Stray Cat Strut

Chapter Seven - Hummingbird

INT. LIVE STUDIO

The camera pans away from CRAZY CLIVE who grins back at it. Audience applause, cheers.

-- REDACTED Episode of Crazy Clive’s Truth Talk. September 2027.

***

I ran.

No, I didn’t just run, I sprinted.

It felt as if I was as light as a feather, as if every gasping breath filled my lungs with a hundred times more air than I had ever had. Every nerve along my skin tingled, every scent I caught told a story, and every twitch of my eye showed me the world with an amount of detail I had never seen before.

When Myalis had said that Mind Krank Ultra was addictive, I thought it had been chemically so. We’d gotten our share of warnings about drugs at the orphanage--drugged up kids were harder to adopt and strained the orphanages insurance bills when they inevitably ODed--so I knew a bit about chemical addictions.

This wasn’t that. Or maybe it was. I didn’t know. I didn’t care.

I pushed myself to run just a bit faster and the runner’s high, even after only crossing half the museum, was nearly orgasmic. “Oh, damn,” I said.

I would advise some caution. As good as you may be feeling, the drug is mostly suppressing your body’s reactions to your injuries. You are still in very poor health.

“Right, right,” I said.

I heard screams again. Many of them, and from down the corridor where the shelter was.

My shitty sneakers squeaked as they bit into the faux-marble floor and I shot ahead. My grip tightened around the hummingbird, finger hovering over the trigger. I was ready. I felt ready. I also felt as if I could punch a cement wall for an hour and still have energy to spare.

The little intellectual bit still chugging away at the back of my mind was ringing alarm bells, telling me how stupidly dangerous this all was. Still, as much as I feared the drug I’d already taken, it was too damned late to do anything about it, and right then I needed that boost.

The corridor stretched out before me, long and, to my horror, bloody.

Two things jumped out to me right away. The first, the body of one of the adults, mangled and ruined and left to rot off to one side. Even a dozen meters away I caught the scent of flesh and blood and shit.

The second thing was the alien, the Model Three. It had been stalking ahead, blood dripping down its split jaws. Something, probably my damned shoes, had alerted it to my presence and it had turned halfway around to stare at me.

I raised the Hummingbird.

The reticle in my HUD janked upwards, I was able to actually see the framerate dropping as the crappy little computer in my gear tried to keep up with the way my arm sprang up. Then the reticule was on the alien. It turned red.

I pulled the trigger.

The bullets moved far too fast for me to see them. The thin trails of smoke they left behind, on the other hand, those were easy to follow even as they spun through the air. I winced a second after pulling the trigger as the loud humming of four projectiles going off echoed through the tight passageway.

The Model Three slumped to the ground, four holes, no bigger than a disposable pen, buried in its head with blackened edges where they had entered.

Target Eliminated!
Reward... 10 Points

“What the hell kind of bullet was that?” I asked.

The Hummingbird fires in a four-projectile burst. Each projectile--essentially a micro-missile--flies on a pre-calculated trajectory towards the target. Upon entering the target the remaining rocket fuel is spent burrowing through the target’s skin. If any propellant still remains it is detonated along with the projectile’s warhead.

I stared at the boxy gun--was it really a gun?--and then towards the dead alien. I could live with it. I had thought that maybe being a Samurai was underwhelming, but if this was the kind of toy I could obtain for ten points, I could believe all the stories about the older, more experienced Samurai.

The screaming grew louder, more panicked.

I lowered the hummingbird to my side and picked up the pace, racing past the dead Model Three and towards the still-open vault.

It was a nightmare made real.

Three of the aliens were spread out across the room, one of them savaging a man on the ground, the other two corralling all the children and some of the adults towards the back of the room.

Some of the kids had chairs and in one case a wet floor sign before them, as if that could fend off the monsters for more than a second.

The Model Three finished snapping the neck of the man on the ground and raised a bloody head up towards the kids.

I saw, with a level of clarity I didn’t think possible with my one eye, the looks of despair growing on the faces of the children. Some--especially those wearing simple all-black uniforms with crosses over their chests--had their eyes closed and were murmuring prayers.

Lucy was near the front, her crutched pointing out towards the beast, the kittens huddled behind her. Her gaze flickered up to me. “Run!” she screamed.

I raised the hummingbird.

The monsters were between me and the kids. If any of those little missiles missed...

Three reticles flashed red.

I pulled the trigger, then again, and again.

Twelve lines of vapour raced across the room, ending in the sides and backs of the Model Threes.

Two fell, dead. The third roared and spun around, one leg dragging behind it.

Four more flechettes punched into its chest and head. I even heard the distinct pops of the projectiles bursting apart inside the beasts head.

Targets Eliminated!
Reward... 30 Points

Well done!

I lowered the hummingbird and took in the still terrified gazes of all the kids. “It’ll be okay,” I said. “It’ll be okay.”

Humans saved: 32
Points added
New total: 62

“What?” I asked.

Your role, as vanguard, is to fight and protect humanity. The ways to do this are many, but I’m sure I can help you find a path that suits you. And, of course, your efforts will always be rewarded.

“Cat!” Lucy stumbled forwards, then started racing across the room on her crutches until she crashed into me as a crying bundle of shiny brown hair. “You’re okay?” she asked.

“Not really,” I grunted. I had to be careful hugging her while holding a weapon, but I did my best. “I’m glad you’re alive,” I said. If my voice caught a little, she didn’t comment.