by Corrie Wang
“You know her?” His eyes flick to me, then back to her.
“You look just like her.”
“Who…” Sway says, but Grand’s eyes shift to me.
I take one of her hands. She places the other against my cheek. One of Chia’s soldiers stumbles past with a pipe sticking out of his chest.
“Gloria, my Glori, my Gloria. Did you know that I named you after one of the greatest fee crusaders in my lifetime?” Each word is a struggle. “I didn’t release the virus.”
“I know, Grand, but that’s not important now. Where is the vaccine?”
“Our labs… on the island. There’s plenty. Get Two Five home.” Her eyes flick around the battlefield. “All of them.”
She coughs. Blood flies from her mouth. She prepared us for everything except this. I’ve never even seen her sick. I don’t know what to do. A tiny red bubble pops next to her mouth.
“I wanted to keep everyone safe.” Her eyes shift to Mouse. She smiles. “Grand loves you…Mouse.”
Tears stream down his face. His little lower lip quivers, then he inconsolably collapses over her. She rubs his back. I stroke the hair away from her face.
“Grand, I’m so sorry I left without talking to you about it first. I’m sorry you came here for me and now all this. It’s all my fault. Please don’t leave us.” My voice rises into a wail. “I don’t know what to do without you.”
She squeezes my hand. “My special girl. You will be great.”
She smiles, but then her expression turns panicked, her eyes distant. Sway’s hands shake as he continues to try to stop the bleeding. We all knew death could happen at any moment. But she is not ready. Neither am I.
“Glori, look out for your mother. I never… I never…”
“I will, Grand,” I promise. “I’ll look out for everyone.”
Then she is gone. Nothing more than another body. And there is no time for mourning her, or there will be others.
“Glori! A little help?”
I place Grand Mati’s hands across her chest. Fifty feet away one of the same wolf-bear-tiger beasts from the train has cornered Comma. He is frantically waving his unicorn horn at it, trying to keep it at bay. Motor is behind him, pressed to a car. With all my might, I fling Mama Bear, then Slim. They both clip the beast’s back thigh. It howls with pain and rage, then lunges past Comma and grabs Motor by the arm, shaking him like the easily won piece of meat that he is. Motor shrieks. Comma stabs at the creature with the horn. I’m halfway to them when two shots ring out and strike the beast in the head. It drops on top of Motor, dead.
“Get it off me,” Motor screams. “Get it off me. I’m covered in brains!”
“Could be worse, you could be covered in your own dead.”
Behind me, Fuego is holding a smoking shotgun. He is scrawnier than Sway with a ratlike countenance and a thin line of hair above his lip that looks drawn on.
“Fuego!” Comma effuses. “You saved my life.”
“Yeah, well.” Fuego kicks his chin up with a nod. “That’s how I do.”
I run to Motor and push the beast off him.
“I’m not sure I like outside life so far, Glori,” he whimpers.
I push up his sleeve. The bite wounds are superficial. The virus sores are not.
“Call me later?” Comma calls after Fuego.
“I’ll probably be busy,” Fuego shouts, then he takes off, fleeing into the woods.
“Burned again,” Comma says as one of the sleek Humvees explodes with patrol grenades.
It drops us all to our knees. The sky is lit with flames and smoke. The wet dead trees hiss and smolder as they try to catch fire. Still the sky spits rain at us.
“Glori,” Sway yells. Mouse’s arms wrap his neck like a too-tight scarf. “We have to go.”
“Where’s Reason?”
We spot him at the same time. Reason has dragged Chia alongside one of the tanks. He is bent over him, sobbing. Which means he doesn’t see Jackal coming up behind him.
“Sway, take the boys to the car.” I hand Motor off to Comma. “Comma, message everyone you know and tell them to get to the bridge. I’ve got this. Sway, now!”
I skid to a stop in the mud next to Reason and block Jackal. He just has time to grin at me before he is tackled from the side by Breaker. But Jackal has a knife. He slashes at Breaker. And then a shadow falls on the group. Rage. He grabs Jackal by the back of his neck. Next second, he violently twists his head, then drops his limp body to the ground.
“Rest in peace,” Rage says. “Uragirimono.”
Traitor.
Breaker and I stare at the body, stunned.
“Whose side are you on, Rage?” I ask as I pull Reason to his feet.
“Matricula was my shugo tenshi,” Rage replies. Guardian angel. “She saved me from the streets when she accepted me at the Fortress. I have never meant you harm. We have been betrayed, too. Yesterday morning, the mercenaries dispensed a ‘vaccine’ in the tunnels. Every mob member was given a shot. But I do not think it was vaccine.”
He rolls up his sleeve. His arm is peppered with sores. I was right. All the males at the Fortress were injected with the live virus. Mouse, only because he convinced them to. Hercules, as well. Why they didn’t “vaccinate” the other Littles, I don’t know. Maybe with their young immune systems they wouldn’t last long anyway. Maybe the ivory soldier didn’t want to waste any doses.
“I can get the actual vaccine,” I say. “It’s on the island. The fees won’t blow the bridge if it’s me. Meet us at the base of the bridge with as many males as you can bring.”
I grab Rage’s arm. My hand looks tiny on it. He flinches at the contact.
“Bring mob and norm males.”
He nods curtly. Then, at the top of his lungs, shouts, “Yameru!”
Every mob arm raised in combat falls. Weapons are dropped. I think about what they taught the males at the Fortress. We do as we’re told. Always. Without question. I try to rouse Reason to tell him to call off Chia’s men, but it’s clear there are very few left standing and that Reason is not capable of command right now. Rage moves off to help a mobster who is being punched in the face by a patrol soldier.
The Rinspeed roars to a stop alongside us. Sway looks tiny in the driver’s seat.
“Breaker,” I say, “get everyone into those Humvees. Then follow Rage back to the city.”
He nods once, the way he does, then is gone.
“Your grandma sure had all her bases covered,” Reason spits as I help him into the backseat of the Rinspeed. Comma cradles Hercules. It’s clear now he isn’t sleeping. He’s unconscious. His entire torso is covered in spots. I could remind Reason that my grandma was just murdered by her best friend. That this wasn’t her. But now isn’t the time for debate.
“Sway, drive to the bridge like our lives depend on it.”
“Yeah,” Motor says, a smattering of red spots on his cheek. “’Cause they do. Duh.”
Buffalo is burning.
Despite the numerous hours it took us to get to the Fortress in the transport, it takes Sway twenty-five minutes to get back to the city in the Rinspeed. I guess that’s what a hundred and twenty miles an hour gets you. Breaker and the Fortress males keep up in the Humvees behind us, only occasionally crashing into abandoned cars. But we still aren’t fast enough. Everywhere on the downtown streets, norm males lie dead. As we drove, Comma’s portable exploded with reports from his friends in the city. Apparently, fees weren’t the only ones with duplicitous traitors in their ranks. Jackal’s resentment toward the mayor ran deep, and he convinced some of his brethren that the norms moving to Hamburg, as Rage insisted they would, wasn’t nearly enough retribution for driving the mobsters underground all these years. A group of his like-minded contingent was now on a killing spree, attacking every norm they met.
It’s what our teachers always warned could happen to us.
Occupation followed by slaughter.
At Reason’s insistence, we stop at E
uphoria to collect more males. Glancing at Hercules, I start to protest, but Sway murmurs that it’s on the way. The Rinspeed’s tires skid to a stop on the slush out front. The entry windows are all shattered. Reason’s posters lie scattered and sopping on the sidewalk. Wreckage is sitting on the front steps. Eugene the hologram sits beside him. Wreckage’s hand is on his belly. Dark red blood blooms beneath it.
“We don’t have much time,” I say as Sway throws the car in park.
Mouse is holding Hercules’s hand, telling him about what bread tastes like. Motor is humming quietly to himself.
“Ah, hey, Sway. Hey, Reason. Things are crazy.” Wreckage takes his hand away from his shirt. It’s covered in blood. “I’ve been shot.”
“We can’t leave him like this,” Sway says.
Behind us, a block away, there is a massive explosion. Ash falls like snow. Reason’s portable crackles. “They’ve breached the power plant.” Comma’s, too. “City Hall is down.” As soon as one message ends, another comes through. “They’ve taken over the farms.”
“They’re in my building.”
One is just screams.
“Can I be of assistance?” Breaker stands over Wreckage.
“Not unless you have a medic with you,” Sway snaps.
Breaker pivots and starts murmuring to the male next to him.
“Breaker!” I holler. “It’s okay to use your outside voice now.”
A faint light comes to his expression, and then he’s shouting, “Fuerza! Over here.”
A Sixteen comes running. He pushes Sway aside, takes out a cauterizing gun and bandages from his pack. He kneels next to Wreckage, speaking to him in his calm, flat voice.
“Where’d Reason go?” I ask.
“There.” Mouse points.
An extended-cab pickup truck on swamp tires with enormous matte-black rims drives out the front of Euphoria. The inside is packed with dazed-looking males. More fill the flatbed along with an army of dogs. Reason pulls up next to us, Mastodon wedged onto the seat beside him, Carrot in his lap. Reason’s moonlit eyes are numb, steely. I see now how fees have held their grudges for the last seventeen years. I can’t see Reason ever forgiving us.
Yet he leans across the passenger seat, meets my eyes, and calls out, “Same team?”
“Same team,” I confirm.
And then he hands down a familiar black fuzz ball with white paws. I kiss its head and pass it back to Mouse.
“Look, Mouser. A puppy for you to take care of.”
“Like from the labs,” he says weakly.
I don’t know when he was taken to the labs without my awareness, but he’s right. I knew I’d been around dogs before. Only they weren’t dogs. They were the wolf-bear-tiger creatures. What couldn’t CRISPR do?
The puppy licks his face. Mouse smiles. “Let’s call him Lucky.”
“Fine.” Sway sighs. “It’s his puppy.”
As Sway maneuvers the Rinspeed back out into the streets, bodies as numerous as potholes, I notice the red dots are now peppering his neck and arm.
“We’re going into this fight empty-handed,” Motor says. “You know that, right? We have a few dogs. They have those red assassins.”
“Yeah,” Sway says. “But we have something even more lethal. We have Glori.”
“Oh, great.” Motor makes a fart sound. “Then we’re definitely gonna lose.”
In the mist and rain, standing in the slush of the previous day’s snowstorm, a lone red figure waits for us in the middle of the bridge. A battle-ax is casually slung over her shoulder.
“Which one is that?” Comma asks.
“Niraasha,” I say.
“Despair,” Mouse adds, Lucky teething on his finger. “Niraasha’s battle card nickname is the Farmer, because she harvests bodies with her battle-ax like farmers harvest wheat. She has high endurance and strength, but her kill score is only fifty percent of the others.”
“Scythe,” Comma murmurs, Hercules passed out on his shoulder. If Comma didn’t have the virus before, he does now. “Farmers use scythes, not battle-axes, you silly goits.”
“Battle cards?” Motor looks at Mouse blankly. “You made game cards for them?”
Mouse nods. “Like Pokémon but bloodier.”
Two twin lane truss arch bridges used to span the Niagara River between Grand Island and the mainland, but fees blew one of them when they originally fled. Now they are prepared to blow the other. Corded along the rails of the bridge are circuits that attach to wires that disappear underneath the beams, where, I’m assuming, they meet some form of explosive. Behind Niraasha metal parking spikes lie across both lanes of the bridge.
Fees had backup plans that went three backup plans deep. If the males had rallied before the virus could take effect, we’d simply have blown the bridge. The males would be too sick to find boats and battle the river current. Which meant the fees could safely wait it out on Grand Island until all the males were dead, then cross at their leisure to take the city back. I wonder how many other fees knew about this plan. I wondered if they knew the ivory soldier had prematurely put it into effect. Or if they had known this was the actual plan all along. If they had been all right with it.
A sharp pain cuts through my chest when I realize I’ll never be able to ask my grand for her version of the story. And suddenly, I am furious.
Reason pulls alongside us. I hear him tell the males in the truck to wait. His pack does not. They immediately jump down from the truck bed and fan out in front of our vehicles in a perfect, growling line. Sway reaches down by my feet and hands me a Taser.
“I took this from the battle,” he says.
I roll down my window and chuck it as far as I can. It sails over the bridge railing into the water below.
“Sorry. I’ve seen enough of those to last me a lifetime. Besides, I won’t need the help.”
I get out of the car. For better mobility, I take off the bulky sweatshirt Grand left me. Now I’m only wearing my tight tank top and leggings. Motor climbs into the front seat.
“You all cross under the bridge in the Rinspeed,” I say. “I’ll meet you on the other side.”
“No,” Motor says.
Sway nods. “We agreed never to separate. You come with us.”
“If I do, Niraasha will be waiting for us when we get there. And we’re not separating. We’re taking different routes to the same location. Sway”—I beg him with my eyes; the males will die if he doesn’t leave me—“what’s the point of an underwater car if you don’t break it in?”
Reason comes up next to me. “The pack and I will stay with Glori. We’ve got this.”
Comma passes forward all of his rings. I start to protest—this is hardly the time for pretty—but he closes my hand around them.
“Slice that nag into ribbons.”
“Go,” I urge.
“Glori,” Mouse whimpers from the backseat as Sway puts the car in reverse.
“It’s okay, buddy. Niraasha and I are just going to talk.”
I wave to them as they leave.
“We’d better survive this,” Reason says, taking the cap off his crutch, revealing the spike beneath. “I really want to ride underwater in that car.”
I let out a bark of laughter. Then bounce a little on my toes. Wobble my head side to side to loosen it up. Mastodon is between me and Reason as we walk forward to meet Niraasha. We both put a hand on his head. It calms me.
“Hello, Auntie,” I call out as I put on Comma’s rings. “I need to get through here. The males are sick, and I need to access our labs to cure them. Whatever happened to make you turn against my grand…” I choke on my words. “You’ve always protected me. You’ve always been my friend.”
I think of Niraasha sprawled on my bedroom floor building paper castles. Singing me pre-Night pop songs. Teaching me how to dance.
It wasn’t only my Grand Mati who was double-crossed.
“Unfortunately, little bee,” Niraasha calls, “this is bigger than our friend
ship. And it has been a long time since I served your grandmother. I can’t let you cross.”
I nod, expecting as much. “That’s too bad, because I wasn’t asking for permission.”
My hand goes to my hip and comes up empty. Slim is missing. Waste. She and Mama Bear are both back in the woods, probably still thigh-deep in that wolf-bear-tiger’s leg. I pull out Baby Bear.
Niraasha smiles. “Glori, I trained you,” she says. “We both know you won’t win.”
She did train me, but so did Itami with her knives and Misère and Ann with their incredible hand-to-hand. Muerte with her bow. And even Liyan with all my daily wing chung lessons. Grand made sure of it. Thanks to her, I am a very diversified fighter and I have one great advantage. I know everyone’s weaknesses.
“Glori,” Reason says quietly. “I can send the pack.”
I shake my head. I don’t want them getting hurt.
“Don’t worry, bruth,” I say. “I have no intention of losing.”
And then I run at Niraasha full tilt.
Niraasha is a beautiful fighter. On my approach, she swings the ax in a slow, almost lazy circle over her head, then brings it down with breathtaking quickness. I barely roll under it before it is grazing the ground near my feet. I’m scarcely back up, and she is swinging again. This time I spin away, but it catches me across the back. I feel my skin open up. Right below my shoulder blades. Reason shouts in concern. I can tell from her eyes that underneath her balaclava, Niraasha is smiling.
“You’re too late, little bee,” she says as we circle each other. She isn’t even breathing heavy. I can’t say the same. “The ivory mercenary is just getting started. And she’ll never stand down.”
“Then I guess she’ll be falling down.”
“Nice,” Reason says.
Blood is soaking the back of my shirt. I feint in with Baby Bear. Choking up on her ax’s handle, Niraasha swings. Maybe she’s not winded, but there is no getting around how unwieldy her weapon is. The ax is too heavy to quickly parry.
Plus? She drops her guard when she swings.
I dodge her first swing, and this time I don’t dance away but instead duck in close and stab Baby Bear into her thigh. As she cries out in pain, two-handed, I snap her right wrist. Her ax immediately falls from her grip. Even an elite mercenary assassin can’t fight with a broken wrist.
