Razorwind was quiet as far as large robot horses went.

  Granted, Gob or Ranger/Mist Spekter Gobby as he was at the moment, had a sum total of one as far as his robot horse riding experiences.

  It had to be the hooves.

  Some kind of future alien tech rubber that made hundreds of kilos striking the road sound like a light-footed jogger taking it easy.

  And the saddle?

  One would think riding a metal horse would be an uncomfortable experience.

  He supposed it helped that it wasn’t a saddle at all.

  More like a standing-up motorcycle seat.

  Comfort and security.

  Visually, it reminded him of those old Lego knights he used to get for his birthdays and Christmases.

  Good old Gob slotted in nice and snug.

  The only thin missing were the little round pegs for the round holes in the bottom of his plastic feet.

  The wind whipped past him as the robot horse outstripped the fastest motorcycles.

  Taking corners was certainly an experience that had him white knuckling the handle bars built into Razorwind’s shoulders as he tried to stay low and lean into the turn.

  The sealed helmet helped him breathe and keep the wind from blinding him.

  Not to mention bugs at the speed would’ve hurt on his face.

  “Aimee! Do you copy! I’m on my way!”

  Comms jamming kept her from responding, but didn’t stop him from receiving her life signs.

  Still alive.

  Old America’s soldiers met him around a corner with gun and spell fire.

  Razorwind’s shield generators flashed to life to save his.

  The robot horse had its own intelligence.

  Not an A.I.

  The Threnosh called theirs Virtual Intelligences.

  Kat had explained it and, frankly, Gob hadn’t really understood that there was a difference.

  Razorwind was smarter than a real horse, minus the unpredictable dickishness, plus the whole don’t hurt people thing… unless ordered.

  All it needed was a command from a temporarily authorized user.

  “Fire at will!”

  Gob stayed low to Razorwind’s back as they thundered through the enemy formation.

  Minimissiles streaked out.

  Short-range lasers flashed.

  Projectiles whizzed.

  Gob felt like they ran right through in the blink of his eyes.

  A glance back revealed dead and dying soldiers in and around the burning wreckage of their armored vehicles.

  “Thank you, Razorwind,” he muttered. “Thank you, Kat. I’m going to apologize for calling you ‘horse girl’.”

  He figured that maybe he could ask Boy to hook him up with a robot horse.

  Or maybe a giant, robot gorilla, Beast Wars-style!

  Yeah!

  Could the Threnosh make them transform?

  Razorwind could fold itself up into a large metal box complete with wheels and handles for pushing or pulling.

  Robot gorilla with the capability to transform into a bipedal form like Chrome’s golem… the possibility danced in his head like girls in bikinis on the beach.

  Yup, once they were done with this shitty Quest, he and the boys were going to spend, like, two weeks just chilling at the beach.

  Mental note made, he refocused on his current Quest.

  Save Aimee!

  He tracked her locator beacon to a writhing mound of white fur stained pink and crimson.

  “Oh… fuck… I’m going to be sick,” he muttered. “Aimee! Do you copy?”

  The rabbit people resembled a pile of wriggling maggots on roadkill.

  Blood orgy.

  That was how some of the senators’ and congresspeople’s sons described the rabbit people when Gob had overheard them speaking about the topic in places real warriors and wannabe warriors tended to congregate to trade stories and network.

  They had laughed about it then.

  Clearly, they hadn’t seen the rabbit people in action firsthand.

  Otherwise, he figured one would have to be a complete psycho to talk about blood orgies while laughing.

  The rabbit people fucked each other with abandon.

  They bit and clawed each other without restraint.

  In fact, it seemed the greater the violence the greater their lusts inflamed.

  Aimee was somewhere beneath the mound that stretched from one sidewalk to the opposite.

  She had her armor, which was the only reason her life signs were still good.

  “Aimee!”

  Screams and sobs finally broke through the static in his helmet.

  “Hang on! Curl up into a ball! I’m going danger close!” He ordered Razorwind to move closer and targeted the top part of the white mound, figuring that Aimee was probably at or near the bottom. “Use flamethrower, Razorwind!”

  White fur made for a flammable target.

  The rabbit people’s screeches of pain were swallowed by the roaring flames.

  They fell apart, scattering in every direction.

  Flaming torches one and all.

  Gob sprayed projectiles from his recoilless rifle, while Razorwind let fly with its weapons.

  The rabbit people finally noticed them and charged.

  Fur and blood flew.

  Razorwind leapt, trampled and kicked.

  Retractable blades on its legs and body painted themselves red.

  One rabbit person managed to leap up to claw and thrust his engorged member into Gob’s faceplate.

  “Fuck! Off!” He managed to shove it back down to be trampled with the others.

  They danced on a carpet of white and red until there was none remaining, but the dying.

  “Aimee!”

  Gob found her curled up in the fetal position, sobbing.

  Life signs were good aside from the elevated heart rate and other stress signs.

  Her armor was smeared with fluids, but remained unbreached.

  It wasn’t an experience he would’ve wanted to endure, but it could’ve gone worse.

  Not that he was going to say that to her.

  That sort of nightmare needed a proper therapist.

  “C’mon, Aimee! We have to get out of here.”

  He reached for her, but she screamed and swatted at him.

  “It’s me, Gobby!” he said urgently. “We’re in the middle of a war zone! I need your help to get all three of us out of here and back with the other guys!”

  Razorwind neighed, almost like a real horse, drawing his attention to the motion tracker in his HUD.

  “Aimee, please, we’d got… hostiles coming to us. Me and Razorwind need you to get up and in its—”

  Razorwind neighed.

  “Seriously,” he muttered. “His back. In his back.” He reached out again.

  If he had to he’d grab her and toss her into the rear passenger seat that the robot horse had helpfully opened up.

  “C’mon, Aimee, mist spekter. Remember the bus? We’re supposed to be protecting innocent people.”

  That seemed to do the trick.

  Her dilated eyes noticed him for the first time.

  She still drew in deep and fast breaths, but she forced herself to her feet.

  “I lost my weapons.”

  He handed her his recoilless rifle before helping her up into Razorwind’s open butt area.

  “You’re backseat shooter. Can you handle it?”

  “Yeah.”

  She still had a faraway stare, but what choice did either of them have.

  “Extra ammo’s in the side compartments.”

  He strapped her in.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll catch up with the guys in no time.”

  Cybersmasher II was going to have to become Cybersmasher III.

  Assuming Chrome made it back home to rebuild her golem.

  Her baby was fucked.

  She had to pilot it with the cockpit open on account of all the cameras and viewports having been destroyed.

  “Monster incoming! Big from the tremors.”

  The earth mage riding on her golem’s shoulder pointed down the left street.

  She eyed him out of the corner of her eye.

  Huh?

  Dude wasn’t touching the ground.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  She thought earth mages needed some kind of contact to use tremor sense and similar spells or Skills.

  This Devyn dude must’ve been real shit like Reg had said.

  Granted, she figured out as much from all the spells Devyn had been slinging on their desperate run out of the city.

  The man had turned the street into an elevated one for a long ways to get them clear of the rabbit hordes

  “How far and how fast would you say its coming? My sensors aren’t working so good. Gonna have to do it manually.”

  “About 30 miles per hour.” He pointed. “1300 feet that way, give or take a few dozen.”

  “Goddamnit! What’s that in normal measurements! Fuck it!” She did the math in her head. “Tell me where it’s going to be in five seconds.”

  Devyn moved his finger and adjusted the distance.

  She punched in the coordinates and fired.

  The mortar tube in Cybersmasher II’s back thumped.

  “That was my last one.”

  The shell arced in the night sky.

  Distant fire bloomed as the explosion shattered the few remaining windows on the buildings in the vicinity.

  “Did I get it?”

  “Give me a second. The tremors are going crazy.”

  Chrome waited with bated breath.

  She was running low on weapons and ammo.

  The .50 caliber machine guns she had pirated and stuck on her golems arms had been empty for awhile. The barrels were bent and twisted from when she used them to bash monsters.

  Really, aside from the short-range mana laser in her golem’s mastiff-like head and a few remaining spell gems, all she had were the chainsaws and various blades and spikes just hidden underneath the surface of her golem’s armor plating. Granted, she could still run things over or bash them.

  “I think you got it.”

  “Nice, Cybersmasher II!”

  “Two? What happened to one?”

  “Blew up.” She shrugged. “So… can’t you, like, earthquake them into the river?” She nodded at the Old American soldiers clustered around the entrance to the bridge across the river and their only way out of the city.

  Their convoy had been forced to halt while Congresswoman Brinley Johnson-Lopez tried to talk-no-jutsu the assholes out of their way.

  “Hey, just so we’re clear. I’m close, personal friends with a guy that knows the guy that’s been flying around and blowing up all your tanks, jets and what not. Now, I’m not saying you’re a backstabber, but—”

  “I get it,” Devyn said flatly.

  “Do you?”

  “Yes. Listen, Chrome, was it? My only concern is my family’s safety.” He looked to the battered convoy where his wife and kids stared out of the broken windows on one of the buses.

  “Hey, dude! That’s what us Mist Spekters are trying to do here. So, just saying it’d be fucked for you to flip sides now that we’re so close and your fellow stormtroopers are right there looking all murderous.”

  “I doubt that, Chrome. I see more civilians than soldiers. And it’s Captain Patriot. If there’s one good woman in the combined armed forces, then it’s her.” Devyn sighed. “And I’m not a soldier. I work on a contract. My loyalty is contingent on the magically binding terms I and the American Government agreed on.”

  “Yeah… that’s great and all, but what if Captain White Power over there orders you to do a little back shanking?”

  “She wouldn’t, but even if she did. I’m pretty sure that the congresswoman’s authority supersedes the military in this scenario. Also, I’m not blind. I see what you Mist Spekters have. All that fancy gear. This golem. This is the best chance my family has to get to safety. Not that ragged bunch of soldiers. Look at them. They’re on foot. If they give a shit about the civilians they’ll work with the congresswoman to get seats on the buses.”

  “Or they could just try to take them. That’s a very Old American thing to do, right? Comandeering? Or Eminent Domain-something?”

  “Can’t say that I’d know about any of that. I was a kid when the spires showed up. Grew up in a small town somewhere in the middle of the old country. Don’t even know the state’s name. Had to bail when marauders and a monster tornado rolled through one night. Spent years wandering the land until I met my wife and…” Devyn shrugged.

  “So, murderhobo’d it up?”

  “You could say that, but that’s not me anymore. I just want a safe place for my wife and kids.”

  “Picked the wrong one.”

  “Obviously.”

  They fell into silence only broken by the need to defend the stationary convoy from monsters.

  Ten minutes felt like an eternity, but the congresswoman got it done.

  Captain Patriot got the civilians in her care rides and the congresswoman got Captain Patriot to add to the protection.

  Chrome didn’t envy her teammates having to sit in the buses and trucks side by side with the enemy.

  Especially, that scary fuck in the bloody American flag skull mask.

  “What kind of asshole wears a skull mask painted like his nation’s flag?”

  “What? Oh… Death’s Dancer. He’s alright,” Devyn said. “He’s a killer, but he’s not the kind that gets hard off it, you know?”

  “Not personally, no. We try to keep those kinds off our team.”

  “Better under someone’s control than their own.”

  The convoy started over the bridge with Chrome in the lead.

  She had to peek over the opened armor panels.

  The river looked awfully dark and foreboding.

  But, fortune favored them as they weren’t accosted by anything or anyone.

  It didn’t take long for them to hit the interstate headed westward.

  The old nation’s capital burned behind them.

  Chrome swept her eyes across the dark road.

  This far out the highway lights only worked sporadically.

  And she knew that terribly dangerous things could be lurking in every stretch of dark shadow.

  “Relax,” Devyn said. “I’m not picking up any threats. At least on the ground.”

  She flicked her gaze to the black sky.

  Shouts in the Mist Spekter comms channel had her react by squeezing the triggers on her control sticks.

  Luckily or not, her golem was empty.

  “What the fuck, guys!” She snapped.

  “Look!” someone shouted.

  “What? Where? Wh—”

  “Holy shit!” Devyn said.

  She turned, following his gaze to the sky above the city where bright flashes like fireworks revealed the fierce aerial battle.

  The huge dark dagger plunged out of the clouds.

  A golden streak zoomed away from it.

  “Which one is it?”

  “I heard Songbird’s on the Raynanaut!”

  The skyship’s crash sent up a great, blooming cloud of debris mushrooming into the sky, but no fireball.

  That was survivable, right? Chrome had no idea.

  Devyn cursed.

  She supposed he probably knew people still in the city.

  How many had just died?

  The golden streak in the sky approached them quickly, like a fighter jet at supersonic speed.

  “Uh… guys, incoming… gold thing!”

  She was out of anti-air.

  Used them against harpies and flying monsters.

  A loud boom cracked the sky like thunder, forcing the golden streak to veer off from its intercept course.

  Things happened so fast that it was all Chrome could do to keep her golem rolling down the interstate on its treads at just a bit above the posted speed limit.

  A sudden tornado sprouted to life somewhere in the hilly ground to their north.

  It looked faraway, but tornadoes could be deceptive.

  Golden light shined brightly from behind the hills at what appeared to be the base of the tornado.

  “Well!” She looked at Devyn accusatorally.

  “It’s out of my range.”

  “How far is that!”

  “Three-quarters of a mile.”

  She could only shake her head and continue to white-knuckle her control sticks while hoping that the golden tornado stayed away and that a new fresh nightmare wasn’t about to jump out of the darkness.

  Ironically, Chrome got pulled into the most real dream of her life a few minutes later.

  The congresswoman was also a congresswoman.

  For how long was a question that grew more salient the farther they traveled from the capital.

  Brinley Johnson-Lopez needed to know the answer ahead of time because much of her personal power relied on the class. Without it she would be at the mercy of those with physical power.

  The bus clattered along the dark interstate.

  Her Mist Spekters had proved their worth a hundred times over in protecting her people from the rabbit people hordes and random monsters on their desperate flight out of a nightmare.

  One was even driving.

  She glanced back at the original driver.

  The old man leaked crimson from his face, but she had been assured that he would live.

  She vowed that he and every single person on the buses and trucks and cars in her convoy would have their peaceful lives returned to them.

  The question was where could she give them that?

  New York City was the second largest in the diminished nation.

  She should’ve ordered a turn northward, then east.

  A Skill allowed her to take the temperature of the room, so to speak.

  The soldiers eyes grew narrower and focused on her more every time she refrained from ordering her driver to turn off and head for one of the military bases or towns in range.

  As for the Mist Spekters and her other personal troops?

  They seemed to grow nervous in equal parts to the suspicion.

  Bootsteps on the floor.

  She would’ve felt the presence without her Skills.

  The Sentinel of Freedom gave off a palpable aura that pressed down on her shoulders with a weight that seemed unbearable.

  Was it her treasonous thoughts?

  Her mysterious benefactors words played in her thoughts.

  Your nation is a dying hippo on the African savanna. Lions, hyenas and vultures are circling, ready to pick through its corpse for the choice cuts while you cling to the scraps they toss your way as an afterthought. Do you want real freedom? Or are you content to walk into the chains those scavengers are holding out to you? Go to the west. Freedom and happiness isn’t just your rightful destiny. It’s everyone’s.

  Could Captain Patriot tell that her loyalty to the nation teetered on the edge of a cliff?

  But, what if her loyalty wasn’t to a nation?

  What if it was to the people?

  Some would argue that was how it should be.

  What did the captain think?

  Because the congresswoman knew that there was only one opinion in the convoy that mattered at the moment.

  “Captain Patriot.”

  She forced herself to look into the blindfold that hid two glowing orbs of white.

  The light shined so bright that her herculean effort of will brought her pain.

  “May I have a word?”

  The captain eyed the rest of the packed bus.

  “Yes, congresswoman.”

  “A Private Conversation.”

  All sound vanished around the two of them.

  The road noise and the creaking of the bus’ damaged structure. The wind whipping through the holes in the windshield. The soft sobs of children and the soothing voices of parents doing their best. The itchy fingers dancing on weapons and the shifting of armor from mercenary fighters and Combined Armed Forces soldiers keeping eyes on the dark interstate and the bus interior for potential threats.

  It all melted away, leaving just the two.

  “I am concerned with safety.” She gestured toward the silent people on the bus. “Theirs and mine. Tonight has shown me that we are not safe. That the promises made are worth nothing. That the sacrifices have only led to complete, utter loss. Please tell me that I’m seeing this wrong.”

  She gazed up at the captain’s inscrutable expression.

  The captain loomed like a foreboding statue. Over six feet tall and Amazonian in build. She made every other elite soldier look small and weak in comparison with the one masked exception.

  The white glow emanating from her, coating her tactical armor and clothing, provided warmth and comfort, but the congresswoman could easily imagine it turning into scouring heat.

  “You knew the world before the spires. I didn’t. Have we done the right things?”

  “It is not my place to judge. I’m a soldier. I uphold my oaths.”

  The congresswoman took a long moment.

  She didn’t need to feign contemplation.

  “Then, as a soldier, what can you tell me about our likely outcomes? Can we recover from losing the capital?”

  “Rebuild.”

  “Specifics, captain?”

  “Not my place to say, ma’am.”

  “Then, will you listen to what I can see on the roads ahead of us?”

  The captain nodded.

  “Blood. More blood from our citizens.” She regarded the packed bus. “These children will be conscripted to re-fill our losses. The parents and grandparents as well. Those not fit for combat will be forced into it. Those truly incapable will be forced into the machinery of war. An army needs weapons and ammunition, after all. We will seek force multipliers to make up for the lack of numbers. That means more for the hybridization program. That desperate need for soldiers will translate into a rolling back of safety standards. I saw pictures and videos of the Eidolon of Sut’s work. I’m not supposed to have this opinion, but whoever assassinated that monster deserves a medal. I look at these children and I see them in those videos. And for what? To slow a death that is unavoidable? I—”

  Captain Patriot held up her hand.

  “Ma’am… I’m a soldier. It’s simple for me.” She regarded the passengers with empty sockets filled with white light. “The oaths I swore don’t bind me like it does the classed or those weaker than me.”

  The congresswoman followed the captain’s gaze to a young hybrid supersoldier.

  The girl had floppy rabbit ears sticking out and up and digitigrade legs that made her taller than her petite body proportions suggested she should’ve been.

  “So many oaths, but the one underlying thing that is the backbone of it all for me is my fellow citizens.” Captain Patriot continued. “As I see it my responsibility is to the people behind me. I am their sword and shield. Bring them to safety. Anything else beyond that I will deal with when it’s time. And,” she regarded the congresswoman with a gaze that seemed to pierce through like a knife, “I believe that there is a good chance that the president is dead. The vice president? I don’t know. The speaker? I don’t know. The chain of succession isn’t clear and I lost my radio and comms gem. It occurs to me that you, congresswoman, are in charge. Give me an order and I will follow it… as long as it preserves as many lives in this convoy as possible.”

  “And your— our soldiers?”

  “I’ll give them a choice, but I won’t allow them to deny our people the same.”

  The congresswoman pointed at the golem in the bus’ lights.

  “And if I say we’re following them west to the Pacific?”

  “As long as we’re all free to make our choices along the way.”