“Where are they?” Wood growled.
It was a rhetorical question. The defenders were now an independent army, allied with the human forces but formulating their own battle plans. From this moment on, the human forces would have no idea where the defenders would strike, what tactics and strategy they might use.
In Manhattan, the first Luyten reached the production facility’s inner defenses and tucked behind buildings to wait for reinforcements. The ten blocks surrounding each production facility were heavily fortified. Silver heat shields the size of buses lined the perimeter; the turrets of heavy VRA guns poked from reinforced window slits in many of the old brick and concrete buildings. Oliver knew this sort of battle would not be as one-sided. In tight urban quarters their soldiers would be better able to hit Luyten, who didn’t hold the element of surprise, and the automated weapons systems would take their toll. He was also aware that if they lost these battles, the war was lost as well.
19
Lila Easterlin
May 27, 2030. Atlanta, Georgia
Cheena held the clunky box with its fat antenna up to her ear and said, “Talk to me, Hoochie. Anything new happening?”
The reply came after an absurdly long delay. “All quiet on the eastern front,” a woman’s voice squawked, causing Lila to flinch.
“Music to my ears,” Cheena replied. “Death to fish.”
Hoochie responded with a “Death to fish” of her own. Evidently it was their sign-off.
They were perched on a catwalk far above the floor of a defunct factory. Huge tanks lined the floor and walls, some hourglass-shaped, others spherical, a few tubular.
A voice burst from the walkie-talkie, paging Cheena. Cheena retrieved it. “Walk, tell me what you’ve got.”
“I’ve got defenders,” Walk said. “Two platoons were released from the Cheshire Bridge production facility an hour ago. Reliable source.”
Cheena raised her fist in the air. She was eighteen. Her long legs and confident style made Lila feel twelve. “What do they look like? Tell me, tell me.”
“Huge,” Walk reported. “I mean, huge. And angry, like trembling with rage. It’s not a good day to be a fish.”
The three of them burst into cheers. Lila hugged Alfe fiercely, then Cheena. Finally, something to give them hope. More than hope, if the reports from Chile were true.
Cheena set the walkie-talkie down on its end. “I’d say this calls for a celebration.” She stuck a finger in her jacket pocket, fished around until she came out with a little white ball of Lace. Setting it on the catwalk, she squeezed it until it popped, shooting a cloud of particles into the air. She and Alfe craned their necks, inhaled deeply. Lila followed suit.
Lace was a memory enhancer. You were supposed to think back to a time in your life and the drug would draw out those memories, making them super-vivid. It was also supposed to make you feel light enough to reach the clouds. Maybe Lila wasn’t inhaling enough of it. She took another big breath, thought back to when she was ten. If she was going to relive a time in her life, she wanted to relive ten.
At first it only felt like she was reminiscing about the good times, which she often did.
At Tybee Island Beach with her friend Margot and their dads. Eating oysters. Her dad singing oldies after he’d had a few beers. She and Margot making faces, singing modern hits to drown him out, only to have him sing louder.
Lila, stealing Dad’s access code and reprogramming his phone to take on the voice of a porn actress from an interactive she found in his cloud. Then Dad, after toning down the language, leaving the voice intact for a week, so Lila had to endure lurid, “Ooh, you like that, don’t you?” comments from his phone.
The memories grew warmer, more vivid, washing over her in waves.
Loblolly School. Seeing it again filled her with a glowing warmth, a profound comfort. She and Margot created Loblolly using a virtual-world-building kit, filled with characters their own age. It took them all summer, but it was worth it. Every day after school they’d meet in Loblolly and hang out with kids far more interesting than their actual classmates.
“Lila?”
The voice was far away. Lila probably wouldn’t have noticed if the voice hadn’t called her name, if it hadn’t been so familiar, and so frantic.
“Lila.”
She tried to open her eyes, but she just couldn’t leave the place where she was. It was so perfectly where she wanted to be.
“Lila. Jesus Christ almighty, what the fuck are you doing?”
She was eating a big, gooey block of frozen strawberry taffy at her tenth birthday party. Annabelle Toynbee was laughing and poking her in the ribs.
She gasped, jolted back into the present by something. She wasn’t sure what. The side of her face felt warm, almost hot. Her father was leaning over her, his shirt soaked with sweat in the V of the neck, and where his belly bulged against it. His eyes were wild.
He raised his palm, smacked her hard across the face.
Lila shrieked in surprise and rage, jerked herself up, her head still light, wanting to go back to the party.
“Wake up,” Dad said. “Alfe, Cheena, you too. Jesus, what did you take?”
Dad smacked her again. Screeching, Lila swung, trying to hit him back, but missed. He grabbed her hand, yanked it.
“I’m awake. Stop hitting me.” She took a huffing breath, trying to clear her head. He’d never hit her before, not on her worst day.
“Do you understand the situation we’re in?” Dad asked. “I mean, do you fully grasp what’s happening? Because you act like you don’t.”
Cheena sat up, looked groggily from Lila to her father. Alfe was blinking heavy eyelids, clearly still out of it.
“Yes, Dad, I fully grasp the situation,” Lila said. “We’re going to die. That’s the situation. I’m not sure what good it does me, but I grasp the situation.”
Dad stood, wiped his forehead with the back of his sleeve. “Come on, get up.” Then in a louder voice, “They’re coming, for God’s sake.”
She, Cheena, and Alfe struggled to their feet. Lila was fully in the present, her pulse racing, hallucinogenically vivid visions of Luyten crawling in the back of her mind.
“They’re coming now?” Cheena asked. “We just checked in at all the outlying areas with the walkie-talkie.”
“They’re coming now!” her father shouted. “Through the sewers.”
Her father must have gotten hold of some insane rumor. The sewers? How could they fit in sewers?
“Dad, are you sure?”
“I saw one,” he said, his voice low, trembling. “Is that sure enough for you?” He grabbed her upper arm and pulled her toward the door. “Move.” He was almost crying.
They burst through the entrance, into sunlight. “Fast as you can run, Lila.”
She ran, already breathless from fear, fed by adrenaline. She felt her father, Alfe, and Cheena right behind her. The air was filled with the sounds of battle: booming explosions that vibrated underfoot, the rattle of gunfire, and, worst of all, the sizzle of lightning.
An image burst into Lila’s memory unbidden, of a Luyten coming out of the trees, cooking people along I-16 with its heater gun.
The front door of Aunt Ina’s house opened when Lila drew close, then closed as soon as everyone was inside. Aunt Ina, Uncle Walter, and a few others stood at windows pointing guns, waiting, watching.