“Given how much money the Guild has made in the past from such suits,” Horatio replied. “Very much so. Such a suit could bankrupt the city.”
“Oh,” Renaldo said. “Okay. But… this predator might be carrying combat robots with it. You know, units they can deploy to stop our convoy and initiate a search?”
“There’s no point in stopping the convoy,” Rhea said. “They didn’t record our IDs at any time during the fight, so they won’t be able to prove any of us are hitching a ride. And we’ll reactivate our public profiles of course when we rejoin the team, so Aradne security can’t say we’re hiding our identities.” Well, she wouldn’t reactivate her own profile, since it was associated with the Warden, but she didn’t want to mention that lest she give Renaldo yet something else to latch onto in his litany of objections.
“You’re forgetting someone, though,” Renaldo said. “The Scorpion. There’s nothing to stop him from attacking…”
“We’ll deal with him if and when the time comes.” Rhea’s left hand instinctively caressed the X2-59 strapped to her opposite wrist.
Those words silenced Renaldo, or perhaps it was the act of touching her X2-59—maybe he thought she was personally threatening him. Oh well, as long as he remained quiet, it didn’t matter.
Guided by the LIDAR bursts Gizmo released at strategic intervals, they made their way through the dark toward the third fallback point. Chuck took point, as before, and hugged the northern walls of the buildings, staying within the ‘go’ zones. They deviated from those walls to swerve around debris and carcasses in their path, being careful to remain in the green. They had to pause at one point when a building terminated onto a street that was marked in red. They could have backtracked, but according to the overhead map, the swath of red was slowly being overtaken by green, and the way would open up again shortly.
So they waited, and after a half hour, the street became green, courtesy of the ever- changing positions of the spy satellites.
During the trek, Rhea routinely searched the wireframes of the surrounding buildings, looking for any aberrations on the thermal band. She saw nothing. If the Scorpion or any other enemy drones were out there, they were keeping themselves well hidden.
Gizmo was also actively scanning for thermal signatures in between LIDAR bursts, so that when Will called a halt, she suspected what he was going to report.
“Got a bogey,” Will said. “Sitting in the fourth-floor window of a building ahead.”
“Hunter killer?” Rhea asked.
“Looks like it,” Will replied. “According to the thermals.”
That answered the question about whether or not Aradne could afford thermal masking tech for its drones…
“Horatio and I got this,” Will continued. “Stay here.”
“No,” Rhea said. “I—”
He turned toward her. “Trust me. We got this.”
“Let them go,” Chuck said. “It’s better if we don’t risk everyone’s life.”
“You mean risk my life,” Rhea said. “The life of your precious ‘Warden.’”
Chuck didn’t answer her.
“We’ll be fine,” Will said. “Horatio, let’s go.”
And with that, the blue silhouettes of both continued forward, leaving the others behind.
She sighed. She should have never agreed to the silly title of “Warden.” She knew that eventually it would lead to situations like this, where others would risk their lives for her, based solely on her perceived value. She should’ve nipped the name in the bud when the citizens of Rust Town began using it. But instead she’d actively encouraged it and look at what it had gotten her. Her two best friends were risking their lives to take out a powerful sentinel drone.
Will and Horatio dropped from comm range, their blue icons freezing on the overhead map as they entered an alleyway in the green zone.
The tense minutes passed.
“We have to back them up,” she told Chuck. “Cover them.”
Chuck shook the blue silhouette of his head. “Let them work, Warden.”
She clenched her jaw and spun away.
The seconds turned into minutes, and Rhea’s worry only grew with each moment.
Finally, at the fifteen-minute mark, she couldn’t take it anymore. She was about to go looking for them when their blue dots updated on the overhead map. And then the blue outlines of Will and Horatio stepped in to view from the alleyway ahead.
“And that’s one less hunter killer to haunt these parts,” Will transmitted. She noticed his backpack had a much larger silhouette than before he’d left.
“You paused to salvage parts?” she said. “I was worried sick!”
“Of course we paused,” Will said. “I’m a salvager. I’m not going to leave behind perfectly good components. It’s just too bad that Horatio fried so many of them.”
“Hey, we both agreed we wanted to take it down in a single shot,” Horatio said. “And that’s what I did.”
“No, I did it,” Will said. “You just added unnecessary collateral damage.”
“You’re using the phrase incorrectly,” Horatio said. “Besides, my damage was necessary.”
“If you say so,” Will said.
“Can we go?” Rhea glanced at Chuck, who nodded and took the lead once more.
Gizmo reported no further thermal signatures along the route, and neither Rhea nor any of the others spotted anything on the infrared band. It was completely quiet out there, as far as they could tell.
The drone did report a street full of sleeping Tasins at one point, and the team was careful to take a roundabout route past them. They plotted a course that kept them within the green zone of course.
Finally, they reached the partially collapsed overpass that was their target. Perfectly shielded from the view of the spy satellites, the third and final SUV squatted underneath the intact corner portion of that concrete bridge.
They hadn’t come to ride the vehicle, or to use it as bait like the second one. No, they came here only because it served as a waypoint for the advance team.
They had three hours before said team was scheduled to pass through the ruins on the return trip to Rust Town.
They hunkered down underneath that overpass, hiding in the corner near the SUV, hidden
