Anthony DeCosmo - Fusion

The sound of wheels rolling on the concrete floor carried through the passages of the maze. The noise grew, then spread all around her. Some to the east, others to the west, more to the north.

Movement to her left.

Nina flattened against a barricade of white cases marked “Sysco Imperial Brand”, held her breath, and grabbed her M4 by the barrel upside-down.

Two pair of wheels rolling-closer-closer…

She stepped around the corner and waved her rifle like a club. The stock smashed into a Commando’s head. The casing cracked. The creature emitted an electronic wail one step removed from a turntable needle scratching across a warped LP. The metallic neck of the thing bent backwards and its red eye went dark as it hit the hard floor on its skeletal back.

As her swing followed through, Nina let go with her right hand and reversed motion with her left. The M4 twirled around and she caught it in perfect firing position.

The second Commando took aim with its forearm-mounted barrel. At a distance of three feet, Nina held her trigger on full-automatic. Flames burst from the gun as it spat a fatal storm of bullets into the gut of the thing. Impact after impact pushed the roller back on its skates, arms flailing wide, taking on the appearance of a tent-revival robot preacher channeling powers from above.

She stopped firing. The creature fell dead into a cluster of cookie tins.

Nina’s instincts gave warning: danger from behind.

Two more Commandos came around the t-intersection of crates behind her. One immediately knelt, the other stood, both took aim.

Nina darted left passed a pallet stacked with industrial-strength salts. Pursuing shots tore into cardboard boxes spilling grains like sand seeping from a punctured hour glass. She disappeared around a corner.

The robotic assassins skated forward, eager to catch their quarry. As they rounded the corner of boxes she fired toward them from the far side of a small open space. The Commandos halted. One returned fire. The other glanced down just in time to see the grenade at their wheeled feet. It howled a screeching electronic scream before an explosion of shrapnel tore apart both their metallic rib cages and splattered the biological mass contained therein. Two more red eyes went dark.

Nina turned away from the ambush and moved north again, racing fast but careful down a center aisle lined with crates of tea bags, shortening, and powdered soups.

As she passed one crossway, a flurry of enemy bullets whizzed by the back of her head. She heard their wheels gain speed in frantic pursuit.

The passage led to an open space. A sort of courtyard at the middle of the maze.

The wheels behind her to the south grew louder. But as she stepped forward she heard more wheels come from the north. And still more from the east and west.

The blood hounds had surrounded the wolf…

The Sergeant skated into the open section with twin grenade launchers on its shoulders ready to fire. It found only the other five of its number. Red eyes stared at red eyes with electronic bewilderment.

The wheels on the Sergeant’s feet retracted and the robot paced the empty space while emitting a series of scathing bleeps and chirps.

It paused as a communication came through from the team’s spotter…

The Commando on the catwalk radioed the search party as its own gun barrel drew a bead on the human running and leaping atop the stacks of the maze. The woman moved with the agility of a cat, never breaking stride just stretching a little further with each step to make it to the next piled pallet.

The spotter opened fire, but the distance did not allow for accurate aim. Instead, it radioed a target…

The sergeant-flanked by two Commandos-skated furiously along the aisles of crates and boxes guided by electronic chatter from the catwalk. As it moved, the small cylinders on the sergeant’s shoulders rotated side to side and then elevated.

One last quick buzz came to the leader’s robotic ear from the spotter on the catwalk. The sergeant halted. Two projectiles launched from its shoulders, lobbing out from the hidden passageways into the air above the labyrinth…

Nina heard the soft pop of the launchers as she jumped from a stack of tomato paste cases onto a cluster of pallets holding boxed detergents. She landed in a kneel with her M4 bouncing hard in its sling on her back.

She turned her head and saw two burning balls arching through the air directly for her.

Nina jumped, falling between the walls of crates and packages yet again. The two explosive shells detonated above, blowing open a dozen containers and sending a grainy cloud of powdered detergent into the air.

Nina felt a sharp pang of pain in her right ankle as she landed but the minor injury did not slow her. She took flight through the warren of passages with the sound of rolling wheels chasing from behind-and then bullets ricocheted off the concrete in front of her just as she entered a four way intersection. The fire came from her left.

The wolf flattened against the wall for a moment, then bobbed around the corner on a knee firing on full automatic. She walked her shots in toward the Commando who stood half-behind a pallet full of cooking oil cans tightly shrink-wrapped in a bunch. The bullets from her M4 made a muffled ting as they pierced the tin containers. Steady streams of Wesson splashed on the floor.

The robot returned fire. Nina retreated a step and switched out an empty magazine for a new one. A moment later she peeked again and rapid-fired not so much to kill but to suppress in order to buy time to gain a better view of available paths.

The one directly across the intersection appeared the most inviting and the most expeditious route to the north; the way she felt she must go to find and kill the Bishop. But just as she decided to dart across the intersection, one of the Commandos appeared in that passage ahead at a distance of thirty feet in a direct line of fire to her, and vice versa.

Nina won the test of speed. Her rifle launched lethal shots just as her foe raised its arm. Some bullets missed wide but in the storm of full-auto fire quantity overcame a lack of quality. The Commando shivered and then fell in a heap to the concrete floor. Its red eye flickered before fading black.

Nina ran across the intersection spitting suppression fire to her left as cover. She raced between a high stack of potato sacks to her left and large red shelving holding drums and crates to her right.

To her surprise, a second Commando stepped over the body of the dead one and into the passage leading north; directly in front of her. Nina braked hard and nearly fell as her momentum grappled with the traction of her boots.

The new arrival had a clear shot at her. This time Nina did not win the test of speed, but she reversed course quickly and jogged side to side to avoid incoming bullets. Fragments of rotting potato peels blew out from her right and jets of smelly liquid shot out from her left as the Commando’s rounds hit the walls to either side but missed the zigzagging mark.

As she raced toward her previous position another of the Commandos-the Sergeant with black Chevrons on silver shoulder plates-appeared 15 yards ahead.

Nina fired her weapon but just as her mental tab sheet knew it would, her gun ran dry before hitting home.

The Sergeant rocked its metal-encased head side to side in what might have been a kind of robotic taunting and launched a pair of burning grenades as Nina approached at full speed with enemy bullets from behind chasing her all the way.

She reached the intersection before the explosives and jumped left. The devices hit a pallet of boxes and exploded. A thunderstorm of peanuts and cashews filled the four-way intersection with nearly shrapnel-like velocity. Nina rolled east beneath it all then found her feet and ran. As she moved she struggled to change out another empty magazine for a fresh one.