by Tom Dowd
Caught in intersecting blasts, many were simply torn to shreds. The rest were either knocked from their feet or stunned, while the insects wasted no time descending upon them in force.
"God fragging damn!" Soaring Owl screamed. "Second and third teams in! Booby trap alerts!"
"Second Team alert advance. Third Team alert advance. Explosive trap warning in effect," Sakai said calmly. "Repeat, Second and Third Team advance. Explosive traps are present."
Other troopers entered the fray, some engaging the furious ants and flies and wasps directly, while others attempted to pull the injured from the main area of battle. Then more explosions suddenly tore open the ceiling, rocket hits blasting holes big enough for more combat drones to enter. Kyle saw one firing repeated bursts of green-white laser beams that cut deadly swaths through the swarming, flying, crawling, shrieking wave of deadly insect spirits.
"Demolition charge one firing," Sakai said.
And another explosion rocked the building, but this one was shaped downward and shattered a huge section of floor. The drones moved quickly to descend as teams of troopers struggled to assemble at the edges of the hole, prepared to drop into the smoky darkness below.
Then, without warning, the gates of hell opened.
A horde of insect spirits, scores, maybe hundreds, exploded out of the hole. Ants, roaches, beetles, wasps, flies, nearly every creeping or flying kind Kyle had ever seen came forth from the hole. Many resembled the actual insect, but far more were half-creatures catapulted into the main room by the force of the others' flight and leap from the hole.
And the swarm didn't stop.
Kyle turned his head and looked at one of the monitors showing the outside of the warehouse and the black stream of insect spirits pouring out from the ruptured roof.
"Mother of god…" said Soaring Owl.
Once outside, the bug spirits scattered in all directions, some flying, some darting and skittering down off the roof or through the broken, smoking windows.
Inside, the troopers were overwhelmed. Maybe a hundred flesh forms attacked them, with more crawling up out of the hole or now coming up the stairways. The creatures couldn't hold against the Knight Errant firepower, but there were too many, moving too quickly. The aerial drones seemed to be the most successful at decimating the force of attacking flesh forms.
Soaring Owl was shaken. The sheer number of ungodly creatures pouring from the hive was tremendous, far more than the picket line of spirits could ever hope to restrain. He turned to Sakai.
"Signal we have a break out situation," he said, his voice cracking. "And note for the record that I am preparing Damocles."
Sakai flinched and her eyes flicked in his general direction, but all she said was, "Yes, sir." And then into the communications net: "All units, we are under break out situation. Repeat, break out situation. Initiate Plan Centerpoint. Repeat, initiate Centerpoint. All commands signal acknowledgment"
Kyle was watching Sakai, but then turned back to Soaring Owl as the man pulled his head back from what could only have been a retinal print scanner. Immediately, three monitors that had been showing redundant trideo images changed. One showed black, and the other two gave technical information and displays that Kyle didn't recognize. One of them, though, seemed to be the status for a vehicle of some kind.
All the monitors showed the Knight Errant troopers obviously withdrawing. And taking the wounded with them. The cluttering, buzzing, hissing horde of vile things continued to attack.
The van suddenly shook as something hammered against it. More hammering followed, and a couple of monitors began to flicker.
Soaring Owl looked up for a moment, then pulled a long optical cable from the console in front of him and connected it to his datajack. The displays changed, and the black screen brightened, giving the camera view of a drone inside a launch bay of some kind. The unit designator "Damocles" appeared on the monitor as did a fuel display.
"Signal command mat we have found the primary hive," Soaring Owl said as indicators on one of the monitors changed. The drone was powering up. "As per instructions I have initiated Damocles and am solely responsible for its detonation."
"Detonation?" Kyle spun to face him.
The man's hands were shaking. "We've found, god help us, the central hive. The main North American hive. Who the frag would have thought they'd have hid it in a city?"
"I don't understand."
"This is it. The most powerful queens are here. All the others are commanded from here. We must destroy it"
Kyle shook his head. "You can't know that. We've got to withdraw. Those bug things are all over the city by now. Eagle's going to need all your-"
"If we can kill the queens, the rest of the hive is lost. Directionless. We have to kill the queens. Now." Daylight was appearing on the drone monitor; the bay doors were opening.
"There's no way you can get down there. Your people are stopped cold. If the queens are on the bottom level, you're not even going to get close before the sheer number and weight of those bugs ground your drone."
"Close, Mr. Teller," Soaring Owl said, "only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and thermonuclear weapons."
"Mother of god, you can't be serious."
Soaring Owl finally turned toward him slightly as the drone lifted from its cradle and rose up out of the bay. "We have no choice. It's small, tactical, less than a kiloton, but it will reach them. That's what counts."
Kyle stepped forward. "I can't let you do this."
"It's got to be done."
Kyle took a step toward Soaring Owl, one hand extended, as the Knight Errant technicians in the cabin began drawing their sidearms. Kyle was faster-the spell forming in his mind, the energy shaped, channeled through his body-when the truck suddenly lurched to one side, knocking both him and Soaring Owl down.
Metal screamed as it was peeled away, and the living biomatter lining that had kept the spirits at bay tore away with it. Kyle's spell unraveled and he reached for his weapon focus as the beetle spirit that had torn open the roof of the truck screeched and dove inside, followed by the gleaming bothes of its brethren.
Kyle screamed too and fought for his life as the horde dove at them amid their own wild shrieking. His voice was drowned by their sounds.
Part II Inside the Chicago Containment Area After 22 August 2055
21
There was gunfire, and Kyle awoke suddenly into darkness. Cold, hungry, and filled with pain that shot through him like electricity, beginning somewhere deep in his left leg and ripping through and across his hip, and then up into his back. He tried to cry out, but the only sound that came from his parched throat was a harsh, guttural cough. His hand lay in warm water, and he dragged his body to it, painfully, slowly, finally rolling into its soothing warmth with a final grunt.
There came the sound of more gunfire, nearby, and he tried to open his eyes, but couldn't. Touching them with the one hand he could lift that high, he felt the lids sealed shut by what felt like clotted blood. He worked to clear them with the warm water, and that brought more pain but also faint glimpses of dim light.
Two more shots echoed through the air, and then a scream. It wasn't a scream of pain, but one of final, inevitable death. Kyle could see now, just barely, and discovered he was wedged behind a tipped metal garbage dumpster and lying in a pool of rain water spilling off from a roof edge high overhead. It was night.
His body armor was torn, soggy from the recent rain, and stiff in places where his own blood had clotted. He tried to stand, but couldn't-the pain in his leg stopped him. Even trying to pull himself up using the dumpster was more than he could stand. Kyle let himself slide back into the pool of water and lay there for a moment as a soft irregular drip from high above splashed his skin. He shifted so that it fell on his face.
Kyle was sure his leg was broken in at least two places.
Most of the rest of his body hurt too, but those pains seemed to be from wounds, tears deep through his body armor and into
his flesh. He remembered the beetle spirit ripping open the roof of the Knight Errant command truck, and he remembered fighting against it and another spirit that flew with brilliant green iridescent wings, but he couldn't recall anything clearer than that.
He tried to focus his magic on his own body, drawing it through his True Self to begin the healing, but where the magic should have come as a torrent it only sparked, his command of it distorted by pain. He tried again, but this time his coordination of the forces unraveled even quicker. Kyle was too hurt to concentrate, even with the help of his foci. They were all there, he was-surprised to discover-the bracelets, the rings, and the amulet around his neck. Only his knife wasn't immediately at hand, but he could sense that his intangible connection to it was still intact. It was still active, somewhere.
It was then he felt another loss that was more an empty space where things had been. Kyle suddenly realized with utter certainty that he had no spirits, no elementals, bound to him. They were all gone, more than likely destroyed, though he couldn't be sure now. Then came the awareness of an even greater absence that almost swallowed him whole. Seeks-the-Moon was gone, lost. Their connection, omnipresent since the moment of the spirit's creation, was obliterated.
Kyle did not know how long he lay there, but it was some time before he felt the rain begin to pick up again, strong and warm. His body was weak, hungry, and on the verge of dehydration, but he needed to get to better shelter. If he was going to find it, though, it wouldn't be with the help of his nearly immobile body.
He relaxed as best he could, and after a moment his astral form slipped free of his pain-wracked physical being. Though he could still feel the pain, it was separate from him, distant enough that he could all but ignore it. Cautiously, he rose above the dumpster, rancid even in astral space, and extended his senses outward.
The streets were dark, dead, and cold, but splashed with the flickering lights and shadows of a number of fires blazing nearby. From the look of the area, he seemed still to be on Randolph, but across the road from the Knight Errant trucks, or rather what remained of them. Both were wrecked, and one of them still burned, a beacon of white energy in astral space. There was no other life to be seen, so he drifted cautiously toward the vehicles until he could see the dozen or so bodies among the wreckage, mangled and torn by either the attacking insect spirits or the explosion of the truck.
Turning, Kyle flew toward the intersection with Sangamon, where he saw more fires below-the Brotherhood warehouse was burning, along with a number of nearby buildings. Though it was hard to tell from astral space, it looked as though the fires had been going for some time and were nearly spent. He saw no life visible and did not go any closer. Kyle had no desire to see the death there.
Not wishing to leave his defenseless body for too long, Kyle searched the immediate area quickly, but found neither signs of human life nor the source of the gunfire heard earlier. The streets were desolate, scattered with debris and the occasional live fire or the embers of other ones. He wondered how long he'd been unconscious.
Kyle returned to the area near his body and searched the vicinity. The dumpster that hid his flesh was near a storefront that had been blasted partially inward, perhaps by one of the trucks exploding. That suddenly made him remember something, and he shot back across the street to search the twisted remains of the truck for a dimly remembered, half-launched drone, but he couldn't make much sense of the broken metal from astral space.
Returning to his body, Kyle fought back the wave of pain that wracked him as his limbs gave a slight involuntary jerk with the return of his spirit. He searched himself carefully, and found only his ID and credstick, his portable telecom and datacable, and his foci. His pistol was gone from its shoulder holster, as was the spare magazine. He was sure, though, that there were plenty of weapons and ammunition to be had in the carnage across the street. He tried to sit up again, but immediately collapsed back into the water. Kyle knew he was too weak for a complex, difficult working like healing magic, but perhaps he could get what he needed with a simpler spell than healing. He constructed the magic carefully, pacing himself to limit the strain on his body. He created a lattice of energy around his leg, holding it rigid. Then he extended elements of that field along his body, and then outward, pushing against the ground and the dumpster.
Slowly, Kyle lifted off the ground and rotated to a nearly upright position. Despite his best efforts, the pain and stress on his body were tremendous as he propelled himself through the already shattered storefront window with more force than he'd intended, desperate to end the spell and the pain.
In the dim light, he picked out what seemed to be a relatively clear portion of the floor and lowered himself carefully onto it. Down, and wincing from the jolt of pain, he used the last remnants of the spell to clear more of the area around him, pushing the piles of hardware and painting supplies away.
He sat back against the wall, satisfied that he was out of sight of any casual passerby or observer. There was no way of knowing who, or what, might look into the store and he was too weak to take any chances.
Next, he pulled the portaphone from his pocket and activated it. Immediately, a terrible, distorted squeal came from the small speaker, and he quickly turned it off. It was obviously broken, perhaps by his fall, or from the water, or…
Kyle turned it on again and listened to the squeal once more, carefully. There was nothing wrong with the telecom, he realized. It was being jammed-the squeal was the effect of a very powerful electronic countermeasure signal that was filling the airwaves. He wondered how localized the jamming was.
Kyle sighed and put the phone away, the stress of his exertions and his body's continuing fatigue pushing him toward sleep. He knew he could fight it and stay awake, but there seemed little point His body needed both rest and healing before he could get away from there. And if any threat should come along, he wasn't currently in any shape to defend himself. And so Kyle slept, barely noticing the increasing throb in his leg and the growing warmth of his own body.
****
He awoke sometime later, too cold and too warm, sweating and unable to ignore the pain in his leg. But it wasn't that which woke him. Somewhere, off in the distance, something was exploding. He could hear the quick series of detonations, and even felt the muffled rumble of the Shockwaves. Kyle didn't know what it was, and didn't care as he slipped back toward what passed for sleep.
****
When he next awoke, the light was blinding, but Kyle couldn't move or muster even the energy to open his eyes beyond painful slits. Outside, very close, perhaps on the street just beyond the storefront, he could hear the steady beat of helicopter blades. He even thought he could feel a slight rush of warm air.
But it was too bright, he was too cold, and he need to sleep more. Only to sleep.
****
He slid deeper into the cooling darkness, suspended there, waiting for change…
****
He saw haze. A gunshot sounded, echoing in his head, slowing, drawing itself out into a terrible drone. Incessant, it tore gashes in him, sending waves of pain through his body.
A girl's voice spoke, Natalie's. "Daddy, can you make it dance again? Can you make it spin more?"
Kyle fought, won, and opened his eyes, blinking against the perspiration that stung them. She was nearby, sitting in a pool of rusty water and wearing the dark dress they had bought her for her grandmother's funeral. She was trying to spin a delicate glass figurine; it would twirl for a moment and then begin to fall. But she'd catch it before it touched the ground and make it spin again.
She didn't move, but he heard her say, "Do you see the colors? The colors spin like she does."
"Natalie," he thought he said, and the glass dancer spun, twirling the light it caught. And she turned too, slower, as the figurine faltered, one leg dipping and cutting the dirty water. Half her face smiled, lit with joy at seeing him. The other half rippled, thousands of dark shapes crawling and surging across it.
She started to speak, to laugh or cry, and the bugs fell from her mouth, tumbled down and struck the glass dancer as it tilted too far.
Light exploded from it, forcing his eyes shut and him away into a far deeper place.
"NATALIE!" he heard Beth scream as he felt me brush of wings and air moving past him. He reached out and touched silk, hair, warm skin, a deepening wetness, and then nothing.
Glass shattered, red and black shards fell around him. He felt the wings again, but this time they were dark and musty. Kyle opened his eyes and saw the bird. Ebony and sleek, its power stolen from him, sharp blue eyes in a face wrinkled from age. Its head tilted as it regarded him. He reached for it, but could not see his hand, could not touch it.
The bird flew into the darkness, revealing a light that grew beyond Kyle's understanding, too bright too see, too strong to contain. It enveloped him, consumed him, and he screamed, his voice echoing out into the darkness that returned…
He heard voices next, close by, and then the hard press of hands against him. He knew he should cry out, protect himself, but he was so tired and his body so numb. He thought his mouth moved, though he couldn't hear his own voice. And then he did, but it wasn't his own voice, though very close, very familiar, and something sparked deep within him and gave him unlooked for hope against the darkness.
"Don't worry." Seeks-the-Moon said, "you're safe now. I found you."
Kyle slept again, and dreamed of quiet laughter.
22
There was a breeze, and it brought to him the smell of food. Cheese, he thought, and maybe bread. And there was softness beneath him, and he was dry. Kyle opened his eyes slowly and blinked against the thin shafts of light slipping in through the curtains. Someone in the room moved, and he heard a voice: "You're awake?" It was Seeks-the-Moon.
