by John Conroe
The weird Zone drone was lying in the street, torn almost in half, one of its four legs snapping open and closed, over and over, but slowing down.
“He was flushing the prey out so I could shoot it,” I said. “We’re going to need to save all of his missiles for later.”
Both soldiers were staring at me and I noticed that their weapons were almost pointing in my direction.
“You really want to get back into it? We just held a pretty noisy firefight. I doubt we have much time before this place is overrun.”
“Incoming UAV units from three directions. Head west to the door under the taco sign,” Rikki said, flying into a position overhead, his gun barrel pointed to the northeast. “You have approximately nine seconds.”
I didn’t wait for the the others, just bolted at a dead run right past the cylindrical bot, past the UPS truck, and skidded through the doorless opening into the taco place. I heard booted feet pounding right behind me, and I took a glance at the downed bot as I raced by.
We piled into the restaurant and the air behind us suddenly filled with the hum of incoming drones. I heard Rikki’s e-mag gun snap off a round, heard a crash, then another round fired, followed by a mid-air explosion. Then the sound of the Decimator’s powerful fans rushed past the doorway and off into the distance. A veritable swarm of enemy drones whined away after him.
I looked around at the two soldiers with me. Kwan’s eyes were intense but his face was blank while Tyson looked a little wild, his breathing heavy. Both stared at me for a second, then almost like they’d synchronized it, their eyebrows went up in question.
“Leading them away,” I signed in ASL.
Kwan nodded and began to silently check his gear over. Tyson just stared at me for a moment longer, his eyes still wide but breathing normally again. Then he looked at my rifle and back up at me, eyebrows back up.
“Experimental—DARPA,” I signed, spelling out the letters.
He considered that for a second, then nodded, turning to look outside, even walking over to peek out. I took the time to replace the magazine in my rifle, tucking the partial mag into a different pouch. The mags had come pre-packed and I didn’t want to mess with trying to unload and reload empty or partial mags, possibly ruining the ammo in the process. So I was saving the half mags for when I needed them later rather than trying to consolidate the leftover ammo into just one or two magazines.
Tyson came back and looked at Kwan. “Nothing out there,” he signed. “What’s the play?”
The question was very clearly to the Gunny and not to me. I watched to see what they decided.
Kwan didn’t answer immediately. Instead, it was his turn to consider my rifle and then my face.
“Mission is still on. Kill the fucking queen Spider,” he signed not taking his eyes off me. “We need him. He knows where the Spider is, he has the Decimator, and he knows how these things think.”
“But he can’t do this,” Tyson said risking a whisper, and then disappeared. He was still there, but all I could see was a blurry outline. Oddly, it also felt colder, like his body heat was being cloaked as well.
“Opto-thermic, low-power body cloaking,” Kwan whispered to me. “It’s light-years beyond stealth suit technology. The Potter Cloak three-point-O.”
He looked at Tyson’s outline. “We may be able to salvage Elizabeth or Carl’s for Ajaya here.”
The Ranger was silent for a moment, then his form shifted and after a second, I realized he had turned around. “I’ll go check,” he said with a resigned sigh. The blurry area disappeared for a moment until I spotted it going out the doorway.
“So where is this thing?” Kwan asked.
I didn’t see any harm in telling him. He was completely right: They needed me.
“55 Broadway.”
“And the Decimator?”
“Will be back when he’s either killed the swarm or lost them, or both. Where are your drones?”
“We lost them early. These cloaks kept us safe but there were way too many UAVs for our Kestrels.”
Noise by the door announced Tyson, who de-cloaked a meter in from the doorway. He held up what looked like a cluster of little black pods, each the size of an earbud. Kwan went to him and took about half of the pods, both men coming to me. With sure movements, they began to attach the little devices to my clothing. Two at each ankle, front and back, two on each thigh, four around my hips and butt, six over my torso, four on each arm, and one at the base of my throat and one at the back of my neck.
“Take off your helmet,” Kwan ordered in a whisper, waiting patiently while I complied. Then he fitted a little black elastic band over my head with a slightly different unit front and back, like a headlamp and battery pack.
“Headpiece controls the whole thing. Each unit has to be perfect or the whole thing won’t work. Luckily they built them tough and they stay attached to cloth like they’re welded to it. Touch your headpiece and it will activate.”
He did just that and suddenly the world went grey. I could still see everything, but color was gone and the sunlight at the door was much muted. The two operators were dark gray at least until Tyson touched his own headpiece and suddenly became very clear to my sight.
“We can see each other when cloaked. Most drones don’t seem to pick up on the detail and our thermal and EMF signatures are covered as well,” Tyson explained. “That traitor drone of yours can see us if it thinks to look for these spectrums, which is why we had to shut it down fast.”
I moved around, then stopped as a sudden wave of dizziness hit me.
“Disorientation is normal till you get used to it,” Kwan said. “Let’s scout outside and see what we can recover.”
The Gunny led the way outside, carefully checking things over before stepping out. In fact, both soldiers displayed excellent Zonecraft, staying careful despite the safety of their high-tech cloaks, which they shut off once they were sure the coast was clear. “Gotta save power,” Kwan said. I turned mine off by tapping the side of the headpiece.
Kwan went to Abate’s corpse and began stripping ammo and important items while Tyson did the same to Kottos’s body. Me, I gathered my 9mm Magnum, the American 180 still in its case, and my knife from where Kwan had left them, then went to study the strange bot.
The other two joined me moments later.
“It’s made from a whole bunch of scavenged drones, including the connection cables from a couple of Renders,” I said, giving up on the whispers but still keeping my voice very low.
“But the frame is unique,” Tyson said, squatting down. “Look, at least three cylindrical segments, each of which can spin, each with arms to throw, and look—each cable winds up with one of the sections.”
“Which is how it pulled Elizabeth so fast. And those little throwing arms can also chop,” Kwan said, using his rifle barrel to point out a sharp blade attached to the underside of one of the short arms.
“So they can snatch people right off their feet with those cables and are deadly with any piece of stone or metal they can throw,” Tyson said. “Plus they have choppers. Friggin’ great.”
“The cables are pretty ingenious. The Renders use them to connect together at altitude to create more surface area for riding thermals as well as exchange data and power,” I said. “They’re made of nano material that can move like a snake’s body. And look, those batteries are brand new—a commercial make. Must have come off some of the civilian drones that got hosed on Drone Wars,” I said, pointing through a big hole in the body of the drone.
“Makes you wonder if they set that whole fuel bomb ambush up just to harvest parts?” Kwan suggested. “What’s that stenciled on the top cone, just under the ocular band?”
“It says Pestilence,” Tyson read. “That’s one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse from the Bible.”
“What?” Kwan asked.
“Pestilence, Famine, War, and Death. Revelations, the last book of the New Testament,” Tyson said.
Kwa
n and I exchanged glances, then looked back at the Ranger. “What? I was raised Baptist. Bible study class was kinda my thing.”
“Would that CThree really name its creations?” Kwan asked me.
“Who knows. I wouldn’t be at all surprised. But the worst part is that it would seem to indicate that there are at least three more of these horsemen out here in the Zone,” I said.
I heard a familiar whine, which rapidly got louder and closer. At first I saw nothing, even though the sound was right in front of me, and then Rikki’s black delta form just appeared in mid-air as he shot between two buildings about two meters off the ground. He came right up to us. One moment nothing, the next a full-blown Decimator.
“You have a Potter Cloak too?” I asked. It certainly explained how he’d gotten through the subway with all those New Yorkers around.
“Affirmative. Installed during last upgrade. Uses large amounts of power.”
“You never told me that.”
“You did not query about my upgrades. Your interrogatory speech centered upon detonation codes and the interception of them.”
I turned to see both Tyson and the Gunny staring at me.
“What? You try having a bomb implanted inside you and see where your priorities lie.”
I really should have quizzed Rikki about his upgrades instead of spending all my free time worried about my neck bomb, but, well… bomb.
“Status?” I asked him.
“Thirteen enemy UAVs destroyed. Remainder lost contact when optic cloak was engaged. Enemy network has been alerted and additional swarms are being called in from around the Zone. Suggest continuing mission immediately or aborting. Power at sixty-four percent. Ammunition at ninety-four percent.”
“Let’s go,” Kwan said, turning toward the nearest side street that would bring us out onto Broadway.
Chapter 15
It was weird to be moving through the Zone with these guys, like a throwback to the training missions I had led. But we weren’t exactly teacher and students anymore. And we weren’t comrades in arms. More like wary allies.
I mean, I get it—they were just doing their jobs, and they viewed me as a bit of a traitor. But Kwan was arguably one of the least emotional operators I had trained. He was mission-focused, first, second, and last. If he needed me to finish the job, he’d by God use me. After that though, all bets were off.
Tyson was more emotional, but again, in his world, the mission comes first. And it was obvious that Gunny Kwan had been the second-in-command of the team and was now leader by default.
I would have preferred to have them both on my left side, easily lined up in my rifle sights while one would block the other’s line of fire. But they were too well trained, instead moving carefully so that one was on either side of me with one or the other regularly falling a bit behind to stagger their shooting lanes. It made my back itch whenever that happened. However, we were close to the target site and the constant buzz of Zone drones filled the air. I froze every time a UAV zipped through the sky above us or a Wolf or Crane bot moved into view. So did Tyson and the Gunny. Rikki held position right over my head, about three meters off the ground.
But nothing penetrated the cloak technology, which made me almost giddy. I could stalk right through enemy territory, and as long as I was silent, life was good. And I can do silence with the best of them.
Ahead, through the grayed-out vision that the cloak created, I suddenly saw 55 Broadway… and the laser barrel of a Russian Tank-Killer that was poking out of the street next to it. That was good on one hand, as it seemed to indicate that Plum Blossom was home. On the other hand, that heavy-duty 100 kW laser could cut any of us in half in a split second.
Rikki floated down to take up position right in front of me, his fans cycling back down to thirty percent power, his intent clear. Time to push him again, only this time, I was pretty certain the intent was for silence rather than power conservation.
Creeping past the big Tank-Killer was maybe the scariest thing I’ve ever done, at least as scary as cutting the bomb out of my neck. One sound, one scrape of a shoe, and we were dead. Well, providing that the TK had power for its laser, but the sun was still shining and its solar collector was extended up on a telescoping arm, firmly intersecting a beam of bright light. I took that as a pretty good chance that the thing was packing energy for its weapon.
I heard not a single sound from the professional soldiers on either side of me and, if anything, that brought out the competitor in me. No way was I going to be the one to make a sound. So I stepped slowly, settling my weight on each foot with painstaking care, pushing Rikki smoothly ahead, alert so that not even the minimal down blast of his fans would disturb enough debris to trigger the massive treaded robot looming two meters away.
We were halfway in front of the TK when it suddenly rumbled, its electric drive moving it forward thirty centimeters or so. We all froze, and I think I felt my heart stutter and stop, but then, as the bot came to a halt, its telescopic solar panel suddenly dropped, lowering into a better, brighter patch of sunlight.
We waited three full minutes before Kwan took another careful step. When nothing happened, we moved forward. It took ten more minutes to move around the corner of 55 Broadway, finally giving us tangible cover from the monster gun bot.
Rikki powered back up and led the way to the side door of our building. Before, when we were last here, we had used the front door. My brief glimpse of the front of the building just now, as we snuck by, had shown three Tigers, five Wolves, and a mixed bag of Crabs and Cranes, all hanging around the entrance to their queen’s tower. Too many to sneak through, even with the Potter Cloak 3.0.
As it was, two UAVs, an Indian Falcon and Chinese Raptor, flew over us as Kwan worked to pick the lock on the side door, the Gunny freezing up solid every time. Finally the lock gave with a slight click and I saw the Gunny turn his head to look at me and then, pointedly, at my drone. Rikki blinked an LED on his cloaked airframe four times fast. I nodded and gave Kwan a thumbs-up. Nothing was waiting on the other side of the door. Tyson moved up, his rifle muzzle at low ready, and with slow, careful movements, Kwan opened the door.
Tyson’s muzzle rose to cover the interior and then he moved smoothly into the building. Rikki shot ahead of me to go through next, then I followed, my own muzzle down in low ready until I entered the space.
Tyson was covering the interior door, the entrance to the rest of the building. We were in what looked like some kind of mail or package reception area, just a square room with a set of rectangular cubbies on one wall with business names listed under each, a door at the far wall, and two small high windows behind me. I turned around and moved sideways, the ChemJet’s barrel seeming to rise of its own accord as I covered the outside world over Kwan’s shoulder as he backed into the room, using both of his hands to carefully close the door.
He nodded when the door was fully shut, the lock reengaged. We both turned to Tyson, finding him backed away from the door by the bulk of the Decimator, who was suddenly between him and the interior of the building. Tyson gave me a single raised eyebrow and I moved up, tapping on Rikki’s upper fuselage to find out what had spooked my drone. The little hologram lit up and a green laser message rolled out in mid-air.
An EM signature similar to previously unknown drone is six meters from this position. Presuming that optic cloak is currently blocking this unit’s own signature.
I turned to the others and pointed at the hologram, moving out of the way so that they could each lean over and read it.
Both turned back to me, Tyson frowning with concern, Kwan looking thoughtful.
