Apocalypse Dawn Read online

  Apocalypse Dawn

  A Spire Saga Novel

  Peter Smith

  Contents

  Introduction

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Epilogue

  Also by Peter Smith

  Short Story Access

  Introduction

  Thank you for your interest in reading, Apocalypse Dawn; A Spire Novel.

  I hope that you enjoy reading it as much as I did creating it.

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  One

  Dylan

  Dylan’s head snapped to the side as the drone’s fist grazed it, lacerating the skin over his temple. His last-second sideways movement preventing the machine from crushing his skull between its fist and the brick wall. His balance lost, he twisted in midair and fell onto his back, the wind being knocked from him. Blood pouring from the wound and seeping into his eye where it began to sting and affect his vision, he gasped for air as the machine attempted to wrench its arm from the wall, which having missed him was embedded into the masonry of the fortified facility. Its opaque black face plate turned toward him as it stopped trying to free its limb. He rolled to the side and away from it just as its metal foot came crashing down with an impact that shook the floor. If he had been slower, it would have snapped his right femur.

  Scrambling backward, he never took his eyes off the machine; it doing the same with him. He stood up, catching his breath while his right hand probed the wound on the side of his head. The machine’s free arm stretched across its chest and began to remove the casing over its right shoulder. Dylan narrowed his eyes, unsure what he was watching as it began to remove pins and screws.

  “Oh shit,” he muttered and spun around, running down the hallway as fast as he could. The robot was disassembling the housing that secured its arm to its body, and he didn’t want to be there when it finished. He was only five seconds down the hallway when the sound of heavy footfalls behind him foretold that he was soon going to die. He had no doubt that even with one arm he would be no match for it.

  He ran with everything he had, wishing he hadn’t skipped going to the gym so often. His heart slammed in his chest and as it did the flow of blood down his face intensified. The searing sensation in his lungs encouraged him to slow down, but he knew that if he did, it would be one of the last things he ever felt. He neared the corner, which branched into a four-way intersection, the footfalls only a few feet behind him now. At the last possible moment, he stretched his arm out, catching the corner and using the sudden drag to give him a much tighter turn down the perpendicular hallway.

  The moment he rounded the corner his eyes widened in realization of what he was seeing and then he intentionally threw himself to the ground. The drone came around a fraction of a second later, its remaining arm reaching for him. Then it exploded as a tightly packed formation of steel pellets punched through its chest, sending pieces of plastic and advanced alloys around the hall. The machine staggered backward, attempting to right itself as yet another blast blew entirely through its torso causing it to fall onto the floor, completely deactivated.

  “Are there any more following you?” the security officer barked, the body armor and face mask obscuring the officer’s gender, only the depth of their voice revealed their sex.

  “I fucking hope not!” he shouted back, the adrenaline coursing through his veins making his limbs shake and demanding to be released.

  “What section are you from?” the officer asked, checking around the corners.

  “State Actor AI Interdiction.”

  “Anyone else alive down there?”

  He shook his head, wiping blood from his vision again. “I doubt it. I came out of the lunchroom and saw half a dozen of those damn things busting down the door to our command center.”

  The guard nodded. “Alright, get your ass down to the loading docks. Security is evacuating specialists from that location. The way behind me should be clear.”

  He braced himself against the wall. “What the hell! You’re leaving me?”

  “These things beelined it directly for your division. They didn’t do that anywhere else. That says to me that any survivors are pretty damn important, so I’m going to go see if I can get them.”

  “By yourself, are fucking nuts?” Dylan’s legs began to shake and not just because of the adrenaline. “Dude, come with me, and we can both get the hell out of here.”

  “No time to wait, we’re bugging out. Besides, I’m not alone,” the officer said, pointing the shotgun at the base of the back of the drone’s head and pulling the trigger.

  The officer motioned back the way he came. “Better get moving, no clue how long the path I took will be clear.” With that she began to jog down the hall in the direction that he had just run down.

  Dylan stared in disbelief, not sure if this was the bravest person he had ever met or the dumbest. Either way, the guard with the armor and the shotgun was going back toward where a lot of those killing machines were, and Dylan had absolutely no intention of seeing if he would be lucky enough to survive a second run-in with those drones.

  He turned and ran down the cleared hallway, pulling up the path he would have to take on his virtual vision. His head began to pound from the impact it had suffered and trying to focus on his regular vision while looking at the overlaid yellow path marker that would take him to the loading dock. The sound of screams and rapid gunfire reverberated down the halls, and as he passed by offices, he could see the signs of battles that had raged through. Many of his fellow technicians lay dead around their desks, necks snapped or blunt force trauma to various organs and their skulls the cause of their deaths. The smoking remains of drones mingled with spent shell casings as he ran down a variety of hallways and through offices, always steering clear of the downed machines on the off chance that they were playing possum.

  A door he had previously run through burst open. He looked back over his shoulder and watched as the door flipped over the top of a cubicle wall, crashing into the workspace. His head snapped back forward, his breathing intensified, and he ran as fast as he could toward the exit for this department. He slammed into the push bar and the door flew open, but nowhere near with as much force as he observed with the last one. People, dozens of them, were in the hallway orderly exiting out an exterior exit, harsh white light flooded into the space.

  “Drone!” he screamed, ruining the delicate balance of breathing and running that he had managed to establish.

  Heads turned to look at him as he plowed into the line of people blocking his access to the door. Some shouted and pressed back against him, others cursed. He managed to force his way to the doorway when those still in the hall began to scream in fear. Panicked pushing propelled him and the others through the doorway and out onto the loading dock. Security guards were there, along with maybe a hundred technician and specialists. Dylan didn’t stop as his legs propelled him over the concrete loading dock. Security guards rushed past
him, dragging men and women away from the door. A man screamed in pain and the automatic weapons of the guards fired. Dylan was halfway across the loading area when he heard a man shout, “All clear!” He didn’t care though; he kept moving.

  “Dylan!” a voice shouted out. He turned his head to see Teresa Miller, a member of the cryptology department and his ride share buddy, standing at the edge of one of the loading platforms. He slowed as she waved him over, instead waving for her to join him. She looked around, uncertain what to do.

  Then Dylan saw them, two large container carriers several hundred yards down the road and barreling toward the loading dock. A security position down the road opened fire on the cargo containers, bullets punching through the thin metal that separated what was inside from the elements. The sound of screeching tires overwhelmed the cacophony of noises that was humanity on the loading dock. A security guard several feet away dropped to a knee, screamed at Teresa to clear their line of fire, and then began to shoot at the containers as well. Teresa scrambled over to him as many of the guards had repositioned from watching the door access for the dock to firing into the containers. The rubber of the tires vaporized and a cloud of dirty grey smoke filled the air as the large boxes came to a complete stop just feet from the edge of the loading area.

  The staff had pressed themselves up against the back wall as far as they could get from the containers without leaving the safety of the loading space, the guards forming a defensive line in front of them. Dylan could feel the concussive force of several rifles just in front of him as the guards poured a relentless amount of gunfire into the containers.

  After a few seconds, the commander of the guards yelled for his people to stop firing. Silence reigned over the area, only the sharp metallic sounds of spent brass shell casings rolling across the concrete as the guards shifted their positions echoed through the quiet. They all waited, staring at the doors to the containers. Dylan looked at them all, his adrenaline pumping through his veins. They were all staring ahead, stunned into inaction, as if they thought that the display of force they had just watched was sufficient to stop the death machines that were likely inside.

  Dylan turned and began to push through the mass of bodies frozen to the ground. A hand gripped his and he turned to see Teresa, her eyes wide with fear. “Where are you going?” she asked.

  A deep moan, like that of metal being bent, filled the area and the mass of people gasped and instinctively stepped backward. Dylan wrapped his hand tightly around Teresa’s and pulled her through the crowd. “We have to leave now!” he shouted.

  “Is it safe?” she asked.

  “Safer than what’s about to happen here,” he yelled. As they cleared the group of survivors he looked over his shoulder and his eyes went wide, the heavy doors of the containers were flung open and a stream of drones flowed out. Several jumping into the air to catch the security guards by surprise. Dylan didn’t need to see more. They were just barely outside the group of survivors, and he instinctively knew that it was better to be ahead of the pack than in the middle of it when the time came and they began to run.

  The sound of gunfire and screams mingled as Dylan gripped Teresa’s hand even tighter. The two of them flying down a small flight of stairs from the raised loading dock to the sloped grass berm that separated the building from the access road and then the vast parking lot ocean that was before them. Hopefully the cars would provide enough cover and hiding spaces for them to be able to get off the grounds of the facility and into the base proper and then the greater urban area beyond. He slid as much as he ran down the grass, its recently watered surface providing little grip for the bottoms of his flat dress shoes. Teresa had a worse time in her heels, which sank into the soft soil and sent her tumbling to the ground. Dylan turned and offered her a hand, pulling her to her now stocking-covered feet.

  “Are you going to be able to run?” he asked frantically. He could see people charging toward them, hoping to escape the robotic hell that was likely seconds behind.

  She nodded and they both bounded toward the road. He reached the sidewalk, only one foot touching it as he very nearly vaulted over it. He landed on the blacktop of the access road and realized that the sound of fleeing analysts was already at the berm he had just cleared. He silently cursed the elderly couple that ran the spumoni shop across from his apartment, blaming them for his lack of athletic prowess rather than his absolute absence of willpower. Teresa managed to keep pace with him, running down the space between cars to his right.

  Several people began to pass him as he reached the large body of parked cars, and he realized that his chances of becoming yet another victim were beginning to increase as he fell into the pack. He didn’t wish anyone else harm, but he certainly didn’t want it to befall him either. His hand smacked the back of a car as he ran, sending a spike of pain into his consciousness. His focus cleared and for the first time since he had left the loading dock he realized that he couldn’t hear the sound of gunfire and that he should have even over the screams of panic from his fellow runners. Teresa began to pull ahead; even in socks, she was in better shape than him.

  With a new burst of speed, he plunged deeper into the orderly lines of personal vehicles, knowing what was about to fall upon he and his fellow survivors. The screams behind him intensified, and people began to shout out warnings to one another. He heard as much as he felt the sound of a large weight dropping onto a vehicle behind himself, and he took the risk of looking over his shoulder. With instant regret, he watched as his fellow workers were flung into the air by a line of machines that had easily caught up to them all. Men who weighed hundreds of pounds were hurled off their feet by the drones’ intense strength only to land dozens of feet away on unforgiving concrete or the molded aluminum and resilient plastics of the parked cars. Teresa’s scream broke his frantic focus on escape, and he looked to the right in time to see her jumping into one of the vehicles only to have the machine following her rip the door off its hinge and drag her out screaming before it finished her with a quick twist of her neck.

  He turned his own head, wishing that he hadn’t just watched his friend die, wishing that he wouldn’t join her. His heart threatened to burst from his chest and his legs screamed in agony at being forced into this type of exertion after so many years of sedentary existence. He didn’t care about their protests, knowing that as it was he wasn’t moving fast enough and once the machines had finished with those behind, he would meet a similar fate. Tears began to stream down his cheeks at the thought that yet another of those machines likely had him in its sights. It didn’t seem fair that he would have lived through the first encounter only to have himself killed in a parking lot.

  After running as far as he could east, he was nearly clear of the parking lot. The long stretch of Rockenbach Road was before him, mostly obscured by the haze of smoke from nearby fires. He had no idea what lay beyond it, toward one of the security checkpoints, but it had to be better than what he was running from. The footfalls behind him changed their cadence, from the frantic and disorganized sounds of panicked survivors being chased to a far more mechanical rhythm accompanied by a rapid but distant thumping that seemed to reverberate through the air. A scream escaped his mouth as he knew that he was moments from dying in the same way his friends and colleagues had.

  He was halfway across Canine Road, which Rockenbach ran perpendicular to, when he was lifted upward; his entire mass picked up from the ground and flung yards away, clear of the vehicles and into the grass on the other side of the roadway. The air was slammed from his lungs, and he gasped like a fish out of water to fill them. His ears were ringing and he couldn’t understand why there was a searing sensation that ran up his entire back. He lay there, in the cool grass staring up at the sky, as his hearing cleared. He slowly looked to either side, finally accepting that he was alive and that something other than a drone had thrown him across the road. He rolled over, smelling the pungent aroma of burned hair. He put his hand to the back of his he
ad and could feel it steaming slightly.

  An explosion then, and one not too far away from him when it occurred. He climbed up the berm and looked out over the roadway toward the parking lot. An attack helicopter banked overhead, its rotors swirling the smoke from the detonation and the burning vehicles and their lithium ion battery power sources. The rapidly spinning blades cleared the smoke enough for him to make out the spot where one of its anti-tank rockets had detonated about twenty-five yards behind him. He sank down, realizing that the pilot would have only used such a weapon if everyone that was behind him was dead. He could see, spread throughout the wreckage, severed limbs and burned torsos, not just of the drones, but also of the men and women that were his coworkers.

  A powerful pain ripped through his calf and he twisted to see the still smoking remains of a partially operational drone. Its entire left side was a mangled mass with its right leg missing. Its grip on him intensified, its fingers threatening to puncture through his flesh and into the muscles and bone beyond. He screamed in pain, adrenaline yet again surging through his bloodstream. He frantically searched for anything he could find to fight with. When his eyes fell on nothing, he looked at its mangled left arm, held to its torso by what remained of few connections of synthetic muscle. He gripped it and wrenched it free from its socket. For a moment he thought about using it as a club; however, he remembered the security guard from before. The buck shot had disabled it with a strike to the chest, which was where the CPU was likely stored. Disabling its head wouldn’t stop the processors from continuing to put pressure on him. He aimed for a point along the neck that had no metal covering, and then, with every last bit of strength he had remaining, he shoved the sharpest point of the destroyed arm into the weak spot, forcing it deep into the chest cavity.