Free Archon of the Covenant by David Hanrahan

and banked left, spurring up on two wheels as it slalomed around the flailing husks. A calloused, engorged woman thundered out of an auto garage leveling a broken baby carriage high above her head. She locked her eyes on the sentinel’s optics as it sped along on two wheels, straight towards this termagant. She whipped the rattling carriage back behind her and flung it forward at the sentinel. That tinny hum whirred on the air and the woman’s kneecaps blew apart, her femurs collapsing upon tibia and a great mass of cellulite rippled into the asphalt. The carriage sailed past DDC39 and tripped a pursuer running at full speed.
     
    Three miles in. Four miles. The city was alive now. The horde was in the streets, on the rooftops, and clambering over residential fences. Maybe Pima Road was not the best option. The wild eyes of this lost legion of once-thinking-humans, their flailing arms and gnashing teeth, surrounded the sentinel. Ruined homes lined the street behind them – dead weeds, ephedra, and desert broom choked at the cracks in the concrete. The sentinel sped through two thrashing males, tore over a gravel pile on the sidewalk and went airborne – the revins in an angry awe. It landed back on the sidewalk and rumbled over a pile of rotting newspapers in front of a burned out house on the corner of Justin Lane.
     
    The sentinel was surrounded on every side. Soon, it would be overrun. It was blinded - no radar, thermal, motion, or cortico optics. No satellite uplink. It had visual and zoom optics, a railgun, a banshee disk, and some options it didn’t want to use unless it had to. It ran the probabilities as it sped forward through the dense throngs, limbs bouncing off its trident frame with increasing rapidity.
     
    It could find some higher ground and pick off the pack males with the railgun, hoping the rest would scatter. 18% chance of survival. It could back into a 90-degree corner – some concrete right angle - and let loose the banshee disk. 23% chance of survival. Or it could keep running – create a diversion, speed through the dirt lawns and kick up a dust cloud – try to evade the masses. 10% chance of survival. There was one clear imperative: it had to get off Pima Road soon and lose the crowd in the side streets. And, very likely, it had to use one of its last resort options.
     
    It sped up to the intersection of Pima and Alvernon and turned quickly - the shrill screech of tires popping up and down on the asphalt as it made its semi-circle. A group of revins were coming north on Alvernon. A slender, gray revin, emerged from the shattered entrance of a Q-Mart and walked into the street, confidently swaying into the intersection. To the left of it, another pack of revins emerged from the former campaign office of Congressman Pastner, leaping over rusted cars, howling into the noon sun. A scarred, weathered revin leapt out of a Kung-Fu Academy, an iron meat hook impaled in its hand, unfazed by the commotion.
     
    The sentinel panned around at the revins coming at it from each direction. It rolled forward and found the dead center of the intersection. It collapsed its detection array and camera and locked its tri-axel into place. Batten down the hatches. The storm was about to crash in on all sides.
     
    The horde picked up speed and rushed at the sentinel. The gray revin emerged in front and pounded on the sentinel’s frame - its mouth agape and snarling, rotten and cracked teeth gnashed. The Pastner pack collided into the sentinel, kicking at its axel and base. The meat hook revin screamed and latched the hook into the sentinel’s panels, prying at its corners. Behind them, a hundred more clambered in to get a view, pushing others aside, growling and huffing at the throngs. They all wanted to destroy this metal intruder. Their eyes shone with recognition – an association of machines with danger.
     
    DDC39 listened, waiting until the screaming was at its zenith – until the crowd was at its frenzy