Chapter 156: The Prized Pony

Nobody moved for about a second, which was one second longer than the thing in the doorway needed to take a second step.

-Klang-!

[That’s a Knight! And it’s taking its time... probably waiting for the horde... while making sure we go nowhere... suits me fine... I really need a second...]

Nia’s eyes came off it and found mine, and I didn’t need Awareness to know what was in them, because it was in mine too, and it was two words, and neither of us wanted to be the one to say them first.

"That’s a Knight plus all the Infected converging on us... Either an Alpha’s got eyes on us," I said them anyway, "... or a witch does."

"Which one?" Kara had the Gen-12 up and pointed at the black thing, which was fair, and useless, and courtesy of the notes I gave her on all the Variants, she knew it was both.

"If it’s an Alpha, we’re already dead, so let’s assume it’s a witch..." I didn’t take my eyes off the purple ones. "A witch is a sprinter that thinks like a ten-year-old and can control the Infected... an entire city’s worth of them."

"And that’s the witch’s prized pony," Nia agreed, low, in the voice that meant she’d already picked a place to stand, "Assuming we’re dealing with a Witch, because an Alpha can do the same thing too."

"Tank, Revenant, Witch, Knight," I counted, out loud, for the four of them. "Four in a month... They weren’t due for a year and a half. Not one of them."

[Whatever the hell is speeding this up, I swear to god I find it...]

Tikki hadn’t stopped growling, nor had his claws come out of my shoulder, and I trusted that more than the panel.

Nia slung the SR-25 across her back without looking at it, which is the most disrespectful thing I have ever seen her do to a rifle, and held her hand out flat at me.

"That’s useless against that... Gimme a good axe."

"Nia-"

"Axe, Nikki."

-Ding!

{

System Exclusive Felling Axe, hardened edge, reinforced haft: 9,000 Credits

Delivered to Inventory.

}

It came into my hand, a meter long, with a gunmetal-colored head, and I tested its weight once, then tossed it at her.

"Here’s how it goes," She said without turning round. "I keep the Knight, and when it’s bored of me, I slip away... Your job’s them."

"Wai- No."

"Yes. There are eighty thousand coming, and one of us has to get the others to safety and then find what’s driving them, and it isn’t going to be me, because I don’t have a magic shop." Then, lighter, with a laugh: "And I want to see what I can truly do..."

[She’s right. She’s right, and I hate it, and I don’t have time to hate it properly.]

I pulled the Greapple Gun out of the Inventory, tossed it at her other hand. She grabbed it, looked down at it, then up at me, and her eyebrows went up.

"Aww~ He does love me."

"Zip around, keep it busy. Don’t try to win... Just don’t lose."

A smirk was all the reply I got. Then she walked out of the loading bay straight at seven feet of black.

And it dashed for her the instant she cleared the door, its leap exploding the concrete beneath its feet.

In one leap that covered the three meters between them, and the moment the wild swipe of its razor-sharp claws almost touched her, Nia went under the swing so low her shoulder brushed the ground before coming up on its far side.

In less than a second she was behind it, and-

-Klang-!

The sound of metal ringing against something metal-like ripped through the air.

And the monster whose claws can pierce concrete, whose armor can take a direct hit from a 20mm and keep it alive, staggered.

Perhaps for the first time, something had struck the damn thing this hard, because since the moment the blow landed, it forgot the door and us entirely.

And that left the doorway empty for about eight seconds.

"System. M1A2 SEPv3. Integration Token in it. Now."

-Ding!

{

M1A2 SEPv3 Abrams Main Battle Tank + System Integration Token + Installation + Certifications.

TOTAL: 40,265,500 Credits

Delivered to the Inventory.

}

And the very next moment, a sixty-three-tonne tank came out of the Inventory, the suspension settling with a groan I felt through my boots, while Leo made a sound I will remember till my deathbed.

"In!" I shouted. "All of you. Leo first, you’re the slowest through a hatch."

[Forty million... that was more than half all I had in the account... gotta sell some bars...]

Leo went in, then Nora, then Kara, who stopped on the hull with the Gen-12 and looked at me a second longer than there was time for, then went in.

Mr. Norton last, with his bag, without a word, the same way he’d get into a car. Which genuinely surprised me. I thought he’d say something about bringing his daughter back safe. Maybe now he just knew better.

The second I reached up to the pocket behind my shoulder to hand Tikki down after them, all four sets of claws went in another centimeter.

"Mea!"

"Booger, get in the tank."

"Meaa!"

"Dude, there’s a Witch... There’s eighty thousand-"

"Meeaaa!"

[...Fine! Fine. Pocket...]

And with that, I slammed the hatch on four people who did not want it slammed.

"System. Get them out of the city... Stop on high ground with a view of downtown, and anything that follows you, you kill."

The engine spooled up, the turret swung once to check itself, and the tank went off down the street.

The Knight didn’t even turn its head after it, because Nia had just put the axe into its shoulder and the axe had rung off without leaving a mark, but the hit did stagger it more than a step, and it had never been more interested in anything in its life.

"System... The bird’s hers now. Missiles on hold until she says so... Everything else on the street around her, and don’t stop."

-Ding!

{

Ghostbird: reassigned.

Priority / In-command: Nia.

Napalm and chin gun released. Missiles held until further orders.

}

Then I ran to the road and looked at what was coming down the avenue toward the bank.

They filled it wall to wall, the leading edge two blocks out and closing at a walk, slow, packed, thousands deep, and every one of them pointed at the same building, with the same lean. But strangely, no sprinters.

[Steered... Every last one of them...]

I didn’t go at them, and I didn’t wait, because a Witch or worse, an Alpha, that gets bored moves, and two blocks of empty road was the only thing I had that was worth anything, so I spent it on height.

I looked up instead of down the avenue, and the tallest thing in sight was a thirty-floor hotel three streets over, and the cross street between me and it was still empty, the tide coming down the avenue on my left and not there yet.

So I racked the Mossberg, tucked a growling cat as deep into the pocket as he’d go, and ran.

Out the side of the bay, away from Nia and the Knight, along the bank’s wall and across the cross street a block ahead of the leading edge, two leftovers came out of a shop doorway at me too slow to matter-

-Dich-!-Click-Dich-!

Chest, chest, past them without breaking stride, and I took the hotel’s lobby at a run, then its stairwell at a run, clearing its thirty floors in under two minutes, before bursting out onto the roof into wind.

The whole city was moving under me, and it was all moving one way.

[Okay... Think. A Witch needs eyes on target to properly command the Infected... and those streets are flowing into the bank from every side at once, which means it can see the bank... Which means it’s high, and it’s close, and it’s looking down at the loading bay right now...And it’s been watching.]

Three car parks burned in a day, and a helicopter that never landed once. Rotors don’t fool a thing that thinks. It waited until the six of us were inside a building for a good while, then sent its strongest to our door and the whole city down every street.

[A 7.62 round does nothing to a Witch except tell it to run, and a Witch that runs is a Witch I’ve lost... So it doesn’t get a 7.62... It gets a fifty.]

"System. Barrett M107... Scoped. Ten rounds in two mags."

-Ding!

{

Barrett M107A1, .50 BMG, Leupold Mark 5HD, 10 rounds (2 Mags): 24,750 Credits

Delivered.

}

It came out of nothing into my hands with the weight it should have, and I went flat on the gravel behind the parapet with it and put the scope on the blocks around the bank one at a time.

Tikki was out of the pocket and up on the parapet beside my elbow before I’d found the first window, and he sat there in the wind with his ears flat and his tail going stiff behind him, looking down at the city with his head turning in small hard jerks, one building at a time, the same as he’d worked the vault’s cages.

"Booger... Whatever’s holding the leash can see that bank. Find me an Infected that looks smart..."

His head stopped turning halfway through a sweep.

He didn’t look round at me at all. He looked at one place and held it, and his tail went completely still, and I put the scope where his nose was pointing.

A five-story residential block across the road from the bank, old brick, balconies, and a fourth-floor window with the glass gone.

And standing in the window, not moving, not swaying, standing completely still, was a shape that could’ve been mistaken for a human at a glance.

It was thin, and it stood straight-backed, its head tilted down at the loading bay below, watching Nia and the Knight below with its hands resting on the sill like a kid at a parade.

[There!] I breathed out slowly and let the crosshair settle on it.

And just as I pressed the trigger, it turned its head, looked up the scope straight at me, and moved.