The sludge was waist-deep.
It was thick, green, and smelled like copper penny vomit.
Marcus waded through the waste pipe. His boots sucked against the slime with every step. The air was hot and humid, burning his lungs.
"This is disgusting," Galen gagged behind him. The physician was holding his nose, his face green in the dim light of the pipe.
"It's the back door," Marcia whispered. She was in front, shotgun raised. "Unless you want to knock on the front gate and ask the turrets nicely."
"I prefer the poop chute," Narcissus grunted. The giant cyborg brought up the rear. The sludge barely reached his knees.
They were deep inside the mountain. Above them sat the Taurus Processing Plant. The factory that churned out the Hollow Men.
The pipe vibrated. A rhythmic thumping echoed through the concrete walls.
KA-CHUNK. KA-CHUNK.
Like a heartbeat. Or a hammer.
"We're getting close," Marcus said.
He tapped his temple.
"JARVIS. Map."
[MAPPING...]
[LOCATION: WASTE OUTFLOW SECTOR 4.]
[TARGET: CENTRAL PRODUCTION FLOOR.]
[DISTANCE: 200 METERS UP.]
A wireframe map appeared in Marcus's vision. A maze of pipes and catwalks.
"There's a maintenance hatch ahead," Marcus said. "Up the ladder."
They reached the rusted ladder. Slime dripped from the rungs.
Marcia climbed first. She pushed the hatch open.
Steam billowed out.
She pulled herself up. Then she signaled "Clear."
Marcus followed.
He emerged onto a metal grating.
The noise hit him instantly.
It was deafening. The sound of a thousand chainsaws fighting a thousand jackhammers.
He looked up. And froze.
The factory was a cathedral of horror.
The ceiling was lost in smoke. Massive chains hung from the darkness, carrying hooks.
On the hooks were bodies.
Hundreds of them. Moving along an overhead rail system like cattle in a slaughterhouse.
They were naked. Gray-skinned. Some were missing limbs. Some were missing heads.
"Gods," Galen breathed, climbing up beside Marcus. He covered his mouth.
The bodies moved to a station where massive robotic arms waited.
ZZZT.
Lasers stripped the flesh from bone.
CLANK.
Hydraulic presses grafted metal plates onto stumps.
It was an assembly line. But the raw material was people.
"Don't look," Marcus said to Galen. "Focus on the mission."
"They're... they're twitching," Galen whispered.
"They aren't people anymore," Marcia said, her voice hard. "They're ammo. We're here to blow the magazine."
They moved along the catwalk, staying in the shadows of the massive machinery.
Below them, on the ground floor, vats of green liquid bubbled.
"The sauce," Narcissus muttered.
"Reanimator fluid," Galen said, recovering his composure. "It keeps the cells alive but kills the brain. It's how they control them."
A heavy footstep clanged on the metal nearby.
Marcus signaled "Halt."
They crouched behind a generator.
A figure walked past.
It was huge. Ten feet tall. A bulky, industrial cyborg.
It wore a leather apron over a rusted metal chassis. Its head was a sensory dome with no eyes. Its right arm was a rotary saw. Its left arm was a hydraulic clamp.
A Worker Unit.
It dragged a pile of "rejected" limbs toward a chute.
It stopped.
It turned its dome toward them.
"Sniffing," Marcus realized. "It smells us."
The Worker turned fully. The saw spun up. RRRRRRR.
"Intruder," it droned. Its voice was a grinding speaker. "Contamination detected."
It charged.
"Take it!" Marcus yelled.
Narcissus leaped from cover.
He tackled the Worker.
The two giants collided with a sound like a car crash. They rolled across the catwalk.
The Worker swung its saw.
Narcissus caught the arm. Sparks flew as the spinning blade ground against his gauntlet.
"You are obsolete!" Narcissus roared.
He punched the Worker in the sensor dome.
CRUNCH.
The dome dented, but the machine didn't stop. It clamped its other hand onto Narcissus's throat.
Marcia stepped out. She didn't aim for the head. She aimed for the knee joint.
BOOM.
The shotgun slug shattered the hydraulic piston.
The Worker collapsed to one knee.
Marcus moved. He activated his Vibro-Gladius.
He jumped onto the Worker's back.
He drove the sword into the neck seal.
The blade hummed through cables and gears.
The Worker spasmed. The saw stopped spinning. It went limp.
Narcissus shoved the dead machine off the catwalk. It fell into a vat below. Splash.
"Move," Marcus said. "Before it melts."
They sprinted toward the central tower. The Control Room.
They reached the door. It was locked.
"Galen," Marcus said.
Galen jacked his datapad into the panel.
"This encryption is Parthian," Galen said. "It's brutal. Give me a minute."
"We don't have a minute," Marcus said. "JARVIS?"
[BRUTE FORCE ATTACK: INITIATED.]
[PASSWORD: 'MEAT'. SERIOUSLY? THESE GUYS HAVE NO IMAGINATION.]
The door hissed open.
They rushed inside.
The control room was quiet. Soundproof glass looked out over the factory floor.
Screens glowed with production stats.
[UNIT OUTPUT: 5,000 PER DAY]
[REJECTION RATE: 12%]
"Five thousand a day," Marcia whispered. "That's an army every week."
"We have to burn it," Marcus said. "Set the charges."
Galen ran to the main console. He started typing.
"Wait," Galen said. "Look at the schematic."
He pointed to the screen.
"The central reactor. It's not nuclear. It's a bio-reactor. It burns methane and... biomass."
"So?"
"If we blow it," Galen said, turning pale. "It vents the gas. The entire valley fills with neurotoxin. It will kill the refugees. It will kill every village for fifty miles."
"So we can't blow it up?" Marcia asked, frustrated.
"Not externally," Galen said. "But..."
He pointed to the main drive shaft on the schematic. The massive gear that turned the entire assembly line.
"If we stop the line," Galen said. "If we physically jam the gears... the pressure builds up. The pipes burst. The fluid leaks out. The factory eats itself."
"A mechanical meltdown," Marcus said.
"Exactly. But the emergency brakes are disabled. We'd have to jam it manually."
Marcus looked out the window.
He saw the main gear. It was the size of a house. It turned slowly, grinding with millions of pounds of torque.
"How do we jam a gear that size?" Marcia asked. "Throw a truck into it?"
Narcissus stepped forward. He looked at the gear.
He flexed his metal hands.
"I am the truck," Narcissus said.
Marcus looked at him.
"Brother, that thing has enough torque to rip you in half."
"Then I will hold on tight," Narcissus said.
"It's the only way," Galen said. "We jam the main gear. The pressure spikes. The reactor scrams. The factory dies."
"Let's do it," Marcus said.
He checked his sword.
"Narcissus takes the gear. We keep the bugs off him."
They exited the control room.
They ran along the high gantry toward the drive shaft.
But the factory was waking up.
Alarm klaxons blared. Red lights flashed.
[ERROR: UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL.]
[SECURITY PROTOCOL: STERILIZE.]
Doors opened all along the walls.
Drones flew out. Buzzsaws spinning.
And on the floor below, the "rejected" units—the half-made zombies—began to climb the ladders.
"Here they come!" Marcia yelled.
"Get to the gear!" Marcus shouted.
They sprinted.
Drones swooped down.
Marcus slashed one out of the air. Marcia blasted another.
They reached the drive shaft.
The heat was intense. The gear turned relentlessly. THOOM. THOOM.
"Go!" Marcus yelled to Narcissus.
The giant cyborg climbed over the railing.
He jumped onto the axle of the massive gear.
He grabbed a spoke.
"RAAAH!" Narcissus roared.
He braced his feet against the housing. He pulled back.
Sparks flew. Metal screamed.
The gear slowed. Just a fraction.
"It's working!" Galen yelled, looking at his datapad. "Torque is spiking! Keep holding!"
But the enemy wasn't watching.
A panel in the ceiling slid open.
Something dropped down.
It hung from the rail system by four mechanical spider-legs. It had no lower body. Just a torso suspended in the air.
It had four arms. Four blades.
And a face that was human, but skinned.
"The Butcher," Marcus whispered.
The Overseer hissed.
"You are gumming up the works," it rasped.
It dropped from the rail. It landed on the gantry between Marcus and Narcissus.
It spun its blades.
"I will trim the fat."
Marcus stepped forward.
"Marcia, cover Narcissus! This one is mine."