The white sphere of an exploded airbag filled the driver’s side window, and the woman at the wheel hit the airbag again and again to get it to deflate. Soo-hyun smiled and pushed the dog closer, skirting around to the other side of the car, climbing on a parked minivan for a better vantage.
The driver exited the vehicle and drew a pistol. Soo-hyun’s hands twitched at the controls, but they paused when the rear door opened. It was JD.
The noise of the crowd and the sound coming from the dog’s audio sensors faded as Soo-hyun stared. They dropped the controller into their lap.
“What is it, Soo-hyun?” Kali asked.
They hadn’t realized she was watching.
The controller clattered to the ground as Soo-hyun stood. They wandered away from the battle chair with Kali trailing, and went outside. They stood beneath the awning, hearing the hiss and splash from all around. They inhaled and smelled the sweet rot of garbage or sewer runoff somewhere in the rising waters.
“Soo-hyun,” Kali said.
“You never said we were chasing JD. I could have fucking killed him.”
Kali was silent for a moment. “I didn’t tell you because I thought you knew. This is more important than your brother, Soo-hyun. He has betrayed us. I won’t kill him, but I refuse to let him stand in the way of my plans.”
“I’m done,” Soo-hyun said.
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I’m done.”
“I’ll give you time to think about this, but for now I have to go back inside. Why don’t you go to my building and wait?”
Soo-hyun shook their head, but they walked out into the rain and the rising waters, ignoring the cold clinging filth that stuck to their legs.
Enda swore and bashed the airbag with her fist, forcing it down. Her ears rang and her head throbbed. She checked the mirrors and saw more dogs approaching—the navy blue shapes slowing now that the WRX had stopped.
They were caught in an intersection, floodwaters turning it into an impromptu car park. Enda saw the other vehicles around them in the brief moments of clarity provided by the windscreen wipers. The water was deeper here, car wheels mostly obscured by the rising murk. The left side of the car was mangled, the bonnet buckled and raised.
Enda tried the ignition, but it only clicked. “Fuck.” She turned to the others in the back: “You okay?”
Dax nodded, and turned to check on Troy, who rubbed his neck with his hand but said, “I’m alright.”
Enda took her gun from its holster, and pulled her coat’s hood up over her head. She zipped it right up so the collar covered her mouth and nose. “Stay here,” she told Dax and Troy, her voice muffled by fabric.
Enda strained to push her door open. Water flowed in through the gap and collected beneath the seat and pedals. She stepped out, felt the grimy water soak into her boots and trousers, reaching almost to her knee. Steady shush of rain still falling, the pool of water across the intersection splashing hissing dancing like dead channel static on an analogue TV.
A whine pierced the curtain of rain—the uniform whir of drone legs. Enda aimed at the noise, coming from somewhere beyond the wall of cars that surrounded her. People screamed at the sight of the gun, the sound odd, contained inside their vehicles.
A dog leaped onto the roof of a minivan—more screaming, and the distinct cries of terrified children. The dog stalled atop the van, frozen like overtaxed software. Enda fired, struck the dog’s exposed chest—plink of ricochet, armor plating too thick for the 9mm rounds to penetrate.
The dog spasmed with the jolt of faux life returning. The machine crouched and jumped, limbs outstretched as it tried to strike her. Enda dodged aside and the dog slammed into the side of the WRX, the door panel indented in the shape of the dog’s blocky head.
Enda fired four rounds point-blank at the band of visual sensors across the front of its skull. The dog fell aside and disappeared into the water, leaving behind the acrid smell of cordite and burnt electronics.
Enda turned and saw Dax still sitting in the car, door open, one foot dangling into the dark water.
“Get these people out of their cars,” Enda said.
Dax blinked and turned to look at her. “What? Yeah, okay.”
Dax grabbed Troy’s arm and pulled him out of the car, both stepping high through the water to ferry the family out of the stranded minivan.
Another whine of leg actuators to her right. Enda spun, ducked below the dog as it leaped through the air. It landed with a splash. Enda fired again and again, aiming for the joints in its neck. She struck something important and the head hung forward, muzzle submerged as the dog tried to navigate with its sensors dangling at ninety degrees.
The angle of the dog’s head exposed the thick bands of cable that slotted into the rear of its skull. Enda shot three rounds into the weak point and the dog slumped, dead, only the armored ridge of its torso jutting from the water.
Enda’s ears rang with tinnitus. Her P320 was breached—out of ammo. She let the empty clip drop from the gun and into the floodwaters, took the last spare from her holster, and loaded it into the gun.
Dark lumbering shapes caught Enda’s eye—two more dogs, moving in concert. They leaped onto the roofs of stranded cars, the vehicles sinking an inch further into the water under the weight of all that armor plating.
The dogs separated, one moving to the left, leaping across the roofs of cars, the other dropping to the road and moving right through the water. Enda aimed at one, then the other, waiting for a shot, but seeing only their armored torsos and the frightened faces still trapped inside the vehicles. Water seeped between her skin and the pistol, and she tightened her grip.
Both dogs turned to face her. Screech of metal
