I’m not— #4
I strode straight into Jagger’s broad chest. He caught me and backed me into our aluminum panel, silk-plaz, brick, and boulder HQ, out of the storm. Ignoring Evelyn, he handed me my riding helmet, which I took with a sheepish shrug.
“It’s going to get worse,” he said. “The storm,” he added when I looked back at Evelyn.
“I’m not sure how that’s even possible,” I said.
“Helmet.” He snugged it over my head and kissed the top of the helmet. “It’s cold out. The helmet will provide insulation.” He vanished again into the storm.
I discovered he was right—the helmet did help.
Tomika, the prez of the Sisters, and I were hauling gear toward the dilapidated buildings where her ladies and their cams were placed for cover, when the fist of the wind face-punched us and bowled us over, forcing us to retreat to the modest shelter of two boulders.
The air temp dropped in seconds to well below zero, and cut like blades.
After that, the blizzard only allowed equipment moving via my earthmover.
Cupcake suggested that I make an igloo-like wall around the cobbled together HQ, which turned out to be brilliant, and was fast work with the earth mover and ready building material to pack down. The ice wall cut the wind and allowed the heat to build a bit above the freezing mark inside.
Still, getting everything and everyone in position took forever.
I was frozen, my nanobots working overtime to keep me warm, but eventually, everything was in place and we had a decent shelter set up.
With the earth mover safely between its boulders again, I raced back to HQ while I could still distinguish it from the rest of the whiteout, put on dry clothes and snuggled into my sleeping bag for warmth.
Cats joined me—Pounce, Spy, and two others I was clearly going to have to name.
Our people were out of the wind, more or less.
That was all I could do. That should be enough.
We had food, shelter of sorts, fuel to stay warm by.
But it wasn’t enough for my nanobots. My nanos really didn’t want my people to be stuck in a blizzard with forty kilometer per hour wind, freezing our butts off.
And then still have to wait until the next day for action.
My nanos and I wanted my people safe.
Mostly, I wanted the roadhouse. I wanted to go home.
Unfortunately, that option had passed the moment the storm changed track.
Inside the sleeping bag, Spy began to knead my thigh. She was drawing blood. I figured I deserved it.
Interrupting my self-flagellation and pissy thoughts, Jolene said, “Helos incoming. Four by my count. Three are the big mothers. Prewar, early twenty-first century, Sikorsky CH-53s.”
My cantankerous attitude vanished. Spy stuck her head out of the warmth and snuggled up to my ear so she could hear through my comms.
“I’m having to pull my drones back due to the wind and ice,” Jolene said, “but current scanners show the Sikorskys have a payload of heavy lifting equipment, weapons, scanners out the wazoo, AI capability, and active coms to multiple locations. The fourth helo is a brand new Bell Huey, fresh off the assembly line. Scanners show it carries mostly humans, what might be camping and cold weather gear, and small caliber weapons. Company’s coming, Shining Sugah.
Break out the good China and the sweet tea. ”
“What multiple locations are the Sikorskys chatting with?” I asked.
“An interesting mix of military and Gov. sites,” Jolene said.
CAIT said, “DC, Virginia, Charlotte, and Nashville.”
Tomika slid in under the tent with me, and by her expression, Jolene and I were broadcasting in a wide band to everyone. She said, “It’s gonna be hell to film anything with natural light in this mess. And with FLAIR we won’t get faces. We need the Gov. and military faces to take them down.”
Jagger approached. I couldn’t see him through the blowing snow, but I could feel him nearing.
Over comms, I said, “Mateo, can you get close to the small pond and film the arrivals with the sister’s equipment?”
“Fuck that,” Tomika said. “I’ll get the gear. And I’ll climb into the warbot suit to film. It’ll be tight, but we can manage.”
I knew two people could fit his suit. Mateo had carried Evelyn home from Warhammer’s nest inside with him.
“Tight?” Mateo said. He laughed that gravelly laugh. “Your legs will be around my head, Sister. But yeah. It’s doable.”
“Won’t be the first time my legs been around a man’s head, spider man.”
Still with his metallic laugh, he said, “I’m thirty meters from your twenty. I’ll lift you in my exterior limbs and carry you to the buildings for the cams. You can get in here with me and I’ll move us and the gear to the containment pond.”
“Bring it on,” she said to Mateo. Tomika flashed me a big smile. “You are so much fun to ride with, girl.”
Without waiting for my reply, she grabbed a black arm that descended through the snow and pulled herself up. In one second, she was out of sight.
Around me, other people appeared and disappeared into the whiteout, finding places to either film or fight. Because the storm had just tossed all our OPLANs—operational plans—to the four winds.
* * *
Big-assed helos sounded on the wind, which meant they were close.
Throughout history, wartime had meant the invention of bigger, better, stronger, more stealthy, smaller, and more precise weapons and defenses.
The Sikorskys were modern weapons, muted to near silence with dynamic enviro-camo.
But they were still machines. By the faint sounds, they were fighting the gusts and the snow and probably had some rotor blade icing, despite tech upgrades.
The world was mostly desert now, and nothing was built to operational standards for blizzards.
The moment the helos touched down, they would likely be stuck here. Same as we were.
More of our OPLANs gone with the wind. We were winging it now.
I tapped comms. “Anything else headed our way?” I asked Jolene.
“Nada. Nothing, Sugah.”
“Copy that.”
Three helos landed and began powering down. They were loud enough to be heard over the wind, the change in pitch telling me what was happening.
Further away, something hit the ground. Hard enough to vibrate through the bedrock.
“Jolene?” I asked. “Did something crash?”
“The smaller Bell-Huey,” she said. “If I can get a drone in, I’ll check for survivors.”
There were no sounds from that direction. No explosions, no screams that could be heard over the howling wind. Moments later, Jolene said, “All dead. It’s a mess over there. And I’m taking my drones away. You’re on your own.”
“Copy that,” I said.
“Copy that,” others echoed.
I closed comms and opened the lead box with three of the anti-EntNu slivers.
I removed one and put it in a pocket. Now, neither side could reach base.
Neither side had comms of any kind. The crews and warriors on the helos were as cut off as we were.
The playing field had just shifted into our favor because we knew they were here. They didn’t know we were here.
I trusted Tomika to film everything she could at the smaller pond, and her sisters to film everything they could from the dilapidated buildings. But no one was filming the helos themselves or the people inside, not close enough to be useful when we released this to the world.
My nanos spiked.
Jagger dropped down beside me and I hadn’t seen him coming, but my nanos had known.
“Hey, Little Girl,” he said, that slow voice speaking about sex and sex and more sex. Except he wasn’t. “I can feel you plotting, you know.”
“Mmmm,” I said. “Lots to think about.”
He yanked off his snow crusted bike helmet.
Neither of us was wearing armor, because we hadn’t expected to be shooting anyone in a blizzard, and also because we hadn’t brought a charging station for armor batteries.
But we did have winter camo, provided by the old crone known as Mother Nature, in the form of sticky snow.
His eyes gleamed with amusement and speculation and maybe a bit of suspicion. “We just lost EntNu. You know anything about that?”
“What am I? A physicist?” I asked.
“Mmmm,” he said back at me, just as noncommittal. He grabbed my head with one hand and yanked me to him. His hand was frigid. His mouth on mine was hot. His tongue was— “What the fuck?” He backed away a good five millimeters. “You taste like chocolate.”
I pulled the last bite of the chocolate bar from my pocket, opened its torn wrapper, and waved it between us, in front of his mouth. “It’s yours for a promise.”
He eased back another millimeter, suspicion overtaking all the other emotions in his eyes. “What kind of promise?”
“You come back to the roadhouse when this is over and get in my bed, and . . .” I let my words trail away.
Through the snowfall, his eyes narrowed with agreement and more than a little lust. “I’m in full agreement so far. And?”
“You tell me everything about why you broke your promise to me and didn’t retire. And not just the part I know. Everything.”
He opened his mouth and he took a tiny bite. Closed his eyes in ecstasy as he chewed. “Deal,” he said through chocolate-covered, clenched teeth. “But somewhere in there we’re gonna have some mind-blowing sex.”
“Naturally. I’m not stupid.”
He swallowed and asked, “So what were you plotting over here in the snowfall?”
“I was figuring that I’d crouch-walk to the building where the Sisters are filming, borrow one of their two remaining cameras, and crouch walk to the helos for up-close shots of faces.”
“I’m in. We have two sets of IR oculars, so I’ll position two of the men to provide cover and distractions if needed.”
“No firing as part of the distractions.”
“How about a rock fall and a dead crow thrown at a cockpit transparency.”
“Now you’re using military lingo,” I said.
“Sounds sexier than windshield,” he said.
“Let’s do it.”
“Set your morphon for twenty minutes from now,” he said. “The men will be in place at that time. And for the close in work, you’ll have backup.”