Dante

  We roar out the other entrance to the cavern, heading steadily to what Andrea says is the other exit from the tunnels. The passage widens enough that she draws the skycycle next to the Corvette hovercar. Thanks to our noise-cancelling earbuds and the faint, noise-muffling envelopes of blue plasma surrounding both vehicles, we can still talk while rushing down the natural corridors.

  The tunnels really do stretch for miles, and I briefly wonder – as we spin through hairpin turns, twist through natural caverns, dodge stalactites and skim briefly over an underground lake – if I’m going to see every inch of this subterranean warren before we reach the light of day.

  After another half hour of more of the same, I stop wondering.

  “Please tell me the map is still working,” Anton mutters over our commlinks.

  “Just rerouting past a few cave ins,” Andrea replies distractedly. She’s following a tunnel whose floor roils with flowing water. We race along it as the water rises and the ceiling lowers. I can tell Andrea’s gaze is locked on the path ahead and the holographic wireframe superimposed over our route – showing barriers before we barrel straight into them.

  The narrowing passage abruptly expands into another cavern boasting a pool of water and, just ahead, the bright glow of daylight pouring down.

  Part of the forest long ago crashed into this pit, and a rising slope of trees and bushes ascend towards the light above.

  We go to the light.

  And then the forest beyond. A new path opens before us, of living trees rather than living stone.

  “They haven’t come through either entrance yet,” Christopher says, glancing at his dash. “But they were spreading out through the forest, so we’re probably still in their net.”

  “We’ve still got Hot Potato, so they’ll be coming,” Anton remarks, pointing a thumb at me. “Unless we send him off as a lure, or something.”

  I raise an eyebrow at him.

  Anton shrugs. “Just what you are now, man. Not like I’m calling you Tater Tot, or anything.”

  Andrea gives a sharp shake of her head. “No. We don’t want them running off after just Dante. That only divides us.” Her eyes narrows in thought. “Not unless we can ambush them somehow, and I think that might be suicidal for anyone but Stormforge in full gear or Hammersmith’s MAUL.”

  “You want to go to ground in Waycross?” Christopher asks.

  “Town or Academy?” Anton inquires, as if wondering which exit to take, not whether to take them at all.

  “Neither, but head that direction.” She pauses. “I’m calling the Seraphim.”

  Anton and Christopher exchange a look.

  “The who?” I ask.

  “‘The Less You Know the Better,’” Anton clarifies unhelpfully.

  “We’re not entirely sure,” Christopher explains, equally unhelpful.

  “You know about bringing a knife to a gunfight? They bring a tactical nuke on their subtle days.”

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  “Assuming they even respond. Are they even in our universe?”

  “Were they ever?”

  “What?” I ask. This doesn’t seem to be a time to joke about alternate universes, but I really can’t tell if they’re joking or serious. Particularly Anton.

  “Never mind,” Andrea says firmly, pulling out a piece of crystal several-inches long. Silvery calligraphy runs across its surface, and flecks of metal shine in its depths. She runs a thumb deftly across several words on it surface, murmurs something to it, and then, after a pause, nods.

  “And?” Anton asks, with the casual disinterest of someone wanting to know if the nuke chained to them just armed. And started its countdown.

  “They heard. What happens now…” She shrugs, and slips away the crystal into some hidden pocket.

  I look at Anton.

  The other guy spreads his hands. “Don’t look at me. My trump cards are actual cards.”

  “They’re… friendly,” Andrea says over her shoulder to me. “But mostly hands off, except in extreme cases. They might consider this the right kind of extreme, though.”

  I see a flash of metal – something threading its way through the trees. I wave an arm in that direction. “Incoming.”

  The flock sweeps towards us with the beating of metal pinions, making eerie, whistling calls as they come.

  I can see eyes flashing ominously in the cloud of talons and wings before we lose the unnatural birds in the trees.

  “What was that?” Foresight asks from his wrist.

  “Running the numbers,” Lyrica says. “Looks like they’re trying to reach us with stimuli as a collective, but they’re too far off, and there’s too many trees.”

  “Stimuli?” Andrea asks sharply. “To what end?”

  “Putting out stimuli either to try a brain hack, or to block one. So either they’re playing mind games, or they know those games all too well.”

  “With our luck,” Legios remarks, “both.”

  “Keep them at bay,” Lyrica pronounces. “Or better still, out of sight altogether.”

  Lightning flashes on the horizon, followed by a rumble of thunder.

  “Electrical fluctuations,” Foresight announces sharply.

  “We noticed, you overpriced ornament,” Legios snaps.

  “No, not the lightning. I’m getting fluxes nearby. No logical causation. Stay in your Faraday cages.” He pauses. “Though if you do slip out, Legios, you know, we’ll miss you but we’ll manage.”

  Legios snorts. “That passes for wit?”

  “Sincerity.”

  Andrea takes us under some drooping pine branches, scattering needles in a shower of pine scent and pine sap. Christopher follows gamely, both he and Anton ducking slightly as the flexing tree limbs snap back in their direction. They burst through in a second cloud of pine needles.

  At least they have a decent windshield.

  “You two okay?” I call out. I spit a few needles out as I speak. Andrea’s racing down a new path, or a continuation of the old, overgrown one, and the Corvette follows. As does. Every. Single. Drone.

  Anton raises a large, folded umbrella like a cane, and salutes me. “Capital, my good man!” He has a vaguely Victorian English accent, which would be a nice touch if we weren’t busy fleeing for our lives.

  Then he taps the button to unfold his prop in the wind of our acceleration and lets it go over his shoulder.

  The unfolding umbrella catches the current of air with a whoosh, something colorful swirling within it and then the wind of their passage whips it in backward in a cloud of… confetti? Chaff?

  Cold?

  Reflective wafers in all colors, but mostly bright silver, fill the air behind us, the chill of liquid nitrogen scattering a mist of ice along with them.

  The drones… do not take it well.

  I glance back as Anton pulls out two more umbrellas and unleashes them in tandem, filling the air with a froth of colorful chaos. And cold.

  The drones handle the sudden challenge to their sensors poorly. The chaff, I assume, is disrupting their vision, their radar, their sonar, and even their electronics. I wonder if any of the chaff is charged. Or superconductive enough to retain that property for a moment in a layer of liquid nitrogen.

  Whatever’s going on, quadcopters and falcons alike are crashing into stray branches and soaring umbrellas at a hundred miles per hour, or faster. The quads are not strong enough to survive hitting the umbrellas, and none of the drones can take dropping straight to the forest floor at those speeds. And the quads detonate like a swarm of angry firecrackers as they hit, filling the swarm’s flightpath with shrapnel. And thus detonating more quads in turn.

  And with this latest wave of drones following behind us through the forest, they’re being compressed into the path our flying car and skycycle are taking through the trees, since the dense foliage takes too long to penetrate anywhere else. Forcing them into our path of trailing countermeasures and exploding drone squadrons. A perfect storm.

  Anton unleashes another pair of umbrellas in yet another wave of chaff and calls to us. “About out!”

  Not what I want to hear. ‘That’s the last of the drones’ or ‘They just radioed their surrender’ or ‘I raided an umbrella shop’ or even ‘Great shirt, man. Where’d you get that?’ sound a lot better. All right, maybe not the last one.

  “Get ready to switch off,” Andrea says over their link as she edged the skycycle to one side. “I’ve still got a few bubbles left. Just pull ahead.”

  “Hang on,” Anton grumbles. “Let’s see what Crashcart gave me.” He reaches down and pulls up a cardboard box stashed by his feet.

  “Crashcart?” Christopher demands. But he falls in behind Andrea again.

  “Your shopping bot?” Andrea asks, leaning over her handlebars and banking left as the path divides.

  “His shopping bot,” Christopher confirms, following in her wake.

  “Well, we didn’t bring weapons,” Anton says, opening up the box, “so we’ll have to see what store bought can do for us.”

  “Those are toys. Literal toys.” Christopher banks hard to shadow Andrea down the new path, branches scraping the car on either side as they worm their way through. More pine needles shower around us, filling the air with their sharp scent and natural confetti.

  “All. We’ve. Got.”

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