Strike

by Jim Heskett

  Tenney couldn’t help but hold himself responsible. Maybe Yorick had been right. The timing was bad. They should have waited until the Royal Army left. But, even with only Wybert’s guards present, it might not have mattered before.

  And it didn’t matter now. As Tenney entered the mansion, he had only two goals in mind: Find Rosia and Yorick, and then kill Wybert. To end it, now. Open those gates and let anyone still living escape.

  Tenney spent a full second inside the front door of the mansion, gawking at the chandelier hanging above his head. He’d never seen one before. He only knew the word because the farm serfs had been talking about it for years. Rumors about the giant cluster of glass and gold, hanging from the ceiling in the entry room to the mansion. Many serfs didn’t believe it was true. Now that Tenney could see it for himself, he believed. He understood so much in a single glance: that the lord had been living in luxury and comfort for his entire life while they toiled and sweated in the fields, with no hope of ever possessing anything of their own. All was for the lord.

  They didn’t have to look for long to accomplish their first goal. At the far end of the room, Tenney heard shouting. He pointed in that direction, to a hallway leading off to the right of a grand staircase. All four of them ran that way.

  When they burst into the hallway, they followed it to a ballroom. At the far end, a dozen guards stood, with weapons trained.

  And, between two of them, Tenney spotted Rosia and Yorick, with their hands in the air.

  He didn’t think, only acted. “Yorick! Duck!”

  Yorick’s head cocked for a split second, then he and Rosia hit the floor. Tenney sprayed bullets in a wide arc, immediately dropping three of the guards. The rest spun and opened fire.

  Paulo caught a bullet in the chest immediately and staggered a few steps to his left. He tried to lift his weapon to keep on firing, but it slipped from his hands, and he sank to his knees. More bullets pelted his chest, dropping him.

  Malina dove to her right to avoid a burst of fire, but she kept shooting as she tumbled. She took out a few more on her way.

  Tenney shuffled to the left, to draw fire away from Malina, and Estéban ate a few bullets as he tried to push forward and shoot. Estéban’s chest exploded in a burst of red. Had he not been so distracted trying to protect Malina, Tenney would have marveled at Estéban’s death. It was glorious. The giant took a dozen bullets in the chest and legs before he finally dropped to the ground, and he never stopped shooting. He killed five of the guards by himself.

  Three of them remained. Tenney tagged another guard, and Rosia or Yorick nailed the remaining two as their backs were turned.

  The echoes of bullets took a few seconds to die down, his ears ringing and heart pounding. When it was over, he looked across the devastation and saw three people left alive. Yorick, Rosia, and Malina. The two guerreros were backed against the wall, holding their jittering rifles in their hands. Malina was on the floor, crumpled next to Paulo’s body.

  He launched into action and rushed over to her, then wrapped his arms around his shaking girlfriend. Tears streamed down her face. Blood spattered her hair and neck.

  He planted a kiss on her quivering lips. “I’m so proud of you,” he said, and through the tears, she smiled at him. Then, her eyes fell to Estéban, at his body riddled with holes.

  “This is what he wanted,” Tenney said.

  She nodded. “Is it over? How much longer do we have to do this?”

  “Not long. It’s almost over now.”

  “Hey,” Yorick said as he and Rosia had drawn within a meter of them. “Thank you. I thought we were dead.”

  Tenney stood and hoisted his rifle toward the ceiling. “There’s only one more pendejo who needs to die today. If he’s still hiding out somewhere inside this building, it’s time for him to face what he’s done to us.”

  Rosia nodded. “Then let’s go find him.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Diego lurched to his feet, woozy and sore. Not only from the bullet wound in his leg. An ache pounded at the back of his head, throbbing and rotating and worming from the back to the front and all around. The constant alarms weren’t helping.

  He listened to the blasts of rifles coming through the ceiling. Those idiotas were wreaking havoc everywhere. First, on the battlefields, and now, inside the mansion.

  They had no idea what terror they’d brought on themselves by killing members of the Royal Army. If they survived this assault, they would wish they hadn’t. The army would make a tactical retreat due to the sheer number of serfs involved, but it wouldn’t be over. Not at all. They would return with numbers like these serfs couldn’t fathom. And, if these children did somehow manage to get the gates open before that, the king would send trackers to hunt down the survivors. Their remaining days on this earth had become few. No doubt about that.

  At the next door, Diego pressed a card against the metal panel, and it opened. He grinned when he saw a maintenance closet in front of him. A chain dangled above, and he tugged it to turn on the light. He limped inside and dug around on the shelves until he found the heavy-duty tape, exactly what he’d been looking for. Grunting, he lowered his pants and blotted the blood as best he could to dry the area, then he slapped tape over the bullet hole. He held in a yell as he did. The bullet hadn’t passed through, but maybe that would be okay. If Yorick had punctured an artery, Diego probably wouldn’t have survived this long.

  With a few patches of tape, the bleeding was under control. Not too bad a job.

  Then, he put his bloody shirt back on and returned to his mission. Staggering along, looking for a certain door with a special plate. He wasn’t used to the lights being on down here, which almost made it harder to navigate, for some reason.

  A door ahead opened, and a guard spilled out into the hallway. Look of total shock on his face at seeing Diego limping along.

  Diego raised his pistol and shot the guard in the head. One blast and he went down. Diego snatched the man’s rifle and slung it over his shoulder. He probably wouldn’t need it for much longer, but better to be prepared.

  Then, he slogged along for another ten minutes, until he found the door with the special gold plate. Before pressing his card against it, he took one look back along the hall and sighed. He almost felt sad about leaving this place.

  A distinct memory from a couple years ago hovered in front of his eyes. The girl. She had worked in the dorm laundry facilities, and Diego never seemed to find a way to get close to her. She was always too busy. Then, he’d lobbied to bring her to the Reds. To make her a guerrero. He figured then, she would talk to him. She would see his leadership and get to know him as he took her under his wing and taught her how to survive on the battlefield. And it had started to work, too. He trained her personally for weeks, and she was warming to his charms. She would dine with him and smile at his jokes, and she had even started going on walks with him in the evenings. They were growing close. Then, in her first official battle, that pendejo Hamon eliminated her within the first two minutes of the round. She ended up last in the ranks, escorted away to the mansion. And Diego knew what happened to those serfs who were hustled inside the mansion.

  It had taken two years for Diego to exact his revenge on Hamon, but it was worth it. And now, he could put the memory of the girl to rest.

  But, it didn’t matter. He had to leave. Things had gone so bad here, no one could fix it. Better to let them burn it all to the ground and start fresh.

  Diego opened the door to the tunnel. The last tunnel, the one to lead him out underneath the plantación walls once again. But, this time, he was never coming back to this place. There was no need.

  “Let it burn,” he said as he entered the secret tunnel. “This is what you wanted? Then this is what you get.”

  Chapter Forty

  On the third floor of the mansion, Yorick paused in front of a grand door. He held up a hand to silence his three companions. Rosia flashed a sour smile as her eyes trailed over the
door. It was decorated with a large, golden letter W. Of course, the lord would be so arrogant and bold that he would broadcast to anyone which room was his private bedroom or office.

  A large framed poster had been hung on the wall, next to the door. Wybert, standing on the green in front of his mansion. Flowers surrounding him, deep purples and yellows. The caption below read Loyalty To Your Lord Always.

  No doubt the man was hiding in there. His elite personal guards were either dead or had fled. Anyone Yorick and his band had encountered on the way through the mansion had given up easily and ran. The tide had turned, at least inside the mansion. No one wanted to fight for a lord who, when faced with opposition, fled into the safety of his hiding hole.

  Yorick lifted a leg and waited until he had everyone’s attention, then he kicked the door in.

  A bullet whiffed toward him, and he felt like his ear had been set on fire. Warmth rushed down to his neck. Since his eyes shut from the impact, he couldn’t see who had shot him, or from where. But another burst of gunfire erupted from his left. His head thrummed from the proximity of the rifle blasts.

  When Yorick opened his eyes, Rosia lowered her rifle. Across this bedroom, Wybert sat in a luxurious gold high-backed chair, a rush of blood escaping his chest. He squirmed, trying to stem the blood leaking out. Whimpering, crying. His yellow jumpsuit streaked with red.

  The pistol slipped from his bloody hand and clattered to the floor.

  Tenney grunted, his eyes fixed on something nearby. Dozens of boxes of ammunition and weapons were sitting in crates. So, Wybert had known something would happen, or had at least suspected. He’d emptied the Quartermaster’s storage to prevent it from being stolen. That explained why the farm serfs hadn’t been armed in the numbers Tenney had said they would be. Also, it helped explain why the guards hadn’t slaughtered all the serfs immediately. Wybert had kept most of their supplies for himself.

  Tenney raced across the room and kicked the pistol out of the lord's reach. When Wybert leaned forward, Tenney slammed him back into his chair. The bleeding lord screamed in pain.

  “You pinche idiotas,” he said, seething. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

  Yorick raised his rifle. “Why did you allow us to continue, even after you knew we were sneaking around? Why call in King Nichol’s soldados if you knew?”

  The dying man tried to shrug. “I thought I could control it. I thought I still had a handle on everything.”

  “Why do the tunnels change?”

  Both Malina and Tenney looked at Yorick with a raised eyebrow.

  “Underneath the mansion,” Yorick said. “The layout is different every day. Why do the tunnels move?”

  Wybert tried to smile, even as blood leaked out of the corner of his mouth. “So, you did find your way underneath. I suspected you would. Did you locate the old classrooms, or did you wander around aimlessly?”

  “You know we found it,” Rosia said. “You know about the guard we killed by dropping your giant robot machine on him.”

  Wybert frowned, grimacing as his body shifted. “I honestly didn’t. I’ve been a little busy lately, if you couldn’t tell.” He looked down at the bloody mess of his shirt and cried. “Please, help me. Go get the doctor, please.”

  Yorick pushed the nose of his rifle into Wybert’s face. “The tunnels.”

  “The tunnels don’t move,” Wybert said. “Plates shift to make it look like it. You think you’re the first serfs to ever get the idea to rise up against a lord? It’s all part of the training, guerrero.”

  “Training?” Rosia said.

  “You have no idea,” Wybert said, coughing blood, which dribbled down his chin. “Not a single clue. Do you know how distasteful it was to bring those… those royal soldados here? How hard it was to convince the king all these years that our little war games were only for fun? And with the king’s men here, how it was nearly impossible?”

  Yorick’s mind raced. He had no idea if he could trust the words coming out of Wybert’s mouth. This manipulative liar would say anything to regain his footing.

  “If it wasn’t for your enjoyment,” Rosia asked, “then why? Why do it at all?”

  Wybert coughed and sat back, saying nothing. Malina lifted a hand to smack him, but Yorick said, “Stop. You’ll kill him.”

  “So?” Malina said.

  “We’re not done with him yet.”

  “I’m not sure if I care,” Malina said, her jaw set. Tenney wrapped an arm around her chest and pulled her back. Malina allowed him to relocate her a meter away, where she silently fumed, gripping the stock of her rifle like she wanted to break it into pieces. Odd to see Malina give such an overt display of outward emotion.

  “Why did you do it all?” Yorick said, leaning forward on the question. “Where are Hamon and the other last-place guerreros? Are they in a mansion dungeon room somewhere? In the tunnels?”

  Wybert had to lick his lips a few times to answer the question. “No, they’re not here. I did them a favor by killing them.” Wybert’s chest heaved as his words became rambling and labored. “They couldn’t survive outside these walls. You have no idea what’s out there in the real world, but, you’ll tear down everything to find out, I suppose.” He paused, grunting against the pain. “Please. Get the doctor.”

  His breaths sped up, almost to a fever pace, then hitched a few times. His eyes rolled back into his head as he seized in the chair. Blood spurted from his wounds once he took his hands away. The more he moved, the more his digits turned into claws.

  “No,” Rosia said. “What’s happening? Is he dying? He can’t die yet!”

  Wybert’s mouth shot wide open as his eyes fluttered and his breathing slowed. Then stopped.

  The lord was dead.

  Yorick set his rifle on the floor and knelt in front of the man. He reached around into Wybert’s back pocket, withdrew his handkerchief, and shoved it into the dead man’s open mouth.

  “Search the room,” Rosia said. “A gate key, or a computer panel, or something. There are still guards out there. Still army. Serfs still dying. We have to get these gates open, now.”

  Each of them stowed their weapons and explored Wybert’s bedroom. Yorick looked through drawers, finding an endless number of opulent shirts and pants. Jewelry and papers and all sorts of items, but no keys. No gate codes. No computer panels. Nothing to indicate how they were supposed to actually accomplish what they had set out to do this morning.

  A few minutes later, everyone joined back in the middle of the room, having come to the same conclusion at once. They would find no answers here.

  Then, Yorick’s mouth dropped open. He looked at Rosia, and her face lit up as if she’d also realized the same thing at the exact same moment. “The computers.”

  She grabbed her rifle. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  In the basement of the mansion, Rosia watched Yorick kick in the door to the room with the rows of computers. Except now, there weren’t only computers here. Where there had been a single robot, sitting dormant next to the door, now there were twenty of them, lining the walls.

  Tenney yelped and raised his rifle. Rosia put a hand out. “No, it’s okay. They’re sleeping.”

  She didn’t lower her own weapon, however. One robot was a strange sight, with its metallic surface and humanoid-like appearance. A novelty. But twenty of them sent a bolt of panic into her chest. Were they sleeping?

  But, another sound coming from a corner made her spin. Rosia noticed a woman at least twice her age cowering there, her hands against the walls. Short brown hair flecked with gray and a birthmark on the side of her face like a map. She was wearing a white coat that ran down to her knees. A badge clipped to the coat, with words in a language she couldn’t read. The same language Rosia and Yorick had seen on the walls of the tunnels after the lights had come on.

  Yorick pointed his rifle at her. “Who are you?”

  “A scientist,” she said, stammering her words. “A teac
her. Not someone who means you harm. Please. Please don’t shoot me. I’m not one of them. Please. I don’t want to be here.”

  “Where do you want to be?” Tenney said.

  “Detroit,” she said. “Please don’t hurt me. Wybert kidnapped me and brought me here to run his program after the last project manager passed away. I never had any choice.”

  Rosia eyed the woman, thinking. She believed her. Believed the fear on her face. A deep terror lived there that seemed impossible to fake. Still, she wasn’t going to let this woman leave.

  “What are you doing here?” Rosia asked.

  The woman flicked her chin at Rosia’s suit. “You’re guerreros.”

  Rosia tilted her head at Yorick. “He and I are. The other two worked the fields.”

  “Was that shooting outside and upstairs? What’s going on out there?”

  “Revolution,” Tenney said. “We rose up against the lord and his guards, and we won.”

  Rosia watched how the woman took this news. She didn’t seem disappointed or pleased. She stayed in that state of heightened fear.

  “I’m so sorry about what they did to you,” the woman said, tears now streaming down her face. But also, her shoulders slumped, maybe relieved, maybe thinking she was about to go home. But, Rosia still wasn’t about to let her walk out of here yet.

  “What did they do to us?” Rosia said. “You know something we don’t. What were these daily battles for? What was Wybert really doing?”

  The woman bit her lip. “Where is he now?”

  “He’s dead,” Yorick said. “Sitting in a puddle of his own blood in his fancy chair upstairs. His personal guards are either dead or trying to find places to hide. There’s no reason to keep his secrets any longer.”

  The woman breathed out so hard, she swooned a little. Her eyes dimmed. “He’s dead, really?”

  Rosia nodded. “Really.”

  “Okay, I’ll tell you. They weren’t games you were playing out there on the battlefield. You were teaching the software. Teaching it how to fight a war.” The woman tilted her head at the robots lining the room.