I want to turn and run; this thing is so freaking scary. It has two guns with multiple barrels on either side of its bat-shaped wings. One yellow-lighted camera eye swivels around while stark-white lights bleach everything it touches. The light shines directly at me, but the beam doesn’t penetrate the room.
“The program I have in place will compensate for new data from the drone. It’ll incorporate the drone’s searchlights into the holographic image, while still projecting a desolate interior by adding the light elements.”
I hold my breath. When the white light swings away from me, I let out a sigh and sag against Trey. His arm across my chest tightens. “It’s just running its protocols. It’s not intelligent, not like you,” he murmurs against my hair. The drone moves back through the courtyard.
Trey holds up his wrist and speaks into his communicator. “Did you get the job done, Wayra?” he asks.
“Yeah, it’s done. Whahappened is now a part of its nomenclature. When junior returns home to the mother ship, he’ll be a harassenger instead of a passenger, and then BOOM!”
The drone slips out of the courtyard; it joins up with another hovering creeper. Their ghostly lights paint the street as they move on. My breath returns to normal until the other drone halts abruptly, flipping a uey. Its lights bear down on something moving in the darkness. The blood in my veins turns to frost.
“It’s homing on something,” Trey murmurs into his communicator. “Wayra, do you have eyes on it, the second drone?”
“Negative,” Wayra replies between his clenched teeth.
“I’ve got eyes on ’em,” says Gibon, joining the conversation. “The ratwacker’s got someone.” From where I am, I witness a dark-haired couple crawl out from beneath an overturned hovercraft. My insides coil.
Bathed in a light, the couple clings to one another while the drone hovers threateningly above them. The drone with Trey’s virus follows it, circling them menacingly. I cringe and pull away from Trey, going to the glass. My breath fogs it as I watch the drone project a holographic image in front of them. It’s me! I recognize my face, larger than life.
“What’s it saying? Can anyone hear it?” Trey asks urgently.
“It wants to know if they’ve seen Kricket. It says it will let them live if they give it information regarding her whereabouts,” Gibon says in a whisper. When the woman shakes her head, the drone reacts violently, turning a flamethrower on her. She instantly catches fire, and the intense heat melts her skin off her. The male beside her catches fire too. He lets go of her, draws a harbinger, and begins to fire on the drone. The companion drone executes him by pumping more than fifty consecutive rounds of bullets into his body in under twenty seconds, reducing him to nothing more than a pile of flaming flesh. The drones take another sweep of the area before they move on up the street once more and disappear from my line of sight.
I rest my forehead on the glass, staring out at nothing in particular. Trey says, “Revoke transparency. Continue camouflage protocol five.” The window wall becomes opaque once more as smoke swirls between the glass panes, obscuring the outside world.
I lift my forehead from the glass, looking behind me to Trey. “I need a weapon,” I say softly.
“You’re safer without one,” Trey replies. “The Alameeda don’t want to kill you.”
“Are you joking?” I ask him incredulously, turning around to face him. I lean against the smoky glass for support.
“No. They want to own you. They won’t kill you unless you force them to.”
“Maybe I want to decide my own fate should the need arise.”
My response does not go over well with him. He grows angry. “You’re looking for an OTBD?” he asks in a very predatory way, watching me as if he can see inside my soul. Maybe he can; we traded souls not too long ago.
“Define OTBD.”
“Out The Back Door. Death by suicide.”
“That’s about right. I’m not looking to get caught again.”
“You’re a survivor, that’s what you do.” Trey’s eyes burrow into mine. “I’m counting on you for that,” he says in a biting, clipped tone. His eyes look me over as if he’s seeing my battle wounds even though they’re covered.
“Weapon,” I insist, holding out my hand to him.
“No. Not for that. Never for that,” he retorts.
“You want to see me with them again?” I ask with my hands on my hips.