Not So Simple ~Part 8
Part 8: I think I'm in love.
It took us four days to reach the campus. Probably mostly my fault, my stupid leg had to heal. And we took a roundabout way through the city. Once, we found a group of humans, stragglers it looked like. They'd set up a nice little fortified camp. Had a watch posted and everything. They were all dead in a matter of minutes. Not a single shot fired. That was all Kerros and Kippy. I'd decided to hang back. I needed to get used to the new scope and finish tweaking it to be perfect.
We waited around in a building down the road until nightfall. The plan was, for all intents and purposes, sneak in, then run around guns blazing. Yea, some plan. I had to snipe the guards, which would be fun I had to admit, but would likely make everyone else in the compound roll out. And we were dealing with military here. It's not like we hadn't killed enough soldiers during the war, but it was still the fact these weren't the same humans we'd gotten used to killing, wandering had probably messed with our ability to deal with a running gun battle, and Kippy and I still weren't perfect. Close enough, but my right arm was still kinda weak. We were probably gonna die. However, I intended to take as many of everything in there with me if I was.
I'd been watching the humans for most of the day, getting their pattern memorized. Having a 12x magnification scope helped more. It wasn't the best, I'd heard of stronger distance scopes, but this one was perfect for me. Kerros tapped me on the shoulder and left. He'd signal me with his light when it was time to open up. Kippy sat next to me, nervously checking his shotgun. Between both of ours, we'd managed to splice together a working gun. He also had acquired a Berretta handgun. At least he had one gun that he knew would work.
I saw the two quick flashes of light. Show time.
"You ready for this?" I asked Kippy.
"No, but when would I ever be? I'll head out."
I nodded to him, and resighted the first of the patrols. The way I figured, I have to take out as many as I can, as fast as I can. Once the first shot goes off, they're gonna swarm. I was itching to pull the trigger, but I waited. It almost felt like the rifle itself was itching to fire. I wouldn't doubt it.
The humans turned and stood in a line, looked like they were talking. Perfect. I squeezed the trigger, the rifle barking out and pushing into my shoulder. I watched as both their heads exploded in a fountain of blood and gore. Two blocks down, on the 7th floor. Double headshot. At night. Without image enhancement. Not bad. I worked the bolt, relishing the satisfying click as the next round slid home. I moved up to the roof and watched one of the shadows. A sniper had sat there all day, and I knew he'd be looking for me. A slight twitch made his scope catch the moonlight for a brief moment. All I needed. The rifle spoke, the bolt laughed, and I was back to hunting.
I'd fired the last round in my clip when I saw Kippy and Kerros run forward. Time to move up. It was time to move anyway, five shots from one spot? That was almost suicide. Several short hops down stairs later, I was street side. There were still flashes outside the first building, so they hadn't gotten in yet. I kicked off and started sprinting as fast as I could, my leg burning with each step. Just because it was healed didn't mean it wasn't going to protest the movement. At the end of the first block I dropped to a knee and shot two humans. At the gate, I just ran on through. Kerros and Kippy were doing one hell of a job.
My knife stabbed through the throat of one shooter, his partner turning to look at me. I smiled at his look of fear, and stabbed him as well. Kippy jumped out from cover, and probably almost shot me standing there. I waved to him, sheathed my knife, and shot a human trying to fire from a window. I really wasn't suited to this kinda thing, especially not with a high powered, long range anti-material rifle. But what else was there to do. I wasn't about to trust these two to get the job done.
"Alright, we're inside the compound, and in a building. What now?" I asked.
"Shoot anything that moves?" Kippy suggested.
"Weapons stash. Find it. Gotta have explosives. Trigger them, blow this place up."
"Good plan, except we don't know where the creatures are, or if there even is explosives."
"Are you ever cheerful?" Kerros asked.
I fired down the hall, killing two humans who had just opened the doors at the end.
"Only when it suits me. We're in the wrong building. Best place to keep something like that would be the gym, or some other large space. Weapons? Probably close to that. Just keep me covered."
I ran back out into the court yard and sprinted across to slide into a pool of shadows at the next building. Kerros followed, and Kippy brought up the rear. Now might be a good time to mention I have no idea what to do. I just ran. I stopped next to another building and hugged the wall. Three troopers ran by, probably searching for us. If we were lucky, they might believe we were still in the first building.
"Fall back to the science wing!" the radio chattered as they ran past.
I moved around and found a doorway. The plague above it almost made me laugh. The science building, dedicated to some long dead human. Oh, the irony. Kerros entered first, and I followed. Let someone with a close range gun take point, I was just there for effect. Actually, I don't know why I was there. A sniper is not effective inside a building. We blocked the door behind us so we wouldn't have to worry too much about flanking, and headed up to the third floor. Clear top-down. Much more efficient than bottom-up. People can just come in below you. And then it's a two-front battle.
Third floor was clear, just empty rooms worn by weather. Second floor was the same. We heard the humans break the door in downstairs, though. Or maybe it wasn't the humans; it was far too quiet for them. We were almost back to the stairwell when I cursed. Two glowing pinpricks had emerged at the top. Fucking perfect. Kerros fired and back pedaled, trying to keep it at range. And cue the wail. I was really getting tired of my blood turning to ice. No matter how many times I heard it, or how many of these things I killed, the wail always froze my blood. Stupid fears.
The first of the creatures dropped from the combined focus of Kerros and Kippy. We backed into one of the rooms; I lay down on the ground and aimed at the stairwell. The windows were boarded over. Just our luck, eh? Probably the one room on the floor that was boarded. Three more creatures came up the stairwell and entered the corridor.
"Get the window clear, I can't hold them off forever," I said, squeezing the trigger. All three creatures had their chests explode and fell, dead. "Ok, maybe I can hold them off forever. Just hurry it up!"
As far as sieges go, it was pretty dull. The creatures only made two more attempts, and then disappeared. Killed ten of them, but that was nowhere near what I'd seen gathered in the park. And if they had nested in more than one building during the storm. . .
Bad thought, pushing aside. Window was free, and Kippy led the way. I followed and Kerros almost landed on top of me. Kinda figured that had been a trap. It was far too easy anyway. We ducked into cover as quickly as we could, though, since a few humans were waiting for us. It wasn't that hard, they were still stupid and squishy. There was, however, a lot of noise around us. The place was waking up. And not in a good way, as the wails indicated.
"You know, I really don't think this was thought out very well," I said as we started running.
"I gathered that. Got any better ideas?" Kerros answered.
"Yea. You see where there are lights? Go there. Ignore the fact that that's obviously where the creatures are coming from," I fired and killed a human while Kerros gunned down his partners.
I didn't like how quickly I was using my ammo. I slung the rifle across my back and picked up one of the assault rifles the humans were carrying. I figured there would be enough extra clips to last a while. We reached the building I had pointed out. It was only apparent when the door opened that the lights were on. And the door was propped open at the moment. One abomination, with the added decoration of a massive hole in its head. I really was coming to love this rifle. Of all the stupid things to be doing, I was at least glad I had it.
Inside, it was quiet. My guess was everyone was outside. Wouldn't surprise me, we were running around quite a bit so it was hard to get a fix on what we were doing, though you'd think that they'd fall back and defend one spot. They never seemed to be good at guarding one particular area. Though, we didn't seem particularly good at coming up with a working plan. This was just run n gun. I'd always left the strategic choices to those who cared for them; I just wanted to keep my heart beating.
We moved quickly, checking each of the rooms. I was generally left back to cover the other two, which worked for me. Most of the rooms were empty, a few held cages, and more held computer terminals. The cages were empty, and the terminals were quickly destroyed. About midway through the building, though, I had the sudden thought that this was turning out far too much like a cheesy sci-fi book.
They brought a nuke. A small one, but a nuke. Emergency purge? Offensive weapon? Shits and giggles? I didn't know. I didn't give a shit. That was how we'd finish this. Only one problem, it wasn't armed. And that's when Kippy showed some amazing ingenuity. Or maybe just dumb luck. The control console for the warhead had a keyhole. He pulled a key out from under his clothes, stuck it in, and turned. The armed light let up, a bright cheery green for something that could kill everyone here. He snapped the key off inside the slot and punched the timer. Fifteen minutes. Time to run.
"Where'd you get the key?" I asked as we left the room.
"Later, run now."
We exited the building, killing the few immediate humans, and then scattering. Might make us harder to track, keep them confused, or something like that. I just ran like I'd never run before. My sniper was back to being slung, the assault rifle barking out at anyone immediately in my path. A few bullets managed to puncture my wings, but that was the extent of the hits I took. I think I got rather lucky there, given that it seemed like a million rounds were chasing me.
The wall of the university rose before me. I kicked off from the ground, grabbed the top and hauled myself over. The landing hurt my leg, but I kept running, ignoring the pain and the fact it was threatening to give out on me. Big nuke, small nuke, didn't matter. I wanted as much distance between me and it as I could manage. Kerros appeared on my left, Kippy just behind him. We sprinted down the street, bullets chasing after us. Kippy screamed, grabbed his arm, but kept running. With his heart pounding, that would increase the blood loss, but might also make it clot faster since more blood was headed there. Either way, we'd have to tend to it as soon as we got the chance.
I turned and headed down the next street, then turned down an alley. I took any shortcut I could find, cutting through buildings where the first floor was stripped clean, zigzagging down the streets, anything to try and give me a better chance. The others just followed along. After what had to be nearly an hour, I figured the bomb had been disarmed.
It hadn't.
Despite distance, despite the size of it, despite the city, it was impressive. Fortunately, the size worked in our favour. We only got hit by a minor overpressure that carried us along a few feet and then decided it was going to be mean and not give free rides. The world looked bright as day for a few minutes, the light gradually fading away. I decided to just lay there on the ground. It was comfy, I was tired, sore and hurt. The others didn't protest. Good. I would have beaten them if they did.
"You know, we could have probably used the computers and stuff there to help," Kerros said a few minutes later, still panting.
"Help what? We're doing just find rebuilding on our own. Yea, it's not the greatest of jobs ever, but it's only been five years. We got this, and then we can make our own computers. Why don't we get ourselves established before we begin worrying about technology again? We're not dependant on it, remember? Never were. Plus one us," Kippy muttered, slowly getting to him feet.
Gotta admit, the tiger had a point. Humans always seemed to completely rely on technology and computers to do everything for them. Guess we got off lucky by being spared that dependence. I crawled to my feet and started walking.
"I'm tired, let's go home," I called behind me.
"That's all you gotta say? We just blew up the humans, again, and killed all of those creatures, and that's all you have to say?"
"There are other humans, and I bet those weren't the only ones messing with the abominations. As for them, you saw the Bank of America building. How many others might be like that? I just want to go back to the compound and curl up with my fox. Let someone else deal with planning everything out."
Despite the pain, despite the fact I had just gotten partially flash-fried, despite the knowledge that I was still going to have to fight all the time, I felt pretty good about myself. Well, and tired. And I did dearly miss my little fox. I tossed away the human's gun and cradled the Barrett. This had satisfied my restlessness and urge to explore. Yea, it had been way too easy, and I was pretty sure that was arranged, but maybe I was just paranoid. Easy was good.
Dear god, universe, writer, puppeteer, or whatever the fuck else is messing with my life, you did good. Somewhat. Could still be better. Whatever. Just get me home.
Home.
You know, I think that was the first time I ever considered it home. My home. Always told everyone else it was home, like Kippy when I met him, but I never considered it my home. Good feeling. I think I'll hold on to it for a while. I thought back to Talde and Myla. I thought back to the kid during the war. I thought back to the anthros I had stormed the suburb with, or ventured into the mountains with. I missed them. Kinda wished they were here now. Especially Myla. Where the fuck did she get off kissing me and dying? I demanded an explanation, though I knew I'd never get one. Guess it was just another of those really annoying jokes the universe decided to play on me.
It took three days. Long, uneventful days. We were greeted with disbelief. And questions. Always the questions. I let Kippy and Kerros handle those, mostly by carefully slipping away. Most anthros were too busy doing whatever needed to be doing to really care about our return, though I did get a few questions about the explosion. I just shrugged and moved on. I went to Myla's room first and looked around. She was an artist too, it seemed. Several drawings littered her desk, and, as I was shocked, flattered ad slightly disturbed, most involved me. Guess she was in love with me. Damn cats. Never could tell what they were planning.
I did feel the pangs of loss though, and I think in a way I liked her. Hell, she'd watched my back for years when we'd go out into the city. It had always been us, and then Kerros, and then Talde. The four of us just seemed to merge together somehow. And now, there were only two. I guess that was how life tended to happen. I took several of the drawings and headed up to my lonely room. I stripped of my armour and clothes, checked the wounds that still hadn't healed and curled up on my bed. Stupid emotions.
"So what happens now?" Kippy asked, startling me.
"Now? We survive. We thrive. We build our own world, and manage it a hell of a lot better than the humans. But, one step at a time. As for me, if that's what you mean, I'm going to sleep. Lots to think about and only one good way to do it. And then we'll go from there. Steps."
Kippy lingered in the doorway for a moment, then left. He was a curious one. Have to make sure he sticks around. I closed my eyes and fell asleep.