Chapter 138 The Foundry
The further we entered the Iron City, the noisier the world was getting.
At the Train Yard there was no noise, but the wind whistling through the empty skeletons of the railcars. However, as we progressed with Ferrous and his crew of scrap-armored warriors in the direction of the industrial hub, there came a kind of low, thrumming that I felt in the bottom of my feet.
THUMP-HISS. THUMP-HISS.
It was as though a great, rusty heart pumping down below.
Thick smog, here, said Dr. Sato and tightened the seal of her hazmat helmet. She was gripping her scanner as a Geiger counter. "Air quality is toxic. Heavy metal particulates. And... spores. High levels of organic sediment.
It is the puff of the furnace, Ferrous grunted. He hurried on before us, and his piston-arm dragged in the red dust. "The Foundry... breathes."
We turned a corner of wreckage of warehouses and beheld it.
The Foundry was not only a factory. It was a city within a city. A great system of black iron pipes, smokestacks, and conveyor belts which wound and wrapped around one another like a snakes nest. The glass was broken, and a green that was sickly and pulsating spurred out of it and cut through the red fog.
That is large, whistled Vane holding his plasma rifle. We will have to have a bigger hammer.
Through the throat, Ferrous indicated a huge intake vent that had rusted open. "The main doors... are sealed. Fused."
Keep above, boys, keep up, said Ryker to the group. "Baron, watch the rear. Vane, eyes up. It will be secured should this place be automated.
We scrambled through the air-hose. The smell of the stuff in the air was of burnt oil, and rotting meat.
The Assembly Line
We fell onto a catwalk where we could see the main production floor.
I gasped.
The factory was alive.
Miles of conveyor belts were on the move like underneath us. There were giant robotic arms, rusted, and bearing patches of the red ferro-fungus, which swung to and fro in the jerky, spasmodic movements. They were welding. They were cutting. They were assembling.
However, they were not constructing cars. Or tanks.
"What in the hell are those?" Jaxon uttered a word, and tilted his rifle on the railing.
There were skeletons upon the belt, crawling forward through the darkness. Not bones of men--iron bones. Vehicles composed of scrap iron, rebar, and salvaged engine components.
The robotic arms did not weld steel plates to them as they proceeded down the conveyor.
They sprayed them with biomass.
We saw with terror as a nozzle came down and squeegeed a piece of metal in a thick paste of grey. It was burning, growing and solidifying into that which resembled muscle tissue.
It is artificial meat, Sato thought, and her voice shook. They are reproducing biological material on mechanical supports. It... it is a cyborg assembly line.
"Rot-Droids," Ryker grimaced. "Half machine, half fungus."
"Why?" I asked. "Why build them?"
Owing to the reason, metal breaks; Ferrous grumbled beside me. "Flesh... heals. They are... the perfect workers. They do not rust. They do not stop."
Suddenly, a siren blared.
"CONTAMINATION DETECTED. SECTOR 4. PURGE INITIATED."
The voice wasn't Valerius. It wasn't the Queen. It was a hacking, chopping robot which was like a scratching record.
The conveyor belts stopped.
The robotic arms froze.
Then all the heads on the production line lifted to the right.
Hundreds of gleaming violet eyes were fixed upon the catwalk.
"We triggered the alarm!" Vane yelled.
They are not employees, ten, Ryker thought, and lifted his rifle. "They're soldiers."
The Rot-Droids squeaked--a noise of grumbling gears and watery throats. They started to ascend upon the support pillars and were as swift as insects.
"Open fire!" Ferrous roared.
His piston-arm came to the fore. The first droid, as he was climbing the ladder, was struck by a bolt of compressed air causing him to fall backward into the machinery below.
CRUNCH.
Ryker opened using the Purist plasma rifle.
PEW-PEW.
The droids were struck by blue bolts which tore through the synthetic flesh and melted the iron beneath the flesh.
"They're fast!" Turning into a Wolf, Baron screamed. He struck a droid that sprang up the railing and his claws flashed on its metal ribcage.
The droid didn't fall. It caught Baron by the arm in a hydraulic grip which bruised the bone. It unscrewed its jaws--an old bear trap with biological teeth--and attempted to bite him.
"Get off him!" I screamed.
I thrust my hand out. A puff of wind struck the droid, and hurled it down the railing and it crashed to the ground.
"Move!" Ryker ordered. "We can't hold the high ground! We need to shut down the power!"
"The Core!" Ferrous was pointing a metal finger at the middle of the factory, over which a huge crucible was burning green. "Kill the brain... kill the body."
We ran as fast as we could down the catwalk, shooting.
The factory fought back. The robot assembly arms swung to hit us and attempted to push us out of the walkway.
"Duck!" Vane shouted, and slipped under a swinging beam of steel.
One of the Rot-Droids fell through the ceiling and fell on the floor in front of Sato. It lifted an arm in which a rusted blade was welded.
Sato froze.
Ferrous didn't.
The leader of the Iron Flesh came forward. There was no weapon, he used his bulk. He crashed into the droid and nailed it onto the railing.
"You... are... scrap!" Ferrous roared.
He activated his piston-arm.
KA-CHUNK.
The droid went flying down the catwalk, its power core shattered in place by the pile-driver spike in the chest.
"Thanks," Sato gasped.
Keep... move... Ferrous grunted as the oil ran out of his shoulder.
The Crucible
We came to the middle stage.
The Crucible was a pool of molten slag, which was green fire boiling. Most importantly, above it was suspended on massive chains the Master Control Unit.
It was an infested computer mainframe. Thick piped veins of red fungus throbbed in the circuits. A human skull was implanted in the middle of the screen with the wires going to the eyes.
It was organic processing, Sato said, in horror. They are taking a human brain to operate the factory logic.
"Is it alive?" I asked.
My poor fellow he said, flattening his ears and moaning. I hear it screaming on the low frequencies.
"How do we kill it?" Ryker asked.
Vane looked at the control panel and said, "Overload it. In case I drop the thermal regulators, the Crucible will overboil. It'll melt the mainframe."
"Do it," Ryker ordered. "We'll cover you."
Vane began poking holes into the panel.
The Rot-Droids ran about the stage. They were on the chains climbing up the sides of the vat, crawling.
"Hold the line!" Ryker shouted.
He and Ferrous were facing each other. The clean soldier, white-skinned and the scrap-metal warlord.
Ryker shot accurate plasma bullets. Ferrous broke skulls with savage power.
You struggle... well... as a tender man, Ferrous grumbled and pounded a head of a droid with his mechanical hand.
You know, you are not so bad yourself, tin-man," Ryker said, cutting a droid in half using his Star-Metal sword.
"Almost there!" Vane yelled. "Thermal dump in three... two..."
A large, four-armed droid fell down the ceiling and fell right onto the console.
CRASH.
It caught Vane round the throat, and lifted him up.
"Vane!" I screamed.
I didn't have a clear shot. Baron was occupied. Ryker was reloading.
Vane kicked, and the droid had iron in his grip.
Suddenly, a shot rang out.
BANG.
Not a plasma bolt. A solid slug.
The droid's head exploded.
Vane fell on the floor, choking.
We looked up.
A figure in a tattered grey cloak was standing on a higher gantry, and bearing a long-range sniper rifle.
He lowered the rifle.
He wasn't Iron Flesh. He wasn't Exodus.
He pulled back his hood.
His features were burned, and half-plastered with moss. But his eyes were sharp.
"Gareth?" Ryker whispered.
It wasn't Gareth. Gareth had died, and was eaten in the Spire.
The man reloaded.
Name's Kaelen, the sniper called down. And you're doing a great deal of banging in my garden.
"Vane! The button!" Ryker screamed and came to himself.
The vane smashed his fist on the override.
WARNING. THERMAL CRITICAL.
The Crucible roared. A stream of burning green molten slag came out, and swallowed the suspended mainframe.
The screaming stopped.
Rot-Droids stood paralyzed. They lacked the central signal and would have been mere meat and metal statues.
The plant fell dead, except that the vat was bubbling.
"We did it," Sato breathed.
Ryker gazed up at the sniper on the gantry.
"Who are you?" Ryker asked.
I am the one that saved your pilot, I said, Kaelen. He slung his rifle. And if you would live to see tomorrow, then you had better follow me. It is not the Foundry that is opening its eyes in this city.
Ferrous was suspicious of the sniper.
"The Ghost..." Ferrous rumbled. "I thought... you were a myth."
"Myths don't miss," Kaelen said.
He turned and walked into the shadows.
"Let's move," Ryker said. "We have a new player."