Machine Man - Max Barry [95]
The Contours left the roadway and leaped nimbly over the railing. I flinched, but they knew what they were doing. My hooves dug into a concrete embankment and I heard the locking pins fire. Twin jets of concrete dust spat by my face. I was damaging a lot of city infrastructure here. The Threes tensed and sprang across a wide concrete storm drain. I braced but it was like landing on a sofa. We ran beneath a bridge. I heard a helicopter and wondered if it was for me. Ahead was a storm tunnel, big enough to drive a car through, but its face was protected by an iron grate. My legs slowed. They felt hesitant. Oh, I thought. Sorry. I raised my gun arm and clenched and the grate disintegrated. The Threes picked up speed. My abdomen rotated in three ringed sections and I passed through the remains of the grate sideways, then swiveled to face forward again.
My hooves slapped through low water. It was black in the tunnels but on the electromagnetic spectrum the walls were edged in fluorescent blue and the water flared motion white. The tunnel turned, forked, and forked again. Finally I stopped. I looked around. I didn’t see what was so special about this section of tunnel. Then I noticed a hatch twenty feet above my head. A ladder ran up the wall. But I wouldn’t be needing that. I raised my gun arm.
Then I reconsidered. Carl was close. I shouldn’t alert him. I lowered the gun arm and studied the other one, the one with the triple prong of claw fingers. I hadn’t tested this yet. I wondered what it could do. I pointed at the hatch and thought, Remove that.
The claw fired out of my arm, trailing metal cable. It popped the hatch out of its housing, bent it in two, and pulled it back down into the tunnel. The cable ratcheted back into my arm but before I could flinch at the sight of a folded metal hatch rocketing toward me I was holding it. I looked at it a moment. That was pretty good. I placed the hatch on the ground and looked up. The access hole was not wide. I wasn’t sure I could fit through there. But of course this wasn’t something I needed to figure out. At least, not with my brain. I had parts for that.
The Threes settled and sprang. My arms folded tight against my body. We scraped against concrete and a constellation of sparks blossomed near my face. Then we were through. The Threes spread and my hooves locked on to solid concrete floor. The crack of the firing pins echoed like gunshots. That was a shame.
I was in a multilevel parking garage. Cars filled the bays. From my last contact with Jason, Carl was here somewhere, but I didn’t know where. I chose up. As I rounded the first level, I began to feel nervous. This was not a great environment for spotting Carl. The concrete shielded EM and infrared was polluted with recently active car engines. I slowed. I decided to abandon my surprise plan. I was feeling pretty unstoppable, at this point. I sucked in air and shouted: “Lola!”
My voice bounced back at me. Nothing. I inhaled again.
“Charlie!”
I ran. Two levels up, a brown sedan backed out in front of me, its red brake lights steaming, and I pushed it aside with my gun arm. I didn’t mean to hit it hard but the Contours braced automatically and the sedan bounced into the wall. I rounded another corner and stopped because there was Carl.
He was bigger than I expected. He hadn’t grown. I had just forgotten. He was shirtless, which allowed me to see the metal support structure around his torso. His arms were huge, much larger than my own. He was built for strength. It was a moment before I realized he had Lola in front of him, his hands gripping her shoulders. She was so small by comparison that I had missed her. She stared at me with