Smoke's Fire

by Rich X Curtis

  The buildings were too high, though, and they were bumping along over uneven terrain as Truck roared through a wide courtyard and down, then back up a series of wide staircases and ramps. She studied the buildings, looking for any motion that would indicate life or that this city wasn’t abandoned.

  Smoke wormed his head up next to hers. She glanced at him. “This city should not have survived the glaciers,” he said, shouting to be heard over Truck in overdrive. “They would have leveled this place.”

  She nodded. She’d said as much to Warren, but the woman had shrugged it off. If there was something here, waiting for them, Warren was ready to shoot her way through it. She watched the troops moving with deliberate, good order. One column would advance, covered by the second. Waved forward, the second column would leapfrog the first, covered in turn. She knew this drill. Behind them, the Archer and his company kept pace with Truck in a loose line. They were looking behind for the enemy, and had spaced out some stragglers to act as rearward pickets.

  “Our flanks are vulnerable,” she said. Smoke looked at her, puzzled. “They’ll hit us from the sides, if there’s anything here.” She knew that Warren knew this, and was trading safety for speed. The column was spread into a line with very little protection on either flank. “If they’re unfriendly, that is.”

  “If they’re here, they’ll be unfriendly,” he said. “They must be here. This place is here, and the tunnel was working, so they’re here.” He looked around. “I can feel it.”

  “Where’s this Elevator,” she asked, looking up. “I don’t see shit.”

  “You can’t see it,” Smoke said, echoing something that Warren had said. “It’s too thin. She says you can see a blue glow at night when the frames and cars go up and down, but that’s it.” He pointed ahead of them. “It would be over there, though. That’s where we’re headed, straight ahead, maybe a half-mile.”

  She looked, but didn’t see anything. Too thin, the cable holding onto the massive counterweight in stationary orbit. Snap that cable, and the station would, without rescue or rockets on its own, spin out into space. Or maybe the weight of the cable would make it hit the atmosphere and de-orbit. Either way, it would be fucked. She thought of the narrow crate strapped to the back of Truck. Of what was in it.

  Rifle fire from ahead jerked her head around. “Heads up,” she shouted, pointing. Spiders, on their left flank. She saw them, just like Chen had been, before Truck plucked his legs off. Chen was still strapped below her, but there was no hearing his buzzing rasps above the chaos of Truck’s chewing, scraping progress, and now the rising pop pop pop of small arms fire. She spotted a blur as one of the spiders rushed forward, spiky legs moving faster than her eye could follow. Chips spalled off of it, as Warren’s fire teams found it, and it stumbled and went down under a hail of fire.

  She reached down and pulled up her own rifle. Smoke had refused one, when offered. She elbowed him away to give her room to swivel. “Get down,” she growled at him. “You’re in the way up here.” Li was babbling at her, but she had no time for pleasantries. “Keep her calm,” Gold snapped at him. “Make yourself useful.”

  Truck paused, since the column had paused. His turbine idled down. Shots still rang out ahead of them, but they were fading. Gold looked ahead, left, right, behind, and then forward again. A muffled boom from ahead, followed by a short fusillade. A plume of black smoke from the forward left, where the engagement had sounded fiercest.

  She was about to shout to one of the nearest troopers for an update and then stopped. She cocked her head at a noise. It was a buzzing, staticky noise, rich with harmonics. Like an old modem, she thought. What the…

  Chen, she realized. The legless spider was buzzing like an old-timey modulator, broadcasting who knew what to the enemy, obviously. “Chen!” she shouted. “Knock that shit off or I will end you!” She pointed her weapon downward, at the back of the spider’s head. She could see one of his many eye-tubes as the head swivel. It glinted at her.

  “SPIDER IS SIGNALLING SPIDERS,” Truck blatted, making them all wince. Soldiers’ heads whipped around. “HE CALLS THEM TO FREE HIM”

  “Fuck,” Gold whispered. She whipped around, to the nearest troops, their rearguard. “Archer! Archer! Put up a cordon around Truck!” She waved frantically at him, and he waved back, but made no moves. His orders did not come from her.

  “Truck,” she snapped. “Do you sense any spiders?”

  “THEY COME,” Truck blared. “SPIDERS APPROACHING IN NUMBERS.”

  “Tell them to defend Truck,” she said, “Say that. Defend Truck.”

  “DEFEND TRUCK,” Truck announced. “SPIDERS ATTACKING.” He lurched forward then, his massive arms unfolding from their rest positions. She saw them, then, a bristling mass of black robotic spiders boiling out of a ground-floor opening in a nearby building on their left. Out of the second floors as well. They surged forward, closing the distance with amazing speed.

  “Fire!” Gold shouted, bringing her gun to her shoulder. She aimed carefully, for the lead waves middle section, and opened fire. Several troopers nearby followed suit, but it was uncoordinated fire, and sporadic. She saw her shots take a toll, spilling one and then two spiders to the ground with hopefully mortal damage. Several others tripped momentarily. She estimated that there were fifteen or twenty left, in this wave. How many more after that? she wondered.

  One of the rearward fire teams ran up and crouched, adding their fire to hers and the few pickets. She saw one man, too far forward, go down under the spiky, stabbing legs. She heard a sharp ping ping ping from below her, an electronic pinging, like an alarm. Like a location alarm. Chen was signaling to the spiders. Announcing his location.

  “Motherfucker,” she said, she angled her weapon down, sighted along it at the back of the Spider’s head, and fired. The head split, shattered by her bullet. She grinned to herself, breathing a phrase in her native tongue. To the gods with you. She looked up and saw disaster.

  The wave had reached the fire team and rolled through them. One spider, in the front of the assault, leapt up in a mighty vault towards her, and she fired wildly, tearing into it with a burst. Chips flew off of it. She saw a leg fall. It landed just short of Truck, and righted itself on its remaining limbs. She shifted her aim, going for the head, and Truck’s massive fist swung through in a wide arc, batting it aside. His other hand, she saw was tossing hunks of concrete at the remaining spiders, who were tangled in a heap, twitching and thrashing.

  Truck’s turbine whined to a screaming pitch and he rolled forward, throwing her back. They rushed towards the pile of spiders, not slowing down. “Truck!” she shouted, hoping he knew the cage was at the front, and that he wasn’t going to use them as a ram. He didn’t, slewing his massive bulk into a drifting, grinding turn, he slammed his left track into the mass of spiders. Gold heard the crunch as Truck’s enormous steel tracks ground into them, and electronic squeals as he crushed them.

  A ragged cheer came from behind them as the rearguard ran up. She saw the Archer fire into a prone, wounded spider that was crawling away. Another pair of soldiers shot at another one that was fleeing. She looked around, dazed but pleased. “Nice driving, Truck!” she called, slapping him on the hood.

  She glanced down into the cage. Smoke and Li were huddled together, along with all their gear and blankets, in one corner. She was about to speak when a few shots popped off. She jerked her head up just in time to see three spiders flowing down a jagged lump of concrete, some kind of fallen wall or structure, a hundred yards to their side. She raised her rifle to fire.

  A black shadow landed directly in front of her. Spider. It had leaped down from above, landing with inhuman accuracy on the hood in front of the cage. Truck roared an incoherence, alarm mixing with static hissing. The thing’s head swiveled, located her, and a spindly leg snapped out and clamped onto her rifle barrel. She leaned on it, to angle the rifle up towards the thing’s body, but it was strong, too strong. And fast.

  It ripp
ed the rifle from her hands. Its grasping claws closed, crushing plastic and metal alike. She ducked down into the cage. Black spears followed her, flashing down once, twice, reaching for her. She fell on her back, and Smoke pulled the metal grating down over them. The metal plating rang with the spider’s hammer blows as it tried to reach them.

  She heard Truck’s arms swiveling, and glanced around the edge of their protective shield. The spider sensed the arms as well, and ducked, snatching something close to its chest and running. Chen. The thing had taken the spider Chen’s legless torso. It leaped clear of Truck and landed in a dead run, clutching the dead spider’s corpse to its chest. She grinned grimly, and pushed on the grating, getting it off her.

  “Everybody OK?” she asked, looking to Li. Li nodded, no wounds. Smoke nodded as well.

  “That thing was after you,” he said. “It wanted you bad.”

  She looked at him. The troopers outside were shooting at it, but it had retreated into the shadows of the building. She nodded. “Good thing I put a bullet in his head, when he started that alarm that drew them.”

  Smoke cocked his head at her. “You shot him in the head?”

  She nodded. “Sent him to hell, if there is one.” She stood, and poked her head out. Her rifle was in pieces on the hood. Truck was grinding gears, moving forward again. The Unit was moving out, troopers waving them forward. The three spiders had been a feint, she realized. She grimaced, flexing her fingers. The trigger guard had scraped her finger bloody when the spider had snatched the gun from her. It hurt, but the fingers worked at least.

  Truck lurched, and they were moving, crawling up out of the courtyard where they’d first met the spiders. There was more firing up ahead, and she heard the boom of another of Warren’s satchel bombs. The spiders were still fighting on their left flank, it appeared. But it appeared that, if she was gauging things correctly, they were approaching the end of Warren’s column, and that that they had set up a perimeter of sorts. She saw the wide arched entrance to the Elevator complex, and saw that Warren’s troopers had taken up defensive positions in and around it. Almost there.

  Smoke touched her arm, and pointed behind them. She looked, and saw, silhouetted against the setting sun, a spindly, skeletal shape, on top of a mound of rubble. She watched as it bent over its prize. She saw it gently, with one long spiked arm, pluck Chen’s head from its torso. The spider was motionless, save for its long, probing arm that reached into the thorax and drew forth a silvery cylinder.

  Gold jolted as another spider flowed up to the first, kneeling down before it. The first, the one holding the cylinder, leaned forward and deftly, almost gently tilted the other’s head back. Gold suppressed a wave of disgust, mixed with voyeuristic thrill. She did not look away, as the first spider plucked a similar cylinder from the new arrival, tossed it aside, and smoothly slid Chen’s cylinder into place. The second spider’s head tilted forward and locked into place. It stood stock still.

  “Oh shit,” she said, looking at Smoke. “His brain wasn’t in his head, was it?”

  “This is bad,” Smoke said. “If they took his brain…” As they watched, the second spider straightened and turned towards them. Gold’s trigger finger twitched. The second spider waved at them. At her. Then it scuttled backwards and out of sight. After a moment the other, first spider followed, tossing Chen’s original carapace to the ground.

  “They know what he knows,” she agreed. “And that’s a lot.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Silver leaned out and peered around the corner. She kept her head very still, and just looked for a long moment before easing her way back. Slithering back along the wall, she rejoined Carter, slumped at the base of it, clutching his arm. He had broken it in the crash, she reckoned, and hadn’t noticed it until now. He was ashen, under his singed beard.

  Shah was a few yards away, covering their rear. His rifle at the ready, he glanced back at her. She motioned him over. She motioned for them to put their heads together.

  “Anything?” she whispered.

  He shook his head. “They’ve stopped,” he whispered back. “Ahead?”

  She shrugged. “It’s a long passage. No cover.”

  He screwed up his face. “Risk it?”

  Carter got his feet under him, beginning to rise. Silver laid a hand on his unwounded shoulder. “Easy, easy,” she said. “We can’t run through there. If there are spiders…”

  “They’re herding us,” Carter said, too loudly. “It’s like in the mountains.”

  She considered it. The spiders had been more aggressive earlier, when they’d taken down the Dutchman and after, with Anika. But for the last while, while they had moved through the ruins, they’d only had sporadic contact. For the past hour, almost, they’d had none. The sounds of firing and explosions from the main body of the Unit, somewhere up ahead of them had also ceased. The spiders were waiting, but for what?

  While they had been scrambling, one part of her had been cataloging what she’d seen. This maze had been a shopping arcade once. Restaurants, choked with debris but recognizable nonetheless. Storefronts. There were also craters and bullet-pocked walls. One street they had crossed over from a concrete walkway had been jammed with a column of military vehicles, tires long since rotted off, rusting in place. Some of the vehicles had bullet holes in them. She saw Shah stare at that for a long moment, before turning away. There had been a battle here, Warren said, before the Unit had pulled out. She shook her head. It didn’t matter. It certainly didn’t matter now.

  “Maybe,” she nodded. “But we can’t go this way, it’s a perfect ambush.” She turned to Shah, but Carter cut her off.

  “This is just like the mountains,” he repeated. “They’re herding us here.”

  She turned to him angrily. “Which is why we can’t go this way,” she hissed. “Now, just shut up and—”

  Shah raised a closed fist. Freeze. She froze, but Carter was still struggling to rise. Shah pushed him down, gloved finger to his lips. He cocked his head, listening.

  She heard it, a click. A cricket. Faint but there. Shah heard it too, and dug into a pocket of his vest, bringing out a flat disk of wood with a strip of metal tacked to it. A clicker. He showed it to her. She nodded.

  Shah eased past her and shuffled along the wall. Reaching the corner, he clicked his clicker, twice. He leaned forward, tense as a wire, listening.

  Silver heard the answering two clicks. She let out a breath she realized she’d been holding. Shah clicked again, three times. The answer came almost immediately, three clicks.

  Shah looked back at her. She nodded. He licked his lips, then called out down the passage. “Unit?”

  A pause. “Is that Shah?” came the answer. A female voice, from down the passage.

  “Shah, and two civvies. From the blimp.” He paused. “We got shot down.”

  “Come ahead, but if you’ve got more than two legs we’re shooting you,” came the answer. “Don’t be cute.”

  Shah motioned to Silver and Carter. “OK, I know her, that’s Hanscomb. Know her from way back.” He turned back to the passage entrance. “Hanscomb! That you?”

  Silence for a moment. “Correct. Now come ahead, single file, civvies first,” said the woman’s voice from the passage. “If you’re armed, keep your barrel down. Got a squad of twitchy motherfuckers here.”

  “OK,” Shah said. “Let’s go.”

  They entered the passage. Silver kept her M-16 across her chest on its strap. For good measure she held her hands up where they could see them. The passage was dim; the sunlight was fading. Silver thought it was a connecting tunnel from one part of the pedestrian arcade to another, but it looked to enter the Elevator complex itself.

  Halfway through they were met by Unit troopers, who approached at a crouch. One of them peered at their faces, nodded, and flowed past them. At the end of the tunnel there was a group of soldiers, some resting. Two were prone at each corner of the passage entrance, sighting down it.

&nb
sp; Shah embraced Hanscomb, a sandy-haired woman with a scar crossing her lips in a jagged line. “Heard you went up in that balloon,” Hanscomb said. “Didn’t make it?”

  “Airborne for maybe ten, twenty minutes?” Shah said. “Damned spiders jumped on us from the rooftops, tore open the bag.” He looked at her. “Anika and Chuckie are dead. Chuckie jumped out and a spider got ’Nika.”

  Hanscomb nodded. “We lost a few too. Damned things are fast as I remember.”

  “I saw our convoy, about a block away,” Shah said. “Right where we left it.”

  Hanscomb grinned. “Thought it might be around here,” she said, shaking her head. “Fucked up shit, man.” Hanscomb looked at Silver. “Your pals made it, and the big truckie. They’re up at the CP, straight back that way, near the main entrance arch. This area is clear, for now. They stopped attacking two hours ago.”

  “They herded us here,” Carter said. “Pushed us right towards you.”

  Hanscomb looked him up and down. She frowned. “Well, lucky for you then. CP’s thataway. Glad to see you breathing, Shah.” She turned away.

  “Too mean to die,” he said, motioning for Carter and Silver to follow him. They walked onward, deeper into the complex.

  “It’s like an airport,” Carter said, looking around. He was hugging his right wrist to his chest. “Look at this place.”

  Silver saw what he meant. Long counters, similar to every airport she’d seen. Black screens hung from pillars, silent now but presumably once filled with departure information.

  “How many cars could this thing hold at once?” Silver asked Shah. “The Elevator? This place looks like an international terminal.”

  “Dozens,” he said. “Maybe hundreds, I’m not sure. Big ones, little ones.” He looked at her. “There were a lot of people going up there. To the station.” He gestured around him. “This level was for cargo, passengers boarded from above, from those towers we saw.”