by M. R. Forbes
“How’d you learn to pick locks?” Jake asked.
A motorcycle passed close by, the thump of its motor drowning out her answer. Someone shouted, and the gunfire increased, some of the rounds finding the more vulnerable roof of the transport. The slugs pierced the metal, digging into the floor nearby.
“Shit,” Jake said.
“What the grep are you worried about?” Chains said. “You have the grepping armor.”
She kept her hands working, manipulating the pins inside the lock. The shouting, engines, and gunfire continued to swirl around them, a chaotic maelstrom of violence that threatened to swallow them at any second.
“I thought you knew what you were doing?” Jake said, his nerves frayed.
“Does this look easy to you?” she snapped back. “Shit. Just give me one. More. Second.” She turned one of the pins, and the lock clicked open, the chains falling out of it and setting Hayden free. “Hell yeah!”
Hayden shrugged out of the bonds, trying out the mechanical hand. It was still functional, but he could tell he didn’t have the same fine motor control over it. He looked over the downed transport, finding Helks’ revolver on the floor. He picked it up and turned back to the others.
“Put the chains against the pole and put your heads down,” he said.
“How’s your aim, Sheriff?” Jake asked.
“Good enough. Do it.”
Chains and Jake did as he said. He took a moment to steady his hand and then fired, the first round snapping Chains’ restraints. She smiled as she rubbed her wrists.
Then something else exploded.
The force of the blast shook the transport, sliding it back a meter on its side and knocking them off-balance. They all tumbled to the ground, scurrying to get back up as a wave of heat washed over them.
“They’re going to bring a damned goliath coming with all the grepping noise,” Chains said.
A pair of feet landing on the side of the transport. Then a head appeared near the dirty glass, looking in at them. It was wearing a USSF helmet, the owner barely visible through the tinted faceplate.
“Seriously?” Hayden said, recognizing her.
Wiz knocked on the glass and waved.
32
“YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING ME,” Chains said, looking up at the owner of Crossroads.
Hayden didn’t say anything. He aimed the revolver and pulled the trigger, the bullet punching through the window and hitting the edge of Wiz’s helmet with enough force to back her off the vehicle.
“Jake, hold up your wrists,” Hayden said. “Chains, grab Helks’ rifle.”
She was already reaching for it, leaning over the Scrapper’s corpse.
Jake put his hands up against the pole. Hayden fired, missing the lock but snapping the chain holding the restraints to the transport. He cursed softly, shifting his aim to try again.
Something hit the top of the vehicle, small and dark and shaped like a projectile.
“Get down!” Hayden shouted, throwing himself to the ground. He put his hands over his head, covering his ears as the device detonated, the explosion peeling away part of the transport’s roof.
He couldn’t see anything through the smoke. Wiz and her soldiers were out there. He knew that much.
“Shoot at anything that moves,” he said to Chains, quickly checking the cylinder of his revolver.
Three rounds.
Not enough.
Not even close.
He stayed low, moving along the side of the bus to where the Oversergeant’s body had landed. The man was a mess of broken bones; his face smashed, his arm twisted awkwardly. His revolver was still in its holster, and Hayden grabbed it as Chains started to shoot.
Wiz didn’t shoot back. She had come all the way out here to get him. She wanted him alive. Then again, if that were true then why the hell had she blown up the transport?
Three soldiers in Marine body armor moved into the smoke-filled space. They had abandoned their rifles for batons, and they charged toward Jake. Hayden aimed for the weak spot near the neck and fired a single round, hitting the shoulder of the soldier instead. At this range, it was enough to hurt, but not enough to pierce the shell.
Jake fell back from the attackers, swinging the loose chains of his captivity at them. They raised their batons to block, splitting up as they got a clearer view of the transport’s innards.
Hayden fired again, missing a second time, the smoke burning his eyes and messing up his aim. The round hit the soldier’s faceplate, scuffing the transparency as it ricocheted off. He lowered the weapon, squeezing his mechanical arm to extend the claws.
Nothing happened.
He squeezed again, but the claws remained retracted. The pins he had removed helped control the mechanism, and now it was broken.
The soldier reached him. Hayden threw a heavy punch instead, surprising the man and hitting him on the side of the helmet, the force knocking him away. He saw Chains coming under attack, her defense useless against the superiorly outfitted enemy. She put up her arm to block the baton, the weapon striking the chains and sparking. The strike must have hurt because her arm fell dead at her side.
Wiz’s soldier grabbed her by the throat, holding her and raising the baton again. He didn’t see what happened next, forced to duck away from his attacker, barely avoiding getting hit in the head. He fell backward, tripping over the bars in the windows, rolling to the side to dodge the baton. He raised the revolver to fire, in hopes of distracting the soldier, but the baton hit his hand, a shock coursing through it and making it numb, causing him to drop the weapon.
He put his mechanical hand up, blocking the next blow with it. The soldier straddled him, raining strike after strike down with the weapon, a spark flying between it and his hand with every hit.
Suddenly, almost miraculously, the attack stopped. Hayden watched a large, metal hand wrap around the soldier’s helmet and twist, the motion snapping his neck and killing him instantly. Hayden could see the robot as the body fell beside him. It was turning back to the other soldiers, bullets uselessly hitting its armored shell from outside.
Hayden pushed himself to his feet, grabbing the rifle attached to the soldier’s back. He moved behind the robot as it reached the soldier holding Chains. He dropped her to face it, trying to back away. Its arm shot forward, a heavy blow slamming into the soldier’s chest and knocking him hard into the floor of the vehicle. It turned away, to where the last soldier was pulling an unconscious Jake from the wreck.
More rounds were pinging off its shell, most of them concentrated around its head. They were trying to shoot out its camera eyes. Hayden shot back at them past the machine, not expecting to hit anything but managing to diminish the incoming fire.
He remained behind the robot as it cleared the destroyed transport, moving out into the open in a swirl of smoke and ash. Hayden scanned the area, finding the Scrapper cars all tipped over, and in pieces, the riders and drivers left as corpses on the ground. There were wrecks of motorcycles around the area, too, the battle not winding up completely one-sided.
Some of the Scrappers were still alive, hunkered down near the tank and firing from its heavily armored flanks. Wiz’s soldiers had them pinned there, their superior armor and weapons giving smaller numbers the upper hand. The truck filled with spoils from the Pilgrim was sitting behind it, almost daring the Collector and her people to try to reach it.
The robot moved across the battlefield, taking a path that made it clear it was aware of his presence, and it was leading him toward safety. Only there was nothing safe about where it was going. The machine was taking him from one captor to another, the two sides fighting over him to open a hatch he had no way of opening.
He broke away from the robot, rushing back toward the transport to where Jake was still lying prone on the ground. Neither side fired a shot at him, but he caught motion out of the corner of his eye and saw two of Wiz’s soldiers running his way.
The machine saw them, too. It sped up its
movements to intercede, getting between them and him. He backed away, returning to Jake as Chains joined him.
“At least they don’t want to kill you,” Chains said.
“We need to steal that truck,” Hayden replied, motioning to it.
“Screw the truck,” Chains said. “We need that tank. Leave him here.”
“I’m not leaving him.”
“We won’t. Trust me.”
Hayden only spared an instant to think about it, and then he nodded. The two of them broke from their position, rushing toward the line of Scrappers next to the tank. The robot charged along with them, trying to keep up and block Wiz’s soldiers from a clear line of sight on them.
The Scrappers held their fire when they saw Hayden and Chains approaching, assuming he preferred them to Wiz.
Assuming wrong.
He opened fire on them at close range, the Marine rifle spitting out rounds in a hurry, the force of the shots nearly tearing the unarmored Scrappers apart. They went down in a line, one after another, the last few doing their best to run but not making it very far.
Hayden spun back toward the robot. Had his ambush changed its decision not to hurt him? It was coming toward him, but without facial expression, it was impossible to know what it would do.
“Sheriff,” Chains said.
She was already on the side of the tank, climbing toward the hatch on the top. Wiz must have guessed what they were planning, because her soldiers changed their aim, firing on the small woman instead. She cursed and ducked behind the turret, the bullets bouncing off the other side.
The robot was getting closer, and showing no sign of slowing as it neared Hayden. He aimed the rifle at its head and pulled the trigger, only then noticing the display’s announcement that the magazine was empty.
He threw the weapon aside, diving away from the robot as it stretched out its hand to grab his arm. He rolled on the ground, to the corpse of one of the Scrappers. A revolver was resting beside the man’s dead hand, and Hayden grabbed it, rolling to a knee and facing the robot.
It lunged at him again, and he fired, two rounds in quick succession. The first pierced its left camera eye. The second, its right.
He jumped away from it as it came to a sudden stop, suddenly unable to process the world around it. A light in the center of its head flashed a few times and then became a solid blue.
It started moving again.
What?
Hayden didn’t waste more time. He started scaling the tank. Wiz’s soldiers were moving in, getting more daring now that he had taken out so much of the Scrapper’s defense. He met Chains near the top of the tank, staying low as they inched to the hatch.
“How do we get in?” he asked.
“We can’t unless someone comes out.”
“Don’t you think you should have mentioned that before? Why the hell would anyone come out?”
She smiled as the lock on the hatch clanged open.
“To pull you in and save your life,” she said.
The large lid swung up and open, and Commander Ales emerged, holding his gun right in Hayden’s face.
“Don’t think of doing anything-”
Ales was cut off as Chains punched him in the side of the head with a metal-wrapped fist. He crumpled beneath the blow, falling off the ladder and into the tank.
“Idiot,” she said. “Armed Sheriffs first.”
Hayden dropped over the edge of the hatch, bypassing the ladder and landing on the floor. There were three more Scrappers inside, and two of them shot at him as he landed, their bullets coming dangerously close but missing. He shot back, his aim vastly superior to theirs, each slug catching one of them in the chest.
He rushed to the front of the tank as the driver pulled his weapon and turned to shoot.
“Don’t,” Hayden said, holding his weapon out at the Scrapper.
The man let his gun fall to the ground and slowly started raising his hands.
“Good choice,” Hayden said.
The Scrapper lunged at him, reaching down and grabbing a knife. He slid it across Hayden’s forearm, cutting into his coat but not through. Hayden pressed the revolver to his gut and pulled the trigger, the Scrapper going limp in his grip.
“You shot the driver?” Chains said, catching up with him.
“He tried to stab me,” Hayden replied, showing her the cut on his coat. “You’re a Driver. Can’t you steer this thing?”
“It’s a tank, not a car. Shit.” She settled into the driver’s seat. “I’ll see if I can figure it out. Go close the hatch.”
Hayden rushed back through the tank, hitting the ladder and starting to climb.
A soldier appeared above him, preparing to climb down while he was going up. Hayden grabbed them, pulling them roughly into the tank and tackling them, falling on top of them as he dragged them to the floor.
The soldier struggled beneath him, trying to pry him off. Fists flew up at his face, one of them hitting his jaw and knocking him off-balance. He recovered quickly, reaching out with his replacement and wrapping it around the soldier’s neck.
They stopped moving instantly, the stillness allowing Hayden to get a look at the face. Her face.
Wiz.
“I think I’ve got it!” Chains cried, the tank jerking forward. “Did you close the hatch?”
Hayden looked up at the hatch above him, at the same time something heavy connected with the side of the tank, its weight enough to bounce the machine on its treads.
However it was still able to see, the robot was coming to get him.
“I need to close that hatch or the machine is going to kill all three of us,” he said to Wiz. “Do you understand?”
She stared back at him, considering her next move.
“It’s a roid, Sheriff,” she said. “It doesn’t think on its own.” She motioned toward Ales with her eyes. “Commander Ales has its control transceiver.”
Hayden looked over at the unconscious Commander.
“What does it look like?”
“Get off me, and I’ll find it for you.”
“You were trying to kill me.”
“No, I was trying to capture you. I lost, you won. Like you said, either we close the hatch or tell the Butcher to stop, or we’re all going to be trapped in here until we die. Either way, you have to get off me.”
“Butcher?”
“Late model. Early twenty-second century, produced probably ten years before the Space Force finally fell apart. They were supposed to be our best hope to fighting the trife because they’re damn near unstoppable.”
“So what happened?”
“We lost the infrastructure to maintain them. It doesn’t matter if it can kill a million trife if its batteries die and nobody is there to charge them. Do we have to talk about this now?”
The Butcher was on the top of the tank, each lumbering step vibrating the thick shell. It would be at the hatch in seconds.
Hayden rolled off Wiz, watching as she scrambled to Ales and started patting down his clothes. She reached into a pocket, producing a small black box with a dim display.
The Butcher made it to the opening. It was too big to fit through, but it had picked up a gun from somewhere, and it stuck its arm into the hole.
Wiz and Hayden stared at one another. They both knew she could order the Butcher to kill him.
She raised the device toward her helmet, opening her mouth.
Chains grabbed the box from her hand, sneaking around her and yanking it away.
“Stop,” she said. “Cancel all orders.”
The Butcher stopped moving above them.
Hayden and Wiz both looked at her. The tank was still moving, but nobody was at the controls.
She tossed the box to Hayden. “I knew you couldn’t trust her,” she said, before rushing back to the front of the vehicle.
Hayden held the transceiver and the revolver.
“What do you say we negotiate the details of your surrender?” he said.
&n
bsp; 33
THE WORLD OUTSIDE had fallen into silence when Hayden, Chains, and Wiz emerged from the tank. The battle was over, the Scrappers all dead or otherwise incapacitated. Commander Ales was still out cold, but that hadn’t stopped them from restraining him inside the armored vehicle, tied to the metal post of one of the seats with the shoelaces from his boots.
Chains went to find Jake, while Hayden and Wiz stood together on the turret, looking out at the destruction. The area around them was a scorched mess of slagged metal, destroyed vehicles, and bodies. Even the Marine body armor hadn’t been enough to save all of Wiz’s soldiers.
“I already told you, I can’t get you in,” Hayden said. “Was it worth it?”
She stared out at the destruction and shrugged. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
“King isn’t going to be happy with what you did here.”
“He’ll never know it was me.”
“Who else has so much old military equipment?”
“True. It looks like we’re both on the wrong side of King’s favor now, doesn’t it?”
Hayden raised an eyebrow, turning to face her. “Are you talking about a truce or an alliance?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “I’m starting to wish I hadn’t locked you up. You came back to Crossroads. You didn’t have to.”
“I did. There’s no reason innocent people should die because of us.”
“That’s not a very smart way to look at things out here, Sheriff.”
“No? From what I’ve seen, your way doesn’t work all that well. Maybe injecting a little bit of honor and responsibility back into the world is the shot in the arm it needs?”
“There have been other people like you, who thought they could change the way of things by will alone. They all died.”
“Maybe I will, too. Maybe in less than three months. I can’t stand here and watch people get taken advantage of. I wasn’t made that way.”
“So what are you going to do now?”
“I’m still looking for Natalia. According to Ales, she and Ghost are on their way to Ports.”
Wiz’s face darkened. “Ports?” She shook her head. “Sheriff, you can’t go there. It’s death.”