Spilled Milk

A not-so-covert op by true professionals

Anyone who tells you that a run can't go sideways is either a liar, a liar trying to send you into a deathtrap, or has never been on a run.

 

I put the bullpup rifle to my shoulder and leveled it at the alley as I backed out into the street, covering my escape. My cargo was two steps behind me, and I made sure before we'd even left the building that they were never to stray further than that from me, or they would most likely end up dead. We're going to leave the fact that my "cargo" ended up being two human beings. This was supposed to be simple b-n-e, snatch-and-grab. The only milk runs I ever seem to end up with are chunky, sour, and curdling before I ever get to open the container.

 

Not only was corpsec probably seconds from coming out the door behind me, I had actually caught myself in the alley being encircled by the nuclear spiders. Tonight could not possibly get any worse, I keep telling myself. Correction: I keep lying to myself.

 

The drones could be heard clicking their way up the back alley. I'd been paying attention to their progress for some time. Now, I'd just ducked out of the eastern alley, and there they were, encircling me and the entrance. I hate drones, especially ones that remind me of spiders. These monstrosities looked like the front cone of an ICBM strapped with spider legs and chain guns mounted on internal turrets you only saw when the nosecone opened to reveal all the cabled guts of the thing. And here they were, behind me, splitting themselves open and ready to spit six thousand rounds a minute in my general direction. I could even hear that stupid "twee" sound as their targeting sensors came online.

 

I waved the pair I was bringing out of the alley down behind me, and had them pin themselves to the wall, putting myself between the bulk of the alley and the spiders and them. They'd gotten really good at obeying during the strairwell descent when I had to have them clear the cameras, instead of just taking the elevator down. I could have taken the elevator down, if this had just been cargo -- real cargo -- like I'd been led to believe.

 

"What the s**t, Bax? Why are your bugs on me, and not at the west entrance to the alley? I'm not supposed to be looking down barrels as come out the God-damned door here!"

 

"It's the Hivemind I've been working on. It's got me jacked into all of them at once, and it's been a little disorienting," came the reply from the comm in my ear.

 

"Are you seriously bloody beta testing your s**t in a live-fire environment? Don't tell me you're beta testing your s**t during an escort. I have some real flesh-and-blood people here depending on us. I don't need this tonight."

 

"It's good. I can think and they're all responding green. I just got a little turned around at first when I staged for the extraction."

 

"That's amateur hour, Bax. 'Disoriented' and 'turned around' are amateur f*****g moves. Drop into one and take rear, and send the other two on some automated routine through the alley to sweep the mess when it spills out. Don't do this to me tonight. You drop into one and only one of your stupid bugs, and then you work like a professional, or so help me God..."

 

Bax went silent after that on the coms, but I could tell when I heard servos and hydraulics and whatever the hell else he packs into those monstrosities that he'd put two on auto and dove into a single spider. You can always tell, because machines move like machines, but when someone drops their ghost in a drone, it moves... It's just unnatural, and sends chills down my spine. Robots shouldn't move like that. But they do. Because of ghosting b******s like Bax. If I didn't need the support tonight, I never would have called him. Dude spends so much time in the machines, he acts like one on occasion, and when he's not acting like a machine he acts like a child. Like when he sulks and turns off his comm.

 

"Jessie, hon? You and your mom are going to duck out of this alley and turn all the way around. You're going to keep your left hand against the wall and follow it as low and quiet as you can. She'll be right behind you, and I'll be just ten steps more back. Do you understand? Nod if you understand."

 

The kid was pale, and I'd terrified her on the trip down to get her in line. She was some suit's brat that hadn't learned how to exercise the proper manners her mother had tried to teach her. She was even less a fan when two of the nuclear spiders click-clacked its way down the alley where the three of us meat sacks had just exited. I can't blame her. I'm not a fan of them, and my first encounter wasn't when they were fully primed to mow down an entire battalion's front line.

 

"Okay. Alex, Jessie, go. Now!"

 

They began their running creep down the alley behind me as the other two spiders passed us entering the alley. The last one stopped and looked at me with that stupid single red camera eye, focusing and refocusing. And I could hear it. Bax knew that gave me the creeps, especially when the mechanical bits didn't have to make noise. "Optics are about optics," he once told me. And I told him we are professionals who shouldn't have optics because we shouldn't be seen, and our reputation comes from what people don't say about us. I can at least say that him staring me down like that was some kind of acknowledgment, as he jaunted in that uncanny mechanical way he has, just to mess with me, down the alley.

 

I took a deep breath, counted to four while taking a few more steps and clearing the corner, then I turned and hustled to catch up with Alex and Jessie, who were still moving, just like they were told. It was about the only thing that could have gone right tonight. What should have been just a data grab or a simple theft turned into an escort mission. I keep telling myself I'm good, and that this just means doubling or tripling my fee, plus it had been quiet. I always like quiet, because quiet is professional, and we'd managed to be mostly professional tonight. Mostly.

 

Then I heard the one sound that ruins my night faster than the sound of those unholy drones of Baxter's. The prop-plane buzzing of a chain gun opening fire. Because that's just what I needed at this point. It wasn't even a hundred yards to the car, and now we had to run for it. So much for quiet and professional.

 

I'm still doubling my fee.

 

# # #

Author's Note

PHOTO CREDIT: The Hunt by Alex Broeckel (http://raybender.cgsociety.org/art/sci-photoshop-fi-robots-hunt-2d-786174)
PHOTO CONTENT: spider-like robots surround three humans running out of an alley

This one was an exception. Usually I write these at night, after work. I put up a post on Reddit at /r/writingprompts to help get me enough images to make it to 30 days, and in order to keep the thread open, I had to write a story on any of the responses within four hours. This piece was cobbled together in forty minutes over lunch, and it probably shows. But words are on pages, and I met my goal. Good enough for the challenge.

1,177 words.

ABOUT THE PROJECT:
Every piece was written before I knew who or what the image was about. Credit and attribution was revealed only after completing the story for each picture.

Each of these stories is in the same form as it immediately came out onto the page. The exercise is to produce words, and a habit. Please feel free to critique on content and rate accordingly. Leave notes about egregious technical errors, but please don't let it stand against your rating of the content.