by Scott Baron
“Looks like he went that way,” Daisy said. “Which means we go that way too.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Hours had crept by as Daisy tracked Vince’s progress through the winding streets. Only the occasional bootprint in the dust and gentle nudge from her tracking device kept her on course.
Many months had passed since Daisy’s first, last, and only visit to the city, but things hadn’t changed much. The Chithiid were slowly and methodically advancing through the unprotected and unincorporated areas, dismantling them as they went, while the centrally defended hubs remained intact, though devoid of human life.
More than before, however, there were signs of recent fighting. Periodically, Daisy came upon bits of cyborgs freshly destroyed by alien weapons.
“Looks like one of Habby’s crew,” she noted, kicking the well-made fedora off the decapitated head of one of the metal men. “Why are they venturing up here, though? As long as they stay underground, they’re pretty much left alone.”
“With that crazy AI, who knows what their motivation is.”
“True, but his center of operations was in a different part of the city. One of the safer ones, way across town. I mean, the cyborg survivors that flocked to him all seemed to stay relatively close by, so what gives with these?”
“Runaways, maybe?”
“Not likely. And running from what? They all seemed quite content there in their little cyborg hive. No, this feels like something different.”
That prior visit had also been different in another way. Daisy had been on the run, escaping from the Váli and her crew, fleeing under the mistaken belief that there was an AI rebellion trying to overthrow humanity. Little did she know she was part of a much larger plan. Unfortunately, being woken before that bit of information could be fed to her through her neuro-stim meant that she woke up more than a little bit out of the loop.
After encountering Habby and his troop of fleshless cyborgs under the city, Daisy had made a hasty escape, trying desperately to get a message to the other humans she believed to be in other cities. People who could help her.
She had just reached the commandeered shuttle and was about to send her distress call when both cyborgs and Chithiid invaders encountered one another in the streets of L.A., with her stuck in the middle.
A fevered battle ensued, the cyborgs charging in close, using sharp pieces of debris as weapons, while the four-armed aliens fought with both pulse rifles as well as their odd power whips in unison. The strong beams projecting from their wrist-mounted devices may have had limited range, but in hand-to-hand combat, they were quite handy.
At the end of it all, a new squad of aliens swooped in on the site, leaving Daisy ducking for cover as they advanced on her position. It was only then that an unexpected savior appeared.
Vince, and a small team consisting of Reggie and Tamara, opened fire on the Chithiid, stopping their attack in its tracks. The aliens knew they were defeated, and, with no functioning communications, they opted to commit suicide, using a powerful bomb to take out not only themselves, but also the human combatants.
Daisy, quite unexpectedly, understood them, and when a lone human stood up and called out a surrender—in their own language, no less—they stopped in their tracks. That pause allowed Vincent and the others to cut them down.
It saved all their lives, but Daisy was nonetheless livid. She had offered a surrender, and they had honorably accepted it, a point she was making when Tamara, who she thought was dead, blasted her with a stun rifle before unceremoniously dragging her back to Dark Side Base, where the true nature of the world as she knew it was made clear.
There would be no margaritas on the beach, as she and Sarah had planned. There would be no festivities at all. Earth was a planet of the dead, and the home she had known had never truly existed.
And now she had come back. Something she’d sworn she would never do.
“Hey, what’s that?” Sarah said.
Daisy had been lost in thought as she walked and had missed the faint sounds over the crunching of her boots on the ground.
“That sounds like talking?” she murmured. “Yeah. I’m sure of it. Someone’s talking up there.”
The voices were getting closer.
“Daisy,” Sarah said. ”That’s not English.”
“No, of course not. That’s––” She froze in her tracks. Her mind had been translating so easily, she forgot to register alarm. “Shit!”
Daisy spun on her heel and took off running.
There was an underground access a few blocks that way, she realized as she ran for her life. For a split second, she allowed herself to look over her shoulder. A pair of Chithiid were rounding the corner.
No time!
She abruptly altered course, sprinting to the nearest building. Fortunately, the thick glass doors were unlocked. Heaving them open, she ran inside and ducked down behind the vacant security desk.
That was close, but I don’t think they saw—
The glass façade smashed to pieces, thick safety glass tumbling to the ground in waves.
“Over there. Behind that desk!” she heard a Chithiid call out.
“Not going to catch me being a sitting duck.” She grunted, jumping over the top just as the alien reached her. It was not expecting an offensive attack, especially from such a small being, and found itself caught with its weapon not aimed at her when she struck. A careless mistake it quickly regretted.
Daisy kicked and punched all the visible weak spots she could reach, then threw a powerful Muay Thai kick that connected with the wrist of the alien’s arm that was holding the pulse rifle. The elongated weapon flew from its numb grasp and skittered across the floor.
“That little human kicked me!” it shouted out, lunging at Daisy with all four arms.
The lithe human evaded its grip, however, and rather than fleeing as it expected, she once again launched an attack, jumping up and delivering blow after blow to the Chithiid’s face and torso.
“Get out of the way. I don’t have a clean shot!” the other alien called out.
The stunned alien pushed her off of him and stumbled backward as its partner took aim. Daisy dove behind the desk as a plasma bolt flew past her.
That was close!
She looked around, searching for anything to use as a weapon.
“You have one behind you now, dumbass!”
The sword!
Daisy dropped the backpack and unsheathed her weapon, diving over the counter, swinging as she did. The Chithiid was taken by surprise, and the blade cleanly arced down on its wiry arm. Daisy heard the bones crack, but her sword had failed to even nick the skin.
“Gloves!” Sarah shouted in her head.
“Shit!” she growled, yanking them from her hands.
While the broken-armed alien cradled its damaged limb, its associate had recovered and launched itself at her. Daisy stepped aside, swinging the sword as she did. It was a low blow, literally, severing the tall creature’s left leg from its body. It tumbled to the ground, scuttling on four arms to defend itself from the unexpectedly deadly human.
Daisy lunged as it tried to protect itself, her sword driving through three outstretched hands and burying itself deep in the creature’s torso.
Must’ve hit something vital, she noted, as the alien didn’t even have time to let out a cry in its last moments of life. The sword grew warmer in her hands, and she could have sworn it felt happy as it drank in the sticky blood.
More yelling. A team of Chithiid was coming to help.
Where did the other one—
A shadow towered above her. The injured alien had recovered its weapon and flanked her as she fought. It had her dead to rights and was taking aim at her head when weapons fire from across the courtyard erupted, the plasma bolts flying past both Daisy and the startled Chithiid, which was forced to turn its attention to the new attackers.
Daisy grabbed her backpack and raced around the corner. No sense staying to fight wh
en you’re that outnumbered, she reasoned, when, from behind a column in the building lobby, a figure stepped out to her side. Daisy spun, quickly dropping her bag and letting her hungry sword fly to its next target. Only at the last moment did her eyes go wide with shock.
“Shit!” she cried out, flipping the sword at the last possible second, striking with the flat side instead of the edge.
“Ow!” Vince cried out as the blade bounced harmlessly off his head. “Jeez, Daisy!”
A teenage boy ran up from the back door to the lobby area. “Vincent, we have to go! More are coming. Hurry!”
“Humans?” Daisy said, stunned. “Or was that a cyborg?” She had no idea what was going on.
“Come on!” Vince replied, grabbing her by the hand and pulling her with him. “I’ll explain later. Now run!”
Daisy didn’t need to be told twice.
They bolted for the rear doors, while a barrage of pulse blasts peppered the front of the building. The Chithiid jumped up and returned fire, but it suffered several fatal hits as its pulse rifle fire was answered. Its weapon dropped to the ground, its body following moments later.
That wouldn’t stop the attack, however, as a half dozen armed aliens dropped from a small work ship as it swooped low over the street. They quickly fanned out in a flanking formation as they covered each other with suppressing fire.
The humans fired back as they fled, dodging the Chithiid as best they could, running and weaving between the abandoned vehicles on the street and the buildings nearby.
Daisy caught a glimpse of them as she followed Vince out the back door and down a side street that led them to a large plaza.
That’s a lot of open space.
“This way!” the boy called out. “Hurry!”
Vince and Daisy quickly followed, hugging the periphery and staying to the shadows as best they could. No Chithiid were anywhere to be seen, but the firefight could be clearly heard nearby, and just because they weren’t standing out in the open didn’t mean aliens weren’t lurking in wait for an easy target.
“There, past the large tree,” the boy said.
Daisy saw his goal. A subterranean tube network access lift. There were no stairs.
“How do we know that thing has power?” she asked. “We should find a staircase.”
“It has power,” the teen said. “Alma makes sure this one is always working.”
“Alma?” Daisy asked.
“Long story,” Vince said. “Come on, let’s go!”
Again with the running, she thought, but at least there was a definitive goal in sight. The trio sprinted across the one open space they couldn’t avoid as fast as they could. Daisy felt an itchy tension between her shoulder blades as she waited for a pulse blast to strike her down. Fortunately for her, one never came.
The boy pushed the call button, and the faintest of vibrations could be felt in the ground as the lift ascended to fetch them.
“Come on, come on,” she muttered impatiently. “We’re sitting ducks out here, Vince.”
“I know, but it’ll only be a minute longer. Hang in there, Daze, we’re almost in the clear.”
“Oh, you did not just say that.”
“What?”
“Tempting fate, man. Not cool.”
Vince couldn’t help but smile. “Nice to see you too.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Daisy was proud of herself for not impaling the poor fellow who stood in the lift when the doors unexpectedly opened silently behind them.
“Come on, you two,” the boy urged.
Ten seconds later, safe inside the metal shell, they began their descent into the belly of the city. Daisy only hoped whatever surprises awaited her there were more pleasant than the four-armed ones that had greeted her above.
They soon arrived at the lower platform of what was once a busy hub in the sprawling transit tube network. A pair of scruffy older men were waiting, seated on a crate. At their feet, a woman lay on a makeshift sled. Her unseeing eyes didn’t betray her non-living status nearly as readily as the gaping hole in her chest did.
“Damn monsters got Evie,” the older of the two said. “Shot her right through her back.”
“Where are the others?” the boy asked.
“Coming, I reckon,” the other man answered. “We scattered when the second wave came. Most took to the streets, but a few managed to reach the other access shafts. I figure we give them until morning. If they haven’t reached us by then, they’re not coming back. Not never.”
“That’s a double negative. I wonder if he––”
Not now, Sarah.
The older man turned to Vince and Daisy.
“Who’s this one?” he asked, sizing up Daisy head to toe.
“She’s one of my people,” Vince answered. “The ones I told you about. She’s here to help.”
“Looked more like she was the one needing help,” the boy said with a dismissive snicker as he sat on the dusty tile floor.
Why, you little shit.
Daisy got a better look at the unlikely heroes seated before her. Pale, somewhat small in stature. They seemed as if they had grown up a bit malnourished and lacking in adequate vitamin D.
Of course. They live underground, so no sunlight, she realized. I wonder if they’re all this vitamin D-deficient.
Looking at the faces of the two men, the boy, and the dead woman, Daisy noticed something else. A certain similarity in their faces.
“Vince, can we talk a minute?”
“Sure. Excuse us, fellas,” he said, leading her a little way away from the others.
“Okay,” she said when they were out of earshot. “What the hell is going on here? Those are actual humans, Vince. Not cyborgs. Proper humans. They were supposed to have all been wiped out.”
“I know, but you know there were a few genetic variants that were immune to the plague.”
“Yes, but it took a massive AI operation hundreds of years to regrow them.”
“Not here.”
Daisy looked at him a long moment, trying to decide whether or not he was pulling her leg.
“I’m not kidding, Daisy. The people you see here are the direct descendants of a pair of survivors.”
“But how? And why do they all look like that?”
“Ah, yes. Don’t bring up their similarities, it only opens up a can of worms.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because they are all related. The only survivors in the entire city after the attack were two very young children,” Vince informed her. “Twins. A little boy, and a little girl.”
“Brother and sister,” Daisy said softly.
“Yep. They were too young to know about the birds and bees. Hell, they were barely four years old, left on their own when their parents died in front of them, wandering the tube system alone when the AI that oversees this section of the transit network noticed them. She took them in and protected them. Raised them. In time, they did what hormone-filled kids do, and the AI encouraged them.”
“But that’s wrong.”
“When the whole of humanity is extinct? I think right and wrong take on new meaning when viewed in that situation. They had never even heard the word incest. To them it was just natural. Of course, the AI was aware of the potential problems stemming from their union, and over the years, she had her children bring medical devices and diagnostic tools. She did her best to try and suppress any genetic issues, but as I’m sure you noticed, she couldn’t entirely overcome them. I mean, she’s a transit computer at the end of the day, and genetic engineering simply wasn’t her strong suit.”
“So, they’ve been living underground in this one tiny part of the city for hundreds of years?”
“Pretty much. I know it sounds insane, but given what happened to the world, insane seems pretty reasonable.”
“But they have weapons. How do they not get tracked with them?”
“Stolen Chithiid rifles. Their scans are not programmed to read their own tech. Kind
of a brilliant loophole, if you ask me. I was making my preliminary scouting run when a large contingent of Chithiid landed in the sector I had wandered into. I couldn’t make it back to the ship, so I took shelter underground. That’s when I ran into these survivors. They hadn’t seen another person before, so they took me to their home. That’s where I met Alma.”
“Who?”
“Alma. Their mom, basically. She’s the massive AI who runs things down here. She was thrilled to have contact from an outsider. All her comms were cut remotely during the invasion, like everyone else, so she’s been sequestered down here, cut off from the world all this time.”
Daisy absorbed the information as best she could.
So, we’re not the only people on Earth. She considered the implications.
“Daisy, that means there could be other pockets of survivors out there,” Sarah gasped.
I know.
Vince stood close to her, concern in his eyes.
“Daisy, why did you come? It’s dangerous down here.”
“Why did I come? Dark Side lost contact. You didn’t check in when you told them you would.” She smacked him. Hard. “And why the hell did you run off and volunteer to do this without telling me?”
A shadow crossed his gaze.
“You made it abundantly clear––” He cut himself off. There was no need to say more. “Look, it needed to be done, so I did it. And what about you?” he turned the tables. “Why did you come if you were so set on avoiding the planet?”
“Because I’m the one person who doesn’t need a Faraday suit, remember?”
“So that’s the reason?” he said, holding her gaze. “After you said you’d never come back? Really?”
For a brief moment, Daisy’s concern shone in her eyes, bringing a little smile to Vince’s face.
“Oh, shut up,” she said, half-assedly hiding her emotions.
Footsteps approached, and Vince turned, rifle low but ready.
“Hey, you two, Arthur is back. He wants to meet the new one,” the teenager informed them.
