James Axler – Stoneface

Hellstrom gestured to the sec man in the passenger seat and he arose, coming to stand beside Hellstrom.

“Take his place, Cawdor,” the thin man instructed. “Man the periscope and watch everything that transpires with a close eye. Of course, in your case, you don’t have much choice but to watch with an eye.” Hellstrom laughed at his own wit.

Then, to the surprise of Ryan and his companions, Lars Hellstrom stood in a smooth, lithe motion, not even bracing his hands against the arms of his chair.

A pair of X-scarred men joined Fleur and the other sec man as Hellstrom unlatched the side door and pushed it open and out.

“What about the Indians?” J.B. asked.

“They never come this close,” Hellstrom answered. “Some sort of tribal taboo. Or maybe they’ve got better things to do than get chilled.”

Ryan waited until Hellstrom and his group had stepped out of the wag, then he pushed his way forward to the empty seat. The man behind the wheel ignored him, and Ryan returned the favor.

He examined the periscope, noting that each of the hand grips bore two buttons. On the right hand grip was a button marked with a plus sign, and another button with a minus sign. The left hand grip buttons were inscribed with arrows, indicating directions.

Ryan placed the upper portion of his face against the viewfinder and focused on the graven image of Lincoln. It was at least half a mile distant. He thumbed the plus button, and the great stone face swelled and enlarged until only the nose filled the viewer.

The right-side nasal passage looked different than its mate. It was a shadowed depression, like a hollowed-out tunnel.

Hearing Hellstrom’s voice, Ryan removed his eye from the viewfinder and saw that he, accompanied by Fleur and the three sec men, had climbed to the top of the bluff.

At a word from Hellstrom, Fleur pointed the Very pistol skyward and pulled the trigger. The magnesium and thermite flare smoked through the air, ascending higher and higher until it exploded in a flash of bright yellow.

The flare hung there in the blue sky, shining with a brilliant glow. As it slowly descended on a miniature parachute, Hellstrom turned toward the wag and shouted, “Watch the nose, Cawdor!”

Ryan pressed his face against the viewer again. Nothing happened for what seemed to be a long time. “I don’t see anything,” he muttered, more or less to himself.

“Just keeping watching,” the driver said.

Suddenly there was a flicker of movement in the hollowed-out nostril. Sunlight briefly gleamed off metal, then a shape appeared, seeming to crawl out of the nasal passage. It paused in the open air, just above the sculpted upper lip, and Ryan stared at it so intently and unblinkingly that his eye began to sting.

A mechanical device, barely two feet long, hovered in the concave depression of Lincoln’s filtrum. Its body was made of interlocking metal segments, like the carapace of an insect. Extruder hooks and extensors studded its dully shining, silver gray skin. A photoreceptor shone red, like a cyclopean eye.

“Mildred,” Ryan called, not taking his face away from the viewer, “come here.”

When she reached him, Ryan pulled her onto his lap. “Take a look. Tell me what you think.”

Mildred peered into the viewfinder and caught her breath. “Jesus.”

“Ever seen anything like it?”

“No.”

“Ever heard of anything like it?”

“Maybe.” Her tone was doubtful. “Some sort of servo-mechanism. By the end of the twentieth century, robotic units were being used for a lot of different functions, including surveillance. You can see what looks like the lens of a closed circuit TV camera on it. But I’ve never heard of anything as sophisticated or advanced as that thing.”

“We call ’em beetles,” the driver offered.

“What’s the motive power of thebeetles?” Ryan asked.

When the driver didn’t respond, Mildred said, “Taking an educated guess, I’d say it probably utilizes local gravitational fields for propulsion. Extremely efficient.”

“That’s for certain,” Ryan said. “Who would’ve built it?”

Mildred shrugged. “Hard to say. As you know, there was a lot of ‘black technology’ being developed by the government and military before the bombs fell Whoops! It’s moving.”