J. Mitchell - Midnight City

There was motion ahead of them. Huge shapes—visible over the top of the fallen log—moved in the dark, trailing colorful lights behind them. Strange, sinister, distorted electronic chirps echoed back and forth between them. The earth shuddered rhythmically as they moved, like giant feet pounding the ground.

Assembly walkers, half a dozen of them.

Probably the smaller Mantis type, but “smaller” was a relative term here. Holt froze with Mira under him.

“Get off me,” Mira whispered as loudly as she dared, “you’re on my—” Holt clamped her mouth shut with his hand. She squirmed in fury, glared knives up at him, tried to bite his—

They both went motionless as a red beam of light pulsed out toward them and split the air above their heads.

One of the Mantises was scanning near them, looking for them with its targeting laser. Had it heard them? If they were using infrared, she and Holt were done for.

HOLT KEPT MIRA pinned beneath him as the laser explored the area around them. The probe was a triangular-shaped piece of light that somehow was both solid and visible in the clear night air. It stretched back in a perfectly straight beam of red and purple to one of the huge moving shadows in the woods.

Holt ducked his head down as the beam hit and moved over the top of the log, like digital fingers caressing the surface, looking for clues. Holt had seen those beams detect heat, movement, even sounds and vibrations before.

They were in big trouble.

Mira struggled beneath him, and he clamped down on her mouth even tighter. He could tell she was boiling mad, but he really didn’t care.

“Quit squirming, you’re gonna get us killed,” Holt whispered soft but angry into her ear. “They’re all around us.” Her hair smelled like mint and spice, not at all unpleasant, but Holt forced those thoughts away. Stop it, she’s your prisoner , he told himself.

Lasers from two other shadows flared outward and found the log, moved over it curiously, examining it, seeking and looking along with the first probe.

The ground under Holt and Mira vibrated in matching drumbeats. One of the shadows appeared just on the other side of their log. Holt pushed himself as far as he could into the ground. The hulking shadow stomped closer, the vibrations filtering through the ground and into his chest. He knew if he looked up, he would see it standing over them. All it had to do was look down….

The shadow emitted strange, distorted, electronic chirps. They sounded quizzical, curious, but detached and frightening, too. A few other shadows called out in response, like they were talking to one another. For all Holt knew, they were.

The dark shape kept moving, shaking the ground with its footfalls, walking on through the trees. The laser probes on their log died and the air above them went black.

The shadows thudded onward, chirping their eerie communications back and forth. The sound echoed hauntingly among the trees until they finally vanished.

When they were gone, Holt yanked Mira to her feet. They stared at each other hotly.

“Still making you work for it, aren’t I?” Mira asked him, her mouth twisted in a smirk. Her arrogance infuriated Holt.

“What were you doing ?” Holt demanded. “You struggled the whole time, those lasers can detect movement and sound, you almost got us killed!”

“You were on top of me, and I didn’t particularly like it!” Mira shot back. She shoved him backwards. “Your legs were digging into my knees, and you bruised my wrist. Plus your hand smells like your stupid dog!”

“My stupid dog would have known enough to keep quiet when a patrol of Mantis walkers was just ten feet away!” Holt shoved her now, for good measure.

“And would he have known enough not to lead us right into them on our little hike through the woods? Did you even think to scout the route before we moved through it in the pitch black?”

Holt fumed, tried to find something to say… but couldn’t. She was right. In his hurry to get them away from the crash site and all the Assembly that were certainly swarming there, he had led them right into a patrol of Mantises.

Mira smiled at his lack of comment, saw she had won. It filled him with anger. Big reward or not, emerald eyes or not, the girl was quickly starting to be more trouble than she was worth. No wonder Midnight City had a vendetta against her.

He shoved Mira forward, back the way they’d run from. “Run. That way,” he said tightly. “We have to get to Zoey and Max before the walkers do.”

The two darted back through the woods. As they did, Holt tried to figure out his next move. They were miles from the crash site now, and the Assembly was still searching the area. But why? For what? They had the crashed ship and whatever secrets it contained. What else could—?

Holt’s thoughts trailed off as something occurred to him. Whatever secrets it contained…

There was one thing, secret or not, that spherical ship had held that was no longer there.

Zoey.

She had been in the ship. In fact, as far as he could tell from his quick jaunt inside, she was pretty much the only thing that had survived the impact in one piece. Which could mean only one thing, Holt realized grimly.

The Assembly were looking for Zoey ….

But why? She was just a little girl. A little girl who was afraid of the dark and jumped at shadows and liked dogs.

But was that all she was? Hadn’t she warned him? Hadn’t she said the Assembly were right in front of them? Somehow, impossibly… she had known. And Holt hadn’t listened, and almost got them killed as a result. Was she connected to them somehow? If so, could they detect her ?

Holt guessed not. If they could, they would have been overrun a long time ago. Whatever it was, it seemed to be a one-way connection, at least for now.

But did that make it any better?

The sun was rising in the east, filling the sky above the tree line with a dim glow that permeated down through the leaves. The forest would be lit up in minutes. They had to be well away from here before that.

Holt and Mira broke through the trees back onto the trail they had been following earlier. Zoey and Max were still there. The dog was engrossed in having its belly rubbed and didn’t even look up when his boss reappeared. Holt frowned down at him.

“You found them,” Zoey said, looking at Holt.

“They almost found us, ” he said. “Get up, we have to move.”

Holt grabbed his and Mira’s pack from where he’d dropped them earlier.

Mira looked down at Zoey, smiled. “Might have to start listening to you more.” Zoey gazed up at Mira with huge, blue, unreadable eyes, and smiled back.

And then two large dark shapes stomped through the underbrush behind them.

Max howled in surprise. Holt spun toward the movement and found himself staring at the same shadows from before… only now revealed.

Machines that stood over ten feet tall, pushed off the ground by four powerful mechanized legs, each with dozens of complicated actuators. Atop the legs was the cockpit fuselage, which held twin mounted plasma cannons, a missile battery, sensory equipment, and other ordnance. In the middle of the fuselage rested their “eyes,” a triangular grouping of three polished, round sensors that glowed red, blue, and green. The machines were painted a mixture of blue and white stripes and patterns, like every other Assembly walker Holt had ever seen… until yesterday.

Assembly Mantis walkers. Likely two of the very walkers Holt and Mira had just escaped from. They had found them.

Earth’s children, its only survivors, named them Mantises because of their four-legged bodies. But other than the legs, they didn’t look anything like insects. The machine was streamlined, deadly, built for both speed and accuracy, while still possessing firepower enough to be formidable. It was an amazing mechanical construction, a marvel of engineering so advanced, it was almost art.