by Bruno Flexer
Tom looked up to see the four poles that had once flown the bank’s flags in addition to that of the United States. The flags have been removed but the poles remained. What kind of enemy removes flags but doesn’t put his own flag up? What kind of enemy does not have a flag?
They turned left on South Street and now drove sedately to the north, heading towards their base, parallel to FDR Drive.
“Contact,” Captain Emerson sent and Tom glanced ahead. A large group of motorcycle riders was coming towards them. There must have been more than sixty riders, but Captain Emerson continued driving sedately towards them.
“Las Putas. Kawasaki Vulcan heavy cruiser riding with scooters.” Ramirez’s attempt to spit through his radio link was only fair, considering it was through a Serpent, which certainly could not spit.
Even in this situation, getting something personal from Ramirez was unusual. “So, you like motorcycles?” Tom asked.
Ramirez didn’t even look in Tom’s direction before throwing another dirty look at the motorcycle group and returning to his position at the rear of the van.
Captain Emerson slowly made a left turn into Beekman Street and kept driving slowly and peacefully. Driving unnaturally calmly, in fact.
“They are not coming after us,” Jebadiah reported. Tom glanced outside and saw that, where once a few cafes and bars had been located, there was now nothing: just empty building fronts. What does the enemy has against cafes?
Tom returned to his position and turned his attention back to his recordings. He started following the motorcycle groups’ movements. Maybe they could tell him—wait. Tom noticed something and then went and checked some more of his recordings. The motorcycles all moved in groups. No one rode alone. Tom hesitated. Was this important?
“Contact.”
Emerson turned the car again, and now they were driving through Pearl Street, actually making a full circle and returning to 70 Pine Street Tower, they place they had left just ten minutes before. Tom moved forward and managed to see the place on the street where the captain had stopped the van and they had boarded it. Now, that section of road was filled with motorcycles, and a group of more than ten riders were on foot, looking at the remains of the van’s driver, the discarded van cargo crates and the glass shards that filled the street. Tom saw that a few motorcycle riders were looking up at the broken window on the second floor of the tower.
“Sir, the enemy must be aware of our presence.”
“Roger. Our objective is still the forward operating base.”
Captain Emerson turned again and repeated his route, but this time there was no large group of motorcycles on South Street, and the van moved northward, approaching their forward operating base.
“Contact,” Ramirez reported. Tom really started to hate that word. He raised his head and saw a large group of more than one hundred motorcycles clogging the street behind them. The motorcycles drove rapidly and started approaching their van. Captain Emerson kept driving slowly and sedately, trying to make it seem that the van was no different from the hundreds of other enemy-controlled vehicles on the road, even though the van's front was heavily damaged.
Tom admired Captain Emerson. He didn't think he could have driven so slowly with all those enemy motorcycles approaching.
They passed the shed, their forward operating base, but the van just kept going forward without stopping.
"Stopping now would draw attention. We'll loop around and return to the base later," Captain Emerson said.
"The group has turned away," Ramirez said a few moments later. Captain Emerson kept going forward a little while longer, then made a U-turn on Jackson Street and returned to South Street, heading back to the shed.
"Contact," Captain Emerson said a moment later. Another group of motorcycles was riding straight towards them on South Street. Slowly and sedately, making Tom's admiration of Captain Emerson go up a notch or two, the captain turned left and went on to FDR Drive, then headed north again, away from their base.
The motorcycle group approached them from behind, Ramirez, and Jebadiah both loaded their long rifles, preparing for a battle.
"Do not engage. Hold your fire," Captain Emerson said, still driving slowly, still displaying no shred of emotion. Tom could not focus on his sensor recordings and he jumped in place when the whine of a motorcycle suddenly penetrated the van's own considerable engine noise. Tom glanced ahead and saw the group of motorcycles pass the van, speeding on their way to some other destination.
Tom slowly let go of the composite shelf that he had used to steady himself. The shelf promptly fell on the floor as Tom had bent it completely out of shape.
"Riley, twelve o'clock."
Tom moved forward and looked ahead. The motorcycle group was dispersing, every vehicle going its own way. Some speeded ahead and quickly disappeared out of sight. Others used the various exits to drive into Manhattan, while a few kept going on FDR Drive, each motorcycle moving at a different speed. One heavy motorcycle disappeared ahead so fast it seemed he was flying.
"Sir, I haven't seen behavior like this before. This is new. I don't know what it means. They're—I think the enemy is making them look for us individually. I don't think this is a good omen. It could be the enemy has controlled them as a group before and now is starting to issue individual commands. I think this is bad sign."
"Roger. Serpents, keep alert."
"Sir, the enemy must be starting to mobilize its forces. It must already suspect there are intruders in the city, and the motorcycles are spreading out to look for us. Once they pinpoint our location, the enemy will bring in the military forces it controls. On the road, it can mobilize its tanks and other military vehicles with ease. I suggest we seek cover quickly. From the positions of the enemy forces we saw, the Hummers can reach us in five to ten minutes. The armored personnel carriers can follow them five to ten minutes later, and the tanks will follow. In thirty minutes, assuming traffic will be adjusted to let the military forces move, we may face a significant portion of the enemy forces engaging us." Tom tried to keep his voice level. It is just an intelligence assessment—just rough calculations of speed and route and force strength. Just concentrate on the job.
"Roger that. Change of objective. We'll retreat to Central Park, take cover there and then resume our mission after night fall. Taking exit 5 towards East Houston Street—"
"Contact. Biker coming from behind," Ramirez said.
"Roger. Delaying exit."
Tom peeped from the van's rear window and saw a motorcycle approaching. It was some sort of heavy motorcycle, though Tom had no idea which. The motorcycle kept approaching, and again, Tom could hear the roar of a motorcycle's engine penetrating the van's rear compartment. But this motorcycle remained with them. It moved slowly, taking its time to pass the van, drive in front of it, and then move back beside them. Tom dared not look, but he thought the biker was trying to look inside the van.
"Permission to take it out," Ramirez whispered through the radio link. I wonder if he'll ever ask permission to take me out with the same tone, Tom could not help thinking.
"No other contacts in sight. Engage."
Ramirez flung open the doors of the van and leapt out, unfolding while he was still airborne. He hit the concrete road running and, running with long easy strides, immediately moved towards the motorcycle next to the van. Ramirez’s rifle was fixed to the Serpent's hip, Tom had time to observe.
For one long moment, the Serpent and the motorcycle moved together, the bike and the huge black monster keeping pace, the biker turning his head to look at the spiked Serpent running alongside. Then the Serpent swiveled his body to face the motorcycle while his legs kept running. One great clawed hand grabbed the rider while the other hand lifted the motorcycle clear off the road.
Tom leaned forward in surprise, staring at the running Serpent. Ramirez threw the rider behind him, making the rider crash down onto the East River Promenade fifty feet away. The rider hit a tree and slid down like a bon
eless sack, accompanied by broken branches and torn leaves. Then, Ramirez did something to the bike and slowed down to place the bike carefully beside the concrete safety barrier separating the Drive's lanes.
Ramirez started running again, and it took him no time at all to reach the van, place one great hand on the roof and pull himself in, folding his body to enter the van before turning to close the van's rear doors. His antennas stiffened and quivered in a slow rhythm.
It all took less than forty-five seconds.
Tom hurriedly looked back through the van’s rear-door windows and then looked ahead through its broken front windshield. Incredibly, no other vehicle seemed to notice or change its path.
"Contact," Ramirez sent. "Motorcycle, six o'clock, one hundred yards downrange."
"Contact," Emerson now sent, "One motorcycle coming on the opposite lane, slowing down to get a target assessment of our vehicle."
"Contact," Ramirez sent yet again. "Another motorcycle joining the first."
"They're on to us!" Tom said.
"Increasing speed. Approaching exit 7 and East 20th Street."
"We have four motorcycles behind us now."
"Sir, I can see two motorcycles coming from the opposite lane," Sergeant Jebadiah sent.
"Taking exit 7 towards East 20th Street. Exit is blocked. Returning to FDR Drive. Six motorcycles are moving against traffic towards us."
Something drew Tom's attention to the buildings on the west side of FDR Drive. They were mostly multistory office buildings, with a few dark-red residential buildings amongst them. Like a gruesome magical act, all of the buildings’ windows started opening, the dark, glass panes sliding sideways, and the shutters moving up. The scary thing was that all the windows were being opened at the same time.
It was a sight that Tom could not comprehend, no matter how long he looked. All the windows, on building after building, were opening. Thousands of windows, and still more opening as the van moved past more buildings. But as eerie as the sight of the thousands of windows opening just as their van moved past them was, what came next was even worse.
One person appeared at every window; one person, just standing and looking out. Old men, young women, children of every age—everyone looking out, looking at the van with eyes that did not blink. Tom could see further into Manhattan, into the buildings on Cooper Street, and the buildings there, too, all had their windows opened with people standing and looking out.
New York City had just come alive and was looking, motionless and expressionless, at the four invaders, with thousands of unblinking eyes.
Chapter 20
Day Five, FDR Drive, New York City
"Captain—" Tom croaked, unable to look away from the thousands of eyes that were staring at them. Even at that distance, Tom felt chilled to his core. The entire city was now alive, aware of their presence and out to kill them. There were more than thousands of eyes looking at them: tens of thousands, maybe even more. The sheer amount of eyes was daunting.
"I see it, Lieutenant," Captain Emerson said.
Something crashed into their van, knocking them from their lane and making the van scrape the concrete safety barrier at the side of the road. Tom fell down and skidded to the back of the vehicle, crashing into the rear doors that stopped him from falling outside. Tom was struggling to rise when the van shuddered again and actually bounced once as the ugly sound of crashing cars roared around them like vengeful thunder.
Tom fell again as Captain Emerson floored the gas pedal, forcing the Ford van to give him everything it had. The van accelerated ahead, its engine roaring in protest as it tried to cope with the heavy load of the four Serpents.
Tom found the van's rear compartment spin around him. Floor, ceiling and walls were changing their places suddenly and violently as the broken van's tires screamed on the concrete road. A loud crash exploded around them, making Tom cringe, and he instinctively put his hands around his head. An instant later Captain Emerson pushed down on the gas pedal again, and the van jumped forward, speeding away.
Tom got up just in time to see the vehicle that had crashed into them, another large van, upside down on the road behind them. It had smashed into the concrete safety barrier separating the lanes and now lay there, burning and releasing a long cloud of black smoke into the skies of New York.
"Three vehicles in pursuit," Sergeant Jebadiah reported. "Two buses and one truck."
"Roger, Sergeant."
"Permission to engage, Sir."
"Denied, Sergeant Jebadiah."
Tom checked behind him. The buses and the truck were slowly being left behind as their Ford van speeded ahead. They had a group of fifteen motorcycles following them now. Not a group, Tom corrected himself. They seemed to be driving as separate entities, some going faster, while others were keeping their distance. But they all gave way to the pursuing buses to pass, even though at the moment they did not seem to be gaining.
Tom glanced west, towards Manhattan. Every building he saw had the watchers in the windows. Every window on every building now had eyes looking straight at the Serpents' van. Tom guessed there now were tens of thousands, if not more, people in the windows, all looking at them. Tom did not have to zoom in to know that all the watchers had no expression on their faces at all. They just swiveled their heads to track the Serpents' van. In some way, that was more frightening than the Serpents themselves.
Without willing to, Tom zoomed in on a glass-covered balcony on the Alexandria Center, a modern looking building on the west side of FDR Drive. An old granny stooped in one window, while a toddler stared out from another. They both wore no expression at all as they slowly tracked the Serpents' van. It made Tom shiver.
Who was staring at them from the eyes of the New York City people? Just what was the enemy?
"Contact," Captain Emerson sent, his voice soft and calm, just like always. A large Dodge pickup truck was coming right towards them from the opposite lane. It accelerated as it approached and Tom's gaze was drawn to the driver, a middle-aged, obese woman with no expression whatsoever on her face. Captain Emerson kept his course even as the pickup truck approached. The captain only pressed the gas pedal harder, making their Ford van go as fast as it could.
Tom's gaze was fixed on the large grille at the front of the Dodge pickup. Tom kept looking at it even as the pickup smashed against the separating barrier and its rear section leapt in the air, ejecting a large number of cans from its cargo bed. For an instant, the pickup truck was in danger of falling over, but then the rear section fell back and the truck lay motionless, its front section a mess. The driver was nowhere to be seen. Tom saw one of the road lights fall beside the smoking smashed truck, its long pole bent and twisted.
"We've got to get off the road," Tom whispered.
"Agreed," Captain Emerson said, quite surprising Tom.
"Exit 8 is five hundred yards downrange. We can go to East 34th Street."
"Roger."
Tom had consulted his computer to get bearings and directions, and then he closed the display. All this time, half of Tom's field of vision was occupied by the computer's display, showing him hours-old sensor recordings.
"Sir—"
"Roger, Lieutenant. Serpents, brace for impact."
Tom looked ahead and then his sensors focused on the captain. Tom tried to say something, but nothing came out of his speakers. Wordlessly, Tom returned to the rear of the van and turned his sensors to the road behind the van. The motorcycles shadowing them were gone, but in their stead, four large trucks speeded towards them, led by a huge green semitrailer belching a continuous double stream of black smoke from its twin stacks. Tom lay down on the floor, his long Serpent hands grabbing hold of the sides of the van to steady himself. Tom dearly wanted to close his sensors' input—in a sense to close his eyes—but he dared not.
Coming right towards them was a long line of trucks and buses, more moving against the traffic flow and flooding onto FDR Drive from exit 8. Tom felt Captain Emerson ease up on
the gas pedal, and the Ford van stopped accelerating so hard. Tom could now hear the combined roar of many heavy vehicles heading towards them above the roar of their own engine. The enemy's vehicles were closing in on them from both sides.
Then, it started. A crash against their van made Tom yell, but the captain was still able to control the vehicle, and Tom felt their van make several sharp course changes before it continued straight ahead. An instant later, another crash reverberated in the Ford's compartment, and Tom felt the van's shudder. Again, Captain Emerson was able to ride the blow, and even though the van's wheels screamed on the concrete road for a moment, the van nevertheless continued on its way.
Next, a series of blows rocked the van, accompanied by a roar of a huge diesel engine just outside. Their Ford sprung ahead suddenly, the blows stopped, and the loud engine noise retreated. Tom put his head on the floor and covered it with his hands.
A great shock almost tore Tom off the floor, and the van itself flew through the air before it landed back on the road with bone-breaking force. The van skidded for a few long seconds before it started speeding ahead again.
We're still alive, Tom thought, dazed. We are still alive.
One of Tom's hands felt a huge dent in the van's side. The van's skin was torn near the huge dent, and Tom's sensors felt the wind from the van's motion. The roar of approaching huge diesel engines drowned everything else from Tom's audio sensors. A crashing noise exploded over Tom and he gathered his legs close to him, curling into a fetal position. Another crash, and then another louder one quickly followed. Tom's despairing whine suddenly stopped. He realized that the van was not hit and was continuing to drive unimpeded. The crashes came from behind them.
Tom was starting to uncurl when the world went crazy. Everything spun in Tom's field of view and great crashing noises hammered him from all directions. Tom lost his hold as his hands were torn away from the walls of the van, and he was thrown all over, sustaining powerful blows all over his body from the compartment's floor, walls and ceiling. His limbs flailed around with no control.
