Another preview of The Impostor #2: The Blood Machine
Here's another excerpt from my next "Impostor" collection. Here we see the supervillain Svergr (real name Pervis Underwood) coping with the vicissitudes of life in a world overrun by alien invaders where he and his gang are contending with them and a rival supercriminal gang for control of a city in ruins:
The civilians in the parking lot were working hard shoveling the dirt the dump trucks had left into wheelbarrows, rolling it inside the Home Depot, unloading it, and then coming back for more. Growing up in the hills, Pervis had despised that kind of mindless, repetitive chore, and it was obvious these city people, who mostly weren’t used to it, hated it even more. Grubby, hot, and tired as they were, some of them still found the energy to glower at their guards, or up at the armored supervillain doing his own work on the roof, when they thought no one was looking.
Pervis understood their resentment, but they wanted to go on eating after the food in the groceries and houses ran out, didn’t they? If so, they needed to farm, and they’d be safer doing it indoors, under sunlamps, where the wasps wouldn’t see. They were lucky the store with its gardening center stocked with seeds, fertilizer, and tools was just a short distance from “Camp Two” where the WMDs had herded them together to live.
Maybe they were pissed off partly because of the weapon system Pervis was installing on the roof. If they thought it was to keep them in line, well, they’re weren’t completely wrong. But mostly it was a defense against the aliens.
The tricky part wasn’t making missiles and guns that would shoot by remote control. It was camouflaging them so the bugs wouldn’t spot them when flying around on routine reconnaissance. Despite dissecting their dead bodies and examining the monitors in their airships, Pervis still didn’t really know how their eyes worked, what colors and shapes popped out at them and what they were likely to miss.
Clicking a cable into a port, he reflected that he could have used some help from the Abductee. The guy was creepy, but there was nobody better at the Frankenstein side of outlaw science. Unfortunately, the last Pervis had heard, the Abductee had been in Manila trafficking in human organs with custom specials available for those who could afford them. Even if he’d survived the invasion—
Pervis’s armor beeped three times, two short notes and then a long one.
The signal meant his radar and camera array had detected something flying in WMD airspace. Naturally, it detected wasps all the time, but he’d programmed the system to discriminate between routine and significant events. At the moment, it thought it was registering one of the latter.
He snapped the faceplate of his helmet shut and said, “Display.” Luminous green words, numbers, and a map with a trajectory traced on it flowed and flickered in front of his eyes. “Visual.”
The inner surface of the faceplate cleared for a few moments as the system tried to obey the command. He understood the delay. The array was still unfinished, with plenty of holes in it, and didn’t have cameras where he needed them. Finally it served up a glimpse of a snakelike shape twisting through the air.
Pervis looked over the edge of the building at the people below. “Get inside!” he shouted.
Everyone, even the gang members, stared back at him stupidly.
“Now!” he bellowed, using the microphone in the helmet to amplify his voice.
That got them scrambling. He pivoted back to the weapon system he’d been hooking up. Could he get it fully operational by the time the flyer came into range? Doubtful; concentrate on arming the SAMs and forget the
maser.
As he worked, he commanded other rooftop systems to target the threat. But like the cameras, most were poorly positioned to do so, and when one did launch a missile or fire a beam weapon, the shot either missed or failed to do much damage.
The flyer wasn’t approaching along the safest route by dumb luck. Somebody had scouted the defense network to find out where the gaps were.
Of course, no aerial route was shielded from the view or attentions of the hive ship floating above the city, and for once, Svergr would have been glad to see the insects launch a battle squadron. They didn’t, though. Maybe they somehow realized one group of humans was on its way to attack another and were all for it.
That left it all on Pervis. The guards’ AKs and other guns wouldn’t do jack to the thing that was coming, and the other superpowered WMDs were too far away to reach the Home Depot in the moments remaining.
Its gray steel scales gleaming a little even on an overcast day, the AURA Skyserpent emerged from among the taller buildings of midtown. As long from its nose to the tip of its tail as the home-improvement store, it looked like everybody’s mental picture of a sea serpent and moved like one, too, writhing and swimming through the air.
The closer it came, the better Pervis’s chances of hitting it where it was vulnerable. But it was still hundreds of yards away when a pair of its own missiles dropped into view under the sculpted dragon-like head that was actually the cockpit. Then he had to shoot and hope he was quicker on the draw.
The four missiles in the SAM launchers streaked upward. By itself, the automated targeting worked pretty well, but interfacing with the system right here on the battlefield, Svergr figured he could improve its aim, and no one could argue based on the results. The Skyserpent’s head vanished in a burst of flame. The ground-shaking, glass-shattering boom and pressure wave rocked him back an instant later.
He grinned, and motors whirred as the SAM battery loaded the next four missiles in its magazines. Then, however, the world vanished in a searing flash.
The civilians in the parking lot were working hard shoveling the dirt the dump trucks had left into wheelbarrows, rolling it inside the Home Depot, unloading it, and then coming back for more. Growing up in the hills, Pervis had despised that kind of mindless, repetitive chore, and it was obvious these city people, who mostly weren’t used to it, hated it even more. Grubby, hot, and tired as they were, some of them still found the energy to glower at their guards, or up at the armored supervillain doing his own work on the roof, when they thought no one was looking.
Pervis understood their resentment, but they wanted to go on eating after the food in the groceries and houses ran out, didn’t they? If so, they needed to farm, and they’d be safer doing it indoors, under sunlamps, where the wasps wouldn’t see. They were lucky the store with its gardening center stocked with seeds, fertilizer, and tools was just a short distance from “Camp Two” where the WMDs had herded them together to live.
Maybe they were pissed off partly because of the weapon system Pervis was installing on the roof. If they thought it was to keep them in line, well, they’re weren’t completely wrong. But mostly it was a defense against the aliens.
The tricky part wasn’t making missiles and guns that would shoot by remote control. It was camouflaging them so the bugs wouldn’t spot them when flying around on routine reconnaissance. Despite dissecting their dead bodies and examining the monitors in their airships, Pervis still didn’t really know how their eyes worked, what colors and shapes popped out at them and what they were likely to miss.
Clicking a cable into a port, he reflected that he could have used some help from the Abductee. The guy was creepy, but there was nobody better at the Frankenstein side of outlaw science. Unfortunately, the last Pervis had heard, the Abductee had been in Manila trafficking in human organs with custom specials available for those who could afford them. Even if he’d survived the invasion—
Pervis’s armor beeped three times, two short notes and then a long one.
The signal meant his radar and camera array had detected something flying in WMD airspace. Naturally, it detected wasps all the time, but he’d programmed the system to discriminate between routine and significant events. At the moment, it thought it was registering one of the latter.
He snapped the faceplate of his helmet shut and said, “Display.” Luminous green words, numbers, and a map with a trajectory traced on it flowed and flickered in front of his eyes. “Visual.”
The inner surface of the faceplate cleared for a few moments as the system tried to obey the command. He understood the delay. The array was still unfinished, with plenty of holes in it, and didn’t have cameras where he needed them. Finally it served up a glimpse of a snakelike shape twisting through the air.
Pervis looked over the edge of the building at the people below. “Get inside!” he shouted.
Everyone, even the gang members, stared back at him stupidly.
“Now!” he bellowed, using the microphone in the helmet to amplify his voice.
That got them scrambling. He pivoted back to the weapon system he’d been hooking up. Could he get it fully operational by the time the flyer came into range? Doubtful; concentrate on arming the SAMs and forget the
maser.
As he worked, he commanded other rooftop systems to target the threat. But like the cameras, most were poorly positioned to do so, and when one did launch a missile or fire a beam weapon, the shot either missed or failed to do much damage.
The flyer wasn’t approaching along the safest route by dumb luck. Somebody had scouted the defense network to find out where the gaps were.
Of course, no aerial route was shielded from the view or attentions of the hive ship floating above the city, and for once, Svergr would have been glad to see the insects launch a battle squadron. They didn’t, though. Maybe they somehow realized one group of humans was on its way to attack another and were all for it.
That left it all on Pervis. The guards’ AKs and other guns wouldn’t do jack to the thing that was coming, and the other superpowered WMDs were too far away to reach the Home Depot in the moments remaining.
Its gray steel scales gleaming a little even on an overcast day, the AURA Skyserpent emerged from among the taller buildings of midtown. As long from its nose to the tip of its tail as the home-improvement store, it looked like everybody’s mental picture of a sea serpent and moved like one, too, writhing and swimming through the air.
The closer it came, the better Pervis’s chances of hitting it where it was vulnerable. But it was still hundreds of yards away when a pair of its own missiles dropped into view under the sculpted dragon-like head that was actually the cockpit. Then he had to shoot and hope he was quicker on the draw.
The four missiles in the SAM launchers streaked upward. By itself, the automated targeting worked pretty well, but interfacing with the system right here on the battlefield, Svergr figured he could improve its aim, and no one could argue based on the results. The Skyserpent’s head vanished in a burst of flame. The ground-shaking, glass-shattering boom and pressure wave rocked him back an instant later.
He grinned, and motors whirred as the SAM battery loaded the next four missiles in its magazines. Then, however, the world vanished in a searing flash.
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