by Isaac Hooke
“We’re trained to recognize civilians, ma’am,” Lui told Mrs. Chopra.
Rade nodded. “If it’s a civilian, obviously we’ll let them inside. But if not, we open fire.” He doubted any civilian would be able to break through the barricade Harlequin had set up behind them, though it was possible someone could come inside from the garage door areas, or the lobby.
Rade decided to direct his scope at the westernmost entrance, where the rain beat loudly against the garage door. It sounded like hail had joined in the assault as well. He checked the orientations of his Argonauts on the overhead map, and saw that the aims of the combat robots and humans were distributed almost evenly among the four entrances.
That made him smile. He loved a disciplined team. It required less micro-management.
“Tahoe, should we turn our Implants off?” Rade said. “Or the comm nodes?”
“We’ve seen no evidence that the enemy can track us based on Implants,” Tahoe said. “How about you?”
“No, not really,” Rade said.
“So, off or on?” Tahoe asked.
“We’ll turn the comm nodes off, for now,” Rade said. “Just to be safe.”
On the overhead map, team members winked out one by one.
Rade kept his eye on the scope, but since he kept his other eye open for situational awareness purposes, he could see Fret beside him, still leaning against the exotic, rifle aimed toward the lobby. Fret shifted slightly, and the rear view mirror broke away from the expensive vehicle, landing with a loud clatter, and the tinkle of breaking glass.
“Dude, you just cost the owner of that car five grand,” TJ said.
“Five grand to repair a broken rear view mirror?” Fret said. “I doubt it.”
“For an exotic, that’s on the cheap side,” TJ said.
“Who made you the expert?” Fret asked.
“I’ve owned a few exotics in my day,” TJ said.
“How come we’ve never seen you riding them?” Manic said.
“That’s because you were never fly enough to get an invite,” Bender said, flashing that grille of his. “Back in our MOTH days, when we were between deployments, TJ and I cruised the avenues in his Lamborghinis on weekends. I tell you, combined with our dashing good looks, our muscular builds, and that car, we quite literally had pussy throwing itself at us.”
“Actually, in all honesty, he’s exaggerating the effects of the car on the fairer sex,” TJ said. “It was all about our good looks and magnetic personalities. As for the lambos, most of the attention we got was from guys.”
“Guys?” Fret said.
“Yes,” TJ told him. “Guys seemed the most interested in the cars, I learned over time. I’d cruise along the streets, and heads would turn. Most of them men. Which is why I got rid of the exotics, eventually. Got sick of men glancing at me with envy in their eyes. Got sick of all the questions at the gas station. Rarely did a woman come up to talk to me about the car. In fact, most seemed turned off by it.”
“Probably depends on the neighborhood where you flashed the car,” Lui said.
“I suppose that could have played a factor,” TJ said.
“So wait, there’s no way you could have afforded to buy a car like this,” Manic said. “Not on our MOTH salaries. Except secondhand, maybe.”
“Secondhand?” TJ said. “No way. I’d never buy an exotic secondhand. The owners drive them until the engines are shot to hell. They sell them the day before the warranty expires. Never ever buy an exotic secondhand. Unless you’re ready to perform a complete engine overhaul. Even something as small as 5K on the speedometer means the car is crap.”
“Okay fine, so if you didn’t buy your lambos secondhand, how did you do it?” Manic pressed.
“Try looking into real estate sometime, my friend,” TJ said.
“Ha!” Manic said. “Like real estate on this planet is worth anything now!”
“Hey, I’m going to be buying up a bunch of plots as soon as this invasion is done,” TJ said. “Mark my words, it’ll be a buyer’s market out there. Repressed prices across the board.”
“How can your men be so calm when there is a deadly storm taking place just above us?” Mrs. Chopra asked Shaw. “With tornadoes coming in from all sides!” In the background, the low rumbling of what sounded like a freight train could be heard slowly rising above the relentless pelting of the rain and hail.
Shaw glanced at Rade. “I’ll let you answer.”
Rade sighed. “Compared to some of the things we’ve faced, Mrs. Chopra, well, of course we’re going to be calm. We could die, it’s true. But there’s also a good chance the tornadoes will miss us, I think.”
“But you don’t know that,” Mrs. Chopra said.
“I suppose not,” Rade said. “But when you’re in the heat of battle, with lasers coming in from all sides, you also don’t know if one of them will hit you. All it takes is one mistake on your part. Sometimes not even a mistake, but the hand fate deals you, and then you’re dead.”
“It’s also a way of dealing with the fear,” Tahoe said. “When you know death is knocking on your door, you put on a facade of calm, and you joke. It’s all you can do. The crudest, most morbid humor you can come up with.”
“Like sticking your dick in a dead ostrich,” Bender said.
“Huh?” Manic said.
“I’m giving him an example of crude, morbid humor,” Bender said.
The roaring sound outside became louder.
“You hear that freight train in the background?” Tahoe said. “Almost lost to the hail? That’s a tornado.”
Mr. and Mrs. Chopra stiffened.
“Sounds like rapids to me,” Manic said.
“It’s getting closer,” TJ said.
Mrs. Chopra whimpered.
“Good job, scare Shaw’s parents won’t you?” Lui said.
“Better that they know,” Tahoe said. “If you were them, wouldn’t you want to know if your doom was coming?”
“Actually, probably not,” Lui said with a grim laugh.
As the tornado’s sound grew in volume, Shaw slung her rifle over her shoulder and wrapped her arms around Sil to rock the toddler back and forth. Mrs. Chopra did the same for Alex. Both children were still oblivious to their surroundings as they wore the aReal goggles. They had finished their lollipops, and seemed calm. Alex occasionally giggled.
“I don’t know what the hell they’re watching,” Bender said, staring into his scope beside Rade. “But I want in.”
“We all do right about now,” Rade said. “Keep your eye on the entrances.”
The freight train sound grew quite loud, so that Rade could have sworn the twister was on top of them.
“I believe the tornado is passing directly alongside the street next to the hotel,” Harlequin said. “Judging from the resonance properties of the concrete composing this parkade, and the volume levels.”
Rade kept his rifle steady on the garage door. In addition to the creaking and howling, that door had begun to clatter loudly, as a portion of it had gotten loose from its track and flailed about in the rampant winds.
And then the freight train roar began to diminish. Very slowly at first, but it was definitely noticeable.
“It missed us,” Harlequin said.
Rade exhaled softly.
“It’s not over yet,” Tahoe said. “Tornadoes are unpredictable beasts. It could easily turn around at any time. Or another tornado could come in. We saw quite a few out there.”
“I’m getting sporadic reports from across the city,” Fret said. “It seems that more troop pods are landing. It looks like the enemy is using the storm as cover for their third wave after all.”
Rade glanced at his children. Exactly what I wanted to avoid.
“Hang tight, Argonauts,” Rade said. “We’ll get through this. Hopefully, the attack will pass without the enemy ever knowing we’re here. I suspect they’ll be drawn to the school, where they know the Gendarme are holed up. Especially once t
he fighting begins in earnest, and it becomes obvious that they’ll need reinforcements in the area.”
“So we might not see any action you’re saying,” Bender told him. “Well, that’s no fun. Sometimes you can be a real stick in the mud, boss. A party pooper. A wet blanket. Killjoy. Sourpuss.”
“That’s right, keep throwing out synonyms,” Manic said. “You’re pretty good with the thesaurus in your Implant.”
“Don’t need no thesaurus,” Bender said. “That was all from memory. I’m just that good.”
“I might be a killjoy,” Rade said. “But at least my family will be safe.”
“Your family?” Fret said. “And what about us?”
“I was counting the Argonauts as part of that extended family,” Rade said.
“Oh,” Fret said.
Several quiet, tense moments passed. The tornado’s roar was almost completely gone. It had definitely moved on.
“Alex just signaled that he has to go to the bathroom,” Mrs. Chopra said. “It’s a bit of a frantic signal.”
Rade glanced at Mrs. Chopra. Alex was still inside his virtual environment, though one hand repeatedly tapped Mrs. Chopra on the arm.
“Poo poo,” Alex said.
“Cora, take Alex from Mrs. Chopra,” Rade said. “Carry him behind the pillar and let him do his thing. Don’t take off his goggles, if possible. Tap into his virtual environment, and create a toilet for him so he doesn’t feel like he’s defecating on the floor. And be quick about it.”
“Will do,” Cora said. She accepted Alex from Mrs. Chopra and vanished around the pillar.
“When nature calls...” Manic commented.
“Whew!” Bender said. “Y’all catch that reek? And I thought Manic smelled bad... boss, your kids bring new meaning to the word stench.”
Rade was still aiming at the clattering garage door when it broke inward entirely.
sixteen
Down!” Rade hissed. “And comm nodes back on!”
He crouched entirely behind the exotic car. He activated the comm node of his Implant and the dots representing the other team members blinked back into existence on the overhead map: if tangos were coming into the garage, there was no point in negating the advantages the tech provided. Specifically, the silent communication.
Rade switched to text mode and sent to the team, via his Implant: Headlamps and weapon lights off! We rely on the glow sticks. No LIDAR either, Centurions.
The lights went off across the team, but there was still enough of a glow from those four sticks to illuminate the entire parkade, though the light levels were fairly low in places.
Rade peered carefully over the hood with his rifle scope. The gale blew the collapsed door down the ramp until it caught against the wall near the bottom, roughly fifty meters from where Rade crouched. Rain and hail swept inside from the opening; some of the larger pieces of hail bounced all the way down to the broken door with the help of the gusts.
Could have been just the wind, Manic texted via his Implant.
Rade continued to scan the opening, which was illuminated by the greenish light from the glow stick. He began to wonder if it had perhaps been a mistake to activate the stick, since if the door had indeed fallen in on its own, an outside observer would have probably easily spotted the glow in the storm.
Harlequin, Rade texted. Fetch that glow stick. Get it away from the garage door.
Harlequin left cover from behind a nearby pillar and began making his toward the door, keeping low.
Rade glanced at the overhead map to confirm the positions of his Argonauts. Most were crouched behind the exotic, with some scattered around the nearby pillars. Cora was still behind the closest pillar with Alex, while Sil was with Mr. Chopra, beside his wife. Shaw and Dora were with him, behind the exotic.
When Harlequin was about twenty meters from the ramp, the Artificial passed another exotic, this one a Landau.
But just then a scorpion unit appeared at the garage door opening, outlined in green by the glow stick.
According to the overhead map, Harlequin immediately ducked behind the vehicle.
Hold your fire! Rade sent.
Rade kept his scope aimed at the scorpion, and watched the unit enter fully into the greenish glow near the entrance. Its four legs moved mechanically, and water trickled down the segmented surface of its metal shell. Those lobsterlike pincers opened and closed, while the tail calmly swiveled about, directing the laser turret at its tip to and fro. A sudden gust blew a large amount of hail onto its abdomen and thorax, but the small particles bounced away readily, not disturbing the robot in the least. Some of the hail collected in a small depression near the base of its tail.
The robot paused to examine the glow stick, and upon recognizing what it was, the unit continued down the ramp. Rade heard the distant buzz of servomotor equivalents echoing from the walls as the alien unit advanced, and the muted clang as each foot touched the concrete floor.
Another scorpion unit entered behind it, followed by a third. A final unit emerged so that there were four of them spread out in a long line, advancing cautiously into the parkade. Likely there were more units waiting outside for the advance party to clear the parkade.
The lead scorpion reached the bottom of the ramp, and then pied the left side at the bottom with its turret, while another unit pied the right side. Then the four proceeded forward in unison, scanning both flanks. The two lead units would pass a pillar, and then wait, while the trailing units would fan out into the empty stalls on either side and check behind the pillars from the other side.
Whenever the scorpions encountered a vehicle, the lead unit would advance to the far side and stab its turret past the edge, and then advance beyond it when that flank seemed clear. The trailing unit would proceed along the opposite side of the vehicle, until reaching the rear portion that abutted the concrete wall, confirming that nothing hid there.
Prepare to fire, Rade texted.
The robot’s reached Harlequin’s position. The lead robot shoved its turret past the edge of the Landau he sheltered behind, but Harlequin wasn’t there. The trailing robot on that side went to the rear of the car. Nothing.
Unknown to the scorpions, Harlequin had crawled underneath the Landau, at least according to the overhead map. An amazing feat, considering how low to the ground those cars usually resided.
The robots continued prowling deeper into the parkade, approaching the positions of Rade and his Argonauts.
Target them between the eyes, Rade sent.
When the four units were about three meters from the far side of his cover, Rade texted: Open fire.
Humans and Centurions alike unleashed laser rifles at the same time, and in moments all four scorpions went down with bore holes littering their eye regions; sparks flew from servomotors and turrets.
As Rade suspected, more units were waiting outside at the top of the ramp, because a turret appeared at the far opening.
I’ve got tangos, Harlequin sent. Western opening.
“I see them,” Rade replied over the comm. There was no point in continuing to communicate via text anymore, not when the enemy knew the team was hiding there.
Bore holes appeared in the hood of the exotic car that shielded him, and Rade dropped to the concrete floor. Mr. Chopra was already lying down beside him, shielding Sil with his body. Around him, the other Argonauts were likewise prostrate on the surface behind the exotic or the nearby pillars.
He heard a rapid clang of metal; one or more scorpions were making a rush. He was about to lift his rifle above the hood but saw more boreholes appear in the vehicle—the other scorpions were covering their comrade.
Rade aimed underneath the undercarriage of the vehicle instead. He spotted the moving feet of two scorpions as they raced down the ramp. He attempted to target the lead, but it vanished behind a pillar on the far side of the parkade. He swept his scope to the left, searching for the other, but that unit also vanished, disappearing behind another pillar.
“If you have a shot of the newcomers, take it,” Rade ordered his Argonauts.
Harlequin remained pinned down at the forward position, underneath the Landau.
Rade rolled to the side, toward the front end of the vehicle that was his cover, and leaned slightly past. He aimed his targeting reticle at the edge of the more distant pillar and spotted a turret slowly peering past.
Rade fired and the turret instantly retracted. Rade drew back, expecting return fire to come from the scorpion lurking behind the second pillar.
But that incoming fire never came. Rade learned why a moment later.
“Got one,” Harlequin said over the comm. “But I believe my position is now compromised. I am retreating at a low crawl.”
The freight train sound was growing louder again, but there was nothing Rade could do at the moment but ignore it. He hoped a tornado didn’t strike the hotel, but if it did, maybe the ensuing confusion might help his team escape.
A loud crash from behind alerted him to the garage door on the opposite flank falling in. He swung his rifle around to that side; the glow stick there illuminated the green silhouettes of clones hurrying down the ramp to assume positions behind the pillars of that flank.
“Tangos on the rear!” Tahoe said.
Rade and others opened fire, aiming for the eye regions and terminating some of those clones before they could take cover. Other clones remained near the entrance, firing suppressively.
Partially exposed on that flank, Rade was forced to crawl toward the rear of the exotic car, alongside the others near him. They squeezed between the closest pillar and the vehicle. Sil was held tightly by Mr. Chopra, and she seemed to sense that something was on, because the toddler remained very still, even though she wore an aReal. On the back side of the pillar, Cora still gripped Alex, who had finished his potty break. Cora hugged him with her body, while Shaw fired at the tangos from beside the robot. Judging by the smell, Alex’s defecation lay on the concrete floor nearby.