Will McIntosh - Defenders

Aunt Ina covered Lila’s eyes, her trembling fingers not doing a thorough enough job, because Lila saw between the slats of her fingers, saw her father raise one of the big rifles as a Luyten galloped at him.

It gripped the arm holding the rifle and pulled it off.

Lila howled as her father spun out of the bunker. He landed at the foot of a toppled slide.

“ Daddy! ” Lila screamed.

She pressed her face to the window, suddenly unable to see her father because something was blocking her view. It was a pillar, bone white at the bottom, black above, that hadn’t been there a second before. Just as quickly, it was gone.

The center of one of the Luyten blew out, leaving a trail of black meat behind as it toppled to the pavement.

Everyone was cheering. It was deafening. For a moment Lila was confused, because her father was dead and everyone was cheering. Then she saw them, impossibly tall on three knobby white legs. A defender leaped from the roof of the school above her, landed right behind one of the Luyten, and slashed it with the razor-sharp knife edges that ran down its arms and legs.

One of the defenders threw up its hands as a Luyten turned a heater on it. It took a heartbeat longer for it to die than it took a human soldier, but as it crumpled, black and smoking, to the ground, the Luyten wielding the heater was blasted by a weapon that was built right into a defender’s forearm. The Luyten burst into half a dozen pieces.

Three surviving Luyten fled into the trees, a handful of defenders in pursuit.

The room went wild. Everyone was leaping in the air, kissing, hugging, laughing, crying, shouting. This was something they’d never seen before: Luyten being beaten. Being slaughtered by these giant warriors, these fearless, powerful creatures who were on their side.

Lila understood the rush of joy and hope they felt, the relief after being so close to death, but she didn’t feel it herself. She ran outside, ignoring Aunt Ina’s calls that she come back.

She stopped a dozen feet from her dad, who was lying awkwardly, one leg bent under him, the other splayed up high, close to his face. The bloody hole, the bone jutting where his arm used to be, made her turn away, hand over her mouth. How could he be dead? How could he die now, just when there was hope? Lila wanted him to see what had happened to the Luyten.

It struck her that on the last day she’d ever see her father, she’d disappointed him. She’d gone off and gotten high, and he’d been forced to slap her out of her stupor. When she finally opened her eyes, he’d looked so disappointed in her.

Lila wanted to go to him now, stroke his hair, tell him goodbye, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it, not with him like he was. Where was his arm, she wondered?

May 27, 2030. Washington, D.C.

“There, in Mumbai,” Oteri said, pointing at the feed. Finally, a glimpse of a defender. He was pressed close against the buildings, his enormous body hunched. The streets were deserted; the emergency signal would have sounded by then, ordering everyone inside, away from windows. It was not simply a safety consideration—any human watching the battle became involuntary eyes and ears for the Luyten.

The defender paused, looked left, then right. The camera sending the feed rose above building level and panned the area, revealing another defender on the adjacent street.

“They’re nowhere near the production facility,” Ariel commented. She checked her system. “The facility is under Seshadripuram; they’re out in Rajajinagar.”

“Maybe they figure our forces are dug in around the perimeter, so they’ll take the fight to the starfish.” Oteri smiled. “The starfish won’t be expecting that.”

“For once those fuckers have no idea what’s coming, or from where,” Wood said. “It’s time they find out what that feels like.”

“ Starfish! ” someone shouted, pointing at the Mumbai feed. There were three, their bright emerald, gold, and mustard skin fouled with sewage, galloping in a line perpendicular to the defenders’ route.

One of the defenders spotted them. He said something into his comm and took off, parallel to the Luyten, one block to their right. Another defender took the street one block to their left. They were incredibly fast. Three legs allowed them to run upright, yet almost gallop.

“Go!” Wood shouted, like he was watching a running back heading toward the end zone. “Go, go, go!”

The defenders drew ahead of the Luyten, then cut inward on a crossing street. They stopped just out of sight of the approaching Luyten, pressed against buildings on either side, weapons raised.

“Get ’em!” Wood shouted. “ Yes! ”

Others in the command center joined in, shouting at the screen, as the Luyten passed the spot where the defenders had set up their ambush. The defenders stepped into the street and opened fire from behind.

The Luyten were hurled forward by the force of the shots, black blood splattering across the pavement. Deafening cheers filled the war room. The president leaped, swung his fist in the air, again, again.

Oliver couldn’t tell if all the Luyten were dead at that point, but it didn’t matter, because the defenders were on them in an instant, shooting each at close range before moving on.

Now the feeds from all of the cities showed either Luyten, defenders, or both.

“Look at that Manhattan feed,” Ariel said. She expanded it. Two defenders were standing in an alley. It almost looked like they were hiding.

“What are they doing?” someone asked.

A Luyten passed in the street. The defenders just watched it.

Oteri studied the scene, frowning, hands on her hips. “Either something went very wrong in their training, or everything went right. We’ll know soon enough.”

They spotted more defenders on the roof of Clayton Tower in Manhattan, watching Luyten movements and relaying them to troops on the ground. A few of the troops were involved in firefights, putting up some resistance, but most were actively avoiding the enemy.

Manhattan’s production facility was beneath the tip of the island, much of it under the bay. The Luyten were converging on it. As each arrived it set up close to the outside layer of human defenses, creating a web encircling those defenses. If the soldiers holding it were overrun, they had nowhere to go but into the bay.

More Luyten arrived by the minute. Soon there were hundreds, maybe thousands. It was a terrifying sight, to see so many in one place. Oliver’s heart was pounding; he turned his head, tugged at the collar of his shirt, which suddenly felt too tight.

The Luyten attacked. It came simultaneously, from all sides.

“Why are the defenders hanging back like that?” Oliver said. “Those soldiers need help, right now.”

The Luyten wasted no time pressing in, trying to break through the perimeter. Mostly they stayed behind their cover, moving only when necessary. Oliver watched as a Luyten firing a human-made wall-buster from behind a truck suddenly bolted. Two seconds later, the truck blew to pieces.

Suddenly all of the Luyten scattered, just before a sphere the size of a coconut sailed from a high window inside the human defense perimeter.

“Tasmanian devil,” Oteri said.

It exploded like a swarm of angry bees, the individual bits creating gaping wounds in wood, concrete, even the street itself, before burning out.

As soon as things settled, the Luyten began to reappear.

Just as suddenly, they disappeared again. Another Tasmanian devil flew from the same window.

“They’re buying time,” Oteri said, “hoping the defenders will show. We’re in trouble if they don’t.”