Chapter Sixty-Five - Raining Fried Chicken


    Chapter Sixty-Five - Raining Fried Chicken


    Right, I know youve got a cool gimmick going on, and it is interesting, but just because you could maybe doesnt mean you should have... now, where exactly did you want me to slot your head?


    --Recorded discussion between Dial-up and Lag, 2049


    ***


    The... I supposed it wasnt technically a bomb--started to show its impact maybe a minute after it dropped. Gomorrah moved the Fury around so that we were hovering nearby, overlooking the drop-zone.


    The ground below was teeming with antithesis, thousands of them squirming around and doing their thing. I saw plenty of those worm models moving about while others broke into the homes and shops lining the streets and pulled out anything biological that they could use.


    The heat kept increasing, but it was a slow process.


    The first signs that it was working came from the advertisements on the shops nearest the heat bomb. They fritzed out and failed, colourful screens and hovering holograms shutting off at random.


    Then the paint started to peel on the cars abandoned along the road. One of them had its battery burst, and a gush of fire roared out from the bottom of the car, catching a few model threes off guard. Not that it hurt them much.


    I continued to watch as the aliens around the bomb started to back away from it. A few collapsed, and one eventually caught fire, but the flames didnt seem to last long.


    The heat continued to grow. Cars started to warp, their plastic bodies melting apart. Posters stuck onto the nearest streetlamp burst into flame. A few wires snapped, and glass exploded apart. A mirage started to appear over that entire part of the city, grey reflections shifting and making it hard to see the asphalt around the bomb turning liquid.


    Damn, I said as I continued to watch. The bomb just kept going. I could see where the heat had travelled just by following its impact. The centre, nearest the bomb, had the most damage. One of the apartments next to it lit up from within. I imagined that the furniture inside was more flammable than the concrete exterior of the building was.


    A clothing store just half a block down turned into a roaring bonfire as everything within it combusted.


    The antithesis ran, but they werent running fast enough.


    The heat was a perfect tool for killing them. Slow acting enough that they didnt seem to understand they were in danger until their eyes were melting and their flesh catching fire. Those big worms writhed on the ground, sinking into sticky asphalt. Model ones fell out of the air, wings going bright for the few seconds they burned.


    And then the first building collapsed. It was right across the street from the epicentre. A big commercial place, store on the ground, offices above, lots of glass and that sort of modern minimalist design that was so popular.


    Glass showered down across the city as the heat pushed on. It created an expanding ring of fire. Somehow, though, there was a circle that was following the ring where nothing burned but everything melted. I imagined that had something to do with chemicals or some scientific bullshit that I couldnt understand.


    This is working out pretty well, I said.


    Im enjoying it, Gomorrah said.


    I snorted. Of course she was. The pyromaniac was probably getting off on this.


    A lot of them were heading my way, and from the heat I was feeling through my armour, it wasnt hard to guess why. Ah, shit, Gomorrah head back a bit. Keep an eye on the skies.


    Alright, Gomorrah said. Do you think you can find a place where I can pick you up?


    Well find something, I said as I started to run across the rooftop. I reached the edge and leapt off. My jumpjets hissed and I sailed over the gap between two buildings. I caught sight of a nearly empty street below. Just a few lingering aliens who glanced up to watch me slip by.


    Cat, Gomorrah said. Theyre heading our way.


    The Fury rumbled past above me. The car usually purred as it moved but now that sound was replaced by a nasty grinding that I imagined meant the car would need fixing.


    I landed, still running, and spun around to see behind me.


    Gomorrah wasnt wrong. There was a whole flock of birds darting my way, enough to darken the skies. My railguns fired, pinning two model elevens in mid-flight. Only one of them had the common courtesy to die. I raised my bullcat and held down the trigger.


    Didnt need to aim when there were so many targets.


    The birds werent my only problem though. I stared as the roof of the building Id been on caught fire.


    Catherine, I would suggest moving with a little more alacrity. Youre right on the edge of the temperature range your armour can handle.


    Oh, come on, I said as I spun around and took off sprinting.


    I didnt want to get eaten. I wanted to get cooked alive inside my armour even less. I shot over the gap between the building I was on and the next without even needing the boost from my jumpjets. My feet crunched on a gravel-covered rooftop and I turned hard to avoid a solar-panel set up in the middle of the rooftop.


    It was getting warmer.


    A black blur zipped past my head and I ducked, even if it was too late.


    The model one that had missed me crashed onto the ground next to me, dead, its feathers entirely cooked off.


    More of the little models started to plummet down around me, raining out of the sky.


    Gomorrah! Its raining fried chicken here and Im not liking it!


    I found a spot, she said and the Fury lowered itself a few buildings down.


    I just hoped Id make it.


    ***