by Rajan Khanna
The VTOL was what made the Cherub a great choice for this job. If you’re loading lots of guns and heavy gear, you want to be able to walk (or roll, even better) the stuff right up the ramp.
There were three problems with this, though. The first was that the Cherub was a large ship. She needed a lot of space to set down. Most of the time, there aren’t airship-sized landing areas just waiting around. And anything that might have been open like that back in the Clean would probably be covered in vegetation and crumbling stone and debris and what have you.
Problem number two was that bringing down a ship her size was going to alert anything living in the immediate area. Including Ferals. And while animals would likely run away from us, Ferals, being slightly more savvy, would probably come toward, aware that there was a delivery of food coming their way.
And that brings me to three. Let’s say you have the space to put down and you do, and you avoid or fight your way through any Ferals that come to chew on your face. Then, assuming you leave the ship, she’s a nice, big target for anyone who might want to steal her. Back then, I used to have a key to lock her up. That key was later lost, and I don’t remember the exact details, but as Tess had mentioned, people like Mal weren’t going to be stopped by a simple lock. I once installed a passcode lock on the controls. You needed to put in the precise numerical sequence to even turn them on. But I ditched that after a narrow escape where those few seconds almost cost me my life.
So I had settled for traps. Sometimes the old ways were the best ways, especially in the Sick. They were nothing too elaborate. You had to watch where you put your hands, how you opened things. And I could enable them or disable them as I wanted. I stopped using them later, after I started working with Miranda—I was afraid that they’d get her or one of the other boffins. And of course that was when my ship got stolen. But they were enabled for this job.
“Where do I put down?” I asked.
Cheyenne walked over to me and pointed out the gondola’s window. “That’s the beauty. Just across the street? There’s a field.”
I looked where she pointed, and she was right. A football field. I had no idea how the sport had been played, but I’d seen pictures (once, some video this collector had) and something about the way they suited up had intrigued me. The field was mostly clear and large enough to set the Cherub down.
Of course there was still a lot of ground between the field and the police facility.
Cheyenne looked at all of us, as if reading our minds. “It’ll be fine. We land on the field, cover each other to the facility. It’s mostly open, good lines of sight. After we get the gear, we look for something with wheels to help. If that crashes, we take as much as we can carry. That should be worth enough. But . . .”
“But?” I asked.
She looked at Tess. “The manifest I have says that they have armored vehicles inside. If they’re vintage, and nothing is broken . . . well, we’ll have our way out, won’t we?”
“They have armored vehicles?” I asked Tess.
She nodded. “According to the information I pulled.”
I shook my head. “I guess the Clean wasn’t exactly what I thought.” I brought the Cherub directly over the football field. “Okay. Everybody load up and get ready.” There was the sound of weapons being checked. I pulled out my father’s revolver, popped out the chamber, and made sure it was fully loaded. I also had a backup automatic on my hip. Claudia tested her bow and inspected her arrows.
“Someone will have to cover Lord Tess,” Cheyenne said.
“What?” I asked.
“I don’t carry,” Lord Tess said.
“What the fuck?” I asked. “And you think now was the best time to tell us?”
“It’s alright,” Claudia said. She gave me a look as if to say, just go with it. “I’ll cover her. Just move when I tell you to, okay?”
“Okay,” Tess said.
“Okay,” Claudia said to me.
“Okay,” I repeated.
I set the Cherub down.
The howls of Ferals were already echoing across the open space as we descended the Cherub’s ramp. I held the revolver in my hand, scanning for any signs of movement. Beside me, Claudia fitted an arrow to her bow. It made me want to grab her and kiss her, but now was definitely not the time.
Luckily for us, the field was made out of synthetic grass. I’d seen it before—unnerving that they had such things, but it meant the field wasn’t overgrown. Easy place to land, no chance of getting caught up or tripped.
I let myself settle into a loose stance, the revolver out, and then they were there, barreling across the open space. I tracked my target, a tall, rangy Feral, male, its long, thin limbs propelling it toward me with worrying speed.
I sighted down the barrel. Squeezed the trigger. The Feral still came.
I inhaled, sighted, and shot again. The bullet took it in the shoulder as it was coming up from its crouch, spun it around, and threw it backward.
I swiveled to another target.
Part of me was calmed by the presence of the others. It wasn’t that I trusted them (except for Claudia) but they were experienced (except for Tess), and they were covering the places I couldn’t cover—and for the moment that was enough. I didn’t have to look behind me.
I suppressed the urge to look behind me.
I shot, then shot again, then again and again. The others covered me as I reloaded. The gunshots echoed across the expanse of the football field. Any Ferals in the area would know we were here. That moment of alarm turned to delight as I watched Feral after Feral fall. They should know we were here. Should know that we carried thunder. Should know they were coming to their deaths.
The moment of triumph swelled, and then collapsed. Cheyenne, pulling back to reload, slipped on the wet turf and went down on one knee. Mal was also reloading, and suddenly a hole opened up. Ferals are stupid, but not so stupid that they can’t sense weakness, and a few of them curved around to come in on that side.
And just like that, our order fell to chaos.
I had just enough time to swerve the revolver around at a dark-skinned, female Feral that was springing toward me. The shot clipped it and stopped it for a moment, but it wasn’t down. Then there was another, then another.
“Fuck!” I heard behind me, but it wasn’t Claudia’s voice. I shot down a young Feral male, dancing away from where it crawled at me. Then another two shots to take the female down for good.
Then I was dry.
I turned my head for a split-second to see what was happening beside me. Scared, anxious faces. Lots of bullets (and arrows) in the air.
Then it was on me. For a moment, my brain couldn’t make sense of things. This person had clothes on—a leather jacket. The tatters of a scarf. But survival instincts kicked in shortly afterward. I slammed the empty revolver into the side of its head and threw it to one side. Recently Faded. And no time to reload.
I did something that I don’t normally do. I moved toward it, kicking out with my boot, trying to get some space. I was closer than I ever liked to be, and not armed, and I wanted this thing away. I kicked again, but it dodged my foot, and then I was tipping backward. I hit the ground with my side, and I saw the thing pressing back on its legs, about to jump, and—
A bullet took it in the head. On an angle so that the spray went wide of where I lay. I looked back quickly to see Mal pointing his gun in my direction. I got back to my feet, took the moment to slap a few bullets into the revolver, then turned and fired at whatever Ferals I could find.
It was loud and messy and then . . . it was over. Bodies littered the ground. My breath was loud behind my scarf. I counted five of us. All standing. Of course the bulk of my concern was for Claudia. She was breathing hard but seemed uninjured. For a moment, we just stood there, catching our breath, then it was back to reality.
Our rational brains quickly took over. I nodded to Claudia, then began checking her for any wounds or blood spray. She did the same to me. She ga
ve me the all clear a moment before I did the same for her.
Then I turned and saw Cheyenne. Or, rather, Tess and Mal looking at Cheyenne. “What?” I asked.
“She has blood on her gloves,” Tess said.
“One got too close,” Cheyenne said. “I had to hit it to get it to back off.”
“Are the gloves intact?” I asked.
Cheyenne held her gloves out, and I could see the dark stain on them.
“Get them off!” I said.
She peeled one back with one glove, then gingerly pulled off the other one with a handkerchief she pulled from her pocket, letting it drop on the ground as if it burned her.
I moved closer, examining her hands. She held them out, flipped them over. I didn’t see any blood.
But I didn’t touch her.
That was always the hardest part—I might have checked her hands, checked for broken skin, cracked nailbeds, anywhere the Bug might have snuck its way in. Just because I didn’t see blood didn’t mean a microscopic drop didn’t get through. But, getting close, running my hands, gloved as they were, over her, might just bring me one step closer to Fading myself.
It was safer to just keep an eye on her. Prep to put a bullet in her at the first sign of strange behavior.
But right then there might have been a bomb in our midst, just waiting to go off.
“I’m clean,” Cheyenne said, almost as if convincing herself. “I’m clean.”
I looked at Claudia, who just raised her eyebrows. I knew what she was thinking. This was getting better all the time.
“Let’s move,” she said at last. She led us around the corpses of the Ferals, then on to the building ahead of us.
Claudia noticed the look on my face and touched my shoulder. “It’ll be fine,” she said. “We’ll be in and out before anyone has a chance to Fade.”
I nodded. That’s what I was trying to focus on—get into the facility, grab the gear, get back to the Cherub, and put down Cheyenne (on the ground, I mean) as soon as possible. Otherwise, we’d be putting her down in another way.
Of course thinking about Fading reminded me about the last person who Faded in front of me—my father. It also reminded me of my cowardice. How it took me by surprise, and all I could do was grab for him, my fingers tangled in his Star of David necklace. Then, as reality hit me, what had been drilled into me my whole life kicked in and I turned and ran. Left him, or what was left of him, swirling into an abyss of mindlessness.
But that’s not the sin at hand.
Mal had the heaviest load. We mostly carried empty bags for the loot, but he had his lock-picking tools in his large bag, and so we stayed close to him.
“What are you really doing here?” I asked him.
“Whatever do you mean, Benjamin?”
“You don’t need this score,” I said. “You hit installations like this all the time. I know you’re well-stocked on weapons and ammunition.”
He stopped for a moment and looked at me. “There’s no such thing, Benjamin. One day it’s going to be up to us to form a new civilization. Not this scattered series of jobs and searches. Not the day-to-day survival that we all do. We’re going to need to build something, and that something is going to need defending. So, yes, I do need this score.” He started moving again, then said back over his shoulder. “We all do.”
I was still digesting this when I heard howls off in the distance, a sharp cry of . . . something? Hunger? Rage? Lust? I don’t understand Ferals that much. Ahead of us, the building that Cheyenne had indicated got closer. But not close enough. I still had the revolver down at my side, and I was scanning around me along with everyone else.
But we kept moving.
We covered the distance without any more Ferals attacking us, and then we were at the door to the facility. Mal set down his bag and unzipped it, pulling out his tools, and the rest of us set up a perimeter around him, guns still out, as protection.
I started counting in my head, then stopped almost immediately. It was just setting my nerves on edge. I didn’t like waiting, out in the open. It was something I avoided as much as I could. I kept flicking my gaze back to Claudia. She stood, straight, poised, ready. It made me feel better. Having her watch my back always made me feel better.
I covered my section of the perimeter, but it was trickier here than it had been at the football field. There were cars outside the police station, and they had been overgrown with vines and vegetation. I had to make sure to keep my eyes not only between them, but underneath as well. A Feral could emerge from anywhere.
Sweat started trickling. I had a wool cap on my head and safety goggles and my scarf up, but somehow it still fell between the gaps. There was nothing to do about it, though.
I wanted to turn and look to see how far Mal had gotten, but I kept my eyes straight. It was maddening. That’s the thing about the ground, the fight with yourself is often more important than fighting off Ferals. Brave the ground without discipline, and you were asking to be infected.
Then I caught it. Movement, off behind a rusted heap that used to be a car. I raised my revolver and watched, hoping to catch it again. Nothing. Nothing. Then . . . something.
I signaled to Claudia, silently, then moved toward it. She would have my back, and hopefully the others would change their style of cover to make sure that they picked up the slack.
I moved, slowly but without hesitation. If it was a Feral, it didn’t seem to be hunting. Hunting Ferals screamed and attacked almost fearlessly. For a moment I wondered if it could be some kind of smart Feral, and that was almost too much to consider so I let it go.
I inched forward, gun out, used the car for cover, and carefully pivoted so I could see (and shoot if necessary) what was beyond it.
It was a Feral, and my finger moved to the trigger but . . . then I paused. Something was different here.
The Feral was on all fours, moving back and forth in the space between the cars. I couldn’t tell what sex it was. Long hair hung around its face, it had no real breasts to speak of, and whatever genitals it had were hidden between its legs. But it moved in an odd, jerky fashion, and sometimes it would stop and its head would arc, almost painfully, in one direction.
Injured? I didn’t see any open wounds on the creature. As my heartbeat slowed a bit, I thought I heard it snuffling. Then a kind of whining wheeze, soft, but as it looked around. What the fuck was this thing?
I wanted to shoot it. I wanted to do it so badly that I had to actively restrain myself from raising my arm and pulling the trigger. But that was the stupid move. A shot would alert any others around that there was food nearby. Instead, making sure I wasn’t within reach of the thing, I signaled to Claudia to use her bow. It was quiet enough and would take out the creature quite easily.
She moved around to where she could hit the thing. Then, whether it was Claudia accidentally stepping on something, or me, or nothing in particular at all, the Feral looked up. It saw Claudia there, bow outstretched. And it just gave that whine again, jerking its head to the side again. No snarl, no growl, no threatening gestures at all. I think that startled Claudia because she paused for a moment.
In that moment, the thing could have leapt forward. Claudia’s shot might have gone wide, and it could have been on her, or me, before either of us could react.
Only it didn’t. It stayed in that same position, head jerked to one side, that kind of whining sound coming out of it.
Then Claudia put an arrow through its eye and the Feral jerked back, striking the ground, and was still.
Exhaling, I gave her a thumbs-up as we returned to the group, but the thought of that Feral stayed with me. I assumed it had been injured at some point. Ferals were susceptible to the same kinds of things that humans were, and some of them were born with problems, but it was pretty well known that if an individual in the pack wasn’t healthy enough to hunt or survive on its own, it was usually killed. And eaten. By its own pack. That this one had survived, and how, was a mystery.
> I thought about that as Mal worked to open the door. Then, after a while of watching and waiting, Claudia signaled to me that it was done.
The door was open.
Our prize awaited.
Getting to the goods was surprisingly simple. Inside the outer door was a small entryway with what looked like a guard post or reception area surrounded by glass. Then, beyond, guarded by a few more locks, was a large warehouse.
Mal got us through the locks, and then we searched the warehouse, alert, most of all, for any signs of Ferals.
We found none.
What we did find, well, it was a haul for the ages. There were weapons, both small and large, and plenty of ammunition. Armored clothing and protective gear, including helmets and large shields. And, most impressive of all, large armored vehicles, the type that seemed should belong in a military base or stalled somewhere after the Bug hit, pitted with rust and overgrown with vegetation. Their hard, black shells were covered in dust, but I could see the beauty beneath. Like massive, black insects—and everyone knew that insects were some of the hardiest creatures around.
Lord Tess whistled when she saw everything. I didn’t say anything, but my eyes were wider than I can ever remember them being. Claudia found my hand with hers and gave it a squeeze.
“Let’s get this all loaded and ready to go,” Mal said.
It snapped everybody to attention, and we began loading duffle bags and backpacks and everything we brought with us. I focused on the smaller arms and rifles since I was most familiar with them. Also grabbed for some grenades and other explosives.
Then I decided to shift focus to the vehicles.
They weren’t just impressive, they were valuable. Something like that, fully operational, would be a godsend on the ground, impervious to Feral attacks, and with enough firepower to cover any entrances or exits. I ran to one and pulled open the door. For all its age, it looked virtually unused. They definitely hadn’t been able to use this when the shit went down.
I climbed into the driver’s seat and was immediately bewildered. It was a good deal more complicated than your usual car or truck, which I had learned how to use early on—sometimes they need to be cleared from the roads, and sometimes they’re useful for transporting hauls to a ship. I called over to Tess, asking her to come in. “Can you figure this out?” I asked.
