Invader: Book Seven in the Enhanced Series Read online

  According to her, there are lots of little battles raging that we cannot hear, not only between our own men and the enemy, but also between the enemy and the civilians. The latter, though, wouldn’t be termed a battle, but more of a slaughter, as the Con-Cops continue to cut down anyone brave enough to venture towards Inner Haven.

  It must be a directive sent through the ranks by Cromwell. Some revenge for our assault on the High Tower perhaps, or merely a show of his absolute willingness to do anything to weaken our position.

  It’s the action of a coward, hiding away in his fortress out in the woods, and makes my blood boil. So we quicken our step a little, and speed the hunt, and the hours begin to sweep by until the sun is skidding low, and the dark clouds are giving way to an unearthly, beautiful sunset.

  I begin to lose track of the number of lives I’ve taken. Yet, for every life I snub out, I imagine that I’m saving several more, perhaps three or five or ten times that many.

  I imagine it because it’s true, the people starting to creep back out of their homes as we work through the streets, the path cleared for them to get to Inner Haven. For each Con-Cop who sees the business end of my pulse rifle or pistol, many more civilians pass by me, rushing off to safety.

  But, not all is plain sailing. The advancing hours bring a growing fatigue, and as if by fate, we encounter a more dangerous and deadly force just as we’re starting to wane.

  Drawn perhaps by the commotion, a group of rogue City Guards come rushing towards a large intersection that, not so long ago, would be bustling with people around this time. Surrounded by dormant advertising boards and screens, and with a host of abandoned and destroyed cars littering the street, it’s clearly already seen a fair bit of fighting.

  And it’s about to see more.

  Kira, quick on the draw with her powers, quickly counts out the number of approaching soldiers as we rush towards the safety of a broken wall, off to the left where one of the tenement blocks has seen far better days.

  “Ten,” she says, before any of them even come into view. She points up the street to the north, her green eyes locked behind tight lids. “That way. Um…three Dashers…two Brutes…the rest, I’m not sure.”

  “How can you tell?!” I ask.

  “Dashers have quicker heartbeats,” she says. “And if they’re using their powers, it’s easy to tell by the movement of the air around them, and the pace of their feet. Brutes…well, their pulses are much louder and stronger, and their footfall too…”

  “OK, OK, classroom time’s over,” says Zander. “Ten should be manageable. Remember, Brie, they won’t just run in like Con-Cops, and if they have Sniffers or Bats with them, they’ll already know we’re here. In fact, they can probably hear me right now.”

  He shuts his voice off, and begins issuing some hand signal commands to Kira. She watches and nods, taking it all in.

  Then he turns to me, and begins communicating telepathically.

  Kira’s going to flank round to the right, he says in my head. I want you going up the street to the left, behind the cars. I’ll go down the middle. Got it?

  I nod.

  Right. Watch for the Dashers. They’re the most dangerous. Your Hawk-eyes should pick them out. As soon as we’ve despatched them, the rest will fall quick. OK, let’s go.

  He looks to Kira once more, all set to make her move as soon as Zander gives the order. She listens closely for the movement of the enemy troop, about to come around the corner at the top and venture straight for us.

  She nods, and then we move.

  Stepping out from behind the broken wall in the recess of that half destroyed building, we activate our Dasher powers and press straight on up the street. I go left, Kira right, and my brother heads straight up the centre.

  We reach the first batch of cover in a flash, huddling behind the husks of cars. Mine is flaming, obscuring my view ahead. I drop to my knees, arch my neck around the side, and drive my Hawk-eyes right up the street.

  A mere second later, I see the first signs of activity. A whooshing of dust is kicked up, appearing from a side street and hammering its way towards us. Then, another joins in, and a final trail, telling of the positions of the three Dashers Kira mentioned.

  I catch them out with my vision, see their armoured frames come surging at a terrific pace to suggest these guys – well, two guys and one girl, by the looks of things – are fairly powerful among their single-Enhanced kind.

  I stay put, though, and see the rest come rushing too. Most prominent are the Brutes, completely covered in strong armour that even our pulse rifles may have trouble penetrating, and fixed with an intimidating display of double-miniguns.

  Behind, towards the rear, three others set up shop, most likely Hawks able to aim and fire with great accuracy from a distance.

  Finally, another two move in, Bats or Sniffers or one of each. I suspect they’re more out of their depth than the rest.

  Yet, they probably don’t know to what extent. They probably think we’re regular Nameless soldiers, or at the very most low-level hybrids. Unfortunately, they’re about to get a rude awakening.

  The Dashers come up on us first, moving close and behind cover just ahead. It’s obvious that one has been assigned for each of us, the three of them shooting and displacing with great pace as they work up the street in our direction.

  I hear Zander in my head again.

  Let them get closer. Draw them in…

  He gives the same order to Kira with a few swift gestures.

  We wait, but don’t have to for long. Perhaps believing they can surprise us, the Dashers all press forwards at once, zipping so fast around the side of our busted cars that, were we anyone else, they might just have caught us napping.

  But we’re Hawks. And Dashers. And much more else besides.

  No one catches us napping.

  We see them coming before they arrive, and each of us joins the fray. I move just in time as my opponent whooshes in front of me, pulse rifle raised and ready to chop me down. I dance to the left as the female Dasher pulls the trigger, the flaming car split in half with the two parts sent rolling off down the street in a tumbling trail of smoke.

  The dust takes a moment to settle, long enough for me to get into position. The Dasher has no Hawk-eyes, and didn’t see me move.

  I’m right behind her, gun to her back. I do as I told my brother I wouldn’t, and hesitate. At this range, with the setting my pulse rifle is on, she’s likely to be split right in two.

  But I have no choice.

  I shut my eyes and pull the trigger. Even behind my eyelids, I see the blue. And then, straight after, I see the red. And feel it too.

  Blood splatters right across my face, a heavy spray of the stuff that comes with a few bits of something more solid. I spit the bitter liquid from my lips and open my eyes. The sight before me is the sort of thing the worst nightmares are made of.

  I avert my eyes from the mess and look to my right. It seems the other two Dashers didn’t fare much better, their bodies similarly mangled. Then I look up, and see Zander and Kira already pressing on.

  I head straight after them, keen to escape the gore-fest behind, just as the two burly Brutes begin to batter us with their miniguns. They’re armoured in a manner I haven’t yet seen, with some sort of metal rig on their back with two miniguns fixed to either flank.

  They stand and roar, squeezing on the triggers of their weapons and filling the streets with a barrage of gunfire that’s impossible to dodge. Hundreds of rounds a second pour at us from the four guns with their dozens of little barrels, forcing us to dash off in retreat and find whatever refuge we can.

  My choice is another car. Kira and Zander, meanwhile, toss themselves through the low window of a shop, ducking behind the wall inside. They’re closer, further up the street, and both Brutes quickly pick them out, swinging their massive guns over towards the shop and quickly sending it crumbling to dust as it’s blasted by a thousands ravenous rounds of lead.

>   I’ve been ignored, hidden further down the street. I have a chance, and have to take it.

  With their attention away from me, I surge straight up the left side of the street, dashing with all the speed I can muster behind their backs and sliding to a stop behind another car. It’s so loud my presence continues to go unnoticed, the Brutes far too focused on dismantling the building in front of them and bringing it crumbling down upon my brother and friend.

  Heart blazing, I lift my pulse rifle to the nearest Brute, now only a dozen metres away, and search for some weak spot in his armour.

  I can’t see any, but wonder whether I’ll need one from this range. Without delay, I crank the dial on the weapon and power it up to its highest level. It begins to whir and hum, barely audible over the deafening sound of the four miniguns just ahead of me, the charge metre changing colour from red to blue and, finally, to green.

  Then, I feel a distinct click, and in one swift move, I thrust it to my shoulder, stand from behind the car, and send an eruption of frantic blue energy right at the nearest Brute’s head.

  The kickback is so strong I stumble off my feet, catching my heel on a block of rubble behind me. As I hit the floor, however, I feel a tremor that can’t possibly be a result of my 55kg weight.

  Scrambling back to my feet, I glance back over the car and see my foe on the ground, collapsed in a heap and headless.

  My eyes lift straight for his comrade, who must have felt the tremor too. He stops firing and turns.

  And then, seeing his decapitated friend, he roars.

  But it doesn’t last long.

  From the now largely destroyed shop behind him, two blue rounds gallop at him together, hit him in sync, and burn right through his gigantic chest.

  His roar ends, his eyes burst open in pain, and he joins his brother in the dust.

  Zander and Kira clamber out of the broken down building, brushing dust and soot from their eyes. They both look at me with eyes that say ‘good job.’

  Then, we all quickly turn to look down the street, where the other City Guards appear, peering from behind their cover. None shoot. They just stare in shock, awe, and a whole load of fear.

  For a moment, no one seems to do anything. And then, suddenly, as if all coming to the same conclusion together, they turn back down the side streets and begin racing away as fast as their shaking legs will carry them.

  I turn to my brother and Kira, who glance at each other.

  “You wanna take this or should I?” Zander says calmly to her.

  She smiles and shrugs.

  “Be my guest.”

  He turns, his body powering up, and quickly disappears, leaving a swishing trail of smoke in his wake. Moments later, blue lights shine, and screams ring out.

  And Kira looks at me and says flippantly: “I think we should call that a day.”

  24

  As we await the return of Zander, I peruse the carnage on the streets with the sort of dead-eyed, detached stare that even the most emotionally crippled of Savants might be proud of. If they could feel pride, that is.

  There’s a futility to it all, a hopelessness at seeing what we’ve been forced to do. And while these men and woman have seemingly pinned their flag to Cromwell’s mast, they’re still people manipulated by his system, and are people that I’d rather not have killed.

  But I did. I killed two, and did so in rather gruesome fashion that hardly helps me reconcile what I’m starting to become.

  In the last two days, I’ve brutally killed three men with a knife, burned a bunch of others alive, cut a woman in half with my pulse rifle, blown off another one’s head, and done just about everything else in between to the many, many Con-Cops to have suffered my sting.

  And only now, standing here with a moment to catch my breath, am I starting to wish that I hadn’t volunteered to come along in the first place.

  Still, those feelings are fading. Mostly, my growing emotional detachment to it all is something that concerns me for my own sake. I guess, in a way, that says it all – that it’s not the fact that I’m taking lives that worries me, but the fact that I’m beginning to grow used to it, and am changing so rapidly as a result.

  It’s really a selfish way of thinking. With all the lives I’ve snatched away, my main concern is seemingly the changes all of this mayhem is making to my own. Then again, people are inherently self-centred, so why the hell should I be any different?

  Kira, of course, has been here many times before. And as we wait for Zander, she sets about checking our fallen foes for intelligence and any possible loot – specifically weapons – that she might want to take for herself. She seems to have a penchant for knives, something that makes sense given her gifts. I suspect that she’s quite the marksman with a throwing knife in hand.

  I just stand there in the middle of the street, watching her and waiting for my brother. He’ll be back momentarily I’m sure – finishing off a few Hawks and Bats shouldn’t take long – and then we’ll, hopefully, call it a day and return to HQ.

  It is starting to get late now. The sky is beginning to turn blood red, quite appropriate really, infused with the sort of beautiful colours I’d once have thoroughly enjoyed.

  Of all the sorts of sunsets I saw when sitting on top of the factory in the eastern quarter, gazing upon the distant mountains, the red ones were the best. It just contrasted so wonderfully with the green trees in the distance, and the toxic mist that would glow around them.

  I stare for a while at the colours, before my attention is taken by Kira. I notice her out of the corner of my eye, for no other reason than the fact that she’s suddenly gone still.

  Very still.

  Like that of a statue, or of someone suddenly caught doing something they shouldn’t, their body fixing to stone and refusing to budge.

  I turn to her and see a frown above her eyes. She seems to be listening carefully, and sniffing the air too, as if she’s caught a strange scent.

  The sight causes a natural jump in my pulse rate. It’s always unnerving to see Kira like this, and I’ve quickly learned that it most likely means we have a new party of soldiers incoming.

  And here was me hoping that the day was over…

  In the silence, my voice cuts a clear path to her ears.

  “What’s wrong?” I whisper.

  Her eyes keep staring, at nothing in particular, just a blank space on the tarmac.

  “Something…” she whispers. “I smell something…I don’t recognise.”

  She turns suddenly, looking right up the street towards the north.

  My eyes follow, guided towards the sight of the setting sun, the sky bright red and orange and the streets below caught in their shadow. I squint through the colourful haze, and Kira shifts her position right next to me, behind a slab of broken building, swinging her rifle into place as I do the same.

  We watch, silent and unmoving, searching with our super-vision through the shade. My lips drip out another whisper.

  “What is it?”

  My heart is really hammering now, jabbing at my chest.

  “People…some people are coming.”

  “City Gaurds?” I ask.

  Her head shakes; a millimetre left, a millimetre right.

  “Something else…”

  My mind goes straight for ‘Stalkers’. Nothing else would cause a reaction like this.

  We lower ourselves gently to the ground, hunching behind the slab of stone. Down the street, a little way off, I hear the slightest sounds of Zander returning. My eyes glint in his direction, and I see him wandering from the distance, no longer seeing any need to use his powers to return to us quickly.

  I consider calling out, but there’s a better option.

  Get back here, now! I shout at him telepathically.

  Still watching him with one eye, I see him stop, hear me, and suddenly come running.

  And as he does, my other eye spots movement in the dark alley ahead. I turn back with my full attention and, from the
gloom, see the shape of bodies materialise, garbed in clothing I’ve never seen; capes and cloaks of red, ornate silver armour, helmets with wondrous patterns and embellishments.

  They have a variety of blades on them, swords and knives and other weapons I’ve never seen, some strange mix of the ancient and the new. And they carry shields too, light but large and protecting any weak spots in their armour, of which there appear to be few.

  I get only a brief look at them before Kira’s pulse rifle goes off. It spews out its blue flame on instinct, and my finger jams straight down on the trigger too. The light joins the red of the sunset and the black of the darkened alley, but hit nothing but the brickwork of the buildings behind.

  The four men approaching us move off at tremendous speed, two moving left and two moving right as they reach the end of the alley and spread out into the main street. Immediately, I search for any sight of them, my gaze swinging to the right as Kira looks left.

  I see little more than a swish of smoke and dust, before suddenly, from the side, a car comes hurtling right at me. I see it first, and push Kira away as I roll off in the other direction. The car comes smashing down right where we were, crumpling into the block of stone and turning to a heap of twisted metal.

  I hurry off to find more cover, scampering behind a small van, and see a series of bricks and bits of rubble rushing through the air towards me. Behind them, one of the men appears, his hands swirling, drawing up more random wreckage from the earth. All the chunks of stone and brick and bits of debris are hurled right at me, straight across the street, hailing down where I hide.

  A Mind-Mover. He must be a Mind-Mover…

  I’m forced to move again, further away from Kira. I see her being surrounded by the other three men, enclosing her as Zander comes pouring down the road to help.

  I’m distracted, my focus lost. Another barrage of bricks comes at me, and I’m unable to dodge them all. Displacing, I feel a heavy hit at the back of my head, the block knocking me forwards and off my feet.

  My eyes begin to blur, the wind pressed out of me as I hit the ground, stomach first. I blink hard and look at my foe, but he’s gone, dashing off to battle the others.