Chapter 137 The Iron City

Chapter 137 The Iron City
The Valkyrie did not fly like the Beast drove. It did not rumble or shake; it tore through the air with a horrifying, noiseless accuracy.

I was sitting next to Vane in the co-pilot seat and the world was going under us at four hundred knots. The scene was a carpetwork of destruction. We were already out of the white space of the Deadlands. The scenery now was a deep purple and grey--for miles and miles of petrified trees, of rivers of sludge that shone like oil and of the bones of towns swallowed by the Rot several years before.

Fuel is steady, I said, Vane replied, and his hands were dancing over the holographics of the controls. But the navigation computer is screaming. Its magnetic uproar in this industry is beyond record. It's as though flying into a microwave.

That, That's the Iron City, Ryker replied. He was standing behind us with his back against my seat. He had wiped his face with the soot, yet he still had on the stolen Purist body armor. It was shiny white on the dark interiors inside the cockpit. The Old Capital was constructed using the biggest deposits of heavy metals on the continent. It was a place where even the compasses failed to work even before the war.

"Why go there?" Jaxon, inquired of the jump-seat. The radios will not work in case it is magnetic. The sensors will be blind."

Since we can not scan it," Ryker said, "neither can Valerius. It's a dead zone. The orbital eyes can never see us anywhere on the earth.

"Visual!" Vane announced. "Coming over the ridge!"

Valkyrie turned to the left and flew over the peak of a mountain range of rusted scrap metal.

And there it was.

The Iron City.

It wasn't like the Spire. A tower had been a tower of glass and light, the Spire. This... this was a monument of weight.

The smog was topped with massive, Brutalist skyscrapers erected of dark concrete and iron girders. Across canyons of industrial refuse bridges were placed. The smokestacks, which were a decade old, were tombstones. But the city wasn't dead.

It was overgrown.

But not with vines.

"What is that?" I whispered, leaning forward.

Maintaining the buildings, covering the bridges, and filling the streets, was a substance, which resembled rust. But it was moving. It was a reddish-brown moss, which throbbed, and in feeding on the city consumed the metal, and grew thicker and thicker with each feeding.

Ferro-fungus, said Sato, scanning my shoulder. "A Rot mutation. It feeds on iron oxide. It makes steel... becomes... becomes flesh.

"Great," Vane muttered. "A city that eats itself. Where do I park?"

The Train Yard, Ryker indicated a huge open space in the middle of the industrial section. It is a level land of concrete. And it's defensible."

"Taking us down," Vane said. "Strap in. This might get bumpy."

The Valkyrie descended. The VTOL propellers turned about, throwing up a cloud of red dust. With a thud of heavy metal we landed in the middle of the Train Yard.

The ramp hissed open.

The Rust Jungle

The smell of old pennies and blood was in the air outside.

Ryker was at the head of the line with his pulse rifle on the ready. He was followed by Baron who snorted violently with his nose in the air. I led, Jaxon and a party of the finest militia men we left with me. We quitted the refugees and the stores on the ship with Vane at the turret.

"It's quiet," Jaxon whispered. "Too quiet. No birds. No wind."

We passed through lines of rusting trains. The red moss was half-eating them. The metal looked soft, spongy.

Do not touch the rust, Sato said in a voice enhanced by her hazmat helmet. And when this fungus decays metal, it will gnash at the iron in your blood as readily as at the east.

At the middle of the yard we arrived. It had a structure here--a contrivance of cars of the trains laid one above another.

But it wasn't welded. The cars were fused together.

Look at the joints, said Ryker, on his knees to examine a seam. "This wasn't done with a torch. It was done with acid. A person smelt these cars and made a wall out of them.

"Someone?" Baron growled. "Or something?"

CLANG.

Even an echo sounded in the yard. Metal striking metal.

CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.

It was a rhythm. A warning.

"Contact!" Ryker shouted. "Defensive circle!"

Our weapons up, we turned around.

Out of the darkness of the train cars, bodies appeared.

They were human. Technically.

However, they had adjusted to the Iron City in a manner which gave me chills.

Their armor was covered, but not worn, but grown. Metal plates of rusted iron were welded right into the flesh. Their arms were thick, and stuffed with muscle and iron. Their faces were covered with goggles that were grafted to the skulls.

There were dozens of them. Instead, they carried weapons fashioned of scrap--spears of rebar, hammers of engine blocks, shields of literally carved doors on their forearms.

They didn't speak. They simply breathed--a metallic sound, like the file on the steel, raspy.

"We are not here to fight!" Ryker shouted and dropped his rifle slightly, without removing his finger off the trigger. "I am General Ryker. We are exiles of the Spire. We seek shelter."

The figures didn't respond. They parted.

One of the gigantic forms came forth.

It was a man, seven feet tall. He had no shirt, no shirt could fit him. His whole body, except the genitalia, was a topography of scar tissue and iron plates. His right arm was also an artificial one, but it was not a cybernetic artificial arm, but a huge, hydraulic pile-driver piston, which had been welded to his shoulder with the red moss.

He pulled the piston-arm down the ground, spitting and spurting off the concrete.

He halted ten feet away Ryker.

He gazed at the pure white Purist armor which Ryker wore. He gazed at clean lines of the Valkyrie behind us.

He spat. One drop of red saliva fell on the ground and sizzled.

"Soft," the man grunted. His voice was as gravel in a blender. "You... look... soft."

We are tougher than we appear to be, Ryker said. "We just killed the sky. We took their ship. We have food. Medicine."

The weak medicine, the weak medicine, rumbled the man. He tapped his iron chest. "The Rust... creates... strength."

We do not want trouble, I said and made a step forward. "We just want a place to rest. The metropolis is large enough between us two.

The man looked at me. With a mechanical whir his grafted goggles focused on him.

"Pretty," he sneered. "Fragile. You would break... in the fog."

He raised his piston-arm.

It is... the Iron Flesh territory. The weak... are fuel."

We are not fuel," Baron sneered, getting next to Ryker. His hands were transformed into claws. "And we aren't soft. Would you have the metal, tin-man, test?

The leader laughed. It was an awful screeching noise.

"Test," he agreed.

He whistled.

Something sprang out of the stacked train cars on the top.

It wasn't a man. It was a Scrap-Hound.

It was a dog, though it was mutated by the ferro-fungus. Its teeth were iron spikes. Wire mesh was used in place of its fur. It crashed down with a gnarl, snarling.

Kill the wolf, the leader said.

The Scrap-Hound came to charge Baron.

Baron didn't back down. He roared and met the charge.

The dog clucked its chained jaws. Baron leaped aside, and the metal teeth flashed inches close to his throat. Baron slashed with his nails, in the direction of the hound.

SPARK.

His nails pulled at the wire mesh fur, and sparks jumped along, although they produced no blood.

"It's armored!" I shouted.

"Baron! Go for the joints!" Ryker yelled.

Baron realized his mistake. He couldn't cut metal. He had to crush it.

He cowered beneath the next rush of the hound. He grabbed its hind leg.

Baron hefted the huge metal creature with a club-stroke, with a heave of straining power. He crashed it against the side of a train car.

CRUNCH.

The hound screamed--the cry of straining metal. Baron didn't let go. He smashed it again. And again. The iron ribcage of the hound collapsed until the hound ceased moving.

Baron dropped the carcass. He was standing and panting, and his hands were bleeding in holding the wire.

Metal bends," Baron spit upon the leader. "Flesh heals. Who is weak now?"

The ruler gazed at the dead hound. He gazed at Baron as if he respected him.

"Good," the leader grunted. "Not... soft."

He lowered his piston-arm.

"I am... Ferrous, I am Ferrous, I added. "Leader of the Iron Flesh."

Ryker, Ryker, said, sheathing his rifle. "Leader of the Exodus."

You have... ship," Ferrous was waving a rusted finger at the Valkyrie. "We have... city. You want... stay?"

"We want to survive," Ryker said.

Ferrous said, Survival... has a price.

Instead, he pointed outward in the middle of the city, where a huge factory smokestack was rising above the smog, and which was faintly lit in green.

"The Foundry," Ferrous said. "It... woke up. The machines... are creating... something new. Something... bad."

"Bad how?" Jaxon asked.

It consumes... the Rust, Ferrous said, with fear found creeping in his mechanical voice. "It eats... us. You assist us... to murder the Foundry... you remain.

Ryker looked at me. He was studying the ship packed with refugees.

"We just got here," I whispered. And mercenaries already we are.

We can do business at the cost of doing business in the apocalypse, Ryker remarked.

He turned to Ferrous.

"Deal," Ryker said. We murder your ghost in the machine. You give us the Train Yard."

Ferrous smiled and showed teeth capped with steel.

"Welcome... to the Iron City."

He walked and walked away, the rust crunching at his heavy feet.

We were in the yard, with the silent armored warriors of the Iron Flesh.

On her scanner, Sato whispered to himself, They are cannibals. Their armor, Ryker, it is not grafted. They are taking the blood of their enemies and absorbing the iron. That is the way they keep the plating.

They are people who survived, Ryker said grimly. "Just like us. but acclimatized to another hell.