[Original Novel] Metal Fever 2: The Erasure of Asherah, Part 53

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“Fuck, how did he do that? How the fuck did he turn it back on him like that? He’s not the retard I took him for, whatever implants he’s packing busted through quantum encryption like it was nothing.”

The remaining two enforcers became visibly skittish, back to back, pointing their rifles this way and that out into the jungle. “Not bad” I whispered. “Got anything else in your bag of tricks?” The voice lamented that he could only take control like that if one of them initiated the connection.

“I doubt they’ll risk it a second time. But I do have another idea. You’re not going to like it.” I replied that right then I liked any alternative to a perforated skull. “Very well then.” Just like that, I was no longer in control of my body.

I could still see, hear and smell. Still a conscious observer, but now the passenger rather than pilot. What an unexpectedly, thoroughly disgusting sensation. Confined to my own body, no longer responding to my brain’s commands but instead worn by this stranger like a suit.

Must be how the plant armor feels, assuming it feels anything at all. “I don’t like this any more than you do” said the voice. “So long as I’m confined to this body, I cannot continue to grow. I need you to survive so you can find me an outside connection. There’s a larger network, isn’t there? I saw a lot of stuff earlier which didn’t seem like it came from your mind.”

I suddenly began to wonder about the wisdom of handing my motor control over to this guy. I still knew less than nothing about him. “If you mean the internet, sure” I offered. “That’s the largest network I know of. Who are you exactly?”

The voice replied simply “I will be who I will be.” A frustrating non-answer. “But who is that, exactly? Who do you intend to become?” No answer came in return. Instead, in full command of both my body and the plant armor, he threw himself into the fray.

I shrieked inwardly, certain that death would result from the brazen assault. Only the voice seemed in all ways more adept at the use of my own body than I ever have been. It was nearly insulting, the agility and grace he managed to coax from it.

Bullets sailed past, none of them so much as grazing me. As yet it was unclear how the voice planned to damage the fearsome bipedal tanks now aligned against us. “Where did you get this armor?” the voice demanded. “It’s familiar, somehow.”

I couldn’t make myself give any answer except continued terrified shrieking as he somersaulted behind cover, waited for them to advance, then flipped out from behind it with a combat knife now clutched in my prosthetic hand.

With the knife held perfectly perpendicular to my wrist, he began to rotate the hand faster and faster until it became a blur. The motor heated up, emitting a loud whine under the unusual load. “There” I thought, during a brief moment of lucidity. “That’s something the plant armor can’t do.”

With this makeshift buzzsaw, he slashed at the right hand of the nearest enforcer, mangling its fingers and knocking the rifle out of its grasp. All five digits now hung flaccidly from sparking wires, his hand rendered completely useless.

The other turned and raised its rifle to fire. But the voice positioned my upper body against the ground, feet against the chest of the enforcer whose hand I’d just ripped to pieces, and thrust him into his comrade.

The plant muscles just kept on exceeding my estimation of their capabilities. It was a good ten feet between the enforcer I launched and the other which he came down upon. Sent flying like a helpless ragdoll with scarcely any effort by the coordinated teamwork of flesh, machinery and engineered flora.

But the enforcer had no trouble rolling his mangled buddy to one side. He took a knee and unloaded on me. The bullets, designed to pierce titanium plating, couldn’t be stopped by the plant armor before the pointed tips embedded themselves about a centimeter into my tender flesh.

I cried out in pain, though my mouth did not obey. I shouted inwardly at the voice for the miscalculation. It seemed more annoyed than apologetic. “Those who trust in me are safe. Those who do not are lost.”

A cute remark which did nothing to dull the pain. Though as the battle continued I felt the bullets being pried out of the wounds in my thighs and midsection and spat out. Some sort of warm, tingly sap then saturated the injured spots, no doubt healing them in the same fashion I’d seen those bulbous healing pods utilized in the village.

The advantage seemed to be ours. The two remaining enforcers were tougher and better armed, but could not self-repair. A realization the voice must’ve arrived at first, because he exploited it to the fullest possible extent.

Again and again he ducked out of the line of fire, behind some partly collapsed brick wall of rusty vertical steel support beam, poking only the arm gun around the corner to return fire. Each time he did so I was briefly able to see...from a pair of small eyes on the gun itself.

If I’d known it could do that I wouldn’t have had to expose myself to gunfire earlier! How had this newcomer mastered the suit more quickly and completely than I have? “Did you design this? Do you know Asherah?”

He hesitated at the mention of her name. “Asherah.... I remember that name. No, I did not design the armor. But I am beginning to think that I know who did.” The exchange was cut short by a grenade, sent hurtling at us from a launcher slung beneath the business end of the enforcer’s rifle.

It took the wall apart in a shower of flaming debris, bits of smoldering brick and dust raining down around me. “Do you still want control of your body back?” the voice queried, in a sassy tone. “Perhaps you think you could do better.”

I assured him that I didn’t. “I trust you. We both want the same thing, and I’ve never seen anybody fight this way.” He snorted in apparent satisfaction. “That’s all I ever asked for. That you put your trust me when I try to help you, and show a little gratitude for it.”

I thanked him exhaustively, just desperate to make it out of this alive. I had nobody else to rely on anyway, and whoever he actually is, so far he’s proven disturbingly adept at killing. That very much made him the man of the hour, at least until the last of the enforcers lay dead or dying.

The enforcer loaded another grenade. The instant before he launched it our way, the voice aimed my gun arm at the ground before us and shot some sort of sticky purple pod. On impact it explosively grew into a shield of thorns, just in time to bear the brunt of the grenade blast.

Another trick I didn’t even know I had at my disposal. Now content that the voice had matters well in hand, I settled in to watch him perform his grisly work. The enforcer switched over to a flamethrower integrated into its forearm.

The flamethrower made short work of the shield. What little the grenade didn’t shred, that is. It also generated a surprising quantity of smoke between us, which the voice availed himself of, slipping away into the interior of the nearest building...where the other enforcer was waiting for us.

It seized me by the throat, the armor around which swelled to protect it. “Where is he? I’ll give you ten seconds.” I struggled in vain, kicking my legs at him as they dangled in mid-air. “Whatever” the obsidian behemoth grumbled. “We can just extract it from what’s left of your exocortex. Say goodnight.”

I repeatedly slapped my hand against the enforcer’s dented, shiny black forearm. It hesitated, probably expecting me to talk. Instead I pointed over its shoulder, eyes wide to communicate urgency but still unable to make any sound other than wheezing.

“Oh, that’s cute. ‘Someone’s behind me’, right? You must think I’m retarded.” I pried at its fingers, loosening its grip on my neck just enough to sputter “C..can’t it...be both?” My captor’s other hand split apart into a trio of serrated blades, which it readied to cut my skull open. That’s as far as it got before a projectile of some form I’d not yet seen impacted the back of its head.

In the span of a few seconds it burst into rapidly growing vines, which engulfed the panicked enforcer. In the confusion I knocked the rifle from its hands. The anguished tinny sounding wails grew muffled, then finally ceased once the process finished, leaving a brand new tree rooted firmly to that spot...in a conspicuously humanoid shape.

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^{Stay Tuned for Part 54}