by M. Lorrox
Vega yells back, “We got it!”
Robertson shrugs. “Too bad they need auth codes to totally disable the unit.”
Jenkins sighs. “That would be more reassuring than ‘about one hundred and fifty seconds of delay’ before a supercomputer tries to execute us.”
Vega points at him. “Get inside the cab, Jenkins, we’ve got to be ready.”
“Yes, sir.” Hellooo Rosie.
Clyde enters the last set of commands in his control laptop and glances up at his specialists before he confirms. “Ready for the signal?”
They both nod and prepare to fire on the intersection.
Clyde confirms, and the unit deactivates to run a set of pre-programmed diagnostics. He checks the Grid Integrity display, and the unit goes gray. “Now!”
They fire. The mechs and their riders on the ground see, and they move forward.
Almost ten blocks away, LG5’s senior officer notices on the Grid Integrity display that a unit went offline. “Fucking shit!”
“What is it, sir?”
“Looks like LG6 has lost one, and so far, they’ve done nothing about it.”
“Think zombies got through and took ’em out?” The specialist squeezes his gun a little tighter.
“I dunno, but we can’t have a hole.”
The specialist nods. “You could up the range on the other units. They’re programmed at five hundred feet, and max distance between units is supposed to be eight hundred, right? So, crank the ones on either side to an eight-hundred-foot radius, and then they should close the gap.”
The senior officer types into his keyboard. “That’s exactly what I’m doing.”
CONFIRM: (Y/N)?
Y
Madeline approaches the Red Fang’s meetup location in the tree line outside the hospital. Li Chen counts while doing pullups on a branch, and Steve plays solitaire on his phone. “Hey guys, miss me?”
Li Chen drops from the tree. “What’d you find out?”
She shakes her head. “For one thing, you were right—Lorenzo will pay dearly for the ring. He didn’t tell us that the ring had an inscription on it. I think the information holds the real value.”
Li Chen smiles. “I could tell he seemed desperate for it.”
Steve puts his phone away. “Did you say it HAD an inscription on it?”
Li Chen’s smile fades.
“Well first off, yes, I got the ring. And yes, it HAD an inscription on it, that they must have copied and scraped off.”
Li Chen leans in. But? There’s got to be a but… You wouldn’t be in such a good mood without a but... She’s still waiting. Ugh, fine. “Tell me there’s a BUT?”
She smiles. “BUT, I found printed out pictures of the inscription and stole them too.” She drops down on her haunches and sets the bag on the ground. She opens it and first hands the ring to Li Chen, then she pulls out the stack of papers and stands up. “I bet we can get the big payment from Lorenzo for the ring, then when he realizes he didn’t get the inscription, we can charge him again!”
Li Chen hands the ring out to Steve.
He takes it and nods. “Yeah. Let’s do that.”
Li Chen grabs the papers and flips through them. They show the ring, opened somehow, and a bunch of markings etched into the metal. “This is good, this is really good.”
Steve hands the ring back to Madeline, then he reaches his hand out to Li Chen. “Let me see.”
Li Chen hands him the papers, and Steve looks at them. He squints and flips the images upside down.
Madeline pockets the ring, but Li Chen watches Steve. “What is it?”
Steve bites his lip then hands the papers back to Li Chen. “It might be nothing, but...”
Li Chen snaps the papers away from him. “But what? Spit it out.”
“That image isn’t original. It looks like it’s been tweaked.”
Madeline walks over and looks at the papers in Li Chen’s hand. “Like a filter? But, it’s black and white.”
“No, I mean like edited... Look, do you see that little mark? Flip that other sheet over. That’s the same exact mark that’s over toward the edge. There’s no way it would be exactly the same in both places.”
Li Chen shakes his head. “How would you know?”
Steve shrugs. “I’m actually kinda good at doing that kind of stuff. They taught it back in my high school’s art class.”
Madeline smiles. “Aww, that’s cute.”
Steve reaches out and slides the papers from Li Chen’s hand. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure... Oh wait! Look there, there’s another one. It’s exactly the same as the, uh, whatever, over there. These have to be fakes.” He smiles at his discovery and feels proud of his skills.
Li Chen snatches at the papers so fast that he tears them in half. He strains his jaw open as he sucks in on his lips.
Both Steve’s and Madeline’s smiles have disappeared. Madeline shakes her head. “Who cares if the pictures are fake? We still have the ring and can still get paid.”
Li Chen huffs. “If Steve can spot it, Lorenzo or one of his people will. This is our shot, we can’t blow it, and somebody’s trying to pull a fast one on us.”
Steve grumbles, but Madeline sighs. “Look, he said get the ring, not get the ring and make sure it has inscriptions and shit. We’ll still get paid ten grand.”
Li Chen snarls at her. “This isn’t some high school bullshit or a homework assignment where technicalities matter. We do this job all the way—the way Lorenzo would have us do—then he pays, all the way.” He imagines Eddy laughing while faking the image, and his eyes narrow and twitch as he grows more incensed. “Besides, I don’t like being fucked with. Did you get the scrubs?”
She nods.
“Good.”
Danny climbs back into the gigantic Chinook helicopter he stole from the Udvar-Hazy Center. He set it down in a large field at Manassas National Battlefield Park in Virginia, and the old Vietnam War veteran gave Charlie a run through on the help he’ll need to fly the helicopter into DC. Then, he had to pee.
“Thanks for waiting—I had to go a little before you showed up, and then I guess I held it during the excitement.”
Charlie nods. “Sure. All set?”
“Yup, just remember what I told you. Keep your hand on the cyclic stick and feel where and how I’m pushing, but don’t you push on it yourself. And remember that I’ll handle the collective thrust control. Now for this first part—well, after I get this shit-hook in the air—I want you to take lead on the pedals.”
“I got it, I got it.”
“Good. Now, if I die, remember: don’t do anything drastic... Drastic in a helicopter is like instant death.” He smiles.
“Sure. Let’s just go already.”
Danny takes off and Charlie follows in the actions. “Why are there two pilots anyway? You made it here alright.”
“Shut up, this is hard... Okay. Now what? Why two? Because this shit is hard, and helicopters don’t fly through the air; they beat the daylights out of it in order not to crash in a fireball of death. If I let go, or get shot, or anything at all happens to me, then you’ll have to control this beast, or everyone inside will die. That’s why.”
Charlie puts more effort into feeling how Danny moves the cyclic. “I see.”
“Alright, give us a turn. We need to head mostly east…and a little north.”
Charlie presses as soft as he can on one of the pedals, and nothing happens.
“C’mon, twinkle toes. You actually have to push on those babies.”
“Okay, okay.” He presses harder, and the helicopter starts to rotate. He checks the compass, and he eases off when they’re pointed a little north of east. “Alright.”
“Good job. Now before our pals at the police station next door send their own copter after us, let’s get moving.”
YES. PLEASE DO.
Five minutes later, Danny nods out the windshield. “I wouldn’t suppose those boys know about your mission?”
&
nbsp; Charlie looks and can see several helicopters hovering high over the beltway ahead of them. “Probably not.”
Danny squints. “My eyes aren’t what they used to be. Do they have donut looking things over their rotors?”
Charlie nods. “Yes, they do.”
“Those’re Apache Longbows then... If they don’t want us passing through, we’re fucked.”
Charlie swallows. “I take it back. They know all about our mission, so just fly straight past them.”
Danny whistles. “Sure am glad I pissed back in that field.”
Felipe in Tiny Tim with Vega on its shoulders, Kevin in The Edward with Robertson on its back, and Rosie with Jenkins riding inside Lynxie-Lou enter what was the kill zone. The LAZoR unit in front of them in the intersection, LG6-8, has been put into diagnostics, and they have one hundred-ish more seconds before it comes back online.
Corporal Clyde Wilson and his two specialists watch from the rooftop nearby as the mechs make their way south. As the marines pass alongside the LAZoR unit in diagnostics, there’s a flash of red on the ground. Clyde shakes his head. “Did anyone else just see that?”
Felipe asks the same question, but he keeps moving.
-Brriiittt!- Vega drops a zombie on the far side of what was the kill zone, then turns to look at the LAZoR unit that is now behind them. It’s not moving; only a series of lights blink. Then another flash of red lights up the ground. “Don’t stop!”
They’re almost through the intersection when the two LAZoR units that are seven hundred and forty-feet, and seven hundred and thirty-feet away find their shooting solution.
They fire, almost simultaneously.
As the unit to the west tracks Vega’s head, Felipe and Tiny Tim step barely out of view—the building on the southwest corner of M Street NW and North Capitol Street catches the tip of the bullet. The impact frees a chunk of the brick building the size of a man’s fist. The bullet flies into a building on the other side of North Capitol Street and shatters a window.
No one is hurt.
As the unit to the east tracks Robertson’s head, it fires, and no building gets in the way. -Thrcrrk- The bullet rips through his head. He goes limp, but the cording he wrapped around The Edward and through the front straps of his chest rig hold his body up. He hangs down the backside of the mech.
Vega swivels his head in both directions, first to the building the bullet meant for him nicked, then to the sound of a bullet connecting with a skull—a sound he’s grown accustomed to from his time on The Line. “GO! GO! GO!”
Tiny Tim can’t go faster, no matter how much Felipe wishes, nor can Lynxie-Lou, nor can The Edward.
Robertson’s corpse still looks like a target as it moves along with The Edward. The unit to the east fires again. The bullet smashes through what’s left of the late staff sergeant’s head, then through the thin aluminum shielding of The Edward’s passenger compartment, and finally out the other side. Aluminum spall flies out from the impact site and ruptures a hydraulic line.
One of The Edward’s articulated legs loses pressure, and the platform the cab sits on dips to that side. Kevin corrects by leaning the heavy arms away from that side, and The Edward keeps moving forward.
The LAZoR unit prepares to fire again at the still-moving body, but The Edward passes the building on the southeast corner of M Street NE and North Capitol Street. The unit can no longer see the target, so it returns to hunting mode.
Rosie and Jenkins, who were making small talk, fall silent. Lynxie-Lou follows behind The Edward, and the two new colleagues had a front row seat to Robertson’s head being shot through.
Vega twists and yells. “Keep going! Four hundred feet to go!”
They travel another three hundred feet before they realize there’s a serious flaw in their plan. There’s a three-foot-high wall of corpses at the boundary of the LAZoRS’ kill zone, and their mechs can’t exactly jump—or even step—over them. Felipe looks up at Vega. “Rosie can plow them over! Tell her!”
Vega considers jumping down to relay the message, but she’s way ahead of him.
Rosie pilots Lynxie-Lou past Tiny Tim, and she lowers the bush-hog apparatus. Inside, Jenkins squirms. “Uh, are you gonna mow through ’em?”
Rosie shakes her head. “Not if I don’t have to. I think I can just push them back.” She rams the pile toward the bottom, but the bar and bush-hog apparatus just smashes into the pile and penetrates between zombies, not really pushing the pile back. She stops, backs up, lifts the arm, then she rams the pile closer to the top, pushing those bodies back. The machine drives up and onto the corpses closest to the ground, and Jenkins finds himself unnerved by the sounds that can only be skulls popping under the continuous tracks of Lynxie-Lou.
Kevin stops The Edward, and he waits while Rosie works on making them an opening. The Edward’s wheels are only a foot tall, so the mech can’t handle rough terrain very well. That marine must be dead... Robertson. Killed. What are we even doing? He shakes his head free of the thoughts. Focus, man, focus. I bet I could replace the hydraulic line, but I’ve probably already lost too much fluid. Damn glad I put in separate lines for each limb.
Rosie lowers the bar and pushes the last corpses back and out of the way. The pavement beneath is slicked with blood, and now also decoupaged with torn pieces of road-abraded flesh. She pushes all the way through and turns, leaving a path for the other mechs to take. Tiny Tim starts to move through.
The LAZoR unit directly behind them finishes its diagnostics. It selects Vega, who rides on top of Tiny Tim, as its target. The unit reconnects with the rest of the LAZoRS and checks for any higher-priority targets; it has none. In the split-second it takes the unit to aim, Tiny Tim carries Vega across the boundary and outside of the programmed-in, five-hundred-foot kill zone.
The Edward moves to follow Tiny Tim through the opening in the corpse wall. Robertson’s body, still hanging by the chest rig strapped to The Edward, still looks like a target to the LAZoR unit.
A bullet rips straight through what little is left of Robertson’s head. The deformed metal beyond blasts into The Edward’s cab and right into Kevin’s shoulder. Blood and bone and metal explode out from the impact sites.
Rosie watches the unit fire, and she sees The Edward’s cab rock from the impact. She holds her breath.
Vega twists to look down and back at The Edward, and he sees the cab’s windshield painted red from the inside. He groans.
Felipe carefully steps over a dismembered leg in his path, the front stabilizing wheel rolling past the black sneakered foot. Once he’s past it and the road beyond is clear, he summons the courage to disengage his torso from Tiny Tim, and he turns back to look.
The Edward is still moving. It jerks left to right, but it steers through the passage Rosie created. Felipe closes his eyes, turns back to face forward, and sets his head against the back cushion of his mech. He’s alive... He’s a tough one, he’ll be fine.
-bomp, bomp- Vega smacks on the metal of Tiny Tim’s frame. “Zombies incoming!”
Felipe straps himself back in, places his hands on the arm-controls, pulls his feet out of the little skids that control the mech’s feet, and slides his feet onto the bars that control the mech’s set of sickle-like arms. He brings one arm back, ready to strike, and he waits.
Felipe hears Rosie engage Lynxie-Lou’s power-take-off—the mechanism that sends power from the engine to the accessory devices—and the overlapping bush-hog blades spin up. Felipe grins. Then he hears The Edward spin up both the trenching tool and the large X blade it has for arms. He smiles, knowing that his closest friends are fighting alongside him.
Felipe’s lip curls as he watches the zombies rushing toward him. He stretches his hands and fingers out, and Tiny Tim’s huge steel claws stretch out, too. Felipe nods. Time to make a difference.
Vega clears his throat. “Felipe! Remember that I’m up here! Try not to gut me with your claws!”
Li Chen and Steve change into scrubs, while Madeline
—who is turned away because she DOES NOT want to see that—inspects the old ring. She runs her fingers along the infinity-shaped ouroboros wrapped around the V on its face.
Steve groans. “You didn’t think to get a variety of sizes?”
Madeline hesitates, afraid to turn around. Then she does. Steve’s pants squeeze his legs, and the scrubs-top is held out like a tent by his belly—which he insists is more muscle than fat.
Li Chen slips his boots back on. They’re just tall enough to cover his pale skin under the too-short scrubs-leggings. “Just deal with it. We’ve got a job to do.” He slips his tactical blade’s sheath back into one boot and covers the handle with his pantleg.
Madeline fidgets with the ring. “Do you need the knife? I mean, what if the metal detectors go off?”
Li Chen looks at her. “You said there were guards walking around with weapons and shit in there. I think I’ll be fine. Besides, I might need it for aggressive negotiations.” Steve grabs the jeans he was wearing and pulls a folding knife off the belt.
Madeline sighs. “Just keep in mind this job isn’t worth dying for. You don’t have to hurt anybody.”
Li Chen laughs. “You’re the one who suggested the inscription was what Lorenzo is after and what he’d pay double for. Jesus, Mad, when did you lose your balls?”
Steve shakes his head. “She never had them.”
Li Chen nods.
“Fuck you both. I’ve got more balls between my legs than the weak shit you’ve got.”