novelraw Chapter 460: Choices
Chapter 460: Choices
Sera’s creature leaned into the sensation of being hunted.
Eyes with no soul and no meat, it said, unimpressed. Metal things trying to think they are predators but will never taste good. They are only useful if they bring something worth eating.
Sera watched the drones adjust, dipping a little lower, then climbing again as if they were searching for a specific range. She narrowed her eyes. ’Do you think this is about the lab?’ she asked, cocking her head to the side. They had been through an ice age, and an EMP. How is it that only Region T seemed to have power and machines at their command?
Did they know that this was coming? Was it possible to protect an entire Region from an EMP... or was the CDC buried so far underground that it didn’t impact them?
Sera shook her head. There were too many questions and she had recently discovered that she hated unanswered questions the most. It was just better not to think about them.
Everything here is about the lab, the creature replied, bringing the human part back to the present. Humans built a nest of bad ideas and did not think about what would happen when something kicked it. They heard their glass break. Now they are reaching for whatever stick they can find. It might be them. It might be someone else who listens to their alarms. Does it matter? Either way, they are hunting us, and we are not someone who should ever be prey.
’I agree,’ Sera said with a nod of her head. She had spent too many years in her last life playing the prey, and she was never going to do that again.
She refused.
Curling her upper lip, Sera waited for the other shoe to drop.
The interior of the truck shifted as it hit a slight dip where the road cut between low ridges. The land rose on either side, not high enough to be mountains, but enough to make an impression. The concrete here had been patched with packed dirt where parts of it had collapsed. Scrub crowded the higher ground.
The perfect place for an ambush, grunted the creature, saying exactly what Sera was thinking. I wonder if it is their luck or ours that brought us here.
’I don’t believe in luck,’ sneered Sera as she stretched out her tight neck.
The drones lowered another few meters, moving directly overhead now. A faint, low vibration slid down through the metal roof. It crawled along Sera’s spine, causing all sorts of warning bells to go off. The small hairs on her arms rose up as it continued to get closer and closer.
Luci’s ears were pinned back as he let out a growl so loud that Sera could easily hear it from inside the truck. The dire wolf rose to his feet in the bed and shook himself hard before planting his paws wide.
"That’s new," Lachlan muttered. "Do you feel that?"
Zubair’s jaw flexed. "It a sonic drone," he grumbled. "It’s designed to cause humans to lose coordination, experience vertigo, nausea, and potentially blow our inner ears. Whoever they are, they are testing our reaction. Or they want us to stop."
Sera let the vibration pass through her even as the whine was starting to annoy her.
Just another example of just how weak true humans are, sneered her creature as Sera stuck her finger in her ear and wiggled it a bit.
’You know,’ she replied sarcastically. ’I considered myself a true human until Daddy Dearest told me otherwise.’
Just because you were as stupid as a human, didn’t make you human, chuckled her creature. Try to keep up.
Sera rolled her eyes but didn’t bother to reply.
Soon enough, the pressure eased slightly, then returned, this time tuned a little differently. Whoever controlled the drones was adjusting, trying to find a frequency that did more than make Zubair drift over the center line of the road.
Sera snorted softly. "Persistent little things," she murmured, not happy.
"Who do you think it is?" Lachlan asked. "CDC? Some local warlord with too much scrap metal on their hands? FEMA? Oooh! I know! It has to be the CIA! This is something they would do."
"You would think that any government agency would have better things to do than chase trucks," Zubair replied. "They have their own devils to deal with seeing as I don’t think there is even a central government anymore."
Sera watched the road curve gently through the cut. Her creature tilted her attention to the ridges.
Look at the ground, it said. Not just the sky. Human hunters do not come only from above. Unless they have a new evolution that I don’t know about. Do humans have wings?
Holding back her laughter, Sera shifted her gaze downward.
At first, the ridges looked like more of the same—rock, scrub, dead brush. Then she spotted a patch of shadows that held still just a bit too long. A glint of metal flashed for a second before vanishing. Another shape slid behind a low outcrop, moving in a pattern that was too clean for an animal.
’Oh,’ she thought. ’They brought friends.’
Her creature’s mood brightened. Good. Metal eyes and soft things with guns. This feels closer to what we wanted. Get ready Sera... dinner is about to be served.
The truck bumped as it hit what felt like just another pothole, but this time, something under the front wheels felt wrong. It wasn’t broken pavement... they were used to that feeling now. Instead, it was something sharper. And only for a brief second.
Zubair swore under his breath and tightened his grip. "Spike belt," he grunted, the look of displeasure on his face was kind of cute. "They punctured our tires. We won’t be able to use this truck in the future until we find some more."
The front tires blew half a second later.
There was a heavy lurch as the truck’s nose dropped and Sera could smell it as the rubber under them shredded. The steering fought Zubair, but he didn’t panic. He let the momentum carry them, braked just enough to keep them from spinning, and let the vehicle grind to a halt on damaged wheels.
The engine growled once more before he cut it.
Silence fell in a thick blanket.
The drones above them hummed.
Zubair looked at Sera. "Do you want to run them over," he asked, "or do you want to get out?"