Nicholas Smith - Deliverance

As soon as they were clear of the garage, he scanned above for Sirens. The creatures had flocked to the south shortly after Timothy’s message. Something had drawn them away, and Rodger had a feeling it had to do with the armed men now approaching Deliverance.

The trailer jolted over a pothole when they hit the main street, and Rodger twisted to grab the metal railing for support. It was a rocky ride, but X was right—the bike hardly made any noise. They sped through the ruined city, navigating around the ancient vehicles and mutant plants with calculated precision. It seemed this wasn’t X’s first time driving these roads.

Rodger looked back up at the sky again. His parents were up there somewhere, and he longed to see them again. His heart hurt at the thought that the reunion might not happen. Michael and Layla were good people, but they weren’t family. And Magnolia… Well, he could never figure out what she was thinking.

Sometimes, she seemed to want to get close to him, but then she would run away again. Someday, maybe soon, he would just tell her how he felt. No more longing glances, no more awkward flirting. Just put his heart out there and let her do with it as she pleased. His mother liked to say that if Rodger met a girl he liked, he should marry her and start making babies as soon as possible. He grinned, imagining a couple of blue-haired, bespectacled toddlers running around the Hive.

“What’s so funny?” Magnolia asked.

“Oh, n-nothing really.”

A raindrop splatted on his visor, and a second later the storm clouds dumped. Rodger wiped his visor and bent his head down to keep the water from blinding him. The bike slowed, and the trailer jolted over another bump in the road.

Lightning struck a scraper in the distance, and the following blast of thunder shook the metal trailer. A crevice in the pavement rocked them from side to side as they sped over it. With no way to communicate with X, the divers remained silent, putting their faith in the hands of a man most of them barely knew.

The rain continued to batter them as they wove through the windy streets. X drove up a bridge, giving Rodger a view of the swamps. The lighthouse continued to flash on the horizon, but he didn’t see any Sirens circling the tower.

So where were they? Rodger felt a growing lump in his gut as he thought about it.

On both sides of the road, vines and mushrooms glowed. The blades on the bike and trailer hubs sliced through them, painting the sidewalk with purple and green sap. Plants shriveled back into their cracks in the torrential downpour, and a lone beetle skittered for cover. Everywhere he looked, the city’s vast poisonous ecosystem was alive and functioning. How could X possibly have survived out here? What kind of man would want to make his home in a world like this?

Rodger watched the back of X’s head as if he might see into the man’s troubled mind. X’s helmet panned constantly and moved from road to sky, constantly alert for threats.

Rodger thought about Janga’s prophecy, the one that told of a man who would lead humanity to a new home in the sea. Rodger had half believed that X would turn out to be that man, but now he wasn’t so sure. X didn’t seem to care much whether humanity lived or blinked out forever.

Maybe it was these “floaters” that would lead humanity to a home in the sea. But Rodger didn’t know who or what they were, and X seemed frightened of them. He shook away the questions and focused on the mission.

They turned around another corner, and the bike slowed to a crawl. Rodger and the other divers readied their weapons as X pulled off to the side of the road and under a slanted rooftop that provided cover from the rain. Magnolia opened the liftgate and let the divers out onto the street.

“Your ship should be two blocks from here,” X said. He pointed at the walled stadium.

“Timothy, do you copy? Over,” Michael said over the comm.

Static crackled for several beats before the AI came online. “Roger, sir.”

“We’re moving into position. You got eyes on these soldiers?”

“They are moving into the concourse, sir.”

“How many?”

“The sensors are detecting eight contacts of human size.”

“Any other contacts in the area?” Michael asked.

“I will do another scan and report back. Over.”

Michael ducked under the awning to look at the sky. Rodger followed. He still didn’t see anything out there, but he could hear the distant hunting cry of a Siren.

“We’re splitting up,” Michael said. “X and Layla with me. We’ll enter on the left side of the stadium. Rodger and Magnolia, take the right side.”

X put a hand on Michael’s shoulder. “Listen, kid, you should sit this one out. You’re injured. Let me handle these guys.”

“I’m not the kid with the tin hat anymore,” Michael replied. “I’m the leader of Team Raptor.” He pointed to the logo on the top of his battered helmet.

X didn’t reply right away, his gaze fixed on the Raptor emblem. “You can hardly walk,” he finally said.

“I can walk just fine.”

X shook his head. “Fine, suit yourself, but I’ll take point. You stay behind me. Got it?”

Two beats passed before Michael finally dipped his helmet. The interaction reminded Rodger of his father, who had always tried to protect him, even when Rodger didn’t need the help. Even after all this time, X was still trying to look out for Michael. But maybe there was nothing X could do to get them out of this city alive.

Magnolia and Rodger bolted across the street. She was anxious to return to Deliverance and get off this apocalyptic obstacle course. The view of the ocean had been satisfying for all of an hour. Now she just wanted to leave the mysterious “floaters,” the Sirens, and the man-eating trees behind. If all went according to plan, she would soon be strangling Jordan.

The thought made her smile.

With her rifle up, she ran in front of Rodger, toward a brick building. The entire city block consisted of ruined structures, most of them eroded down to their foundations. An exfoliated scraper formed a mountain of scree to their right. Debris covered the street and the storefronts on the left side. This section of the city had been spared from the nuclear heat wave that flattened most of Miami to the west, but the centuries hadn’t been kind to the structures that remained. Most of them were covered in a skin of orange lichen and red moss. It looked innocent enough, but Magnolia didn’t trust the moss not to dissolve her armor on contact or to release flesh-eating spores.

The radiation was also a threat. Fortunately, X had given them pills that would mitigate some of the effects, but even these wouldn’t save them from full-on exposure. He had found the pills in the same place where he found the cancer medicine that saved his life almost two years ago. The man was the archetype of a survivor, having thrived for a decade in a place where death ruled.

Magnolia studied the next intersection, where a pair of old-world vehicles rested in the street, their shells rusted and covered in more of the suspicious orange lichen. After raising a fist, she got down to scan the area. Rodger knelt behind the wreckage of a truck. They would have to cross the open space to get to the next block, and from there it was just a short trek to the stadium. She could already see the circular wall in the distance.

A chilling wail sent her diving to the ground. The Siren flapped into view a few blocks away, fighting for altitude, with some sort of stick or barb protruding from its wing.

“Let’s go while it’s preoccupied,” Magnolia said.

Rodger followed her through the intersection. They kept low, using the vehicles for cover as they crept down the street.