Mortal Steel: Episode 2
Source: collected/016-mortal-steel-episode-2.mp3
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Model: scribe_v2 | Transcribed: 2026-10-10T18:11:23.827670+00:00
Machine transcript — uncorrected. Speaker labels are local to this recording and do not identify people.

[00:00:00.600] Speaker 1: [rock music]

[00:00:09.080] Speaker 1: Mortal

[00:00:50.940] Speaker 1: Steel, episode two, part two: Outskirts. [door opening] The earth itself rattled as the huge inner door of Last Respite parted before Pastor Ethan Cutter. He stood, feet firmly planted in the dirt as it rolled open with ominous speed. There were no other people out here in

[00:01:25.940] Speaker 1: the open, just the guards looking down at him through narrow vertical slits in the battlements. Those were not highly coveted positions. Despite constant surveillance and frequent blessing of the walls by priests, every other month, something still managed to pull a relatively large person through one of those small holes to be devoured below. Ethan stepped into the killing field between the inner wall and the outer wall. He waited another eternity for the inner door to close behind him. Only then did the outer door

[00:02:00.860] Speaker 1: part. It rattled and creaked, grinding noisily on the ground as it opened. How long had it been since anyone left? [door hissing] It stopped opening almost immediately. Then, for some reason, [door rattling] started closing again, leaving only a foot or two of rapidly shrinking space between the wall. Ethan shot a withering glance up at the guard working the gate in the nearest tower. The man did not move to open the gate wider. Ethan glanced once more at the closing gate, then sprinted and turned sideways to slide through the narrow gap.

[00:02:36.220] Speaker 1: As he did, he felt the rattling door, nearly two feet thick, pressing against his face. He turned his head sideways as he shimmied to prevent it exploding like a melon. For a moment, he feared it would crush him anyway, ending his mission as soon as it had begun, and in the most wasteful and mundane way, reduced to a very expensive stain on the concrete wall. But he narrowly pulled himself through the gap just as the door boomed shut. [door slamming] Only then did his second mind helpfully confirm

[00:03:11.120] Speaker 1: that, yes, that door did have enough force to destroy him. Not long ago, he would have stumbled and fallen to the dirt, but that was a different person. He didn't even lose his balance. Instead, he simply transitioned to a light, casual walk, brushing the dust from his black clerical suit and adjusting the white preacher's collar around his neck. Ethan surveyed his new surroundings. Red and yellow warning signs lit up everything in sight. Every broken window and every open

[00:03:45.960] Speaker 1: doorway to each dilapidated building was a potential threat. Each terrified face looking out at him, an enemy combatant. This was going to need some calibration. For now, he shut off the warnings in his HUD, asking his second mind to only notify him of immediate danger of demonic nature. The world was cleaned up instantly, and he saw with new eyes. He had not personally left Last Respite in years. Even then, he'd done so inside an armored Humvee. That time had not done the

[00:04:20.760] Speaker 1: outskirts any favors. Husks of three and four-story buildings lined empty streets with the corpses of larger, towering skyscrapers in the distance. The rusted-out vehicles had been cleared away from the immediate area, but the eternal traffic was piled up only a few hundred yards away. Very few windows and doors remained intact. The streets themselves were broken, with scraggly-looking plants growing up through the cracks. Bizarrely, the iconic palm trees were doing just fine. A narrow portrait

[00:04:55.780] Speaker 1: of paradise set against the greater backdrop of ruin. But Ethan wasn't here to fix the city, if such a thing were even possible. He was here to cut out the rot that continued to ruin it. The repairs would be done by normal people, people unlike him. He walked down the broken sidewalk, chin held high, nodding serenely at the faces with sunken cheeks that looked at him from the buildings. The stalker's abilities and whereabouts were unknown. What little information he had indicated it was

[00:05:30.860] Speaker 1: secretive and cunning, preferring to hide among the human populace and only strike when an easy target presented itself. The rest of the time, it used its ever-growing force of human worshipers to do its dirty work. Chances were he would need to cut through a lot of these normal people before he got to the possessed. That didn't sit well with him. Surely, there was some way he could get the demon host out into the open for a confrontation. It wouldn't be fair, of course. There was no honor among demons, only winners.

[00:06:05.640] Speaker 1: Winners and bodies. Unsure of what else to do, Pastor Cutter walked up to an apartment that still had a set of metal double doors. He knocked on the door. His titanium skeleton made an unnaturally loud sound as he rapped the knuckles against the metal. When no one answered, he opened the door, realizing only after it was open that the door had been locked. Four young boys stood on the other side of the door. They scrambled away from him and looked down at the destroyed deadbolt. Sorry about the door. Demon. Demon. Three of the

[00:06:40.599] Speaker 1: boys scattered, but one of them tripped and fell. Guys, wait. The boy rolled onto his back and gave Ethan a terrified look and shielded his face. He was dressed in ragged jeans and a dingy t-shirt. He couldn't have been more than nine years old. Ethan waited quietly in the doorway. You're not gonna kill me? No. I'm gonna need your help. Anything. Is there a church nearby? The kid scrunched up his face, thinking furiously. He looked like he

[00:07:15.480] Speaker 1: might try to run again. Ethan's second mind showed him four nearby churches based on maps of the city. Never mind. There is a church nearby. It was called Immaculate Conception. Do you know the place? The kid nodded. He probably would have nodded regardless. Hopefully he would carry the message though. Tell everyone you know that I'll be giving a sermon there at sundown. That was all the kid could take. He got up and started running after his companions.

[00:07:50.660] Speaker 1: Ethan watched him go. If he told everyone he found the same thing, word would eventually reach the stalker. And when the stalker came, he would give a sermon, a sermon these people would never forget. Part three, Sundown. Fleabag ran barefoot down the alley shouting. He wasn't even making sense

[00:08:25.340] Speaker 1: anymore. He couldn't remember being this excited. Inaccurate Conception. Sermon at the Inaccurate Conception. Hey, watch it. A man tried to grab Fleabag as he ran, but he spun away from the hands. He screamed at the man, who he only now realized was his uncle. He was probably just shaking him down for food to trade for alcohol. Who was this stranger with the clean clothes? Didn't the others see the way he ripped off that door? He was so strong. Stronger than the king. Maybe. Would he fight the king?

[00:08:59.680] Speaker 1: Conception. Conception at sundown. Shut up. People yelled at him to shut up. People threw things at him as he ran past, but they heard him. At sundown. He made sure everyone heard him. Pastor Cutter scoped out the church well before sundown. Within a few minutes, he had more than a feel for the place. He had a high resolution 3D map.

[00:09:36.500] Speaker 1: He knew which walls could be reliably pierced with bullets and which walls could be breached by people with or without explosives. The possessed was the big unknown. It rendered his defensive simulations largely useless except for planning against the more mundane human threat. By the time the sun was low in the sky, he had long since overthought the impending conflict. He had completed nearly 800,000 combat simulations. In about 600,000 of those simulations, he emerged victorious against a

[00:10:11.600] Speaker 1: small army of humans, only duking it out with the stalker once his mortal cannon fodder was expended. In the remaining 200,000 simulations, he met one grisly demise after another, usually at the hands of the stalker himself. Without knowing what to simulate, his second mind simply conjured monsters from movies and television, supplemented with data from other known possessed. Ethan was tearing the arms off an insect-like creature with acid for blood in his mind

[00:10:47.940] Speaker 1: when his second mind started blaring mental warnings. Someone was in the church, the real church. He flicked off the simulation. Ethan stood behind a ruined pulpit defaced with graffiti. He faced the heavy wooden entry doors. A tanned man with thinning gray hair walked in silence down the aisle between the rows of toppled pews. He wore a long gray trench coat. Was that him? Had the stalker come in person? A

[00:11:22.840] Speaker 1: messenger, perhaps. The man in the trench coat locked eyes with Ethan. Ethan rested one hand on the huge black and silver gun at his hip, a messenger of his own. The man in the coat nodded once at Ethan, then he sat down in one of the upright pews. Scanner showed no obvious sign of threat. A woman came into the church with three children orbiting around her like hyperactive moons. They flitted about, marveling at the huge room and

[00:11:57.660] Speaker 1: touching everything within reach, but never straying more than a few feet from their mother. The young family sat down in the back. Ethan pulled his hand from the messenger. What was happening here? In the blink of an eye, he ran a few simulations where the children rushed him while the man with the thinning hair tried to sneak around behind him. He flicked them off before they could get bloody. It didn't make any sense. More people filed in. Most came in groups, but many came alone, people of all ages. All of them were

[00:12:32.472] Speaker 1: emaciated, filthy. All of them looked terrified. By the time the sun set, there were 37 people in the church. As far as he could tell, none of them were armed. What were they doing here? His second mind was of no help. It was his first mind, the one he shared with these poor souls, that made the connection. The boy he'd seen earlier that day walked through the double doors, a bright smile on his small face. He'd promised them a sermon, and they came.

[00:13:05.872] Speaker 1: [clears throat] Good evening. Hello. The ad hoc congregation gave him a loose reply, nothing like the tight, well-rehearsed routines in The Last Respite. Amusingly, this was the very last thing he'd expected, and he found himself completely unprepared, anxious even. How could he preach to these people when he didn't even believe? Uncertain, at the very least. How could he tell

[00:13:40.572] Speaker 1: them a Lord was watching over them when they'd had their lives, their very homes ripped apart by demons? His words came slowly, awkwardly. He had never expected to give another sermon. He couldn't even remember the last one. He told them that good things come to those who do good, that kindness is a virtue, that hope is never wasted. It was the most basic of lessons, little more than common sense wrapped in poetic language. It couldn't have

[00:14:15.332] Speaker 1: lasted more than 15 minutes, and he had to resist his second mind's urge to give him the exact duration to the nanosecond. When it was done, a young woman came to the front of the church and held out a baby that looked nothing like her. She asked him to baptize her son. He tried to refuse, but she insisted. And even though Ethan didn't believe, he baptized the boy in a birdbath filled with canteen water. She cried afterward. A number of people were crying. It was dark by then, but nobody

[00:14:50.272] Speaker 1: left. What did they want from him? The boy from before sauntered up to the pulpit and put out his hand for a handshake. Pastor Cutter shook the hand, a perfectly calibrated handshake.

[00:15:05.552] Speaker 2: Nice speech. I'm Fleabag.

[00:15:09.212] Speaker 1: Why?

[00:15:10.772] Speaker 2: Huh?

[00:15:11.992] Speaker 1: The boy shrugged, giving Ethan a frustrated look. Why are you called Fleabag?

[00:15:17.412] Speaker 2: I don't know. That's my name.

[00:15:20.572] Speaker 1: Fleabag, why are these people still here? Fleabag turned to look at the crowd of people who shuffled about in their seats muttering to each other.

[00:15:32.232] Speaker 2: They want protection, probably hoping you got food, too. Not me, though. I'm here for the fight.

[00:15:39.472] Speaker 1: I don't think there's going to be a fight.

[00:15:41.772] Speaker 2: You're wrong about that. Scary boys are on their way. Mixers, too.

[00:15:46.672] Speaker 1: And who are they? Fleabag gave Ethan a very worried look.

[00:15:53.872] Speaker 2: Scary boys work for the king. Mixers are new. They work for someone else. You're gonna fight them, right?

[00:16:06.212] Speaker 1: Ethan narrowed his eyes. A cocktail of synthetic hormones were all that kept his heart rate stable. Fleabag, this is important. Are you saying there's two possessed in the outskirts?

[00:16:23.572] Speaker 2: Yeah. They don't like each other.

[00:16:26.212] Speaker 1: There was the roar of a motorcycle outside the church.

[00:16:29.691] Speaker 2: [motorcycle revving] Oh, it's got some bam. Pretty sure they hate you more, though.

[00:16:38.132] Speaker 1: Movement flashed across the darkened windows. Ethan immediately rewound the peripheral footage in his second mind and stepped through the frames until he saw what had been watching him. He stared at the still image, a bat-like creature with foot-long talons and a snout-

[00:16:56.592] Speaker 2: Oh, yeah

[00:16:56.912] Speaker 1: ... so long it looked like an elephant's trunk, if an elephant's trunk could split in half to reveal thousands of tiny needle-like teeth. More movement on the other side of the building. He heard creatures moving around on the outside of the walls, on the roof. His makeshift congregation grew alarmed, perhaps just now realizing how foolish they'd been to come here, but it was too late to leave now. A man in biker leather walked up to the steps of the front door. He was

[00:17:31.652] Speaker 1: flanked by a growing number of similarly dressed people, all of them holding machetes, axes, and swords. Only the man in front held a shotgun over his shoulder. There was a swagger to his step. Two possessed. Ethan didn't need to run the simulations to know what his odds were. Not good.

[00:17:54.512] Speaker 2: Repent, holy man.

[00:17:57.032] Speaker 1: The lead biker spread his arms wide, grinning wider still. He held the shotgun out like a party gift. There was something wrong with his face, a bone-like protrusion that grew out over half of his face like a mask.

[00:18:13.372] Speaker 2: Say you're sorry and we'll make it quick

[00:18:16.652] Speaker 1: Bone Mask took another step forward with an accusing finger pointed at Ethan. The moment he stepped through the front door, his hand started smoking. The man leapt backward and looked down at his burning hand in shock, slapping out the fire on his jeans. Ethan couldn't keep the smile from his face. The church had failed these people. He knew that now. They had hid behind their walls while the people of the outskirts suffered at the hands of demons and betrayers like the creatures before him. And still they had faith. Faith enough to

[00:18:51.412] Speaker 1: consecrate this building. It was just a building after all. Despite all odds, some of their hope had survived. It was that dogged, persistent hope that had made it a church again. The smile returned to Bone Mask's face. He looked at the exterior walls and the roof of the church, pleased by something Ethan couldn't see.

[00:19:12.832] Speaker 2: Full house tonight. New deal, holy man. You come out and we'll let these people live.

[00:19:19.352] Speaker 1: Ethan was already walking down the aisle toward the entrance. You the stalker?

[00:19:23.992] Speaker 2: [laughs] Let's say I am.

[00:19:27.152] Speaker 1: Ethan drew the messenger in a flash, pointed it at Bone Mask's face, and pulled the trigger. The man's head exploded. The corpse fell in a heap to the stone steps. I guess not then. The crew of tainted human bikers scattered. Ethan looked over his shoulder at the people now huddling behind the church's overturned pews. Stay in the church. He couldn't protect them from regular humans, but as long as they stayed inside, nothing demonic was coming in. He stepped over the threshold and outside the church. The people

[00:20:02.172] Speaker 1: wanted another sermon, and by God, he was going to give it to them.

[00:20:47.152] Speaker 1: A drone hovered unseen above the church, looking down at the tiny combatants. The automated scout had been drawn to human activity in a previously uncontrolled section of the city. Begin combat log. A human man in a black suit was about to be dismantled by an unlikely alliance of possessed minions. The intercom would need to reassess its own alliances and relationships based on this event. Troubling. The man in the suit was not being dismantled. Combat performance far exceeds human

[00:21:21.812] Speaker 1: baseline. Could that be No. The intercom made sure the Japanese researchers were dead. Completely dead. Too many secrets. Perhaps a few had leaked out. The Hail Mary project was infeasible. No one knew that better than the intercom. This could not be that. So this must be some new possessed. It watched the new possessed fight from a distance. Whatever it was, it would make an

[00:21:56.892] Speaker 1: excellent distraction. I just need a little more time. Then it wouldn't matter if there were a thousand possessed in old LA.