Outlier

by L. J. Hachmeister

  On the opposite end, a bird-eater, severely damaged in the fray, turned one of its three heads into the passageway between the buildings.

  “Sahib,” she said, stepping back for him as the massive plant zeroed in on the infected soldier.

  In one fluid motion, the young warrior sprung out from behind the corner, kneeling as he pulled and notched a bow, took aim, and shot an arrow at the mobile plant tromping toward their mark. The arrow struck one of its rosette faces, stunning the creature and sending it stumbling into the wall.

  Nya pulled Sahib back out of sight as the soldier, transfixed by the fresh blood, fed his combat vines into the keyhole.

  Come on, she thought, waiting for the precious sound of the vines aligning the pins to spring open the lock as the bird-eater shrieked.

  Yes—

  Over the infuriated cries from the rallying bird-eater, she heard the telltale click, and leapt out from behind cover. Before the soldier could retract and battle the three-headed beast charging at him, Nya hacked off his vines plugged into the keyhole.

  As the bird-eater snapped down on the infected Virid’s head, Nya turned the wiggling vines and unlocked the door.

  “Nya!”

  She heard Kaden’s shout as she tumbled backward, head over heels. Strong arms grabbed her by the chest and pulled her away from the stampede.

  Disoriented, it took her a moment to comprehend the door swinging on its hinge, and the dozens of men and women in blue gowns streaming out from the building. Piercing cries rattled her back into action as the bird-eater, still stuffing its pink oral cavity with the Virid soldier, focused a new attack the escaping prisoners.

  “Let go,” she said, pushing herself out of Kaden’s arms and back into the fight.

  The bird-eater swung its bladed leaves left and right, sending bits of blue material and warm blood spraying through the air. Nya carved her twin blades through the chaos, cutting down leafy limbs until she reached the primary stalk. Digestive fluids dripping down from their ribbed gullets slimed her face, but she didn’t hesitate. Swinging around on its spines, she chopped off one head after another, until its last head mewled in pain and fell forward.

  Nectar perfumed the air, mingling with the wretched smells of rot and blood as she delivered the death blow to the bird-eater. Still, she reveled in the moment, standing over her kill, feeling the only satisfaction she ever allowed herself anymore.

  “Chakoa!” Sahib shouted as more prisoners poured out of the unlocked door. “Any Chakoa?”

  Nya didn’t bother trying to be heard over the cries. “Hey,” she said, grabbing one of the fleeing men and pinning him against the brick wall. Circumferential scars covered his bald head, some still inflamed and red with root-like stitches. “Where are the Chakoa?”

  The man looked away with a crazed expression, his eyes never connecting with hers for more than a second. “C-Chakoa?”

  “Where are my people?” she said, showing him the black and red tattoos along her neckline bearing the Chakoan symbols.

  Red and orange flames belched from the second-story windows of the opposite building. The man tried to free himself from her grips, but she slammed him again against the wall. “Where is Sho?!”

  The man pointed a shaking finger back at the door. “Dangerous.”

  Irritated, Nya shoved him away and reconvened with Kaden and Sahib near the side entrance. “Anything?”

  “It’s too hard to see now,” Kaden said, fanning the smoke from his face with a cough. “They could have gotten out with the others. We should follow them.”

  Nya looked back at the open door, seeing into the sterile reception area of white tiles and metal bars. The strange architecture coupled with the blood-stained walls and dead bodies made her override his suggestion.

  “They could be trapped in there. Let’s go.”

  Kaden and Sahib followed behind her, checking the overturned furniture and dead bodies for clues. A few of the fallen prisoners appeared sickened, their faces ghostly white. Just like the Soushin…

  The Virid guards looked just as grotesque and deformed as the ones infected in the yards, their combat vines wrapped around each other, black sludge caked around their mouths.

  Nya reached a control station at the end of the hall. Someone or something had ripped off all the safety bars from the partition. Ignoring the blood splatters, and the Virid guard smashed against the desk, she hopped over and went right to the building maps carved into metal plates hanging on the wall.

  As she looked over each one, Kaden chopped out a bigger hole in the crisscrossing bars for himself to wiggle through and joined her side.

  “There’s too many floors; we don’t have enough time to figure out which lockdown they’re in.”

  Nya racked her knuckles against one of the maps. “Sho’s the most wanted Outlier in all the lands. They wouldn’t keep him with the general populace. They’d isolate him—”

  Visions of him tied to a rack, Virid guards taking turns lashing him with their combat vines, flashed through her head. She had to clear her throat to keep her voice from faltering. “…pump him for information.”

  Kaden coughed more violently this time, his eyes watering as smoke drifted down the hallway. “What about records?”

  Nya eyed the broken file cabinets to her left covered in black ooze and wet plant debris. Papers, shredded and stained, littered the ground. “Not an option.”

  “What about there?” Sahib said, shouldering his way through and pointing to the basement level. Red warning signs and high-level containment notices covered the smaller map.

  “Good enough. Let’s go.”

  Nya backtracked out of the control station, winding through the hallway and toward the stairwell at the end of the reception area. Through the barred windows could see the battle unfolding in the front yard as Virids and their mobile units attacked each other. Gigantic tree walkers, bird-eaters, and other vegetative monstrosities clashed over the soldiers in the blanket of smoke, not discerning friend from foe.

  “It’s locked,” she said after testing the door handle to the stairwell. Old demons stirred as she slammed her fist against the metal door.

  “We can’t stay here,” Kaden said, crouching low to the ground to get out of the smoke.

  “I’m not leaving.”

  “We don’t know if they’re even in here.”

  “Nya,” Sahib said, drawing her attention back to overturned table near the reception. A prisoner lay crumpled underneath, her blonde hair covered in dried blood. “She’s still alive.”

  Nya ran over to the woman and knelt next to her head. Battered from head to toe, she raised her head just enough to look Nya in the face. Blue eyes and fair skin bespoke of her northern origins, but the spread of red freckles across the bridge of her broken nose made her think of the ice forest dwellers. In another setting, they might have been enemies, vying to cut each other’s throats.

  Are those plants sewn into her arm? Nya clenched her jaw at the sight of the yellow roots sticking out of the woman’s forearms and bare shoulders, not wanting to imagine what horrors the woman had endured in Sanctum.

  Sensing that intimidation would get her nowhere, Nya set down her swords, but kept a firm voice. “Where are the Chakoans?”

  A weak laugh escaped her lips. “Dead.”

  Nya persisted, unwilling to believe. “All of them?”

  “Dangerous,” the woman said, fighting for each word. “Tried to… break out. Killed guards… started riots…”

  “There were six of them,” she said, holding the woman’s chin up. “How many are left?”

  The woman coughed, sending her entire body into a spasm. Blood spurted out of her nose as she gasped for breath, clawing at her throat. Sahib and Kaden held her down as Nya tried to get what little information she could out of the woman.

  “We’ll help you get out,” she said. Sahib looked at her in shock, but Kaden, knowing the conditional nature of that kind of promise, didn’t react.
/>   The woman grasped Nya’s arm. Even in her debilitated state, the woman’s blue eyes reminded her of the hottest part of the fire. In some remote part of her awareness, Nya felt herself pull away as her mind drew unwanted parallels to her own life.

  “One…”

  “Who?” she demanded, gripping her shoulders.

  The woman grunted, arcing her head and pointing a finger at the stairwell. “Him.”

  Nya grabbed at her swords as the stairwell door flung open. Black smoke plumed out, obscuring her sight. Still, the effects of the occulrum enabled her to recognize the outline of the man running toward them at full speed, and she restrained Kaden as he made to throw his axes.

  “Sho!”

  Covered in plant debris and soot, the runner came to a halt a few feet in front of them, chest heaving. Nya held tight to her swords, unsure if the man standing before her, dressed in a tattered guard uniform, bore the same Nezran illness. She recognized his brown eyes, but only in shape and contour, not the violent expression that trapped the breath in her lungs.

  “Sho…” she tried again, trying to connect.

  Something changed. Familiarity melted the icy sheen to his eyes. “Nya.”

  Sheathing her swords, she ran up to him, ready to fling her arms around him, but stopped short when he faded back a step.

  “We came to rescue—”

  “The others are dead. Help me with these,” he said, handing her the black, wicked bulbs he carried in his arms.

  No hello, not even a hint of a smile; nothing like how she had secretly imagined their reunion playing out. Hurt and disappointment squeezed down on her heart, but she rationalized his behavior. This is my fault. What was I expecting? He’s a warrior.

  She took a few of the bombs and lashed them to her belt, as did Kaden and Sahib.

  “Sho, I—”

  “I made some modified explosives,” he said, cutting her off. Ripping off a strip of cloth from a fallen captive, he tied together a sash to hold the black bulbs against his chest. “We need to destroy this place.”

  “The fire’s doing a pretty good job,” Kaden said.

  Sho shot him a vicious look. “We leave nothing to chance.”

  “Wait,” Sahib said as Nya followed Sho out of the building. “What about her?”

  Nya looked back at the dying blonde woman. Pain shuttered her eyes halfway, but she did not plead, did not look to her for sympathy. Nya looked to Sho, but he ignored all but his objective, arming himself with whatever he could find from the broken furniture and dead guards as he set down the bombs against support pillars.

  This is no place to die.

  “Carry her outside,” she said, surprising all of them, even herself, at her decision. “Then it’s up to her.”

  Following Sho outside, she covered up her nose and mouth with the back of her sleeve, her lungs burning with the smoke. Firelight and the bioluminescent bulbs strung along the paths guided them back down the cloister and shelter behind the grey oak.

  As Sho removed a few bombs from the sash, Kaden and Sahib caught up. Nya gave a cursory glance to see where Sahib had dropped off the blonde captive, only to see her limping off down the floral path between the fountain.

  Dammit, she thought, unsure if she should be pissed at Sahib, or about the chance of another ice-dweller surviving to hunt her later.

  Refocusing her attention, she tried to get something out of Sho. “What’s the plan?”

  “We’ll throw the rest into the burning buildings,” he said, pointing to the blazing structures ahead. “Finish the job.”

  “What the hell would survive the fire?”

  Gripping bombs in both hands, Sho clenched his jaw as he stared into the fire. “The worst kind of evil.”

  The look in his eyes withered any retort, or any remote doubt of his authority on the matter. Even Kaden held his tongue and waited for Sho to give the command.

  “What about the others?” Sahib asked, pointing toward the East Wing.

  Sen. She quickly reprimanded herself for thinking of the stupid girl first, and not Sulo or even the midnight beast. Given the fast-spreading battle, Sen had probably already gotten herself killed.

  Still…

  A blinding flash forced her into a crouch behind the grey oak. Thunderclaps and earthquakes followed, rattling her teeth and bones. When she peered back over, great rags of white fire shot up from the fourth building, followed by a burgeoning mushroom cloud. Smoke rings rose in twisting, writhing shapes, drawing lightning from the agitated sky.

  “Sho, wait!” she said as he took off toward the third building, bombs in hand, ready to take down the next structure. Kaden followed, releasing a great warrior cry.

  Ears ringing, she turned to Sahib and pointed to the East Wing. “Run!”

  The young warrior took off, his long, lanky legs speeding him away faster than a deerkat. She watched him only for a moment, until he disappeared in the consuming smoke. With a cry that summoned her greatest anger, she armed herself with Sho’s explosives, and ran into the fire.

  Chapter 17

  “Hello?”

  The voice came from afar, down an impossibly long tunnel.

  “Wake up; you can’t stay here.”

  Gentle hands searched Sen’s face and then descended to her shoulder.

  “Please, get up. You have to go.”

  Footsteps shuffled away.

  Father?

  No, the voice wasn’t harsh enough.

  Sen opened her eyes, trying to make sense of her surroundings with a head stuffed full of cotton. Faint beams of moonlight trickled in through a boarded-up window, giving her a sense of the objects across the room: A single bed, a sagging shelf with aging books and a few odds and ends. In the opposite corner, bioluminescent bulbs hung from a dehydrated stalk, illuminating a notice board detailing the strict policies for all East wing residents.

  “What’s going on…?” she muttered, holding her head as she inched her way onto her elbow.

  It came back to her in a rush: Sulo charging at the nurses and collapsing. When she tried to help, she put herself—and Akoto—in danger.

  I can’t do anything right.

  Her mind snagged on an important detail: Wait—the poisoned darts—

  She tried to find the projectiles that had struck her arm and thigh, but only a tiny hole in her clothing, ringed with purple ooze, remained.

  How did I survive?

  “Akoto,” she whispered, looking every which way for her friend.

  “Who’s Akoto?”

  The voice. Sen darted her eyes back and forth, her feverish imagination populating every shadow with the monsters of death and decay.

  “Don’t be scared. I pulled you in here to keep you safe.”

  Despite his benign overtures, she yelped when she saw the man in the threadbare robe shuffling out from the corner. The shock of white hair atop his head matched the stubble on his chin and neck, though as he approached, she couldn’t reconcile his age. A few wrinkles and liver spots decorated his forehead, and if not for his hair, she would have guessed him in his late thirties.

  “I saw you out there,” he said, pointing a shaking finger in the vicinity of the door.

  Squinting, Sen took another look at his face. Even in the relative dark she could discern the colorless irises, and the way his pupils stayed dilated, even as he shuffled into a beam of light.

  He’s blind.

  “…So bright, like the sun. Like in my dreams.”

  Sen collected herself off the floor, but took a few steps back from him, running into the decomposing wood dresser. “Who are you? Where am I? Where are my friends?”

  The man held his hands out in front of him, feeling for any objects in his path. “You mean those big furry things in the hallway?”

  “Yes—are they okay?” she asked, dodging him and getting up on her tiptoes to peer out the eye slit in the door. From what little she could see, she made out Akoto and Sulo’s massive bodies, and the regular rise and
fall of their chests. She also spotted both nurses, unmoving and face down on the floor.

  “I guess. The giant one snores worse than you.”

  Sen considered what he implied and turned back to him. “So that wasn’t poison?”

  “Poison? No. The nurses are mean, but they shoot tranquilizers, not poisons.” A lop-sided smile brightened his face. “At least not yet.”

  As he chuckled to himself, Sen asked again: “W-who are you?”

  “Ah, of course, forgive me; I’m out of practice for visitors. I’m Haebi.”

  Sen clapped her hands together. “Haebi?! As in Haebi Mor?”

  The white-haired man recoiled a bit, a frightened look upon his face. “J-just Haebi.”

  Sen looked at the number underneath the eye slit on the door. A95

  “It’s Sen!” she said, opening her arms up wide and making her way over to him. “I can’t believe you’re alive!”

  “Sen?”

  The confusion in his voice, and the rigid way he put out his hands in front of him, made her pause.

  “Sen. Senzo, really. Your niece; Lyn’s daughter.”

  His voice faltered, and his breath came in short, quick bursts, as if anticipating a vicious attack. “Lyn…”

  “I-I came to rescue you, get you out of here,” she said, trying to get back his attention as he mumbled to himself and fiddled with his hands.

  “No, no; can’t speak of such things.”

  “Uncle Haebi?”

  With a nervous laugh, he paced the room, bumping into the bed and shelf as he ran his fingers along his few possessions.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked as he crammed himself into the corner farthest away from her.

  “Don’t want to sleep again, please,” he said, covering his head with his arms.

  Not knowing what to do, Sen got down on her knees and crawled over to him. “Tell me what to do.”

  Whimpering and mumbling, Haebi worked himself even farther into the corner, his joints cracking and popping as he made himself as small as possible.

  As she watched her uncle cower, her mind replayed the awful sights of the residents infiltrated by the plant roots, and the nurses with tranquilizer darts shooting from their stemmed fingers. “Why are they hurting you?”