David Hanrahan - Archon of the Covenant

• Solar power cell — 1%. Solar armor — 80%.

• Drivetrain — operational

• Visual/cortico/thermal/radar optics — operational

• HD/Comms — compromised; operational

• Water — 50%. Napalm — 100%

• Railgun — 22% capacity

• AAR — rescued and escorted by aroton; is annoying

• Shutting down core operation and initiating battery recharge

The dawn tore open with a cacophonous roar, a tectonic drumfire howling through the tranquility of the mountaintop. DDC39 rushed through its re-boot cycle and brought its optics and peripheral array to bear. The aroton slowly came into view directly ahead — its back to the sentinel and standing over the girl, who cowered under the android as it ejected a cartridge from its longrifle. The sentinel screamed out — an unsteady and roaring plea:

“No!”

The sentinel drew its railgun upon the aroton, that tinny hum of its circuit filling the air as the scene unfolded. Becca fell to her side, cupping her ears with both hands and grimacing. The android reached a closed fist downward to her. With the smoking longrifle grasped by the breech in one hand, two earplugs fell from the open palm of the other and into the girls lap. She took them and dug them into her ear cavities, before standing upright and crawling up on the outcropping — eyelevel with the aroton. Together, they looked out onto the valley floor before them. The aroton swung the heavy rifle upwards and drew a line of sight out to some target in the distance beyond as the girl watched. She cupped her ears again and the aroton pulled the trigger — another thunderbolt ripped the sky, deafening the air around them. The aroton shook its head and talked softly, its doubt barely audible above the echo rolling through the hillside:

“There’s too many.”

It was firing into the distance, not at the girl. The sentinel unlocked its tri-axel and rolled upwards through an incline beside them, swiftly coming to the crest of the summit. The bright morning sun illuminated the vast desert floor in every direction. A giant thunderhead was moving up from the south. The desolate city limits of Tucson loomed in the north — the downtown skyline jutting upwards in the distance. The cracked I-19 snaking north and south, Mt. Lemmon in the northeast, the Rincon in the east, Mt. Wrightson in the south, and the great basin of alluvium on all sides. The lithified shoals of diagenesis. From almost every angle, thousands of revins were moving upon their location, closer and closer to the small mountain they perched atop. The aroton lifted the longrifle and aimed it into the overgrown brier of desert broom in the abandoned farmlands north of the mission. It fired and a sharp crack pierced the sky. The sentinel zoomed into the brier and saw a hobbling revin emerge from the thicket and explode in a palette of ribcage and innards. A number of others dashed away from the smoking corpse, but kept onwards — their faces a mix of fear and rage. The sentinel, alarmed, raised its concern to the aroton:

“They’re not scattering.”

“I know. We’re in trouble.”

“They’re surrounding us.”

“I know. Calm down. Watch this .”

The aroton held the receiver of the longrifle and turned it sideways, twisting the magazine pin three clicks forward. It swung the barrel wide from its right and out towards a division of dilapidated homes — the San Xavier Estates — in the far distance to the north. The hammer flew back and the rifle erupted. A pause. The sentinel zoomed in to the row of homes. There, about a mile away, an incendiary round ripped into the asphalt of the Avenida San Saba near the base of the mountain, just before a group of revins emerging from a line of palo verdes along the street corners. The round burst into the road and an inferno engulfed the pack of teetering creatures. They flailed into the intersection, swatting at their back and chests — their faces twisted into a confused glee and terror. A male, its skin burned off and muscle tissue dripping onto the ground, walked slowly to the sidewalk, kneeled, curled into a ball, and immolated. Others darted out of the backyards of the old shanties, screamed at those dying in the blaze, and kept running — up and over the fence at the base, and rising through the hillside. The dark mountain sanctuary was soon enveloped by more than one hundred thousand revins. The deep well of souls from the old cities on the arid plain. All of the infected from the southwestern ruins, coming towards them, all at once. The sentinel spoke, calmly:

“Are we still watching?”

“We have to get out of here. Now.”

As the smoke from the empty rounds cleared around them, and the sentinel and girl peeled off the outcropping, the aroton leveled the longrifle out towards Interstate-19 miles away to the east. An exodus was moving south along the highway — countless revins, snarling and shuffling along the hot pavement. The android reeled off a series of gunshots into the faraway crowd as they neared the San Xavier off-ramp. The battery echo wallowed through the valley floor and the horde, from each point, looked skyward, briefly cackling at the prospect of their absurd predicament. It bought the girl and her machines some time. Those struck by the cannonade lay writhing in the blacktop as the others spilled past, splashing through the pools of blood and shit that filled the cracks, slipping through the potholes littering the interstate. The sentinel rolled over to the southern side of the ledge and the girl climbed up behind it, forgetting her blanket and cup in the outcropping. From across the divide, on the other summit, the wolf paced nervously. The aroton glanced at the wolf quickly as it pulled open the disguised container. The sentinel scanned down through the southern path, along the Mission Road, as the girl plopped into the rumble seat. The revins were closing in from Star Valley, to the northwest, from the San Xavier Estates to the north, and from the I-19 to the east — but the southern pass was still open. The aroton stuffed the messenger bag full of ammunition, clutched a pulse rifle from the container, and sprang up on the ledge next to Becca and the sentinel. It strapped the pulse rifle and messenger pack around its back and signaled to the DDC39:

“Alright, your show. Lead on.”

“We’re heading south.”

They shot down through the south face — the sentinel’s tires spinning through the granite and basalt. The aroton bounded after them from crag to slab and down the summit. Behind them, out of view, the Mexican Wolf loped off the opposite peak and followed them from afar. The girl looked behind her, jarring from right to left in the rumble seat. She held her palm to her forehead, blocking out the midday sun, trying to find the wolf in the panorama but couldn’t spot it. The sentinel pinged the periphery as they descended. The whole of the southwestern population was closing on them, fast. They sped through a tangle of bursage and came off the mountain and onto a dusty control road.

“Right! Go right!”

The sentinel spun its wheels in the dirt and, coming up on two axels, tore off along the faint path heading southwest. They fled through the base of the mountain, winding around until they hit a sandy wash — a shallow crossing that led over to the main road just ahead. The sentinel locked up its brakes, fishtailing into the fjord as the aroton raced past them towards the other side. A cloud of dirt and haze shot up. The sentinel shot forward into the wash — the aroton looked behind and planted quickly, double backing into the wash and chasing after them. They raced through the dry riverbed, pushing past billowy tamarisks on each side — the scale leaves whipping at them as they sped into the narrowing brush. They tore through the foliage, jumping up off the riverbank and onto the control road. The sentinel kept going, passing right over the dirt passage, crashing through a line of Joshua trees, and into the desert basin. They bounded through the calcic soil and straight into a barbed wire fence. The girl ducked into the seat and the sentinel, without slowing, tore through the fence and hurdled into a paved trail — the San Xavier Road. The rusted fence snapped and coiled up behind them, humming a shrill warble as the taught wire whipped into the dirt.