by Dean M. Cole
Not waiting for the asshole to respond, Vaughn looked at the rest of the group and continued. “Once you are in position, low-crawl toward the edge, but don’t go any closer than Mark is right now. Don’t move past that point until you receive the okay from one of us.”
He looked at Angela. “And remember to keep your asses down.”
She rolled her eyes.
Vaughn looked at and received a nod from each of the other team members. Motioning for them to spread out, he dropped to the ground and lay prone. Then he crawled toward the cliff and stopped abeam Mark’s position.
Emitting grunts and squeaks, the remaining members of the team low-crawled toward the cliff’s edge. Rourke and Monique complained about the dew soaking their uniforms, but a moment later, they all reached their assigned positions and stopped, holding back from the precipice of Geneva’s Balcony just as had he and Mark.
Angela crawled up next to Vaughn.
He gave her a crooked grin. “You don’t follow orders so well.”
“You ain’t the boss of me.”
“Uh, yes I am, young lady.”
“Pfft.” She pointed toward the valley. “Less talking, Captain, more looking.”
Vaughn rolled his eyes but did as instructed. Over the next several minutes, he watched the sunlight creep down the valley’s far side. As it did, he inched forward, closer to the edge, and motioned for the others to do the same.
Each advance brought more of the valley into view.
Silently, he and Angela studied the land with rapt attention. Splayed across the Balcony, the other members of the team murmured amongst themselves as they also scanned the visible portions of Geneva.
Vaughn could feel his heart rate quicken with each shift closer to the precipice.
Beside him, Angela was breathing heavily as she experienced the same sensation.
Her hand worked its way into his.
He squeezed it, and they exchanged nervous glances before returning their attention to the now partially obscured city.
Fortunately, Vaughn could see portions of the valley floor. A light breeze had begun to perturb the early morning air. Diffusing the fog, the breeze slowly broke up the obscurant and revealed patches of burned city blocks.
Angela pointed to their front left, gesturing toward the northwest. “The ATLAS experiment should be over that way. Can’t quite see it from here yet. We’re still too far back, but I think the sunrise is getting close to the area. We should be able to see the collider’s main entrance soon.”
Vaughn nodded. “Our next move up will bring the area into view.” He raised his eyebrows. “I just hope we can see more there than fog.”
Angela tilted her head toward the valley. “Looks like the wind is thinning it.”
“Yeah, you’re right. It’s already better than it was a few minutes ago when Mark and I first got here.”
The dark clouds above the far horizon suddenly flickered with a blast of internal light.
Angela looked up, seeking the source. Then her eyes widened. “Is that a storm?”
“Yep. Looks like it followed us here.”
“Wonderful.”
“My sentiment exactly.”
Chapter 18
Vaughn raised his head and peered down over the ledge. Nodding, he dropped back to the ground and regarded his team. “Light’s hitting the target now. You’re clear to move up, but stay low. We don’t know how far they’ve advanced. There may be enemy bots outside of the central point.”
Not waiting for a reply, Vaughn crept the last few feet toward the Balcony’s precipice. Beside him, Angela and Mark, along with the rest of the group, did the same.
A moment later, all nine of them stared out from their lofty perch. Foggy streams of nervous, raspy breaths shot from each as their bodies reacted to the prospect of imminent discovery combined with the pulse-quickening proximity of the thousand-foot drop.
Digging out his tactical binoculars, Vaughn raised them and scanned the area above ATLAS’s entrance. The lenses of the military-grade field glasses had a special coating that minimized reflections, reducing the chance that an enemy might see light glinting from them. Beside him, several of the others did the same, although Rachel used the CQBSS scope she’d mounted to her assault weapon. The DDM4 ISR had an integrally suppressed rifle and attachments that even he had never seen, and he had no idea what most of them did.
Vaughn swept his binos side-to-side, scanning the approximate location of the collider’s aboveground entrance. It was still quite far away. The distance made it difficult to determine if he was looking at the right area. Without reference points, he couldn’t be sure. However, that entire portion of Geneva still had a blanket of fog covering it.
Lowering the field glasses, Vaughn shook his head. “Crap. Smog’s still obscuring the ground above ATLAS.”
“Bloody hell!” Bingham said as he peered through his binoculars, scanning the eastern end of Geneva. The slowly thinning fog in that portion of the valley was revealing patches of the underlying city. “There’s nothing left.”
Rachel nodded as she studied the area through her scope. “Looks like a firestorm swept through the whole thing.”
Vaughn and Angela exchanged knowing glances.
“It appears some places are still burning,” Monique said, using her overly concise English. “I see streams of black smoke embedded in the haze.”
Looking sideways, Vaughn watched his scattered teammates as they scanned the valley. “Anyone see anything moving?”
A chorus of ‘No’s rang out as everyone shook their heads.
Rourke suddenly became animated. “It’s still running.”
Vaughn’s pulse quickened. “What is?” He turned to see the young man pointing to the right side of the valley, near the point where the tapered west end of Lake Geneva invaded the city’s east side. Drier air was blowing off the water, pushing the fog from right to left. The receding obscuration had revealed a towering column of spraying water.
Monique nodded. “That is the Jet d'Eau. It literally means water jet. I cannot believe it is still running.”
“It looks so tall,” Rourke said. “Even from up here.”
“It should.” Monique nodded as she raised her binoculars to look at the feature. “The fountain shoots water five hundred feet into the air.”
Shaking his head, Vaughn continued to scan the valley with his binos. “Focus, people. We’re here to reconnoiter, not sight—”
“What is that?!” Monique said, cutting off Vaughn as she extended a finger and pointed toward the fountain.
“Blimey!” Bingham said as he studied the area through his field glasses. “It’s an Airbus, an A380, the big double-decker one.” He released a long, low whistle and then shook his head. “What’s left of it, at any rate.”
Vaughn shifted his binoculars and scanned the area around the fountain, at first not seeing what they were talking about. Then he spotted a wing protruding from the water at a steep angle. A moment later, he saw the nose of the thing sticking up as well. Initially, he’d mistook it for a massive boulder, but now he saw the broken-up and partially submerged remnants of the fuselage beyond the shattered radome and flayed cockpit. Twinned rows of black dots lined each section of the fuselage. The two lines of small windows revealed Chance was right. It was the giant, two-story-tall airplane.
They stared at it in silence. The broken, empty hulk served as a poignant reminder of what the Necks had stolen from them.
Angela had released his hand so that she could use her binoculars to study the scene. Now she patted his arm urgently.
Vaughn turned to see her looking at another part of the valley floor. “What?”
“I see something moving!”
“Where?” Following her line of sight, he swung his binos toward the area. The remnants of a cathedral towered over a destroyed city block. Its architecture reminded Vaughn of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. The sight of its burned-out roof and partially collapsed steeple
engendered memories of the tragic fire that had almost destroyed Notre-Dame back in 2019, although, during their flight over Paris, he’d glimpsed the cathedral in flames yet again.
Vaughn shook his head. “I don't see any movement. Where is it? Anywhere close to that partially collapsed cathedral?”
“Not far. Look a couple of blocks west of there.”
Panning left, Vaughn scanned the ruined remnants of an apparent business district. The metal frames of its collapsed buildings extended from the rubble like the splayed ribs of a fallen giant. “I don’t see any …” A glint of light drew his eye. Shifting his gaze, he zeroed in on the source. A bright, blue-white arc of light flickered to life and then died.
Vaughn blinked with sudden recognition. “That’s a scavenger bot.”
Mark looked at them. “Where?”
Pointing, Vaughn said, “A few blocks west of that chapel, about two klicks left of the lake.”
In his peripheral vision, he saw everyone exchange nervous glances and then shift their gaze to study the area.
“It’s a scavenger bot.” Vaughn lowered his binoculars and looked at the still bandaged injuries on his right wrist. “Angela and I had a run-in with one of those bastards.”
Monique lowered her field glasses and looked at Vaughn. “There is more than one.” She tilted her head toward the city. “That business district is full of them.”
Vaughn swept his glasses across the scene. The receding fog continued to reveal more of the ruined metropolis. It appeared there was at least one scavenger in each of the metal structures that occupied that portion of the city. Then he saw something larger move down one of the streets. Zooming in on the area, he watched a dump truck work its way down the cluttered roadbed, weaving between piles of debris as if a human driver were maneuvering it.
He looked at Angela. “Do you see that?”
She nodded. “Who do you think is driving it?”
Rourke’s voice raised an octave. “Is that a truck?”
“A truck?” Rachel craned her neck to look over the edge and then aimed her rifle to scope the target. “Who’s driving it?”
“No clue,” Vaughn said as he continued to watch the vehicle.
It stopped in front of an object that was blocking the road. As if in answer to their questions, both doors of the truck flew open and two Necks emerged from the vehicle’s cab.
Rourke turned wide eyes toward Vaughn. “Are those Necks?”
The muscles along Vaughn’s jaw rippled as he ground his teeth. He nodded. “Ayup, sure the hell are.”
As the group watched in stunned silence, the two robots walked to the front of their vehicle. Something long and dark lay across the road. The Necks moved to each end of the object and then, bending, picked it up effortlessly, each only using one of their four hands. Then they walked around to the back of the large vehicle. A moment later, they lifted the item into the air and tossed it into the bed. It wasn’t until he saw the truck rock under the weight of the freshly deposited item that Vaughn realized how heavy it must have been.
In his peripheral vision, he saw Major Peterson’s head snap back in surprise. “Son of a bitch! That was a street light pole.”
Beside him, Teddy nodded. “Da. They lifted it like cardboard.”
The members of the group turned and looked at Angela and Vaughn with varying levels of trepidation.
Rourke swallowed. His mouth worked a couple of times before he finally managed words. “You … You didn’t tell us they were that strong.”
Angela shook her head. “We didn’t know.”
Nervous chatter worked through the group.
“At ease, folks!” Vaughn said, whispering harshly to be heard. “This changes nothing. Hand-to-hand combat was never going to be an option. We already knew that much.” He patted the weapons slung in an X across his back. “That’s why we have these.” He tilted his head toward Major Lee and smiled. “And our own spec ops badass.”
Rachel grinned menacingly. “They come at us with one of those light poles, and I’ll shove it right up their mechanical sphincter.”
“Blimey!” Bingham said. “The woman is mad for arseholes.”
Rachel looked at him and winked. “Especially for yours, Chauncey-Baby. You screw up down there, and I’ll still be happy to shove my boot up that ass and wear you like a flip-flop.”
Angela snorted, and a few nervous chuckles ran through the group.
“Now that we have that sorted,” Vaughn said as he turned to look over the edge again, “let’s get back to work.”
Over the next few minutes, they watched as the fog slowly swept out of the city, leaving only trails of smoke in the hazy atmosphere.
The retreating obscurant revealed several additional vehicles. All over the business district, teams of Necks were filling trucks with scrap iron. Those that were fully loaded appeared to be heading west, toward the entrance to the supercollider, Vaughn assumed as he watched another one disappear into the fog that still blanketed that end of the valley.
He leaned toward Angela and spoke softly. “I haven’t seen any movement within a mile of the lake.”
Nodding, she pointed toward the cathedral they had spotted earlier. “Looks like the bots are focused on the central business district. Lots of steel in that area.”
“Hey, Command-Oh. Why trucks? Why not just float the steel, levitate it, as you say?”
Monique looked at Teddy and answered for Angela. “They have likely not yet built the infrastructure to do so.”
The cosmonaut’s face twisted, the woman’s overly formal English apparently confusing him.
“She’s right, Teddy.” Angela paused and pointed toward the still hidden entrance to the collider. “They probably haven’t had enough time to build the equipment to manipulate gravity.”
Teddy looked at Monique. “Why didn’t you just say that?”
“I did, Theodore.”
He smiled apologetically and then looked at Angela. “So they have to collect it manually?”
“Yeah, for now …” She paused, and her eyes lost focus.
Vaughn knew that look. Angela was working on another of her theories.
Angela nodded. “That would be specialized equipment. I'll bet they’re still bringing parts for it through the wormhole.”
Monique looked at her and then pointed at the line of westbound trucks. “Then, for what are they collecting all the metal?”
Teddy’s face twisted as the woman’s torturously rigid English further baffled the man.
Chewing her lip, Angela glanced at Vaughn and then shrugged as her gaze fell on the ruined city. “Guess we'll find out soon enough.”
Major Peterson nodded slowly. Then he shrugged. “At least they can’t use it on us.”
Angela canted her head. “What do you mean, Bill?”
The dark skin of the man’s forehead wrinkled. “Just that we won’t have to worry about our guns or any other metal objects being yanked away from us.”
Bingham’s face soured. “Not yet, anyway. That can always change.”
Giving up on the conversation, Teddy started scanning the valley. Then he raised a hand and pumped it wildly, pointing an extended finger toward the western end of the city. “What is that?”
As one, the group turned to follow his gesture.
It appeared Teddy was staring in the general direction of the ATLAS facility.
Studying the area with his naked eyes, Vaughn thought the fog might have thinned, but he still couldn’t see the ground.
He raised his binoculars and saw a curving black line emerging from the top layers of the vapor. A moment later, it resolved as the upper extremities of a massive metal ring. His pulse quickened as the continued retreat of the fog bank revealed additional details.
Narrowing his eyes, Vaughn adjusted a knob on his binos and zoomed in on the area, focusing on the machinery beneath the base of the construct. Through the patchy haze that still clung to the ground, he saw several small lines s
naking their way inward from the east.
Then the scale of it all became apparent.
Vaughn blinked several times. He peered over his binos and then looked through them again. He stared at what he now realized were three partially constructed city builders, the all-in-one machines that rode upon twinned, highway-sized mechanized tracks. One of the three had the beginnings of a stadium-sized cauldron emerging from its center. The circle he’d seen protruding through the fog was actually the top of the giant bowl.
“It’s one of the cauldrons.”
He heard a couple of gasps.
“It’s empty and still has a few missing sections, but if we can’t reset the timeline, it’ll hold a few million gallons of molten metal soon.”
Still gazing through the binos, he focused on the lines he’d seen streaming in from the east. Hundreds of dump trucks and eighteen-wheelers lined the streets that led up to the base of the cauldrons. The scale of the enormous machines dwarfed the vehicles that fed them.
“Are those the bloody lorries?” Bingham asked, sounding uncharacteristically humble.
Turning to look at the man, Vaughn nodded. “Yeah, those are the trucks we’ve been seeing.”
Surprise broke through Monique’s severe countenance. “Oh my word. The vehicles look tiny in comparison. I had no concept of the scale.”
Beyond her, Teddy nodded. “Like ants walking under a laundry basket.”
Mark stirred next to Vaughn. “Holy shit! So all that machinery … Those are the city builders you were talking about?”
Vaughn nodded. “The beginnings of three of them, anyway.”
“Wait,” Rourke said, turning toward Vaughn. “You said the buildings dwarfed the cauldrons.”
“Yes, they did, and they will again if we don’t stop them.” Raising his binos again, Vaughn zoomed in on the ground beneath the machinery. “Looks like the whole mess is sitting right on top of ATLAS.”
