01:48:08
“Wait!” Geoffrey exclaimed. “What’s that?”
Sasha had clicked on a camera view in front of their honeymoon condominium at the west end of the river. Just before she switched to another camera view, Geoffrey had noticed the front door of the apartment opening. She hit BACK.
“There they are, Geoffrey!” Sasha shouted.
“Oh, God,” Geoffrey said.
01:48:01
The sound of Henders Island came rushing back to Nell as the unforgettable howling drone filled her ears again. Only now was she grateful that Hender’s nants covered her flesh.
Dima waited until Abrams had gone fifteen yards before opening the door and jumping down the stairs. He zigzagged from the sidewalk to the middle of the street and back again in five-second intervals per Hender’s direction.
Fifteen paces behind him, Galia and Bear did exactly what Dima did. Bear even threw a chunk of ghost-flesh to each side as he zigged and zagged to throw off pursuers.
Nastia, Nell, and Hender ran behind them, Hender’s fur camouflaging them from behind as he smacked leaping rats away with four arms moving in a blur.
Nell felt like raw meat with her bare head exposed. She was sure the animals around her could smell her deep fear. With little else but a microscopic veneer defending her skin, it was inevitable that the first bug would strike her, a drill-worm that gashed her forehead. “Hender!” she shouted as blood trickled into her eyebrow.
“It’s OK, Nell!” Hender piped behind her. “Keep running.”
Nell smelled the cilantro-like scent of the warning pheromone, which the drill-worm had sprayed after encountering the nants on her forehead. She was struck again, on her back, then again on her arm. This was it, she thought—in another instant, she would be the main course of a feeding frenzy.
But the wasp and drill-worm that struck her both retreated, spraying her with repellent, and the feeding frenzy that she expected never came. The wounds on her arm and forehead seemed to heal even as the blood from the gashes disappeared.
A big Henders rat vaulted through the air past Hender, Nastia, and Nell, who batted it away with the field shovel Abrams had given her.
“Good,” Hender said. “Go left!”
Nastia and Nell veered left as the eight-legged “rat” hit the street, only to be tackled by smaller rats and disk-ants as it skidded and rolled across the road in a growing ball of carnage.
Meanwhile, Abrams charged up the sidewalk in a straight line, deliberately drawing the attention of their pursuers. Henders rats and bugs slammed into him, but they did not succeed in denting the shell of his armor or toppling the hydraulic exoskeleton. A pony-sized spiger catapulted off its hind legs and tail, landing behind Abrams and striking his leg with one of its spikes, which sent a shock wave of pain through his calf. With its low center of gravity, the suit absorbed the blow, however, and Abrams wasn’t toppled as he turned to fire a fusillade of lead into both brains of the predator. Then he doubled back and kicked the beast to the other side of the road.
Abrams was mauled by a storm of creatures.
“Shit,” Dima said.
“Let’s get in the game!” Bear said.
“No worries,” Abrams said through the radio calmly. “I got it. My leg’s a little dinged, though.” He turned and charged ahead, swarmed with bugs.
The headless mule, meanwhile, drew off half the traffic as it piled up behind them and turned back in the other direction and chased it against the flow. It sensed debris on the road and clambered over it, nimble as a mountain goat despite being bombarded by predators. Unable to knock the indomitable machine off course, the attacking creatures were further thwarted and provoked by the flares burning on its back. Henders rats leaped onto the slab of cooking meat and were wriggling wildly as they carved out mouthfuls of octopus flesh with razor-toothed jaws even as babies emerged from their sides to gorge themselves around the burning flares.
The street curved north ahead as Abrams came to the first cross street that radiated from the central tower. One actuator was sticking, and his right leg dragged as a severed hose was bleeding out. He freed his right arm, even as his robotic arm continued to rise, and he flung a flashbang grenade like a quarterback in a high arc about thirty-five yards up the broad avenue, hoping to cause a traffic jam.
The intense flash of the grenade lit up the buildings and a strip of the skyline above. The deafening pop stunned the Henders creatures for a moment before they became even more aggressive and attacked one another.
“OK, guys,” Abrams called. “We got a good fight started up here! Now’s a good time to get past this street!”
Dima pushed a button on the dog whistle to call the mule back before they lost sight of it behind them. He figured it couldn’t distract their pursuers if it was too far away. The robot came around the bend and cantered forward, its metallic body dripping with creatures like a beehive.
A rat struck Nastia’s back with spikes that felt like bullets even though they were deflected by her Dragon Skin armor.
Bear ran back and swatted the rat that clung to her back. It grabbed his hand, striking it with a piercing blow. Cursing in pain, Bear flung the animal to the ground in front of him and crushed it under his boot. “F*ck!” he yelled, pulling Nastia as he ran ahead.
“Thanks!” Nastia said.
“Don’t shout, Nastia,” Hender reminded her. Nastia ran ahead behind Bear as Nell followed, and Hender knocked leaping rats and flying wasps out of the air behind them.
Abrams’s XOS suit wheezed as he drove forward up the last stretch. He tossed flares to the other side of the street as he had observed Kuzu do, but now, in the daylight, the ploy was less effective, judging by the storm of creatures still pursuing him. He pumped his bionic body forward through the thickening swarm that felt like a hailstorm impacting on his armor now. He noted that the cross street coming up on the right ended at an arch cut into the wall on his left. As he drew closer, he saw large red words stenciled on a door inside the arch: