Cluster Fucking
“If the first cluster of refugees is here,” Bishop said pointing to their make-shift battlefield of paperclips and thumb tacks. “Then I say we hit their army at the back, then the right side. Existing army moves to meet that threat, opens the line here and allows extraction team in from the south.”
“And you haul ass with six hundred refugees, where?” Nitro wondered, wide eyes angled at him.
“Not very far,” Spook said.
“Let’s see what’s near,” Quantum said, pulling his phone out and swiping several times before setting it on the table. “That’s the ring,” he pointed. “These buildings over here are the closest near them.”
“What are they?” Bishop asked.
Quantum expanded the map. “A school.”
“That can be our strongpoint,” Bullets said. “Refugees loaded behind it, our army defends it from the front.”
“Yes, once we get the refugees to it,” Bishop said.
“Those school buses?” Sinrik pointed.
“Yes,” Quantum said.
Sinrik said, “They can be transport.”
“How many can they hold,” Bishop wondered.
“Twenty-four seats, three humans per, with standing room,” Quantum said. “In an emergency like this—eighty.”
“I count five school buses,” Bishop said. “That takes care of four hundred.”
“What else is nearby,” Handy asked.
“That’s a U-Haul business,” Traps pointed.
“Moving trucks, hell yeah,” Hurricane said.
“We could haul fifty in each,” Quantum calculated. “Not sure how many trucks they have.”
“Is that a car lot?” Bishop asked, squeezing in.
“Looks like it,” Quantum said.
“We’ll need two extraction teams,” Bishop realized. “One for fire cover while we move them to the school, then another ready to load them up and haul ass with them.”
“We can use my jet to extract whoever remains,” Sinrik offered.
“I say we ride in on wheels and ride out on wheels,” Bishop said. “We’ll keep the jet options for any emergencies.”
“And we have two jets,” Quantum said. “The Creoles have two as well,”
“I have all the jets and transports you could want,” Sinrik said, annoyed. “I took control of every asset in the country, remember?”
“We all remember, Captain Catastrophe,” Traps muttered.
“And if we need them,” Bishop said, “you can be sure we’ll use them.”
“Well, good,” Sinrik muttered.
Bishop returned to the strategy. “So, you’ll use your cyborgs for the initial distraction at the north and west side of that ring. Then every able-bodied man will help escort them to the school.”
“How many men we got?” Seer asked.
“I count forty,” Quantum said. “Your men, Creoles, me and mine, your blood brothers.”
“Every one of my men represents at least twenty per Hatch,” Bishop said. “They each train and lead an average of twenty men.”
“Then we have more than enough,” Quantum said. “Nearly a couple hundred.”
“So your twenty-five cyborgs at the ring,” Bishop said. “Fifty men to lead the first extraction to the school and then a hauling team waiting?” Bishop asked, eyeing Quantum.
“Yes. The extraction team would follow them out, covering their six,” Quantum said.
“Does that create another transportation crisis?” Hurricane said.
“Not if we leave out the same way we rode in,” Nitro said.
“Need some worst case scenarios,” Lesion warned quietly.
“Like not a damn one of the vehicles working,” Spook agreed.
“Bruh!” Hurricane said at the very real possibility.
“We’ll send a quiet team asap and get all transports operative,” Bishop muttered.
Sinrik said, “Guessing you don’t want to use a fleet of my armored convoys to ensure the success of this mission.”
All eyes landed on him.
He spread his arms with wide eyes. “I’ve been saying it.”
“How fast can you get them here without it alerting our undead hostile friends?” Bishop asked.
“I can mobilize them from my jet—they’d be coming from Ever-Fallen Stronghold in Colorado.”
“That would take an average of twenty hours,” Quantum said.
“Fucking horseback would be faster,” Bullets muttered.
“And just as stupid,” Spar added.
“So we send that team to secure transportation,” Spook said, back to square one.
“A dozen men from my Hatch,” Bishop said.
“What kind of fire-power we going in with?” Bullets wondered.
“I have plenty of fun supplies,” Nitro offered.
“Like?” Bishop asked, sitting on the edge of the desk.
Nitro rattled off a dozen different genres of life-divorcing explosives.
“When it comes to this,” Bishop said, “the more the merrier, I say.”
“You got it.”
“Bullets?” Bishop asked.
“Hell, we can carry enough lead persuasion to hold a strategic conversation for a couple hours.”
“If Bishop loans us his architectural bio-weapons, we can customize a large-scale heart-stopper,” Fetch added to the pile with his perfect grin.
Bishop passed his gaze over his men, considering all usable assets.
“I want each of you to bring a team and the best of whatever the hell you’ve got. We don’t know what this army of meat-machines will be packing.
“It don’t matter what they’re made of,” Bacon said, eager. “Me and my butchers’ll debone, skin, and fillet-fooshay. Operation chop-chop-chop, oui?”
His excitement hit the room’s funny bone. “You can bake some of them biscuit grenades,” Hurricane said, making Bishop chuckle at those fond memories.
“God, please refrain,” Patches said. “I don’t have time to re-learn the entire fucking digestive system.”
The room erupted.
“I actually appreciate those biscuits,” Lesion said. “They spawned some of my best bowel remedies.”
“Hell, I used them for blade sharpening,” Shank tossed in.
Bacon nodded, calling all the laughing accolades to himself with hand waves.
“I used them to hold my crawfish traps down,” Hurricane said. “Worked better than stones,” he squealed.
“Target practice,” Bullets confessed with a raise of his hand.
They were in fucking stitches now.
“I hid ‘em,” Spook barely managed.
“We burned ‘em in the forge,” Bishop said between wheezing. “Best fucking fires ever.”
“I painted ‘em,” Traps peeped between howls. “They still line my garden bed.”
Seer doubled them over with, “I ate ‘em.”
A full minute later Sinrik reminded them about the refugee crisis.
“Chief Consequences is right,” 8-Bit said catching his breath. “Give him a biscuit.”
They lost it again.
“The fuck is wrong with all of you?” Sinrik marveled. “I ended the world because it needed ending.”
They were back to falling all over.
“I think it’s their version of therapeutic relief,” Fathom said fondly.
“From laughing to crying,” Fetch agreed.
“Fucking to fighting,” Fin said, echoing their newest prized philosophy.
“But why is Handy laughing like he lived it,” Quantum mused.
“Because he did,” Fathom said. “Bishop’s DNA is now a part of him.”
“So… how do we plan to ride two hundred men out of here?” Spook asked, pulling them back to it.
****
This was no Noctambule war.
But the scars from that war had changed all of them.
Made them quieter. Slower. Deadlier.
Bullets had never imagined the army that stood before him.
Thirteen Marsh Kings and their second in commands.
Twelve Creole Kings and their Verthurs. Bishop’s blood brothers.
Handy and Sinrik. Zodak. That one called Kaphas.
The dude Seer had touched and never recovered from—Kult.
And his brothers. Just like them, all from other mothers.
Pain. Harlow. Atlas. Synth. No, Sync. And the one that housed all their minds in his body.
Augustine. Religious like Seer. Just lost the woman he loved.
Standing there, ready to go to war. Nothing to lose. Nothing to gain.
Bullets could fathom it. Had lived it for years. Until Mia.
God help that dude find his Mia when it was time.
He looked around. All that was missing was Quantum King and the Triplets. And the twenty-five metal men he’d made.
Still couldn’t believe half of it was real. Mia was his miracle. All this shit going down? Beyond his scope of the divine. He was a spectator. A back seat rider. Stand where you tell me, do what you say, I’m there.
Bullets turned at Hurricane’s “Ho-lee-fuck.”
He looked and saw Bacon coming up the hill with a dozen of his men. Bullets grinned. “Now that’s something you never see.”
Bare-chested meat cleaving militia decked out in black rubber aprons with big-ass butcher blades strapped on.
“Hell, that’s fucking beautiful,” Jek muttered. “But I thought it was supposed to be just his second in command.”
“T-Biscuits has truly grown up,” August said, coming to stand with them.
Patches sucked on a joint and passed it to Lesion, quipping, “Terrifying,” around his hit.
“Hey.” Traps eyed Lesion. “You got some special juice for the normies since Boss is holding all the power for himself?”
Bishop stepped into their circle. “Don’t worry, mon frerr. Your time is coming sooner than you realize.” He regarded Bacon and crew. “Mon Dieu, what is he doing?”
Lesion passed Traps the joint and pulled several more from his pocket, handing them over.
Traps took them and turned to his crew. “Fire these up. Lesion specialty.”
There were no questions. Every man trusted the Alchemist with their lives, even after the Bat Bite.
“You ready?” Bullets asked, stepping next to Eveque.
“Fucking ready,” he sighed, looking at his watch then around. “Everybody here?”
“Just waiting on our AI crew,” Spook said, eyeing the bayou edge.
Bishop turned to Bacon and his meat machine, calling him over.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Bacon said, hands already animated.
“I was told to bring my second in command, but here’s the thing.
I don’t really have one of those. In the chop shop, there’s just me and my men, meat and bones, blood and blades.
” He stepped closer. “And… I may have told them they were really needed.”
Bullets chuckled and Bishop nodded, clapping him on the shoulder. “Well, it wouldn’t be a lie. And we got room, so, tell ‘em I said welcome aboard.”
Seer announced, “I believe that’s Quantum.”
Everybody turned.
They soon came up the hill. Quantum, the terrifying Triplets in black, and twenty-five humanoid machines following.
“Bruh,” Hurricane snickered at the sight. “Where the fuck’s their clothes?”