The ground looked like it was moving, constantly shifting, there were so many bodies. There had to be hundreds of thousands of Bane. I’d seen a sign as I hit the halfway point on the bridge, a sign that had said some town name and listed the population as just under ten-thousand.
These Bane had come from somewhere else.
I narrowed my enhanced eyes, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.
Batches of them crushed cars to flat metal disks. Others broke windows, and things started flying out them as they ransacked the buildings. And then the explosions started.
Building after building started coming down.
They moved like clockwork. Thousands of them moved in a direct line, going block by block, searching each building and then leveling it.
A small flash of light caught my eyes. There were five Bane standing in a line behind the others, in a straight line. But these looked different from the others. They literally had no flesh left on their frames. Metallic bones held in pulsing and ticking organs.
“What are you doing out there? Are you trying to get infected?”
My head whipped to the right, toward a hissing voice.
A pair of brown eyes peaked up at me from the side of the bridge, down on the small beach at the land and water’s edge. He waved me over.
Glancing back at the unbelievable scene before me, I climbed off my bike, leaving it in the middle of the road, and ran to the man’s hiding place.
“What are you doing out here?” I asked as I ducked under the road next to him.
He was dressed in survival gear and had one rifle and one shotgun crossed over his back. He held a crossbow in one hand.
“Studying,” he said, his voice gruff. He looked to be in his forties, wrinkles sprouting from the corners of his eyes. His hair was shaggy, his beard knotted and tangled.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“Something’s changing out there,” he said, his expression growing dark. “I first noticed it in Minneapolis. You saw those freaky looking ones? The ones with no traces of skin on them?”
I nodded.
“They’re first gens,” he said, his eyes glancing back toward the road, and then back to me. “The source. They were the first ones to get TorBane.”
“How do you know?” I questioned.
“Because one of them is my father,” he said, his jaw tightening. “He got a heart upgrade in the beginning. I’d been overseas in the Navy when all this happened. When I got back, he’d already lost his humanity. A lot of people had. So I watched him. I’ve been tracking him for the past six years. He’s one of the first gens.”
“Okay,” I said, nodding. It made sense. The longer you were infected, the more machine-like you became. I’d already seen that.
“Two other first gens found him about three months ago,” the man said, again looking toward the road. “They started going through houses and tearing them apart. And I mean leveling them. They’ve been looking for people, anyone who’s left. And as they moved through the city, any awake Bane they came across went with them. They started growing an army. All the others, they seem to be following the first gens.”
“Hang on,” I said, holding a hand up. “That can’t be possible. The Bane cannot be smart enough to create an army.”
“Did you not just see what is happening in that town?” he asked, his eyes blazing. He pointed a finger toward the city. “Can you not call that an army?”
I swore under my breath. He was right. It was an army.
“They’re moving like the black plague,” he continued. “They’re marching in a line, perfectly east to west. They’re leveling houses, forests, anything that might hide people. And anyone they find, they infect. They’re thinking like a machine. They’re doing precise sweeps.”
“They’ve reached the coast now,” I said, trying to bring up a map I’d seen of or continent. “What do you think they’ll do now?”
“I expect they’ll turn, make a sweep west to east until they reach the east coast. If they’re really thinking like a machine, that’s how a machine would do it.”
“And you’ve what?” I asked. “You’ve just been following them?”
He nodded. “I have an all-terrain vehicle,” he said, inclining his head back toward the city. “I’ve been trying to get out ahead of them, find anyone I can. Warn them to get out.”
“Have you found anyone?” I asked, hope surging in my chest.
His eyes grew dark. “I’ve come across five people, in two different locations. I told them to head north. My guess is that they’ll shift south now that they’ve reached the coast.”
“How long do you think it’ll take them to reach Los Angeles?” I asked, fear gripping my chest.
He took a deep breath before letting it out slowly as he shook his head. “No for sure way to tell. I’m guessing they’ll continue sweeping east to west, west to east. They’re gaining speed. They keep collecting more Bane as they move, and they haven’t even hit any major cities yet. I can’t imagine how their numbers are going to grow when they hit Chicago or Portland. Or, shit, New York. The more Bane they have, the faster they can work and the wider the sweep they can do.”
“How long?” I asked again.
“I’d guess six months,” he said with a shrug. “But probably shorter. They could have hundreds of millions of them by the time they hit Los Angeles. Why do you ask about that location?”
I hesitated. My trust in mankind was greatly compromised after what had just happened to me in Seattle. However, this man hadn’t asked me any questions before spilling all of his information.
“Because that’s where I’m from. There are over one hundred of us living there. There are probably still more in hiding.”
“Wow,” he said, his eyes growing wider. “That’s the biggest colony I’ve heard of.”
“And it’s going to be obliterated if that many Bane show up to level it,” I said quietly, my thoughts racing.
We had to get the Pulse ready for more than one reason now.
We needed to build more of it if possible.
“If you’re from Los Angeles, what are you doing this far north?” he asked. Suddenly his eyes jumped to my hair line. “And what happened to you, child?”
“Some of us humans are getting desperate,” I said with my jaw clenched.
“It was one of us that did that?” he asked, disgust in his voice.
I nodded.
“I’m sorry to hear it,” he said, his eyes growing softer. “What’s your name?”
“Eve,” I said.
“I’m Tom,” he offered, shifting the firearms on his back.
“Nice to meet you, Tom,” I said. And I meant it. In a way, Tom reminded me of Bill. A little rough around the edges, but at his core, he was a good man.
He simply gave a smile and a nod in return.
We hid there the rest of the day, sharing what information we each had. But neither of us learned anything new. The Bane were Evolving, they’d soon take us over.
The sound of destruction from the town never stopped.
There were explosions almost constantly. Tom said they managed to find explosives wherever they went, but much of the sounds we were hearing were gas lines being broken and lit. There were grinding sounds as buildings came down and homes and businesses were destroyed.
“Did you find anyone here?” I asked. The Bane had moved to the south end of the city and he and I sat on the bank, watching the destruction. Half the city burned, sending plumes of smoke into the sky.
Tom shook his head.
“When those people took me,” I said, running a hand over my bald head. “They told me there was less than half a percent left of the human population left.”
“That sounds about right,” Tom said, shaking his head.