Ash Kickers

by Sean Grigsby

“Why are they better than our laser swords?” Harribow asked.

  Everyone turned to look at him.

  He swallowed, clearly uncomfortable being the center of attention. “I mean, it looks awesome and all, but we already have something similar.”

  “It has better reach,” Yolanda said. “Plus this.”

  She hit another button and the axe blade sparked a bolt of electricity through the air. Most of us jumped back. Afu hit the dirt, covering the back of his helmet with both hands. He didn’t get back up until the sparking noise was gone and we were all laughing at him.

  A stab of guilt hit me then. It felt strange to get back to usual business when everything – and everyone – had burned. But I swallowed the objection. This was good. This would tie us all even closer. That’s the thing about smoke eaters, firefighters, cops, and the like. Humor is the glue that binds us. It’s the single stone to stand on when the lava surrounds you.

  “All right,” I said. “Let’s get this started. Yolanda, will you run the training scenarios?”

  “Sure thing, Cap,” she said. “Why don’t you go first?”

  I hefted the Impulse shotgun and walked onto the training field. The hummingbird hadn’t moved from its chosen spot above the rooftop, and the giant flames roasting the air around it were starting to warp the top of the building.

  “What’s the range on this shotgun?” I asked.

  “No more than a hundred feet,” said Yolanda. “The closer the better, but I know that’s not always going to be possible.”

  I’d be pushing it if I tried to shoot the hummingbird from where I stood, and I didn’t want to jump onto the same building and risk getting torched. I always believed training should mirror real life scenarios as closely as possible, and I sure as fuck wouldn’t get that close to the actual phoenix.

  The building across the street was about a hundred feet away. I slung the shotgun onto my back with the attached sling. After a few jogging steps, I power jumped to the lip of the roof and pulled myself over, keeping the momentum going, rolling into a crouching position and taking aim at the hummingbird through the shotgun’s beaded sights.

  Fuck. Where’s the trigger?

  My fingers fumbled all over the damn gun as I tried to keep my eye on the fake phoenix. I swore at myself and brought the gun down so I could see what I had to pull to shoot the gun.

  I’d had it upside down.

  “You want to trade?” Afu shouted from the ground.

  “Fuck you!” I readjusted and pulled the trigger.

  A white ball flew across the gap between the buildings, leaving a cloudy trail of smoke behind it. The foam wad shattered the hummingbird hologram and exploded against the roof, covering the entire area like a small nuclear blast made entirely of sticky, white goo. The fire disappeared immediately.

  The only thing that would have made it better is if it also contained some liquid nitrogen to freeze the bastard. I made a mental note to suggest it to Yolanda. But I was happy with my new toy.

  “Hot damn!” Renfro said from the ground. “Yolanda, are you sure you can’t make another shotgun? I’ve got to get me one of those!”

  “It’ll take some time,” Yolanda said. “But I’m sure Captain Williams will let everyone have a chance to use it.”

  “Sure thing,” I said, and pointed to Renfro. “Just make sure I get it back.”

  “So, what are we supposed to do with these axes,” Afu asked, resting one on his shoulder. “Hell, I could swing a tree branch at a hologram all day, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Oh the hologram was only for training with the foam, seeing how it extinguishes fire and the range of attack. I’ve got something else in mind for the axes.”

  “Um,” Afu scratched his chin. “Like what?”

  Yolanda turned toward the training city and poked a finger against her holoreader. A door I hadn’t realized was there slid open at the bottom of the farthest building. I had to lean over the side of the roof to see, but all that stood there was a dark hole. Then the roar came.

  I wouldn’t have put it past Yolanda to unleash a living, breathing dragon on us, but out of the dark a metal claw emerged and scraped against the ground. Next came a robotic dragon head, squeaking and fumbling like it was going to fall apart before we ever laid hands on it. Scuff marks covered most of its silver body, and half its teeth were missing. After a clanking buildup within its chest, the robot dragon spit out a few measly flames that wouldn’t have cooked a marshmallow. Mecha Scaly was back in business, but times had been hard.

  “Oh, come on,” Naveena said. “This lump of rust isn’t going to give us a good fight. It can barely stand.”

  Yolanda huffed and tightened her arms against her sides. “I didn’t have the time or materials to build a mechanical phoenix. Besides, you’ll have to catch the firebird before you can even attempt a fight. So if you want a challenge, Captain Jendal…”

  Another command into the holoreader made Mecha Scaly squat. A second later, giant rubber wings fanned out from its sides. The dragon roared and leapt into the air, flapping itself to soar right over my head and the building I was atop. I stumbled backwards and landed on my ass. Mecha Scaly rose fifty feet above the training buildings circled there like a buzzard, daring us to come see if it was as rusty and out of fight as we thought.

  “Well,” Yolanda said to the smokies on the ground, “go get it.”

  They looked at each other for a confusing second, and then all five of them broke into a run, slapping hands or attempting to trip the smoke eater beside them so they’d be the first to get to the robo scaly.

  I shook my head. No one likes a freelancer. And especially a glory hog.

  Naveena power jumped and landed beside me on the roof, then pointed to Calvinson who’d gotten to the top of the one across the street. “Cal, shoot at it with your lasers, see if we can get it to attack us.”

  The rookie obeyed his captain and began shooting a burst of laserfire at Mecha Scaly, soaring high above. Calvinson’s shots missed horribly, but they got the dragon’s attention. First came a digital roar, then the dragon swooped down, building up speed as it launched toward Calvinson and Afu, who’d just arrived. The rookie continued shooting, but the dragon swerved from one side of the sky to the other, dodging each laser.

  Something told me Yolanda had cheated, installed some kind of wise-ass program into the robot, turning it into a laser-dodging juggernaut.

  Afu held out his axe and engaged it. As it flew over, Mecha Scaly attempted to chomp Calvinson, but had to divert its path when Afu swung the axe toward its side. Renfro climbed onto my building and began firing his own laser. That got the metal dragon to fly toward us instead.

  “Hey! I almost had it,” Afu shouted.

  Instead of trying to bite us, the Mecha Scaly squeaked and hacked until a ball of flame dropped out of its mouth. A constant stream of fire would have been more dangerous. Or so we thought. When the fireball hit the roof, it blew apart, sending flames raining down on top of us.

  “Shit,” Renfro said, ducking under his helmet. “Yolanda must have upped its programming. I’ve never had this much trouble taking it out.”

  Naveena watched the dragon glide away and turn at the end of the street for a second attack. Stepping to the edge of the roof, she looked over and waved Renfro over to join her. “Give me some laser fire right here below us.”

  “Why?” I asked. I wasn’t trying to hate on her mysterious plan, I just wanted to know what she was thinking.

  “I want it flying right through here,” Naveena said, more to Renfro than me.

  Shrugging, Renfro blasted his gun down toward the street. Mecha Scaly roared and tipped its wings to hover lower, flying straight for the shots.

  Naveena put the axe pole against the back of her power suit, which magnetically drew the weapon against it with a clang. Stepping onto the roof ’s edge, she held out her arms as if walking the trapeze.

  “Wait,” I said. “What are you doing?”
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  Without answering me or so much as looking my way, Naveena leapt off the roof.

  I ran to the edge and looked over, Naveena dropped like a boulder, just as Mecha Scaly passed under her. She landed on its back and held on with outstretched arms and legs. All laser fire ceased as every smokie watched Naveena fly around the city like a squirrel riding on the back of a crocodile.

  “I’ve never seen shit like this,” I said.

  “Me either,” said Renfro.

  Mecha Scaly tried to bite at Naveena but missed each time as its main priority was staying airborne. With more balance than I’d ever seen in yoga videos or those stupid human tricks on the Feed, Naveena sat up and removed the laser axe from the back of her power suit. It only took one swing to bury the blade into the back of Mecha Scaly’s head, even though it continued to roar and spit flames like a demented, flying steam engine as the laser burned through its circuits.

  Naveena stood, using her hands to steady her. She and the dragon were circling back toward our building, and when they were about a hand stretch away, Naveena pressed a button on the axe and power jumped toward the roof. The axe’s electricity ripped through Mecha Scaly and sent it churning dark smoke, plummeting toward the edge of the training field, where Yolanda had wisely chosen to run away.

  Afu caught Naveena’s arm and pulled her the rest of the way up. We all ran to the edge of the roof. Mecha Scaly lay in a crumpled, smoking pile. Back on the ground, everyone clapped and hooted praise. Calvinson patted his captain on the back. Harribow, who’d just come off the top of a third building, pumped a fist in the air.

  “That was impressive, Naveena,” I said.

  “Thanks,” she turned to bump my fist.

  “Only one problem with it,” I said. “If you jump on the phoenix like that, you’ll burn to death before you can reach for your axe.”

  That got everyone kind of deflated, but goddamn it, it was the truth.

  Naveena shrugged. “That’s why you’ll put out its flames first, T.”

  Yeah, that would be the best-case scenario. But I’d never, not in my entire career so far, been involved in a best-case scenario. They were like unicorns.

  Oh no. I tried to think of something else, because if a rainbow-shitting, one-horned horse popped out of the ground, I would officially be done with this crazy line of work.

  “All right,” I said. “Let’s have the rest of you try out the shotgun. Looks like Mecha Scaly is going back to the scrap heap.”

  Yolanda stood by the dead robot, shaking her head.

  “Sorry, Yolanda.” I turned so she wouldn’t see me smirking.

  I got a good view of the wasteland around the smoke eater compound. Out on the highway, about half a mile out, a line of large metal things rolled toward Parthenon City. I had to blink a few times and then squint to make sure I wasn’t seeing things.

  I asked Renfro, “What’s that going down the road?”

  “I can see in the dark - I don’t have power zoom in my retinas.”

  “Quit being a smartass,” I said. “I’m serious. Don’t you see that parade out there on the highway?”

  Renfro put a hand to his brow to block out the sunlight. “Are those tanks?”

  I knew it. The New US Army – what a crock of a name. There was nothing new about them. They were the same pricks from before, who’d scrambled together after E-Day and formed roving platoons, offering their services to city states with problems no one else could find the solution to. Hired guns was an understatement, they were more like a nomadic mafia. And there wasn’t a smoke eater among them because they discouraged our kind from joining up. A guy I knew on Truck 8 who had looked into it and was quickly shot down.

  Mayor Ghafoor, despite the controlled demeanor she put on display, had gotten desperate. She’d opened the city to wolves, and here they were storming in to town.

  CHAPTER 22

  “So I have a few theories,” Yolanda’s hologram said.

  Naveena and her crew were there in the same circle of digital green, floating above my holoreader. A one-toone call was something that I was used to, comfortable with. I rarely participated in hologram conference calls because it freaked me out to see all those floating heads. But this was the best way for all of us to hear what Yolanda had come up with, since we had little time and a lot to do in different parts of Ohio.

  As we were passing through a green light, Renfro hit our cannon truck’s air horn as a tiny self-driving smart car pulled out in front of us.

  “You dumbass robot!” Renfro shouted at the car and not the elderly man riding in the back. “Safe technology my ass!”

  Smart cars like that had been a great idea, marketed specifically for older people whose driving ability had diminished but who still had places to go and cheeks to pinch. My folks refused to buy one. They acted like it was some form of tech phobia but I think they just liked me driving them around, a way they could spend more time with me, because Daddy certainly wasn’t having problems driving the hell out of his psy-roll.

  “I’ve studied a lot about burrowing birds,” said Yolanda, “and since Herjold wasn’t much help, I also looked for any myths about a phoenix preying on dragons. I didn’t have much luck there, but looking at it as is, and comparing it to more recent animals, I can see how they tie together. Think of a mongoose and a cobra. The mongoose is immune to the snake’s venom, so no matter how many times the mongoose gets bit, it doesn’t matter, because that cobra is getting chomped when all is said and done. A phoenix is made mostly of fire, so a dragon’s breath wouldn’t do diddly squat to hurt it. And even if a scaly were somehow able to kill the phoenix, it would just burst into ashes and come back later.”

  I cleared my throat. “But the dragons aren’t really in their right minds when the phoenix is around. You should see the ones at the enclosures. They’re buggin’ out. You look into any of that?”

  Yolanda’s floating head nodded. “I’m thinking the phoenix gives off some kind of frequency, much like how wraiths attract dragons. It puts dragons in a manic state, they’re confused and even more violent. The phoenix attracts its food without having to go hunt.”

  “Wait,” said Naveena. “So if the phoenix can attract dragons, could there be a way for us to attract the phoenix?”

  “That’s exactly what we’re working on now, Captain Jendal. Very good!”

  Afu stirred in the seat behind me. “But that means we’re still up shit creek until Yolanda finds a way to attract some paddles.”

  “What about wraiths?” I said. “Could we use them to attract the phoenix?”

  Yolanda froze, eyes rolling toward the ceiling. At first, I thought she might be having a stroke. Her face relaxed out of whatever thought-induced paralysis had taken over and said, “That’s a great place to start. The only problem is that wraiths attract dragons. If the ghosts could also attract the phoenix, we would have seen that by now. I mean, the enclosures are a great example. The phoenix hasn’t been anywhere near them.”

  The enclosures. “Oh shit.”

  “What is it?” Naveena said.

  “The wraith enclosures. The dragons and ghosts are both going crazy. At best, we’ve given the firebird four all-you-can-eat-buffets. It’ll get stronger, bigger, hotter. At worst, if the walls fail, the scalies will go on a rampage looking for the phoenix.”

  “Oh, boy,” Yolanda said. “I’ll start work on seeing if I can somehow reverse the polarity of a wraith. If any of you trap one, please rush over here to Central Fire Station so I can get to work on that.”

  “How do you think the firefighters are going to like a wraith in their station?” asked Naveena.

  Yolanda shrugged. “They’re already miffed that we’re here in the first place. I don’t see a ghost or two making things any worse.”

  I sighed. “I have a wraith on me right now.”

  “Oh?” Yolanda said.

  It would be asking for a shit storm. If I gave the Wilkins wraith to Yolanda and the law found out about it �
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  Well, this was more important and I’d just stick to the notion of it being better to request forgiveness, because I sure as shit wasn’t going to ask for permission.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  Afu leaned forward. “But the last wraith you caught was in–”

  “Zip it, Afu.” I turned back to Yolanda. “We’ll swing by after I go tell the mayor that we have to shut down the enclosures.”

  “So we’re not going by to talk to Ralph?” Renfro asked.

  Ralph Rankin was the detective working the phoenix cult case, the guy with the thin goatee I’d met outside Club Infinity. He and Renfro had grown up together, and I was hoping to use that relationship to get in good with the cops, put a stop to this cult paranoia and focus on the important thing. The phoenix was the priority, but I was also going to do my damnedest to prevent any innocent people from getting burned or rotting in a cell while the boys and girls in blue slowly realized what I already knew.

  “We’ll have to take a rain check with the detective,” I told Renfro. “Text him and reschedule once we stop at City Hall.”

  “All right then,” Yolanda said. “That’s all I have for now. I’ll be waiting for you and that wraith.”

  I ended the call and took a deep breath. As Renfro made the turn to put us en route to City Hall, I wondered if I’d made the right decision.

  “T.” Afu’s voice was almost a whisper. “You never turned in that wraith. The one that family wants.”

  At a red light, Renfro tuned to me. “You’ve had it on you this whole time?”

  “Technically it’s been in the remote the whole time,” I said. “And that’s been in my power suit.”

  “Tamerica!” Renfro said.

  “What?” I shifted in my seat to face him. “The family isn’t going to be getting it, no matter how much they whine. And the enclosures have a ton of dead fuckers that, by the way, are going to be released themselves when we shut down the walls. I just got the jump on trapping ’em.”

  “We’re really going to shut down the enclosures?” Afu asked.

  Renfro pointed at him. “Don’t change the subject.”