Orson Card - Empire

It made sense to dodge the mechs wherever possible. But the sound of shooting and explosions drew Reuben. It was a part of who he was. It’s not that he felt no fear of danger—quite the contrary. When he knew of danger, he had to approach it in order to weigh it, to see how much of a threat there was. And it was more than that—he had to eliminate it if he could. He knew what he could do, when it came to combat. He knew that few other people could do it. With Cole beside him, they might be able to do what any number of men with police training could not do.

And there were the bodies. Riddled with bullets, they lay half in, half out of squad cars, all wearing uniforms. Most of them New York’s finest, but one was simply a doorman to an apartment building, lying out in the street because, apparently, he had not obeyed an order to stop.

“Not one civilian,” said Cole.

“Except the doorman.”

“In uniform. Nobody in civilian clothes.”

“It’s summer,” said Reuben. “We could do this in our underwear.”

“They’re trying not to kill civilians,” said Cole. “Same rules of engagement as we use. They really are Americans.”

“Using weapons that aren’t in the American arsenal. In anybody’s arsenal,” said Reuben.

“You think these were developed by Iran? North Korea?”

No need to answer. They both knew that Iran and North Korea might have nukes, but that they were copied from existing devices. These things required original work. “Russia?” asked Reuben. “China?”

“Possible, but not practical. What could they hope to accomplish?”

“But who could afford to develop this?” asked Reuben. “How many of them are there? Are other cities getting hit right now? And again, how do you occupy New York City? How do you defend this island against the Marines when the counterstrike comes?”

“Best we can hope to find out right now,” said Cole, “is just what these things are and how they work.”

“Bring one down,” said Reuben, agreeing with him.

“Open it up and drag out the guy.”

“Or the computer chips.”

“Or the trained squirrels,” said Cole.

“That means we’ve got to go toward the noise,” said Reuben.

“Weren’t we already?” asked Cole.

They rounded a corner and found, not a mech, but three squad cars and about two dozen cops along with a couple of plainclothes guys who were clearly in charge. One of them spotted Reuben and Cole and at first signed for them to get off the street. Then, as Reuben and Cole began to jog toward them, the police officer realized that they were U.S. Army, not civilians.

“Thank God!” the cop shouted. “The Army’s here.”

“Sorry,” said Reuben. “It’s just us two. Major Malich. Captain Coleman.”

“Sergeant Willis,” said the plainclothes guy, introducing himself.

“We need to get one of these mechs down to ground level so we can open it up and see how it works,” said Reuben. “Unless you already know.”

“Our bullets don’t even bounce off,” said Willis. “It’s like they eat them and spit them back at us.”

“They can’t have an infinite supply of ammunition in there,” said Cole.

“We’re planning to run squad cars at them and try to trip them up,” said Willis.

“One at a time?” asked Reuben. “All from the same direction?”

Willis looked a little crestfallen. “I guess that makes us the dumb movie cops who don’t know what we’re doing.”

“You’re not trained for war,” said Reuben. “Leave one squad car here, but have the doors open and make it look abandoned. As soon as the mech passes, then the driver comes out of hiding and drives out behind the thing. Meanwhile we get the other two cars coming from cross streets. Maybe it can’t shoot all three at once.”

“And maybe it can.”

“Meanwhile,” said Reuben, “Cole and I will run up alongside it and try to get on top. Don’t waste bullets shooting at it. Just keep it busy. And if you have a way to keep the cars driverless, that’s fine with me. But with or without drivers inside, they’ve got to run right at the thing.”

A cop at the corner was already shouting. “It’s coming!”

“With me or not?” asked Reuben.

“Better than my plan,” said Willis.

Reuben and Cole rode in different cars, back around blocks to get into position for the ambush—if you can count a bunch of third-graders jumping a grown man as an ambush. In the car, the cop who was driving was clearly scared. “The announcement they run—it says they’re Americans, right?”

“By birth, maybe,” said Reuben. “They’re criminals right now. Traitors. They’re aiming at cops. Trying to wipe out authority.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t have any weapons that’ll hurt these things.”

“Maybe the car will.”

“And maybe I’ll get my ass blown up.”

“You could get it shot off on a drug bust, too,” said Reuben. “But there’s no point in all you guys dying to defend against an enemy you can’t beat.”

“A couple of us are thinking, we should just give up.”

“Do you see any way for that thing to take a prisoner?” asked Reuben.

The guy didn’t say anything.

“What I think,” said Reuben, “those things are here to kill cops. When the cops are dead, then they own the city. So once we get this sucker on the ground and take pictures and whatever piece we can carry, you guys come with us and get out of New York. Live to fight another day.”

“I got family here,” said the cop. “Brooklyn, anyway.”

“When the Army or the Marines come back in to retake the city,” said Reuben, “they’ll need people who know every street and every building. We need you guys in Jersey, not dead on the streets here.”

The cop nodded. Reuben knew that having a purpose could make all the difference.

The mech must have passed by the apparently-abandoned squad car, because when it was in midblock, the car pulled into the intersection behind it. Reuben had only just reached the corner, and he could already see the thing swiveling to shoot at the car.

So he ran out into the street, pulling the pin on a grenade as he went, and threw it as close to between the mech’s feet as he could, without overshooting it. The idea was to get the mech to turn back around and face this way.

It worked too well. The thing didn’t just turn, it began to run, big leaping clumping steps, straight toward Reuben, firing as it went.

He ran toward the parked cars, though he knew they provided no shelter, and hit the ground. Meanwhile, he could hear the squad car behind the mech picking up speed. He also heard the cars hidden on the side street behind him gun their engines.

The mech saw the trap at once but didn’t even try to dodge out of the way. It simply jumped onto the hood of one of the cars and stepped over it. The drivers braked and the collisions were minor.

But from behind them, the mech started shooting at all three cars. The drivers had their doors open at once, but before they even emerged, Reuben was running at the thing. He could see Cole coming at it from the other side.

If the mech saw them it gave no sign. Which might mean the operator knew there was nothing that two guys could do from the outside.

Reuben didn’t need to say anything to Cole as each of them climbed up a leg. No vulnerabilities where the legs joined the body of the thing. How inconvenient that they hadn’t provided a nice place to put a grenade that would blow it apart.

There also were no handholds to grip in order to climb around and get on top. The thing was designed for combat, and they’d anticipated the obvious moves.

It was Cole who came up with an idea. He gripped the mechanical leg tightly and swung his over to brace his feet against the leg Reuben had climbed. Reuben understood at once, and did the same, so his feet were pushing against the mechanical leg Cole was holding.