Chapter Sixty-Five - Raining Fried Chicken

“Right, I know you’ve got a cool gimmick going on, and it is interesting, but just because you could maybe doesn’t mean you should have... now, where exactly did you want me to slot your head?”

--Recorded discussion between Dial-up and Lag, 2049

***

The... I supposed it wasn’t technically a bomb--started to show its impact maybe a minute after it dropped. Gomorrah moved the Fury around so that we were hovering nearby, overlooking the drop-zone.

The ground below was teeming with antithesis, thousands of them squirming around and doing their thing. I saw plenty of those worm models moving about while others broke into the homes and shops lining the streets and pulled out anything biological that they could use.

The heat kept increasing, but it was a slow process.

The first signs that it was working came from the advertisements on the shops nearest the heat bomb. They fritzed out and failed, colourful screens and hovering holograms shutting off at random.

Then the paint started to peel on the cars abandoned along the road. One of them had its battery burst, and a gush of fire roared out from the bottom of the car, catching a few model threes off guard. Not that it hurt them much.

I continued to watch as the aliens around the bomb started to back away from it. A few collapsed, and one eventually caught fire, but the flames didn’t seem to last long.

The heat continued to grow. Cars started to warp, their plastic bodies melting apart. Posters stuck onto the nearest streetlamp burst into flame. A few wires snapped, and glass exploded apart. A mirage started to appear over that entire part of the city, grey reflections shifting and making it hard to see the asphalt around the bomb turning liquid.

“Damn,” I said as I continued to watch. The bomb just kept going. I could see where the heat had travelled just by following its impact. The centre, nearest the bomb, had the most damage. One of the apartments next to it lit up from within. I imagined that the furniture inside was more flammable than the concrete exterior of the building was.

A clothing store just half a block down turned into a roaring bonfire as everything within it combusted.

The antithesis ran, but they weren’t running fast enough.

The heat was a perfect tool for killing them. Slow acting enough that they didn’t seem to understand they were in danger until their eyes were melting and their flesh catching fire. Those big worms writhed on the ground, sinking into sticky asphalt. Model ones fell out of the air, wings going bright for the few seconds they burned.

And then the first building collapsed. It was right across the street from the epicentre. A big commercial place, store on the ground, offices above, lots of glass and that sort of modern minimalist design that was so popular.

Glass showered down across the city as the heat pushed on. It created an expanding ring of fire. Somehow, though, there was a circle that was following the ring where nothing burned but everything melted. I imagined that had something to do with chemicals or some scientific bullshit that I couldn’t understand.

“This is working out pretty well,” I said.

“I’m enjoying it,” Gomorrah said.

I snorted. Of course she was. The pyromaniac was probably getting off on this.

“Is the heat going to stop before it causes trouble?” I asked.

“It’s already causing plenty of trouble. And I mean that in the sense that this is probably not good for the environment. But yes, we can shut it off before it reaches the gap.”

I nodded. Then that was that. An entirely anti-climatic end to this whole ordeal. At least, it was from up in the air. I grinned as I watched the aliens scramble while melting. It must have been a whole lot different for them.

“We should head ba--” I began.

Then the Fury rocked hard to one side and I swung my arms out to keep standing while the car shifted crazily beneath me.

The car spun, losing altitude even as its engine roared to compensate. The loss didn’t last long, soon we were levelling off and even rising back up a little. I checked the skies, looking for whatever had caused that.

It wasn’t hard to find.

A huge bird was flapping its way higher, a big black thing that was covered in fine scales. A model eleven? “You okay?” I asked Gomorrah as I pulled my bullcat from the small of my back. I wasn’t sure I could nail the bird too easily, but I might be able to annoy it. I deployed my shoulder-mounted rails and let them track the alien through the air.

“Shit,” Gomorrah said.

I braced. She wouldn’t swear for no reason.

My railguns both fired a split second before the Fury was thrown to the side. I cursed as I felt one foot come loose from the magnet holding it in place. Then I swore some more as I was left hanging perpendicular to the ground while the Fury was on its side.

We were losing altitude, at least until Gomorrah snapped the car back straight.

That sudden motion threw me back.

“Fucking fuck!” I screamed as I stepped back and into open air, dropping off of the hood.

I wasn’t entirely screwed. My jetpacks all went off at once, righting me in the air just in time for me to crash onto a rooftop with a hard jerk. My teeth clacked together and I was jarred pretty hard, but that was the worst of it.

I glanced up and saw a model eleven clinging to the side of the Fury. “This thing’s going to scratch my paint!” Gomorrah complained.

It had done worse than that already. One of the engines that allowed the car to float was ripped apart. I half expected sparks and some fire from the broken parts, but there wasn’t anything of the sort.

Guns unfolded from the Fury. First a pair of missiles raced out of the car and rammed into the model eleven above just as it was circling around. Then a flamethrower spun around and hosed the alien clinging onto the car’s side until it let go and flew off.

“Where are you?” Gomorrah asked.

“Rooftop, below,” I said. I glanced around, then worked my jaw. I found all the missing flying models I was wondering about earlier. Thousands of model ones were taking to the air, slipping out of windows and filling the sky along with dozens of model elevens. Had they been keeping low this entire time?

A lot of them were heading my way, and from the heat I was feeling through my armour, it wasn’t hard to guess why. “Ah, shit, Gomorrah head back a bit. Keep an eye on the skies.”

“Alright,” Gomorrah said. “Do you think you can find a place where I can pick you up?”

“We’ll find something,” I said as I started to run across the rooftop. I reached the edge and leapt off. My jumpjets hissed and I sailed over the gap between two buildings. I caught sight of a nearly empty street below. Just a few lingering aliens who glanced up to watch me slip by.

“Cat,” Gomorrah said. “They’re heading our way.”

The Fury rumbled past above me. The car usually purred as it moved but now that sound was replaced by a nasty grinding that I imagined meant the car would need fixing.

I landed, still running, and spun around to see behind me.

Gomorrah wasn’t wrong. There was a whole flock of birds darting my way, enough to darken the skies. My railguns fired, pinning two model elevens in mid-flight. Only one of them had the common courtesy to die. I raised my bullcat and held down the trigger.

Didn’t need to aim when there were so many targets.

The birds weren’t my only problem though. I stared as the roof of the building I’d been on caught fire.

Catherine, I would suggest moving with a little more alacrity. You’re right on the edge of the temperature range your armour can handle.

“Oh, come on,” I said as I spun around and took off sprinting.

I didn’t want to get eaten. I wanted to get cooked alive inside my armour even less. I shot over the gap between the building I was on and the next without even needing the boost from my jumpjets. My feet crunched on a gravel-covered rooftop and I turned hard to avoid a solar-panel set up in the middle of the rooftop.

It was getting warmer.

A black blur zipped past my head and I ducked, even if it was too late.

The model one that had missed me crashed onto the ground next to me, dead, its feathers entirely cooked off.

More of the little models started to plummet down around me, raining out of the sky.

“Gomorrah! It’s raining fried chicken here and I’m not liking it!”

“I found a spot,” she said and the Fury lowered itself a few buildings down.

I just hoped I’d make it.

***