Resistance: A Hole in the Sky

^{CHAPTER ONE} BACK ATCHA

It was 0836 in the morning, but so dark it might have been evening. Purplish clouds hung low over the snow-shrouded city as if to smother it. And when they parted, it was to allow the upper reaches of an alien structure to pass through a black-rimmed hole and touch the sky beyond. At its base, the tower wasn’t so much a symmetrical obelisk as a muscular tree trunk that had driven its angular roots down through New York’s outer crust into the subterranean flesh below.

The very sight of the brooding tower and the dim lights that glowed within served to reignite President Thomas Voss’s hatred for the Chimera. He was lying prone on the roof of a half-gutted warehouse, looking across the half-frozen Hudson River through a pair of powerful binoculars.

The top third of the Empire State Building had been sheared off, leaving an ice-encrusted stump to poke up out of the hills of drifted snow surrounding the tower. Voss knew that thousands of such structures had been excavated across the surface of the planet. All working in concert to cool Earth’s atmosphere and make it comfortable for the Chimera.

The rotten bastards, Voss thought to himself. Damn them to hell!

Although the truth was that the Chimeran forms weren’t so much individuals as functionaries. All controlled by a hive-mind that was better described as an “it” rather than a “them.”

But the hive-mind could manifest itself in more than a dozen different forms. It landed in Russia, and then exploded out of that country in 1949 and overran Europe. The luckiest humans died. The less fortunate succumbed to the alien virus and were transformed into Chimera.

Within a year most of Europe had fallen, leaving only Great Britain to carry on. But after a desperate struggle, England fell as well, and the Chimera attacked America in 1952. American towns and cities were overrun, and millions of citizens were transformed into monstrosities. And, with the exception of a top-secret organization called SRPA (Special Research Projects Administration), the government had been slow to react. Voss, then Assistant Secretary of the Interior, admitted as much. The result was a vast Chimeran-dominated wasteland that stretched from coast to coast and from Canada to Mexico.

They could not conduct a census, or do any of the other things governments were supposed to do, but Voss and his staff estimated that most of the country’s 160 million citizens had been killed by the Chimera, rampant disease, or starvation. The 10 million or so people who remained were hiding from alien hunter-killer teams and trying to eke out whatever sort of living they could.

But if Voss and a force of volunteers could enter New York and destroy the Chimeran tower, the victory would not only slow the systematic effort to cool the planet’s atmosphere, it would send a message of hope to the citizens of the United States. And cement his position as President, a responsibility Voss had assumed after the VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing aircraft) carrying President McCullen and the surviving members of his cabinet had been shot down.

An Army general assumed the presidency after that. He was subsequently killed by a Titan at the battle of Phoenix, leaving the nation rudderless until Voss stepped forward. “So, Marvin,” Voss said as he lowered his glasses. “What do you think?”

Rather than scan the New York skyline, Captain Marvin Kawecki’s binoculars were focused on the problem immediately in front of them and off to the left. And that was the approach to the Holland Tunnel. Kawecki had a shock of dark hair, squinty eyes, and a weather-seamed face. “I can see half a dozen Hybrids. All of them are inside the central toll station. I think Chu could nail half of them—but we’ll need a second sniper to get all six. Can you handle that, Mr. President?”

“I’ll sure as hell try,” Voss said as he secured his binoculars. “Let’s go down and take them out.”

Kawecki thumbed his mike. Like most members of the team, he wore fingerless knit gloves. “We’re pulling out. Lang, find a path to the brick building that fronts the toll plaza. We’ll clear the center booth from there. Over.”

The other soldiers, all of whom had been providing security up until then, seemed to materialize out of nowhere. All were veterans, experts at urban warfare, and had accompanied Voss on the long three-month journey from Freedom Base in the Ozark National Forest.

There had once been sixteen troopers, but a long series of battles had taken their toll. The remaining soldiers were dressed in whatever manner they preferred and armed with a wild variety of human and Chimeran weaponry. No orders were given, nor were any required as a man named Lang took the point position. He had a long, lugubrious face and the manner of an undertaker. Kawecki was next, followed by Voss, Private Mason, Corporal Rigg, Private Venley, Private Chu, and Sergeant Alvarez, the last having been promoted to second-in-command when Lieutenant Hopper took a projectile between the eyes just east of Louisville.

Lang led them around a large hole and down three flights of switchbacking stairs to the ground floor, where he paused just inside a shattered doorway. The Chimera were called “stinks” for a reason, and Lang had an extremely acute sense of smell. Just one of the reasons why he was on point.

Once he was sure it was safe, Lang slipped out through the door, took a left, and made his way down a sloping passageway. From there he led them through a half-burned factory to a door on the north side. Waving the rest of the men into cover, he went forward alone.

Voss and the others could do nothing but wait as Lang crossed an alley and disappeared into the one-story brick building fronting the toll plaza. Finally, his voice hushed, the scout invited the snipers to join him.

Chu had the sharpest eye on the team. But Voss was pretty good too, and proud to have been chosen for such an important task. Because he knew that the title “President” didn’t mean very much to the men around him. Not anymore. Their respect had to be earned.

After entering through the back door, the men made their way past a row of looted offices and into the lobby beyond. Lang was waiting for them. He pointed to the shattered windows that bracketed the front door and looked out onto the toll plaza. Voss chose the window on the left, Chu took the right, and Lang turned his back on both of them in order to watch the back entrance.

Chu was armed with a scope-mounted government-issue L23 Fareye. Without a sniper’s rifle of his own, Voss had to rely on his carbine. Though equipped with an open sight, in the right hands the weapon was very accurate and capable of firing a lot of rounds in a short period of time. Voss thumbed the safety off, eyed the toll booth, and saw the stinks lurking inside. In a perverse sort of way, their presence was a good sign. Because there was no reason to guard a tunnel that was closed. Voss kept his voice low. “I’ll break the glass and wait for you to take two of them out. Then I’ll hose the rest of the bastards down.”

Chu kept his eye glued to the scope as he spoke. “Sounds good. I’ll start with the stink on the far right.”

Voss chose a target of his own. Even though his task was to break the glass, he hoped to nail one of the aliens at the same time. His right index finger tightened, the rifle jerked, and the bullet made a flat cracking sound as it passed through the air. Glass exploded, and the stink spun halfway around as half of its head disappeared in a cloud of blood. Then Chu fired. Both of his shots found their targets—they dropped as if they had been poleaxed.

But by then the toll booth’s front door had flown open, and in typical Chimeran fashion, the surviving stinks charged straight into the human guns. They were horrible-looking things with no hair, low foreheads, and needle-sharp fangs.

Chu dropped one of them. But since the Fareye’s rate of fire was relatively slow, it was up to Voss to put the rest of them down. The Hybrids were not only fast, but firing Bullseyes as they came. Voss had good reason to be concerned as a volley of homing tags stuttered past his head. Because if one of the tags hit, all of the subsequent projectiles would strike him too, no matter where the stink aimed its weapon.

So Voss forced himself to concentrate as he put two rounds into the first ’brid and saw patches of blood appear on its chest. The Chimera staggered, but still managed to take three more steps, before a final bullet took the top of its head off.

But precious seconds had been lost. The next alien was only ten feet away and closing fast when Voss pulled the trigger and held it back. Brass shell casings arced away and a row of bloody divots appeared across the stink’s muscular chest. Such was the creature’s momentum, however, that it slammed into the window frame before it finally came to a halt. Then, like a just-cut tree, the six-eyed monstrosity toppled over. Voss reflexively jerked on the carbine’s trigger, heard his weapon click empty, and hoped his fear didn’t show.

The sound of sustained gunfire brought Kawecki and the rest of the team forward. “Good work,” the officer said approvingly as puffs of lung-warmed air drifted away from his lips. “Maybe some of the other stinks will hear the shooting and come running or maybe they won’t. Let’s enter the tunnel as quickly as we can. At least they won’t be able to nail us from above.”

Voss nodded, released his empty magazine, and caught it. Clips, like everything else, were hard to come by. Stowing the empty in a pouch, he pushed a spare up into the well and pumped a shell into the weapon’s chamber.

Then it was time to follow Kawecki past a shot-up delivery truck. A bright red, yellow, and blue “Wonder Bread” logo was painted on its side. A frozen mummy could be seen sitting behind the wheel, forever eyeing the traffic ahead.

Darkness closed around them as they entered the two-lane-wide eastbound tube. Voss knew the tunnel was a little more than a mile and a half long, and about ninety-three feet deep at its lowest point. Reaching the other side would be a challenge—but it had to be done if they were going to attack the tower.

Inside the tunnel, the only lights were the beams from their weapons. And if it was frigid outside, it was even more so beneath the river, where the cold air had a tendency to collect. The pale beams played across the tiled ceiling, filthy walls, and cars that had been caught in the tunnel on the day New York was overwhelmed.

Voss couldn’t help but think about the people who had been in the vehicles all around him. It seemed reasonable to assume that at least some of them had been able to walk out. But what then? Had they been able to reach their homes? Or had they been slaughtered from above?

He pushed the questions away. His job was to focus on the present and the people who were still alive. “I have a pod farm on the right,” Lang commented from up ahead. “Stay left. Over.”

The fleshy structures stood about seven feet tall, and Voss knew the ones in front of him had been created by one or more Spinners. The ugly, blunt-headed creatures had razor-sharp teeth, sickle-shaped claws, and a ridge that ran all the way to the end of their pointy tails. So it was important to keep a sharp eye out.

Under normal circumstances, the team simply went around the cocoons, and the Grims “cooking” inside them, even if there weren’t any stinks around. It was nice to burn them out when they could spare an air-fuel grenade. But as tempting as the opportunity was, they couldn’t spare any ordnance. They left the pod farm untouched.

The side-wash from his light illuminated the cocoons as Voss walked past. The pods were pulsating, as if synched to a heartbeat deep within, and he was glad to put the groaning sounds behind him.

After fifteen minutes or so, the ice began to crackle and water splashed away from Voss’s boots. “It’s getting deeper,” Lang warned over the radio. “We’d better climb up onto the walkway. Over.”

Pedestrians weren’t allowed in the tunnel, but a raised walkway had been provided in case there was a need to evacuate the tube, so it was a simple matter to climb up onto it. However, as the team continued downwards, it wasn’t long before the thick green-gray slush was sloshing over the platform as well. “We can use the cars as stepping stones,” Lang suggested, as he jumped onto the roof of a taxi. “But they’re slippery, so watch your step. Over.”

The pace slowed considerably as the team was forced to leap from roof to roof while battling to stay upright. But worst of all was the occasional need to jump into the ice-cold water and wade with weapons held high.

Voss had just completed such a journey, and was standing on the trunk of a ’52 Chevy, when he heard a scream and turned to see a series of muzzle flashes.

“It’s Venley!” Rigg shouted in between short bursts from Mason’s Wraith. “He was wading across a gap when something took him!”

“It was a Fury,” Chu added grimly. “The damned thing was hiding behind a truck. Over.”

“Cease fire!” Kawecki ordered sternly. “Save your ammo. You could pour bullets into that Fury all day long without giving it a headache. Close the gap and keep moving. That’s all we can do.”

Voss knew Kawecki was correct, but that didn’t make him feel any better. Why had the Chimera allowed five people to pass before attacking Venley? Why not kill Lang, Kawecki, or himself? There was no way to know as they plowed ahead, careful to take even the most circuitous routes, rather than enter the water again.

It was tedious work, but gradually the water level began to fall, and they could climb up onto the elevated walkway once more. That was when Voss saw a message scrawled on the wall and paused to read it. “Watch out!” the block letters said. “Furies in the water.”

Now you tell us, Voss thought bitterly. Now you fucking tell us. It wasn’t the anonymous author’s fault, of course—but it felt good to vent some of his anger.

Kawecki called a halt so the men could change into mostly dry clothing and brew some coffee. Then, with something warm in their stomachs, it was time to go.

The next fifteen minutes were spent climbing a gradual slope until they could see a half-circle of gray light. Snow was falling beyond. The lacy curtain billowed occasionally when the breeze hit. Then the snowfall steadied again, as if determined to throw a new shroud over the city.

“There were guards at the west end,” Kawecki observed evenly. “So it would make sense if there were guards at this end as well. Take it slow. Over.”

But, logical or not, there weren’t any Chimera waiting outside the tunnel. There had been, however, judging from the maze of half-filled tracks, which meant the stinks might return at any moment. Still, Voss and Kawecki knew that all sorts of dangers could be lying in wait, so they paused to study the area through their binoculars before proceeding.

Some of the surrounding buildings were still reasonably intact. But one of them appeared to have been stomped by a gigantic foot, suggesting that a three-hundred-foot-tall Leviathan might have passed through the area at some point, leaving a path of destruction in its wake. As Voss scanned the cityscape from left to right he saw the tail end of a SRPA VTOL sticking out of the side of a skyscraper. One of hundreds that had been shot down trying to defend the city.

A frayed banner, with the words “GIGANTIC SALE” emblazoned across it, hung from the building next to it. And a barely visible flagpole could be seen jutting out from the second floor of the high-rise on the opposite side of the street. “There it is,” he said. “At two o’clock.”

Kawecki turned slightly and made a minute adjustment to his glasses. “Check! There’s Old Glory! Right where she’s supposed to be. It looks like Lucy is still alive. Thank God for that.”

Voss nodded. Like Kawecki, he had spoken with the agent named Lucy by radio, but never met her. And that was before they left Arkansas some three months earlier. A lot can happen in ninety days. “If you’re ready, let’s go. We’re supposed to meet her at the Hotel Constantine. My guess is that she’s watching us from one of those buildings.”

“Roger that,” Kawecki said, as he fastened his binoculars into place. “All right, everybody, let’s move out. And don’t forget to eyeball the windows all around. A stink with an Auger could do lots of damage from up there. Over.”

Voss heard a crunching sound under his boots as he followed Lang and Kawecki across a field of fresh snow. He knew the stinks could follow and wondered if they would. How many humans remained in New York anyway? Enough to make tracks a common sight? Or were signs of habitation so rare as to merit an immediate follow-up? The politician didn’t know but figured he was about to find out.

Lang must have been thinking about it too, because he made it a point to walk on bare concrete in the few places where that was possible, and cut through stores when it made sense. Fifteen minutes later they slipped through the front door of a run-down hostelry called the Constantine. It was a residential hotel from the look of it, which made sense given all the factories and warehouses in the area. An imposing reception desk stood off to the left, backed by a key rack, and a framed list of “House Rules.”

Broken glass crackled under Rigg’s boots as he walked over to the reception desk and slapped the dome-shaped bell that sat next to a black telephone. It made a lonely ringing sound.

Voss eyed the lobby’s worn chairs, the shoe-shine stand, and the magazine kiosk that was decorated with cigarette advertising. Taking a closer look, he saw that a two-year-old copy of Time magazine was still for sale. The cover photo consisted of an open-mouthed Steelhead. The caption read: “What do they want?”

The answer, as it turned out, was everything.

Voss’s thoughts were interrupted when Chu said, “We’ve got company,” and a woman walked in off the street. She was decked out in a fashionable fur hat, a pink ski jacket, and a bandolier of red shotgun shells. The rest of her outfit consisted of black stirrup pants and fur-trimmed boots. A Winchester pump gun was tucked under her right arm. She looked like a socialite on a skeet shoot. “Hi,” she said cheerfully. “I’m Lucy. Welcome to the Big Apple. Which one of you is President Voss?”

Voss stepped forward. The woman in front of him appeared to be in her early thirties. Blond curls peeked out from under the cap. Her wide-set eyes were China blue and her skin was alabaster white.

Lucy was a beautiful woman, or had been back before something ripped her face open and left a jagged scar that started high on the right side of her face. The white line zigzagged down across a softly rounded cheek to the left corner of her mouth. The stitches looked like the work of an amateur. Voss could tell that she knew what he was thinking as her chin came up and her eyes narrowed. “I’m Tom Voss,” he replied. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Thanks for agreeing to help us.”

“You’re the one who deserves thanks,” Lucy replied sincerely as her eyes darted from face to face. “Odds are that the stinks know you’re here by now, so it’s best to keep moving.”

Lucy led the team out onto Canal Street, and from there to Varick, where they took a right. Voss would have felt very exposed if it hadn’t been for the snow. It was falling more thickly now, reducing visibility to little more than twenty feet, and erasing the team’s tracks within a matter of minutes.

Warehouses crowded in all around as Varick merged with Broadway. A short time later the party turned left onto Chambers, where they passed a building that appeared to have been pulverized by a giant foot. Then it was time to stop and check their back trail. The lack of visibility cut both ways. If the Chimera couldn’t see the humans, the reverse was true as well.

“Okay,” Lucy said, as she used a boot to scrape some snow aside. “See that manhole cover? If one of you big, strong men would be kind enough to lift it up I would appreciate it. You’ll have to remove your packs in order to drop through, however.”

It took the better part of ten minutes to lift the cover out of the way, send two men down the steel ladder, and drop the packs through the hole. Then, once the rest of the party was safely belowground, it was Mason’s job to ease the metal lid back into position. With that accomplished, it was time to gear up again.

Lucy was holding a flare. The light threw black shadows up onto curved walls. “We’re in a storm drain,” she informed them as the men shouldered their packs. “We use them to get around. The stinks know that, so they send hunter-killer teams down to look for us, but they pay a high price for doing so. Keep your eyes peeled and remember, pipes come in from every direction.”

“And if we get into a fight, be careful where you aim,” Kawecki added. “We have enough problems without shooting each other.”

Like the rest of the team, Voss was armed with two primary weapons. Given the situation, he thought it best to exchange the M5A2 carbine for a cut-down Rossmore stored in the scabbard strapped to his pack. With the shotgun at the ready he followed Lucy, Lang, and Kawecki out of the collector manifold and into a large pipe. They had to walk bent over, which not only was uncomfortable but would make it damned hard to fight if attacked.

Lucy led them through a series of left- and right-hand turns. Voss tried to memorize the route but soon gave up. It was too damned complicated.

A short time later, the team arrived at a point where explosives had been used to open a side passageway. The tunnel was about ten feet long. Heavy beams had been used to shore up the passageway, but the work had obviously been carried out by amateurs, so Voss had no desire to linger. Lucy directed the team into a subway tunnel. “We’re close,” she promised. “Now stay together. I wouldn’t want to lose anyone.”

It was good advice, and Voss was careful to keep the interval between Kawecki and himself short as they followed a set of rusting tracks past a train and the empty platform beyond. Voss had been to New York on at least a dozen occasions back before the war. He wondered if he had stood at that very station, his mind focused on an upcoming meeting, blissfully unaware of what the future had in store.

Suddenly Voss’s thoughts were jerked back to the present as Alvarez yelled a warning: “Drones!” Each of the beetle-shaped machines was equipped with a headlight, and the beams crisscrossed each other as a loud thrumming noise sounded and a swarm of at least twenty Drones swept in to attack the humans.

Alvarez put a burst of projectiles into the lead machine and it exploded. The resulting flash of light strobed the tunnel as the rest of the team opened fire. The noise generated by automatic weapons and shotguns blended with the percussive boom of exploding Drones to produce a hellish cacophony of sound.

Voss saw a bright light angling down at him, fired the Rossmore, and heard a metallic clang as the slugs struck. Instead of exploding, the badly damaged Drone kept coming, and crashed into his chest!

The impact put Voss on his ass, and electricity crackled around the machine as it struggled to lift off. The Drone was about five feet off the ground and wobbling badly when Voss sat up. He fired the shotgun and felt a series of pinpricks as the machine exploded and small pieces of shrapnel hit him.

“Nice one, Mr. President,” Lucy said, offering him a hand. “It looks like we have what we need. A leader who can shoot straight.”

As Voss came to his feet, he saw that the battle was over. Drone carcasses littered the tracks. Some of them smoked and sputtered impotently as components shorted out.

“What have we got?” Kawecki demanded. “Any casualties?”

“Yeah,” Rigg said solemnly. “Mason took one in the ass.”

“It snuck up behind me,” the big man said defensively. He had short hair, dark skin, and a moon-shaped face.

Kawecki chuckled. “I’ll put you in for a medal. Okay, check your weapons, and let’s get going. Target practice is over.”

After a ten-minute walk, the team arrived at a spot where a construction project had been under way. Lucy led the group back behind a pile of lumber to a point where three sheets of plywood were leaning against the wall. Once the sheets were lifted out of the way, a hole was revealed. “You’ll have to crawl on your hands and knees,” she commented. “But it’s okay to leave your packs on.”

The woman led the way, and one by one the men followed her. Light flooded the tunnel, and when Voss stepped forward, he was completely unprepared for the sight that greeted him. Lucy saw the look on his face and nodded knowingly. “This station is located underneath the public area in front of City Hall. It was intended to be a showpiece when it opened in 1904. But passenger service was discontinued in 1945 and the station was sealed off later on. We use it as a gathering place, and one of our people is a damned good engineer. He tapped into the Chimeran power grid and restored the lights.”

“It’s beautiful,” Voss said as he looked down the tunnel. The first decorative arch featured intricate tilework, the next boasted insets of colored glass, and brass chandeliers hung in between. The effect was stunning.

“Come on,” Lucy said. “The rest of them are camped in the mezzanine.”

As the team followed Lucy into the lobby-like mezzanine they saw that dozens of soldiers, ex-soldiers, and citizen freedom fighters had responded to the nationwide call. Some of them knew one or more members of the incoming team, so there were lots of raucous greetings, friendly insults, and man-hugs as old comrades were reunited.

Kawecki, Mason, Rigg, and the rest were soon lost in the social melee. Voss was standing by himself when Lucy reappeared with a bespectacled man at her side.

“President Voss? This is Doctor Fyodor Malikov. I understand that you two have been in frequent radio contact but have never met face-to-face. Doctor Malikov, this is President Thomas Voss.”

“Tom is fine,” Voss said, as he shook the other man’s hand. His handshake was surprisingly strong for one who looked so frail. Judging from appearances, Malikov was in his late fifties or early sixties. He was mostly bald, with a halo of white hair and a full beard. His face was gaunt and his clothes were tattered.

Voss knew Malikov had been forced to flee Europe for the United States after the Chimera broke out of Russia. He’d been instrumental in creating the serum that the Sentinels relied on and the new Hale vaccine as well. This vaccine could not only alleviate human suffering by making humans immune to the Chimeran virus, it could reduce the number of pod farms and the forms they produced.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you in person,” Malikov said. “How is the vaccine production going?”

“We aren’t producing as many doses as we’d like,” Voss replied, “but it’s ramping up. And getting the vaccine out to the people takes a lot of effort, as you can imagine.”

“I understand,” Malikov said. His eyes were bright. “Meanwhile ve must either shut the tower down or destroy it.”

“And how is that going to work?” Lucy wanted to know.

A long moment of silence passed as Malikov looked down, then up again. “I don’t know,” he confessed.

“You don’t know?” Voss demanded incredulously. “We brought all of these people here to New York, and you don’t know?”

“That’s the reality of the situation,” Malikov said defensively. “Vonce ve get inside, and fight our way up to the control room, I’ll figure it out.”

“And if you don’t?”

Malikov met Voss’s eyes. His gaze was unapologetic. “Then we’re going to die for nothing.”

The attack on the tower was scheduled for 0830 the following morning, but for Kawecki and the rest of the soldiers the evening was a rare opportunity to get together in groups of five or six and shoot the shit. And whenever soldiers gather, talk inevitably turns to old battles and old buddies. So as Kawecki and some of the surviving Sentinels sat on their packs and passed a bottle of Jim Beam around, the subject of Joseph Capelli was bound to come up.

“I say Capelli did the right thing,” a soldier named Budry said as he took a sip and wiped his mouth. “Hale hadn’t had an inhibitor treatment in a long time. The poor bastard was about to turn. Joe did him a favor.”

“That’s bullshit,” Yorba replied bitterly. He had a head of unruly hair and a beard to match. “Hale was the best we had! And maybe Malikov could have saved him. Plus this is the U.S. Army, goddamn it! Or what’s left of it. Since when is it okay to shoot your commanding officer? No, I’d say Capelli got off easy. They should have put the SOB in front of a firing squad.”

“How ’bout you, Captain?” a Sentinel named Russ inquired, as the bottle came his way. “Was Capelli right or wrong?”

“The asshole was wrong,” Kawecki said darkly. “I fought alongside Hale and he was a fine officer. And, if I run into Capelli, I’ll blow his fucking brains out. Any further questions?”

“No,” Russ said with a boyish grin. “I think that covers it.”

“Good,” Kawecki said as he stood. “This meeting is adjourned. Go get some sleep. We have a whole bunch of stinks to kill in the morning.”

It was July 4th, and Voss had been up all night. Not because he had to be, or wanted to be, but because he couldn’t sleep. Now the task that once seemed so achievable, and even glamorous, was beginning to look like a suicide mission. The tower was much larger than he had imagined it to be, and it was crawling with stinks. Worse yet, Malikov wasn’t sure of what to do if they made it to the control room. So, having allowed his visions of glory to get the better of him, Voss was going to die.

But it was too late to change plans or back out. All Voss could do was shoulder his pack and follow a double column of soldiers up the Lexington Avenue Line towards the intersection of 42nd and Third. That was where the alien tower had grown to dwarf the Chrysler Building and touched the sky itself. A six-inch-thick Chimeran power conduit led the way.

A scouting party had been sent ahead and reported everything was quiet so far. But that couldn’t last for long—and it didn’t.

The battle began fifteen minutes later as they passed under 35th Street. The first sign of resistance came when three elongated Hunter Drones dropped out of a ventilation shaft and opened fire. The effort wasn’t enough to stop Voss’s team, so Voss assumed the machines were supposed to simply delay them.

If so the tactic wasn’t very successful, because Kawecki had been expecting something of the sort and his men had two L210 LAARKs (Light Anti-Armor Rockets) prepped and ready to go. The Drones barely had time to open fire before they were destroyed in quick succession.

The rocket launchers were a bit of overkill, but Kawecki figured the LAARKs wouldn’t be of much use inside the tower, and he wanted to hold casualties to a minimum going in. “That’s what I’m talking about,” one of the men said, as a still-smoking carcass clattered onto the tracks. “We’re kicking ass and taking names.”

Once the party’s leaders arrived at the point where the tower’s metal roots blocked the tunnel, they climbed up onto the platform and took up positions around the stairs as the rest of the troops came up to join them. Over Voss’s objections, Alvarez, Mason, and Rigg had been assigned to guard Malikov and himself. So wherever they went the others followed.

“Okay,” Kawecki said over the radio. “Let’s go upstairs and waste some stinks. Over.”

With a shout of approval, the single-file column of soldiers surged up the stairs, past an empty ticket booth and into the tower itself.

Voss heard the battle before he had a chance to join in it, as the human invaders made violent contact with a force of snarling Hybrids. Heavy fire lashed back and forth, and Voss heard screaming as people began to fall.

The politician had to negotiate his way around a half-dozen bodies as he and the rest of the soldiers pushed their way into a huge lobby. Voss tilted his head back to see a circular platform with thick supporting columns on both sides of it. A walkway spiraled up and away from the platform. It was connected side-to-side by a network of crisscrossing sky bridges.

As Steelheads appeared on the platform above and fired Augers down into the crowd below, Lucy jerked spastically and went down. A soldier fell as Kawecki said, “Kill those bastards! Everyone else onto the elevators. Move!”

Voss had seen the elevators too, three of them on each side of the lobby. He led Malikov, his bodyguards, and a dozen other soldiers over to one of the circular platforms. Mason slapped a control, curved doors slid into place, and the elevator began to rise.

Malikov studied a brightly lit panel on the wall. “This symbol is for the control room,” the scientist said confidently, pointing at a star-shaped icon. “If ve stay on the elevator it will take us there. Tell the others.”

At that moment the platform jerked to a halt and the doors opened. “Hold that thought,” Voss said. “It looks like the stinks shut the elevator system down.”

That prediction soon came true, as all of the tubular lifts opened to spill their passengers out onto the circular platform Voss had seen from the lobby below. As the humans exited, they were immediately confronted by the stinks who were already on that level. More of them were charging down the spiral ramp from above as a swarm of Drones appeared.

A hellish battle ensued. Wraith miniguns harvested the Chimera like wheat in a field, V7 Splicers chopped the stinks into chunks of raw meat, and an L11-2 Dragon sent tongues of fire up the ramp. But it made no difference, as the now flaming ’brids, Steelheads, and Ravagers charged through the conflagration to grab humans and wrap them in fire. The screams they produced overlaid each other.

Every time the President tried to advance and join the force at the foot of the ramp his bodyguards cut him off. So Voss assigned himself the task of dealing with the seemingly endless waves of Drones. But no matter how many of the machines he destroyed, there were always more.

He fired the carbine until it ran dry, reloaded until all of his spare magazines were empty, and switched to the Rossmore. Malikov was firing too. Patrol Drones exploded left, right, and center as empty casings arced away and bounced off the floor.

But there was no cover to speak of, and the floor was slippery with human blood as men fell in twos and threes. Bodies lay everywhere, and the sound of gunfire started to dwindle as the Chimera began to run out of targets.

Voss was convinced he was going to die. He was resigned to that fate, when Mason stepped in to clip a rope to the D-ring at the center of his combat harness. Voss opened his mouth to object, but Kawecki was there to cut him off.

“Mason is going to lower you over the side, sir. We’re sending Malikov down too. Once you hit the floor, unhook the rope so we can use it again.”

Voss said, “Wait just a goddamn minute,” but that was as far as he got when Mason plucked him off the floor and dumped him over the side. There was a sudden jerk as he fell four or five feet, followed by a twirling descent. That was when Voss spotted the seething mass of Leapers waiting below. They made a horrible gibbering sound as the President freed a grenade, pulled the pin, and let it fall. The bomb hit, bounced, and went off with a loud boom.

Voss knew that shrapnel from the explosion could hit him as well but figured that was the chance he’d have to take. He needed a landing zone and got one as the exploding grenade created a bloody 360-degree bull’s-eye for him to put down in. Pieces of hot metal hit him, but he barely registered the pain while his boots hit and he hurried to free the rope. Then the line was gone, quickly snaking upwards, while Mason peered down at him. There was a muted thump when Malikov landed a few feet away. “Ve are supposed to run!” the scientist yelled, as his line was retracted.

“Screw that,” Voss replied, while he blew a half-dozen charging Leapers to bits. “The rest of them need a safe place to land.”

Malikov nodded and began to blast away. Kawecki landed a minute later, quickly followed by Mason and Rigg, all of whom had rappelled from above. Rigg’s nickname was “Pretty Boy.” But it was hard to tell if he deserved the title because of the bloody bandage wrapped around his head.

“How many more?” Voss inquired, shoving shells into the Rossmore.

“There aren’t any more,” Kawecki answered grimly. “Shuck that pack, Mr. President, and follow me. It’s time for us to get the hell out of here.”

Fire lashed down as the humans dropped their packs and zigzagged across the floor, firing while they ran, killing anything that moved. Then they were through the open door, following a well-plowed path east, as Hybrids poured out of the tower and gave chase. “The-East-River,” Kawecki said as they pounded along. “We’ll-look-for-a-boat.”

They paused a few hundred feet farther on, turned to fire on the Chimera, and had the satisfaction of seeing a dozen of them go down before resuming their flight. The snow continued to fall as they followed a well-worn stink-path through the wreckage of FDR Drive and down to the East River. And that was where Voss saw a broad expanse of drifting ice! It was moving at a good three or four miles per hour. Visibility was poor, but they could still spot open channels, as the entire mass drifted towards New York Bay.

“Come on!” Voss shouted, skidding down a slab of concrete to the river below. “It’s our only chance!” And with that, the President of the United States ran for his life.