Blowing out her cheeks, she braced herself. Her job was simple tonight: poke the beehive. Hit them hard enough to make them panic but not so hard they would give up without a fight. They wanted them to deploy their drones, exposing the machines to Arthur and Gibbs, who would piggyback onto their signals to take control of every machine on the East Coast. She listened to the music a moment longer, feeling better than she had in a long time, amazed she could have butterflies in her stomach from just a kiss, surprised to be high on life of all things. Then, focusing on the target, she plunged to the earth faster than she thought possible, shattering past the sound barrier, igniting the very air around her like a meteor falling from space, praying that all of this wasn’t for nothing.
***
The shockwave from Gwen’s impact washed over them with enough force to knock Arthur from his feet, bending trees, and sending anything not tied down careening through the air in a hail of dust and broken branches. He lay there for a moment, amazed at her strength, suddenly worried that he was on her bad side. With a grunt, he pushed himself to his feet, dusting off his black uniform. He could see Uriel and Gibbs along with most of the young men and women with him doing the same, their mouths agape at the display of power. Wearily, the main column lined up behind him as they stood waiting on the west side of the park, waiting for the signal that it was a go to engage the human troops holed up in the park. Arthur and Gibbs had disabled most of the visual surveillance the Russians had giving them an unrestricted approach. He could feel waves of tension radiating from everyone as they waited, the subtle sounds of occasional gunfire in the distance making him wring his hands with impatience. Then they heard it, a low hum at first, barely audible over the sounds of combat, the hive coming awake with an angry crescendo that made his heart pound as thousands of drones spewed out from whatever underground factory they came from. Their bright red sensors were glowing like bloody wounds across the curtain of night.
Watching the swarm descend toward them, Arthur felt pinpricks on his skull, sweat trickling down his temple. On their own and in small groups the winged machines were easy enough to control, but now there were more than he had imagined, so many that they cast an eerie glow over the park as thousands upon thousands of them spread out, hunting.
“Holy shit, that’s a lot,” said Gibbs, blowing out his cheeks, his eyes creased in worry. “Are you sure we can do this? With that many, this is going to be over really fast unless we can do what we say we can do.”
Arthur cocked his head, watching him speak, impressed by how quickly the words tumbled from his mouth. “We can do it,” he said, feigning confidence. “Just remember, you open the door, then let me take control and guide you as we practiced before.”
“Yeah, whatever. I’m not too comfortable being used as an amplifier to whatever freaky thing you called it. Just make it quick, ok?”
“If it comes to it, I can give us a few moments. I can overload their circuits, but they have to be close,” said Uriel behind them, a soft glow spreading from the sparks in his open palms.
“Understood. Everyone else, stay close and shoot anything that gets too close,” said Arthur, raising his voice before quickly switching his field of vision, allowing him to see the signals that controlled the drones. It came quicker now, the abandoning of the drab world of the mundane to that of matter, light, and energy. Opening his eyes, he could suddenly see the dark sheen that hung over the city like a haze of black smoke clinging to everything, and if he concentrated hard enough, details appeared in stark relief, waves of the strange energy flowing from the knifelike tower in the park, snuffing out all other sources of electricity wherever they touched. Only the glow from the people around him was apparent, blue currents of bioelectricity flowing like blood marking the shape of those near to him. Only Gibbs was different, a silhouette of pure darkness highlighted only by the crystals boring into his neck, snaking down his chest and back like a glowing tapeworm.
Steeling himself, Arthur gingerly touched the crystal on Gibbs’ neck, pressing his mind viciously against its formidable defenses. It was a strange sensation, linking with the crystal that lived on a man's neck. Gibbs began to hyperventilate, like someone having contractions, about to give birth, sweat flowing freely down his face. The crystal didn’t react like a machine being put to task, but more like a person being cajoled into doing something. It fought him every step of the way, like a stubborn child having a tantrum and not wanting to do as they were told. It took much longer than expected, but after a time, it relented. It felt like he had spent an eternity trying to squirm his way through a too-small space, only to suddenly fall through into a massive field. Without warning, he was in.
He took a moment to gawk, jaw hanging open as he watched the real world overlaid by bright streams of data flowing in waves from the crystal attached to Gibbs, outward to the larger sea of information, all flowing to the central tower. He understood immediately that what he saw as a blanket of darkness from the outside was bright, near-blinding when observed from the inside. Blinking away the brightness, he could "see" the way data flowed throughout the network, the speed of it all making his head snap and his breathing grow short. This was beyond what they had practiced, beyond anything he had ever seen before. There was too much here to understand. The data center he had pilfered at Iron Mountain looked childlike by comparison, making him feel like an illiterate trying to decipher Shakespeare, overwhelmed. Drowning in data, panic began to set in. Arthur came to the sudden realization that he had grossly underestimated the task, and his stupidity would kill everyone standing with him. They were all about to die in the most painful way as the drones removed their heads in a grotesque fashion.
***
Using the tree line as cover, they entered from the southeast, the bright moon shining through the trees casting claw like shadows. The night was windy and each gust of wind bent the old trees, their creaking branches making her jump in her own skin. Rowen had expected some kind of resistance—patrols, guard posts—but the entire area was strangely empty. Her role in the plan had been simple. While Gwen and Arthur were to be the blunt instrument pounding on the door to get their attention, she, Rodrigo, and a small group were to be the quiet knife in the back, crippling the Russians while their attention was elsewhere.
Moving deeper past the trees into what was once a large, open field, she could see that the Russians had been busy turning the green space into a muddy supply dump. It was filled with massive-armored personnel carriers and racks of unguarded drones of every shape and size, which thankfully provided ample cover for her small group to move undetected. Not that there seemed to be anyone to hide from.
“Where the hell is everyone?” Rowen asked Blake, who followed close behind, afraid to speak louder than a whisper.
“I don’t see anything on what's left of our surveillance drones,” growled the salt-and-pepper-haired man, his throaty whispers loud in the quiet dark.
“Don't get sloppy out there,” said a disjointed voice in her ear. Rowen smiled to herself at the worry in her father’s deep voice. Despite his protest that he was fully recovered, she had insisted that he assume the overwatch role for this mission, and to her surprise, he had agreed with little argument, but that hadn’t stopped him from squawking like a worried hen in her ear every chance he got.
As her small band continued to penetrate deeper into the base, they came across the remains of an amusement park that had once been popular with tourists, now mostly abandoned. The old rides looked sinister in the glow of the crystal tower that at that moment flashed a deep shade of red, making them all look like they had been covered in blood. Her father had promised to take her here a few summers ago but she had protested that she was past Ferris wheels and merry-go-rounds. Looking around at the sad and broken carousel, she wished that they had come. It would have been a better memory than hiding in an abandoned subway for the last few years, eating rations.
Just beyond the park, they were halted by a chain-link fence topp
ed with cruel-looking barbed wire. The very thought of the razor wire piercing her skin making her shudder. Rowen stood on her toes, trying to get a better look at what they were trying to keep in. The whole enclosure was odd, piles of garbage taller than a bus thrown haphazardly around as far as she could see, illuminated only by the light of the moon and the glow of the strange tower.
“Mios dio,” said Rodrigo, suddenly crossing himself, “la morte, the angel of death touches this place.”
Rodrigo’s words brought the horror of what she was seeing into sharp focus, her hand grasping the fence unconsciously as she felt her knees go weak. Bodies, people piled higher than she could imagine, covered in rags and left to rot. “There must be thousands of them,” she said, holding tight to the fence with both hands, not trusting her legs just now. “Why would they lock up dead bodies?” asked Rowen with a frown.
“Maybe they weren't dead to start with,” said Blake on the other side of her, holding his shotgun a little closer.
Rodrigo could only shrug, his lips turning down. “Strange, so many dead and yet no smell. Even in a city like this there would be vermin: rodents, a feast for the crows.”
Rowen’s eyebrows drew together as the tall Italian spoke, his words ringing true. Just as she was about to suggest they go take a look, the signal they had been waiting for arrived, Gwen plunging like a bolt of lightning into the heart of the base, her shockwave arriving moments later, the sound of impact like a meteor tearing into the earth. Even from this distance she was forced to step back, raising her hands to protect her face from flying leaves and branches, her glasses protecting her from the stinging dust filling the air.
The strong winds in the aftermath sent piles of corpses tumbling down toward them like rag dolls bouncing haphazardly against the fence in front of her.
Tearing herself away from the terrible spectacle, Rowen cocked her head, listening for the telltale hum of the propellers, the terrifying whine filling the air telling her that Gwen had been successful. The drones had awakened. She touched the side of her glasses, increasing their magnification, allowing her to make out swarms of drones taking to the sky heading toward the west end of the park like locusts. “It looks like Gwen made good on her part of the plan. Let's make sure we—”
Rowen’s words caught in her throat suddenly as out of the corner of her eye she saw flashes of light pulsing from crystals embedded in the corpses, all like Gibbs’, flashing in tune with the tower. She felt cold suddenly, chills running up her spine. Eyeing the dead, she half expected the bodies to rise like some horrible, shambling monsters from a crappy holovid. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she brushed aside her duster, unholstering her SIG Mark II. Doing a quick safety check of the weapon, she turned back to her group. “Ok, we go around whatever that is,” she said through gritted teeth, pointing a thumb at the fence. “Keep focused and shoot anything that freaking moves. You got it?”
With nods of nervous approval, her small team followed her lead, unholstering weapons and preparing for the worst.
Not wanting to be surprised, Rowen pulled out one of the many smart devices she carried, programming the machine for patrol mode high above and entering the code from Timur that allowed the device to function despite the dampening field. When it was ready, she sent it airborne, tracking its path by a small image projected in the corner of the glasses that Gibbs had provided for her. It was an odd sensation, feeling like she was in both places, at once high above with the rising drone and on the ground with her people. The drone exposed them a little, since the signal could be traced back, but it was better than getting caught with her pants down. At least this way, she would be ready. They would be ready.
***
Gwen found herself blinded by a metallic swarm, thousands of small drones diving for her head and exploding just millimeters from her face. Each stinging detonation staggered her, the odor of melted plastic filling her nostrils and burning her lungs as she struggled to find some sort of rhythm to fight the damn things. She felt like a clumsy giant pointlessly swatting at tiny insects.
From the air she had targeted a series of what looked like prefabricated command buildings hugging the jagged knife of the tower, just at the northern edge of the waterline. The force of her impact and shockwave had crushed everything, collapsing the flimsy structures along with the adjoining outbuildings, sending the surviving men running for safety once they stumbled to their feet.
Digging her way out of the collapsed structures, she was on guard for a response, and it only took a few moments for her fears to be answered. A series of tunnels adjacent to the odd tower began spewing out more drones than she imagined possible, blocking out the moon, their ear-shattering hum deafening.
She fell to her knees, arms raised defensively, trying to protect her face while the drones continued to swarm around her, their explosions keeping her from focusing. Her thoughts fled back to D.C. Knowing what had to be done, she hesitated. She had been overwhelmed that day as well, with too many enemies to strike at once. She had been desperate, out of control, but today would be different. Ignoring it all, she breathed deeply, opening her arms wide, holding for only an instant before slapping her palms together in a thunderous clap. She braced herself as the shockwave spread out, faster than she could blink, the air around her driven outward and then in, imploding with deadly force, incinerating everything around her.
Not wanting to repeat her mistakes from D.C., she wasted no time leaving the ground, breathing deep the clean air high above the freshly made crater. Looking down, she smiled in relief. Her shockwave had been small, controlled, the destruction measured in drones and meters, not city blocks and dead people. She could see additional swarms spreading out over the park, and many of the soldiers, having survived, fled directly toward teams converging on the center. Looking around, she could see the tower was reacting weirdly to her strike, its color pallet dimming to a sickly shade of green. “Captain Macdonald, this is Gwen,” she said, using the blockchain comm channel Rowen and her people had given her access to. “I have poked the hive, drones are up.”
“Good work,” came his deep voice over the comm between bursts of static. “Get back and help Arthur’s unit. I can’t seem to raise them.”
“Yes, sir. Just a side note; I was able to damage the tower. We might be able to destroy this thing if we hit hard enough.”
“Good job, Gwen. Maybe we’ll catch a break for a change. Now get a move on,” he said with what sounded like a hint of pride in his voice.
Gwen hovered there for a moment, envying Rowen for having a father who wasn’t a total piece of shit, imagining how much better her own life would have been if she had the same chances as the redhead: loving parents who were proud of her, a good home. She banished those thoughts before tears came. Pivoting in midair, she slowly drifted to rendezvous with Arthur’s unit when suddenly the air fled from her lungs, a streak of sickly green slamming into her and driving her to the earth. In the moment it took her to realize something was happening, she found herself buried deep in another crater as tons of debris was thrown like a giant wave into the air. Coughing hard as the dust settled around her, she struggled to sit up only to be forced back by a jagged heel pressing against her chest, its sharp edges shredding her uniform. Blinking away grit in her eyes, she looked up in confusion to see what looked like a man, every inch of him clad in the same material as the tower, the pulse of his crystalline armor in sync to the tower looming above, murder in his green eyes.
Chapter 21: Lost
May 2076
Once, during one of the worst snowstorms in Baltimore's history, his mother had left him in the car just out front of a dilapidated blue house. She was supposed to be gone only for a minute, just long enough to score, she said, promising hot chocolate as a reward if he waited patiently. It had been a hard winter, cold and dark with snowdrifts taller than his head. His mother had left the old car running and Arthur had huddled in the front seat close to the heating vent, desperate to stay w
arm. As minutes dragged to hours, what little gas was left in the car petered out, leaving him shivering in the cold. He could see the dilapidated house with its peeling paint and broken picket fence from the car, it was so close. Despite the snowstorm, he decided to go in and get her, not wanting to freeze. From the moment he stepped out of the relative warmth of the car, he immediately regretted it. The cold wind and stinging sleet blinded him, causing him to stagger aimlessly in the biting storm. He had flailed around desperately, warmth fleeing his small body, the promise of a frozen death whispering in his ear. Luck would have it that a junkie, hell-bent on a fix, stumbled over him, serving as a lighthouse in the storm, a ship to follow to shore. He had latched on, gripping as tight as he could, letting go only when he fell hard on the dirty floor of the shooting gallery, breathing short, near frozen, his only comfort his mother’s dull, vacant eyes staring blankly at him.
Arthur felt like that now, lost in a vast sea of data, blind and stumbling around, death looming. The drones were close now. He could their song, that harsh whine of their propellers drowning out all other sound. He flailed around, looking for something, anything.
“If you’re going to do something, now would be a good time!” said a high-pitched voice, sounding muffled as though it were coming from the other side of a wall.
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