modern art.
And finally the Iroquois rose-up from their cover, screamed like an operatic banshee, and let loose.
It would have been a massacre. We had them boxed-in. Exposed on the bridge, unable to back-out at speed. We had machineguns and grenades and autocannons. We had a couple of rusty old mortars that found their range after two watery explosions (by which time Rick had already clambered, panting, ashore, so no damage there) and a crateful of anti-tank rockets which all the Haudenosaunee had been clamouring to play with.
Above all we had surprise and stealth, and well-camouflaged men and women using smoke and shadows and patience. We had so much lead and fire raining down on those pricks that they never realised how much knifework went on, how much scurrying and slicing was taking place in the noxious gaps between packed-in vehicles.
I know. I was there. I was doing it.
It would have been a massacre. It started out just dandy. The Iroquois vehicles came tearing back up, the bikes slipped onto the bridge to sow madness and death, AVs and lorry rigs popped like fiery bubbles with each shrieking mortar-round, and oh god yeah it felt good. Malice and me with pistols and knives, scrambling over bonnets and under tankers, slipping grenades through open windows whilst drivers shouted and raged at the back- up, then scuttled off to listen for the boom…
Great times.
And fine, the convoy just kept getting bigger and bigger. More and more lorries oozing from the haze, trying to back-up, trying to manoeuvre in the madness. Fine, there were a lot more of the bastards than we expected, a lot more guns and psychos slowly getting their act together and returning fire. Fine, it would have been messy. But we had them. We could've taken them.
And then my radio hissed, and everything changed.
Malice and I were holed-up behind the vast tyres of an earthmover, waiting for the wanker in the cab to stop blasting our end of the bridge with whatever fat-shell cannon he was manning for long enough to sneak up there and blow his brains out, when Slowbear's voice broke through the maelstrom; tinny and tense.
'…ou there? Oh shit… oh shit… This is Slowbear! Are you there?'
'Yeah, here. What is it?'
Something bit at the rubber tyre next to me and made the whole vehicle shudder. Malice winced.
'The lorry! The… shit… shit… kkkhh… the lorry on the south bridge!'
'We got it, right?'
'Yes! F-fuck, yes, it's not that, it's…'
'Slowbear?'
'…t's full of children! You hear me?'
Malice's eyes bulged.
'…orries are all full of fucking children!'
It would have been a massacre.
We turned and ran back to our lines without another word, and as we strafed through optimistic fire streams I caught a glimpse of Malice's eyes, and the liquid glistening inside them. She'd left her baby with the Matriarchs in safety but still… it didn't take a genius to figure out what she was thinking.
It'd been her that pressed the button, after all.
A weird noise filled my head. Like an engine, but airier; filtered through the fog and the gunfire, distorted by the screams and shouts all around. I wondered if I'd damaged my ear more badly than I'd thought, then shook my head and stopped worrying. What, exactly, could I do about it anyway? I spotted the incline facing the bridge where we'd left Nike and Moto, and together with Malice I scrambled up the bank, forgetting all about the noise, concentrating on staying alive.
…thrpthrpthrpthrpthrp…
Nike and Moto were hunkered-down with five Iroquois holding shoulder-launchers. Nate was there too, watching, staying apart and looking shifty. I ignored him and he ignored me, making a show of staring directly upwards into the turbulent QuickSmog. It seemed to be getting worse. Odd bursts of fire snapped at the tops of the ridge, off-target but getting closer, and before I could take the time to work out how someone was keeping track with us, at this distance, at this elevation, we threw ourselves down into safety. Rick was standing below the grenadiers; sopping water and trying to catch his breath, dishing out the tank busters.
'Aim for the lorries…' he was saying, unable to keep the twinkle of testosterone-choked-male out of his eye. He'd done his part. He'd lured the fuckers into the trap. No wonder he sounded older.
Nike was already lifting himself gingerly into a sitting position, head above the edge of the ridge, tube to his shoulder, when Malice gathered her breath and shouted:
'No! Stop! Don't fire!'
The older man swivelled his head to look at her, brows furrowing.
'But wh…'
The hesitation almost killed him. A round caromed dustily off the ground beside his face, within inches of splitting his head. He swore out loud and let gravity pull him back down into cover, the rest of us tugging him along in a knot of shouts and grunts. When we'd got him back down to the bottom of the ridge Moto flopped-down next to him and clutched at his arm, horrified.
'Fuck…' Nike said, eyes wide. 'Did you… fuck. Did you see that?'
And then his head really did split open.
Suddenly I was wearing him. Bits of blood and brain in my eyes, shards of bone stinging the exposed skin on my face. His body slumped and smoked, and next to it Moto's mouth went up and down like nothing made sense, like everything had gone dark.
How? My brain was screaming. How did someone…?
We're in fucking cover!
Out in the haze, the noise again. An angry dragonfly-throb, cut through with a motorised grind.
…thrpthrpthrpthrp…
Moto's face had gone perfectly slack.
He picked up the rocket launcher. Malice scrabbled against his arm, trying to pull him off, and he hit her – hard – on the cheek. His expression didn't change. She fell; he turned. Rose to the top of the bank. Aimed.
And then everything went white and black, and I realised with a giddy sort of uncertainty that either the rocket had misfired, or someone had shot the launcher, and now – look – I was flying, and my hair was on fire, and everything hurt.
I landed and lay and didn't move. Staring straight up, as fire and smoke and chaos thundered all around me. I wondered if anyone else was still alive.
…thrpthrpthrpthrpthrp…
The QuickSmog billowed. Surged. Boiled.
And finally I recognised the sound. Finally I figured out how the fuckers had shot Nike, I figured out how come they'd been taking potshots at me and Malice ever since we scrambled up here. How they'd blasted Moto's launcher before he could even squeeze the trigger, and blew us all to shit.
Why Nate was staring straight up.
There were lights above me. Rockets zipping down in all directions. Iroquois screaming, vehicles exploding. A sniper rifle krak-krak-kraking from on-high.
And as the pain in my ribs exploded behind my eyes, and I sucked hard to get anything resembling a breath, my last thought was:
Nobody told me the fuckers had helicopters…
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Rick could move his arms. Broadly speaking.
He'd never been in a 'copter before. Big novelty. The vibrations had woken him, he supposed. He'd always fancied going up in a chopper when he was a kid, but he'd never imagined it'd be like this. Lying in pain on a grille floor, feeling something sticky that was probably puke on his cheek, knowing full well there was a trio of Clergy-
