IX. Nero's Bastards
Heaven Help The Ones Who Cross These Warriors Born Anew...
Where once stood four scared, tortured beasts, fit to fly off their collective handles, now stood a renewed troop of warriors. The red mechanic Eric had found in each of the unwilling Colosseum participants strengthened qualities. The gray Brennus was now twice as precise in his skills as a martial artist, landing incredible blows in their sparring matches. The white Valentina grew to be a crack shot, rock-steady and without hesitation.
Then came Marcus.
The most troubled of the three, and perhaps the most deadly, the red-furred gentleman had found himself a changed hound. He traded his fits of madness for solemnity, of blackout rage for inward meditation. His elevated sense of scent remained, and his strength improved dramatically through callisthenic exercise alone, push-ups and curls toning and building muscle in a matter of days. It wasn’t a steroidal growth either, more like a peculiar cultivation. Marcus could vividly recall the beast he had become in those strange primordial visions, and found himself striving for a suitable halfway point.
He had also become something of a driving fanatic.
Brennus and Valentina returned to the driver’s seat with some trepidation, driving bare-pawed for the week’s length to numb the painful memories of entering the arena stark naked. Marcus, on the other hand, needed no such conditioning. The drive had become the day’s wind-up, cool-down, and when in the company of his fair Sabina, aphrodisiac. He still exhibited some feral tendencies, namely his claws protruding in the heat of excitement. The long drives yielded fresh pinholes in the leather of his Space-Age DeSoto’s wheel and the bed of his knee-high gladiator sandals. Though the display was one of aggression, with paw slammed to the floor, and hands clung to the wheel, the driver himself did so out of an innocent glee.
His love for Sabina and his intricate bead-work remained the other constants in this metamorphosis, and the red-furred brunette found herself in a unique place of utter devotion. No longer the nursemaid of peculiar passions and a man-child mind, she at last saw the wolf she loved crawl out from the depths of his madness. The hound that had loved her the way no John ever had, the hound who taught her to drive, and the hound that taught her how to unite the two passions into one.
There were nights where she wept without care, not in sadness nor pain, but from under the weight of something she thought she’d never see in its purity ever again. In the middle of one night, in the back seat of their ride, she took her husband by the tufts of his cheeks, and after their umpteenth kiss, asked Marcus to promise her one thing.
“Once we put this all to rest,” she smiled sweetly. “Let me and my formosa build a family like no other.”
“Anything for mi reina.” he answered, holding her tight.
It was on that same night that Eric and Valentina conferred about the hacked android’s data. He had summed up the basics for the whole team, but being the quest’s leader, Val wanted everything laid before her.
“The gladiators were to be an evolutionary stepping stone.” Eric sighed. "All this conditioning was in the name of the Überwolf, the supermen of tomorrow, though they were never meant to be all-organic. As with all things concerning the city’s computer network, A.C.E.S., these warriors were to have melded their heightened instincts with cybernetic augmentations. You were to be her children in a sense, born from her device and her device alone. Thusly, I stand here hosting three of what were to be members of a master race.”
“But why name it Project: Nero?” came her next question.
“Why not?” came the wry reply. “Does she not fiddle as her city burns? Perhaps it was coined by a wolf early in Aremort’s conception, and now that she’s outgrown the need for carbon-based life, she simply accepts it as programming. But from everything General Godred told me before his passing and everything I hear from General Knox now, it still fits. She seeks perfection in everything under her, and it’s driving her and her city to their deaths. She can’t take care of the bare necessities, but she’s more than happy to potchke around looking for something she can make worth her caring.”
Val nodded. “Do you think we can keep this balance? Without those augs or her assistance?”
Eric knelt down and smiled that same warm smile that had made the world feel right again, way back in those painful first days. “With time. All will settle in due time. I’m glad you kept them here to give them some of that time.”
Valentina wrapped her arms around him tight, burying herself in his shoulder. Eric was prepared for waterworks, but instead, received a declaration deep in his red-furred ear. “I will not waste this gift you have given us.”
Her voice had warmed and smoothed, all that country-girl charm having boiled away over the past few days. When he looked the white wolf in her jade eyes, he saw a woman he never thought he’d see. She looked stronger than ever, more determined, and more confident. She looked built to kill, and built to handle such killing. “Lay the rest on me.” she smiled.
And so he did, explaining everything from the various reasons harnessing these feral instincts failed, to the over-stimulation of automotive combat, to the peculiar details she’d have to keep tabs on. Though a failure en masse, 10 reasonably functioning soldiers were produced via this method, though none were registered on the android’s white-list, a list of not-to-be-killed beings.
“So we got ten mad hounds are at large.” Val nodded. “And the big kicker?”
“We have the Colosseum’s location.”
Valentina leapt up and squeezed Eric tight in unashamed glee.
“Your celebration is premature.” he continued, gravely. “It’s simply called ‘Second Plane, Comm/Ent.’ No coordinates, no details. There isn’t even a place on the public registry labeled Second Plane.”
While the roller-coaster of emotions would have brought the old Valentina to her knees in depressive anguish, the new-and-improved warrior took the news in stride. “Then we’ll just have to find this Second Plane for ourselves.”
“That’s the spirit.” Eric nodded. “I’ll get it all written down for you and backed up to a hard drive. Now I think it’s time you spend the rest of the night in the arms of your real man, not huggin’ and squeezin’ this ol’ codger.”
He tousled the thickened white scruff of her head and sent her out of the private room. Waiting there on the cot in the main office was Brennus.
It was strange looking at him with her head on straight. He was still as handsome, as attractive as when she’d first laid eyes on him, but there was that pang of guilt, of throwing herself upon him at that time, the tension of not having truly been in each other’s company of sound mind, and the horror of that dreadful night where he had finally lost all control.
And yet, with a touch of his soft, firm gray hand, he pulled her onto the bed next to him. “I’d like to finally know you.” he smiled warmly.
Valentina curled up in his lap, nuzzling at his bare chest. “I think it’s high-time. Do you think we–”
He hushed her, lips pressed firm against hers, muzzles locked tight. Fortunately, it tasted as good as it had in her scatterbrained state.
“That still feel right?” he asked calmly. Val nodded.
“Think we can make it work?”
The white wolf looked away in thought. She held herself there for a moment, searching for the answer. When she turned back, and her gentle jade eyes met his warm browns, she realized that it must be so.
“I think it wasn’t just the mania that brought us together.” she smiled. A fit of ravenous passion soon overcame both gray anchor and his wild white woman, for the night was as good as any for both couples to renew their affections.
As the troop packed, Val scanned Eric’s dossier over morning coffee. The map of Haven and the blowup of the commercial district had awakened something within her memories, but what it was had yet to reveal itself.
“Hiya Val.”
The white wolf jolted up from her thoughts, and was delighted to see the now fully-chiseled Marcus. His unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt clung tight to his body, his leather cuffs grew stressed by the growth of his forearms, and his calves had grown into the leather that wrapped them and his broad flat paws. And yet, there in his large hands was a thin, delicately crafted choker.
“Made it special.” he grinned, kneeling down to present it. It was a simple, one-strand piece, jeweled with fine turquoise, and to her surprise, a piece of genuine jade front and center.
“My God, it’s beautiful.” Val smiled. “Sabina’s lucky to have a man like you.”
Marcus chuckled sweetly as his big mitts delicately tied the choker around her neck. He felt flushed with warmth upon his friend hugging him in return. Also of interest was the ornate choker wrapped about his own neck. “When’d you make that one?” she asked.
“During the week, whenever I needed to wind down.” His was four rows of hair-pipe, tied together thru a silver disc. The weathered whites and deep reds certainly complimented the warrior’s ever-peculiar garb. Contrasting him was the sight of Sabina, her cropped leather jacket now complemented by the first pair of jeans Val had seen the red-furred lady in, though her sandals and throne room’s worth of jewelry remained.
“Nice to see you dressed for the occasion.” the leader chuckled.
Sabina could only smirk. “It’s still his request. But one I give into gladly.” Her lover responded with a playful growl.
“Last thing, friends.” Eric smiled, his weathered red hands patting each ride. “Y’all got built-in ‘droid scanners now. They ain’t specially built for Gladi-Models because they themselves don’t give off any special kind of signature. I want you to use them RESPONSIBLY.”
The emphasis on that final word puzzled Val.
“I get that y’all have been having some nasty run-ins,” the mechanic continued, “but there are also metal folks out there who aren’t causing no trouble. I don’t need to hear about one of ya running through someone’s shack just ‘cuz you get a reading. If you catch a signature, and you find the hound, just ask first. If they give you shit, or they try to waste you, that’s on them. But don’t start anything unless you know they’re hostile or you see the blacks of their eyes.”
When he received his playful salutes, Eric hustled everyone into their rides, and soon the three-car entourage were off and away once more. Brennus’ slender black Shelby Mustang, Val’s boxy, sand-colored Humvee, and Marcus’ cream-colored Adventurer had all enjoyed five-star tune-ups, and the engines all hummed agreeably.
Though they had set course for the city of Haven, Valentina wanted something made clear over the radio. “Just cuz we got ourselves a real target now doesn’t mean we give up the side mission. If we meet anyone in trouble, first thing’s to help them, then get back on the road. Got it?”
“Yes ma’am.” Brennus answered.
“Aye cap’n.” chimed Marcus.
Both the promise made and the equipment gifted would soon come to a head when they passed through the settlement of Machan. Patterned after the Old West of the Old World, it looked like a homesteader’s dream. A well-preserved main street, rows of homes behind both sides, and scores of small stores and bars, all equipped with food and resource synthesizers ready for anything.
It had also come under the hungry eyes of some gangs. One pack ran with trucks, the other with motorcycles, and both were starved, heat-stricken, and fixing for someone to blame for their miseries. When they stumbled upon each other, each looked like the perfect scapegoat for the other. The indignant screams emanating from the local General Store was marked by the steady blip of a reading on their android scanners.
“No killing on-site,” she steadied over the radio. “Let’s give it all a second.”
As they pulled into Machan, they could hear the screams from as far out as the edge of town, and even with their renewal, the Colosseum survivors’ guts grew tense when the shouting match flared up.
“WE’S HERE FIRST!” roared the voice of one unwelcome patron. “AND YOU CAN TAKE YOUR HONKY ASS ON OUT!”
“Try me you black sonofabitch,” growled another. Upon the store front window shattering, the body of a stout black wolf crashed down upon a scraggly tan mutt, and soon the two mongrels were at each other's throats, wailing away on in a flurry of fists and kicks, the fight onto the streets as the trio of cars approached.
“Mind if I lead?” Marcus asked over the radio.
The white leader hesitated. “Let me pull up first. We’ll send you ahead if things get hairy.” The military SUV rumbled past the muscle cars and pulled off to the side. Neither gangster paid her any mind, both locked in their ruthless concentration on one another.
Valentina looked at her Mars Automatic, and sighed.
With two blasts of her pistol, she had gotten everyone’s attention.
“What’s the big idea, boys?” she asked casually.
“Ain’t your fucking problem, broad,” the bloodied black wolf spat, picking himself up from the sand.
“You makin’ trouble for this here town is.” growled Val. “And I can fix that problem with one good shot if you don’t take your schoolyard horseshit past the town line.”
“And I gotta gun to fix you with, honey.” the tan thug slurred, grabbing his crotch. The scruffy wolf’s bravado cost him a fist to the jaw as the fight raged on.
Once more Valentina sighed. She would have shot them dead herself, but Marcus’ request told her something; he wanted to prove his control. And there was no better time than with tensions this high.
“All yours Marc.”
The smiling DeSoto tore away from her spot, her muscular red driver grinned mischievously as his sandaled paw flattened the throttle, and both hands clutched the wheel. It looked like a swift death would be upon them, one they were oblivious to in their own feral rage. Marcus, however, had other plans.
He slammed both feet on the brakes, the thugs sent flying halfway across town. The black and tan bodies landed with a thud, coughing and spluttering in shock and pain.
Gently, the red’s right paw pressed the gas, and the cream-colored Adventurer became a circling shark ready to crush the bloodied street fighters. When they saw the car making its approach, and the devilish grin behind those strange rectangular shades, they scrambled like mad for their rides. The fat black wolf dove onto his bike and the ragged tan leapt into his white pickup.
When Marcus backed his Space-Age machine alongside Val’s Hummer, he turned to face the crowd of shell-shocked hounds “Now…any of you with THEM,” he answered calmly, producing his sawed-off shotgun. “Better follow ‘em.”
The General Store was cleared in seconds. When the signature on the scanner split both ways, Valentina realized they now had leads in both camps.
“How’d I do?” Marcus asked softly. He took the smothering of love from Sabina as a 10/10. When the gray Brennus joined his pack, and all three rides were parked in front of the General Store, he gave the display a charmed golf clap.
“Save some for me next time,” the martial artist teased. “I could’ve taken at least five of ‘em.”
“And I’m sure you will, handsome,” Val chortled in reply. “We’ll hunt ‘em down later, I could use a drink after all this.” When the Roman wolves walked past the saloon doors, careful to observe the shattered glass, they were met with the clerk who had been on duty.
He was a black wolf, much thinner than the biker bear, and cut the classic profile of a saloon owner, right down to the thick mustache beneath his nose, and the rectangular-framed glasses upon his snout. And like all good saloon owners, was thoroughly unphased by the past ten minutes.
“Much obliged.” he smiled, polishing the shotgun in his lap. “If you wasn’t, I was fixing to drop one of those clowns myself.”
“Happy to help,” Brennus nodded, “Though you have these three to thank.”
“Valentina.” the slender white wolf smiled. “Your Maciste for the afternoon was Marcus, his gal’s Sabina, and my man’s Brennus. And if you need any help for the rest of the day while we’re in town, just ask.”
“How bout y’all’s get a drink at least, on the house. I’ll invite the Sheriff down to chat with you good samaritans.” It was an offer they couldn’t refuse.
One round of whiskeys later, the sheriff had arrived. He was a far nicer (and fuller) tan wolf, dressed in black leather and blazing white cowboy boots.
“Hell Patrolman Abel Grant.” he smiled, shaking hands with Valentina and her hunters. “Scotch and soda, Joe.”
When he heard the whole story from top to bottom, he was grateful as could be. “That’s the problem with a Hell Patrolman as installed sheriff. When you get called in on big chases like the one we just came back from, you miss skirmishes like these. A good gal with a gun and a good man with a lead foot like yours oughta be staples of every town, and fortunately they usually aren’t too far off.”
“Speaking of which,” Val ventured, sipping her drink. “Know where those two packs-a-clowns usually go? Gotta catch up with a ‘droid.”
“If they’re past the town line, they’re outta mind, Sister.” Sheriff Grant sighed. “They weren’t regulars if that’s what you’re wondering. Drop in one day, gone the next. Way most gangs work.”
It wasn’t a particularly satisfying answer, so the quartet set out to find their own. Val and Brennus backtracked in the Humvee looking for the truckers while Marcus and Sabina trailed the bikers.
“Keep your eyes peeled, but don’t get your hopes up,” Brennus radioed, “It’s gonna be like catching bats outta hell.”
True to his word, all they got for their hour of trouble were trails muddied by overlapping tire tracks, and not a stray blip on anyone’s radar.
When they returned to Machan, the rest of the day went without incident. Valentina topped off on supplies and joined Brennus in a little more hand-to-hand training. Marcus and Sabina found themselves browsing the various shops and talking craft with some local artisans, learning more about the Old World tribes that once inhabited the area. Once the sun had set, the whole crew returned to the General Store for supper. One killer steak dinner later, and it was time to call it a night. The hunters took up two rooms in the local motel, and hunkered down for their evening’s rest.
While Val and Brennus took time to enjoy each other’s company, it was in the dark of night and the depth of sleep that Marcus found himself returning to the strange realm of dreams…
It was a town not unlike the one they were in, and a truck not unlike the one piloted by the gangly Indian wolf. The truck sat at one side of town, and Marcus sat at the other. Something told him this trucker wasn’t right. Not just the usual thuggery, but that he wanted to bring him back. He wanted to drag him away from this new-found stasis of his. And it was this very thought that made the mighty red wolf tremble. He clung to the wheel as a child to a security blanket, and his eyes were shut tight, hoping the feeling would go away. But instead, all that balled up tension was released, and in an instant, the red wolf’s pupil shrunk to the slender shape of a cat’s eye, and his large flat paw slammed the throttle down. The DeSoto Adventurer sped away, desert dust spitting from its back tires, as the behemoth truck bolted for the cream-colored sedan.
Closer and closer the two rides came, neither swerved, neither wavered. Behind the truck’s wheels, the tan driver’s eyes went black as midnight with pinhole-white pupils. It could only end one way as the two grills came to meet, and the fronts crumpled into each other as a fireball ripped clean through them both. The flames weren’t what he feared though, for soaring clear through the Lady’s engine and the dashboard was the savage blade of the truck’s radiator!
The second the blades tore into Marcus, he awoke with a howl of pain. Sabina sprang up, Brennus and Val bolting in from the next room, all quick to tend to the convulsing, petrified hound. They all feared the worst; the relapse, the two steps back to their one step forward, that Damoclesian threat of all their progress being undone. But through Sabina’s tender touch and calm, it became clear that the nightmare was simply that, nothing more than a terror of the mind.
Marcus took a swig of water and relayed the tale. He managed to do so calmly, without turning in on himself or devolving into those childish inflections he once possessed.
“Sorry for scaring ya,” he soothed, pulling his wife close to his bare chest. The men hushed their women before any waterworks could flow, but Marcus did make a request of Val. “Get me our map. Not the Comm-whatsit, our memory map.”
When the white wolf returned with both it and a pencil, Marcus flew across page after page, drawing more and more of the route out from that wretched Colosseum to what he hoped would be the outer wall of Haven. He built the map like a book galley, sheet upon sheet taped together. When he finished, he sighed. “It ain’t the border, but we’re getting close.”
“We’ll get there soon, formosa.” Sabina calmed, cozying up to him. “We’ll get there.” They fell asleep in each others’ arms once Val and Brennus had left.
In the comfort of their own room, the lithe white wolf rested quietly next to the gentle gray fighter. “‘The mind is its own place,’” Brennus muttered to himself, “‘and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”
“Milton again?” she smiled in her newfound twang-less timbre.
“I didn’t know you knew,” the poetic hound chuckled.
“I watch and I learn” were her last words before savoring a mighty long kiss on her husband’s lips, and the arresting caress of his firm gray hand along her body, a pleasure that carried them into their own contented slumber.
When dawn broke, the nightmare thought lost to the midnight hour had proven painfully real. Riding in on one side of the town were the hoards of matte black pickups and rusting compact trucks. From the other, a mass of multicolored, busted-to-hell-and-back motorcycles. Though yesterday’s battle was won, the war was still on for Valentina and her hunters.
The jade-eyed leader gave the morning desk attendant a message. “Call the sheriff and tell him to get every Hell Patrolman they can find.” The attendant whipped across the rotary phone as the four wolves piled into their rides.
Brennus was the first to peel out and towards the bikers. He had relented on the subject of firearms and found himself in possession of one of his sensei’s most prized peacemakers: a silver Singer M1911A1, one wielded with the same grace he had wielded himself with in combat, and one that made quick work of the brute-force thugs, though many more were on the way.
When Marcus laid eyes on his wave of bullnose beasts, the red warrior froze.
“Th-th-that’s him.” he stuttered. “He’s the one. His eyes are black, I swear to God, his eyes are black.” His wife could feel him shake behind the wheel as she did her best to snap him out of the stupor.
“Darling,” Sabina whispered, deep in his ear. “If I must drive and you must shoot, I will. But you must trust yourself. We will be alright. We will!” When he looked into those pleading eyes, veiled by those beautiful brown locks, all was right with the world once more. “You’re a better shot anyhow.” he growled with pleasure, savoring a rapturous kiss before battle. The white Space Age automobile tore away into the trucks, with a gladiator at the wheel, and his lover putting big beautiful holes in every ride coming towards them.
In the spirit of the red couple’s model, Valentina joined Brennus, though she opted for a brute force of her own. In the heat of battle, she too had begun to relish the thrill of driving the way Marcus had, claws sunk deep into the bed of her Roman caligae as she pinned the gas down and charged on the hoards of bikes. The two-wheeled machines crumpled and crushed beneath her mighty Humvee’s wheels, her breath chattering with a euphoric glee. “Go’on,” she cried, cackling uproariously. “Slay ‘em Beautiful!”
The Humvee barreled over head and helmet alike, as the engine took on the depth of a devilish baritone, his mistress savoring these newfound passions.
As the bikes and pickups swung and swayed past the DeSoto, Marcus gunned for his chosen truck. That driver would be his before the battle was over, he just knew it, licking his chops, savoring the taste of that sickly acid blood.
“Hang on!” he barked, slamming the brakes and swinging the Space Age machine in front of the white truck. The pickup swerved, crashing into the brick wall of an Old World apartment. The five-story structure was intact, and the truck’s engine was as good as dead, spluttering and chugging as the leather-clad tan wolf leapt out and onto the DeSoto’s hood, gun in hand.
“Vale Canis.” Sabina grinned. The shot blasted the driver off the hood, crashing against the brick wall with a crunch. A decidedly metallic crunch, which left pinkish hue to the beast’s “blood” mixing with the white fluid of an android. When the trucker popped up, Marcus knew.
Down his paw went, the DeSoto slammed against the trucker’s legs, pinning him to the wall as the mechanical wolf clawed for freedom. When Sabina started to see Marcus shuddering again, foot welded to the throttle, she knew she had to calm him down.
“It’s alright Formosa,” she soothed, caressing his cheek. “It’s alright! We’ve got him, and we aren’t letting him go. Relax…relax.”
It wasn’t until she rested her own left paw on his right that he realized.
“Hold him down for me, will ya babe?” he asked softly.
She climbed up into his lap and swung the brakes down, Marcus finally letting up and taking a deep breath. “Jesus God that was close,” he sighed. When he felt the soft touch of his wife and her denim-wrapped thighs, he smiled. “And goddamn do I miss this.”
The red lovers were in a fit of laughter as the memories kept them sane amid the chaos surrounding them. Marcus rested his head on Sabina’s shoulders, eyes turned away from what he was certain was that demonic black gaze.
In the end, half the job had been done by four wolves before Hell Patrol’s ten-hound army arrived. When the light-tan Sheriff Grant learned the exact identities of the gangs from the few prisoners taken, he called up the Commissioner to have their status upgraded to priority targets. Another gang war like this would never happen again, and it certainly wouldn’t happen to Machan while Grant was on duty.
While Val was curious about the dead biker ‘droids, that wretched tan trucker came first. When Brennus and Valentina had found their other duo, Marcus looked winded, and though she had done her best, Sabina was worried as ever.
“I’ll be fine.” the red gladiator sighed, patting his wife’s knee. “Sabina saved me from blowing out the Lady’s transmission.”
“Good on the pair of ya,” Val smiled, patting the red wolves’ shoulders.
“Now let’s see if we can figure out what kinda creep he is.” Brennus nodded. The trucker spat and swore incomprehensibly, the words lost in a vain rage, contrasted by the almost ethereal approach of Brennus, the beatnik-looking beast as steady as the sun.
“YOU’RE ALL MINE,” the trucker bloviated, “ALL OF YOU ARE DEAD MEAT! YOU DIRTY FERAL FUCKING SONSOF–”
“HAI!”
With a chop of his hand across its muzzle, Brennus silenced the mechanical wolf, as the faux-fur faceplate landed with a sickly thud. Marcus clung to Sabina, eyes shut tight.
“Its eyes aren’t black.” Brennus shouted calmly, “But that doesn’t mean the programming is anymore innocent. Remember what Eric said about opening these things up, Val?”
“Every last word,” the lithe white wolf smiled.
Minutes turned to hours as it took them forever to get the thing powered back on in the bed of the white wolf’s Humvee. It was enough time for Marcus to be fully soothed by the embrace of his woman and her calm presence. Soon, in the home stretch of the marathon, the hunters gathered around, and the last switches were flipped. First there came a spark, then a splutter. And at last, a relieved sigh from their jade-eyed leader. “He’s back online. Let’s learn who he truly is.”
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