Archon of the Covenant by David Hanrahan Read Free Book Online Page B

its face. The preservation of the revin bodies suggested this chaos had occurred in the not too distant past.
     
    The families had barricaded themselves inside and fired at the oncoming horde. The sentinel rolled inside the lodge, the metallic din of hundreds of bullet casings crumpling underneath its tri-axel. A set of gas masks were piled in the corner, unceremoniously retired in the firefight. Dead revin bodies had come to rest in the broken windowsills – holes blasted through their skulls. The sentinel continued upstairs, coming across the first of the survivor’s bodies – a man, a father, who had tried to keep them at bay on the first floor. His remains were picked through. Tattered flannel clothes and broken bones - the only testament to his life. The revins had kept coming, undeterred by the cacophony of screams and gunshots – they had instead been stirred to frenzy by the scene.
     
    On the 2 nd floor, the sentinel had found the rest of the two families. A large wooden door had been broken down, leading to the main bedroom where the families had made their last stand. The sentinel rolled over a pile of revin bodies in the doorway until it could see inside the room. The last father had shot every survivor in the head, then himself, and it was over. The revins had swarmed in the room, violating the warm bodies and pulling them apart. The color of the room was maroon: the marker of mans devolution. A pile of cracked bones and skulls were strewn about the room along with shreds of clothes, shoes in child and adult sizes. The sentinel scanned the complex – no heat signatures, but no dust either. A dirty book was on a ledge in the corner – miraculously free of blood. The sentinel rolled over to the ledge and tipped its finger over the front cover, peeling the book’s title into the light: “Oh The Places You’ll Go” by Dr. Seuss. It plucked the book from the shelf and dropped it into a small chamber that clicked open on its base.
     
    *              *              *              *              *
     
    Now, in December, the sentinel stood perched on a ledge high atop Mt. Lemmon, looking down at the High Jinks Ranch in the distance. The snow flurries swirled around the sentinel, coming to rest on its trident arm. The sentinel clicked open the chamber and looked at the book once more. The sun had started to set in the horizon. DDC39 was silent, still. The evening sky was clear and the Perseus constellation shown down on the sentinel in its solitude. It began its shutdown procedures and went into standby mode in the cold night, high above Tucson and the desert floor.
     
Solar power cell – 20%. Solar armor – 100%.
Drivetrain – operational
Visual/cortico/thermal/radar optics – operational
HD/ Comms – operational
Water – 100%. Napalm – 100%
Railgun – full capacity
JE – discovered evidence of vaccine introduction; more death
Shutting down core operation and initiating stand-by mode
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    6. Fading Signals, Drone Cities
     
    The sentinel was caught in a snowstorm at the top of Mt. Lemmon. Unable to keep a charge, it came to a stop on Ski Run Road in Summerhaven, the empty lifts listing in the distance. A wind swept through the mountaintop obscuring all but the dark cabin fronts in the whiteout of the storm. There had been a track that the sentinel was following – a fast-moving pack of human/revin steps. Now, nothing. The sentinel was buried up to its trident base – two feet of snow having fallen overnight. The winds picked up to 40 mph, the sentinel swaying gently in the violent gusts. Heat optics showed no living creatures. Even the wolves had the foresight to seek shelter in advance of the sudden storm.
     
    Around 330PM, the winds calmed and the sky broke for the first time. Brief rays of light struck the