Chapter 72: Elmsford

It took five minutes to cover the ten miles north. It was a beautiful drive. The suburbs north of the city were swank. It’s where the rich folk who got tired of living in Manhattan but couldn’t quit the day jobs on Wall Street went to live. Treelined highway most of the way, with the occasional golf course vista opening up to one side or another.

James flew in silence, ignoring the chatter on the radio, and Serenity knew to leave him alone. His team followed hard on their heels. They swooped down the length of the highway, the Black Hawks pulling ahead, and finally reached the town of Elmsford where the debacle had taken place.

The Black Hawks were circling overhead when they arrived, but no shots were being fired.

That told James all he needed to know.

They were too late.

The convoy - or the tail end of it had left the 87 just before it turned west to plow direct north into the heart of sleepy Elmsford. No telling why. They’d almost made it into the town center before a pile-up had ended their drive. Two lanes a side, bare trees everywhere, a huge condo building about four city blocks-worth long looking out over a strip of parking at the ruined buses.

There were six of them. A fragment of the original convoy, about six hundred folks, including six teams of Second Group Blue Light operators.

All dead.

James slowed the Wing to a crawl, rose up some thirty yards, and simply drifted over the carnage. The sight was familiar. Wrecked buses. Shattered glass. Dark puddles of blood. Mutilated bodies. Here and there the remains of a Nem3.

The rest of Crimson Hydra floated just behind in a ‘V’ formation. They cruised over the site. James turned at the last and came to a stop, just floating, staring out over the carnage.

Some six hundred dead.

Bodies inside the buses. Bodies across the highway. Severed legs. Decapitated heads. Entrails pulled out like hanks of gleaming snakes. Blood.

Blood everywhere.

His stomach cramped with disgust, with horror, but it was as if his mind had no connection to the rest of him.

James felt nothing but icy cold resolve.

“They’re out here,” he called to the others. “The Nem3’s.”

“Then let’s find them,” Becca called back.

“Sounds like a plan.” He thumbed his radio. “Command, this is Kelly. We’re going to search Elmsford for Nem3’s, out.”

“Kelly, this is Command.” Star Boy. “Good hunting.”

“C’mon,” he called, and eased the Wing up and over, sliding through the air and gaining more altitude. “Let’s get a bird’s eye on this.”

They rose, crossed over the condo plex, saw a couple of residential streets behind, gray rooftops, townhouses pressed together, lots of trees, parked cars.

“There,” said Serenity, who’d been Deadeyeing through her gun.

James saw it. A Nem3 loping down the street.

They were so damn big. Thirteen feet? Something like that. Those weird dog-like legs looking almost skinny holding up the massively muscled upper torsos, its arms ape-like and reaching to the road, each terminating in a machete from hell.

Hairless, black, horrific.

“On it,” said James, and they flew in its direction. It didn’t hear them coming, what with the Wings being utterly silent, and they cruised right over it so that Serenity could open fire.

DONDONDONDONDON.

Even though it was Smite bullets she was firing, the gun still reverberated and shook the Wing.

“Got it,” Serenity hissed.

Screams sounded, thin and distant, and they accelerated in that direction. A Day’s Inn, cars parked before the single-story rooms, long expanse of roofs in a giant horseshoe. A couple of cars had been flipped, and as they slid out over the parking lot James saw a Nem3 burrowing its way into the front of a unit, shouldering its way through the imploding doorframe.

It looked like a hairless bulldog trying to get into a snack box.

DONDONDONDONDONDON.

It arched its back as huge chunks of its body were blown apart, tore free, turned to aim its harpoon at them, then collapsed onto its back.

“Another one bites the dust,” Denzel called from his Wing. “Want us to split up, boss, cover more ground?”

“We ain’t helping much just following you around.”

“Kelly, this is Carvajal.” His radio came to life. “Want to quarter this town?”

“Sure,” he replied. “You take the north. Lindsey, you with us?”

“Here, James.” The large man’s voice was tinny. “Want us to take the east?”

“Sure. Kelly out.” He looked to the others. “Pair off. Olaf, Joanna, Denzel, Yadriel, you head that way. Jason, Bjørn, Becca, head south. Serenity and I will cover the center.”

The Wings peeled away. The Black Hawks were patrolling from up on high, and occasionally came thundering down to open fire. And so it went for the next half hour. A bug hunt, an extermination. With Serenity’s Eternal Fire and their vantage from up on high, there was little the Nem3’s could do. Their harpoons had shocking reach; occasionally James was forced to veer aside so as to not be impaled, but for the most part the Wing’s silent approach allowed them to get the drop on the demons.

Finally a good ten minutes passed with nobody reporting a sighting. James went higher, giving Serenity’s Deadeye more altitude, but she wasn’t able to raise another target.

“Command, this is Kelly.” He took one last look below. It was possible they’d find more if they opened the radius of their search, but over half the land outside the town was skeletal woodland. “I think we’re done here.”

“Roger,” said Major Duffy. “Go ahead and come on back.”

“Sounds good,” said James, though the notion of leaving the streets galled him. “Heading back.”

“We done here?” asked Serenity.

“For now.” He went to Hydra’s radio band. “Everyone, we’re heading home. Hunt’s over. You all got enough juice to make it?”

Bjørn was the first to reply. “Yes, but going to have to tap some of the Wing’s own power source to make it.”

“Same,” said Olaf. “I pushed hard to try and keep up with you back there, James.”

“Might be able to make it,” said Jason. “Been bumping Arete.”

Denzel pitched in. “Anybody get new powers?”

“We’ll talk when we’re home.” James didn’t want to hear any chatter. “Let’s go.”

The Black Hawks radioed their own command and peeled away. Local police had rolled in along with fire trucks and an ambulance.

Looked like Elmsford had kept their shit together. Or perhaps wealthy little towns like this hadn’t burned out their departments as much.

For a moment James considered gliding down to help out, pull bodies from buses, help unite limbs to torsos, but the thought repulsed him.

Not that he’d not seen shit like that before.

Well, nothing like that slaughter.

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But he’d reached his own fair share of bad car accidents in the day.

No, it was that he didn’t want to face their failure to protect their own.

Maybe that meant he should go face it. But his core rose up, rebelling. So he urged the Wing to a cruising height of some fifty yards, oriented on the distant, tiny towers of Manhattan, and cut home as the crow flew, leaving the highway and passing over buildings, streets, schools, playing fields, industrial sites, all the signs of a now past and orderly way of life.

He didn’t push the Wings. Kept them going at what felt like a steady 50 mph. Their life force was potent, powered as they were by 81 Aeviternum each, but he didn’t want to touch those reserves. Who knew what the future would bring? Best to drain their own divine power and keep ‘em pristine and ready for go-time tomorrow, or the day after that, or fuck. For the Fourth Wave.

Because that was going to be a murderous shit-show.

They cruised across the northern tip of the Bronx, slid down over the East River, and finally cut over the northern coastline of Brooklyn to slip into the downtown core. His radio chattered, but it was just folks coordinating, different Lt. Colonels reporting in on their convoys, buses turning around and heading home.

James felt numb. They brought their Wings down to street level, cruised around the Marriott and together slid down into the parking garage.

Jessica had turned the entire first floor into her workshop. Cars had been towed away, opening up more space, and now everywhere Fabricators were at work, unloading new supplies, arranging components, calling out orders, directing folk, raising their mechanicus and activating them so that a heavenly glow would bathe chunks of blood stone, heavenly diamond, and more.

James had found this entire operation wondrous up until an hour ago. Now it all looked so terribly insufficient. There were - what - a hundred or so folks at work here?

That wasn’t going to cut it.

Space had been carved out for the forty or so Wings Jessica had overseen the construction of. Half of them were back, Crimson Fenrir and Crimson Grendel standing in a mixed crowd, discussing in hushed tones amongst themselves the nightmare they had no doubt seen.

James set his Wing down in an open spot, sat up, sighed, stretched.

Fenrir and the others went silent, looked their way.

Serenity patted her Ma Deuce, swung a leg over, stood.

“Hey, Kelly.” It was Ramirez, a tough guy who’s short, tousled dark hair was bleached honey-colored at the tips from a life spent doing landscaping. “I heard you did some crazy shit out there.”

James stood, turned to face the crowd. Including Crimson Hydra, some forty Blue Lighters were watching him, expressions reserved, each trying to mask their shock, their uncertainty.

He wanted nothing more than to snarl at Ramirez, to brush past him, to head on up to confront Hackworth. Instead, he took a steadying breath and gave a sober nod. “Sure. I did a little something. How did you guys fare?”

Nervous smiles flickered across faces here and there.

“Not too hot,” said Ramirez. “Shit, these Nem3’s can take a punch. We lost a Wing to a bone harpoon. Manny here’d have died without Martyr’s Cry.”

“I saw a Black Hawk go down,” said a guy from the Crimson Grendel crew. “Harpoon took out its back rotor. It was just spinning around like crazy, went down behind this office building.”

“We got our work cut out for us.” James moved forward slowly, allowing people to shuffle out of his way. “But we’re here, aren’t we? Where those Nem3’s at?”

“Dead,” grinned a skinny kid with an 80’s high top fade.

“That’s right. I’m going to head upstairs now to plan out our tactics for tomorrow. Because those bastards are gonna suffer the same fate. If you’ll excuse me?”

“Yeah, of course,” said a woman, stepping aside hurriedly.

“They won’t know what hit ‘em,” said another guy.

“Glad you’re with us, Kelly.” James didn’t even see who said that, didn’t bother looking. He led his crew threw the crowd toward the elevators. Saw Jessica off to one side, talking earnestly with a handful of Fabricators. She was watching him out of the corner of her eye and broke off her conversation when he abruptly changed direction and strode toward her.

“How did the Wings perform?” she asked, stepping away from the other Fabricators.

Again James had to master his fury. This isn’t her fault. “They did great. Made all the difference.”

She frowned, studied him. “But?”

James glanced back at the other Crimson Hydra’s who’d followed Bjørn and Serenity’s lead and held back. Touched Jessica’s elbow and led her farther aside. “We’re fucked.”

“We’re what?” She mastered her shock with impressive speed. “I’ve heard preliminary reports but couldn’t tell what was rumors.”

“It’s worse than whatever you heard.” James forced himself to remain calm. “They’re fast, smart, hard to put down, and they’ve got ranged attacks. Jessica, they were opening buses like sardine cans. Our only saving grace is that one appears for every hundred humans, otherwise we’d be dead.”

Jessica crossed her arms tightly. “Smite-enhanced weaponry was ineffective?”

“Serenity was hitting them with a score of 50 Cal’s before they’d drop. Later, after we leveled, she must have done something - raised Power, maybe, for more Smite damage - and did better.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah. Look. Something’s become clear as day, and I feel like an idiot. All my focus has been on Blue Light. Guns, ammo, squads, training. But that’s only half the equation. The Wings were key to today’s success, but they’re not enough, not forty like we’ve got.”

“We’re working on making more.”

“That’s not it.” James caught himself, lowered his voice. “Another forty won’t make a difference. We need thousands. More, we need to start reinforcing our bases with Fabricator walls, we need Fabricator weapons, we need enhanced armor, we need everything. And we need it yesterday.”

Jessica’s face paled. “I understand.”

“I don’t think you do. We have how many Fabricators in the city?”

“Around three million.”

“And how many are working here?”

“We don’t have enough components for a million people to work on.”

“Then fucking get them.” James lowered his head, pinched the bridge of his nose, grimaced. “Look. I’m sorry. But I don’t think anybody understands what’s going to happen over the next couple of days. The Nem3’s are going to fucking slaughter us, Jessica. The Fourth Wave will be - what, a hundred thousand Nem3’s? We took care of several hundred today, but it took work. We can’t handle a hundred thousand. We’re gonna be slaughtered.”

Emotions flickered across Jessica’s face like shadows over water. She blinked, pursed her lips, then gave a slow nod. “I understand, James.” She frowned and looked away, deep in thought. “We need to exponentially scale up our production. We have two days to do so, and to also set-up distribution so that these new products are disseminated throughout our forces.”

James nodded, feeling bleak.

“OK. OK.” She nodded again, more confidently this time. “I’ll think about it. Give me an hour or two, then I’ll rope you back in and tell you how we’re going to tackle it.”

James wanted to laugh. A hundred thousand Nem3’s. There was no tackling that. But he couldn’t give in to despair. “All right. Thank you.”

Jessica reached out and took his arm. “James. We’re just getting started. We’ve time enough to turn this around. Do you trust me?”

The answer came easily, smoothly, immediately. “Yes. Of course.”

“Then trust me. I’ll find a way.” Her gaze bored into his own. “I will find a way.”

They stood thus for a moment, and to his surprise James felt a burden shift from his shoulders. If anybody could, it was Jessica Miles.

He gave a shaky laugh. “All right. I trust you. Yes. Come find me when you’re ready. I’ll be waiting.”

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