A Creature of War, Book 3, CH09 (Patreon)

The stairwell was crumbling, but it was solid enough to take their combined weight. The silence was eerie in its utter completeness. He expected to hear the metal creak, their boots clank, but Stevenson’s earbuds cut all of that out.

Getting going hadn’t been as simple as he’d hoped. Jennifer hadn’t wanted to come. She’d wanted to go back to her lab. He’d managed to talk her into coming, pointing out the research possibilities of studying the animalistic machines and how they reacted to her canon.

That had mollified her and they’d gone the long way around to avoid them. They’d reached the rear of the building without having to fight. It hadn’t been guarded, and they’d entered.

They came across the first group there. Four of the machines who seemed to be patrolling the interior perimeter. He’d motioned for Jennifer to come to the front so she could blast them and she’d shaken her head. When he’d come closer to talk, she’d shoved the cannon at him, told him to do it himself. He was the soldier, not her.

He pointed out that he had no idea how it worked, and she’d started explaining it. He didn’t listen; he had no interest in trying to use it. He wanted as little to do with Crazies’ tech as possible.

When she was done, she looked at him expectantly. He asked her how she would collect the data if he was the one using it? She wouldn’t know what strength he’d set the cannon. Was he qualified to run this experiment?

She sneered and took the cannon back. She pushed him aside, and he barely had the time to put the buds in before the floor vibrated.

With the four machines in pieces, she turned to face him with an expression of superiority. She said something he didn’t hear, but he expected it to be something to the effect of how useless he was and that she could do all of this on her own.

They’d cleared the floor, and she’d taken the initiative of destroying the machines they came across. They had a moment when she’d almost walked into a group of them because she hadn’t understood the gesture to stop moving El had given.

He’d spent five minutes after that teaching her the basic ones. It only took a minute to show them to her, but then she argued that there were better ones to use and he had to convince her they didn’t have the time.

Convince might be a strong word. She’d finally given up when he’d pointed out that if they adopted her signs, she would then have to go around every military base teaching them. She’d be doing that probably every day for years to come, with no time for research.

She hadn’t given him any problems from that point on as they went up floor by floor, clearing them and hoping to find the fabrication machine.

He motioned for a stop as he reached the door leading to the fourth floor. He considered taking the buds out and checking on how everyone was doing, but didn’t want to risk it. Jennifer had become eager to use her cannon.

He had a pang of sadness as Peek came to his mind. He would have shone in this situation, relaying information without words being needed. He missed his friend, and with thinking of Peek, Rhine came to mind. The otter was finally back to his jovial self after two years. He still had days when he could barely get out of bed, but those were rare now.

He shook his head and brought his focus back on the now. He motioned for Jennifer to go in and she kicked the door open. The floor shuddered as she fired her cannon. She poked her head back in the stairwell and motioned for them to come out.

The lynx took the lead again. They moved slowly and checked every room they passed. They couldn’t ignore any, since they had no idea what the fabricator looked like, how big or small it would be. Like almost everything, Milton and Stevenson hadn’t been able to agree on that.

He smiled. Static would have made this so much easier. She could have sensed where the fabricator was from outside the forcefield. And would have rendered every machine they’d come across inoperative. He was starting to think this mission was tailor made for their dead friends.

Bullets peppered the wall next to him, only they had come from behind. He spun and found his team was under attack. Three of the machines were making their way through them. The ceiling was caved in, indicating how the machines had gotten the literal drop on them. The one person he could see was Jennifer.

He took careful aim. One stray shot and he could be killing one of his people. A minute later, the machines were twitching on the ground and Vee was healing people.

He stopped at Jeniffer’s body, looked at El and shook his head. Next to her was the crushed cannon. The bull took the buds out, El followed suit.

“They went directly for her,” Milton said. “Didn’t give her time to react.”

“It’s basic algorithm,” Stevenson added. “They must be networked. They reported on what caused the most damage and took that out.” He shrugged. “So, we keep going?”

El looked around. There was another body, a dog with short, silver fur. He didn’t know his name.

“Guys?” a bat said. “Do you hear that?”

El listened. “What are you hearing?”

Like him, the others didn’t seem to hear anything

“It’s pretty faint, but it’s like a rhythmic beat.”

“Really?” Milton scoffed. “Music? You expect me to believe a machine bothers wi—”

“Not music,” the bat cut him off. She glared at him. ” A beat. Something…something tapping on something else. There’s more, but I can’t make it out.”

“An assembly line!” Stevenson clapped his hands. “I told you it would be a mass production thing. You and ‘they’re self-assembling.’ Shows what you know.”

Milton rolled his eyes. “Tapping and banging doesn’t mean a factory floor. It could be—”

“Will you two shut the fuck up?”

Another surprise, they did. They looked at Leech, who was staring at them.

“Maybe what we need to do is go check it out? What do you think? Or do you two prefer continuing to bang on your chest like two monkeys?”

“Gorillas are the chest bangers,” Milton said. “And they aren’t monkeys.”

“El, can I shoot him? We can say one of the machines got him. We’re already going to have to explain Jennifer’s death. Might as well stop this one, too.”

“No.”

The lion sighed. “Freya, where are the sounds coming from?”

“This floor,” she replied. “Deeper in.”

“Then we’re continuing the sweep.” El motioned them to take their position. “If Stevenson’s right, they know we’re coming, so everyone, stay sharp and keep an ear on the ceiling. We can’t afford another surprise like this one.

They moved. They passed a window and El saw the flash of gunfire. The machines were going after the other soldiers. He wanted to rush, take down whatever was in charge to save his soldiers. But he held himself back. Rushing in was a sure way to get everyone killed.

They continued clearing the rooms as they followed the outer hall. When they’d ensured nothing could attack them, they took a corridor heading deeper.

El felt what Freya had pointed out to them now. A rhythmic vibration. Three steady beats, a pause, two of something else, a longer pause, six beat, a whine, a pause. Then the sequence restarted.

Again, he wanted to rush and fought it. They made a circuit around it, clearing every room. They only encountered two of the machines and dispatched them with headshots before they could react.

There were no halls heading deeper now. The only things that had been on their left were the occasional door. Freya indicated from where the sound had felt the strongest to her. So El expected the assembly line to be closer to there. Did he want to go in close to it or far? The element of surprise? Or the ability to judge the environment?

He set Freya and the other soldier, a jackal who hadn’t said one word this entire time, at each end of the corridor as guards, and looked to the humans.

“Do either of you have something that can see through walls?”

The older man rolled his eyes. “You can’t see through walls.”

“Of course you can,” Stevenson replied. “That’s what windows are for, or holes.” He pointed his ‘gun’ at the door, but Vee pushed it down before he fired it.

“Don’t be an idiot,” the bull said. “He wants to see in with them seeing us.”

“That isn’t what he said.” The human pulled his hand from Vee’s grip. “You can’t blame me if he gives unclear instructions.”

“So you don’t know of a way where we can see in and not alert them that’s what we’re going?”

Stevenson thought for a moment, looked around at the debris on the floor and shook his head.

El nodded and recalled the two soldiers. “We’re going in. Find cover and look for whatever is making the sounds. I’m betting that’s what is making the machines. That’s the target. Try to avoid wasting bullets on anything else. If we run out we’re going to have to get out of there and figure another way of destroying it. That isn’t going to be to our advantage.”

“I’m not running away,” Stevenson said.

El didn’t comment. He made sure the six others were ready, then kicked the door in.

He got a sense of a large room as he headed for what might have been a desk at some point. Lots of rubble on the floor, crumbled walls. A large machine in the middle of it all and a lot of animal-like machines growling mechanically.

A flash of light, animals exploding. That would be Stevenson.

“An assembly line!” the voice confirmed it. “I told you that’s what we’d find!” Instead of finding cover, the human walked toward it, firing at, and blowing up, the animals in front of him.

El cursed and fired at the animal running for the human from the side. Of course Stevenson hadn’t noticed it, he was too damned focus on his goal.

The animal went down and El was the one running at the human. He grabbed him by the collar and pulled him down behind what was left of concrete a wall.

Gunfire erupted.

Coming from the center of the room, not his people. He glanced around the edge of the wall. A dozen tripods were visible, swiveling machine guns on the top. They’d been lucky they hadn’t activated the moment they came in.

There was nothing left of the door and wall where he’d come in, but he didn’t see any blood or bodies. That meant everyone else had good for cover. Good.

The gunfire stopped.

He sat back to consider the next step. He turned to ask Stevenson if that gun of his could destroy the tripods, and he saw that his hands were shaking.

The human dropped the gun as if it was burning him. He put his hands to his head and rocked in place. When El placed a hand on his shoulder he jumped. When he looked at him, The humans’ eyes were filled with fear.

“Eric?”

“El? Why did I come here? I’m not a soldier, I’m a scientist. Oh God. I’m going to die. We’re all going to die.”

A machine gun fired and Eric tried to bolt. Only El’s grip kept him in place.

“Calm down. This isn’t the place to panic.”

“Where the hell am I going to do it then? In my bed? In my coffin?”

“Eric, I need Stevenson.” This was probably the worst time for him to revert to this.

“You think I don’t want that too? You think I want to be sane right now? This place is insane!”

El tried to recall their conversation back in the mess. This wasn’t the kind of environment that should have brought this one. He’d said it was when things were calm that he tended to regain his sanity. But El had also gotten the impression Eric didn’t really know much about what caused the switch. He had mentioned that stress brought the craziness on, but this place should be stressing him out.

He watched as the human took deep breaths. He was holding his head, eyes closed, but he was trying to calm down. El couldn’t have that.