To Fenn, Dambree had driven in a long, winding course the entire night, constantly drinking off of the big can with "LIQUID HATE" written on the sides in blocky aggressive letters. The nav-comp kept beeping and recomputing the route they were taking. Several times it felt to Aunt Fenn that they were driving the opposite direction Dambree was trying to head toward.
Dambree had recharged the car only a few hours before dawn, now Fenn had woken up because the car had come to a stop again and shut off. There were explosions and the sounds of heavy weapons fire nearby, close enough that Fenn could hear the snap-krack of high velocity weapons. The car was slightly tilted up when Dambree put it in park and shut down the engine.
"What's going on?" Elu asked from the back seat.
"Nav-comp didn't update that there's some fighting on the other side of the hill," Dambree said. "We're going to stop for a little while."
"Oh," Elu said. "Can we get out.
"Don't go too far from the car," Dambree said. She unbuckled the seatbelt and opened the door, getting out slowly. Her limbs ached, her joints hurt, and her mouth had a metallic taste to it. She finished off the Liquid Hate she'd been nursing for two hours and then slung it into the bushes. She turned and looked at everyone in the car. "Stay at the car."
"What are you doing?" Tru asked.
Dambree pointed up the hill. "I'm going to go look. It might take a while. Eat, go potty, stretch. As soon as they're done fighting, we'll move on."
"Can't we just go backwards and turn around?" Uncle Inkee asked.
Dambree shook her head. "No, we barely managed to get through ahead of a nav-comp Civil Defense warning to stay out of the region.
There was another white flash, back the way they had came. About twenty seconds later the tops of the trees swayed back and forth a low rumbling could be heard.
"If we'd been slower, we would have been too close to that," Dambree said. She turned around and looked back to the top of the hill. "I need to get a look," she said. She tugged down the mask and started moving up the hill.
"Shouldn't someone go with her?" Fenn asked.
Tru shook her head as she stretched. "No."
"Why not?" Uncle Inkee asked, taking the two babies from Fenn so she could get out. Nee tried to kick him in the face while the baby hissed and tried to bite, but he was easily able to avoid both of their lashing out with practiced ease.
"She's almost silent. She's wearing protective gear. She knows how to avoid being seen," Elu said. He walked over to a tree and undid his pants. His cousins giggled a little as he started to urinate. "We need to stay close to the car though."
"Why?" Meglee asked, nervously heading for some of the bushes. Her bladder felt like it was going to burst but she didn't want any of the boys to see her pee.
"In case we have to leave quickly," Tru answered. She just leaned against the back of the car and peed, standing up and pulling up her pants.
"Ew, you didn't wipe," Meglee said.
"Wipe with plants, you might grab the wrong leaves," Tru said. She gave a grin. "I learned that the hard way that the soft looking leaves are poisonous."
Elu went over and helped Inkee change the diaper on the baby and Nee, who kicked and fought having a diaper put on, crying out 'big girl! No! big girl!" at the diaper.
A sucky of milk for the baby, a juice box and a nutribar for Nee, and both settled down, glaring at everyone. Nee's eyes were beginning to change from amber to green, but she kicked at anyone who came near while she gnawed on the cookie, the biting relieving the aching of her new teeth coming in.
There was a bright flash from the other side of the hill that burned away the shadows and made everything look 2D for a second.
Elu grabbed both children and dove to the ground, rolling away from the car even as they screamed. Tru dove face first toe ground, lacing her hands together and putting them over her neck.
The trees creaked as debris whipped by. The hill largely took the brunt of the blast, but trees were still knocked over and debris whipped through the air as the mostly deflected blast wave knocked down Fenn, Inkee, and their children. The wave of heat was crushing, oppressive, and the pressure made everyone's eyes bulge as their ears popped and left behind a ringing.
It happened several more times, the clouds rising up into the sky burning red and orange as they clawed their way into the pre-dawn sky.
"STAY DOWN!" Tru yelled as loud as she could, her voice strangely muffled in her own ears.
The ground kept shaking and heaving as even more explosions went off. Off to the right the hill exploded, throwing a fan of rubble and liquified rock and burning trees into the air.
Out of the sky came strikers, their graviton engines howling, the guns on their doors roaring, the noseguns ripping at the pre-dawn darkness with solid shafts of light. Missiles were fired toward the other side of the hill as they came in low and fast, some of the tips of the treetops shattering as the battlescreens nudged them. The strikers were taking return hits on their battlescreens, debris falling from the sky as the rounds exploded. Lasers flickered out, accompanied by loud cracks as the superheated air along the lines of their passage collapsed after the laser passed by.
Another set of detonations shook the earth, filling the morning with bright white light and debris.
Fenn found herself being pulled on, her mouth open as she screamed and covered the base of her ears, curled in a ball in the dirt. When she looked up she saw the flat white of the grav-ski mask staring at her.
Fenn realized she couldn't hear anything as Dambree pulled her to her feet and helped/dragged her to the car before pushing her inside.
Meglee saw Tru moving and crawled over to Elu, who was laying on top of both babies. She could see Nee's feet kicking and knew the toddler was screeching. Tru pulled Elu up, ignoring the hole in his shirt and the bleeding bite mark on his chest. She let him grab the babies and helped him toward the car.
Another set of detonations went off.
Meglee crawled over to her brothers, seeing Tru and Elu move, suddenly afraid Dambree would drive off and leave them. Neither of her brothers wanted to move, but she grabbed their ears and pulled until they followed, tears in their eyes.
Inkee looked up as Dambree grabbed his collar and started dragging him toward the car. He managed to stumble to his feet, avoiding the urge to just curl up in a tight ball.
Dambree managed to get everyone in the car. She unpacked the emergency foil blankets, covering them all from where they were huddled on the floorboards, making sure the shiny section was outward. She got in the car and hit the starter.
She almost cried from relief as the car started. She had heard that those weapons could knock out electronics and she'd been afraid the car would just sit there.
A glance showed Mister Mewmew staring at her from his kittykitty carrier as she threw the car in reverse, driving back through the woods. The car bounced and jostled everyone around as more flashes lit the sky. Something hit the top of the hill, spraying gravel, burning vegetation, clumps of dirt, and dust over the car.
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The windshield cracked in multiple places but held. The car's 3D model showed the front lights were out. She couldn't see further than ten feet, the air thick with the dust and debris from the explosions. She was worried less about that than she was staying at the edge of a battle between titans throwing around weapons that just the side effects could kill her and the family.
The right rear light went off when Dambree suddenly whipped the wheel, jamming it from reverse to forward, and the back of the car hit a tree that the top was burning. The air was burning hot, making everyone cough, as Dambree jammed on the pedal, heading north.
The nav-comp beeped with a Civil Defense update.
She was in the middle of a major battle between the 548th Mobile Infantry Horde and a massive group of "Ring Locusts" backed up by "Type-IV PAWM".
She swerved down the logging/maintenance road, the car bouncing along the ruts and through the potholes. Several times she hit water that sprayed up on either side of the car. The windshield wipers were worse than useless but at least she could see.
A striker, covered in Slorpy machines, cartwheeled from the sky, the crew still fighting, vanishing on the other side of the hill. There was no massive explosion but a plume of dirt rose up far enough Dambree could see it.
"STAY DOWN!" she shouted. The dirt road was crossing a rickety wooden bridge and she gritted her teeth, pushing the gas pedal as far as it would go and willing the car to go faster. She could smell burning plastics and synthetics, see that half the instruments were out.
The car was running, but not by much.
Across the river and back into the woods, she slowed down, moving along the serpentine road. She kept an eye on the rearview mirror, watching more mushroom clouds reach into the sky after a bright white flash. The whole region they had been in was one big debris cloud. The dust cloud she was in was thinning, finally, and she breathed a sigh of relief as the dust thinned out enough she could see further than 20 feet.
There was another series of flashes and the windshield suddenly turned white, the smartwire grid suddenly visible as it shorted out and went black. Dambree cursed, stomping on the brake, the car slewing in the dirt road until it came to a stop.
"Stay in the car!" she shouted. She got out, drawing the heavy duty knife she'd picked up at the sporting goods store and started prying up the plastic around the windshield.
Another set of bursts went off, the lenses polarizing as she kept her eyes slitted and staring at the plastic of the car windshield retainer. The heat washed over her and she swallowed repeatedly, her eyes watering. Her skin felt prickly under her fur as she managed to lift up the retainer. She grabbed it, yanking at it and pulling it with her as she moved across the front of the car, pulling it out.
Another set went off, rumbling the ground, as she threw it to the side and attacked the sealed edged of the windshield.
It took precious more minutes to get her fingers underneath it.
She gave a loud screech of effort as she tore it free, feeling something in her back and between her shoulders burn with pain. She sheathed the knife and climbed back in.
"Stay down," she said, putting the car in drive. It sputtered for a moment, then started going again. She noticed that the charge had dropped from 60% to nearly 25% and knew that the flashes were sapping the life from the batteries.
She put it out of her mind, opening the back window on the driver's side, to give the airflow a way to go. The car kept shuddering, the aerodynamics ruined, but she kept going anyway. The ringing in her ears was slowly fading as she reached down, pawed at the case, and pulled up another can of Liquid Hate.
"Don't say we didn't warn you!" the can squeaked as she popped the lid. She pushed up the mask, taking long drinks off of it, feeling sweaty and sticky under the coveralls and clothing, then pulled the mask back down and put the can between her legs.
She drove for a long time before anyone said anything.
"Can we sit up?" Ellie asked.
"Yeah. Keep the silver blanket around you, shiny side out," Dambree said, weaving around some of the larger potholes.
"Why?" Ellie asked.
"It'll reflect the radiation," Dambree said.
Fenn noticed her voice sounded flat, washed out.
"We took a lot," she said softly.
"We almost died," Inkee said, looking back. There was still flashing, the whole area nothing but a dust cloud lit by flashes and explosions. "They should have been careful of people."
Dambree laughed. "We should have been in a shelter, or far away from a battle," she glanced behind her, the rearview mirror gone. "It's war. We're not soldiers, we shouldn't be anywhere near the battles."
"But people are probably getting killed because they aren't being careful," Inkee said.
Dambree slowed the car to a stop, turning to look at him and her two male cousins.
Meglee and Aunt Fenn looked away.
"People die in war. Soldiers, the enemy, civilians," Dambree said.
Another rumble made the car tremble.
"The slorpies, they want your brain. They want to suck you into a machine and you're still aware while they use your brain to find other people to suck out their brains," Dambree said. "That human, that we saw die, he was laughing and screaming as he used the slorpie's tentacles to kill himself and destroy it. He knew he was inside of it."
"He was laughing," Elu said quietly.
"I'd rather get killed by a stray bullet or bomb than have my brain sucked out," Dambree said. She turned and looked out the windshield. "Since all of you are awake, you can keep a lookout for fliers or stilters."
Elu nodded, his ears perking up.
"We have a long way to go," Dambree said.
The car started moving again.
-----------------
Dambree came walking back from the top of the hill where the pavement crested the hill and, according to the nav-comp, joined a highway.
Fenn thought she looked tired as she paused at the front of the car, pushed up her mask, and took a long drink off the can of fizzybrew she was drinking. She slung the empty can into the bushes then came around and sat down in the driver's seat, closing the door and slumping against the seat.
"We need to get across that road," Dambree said. She leaned forward and put her forehead against the steering wheel. "It's full of cars, but I think I can push us through."
"Are there people? Like when they tried to pull us out of the car?" Tru asked, her upper lip trembling at the memory of that terrible night.
"No. The Slorpies and the army were already here," Dambree said, starting the car. It whined several times before it got started, shuddered when she put it in gear and started driving.
A set of strikers roared by overhead, a couple hundred meters off the ground, their weapons withdrawn into the fuselage and the wings fully extended.
"You need to see it," Dambree said.
The car crested the hill and Fenn gasped.
Some of the cars were destroyed, burnt out or reduced to burnt twisted wreckage. Lumpy unfinished slorpie wreckage was scattered around.
There were dozens, scores, hundreds of bodies laying on the ground. There were piles of bodies.
All with the tops of their heads or their faces missing and their skulls empty.
"Kids, look down at the..." Fenn started.
"No!" Dambree snapped. She didn't look away, slowing the car. "You look at it. You look at it good. That would be us, could be us, if we act stupid."
Fenn put her ears against the back of her head. "Dambree Limber..." she got out.
Dambree smacked her in the mouth with the back of her hand.
"You. Look. At. It," she growled.
Fenn saw that her niece's eyes were glowing red.
"LOOK AT IT!" she shouted.
Fenn started snuffling as she looked out the window.
She noticed, with horror, that Dambree didn't do much more than steer around the largest piles of bodies, driving over the legs and arms of any in the way as she moved the car across the grassy median.
"Dambree," Tru said softly.
"They need to see," Dambree growled.
"They're scared," Tru said.
"I know. So were we," Dambree answered.
Tru just nodded, looking out the window.
"Dambree?" Elu asked.
Dambree sighed. "What, Elu?"
"We need to check the cars," he said.
"They go on for a mile either way," Dambree said.
"We need to check them!" Elu argued. "At least all be quiet and drive between them and listen."
Dambree closed her eyes for a long moment. On one hand, she understood Elu's desire to find survivors.
But a big part of her didn't want to. Wanted them all to be dead.
Because she didn't want to take care of them.
"Please, Bree? For me?" Elu asked.
Dambree nodded. "For you."
She turned the wheel, moving along the double row of cars and rolling down the windows.
"Keep your eyes open and ears up," was all she said.
-----------------
The overpass was in the middle of nowhere. A mag-lev train over the two lane plascrete highway with trees on either side.
It was raining, thick black rain that stuck to everything.
Dambree had taped one of the emergency blankets between the back of the front seat and the two bench seats and trunk space of the car. She was wearing a poncho she'd made out of one of the blankets, sitting in the driver's seat as she slowed down, pulling to the side of the space under the mag-lev bridge.
"Why are we stopping?" Fenn asked.
She sounded hoarse, from all the crying she'd done.
"I need a nap," Dambree said. "And I need to use the bathroom."
"I'll keep watch," Elu offered.
"No, stay here, with them," Dambree said. She took a deep breath. "When I get back, I'll have Mister Mewmew unlock one of the rifles, you and Tru can keep watch."
She opened the door and got out, moving away from everyone.
She went into the bushes, made sure she was out of sight, standing in the gray mid-day light. She pushed her mask up and took a deep breath.
She went down on one knee and vomited. Liquid Hate, fizzybrew, and snakpak came up first, then stringy bile. Her head swam and her guts hurt. She retched for a long time before getting up and moving.
Moving her bowels hurt. She wiped off and stood up, buttoning her coveralls.
She looked down at Mister Mewmew.
"How bad?"
The yellow trefoil burned brightly on Mister Mewmew's forehead.