A Creature of War, Book 3, CH07 (Patreon)

The screeching had them hunker down, weapons at the ready.

El looked at the other team on each side. He’d kept them closer this time. Since they were only dealing with machines, he didn’t have to worry about snipers and ambushes, so he’d set them to be able to cover each other.

Stevenson smiled, holding something resembling a gun in his hand. It was an assemblage of pipes, wires, duct tape and switches. It was Crazy tech; he knew that. It wouldn’t make any sense, but he still couldn’t stop himself from trying to work out how it worked each time he looked at it.

Professor Milton’s contraption was easier to work out. The armature went over his hand, arms, anchored over his shoulders, and around his chest. It enhanced his strength. The professor had picked up a piece of rubble that had to weight over a thousand kilos as if it had been hollow. Something about the whole thing bothered El, but at least he knew what to expect from it.

Jennifer’s contraption made even less sense to El than Stevenson’s ‘gun’ It was built over her right forearm and hand, fine pipes and wires bending this way and that. She held it as if it could fire something, but there was no opening at the end.

“Any thought on what’s causing that noise?” he asked.

“It’s mechanical,” Milton replied.

“It’s electronic,” Jennifer countered. “You can clearly hear the frequency modulation in the sound.”

“Electronic is mechanical,” Milton snapped. “Just because you’re in charge of the research doesn’t mean you know anything about—”

“Quiet.” Vee’s command was in a normal tone, but they obeyed it. The bull started at them for a moment in surprise, then looked at El, who shrugged. This was the first time any of them obeyed without protest. Maybe they finally understood the severity of the situation?

“Whatever it is, it’s getting closer,” Leech said.

El put his radio to his mouth and whispered. “Does anyone have a visual?” Negatives came back. “Everyone, proceed forward carefully, and be mindful of your ammo. What you’re carrying is all you have.”

He nodded to Vee, and the bull stepped forward, rifle at the ready. They traveled a hundred meters, and then the windows of the building to their left exploded out.

“Cover!” El followed his own instruction as things leaped out of the windows at them. Gunfire erupted from the other teams.

One of the things landed before him and he had a sense of a four-legged animal made of scrap metal. He fired at its head.

The thing staggered to the side, then fell down. It still moved, but it couldn’t seem to get its leg under itself.

“Headshots incapacitate them!”

“See! I told you it made sense to shoot their heads!” Stevenson yelled.

More fell out of the windows. There had to be hundreds of the things, and they all looked to be built the same.

“We’re going to be overwhelmed,” Leech warned.

“Like hell we are.” Jennifer stood in front of a dozen of the machines and pointed her arm contraptions at them. For a moment nothing happened, then LRK was sent to the ground, hand over his ears as the most painful sound he’d ever heard drilled into his head. His hands didn’t seem to offer any protection. The sound went through them, into his skull. He felt like his brain was going to come pouring out of his ears.

He screamed. He couldn’t hear it, but he had to be screaming. It was just too painful.

“Hey, lynx!” someone yelled.

“El blinked.

“He’s coming around.”

El blinked, then wiped the tears out of his eyes. Stevenson crouched before him.

Someone else was speaking, the tone that of a sergeant giving a reprimand. “That was completely irresponsible of you. Didn’t you think about propagation?”

“Oh shove off, Milton,” a woman replied. “I took down two dozen of them in under one minute. I’ll like to see you do that in that thing you’re wearing. So what if there was collateral damage? We’re at war, right?”

“So what? You took down out command structure. What are we supposed to do without them?”

“We keep taking those things down. What else is there to do?”

“Are there any more?” El croaked. His throat hurt.

“They’ve retreated,” Stevenson answered.

“Why?” El tried to stand, but his sense of balance was shot.

“My guess is that they have enough processing power to work out that needs a new strategy and they’re off working on that.”

A new shadow appeared over him. “Give me your hand,” Vee said. The bull had dried blood at the base of his ears, nose and eyes. “What was that?” He pulled the lynx to his feet.

“High powered ultrasound frequency,” Jennifer replied. “It shook them apart.” She indicated the scrap metal littering the ground before them.

“It almost shook us apart, too.”

She shrugged. “It’s not my fault if there’s a design flaw in your model. Your designers should have—”

“Shut up.” El keeping Vee from hitting her. “We don’t have time for infighting, Vee.”

The bull lowered his arm, still glaring at her.

“Vee, are you okay?”

The bull shook his head. “That thing hurt. It caused us internal damage, but that’s nothing compared to the pain. One of these days, I need to see if I can control pain receptors like I do everything else.”

“Okay, I need you to go see if anyone else had been affected. We can’t afford to be out of commission.” He looked at the humans as the bull left. “You three need to come up with something that will protect us from that. They’re massing again,” he pointed in the distance, “and you’re going to need us to help you fight them.”

“Where are they coming from?” Leech was walking toward them, not too steady on his feet. He too had blood near his ears, nose and eyes.

“From a manufacturing system.” Stevenson pointed to a building where they could see those machines from out of the windows. “In there.”

El looked at it and sighed. “Then we need to get in there.”

“He’s wrong,” Milton said. “They’re clearly self-replicating. There’s no central machine involved.”

“No, Stevenson’s right,” Jennifer said. “The uniformity of design can only come when a central system does the fabrication.”

The old man rolled his eyes. “Of course you’re taking his side. You sleep with him.”

“What?” Stevenson and Jennifer said at the same time.

“He’s a guy,” Jennifer added in disgust.

Milton looked at her. “You don’t like guys?” He looked like the idea made no sense to him. “Then that’s why you won’t sleep with me.”

“Are you crazy? You’re a creep, that why I keep turning you down.”

“But you’re turning Stevenson down because he’s a guy.”

“Unlike you, he hasn’t tried getting in my bed.”

They both turned to the other human who had watched the exchange, puzzled.

“What are you talking about, exactly?”

“Sex,” Milton answered.

The word seemed to puzzle Stevenson for a moment. “You mean, a guy and a girl, in the same bed, humping together?”

“Yes,” the older man replied, annoyed.

“Why would I do that?”

“Because it’s fun.” The tone said that should be the most evident thing ever.

Stevenson looked dubious. “Making this was fun.” He indicated the ‘gun’ he was holding. “Making theses was fun, too.” He was holding two small things in his other hand. He looked at them as if only now realizing he was holding them. “They’re for you.” He handed them to El. “How is rubbing yourself against woman anything resembling fun?”

Milton’s mouth hung open. He closed it, then seemed to have trouble speaking. “You’re a virgin?”

Even Jennifer looked surprised.

Stevenson looked from one to the other. “Wasn’t I clear?”

Milton looked at Jennifer, grinning. “Well, now you know why he hasn’t tried getting in your bed. You should show him what he’s missing.”

The woman rounded on the older man, but before she could let out what looked to be a bitting reply, El stop her.

“That’s enough.” He should have stopped this sooner, but he’d been taken in by the discussion. He didn’t understand how Stevenson could be a virgin, but he was a Crazy, so he didn’t expect to understand much about him.

“What are these?” He indicated the two buds in his hand.

“Sound mufflers. It should block all sounds, including Jennifer’s cannon.”

El studied them. They didn’t look like much, oval with a bump on one end.

“That side goes toward the outside so you can take them out.”

El put them in his ears, and the world became silent. It reminded him of the time Ellie had died. There had been a moment, just before he realized what had happened when he’d been surrounded by silence. He’d thought that silence absolute, but now he knew what that really was.

Milton was screaming at Stevenson, and El couldn’t hear any of it. “How does it work?” His voice sounded strange to him, hollow.

Stevenson answered, but El didn’t hear him. He took the buds out and sound came rushing in. Milton was walking away, annoyed, only to be stopped by Leech.

“It’s a contained vacuum. Sound can’t travel around a vacuum, so it creates a bubble around you that’s going to keep Jennifer from shaking you apart.”

That didn’t sound right. He didn’t know much about physics past what was needed for firing rifles, guns and how it applied to his power, but he’d watched television. Something about Stevenson’s explanation didn’t work.

“How long until you have enough for everyone?” he couldn’t care if it did or didn’t make sense. It was Crazy tech. The only important thing is that it worked.

“That’s going to take a while. I had what I needed for these in my pockets, but it isn’t exactly common stuff. I don’t know how much of it is lying around.”

El looked in the distance. There was a sea of metal reflecting the sunlight, and machines were still pouring from the windows.

“Try to get me at least five. I’ll take more, but get me that and we’ll move.”

Him, Leech, Vee and three soldiers, them plus the three Crazies would have to be enough to find and destroy whatever was making those things.