Autonomous by Andy Marino

Author:Andy Marino
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Disney Book Group
Published: 2018-04-03T04:00:00+00:00

The Tesla Predator was Christina’s white whale, a beast haunting the fringes of the game, skirting the edges of the LIDAR map. Its green outline was thicker than the others, as if Otto knew to infuse its rendering with the special magic of whatever demon fed off its transmission.

She suspected the Predator was equipped with radar. It played conservatively, like a chess player biding her time, thinking several moves ahead. In short, it acted like Otto. Unless the Predator’s driver and navigator were very lucky, she was pretty sure the car was “seeing” the landscape.

Christina and Melissa had clapped eyes on the Predator only once, catching the gunmetal gray of its spoiler as it slipped down an alley at the north end of town. Even the gravel spat by its tires seemed elegant. They had pursued with the intention of herding it down Main Street to Daniel and William’s sniper’s nest, but when Melissa turned the corner, the Predator was nowhere to be found. Christina lifted her palm to the windshield and eased it back to move the map into the foreground. The bright scramble of polygons asserted itself, and the crosshairs receded.

The Predator was already on the other side of Main Street, cruising through the warren of barracks, delivering a kill shot to a Subaru Finback. It was as if the Predator had used Pac-Man logic to warp itself to the other side of the grid.

They had better luck with non-Predator opponents. In the hour since the signal flare brightened the sky, Otto had removed seven infantry soldiers and two vehicles from the game. Their own sensor had taken two rifle hits and zero cannon hits. The infantry shots were unavoidable. Melissa scream-texted Otto evasive maneuvers, but swarms of soldiers in the darkness were impossible to avoid. One of the shots had been a stroke of luck from a sniper.

The second was courtesy of Rainmaker herself.

They’d tailed Eli’s Audi R8, trapping the car in a cul-de-sac where a ruined house had decayed, littering the streets with bricks. The two cars engaged in a ballet of swerves and near misses as they circled each other, impeding clear firing lines. Melissa was multitasking, texting Otto instructions while trying to capture the perfect video, a quick burst of sight and sound that showcased Christina at the helm, the Audi skidding out, dark buildings suffused by lantern light, the furtive shadows of combatants.

Melissa planned to add filters to Christina’s face to make her look like a big-eyed anime girl. Christina approved. Working together hunting enemies made the anxious clawing of the web recede.

The Audi discovered a way out, a dirt lane stamped between barracks, and disappeared into overgrown foliage that resembled a puppet’s mop of hair. Melissa ordered Otto to pursue. It wasn’t until they’d burst from the gauntlet of branches click-clacking against the windshield that Christina connected the presence of an enemy on the map with ambush.

Otto was coming up an alleyway, and there she was, poised for a split second, the spandex-clad girl silhouetted against the glow of Main Street at her back.

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