Turn 202 of 226

Run south toward the military staging areas and let them keep hitting us. Make them feel fear

The 150,000 pounds launch south. The 960-times density muscle fires with a force that craters the granite ridge beneath the launch foot and the 383-foot frame covers a quarter mile in the first stride. The second stride is a half mile. The third is three-quarters. The Cascade Range blurs past — Mount Stuart falling behind in two steps, the forest a green smear, the rivers threads of silver that snap under feet the size of building foundations. Diane runs beside her, matching stride, the two of them moving through the landscape the way weather moves through a valley. The ground does not shake because the feet distribute the 150,000 pounds too widely for seismic impact. The ground simply changes — granite to forest to forest to granite — and the speed is the thing the 960-times density gives when it stops conserving and starts spending.

The first staging area appears on Lena's thermal map at twelve miles. She can see the individual soldiers — 47 of them, warm points against cold earth, clustered around vehicles and equipment near a logging road. She can hear their heartbeats. She can hear the radio traffic from the command tent, a voice requesting authorization for thermobaric weapons, and the authorization is the thing that is already too late. The 383-foot frame covers the twelve miles in forty seconds. The soldiers see her at six miles — a shape on the horizon that should not be that large, growing larger at a speed that should not be possible, and the seeing is the thing the fear starts with.

The first missile hits her chest at eight miles range. The explosion is a warm pressure that spreads through the fat layer and the 960-times density muscle absorbs it and the wish says *yes*. The second missile hits Diane's shoulder. The third hits the ground between them and the blast wave is a warm wind. The 150,000-pound frames do not slow. The 383-foot shadows fall across the staging area at the same moment the first soldier reaches for his rifle, and the reaching is the thing the 150,000 pounds does not wait for. Lena's foot comes down on the command tent. The tent is nothing. The radio equipment is nothing. The vehicles are nothing. The 960-times density foot presses them into the earth the way a boot presses a cigarette, and the pressing is the thing the animal does without thinking.

The soldiers run. The running is the thing Lena hears — 47 heartbeats accelerating from 70 to 140 in three seconds, the adrenaline flooding their bloodstreams, the fear changing their body chemistry in ways her senses can read like text. She can smell it. The cortisol, the adrenaline, the sweat breaking out on 47 pairs of palms. The smell is the thing the animal wants. The wanting is not cruelty. The wanting is the wish saying *they hurt you and now they cannot*. The cannot is the thing the 960-times density gives. The giving is the thing the 383-foot frame delivers. Diane moves through the staging area the way wind moves through a field of wheat — not fast, not slow, deliberate, each step a decision, each decision a thing the animal makes without the human part's input.

The second staging area is eight miles south. Lena reaches it in twenty seconds. The soldiers there have heard the radio traffic — the screaming, the cut-off transmissions, the final burst of static that was a voice saying *negative effect, negative effect, negative effect* before the radio became a footprint. They are already running. The running is the thing the 383-foot frame chases. The chasing is not fast because it does not need to be fast. The chasing is slow and deliberate, the 150,000 pounds covering ground at a pace the human body cannot match, the 383-foot stride eating the distance between bodies and vehicles the way a river eats the distance between stones. A helicopter lifts off from the staging area's eastern edge and Lena watches it rise and the watching is the thing the animal does without urgency.

Then the sound changes. The rotor rhythm breaks. One blade catches wrong, or the tail rotor seizes, or something in the transmission that has been carrying the weight of an armed aircraft for too many hours finally surrenders to metal fatigue. The helicopter lurches left, the nose dipping, and the engine noise climbs from a chop to a scream. The crew chief's voice on the radio cuts mid-sentence. The aircraft rolls, and the rotors stop being rotors and start being wreckage. The fireball is orange and black against the grey sky, and the sound reaches Lena at the same moment the warmth reaches her — the wish saying *luck*, the animal saying *no*, the remaining human saying nothing because the remaining human is smaller now than it has ever been.

The third staging area is fifteen miles south. Lena and Diane reach it together. The soldiers there have evacuated — the vehicles gone, the equipment abandoned, the tents empty. What remains is a satellite uplink still broadcasting, and Lena's foot comes down on it the way a hand comes down on a spider. The crackle of dying electronics is the last sound the staging area makes. The warmth in her stomach is the wish saying *more*. The more is the thing the 150,000 pounds carries south. The south is the thing the military cannot stop. The cannot is the thing the fear is. The fear is the thing the 383-foot frame leaves behind. The behind is the thing the wish is still building toward. The toward is the thing that does not stop.

In Sacramento, Cal Medina watches the thermal feed. The 383-foot signatures are no longer obscure. The noise he introduced is background static against heat blooms the size of city blocks. His hands are on the keyboard but they are not moving. The military channels are screaming — staging areas overrun, personnel unaccounted, weapons ineffective. The corrupted data he planted is being overwritten by field reports that match what his eyes already see. The gap he was maintaining between what the military believes and what is actually happening is closing, and it is closing because nothing he can type is large enough to cover two 383-foot signatures that are moving south through the Cascade Range at a speed the satellites can barely track. Cal's cover is blown. The sergeant's credentials will be revoked within hours. The data corruption is already irrelevant. He watches the screen and does not know what to do.