"You're right, but we're both fighting the Chinese now. And, anyway, I think something changed when he saw the firing squad. He couldn't turn a blind eye anymore."
"Huh, maybe. But I don't reckon that leopard'll change his spots so easy. Watch your back, Sheriff."
Paulie smiled at him. "You too, Marvin." And to think she'd only invited him to sign up as a deputy to keep him out of trouble. She'd been so wrong, seeing a bellyaching waster when, behind the gray stubble and sarcastic tone lay an honest heart, one she owed her daughter's life to. No, don't think of Luna. Wally had her safe. Do the job that's in front of you and worry about the future when it comes. Easier said than done, of course.
"It's time. You ready?"
Marvin nodded and tapped the rifle he'd taken from a member of the firing squad. "Let's see if these Chinese knockoffs can shoot straight."
"Don't hesitate, Marvin. If you see a Chinese uniform, shoot first and we'll ask questions later."
She crept up to the door leading to the corridor containing Room 5 and double-checked her weapon. It was an automatic, so she made sure the safety was off and held it in her right hand as she grasped the door handle in her left. She glanced down at Marvin and then yanked it open.
Tucker fired immediately and the first guard fell to the ground as the second swung his weapon in their direction before collapsing forward, taken by a bullet in the back.
Paulie ran towards the room containing the Reaper as Petrov emerged from the opposite direction. Again, Paulie reached for the door as the others covered her. This time, no gunfire greeted her as she yanked it open. It was dark inside, but she could see the Reaper, a thin spear of sunlight that ran down the wall glinting from its glossy black shell.
"Quick, destroy it!" she barked but then she froze as, without any warning, its four rotors spun up and a red light began blinking on its carapace. In moments, it had begun to lift itself like an avenging ghost rising from a tomb.
Four rifles filled the little room with a deafening thunderstorm of noise. The Reaper dipped back as rounds bounced off its shell, but it righted itself instantly.
"What the hell is it made off? We're not even denting it!" Marvin called.
The rotary magazines of the two machine guns beneath the drone began to spin.
"Get out of here!" Paulie called. An instant later, the door exploded in a hail of bullets. Paulie scrambled to her feet and pulled Marvin along behind her. She had no plan, no thought beyond escaping the machine that was now hunting them. Of the five of them, only she'd seen it in action and she knew it was inexorable and, without the help of Alison, virtually indestructible.
They ran deeper into the store. A burst of gunfire and a scream tore the air behind them, but neither Paulie nor Marvin turned to see who it was and what had happened to them. She knew well enough. Perhaps the Reaper would hunt the Russians first, giving her and Marvin time to escape. But where would they go? This thing would find them and only its power running out would stop it. How long would its battery last? There was no way to know, but almost certainly long enough.
"We have to find Liang," Paulie said as they sheltered in what had been the perfume and makeup department, waiting for the telltale hum of approaching death. "He's activated it, so he must be able to turn it off."
"Yeah, but he's got at least another four guards and we don't know where he is. This place is pretty big."
Another burst of gunfire followed by silence. A figure burst through a door at the far end of the long room, scrambling on the floor among fallen boxes and debris, crying out in fear. "Petrov!" Paulie hissed.
The door swung shut and then opened again, slowly this time. A shape emerged, floating a few feet from the floor and hovered in front of the prone form. Petrov raised his hands and called out in fear.
Without thinking, Paulie raised her rifle and fired at it.
"Are you crazy?" Marvin hissed as the drone turned to face in their direction.
"Run!" Paulie whispered. Petrov's only chance was to get away while the Reaper was focused in their direction, but she couldn't see him moving.
"Run!" Marvin shouted as the Reaper's nose dipped and it headed towards them. He grabbed Paulie by the arm and led her through the door to the next hall just as it exploded in a hailstorm of glass fragments.
They ran as the thing emerged into the hall, weaving as best they could, though they had no doubt it would hit them if it locked on. As they emerged into the corridor beyond, Paulie spotted a small room to their right and pulled Marvin inside.
Damn! It was just a storage closet. No light, no way out.
They crouched in the darkness just as she, Solly and Bobby had hidden in the kitchen beside the Potomac River, then as now hunted by a remorseless machine.
"We gotta find Liang," Marvin whispered. "Where d'you reckon the controls for that thing would be?"
"I don't know. Could be anywhere."
"Hold on. I've thought of somethin'."
"Shhh. I can hear it coming."
Sure enough, they could hear the unmistakable hum of the machine's rotors getting louder.
"Move as far from the door as possible," she whispered, and they crawled to the end of the room. Paulie sat there, heart thumping as the sound of approaching death got louder and louder. She glanced at Marvin, who was behind her and barely visible in the darkness.
"Hold on a minute," he said, and she saw he was looking upwards. "Quick, up there!"
There was a desk pushed against the far wall, and they both climbed onto it just as the door behind them disintegrated. The light from the corridor illuminated what Marvin had been pointing to. A window.
He yanked the blinds down and lifted his rifle. A deafening roar followed an earsplitting crash as the window exploded outwards.
At the same moment, the door burst, flinging splinters in every direction. The drone floated in and brought its weapons to bear.
Marvin grabbed Paulie and, with superhuman effort, threw her up into the window frame. With a cry of pain as glass cut into her thigh, she dropped out the other side to get out of his way as quickly as possible. She landed in a heap on the wet sidewalk outside the store and looked up at the window.
Another burst of gunfire and a cry of pain. Terror stabbed at Paulie's heart. "Marvin!"
There was no answer.
She waited for the machine to appear in the window and target her, but at that moment, she no longer cared.
The best man she'd ever known had risked himself to save her and was now dead, cut to pieces by that floating thing. She barely felt the blood trickling down her leg.
She lingered, unable to tear herself away, unable to move, unable to feel anything beyond bleak, bleak hopelessness.
She was lost.
Her tears mingled with the light rain as she stood in silent vigil waiting for the end, until she finally began to comprehend that if she didn't move, if she didn't get out of the line of fire, Marvin's sacrifice would have been entirely wasted.
Paulie felt for the cut in her thigh. It didn't seem too bad, and she could put weight on her leg. Time to go. Time to make someone pay. Liang.
She sucked in the chilly, wet air and, with one final look back at the window, turned away.
"Lend me a hand will you, Sheriff?"
An arm appeared over the window frame.
"Marvin!"
She ran over to the wall, pulling across a trash can to stand on, and grabbed his arm.
"That was close," he said, his face pale and drawn.
Paulie heaved him through the window frame, pulling aside the remaining shards of glass, and helped him to the ground.
She flung her arms around him and held him tight. After a moment's hesitation, he wrapped his arms around her and returned the embrace. "Why Sheriff," he said after a moment, "I never knew you cared so much."
"You idiot!" she snapped, half seriously. "What did you think you were doing? And how did you get away? Where's the machine?"
He smiled. "It was P
etrov. He finally developed a spine. Called out to the drone just as it was zeroing in on me. It might be almost unstoppable, but it ain't exactly smart."
"Come on, we need to find Liang."
"I reckon I know where he is," Tucker said. "Been thinking about it. When we were in that room with the Reaper, and it activated just as we were lookin' at it, he must have been nearby, otherwise how would he have known we were there? I didn't see no cameras."
Paulie's mouth opened in astonishment. "You're right! Good grief, you're not only a hero, but a genius as well."
"Oh, shucks, Sheriff" Tucker said in mock humility, but Paulie was already running away from him, her hand against her thigh and murder on her mind.
Chapter 11
Solly would have avoided Louisville if it hadn't been for the fact that one of the locations for the radio booster was on top of PNC Tower. He bitterly regretted not paying more attention when McBride had handed over the list but, especially given the events at Cincinnati, he felt more obliged than ever to fulfill his mission.
Was he being driven by guilt at having escaped from the firebomb at the gas station when the others hadn't? Probably. He saw that expanding ball of orange plasma every time he closed his eyes. And he saw the momentary fear on the face of fake Pastor Fisher when he realized that Solly was no longer the man he'd met all those months ago. But he couldn't find it in his heart to regret that at all. Fisher had been prepared to see others lose their lives on his mission while he observed from a safe distance. Although it didn't turn out to be that safe, after all.
No, he couldn't get beyond the explosion that Fisher and, as it transpired, the Lee Corporation had caused. It comforted him little that, by tackling Fisher, many of the women who'd have been consumed in the fire had been drawn away and had, therefore, survived. One Lee Corporation operative had made it within the defensive circle, and that had been enough.
Solly had contacted Wright-Patterson when he'd set up the next relay on I-71 between Cincinnati and Louisville. He'd been patched through to Colonel McBride, who was setting up a new base in Cincinnati and overseeing the ceremonies for the dead. After the explosion, Solly and the others had spent the night hidden in an underground parking lot before circling back to survey the devastation. He'd known there was no chance of any of the soldiers surviving. The explosion had rocked the Humvee, even though it was a couple of hundred yards away at the time. The gas station was a blackened pile of twisted and molten metal. There was no trace of Bryant or his team, or any of the attackers. They'd been consumed in that instant of combustion.
So, they'd headed south to resume their mission and Solly's mind had spent the time flitting between sadness, guilt and fear for what the events of that night meant for the country as a whole. The Lee Corporation was strong in the Northwest and Northeast, around its two power bases of Seattle and New York. Its sphere of influence extended into Pennsylvania and it was making an attempt to grab control of DC, but farther out it didn't have the resources, yet, to take over, so it sent its operatives out to prepare the ground for expansion by creating chaos as communities tried to come together. Solly ground his teeth in anger. Was there really nothing Lee Corp wouldn't sink to in their dash for domination over the American people?
He'd felt better once he'd been able to give his report to McBride. Truth to tell, the colonel was angry that Solly hadn't awaited his arrival, but was at least grateful for the intelligence Solly was able to give him. A ring of steel would be going up around every military outpost and, especially, fuel stores. They had to assume that a concerted campaign was being waged against anyone who sought to organize themselves or to oppose Lee Corp.
They'd been stopped as they'd tried to cross the river at the Clarke Memorial Bridge. The guards' initial surprise at seeing an approaching Humvee was followed immediately by pointing every weapon they possessed at it. This was then replaced by more confusion when they found that the vehicle was being driven by a civilian. There was a governor in Louisville, Solly was told, and they would have to report to him before being given permission to cross the city or, indeed, to return the way they'd come.
One of the guards got into the Humvee and directed them to the Marriott in downtown. Solly pulled up outside the Starbucks and unpacked Ross’ wheelchair before helping him down from the back seat. Vivian was to remain in the vehicle with instructions to keep it safe and not allow anyone inside.
The guard directed them past the dusty and rusty electric bikes parked in a rack outside the hotel and into the main lobby area. A young woman sat at the reception desk and her eyes flitted from Solly to the guard and back again as he spoke. She picked up a phone, twisted away and spoke a few words into it, before swinging back with a smile. "You may go through," she said, gesturing at the door to a conference room. A man and a woman in dark business clothes stood outside and one pulled the door open as Solly and Ross approached, the guard going ahead of them into the room.
Solly pushed Ross into the conference room. Long tables of light ash wood arranged in a U shape occupied three sides and a man sat in the center of the shortest table, his bald head reflecting the white strip lights that ran along the ceiling. To Solly, it felt like stepping back in time to the world before the Long Night. Boy, he'd hated meetings in places like this, but it was a poignant reminder of how things had once been at a time when electricity was taken for granted.
The man gazed at Solly and Ross through round spectacles as the guard whispered in his ear. After a few seconds, the guard stood up, saluted the little man and marched out.
"My name is Oscar Weinstein, chief administrator of the New Louisville Commonwealth. Please, take a seat,” he said, before smiling at Ross, “though I see your friend already has one.” Or was it a sneer?
He was, Solly judged, in his late sixties and had a round face with chiseled features. Above his thin lips sat a gray mustache and his eyes, behind the lenses of his spectacles, looked unnaturally small. Overall, Solly couldn’t help forming the impression of a man who laughed rarely. But then, these weren't happy times and perhaps the world needed people with organizational talent more than those with a sense of humor and humanity.
"You are, let me see, Solly Masters," he said as Solly took his seat. "Is that short for Solomon?"
"It is, though I prefer Solly."
The man blinked at him as if surprised. "If there is one thing the Dying should have taught us, Solomon, it is to respect our parents and their choices, including the names they selected for us. Such a disaster would not have happened—did not happen—on their watch."
"Surely that's because the technology didn't exist back then," Solly said.
Weinstein shrugged doubtfully. "Humanity has had the means to destroy itself since 1945, Mr. Masters, and yet it did not, until last November. If we are not to repeat our mistakes, we have to ask ourselves why."
"I'm sorry," Solly said, "but I don't think the fact that my parents chose a stupid name for me caused the Long Night."
"The Long Night? Is that what you call it? To us it is simply The Dying. And as for your name choice, it is a symptom of a greater malady. The assumption that all progress is good. As we rebuild our city, we will keep faith with the past. Technology where it is necessary but always in its place. Machines are to be our servants, Mr. Masters. And you, young man, what is your relationship to Solomon?"
Ross cast a glance at Solly. "We've been together since just after the…Dying. He's my…"
"I'm his father," Solly said. "Not by blood, but in every way that matters."
Weinstein inclined his head in a gesture Solly interpreted as appreciation. "And where have you come from?"
"We passed through Cincinnati," Ross said.
"We're here on a mission for the commander of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Mr. Weinstein," Solly added, growing impatient as he thought of Vivian in the Humvee alone and the long miles ahead to Texas and the beginning of his true mission.
Weinstein couldn't hide his surprise at this news
, though he tried. “Wright-Patterson… That's in Dayton, Ohio, isn't it? I had no idea it had survived. Who controls it?"
"Colonel McBride is the commander, but he recognizes the authority of the newly re-formed Federal Government in DC."
"Yes, we've heard about DC. Many of our people have journeyed there. I warned them that their home is here, but for many folks, the illusion of hope is better than the reality of safety."
"I've met the president," Solly said. Again, the eyebrows lifted. "She's a formidable person. But tell me, Mr. Weinstein, have you had any contact from the Lee Corporation?"
There it was again. This man was no politician. Solly knew without an iota of doubt that they had been here. But would the man admit it?
He blinked fitfully for a moment, as if making a monumental decision. "They have been…helpful," he said. "They have supplied some hard to obtain food—fresh mainly—that have lightened the hearts of the people."
Solly felt as though he could read this man as plainly as if he were to say the words out loud. Weinstein had taken their help, but at what price?
"What did they ask for in exchange?"
"Nothing much, just permission to have a small team here to help with the restoration of our technology. The electricity in this hotel was their first project."
Solly wanted to warn Weinstein, but he realized he'd probably already said too much. He should have asked about Lee Corp before opening his big fat mouth. If they installed electricity, there was every chance they'd bugged this room.
Solly reached into his pocket and pulled out the little notepad he carried with him. He scribbled a note and held it up for the governor.
This room is likely bugged. Nod if you agree.
Weinstein nodded.
Massive fire in Cincin caused by LCorp. Fuel dump destroyed. Many dead.
His mouth opened in horror, but he nodded again.
Please let us station a radio relay on PNC Tower. I will leave you a radio so you can contact WPatt. Do not tell LCorp.
Betrayed: Book 5 in the Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Survival series: (The Long Night - Book 5) Page 9