Rage shivered in his Frame. Its metal joints hummed as it imitated his movements.
“Do you know who hired you?” asked a cold voice over his Frame's radio circuit.
“I can't tell you,” Rage said. His voice held more confidence than his mind did. “The established practices of the Mercenary Conduct Code—“
“I'm not a mercenary. And other than you, there are no Mercenaries around to enforce the code.”
Rage used his Frame's enhanced vision to peer down the length of the wet tunnel. He did not see any other Frames. Where was the transmission coming from?
“You Mercs. How long have you had control over our cities? Before the Waste, civilians and militants were under the control of governments.”
Rage had heard as much before. “You see how that turned out. And we're doing fine without government, aren't we?”
“Are we? You shattered your way into this lab and stole something. Thievery isn't very civil. A government would eliminate vermin like you.”
A loyalist telling me what's best. I never expected this on a mission. Rage cocked his machine gun using the Frame's massive arms. There was something satisfying about using such a large machine for a simple task. Feeling that his body was ten times larger than its real size gave Rage a rush of such satisfaction. “So you caught me on my way out. It's a little late to retaliate, isn't it?”
“I'm not retaliating. I don't care what you stole.”
Rage took a few steps forward, looking for a target. “What the hell are you doing here, then?”
“I'm a test subject.”
Rage's heart tightened. He turned in a circle, sweeping both directions with his sensors and the muzzle of his gun. “A freak? Wonderful. Why are you so interested in me?”
“Today is the day of my first test. You know how labs these days need real performance data.”
“And you're supposed to go after me.”
“Yes.”
“Why aren't you?”
The cold voice smiled. “Being a rat in a maze makes one want to impose that environment on others. One gets bored.”
As a Mercenary, Rage bristled at any control placed over him. “Quit playing.”
“As you wish.”
The section of the tunnel before Rage burst, an through the smoke stepped a Frame. Its rough, modular body was man's imitation of itself. Its thick fingers tensed and pulled the trigger on its long rifle.
Rage felt the shell's impact. He sprayed the enemy with his machine gun, crouching fluidly, and rolled under the Frame's legs. He cut it in half with bullets.
Another robot slipped through the hile and met its end as its twin had. “Aren't you supposed to be fighting?” asked Rage.
“These drones will keep you busy until I get there.”
Rage stood. A Frame crashed through the ceiling and he slammed a massive fist into it, knocking it off-balance. He brought the gun to bear on its right knee and blasted its lower legs off. It clattered to the ground. He fried its computer with more rounds to its torso.
Rage was having an easy enough time with the computer-guided robots, but he knew that there was only so much time until he made a fatal mistake—or until the test subject arrived. He continued in the direction in which he had been heading to escape.
“Not yet, said the cold voice.” From the ground came a powerful explosion that kicked Rage's Frame down. He recovered just as a bulky spider Frame, painted red, emerged from the smoking gap in the ground. It used four of its limbs to walk; the other four had been converted to guns. They swiveled to Rage and coughed bullets. In the open, such an attack would have been a foolish waste. But the tunnel left Rage only one direction: back. The powerful guns punched holes in the metal skin of his Frame. His machine gun rocked in the unsteady hands that held it, but its power was inadequate. Rage dodged into the hole made by the drones earlier. His Frame hissed. It was riddled with holes.
He heard the spider-Frame clunking closer and let go of the machine gun with his left hand, hoping that its kick would not make it too useless. With the other hand, he pulled a detonation charge from his Frame's shoulder rack. He clenched it in his left fist, aimed the gun at the hole, and waited. A second later, the enemy Frame entered. Rage opened fire and punched at once. The machine turned to him, shuddering with the impacts, and aimed with its cannons. It was too late; Rage's punch ripped to the middle of the spider's body. He let the charge drop inside it and knocked the robot out of the way. It used its mass to pin him against the edge of the broken wall. With a split-second burst of effort, Rage spiked energy into his Frame's limbs and slipped from his precarious position. He dashed around the corner, into the tunnel again, and the other Frame exploded.
He ran into another dark drone and, lacking time for finesse, shouldered it aside, twisting as he ran past to blow its arms off with his gun. The barrel was glowing red. He lept over the hole in the floor from which the red Frame had come, dropping two charges into it as he passed. The armless drone, still in pursuit, was destroyed in the explosion, along with whatever had been hiding in the hole.
Rage routed all extra power to his Frame's legs and sprinted down the tunnel.
The enemy pilot's voice came over the radio. “I wasn't going to punish you this early, but here I come.”
In anticipation, Rage dropped his machine gun and grabbed a bomb with each hand. This time, the right side of the tunnel collapsed and out came a Frame bristling with weapons. It held a large-bore bazooka in its powerful hands and aimed it point-blank at Rage's pilot compartment.
“Move and we both die,” said Rage. The enemy paused and noticed the detonators.
“Good,” said its pilot, “but how long are you willing to stand there?”
It was a fair question. Rage had extended his lifetime by a few minutes, but there was no way out of the situation.
“You thought it was going to be easy,” said the pilot.
“It was.”
“You risked your life for only five thousand credits? The lab set you up. It hired you to steal a useless part under a dummy name. Just so I could be put to a good test.”
“Happens all the time.”
“Well, you didn't see it coming.”
No reply.
“And now, my employers will be most unhappy. They wanted a test, and you cheated. I suspect that, before too long, more security forces will show up.”
Rage heard some static on the channel. “Stop using encrypted transmissions, or we're going to be vapor.” The static stopped. “Better.”
“What was I saying a few minutes ago? Yes. We need government.”
“Why are you spreading your propaganda to me, of all people? I'm a Mercenary, and I'm going to die anyway.”
“It's a hint. My employers have an agenda, but it's not always the one I follow.”
“What do you want?” Rage was irritated.'
“I can let you go. We can help each other to escape.”
“Are you crazy? You're a test subject. They'll find you and destroy you if you do this.”
The pilot was unruffled. “I have friends in low places.”
“Hiding won't last for long.”
“No.”
“And how can I trust you?”
“You can't. That's why you're about to die.”
The large Frame used small energy jets to dash backwards. It raised its gun. Two drones crashed into the tunnel, one to either side of Rage.
Detonating the charges would kill Rage and block the tunnel; the enemy pilot would escape at Rage's expense. But it was not in his nature to wait and die.
He did not know what to do.
It was then that the black Frame became surrounded by an aura of white light. It continued retreating and a white ray emerged from its chest. It froze, then began to fall. As it did, the ray remained at the same height, cutting through the machine's neck and head. Behind it stood a green Frame, holding a laser blade in its hand.
Rage had no time to think; he knocked the waiting drones down with two quick dashes and dropped the charges on them.
“Run!” he screamed over the radio. The odd green Frame turned with powerful swiftness and charged ahead with Rage close behing. He used a remote to set off the explosives. They caved in tha part of the tunnel where he had been standing.
Without coordination, the resistance to their escape was unsuccessful. The Frame ahead, silhouetted by the light from its blade, slashed in two any enemies in its way. Questions floated in Rage's mind, but he decided to keep them there until the more pressing matter of escaping was handled. Rage used his camera to look more closely at the new Frame.
It was heavily armored, but it moved quickly and fluidly; it followed the principle of the Frame. Its powerful arms held a heavy machine gun and the powerful blade that had destroyed a half-dozen mecha in the short minutes since Rage had first seen it. Unlike most pilots, the one in the Frame was either flashy or very good, and from what Rage had seen, the latter fit the pilot best.
“Here's the outside,” said the other pilot. Outlining the Frame were the stars of the deep night sky. They left the tight tunnel for the open air, but the other pilot kept his Frame near the entrance.
“Thanks. How much do I owe you?” asked Rage.
“Nothing. It's not a mercy mission. I'm here for my own reasons. All that I ask of you is silence.” The pilot's voice was cold and professional. Rage liked it. “Don't tell anyone that I came here.”
“Can I ask your name?”
“Are you new to Haven?” asked the other pilot cryptically, in typical Merc fashion.
“Yes; I've been a Mercenary there for a few weeks. My name is Rage.”
“It's good to meet a peer. I'm Alpha.” Alpha turned his Frame to the tunnel from which they had come and ran smoothly into its darkness. Rage stood for a minute, letting the name of the greatest Mercenary in the world echo in his ears.
“Pick me up,” he called over the radio to the pilot of his flying transport.
Life takes interesting turns when one is a Mercenary.