War Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 5) by Aaron Ritchey (best short novels .TXT) 📕

Instead of shoes, Wren had tire scraps strapped to her feet, held there by frayed ropes and silver duct tape.

She was five hundred kilograms if she was a gram, and she left tracks a blind woman could follow.

We had to hurry. Where was Pilate?

Baptista let out a sigh. “Great. If we were outside of the Juniper, we could track him by his slate. Can’t do that here.”

“Check upstairs,” I said.

Baptista went, while Wren waited next to me, watching me with those dark eyes of hers, so different, yet oddly the same.

Then I noticed the floor. Pilate’s cowboy boots were clear enough, but what were the almost hand-like shapes on the floor? What the hell? Didn’t make sense, but the tracks led me out the door and toward the river.

Something swung from a cottonwood between the apartment and the riverbank.

Baptista rejoined us outside. “Nothing upstairs.”

I nodded and pointed.

A body dangled from ropes tied to a thick cottonwood limb, the shape of a man, covered in a big dark coat...Pilate’s coat. He hung upside down, swaying, turning, in the breeze. His hands hung pale in the shadows of the copse of trees.

I didn’t think. I ran for him.

This was Pilate. This was my father, and it seemed someone had found him and strung him up. If he were dead, I didn’t know what I’d do.

Wren was right on my heels.

We got to him. Wren didn’t have her Betty knife—such a blade would be too small for her hands. She did have a machete. She swung it and cut him down. I was there to partially catch him. My sister helped me lay him in the yellow grasses, smelling of winter and hopelessness.

My fingers went to this throat. Still a pulse. Thank everything good.

A twig snapped behind us.

I glanced up and realized we’d fallen into a trap.

I expected Regios, a battalion of them, pointing their rifles at us.

No, only one shape stood between us and the river.

My head knew it would be a Severin—maybe a soldier playing at being a little girl, or a grandma, or some unassuming woman. The ARK could turn their clones into any shape of human.

But what I saw wasn’t human. The thing’s exposed flesh was a dark green, but it didn’t look like skin, more like plastic. It moved on prehensile feet like a monkey’s. It wasn’t naked but wore a kind of uniform with more pockets than I could count.

Bony plates covered the thing’s head, but it didn’t have one set of eyes, it had at least a dozen, black and spider-like, looking at us from a round head on a squat neck ropy with muscle. Three slits were on its face—two for a nose, almost like a snake, a third underneath, to act as a mouth. Human hands held a rifle. Four hairy tentacles sprouted from the thing’s back.

This was the ultimate soldier brewed up in the ARK labs. Hoyt had abandoned the human shape for something more alien, more combat orientated. I couldn’t imagine what kind of mind lay behind those twelve eyes.

It came at us, clearly following its very human imperatives. It had lured us in and now would take us out.

Chapter Fifteen

I TRIED TO USE MY WILLPOWER to change myself in order to fit into the world. But what if the world is wrong? How much time did I waste following a morality dictated by consensus rather than accepting who I am and rejoicing in my own individuality?

—Burke, Sally Brown, My Apologies, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2076

(i)

A fresh dose of adrenaline flooded my senses. My mind snatched onto a single word: octopus. This new ARK soldier had eight limbs: four tentacles, two arms, two legs with monkey-feet. Octopus. Octo.

My training took over and I fired my G18. The neofiber spikes flecked the Octo’s skin and stuck there in a line. Whatever the Octo had for skin, the high-velocity darts couldn’t pierce it. Bullets might not either.

Then the Octo moved with blistering speed. Two tentacles caught a branch, spun the thing around, and it opened fire.

Wren grabbed me and gave the thing her back. The bullets pounded into the metal shards Wren had protecting her spine in a ping-panging, teeth-jarring cacophony.

Not a second later, strong tentacles pulled Wren away from me.

The Octo was tall, well above two meters, but Wren was taller. My sister grabbed a fistful of tentacle and ripped it off and threw it to ground where it twisted like a dying snake, spraying black blood.

The Octo bashed Wren in the face with its rifle and slithered around her, got a grip, and wrenched Wren back in a whirl of tentacles, arms, legs. Wren fell backwards. She didn’t howl or scream or curse but took it all in silence.

I grabbed Pilate under his armpits and tried to drag him back. He was too heavy. I fell on my butt.

Baptista appeared and helped me get him away from the tree, toward the raft. We found it and plopped him inside. “Get rowing!” I yelled. “Get him away.”

Flinging myself back toward the fight, I was met with Wren. She didn’t stop to pause but lifted me up into her massive arms. Blood poured from her neck, from where the tentacles had grabbed her. Sure, the thing’s tentacles weren’t hairy; they had razor-sharp spines.

Baptista oared the raft into the middle of the Platte. Wren waded in, ignoring the liquid cold of the river. I clutched her shoulder and lifted the G18. When the Octo burst out from the trees, I aimed for its face.

My darts might not be able to pierce the Octo’s plastic skin, but if I could get a needle into an eye, I just might be able to kill it. Or at least slow it down.

I emptied my clip in a barrage and the Octo raised hands and tentacles. Too late. It squealed in a shriek and flopped on the ground, clawing at its face. By that time, Wren tossed me into the raft. She stayed in the river.