by S. T. Moon
He finished what he was chewing and put down his fork. “Is it about Victoria?”
She nodded.
“I should’ve been part of that mission,” he said. “I should be helping her.”
“She’s gone rogue with some fringe level agents on her team,” Irene said.
“Fringe level agents? Is this a new designation with Red-6?” He pushed away his plate. “Why would they put them all on one team if they were subpar?”
“You’re confusing me with Frank Oden. He’s in charge of that operation,” she said.
“What exactly is your job now, after the merger?”
“That’s what you want to know? Not interested in what Victoria’s getting herself into with this team of misfits?” she asked.
“Is she in danger?” He stood up.
“She has a dangerous job, Breaker. Yes, you could say she’s in danger.”
He pushed away the remains of his meal and started assembling weapons and gear. “Where are you going?” Irene asked.
He didn’t bother to answer her.
Irene cleared the plates and returned, leaning against the door, arms crossed. He was bigger and stronger than a year ago, she noted. The man worked as though demons were breathing down his neck. Which of course they were, in a literal and figurative sense.
He picked up his gear and headed for the door.
She refused to move.
He stopped just inches from her, so close she could feel his heat.
“Are you going to put your hands on me? Rough me up? Shove me down and run away to the woman you think you love?” she asked.
“I do love her.”
“Love is cheap.”
He shook his head, disgusted. “Why are you playing these games? What do you have against her?”
“It’s not about her,” she said.
“It sure the hell isn’t about me,” he retorted.
“That’s an interesting theory. Why wouldn’t it be about you? Two women want you. Only one can have you.
“I thought I made my choice clear,” he said.
“Most men would be happy to double the pleasure,” she said. His frustration and anger were almost physical. Maybe the reason she pushed the issue was because she couldn’t have him. The concept didn’t conform to her understanding of reality.
“Stop torturing me. I’m human. No man could resist what you’re offering, or what I think you’re offering,” he said.
“I didn’t think a man could resist me,” she said. “I could stop you, but I won’t. Your evaluation is done. But I haven’t even begun to retrain you for the... needs of the company.”
He waited for her to finish, clearly not interested in debate. It was so obvious that had made up his mind to go to Victoria regardless of the consequences she wanted to laugh.
“When you’re done with her, come back to me.” She stepped away from the door.
He didn’t look back.
It was easy for Irene to monitor him remotely. She followed at a distance and refused to second-guess herself. It would be safer to remain hundreds of miles away but she wanted to see for herself what he did with Victoria.
CHAPTER TWELVE
New Threat
Reminiscing fondly about her days as a federal, then corporate law enforcement agent, Victoria had to admit to herself, it seemed like another life. The disastrous events on the bridge were almost as distant. Weeks of fighting to protect citizens from the rampaging Death Angels had paid off, no thanks to Frank Oden and his well-equipped army. The man could have done more to protect innocent lives but she doubted that was his intent. She suspected he was complicit in the release of these monsters.
“Joseph, give me your report and get some rack time,” she said. Additional fighters and small units had been assigned to her over the last several days. She did little more than point them at trouble spots and send them out.
Uriah waited behind Joseph near the door, dirty and tired, and looking like a kid with a secret.
“We exchanged gunfire with unknown antagonists, possibly looters or recon elements for Oden’s army,” Joseph reported. “No casualties, no confirmed kills. Escorted a group of volunteer nurses to a school where the locals have set up a temporary field hospital. Also picked up a straggler.”
Victoria looked up with interest. She needed something to break the tedium of this hopeless and hopelessly monotonous rebellion.
Jonathan Breaker walked in, fully equipped for a field op in the mountains. She jumped, knocking over her chair, and scrambled around the table to him. When they embraced, he quite literally swept her off her feet.
“I came as quick as I could,” he said. “Vail kept dragging me back to the wilderness. I’m done with that.”
She held onto him and wished everyone would just leave and let them be together for a while.
“We’ll give you two a moment,” Joseph said. The Randall brothers backed out of the room.
“We don’t have time for this, Breaker said. “I saw a lot of activity on the way in.” He crushed her to him again.
“We’re making time. A few seconds…”
“I was hoping you’d say that.” He kissed her with everything he had.
* * *
“Not enough time. I miss the mountains,” she said, her cheek against his chest. The webbing of his tactical gear felt rough against her skin. She wished she could feel his body. “Just one more minute.”
Joseph stuck his head into the room. “Abel’s outside. Doesn’t look happy.”
“We’re coming out,” she said, not wanting his arrival to further ruin this moment or even this space. The room had been a temporary office. Now it was the scene of her reunion with Breaker. All five minutes of it.
Abel and a ragged group of resistance fighters waited in the street, some leaning on buildings or lampposts, most staring back at a battle they must have recently been a part of.
“What’s the problem?” Victoria asked.
Abel took his time staring breaker down Breaker, then gave Victoria a contemptuous look. He was like a different man. Whatever had happened between them, Abel hadn’t forgotten it. He’d minimized their adolescent conflict; that was obvious.
“We started this movement to push the corporations back. Other factions have their own agendas. Hunting the Death Angels was bad enough, now we have rival factions encroaching our territory.”
Victoria waited. She knew him well enough to know when he was done and when he was just getting warmed up.
“I have three teams en route to a rendezvous point. We’re better organized and armed, so the battle will just be a matter of making it happen in our favor.”
“That’s an odd way to put it,” Breaker said.
“It’s a defensive action. We didn’t want this fight. The Free Travelers know we intend to address their issues once we establish a negotiating platform with the corporations and the government,” Abel said.
Breaker held up both hands to calm him. “Fine. Whatever. I’m here to stop a murder machine.”
Abel ignored him, speaking instead to Victoria. “I need you and the brothers to block the DAP. Omar’s team killed one yesterday, so there are only two left.”
“Only two, that’s great,” Victoria said, hoping she didn’t sound sarcastic. The animosity between Breaker and Abel was distracting. She wondered if she would’ve made the same choices if she’s known how competitive these two men were. If it had been over her, it would have been flattering. But this had the feel of a long rivalry, which probably meant the assholes were still beefing over a girl from their off-grid childhood.
Jerks.
“Sorry to dump this on you. We’ve got to move. Do what you can and give me an update, soonest,” Abel said.
Victoria waved the brothers over. “We can plan while we move.”
“It’s always the same plan,” Joseph said.
“Locate, contact, run away,” Uriah said.
“Red-6 and the other corporations should be the ones putting a
stop to this. It’s their creation. The government should bring in their big guns and put it down. Then take a look at putting Red-6 in their place,” Breaker said.
Uriah laughed. “Hold on, now. Let’s not get crazy. This is a revolution, not the end of the world as we know it.”
Victoria enjoyed their banter. The three men were apparently fast friends.
“How did you two get involved with Abel and his people?” Victoria asked.
“Abel isn’t bad. He just doesn’t like Breaker. Too much testosterone in one armed uprising.” Joseph snickered.
Breaker ignored him. “We’ve got a job to do.”
“Nicely done. Way to change the subject,” Uriah said.
Victoria silenced them with a hand gesture and directed the brothers to take a position across the street. There were no citizens or animals left in this neighborhood. Smoke drifted down the street toward them. She thought she heard gunfire but could not see where it was coming from.
But it was the emptiness of the scene that struck her. The world had been transformed. Maybe it had been changing for years. Victoria believed this was a pivotal moment in history. “I’m glad you came back, Jonathan.”
He brushed her shoulder with the palm of his hand and got into a better position. That was all the answer she needed. She wasn’t as worried about Irene stealing him now.
“They are vulnerable.” she said. “A lot of weight for those legs to hold up. The problem is, it’s nearly impossible target their joints when they’re moving,”
“Maybe we could knock them down, trip them with wires or something,” he suggested.
“We’ve tried that. Unfortunately doesn’t usually work. Their sensors are too good to miss such an obvious trap. And even when were able to slow them down, they just got back up and went back to killing people and breaking things.”
“I see it,” he said.
His voice was strange and she didn’t like the sound of it. She wondered if he was afraid, which was something she’d never imagined.
“What’s it doing?”
Victoria wished she had gone to the bathroom. She tried to answer but couldn’t find the words. Only one Death Angel was in sight; that was how they operated. The second would sweep in from a flanking position or drop from a roof. But that wasn’t what made this new development terrifying.
The ten-foot-tall killing machine used all four of its arms to pull its torso apart.
“It’s going to break itself in half. If I was wildly optimistic, and a fool, I’d think it was self-destructing,” Breaker said with interest.
The carapace cracked open. Victoria realized it had to be much larger than a normal DA when a dozen small bots tumbled to the ground and zipped off at startling speeds. She raised her gun to fire. Breaker was already shooting at the first of the new monsters.
She fired and reloaded, jumping up on a burned-out car to avoid losing both her feet at the ankles. The damn thing looked like a centipede, or maybe a millipede, she decided, because it had a seemingly endless number of small legs. It lunged for her feet again and missed. Undeterred, it circled the wreck then jammed its head through the sheet metal.
She screamed, jumped and sprinted to the next building to find cover. When she turned to fire on the little monsters, Breaker was on her six, doing the same thing.
Joseph and Uriah poured bullets and stun grenades into the fight. The Death Angel, gaunt with half of its mass scuttling around trying to murder Victoria and Breaker, rushed the brothers.
“I got it,” Joseph said as he concentrated fire on the monster. “Support Victoria and Breaker.”
Uriah moved into the open, ignoring any danger, and rained hellfire down on the millipede death-bots swarming around Victoria and Breaker.
“The big guy’s coming too hard, we have to go!” Joseph yelled.
“Cheese and crackers that thing is fierce…” Uriah said, reloading and retreating. Across the street, Breaker said, “Fall back and cover me when I move.” He caught one of the small killers by its tail and hurled it, but not without getting bitten twice. “Go! Get to the next building and cover me!”
Victoria fell for it, running for everything she was worth. When she turned to lay down suppressive fire, Breaker was past the small bots and charging at the host DA, forcing it to come around and engage him.
“Victoria to Abel,” she shouted into her radio. “New development! Critical contact! Need assistance!” She shot carefully, taking out two of the small ones in pursuit of Breaker. There had been at least a dozen of them and she was certain she’d shot six or seven, but hitting one didn’t seem to stop it. You needed some luck or enough ammo to chop it into scrap.
The other DA emerged from the shadows at about the same time Abel and his team arrived. She didn’t stop to thank God for how quickly they got there but she would have if she could have.
Two more Death Angels, larger than any she’d ever seen, arrived moments behind them. Each of the machines had the appearance of being newly built. They dumped dozens of the smaller monsters then charged through Abel’s soldiers. One of the new killing machines aimed one of its arms and sprayed the building beside it with burning accelerant.
Medium-sized humanoid bots marched up the street like soldiers, armed with long steel rods that were far deadlier than they looked.
Victoria was running toward Breaker when she saw one of the medium-sized bots smash a man’s skull into his shoulders. The millipedes swarmed, flames reached for the sky, and she couldn’t get to the man she loved. She caught his eye once but they were both too busy fighting to get sentimental.
Abel coordinated the movement of his soldiers, ordering them to fall back in stages. This reduced casualties and did more damage to the advancing machines.
It also left Breaker in a key strategic position. If he retreated too soon, the whole plan would fall apart. Victoria knew it and thought he did too. She wanted to blame the failure on Abel but couldn’t think of a better plan.
“I’m going to help him,” she shouted. Moments later she was close, but one of the original Death Angels cut her off.
“Don’t get yourself killed and make this a waste of my time!” Breaker shouted as he reloaded. A medium-size bot rushed him. He kicked it in the chest, sending it backward.
Victoria tried again and again to reach him, but was eventually pulled back by Abel soldiers.
One moment she’d been on her way to fight beside him. The next moment he was gone.
PART THREE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Betrayal and Abandonment
Breaker found himself staggering down a narrow alley, smoke burning his eyes, the pain where he’d been bitten, deep into his quadricep burning. The recurring image of a metal millipede burrowing into his flesh made him want to vomit. He’d broken that one into pieces with his bare hands, rage and desperation giving him strength. He glanced at the wound, hoping and praying none of the thing was still inside of him.
At least Victoria had escaped.
“Abel, I’m trying to catch up with your team. We can hold them in this alley,” he said into his radio mic.
The figures he was trying to catch up with pulled further away.
“Abel, do you copy?”
The squad of Abel’s best commandos, almost out of sight now, stopped to take up defensive positions. Their leader appeared through the smoke. “Abel’s in command of gold squad.”
“I need to take care of some injuries. DA-4 isn’t far behind me,” Breaker said, giving the field designation for one of the new, larger death machines.
The man nodded uncomfortably, not looking him in the eyes. “Make it quick.”
“We can’t stay for this,” came a voice from out of view. Smoke drifted past the squad leader, he appeared and disappeared at random intervals. He backed away, increasing the effect. “Abel gave us orders.”
Breaker looked up at him. “Orders?”
The squad leader found his resolve. “It has nothing to do with order
s. None of us trust you. You started this mess. You released the first Death Angel.”
That wasn’t exactly true, but Breaker wasn’t about to argue with this man in a smoke filled alley with state-of-the-art killing machines on his ass. He cleaned up the worst of his wounds.
“I never trusted him before that.” Another man he couldn’t see.
“Never trust a fixer,” a woman’s voice agreed.
Breaker shook his head in disbelief and wrapped gauze around a pressure bandage to hold it down. He knew what was coming. He clenched his teeth, angry despite his attempt to keep his composure. He came back for Victoria, not these assholes. Which was a good thing. Because they were leaving him to die.
Metal feet stomping the pavement and the clattering music of millipede galvanized him. He pressed his back to the wall, aiming his weapon with shaking hands, and tried to settle himself.
Abel’s officers had started calling the new Death Angels by the designation DA-4, not necessarily because they were a fourth generation model, but because everyone had thought there were only three. So when the fourth and fifth showed up, they became fourth-generation models.
Breaker wasn’t sure why he kept obsessing about the classification of the things that were about to kill him. He knew they’d been around for a long time; there were probably dozens of generations. He found it fascinating how field units named things on the fly.
None of this matters, Breaker. Pay attention, he thought.
He desperately wanted to call Victoria for help. Seeing her one last time would make the end easier. He swore bitterly. Why would he sacrifice his life to save her only to drag her back into danger? He keyed the radio several times but didn’t say anything. If he called to her for help, she’d come no matter where she was and no matter the risk.
Unacceptable. The thought of her getting slaughtered by millipede death-bots was too much.
What really annoyed him was how smart these things were. He’d expected them to continue to swarm him. What he saw as he positioned himself against the wall and sat to take weight off his leg were dozens of the smaller killers systematically searching the street. And they weren’t alone.
