Ghosts

NINETEEN

Michael frowned. He had heard something on the wind. It must have been a Siren, though it did sound a bit strange for one of the beasts. In a way, almost human…

The noise unsettled him, and he squeezed Layla’s hand as they hunkered down in the shell of a bus near the Hilltop Bastion. The distracting beep of an incoming message jolted his attention to his HUD. Finally, the channel was back online. They weren’t alone after all.

Weaver’s voice came over the line. He sounded shaky and short of breath.

“Michael? Magnolia? Does anyone copy? Over.”

Michael kept his voice low on the reply. “Copy that, Weaver. This is Michael. Layla and I are a quarter mile due east of the target. Where’s Magnolia and Rodger?”

“I don’t know. They’re still off comms.” Weaver coughed, the sound rattling deep in his chest.

“You hurt?” Michael asked. “You sound awful.”

There was a short pause. “Do you see the beacon for the supply crate?”

“Yeah, we passed it on the trek in.”

“Good. I lost my rifle and pistol. I’m also going to need a new helmet, a suit repair kit, and a booster. Grab that shit and then get your asses up here. I’ll try to get the windows open.”

Michael peeked around the corner of the bus where he and Layla were sheltering, to look up at the Hilltop Bastion. The concrete bunker rose toward a sky glimmering with lightning.

They were so close, but there was no telling how badly Weaver was hurt. Michael reminded himself that the reason they came down here in the first place was to save the other divers. If that meant backtracking into hostile territory to find the crate, then so be it.

“Michael, do you copy?” Weaver said.

“Copy that. We have hostiles out here. Have to sneak past them to get to the crate.”

“Before you go, there’s something you need to hear.” White noise surged over the channel, and then he heard Weaver addressing someone. “Timothy, can you turn that up?”

Before Michael could ask who the hell Timothy was, a message began playing in the background. Michael recognized the rough voice instantly.

“If anyone’s out there”—crackle—“this is Commander Xavier Rodriguez.” Crackle. “I’m leaving Hades and heading east toward the coast.”

Michael felt his heart catch. “No,” he whispered. “No, it can’t be.”

“Was that X?” Layla asked quietly. “How is that possible?”

“Weaver, I… I don’t understand,” Michael said.

“Sorry, kid, but I thought you should hear it just in case something happens to me before you get here. I don’t know if he’s still alive, but X survived that dive ten years ago.”

“We’re coming, Weaver. Just hang on.”

Michael considered telling Layla to wait here, but she would never follow that order—and to tell the truth, he didn’t want to go out there without her for backup.

“Stay low and hold your fire until I tell you,” he said, pushing away thoughts of X. There would be time for questions later. Right now, he had a mission to complete.

Michael bolted away from the bus and ran for the wall of debris across the road. Bringing the scope to his visor, he glassed the area for contacts. The shadows he had seen earlier were gone.

At his nod, they moved out, hugging the piles of broken asphalt and concrete. Fallen girders covered the path ahead. Farther down the road, one of their chutes flapped over the concrete, the motion attracting a flurry of shadows. A single Siren skittered into view, tilting its head and swiping at the billowing canopy.

Michael made a hand signal, and they recrossed the road to a mound of rubble. A building, toppled from a long-ago blast, was just a pile of rusting metal, shattered glass, broken mortar, and rotted wood. He couldn’t see the supply crate yet, but according to his minimap, it had landed just above them.

Lightning bloomed across the sky, revealing the treacherous path to the top. Shards of glass and ragged ends of metal jutted out between upended foundation slabs and clumps of brick. It was a minefield of hazards.

“Slow and steady,” Michael said quietly.

After a final scan of the road, he led the way across in a low crouch, stepping over the smaller debris skirting the bottom of the toppled building. He slung his rifle over his back and grabbed a flange of channel iron to pull himself up onto a masonry ledge. Layla swung up behind him. From the ledge, they clambered up the incline, boots finding purchase in the shifting scree.

To his left, a gray steel door jutted out of the pile like the fin of a shark. They crouched beside it to listen. Gusting wind stirred up grit on the street below. The cries of hunting Sirens rang down the corridors of the demolished city.

“I hear them out there,” Layla whispered.

“Me, too. Let’s hold here for a few minutes.”

As they waited, Michael’s cluttered mind shifted back to the message from X. He didn’t understand how it was possible. While Captain Ash was alive, Michael had pestered her to send a rescue mission for X just in case he had somehow survived. She had assured him that she was monitoring all transmissions from the surface. Michael had trusted Maria, but now he couldn’t help but wonder whether she, too, had lied.

Layla reached over and put her hand on his forearm. “I love you, Tin. Everything’s going to be okay.”

She always could tell when he was upset, even wearing a visor and a bulky armored suit.

“I have to find him,” he said. “Ten years alone on the surface.”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t see how he could still be alive.”

“If anyone could survive out here, it’s X.”

Michael stood up and peered over the edgewise door. Unslinging his rifle, he scanned the road below. The eyeless mutants had vanished, the only movement the flicker of the parachute in the distance.

Lightning flashed overhead, and the thunder crack rattled his armor. They were almost to the top of the pile, closer to the storm and more exposed to the elements. They made the final push carefully, Michael selecting each step and looking back every few feet to check Layla’s progress. He squeezed between a pair of beams protruding like horns from the mound. They crunched over loose concrete and sand encrusted with shiny black glass formed by the blast that had leveled most of the city. At the very top, looking strangely whole and symmetrical amid such bent and broken surroundings, was the supply crate.

“There it is,” he said. “Stay here while I check it out.”

She raised a hand to protest, but Michael was already moving. Keeping low, he crept up the slope. He dug boots in, dislodging a piece of concrete. It slid down and over the side of the metal overhang below. The chunk tumbled the rest of the way down the pile, clanking and clattering all the way to the street.

“Shit,” Michael whispered as a high wail answered the sound.

Layla looked up from her position, frozen in place while Michael unslung his rifle. In the green hue of his night-vision optics, he searched the street. The wind seemed to carry the screeches to them from all sides.

He angled the muzzle down at the street, where the bases of the fallen structures lay in shadow. In the residue of lightning flashes, the shadows seemed to stretch outward and recede like the surf on a beach.

Another wail joined the first, then another. Michael swept the gun back and forth, searching for a target, but the beasts remained hidden.

Over the wind and screeches came another sound: the whoosh of what could have been turbofans on the Hive. Michael felt a moment of confusion, followed by a spike of adrenaline as he realized his mistake.

Before he could warn Layla, a beast flapped around the side of the tower and grabbed at her.

“Layla!” Michael shouted.

He aimed his rifle at the abomination’s right wing and squeezed off three shots, cutting through the wing. Despite the injuries, the beast continued to climb.

“Help!” Layla screamed.

Michael aimed at the other wing, firing three gaping holes into the leathery hide. That did the trick, and the creature spun down into the rubble, where he delivered the kill shot to the head.

Layla slid nearly ten feet down the incline, letting out a yelp of pain as her boots hit the ground.

“To me!” he shouted.

She pushed herself up and limped toward him as he fired on another Siren swooping in from the cloud cover. A round cut through its body and it flapped away, shrieking in its otherworldly voice.

Michael turned toward the heart of the city, holding the scope just shy of his visor. In the small circular view, he saw a swarm of what looked like bats flapping away from the girders. He slowly moved his crosshairs across the city, watching in horror as streams of the monsters lifted off and rose from the husks of gutted scrapers. The first two had been just a recon party. Now the main force was on the way.

Layla squeezed between the pair of beams and scrambled up to Michael. He reached out and grabbed her hand. Although they needed to move, he couldn’t help but hug her tight.

“I thought I had lost you!” He pulled away to look her up and down. “Are you hurt?”

“I hurt my ankle and I’m going to have a bad burn from the dive, but I’ll live,” she said, trying to smile through the pain. “Good shooting.”

Michael looked over her shoulder to the hilltop in the distance. They were nearly half a mile away now, not counting the time it would take to pick their way back down to the street and then climb the hill to the bastion. By the time they reached the street, the monsters would be on them. If they were to survive the next fifteen minutes, they couldn’t make a single mistake.

Movement near the bus where they had sheltered revealed another threat. The Sirens weren’t just in the air—another pack was darting across the street. Loping on all four limbs, they skittered toward the tower of debris.

“We’re being surrounded,” Michael said, pointing. “Hold back that bunch.”

Layla scanned the sky and then the ground, where she picked out a target. Her first shot cut through a finned back, severing the spine. The Siren flopped like a landed fish. The others fanned out around the dying creature and charged forward, undeterred. She wouldn’t be able to keep the creatures off their position for long.

He punched his four-digit code into the panel on the supply crate. It beeped and flashed red as Layla fired off another three shots. Steadying his shaky fingers, he entered his code a second time. The lid popped open, and he began stuffing supplies into his pack. Inside went a helmet, pistol, and three boosters. Then he grabbed a parachute.

The screeching armada of monsters reminded him that they were running out of time. Layla continued firing on the beasts below. They had reached the hill of rubble and were already scrambling up the side.

“Put this on,” he said, handing her the backpack. He swung his rifle up and fired several shots while she slung the straps over her armor. In the sky, the beasts had formed a V beneath the floor of the storm clouds. In the lead was a meaty creature with a spiked and ridged back that reminded Michael of something prehistoric.

He bumped his comm pad. “Weaver, how are you coming with those windows?”

Back to back, Michael and Layla fired at the monsters closing in around them. He squeezed off several bursts at the formation, but without tracers it was nearly impossible to hit anything at this range.

“Windows are all jammed and too heavy to raise manually,” Weaver reported. “But I’m working on it.”

“We have to get out of here,” Layla said.

“Grab on!” Michael shouted.

As soon as she wrapped her arms around his waist, he reached back and punched his booster. The canister fired, launching a balloon into the sky. Next, he punched her booster. The two balloons yanked them off their feet. He grabbed his toggles and directed them toward the Hilltop Bastion. Below, the creatures had summited the hill and were batting at the sky with their claws. Several others hunched down to spread their wings, preparing to leap. By the time they took to the sky, Michael and Layla were already two hundred feet above them and drifting west with the wind at their back.

Layla gave a snort of laughter. “You’re crazy, you know that?”

“I learned it from X. Now, clip your locking biner to my armor.”

“I hope he taught you how to multitask, because those things are gaining on us!”

Michael didn’t even try to glance over his shoulder. “You have to be my eyes, Layla.”

She tightened her grip around him and turned. “Three Sirens about five hundred feet to the east. The larger formation is another thousand feet behind them.”

Michael kept his gaze on his HUD, watching their altitude. To make this work, he must time it perfectly. Every decision, every movement, had to be precise.

At four hundred feet, the wind picked up, and he used his toggles to position them directly in the air current, giving them more speed.

The screeches grew louder as they rose higher in the sky. More lighting arced through the clouds. Michael squinted at the bunker. They were coming in fast, but fast enough?

“Whatever you plan on doing, you better do it soon!” Layla shouted.

Michael worked the toggles as they ascended higher. Even aided by the wind, they weren’t going to outrun their pursuers. The Sirens were closing in. He could hear their wings slapping at the air. At eight hundred feet, he let go of the left toggle and grabbed his blade.

“What are you doing?” Layla shouted.

“Going with plan B. Hold on!”

“What do you think I’m doing now?” she said, but she squeezed him so hard his armor pressed in on his rib cage.

He grabbed the toggle again, blade in hand, and watched the number on his HUD tick upward. The wailing was so loud now, it sounded like standing beneath a klaxon on the Hive.

Michael’s heart was fluttering, but he remained calm, remembering the fortune he had handed X all those years ago: Handle your present with confidence. Face your future without fear.

At 850 feet, he cut through the lines attached to their balloons. Layla screamed, and Michael didn’t have the breath to reassure her. He watched the towers rising up to meet his boots as the Sirens screeched in confusion directly overhead. He didn’t need to look up to see they were seconds from being snatched away by those talons and torn apart in midair.

So far, his timing was spot-on, but they still had the landing ahead of them.

Michael waited five beats before pulling the ripcord on the new chute. The lines snapped taut and yanked them up, and for the moment before the wind caught them again, the chute seemed to pull them toward the monsters above. Now they were sailing straight toward the bunker. A single white light, like a beacon in the night, shone from the side of the concrete structure.

“Give us some covering fire, Weaver!” Michael shouted. “And if you haven’t already gotten a window open, break one quick!”

“It’s open, but I told you I don’t have a rifle!”

Michael cursed. In the chaos, he had forgotten that detail. They weren’t going to get any help in the final stretch. Worse, they were descending too quickly. If they continued to drop, they wouldn’t make the window. The only way this would work was if he held them steady and sailed right through the opening.

This would require a perfect flare.

He bumped his chin pad.

“We’re coming in hot, Weaver. Clear us a path. As soon as we land, you need to close the window behind us!”

Michael brought his knees up as they soared over the spilled entrails of buildings. His boots were just feet away from a bent girder rising up in their path. He toggled again to adjust their trajectory one final time.

Inside the bunker, he could see a room furnished with desks and computer equipment. Lots of corners and hard surfaces to run into. There was no way around it—this was going to hurt. It was a good thing Layla couldn’t see the approach, but she could still see the monsters.

“They’re almost on us!” she shouted. “Michael, hurry!”

“Pull up your legs!”

At the last second, he flared his chute and they sailed inside the room, both of them bringing their boots up just in time to avoid injury. Michael hit the ground hard and tried to run out the momentum. He made it two steps before her weight pulled him down. They crashed in a heap, rolling and tumbling across the floor until they fetched up against a desk. The impact knocked the air out of his lungs.

“Layla,” he gasped. “Are you…?”

Weaver darted forward, hauled in the tail of Michael’s canopy, and slammed the window. Thick metal shutters clattered over it. Seconds later, the monsters slammed into the hatches. Claws slid down the metal outside.

“Jesus Christ!” Weaver shouted.

Head pounding and stars drifting before his vision, Michael closed his eyes. When he opened them a moment later, he saw a pair of bloody boots hurrying away from the windows.

Michael pushed at the ground and looked at Layla, sitting beside him with one hand on her helmet.

“Nice job, Commander,” she said, flashing a weak smile.

He helped her to her feet. When they turned, they saw Weaver standing next to a hologram of a man in an immaculate suit. The contrast couldn’t have been sharper with Weaver, who looked as though he had been dragged through hell and back. The man was covered in blood and dirt, and his visor was cracked.

“I got your gear,” Michael said, tossing him the bag.

“Thanks,” Weaver grunted. He jerked a thumb at the ghostly image beside him. “This is Timothy. He runs this madhouse.”

“Welcome to ITC Communal Thirteen,” the hologram said.

A gunshot sounded from somewhere inside the facility.

“That must be Magnolia,” Weaver said. He ran over to the desks that had been hastily pushed against the door. “Help me with these!”

Michael joined him, and together they pulled the desks away. Two more shots went off, and a squawk sounded from the passage beyond the door.

“Get ready; they’re going to have company,” Weaver said.

Michael unslung his rifle and raised it at the battered metal door. Weaver grabbed the handle and yanked it open. The light from their helmets shone over a landing. Weird tubes as thick as Michael’s waist crawled over the walls and stairs below. Sprawled in the middle was the body of a mutant creature unlike anything Michael had ever seen. Blood pooled around the carcass.

“What the hell is that?” Layla said.

“Vultures,” Weaver said. “If you see any more, shoot ’em! Sirens aren’t the only things that want to eat us.”

Light beams danced up the stairwell. Michael still couldn’t see the other divers, but he could hear them.

“Weaver!” Magnolia shouted. “Get that door open!”

Michael squared his shoulders and readied his rifle at the landing. Another gunshot reverberated off the walls. The squawks that followed were different from the screeching of the Sirens, but that was small comfort.

He moved his finger to the rifle trigger as two figures bounded around the corner. It was Magnolia and Rodger, and they were running for their lives. They raced past him without stopping.

Movement flickered over the stairs below as Michael backpedaled after them, but he had trouble focusing on the creature, which seemed to blend in with the shadows. At last, he caught the gray, feathery thing in his crosshairs. He squeezed the trigger, and nothing—the magazine was dry, the action open on an empty chamber.

A single eyeball on a stalk roved toward him. The creature cried out, and suddenly, the passage was alive with the beasts Weaver had called vultures. But where had they come from?

Staggering back toward the doorway, Michael lost his footing and fell on his butt. Hands grabbed him under the armpits and pulled him into the room.

He reached for his pistol as the other divers dragged him to safety. A dozen of the little beasts bounded up the stairs, a dozen single eyeballs peering at him.

Rodger and Magnolia slammed the door and helped Layla push the desks back into position. The hands under Michael’s arms relaxed their grip, and Weaver limped over to help reinforce the barrier.

Dazed, Michael stood as the vultures clawed at the door. All around them, the Sirens were still slamming against the metal hatches covering the windows. The divers were surrounded, but at least they were together.

Magnolia and Rodger were both bent over, hands on their knees, panting. Weaver was resting his back against the barricade of desks. His lungs were crackling with each breath—a bad sign that he had breathed in something toxic. After a moment, Weaver crossed his arms and looked at each diver in turn.

“First, get Magnolia’s wounds disinfected and dressed, and get that suit closed and sealed. Meanwhile, somebody’s going to tell me what the hell is going on.”

“It’s a long story,” Michael began as Layla fished a medical kit and a suit repair kit out of the backpack.

Magnolia cut him off. “Jordan tried to kill me. Now he’s sent the rest of you down here to prove some psychotic point about the ship not being able to return to the surface. Ever.”

“Point received,” Weaver said. He unfolded his arms, and for the first time, Michael saw the extent of his injuries. Multiple tears in his layered suit revealed blood gashes where the beasts had torn his flesh. But it was the cracked visor that concerned Michael the most.

“You’re here now,” Weaver said, looking at Layla and Michael. “Any ideas on what we should do? I’ve already sent an SOS to the Hive, but if Jordan’s gone bat shit, then I have a feeling it won’t matter. We didn’t find any fuel cells or anything else to barter our way back onto the ship with.”

Michael felt deflated. He had come down here to help his friends, but he had no idea how they were going to get out of this room. All his clever plans had only managed to get them trapped in Hilltop Bastion’s command center. Layla gripped Michael’s hand as they listened to the macabre chorus of hungry beasts.

“Jordan’s going to leave us down here, isn’t he?” Rodger said, shaking his head. The normally cheerful engineer-turned-diver looked on the verge of tears. “I’m never going to see my parents again.”

“Yeah, you are, Rodge,” Magnolia said. “You just gotta figure out how to fly that ship.”

“What ship?” Michael, Layla, and Weaver all said at the same time.

“An airship,” Rodger said. “Not as big as the Hive, but a ship nonetheless.” He stood up a little straighter. “We found it on the way here.”

“There’s an underground hangar not far from here,” Magnolia said.

“Can you fly it?” Weaver asked.

Rodger shook his head. “I… I’m not sure.”

“You, Michael?” Weaver asked. “Layla?”

“I haven’t had that sort of training,” Layla said.

Michael shook his head. “Me neither.”

“I can operate the aircraft,” answered another voice. “I can also provide, from memory, schematic diagrams for its every bolt, rivet, and wire; run diagnostics; and direct all repairs for any conceivable malfunction or damage, down to a likelihood of ten to the negative ninth power.”

Every helmet turned to the hologram. The AI known as Timothy smiled. “There is nothing else for me here. It is time for me to leave ITC Communal Thirteen.”