Chapter 36: SENTINEL — Part 1
Three in the morning. Every alarm triggered simultaneously.
Motion sensors. Tripwires. Sofia's telepathic scream in my head. Even the dogs—we'd gotten two for patrols—were barking like the world was ending.
I grabbed clothes. Activated Ruth's bond—full strength flooded in. Ran.
Ruth was already at the command post. Temporary structure near the main gate. Maps on the wall. Communication equipment. She looked at me.
"East perimeter. Big. Moving through trees like they're not there."
"How big?"
"Tom said thirty feet."
Thirty feet. Nothing natural was thirty feet and moved through forest.
I ran to the east wall. Climbed a watch tower. Looked.
The treeline exploded.
Not metaphorically. Trees snapping. Falling. Something massive pushing through.
Then I saw it.
Thirty feet tall. Humanoid. Metal. Eyes glowing red. Moving with mechanical precision toward our walls.
A Sentinel.
My meta-knowledge kicked in immediately. Government anti-mutant robots. Adaptive. Dangerous. Designed specifically to hunt and kill mutants.
We were so fucked.
The Sentinel stopped fifty feet from the wall. Scanned the compound. Its eyes swept across us—thermal, x-ray, mutant detection, everything.
Then it spoke. Mechanical voice. Loud enough to wake everyone.
[MUTANT PRESENCE DETECTED. POPULATION: 87 CONFIRMED. THREAT ASSESSMENT: MODERATE.]
[INITIATING FIELD TEST PROTOCOL.]
[OBJECTIVE: MEASURE MUTANT COMBAT CAPABILITIES.]
Field test. We weren't a target for elimination. We were a testing ground. Lab rats for government weapons development.
Somehow that was worse.
"EVERYONE UP!" I shouted. Voice carrying with Ruth's enhanced lung capacity. "COMBAT POSITIONS! NON-COMBATANTS TO EVACUATION ROUTES NOW!"
The compound exploded into motion. People running. Security grabbing weapons. Children being herded to safe rooms.
The Sentinel took one step forward. The ground shook.
[BEGINNING SUPPRESSION SEQUENCE. RESISTANCE EXPECTED. RECORDING INITIATED.]
Its arm transformed. Mechanical shifting. Became a weapon. Some kind of energy cannon.
"SCATTER!" Ruth shouted.
The cannon fired. Blue energy beam. Hit the watch tower I'd just vacated. The tower exploded. Wood and metal fragments everywhere.
I rolled. Hit the ground hard. Ruth's strength kept me from breaking bones. Barely.
James charged. His rock skin had stopped bullets during the FOH attack. Maybe it could—
The Sentinel's other hand grabbed him. Mid-charge. Thirty tons of super strength versus rock durability.
It threw him.
James flew a hundred feet. Crashed into a building. Wall crumpled. James didn't move.
[SUBJECT ALPHA: ENHANCED DURABILITY. INEFFECTIVE AGAINST SUPERIOR FORCE. NOTED.]
Danny appeared. Fire erupted from his hands. Full power. The kind of heat that had killed FOH attackers. He poured it directly at the Sentinel's chest.
The metal glowed slightly. That was all.
[SUBJECT BETA: PYROKINESIS. HEAT THRESHOLD: 2,800 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT. ARMOR RATED TO 4,000 DEGREES. INEFFECTIVE. NOTED.]
It was analyzing us. Recording our powers. Our limitations. Everything we threw at it became data.
"Fall back!" I shouted. "Fighting retreat! Route Three!"
We'd planned for this. Sort of. Not specifically for thirty-foot robots. But for overwhelming force. Defensive positions. Layered fallback points. Ways to funnel enemies into kill zones.
Except our kill zones were designed for humans. Not walking tanks.
The Sentinel advanced. Methodical. Not rushing. Just—walking. Crushing our defenses through simple mass.
Ruth fired a captured rifle. Bullets sparked off its armor. It didn't even slow.
[SUBJECT GAMMA: CONVENTIONAL WEAPONS. INEFFECTIVE. NOTED.]
"Marcus!" Sofia's voice in my head. [Children evacuated. Non-combatants in safe rooms. Forty-three combat-capable ready. What's the plan?]
Plan? The plan is survive.
I looked at the Sentinel. Meta-knowledge said they had weaknesses. Neck joint—thinner armor for mobility. Power core—center mass, beneath chest plate. Sensor array—head, vulnerable to precision strikes.
But reaching those required getting close. And getting close to thirty feet of death machine was suicide.
Unless—
"Danny!" I shouted. "Can you superheat a specific point? Make metal brittle?"
"Maybe! Which point?"
"Neck joint! Left side! Pour everything into one spot!"
He ran. Fire gathering. The Sentinel tracked him.
[SUBJECT BETA REPOSITIONING. TACTICAL ADAPTATION DETECTED. NOTABLE.]
Its cannon charged. Aimed at Danny.
"EVA!" Ruth screamed.
Eva's enhanced reflexes kicked in. She tackled Danny sideways. The energy beam scorched the ground where he'd been standing.
Tom phased through the ground. Appeared behind the Sentinel. Tried to phase through its leg. See if he could disrupt internal mechanisms.
The Sentinel's leg sparked. Stuttered. Tom fell out of it, gasping.
[SUBJECT DELTA: PHASING ABILITY. INTERNAL SYSTEMS SHIELDED. ELECTROMAGNETIC COUNTERMEASURE EFFECTIVE. SUBJECT INJURED. NOTED.]
Tom wasn't moving. Electricity had shocked him unconscious. Maybe worse.
We were losing. Badly. Every attack failed. Every power catalogued. Every defender hurt or driven back.
The Sentinel advanced toward our main housing.
Toward the safe rooms where children hid.
My hands shook. Ruth's strength felt like nothing against this. We were outmatched. Outgunned. Facing military hardware designed specifically to counter everything we could do.
But we had one advantage.
The Sentinel was testing. Recording. Learning.
That meant it wasn't trying to kill us efficiently. It was experimenting. Seeing what we could do.
Which meant it had weaknesses it wasn't hiding. Yet.
"EVERYONE! NEW PLAN!" I activated every lesson Ruth had drilled. Every tactical consideration. Everything I knew about asymmetric warfare. "We're not trying to destroy it! We're trying to disable it! Blind it, slow it, make it malfunction!"
"How?" Ruth demanded.
"Tendril! Can your appendages reach sensor arrays?"
Tendril—the Morlock with octopus arms—emerged from cover. "Maybe. If I get close."
"Deep! Can you sense its internal structure? Find weak points?"
Deep pressed her hands to the ground. Vibration sense active. "Yes. Power source is—center mass. Heavily shielded. But the connection points are vulnerable. Hip joints. Shoulder joints. Neck."
"Sofia! Can you give everyone telepathic coordination? Make us move like one unit?"
[Yes. Linking everyone now. You'll feel it.]
Suddenly I felt—everyone. Forty-three minds. Forty-three people ready to fight. Connected through Sofia's telepathy. Moving as one.
The Sentinel's eyes glowed brighter.
[COORDINATED TACTICAL RESPONSE DETECTED. THREAT LEVEL UPGRADING: MODERATE TO SIGNIFICANT. ADJUSTING PROTOCOLS.]
Its arm cannon charged. Different color. Red instead of blue.
That probably meant more destructive.
"SCATTER AND ENGAGE! MAKE IT TRACK US! TIRE ITS SYSTEMS! GO!"
Everyone moved. Synchronized through Sofia. Not random. Coordinated. Forty-three people attacking from different angles. Making the Sentinel choose targets. Divide its attention.
It was beautiful. And probably futile. But we had to try.
Because giving up meant everyone died. Fighting meant maybe—maybe—some of us survived.
The Sentinel's cannon fired. Red beam. It carved through a building like paper.
Someone screamed.
We kept fighting.
Because that's what New Haven did. We fought.
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