"So how do we know the intel was good on this stasis station, BT?"
Jett looked him in the eye. "We don't. Data Mack might have been just yanking our chain for kicks. But it's the only good lead we got, so we're going for it."
"Yeah," Bozo said. "Not like we got anything better to do." He grinned, displaying a glimmering, diamond-coated grill. With the world ending, he indulged in whatever excesses he could steal or purchase. It not only showed in his mouth but his waistline as well. Despite the extra girth, he was a beast with a tactical shotgun, an ace at explosives, and loyal to a fault.
Jax ran a hand through the bristly buzz cut and laughed. "Whatever happens, we're going out Hellrazor style. That's all that matters."
"Hells yeah." Bozo and Jax pounded fists in front Jisei, who didn't say a word. She sat in silence, no expression visible behind the ballistic face mask that she never removed on a mission. The rest of her was covered in sleek body armor with attachments that housed nearly every killing weapon known to man.
"Got a blip on the compound," Beef yelled.
The Armordillo rounded a collapsed bridge, bringing their destination in view. The compound was an outpost from the Imperial War, another relic abandoned when the greater concern arrived. According to Jett's intel, it was inhabited by a savage gang of Deviants. The outcasts had abandoned society at the end of the Haven lotteries, reverting to the mentality of savage ravagers who robbed, raped, mutilated, and murdered anyone with the bad luck to cross them.
Jett glanced at the radar scanner on the dashboard. "We have to hit this place hard and fast. If we're outside when that storm hits, it won't matter that we found the place."
The Armordillo rocked hard from a side impact that struck with a sound like trucks colliding. Jax fell from his seat onto the metal floor. He looked up with a dazed expression.
"What the hell was that? A rocket?"
"Who cares? Let's show 'em what the Hellrazors are about!"
Jett was already on the move. Opening the top hatch, he clambered out into the stinging dust and brutal wind gusts. The trembling rush of adrenaline sped through his veins. Swiveling the machine gun around, he peered down the sights. Several whooping, howling figures were moving in the ruins around the compound, but the nearest one had already reloaded his rocket launcher and had taken aim again.
Jett squeezed a volley off. The Deviant's head snapped back, haloed by a cloud of misty blood. The rocket fired upward; the body toppled to the broken earth.
Jett continued to fire in methodical bursts, picking off Deviants from their perches and hiding places. They scrambled like angry fire ants, swarming the compound with a wild assortment of pilfered weapons. They were a dirty, mangy, nearly feral gang; faces painted, teeth filed into points like animals. The stink of unwashed bodies wafted from their vicinity as their wild howls echoed in the air.
The Armordillo lurched to a stop in front of a barricade obstructing the compound's entrance. Jett ducked behind the flak shield just before a gang of Deviants unloaded from the rooftop position. His heart pounded as the air hummed with rounds; metallic ricochets rang all around him. The air tasted like hot metal. He gritted his teeth, slapping a hand to the com on his helmet.
"What's everyone doing — sitting pretty while I'm taking all the heat? Let's go, Hellrazors!"
"Stop your bawling," Bozo said. "We got you, Big Top."
A streaking rocket followed his statement, scoring a direct hit on the shooters above Jett. He ducked as debris and charred limbs rained down.
The team exited the Armordillo with precision, moving in tandem to fire at their targets while protecting one another. It was a completely different response than their assailants, whose only strategy seemed to be running, shooting, and dying.
Headshot darted away, clambering to the top of a derelict bus. Jett waited until the sniper assumed position before signaling the team forward.
"Go. Get to the door."
He led the way, running with his rifle in attack position. Deviants were everywhere, target practice for his proficient shooting. Anything above him he didn't worry about. That was where Headshot came in.
As if to verify the thought, a Deviant tumbled from a broken tower, landing at Jett's feet with a hole in the center of his forehead. Jett took a moment to kneel and reload his rifle. Beef and Jisei assumed the lead position, gunning down the crazed attackers who still ran at them. It didn't seem to matter that their superior numbers were quickly being wiped out. They rushed forward like zombies, as if bullets couldn't harm them. As if they were superhuman.
They weren't.
Jett paused to open the eyelid of the dead Deviant. The irises were an unnatural shade of electric blue, a color no one was born with. It only confirmed what he suspected.
They're all tripped out on nirvanic. No wonder they lost their minds.
He took rear guard as Bozo, Rosy and Jax jogged past. The firefight grew sporadic as the Deviants finally recognized most of their numbers were already dead. The team had just reached the compound doors when Jax turned around, staring up at the sky with the most terrified expression Jett had ever seen. His mouth worked, but no words escaped.
Jett turned around.
The sky broke apart.
There was no way to describe the horror. A mouth ripped the stratosphere open, and a torrent of liquid fire roiled out like discharged blood. Everything altered and distorted in ripples of heat and blinding light. The sound that followed was an alien toll, like some ancient god falling to the earth with a dying roar.
Jett felt the impact so intensely his molars vibrated; the breath left his lungs as if his armor was made of paper. The air flashed; forks of lightning spread like electric tentacles, a conflagration followed by furious thunderclaps that made the ground tremble. The phenomenon was a few dozen miles away, but the separation seemed pitiful in the face of its raw power.
The deadly storm they had been worried about earlier seemed a pale, pitiful thing in comparison. They watched in collective horror as it was simply eaten by the sucking, rippling, gaping wound in the sky like light into a black hole. Debris lifted from the ground, pulled by the inverse gravity of the phenomenon. Sand, rock, broken concrete and asphalt whipped through the air, yanked toward the yawning mouth miles away. Bodies were snatched up as well, screaming Deviants unlucky enough to be caught in the open.
"Everyone stay low!"
Jett didn't know if anyone heard his warning or not. The seismic rumbles and dying shrieks of the wounded sky smothered everything. He crouched down, shuffling with his team toward the compound as fast as they could manage. Everything tinted in colors he couldn't even describe, creating psychedelic images of light and writhing shadows.
"I can't hold on!"
Jett spun around. Headshot scrambled across a fallen piece of bridge, trying his best to resist the pull of the hole in the sky. He wrapped his arm around a broken pipe, feet leaving the ground and dangling in the air.
"Headshot!"
There was nothing they could do except watch in horror when a large piece of concrete struck him with the force of a runaway train. His body went limp, sailing through the air and intermingling with the rest of the flying debris toward the whirling vortex of blazing energy.
Fire burst from its maw, blazing comets that streaked across the sky. The missiles exploded in blooms of flame and shattered earth. Plumes of scorching debris rained down with punishing impacts. The scattered Deviants ran like frightened children, clutching handholds in the rubble as they all headed the same direction.
Toward the compound.
Jett's eyes widened. "Bozo, we need to get inside right now."
Bozo had to shout over the chaotic din. "I'm working on it."