Rising Sun (8 page)

Sarge fires at the
đibui
. “Take that, you wankers!”

They don’t bother to return fire. It’s a waste of ammo, and they know that time is on their side. Regulator armor is mostly bulletproof, but we’re not indestructible. We can be overrun.

“We’re pinned, Chief,” Pinch says. “If we bust through, we put the target in danger.”

Aziz shakes his head and mutters about Sidewinder not following orders. “Okay, Durango, you made your point. Got any bright ideas?”

The rain blows sideways across the cobbled-together deck. I wipe it out of my face. Rain. Mud. And more mud, sluicing down the back side of the hill like a flume.

Like a flume.

I run to the aft side of the shack and lean over the wall. Here the hill is a steep drop to a salvage heap. Instead of steps, it’s covered only with tufts of sawgrass.

It might work.

“Would you like me to calculate the odds of your plan’s success?” Mimi asks.

“Nega-carking-tive.”

“Confirmed, however—”

“You butt out.” No matter what the odds are, it’s our best chance.

From the back wall of the shack, I rip a sheet of corrugated metal loose from the two nails holding it.

Looks strong enough.

“Affirmative,” Mimi says. “It is a six-aught-six-one aluminum alloy with a tensile strength of no more than one hundred twenty-four point two MPa.”

“Did I ask for a metallurgy treatise?”

“I anticipated your request.”

“Just like the scan on Charlotte,” I say. “Since when do you anticipate?”

“The predictive patterns of algorithmic functions and triangulation are one of my primary functions.”

“So you’re saying I’m getting too predictable?”

“Negative. I did not say that,” she says. “You did.”

“Durango!” Aziz shouts, and comes around the shack. “What are you doing?”

“Escaping!” I hold up the six-oh-six-one aluminum alloy with a tensile strength of no more than one hundred twenty-four point two MPa. “Grab some sheet metal and follow me!”

“Follow you where?” he snaps. “I’m the chief of this davos! I’m the one
you
follow!”

“We’re pinned down by fire,” I protest. “What difference does it make? My old chief never cared if one of her Regulators showed initiative. A good idea is a good idea.”

“Your old chief,” Aziz says, “is dead.”

“If we don’t get off this hill stat,” I say, biting back the bile rising in my throat, “we might be joining her in Valhalla.”

Aziz pushes a palm against his forehead and stares at Charlotte, asleep on the straw mat. “Damn you, Stringfellow! Do the stunt. But if this goes fubar, the blames on you!”

I set my piece of sheet metal in place on the wall. Aziz holds it steady while I pick up the girl.

“
Heewack!
” I yell, and jump on, wrapping my arms around Charlotte. For a second, my weight holds the sheet in place. Then Aziz gives a shove, and off we go!

“For the record,” Mimi says, “even living, I would not have described this as a good idea.”

Whoosh!

Down the steep hill we plummet!

Like an insane carnival truck—

bouncing over sawgrass—

mud flying in my face . . . almost losing my hold on Charlotte—

crashing toward the scrap heaps—

leaning hard, hard, to my left to barely—

miss it—

then
wham!

We slam into a shack, taking it down with us. Burying me and Charlotte in blankets, trinkets, somebody’s leftover dinner slop. I throw my body over hers, protecting her, until finally we come to a stop.

“Mimi,” I say. “Check her vitals.”

“Strong,” she says. “The child’s as well.”

“Righteous.” I leave her put and, a few seconds later, emerge from the wreckage. Covered in crap. Head draped with what I realize is somebody’s soiled drawers.

“Gah!” I yell, and throw the shite off my face, only to be met with an all-too-familiar sight: the barrel of an automatic weapon.

I knock the barrel away. “What did Mimi always tell us? ‘Don’t take aim if you’re not aiming to shoot!’”

“Sorry.” Vienne pulls back her armalite. “I didn’t recognize your underwear.”

“Come on,” I say. “You knew it had to be me.”

“A fossiker crashing into a shack on a piece of sheet metal?” she says. “On second thought, yes, it did have to be you.” She smiles and pats me on the head. “Where’s the rest of the crew?”

Screams and yelps drift down from the hill. Aziz and Sarge rip down toward us, spinning like drunken tops. They shoot past the shack and ram into the scrap heaps.

“Carfarg it!” Sarge yells. “Who thought of this fossiker idea?”

Seconds later, Pinch comes down the hill. She’s standing, riding her sheet like a surfboard. “Yeehaw!”

“A susie after my own heart,” I say.

Vienne whacks the back of my head.

“Ow!” I say. “What was that?”

“Pipe down.” Vienne narrows her eyes. “The chief’s talking to us.”

“Sarge, grab the target and let’s bust it!” Aziz points to Charlotte, who is safe under a pile of clothes and blankets. “Keeping moving. Zigzag. Don’t give them a clear shot.”

Sarge scoops up Charlotte before I can stop him.
Don’t drop her,
I think as we cut through the salvage heaps, then find a deserted alley until we reach a main path.

Aziz sidles up to a shack. He leans out, taking a peek, then stops to listen.

Dead silence.

“Mimi,” I say, “do a perimeter scan.”

But before she can answer, Aziz waves us forward. We step out on the path, expecting a straight shot to the extraction zone. Instead, we find a platoon-sized mass of wobblies waiting, licking their chops.

Literally, licking their chops. Like we’re a meal.

I don’t want to be a meal.

“I think we zigged,” I say, thumbing the safety off my armalite and dropping my visor as I take point, “when we should’ve zagged.”

Chapter 6

The Warren
ANNOS MARTIS
238. 2. 3. 18:29

I open up with my armalite, spraying the
đibui
with a full clip of ammo. My aim is low—not trying to kill any of them. Just trying to force them back and provide cover.

They return fire. Their bullets ping off my suit, and they start chanting something. I buy enough time for my crew to take cover behind the corner shack, which suits me fine.

I pop the ammo clip and replace it with a new one, tapping it on my helmet to set the mechanism. “What now?” I ask Aziz when I join then.

“We find another way to the EZ!” the chief yells. “Follow me!”

But we’ve gone no more than fifty meters when the mud in front of us explodes.

Gunfire.

From above us, on a watchtower built around a rusted-out telemetry relay tower. The Razor stands atop the tower, straddling the railing, battle rifle on his hip, a bloody gash on his forehead.

“Here!
Pursue them, my brothers!” he booms through a makeshift megaphone. “Bring my love back to me!”

His love? Does he mean Charlotte, the susie he kidnapped? “Wait a minute,” I say, and start doing some quick math.

“Do not hurt yourself,” Mimi says.

“Was that your attempt at humor?”

“Sarcasm.”

“Not bad.” I laugh. “For a rookie.”

Shouts and caterwauling behind us. The
đibui
are coming. It’ll take less than ten seconds for them to sprint down that main path and turn the corner.

We’re stuck.

“Durango, delay the wobblies!” Aziz points to the tower. “Sidewinder, take him out!”

A quick round is Vienne’s reply. She plants a bullet in the Razor’s chest. The force of the shot knocks him back over the railing.

His finger convulses on the trigger, and the gun empties as he falls backward.

I meet the horde at the corner. For a micron of time, the
đibui
are transfixed by the gunfire. Then, as if the Bishop himself had snapped his fingers, they charge—screaming—firing—whooping and overrunning my position.

The Tenets forbid killing innocents, and while they’re armed to the teeth and willing to kill me or worse, they don’t look like soldiers. They just look starved.

Down on one knee, I aim for the leaders.

Pop-pop-pop! Pop-pop-pop! Pop-pop-pop!

I fire three-round bursts over their heads.

A warning.

It’s the only one you’re going to get,
I think.

“Retreat! Get out of there!” Aziz swings Charlotte onto his broad shoulder. “Sarge! Cover Durango! Vienne! Take point! Let’s move!”

Vienne sprints toward the hill, then cuts right down a wide alley, then left out of sight. I follow Aziz and Pinch, keeping an eye open for Sarge, who is laying down fire, then sprinting to cover.

At the next position, I hang back, protecting Sarge’s retreat down the alley.

“Pretty boy! What’re you doin’?” he yells as a
đibui
with a sawed-off shotgun rounds the corner of a shack and takes aim.

“Covering your ass!” I pick off the wobblie with a shot to the shoulder. He screams and falls into the mud.

Sarge takes position next to me. “Aziz said for me to cover the retreat!”

“I’m covering you covering the retreat!” I yell, and lift my visor. “I thought you needed a hand!”

“You’re freelancing?” Sarge says. “Aziz’s going to be piddled for sure!”

“I was trained by the best!” I yell over the scream of small arms fire. “Move up! I’ll cover this alley for ten seconds.”

Sarge shakes his head. “You’re going to catch hell for this later, Turtle.” Then sprints down the path after the crew.

Seconds later, two
đibui
appear, crouching low. They run up to the wobblie I popped in the shoulder and drag him to cover.

I let them retrieve their wounded.

Then a pack of wobblies breaks through the corner shack, firing at everything. The feral howl of their screams sends a chill down my back. I drop my visor, stand up, and let loose with my armalite.

Bullets grind up the ground in front of them, and they run straight into the hailstorm, the bullets chewing through their bare feet.

The first line of
đibui
falls. The second line falls over them. In a mad scramble of mud and blood, they go down, and the wobblies behind them trip on their bodies, cascading down like a rain of people.

“Eleven seconds have passed since the soldier named Sarge left this position,” Mimi says. “May I suggest that this would be an opportune moment to move, as well?”

“No, you cannot.”

“This would be an opportune moment to move, as well.”

“I told you, no suggestions!”

“Clarification,” Mimi says. “I asked if I may. You replied that I could not. Can and may are two separate verbs with similar but different meanings.”

I pop the clip and flip it over. Then burst fire into the ground to make the
đibui
think twice about charging again. “Can you please shut up?”

“Is that a request or an inquiry into my capabilities?”

“It’s an order! Shut up!”

“I do not accept orders,” Mimi says. “Only commands and requests.”

I scream out of frustration and fire once more, over the heads of the
đibui
, then take off after my davos through a labyrinth of twists and turns. For a moment, I think I’ve outrun them. I stop, breathing heard, and listen.

Not a sound.

“Brilliant,” I say, and start sprinting.

Until I turn a corner and
wham!

I run right into Sarge’s butt.

“Watch it!” Sarge yells, and he catches his balance. “You almost fried me!”

Fried him? By hitting his butt? I get to my feet. “What’s wrong?” Before anyone replies, I see and hear the answer—an electrified fence five meters high, topped with concertina wire.

Dead end.

Man-made lighting arcs over the high chain-link fence. My davos stands an arm’s length away, except for Aziz, who has Charlotte over his shoulder. Every three meters, a huge red sign screams out a warning:
DANGER! ELECTRIFIED!
in three languages.

Sarge is right. I almost killed him. His symbiarmor couldn’t take that much juice without frying him to a crisp.

“Technically,” Mimi, “that many volts are incapable of frying human flesh.”

“But he would be dead.”

“Affirmative.”

“We’ve got to get higher,” I say, backing up to assess the situation.

“Why?” Aziz says.

“So we can get over the fence,” Vienne says, with an implied
of course.

“Why?” Aziz and Pinch say simultaneously.

Sarge pushes past all of us. “Bloody hell, the signs are just dummies. I reckon the current’s just there for show. Who’d be fossiker enough to put an electric fence where any piker could latch on?” He grabs the chain fence and says, “See?”

For a second nothing happens, then
zap!
Current arcs through him, and he goes flying backward, as if a giant, invisible crowbar had cracked him in the mouth.

He lies in the mud, rigid as a corpse.

“Is he dead?” I ask Mimi.

“Negative,” she says. “I am detecting a persistent biosignature.”

Vienne and I walk over to Sarge. Look down at his soot-stained face.

“Piker or fossiker?” I ask.

“Both,” she says.

I cover Sarge’s open mouth to keep the rain out. “Now he knows how a cockroach in a zapper feels.”

Pinch pushes me aside. She kneels to examine Sarge, putting her head on his chest.

“He’s not dead,” Vienne says.

“Probably wishes he were,” I say.

“His heart’s beating,” Pinch says. “He’s breathing.”

“His armor absorbed most of the current,” I say.

Vienne nudges hard him with her boot. “Quit goldbricking, soldier.”

Sarge’s eyes pop open. He tries to lift his head. “Can’t. Ruddy. Move.”

“Because you shorted out your symbiarmor.” Aziz pushes us aside and squats next to Sarge. “The electric pulse scrambles the nanobots. You’ll be okay in a few minutes.” He stands and hands Charlotte over. “Pinch, guard the target while I look for a hole in this fence. You two, keep the
đibui
off our tail.”