Invid Invasion: The New Generation Page 5

  “What’s the problem?” Rand shouted, raising his goggles. “You got nowhere to go, or what?” He saw Scott smile beneath the helmet’s wraparound chin guard.

  “I want to head up toward that city you mentioned,” Scott called back, maintaining his speed. “We might be able to get some information.”

  “What’s this we stuff, spaceman?” Rand barked. “I go my own way.”

  Scott smiled again. “Come on, I’ll show you how to convert to Battle Armor mode. Or maybe you’re too frightened of the Invid, huh?”

  “Hey, pal, you go ahead and wage your one-man war. This Cyclone’s fine as is,” Rand snapped. “See you around,” he added, giving a twist to the throttle and pulling out ahead of Scott.

  In a moment Scott came up alongside again.

  “Make up your mind—you headed to the city or not?”

  Scott made a gesture of nonchalance. “I’m just headed where I’m headed, that’s all.”

  “Well, get off my tail!” Rand shouted, lowering his goggles. He popped the front wheel and accelerated out front.

  Scott did the same, and the two of them toyed with each other for several minutes, alternating the lead. By now they had entered the shoulderless downhill portion of the highway, and Rand was nursing some misgivings about playing chicken with a dude who was decked out in armor. Nevertheless, he stuck by the offworlder, racing him into a wide turn where the roadway disappeared around the shoulder of the mountain. Neither of them saw the convoy of trucks headed for the pass until it was almost too late. The driver of the lead vehicle—an open-cabbed eight-wheeler—leaned on his horn and locked up the brakes, throwing the transport into zigzags. The Cyclones, meanwhile, were also locked up, sliding sideways down the narrow road. Rand, on the inside, saw a collapsed portion of an earthen wall and went for it, ramping his bike up to the high ground. Scott, however, kept to the road, dangerously close to the drop-off now, and brought the Cyclone to a halt a meter from the truck’s front grille.

  The driver, a long-haired rube wearing a tall brimmed hat, waved his fist in the air. “Ya rogue—somebody coulda got killed!”

  “Sorry about that,” Scott told him offhandedly. “Look, we need some information—”

  “Wait a minute!” the driver cut Scott off, eyeing him up and down. “You’re a soldier! What are you doing out here?”

  Scott revealed just enough to satisfy the driver’s curiosity. “I’m looking for others who may have bailed out. Have you come across anyone?” Scott saw the man give a start, then avert his gaze.

  “Nope. No one … But lemme give you a free piece of advice,” the driver answered him, throwing the truck into forward gear. “You’re gonna wish you never came back!”

  Scott legged the Cyclone off to one side, calling out for an explanation as the truck roared off. The other drivers in the convoy regarded Scott warily from the cabs of their trucks as they lumbered by, but no one said a word until a young boy in the back of the final one yelled out: “Hey, mister, don’t tell anyone who you are or you’ll be in deep trouble!”

  Scott thought he would hear more, but the truck’s headbanded elder put a hand over the boy’s mouth. “Don’t talk to that man,” he threatened the kid.

  Rand watched the convoy disappear around the bend and saw Scott’s gesture of puzzlement. “You coming or not?” the offworlder asked him suddenly. Rand thought about it for a moment while Scott took off down the road. All his instincts told him to follow the trucks, but ultimately he coasted down the incline and set out to catch up with Scott; after all, somebody had to keep the guy from sticking his nose where it didn’t belong.

  In the trees at the edge of the roadway, the red optic scanner of an Invid Scout rotated slightly to track the rider’s swift departure.…

  “Ken, please come with me!” Annie was shouting. “I’ll be good for you, I promise! I love you! You promised you’d stay with me!”

  He was dragging her down the road now, his hands underneath her arms. They were a good half mile from the causeway checkpoints already, and Annie was still causing a scene. Finally he dropped her on her butt.

  “Whaddaya want from me—you want me to leave my family and friends?”

  She looked up at him and said, “Yes.”

  Ken bent down eye to eye with her. “Look, I know it seems bad right now, but you’ll find somebody to take care of you.”

  “Don’t worry about me!” she yelled in his face as she got up. “I can find my own way around. Men are a dime a dozen for someone like me.” Then suddenly she was all over him again: “Please, Ken!”

  Ken shook her off, sending her down to the ground on her knees. Fed up, he began to walk back to the checkpoint. Ten steps away, however, he turned at the sound of approaching vehicles. Scott and Rand were just coming around a bend in the tree-lined road. They halted their Cyclones where Annie sat crying. Ken took one look at the cycles and saw a sweet deal in the making. He went over to them with a gleam in his eye.

  Closest to Annie, Rand was asking, “What’s the matter, kid, are you hurt?”

  She looked up, surprised, and told him in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t a kid. “So, beat it!”

  Ken ambled up and gestured appreciatively at Scott’s mecha. “Nice wheels, rogue.” Ken smiled. “Where’d you forage ’em?”

  “I’m Commander Bernard of Mars Division,” Scott said when he had raised the helmet faceshield. “I’m looking for other survivors of my unit.”

  Ken glanced over at Rand and stepped back. “You’re for real, then—soldiers, I mean.”

  “Have you seen any of the others?”

  “Come with me,” Ken said after a moment, already setting off for the causeway.

  Scott was suddenly full of hope. “They’re here?”

  “And you can come, too, Annie,” Ken added without turning around.

  Annie’s eyes opened wide. “I take back what I said.” She hurried to catch up with him and attached herself to his arm lovingly.

  Rand and Scott exchanged looks and brought the Cyclones back to life. “What’s the chance of landing some belly timber?” Rand wanted to know. “We’ve got trade goods.”

  “Follow me,” Ken told him.

  Annie beamed. “You’ve made me so happy, Ken.” She went up on tiptoe to kiss him on the mouth.

  Ken whisked them through the checkpoint and escorted them along the causeway that led to the main island. It was a picturesque spot for a city, Rand had to admit: a crystal-blue lake surrounded by forested hills. But there was ample evidence of the war’s hold over the place—the scorched and rusted hulks of Zentraedi battlecruisers, downed Adventurers, Falcons, and Bioroids. He noticed that there was a second island, accessible only from the main one, and that it, too, was host to a densely packed cluster of tall, mostly ruined buildings, rubble, and debris heaped up in the streets. Up close the city was somewhat less than inspiring, literally a shell of its former self, but so far they hadn’t been searched, hassled, or otherwise bad-vibed, and Rand was beginning to wonder where all those rumors had come from.

  “These are Robotech soldiers!” Ken announced to the sullen-faced people huddled inside the buildings, postapocalypse cave dwellers in high-rise cliffs of slagged steel and fractured concrete. “They were with the forces who have returned to Earth to rid us of the Invid.” No one moved, no one returned a word. There was only the slight howling of the wind and the steady throb of the Cyclones’ engines. “They’re looking for lost members of the assault group. I’m going to take them over to the other island.”

  Ken turned a wan smile to Scott and Rand. “As you can see, folks around here aren’t used to strangers,” he said by way of apology. “They’re always a bit suspicious at first, but don’t worry about it. They’ll soon get used to you.”

  Scott, Rand, and Annie followed Ken’s lead to the causeway linking the main island with its twin.

  “There it is.” Ken pointed. “If any of your comrades have come through here, they’ll have been taken o
ver to the other island.”

  “Thanks a lot for your help, Ken,” Scott said.

  Ken disengaged his hand from Annie’s two-fisted lock on it. “Why don’t you show them over the causeway while I go talk to the Elders about your staying here?”

  Annie called out to him as he was walking away.

  “Yes?” he said impatiently, not bothering to turn around.

  “Bye-bye, sweet thing!”

  “And don’t forget that food!” Rand thought to add.

  Annie made an elaborate gesture, then laughed. “Now, if you gentlemen will just follow me …”

  Rand chuckled and patted the rear seat of the Cyclone. “Hop on,” he told her. “It’ll be fun.”

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  The Invid Regess ruled her empire from Reflex Point (located in what was once the United States of America, specifically the Indiana-Ohio frontier); but there was scarcely a region without one or two large hives (except the poles and vast uninhabited tracts in Asia and Africa). In this way her Scouts were always about, with Enforcers (a.k.a. Shock Troopers) not far behind. Brazilas was no different from other northern regions in that it was effectively an occupied zone. Like Vichy France of the Second World War, each town had its sympathizers and resistance fighters; but the former far outnumbered the latter, and it was not uncommon to encounter gruesome and ghastly acts of betrayal and butchery undertaken in the name of self-survival.

  Bloom Nesterfig, Social Organization of the Invid

  As Rand himself would later write:

  “There was something about Ken’s telling Annie to lead us across the causeway that hit me like a cold wind, but for some reason I just turned my back to it. Scott’s innocent enthusiasm had something to do with this. Psyched about seeing some of his friends, he was off in a flash, the Cyclone’s rear end chirping a quick good-bye to me and the kid. So I told her to climb on and followed Scott’s carefree course, Annie laughing and hanging on for dear life while I goosed the mecha into a long gold-card wheelie.

  “The bridge was a simple affair, a flat span no more than fifteen feet wide and a quarter mile long, its plastar surface every bit as holed and bellied as the rest of Laako’s streets. The causeway seemed to bisect the island’s stand of colorless truncated towers, which rose before us like some ruined vision of the future, an emerald without its shine. Beyond it, a ridge of green hills and a soft-looking autumn sky.

  “Scott was a block or two ahead of me when we hit the island, and talk about your low-rent downtown … the place looked as though it had seen some intense fighting with conventional weapons as well as the usual Robo upgrades. Scott had slowed his cycle to a crawl and was using the mecha’s externals to broadcast our arrival.

  “ ‘This is Commander Bernard of the Twenty-first Armored Tactical Assault Squadron,’ his voice rang out. ‘I’m looking for any Mars Division survivors. If you can hear my voice, please respond … Is anybody there? I just want to talk!’

  “Annie and I looked around but didn’t see anyone moving. I would have been happy to see some more of those sunken-eyed citizens we had seen on the other side, but suddenly even those shadowy cliff dwellers were in short supply. Up ahead, Scott was stopped near a pile of trashed mecha, a perverse war memorial complete with Veritechs, Battlepods, Hovertanks, and Bioroids, arms, legs, and cannon muzzles fused together in a kind of death-affirming sculpture. I came up behind him and toed the Cyclone into neutral. We were on a small rise above the causeway, Scott off to my left, staring at the junk heap with a kind of morbid fascination.

  “Then we saw the Cyclones.

  “And the bodies.

  “You couldn’t ride the wastes in those days and be a stranger to death, and like everyone I had seen my fair share of Human remains, but there were fresh kills in the heap, and it was obvious what had happened.

  “ ‘This isn’t any junk pile!’ I heard Scott say. ‘It’s a goddamn graveyard!’

  “Annie gave a start and hugged herself to my back. ‘What’s it mean?’ she cried, panic already in her voice.

  “Scott glanced over at us, his face all twisted up. ‘It means I smell a rat and it’s got your boyfriend’s face!’

  “All at once we heard a deep whirring noise accompanied by sounds of mechanical disengagement. I looked back toward the causeway in time to see it give a shudder, then begin a slow retraction toward the main island. But I was more puzzled than alarmed. I’d already seen Scott leap that mecha of his twice the distance to the island, so our being able to get off this one alive only meant that I was going to be learning the secrets of Cyclone reconfiguration in spite of myself. Moreover, I couldn’t figure why Ken needed to resort to such elaborate plans to rid Laako of intruders.

  “I think Scott must have been way ahead of me on this one, because he didn’t seem at all surprised when two Invid suddenly surfaced in the lake. Annie’s pounding me on the back, shouting, ‘We gotta get outta here!’ and Scott is just sitting silently on the Cyclone taking in the situation like he’s got all the time in the world. I’ll always remember the look on his face at that moment—and I would have reason to recall it often during the following months. I thought to myself: The eye of the storm.

  “Two more Invid were now heading our way from up the street, looming over us, pincers gleaming like knives caught in the light, the ground shaking from their footfalls. These weren’t Scouts but Shock Troopers, the larger, meaner version whose shoulder-mounted organic-looking cannons gave them a wide-eyed amphibious look. The lake creatures had submerged, only to reappear behind us, rising up through the plastar streets and putting a radical end to thoughts of escape. In a moment the four were joined by a fifth, who had also taken the subterranean route.

  “I felt compelled to point out that we were surrounded, and Scott said, ‘Take off!’ Which I was all for. I spun the cycle around my left foot and was gone, Scott not two lengths behind me, his Cyclone launched from the street by an overhead pincer slam that nearly flattened him. Later, Annie apologized for the fingernail prints she left in my upper arms, but at that moment I was feeling no pain.

  “I had what I thought was the presence of mind to head for the narrower streets, but the Troopers were determined to have us for lunch; their leader, airborne now, simply used its shoulders to power a wider upper-story path between the buildings.

  “ ‘How’d they find us!’ Annie was yelling into my left ear.

  “ ‘Your boyfriend, Ken,’ I told her. ‘He delivered us right into their claws.’ But she didn’t want to hear it. Who—Ken!

  “ ‘He’d never do anything like that—never!’

  “It wasn’t really a good time for an argument, though. The Troopers were sticking to us like magnets, firing off bursts of plasma fire. The fact that I had seen what those annihilation discs could do to a Human body was probably responsible for the chancy moves I made on the Cyclone. But the memory of those liquid remains paid off, because I got us through the first stretch unscathed. Then, after we had taken them around one block, down an alleyway, and through half a dozen more right angles, Scott told me to get the kid out of there; he was going Battle Armor to lure them away. Scott was nothing if not noble. But I couldn’t resist getting another look at that reconfiguration act, and caught some flack for it.

  “ ‘What’re you looking at?’ Scott berated me over the externals. ‘Get moving!’

  “Annie seconded this with a couple of cleanly placed kidney shots. So Scott and I parted company at a T intersection, and the next thing I heard was a massive exchange of cannonfire and a series of crippling explosions. But the Invid had done their part in sticking to Scott’s tail, and Annie and I were in the clear for the moment.

  “I pulled the bike over and told her to hop off. There was no way I was going to let Scott take all the heat; I just had to get my Cyclone to reconfigure, battle armor or not. Trouble was, the damn thing wouldn’t respond. I thumbed the switch above the starter button, but nothing happened, so I started flipping switches le
ft and right, cursing the thing for being so obstinate. Annie, the little darling, stood by me, hands behind her head, taunting me and telling me in no uncertain terms to hurry the hell up. Of course, I have since learned that that is precisely what you don’t do with a piece of mecha, but what did this basically backwoods loner know about mecha then? I just kept jiggling this, pounding that, turning the other, and all of a sudden I found myself flat on my back in the seat, the Cyclone grotesquely reconfigured, with both wheels behind it now, its nose kissing the street.

  “Annie was kind enough not to laugh in my face; she turned aside first. And I did something brilliant—like leap off the cycle and try to place kick it into the lake—which only resulted in an injury to my foot to match the one already sustained by my pride.

  “But now Annie was shouting and pointing up at something. Scott, in full battle armor, had taken to the buttressed top of a building a few blocks away. One minute he was standing there like some sort of rooftop Robostatue, and the next he was playing dodge-the-plasma-Frisbees. I saw him drop into that annihilation disc storm and execute one of those Bernard bounces that carried him out of sight, just short of the explosions that turned the building into a chimney, flames roaring up from its blasted roof, black parabolas of slagged stuff in the sky.

  “Meanwhile, I had worked through my frustration and managed to get the mecha back into Cycle mode. Annie still wanted to know why the thing wouldn’t change. I started to explain about the armor and ‘thinking cap,’ and the next thing I knew she was running off toward the causeway.

  “ ‘I’m gonna go and find Ken and get him to tell me once and for all why he went and sold us out to the Invid!’ she yelled after I tried to get her to stop. ‘ ’F you don’t like it—tough!’