Chapter 50 #3
“We need to move fast, people,” Maul said. “Defensive positions, weapons free. We don’t know how many are going to come or what they’ll be packing, but we will not let them through these doors. Understood?”
Deep in Ronin’s programming, something stirred—a flicker across his circuits, a sense of familiarity, the impossible feeling that he’d been here and done this all before.
This wasn’t a scrap run in the Dust or a standoff with reavers. This was the purpose for which he’d been reprogrammed, for which his first life had been erased.
This was war.
“Yes, Sergeant!” the soldiers replied in unison.
Ronin looked at Mercy. “Which way to the stairs?”
Mercy pointed to the west of the entrance. “Some places are cluttered on the upper floors. Old equipment and furnishings, mostly.”
“Go back into the repair room. It should be deep enough inside to be safe from any gunfire.”
She nodded, lips dropping into a frown, and lightly touched Ronin’s shoulder. “Be careful. He won’t stop until you’re all deactivated, or he’s just a heap of spare parts.”
Ronin briefly watched her walk down the pristine hallway before returning his attention to Maul. Most of the soldiers had dispersed to more advantageous positions. A small group of them remained, moving the seats and desk to barricade the entrance.
The siren continued to blare.
Was Lara all right? The fact that he hadn’t heard gunshots from elsewhere in town should’ve comforted him, but he couldn’t shake off his worry.
Need to focus. That is how I can help her now.
“Where do you want me, Sergeant?” Ronin asked.
“A window on one of the upper floors. We’ll hold this room, but if you’re half as quick as you seem to be, I don’t think many of them will make it this far.”
“Here’s hoping.”
As Maul and another synth pushed a row of heavy tandem chairs into place, Ronin found the stairs. He took them three at a time, ascending to the fourth floor.
Dozer and two human soldiers, Jensen and Ramirez, were already in position.
The humans stood at two narrow windows, with Dozer at the large, circular window in between them.
Ronin ran his optics over the objects piled in the room—filing cabinets, chairs, old desks, and cardboard boxes that looked like they’d crumble at the slightest touch, all blanketed in a thick layer of dust. Leaning up against the boxes was a long, weatherworn sign, its words faded but legible.
The Price of Freedom is Visible Here.
It seemed fitting, but how high would that price be today?
He moved to the round window, pressing his shoulder to the wall opposite Dozer. The grounds below remained quiet. Grass and trees swayed in the wind, and dawn light crept in from the east. Beyond, the residences sat peacefully, indifferent to the conflict that would soon tear Cheyenne apart.
From this vantage, Ronin could see over the wall to the human slums, where the shadows remained deep. Though it was foolish, he clung to the hope that he’d spot Lara.
She’d only recently recovered from serious injuries, yet she was out there risking her life for all the people of Cheyenne, organic and mechanical, most of whom had never done anything for her.
“Still doing okay?” he asked Dozer.
“As long as we’re done by lunch time, I’ll be fine.”
“I’m sorry—”
“No. You’re the reason I don’t have more holes in my casing. I’d look like Swiss cheese otherwise.”
“Swiss cheese?” Ronin’s processors poured over decades of data. “I understand, though I don’t recall having ever seen it.”
“Yeah, same here. Weird, the stuff that lingers when everything else is wiped. Can’t remember if I had a name, or relationships…or anything else.”
A humorless chuckle escaped Ronin’s vocal modulator. “But we hold onto a cheese full of holes. It’s for the best, most likely. What good would it do for us to remember a dead world? Better to connect to the world we have and build it anew.”
“Old world must not have been too great anyway,” said Jensen, “else it wouldn’t have ended like it did.”
Ramirez laughed and shook his head. “I could imagine a few things better than living and dying in a concrete hole. Maybe one of those beaches, like in Anderson’s old vids.”
Jensen hummed. “They had some pretty tall buildings, too. Like, even taller than this one.”
“Everything was bigger back then,” Dozer said, staring out at the grounds.
A twitch crackled over Ronin’s cheek, but he ignored it. “Big enough to leave this mess when it all came down.”
The old world was gone, and this one was harsh and unforgiving, but it had Lara. Ronin didn’t need skyscrapers or beaches or automobiles or holey cheese; she was all he required, in this world or any other.
The chain of possibilities, of what might have been, spiraled into infinity, beyond the power of his processors to fully calculate. So many things could’ve gone differently, so many variables could’ve resulted in a world without his fiery Lara Brooks.
His optics detected movement on the road beyond the grounds.
Gearheads.
At least half a dozen approached from the east, and four more from the west, their forms visible through the trees at the edge of the lawn.
The two groups met and headed directly toward the clinic’s front entrance.
The trees disrupted Ronin’s line of sight, but the bots wouldn’t have cover when they crossed the large, circular driveway and the wide patch of grass at its center to reach the building.
Ronin adjusted his grip on his rifle. “Incoming.”
“Get ready, boys,” Dozer said flatly.
Ramirez released a shaky breath.
The gearheads, ten in total, emerged from the trees and hurried along the cracked pavement toward the patch of grass at the center of the driveway. Forty-five meters…forty-one…
They slowed, undoubtedly spotting their deactivated comrades and the barricaded front entrance.
“Now!” Dozer called.
She and Ronin shattered the window and leveled their weapons.
He selected a target—the blocky gearhead called Boulder—and opened fire.
More rifles went off to either side and on the lower levels.
Bullets rained on the gearheads, piercing their casings and ricocheting to cut grooves in the grass and dirt.
One gearhead went down immediately, its shaking limbs bending at unnatural angles.
The others, damaged but not incapacitated, returned fire. Bullets cracked into the face of the building, pulverizing the ancient bricks. Glass shattered, and the gunshots came so quickly that they were almost indistinguishable from one another. The gearheads retreated toward the trees.
Calculating Boulder’s projected movement, Ronin adjusted his aim and squeezed the trigger.
The rifle boomed, muzzle flashing, and the bullet tore through the center of the gearhead’s torso.
Blue fire sprayed from Boulder’s back and eyes before the bot crashed onto the pavement with smoke curling out of its casing.
A few of the remaining gearheads fired wildly at the fourth floor.
The sounds of cracking brick and splintering wood dominated Ronin’s audio receptors as bullets ripped through the wall and sprayed debris across the room.
Several rounds struck him. Most were stopped by his armor, but one partially penetrated the casing of his right thigh, and another pierced his casing just above his left hip.
Diagnostics reported mobility reductions due to the damage. He dismissed the alerts flashing across his interface; such damage could be addressed later.
Dozer released a frustrated growl and turned sharply away from the window, lifting a hand to her face. Her left optic had been damaged. Muttering another curse, she raised her rifle and fired a burst out the window.
Ronin returned to his position, shifting his weapon to his left hand to compensate for his inability to twist his hips more than a few degrees.
The gearheads scrambled beyond the tree line. Bullets chewed through the trunks, shredding wood, and kicked up clods of dirt and grass from the ground. The gearheads fired blindly from behind their cover. On the road, more figures approached.
They weren’t friendly reinforcements. It was too early for that, and help was probably too much to hope for, anyway. Warlord owned most of the guns in Cheyenne.
“Won’t be long before they try to flank us, if they haven’t already,” Ronin said.
Dozer’s gaze was grim and unwavering. “I haven’t used you as a bullet shield yet. Maybe that’ll be my chance.”
Below, at least twelve more gearheads joined their eight damaged comrades. With both sides of the conflict behind some sort of cover, a hail of bullets would only waste ammunition. Alpha Team’s supply wouldn’t last through a day-long firefight.
How many bullets had Warlord stockpiled?
“Fuck!” Ramirez’s voice called Ronin’s attention to him. Pale-faced, the soldier gritted his teeth and pressed a hand to his abdomen. Blood oozed from beneath it.
“That doesn’t look good,” Dozer said quietly. She fired three more shots in quick succession.
Ramirez leaned back against the wall and slid down onto the floor, leaving a streak of blood behind him.
Ronin and Jensen rushed to the wounded soldier, kneeling on either side of him.
“Shit, Ramirez…shit! Okay. We got McGowan downstairs, he can patch you up until we get you to the Doc.” Jensen scrambled to his feet. “I’ll get him, and you’ll be okay. Just—”
Ronin grabbed Jensen’s sleeve, halting him.
“What, man? We gotta get help for him!”
Leaning forward, Ronin met Ramirez’s gaze. The youth’s breathing was shallow. Sweat rolled down his face from beneath his helmet. “Breathe.”
“Fuck, it hurts,” Ramirez said through his teeth.
“Just focus on me and breathe. You can’t stay here, Ramirez.”
Ramirez squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “No, no. I can’t walk. Hurts too much.”
“I know, but if we don’t move, the next bullet that comes through that wall might kill you.”
Jensen rubbed a hand over his face, smearing dirt across his cheek. “We shouldn’t move him.”