Lost Hope (The Bridge Sequence Book Three)

by Nathan Hystad

  “We can shut them off, can’t we?” Veronica asked her.

  “Not precisely. I know we can cut the network, but we are not experienced enough to be confident we can do any further damage.”

  Tripp’s eyes opened again. “And how do we ensure we cut the network?”

  “We destroy it. Completely.”

  “Good. Now you’re speaking my language,” Tripp said.

  I peered past Gren in the pilot’s seat and saw the outline of land beyond the ocean. We were nearing our destination.

  Lewen’s tablet blinked, drawing her attention. “Gren, we have a problem.” She didn’t say the rest in English, so we waited while she talked to the pilot.

  “What is it?” I demanded.

  She turned the tablet around. Ten dots converged toward our destination. “They know we’re coming. The Umir are swarming to protect their queen.”

  “How much time until we land?” I asked Gren, calling over the sound of the engines.

  “Ten minutes,” he responded.

  “And the Umir?” I stared at Lewen, and she did the math using her device.

  “The first three are five minutes after us. The rest will arrive within thirty minutes.” Her expression was downtrodden. Hopeless.

  “Then we’d better be quick.” Tripp pulled one of the snub-nosed guns from under his bench seat and tapped the butt of it on the metal floor. The other soldiers duplicated the action, grinning at the human.

  Gren began his descent to the eastern edge of Mexico. He’d flown higher on this journey, choosing to drop in from above rather than ease our way over the landscape. We had the benefit of the dark, since dawn hadn’t struck this far yet.

  “The hub is close.” Lewen had her visor on but flipped up.

  The soldiers seemed nervous, and this concerned me. Tripp’s knee jostled anxiously, and I thought I heard him humming an old song.

  Veronica was pale as we began to plunge from the sky like a rock. The pressure intensified, and my legs lifted from the seat, the strapping holding me in place. I closed my eyes, praying we could end this threat.

  “Prepare for evacuation!” Gren shouted. The engines were screaming as the wing thrusters kicked on. We slowed, and a couple of seconds later, the ship had landed. The soldiers unclasped and dashed from the benches in a steady stream, gathering at the exit.

  One of them stopped at the cargo bay, unlocking a cage. A dozen flat devices sat on shelves, and he turned each of them on with a single press of a button. They whirred to life, blinking red and then green as they linked to one another. The soldier, a tough Rodax woman, held a tablet, and used the tool to control them. Her head was bald, and she had a long scar from above her right eye, riding all the way to her neck.

  Veronica pushed me forward, and we stepped onto the ground. We were outside the closest town by a good five miles. The sun had finally begun its ascent, casting a warm glow over the landscape. I’d spent a lot of time scouring Mexico when I was younger, and this was as nondescript as it got. There were no tourists for hundreds of miles. This was a different Mexico than we were used to seeing. No rows of all-inclusive hotels, catering to middle-class Americans. No white beaches with fancy umbrella drinks. It was drugs, and poverty, and scraping together what little livelihood you could, dreaming of a brighter tomorrow that would never come.

  Jessica’s comments about making a better world echoed in my mind as the derelict building emerged a few meters away. The wood had gone to rot, and the metal roof had holes the size of basketballs. I spied power lines behind us, meaning there was a road close by. To the west, I saw another structure, this one larger. Maybe a barn.

  “Move. That direction.” Lewen pointed to the barn, and the soldiers started forward. The bald soldier sent her dozen drones off, flying ahead of us a hundred feet in the air.

  I nodded as Baska arrived, his troops wearing visors. They sent another set of drones away, and our group of seventeen walked quickly, weapons raised, toward what we expected was the hub.

  Tripp slowed and tapped Gren on the shoulder, jabbing the barrel of his gun to the east. We all looked and saw the dust rising. Either a truck was heading for us or it was an Umir. I scanned the distance and spied another two plumes of dust converging on the barn.

  I swallowed hard but kept moving. We were too exposed out here.

  Lewen held the rod in her hand and extended it, letting the energy arc between the two end points.

  The barn was tall, a good two stories, but it hadn’t been used in years. There was a stack of hay, littered with mold, near the entrance, and a few birds sat perched on the rooftop. It might have been red once, but now it was faded and worn to a ruddy brown exterior.

  “Get in position,” Baska said, and the soldiers split into four groups. Tripp motioned for Veronica and me to follow Lewen and two others behind a rusted-out tractor. Rats scurried from their nest as we approached, and I did my best to ignore their squeaks.

  I glanced to my right and watched a team huddle behind a stack of old hay. To our left, Baska and Gren waited near an old farmhouse. The windows were busted out, and there was a shimmer of broken glass on the wooden front porch.

  Everything was silent. The wind gently cut across the fields, brushing my cheek. It was the calm before the storm. Three Umir were arriving, with more to follow. I hated waiting like this, especially with so many of the robots coming in our direction.

  “Mother of God,” Tripp whispered. He peered above a four-foot-tall punctured tire, looking at the barn. I shoved in beside him and saw what had him so worked up. The doors were opened, granting a viewing angle inside. An Umir rolled back and forth, and it was twice the size of the others, maybe three times larger. My perspective was limited.

  The first Umir emerged from the west, slowing as it came closer. The weight of it crunched over the hard-packed dirt, snapping the occasional twig. My heart pounded in anticipation.

  I watched it from below the tractor while it unfolded, growing in height as the ball’s segments spread open, clicking together. The thin legs carried it into the barn. Its eyes were blinking orange, as if it was attempting to link to its hub.

  A guttural cry came from Baska as four soldiers attacked. Two shot at it with their heavy artillery, blasting the thing square in the torso. It tried to fire, but the other pair was already there, wrapping their dense metallic rope around it. They activated spikes that stuck the rope into the ground, holding the Umir in place. It wrestled against the bonds, but they held.

  Baska walked up to it and stood five feet away. His long rifle aimed for its head, and he pulled the trigger. Wires fried and crackled where one of its eyes once sat. He shot it again, this time in the chest, and once more for good measure.

  The other dust plumes were closer.

  “Into the barn!” Baska shouted, but the second team was already on the move.

  “We’ll defend them.” Lewen walked around the tractor, and Tripp rushed in front of her. Veronica and I flanked them as the next Umir rolled into sight. We didn’t wait for it to fully unravel. I aimed and fired as soon as the ball began to open up. My first few shots went wide, but the next couple struck its metal hull. We rushed the robot, me shouting in anger with each tap of the trigger button.

  Tripp was silent, but his aim was pure. When Lewen reached the Umir, stabbing at the electronics with her rod, it was already broken.

  Shouts from behind the barn urged us to help. Two of the Rodax were on the ground, one of them clutching his arm. The other was dead. It was the bald soldier from our ship. I spotted her tablet and grabbed it, trying to make sense of the controls. Veronica saw what I was doing and asked for the device.

  She managed to figure it out amidst the chaos and sent the drones over the Umir. It fired at us, but I dove behind an old water barrel. The impact blew a hole straight through the front, but luckily for me, the second layer slowed it enough.

  I dropped the gun I’d been given and snatched it back up, rushing for the Umir as it spun tow
ard the barn. I fired at its legs, hitting the dirt instead. Tripp was trying to cut it off, and he didn’t seem to notice the long black gun protruding from the Umir, aimed directly at him.

  “Tripp!” I shouted, but he was firing at the Umir, not considering his own well-being. The bullet blasted from the weapon, recoiling the Umir enough to throw it off balance as my own shot struck its right side. Tripp stumbled and spun with the impact. The Umir managed to curl into a ball as it fell, and screamed toward the barn.

  More rows of dust were coming at us. The rest of their reinforcements were almost here. We needed to end this queen before they arrived, or we were dead.

  The back of the barn burst wide, wood splintering everywhere. The robot that emerged was massive, easily twenty feet in height, and twice as wide as the regular versions. I didn’t see a head on it, but there were guns, four of them, and they opened fire.

  I rushed to Tripp, dragging him across the dirt to cover. Veronica was nowhere in sight, but her drones buzzed around the queen, distracting it. Whatever she was doing worked, because the giant Umir started shooting at the hovering drones instead of us.

  The queen emitted a high-pitched signal, and I cupped my hands over my ears. For a moment, I expected my head to explode from the noise, but it subsided as the queen returned to its sphere shape. It began rolling away at an insane speed, and the third Umir, damaged but still functional, trailed after its hub.

  It was gone. My ears still rang, but slowly my hearing improved. I heard the muffled cries of our soldiers, and turned to see Tripp holding his shoulder where he’d been shot. It was a mess of flesh and blood and bone.

  “Stay put. Don’t move, Tripp.” I patted his leg and hopped to my feet. “Veronica!?” I shouted.

  The other Umir changed trajectories, chasing the hub, who, by the look of things, was already a mile away, heading north.

  “Veronica!” I almost tripped on a dead Rodax, and after a quick glance, fought the urge to throw up.

  “I’m here!” Veronica held the tablet, and she let it fall to the ground. Her face was smudged with dirt, but otherwise, she looked healthy.

  “Where’s Baska?” I stared at the barn and saw Lewen walking toward the structure with two soldiers flanking her. It smelled like burning electronics and death. I followed them into the barn and paused at the makeshift entrance. Four Rodax lay on the ground, two of them in pieces.

  Lewen cried out and crouched by one of her expired people. It was Baska. His gun was still in his hand, his eyes open and wide. She sang in her own language. Tears formed in my eyes at the horror we’d witnessed, while Lewen chanted in grief.

  We’d come for the queen, but we’d lost the chess match.

  ____________

  Bill moved his seat up, stretching his back. He’d had a terrible sleep, riddled with doubts and alien ships.

  “You ready?” Saul asked him. The other man had managed to brew coffee somehow. They were on the side of the road, tucked behind a diner. He’d parked between two unoccupied semi-trucks, and it had done the trick. No one had accosted them in the middle of the night.

  “Not sure I’ll ever be ready,” Bill admitted. “Give me a minute.”

  He got out of the truck and sauntered over to the treeline. Birds sang in the morning air, and he relieved himself on a tree trunk.

  Roger had been expecting him last night, but that was the least of his problems. Bill was bringing a viper into the nest. Saul claimed he was working on the good side of this mess, but all his apparent ties to the Believers raised many doubts in Bill’s mind.

  He suspected Roger would see it the same way. If Bill survived today, it would almost be a surprise.

  When he returned to the truck, Saul handed him a cup. It was cheap red plastic, with a black top and the words BEST BURGER on 75. Except they weren’t on 75 any longer. Bill didn’t read too much into it and sipped the dark brew. It was the greatest-tasting thing he’d had in his life.

  “You don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone.” Bill repeated the famous line and took another drink. “I’ll be damned. You might have a future as a barista there, Saul.”

  “It’s instant.” Saul smirked and threw the truck into drive.

  They were right outside Canton, which had been busy for a town under lockdown. It didn’t seem like everyone cared out here. It was close enough to the big city to be under some of their mandates, or at least following their procedures, but far enough to do things their own way.

  The campground, on the other hand, would be closed in February.

  Bill found it odd that the Freedom Earthers would choose a location so near a town, especially only forty minutes out of downtown Atlanta, but they had a plan—one Bill wasn’t fully aware of.

  Saul hit the road, a two-lane street with no shoulders. A Mercedes drove in the other direction, and Saul gave the driver a wave as they crossed paths. “Doesn’t seem so bad out here.”

  “I wish we had more news of the world,” Bill told him.

  “I have a feeling this Roger fellow will have all the information we seek,” Saul replied.

  The trip was quick, and Bill wondered why Saul hadn’t driven through the night. He asked again.

  “We show up when the sky is dark, with a truck full of ammunition, and we’re toast. We come at the crack of dawn with coffee and stale donuts, and we’re heroes.” Saul grinned. It didn’t suit his face.

  Bill glanced at the backseat and saw the boxes of food from the diner. “You think of everything, don’t you?”

  “Do you know that donuts are the oldest salesman trick in the book?” Saul drove on, keeping their speed under fifty.

  “How so?”

  “Breaks the ice. Makes them remember you. Have to make a sales call to an office? You bring the team donuts, even if it’s a buyer or a boss man you’ve come to see. They won’t turn down your next meeting request. And then the staff call you by name. It’s Bill, the donut man. We better purchase stuff from him, because the only joy we experience all week is when he drops by with a dozen crullers and a box of coffee.”

  “You have a morose outlook on life,” Bill told him.

  “If you think so, then you’ve been hiding out in your radio booth for too many years.” Saul grunted and hit the wiper fluid button, washing a layer of dust from the windshield.

  “I’m jaded, believe me.” Bill fumbled for a cigarette and rolled the window down.

  “You shouldn’t smoke,” Saul said.

  “Is that so? Some people smoke, others join cults.” Bill lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply. It burned his lungs for a second, the terrible, yet thrilling feeling of the day’s first one. Maybe Saul was right. He was well past due to quit. But they were in the middle of an alien invasion, and he’d probably be overtaken by some being from another planet, so what the hell. Smoke away.

  “You have no idea how many times I wanted out. To live a normal life,” Saul whispered.

  Bill appraised him and shook his head. “I can’t see you ever doing something normal.” The guy was a decade older than Bill, and he looked like he could bench-press a car. Bill felt inadequate in his presence. No one had ever made Bill care about the extra fifty pounds he was carrying, or the unkempt length of his beard, quite as much as this weird old stranger.

  “I could have been a salesman. Brought donuts to an office once a week.” Saul grinned at Bill and flicked his blinker on, turning at the campsite sign.

  Bill took another inhale and tossed the butt out the window. The last puff felt stale in his mouth, and his nerves were on fire. This was it. For a second, he wondered if Roger had been pulling his leg. He couldn’t see any signs of the Freedom Earthers here.

  “They’re watching us,” Saul mumbled. “By the admittance building. In the trees near the Porta Potty.”

  Bill glanced toward those two places and saw the glint of metal near the blue building, and a leg behind a tree near the portable toilet. “Good eyes.”

  “Kept me alive this long.”
Saul slowed and parked where the road diverged into day use and overnight stays. He climbed from the truck but kept it running. “Follow my lead.”

  Bill undid his seat belt and hopped out.

  “Stay where you are. Hands in the air,” a voice called.

  Saul walked into the middle of the gravel road, rocks grinding under his heel. “Not here for trouble. Roger’s expecting… us.” He glanced at Bill and actually winked.

  “My name’s Bill. Bill McReary. And you’re listening to Across This Great Nation.” Bill did his best radio voice, and finally someone stepped from the shadows.

  The man wore camo, and Bill spied the Freedom Earthers logo on a patch on the left breast. “You were supposed to show last night.” He held a semi-automatic. Bill wasn’t positive, but it might have been an AR-57. He held it like he knew how to use it. Bill left his arms in the air.

  Saul’s lowered. “We had a change of plans.”

  “Who the hell are you?” the militia soldier asked.

  Bill answered for him. “That’s Saul. My friend.”

  The guy used a radio on his shoulder and whispered into it. “Okay. Roger will see you. Drive forward. No funny business. Remember, you won’t make it out alive.”

  Saul motioned the guy over and opened the back door. “Donut?”

  The man laughed and looked at Bill as if this was some kind of joke. “Sure.” He took one from the offered box and stuck it into his mouth, returning to his perch in the shadows.

  They returned to the truck, and Saul drove forward. “See. Now he’ll remember my name.”

  It quickly became clear there was a large force in the area. Truck tire tracks rolled over the dirt and gravel into the ditches. A perimeter fence had been added near the park’s secondary entrance, and armed guards protected the metal gates. Saul pulled up, and the doors swung wide, admitting them.

  Bill gaped at the flurry of activity. Everywhere he looked, camouflage-wearing soldiers walked around, all armed and serious-looking. When he’d first spoken to Roger, he’d expected a bunch of mullet-wearing hicks with a penchant for meth and shooting cans on the back forty. Never did he think they were the real deal. Not like this.