Iron Drumbeat Chapter 11 (Patreon)

"Iron Drumbeat," I said reverently, running a hand over the cold steel of my mech's new legs. "That's what I hear when I touch her. It's like a heartbeat, but with a little of the drums of war."

"Cute name, but it doesn't exactly flow off the fingers," Tink signed with a wry smile on their face.

"Yeah, it sounds stupid but…" I grimaced, trailing off. The name sounded better in my head, that's for sure.

"It's too late, you already slapped that ridiculous name on it," Tink signed with a silent laugh. "Have fun explaining that to everyone who asks."

“It’s not that kind of weird name,” I disagreed. “Nobody is going to care.”

Drums, as I was electing to call her in my head, was an odd looking mech now. The legs had been completely redesigned using the best parts we could scrounge from the scrapyard. They featured a reverse joint that reminded me of the rear legs of a cat or something.

The rest of her was just as feline and feral. Mean angled armour hid powerful servos, motors, and other shit I didn't understand. All of that was covered in a matte black coat of paint, with just a hint of bright red highlights for colour.

Looking up at the brutalist, aerodynamic wedge she had for a head, I asked, "So she's ready?"

Tink nodded.

"Alright… how do I get in?"

Tink smirked. "You don't. You ask her to let you in. I rebuilt her internal systems to require a machine whisperer like yourself. Nobody can steal her, nobody can hack her."

"Huh," I grunted. Okay, time to vibe with Drums then.

Putting my hand down on her cold steel shin, I extended my consciousness into her like I'd practised. She felt like a cat in my head too, so I held my fuzzy brain hand out to her and pspspsps.

Very much unlike a cat, she trusted me instantly and completely. I felt my awareness within her grow, until we were sharing everything. She felt like a living, breathing animal to me, it was weird. Maybe it was just 'cause of the way I was arthrit— agrop— anthropologetic— fuckin, whatever the word was… humanising her.

I could instinctively feel how to handle her too, how to ask her to do things. For starters, I got her to open the pilot capsule.

The entire front half of the mech's chassis broke in half, revealing the capsule. It had no implements of control, no screens or whatever, just a comfy seat and an elaborate automatic harness.

Part of the door had a foothold on it, and I used that to hop easily up into the seat. I took a moment to get myself comfy, then threw Tink a wink and closed the hatch.

Instantly, I was immersed in darkness and the harness seated itself around me while I marvelled at the dark calm of the cramped little space. It didn't feel claustrophobic, though… but like, the opposite. Safe. Safe from twisted fog-horrors and all that shite. Not safe from the gender-related confusion I still had going on though. That was always riding shotgun like my own personal doubt generator.

Whatever. Time to immerse.

I pushed deeper into the crazy space that was the mech's empty machine mind. As I filled it, my awareness grew, guided by what little smarts she had. Honestly, it was bloody tough to describe what she was like inside. On one hand, she felt like a real person or whatever, but on the other it was like she was all empty. Maybe it was best to say she was like a computer without an operating system, but with a sweet BIOS. When I merged with her, I gave her the operating system. We meshed, with her doing all the unconscious stuff while I was free to move us as a whole.

All that is to say that now we were the same person, and feeling more than a little wonder, I lifted my metallic hand and stared at it. Drums' hand, but also my hand. Wild.

"Ayo, Tink," I said, hearing my voice come through with an awesome robot filter. "This is amazing."

They winced and covered their fluffy little ears, then mimed turning a volume knob.

“Sorry,” I laughed, turning the speaker’s volume down.

Tink, who looked like a grumpy little ferret from all the way up here, rolled their eyes and pointed behind me. Careful not to crush any mechanics, I turned my large torso to look. Oh right, the door was directly behind the mech booth.

Tiny scampering sounds were heard, and then the doors creaked open slightly. It was just enough for me to fit my fingers through. My mech fingers, I mean, which I think was all I was going to get. The transport was still barely functional hulk right now, after all.

Flexing my new metallic fingers, I pressed them into the crack and pulled the door open. Holy shit, the sheer power that Drums had in each limb… it was intoxicating.

With a screeching, awful, bone-jarring sound, the doors were open enough for Drums to fit through and I got a look at the scrapyard for the first time in days. Fog drifted lazily in low patches now, while its creatures stalked over the higher areas. Unfortunately, it looked like the noise the door made had been interpreted as a dinner bell by the local fauna. Well fuck, time to get to work.

The moment I really began to move, I was blown away by the speed and power of Drums' legs. Spirits, I was fast.

Rusted iron and sun-bleached plastic crunched and broke underfoot as I pushed harder, faster. The cool air caressed my armoured steel hide, providing heat dissipation for my motors as they worked overtime.

Foot down, twist and tilt, then power to the servos for forward thrust. Each step felt swift and sure. I was a comet of organised metal, ceramics, and pure torque, with ageing scrap flying everywhere as a tail. I'd never felt more alive, and it was glorious.

The first consumed didn't even realise I was coming before I casually splattered it with a fist. Blood, gore, and fog sprayed everywhere, and I dug a heel into the ground to stop. My momentum dug a furrow in the gravel deep enough for Tink to stand in.

Suddenly, the consumed didn't feel quite so ravenously confident as a moment earlier. One screamed at me and tore at the ground with its massive hooves like it was trying to do some dominance bullshit.

Picking up a nearby aircar, I sighted the dickbag and threw. To my delight, the monsters' eyes widened in surprise and terror for a second before the car hit. Oh, the sweet, succulent crunch of bone.

"Who's next?" I called, opening my arms wide in challenge. One arm came back down to point, and I began to count, "Eenie, meenie, miney… mo."

The unlucky bastard I chose was a tall fucker, with so many horns and scales it was impossible to figure out what he used to be. Now, he looked like a cross between a gorilla, an armadillo, and a tank.

He seemed to understand he'd been challenged, because he thumped his chest and bellowed. I answered by ducking into another sprint.

He started out more than two hundred metres away, with all sorts of random scrap in the way. There was a bus, a chunk of a spaceship, and I think what used to be a statue of some kind. I dropped my shoulder into the bus, and it flew out of the way like it owed me money. The spaceship became a ramp, which I used to leap the statue with several metres to spare.

My reunion with the ground was violent. Scrap, gravel, and sparks exploded out, spraying my chosen foe right as it lunged. Poor fool. I was rich, rolling in a currency known as momentum, and he was about to realise just how I planned to cash out.

My shoulder hit his so hard that time stood still for a moment. Reality was trying to decide what the hell to do with the situation it'd been presented with. The verdict came back, and I spun out past the consumed to land on my back. As for my enemy, well his shoulder blade was powdered, along with pretty much everything around the site of impact. Blood drenched the gravel and scrap of the ground, while his howls of pain ricochet all over the scrapyard.

Rotating my arms around in a way that definitely wouldn't have worked if I were using my human body, I pushed to my feet and took a step towards the wounded consumed.

Wait. Why use my fists when there was a perfectly good aircar nearby?

To veered off and dug my fingers in under the vehicle, then lifted it up over my head. The consumed monster tried to crawl away, whining while it cradled its ruined limb. Nuh, uh, dickhead. Your little victim act won't fool me. If I'd been my normal, fleshy self, you'd be spreading me out onto a cracker like the finest pâté by now.

I dropped the car on his head, then in an act of whimsical spontaneity, I jumped up and landed on top of the vehicle. The monster beneath me made the most amazing squelching sound and fell still.

Alright… that was two down… and oh so many more to go.

I giggled aloud and clapped my hands together with glee. Clank, clank, clank. A buffet, for me!

Unfortunately, over the course of three whole days, smashing consumed fogling creatures began to lose a lot of its shine. They were stupid and unimaginative with their approach to combat, and because of that, they died by the hundreds.

At least Tink seemed pleased by my progress with both the mech and the pest problem. They left the safety of the transport frequently as the scrapyard was cleared of beasts, and each time they came back with more random junk. I just kind of assumed they had a plan with all the stuff they were nabbing.

My fluffy mechanic friend wasn’t the only one who spotted some gems amongst the rust and ruin, though. More than once I spotted some sort of currency or item that I recognised. I even found what I think was a Kingdom of Montreal money chip. I think they called their currency franks? Can’t remember.

I also saw an honest to god Australian flag lying tattered and moth-eaten, from back when my hometown of Cascarton was called Canberra and it was the capital of that country.

As far as actually useful shit went, I found a little stash of guns made by one of the Stone Arch corporations—HIPFIRE Firearms corp. They made some very intense weapons that usually required some sort of bone strengthening or replacement augmentations in the user because of the recoil. They even sold special mounting point augments if you were an uh… avid fan of theirs.

Needless to say, the guns and anything else that was recognisably valuable was stashed in the transport. It was actually quite fun to loot the place, although I… I wanted to see the sky again, even if it was through a thin strip of open air between two megascrapers. Hopefully the transport wouldn’t be too difficult to fix.