Free Crashland by Sean Williams

no battery life. As the park came into view, she saw two figures detach themselves from the bushes and run across the open grass, heading for the trees. They were hard to see—green textures rippled across active camouflage suits that covered them from head to toe—but infrared made them out clearly. One of them was a child.
    Clair thought of Cashile, the young boy she had met the night Zep died in Manteca. Cashile had been with his mother, Theo, in the camouflaged vehicle that had swept Clair away from the dupes. He had talked to her, distracted her from her loss. Then the dupes had caught both him and Theo, and Clair was sure now that it was Theo’s face she had seen through the leaves a moment ago. Her mouth went dry.
    â€œWe have targets,” said PK Beck without hesitation. “Returning fire.”
    â€œWait,” she said. “Shouldn’t we try to talk to them?”
    â€œLet’s give them an incentive first.”
    Gunfire stitched the earth in a curved line closing in on the running dupes.
    The small one fell.
    Clair flinched. Jesse took the drone upward a split second before she could, instinctively recoiling from the violence. As they gained altitude, several camouflaged figures broke from cover on the other side of Oswald Park and strafed their drone and the others converging on the scene. One drone went down, spinning wildly and shooting sparks, but Jesse’s escaped unscathed thanks to giddy-making swoops he made as it ascended. The sound of popping guns grew fainter.
    An altitude alarm sounded. They had hit some kind of airspace restriction, a jurisdiction relic, she assumed, since there weren’t any planes anymore. Jesse took the drone in a circle, scoping out the fringes of the park, looking for more dupes and providing valuable intel for the gun emplacements.
    The PKs returned fire. This time Clair saw where it came from: an emplacement on a nearby building. Another dupe went down, then another. She wanted to look away, but she had to face it if she could. She was part of this. This was what it meant to fight the dupes the PK way.
    The remaining dupes kept firing, now at the PK emplacements. More lasers flashed from a different location in Crystal City. PK Beck called for more reinforcements.
    â€œHow many of them are there, do you think?” asked Jesse over the interface.
    Her chest felt hollow. “I don’t know. Maybe no one knows.”
    â€œHow many do we have to kill before they stop coming for you?”
    Clair took another deep breath. She seemed to be having trouble getting air, as though she were with the drone in rarefied atmosphere, rather than in the barracks.
    â€œThey’ll stop if I give them Q,” she said aloud. “They just sent me a message telling me that.”
    In the real world, Jesse turned in his seat to look at her. His hair, now mostly dry, flopped back in front of his eyes. “Seriously?”
    â€œHow?” asked Forest. “What exactly did they say?”
    She explained the gist of the message.
    â€œDid you save the video?” asked Sargent.
    â€œNo,” she said. “I was so surprised, and then all this started. . . .”
    Drones and dupes were still duking it out in Oswald Park.
    â€œSo they want Q too,” said Devin. “Not surprising, given Wallace and everything. But it’s interesting that they’re using psychological warfare on top of the terror tactics we’ve already seen. Maybe we’re underestimating them.”
    â€œAre you going to do as they ask?” asked Sargent, leaning over Clair’s couch like a watchful giant, not smiling now.
    â€œI can’t ,” said Clair. “I have no idea where Q is, and if I did I wouldn’t give her to them . I didn’t last time. Why would I now?”
    â€œWhat I don’t understand,” said Jesse, “is why your dupe tried to kill you before. When she blew up, I mean. Why do that if they