Finally, the ride was over. Finally, his victims were free.
A TASTE OF YOUR OWN MEDICINE
The caravan of electric cars pulled off the side of the road near the top of the mountain. The snow was falling harder now, obscuring visibility, but it was still melting when it hit the ground.
It was only a minor nuisance, and for the moment Preston and Rourke could stay in relative comfort, their car warming them and showing them progress on the screen. Two guardians sat in the back seats behind them, motionless, featureless and quiet.
“I know you want a piece of spotty-face for yourself,” Rourke said. He leaned into Preston, his hair flopping over in his direction as he did. “But if he’s touched my woman, I get first dibs. That’s the way these things work.” He laughed.
Preston offered a tentative grin to placate Rourke. As long as he provided Rourke with some kind of reaction to his quips it seemed to keep him satisfied.
The screen showed four quadrants, each one a camera planted on an advancing enforcer. The house came into view on one of them, then another a moment later.
Gail said, “They are entering the grounds now.”
Preston heard an explosion and one of the cameras went out.
“What was that?” Preston asked.
“A land mine,” Gail said.
One camera showed a gun turret popping out of the roof of Monticello. It began firing and the camera’s operator immediately fell to the ground. The other enforcers knelt down into cover positions. Then another explosion went off somewhere up the hill.
Preston didn’t like Gail’s idea of leading with the more “expendable” men before the guardians, but as usual she was proven right. They could have easily just lost at least two guardians, and they only had four with them.
A moment later, Gail said, “there are a number of land mines, at least one automatic machine-gun, and one remote-controlled grenade launcher. They are likely holding weapons in reserve as well. I recommend we go with the plan we discussed.”
“Fine,” Preston said.
In the trunk a spider bot awoke, fastened an encased device to the top of it and jumped out of the car at the back. It scurried quickly up the hill through the forest.
“Remember, this will have a collateral impact on us,” Gail said. “Protect what you can in the shielded box.”
“Right,” Preston said. He placed his phone under the heavy gray lid in the center of the car. Rourke did likewise. A guardian took a small drone from the trunk and placed it in the box as well, then sat motionless again.
Preston looked at the guardians in the back. Did they need to prepare for the shockwave somehow, or were they automatically ready? It was hard to know.
The cameras showed more enforcers creeping toward the estate. Another land mine went off. Yet another man was gunned down. The spider bot camera showed up on the screen. It followed the path of an enforcer that had triggered a land mine.
When it was a few feet from his mangled body, it stopped.
“Well, here’s a taste of your own medicine,” Preston said.
The car ventilator went dead, and the screens along with it.
THE CHORUS LARK
Like many chorus larks, she was dark green, but she had a white speck on her head that was brighter than most. She had a mediocre hum. It wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t the worst, either. When the cage opened, she flew out with the other larks, eager to take advantage of her freedom.
She followed another lark that hovered around the cavernous room. This was an older lark, one with a deeper, more resonant hum. In this case, he hummed a low song that meant “I know where I’m going,” so she followed him.
The group of them fluttered past the old woman sitting in front of her dark screen, momentarily startling her, and then to an open door on the other side of the cavern. From here they flew up, and up. It was so dark it felt like nighttime, even darker than the cavern was, but still she followed the older lark.
They burst into lighter rooms with strange human objects, past open doors, and finally to a window that had been left open.
Then she was free. Although it was cold and even flecks of snow were falling, if felt good to be flying in the open air again. The grass and autumnal trees took their rightful place around her.
The older lark hummed the food song and turned to a nearby meadow. She knew it well. There was always much to eat there. And yet, although the stale cavern had been dark and uncomfortable, she’d been well fed. She didn’t need food, not now. And besides, there were loud banging noises nearby, and they followed no pattern, weren’t rhythmic. They weren’t part of a song.
Instead her avian eyes found something else—something far away that might give her comfort. It was a solitary shape, standing tall. That familiar spark of curiosity took hold of her, and she flew in earnest, high above the trees, over undulations in the ground, then higher still, up and up as the ground also climbed beneath her.
When she was closer she could see it was solid, and had no branches. It wasn’t a tree. It was a tall, solitary shape, the way larks liked them. The closer she came, the more she could sense that feeling of home.
When she arrived there were other larks flying about, enjoying the shape. They were singing many songs, simple songs. Some were the songs of a woodpecker, others the songs of a river. She remembered them, and they were comforting, but they weren’t like the cavern song. She had heard it so many times in the darkness. It was crisp and clear, without other noises to spoil it. It was so rich, like no song she’d every sung before.
It begged for release.
So she flew close, scaling over the gray surface of the shape, over vines and moss and feces, to perch on a bulge. She felt the mossy rock under her feet and knew it was the right texture, she knew she was in the right place. So she let her song loose in earnest.
The larks nearby heard her voice and immediately copied her, so catchy was the tune.
But that wasn’t what was so remarkable; that wasn’t what gave her so much joy. For the first time in her life this huge shape answered her call, and with a deep, vibrating rhythm so enchanting, so rich in turn, that it made her chirp with further jubilation, that it made her sing about the sky and trees and meadows around her.
And then, finally awakened, with a tremendous surge of energy, the shape beneath her cried out across the land with a tidal wave of sound.
SITTING DUCK
Nobura watched the line of enforcers slowly advance on his Essentialist squad positioned next to the exterior wall. Behind the front line, hundreds more reinforcements were replenishing the ranks of enforcers, filing in from the east and west. Several guardians, who had either been in hiding or fighting at the eastern or western fronts, were also joining the enforcers.
At the same time a small group was stumbling through the aperture in the wall closer to his entrenched position. There were only about a dozen of them, led by Cecile. They began turning toward the squad under attack, then thought better of it, and hustled over to Nobura’s position.
Along the wall, the railroad forces were becoming more aggressive, more confident. The guardians led the charge, followed by screaming enforcers. One of the guardians was torn apart by a well-placed rocket, but others kept coming. Bullets bounced off them, impotent and useless. Once the guardians had reached the other squad, Nobura knew the position would be lost. In hand-to-hand combat the guardians maimed and disarmed anyone in their path. The enforcers cheered as they entered the fray, easily finishing the job.