by Jake Bible
“Except we still caught glimpses of you in the pic flashes we could decipher,” Tressa said. “They were basically the same as the one you saw, but enough differences to tell us you may have made it.”
She sighed.
“But you didn’t come back,” Tressa continued. “Eight months of watching the bubble for signs of you and everyone else, but nothing.”
“You were able to stay in Topside BOP for eight months? What happened to three days before the wall was consumed and six days before the base was overtaken?” Cash asked.
“That timeline changed as the bubble expanded and contracted,” Tressa said. “But we’d abandoned the base well before that. We took over Fossil Park, the government was called in, everyone except for who you see here, and a few others, were sent packing.”
“They kept Olivia?” Cash asked. “No offense.”
“She worked at the diner, which stayed open, as well as the hotels, in order to house and feed the U.S. troops that were pouring into town before they could get their own infrastructure set up,” Tressa said. “A three-hundred-mile perimeter was set up and no one was allowed in or out, so they weren’t worried about civilians getting in the way.”
“We were having breakfast,” Mike said as he switched out the small screwdriver for an even smaller screwdriver from his kit. “Just having breakfast. Then we weren’t.”
“The bubble started growing,” Tressa said. “We thought we were far enough away that we’d have some time, some warning, but that didn’t happen.”
“Jesus,” Cash replied, thinking of the image of the crawler sliced in half. “How bad was it?”
“Like watching a giant lawnmower chop up everything in its path,” Tressa said.
“I was pouring them coffee then I was here,” Olivia said.
“Two dozen survived with us,” Tressa said. “There could be more survivors, but we don’t know when they showed up. The micro-turns could have sent them ahead of us or behind us. More may show up any second now.”
“Which is why we stayed,” Mike said. “This is now, dude. Right here. This is the now you were going into, not the other scene I showed you. We got that wrong.”
“Way wrong,” Olivia said.
“Gunfire is slowing,” Ivy called over her shoulder.
In his good arm, Haskins held a .338 as well. He moved up next to Ivy and they both faced the cellar door. Everyone else glanced their way for a moment, then returned their attention to Cash.
“What did you walk into?” Cash asked.
“Well, Doc didn’t do any walking,” Mike said. “He lost his legs in the turn and we spent the first ten hours of our existence Flipside trying to save his ass.”
“I did a lot of yelling instructions to Mike and screaming in pain for those ten hours,” Doc said. “He is not a bad surgeon, I will say.”
“Go me,” Mike said weakly.
“Flipside FOB was deserted, but intact,” Tressa continued. “All personnel were gone.”
“No bodies in buildings?” Cash asked.
“No bodies in buildings,” Tressa said. “They left voluntarily, Tre. And they’re still out there with a conglomeration of Chinese, Brazilian, Australian, Indian, and other international personnel. The last from their own bases.”
“What do you mean? Why would they be here? Why would our people leave with them?” Cash asked.
“Because the Russians fucked us!” Olivia snapped. “Big surprise!”
She received a round of hisses.
“Long story not even close to explained,” Tressa said with a heavy sigh. “The theory is that the Russians began mining the past for minerals and precious metals within their own bubble. Lakshmi thinks that created some sort of chain reaction here in the past and now everything is a mess.”
“Lakshmi? She’s here? Is Raff here too?” Cash asked.
“Video,” Tressa said. “We’ll show you later. They expected us to arrive, all of us, and left us recorded messages. They told us to follow, but we couldn’t with Doc recovering.”
“Then our window to leave closed,” Haskins called from his position, again with the stump wave.
“The Russians sent in the combots,” Tressa said. “We think they were a first wave to wipe out everyone so they could take Brain. But Brain was already gone, so the combots left.”
“After destroying our defenses,” Mike said. “There. That should do it.”
He studied his work then stood up and held out a hand. Cash took the hand, stood then flexed his knee. No sparks, no seizing.
“Thanks,” Cash said.
“We survived by hiding down here when the combots first came,” Tressa said. “Once they left, we set about trying to communicate with ourselves in the future. We made signs and left them up so that maybe our future selves would see them in one of the micro-turn pics. But you’re here now, so that didn’t work.”
“Time is time is time,” Mike said. “We’re all supposed to be here.”
“What now?” Cash asked. “What’s our next move?”
“Good question,” Tressa said. “We were hoping your arrival would give us some added resources.” She looked toward the cellar door. “But they came back.”
“They were waiting out there, hidden, or knew when you’d arrive,” Mike said. “We couldn’t even calculate when you’d show up, so my guess is they were waiting.”
“The second we heard the transports in the air was when the combots attacked,” Tressa said.
“And we were one day from leaving,” Olivia said as she held her head in her hands and rubbed her cheeks over and over. “One day from getting out of here.”
“And go where?” Cash asked.
“The coast,” Tressa said. “Meet up with everyone else before they leave. We have six days left to get there.”
“Leave? Back home?” Cash asked.
“Nope. On a ship,” Mike said. “The Australians didn’t tell anyone, but they built a fleet of ships Flipside. From Raff’s report, they have three ships left and are mustering as many people as possible to cross the Pacific and go stop the Russians from destroying everything.”
Cash looked at Mike then cocked his head and turned to look at the cellar door.
“The bubbles aren’t messed up here,” Cash said.
“No, they are, dude,” Mike said. “But not in the way they are back home. They aren’t expanding or contracting, that’s a Topside nightmare, but the turns are still way off in timing.”
“Lakshmi thinks that if we can collapse the Russia Bubble somehow then we can stabilize everything,” Tressa said. “But there’s a catch.”
“Collapse one bubble and it might collapse all the bubbles,” Cash said. “Which could strand us Flipside.”
“Yeah,” Mike said. “But, hey, we save Topside and the world in the future, so go us, right? Yay…”
“How many intact vehicles do you have?” Cash asked.
“One,” Tressa said.
“One? Only one?” Cash exclaimed.
“Most all tech was destroyed in the first combot attack,” Tressa said. “Vehicles, drones, shredhawks…”
“Shredhawks?” Cash replied and looked toward the ceiling. “Jesus, have you guys been dealing with wingers attacking the base?”
“Which is why we’re living down here,” Tressa said. “Wingers can’t get us.”
“We’d go out for supplies,” Ivy said. “We had an early warning system.”
“Pissy,” Olivia said. “The T-rex you saw.”
“He was wounded when a pack of teeth came rushing through the base. He was left behind and we sort of nursed him back to health,” Tressa said.
“A T-rex? You nursed a T-rex back to health? Why would you do that?” Cash asked.
“The early warning system,” Olivia said. “He was crippled by his wound, and not going anywhere, so we kept feeding him. Wasn’t easy, but worth it. Anytime wingers showed up, Pissy would raise holy hell. If any of us were outside and exposed, and he started wa
iling, then we ran here immediately.”
“Damn,” Cash said, impressed. The gunfire outside stopped and Cash turned to the cellar door. “They’re not done.”
“Nope,” Tressa said. “They killed all targets out in the open and are now hunting for survivors that are hiding. They will find them. No way to hide from thermal imaging. Not Flipside where there’s no civilization to hide behind. If it is warm-blooded, it’s dead.”
“How many more rifles do you have?” Cash asked.
“You’re looking at them,” Haskins said and held his rifle up.
“I was on my way to get more,” Olivia said. “Bring them here. We’d loaded them up yesterday.”
“Loaded them up?” Cash asked. “In what?”
“The one speed roller left,” Tressa said.
Nine
The room was empty. Completely stripped of all weapons and ammunition. There should have been two dozen heavy-caliber rifles, as well as enough ammo to start a small war. None of that was on the armory walls or sitting on the shelves. The room was empty.
Amanda stared at her discovery, her mind racing for answers, for solutions, for the next move she needed to make in order to survive, because even though the gunfire had stopped outside, she knew she wasn’t done fighting, done surviving.
She’d encountered Russian combots before and knew how they operated. They were on hunter-seeker mode now and were systematically walking the base like a grid in order to kill anyone still alive.
Having a .338 to her shoulder wouldn’t exactly have evened the odds, but it would have given her at least a fighting chance. The stun thumpers were useless, seeming to power the machines up instead of shorting them out, but a .338 caliber round put in the right spot at the right time would disable a combot enough that she could then destroy it by using more forceful measures.
Except the crates of grenades she had hoped to use as those more forceful measures were not on the shelves they were supposed to be on. Same with the rocket launchers and RPGs that should have been on the east wall.
“Shit,” she said through gritted teeth. “Shit.”
Amanda turned in a slow, tight circle, studying her surrounds to see what was available to her. It took only one revolution to realize the answer was a big, fat zero.
“Shit,” she said with more force, but lower volume.
No way she was going to alert the combots to her location. Not when she had the advantage of her heat signature being blocked by the six-foot-thick concrete walls that protected the armory.
She knew she needed a new plan. If she wasn’t going to be able to fight the combots, then she needed to flee. It wasn’t flight born of cowardice, but one born of necessity. If she survived long enough to regroup and come up with a plan that could destroy the combots, then others out there had a better chance of surviving too. It was a selfish plan at heart, but Amanda didn’t have enough intel on the situation to make a better one.
Closing her eyes, Amanda visualized the contents of the room as it should have looked. The racks of rifles, trays of pistols, crates of explosives and ammunition. She ticked off a mental inventory, dismissing what she knew was gone and focusing on what she thought might be left. There was something.
Then her focus shifted to visualizing what she’d seen just outside the armory building. A speed roller. An intact speed roller that had appeared to be operational. It was a guess since she’d hurried into the armory before checking the vehicle, but her memories said there had been little-to-no damage done to the speed roller. That vehicle was the key to her survival.
Her eyes flew back open as she heard the sound of something scraping at the armory entrance. Dual-doored with a small chamber between, kind of like an airlock, Amanda was confident the combots couldn’t get in. But if they were out there, then that meant she couldn’t get out.
The visualization of the stocked armory fresh in her mind, Amanda turned away from the door and rushed to a set of shelves that had barely been picked over. She found the case she needed and yanked it off the shelf then crouched, setting it on the floor as she opened it. Inside were a set of tools that might help her out of her jam. If she could remember how to use them properly.
Amanda removed the stun thumper from her back and laid it on the floor next to the tool case. Then she got to work.
It took her a good fifteen minutes, but she managed to get done what she hoped would be her way out. As long as she had made the correct adjustments. That part she was not sure about.
Amanda stood up with the modified stun thumper in hand and crossed the armory to the entrance door. She tapped at the keypad and the inner door opened. Amanda froze in place as she saw the dents in the outer door. The combots had tried to get in then stopped. Did they know she was inside? Were they still waiting out there?
Pulling a multi-tool from a pouch on her belt, Amanda tossed it against the outer door, hitting one of the dents. The door shook violently as at least one combot outside started pounding against it again, creating multiple new dents.
“Screw you,” Amanda said.
She crossed to the outer door, placed a hand on the keypad, glanced back at the open inner door, growled low in her throat, then flipped a switch on the modified stun thumper.
Amanda dropped the stun thumper, keyed in the door code, and sprinted back through the inner door and into the armory. She whirled about, keyed in that door’s code, and stumbled backward as the outer door opened with a tearing sound as two combots forced their way through the widening gap.
There was a high-pitched whining and Amanda threw herself to the floor just as the combots collided with the closing inner door. Even with her eyes closed tightly, Amanda winced as a bright light assailed her. Then she forced herself up onto her hands and knees as she vomited again and again. Eyes filled with black motes, head pounding from an instant migraine, and ears ringing from a sound she barely heard, Amanda took several deep breaths before she dared look at the armory’s entrance.
The inner door was partially open, blocked from closing by the front end of a combot. A combot that wasn’t moving.
Amanda got to her feet and staggered her way to the entrance. Beyond the first combot was a second one and beyond that was a third. All inactive. Amanda gave the first combot a swift kick with her boot and it barely moved a millimeter.
“Good,” she said and returned to the door’s keypad.
It was dark. The EMP she’d set off using the modified stun thumper had shorted out the door controls.
Amanda squeezed through the opening left by the collapsed combot, having to step on the machine to get by, then navigated around the other combots before she was back outside. Only a few yards off was the speed roller. She sighed with relief and sprinted to the vehicle, a small prayer that it was operational repeating in her head.
The driver-side door opened right up and she hopped in, shut the door, then found the ignition. With the press of a button, the vehicle came to life and Amanda almost shouted with joy.
Except any joy she felt was gone the second the headlights illuminated the five combots that had just rounded the corner of a collapsed building. The machines paused as they caught sight of Amanda sitting in the speed roller. Her heat signature would have been a bright beacon against the cold metal of the vehicle.
She knew how strong the windshield and armor of the crawler were. She’d be protected briefly, but facing ten .50 cal machine guns meant she didn’t have much time before she was ripped apart. Amanda hung her head and rubbed at her temples.
Then she caught sight of the vid screens set into the dash. One of the screens was set up to monitor the cargo hold so the driver knew what was happening to the cargo or to the operators he or she was transporting. Tears welled in Amanda’s eyes as she saw what the speed roller was filled with.
“Ask and ye shall receive,” Amanda said as she turned in her seat and shoved open the small hatch that granted her access to the cargo hold.
Out of the corner of her eye, she
saw the combots lurch forward in different directions. They were going to take up positions surrounding the vehicle before opening fire. Best way to make sure their prey didn’t escape.
But as Amanda scrambled through the hatch and grabbed the first .338 rifle she could reach, and popped out the magazine to see that it was already fully loaded, she said aloud, “I don’t plan on escaping.”
She scooped up four grenades, attached them to her belt, then climbed a short ladder and opened the turret hatch set into the ceiling of the speed roller.
Up and exposed, Amanda wasted no time as she steadied the rifle and fired three times, taking out the left knee joints of the closest combot. She spun about and fired three more times, damaging another combot the exact same way. Then she lobbed a grenade at the two undamaged combots that were racing to take up positions next to their fallen comrade.
Amanda spun back to the first combot and lobbed a grenade at it just as the machine’s .50 cal started up. Amanda dropped down inside the speed roller and winced as the heavy-caliber slugs impacted against the vehicle’s armor. She made it to the rear hatch before one of the rounds pierced the armor and ricocheted around the interior.
Screaming at the top of her lungs, Amanda opened the rear hatch and jumped. She sprinted, putting two rounds into the closest combot before rolling a grenade underneath it. She ran to the right of the speed roller and fired on the combots there, missing the first one, but nailing the second one. Two more grenades went rolling across the ground as she threw herself into the dirt before the .50 cal bullets could shred her.
Bits of the vehicle’s armor fell down onto her head like hot metal rain. Amanda ignored the searing pain on her skin and took aim with her .338. She didn’t get a chance to fire as the grenades went off and combot pieces flew everywhere.
Amanda stayed where she was, her ears straining to listen for more of the machines, but all she heard was the ringing caused by the EMP and made a hell of a lot worse by several grenades going off in close proximity to her. She got to her feet, sweeping the rifle back and forth as she waited for the attack. But nothing came at her.
