“Titan! New Titan!” I shouted, even as I internally begged Ariel for details.
No time for history, Ariel! How does it attack?
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. The Titan was almost fully formed now, a craggy-looking six-legged beast about the size of a semi truck. It was grayish-blue with stripes of metallic banding that were sparking visibly.
Our driver had slowed, but I didn’t think that was necessary. I made an Announcement.
Get away from the walls! Expect electrical attacks! Full speed ahead.
“Electrical?” Pointy asked disdainfully as the soldiers lining the walls of our vehicle crowded in. “Is Ariel quite sure?”
“Yeah,” I said. I couldn’t keep a smug grin off my face. Electrical attack, against a fleet of wheeled Faraday cages? This should be fun. “Let’s go! I’ll be ready with Paralyze if it tries to smack us. I won’t be able to hold it for long, though, so don’t slow down.”
The Titan finished forming and began to crackle, sparks of static flashing in the air around it. It didn’t move other than to open its mouth, letting out a grinding noise like rocks in a tumbler.
Then there was a brilliant flash and the world went white.
Even with my eyes closed, the flash was bright enough to blind me, a searing brilliance that went through my eyelids as if they didn’t exist.
Life Sense was unhampered, however. I felt the monster bunch its legs to leap toward us and used a targeted Paralyze to freeze just one of its joints for a crucial second. Instead of soaring forward to crush our vehicle, it stumbled.
Then, we were past.
Vince squeezed my hand and my vision cleared. He gave me an apologetic smile as he reached over to comfort a whimpering Cassie. “Sorry, guys. I thought I should help the drivers first.”
“Absolutely,” I said. I’d felt some of our escort soldiers moving to help the drivers, but I didn’t mind Vince backing them up. Our driver being able to steer was critical; the rest of us could do without sight for a few seconds. I focused behind me. The Titan had made it out onto the road behind and was sparking with static again, apparently readying another wide attack.
Wow, dumb. I thought. I could smell the scent of scorched rubber and could see pits in the bodies and windshields of our fleet, but the cars had done their job once and likely would again.
“How did Hamlet not realize these cars were giant Faraday cages? Why didn’t his Linked Users?” I asked.
“Hamlet’s Linked Users likely proposed the Titan while we were still traveling across town. We have not been in the vehicles for very long,” Pointy said. “I expect them to try something else soon, however, and I’m guessing we won’t be that lucky twice.”
I grimaced. She was right. The last Titan was already shrinking in the distance, not even trying to chase us down.
“Do you know if the Arsenal is going to try to kill it? I’m almost wondering if we should stop killing Titans. If we leave them alive, isn’t that tying up a lot Hamlet’s resources?”
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“It would,” Pointy acknowledged. “But Titans are also the source of a lot of Money. Giving up on that might slow down the end of the contest. Even so… it’s worth considering, especially locally.”
“I’ll pass the suggestion along,” said Marie.
I frowned, thinking. There was something, an idea that was flitting around the edges of my mind, just out of reach, not quite fully-formed. Something about the end of the contest, and Money. If I could just focus-
“Micah! Set your Specialty to absorb lasers, will you? We’ve got a new Titan ahead.”
“Should we detour?” Our driver asked. “Next exit’s in a mile and a half, but I could try offroading.”
“Try offroading,” I said. “Ariel says its range is a little over a mile.”
We’d barely pulled off the road before we had to turn back around, as Ariel alerted us to another Titan forming on our new heading.
“I could try the other side of the road…” the driver offered.
I shook my head. “Nah. Too much forest and risk of getting stuck. Plus, I’m pretty sure we’ll just get another one appearing in that direction if we do. Just… take the highway, but slowly for now. Let’s not rush into its range as long as the stuff chasing us isn’t catching up.”
“It is intriguing that they are not appearing until we change our heading,” said Pointy.
“He’s testing our defenses,” I realized.
“And those of the other Linked Users,” Pointy said. “After all, if he can take any of you down…”
I grimaced, then shook my head. “Let’s focus on our problem. Lasers. Uh… Micah can protect us with his Specialty, but he doesn’t have a huge range. How do we keep the rest of the fleet alive if it doesn’t focus on me directly?”
“Fog? Dirt?” Vince suggested. “Got a buddy working on a combat laser. Er, well, he was before all this, anyway. He spent a week in the desert and had to make another trip because high wind put too much particulate in the air.”
“Wouldn’t mirrors be more effective?” I asked.
Vince shrugged. “Not my field.”
Marie waved a hand. “Arsenal agrees with Vince’s suggestion. They’ve got an expert on lasers. She says mirrors might help some, but probably not enough if the laser is powerful. Better to block it farther away. Expect whatever it hits to get really hot.”
Micah perked up. “I can help with that, too!”
“Great,” I said.
It was a struggle to sound sincere.
My mind was reeling. A few hours before, I’d felt like we had this Maffiyir in the bag. I’d understood the rules of the contest. If our enemies had kept playing by them, we had a clear path to victory. Not an easy path - we still would have needed patience, diligence, courage, and more than a little luck - but it had felt do-able.
Now, some evil CEO was pretending to go rogue in order to cheat as hard as she could, just in order to ensure our deaths.
It sounded like she was blatantly breaking a few dozen laws. That was great news for the Voices for Non-Citizens, I guess, but it wouldn’t be much comfort to our corpses. And… if big space corporations were anything like big Earth corporations, maybe her shitty fig leaf of an excuse would hold up in court and the company would be able to use her as a sacrificial lamb, throwing all the blame on one individual and continuing their torturous games against other species.
What now? I just hurtled across the countryside as they threw Titan after Titan at me. We had handled the first few well, but we'd have to win hundreds or thousands of times. Hamlet only had to win once.
“Coming in range!” Pointy called, distracting me from my thoughts and drawing my attention to the Titan ahead. A tall, tower-like being over 200 feet tall stood in the middle of the highway, its size and shape, reminiscent of the of the Saturn V rocket outside the Space and Rocket Center. Someone, I didn't know who, had worked quickly, getting a cloud of dust or water in place around its summit before we'd come in range. As I watched, a red light flashed, refracting through the cloud instead of pouring its full force into our vehicle.
Micah laughed. “Hah! That’s weak. I can absorb like ten of those. Oh, crap. It fired again. Uh…”
The cloud around the Titan’s summit continued to flash as it fired at us repeatedly. My son glanced back at me nervously and I gave him a slight nod. I knew his Specialty - while potent - wasn’t unlimited. I floated an iron plate out, keeping it in line between our car and the top of the Titan.
Another Telekinetic clearly had the same idea. A large tarp floated in between our convoy and the new Titan. It caught fire immediately and began melting and smoking. The Telekinetic holding it moved it around, letting the smoke and remaining plastic create a barrier as our vehicles swerved around the slow-moving Titan.
I didn’t even have time to breathe a sigh of relief before Ariel was messaging me once more, letting me know about two more tower-Titans ahead, as well as a third of a new variety she said could manipulate terrain.
“One frying pan to the next,” I said.