XOM-B

by Jeremy Robinson

  I lean to the side, attempting to duplicate his maneuver, but lack the girth. “Lean!” I shout.

  Luscious’s grip tightens and she lends her weight to mine, but I fear it’s too little too late. Heap, now upside down, uses his repulse engines to push himself away from the underside of a wide, multilane freeway. When I attempt the same maneuver, Luscious and I come far closer to the bottom of the track and the repulse engines shove us hard toward the ground.

  We drop a hundred feet in a second. I shout as the spiraling HoverCycle continues around. When we’re upright again, I lean the other way, leveling us out and controlling our mad descent once again. But we’re now a hundred feet below Heap. While I can see what’s coming, I no longer have a skilled driver ahead of me to emulate.

  I look ahead, taking note of four intersecting HoverTracks between us and the street. Two hold multiple lanes of fast-moving vehicles. Two are single-lane speedways, one of which is congested by piled-up ruined vehicles … and bodies, either dead or soon to be. Or not. It’s hard to tell.

  I zoom in and scan the street below, realizing that I hadn’t thought to check the functionality of this particular ocular upgrade. The living and dead mingle amidst a chaotic mash of cars. Soldiers stand among them, some shooting, some biting. I look ahead, searching as far as I can, and see the same, block after block. Our return to the ground will not be a happy occasion.

  My vision snaps back to normal and I see our path like a roadmap. Without thought, my body works in tandem with the cycle, leaning, pitching, speeding up and slowing down. Nothing as fancy as Heap’s sideways flip, but I seem to have a full mastery of the vehicle now.

  As we momentarily skip over an empty freeway, Luscious asks, “How are you doing this?”

  I shrug, focusing on my path, which is almost complete. After that, no amount of forethought can generate a clear path through the bedlam below.

  Thirty feet from the ground, I feel the repulse engines slow our descent. We’re nearly there.

  Heap suddenly appears ahead of us, dropping down until his repulse engines begin slowing his descent as well. Without looking back, he points two fingers forward. We’re already moving quite fast, so it only takes me a moment to figure out what he wants to do. He shifts to the right, and then in a flash, he’s propelled forward by the cycle’s turbofan jet. A moment later, we’re rocketing up behind him, accelerating to speeds that dwarf our free fall.

  The sounds of battle come and go in strange bursts. Bits of screams flash past. Gunfire rattles. Doppler explosions come and go. The only things that remain constant are the hum of the repulse engines, the rushing wind and the moaning of the dead, each carrying on the tune of the zombies passed a moment before.

  Heap’s cycle lowers to the point where I can see the repulse discs pushing down on the people below it. He must feel it, too, because he’s swerving back and forth above the heads of the people below, following a path directly above undead and only undead, sparing the living. I do my best to follow his lead, but any maneuver at this speed takes intense focus, so intense that I nearly miss what happens to Heap.

  He cuts off the turbofan jet and turbines, cranks the cycle hard to the left and uses the repulse engines as brakes, but all of this, which happens in just two seconds, isn’t enough to avoid colliding with—what? I can’t see. But the effect is impossible to miss.

  The HoverCycle stops suddenly and Heap is flung into the air. He topples head over heels, performing five rapid flips before crashing to the street. He rolls through the horde, crushing bodies beneath his girth. His armor clanging against the hard metal street.

  A thick, black chain snaps up in front of my HoverCycle. I nearly try to stop, just as Heap did, but I correct his mistake by shoving the repulse engine pedal to the floor and gaining a few extra feet. I glide cleanly over the chain, cut the repulse engine and drop toward the road. Before we crash, I kick on the repulse engines, turn hard to the left and lean, just as Heap had. The HoverCycle comes to a sudden stop, launching the undead unfortunate enough to be standing in front of the tilted repulse engines. They arc away like projectiles, crashing into their nonliving comrades and pulling a lot of attention in our direction.

  “What are you doing?” Luscious asks. “Don’t stop!”

  “I’m not going to leave him behind,” I say, stepping off the cycle.

  “Well,” she says, “what should I do?”

  I point to the weapon Mohr gave her. “Use it.”

  The swath of street where I landed has been cleared of the dead, dying and fleeing. I look to where I expect to find Heap, but see only a mound of undead, clawing and biting at some unseen form. Heap, I realize.

  “Get off of him!” I aim my weapon and run toward Heap, but don’t get a chance to fire. The pile rises from the street and then explodes outward. Heap spins, punching, breaking and kicking in a spiral of violence. He takes the last of the undead clinging to his armor and simply throws him away. When he turns to me, I see that his chest armor has been dented inward from the impact of his crash.

  “What are you doing?” he shouts at me. “Get out of here!”

  I stop in my tracks. Perhaps Luscious was right? Maybe we should leave?

  I turn back and see her firing her weapon again and again, standing her ground, but losing it at the same time. She won’t be able to hold them off much longer. I’m about to run to her aid when the clack, clack, clack of a chain being withdrawn pulls my attention back toward Heap.

  He’s not looking at me anymore. He’s looking up.

  A shadow falls over the street. The chain’s owner has arrived.

  “Freeman,” Heap says. “Run.”

  I draw my weapon. “Not without you. Not this time.”

  I hear a grunt of frustration, but it’s quickly replaced by the words, “Then fight!”

  27.

  Heap’s gun appears in his hand, but he doesn’t aim up at the approaching giant, he aims toward me. I feel the warmth of the fired projectiles as they pass by my face and strike the two undead shambling up behind me. His focus is so entirely on protecting me that he forgets himself.

  I, however, don’t. “Get down!” I shout, as the clanking of a loud chain reverberates through the street. I dive forward, catch Heap by his large feet and pull his legs out from under him. A large, black steel ball sweeps over us, all but disintegrating a mass of zombies and punching a hole in a nearby building.

  I roll over and look up at a giant mustard-yellow armored man standing above us. The chain retracts into his oversized left forearm.

  Not a man, I realize. A robot, like the tall soldiers. But if that’s true … “Why is it attacking us?”

  “He’s infected,” Heap says, pushing himself up.

  “Infected?” The word makes me flinch. “He’s a robot.”

  Heap fires off a few rounds, destroying two more living dead. “There’s a man in there somewhere.”

  “Like your armor?” I ask.

  Heap’s lips turn down. “Right.”

  “But if he’s infected—”

  “There isn’t time to play detective!” Heap shouts before pushing me to the side. The metal ball snaps free from the building and grinds across the street where we stood just a moment before.

  Three rounds explode from Heap’s weapon, each striking the robotic suit, which I believe is used in construction, or more accurately demolition—probably of the Masters’ ruins. This deduction is in part because I can’t think of any other use for the ball and chain, but more from the large CAT stencil across its chest. I now understand why Councilman Cat was so concerned about the undead breaching his compound. The bullets have no effect. They just ricochet off the steel head with metallic pings.

  A shuffle of feet behind me tickles my ear. I spin to find three undead lumbering toward me, eyes lost, arms reaching, clawing at the air. They approach in a haphazard line, swaying back and forth. I raise my weapon, take aim and rather than pull the trigger, I wait, looking beyond the closest of the
dead, a man whose body is shredded, like grass chewed by a cow. My pause is just a fraction of a second, but long enough for the perfect alignment.

  I pull the railgun’s trigger.

  Nothing happens.

  Remembering the power switch, I snap it forward and feel a subtle change in the weapon’s temperature as it heats up. I’m not sure if the weapon is ready to use right away, but I don’t have a choice.

  I pull the trigger again.

  This time there is a slight jolt in my hands and a sound like a snapping branch coupled with a twang and the sound of a projectile slipping through the head of not one, but seven undead. The perfectly aligned dead fall as one.

  Seeing this, Luscious looks at me with surprise in her eyes, but the expression is suddenly replaced by understanding. She takes aim, pulls the trigger and downs three zombies with one shot. A slight smile emerges on her face for a moment and then she’s firing again.

  Heap’s weapon, which has more bark than the railguns, thunders behind me. Undead drop with each shot, their heads snapping back. Still firing, he points up at the demo-bot and shouts, “Aim for its head!”

  Of course! While Heap’s weapon is fine for the undead, it’s not powerful enough for the armored monstrosity. But the railgun, which can punch through buildings, shouldn’t have any trouble. I aim up and fire, just one. The round is imperceptible as it cuts through the air, but the effect on the giant’s head is easy to spot. A fist-size hole suddenly appears in its forehead. An explosion of debris sprays from the back of its head.

  I realize too late that our plan is illogical. If this is just a suit, armor for a smaller man, it’s unlikely he’d be crammed up in the thing’s head. Despite the smoke now pouring from its cranium, the construction robot raises its left arm and throws the giant ball toward me.

  The hard steel of the street greets me harshly as I dive to the side, but it’s better than being pulverized. The giant steel ball clangs off the street and strikes the building once more, creating a new hole. Undead are already flooding into the first, no doubt racing through the building and increasing their numbers. I glance up at the tall tower. How many people are inside? A thousand? Two thousand? Probably more.

  The chain snaps tight as the construction robot attempts to retract the ball from the building. After shoving myself up, I take hold of the chain and pull myself atop it. The linked rings are thick and a half-foot across, making them easy to balance on.

  “What are you doing?” Heap asks, firing away.

  My reply is drowned out by a nearby explosion, the result of some other life-and-death battle playing out. When the explosion repeats again and again, fading into the distance, I realize that the string of destruction was caused by one of the giant soldiers firing its railgun. In my mind’s eye, I see the Spire under assault. If all those soldiers continue to fire, they might bring the city down around them.

  We need to escape this place, and soon.

  I charge up the taut chain, aiming for the head once again, just in case, but when two new shots have no effect, I aim lower, for the chest and fire again. And again. And again.

  Where are you? I think, wondering where a man could sit inside this monstrosity. Even if I knew, without seeing the man, I’m not sure I could strike his head. The real question is, how can an infected man think straight enough to operate this machine? Some of the others have trouble walking. Is it because he’s recently been infected, like the soldier? Or is someone exerting some kind of control over the higher-functioning dead? If so, things are going to get a lot worse very quickly as the dead spread their plague to all of the strong and healthy Liberty residents.

  The center, I decide, aiming dead center at the demo-bot’s chest and loose a barrage, tracing a line straight down the giant’s torso, hoping I’ll strike the man inside at some point. But before my plan garners results, the ball comes free from the wall behind me and the chain quickly retracts. My feet are pulled forward and I find myself flipping over backward. I reach out as I fall, grab hold of the chain and am yanked straight toward the giant.

  I let go before being sucked into the construction bot’s arm and am slammed against its torso, my body acting as an exclamation point on the big CAT. Before I fall twenty-five feet to the ground, I manage to cling to one of the massive machine’s many nooks. I’m nearly shaken free when the thing takes a step forward, closing the distance between it and Heap. Before it can take another step, I spot the line of holes my weapon punched in its chest. After holstering my railgun, I swing myself over and catch hold of the open hole. As the giant leans back, preparing to throw its ball and chain once more, the chest angles back and I find climbing the line of holes reasonably easy.

  Suddenly, the giant pitches forward and I’m nearly flung from its chest. My feet dangle over open air. The chain rattles as it unfurls from the oversized arm. It’s followed by a loud crunch that I fear is Heap, but don’t look back. Instead, I climb higher, reaching the machine’s top, thirty-five feet above the ground. It’s oblivious to my presence.

  As the chain retracts, I stand atop the thing’s shoulder and turn around. The scene below is nauseating. I can see down the street for miles. I can’t really tell undead from living at this distance, but they’re everywhere and I have no doubt that soon, they’ll just all be undead. I spot a few larger bodies moving through the city, some yellow, some green, others black. In the chaos it’s hard to tell who is fighting whom and which people are simply running for their lives. Smoke fills the sky. Explosions resound with a constant vibration and are the only things capable of drowning out the constant moaning of the dead and screams of their victims.

  Directly below me, I see Heap. His back is turned to the giant as he wrenches a zombie away from Luscious, pins it to the street and shoots its forehead. The chain begins to retract, revealing Heap’s crushed HoverCycle.

  The chain snaps back into place and the construction bot winds up for another strike. I cling to a rail on its shoulder, draw my weapon and fire down into the thing. It pitches forward, completing its strike, which I suspect is aimed at Heap and Luscious.

  I hold the trigger down, letting it fire a stream of rail rounds into the machine’s core. But it doesn’t slow. Doesn’t stop.

  A sound like approaching thunder reaches my ear a microsecond before an impact shakes the demo-bot’s body. The massive machine jolts hard, staggers once and falls forward. As it falls, I catch a glimpse of a nearby building through which a ten-foot hole has been blown. For a moment, the holes of multiple buildings align and I can see through nearly a mile of ruined buildings, all the way to the soldier that fired the rail bolt.

  Then, we’re falling.

  I scurry over the machine’s back and stand, riding it all the way to the street where it crushes a fresh throng of undead headed for Heap and Luscious. I absorb the impact by bending my knees.

  When the dust clears, I find an astonished Heap looking from me to the massive hole in the machine’s back. “How?”

  I leap down from the construction bot’s back and then point to the giant holes on both sides of the intersection. “Wasn’t me.”

  Heap fires two shots. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “You’re driving,” I tell him, motioning to his ruined cycle. He frowns briefly, but then rushes to my HoverCycle, twists it around and shouts, “Get on!”

  Luscious climbs up behind Heap while he opens fire with the cycle’s cannons, punching down scores of undead. But more are quickly taking their place, the freshest of them pouring out of the nearby buildings—the citizens of Liberty turned into monsters.

  I jump on the back, reach around Luscious and grip Heap’s sides. He must feel this because I don’t even have time to shout, “Go!” The turbine kicks in from a dead stop, yanking my head backward and quickly accelerating, but I nearly fall off when Heap once again engages the turbofan jet, rocketing us forward.

  “Head down!” Heap’s voice mixes with the wind, but I’m able to hear the urgency in the comma
nd well enough to quickly obey it. Luscious and I pull forward against the wind and lean down.

  A deep resonating rumble fills my body as the cycle plows through everything and everyone in its path. I can’t see anything. The rushing wind washes out the sounds of battle and death. My senses are completely overwhelmed. But through it all, I can feel Luscious shaking.

  I pull myself against her, holding her more tightly and pressing my lips to her ear. “I have you,” I tell her. And again, “I have you.” I repeat the phrase until her shaking subsides, which is a full twenty minutes after the cycle smashes its way through waves of undead, tears through miles of dense forest and comes to a sputtering stop.

  28.

  “Stay here,” Heap says, motioning to the pine needle–covered forest floor. “I want to see what’s ahead.”

  We’ve been walking for seventy minutes. The cycle, having bludgeoned its way through countless undead and two roadblocks, not to mention completing a leap back across the river, had performed admirably. But it had endured more abuse than it, or any vehicle short of a tank, was designed to handle. The hood was caved in, crushing the electronics hidden inside, and the front repulse disc had sustained irreparable damage. So we started walking, a slow mode of travel made sluggish by Heap’s insistence that we pause every twenty minutes so that he could scout ahead. “Better that I discover an ambush on my own,” he said. But we’re all keenly aware that the undead can come from any direction, which is why Heap adds, “Keep watch. If I do not return in three minutes, head—”

  “I know what to do,” I assure him. During the first thirty minutes of hiking, we came up with a backup plan in the event that we are unable to find the radio transmission’s source. Head due east. Find a boat. Escape to an island two miles off the coast, the coordinates to which he had me memorize. It’s a temporary solution, but we both agree that the undead will eventually rot and die for good. Survival might simply be a case of finding a secluded spot to outlast them.