Day 35.
The Roof of the Silo.
Sauget, Illinois.
05:10 Hours.
The war became a rhythm. A factory line of destruction.
Load. Hiss. Boom. Scream.
We were on Shot Four.
The air on the roof was no longer breathable. It was a toxic soup of ozone, vaporized concrete, and the sickly sweet stench of burning copper. The heat radiating from the Riveter was distorting the air, making the Leviathan below look like a mirage.
"Clear!" I shouted, my voice raw.
Paige rammed the glowing red rebar into the breech with the heavy iron tongs. The heat radiating from the metal singed her eyebrows, blistering the skin on her forehead, but she didn't flinch. She was operating on pure adrenaline and terror.
HISS.
The induction coils screamed, dumping power from the generator into the rails. The magnetic field was so strong I could feel the fillings in my teeth vibrating.
I looked down the barrel through the iron sights.
The Leviathan was thrashing. The three bolts we had already put into it were glowing like embers in its grey flesh. They pinned its left flank to the bedrock, stapling the fused limbs to the earth. But the right side was still free. It was tearing at the ground, its forty legs churning the mud into a slurry, trying to drag itself forward, trying to reach the wall to batter it down.
The nine faces on its chest were screaming in a dissonant, wet chorus that made my skull ache.
"Travis!" I yelled over the noise. "Brace!"
Travis didn't answer. He couldn't.
He was crushed against the concrete blockhouse, held in place by the nylon cargo straps. His chest was a ruin. Every time the gun fired, the recoil plate slammed into him with the force of a car crash. The grey skin of his torso was purple with bruising, and black blood trickled from the corners of his mouth.
He just nodded. A small, jerky motion.
I pulled the lever.
KRAKOOM.
The gun kicked. The roof shook.
I heard the wet crunch of Travis's sternum giving way. It sounded like stepping on a dry branch.
The bolt flew. It struck the Leviathan in the lower abdomen, punching through the tangle of fused legs. It buried itself in the earth, stapling the monster's center of mass to the ground.
"Hit!" Yana screamed, shielding her eyes from the flash.
I looked through the scope.
The bolt had gone clean through. The entry wound was cauterized instantly by the friction heat. The exit wound was a jagged tear, steaming in the cool morning air.
But the monster didn't die. It didn't even slow down.
I saw movement inside the hole. Organs. Pumping, wet, violet masses shifting around the cauterized tunnel.
"It's over-penetrating," I whispered.
"What?" Ronnie yelled, checking the welds on the mount. Sparks were flying everywhere as the metal stressed.
"The velocity is too high!" I shouted, slamming my hand on the barrel. "We're punching holes, but we're not exploding the cores! It's like shooting a balloon with a needle! The hearts are just shifting out of the way!"
`[TARGET ANALYSIS: VITAL ORGANS INTACT.]`
`[DAMAGE: SUPERFICIAL.]`
`[STATUS: PINNED BUT ACTIVE.]`
We could pin it. We could stop it from moving. But we couldn't kill it from here. Not with solid slugs.
"We need explosives inside the cavity!" I said. "We need to crack the shell!"
"We can't launch grenades with a railgun!" Boyd yelled from the generator linkage. "The magnetic acceleration would detonate the primers in the barrel! We'd blow ourselves up!"
"I know," I said.
I looked at the Leviathan. I looked at the four glowing rebar shafts sticking out of its body. They were spaced perfectly. They looked like rungs.
A ladder of fire.
"Keep firing!" I ordered. "Pin the rest of the limbs! Make it a statue! If we can't kill it, we immobilize it!"
Shot Seven.
05:15 Hours.
"Jam!" Paige screamed.
She tried to slide the next bolt in, but it stuck halfway down the breech. She hammered on it with the tongs, but it wouldn't budge.
"The rails are warping!" Boyd shouted. He was looking at the copper coils. They were glowing white-hot, shedding flakes of oxide. "The heat is expanding the metal! The tolerance is gone! The bolt doesn't fit!"
The Leviathan roared. It sensed the pause in the bombardment. It surged forward, testing the pins. The concrete of the Silo groaned as the monster pushed against the wall with its remaining free limbs.
Dust rained down from the blockhouse.
"Fix it!" I yelled. "Force it in!"
"I need a pry bar!" Ronnie shouted, scrambling for his toolbox, knocking over a can of bolts.
"No time," Boyd said.
The Technomancer stepped forward. His movements were jerky, robotic.
He didn't use a tool. He used his hands.
Boyd grabbed the white-hot rails.
SSSSZZZT.
The sound of synthetic flesh melting was immediate. It sounded like bacon hitting a hot skillet. Silver fluid boiled out of his fingers, dripping onto the roof.
Boyd didn't scream. His pain receptors were dampened by his class, but I saw his blue eyes flicker and dim as the system routed every ounce of power to keep his servos functioning against the damage.
He squeezed.
His silver hands fused to the copper. He forced the warped rails back into alignment by sheer hydraulic strength.
"Load it!" Boyd glitched, his voice synthesizing into a robotic monotone, skipping syllables. "Load... the... bolt... User... Jack..."
He didn't let go. He couldn't let go. He was part of the circuit now. His hands were the clamps.
Paige slammed the bolt home, sliding it past Boyd's melting wrists.
I looked at Travis. He was unconscious. His head hung limp on his chest.
If I fired while he was limp, the recoil would snap his neck. He needed to be tense to absorb the shock.
I leaned down. I grabbed his face, smearing blood on his cheek. I slapped him. Hard.
"Wake up!" I roared. "Don't you die on me yet! We aren't done!"
Travis's eyes fluttered open. The orange light was almost gone, just a dying ember in a pile of ash.
"Still... here," he wheezed.
He tensed his muscles. He braced against the pain one more time.
I fired.
KRAKOOM.
Boyd convulsed as the current surged through him. Smoke poured from his shoulder joints. Travis groaned, a sound deep and guttural.
The bolt hit the Leviathan's right shoulder, pinning the last free arm.
Shot Nine.
05:18 Hours.
CRACK.
It wasn't the gun. It was the roof.
The concrete under the mount finally gave way. A fissure opened up beneath Travis's feet, running all the way to the edge of the Silo.
The gun tilted.
The anchor bolts ripped out of the stone with a screech of tearing metal. The barrel swung upward, aiming wildly at the sky.
"We lost the mount!" Ronnie screamed. "It's loose! The dampener failed!"
The Leviathan was pinned by its limbs, but its head was still free. The nine faces were screaming, building up for another sonic blast. Their throats were glowing violet.
If it screamed this close, it would liquefy our brains. It would kill us before we could fire the last shot.
"We need one more!" I yelled. "The neck! We have to pin the neck or it screams!"
"I can't aim it!" I struggled with the controls. The gun was listing to the side, heavy and dead. "The mount is broken! I can't depress the barrel!"
Travis moved.
He didn't step out of the straps. He leaned forward.
With a roar that sounded like rocks grinding together, Travis pulled against the straps. He grabbed the loose anchor bolt with his left hand—his human hand.
He pulled.
His bicep tore. I heard the muscle fibers snapping.
He pulled the gun back down.
He was holding the thousand-pound weapon steady with his own body weight, bridging the gap where the concrete had failed. He was the mount. He was the anchor.
"Aim..." Travis choked out, blood spraying from his lips. "Now..."
I looked through the scope.
My hands were shaking. The "Glass Cannon" lag was vibrating through my arms. I couldn't track the monster's head. It was thrashing too fast.
"I can't lock it!" I yelled. "I'm lagging! I can't predict the movement!"
"I... got... it..." Travis rasped.
He closed his eyes.
He could feel the vibrations through the floor. He could feel the monster moving against the wall. He wasn't using eyes. He was using the connection of the stone. He was the Tank. He knew where the enemy was by the weight of its hate.
He waited. He held the gun steady, his muscles tearing, his bones audibly grinding.
"NOW!" Travis roared.
I didn't think. I didn't aim. I pulled the lever.
KRAKOOM.
The final shot.
The recoil was catastrophic.
The gun jumped back. The mount disintegrated.
The force threw Travis against the wall. The concrete cracked behind him, spiderwebbing out in a halo of destruction.
But the bolt flew true.
It struck the Leviathan just below the chin, punching through the thickest part of the neck.
It slammed the creature's head back, pinning it against the wreckage of a tractor it had stepped on.
The screaming stopped.
The monster was crucified. Ten glowing red bolts held it fast to the earth.
`[BOSS STATUS: IMMOBILIZED.]`
`[WEAPON STATUS: DESTROYED.]`
The Riveter fell apart. The rails, warped and melted, collapsed onto the roof. Boyd fell back, his hands leaving behind chunks of silver metal fused to the copper coils. He lay there, smoke rising from his wrists.
Travis slumped in the straps. He didn't move. His chest wasn't rising.
Silence fell over the roof. A heavy, ringing silence.
I stood up. My legs were shaking, but the lag was fading. The adrenaline was overriding the System.
"Is it dead?" Ronnie whispered, peering over the edge.
"No," I said. "It's just stuck."
I checked the monitor on my wrist.
`[BOSS HEALTH: 88%.]`
We had turned it into a pincushion. We had poured enough steel into it to build a bridge. But we hadn't killed it. The hearts were still beating deep inside that fortress of meat, regenerating, healing around the hot steel.
I stripped off my heavy coat. I checked the Fang .45. Full mag.
I grabbed a machete from the pile.
"Yana," I said.
She looked at me. She was covered in soot, her eyes wide. She looked at Travis, then at me.
"You have the con," I said. "If I'm not back in ten minutes... or if that thing gets free... blow the roof charges. Collapse the entrance. Bury us all."
"Jack," she whispered. "What are you doing?"
I walked to the edge of the roof.
I looked down at the Leviathan.
The rebar shafts were glowing bright orange against the grey flesh. They formed a path. A ladder leading right up to the cluster of screaming faces.
"It's over-penetrating," I said. "So I'm going to deliver the payload by hand."
I climbed onto the parapet.
The wind whipped at my clothes. The smell of burning ozone and rot filled my lungs.
I looked at Travis one last time. He looked like a broken doll, strapped to the wreckage of the gun he had bought with his life.
"Good hold, Tank," I whispered.
I jumped.
FOUNDRY PROTOCOL - DAY 35
SECTOR 1 (JACK MONROE) █████████░ 9/10 Nodes
THREAT: LEVIATHAN (PINNED)
JACK: BOARDING THE ENEMY
WEAPON: DESTROYED
TRAVIS: UNCONSCIOUS/CRITICAL
NEXT EVENT: The Heart of the Beast / Surgical Strike