by Harrison, S.
Feeling instantly more alert, I fish an ammo belt out of another crate and sling it across my chest. I hook one smoke canister and four high-explosive grenades to the belt and walk toward the central desk, snatching an automatic rifle from another soldier’s hands as I go. I pull it to my shoulder, and Corporal Avary hastily leaps out of the way as I scan the holoscreens through the gun sights.
The displays show the smoke outside is clearing; the Drones’ cover is dissipating. It’s useless now, and the robots seem to know it. Three of the androids make a sudden dash for the building where Private Sekula is positioned, and he impressively manages to rupture one of their heads as the other two leap at the side of the structure and begin to climb. When they reach the top, he’ll be dead. But that’s the least of my concerns as I watch the five remaining Drones on the ground barreling out of the haze at full speed, heading straight for the command post. They are my first priority. I pull the trigger.
With a string of loud bangs, the rifle kicks repeatedly in my arms as I shoot straight through the holoscreens, shattering the courtyard-facing windows into a fine lattice of cracks. I throw the smoking rifle aside. It clatters on the floor as I vault onto the central desk and jump, tucking my knees toward my chest as I cannonball at the glass and bust through the window in a shower of glittering fragments. My clothes ruffle against my body as I drop three full stories. As the ground speeds up to meet me, I quickly thrust a hand out, catch a lamppost, and spiral two full revolutions around it before my shoes tap lightly on the paving stones and I’m off, arms blading through the air as I sprint across the courtyard and out into the open. With a quick glance to my right, I see the Drones approaching. They’re about thirty meters away, but swerving quickly toward the stairwell door that leads up to the command post. I need to draw them toward me.
Midstride, I whip a pistol from its thigh holster, spear my arm in their direction, and drum my finger on the trigger. The gun flares and jolts in my palm as I sprint in a wide, curving arc. Even though I’m tearing across the courtyard at full speed, firing one-handed at moving targets, my adrenalized mind is processing everything at quadruple the normal rate.
My heartbeat is steady and strong, my breathing is measured and controlled, my limbs feel like tightly coiled ropes of pumping muscle, and my senses are sharp and crystal clear as my gun-holding hand rises and falls in time with my footsteps to maintain an unwavering line. I instinctively know how much lead to give my shots to compensate for my forward momentum. It pays off as I hear fifteen of my twenty bullets hit their marks. One even spacks an android square in the face, but the ballistic glass easily deflects the small-caliber-pistol round. I knew a handgun wouldn’t do any damage to the androids, but my little attention-getting barrage serves its intended purpose as all five Drones skid to a halt, turn their rifles in my direction, and open fire.
I throw the empty pistol away, pull the smoke canister from the ammo belt, and hurl it toward the five robots as I bound into the air, tucking into a side flip as bullets whizz past me. I straighten my body, then roll in midair. When I hit the ground, I pump my limbs against the paving stones like pistons, springing like a cat into a two-meter-high sideways arc. I land in a low crouch right where I wanted to be, obscured from the Drones’ line of fire by the trunk of a large oak tree fifteen meters in front of me. The smoke grenade begins spewing thick gray clouds, and I listen carefully to the thuds of the Drones’ footsteps as they advance on my position, trudging right into the center of the dense fog. The Drones will round that tree in no time, but this will only work if I wait for the perfect moment. I keep my head down and wait, tuning my ears to the sound of their steps.
Thud . . . thud . . . thud . . . thud . . . NOW!
I quickly hold down all four safety levers on the high-explosive grenades with one hand, thread my fingers through the pins with the other, and pull them all at the same time. The pins clink on the ground as all four timed fuses begin hissing on the ammo belt.
I have seven seconds.
I bolt into a sprint and jump. It’s a huge tree, but I easily go sailing six meters into the air and land dead center on one of the oak’s thick lower limbs. I know that they’re tracking me; I can hear the Drones’ footsteps slowing to a halt beneath the canopy on the opposite side. I deftly jump from limb to limb, and as I circle around the trunk, rifles flare from the gray cloud and bullets begin taking chunks out of the wood all around me. My quick movements through the leaves and branches are making me a hard target to hit, even with the robots scanning my body heat. I can’t see them at all through the billowing fog below, but that’s OK; I know exactly where they are . . . and they’re right where I want them. I hear the rapid clicking of one, then two, then a third rifle as the last of their ammo is spent. The satisfying clatter of empty weapons being cast aside greets my ears as I dance through the massive tree, leaping from side to side, using the thickest limbs to take the brunt of the diminished gunfire. With the grenades fizzing on my chest, I bob and weave through the branches.
Even though I’m evading the bullets the best I can, the warning bells chiming insistently in my head and the warm blood oozing from my side and trickling down my leg tell me that I’ve been shot at least twice. From the chiming, I’m guessing that one wound is pretty bad, but I’m not dead yet, so I keep going, knowing full well that the three unarmed androids of the group might decide to climb this tree and pull me down so the other two can finish me off. I can’t let that happen.
It’s time to end this.
I dart onto a sturdy branch hanging over the smoke, sprint halfway along it, snatch two grenades into the palm of each hand, and dive headfirst as high and far as I can. Time seems to stretch out like a rubber band. I can hear the high-pitched, spiraling turbulence of the bullet trails speeding by as I javelin through the air, my arrow-straight legs drifting skyward as my whole body inverts completely vertically upside down. Floating directly above the Drones, I can’t help but smile. With their sharp robotic eyes and superfast reflexes, they can pluck a grenade from midair and toss it aside, or leap away to safety the instant they see one coming. I saw them do exactly that. But what can they do if four grenades, primed to explode and hidden by smoke, are dropped right on their preprogrammed heads? I guess I’m about to find out.
Even though every slice of the last seven seconds was slowed to a crawl by my hyper-racing mind, my timing is still perfect as I thrust both arms toward the swirling fog below and release. The grenades vanish into the gray, and, an instant later, four hazy globes of light erupt like flashes of lightning in a storm cloud. A loud, pounding rhythm shocks the air as I tuck myself into a ball and let momentum take me hurtling through the outer edge of the canopy. I burst from the foliage twelve meters above the ground.
I pull the shotgun up over my head and into my arms as I arc through the air all the way down to the ground below. I hit the paving stones, roll to my feet, and spin back toward the cloud with the wooden stock of the Hellion wedged tightly against my shoulder, quietly snorting quickened breaths as I point all three barrels in the direction of the Drones.
Thanks to the explosions, the hissing smoke canister has skittered clear across the courtyard, and the bulk of the haze has been spread thin. There are no heavy footsteps and no sounds of movement—just my breathing and the leaves overhead rustling in the warm afternoon breeze. As the fog clears further, I’m finally able to see the fruits of my labor. A Drone with its arm blown clean off is sitting with its back against the trunk of the tree, and the other four are lying on the ground in varying contorted positions. All have reverted back to their silver color, and all have been deactivated.
My job here is done, but my mission isn’t over. There are still two more functioning Drones on top of one of these buildings somewhere, and I need to take them down. I turn and jog, one hand holding my shotgun, the other pressed against the hole leaking blood from my side. In my mind, I knit the flesh closed, and a sharp piece of
bullet fragment oozes out of the wound between my fingers. The injury on my leg is a meaty slice. It’s deep, but will be relatively easy to heal. I concentrate and feel the gash closing as I scan the building fronts for the climbing gouges left by the other two . . .
THUD, THUD, THUD, THUD, THUD, THUD, STOMP!
I look back over my shoulder, and my eyes go wide as I see the one-armed Drone in midjump, flying straight for me, its glitching skin undulating in mottled waves of silver, green, and brown. It lands with a heavy thump, very nearly right on top of me. I try to bring the Hellion up to the Drone’s face mask, but I’ve been caught off guard, and I’m not nearly fast enough. The Drone’s forearm becomes a swiping blur as it brutally backhand pummels me. My left arm takes the full force of the blow, and I hear the bone crack as it slams into my side, snapping at least three of my ribs in the process. Injury tones clang loudly in my head as I go sailing through the air. I hit the ground hard, and the wind is punched from my lungs as my shotgun clatters away from me, tumbling end over end before coming to rest upright against a stone bench seat two meters away.
Even though I’ve trained myself to convert pain into sound, I can feel the agonizing, undiluted sensations stabbing searing holes in my mental veil, just like my broken ribs are stabbing into my left lung. The damaged Drone is walking toward me. I try to get up, but my body won’t let me as the sharp edges of my cracked bones skewer through the muscles I need to move. I grit my teeth, pull the Jack-knife from my waistband, and flick it to the second setting. It snaps open into a one-meter blade, but I quickly realize that I can’t stand, and I can’t swing it hard enough to do any real damage to the robot. I don’t even have the leverage for a feeble stab at the damn thing. A combat sword is useless to me.
The Drone is six meters away.
I look over at the shotgun resting against the bench. It’s so close, but it’s not close enough.
The Drone is four meters away.
I have only one chance left, and it’s a slim one. I flick the Jack-knife to the first setting, and it snaps back into a dagger.
The Drone is three meters away.
I turn my head and glare at the shotgun.
The Drone is two meters away.
Breathing through the pain, I curl my arm tightly.
The Drone is one meter away.
The robot’s huge shadow falls across my body, and I whip my hand out to the side as hard as I can, praying for a miracle as the knife spins away from my fingertips.
THOCK!
My prayers are answered as the blade wedges tightly into the wooden stock of the gun. I splay my fingers as wide as I can. Pulled by the knife, the shotgun clacks on the ground and begins sliding across the paving toward my outstretched hand. The Drone bends down and clutches the wrist of my broken arm. I hear my bones cracking and grating as its grip tightens, and genuine pain burns through the barriers in my mind like white-hot splinters. I screech in agony through my clenched jaw and try to pull away from the robot, but its grasp is like a hydraulic vise. With one last, desperate effort, I jerk my body, and my left shoulder pops completely out of its socket as I reach for the Jack-knife. My fingertips find the knife handle, and I wrench it to me, fumbling for a handhold on the gun as the Drone holds me high in the air like a carcass of meat. The dripping stump of its right arm begins swiping at the air as if the Drone is trying to grab me with a limb that isn’t there.
Screaming at the top of my one functioning lung, I swing the Hellion up under the Drone’s chin; my finger finds the trigger, and the shotgun kicks like a horse against my arm as all three barrels roar with a deafening BOOM! An intense burst of light and heat erupts beside my face as the android’s head is completely obliterated in a shower of golden sparks and fire. My ears ring with damage as the Drone and I collapse to the ground. I roll onto the pavement, coughing up blood as warning tones throb and bellow in my head.
I focus my mind on repairs, and I can’t help but groan as the sharp tips of broken rib bones extract themselves from the holes torn in my lung and move back into their proper places. I mentally seal up the internal wounds. With my rib cage repaired and my lungs patched, I sit up and join the breaks and fractures in my left arm and wrist as the warning tones gradually fade into the back of my head.
I pop my shoulder back into its socket, push off the ground, step over the headless Drone, and take off toward the row of buildings. I’m running under the high leaves of another tree when there’s a sudden cracking of branches overhead. I look up and see a dark silhouette just in time to dive out of the way as Private Sekula comes crashing through the leaves and slams into the ground right where I was standing. His arm is bent completely the wrong way, his eyes are wide, and his jaw is opening and closing as blood pours in torrents down the sides of his face like a storm drain overflowing from a heavy rain. He stops moving, and blood gurgles in his throat as his eyelids lower, hooding his distant, dead stare.
I leap over Private Sekula’s body and dash out into the open, but more movement from overhead catches the corner of my eye, and I come skidding to a sudden halt. A large shadow skims across the ground, and a two-meter-tall Combat Drone drops out of the sky, cracking the paving stones with a shuddering thud. It slowly straightens and turns its head toward me. It’s standing four meters away and doesn’t have a weapon, but that changes in an instant as silver bayonets flick out like oversize switchblades from each of its camo-colored forearms.
I quickly raise the Hellion, clicking it to cycle-fire mode with my thumb as I aim and pull the trigger. The triple barrels rage one after the other, spewing sparking fire at the Drone, which shields its face with its arms as it launches itself sideways. The Hellion’s spray of explosive pellets erupts along the Drone’s limbs, and one of its arms comes away at the elbow as it dives into an evasive roll. There’s another heavy thud right behind me.
The second Drone!
I spin around, and the other Drone lunges, reaching toward me with its huge, four-fingered hands. I leap backward and swing the shotgun around, yanking at the trigger, shooting blindly in a blazing half circle of percussive fire. I manage to score a hit on its torso, tearing a bowling ball–size hole from its side as it continues to tromp forward. The top half of the robot flops grotesquely as I hit the ground, roll backward onto one knee, and unload my last five shells at its staggering body. Flashing pockets of light erupt all over the android as the explosive pellets rip its skin and mask apart, exposing two red-globe eyes set in a smashed open frame of jagged ballistic glass.
I throw the empty Hellion aside, whip my second pistol from its holster, flick it to fully automatic, and pull the trigger hard. The gun blazes into action, thrumming loudly in my hand as bullets rain into the robot’s face. The Drone’s head vibrates with every impact as the rapid stream of shots bombards its vulnerable components. Circuits fizz and burn, and its robotic eyes explode, spattering orange fluid from the open cavity of its shattered mask as its silver body finally drops heavily onto the paving stones, deactivated.
I hardly have time to breathe when I hear footsteps tromping behind me. I quickly turn as the last active android pounces toward me, bayonets first. I kick my leg in a fast sweep and spin up from the ground, splaying my fingers wide as I launch myself toward the Drone. The Jack-knife leaps from my waistband into my palm and snaps into a sword as my body twists through the air. The Drone’s right arm swipes, and a bayonet misses the top of my head by a hair’s breadth as my blade becomes a blur of force and momentum, slicing the android’s body completely in half at the waist as I emerge, spinning through the gap between its severed torso and legs, showered in a liquid curtain of artificial orange blood.
With my arms spread like wings, I land in a lunging crouch and see, lying on the ground by my shoe, a cracked, palm-size segment of the face mask that I blasted from that Drone. It’s smeared and scratched, but . . . beneath the blemishes, among the scrapes and damage are my own eye
s, mirrored in its glossy black surface, staring back at me like a stranger’s. That’s when something stirs inside of me. I slowly lower my arms and reach down for the fragment. I gently pick it up and stare at it, transfixed at the empty, soulless reflection of my own eyes. I look deeper, and a wave of emotion ripples through me. The angry expression of my reflection softens; it suddenly feels like a cloud is moving away from the sun, like I’m waking up from a daydream.
I feel like me again. What did Captain Delgado make me do? I turn and survey the carnage. The courtyard looks like a war zone. There are blast marks and blood, bullet holes, and Drone parts everywhere I look. That bastard is a control freak, and we are nothing but cannon fodder to him. I wipe a smudge from the mask fragment, and when I hold it up to my face again, I see eyes that I recognize. Captain Delgado won’t be doing that to me ever again. I tuck the souvenir into my breast pocket and snap the Jack-knife shut.
All of a sudden, a weird electric-crackling sound bursts out of nowhere. I frown, confused as the static noise abruptly clears, breaking into whooping and laughing and raucous cheering blasting into my left ear. I wince at it, momentarily surprised before remembering the little plastic wedge.
“Infinity? Can you hear me?” Otto’s voice whispers over the sounds of celebration in the background.
“Yes . . . I can hear you,” I reply.
“Who are you talking to?” says Brody’s voice. “Is that Infinity?”
“Where is she?” I hear Ryan ask. “Bit, let me see the screens.”
“Stop crowding me!” hisses Otto. There’s a fumbling, then a shuffling sound, before Otto’s annoyed voice pipes into my ear again.
“Sorry, I’m back. Just had to crawl under a table for a little privacy,” she says. There’s a beat of silence, and then a quiet gasp. “Infinity . . . you destroyed all the Drones? How?”
