XOM-B (13 page)

“We need to stop this,” I say.

Heap misunderstands my intent and shouts, “Get moving!”

“Can’t you just call the Council,” I say, steering around a support post and cruising over the rows of oncoming traffic. “You do it all the time.”

“I was damaged,” he says gruffly.

“Were you bitten?” I ask, suddenly afraid for my large friend.

“Frequently,” he says.

But …
I glance over at him and see the scratches covering his armor in a new light. There are hundreds of gouges marring the deep blue paint, but there’s a pattern to the crisscrossing lines. They’re arranged into groups. Sometimes four parallel gouges. Sometimes six or eight.

Teeth,
I realize.

I shake my head trying to imagine the horrible fear Heap must have felt while being gnawed on by so many living dead people. His armor was up to the task of resisting their plague-spreading bites, but not all wounds are physical. I’ve learned that well over the last day. He seems emotionally unscathed, but how could he endure something like that and not be affected?
He’s endured worse already,
some part of my mind replies, but I ignore the thought.

Thinking of the undead gnawing on Heap’s metal armor reminds me that I was bitten, that the mind-altering virus is no doubt working its way through my body. I’m not sure why I haven’t changed yet. I’m not exactly an expert on the subject, but based on what I’ve seen, I should have already died and come back to life. Unlife.

This is a subject for another time,
I decide, trying not to look at the bite marks marring my arm.
There are more pressing matters.

“What about me?” I ask. “I must have an upgrade to—”

“You don’t,” he says with such confidence that I don’t doubt him. The question is with all of the upgrades to my mind and body, why wasn’t I given a simple cellular implant? The answer is there, at the edge of my thoughts.
Because they didn’t want me making contact with anyone!
A tall truck barreling toward us forces my attention back to driving. I shove the left-side pedal down and we launch over the truck. But I’ve overcompensated and struck the hover-road above us, jamming Heap’s armor against the smooth surface. Sparks fly and a metallic squeal makes me cringe. But Heap never complains, even as we drop back down.

“Sorry,” I say, steering the HoverCar back to the other side of the elevated road where traffic is moving in the same direction.

I’m doing far too much thinking. Time to focus.

As we round a wide bend, I note the proximity of a building whose black shell curves in concert with the road. I swerve back into the oncoming lane, bringing us closer to the building, checking my rearview as I do.

The armored vehicles are still behind us, closing the distance quickly and crushing every car unfortunate enough to pass beneath their repulse discs. Their railguns are hot orange now, primed to fire. In fact—

I cut back to the left fast enough to make Heap shout out in surprise. But the loud
twang
from behind and the rapid destruction of a line of vehicles on both sides of the curved road reveals the reason for my sudden maneuver. I steer us back to the right, rocking us back and forth erratically, making us a difficult target.

Twang!
I hear the railgun fire and feel the heat of its round as it stabs past the HoverCar close enough to reach out and touch, but I don’t see anything until a building across the way rumbles from an impact that repeats through the city.

“They’re tearing their own city apart!” Luscious shouts in surprise.

“They think we’re infected,” I tell her, having surmised the reason for their apparent disregard for human life. If they have to kill a hundred of their own people to save the whole city from infection, they’ll do it. And why not? They already destroyed the Lowers. What’s a few more deaths? I turn to Heap. “Hang on!”

“What are you doing?” he asks, sounding a little worried.

“You said we needed to go up,” I say. “So…” I turn the wheel, taking us hard to the right, toward the edge of the elevated roadway and the black building just twenty feet away. The HoverCar tilts to the side from the sudden shift and I slam down the repulse pedal. We launch skyward, at an angle, shooting up and out of the freeway.

As we careen toward the solid building and certain death, I take my foot off of the repulse pedal and shout, “Lean!” tilting my body to the left so they know what direction to shift. Luscious ends up in my lap, which doesn’t help, but when Heap moves his weight, the whole car tilts to the left and I jam my foot back down.

The four discs beneath the car glow brightly and hum as the repulse engines shove us higher still and away from the building. We rise up above the hover-road’s second level and I lower us back down to a more comfortable driving height.

I check the rearview. There are no pursuit vehicles on this level.

A black armored vehicle suddenly rises up next to the top track, apparently trying to duplicate the tricky leap, but something goes wrong. Could be the angle. Could be the speed. Or the armored vehicles might just be too heavy to tilt from bodyweight. I don’t know. But the result is explosive. Black armor shatters when it meets the solid side of the building. A blossom of orange flame comes next and then the sound of an explosion.

We rocket away from the scene, moving at nearly two hundred miles per hour. I glance back to check on Heap, who is fully exposed to the wind. He’s hunched down, his head lowered as though riding his HoverCycle.

“Where should I go?” I ask.

“You’ll know it when you see it,” he says.

A tug on my arm brings my eyes to Luscious. Her hair looks like fire, whipped by the wind and set alight by the sun shining down on us. Then I notice she’s pointing. I look up and realize that Heap was right: I know this is where we need to go.

The building stretches up higher than the rest, high enough that a cloud is being severed by its oddly angled shape. The building is like an accordion, stretched out thin and twisted around, again and again, spiraling up to a disc-like top that seems to be rotating.

This is where the Council resides,
I think.

For the first few days of my life, the Council was there in the laboratory, teaching me, directing me and preparing me for the world. That’s what they said, but I feel wholly unprepared for what I’ve encountered so far. Of course, I am still alive. But they came to me. Had I imagined where the Council actually lived, this megalithic structure would not have been it. Given what I’ve recently experienced, it seems strangely appropriate.

They’re above everything.

And everyone.

But is that really the case? My mind replays a conversation with Councilman Mohr, a man who radiates peace and understanding. The others sometimes called him the Librarian, what they called a nickname, requested by Mohr himself. “Human life is to be respected and cherished,” he told me on my third day of life, but then expanded his statement to include
all
life, including the smallest insects and plant life. He held my hand when he spoke and kept his voice hushed.

Suddenly, I understand. He wasn’t being gentle, he was being secretive.

Mohr would never participate in the killing of so many people. Or even one. I’m sure of it. Part of me feels relieved by this revelation, but also disturbed because it means that while the Council has a member that values and protects life, it also has a member that doesn’t, and whoever that is seems to be in control right now.

I look up at the tall tower, dark as midnight, and press the accelerator a little harder. It can’t go any farther, but I want the vehicle to move faster. I want answers. I want them now. And the Council tower is where I’m going to find them—

A shrill whistle sounds out behind us.

I glance in the rearview.

—if we can make it there without being reduced to dust.

16.

For a moment, I’m not sure what the thing in the rearview mirror is. It’s black, like the buildings, and armored vehicles, and the giant killer railgun firing robots, but it looks relatively harmless—just a cylinder with a pointed nose. If it weren’t for the flames spewing from its backside, propelling it on a collision course with the HoverCar, I might not think anything of it beyond,
hey, that’s odd.
When I shift the car to the left and it tracks us, following our path perfectly while closing the distance, there is no doubt that this thing is a weapon.
A missile,
I think, the word suddenly appearing in my vocabulary. A suicidal drone.

Before I can think of what to do about this new threat, two flaps on Heap’s back pop open. An array of bright orange flares launch skyward.
Choom, choom, choom.

The missile angles up toward them for a moment, but remains on course.

“Not heat seeking,” Heap says to himself.

The flaps on his back close and a second set opens.

Choom, choom, choom.
Another series of projectiles fire from Heap’s back. These explode just seconds after launch and spray a cloud of hard metal particles in every direction. I know because one lodges in my arm, causing me to flinch in pain. The effect on the missile is much more violent. As it rockets through the fast-moving projectiles, the front of the thing disintegrates and explodes. Flames lick the back of the HoverCar, but quickly fall into the distance as we speed ahead.

Probably against her better judgment, Luscious lets out a victorious, “whoop!” and I notice that even Heap is smiling a little. They’re enjoying these near-death experiences.
Perhaps because they’ve already lived long lives,
I wonder. I, on the other hand, would like to at least double, maybe triple my time on this planet.

As two more missiles announce their approach with twin roars, I decide that to extend my life means risking it once more. I lift my foot from the repulse pedal and let the car drift down toward the smooth black road beneath us … and the oncoming traffic.

Repulse engines hum loudly as the cars rushing toward us turn away or leap up over us. Luscious’s “whoop” is replaced by a shout of surprise. I can’t see Heap, but I’m sure his smile is gone.

Our speed seems to double when we stop our descent just two feet above the road, but it’s an illusion created by all the cars passing us on either side, and above. For a moment, I worry that the repulse discs on the bottoms of the cars passing above us will crush us down into the road. But the panicked drivers are cramming down the repulse pedals and launching high enough above us that repulse effect is felt as a mild pressure from above. I do my best to steer around those with slower reaction times, but it’s like driving through a living tunnel that shifts back and forth at random. Without a doubt, this is a reckless move, but the cars flowing around us create a shield from the missiles, which I realize with a twinge of guilt, have not stopped their pursuit.

They’re locked on target and they’re not going to stop until they reach it, or something gets in their way.

And then, it happens.

A truck, large and long, with ten hover discs beneath its girth storms toward us. I’m not sure what the operator does, but it’s the wrong thing. Rather than swerving to a side, or lifting high above us, the front end pitches forward and strikes the road. For a moment, it slides toward us like this, spraying sparks, until the vehicle’s cab catches on some imperfection in the road and catapults into the air, propelled by its repulse discs. The contents of the truck, hundreds of long cylinders I suspect are used in some kind of construction, spray into the air like a giant version of Heap’s exploding defensive projectiles.

One of the two approaching missiles is speared. The second strikes the truck’s cab, destroying it, several cars in the immediate vicinity and everyone inside.

That was my fault,
I think, but before my guilt spirals I remember that I’m not the one firing missiles and railguns in a busy city. I am, however, the one speeding down the wrong side of a highway.

The road straightens and as drivers slow to gaze at the destruction, I find myself with a stretch of empty road. I lift the HoverCar ten feet up and aim straight for the Council’s spiraling Citadel.

“Any more missiles?” I ask, turning to Heap.

He scans the area behind us. “The drone is circling for another pass.”

Which is to say, not right now, but soon.

The elevated road bends lazily to the right, but I continue on straight, crumpling the tops of cars as we shift across lanes. When we reach the left lane, and are moving with traffic once again, I continue straight on, slipping over traffic and the road until what I’m about to do is obvious.

“Freeman,” Luscious says, her voice tense.

“Compared to the past few minutes, this will be safe,” I tell her.

I turn the car slightly, keeping the car aimed at the Council building.

“Tell him!” she shouts, and when I look at her, wondering what she wants me to tell Heap, I notice that she was actually speaking to Heap.

“Stay on the road,” Heap says quickly. “We can’t just—”

His voice is cut off by the squeal of an incoming missile.

I look back at Heap. “You have any more missile defenses?”

He stares at me for a moment, his four blazing white eyes furrowed. “Do it,” he says. “Just go.”

The HoverCar accelerates toward the fifty-foot drop, and then sails out over open space. Without the road to repulse the vehicle it drops hard and fast. The missile plunges down after us, but doesn’t seem to see the roadway. It smacks into the hard flat surface and explodes. The heavy metal freeway withstands the blow and redirects the force out and away, launching a half dozen vehicles over the sides. Three adept drivers manage to engage their repulse engines and slow the descent, but two others panic and crash to the ground while the last unlucky man drops upside down with no chance to save himself.

Using the repulse engines in the same way I did with the HoverCycle, I slow our descent while keeping our speed pegged at two hundred miles per hour. We reach the ground-level street as smoothly as though we’d followed a ramp down. Despite this, our landing is still jarring, not from anything physical, but because of what’s blocking our path.