by Isaac Hooke
“Guess we won’t be able to retrieve any useable components for your damaged arm servos,” Will sent.
“That’s fine,” Rhea told him.
The rest of the drone fleet took flight from the surrounding rooftops, and just like that they departed west, their numbers swarming away across the sky.
“They’re not leaving any forces behind at all?” Renaldo transmitted. “That’s strange.”
“Not really,” Will said.
“They decided we were killed by the bioweapons?” Chuck asked.
“Or they don’t care anymore,” Will said. “They only wanted the water. And figure the bioweapons can have us. It’s not worth the cost to extend their operation.”
“We have to assume they left at least some hunter killers behind,” Rhea said. “Perhaps even a predator drone.” Those were drones that flew at high altitudes, out of earshot, but still capable of raining down death.
“Predators have their own visual targeting system,” Will said. “If we don’t know where it is, we don’t know which areas are safe for travel.”
“If Gizmo isn’t able to detect this drone, it’s safe to assume it’s flying far too high for proper visual identification,” Horatio said. “It will be relying on the spy satellites for targeting data.”
“But is it truly safe to make such an assumption?” Renaldo asked.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Rhea said. “But it’s one we’re going to make. Unless you’d prefer to stay here, hiding inside this Tasin-infested city for the rest of your life?”
“Well no, but I just thought we could wait it out,” Renaldo said. “Like a few weeks or something, until we’re sure the predator has gone.”
“We don’t have enough food and water to last for more than a few days,” Will reminded the man.
“What if there’s a smaller hunter killer still hidden somewhere in the city?” Renaldo pressed. “Watching the streets from the window of a building, waiting to strike?”
“There could be, which is why we’re going to have to be very careful when we advance,” Rhea said. “With Gizmo clearing the route beforehand. Plus, if we travel at night, we force the enemy to use LIDAR to locate us.” She was assuming of course that the thermal masking clothing they wore would be operating correctly. “So we’ll have at least some advance warning of an attack.”
“Unless they decide not to use LIDAR,” Renaldo said.
“Then they won’t see us,” Rhea said. “But we’ll still see them. Hunter killers have a distinctive thermal signature.”
That answer seemed to satisfy Renaldo. For now. Though she knew there was tech out there that could almost completely mask a hunter killer on the thermal band. It was expensive, but still available; whether or not Aradne employed such tech, she couldn’t say. Either way, she decided not to share that bit with Renaldo. Especially considering that she wasn’t sure why she knew about it in the first place.
Rhea kept her eyes on the swarm. Soon the retreating drones had passed beyond the ruins and into the Outlands proper; the craft continued to recede into the distance, their dots barely discernible on the horizon.
“And so, we’re left alone once more,” Rhea mused softly over the comm. “With only bioweapons and hunter killers for company. Along with a certain scorpion-tailed cyborg.”
“Scorpion?” Will transmitted. “You mean monkey. And he isn’t the only cyborg with a sting.”
“No,” Rhea agreed. She touched the pistol at her hips, and then the X2-59 wristband. “He is not.”
15
Rhea decided to hunker down until nightfall before moving, because Tasins were most active during the day, and slept at night. However, even though all of the drones were now gone, the city was deceptively quiet down there.
“Where do you think they’re all hiding?” Will asked when he noticed her gazing at the carcasses on the streets.
“The bioweapons?” she replied. “I don’t know. My guess is the smell of their rotting brethren is keeping them underground.”
“I’m surprised they’re not feeding on the bodies,” Renaldo said.
Chuck scratched his chin. “I heard most bioweapons aren’t cannibals. They try to avoid eating within the same species. For the most part.”
“That’s not what I heard,” Renaldo said. “The mothers routinely eat their babies, especially when food is scared. Among all bioweapons. Tasins included.”
“How horrible,” Rhea said.
“Uh huh,” Renaldo agreed. “Speaking of food, does anyone have a fat pill to spare?”
Rhea reached into her pocket.
“No, Warden, I got this,” Chuck said. He tossed Renaldo a small pill. “Enjoy, Stick Arms.”
Renaldo swallowed it, and then took a swig from his canteen. His hunger temporarily sated, he appeared thoughtful. “I remember growing up in the slums with my brothers and sisters. We often talked about the adventures we’d have in the Outlands. We were going to be explorers, you see. It was a way for us to imagine a life outside the slums. A life where we’d live on the gourmet meals we saw livestreamed from Aradne. Meals of turkey, chicken, pasta, and gravy.” He sighed. “I never found that life. The closest I’ve ever had to a gourmet meal was a burger picked up from a vendor in the slums, for the price of ten creds, or almost an entire month’s wages. I’ve always had to subsist on food pills.” He glanced at Rhea. “You know, I was hoping we’d be able to make a difference for the people of Rust Town, you and I. Doing stuff like procuring actual meals for the settlement. But if fetching a week’s supply of water was this hard, I can’t imagine what it would be like to do anything more.”
“I’m not worried about procuring actual meals,” Rhea said. “Especially considering that most of Aradne subsists on food pills just like the denizens of Rust Town. Except the ultra-rich, of course. But that’s another matter. Right now, I’m focusing on what the population needs to survive. They have a profusion of food pills. That leaves only water.”
“What are we going to do when the water tanks dry up after a week?” Chuck asked. “Make another run?”
“We’ve already decided Aradne security won’t fall for the same trick twice,” Will replied.
Rhea realized everyone was looking at her, awaiting her response. She sighed.
“I don’t have all the answers,” she said. “I guess we’ll just have to deal with that when it comes. So many things could change between now and next week. Maybe we’ll have negotiated a water pact with the city. Or maybe we’ll find another way to get water. Anyway, first of all we should really focus on leaving these ruins alive.”
“Probably a good idea,” Will agreed.
The lot of them remained mostly silent for the rest of that day. They rested, recovering from the earlier tense moments. Gizmo kept an eye out, watching the northern and western approaches to the building, while Chuck and Horatio observed the southern and eastern sides, respectively.
Rhea didn’t let Will launch the drone into the air: she didn’t want to alert any enemy drones that might be watching unseen nearby. And of course, there was still the unknown threat the Scorpion posed.
The latter cyborg made no further appearances that day. Whether it was because he was too far away, or too severely wounded after his run-in with the bioweapons, Rhea didn’t know. But either way, she was glad not to have to fight again that day.
Night eventually fell. Horatio reported that the spy satellites passing overhead were near the southern horizon now, so that meant the team would have to stick to the northern side of the buildings. The green and red zones on the overhead map updated accordingly.
These satellites utilized infrared cameras to see at night, so in theory, with the clothing Rhea and the others had, they wouldn’t have to worry about being spotted. But nonetheless Rhea didn’t want to take the risk and informed her companions that they would continue to avoid the red zones.
“I can agree with that,” Will said. “I’ve heard that some of the spy satellites can fire focused
beams of LIDAR onto areas up to five hundred meters in diameter on the surface.”
“No, that’s impossible,” Chuck said. “The tech for that is years away.”
“Actually, it’s been available for quite a while,” Horatio said.
That news only further cemented Rhea’s mind on the matter. “We stay within the green zones.”
Chuck took point, and led the way to the street below, hugging the northern side of the buildings where the green zones were prevalent. Will followed, with Rhea in the middle, and Renaldo and Horatio bringing up the rear. She wouldn’t let the party members walk too close together and insisted on a three-meter separation between each of them as they made their way along the building walls.
While LIDAR would give away any enemies, it would also betray their own positions. Which is why Will sent Gizmo silently forward, well ahead of the rest of the party, and the drone released bursts at strategic intervals, transmitting the LIDAR data to Rhea and the others to see by so that their positions wouldn’t be revealed. They also kept their own communications nodes dialed way down, just enough to remain in contact with each other if they were forced to take cover.
Rhea would have preferred not to use any LIDAR at all, and simply rely instead upon the preexisting maps to the ruins, but that wasn’t possible, considering how much the streets had changed after the Aradne bombing runs, not to mention the drone attacks on the buildings. Plus, there was also a chance they’d wander in the dark onto a street occupied by sleeping Tasins: if they wakened one of the bioweapons while in their midst, that would be the end of the team. Actually, even without LIDAR, that wouldn’t happen: the feathered creatures would show up on the thermal band in the darkness. The living ones, anyway.
With the information Gizmo relayed, they weaved around house-sized blast craters that marred the sidewalks in front of some of the buildings and circumnavigated any carcasses. Even without being able to see the latter, the smell would have given them away.
The thermal masking clothing hid the party members on the infrared band, but it did require that they wore their hoods pulled quite low—which wouldn’t actually interfere with their vision, considering how dark it was. Rhea tightened hers at that very moment.
She did keep an eye on the buildings around her. Or their wireframes on the LIDAR, anyway. Just in case any enemies out there showed up on the thermal band.
Chuck led them toward the second fallback point, which was several neighborhoods away, near the outskirts of the ruins. Some kind of theater complex whose entrance had collapsed, making the inside completely invisible to the satellites above.
When they arrived, they found the complex still intact. Within, Gizmo reported that the SUV the advance team had parked there remained untouched.
“How do we know Aradne’s drones didn’t boobytrap it?” Renaldo asked.
“Because they never even got close to this area,” Will replied. “They were too busy searching the neighborhood where the tankers were last spotted.”
“You don’t know that for sure,” Renaldo said. “There could have been some drones out there we didn’t see. Scouting the city. Exploring all the places they saw the advance team go.”
“Except the advance team would have been very careful to take advantage of lapses in the satellite coverage,” Will reminded him. “Leveraging the ever-changing blind spots to leave the SUVs in entirely different neighborhoods than where the team was last spotted.”
That answer seemed to satisfy Renaldo, because he kept his mouth shut.
“I’ll handle the activation, just in case,” Horatio said.
The robot went into the theater complex alone and when he was close enough, he remotely started the SUV. Then he had it drive toward the entrance.
Though it seemed obvious that it wasn’t boobytrapped, Rhea had everyone keep their distance.
“All right,” Rhea told Horatio when the robot returned. “Send it on its way.”
She paused a moment to watch the self-driving SUV proceed down the street. It navigated the rubble, moving as quietly as possible and keeping its headlights turned off, acting for all the world like it carried passengers. The vehicle didn’t even release any LIDAR bursts, instead relying upon the map data Gizmo had collected.
As it navigated the streets, the vehicle purposely kept close to the northern sides of the buildings, staying within the green zone. It would be another minute before it finally entered the red zone on its way out of the city.
While she waited, Rhea decided to reposition for a better view. A mid-rise building had collapsed next to the theater complex, forming a ramp of sorts to the rooftop of the latter building. She led the group up the ruins of the collapse and onto the roof of the theater complex; staying low, she positioned on the far side, so that she had a good view of the autonomous vehicle as it continued past the different buildings toward the Outlands.
The SUV entered the red zone shortly. Now, although it was driving in “stealth” mode, the vehicle had no thermal masking whatsoever, and as such would definitely show up on infrared cameras.
She waited, watching expectantly. The seconds ticked past, but nothing happened.
“Guess it’s safe after all,” Chuck muttered.
And then the vehicle exploded.
“Spoke too soon,” Chuck said.
“They kept a predator drone in the area,” Horatio said.
“That’s the only explanation,” Rhea agreed. “They wanted to kill the instigators responsible for stealing water from the pipeline.”
“It’s definitely using the spy satellites for its targeting data,” Horatio said. “Otherwise, we would have been dead hours ago.”
“So what now?” Renaldo asked. “What does this mean for us? We can’t leave this city?”
“Not yet,” Rhea said. “We wait for the advance team to return this way.”
“What’s to stop this predator from bombing the convoy, too, when we emerge with them?” Renaldo pressed. “As a precaution?”
“Nothing,” Rhea said. “But they can’t be certain we’ll be a part of it. You have to understand: the advance team is going to time their entry to coincide with the hour when the streets are most screened from the spy satellites by the buildings. As far they’ll know, the convoy was just passing through, and didn’t collect any passengers.”
“She’s right,” Horatio said. “And besides, to destroy a convoy without direct evidence is a violation of the Outland Doctrine. They could be sued by the Civilians Rights Guild.”
“And we’re supposed to hope that’ll be a deterrent?” Renaldo asked.
“Given how much money the Guild has made in the past from such suits,” Horatio replied. “Very much so. Such a suit could bankrupt the city.”
“Oh,” Renaldo said. “Okay. But… this predator might be carrying combat robots with it. You know, units they can deploy to stop our convoy and initiate a search?”
“There’s no point in stopping the convoy,” Rhea said. “They didn’t record our IDs at any time during the fight, so they won’t be able to prove any of us are hitching a ride. And we’ll reactivate our public profiles of course when we rejoin the team, so Aradne security can’t say we’re hiding our identities.” Well, she wouldn’t reactivate her own profile, since it was associated with the Warden, but she didn’t want to mention that lest she give Renaldo yet something else to latch onto in his litany of objections.
“You’re forgetting someone, though,” Renaldo said. “The Scorpion. There’s nothing to stop him from attacking…”
“We’ll deal with him if and when the time comes.” Rhea’s left hand instinctively caressed the X2-59 strapped to her opposite wrist.
Those words silenced Renaldo, or perhaps it was the act of touching her X2-59—maybe he thought she was personally threatening him. Oh well, as long as he remained quiet, it didn’t matter.
Guided by the LIDAR bursts Gizmo released at strategic intervals, they made their way through the dark toward the third fall
back point. Chuck took point, as before, and hugged the northern walls of the buildings, staying within the ‘go’ zones. They deviated from those walls to swerve around debris and carcasses in their path, being careful to remain in the green. They had to pause at one point when a building terminated onto a street that was marked in red. They could have backtracked, but according to the overhead map, the swath of red was slowly being overtaken by green, and the way would open up again shortly.
So they waited, and after a half hour, the street became green, courtesy of the ever- changing positions of the spy satellites.
During the trek, Rhea routinely searched the wireframes of the surrounding buildings, looking for any aberrations on the thermal band. She saw nothing. If the Scorpion or any other enemy drones were out there, they were keeping themselves well hidden.
Gizmo was also actively scanning for thermal signatures in between LIDAR bursts, so that when Will called a halt, she suspected what he was going to report.
“Got a bogey,” Will said. “Sitting in the fourth-floor window of a building ahead.”
“Hunter killer?” Rhea asked.
“Looks like it,” Will replied. “According to the thermals.”
That answered the question about whether or not Aradne could afford thermal masking tech for its drones…
“Horatio and I got this,” Will continued. “Stay here.”
“No,” Rhea said. “I—”
He turned toward her. “Trust me. We got this.”
“Let them go,” Chuck said. “It’s better if we don’t risk everyone’s life.”
“You mean risk my life,” Rhea said. “The life of your precious ‘Warden.’”
Chuck didn’t answer her.
“We’ll be fine,” Will said. “Horatio, let’s go.”
And with that, the blue silhouettes of both continued forward, leaving the others behind.
She sighed. She should have never agreed to the silly title of “Warden.” She knew that eventually it would lead to situations like this, where others would risk their lives for her, based solely on her perceived value. She should’ve nipped the name in the bud when the citizens of Rust Town began using it. But instead she’d actively encouraged it and look at what it had gotten her. Her two best friends were risking their lives to take out a powerful sentinel drone.