“Get down!” Beth commanded, pushing the programmer towards the ground as she dove under their table. The chess pieces toppled all around them, clattering as they fell to the pavement.
Dr. Silvar seemed incapable of moving his own muscles, but Beth’s guiding hand still led him down to the ground. His body trembled as the sounds of slaughter and mayhem carried on around them.
“What do we do?” the programmer cried. “What do we do?”
“We get out of here,” Beth replied. “Come on.”
She managed to pick him up and drag him towards one of the short brick walls that lined the courtyard. At one point, it had probably been someone’s yard — but today, it was a slaughterhouse. Together, they took cover behind the structures while folks stampeded around them.
Beth didn’t even wait the length of an eye blink to draw her gun. She dropped the safety and made sure there was a magazine in place. Dr. Silvar’s eyes were wide when he saw the weapon.
“Don’t!” he urged. “You’ll hit someone!”
“Shh,” she hissed.
With one fluid motion, she popped up on the inhale of her breath. The air stilled in her lungs as she spotted the two bodyshells, now running their blades through people who hadn’t managed to scramble out of the table area in time. On the exhale, she lined up the sight of her gun with the head of one shell. She squeezed the trigger three times. Two of the rounds connected, turning the machine’s head into a shower of metal debris. Before taking her next breath — before the other bodyshell could even process what was happening — she shifted her aim and put three rounds into its artificial face as well.
Dropping back down behind cover, Beth started to pop the magazine out of her gun and push more bullets into it. Dr. Silvar quivered beside her, his hands up around his head. The gunshots shattered whatever remained of his nerves.
“Jesus Christ!” he swore.
“They’re down,” the detective said, sliding the magazine back into her firearm. “But more will come. We need to leave.”
“Where will we go?” Dr. Silvar asked.
“I don’t know,” Beth said. “Come on.”
As she stood up, dragging Dr. Silvar up with her by his collar, she reached into her cerebral computer.
Good work on the targeting, she thought. I was able to pop them before they even knew what happened.
“A bit of an advantage can go a long way,” Simon replied. “Though it won’t be as easy if meat puppets show up. I can’t help highlight any organic targets.”
That’s okay, Beth said in her head. Hopefully, we don’t have to kill any more. I just need your help getting us out of here in one piece.
“Roger that,” Simon said. “I’ll do my best to detect any nearby I.I.s. Just follow my directions and we can navigate out of Fort Leddy.”
Beth pushed on, still gripping onto Dr. Silvar. She took one of the exits out the courtyard that led to the local market square. It was bound to be even more densely populated, probably by panicked hordes of refugees, but at least it was away from the camp’s entrance. She wasn’t sure, but she had a gut feeling they were spilling in through the front gate.
“Hang on,” Simon told her.
She stopped.
What is it?
“Why are we stopping?” Dr. Silvar asked. His wits were slowly returning to him.
“Six I.I.s up ahead,” Simon said. “Looks like more bodyshells. Take a left here.”
She did as he directed.
They weaved into an alley too tight to make it through without walking sideways. Beth had no way of knowing where it led out to or if it even led out anywhere. She just trusted that Simon knew what he was doing and acted on faith.
His advice was good; they exited the alley into the main street where a few people were still running to the camp’s exits. They heard a number of gunshots. It sounded like they came from an automatic rifle.
I wonder if that’s a friendly or not, Beth thought.
Instinct carried her along the current of fleeing refugees. Dr. Silvar managed to keep pace with her, no longer needing to be led around by the collar. His face was cold and stony.
“Wait!” Simon cried.
Beth stopped, but it wasn’t soon enough. A burst of gunfire erupted from in front of them. Beth’s reflexes brought her down on top of Dr. Silvar. The mud of the street splattered on her front.
Looking up, she saw a woman in her thirties with a submachine gun raised to her eyes. With short bursts, she opened fire on the people running around her. The bullets ripped through a few refugees and they fell to the street, dead.
“It’s a meat puppet,” Simon explained. “I couldn’t detect her until she was right upon us.”
The female meat puppet hadn’t taken notice of Beth and Dr. Silvar, but Beth knew they were the target. The programmer she shielded with her own body, who was trying to breathe through the muck of the road, was the cause for this attack. He had to be. Tarov was getting desperate.
Beth, still lying on her stomach over the old programmer, lifted her own gun and fired twice. One bullet went right through the meat puppet’s neck. The I.I.-possessed woman turned and locked wide eyes with Beth before falling face down into the mud.
The detective sighed a breath of relief before crawling off the man beneath her. She stumbled a couple times as she tried to regain her footing, then turned to look at Dr. Silvar.
He remained lay face down in the street. His form trembled and she could hear a bit of whimpering coming from him. Her heart sunk for a moment.
Was he hit? she wondered.
Crouching, she spun Dr. Silvar so he was face up.
Aside from a thick layer of muck and the nervous trembling of a child, the man was unharmed.
“Get up,” she urged him. “We have to keep moving.”
“I can’t,” he whimpered.
