by Isaac Hooke
“If he tried to hold you in his arms, or place his lips upon you, you would resist?” Horatio pressed.
She made a disgusted expression. “Of course.” Then again, she wasn’t entirely so sure.
“I see,” Horatio told her. “Perhaps I was mistaken. Good night, Rhea.”
She stared at him a moment longer then lay back and closed her eyes. “Night.”
Thankfully the storm continued for several days, giving the party much-needed time. Whether it would be enough to pull ahead of the Hydras was another story, however. It was possible luck might be on the side of the Hydras, and that more than a few of them might continue on the same course though blinded. That seemed extremely unlikely, unless the designers of the weapons could come up with some alternate way to lead them through the Gritstorm.
The map data guided Rhea and her companions, and they made good progress through the storm. Though they often stumbled on unseen rocks and boulders, and other hazards, they moved almost as fast as before the storm, considering the grit otherwise formed only a thin layer on the surface. After all, there was a limited supply of sediment, unlike in say a blizzard, where fresh snow could fall indefinitely. It was the black drifts that really slowed the trio, but Horatio, who remained in the lead, did a decent job of guiding the party around them.
At night they took shelter in nearby farmhouses if available. Otherwise they looked for a hollow and employed the tried-and-true bivouac method.
Rhea had programmed her mind-machine interface to unmute her hearing the moment she woke up—she wanted to leave repose with all her senses firing in case danger proved imminent. So when Rhea awoke to silence on the morning of the fifth day, at first she thought she’d accidentally reverted the auto-unmute setting.
But then she realized the sky was blue above her. Not black. She was lying in a hollow, with Horatio on her left, and Will beyond him. She could see them with utmost clarity. The wind had died.
The lip of the hollow blocked her view of the landscape beyond, so she wasn’t entirely certain what awaited out there. She glanced at Horatio, but the robot seemed unconcerned.
“Go ahead,” Horatio said. “Have a look.”
She turned around, and peered beyond the upper edges of her backpack, which served as part of the bivouac. Visibility was indeed back to normal: she could see to the horizon. The storm had ended, and in its wake remained a surreal landscape coated in sediment that formed drifts and mounds around the smallest protrusions in the terrain. These black piles were far larger than those that had marred the landscape before the storm.
She turned to observe all four horizons and searched for signs of bioweapons. There were none.
Tentatively, Rhea lowered the scarf, and took a breath free of grit. She slid the goggles from her eyes, but otherwise left her hood raised—if there were bandits out there, best they didn’t know she was a cyborg.
“We’ve crested the storm,” Horatio said.
She nodded and murmured: “Now the real journey begins.”
Will awoke a moment later and promptly removed his head wrapping and retracted the eye shield into his visor. He surveyed the four horizons as Rhea had done, and then launched Gizmo.
“I’m instructing Giz to circle far overhead to watch for Hydras,” Will said.
“How far away do you think they are?” Rhea asked him.
“No idea,” Will replied. “The creatures are no doubt regrouping. Though the storm scattered them, they’ll be drawn by whatever scent was laid to guide them.”
“Assuming it wasn’t scrubbed away by all that grit,” Rhea said.
“It wasn’t,” Will said.
Only a few moments later saw them on the march again. Now that the storm had blown itself out, there was no time to lose. They ate their ration pills on the march and downed them with water from their canteens. They still had quite a lot of water and rations left, as they had planned to trek all the way to the next settlement, after all.
With the storm gone, they were able to travel at their fastest possible speed, restricted only by Will’s physical limitations as a human, and they traveled far that day. The time passed swiftly, and that night Rhea slept better than she had since awakening from her mind wipe.
The next day, she knew the party was getting close to Rust Town when, around noon, the black drifts began to recede from the bases of the boulders and rock shelves that dotted the landscape, as did the thin coating of silt that mantled the terrain, until eventually all traces of detritus vanished from the landscape entirely, and the ground’s bedrock and packed dirt were laid bare before them. The trio had passed into the weather-controlled region outside the settlement and its host city, Aradne.
“Won’t be long now,” Will said. “We’ll soon find out whether the bioweapons beat us to the city.”
After another day of travel, the ruins of skyscrapers thrust from the distant horizon. Gizmo spotted them first, and Will transmitted the drone’s feed to Rhea and Horatio.
“Can’t believe we’re almost there,” Rhea said.
“Yeah, well, I guess we’ll find out soon enough if the settlement is still standing,” Will told her.
Soon enough the trio was walking through the rubble-filled streets and winding between the skeletons of once great skyscrapers. Wanting to keep a low profile, they hugged the walls of the buildings as best as they were able and rounded any rubble along the way. Some streets were simply choked with debris, however, and the party had no choice but to crawl over it.
“No signs of any bioweapons yet,” Horatio said as they climbed over one such street, which was covered in piles of broken bricks.
“Thanks for the unnecessary update,” Will quipped
All three of them were keeping their eyes glued to the decaying skyscrapers around them, scanning any intact rooftops, along with the gaping holes that joined windows in pocking their walls.
Because of that, Rhea nearly tripped on a piece of exposed rebar in the rubble. She quickly broke the metal away near the base and shoved it into her pack before continuing. “I know we don’t have time, but it still feels strange, not stopping to search for salvage.”
Will gave her a curious glance over his shoulder. “But you’re not even a true salvager.”
“Maybe, but it’s all I’ve known for the past two weeks,” she told him. “I guess the newly wiped really are impressionable, as you said.”
“Well, even if we did have time, there would be no point,” Will stated. “These streets have been searched a thousand times over already. I’m not sure why we bother anymore. Next time we leave Rust Town, I intend to simply turn up my nose and walk on past every piece of rubble we come across in the outlying ruins.”
“You always say that,” Horatio commented. “And yet you always stop.”
“Bad habit,” Will agreed.
“You do know I just found a piece of rebar…” Rhea said. “So that proves there are still some items of value to be had.”
“Yeah, an item worth half a cred, if that,” Will said. “We’re going to make more money from the random salvage we collected in the Outlands proper than from anything gathered here. Rule of thumb, if you find ruins close to an existing settlement, or even minutely visible on satellite maps, it will be stripped of almost everything of value by the time you get there.”
Rhea sighed, pulling her gaze from the rubble. They weren’t here to salvage. They were here to warn a settlement of its impending doom. And warn it they would.
Rhea glanced at Gizmo’s feed, which she still had piped into the upper right of her vision. “The settlement will be coming up on the drone’s cameras momentarily.”
As they crossed a relatively rubble-free street, she repeatedly gazed down both sides, feeling exposed as she scanned for bioweapons. She couldn’t wait to get back to the cover of the next building.
They reached it momentarily, and she felt relieved to hug the debris at the base of the skyscraper there.
And then, from a side stree
t ahead, a herd of four Hydras causally strolled out onto the ruined road.
24
Rhea and the others immediately took cover, diving behind the rubble that was thankfully beside them. Not daring to peek past the edge, she focused on Gizmo’s feed. The drone quickly backtracked, so that in only a few seconds the street was visible, along with the four bioweapons upon it.
How did Gizmo miss them? Will asked over the mental comm.
Check the map, Horatio relied. That side street they emerged from? It’s canopied by a collapsed building.
Rhea glanced at her overhead map as suggested. A building had indeed collapsed at some point, crashing into an adjacent skyscraper, but otherwise remaining intact so that it formed a canopy over the street. The drone had flown well above those two skyscrapers, and thus wouldn’t have spotted the creatures as they traveled beneath the slanted, precarious roof the collapse formed.
The four bioweapons continued advancing in the same direction, perpendicular to the location of Rhea and the others. The five leonine heads on each creature seemed to be sniffing the air, and they scanned their surroundings with narrowed eyes.
I don’t think they’ve seen us, Horatio sent.
Maybe not, but they’re going to pick up our scent eventually, Rhea said. We have to get inside this building, so we’re not exposed. First rule of bioweapon combat in urban areas, according to Bardain.
There’s an opening, here, Horatio said. A waypoint became active on her map: the building entrance.
The only way to get to it was to dash out from behind the rubble and into plain view. The other option was to possibly return the way they had come, but there were no openings in the building along that route, and because the rubble diminished along the way, the party members would be partially exposed before reaching the next avenue.
Sending in Giz, Will announced.
The drone swooped down and deactivated its rotor noise cancelling to dart loudly into the street in front of the bioweapons. The creatures hooted and hollered as they followed it, trying to grab Gizmo out of the air with their snapping jaws. The drone flew teasingly higher.
As soon as the bioweapons had their backs to them, Rhea and the others made a run for it. They dashed into the jagged entrance and entered a partially collapsed lobby. They raced between fallen pillars toward the far side.
Looks like most of the building is collapsed on the far, Will said. We won’t be getting out that way.
They climbed a damaged escalator to the second floor. There were two elevators in front of them with closed doors, and a stairwell door. In the stairwell, they were able to climb two stories before the debris became insurmountable, and they were forced to vacate inside an office area instead. Cubicles, some of them broken and strewn across the floor, dominated.
So, what’s the consensus? Horatio broadcast as they wended their way through the cubicles toward the far side of the building, where a bunch of broken windows offered an exit to the street below. These bioweapons are part of the invasion force? Runts looking for something to eat while their stronger companions drain Rust Town dry? Or part of a group of advance scouts?
I’m going to guess advance scouts, Will transmitted. They must have been sent ahead of the others. They beat the storm.
Either that, or they got extremely lucky, Rhea sent. It’s possible a few of them wandered out of the storm before it ended, regrouped on the other side, and made their way here ahead of their brethren.
Or maybe Rust Town really is destroyed already, like the robot says, Will transmitted.
As they approached the building edge, Horatio sent: You know, a four-story jump will be fairly hard on the servos. We should climb down.
Piggyback ride time, Will told Horatio.
And then, just outside the broken windows ahead, a large, leonine head appeared, attached to a reptilian neck.
Rhea and the others immediately ducked behind the closest cubicle. She caught a glimpse of motion before she dropped from view, and thought it was the creature’s head spinning toward them. Had it seen them or caught their scent?
Seems there were a few more bioweapons that Gizmo missed out there, Horatio sent.
Seems so! Will agreed.
Rhea instinctively reached for her holster, and when she gripped empty air, she remembered she no longer had a pistol. Will had drawn his own, while Horatio had the double barrels under his forearms deployed. Not that it would do any good against these things.
A shadow crept across the floor next to the cubicle, and that told Rhea the Hydra had shoved its head through the broken window to explore. Another shadow appeared on the other side of the cubicle as a second head came inside.
This is… interesting, Will sent.
Recall Gizmo? Rhea suggested.
Giz already moved out of comm range while leading the others away, Will replied. I don’t expect her to return for another sixty seconds or so.
Rhea glanced about frantically. There was another cubicle across from them, with the base partly pushed out at the bottom. Rhea pointed toward it, and quickly crouched to it, then ducked through.
Will and Horatio followed, and all three of them dove into the small aisle formed between a wall and the adjacent cubicles. They proceeded into that aisle, passing five cubicles before another aisle branched off toward the windows in a T-shaped intersection of sorts formed by the partitioned areas. She went into that aisle momentarily and peered past the far edge of the cubicle there, just in time to see the two Hydra heads converge on the other side of the cubicle her party had vacated. Their nostrils flared in and out, as if sniffing.
She ducked again, returning to the aisle bordering the wall. She knew it wouldn’t be long before the creature ferreted them out. Or creatures—she couldn’t be sure the heads belonged to the same beast.
Will was already leading the way forward—which was north, as it so happened—and when the wall fell away to the left, he turned that way, heading west along the new aisle formed by the cubicles and the northern side of the wall.
We have to get to the windows, Rhea sent.
I know. Will turned right when the next branch appeared and headed north once more into the aisle formed by the cubicles there. Several of the partitions forming the latter were decayed and collapsed, but they provided more than enough cover for the party, just as long as they stayed crouched. Up ahead, the shattered windows on the northern facade of the building offered a way out.
Rhea kept glancing over her shoulders, looking for signs of their pursuer, but spotted nothing. She crept over a broken desk in her path, and then a chair, being very careful not to make a sound. Will accidentally snapped a chair leg underfoot, and he flinched, freezing as the sound traversed the office space. But the bioweapons didn’t come.
The party members hurried forward, knowing that discovery was imminent. When they reached the smashed windows, it was only to discover two more bioweapons searching the street below, sniffing along the lower edges of the building with their multiple heads.
They’ve discovered our scent, I think, Will said.
Overhead, Rhea could see the canopy formed by the upper half of the building, which had crashed into the skyscraper across from them. There was an open window along that slanted exterior, a short distance from them.
Climb, Rhea ordered.
She shoved past Will and pulled herself onto the tilted canopy. She gripped a metal beam that ran the length of the building and used it to carry herself hand over hand toward the opening. She glanced down only once to confirm that the bioweapons hadn’t spotted her, and when she reached the jagged opening, she paused to punch away the glass, breaking away the pieces so that they slid inside, and then pulled herself through.
Worried that the creatures might have heard the sound of breaking glass, she clung there to the slanting floor and peered down. The Hydras hadn’t yet noticed. She turned her attention to the broken window she’d just left, in time to see Horatio swinging outside with Will hanging onto his b
ackpack.
Horatio conveyed himself forward hand over hand just like Rhea had, and when the robot reached the gaping hole, he pulled himself through. Will climbed down, and patted Horatio on the shoulder.
All of the cubicles here were smashed into the wedge formed between floor and ceiling, courtesy of the building’s tilt, and Rhea climbed onto that debris. She headed for a centrally located wall, which contained the open door of a stairwell.
Inside the stairwell, she and the others climbed the steps with difficulty. Scaling the stairs that were aligned with the overall slope of the building was easy. But clambering those that went against the slope, well, meant she had to drag herself hand-over-hand again via the handrail until she pulled herself onto the next flight at the top. Will actually climbed the handrail himself this time, rather than hitching a ride with Horatio. At least at first: he only lasted for three flights of that before piggybacking on his robot friend once more. Rhea decided not to comment on that.
Eventually, after seesawing back and forth like that, they reached the broken door leading to the rooftop, which was slanted above the building it had fallen upon. Looking down, at the far edge of the sloping roof she could see the jagged remnants of the building below. The top floors had collapsed, thanks to the impact, but it looked like the debris that had formed because of that was only about one floor deep. Will could easily survive a jump from the edge of the current rooftop, to that area. But the question was, how stable was that debris?
Rhea pulled herself onto the rooftop, and then allowed her cyborg body to slide toward the edge of the building. She came to a stop when she hit the small wall at its brim. She glanced at the broken building below, running her gaze across the debris from left to right. She concluded that landing on the eastern side was the safest option—the corner frame piece looked fairly sturdy, at least compared to the debris that filled most of the floor. Once they reached it, they could climb down all the way to the street from there. Along a diagonal, of course, to move as far away from the bioweapons as possible.