by Wesley Chu
Over the next fifteen minutes, half a dozen more couriers, all children, reported in. A dozen more were sent out as the war council relayed instructions and the enemy’s location to coordinate the attack. Elise watched the white pieces on the map—taken from an old chess board—close in on the enemy’s location, the black king.
“That’s the last to report in,” Murad said. “On your command, Mist Queen.” To the side, two girls stood at the door ready to deliver the order to attack.
“Stop calling me that,” she said absentmindedly as she studied the map. Elise looked out the nearest window to check the light outside, and then nodded. She wasn’t sure why they always looked to her for final confirmation, considering it was all of them who planned the attacks, but she took it in stride.
“Maanx’s fights will hit them first from the north,” Murad said. “They will buy a long enough distraction for the rest to strike a hundred heartbeats later from the other directions.” That was another thing. Every tribe counted differently. It was maddening.
“All right,” Elise said, summoning as much authority as she could. “Let’s do this. Make sure the all the couriers are pulled back a safe distance first.”
The messages were relayed and the couriers sent off, and then the waiting game began. This was the most unnerving part of the exchanges. What she wouldn’t give to be able to send a message and have the recipient receive it instantaneously. That might be something she would add to Titus’s already gigantic to-do list.
The way they waged war right now was the same way it had been done for thousands of years before the invention of instant communications, comm bands, radio, or heck, even Morse code. This weird EMP fog affected them almost as much as it did the Co-op, though she had to think it was much more disorienting to the enemy than to the native tribes.
The minutes ticked by as Elise and the rest of the war council sat on their collective asses. The others joked among themselves. She didn’t know how they could be so relaxed. Half an hour passed, and Elise felt her heartbeat quicken. Had something gone wrong? Had she led her defenders wrong? What if it was a trap? Three hundred was a significant portion of Manhattan’s forces. This early in the fight, she had utilized their superior numbers to their advantage. She wanted to fight every battle outnumbering the Co-op by a factor of five.
Elise began to pace up and down the room. It probably made her look frazzled, but she didn’t care. The weight of responsibility was the heaviest when she knew she was sending people to die. This fidgeting was all she could do to fight back the tears every time she thought about that.
It was times like this she wished James were here. He would know how to handle these sorts of fights better than she ever could. He was dealing with his own demons at the moment. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t hide the fact that he was drinking more than ever. It was hot gossip among the Elfreth. Many grumbled about James’s potentially impaired judgment. It had already manifested itself a few times. The circumstances surrounding Aliette’s death were particularly worrisome. The flyguards had unanimously defended James but many in the tribe secretly pointed fingers at him.
It was only out of respect for him and her that they did not openly talk about it. Elise didn’t know how to help him. She already had so much on her plate. The best she could do now was to try to keep him safe where he couldn’t hurt himself or anyone else. Part of her was angry at him for falling apart on her at a time like this. Another part of her was just worried sick about him. She wished she could be there for him right now, but people’s lives were at stake.
Nearing the hour mark, three couriers finally reported in. They were out of breath and barely able to get a word out. One of them was bleeding from a cut on her forehead.
Elise, alarmed, rushed over to her. “What happened? Are you all right?”
The girl struggled to get the words out of her mouth. “The enemy saw the fights approaching from the north and were ready for them as they tried to cross the bridge. The fights were unable to close the distance. Instead, Teacher Maanx made much noise and played decoy. The Co-op left their positions and gave chase. Then the rest of our defenders came upon them from behind. The enemy were all captured or killed. However, our hurt was higher. Large Krisa of the schnauzers report that they suffered fifty-six injured but only nineteen deaths.”
The relief on Elise’s face was visible as a cheer escaped her lips. The other leaders in the room congratulated her on her victory, as they did after every battle. Elise thought that too was strange, since she wasn’t the one fighting and dying. She honestly didn’t do anything other than pace around in a room safely far away from battle.
There was a commotion at the door, and a new figure darted in. It took her a moment to realize that it was Knick. His shirt was wet with blood, and he seemed disoriented and terrified. He was panting heavily and ran to Kamyke.
“They have my brother and sister!” he sobbed.
Kamyke dropped to one knee and held the boy by the shoulders. “Who does? What happened? Are you injured?”
Knick was having a hard time getting the words out, but eventually, they were able to piece together the whole story. It seemed on their way back, the three children were captured by a Co-op hound pack.
“They shot Kris,” Knick wailed, tears flowing down his face.
Kamyke swore. He saw Elise’s furious gaze and bowed his head. “I am shamed, Mist Queen. Perhaps you are right about the children…”
She bristled. “Worry about that later. Knick, come here. Do you know how many? Can you show me on the map where they took your siblings?”
Knick nodded, and she led him to the table. He was so small, she had to ask Murad to hold him up so he could see the map. Elise pointed at the white queen chess piece. “This is where we are. Where did the Co-op soldiers find you?”
He pointed at a location on the map. “Floor sixteen, near sky bridge two. I saw four.”
Elise looked at the others, alarmed. “That’s only two blocks away. If we hurry, we can reach them.”
The six tribal leaders exchanged worried glances.
Hans, the Grand of the Lenox tribe and oldest among them, shook his head. “With the guards, we are only eight. I am far too old and all of us far too valuable to risk on two children. I do not doubt the council’s prowess, but against four Co-op, it is dangerous.”
Elise gritted her teeth. “I’m not abandoning one of our own, especially a child. Besides, you forget I’m here as well.”
“Please, Elise,” Murad said. “You are many things to the Nation, but a defender you’re not.”
“Maybe not.” Elise looked over to the corner where she had parked Aranea, the scout mechanoid she used to get around Manhattan. She had spent every spare second she had riding and practicing with it. It was not just like riding a bike again, but like riding a bike that was better in every way. Aranea was head and shoulders more advanced and easier to pilot than Charlotte. She had capabilities that Elise had never thought possible in a machine. She glanced at its shoulder-mounted cannon. She had yet to fire the laser gun, but was assured by Titus that the thing worked.
“I’m getting our kids back,” she said. “You’re all welcome to join me.”
Elise pushed a hidden button on the side of the mechanoid’s body and the torso split down the center and slid open. She got in, and a few seconds later was heading out the door, the mechanoid’s eight legs clicking softly on the hard concrete floor. She had worried that she’d end up going alone, but was joined a few seconds later by Murad on one side and Kamyke on the other. Following close behind them were the remaining three leaders and two guards.
“I hope you know what you’re doing, and risking, Oldest,” Murad said. “The Nation falls apart without you.”
“I don’t know what this nation stands for if we don’t protect our children,” she replied.
The small group hurried east across six buildings, crossing the sky bridge over Tenth Avenue on the twelfth floor of a corner buildi
ng. According to Aranea, she was moving at fifteen kilometers per hour. She was shocked to find that everyone was keeping up with her with little effort. They were hardy folks, these wastelanders.
It took them only a few minutes to reach the sixteenth floor of the building where the Co-op field team had nabbed the children. The group spread out and checked the area. One corridor had small amounts of still-damp blood and signs of struggle, blaster marks on the walls, but no sign of where the team had gone.
“They must have gone east,” Kamyke said. “Probably to avoid our northern forces by circumventing the Central Park jungle.”
“Which floor?” Murad said. “They could be anywhere. This is like searching for a grain of rice on a sandy beach.”
Elise despaired. She knew the children were close, but they could be anywhere, on any floor. East might be the right direction, but this was a fool’s errand. Just then, she saw a shadow moving in one of the side rooms. She motioned to her group and shot Aranea in. A second later, she towered over a terrified wastelander who was balled up in a fetal position covering his face.
“Please,” he cried. “I have nothing.”
Elise recognized the markings on his arm as belonging to the Ansonia Wigs, one of the larger tribes native to this neighborhood. She had personally tried to recruit them several times over the past few weeks, but had been rebuffed. Their leader, Tao Jan, had told her that the Co-op had not bothered her people yet and naively believed they wouldn’t. Elise wondered if the Tao’s mind had changed with the events over the past few days.
“We are from the Manhattan Nation,” she said, backing away a few steps. “We are looking for some Co-op who stole our children. Have you seen them? Please help us.”
The Ansonia Wig refused to speak with her, not that she blamed him. Aranea must be a terrible sight for some of these people. She waited outside as Kamyke, whose tribe had a relationship with the Ansonia Wigs, spoke with him. He returned a few minutes later.
“What happened to his people?” she asked.
Kamyke shook his head sadly. “Everywhere. Nowhere, he says. Attacked by the Co-op and now to the winds. They are no more.”
“Did he see the children?”
He nodded. “He says they are moving east along the main passage on the fourteenth floor, parallel to Fifty-eighth Street. It’s one of the more commonly used roads.”
“Let’s go,” she said.
Her group took off in a full sprint, moving north a block, up several floors, and then east across a double-wide passage that cut through several other buildings. It took nearly thirty more minutes before they caught sight of a small group of people near the other end of a building. Elise, using Aranea’s scoped vision, was the first to see them. They were dragging a smaller person by a rope and carrying what looked like another. Elise slowed the group down and glanced up at the ceiling.
“Close ground as quietly as you can,” she said. “I’m going to come in from above.”
She maneuvered Aranea up the nearest wall and began to climb it nearly as easily as if she were walking on the ground. This new functionality was the biggest upgrade over Charlotte. It took Elise several weeks before she was able to work up the courage to climb up a wall, and several more before she walked upside down on the ceiling, but now it was one of her favorite pastimes.
The passageway had a high vaulted circular ceiling, so she was able to climb up the very center and follow along the top undetected until she was nearly on top of the Valta field scouts. They didn’t have much time left. The scouts were almost at the end of the building and about to enter a bridge. Once on the bridge, there was a lot less room for her to maneuver.
She looked behind her and saw that the rest of her people were still about two hundred meters behind. They weren’t going to make it. In fact, the last portion of the passage had little cover. Half of her people would get cut down before they got close enough to engage the field scouts. All the field scouts had to do was look back to see them approach.
As if on cue, one did just that and signaled to the others. Another pulled out a monoscope while two raised their rifles. The last one dropped Kris and threw Karol to the ground. Elise cursed. This was an awful plan. She had obviously not thought this through very well, and now people were going to die because of her stupidity. She decided to do the only thing she could think of. She struck first.
Hastily activating the laser cannon mounted on Aranea’s shoulder—she hoped she was doing it right—she aimed the reticule, which popped up at one of the Co-op soldiers below. “Fire,” she whispered.
Aranea complied and fired a green beam that missed her target by about three meters, blowing a small shower of marble into the air.
“Beam engaged,” a man’s deep voice said with a sexy British accent—it was one of the options during the setup. She had chosen this over the French woman. “Lock was not acquired.”
“I didn’t know you had to acquire one first,” she grumbled, trying to match the reticule again to one of the Valta hounds. However, they had noticed her on the ceiling and had returned fire. Elise found out the hard way that trying to avoid blaster fire while aiming was really difficult. One of the blaster shots struck Aranea in the leg, and all her systems went fuzzy for a second. Elise nearly panicked as she moved the mechanoid out of the way. There was something about being shot at that really disagreed with her.
She skirted Aranea across the ceiling with more blasts from below exploding around her. Suddenly, the small explosions and orange beams stopped. She scanned the ground again and saw that her people had reached the enemy. She activated the reticule, but there was too much chaos below for her to get a clear lock. Instead, she dropped down from the ceiling and charged into the melee.
By the time she got there, however, the fight had ended. It was a brutal and short firefight. In the end, both Manhattan guards were seriously injured and Kamyke had suffered several broken ribs and a bad burn on his shoulder.
However, all four of the Valta soldiers were slain, and the children recovered. Elise jumped out of Aranea and checked on the boy. He was breathing but pale. The Valta troops had triaged his injuries and had probably been going to interrogate him once they got back to base.
She turned to the others. “I can carry two of the injured on Aranea. I’ll meet you all back at the All Galaxy.”
Murad nodded. “Get them home quickly. Well done, Elise. I was wrong about you not being a defender. My apologies.”
“I didn’t do anything,” she said. “If anything, I messed up.”
“You distracted the enemy long enough for us to engage them,” he said, bowing slightly. “You saved many lives today. All hail the Mist Queen.”
The rest of the room echoed the sentiment.
“Shut up, you guys,” Elise said, blushing furiously. She climbed back into Aranea and picked up the boy Kris and the most seriously injured of the guards. “Get back to base, everyone. And good job.”
Elise gave her people one last look before hurrying off to the All Galaxy Tower. Aranea moved at a fast clip, using the auto-navigation system to move across the three-dimensional maze of Manhattan at nearly forty kilometers an hour. They should be back at home in minutes.
She checked on Kris and the guard. Both were unconscious, but seemed stable. She made sure the mechanoid was holding them close to her body as she crossed through the last final buildings toward the All Galaxy. Within minutes, she had dropped the two patients off at the infirmary and was telling Titus to prepare for more injured.
“How many of ours dead from the main fight?” Titus asked as he ordered more cots to be brought in.
Elise smiled. “Nineteen.”
He turned to her, surprised. “That’s all? Well done, Mist Queen.”
“Stop calling me that,” she said, but she had to admit she liked it just a bit. For the first time since she’d become the Oldest of the Elfreth, she actually felt like a leader. Between the victory today and the successful rescue, things were finall
y starting to look up for her people. Now, if she could figure out what to do with James—
“Oldest,” Rima said, running up to her. “Please come quickly!”
“What is it?”
“Just come! Hurry!” The girl took off before she could say another word. Elise ran after her as they went down a level to the barricade floor and headed toward the north end of the building. A crowd had formed near the main barricade. They parted ways before her until she saw the source of the commotion.
Elise gasped. “What in Gaia is going on!”
THIRTY-EIGHT
ROCK BOTTOM
James grimaced as he tilted his head back and held the flask upside down over his open mouth. It was the last of the shine from their excursion at the garage. No matter; he knew Chawr and the rest of his crew were rationing their portions. They wouldn’t mind sharing with their mentor. Why should they? They looked up to him.
He stood up and hummed to himself, feeling the room sway under his feet. He closed his eyes and enjoyed this sensation of falling, of not being in control. The drink was hitting him a little harder than usual. He leaned against the wall as he stumbled his way down the stairwell toward the Elfreth mess hall. His AI band told him he was two hours past last meal, but he was an elder. They’d find something for him.
A few of the tribe passing by shot him awkward glances and then averted their eyes. It reminded him of the treatment he had received at the Tilted Orbit and Never Late during his chronman days. He scowled. He was no longer a chronman. Why did people keep treating him so poorly, as if he was some sort of outcast? No matter where he was, people were just so unkind. James’s veins boiled and he began to get angry.
He thought he had left those judging eyes back in that supposedly more civilized previous life. However, here among the savages—no, he wasn’t supposed to call them that anymore—they treated him with just as much distrust. James spent the trip down the stairwell working himself into a rage at the unfairness of his life. Would any place ever accept him?
