by A W Wang
The projectile hits with a crack and sticky thud.
Her shots spray to my left, chewing through bricks and glass, before she flops against the lower shelf of a bookcase.
The first black knight scrapes across the floor, trying to reach a weapon.
I stand and blast a round into the back of his head.
Silence falls over the study.
A breeze puffs through the curtains, and starlight gleams over the polished wood floor. Scattered sheets of parchment blow past Chief Justice Allison Taylor in the waving rectangle of light. She twitches once then stills.
I blink as the rush of air stops, and darkness descends into the surroundings.
Only two candles remain lit, their flames appearing to float against a backdrop of books.
I grab the nearest and walk to Allison.
A neat hole rests above her open and unblinking eyes.
Despite everything, a strange appreciation for Victoria and her jacket seeps into me. With the sole arbiter on her side, she planned the entire courtroom scene and verdict, maybe even as soon as I mentioned my name in New Austin. All so she could get the President into a vulnerable position with a plausible assassin—me, the ten sigma judged defective by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
The levels of chess Victoria is playing…
I look at Allison’s battle-mesh, desperate to find anything that can help.
The spindly gray material curves tightly over her frail form. There’s no chance I could wriggle my larger, more athletic body into the garment. Even if I could, the high-tech outfit isn’t going to perform for someone it’s not designed for…
A moan comes from near the couch.
I turn and push the candle toward the sitting area.
In the flickering light, Jonathon slumps behind the splintered remains of the coffee table, a red stain pouring from his stomach.
Forty
I rush to Jonathon and toss aside the busted furniture.
His breaths are shallow, and a sheen of sweat covers his face.
I pull up his crimson-soaked shirt.
“How bad?” he asks.
“Just a single shot. I’ve seen worse in the scenarios,” I say, remembering my own intestines falling out after a hypervelocity pellet skimmed across my midsection.
“Great,” he replies with a groan. “Too bad I can’t magically get healed.”
Armor scrapes over the hardwood, and Jonesy steps from behind the couch. Holding his bloody nose, he grabs the remaining lit candle and glances over the bodies. “This is so FUBAR.”
I slam my palms on the floor.
“What?” he asks, turning the candle toward me.
“How could you not know she was a jacket?”
He rolls his eyes. “It was a combat jacket. How many times during the illustrious judicial career of one Allison Taylor, do you think she had to leap from the bench and beat the snot out of someone?”
I blow out my frustration, accepting his point.
“This is so FUBAR,” he says.
“Yes, you said that. Do something useful.”
“Like?”
“I need to make bandages.”
He picks up the ripped robe and hands it to me.
Thinking of why Allison was wearing it, I roll my eyes.
I hate being such a prude.
“The curtains would be better,” I say.
“If we take down the curtains, someone will realize something’s wrong. Now at worst, they’ll only suspect it.”
“Wonderful,” I reply with as much sarcasm as humanly possible.
“Is there something else that’s bothering you?”
The Chief Justice of the United States is dead by my hand.
“Do you mean besides the obvious?” I reply, ripping long strips from the light material.
“Yeah.”
“Well, a lot of people are dead, and this mission produced the worst imaginable outcome.”
He grabs his helmet from the floor. “Wasn’t it worth it to have tried?”
A snort leaves my mouth. “No.”
“What does it matter now?” Jonathon says weakly.
I purse my lips because he’s right. “Time to get out of this place,” I say, glancing at Jonesy.
To my surprise, he nods. “I suppose we’re taking him with us.”
I tie the last knot. “Yes.”
“That’s what I figured,” he says, walking to the nearest black knight. He grabs all the reloads and hands them to me. “You’ll need these.”
“What about you?” I say, pulling Jonathon to his feet.
He rubs his bloody nose. “I’m a thief, and I can’t shoot worth a damn. But I can move really well in the dark.”
“Let’s find out how true that is.”
“Fair enough,” he says and walks out the door.
After a last look at Allison’s body and the battle-mesh that’s useless to me, I help Jonathon from the study. As we hobble down the stairs, following Jonesy, I wonder what else could possibly go wrong.
“FUBAR,” Jonesy whispers, his face partially hidden by the broken shadows of the bushes.
“Will you stop saying that?” I hiss.
“I’m just calling it like it is.”
With my jaw clenched, I crawl to the edge of the hedgerow, studying the dark buildings in front of us.
A staccato of shots interrupts the quiet setting. No doubt from some of Cleon’s makeshift army trying to escape. Or perhaps someone else is resisting Victoria?
I roll my eyes.
Who cares who it is?
The minor skirmishes are lessening in frequency, with each less intense than the one before. Defeat hangs like a bad stench in the air, and none of what these people do will matter in the slightest.
Anyone offering resistance is going to be captured or killed during the next few hours.
With a sigh, I rub my tingly nape and return to the more pressing issue.
The surrounding rooftops are empty and the nearby windows shrouded. At street level, gleams of lonely gaslights reflect off the pavement. Aside from a light breeze, nothing moves.
However, a wrongness lurks.
FUBAR…
Disgusted by the thought, I edge back to Jonesy and Jonathon.
“You feel it too?” Jonesy asks.
I nod, biting my lip.
“Most likely, there’s a ten sigma,” he says.
“How do you know what that means?”
“I’m a thief, remember? I steal information too.”
Despite everything, I quietly chuckle.
“We can’t make it out dragging him,” Jonesy says, pointing at Jonathon, who’s barely conscious.
“I’m not leaving him behind.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say.” He smirks. “Time to part ways.”
“Don’t you leave us.”
“I’ll draw off whatever is waiting out there. You’ll have a better chance to escape with him.”
“We can still make it out together.”
“Don’t kid yourself,” he says, shaking his head. “Besides, there’s one more thing I need to do that I can’t do with you two slowing me down.”
“What?”
“After I get out of the city, I’ll get to a communications hub and send the word out. The chaos will help slow down Victoria until you can do something.”
“What makes you think I can do anything?”
“You’re a ten sigma.”
I shake my head. “That’s not who I am.”
“Well, you can at least do anything they can. Maybe more.”
Rather than arguing, I simply say, “Good luck.”
He pushes his black-knight mask back over his face and tosses off his cloak. A moment later, he waggles his fingers in a wave and disappears into the darkness.
A weird idea occurs to me, and I tap Jonathon on the cheek. “People are still downloaded into the Ten Sigma Program, right?”
�
�Yes,” he croaks out, “But—”
“If worse comes to worst, I’ll try to get you into one of those devices.”
“No, don’t do that.”
“Why?”
“I have the most awful test scores ever. I wouldn’t last an instant in there.”
“That’s what it’s all about. Beating the odds.”
Jonathon shakes his head. “No offense, but I’ve got nothing to return to, so no matter what happens, promise you won’t put me into the program.”
A pang of sadness seeps into my thoughts as I study the sincerity in his eyes. “Okay,” I reply softly.
Jonesy brushes past a corner with a scrape and vanishes down an alleyway.
In the distance, stars wink as a translucent shape charges across a rooftop. It’s ten-sigma battle-mesh in camouflage mode. The form jumps, rippling across the face of a gray building with tall windows. For a moment, I detect long legs and curves.
Probably Samantha…
I mouth a “thank you,” in the direction where the thief was headed, hoping his journey ends in safety.
“Well, if you won’t go into the Ten Sigma Program, I guess we better save you the old-fashioned way,” I say, pulling Jonathon to his feet.
His lips form a painful grin, then he wobbles, collapsing to the ground.
As the first traces of pre-dawn light seep over the horizon, I carry Jonathan past the edge of the residential area and head down a concrete staircase. When we reach the landing, I follow the curve of a ten-meter-high embankment.
When Jonathon groans, I set him under the overhang of a large concrete pipe and replace his blood-sodden bandages with the last ones I’ve saved from Allison’s robe.
Spotlights momentarily brighten the area as a spindly troop carrier flies overhead, looping around the city.
Unhappy with the implications, I hustle to the top of the dirt slope, where my worst fears are realized.
Past the wide, empty basin of the soon-to-be city reservoir, New D.C. lies quiet.
Columns of smoke rise from beyond the dark lattices of construction. Tiny in the distance, searchlights crawl over the antennae and comm dishes of the communications hub as troops wander, checking on bodies and looking for more enemies.
The cleanup operation is all that remains of the night’s battle.
Drones zip like gnats over the beams of light, their dark specks arcing toward the outer defense lines.
With the skirmishes over, Victoria is turning her energy toward cutting off the escape routes of her remaining enemies.
I’m the most major of all the loose ends she needs to snip off.
I rush back down to Jonathon and tap him on the shoulder. “There’s one more thing I have to do before we can leave.”
“What?”
“I need to create a diversion.”
His eyes flutter.
“Jonathon?”
He replies with a shallow nod, grimacing in pain.
“I’ll be right back.”
I rush around the oval basin to the new section of the capital. From there, I cross an unfinished street and climb over a temporary wall that protects a construction site. As I run over freshly dried foundation and past piles of building materials, I adjust my path to avoid the sparse surveillance covering the area.
When I near a wire fence at the edge of the zone, a breeze blows charred odors through the air.
I pause behind a metal drum, watching for danger. Only a few burned bodies, splattered from long falls off the higher story girders, litter the area.
After a drone hums down the adjoining street, I duck behind the tracks of a mobile crane and continue. I rush past another array of steel beams and cross an access road flanked by concrete dividers.
A large-bellied cargo plane roars overhead, and landing lights descend, disappearing behind a row of blocky support buildings.
I slow my pace and step to the boundary of a rolling field. Taking advantage of dips in the terrain, I advance until a guard tower comes into view. Beyond lies a runway lined with stealth aircraft in reinforced hangers.
Although I’m using what precious time Jonathon and I have left, I have to throw this last feint into the enemy to ensure our escape.
My heart races from the anticipation of the impending action.
I take a breath to calm my eagerness and sight my rifle on the guard tower. When I fire, metal rings from impacts.
Sirens whine and searchlights from nearby towers sweep the field.
I empty the rest of the magazine into the lights. As the landscape plunges into darkness and chaos, I reload and charge down a shallow trench.
An armored car approaches over a dirt path.
I blast the tires.
The heavy vehicle swerves and crashes into a ditch, landing on its side.
With a spray of shots, I force the soldiers tumbling from the cabin into cover.
Another phalanx of guards arrives next to the first tower, and whizzing projectiles fill the air.
I sprint toward the airfield, returning fire, sparing no ammunition to make as large a distraction as possible.
A wave of dark figures leaps over the protective fence. As they advance, gleams ripple on their armor.
Black knights…
Instantly, they determine my position, and the surrounding dirt quivers from zipping projectiles.
I tumble backward and fall behind a rise. More gunshots arrive from another direction, and I retreat, zigzagging toward the multi-story lattice of construction.
As the mindless wonders pursue, I fire into their sprinting forms, slowing them just enough for me to dart past the concrete partitions of the access road and into the maze of steel. With little time, I leap onto the partially completed second level.
Armor-piercing rounds smash through the sparse wooden flooring, rocketing splinters by my face, as I race for the next street.
Raising my hands to cover my eyes, I cut to the side and vault to a higher set of girders.
Black knights reach the second floor and rush after me with heavy thumps.
Rounds ping off metal as I pull myself higher in the framework. I leap from beam to beam and onto the occasional wooden plank, weaving through hanging counterweights. When the pursuit rises to my level, I cut into the dark shadows of the adjacent building. The structure is more complete, and I dodge pails of rivets and partial walls while projectiles ricochet off pipes and punch through electrical wiring.
More black knights appear on the highest perches atop the first building and fire down at my position.
I charge up a concrete staircase to an unfinished floor and into the brightening grays of dawn. I don’t stop and hurry onto the next level of bare girders. As the narrow gray surfaces and deep chasms blur beneath my bounding feet, the black knights follow, leaping onto the narrow supports.
When they near, I alter direction by slamming my boot into the indent of an I-beam and running along its edge.
A barrage fills my original path as I swivel and empty my weapon at the nearest pursuers. From this height, precision doesn’t matter, just knocking them off-balance and letting gravity do the hard work is enough.
I smirk as black knights tumble down the levels, slamming into steel and through wooden planks before splatting into the blackness covering the building foundation.
The pursuit thins after I land behind a thick column and empty another magazine.
Pesky drones whir down the street, trying to pinpoint my location.
I snap off shots, and the first two tumble, leaking smoke. The rest buzz away.
With the lull, I sprint off the edge and grab onto the struts of a crane boom. While a fresh wave of black knights rushes upward, I slide down the sloping metal. When I near the heel section, I jump onto the flat cabin and roll off the roof to land on some loose dirt.
My barely passable-for-human body flushes, not in the least tired from the intense fighting. Although I’m taking deep breaths…
I want more.
&n
bsp; The clacks of the black knights fade as I cut down a side street to avoid other forces moving to encircle the construction zone and reinforce the airfield.
When I reach the concrete bunkers of the mecha depot, I jam in my last magazine, planning to charge the guards and resupply for more fighting.
But for what purpose?
In theory, I could look for high-value targets. However, Victoria and Balthazar are certainly under maximum protection, even if I could find them. Rescuing prisoners is another option if I only knew that any of Cleon’s people survived and where they’re being held.
I shake my head and take a calming breath.
Now isn’t the moment to be making up missions to feed the strange pleasures my body derives from fighting. It’s time to get back to Jonathon and finish what I originally set out to do.
Escape.
I fire my last clip in the direction of the formidable machines. Before retreating via a different path, I toss the empty weapon down a deep hole to avoid any further temptations.
By the time I reach Jonathon, the first crescent of the sun has poked into view, spreading an arc of pinks and reds over the low-lying haze.
Although the airfields were covered and stealing a mecha and fighting my way out was a nonstarter, I had to make my enemies think they were options for us to leave the city.
Unfortunately, the confusion will only buy so much time before Victoria recovers.
“Come on, Jonathon, we’re leaving,” I say, lifting him off the ground.
He only has enough strength for a slight nod.
A minute later, I trot into the safety of the subterranean passages.
However, our problems are only starting.
As we enter the blackness of a long tunnel, the spiders stab into my nape.
Forty-One
As the dying flashlight pushes back the darkness, only my plodding steps and Jonathon’s wheezing breaths break the silence. The spiders stopped dancing a while back, and nothing is coming to get us.
I sigh. Not that it matters.
The final tunnel to the supply hub is so short in my memory but, with me carrying Jonathon cradled in my arms, so long in person.
Even with only the faint light bobbing from my hand, I can see the color has drained from his face. He’s bleeding out; something I’m powerless to stop despite all my killing abilities.
