Cluster Fucking #2
“And hair,” Shank muttered at the bald heads with sparse patches.
“And skin!” Traps blasted quietly.
“Maybe he ran out of time,” Bishop mused.
“And material,” Sinrik pointed out.
“Didn’t have time to find clothes for them,” Quantum called as he came. “I’m counting it as a great distraction.”
“You made naked soldier barbies,” Bishop said, grinning at the battalion of metal, mostly covered in synthetic flesh.
“Just so they don’t malfunction,” one of the Creole Kings said.
Quantum turned and regarded the small army behind him. “I focused on the soldier, not the human facing finish. And they are neuro-linked to me. They share my sight, my targeting, my threat response.” He faced them again. “You’re looking at twenty-five reflexes with weaponized hands.”
So, that’s why they moved with his stealthy grace. It was fucking creepy.
“If you let me bite ‘em, they could be twenty-five rabid boy barbies with weaponized dicks.”
Quantum looked at Nitro. “You are a true disease,” he said. “I’ll add it to my list of marsh-king infected ideas.”
“Command ‘em to fuck ‘em up good,” Bart muttered quietly, getting Nitro’s lusty chuckled agreement.
“These are all the rides?” Quantum asked, looking at the fleet of pick-ups behind them.
“Yep,” Bishop said, glancing back. “You’re looking at nearly every operating pick-up truck from Breaux Bridge. Two are all yours.”
“Do they talk?” King Dalk asked.
“Only to me for now.”
Hurricane walked up to one, angling his head at the face. “Can they hear with their ears?” He snapped next to its head.
“Yes. They hear, see, taste, smell and feel.”
“But they don’t know English,” a skeptical Creole King said.
“They know every language, they just won’t speak to you.”
Bullets watched as Quantum faced the nappy headed army.
“Come,” Quantum said.
One from the back moved through the group and stopped before Quantum. “Neuro-link number twenty-two, ready for duty.”
Hurricane whipped a disturbed look to Quantum. “What the hell kind of language is that?”
Quantum said, “I refer to it as AI tongues.”
“More like highly refined gibberish,” Bishop said.
“That’s precisely what it is,” Quantum agreed.
“It doesn’t speak words,” 8-Bit said, “it forms sounds to mimic the language.”
“And it’s not a language,” Quantum clarified, “it’s just another method for speaking it. Like sign language only with sound.”
“Sound language,” Bullets muttered, liking it to the language of gunfire. Every bullet spoke death, but some spoke it louder, faster, and meaner than others.
“So they get numbers for names?” Lesion wondered.
“For now.”
“Wait, are these the ones getting wives?” Sinrik asked.
“We’ll see how they perform,” Quantum said. “They may not need them.”
“What can they do?” Bishop wondered, sizing one up.
Quantum regarded the rows of half-skinned machines. “Run sixty miles without slowing. Lift eight hundred pounds without strain. Crack bone with one hand. Tear sheet metal with two. Track heat, pulse, sweat, blood sugar, breath pattern, and fear response from fifty yards.”
Various flavors of holy shit flowed around.
“They don’t feel pain unless I tell them to. They don’t get tired unless I shut them down. They don’t miss unless I do.” He looked right at Bishop. “And if one learns a thing, all twenty-five know it.”
“Hot damn,” Bullets muttered.
“Well,” Bishop said, turning. “Everybody gather so we can go over every step of this mission. We don’t have room for mistakes,” he said. “So lock in.”
****
Bishop checked his mirrors as they made their way under the shadow of darkness toward the rendezvous at the school. His phone buzzed and he pulled it out. “Anvil,” Bishop answered. “What’s up?”
“Good news. Turns out you got eight buses, not five and they all fired up. Moving them into quick exit positions and filling all the gas tanks with enough fuel to make it back. They was bone dry.”
“Well done, brother. We’re enroute on I-49 near Carencro exit.”
“First Opelousas exit is blocked,” he muttered. “You’ll need to take the Crestwell Lane one, ole Baton Rouge. Route was quiet. Like a ghost town.”
“Got it. Call me if anything changes.”
“Oui,” he said. “Gotta go, Hammer’s signaling silence.”
The line clicked.
“Fuck,” Bishop muttered.
“What’s wrong?” Seer asked.
“Maybe trouble where they are.”
His phone buzzed a few minutes later. He handed it to Seer. “It’s a text.”
Seer looked and muttered, “Was a cat.”
Thank fuck. “Tell him stay alert, we’re nearly there. Then call the men and tell them to kill the lights. We’re three miles out.”
****
Their nine-truck convoy rolled up quietly at the back of the school where Anvil directed parking with only his flashlight.
One by one, the pickups eased into place, engines low.
Bishop eyed the long brick buildings, black against the predawn. He spotted a playground past the fence. Frozen. Like the world no longer cared that children existed.
Anvil appeared at his window and he rolled it down.
“Buses are staged,” he muttered quietly.
“I put eyes on the tops of the building to see what we could see.” His gaze took a wild edge.
“You can see ‘em. Just like the recon showed, surrounding the refugees. Bodies packed in like a human chain-link fence. But get this,” he said, breaths quicker. “They’re all sleeping. Standing up.” His head slowly shook.
“Something ain’t right with them.” He tapped his temple.
“Whatever’s wrong is something up here.”
No fucking doubt. “Any weapons?”
“None we could see.”
“You get eyes on the refugees?”
Big headshake. “Not a one.” He glanced toward the school then back. “Wall of them off-people’s too tight. Like they tryin’ to suffocate ‘em.”
Seer looked at him. “They may be.”
Bishop gave Anvil a nod. “Give the signal.”