J. Mitchell - Midnight City

No one knew what the walkers were really called. Assembly and Mantis were terms coined by Earth’s survivors, weak attempts to give names to something that was indifferent to what its subjugates called it.

The walkers’ targeting lasers flared to life, streamed toward them. The machines called out eagerly among themselves, with frightening electronic chirps.

“Move!” Holt shouted, but it wasn’t necessary.

He and everyone else, even Max, instinctively fled in panic. There was no concern for direction or path finding now. There was only the primal need to escape certain death, and any direction would work just fine.

They ran in a disorganized group through the trees, dodging rocks and roots. The dim sunlight filtering in from above made it easier than before, but it was still precarious.

Holt heard the walkers behind him, their legs pounding the ground as they chased after them.

Outrunning them simply wasn’t an option. He’d seen Mantises move at upwards of forty miles an hour over open ground. Just because they had legs and not wheels didn’t make them any less mobile. In fact, the way they could corner and jump and climb, in Holt’s mind, it made them even more agile. Their only hope was to use their size against them.

“Hang a right!” Holt yelled as they ran.

“Why?” Mira shot back.

“Because the trees are thicker!”

Sure enough, the trunks were larger, more numerous, more tightly packed. The walkers would have to work to find paths they could squeeze through.

They rushed into the tightly packed trees, the walkers chirping sharply behind them… but Holt heard their footsteps slow down as they looked for ways to follow.

The four ran through the forest, actually putting distance between them and the Mantises. Holt braced himself, waiting for the high-pitched electronic whine of the plasma cannons to rip the air, the yellow bolts to shred the trees to splinters all around them…

…but nothing happened. The walkers were pursuing, but they weren’t firing.

Holt was stunned. The Assembly usually fired without hesitation—what was different now?

To his left, he saw Zoey struggling to keep up with them, ducking underneath low-hanging limbs as she ran.

And the answer hit him. There was only one thing that made sense. The Mantis walkers weren’t firing, for a very specific reason: They didn’t want to hit Zoey.

Whoever the little girl was, whatever she was… the Assembly wanted her alive.

HOLT RAN THROUGH THE WOODS in a strange state of panicked concentration. Mira and Max were to his right, a little ahead of him, running for all they were worth. To his left was Zoey. And she wasn’t doing well. She was just too young, too small, quickly being left behind.

Holt scooped her onto his back and he felt her arms tighten around his neck, holding on for her life.

“Turn left!” Zoey shouted into his ear from behind.

“But we’re losing them this way!”

“Only for a little bit, then they’ll be on us again. Turn left! ”

Holt frowned, not liking the idea… but she’d been right once before, and it had almost cost him when he hadn’t listened. With a grimace, he turned hard to the left, whistled for Max.

The dog changed course, rushing forward ahead of them. Mira did the same. Holt guessed she knew her best chance was with them, especially since Zoey’s presence seemed to protect them from plasma bolts.

Behind, the thuds of the walkers were growing louder, they were gaining again, pounding after them.

The four broke from the tree line… and just about ran straight into a enormous river, flowing fast and full toward the east.

Holt almost cursed out loud. “It’s a dead end!” he shouted, letting the little girl down off his back so he could stare at her. This was where her sixth sense had taken them?

“Swim!” she pleaded, looking up at him.

Swim? Was she serious? “You see how fast it’s moving? Why would—?”

“Swim! We have to, it’s the only way!”

Holt looked to Mira. Mira shrugged. “They’ll be on top of us any second anyway. I don’t see another choice.”

Downstream, less than a hundred yards, the two Mantis walkers stormed through the tree line, turning toward them. The open sky above the river revealed the blue and white machines in even more detail. Their size, their weapons, the sharp edges of their giant legs.

Holt and company didn’t wait; they ran for the river’s edge.

The walkers rumbled forward in response, closing the gap fast, chirping loudly.

From behind Holt came a growl as Max stared at the walkers with an intense glint in his eyes. His hair stood up; his tail wagged furiously.

Holt knew that look, knew what was about to happen. “Max, no!”

But the dog ignored him. To Max, the walkers were bad, they were dangerous, they had chased his boss. Max charged forward, barking sharply.

The walkers stopped dead, their three-sensor eyes focusing down in confusion at the furry gray creature charging them. Holt didn’t imagine Mantis walkers were used to someone charging them.

Mira held Zoey’s hand as she ran toward the river. She stopped, turned, stared back at Holt.

Holt looked from her to Max, watched as his dog reached the four-legged walkers, futilely biting and clawing at their metallic legs, barely scampering out of the way as they stabbed down.

He wouldn’t last much longer.

Holt could try to save him. But was it worth it? Survival dictates everything, Holt reminded himself. He would also have to let Mira out of his reach, and losing her would be a very bad thing. Plus the odds of him surviving a close encounter with two Mantis walkers were very low.

Max yelped as one of the walker’s legs slammed into him, sending him rolling backwards on the ground. Holt scowled as he watched.

“Damn it,” he said with a grimace. Survival was one thing, but Max was the only friend he had left. Holt didn’t like it, but he made his decision.

He dropped the packs on the ground. “Get Zoey across the river!” he shouted at Mira. She considered him in a new way, a mixture of surprise, puzzlement, and… something else. Something softer. Holt didn’t like it, whatever it was. “Go!” he yelled as he ran toward Max.

Mira didn’t hesitate long. She looked to where Holt had dropped her pack… then rushed for it, grabbed it, and pulled Zoey toward the water. They leapt into the fast-moving current, and it ripped them downstream.

Holt drew his shotgun as he ran, pumped out the last of its cartridges, and loaded in new shells, each marked with black tape.

Max was still on the ground, dazed. He barked up at one of the four-legged Mantises as it raised its powerful leg. Max yelped and rolled out of the way as the metallic limb stabbed downwards.

The second Mantis, behind Max and out of sight, raised its own leg, about to crush the dog.

A shotgun blast hit the Mantis right in its “face,” where the three-sensor eye sat. But these weren’t normal shells. Normal shells wouldn’t do much to a Mantis’s thick armor. When these shells hit, black tar exploded all over the thing’s optics and sensors. It screeched in electronic anger, wheeled back.

The first Mantis turned on Holt, targeting laser streaming out. Holt fired twice more. More shells clanged in bull’s-eyes on the machine’s eye, spraying black tar everywhere. The thing chirped angrily, shook, and contorted, blinded.

Holt grabbed Max and yanked him away right as the second walker’s plasma cannon opened up with a scream, ripping the ground and the trees all around them to pieces. But Holt knew it was panic fire: it couldn’t see.