Authors: George Mann
It hadn’t given up yet. He wouldn’t be that lucky.
The Ghost rolled as the Enforcer took a lumbering step, its gauntlet splintering the paving slab where his face had been just a split second earlier. Tiny fragments of concrete peppered his face, drawing stinging beads of blood.
He leapt up, trying to catch his breath. The thing was
relentless
. He’d already buried upwards of a hundred flechettes in the pilot’s flesh, but still it lumbered on, undeterred.
The pilot had once been a man, but although it still had the shape and form of a human being, he could see from the dead look in its eyes that any sense of humanity had long ago been driven out by the pain and madness of being incarcerated in such a diabolical machine.
The Enforcer suit was an exoskeleton, of sorts—a bulky, armored frame that encapsulated the pilot, who hung suspended at the heart of it like a puppet. Thick metal rods formed a series of braces, standing proud of his limbs, giving him bulk and presence. This outer skeleton was affixed to his body by means of a series of shorter rods, which were sunk into his flesh, screwed deep into his bones. Its fists were heavy plated gauntlets, which hung almost to the floor, and each leg was supported by a brace of pistons, helping to manage the weight and generate speed.
The man’s head was exposed, deep within the chest of the exoskeleton, a knot-work of wires and cables protruding from the base of his skull. His expression was slack and unemotional, and his stare seemed vacant and disinterested. The Ghost supposed the man must have been pumped so full of drugs that he simply couldn’t feel the ragged holes in his chest, inflicted by the Ghost’s flechette gun. He was more machine than man, now—a living tank, firmly set upon the Ghost’s destruction.
The Enforcer swung at him, its immense fist striking him like a wrecking ball and throwing him up and back. He flipped under the force of it, spinning head over heels and crumpling into the side of a nearby tenement building. Something else snapped in his chest, and he slid to the ground, spitting blood.
This wasn’t going very well at all. The thing was going to kill him, and he had
nothing
left. He was out of weapons, and out of ideas.
Groaning with pain, he clawed at the wall, dragging himself to his feet. One more punch like that and he’d be out for the count. Worse, if the thing managed to pin him against the wall, it would crack his skull like an egg.
He looked up, trying to see through the fog of blood in his eyes. One of his goggles was cracked, fracturing the sky. He peered through the haze, looking for an escape route, an opportunity for a temporary reprieve.
There
. He spotted a platform on a fire escape, about twenty feet above him, out of reach of the Enforcer. He fumbled inside his coat, trying to find the ignition cord for his boosters. The Enforcer was getting closer, pulling back its fist for another strike.
His fingers closed around the cord. He yanked down, hard, and felt the kick of ignition at his heels. The Enforcer leaned in, its massive fist closing on the Ghost’s head, just as the power level reached critical and the Ghost shot up on a bright plume of flame. He swung his arms out, catching hold of the railing and taking himself up and over. He came down hard, landing on the platform with a resounding
clang
. He cut the power to his boosters, and sunk to the ground, drawing ragged breath.
Below, the Enforcer struggled to extract its fist from the wall, pulling hunks of the building loose in a shower of dust.
The Ghost pulled himself up into a sitting position. He could feel bubbles of blood popping in his left lung as he breathed. He tried not to think about the pain.
The Enforcer was still down there, furiously trashing a parked motorcar as it tried to figure out a way to reach him. He had to stop it. Somehow, he had to find a way. The Reaper couldn’t be allowed to have these things running around the city.
The Ghost had heard stories about the mob boss using the machines to strong-arm other mobsters into bending their knee, decimating their forces and subsuming them into his own growing network. There’d been reports of bank raids, too, in which men piloting enormous machines had simply smashed their way into the vaults and taken thousands of dollars’ worth of gold deposits, battering aside any resistance from civilians or police.
The Reaper—so called, the Ghost was given to understand, because of the number of executions he had ordered—was building a powerbase here in the city, and soon there would be no one left, not even the police department, with the resources to take him on.
The Enforcers were a symptom of this, a virus in the system. And the city was sickening.
The world shuddered. Or at least, the building he was resting against. With a sigh, the Ghost shuffled to the edge of the platform on his knees and peered over, just as another blow shook the wall at his back, and caused the iron frame of the fire escape to rattle and creak.
The Enforcer was punching handholds in the side of the building and hauling itself up after him. He watched in amazement as it swung its arm up for another blow, burying its gauntlet deep in the brickwork and levering itself higher. Soon it would be level with the fire escape.
The weight of the thing must have been tremendous. He could see the pilot straining, neck muscles popping as the machine thundered higher. Its feet scrabbled at the ruins of the wall, but could find little purchase. It was taking all of the strain on its arms.
It was determined; he’d give it that.
Hurriedly, the Ghost checked his pockets. He’d already used his flare, he’d emptied all of his flechettes, and he wasn’t carrying any explosives. The only weapons he had left were his fists and his booster jets. Neither would do him any good—if he tried to fly close enough to the Enforcer to burn the pilot with his boosters, he’d be putting himself in its reach. If it got hold of him, he’d be dead in seconds.
He’d have to try to use its bulk against it, somehow.
He stood, bracing himself against the railing.
The Enforcer was only a few feet away now, coming up alongside the fire escape. He wasn’t taking any chances. He fired the ignition on his boosters, rising up slowly from the metal platform.
The Enforcer, thinking he was about to make good on another escape, launched itself at the gantry, flinging itself across the face of the building and crashing into the wrought-iron structure. It collapsed as the Enforcer struck it, smashing free from the side of the building and clattering noisily to the sidewalk below.
Momentarily in freefall, the Enforcer punched out, shattering a window and catching the edge of the stone frame to halt its descent. The window ledge gave way beneath its weight, but it had served its purpose, and the Enforcer had already buried its other fist in the wall. It slid a few feet in a shower of brick dust, before resuming its steady ascent.
The Ghost continued to rise slowly, keeping his back to the wall. If he could get it high enough, maybe there was a chance he could do some damage.
“Come on, keep up!” he called down to the pilot. “Can’t you see I’m getting away?” Blood flecked his lips as he spoke, and he wiped it away with the edge of his sleeve.
They were nearing the upper story now. He’d have to act soon, before they reached the roof. Up there, he’d have no chance of bringing it down.
The drop was around thirty feet. It had to be enough.
With a deep breath, the Ghost fell back against the wall, and then pushed himself away, dipping his head into a dive.
The Enforcer, seeing him hurtling down toward it, pulled one of its hands free and tried to swat him out of the sky. He twisted, narrowly avoiding the metal fist, and caught hold of the back of the Enforcer’s frame, swinging himself up and around, so that he was now the right way up again, and clutching onto its shoulders.
It thrashed, trying to shake him loose, its free hand grasping for him, reaching up and around its back, but its shoulder joints wouldn’t pivot far enough, and he was able to keep just out of its reach.
This was his chance, his one opportunity.
The Ghost flipped again, turning upside down and aiming his boosters at the wall. Still clinging onto the Enforcer’s frame, he gave the ignition cord a second tug, increasing the burn rate. He’d spend precious fuel this way, emptying the canisters, but he couldn’t see any other option.
Luckily, the Enforcer didn’t appear to comprehend what he was doing, still grappling for him with its free hand instead of trying to keep itself attached to the wall.
He felt a sudden jerk as the force of the boosters kicked out, searing his ankles and wrenching them both away from the building. The Enforcer bellowed as it lost its grip, its hand still opening and closing redundantly, trying desperately to cling on as they launched back into the air
The Ghost let go, releasing his grip on the Enforcer as it tumbled, the momentum sending him spiraling up into the sky, out of control. He fought to right himself, throwing his weight left and twisting, just as he dove at the wall of the opposing building. He struck a windowpane instead, bursting through into the darkened apartment beyond, striking the ceiling, setting the curtains aflame and, seconds later, crashing down into the dining table and sending a candelabra flying. Black smoke curled from his ankles, and the room filled with the stench of burned flesh.
Hurriedly, he clambered to his feet, wrenched the curtains from their rail and tossed them—still burning—out of the open window. They fluttered and billowed on the night breeze, trailing thick smoke, as they slowly drifted to the ground.
He peered after them. The Enforcer was lying in the road, its exoskeleton buckled, the pistons of one leg still firing spasmodically, causing the limb to twitch with a mechanical whirr. Inside, the pilot wasn’t moving.
He could hear sirens trilling in the distance. It was time for him to leave. A quick glance at the ruins of his boots told him the canisters had completely burned out. He’d have to take the more traditional route home.
He carefully removed his broken goggles, wiped the blood from his eyes and buttoned his coat. He’d lost his hat at some point during the fight, but it mattered little; like this, he was just Gabriel Cross, the rich playboy and former soldier. No one would give him a second look.
With a final glance at the devastation in the street below, the Ghost hobbled to the apartment door and let himself out into the hallway.
Gabriel had always adored the sea.
He supposed he’d probably been raised with a predisposition, having grown up on an island, but he loved how the fresh, briny smell of it seemed to pinch his nose, how the water sighed longingly as the waves broke over the shore, how the gulls clacked and squabbled over the small, silvery fish he didn’t know the name of.
As a younger man he’d often snuck out of the house during the summer to spend nights on the beach, skinny-dipping with Katherine, the closest he’d ever come to a childhood sweetheart. She’d been his girl next door—quite literally—although next door, in Gabriel’s world, was half a mile from his parent’s estate.
They’d make clandestine arrangements to meet in the sand dunes, throwing their clothes off with gay abandon and running pell-mell into the frothy water without a single care in the world.
He’d loved the tingle of the cool air on his flesh, the shock of the icy water, and the luxurious curve of Katherine’s back. She’d felt so soft beneath his fingers, so pure, and yet, when she bit his lip and played with the tip of his cock, she’d seemed so forward, so feminine, so vital.
He hadn’t thought of those days for years, not since he’d returned from the war to find her gone, moved out west with her family, leaving nothing so much as a forwarding address. He hadn’t tried particularly hard to find her, either, but then—what would a girl like that have wanted with a damaged soldier like him? He supposed she was probably tearing up the West Coast these days, a riotous novelist or painter, a notorious and outspoken flapper girl, making a name for herself amongst the usual pantheon of crashing bores who presided over high society.
The thought made him smile, but it was tinged with disconsolation.
Of course, here at the Chelsea Piers, things were a little different to the Long Island beach he remembered; the air reeked of oil and fish, the water was filthy, and the baritone honk of the ships’ horns set him constantly on edge.
It was early, and he wasn’t feeling his best. He’d downed two Bloody Marys with his eggs that morning, but even they’d failed to take the edge off. He was considering visiting a doctor to see about having his broken ribs strapped. He’d been meaning to have a word with Felix about that—seeing if he couldn’t figure out an arrangement with an understanding surgeon who wouldn’t ask too many questions. Although, the way things had been going lately, he’d be more likely to need an undertaker than a doctor.
He adjusted his sunglasses, wincing as he brushed the tender flesh around the orbit of his left eye. It was already black and swollen from where the Enforcer had cracked his goggles. He consoled himself with the fact he could still see out of it, and lit a cigarette, searching for distraction.
He was propped against the railing, facing out to sea. In the dock, the
Centurion
sat like a great leviathan, squat upon the water, casting him in its long, ominous shadow. Passengers bustled on the deck, crowding into the wedge of the ship’s prow and hanging over the side, waving down to those who had dutifully filed out here to meet them.
Disembarkation ramps were being pulled into place, buttressing the glossy flanks of the steel beast, while wooden cargo crates were already being unloaded from one of the holds, bearing dubious bounty, he presumed, from the East.
An exhibition was coming to town, to be held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art—the resulting plunder from a recent expedition to Egypt. The newspapers were bursting with claims of wondrous finds; how the evidence from the dead queen’s tomb would forever change how the Ancient Egyptian religions were viewed. It was, apparently, the find of the century—although Gabriel took such grandstanding with a pinch of salt; the century, to his mind, had barely begun.