Will McIntosh - Defenders

Vanessa took out her phone, tapped the keys for a moment, then held it up. “I haven’t listened to this in twenty years, but today, I need a laugh.”

Sounding like he was speaking from inside a can, Oliver heard his own quavering voice. “Yes, Vanessa, this is Oliver Bowen? My sister, Leslie Bowen, gave me your number, and I hope you don’t mind my calling you, but—”

As they laughed, Oliver watched for defenders. If a defender happened by and saw two humans laughing as hard as they were, it would raise suspicion.

January 12, 2048. Washington, D.C.

The crawlspace under Erik’s house was large enough for Kai to walk upright. When Kai and Lila had owned their own house, it had been a struggle to move around in the crawlspace with his back bent, squatting. And that had been before the war, when his body was strong and fully intact.

Kai located the plumbing that went up to the kitchen, listened to each of the pipes in turn with the stethoscope he’d brought. He marked the one connected to the sink, which he’d purposely left running, with a red X, then went to find the main circuit panel.

He felt like he was deceiving Lila by planning this without telling her. But there was no doubt in his mind that Erik was going to try to kill him; he was too good a poker player to misread what he’d seen on Erik’s face.

He flipped the breaker switch leading to the heater for Erik’s pool. Erik would never notice it was off; as far as Kai knew, Erik had never been in the pool—it was just a prop, a display of his wealth and power.

Rerouting the wiring was the hard part, especially with only one good hand. During basic training he’d received cursory instruction in booby-trapping, including about two minutes on how to electrocute someone using a house’s typical 110-volt setup.

An hour later, shaking from the exertion, his hip throbbing, he had the wires from the pool’s heater wrapped around the pipe leading to the kitchen faucet. In theory, when the time came all he had to do was flip the breaker, then get Erik to touch the faucet. He hoped he’d done it right.

January 18, 2048. Washington, D.C.

It was a pathetic war room. In place of interactive high-definition electronic maps, they had paper maps and push-pins on the walls. And Spider-Man. Dominique didn’t even feel qualified to participate in planning an insurrection. She was a geneticist, for God’s sake.

We’re in direct contact with hundreds of high-ranking officers with combat experience , Five said in her head, probably from miles away. They’ll be making the military decisions.

“I know, I know,” Dominique said. “They’re just my thoughts , Five. That’s where we express our private doubts and insecurities. If we’re all going to live together in peace and harmony, your kind is going to have to learn to politely ignore what you hear us thinking.”

Sorry. You’ll have to excuse my manners, but thousands of my people are being slaughtered at the moment, and each time it happens, it feels a little like dying myself. I’d appreciate it if you’d cut me one fucking inch of slack.

Dominique swallowed. “I’m sorry. I forgot for a moment.”

Oliver took a sip from his third or fourth cup of coffee, politely ignoring the altercation. He had three days’ growth of dark stubble on his face, and smelled like a defender. Dominique wasn’t sure how to tell him that if he didn’t have time to shower, he should at least change his shirt.

They were all on edge. Forrest had his face buried in his computer, trying to find a way to hack into the defenders’ video feeds to give them a better idea of what was going on out there. He cursed under his breath as he pounded away on the keyboard.

“Five, how are the evacuations in those cities going?” Oliver asked.

Chaotically. Some people are trying to get out, others are staying put. The defenders are saying no one who stays will be harmed, and anyone who tries to leave without a pass will be killed. Meanwhile, we’re doing our best to panic people into fleeing. If we can create stampedes out of the cities, the defenders won’t be able to kill as many refugees. The defenders are frantically trying to understand what’s happening.

“How do they think people learned about their plan to gas those cities?”

They’re guessing it happened through an intercepted communication.

Oliver nodded. “So they’re not suspicious that some of their own have been altered?”

That would be an impressive leap of logic, don’t you think?

“Don’t underestimate their capacity for paranoia,” Dominique said.

Someone knocked on the door.

Oliver jumped like he’d been goosed. He looked at the Invincible Iron Man alarm clock sitting on a nearly empty bookshelf. “Oh, shit. I invited Vanessa over. I didn’t realize what time it was.”

Dominique surveyed the room. “How were you planning to explain the battle maps?”

“I told her to come for coffee, but the real reason I invited her was to warn her of what’s about to happen, and hopefully convince her to stay here with us.”

Another knock. Oliver went to answer it.

It wasn’t Oliver’s ex, it was Lila, who stormed in, dropped her bag on the couch, and went to the map. “What’s happening?” Her eyes were red, and her nose sounded plugged.

“Didn’t we agree you should go to work, as usual?” Oliver asked.

“I infected myself with rhinovirus yesterday, then played up the symptoms like I had the flu.”

That seemed risky to Dominique, but she kept her mouth shut. Lila liked to be in the middle of things. Dominique could relate.

“ Here we go! ” Forrest shouted. “I got it, I got it.”

Everyone hustled to see the laptop screen. “We can choose country, then city or town, over here.” Forrest pointed at a menu to the right of the screen. “Then scroll through the various feeds.” He toggled through a dozen views of D.C. until he found one that showed a handful of defenders with rifles shooting dozens of Luyten, who’d evidently been hiding in a warehouse. The Luyten were fighting back (in fact, one defender was down and unmoving), but they were cornered and outgunned, and they were dying. There were twitching, bullet-riddled Luyten everywhere.

“It’s time,” Oliver said, staring at the carnage. “Let’s send the call out to the human side of the resistance. They’re being slaughtered.”

Not yet—we have to allow the images of Luyten resistance to spread. It will make it much easier to convince your people to fight at our side.

“Are the images spreading?”

Yes. Quickly. We’ve recruited human allies who are making sure.

“What about the Luyten in the wild, the ones who are armed?” Dominique asked. “Couldn’t they help?”

Lila turned. “What Luyten in the wild?”

“We stumbled on a camp of armed Luyten in Alaska. They looked like they’d been there since the war. If there’s one camp, there must be others.” She was surprised this was news to them; she’d assumed if she knew about them, the others would by now.

“Five?” Lila sounded supremely uneasy. “Are there others?”

There was an uncharacteristically long pause. Yes. Some of your military strategists are aware of them, and have plans for them.

“ How many? ” Lila asked.

Several million worldwide, Lila. And yes, to what you’re thinking. That was the original plan.

Dominique looked at Lila. “What was the original plan?”

Lila folded her arms. “They were planning their own rebellion. Why else would they have secret camps all over the world? And I’ll bet they were breeding as fast as they could, weren’t they, Five? You were biding your time, waiting to grow an army big enough to wipe out the defenders, and then us.”