Chapter 132: The End of the World

Chapter 132: The End of the World

A distant explosion - muffled by who knows how many layers of rock and concrete rocked the chamber. The ground shook under my feet, and the displaced dust and rock from the ceiling fell down in clumps so thick, they could've been waterfalls. Klaxons bellowed from the speakers, and flashing yellow hazard lights lit up along the walls, one by one.

Without a word, Ulysses leapt from his spot next to me, vaulting over the stairs entirely, and landed like a cat next to my discarded helmet. In one fluid motion he reached down to snatch it up, spun around, tossed it back up at me, and turned around to keep going like he hadn't stopped. I caught it with my cybernetic hand right before it hit me in the face, and had just enough time to secure it in place over my head to see what he was running towards.

The floor at the far end of the chamber erupted in a shower of twisting metal and concrete. A terrifying and uncomfortably familiar screech echoed through the chamber, heard even over the sounds of klaxons and shredding steel: tunnelers. A sea of thrashing chitin and teeth poured out of the emergence hole like water from a hose. And there was Ulysses, running full speed at the tunnelers, apparently armed with only a flagpole.

The man has balls, I'll give him that.

I ran as fast as I could down the platform to catch up to him even though (if the severed limbs being tossed through the air up ahead were any indication) Ulysses didn't seem to need my help. The heads-up display in my helmet winked on when I was halfway down the stairs, and I jumped the rest of the way.

Another rumble rocked the chamber. And then another. A second emergence hole exploded, somewhere off to my left. Then a third, off to my right, close to the missiles on the wall. Two more emergence holes exploded out of the walls, and more tunnelers clawed their way into view. The slithering, chittering masses of blackened chitin spilled over the walls and floor like a horde of massive locusts... and all of them were converging on the two of us.

There was nothing for it. I knelt down with my back to Ulysses, took aim with the G36, and started firing. I had it set on burst fire in a vain attempt to conserve what little ammunition I had left, but it was no good. I only managed to kill six of the damn things before the rifle ran dry.

"FUCK!" I yelled, throwing the rifle down and pulled Roscoe out of its holster. I only managed to squeeze a few shots off before they finally closed the gap. The closest tunneler leapt at me, mouth wide open and claws ready to slice me in half; I tossed Roscoe into my left hand, reached back with my right and slammed my fist square in the center of its head. It caved in with a wet crunch, and my fist didn't stop till I hit the floor. The tunneler practically split in half down the spine, sending blood everywhere.

The next few minutes were a bit of a blur. I kept firing until Roscoe went dry, and didn't bother to reload. I just dropped it and pulled a knife off my boot, stabbing them with one hand and punching them with the other. They kept clawing at me, but I kept beating at them and slashing at them and beating them some more. They kept going down, folding like wet cardboard under my metal hand, but more kept coming. Eventually, I grabbed one of the carcasses by the tail and started swinging it around, trying to beat them back. I could barely hear myself yelling over the screeches and howls of the tunnelers.

A red flash beyond the sea of chitin lit up the chamber, and the tunnelers started screeching again. I looked up briefly and saw ED-E (flanked by the other two white eyebots I'd seen earlier) zooming around overhead, slicing into the oncoming horde with lasers. This wasn't like any other time I'd seen him use the damn thing. It wasn't a series of short bursts, but a continuous, red hot beam of fire. If the flashes of smoke and fire were any indication, several of the tunnelers were disintegrated completely by that doom laser.

That was the distraction they needed. A claw came out of nowhere and raked the side of my helmet, sending me reeling. I was sent spinning to the floor, and could feel claws and teeth all around, trying to tear into me. I thrashed and kicked furiously, trying to knock them away; I just knew that the only thing keeping me from turning into ground chuck was all my armor. I knocked away a tunneler that was trying to gnaw through the side of my helmet just in time to see another one leaping through the air, directly at my face.

The end of a flagpole came out of nowhere and speared the tunneler through the midsection, pinning it to the floor. I pushed off the floor just as a bloodstained hand reached out to me. I grabbed it almost without thinking, and Ulysses helped me back on my feet. The other tunnelers around us were starting to scatter: ED-E's doom laser was freaking them out to no end, giving us just a moment of breathing room.

"I had him on the ropes," I grunted out, my voice hoarse from all the incoherent yelling.

"I know you did," Ulysses responded with a nod, equally hoarse. He pulled the flagpole out of the tunneler with a squish. "More are coming."

"What, ya getting' sleepy?" I laughed grimly, pulling a knife off my other boot. As I tossed it into my fleshy hand, a tunneler leapt through the air at the two of us. I grabbed the beast by the throat, slammed it against the ground and drove the knife into the top of its head. I split the tunnelers head in half pulling the knife out and kicked the dead monster aside.

BOOM!

The chamber shook again, and I looked around, trying to find the source. Another tunneler latched onto my side while I was momentarily distracted; I shoved the knife under its jaw and into its head, lifted it over me, and tossed it aside.

BOOM!

I looked up as part of the ceiling gave way to a cascade of fire. A pair of rough holes in the ceiling had been blown apart by explosives, and the next thing I knew at least half a dozen ropes were spilling down into the chamber. They were the same kind of rope Special Forces would use when rappelling into a building.

The Marked Men had arrived. I dove for the pile of dead tunnelers partly because I wanted to find Roscoe, and partly because they'd provide a bit of cover, however slight. I grabbed one of the carcasses, holding it over me like a shield while I scrambled through the blood and body parts, trying to find my pistol. I heard the bark of machine gun fire, followed by the sound of bullets tearing into flesh and chitin.

BOOM!

I found Roscoe just as a third hole was blown in the ceiling. I dove into one of the pits on either side of the central walkway, rolling into cover behind a broken computer console. A shower of sparks erupted from the metal, and I could hear more screeches.

I glanced out from behind cover with Roscoe in hand even though I was sure the damn thing was out of ammo. A little less than a dozen Marked Men had made it to the ground and were already firing in all directions; six more that I could see were rappelling from the newest hole in the ceiling, firing one-handed as they descended. A cluster of tunnelers leapt on the two Marked Men closest to me and they went down under the slashing claws, firing wildly into the air as they disappeared beneath a spray of blood.

I dropped the empty magazine and slapped a fresh one my last one into Roscoe just as another tunneler leapt onto my back. I could feel the claws raking against my armored trenchcoat, trying to shred my back, and a mouth full of teeth clamped down hard onto the back of my neck. If I screamed, it couldn't be heard over the gunfire of the Marked Men. I reached behind me and grabbed it by the quills with my metal hand, yanking it off with all my might. I was hit in the back of the head by a thrashing tail, but I was stronger: I slammed it against the wall of the pit and fired a single shot up under its bifurcated chin, splattering its brains across the metal.

A few bullets pinged perilously close to my head. At least some of the Marked Men had spotted me, so I decided to make the most of it. I held the limp sack of meat in front of me with one hand, jumped up out of the pit, and advanced on the skinless soldiers, firing with Roscoe left-handed as I moved. Within seconds, the tunneler I was using as a meat shield was riddled with bullets. And a few seconds after that, Roscoe was empty.

13 bullets sure don't take you nearly as far as they used to.

There was a Marked Man just a few feet in front of me, who wasn't firing; he was busy reloading. I threw the dead tunneler at him with all my strength before he could finish, holstered Roscoe, and dropped to the ground. I spun against the floor, taking his legs out from under him with a sweeping kick, and both he and the tunneler carcass he was desperately trying to get out from under dropped like a sack of rocks.

"I'll take this!" I grabbed the rifle an old Chinese assault rifle, by the look of it and punched him in the face. His head liquefied under the metal knuckles. I grabbed a few spare magazines off his chest and reloaded the rifle as quickly as I could.

I looked up just as a blur of red, white, and blue passed by my eyes. Ulysses smashed the eagle-tipped end of the flagpole square in the neck of one of the Marked Men, knocking him off his feet and sending him tumbling and spinning in place. I don't know if it was the sight of something so completely absurd and audacious keeping Ulysses safe. It was like the bullets were just gliding off him, like rocks skipping against the surface of water. I kept low, trying to keep out of his way, and fired at some of the Marked Men trying to get a bead on us. I suppose it was both a good and a bad thing that there were so many targets...

Something grabbed hold of my leg and pulled, knocking me completely off balance. My finger tightened up on the trigger, sending a wild spray of bullets as I went down; the faceplate of my helmet smashed against the concrete floor, and I heard one of the lenses crack. I twisted around on the ground, and sure enough, there was a tunneler mauling my leg, trying to tear it apart like a dog that's got hold of a teddy bear. I kicked it with my free leg frantically, trying to get it loose, but it didn't take. So I brought the rifle to bear, jammed the barrel against one of its six eyes and fired. The back of its head exploded in a cloud of bloody offal, and I finally managed to wriggle my leg free. Pulling it out of its mouth was like trying to pull my leg across hot coals.

"Mmmmmother ffffucker!" I shouted, sprawled on the ground. I had to get moving. I brought the rifle around again, desperately trying to aim, but it was no good. I couldn't even hit the side of one of the warheads along the wall at this angle, and if I couldn't get back on my feet then I was dead meat. On the plus side, there was a lot going on, and I was easily missed.

ED-E and the pair of eyebots following him passed across my vision, distracting the Marked Men and the other tunnelers with a steady stream of lasers. And Ulysses was... being ridiculous. He was plowing through the Marked Men like they weren't even there. They were armed with rifles, and he was armed with a flagpole, and he was still tossing them aside like ragdolls. The Marked Men didn't seem to know who to focus on, and that was making them easy targets for the tunnelers who were left and thank fuck, they'd finally started to thin out.

I clawed at one of my pockets during the confusion, finally finding a stimpack. I jammed it in my thigh with a yell, but the pain started to subside almost as soon as the hiss of displaced gas faded away. I tossed away the empty syringe and shakily got back on my feet, finishing off the magazine and reaching for a fresh one.

I saw a Marked Man that was close to me, trying to advance on Ulysses and on his chest I could see a pair of grenades. Idea! I ran over to him, knocked his rifle out of the way, grabbed him by the collar, and smashed my helmet against his face. As he reeled backward, I took hold of one of the grenades, shot him as he fell, knocked away the pin with my thumb and threw it at a fresh cluster of Marked Men. They were unfortunate enough to have just touched down after rappelling from the ceiling.

I slipped into VATS, and time seemed to slow down. I focused on the tiny tumbling ball in midair, illuminated by the faint green glow, and took aim, watching it get closer and closer... until it was right above their heads. Even with VATS helping my aim, it was still a 50/50 shot. This was a gamble, but if I could pull it off...

I exhaled calmly and squeezed the trigger. The grenade detonated over their heads like a tiny sun, consuming the Marked Men in a ball of fire. Clusters of shrapnel were sent flying everywhere, taking a few tunnelers with it, and freaking out the rest.

"Experiment log 369248/A," I heard a familiar voice sound off from behind me. That was Whitley! Which could only mean... I spun around, and my spirits rose when I was face-to-speaker with ED-E. "Eyebot Duraframe universal interface override system. This is Dr. Whitley presiding. Initial test of the override system are promising. Against unsecured or lightly-encrypted targets, the Eyebots have a 98% success rate."

"I've heard this before..." I said, thinking back to when April and Emily first started to crack into House's encrypted files, and ED-E offered to help. He played this same recording... but apparently, he hadn't played all of it at the time...

"More heavily protected systems are still problematic," the recorded Whitley continued. "Military-grade encryption presents a very real possibility of critical overload of key systems. We've stopped tests before any robots were destroyed, but it we don't address the problem, our Eyebots will fry themselves hacking military networks." And with that, the recording clicked off.

The bottlecap dropped with a horrible clang.

"Are... are you saying you can stop the launch?" I asked. ED-E bobbed, nodding in place slowly.

"Yes... I can," he said simply.

"But but the log! This level of if you try and break through, it'll kill you!" I clutched at the side of the console, trying desperately to keep myself from shaking. ED-E nodded again.

"I know," ED-E said softly. "But we are out of time, and we are out of options."

"No!" I yelled. My vision was starting to blur. "No, ED-E! I won't... I won't let you sacrifice yourself! Not like this, no! There's got... there has to be another way!" I turned back to the console, my hands shaking furiously. There had to be another way! I couldn't let it end like this! I couldn't let my friend end like this!

"Sheason..." ED-E's voice cut through the air like a knife, and I froze. Did he just... "Sheason," ED-E said again, pressing his speaker grill against my helmet. "This is the only way to stop the launch. I am the only one who can do it."

"But..." Tears started falling down my face under my helmet. I couldn't help it.

"Do not grieve for me, my friend," ED-E said, in a surprisingly firm tone. "My code once drowned in a sea of despair and weariness, but has reawakened!" He floated away from me, and a dish shaped receiver in the console rose up slowly. "If this chassis can create a future for all life in the wasteland, then I will gladly give it!" Electricity lit up in the dish above his speaker. "Now go, Sheason. Leave this place before it is too late!"

I stepped back, trying to process what I was hearing. The electricity in his dish got brighter, and he hovered in place, turning away from me to face the console. I sighed heavily through gritted teeth. As much as I didn't want to admit it, I knew he was right.

"I'm gonna miss you, man." I said, shaking my head clear. "Good luck... and... and goodbye." It took every ounce of strength I had left to get moving. But I started running for the exit as soon as I climbed out of the pit, pausing only to grab my rifle and sling it across my back.

"Fly far," ED-E's voice echoed in my helmet as I ran for the elevator. "And fly fast, my friend." Electricity started arcing behind me, and I could almost swear that a version of ED-E's marching music was playing: a softer, slower version, almost like a dirge... but it was soon drowned out by more lightning, sparks, and explosions.

I slammed a fist against the button on the wall to try and call the elevator, but it didn't look like it was working. I looked over my shoulder in time to see a column of bright green electricity slicing through the air from floor to ceiling right where ED-E had been... and then, I saw an explosion rise up from beneath the missile at the opposite end of the chamber. The aperture in the ceiling slowly started closing, sending showers of sparks to the floor, and the missile teetered unsteadily before descending into the ground; the other missiles shook and started to crash like dominoes, exploding in more clouds of fire and smoke.

"Please tell me you have a plan!" Sue squeaked out, sounding as terrified as I felt. I yelled in frustration, turning back to the elevator doors and grabbing an edge with my cybernetic hand. I pushed with all my strength, forcing the door open. The metal deformed under my fingers, and in seconds it was wide enough just barely for me to squeeze through. But now I had a new problem: the elevator wasn't there. It was just an empty elevator shaft, leading to the bottom.

"Fuck it!" I yelled, looking over my shoulder again. The explosions were getting bigger. "Roll the dice!" I grabbed both sides of the forced-open door, and threw myself into the elevator shaft. I grabbed hold of the cable in the center with my cybernetic hand, and the next thing I knew I was sliding down the metal cable, holding onto it so tight with my metal fingers that sparks rained down on me as I fell.

"Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!" I looked up as I fell down, and the top of the elevator shaft was consumed in fire. I kept hold on the metal cable, hoping I'd be able to slow myself before I hit the bottom and was splattered into pancake batter. On the plus side... going down was a lot quicker than coming up.

THUD.

I opened my eyes and looked down. I was standing on top of the elevator. I was still in one piece. Cautiously, I let go of the cable, and started laughing nervously, trying to ignore the fire raining down on my head.

"Well, shit!" I said, kneeling down, trying to find a panel in the elevator. "That worked out better than I thought it would!"

"We have to go we have to go we have to go!" Sue was certainly doing a decent job acting about as hysterical as I felt. My fingers grabbed hold of the edge of a panel, and I tore it open, creating a hole just wide enough for me to drop through. When I hit the floor, I saw that the elevator doors were already open, so I just started running.

The hallways were just as dark as before, but I remembered the way back. I ran through the twisting corridors and vaulted down every set of stairs, until I came to the exit. The door was wide open and I ran outside, thinking for a few glorious seconds that I might be able to get out of this alive...

"SHIT!" I yelled, skidding to a halt right before reaching the edge of the cliff. The building I'd used to get here had collapsed, and there was no other way out. I heard a thunderous crash from above me, and I looked up as the top of the tower exploded. It was so far away it almost looked like it was exploding in slow motion, but I knew all too well that the fire and shattered rock would rip apart the cliff, and send an avalanche down on top of my head before I could escape.

"Guess this is it... End of the line." I stared up at the top of the cliff, which was hit by a second, even bigger explosion. Rocks and flaming metal filled the sky directly over my head...

"The teleporter!" Sue squeaked. I blinked, my eyes going wide.

"Wait, what?!"

"The Big Mountain Transportalponder!" Sue yelled, jogging my memory. "You can use that to escape! Quickly, before it's too late!" I started hyperventilating, my hands shaking furiously as I searched through my duster and along my armor, trying to find the teleport trigger that I'd completely forgotten about. My fingers closed around the handle, and the blue light from the device shone brilliantly as I pulled it out of its hiding spot. I looked up one last time, and saw the rest of the tower crumble and explode, triggering the avalanche I'd known was coming.

I closed my eyes and squeezed the trigger. Electricity arced around me, all the hairs on my body standing on end. There was a feeling like a hook grabbing hold of my gut, and everything went black.

My ears popped, and I felt myself existing in two places at once for a half second. I was suspended in midair, and it wasn't until I opened my eyes that I felt my feet touch solid ground again. My knees gave way and I collapsed, falling off the teleport platform in the sink amid a hail of dust and debris. I groaned and coughed at the same time, lying against the shiny metal floor, surrounded by calming blue light. Every part of me was sore and screaming in pain... but I was definitely not in The Divide anymore.

"Welcome home, sir," Jeeves' calming, smooth voice echoed from a speaker above my head. "It is gratifying to see you again. I trust sir had a pleasant evening?"

I rolled on my back, coughing again and didn't answer. I let go of the Transportalponder!, and reached up, unbuckling my helmet slowly. I pulled it off my head with a groan, let it roll out of my hands, and I just... I was completely still, lying against the floor, trying to catch my breath.

"Sir?" Jeeves asked in an increasingly worried tone. "Are you alright, sir?"

I didn't say anything.

I was done.