by Colin Sims
Surprisingly—or perhaps at this point, not surprisingly—there was barely any pain in my chest, even when I jumped. It was definitely a little eerie, yet at the same time, I wasn’t about to wish it otherwise.
I took a few steps forward, stepping outside the Clicker tunnel. There was a semi-full moon, so I could see bits of the shadowy landscape through the darkness. It looked much as it had the previous couple days—rolling hills without much else.
I turned to go back inside, where Yuri and Samireh, and Janice, were all watching me. And that’s when I had an idea.
“Hey Yuri,” I began, nodding to him. “Does Janice have any of those drones like the ones back in Oldstown?”
He nodded. “Yes,” he answered. “All combat Droids do.”
Samireh’s eyes quickly brightened. “I know what you’re thinking,” she suddenly said. “You want to send a drone back to Oldstown to see if the flash drive thing is still there.”
I swallowed as I nodded thoughtfully. I hadn’t thought of that at all. I was actually just thinking we could send up a drone to take a look around. So after a brief pause I told her, “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
She smiled and turned to Yuri. “So how do we do it,” she asked him. “Just ask her, or what?”
He frowned and shook his head. “I would have to take manual control,” he explained. “But what is this flash drive you are talking about?”
Samireh and I both glanced at each other. I was a little peeved that she had mentioned the flash drive at all, but still, her idea was a good one. I needed to find out if the Mantidae thing was still there. And for some reason, I felt like I could trust Yuri. Maybe it was just the baby face, but there was something honest about him. I liked the guy.
After a long pause, Samireh and I both proceeded to explain what little we knew about the weird piece of Clicker tech and what had happened back in Boise. When we were done, Yuri simply nodded and said, “Fuck.”
“I know,” Samireh agreed. “So how do we send the drone? Can we do it now, like at night?”
Yuri stepped over to Janice and examined the drones on her back. “Yes, of course. They have night vision. This is no problem.”
He hopped back into the Cougar for a minute and then came back with an armored laptop. If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve guessed the thing was bulletproof.
“Janice,” Yuri suddenly ordered. “Prepare Drone 2. Options. Control settings. Manual. Launch.”
Janice straightened, and a second later, the disk-shaped drone popped off her back and hovered a few feet above her head. Its four mini-rotors buzzed like a giant insect.
Yuri stepped outside and Janice followed. He tapped some commands into the laptop and the drone flew off into the darkness. Before long, we couldn’t hear it anymore.
I looked over Yuri’s shoulder and watched the screen. At the moment, the infrared camera on the drone was showing nothing but green as it flew over the barren terrain. “How long ‘til it gets there?” I asked.
He glanced back at me like he hadn’t realized I was there. “Not long,” he answered. “Drones can fly up to one hundred kilometers per hour.”
Samireh appeared over Yuri’s other shoulder. “What’s a kilometer?” she asked.
“It’s like a mile,” I told her. “Only shorter.”
“What’s a mile?” she asked.
I looked over at Yuri and we both shrugged. I said, “It’s uh, like maybe seven or eight—?”
“Ten thousand feet,” Yuri answered assuredly.
“Actually, it’s 5,280 feet.” Samireh smiled. “You see that? You both think I’m dumb but I’m smarter than the two of you combined.”
I was about to ask her then why’d you even ask? but I figured it would be easier to just nod my head in agreement.
We waited for about fifteen minutes, all watching the screen. Yuri explained that the Drone would remember its last location, so it was currently flying on autopilot. Soon enough, we saw the distant gate of Oldstown, and Yuri took over the controls.
“Okay, so where is this thing?” he asked, taking the drone a little lower.
I looked at Samireh. “You’ll be able to tell him better than me.”
“That’s probably true in everything,” she said, before leaning in closer to the screen and pointing, “There,” she said. “It should be in the dirt behind that shack.”
Yuri nodded as he concentrated on the controls. So far, I couldn’t see any movement in Oldstown, as if the whole settlement had been abandoned. One thing I did see, though, was that the armored vehicles were still there.
“They left the trucks.” I pointed to the screen.
“This was my doing,” Yuri answered, angling the drone downward. “Focused EMP grenades. I still have a couple left. They fry the electronics.”
“So where’d everyone go?” I asked.
Yuri shrugged. “I do not know this. Perhaps they are on foot.”
“There!” Samireh exclaimed, pointing at the screen. “It’s right there, go down.”
Yuri flew lower and the soda can behind the shack came into focus. As soon as it did, my heart sank.
“Crap,” Samireh muttered.
The can was empty, ripped in half.
***
“We have to find it,” I told Samireh as we stepped back into the tunnel. Yuri was still waiting outside for the drone to return.
Samireh took a deep breath, thinking. “We could try to pick up their tracks and follow them,” she suggested. “But to where? If they go to a military base or something, there’s not much we can do. I mean, I’m good but I’m not that good.”
“We just have to come up with a plan,” I told her. “If we catch them by surprise, there’s always something we can do.”
Samireh frowned. “Did you already forget that you got shot?” she asked. “You really want to go searching for Billy Lee and his buddies right now?”
She had a point. But my chest was feeling better by the minute. And I couldn’t afford to lose that flash drive. I thought of it around my dad’s neck, then Frederick Shaw’s, then Alec’s, and then mine. If I let it go now, I’d never be able to find it again. This was my last chance.
“You don’t have to come,” I said. “But I don’t have a choice. I have to get it back.”
Samireh looked hurt as she stepped back. “Well, that’s a hell of a thing to say to me,” she said. “If I didn’t want to help you, I’d be long gone by now. And you’d be dead.”
Again, she had a point. “Sorry,” I said, “But I—”
“Forget it,” she interrupted. “But we can’t go anywhere in the dark. It’s too dangerous to hike at night this far from a settlement. Clickers will be out there.”
“You mean the Slicers?” I asked, my heart once again quickening, but Samireh shook her head. “No, not Slicers,” she answered. “The actual Clickers. And believe me, they’re a lot worse.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because Clickers think,” she said gravely. “Slicers are scary, sure, but they’re mindless. Clickers are smart, just like you and me. Or me, anyway.”
Right then, Yuri appeared beside us, still watching the screen on his laptop. “I overhear you,” he said. “I wish to help retrieve this Mantidae device. I know where it will be.”
Samireh and I both looked at him for a moment. “Where?” I finally asked.
“There is NAM outpost not far from here. Maybe thirty kilometers.”
“Is there a way in?” I asked.
“Without getting killed,” Samireh added.
Yuri looked up from his computer. “Not really,” he said. “But it is like I hear Michael say. If we come up with plan and catch them by surprise … who knows?”
“You know you don’t have to help us,” I told him. I hoped that I wouldn’t get the same reaction that I got from Samireh.
Yuri’s face broke into a wide, mischievous grin. “I am Russian spy,” he said to us. “This is my job.”
And so we huddled together inside the Cougar’s cargo bay to come up with a plan. Yuri had an abundance of knowledge about the outpost’s security, while Samireh seemed to know everything there was to know about sneaking into a place. As for me, I knew a little something about how to coordinate things. I’d done it a bunch of times at school, only this time the stakes were a tad higher.
We talked for at least four hours before we all agreed on what to do. Yuri eventually dozed off on the Cougar’s floor, using a jacket as a pillow, and Samireh crawled up onto the row of seats across from mine. We lay in silence for a few moments before Samireh asked if I was still awake.
“Hmm,” I mumbled, keeping my eyes closed.
“You were wrong about what you said earlier,” she told me quietly. “About having no one left.”
I opened my eyes to see her looking at me. “What do you mean?” I asked.
She rolled over so that her back was to me. “I’m your friend.”
Chapter 11
After waking up at dawn, we drove the Cougar about fifteen miles northeast. The mountainous terrain made it difficult to achieve any speed, and there were scarcely any roads to speak of. Plus, the farther we went, the less barren the landscape became. There were actually trees, bushes, and boulders blocking our path at times, though in fairness, most of the trees were still charred black like the few I’d seen earlier. The trip took about an hour or so, until we reached a spot where Samireh pointed out another rabbit hole.
“It’ll take us north about three miles,” she said to Yuri and I once we were all standing outside the Cougar. The morning sun was bright, and we were all shading our eyes.
Yuri squinted at the hole. It was far too narrow for a vehicle. “You are sure there will be exit near outpost?” he asked Samireh.
She shrugged. “Not positive,” she answered. “But I’m pretty sure.”
Yuri nodded for a moment in thought. “We will send drone,” he announced, and he turned to call for Janice. The Droid quickly came to life and jumped from the truck. A few seconds later, Yuri had one of her drones whizzing down into the tunnel.
“Drone will find exit,” he said to us, starring at his computer screen. He had explained to me last night that his computer was called a “battletop” and actually was bulletproof. He wore it clipped to his upper torso like a piece of body armor, then flipped it down to use it while he was still standing. It wasn’t nearly as advanced as the AMTACC, but Yuri said that for someone like him, the old-fashioned screen and keyboard were better for hacking.
We waited nearly an hour for the drone to return. By the time it did, I’d probably checked and re-checked my gear a dozen times. My new weapon—courtesy of the New American Military—was a black, pump-action shotgun. It was equipped to fire a variety of different smart rounds. The red shells were “Surprisers,” which were delayed-action explosives that stuck to their targets. I could then select each one by number and then detonate them using the AMTACC. The green shells were “Signalers” and would also stick to their targets, only instead of exploding, they emitted a wireless signal for penetrating nearby networks. Lastly, the yellow shells were “Doomsayers,” and each contained six, advanced-model Seekers to take out multiple targets at once.
When the Drone re-appeared from the rabbit hole, Yuri wired it to his battletop and converted the data into a virtual map of the winding Clicker tunnel.
“This is perfect.” He pointed to the screen, and Samireh and I both leaned in for a look. “There is exit about two hundred meters from southeast corner of outpost. This should give us clean shot through the gate when it is opened.”
“If they open it,” I reminded him.
He chuckled. “Of course they will. Rostek Droid is too expensive for them to ignore.”
It had been my idea to send Janice up to the Outpost’s main gate, which was partially what made me so nervous about it. The plan was for the guards to mistake her as a wayward Droid that had returned to base. Once she was inside—where Yuri explained she would be sent to Droid Maintenance for downloading—she’d re-awaken to become our very own Trojan Horse. However, if the guards blew her up, the entire plan was blown.
Yuri folded up the battletop and grabbed his AK-47 from the truck.
Samireh looked back at him. “We better camouflage the Cougar,” she said. “At least a little before we go.”
“Yes,” Yuri agreed, and so we all took a few minutes to gather up whatever branches and shrubs we could find to drape over the hulking vehicle. By the time we were finished, I glanced at Samireh and wanted to laugh.
“Hey,” she said defensively. “If someone were completely not paying any attention whatsoever, then they might not see it.”
The truck looked absurd with a bunch of dead branches on its roof.
“We should go,” I told her. “How long do you think it will take to get through all the tunnels?”
She shrugged. “A little while. We’ll have to move slowly and keep our eyes open. Heading this deep into a Clicker tunnel, there’s a chance we might run into an actual Clicker.”
“I never see one of these,” Yuri said excitedly, rejoining us from the other side of the truck. “In St. Petersburg there are no pictures, only stories. Are they truly ten meters tall?”
“From what I’ve seen, it’s more like three,” I told him.
Samireh nodded. “Yeah, something like that,” she said before heading for the rabbit hole and ducking inside.
Yuri and I followed her in. It didn’t take more than a minute of creeping through the narrow tunnel before all the light from the entrance was gone. I lit up the AMTACC, letting its screen hover in front of me as I walked. All blue, no red. The only thing I saw was a sudden purplish flash when Samireh pulled out her katana. I still had no idea why it always sparked like that, but I figured that now wasn’t the best time to ask.
We walked for at least three hours through the tunnels, which wove and looped around like an endless maze. For the most part, we stayed quiet, except when we reached a fork and Yuri would say to go left or right. At one point, I whispered for everyone to stop when I thought I saw something move in front of us, but neither Yuri nor I could spot any red on our holoscopes.
Eventually, we reached the tunnel’s exit around noon. Samireh was the first to peek her head through the narrow hole. When she came down, she was smiling triumphantly and declared, “Right on the mark. If I’m not the best, I don’t know who is.”
Yuri looked through the hole next. “Michael,” he said to me when he came back down, “I believe the angle is right. You will be able to fire the Signaler through the gates as soon as they open.”
“And I’m aiming for the camo-green building,” I confirmed, stepping past him. “Let me take a look.” I peeked my head up through the hole and got my first look at NAM Outpost 31. It was a little bigger than I imagined, but it was almost exactly as Yuri had described. A tall, electromagnetic fence surrounded its perimeter, giving the outpost the shape of a perfect square. Each side looked to be almost half a mile long. From where I was looking, I could only see three of the guard towers: one at the southeast corner, and two more along the adjacent walls. I figured the pattern would be the same for the rest of the outpost, giving it eight guard towers in total. I knew each of them housed several guards apiece, all of whom were armed with high-caliber weapons.
I came down from the hole to find Yuri passing Samireh an MRE from his bag. “Here,” he said, passing me one as well. “Now we must wait.”
I took it and tore open the top. “Freakin’ scary,” I breathed, nodding toward the outpost. “It’s a full-on fortress.”
Samireh’s cheeks puffed out like a squirrel as she wolfed down the MRE, and while chewing, stated, “They’re a bunch of assholes. And they’re dumb.”
“Dumb assholes with many guns,” Yuri corrected her.
Taking my first bite, I asked Yuri, “You think Janice is in position?”
“She should be,” he answered, unhooking a short an
tenna from the side of the battletop. He then crept up to the rabbit hole and held it up. “I am getting signal from her.” He nodded. “She is ready.”
We had programmed Janice to move toward the outpost over land instead of with us through the tunnels. Now, she was holding position about a mile away, out of view from the guards. When Yuri gave her the signal, she’d complete the trip to the outpost, walking straight up to its front gate. For now, though, there wasn’t much else for us to do except wait until nightfall.
The hours passed slowly, especially since I calculated that we had about a two percent chance of survival. I believed in our plan, but at the end of the day, we were just three teenagers and a Droid going against a heavily defended NAM outpost. And as we waited, it was all I could do to not suddenly blurt out, What are we thinking? Yet somehow I found myself saying things like, “I really think this is going to work …” to which Samireh would always agree.
Soon enough, it was fully dark. My heart was racing. There was no backing out now, especially since the whole thing was my idea. It killed me to think that either Samireh or Yuri could get hurt on my behalf, but I also knew that at this point, there would be no talking them out of it. Plus, they both seemed to have reasons of their own.
Yuri was the first one to break the silence and say what we were all thinking. “It is nighttime,” he said quietly. “I should send signal to Janice.” He looked at Samireh and me for confirmation. We both nodded and he crept over to the rabbit hole and stuck out the antenna. He pressed a few keys on his battletop then came back down. “It is done,” he said. “Janice is on the move. Should take about ten minutes.”
“Fuck,” I responded.
Samireh frowned but Yuri smiled at that. “In Russian this word is trakhni,” he said to me. “I was thinking same thing.”
Nine minutes later, Yuri and I were both peeking through the hole, watching Janice stride toward the front gates of the outpost. The guards had lit her up with a pair of spotlights.
