Chapter 56
The soldiers stopped advancing. The one with the megaphone said something else: “Move away slowly from the robot!”
“We can’t! She’ll shoot!” I said.
“That’s a lie!” Akron Massey added.
I glanced back at him, glaring. Then my eyes darted to OneZero, willing her to play along. “Alex, tell her she needs to pretend that we’re her prisoners.”
“Ummm... nosotros necesitar ser tus prisioneros,” he said.
OneZero’s posture straightened at that, and her arms came up in a threatening posture. Green lasers snapped out, aiming at each of us. Before the soldier with the megaphone could say anything else, she spoke in an amplified voice of her own.
“Estas son mis prisioneros! Voy a llevarles a la frontera! Si tratan de impedirme, se les voy a matar.”
I understood something about prisoners, and frontier, which I guessed meant border. Whatever she’d said, it drew an immediate reaction from the soldiers. They began conferring among themselves, and the one with the megaphone passed it to someone else, who replied in Spanish.
“What did he say?” I asked.
Akron Massey ground out a reply, “He asked why it wants me.”
OneZero said something else.
“And that?” I prompted. My arms were getting tired from holding my hands up.
“She said it doesn’t matter why. All that matters is that she’s going to kill us if they try to interfere.”
“Logan, are you sure about this?” Kate asked.
“No,” I replied.
Harry stared at us in shock.
The soldier replied, again in Spanish, but this time Akron didn’t have to translate. I saw the soldiers retreating to their vehicles, and I felt cold steel jabbing me in the back. “Márchense!”
OneZero pushed us along to the back of the truck along with my family and Akron Massey.
“Todos adentro!” OneZero said, and gestured for us to get in. I waited for my kids and Akron Massey to go first. As I helped Kate up, one of OneZero’s arms strayed to the Hartfords, and her targeting lasers found each of them. “Ustedes también!”
“What did she say?” Harry asked.
“She wants you to get in the back with us,” Akron replied.
The Hartfords climbed in, and Harry glared at me. “Nice job. You’ve just killed us all.”
I was about to join them in the back, but OneZero pulled me away and pushed me along to the front of the truck. I guessed she needed a driver.
“Hey, ease up,” I said, but she just shouted at me in Spanish.
This charade was getting too real for my tastes.
* * *
I drove away from the launch facility with OneZero sitting hunched over in the passenger’s seat beside me. Glancing in my side mirror, I saw the convoy of army vehicles following us at a respectable distance.
If they somehow managed to neutralize OneZero without killing us, we’d be arrested for sure. Or at least I would. Akron Massey was witness to the fact that I’d put the robot up to this. I racked my brain trying to come up with an escape plan that didn’t actually involve crossing the Screechers’ border. Maybe the army would give up when they saw us getting close?
My heart pounded and I shook my head. What had I done? I’d made a bad situation worse and turned myself into a wanted criminal in the span of just a few seconds. Desperation and pressure were a bad mix. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if I just pulled over now and surrendered.
The window at the back of the truck slid open, interrupting my thoughts. Akron Massey’s head appeared. I wondered how he’d managed to open that window from the outside; then I noticed the charging cable dangling over the backseats.
“I have a family, too, you know,” Akron said.
“Tell us where Haven is and I’ll let you go.”
“Why? So you can lead the Screechers straight to it?” Akron demanded.
“We’ll be careful,” I promised.
“You can’t reach it, anyway. Haven is in the Gulf of Mexico. You’d have to cross the Screechers’ border just to get there.”
I wondered if that were true, and looked to OneZero with my eyebrows raised. I tried to remember the word she’d used for lying. Minty-something. “Minty...?”
OneZero managed to guess what I meant.
“No,” she said.
At least that word was the same in both Spanish and English. I nodded to Akron in the rear-view mirror. “Well, then I guess it’s a good thing I’m headed for the border.”
“They’ll kill us before we can cross it.”
“OneZero is one of them. She’ll convince them to leave us alone.”
“Are you willing to stake your family’s lives on that?” Akron asked.
I grimaced and shook my head. “Let me figure out where to go from here. The only thing you have to worry about is answering my question. Where in the Gulf of Mexico?”
“You think I have the coordinates memorized?” Akron demanded.
“If you don’t, then you’re going to have to come with us.”
Akron made an irritated sound. “Look, it’s approximately three hundred miles south of the Mississippi River Delta. There are two deep sea drilling rigs that mark its location.”
“How did you leave?”
“I took a submarine to New Orleans and drove North from there with everyone else.”
“So the submarine should still be in New Orleans?”
“No, the captain took it back. Like I said, there’s no way for you to get to Haven now.”
“We could steal a boat,” I suggested.
“Sure, assuming you can get there safely, and assuming that the Screechers don’t sink it or follow you after you leave the harbor. And I’m guessing you know how to skipper a ship?”
This plan was sounding worse by the second.
“Anyway, that’s your problem. I told you where Haven is. It’s your turn. Let me go.”
“How do I know you’re not lying?” I asked as I rejoined the I-40, heading west.
“You’re just going to have to trust me,” Akron replied.
I glanced in my side mirror and saw army vehicles racing up the on-ramp after us in a long line.
“Not good enough,” I replied. “Besides, I can’t stop yet. We’re being followed.”
Akron Massey blew out a frustrated breath and withdrew into the back of the truck. Before long, we were driving through West Memphis again. I passed the Days Inn and kept on going until we were through the city. I needed to figure out which road would take us South. Reaching over OneZero’s lap, I found our road maps in the glove box and pulled them out. I swerved dangerously a few times before finding the right map and arranging it in my lap. The nearest highway that would take us south was the AR-147. I took the exit to reach it at a place called Lehi, and the trucks pursuing us followed.
As I turned left down the AR-147 and drove through the truck stop that was Lehi, I checked the fuel gauge and saw that we were running on empty. It would have been smart to fill up while we’d been sitting there waiting for OneZero to come back. Unfortunately, I hadn’t imagined myself becoming the getaway driver in a car chase at the time.
I grimaced, hoping the Screechers’ border wasn’t far. I zeroed the trip counter to track the distance we traveled. We wouldn’t get more than fifty miles out of what was left, and that was under good conditions, but conditions were far from good. Snow covered the highway, and even after switching over to four-wheel drive, I couldn’t make more than twenty-five miles per hour without the truck threatening to swerve off the road.
About ten minutes later we passed the town of Midway Corner, and then ten minutes after that, we passed another one called Anthonyville. At that point, I could sense that we were running on fumes. We wouldn’t make it more than a couple more miles.
I looked to OneZero, about to express those concerns to her, but she was pointing to something on the horizon. I turned to look and saw a ragged line where the
horizon should have been. What is that? I wondered.
As we drew near, details began to emerge. It looked like some kind of wall. OneZero said something in Spanish that I didn’t understand. Before long I saw that it was made of snow-covered cars, their windows broken and doors falling off. This was what had happened to all the vehicles that hadn’t made it North. That wall stretched clear across the horizon from one side to the other as far as I could see. The wall rose at least two stories. One of the large four-legged Screechers stood over the highway, blocking a gap in the wall with a pair of the big hovering discs. OneZero held out one of her hands to me, palm up, as if to indicate that I should stop here. I applied the brakes and came to a halt some fifty yards from the wall, peering up at it, and marveling at the sheer number of vehicles before me. I wondered if the barrier stretched all the way from coast to coast already. It had only been a few days since the invasion began. How had they moved so many vehicles in such a short time?
Behind me, I heard a familiar megaphone voice call out to OneZero in Spanish, and saw the army vehicles behind us fanning out across the highway, blocking the way back.
I glanced at the Screecher tank in front of us, and despair gripped me. The army had called our bluff, and now we were trapped between them and the Screechers.
Chapter 57
OneZero made herself invisible and then opened her door. I watched the empty space where she had been, slowly shaking my head. What was she doing?
“OneZero?”
No reply came. I looked away, and all of a sudden saw her materializing in front of our truck, between the Screechers guarding the border and us. One of the hovering discs came down, growing rapidly in size as it approached. The center of the disc appeared to be a giant rotor blade, while the circumference formed a thick ring. The disc stopped just a few feet above the ground, and landing struts dropped down. A ramp lowered, and I saw one of the smaller dog-like Screechers emerge. It shrieked at OneZero, and she shrieked back. Six articulated arms unfolded to extend high above the robot’s spherical head. Green targeting lasers snapped out—one of them shining through the windshield to land on my chest. A dozen more targeted the army trucks behind us.
OneZero and the dog-like Screecher shrieked back and forth for a while before OneZero turned and waved to me, as if to indicate that I should come. Hope rose inside of me, and I sucked in a quick breath. Maybe she had convinced her people to grant us some kind of asylum.
“What’s going on?” Harry asked.
My eyes flicked to the rear-view mirror, and I saw him staring back at me.
“I think she wants us to drive across the border,” I said.
“No way. Don’t do it.”
“We don’t have a choice.”
“Yeah we do. Give yourself up and let us go.”
I hit the gas instead.
“Hey!” Harry said.
“If you get out now, the Screechers might shoot you,” I explained.
“As opposed to them shooting me later, when I’m their prisoner? Stop the truck, Logan. We’re leaving.”
“I agree,” Akron put in. “We need to go back before it’s too late.”
Maybe they were right. My foot left the gas and hovered over the brakes, hesitating. A flicker of movement in the side mirror caught my eye. One of the Army trucks was following us.
Just then, a thunderous boom cracked the sky, followed by a second one, and a flash of light in my side mirror. The truck behind us was a slumping ruin of molten metal, belching fire and black smoke from broken windows.
* * *
Thick black smoke poured into the sky, and no survivors emerged from the ruined army truck. I drove on, but more slowly now that I knew what lethal force the Screechers would apply for non-compliance. I heard Harry and Akron cursing in the back, but they didn’t ask me to stop again so they could get out.
I reached OneZero in a matter of just a few seconds, and then I was forced to stop anyway, because that disc-shaped aircraft was still blocking the highway.
OneZero came up to my side door and tried to open it, but it was locked, and the handle tore away in her hand. She tossed it aside and made a gleaming fist. I blinked in shock, and leaned away from the door just as she punched out the glass. Pea-sized fragments rained down in my lap, and OneZero opened my door from the inside. That done, she reached in and cut my seatbelt with a previously unseen accessory on one of her fingers. I landed hard in six inches of snow.
“What the hell was that for?” I demanded, struggling to get back up.
She kicked me in the gut and the wind left me in a rush. I lay there with my diaphragm paralyzed, desperately trying to suck in a breath. Horror clawed inside of me like a living thing trying to get out. Had I somehow misread OneZero’s intentions all this time? Or had she grown tired of our alliance and decided to flip back to her side again?
The dog-like Screecher walked over and trained some of its weapons on me with bright green lasers, while OneZero went around the back of the truck, her feet crunching in the snow. She said something in Spanish that I didn’t understand, and then yanked someone else out with an audible Oompf. I twisted around slowly, mindful of how many different guns were trained on me.
Akron Massey was lying in the snow, face-down, with OneZero’s claw-like foot planted on his back. The others piled out in a hurry to avoid being forced out like him. OneZero yanked Akron to his feet and shoved everyone along to reach me. I stood up carefully, catching dirty looks from both Akron and Harry—the billionaire’s face was red, and there were clumps of snow clinging to his eyebrows, lashes, and sweater. He wasn’t even wearing a jacket, and his loose-fitting slacks couldn’t have provided much warmth either.
“Nice j-job, Logan,” Akron said, shivering violently. “You’ve j-just made us p-prisoners of war.”
Before I could think of something to say to that, OneZero jabbed my wife in the back, and she cried out in pain, stealing my attention. She picked her way through the snow, holding both of our kid’s hands.
“I’m hungry,” Rachel complained as they walked by me.
There were dry snacks in the cooler, and plenty of canned food in the back, but I doubted OneZero would give us a chance to get it.
I looked to the robot and scowled. “Traitor.” She screeched something at me, giving new meaning to her species’ nickname. In the background behind her, through the billowing clouds of smoke from the ruined truck, I saw the army convoy speeding off. They’d given up.
OneZero screeched again and gave me a shove, forcing me to turn around and start marching toward the border with the others. Alex was walking with Celine now, instead of his mother, so I caught up to Kate and grabbed her free hand. She squeezed so hard that I felt my bones grinding together.
“What are they going to do with us?” she asked.
I just shook my head. I wondered the same thing. And why were we being made to walk on foot? The border crossing, even with that giant four-legged Screecher straddling it, looked more than big enough for our truck to drive across. Instead, we were trudging through six inches of snow to get there. I could feel it soaking through my pant legs, icy water trickling into my boots.
We reached the disc-shaped aircraft that had landed on the highway to speak with OneZero, and a buzzing roar thundered through the air. The aircraft hovered up with an icy gust of wind that made us stumble. I squinted up at the aircraft. Freezing wind continued to blast us from its rotor as it roared overhead. I twisted around to watch as it passed over us, despite OneZero’s prodding weapons and shrieking protests. The disc hovered over my truck and dropped articulated arms around it like tentacles. It looked like a jellyfish.
Those tentacles writhed, punching through windows with noisy bursts of breaking glass and twined around the truck’s roof and chassis.
“Hey!” I said, watching helplessly as it lifted our truck and all of our supplies into the air. The hovering disc rose swiftly. I gaped up at the bright blue sky, unable to tear my eyes away as the only
home we’d known for the past three days dwindled to a speck.
I had a bad feeling about where they were taking it. The disc zipped high over the wall of piled cars and then dropped ours on top. It fell with a crash and began rolling to the bottom, spewing containers of diesel, luggage, food, water, and everything else we desperately needed right now. By the time the truck came to a stop, it was a total wreck—roof flattened, chassis twisted, tires flat...
I stared hard at that twisted ruin, and slowly shook my head. This was a nightmare.
Another shriek pierced my ears and I felt OneZero jabbing me in the back again. This time she accompanied that jab with a violent shove that sent me sprawling, face-first into the snow. I emerged to the sound of Akron’s laughter.
“Karma’s a bitch!” he crowed.
“You would know,” I replied.
“Shut up! Both of you!” Harry snapped.
“Muévanse!” OneZero added, and fired a whistling stream of bullets over our heads to emphasize her point.
Chapter 58
April 28th, 3:15 PM
2 HOURS AND 15 MINUTES BEFORE
THE ROGUE’S ARRIVAL
We marched between the legs of the four-legged tank that straddled the highway. The monstrous machine was easily two stories high, and our heads cleared the bottom of the chassis with ease. I wondered if it was autonomous, or if it had other Screechers inside to control it.
On the other side of the wall buzzing black clouds flowed from piled cars to what looked like the foundation of a second wall, except that this one was solid and made of gleaming metal just like the Screechers themselves. Akron figured out what was happening before I did.
“They’re using the cars for p-parts to build a new wall,” he said, still stuttering with the violence of his shivers.
I marveled at how thick those swarms of bug-sized Screechers were. “If the entire border is like this, there must be trillions of the little ones,” I added.
“There’s no way all of them fit inside those landers,” Harry added.
He was right. But the explanation was right in front of us. “If they have assembler bots that can build a wall from cars, then they probably started by mass-producing themselves first. They’ve been stripping our civilization for parts to build their own.”
Rogue Star_Frozen Earth_Post-Apocalyptic Technothriller Page 27