Archon's Queen (56 page)

She fumbled for the latch. A momentary loss of coordination came on at fear fanned by the sound of a man yelling a distance away. At last, the door opened, and she sprinted through the frigid darkness in the direction of the faint glowing lights on the fubox.

Four times, she fell on her way from the outhouse to the back door, tripping over roots, slick spots of wet grass, and the paving stones. Anna stumbled into the cabin, and felt her way to the bedroom. The two front windows flooded with bright artificial light that sent creeping shadows through the room. Stealth at that point became futile; she sprinted.

Bursting through the door, she flung James’ shirt off and gathered her clothes. She kicked at him while she dressed, pleading in a half whisper.

“James, they’re here. Wake up.”

He moaned; in the passing flash of a searchlight, she made out the shape of his hand rubbing his eyes. “What are you going on about?”

“Orbs… One was about to shoot me in the loo.”

Glass shattered in the main room; James sat bolt upright.

“Damn, they are early.”

Anna gaped at him. “You were expecting them?”

He shrugged. “Of course. I had hoped they would not come calling at this awful hour.”

His chest glowed in the radiance of a small searchlight; another orb, inside the cabin above the table, swiveled to point at them through the open door. Anna thrust her arm out, palm facing. With a loud snap, an arc formed for a nanosecond between it and her hand. The orb went dark, ringing like an out of tune bell when it crashed onto the wooden table. It rolled and fell to the floor with a
clang
. Anna gathered her coat closed.

“Looks like you have this sorted, my dear.” James reclined as if to return to sleep.

She gasped. “You’re going back to bed?”

He paused halfway to the pillow as true wakefulness came over his eyes. “Damn, there are more than robots out there. We have to leave.”

A shadow across the window drew Anna close. Outside, a row of intense wavering lights lit the grass into daylight. Their constant motion gave the appearance of hovering droids. A multi-legged metal spider the size of a tiny car thrust its forelegs through the window, sending a shower of glass into the room. Her screaming backward leap halted as a second pair of legs grabbed her coat with pincer claws. The two front limbs sprouted eighteen-inch blades, poised to strike at her heart as it pulled her closer.

It froze, the robotic menace shuddering and straining against an invisible force. James grunted from exertion, battling its Myofiber muscles with telekinetic force. Her eyes widened at the spotlight’s gleam along the blades; for a second, she stood without reacting, stunned. At the sound of him growling, she shrugged off fear and grabbed the clamps holding her by the scruff.

Blue sparks leapt from her fingers, swimming around and through the metal arachnid. The entire bot convulsed and crashed against the stone cabin wall as panels exploded off its back. She forced power to the densest mass of fine current she could find―the computer core. Fried to uselessness, the main body thudded to the ground with an impact she felt in the floor. James snarled; in time with his sound of disapproval, the limp legs clattered over the windowsill, out of sight.

As if grabbed by unseen hands, her body jerked to the side as bullets passed through the air where she had been standing a half second before.

Flying into James’s arms, she broke out in a sweat. “No… No… I’m finally happy and they’re going to kill us.”

“Gather your wits, girl.” James squeezed her hand before forcing a patronizing smile. “You may wish to keep clear of windows, though.”

Aurora burst through her door, satin robe unfastened. She turned to speak as a trio of red lasers streaked through the shimmering dust in the air behind her.

Anna yelled. “Look―”

The ivory-skinned woman evaporated into a cloud of silvery mist in an instant, leaving the robe hanging in midair as if still worn. Three bullet holes appeared in the center as it fell.

Anna didn’t have enough time to think as another floating orb came through the window. She induced an arc between it and an unused cable from the fubox. Orange bits of melting plastisteel exploded out of every seam as it went dark. The orb plummeted, landing with a ringing
clank
, and rolled across the room, where it dented the wall. Anna went for the window again, but he held her back.

“Stay away from the windows. There are snipers. Give Aurora a few minutes.”

“What do you mean?” Anna sank to the floor.

James gathered his clothes. “She has a way with people.”

Gunfire cracked and popped through the darkened woods. Anna crawled through the living room, past the stack of supplies and over the wire leading to the heating unit. She looked back at James with an expression of frightened bewilderment as the entire cabin shuddered and filled with a deafening roar. Windows rattled, silverware and plates on the table vibrated to the side, and small objects fell from shelves out of sight.

Anna shouted, trying to ask James what was going on, but her voice proved no match for whatever aircraft had settled in a few meters above the cabin. The blur of grey and black camouflage snapped her gaze to the windows; from the look of it, six men had hit the roof and rappelled to the ground outside.

Shattering inward, the front door skittered away in several chunks at the arrival of an immense spider droid. As big as an autocab, its flat white hull blocked the entire opening. Evil-looking red sensors on the front end had the appearance of eyes; from beneath small hatch plates, two clusters of three tiny missiles extended upwards in preparation to be fired.

Anna dove away screaming, rolling onto one knee near an unused cable from the fubox. She took a deep breath and grabbed the connector. Power from the portable fusion generator coursed into her, covering her body with a web of shifting sparks. Staccato bursts of light flashed, searing the room into her memory as a series of still images.

Six trails of smoke traced a meter into the room in the blink of an eye; the eight-inch missiles hung in midair, throwing fire and exhaust to the rear, but no longer traveling. James leaned against the wall, sweating, with a wide-eyed stare as his hand shook in a trembling recreation of a constable halting traffic.

His sneer deepened as the alarm left his face, and the fuming projectiles rotated over to point out the door. As he relaxed, they streaked off into the woods where a bloom of gas clouds and loud concussions broke the darkness, the last one accompanied by a man’s startled howl. A soldier appeared in the window for an instant, confused eyes staring out from a gas mask.

“Away,” said James, twirling his finger.

The man jogged off with purpose in his eyes.

The droid shifted about, seeming confused at the misfire. Bladed claws at the tip of its forelegs grasped the frame of the door, crunching into the wood as it dragged itself through. The other legs folded tight against its hull as it forced its car-sized body through the too-small doorway, cracking and pushing stones out of the wall. Another hatch split open along the centerline of its back, sliding down into the body as a rotary cannon came to bear.

Anna drew power from the wire, amplifying it into a two-inch thick streak of lightning that sent the bot into a shaking frenzy of burning wires, twitching actuators, and molten metal. Plumes of smoke filled the air with the smell of scorched silicon as it crashed to the ground in a heap, inert legs splayed out in eight directions.

Two soldiers climbed over it and swung their rifles through the door, making entry as another pair came in the back. Another two appeared at the smashed windows; all six of them aimed at the woman covered in dancing flashes of azure.

Anna’s thumb sank deeper into the socket as her fists clenched. Before she could react, or the soldiers could fire, James’ presence swam through her mind.

She turned her head to look toward the sound of his voice; his arms rose to either side, his eyes flickered with a white glow, and his lips moved in a rapid whispering that gnawed at the back of her brain. The commandos wobbled on their feet, lost in a daze of a telepathic saturation. James had seized each of them, injecting such an amount of different sights, sounds, and feelings they stood there like drug-addled dolts.

Any time you’re ready, my dear.
Doctor Mardling’s voice spoke clear through the muted chaos, snapping her out of the fascination caused by the mere eavesdropping of his surface thoughts.
As much as I enjoy entertaining these buffoons, I think they are about due for a bit of a jolt.

Anna stood, clutching the wire. Lightning sizzled along the heavy rubber insulation, racing to and from the back porch. She leaned her head back and let power go in all directions with an angry banshee wail.

Jerking and twisting from a rapid-fire electrical discharge, the solders danced in place. A fusillade of
snaps
,
pops
, and resonant
bangs
flooded the cabin. Smaller sparks sounded like breaking twigs, while the big jolts―the ones that knocked bodies to the ground―sent window-cracking
booms
into the air. Jagged lines of black ash formed on the walls as a stray bolt attempted to follow one retreating man through the stonemasonry.

Anna relaxed and fell to her knees, ready to fall asleep on the floor right there. The texture of braided wire scraped against her palm where the insulation had melted away. Searchlight bots closed in on the front, aiming through the windows at her. Not bothering to stand, Anna growled and focused on the hanging orbs.

Hair-thin trails snapped through the air in a row. One after the next, the floating machines burst in place, electricity leapt from their power cores as she drew it in. Bolt after bolt of lightning came to join the cloud of shifting sparks on her body. Other soldiers creeping up below the droids screamed, scattering to evade the hail of orange flecks and falling debris.

A concussive
whump
rocked the cabin as the capacitor in the fubox reached its breaking point. The detonation pushed and pulled at the air in her lungs. She dropped the wire and dragged herself up to the wall adjacent to the front door, hiding behind the dead spider to peek outside.

Confusion swept through the soldiers; they shouted between gunshots. Azure muzzle flashes appeared at random in the trees as they fired on each other. One man turned, shooting at the soldier next to him before stumbling back as if drunk. Seconds later, fog coalesced around another man who then froze in place, shuddering and clutching at his head for a brief instant before he raised his weapon at different soldiers. Then, he too swooned with an intoxicated stagger. Some of them moved naturally, others like zombies. Two men in the distance aimed at each other in stalemate, neither seeming to know if they faced friend or foe.

James put a hand on her shoulder, nodding in the direction of the back door. “Go now, quickly. Wait for me about a hundred meters out.”

Anna let him help her stand. “Aren’t you coming?”

He smiled. “Of course.” A brief kiss upon the lips made her eyes flutter. “But there is the matter of my destroyed car, and we need a ride. I’ll just be borrowing one of theirs.”

She nodded, backpedaling away from the windows as two more spider bots outside spun in circles, aiming onboard weapons at the disarray.

Anna started towards the back door, but froze when a soldier hustled through it into the cabin. Lifting her hands with a clawing motion, she flung lightning into his chest. He sailed off his feet, landing on his back and sliding onto the porch in a convulsive fit.

Aurora’s disembodied voice fell like silk through the air. “Damn it, Anna. That was me. Now I have to find another toy. He’s going to be napping for a while.”

The dropped rifle shifted on the ground, pivoting to point at James before it leapt into his waiting arms. His casual glance settled on her with a lifted eyebrow.

“What? Do not tell me you’re afraid of firearms?”

She looked away. “I’m not a great big fan to be honest. Pointed at me, or getting shot by the cops for ‘avin’ one… Neither’s much a bit of fun.”

Splinters rained from a trail of bullet holes inches above her head. James fired at the orb droid responsible, but it evaded him with ease and whipped about to return fire.

He frowned. “Sit still, you little blighter.”

The orb wobbled, emitting an electronic squeal as his telekinesis held it in place and forced its weapon to aim away. A few shots into the stationary sphere reduced it to a shower of metal fragments.

“I could have gotten that…”

He made a shooing gesture at the door. “Save your energy for the big ones, off you go.”

A body hit the cabin outside the rear door, knocking a decorative plate off the wall.

“Anna, don’t kill this one,” shouted an unfamiliar man.

Clad in grey-on-black camouflage, a dark-skinned soldier ducked into the room. Anna could not help but stare at the odd feminine quality to his movement as he took up a firing position at the front wall. He fired a few shots, and laughed.

“I keep forgetting how light the recoil is when I’m wearing a man,” he mumbled.

“She’s creeping me out, James.”

He pointed. Taking the hint, she made it out the door in three strides and ran through shimmering cones of searchlights from above. The air vibrated with the sound of ion drives, a grating techno-growl that sent shivers down her spine. Every piece of grass and leaf tingled with electricity from the ionic downblast.

Two great spots of white light, the main drives of an assault VTOL at least three times the size of the one that had chased her through the streets of London, drifted over the cabin. Smaller vented-thrust ports, one at the nose and each wingtip, hinted at the general orientation of the craft as it turned to point at where she ran. A rectangle of light appeared in the blackness between the main engines; a weapons bay opened with a mechanical whine. From within the white-walled interior, a dual-barreled particle cannon swiveled to take aim.

Are you fucking serious?