Originally published in G-Fan magazine.
On that morning, one of mountains moved. The people of New First City had been expecting this day to come. Many mountains stood around the city, and the sound of their breathing provided a cadence for the passing of the days. Many said that it was the breath of the mountains that provided the breezes, and the people of New First City often murmured their thanks to the mountains for the services they provided. The mountains were beautiful in their way, covered over with mosses and trees, shrubs that took hold as the creatures underneath the outer-rock skin slept.
But eventually, for reasons that the denizens of the city still did not fully understand, the mountains would sometimes awake. Rarely more than one at a time, but even one was a dire threat that could wipe out the entire city. One walking mountain could be hundreds of kilometers tall, and such a massive, god-like being strolling through the streets would be enough to cause untold devastation and the loss of many lives, even in their technologically advanced civilization.
Panic rose on the morning the mountain awoke. As the mountain began to rise, the evergreens, boulders and moss growing on the creature’s back and sides slipped and shivered, streams of soil fell in black waterfalls. The side of the mountain seemed to open, caves yawning and revealing darkness and secrets. At least a dozen caves opened along the front side of the mountain—perhaps nostrils, perhaps mouths, perhaps eyes. No man knew. All they knew was the blackness of the gawping maws that signaled coming death.
Arms along the mountainsides moved like a coming avalanche. The head shook, and a small forest broke away, twigs showered down. The sound of breathing roared, a reality-shattering rumble sucking in, gusting out.
The mountain was lumbered directly towards the city. They always did. Perhaps they were attracted to the lights, or they could sense the presence of life, or by some chance the mountains could read the thoughts of the citizens and were pulled towards their fear. Scientists made their guesses and their research a thousand times over, but just as they had never found a way to kill the giants, no one knew they had never discovered why they without fail approach the city upon awakening.
But the people of New First City had prepared for the mountain’s coming.
No conventional weapon was powerful enough to stop a mountain. Even the most powerful explosives would do nothing but dislodge dirt, rock, and trees—worthless detritus to be ground beneath the mountain’s feet. In times past, near other cities now long destroyed, when mountains awoke, when missiles and rockets were used, the explosions were known to do nothing but spur the creatures to move faster—enraged or perhaps excited by the attacks.
No, only one method had ever been found that could stop the mountains from coming, and that was the bullet men. They were coming out now, hurrying, stumbling in their haste as they burst from their doors, charged towards the cannons, desperately throwing on their peculiar armor.
Each bullet man wore thick metal armor and a stiff helmet that attached to the shoulder pads below. The suits were equipped with weapons, burst rays, explosives, and more for their mission. The armor was enough to protect them for the trip they had to make.
But usually, when the bullet men were deployed, at best, none of them came back. At worst, they all died.
Harris was the fastest that day. Not because he was the most athletic—he actually had a paunch now, and so encountered some difficulty in squeezing himself into the armored suit—a fact which prompted him to wear the metal all the time. No, rather than for his speed, he was first because of his personality. He lived in anxiety about the mountains, more so even than the usual bullet man, and so every night he barely slept, waiting for the alarm, tormented by nightmares of the coming doom.
He had been known on several occasions to run from his home, thundering down the road half-naked as he pulled on the rest of his gear, only to discover that the alarm he had been sure had sounded was only in his mind.
But this day, the alarm was not in a mere figment in his mind, and he was out and to the cannons with fleet feet. The cannon men were priming the cannons already, warming up the gears, the electricity buzzing, lights flashing. They welcomed him, eyes thick with a kind of detached sorrow. He felt their hands upon the armor on his shoulders, felt them checking his straps, the connections, running final diagnostics to ensure everything was ready.
Harris waited fretfully for the diagnostics check on his armor to be finished. He knew they would find no problems. He examined the armor every day himself, and was aware of even the smallest nicks and lingering kinks, the sections of cloth that were beginning to wear down, and everything on his suit was well above the acceptable rating required to participate in the Shot.
Standing there with those testing hands prodding so slowly, Harris wanted to scream, to just step forward, to leap into the air and into his destiny. And finally they gave him the okay with the sweat of fear dribbling down their chins, beading on their foreheads. Harris strolled forward, worried the other teams might be faster, that someone else might be shot first.
The door to the cannon opened, the shining tube stretched up towards the sky. Harris squeezed in, his paunch squeaking against the sleek sheen of the barrel. He clenched his teeth, worried for a moment that his weight might disqualify him. But no one called him out, and he found himself with face centimeters from the edge, sharp scent of metal and residual explosive powder stinging his nostrils and driving his heart to run.
He had to wait in the darkness then, with the cannon moving into position, the vibrations of the movement numbing his muscles, pinching him where his joint armor shifted uncomfortably. He heard the countdown, and felt it, too, as the sound became part of the vibrations around him. He said the words, slurring the numbers against the metal armor, exiting his mouth in a rope of saliva that bit through his beard.
The final number was called, and then the explosion, and all he could feel was pressure and speed and a horrible kind of deafness, as if the world was gone from him. His armor around his middle burned white hot as his paunch pushed the plates against the bore. Everything was light and roaring sound, and he saw the landscape snap by below, the woods waving at him as he seared towards his target.
The cannon had been fired aiming at the spine of the mountain, just above its slowly bobbing head, which crouched underneath a hunched, bulking back. The only method discovered so far that could stop a mountain from crushing the city was to attack the spine, and it only worked with a human bullet. Usually hitting home was not an issue, as the mountains moved slowly, and so a well-aimed shot was nearly guaranteed to strike.
This shot—the Harris-shot—however, did not hit home. As the mountain took another step forward, its front leg sagged suddenly, throwing off the center of the beast’s weight. With a sudden jerk, the creature twisted sideways slightly—but even that slight movement was enough to cause the shot to miss its mark by some distance.
Instead of the bullet plowing through the dirt and bone into the spine growing up out of the back of the mountain’s neck, Harris found himself pummeled into the thick rocky skin of the mountain’s shoulder. Immediately Harris knew something was wrong. From simulations, he knew what burrowing into the vertebrae should feel like. He knew the solid slap of the bullet armor as it sank into the bone, and how the head of the armor then could dig through gristle and cartilage deeper down. The kind of resistance the material of the monster’s bones provided was a rough grind, a hard and tight feel, according to the simulations.
Instead of the tightness and grit, Harris felt something soft and flimsy, and a rush of warm, sticky fluid coating his armor. Harris’ heart redoubled in speed, chattering against his ribs as he hit the emergency reverse. The head of the armor spun backwards, pushing back, extricating Harris from the musculature. He fell out of the hole and into a waterfall of blood.
Part of the safety mechanism built in to the suit just for situations like this included pikes on wires automatically deploying from his armor upon impact with the beast. Not all of the pikes held in the flesh of the mountain, but enough did that Harris found himself dangling awkwardly in the air, swinging back and forth, shoulder skipping against the blood-slicked rocks that made up the area between the mountain’s shoulder and neck.
Harris knew he was the only chance now. With a failed hit close to the mountain’s neck, dozens of smaller holes in the side of the mountain had immediately gaped across the creature’s face, neck, and chest. Out of these holes surged thundering winds and battering rays of disrupting energy. Any further shots would be disrupted by the wind and fire that was exploding in waves from the creature now. There was no clear shot anymore, though Harris knew the citizens of New First City would almost certainly try again. Any further bullet men would most likely be thrown far off their mark, slamming into thick rock, or being sucked into one of the caves to impact harmlessly inside.
Harmlessly for the mountain at least. The bullet men shot now were also almost certain to perish in the attempt. Just as he was likely to do here, dangling and burnt, twisting in the wind, so scared his legs shook.
Harris scrambled to get himself up the wires, straining to reach up far enough to grasp one of the cables. His stomach burned against any movement, his armor still searing hot. Still, he grabbed the wire with his left hand, then up with his right, up, farther. Moments later he was clinging to the ragged lip of the wound, which was now oozing dark brown ichor.
The vertebrae. Where were they? Brain still spinning a little, Harris scanned the area, with a computer overlay across his goggles analyzing the stony structures surrounding him, probing the flesh in search of the nervous tissue underneath. The sensors caught something, a telltale icon began flashing, and at first in his excitement Harris thought it was the spine.
But the tone was wrong. The sensors had not identified the spine. They had identified a parasite lurking on the surface of the mountain. The alarm screeched in Harris ears, and he whipped his head back and forth while he tried to get a better purchase, partially pulled back into the hole he had made.
He saw it, and his guts turned.
It was like a shadowy goat with glowing red eyes and long, spidery legs that stuck into the rock and pulled out in long, arcing strides. Rather than balancing on the nigh-vertical slopes, it skittered sideways silentl except for a wet popping sound as its legs slipped in and out of the rocks and the mountain’s external, largely nerveless flesh.
Harris let out a yell. He had never seen a devil goat before, not in person—but more than enough times he had seen illustrations and video surveillance, seen training videos where bullet men were torn apart by those arcing legs. He aimed his right arm, swinging it towards the creature just as it pounced onto him.
One of the devil goat’s tentacles snapped through Harris’ left shoulder, but he barely felt it for the adrenaline. As the creature’s face bore down into Harris’ face, he pulled the trigger, and the bone-digging cannon built into the wrist of his right arm unleashed a guttering energy bar that liquified the goat’s abdomen, narrowly missing the creature’s head.
The devil goat’s red eyes jutted and faded, its mouth gasped silently, and the creature seemed to burst apart, falling off the side of the mountain in pieces. As the remains of the creature tumbled down, Harris felt something wet on his shoulder.
The wound. He was bleeding. Seeing the puncture from an angle, he knew suddenly he was hurt even before he felt anything, and by knowing it, suddenly the pain became real.
There were only very limited first aid capabilities built into the bullet suit. And Harris couldn’t really use them while dangling off the side of the mountain. He gripped the rocks with his right hand, scooting along sideways when the mountain moved in such a way as to create semi-horizontal land beneath him, using the mechanical strength of the suit to pull himself up onto a more stable ledge.
He rolled against a bulging crystalline formation to steady himself as it shifted gently below him. Almost immediately he saw a patch of red growing underneath where he lay. Pulling a thick device from his belt, he set it for puncture, and several hypodermic needles emerged from the front end, which he jammed into his shoulder. Pain killers, blood clotting mechanisms, antibiotics flooded into him, but the pain seemed only to redouble.
He had to stay awake, had to keep his brain clear. Harris bit down on his tongue, focusing on the pain as a way to stay cognizant, feeling his mouth fill with a metallic flavor. He allowed himself a full minute’s rest to regain his bearings, but the nausea of panic continued hazing over the forefront of his mind.
The mountain continued to waver beneath him as the massive creature creeped forward. He couldn’t stay seated forever. The longer he waited, the more lives would be lost. He imagined even as he lay there that he heard another bullet man misfire through the air and impact uselessly against a rock outcropping.
Harris forced himself to stand up and keep moving. Worms of numbness crisscrossed with white stripes of pain across his shoulder. He clenched his teeth, blood squeaking against his molars. The augmented reality display on his goggles continued to scan the rocks, searching for an access point to the vertebrae underneath. Also, after the encounter with the devil goat, Harris found himself nervously glancing around to see if there were other parasites that might be looking for an easy meal.
Far above he thought he saw shadowy figures snapping across the cliff-face. Devil goats or rock worms or maybe something worse. Harris didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t have the luxury to think about it, the space in his mind to allow for distractions.
The AR system was flashing, a buzzer going off in his ear. A patch of inconspicuous earth ahead, indistinguishable from the surrounding rock and shrubbery, apparently was the closest access point to the mountain’s spine.
Shakily, painfully, Harris ran as he ignited the bone-digging cannon. Using the cannon was far from ideal. The original shot into the monster’s flesh had been his best chance for success. The cannon took longer, and it called more attention to himself, throwing up smoke and flashing lights that could attract unwanted attention—more devil goats could easily gather around and shred him in moments with his body half in the ground. There just was no choice in the matter. It had to be done.
Harris thrust the cannon down, the bar of light and fire colliding with the ground and instantly throwing up a cloud of dust and sparks. Soon he was choking and gagging, but he followed protocol, burning out a tight circle where he could fit into the hole, yanking out individual rocks and tossing them down the side of the beast.
Within moments he had hit skin, and ichor began to pool, gush over, sizzle and steam against the bar of light. The stench was nauseating, and Harris turned up the power, liquefying the muscle and skin and burying himself down into the body of the beast.
Now that he had made entry, he pushed in head-first, engaging his drill helmet. The body of his armor had grooves and even conveyor belts for taking away rock and bone from the hole so he could make progress. His body went down slowly into the muscle and mess. The heartbeat of the mountain began to ring in his ear, reverberate against his body.
The augmented reality screen showed that he was digging through bone, and that the bones were not thick here. At the rate he was digging, he should be able to implant into the nervous system, and…
A sharp pain slammed through his body. Something had just grabbed hold of his right leg. He could feel claws piercing through the armor, through his skin. Some kind of creature had indeed been attracted to the smoke and fire thrown up by the bone-digger cannon. It had followed him into the dark and was now trying to pull him out.
The suit engaged spikes that shot out in all directions into the surrounding bone and rock, holding him in, preventing him from getting pulled free. The creature—a horned stab beetle, or a viciolizard perhaps—continued to yank furiously at his lower leg, his skin raked and sliced in the process.
It wasn’t going to let go, and Harris couldn’t confront it or shoot the creature in the face. There was really only one solution. Taking a deep breath, bracing himself, squeezing his eyes shut, he engaged his escape and blew his right leg off.
The pressure was immediately gone. The monster that had been pulling so voraciously had been blasted right out of the hold while still holding on to the leg. With any luck, the explosion would send the creature plummeting to its death. The charge, too, had been set up inside his own leg in such a way that, when it blew, it automatically cauterized the resultant wound and prevented Harris from bleeding out. According to design, the explosion was also supposed to burn away his nerves so that he wouldn’t feel the loss of his leg.
In practice, it didn’t quite work that way. Not only did his right leg stump burn and smart, his left leg had been scorched by the explosion as well.
Harris suddenly felt as if his whole body had been battered and beaten, as if he were about to fall apart inside the mountain.
But he pressed on. There was nothing else but to press on.
The minutes ticked by, and Harris kept waiting for another beetle to snap onto his remaining leg. Nothing happened. The rocks continued to be pushed out, the helmet continued to spin, dust and dirt and ground up mountain meat. Through the haze of the medicines pumped into his system, Harris watched the indicators on the display on his goggles. He breathed hard through the tubes built into his suit, sucking the hidden oxygen tanks that had been cut into his sides when he had become a bullet man. He had to prevail. He had to succeed.
The heartbeat of the mountain thundered against him harder as if the massive creature knew what was happening just when the sensors bleated out their triumphant message: He had access to the vertebra, he was inside the nervous system of the monster.
Harris let the drill dig a few feet more, deeper, deeper, waiting to make sure his entire body was inside for maximum contact. The pain in his shoulder was overcoming all the painkillers now, his missing leg as well. He could barely think, barely register where he was. He had to finish his mission. He had to hope that it would work.
He pulled the trigger. He whispered his last words.
“Goodbye.”
His body did not explode. An explosion would not slow down the mountain—not by much. They could shoot a hundred burrowing missiles to try to blast apart the inside of the monster with little effect. Cities had tried that before. Those cities were gone now. There was no destroying the mountain, there could be no successful assassination attempt against the monolith.
Instead, the back of the helmet broke open, and a harpoon-like structure shot out into the nervous structures of the monster. The harpoon was connected to a sturdy cable, and the cable was connected to Harris’ own brain. In a moment, in a snap of electricity, their minds were connected.
He felt all of the mountain’s emotions coursing through him. It’s desire to be free, to move, to mate. It’s fear as it saw the bullet men zinging through the air towards its neck. Its thick sense of touch as it walked, as it stumbled, as it lived.
And Harris engaged his training, sinking himself deep into meditation, sending out waves of peace and relaxation, out past his own panic and anxiety, deep breathing, deep concentration. Harris felt himself winking out of existence as his thoughts molded themselves into the monster, and the peace overcame his every worry.
And on the outside, the mountain began to falter. Its steps grew heavier, the wind pouring from the caves upon its cliff faces chuffed and puffed. One of its great feet reached out, fell down crushing several evacuated residential houses flat to the ground, and then stopped. Smoke and sparks of flame shot up momentarily around the foot, but the mountain did not move again.
Instead the mountain settled down, crumbling into a sitting position that shook the world, shattering windows for miles, knocking over furniture in a hundred houses.
Then everything was still again as the mountain dreamed.