by M. R. Forbes
“Sheriff, I don’t like this,” Casey said, looking worried.
Hayden didn’t blame her. The density of trife was increasing as more and more of them reached the other side of the river.
“We have to find Natalia,” he replied. “Nothing else matters.”
The tank rumbled down the street, dozens of trife climbing it, the Butcher standing in the center and defeating all comers. They hung from its heavy frame, clawing at its metal form, trying to find a weak spot or tug it away from the vehicle. They reached the corner, the armor pinging as rounds from Scrapper guns went past charging trife and into the sides.
“Turn that way,” Hayden said, pointing Casey toward the Scrappers.
The tank started to turn, the adjustment sending them careering past the road and slamming into the corner of an old building. It caused the tank to shudder, giving it just the jolt the demons needed to finally dislodge the Butcher. The entire vehicle shook as the roid fell off it, crashing to the ground with the creatures piling on top of it.
“Shit!” Casey shouted, getting the tank back under control. “Sorry.”
“Forget it,” Hayden said. “Keep moving.”
The trife were ahead of them, rushing toward the Scrappers. They turned and ran into an alley. A moment later, their car burst out from between the wreckage of two buildings, barely avoiding the trife as it spun and headed down the street.
It passed a cross street, turning left ahead. A second car pulled out in front of it, the one with the gatling gun. Two gatling guns. They both swiveled toward the tide of trife and the tank riding within the wave, the gunners opening fire. Bullets hit the armored exterior once more, along with pieces of trife as they were torn to shreds by the rounds. A hundred creatures died within seconds.
It was nowhere near enough.
The gunners fell into the seat as the car peeled away, taking a sharp left and accelerating away.
“Follow them,” Hayden said.
“I am,” Casey replied.
Hayden looked into the one functional rear camera. The Butcher was there, back on its feet, the trife swarming around it and giving it space.
Up ahead, the gunners in the car had returned to their positions, firing backward at the trife giving chase. They were taking a straight line up the street, heading toward a growing mass of something stretched across the street.
“It looks like they knew the bastards were coming,” Casey said.
Hayden’s eyes settled on the pile of cars that rested across the road between two buildings, nearly ten meters high. An armored transport sat in the center of it, backing up as the cars approached, making way for the Scrappers to enter.
“That has to be where their base is,” Hayden said. “Don’t slow down.”
“What?”
“Keep going. There.” He pointed to the side of the pile.
“We’re going to let the trife in.”
“I know. They shouldn’t have taken Natalia if they didn’t want the trife to get through. Do it.”
“Pozz that, Sheriff. Hold onto your ass.”
The tank shifted vectors slightly, at the same time the car passed through the center of the blockade and the transport moved back into place. Scrappers with rifles appeared on top of the stack, firing down at the demons, killing one after another after another.
There was a point where they noticed the tank coming their way. They raised their arms and cheered, thinking the armored vehicle was on their side and had maybe brought reinforcements from the south.
The cheers were short lived when they realized the tank was headed for their makeshift wall, and it wasn’t slowing.
“Brace yourself,” Casey said.
Hayden grabbed the back of her seat, holding steady as the tank slammed into the pile of cars. It nearly came to a stop, stymied by the weight of the wall, the force pushing him forward. Casey added more power to the throttle, the engine roaring behind them, the grip of the treads keeping them in motion.
The cars moved, shifting above them. They began to lose balance, flipping off one another and toppling down, some of them bouncing off the armored skull of the tank, the others crashing around it. The impact knocked more than a few Scrappers from their perches, throwing them to the ground where they were pounced on by the trife.
The tank pushed through the barrier. The creatures followed through behind it. They overtook the vehicle, running through the streets, heading toward a building a block away.
Bullets hit the top of the tank, the Scrappers trying to stop their mad dash. On the opposite side of the central building was another blockade, and cars were emerging from a garage beneath it, turning and heading toward it, pausing as they reached the so-far unaffected exit.
Hayden watched as an armored car pulled out of the garage, climbing the ramp and pausing in the street. Someone was standing in the hatch leading into the transport, and for as dirty as the camera lenses on the tank had become, it was easy for him to recognize the large white hat on the man’s head, along with the familiar face beneath it.
Ghost. He was here. He was leaving. Was Natalia with him?
“We need to stop that car,” Hayden said.
“How?” Casey replied.
“I don’t know. We have to catch up with it.”
Even now, the trife were closing on the convoy, the Scrappers laying down heavy fire to keep them back. Ghost produced a rifle from the transport, a massive thing that he aimed at the tank. Hayden saw a muzzle flash, and then the front left camera went out. Another flash and the front right disappeared. A third, and they lost forward sight completely.
“Grepping hell,” Casey cried. “I can’t drive it like this.”
“No!” Hayden shouted, slamming the side of the vehicle with his hand. “He’s getting away!”
“I’m sorry, Sheriff. We can’t catch him like this. Maybe she’s still inside?”
Was it possible? Would Ghost leave her behind? He had brought her here for something. What if he had gotten it? Did he still need her?
“I’m going in,” Hayden said.
“I’m coming with you,” Casey said.
“No, you aren’t.”
“Try to stop me.”
Hayden didn’t have time to try. He ran to the back of the tank, climbing the ladder and opening the hatch, pistol in hand. He emerged onto the top, turning as a trife hissed in front of him, pulling the trigger and hitting it right in the face. He ducked as it toppled past him and off the vehicle.
He quickly scanned the immediate area. The trife were surrounding them, some of them rushing into the open garage, others attacking the soldiers on the blockades.
Ghost was already through the barrier, facing back toward him.
Hayden threw himself from the tank, flailing in the air, the round from the N80 whistling past his ear. He hit the ground hard, his body cracking from the impact. He rolled over, picking himself up.
A trife scurried toward him, claws raised to slash his head.
A shot above him, and its head exploded.
“See, I already saved your life,” Casey said, jumping down. “Aren’t you glad I’m here?”
Hayden smiled. “Pozz that.”
They ran toward the garage together.
46
NATALIA’S EYES OPENED SLOWLY. The back of her head was throbbing, her vision blurry.
What the hell had happened?
She remembered trying the different passwords to access the mainframe. She remembered none of them working. Then Ghost had shown up and said they were running out of time.
After that?
Nothing.
She pushed herself up, reaching out and grabbing the chair, using it to bring herself to her feet. A wave of dizziness passed over her, and she struggled to stay upright, to pull herself around to the seat before dropping.
She closed her eyes again, trying to shake off the vertigo. She listened. There was no sound save for the hum of the HVAC keeping the servers cool. Her eyes snapped open, and she looked
around, surprised to find she was alone.
Running out of time. Alone. Had Ghost abandoned her here?
She could hardly believe it. After everything that had happened? After she had decided to give up the ideals of her past in exchange for a future as more than a slave? And he had left?
She lowered her head into her hand. It didn’t make sense. She was an Engineer from a Generation ship. She was valuable. Important. Why would he leave her behind?
Because he didn’t trust her. Because he believed it would only be a matter of time before she turned on him, and on King. He had agreed to give her a chance to kill his father, but that agreement had meant nothing. He never had any intention of letting her get near him. He never had any intention of letting her get near either of them, except on his very specific terms. He had been using her from the moment he had picked her up at the Pilgrim’s hangar. Manipulating her, even when she thought she was manipulating him.
King was a monster.
Ghost was a snake.
Which one was the true threat?
He could have killed her. He could have put a bullet in her head. He hadn’t. He left her there, unconscious. He left her there to be killed by the trife.
That son of a bitch.
She remembered what he had said about Hayden, back in Sanisco. That he had given her husband a chance to live. That if he were a god, like King and himself, maybe he would survive. Was Ghost giving her that chance, too?
She fought to stand, the dizziness settling as she regained her senses. She made her way across the room toward the lift, reaching the door. She froze when she heard small pops echoing down from above. Someone was still in here, and they were shooting at something. It had to be the trife.
She needed a weapon. Something to defend herself with. She looked around. There was nothing, save for the cart with her tools. The biggest thing she had was a hammer. It would have to do. She pressed the button to summon the lift, and then went back to grab it.
She picked it up, turning to the lift again. Her eyes crossed the terminal as she did. She realized then that it was unlocked. When had she figured out the password?
The blow to the head had taken the memory. She glanced at the lift, and then returned to the mainframe. The display was dark, with white text printed on it. She could only see the last twenty lines or so. Each row was a coordinate. Latitude and longitude. Locations for something. The weapons caches? More ships like the Pilgrim? She didn’t know.
The final line was different. It wasn’t a coordinate. It was a series of letters and numbers, sixteen characters long. What did it mean?
She stared at it for a moment, her body growing colder as the realization set in.
The lift thumped as it reached the bottom of the shaft, making a noise that didn’t sound anywhere close to correct. The circuitry sparked a moment later, and the doors opened, a cloud of dust and debris flowing out, following the escape route into the room. She turned away from it, covering her eyes from the dust. She would have to take the stairs.
She waited a moment for the cloud to dissipate and the soot to settle. Then she hurried forward. She had to get out of here. She had to… what? What the hell was she going to do? Ghost had gotten what he came for.
More than he came for.
Damn it.
There was no one to help her.
No one to save her.
No one to save them.
She was alone. All alone.
The stairwell door opened ahead of her. A trife pushed past it, into the room. There were more of them behind it.
Natalia scampered back, ducking behind one of the large black servers, putting her back to it and turning her head to peer out into the room.
The trife were coming. One, then six, then twelve. They were being drawn in by the heat of the servers. Led directly to her.
She lifted the hammer. It shook in her hand. She wished it were a gun. At least then she could use it on herself.
She could hear the trife approaching, their hisses getting louder. There was no way out of this. No escape. There was no reason to pretend otherwise.
She dropped the hammer as she got back to her feet.
She stepped out from behind the server, directly in front of the lead trife. She held up her hands, turned her head to the side to expose her neck, and closed her eyes.
47
HAYDEN LAUNCHED his replacement hand at the trife, the extended claws stabbing deep through its neck. He yanked it out, pulling sideways to throw the creature’s body to the side as he did.
Casey stood behind him, her back pressed against his. She fired at their rear, single rounds that popped and clinked, the range between them and the targets too close to miss.
They moved down the stairwell, one step at a time. One floor at a time.
Reaching it had been hard enough. The trife had entered the building ahead of them, swarming through it and down. At first, following the creatures had been a benefit, since it gave them the direction of where they needed to go. But now they were surrounded on both sides, with demons in the front and back of them, doing their best to finish off the only two humans left in the city.
Hayden clenched his teeth, firing his pistol point-blank into the next trife’s head. He hoped that wasn’t true. There had to be three humans left in the city. Three, or all of this was for nothing. All of everything was for nothing, and he was going to bring yet another innocent person down with him.
Casey had saved his life outside, and she had saved his life again in here. There was no way they would be making it down the stairwell without her. She had his back, figuratively and literally, her skill with guns more impressive than he would have guessed. She called herself a Driver. She said she wasn’t a killer like the Couriers. Based on how she was dispatching the trife now, he had to wonder if she had lied.
He dropped another step, nearly slipping on a patch of trife blood. He caught himself by slashing into another demon, at the same time he fired the pistol into its chest. He ducked to the left, a heavy claw scraping against his armor, catching the thicker plates that lined it and getting stuck. He yanked the creature to him, ramming his claws into its eye and then kicking it back and into another demon.
Behind him, Casey’s rifle clicked empty.
He didn’t miss a beat, reaching into one of the armor’s pockets and removing a fresh magazine, handing it back her way. She released the old one, grabbed it, and placed in into the rifle, immediately firing again. The warm splash of gore on the back of his head told him that one had gotten way too close.
“Geez. How many floors are there?” Casey said.
“I don’t know,” Hayden replied.
“Your wife could be on any of them.”
“If she’s here at all, I know.”
“This is crazy. I’m crazy for following you in here.”
“I know that, too. We keep going until we get to the bottom. At least then we can fight them from one direction.”
“You hope.”
“Hope’s the only thing I have left.”
“Me, too.”
They kept going. One step at a time. One floor at a time. Trife died on both sides of them, the numbers that could attack them at once limited by the tight confines. As they progressed, the density of the creatures ahead of them started to dwindle, though he imagined the density above was only increasing. He didn’t have much to compare it with, but he couldn’t believe how many trife had been coming into the city. He still couldn’t believe two different kinds had been working together, and he definitely wasn’t ready to accept what that meant for humankind.
There was a very real possibility that they would reach the bottom, and never be able to get back to the top.
There was a very real possibility that if they did get back to the top, there would be absolutely nothing left to go back to.
Except maybe the Pilgrim.
As if Malcolm would let him back in.
A macabre smile passed his lips at the id
ea of himself standing in front of the secured hatch, bloody and beaten, pounding on the door and crying out to the Governor while a million trife gathered behind him.
Would it be better to let the colonists live out their days until the food and water finally ran out, or would it be better to let the trife in, and end their species once and for all?
A fresh trife moved toward him. He raised his pistol as he had so many times before, pulling the trigger.
The gun clicked empty.
The demon hissed loudly, sensing the failure, claws slashing toward his face.
He tried to duck away. Too slow. He felt the sharp fingers cutting his flesh, slipping in and through without much resistance. He could nearly feel them skidding across the bone of his cheek.
He cried out in pain, turning his face as the claws passed dangerously close to his eye. He swung his left hand back toward the creature in a heavy metal punch that bashed in its skull and knocked it hard into the wall.
“Sheriff?” Casey said behind him.
It hurt like hell, but it was mostly flesh. He reached into his armor, searching for a fresh magazine for the pistol. There weren’t any more.
“I’m okay, keep moving.”
They did, covering a dozen more steps until there were no more trife blocking their path.
Until there were no more steps to descend.
They had reached the bottom.
“We’re here,” Hayden said.
There was a closed metal door ahead of them. He kicked it open, holding the replacement hand ready.
He scanned the room quickly. A glowing display sat on a simple table a dozen meters ahead on the left, a chair positioned in front of it. Further back, dozens of flashing lights were attached to hundreds of tall, black boxes, a configuration he recognized right away. A mainframe, like the PASS.
Dozens of trife were gathered near the servers, absorbing the heat and radiation the computers provided. They raised their heads when Hayden entered, hissing to one another.
Casey passed through the door behind him, throwing her back against the door to slam it closed.
“Shit,” she said, seeing the trife.
