by Zack Archer
He fired a punch that blasted a hole through four of the Synths, atomizing the drones. ‘Bot shrapnel filled the air as I shot-put a ball of plasma that took the legs off two more of the machines when—
A round from a Synth weapon struck me in the chest.
My singlet protected me, but the blow stole my air and sent me spinning back across the walkway, tumbling sideways toward the edge, which I fell over before—
Being snagged at the last second by somebody who grabbed my foot as I dangled over the edge of the walkway.
I was pulled back and up onto the walkway to see Kree looking down at me. Her chest heaved and her sapphire eyes glowed like two candles at the bottom of a well.
She helped me up and we turned as the fighting became close-quarters.
All the while, the Synths continued to descend through the chamber.
Moving fast.
Moving really fast, a tidal wave of robotic killers assailing us from above.
They landed on the walkway as I watched Liberty, Lyric, and the others hurtle to left and right, using the other air walkways and elevators as stepping stones to evade the incoming drones and fire.
Lyric paved the way forward, unleashing a flurry of sonic bullets that shattered four Synths while Liberty carved up the rest with her sword.
At the same time, Splinter and Kaptain Khaos were firing up at the approaching Synth reinforcements or attacking the ones that had already arrived. They bumped fists, screamed, and then went on the attack.
Splinter doused a pod of sentries in corrosive sap while the Kaptain executed a lightning-fast leg sweep that took down the two Synths he’d set up, grabbing the machines in his massive arms and bear-hugging them until they broke apart.
Kree and I followed after Liberty and Lyric, long-jumping onto another walkway as the Synths matched us move for move.
The mechanical sentries sprang at Kree, who unleashed a spinning back-kick into the first Synth’s gut, knocking it back into two other drones that toppled off the walkway.
I watched their bodies cartwheel down into the bottom of the chamber where they broke apart on the grating, two hundred feet beneath us.
Another Synth dropped down in front of me and I didn’t have time to manufacture a plasma ball.
Instead, I landed a precisely-placed chop on its face.
Fuuuccckkkk!
The thing’s visor was as hard as a stone.
The machine head-butted me and I staggered back. My eyes swam, unfocused, and then the Synth grabbed me in its strong metal hands.
Before I could get off a cry, the sentry had lifted me up and flung me off the walkway!
I tumbled down through the air but managed to assemble a loop of energy out of tiny fragments of plasma that I fired out in front of me.
The energy loop whipsawed like a lasso, hooking around one of the lower walkways as I held on for dear life, swooping down and around like I was Tarzan holding onto a jungle vine.
My momentum brought me back around and up.
I threw out a hand and grabbed the air walkway and pulled myself back up.
Heart in my throat, I crouched, palmed a series of plasma balls, willing them at the Synths, vaporizing five of the machines before they could fire on the others.
Splinter cheered for me and then a Synth tossed a grenade that exploded on the walkway beside him.
The blast catapulted Splinter into the air. I threw out a hand, creating a web of energy that extended between my walkway and another one ten feet away.
Splinter screamed as he dropped like a lead weight.
He landed in the energy web, bouncing once and then clutching the edges of it. Elbowing himself up, he jumped onto my walkway and pointed down below us.
“You see that?”
All I could see was the edge of the chamber, which was lined with tiny nooks, a metal ladder, and what looked like a huge electrical panel.
“What is that thing?”
“Pretty sure it’s the control box,” Splinter said.
“The what?”
“It controls the power to this chamber.”
“What do you want me to do about it?”
Splinter smiled darkly. “I want you to blow the fucking thing up.”
“But the air might stop and then—”
“That’s right,” he said, grinning crookedly. “It’s time to bring the hammer down on these motherfuckers.”
My eyes swung back up. I could see that the others had made it across to the other landing and were under attack from what looked like hundreds of Synths that were sliding and riding and sprinting across the walkways and elevators.
Splinter was right.
The time had come to do something dramatic.
The time had come to end the ambush.
We moved toward the far edge of the chamber, and I brought my hands back and heaved a pulse of plasma into the control box.
There was a gasping mechanical whoosh that filled our ears and then…
The torrents of air ceased.
Just like that.
Beginning at the top of the chamber.
The air walkways and elevators simply…vanished.
The Synths hung there for an instant and then they began to fall.
Splinter roared his approval, pounding his chest like King Kong because we could see the Synths pinwheeling down toward us.
Like a course of falling dominos, the walkways and elevators beneath the top of the chamber starting vanishing, one by one, until the air was filled with the Synths.
It was at that moment that we realized two things: one, we were standing on a walkway, and two, the fucking air was filled with hundreds of robots falling toward us!
“MOVE, MOVE, MOVE!” Splinter shouted, shoving me forward.
We took three steps and then the walkway disappeared from under our feet too.
53
Splinter grabbed my back and flung me forward.
Both of us sailed through the air, hands outstretched.
We managed, by some stroke of luck, to grab hold of the ladder bolted to the edge of the chamber as the Synths streaked down and past us.
The metal sentries made a whooshing sound and we had to fight to avoid being struck by them before climbing up to the others, who were overjoyed to see us. Even Kree was nodding and grinning, flashing teeth that were whiter than piano keys.
“We got some new friends,” Atlas said, gesturing to a handful of human Snouts who were lying unconscious on the landing. “Find your size ‘cause we are going undercover.”
Against the sound of shouts and sirens, we climbed into the Snouts’ suits and donned their helmets, visors, and black gloves. My uniform was from a hulking brute, which meant I was swimming in the ludicrously large outfit. I snapped on the helmet. which was awkward and a little heavier than a cousin’s football helmet I’d once tried on as a kid.
The visor snapped down and a heads-up display that listed distances, surrounding conditions, and my vitals immediately came up. All of the readouts were in green and as I panned side-to-side, the helmet zoomed in and then pulled back depending on whether I squinted or widened my eyes.
I turned to face the others who looked convincingly like a law enforcement foot detail.
“Once we hit the streets we keep moving,” Atlas said, holding up a silver baton that flickered and flashed. “Do not, I repeat do not, say a godsdamned word to anyone unless you absolutely have to.”
We moved single-file down a long tunnel, trekking higher and higher. We climbed several sets of stairs, headed for the Upperworld.
Keeping our heads down we ascended, passing shops and commercial niches, and a network of pools and waterfalls that speckled my visor with droplets of moisture.
Five levels up, we marched through a long colonnade of clubs and stands manned by humanoids and aliens hawking goods and services. People idled everywhere, but those that spotted us gave us a wide berth.
Another level up and we edged through an airlock
and into a square-shaped tunnel. There were fewer people here and absolutely no other law enforcement. We began breathing sighs of relief.
Eventually, the tunnel opened onto a wide thoroughfare, the main street that ran down the middle of Fiasco Heights. Alarms echoed in the distance, and several groups of people were scurrying out of adjacent tunnels or heading back down into them.
We moved with alacrity past the gathering crowds who were shouting, wondering what had happened down below. Nobody uttered a word as we slipped past them, trudging out onto the main street which was made of a single, continuous strand of clear material that allowed us to see the underground spaces beneath the city.
The streets here teemed with what I assumed were residents, city dwellers, many of whom glided by overhead on wave sleds or other propulsion devices.
I fumbled with the buttons on my visor, powering it up in full, finding that I was able to sift through the information on my heads-up display simply by blinking. It took me a few seconds to become oriented to it, but then I found that it came in handy. It enabled me to measure distances, the heights of various objects, and whether approaching people might be armed or not.
A reticle appeared in the middle of the heads-up display and by hovering it over an individual I could summon up a box that provided information on the person’s height, weight, age, whether they were armed, and whether they might pose a threat or not. Green was good, red was bad, and thankfully, at least for the moment, all of my readouts remained green.
I did my best not to gawk, but the city’s architecture was simultaneously terrifying and magical. The buildings were of various shapes and sizes, some short and squat, others towering edifices that pulsed with life. I mean that literally because I watched a pair of twenty-story buildings undulating like trees in a strong wind.
“Biomimicry,” Kaptain Khaos whispered, reading my look. “A good portion of the Upperworld was built with natural materials and seeded with bythos. It’s basically like a—”
“Forest,” I said.
“Most of the buildings are kinda alive,” he replied with a nod.
I stared wide-eyed at copper-skinned buildings with a heavy patina, and still more that seemed to be sprouting out of the trunks or shells of massive trees like the ones I’d seen back in the wave sled with Aurora.
I saw the others stiffen at the sight of another foot detail marching toward us. My visor indicated that there were six Snouts in all and that four were synthetic and two were humanoids.
“Get ready for anything,” Kaptain Khaos whispered.
Atlas, who was in the lead, raised his baton in a gesture of goodwill, and I prayed that would be sufficient for us to pass undetected even as I wondered whether the Snouts had visors which might be able to out us. The last thing any of us wanted was to be confronted by law enforcement in broad daylight on the city streets.
We passed by the last member of the other foot detail and I smiled when—
Somebody from behind muttered, “Boots!”
My gut seized.
I didn’t stop.
I couldn’t.
I wouldn’t.
Besides, I knew who’d said it, the last Snout in the other foot detail.
God help me, the bastard must have noticed them.
Noticed that I’d screwed up and forgotten to wear a pair of law enforcement shoes. I was still wearing my MEM boots!
“Hey!” the same person shouted from behind.
“Keep walking,” Kaptain Khaos said to me without turning back.
“Hey! Hey!”
Footfalls echoed behind and now the others in front of me were moving fast, jogging. Shouts reverberated along with what sounded like a whistle.
I expected gunfire or blasts to ring out but instead, I heard a disturbance in the air.
The kind of note made by somebody after they’ve launched themselves at another person.
Something rammed into my back and I pitched forward, hitting the road and rolling sideways.
I came up onto my knees to see one of the Snouts peering at me. My readouts were in red and the reticle on my heads-up display was zeroing in on the long cudgel the Snout was gently slapping against his thigh. I assumed he’d used it strike me down. “Where did you get those boots?”
“At the boot store,” I answered.
The Snout peered at me for several seconds. He tapped a button on his cudgel and a metal tip that threw off a small shower of blue sparks protruded from the end. “Take off your fucking helmet.”
“You first,” I replied, removing the black gloves, the fingers on my right hand glowing white.
The Snout looked from my fingers back to me and then brought his cudgel down as I flicked my wrist.
A streak of burning light pulsed from my hand, thumping the Snout in the chest, propelling him back into the rest of the foot detail.
Splinter pulled me to my feet and we ran, galloping down the street. Atlas waved his arms, signaling for us to duck into an alleyway.
We did, and I looked back once to see more Snouts rampaging after us along with a brace of what I reckoned were law enforcement wave sleds, which were visible in the distance, buzzing over the city streets like a swarm of locusts as they came closer.
Atlas ran forward, zigging and zagging down hidden pathways that led between a stand of buildings decorated with snarls of green vines. The sounds of the Snouts grew fainter as we moved further from the thoroughfare. I could see that the path we were on snaked down toward a section of older, shittier buildings that were nearly invisible, tucked behind four or five massive U-shaped buildings.
Everyone removed their helmets. All eyes were on me.
“You couldn’t have just worn the fucking boots, huh?” Splinter asked.
“I like these boots,” I replied, pointing down.
Splinter groaned and Atlas smacked his baton against a nearby building. “They’ll be blanketing this area soon enough. We need to find a place to lay low.”
Liberty held Atlas’s gaze. “You know what we need to do. We need to go see him.”
Kaptain Khaos shook his head. “You gotta be kidding me.”
“What other choice do we have?” Lyric replied. “He’s got his ear to the ground at all times, doesn’t he? He’ll know what’s up.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
Atlas pointed his baton to the other end of the pathway. “We’ve got an old acquaintance who runs a shop around here.”
“What does he sell?”
“Weapons, materials, and most importantly…information.”
A wave sled slashed by somewhere far overhead and we slipped our helmets back on and ranged down the pathway.
54
My heart hummed like an engine under full throttle as we zigged and zagged through the city, trying to put some distance between us and our pursuers.
We crossed over another street and crawled through the shell of a building that was in the process of being erected.
We slipped between girders, wooden beams, and stanchions. The sound of our footsteps and heavy breathing drowned the echo of the shouts and cries of the Snouts.
Farther and farther we headed into the interior of Fiasco Heights, trailing along an alleyway only to bank and follow a side artery before picking up a pathway of pavers that ended at a brick wall covered in the same green vines I’d seen earlier.
Atlas removed his helmet and whacked his baton against the wall. “Open up!”
I was shocked when one of the vines trembled and slithered like a snake. The vine appeared to be synthetic and housed a nodule at its end, a swelling that contained what looked like a circle of glass. The glass opened like an iris and an eye blinked.
Atlas flipped a middle finger at the eye.
Unseen motors engaged somewhere behind the wall which pulled apart to reveal a hidden landing and a metal staircase that led down into a cluttered bodega that was barely larger than a rest-stop bathroom.
“What is that place?” I
asked.
Liberty smiled. “It’s the epicenter of illegal commerce in Fiasco Heights.”
“It’s where all the black market shit is sold,” Kaptain Khaos offered.
“Who’s it run by?”
Atlas smiled darkly. “An old smuggler named the Lout. He always knows the pulse of the city. We’ll see what he knows and then we’ll hit the hideout.”
We moved down as the brick wall closed up behind us. At the bottom of the stairs was a glass display case manned by a spindly, bespectacled man with a tight face and restless eyes. If this shop was the epicenter of illegal commerce in Fiasco Heights, then the black market was very tiny indeed.
“May I help you,” the bespectacled man said, eying our uniforms.
Atlas tapped the baton on the glass case, which was filled with tiny trinkets. “We need to see him.”
“See who?”
“The Lout.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know a…Lout,” the shopkeeper said.
“Tell him it’s Atlas Jackson and friends.”
The bespectacled man reacted to this. A single pearl of sweat worked its way down his left cheek. The man silently mouthed the words “Atlas Jackson.” “But…I heard you were dead, Mister Jackson.”
“Not yet,” Atlas replied. “But the day is still young.”
The shopkeeper reached down and pressed a concealed button I hadn’t noticed before that was pinned to the underside of the glass case.
A sound filled the room, white noise, and then there was a puff of ozone followed by a geyser of dust that leaped up from the floor.
There was something there, something on the ground behind the case.
It was barely visible but appeared to be a circular piece of metal, what might be a hatchway in the floor.
The shopkeeper reached down and grabbed a metal loop and pulled back the circular object to reveal another space hidden under the shop.
Atlas climbed down the stairs and the rest of us followed, entering an underground space that seemed as large as a football field.
Figures were scurrying about past stacks of equipment, goods, and cages. Some cages were glass and others had metal bars. They housed all manner of exotic creatures. One of my uncles had been a fan of the old-school movie “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and this subterranean shop looked a lot like the warehouse at the end of the film, the one where the Ark of the Covenant eventually gets stashed.
