Jeremy Robinson - From Above

Down the street, I see a hole like the Grand Canyon, but I can’t see the other side. It’s beyond the horizon. Then I hear the screams; folks panicking, shrieking in fear. We kick into gear and head for the mobile unit. Rehna’s in and buckled up in seconds, but two nearby noises catch my attention. Both are whiny—one from above, one from below. I turn to the second and see a little girl, the daughter of some simp probably, but still just a kid.

“Priest, move it! The whole thing’s comin down!” Rehna sounds panicked. That’s not good.

I look up and see what remains of the behemoth begin to crumble. I run for the girl, arms stretched out. The mobile unit’s engines are loud behind me. Rehna’s on the ball.

The girl must sense my urgency because she’s running for me now. I scoop her up like a football and look over my shoulder. Rehna’s coming on fast. Thank God she left the hatch open. This is going to be close.

I toss the girl back, and she lands hard in my seat. Probably hurt like hell, but at least she’ll live. Can’t say the same for me though. Let’s hope Rehna’s reading my mind and doesn’t want to kill me.

The mobile unit is on my heels when I jump into the air. I feel the closed hatch sliding beneath me, then the hard metal of the rear casing. I dig my mechanical fingers into the metallic roof and feel a tug as Rehna hits the accelerator, making a beeline for the edge of the city.

Like a falling redwood, the solid building begins to topple above my head, its shadow looming and blocking out the sun. My face begins to sting as dust moving past at one hundred fifty miles-per-hour scours my skin. Rehna must be able to see what I’m seeing. We have ten thousand feet of twisting metal and cement to outrun. As we hit the two hundred mile-an-hour mark, I think about how much of a bitch paper work for today is going to be back at up-town. Then I remember there might not be an up-town left.

We hit four hundred miles an hour, and I’m not thinking anything. My face is burning like its being held against an open flame, and the skin stitched to my synth-arm feels like it’s going to tear off. The wind is so loud in my ears I don’t hear the explosion as the building hits the ground behind us, leveling miles of city blocks and destroying several other buildings.

The mobile unit slows to a stop somewhere outside of the city. I don’t know where, wasn’t really paying attention. My forward momentum carries me over the roof and I slide across the hatch, landing on the pavement.

I look up and see Rehna leaning down above me. “You still alive, Priest?”

“Been worse. Help me up.”

I stand to my feet and see my reflection in the mobile unit’s slick paint job. “Damn.”

“What is it?” Rehna asks me.

I look at my Tac-suit, torn and shredded on my body, hanging like a limp corpse. “Now they owe me two Tac-suits.”

Rehna smiles.

With most of up-town reduced to atoms there isn’t anyone left to report to. Hell, I might be the highest ranking cop in town. All city-bound lines of communication are inoperable, so I turn to the next best source of information. The dashboard sat-link blinks on and is instantly filled with the image of a screaming woman. She appears to be reporting on the wave of destruction that just ravaged my city, but she’s incoherent. Useless.

“Channels one through fifty, news filter priority one.” The sat-link responds to my voice like an obedient dog, filling the screen with twenty three thumbnail feeds. I scan the images and listen to the mix of voices.

“English only.” One by one, images disappear. Only five remain when it’s done. Three screens show women reporters crying their guts out. Another displays a man wailing like a stuck pig—embarrassing. The fifth shows an aerial shot of the carnage, something had carved a clean, perfectly round hole in the center of the city, miles wide and countless fathoms deep. Millions of lives have been lost.

Rehna gasps. “My God.”

Women…

The kid is sitting in Rehna’s lap, staring intently at the screen, eyes wide. Kid’s taking it all in stride. Probably not old enough to be an emotional wreck yet.

“Track five, audio only. Enlarge.” The image of the destruction fills the screen.

The voice of a reporter speaks calmly over the feed. “Once again, as it did a year ago, a sinister force from orbit has struck the Earth. The source of the devastation is still unknown and with The Authority headquarters destroyed, chances are, we will never know where and when this evil force might strike again. Scientists studying the clean-cut hole of last year’s attack could not identify what kind of weapon was used, only that it is far more advanced than anything in the World District’s arsenal. Could technology finally be turning on—”

Before I have time to react, the kid reaches out and messes with the sat-link controls. We lose the feed.

“What the hell, kid? Don’t touch this shit,” I say, while attempting to readjust the controls.

“Move your damn hand,” the kid barks at me.

I stop and give her the coldest stare I can muster—sends most mutts running scared. But the kid just gives it back to me.

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Well, it ain’t kid.”

I wait.

“Gawyn.”

“Well, Gawyn. I ain’t letting no simp mess with my mobile unit.”

“Good. Cause I ain’t no simp, old man.”

Old man? Kid’s looking to get a close up look at my knuckles talking like that. I clench my left fist. Then I feel a squeeze on my shoulder. Rehna’s glaring at me. “Let her play with the freakin sat-link, Priest.”

I smile. “There you go talking dirty to me again.”

Gawyn goes to work. Her fingers are a blur on the screen, working the controls masterfully, faster than I could even with the synth-arm. My eyes widen with every half second, cause that’s all it takes for her to access The Authority’s satellite mainframe. She’s no simp. She’s a damn cyber-genius.

“What are you doin, kid?”

“The anti-matter pulse came from orbit.”

“Anti-matter pulse?” Rehna’s as confused as I am.

“That’s just what I call it. I detected its energy field twenty minutes before the pulse. That’s how I got out of the target area in time, but just barely.”

“You can detect it?” I ask, knowing it’s a dumb question.

“Duh. Any kid with an old 40-Gig system and a sat-link could detect it. But you have to look for it. Auto detection won’t pick it up as more than a temporary heat-spike.”

“And you were looking for it?”

“Since last year.” The kid’s fingers continue across the controls. She breaches several protected servers and accesses classified surveillance systems. “It’s the most kick-ass weapon since the beginning of time.”

The kid looks me in the eyes. “You’re must be lucky or something. Missed you twice now.”

Rehna and I look at each other. “You know who I am?”

“Who doesn’t. Your wrinkly face was pasted to every sat-link transmission for a month… Of course, not everyone has been tracking you for the last year. You know, for all your research, you didn’t find much.”

I look the kid in the eyes and try not to blink. “You’ve been spying on me for a year?”

“It’s not like it’s hard, you know.” The kid smiles. I have one of the most secure systems in the city. She probably sees it as a playground. Damn kids today. “You’ve been trying to find out what happened that day…what took your arm, and your Tac-suit. You’re obsessed with Tac-suits.”

I’m losing patience. “Get to the point.”

“When I detected the heat spike, I came to find you. The anti-matter pulse cut the engines off my hyper-scooter. Almost got me too, and I crashed just outside the target area. That’s when I found you. I knew that you, more than anyone else, would take action once I told you what I know.”