Detonate (The Ravagers - Episode 2)

by Alex Albrinck

  Puzzled, he climbed down the stairs for the main cabin.

  “Mr. Silver?”

  Silver looked up, and Roddy was surprised to see that the man was changing into a pair of boots. “Yes?”

  “Sir, as requested, I’m alerting you that we’ve arrived at our… destination.”

  Silver finished fastening the boot and sat up in his chair. “Something wrong, Light?”

  “Sir, we’re at the coordinates supplied, but… I’m not sure where we’ll land.”

  “Land?”

  “We’re hovering over the ocean, sir. No land in sight. I’ve nowhere to set the craft down.”

  Silver’s gaze narrowed. “Are you suggesting I provided the wrong coordinates, Light?”

  “Merely providing status as requested, sir.”

  Silver snorted. “Appreciated, Light. You’ll be pleased to know that your description of our current position is indeed accurate.”

  Roddy blinked. “Sir?” Why would they fly over the ocean?

  Silver snapped a restraining belt around his waist. “We’re in the correct spot, Light. You’ve not made a navigation error, nor did I provide incorrect coordinates. But you’ve made one incorrect assumption.”

  Roddy felt a shiver of fear. “What would that be, sir?”

  “We’re not landing, Light.” Silver clasped his fingers behind his head and fixed Roddy with a steady gaze. “We’re not ending this journey on the planet. No, we’re leaving it. Set a course… straight up.”

  six

  Sheila Clarke

  Sheila sat in the ground car, stunned once more into silence.

  She wasn’t one prone to emotional reactions, or at least hadn’t been until the past few hours. Jamison considered it one of her better qualities. Yet when his oddly-shaped car had hurtled at her, her feet turned to stone, and she was unable to move in response to this latest shock. She wasn’t sure he’d missed on purpose this time—as he’d claimed with the earlier gunshot—or simply couldn’t get the proper angle.

  He’d ordered her inside, claimed to be trying to save her, though his efforts today gave her little confidence in this claim. He’d not killed her—yet—despite ample opportunities. He’d claimed more than once that he wanted to save her from the Ravagers. Yet she couldn’t forget that this same man had ordered the destruction of his underground military bunker with all of his people inside.

  If he could kill them without the slightest concern, why should she believe he’d not do the same to her?

  She wanted answers. But he’d thrown her into this car and strapped her in before she could run, exited the vehicle and closed the door before she could speak.

  She moved her hands up and down the restraining harnesses, trying to find a release button or a hook she might unbuckle and thus gain her freedom. As she did, her eyes roamed the interior. It was an odd sight indeed. There was no wheel, no pedals, merely a massive dashboard with all manner of flashing lights, dancing numbers, and two panels in the center, each roughly the size of a sheet of paper. She failed to find a release button and searched instead for an interior handle, something she could use to open the door, or perhaps controls to roll the windows down. Jamison must still be outside, and if she could open the door or window, she’d certainly give him a piece of her mind.

  She felt a gentle lurch, and then the car moved. Rolling. She saw the parked cars move behind her. How was it happening? Was Jamison actually pushing the car? A chill fell over her. There were no witnesses here, no need for subtlety. Jamison could strap her in securely, destroy the brakes, and push the car down an incline ramp. With no resistance, with Sheila unable to alter her path, she’d gather just enough speed at the bottom of the ramp for death.

  If it merely caused severe injury, she’d still die. The Ravagers would find her. Eventually.

  She seized the restraining harness and tried to rip it free. But Jamison had strapped her in so tightly that she couldn’t get the leverage needed to rip the bands free. She gave another tug, then looked up as the car gathered speed.

  She was accelerating, but she wasn’t on a ramp. Was Jamison still pushing the car? She twisted around, but the seat back rose above her head, and she couldn’t see him in the side mirrors. Where was he? And more critically, if she saw him and made eye contact, would he stop? Was the kind, gentle man she knew still buried inside? Or was he now, as he’d always been, the monster who’d helped unleash the Ravagers upon the world and who’d ordered the deaths of the people working for him?

  She felt her face tighten. Right now, she knew she could only count on herself.

  She looked at the dash again, searching in desperation for a braking mechanism, fully aware of the sensation of the vehicle gaining speed, seeing the parked cars move by at an accelerated pace in her peripheral vision. She found nothing. She glanced at the oversized dashboard, noting the various data readouts and buttons. Jamison had done something on the dash. Was that the control center for the vehicle?

  She leaned forward for a closer look.

  The car lurched forward, accelerating to a speed most certainly unsafe in confined spaces like this garage, and Sheila felt herself pressed back against the seat. She felt her heart pounding, thought she heard it echoing inside the sealed chamber of the car’s interior.

  She knew, now, that she was going to die, smashed into the parked cars at the end of the row at a speed guaranteed to snap her neck.

  Her breathing altered, breaths coming in shorter, more rapid bursts, as she watched her death approach. She closed her eyes, wishing she’d had a chance to make amends with Stephen, wishing she’d seen through Jamison’s antics before it had been too late, wishing her life hadn’t been cut short.

  The car careened to the left, throwing her to the right, the restraining harness halting her body’s pending collision with the side of the car.

  Sheila’s eyes popped back open.

  Jamison couldn’t possibly turn the car so quickly. Nor, frankly, could he make it move so quickly by sheer strength. A crazy thought hit her mind.

  The driver of the car was… the car.

  The car’s sharp left turn took it around the corner and onto the ramp between levels. It straightened out and hurtled down toward the third floor. Sheila watched as a car began to back out of its parking space. The driver of that car—a human, as one would expect—hadn’t seen or heard the sleek, silent vehicle approaching. Sheila tried to scream a warning, tried to reach any of the buttons on the dash in the hope one might stop the car or sound a warning, but the harness held firm. Her fingers flailed in the air, her arms too short to reach the dash. Damn Jamison and his long arms! She watched, helplessly, as her car slammed into the left side of the other vehicle, sending it spinning sideways into the vehicles surrounding it, crushing in the sides of the impacted vehicles. She had little hope that the unsuspecting driver lived through the violent collision.

  Sheila gulped. Her progress had barely slowed, as if she’d driven a hot knife through butter. The cabin hadn’t collapsed inward at impact. Micah had thrown her inside an indestructible self-driving car. Was he actually trying to save her life, just as he’d said?

  Her uncertainty regarding his true intentions was maddening.

  The rumblings of the ground interrupted her fractional second of contemplation. She felt the rumblings as the foundation of the parking garage suffered the first dissolving wave of Ravager destruction, portending the imminent destruction of the building. Sheila looked up at the concrete support beams, wondering how much shaking the structure could withstand before its inevitable collapse. She wondered if this autonomous driving machine would get her out of the building in time.

  And she wondered how the damned machines had already gotten this far from their point of origin.

  She gritted her teeth as the answer came. Explosions didn’t destroy the devices. Explosions scattered them and activated the destructive programming. And explosions had—and would—abound. The flying bombs summoned by Jamison in his claim
ed act of mercy, the potential explosions of ground car hydrogen tanks upon exposure to air—would those explode as well? And perhaps they simply reproduced that quickly, covering the territory at a rate that now seemed dizzying. Jamison’s rush to get here, to get them in the ground cars and moving, suddenly made more sense. He’d know, far better than her, the expansion potential of the machines.

  The car cornered again, and Sheila wondered, as her body pressed against the restraint harness, just how fast the car could take the turns without tipping over.

  The car, as if reading her mind, accelerated down the ramp at an even higher rate of speed. Sheila felt the sweat moisten her face, slither down her back. With nothing else available, she grabbed the restraint harnesses with both hands, her grip tight enough to turn her knuckles white.

  The rumbling beneath her intensified, and Sheila heard a thunderous crack. If she could hear that sound here inside the sealed cabin of the car, the volume level of the destruction outside must be ear-shattering. Her eyes flew up on instinct, and she spotted the fracture in the massive concrete support beam ahead, succumbing to the stresses from shifting weight of the building as the tiny robots dissolved the building from the northwest side. The fracture grew rapidly, spidering outward, until the beam finally succumbed to gravity and fell to the ground. She could nearly feel the gust of wind generated by the dropping beam as it missed the rear of the car by mere inches. The vehicle bounced from the impact and took the next corner. Sheila heard another crack, somewhat quieter this time, and watched as a second concrete support beam collapsed, blocking any possible passage from the opposite side of the garage. A massive chunk of concrete broke free from the ceiling and fell, crushing the unfortunate car—hopefully driverless—parked below.

  Sheila’s car rounded the next corner, dodging falling debris as concrete chunks dropped around her in what seemed a freak hailstorm where giant chunks of concrete fell from the sky instead of small bits of ice. The speed of the devastation rendered terrified her. Even if she escaped the garage—if that’s what this self-driving car intended for her—where could she possibly live in safety?

  The car rounded the final turn, bouncing as the collapsing chunks of concrete fell with ever greater rapidity. She could see the garage entrance, the relative safety of the street outside, partially hidden by the dust raised by the pulverized concrete. The spidering cracks began around the entrance, and Sheila watched in horror as the entire front of the garage collapsed in front of her.

  She screamed.

  The Ravagers continued their relentless destruction, the ooze slithering over the massive debris pile, falling on it from the collapsing structural elements above. The car, showing the same lack of concern over physical obstacles displayed when running through the motorists car seconds earlier, accelerated toward the shrinking debris pile in her path.

  Sheila tensed at the instant of impact.

  The car bored through the debris pile, sending dissolving chunks of ooze-covered concrete and steel into the street ahead of her. Beyond a brief lurch and temporary slowdown, Sheila felt nothing. As the car hit the street, it turned sharply to the right, throwing her against the restraint harness.

  “Great,” she muttered. “I’m in an indestructible car with a love of reckless driving.”

  Which, given the circumstances, was better than the alternatives.

  Sheila twisted around, trying to get a look behind her, but had to settle for the view in the side mirrors—undamaged, somehow, in the final collision.

  The ooze was everywhere. Buildings she’d worked in and walked by had vanished, and the road behind her looked more like a flowing river than a solid driving surface. She spun around in the opposite direction and watched, horrified, as the parking garage surrendered to the inevitable, collapsing in on itself as the ooze slid over the top and slowly dissolved what remained into dust.

  She shuddered, wondering how many had been in the structure when it collapsed. How many had perished already in the relentless advance of the tiny machines? How many more would die in the hours ahead?

  She wondered if the general had escaped. She was starting to believe again, not in his goodness, but that he truly wanted her alive at the end of this catastrophe. Why else would he put her in an indestructible, self-piloting car? She didn’t have to excuse his actions to believe he wanted her to live. And she certainly wouldn’t. He’d had sufficient knowledge of the events now unfolding to warn others, to alert them to take the precautions he’d clearly taken himself—for him and for her. He’d had the opportunity to report this to his superiors and broadcast the news to the entire Western Alliance. They all would've had a chance to survive.

  Now, though?

  It was likely too late.

  The car continued its aggressive driving, whisking at a breakneck pace down the central part of the spur road. Curious onlookers staring aghast at the growing dark spot moving toward them were forced to dive aside as her car careened along, oblivious to life or property.

  Flashing lights attracted her attention as the car roared past a traffic patrolman.

  When the car failed to slow down—something that at this point gave her little sense of surprise—the patrolman gave chase, siren blaring and lights flashing.

  Sheila looked around. Something Jamison said earlier had stuck with her. Was it possible that there were other caches of Ravagers planted and activated at the same time? Were there some inside the main city itself? Had the Eastern Alliance’s infiltration gotten that deep inside the protective walls?

  As if in answer, she heard the familiar rumbling once more.

  Shit. She gripped the restraining harnesses with renewed strength, looking around for any signs of Ravager infestation, wondering if the mad car knew to avoid falling buildings, or even if it knew how to recognize such danger.

  The sound meant that his hint about additional caches was true. There were more of them. And given the speed at which the cache launched by Jamison had wormed its way outward from the tank level of the Bunker… the entire massive city would be leveled in just hours.

  And the entire population living here? Dead.

  What would motivate anyone, regardless of the level of hatred between Alliances, to engage in such thorough destruction? Why engage in complete genocide of one’s enemies?

  She still wondered about the answers when something slammed against the front of the car.

  Sheila screamed.

  seven

  Wesley Cardinal

  The force of the collision sent the man sprawling backward to the concrete, where he landed with an audible grunt and a look of shock on his face. Wesley felt a stinging sensation in his shoulder and his fingers tingled, but he’d regained his feet and moved stealthily away. Gasps rose from the crowd that had gathered around, all curious about the man seen racing away from the destroyed building, and they moved, not toward Wesley, but to the man he’d leveled, full of concern about the man’s health.

  Wesley took advantage of their compassionate distraction and ran, feeling the breeze intensify as he gathered speed. The stitch in his side had vanished, masked by adrenaline or some strange physical transformation triggered by the immense fear he felt.

  He could hear the footsteps behind him immediately this time, their footfalls sounding heavy like drumbeats. Those angered by his physical assault—and there were more than two of them this time—were coming after him. But they didn’t understand. He didn’t have time for theatrics, to stop and answer questions and try to explain the need to run away immediately, to stand still and wait for the physical evidence of the Ravagers existence and their destructive potential. By the time he’d be able to convince them, they’d all be dead.

  He reached the scooter and slammed his foot down on the starter, listening as the engine purred to life. The noise level was insufficient to mask the sounds of the oncoming footsteps. He grabbed the helmet and shoved it atop his head as he swung his leg over the bike and pushed off, not daring to look back to see if
he’d make it away before they reached him.

  He didn’t.

  Hands grabbed at him and fell aside as the scooter gained speed. He heard a pursuer grunt and sensed the man flying through the air in a desperate effort to stop him. The fingers tightened around his left pant leg, and the man’s grip tightened as he managed to regain partial footing and run alongside the scooter. Wesley twisted the throttle to full speed and heard the man gasp in surprise as the scooter surged forward and dragged him off his feet. He heard the thump as the man hit the ground hard and had the wind knocked from his lungs. His grip remained, though, pincer-like, and Wesley knew he’d have problems. The scooter engine had been designed for economy, not power, and hadn’t been meant to pull quite so much weight. Nor had it been designed to thrust with maximum power to the side, and Wesley had to turn the handles sharply right to counteract the weight imbalance to his left. It was a situation he’d need to fix, and quickly, or he’d eventually find himself pulled from the bike.

  And what happened after that would be… well, he couldn’t imagine it would enjoyable.

  Wesley shook his left leg, but the man’s grip remained firm despite the pain and injury he’d likely suffered in his dive for the bike, and from being dragged along the rough surface of the pavement. He glanced down and saw the spare can hanging off the side. It wasn’t large enough to refill the tank, holding sufficient fuel to reach a more extensive fuel resupply point.

  For now, though, he had another use for it.

  Wesley detached the small metal can with his right hand, steering only with his left. He felt the pursuer’s second hand seize his leg. Wesley sat the can on the scooter seat and leaned forward to pin the can down with his stomach, then grasped the right handle. He grabbed the metal can with his left hand and prepared to smash it into the hands that gripped his leg and threatened to end his journey to whatever safety he might find.