Chapter 77 Hunter II

Chapter 77 Hunter II
"Fire," I said. I pulled the trigger at the same moment I said it. The submachine gun was set to controlled burst. I had taught the group that in the second day of weapons training — full auto burned ammunition and accuracy went to zero after the first half-second, controlled burst gave you actual hits. At this range, with these targets, we needed actual hits. The problem with Hunters at range was the movement. They didn't run straight. Not like standard-class zombies, which came forward with the committed single-mindedness of things that didn't process threat. Hunters read the barrage in the first second — they felt the pressure of incoming fire, processed the trajectory, and adjusted. Not perfectly. Not like a trained soldier. But enough. The nearest Hunter juked left as my burst reached it. Two rounds went wide. One caught it in the upper right shoulder — I saw the impact, saw the dark spray from the exit wound — but it didn't slow. It adjusted again, angling for the gap between Derek's truck and the building wall to the left. Ryan's burst caught it high on the left thigh. The leg buckled. It didn't go down. It adapted. It shifted weight to the other leg and kept closing, the speed reduced but not gone, the approach angle now coming in from my left where the sightline from the roof was harder. "Left flank!" I called. Ava was already rotating. She put three rounds into the closing Hunter's chest — center mass, tight grouping. The Hunter stumbled. Hit the asphalt. Got back up. These things did not die easily. I changed the angle of the barrel and put two rounds into the base of its skull from above. It stopped. The second Hunter had gone wide right, circling around Nathan's position. It was fast — I tracked it but couldn't get a clean shot from the roof without rotating fully, and rotating fully meant losing my feet on the warm metal surface. Nathan saw it coming. He held position behind the engine block, pistol up, and fired three times at a range of fifteen meters. The first shot went wide. The second caught the Hunter in the left forearm — I heard the impact from thirty meters away, a sharp crack against the dense bone structure of a Tier-2 organism. The third shot — Nathan's most careful shot, the one where he had found the still point between the fear and the trigger — went in through the right eye socket. The Hunter dropped at his feet. Nathan stood there for two seconds. Breathing fast. Not moving. Then he stepped back from the body and kept his pistol up and checked his flanks. I exhaled. --- The remaining two Hunters, back at the bridge entrance, had not advanced past their positions. The one at the near end of the bridge was still crouched there, watching us. Unmoving. Patient. They were guarding the gate. The pursuit had been a threat response, not a hunting run. They had come far enough to drive us off and then maintained their perimeter. That was important. It meant they had orders — or something functionally equivalent to orders. Higher Hive Intelligence directing the guard pattern. I climbed down from the truck roof. The group was quiet. Everyone's breathing was elevated but nobody was injured. I looked at Nathan. He looked back at me. "Good shot," I said. He exhaled once. Hard. "I nearly missed." "The third one counted," I said. He nodded. He was still holding the pistol two-handed, pointed at the ground, the tension in his forearms not quite released yet. I turned to the group. "We can't use that bridge," I said. "The Hunters are anchored to the gate structure and they're not going to move far from it. The commercial district route is closed." "Alternate?" Ava said. "Derek," I said. Derek had already unfolded the atlas on his truck hood. "Residential bypass, west. Takes us out of the city on the smaller roads. Adds maybe forty minutes to the highway approach." He traced the route with his finger. "No guarantee of clear roads but the vehicle density should be lower." "What about the Hunters?" Ryan asked. He was looking north toward the bridge. "Two down. Two still on the gate." "We note the position and leave it," I said. "We don't have the level for that engagement. Not yet." He accepted that. He didn't like it, but he accepted it. I looked at the two bodies on the road — the Hunters we had dropped. The System Coins were already visible, the faint pulse of the drop pool around each one. I walked to them and collected the coins and checked for Treasure Orbs. Two Yellow Orbs. I pocketed them without opening them. We could assess the contents once we were moving. I turned to the trucks. "West bypass," I said. "Derek leads. We keep speed up and we don't stop unless something blocks the road completely." I looked at the group. "Everyone who just fired — when we stop tonight, I want a full magazine count from each of you. We used more than I'd like. We need to be aware of what we have left." Nods. People moving back to the vehicles with the focused efficiency of people who had just been in something real and were running on the back end of the adrenaline. Sophie was in the driver's seat of the lead truck when I climbed in. She had stayed in the vehicle like I had told her. Her knuckles were white on the wheel but her eyes were steady. "I heard the shots," she said. "I counted." "We're clear," I said. "Drive west at the next junction." She put the truck in gear. Kira was in the back seat, reloading her magazine with the careful, precise motions of someone managing pain in their hands. She looked up when I settled in the front. "Yellow Orbs," I said. "Did you open them?" "Not yet." I handed them to her. "When we're on the bypass." She took them. Turned them over in her hands. "Level twenty Hunters," she said, quiet. Not a question. She was processing the implication. "Eleven days in," I said. Her jaw tightened. "That's early." "Yes," I said. "It's getting faster." She held the Orbs and looked out the window as Sophie took the turn and the bridge and the gate and the two remaining Hunters fell behind us. "How much faster?" she asked. "Fast enough that Sacramento matters more than I thought it did three days ago," I said. She nodded. Said nothing else. The trucks moved west.