Page 73 of The Brightness Between Us

“This river is a natural boundary. If we ford here, and the warbot goes around, which I think it will, then we might have bought ourselves some time.”

“Then let’s get moving,” Ambrose says. He removes his backpack, lifts it over his head, and makes his way into the muck at the shore, then into the eddies that soon lead to surging water.

I follow, impressed despite myself. Sheep paddles beside me. She’s clearly not pleased with the swim, but isn’t about to be left behind.

The moon above, the patter of rain on the slow river, the dark currents of the water, the sound of Ambrose ahead and Sheep beside me, the need to focus on what’s under myfeet, the sore tension of my laden arms high over my head, give me a feeling of purpose... and strange peace. Perhaps a mission forward can bring as much harmony as a retreat.

In the corner of my eye, a flash.

I whip my head to look at the bank behind us. An arc of white-blue light, then nothing, just the blackness of the valley’s early night.

“Dive!” I yell.

I remember how quickly the dogs were vaporized. I don’t have time to check that Ambrose heard me. I let go of my pack and swim deep into the cold water.

I have no idea if being underwater will save us from the warbot. But I do know that the one time Dimokratía resistance fighters were able to fend one off, Singapore in 2464, had been an amphibious engagement.

The current is strong. I force myself not to stroke, so my oxygen will last longer, letting the water push me down the river. Where doesn’t matter, so long as it spits me out far from my starting location.

I wish I could hear more than the rush of the current. I’ve caught a strong stream, slipping past slimy logs and mossy stones, hoping I don’t impale myself on rebar or a broken branch. My lungs start to demand air just as I strike shallows, my belly skating on the soft muck of the shore. I pull forward so that only my head is out of the water, facing into soft dead leaves. I want to heave and gasp but Imake myself breathe quietly.

Flashing lights, thudding vibrations. The same din as fireworks.

I turn onto my side, facing the commotion. I’m back on the near shore, and the warbot is hovering over the middle of the water a few hundred yards upriver, firing nonstop. Its bullets strike trees and ground with enough force to send up bright clouds of sparks, to fill the air with the tangy smell of burning wood. With each round of firing, a new glow fills the dark sky and illuminates the tendrils of smoke that rise from the assault.

The warbot is shooting in enough directions that it must not have detected Ambrose—it’s just firing on any biological signatures it detects, any hints of animal movement, indiscriminately mowing down ducks and voles and praying mantises. Or sheep. Or humans.

The warbot pauses, then moves downriver a few yards and begins a fresh round of firing.

I wince. But I must not be in range yet, because I’m still alive.

Frantically, I look for any sign of Ambrose or Sheep. Nothing. They’re either dead already at the bottom of the river, or they somehow got away, or they’re trying to keep as still as they can, like I am.

I wait for the warbot to begin a fresh round of firing. Once it’s done, I slink forward a fraction and stop whenthe warbot begins scanning again. I creep farther forward during the next round of firing.

I’m in a thicket at the shore now. I get to all fours.

The latest round of firing stops, and I pause.

The firing doesn’t begin again.

I allow myself to look back toward the warbot. It’s changed its strategy, and surges toward me above the river’s surface, fast enough that the top of the cylinder is ahead of the bottom half, the sparking electrified middle expanding between them like a stretched spring.

The warbot slows once it reaches the stretch of river closest to my feeble hiding place. It stops, and begins its latest scan.

Training be damned. No breathing tricks will keep me alive at this distance. I break into a mad crashing run, slamming through branches and thorny vines, slaloming around trunks, hurling myself into the tree line.

I hear creaking, crashing thuds behind me as bullets rip into vegetation. Shrapnel strikes my back, and chunks of wood hurtle past me. I’m beamed across the back of my head, strong enough that it feels like a punch. A bloody chunk of wood pitches into the ground before me.

Somehow I’m still alive, somehow I can still stagger forward, somehow I have a body that can tumble into the muck, exhausted and depleted. I can’t get to my feet in the invisible mass of bush and vine that’s trapping my ankles,but I do manage to wriggle onto my back to see behind me, where through the dark canopy of trees I can just make out the river.

There, the warbot has risen high above the water, its blue electric middle brighter than ever, casting glowing metallic light over the eddies of the river. Like an avenging god from some silent primal era of magic and might. It flies to the bridge, where it positions itself in the very middle.

Is Ambrose somehow alive, and hiding on the bridge?

Is the warbot out of bullets, and printing more? Or preparing to detonate?

I’ve pushed my body to its limits. I want to flee, but I can’t get myself to move. I can only watch. Watch my end come to meet me, or watch the murder of my new companion.

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