by Ramy Vance
The drone jiggled a little before something inside it clicked. Then it lay still.
Abby sighed as she stalked over to it. “Oh, dang,” she muttered. “Here I was, thinking you were ready to get to work.”
The drone’s lights suddenly came to life and it floated into the air, a collection of tools and contraptions dangling from its body. “Hell, yeah!” Abby shouted. “Bobby, pack your stuff.”
The tools hanging from the drone were sucked up into its body.
Abby slapped her hands together and jumped into the air. She felt like she could dance, but she had never been one for it. Now would have been as good a time as any. Maybe after the final tests were done.
“Bobby, follow me,” she commanded. The drone beeped and whistled as it followed Abby, who had pushed open the barn door. “All right, Bobby, it’s showtime. Get working.”
Bobby floated out toward the hay bale Abby and Pa had been sitting on. A pair of claws fell from the drone’s torso and clasped the bale. She held her breath as she watched Bobby lift it and take it over to the truck parked outside the barn. The drone dropped the bale and returned to her.
Abby couldn’t help herself; she broke into a brief jig, kicking her feet up as she pumped her fist. “Perfect!” she shouted before running back into the barn, Bobby following behind her like a puppy.
She sat at her computer and started typing. After a few seconds, she hit enter. A loud buzz rang throughout the barn as the lights flickered. Once the power stabilized, two more drones rose from different tables and joined Bobby.
Abby, beaming from ear to ear, stood before the drones. “Bobby, Robby, and Gertrude. Start your chores.”
The drones chirped enthusiastically and flew out of the barn. Abby went outside and crouched in the dirt, careful not to let her butt rest on the soil. She watched the drones mowing the hay, bundling it up, and piling it onto the truck. At the rate they were going, she could take care of every field in a day or two.
“Well, I’ll be damned to hell and back,” a woman shrieked.
From her right, Abby’s mom was approaching. She was a woman thick with corded muscle. She wore a hat that must have been picked out with a sense of dark irony. Her plum lipstick and theatrical eye shadow had remained untouched by the heat or the intensity of her workday.
Ma jogged over and tossed her arm around Abby’s shoulder. “You gotta be kidding me, girl,” she exclaimed. “That is amazing! How did you do this?”
Abby bit at her thumb as she considered her answer. “I started around January, and I’ve been doing most of the coding after school. Throwing it together wasn’t hard. The coding was the shit part.”
“Language, young lady. Just because we’re celebrating, it don’t mean you get to talk like one of those foul-mouthed, heavy-drinking, hard-living scientists.”
Abby burst out laughing as Ma winked at her, chuckling. “Seriously, Abby-Lynn, this is amazing. God damn amazing.”
“Ma! Language.”
“Hush it. I’m in awe. Can hardly contain myself.”
Abby and her mother stood there for some time, watching Bobby, Robby, and Gertrude work as the midday sun shone over the farm, the sky beginning to soften into the dark envelope of evening.
At dinner, Abby sat next to her sister Margie, across from the baby twins Kelly and Mandy. Pa was singing in the kitchen while Ma read lazily through an almanac. Abby couldn’t believe both of her parents still used those things. It was like they were trying to ignore the internet.
After a while, Pa came in with a steaming platter of pulled pork. Next, he brought in the mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, and collard greens. He placed them on the table with more than a hint of pride.
“All right, dig in,” he said as he took a seat.
Most of the conversation centered around the drones and how amazed everyone was.
“They do everything themselves?” Margie asked.
“Everything I tell ’em to.”
“Even take a pee?” Margie laughed hard at her own joke.
“You hush,” Ma said, playfully tapping Margie with a wooden ladle. “Robots don’t pee.”
Maybe they don’t, but they do need to charge, Abby thought, wondering if the drones had returned to the barn after they had finished their task. It would be more than a little embarrassing if the machines did something stupid like cut down crops that weren’t ready.
“I have to go check on something,” Abby said as she stood.
Pa pointed to her plate and shook his head. “Not with that full plate, you ain’t.”
Abby checked her plate. It was mostly empty, with a spoonful of collards left, if that. “Gotcha, Chief!” she said as she scooped up the collards and downed them. “May I be excused now?”
Pa shrugged and went back to his food.
As Abby passed the dining table, a bright flash lit up the entire room. “Was that lightning?”
Pa was already on his feet, going to the window to take a look. “Shouldn’t be lightning. It’s not set to rain for the next couple of weeks, right, Ma?”
“Right. Supposed to be dry until the beginning of next month.”
Abby went to stand beside her father. As she peered through the window, another flash of white lit the night. “It’s not raining,” she murmured. “There’s no thunder, either.”
Pa grabbed his coat and cane and went out the front door. Abby followed as Margie rose from the table, curious. She and Ma hurried to the door and watched as Pa and Abby walked into the darkness.
Pa stuck his hand out and stopped Abby. As they stood there together, she sniffed the air. It didn’t smell like rain at all and she nearly always could tell when a storm was coming. The air didn’t smell like lightning either.
Another flash brightened the night, and a bolt of white lightning cracked in front of Abby and Pa, scorching the earth two feet ahead of them. Abby fell to the ground and covered her head as more lightning flashed and the earth began to tremble. Pa edged closer to her.
The air above the ground where the lightning had struck had turned gray and thin, as if it were being stretched, then reality tore open. Abby felt like she was looking through a painting with its canvas ripped apart.
Something moved behind the tear, then a gray hand with long, knobby fingers pushed through the opening. Another hand followed, this one holding a glowing ax. Next came a head, long with drooping ears, drool dripping from its slack-jawed mouth.
The strange creature stepped through the tear. He stood, puffing his bony chest out as he sniffed the air. Then he turned and motioned toward the portal, and three more hideous creatures emerged. They stared around, clearly trying to get their bearings.
The first monster waved his hand, and the portal closed. He pointed at the house where lights were shining brightly. “There wasn’t anything about a house being here.” He grunted. “It’s supposed to just be land, right?”
The second creature coughed and spat. “Doesn’t matter. It’ll just be humans. Killing them won’t take too long. We can still bring the forces here. Might even be better if they got a place to hide. I’ll go ahead—” He stopped talking when he spotted Pa and Abby, and his lips turned up in a sneer. “Guess we found the humans,” he growled as he drew a pistol and aimed it at Pa.
There was a flash of light, not nearly as bright as the lightning or the brightness when the portal had opened but bright nonetheless.
Pa collapsed beside Abby, his eyes staring, wide and surprised. It was the kind of face he would make when they played hide and seek. She almost didn’t notice the smoking hole in his forehead.
Abby heard someone screaming far away, and she frowned. Why were they screaming? They sounded scared. The person was also wheezing, struggling to breathe.
That was when she realized she was the one making the noise. She was screaming, “Run! Run! Run as fast as you can.”
Chapter Five
Be careful what you wish for, Anabelle thought as she was dropped with a team of twelve hum
an soldiers into the canyons of Zion National Park.
If the landscape had appeared otherworldly before, from her current position, it felt as though she were in an entirely different dimension.
Unfortunately, Anabelle had no time to enjoy the bizarre beauty.
She was too concerned with trying to move. The exoskeleton hanging from her body proved much more uncomfortable and unwieldy than she had expected upon first seeing them. The weight and slight delay in movement, despite being connected to her spinal nerve, irritated her.
But humans needed the exoskeleton to fight, and Annabelle had been given command of a small detail.
So, for their first mission, she had decided to dress the part.
The soldiers didn’t seem to mind the extra weight. None of them were complaining, but each had at least twenty pounds of muscle on Anabelle.
Then there was the HUD.
Anabelle couldn’t get used to such a heavy helmet. Roy had explained the importance of the piece of tech to their missions, but she believed the whole system was outdated and asinine.
Anabelle called her HUD—which was executed with a single thought—and contacted Roy as she tapped her foot impatiently.
Roy’s face blinked into view. “What’s up, Chase?”
Anabelle waddled over to a boulder and struggled to seat herself. “Roy, this is fucking ridiculous,” she grumbled. “What the hell are we doing out here?”
“You read the briefing. You should damn well know what you’re doing there.”
Anabelle grunted. “All it said was Dark One activities were sighted on Earth. But here? In the middle of nowhere?”
Roy gave her a sly smile. “Hey, the Dark One does what the Dark One does. Don’t hate the game, hate the playa.”
Anabelle rolled her eyes. “Fine. Then what about the plan? What are we supposed to be waiting here for?”
“Finally, a reasonable question. We’ve detected electromagnetic anomalies in the area. They have the same signature as the portal that opened up at the bar. It hasn’t gotten to the same energy spike yet, so we’re assuming it’ll be opening up soon.”
“Why the hell would it be opening up here? There’s nothing here.”
Roy took a ragged breath, the rough sound an indication of his growing irritation. “There’s been reports of the Dark One’s forces around where the energy spikes are happening. Even some reports of humans being abducted. Only men for some reason.”
“So, what? The Dark One is opening Dark Gates to send a handful of minions at most through.”
Anabelle’s HUD screeched. She tapped the HUD a couple of times, but the feedback grew louder. Roy’s voice distorted, then disappeared.
Around her, the soldiers scowled as they too tapped their HUDS, and the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. The smell of the crisp Utah air had disappeared, replaced with an iron scent similar to blood. Anabelle had gotten a whiff of this smell before—the last time she had seen a portal open.
The soldiers were unaware of what was happening.
“Hey,” Anabelle shouted. “Something’s coming. We need to get ready.”
One of the soldiers, Private Lancaster, stepped forward. He was young, no older than twenty-one. Boyhood hope still shone in his eyes like Christmas decorations. “What do you mean? Our HUDS aren’t giving any readings about anything.”
The air crackled with an ear-shattering sound, and a loud boom rattled the bones in Anabelle’s chest. Over a nearby ridge, a portal opened, splitting the fabric of reality, energy bursting from its edges.
Chapter Six
Anabelle ushered the soldiers away from the portal. Her sensors were going crazy, so she relied on her eyes. And right now, her eyes told her there were two Dark Gates—one right where her team stood, and one a few miles away, near a farm.
The soldiers’ exoskeletons hadn’t come back online yet, so maneuvering them was more difficult than it should have been. The humans were barely able to move, the simple act of walking more than a chore. And that was without taking their panic into account.
Most of the soldiers had begun to freak out the minute they’d seen the orcs.
Anabelle wasn’t surprised, but she was disappointed. It hadn’t occurred to her that Roy would have formed her squad using green soldiers. She had expected them to have at least seen combat, but here they were, behaving like they hadn’t even come across a picture of an orc, let alone a platoon pouring out of a magical Dark Gate.
The soldiers stomped toward a series of boulders to take cover, helping others along the way. Their progress involved leaning on a partner and lurching forward in an awkward three-legged race to safety.
Anabelle didn’t have as hard a time taking cover behind the boulders. Even though her armor was also defective, her elven strength helped her. She’d heard humans were stronger on Middang3ard than on Earth, though.
Convenient for everyone on Middang3ard, I guess, she thought. Doesn’t really help us here.
Once Anabelle was certain the orcs above couldn’t see her, she checked on the soldiers to ensure all were accounted for. No one was missing, but they were all easy targets should the orcs spot them.
Scratch that–when the orcs spotted them.
A private leaned over to speak with Anabelle. His eyes were wide and starting to tear up as he pulled at his exoskeleton. “What the hell are we supposed to do?” he asked.
Anabelle hadn’t given much thought to what the humans were meant to do. They were, after all, soldiers. They should have been trained to take care of themselves in situations like this. They were not her responsibility. “I don’t know, but you might want to figure it out.”
The private stared at Anabelle in disbelief. “What do you mean, I better figure it out? You’re our commander. You’re supposed to, you know, command us.”
Anabelle leaned against the rock and allowed the gravity of his statement to settle in. She hadn’t been under the impression that the lives of the human soldiers were in any way related to her own. Now she had discovered that they were her responsibility.
There was that word again.
Irritation flushed Anabelle’s cheeks as she kicked herself for only skimming the dossier Roy had left her with, not that it would have changed anything. The file hadn’t provided any suggestions in case their exoskeletons malfunctioned. Or maybe it had. Either way, trying to recall what had or had not been said in the file wasn’t helping.
“Any backup plans for the suits?” Annabelle asked sharply.
The private tried to lift his arms, groaning with the effort before allowing them to drop back to his side. “None that we were told of,” he reported. “As far as I know, these are supposed to be top of the line. The best tech we had to offer.”
Anabelle hoped that wasn’t true. What she’d seen of the exoskeletons so far left a lot to be desired. If that was the best Myrddin could do, he was talking a much bigger game than he had.
She popped her head up from behind her boulder to check on the orcs’ activity. She didn’t want to risk being spotted, but she also had to figure out where the enemy was moving. A hidden friend could still be an enemy—one of the first lessons her teachers had given her as a child.
Orcs were still exiting the Dark Gate. They weren’t as many as Anabelle had initially assumed. Maybe she hadn’t been too far off telling Roy her opinion on the limited numbers the Dark One could ship over at a time.
Or the Dark Gate could simply need time to send a large force through. Either way, there were still too many orcs for the humans to deal with. And with their malfunctioning exoskeletons, the humans were a pathetic group.
Anabelle ducked behind the boulder and wracked her brain, trying to come up with options. There didn’t seem to be any. For now, she should probably get out of her exoskeleton. If the damn thing wasn’t going to work, it didn’t make any sense wearing it.
She forced all her strength into her arms, lifted the exoskeleton’s shoulder pads away, and ripped out the cord attache
d to her spine.
Damn, that hurt!
She tossed the armor aside, relieved to have the weight off her body. Now all she wore was the sleek armor and the HUD left over from the exoskeleton.
The soldiers were also trying to take their exoskeletons off, with much less success. The suits were simply too heavy to remove fast; putting them on had taken nearly half an hour and required the help of two robots.
Anabelle watched the humans struggle, gauging how much effort it would take to undress them all versus how much help they would be in a fight. Even if the soldiers could remove their exoskeletons, they were still human. And what’s more, their weapon systems were part of those exoskeletons. Rail guns, heat knives, missiles, grenades…all required the suit’s power to function.
Anabelle turned to the private she had spoken to earlier. “All right, so if you get these things off, can any of you fight? Or are you just going to sit here and shit your pants?”
The private was now more composed. “Of course. We’ll be able to take care of ourselves. But taking care of those orcs is an entirely different question. We don’t have any—”
“Weapons. I know. But what if I could get you some?”
The private smiled, which caught Anabelle off-guard. Maybe this human wasn’t as defenseless as the rest. “If you get me a gun, I’ll make you orc soup,” he said with a grin.
Anabelle peeked from behind the boulder, counting orcs and gauging how far they were from her and the soldiers. “Good. Then I’ll get you a gun.”
Abby didn’t remember running from the monsters or leaving her father lying there dead. Nor did she remember racing to the big house. She simply had to keep moving. Keep the monsters…no, “monsters” wasn’t right. They looked like those creatures in Lord of the Rings. Trolls…no, orcs. That was it. Orcs.
But she was inside now, which was all that mattered. She found Margie and forced her toward the back door, scooping up the twins as she went.
