Chương 124: Chapter 123 – Arrowheads

"Go, go!" shouted Cole.

"Move up. Besson, on me." One by one, the other traps started to detonate, sending more vibrations through the walls. By the time the last one went, the rattling of aftershocks had been replaced by the steady rolling thunder of hundreds of legs echoing through the J line tunnel. Cole burned a charge of his ability to mark targets, which simply bathed the last bend of the tunnel in a red glow. The first wave of arrowheads spilled around the bend in the tunnel, flowing like a wave of scrabbling claws.

There were dozens of smaller ones, interspersed with the larger warriors that Cole had spotted tracking them. Cole skidded to a stop beside Besson and took aim at one of the warriors. But the things seemed to know firearms were bad news, because before he even fired, it brought its forelegs together to form a bony plate even the heavy 7. 62 NATO rounds failed to penetrate. Besson's machine gun churned workers by the dozen as he stepped backwards." Contact front!" shouted Roxy.

"Push through!" Cole shouted behind him. If the flankers managed to slow them down enough for the warriors to wash over them, it was over. Ok, new tactic. Cole switched his aim to the smaller drones, who, lacking the armor of their larger cousins, started splattering three at a time. The rifle steamed and started to spit red-hot shavings from the vent as the on-kill damage increase went into overdrive.

Rather than splattering, the small drones started exploding, and his rifle became nearly impossible to control in a matter of seconds. The higher velocity rounds chained to the warriors from their flanks, tearing several of them into pieces and stunting the wave.

"Jesus fuckin' Christ," said Besson, sparing a glance for Cole. Cole swapped to a new magazine and his gun devoured it so fast Cole almost lost the tip of his thumb. It hissed and steamed again.

"Pull back. Howie, cover!"

"On the way!" A pair of spells arced overhead and exploded among the advancing arrowheads, freezing a vast swath of the creatures solid and making them into obstacles the rest of the bugs had to crawl over and across. That would buy them some time. Cole pushed Besson ahead of him to catch up with the rest of the squad. They passed the corpses of more drones and two warriors that had gotten ahead of them and gotten smashed by the vanguard.

As Cole passed a side tunnel, a red glow suddenly winked on, and a black-carapaced arrowhead shot out of the tunnel with a shriek. It slammed into his side and knocked both him and Besson flat. In a blink, the creature was on top of him. Claws with almost human-like fingers pinned his arms to the floor of the tunnel. The bug had a six-inch stinger on its thorax that it drove into Cole's chest, skipping off his front plate as it squirted a foul-smelling liquid. It reared up for another try.

But before that big-ass stinger drove into his belly, a hammer caught the bastard in the side, crushing its midsection with a crunch, and knocking the thing against the wall of the tunnel. Therza grabbed Cole's arm and yanked him to his feet.

"Ambusher," she said.

"Are you stung anywhere?"

"No," said Cole. On her other side, Nutmeg pulled Besson upright with her jaws clamped to his carry handle. Howie passed them both and sprayed fire from his fingertips, causing the approaching swarm to flinch back from the wall of flames.

"We're almost to the station!" shouted Therza.

"I saw light up ahead!"

"Guide me back," said Cole, burning his ability again.

"Howie, you still got anything in the tank?"

"I got one trick left," said Howie. He pulled his multi-barreled pistol from Babel and sent a dazzling array of motes that exploded in clinging fire and red lightning as they landed, creating a wide swath of chaos amid the arrowheads. He grinned over at Cole. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. Cole shook his head. That fucking Babel pistol. Even as the thought passed through his mind, his rifle hissed and steamed again.

The barrel grew shorter, almost down to a PDW length, and split into three barrels angled in a slight fan.

"Hey, we match!" said Howie.

"Howie, fall back," said Cole. And stop being a bad influence on my gun, he added silently. Cole moved backwards with Therza's help as he chewed through another wave of the arrowheads. More of the drones and warriors went down under the spread-fire of the rifle, meteoric bullets creating a tangled web of white contrails as they smashed into the swarm, penetrated and found new targets. The cold rush of a level-up hit him again, causing Cole to drop his barrel for a moment.

How many of these fucking things did I kill? It was hard to tell. With his bullets working overtime, he was gunning down hundreds of drones, at least. Cole raised his rifle again. It was barely controllable, at this point, kicking like he had tried to shoulder a Ma Deuce. Even the gun itself seemed uncomfortable with the development, sending a wave of panic and pain. The sputtering smoke it coughed out along with the brass shavings was tinged with red. Hold on, buddy!" Bouncy bullets! What'd I tell you?"

shouted Howie.

"Remind me to thank you if we survive," said Cole. They worked their way back, around the bend to where the tunnel started to open up around them. They'd bought some space and reached the station platform. They could make a break for the surface and regroup. No amount of robots could be worse than this mess." The stairs are blocked! Oh fuck, Cole!" Blinding white light bathed the tunnel, casting their shadows in sharp relief and causing the swarm to flinch back.

Cole froze as the double foghorn sounded and the whine of gun barrels spinning up started to climb.

"Cover! Cover!" said Cole. He jumped for the side of the platform and together with Alexa, pulled Howie up beside them. The three put their backs to a pillar. Across the way, the rest of his squad and Therza had scrambled to whatever they could find to put between them and the automaton tank. Archie scrabbled at the walls of the platform as Alexa threw herself flat behind the pillar. The big guns opened up, deafeningly loud in the close confines, even with ear protection.

The automaton tank stood in the middle of the rails, guns blazing down the tunnel as hundreds of hot steel cases showered the platform on both sides. Beside it, several automaton riflemen advanced as well, sending bursts of fire at the swarm. Did they not see us? Or are bugs the priority? Even that wasn't enough, as a dozen arrowhead warriors tackled the automaton marksmen, tearing through their armored metal skin as though it was tin foil.

The bots went down fighting, crushing insectoid heads in metal grips and pulling drones apart at the abdomen. Behind all the cacophony, Cole picked up the sound of short, rhythmic footsteps. The tank's guns went silent, and Cole risked a look around the pillar. In front of the big gun bot, a small trash-can on legs waddled forward toward the mouth of the train tunnel. Red reaper.

Cole was so fixated on the walking laser death machine that he almost didn't notice the two figures keeping pace beside it in hoods, bulky packs, and full-face masks, until they were almost beside him. The red reaper moved up to the tunnel and its emitter started to glow. The split lasers lanced out, sweeping through the tunnel and carving through bot and bug alike. Metal melted and carapace split under the beams. The advancing carpet of drones churned.

Even the thick bone plates of the warriors offered little resistance as the red reaper carved warriors into pieces. When the lasers clicked off, the two humans flanking it stalked forward and held their weapons out, spitting gouts of flame down the tunnel. Cole held his hand against the intense backwash of heat from the flamethrowers. Even this far away it felt like he stood too close to a grill. He flinched back, pushing away—only to see figures rushing out of a maintenance hall behind a derelict ticketing office.

At least twenty armed men and women had come out of the service access on the other side of the platform. Some of them moved up to assist the flamethrowers pushing the skittering mass of arrowheads back into the tunnel. Others were moving to his teammates on the other side of the platform. Alexa started to draw her sidearm, but Cole stilled her.

"I think we found LouixCorp," he said.

"Why aren't the bots shredding them?" asked Alexa. She put her hand against her temple and groaned.

"Oh, fuck! Something's happening to my—" her attention snapped down to her clockwork familiar, Archie, who had started to twitch and spasm. It sparked and collapsed on its side before twisting into a vaguely humanoid shape and pushing up to its feet.

"What are you doing?" asked Cole.

"Cole, I'm not the one doing that!" said Alexa through grit teeth. An antenna extended from the back of the newly rearranged Archie, and it clicked and buzzed. It scanned around the subway platform before its view centered on Cole." Wow, I think this thing's got a speaker! Hello! Hello! Can you hear me?"