by Tom Dowd
The lights cut bright slices through the night air and played across the wide open area that had been a main street, picking out the desperate and foolhardy as they tried to sneak or dash across the exposed area. As he watched the roving searchlights, Kyle wondered if the fugitives truly believed they'd find sanctuary or reprieve when they reached the barricades. From what he could see, they found neither, Anyone who made it across was forcibly subdued by men in heavy combat armor and unceremoniously escorted back the way he'd come.
Sometimes, depending on exactly who made it across, the troopers would open up with tear gas or stun rounds until the transgressor retreated. Sometimes, as testified by the occasional limp body on or near the barricade, the offender was simply shot. Kyle noted that almost invariably, of the half-dozen or so he'd seen while walking the line from Ashland to Sheridan, the dead were orks or trolls. The troopers were afraid these people might actually be able to get past the wall of debris.
There were thousands, maybe tens of thousands, gathered along the line. They were packed and stacked deep into the side streets that intersected the demarcation line. People were camped where they could, others overrunning and occupying houses. Most simply slept in any empty spot, atop what worldly possessions they dared carry with them. People shouted, argued, and cried as the spotlights panned over them and the helicopters roared overhead. Through powerful speakers, the soldiers ordered the people to pull back. The government wanted them to go home, but they couldn't- they had nowhere to go. Their homes were infested.
Draped in a bright yellow rain poncho he'd pulled from Beth's closet, Kyle walked the line, searching carefully through the side streets, looking for Beth and Natalie. He showed pictures of them to anyone who would stop and listen. Most just stared back at him glassy-eyed. Some cursed him in the name of one of their own lost loved ones. A few smiled sympathetically and looked at the pictures. But no one had seen the child or her mother. Seeks-the-Moon was busy doing the same.
It had been raining since sundown, and one man fought another for the right to have his child sleep under the eaves of a building. Finally someone yelled out that the men should just let the children sleep together. They agreed, for now-the rain was only light.
There were gunshots two blocks or so over, small-caliber, not the army. Moving among the refugees and showing his pictures, Kyle wondered briefly what might have caused it. A rumor spread like lightning-the government was dropping food over the line down near the lake. There was a rush. People gathering up what they could and then taking off east toward the lakeshore.
Maybe there'd be food there, maybe it was rumor. They couldn't take the chance. Kyle let the tide of people flow around him. If Beth and Natalie were there he'd never find them now. His best hope was that the group she'd hooked up with had staked a claim to some space nearby, though with the line so close to her actual apartment it would have made more sense for Natalie to stay home. Kyle and Seeks-the-Moon had found enough food in the house, even with what had been stolen, to last about a week if rationed. Beth and Natalie could have hidden there until he came for them. But they hadn't. Instead they'd gone looking for safety somewhere else.
Just then there was a commotion behind him. A little group of men and women were gathered in the debris that was all that remained of a store on the south side of the street, opposite the barricades. They were tense, agitated, and kept glancing toward the line of troops. Kyle looked too, and saw the troopers' attention on the flow of people eastward. They were distracted, and in that moment the small group of men and women rushed the barricade.
Kyle almost screamed out in warning and had to choke back the power that rose inside him, but the concussion grenades were already detonating. A water hose started up on one of the towers and it tore into the group just as they reached the barricade. Several were stopped cold or went limping away after the grenade blasts. The rest stormed the barricade.
They were not unprepared. A pair of smoke grenades lighted, filling the area quickly with green haze. There were gunshots from this side of the barricade as well; snipers from the southside debris. They were light, but accurate- Kyle saw one group of guards pinned down by the shots. A portion of the barricade began to move as the people tore at it, ignoring the growing fusillade of stun rounds being fired blindly into the smoke.
Then, the helicopter was overhead. A jet black Hughes Stallion with its huge rotor downwash and powerful searchlight. The smoke dissipated as fast as it came, and suddenly the people began to fall, clutching at their knees and thighs. Somewhere on the line a government sniper was systematically disabling them. Within moments, under obvious fire from the watchtowers and the sniper, they began to haltingly withdraw, dragging most of their fallen behind them. Kyle saw blood on the street. Not all the rounds were gel.
He watched the little group gather together again, cursing and moaning. Two went off trying to round up others for another try. They were confident the barricade could be breached. But then what? Kyle wondered. Did they think that past the line there was nothing? No army camp, no armored personnel carriers, no light tanks? Only freedom?
Suddenly, there were screams from behind him, a block, maybe two away. He spun, and saw bugs. A swarm of them, roaches and ants, had erupted from a sewer and flashed into existence among the crowd pushing toward the rumored food. Kyle pushed to get closer, but the surge of the crowd was against him. He wanted a clear view of the insect spirits, but there were people in front of him, hands in his face, screams in his ears.
A woman with a young boy still clinging to her was dragged forcibly into the sewer. Five or six wasps appeared. Buzzing angrily, they dived into the crowd, swooping to pick people up with their front legs, then lifting them skyward in a shower of blood and out of sight over the houses to the south. The army opened fire. Bugs were hit; the spirits didn't care. People were hit; they began to die.
Two elementals appeared, and were immediately consumed by a swarm of insect spirits. The bugs climbed across the people on their sharp, jointed legs, reaching down into their midst to pull some free and then skitter off with them. There were more gunfire and explosions.
Kyle saw an opening, prepared a spell, and was knocked to the ground. The fleeing tide rushed over him, stepping, smashing. Desperate, he cast a quick spell and a gray-green bubble appeared around him, pushing the people aside. The ones nearby, those still thinking clearly enough to grasp what was happening, screamed and rushed away. Some panicked and ran straight toward the bug spirits.
Kyle stood and let the spell fall. There were fewer insects, fewer people. One wasp, caught in the air by a hail of gunfire that would have reduced a tank to scrap, was slowly whittled away until it could absorb no more and fled into astral space.
The crowd fell back from the line as two helicopters arrived overhead, blanketing the area in wind and light. But there was nothing for them to do. The marauding spirits were gone, and with them maybe a score of people, probably more. Off in the side streets, between the homes and inside them, the wailing began.
Kyle watched as he leaned back against a tree half uprooted by the press of a bulldozer. How could this be happening? How could this be-
Vathoss.
Sergeant Keith Vathoss, cyber-soldier for Knight Errant Security, was standing a half-dozen meters away. Next to him was another man, similarly garbed in a bulky long coat. Both had military buzz-cuts, and both seemed tense as they eyed the demarcation line with the gaze of skilled professionals gauging another journeyman's work. Satisfied, they stood in the shadows and talked quietly. Kyle slipped around the tree to watch them, fairly certain they hadn't seen him.
After a moment, and some more discussion, they headed west, past him, parallel to Irving Park Road. Kyle thought about simply calling out to them, but didn't. There was something about their manner, the way their gazes searched the crowd ahead for threats, that put him off. He realized he didn't trust them. Only if they were with Anne Ravenheart would he make contact.
Kyle fol
lowed them carefully as they continued on. Keeping to the shadows, he deactivated the rest of his power foci. There were two spells he wanted to cast on himself, but he'd need all of his masking ability to conceal those auras. No way could he could handle the spell auras and the auras of power coming off the foci at the same time. He thought about trying to contact Seeks-the-Moon, but didn't know where the spirit had ended up after the insect attack. They'd arranged to meet later at Beth's house, but Kyle had no other way of contacting him.
He paused, and quickly cast me spell, running through the four levels of formula in his head. His view of the world shifted slightly, becoming fuzzier and slightly bluer, almost like pure moonlight. He was invisible to anyone who stepped within the area of the spell, but the spell didn't bend light around him and so wouldn't work against the heat-sensors Vathoss probably had in his eyes. What the spell did was insist to any onlookers in range that Kyle simply was not there. And, if he was lucky, they'd believe it.
Then, before the two Knight Errant troopers could get too far ahead, he cast the second spell, which blanketed him in near silence. The outside world sounded to him like he was underwater, but Kyle's own noises would be inaudible. He sprinted forward to catch up to them, making the internal adjustments necessary to mask the aura of the two spells. Again, if he was lucky, he'd be all but undetectable.
He followed them past Ashland until they came to some elevated rail tracks that had been dynamited and sealed. They turned south away from the demarcation line; the street sign read Ravenswood. Then, he noticed that the two men grew cautious. Though trying to appear natural as they carefully moved through the mass of people camped there, they continually changed their positions relative to each other, casually circling each other as if in animated conversation. All the while they scanned the area.
Kyle cursed. Until that point he'd been able to follow them by walking in the cleared area, away from the people. Now, the two cyber-soldiers were moving directly through the throng, forcing him to do the same. And though the people couldn't see him or hear him, they'd certainly feel him as he passed. Kyle would have to risk casting a third spell.
Fortunately, Vathoss and the other trooper were walking slowly, giving Kyle the extra time he needed. He marshaled me energy carefully; the fact that he was still sustaining the other two spells made casting this one extremely difficult. But when he'd completed it, feeling only a slight weakening from the strain, he floated upward, high enough to pass over the camped refugees.
He glided forward to within a half-dozen meters of the two troopers, who had relaxed their vigilance, satisfied that no one was following. After another four or five blocks, they passed Ravenswood's intersection with Addison and the angled Lincoln Avenue, and continued on for another half-block. Then Vathoss paused and casually finished his cigarette, which he tossed into the street, using the pretext to look around. Meanwhile the other trooper climbed the short stairs of what looked like it had been a small warehouse or perhaps self-storage company. Vathoss followed him up the stairs onto the short loading dock, then the pair pushed aside one of the large double doors and went in.
Kyle willed himself up onto the platform and then dropped the levitation spell. The door they'd gone through had yielded too easily to the troopers' touch to be locked. If they were keeping at least one major exit clear and unlocked in case they needed to make a quick exit, Kyle would use it to his advantage.
Stepping up to the door, he reached out carefully and grasped the handle. With only the slightest tug it slid aside noiselessly, the sound absorbed by his still active silence spell. Quickly, he darted through and scanned the area. It was a small-crate or large-package handling area. Seeing no one about, he slid the door shut. Had anyone been around, Kyle would have left the door open to make the guard wonder how it had done so on its-own.
There were two doors leading out of the darker area. One accessed an office, the other apparently opened into a larger storage or handling area. He moved toward the door.
Before going through, Kyle waited and listened, but heard nothing he could identify through the silence spell. Beyond the open door was semidarkness; only the faintest light leaked through from distant windows.
As Kyle stepped through the door, movement to his left immediately attracted his attention. He turned and began to duck reflexively as a matte-black weapon pivoted toward him, the flat plate of its main sensory array covered in dark mesh.
Kyle raised his hands and shouted for it not to shoot, but the machine heard nothing past the silence spell. And even if it did, it knew its target wasn't carrying the right transponder chip and hadn't given the right verbal override. All it knew was what its sensors told it.
It fired.
26
"That was pretty fraggin' stupid," Anne Ravenheart said as she leaned over Kyle and adjusted the bandage on his side. His wound was now only minor; she'd healed most of it within moments of the hypervelocity autofire burst tearing into him, but enough wound and soreness remained to remind him of how close it had been. "Lucky for you the fire-control system on that sentry gun is fragged."
"Yeah," said Kyle, grinning slightly as he pulled himself up into a more comfortable position. "My lucky day."
Ravenheart's eyes narrowed. "Damn straight. That weapon fires six rounds of armor-piercing discarding-sabot ammunition per fire command with barely any recoil. You are lucky.”
Kyle nodded and motioned for her to let up on the lecture. "I know, I know. I'm sorry I sneaked up on you."
"Why the frag did you?" she demanded. "Why didn't you flag Vathoss down on the street?"
"Caution… paranoia," Kyle told her. "These aren't the most stable of times, in case you hadn't noticed. I didn't know if he was still with you or out on his own."
"Fair enough," she said, then stood, offering him a hand to rise to his feet. He took it, and stood up alongside her. She looked like drek, her skin pale and drawn, her normally bright eyes dulled with fatigue, the body armor under-padding she wore over a T-shirt and shorts battered and stained. Seeing him take it all in, she managed a smile.
"Life in the field," she said, turning to lead him into a different part of the room, out from among the piles of stored boxes where she'd laid him down. There, casually seated around a jumbled pile of arms, armor, and supplies were five other Knight Errant troopers. Kyle paused and half-turned toward Ravenheart. "Don't tell me this is all that survived," he whispered.
She looked over at them, and men back at him, matching his gaze. There was a coldness there that he hoped was an effort to block out me pain of having lost so many. "No," she whispered back. "About two dozen were medivacced, and I have another three guarding this building and another four out reconning the city."
“Twelve," Kyle said.
"Thirteen. Don't forget me." Then her voice became even softer. "Lucky thirteen."
They started walking again, and Kyle resumed his normal conversational tone. "Can you tell me what happened?"
She shrugged. "We got crammed, pure and straight."
The other five troopers looked up at their approach, and a few of them, especially Vathoss, shifted angrily at the remark. “Too fraggin' many of them," she went on. "And they got smart just when we got lazy."
Kyle said nothing, but watched the body language of the five troopers. He could tell they'd heard this before, and he wasn't sure if the controlled anger they showed had to do with memories of the massacre or if it was directed at Ravenheart herself.
"Were you in the command van?" she asked Kyle.
"That's the last place I remember being," he told her. "I saw a giant, screeching beetle tearing the roof off like it was opening a can of soup, and then nothing. I woke up beaten to drek behind a dumpster."
She nodded. "Do you know if Soaring Owl got out?"
He shrugged. "I have no idea. He was in the van with me, but I don't remember seeing him at all. Did you search the wreckage?"
Ravenheart nodded again. "We"-she motioned to the other five
-"were pinned down for most of a day near the hive. We heard choppers that night, but couldn't get free because of all the fraggin' bugs. We couldn't even raise anybody on the secure channels.
"By the time we got clear, me emergency pickup had come and gone. We searched around the vehicles some, picked up a few stragglers, and then moved out." She grinned and shrugged. "I guess we missed you."
"Somewhat understandable," he said. "I hear I was pretty close to buying it."
"Before we moved out, we swept the area, cleaned out any critical gear, and moved out to an in-city safehouse."
"Here?"
"No." She shook her head. "Closer to the Shattergraves, and actually not far from where the nest was."
"Were you able to get in touch with anyone?"
She eyed him suspiciously.
"I presume there was a communication rig in the safehouse," he said.
"You're right. There was."
"And?"
"We were told to hold our position pending further orders. Then the jamming started and we haven't been able to punch through it since."
"Do you think they'll send in a team to contact you?"
She eyed him again. "Maybe."
Kyle looked around the large storage room. "I take it this is another safehouse?"
Vathoss slammed a full clip into the automatic rifle he'd been cleaning. He didn't look at Kyle, but instead began to polish the barrel. Kyle had no doubt the gesture had been directed at him.
Ravenheart ignored the display. "Yes. The other one was lost to the bugs. We're lucky this was still inside the containment area."
"More interesting luck," Kyle said. She nodded, and the two of them sat down on one of the crates. One of the other troopers, an Asian man with a fresh scar on his face, offered them both cigarettes. Ravenheart accepted, as did Kyle, even though he'd quit nearly a decade before.