Calamity (Reckoners, #3)(2)

“Cody?” I asked.

“She’s doing fine, lad,” he said over the crackling radio line. “It looks just like that video. The place released drones right after the explosions happened.”

“Pick off what you can,” I said.

“Roger.”

“Mizzy?” I said. “You’re up.”

“Groovy.”

I hesitated. “Groovy? Is that some kind of code word?”

“You don’t know…Sparks, David, you can be a real square sometimes.” Her words were punctuated by another series of explosions, larger this time. My tree shook from the shock waves.

I didn’t need my scope to see the smoke rising from my right, along the castle’s flank. Soon after the blast, a group of basketball-sized drones—sleek and metallic, with propellers on top—popped from windows and flew toward the smoke. Larger machines rolled out of shadowed alcoves; spindly and about as tall as a person, each had a gun arm on the top and moved on tracks instead of wheels.

I followed these with my scope as they started firing into the woods where Mizzy had planted flares in buckets to give off heat signatures. Remotely firing machine guns enhanced the illusion that a large squad of soldiers was out there hiding. We kept all the shots aimed high. We didn’t want Abraham in the crossfire when it was his turn to move.

The Knighthawk defense played out exactly as we’d been shown on the video from our informant. Nobody had ever successfully breached the place, but many had tried. One group, a reckless paramilitary force out of Nashville, had taken videos, and we’d managed to get copies. Best we could guess, most of the time all of those drones were inside patrolling the hallways. Now, however, they were out fighting.

Hopefully that would give us an opening.

“All right, Abraham,” I said into the line, “your turn. I’ll cover.”

“And off I go,” Abraham said softly. The careful, dark-skinned man rode a thin cable down from his tree, then slipped silently across the forest floor. Though he was thick of arm and neck, Abraham moved with surprising nimbleness as he reached the wall, which was still shadowed in the early-morning light. His tight infiltration outfit would mask his heat signature, at least as long as the heat sinks on his belt were functional.

His job was to sneak into the Foundry, steal whatever weapons or technology he could find, and get out in under fifteen minutes. We had basic maps from our informant claiming that the labs and factories on the bottom floor of the castle were stuffed with goodies ripe for the plucking.

I watched Abraham nervously through my scope—pulling the aim point to the right so an accidental discharge wouldn’t hit him—to make sure no drones spotted him.

They didn’t. He used a retractable line to get to the top of the short wall, then another to reach the castle’s roof. He hid beside one of the crenellations while he prepared his next step.

“There’s an opening to your right, Abraham,” I said into the line. “One of the drones popped out of a hole beneath the window on that tower.”

“Groovy,” Abraham said, though the word sounded particularly odd coming from him, with his smooth French accent.

“Please tell me that’s not a real word,” I said, then raised my gun to follow him along as he made for the opening.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Mizzy asked.

“It just sounds weird.”

“And things we say today don’t? ‘Sparks’? ‘Slontze’?”

“Those are normal,” I said. “Not weird at all.” A flying drone passed by, but fortunately my suit was masking my heat signature. That was good, since the wetsuitlike clothing was pretty darn uncomfortable. Though mine wasn’t as bad as Abraham’s; his had a face mask and everything. To a drone I’d have a tiny heat signature, like a squirrel or something. A secretly very, very deadly squirrel.

Abraham reached the alcove I’d pointed out. Sparks, that man was good at sneaking. In the moment since I’d looked away, I’d lost him, and had trouble locating him again. He had to have some kind of special forces training.

“There’s a door in here, unfortunately,” Abraham said from his alcove. “It must close after the machines exit. I will try to hot-wire my way in.”

“Great,” I said. “Megan, you good?”

“Alive,” she said, puffing. “For now.”

“How many drones can you see?” I asked. “Have they rolled out the larger ones on you yet? Can—”

“Little busy, Knees,” she snapped.

I settled back, anxiously listening to the gunfire and explosions. I wanted to be out there in the mess, firing and fighting, but that wouldn’t make sense. I wasn’t stealthy like Abraham or…well, immortal like Megan. Having an Epic such as her on the team was certainly an advantage. They could handle this. My job as leader was to hang back and make judgment calls.

It sucked.

Was this how Prof had felt during missions he supervised? He had usually waited it out, leading from behind the scenes. I hadn’t realized how tough that would be. Well, if there was one thing I’d learned in Babilar, it was that I needed to rein in my hotheadedness. I needed to be like…half a hothead instead. A hot chin?

So I waited as Abraham worked. If he couldn’t get in soon, I’d have to call off the mission. The longer this took, the greater the chances that the mysterious people who ran the Foundry would discover that our “army” was only five people.