Wolfmother

“King? That’s a slightly… pretentious nickname to give yourself,” Chris commented, after D-Dog closed communications.

“Yeah,” D-Dog said. People with codenames like that have either earnt them, or are way in over their heads.”

“Which of the two was that guy?”

“Well, this is the fourth King that I’ve come across, and all the previous three Kings are now dead, and before five minutes ago I’d never heard of this one, so… probably the latter,” D-Dog answered, flashing Chris a conspiratorial look. “But we need everyone we can get if we’re fighting Morgan.”

“What about you?”

“Huh? D-Dog ain’t flashy. Ain’t tryin’ to impress anyone with it.”

“Yeah, but I get this sense of… I dunno. Bravado, from it. Daring. Danger.”

“That’s ‘cause you’re associating it with me,” D-Dog grinned. “’Cause I’ve done brave, daring, dangerous shit.”

From across the room, Wolfmother finished hanging up her gear, folding away her exoskeleton suit and putting up her gun. Her beanie and aviators stayed on, though.

“What about her?” Chris said, jerking his thumb at her, trying not to be too obvious.

D-Dog glanced over, raising an eyebrow. “Wolfmother’s name? Yeah, I’d say she’s earnt hers.”

“How?”

“Besides leading most of our operations? She’s actually a mother. She’s the only one of us that has a family. Might be the only one in the entire city, as far as I know. Spends her weekdays working with us, saves her weekends for her husband and kids. Don’t fuck with her,” D-Dog said, then fucked with her. “Hey, Wolfmama!”

Wolfmother turned. “Yeah?”

“You sure you don’t wanna join in tomorrow?”

“Yes, I’m sure. You kids can go hatch your revenge plot without me.”

“Aww. Can I borrow your glasses, at least?”

“Nah. Rocky’s got ‘em for the weekend.”

“Double aww.”

“I’m checking out,” Wolfmother said, shrugging on a jacket. “Keith’s cooking steak tonight and I’m not missing it.”

“Alrighty,” D-Dog said, giving her a small mock salute. “G’night, Mom.”

“Night,” Wolfmother said. “Remember…”

“No calls or letters or knocks on the door or confessions of love or telling you someone died ‘till the weekend’s over,” D-Dog nodded. “Yup.”

Wolfmother returned his nod with a curt one of her own and made her way out. Chris nervously raised his hand to wave her goodbye as she passed him.

“See you,” he said.

She gave him a one-note wave back, and Chris was fairly certain she winked at him through those aviators – though he’d never dare mention it to anyone.

“See ya, new kid.”

“Fuck, she’s cool,” Chris said.

“Yeah,” D-Dog agreed. “Your name’s New Kid, by the way.”

“What? No, no, no no. I was gonna pick Silver or Bone or –”

“Wolfmother called you New Kid. You’re New Kid now.”

“Damn it,” New Kid said, hanging his head in defeat.

-

Her house was in the westernmost corner of the Delaware District. It wasn’t a Central condo, or a Bryn Athyn mansion – but it was in a quiet suburb, and it looked unassuming, and it was as far away from the sea as possible. It was an area with very little noise, no mercenary guilds, and it probably wasn’t going to be flooded any time soon. It was stable.

She got off the bus and walked, bag slung over her shoulder, and felt the war-weariness fall from her shoulders as she rounded the corner and her kids saw her through the kitchen window. Her kids. Her kids. For so long, those words had been nothing but a fantasy, an abstraction; something she could only have in an imaginary world where poisoned clouds didn’t fill the sky and humanity wasn’t being swallowed up by the sea and she didn’t need to shoot people for a living.

But they weren’t a fantasy. They were real. The sound of their laughter when they burst open the door before she could touch it was real. The feel of their hands clutching at her legs was real. The smell of Robin’s tawny hair and the warmth of Sarah’s forehead against hers was real. It was real. All of it. Real, real, real. Wolfmother watched her children run back inside, and Rhiannon Hayes followed them through the doorway.

“Mom! Mom! Look!” Robin took her hand and pulled her through the hallway. Their home AI greeted her as she put her bag down.

“Welcome home, Mrs. Hayes,” it said.

“Hi, Bradford,” she replied.

“Would you—”

“Later.”

“Of course,” Bradford said, and went silent.

Robin let go of her hand and dived at the coffee table, rummaging around at its base. Keith was there at the kitchen counter, and he smiled at her, saying nothing, not interrupting their moment. She smiled back, and then turned her attention to her son.

“What is it, Rob?” she asked, kneeling down.

“Look!” he said again, pulling out a slightly crinkled piece of paper from a drawer, and holding it right up to her nose.

“Whoa,” Rhiannon said, blinking, gently leading his overenthusiastic hands back a bit so she could see it. “Oh, is this us?”

“Yup! That’s you, and that’s Dad, and that’s me, and that’s—”

“That’s me!” Sarah squealed, jabbing her tiny finger onto the paper at the smallest pink blob.

Rhiannon felt warmth come from her chest and ruffled Robin’s hair, pulling him close. “It looks amazing, honey.”

“It does?” Robin said.

“Yes. One question, though,” she said, pulling away to frown at him, “Do my eyebrows really look that thick to you?”

Sarah giggled, and Robin’s face flushed. “I made a mistake,” he pouted, his precious little baby eyes turning downcast.

“I’m just teasing, darling. I think they’re perfect.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Mom!” Sarah pulled at her arm. “Look at me!”

Rhiannon turned, and Sarah opened her mouth wide, revealing a gap in her pearly white teeth where her top-left incisor used to be.

“Oh, wow!” Rhiannon said. “You pulled out your first tooth, huh?”

“Uh huh!”

“Did it hurt?”

Sarah closed her mouth. “A little bit.”

“Oh, you’re so brave, baby.”

Robin tugged at her other arm as well, clearly wanting the spotlight.

“Mom, I lost my fifth one—”

“Dinner’s ready!” Keith called from the kitchen. “Come get your plates!”

Rhiannon stood up. “Oop, looks like we’ve gotta eat. C’mon.” Her kids held her hands, one on each side, and she led them over to the dinner table.

Robin babbled all the way there. “I was talkin’ to my friend today, and he said that his parents got him a phone. Can I have one?”

“I think that can wait until you’re a tiny bit older, Robin,” Rhiannon said, choosing those words very carefully. “Now, there’s the two little plates for the two of you. Sort out between yourselves who gets which and go sit down.”

“I want this one,” Robin said immediately, taking his.

“No fair,” Sarah complained. “I didn’t get to look!”

Robin put up his chin. “You were too slow.”

“Mom!”

“Kids,” Rhiannon said, putting some sternness in it, “Sort it out.”

Sarah took the other one with her little hands and inspected it, giving it a thorough, careful quality check.

“Are you happy with that plate?” Rhiannon asked.

“I guess so,” Sarah said sulkily.

“Okay. Go sit.”

Rhiannon and Keith watched them get seated at the table. Her hand found his and they squeezed together.

“Sitrep?” Rhiannon said, not taking her eyes off of her children.

“Business has been moving along at a steady pace,” Keith answered. “Last week Robin had slight trouble with his science work and had fallen behind on his homework. Sarah was beginning to learn how to write her last name. I’m pleased to report that Robin has not only caught up but gone ahead of his class, and that ‘Sarah Hayes’ is now written on the kids’ bedroom door in pink crayon. Deciphering it was only somewhat difficult.”

Sarah Hayes. The sound of it was like ambrosia to her.

“Beautiful,” Rhiannon said quietly.

“By this time next week we can expect to see green lights on all boards. Robin’s marks should continue to rise and Sarah is getting to multi-syllabic words.”

“And what about this time tomorrow?” Rhiannon asked, leaning closer to him.

“This time tomorrow, we can expect to be lying on the couch together watching some Disney remake after a day out somewhere. What do you think? Museum or park?”

“Why don’t we ask the kids?” she said. Keith smiled and picked up his plate, rounding the counter, his hand tracing her waist as he went to sit at the table.

She reached for her plate too, and then her phone rang.

Keith stopped in his tracks and looked at her. Rhiannon motioned for him to be quiet, and picked up the phone. D-Dog spoke, and he said one word, and her blood ran cold.

“Rhiannon.”

They both knew full well the ramifications of him using her civilian name. It told her three things. First, that her identity had been compromised. Second, that she was in danger. Third, that she was in danger now.

“Drones. Twelve o’clock. Big. Want help?”

Rhiannon looked past her family, outside the dining room window, and her Graybore eye implant spotted electronic signals in the distant clouds.

“Yes,” she answered.

“D-Dog and Mute are en route.”

“Thank you.”

Rhiannon put the phone face down on the kitchen counter and looked up at her family. “Keith, code red. Kids, come here.”

There was a clatter as Keith dropped his plate back on the counter and went over to the kids, ushering Robin out of his seat, picking up Sarah. “C’mon, baby girl.”

“Mom?” Robin said. “What’s going on?”

“Now.” Rhiannon put an edge in to her voice that her children had never heard before, and her heart stung as she saw the fear and confusion in their faces, but they came, and Keith lifted a tile off the floor, revealing the steps that lead down to the panic room that they had installed months prior to moving in.

Robin hesitated at the passageway. “Mom?” he said again, but she couldn’t answer him – the drones were approaching fast, faster than most drones should have been able to. She only had time to spare one look at Keith, and he looked at her, and then Rhiannon was sprinting down the hallway, grabbing her bag.

The panic room wasn’t the only thing they’d had installed.

“Bradford, I need my exo!” she called. “We’ve got a code red!”

The lights in the house switched off, a panel opened up on the wall next to her and she grabbed the armour that extended from it, pressing it to her chest, letting it automatically unfold over her torso and arms and legs. It was a light kit, not much help against heavy weaponry. But these were drones. She unzipped her bag and took out her Kaiser-20 compact rifle. Biosignature clicked. Magazine loaded. Safety off. Armour wrapped up the woman’s neck and plugged her ears, Rhiannon picked up her shield from the wall panel, and Wolfmother stood ready in the dark hallway.

She touched a finger to the trigger on her eye implant. “Bradford, what do you see?”

From a compartment built into the roof of their house, a surveillance drone activated and flew upwards, giving her vision of the entire neighbourhood from a hundred-metre-high vantage point.

“Eight drones are approaching the house,” Bradford replied coolly. “They have their sights set on all front-side windows. They will be in range of your defences in twenty-six seconds. Shall I activate the sentries?”

“Do you know what the drones are equipped with?”

“I can recognize automatic small-caliber guns on all of them except one. It has explosive breaching rounds.”

Explosives. No point trying to keep things quiet, then.

“I regret that I can’t tell you more,” Bradford said. “They seem to have tech I am not familiar with.”

“Turn on the sentries and show me which drone has the explosive rounds,” Wolfmother said.

The drone in the very back of the group was highlighted in red for her.

“Focus on the explosives drone first,” Wolfmother said.

“I will.”

The sentries placed around the perimeter of her home were the heaviest ones she could possibly keep hidden from aerial photography, loaded with armour-piercing rounds. Four in the front. Two in the back. There was an active denial system hidden on the roof above the garage, purpose-built to deter – with laser warning systems and a heat ray that could burn any nosy intruders. Both were fully capable of frying any regular drone – but these weren’t regular drones. Wolfmother watched as their group split – circling wide around her house, four on each side, away from the range of her guns. Then one of them fired, and there was electric static as her surveillance was shot down. They were going around to the back of her house, where they’d encounter less resistance. Whoever was attacking her had done their research. They knew enough to track her down and circumvent her sentries. But they didn’t know why it was a bad idea to attack a Wolfmother in her den.

She waited and listened as they came into range and her sentries started shooting. One drone went down. Then two shots rang out in answer and Wolfmother knew both her back sentries were down. Not a single round wasted, not a single bullet missing its mark. Those drones knew where to fire. They’d probably sacrificed one to cover the one with the breaching rounds. The safest thing for her to do would be to lead them to front of the house, where the rest of her sentries were still active. But that would mean leaving her children to their mercy, so Wolfmother deployed her shield and braced as an explosion ripped through the back walls of her home, sending rubble and dust flying everywhere.

Evening light suddenly filled the kitchen and Wolfmother put a burst through the first drone to fly through the breach, then repositioned, diving behind the counter. Three bullets split the air where her head used to be.

“Bradford, ceiling!” she shouted, and a gun dropped from the kitchen light and managed to put a bullet into the next drone before it was destroyed. The drone wasn’t completely broken, but sputtered and whirled erratically through the air, passing over the kitchen counter – and then Wolfmother finished it off, raising an arm to protect her eyes from shrapnel as it crashed into the dining table chairs.

Somebody shouted in her ear.

“One minute!” D-Dog.

Another explosion boomed through the house, more rubble rained down and Wolfmother let out an involuntary gasp as the shock coursed through her body. The explosives drone. She needed to move again. Wolfmother lunged towards the hallway, grabbing her shield and stealing a split-second glance at the breach. Five drones left. Five bullets slammed into her exoskeletal armour as she went. They didn’t bleed her, but the bruises were going to hurt later. Wolfmother put down her shield again and extended her arm. A decoy ball rolled out from her exoskeletal arm to her hand and she threw it into the living room. It activated, an image of her appeared behind the ruined sofa, a drone entered her sights as it chased after the decoy, and Wolfmother shot it down with another three-round burst. She heard another drone, directly behind it – Wolfmother waited for it to get near the corner, fired, and her bullets thudded into the machine just as it came into vision. The thing fell weakly to the floor.

But she’d made a mistake – a new drone followed right after the last one. There was no time to duck. So, she screamed as she riddled the thing with bullets and the thing did the same to her, the woman feeling shots slam into the armour on her chest and arms and then finally piercing through. Hot metal imbedded into her abdomen and Wolfmother almost dropped her gun, recoiling –

Then a final, third explosion blasted the wall right beside her, and this time there was no time to brace. Wolfmother cried out as concrete slammed into her body and more dust choked her lungs and sent her crawling behind her shield, her vision becoming hazy, her Kaiser-20 lost far away. A shadow passed into her vision – the explosives drone, larger and more heavily armoured than the rest. A camera pointed right into her face.

And then the familiar, heavy, percussive bang of Mute’s Forsei S7 sniper rang out, and a bullet crashed through the explosive drone’s chassis, shredding through its internals and piercing through it into the ground. The drone dropped like a stone, and Wolfmother smiled to herself, hearing D-Dog’s voice in her ear.

“Sorry we’re late.”

She choked down the pain she felt and pressed a button on her exo suit, letting out a breath as the armour fell off her and bullets clattered to the ground. She gingerly lifted the hem of her shirt, checking her wound. No vital spots hit. Wolfmother unsteadily got to her feet, growling with the effort, picking up her fallen rifle.

“Permission to, uh… come in through the new back door?” D-Dog asked, his voice coming from the shell of her exo.

“Fine,” Wolfmother grunted.

She limped back out to the kitchen, picking her way through the rubble, where she saw D-Dog waving at her from the roof of a neighbouring building, Mute standing with his rifle beside him. Wolfmother picked up a kitchen chair and slumped into it as they hopped the fence and came near.

“Looks like you got roughed up a bit, Mama,” D-Dog said, taking in the scene. One messed up house. Eight dead drones. One live Wolfmother.

“A bit,” she agreed.

“It got a bit loud,” D-Dog continued. “Place was getting evacuated when we flew in. Lots of panic and noise. And bullets. Are your folks alright?”

“Yes.”

“Are you hurt?” Mute asked, indicating the blood on her shirt.

“One shot got through.”

“I brought meds, I’ll patch you up—” D-Dog began, but Wolfmother waved him down. He followed her gaze to the panic room hatch on the floor. And he understood. “Alright,” he said slowly. “You need anything else?”

“No,” she answered. Then: “Thank you, D.”

“No worries,” he grinned. Mute was already making his way out, and D-Dog followed, pausing at the new hole in her house to turn and ask: “See you tomorrow?”

Wolfmother looked down at the nearest defeated drone, through the dirt and frayed wires, seeing the Morgan logo imprinted on its twisted chassis.

“Yeah,” she said. “See you tomorrow.”