Bound to Ashes (The Altered Sequence Book 1) (23 page)

The Sentinel rises up slowly. Is it... looking at me? Those light eyes pointed at me... it’s staying so still.... Jules, ducking behind me, whispers, “What’s it doing?” But words escape me. It leans towards me, the lights so bright on my face—a metal flap descends off its face and a beam shoots out. But it’s—it touches my arm and hands blocking my face. It’s just light. I lower my hands and squint at it.

The flap folds back to its original place and the Sentinel settles back a little. Its legs reorganize under itself.

“What did it do to you?” Jules says.

“I... don’t know.”

The Sentinel jerks its attention upwards.

Peregrine— I think it’s her— leaps over the machine from the storage container above us, shrieking something in her hoarse voice, brandishing her rifle like a spear. She lands on top of it and jams the barrel into the joint socket and fired once, twice, three times, before it bucks her off. She falls hard. The monster’s leg sparks and moves erratically. Eventually it whirrs and gives a resounding clunk and the whole leg falls off, but it seem to be of the Sentinel’s doing and not Peregrine’s. Its crippled gaze once again turns to us. Even though one leg’s gone, it still has five left. A volley of shots fall upon the Sentinel from the others in a fruitless attempt to kill it. The bullets might as well be raindrops.

I was afraid of that. Adrenaline pumps though me, making my hands tingle and shake.

Alright, Dev. You’re faster. You’re probably tougher, too. I take a deep breath in the sliver of time I’m allowed.

I rush the monster and slide straight underneath it, the metal floor coated in dust is perfect. Its underside is less armored than the top, like I thought—a line of armor, gaps in the armor, between the plates looks weak—and I plunge my hand into it. Cold metal tears at me but I rip my fist out with a handful of wires. Blood drips from my fingers. The machine can bleed? I blink to focus on it. No, it’s too red.

The Sentinel staggers in uneven steps. I scramble back and watch it weave and struggle to stand. As soon as it looks like it’ll fall, it freezes. The rain of bullets stops. The Sentinel turns, stares me down with shifting and turning eyes, then turns around. Facing Jules.

“No!”

I throw myself to my feet and pound after the Sentinel. Jules ducks under it, I can see her when I duck under and face it. She dives away. The Sentinel has her in its sights, it follows her like a magnet, but it hesitates when I get in front. With its segmented neck, it cranes its head down so its mounted guns point at my face. I’ve got one last option. I’ll die either way, better by my own doing. I take a deep breath.

Exhale. It rears back. The vents on its back hiss open again. No, Dev you idiot, that was too close—I back up and shake the fire away from my face. My fire leaves the surface of the Sentinel’s head discolored and warped, a chemical burn spreading and exposing the interior. Its eyes pop and sputter and it crumples to the ground. The mess of fuel burns white-hot on the metal. My heart still pounds. I look at it trying to paw away the fuel and my own anger turns to fire in my veins. My kick plants straight into the weakened metal. It caves in like paper and the machine falls, legs sprawled out around it, eyes finally dimming to black.

I shake my head to fling off the fiery debris. It’s all over, ugh.... The adrenaline is cooling, I run my fingers through my hair—what’s left of it, anyway. Pretty sure I burnt my eyebrows off again. I check myself, and thankfully I’m not on fire, except for my boot. I shake it out. The others rush over.

“Holy shit,” James says, looking me up and down.

“Are you okay?” Alessandra asks.

The concern in her voice startles me. Am I really that bad looking? I take my clamped hand away from my mouth and slow my breathing. Inhale, exhale. The cool, tingly feeling of the fuel sinking back into the fuel reserves is both nauseating and comforting at once. “Yeah.”

“We need to move,” Alessandra says with urgency. Her plead is mostly directed at Vinder, who’s helping Peregrine to her feet. I’ll have to thank her for that attack earlier.

At least the humans have some sense. They’re on the move as soon as everyone’s on the same page.

Ashton pulls up next to me, he’s barely running.

Before he can say anything, I say, “Fine.”

He doesn’t miss a beat: “If what Alessandra said about the Sentinels was true.... The central hub....”

“We’re screwed,” I finish.

He turns his mouth up like he knew the verdict all along.

They may have made the Ecodome, but damn those humans for making the Sentinels.... I only managed to kill—no, more like disable—one, but I had help. If we have to fight a whole horde of them at once, we’ll be in serious trouble.

But why did it stop whenever it saw me? And that light coming from it.... I almost wished it had just attacked me as it had the others. This just complicates it and leaves a sinking feeling in my gut.

Alessandra’s hiding spot is farther than I thought.

“Where are we going, Aless?” James growls.

“Just trust me okay?” She says. “You’ll know it when you see it, it’s a part of the tour route. It looks like a train car, actually, windows all along the sides... like I said, you’ll know it when you see it.” She speaks hurriedly, trying to relay the information before she runs out of breath. “It’s close.”

The background noise, just white noise before, mechanical feet and hissing vents... it’s getting louder. I don’t dare look behind us.

We push through a set of heavy double doors and find ourselves in a vast domed room. The walls are smooth and featureless, but the ground is littered with waist-high barriers and small walls. The only other things of note are the huge stadium lights, a small viewing booth with wide windows at the top of the dome, and the outline of a hidden door at the far end. Like an arena, and the booth for spectators. Not the kind of spectators that would go to a baseball game, but the kind that judge performances. Like at the labs.

“Oh no....” Ashton says.

“Looks like a... paintball course,” James says.

I have no idea what that is, but the knot in my stomach tightens. The Sentinels claw at the door behind us.

I wheel around— one punctures the door like tissue paper. I catch a glimpse of the thing’s blue eyes, gleaming with a menace I have to be imagining. We can’t run anymore. Ashton comes up behind me and says, “It won’t budge.” Guess he tried the door across the room. We throw our backs against the closest barriers.

“Why is this coliseum here?” Ashton asks. I don’t know what a coliseum is, but it might as well mean ‘death-trap’.

“I don’t know,” Alessandra pants, “Probably... testing the Sentinel’s effectiveness in combat...?”

“Oh, of course,” Jules says.

The stadium lights crash to life and sharpen the shadows all around us, washing everything out in a bitter white light. I bet we look like shivering lab rats in a maze. We don’t have much time. But I can’t get that first Sentinel off my mind. How it hesitated.

“Aless.”

“What?”

“Why did that Sentinel ignore me, earlier? It only wanted Jules.”

Her eyes linger on me heavily.

“Tell me!”

The door finally gives in. Everyone freezes when the door clatters onto the ground. Every corner of my mind fills with the Sentinels’ clinking feet growing louder and louder.

13
• coward’s relief

[Dev]

Shouts are just white noise blending into the overwhelming sound of the machines. I roll forward to avoid being gunned down. Stay low. That first one might have ignored me, but these might be different. And there was only one then, now there’s... too many to count, they’re too fast, they keep moving... Alessandra and the others bolt in every direction. Gunshots erupt.

One of the machines pounds towards me, metal legs a blur. I duck—it passes right over. I stand up and it crawls over a few barriers, headed towards the back where a clump of others have retreated. Another in the group scans the arena, landing its gaze right on me, but turns away.

I’m standing, alone, in the midst of a battle, and none of the Sentinels can even see me.

“What the hell?!”

This is stupid. This is—is this even happening?

A huge thunk to my right. I spin around and Ashton rises from a hunkered position, shoulders slack and mouth open, heaving breath. An upside-down Sentinel writhes before him. His foot rears up and snaps down, right into the face of the Sentinel like it was tissue paper. I arrive as he’s yanking it out.

“What’s going on?” He breathes. “It’s just like before!”

“I know,” I seethe. “I don’t get it!”

“I can handle it,” he huffs. “Go make sure everyone else is okay.”

My heart surges. There’s something about being assigned a task, a goal... everything is clearer.

Energy courses through my veins. It urges my legs to run and for a second all I am is my goal. All I am is my momentum.

Peregrine is to the left. Bulging, heaving bodies of Sentinels close around her—trapped between two of the barriers. I lunge forward. “Hey!”

The two Sentinels freeze, then slowly descend and face me.

Oh. Is this even going to work?

They stop and stare at me just long enough for Peregrine to slide out from between the barriers and flash me a grin. She slips under one of the Sentinels and points her rifle straight up. I wince at the shots so close by—but the Sentinel has it worse, it staggers and tries to move away but the other has its guns trained on Peregrine. She pushes off and jumps backwards. The injured Sentinel’s body jerks from the volley. Peregrine is long gone. The standing Sentinel looks at me again, then turns around and heads off. I shouldn’t be surprised it killed its ally to get Peregrine.

“N—wait a sec—” There it goes. Am I just going to be chasing them around this whole time?

Someone shouts—fire on the side of my neck—I suck in a fast breath and touch it. It’s not from my fire, it doesn’t bleed, but hurts like a welt, throbbing and stinging.

Wait, so they’re shooting at me now? I turn around and there’s Alessandra, rifle in one hand, the other balled into a fist. Her eyes are stuck on the one that shot at us.

The machine’s course doesn’t waver, it keeps looking past her, but when the rifle shots cut through the air, its eyes fix on her. For a second everything seems quieter. I can hear the creaking of the Sentinel turning to look her in the face. She opens her arms and glares right at it. And there—my heart skips—that folding and scanning light. She lets it pass right over her face, she doesn’t even blink. The Sentinel snaps shut and turns aside, moving off slowly. How can something like that calm it down? Is it not on the attack anymore? Alessandra jogs after it. It doesn’t even notice. It’s like she just no longer exists to it.

This is stupid. What’s even more stupid is the fact that I’m angry about it not attacking me or Alessandra. It just doesn’t make sense.

Alessandra works fast—the Sentinel that scanned Alessandra crumples to the ground. Sneaking up behind it and emptying a clip in its underside seems to do the trick.

There are two left. Seven deactivated or completely destroyed ones lay crumpled where they fell. For a fraction of a second, an eerie stalemate hangs in the air. The humans, Ashton, and Jules gravitate towards each other, putting some distance between machine and flesh.

Regrouped, Alessandra waves us along. We follow her lead and duck behind a long barrier. Everyone’s here. James and Jules aren’t looking well. James is trying to tie a piece of cloth around his bleeding arm. Jules is clutching a scalp wound that’s bleeding freely. Blood streaks down her face and through her clutching fingers. She’s fine, though, based on that angry grimace. Alessandra still looks focused and stern.

“Everyone all right?” I hear James say, reloading. Odd of him to care.

“Outta bullets,” Vinder says, throwing the empty cartridge to the ground with a frustrated flourish.

“Keep the gun,” Peregrine says, laying a hand on his rifle.

“Yeah, I’ll just smack ‘em with it, no problem,” Vinder says, his usually cool temper rising. His angry gesturing makes him hiss with sudden pain and he grips his left arm tightly.

“What?” Peregrine asks.

“Nothing,” he says, but he’s a lousy liar. Peregrine shoves his sleeve up and reveals a smattering of tidy burn holes, the same ones on my neck, but deeper.

“Oh my god,” Peregrine says under her breath, looking at Vinder accusingly. He stares her down defiantly.

“I’ll... get over it,” he assures her, swallowing. If we keep going like this, a few scorch marks are going to be the least of our problems....

I’m a fool to think the machines actually use bullets. It’s like they shoot condensed fire instead, burning and cauterizing wounds on contact. I touch my shoulder, where it shot me—it feels like its scabbed already. Still hurts like crazy, though. And if it can burn me, imagine how Vinder feels....

“They’re moving,” Ashton says, closing his eyes. “Just a little. Carefully.”

“Waiting for their prey to come out of the burrow,” Peregrine says.

As suddenly as the Sentinels descended, an image flashes through my mind. The guards during the Revolt. So steadfast even when they had to fight upwards of a thousand Altered. Peregrine reminds me of them. I’m sure the guards all thought they wouldn’t live to see another morning, but they still went on fighting... killing.... I shake the thought. Do not go there. Not now, especially not now....

The calm before the storm casts a heavy silence. We’re still thrumming with panicked energy from the battle. Jules cranes her neck over the top of the barrier, holding her gun close to her and clenching her teeth. “They’re just standing there.”

“What are they waiting for?” I look over carefully. Yeah, there they are, all lined up and staring. One of them twitches my direction but just shuffles its feet a little. Like it wants to spring on us, but has to stay.

“Think they’re gonna starve us out?” Ashton says.

“I wonder who’ll outlast the other....”

“They’re waiting,” James says. “An offensive charge is our only option if we want to pass.” Spoken as if from experience. Alessandra mentioned he had a military background, but I often wonder how much. And if it will count when we need it.

“We don’t have a chance,” Alessandra breathes.

“We have less of a chance just sitting around.” I’d rather die fighting than of starvation, honestly. If I had my pick. And who’s to say that they won’t get impatient and flush us out?

James glances at me and says, “That’s true.” James agreeing with me? Wow.

“So how do we do that without getting shot down?” Jules snaps.

I look at Alessandra. We’re immune to their attacks, somehow, surely she thought of the same thing?

“Aless, they don’t attack us.”

Her breath is heavy and deliberate and she says, “Fine. I think I know what you’re planning.”

“We walk in front. We’ll be the bodyguards.”

“Why don’t they attack you, anyway?” Peregrine asks.

Alessandra says, “I used to live here. They programmed the Sentinels to never attack personnel or citizens of the dome.”

But, wait, then why....

Peregrine glances at me, then at Alessandra. It looks like she wants to say something, but she just presses her mouth into a thin line.

Did Alessandra know all along that they wouldn’t attack her? Or me? Was that what she was counting on for us to get through this?

The Ecodome might not even be worth it. If one of us dies, nothing will be worth it. My cold lunch threatens to come back up when my mind flashes images of Ashton and Jules’s corpses.

The barrier against my back is the only anchor to the real world. I clench my eyes shut. The rifle feels like a flimsy tree branch in my grip. Breathe.

It’s times like this that desperation drives us to insanity.

“Hey.” I hand my rifle to Vinder, who takes it slowly.

“What are you—?”

I turn to Alessandra. “Where’s their weakest spot?”

“There’s a seam along their center, right by the farthest back leg. That, and their eyes.”

“Alright. Alessandra and I will be the bodyguards. We’ll go out first. Get their attention away from you guys. Then Peregrine, Jules, get behind us. Ash, Vinder, James, you provide cover in case it goes south.” They all stare at me wide-eyed for a second before Peregrine grins and says, “Alright, a plan! For once.”

Alessandra harrumphs and says, “This better work. On your mark, then.”

Oh my mark. She’s letting me call the shots.

I peer over the barrier. The two Sentinels perk up a little, creaking on metal joints, rising up a bit. It’s as good a time as ever.

“Now.”

Alessandra and I sweep out from behind the barrier. It might be my imagination, but I feel like I stand taller. I feel formidable. As if finally, for the first time in my life, I have the upper hand. And Alessandra has given it to me. She finds her place beside me, glaring daggers at the Sentinels with her rifle gripped in two hands.

Peregrine and Jules slink behind us, quiet as shadows. They walk slightly crouched to hide behind us.

Just as I saw it in my mind, the two Sentinels watch us. Like curious animals, their gazes track us. They actually back up as Alessandra and I approach.

“Jules and I will hold them,” I whisper to Alessandra. “And you two go in.”

“Gotcha,” Jules says.

“Ready,” Peregrine adds.

We all stop. The machines halt, too, their joints sticking and their minutia of mechanical sounds clicking into place. That snag in motion... they’re just dumb machines. We can do this.

“Go!”

Grab the legs, pull them together, bring it down. Like before, tear into its underside. My mind’s whirlwind of instructions sputters. My hands fly up and find the seam where the head meets the body and my fingers protest as they pinch into the gap—with all my weight I yank it down. The Sentinel’s front half buckles and its legs fly to the side, scrambling to get under it and push away. Alessandra is beside me in a second. The Sentinel’s legs start to get purchase and I lean in, kneeing its face into the ground and arms threatening to burn out—Alessandra crams the barrel of her rifle into the grooves by the eyes and wastes no time. Three shots and the Sentinel’s body convulses and finally lays still.

I pry my fingers out of the gap and shake them out—throbbing, but unscathed. Behind us, Jules is stepping over the motionless body of their Sentinel, and Peregrine is forcibly ejecting an empty clip from her rifle. Jules staggers over.

“You okay?”

“Oh yeah,” she says, as if she was hoping I’d say that. “Oh, and guess what. My ability?” She flexes her hands excitedly. “Works on machines.”

“You just found that out?” Ashton says, slowing to a stop by us.

James is with us in a moment as well. He takes a second to look at everyone and says, “We have got to be the luckiest sons of bitches on the planet.” It garners a laugh from Jules.

Alessandra smirks and slides her rifle onto her back. “Let’s move before they decide to send a second wave.”

“Wait.” Peregrine stashes her rifle as well and looks around the room. “Where’s Vin?”

She prompts us all to look around—no one says anything. Peregrine’s expression drains. She whirls around and goes back around the barrier we came from. “Vin?” The desperation in her voice grows harsher with every time she yells his name. She runs up and down the rows of barriers. Alessandra initiates the movement back to the middle of the arena, looking around for Vinder. He should have just stayed behind the barrier with Ash and James, what’s the deal....