So much for choosing two more people to rescue.
She noticed a woman huddling behind the ruins of the adjacent lean-to. The woman was staring at Rhea, but quickly looked away when their eyes met, tilting her upper body as she did so, revealing an infant strapped to her back. Rhea was amazed that the baby was staying so quiet, given what was happening. Perhaps the infant had already exhausted all of its tears.
The woman was a Robo, with two extra robotic appendages attached to her elbows; those extra arms would aid greatly in climbing, the powerful fingers enlarging any nooks and crannies she found in the metal, just as Rhea’s had done.
Rhea crawled over, reached into her pack, and offered the woman a weapon. The mother shook her head and said, very softly: “I don’t know how to use it.”
Rhea nodded. Even if the woman had been familiar with the energy rifle, firing it would have only brought the Hydras down upon her and the others.
Rhea stashed the rifle and instead asked: “You tried to climb?”
Tears welled in the mother’s eyes. “It was our only hope. But now…”
Rhea looked at the other grimy residents huddled nearby. Those who weren’t Robos wore gloves or had wrapped cloths around their hands to protect their fingers. They were ready to climb.
But they couldn’t.
Rhea turned her attention to the debris beside her and gazed past it at the bioweapons scavenging through the ruins, searching for survivors. They were driven as much by scent as sight and sound, and Rhea knew it wouldn’t take them long to ferret out those in hiding. Sure enough, every now and then a scream—cut short—indicated the Hydras had found another. Eventually they would make their way to Rhea, and the others hiding next to the wall.
She couldn’t help the anger that was building inside her as she watched those multiple, leonine heads bob up and down. The creatures were no longer beautiful in any way. And not just because their heads had become grotesque, the manes matted in the red blood of their victims. No, these Hydras were creatures of pure evil. Killing indiscriminately, not because they needed food, but because they were born to it.
“I’m going to draw them away,” Rhea told the woman with more confidence than she felt. “When I do, start climbing.”
She withdrew her pistol and rose to a crouch. She made her way carefully over the debris, heading toward the closest Hydra. The broken metal of a lean-to creaked beneath her, and she dove into the aisle formed between two walls when one of those heads turned to look at her. She crawled forward hastily, emerging at the far side of the aisle, and stood up, turning toward the Hydra. She stood directly behind it. That tail waved to and fro, the stinging tentacles sweeping the air menacingly each time. She aimed just underneath the tail, targeting a dark, sphincter-like region that could only be the anus.
She fired.
The creature leaped up with a howl. Well, that was the best reaction she’d seen yet to an energy bolt impact, though it only seemed to anger the beast: all five heads turned around as one and darted directly toward her.
She bounded forward, ducking underneath the tail. As she passed, she fired again at the anus, causing another screech. She dodged a kick from one of those legs and rolled underneath the underbelly, landing on a crushed cargo container that was once someone’s home.
That underbelly came crashing down in an attempt to trample her, but she rolled to the side, sliding over the debris, and narrowly darted out from underneath. She clambered to her feet, only to have to dodge again as those stinging tentacles sliced toward her.
A tendril struck her ankle, ripping away a portion of the exterior shell. She got lucky: it hadn’t hit the servo within.
She scrambled across the ruins of Rust Town, leaping between and over broken cargo containers and collapsed lean-tos.
The commotion attracted the attention of other nearby Hydras, and as she darted away, they too joined in the hunt, drawn from the wall. Others beyond them were also turning away from their rummaging, eager to get in on the action.
Good. Let them all chase me.
She only hoped the woman, and those with her, would use the opportunity to climb.
The creatures bashed aside or crushed any debris in their path, and rapidly bore down upon Rhea.
A Hydra closed. One of its heads plunged toward her—
She leaped up, somersaulting as she did so, and landed on top of the head. She fired into the flesh as she raced down the neck toward the main body, though the impacts caused only soot marks. Other heads on the same creature lunged toward her, trying to rip her away, but she ducked, and leaped, and dodged.
She reached the creature’s main body.
Two more Hydras rushed in from the left and right, headed directly for the bioweapon beneath her. She leaped over their incoming heads—two on the left, three on the right—and while she was still in the air, the two Hydras smashed into the body of the first.
She landed on one of the newcomer’s heads and raced toward its body as it collapsed, stunned by the impact. More bioweapons tried to tackle her, and she avoided them, too, leaving behind a growing pile of Hydra bodies behind her.
By the time she had cleared the lot of them, twenty Hydras lay scattered behind her, many of them stacked one atop the other.
More bioweapons were coming in from all sides, but she had at least a few seconds before the closest arrived.
She risked at a glance at the wall. All of the bioweapons had been drawn away, and a few of the braver residents had begun climbing once more.
At least I’m not doing this for nothing.
She spotted a group of men and women hiding behind a series of dented cargo containers not far from her. There were maybe twenty of them, all spread out. Burly sorts, armed
