Chapter 6

FIghting a mech is stupid. But there are levels to stupidity.

I ducked under a fist the color of obsidian, stepping back to think fast. I didn’t have time. Everyone I knew had talked about fighting mechs. Their strengths, possible weaknesses, how fast you could run-

The sound of doors locking filled the air. Plan A was gone then.

I continued thinking fast. I’d studied mechs before. Fought fake ones in VR briefly before my free trial on the program for it expired. There were a variety of them. From sex bots, false animals, mimicry of mythological monsters, all the way to stealth killers. Talos Mechs were developed for protection.

Tanky, strong, and very dangerous. Legally they weren’t allowed to have guns. They usually didn’t need them. The false muscle running through them made them strong enough to wrestle chromed up folk with ease, even fighting the giant masses of muscle that were Myostitans.

That said, they had weaknesses. Their joints followed basic mechanics, so breaking them might give me a chance. Can’t get killed by something that can’t move. If I could even do it.

Talos Mechs weren’t AI. They ran off of a series of programs, algorithms, all focused on the task of protection and elimination. They adjusted to the fighting style and weapons of their targets, but without innovation. Simply pulling together solutions from a pool of already programmed responses. I had some ideas about that.

Finally, the one weakness I wished I could take advantage of. Most mech sensors are powerful. Useful. And susceptible to having paint thrown on them. Simple household paint, splashed on thick. More expensive models had ways to remove the paint or even ignore it, but it was a low-tech solution with a good rate of success.

For now, I had no paint. Leaving me with the other two big weaknesses.

I took a minute to wish I had room to use my magnet line. It would have given me new angles of attack, ways to dodge it. In the enclosed space however, I would have ended up just giving the mech another thing to grab onto and pull me in. Better to keep it simple.

The mech lifted his hands. And rather than going into my usual Muay Thai stance, I shifted to a Bajiquan stance. Knees bent and legs wide, my right hand was close to my hip holding my stick, while my left rose to my face, elbow extended out. It wasn’t as comfortable for me as Muay Thai, but it was part of my plan.

A baton came swinging at me. I noted the movement of the false skeleton under its armor, the way the various parts shifted and moved, keeping them in my mind.

Then I dashed in, moving past the attack while stabbing forward with my stick. The mech grabbed my weapon, but I let it go, instead switching to my elbow. My armored elbow cracked into the mech's eye.

I twisted around, moving my shoulder to smash into the mech’s shoulder. With a push of all of my weight, the mech was lifted into the air and sent back. I roared with the movement, expelling air to give me more power.

“Tetsuzanko!”

The bot was off the ground and moving back. But it still had my stick. My legs were screaming from moving so much heavy material, but I forced myself to move and grab my stick again, ripping it out of the bot's grip.

A hand clenched on my jacket. For a heart stopping moment, metal fingers brushed against the back of my neck, getting cloth instead. It clenched tight even as it flew back, hips twisting. I was lifted up and tossed against the back wall. Air exploded from my lungs. Black dots filled my vision.

I twisted my staff around to stab at the mech's face. I needed to keep on the offensive. The algorithm in the mech would adapt soon enough, but as long as I was attacking it, those algorithms would default to protecting itself. It wouldn’t work forever though.

The mech parried my stick with its baton, pulling at my jacket with its other hand. I moved with the motion, scrambling to my feet and spinning to kick my left leg at its right knee. The robot lifted its leg to take the blow on its shin instead, protecting the vulnerable joint. While it was up on one leg, I stepped down hard with my left foot stomping into the floor and brought my palm into its false stomach.

The stepping thrust strike moved the mech back just enough. The arm gripping my jacket was fully extended now. It let me bring my stick around to behind the elbow of the arm gripping my jacket. I gripped the stick, one hand on either side of it, and swung the stick up. In that moment, if the mech left its arm there, I could use my leverage to snap its elbow the opposite direction.

It let go. The stick pushed its arm up. And a baton mashed into my ribs from its other arm. For all the makeshift armor I’d put in there, I still felt my side scream in protest. Then electricity ran through the baton.

“Gaaaah!” I was lifted up by the blow and barely kept my stance as I landed again. Stun baton. Of course.

God help me, this wasn’t working. The longer I fought, the more chances of taking hits. I was strong, but not machine strong. I had to end this now. Hopefully I’d set things up enough.

All the while, I watched the mech’s movement. The various parts of its internal structure moving as its hips shifted, each part in sequence. Just like a human, no part was separate from the rest. To get its full strength, all of them moved as one. I watched it. And it watched me.

Cold blue eyes set into a head shaped like a Roman centurion's helmet stayed on me. I kept my fear. That hit had shaken my confidence, but the second I let that control me, I was already lost. Pull my focus into myself, into my body, into the moment, and push my strategy forward.

Heh. Fear is the mind killer. I’d heard that from some kid who came from the Outback, still covered in sand. Had to control it. Use it to inform my actions and give me caution, without panicking.

It punched at me. I parried the fist aside on my magnet line, then stepped in with a knee to the chest that the mech mostly ignored. I drove in with an elbow to its right eye, hoping to damage the sensor, but had to step back when it grabbed at my throat.

Keep it up. Same strategy. Go in, over and over, and force it to commit.

Still in Bajiquan stance, I speared forward with my stick. The robot ducked under it, swinging it’s baton again. I stepped into the strike again, and was met by it’s other fist punching at my chest. I barely turned aside from the obsidian slab of metal, getting grazed along my stomach, and elbowed it in the shoulder with all of my strength. I felt the shoulder barely move under my attack.

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The bot reached out to wrap its arms around me. I waited for its arms to raise entirely, my mind racing. I needed it to commit. Its algorithms had done their work. It would grab me while I was up close, then shatter my spine while electrocuting me.

Everything I’d done had been to force it to come to that conclusion. Fighting in the straight line fighting style of Bajiquan, constantly moving up to attack it from the front, building a scenario for it to follow.

The Talos Mech shifted forward, eyes meeting mine.

And I stepped to its right, ducking the arm and moving behind it. The machine stalled as I went off book from the scenario it had built.

Years ago, Tate Cairn, the Scottish Hercules, The Sunlit and Blood-Soaked, had done something similar when fighting a minotaur mech designed specifically to defeat him. Changed his style, forced the machine to adapt over and over during the course of a four hour fight, until he finally removed it’s robotic heart.

So I did something like that.

Bajiquan was a great style, but it was not one for doing things like circling around. It was made to blast through opponents and smash them. Not dive around them athletically.

I felt some strain at the move as I forced myself to move faster and more flexibly than I usually did, but the mech’s arms closed on thin air. More importantly, I had its back. I could see the false bones in its waist try to spin it around.

I stabbed my stick into the bot, right in-between the gaps and into the machinery. I aimed carefully. The entire time we’d been fighting, I’d watched the way its internal system moved. I’d tried something like this in VR. I’d missed then.

Bipedal movement is complicated. Lots of fine tuning must be done to maintain balance and flexibility. Interfere with the mechanics of that, whether in a human or a machine, and you can get a lot of advantage

This time I got the strike just right. The steel staff grinded into the system of pistons, gears, and other machinery, from the hip and down into its right leg for two feet, stopping the mech in mid turn.

“SQEEEEEE!” The sound of metal screeching filled the air. My staff bent heavily. I didn’t have much time.

I grabbed the left leg of the bot and pulled hard, sending it to the floor. I put one foot on its back, and the other on its ankle. My hand grabbed its knees. Then I pulled upwards, hard as I could. The machinery struggled with me. I pulled harder, sweat dripping into my eyes. I screamed.

“GAAAAAH!”

The knee snapped backwards. The mech didn’t respond, and instead kept fighting against the stick keeping it from moving correctly.

Then the hand with the baton swung backwards. It barely brushed me. The electricity running through it hit me harder.

“Kuh!” I grunted out. I grabbed that arm by the armored wrist and pulled hard, driving my boot into its shoulder while taking the baton in hand. The stun baton was directly attached to the mech, so I couldn't steal it. But I could smash the baton into its own neck.

Electricity ran through the machine. I screamed when the bucking machine's arm bounced, smashing into my left arm. I pushed the baton harder, pulled at its arm harder. The machine sputtered. Its eyes flickered. I pulled.

The machine’s arm squealed. In a single moment, the arm bent completely over as hydraulics snapped. I fell against the floor, kicking the mech away from me. It’s left arm and leg now damaged, it struggled to move towards me. I scrambled away, biting my lip when I realized my left arm was screaming. Had that broken it?

I moved away from the mech and rushed for the door. I kicked at a point just next to the handle, shattering it, and briefly glanced back.

The mech was quickly crawling after me, blue lit up eyes flickering, but overall still able to kill me. Then it looked up. At Poy’s SD, still inside the panel.

“...Damnit. Poy!”

“I got you kid,” he said, sounding like he was breathing hard. “Sorry, I didn’t know the mech was in there till I saw you on camera! You okay!? We’re heading to meet you!”

“Check your cameras again.”

Silence for a moment. Then he spoke again. “Damn. You fucked it up.”

“It’s moving towards the SD. Do you need it?”

“I mean, I could use it. If you can get me another three minutes it’ll give me a lot more access.”

Three minutes.

“Okay. I’ll get you your time.” I walked up to the mech. It was reaching for the SD with its undamaged arm. I grabbed the arm by the wrist. It scrambled to its knee, pulling hard on my arm. I let it slide me forward and kicked it's head. As its head, dented by my boot, reeled back, I slid around and pushed it down. My breath was harsh, pain coming from my limp left arm, but I pushed on. Pulling hard on its active arm, moving in the opposite direction it had been designed for. I felt something strain there. Its still active leg kicked at me, landing solidly on my arm. The feeling of bone finally truly breaking made me scream. One more pull, and something shattered in the mech’s arm. I pulled harder, and the sound of metal bending was gratifying.

Its leg kicked out at me again, the gears in its hip finally bending the stick I’d jammed into them in half. I dodged the kick, rolling, and grabbed it by the ankle when it attacked again. I pulled hard, dragging it along, the robot kicking and scrambling along. Soon I was next to one of the pallets I’d seen. The one labeled sodium chloride. The one that was around 10 feet tall.

The drones buzzing about ignored us as I let the mech go. It kicked against the floor with one leg, moving slowly along. I moved to the other side of the pallet of material and set my shoulder against it.

“Okay… RAAAAA!” With a deep breath and a shout, I began to push. The pallet shifted, the dozens of plastic containers wrapped up on top of it moving. I pushed harder. “AAAAAHHH! COME ON!”

Something shifted. The impossible weight I’d put myself against fell apart. The containers, moved off-balance, began to fall over. The dozens of containers came apart and smashed down on the mech below with the sounds of containers breaking and sand falling. I pushed one more time, then backed away to watch the remains of the tower fall.

Over a ton of material on top of the robot… And I could still hear motors buzzing underneath it. Damn. If I had to guess, it would soon repair itself and come back after me. But for now, it had to dig its way out of the sodium chloride.

Otherwise known as salt.

My arm was broken, but I’d gotten Poy his access. With the tons of salt on top of it, the mech wouldn’t be able to get to the SD in time to stop it.

Despite the pain in my arm, it felt good to have done my job.

A door behind me was smashed open. I reeled, spinning to raise my non-broken arm to defend myself. Ramirez glanced at me. Then at the mound in front of me. Without missing a beat, he leaped into the air, his fist raised high. And came down like a missile, a burst of blue light trailing him. He smashed down into the center of the mound, salt flying upwards around us. I closed my eyes and flinched back as the powder covered me. When I was able to blink my eyes open again, the bot had been torn in half.

Just like that. An enemy that had broken my arm, that had taken everything I had to slow down. Smashed. The upper half weakly reached out towards Ramirez with shattered arms. A boot smashed its head into pieces. The lower half, single leg kicking stopped. Pneuma, violet-white and glowing, poured from both halves like blood.

“Now was that so hard?” Ramirez asked me, looking up with salt all across his blue armor. He had a distinctly smug smile on his face. “You got something on your face.”

“Same for you,” I noted. For some reason my calm response seemed to throw him off. “Thank you for the help.”

“Heh,” he kicked the mech aside. “Looks like you needed it.”

I felt a shot of annoyance fill me. I hid it as best as I could. “I didn’t. I took care of it before you came. The assistance is still appreciated. Where are the others?”

“Doing the job. Come on, I wasted enough time on you,” he turned and started off, leaving me to follow. I carefully kept my arm as still as possible as we entered the door he smashed through earlier.

Inside a pale gray cement hallway with the logo for Redfield Corp resting on one of the walls, three mechs lay. Each one had been ripped to pieces. One was had been smashed halfway into a cement wall, its long limbs twitching sporadically as it spilled Pnuema all over.

Ramirez turned and smirked at me. I tried my best to stay calm, but couldn’t help how annoyed that made me. I shouldn’t have cared. I knew my limitations. I was a mortal fighter, a teenager at that. I knew I could fight well, and that was enough. I held my own in the slums without any enhancements. I was happy with what I could do and knew I would get even stronger one day.

But having this guy rub in my limits made me want to punch him.

I kept the thought away by instead focusing on the pain in my arm, controlling it. Managing the hot knife feeling from my arm helped. But I still was beginning to dislike Ramirez.