by Judd Vowell
“Yeah, we’re clear,” Laz answered.
“Except for the roof,” Jessica said. “If we’re going to check the whole building, then we need to check the whole building.”
“One problem,” Jacob said. “Door’s locked.”
Archer pushed his way through the crowd on the stairs and strained against the door, just as Laz had done. “Locked from the outside,” he said. “That’s strange. C’mon Laz, push with me. I think we can get it open.”
The two soldiers pushed hard into the large door and felt it budge a little, then break open completely. They both lost their balance as the door gave way, and they fell on top of one another. If they hadn’t, they would have certainly died on the rooftop that morning.
Four Omega XT soldiers had been waiting on the roof of the Kansas City building. The two Lefty soldiers who had been standing behind Archer and Laz in the doorway took the full brunt of their gunfire, killing them both instantly and knocking them backward into the rest of the group. Archer and Laz reacted simultaneously and quickly, drawing their handguns while still on the ground and returning fire at the four Omega XT. They killed two of them within seconds, sending one flailing over the side of the roof’s edge. The other two ANTs ran for cover behind a large air conditioning unit.
“You ok?” Archer asked Laz.
“Yeah, I’m good. You?”
“Just pissed. Let’s get these assholes.”
The two of them hopped up onto their feet and split apart, Archer moving to one side of the roof, Laz to the other. They moved in crouched synchronicity, slowly and quietly. When they were ten feet from the A/C unit, Archer motioned to Laz to stop where he was.
“Alright, boys,” Archer said loudly to the hidden Omega XT. “Nowhere to go, unless you’re planning on jumping. So come on out. Let’s end this peacefully.” He knew they wouldn’t. It wasn’t in their nature to go down without a fight. He knew because he had been one of them for a long time. And so had Laz. They each raised their weapons, waiting for the inevitable.
In a matter of seconds, the two Omega XT soldiers came out from behind the A/C unit, each holding two guns and firing at will. But Archer and Laz were waiting. They fired at the frantic ANTs and didn’t stop until they both lay motionless. Then they quickly checked the rest of the roof but found it empty. Laz went to the roof door to check on the others while Archer investigated the Omega XT bodies.
“Oh, no,” Laz said when he saw the two dead Leftys lying askew and backwards on the stairs. The rest of the group was crouched against the stairwell walls, scared to move. “It’s safe now. You guys can come on out.”
They slowly did. Anna was the first, then Jessica and Jacob. The other Leftys followed.
“Who were they?” Anna asked as she approached Archer.
“ANTI-,” he answered. “Omega XT.”
“What were they doing here?” she wondered.
“Hell if I know,” Archer said. Then he pointed to Jacob. “Why not ask him?”
Jacob quickly got defensive. “What’s that supposed to mean? You think I know what’s going on? After everything I’ve been through to get here?”
“Settle down, guys,” Anna said. “We’re all on edge. Just calm down. Before we try and figure out what’s going on, we need to find that second vehicle.”
“Or get the hell back to camp,” Jacob said.
“Shhh, everybody,” Jessica said. She was standing at the edge of the building’s roof, listening to the air. “I can hear something. It sounds like an airplane.”
Jacob listened closely and heard the noise, then looked up and west. He saw the first drone almost immediately. Then he saw more, flying low. It all came to him at once, what was happening and how he couldn’t stop it. The Omega XT on the roof had been spotters, first getting close to the camp to isolate exact longitude and latitude coordinates, then setting up on top of the building to verify the accuracy of the coming airstrikes. Camp Forager was under attack, but there wasn’t time to warn them.
He could barely speak as the drones flew overhead, so close that he could make out the missiles and bombs attached to their wings and bellys. “They were here to watch it,” he said to the others. “They were here to watch the end of Forager.”
The Reaper drones and their deadly cargo were on top of the camp two minutes later. By the time their attack was finished, there was nothing left below. No hotel headquarters. No baseball or football stadium. No stockpiled vehicle or collected piece of training equipment. No Daniel or McKay or any other Lefty still alive.
And the group on the roof could only watch as the rubble of Camp Forager burned.
PART FOUR: COUNTERSTRIKE
1.
T he small group of Leftys stood atop the roof of the former Kansas City office building in shock. It had been barely an hour since they left Camp Forager and its resident rebels to investigate the strange visitors from earlier that morning. Now the camp was gone, ANTI‑’s Reaper drones having destroyed it in a matter of minutes. No one spoke as they watched its remnants burn.
The dead Omega XT soldiers on the rooftop with them had been there to watch the attack and verify its success. But there was still another group of Omega XT somewhere in the city, watching and verifying from somewhere else. Archer slid up next to Anna so that he could talk to her quietly.
“I’ll take Laz,” he said into her ear. “We’ll find the other group. We’ll take care of ‘em.”
Anna didn’t break her gaze from the distant burning camp. “Leave one alive,” she said. “I’ve got questions.”
Archer and Laz left the rooftop and descended the stairs of the building. When they got to the street, the other Leftys were waiting. That group had seen the drones fly overhead, but not the attack that the fleet of unmanned aircraft had inflicted on Forager. Each of them held a look of combined tension and curiosity. Archer realized that news of ANTI‑’s attack would anger them. He decided to use what he was going to tell them as motivation. The Leftys gathered around him and Laz as they approached the vehicles still parked on the street.
“No need to beat around the bush here, guys,” Archer said. “Forager’s gone. Bombs, missiles. They took it out with a drone attack.”
The men’s faces turned to looks of astonishment. They didn’t believe it. “Impossible,” one of them said with confidence. “No way they could pull off something that big.”
“Believe it,” Archer said. “We just witnessed it happen.”
He waited a few seconds to allow their shock to turn into rage. It was a progression that happened inside everyone in times of tragedy.
“DAMMIT!!!” one Lefty screamed. That’s when Archer knew he could proceed.
“I know. I’m angry, too,” he said. “But we’ve got work to do. We’ve eliminated the threat in that building. Now we’ve got to find the second group of ANTs.”
The Leftys suddenly showed focus. That was another part of the tragedy progression. Give the rage a focal point. Archer now had a platoon of vengeance-driven soldiers. They loaded into the humvee and the converted pickup truck, and they set off hunting Omega XT.
ΔΔΔ
Not long after the Leftys began their search, the other ANTI- reconnaissance vehicle passed on a perpendicular street in front of them, traveling with speed south through Kansas City’s desolate downtown. Laz was driving the Lefty humvee with Archer in the seat next to him and two Lefty soldiers in the backseat. He jammed the gas pedal to the floor to catch up. The Lefty driving the pickup behind him did the same. They both turned sharply onto the same street as the Omega XT, their oversized tires screeching as they grabbed the asphalt. Laz could see that they were only a few hundred yards behind the fleeing ANTs. He gassed the humvee as hard as he could.
They caught up to the Omega XT just as they were merging west onto an elevated portion of the interstate that led out of the city. Laz stayed close, passing 100 miles an hour just to keep up.
“What’s the move here?” he yelled to Archer across the ve
hicle’s console.
“Don’t know yet,” Archer yelled back. “But we need to stop ‘em before they get where they’re going. Could be a hotbed of these assholes waiting somewhere ahead.”
“Just tell me where you want me to go.”
“Get beside ‘em,” Archer instructed. “On the driver side.”
Laz pushed the humvee’s roaring engine to its limit. It was just enough to gain on the Omega XT and put Archer right next to them. With no reason to suspect anyone following them, the ANTs had not expected the Leftys’ pursuit. Their surprise almost instantly turned to aggression. The closest backseat Omega XT pointed an assault rifle out his open window and began firing in rapid bursts. Laz veered left and slowed abruptly to avoid the bullets, then sped back up to maintain his speed and not lose any ground. He did it all in one quick motion, and they were back on the Omega XT’s tail bumper without interruption.
“Well that worked out well,” he yelled sarcastically. “Any other bright ideas?”
“Yeah,” Archer yelled back, pointing ahead through the windshield. “Watch out!”
Two of the Omega XT were leaning out of their windows, one on either side of the vehicle. The opened fire on the Leftys simultaneously. Laz and Archer could hear the sounds of high-velocity bullets piercing the metal grille and hood of their humvee. Some of the shots started to come through the windshield. Archer ducked just before his passenger seat’s headrest exploded in a flurry of cheap foam and shredded cloth. The Lefty sitting in the backseat behind him took the same bullet to his neck. Blood from his carotid artery sprayed across the inside of the vehicle. He died within seconds.
Laz lowered his body behind the steering wheel so that he could protect himself but still see to drive. His instinct had been to slam on the his brake pedal, but he knew the other Leftys’ pickup truck was directly behind him. And he knew a sudden stop at that speed would result in a deadly collision. He had no good option, and he didn’t know what to do.
“Get us the hell out of this!” Archer yelled from the passenger-side floorboard.
Bullets were still pounding against the metal and glass of the humvee. Laz knew it was only a matter of time and aim before a tire might blow or engine valve lock or motor belt split. When that happened, stopping would no longer be a choice. It would be a certainty.
But before anything like that could happen, the spray of bullets from in front of them ceased, just as a separate spray of larger and deadlier bullets began to flow from behind. The Lefty soldier manning the pickup’s .50-caliber machine gun had finally reacted, firing relentlessly at the ANTs.
The Omega XT who had been firing from their vehicle disappeared back inside. The ANTs swerved one way and then the other, but the Lefty gunner stayed with them, keeping his nonstop stream of bullets on top of them. As the Omega XT driver tried a third time to move out of the machine gun’s aim, he lost control of his vehicle. Laz and Archer watched it happen, having raised themselves back up from their defensive positions. The driver turned too sharply, and the ANTs’ vehicle raised up onto its two passenger side wheels. It seemed to move forward and sideways in that position in slow-motion before it finally fell onto its side. Then its momentum took it into a horrendous series of rolls and flips down the raised interstate. It finally came to rest on its roof, some fifty feet away from where the Leftys had stopped their two vehicles to watch its tragic end.
“I sure hope one of those guys survived,” Archer said with a laugh to Laz. “Otherwise, Anna’s gonna be one pissed-off woman.”
2.
A fter the drone attack on the rebels’ camp was complete, Quinn rose from the leather chair in Salvador’s Philadelphia penthouse where he had watched it unfold. He felt sick to his stomach, dazed by witnessing the death of his granddaughter. He hoped she had died instantly, in one of the first explosions, before fear and panic could overtake her.
“Now that’s what I call a response,” Salvador said. “Let’s see them challenge us again after that.”
Quinn walked slowly back to the bar, his head light and swimming. He poured more whiskey in his glass, this time without ice. He drank it all in one gulp. “Yeah, you sure showed them,” he said.
“You disapprove, I take it?” Salvador asked.
“Yeah, Salvador, I disapprove.”
“And how would you have reacted, Quinn? You who developed my elite fighting force? You who advocated violence and death for our initial takeover? What would you have done?”
“I don’t know what I would have done, Salvador,” Quinn said with frustration brewing in his voice. “But I know this: you let rage and revenge cloud your decision today. We need to learn from this group of rebels so we can prevent any future rebellions. All you’ve done today is lose the upper hand. And I fear that you’ve stirred up a hornets’ nest.”
“What nest?” Salvador asked. “I’ve just eliminated most of the hornets in a single attack. And we’ll still be watching the other bases. We can still learn from them. But now they know just how powerful we can be.”
“They sure do,” Quinn said. He placed his cocktail glass on the counter of the bar. He walked to the elevator door and pressed the button next to it. When the doors opened, he stepped into the elevator and selected the “L” button. And as the doors slid closed, he looked at Salvador, who was standing in front of him with a smile of satisfaction across his face.
3.
A nna gathered up the Leftys on the rooftop after Archer and Laz left to find the other group of ANTs. The shock of what they had seen was beginning to wear off, with anger rapidly replacing it.
“I don’t know what to say, guys,” Anna said. “I really don’t.”
Jacob spoke up. “One thing’s for sure: we need to get off this roof. Those drones could’ve spotted us.”
“Good call,” Anna said. “Let’s move.”
The group turned toward the rooftop’s exit, following Anna’s instruction.
“Wait a second,” Jessica said. They all stopped. “Does everybody feel something different inside of them right now? Something painful, something that feels like it wants to jump out of your body?”
Nobody said anything. But they didn’t move either. They were listening closely to what she was saying.
“Remember this feeling,” she continued. “Because one day soon, you’re gonna need it. Don’t ever forget what happened here today.”
With that said, she walked to the roof’s only doorway and disappeared into it. The others soon followed, inspired again by the young girl who seemed to know so much.
ΔΔΔ
Archer and Laz and the Lefty soldiers with them approached the wrecked ANTI- vehicle with their guns drawn, even though it was likely that none of the Omega XT had survived the dramatic crash. The vehicle was on its roof, and its undercarriage was smoking from some hidden flame.
“Let’s get this done quick,” Archer said, pointing to the smoke. “We may not have much time.”
They spread out and surrounded the vehicle, crouching to their knees to see inside. No one inside was moving. They pulled each one of the ANTs out and dragged them away so that they could investigate their bodies.
As they removed the goggles and face masks from the two Omega XT who had been in the front seats of the vehicle, they could see just how violent the crash had been. The trauma to their heads had been devastating despite their protective headgear. Blood was coming from their noses and mouths and ears. The first two Omega XT soldiers they inspected were dead without doubt.
The other two, who had been in the backseat, the ones who had been shooting at the Leftys, had not suffered as much. The first one didn’t show any trauma at all to his head, but he wasn’t breathing either. One of the Leftys felt for a pulse. He looked up at the others and moved his flattened right hand across his throat. The soldier was dead, probably from some grievous internal injury.
That left one more Omega XT soldier to uncover. When they removed his helmet to see his face, he appeared as unconscious a
nd likely dead as the others. But suddenly he gasped and opened his eyes wide. He sat up, his arms flailing and hitting the Leftys next to him. They quickly grabbed his body and forced him back to the ground, pressing down on him aggressively.
“So we got ourselves a live one, huh?” Archer said. He leaned over the Omega XT’s face, which was showing no sign of calming down. “You don’t know how lucky you are, brother. ‘Cause you get to meet our good friend Anna.”
They loaded the surviving soldier into the bed of the pickup, stuffing him into a space next to the massive machine gun. Then they headed back into the empty city. As they drove off, the ANTI- vehicle suddenly exploded behind them in a ball of fire and smoke. Archer looked back over his shoulder. The three dead Omega XT still lay motionless in the middle of the barren interstate, just where the Leftys had left them.
4.
A nna had regained her sense of leadership by the time she reached the bottom floor of the Kansas City building. She sent the Lefty soldiers who had stayed behind with her and Jacob and Jessica back to the decimated Camp Forager. She had them take the bodies of the two Leftys who had perished in the rooftop battle with them. She told them to inspect the entire camp once they got there. If there were survivors, bring them back to the city. If not, bury the two dead Leftys on the camp’s grounds and come back by themselves. And do it all before sunset.
The Leftys loaded the bodies of their dead comrades into the converted cargo van. They turned the vehicle around and drove back toward what was left of Forager. Jessica, Jacob, and Anna stood by themselves on a quiet street in a deserted city.
“Now what?” Jacob asked, his question echoing off the buildings surrounding them.
“Now we wait,” Anna answered.
“Where exactly did Archer and Laz go?” he asked her.
“To find me a rat,” she said. “And knowing them, that won’t take long.”