Pahnyakin Rising (21 page)

“They’re coming for us,” she said.

-21-

Above ground, the scene was chaotic.  Pahnyakin Unies were marching side by side, their steps in line.  They tossed anyone in their way to the side with no reservations or difficulties.  Dresden hid at the back of the pottery factory, knowing she could not stand behind the brick wall forever. 

“What’s the plan?” Dodge questioned, pulling a hidden knife from his boot cuff. 

He spun the knife in his hands before passing it off to Zane and retrieving a second knife from the sheath attached to his belt loop. 

“I don’t have one yet,” Dresden shamefully admitted.  “But we can’t stay here.” 

The girl reached in her pocket and pulled out her screwdriver.  She gripped its handle until her fingers ached. 

“There’s no way we can take them all,” she commented. 

“We should fight in the open.  They won’t be able to throw us against anything,” she continued.  She wasn’t talking to anyone in particular as much as she was thinking to herself.

“They’re not going to leave, are they?” Zane asked.

Dresden shook her head.  “Not until they get what they want.”

“Well what do they want?” Zane exclaimed.  “They could kill us all right now, you know that.”

“They want to capture Dresden,” Dodge huffed.  “And we’re not going to let that happen.”

The girl peeked around the corner of the building and made a mad dash at a lone Magister with its back turned to the group of three. 

“Crap,” Dodge grumbled, chasing after her as backup.  Zane ran in the opposite direction, afraid. 

Dresden shoved the tip of her screwdriver in the Magister’s back and twisted until its armor loosened.  She snatched its back covering with both hands and threw it to the ground.  The being squealed and Dresden stabbed at the horizontal port positioned on the creature’s flesh. 

It fell to its knees before tumbling forward. 

She stood over its motionless body, panting, and looked around for others to kill.

“Don’t just run off like that,” Dodge scolded her.  He pulled her to his side.  “Stay close to me.”

Dresden looked to her left and witnessed an Imperator with its hands on Trisha’s dark shoulders.  She was shouting for help and doing all she could to keep the being at bay.

Going against Dodge’s wishes, Dresden sprinted in Trisha’s direction.  She picked up speed in the last stretch and jumped at the Pahnyakin.  It stumbled and fell to the asphalt road.  Dresden jabbed the screwdriver in the creature’s neck and pushed down on the tool until she could see the being’s flesh.  Blood shot from its artery as she jammed the screwdriver in it and retracted the metal. 

Trisha sobbed out of shock and hugged Dresden.  “Thank you.  Thank you for saving me.”

“How many troops are here?” Dresden asked the woman. 

“There have to be at least a hundred running around.  It’s like they’re looking for something.  They’re not attacking unless we try to stop them from going through town.”

Dresden stood in deep thought.  If she surrendered, the attacks would stop for the time being.  If the Pahnyakins took her, though, she would be reprogrammed.  Then it really
would
be her against the people of Easton.

She was spotted. 

The teenager stood still as three Pahnyakin Unies noticed her presence, and from 60 feet away they began walking in her direction. 

“Run,” she yelled at Dodge. 

Dresden pawed at his shaking hand and dragged him towards the south end of town.  She didn’t have a destination in mind or a plan to get out of this mess.  The girl was acting on fear.

Troops from the southern end of Easton were doubling back.  Dodge and Dresden dodged the creatures from all directions, panting and sweating and ignoring the sharp pain in their shins from their toes smashing to the hard road below.

The two rounded the corner to Loretta’s Diner and were met by two Imperators.  They turned back but were blocked by two more Pahnyakins.  Dodge’s hand slipped from Dresden’s and he inserted his knife in an Assistant’s chest.  The second Assistant knocked him to the ground, leaving him defenseless as his knife stuck out from a gap in the first alien’s armor.  He watched as Dresden ducked and threw her weight around to escape the four creatures.  With lightning speed and exact precision, the girl dismantled the chest exoskeleton on the right Uni.  She crammed the tip of her screwdriver in its lung and twisted.  It gasped for air and dropped to its knees.

She turned and dug Dodge’s knife deeper under the armor of the Assistant.  The blade and metal scratched together like nails on a chalkboard until the metal popped and hit the sidewalk with a clank.  Another Pahnyakin had fallen.

Dodge, on his hands and knees, scrambled to get to Dresden, to stop what he knew was about to happen.  There simply wasn’t enough time.

“Dresden,” he shouted as her upper arms were grabbed by the two remaining beings. 

The girl flung herself about, fluttering her legs in forceful kicks.  She squirmed and grunted in hopes of escaping their grasps to no avail.

“No,” she shrieked.

Her feet dragged along the sidewalk and over the curb as the Pahnyakins carried her down the street.  Dodge picked up his bloody knife and chased after Dresden’s captors.  In his state of panic he couldn’t find a gap to insert the weapon.  He stabbed at the Uni’s armor but the knife tinked against its metal. 

The being turned and swatted him down with one smack across his face. 

Dodge’s knife skidded to the center of the road.  Ahead, he could see Jameson Dillard’s bloodied body on the black river.  Dodge, with no other ideas, raced ahead of the Pahnyakins and knelt next to the guard’s corpse.  He patted his hands down the man’s bulky black sweater and over the pockets of Jameson’s khaki pants.  Dodge rolled the 27-year-old guard face down and lifted the back edge of his wooly top.  He retrieved Jameson’s 5.5-inch .380 Colt Mustang pistol from the man’s black gun holster. 

Dodge stood and shakily aimed at the approaching Pahnyakins.  He wiped sweat from his brow and tried to wipe the thought of hitting Dresden from his insecure mind. 

He fired. 

The first bullet buzzed past the creatures.  Unfazed, they continued in his direction. 

He fired again. 

The second bullet hit the right knee of the Uni on Dresden’s left.  It was too close for Dodge’s comfort, the shot coming so close to the love of his life. 

Dodge had four bullets left if the all-metal magazine had been full to begin with. 

The Unies neared one of Easton’s generators.  Dodge’s eyes begged Dresden for an answer, for permission.  She glanced to the generator and shouted to Dodge.

“Shoot it.  Shoot it now.”

As Dodge fired at the oversized white automatic fuel cell generator, Dresden went limp.  Her lack of fighting caught the Pahnyakins off guard and she slipped from their grips.  She shoved the Uni on her left.  Just as Dodge’s bullet met the generator’s casing, the Pahnyakin made contact with the box. 

The eggshell casing cracked.

Dodge shot two more times.  The generator’s casing was splitting in half and he could see the fuel cell inside.   

His surroundings faded to slow motion.  Dresden’s shouts became garbled and drawn out, and he could feel the gun slip from his hands, but he couldn’t do anything to stop it.  He blinked and watched the weapon float to the ground.

For time being inconsequential in the era of the Rising, Dodge’s only thought was there was not enough
time
to save the day.

He glanced up to Dresden just as the gun went off and a bullet pierced the generator’s fuel cell. 

The generator sparked and the stored energy from the cell traveled up the Uni’s arm.  Its body jerked and smoke swirled up from its back and from under its visor.  Dresden took the opportunity to run to Dodge and looked back. 

Her mouth was agape at what she witnessed.

Just as the first Pahnyakin was being electrocuted, the second Uni began flailing about until it collapsed.

“Transference,” Dresden whispered.  “They overload one another.”

“What?” Dodge asked.

“They’re connected.  It makes sense.  They communicate on their network.  They must pass information that way, like...It’s how they keep going.   When one fries it corrupts another.”

“Like a file?”

“Yes,” she nodded. 

She looked up at him.  “We need power.  Lots of it.”

“There’s another one of these generators behind our house and Shepherd’s, but after that all the big ones are gone.  Dres, we don’t
have
the kind of power you need.”

She scowled and glanced around her to make sure no other creatures were approaching.

She raised her head. 

“We don’t, but they do.” 

Dresden stared blankly past Dodge and laughed softly.  “My God, that’s what I was trying to do.  That’s how I died.  I was trying to get a group to their base.”

“Wait,” he said, blowing out a ragged breath.

“
They
have the power, Dodge.  We have to get to that silo.  We have to get a group together and get to their base.  With enough power we can take out every last one in this area.  And you and I can probably get some of the technology up and running again.  We can do that, right?  We could get the word out to any survivors.” 

Her words were falling out of her mouth at a mile per minute. 

“And it’s the perfect time.  If we can sneak out of here they’ll keep searching Easton and we’ll be halfway there by the time they notice I’m not here.  If most of them are here—.”

Dodge interrupted.  “You don’t know that.  This could be a small group to them.”

“There’s no other way.  Dodge, we have to do this.  Are you coming or not?”

He knew he could not talk her out of the plan hatched half from panic and half from instant-clarity but it didn’t stop him from arguing her idea.  He was being selfish, he knew, but he would rather live this way until his dying day than see Dresden taken from him again.

“Nobody’s seen the inside of a silo, Dresden. 
If
we even make it there—and that’s a big if—how do you know you’ll be able to do anything?” 

“It’s not a debate, Dodge.  It’s a yes or no answer.  If we’re going to do this, we need to hurry.”

Dodge bit his lip and scratched the side of his beard.

“Let’s go,” he nodded. 



“We can’t get to the supply house,” Dresden frowned as she and Dodge took shelter in the alley behind Loretta’s Diner. 

The two were crouched close to the filthy ground and Dresden stabbed at loose dirt with the tip of her screwdriver. 

“I don’t think we’ll be able to get back to the house, either,” Dodge commented.  “The closest weapon’s hold,” he thought aloud, “is Shepherd’s.”

“What do you think he has?”

Dodge lifted his eyebrows.  “Are you kidding me?  If you went in the supply house, imagine that as a thrift shop.  Shepherd takes all the good stuff from runs.  He’s been out for himself since day one.”

She thought quietly.

“How far is it from here?”

Dodge pointed forward.  “Just two blocks that way.  Then we’d be about four or five blocks from the south gate.”

She shook her head and stood.  “We can’t go out the gate.  We’ll have to cut the fence and go out the east side and around the long way.”

Dresden looked away before turning her head downward.  “I have an idea, but you’re not gonna like it.”

A Uni passed at the end of the alley but did not see the girl.  She quickly jumped back and smacked the crown of her head on the brick wall. 

“I haven’t liked a lot of your ideas lately, but what is it?” Dodge asked with a low sigh.  His voice was a whisper barely audible over the sounds of screams and gunshots.

Dresden scratched at her knee. 

“Tell me where Shepherd is living and I can load up a few bags of stuff while you gather a group.”

Dodge jumped up and made a fist that he stopped in the air right as he was about to make contact with the brick wall. 

“WHY,” he hissed, “have you
always
been about doing everything alone?  This isn’t the time to
Miss Independent
or whatever it is you’re trying to be.  You have the chance to do it differently this time.”

“What if I can’t?” Dresden demanded.  “What if this is what I’ve always been meant to be?  I don’t think it was an accident anymore, Dodge.  I’m here for a reason.  I need you to believe in me, to both guide me gently and push me beyond what limits I think I have.  But I also need you to let me go when it’s time for me to fulfill my destiny. 
This
is that destiny.  This is that time.”

He let out a heavy sigh.  “Where are we meeting?”

Dresden smiled and thought.  “The old Compton cemetery.  It’s still out that way, right?  It’s a place they wouldn’t look, right, but it’s still close enough not to throw us off course?”