by Kyle Noe
Moments later, Samantha climbed onto the back of an olive-colored Jeep that had been fortified with sheets of metal. There were two other resistance fighters inside who looked twice at Samantha, but didn’t say anything. Detwyler secured his rifle. He held up a pistol to Samantha along with a magazine of ammo. “I’m figuring you know your way around one of these, huh?”
Samantha didn’t reply, just took the magazine and jacked it into the gun. Then she expertly released its safety and pulled back on the receiver, a spring propelling the slide home, chambering a round. Detwyler smiled and signaled for the driver to drive as the Jeep set off. Samantha eased back, pulling Zeus the robot out of her backpack. She stared at his tiny metallic head and tapped on his metal head and whispered, “I’m not afraid of you.” Then she placed Zeus back into the backpack and closed her eyes as the Jeep rumbled down battle-scarred, industrial road, vanishing into the haze of a late day.
1
THE LIE
Q uinn’s and Cody’s faces betrayed little emotion as they galloped through a corridor in the alien orbital command ship, sprinting against the shriek of alarms. They’d been ambushed in Cody’s lab by a secret Syndicate eavesdropping unit called Icarus and miraculously found a way to turn the tables on their attackers. There’d been a violent struggle and a fire, and the lab was in shambles, but they’d managed to overcome the aliens and blast them out through a hatch into deep space.
They’d also grabbed the silver objects, what Cody had called temporal totems, and stowed them in two rucksacks that they carried, thinking it better that the objects not be discovered at the site of what would be perceived as a crime scene. Their discovery by the Syndicate was imminent, the only thing that remained unanswered was whether they’d be able to conjure up an excuse quickly enough for what had happened in the lab that was both believable and compelling.
A delegation of Syndicate soldiers could be seen peripherally down another walkway. Quinn grabbed Cody and pulled him back into the relative safety of an alcove.
“Now, here?” he asked with a hint of a grin.
“It’s not the time for jokes,” she said in a harsh whisper. “We need to get our story straight.”
Cody nodded. “Okay, right, so… there was a fight.”
Quinn stared at him. “Please tell me that was a joke.”
“What?”
“You’re too smart to be this stupid.”
“Was that a compliment?”
“We have to come up with a cover story, you jackass!”
Cody squinted as if running down some mental checklist. “I got it!”
“Yes!” Quinn exclaimed.
“There was a really big fight,” Cody said, snapping his fingers.
“That’s the best cover story you could come up with?” Quinn asked.
“It’s the truth, Quinn.”
“The truth is gonna get us killed!”
Quinn turned and looked outside, fighting to come up with something, anything and then it hit her. “They were traitors.”
“Exactly!” Cody said, a lazy smile on his face. “Wait? Who’s the traitor?”
“They were, you idiot. The alien and the Syndicate soldiers from the Icarus unit were trying to recruit us into a group to steal objects for them when we returned to Earth.”
“The temporal totems?”
Quinn nodded. “We’ll show Marin and the others what we found. They won’t know what to make of the objects, and we’ll use them as proof for our story. We’ll say they forced their way into the lab and were putting pressure on us. We said we wouldn’t go along with them and a fight broke out, and we acted in self-defense.”
Cody thought about this.
“You think they’ll buy it?” he asked.
“They better. It’s the only thing we’ve got to sell.”
She turned to continue on down the corridor, when Cody pulled her back in for a kiss. For a moment, she accepted it, his warm lips sending chills down her spine, but she pulled back.
“That… was a mistake,” she said. “I mean, what I did, before.”
“You can’t say that.” His eyes had a horrified expression.
“No, I mean…” She took his hand, put it on her heart, and held his gaze. “I want this, believe me. But now? With everything going on around us? How ‘bout we kill these fuckers, then deal with what’s going on between us?”
“That’s going to be a lot of built up sexual tension,” he said, his smile returning.
“Oh believe me,” she replied with a laugh. “I’ll be ready to take care of it for you.”
“I meant on your part,” he winked, “and I’m kinda scared you’ll break me.”
She hit him playfully, gave him a kiss to tide them both over until they’d destroyed the Syndicate scum, and then the two continued on.
QUINN AND CODY found Marin who was meeting with a group of Syndicate big shots in a multi-level conference room in the heart of the command ship.
Sound leeched from the room when Quinn and Cody strolled in, silver objects in hand.
“We were looking for you two,” Marin said, flashing a zippered smile. “There’s been an incident.”
“Like you don’t know,” Quinn said.
Marin immediately appeared caught off guard. She shared quick looks with the Syndicate officials, then said, “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Sergeant Quinn.”
“We know what you guys did,” Quinn replied. “And we’re going to the Potentate about it.”
Anger flared in Marin’s eyes along with a snatch of what Quinn thought looked a little like fear. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Quinn sensed an opening and decided to go for broke. “You sent those snoops to kill us!” she said, stabbing a finger in Marin’s direction.
“What in God’s name are you—”
“Don’t act like you don’t know!”
Quinn gestured to Cody, who set the temporal totems down on the ground.
“There were four of them,” she said to Marin. “Four spies who forced us to locate items for them when we returned to Earth. We brought them back and they attacked us in the lab. They said they wanted to make sure that we didn’t talk, and we almost didn’t make it out alive.”
Marin hesitated, and Quinn advanced on her.
“Now,” Quinn added, “I don’t know who the hell was helping those bastards, but somebody was trying to take us out!”
“Well, it wasn’t me,” Marin said, taking a step back in surprise. “I can assure you that if there were rogue actors, they were not operating at the behest of the Potentate.”
Quinn looked to the Syndicate officials.
“We almost died in that lab.”
“I’m sorry,” Marin muttered.
“Sorry is what you say when you forget to the take the dog out for a piss. I want a formal investigation into the whole thing so that it doesn’t happen again.”
Marin nodded, and Quinn had to suppress a smirk. She couldn’t believe it was working. Marin was so taken aback by Quinn’s tone and posture that she’d barely bothered to ask a question. The notion that the Syndicate would actually investigate itself was laughable, but Quinn had a hunch that it would take some of the heat off her and Cody.
“I will relay your concerns to the Potentate,” Marin said.
Quinn nodded. She and Cody grabbed the temporal totems and turned to leave when Marin called after her, asking, “What are those anyway?”
Quinn looked back. “Come again?”
“Those two objects. What are they?”
A few seconds of silence stretched as Quinn struggled for just the right words, and then Cody blurted out, “It’s like Quinn said. They’re contraband.”
Marin pursed her lips, but Cody, a natural scientist, couldn’t help himself. “We’re going to dispose of them.”
This seemed to assuage any concerns Marin had as Quinn and Cody exited the room and headed off back toward the lab. Quinn’s steps were heavy with the though
t that they’d struck first blood against the Syndicate and lived to tell about it. At least for the moment.
2
SAFE HOUSE
As far back as Giovanni could remember, the monsters had come for him in the blue light of pre-dawn. There was the one he was convinced lived between floors in his house, for instance, the slithering monstrosity with ten, whippet-thin arms that lurked in the ductwork, emerging in the wee hours to harvest the “crusties” that lay at the corner of his eyes. And then there was the spider-like thing that hid in the piping, reeking of sewage, crafty enough to crawl up out of the sink after dark to nibble on his toenails.
Giovanni hadn’t thought about these things for years, but as he sat in the back of a tactical vehicle, watching the gruesome Syndicate drones fall from the sky, it all came rushing back to him with the suddenness of a punch to the face.
Luke and Calee were at his side, the three of them gazing up into the early morning sky, heavy with hovering gliders. They could see the mechanized killing machines dropping out of the open ports on the vessels’ bellies like demons jettisoned from some terrible birth canal, riding metal leads called ‘ratlines’ to the ground, ready to conduct a sweep of the northern part of Las Vegas.
“Same thing’s happening at most other major cities,” Luke said. “We’ve got reports coming in that major offensive operations are over. Instead of attacking in full force, they’re conducting smaller probes.”
Giovanni took this in. “Surgical strikes?”
“More like snatch and grab operations,” Calee replied. “They come down, raise some hell, and suck up anyone over the age of eighteen. Lately, they’ve been targeting some of our operators. LRP units coming in from the field.”
“Which is why we need to reach Detwyler and the others before they do,” Giovanni said. He leaned back, worried that the Syndicate might reach a long-range patrol, a group of resistance fighters led by a warrior named Detwyler. They’d communicated with Detwyler two days before, and he’d said they’d taken casualties out in the heartland. They’d gathered intelligence, confronted the enemy, and made contact with other resistance groups spread out across the Midwest. Giovanni was shocked when Detwyler mentioned meeting up with a young girl, one who’d helped them ambush several Syndicate patrols. The girl had gone off with another group, but Giovanni was eager to talk with Detwyler to determine whether the girl might be Quinn’s daughter.
Luke tapped Giovanni on the shoulder. “So, how come we’re risking our necks to talk up some grunt who’s come in from the wilderness?”
Giovanni looked over at Luke. “We’re risking our asses because he’s likely got some information on the daughter of a friend, that’s why.”
“Quinn’s kid?”
Giovanni nodded.
Luke smirked. “Quinn better be one goddamn special lady.”
“She is,” Giovanni replied. “She’ll be the first one to tell you that.”
Giovanni watched ribbons of black smoke billow in the distance.
“HEAD EAST!” Giovanni shouted as the driver of the tac vehicle swerved down a side street, rumbling across a pockmarked ribbon of cement.
“How far?” Calee asked.
“Half a mile, maybe less,” came Giovanni’s response.
He looked to the back of the tac vehicle, the machine’s extended bed packed to the gills with heavily-armed resistance fighters.
Giovanni’s head jerked to the west where he watched the drones continue to descend to Earth, dozens of them, fanning out, heading toward their position.
“We’re gonna make it,” Luke said, reaching out a hand to Giovani. “Relax, okay? We’re platinum. We are going to do this, and then we’ll—”
BOOM!
A missile detonated out in front of the tac vehicle, a blast that carved a divot ten feet deep in the road. The driver sawed the wheel, and the tac vehicle careened sideways, smashing into several parked cars, yet miraculously avoiding flipping over.
The vehicle came to a stop, and Giovanni thought back to a time during one of the last wars, the first of two conflicts in Yemen, when he and his team had been hit by an IED, their vehicle disabled on the lip of a desert verge. Some of the men had foolishly stayed in the bed of the truck and had been gunned down by snipers, which is why he turned and screamed, “Out! Everyone out.”
The resistance fighters spilled out of the tac vehicle and took up positions around a one-story ranch house. There was a smattering of debris in the front yard, several additional cars, and hillocks of material that had likely been stripped from the house during the post-invasion looting. All of it could serve as a crude bulwark. The fighters watched the Syndicate drones grinding down the streets toward them followed by a small delegation of Syndicate soldiers that were bringing up the rear.
Several of the smaller drones buzzed through the air, circling overhead, presumably beaming back information for the larger machines, the ones that looked like bull elephants with tank turrets grafted onto their upper bodies.
Giovanni closed his eyes and listened to the pneumatic hiss of the machines’ leg joints and the thumping sound the drones made when they expelled green gas from rear vents, the end product of what he believed was the source of their power.
While the Syndicate had spared most of downtown Las Vegas, it was not unusual for them to operate in the far-flung suburbs. Giovanni had seen intelligence footage of Syndicate teams sweeping entire neighborhoods, searching for people and information. Some of the people, mainly the able-bodied, would be taken away and sucked up into space, while the others were gunned down or blown up where they huddled in their houses. Anger gripped him, and he squinted at the street where the drones, perhaps fifteen in all, had turned their attention to the stricken tactical vehicle.
“Hold your fire,” he whispered to the others while checking the firing bolt on his fusion rifle.
“Don’t fire until you see the reds of their eyes,” Calee said, sharing a look with him, smiling darkly.
Luke handed out ballistic grenades like a school teacher dispensing cupcakes as Giovanni consulted with a bull-necked resistance fighter who held a ruggedized hand-tablet. The tablet, a palm-sized device, showed a map of the area, including their current position and the location of the safe house. The drones were positioned directly between them and their objective.
“What say?” Luke asked.
“I say those things maneuver best on solid ground,” Giovanni replied.
Luke nodded. “What have you got in mind?”
“How ‘bout we level the playing field?”
Giovanni motioned to the other fighters, and they huddled. He explained the necessity of planting some of the grenades in strategic positions in the lawn at the front of the house. The other fighters backtracked to the side of the structure as Giovanni and Luke wedged the grenades at various locations and jogged back. The fighters took cover as the grenades exploded, trenching the ground, making it uneven, and drawing the attention of the drones.
The machines rumbled forward and then hesitated near the holes and the attendant debris. While the things could certainly take flight for short periods of time, the area was so chocked with trash and the other material that there was likely not enough space for them to land. Giovanni counted on the drones being tentative, at least for a few seconds. That’s all he needed. Just enough time for him and the others to spring the trap.
Giovanni sighted his rifle, focusing on the first of two bubble-tops that crowned the turret of the first drone. By every measure, the bubble-top was the weakest spot on the drone, an area where a well-placed shot could inflict a significant blow to the drone’s operational capacity. A Syndicate operator was visible inside, consulting computer equipment while piloting the machine. Whether the operator was a machine, an alien, or some horrible combination of the two mattered little. He was the enemy and hellbent on killing the resistance fighters, so Giovanni sucked in a breath and fired a shot.
The first sabot from his gun split the bubbl
e-top, and the second bisected the operator, blowing him in half in a spray of yellow and green liquid. The other resistance fighters witnessed this and cheered, then let loose with their weapons.
Without its primary operator, the lead drone groaned and bucked and wildly loosed fire from its two front-mounted chain guns. Balls of plasma shrieked past Giovanni and the others as Luke grabbed a ballistic grenade and hurled it like a fastball.
The grenade air-burst near the drone’s ankle joints, shredding the hydraulic conduits. The machine toppled backward onto three other advancing drones, and writhed like a toppled turtle.
Another grenade landed in the middle of the beached drone, obliterating it in a fireball that provided cover for the resistance fighters who charged en masse across the lawn.
Giovanni was with them, firing on the run, watching return fire from the drones’ laser past him like tracer rounds.
The bull-necked resistance fighter was running alongside him when an enemy round—
WHAM!
Slammed into the fighter, catapulting his body forty feet into the air and through the front windows of the one-story ranch.
Mortar rounds began dropping as an airborne drone sliced by, distending a mass of metallic tentacles that ensnared a female resistance fighter. Giovanni watched the drone pull the screaming woman up into the air until she was barely visible, and then it dropped her.
The woman shrieked, windmilling her arms, falling through the air before her body broke apart on the roof of an adjacent house.
“Fuckers!” Calee said, pulling up next to Giovanni. She had a Hafnium rocket launcher over one shoulder and was hungry for targets.
“Cover me!” she said, and Giovanni did, turning and firing several rounds as the drones regrouped and menacingly moved forward.
The chain guns on the drones turned night to day, spitting fire continuously, as Calee dove for cover. She scrabbled behind a brick wall and rose and fired her rocket.
