Precipice

by Robert Stanek

  I look up to find the sun and don’t see the roots at my feet. Stumbling over them is the least of my worries.

  Prickly bushes greet my fall. For the next few minutes, I’m picking out thorns as I walk.

  The pain of the fall gives me new focus. I can’t make any more mistakes. I throw myself into the task at hand: getting to Central, warning my brothers and sisters about what’s coming.

  The areas this for south of Central are restricted, but I feel like I’ve done this a hundred times before. Once I emerge from the trees, I’ll head west and north; Broadway can’t be much farther ahead.

  I force myself into a jog. My steps are uneasy, but I try to pour purpose into them.

  By the time, I reach the edge of the trees, the sun is starting to cut orange hues through the ruins. I’d hoped to reach Central by sunset, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to. Sunset can’t be but an hour off and I’ve more than an hour to go.

  Just as I start to move from the trees, I hear movement behind me. Then before I can even react, I’m being tackled to the ground.

  I struggle against rough hands. I swear there’s more than one holding me, but when the hands turn me over, I’m staring up into a single pair of eyes.

  Brown eyes flecked with gold.

  Luke’s eyes.

  I start to ask, “What are you—?”

  Luke clamps a hand over my mouth. His eyes are wide, wild. I see murder in them. My murder.

  He raises a finger to his lips. His hand is covered in blood.

  I think it’s my blood. That he’s stabbed me. That he’s going to hold me here until I bleed out.

  My eyes ask questions I can’t speak, even though I try.

  I don’t want to die. Not here. Not now.

  I struggle against his grip so fiercely the only way he can hold me still is to get on top of me and push down, his full weight behind him.

  The sound of footsteps quiets me. Luke presses flat against me, trying to blend into the shadows around us.

  Cedes…

  …Luke.

  Chapter 4

  Node: 100

  Luke rolls onto his back when the footsteps recede. Turning over and staring through the opening in the trees, I see the octet of coppers that passed us as they continue east. “What happened? The blood.”

  He stares up into the trees. “Ardents. They must have staged their attack from here. It’s why there wasn’t another airship, why the Cogents were taken by surprise.”

  I press my hand into his, ignoring the sticky red its covered in. “Are you okay? I didn’t hear any blaster fire.”

  “No worse off than I was before,” he says, with glum understatement. I can see he has a fresh laceration. He gets up, helps me to my feet. “We’re not safe here.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” I say eventually. “We need to get to Central. Together. It’s our best hope. Do you know anything about Ardent strategy?”

  Luke stands, shakes his head. His eyes start scanning the street. “I don’t, not really. That’s the second patrol I’ve seen. We must be close to the core of their operations.”

  “Will they stop patrolling when it gets dark? City Blue practically shuts down at night.”

  Luke seems to finally notice his hands are covered in blood. He kneels down, wipes them in the foliage at his feet. “That’s about energy conservation. Much of their auxiliary power comes from the sun, especially with lower-functions.”

  “Lower functions?” I say. “You mean worker machines, augments?”

  “It’s not that. It’s the mechanicals and…” He frowns. “Look, I don’t know. The street’s clear we need to get moving.”

  I don’t say anything about his missing blaster or the large serrated shard of shiny composite he picks up from the grass.

  He leads me by the hand from the trees. “The coppers went east. We’ll go west.”

  I go with him, but I’m wary. I don’t know if I can trust him completely.

  Cedes, I came back for you, didn’t I?

  He’s in my thoughts. I forgot he was there.

  Of course, I’m here. It wasn’t easy, I never left you, even when you thought I did. But I needed to…

  The admission stuns me. “You knew Ardents were here. It’s why you left me,” I say. “You could’ve been killed and then where would we be?”

  Though he doesn’t reply, his eyes confirm my suspicion. Squeezing his hand, I look over my right shoulder and back to the intersection we’ve just crossed. The street sign is uprooted like a tree, partially obscured, but readable: Bowery.

  I know the street name from the old city map which I see clearly in my mind. “This way,” I say as I start to double back. “It’ll take us north and west.”

  Luke hesitates. Sharing with him what I see in my thoughts, doesn’t put an end to the disagreement. “Broadway. We know Broadway,” he says.

  I start to reply, but I’m silenced by a sudden whoosh over our heads, like a racing engine screeching to a halt. Luke pulls me into the shadow of a nearby building. Looking up, I can’t believe what I’m seeing as the sound reverberates and repeats.

  Airships. They’re suddenly appearing in the sky around the burning hulk of the Cogent airship. Three arrive nearly simultaneously, and then three more an instant later.

  Vertical wings, crescents and eyes pour out of the first three ships likes angry black ants out of an anthill. The airships that arrived later respond in kind.

  Suddenly, the air over our heads is blackened with wings, crescents and eyes. They’re swirling, spinning, shooting at each other.

  The airships power up weapons. I can hear the hum of their power sources even as red and blue flashes as long as buildings lash out, cutting wide swaths through the air.

  I bounce on the balls of my feet as I run, pulling Luke behind me. I don’t know where the sudden reserves come from, but I don’t question anything. I just run.

  Chapter 5

  Node: 101

  The orange ball of the sun is but a memory in the twilight that surrounds us. The sign says Union Square. That’s where I stop, but only because I’m doubled over in pain and straining so hard to breathe everything is spinning.

  The airships and machines continue to wage war on each other. Burning flyers are falling from the sky and striking the ground all around us. Every few seconds a new fireball goes up and the earth shakes as the impact sets off a fiery explosion.

  I don’t know how long I expected it to take for the machines to kill each other. Somehow, I thought the fight would be over by now. It seems like I’ve been running for such a long time, even though I know it hasn’t really been that long.

  We passed only twelve intersections. I know there are at least twice that many to go before we reach Central.

  “I can’t, I can’t,” I say.

  Luke is doubled over, struggling as hard as I am to breathe. “You can... We can... We must.”

  I watch his face for a few seconds, and then look up, into the sky, and toward the battle. More than half of the airships are trailing smoke and fire. They’re still in the same proximity to the original Cogent airship; they seem to be moving through some strange sort of opera.

  They maneuver, angle toward each other. Their lasers fire, ripping red and blue across the smoke-filled twilight.

  Flyers buzz all around the airships. Tiny black dots with angry wings in a fiery swarm.

  “Will it ever stop?” I ask.

  Luke hangs his head. “I don’t know; I don’t know. I feel them. They’re in my head, screaming out to me. They’re dying. Dying.”

  I drop down in front of him, looking up into his eyes. “I had no idea,” I say, “I didn’t know. I can’t… I should’ve…”

  I don’t finish what I was going to say. Instead, I push my way into the forefront of his thoughts.

  I pull him down to me and we lay there on our backs, panting, looking up at the destruction. The strange death dance continues.

  As I glance at h
im every now and again, I can see the sheer terror of what’s happening reflected in his eyes. This part of him is lost to me. I don’t sense it; I can’t feel his pain.

  I want him thinking about Central, not Cogents. “Sierra and the others must be terrified. They won’t understand what’s happening. We have to reach them before the machines do.”

  “Cedes, they won’t understand any of this. The hard part is going to be convincing Matthew that we need to leave the city immediately, tonight.”

  I hadn’t really thought about what we would do or what must happen when we reached Central. “Tonight? Where will we go? Leaving Central isn’t something we’ve ever prepared for. All our preparations are meant to sustain Central. I thought we would… Well, I thought we would—”

  Seeing the stunned look on his face, I almost know what he’s going to say before he says it. “Would what, hide out in Central until this is all over? The machines aren’t going anywhere. They’re going to tear each other, us, and this city apart until they find whatever it is they’re looking for.”

  Two lumbering airships collide midair, folding into each other. Fiery explosions ripple outward consuming them. A third airship plows into their midst, cutting clean through them and sending burning debris flying.

  I roll on my side, fixing my eyes on him. “It’s not our war. It’s theirs. We don’t have to have any part of it.”

  “You’re wrong,” Luke says quietly. “We have everything to do with it. We are part of it. We’ve always been part of it.”

  I frown and shake my head. “Is that what you think?”

  “It’s what I know,” he says. “I know we’re connected, but I’m connected to them in ways you can’t even begin to understand. I don’t know why you can’t see those parts of my mind. In a way, I wish you could, but it’s better this way.”

  Without warning, a vertical wing careens from the sky, striking a nearby building. The impact and ensuing explosion get us to our feet. Rock and fragments of the machine shower down on us, even as I shout, “This way, this way!”

  A series of impacts follow, up Park and all around us. It’s like a large formation of wings just fell out of the sky.

  I look up and see why. A new kind of ship has joined the fray. They’re shaped like the compass rose on a map, only they’re 3-dimensional and laser fire is emitting out of every point as they spin and spin.

  “Cedes, in here,” Luke says, pulling me into a building to get out of the resulting rain of debris.

  We happen upon a pod, cracked open, with its human occupant spilled out onto the floor. The copper is male, with brown hair, I can see that much. I can hear him too. He’s moaning, moving slowly, like he’s trying to get up, but can’t. He has a blaster in his hand.

  “Ardent,” Luke hisses, pressing me back with an extended hand. He readies the thick shard of glass composite he’s been carrying, throwing himself at the copper without any warning.

  I have to look away from what happens next. “I don’t want to see. I don’t want to know,” I say, so I don’t have to hear what’s happening either.

  Luke comes back to me, cups a bloodied hand under my chin. “It’s nothing I wanted to do. It’s what I had to do, to survive.”

  “No, no. It isn’t.” I can’t look at him. I can’t.

  “Look at me, Cedes,” he says. “This is what we are now. Not by choice, but it’s what we’ve become. It’s us or them. Kill or be killed.”

  Chapter 6

  Node: 101

  Rolling the pod out of the building should have been the least of our concerns; getting the pod to fly should have been the hard part. It turns out we were wrong on both accounts. The pod didn’t come out of the building as easily as it must’ve gone in, but it was easier to override the controls when we weren’t under attack.

  I pilot while Luke looks back for any sign of the machines. We fly low and slow, not only because we’re trying to stay out of sight and not attract unwanted attention, but because the pod is damaged and running on energy reserves.

  The grim spectacle above continues. Somewhere inside me a small voice agonizes over the senselessness of it all. Me, I want to scream: Die, die, die.

  But they don’t. They swirl and carve the heavens as their macabre ballet continues. I recognize the tall ghosts we’re passing and know we’re getting closer. Only a handful of intersections remain.

  I’m anxious and angry. I don’t know why I’m so angry, but I am. It was better when I didn’t know what want the machines had of us, better when I didn’t know what we were to them.

  I want to close my eyes. I want to hear wind in the trees, rain on grass. I want to feel sunshine on my face. Instead, I float in darkness.

  The thought of what comes next has me worried. It’s one thing for me to run off and leave Central behind, but soon I have to ask those I abandoned to do the same.

  “What if Matthew and the others won’t listen to reason?” I say, leaning the pod to the left to avoid the rubble ahead.

  The cramped quarters don’t give Luke much room to move, but he tries to turn toward me. “It’s like we’re limping when we should be running.”

  “Changing the subject?” I say.

  “Just stating the obvious,” he says, with a grin.

  I share his frustration. The speed meter in the heads-up display is barely registering and the energy reserves indicator continues to flash red insistently.

  We’re going much faster than if we walked or ran on our own. Still, it feels like we’re barely moving compared to how fast I know a pod can fly.

  “Is that?” Luke says, pointing ahead.

  I breathe out a breath I hadn’t even realized I was holding in. Though the twilight is deepening, I see what he sees: Central, directly ahead. Three intersections away, no more.

  I never thought the sight of anything could make my heart skip in such a way. “Do you have a plan?” I say.

  “Yes.” He doesn’t say anything more and I trust that he does.

  A debris pile. I swerve to avoid it. The pod skids against pavement, bounces up, and then hard stops. We’ve exhausted the reserves and have to walk. When we crack open the pod and spill out into the street, I hear blaster fire and drop to the ground. Luke falls down beside me.

  My stomach is in knots. I crawl into the shadows. The ruins around us offer no shortage of hiding places. Luke and I slip into one.

  “You okay?” I ask.

  “Yes,” Luke says. “You?”

  I’ve no idea where the round came from. It was close, but I didn’t see its flash. “Did you see where?”

  “Close, ahead.”

  I hear him moving away. “Luke?” I say.

  He scrambles to the pod, searches. When he crawls back, he has our blasters, but thankfully doesn’t seem to have found the serrated edge he was carrying earlier. The second blaster belonged to the copper we took the pod from.

  One of the things I thank the machines for is their tactical and weapons training. It’s a blessing and a curse. I can’t help thinking about what Luke said earlier. How it’s us or them. Kill or be killed.

  I take a blaster, ready it. “Can you sense anything?”

  “I should be able to, but I can’t. Ardents, maybe.”

  Luke raises two fingers to his eyes and signals for us to move. We slip toward a broken staircase. Deepening shadows help conceal us as we shuffle up and into the broken building.

  Another round breaks the silence. I see its red glow flash up the street. “Whoever is out there is close,” he says. “Each building here occupies a city block. It’s hard to be certain but they might be inside the next building up on the opposite side of the street.”

  I kneel down in front of Luke. My eyes are adjusting to the shadows. I can see every line of his face. “What are you thinking?”

  “The shots seem to be random, not aimed at anything I can see. Could be a lone survivor from a pod fall.”

  “Two against one, those are better odds,” I say, but I’m h
esitant to believe my own words. Nothing has gone our way. “Can we slip past and get to Central?”

  His footsteps light, Luke moves into the shadows between two broken-out windows. “If we slip past, whoever it is may find us later. We can’t have that when we’re trying to make our escape.”

  I watch his eyes as they scan. “Enough killing. Let’s just get home.”

  “Cedes, I don’t think—”

  I grab his free hand. “Luke, please… Enough.”

  Luke lowers his blaster, steps back from the window. “Okay, let’s go.”

  Instead of going back out to the street, we work our way through the building. With all the rubble and debris, it’s not easy going.

  The open air of the cross street is just ahead. I can tell Luke wants to sprint out and into the next building, but it’s set back too far from the street. Fortunately, the greenery that’s grown over the concrete will give us some cover. Once we cross the street, we can slide into the shrubs and stunted trees.

  Slipping outside, I turn to the side and press my back up against the stones. I follow Luke as he shuffles sideways.

  We creep along the edge of the building, studying the street and scanning the shadows. At Luke’s signal, I slink into the open first.

  My heart beats in my ears until I complete the crossing. When I find cover, I wave Luke to me.

  We continue through the green patch, moving toward Central. Across the street is the building where the shots came from. My eyes flash left at regular intervals to scan the shadows.

  The next intersection puts us one block away from home. I’m so close I can almost see the joyful look that’ll be in Sierra’s eyes when she sees us. I run into the intersection, ignoring Luke’s wait signal.

  I run for the shadow of the next building. Luke follows.

  A shot rings out. It’s behind us, directly behind us. Nothing and no one should be that close, except Luke.

  I spin around. Luke may have looked anxious before, but now he looks broken, crestfallen. When he drops to his knees, I see the shooter standing behind him. I don’t hesitate. I shoot. My round striking the center of the shooter’s chest.