by David Wong
UNKNOWN OBJECT
The three prongs on the puck glowed orange and acrid smoke hit Zoey’s nostrils. Liquid glass dripped down from the spot like candlewax …
Then the windshield shattered.
Molten glass splattered the interior of the van, bits landing in Zoey’s hair and on her jacket. She smelled herself burning and suddenly had a vivid flashback to a teenage encounter with an abusive scumbag and an electric stovetop.
Wu sat back up in the driver’s seat in time to see the Viking aim his gun again, now with no barrier between them.
The man, grinning broadly, yelled, “CONFESS!”
The human shields stood fast, but Wu made his decision: his job was to protect Zoey. He punched the automated override on the dash, then—
Everything went flying.
The world was spinning, crashing.
Zoey found herself on the ceiling of the van. They were upside down, junk tumbling all around her. A cup of coffee splashed next to her shoulder, soaking her jacket. Monitors exploded next to her. Bullet impacts, the Viking spraying into the vehicle.
The van’s female electronic voice said, “BYSTANDERS IN PROXIMITY—AWAITING COUNTERMEASURES AUTHORIZATION.”
The rear doors opened. It was Will, kicking his way out. Zoey looked back toward the driver’s seat and saw Wu roll away from the windshield, away from the gunfire.
He pointed. “Follow Will!”
This seemed like the slightly less bad of two horrible options. The van was now an immobile death trap.
Zoey crawled out onto the pavement and the surrounding crowd immediately started alerting the Viking to where she was. (“She’s going out the back! Hey!”) Will took cover behind one of the open van doors.
The Viking yelled, “Confess, and this can all be over!”
The van, as if in reply, said, “BYSTANDERS IN PROXIMITY—AWAITING COUNTERMEASURES AUTHORIZATION.”
Zoey said, “Van! You are authorized!”
Compartments on each side of the vehicle slid open. Out from them poured what looked like a swarm of thousands of insects. They circled above the overturned van for a few seconds and then dispersed in every direction.
They were tiny pea-sized riot control drones programmed to launch themselves at aggressors, anyone in the crowd who was taking any kind of hostile posture. They would then swarm their faces, pushing into nostrils and ear canals and eyes, emitting a high-pitched shriek that smashed around inside the target’s skull. The frequencies were carefully crafted to trigger a primal panic response in the brain, creating the impression that the howling, mortal threat was coming from a specific direction—in this case, the van. In virtually every human, this would instantly trigger an irresistible urge to run at full sprint in the opposite direction.
Zoey stepped out from behind the cover of the van door and watched the crowds flee from her like a puddle from a dropped stone. The buzzing drones swirled around her, brushing strands of Zoey’s hair as they whipped past to go overwhelm some stubborn target.
She looked to her left. A semi was there, towing a huge stainless-steel cylinder. That’s what had rolled the van, presumably having been hijacked/stolen by the bad guys who had been lying in wait at the intersection. The driver of the vehicle was isolated from the drone swarm, the black specks bouncing off his windshield like bees, trying to get at him.
Zoey looked for the Viking. About ten feet in front of the overturned van was now a clump of six people, their heads together, arms locked, forming a human dome around the Viking who was kneeling in the center, shielding him from the swarm. The barrel of his gun poked out between two torsos.
All of this had been planned and practiced. This infuriated Zoey.
Will said, “Zoey! Get to cover!”
Nah.
Maybe it was her mom’s stupid confidence-building hand cream. Maybe her sanity had finally just snapped. Or maybe she was just getting sick of this shit. Zoey strode through her insect swarm and dug into her jacket pocket for a band to tie her hair back.
One of the kids she’d thought was no older than thirteen was standing next to the igloo of human shields, holding his ears, crying, the drones crawling around his face.
“Stop!” he cried. “Make them stop!”
Zoey stopped near the bullet-riddled front of the van. “Get out of here! All of you! If you get a couple of blocks away, they’ll leave you alone!”
The kid didn’t move. No one did. These people were nuts.
“Please!” cried the kid. “Make them stop! Please!”
Camera drones above, bystanders with their own cameras on all sides. These people were creating a propaganda clip they could snip out of context and use against her forever.
Zoey said, “Van, turn off the countermeasures. Drones, uh, go back home. To the van or whatever.”
It was never totally clear to Zoey what voice commands would or wouldn’t be understood, but the swarm of tiny drones swirled their way back to her, landing on the pavement around her feet. They actually set themselves on the ground in formation, in perfect rows. Ready to take off again if asked.
To the Viking, she said, “I know this is probably too complicated for you to grasp, but if you kill me, you don’t get the money. You need a confession. If you just wiggle my dead jaw and try to imitate my voice on camera, they’re probably going to notice.”
The people forming the human igloo around the Viking stepped away from him. He stood there, working a lever on his machine gun, looking smug.
“And I am not leaving here without that confession,” he shouted back. He didn’t need to shout for Zoey’s benefit, they were at casual conversation distance now. This was all for the benefit of the witnesses.
Zoey put her hands on her hips. “Dude, the vehicle behind me has a dozen other countermeasures I can order, including one that will turn your body into a roman candle. But I’d prefer to talk it out. So to you, to everybody watching the streams, I’m telling you that we didn’t kill that guy.”
The Viking smirked. “We have witnesses, cow. Anonymous staff from Salt Lake Wellness.” That was the upscale mental health facility Zoey had done her time in over the summer. “We have copies of the report from the doctor. Your admission was not due to a nervous breakdown, but from a neurological side effect from eating human flesh.”
“What? Holy crap, you people have made up a whole mythology here.”
“Look. Your left hand is trembling! Another side effect of the disease.”
“I just crawled out of a car wreck! I have burns!”
“We have anonymous experts who say you would have had to have eaten over a hundred human livers to show these kinds of symptoms. More, if they were the livers of children, which we all know is your preference.”
“Will you listen to yourself? You just keep adding things! You know, it’s almost a compliment to how clean of an operation I run now, that you’ve had to make up something that sounds like it came from a B-horror screenwriter just before his heart exploded from a coke overdose.”
“Stay back, Blackwater,” shouted the Viking.
Will had circled around to the other side of the van. He was carrying something.
The Viking aimed his gun at him and barked, “Drop whatever that is.”
It was a black object the size of a lantern. Will set it at his feet.
The bystanders had been pushed back about a hundred feet, but were creeping in again, curiosity drawing them like sharks to a shipwreck. The passengers in the stopped vehicles had gotten out to spectate. This included the Viking’s accomplice who’d been driving the semi. He was now standing by the vehicle holding a black club—one of the shock-sticks you could see all over the city these days. They could stun you, or turn your chest cavity into a smoking hole, depending on where the wielder had set the dial. The guy was close enough that he could be on top of Zoey in about three steps.
The Viking shifted his aim slightly and said, “You, too. Stop right there.”
This time he was t
alking to Wu, who had shambled up from behind Will, like a zombie. In addition to the arm that was already in a cast, he was now also bleeding badly from his scalp and dragging one leg behind him, as if he couldn’t bend the knee.
Zoey said, “Well, it looks like we’re at an impasse. I’m not declaring myself to be a man-eating liver addict just because you’re pointing a gun at me. If we start allowing truth and lies to be decided that way, society will … well, keep being exactly like it is.”
“If you don’t confess here, we’ll take you to a place where you’ll have more time—and incentive—to reconsider. Enoch, stun the cow and bind her hands.”
The guy from the semi approached and a crackle of blue sparks flickered from the end of his baton. He took two steps forward—
In a blur, Wu flew toward the man, chopped his throat, punched him in the balls, grabbed the baton, smashed it, and twirled the guy around so that Wu was now using him as a human shield. It took about four seconds from beginning to end.
The Viking said, “Let him go! You think his life is worth a million bucks to me?”
The guy said, “Hey!”
To the Viking, Will said, “You’re new in town, aren’t you?”
“What?”
“You’re new in town. Maybe you came here for this particular bounty?”
“Shut up!” To Wu, “You’ve got five seconds to let him go!”
“I can tell, because you’re using a firearm. The device at my feet is a propellant cooker. They’re well known around here. When activated, it will send out a pulse that will detonate every live cartridge in the vicinity. Including your spare magazines and the ammo belts you have draped over your torso for decoration, assuming they’re real. Please take a moment to visualize it.”
“Shut up!”
Zoey said, “It’s an objectively stupid invention, but we didn’t design it, so don’t blame us. The last time somebody set one off in public the hospitals had to treat over three hundred accidental bullet wounds. We are, after all, in America and, also, Utah. There’s also the fact that all of those bullets would be firing wildly just feet away from the tanker truck over there. I don’t think any of us, including the bystanders and the people working in these buildings, want that thing going up.”
Will said, “And as of … now, the device is armed for sound activation. You pull that trigger, soon the news will be recapping a spectacular tragedy over a montage of our last-known photos.”
It looked to Zoey like the Viking was, in fact, considering it.
His accomplice, still standing upright with Wu’s arm around his neck from behind, said, “They’re tellin’ the truth, man. I tried to tell you, that’s why I brought the Thor club instead.”
Will said, “Wu, let him go, get in the semi.” To the Viking, he said, “Since I assume you stole this, I also assume you won’t mind if we take it home.”
Wu tossed the Viking’s partner aside and pulled himself into the tanker truck. Zoey thought it was odd that they were going to escape in the most flammable mobile object in the city, but maybe that was Will’s plan. A sort of mutually assured destruction.
Will looked toward Zoey and nodded to the truck. She took the long way around the back of the wrecked van to avoid the Viking’s partner and climbed into the cab of the semi next to Wu. The cab smelled like old sweat and cigarettes. Will picked up the cooker device and followed, squeezing in next to Zoey. The Viking made no move to stop them.
Will said, “Go.”
Wu had to back up, then turn slightly to scoot the toppled van out of the way. The lane ahead was clear of traffic, since by now they’d been blocking everything behind them for several minutes, and this time the human shields let them pass. Zoey nervously studied the monitor on the dash that displayed their surroundings, watching the Viking shrink into the distance. They got a block away. Two. The truck was as fast as a very stubborn mule that had died and was now being carried up a hill by a swarm of ants.
Will said, “I messaged Carlton to dispatch the sedan, with drone cover. We’re creating a secure vehicle switch location at—”
Wu said, “What is that?”
In the sky ahead was what looked like a giant white bird, diving directly toward them.
“Is it a plane?”
They didn’t need any special sensors to find out. A monitor on the semi’s dash was already tuned in to Blink coverage of the event (currently trending as “ASHE ARMORED VAN REK’D BY REDD GUNN—#COWFESSION!”). The star of the feed at the moment was a man in a flying apparatus with gleaming white fold-out wings and twin jets of blue fire pulsing from the back, swooping down from the sky, Zoey’s rumbling tanker truck ahead. According to the feed, this guy was named the Human Tank, which was presumably a name he’d picked before he’d bought the wings.
Zoey breathed, “What do we do, what do we do?”
Will said, “Keep driving, and pray that he’s not carrying an explosive to do a suicide run.”
Wu stepped on the accelerator. They rolled along, passing sidewalks full of bystanders who now had turned their eyes skyward, anticipating the conflict, as usual grossly underestimating what constituted a safe distance.
Will turned his attention back to the rearview monitor and said, “He’s following us.”
On the screen, the Viking—who according to the feed was named, sigh, Redd Gunn—had commandeered a motorcycle and was gaining on them fast.
From the front, the Human Tank drew lower and closer. He tilted his wings back to decelerate and the blue jets shifted as he began his descent, apparently intending to land right in front of the semi. The wings, which weren’t only white but were glowing, as if to appear angelic, were as wide as the entire street. The pilot was draped in white cloth and gold belts, topped by a platinum wig. Was this his Halloween costume? His superhero branding? His everyday dress? Zoey had only a few seconds to speculate before he quickly descended to the street in front of them.
Too quickly.
As far as Zoey could tell, the flying apparatus was supposed to have used its thrusters to gently lower its pilot to a spot just above the pavement. But if so, the mechanism failed, as bootleg Raiden technology frequently did. As such, the Human Tank landed hard in front of them and Zoey was sure she could hear both of the man’s legs break with an audible snap when they hit the pavement.
He collapsed, screaming. A glowing, golden sword he’d been carrying clattered to the pavement.
To be fair to Wu, he did try to stop. But the most advanced brakes in the world still have to adhere to the laws of physics and they were currently towing several tons of liquid cargo. Wu braked and cranked the wheel, the tanker behind them jackknifing around behind them. None of it was enough to save the Human Tank. Their wheels ran right over the guy and his stupid wings, all of it crunching and tangling under them.
Both front tires popped. Wu stayed on the accelerator, but they were now dragging the equivalent of a light aircraft across the pavement beneath them, rolling up a mangled corpse in the wreckage. The semi skidded to a stop, the gleaming cylinder skidding around and banging into a utility pole on the sidewalk.
Zoey expected an explosion. None came. She let out a breath.
Will said, “Get out!”
The moment Zoey opened the door, she heard more tires squealing. The Viking Redd Gunn had apparently been going full speed on his motorcycle when the tanker truck had stopped abruptly in front of him, the trailer now angled to block the road entirely. The guy tried to brake, then the wheels wobbled under him until the bike tumbled over and skidded away, the man himself rolling to a stop under the trailer.
Zoey jumped out of the cab. There were a few seconds of peace, during which she still expected the tanker to randomly choose that moment to explode and engulf all she surveyed. Then she glanced to her right and saw the tanker had come to a stop right in front of a sign that said BUDDING MINDS DAY CARE.
Redd Gunn was still lying under the tanker, moaning.
Zoey yelled to him, �
�You’re going to feel incredibly dumb once you realize I’m not guilty of anything. Stay there and we’ll get you an ambulance. You lost this one.”
Once again, Zoey had stumbled across the exact wrong thing to say. Redd growled, rolled over, and looked around for his gun. He found it. From a prone position under the tanker, he aimed at Zoey. And then many things happened at once.
She screamed for him to stop.
Redd squeezed the trigger.
Zoey saw an orange flash. She felt a puff of air caress her temple.
Then the cooker activated from inside the cab of the truck. There was a blue flash and a fleeting wave of static in the air that made the hair on Zoey’s arms stand on end. And then, fireworks.
A rattle of explosions, little bursts of flame up and down Redd’s body, bullets from his draped belts firing and puncturing him from every angle. Above him, sparks erupted as one shot after the other impacted the tanker truck.
Zoey was being tackled, Wu throwing her to the ground and getting on top of her, rolling to get his body between her and the dozens of detonating cartridges Redd Gunn had strapped to his person.
Screams and chaos from all around. Zoey wanted up, to run, to get away from the fireball she knew was coming. She could see the day care from the ground, saw little curious faces pressed to the window and a frantic elderly woman screaming at them to get away.
The last bullet went off.
There was silence.
Then, trickling liquid.
Zoey risked a look over. The tanker was leaking from a dozen holes, drenching the corpse of Redd Gunn, pooling around the wrecked motorcycle nearby. A pale, milky liquid, swirling and mixing with the blood on the pavement.
Wu let Zoey up and she took a cautious step forward, noting the logo on the side of the tanker. It was a dancing cartoon cow over the words, REAL MILK, FROM REAL COWS!
Will walked up and the three of them stared at it.
