Again, I have the same strong feeling these lines are coming from the same source. Can’t say why; it makes no sense. I look around our circle and whisper, “Who wants to destroy us?”
Judging by everyone’s mystified expressions no one has an answer. Yet, while we’re still in the huddle, our feet begin to carry us along the first hallway.
As we proceed, the holographic ghoul closest to us skitters over. Its light is blinding at close range, but when I blink to adjust, I see it’s a spinning, larger-than-life replica of the same tiny tech device that was implanted in Thorn’s brain. But this one has eerie, gleaming knobs where eyes would be. Its animated prongs look truly real and terrifying, as if with a thrust, one could pierce my heart.
“Shoo!” I manage.
In response it hovers so close that its light brushes my skin, its prongs assault my torso with sharp tentacles of light. It’s not that it hurts, but it’s frightening in its unpredictability.
“Get away!” Armonk bats his hand at it. The holo doesn’t seem to like this. It jumps forward and literally invades Armonk, its massive light making Armonk glow as if he’s polluted with radiation.
“We said lay off, bud,” Blane snarls. He pushes us forward, swerving around the holo. We pick up speed, moving away from it.
But it catches up. In jerky movements it launches its transparent body at Blane, and it starts to babble in a gravelly voice. “Data collection tools are a must in this dangerous era. You need us.”
The Reds try to peck at it, but their snouts dive right through it. The holo goes on. “As Adam, I’m everyman, helping you discover the devious secrets of others. Collection tools are a must in this era of pre-war.”
“Pre-war?” Blane scoffs, “Who the hell are you really, Adam?”
As if the holo is a man, it starts explaining the dangers of pre-war without actually explaining what pre-war is. “You’ll be in danger of losing your money, your house, even your mind. You’ll need every nanotool for the ramp up. NanoPearl and I, Adam, have partnered for the future.”
“You’re a freaking ad, aren’t you?” Blane jeers. “You stupid tool! You’re worse than those stupid Stream ads.”
“Tool,” parrots Adam. “Tool. I’m the best pre-war tool ever.” Finally, with one glazed stare back at us, Adam bumps down the hall from the direction “he” came.
Blane wipes sweat from his brow. “Holy Fire, that thing was obnoxious.” Clearly, the transparent stalker has unnerved him. Blane is used to knocking down enemies with two solid legs and a fleshy torso that he can neatly tackle and pin to the floor.
“If this is who we’re fighting, get ready for a different kind of fight,” Armonk warns. “An arrow or elixir won’t work on a stalking hologram.”
The next holo, a black, oblong device with two red nubs for eyes, also babbles about the ramp-up. But it signals a worse problem. Right behind it, a real flesh and blood guard is marching our way, doing his rounds. He’s got a massive neck and shoulders, and he’s holding some type of futuristic looking weapon.
“Crap!” Blane whispers. “Why’d I let you talk me out of my gun?”
“Halt,” orders the guard when he sees us. He raises his weapon.
The Reds rocket into action, swarming the guy. He stumbles as he fends them off.
Blane dives, tackling him at the ankles and they crash down together. As the man’s weapon bounces away, I see Armonk reach for it and stuff it in his side pocket. I join the melee, desperately smearing elixir wherever I can, across the guard’s wide face, his callused hands and, yanking up his uniform pants, over his legs. He slumps down like a sloppy drunk. Blane clambers up and asks Armonk for the guy’s weapon. I guess Blane gets a gun after all, if he can figure out how to use it.
We only have a moment before the third holo whirs our way. This one is shimmery yellow, with wormy fronds spiraling out of where its head and torso would be if it were a man. “Nod here. I’ll be your seventh sense during pre-war. I have teamed up with NanoPearl in this dangerous ramp-up time.” Its “eyes” rudely ogle us up and down.
The Reds charge it, but their leafy wings sail right through its ghostly core.
“Nod, here, Nod, here,” it repeats. Somehow the Reds have flummoxed its promo rap. “When you need to ferret out the enemy, use Nod here, Nod here.”
Thorn barrels right through this holo, and runs to the end of the hall. With that, the holo spins away and dissolves.
Warehouse door thinks Thorn, and his thought shudders through us all. In there, in there, in there.
An infuriated chorus from behind it strikes back at us. Destroy them, destroy them!
There’s no one standing between that last door and us. We can power into that warehouse now, finally see what the stroma wants from us. Except that a forbidding wash of danger crashes toward us, warding us away. It’s so strong that it nearly knocks me to my knees.
I brace myself with Blane’s hand, and he, in turn takes Thorn’s. Thorn reaches for Armonk’s. We all sense it, a fearful machine.