by John Conroe
Another drone swung around the same corner as my first kill, and my gun was off-target to the left. Being right-handed, it is always easier to swing a barrel across my body from right to left than to swing from left to right. Body mechanics. I had practiced both a lot. I snapped around but was still way too slow. Half-seconds are lifetimes in drone wars. But the new Raptor was frozen in place, just hovering somewhat erratically, and I had lots of time to complete the sight picture and blast it from the air.
I turned to check on Harper and found her un-hit but breathing hard. She looked at me with a triumphant smile. “It worked,” she said, then her eyes flicked to my shoulder and my left arm. “You’re bleeding!”
“Inside,” I said, leading the way into another building, keeping the SOCOM’s barrel out in front. This door was locked. I pulled lockpick tools and dropped to a knee. Rikki hovered, sensors and gun barrel pointed out. “Do me a favor. Inside the outer pocket of my pack is a block of cartridges. Pull them out and toss them up in the air at Rikki,” I instructed her, working the lock the whole time. I could feel her rummage in the pack on my back, then she stopped and I next heard the chunk of a partial block of ammo hit the ground.
“Whoa! How did you teach him that?” she asked from behind me. I felt her stuff something back in the pouch and then zip the pocket closed.
“That’s the million dollar question. Zone Defense wants to know too. Mostly he taught himself.”
“Target tags detected in flechettes. Neutralizing.”
Some drones had little tracking tags that could lead it after a wounded target. Apparently a few were still around. Rikki flashed them with a burst of EM and killed them.
The last tumbler finally clicked and the torsion wrench spun the lock cylinder enough to unbolt the door. I pushed it open and held it while she ran in past me, followed by Rikki. Then I dove through and closed the door as softly as possible.
Rikki moved over in front of me, LEDs all across his front lighting up.
There was no need to explain the significance of that to Harper. Her wide eyes and pale face said it all. The drones were swarming.
I pulled off my pack and opened the main compartment. Pulling the empty jug, I quickly poured one bottle of cleaning chemicals into it, then carefully and as slowly as I could make myself, stirred the contents of the other bottle into it. The mixture started to thicken and I stopped all motion except to set the jug against the unlocked door.
I motioned her to follow and led the way into the building, putting as many turns and doors as possible between the jug and us. Dad had taught me a lot about improvising explosives and traps from common items found almost everywhere in the Zone. This one was a favorite although it didn’t always work. It was also dangerous as shit.
We got to the back side of the building and started to carefully peer out the windows.
“Another bomb?” Harper asked.
“Hopefully, although it isn’t always reliable, especially if you mix it as fast as I did. If I did it right, it makes a super unstable, impressively high-energy explosive.”
“And opening the door will set it off?”
“That’s the plan. Like I said, it may not go off, although it’s generally so touchy that even looking at it wrong can set it off. Not my favorite thing to do,” I said.
Rikki, having swept the door and windows for information, hovered down in front of us. “Approximately sixteen various units in the street we left. More approaching,” he said, his volume pitched soft. Then he suddenly tilted up at forty-five degrees, his sensors aimed at the roofline outside. “Unit Lotus approaching.”
He hovered down to the floor so fast, it was like his strings were cut, but he landed without a sound and instantly cut all power to his fans and lights.
Harper stared at me, eyes tight with tension as we each held our breath. I wasn’t sure what led Rikki to the conclusion that the Spider was coming our way, but I knew better than to second-guess him. Then I heard it… the distinctive metallic patter of metal claws on asphalt. Lots of claws. Six or seven maybe. It was an entirely different sound from a Wolf, Leopard, or Tiger. All of those moved on four feet, and the cadence of their steps was similar to each other. This was different. Tik, tik, tik… tik, tik, tik. Three feet at a time. Probably two on one side and one on the other. Then wash and repeat on the opposite side.
It moved past our building, then, I think, onto our building, the sound fading as it likely worked its way toward the front.
Harper held both hands out, palms up, mouthing, “What do we do?”
I made a waiting motion with my left hand, right still holding the grip of my rifle, finger indexed by the trigger guard. Always be ready to shoot… words of my father.
Harper tilted her head, then made an exploding motion with both hands, her eyebrows raised in question. I shrugged. She didn’t look impressed. In fact, she looked a bit underwhelmed.
The floor suddenly jumped up a foot and the walls all shook as the world roared. Dust and pieces of ceiling material fell in clouds as we were thrown off our feet. I hit the hard floor and then something punched me in the stomach. When the dust cleared, I realized it was Harper’s head, still resting on my bruised abs. She sat up, looking drunk. I had to use my left arm to lever myself upright.
Rikki came to life, his fans lifting him straight up, dust and particles bouncing off his carbon fiber shell.
“Exit is indicated at this time.”
Hitting the crash bar on the rear door popped it right open, making a bit of a racket, but hell, after that explosion, stuff was falling all over the place. A little noise wouldn’t add much.
Turns out we were on the side of the building, and a glance back down the street showed a cloud of smoke and dust filling the street at the front of the building.
A side street was almost right in front of us, heading east, and Rikki took off down it. I turned to grab Harper but she was already running and damned if her stride wasn’t longer and smoother. Almost a full-out sprint. Fast learner.
Rikki stopped at the corner, spinning in place as he folded out into fighter mode. We hit the corner and turned left, heading north. Seagulls flew overhead and the smell of saltwater told me we were getting close.
It took a couple of blocks before I saw an intact street sign—Water Street. Rikki stayed low and just ahead of us. Suddenly he stopped and spun thirty degrees right, gun aimed at the right corner up ahead. Then he hovered straight up about a meter higher.
“Aimpoint: corner of closest building, same elevation as Rikki unit. Countdown to fire,” he said, his tone very soft and quiet.
I put my aiming reticle on the brick corner just over the street sign that said Beekman Street, same level as Rikki was hovering. My trigger finger took up the slack.
“Three, two, one, Mark.”
I started my squeeze at one and the sear let off exactly on the M in Mark. The gun thumped my shoulder but I kept the reticle on target and was rewarded by the sight of a gray and black camouflaged Indian Harpy drone that came around the corner just in time to meet my bullet. The bullet won. Little gun hit like a freight train.
“A faster pace is advised,” Rikki said, zipping over to put a kill shot into the Harpy.
We ran again, Harper glancing my way several times.
“What,” I asked, stopping to pull a wind-up gizmo out of my pack. I opened it, stuck the loaded flare pistol into it, wound it, and pulled back the hammer on the pistol. Set it on the ground behind me, the pistol barrel pointed up and at an angle to our path.
She was clearly winded, shaking her head and sucking air in big gasps. We cleared the intersection and were now running with buildings on our right and a parking lot of rusted cars on our left. I moved to her left side, judging the wide-open parking lot, the street on its far side, and the green space beyond that as more dangerous.
“He—ah—he directed your, ah, shot?” she huffed out, slowing out of necessity.
“Yeah, what of it?” I asked, scoping the
far tree line.
“Do you have any idea how complex that process was?”
It was actually the first time he’d done that, but I sort of expected things like that from him these days. “I don’t know? Freaking awesomely complex?”
“Beyond. The Harpy was too armored for his gun, so he directed your bigger weapon. He had to convey an aiming point, so he aligned his own position to give you a reference you could rapidly and visually understand. Then he counted you down precisely to have the bullet hit the drone at the exact right moment. Ajaya, that’s problem solving and communication at human levels.”
“Most humans wouldn’t have thought of it that quickly,” I said, checking our six o’clock.
“No, they wouldn’t. What the hell did you do to that Berkut?”
“Hold on, we gotta get across this street and it’s a wide one. Rikki—targets close?”
“Negative, Ajaya. Aerial units approaching from west and north. Both ground and aerial units approaching from south.”
A full street behind us, the flare gun suddenly went off, the flare arcing over a building.
“Okay, Harper, more running, less talking,” I said, grabbing her arm. She shook it off, glared at me, and sprinted across the street. Not gonna win any track meets, but she was much faster than before.
The Brooklyn Bridge was visible to our right, the on-ramp just ahead. It was tempting to take it, but that would expose Harper to those New Hope idiots. I led her under the overpass that crossed the bridge, Rikki circling us every few seconds like a ship in orbit. At least the sun was out and giving him back a portion of the power he was burning.
We moved over a block closer to FDR drive and the Zone fence, but stayed far enough away to avoid the cameras. The fence and its auto guns gave us a little bit of security on our right flank, but the way ahead was going to be hairy.
“Multiple units approaching from the north.”
I pulled my last grenades from my pack and clipped them to my suit. One went into Rikk’s talons with the pin pulled. He shot upward, disappearing from view in seconds.
“Where’d he go? Why isn’t he here?”
“He’s hunting. We do this. Now come over here,” I said, leading her into a thick cluster of trees between buildings. Before the Attack, this section, between the two big bridges, had numerous green spaces. Ten years later, it was a thick, overgrown mini-forest.
We moved deeper into the vegetation. “I don’t like this… it’s too… thick,” she said.
She just wasn’t used to forest or plants or normal nature. “Relax and sit low. Catch your breath,” I whispered. “These trees are a nightmare for the aerials. The ground units are slower, and the batch behind us is likely damaged to some degree. Most UGV hunters aren’t overly fast anyway. They just never give up tracking prey and I’ve been dripping blood,” I said, pulling off my pack again. I pulled out part of my booby trap stuff.
“What’s that?” she whispered.
“Two layers of duct tape with nails, screws, and BBs stuck between them. A couple of wraps of this around the body of this flashbang, being careful to stay under the firing spoon, and viola, a shrapnel grenade,” I said, demonstrating as I whispered, pulling the pin. “Now stay low and don’t move.”
A buzzing filled the air and suddenly a dozen mixed aerial drones entered the forest. I had Harper positioned so that my body, covered in adaptive stealth camouflage, was between her and the drones, an overgrown rhododendron plant at her back. I noticed that her 9mm was in her hand. She was going to fight to the end. Like mother, like daughter.
The drones hovered, starting to spread apart. That’s when Rikki’s grenade fell among them, blowing up just above them. The blast shook me, even though I was expecting it. No time for that. I threw my grenade hard and fast, then turned and crouched, covering Harper.
I saw, before I turned, that my throw was going to go under the reeling drones and I sensed, more than heard, nails, BBs, and screws zip by us, ripping through the vegetation. Ears ringing, even with the suit’s earplugs, I stood and turned, slipping into shooting mode. Target—fire, target—fire, target—killed by Rikki, switch to next drone—fire.
Suddenly there were no more drones. I tossed Rikki his last full block of ammo. I now had two partials in my pack. I’d have to try to consolidate them if we had a chance. Then I reloaded my own weapon.
If I lived, I was going to be keeping this little rifle for sure. The heavy bullets swatted drones like flies, the tungsten carbide-cored bullets blew through ground unit armor like butter, and the small, handy AR-15 package was sooo much easier to carry than a sniper rifle.
“And it’s time to run again,” I said to Harper.
She was curled up, hands over her ears, but facing the action. Her eyes were really, really wide.
“That’s not even remotely normal, you know,” she said, standing and then starting to speed up as we headed toward the now visible Manhattan Bridge.
“What?”
“The way you two fight together. And the way you shoot.”
“Oh? You an expert?”
“Actually, I am… at least with anything to do with the Zone. I’ve had a front row seat to more Zone battles than you could imagine. Well, maybe not you, but more than any normal person would believe. I’ve watched Z War teams come and go, live and die. I’ve seen entire squads of soldiers get wiped out.”
“Yeah, well, we all have our childhood issues, right? Anyway, none of us will live if we don’t get to that damned bridge. Run!”
The area we were running through used to be residential, with kind-of cross-shaped apartment buildings, parking lots, basketball courts, and just ahead at the base of the bridge ramp, a baseball diamond.
“No, head that way,” Harper said, pointing at one of the bridge ramp support towers that was well on the land side of things. “There’s a quicker way up onto the bridge.”
We sprinted, almost all-out, at least for my neophyte runner. My adrenaline was running low and a dull ache had started in my shoulder and forearm. I fully expected a much sharper impact in the back of my head or the middle of my back at any moment.
But we made it, arriving at the brick structure, which she seemed very familiar with as she led us around to a closed metal door. She yanked it up then out, using both hands, and the door screeched open. Rikki went in first, then Harper, with me taking one last look behind us as I closed the door.
A cloud of drones was flying our way, hundreds of aerials, a mechanical storm cloud on the horizon, which meant almost as many ground units that I couldn’t see. And while Wolves weren’t overly fast, Tigers were. We were out of time.
Chapter 36
She thought I would leave her on the subway tracks, with Rikki hovering above her. “Here is the last of his ammo. I loaded this one full while we climbed the stairs, so throw it to him when he asks for it.”
“You can’t make it, Ajaya. Not with that many drones coming! And you’re leaving your greatest weapon with me.”
“Of course not. I have no intention of going toe to toe with Lotus’s troops. My goal is to get the wall guns to do the heavy lifting. I just gotta get in gun sensor range. Plus, by now, there has be a dozen Renders on patrol, just waiting for an opportunity to hose those metal bastards. I’m going with you for at least half the bridge. It’s much more protected down here.”
It was, with the thick steel girder caging that protected both sides of the subway tracks, plus the thick car deck overhead.