The Butcher didn't walk. He skittered.
He hung from the overhead rail system on four spindly, mechanical spider legs that clamped to the steel beam above. His torso dangled upside down, a grotesque pendulum of flesh and steel.
He had four arms. Two held serrated cleavers. Two held pneumatic hooks.
His face was a ruin. The skin had been peeled back and stapled to his skull, revealing the wet muscle and chrome teeth underneath.
"Fresh meat," The Butcher rasped. His voice sounded like a wet sponge being dragged over a cheese grater.
He swung toward Marcus.
"Move!" Marcus yelled.
He dove to the right.
CLANG.
The Butcher's cleavers sparked against the catwalk grating where Marcus had just been standing. The metal shrieked.
The Butcher scuttled sideways along the rail, defying gravity. He moved impossibly fast for something so heavy.
He slashed at Marcia.
Marcia ducked, racking her shotgun.
BLAM.
She fired a slug into the Butcher's chest.
It hit the heavy leather apron. The apron was lined with Kevlar and steel. The slug flattened, leaving a bruise on the armor but not penetrating.
The Butcher laughed. A wet, hacking sound.
"Tickles," he sneered.
He lunged with a hook.
It caught Marcia's shoulder plate. It ripped the pauldron off her armor, spinning her around. She slammed into the railing, dropping her gun.
"Marcia!" Marcus screamed.
He charged.
[COMBAT ANALYTIC: ENGAGED.]
[OPPONENT: AERIAL/MOBILE.]
[WEAKNESS: THE RAIL.]
JARVIS painted the target in gold. Not the monster. The track above him.
Marcus didn't slash at the Butcher. He slashed at the ceiling.
He jumped off a crate. He swung the Vibro-Gladius upward.
The blade hummed. It bit into the steel rail.
CRACK.
The rail snapped.
The Butcher shrieked as his support system failed. He fell ten feet.
CRASH.
He landed on the catwalk in a heap of tangled limbs.
"Now!" Marcus yelled.
He stabbed downward.
The Butcher rolled. He was fast on the ground too, using his four arms like a crab.
He scuttled backward. He grabbed a loose pipe. He threw it at Marcus.
Marcus deflected it.
But the distraction worked.
The Butcher scrambled toward the main gear. Toward Narcissus.
Narcissus was occupied. The giant cyborg was braced against the housing of the massive drive shaft. His feet were digging furrows into the steel floor. His arms were locked around a gear spoke the size of a tree trunk.
"RAAAH!" Narcissus roared. The blue veins in his neck bulged.
The gear was slowing. Metal groaned under the strain.
The Butcher leaped onto Narcissus's back.
"Let go!" the Overseer shrieked.
He raised his cleavers.
"No!" Marcus sprinted. But he was too far.
Narcissus couldn't let go. If he did, the gear would spin up, crushing him.
He couldn't fight back.
The cleavers came down.
THUNK. THUNK.
They buried themselves in Narcissus's shoulder armor. Sparks and coolant sprayed.
Narcissus grunted, but he didn't let go of the gear.
"Stubborn ox!" The Butcher hissed. He raised the hooks to rip Narcissus's helmet off.
BLAM. BLAM. BLAM.
Marcia was back on her feet. She fired three rounds rapidly. Not at the chest. At the face.
One slug caught the Butcher in the jaw. It shattered his chrome teeth.
He reeled back, stunned.
"Get off him!" Marcia screamed.
The Butcher turned his hate toward her. He prepared to pounce.
But Narcissus had had enough.
"You are annoying," Narcissus rumbled.
He let go of the gear with one hand.
He reached back blindly.
His massive metal hand caught the Butcher by the torso.
"What—?" the Butcher gasped.
Narcissus squeezed.
The servo-motors in Narcissus's arm whined. The Butcher's ribcage crunched.
"You are not iron," Narcissus said. "You are just scrap."
He ripped the Butcher off his back.
He held the flailing cyborg over the edge of the catwalk.
Below, the "Grinder" vat bubbled. A massive hopper filled with spinning blades meant for processing corpses.
"Recycle this," Narcissus said.
He dropped him.
The Butcher screamed all the way down.
SPLASH-CRUNCH-GRIND.
The scream turned into a wet gurgle as the blades caught him. Green fluid and metal shards sprayed from the hopper.
The machine choked. The Butcher's cybernetics were too tough for the grinder. The blades jammed.
CLUNK.
The grinder stopped.
But the main drive shaft—the one Narcissus was holding—kept trying to turn.
The pressure spiked.
[WARNING: CRITICAL MECHANICAL FAILURE.]
[HYDRAULIC RUPTURE IMMINENT.]
Pipes along the walls began to burst. Steam and green sludge sprayed everywhere.
"It's blowing!" Galen yelled from the console. "The pressure is backing up! The reactor is going to scram!"
"Run!" Marcus ordered.
Narcissus let go of the gear. He collapsed to his knees, clutching his damaged shoulder.
Marcus grabbed him. "Up, brother. We're leaving."
They ran along the catwalk. The factory was tearing itself apart.
Metal plates fell from the ceiling. Drones crashed into walls as their control signals died.
The floor beneath them shook violently.
They reached the waste outflow pipe—their exit.
But the grate was blocked. A piece of the ceiling had fallen in front of it.
"We're trapped!" Marcia yelled.
The sludge was rising. The pipe was filling with toxic runoff.
"Galen!" Marcus shouted. "The Sonic Charge! Use it!"
Galen pulled a small device from his pack. A miniature version of the Leviathan drill tech.
He slapped it onto the debris.
"Cover your ears!"
BWOOM.
The sonic pulse pulverized the concrete. The debris turned to dust.
The pipe cleared.
A wave of green sludge rushed out.
"Jump!" Marcus yelled.
They leaped into the pipe.
It was a waterslide from hell.
They slid down the dark tunnel on a river of chemical waste. They tumbled, spinning in the dark.
Ten seconds later, they shot out of the mountainside.
SPLASH.
They landed in the canyon river below. The water was cold, washing away the slime.
Marcus surfaced, gasping for air.
He looked up at the factory.
The smokestacks were crumbling. The windows blew out as the internal pressure reached critical mass.
A low, deep boom echoed through the valley.
The central reactor imploded. The building folded in on itself like a crushed can.
Dust and smoke billowed into the night sky.
They dragged themselves onto the riverbank.
They were covered in slime. Battered. Exhausted.
Marcia spat out a mouthful of river water. She looked at Marcus.
"You smell like a corpse," she said, wrinkling her nose.
Marcus wiped the green muck from his visor. He grinned.
"You smell like victory."
Narcissus sat on a rock. He pulled a piece of the Butcher's cleaver out of his shoulder. He tossed it into the river.
"He tasted bad," Narcissus grunted.
Galen checked his datapad.
"Reading zero output from the plant," he said. "The line is dead. No more Hollow Men."
"We cut the head off," Marcus said.
He looked at the convoy parked in the canyon shadow a mile downstream.
The refugees were standing on the roofs of the trucks, watching the fire on the mountain. They were cheering.
"This changes everything," Lucilla said, walking up to them. She was clean, having stayed with the convoy. She handed Marcus a towel.
"The Parthian army will starve," she said. "Without reinforcements, their front line collapses in a week."
"Good," Marcus said. "That buys us time."
He stood up. He looked West.
Beyond the mountains lay the plains of Turkey. And beyond that... the sea.
"What's next?" Marcia asked.
Lucilla projected the map onto a rock.
"We crossed the Taurus range. Next obstacle is the Sea of Marmara. The bridge to Europe."
"Is there a bridge?" Galen asked.
"There was," Lucilla said. "The Board blew it up to quarantine Europe."
"So we need a boat," Marcia sighed. "I hate boats."
"No," Marcus said.
He looked at the map. At the ruins of Istanbul.
"The Board built a hyperloop tunnel," Marcus said. "For their cargo trains. It runs under the Bosphorus."
"It's sealed," Lucilla said.
"Then we open it," Marcus said. "We drive to Rome."
He looked at his team.
"Mount up. We have a train to catch."