by Chris Hechtl
Each of the teams had a shopping list. They were to stick to it, but if they saw something of interest that was worth picking up they were to grab it if it was light or note it down for possible later pick up.
“Okay. Without the pumps though, we can't get the fuel out of the tanks,” Roger said, pointing to the gas station.
“I can't believe they still have one,” Shawn said, shaking his head.
“Some people cling rather stubbornly to the old ways. For now it's a good thing,” Boomer said, patting his truck. Shawn looked at it and then nodded. “That's a diesel station too. If we can't find a pump, I suppose we can do it the old fashioned way. Not that I want to.”
“Old fashioned way?” Shawn asked, wrinkling his nose. “Why do I think that sounds messy and a lot more work?”
Boomer snorted. “Because it is—a hose and good old lung power. But you have to be careful, if you inhale the fuel, it could kill you,” he warned.
“Oh. Shit,” Shawn growled.
“Yeah. Even a bicycle pump would do,” Boomer mused. “One used to inflate pool toys I suppose.”
“I've got something better,” Sora said with a smirk.
“You go, girl. The vehicles are your thing,” Boomer said waving her on. She nodded.
Sora estimated they had enough fuel for each of the vehicles to make three round trips as long as they drained the fuel from the gas station's containers as well. She whipped out a hand pump and showed them how to use it. Boomer made certain every vehicle was topped off with fuel each time they came to town.
Over the course of two days, they systematically stripped the town the best they could. During the process they found a couple starved horses, dogs, and cats to bring back. Sora fell in love with a rather scrawny blue-eyed, white lioness she trapped in the back room of a restaurant. She picked it up with a towel despite its squalls and fed it to calm it down. By the time they were ready to leave, the cat was in a cat carrier asleep.
“We don't have the food to feed them,” Hallis said disgusted. “A cat? Really?” he demanded. Sora gave him a dirty look but ignored him as she continued to load the moving van.
“You really want to eat kibble?” Boomer asked, looking at Hallis.
Hallis's face worked as he fought not to gag. “Not really no. I don't know; I mean …”
“We feed them. If we have to, we'll eat them later,” Boomer said. That made Shawn gag and Sora look up in alarm. “Trust me, meat is meat, except sloth,” Boomer said, face working in thorough disgust. “Don't ever eat that.”
“I won't,” Shawn said dryly, eying him and wondering if the boss man was pulling his leg. “I've had possum and road kill stew but …”
“Trust me, kid. When we're in a survival situation like this, beggars can't be choosers,” Boomer said, patting him on the shoulder. “Now get going,” he ordered. Shawn nodded.
“Maybe we should bring the people here instead? It'd be quicker,” Roger said. “I mean,” he looked around, “we could use all this. Rebuild I mean.”
“Yeah, but it's in the range of the robots at the warehouse,” Shawn said. “And no one wants that. It's also on the map.”
“Map …,” Roger frowned thoughtfully.
The E-maps online. The farm is just an address. Without a drone flying over or a satellite, they don't know we're there. I talked to Mister Aspin; he said the farm is on the outskirts of the drone's range.”
“So they can see us coming in and out but can't follow us?” Roger asked.
“Yeah, but that's just the warehouse. There is no telling if Skynet has access to another type of drone in the area. So we have to be on guard,” Boomer said. “And the sooner we get this stuff and get out the better.”
Sora nodded. “I'm tired of looking over my shoulder. The tin cans raided us periodically. It's ugly,” she said. “And there is no way in hell we can make this place defensible,” she said firmly. “No way,” she said.
“Right. So, we pack this up, get it to the farm, and let them unload as usual while we rest. Then repeat as needed. But we're not staying on the defensive. I want to take the fight to the enemy. I'm tired of getting shafted. It's time we do something about that,” Boomer growled.
The group all growled in ugly agreement.
“Maybe I can do something about that. If you can get me the right materials and tools,” Sora said thoughtfully. Boomer looked at her. She smiled evilly. “Give me the right gauge metal, a torch, and a welder and I can build you an effing tank,” she said.
Boomer grinned as Roger whistled and Shawn clapped.
“She hasn't done it yet, people,” Hallis said waving them down. “But I appreciate the idea.”
“Are we going to have enough food long term? What about more mouths to feed? And can we, um, relocate the greenhouses here?” Shawn asked, pointing to Molly's greenhouses.
Boomer looked at them, then scratched at his head. “I'm not sure,” he said slowly. “The glass …”
“Plexi,” Sora said.
“Oh.”
“I'll ask Molly. She might like the idea. She might know of more greenhouses around here too. Even the ones attached to buildings might help. You know customers and such,” Roger suggested. Boomer caught on and nodded slowly. “Are there any prefabs here? Could we move a building maybe?” Roger asked, eyes brightening.
Sora snorted and then started to giggle, hand over her mouth. When Roger turned to her, she turned away.
Shawn started guffawing. Boomer shook his head, lips quivering at the outlandish idea. “What? What'd I say?” Roger demanded.
“Dude, you don't think small do you?” Shawn asked.
“Oh. Yeah, but living in a tent or the barn sucks,” Roger said sheepishly. He shrugged as Shawn got his chuckles under control. “And yeah, I guess the trucks to move it are out.”
“Yeah. They require computers, and if they didn't get taken out then, well, they are probably out there running the roads, hunting people down,” Boomer said darkly.
“Lovely thought.”
“If they didn't run out of fuel or power by now,” Shawn said. “I think we're pushing our luck here with these runs. What if Skynet does send a couple trucks to run us down? Or worse, sends them with some robots to the farm? You can't stop a diesel truck. Not that easy,” he said, shaking his head.
Boomer frowned thoughtfully. “Barricades. We can look into different stuff later,” he said. Shawn opened his mouth but Boomer shot him a firm look. “I mean it. Focus on the job at hand.”
“Right.”
“The sooner we're packed and gone, the better,” Roger said. The others nodded.
<>V<>
Each time they unloaded, Boomer checked things out as he ate. The farm was finally fully organized. Molly had people eagerly helping her to plant in the greenhouses. Everyone knew their future survival depended on the produce there, so they all took turns, even those people who were all thumbs.
His mother had stopped a few people from hoarding, gently reminding them that others would need it later. When that hadn't helped, she'd pointed to the people who brought the food and material in and reminded the thieves that they were risking their lives to feed them. That usually got the guilty to give up their ill-gotten gains and sulk off or help out.
They had security on a growing wall of dirt and scrap. Slowly the farm was turning into a fortress, a castle. Not of rock but of earth, wood, and metal. He did his best to help the architect plan it, but he could only tell her what he remembered about military fire bases. He did emphasize defense from attackers on the ground as well as the air. Hopefully, she took it to heart.
<>V<>
Once it scouted the area in detail, Skynet attacked Saul's group with a local army. Its intent was to force them out away from their supplies and defensive position, out into the harsh environment so Mother Nature could do the work of killing them or kill them directly with its own robots. Either way would work. It calculated that the humans would break under a determined enough pus
h. Half of the humans would either abandon their positions to scatter, or they would try an orderly extraction. Either way allowed the A.I. to attack them outside their defenses.
The hive A.I. directed its units to attack at night when the humans were most vulnerable. It also waited for just the right moment, assembling its forces in staging areas nearby.
Charlie picked up on the activity and tried to warn Saul. Saul, however, wasn't interested in doing anything about it. “If we don't bother them, they won't bother us. Do not go kicking over anthills,” the Russian ordered.
That night Skynet attacked.
Their first warning was the sound, the eerie sound of gears creaking and vehicles moving in the dark. Charlie was called to the front to see what was going on. He'd scavenged a set of night vision goggles. The simple device had been in its packaging with the battery out. He'd gotten a tech to disable the Wi-Fi to keep the thing off the net then used them as needed at night. He was one of the few people in the group still willing to use technology, though he was winning some people back over.
As he checked he grimly noted in approval that the initial barricades in the street worked. The piles of rubble and broken metal stopped the advancing vehicles in their tracks. But after a minute they got out of the way of the follow-up group.
He swore viciously as he took note of the attackers. “This is so not going to be good. Sound the alert. We've got incoming,” he said. The watch leader went over to a bell they'd gotten from a fire station and started to ring it insistently.
Charlie watched as the robots came up one of the three main roads to the warehouse. He did his best to get a count of them but there were many. Too many he thought blackly.
It took the robots an hour to get to the first line. As they marched Charlie allowed his best shooters to pick off the biggest threats. It was harder than he had imagined, however. The small caliber rifles, even the hunting rifles, weren't much use in the dark without some means to see their targets. And with such small rounds, they had to hit something vital. They also had a finite number of rounds to fire.
He'd expected Saul to come out but apparently their glorious leader hadn't wanted to be bothered. Either he was in a drunken stupor or still screwing that poor girl he had chained up. Charlie shook his head. It didn't matter.
“Ready the secondary weapons. Keep an eye out for someone coming in the back door, people!” Charlie called out. “We're going to have to let them come in close before we can do anything about them,” he said grimly.
The one being they could take out were the cyborgs. He shivered, seeing the poor trapped sods marching as if they truly were zombies, which in a way, they were. They all had horrified expressions or were just gone—skin and bones. A few moaned terribly. He wasn't sure why Skynet kept them alive, other than cannon fodder. He made certain the snipers put each out of their misery.
But behind them came robots that were rather comical at first; they were made out of pieces of other robots. An arm here, a leg there, some of the parts were obviously scrap metal. But behind them came robots made out of real scrap. Those were a bad sign. He wasn't certain where Skynet was getting its electronics from, but it had to be stopped. Those they took out with the catapults, crossbows, and improvised ranged weapons as soon as they got within range.
Load lifters and giant robots followed behind them and acted like ogres, moving in to bash down barricades the people had painstakingly erected. The snipers did their best to shoot at any light, camera, or power box they could find. If a robot went down, it would fall in place and act as ladders for others to follow or act as an occasional obstacle until another robot moved it out of the way. Robots of every shape and type were in the mob, like mechanical zombies, all marching at a slow pace to conserve their power. Weapons fire only did so much damage, only high caliber weapons could ensure a kill.
“Fire brigade! Pitch ‘em when they are ready!” Charlie called out.
Molotov cocktails were thrown but Skynet had timed its attack well. As the fire started to rain down, so did true rain snuffling it out almost as soon as it began. Still, it was nice to see the occasional robot on fire, marching on before it fell over, plastic and electronics melting in the heat. Fire bombs made with oil tended to not get snuffed out so easily since the oil slick floated on the surface. As the fires lit the area, it became eerie and easier for the defenders to pick out targets to engage with their rifles and weapons.
But the rain was also a threat, it was a black rain filled with radiation. Those who realized it cursed and tried to get under cover allowing the robots to advance.
Charlie kept falling back, pulling his people out and moving them to defenses. It was a part of his plan, to inflict casualties, then pull back before they were overwhelmed to do it all over again. His great grandfather had told him the stories of the Japanese fighting on Okinawa and how they'd used that strategy to bleed the attacking Americans white. The Americans had won in the end, but they'd paid heavily for the ground.
So had the Japanese, however, who had fought like demons and had refused to surrender. Charlie's lips curved in a grim smile as he ignored the rain and kept fighting, sighting through his scope to blow the heads off of a police robot in the rear. Those were the real threats; the entertainment and commercial robots were just the cannon fodder. They were being driven ahead of the real fighters in order to absorb his fire and drain them of weapons and hope. Then the real threat would come in to finish them off. Well, not on his watch. Not if he could help it.
Saul was jealous of Charlie and considered him a threat to his leadership due to his popularity. He left Charlie to die on the vine defending the outer perimeter. When the robots punched their way through it, he had his second line open up to cut them down.
Charlie's death haunted many of the families who had sought refuge in the warehouse. It sent a pall on the entire group, impacting morale. Resentment lingered in the air like a miasma the following morning. Saul twigged on it and realized that everyone knew he'd intentionally left Charlie out there to die. When he overheard some dark muttering, he reacted. “Soldiers die, that is what they do. They die for stupid things and for the cause. Charlie was a good soldier. He did his duty. Now you do yours. If you don't like it, leave. There is the door,” Saul growled, confronting the problem. He pointed his shotgun to the door. Grim faces turned to him and then to the door.
It quieted the resentment down or at least the chatter. He allowed a group of volunteers to bury the bodies. Let them waste their own energy. He had more important things to do. He focused on getting Pasha to take apart the robots to find their weak spots and then destroy their batteries and electronics.
He rigged his door that night, just to be on the safe side. And she slept with weapons near him, aware that he could very easily be killed by the hated robots as much as by his own people.
He didn't get much sleep, however. Near midnight the robots attacked again. This time he got up and responded. “Conserve ammo!” Saul snarled, pushing people out of the way, sometimes kicking them as he made his way to the sound of the shooting. When it stopped so did he. “Panic fire?” he demanded. Roshenko was close enough to see and hear him. The other man shrugged. But then more weapons fire broke out, this time from the south.
Without Charlie leading from the front, the first wave of robots got closer in before they were beaten off. When dawn broke there were a lot more bodies, human and machine around the area. Saul went to bed, gratified that he'd survived another night.
<>V<>
“All Hallows’ Eve,” Fiben said, looking up to the sky and then around them.
“Eh?” Harper asked, eying the chimp.
“All Hallows’ Eve. In other words, Halloween. Big friggin’ whoop-de-do. La-di-dah. Something tells me the holidays aren't really worth celebrating this year,” he growled in disgust.
“But eventually they will be again. The more so to remember the friends and family we've lost,” Harper said.
“Do you want to dw
ell on the pain?” Fiben asked, eying the medic. “Wasn't it you who pointed out we need to focus on the here and now? You were right. I honestly think we're going to get rid of a lot of old traditions that no longer worked once the dust settles. The next generation, they'll make new ones.”
“Probably. Think they will celebrate the day we win?” Harper asked as he finished checking his kit and zipped it back up.
“Count on it,” Fiben growled. Harper nodded. He looked over to Baxter who brandished a fist in agreement. He nodded again.
“It's all quiet. Hope it stays that way,” Fiben said.
“Don't jinx us with ghost stories and shit though. They'll scare the kiddies,” Fiben teased, waving a hand to Imda.
“No they won't,” Imda said indignantly, fists on her hips as she confronted him.
“I wasn't talking about you. You are one tough little cookie.” She grinned at his banter. “I was talking about Percy there,” Fiben replied, pointing to the flight engineer. The flight engineer turned to glower at him. When the girl wasn't looking, he flipped the Neochimp the bird. Fiben snorted. He heard Imda giggle. Apparently Percy hadn't been as circumspect as he'd thought.
They had found a place to hold up on the end of the runway in the big aircraft maintenance hangar. It had come complete with civilians cowering in the basement half starved and terrified out of their tiny little wits. Now that they had a supply of manpower, they were looking to use it.
One of the first things they had done was get the shuttle dug out. The pilots had used the jet engines in the shuttle to warm the bird up and then taxi her over to the massive hangar. She'd barely fit inside. Her delta shape wasn't designed for the hangar; it had been designed for aircraft of a bygone era but had lingered on the tarmac.
Still, it was home. With the shuttle secured, they had a secure perimeter out of the weather. They couldn't keep it warm; they didn't even try. But they could enclose the offices off on one side and keep those warm. Fiben had just finished using scrap wood to patch up and cover over some of the busted windows on that side. With those taken care of, they could heat and use those rooms.
