Cecile arrived in front of him with her ragtag group. Nobura knew her followers must be Quebecois, or mules, or Adherents, but he could barely recognize them, so tattered were their clothes, and so covered in soot and blood.
She was panting from exhaustion, her hands on her hips. “Have you heard it yet?” she asked.
“Heard what?” asked one of the men with her. Judging by his accent he was Quebecois.
“Shh, Pierre!” She chided him for interrupting.
Nobura put his hand to his throat to stabilize his vocal cords. It had become increasingly difficult to speak as the day wore on. “I’m not sure if we could hear it over this noise,” he said matter-of-factly, splaying his other hand toward the tortured ground of the battlefield in reference.
“Owen said it would be loud.”
Nobura didn’t respond. There was no worthy answer he could give her.
“Are we even sure the artillery gun is destroyed?” Cecile asked.
“It appears inoperable,” Nobura answered, turning to gaze at the smoking south tower. “The turret has not moved since it was hit with Mehta’s rocket. They do have spider bots working on it, however, so if it is disabled, it may not be for long.”
Cecile was scratching her head, frowning. “So maybe we need to finish the job. Maybe that’s why we haven’t heard the noise.”
Nobura sighed. He closed his eyes, thinking quickly. He couldn’t afford the time to take seven breaths, not now.
It was suicide, and the mission would surely fail. It was the same inevitable outcome if they stayed where they were as well. The difference was only a few minutes. He felt an urge to move, but he tried to quell it.
Patience, he told himself. Every minute counted.
“We will go, but not yet,” he said to Cecile. Then he turned to his commanding lieutenant and said, “Assemble the men. We will be assaulting the artillery gun tower again when I give the word.” The lieutenant gawked at him for a moment but then followed his orders, scrambling among the men obediently.
Nobura turned to Cecile, and she nodded back at him with a dark look. She didn’t seem at all happy that he agreed with her.
The enforcers had taken positions along the exterior wall, where Nobura’s other squad had fallen only minutes ago. Here the enforcers had a much better line of sight into Nobura’s position behind the bunker. They began firing while Nobura and his men took cover. Spider bots crawled through the crossfire and dropped sand bags, preparing for their advance. The guardians lurked behind, waiting for the right moment.
Nobura only had about forty men left, including Cecile’s contingent. He told his squad to retreat as far back as they could. Still some of them would be exposed. They needed more men and better cover, but there was no time to recruit any of his other Essentialist units to their cause. They were too far away to the west.
Besides, he couldn’t know how many had died on the eastern and western assaults on the walls. In all likelihood most of them had fallen. Nor did he know how many had been killed on the main front in the western part of town. He had wagered many thousands of lives today on this gambit, just to bring them to this moment—just to give them this one chance. He must see his wager through to its conclusion.
One of Nobura’s men fired a rocket at the enforcers, and it exploded behind their line. It was enough to give the enforcers pause. Hopefully it would at least dissuade the guardians from charging anytime soon.
But they wouldn’t be able to keep them at bay much longer. They only had two rockets left.
Over the screams of his men, the bullets that flew around him, and even as the rocket exploded in the distance, he began to discern the sound. He felt it before he heard it. It came like a steady wave under them, shaking the ground, and then built into a roar. Despite the energy of it, or perhaps because of it, the sound was distorted, indistinct. It was like he was under water, and a great whale was bellowing into his ear.
Some men dropped their weapons. Some held their ears. People looked up, or looked around, expecting some tsunami or explosion to follow, but nothing happened. Looking across the battlefield, Nobura could see the enforcers were having the same reaction.
And finally, the sound abated, and the earth stopped shaking beneath his feet.
Nobura exchanged a look with Cecile, who had her eyebrow raised. He closed his eyes and nodded in acknowledgement. Perhaps the wager would be worth it, after all.
A shot was fired, and then another, and then another. The battle resumed, as if the combatants believed the universe had only experienced some temporary cosmic glitch.
One of his men was hit nearby. He screamed in agony and gurgled on his own blood. They fired another rocket launcher at the Enforcer position. It exploded, taking several lives with it.
The enforcers became more aggressive. They pushed their line forward to the sandbags that the spider bots had placed. The guardians also moved to the front.
“What are we doing here?” Pierre yelled at Nobura and Cecile in exasperation. “Are we not attacking the artillery gun?”
“Non, Pierre, not anymore,” Cecile said.
“Not now,” Nobura confirmed.
There was a steady torrent of bullets coming toward them. Another man nearby was shot and thrown back by the force of the bullet. The lead enforcers were close enough to charge, and so they did. The guardians led the assault, their metal legs pushing them faster than any human could.
“We are just going to stay here?” Pierre exclaimed, incredulous. “We will not survive! We are, how do you say, a duck that sits!”
“A sitting duck,” Cecile corrected.
Another sound took hold over the din of the melee, even over the battle cries and bullets. The ground began shaking rhythmically, slowly at first, but then with greater intensity with each pulse. Eventually the ground shook with such violence that even the charging enforcers couldn’t ignore it. Many stopped in their tracks. Some of them looked up. The tone of their screams shifted from bloodlust to mortal fear.
“No,” Nobura said to Pierre. “We are the decoys, and they are the ducks.”
A THOUSAND SMILES, NONE OF THEM GOOD
Owen was running through the underground tunnel with Benjamin trailing behind when the lights went out. He pulled out a glow stick from his pack and snapped it, then looked at his watches. His digital watch had gone dark.
“Sentinel?” He called into his communicator. There was no response.
“What happened?” Benjamin asked.
“They detonated an EMP bomb. Our defenses won’t last much longer.”
Hopefully Madison and the others would be able to flee in time.
Time. He would give anything to buy more time. Owen had watched the chorus larks flee through the window and then felt first the wave of sonic energy bowl through the estate.
All they needed was just a little more time.
They reached the end of the tunnel. Owen grasped around in the darkness and found the lever. He turned it and leaned in, impacting the door with his shoulder to force it open. Leaves from the surrounding hillside spilled into the tunnel.
Owen and Benjamin crawled out and cautiously examined the surroundings. The electric cars would be parked just around the arc of the hill.
With his attention on the surrounding hillside, Owen reached back into the tunnel to pull the doorway closed. His hand touched metal, metal where it shouldn’t be. It was round, barrel shaped, and it violently pushed his hand away.
Beatrice stepped into the light, an assault rifle leveled at them. “Now don’t take this personally boys. My mother said, don’t pick the team your friends are on. Pick the team you think is going to win.”