Ross leaned out the motel room door to look up into the sky.
The barest glow of dawn showed on the eastern horizon, and an AH6 Little Bird helicopter raced low along Main Street, its twin miniguns blazing. Tracer rounds streamed from them like orange lasers. He could see the phosphorus-coated bullets ricocheting in a shower of sparks into the predawn sky farther to the west—over by the American Legion Hall. There was more shouting and gunfire as a second chopper zipped overhead, launching rockets.
“Jesus Christ!” Ross ducked back into the motel room. “No markings on them.”
“We saw the photos of those rail yards. But I don’t think it really sunk in.”
The rockets exploded in a series of deafening booms. It was followed by a large volume of gunfire erupting from the western edge of town. It sounded like a couple hundred people were involved in an intense firefight—an odd assemblage of large- and small-caliber weapons crackling like green pine in a fire. The sounds of women and children screaming among the refugees and the shadows of dozens of people racing past the open motel room doorway gave a sense of rising panic.
OohRah rushed to the doorway and shouted, “Get out of the street! Get out of the street! Come in here!”
He ushered a dozen people inside, men, women, and children—people of all ages. Carrying backpacks and suitcases.
One woman kept screaming at Ross, “What’s going on? What’s going on?” These people weren’t darknet operatives, so they appeared to have no idea what was happening.
OohRah grabbed the woman by the shoulders. “Get ahold of yourself. We’re going to get you to a storm shelter.”
One of the other refugees pulled her back into the group, where she quickly broke down sobbing.
“Let’s get these folks to the middle school.”
Ross was already busy flipping through an array of D-Space street cameras in his HUD view. Most of the town’s public cameras were still functioning. They showed a series of buildings ablaze and bodies, or parts of them, in the streets. People were rushing around retrieving wounded. Others were firing out toward the edge of town at attackers Ross knew must be there. “Looks like the route to the middle school is still clear. Here . . .” He slid the prepared camera layer over to OohRah.
“Thanks. So we’ve still got network power, anyway.”
Ross nodded. “The bank was hit, but they’ve got ultrawideband transmitters and fuel cells in the vault. It’s pretty thick concrete.”
OohRah was already looking out the doorway and motioning people to follow. “Let’s go, folks! Follow me!”
A dozen frightened people ran after him. Ross brought up the rear, sprinting beneath the porch roof along a line of motel room doors. Some of the doors were open, but he didn’t see anyone inside the rooms. Another chopper zipped overhead startlingly low and fast, guns braapping down the street. Empty shell casings rained down in a jingling cascade of brass that bounced in all directions.
Ross looked out at the call-outs ahead of him. He could see lots of names he didn’t recognize, and he heard frantic voices over the comm lines.
[Barkely_A]:We’ve got wounded over here! We don’t have anything to stop these armored cars.
[Creasy]: Jack, about two dozen infantry coming through Courtney’s field.
[BullMoose]: Near the propane yard?
[Creasy]: Ten-four.
Ross reached up and dialed down the volume on nearby chatter not directed to him. OohRah brought the civilians down an alley behind Main Street. It was cluttered with Dumpsters, pallets, and cars that had been idled by gas prices. As they crossed to the next block, they saw a car burning in the middle of Main Street. The car’s side and fenders were riddled with bullet or shrapnel holes. The silhouette of a person was still sitting in the front seat, enveloped in fire. Someone with the call-out DoctorSocks raced past the flames, and then headed off into the night.
Another huge explosion ripped the dawn air, and Ross turned to see what he suspected was the propane yard going up in a roiling fireball a couple hundred yards away. Metal and wood debris spun into the air in a wide arc. Ross ducked around behind the nearest building.
“Up ahead!”
The sheriff brought them across the street to the arched granite-and-brick entryway of the Eisenhower Middle School. Mercifully, the steps led down to a cellar door lined with sandbags and away from prowling choppers.
Ross stopped in the entryway and let the others go in. He stood next to farmers with assault rifles as they watched the skies.
One of the other volunteers, a thirtyish, heavyset operative named Farmster in a Halperin Seed hat, pointed to Ross and grabbed a scoped AR-15 rifle from a table just inside the doorway. “You know how to use this?”
“I’m better with an AK.”
“An AK?”
Ross shrugged. “Russian army.”
That brought out gales of laughter amid the distant gunfire.
“Well, I’ll be damned. I never thought I’d be handing a gun to a Ruskie to shoot up the town with.”
The guy fished through the pile of weapons and came up with a scuffed AK-47. He also grabbed a satchel into which he stuffed several thirty-round clips. “We can’t let them reach this school.”
Ross looked up at the choppers crisscrossing the sky in the distance and realized that this was just the beginning.
In the darkness Sebeck and Price peered at an abandoned, crumbling farmhouse from the shelter of a creek bank. The new Thread led directly toward a weathered barn behind it. The entire place was choked with weeds and bushes.
The sound of frogs and crickets filled the night, but miles behind them they heard loud explosions and the zipping sound of helicopter miniguns.
Price gazed back over his shoulder as the horizon flashed and flickered. “They’re really getting pounded back there, Sergeant. Whatever we’re supposed to find better be worth it.”
Sebeck nodded. He’d been surprised they made it past the blockade, but then, whatever powered the Thread might have been able to create a path . . . somehow. He’d seen the Daemon do stranger things.
“Stay here.”
“No problem.”
Sebeck climbed up from the creek, and started moving through the tall grass, electronic pistol at the ready. He kept scanning the darkness for trouble but made it the couple hundred feet to the barn door without incident.
The glowing Thread proceeded right through the twin doors. Sebeck looked down and noticed fairly fresh tire tracks in the mud. He nodded to himself. Whatever the next segment was leading him to was apparently inside, and recently arrived.
Sebeck pulled open the right barn door partway. Stealth was not an option because it sagged on its hinges. He peeked in and noticed a dark late-model panel van with dealer plates. The Thread continued straight through the closed back doors of the van itself.
Sebeck scanned the interior of the barn and saw nothing except old stalls, a workbench, and piles of rusting equipment on either side of the van. Above he could see stars through the gaping holes in the barn roof.
He moved inside and came up to the shiny van doors. No sounds came from inside. He held the pistol in one hand, stepped aside, and tried the handle. It clicked open. He slowly pulled it open, peering in with the pistol aimed and ready.
“It’s you.”
“Me?” Sebeck stared at an oddly dressed man sitting on a folding chair in the cargo bay of the van. Mirrored sunglasses and a balaclava obscured the man’s face, and he wore a camouflage outfit with knee pads and body armor. Before him he held what looked to be a transparent video panel or glass screen through which he was viewing Sebeck. It gave the effect of carrying a huge set of spectacles in front of him. The Thread led right to the tip of a wand he was clutching in his gloved right hand. A nearby call-out identified him as PangSoi, a first-level Weaver with a two-point-five rep score on a base of three.