Next to her was Skeet with the remnants of his sign bouncing back and forth over him.
“Roger, we need to get that flamethrower tank.”
He didn’t respond to me, but over the band, he said, “Rosita, with this reestablished connection, we can stream directly via your drone camera. Please keep it running. Keep an eye out for Lulu.”
“I see Lulu! She’s hurt!” Sam called. “She’s on the ground between the two giant mechs! They don’t see her, but I think she got hit by the flamethrower!”
I didn’t think. I reacted. I pushed the honeybee forward, leaning on the joystick, running full tilt toward the two large mechs.
Skeet was yelling something I couldn’t hear, but I was pretty sure he was yelling at Serial Killer Sadie. All around, the other mechs were falling to the honeybees as they ripped out their communications modules. Sadie said something back to Skeet, and she sent a threatening spout of fire out toward him.
I could see my sister now on the ground, arms up. She was in the dirt, unmoving, in the space between the two fighting mechs: Sadie with the colony of gunner drones floating over her and Skeet with the bouncing sign and giant spiked flail. Skeet took a step toward Sadie, swinging his arm. The massive flail spun and hit Sadie with a metalliccrunch.
Sadie staggered, and she roared in indignation. She spun her flamethrower nozzle at him, but it was now damaged, and the fire came out in front of her in a mist instead of in a stream. Still, she fired.
All the while, Lulu remained on the ground between the two, just a tiny form in the dirt.
I rushed forward, not sure what my plan was. Maybe I could grab Lulu and drag her away? I jumped toward the action….
…Only to get clobbered by the upswing of the flail as Skeet swung it at Sadie. I went flying, warning messages scrolling down my screen as Sadie’s gunner drones started unleashing on Skeet.
“Fuck this,” I said as I slammed pass-through on my helmet, bringing me back to the ditch. Heat washed over us as the two Heavies continued their fight.
“Oliver, I will need your assistance shortly,” Roger said in my ear.
Adrenaline pumping, I jumped up—using my real-life body. I grabbed Lulu’s abandoned canister belt—which had two canisters left on it—pulled it over my shoulder, and then dragged myself out of the ditch, using my good arm, as Sam and the others cried out with alarm.
I didn’t think about what I was doing. I rushed forward toward the crumpled form of my sister about thirty meters away as the two screaming mechs continued to rain blows on each other. The world burned as Sadie’s broken flamethrower still spewed.
Everything that happened next seemed to come in slow motion.
I pulled the first canister, and I hurled it with all my might at the top of Sadie’s mech, and before it was even halfway through the air, I hurled the second one directly at the top of Skeet’s mech.
I watched the large grenade explode right when it hit the wall of fire around Sadie’s mech. This was followed by a secondary explosion as the gas tanks on her back went up, torching the gunner drones and filling the night with the brightness of the center of the sun.
A fraction of a moment later, the second canister went up, causing Skeet to stagger and then start to fall.
And all of that happened just as I jumped through the air to land atop my sister.
I still had the helmet on my head, and I felt the shrapnel ping off it. I felt the heat. I was pretty sure I was on fire. I couldn’t feel anything anymore. I looked down at Lulu, who was staring up at me wide-eyed. She had horrific burns along the side of her head.
“Ollie, you shouldn’t have done that,” she said.
“One of us has to follow rule number ten,” I said.
“You never told me what it is.”
I gasped as the dizziness started to overwhelm me. “I’m just trying to protect you.”
“You’re a fucking idiot,” she said before her eyes fluttered and closed.
—
And then the others wereon top of me. Sam was there shouting. So were Rosita and Axel and Ariceli, and even Tito was shouting as they fired their guns off in every direction, protecting us.
“You moron,” Sam was saying as he slammed something against my back. He was crying. I couldn’t feel anything. I was going to pass out. “You think I can do this without you? Quit doing stupid shit!”
“Oliver, I require your assistance,” Roger repeated in my ear.
