And so she took the first available byway. She ran south a block, then swerved east once more when an intersection presented itself.
The Hydras passed by to the north, their multiple heads bobbing up and down beyond the rooftops of the cargo containers and lean-tos that separated them from her.
She continued running as fast as she was able and headed toward the walls of Aradne. She could see the gates at the base. Closed.
Not surprising.
“We have to get to Aradne!” Wart Nose said.
She nodded. “I’m trying.”
“The gates are closed!” the other man said.
“I know,” Rhea told him. “We’re going to have to climb the wall.”
“I’m not very good at climbing!” Wart Nose said.
“Neither am I,” the other man added.
“We’ll figure something out,” she said.
She reached the gates at the base. Other citizens were already there, banging on the sealed doors, begging to be let inside. She proceeded past them, into the small aisle formed by the closest lean-tos and the wall and halted when she could advance no more—the way was blocked by the remaining lean-tos, which directly abutted against the metal wall.
She lowered the two men to the ground.
To the north, she could see Hydras ripping through the surrounding homes, now that they’d reached Aradne’s wall. They didn’t touch the wall itself, she noted. Probably hadn’t even tried.
“Grab onto my pack,” she said, beckoning toward the straps.
“I don’t think I can hang on,” Wart Nose said. He pinched his pencil thin biceps. “I’m a bit weak. Too many years spent gaming online. Best to abandon us here and save yourself.”
“Then get inside it,” she told him, shucking off the backpack. “Both of you.”
The two men exchanged bewildered glances. Then Wart Nose shrugged and stepped in while she held open the lip.
“Not sure I’m going to like this,” the second man said, but he, too, obeyed.
The backpack was big enough to fit both of them all the way to the hips. Rhea secured them in place with the drawstring at the lip, and closed the top of the pack, squeezing the canopy between them and buckling it to the clasp on the other side.
“Hang on.” She slid her shoulders beneath the straps and stood. Their weight forced her backward a pace before she could compensate, and she banged someone’s head on the lean-to.
“Ugh!” Wart Nose said. “Wrong way!”
“Sorry,” Rhea told him.
She went to the wall and glanced one last time at the sealed gates to her left, and the crowd gathered before them. She scanned for children or infants among them, looking for someone else who would fit inside the pack without seriously impacting the weight, but saw only adults.
She took a deep breath, then reached up. The wall’s surface was coated in long strips of metal, some of which had partially peeled away. She felt along the top of a mildly flaking area and found a fingerhold. She pressed her fingertips in, hard, enlarging the crevice, and pulled herself up.
She continued that way, using the indentations in the metal strips for handholds and footholds, enlarging them as necessary, and proceeded upward.
“Look!” someone said. “She’s climbing!”
She glanced down after a moment, and saw other citizens following her lead, climbing the wall. She hoped they knew what they were doing.
When she was about fifteen meters high, she picked a hold on a strip that was peeling away too much, and it ripped off entirely when she applied her weight. She nearly fell.
She repositioned her hand and swore to be more careful with choosing holds going forward.
The turrets that lined the walls of Aradne finally began to open fire, and Hunter Killer drones also appeared overhead. The rulers had to at least pretend they were trying to protect Rust Town and its residents.
Those big energy bolts struck the closest Hydras, but the impacts only darkened their scales, and did nothing to bring down the Hydras: the creatures absorbed the attacks just as easily as they did the bolts from the smaller weapons.
She glanced at the streets farther back, closer to the edges of Rust Town, and from her vantage she was able to see the rapid inroads the bioweapons were making. They kept mostly to the streets but weren’t averse to tearing apart any cargo containers and lean-tos in their paths, devouring and trampling people at will. The rulers of Aradne must have been very proud of themselves. Rust Town, and everyone who lived in it, would very soon be no more.
The bioweapons continued to flow into the settlement from the ruins beyond. They were shrouded in dust until entering Rust Town, at which point the cloud dissipated, probably because the penetrating Hydras dispersed so far apart. Those that entered the city had shimmering halos surrounding their bodies that lasted several seconds before fading entirely; Rhea supposed those were the last remnants of whatever field was generating the cloud.
Rhea looked away and forced herself to continue climbing. Her arm and leg servos hummed, struggling against the combined weight of the two men; the load on those motors was translated into pain by her mind-machine interface, which she felt as a dull ache in her “joints.” It was her interface’s way of reminding her that she was straining herself, and that she better not keep this up for too long, unless she wanted one—or all—of those servos to fail.
She recorded the path she took, highlighting the handholds and footholds on her HUD, so that when the time came to descend, she would have a route already marked out.
Some of the handholds were sharp, and her fingers got scratched occasionally, but otherwise held up well against the metal.
She soon passed beyond the reach of the bioweapons—it would take a mighty leap on their part to rip her from the wall at this point. Then again, maybe they didn’t have to leap, necessarily: they could probably scale it just as readily as
