for the man.
“It doesn’t know we are here,” Elina whispered, and Ratcatcher ducked, hiding from the shambler. The ground shook. Thump. Thump. Something else was approaching from the tunnel, something bigger. “We can either retreat off and let the Avengers deal…”
The metal wreckage creaked, pushed aside by the armored hand. The shambler towered over the trembling worker, who tried to crawl away on his back, crying and pleading. Merciless hands reached to crash the man’s head and stopped at a sudden shot against the helmet.
The energy weapon fired three times. The first shot overheated the side of the helmet; the second shot melted a dot in it, and the shot broke through, spearing through the head inside and boiling the corrupted brain, and the shambler stumbled and fell.
“Or we could do this,” Elina said cheerfully, and Ratcatcher understood it was she who pressed the trigger. She fired without thinking, too worried about the wounded. “Eliza, pick up the wounded and get out of here! It…”
An explosion of rocks cut off the rest of Elina’s words. A four-legged creature emerged from the tunnel, covered in rock dust, roaring, stomping, and smashing everything with its vicious pincers. Someone had hacked off a man’s legs and arms and placed the remains on a piston-driven mechanical frame, adding gruesome metal limbs to the shoulders. Swollen folds of skin dripped pus with each shuddering step, and with the sound of metal tubes scraping against each other, twin turrets lifted above the creature’s shoulder, ripping the skin in several places and drawing a groan from blue lips. White, blind eyes shifted to focus on the petrified worker, and a turret’s barrels started taking aim.
“Shit.” Vasily fired, and the grenade exploded at the monster’s legs, engulfing it in flame. Ratcatcher used this distraction to weave around the rubble to get to the man. She grabbed him and planned to climb above when it broke from the flames behind. Its swollen skin burned, but the mechanisms worked without a hunch. “A line breaker.”
“Lizzie, stay alive and get out there!” Elina shouted. “Jumail, I need your help…”
Ratcatcher darted to the side, slamming into the rusting piece of junk, and sharp metal pipes shattered against her back as she shielded the wounded man. The pincer swiped through the place she was a moment ago, sending the remains of a tank into a wall. By some miracle, none of the scrap damaged her tail, and Ratcatcher hid it, cursing under her breath for forgetting about something so obvious. She didn’t hear the rest of Elina’s plan; she was too busy with staying alive. Then again, Elina’s ideas usually worked, and the order coincided with her own desire to run away from this horrid mess!
“Leave me, girl,” the man gulped. “We’ll never escape together.”
“Never say never, mister!” She told him. Every instinct in Ratcatcher’s body cried out for her to drop the man and dart away on all fours. She calmed herself, observing the enemy. Through the beat downs handled by Jumail and Yura during the training, she had learned that it was safest to stay closer to a larger opponent.
The metal arm moved again, smashing the pile of metal, but she dove under it and jumped away from a leg threatening to trample her. The impact split the ground, and the line breaker stumbled a little, jerking its leg free. She took this chance, running away with the shaken man. A saber flew from above, piercing through the shifted mechanical gears of the line’s breaker’s other limb and disabling the piston. The limb twitched and stopped moving, and the creature dragged it across the ground after itself.
Instructor Augustus! Ratcatcher exhaled. She wasn’t alone! If she could...
Thunderous noises coming from the line breaker made her panic. It started feeding the turrets ammunition, preparing to unleash hell on the escaping persons. But before the first bullet could leave the barrel, Jumail landed at the line breaker, smashing it into the wall with enough force to cause an avalanche of debris that hid both from view. The trainee had cut through the wire, left the others in safety, and challenged the machine alone.
Jumail’s legs closed around the line breaker’s remaining arm, locking it in place. Two other legs blurred past the monster’s shoulders, sending both turrets flying, and shells poured out, ringing as they fell to the ground. Even missing one arm, the line breaker pushed Jumail’s lock a bit, causing the Malformed trainee grunt in surprise. Before he could attack the creature’s head, it rammed into Jumail with its forelegs, leaving bulges on the surprised teenager’s armor and sending him rolling into the opposite wall, his body flattering several wrecks.
“So that’s how it feels, huh,” Jumail chuckled, raising up and shifting to stand between Ratcatcher and the line breaker.
“Jumail, retreat,” Augustus commanded. “I’ll land in under a minute.”
“Can’t do, sir; everything is under control. Was that enough, Elina?” Jumail boomed.
“Yes, Jumail,” Elina replied, and Ratcatcher saw that the trainees had taken positions on the ruins, aiming weapons at the line breaker. The scramble bought her enough time to get the wounded out of the danger zone.
And they fired. Energy beams left Jumail’s armor, tore through the line breaker’s body, and blinded the creature in a single shot. Bullets, energy beams, a grenade, and shells rained down on the monster’s back, ripping out chunks of flesh and machinery that fused with the mangled body.