E-Day

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  He ducked down and then peeked the corner. A fourth sniper rose to look for him, but Akira got off the first shot. The bolts hit the soldier in the chest, and he slid to the side.

  Akira finished clearing the roof and ran to the western edge for a view of the streets.

  Gunfire and explosions from the other divisions rang across the city. MOTHs flew low, depositing more troops and ammunition to the front lines and then whisking away the injured.

  On the streets, smoldering tanks sat idle, their guts blown outward. Three of the ten original vehicles were still functioning, and their triple-barreled turrets roved toward the Hammerheads and first wave of Juggernauts.

  “Tadhg, three o’clock,” Akira said over the team comms.

  “I see ’em, bosu,” Tadhg called back.

  Coalition fighters scrambled for cover as the Engines picked them off from the cleared roofs. Akira targeted the soldiers with phased plasma pulse rifles, while Tadhg focused his cannon on the tracks of the tanks. The Juggernauts opened up with their own mounted Gatling guns, peppering the armor with simmering orange holes.

  A fourth tank suddenly burst out of an underground parking garage and lurched toward the Juggernauts. Screaming, Tadhg unleashed a flurry of bolts into the tracks.

  The tank jerked to a stop, disabled, and Tadhg rotated the cannon toward ten Coalition soldiers who had followed it out of the garage. Their bodies and armor exploded in the onslaught.

  “God Level, mates!” Tadhg roared. “Know what I’m sayin’?”

  Akira opened a rooftop door and entered the interior of the building. His targeting system located a group of ten fighters on the fifth floor, waiting to ambush the Juggernauts on the street. He selected single shot on his rifle before reaching the door to the hallway. Slowly, he pushed it open and raised his rifle.

  Standing in the middle of the passage was a tattooed soldier holding an ancient assault rifle. He turned right into the bolt Akira fired.

  The man burst into red mist and flesh that painted the walls.

  Akira ran down the hall, chunks of flesh rolling off his armor. He pulled out a flash grenade and lobbed it into the room where the snipers waited. Slotting his rifle, he drew both energy swords.

  A thump sounded, and cries rang out. Bolts and bullets punched through the walls and door. Akira waited a heartbeat, then shouldered right through one of the rotting walls. Drywall and plaster burst outward, and he charged the disoriented men, removing heads from spines with swift strokes.

  He could have easily killed them with his rifle, but using his muscles to swing his swords was far more gratifying. Within ten seconds, only one soldier remained—a woman with a mohawk and a pierced navel under her scantily armored chest. She decided to take her chances jumping out the third-story window.

  Akira walked to the window, surprised to see she had survived the jump. She crawled away, dragging her shattered legs a few feet before a Juggernaut crushed her with a massive metal foot.

  The mech warriors were already advancing past the destroyed tanks, and the Pistons were close behind, hugging the sides of the buildings or keeping behind the Hammerheads for cover.

  A Juggernaut had fallen at the end of the street, the diamond-shaped cockpit blown open from a shell that had obliterated the Piston inside. A combat medic and two technicians were on the scene, salvaging organs from the pilot and anything they could from the wreckage.

  Akira took a stolen moment to check his HUD. Only ten Pistons and the one Juggernaut had perished in the first fifteen minutes of the battle. That was good, better than he expected.

  More good news emerged on his map—Kichiro wasn’t far. Only three miles away.

  Akira directed Blue Jay to fly toward the position.

  “Captain,” Frost said. “I’ve got hostiles moving toward your location.”

  Akira saw the mirrored feed on his HUD as he ran. A group of Coalition soldiers moved out of an abandoned subway, right into her sights. They were all armored monstrosities with protruding bones and antlers on their helmets.

  “Breakers,” Frost confirmed.

  “Good,” Akira said. “A challenge.”

  “Save some for me,” Tadhg said.

  “Go ahead and take them,” Akira ordered. “I’m going to free Kichiro.”

  ***

  The walls of the abandoned Hell Hive shook, dust raining from the ceiling. Chloe brushed Kichiro’s mane. Dr. Cross was supposed to be here to see to the finishing touches on the horse, but she doubted he was coming now.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered.

  Chloe had been with the stallion since the bombing started. Two guards waited across the room, pacing anxiously. She wasn’t sure if they were scared or anxious to get in the fight.

  She wasn’t sure exactly what was happening above ground, but she knew this was it—the Nova Alliance had come to liberate the city. Never in the past decade had they used bombs in areas with civilian populations.

  This wasn’t a huge surprise after rumors had found their way into the prison about Coalition attacks at the terraforming and reforestation projects.

  Now Chloe understood the lungs and masks she had seen in the transformed patients over the past few months. The insane doctor was behind the attacks on those sites. And deep beneath the Paris streets, he was surgically preparing people for a world of smoke, fire, and poisoned air.

  She stroked the horse again to help ease her own anxiety. This was the day she had waited a decade for, a day that she never thought would come.

  Shouting snapped her out of her trance.

  The door to the room swung open, and a Dread stormed inside wearing a metal breathing mask with squid-like tubes hanging over his chest. An entourage of Breakers followed the modified soldier, their helmets adorned with thick bone antlers. These were the best of the best, the special forces of the Coalition army.

  The Dread pushed up their mask to expose the face of Dr. Cross. Blood-red eyes locked onto Chloe, but she didn’t meet them. She was staring in shock at the metal jaw that now made up his chin and mouth.

  He had already undergone the transformation.

  “Ah, Chloe, what do you think?” he asked.

  She did her best not to show any disgust as she nodded.

  Dr. Cross walked over to the pen.

  “Is the beast ready?” he asked.

  The stallion whined behind the bars.

  “It’s okay,” Chloe whispered.

  Dr. Cross examined the horse. “Is he ready, or not?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Take it,” Dr. Cross said to his soldiers.

  The Breakers surrounded the pen. One stepped inside and grabbed the chain reins. The horse pulled back, but the gigantic soldier yanked hard enough to pull the stallion through the open gate.

  “Don’t hurt him!” Chloe cried.

  Dr. Cross shot her a glare, but another round of bombs thumped against the streets and buildings overhead, forcing his gaze to the ceiling as the lights flickered and streams of dust fell between them.

  “They are getting closer, Doctor,” grunted one of the Breakers. “We should move.”

  “Don’t worry, you’re coming with,” Dr. Cross said to Chloe.

  “But my uncle,” Chloe replied. “I can’t leave without—”

  “Take her to her uncle, and then get her to the transports.”

  One of the guards grabbed Chloe.

  “No, please, just let me go,” she said.

  “Let you go?” Dr. Cross asked.

  He moved over to her, stopping inches from her face. “Soon you’ll transcend with me. Doesn’t that sound better than being left to rot in that disgusting, weak body of yours?”

  The doctor reached up, stroking her cheek with a metal finger.

  “Don’t fear what’s happening above the streets,” he said with a reassuring, metal smile. “Soon it will all be over, and you will embark on a new journey to salvation.”
>
  It almost seemed to Chloe like he had wanted this Nova Alliance invasion, which almost scared her as much as his promise to transform her body for the new world he professed.

  “I’ll see you soon, Chloe Cotter,” he said.

  Dr. Cross left with the Breakers. They took the horse through a pair of open doors into the main chambers of the Hell Hive. Chloe’s heart broke as she watched the stallion go. He was the one thing that had brought light to the darkness in these tunnels.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

  For a fleeting moment she considered fighting. But what could she do against these men?

  The guard yanked her and pulled her through the tunnels. The lights flickered on and off more violently as another volley of bombs shook the catacombs, thundering blasts resonating through the walls.

  The prison wasn’t far, but when they reached it, a body lay outside the open door. She couldn’t see past the soldier, but the fact he drew an energy cutlass indicated something was wrong.

  He lumbered ahead with the glowing blade illuminating the passage. Chloe followed, but hesitated at the sight of two men wearing brown fatigues with shotguns.

  These were resistance fighters. She had heard about the resistance staging attacks recently, but these were the first she had personally seen in months.

  “Watch out!” she shouted.

  The two men whirled and fired shotguns at the lumbering Breaker, the blasts pounding his armor and knocking him back a single step.

  Chloe put her hands over her ringing ears, but she still heard the Breaker let out a laugh as he brought his cutlass down. Both men jumped out of the way, but there was nowhere to go. Screams from the other prisoners rang out from the cells.

  The Breaker thrust his cutlass, swiped, and sliced as the two rebels tried to reload their shotguns. The man on the left dropped his shells as he tried to avoid the glowing energy blade. His comrade managed to load a shell.

  The Breaker faked a thrust to the left, followed by a swift jab right into the belly of the rebel, crunching through his spinal cord before he could fire the blast.

  “No!” shouted the other man.

  Laughing, the Breaker lifted the impaled rebel off the ground like a speared fish.

  Chloe seized an opportunity and grabbed an energy blade from a sheath on the guard’s belt. She jabbed it into the back of the armet encasing the Breaker’s head. It punched through the metal, bone, and brain, and the Breaker staggered a few steps forward before collapsing.

  She dropped the blade, her hands shaking.

  The remaining rebel rushed to his dead friend and bent down.

  “Jay,” he said.

  The man groaned in pain and let out a long, raspy breath.

  Chloe maneuvered past the man she had just killed to her uncle’s cell, adrenaline pumping through her body. She felt simultaneously nauseous and filled with rage and fear.

  “Where are the keys?” she asked the rebel.

  “I don’t know.”

  He was young, maybe thirty, with dark brown hair that hung over one of his brown eyes. He slowly got up and motioned for Chloe to get back, then he pointed his shotgun at the door.

  “Help us!” shouted other prisoners.

  Another tremor shook the prison, a shower of dust raining down into Chloe’s tangled hair. She and the rebel began freeing the others as the crack of gunfire resonated through the underground tunnels, drawing closer.

  “Uncle Keanu,” Chloe said when she reached him.

  “Chloe, are you hurt?”

  “No…no I don’t think so.”

  She patted her bloodstained shirt with shaky hands.

  Had she been shot and not realized it? She fought to control her breathing, struggling not to hyperventilate as she probed for any wounds.

  She found none.

  The blood wasn’t hers, and the only injury seemed to be mental.

  “They’re coming, we must hurry!” the man with the shotgun yelled. He bent down to his friend who lay still. “I’m sorry, Jay. I’m so sorry.”

  After a final moment of hesitation, the man closed his eyelids and got up.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  Chloe kept close to Keanu and the group of twenty freed prisoners. They rushed through the passages to an empty Hell Hive. Parts of Iron Wolves and other droids littered the room. The bombardment above rattled the metal limbs, shaking them like toys on the tables.

  “We should stay here,” said a cleric they had rescued. “If we go up there, we die.”

  “If we stay down here, we die,” Keanu said.

  Chloe pushed the panic threatening to fill her mind, recalling a sight that she had noted when she had first been escorted through these tunnels. “I think I know of a way to get out. Follow me.”

  They worked their way deeper underground. The rebel with the shotgun distributed two flashlights to guide them in the damp, narrow passages. Chloe led them to the section of tunnel where she remembered seeing the drainage passages blocked off by metal bars.

  “There,” she said. “I think they’re drainpipes. They should lead to the streets.”

  The rebel pried off the bars and bent down to look into the narrow passage.

  Another round of bombs exploded somewhere above. The ceiling shook, small cracks spiderwebbing through it.

  “This drainage tunnel is too small,” he said. “It might cave in with all those bombs. We really should stay here for now.”

  “I agree, it’s too dangerous,” Keanu said. He closed the door they had entered through, standing in front of it.

  The filthy civilians huddled together around Chloe. A child in the group started crying at the next flurry of tremoring explosions overhead. The cleric lowered his head and broke into prayer over the group.

  “We trust in AI to get us safely through these dark times,” he said. “We trust…”

  Chloe drowned out the prayer and focused on her uncle who suddenly motioned for the resistance fighter. The man joined Keanu at the door. They both stepped back a moment later.

  “Quiet,” Keanu said.

  The rebel waved at the group to get back.

  Someone was coming.

  “Go, into the tunnel,” Keanu whispered.

  A woman led the way into the passage, crawling.

  Chloe waited behind her uncle, shivering.

  “You have to go too,” Keanu said.

  “Not without you,” Chloe said.

  “I’ll be right behind you. I promise.”

  A loud crash reverberated through the walls, followed by a popping and cracking. As she got down on her knees to enter the tunnel, she saw an energy blade break through the door. The deafening boom of a shotgun followed.

  She slid into the passage, moving on all fours away from the violence.

  The glow of a flashlight bounced ahead, and Chloe did her best to keep up with the group. She resisted the urge to look over a shoulder.

  The ceiling seemed to get lower, forcing her down to her belly in an inch of rancid water. She crawled through it, holding her breath.

  The sound of gunfire echoed into the tunnel, her pulse quickening with the shots.

  Chloe tried to turn, but there wasn’t enough room, and she caught her shoulder on the stone, scraping the skin. She tried to move, but she was stuck.

  A wave of panic gripped her.

  “No, no, no,” she cried.

  She plucked her shoulder free, ripping skin and part of her shirt off. She continued moving on her elbows and legs, like she had seen soldiers do in the movies. Dust rained down as a quake shook the underground passage. A rat skittered out of a hole, fleeing just like Chloe was. More thuds overhead, one after another. Cracks fissured through the tunnel, soil falling in around her. Each time she wondered if the roof would collapse and crush her. She moved faster, tears creeping down her cheeks.

  And then she saw it.

  Light.

 
A trickle at first, then a ball.

  The passage widened and Chloe got up on all fours again, moving faster.

  She crawled out into the street, but ducked at the sound of footsteps and the muffled voices of soldiers in gas masks. In the glow of fires, she saw silhouetted figures at the other end of the street moving along the exterior of crumbling buildings and piles of smoldering rubble.

  “Come on,” came an adolescent voice.

  The other escaped civilians were moving, and as Chloe got up to join them, she heard a familiar neigh. She felt a tug on her arm, but she pulled away and stepped out into the street toward the noise. Through the smoke came the blue glow from two eye slots.

  As they got closer, the light illuminated the helmet that she had designed.

  “Kichiro!” she cried.

  The beast struggled against chains held by a Breaker.

  The warrior pulled harder, yelling until he finally let go and unsheathed his energy sword.

  “Watch out!” Chloe yelled.

  Kichiro looked at her, and then stood on its back legs, kicking the Breaker with a metal hoof. The impact crushed the front of his armor and sent him skidding over the street.

  Chloe ran over and snagged the chains. She reached up with her other hand but hunched back down at the roar of fighter jets.

  A squadron of Short Swords ripped through the clouds, firing missiles that streaked into buildings downtown with brilliant blasts. Chloe shielded her eyes and reached up to the horse as it neighed and paced nervously.

  “It’s okay, boy,” she said.

  She found a handhold on the saddle and prepared to climb up using the stirrups when she saw canisters secured to the side of the horse.

  “I’m gonna flay you alive as you suck in this poison…” crackled a raspy voice.

  She turned toward the Breaker, who had pushed himself up. Staggering, he held out a remote, and clicked a button.

  The canisters hissed, venting some sort of gas in billowing hideous greenish plumes.

  Kichiro turned his helmet and trotted in a circle. The frightened horse started to buck, trying to get the barrels off.

  Chloe reached out to help, sniffling, mucus running from her nose. Sweat trickled down her flesh and saliva drooled out of her mouth. She started to cough, her lungs feeling as if she had taken in a heated gasp of air. Her heart rate escalated, and her right eye began to twitch.