by Ike Hamill
“Hey!” Harper said, pointing at the corner. “It’s the insect machine.”
Jacob turned and the two went over to the device.
“The what?” Brook asked.
“It’s a long story,” Jacob said. “We saw this machine on a video recorded upstairs. Some people set it up in the apartment before the mission that created the safe harbor.”
“What are you talking about?” Amelia asked. She didn’t turn to look.
Harper extended the legs on the black tripod and leaned in to look at the part that had flashed the images on Malty’s video.
“Like I said, it’s a long story,” Jacob said. He motioned to Harper. “We should probably get on with it if we’re going to go up to the roof.”
Harper nodded.
Amelia finally glanced up and saw the device they had been messing with.
“Wait!” she called.
Harper stopped with her hand on the door handle.
“What did you say that thing was for?”
“We don’t know what it was for,” Harper said. “There was a camera in the apartment. It might have been this building, or maybe the other one.” She looked to Jacob.
“This one, I think,” he said.
While Harper explained, Amelia stood and walked over to the insect machine.
“Anyway, the camera caught the people who set that machine up. Later, we heard the sounds of one of the people who volunteered for the mission. Then, after the mission was done, we saw people come take the device out. If you look at the center of that device with a camera, you can see all kinds of non-visible images flash by.”
“We never figured out what it was supposed to do. We reported everything to Cleo.”
“This building was quarantined before the mission,” Amelia said. “It was completely unsafe. They couldn’t have set anything up here.”
Harper shrugged. She and Jacob exchanged a glance and Harper moved her hand to the door again. They watched Amelia for a second. She looked back and forth between the insect machine and the black box on the floor.
Harper and Jacob nodded to Brook and left Amelia to her thoughts.
# # # # #
Up on the roof, they found two camps. Some people were swinging poles and throwing nets at the low clouds. They hoped to reproduce the earlier success, that apparently had been the product of pure luck.
Jacob talked to a couple who were working together to swing a pole. They claimed to have stood right next to the woman who had batted the first black object out of the sky. They admitted that they hadn’t come close to hitting one themselves. Jacob studied the low clouds. He didn’t manage to spot one of the darting objects.
He joined Harper, who was talking to someone from the other faction. At regular intervals around the roof, snipers scanned the clearing.
“What happened to the perimeter guards?” Jacob asked.
“Penny pulled them back,” the man said. “Too dangerous. Several people were bitten by snakes and had to be burned.”
Jacob’s eyes were drawn to a small fire over near the footbridge.
“Burned?” Harper asked.
“It’s the only way to kill the snakes,” the man said. “I heard it from one of the people on the ground.”
Jacob pulled at Harper’s sleeve until they were far enough away from the man so he wouldn’t hear.
“There’s nothing useful going on up here,” Jacob said.
Harper nodded. “If anyone is going to figure this out, it’s Amelia. We should see if she needs help.”
# # # # #
“Any progress?” Harper asked. They pushed the door shut behind them once more.
Brook was standing with her arms folded, watching Amelia work.
“You left ten minutes ago,” Brook said. “What kind of progress did you expect.”
“If this thing is a mobile fabricator,” Jacob said, “then how do we combat the things it fabricates.”
“Once they’re out there, they might as well be real,” Brook said. “I mean, they’re as real as anything else in the world.”
“They don’t seem to act like normal creatures,” Harper said. “Those snakes were growing incredibly fast and laying eggs as soon as they burrowed under a person’s skin.”
“And that bear changed size,” Jacob said. “It was huge outside, but shrunk to fit in the tunnels.”
“Not to mention the chasm,” Harper said. “You can’t say that was simply fabricated. It was invisible…”
“Stop!” Amelia said. She turned with a circuit board in each hand and looked up at them. “Could you be quiet? I’m trying to think.”
“Sorry,” Jacob said.
Harper turned to Brook. “What can we do to help?” she whispered.
Brook shook her head. “I wish I knew. She’s looking for some way to remotely disable the circuit. There were some parts in our lab in Building Three that could have been useful, but they’re all buried now.”
“What kind of parts? Anything we can hunt down?” Jacob asked.
“Unlikely. The closest thing was the modified Quiver remotes that Amelia and Niren made for clearing this area. Those were all destroyed during the experiment. They were working on a new version when we pulled them off for Ryan’s secret project. Another team was supposed to pick up the work, but they never did.”
“I know where we can find a Quiver remote,” Harper said. “What kind of modifications?”
“Forget it,” Brook said. “It takes weeks to construct one. Besides, like I said, that would only get us close. The thing we need, if it worked, would actually induce sympathetic waves in the ether. It’s hard to explain—it’s something theoretical that we were working on.”
“Maybe something like it already exists,” Harper said. “The University had a lab, right? I heard that some of those machines were barely understood.”
Amelia dropped what she was working on and stood up. They watched her pace around for a second. She turned to them. “I appreciate that you guys are trying to help, but trust me, I doubt there’s anything in the world remotely close to what we need. If such a machine existed, it would create a dead zone in the ether. Chances are that not even Hunters would operate within its radius. The thing would be like a mobile version of this safe harbor, but it wouldn’t be permanent. If such a device existed, I would know about it.”
Brook looked at Jacob. She blinked several times before she could form her question. “What did you do with David’s vehicle?”
Jacob looked to Harper. “We left it on the outskirts of town. I picked up Harper and we used it to bring Wyatt back. Then we had to leave it. It was too obvious.”
“We have to get it,” Brook said. She stepped up to Amelia. “It has a device like what you’re talking about. David made it.”
Amelia studied her for a second before she responded. “You’re serious?”
Brook nodded.
Amelia went for the door. “Take me to that vehicle,” she said.
Chapter 44
{Tracking}
“I DON’T UNDERSTAND,” MADELYN said. “How can their trail just end?”
Elijah looked up at the courthouse. He turned and looked towards the glow on the horizon.
“Someone re-started the bonfire,” Elijah said.
“It was them,” Madelyn said. “They’re trying to cover their tracks.”
“Or perhaps provide cover for something they were about to do,” Elijah said.
“How do we track them?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Elijah said.
Madelyn folded her arms and walked a few paces up the sidewalk. She turned and looked at Elijah.
“Where would you go?” she asked.
“I would be fighting alongside the citizens. But if I were hunting them, I suppose I would be on the perimeter, watching to see how things turn out with The Wisdom.”
“Ryan is crafty. We can’t make any assumptions. We have to figure him out,” Madelyn said.
Elijah n
odded.
“You were able to sense them earlier,” Madelyn said. “I felt it too, but I think you were able to detect them at a much greater distance.”
“You’ll tune into it over time.”
“So that means they’re not close, right?”
“Right,” Elijah said.
“How did they move?” Madelyn asked.
“Not on foot,” he said. “They would have left a trail. They must have taken an electric vehicle. Those things don’t smell of anything.”
“And where would they go?”
“Impossible to guess without more information,” Elijah said.
Madelyn spat and let out a frustrated grunt. “We’re wasting time.”
“You’re right. Listen, we know where most of the people are. We know where your nephew is. Let’s go back. We might not be able to track Ryan, but we can at least be near the people we care about if he comes after them.”
Madelyn turned away and looked up at the sky. “I hate waiting. I’m sick of it.”
“What else are we going to do?” Elijah asked.
Madelyn sighed. Elijah led the way.
# # # # #
“They’ve been through here,” Elijah said. “Recently. I smell guns.”
He ran forward, towards the scent. They were still a hundred meters from the perimeter of the safe harbor. Madelyn picked up the scent too, but there was something wrong with it. She couldn’t put her finger on it.
By the time she realized what it was, Elijah was too far. The scent didn’t lead towards safe harbor. Whomever had left it had moved parallel to the perimeter of the place.
“Wait!” she said.
He came to a stop and turned.
Partially hidden by a bush, the barrel of the weapon jerked towards Elijah. He dove out of the way as it began to fire. Elijah rolled as the bullets tore the ground behind him. He came to a stop at Madelyn’s feet.
She glanced at the gun, saw that it was no longer tracking him, and knelt next to Elijah.
“That was close,” she said.
He reached down. His hand came back with dark blood.
“Too close,” he said.
“You’re hit?” she asked. She searched his body and found the source of the blood. Elijah had a hole in his shirt and a gouge in his flesh. Madelyn pressed her hand against it.
“I’ll be okay,” he said. “Just a scratch.”
“You’re lucky,” she said. “Those things are deadly. Probably even deadly for a person like you. They used them in the food riots in Detroit. They’re defensive turrets.”
Elijah sat up. “We should disable it before it shoots someone else.”
Madelyn shook her head. “Easier said than done. If you approach it, throw rocks, or try to shoot it, it will gun you down. They normally patrol a fixed angle, but they won’t hesitate to defend themselves.”
“There has to be a way to disable them,” he said.
“Sure,” she said. “Set a bomb and detonate it from a few kilometers away, I suppose. If there’s a way to break those things, the rioters in Detroit never found it.”
“Let’s hope that’s the only one then,” he said.
Madelyn started walking away from the gun. “Let’s find out.”
It didn’t take long for them to find the next gun. From that position, Madelyn could see the shape of the third one against the clouds.
“They circled the whole area,” she said. “There’s no way in or out.”
Elijah wasn’t listening. He was focused on the horizon.
“Something is coming,” he said.
“Where?” she asked. As the word left her mouth, she saw the heads of the people over the hill in the distance. Inside the safe harbor, a couple of people were running down the path. They were on a collision course with the turrets.
“Stop!” Elijah yelled.
The people kept running.
Madelyn joined her voice to his.
“Stop!” they both yelled. In the distance, they saw the two people come to a halt.
“It’s not safe,” Elijah yelled. “There are guns.”
“Don’t shoot,” the voice called.
“That’s Jacob,” Madelyn said. She took a step towards him. Elijah’s hand grabbed her shoulder and held her back.
“Jacob!” she called. “Stay where you are.”
There was a pause before he responded. “We can’t.”
Madelyn and Elijah looked at each other.
# # # # #
“They’re probably calibrated for normal people,” Elijah said. “At my top speed, I’m probably fifty-percent faster than that. Maybe I can outrun it.”
“Those things were built when they knew about Optioners,” Madelyn said. “Why would they limit it’s ability to shoot a really fast person?”
Elijah nodded. Her argument was undeniable.
“Maybe there’s a way to navigate through that trough there. The hill there might protect us,” Elijah said.
Madelyn shook her head again. “No. First, I know they don’t hesitate to shoot through walls. They might be able to shoot just as easily through that berm.”
In the distance, they saw Jacob take another step forward.
“Stay there!” Madelyn called. “We’re figuring this out.”
“He either doesn’t believe us, or he’s desperate,” Elijah said. “He’s going to come too close soon. What if we throw a rock at one of them and tip it over.”
“They communicate with each other,” she said. “As soon as you hit one, any other one within distance is going to target you.”
“We throw the rock and then duck behind that hill there. By the time the rock hits it, we’re already down.”
Madelyn rubbed her chin.
“Yeah?” Elijah asked.
“How good are you at throwing rocks?”
He smiled.
After yelling to Jacob again, they chose a hill that was far enough away that the other gun wasn’t likely to target them. They each held rocks. Madelyn counted to three and they threw them. The rocks sailed and the pair ducked behind the dirt. The impact of the rocks was masked by the sound of the gun firing. The hill thumped beneath them.
Elijah looked to Madelyn. “How long will it aim at us.”
“I have no idea,” Madelyn said.
Elijah threw up his hands. “Great. So we’re stuck here?”
They heard the gun go off again. This time, the sound was different. It was muffled, like the gun was pointed a different direction.
Madelyn grabbed a rock and poked her head up over the edge of the hill. The gun was pointed up towards Jacob. She threw her rock and then ducked as the turret turned towards her again.
“Jacob is throwing too,” Madelyn said.
“How does it look?”
“It’s a little off balance. One more good hit should do it.”
Elijah found a big rock and kicked it loose from the soil. The moment that the gun went off again, he climbed up and launched his rock. He ducked until they heard the sound of the thing, then he put his head back up over the edge. Madelyn and Elijah saw the turret topple. The barrel pointed at the sky and the gun quit firing.
“We have to get Jacob to move quickly,” Elijah said. “Ryan might get a notification that his perimeter has been breached.”
Madelyn nodded. She ran up over the hill and sprinted towards the turret. It occurred to her as she ran that she didn’t know whether the range of the turrets overlapped. If they did, this would be a short trip. Elijah moved like the wind when he ran. Madelyn tried to replicate his fluid grace as she covered the uneven terrain. Still, she held her breath as she waited for the impact of the bullets and the sound of automatic fire.
Madelyn crossed by the red poles that marked the edge of the safe harbor. Jacob popped up from behind a log. She sucked in a startled breath and then doubled over.
“Is it safe now?” Jacob asked.
Madelyn nodded. “Probably not for long though. Come on.”
Harper was right behind him. Together, the three of them ran back towards Elijah. He was scanning the horizon, watching the next turret to see if it would respond to them. Jacob and Harper weren’t nearly as fast as Madelyn. She stayed with them. She was almost as nervous running back. Her mind kept spinning up new scenarios where the turrets might allow someone to enter the safe harbor, but gun down anyone trying to escape.
When they got back to Elijah’s position, he didn’t allow them any rest.
“I think someone is coming,” he whispered. “Keep moving.”
He led the way as they put more distance between themselves and the safe harbor. Eventually, Jacob pointed and then veered to a new course. With the danger behind them, they slowed down to confer.
“We have to get David’s vehicle,” Jacob said. “Amelia needs it inside the safe harbor.”
“You’ll never get it back inside with those turrets going,” Madelyn said.
They all turned back towards the safe harbor at the sound of a gun.
“It’s back online,” Elijah said. “Didn’t take them long to fix it.”
Madelyn put her hand on Jacob’s shoulder. “Bring that vehicle back and we’ll create a distraction so you can get it inside the safe harbor.”
“We’ll be coming on Franklin Street,” Harper said.
“Got it,” Elijah said. “When you get to the north edge of the cemetery, hold for our signal.”
Harper and Jacob exchanged a glance.
“What’s the signal?” Jacob asked.
“You’ll know when you hear it,” Madelyn said.
Chapter 45
{Vehicle}
JACOB HAD NO IDEA how to get where they were going. He let Harper lead the way. He was surprised when she stopped at the edge of the embankment and pointed through the branches.
“There,” she whispered.
He blinked and angled his head until he saw the vehicle.