by B. C. Tweedt
The ones coming through the windows didn’t have time to unlatch themselves from the ropes before the two drone-grenades buzzed at their chests like rabid hornets. They stuck like cement and exploded a second later, sending the two unfortunate soldiers back through the windows from which they had come.
At the same time, the ones crouch-walking from the hole in the wall didn’t see Diablo laying as a dead man next to their comrades – his gun-hand emerging from one’s armpit.
The bullets knocked the three soldiers to the ground, but their armor and training gave them another chance. One almost managed to get to his feet before a boot smashed through his helmet’s visor into his face. A second soldier swung his weapon toward Diablo’s black figure but was quickly disarmed with a flash of strong arms. The third was able to raise his secondary weapon and fire, but hit the human shield Diablo was using instead.
Diablo threw the human shield into him and used the human shield’s MP5 to put them all down for good.
The room settled as if a tornado had passed through. Loose ceiling tiles swung and fell, papers swayed through the smoke that twisted around sparking electric cables, and small fires ate at the drapes flapping in the breeze from the glassless windows.
Behind a desk, Diablo had clasped the last survivor in his arm, flexing his bicep into the man’s esophagus, forcing chokes from the man’s mouth. The man had tattoos down both his arms. Former Seal. Afghanistan. StoneWater’s logo – a dripping stone.
“Who hired you?” Diablo asked. “Are you with Roman?”
The man choked and coughed when Diablo loosened his grip. Finally he swallowed and stared at his captor with defiant, bloodshot eyes. “Go to – ”
Snap.
“You first.”
Diablo released the dead man to the floor with a snarl. Scanning the area with his goggles and, finding it clear, he returned to his window perch. He pressed his eye to the scope.
“Target lost. Relocating.”
Chapter 39
Greyson scanned the buildings’ windows, hoping to spot Diablo’s rifle. He thought he had heard a distant explosion, but a sudden uproar from the crowd swept his attention. A woman next to him was digging in her purse. The man next to her was reaching in his pockets.
His heart skipped a beat. Why the sudden fear?
Then Greyson discovered why. The rhinos’ display-letters had changed from yellow to a vicious red. They said, “Get Down”.
Then their mouths split in four ways. They raised their heads as the four parts of their mouths spun and folded into small satellite dishes.
“Plugs! Now!” Windsor screamed.
Greyson jerked to action and scrambled for the plugs he had put in his vest pouch.
The rhinos’ eyes warned them, flashing faster and faster.
Greyson’s fingers fished for the plugs – found them.
To this left, Beep was putting plugs in Kit’s ears. She turned to him with wide eyes. His plugs weren’t in yet.
“SIT DOWN WHERE YOU ARE AND THE PAIN WILL STOP.”
Pain? What pain?
bbbbbrrrrrUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHH!
Blaring, burning, pain.
His brain was exploding.
Blood boiled in his forehead. Were his ears bleeding?
Shaking. The whole earth shook.
Tears poured out; he dropped to his knees.
bbbbbrrrrrUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHH!
He was lost. Panicked. The pain was unbearable.
But someone’s hands were on his. They took the plugs. Inserted them into his ears.
It was Beep.
UUUUUUUUUUUHHHHH-uuuuh…
The sound grew faint and Greyson spat out in exhale. Beep was holding his head, taking off his goggles, then looking in his eyes.
“You okay? Hear me?”
Barely. Is she underwater?
“Yeah. I’m okay!” he shouted over the sound.
She pointed at the rhinos. The dishes in their mouth were screeching at the crowd, forcing them into submission. And it was working. Most had sat almost immediately. Those who hadn’t were being pulled to the ground.
Suddenly the dishes retracted and spun back into the rhinos’ mouths.
“STAY SEATED. YOU WILL BE TAGGED AND BOUND. IF YOU FLEE, YOUR PENALTY WILL BE SEVERE.”
Drake removed his plugs first and pointed to Greyson to do the same. “Ready umbrellas. Don’t get any paint on you.”
Greyson had dropped his, but he pulled it up and found the release button.
The Quad drones shifted forward, hovering twenty feet above their heads, spreading out.
Greyson watched the drones with trepidation. His ears still rang and he was sweating at his temples. He couldn’t silence the voice inside that told him to flee. They couldn’t stay like this – herded together, ready for the slaughter. Why did the terrorists need to attack when the government was doing it for them?
“Watch the underside port doors,” Grimes said. “They open a second before the paint grenades drop.”
Just as he said, a fist-sized hole shuttered open on the underside of the drone above.
“Now!” Drake said.
Their umbrellas opened in unison. Others were opened as well. All around the crowd there were veterans – those who had watched and learned from the experiences of other cities’ protestors.
Greyson couldn’t even see the grenades drop or explode.
PLUH! PLUH! PLUH! PLUH! PLUH! PLUH!
Grenades popped, and the paint rained down on the crowd. The bright pink liquid dripped from their umbrellas and they shimmied to avoid it.
Others weren’t so lucky. The paint was everywhere, splattering shoulders and heads.
“Nano-paint,” Grimes explained. “Acts like a digital beacon for the drones. They can sniff it out for miles – figuratively sniff it out. They don’t actually have an olfactory system.”
“Ditch ‘em and inspect yourself,” Drake instructed.
They carefully closed the umbrellas, pushed them away, and inspected each other’s clothes. Drake’s squad then looked at their leader in a way that reminded Greyson of the times when his own friends had looked to him for impossible answers.
“Alright,” Drake said. “We don’t have long. This is different. They used to want to disperse us. Now they’re locking us down. We’re going to need a distraction, or some other way out.”
“We recruit the crowd to rush all at once,” Windsor blurted.
“We’d need to rush in more than one place – split their forces,” Ankeny added.
“We could sing a lullaby,” Beep said innocently. “Lure them to sleep. Then bash them with the guitar!”
“Be serious, Beep.”
“I can use Greyson’s drone,” Grimes suggested, turning to him. “Is it weaponized? What kind of ordinances does it have?”
Greyson watched the Quads return to their places and then pointed at a Scorpion. “It has a gun – like that but…but…”
His words trailed off as he observed a drone’s weird behavior. He didn’t know how to describe it except… “That drone’s messed up.”
The squad’s eyes met his gaze and watched as the Quad wavered, going forward and then stopping suddenly. It went left, then right, up, then down as if there were a pilot messing with the joystick.
Windsor laughed, covering his mouth. “That drone’s robotrippin’ dude!”
Grimes shook his head. “It’s not tripping anywhere.”
“It’s all of ‘em,” Beep said, pointing.
But as soon as she had said it, the display was over. The drones returned to normal.
“It was a dance,” Windsor suggested. “The Dallas drone-step.”
“It wasn’t a dance,” Grimes corrected again.
“Dude. I’m just joking.”
Grimes was stoic. “It was a glitch.”
Beep suddenly squealed. “It is a dance!”
She pointed at the riot rh
inos. They were stepping left and right. Lowering to a squat and rising to their highest height.
“It is not a dance…” Grimes insisted.
“Guys,” Drake corrected, finally stepping in. “If it’s a glitch, let’s take advantage of it.”
He continued asking for ideas, but Greyson had tuned him out. So had Ankeny. She shuffled closer to him, squinting to see in the Texas sun. Horrified, she whipped around to the others. “It’s not a glitch!”
Greyson saw one of the beasts further down burst into the crowd. A moment later he heard the screams.
Terrified, he stood up and put on his goggles. His HUD lit up with information, but his standing prompted a dozen rifles and a dozen drones to zero in on his body. A rhino’s neck swiveled until its yellow-letter eyes latched on his. SIT DOWN they said. They turned red.
-------------------------------
In a matter of seconds Sydney jammed the “anti-dote” pill into Jordan’s hand and ran from the garage, into the street, holding her phone to her ear. “The drones!” she yelled without another care. “Tell Greyson! The Plurbs control the drones!”
-------------------------------
Greyson’s heart was already racing, but for a moment, as he read Forge’s old messages, it stopped.
{Signal was jammed. StoneWater.}
{PatriARC escaped. On his way back to City Hall.}
Then, there was a new message. It was flashing, labeled urgent. His eyes read it, but couldn’t believe it. His gaze snapped to the Quads, the Scorpions, and the Rhinos surrounding them, their heavy weaponry trained on the herded innocents.
After a solemn swallow of the truth, his hand reached for his slingshot and unlatched it. The message blinked one more time, and then disappeared.
{Drones under control of Pluribus. Attack imminent.}
Chapter 40
Greyson knelt slowly, his eyes latched on the riot rhino’s red letters.
“New plan,” he whispered to Drake, half-expecting to be shot at any moment. “The drones are now under terrorist control, but I’ve got the distraction in my hand. Grab on to me and make a chain.”
“Under terrorist control? That’s impossible,” Grimes complained.
“Give me my DOC.”
Maybe it was the way he said it, or maybe it was the way he twisted his hat around backwards as he said it, but Grimes handed him the DOC without question. Greyson strapped it on and ordered Liam to his position.
Drake glanced at the marbled black ball-bearing in Greyson’s hand and the slingshot in the other. Though he seemed puzzled, he grabbed on to Beep’s arm. “Do it! Form together.”
The others grabbed each other as the crowd’s panic reached their neighbors. Their grasps were strong and desperate, and their huddle grew closer. He had switched from text commands to voice when Forge spoke.
[Orphan, do you read me? Diablo is almost in position. Soon.]
Two more rhinos joined the charge.
“Not soon enough.” Greyson aimed the Magic Hate Ball to the ground, stretching the slingshot’s band past his shoulder.
This better work, Jarryd.
Then, just before the drones began firing, Greyson released the ball.
-------------------------------
Cael watched the drones’ odd little dance. The sun glimmered and glared off their armor as they shook and shimmied. He almost forgot in that moment what the dance meant.
Until the card beeped and unlocked their door.
Distracted, the guard turned to look at the dance. “What are y’all looking at?” He pointed at the drones and yelled at the other guards. “What’s going on? Get ahold of Regional. I’ll talk to Klostermann,” he said, hustling toward the security building.
He had left in a hurry. And he’d left their cell door open.
-------------------------------
Beep had never been as scared. It didn’t matter that Drake held one of her hands and Windsor the other. Her life wasn’t in their hands. It was in this boy, Greyson’s. And his hands were full. Even as the drones began firing.
Their bullets whizzed overhead, sizzling, searing with such sounds that shouted their power. Her scarred ear twinged, itched, feeling old pain when the fresh was so near.
But even as smoke bellowed from beneath their legs as if they wore burning tires for shoes, the fear did not subside. The bullets still sizzled above them, through the smoke. They were coming from all directions, or one – she couldn’t tell. Screams still shrieked from around them, but she couldn’t see why. The carnage was hidden by the blanket of smoke.
Windsor pulled her hard and she jumped into motion, pulling Drake behind. She was aware of all the bodies shoving into them, pushing, running, falling. They broke her grip.
CLONKCLONK-CLONKCLONK!
A rhino was close, rampaging through the crowd.
She snatched Windsor’s hand. Her eyes burned in the smoke, watering.
Bullets continued firing.
“HOLD YOUR FIRE!”
But the drones didn’t obey the soldier.
She had to shut her eyes. She had to. They burned too much.
When she did, they burned even more, and the tears poured down her cheeks. For a time she retreated into the darkness, but it was short-lived. She tripped on something and would have fallen, but the boys lifted her up, kept her on her feet. And she had to watch where she was going.
The smoke was oppressive. There was more of it now – more canisters – probably shot from the rhinos, but they had come to the edge. She saw their entire train now with Greyson out front with his red reflective goggles. He was staring at her – past her.
She froze.
His fingers jabbed into one of his vest’s pouches. “Down!” he yelled.
She couldn’t move. She was frozen in fear – even as he put the white ball-bearing into his slingshot’s pouch.
“DOWN!”
CLONKCLONK-CLONKCLONK!
Drake pulled her down just before Greyson snapped the ball over her head – into the beast’s shape emerging from the smoke like a train from the fog.
The riot rhino shook with bolts of electricity flashing across its metal flesh as its legs gave way and its cumbersome torso hit the asphalt with a crash.
Its body rolled once and flopped with a bang at Drake’s feet.
Their squad eyed the beast’s corpse, in awe.
But they didn’t stay long. An exit was free. Instead of keeping them in, cops were now rushing people to safety, firing at the drones and protecting a group of protestors with their riot shields raised.
A Scorpion was peppering the shields with bullets; most glanced off, but some found soft targets in gaps. Legs, feet. One fell; his shield fell, but another took its place. Beep’s eyes teared up. They were heroes.
At her side, Greyson didn’t hesitate. He pulled back and fired a ball into its armor.
But something didn’t go right. Greyson looked puzzled – as if he thought the ball would do more than it had. He frantically reached for another ball, but the Scorpion was turning toward them.
Its smoking gun barrel pointed at Greyson.
PING!
Something else had struck the Scorpion, biting a hole through its armor and shaking it like a puppet on string. It stayed aloft, but sparks shot from its underbelly. Its lights flickered, and it swung toward the ground, ricocheting off the Bradley and collapsing to the asphalt in a grinding skid. But as soon as it had stopped, it took off again, into the smoke like a skipping stone.
Their way was now free. More Bradleys were flooding their area, each flanked by soldiers and manned both by a gunner on the cannon’s turret and a driver poking his head out of a hatch up front; but they were no longer interested in the fleeing crowd, their weapons were trained on the drones.
“Let’s go!” Greyson shouted.
They followed him past a group of soldiers only to hear the attack from behind. A mob of protestors
overwhelmed the soldiers, tackling them, grabbing for their weapons like madmen.
“What are they doing?” Beep screamed.
“They don’t know it’s the Plurbs,” Greyson replied. “They think the soldiers are attacking!”
“Keep going,” Drake said.
And Greyson agreed, taking the chain further down the block.
Together they hid behind a parked car, breathing hard as more military raced to the scene. The smoke was heavy as the drones circled and dipped like bees above a hive. Soldiers’ and Bradleys’ tracer fire streaked through as if they were lights in a laser light show.
Beep’s mouth hung open in horror and her body shook with the fear. So many people. Innocent people. Her heart broke for them.
And then the drones exploded.
BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANGBANGBANGBANG!
Like fireworks, the drones blasted apart in streaks of fire and metal. The explosions flashed like a new sun, forcing the kids to shield their eyes. Debris rattled down on the street, slammed into windows and struck buildings a block away.
Beep grabbed on to Windsor and closed her eyes again as the last shrapnel found its resting place and the military began once again to bark orders. The kids rose to watch.
“What happened?” Drake asked.
Grimes squinted. “Self-destruct it appears. Simultaneous. Would probably serve to obscure any evidence of the hack.”
“Ah, geez,” Windsor moaned. “They’re goin’ to get away with this?”
The group surveyed the chaos. Cops and soldiers were running to the scene, rescuing the injured, pleading with the protestors who still fought them, blaming them for the violence. Beep wanted to hug the cops and soldiers – both for safety and for compassion.
“Maybe they won’t,” Greyson said with a strong chin, listening to a voice in his ear. He was looking into the smoke at the sputtering drone that had skipped past and now appeared to be malfunctioning. “See that one?” Greyson said, pointing at it. “Diablo shot it. He says he needs its hard drive. I’ll be right back.”
With a bark of new orders, the soldiers again began their original mission – subduing the rebels. Fights broke out in the confusion. War cries erupted. And more Quad drones came swooping into an altercation between protestors and soldiers. They fired taser darts into their targets, dropping them to the street, immobile. The soldiers bound them and raced after more.