A Samara! Like that surveillance drone driven remotely by Ivanov.
Decker dashed toward the door and watched as the object spun away down the corridor. He followed. It vanished up a stairway and Decker gave chase, taking the steps two or three at a time. He found himself on another landing, running down a corridor that turned into a kind of glass tunnel, with a glass ceiling and walls, as he ran from one pod of the house to the next.
It was as if he were flying along the top of the canopy, like a hawk skimming the face of the mountain, with the Samara always a few feet ahead.
As the corridor came to an end, the Samara banked left and Decker lunged for the drone. He managed to catch the very tip of the wing and it chattered like a giant Palmetto bug struggling to right itself. It vanished around the corner. Decker gave chase… and stopped.
The Samara hovered before him, with its one Cyclops video eye, flanked by another identical drone. They hummed, taking him in.
Without hesitating, Decker snaked his belt off and swung it elliptically with a broad sweep of the arm in one continuous movement, as if snapping a whip. The buckle caught the first drone dead center. It flew down the corridor, unbalanced, striking the other drone’s wing. They both crashed to the floor, clattering helplessly and cartwheeled away. Decker stomped on them furiously as if they were scorpions. One kept clicking as it tore at the carpet. He kicked it again toward the wall and it shattered on the surface, sending a shower of microchips everywhere.
That’s when he heard the same tell-tale humming sound coming from a room at the end of the corridor. Decker dashed down the hall. It was some sort of guest room, with a sleigh bed and a Shaker credenza behind it. Beyond the bed was a bathroom, and beside that another doorway leading out to a balcony with an astonishing view of the valley below — a few swaths of green, cedar and spruce, vast tracts of bare deciduous trees intermingled with patches of dirty white snow.
Decker entered the room cautiously, crouched low, ready to leap to the side. But it was empty. The Samara was gone. There was a fireplace built into the far wall, across from the bathroom, with a brass poker and tongs set beside it. He made his way over and picked up the poker. This would do, he thought, testing its balance and weight. Then, he heard the buzzing again.
There it was. The Samara was floating just off the balcony, partially hidden by a large shade umbrella poking up from the center of a round metal table. Two chairs leaned up against the lip of the table.
Decker wasted no time. He launched himself through the door, climbed up on a chair and the table without pausing, and lunged at the Samara. The tip of the poker just barely missed the edge of the drone as it dropped several feet and swept in from the side, raking his back.
Decker felt his skin open up in one stinging hot line, now filling with blood.
Without thinking or looking, just from the sound of its buzzing, he brought the poker around. But he missed once again and the Samara slashed at his chest. Blood burst from the opening. Decker uttered a cry, lashing out in response.
The poker caught the edge of the drone just as it came in for the kill. It tumbled and crashed against the side of the building, bouncing and coming apart, sending shards of gray plastic and showers of brilliant white sparks through the air.
Decker leapt to the side just in time to avoid it. He teetered on the edge of the balcony. It was a good fifty or sixty feet down to the tops of the trees. A dead drop.
Why is it always someplace up high?
He leapt to the floor of the balcony and made his way over to what was left of the Samara. It was still smoking and spitting. At the center of the mass was a glowing red LED. He lifted the poker high in the air, ready to strike it, when he felt a slashing pain in his arm.
Decker cried out and the poker went flying, skittering over the tiles of the balcony. The buzz of another Samara receded somewhere to his left.
Decker felt blood start to pour down his forearm. He had been cut on the back of the arm. It had only just missed the radial artery. The drones. Their wings had been sharpened like razors!
Decker heard it swing in again. He ducked and somersaulted across the balcony, and the drone barely missed clipping his neck.
Decker looked about for the poker. There it was — near the edge of the balcony. He reached out grabbed it, leapt to his feet, and swung about in one fluid movement. Then, he lanced at the Samara as it maneuvered away.
The tip of the poker touched the wings of the drone. The frightful buzzing ceased and started to whistle as the Samara flew through the door back into the bedroom, spinning out of control. It wobbled, flipped over mid-flight, and finally crashed to the floor on the opposite side of the bed. A frightful crash was instantly followed by a puff of white smoke as it sputtered and flamed.
Decker leapt through the door and up onto the bed. The Samara was still spinning about on the ground, the gun-metal gray wings of the seed pod revolving and wobbling, until the edge caught the floor. It pulled itself over and crashed against the wall, still smoking and flaming.
Decker jumped to the floor right beside it, lunging the tip of the poker into the very heart of the spinning machine. The sharpened wings dug into the wall and stopped moving. For a moment, the drone seemed to try and pick itself up. For a moment only. Then, the red and green LEDs at the center of the smoldering circuitry began to flicker and blink. Decker stabbed it again. The blades stilled and the lights finally went out.
Decker threw the poker to the floor. He looked down at the Samara once again, turned to leave, then stopped. With a sigh, he reached down, picked up the poker and — just for safe-keeping — continued to pummel what was left of the drone until all that remained were a few shards of shattered machinery. He was out of breath and panting when he realized it was… raining. Indoors!
The fire from the burning drones must have set off the sprinkler system. Decker looked up at the ceiling. He let the water wash over his face, fill his mouth. He felt the grime of his struggle with the drones wash away, down the back of his neck, down his shirtfront and chest. He laughed and spat the water back up at the ceiling.
That’s when the house moved under his feet.
There was a great noise as if the very heart of the mountain were shaking. Decker ran from the room. He dashed down the glass-fronted corridor, watched as it cracked — first a little, just a line, then a tear and a rent — followed by an ear-splitting crash as it shattered about him. Glass pieces flew everywhere as he leapt through the door and slid toward the stairwell. He pulled himself down the first few steps in a shower of glass, the crystalline shards cutting the rear of his neck. He shook them off as he slid to his feet. Then he flew down the steps as the house continued to quiver and groan. He could feel the temperature getting warmer around him. The lights began flashing.
He had seen this before… back at Lulu’s place. He knew what was about to begin. “Lulu,” he shouted as he raced down the stairs. “Lulu!”
“I’m here,” she replied.
Lulu suddenly appeared on the staircase below him, her “bag of tricks” in one hand and the Python in the other. There was a red welt on her cheek. “Where the fuck did you go?”
“Drones,” he said simply.
The house issued a groan that made them both stop in their tracks. It was like the bellow of some leviathan beast, as if the boiler itself had been wounded.
They had made it to the main level and ran down the hall toward the front of the house. Each outlet they passed spat sparks at their feet. The lights in the ceiling popped like quarter-stick fireworks. Hand and hand they ran down the hallway. Frantic. Full tilt. The front door was just up ahead. They could see it. Right there. Right in front of them. They had practically made it when they were lifted up by a great wave of white light, carried upward and outward, blown clear of the house and down the side of the mountain.