>> The Genocide Bomb
My gun-camera rounds the corner of the street. Zooming in tight on the squat, armoured, truck Tufty claims is Wayman Company's Mobile Command. And it's a beast. Thick plating. Armoured turrets built into the sides. A whole whirling swarm of drones spiralling around it. Plus tank-bots, sentry orbs, and twenty slaves with rifles.
Oh, and one other little detail.
“Is that…. It can’t be.” Kami adds as I group-share the feed.
“Mate! Bloody Hell! Like, am I seeing stuff? Or, like, is that the smuggler that passed us earlier? Y’know?”
“The one Badger wanted to boom.” Kami finishes.
“Or one like it.” I caution, easing back into cover between a crushed pile of cars and a looted deli. “Karrak ain’t exactly light on suspicious bloody vans.”
“Yeah, but…. like, why?”
I shrug. “Who knows? To scope us first, without tippin’ off your air support? Or just for the thrill of it?” Of looking us dead in the eyes, and smiling. Whispering, to themselves ‘I know something you don’t know…..’ as they roll on past…..
“Go bloody knock and find out!” Kami scoffs in a prickly tone.
My left ear pricks, head tilting. “Are you sulkin’ cause I didn’t die?” I tease back, poking her vScreen. Her avatar folds its arms. Snorting.
“Piss off.”
"Uh huh?" I smirk.
“Oh, grow up. You’ve got mini-tanks inbound. They know where you are.”
“Shit.” My ears spike, twisting toward the wrecked street. “Right. Yes. The war.”
Zip snickers. “She totally is, though.”
“HEY!”
My tail whips round the corner as I bolt along the destroyed side of the shop. Skulking low against the blank wall, toward the van. Trusting the mangled, bullet-torn, wrecks strewn across the road. Ancient sports cars. Vans. A rotted school-bus, with blown open windows - the bent, rusted, struts caging a freakishly messed-up….. thing…. built of nightmare-fuel and gibbering madness.
With just…. too many legs splaying from too many holes.
All reaching, elongated, withered and twisted with age.
The trapped abdomen sunken in on itself. Mothing but a mess of twisted bones, spun together like freakish webs. But the head.... the head is the worst. Like a festering, fungus-wracked, messed-up spider - with hundreds of mummified, screaming, sobbing, human, faces instead of its eyes….
All of it dead.
Caked in dust.
Except the shifting, glowing, fungus, etching it with waving shadows. Giving it a mad life all of it own....
I rip my eyes away. Focusing on the ‘smuggler’ truck floating, ominously, above the crushed mess of a family sedan. Endless scores of drones orbiting its raised antenna. The slaves look shaken. Coloured by is lights. Their eyes stuck, rigidly, on that mangled monster-corpse. Only occasionally flicking to the centre of the street, and the corners.
Not they’re needed.
Not with an army of drones, holding pattern above. Others lurking in the ruins - like mobile security cameras, to match the ones on the truck. My ears flicker this way and that as I creep a circle around them. Way nearer to the schoolbus than I'd like. Even ten metrics away, that thing twangs primordial sinews of terror in my heart.
But I gotta to get closer.
I slip around the front of the bus, to stand beneath that maddening court of demonic faces. I'd rather use a leg, but this next bit.... well. It's the one place wide enough to block the light.
Not daring to breathe as I raise my scanner-hand, and tempt the Hell out of fate. Itching myself closer. Right to the wide-open mandibles, flickering with glowing strands. Reaching toward that death-dried mouth, with its me-sized throat.
Oh God. Even the insides are.... just.... coated... with.... dozens... of shrunken, screaming, faces….
Near enough to grab, I reach right for its face-filled face and light up the scanner. Rainbow hues shifting shadows on the creature's unsettling maw. Dire shudders of crawling hate tickling their sick fingers up my back. My tail. My soul.
“What’s that?” One of the slave-kids whispers. Instantly choking as the shock-collar shushes him.
I shut off the light, too eagerly.
It did…. wretched things…. to those staring faces….
In shuddering relief, I draw fully back. Flicking a claw to drop one of my two, precious, Devourer grenades right my palm. A weapon banned in multiple countries, for..... reasons.
Many reasons.
Reasons you're about to bloody find out.
“Set target organism.” Lights pulse rings around it, seen only by me, as the grenade swallows the monster's physical information. A vast, hideous, mess of conflicting genetics and epigenetics. RNA, DNA, and cell-structure boiled down to a single signature. Sections of the grenade sliding in and out as it shifts to produce a unique, targeted, energy-wave.
It pings, suddenly,
"Destroyer Primed. Coded Annihilator Field: Ready".
I drop the shifting ball, and it comes alive. Rolling, eagerly, toward the husk even as I (far more eagerly) dart away from it and twitch my self back into the shadows.
Circling out, then back toward the rear of the truck.
“Spook. Whatever you’re playing at-”
“Shh….”
The slaves and drones can’t see me, whispering up beside them. Tail a slither in shadows. Sharp eyes, glinting in the dark. Almost there..... I pause. Calculating. And Polybius glitches into being beside me. Analysing the van with its mechanical eyes. “I have confirmed that the collars will detonate if the signal shuts off.”
“Oh…. Shit….” I breathe. Backing away. One more decoy? Yeah, better do it….
“Yes. However, as before-” My fingers drift to my neck. “-it will not be instant. You have twenty minutes, while they attempt to reconnect.”
“How many collars?”
“Forty-eight.”
“Oh double shit….. that’s a lot." I grit fangs "Need a better plan.”
“Scan the truck antenna.” Polybius folds up into nothing, without a further word.
“Alright.” I mutter, slinking around the back of the hovering hulk. Just another boring shadow beneath its coloured lights, that's me. Edging wide around its ring tank drones, humming with power. And the whirling mass of hunting flyers, eyeing the wrecks…. "Shit. I can't get close. Might need more than a bloody distraction." I stop by a car, and blink. Patting claws to armour. “Pol. The pipebomb. It’s gone. I stuck it right here, but it's gone.”
“Yes. It is.” Polybius jitters on the counter of my gun, like a sigil of madness.
“What….” I breathe. “It was security-locked to my bloody armour!”
“Badger is smarter than he appears.” The machine mind says.
“…..well….” I shake out my head. “Well, crap….. Where is he? He’s not on the damn scopes…..” My eyes widen. “He's- His bloody dot! It’s vanished….! He’s….!”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“Smarter than he appears.” Polybius repeats - and I snarl a very rude word. But the machine-Mind interrupts my fury. "Warning :: Enemy Drones are no longer targeting Zipper."
"Shit. They're know he's outta ammo." But I'm still down a damned bomb. Mentally, I rejig my plan - palming a frag into a mangled sedan, where I hope it'll stay.
Well. There. Two distractions. Hope I don't need both....
Breathing slow and hard, I skulk a little further past the back of truck. Eyeing the blank walls and local vehicles for likely targets.
Alright then.
"Okay. Not as many tanks. No fliers. I'm behind enemy lines...."
"The rear of the truck is guarded. You won't get in by ground."
"I know. I know." I growl, wishing I had other options. I could climb a building, but....
Fear twists my gut.
No. Too high. But maybe....
I glance up at the fungal windows of the tour bus beside me, and curse. But, with adrenaline and terror as my wings, I fire my grapple upward - sticky tendrils unfurling, in mid-air, to impact the roof of a bus. "H-here we bloody go. For the team...." I plant a nervous foot on the side. A shiver of breath going through me. "It's the only way.... Won't be that far down...." I reassure myself. "Loads of cars to land on....."
Yeah, right.
Even so - I shut eyes and force myself to walk up the smooth, cool, plastic. Quietly as I can. Keeping to the ridged edges, where the musty windows join the hull, as fronds of that same weird fungus waver inside. Glowing. Pulsing. Wrapping the seats, and growing from them. Like strange, alien passengers. Pressing thread-like hands against the glass, where I step, as if to touch me as I pass.
God. Is it mad I prefer the glowy, strangley, fungus to the short fall behind me?
No. Don't think Just climb. Climb. Onto the roof.
Flattening my belly to it. Shuddering. Trying not to think about down.
See? That was easy. It ain’t far down. I'm grappled on tight.
Heck, I’ve jumped further. Probably….
I start to slide forwards, towards the front of the bus. Breath hard. Fighting to keep my claws from ripping deep into the surface, and latching on forever. But I breathe deep. I pad toward my target, like a predator, across slick paint stained with rust.
Thump. Crump.
It dents under me. A tiny noise in the mayhem, but so very loud up close. Sticking nervous breaths in my throat as my heart rises.
But I can't see the ground. It ain't so bad. It ain't so bad.....
The roof of the their truck is a little lower. Nothing but a fat mess of cables, tek, and more tek - whirled by drones. My eyes slip upward. Tracing across the top line of the T junction to a certain, blown-out, window right on the corner of that battle-torn street. Barely visible. Swarming with drones. But absolutely there.
“Spook. Hurry. They’re closing in on Demon. He’s leading them right to you.” A little heartbeat of hesitation. “Make the slaves lie flat…. I’ll take the shot. It’s armour piercing. The truck is heavy. It should go right through the shell, and be contained.” Kami swallows. “They’ll probably survive.”
Sure. Maybe. If it ain't loaded with explosives.
I press myself flat to the back of the bus. Judging the angles. Calculating. Remembering how their drones move.
“Spook. What are you doing?”
“The bi-rotors. Their cameras are angled down. Like choppers.” I grunt, shimmying a little to the side. “Yeah. Bout there.” I grin a terrified, rictus, I'm-gonna-die grin. “And the monster bloody lives.”
“Wha-” She starts as I hit the trigger on my Destroyer grenade. And everything else is utterly lost beneath the dull, rising, pweeeeeeeeeee~ of power building in the dark.
A shimmer rises, as the grenade comes apart - a sphere of black cubes surrounding a screaming roar of energy. Internal systems lock onto the monster’s cell-signature. Unleashing a wave of blinding disintegration that rolls - harmlessly - over the fungus. Plus any human, GMO, or Gone Wrong in its path. Settling, like motes of light, on the dead monster.
For a second it shimmers, like a trick of the light.
And then it utterly evaporates. Burning with a brilliant, scalding, incandescence that turns every car into a blowtorch-roar of shadow - edged with absolute light. Its spreads across the warped skin of the monster. Covering it. Every bit of it. Burning the creeping nightmare like a magnesium flare.
As predicted, it's a threat that's impossible to ignore. Every drone, eyeball, and camera utterly focused on that roaring pyre of light. Slaves yelling. Shielding their scoured eyes, or shooting - wildly - into the blinding nothingness. Staggering and terrified as the monster, and their fears, come horribly alive.
I launch from my crouch before I can even think about it. Tail a streamer as I bound, on all fours, toward the front of the bus. Into that massive light. Eyes flipping to heat-vision as I run - just to see where I'm going. The van is lower. Its roof a glowing, red, mess of pipes and cables. Ideally, I'd fire my grapple at the roof and swing - but I'm trying for low profile. Just gotta do it. Gotta jump, right onto the roof of their command truck.
“Don’t think about it! Don’tthinkabout-”
The edge arrives. My legs try to lock - but my heel hits the corner edge of the vehicle, and I leap. Wind roaring through my fingers and toes. Trailing my shadow like a massive, ever-black, cloak. The gap is two metrics wide, and ninety million miles deep. A cavernous-
No. No, it’s barely twice as tall as a car.
I shut my eyes.
I try not to scream.
I faceplant in the tangled maze of cables atop the suspected Mobile Command Unit. Hunkering there. Panting and panicking. Ears flat against the terror and gunfire beneath me. Reduced, almost, to a mewling little kid by the fear I just forced myself through.
But the monster is halfway gone.
I’ve only got seconds.
Picking an antenna at random, I slam myself flat. Face almost touching its base. Scanning it, with one hand cupped over the other. Shielding it. Thankful my light is nothing against that of the monster. But the monster is dying for a second time, and it begins to flicker. To go out.
I shut off my scan, at the last possible instant - and lower my breath to bare whisper. Heart pounding. The drones are confused. Still fixated on the burning thing inside the bus. The move to sweep it, as the slaves blindly bumble into firing positions. Barely able to see their arms in front of em.
Seconds. Seconds. Seconds.
I ain’t trained for this, not really - but I flip tools from my bracer. Polybius coaxing me to unhook the alarm, and claw open the panel. Revealing a small plate, lit by tiny screens. I pull a fat cable from my bag, and flip the little panel on the side of my head. Fumbling it into the slot with a skull-shuddering click.
## neuroLink established.
## …..
## WARNING :: Security Breached!
## .....
## User [Polybius] has been granted [Remote Access].
## [NaN] errors & warnings have been suppressed.
## …..
## …..
## ….
## ….
## Begin neuroJump? Y/N
I hit ‘Y’, and my entire being is sucked into a goddamned aerial on top of a mini-van. Everything. My whole mind compacted into a pea-sized computer, and then even tighter. My mind rewired to fit its systems of control. Connecting me to nodes. Tasks. Signals and data-
Thankfully, all Polybius needed was a ride.
I slam back out onto the van-top, gasping. Shaking. “That seems to be their long-range comms system.” Polybius notes. “It’s not connected to the collars. Or their computers. But I have disabled it. They will be unable to call for help.”
“Damnit. Okay.” I wheeze, shuffling elbows to the next one. It's chaos beneath me, but I press my palm right flat onto the panel just in case. Hoping to contain the light. Seconds pass, Polybius whispers instructions, and I pry it open. Plugging myself, warily, into a second system.
It swallows me whole.
Compressing my mind to a pinprick, and bombarding it with jabbering voices from dozens upon dozens of freaking collars. Forcing each and every one through my mind at once, as if it wants me to process them. A second wave firing back stringent AI orders, and punishing shocks.
I try to focus. Everything a whirl of nametags attached to a big red ‘detonate’ buttons I keep my elbows well away from. Most are still functional, but many are marked ‘terminated’. Plus two or three ‘no signal’.
Polybius sweeps through them all, forcing the collars to accept its orders.
To flicker green. Deactivated.
Instantly, I’m ejected back onto the roof. Numb fingers clutching the aerial as I yank the cable from my skull. “Gnnurrh. Gnrruruhrrhrhrhrh……”
“Are you still operational?”
“Surreeee…..” I garble. “Jus…. Just….”
“Your mind was never intended to occupy an aerial. This is something of a design flaw.”
“Yeffff.” I manage. Trying - very hard - to shake the feeling of being wire-thin, bendy, and weather-resistant.
“Spook. I was forced to delete the entire control-system to keep them out. They will notice. They will search the van.”
“Riiifffft.” I heave myself up. No time to chat with my fellow…. uh, the aerials. Yes. “Kami - target is painted. Ready the shot.” I growl just to goad myself into standing up. Gonna have to work on the return jump.... But I swallow it down. Pasting my final frag with various lumps of explosive I got off Badger, and moulding it into a cone. A shaped charge I jam onto the front of the truck - like a unicorn horn.
Right on Kami’s target.
Drones are filtering back, so now or never.
Gotta be flashy. Gotta get their attention.
I set a forty-second timer, to force myself into the jump. Firing a spike-grapple at the megaTower’s ceiling, with a crack that spins every drone to face the van. Bi-rotors zooming backward as they try to tilt their cheap, fixed cameras at the sound. I don't give em a chance to shoot. I hit 'fast retract' and it jerks upward a full metric - swinging my ass the Hell outta there, as shouts and gunfire rising behind me. I eject the grapple-module for speed. Landing on the bus. I yank free my pistol, and fire right at the tightest-packed drones as I shoot my remaining grapple into the bus itself.
Launching into skid-run down the side. Into the dark, and away.
Pausing, only, to pop off shots at the ceiling - and scream some abuse.
Like idiots, the slaves forget their orders and chase. Shooting. Shouting. All the humans scrambling, and stumbling. Blind GMOs leaping on cars, but missing wildly. Slamming themselves into wrecks. In seconds, they’re all widely scattered amidst the mess. Lost. Shouting. Confused. Without order or focus.
I double back, counting under my breath. Scooping the last few near the truck, then whipping off into the dark. Bolting round corners, until I loose them all in the chaos.
"Two. One....."
The bomb detonates with a thunder that rings my ears. Bigger than I expected - and tinged with the flames of PX-9 - as it takes out the entire roof of the truck. Ripping the front off the bus in a hail of tiny plastic shrapnel, and blowing out what’s left of the windows. No car alarms.
Nothing but screams of terror, surprise, and horror.
And a nice, softened, target.
“Fire.” I breathe. And Kami’s rifle BOOMS with thunder that rolls down the street. Echoing wild and wide as her shot strings a curving spiral of sparks and smoke. In a single instant, the guided bullet cuts a massive - wide - arc around the corner.
Onboard navigation firing its tiny engine in controlled bursts that curve it a full 270 degrees. It homes in on the marked target, curving back to slam itself down the street. Hitting the dent on the front of the van like the ballistic missile it literally is.
A second blast rocks the street.
This time, from inside the truck.
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