The Exodus Towers by Jason M. Hough Page A

hadn’t heard any more over his own labored breathing.
    With the aura tower in tow it took almost an hour to weave his way through the city before he found familiar terrain. The Elevator had implanted near a tributary that fed into the Rio Guamá, on the city’s southern edge. A university campus to the west were the nearest buildings of any real size, ringed by a two-meter-high stucco wall that had been white half a decade ago. Vines blanketed the surface now.
    Skyler slowed the tower as he passed the campus entrance.
    There were tire tracks in the mottled road. Fresh ones, from multiple vehicles.
    Baffled and concerned, he let the massive object amble along on its own while he kept it within arm’s reach. He moved around to its side, keeping it to his left and the stucco wall on his right.
    At the edge of the wall, base camp came into view. Hesaw the sign first, hand painted on a plank of wood. CAMP EXODUS . One of the colonists had made it of their own accord and nailed it to a fence post. In a colony where every little decision required hours of pointless debate, Skyler reveled in the fact that the name had been coined on a whim and stuck. It wasn’t the greatest name, not by a long shot, but he could only imagine what sort of stupid blandness a consensus would have arrived at. A hundred tents of varying size and color dominated the mottled field beyond, interrupted here and there by shipping containers that constituted the communal buildings—meeting hall, mess, and storage.
    The aura towers were interspersed throughout all of these, arranged now in concentric circles, with the smallest ones at the outside.
    In between these towers and his position, a dozen or more military and police vehicles were parked, forming an inverted wedge around the landward part of the colony. At least two had gunners manning turrets, sweeping back and forth in slow arcs.
    Skyler counted roughly twenty men and women, in matching black uniforms, fanned out across the line, weapons in hand. Beyond them, colonists were standing in clumps, hands raised. Some of the black-clad intruders were barking orders at them, too far away for Skyler to hear the words.
    Nightcliff? No. Impossible . Unlikely that they could have found the colony, and even more ridiculous that they could get so many fresh ground vehicles halfway across the globe. Who then?
    He realized with sudden panic that he was standing in the open, a few steps out from the cover of the wall. The aura tower he’d brought back now drifted slowly east in blissful, uncaring ignorance of its surroundings. Its path, Skyler realized, would take it straight into the side of an armored personnel carrier.
    The scene gripped him. He knew he should back away, find cover, and watch, but the ambling tower’s collision course was like watching a car wreck in slow motion. Two of the militant intruders sat atop the vehicle, their posture relaxed, their focus on the colony. Skyler thought of shoutinga warning but found he couldn’t. He knew the tower would halt its own progress, but the men sitting there might not. They’d just see a giant black obelisk bearing down on them—
    One of the intruders, a dark-skinned man, finally turned enough to see the shape looming, a second before impact. He shouted something and leapt from the roof of the massive truck. His partner dove off the other side, an instant before the tower reached them.
    The aura tower hit the side of the vehicle, rocking it slightly before coming to a rest.
    A moment of confusion passed. The closer man had come up on all fours, looking at the huge shape. Others from the group called out. Some of the militants were running over to investigate.
    The man on the ground, though, stared directly at Skyler.
    He rocked back onto his knees and raised an assault rifle.
    Skyler took a gamble with his life. He turned and ran, rather than taking cover. Bullets hissed over his head even as the crackle from the gun reached him. The man was firing from