You know that feeling of impending doom you get when you’re sober? I don’t like that.

Awesome

1 Second Later - Ty - Roof

Tommy lets out a modest shriek at the loss of his finger, and a moderate shriek when three more drones come at him.

PAP! PAP! PAP!

I peg them with Daphne. Grab Tommy’s severed finger, slip it in my pocket, point to the stairs. “Get inside.”

“Negative.” says Ultra. “Inspect the drones you shot down.”

I ignore her. Toss a dishrag at Tommy. “Wrap your hand, get inside.”

“Tiger.” insists Ultra. “The drones are attacking hundreds of people. You’re the only one who has a disabled drone to inspect. Seconds mean lives.”

Dammit. I hustle over to the downed drones. They’re pretty bashed up, but intact. “It's a coin drone. Standard quadrotor. Has a small wire ball attached to the bottom - probably filled with gunpowder. Mini-grenade, I guess? No camera. Undersized battery. Probably had to cut weight to carry the grenade.” I look at Tommy. “Paratrooper?”

He nods. “Limited range. Limited brains. They’ll have a babysitter close by. Probably 10% of the drones have cameras and a symbiont pilot, instead of a grenade. They’ll be picking targets and directing the bomb drones.” He looks up. “There’s dropships up there too. Somewhere.”

Ultra gives me the impression of a multitude of mini symbionts floating around us. I guess an impromptu meeting has started to share information about the attack.

“Fuck!” says Mega, my daughter's symbiont. “I’m at the University. They’re thick as fuck here. Blowing windows, getting into buildings.”

“Why are you at the University?” I ask.

“Followed the screaming. Now I’m shooting drones.”

“Get the fuck out of there.”

“Can’t. Busy.” says Mega. “Ammo low. Need backup.”

“Purple team en route.” says Awesome.

“Gold team en route.” says Jolly.

I rush the stairs. Ultra appears in front of me, points at the drone cloud above us. “They’re all going to the University! You need to thin them here!”

I square on the cloud. Let Daphne roar. Drone parts rain down on us. Bowser’s at my feet, growling. Tommy’s next to me, handing over ammo. We’re giving them hell, but I’m missing a lot. Too many are getting by. Too much ammo wasted. “They’re too high up. How do we get them to attack us?”

“They’re attracted to screaming.” says Awesome. “Stay quiet to reload. Scream to shoot.”

Tommy runs to the stairs. I quietly reload. Top up my gas. Hear Tommy thundering back. I glare hate at the cloud. Give Bowser a pat. Tommy hits the roof, bagpipes in tow. Takes a big breath. The pipes wail. Bowser howls. The cloud stops. Dives down at us.

Alright, mother fuckers. Say hello to Daphne.

I fill the air with copper. Above us, drones explode in cascading chain reactions of flame. A pyrotechnic angel of death that looms ever closer. Eighty feet. Sixty. Fifty.

“We’ve turned the hoard!” says Ultra. “Now we need backup!”

“Hold!” barks the Broken Knight. “I’m two floors away!”

Forty feet.

Thirty.

“Hold!” roars the Broken Knight. “One floor!”

Twenty feet.

Fifteen.

“Almost there.” wheezes the Broken Knight.

Drone parts are no longer raining down, but driving into our skin. The heat is intense. Jesus Fuck! How long does it take to climb a flight of stairs?

The roof door bangs open and Charlotte toddles through. Alright. She walks over to us, unperturbed by shrapnel or looming doom, and picks up the Thermite Gun. Uh-oh.

Tommy spits out his blowstick. “You can’t shoot that at coin drones! You’ll burn the fucking city down!”

“Fuck off piper. I know what I’m about.”

She stands. Eyes closed, head down, gun cradled, still. Flashing lights leak from her eyelids. She’s deep in the mind melter. The gun snaps up. Four quick shots.

B-B-B-BOOM!

High above us, huge explosions detonate. What the fuck?

“She got the dropships!” yells Ultra. “Pour it on, bud! This is the last wave!”

I blaze away. It’s close, but I get’em. Take a knee. Reload. “Okay, what?”

“The drones are coming from high altitude drone carriers.” explains Ultra. “Their bottoms have sky camo, or oblique mirrors, or something. I can’t see them, but Charlotte guessed their location from the paratrooper patterns.

“There’s at least two dozen dropships over the city. Mostly over schools, but the police are getting hit. Airport too.” Ultra shakes her head. “Helicopters and snipers. The enemy hit them first. We can snipe, but we’re too slow. Traffic is fucked. We can chase the dropships on a bike, but we’ll never catch them. They’ll gut the city around us.”

“Ah, shit.” swears Tommy. He goes over to his little roof shed. Paws off the lock. “I got a solution, but you’re not gonna like it.”

He pulls a large quadcopter out of the shed. It’s asymmetric - two large rotors, two small - set in a long stylized bat wing surfboard.

“Is that a goblin glider?” I ask.

“Yeah.”

“You’re gonna chase dropships on that?”

“No, I’m too heavy.” He looks bashful. “It’s my motivation to lose weight. Eighty more pounds and it can carry me.”

I look at Tommy. I look at my gut. I’m smaller than Tommy, but not that much smaller. I look at Charlotte.

“I barely made it up the stairs.” She tosses me the Thermite Gun. “Chop-Chop Squire. Time to earn your spurs.”

Fuck. I kick off my boots, belt, jeans, shirt. Leave my boxers. They don’t weigh much, and I'd rather die than fly balls out.

Charlotte and Tommy are looking over the glider.

“How much fuel is it carrying?” asks Charlotte.

“Three gallons of methanol.”

Charlotte eyes my belly. “Better dump two gallons.”

Tommy looks unsure. “That’s only seven minutes of flight time.”

“Yeah, we’ll be done in five minutes.” says Charlotte. “One way or the other.”

I agree. Probably less. “You know how to fly this thing?” I ask Ultra.

“Kinda.” says Ultra. “Tommy shared his simulation data. Can you cut any more weight?”

“I could go to the bathroom.”

“No time.” snaps Charlotte. “Just piss yourself if you start to crash.”

“Right.” Tommy’s drained the tank. I hop on. Take a deep breath. Exhale. “Hit it.”

I blast off. Wobble. Overcorrect. Nearly flip. Crouch low, ease back to level. I’d be scared, but my daughter’s in trouble. I’m just glad to be moving. I bank towards the university, throttle it.

“Let’s get some altitude.” says Ultra. “The dropships may be visible from above.”

I nod. Climb. Ears pop. It’s quiet up here. Peaceful. I shoulder the Thermite Gun. At seven hundred feet, I pass the dropships. They are visible from above. There’s more than two dozen. Way more. I light them up.

I down a couple dozen before they scatter. They all have the same symbiont pilot. Blond, slutty, vampire. Hissing, spitting, and splitting.

One symbiont. Does that mean there’s only one guy behind this attack?

“Damn.” swears Ultra. “That’s Uber. What the hell happened to her?”

I chase a few dropships and smoke them, but it’s futile. They’re fleeing in all directions, and I don’t have time to catch them. Even if the glider could stay up all day, they’d drop most of their bombs before I got them.

“New plan.” says Ultra. “The guild thinks they found the warehouses that the drones are coming from. We may be able to do some good there.”

“Like what?”

“I dunno. Stop the next wave? Catch the guy responsible?” Ultra rubs her head. “Attacking where they’re strongest is insane, but we’re the only mobile firepower the city has. We gotta try.”

That sounds hopeless. I look at all the drones below me. This is all hopeless. “Plot a course to Storm."

A hint of a shadowy path appears in the sky.

“Why can I barely see it?”

“Because you don’t want to go to Storm.”

“I want to go to my daughter.”

“No, your fear wants to go to your daughter. But you can’t save the Mega-Storm. She don’t wanna be saved. If you clear the drones from that school, she’ll just head to the next. And the next, and the next, and the next. She’ll fight till her ammo’s gone, then she’ll fight some more. She’ll fight till she’s battered and bloodied and dead.”

A golden path appears, leading away from the university, towards the docks.

“That’s the path you want. A deadly path. You’re the only one to fly it.” Ultra looms close. “Go forth, my sweet. Save them all or die trying.”

The shadowpath fades from view. But it’s not gone. I’ve taken it inside me. Wrapped it’s darkness around my heart.

I turn the glider to the golden path. Throttle it.