Under the Eye of God Read Online Free Page B

“We’ll have to go in on foot. I don’t like it.” He pulled two pieces of a long-barreled weapon out of his coat and began to assemble it.
    Sawyer raised an eyebrow at him. “The rocket launcher?”
    Finn nodded. “You saw the thickness of her armor.” He squinted down the barrel, checked the fuel cells, and slapped a magazine of six darts into place. “Well, I’ve had it. No more Mr. Nice Guy.” He unlocked the safeties and armed the targeting monitor. “I don’t have to put up with this. I gave her a chance to surrender peacefully.” He sighted down the ravine.
    As if in answer, another beam sizzled out of the darkness. Another skyball blew apart in the air, showering sparks in all directions.
    Sawyer said, “I don’t think she did that herself. Maybe she has automatics in place. Or mines.”
    Finn shook his head. “Why waste it on skyballs? Why not just take us out directly?”
    â€œShe likes to play with her food?”
    Finn shuddered.
    The last remaining probe dodged back and forth, but both brothers knew it didn’t stand a chance. The skyballs worked best in swarms.
    Down below, from deep in the notch, Murdock’s red beam disintegrated the last aerial tracking unit. Glowing pieces tumbled away into brightness.
    â€œRight,” said Sawyer. The now-useless hand terminal disappeared back inside his coat. Instead, he fitted a pair of tracking goggles over his eyes. Finn followed suit and the world took on an ephemeral gray sheen. All the rocks glowed in pastel shades: the ebbing heat of the day, the burning radiation of the night.
    â€œThere,” pointed Sawyer. Murdock’s footprints throbbed in pale orange, a trail of fast-fading spots across the hard broken ground. “Her armor wastes a lot of heat.”
    â€œNot the armor—her metabolism.”
    Sawyer winced at the thought.
    The two brothers scrambled down the slope, across the jumble and deeper into the narrowing notch. They advanced like ghosts, gliding silently across the ground. Sawyer moved like a dancer, turning in graceful pirouettes while his weapons probed the gloom; Finn rolled like a tank, swiveling his whole body in cautious circles. Finn focused through his rocket launcher, Sawyer held the last of his grenades ready to throw.
    They stepped gingerly down the last remains of the broad stepway that bordered the descending avenue. Once, huge trucks had rumbled up and down this road. Now, only the wind whistled here.
    Past the fallen walls and broken doorways, past the junk and gravel, past the rocks and blocks and folded webworks, past the dead eyes and the empty vandalized sockets, past the sad incomprehensible graffiti and the fallen tiles and finally past the gaping boxlike structures that stood apart like desolate questions; down and down they followed Murdock’s elephantine steps.
    Something moved and both the brothers whirled, guns held at the ready.
    An uncomfortably long sinewy shape, lithe and black, twisted and wound between two rocks. It scuttled rapidly across the empty steps below them and disappeared hissing into a crevice.
    Finn relaxed first. “Siamese weasel,” he identified the creature.
    Sawyer nodded. “You know what that means?”
    â€œUh-huh. Watch out for the rest of the ecology. Especially ratchet-lice and scorpions.”
    Sawyer frowned suddenly. “Listen—” he said. He held up a hand to stop Finn from moving.
    Finn waited. Sawyer touched his belt, adjusting the level of his monitors. Finn turned up the sensitivity of his ears too. Nothing. Silence rained, leaving only the hiss of their own blood in their veins, only the thud of their own hearts in their chests. The air burned brightly around them.
    â€œShe’s gone to ground.”
    â€œI told you. She has to have some kind of base here.”
    Finn nodded his reluctant agreement. “That thought does not fill me with