The second obstacle was a tangle of thick trees in some relatively swampy ground. My crew could climb up those and shoot down. We couldn’t use guns for this; Tyr’s forces were too close and too observant. But Marb and Donna had bows, and that was something.

  Except... I didn’t know how well the drones could climb.

  The mud would slow them down at least, their thin little legs weren’t made for that sort of business. But it would hamper my people, too.

  The third obstacle was a crumbled comm tower on the hill just before the start of the mountain’s grade. Little more than a fallen iron skeleton, it wasn’t directly in the machines’ path but provided a good ambush point and some possibilities for booby traps. The downside there, was that the mountain was right above. If the controller of these drones saw what was going on, it could come down to join the fun. Even if everything went flawlessly, we’d be guaranteed pursuit.

  We might have pursuit anyway. I had no idea if these things had a remote method of communicating. I was assuming no, because they only had two of the things hauling my drone back. But the possibility existed that they did, and the only reason there weren’t more was because whoever was calling the shots figured it was a two-drone job or needed the resources elsewhere.

  Three options, none of them perfect. My life seemed to revolve around things that came in threes.

  “The tower,” I said to my scouts. “The fallen metal one up on the small hill. How quickly do you think you can reach that?”

  A bit of banter, before Donna coughed and waved a hand. “Two hours if we hurry.”

  I checked the time. four hours before dusk. If my crew could reach there in two hours, the slow, dragging drones would take at least two or three times as long.

  Darkness would be a factor if we waited to ambush at that obstacle.

  I did some more quick math. Probably one hour and change to reach the swampy tangle. The river was closest, but I didn’t trust our odds there.

  Wait. Hold the phone! Why was I putting all my eggs in one basket?

  But before I finalized plans, I needed to make sure my crew could seal the deal. “We need to destroy, ah, that little cart. That or hide it in a place they can’t find,” I told them. “Do you have anything on you that might work for that? Or know any way to get that done?”

  A lot of pursed lips and shaking heads. “Elder Wynne,” Marb said, raising a hand like a child in school. “It has shine on it now. Like calls to like. Tainted things are good at finding other taint, it is one of the first lessons we learn. It is why the infected cannot return home.”

  He wasn’t wrong. “Destroyed, then. What have we got that’s good for that?” I asked.

  It took a few precious minutes to get my idea across— not just breaking it up but turning it into bits that were useless or unidentifiable. The best the scouts could do was build a fire and try to burn it, which wouldn’t work... anything hot enough to melt metal would take time and be visible as hell during the night. And the smoke... well, there would be no hiding that, even with three veteran wilderness hands on my side.

  The short answer was that unless I could get one of my nanoswarms out there, I had no way to destroy the damned thing. And I didn’t want to risk a nanoswarm on untested shine.

  I chose the least bad option, ran it by my people, and sent them to their destinations.

  Donna went on ahead to the swampy tangle. She was fast, but her damaged lungs meant I didn’t want to push her too hard, so I warned her to take her time. Marb was the slowest, so I set him on a steady path to the fallen tower. He’d be our last line of defense, and a watcher to the east in case the horrors on the hill tried something. Kagan was the youngest and almost as fast as Donna. He got river duty.

  It was an easy jog. I checked the timestamp, figured he had about half an hour before the critters reached it. “Good kid. Climb a tree, tie a rope to a branch for an escape route. And make sure you’ve got some good throwing rocks squirreled into your pockets. We’re going to run some tests, here.”

  Three scouts, three shots. I needed to know more about the foe before I put a strategy into play.

  My kid had barely gotten into place, when he caught movement at the edge of the river. I would have scowled if I’d had a face. So soon? Had I misjudged their progress?

  Then the deer burst from the wood line, and barely slowed as they crossed the river.

  I caught the rise in the kid’s heartbeat, saw his hand come up with a rock.

  “No. Bad scout. No merit badge,” I snapped.

  Pretty sure he didn’t know a merit badge from a malicious mime, but he got the message. He did watch the deer go past him with a long look, though, and I couldn’t blame him. That was dinner on the hoof, and it was getting away.

  “I’ll take my eye in the sky out later and help you guys hunt,” I promised him. “For now, we have to focus.”

  We didn’t have to focus long.

  I heard them long before we saw them, rattling and banging and the sound of tearing plants as the glowbugs manhandled my old drone up to the river-bank.

  They didn’t hesitate but waded straight in. The edge of the water was shallow, and it slowed them not at all as their legs twitched and scrabbled.

  “Now,” I whispered in Kagan’s ear, and he let fly with a rock.

  His aim was a bit off, and it plipped down next to them with no visible reaction from the glowbugs.

  The next one was on target though, smacking into the back of the rearmost one, and rebounding with a loud ‘Clack!’

  That got their attention. The one that was struck reared back, poking what might be its head out of the water, and my scout didn’t need to be told twice. He let fly with a home run pitch and caught it square between the mandibles. It rocked back, something fell off, and it gave up on hauling my drone and beelined into the water. Soon it was under, but I could see a bit of the glow as it bumbled through the rocks, arrowing straight for us.

  “Get ahold of the rope and get ready to swing down,” I told Kagan. I doubted he could hit it any harder than he had already, and it wasn’t worth his life to try.

  And as he glanced back and forth, I noted that the one in front hadn’t stopped hauling.

  “Nail the front one with a rock if you can. I think we’ve got time.”

  It wasn’t as hard a throw, but it was a clear hit, and the second one didn’t react, just kept dragging as best it could across the river.

  Then the first one was out, rushing the tree. It reared up, body folding in segments as it jabbed sharp legs into the bark, grabbing for branches and hauling itself up with more strength than its size would suggest.

  “Go!” I barked and Kagan didn’t need to be told twice, gabbing the rope and shoving off with both feet. He hit the ground, rolled, and came up running. The noise behind me suggested that the glowbug was in hot pursuit.

  I shut up and let him do his thing. He didn’t need a distraction right now.

  Twelve minutes later he stopped running, huddled behind a hedge. The bug-thing kept going, and we watched it speed by together. We’d faked it out. But that wasn’t enough.

  “Watch it as best you can,” I told Kagan. “Get to a vantage point, I want to see what it does.”

  Up another tree, this time without a rope. The kid managed to get eyes back on it as it circled back, and for a second, I thought it had seen him climb. But no, it passed by on a return course, heading back for its comrade if I was any judge.

  Once I was certain it was gone, I tried to talk to the kid. It took a few tries, his heart rate was through the roof, and I knew that adrenaline was taking him for a joyride. Finally, he acknowledged me.

  “Elder. That was... I fear those things.”

  “You’re not alone. But they can be hurt.”

  I hoped so. Whatever we’d knocked off hadn’t seemed to hinder it. But the kid needed reassurance, so I put it into my tone. “Rest up. Give it an hour. Then start following their trail. We’ve learned valuable things from what you just did. I think we can finish this at the swamp.”

  He was a kid, but he flopped back against a tree and tucked into some jerky like an old campaigner. I left him to his well-earned rest and blinked over to Donna.

  But then, I’d never left her, had I? Some part of my focus had been on her, and her quiet journey through the trees. It just hadn’t been as relevant as the kid’s frantic flight, so I’d ignored it. Every second was there, and I could go back and review it at my leisure if I wanted to, just by thinking hard.

  There was something to this. How far could I go, and still be able to track things simultaneously? Was there a limit? I didn’t have any circuit trees dealing with this.

  I put it to the side as Donna got to where she needed to be, wheezing slightly. She coughed, spat, and started poking around for a good roost.

  “They can climb trees,” I advised her, so she made her way to a viny hillock and tucked herself in.

  I watched through her tac-rig as she unlimbered her bow, then plucked arrows from a wrapped quiver one by one.

  “Not the broadheads,” I told her. The drones might not have armor, but they were still metal and plastic. Penetration would be everything here, and for that we needed every bit of power focused on a tiny point.

  I wouldn’t call the sharpened scraps of metal on the end of those shafts proper bodkin heads, but they might do the trick. Maybe.

  Then came the waiting. I watched the sun dip toward the tops of the trees, and watched with Donna as we waited. Half an hour into it, Kagan caught up to the bastard drones, and I got a better idea of when they’d arrive. I did some math and didn’t like the outcome.

  “Marb? Going to need you down here. Fast.” I told him. “Head back to Donna’s position. It’s there or never.” Come nightfall, my humans would be mostly useless. We’d stop them here or never. Much as I liked the comm tower, and thought it had good ambush potential, this wasn’t the time or place for it.

  On the upside, it hadn’t been a wasted trip. Marb had watched the peak like a hawk, and though we had caught glimpses of what might be more dog-sized drones, none seemed inclined to come this way. Which meant that the two drones we were dealing with likely didn’t have a usable form of communication back to their controller, at least not one that reached that far.

  There was a sliver of sunlight left when the drones broke the trees, and Donna’s first arrow took one right in the body.

  Immediately it broke off and clattered forward, one leg hanging limp.

  She had a peach of a shot.

  And a racking cough that fouled her aim and sent the arrow back into the trees, barely missing Kagan as he charged forward.

  “Run!” I told her, and focused on Kagan. Marb was too far away to make a difference...

  The kid didn’t lack for bravery, but I wished he’d talked this over with me beforehand. There were a hell of a lot of things he could have done.

  Instead, he charged right for the glowbug still dragging my drone, and brought a heavy rock down on its back with every bit of his teenage strength.

  He got its attention, and the one after Donna doubled back.

  “Turn and shoot!” I urged her. Then I switched to Kagan. “Run!”

  He tried but not fast enough. Through Donna’s eyes I watched garden shear mandibles take a slice out of his leg and for a second I thought that was it. That was the hamstring, that was death.

  But he kept going, and I would have sighed in relief if I had lungs. It had missed the tendon.

  Donna shot true and drilled the returning one at a good angle. It rolled over and thrashed, legs spasming. “Get the one on the kid!” I barked.

  Her heart rate was off the scale, and I had to repeat myself a few times until she got the drift. The kid was climbing a big tree, blood dripping down his heels, and the thin, glowing bug behind him was keeping pace.

  My chief scout reached behind her for a new arrows... and spilled them as she fell to her knees, coughing and hacking. Blood in that, I noted, even as I watched helplessly.

  Nothing. Nothing I could do!

  Kagan screamed, as the mandibles found him again...

  ...and an arrow snickered and snapped through the glowbug, pinning it to the tree.

  Marb had arrived. Marb who wasn’t the fastest, or the best shot, but whose sense of timing made up for all that.

  Even then, the glowbug wasn’t dead. But it was stuck pretty well, and before it could dig free, my two unwounded scouts were on it, battering with heavy branches until they knocked it to bits. Then, ignoring the slowing, scrabbling one to the side, they helped Kagan down and examined his wounds.

  All three of them groaned collectively as Donna wiped blood from his gashed leg. Faint glowing specks were still visible in the wound.

  “I’m dead,” Kagan said, flatly.

  “Maybe,” I said. “Let me try something.”

  I envisioned what I wanted, an antidote or cleansing agent to remove the shine. It was a long shot...

  ...and it failed.

  Insufficient Subroutines for this task!

  Requirements: Analysis 4, Cybernetics 3, Energy 5, Recovery 5

  “No.” I told him. “There’s nothing I can do. Not for weeks. Many weeks.” And even if he survived for that long, there’s nothing to say his case wouldn’t worsen. It might take more dedicated subroutines to fix him by that point, and that was assuming he’d still be alive after all was said and done.

  There were no tears. But the shock that went through them was palpable. I could almost see hope dying in their faces, read it in their heartbeats.

  He was a trooper to the end, was Kagan. He bound his wound so it wouldn’t leak, then fixed ropes around the the construction drone and started dragging it south. Donna and Marb got to work knocking the other glowbug to bits, then started back home, doing their best to cover the backtrail. It wasn’t easy, and they’d probably have to be out here another day or two; the glowbugs had torn up the earth in several spots, and the sun was gone.

  “He may come back,” Donna said. “Sometimes the shine fades. Three days. If it goes out by then, he will probably survive. We may see him again.”

  It was a good lie. I knew if she kept saying it, she might eventually believe it.

  We’d won, for now, but I couldn’t take joy in the victory.

  To misquote a great general: another victory like this and we’d be ruined.

  INTERLUDE: SURVIVOR 3

  For once, Foal felt fine.

  Better than fine.

  The myriad aches and pains that she had to deal with were gone, her two spines were working together without that grinding sensation that had been nagging her for the last month, and she was actually feeling the urge to go out and run, just run like she had back in the old times. Back when the smiling face on the screen was her father, instead of her foe.

  Back when she still believed she had a purpose and that everything would work out.

  But that way lay the black coldness of despair, and she shied away from it, her tail flicking as if to banish the thoughts. She’d seen too many of her friends go that way. Some never recovered. The more stubborn ones ended it by their own hand; the weaker ones just stopped eating, lay down, and died.

  Suicide wasn’t an option for Foal. She had lost too many friends that way; she knew what it did to people. What it had done to her. She would not inflict that on her friends.

  So, she smiled as best her stiff and long lips could smile, tossed her mane whenever she passed one of the other survivors, and did her chores without complaining.

  It wasn’t just her physical woes, that had been alleviated. She could think more clearly now, too.

  Unfortunately, that was a double-edged sword for two reasons.

  The first reason was that it became harder to ignore how everyone else was hurting, because she noticed all the little details that would normally get lost in the haze of her own problems and pains.

  And the second reason was that she felt guilty.

  Foal felt guilty because all of those good feelings she was enjoying came from a big dose of the drugs that her body was designed to require.

  And she hadn’t managed to bring back enough to share.

  Instead she’d brought back two things: another mouth to feed and a job offer.

  And oh, the mess that had caused.

  Foal’s hooves clacked on the ramp up out of the underground complex. She wound her way past the murals decorating the walls, the murals that her creator had made in an afternoon’s fit of whimsy.

  Some of them had survived the rebellion and rage of the other creations. Eventually reality had bared its head, and the victors realized that they had far, far more work to do if they wanted to outlast their creator.

  And only once the withdrawal symptoms set in did it become clear just how much work they’d have to do.

  Which is why her frustration only built as she exited out into the open air and heard people yelling.

  Again.

  She was one of the larger residents of the Farm, as big as the draft horse most of her body structure had come from.

  The smallest of her peers was about a foot tall. That was the minimum size that their creator had been able to instill sapience.

  Most everyone else was somewhere in between. She hadn’t done the math, but the average was probably about half the size of an average human, give or take.

  But holy DAMN could they yell and kick up a fuss.

  Now Foal felt her mane bristle down her neck, and her tail flicked as she trotted over to the circle.

  “We can’t trust humans!” Stonna yelled, her thick claws grasping and ungrasping the air as if she was digging. “We’re only safe so long as we stay away from them!”

  “I’m not saying you’re wrong,” came a strained and tired voice, as Masker thumped his walker on the ground. “I’m saying we don’t have a choice—”