by Arthur Stone
“What the...”
Before the cultist could even complete the phrase, the elite casually whipped a chain at him, and his flashlight dropped. It rolled along the pavement and came to rest, casting its light back on its owner’s pulverized skull. Boiler involuntarily backed away a few steps.
The elite now seized one of its chains with both hands and pulled again and again. The sturdy metal would not give way. He wound it around his foot, grabbed it again, and heaved with his whole back, popping his joints as he threw his gargantuan might into the cause of liberty.
One of the chains cracked then, sounding a mournful bell ring, one final clanging alarm.
Jupiter had learned how to dismantle his chains, and soon he was free of every one. He snapped the lever off the winch mechanism and disposed of his muzzle, then growled and glared at Boiler. The man raised the mine and a reminder.
“Don’t even think about it. I’ll blow you straight to the moon, you ungrateful monster.”
Jupiter stared at Boiler for several seconds more, then made his decision and abandoned interest in him, instead seizing the cultist’s corpse, noisily consuming the contents of his broken skull, and casting his decapitated rag doll body aside as quickly as he had picked it up
Without so much as a running start, in a single leap he was on the nearest roof, taking off into the night like an intercontinental missile. The beast’s staggering agility and speed were only multiplied by its might and cunning. If Boiler survived this day, he would celebrate it as his second birthday. The day where he experienced the greatest miracle he ever would: intimately encountering one of the worst products of the Hive’s nightmare factory yet living to tell the tale.
He had, in fact, been able. Jupiter was free.
His promise to Aurelia had been fulfilled. But as much as he yearned to proceed to the square and look upon the universe’s greatest treasure of a woman, the time had come to think rationally. He had to leave the village, or at least hide in a safe place. Luck’s patience had been tested enough. Those search parties still roamed.
* * *
He peered around the corner into a narrow alley joining a pair of collapsing buildings, then froze. No one was visible, but many voices could be heard. The pneumatic drill was still at work, though overpowered by a melancholy chorale sung by the cultists. So that was why their mouths had been open as Boiler watched them on the basement monitors.
This place seemed safe. No flashes of light from search parties. He slid around the corner and along the wall. An empty doorway came into view, and suddenly a steel grip seized his head and body and dragged him inside with insurmountable force. His captor hissed in his face, “Shh! Not a sound. I’m a friend!”
The dilapidated hand slipped off his mouth slightly, allowing him to whisper a response. “Gloom?” Boiler recognized the local entertainment mogul’s voice, even in a whisper.
“Right. What the hell are you doing in your underwear? Going out on the town?”
“At least I brought my jacket.”
“No way I’m letting that in to see my girls.”
“I just had an eventful date with someone prettier than your girls. Which is why I put on my jacket. By the way, I was abruptly evicted from your hotel, even though I paid in advance.”
“File a complaint with customer service.”
“I will.”
“Seriously, where the hell are you off to?”
“Far away from here. How can I get out of this town?”
“Just follow the main road past HQ and out to the roadblock. No need to thank me.”
“A Kilding horde concert is going on. The ushers are insistent the performance not be interrupted.”
“I know. The exit’s blocked.”
“No other way out?”
“Even in broad daylight you’d never get out through those mines.”
“What kind of fortress has only one way out?”
“A couple of places have homemade charges set that will break the signal line and let you cross the perimeter. But I don’t know where they are, or how to trigger them. Privileged knowledge. So go if you want. Best case scenario, you blow a leg off and scream for the Kildings to come finish you off. But I have a better idea.”
“What?”
“We cross the main roadblock.”
“This choir performance just might go all night.”
“I know. So we create a ruse.”
“We?”
“I can’t pull it off on my own. It’ll be hard enough with the two of us, but it’s worth a shot. These folks never leave witnesses. Once they’re done in the square, they’ll wipe this place off the map. Though first they’ll look for me until they find me. They love getting their hands on quasis.”
“Huh? Why?”
“To kill them like everyone else, of course, but with special rituals or whatever. I don’t know. I’ve just heard we’re a special prize for these cults.”
“They let me go.”
“Not for long. They would either finish you off later or have you join their choir. You’d sound great in the baritone section.”
“No, they’d finish me off. I killed two of them. Technically three. Plus, I did something else they are going to be furious about.”
“So are you going to help me?”
“What’s the plan?”
“Their Striker and our Suicide Truck are blockading the way. If we can get rid of them, escaping will be much easier.”
“Then let’s clear them out of there! You want the broom or the dustpan?”
“If you’d rather go give yourself up, get on with it and I’ll make do on my own.”
“What’s the plan?”
“We reach the Suicide Truck sitting near HQ. Like I said, it’s ours, so I doubt anyone’s in the driver’s seat. The machine gun is loaded and there’s always some spare ammunition in the back.”
“So that’s why it’s called the ‘Suicide Truck.’ The Striker will blow it to smithereens.”
“That’s why I need help. You have any military training?”
How does she know that? “Grenade launcher.”
“Are you kidding me? It’s my lucky day! Well, besides losing my business and everyone I know and everything I have.”
“Silver lining.”
“So you take the Striker.”
“First, would you happen to have some spare pants?”
“I forgot this was a dress up party. And no, you cannot have mine. But no need to be shy—at least those are clean boxers, right? I doubt you’ll have time to freeze, what with our time more or less split between running like hell and, possibly, being torn to bits.”
“I’d rather not die without pants, to be honest.”
“What the hell difference does it make whether you’re suited up or buck naked?”
“Hey, appearance is still important to me. I know it’s not to you.”
The quasi let the insult pass. “Come on. The distraction might let our people make a break for it, but if we chat the night away the concert will be over. Including the curtain call. Curtains for the whole town. By the way, my friends call me Gloomy. We’re not friends, you and I, but if we’re going to die together, we can at least act like it.”
* * *
And so Boiler advanced from one senseless act of heroism to another. No sane man would rush headlong into an army on full alert.
But what else could he do? If Gloomy was right—and he had no reason not to believe her—than Boiler would, in the best case scenario, be taken away and brainwashed into joining the despised sect. The more likely case, of course, was an agonizing death, after the judgment he and Nimbler had visited on the corpses in the basement. Perhaps they had noticed him missing already, but had merely increased their search activity without raising an alarm.
Then there was the escaped Jupiter and the headless cultist lying near his former home. Who would they blame for that?
He had to avoid capture.
A cat screamed some
where across town. Perhaps Charcoal was still chasing his red-furred female. Or one of them had run into the elite. He felt bad that his gray friend might be experiencing his last moments, but there was nothing he could do about it. He was only a few steps away from certain death himself.
Gloomy’s plan had considerable shortcomings, but at least it was a plan. The Kildings were not expecting an attack. They doubtless believed that anyone who had not yet been found would continue hiding, not plan a suicidal charge into the square. An exploding APC and the ensuing chaos Gloomy had planned, now that should set some kind of world record for worst concert disruption ever.
Still, Boiler didn’t like having to fire the first shot. The quasi could be setting him up, planning to slip away while the military mob swamped the abandoned triggerman. But Gloomy hadn’t insisted he take up a good, faraway position for his shot. She had instructed him to get as close as possible, ensuring a direct hit and a short sprint out of town. Unless something distracted the army from Boiler or provided some other kind of help, he would die quickly, shot to pieces in the wide open space he was crossing. Gloomy had promised to fire a few volleys from the “Suicide Truck,” the town jeep with the machine gun turret. The rest of the Kildings’ vehicles were on the other side of the square and no obstacle to the road exiting town. They were arranged to provide optimal lighting, and the bright lighting on the captives made it more difficult to see details in other areas.
The plan was beginning to seem less crazy now. They had a decent chance, if they worked quickly. Relying too much on their vehicles, the cultists had not posted any other obstacles to the insurgents’ exit vector, if the basement monitors were to be believed. Dealing with the vehicles would clear a path. And even if a race ensued, escaping at night on foot was not unrealistic. They could abandon the vehicle by that overgrown forest.
Boiler circled around the town headquarters and climbed through the broken window of a building abandoned long ago, carefully negotiating the rubble of the collapsed roof. He stepped on a rusted nail. It penetrated deep as he cursed his luck but suppressed his scream.
The same leg. Of course. Maybe he really should have cut it off. Metal shards, shrapnel, crossbow bolts, nails... What else was left? Lawnmowers? Trains running over it?
He slid up beside a doorway and peeked out. To the left, he saw a portion of the square, filled with squatting prisoners surrounded by the cultists and their incantations. The unaccompanied chanting plodded on, sometimes monotonous but other times becoming a rising and falling howl proficient at summoning goosebumps.
This was no music. Its was the unrestrained moaning of a tortured throng.
Both those with the torches and those with the weapons aimed at the prisoners joined the chorus. Dozens of guns were in attendance, including some fully automatic ones, enabling the Kildings to slay the majority of the crowd in seconds if necessary. Though in that case, their circular formation would put their own lives at risk. A tactical error that may come in handy. Try as they might, they would hit some of their own, especially since bullets were prone to ricochet even off pavement as old as this. Boiler would have selected a plot of earth for this ritual, not a plot of asphalt.
The captives were submissive, with not the slightest indication of rebellion. What could they have done, anyway? The crowd was unarmed and restrained. The zip-tie handcuffs that held them had been used for decades by all branches of law and military enforcement. They were effective.
To the right, he observed the eight-wheeler APC. It was pointed outwards towards the perimeter, its machine gun intended to provide cover for the attendees from any unwanted visitors from beyond. A nice-looking vehicle, but with several flaws. This configuration had no protection from anti-tank projectile explosives. Which was precisely what Gloomy had requisitioned for Boiler’s use. No matter what angle that carrier was hit from, it would succumb to penetration.
But his objective was not to pierce its armor, just to ensure that the machine gunner could not turn the turret on the other vehicle or on the rocket’s ruins of origin. Of course, he also had to avoid blowing up Gloomy’s vehicle, since that was his ride out of here.
No sense hitting that thing in the rear. The armor was weakest there, but the gunner was probably located elsewhere. Boiler deduced that he likely be sitting up by the driver. That’s where he would shoot. His armor-piercing round would either kill the gunner outright or provide an incendiary distraction that could not be ignored. Some idiots acted like an RPG was a fire-and-forget weapon, a guaranteed kill, but that was far from the case. Even an unprotected vehicle like this could survive a hit with insignificant damage.
Once, Boiler had been well-versed on the specific vulnerabilities of a whole assortment of vehicles, but he had managed to forget them. Dunce.
He set the grenade launcher on the rotting floorboards and readied it to fire. He raised the weapon into position, rested it on his shoulder, and took aim. At that moment, the cultists’ chanting paused for a few seconds. The eerie silence filled the space. All Boiler had to do now was pull the trigger.
He looked at the vehicles across the square. Somewhere among them stood the one which had conveyed Aurelia to this town. The girl and the old witch were nowhere to be seen, but he was sure they had not departed. Why would they leave before this heartless ceremony finished?
No one was inside the building, and no one outside was looking his way. But he dared not step outside. Firing the grenade launcher would cause exhaust to safely jet back into the building’s open space behind him, while doing so outside would create an eye-catching cloud.
He had never trained with this particular weapon—indeed, he’d only seen it once or twice—but its designers had simplified each step to suit even the dumbest soldiers. The Striker was barely over a hundred feet away and well illuminated by the headlights of the nearby “Suicide Truck.” Boiler might have taken that vehicle out too, if he had brought two grenade launchers. He hoped Gloomy would do as she had promised. The machine gunner stood at attention, aiming outwards at the perimeter roadblock, but he could pivot quickly if needed.
The attack would need to hit the armor plating at a sufficient angle, but that was no problem. He took aim just above the second wheel from the front, praying the selected area was the right target. His faded memories from military training hinted that the power unit would be located at that precise spot. That was the heart of the vehicle. Disabling it would convert the APC to a megasized steel paperweight. Hopefully a burning one, since the vehicle’s fuel and oil were there, too.
He pressed the trigger as smoothly as he could. The launcher jerked back, propellant exhaust and debris falling from the ceiling blurred his view, and something collapsed behind him, kicking up an impressive dust cloud. Boiler made sure the hit was on target and stepped back, anticipating swift retribution.
The cultists’ reaction was exactly what he had expected. Just as he reached his target window, bullets peppered the walls of the building. Their aim was not directly at him, of course, but at the general area the rocket had come from. Happily, only the cultists in the square were joining the counterassault, not the large-caliber APC machine gun.
Damn. I jinxed it. The sounds of small arms fire were drowned out by the heavy gun unleashing hell. A raw, consuming noise that never left your dreams once you’d heard it, and likely nightmared you into the grave if it was directed at you.
A short volley, apparently released in haste, turned what remained of the roof into a sieve. Boiler threw himself through his escape window as the rundown wood structure fell to pieces. Now to rub his eyes a little—or a lot—and try to determine which way to crawl.
The second machine gun volley lasted a good deal longer, with the bullets cutting lower, through the walls. Boiler knew he must not give away his position. He pressed himself down hard into the life-giving earth and crawled towards the roadblock outside of town. Even looking forward was a risk he could not take. Raising his head a couple of inches would enable the machi
ne gunner to scalp him from afar.
Large-caliber rounds still pumped into the house, and Boiler was showered with all sizes of debris as he crawled. If a brick was knocked free from the chimney and thrown into the back of his head, all would be lost. With his luck, he was afraid that was the most likely thing to happen.
Another machine gun roared to life. Its pitch was lower, but its caliber clearly large. As if the poor house hadn’t suffered enough. But the first gun was silent—wait, no, he could still hear another gun firing, but from another direction. As if firing into town from out towards the roadblock.
He climbed out from behind the house and raised his head, ignoring the peril for curiosity’s sake. The armored personnel carrier was in flames, like it had suffered a napalm strike. The whole front was engulfed, the barrel of the machine gun staring up at the moon in a melancholy death salute. Sparks splashed every which way, the closest thing to a fireworks show that Smoker could offer. He marveled at the valuable combat vehicle’s metamorphosis into a giant dumpster fire. One Cold-War-era grenade had finished the entire personnel carrier off.
The gun’s ammunition began crackling in the blaze, and smoke grenades went off like popcorn. One flew over the “Suicide Truck,” where the machine gunner was firing one quick volley after another, pulverizing the unfortunate elderly house. You can raze that thing to its foundations, Boiler thought with glee. Spend all the time you like. I’m not even in there. He had to crawl on to the next building and move further on foot.
The next round from the invisible distant machine gun sprayed the converted vehicle with heavy rounds, creating a shower of sparks and splinters of cracked armor plating. The shooter’s head snapped back. Boiler squinted to see part of it fly out of the turret. The man’s fingers convulsed, tightening his grip on the trigger as his body fell and spraying tracer rounds over the heads of the cultists and their victims, peppering houses on the other side of the square. Some mysterious explosive within one of the buildings, catalyzed by the volley, erupted into billowing flames. Whoops. Shouldn’t have stashed that barrel of gas in the attic.