18

Oliver Bowen

May 27, 2030. Washington, D.C.

Oliver couldn’t help thinking of Five. What was going through his mind, as he waited to follow the battles through the minds of his enemies? Was he nervous? Afraid?

“Mr. President?” Oteri gestured toward the wall of video feeds being transmitted from cities around the world. “The Luyten are attacking. Mumbai, London, Rio, Seoul.”

The president, who had been huddled in a corner, discussing something with his brother, hurried over.

In London, they were all over the streets, already past the defense perimeter. Oliver watched as a half dozen barreled through Trafalgar Square. It was raining, so their lightning bolts were electrocuting fleeing civilians in wide arcs around the points of impact. Bodies lay everywhere, the ruined soles of their feet smoldering. Crisscrossing blue blades sizzled along the puddled ground.

“How did they get through the perimeter defenses so quickly?” Wood shouted.

Nielsen was scanning data on his portable system, his fingers flying across the keys, seeking some answer.

“Look at Shanghai,” someone said.

They were in Shanghai as well, marauding through the darkness of the downtown area.

“They know the threat is real,” Ariel said. “They were waiting to see what the defenders could do. If the defenders had stumbled in Santiago, I bet they would have gone back to their slow-and-steady strategy.”

The population clock on the wall was racing backward. The human population was tens of millions fewer than it had been an hour before.

“They’re coming from underground,” Nielsen called out, still working his system.

“Underground?” Wood spun to face Nielsen. “How the fuck is that possible? All the subway lines were blasted precisely so they couldn’t come from underground.”

“They’re coming through the sewers.”

“The sewers? What do you mean, the sewers? They’re as big as fucking elephants.”

Elephants without bones. The voice in his head made Oliver flinch.

“Elephants without bones,” Oliver repeated aloud.

“What did you say?” Wood asked.

“I didn’t say it, Five did. Elephants without bones.” On the feed from New York, Oliver watched one of the big, rectangular sewer grates glow red and drop away. He pointed at the feed. “New York. Watch.” A Luyten squeezed out of the hole, its appendages folded tightly behind it until it popped free.

President Wood cursed a blue streak. He turned to Oteri. “Get the defenders out there.”

“They’ve already been released,” Oteri said. “Premier Chandar ordered it ten minutes ago.”

For once, Wood didn’t seem annoyed to be reminded he was not in charge. He seemed relieved.

It was difficult for Oliver to watch the carnage on the screens, but he couldn’t turn away; it was his duty to stay apprised of what was happening.

What was happening was, people were dying. The streets of London, New York, Rio, Shanghai were littered with corpses as the starfish killed everyone in sight on their march toward the production facilities.

“Order civilian evacuation of the areas surrounding all production facilities. Those people don’t know which way to run,” President Wood said.

The Luyten were choosing routes that sidestepped combatants, instead wreaking havoc on civilians, who had nowhere to hide. Some of the Luyten were being picked off by stationary visual-recognition drones set up on rooftops, but each of the drones only worked once, then the Luyten knew where they were and took them out.

Their heaters were firing almost continuously, burning and melting people, vehicles, the sides of buildings, leaving behind a landscape that resembled a giant scar.

“Where are they?” Wood growled.

It was a rhetorical question. The defenders were now an independent army, allied with the human forces but formulating their own battle plans. From this moment on, the human forces would have no idea where the defenders would strike, what tactics and strategy they might use.

In Manhattan, the first Luyten reached the production facility’s inner defenses and tucked behind buildings to wait for reinforcements. The ten blocks surrounding each production facility were heavily fortified. Silver heat shields the size of buses lined the perimeter; the turrets of heavy VRA guns poked from reinforced window slits in many of the old brick and concrete buildings. Oliver knew this sort of battle would not be as one-sided. In tight urban quarters their soldiers would be better able to hit Luyten, who didn’t hold the element of surprise, and the automated weapons systems would take their toll. He was also aware that if they lost these battles, the war was lost as well.