I Am Automaton: A Military Science Fiction Novel (29 page)

Smithe shrugged at Munger, and they went back into the kitchen to load up with more meat.

Carl began to move tables. He dragged them around the pile and tipped them over, forming a perimeter but leaving a wide opening facing the doors to the hallway.

Smithe and Munger came back out loaded up with beef. They dropped their loads onto the growing pile.

“That’s not going to keep them in,” said Munger in reference to the semi-circle of tables turned sideways.

“They’re not a barrier. They’re more like blinders,” Carl explained.

“Guys, come in here,” they heard Barnes call from the kitchen. They came running in and found him by the stove.

“What’s up?” Carl asked.

Barnes turned the knob on the stove. There was no hiss of escaping gas. “No gas, boys.”

“Shit!” said Smithe.

“The government must’ve cut power and gas anyway,” Barnes said.

“Well, there goes that plan,” said Munger. “What are we going to do now? We have a pile of bait out there but no trap.”

Carl started looking around the kitchen.

“What are you looking for now?” demanded Smithe with more than a little impatience in his tone.

“A-ha,” said Carl, “here it is.”

He reached
up, grabbed a red lever on a pipe, and pulled it. “The master switch. They must’ve pulled it before closing the restaurant.”

He pointed to Barnes, who turned the knob on the stove again. He heard the faint hiss of the gas.

“We’re in business, kid. Nice work.”

“What about the ignition?” Munger asked.

Carl went back out to the dining room and grabbed a few candles off the tables. He put them on a table next to the circle with the pile of meat. “Somebody find me some matches.”

Munger ran back into the kitchen. Barnes was already holding a book of matches. He grabbed the matches from Barnes and ran back out, but he almost tripped over himself.

He didn’t see Carl or Smithe anywhere, but there were three ID already hobbling in. He covered his shoulder light with his right hand and backed behind a tiled pillar, praying they didn’t see him.

When he peeked around the
pillar, he saw that they were heading straight for the pile of meat. He looked around, and he saw Carl peeking over the top of one of the tables, his body concealed by the tablecloth.

Carl silently pointed to the next table, and Munger saw Smithe peeking over that table. They were both only a row over from the table with the candles.

Munger knew he had to get the matches over to Carl somehow so he could light the candles. Then, somehow, they had to leave undetected before the gas filled the dining room and reached the lit candles.

Munger held up the matches. Carl nodded and motioned for him to get the matches over there. The three ID descended on the meat and, crouching like cavemen, began to rip at the beef with their teeth.

Munger considered crawling on his belly around the outside of the enclosed portion of the circle where the three ID fed. But it was a long way across, and if they caught him in such a compromising position unarmed, he was toast.

He grabbed a cloth napkin
off a nearby table and an empty glass. He put the book of matches in the glass and wrapped it in the napkin. He figured the glass would provide the weight for it to be thrown far, and the cloth napkin would muffle the sound of its landing…in theory.

But he didn’t have anything to keep the napkin around the glass. If he threw it as it was, the napkin would fall off and the glass would shatter on the hard tiled floor.

He grabbed the edge of a tablecloth and cut a long ribbon with his knife. He then cut a second one. He put his knife back in its sheath and began to tie the napkin around the glass by crisscrossing the ribbons like a Christmas present.

Just
then, two more ID staggered into the steakhouse sniffing the air and grunting. They too saw the meat just lying there like it fell from the heavens, and so they too walked over to the pile.

Munger waited until they descended upon the meat pile, and then he showed Carl the glass. Carl gave a thumbs up.

Munger used to play baseball in high school, so he knew how to throw. He gauged the distance between him and Carl and how hard he would have to throw.

Then he wound up and tossed the napkin-wrapped glass over-handed in a nice arc over the feeding ID. It landed on a table near Carl and rolled off and onto the floor. There was a muffled thud, and one ID looked up like a meerkat, but he quickly returned to his feast.

Munger breathed a sigh of relief and crept low behind the tables back to the kitchen.

“What’s going on out there?” Barnes asked, sensing something was amiss.

“We already have a few guests. I tossed the matches over to Birdsall. We gotta get out of here.”

“Here.” Barnes handed him a rather large chef’s meat cleaver.

Munger took it. Barnes grabbed one for him and put his arm around Munger. They nodded to each other and began their three-legged walk to the kitchen door. Thankfully, it had one of those diamond-shaped windows. They peered into the dining room.

Several more ID were entering the restaurant. By the table with the
candles, they saw Carl crouching.

“Wait, kid. Let them pass,” Barnes said to himself.

Carl, as if he heard Barnes, waited patiently behind the table as the new guests shuffled on past to join the others.

“Good,” Barnes muttered with relief. If the kid got himself in a
jam, he was in no condition to help.

Carl must’ve struck a match behind the table, because when he raised his hand the match he was holding was already lit. It glowed eerily in the dark dining room.

He quickly lit the wicks of the candles and blew out the match. But a few of the ID had taken notice of the light.

They straightened up and looked in the direction of the light, sniffing the air like decrepit bloodhounds. Munger saw Carl and Smithe moving in the shadows around the periphery of the room as a couple of the alerted ID stood and walked over to the candles.

Shit
, Munger thought. If they messed with the candles, the plan wouldn’t work. So he left Barnes and stepped into the dining room, took his shoulder light off his suit, and tossed it towards the doors to the outside. He then grabbed a glass off a table and lobbed it in the same direction.

When the glass shattered on the tile by the detached shoulder light, the two ID and a couple of others took notice and began to move in the direction of the light and sound, ignoring the candles for the moment.

At this point, the smell of gas was growing more palpable, and it was time for them to make their exit. Carl and Smithe were on their own. Munger propped the kitchen door open with a chair to allow the gas into the dining room. Then, he helped Barnes walk in the dark as they too kept to the periphery.

Munger nearly jumped out of his skin as someone grabbed him by the arm in the darkness.

“Munger.”

It was Carl.

“We have to exit the other way,” he whispered. “There’s more ID in the hallway. They’re going to be piling in here in a moment.”

“But I just threw my shoulder light and a glass in the other direction to get them away from the candles,” Munger whispered back.

“There’s only a few. We’ll have to take ‘em out,” said Barnes.

“With what?” Carl asked.

“With these.” Barnes held up his meat cleaver. Carl uncovered his shoulder light with his right hand enough to see it glinting in the light. Then he covered it up again.

“Okay. That’ll have to work.”

“But the hurricane. Is it safe?” Smithe asked concerned.

“It’s safer than in here. There’ll be dozens of ID, and this place is going to blow. I’ll take my chances with the hurricane,” explained Carl.

“But what about the fire extinguishers and controlling the fire?”

“No time. We have to move and hope for the best.”

So they crept back the other way. Carl and Smithe walked in front with their hands titrating out trace amounts of illumination from their shoulder lights. They each held a meat cleaver. Munger and Barnes trailed behind.

Carl remembered his combat training. He flanked an ID groping for them in the dark and struck it in the head with his baton. It dropped to the floor.

Smithe took care of another one, and the third was wandering back toward the meat pile. They regrouped and made their way to the broken doors to the exterior. The winds were howling and debris flew by.

“Okay,” Carl said, “
if I remember the map correctly, there should be a swimming pool and two buildings across from here. We make it across as quickly as possible, and we get to one of the buildings.”

They all nodded. The room was beginning to reek of gas. They heard more shuffling and grunting as more ID entered the steakhouse, and the sounds of ravenous chewing and slurping was enough to turn the strongest stomach.

It was time to go.

Carl, Smithe, Munger, and Barnes burst out into the storm and they were immediately assailed with debris. Carl and Smithe ran ahead, being tossed to and fro like rag dolls in the wind. As they jumped from spot to spot in the powerful gusts, they looked like astronauts walking on the surface of the moon.

Munger walked with Barnes, the weight of the massive man helping to steady their course, but the winds had their way with them as well.
It was dark, there was very little visibility, and before he knew it, Munger was being pulled down by Barnes. He suddenly felt cold and wet, and he was choking on water.

They had been blown into the swimming pool, and apparently into the deep end. Barnes was flailing his arms and grabbing onto Munger so tight that Munger wasn’t able to get his head above water.

Munger pulled and pulled, and finally wrenched himself free. He gasped as he breached the surface, and he reached down, grabbed Barnes around his tree trunk of a neck and pulled his head above water.

Barnes choked as he struggled to keep his head above water. Munger paddled over to the shallow end dragging Barnes with him.
He pulled them both against the wall of the pool, and they waited there catching their breath for God knows what.

As Carl neared the building on the right, he was blown right into it. Before he knew it, he was thrown onto a ground floor balcony on his back, his boot breaking the glass sliding door as he landed.

Smithe was blown somewhere off course and out of sight. Carl got up, kicked the glass out of the frame
, and stumbled into the hotel room landing face first onto a queen size bed.

Palm leaves and dirt were blowing into the room as Carl hoisted himself off the bed and walked into the bathroom.
He stepped into the shower stall and sat down hard on the wooden bench. He tried to clear his head as the wind roared and detritus blew into the room.

He wondered if the others had made it to safety when he heard a loud explosion that shook the entire bathroom. It was the steakhouse. It actually blew. Carl only hoped that the explosion took out more than a few of the marauding ID.

The water in the pool thrashed about in the storm when Munger heard the boom. The whole pool shook with the force of the blast. Carl’s plan worked.

He thought he heard Barnes say something, but his ears were ringing from the explosion, and the dull roar of the storm blocked everything else out.

A great ball of flame rose into the air followed by a vast cloud of black smoke. Underneath
, the restaurant was on fire, but it did not seem to be spreading to the rest of the Business Center. Little movement was in the wreckage, and what little there was ceased within minutes.

Munger saw movement outside the building
, however. Stranded ID were being blown about in the wind outside. He pulled Barnes closer to him and waited, shivering in the pool. He didn’t want to move and be caught by any ID that would be blown into them.

Carl sat in the shower stall contemplating his next move when he heard footsteps in the hall outside his room. Carl strained his ears, and he thought they were growing closer.

He got up, knife in hand, and stepped into the room in front of the door. He put his eye to the peephole and saw a shadowy figure walking slowly down the hall.

He braced himself, raising the large knife above his head and putting his hand on the doorknob. The footsteps slowed by his room, and the figure stopped in front of the door. It was waiting, listening.

Suddenly the doorknob began to move. Carl tightened his grip on it and yanked the door open as the dark figure fell through the doorway and landed on the floor in front of him.

Carl began to bring his knife down.

“WAIT.”

But it was too late. Carl brought down the knife on Smithe, missing his head as Smithe turned over, but burying it deep in his neck.

“Aaaaaaah! Shit!”