Fearful machine whirs the stroma. Fearful machine, fearful machine.
Fear not, I’m part of you. Fear not comes the retort from inside the warehouse, trying to convince us.
Destroy them, destroy them, destroy them another invisible wave rolls through the door, sending us all into baffled confusion.
Two parts of the one breathes Thorn, deep in his stroma trance. Two parts divided.
So that’s why I sensed it came from the same entity! Thorn’s ability amazes me.
Blane breaks the human link to march over and jiggle the door handle. It’s not budging.
I point to an outline of a hand embedded on the wall. “ID pad, upper left.”
Blane curses under his breath as he scrambles back to the guard, still passed out down the hall. He drags him toward the door by his limp arms. Armonk helps haul him by grabbing the guy’s jackboots. Blane pauses before pressing the guard’s hand on the ID scanner. He gives us each a pointed look. “Once I do this, we’ll need to be ready for anything. Got it?”
We nod. As he matches the guard’s hand to the flat screen print, the door clicks open to a scene more frightening than my worst Stile’s nightmare.
Chapter 30
We look down from a platform to a vast stretch of factory, larger than anything conceivable are rows upon rows upon rows of monstrous Reds, each in its own pod, custom-molded to its massive wingspan, its hawkish head and leathery torso. The way they’re hooked up to sensors and what look like feeding tubes reminds me of carnivorous dinosaurs, half-grown, yet still nested. These beings are clearly derivative of our Reds, but they’re not cute and leafy. They are geometrically jagged like the rocks of Skull’s Wrath. Their blood red wings have scaly, angular planes as if they’re designed to fly as swiftly as the rockets the world knew before the Border Wars, the rockets Nevada drew diagrams of in her history lessons. Rockets of fire that were meant to populate other planets. These beasts bask in the glow from the skylight above.
No, these aren’t the Reds we know and love. Not at all. These beings are as big as giant gliders. They raise their necks, narrow their beady eyes at us and gnash their sharpened pickaxe teeth.
Jaws gaping, they snarl at us. The clamor eats at my brain: Enemy dares come here, enemy dares come here, enemy dares come here!
And their own baffling counter refrain: I am you, I am you, I am you.
Why is their message so ambiguous? Are their ranks divided? Blane and I exchange troubled looks, and then we glance over at Armonk and Thorn to see if they understand. We all have the same desperate impulse: go into the huddle. But there’s no time.
Because live human watchmen are rising from a handful of the pods.
Armonk flies into action, raising his bow and aiming, firing, aiming. A few of the watchmen go down, but others are stalking toward us.
Blane fumbles at the lights and levers of the pilfered weapon to figure out how it works. Our own Reds, in the meantime, glom onto the watchmen who are reaching for their same narrow-barreled guns.
One guard flips open his holophone to call for backup. “Main office? Reporting a—” he starts until our Reds dive-bomb his face.
I creep up from the back, reach around and slather elixir in his eyes. Nasty move, but we need this to work instantly.
“Frying hell!” the guard scrabbles at his eyes, trying to wipe them clean. As he does this, Armonk lands an arrow in his back. The guard grunts, falls and his holophone clunks to the floor in a stark splotch of his blood. That’ll keep him down. I race on to my next mark.
Blane has figured out how to shoot the weapon. It’s a taser with all of the bells and whistles, including a high-pitched digital shriek as the thing hits its mark. The next two guards seize up in spasms, while I swoop in to paralyze.
We must be venomous and swift, and we are, because there are five more men coming at us. Thorn guides the Reds to create interference, Blane tackles, Armonk shoots his arrows, and the moment I see a watchman down I smear my elixir in his eyeballs, his mouth, on his exposed neck.
The last guard manages to trip me. I hit my chin hard on the textured floor. He whirls around and zaps me as I try to deal with the throbbing pain in my jaw. As I convulse from his taser, I see Blane, firing at the man’s torso.
Blane hauls me to my feet as this last watchman goes down in fits, clutching at his chest. Turns out I’ve only been hit on my shoulder. It burns like crazy but I can function.
All during this time, the monstrous Reds continue to struggle against their thick restraints. As they writhe, they release terrifying, ear-shattering roars.
You! You! You will pay for this invasion.
Who knows how much more time we have before they explode out of their binding. If they do, we’ll be crushed.
We did not come here for murderous, bloody slaughter I think.
Thorn looks my way. We need to use our real power. Remember what we are.