She didn’t have to finish. The gunshots started going off again. Nothing more than a random potshot every five to fifteen seconds from any direction, a bullet occasionally hitting a tree or the ground right near the group. Most of the people just walked normally, as if nothing was happening, mainly just the children still being frightened by the shots. Akira and I walked in quiet for the five minutes that our pursuers shot at us. When it was over, the happy look was gone from Akira’s face.
“Something wrong?” I asked.
She stayed quiet for a moment before saying, “that was when John Waters was hit.” She shook her head, “Deidre and Liana’s husband helped him along after that.”
“Is there any way you can get out of this loop?” I asked.
“Not until I can get to some better equipment,” she said, her expression remaining solemn.
“She’s going to be like you,” Evita’s voice said, “the memories of this march constantly bubbling up from the past to torment her.”
“Then she might be better of dying, too,” I said.
“What?” Akira asked.
“You won’t get rid of me that way,” Evita said.
“I wasn’t talking to…”
“Who are you talking to?” Evita asked.
“I don’t understand,” Akira said.
“She never will understand what we have,” Evita said.
“Are you alright?” Akira asked.
“Tell her you’re fine,” Evita said, “that’s what you always do. Just hide everything.”
“Shut up!” I hissed.
Akira looked at me in surprise.
“No, not you,” I said, grasping my head with the exoskeleton hands.
“Are you having a split-brain episode?” Akira asked.
“You could reach out and snap her neck right now,” Evita said, “the way Sachi’s people did to those CSA soldiers. Just tear their throats out.”
“No,” I said, “no…not split brain.” I took my hands away and looked to Akira, seeing someone walking a ways away out in the woods.
Evita. A hallucination.
“Is it a migraine?” she asked.
“It’s…it’s nothing,” I said, “I’m alright.”
“What the fuck?” someone screamed.
An automatic weapon fired, people screaming.
I grabbed Akira and twirled her around behind me, bullets bouncing off the back of my exo suit. More gunfire went off from other directions. More figures coming toward us in the deepening dark. I turned around and faced the assailant. A man in a Kevlar EXO:B-009 exoskeleton.
I lifted my 30 mm to fire, but stopped when one of the refugees ran in front of him and stopped. She turned and grinned at me. A hideous smile on a deformed face.
Evita.
The attacker fired, more bullets ricocheting off my suit. I shook the hallucination of Evita from my mind and fired, the attacker so close the 30 mm slug exploded out of his back in a vicious spray of blood and tissue, his face twisting into a scream that never escaped his face.
I turned back to Akira. She lay on the ground, eyes staring up at me in fear. I knelt to pick her up, noticing the blood pooling near her left shoulder. When I touched her she whimpered in pain. The gunshots around me quieted down to just frightened murmurs.
“How…bad?” Akira gasped.
The wound had gone all the way through, leaking out onto the front of her thick jacket and pooling on the frozen dirt beneath her. The bullet severed the subclavian artery.
“She’s better off,” Evita’s voice said as my eyes started stinging with tears, “even you think so, with your pathetic empathy. A woman like her shouldn’t have to live with her mind on a loop. She’s better off dead.”
Akira gasped one last breath before falling still.
Chapter 58
Only one of the eleven attackers survived their charge, which had injured nineteen people and killed two. He was wounded and captured by Savita in the front guard. But the result was that our pursuers had either given up or given us a break, as the almost monotonous rhythm – five minutes of gunfire and fifteen of quiet – came to a halt, which allowed us to regroup and for the front guard to interrogate the prisoner.
After an hour, word came back that the prisoner was indeed one of the Crusaders who had left us on the second day of the march. He confirmed that our pursuers were being led by Big Terry, but he denied that they were working for the CSA. He told Savita that the assault on the refugees had been retaliatory. Álvarez had succeeded in sneaking up and killing three of their people before word got out amongst them that an assassin was on the loose. The attack was to get us to call off the assassin.
The fate of the prisoner was unknown to me, but I assumed if he was alive, he was wishing he wasn’t.
I remained sitting next to Akira’s corpse, my bionic eye display showing me the heat slowly escaping her body as she lay still.
“This is why you distance yourself from them,” Evita said, walking around me like a shadow in my periphery that always escapes my vision, “this is why you don’t make friends with them. You just observe. Because if you care about them, then you get hurt. Because you will always outlive them. They will always die and leave you. It will happen to Masaru. It will happen to Yukiko. It will happen to Laura. It will happen to all of them. I’m the only one who has always been here. And I’m the only one who will always be here.”
“Sachi…” I muttered.
“You think she cares about you?” Evita asked, slipping away when I turned to look at her, “you’re nothing but a tool to her. Someone she wants around when you serve your purpose, but otherwise wants nothing to do with you. She doesn’t care about you. None of them care about you. I’m the only one who cares about you. I’m the only one who understands you.”
“Akira…was a good person.”
“And that’s why she’s better off,” Evita said, her voice right next to my ear, a shadow in the corner of my eye, “she’s better off never knowing the real you. If she had known what you really are, she would have left a long time ago. Only I will never do that, because I understand you.”
“You’re not real.”
“Even if that were true,” Evita said, now just a silhouette leaning on a tree outside my vision, “what would it matter? Nothing is real to you. You think that relationship you had with Akira was real? It was temporary. You were faking it. It was as real as a person’s relationship to a character on TV. The only things that are real are things that will last forever. Every human belief and institution is a fiction. Everyone who died for them or because of them is a fiction. Nothing but fiction on top of fiction.”
“It was real,” I said, looking back to Akira, “just because something isn’t permanent doesn’t mean it’s not real.”
“Happiness in the past will forever be out of your grasp,” Evita said, standing on the other side of Akira’s body, obscured by darkness, only her grin clear like some kind of obscene Cheshire cat, “fading into memory like the heat from her corpse.”
My bionic eye said she was down to 79.7 degrees Fahrenheit when I laid back, the migraine coming on full force. Evita continued talking as I slipped into a troubled sleep, but all I understood was the tone of her voice, the words becoming a confused jumble. Once again, the shapes from my hallucination danced a demented waltz through my dreams, the shadow of Evita haunting it from the corner of my eye.
The world of my hallucination seemed to merge with the waking world. I could see mountains in the distance from every side at once. On the other side of them was a blasted wasteland patrolled by UAVs. Burned out cities smoldered, ashes blowing across lifeless terrain. I could see the skeletons of Masaru and Laura in a terrified embrace, having nowhere else to turn. Governor Gabriel Mitchell raised the CSA flag over the ruins as his aids congratulated themselves on bringing peace to the wayward state of Colorado while CSA soldiers stacked corpses behind them.
I saw myself stacking corpses. My feet splashing through thic
k pools of blood, slipping on entrails. Cries of pain calling out for mercy that would never come. An explosion-
I awoke, jolting up and vomiting, bitter bile spilling out onto the chest of my exoskeleton. The pounding of my head gave way to more screams from behind me. I retched again, strings of sticky gastric juices dribbling down my chin. Akira’s body lay motionless in front of me, now at 77.4 degrees Fahrenheit.
The screams behind me were replaced with angry shouting and cursing. I winced, wiping vomit from my chin and turning my head slowly. A crowd of people were gathered, shoving each other. I staggered to my feet and started toward them, holding an exo hand to my throbbing head.
“There was another one in the front guard!” Pedro’s voice shouted.
“Fucking kill them!” Olivia hissed.
“Back the fuck off, you terrorist piece of shit!” a refugee yelled.
More shoving. The mass of moving bodies was almost too much for my aching head.
I’m still dreaming, aren’t I…?
Someone ran into me, making me stumble back a step. I grabbed onto them, finding Scott Hardy. He tried elbowing out my grip, but only managed to hurt himself when he hit my exo suit.
“Let go’uh me, yuh cocksucker!” he growled, still struggling in vain.
“What…the hell is going on?” I asked.
The commotion started settling down enough I could see that someone in an exoskeleton suit was lying face down. Rocky and Manny were on top of him, pinning both of his arms to the ground. For a minute I thought it must be Frank Davis, but when Álvarez used his knife to cut the clips for the helmet and took it off, I saw the high fade haircut and long beard of Peter Stone, his teeth gritting in effort.
“Savita killed the woman at the front,” Sachi said, slowly walking toward the prisoner and standing over him. “Says she was someone from LoC Security. Someone named Helen Wyman.”
“You don’t know shit,” Peter Stone wheezed, pine needles catching in his messy beard.
“I know you just tried killing me at the same time someone tried killing Savita,” Sachi said with taunting nonchalance, “hardly seems like a coincidence.”
“You monsters shouldn’t be allowed to live,” he said, changing strategy, “I told her ta do it.”
“Bullshit,” Olivia said, looking to Sachi, “it was that fucking Forrester dick.”
Sachi kept her eyes on Stone, “my friend here seems to doubt your story. Can you give me a reason why I shouldn’t believe her?”
“You wouldn’t believe me no matter what I said,” Stone coughed, “you might as well just fuckin’ kill me. There’re plenty more people who see you for the piece of shit you are.”
“Trying to kill me doesn’t necessarily warrant death,” Sachi said, “my friend Álvarez here tried to kill me. Now he’s one of my best soldiers.”
Álvarez’s expression remained neutral.
Peter Stone coughed and spat, “Fuck you. I’d never join you, ya stupid bitch.”
“Right now, that option’s not on the table,” Sachi said, “but if you keep this up, the best you’ll be able to hope for is a painless death.”
Peter Stone coughed again as he tried making a lunge, managing to throw Manny off balance enough to lift his 30 mm. Sachi dodged out of the way just in time for the large gun to go off, the slug grazing Sachi’s exoskeleton at the bicep.
Rocky roared, grabbing Stone’s arm with both hands and plunging his knee into it. Stone howled in agony as his exoskeleton shattered at the elbow, arm bending ninety degrees in the wrong direction. Manny scrambled to his feet and landed a kick on the side of Stone’s head, his scream silenced with a sickening thud as he passed out unconscious.
“Let me go to the front,” Olivia said, “I’ll kill Forrester myself.”
“That might not be a good idea,” someone said.
Everyone looked to see Joaquin Yrid walking forward. Olivia stormed up to him, raising her 30 mm to his helmetless head. Yrid didn’t flinch, leaning to look over her shoulder at Sachi.
“Were you in on this, too?” Sachi asked.
He shook his head, “no. But I agree that Forrester almost certainly was. But knowing him, he’ll have plausible deniability. Up in the front guard, he’s been able to get the Cortez Crucible leaders on his side by ridin’ his sympathetic story of the harrowing escape from the convoy.”
“Let me guess,” Sachi said, “you’re not buying it?”
“I’m not,” he said, looking to me, “in fact, I told your associate here that I think you’re the only one who can get us out of this and that Major Forrester is a bumbling fool who’s lucky he didn’t get ‘emself and everyone else killed.”
Sachi looked to me and squinted, but turned back to Yrid without saying anything.
“Why should we believe you?” Olivia asked.
“I suppose that’s a trust I’d have to earn, isn’t it?” Yrid said calmly, “whatever you want me to do to earn your trust…”
Sachi stood quiet for a moment before saying, “kill him,” she pointed at Peter Stone.
Joaquin Yrid’s calm drained away, face becoming pale as he looked down at his injured colleague. Olivia stepped aside to allow him past, a subtle smirk on her thick lips.
“You can’t make him do that,” Major Ellison said, stepping forward, visor down, “Stone may’ve been tryin’ to kill you, but this is just insane.”
“This has nothing to do with you,” Olivia said, glowering at Ellison.
“If you’re worried about Forrester convincin’ everyone that you people’re monsters,” Ellison said, “none of you are doin’ anything to disabuse them of that notion.”
“You already have ‘em captured,” Corporal Roman said, visor up to reveal his narrow face and thick beard, “he’s not a threat to you anymore. Killin’ ‘em now would be initiating violence.”
“Shut the fuck up with that bullshit,” Olivia said, rolling her eyes, “this isn’t even the LoC anymore. This is CSA territory now.”
Ellison turned to Sachi, “who the fuck’s this runway model lookin’ bitch and why does she think she can tell us what ta do?”
Olivia raised her 30 mm and fired, Yrid just barely knocking her aim away, Ellison falling backwards as the bullet flew by him. Olivia shoved Yrid away and started toward Ellison, but Roman stepped in the way and grabbed her. Olivia screamed, trying to free herself from his grip. The crowd around them started shouting. Scott Hardy started struggling to free himself from my grip again.
“Enough!” Sachi shouted, “Olivia, stand down!”
She stopped struggling against Corporal Roman, looked angrily at Sachi, but lowered her arms and walked away. Sachi looked to Victor and nodded in the direction of Olivia. He shrugged and went trotting after her.
“Keep your fuckin’ people under control,” Ellison said as he got up.
“Speak for yourself,” Sachi said, “one of your people tried killing one of mine up front.”
Ellison shrugged, “you can blame our incompetent colonel for that. She takes her orders from you anyway, don’t she?”
“Don’t talk about her that way,” agent Brie said.
“Don’t talk to your superior that way,” Major Ellison shot back, “you’ve been spendin’ far too much time with these terrorists.”
Agent Brie was about to say something when a gunshot went off. Rocky yelped, jumping up from Peter Stone’s body as his head cracked open like an egg thrown against a wall. Everyone looked to Joaquin Yrid, who had his .50 caliber aimed at his former colleague.
“If you need me for anything else, I’ll be around,” he said before turning and walking away.
“Jesus Christ!” Scott Hardy screeched, struggling even harder now. I let go of him and he ran over to Peter Stone’s corpse and knelt down. “Ya fuckin’ psychopaths! Jesus Christ!”
The crowd began to slowly disperse. I turned around and walked back to where Akira had been shot and-
She was sitting up. My headache surged in surprise as I h
urried over to her and knelt down. She looked to me with a blank stare that reminded me of the far away gaze I saw in myself when I looked in the mirror.
“Akira?” I said, “are…are you alright? What the hell’s going on?”
She moved her mouth slowly, but no sound came out, only managing to stare past me with her blank expression. My bionic eye said her temperature was 74.2 degrees Fahrenheit.
Morning arrived, but the temperatures only continued to plummet. By eight in the morning, it was just below zero degrees Fahrenheit. Major Forrester ordered that the march would continue in the afternoon, pending the continuation of our pursuer’s ceasefire. Despite the reprieve, morale remained low, knowing that the snowstorm was looming over us with a menace worse than the CSA invasion or the Crusaders at our heels.
After a night’s sleep to get over the commotion from the night before, people began visiting with Akira. She had yet to speak a word or even stand up, looking as astonished and confused about her recovery as everyone else. Aveena had come to sit with her mentor and Doctor Taylor came with Yukiko to make an examination. Sachi checked in, but barely said a word before wandering off to see to her duties. Akira’s temperature remained around seventy five degrees, even as the outside temperature dropped, which meant that metabolism was taking place. Yet she had no pulse.
“So, is she like a zombie or somethin’?” Rocky asked as Doctor Taylor moved Akira’s head around, examining her eyes. “I mean, she looks kinda…stupid, ya know?”
Aveena was sitting next to Akira with Yukiko in her lap, holding her mentors’ hand between her own. Yukiko looked vaguely aware that something was wrong with her mother, occasionally touching a chubby finger to Akira’s cheek or arm and getting little response.
“She probably is,” Doctor Taylor said, letting go of Akira, “but not cuz she’s incapable of intelligence. Her physiological functions are essentially runnin’ on a skeleton crew. She’s not shivering or sweating. She doesn’t seem to be digesting, which isn’t surprising, since she has no blood flow to absorb nutrients. Her pupils dilate and contract very slowly. She’s breathin’, although incredibly slowly, and without a pulse the gases would be absorbed and expelled by simple diffusion through her vasculature.”
Incarnate- Essence Page 95
