Bonecrusher: A Kaiju Thriller (The Armageddon Tetralogy Book 1)

  Bonecrusher

  A Kaiju Thriller

  Book one of The Armageddon Tetralogy

  By Ambrose Ibsen

  Synopsis:

  One man, at the helm of mankind's most advanced machine, is all that stands in the way of Armageddon.

  Amateur boxer Silvio Echegaray has lost more than his most recent bout. He's lost sight in one of his eyes. With his professional hopes in tatters, he wonders how he'll be able to provide for his small family.

  But just as he reaches the end of his rope, fate smiles upon him.

  Silvio receives an unexpected offer from the robotics arm of a well-known corporation. Aderhold Corporation is looking to expand its robotics division and has developed a cutting-edge mech, the X-001 ARTEMIS. The deal is a simple one: Silvio must travel to Iceland and assist the team of researchers by stepping into the cockpit to test the machine's capabilities.

  Meanwhile, a small town in rural Michigan is decimated. The emergence of a monolithic creature from a lake trench threatens the whole of America's Heartland. After repeated military interventions, the creature proves immune to conventional weaponry.

  Silvio is then offered a job he can't refuse: Pilot ARTEMIS into battle against the dangerous creature. In doing so, he has a chance to reclaim the glory he once sought as a boxer, and will have more eyes on him than any matchup in the ring could ever bring.

  And with a little luck, perhaps he'll save Earth, too.

  BONECRUSHER is a Kaiju thriller novel of roughly 54,000 words, and is the first in a series. It contains instances of coarse language and scenes of violence. It also contains a cliff-hanger ending. Reader discretion is advised.

  Copyright 2016 by Ambrose Ibsen

  All Rights Reserved

  Bonecrusher

  1

  Sitting on the edge of the stretcher, Silvio could still hear the roar of the crowds.

  More specifically, he could still hear the booing.

  Working over his jaw, sore and swollen, he lowered his hands to his lap and hung his head. Just outside his door the emergency room staff could be heard to race about. The doctor would be in any minute, they'd told him almost an hour ago. Pain medications had been promised. Those hadn't materialized yet, either. The pain was worst on the right side of his face, up towards his eye. The area was so swollen he couldn't even blink with it, rendered blind by a counterpunch he should've anticipated.

  He should've known better than to look.

  A cautious glance into the mirror had revealed it to be a mass of red hamburger. His nose still dripped now and then with blood, the white shirt someone had thrown on him in transit soaked through on the breast. He looked like shit. His black hair was matted onto his forehead by sweat, and looked terribly greasy in the bright light of the examination room. He looked over his teeth. None appeared out of place, but were stained in red thanks to a busted, oozing lip.

  A shudder coursed through him for the remembrance.

  Bright lights, raucous crowds.

  And then the punishment.

  He'd never heard of the guy who'd knocked him out. A nobody, an out-of-towner. Silvio figured he was a relative newcomer, which made the loss all the more embarrassing. Already his coach had been losing patience with his middling performance; he'd lost his last three bouts. And now this. Finding another sponsor would be virtually impossible with so many losses on the record. Virtually no one in the world stood by him anymore.

  His recent performances could be distilled into an easy-to-follow formula: Enter the ring with little fanfare, and then, a few minutes in, get carried out to a chorus of enthusiastic boos. That was all there was to it, all he seemed capable of. It seemed like a cycle he couldn't escape from, an inevitability every time he stepped into the ring. Train, get your ass kicked, repeat. Boxing at this level had never paid him well, and he was lucky to get anything on those days when he lost. The bigger purses were only available to those who could cut it in the pros, and more than ever before, he was beginning to realize that he wasn't pro material.

  The realization hurt like shit, more than any hit in the ring.

  The end of the fight returned to his thoughts again and again, playing in his mind like a looped snippet of film. He'd taken one to the side of the head. A stupid misstep on his part. It'd been jarring, but he'd collected himself, launched into a strike of his own.

  And then the counterpunch, square to the eye. It'd felt like a brick, and reflecting on it after the fact, he remembered hearing something snap with that hit.

  Another love-tap had come, to the nose. A blast to the ribs. When he hit the mat, he knew there'd be no getting back up.

  It'd been an important bout. There'd been some folks in the audience looking for fresh talent, he'd been told. Silvio had shown up in the hopes of impressing them, of making the transition to professional boxing. Had he won or even lost by decision then perhaps things would have gone well for him. These regional bouts weren't paying the bills anymore, and his continued losses were only making him harder to market. He was the kind of boxer that rookies tore up to make a name for themselves, a barrier they pummeled on the way to worthier opponents. Though he'd been called a fighter of some promise at the start of his short career by a few in the local press, Silvio was washed out. This loss had only cemented his status as pushover. He was forgettable.

  What'll you do now? he asked himself, tonguing his molars to make sure none had been knocked loose. Still gotta eat. Still gotta pay the rent. He grimaced, a good deal of pain shooting across his swollen face as he did so. Might be time to get one of those “proper jobs” Sarah's always talking about.

  Usually he was optimistic after a loss. There was always the next fight to look forward to. There would always be another chance to prove himself, to get noticed and make the jump to the professional circuit. He'd prepare more thoroughly for the next one. He'd train till he couldn't train anymore, till he dreamt of nothing but boxing.

  This time, though, his hope ebbed away.

  From an adjacent room an old woman moaned. The smell of powerful cleaning agents met his nostrils as a noisome housekeeper's cart wheeled down the hall. Muffled speech, ringing phones. The lights overhead seemed altogether too bright. Absolutely nothing about this place was welcoming. He kneaded his ribs, left warm and tender. Could really use something for pain right about now.

  He traced the inflamed outline of his eye, the lids seeping with a bit of blood. What if he'd fucked up his eye in this fight, permanently? It was awfully swollen, more swollen than it'd ever been after a fight. And where was this blood coming from? He tapped his foot against the edge of the stretcher as his legs dangled, and hoped the doctor would come in soon. Silvio was in need of answers.

  The ER room was a lonely place to wait. No one had come with him; as best he could remember it, a pair of EMTs had dropped him off in the room without a word. It was a little fuzzy, but he could remember an x-ray, some poking and prodding. A nurse had stepped in, run through a quick assessment while he'd still been too dazed to answer with clarity. It was only now, left in the room by himself for a long stretch, that he was returning to cognizance. But what the hell was taking so long?

  The door opened. Silvio's heart jumped up into his throat.

  A man with a white coat stepped in. Stethoscope dangling around his neck, wrinkled face pinched into a pointed frown, he closed the door softly behind him and leafed through a few pieces of paper on a clipboard. He read quietly and ran a hand through his greying hair before even glancing up at Silvio. “Mr Echegaray?” he said with all the warmth of a prison guard. “I'm Doctor
Winfield.”

  Silvio nodded.

  The doctor returned to is paperwork for a few moments, pacing absentmindedly before stopping at the bedside and pulling on a pair of gloves. He said nothing as he began poking and prodding Silvio's swollen face. He grimaced as though disgusted, tugging on the skin and examining the open areas with some thoroughness. “Can you open your eye for me?” he asked.

  “N-no,” managed Silvio, “it's too swollen.”

  “Lay back,” ordered the doctor, guiding him down onto the stretcher with a press on the shoulder. Taking out a pen light, he grasped Silvio's swollen eyelids with two gloved fingers and parted them. Then, wincing a little for what he saw, he shined his light on the exposed eye.

  Not that Silvio could see the light.

  If it was possible, the doctor appeared a good deal more stern than he had initially. He shook his head and threw off his gloves, scribbling furiously on his clipboard.

  Silvio got up on his elbows. “What's the damage, doc?”

  The doctor cleared his throat, appearing reticent to answer. A nurse burst into the room just then with a med cup full of painkillers and a cup of lukewarm water, which he choked down. As the nurse shuffled out, the doctor finally spoke. “It's a bit early to say, and I'll be writing you a referral to a colleague of mine, an ophthalmologist. However that eye of yours seems to have been very injured, Mr. Echegaray. In fact, I can't be sure you'll ever see through it again. It appears you've broken your eye socket. I'd need another X-ray to make sure, possibly a CT scan. And your eye doesn't appear to track light or movement. I would suspect damage to your optic nerve. A more thorough examination from an ophthalmologist will give us a better idea of what's going on, once the swelling's been reduced.”

  Silvio tensed. X-rays? Eye surgery? How the hell am I supposed to afford all of this shit? That was his first thought. Gripping the side of the stretcher, he looked upon the doctor with his one good eye, finding his vision blurred by panic-borne tears. “I'm blind?” he asked, his tongue feeling suddenly limp in his mouth.

  The doctor glanced up from his paperwork and gave a weak nod, his bespectacled eyes carrying traces of pity. “Probably.”

  He felt woozy. Rocking on the edge of the stretcher, he leaned forward and stood up, almost losing his balance. Every breath saw him shudder.

  “Mr. Echegaray,” began the doctor, “please don't stand up. If you can lay back down for me, we'll get you off to radiology for a few diagnostic--”

  Silvio would hear none of it. “If I'm blind, then there's no sense in my getting these tests now, is there?” He gulped, hand on the door handle. “I'm leaving now.”

  The doctor stiffened, shaking his head disapprovingly. “I wouldn't if I were you. You're in no condition to go anywhere. And these tests... if you leave now, insurance won't cover your treatment.”

  Silvio loosed a little laugh, wiping away a trickle of blood and snot from his nose with the back of his hand. Tears stung the corners of his good eye. “I haven't got insurance anyhow. Send me the bill like you always do.” With that, he threw open the door and started down the hall, hands shoved in his pockets.

  2

  A brief stagger down East Boundary, a right on Southlawn and a trek of some few blocks till Byrne dead-ended into Coleman was all it took. It was a harder walk to make with only one good eye, but the streetlights were on and the pain meds were kicking in. Silvio soldiered past the doubtful shapes of shady passersby, his face bunching up into hot, angry knots as the swelling continued. None stopped him. He looked awful, too awful to approach.

  He made it to the apartment. It was a one-bedroom outfit, one of two units in a little house near the end of the street. The kind of place one could live without a credit score in the 700s, where the landlord might be inclined to accept handiwork or booze in place of proper rent. They'd been there a few months now, despite the urgings of their families to relocate someplace nicer. “Nicer.” Just what that was supposed to mean, or how Silvio was supposed to afford it on a virtually non-existent salary, was a goddamned mystery. People were always telling him that; to “do better” and “work harder” so that he could afford a “nicer” place or “nicer” things. They meant well, but that kind of talk really chafed his ass.

  Nice things didn't mean shit to him. He wanted a place to sleep, a place where his girlfriend and kid would be safe. Anything more was superfluous, a distraction from the real prize.

  Someday, if he really made it, then maybe he'd have all of those “nice” things people thought he should be working for. But unlike the rest of them, he wasn't willing to sit behind a desk and waste his life to make it happen. Until he'd made it, until he'd really made a name for himself and succeeded in the ring, drawing huge crowds and winning some real, life-changing money, all of that was just garbage to him. One bedroom was good enough. Three hots and a cot were sufficient. His kid had a few toys. He didn't need anything else.

  No one in his life, save for Sarah, understood his ambition. None of them were dreamers, none of them sought anything save for comfort. They'd put themselves through all sorts of unpleasant shit just so that they'd have good cars to drive, or so they could send their spoiled-ass kids to better schools. That wasn't the kind of life Silvio had set out to live. He wanted only one thing in the world-- to become a professional boxer. And was willing to sacrifice everything else in pursuit of that goal. Family members goaded him, gave him a hard time constantly, asked him what he was wasting his time for, or if he ever planned on getting a “real” job. It was a lot of noise, that. To Silvio, walking any other path was unthinkable. Becoming a desk jockey was about the worst thing he could think of.

  What he was doing now, following his dream one fight at a time, was the greatest happiness he knew. To make any compromise would have been a tiny death to him.

  Of course, all of that was probably fucked, now.

  His eye throbbed, feeling like a marble stuck inside a wad of beef. Beef that'd been left to sit on a hot dashboard in the middle of summer.

  He stood on the porch and hesitated awhile before finally knocking on the door. The flimsy thing gave a little on its hinges, then flew open. Sarah stood in the doorway, eyes alight with shock. “Silvio, where have you been?” She reached out and took him by the arm. Pulling him in and getting a good look at him for the first time, she gasped and tried, with little success, to hide her horror. “I-I called the hospital,” she explained. “They said you'd left against medical advice. Benny called and said you got hurt, that they'd rushed you off. But by the time I found the number they told me you'd gone.”

  Benny, his coach. Old prick had thrown up his hands at the end, had shaken his head as Silvio hit the mat. It was just as well his eye was fucked, he thought to himself. Benny probably wouldn't have been interested in training with him again anyhow.

  Silvio nodded, sniffing. It was too warm inside. Slowly, and with a wince, he pulled off his shirt, throwing the blood-soaked thing into the trash and peering down at his bare midsection. There was a reddened spot, roughly the size of a grown man's fist, where the bastard had hit him at the end. He traced it with his fingers cautiously. Sore as a motherfucker. It wasn't going to heal well, would probably blossom into a bluish-black bruise within the space of a few days. Pressing down on it, he felt pretty sure no ribs had been broken. He knew what broken ribs felt like, and this wasn't it. “Didn't bust any ribs this time, anyhow,” he said, forcing a little smile.

  Sarah was not amused. Appraising him from against the wall, arms crossed, she looked away suddenly and grit her teeth. “W-what did the doctor say before you left?” She wasn't looking at him, couldn't bear to. It was the same reason she never went to his fights. She couldn't stand to see him hurt.

  Silvio stretched a little, limped across the living room and propped himself up against the fridge. He plucked out a water bottle and pressed it to his lump of an eye before wrenching it open and taking a gulp. “Didn't say a whole lot. I didn't let them look at me too closely. But...
” He suddenly found it hard to swallow. Scratching at his grimy locks, he swept them back and cleared his throat.

  “But what?” she asked, glancing his way. “Your eye... your eye looks terrible, babe. What happened out there?”

  For the thousandth time Silvio pictured the last few moments of the fight. He felt each hit as though it were happening in real time, the pain as fresh as it had been in the moment. “Guy got a few lucky punches in,” he said, nursing his fat lip with his tongue. He neglected to mention his own carelessness, his going to pieces after that first punch to the head. The guy had cleaned his clock good and proper. There was no way around it, but Silvio wasn't about to admit to it aloud. “Shit happens.”

  Sarah trembled. “I'll say.”

  Shaking his head, Silvio continued. “Anyhow...” He palmed at his eye, pressing the water bottle to it once more. The cold stirred up a stinging pain, and he had to grit his teeth to keep from crying out. “The, uh... the doc said my eye is... well, it's done for, babe. Probably can't see out of it no more.” He drew in a shaky breath. “I think that, uh... my time in the ring is done.”

  Wide-eyed, Sarah lost control. She threw a hand over her mouth and began to sob, shuffling towards him slowly and bringing a set a trembling fingers to his ruined eye. She touched the knob of gnarled flesh gingerly, gasping as she did so and looking up at him entreatingly. “What have you done to yourself, Silvio? What have you done?”

  His tough guy act was slipping. His good eye was damp, and he looked upward to the ceiling, where the light fixture's glow made it sting with a fresh wave of tears. The rings of his esophagus were locked around a sob, but he didn't allow it to escape. Shuddering in her arms, his back against the refrigerator, he clenched his jaw and fought it back. He wasn't about to lose two fights that night.

  After a time, he ran a hand through her hair and tried to comfort her. It almost seemed silly. Here he was, the one with the busted eye, trying to make her feel better. “It ain't all that, babe. It ain't all that,” he repeated. “Anyhow I'll get me one of those eyepatches. You've always had a thing for pirates, haven't ya?”