Mike Stackpole - Ghost Book One - The Earth Transformed

There it was! There was the crazy! Suddenly it was as clear as day that we were all closer to the moon than Finster was to sanity.

“Wait,” said Angie, “you just said, “If we could thrive in that radiation the whole world could be ours.” What happened to “we” all of a sudden?”

“We as in my family,” said Finster. “The world will be ours, not yours.”

Vargas choked, then laughed. “Okay, putting aside the fact that you’re calling for the death of all mankind, evolution takes a long damn time, doesn’t it? It would still take thousands and thousands of generations before those porcupine wolves out there started rubbing sticks together and making fire — maybe millions. You’d be long dead before you got what you wanted, and I have serious doubts any sane person would want to continue the process after you died. It just ain’t gonna work.”

Finster smiled. At least the corners of his mouth went up. It still didn’t look like a smile. “It will work, because I will not die. I have left the human lifecycle behind. I can wait as long as it takes. Then my children, who will grow and thrive under my care, will repopulate the earth, making it again the Eden God intended. What foolish human wars destroyed, I and my guided–evolution family will make anew.”

“Sounds quite cozy and megalomaniacal,” said Athalia, “but what about the robots coming from Base Cochise? They’re going to roll over this place long before your “children” have evolved the defenses to protect themselves. Your plan won’t last this generation, let alone a thousand.”

Finster’s eyes flicked to her. “Yes. The robots.” His face made the non–smiling smile motion again. “The robots are the reason I have let you live this long, and have patiently answered your questions.”

“Gee, thanks,” said Hell Razor.

Finster kept talking like Hell Razor hadn’t spoken. “The robots must be dealt with — as must the computer that is creating them — and you ‘rangers’ have the skills and firepower to deal with them, while I, currently, do not. This is why I want you to become part of Project Darwin — my security team, if you will. In exchange you will have the pick of the housing in Darwin Village and any mate you want from my pool human test subjects. Also, I have a security pass for Sleeper Base One which will give you access to advanced armor to help you win the fight.”

Angie laughed like a hyena. “Join you after you just told us that you’re planning to wipe out the whole human race? Are you out of your ever–lovin’—”

“Angie!” Vargas cut her off with a chop gesture and a roll of the eyes.

She glared at him. “What?”

“Just… shhh.”

He turned back to Finster and cleared his throat. “Despite my colleague’s hesitation, you’re making a lot of sense. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and all that stuff. If you’re willing to give us the sec pass that gets us that armor, then we’re willing to put aside our differences and go after the robots which are a threat to us both. Sound like a deal?”

“Very good,” said Finster. “I will give you the security pass as soon as you allow me to inject you with a disease of my own invention, the antidote for which only I possess. Once you successfully defeat the robots, return here and I will give you the antidote. Understood?”

We all blinked at him.

“You what now?” I said.

“So,” Vargas growled. “You’re saying you don’t trust us.”

Finster’s face was blank. “As much as you trust me.”

“Well—”

“Well in that case,” growled Hell Razor. “Fuck you!”

And with that he shot Finster in the knee caps with a blast from his shotgun, then aimed the second barrel at his head as he crashed to the floor.

“Now give us the fucking sec pass before I spray your fucked up brain all over this nice clean room.”

Finster hadn’t made a sound when his knees got turned into hamburger, and he didn’t make a sound now. He just lay there for a long moment, staring — at least as far as I could tell — at the droplets of blood that were dotting his hardwood floor. Then, incredibly, too easily, he pushed himself up and faced us again. I didn’t know how he was standing. His legs should have been a shattered mess.

“If you do not want the security pass,” he said, like nothing had happened, “then I’m afraid I must ask you to leave. If you do not want to go, well, we are not without means to deal with even the likes of the dreaded Desert Rangers.”

Hell Razor stared, incredulous. “You are crazy! Only a fucking mad man talks shit to the guy with the shotgun in his face! Now where is that fucking—”

“I’m not mad.” Finster shook violently. “And I’m not a man.”

His body started jerking and spasming in time with a series of metallic clicks, snaps and clanks.

Vargas stared. “What the…?”

We all stepped back as the fingers of Finster’s right hand ratcheted down and stretched out to equal length.

“What is happening to him?” asked Angie.

“Shit is freaking me out,” said Hell Razor.

The skin of Finster’s fingers split, revealing hollow steel tubes that began to spin as if his hand was a Gatling cannon.

Vargas shoved at the rest of us and dove for the floor. “Down! Down!”

I hit the dirt behind Finster’s desk as flame and metal spat from his hand and chewed up the pristine oak top. My heart was pounding from shock and confusion. What the fuck was that? A mechanical gun hand? Where the fuck did he get that?

I rolled to the far end of the desk and leaned out to fire, and saw that it wasn’t just Finster’s hand that was mechanical. In the second and a half it had taken me to get from one end of the desk to the other, Finster had transformed himself from a slender man to a looming metal android thing. Hooks and blades on his shoulders and elbows had shredded through what was left of his human flesh and clothing, and around his piercing blue eyes his cheeks and brow had split, revealing sharp chrome bones and hydraulic muscles.

I pulled the trigger at him as fast as I could, pumping round after round into his torso. Angie and Athalia’s pistols blazed at him too, as Ace, Vargas, and Hell Razor emptied shotguns and SMGs into him. Finster jerked and staggered under the deafening barrage, armor plating denting, sparks jetting from his torso, but he never lost his balance, and his gun–hand was swinging around toward where Angie and Athalia lay together behind the flimsy cover of a fancy wooden chair.

“No!”

Thrasher roared up out of cover and smashed his rebar billy club down on Finster’s forearm with all his might. The stream of lead zigged past the women and ate up the floor instead, then sputtered out as the bent and broken gun whined to a stop.

Thrasher swung the billy club again, aiming for Finster’s head, but the android’s other hand snapped out and caught his wrist and stopped him cold. It was eerie to look at. Thrasher was a foot taller and two hundred pounds heavier, yet the whip–thin metal skeleton was muscling him back, crushing his wrist in its grip as it raised its mangled gun–hand at him like a club.

“Hey asshole,” snarled Vargas. “Nobody thrashes Thrasher.”

Vargas and Hell Razor stepped in on either side of their comrade and fired at Finster from point blank range. Vargas’s SMG hammered the android, bouncing him back a couple of steps and forcing him to let go. Hell Razor’s shotgun spun him around and dropped him flat on his back on the floor.

I stood to deliver the coup de grace, but Athalia beat me to it. She knelt down beside Finster and put her pistol to his metal sternum, right where his heart should have been, and pulled the trigger three times.