“Holy fuck! This is awesome,” said Gwen, cheering, raising her hands over her head and dancing in place. Arthur felt a smile spread across his face, mesmerized by the slow shake of her hips.
Arthur ducked low, gripping the low wall as the chariot increased speed, racing for the waterline, the hot summer wind tearing at his clothes.
“We have our primary deployment area at what used to be Logan Airport,” said Asahi beside him, pointing to the horizon. “The entire harbor is defended by AAA guns that had been sitting in mothballs for the last hundred years. They are one of the few weapon systems not affected by the enemy-dampening field.”
Arthur could see just waves of destruction below, the once busy airport lined with heavy-duty fortifications and armed with thousands of anti-aircraft weaponry units. “Why do they keep attacking? It looks like they’ve destroyed most everything. There’s nothing left of value.”
“We’re not sure why they keep attacking here,” said Asahi, nodding in agreement, locking his hands behind his back. “When they first attacked the city, they tried to set up a base on Beacon Hill, another at the airport. Luckily we managed to push them out, and since then we’ve set up fortifications like this over the entire harbor with skeleton crews for early warning. They have been testing our defenses every few weeks. They’ve leveled most of the city, yet they keep coming. We can only assume there is something here that they want, and it has been decided from up high that we don’t let them have it.”
As the chariot descended, Arthur began to see signs of readiness, soldiers on the ground scurrying around, manning weapon emplacements. Somewhere in the distance an air raid siren wailed, its piercing scream cutting through the roar of the wind in his ears. Asahi said nothing, only pointed at the darkness forming on the horizon. Arthur could just make out the teeming mass of machines blackening the sky, some so small he could barely see them, others the size of a jet or larger, black and sleek with rotary cannons projecting from their noses, some with a complement of missiles hanging off their wing mounts, all weaving erratically to avoid incoming fire.
Arthur sucked in his breath just as the first wave hit the shoreline, a pillar of incandescent light shooting out from one of the fortifications, cutting a swath of destruction. Before Arthur could take a breath, another beam lit up the sky, vaporizing everything in its path, cutting machines from the air like a massive flyswatter, sending thousands of broken bits of metal and plastic plummeting to the ocean below. As if Komiko’s attack were a starting gun, the AAA batteries lining the shore opened fire, lighting up the sky with smoke and flame, the destruction dimming the bright afternoon sun.
“Komiko,” said Asahi by way of explanation, motioning for Gabriel to put them down. They landed near what was once the central intersection of Logan Airport’s runway system, now a series of transport containers that served as a prefabricated command center for the defense of the area. Not saying another word, Gabriel shot off, his blue platform racing off toward the incoming drones.
“Aren’t we going to help her?” asked Gwen, looking skyward.
“We’re just here to watch; you know that,” said Arthur, blowing out his cheeks, happy to be back on the ground.
“They hardly need our assistance, Ms. Stone,” said Asahi, motioning for them to follow as he entered a nondescript container. “We can watch from in here as long as we are not affected by the dampening field and the power holds.”
Walking into the darkened command center, Arthur scratched at the prickling along his arms. The sensation of ants crawling over him had been getting worse lately, almost to the point of making him crazy sometimes. It was only when he concentrated on other things that the feeling went away. Once his eyes adjusted, he found rows of personnel manning smooth-paneled computer stations that served as early warning systems for this section of the harbor, blue-and-red data holograms floating above their heads, a tense murmur of orders being relayed back and forth. The center of the room was dominated by a massive projection of the fighting at the shoreline, giving them an almost perfect position to oversee all activities in the bay.
Arthur locked his hands behind his back, trying to match Asahi’s calm demeanor despite knowing there were thousands of drones bearing down on them. The older man looked strangely at peace, almost like he was watching the sunrise.
From the projection, they could see Gabriel racing to the shoreline in his shimmering chariot. He extended his palm, throwing up massive barriers, each blocking swarms of incoming drones. Arthur couldn’t help but smile to himself when the enemy’s deadliest weapons were crushed against the shimmering blue walls, falling in bits and pieces like broken toys at the water’s edge. Beside him, Gwen clapped with excitement each time an incandescent beam burned across the sky or a football field-sized wall appeared in front of another deadly wave, the AAA guns mopping up the leftovers. “Is it always like this?” asked Arthur, keeping his voice steady.
Beside him, Asahi simply gave a quiet nod, his eyes never leaving the projection. “Wouldn’t it be faster if you were with them?” asked Gwen across from him, flicking her fingers in and out of the holo-projector lens, giggling when parts of the image winked out. “Hey, what are these red dots along the bottom here?”
“Those are nothing you should be concerned about, Ms. Stone. You are here to watch and listen, not speak.”
Gwen crossed her arms across her small breasts, frowning, muttering something Arthur could only assume was swearing of some sort. They watched in silence as Komiko took to the air. She and Gabriel easily fended off the onslaught, a finely tuned dance of each attacking in turn, boxing in the attacking forces, destroying most and forcing the rest into the waiting AAA guns. Arthur was impressed and had already lost count of the fallen drones. His neck and back grew stiff as the assault dragged on.
“They work really well together,” said Gwen, mimicking Arthur’s thoughts, breaking the silence. “Why is she so pissed at him?”
“Gwen!” said Arthur, giving her a strained look, not wanting to upset Asahi.
The older man merely shrugged. “It has been a difficult time. One of us fell last week. We all accept that death is part of a soldier’s life, but that does not make it any easier to lose friends.”
Watching the holo-feed, Arthur couldn’t imagine how any one of them could even be hurt by the drones, much less killed. He was just about to ask if there was more to it than this when everything winked out, the command center suddenly whisper quiet. In the distance he heard a low boom, like waves crashing on a distant cliffside.
“Impossible!” said Asahi, his normally soft voice made shrill by an undercurrent of worry. Arthur had to step back as pulsing orange waves of light and heat burst from him, banishing the dark. All around him, the personnel in the command center sped into action, wasting no time with worry. They began arming themselves, tossing away headsets and putting on flak jackets, officers scrambling to weapons lockers at the back and the front of the container, efficiently handing out M16 assault rifles and twelve-gauge shotguns.
Without a word, Asahi went to the door, looking skyward. Arthur could hear more booming in the distance, louder this time. “The two of you, remain here. The marines will protect you if need be,” he said, the flames around him growing brighter as he exited the trailer.
“Screw that!” said Gwen, grabbing Arthur by the shoulder and tearing after Asahi. “C’mon, he’s old as fuck. We can’t just let him do this shit on his own.”
Before he could protest, Gwen dragged him out the door into the humid afternoon. Half running, half stumbling, he raised a hand to shield his eyes, scanning the horizon to see what had happened, blinking at the sudden brightness only to realize it was Asahi shining brighter than the sun, swirls of bright plasma arcing all around him, the air in his wake spinning rapidly in a tornado of flame that consumed everything it touched.
He heard the booming a final time, his jaw dropping as one of the AAA guns up ahead toppled over, dark smoke spilling out from a gaping ho
le in its side.
Arthur was about to run ahead to try and help the soldiers trapped in the burning weapons platform when a pack of dark shapes appeared from the billowing smoke. They walked on all fours and had oddly disjointed metallic bodies that reflected the afternoon sun. Their front legs were short, making them look low and sleek, bodies thin in the middle with larger hindquarters like hunting hounds. They seemed built for speed. Where eyes should have been was a single red sensor, blade-thin, sliding back and forth.
At his side he could feel Gwen suddenly tense as the lead hound fixed its gaze on them, bounding in their direction, spiked claws tearing into the ancient concrete runway, spraying bits of broken stone behind it. Before he could react, a gout of flame slammed into it, its silver-gray body heating to a deep shade of red, then near-white as it tumbled end over end in a shower of bright sparks and scrap metal. Just as quickly, a second and a third suffered the same fate. Arthur looked to the source of the flames to see Asahi, like Vulcan at his forge belching out torrents of destruction, incinerating everything in his path.
“Come, quickly!” he said, motioning them over with a toss of his head. “I will keep the flames focused on the machines. Stay close. I need to find Gabriel and Komiko.”
“You got it, boss man,” said Gwen, falling in beside him, a wide smile plastered on her face.
They moved quickly, Asahi throwing bolts of fire in all directions, his brow creased with worry. The hounds not coming their way were directly attacking the AAA guns, their sleek shapes hurtling toward the towers and exploding in kamikaze attacks. High above, he caught the occasional glimpse of cobalt blue from one of Gabriel’s walls or incandescent beams tearing across the sky as Komiko blasted another wave of drones to oblivion, but the hounds were gaining the advantage. Multiple AAA guns had fallen silent, plumes of smoke darkening the sky above the bay.
Beside him, he could see sweat rolling down the older man’s face, and with each torrent of flame that poured from his hands his breathing grew more labored, like a runner at the end of a sprint who was near spent.
“You can’t keep this up,” said Arthur, shouting to be heard over the violence. “We have to—”
Arthur felt them before he saw them, he wasn’t sure how, just a tingle at his back. He looked over his shoulder to see another pack racing toward them, so close he could hear the mechanical whine of the gears driving them.
“Behind us! Asahi—” Arthur saw stars, his body suddenly floating, a queer sense of weightlessness that lasted a heartbeat before his breath was torn from his lungs as he landed hard on his back, gasping for air. He looked down on his still form to see his uniform torn and tattered, still smoking in places. With a groan he sat up, the smell of soot in his nose, a ringing silence in his ears. He shook his head, trying to blink away the sense of vertigo, and found the world in chaos. Where Asahi should have been was a man-shaped form on its knees, streaks of gold and jagged arcs of blue dancing and shimmering all around. Beside it, standing like a guardian angel, another creature that could only be Gwen glowed amber and white.
Farther afield, Arthur could make out the hounds, or at least something cast in their image, bounding once again toward them. In his mind’s eye they looked like pure shadow illuminated by thousands of blue-and-white points of light, pumping like blood. He focused on them, the itching sensation growing stronger on his arms, spreading to his chest and scalp. Not knowing how, he reached out. It was like the lock from his room so many weeks ago, but the connection was somehow deeper. He understood that the light he was seeing was the driving force of the machines: power, energy, all controlled by a module buried deep within their electronic guts. With a wave of his hand, he halted the flow of energy, breaking the circuit and stopping the machines dead in their tracks, frozen in place midstride.
Rising unsteadily to his feet, he looked skyward, his brow narrowing when he saw the sky had darkened somewhat yet remained bright, almost as if the sun were eclipsed, not by smoke but by something else.
He pushed forward, beads of sweat forming on his forehead from the strain, feeling more of them now that he knew what to look for. Arthur gasped, sensing hundreds, thousands of hounds climbing up from the harbor floor. He reached for as many as he could, like gathering bunches of weeds. Straining, he pulled...and nothing happened. Arthur could feel a tremble run through his core, the beading sweat turning quickly to a river rolling down his face, his back an ocean. A twisted groan brought Arthur’s attention back to the ground. The figure he was sure was Asahi had collapsed, falling face forward, the once-golden aura around him a dull yellow, the jagged blue arcs of electricity once nearly blinding now dim and faded.
Arthur took a deep breath, reaching deep within himself, his mind’s eye seeing thousands of drones scattered across the runway, metallic legs pumping in unison, each one charging for an AAA gun. With the last of his strength he pulled. He pulled until he felt his heart would explode in his chest. Then he felt it, like a mountain being moved, the circuit snapping like the snapping of a whip. He couldn’t breathe, and he couldn’t see. His world was black.
Chapter 16: Beef and Teriyaki
Project Divinity Interview — Subject: Rowen Macdonald (Cont’d)
“That was a really hard time, those first few weeks. My father did his best to keep us going, to give us hope, but Cardinal Washington, his orders...well, to put it bluntly, sir, he was a fucking asshole!” said Rowen, no longer trying to hide her temper.
To her surprise, her piggish evaluator gave her a wide smile. It was a scary thing; he was not a pretty man, with a large bulbous nose and sunken eyes. “In that, Sergeant, you’re damn right. That piece o’ dog shit is responsible for more pain and suffering than you know.”
“We got very little news about what was happening on the front lines,” said Rowen. “The Russians had left a small occupying force in the city, and we used that to our advantage, scouting their base of operations in Central Park. That was mostly my job, that and scavenging with Gibbs, but I think that was more to keep him out of trouble. It was clear they were building something. We couldn’t be sure what. The soldiers who were left in the city were a brutal bunch. We learned later that they had orders to keep the population in line but not to aggravate the situation, but when people with guns get bored…” she said with a shrug. “Not that there was a lot to shoot at after the first few weeks. The lucky ones managed to escape the city, only to become refugees in their own country.”
The evaluator traced a finger along her file, opening it to a red tab. “Report here says you managed to get eyes on their base. How’d you folks get past the dampening field?”
Rowen scratched at the scar at the top of her skull, a small smile playing on her lips at the memory. “Well, I made a friend, sir…”
November 2073
The heady aroma of beef stew wafted through the cold autumn air, causing Rowen’s mouth to water in anticipation. She sat on the damp ground, her small body folded into the nook of a massive elm tree, her pack filled with scavenged smart devices beside her. She liked this spot. It was near perfect, sheltered from the wind on the outskirts of Central Park West. She could see everything while being hidden from view. She pushed her hood back to get a better look her surroundings, making sure she was alone in her little corner before pulling tight the emergency blanket she had layered beneath her poncho, wrapping her frozen fingers around the ration pouch, grateful for the heat of the meal inside that bubbled and boiled.
The day had dawned gray and rainy, a low-hanging fog blanketing most of Manhattan, and she had decided to take advantage, using the gray mist as cover for a project she had been working on, a surveillance system that used smart devices placed in the park to observe the enemy comings and goings. While it sounded easy on paper, she had spent a frustrating morning programming the devices to act as drones, silently flying into position, only to have them fail constantly. Like everything else in this city, they worked intermittently. Whatever the enemy did to kill the electric
al grid months ago was still having an effect. The devices in her pack were solar powered and should have had more than enough of a charge to fly anywhere within range, but for some reason she could only get a few hundred feet at a time before the things lost power, only to restart a few minutes later. It was as if there was some pulse every few minutes shutting off the power, like the tide going in and out.
The tab on the package popped up, indicating it was ready. Taking one last look around, she tore open the pouch, inhaling deep, almost drooling. She dug in with gusto. She had left their hidden subway station in Hell’s Kitchen early and had skipped breakfast, so she was ravenous, almost frozen from the damp air, and the hot stew went a long way to driving away the chill in her bones. The small chunks of beef were tender, swimming in dark gravy with a smattering of potato, peas, and carrots. She didn’t quite understand how Gibbs didn’t like this stuff. The rations were good, better than her father’s cooking by far, but then he was a strange guy, and only got stranger the more she got to know him. He was wishy-washy and disorganized, not to mention lazy, but her father liked him, trusted him even, so she guessed he must have been alright. She just wished he—
“Do not move...please,” said a voice in broken English from behind the tree. Rowen stopped mid chew, the food in her mouth suddenly tasting like ash. She shook her head, angry at her stupidity for thinking she was smarter than everyone else, hiding at the edge of the park in the fog, sure that she was invisible.
She sat with a spoon in one hand and the pouch in the other, unmoving, as he came around the tree, combat-ready, dressed in gray-and-white fatigues, the overhang of his helmet obscuring his features, matte-black flak armor covering his chest and back. Rowen swallowed hard as he leveled his AK at her head. He moved like a hunting cat, standing on the balls of his feet, competent, capable, not like most of the soldiers she had seen over the last few months who were more bullies than real soldiers. Any time her unit had put up any real resistance, they had tucked tail and run. She doubted it would be like this today. Desperate, she thought about reaching for her SIG tucked away in her jeans but doubted she could so much as twitch before he shot her. He motioned with his AK for her to raise her hands while throwing a broken smart device to her feet. “I imagine this is yours,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “Stand...slowly.”
Ascension: Children of The Spear: Book one Page 16