Jerome Preisler - Net Force--Attack Protocol

“C’mon, Julio,” he whispered to himself. “Step up .”

He launched another volley of grenades from the autons and saw the ’hogs duck, dodge, and scamper to avoid the projectiles, their bullets rattling against his vehicle’s front and sides. In the rear, the two stretchers were being strapped down, their carriers crouching over them.

That accounted for six of the evacuees, Fernandez thought. Almost half. He glanced at his screens, watched the rest climbing into Percy Two, some more slowly than others. Once they were safely aboard, the plan was to head south toward the main gate and roll through onto the Bucharest road. With Spree out of the picture, it would be the path of least resistance and the safest way off base.

The autons coughed out more grenades at his command. It didn’t seem to faze the ’hogs. They swerved and jack-in-the-boxed and eluded the barrage, their machine guns hacking away without interruption. He was thinking it wouldn’t be long before they got things figured out and started pouring concentrated fire through the lanes.

Fernandez waited tensely. Ten endless seconds, fifteen, thirty. Another hail of bullets rattled against his vehicle. But the good news was that most of the evacuees were finally aboard Percy Two. There were maybe a couple to go, plus Howard and Wass.

“C’mon, c’mon,” he muttered.

Again he launched grenades at the ’hogs. Again they sleeted his Puma with bullets. He checked his distance displays...and frowned. Shit and Shinola.

It was Earl. He hadn’t stayed on top of the robot’s progress as it crossed the ’Burbs from the civvy-housing area. Hadn’t noticed it getting so close. Too close now. He still had people out there. Could hear Howard in the thick of things, barking instructions at them.

Then he saw something completely out of the blue. An unidentified vehicle was speeding south on the transverse linking Janus Heights and the ’Burbs, almost due north of Earl’s position.

Blinking in disbelief, Fernandez held his eyes on the screen. His onboards were identifying the bogey as a Jolt.

He shook his head in deepening confusion.

“So who are you...and what the hell are you doing around here?” he wondered, getting only silence for an answer.

Laura had just left the transverse and veered right onto the ’Burbs, bearing speedily toward the quadrangle, when Mario straightened with the NV binocs to his eyes. He was looking almost directly to the south.

She cut him a glance. “What do you see?”

He gazed raptly through the glasses. It was a hedgehog, moving across the field from west to east on an almost parallel course with them.

“Mario?”

“It’s Earl,” he said.

“What?”

“Earl.”

“ Ay , I heard you!” She rolled across the hard grass. “I meant how is it possible? Como es posible? How did it get ahead of us?”

He understood what she was asking him. They had left the bot well behind them only minutes before.

“We swung north off-road, stopped a couple times,” he said. “It’s light and fast. And it would’ve gone straight across this field. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.”

Laura considered that, her headlights gliding over the snow. She knew from all too recent experience that the hog was a dangerous threat. She also realized it was now more or less between them and the barracks. But for her, Mario’s discovery was strangely... shockless , she thought, wondering if that was even a real word.

They had already seen the drones dive down on the armored wedge, only to scatter pell-mell like swatted flies and blow up far off course. Then they had seen the Pumas take out one of the hedgehogs and head on toward the new barracks, followed by the noise and light in the sky behind the barracks.

And that was just over the past few minutes. After this whole crazy night of chaos and destruction, she was thinking it would take a lot to surprise either one of them.

“Do you have any idea what it’s going to do?” she asked.

Mario sat gazing through the lenses a minute. “There’s enough left of the barracks to get in the way of my view...smoke, too...but I can just make out the Pumas around back. On the north side, around the Love Shack.”

“The what ?”

He cleared his throat, lowering the binocs.

“I meant the maintenance shed ,” he said. “Looks like they’re all stopped around it. In a circle.”

“Stopped, why?”

“That shed was repurposed after the Romanians left,” he said. “There’s an exit from the emergency shelter hidden inside.”

“So you think they’re getting people out?”

He nodded his head. “It’s where anyone down in the shelter would evac.”

Her eyes suddenly met his in the rearview mirror. “The robot...Earl...it wants to stop them.”

He didn’t reply at first. As a specialist by training, he felt that trying to read an artificial intelligence’s intent—or even attributing humanlike intent to an AI—was a huge stretch. But he wouldn’t quarrel with Laura’s basic conclusion.

“I think you’re right,” he said. “Earl’s definitely hauling it.”

“So how can we help?”

He thought a minute. Then an idea struck him. A wild one, maybe. But...

“Speed up,” he said. “We need to pass the ’hog. I want to dig something out of the back.”

Laura drove forward without asking any more questions.

And sped up.

Howard watched the C&C’s hatch drop shut. The seriously wounded evacuees and their carriers had been crowded aboard, and the troop compartment was out of room. He and Larocca would have to squeeze in with Wasserman’s group on Percy Three.

“Ready?” he asked.

Larocca nodded. “No problem.”

Howard hoped not. His body felt like lead. But they were only five or six strides from the auton’s open hatch.

He turned toward the auton and started to cross the lane between wagons. Took one step, two. Larocca moving along with him.

On the western buffer, Walt glided into sight and spotted them, its machine gun firing a cascade of .50-caliber bullets into the gap. They whined through the air and struck the C&C’s armored front quarter at an angle, skipping, clanging, and ricocheting off both vehicles.

Howard swore and glanced around at the C&C. They were still closer to it than the auton. He gestured at it, braced Larocca with his arm, and started to double back.

The hedgehog tracked them with its gun barrel, firing cleanly into the middle of the lane this time.

He would never know if they could have made it to cover on their own. It would have been tough for him hauling so much of Larocca’s weight. But that suddenly became moot.

They hadn’t yet reached the C&C when Fernandez launched several Striker rounds at the ’hog from its turret, forcing it to dip down, jump up, and skitter away from the lane as the RPGs blew harmlessly in the outlying woods.

Larocca snapped Howard a glance. “That thing almost got lucky, sir,” he said.

Howard didn’t answer. If its fire had been a hair closer, the machine gun would have mowed them down. But he didn’t think it was a matter of luck. The ’hogs were narrowing in, getting closer to hitting their targets even while taking evasive action. Learning on the move.

He inhaled. His ribs crunched and jabbed under the tight bands of his ammo belts. He figured half of them were broken and half of those were displaced and sucking and flailing in toward his lungs.

Which still left him in better shape than Larocca. Blood had soaked through the bottom of his trouser leg and was dripping from his boot into the snow. Howard was impressed that he could even stand upright.