by Drew Cordell
“No! Just stay behind me. We’ll meet up with them at the turbo trucks.”
“They’re going to be easy targets for the dropships. This won’t work!”
“It has to,” I shouted, still running forward. Two Enforcers rounded the corner with their rifles raised, firing. I jumped in front of Mary, angling my cybernetic arm toward the blasts. The first few shots missed, and the remaining blasts were drawn to my Nanotech module. My arm sparked, but the Nanotech held and deflected the energy painlessly. I squeezed off several shots from my handgun, landing most of them and damaging one of the Enforcers. Mary fired as well, landing two headshots that managed to punch through the Enforcers’ armor, dropping both of the robots. Had they been HKs, we wouldn’t have stood a chance.
We kept running, my heart sinking as six more Enforcers rounded the corner. Suddenly, a figure materialized amongst them, whirling around and weaving through them in swift, calculated motions. Stray rifle fire from the Enforcers bounced around the grimy alleyway, but it all happened too fast for them to adjust their strategy. Violet stood in the wreckage with her vicious knives drawn.
“Come on! We’ll meet up with the others. Stay behind me,” she said, running forward without waiting for us to catch up. The greasy food sloshing around in my stomach wasn’t doing me any favors now as nausea blended with adrenaline.
“We need to be careful. These are normal Enforcers which shouldn’t be autonomous. That means the Omniscience Engine frequency is probably operating in the city somehow,” I said between wheezing breaths as we ran through the back alley toward our destination.
“How is that possible?” Violet demanded.
“A hardline in the city maybe. I don’t know. We need to get out of here, and we’re not going to be able to come back the same way,” I said. “There’s no way we’ll be able to find the source of the signal and shut it down.”
“Well, we need those trucks or we won’t make it to the weapons lab,” Violet growled. “The Champions aren’t behind this?”
I shook my head as we ran. “There’s no way. We would never work with the Omniscience Engine.”
“Well, this isn’t the sort of thing that happens without an insider, and I guarantee the Scavenger Guild isn’t sponsoring the destruction of their own city,” she said. “Maybe they got too close and trusted the Omniscience Engine to not screw them over.”
I doubted the Scavenger Guild had the forces to repel a full-scale invasion like this, and even if they did, they would be fighting from many different fronts while the invading dropships had the advantage of unlimited mobility. It was all happening so fast, and it was only a matter of time until the city fell. River’s Port depended on its isolation and underground location for defense, and the Greater Lift which provided the Scavenger Guild better access to the streets of the Slums had enabled an invasion of this caliber. As it turned out, the Omniscience Engine wasn’t done with the Slums.
“Just a few more blocks!” Violet yelled, still rushing forward with her knives ignited. She deployed her tech and created moving holograms of herself, activating her Stealthsuit and masking her true self. The hologram clones rushed out in all directions of the main street once we reached the edge of the dirty alleyway. They drew fire from the Enforcer squads while Violet sliced her way through the unsuspecting robots, careful to watch for dropships flying above the streets.
The city wasn’t going to last much longer, and if the Scavenger Guild was fighting, it was from somewhere else in the city. We only had one shot to make it to the weapons lab in Vermont, and I couldn’t do anything to compromise that.
Even with functioning Nanoedged blades, Violet was struggling with the sheer numbers of enemy forces. Down to only two magazines of ammo, I opted not to shoot, watching the scene with caution from the relative safety of the empty alleyway.
There were too many Enforcers on the main streets now, and eventually, we were forced back into the alleyway as they flooded in, chasing us with scary speed. Several Enforcers were gaining on us—we wouldn’t escape on our current path. I veered to the left and slammed into one of the back doors of a building with my shoulder armor, busting through with ease and sending the dented door screaming on its rusted hinges while I slowed my momentum and Violet and Mary ran inside. Violet took the lead again, and I pushed the door closed once Mary was inside, knowing it wouldn’t hold up for even a second against the Enforcers. The building was some kind of restaurant, and there were people crouched behind the large stoves in the kitchen, taking cover and demanding answers.
“Help us!” a woman called out. We were different than them with our armor, but us being here would put them in immediate danger.
“Please!” a man called.
We ignored them, rushing through the dining area toward the other exit.
“Stay here and don’t try to fight them,” Mary shouted back to the kitchen, pain flashing in her eyes we abandoned them even if this was the best thing for them. The Enforcers were only after us because of our armor. They probably thought we were with the Scavenger Guild.
As we exited the building, a dropship landed on the street facing us, and Enforcers poured out with their weapons raised. Something sailed through the air over our heads, slamming into the square nose of the dropship. The front of the aircraft crumbled, then the whole thing exploded in a ball of yellow and orange flames, taking out all the surrounding Enforcers with it. Fragments of twisted steel cut through the air around us, but our armor did its job and the heavy composite plates kept the shrapnel out. Christopher, the engineer who had given us our gear, ran up from behind holding a rocket launcher and grinning like a maniac. Grez and his soldiers advanced and took down the remaining Enforcers in proximity to us on the streets. “Nice of you to join us,” Grez said.
Minus the one soldier who had been cut down by a dropship, everyone else was still there. Christopher loaded another silo tube into the rocket launcher and held it at the ready. As we ran, the second Greater Lift came crashing down. The shockwave knocked me to the ground, tumbling painfully as a deep rift cast a shattered path along the main road, splitting it in two and spewing fragments of metal and concrete into the air. My vision blurred, and I tried to make sense of my surroundings as buildings crumbled around us.
More ships rained from the newly created entrance to River’s Port. These ones looked different, though. They were wider and flatter than dropships and didn’t look like they were carrying any troops. They passed over the Industrial District and dropped something. Suddenly, plumes of flame burst into the air from the buildings in the distance. The flames in the distance lingered, polluting the air with shadowy smoke. The bombers swooped back into the main area of the city, dropping smaller, targeted bombs on crucial targets. The Omniscience Engine wasn’t trying to destroy the city, it was trying to colonize it and disable its ability to resist capture. I felt sick to my stomach as I pressed myself off the ground with shaking arms, trying to stabilize myself. Mary, who had somehow remained standing during the impact, helped me to my feet.
The Omniscience Engine wanted the people of River’s Port alive for something, and there was no hope of saving the city now. We weren’t the ones who could or would save the city.
“Turn back! We’re leaving without the trucks,” Grez yelled to the group.
“We’ll die!” Violet yelled back, her eyes frantically darting around as if she was trying to formulate a new, better plan. She was right, of course. Without the cargo, venturing through the river system was suicidal if the river didn’t provide enough food to feed the group. But, it was clear we couldn’t stay here either. I had no intention of being subjugated by the Omniscience Engine again. Grez was finally making the right call; I could only hope it wasn’t too late for us to escape.
Christopher shouted his response as more dropships flew overhead. “Grez is right. We can fish and scavenge on the river itself. We need to get back to the boats before it’s too late. We can’t stay here.”
“We’re l
eaving, and it’s an order!” Grez yelled, starting back the way we came and opting to conserve as much ammo as possible, only shooting when Enforcers took interest in our group. They were still busy herding people inside their homes which let us slip past some of them unnoticed.
As we ran behind Grez, we spotted a group of Scavenger Guild mercenaries who were holed up behind a concrete wall, firing off their rifles at a horde of approaching Enforcers. The massive robot we had seen in the market was among the Scavenger Guild fighters, firing off its gauss cannon into the enemy ranks. The robot’s cannon resonated, its powerful thuds pounding in my chest as the shrapnel rounds exploded on impact and cut down the Enforcer numbers with surprising brutality. Even with its massive weapon, the robot was taking a lot of fire and visible damage as it did its best to protect the others in the group. Part of me wanted to help them, but there was no time and they would help cover our escape. It seemed Grez had come to the same conclusion, and we slipped past the firefight unnoticed.
After a few more minutes of running and gunning, we arrived back at the docks outside Jasper’s shop. There were people leaving in droves on the boats and some even trying to swim the distance, jumping off the docks and diving under the water. Dropships were already on the scene, firing energy bolts at the boats scrambling for the river tunnels. Most of the boats couldn’t hold up against the rain of fire, and their drivers and passengers dove over the sides into the murky water as the damage to the hulls became too much. For most of them, it didn’t work out. This dissuaded a lot of people standing on the docks, and many of them ran away to seek shelter in the fish processing buildings farther down the edge of the water.
Grez pulled Jasper, Bob, and 5-CTE out of the shop. Loading as much stray fishing equipment and crates of supplies on the docks and abandoned boats as possible, we boarded the three large tugboats. Christopher, Jasper, Mary, Marwin, Violet, and I boarded one of the tugboats while the rest of the group dispersed between the other two. Jasper took his place behind the control panel, grabbing the controls and coaxing the powerful motor to life.
“Go!” Grez yelled. We fired our weapons at the dropships veering toward us, but the armor was too thick for small arms fire. Christopher fired his rocket launcher, but the unguided rocket veered wide and crashed into the ceiling of the cavern several thousand feet away from its target, exploding in a distant ball of fire.
Jasper and the robots throttled the motors on the boats, accelerating toward the tunnel, but there were too many dropships approaching. From the edge of the river system, it was staggering to see the number of aircraft flying above the city. Even from here, we could hear the roar of fires and the screams and gunfire echoing through the streets.
5-CTE’s boat was hit with a missile, and it went up in flames, raining fragments of burning metal around us before sinking. There would be no survivors on their boat. Thankfully I didn’t know anyone who was on it well. The dropship fired another missile at my boat, but Jasper swerved out of the way. The missile dove beneath the murky green water before detonating in a condensed ball of glass-like fire. The blast sent a hard shock through the bottom of our boat that rattled my bones and jolted my head painfully. Two more missiles sailed through the air, one of them taking out a small fishing boat to our right while the other missed and skated across the water as we closed the distance to the tunnel.
Jasper revved the engine harder and sent us farther off to the left to avoid the dropships, splitting us from the other boat in our group. We entered the tunnel, but Jasper didn’t relent with the throttle, fighting with the steering controls as the boat veering and scraped against the concrete wall before correcting and centering in the empty tunnel.
We lost sight of Grez’s boat during the maneuver, and I couldn’t see them behind us as I peered down the darkening tunnel behind us as we sped away.
“Keep going. They won’t be able to hit us after the first bend in the tunnel!” Marwin yelled over the roar of the engine.
“We need to find Bob’s boat and group up with my dad before we go farther,” Violet shouted.
“We’ll have to meet with them at the hub a few miles down. We’re in one of the only two northbound lanes of the river system, but there’s a hub coming up that connects all the lanes on this part of the river network,” Jasper said.
“They made it out. We’ll wait for them. Just get us there, Jasper,” Violet said, still keeping an eye out behind us. There weren’t any more boats approaching, and the dropships pursuing us appeared to have lost interest. Perhaps there were better targets still in the city.
After we cleared the first bend in the river, Jasper cut the engine completely, using only the manual rudder to steer the boat downstream toward the hub in the network he mentioned.
“I’m guessing Grez has the map to the weapons lab?” he asked. “A hundred years River’s Port has existed, and the Government chooses to invade now? It doesn’t make sense.”
I shook my head. “We don’t have a copy. We weren’t anticipating getting split up in River’s Port.”
“Wonderful. Everything is gone!” Jasper roared.
“Jasper, we made it out. That’s all that counts. You and I are friends, right? I’ll make sure you make it out of this all right,” I said, trying to comfort the man and keep him focused on piloting the boat.
“Okay. 5-CTE was a good friend,” he said, wiping a tear from his eye and sniffling.
Violet and Christopher seemed to be holding up okay from losing their squad mates in the other boat, but maybe it was all the adrenaline. Sometimes the shock didn’t hit instantly. I’d learned that loss never got easier; people just got better at dealing with it.
With everything we’d been through, it seemed insignificant for a robot to be destroyed, but to Jasper things were different. The robots in River’s Port were each as unique as the people who lived there. In a way, River’s Port was the last straw for me. Grez had to see that we had to destroy the Omniscience Engine. If the Omniscience Engine could invade River’s Port, it was only a matter of time until it did the same to the Champions and Harvesters. I didn’t like it, but we needed the Harvesters’ help to see things through to the end.
The sounds of terror from the city faded away as we traveled farther down the quiet river tunnel, slowly drifting to our destination.
“Violet,” I said softly. “You need to talk to Grez. We have to destroy the Omniscience Engine, and we need your help. The weapons lab is our only shot.”
“I know,” she responded solemnly. “This changes everything.”
“Do you know about the Ascendants?” Mary asked.
Violet nodded. “Yeah, Anderson told us about them. I know they’re our replacements.”
Marwin touched Violet’s shoulder gently. “Just promise you’ll talk to your father. At least convince him to consider making an agreement with the Champions. I have the feeling the Scavenger Guild is out of the equation for good, and we’re not going to survive unless we band together.”
Violet nodded, emotion flaring on her face for a moment before she forced it away. Christopher was shaking his lowered head, rubbing his eyes. Marwin patted his back. “We’re going to get through this. I know losing people is hard. We’ve all lost way too much. We’ll meet up with Bob and the others and work this out.”
“I’m with you,” Christopher said, setting his rocket launcher down on the floor of the boat and reloading his rifle, pulling the slide twice and catching the bullet as it popped from the breach. He returned the round to a small box holding his excess ammo.
Marwin looked curious why Christopher was reducing his ammo capacity, but didn’t bring it up.
The engineer seemed to notice Marwin staring. “I don’t like even numbers. That and the mag springs work better with one less round. Less prone to jamming.”
“Jasper, what do you say? Are you with us?” Mary asked gently.
Jasper nodded absently. “I’m with you. Maybe I can be useful. I’m actually quite good with mechanics
and electronics.”
I nodded. “I can attest to that, and he’s quite the aspiring surgeon as well.”
“I think Jennifer was on Grez’s boat, so we’ll have one of the best doctors alive in the world with us in a few minutes,” Violet said.
“The other two with them?” Mary asked.
“Gerald and Agatha. Their technical title is Operator, but they’re sort of jacks of all trades. Survivalist, tech-savvy types,” Christopher said. “They’re also damn good with tech and will be guiding us to the weapons lab with their offline mapping software.”
Marwin nodded. “We have the skills to succeed on this mission even if things look grim now. If we unite our two guilds, we can beat the Omniscience Engine.”
11 MAZE
∆∆∆
There was silence among the group for the remaining 10 minutes it took to get to the hub. The hub of the river was a wide, circular cavern with five other tunnels branching off in different directions. Like most of the river system, the tunnels were lit with wall-mounted lights, mottled and stained a pale hue of green from dust and algae. Like the Champion’s Guild Hall, River’s Port leached off the same reactors used to send juice to Olympus. As long as the Omniscience Engine wanted its infrastructure running at full capacity then we had power, too.
We were the only ones here. If there were other survivors who had escaped the city through the tunnel we had taken, they would probably wait for others here before deciding which direction to go. Maybe we were the only ones who made it out in this direction.
“Jasper, do think people who escaped would wait here for others?”
Jasper shook his head. “Probably not. I think everyone that did escape is trying to put as much distance between themselves and River’s Port as possible. I don’t even like sitting around here. Also, this direction isn’t very popular anyway.”
“It makes sense. I don’t like sitting around here either. I can’t stop thinking about Enforcers deciding to steal a boat and come looking for survivors,” Christopher supplied.
