by M. R. Forbes
He cried out, the sound lost in the whine of the motor and the rumbling of the ground beneath the wheels. Krake didn’t look back and didn’t slow, leaving Hayden caught on the car while it stayed its course toward the city. He gritted his teeth while he looked at his HUD. There was no sign of Rico or Bennett. Both had vanished from the network. Were they dead?
Hayden almost wished he was. Almost. Every part of his body hurt, his arm most of all. But Krake and the interlink were within his reach, and he would be damned if he was going to let either get away.
55
Caleb
“Caleb.”
Caleb looked up from his position on his stomach. Riley Valentine stood over him, her sharp, accusing eyes glaring at him past her overly beakish nose.
“Valentine,” he snarled. He knew where he was. Face down on the street in Seattle. He knew what she was too. A forced figment of his imagination. An apparition the enemy he had bounced off in the Collective had caused his mind to make real. “You’re not here.”
He was still trying to come to terms with what had happened. The sudden pressure and pain of Ishek’s push, and the vibration of the push back. That single, nearly fatal instant had given him two crucial pieces of information. One, he knew where the enemy was. Two, he knew they were some kind of twisted amalgamation of Relyeh and Intellect. A monster embedded with a machine.
“You let me down, Marine,” Valentine said. “You call yourself a Raider? Are you kidding? I gave you one job. One simple job a damn monkey could have done.” She raised pistol toward his face.
Caleb stared at the gun. It didn’t matter that part of his mind knew it wasn’t real. The other part that saw her, heard her, had decided it was. And it would determine the bullet that left the gun was real too, along with the deadly wound it would cause.
“My use for you is at an end,” Valentine said, finger moving on the trigger.
She vanished before she could shoot.
“Get up,” Max said, pushing himself off Caleb’s back. “We need to stop it before it kills everyone.”
Caleb pulled himself to his feet and glanced at the Intellect. “You mean the hallucinations?”
“The neural disruption, yes. The signal is powerful. Stay within a few meters, or you’ll be outside my ability to jam it.”
“I know where it’s coming from,” Caleb said.
“Affirmation. Lead the way. Hahaha. Haha.”
Caleb looked at the Skin’s HUD, which Max had hacked to connect to the combat network. They were a few blocks from Stacker’s position, which was in the opposite direction of the target. It appeared Beta Squad was in trouble. Red marks surrounded the unit, which itself was spread out in a disorganized pattern. Not only were they likely seeing things, but they had real threats all around them.
He had to make a choice. Go for the Axon and Relyeh hybrid creating the disruption to give the unit a fighting chance against the opposition or double back and save the Centurions.
“Consideration. Their lives don’t matter in the larger equation,” Max said, apparently looking at the same data he was taking in. It was a cold, callous statement to make, but what should he expect from a machine? “Sheriff Duke is equivalently exposed.”
That was the more important point. If Hayden was hallucinating, Krake could waltz right past him without interference and the interlink would be gone. In that sense, Max was right. If that happened, Stacker’s life wouldn’t matter because it would already be too late.
It was an impossible situation with no good choices. But those were reapers surrounding Beta Squad. He had frozen them before. He could do it again and buy them time.
We can’t. We’re too weak.
Caleb could sense the damage Ishek had taken. While the Advocate would heal, it would still take time they didn’t have.
And he was wasting time trying to make a decision. He turned in the direction of the hybrid. “Let’s go,” he said to Max, breaking into an all-out sprint.
Max reacted instantly, running behind him and then quickly catching up. They sprinted up the street, away from Stacker and Beta Squad. It burned Caleb to leave them to fend for themselves, but what else could he do?
He had triangulated the location of the hybrid on the way down. Now he looked to where it was stationed, his eyes landing on the rusted metal framework of what appeared to have once been a series of geodesic spheres. Metal catwalks were visible inside the spheres among overgrown weeds and vegetation.
Caleb remembered having seen the structure online, back when the trife were still something dreamed up in a sci-fi novel. It had once been filled with all kinds of plants, designed as a relaxing retreat for the employees of the company that built it. The hybrid was in there somewhere, out of sight within the brush.
“There,” Caleb said, pointing it out to Max.
“Affirmation,” Max replied. “I should have calculated. It’s using the structure to amplify the disruption.”
“If we damage the structure, can we break the amplification?”
“Possibility.”
Caleb used his eyes to activate the Skin’s weapon systems. He pointed his hand at the building, lifting his palm toward it and releasing a blast of energy. The blue beam hit the frame, cutting through one of the rusted cross beams.
Almost immediately, the red marks near Beta began to move, turning away from the Centurions and heading in their direction. More reapers appeared ahead, suddenly pouring out of the surrounding buildings in response to the direct attack.
“I don’t think it liked that,” Max said. “Hahaha. Haha.”
“Then it isn’t going to like this,” Caleb replied, sending out another beam that sliced the first bar completely from the structure. It dropped and bounced off a lower portion before crashing to the ground.
“You’ll need to cut eight more bars to have a beneficial effect,” Max said.
“You know which ones to hit. You cut the pipes while I kill reapers.”
“Confirmation.”
Caleb swept his eyes across the tide of incoming human-trife hybrids.
“Knuckle up, Card,” he whispered, steeling himself against the approaching horde. He raised both palms, gathering power from the Skin and taking aim. There were just so many. “Ishek, if you can give me anything, now is the time.”
I’ll do my best.
“So will I.”
He unleashed the energy beams from the Skin, the first blast tearing a reaper in half while the second cut off another’s legs. He shifted his hands and fired again, sending out bursts of energy as quickly as he could, dropping a creature with almost every shot.
Max fired at the structure, energy slicing through the old frame and breaking the beams away. A second one fell to the ground, quickly followed by a third.
But the reapers were closing fast.
Caleb continued to spew energy as quickly as he could, killing the Relyeh one after another, and opening spaces at the front of the line that were almost immediately filled by others. He checked his HUD, watching the red marks approaching from behind. He pivoted, aiming his hands in two different directions and firing without aiming. There were so many reapers it was almost impossible to miss; even the most wayward shots did damage.
It wasn’t enough. The reapers continued to close, adjusting their ranks to create a collapsing circle around the pair.
Max kept shooting, another beam falling away. The structure started to groan, threatening to collapse from the damage.
“Ishek, help me!” Caleb growled, heart pounding as the front lines closed within ten meters. His power levels had already drained to nearly fifty percent. He couldn’t keep this up for long.
A change in pressure in Caleb’s head signaled the surge of Ishek’s power. Two of the reapers changed direction suddenly, leaping at the Relyeh closest to them. The creatures got tangled together as they fought, pushing into others and disrupting the entire group. Two more did the same a second later, the sudden chaos slowing the whole line.<
br />
“Max, time?” Caleb shouted.
“Twenty seconds,” Max replied, cutting another beam away. “Hahahaha. Hahaha. Haha.”
They were almost there.
It wasn’t going to be enough.
One of the reapers got close enough to lunge at Max, distracting him while he turned and batted the creature aside, blasting it at the same time he knocked it aside. Caleb pivoted in that direction, shooting at a second reaper and then a third, taking out the fastest of the creatures. The rest of the horde continued to close. Eight meters. Seven. Six.
The seventh beam fell.
At that moment, Caleb realized that even if they stopped the hallucinations, even if they got Alpha and Beta back into the fight, there was a good chance it wasn’t going to be enough. There were too many Relyeh, and killing them was taking too long. The alien ships would be here soon. So would Krake.
The horde would stop them before they could stop it.
Five meters. Four.
Caleb continued unleashing energy from the Skin. Maybe he would go down, but he would go down fighting. He turned to face the structure, eyeing the reapers ahead.
Are you insane?
Then he charged, rushing forward to meet them, shouting out loud. He was ready to dive into their midst when a blast of plasma swept into them, knocking a handful aside. Another followed, and then another, arcing down from the Parabellum as it strafed across the field.
Caleb looked up at it as it went past, unsure whether to cheer Isaac’s bravery or curse his stupidity. He was supposed to have left the area, not play hero.
There was nothing he could do about it now. The unexpected air assault did succeed in throwing the reapers into greater disarray, freezing their advance for a precious few seconds. Caleb found new targets to shoot, still blasting at the creatures with the sinking understanding that even the aid of the dropship wasn’t going to be enough.
“Completion!” Max shouted victoriously as the last of the beams broke away, and one of the spheres collapsed on itself with a clang and a rumble.
The reapers froze as one for a moment, as if they were all receiving new instructions in the wake of the collapse. Then they resumed their assault as if nothing had happened.
But something had indeed happened.
The amplification was gone. The neural disruption range was now limited. The reason for the hybrid to stay out of the fight had ended.
Caleb didn’t see the attack coming. He only felt the result. One moment, he was facing down a pair of reapers. The next, a large, dark shape exploded from the spheres. One of its tentacles snapped out and hit him hard in the chest, throwing him backwards like a rag doll. He landed on his back a dozen meters away.
Squarely in the middle of the reaper horde.
56
Rico
Rico froze suddenly, her head clearing, her eyes snapping down to the piece of rusted rebar jutting out from a chunk of concrete, her heart racing.
She had been two seconds away from impaling herself on the metal bar. Two seconds from ending her life in grief over the loss of her husband.
She knew it for the hallucination it was. She knew Steven hadn’t really been there, urging her to do it and join him in the afterlife. But she hadn’t been able to stop herself, hadn’t been able to convince herself of what she knew to be true.
And then it ended, just like that. The grip on her mind vanished, and she knew where she was and what she had been about to do.
She swallowed dryly and looked at her HUD. Tried to anyway. Shaking off the last of her fugue, she realized she wasn’t wearing it. “Damn it,” she huffed, spinning quickly, searching for it, but she didn’t see it anywhere.
Her eyes swept across the road, her mind shifting gears. Hayden. Krake. She cursed again. How much time had she wasted caught up in the hallucination?
She heard noises in the distance. Screaming. Howling. Shouting. She looked to the city in time to see the Parabellum sweep over, firing plasma down at something. Was Isaac hallucinating too?
Her eyes caught motion on the road. A car headed for the city, someone clinging to—no, dangling from—the back of it, stuck there to a spike.
Hayden.
“Damn it,” she said a third time. She didn’t have time to find her helmet. She started running, sprinting across the landscape behind the car. As a clone, she had enhanced strength and stamina, and she ran faster than even the fastest unmodified humans. She knew she had no chance to catch the car before it reached its destination, but she could get there just a few minutes behind it. Maybe.
She vaulted a large chunk of concrete, tucking and rolling back to her feet on the other side. Sprinting ahead, she slowed a step when Bennett emerged from around an old bus.
“Bennett?” Confused, she stumbled to a stop, frowning at him. How had he gotten ahead of her without seeing her? And if he had seen her, why hadn’t he tried to help her?
He looked back, slowing as she approached. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. “Yeah. You?”
“I’m fine,” he replied.
“The hallucinations didn’t bother you?” she asked.
“Funny thing,” he said with an expression bordering on a laugh. “My hallucination was that I was chasing a xaxkluth that had grabbed you and was carrying you away.”
Rico took a few steps toward him, coming to a stop a couple of meters away. “That’s convenient,” she said with a smile, trying not to look as suspicious as she felt. Nothing leading up to this point had given her any reason to think Bennett wasn’t what he claimed, but that was changing in a hurry.
“I know, right? We need to hurry, Rico. Our people are in trouble.”
Rico didn’t move right away. She remembered what General Haeri had told her. Bennett was programmed to follow her orders. He had to comply. It was a gray-area process that made clones too much line machines, but it would settle her doubts.
“I want you to wait here,” she said.
“What? Why?”
“That’s my order, Sergeant. Wait here.”
Bennett’s eyes narrowed. “You’re going to get our people killed. What the hell are you thinking?”
“What are you?” she asked, raising her rifle toward him.
“Rico, are you hallucinating again? It’s me. Steven.”
The name froze her. Steven? “What game are you—?”
His hand came up in a blur, still rising as the gun in it discharged. She moved just far enough, just fast enough to avoid the worst of the shot. The round came within centimeters of taking her between the eyes. It still burned as it grazed the side of her face, ripping away her ear. She cried out. Still falling sideways, she triggered her rifle, the spray of bullets catching Bennett in the armor, most of the rounds unable to punch through.
He kept shooting, but his best chance was lost. The bullets hit her combat armor, unable to pierce the hardened plates.
Rico rolled when she hit the ground, wasting no time getting back to her feet. Bennett was reaching for the rifle on his back, swinging it around. She lunged at him, interrupting the grab and forcing him to grapple with her. They fell to the ground as one.
Rico tried to wrap her hands around Bennett’s neck, but she couldn’t get past his helmet. Bennett didn’t have the same problem, able to get his hands around her neck and squeeze.
“I’m sorry, Rico,” he said. “I was only here to observe. But then that Intellect showed up and changed all the rules. I tried to get him out of the equation, but you didn’t go for it. You trusted it over me.”
Rico struggled to breathe, wrapping her hands around his forearms and trying to pull them away. Hayden had made the right choice with Max. There was a snake in their midst, but it wasn’t the Axon.
“How?” she croaked out, straining to overcome him. They were both clones. Both strong. But he was still stronger.
“Clone Replicators are machines. The Axon are good with machines. I am sorry, Rico. Really. But I am what I am. What they
created me to be. You’re a clone. You should understand. We don’t get to decide what we are. We just are.”
She did understand. She had enjoyed her time as a Centurion, but it was still the thing she was created to be. At least in the beginning. She had grown beyond her initial purpose. She had found things that had changed her trajectory. Love. Friends. Another purpose here on Earth.
And now it was all going to end.
The world was fading away, and she wasn’t strong enough to break Bennett’s hold. She let go of his forearms, her arms falling limply to the ground. She gathered herself to reach for the rim of his helmet. He didn’t dare let go of her neck to stop her, allowing her to get it up and off him. She looked at his face. Steven’s face. It softened under her gaze, and she thought she felt his grip relax just a little. There was still a part of Steven in there somewhere. Still a part of him that loved her.
If nothing else, at least his face would be the last thing she saw.
57
Hayden
The modbox had to slow as it entered the city. While the roads appeared to have been cleared, the tighter confines and more frequent turns eased its overall pace.
Not that it was much help to Hayden. In fact, the shifting only made things worse. He held onto the back of the car with his augmented hands, his bad arm on fire around the control ring. He might have been flung away from the vehicle during the turns, but the spike through his leg held him in place, the car’s movements jerking the filthy metal spike, tearing his leg muscle and grinding against bone. His entire body was wracked with pain.
He wasn’t sure if his enhanced healing factor could withstand the damage. He wasn’t sure he would survive, and if he did, would he ever walk again? Maybe another augment would be part of his future. That is, if he had a future. There was no time now to think about that. No time for anything. He was on a runaway train about to reach its destination.
