Dazzle Ships

by E. E. Isherwood

  I expected Alex to jump up and begin running, but he paused in front of us girls and looked back. “Are we all good? I don’t think I have to remind you both we are all we have out here. We can have differences of opinion, but we have to be there for each other when things go to hell—and they will—so I’d like to know you both have my back.”

  Our replies were subdued, but Wen and I both agreed. I tapped her on the shoulder and apologized.

  “It’s okay,” was all she said to me. “I’m good,” she added, to Alex.

  “Right. Follow me and let’s get this over with.” He stood up, still hunched over, and began to jog down the line of cars.

  Wen went next, and I dropped in behind her. Alex was noticeably less chatty with me when Wen was around. I should have been happy it had dissuaded him from his pursuit of making me his girl, and it troubled me I wasn’t. Deep down maybe I liked the attention, same as Reba. But the words continued to echo in my head from earlier in the day, back in the Complex.

  You are a Sky Dancer. He is not, my inner voice had advised. As if it was fact.

  I don’t believe in fairy tales. I don’t.

  Alex was known for his storytelling back in the Complex, and among his gems were descriptions of flying angels, which he dubbed Sky Dancers. They were the good guys watching over us while we hunkered deep in our caverns. Maybe being a Sky Dancer, whether real or imaginary, wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

  Except, the voice of doubt said I couldn’t be with Alex.

  Do I care?

  I waited for a reply, but nothing showed up.

  While I rummaged through my deepest thoughts, I ran along the vehicles until the last car. I turned toward the bridge on my left, then ducked around the edge of the large metal box lying at the entrance. Even in the dark of night, I could see the white concrete of the sides of the span in front of us. The rest of the decking was solid dirt, like the wind had carried the red dust and sand over the decades.

  There were two lanes to each side of the bridge, divided by a barrier in the middle. We entered on the left side, closest to the dam up the river. A six-foot barrier of metal plates had been placed along the left side, from our side to the other. As Ford said, it was a screen, so we stayed out of view of the eyes of the dam.

  It looked easy. There weren’t even any walkies standing out there. It was totally empty.

  I resisted the crushing urge I had to tell Wen she’d been worried over nothing.

  2

  “Stick with me,” Alex ordered.

  Wen and I followed.

  The bridge was no higher than the barrier on our left side. It just looked like the highway continued out into space, then touched the far bank. I was tempted to look down at the river below but knew that was childish.

  The dirt and sand had blown onto the bridge over the years and made ridges and furrows that almost looked like waves in the dim light. Some had gathered along the barrier, making it possible to look over the top edge. I resisted the first couple of hills, focusing instead on keeping up with Alex. But the third dirt pile was particularly tall. Instead of hunching over and keeping off the rise, I crouched and made my way up to the edge of the barrier so I could look at the dam.

  It practically glowed in the darkness. The blank face of concrete reflected the light of the moon. It was sort of pretty.

  “L,” Alex hissed. “Get down.”

  “Don’t be silly,” I replied in a whisper. “I’m just looking.”

  I’d begun to turn away from him when a red beam kissed the skin of my arm above the crease of my elbow. I shot a look at the dam, following the beam to its source. In the three seconds that took, several more beams attached to me like devilish flies. The reflected light made me appear to glow. With my new aura, I noticed a tiny plant anchored in the dirt below my feet.

  My instincts kicked in and I dropped below the lip of the barrier, smashing that little plant. A heartbeat after that I heard something whiz through the air above me, followed by a sharp series of cracks from far away.

  “They’re shooting at us,” I said from a prone position.

  Alex was a few yards ahead, well off the dirt pile, giving me a withering look. “Getting you from point A to point B is more complicated than herding cats,” he said cryptically. He remembers words and phrases from the Old World, and he loves to use them, even if no one else has a clue what they mean. I don't know if he just likes them, or if he likes to show off that he knows things the rest of us don't.

  He shook his head. “Just come off there and let’s keep moving.”

  “We need to go back,” Wen responded. She was a model of calm.

  Alex was steady. “No, we’re already half the way across.” He didn’t wait to argue and instead ran along the barrier, keeping his body behind it, as I should have done.

  I slid myself down the dirt and struggled to get to my feet. I imagined guns in the darkness waiting—hoping—to see my head again so they could shoot. As if to confirm, the red beams cut through the air overhead. They darted here and there but generally made an even sweep from one side of the bridge to the other.

  One of them was different: it reached down from some point above the dam. I thought of a tower or maybe a position higher up on the hillside in that direction.

  Or, it’s flying.

  “Run, you two!” Alex shouted.

  He switched from a jog to a sprint.

  “That one’s going to tag us,” he shouted. He didn’t sound panicked, but he was close. The red line of death continued to rise, clearly in flight. We had to beat it over to the other side, or it would have an angle sufficient to bring us down.

  Twenty yards from the other side I’d begun to think we were going to make it. But two more red beams snapped on, both on the same level as us—they were on the deck of the bridge on the far side.

  Alex slid to a stop as one of the beams made contact with him. The companion beam found Wen, sending her into a similar skid. The first one settled on Alex’s chest, then stayed there as if trying to pin him in place. It moved when he moved.

  “Run! It’s got me,” he barked.

  We failed as soldiers. Wen and I were both frozen in place, waiting for Alex to fall. There was nowhere to run, anyway.

  No cracks of guns followed. Alex still stood where he was.

  The beam on Wen stayed on the front of her tank top, but nothing more dangerous followed for her, either.

  “Everyone run,” Alex suggested.

  We all took off toward the source of the two new lights. The flying beam was approaching the proper angle, so we had to hug the barrier wall. I hoped there were no more piles of dirt against those metal sheets. There was no time to make a detour around them.

  In a precious few seconds, we raced toward the end of the bridge. Two large black boxes stood watch in the dirt at the end, just in front of a row of containers similar to those on the other end. The two dark shapes each had a menacing beam projecting from the top of long, thin tubes that rotated along with the beams. It reminded me of the robotic spider Alex and I had encountered in the abandoned bunker where I found my staff, especially once the beam hopped from the others over to me.

  I tried to make myself tiny, as there was no place to hide on the wide bridge.

  Both beams locked onto the front of my shirt and I waited for the blast of the gun to cut me down. Torn between falling down and giving up or running for all I was worth, I chose the latter.

  “We’re going to make it,” Alex shouted over his shoulder. He was five yards ahead of us and was almost in between the two sentinels.

  The airborne beam swished over the dirt as it sought a target. I had enough time to wonder if the beams talked to each other, which would be unfortunate because they seemed to like me.

  The airborne beam found Wen. I felt strange when the snap of the airborne gun sounded. Happy, sad, and scared out of my mind, all at the same time. Wen dove for the black box and put it between her and the aircraft. Alex had passed
the black box and was in between two of the rectangular containers.

  I brought up the rear, with seconds left to go.

  Unable to see Wen, the angular beam from above sought a new target.

  All three beams settled on me.

  I ran for all I was worth.

  3

  I knew I was dead. I was ready for it. A fade to black in the inky darkness. I’d hardly be missed. I even thought it was kind of noble—in the flash of a second before the lights shifted elsewhere.

  A shape ran past me as I approached the black boxes.

  I heard the crack of a gun and heard the whistle of the projectile. But it didn’t strike me down.

  I ran hard for the steel containers and almost threw myself into the side of the first one. It was sweet protection from the overhead threat.

  I heard at least two more shots. I wheeled around to see the red beams all intersected at a black shape that could have been Alex. The figure ran like lightning; the beams did a passable job of keeping up, though sometimes they fell from view.

  Of course, it was Alex. While I was running for my life, he’d distracted the tracers from me.

  I was in the middle of weighing my odds of going back out there to help him when his body slammed up against the leftmost guard box. The overhead light contacted the metal shape and unleashed a round. Intended for Alex, it deflected with a bright spark.

  He only paused for a moment.

  “Keep going,” he ordered.

  Wen was on the run; I could hear her footfalls nearby. I was frozen against the metal container.

  Alex had twenty feet to cross, and he sprang into action before I’d made up my mind. He took two steps back toward the opposite side of the bridge, then changed direction. He ran toward the containers, but not toward me.

  The gun floated above us; it sounded very close. The shot landed where Alex had initially intended to run. The red light reflected off the puff of dust where the projectile smashed the dirt.

  It took him three seconds to cross the gap, and I thought he’d get shot a dozen times in the same space. The hovering gun platform seemed to lose him for half that time. Maybe it got confused by the other gun box standing on the bridge. Only when Alex ran between the next container did the light catch him.

  He made it!

  My celebration lasted another moment as I was back to fearing for my own life. I was up against the strong metal boxes blocking the end of the bridge, but I was on the wrong side. The floating light was re-positioning. It sought Alex, perhaps, but remained on track to find me standing there looking stupid.

  Run!

  I skirted along the boxes in the opposite direction. I jogged to where Alex had run and found there was a separation between the two ends—kind of like two box trucks parked back to back. I almost passed Alex standing in the darkness.

  “Shush,” he said at barely a whisper.

  I could have turned on my flashlight, but I chose to pull out my staff. It constantly glowed when it was on the move, but it really turned on when it was in my hands. It provided enough light to see him. I’d thought he was loitering the way he leaned casually against the metal wall, but when I stepped a little closer, I heard him panting heavily.

  “Don’t.” Deep breath. “Say it.”

  “Thank you,” I said as quietly as I could.

  “Your welcome,” he blurted, before taking another deep heave of breath.

  We stood there together as he recovered. After a few minutes he crouched down, then sat up against the wall. I got down, too, but faced him.

  “You think that thing will get us in here?” I looked around using my light, searching for holes in the metal. It was in remarkably good condition, relative to the rest of the rusted hulks on the other side of the bridge. The inside was filled with pieces of wood, tangles of dried vines, and a few half-buried plastic bags that looked like they’d been there since the beginning.

  “No idea. Where’s Wen?”

  I knew she’d made it over the bridge before me, but I couldn’t recall where she’d gone. I turned my light toward the other empty container across from ours, but it was almost a mirror image. Nothing but bits of garbage and dirt on the floor.

  Then a red light sliced right down the narrow slot between both boxes. The flying craft had shifted positions again and was somewhere directly above the opening. That shut us both up for a long time.

  It may have been an hour before I dared speak. The red light had gone by several times after the first, but it never stayed long, and it hadn’t been through in about half the time we’d been huddled in the box.

  I leaned in. “This may be our only chance. We have to run away from this bridge and get out of its grip.”

  In the ambient light from the staff, I could see his frown. “I know. But where’s Wen?”

  “We’ll find her,” I said, not knowing whether it could possibly be true, but hoping it was. After seeing the death machine fire at Alex, I didn’t want to think she could have fallen to it, either.

  I tempted fate by looking around the edge of the box. Another row of boxes was behind ours, though the doors of the other two end-to-end containers were closed. Beyond, there were a few rows of cars and trucks, then a rock face and a dark alcove. It presented a place to find some cover before we went up and over the next hillside. That would help us put some distance from the bridge.

  “I see where we have to go.” I waved him up to stand by me.

  He looked around the same corner, then stepped backward. “Maybe Wen made it over there already?”

  “Yeah, that adds up. She’s smart.” I twirled my staff in front of me, creating a little more illumination. “We haven’t seen the lights or heard a floating drone for a long time. I think we’re going to be all right.”

  He gave me a blue smile, then stepped to the edge. He wanted to be first.

  “Don’t stop, L. Whatever happens,” he deadpanned.

  “You planning to be a hero again? What if I’m the hero?” I smiled, hoping it didn’t sound too cocky.

  He continued to be earnest. “I won’t let you die. It would be such a waste.”

  I desperately wanted to pick that statement apart, but the thought of Wen waiting for the two of us was too pressing to ignore.

  “Let’s be sure no one dies; we can both be the hero by living through this.”

  We stood there for a few uncomfortable seconds before he pulled his shotgun off his back and toggled the safety. The kids had shown us how to rack the slide and prepare it for the first shot. All we needed to do now was press and play. They assured us it was very easy. Deep down I remained convinced I knew how to use it, that I’d seen them before.

  I was tempted to wield my staff but knew that was insane. I slung it over my shoulder and replicated his steps with my shotgun.

  We were ready for action.

  One more look outside, one look back at me with a nod, then he shot out the front.

  “Stick to me like glue, L.”

  I followed him out as instructed, guided by the contrasting shades of darkness between us and the hillside. When we made it beyond the second layer of boxes and were heading into the line of vehicles I’d begun to think all my worry was for nothing.

  We’re going to make it.

  The rattle of battle flared up a few seconds later.

  4

  It was as if someone turned on a switch.

  A series of explosive bangs bellowed out from near the dam. The best way I could describe it was someone clapping their hands right in my ear. Over and over and over.

  A giant searchlight painted us in a vibrant white light as we ran. The first vehicles seemed to offer protection, but Alex didn’t stop. He kept going deeper into the jumble.

  “We’re not stopping, Elle,” he shouted, as if sensing my hesitation.

  Metal twisted and popped before my eyes. Whatever had been fired at us was landing—almost directly on us—and sunk into the old relics like they were made of mud.

/>   A thin, green light kicked on. It was thick and bright and danced from car to car nearby. When the light got close to my body, it seemed to come alive. It went from green to bright white, and I felt the heat. It may have been my imagination on the run, but the metal of the cars seemed to heat up wherever the beam touched them. I avoided touching anything.

  I ducked below the beam as it rubbed against a large truck and turned sharply in a random direction. I took only a second to look back. The burning white turned back to green, and it began to move again.

  “No, we’re not,” I yelled at his backside.

  Another green light appeared, and I finally saw my old friend the red light burning brightly at a steep angle from above. Whoever was behind those guns probably figured they finally had us in their sights.

  Cracks of guns resonated from far away. And behind us.

  We made it through several rows of cars—they were parked neatly on this side of the river—when something fell on an open-topped little car just ahead of us. The black metallic orb was about the size of the car’s cockpit, though one of its fan rotors had been sheared off. The other blade platforms continued to buzz, and it tried to right itself, but it seemed to be stuck.

  We didn’t stop.

  Everything happened at almost the same time.

  New lights had filled the sky before we made it to the far side of the downed drone’s position. They weren’t solid green or red lights but streamed from the other bank of the canyon like angry glowing insects. A chattering metal sound echoed from over there.

  “They’re helping us,” Alex cheered, though he didn’t stop the footrace.

  “Okay.” I didn’t know what to say. My mind couldn’t process everything. All I could do was keep after him as he dipped, slid, spun, and dodged across the metal car graveyard. The only trick he didn’t use was jumping over the flat fronts of the smallest cars, like he’d done in our head-to-head race so many days ago.

  I almost did stop when an explosive light popped high over our heads. The sound was secondary, and I’d have missed it being created if I hadn’t turned to see the bright new object. A small sun appeared up there, draping everything in the battlespace in virtual daylight.