Yeah, he wasn’t about giving up. As long as there was breath in my body — however shallow — he was ready to fight. Anxious to fight.
“Get… up…”
Not sure which one of us said that. All of us, maybe. Sometimes I don’t even understand the dynamic, and it’s my own weird head.
The voice was an old man’s croak whispering from a dust-dry throat.
I had one hand to work with, and a pair of legs that, so far, would only twitch. Fun times. Sure, I can do that. Nothing to it. Lift a two-hundred-pound thing off me. Nothing to it. Stop being a pussy, Ledger, and get going.
On the other hand, the darkness in my brain was starting to soften, to become comfortable. Maybe it would be so much easier to stop trying to find a little light in the world and close my eyes. If I did, I knew I’d be able to see something. Junie would be there. My memories of her were so clear, so strong. My beautiful woman. Part retro hippie, part conspiracy-theory nut, part world-saving technologies expert. All woman, all person, all incredible. My eyelids drifted shut and she was there. I knew her so well. It was my joy and pleasure to have mapped the landscape of her, from the bottomless and complex blue of her intelligent eyes, to the splash of freckles across her upper breasts, to the bullet scar on her lower abdomen, to the calluses on her artist hands, to the feet that, despite everything, were always planted firmly on the ground. I knew her pilgrim soul and her artist’s eye, and her humanist heart, and her genius insight. I knew her as my best friend, as my lover, as my love.
When I let the soft darkness push my eyelids closed, she was there. Of course she was there. Ready, I knew, to tell me that it was okay, to let me know that my fighting was done, that the pain was over, that I was allowed to finally lie down and rest. Forever rest.
I reached for her and spoke her name.
“Junie…”
And she smiled at me and bent to whisper in my ear.
She said, Get your fucking ass up, you lazy asshole.
I blinked my eyes open.
Okay, not what I was expecting.
The oily blackness was still there, but it was not absolute. Far above me, leering down at me through the branches of the big tree, was the sun.
No, there were two of them. That was weird. Two trees also. How odd.
Joe, whispered Junie, and I swear to God I could feel the cool tips of her fingers stroke my cheek the way she does in the morning when we wake. Joe, get up.
“I… can’t…” I said, and it came out as a weak whimper.
You have to.
“No…”
Try, she said. Please… you can’t let me down.
But that wasn’t really what she said. I knew it, even though I tried to lie to myself. It was the Killer in me who heard her real words. Heard and understood.
What she said was, You can’t let them win.
Tears filled my eyes.
I forced my right hand to move, to rise from the dirt where it lay, to slap like a dead mackerel against the shoulder of the dead thing that was killing me, to find a grip, to push.
Two WarDogs burst from the shadowy wall of the forest as I raised my gun.
And then something shot past me, coming in from the left, attacking the left-hand WarDog from the side. A white missile that struck the big machine with terrible force and knocked it over.
No. Not a missile.
“Ghost!”
I yelled out his name even as I opened fire on the second machine. I shoved the dead WarDog off of me and struggled to my feet, sick and dizzy.
“Ghost,” I yelled. “Rip, rip, rip.”
He knew that command and knew it well. We had trained for a hundred different scenarios — of hunting and searching, of pursuit and escape, of nonviolent control and combat slaughter. Rip meant to let the wolf that lives inside the dog have its way, to take the throat and tear away the life. It worked on humans, and when I saw Ghost clamp his titanium teeth on the bundle of coaxial cables I knew it would work on these robots. Sparks flew and Ghost yelped, but he kept tearing.
I staggered and dropped to my knees but I fired, and I think falling saved my life as a burst of bullets punched through the air inches from my head. I fired and fired, shooting wildly but hitting it over and over. And then Ghost was up and running toward it, desperate to save me, desperate to kill. The WarDog tried to turn, to adjust its angle of fire, but it was too late. I’d damaged it, and Ghost tore its throat out.
I sat back and looked down at my gun. The slide was locked back, and I had no more magazines. Ghost turned from the second WarDog and snarled. Beyond him three more were emerging from the woods. The day had suddenly gotten weirdly bright except around the edges, and there was too much noise in the air. I saw the pigeon from before go flying past me, and in a daze I looked up at it and saw it vanish against the bulk of a much larger bird. A bird that roared. A bird that spat fire.
At the edge of the field the three WarDogs vanished inside a ball of burning fire as Bird Dog swept toward them, guns and rockets raining hell down on the beasts.
I lay back on the grass and felt Ghost’s hot, rough tongue licking my face.
A voice said, “Joe… Joe!”
And then Rudy was bending over me. And Bird Dog. Other people, too, but I was having trouble with names. I grabbed Rudy’s shirt, pulled him close, whispered into his ear.
“Laptop,” I wheezed. “Control codes. WarDogs. Uplink.”
At least that’s what I think I said. Those were the words in my head, but the world was getting swimmy, and soon it went away entirely.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-TWO
Top Sims watched the dogs fall. They just fell.
There were eleven of them still able to fight. Eleven monsters and not enough bullets to kill them. Brick was hurt. Two of his people were down, dead or badly hurt. Top could see Lydia Rose leaning against the Junkyard, her face singed, hair wild, one arm hanging limp, blood running from her ears. She saw Top and smiled that dazzling smile of hers.
He nodded.
Tracy Cole and Bunny stood looking down at one of the WarDogs.
“What… what happened to them?” asked Cole.
Bug answered her, answered them all, speaking through the team channel via the earbuds. He told them about the control code for the WarDogs. It also worked on the remaining bomb drones. Thousands of them all over the world simply stopped, their motors shutting down.
Dead.
Like so many good people.
Like so many bad people.
Top saw Bunny raise his head and look past him toward the house. The roof was smoking and flames were licking at the windows. A figure stood in the shattered front doorway, clothes torn and covered with blood and dirt. A big, blocky man who stood in the doorway of a burning house, polishing his glasses on a swatch of cloth torn from a silk robe. Inside the house, there were small explosions.