Chapter 32 The Clockwork Advance
Chapter thirty-two
The Clockwork Advance
Borderlands between Verdancia and Appalachia, the next day
Despite focusing on the mission, finding and identifying the new threat, saving Azaleen and everyone she loved, Lark felt miserable. This damned dirt bike had no shocks, battering her butt like a spiteful principal’s paddle. What she wouldn’t give for a horse!
Luke had given her a ten-minute crash course, assuring her it was easy and fun—maybe for someone not recovering from a bullet to the rear.
While her chest wound was more serious, it was healing well and never caused any pain …
almost never. Now her entire body vibrated, and, even with the gloves, she struggled to keep hold of the shuddering handlebars.
They’d been tearing along at breakneck speed, on and off roads, since yesterday.
Add the pigeon crate bouncing against her back with every crack, bump, and dip on the path.
She decided someone with a cruel disposition could use it as a torture device.
When they lay down to sleep last night, Skye had laughed at Lark, who was too sore to move.
“We’re getting close,” Luke said when they stopped for a ten-minute rest break.
Lark kicked the stand and gingerly dismounted, lowering the pigeon crate. Her legs wobbled when she took a step.
“Here,” said Wes, who didn’t seem tortured at all by the two-wheeled motorized monster.
“Everyone, put these on under your helmet.” He passed out headsets with earpieces and built-in microphones.
“Don’t turn them on until we head out. They’re rechargeable, but I couldn’t bring a charging station without the jeep to carry it. ”
Lark took hers, removed her helmet, sweat clinging to her hair, and tried it on.
Light. Flimsy? She supposed Wes knew about all this tech stuff.
She stretched and waddled behind a bush to relieve herself, something Diego wasn’t shy about doing in the open.
The woods breathed out a green, living scent—ferns, moss, and sap warmed by the noontime sun that filtered between a canopy of needles and broadleaves.
“We’re going to spread out,” Luke instructed. Lark zipped her pants and rejoined the others parked on a decrepit excuse for a roadway. Roots burst through in ribbons while vines choked the ancient concrete.
“Keep an eye out for warg,” Harlan said as he strode back to the bikes. “I saw some fresh paw prints. They might prefer dark, but they’ll strike in daylight too.”
Lark nodded and drank deep from her canteen.
“And bears,” Diego added. “But none of those critters like the noise from the motorbikes, so we should be fine.”
“I’d rather wrestle a bear than spend another minute having my butt kicked by that—what is it?” She checked the label on her cracked, peeling, oxidized red-and-white, mostly gray, vehicle. “Yamaha.”
The guys laughed. Skye laid an arm over her shoulders. “You should’ve brought a pillow.”
Lark shot her a sardonic look. “This is the first time I’ve ridden one of those, and this has been a marathon.”
“Actually,” Wes said, “our journey leaves a marathon—a mere twenty-six miles—in the dust. We’ve driven nearly three hundred kilometers.
Sorry, kid,” he said, wincing at Lark. “The rest of us have done this plenty. Now, put me on an actual horse for that long, and I’d be bellyaching like you. ” He winked at her.
Lark’s face drew into a frown. She yanked up the pigeon crate and slung the straps over her shoulders. “I’m not bellyaching. I’m stating a fact.”
“Cut the plebe some slack,” Luke said in good humor.
“She’s gotta start somewhere. Now, Skye and Wes head due west for an hour, then turn north.
Diego and Lark, keep to the route we’re on.
It’ll take you west of the Chattanooga red zone.
Watch out for mutants. Harlan and I will jog east of Old Chatt and head up that way.
If they’re making for Stonevale, they have to come through one of these passes—unless they’re mountain-climbing robots.
Ever hear of mountain-climbing robots before? ”
Everyone laughed, shaking their heads. Lark hoisted her leg over the seat and cranked her engine.
“You and me, kid,” Diego said with a grin. “Wouldn’t have it any other way. Let’s go find some big, metal toy soldiers.” He tugged on his helmet, cranked his bike.
“Turn on your headsets!” Luke hollered, and they all took off.
Other than comfort, the problem with this mode of transportation was the distinctive, loud noise it made.
Anyone could hear them coming from kilometers away—especially high-tech machine warriors, Lark presumed.
Even the jeep was quieter. There was no point trying to engage in conversation with Diego over the buzz-saw whine of the motors.
They traveled along at a more relaxed pace, taking turns using the road and a parallel path through the forest. Sometimes Lark couldn’t see Diego through the trees, and she’d call to him over the headset. He was always still there.
They’d covered ground for about an hour when the forest spoke to Lark.
A flock of birds took off in a rolling flush from a ridge in the distance.
A doe crashed through the trees and bolted straight across the road, blowing hard, white tail flared.
A few seconds behind her dashed more deer in a coordinated retreat.
Wild turkeys burst from the brush, sprinting across the broken concrete, following the same path as the deer.
Lark pulled up. “Diego,” she called. “Stop. Turn off your engine.”
“Roger.” His dirt bike’s buzz sputtered off. Silence.
Ahead, the highway curved in the direction from which the wildlife fled. Now she could hear it—feel it. Micro-vibrations rippled through the earth beneath her. Loose gravel cascaded downhill. A low pulse throbbed in her ears. The air tasted faintly bitter.
“They’re coming,” she said into the headset.
“Close, probably around the bend ahead of us. Hide your bike and meet me up on that outcropping.” She pointed to a high, rocky bluff fifty meters to her right, behind a curtain of trees.
From there, they wouldn’t be trampled and would have a bird’s-eye view.
“Have you got something?” Luke’s voice sounded in her ear.
“I think so. No visual yet,” Lark replied as she raced for the crest.
“Let me know the minute you do,” ordered Luke.
Lark scrambled up the rocks, glad for an abundance of hand and foot holds.
If she were right, she needed to reach cover at the top before the tin army rounded the bend into sight.
Can they see? she wondered. They must have eyes or sensors or something, or they’d just run into stuff, walk off a cliff.
She stood atop the escarpment, scanning the road below. A stand of thick pines and firs partially blocked her view, but now she heard the stomp of many feet. Across the road, a tree swayed when those around it didn’t. She yanked her binoculars to her eyes. A bear cub climbing the tree.
Diego pulled himself over the top. “You sure know how to pick a spot,” he grumbled. “But I think you’re right. Something unnatural is out there.”
“We need to get a good look without being detected. Wes, are you on this thing?” she called into her headset.
“Yeah, I’m here,” he said. “Heading your way, but we’re about an hour out. Going to have to cut through terrain.”
“What do you know about robots?” Lark asked as nerves pricked her gut.
“Not much.”
“Lark, Diego, stay under cover,” Skye said. “We’re coming.”
“Me too,” said Luke. “It’ll take us longer, though.”
“Roger that,” Diego called into his headset. “Do you want us to follow them?”
“Have you seen them yet?” Luke asked, strain tightening his voice.
“Just coming into view,” Lark said. A rank ten abreast marched down the broken highway in perfect synchronicity. They gleamed white and silver in the sun, each a clone of the other.
“Mother of Ruin!” Diego’s response rang in Lark’s natural ear and through the headset.
“Shh! Get down.” Crouching low on her lookout rock, Lark lifted the binoculars to her eyes. In a whisper, she uttered, “They don’t have faces.”
“That doesn’t mean they can’t see,” Wes replied. “They’ll have cameras or sensors or both. What do their weapons look like?”
“Some weird kind of futuristic gun,” Diego replied, having regained his composure. “Nothing I’ve ever seen. And I think they’re equipped with solar panels.”
“Explains how they’re powered,” Wes said.
“How many?” Luke asked.
Lark tried to estimate. They kept coming and coming. A faint electrical tang carried on the wind as their steady, rhythmic march continued. “I don’t know. A lot.”
“What about trucks?” Skye asked. “Their human operators?”
Lark slowly rose to stand, easing behind a tree trunk. She scanned the column. They kept clicking by like wheels inside a pocket watch. “I don’t see any. Maybe they’re bringing up the rear.”
Suddenly, the entire army stopped. The first few rows shifted their weapons into firing position. The bear cub burst into a flaming ball of fur and fell from the tree with an agonizing cry. Lark’s heart beat faster.
“I think they have laser weapons,” Diego said in a stunned monotone. Lark glanced at him. He’d gone pale.
“Lasers?” Wes replied in disbelief.
“If they can build robots, they can construct lasers,” came Skye’s practical response. “They’re headed south, right? Along the road we were on when we split up?”
“Yeah,” Lark answered. They were marching again, leaving the charred cub and scorched tree behind.
“I can see the end of their files now.” Empathy for the small bear threatened to flood her heart, but she had to remain focused on the mission.
She couldn’t wait to direct her wrath toward the humans responsible.
Only … “Hey, Captain? There aren’t any.”
“Any what?”
“Any people.”
The slap of metal feet on concrete slowly dissipated as the ranks of robots marched farther away.
Their backs lacked individuality as much as their fronts.
Oval heads mounted on armored bodies carrying weapons beyond Lark’s understanding.
They might have the shape of a person, with arms and legs, but there was nothing human about them.
The pigeons cooed nervously from their crate on Lark’s back, as if they felt her tension and the threat below. “Shh,” she murmured. “It’s OK. They can’t get you.”
“What do we do now?” asked Diego.
“Follow them,” Luke instructed, “but from a safe distance.”
“Yeah,” said Lark. “The dirt bikes are loud, and we don’t know how well they hear.”
“At this rate, they could reach Stonevale by tomorrow,” Skye speculated. “Do they stop functioning when it gets dark?”
Wes answered, “They likely have battery-stored energy, but I can’t guess how long it would last.”
“OK, new plan,” said Luke.
Lark heard a muffled thud over her headset. “Are you OK? What happened?”
“Oh, just took a tree branch to the face,” he replied.
“Lark, you write the messages and send two pigeons immediately—one to Nelanta, the other to Stonevale. Estimate a number. Tell them the robots are coming, and this is not a joke. Then follow them. Got it? Word has to reach our leaders before the mechanical army does.”
“Yes, sir, I’m on it.” Lark lowered the crate from her shoulder and noticed her whole body quivering. Maybe it was from the motorbike, or the adrenaline, or the realization of heightened stakes. Steadying her hand, she pulled a notepad and pencil from her pocket and scrawled the messages.
“Fly true, little pigeons,” she bade them, lifting each one skyward from the cliff top. She watched them fly south and southwest until they were both out of sight.