Page 34 of Hollow State
"I hope so."
For the next several minutes, Wynn kept her gaze fixed on the tablet while doing her best not to lose her head to cedar branches as they whizzed by.
She glanced up as the helicopter crossed west. Its noise slid behind the ridge and stayed there while Coulter and Neve hung back far enough to keep eyes on it without ever putting themselves under it.
Wynn went back to the tablet. New red symbols populated the screen. She counted them twice to make sure more weren't magically appearing.
They moved through the trees southeast of the big SxS, spread in two staggered lines, and they were covering ground across broken terrain at a decent clip.
A message from Gideon landed on the screen, and it wasn't good news.
EIGHT ON THE GROUND. SENT TEXT TO COULTER AND SCOUT. WILL WORK INTERFERENCE AS BEST I CAN.
Wynn lifted the tablet so Zadie could see the situation and the location they needed to head toward. Zadie nodded and shifted course. Up ahead, Coulter had already adjusted. Neve had her weapon at the ready. Wynn placed the tablet in the holder on the dash, checked her mag, and prepared for battle.
For a long few seconds, Wynn watched the red dots move along the screen, tracking the geometry. Scout's marker moved faster over open ground.
Four red dots broke west.
Wynn's heart thumped irregularly as she waited.
The other four followed.
"They're coming at us." She glanced toward the sky. "The bird shifted direction, too."
"Is the other SxS in the clear?"
"It doesn’t look like anyone’s tracking them—for now, anyway. And Gideon hasn't said otherwise, so I'm taking that as a win."
"Interesting way of looking at things."
"Just trying to bright side Barbie things when I can," Wynn said. "Keep your eyes open. We picked up eight heat sigs, but that doesn't mean that's all of them."
Coulter's SxS punched through a narrow break in the trunks ahead, and Zadie steered them into the same gap.
Wynn checked the aircraft icon.
Instead of finishing the turn, the icon hooked—a hard, deliberate crank to the southeast—and drove straight down the line at them.
The rotor noise swelled up, but it was hard to gauge how close it was. At least, the canopy overhead was thick…for now.
The trail narrowed and dropped. Branches raked both sides of the cage, and mud thudded against the floorboards in a steady drumroll. Wynn twisted against the harness and glanced up, searching, or more like hunting, the gaps.
A dark shape crested the ridge and blotted out what little sky peeked through the thick foliage.
Wynn checked the big SxS. They’d pulled out another four hundred meters to the north.
The ground team continued moving west, right at Wynn, approximately two hundred and fifty meters out. That was both good and bad.
A box filled the bottom of the screen again.
BIRD ABOUT TO GO DARK. IT COULD HAVE ALL SORTS OF MALFUNCTIONS. BE ON THE LOOKOUT IF YOU'RE RIDING UNDERNEATH.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
Gunfire exploded, and Wynn ducked.
Zadie whipped the vehicle to the right. Rounds punched a line of holes through the mud, throwing up water and mulch where they'd been a half second earlier. One hit the rear frame with a crack like a bat on a fencepost. Lifting the rifle, Wynn looked through the scope. Nothing but vegetation.
