Chapter 68: Matador

We’re in car eleven, we need to get to fourteen, as quick and painlessly as possible.

Perry was peripherally aware of replicators flooding into the cars in front of them and creating a wall of guns in the open ground where car ten used to be to cut them off should they try to turn back.

There were two cars in front of them, most likely loaded with replicators.

Fulldisintegrate.EXE

Traincar 12 and all the replicators on it turned into ash.

The entire wrist-thick hexagonal crystal popped out of Perry’s magazine, having expended its entire charge on a single shot.

Fingers blazing, Perry yanked out another crystal and fed it into the magazine, then blasted car 13, rendering it, too, into ash.

“Rapidfire, get the conductor to car fourteen!” Perry said, pointing into the ashy wasteland that stretched between them and car fourteen. About the length of a football field.

There probably wasn’t a lot of resistance in car fourteen because they’d been creating their killbox in twelve and thirteen.

I just kicked them in the nuts, Perry thought as Rapidfire grabbed the walrus-looking conductor and vanished into the white-out conditions. He might have killed as many as six of their number.

Hopefully that will draw their attention while the conductor activates the weapon.

The solution, as it often was, was a blitz with a speedster.

Now we just need to catch up, Perry thought, loading the last disintegration crystal he’d brought, the expended one clinking onto the floor of the train.

The moment Paradox stepped out into the open, a wall of lead projectiles began bouncing him around like a pinball, the sheer mass of the fist-sized bullets rattling him around in his armor hard enough to expend his HP in a matter of seconds.

The other supers fled through the white-out conditions of the ashed traincars relatively unmolested, sprinting at top speeds to car fourteen.

HP: 0

Perry’s vision was heavily obscured by floating ash, making him feel like he was tumbling through a white-water rapids, desperately trying to hang on and drag himself to shore as the lead storm battered him and his armor.

Perry snapped off a disintegrate at one of the surrounding replicators, forcing the creature to dodge, creating an opening of about a quarter of a second, long enough for Perry to orient and engage his boosters towards the train.

Another impact sent him off course and Perry impacted the side of car fourteen, rather than swooping through its hangar-sized entrance as he’d intended.

Screw it, I’ll make a door.

Perry nearly got scraped off the train by a flurry of impacts, culminating in another laser strike from the Dreadnaught. Perry’s investment in fiber optics paid off as his entire suit flashed brighter than the sun for an instant, harmlessly dissipating the laser.

To keep himself from being torn away from the wall of the traincar, Perry dug his armored fingers into the side before using Melt.EXE with his other hand.

Perry tumbled through the liquified train armor, finding himself in an empty service corridor rife with thick tubes filled with coolant, wires, and plumbing.

Perry melted through three more walls, taking the direct route to the train’s main artery.

He almost fell straight on top of Hardcase, who was riding on Wraith’s shoulders on account of her horrible sprinting speed. Even then they were still lagging slighlty behind the other roided-up supers.

“Paradox!” Wraith shouted. “Are you okay!?”

“I think I’ve got a concussion!” Perry said, giving them a thumb’s up and a grin they wouldn’t be able to see before scrambling to his feet and taking Hardcase off Wraith’s hands, putting his jets to good use.

The three of them caught up to the supers in front of them, who were taking a blind corner at high speeds.

When in Megarome, Perry thought, taking the blind corner himself.

Oh.

It wasn’t nearly as bad as Perry had thought.

The rec room was a little unkempt, it might need a little vacuuming, but it didn’t have trash everywhere and sticky floors like Perry had been expecting.

It looks like the honor system work sometimes.

There were some posters for movies from the nineties along the wall that led to the theater, fully automated robotic popcorn makers, and a decrepit ticket booth.

In the other direction was a well-beaten path leading to what appeared to be a low-tech arcade with foosball, air hocky and some arcade games from the late eighties.

The foosball table was standing on its side, tall-ways, so that its feet were about eye level with the conductor.

The conductor was standing directly in front of one of the feet, looking straight ahead as a light shone into his eye from the wooden peg.

What the heck?

“You’re the last ones in,” Rapidfire said, entering behind them and smashing a big red button against the wall.

Which did…nothing. No cool alarm or massive metal door sliding down.

“What was that for? Perry asked.

“It reactivates the antimoronic field that makes the place hard to find.” Rapidfire said with a shrug. “At least that’s what Conductor Wallthers said. Don’t step outside again or you’ll get lost and then killed.”

“Antimnemonic,” Perry corrected him.

“Whatever man, it-“

They froze as just outside the open door to the hall, a replicator stalked past, bending down to peer into the room, its camera sliding past them as if they weren’t there. A moment later it kept walking past, its steps eerily smooth and silent.

“Seems to work on robots, too.” Perry murmured to himself. Good to know.

A panel on the upended foosball table in front of the conductor slid open to reveal an alphanumerical pinpad. The walrus-mustached man muttered under his breath, sweat beading down his temple as he entered in a long code.

“Buckle up kiddos,” Conductor Walthers said, pressing Enter.

A portion of the air in the arcade split open, revealing space inside the space as it unfolded.

Like two swinging doors, the arcade unfolded to reveal a glass case in the middle of the room, with a man-sized robot in the center of the room.

Perry’s stomach turned.

We’re definitely gonna die.

To call the construction an antique would be a disservice to antiques.

The steel bot wasn’t made out of modern stainless or even chromed to prevent corrosion. It was covered in a thick mat of rust.

“This is Matador, the magnum opus of John Walker, made in seventy-one and gifted to the inter-city train as an emergency sweeper in ninety four by Solaris. One of the oldest Magnum Opus in existence, dangerous as hell, and designated ‘emergency use only’ Now help me wake it up.”

That robot’s almost as old as you are, I’m…not sure it will wake up, Perry thought, but helped the conductor anyway.

Perry inspected the ‘robot’ from top to bottom. The creature’s head was a smooth, rust covered cylinder, its upper chest was an oblong sideways lump, a bit like a flying saucer, or a watermelon. Underneath was what appeared to be a rusted out fifty-five gallon drum, perched on top of rust-seized treads.

“Well, I gotta admit, it does look like a robot made in the seventies.” Perry couldn’t stop himself from raging on the machine. Did robots even exist yet in the seventies?

“Oh, stow it,” Conductor Walthers said. “They didn’t even have personal computers back then. I’d like to see you do better.”

“That’s fair.”

The conductor pulled a bottle of two-stroke pre-mixed gasoline from a nearby shelf and pried open the robot’s fuel cap before feeding the gasoline into the machine’s tank.

Seriously, it runs on gas? Perry thought as the conductor began yanking on the starter, causing the robot to putter over and over.

Perry thought of his dad, who made himself look like a brute intentionally. Never underestimate.

Something told him…this thing was dangerous. Despite every logical rationale arguing otherwise.

“Outta the way,” Perry said, bumping the conductor out of the way and gripping the pull cord.

With his armor on, Perry was far stronger than a normal human had any right to be.

In a flurry of motion, Perry pulled the cord rapid-fire six times before the engine caught.

Putputputputputputput….

The robot rattled in place as the lawnmower engine in its lower body caught and became self-sustaining.

“No freakin way.” Bolt said, motioning to the robot. “This…is what we came here for?”

Matador began rolling forward about two feet before it’s tread seized, bound up by rust.

Its cylindrical head tilted a couple degrees down, but didn’t have the range of motion necessary to look at its own treads.

The puttering machine backed up and went forward a handful of times before the rust blockage sloughed off, allowing it to roll the rest of the way out of its case.

It rolled to a halt in front of Conductor Walthers, its noisy engine making it difficult to make out its words.

“Matador reporting for duty. Your orders?” it was a tinny recording of a man long since dead. His accent indicated he might’ve been born in the thirties.

“There’s inorganic hostiles surrounding our train. We need you to engage them and either destroy them or force them to retreat.” Conductor Walthers said.

“My vocabulary is limited. Please consult the manual for accepted orders.”n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Conductor Walthers cursed and grabbed a faded manual from the glass case, flipping it open.

“Matador, listen,” He said, reading off the page.

“Affirmative.”

Conductor Walthers sighed before he kept speaking “Commie ‘bots’ in vicinity. Please engage.”

“Roger.” Matador said, reaching out and grabbing conductor Walther’s wrist.

“What the-“ The chain-link and steel tendon hands snatched the conductor’s smart watch off of his wrist, causing the walrus-faced old man to yelp in pain as his skin was abraded.

While the conductor was staggering back and clutching his wrist, Matador stared at the watch with eerie silence.

“YOU-!” Fister raised a hand, which grew massive, clenched in anger.

“Stop!” Walthers said, stepping between him and the rustbucket.

The robot’s shaky hands snapped the watch in two and peeled the front away to reveal the microprocessors in the piece of hardware.

“Reformatting,” Matador said.

“Whoah,” Perry stumbled in place as the entire world felt like an elevator that had just begun a rapid descent.

Natalie glanced over at him with a frown, seemingly immune to the sensation.

The UFO-shaped lump at the top of Matador’s torso began shooting some sort of aerosolized substance into the rec room.

“Shit, don’t breath that,” the conductor said, backing away as Matador was surrounded by a thick crimson mist, billowing like a matador’s cape. Think I just figured out why they named him that.

They didn’t have much of a choice but to breath the mist as it filled the entire room. As it engulfed his armor, Perry suddenly, intimately knew that nothing existed outside their room, the bounds dictated by the crimson mist.

In the center of the mist, Matador was clearly visible despite the surrounding fog obscuring everything else.

Putputputputput.put.put..put..put….put.

The robot gradually stopped rattling in place as it’s engine slowly came to a halt, leaving a stationary piece of modern art where before had been a robot.

In a matter of seconds, the mist evaporated, leaving everyone none the worse for wear, except the ancient piece of tech which seemed to have frozen in place. Or died.

“Well, umm. What the hell was that?” Rapidfire asked.

“It was reformatting, obviously.” Perry said just to be a dick, earning a scowl from the speedster.

Perry shrugged. Nobody knew, so why ask?

“Well, what other brilliant plans do we got on tap?” Bolt asked, fixing his gaze on Conductor Walthers, who was staring at the dead robot in disbelief.

“We’ve got twelve hours of battery life before the antimnemonic field goes down,” the conductor said. “Maybe we can send the speedsters out and peck away at them with guerilla tactics. We do enough damage and they’ll retreat. They’ll never commit more troops than they stand to gain.”

“I ain’t going out there by myself.” Rapidfire said, shaking his head. “I’m fast, but those things are smart. I almost hit a tripwire laid down specifically for me not five minutes ago.”

“Why does it always seem like speedsters aren’t very smart people?” Perry asked Natalie quietly over their radios.

“Hypoxic brain damage from running too hard.” Natalie whispered back.

“Aaah,” Perry nodded. “That would do it.”

“Whoah!” Extendo, a minor cowl who’d wandered close to the robot, flinched away when the machine twitched.

The robot’s head split open, revealing shiny chrome underneath. The tear in the robot’s rusted outer shell grew all the way down to its shoulders as a massive silvery object beneath began to pulse and throb, peeling its way out of Matador’s skin.

A silver hand with finger-length talons emerged from the silvery mass, its skin made of banded chrome.

Holy shit.

Perry took a reflexive step backwards as Matador molted, pulling its new body out of his own rusted skin, form drastically changed. It was now an eight-foot tall, bipedal masculine humanoid with chrome skin, wickedly sharp claws and swept back horns.

His shoulder blades bore a cape made of roiling red mist that never seemed to disperse.

“Reformatting complete.” Matador said, moments before the empty skin toppled over, clanking against the floor of the rec-room. His voice no longer sounded recorded.

“Now…what did you need?” Matador asked, orienting on Conductor Walthers.

“Replicators on the train…” Walthers stammered, pointing, before he cleared his throat and referred to the manual. “Commi bots-“

“You don’t need that anymore, I understand you.” Matador said, plucking the manual out of Walther’s hand, the paper bursting into flame on contact with his chrome skin.

Matador crushed the ashes in his hand and stepped out into the main hall.

Bullets immediately began to ping off the Mangum Opus’s skin, and Perry thought he spotted a chrome smirk moments before the billowing gaseous cape surged forward.