Free Metal and Ash (Apex Trilogy) by Jake Bible

concentrated on him and he stumbled as he fell to the ground.
    But unlike the metal he had been born into in the wasteland, the biochrome was malleable, responsive to his commands. His new body, his new being, reacted without separation and he formed his arms into long, sharp blades.
    He came at the troops with a rage he didn’t know he held.
    And they all fell.
     
    ***
     
    Norton followed behind Morris and Knobel, the 9mm gripped firmly in his hand.
    “Where are we going?” he whispered as they turned a corner at a crouch, waited, and then proceeded quickly to a door up ahead on the left. “Are we rendezvousing with your team, Knobel?”
    “I have no idea where any of my people are,” Knobel replied. “We are getting to a sub-hatch that will take us down and out of here. The tunnel will be accessible from there.”
    “So it’s just us three from here on out?” Norton asked.
    “Yeah, dumbass!” Morris snapped. “Pay attention.”
    “Oh, I am,” Norton said as he stood up and pointed the 9mm at the back of Morris’s head. He pulled the trigger. He then took aim at Knobel and fired again. “Maybe you two should’ve taken that advice.”
    Norton activated his com as he looked down at the corpses and their splattered brains that covered the floor. “Norton reporting in,” he said over his com. “Knobel and Morris are neutralized.”
    “We have 90% of the outpost secured,” a voice responded. “Still no confirmed kill on LaFrance or Campbell.”
    “But the tunnel is secured, right?” Norton asked. “The worm should have activated by now and the Shiner bioborg incapacitated.” There was silence on the other end. “I repeat- the worm should have-.”
    “We have lost contact with the forces in the tunnel,” the voice said. “Cannot confirm anything at this time.”
    “Motherfucker,” Norton cursed as he turned and stalked to his control room. “All they had to do was take down one fucking BC mech. Is that so fucking hard?”
     
     

 
     
     
    Ten
     
    The trail wasn’t subtle. Blood and ATV tracks led off into the wasteland in plain view. Jenny worried about the amount of blood she was seeing and hoped the Rookie hadn’t been mortally wounded.
    When she came across the first body she couldn’t help but smile. Whoever had been trailing them and then attacked, taking the Rookie with, hadn’t been prepared for who they were grabbing. The man’s face was crushed and he was missing an ear. Teeth marks were clearly visible.
    “Ok, so where the fuck are you?” Jenny asked herself as she pushed scanners to full. “Why can’t I pick you fuckers up?”
    She looked at her vid screen and the body at her mech’s feet. The man’s face was completely covered in primitive tattoos. Swirls and symbols nearly made his skin black/blue. She was born and raised in the wasteland and even though she grew up a Railer, on a Railer train, she’d thought she knew every tribe, cult, sect, and gang around.
    She didn’t recognize the tattoos and that worried her more than the Rookie missing. Jenny continued to follow the tracks even though she had no idea what she was walking into.
     
    ***
     
    As the sun began to set, the Rookie wished he could shield his face from the oppressive glare that was needling straight into his brain. He tried closing his eyes, but the blows to his head he’d taken made him dizzy and he was afraid he’d tumble from the ATV and be run over by the ones behind him, as he had been warned would happen. His hands were bound tightly behind his back and he gripped the ATV with his legs, hoping they didn’t hit a bump that would send him tumbling off the vehicle and to his death.
    “He knew you’d be there,” the ATV driver said, his black-toothed grin making the Rookie feel more nauseous than he already was. “He ain’t stupid, no, no, no.”
    The driver’s pants, since he didn’t wear a shirt over his grungy torso, were cobbled together from everything including, but not limited