Borough of Bones

by John Conroe

  “I noticed this earlier when we came down to open the exit. All plugged in but I didn’t think anything of it until you told me about the batteries and the generators. If the Spiders ran power at all, this thing would have charged. It’s got a third of a charge!”

  “Excellent, but get in the passenger seat. You’ve never driven before, have you?” I asked.

  “Where would I have learned?” she frowned.

  I checked the Tesla and found she was exactly correct. It had enough juice to take us to the end of Long Island. We just needed Brooklyn or Jersey.

  Nowadays, almost nobody actually drives a car; the computers do all the work. Kids basically take a written test and demonstrate that they could control a vehicle if the computer failed— and they do that on a simulator. Maybe kids in rural areas still learn, but not in the Big Apple.

  But my grandpa upstate had taught me to drive actual cars. He had a small collection, about half of them gas fueled. So this was easy.

  “Let’s get the garage door open,” I said.

  Rikki instantly floated over to the wall and poked his nose needle into a button.

  The big door started to rise, driven by electric motors that must have had battery backup too—batteries that also got charged when Peony or Plum Blossom ran the building generators.

  Rikki floated out ahead of us as we started out of the garage, turning onto the ramp. Unit 19 spun around a hundred and eighty degrees facing back outside, starting forward as we came abreast of it.

  Metal crunched and dragged as I wove between broken Wolf and Crane carcasses, but they all fell away and the tires seemed okay.

  Daylight was almost blinding as we arrived on Thomas Street, the ramp pointing us west. I floored the car, the instant acceleration slamming us back into our seats, the car momentarily jumping out in front of our drone escort.

  A huge swarm of aerial units flocked down, dive bombing us, blasting flechettes, dropping bricks and pieces of metal on the windshield, lasing the tires while Rikki and 19 swooped among them like falcons on the hunt.

  Unless they’ve been bulldozed by one of the Zone War armored vehicles, most roads in Manhattan are obstacle courses of derelict vehicles and debris. The Tesla had great acceleration but with no clear straightaways, I was forced to weave and dodge around buses, taxis, and crashed cars while running over curbs, knocked-down sign posts, and crunching across human skeletons.

  Our car was a sedan, with no real ground clearance, and it was taking a huge beating as I smashed, banged, and rolled over everything in our way.

  At the first intersection, I turned left down Church Street, couldn’t turn down Reade Street because of a flipped-over garbage truck, so I went a block further before turning left again onto Chamber Street.

  Skyhawks and Raptors shot out of the intersections ahead of me, Wolves, Leopards, and Tigers bounding at us from behind us, on each side, and from straight in front of us.

  Rikki and Unit 19 were shooting and swooping, blasting UAVs with guns. The big Decimator used its missiles on the first wave of UGVs, blowing up at least seven or eight as we raced down the street. Then it ran out of missiles and the bigger land bots started to jump onto the car.

  A Tiger landed on the hood, claws sunk right into the metal body. Harper screamed once and then shot it off the car with her rifle, the gun blasts peppering both of us with unburnt powder that bounced off the now perforated windshield. The Tiger fell away, immediately replaced by a Leopard that landed on the roof, the steel talons punching right through the metal above our heads.

  Still yelling, Harper fired her rifle straight up, twisting and turning as she did so, somehow ejecting hot brass right onto my neck. I swerved around a US Mail Jeep, clipped the side of a big blue mail box, knocking the bullet-torn metal cat off the Tesla.

  A Wolf landed on the hood, immediately followed by a crunching sound on the trunk. A glance in the rearview showed a second Wolf clinging to the back of the car. Both bots immediately started to drag themselves toward the nearest wheel well.

  “If they shred our tires, we’re dead,” I yelled.

  Harper pointed her rifle and pulled the trigger. The weapon clicked empty.

  “Reload! You have to reload! Like I taught you,” I yelled.

  She let the rifle fall into her lap, staring straight ahead. For a split second, I thought she must have just shut down—gone into shock. But suddenly the Wolf on the hood froze. Then it turned and looked right at her. A second later it crouched, coiling up, then leapt over the roof, smashing into the Wolf at the back, both bots falling away in a tumbling, twisting dogfight.

  “Reload,” I said again, softer this time. She glanced my way, eyes refocusing, then looked at the rifle in her lap like it was her first time seeing it. Fumbling, her hands started the process of pulling the empty magazine and locking in a fresh one. It took her a few tries but she got it.

  Meanwhile, I finally had a bit of a straightaway and I nailed it, putting a few more meters between us and the chasing bots.

  Chapter 34

  Weaving around a city maintenance truck, the end of the street suddenly came into view. The massive Manhattan municipal building loomed over everything, a solid dark mass that took up two city blocks. The huge building was lit by the sun behind us, the whole face of it illuminated. Realization flooded my mind. The sun was setting. Darkness was almost here.

  Normally, nighttime in the Zone was a good thing, with drones slowing and losing power in the fading light. But that all went out the window when Spiders were running emergency generators inside former NSA hard points.

  Just a fast right-hand turn down Centre Street, a turn that was right smack dab in front of the muni building, and there would be the ramp leading up onto the Brooklyn Bridge and to freedom. I pushed the speed up, even though my clear straightaway was gone, ruined by the string of NYPD cruisers lined up across the road. Some kind of last-ditch stand to protect the city building maybe. The white cars were pocked with bullet holes, laser burns, flechette marks, and rust.

  My peripheral vision picked up on Harper’s nervous glance my way. I ignored it, speeding up a little more. We needed to get off the island before dark. Fully powered drones had all the advantages in the almost complete black of Zone night.

  “Ajaya…” she began, but whatever she was going to say was blanked out by the mass of concrete and brick that suddenly impacted the street directly in front of us. My foot hit the brake but the car was already hitting the stone. Something smacked my face, blocking my vision, even as I felt the rear wheels come up off the ground. A second later, the car fell back, slamming down with a huge crash.

  Stunned, head reeling from impact, my mind was nonetheless screaming at me to get moving.

  Peeling what I now realized was an airbag off my face, brushing away powder from the bag, I started to unbuckle myself. A glance at Harper showed me she was even more stunned than I was, so I reached over and popped her seatbelt too.

  “Driver door is unlikely to function. Egress passenger side,” Rikki said, hovering outside my window.

  I heard the whine-thump of 19’s e-mag, then Rikki lifted a half meter higher and ripped off three fast shots.

  Crawling almost into Harper’s lap, I got her door unlatched, hitting it over and over with the heels of both hands until it moved. Then I really climbed on top of her and shoved the door open while she shoved me off her.

  Outside, I looked behind us to see a flock of drones flying our way, our Decimator and Berkut calmly sniping away.

  Suddenly terrified we were going to die almost in sight of the bridge, I yanked Harper out of the car, pushed her rifle into her hands, and hauled her by main force toward the only shelter in sight—the municipal building.

  “Out of ammo,” Rikki said, floating backward. I fumbled the last full ammo block I had for him from my pouch, awkwardly throwing it his way.

  It was a bad throw, forcing him to twist around and face the muni building. Which is why he didn’t sense the Skyh
awk that slammed into him in a suicide run.

  The Indian UAV spun off and exploded into fragments against the broken fragments of building that had crashed down in front of our car. Rikki ricocheted the opposite direction, flung almost directly into my arms, his ocular band completely dark.

  “Come on!” Harper yelled, now alert to our danger. She took off at a full sprint and, still clutching Rikki, I raced after her.

  Feet thumping on pavement, the zip and ting of high velocity flechettes impacting all around us while behind, Unit 19 continued to fire its electromagnetic weapon, giving us as much cover as it could. We were close—so close—just twenty or so meters to go.

  We raced across Centre Street, under the arches and into the government building, straight through the wide-open doors, jumping over piles of clothes with skeletal remains poking out.

  At first, we just ran flat-out, but the interior was dark and we slowed, both looking around.

  “Unit 19. Where are the nearest stairs?”

  The big UAV swung around, its nose now pointed down a dark side hall. We turned and ran into the dark. Light bloomed, LEDs on the front of the Decimator, and we found the door to the stairwell. Once inside, we jimmied the door shut behind us and then climbed. Three floors later, we slowed, both exhausted and out of juice. I requested that the Decimator check the area just outside the stairwell and it complied readily, although it completely ignored Harper when she asked for some additional light.

  “How did it get here?” she asked me, watching it with a frown as it hovered down the long, black hallway in front of us. We were in some old nook of the third floor, away from the offices with windows.

  “I don’t know. Let’s ask it when it returns. For now, I want to look at Rikki.”

  I wish I hadn’t. Three of his rotors were busted, one of them so completely that the drive motor hung by just one thin wire.

  “Oh man, I have so much work to do to get him back online,” I said.

  Harper looked at me sharply and when I raised an eyebrow at her incredulous expression, her face turned sympathetic. She reached over and turned the Berkut in my lap, shifting it enough that I could see the top of his airframe. A deep cavity was punched right into the tough carbon fiber, about the shape and size of a Skyhawk’s nose cone.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” I said, yanking out a chemical light stick. We had held off while waiting for the Decimator’s report, but now I had to see the extent of the damage.

  His protective shell was crushed, right over his CPU. It was so bad that I couldn’t get the outer case open and had to pick out shards of broken armor until I could see the core of his being. It was gone—smashed completely. My Berkut was dead.

  Chapter 35

  I went numb, my brain racing through oh shit to no way to this can’t have happened.

  Harper leaned in and when I glanced up, she was studying the Berkut’s damage with a critical eye, but I didn’t need her diagnosis—the Berkut that had guarded my back, front, and sides for over two years was gone. My buddy was gone.

  “He’s backed up,” she said, making it a statement.

  “But the computing chips, the CPU, they’re gone, smashed.”

  “It’s the software, Ajaya,” she said, “Not the hardware.”

  “Where would I even get another Berkut to build from?”

  She opened her mouth but closed it, uncharacteristically staying silent.

  “Immediate area clear,” Unit 19 said, sliding into our darkened alcove so quietly that I almost jumped. But its presence gave me something different to think about and reminded me that we still needed to survive or any thoughts about Rikki were moot.

  “Unit 19, how did you get out of Zone Defense?” I asked.

  “Dr. Comis ordered Unit 19 to support Instructor Gurung.”

  “Dr. who?” Harper asked.

  “Maya. Maya Comis. She’s the one who got you access to the Zone. Unit 19, when did Dr. Comis issue your instructions?”

  “At 15:36 hundred hours. Direct physical access was granted via Roosevelt Island drone chute.”

  “Why did Dr. Comis send you?”

  “Instructor Gurung had not checked in. Dr. Comis speculated that unforeseen circumstances had prevented contact. During forty-seven minutes of increasing physical signs of personal anxiety, Dr. Comis commented out loud various possible scenarios ranging from mechanical injury to ambush to death. Unit 19 was subsequently ordered to render all aid and support to Instructor Gurung.”

  “Great. Your girlfriend—your office girlfriend—freaked out and sent help—to you. What about me?”

  “She doesn’t know you, Harper, and she’s not my girlfriend. Just a good friend. But you have a good point. Unit 19, please add Harper Leeds to your command network. You are to obey her commands and render her aid as well.”

  “Unit 19 will comply with level three commands from individual Harper Leeds and will render aid.”

  “What’s that mean? Level three commands?”

  “It means you’re lower down the command chain but it will obey as long as your orders do not conflict with higher-level orders.”

  “What level are you at?” she asked, hands on her hips.

  “I don’t know,” I said. The pushy, competitive Harper was back.

  “Unit 19, what command level does Instructor Gurung hold?” she asked.

  “Level one.”

  She snorted, gave me an eye roll, and turned away to continue looking at Rikki’s broken shell.

  “Unit 19, do you sense any drones in this building?”

  “Affirmative. UGV and UAV activity noted on ground floor, in three stairwells, and one basement.”

  “Anything approaching this position?”

  “Negative. Ground floor activity has diminished within last fifteen-minute time period. Likely due to onset of nightfall.”

  The Decimator was no Rikki, but I could see some improvement over the last few times I had interacted with it. Volunteering a potential reason for the reduction in nearby drone activity was something it wouldn’t have done a few months ago.

  I sat down, deciding that we were okay for the moment. Harper threw me an energy bar and I washed it down with sips from my stealth suit’s hydration unit.

  Beat—emotionally, mentally, and physically—I let myself relax, taking time to check my weapons. Only two full mags for the .300 Blackout, one of which I switched into the weapon, storing the partial mag that had been in the gun. I had seventeen rounds of .338 remaining for the MSR, but I’d be unlikely to be able to shoot them all off before one of the Spiders’ minions took me out.

  Harper asked me questions, things about the Spider in the NSA building, stuff about our plans, changes we might have to make. In short, she distracted me, kept my brain working as much as she could, kept me planning, leaving no room to consider other things—darker thoughts.

  We talked for quite a while and my brain got mushy.

  “Ajaya,” Harper called in a near whisper. I glanced up, suddenly worried. She waved a hand at my expression, her body language relaxed. “Take a rest. We can’t leave while they’re still active out there. I’ll keep watch with Unit 19.”

  I started to protest, but the entirety of my exhaustion hit me. “No more than twenty minutes,” I said.

  “Sure,” she said, cracking a chemical light-stick and leaning over Rikki’s remains. “Twenty minutes tops,” she said, eyes focused on the Berkut.