Chaos Theory Cosmic Lovely

by Penelope Fletcher

  He travelled for a while without any problems, and Blue calculated he must be at least a minute ahead of the Crimzon.

  Gripping the handlebars tighter, he frowned at the jumble of FloVes blocking his escape route. Blue disengaged the clutch and opened the throttle. The engine sung it revved so hard. Just before impact, he hit the clutch. The front tyre jerked and hit the bonnet of the first FloVe.

  Blue rocked his weight back and forth to bounce the machine up and over the craft.

  He seriously missed his FloBi.

  The adrenaline threading through Blue’s system was dissipating, and he was beginning to suffer the mess he was in.

  The nape of his neck was hot, his cheeks flushed, and his lower back cramped in painful spasms. His sweaty body screamed its exhaustion. Muscles he’d never used before ached. His head. It pounded to a profound drumbeat from the constant aggressive friction between the machine and the road. It was hard enough to keep his weave with Lara in tact with his concentration so fractured, but the added strain of using his telekinesis to fight was carnage on his cortex.

  There wasn’t much more he’d be able to take.

  Jumping down the other side of the barricade, Blue was staggered as purple laser blasts peppered the ground. Hot sparks shot towards his face, singed the hair at his temple.

  Rather than avoid the shooter, Blue went straight for him.

  The Hybrid was startled, but took aim and fired, emptying his ammunition canister as his target dodged.

  A fiery laser round hit Blue low on the thigh.

  Swerving dangerously, he roared in pain. Blue’s eyes watered, and without his opticals, the entire world blurred into a dark smudge. Uneasy and lightheaded, his grip on the handles loosened then tightened in defiance. Blue breathed through his mouth in ragged gasps. He sped up. The slap of the increased wind blew the moisture from his eyes and dragged him from the brink of passing out. The wound burned like acid, and he could smell his own flesh sizzle. The heated pain radiated through his leg and into his foot.

  He gritted his teeth and jumped into a crouch on the leather seat. Laser rounds whizzed past his head like a flurry of angry fireflies. Seriously pissed off – beyond his own comprehension – Blue twisted his torso and kicked out. His entire leg throbbed when his booted feet hit the Hybrid’s chest, and sent him hurtling into a wall.

  The grim smile of victory Blue shot over his shoulder died when he focused on the obstacle on the street ahead.

  He cursed viciously.

  Another Hybrid blocked his path. Host spilled out behind him and flooded the street.

  Blue fortified himself just in time; a strike of telekinetic force slammed into his torso and crushed the breath from his lungs. The blow had been delivered with the intent to kill.

  On reflex, Blue broke hard, and returned the blow magnified. Holding nothing back, the force he released was enough to punch a hole through concrete.

  The Hybrid’s head caved, crumpling until the features mashed together and were unrecognizable. His legs tottered on the spot like a puppet before folding, sending the remains of his head spattering across the road in a bloody mush.

  The Host surged forward with a dull and senseless moaning.

  Tires squealed and spun a cloud of white smoke as Blue burned-out. The antique bike slid dangerously across the road. Traction was nonexistent. His body lurched forward. The momentum and braking force lifted the rear tyre and tossed Blue over the handlebars. He let go rather than be mashed into the ground with the somersaulting bike.

  The Host scattered.

  Airborne, stalked by tumbling metal, Blue felt Lara nudge. Bad timing. With nanoseconds to decide, Blue closed his eyes, gathered his power, and braced.

  25.

  Valiant and Zeke stayed low. They peeked around the building to the glowing spaceship. Creighton stood in the shadows nervously with the FetchMes pacing around him, their sides still heaving from the mad dash away from the Crimzon.

  “How you want to play this?” Zeke asked.

  “This is the best attack position I see,” Valiant replied, checking the charge on his weapon. “We go in hard and fast.” He scanned the outlay of the buildings again. “Creighton and the FetchMes from the right, you hit them from the left, and I’ll plough straight through the middle. Watch the blowback on your rifle, I’ve seen you choking on that shit when you should be focusing on firing.”

  “Copy that. And the woman?”

  “Keep Push out of it. Wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I got a female killed. The concealment here will keep her safe… oi!”

  Push strolled from their hiding place and walked up to the spaceship. The constant nattering between the men was giving her a headache. “I want that,” she told the Host as she pointed to the spaceship. “Leave.”

  The Host ambled away silently.

  Gawping, Valiant and Zeke left their hiding place.

  Push walked up to the spaceship and stared at it. She moved to the left and placed her hand on the crystal. The outline of a control panel appeared. She drummed her fingers over it and a doorway appeared, a ramp sliding down next to her.

  “Easy,” Zeke cheered.

  Valiant scowled. “Don’t jinx–”

  He raised his weapon at the Hybrids that rounded the spaceship. They took in the scene and turned to look at Push who now sat on the ramp, silently watching them all, unsurprised.

  “Sister-Sigma,” they questioned, confused.

  Push looked at Valiant and Zeke. “Is there a reason you are not shooting them?”

  There was a deafening explosion and an earth-shattering boom as something collided with one of the buildings behind them.

  The Hybrids realised something suspicious was happening and wove force fields around themselves.

  Gliding off the ramp to meet their attack, Push sighed. “MainLanders.”

  26.

  Kali blinked. Smoke burned her lungs and clogged her nose. She coughed up speckles of ash, her whole body shaking from the force of it.

  Small fires kindled close by, spitting and popping violently. Rubble burned. The regularly immaculate boulevard was in ruins. The scene warped gruesomely, automatic emergency lights flaring brightly. Beeping robots appeared and bumbled about trying to clear the chaos.

  Kali closed her eyes to keep from being sick.

  Belted into her seat, she was scrunched, and her neck was bent at a spectacular angle. Fate must have been on her side to forgo the extra degrees that would have snapped it. Blood dribbled across her forehead and dripped off the end of her nose. A gash on her upper arm bled freely. Her knees were jammed into her stomach, and one of her arms was trapped behind her back. The other was wrenched to the side, a heavy body crushing it to the floor. She curled her fingers, and was happy to find they responded. Kali shrugged her shoulders, flexed her hips, and tipped her feet back and forth. She tested the various parts of her body and was gratified nothing was broken. Her position was uncomfortable, and she didn’t want to bend that way.

  She grunted and shifted.

  Remembering she was strapped to the chair, she undid the harness anchoring her in. Her butt was dislodged from the seat, and she twisted to avoid from folding over double.

  She wiggled her arm out from under Kenshin and put her fingers to his throat. His pulse was strong, and he was already coming to. Almond shaped eyes blinked open to regard her hazily. He grinned dopily and his pupils did crazy things. One was dilated, and the other contracted to a pinprick.

  The FloVe was upside-down and tilted at an angle. The side touching the ground had been thoroughly torn and smashed, as if it had taken the brunt of the impact then been whittled as it grazed along the road.

  How her brain was not splattered all over the sidewalk was a mystery, and Kali suspected it had something to do with one of the Hybrids. She shimmied out of the craft and stood, leaning on the fibreglass frame heavily.

  Pieces of the FloVe littered the street, as did glinting glass fragments and chunks of
concrete from one of the buildings they’d apparently clipped whilst going down.

  The robots dutifully put out the fires with bursts of foam, swept, and picked up bits of rubble. Kali knew they weren’t designed for such destruction. Not that you could tell the robots that. They would keep cleaning until there was nothing left, even if that meant they cleaned until the end of the world. She grimaced when a red hydrant model with blinking blue lights caught fire and spun circles as its circuitry melted.

  Hoots of joy louder than the beeps broke her pointless thoughts. Zeke and Valiant ran towards them, heavily armed, and grinning madly in victory. Zeke stopped when he reached Kali. Valiant continued until he came to a stop over the bodies thrown twenty feet from the wreckage.

  Igor was flat on his back, his arms out by his sides where they had fallen from holding Christabella to his chest. She was unconscious and sprawled over him.

  Valiant knelt and checked their pulses. He let out a sigh of relief and held a thumb up.

  Slapping Igor on the cheek, he got no response, but Christabella came around slowly, letting the S.O. set her onto her feet.

  “You’re a little bit gorgeous,” Valiant drawled.

  “I’m not interested.”

  “But–”

  “No.” Christabella straightened her clothes.

  Valiant scowled at her. “You don’t even–”

  “It’s still no.”

  “Had a better offer?”

  Christabella sized up Valiant in a glance, tossing her hair over her shoulder. He was her type. Charming, muscled, stubble-chinned, and solar-hot, and she’d have been all over it before the planet had been invaded.

  “Would you have protected my body with your own in the crash?” she asked.

  “No … wait a minute.” He narrowed his eyes. “This is a trick question.”

  She knelt to dab at a cut on Igor’s brow. “He hasn’t said anything, but I’m learning to him actions speak louder than words. He took the brunt of the fall so I wouldn’t be hurt.” She made a moue at the road rash swelling his cheek. “His poor face.”

  Valiant studied the Hybrid’s colossal size and conceded defeat. “I swear by the Cosmic Virgin I’ll never touch you again.”

  “You have faith?”

  “I do if it keeps that alien from finding out I hit on you.”

  Amused by the exchange, Kali’s smile died when she remembered Madeleine was on the FloVe with them.

  She ducked her head to look into the vehicle, but couldn’t see past the seats. “Max? Maddie?”

  “Over here,” Max rasped.

  Kali walked around the wreck, trusting Zeke to help Kenshin out safely.

  A bloodied Max held a squirming Maddie over his shoulder. The child was flustered, had a nasty lump on her forehead, but was otherwise unscathed.

  Lara ignored Max’s attempt to assist her. “You smell nasty.” Her hair was crazy, her clothes torn, and she was covered in bruises. Those cold eyes were focused though. “We’re all accounted for?” she asked the moment she cleared the twisted wreckage.

  “Yes. Igor is out of it, and Kenshin got knocked on the head, but otherwise we’re cosmic.” Kali exhaled to keep herself calm so that her next question wouldn’t come out accusing. “What happened? One minute I’m talking to Blue, and the next I’m waking up with two tons of FloVe on my head.”

  “He knocked you out before we all had to suffer the clichéd dramatics of an unreasonable female. We were pursued by Hybrid, and Christabella managed to blow their bosons, but Max lost focus and ploughed us into the street.” She gave him a disgusted look. “Thanks for that.”

  “You try riding out an explosion in an enclosed space on a weighed down hovercraft,” he spat. “If I hadn’t crashed right we’d be dead.”

  “Wrong. If I hadn’t wrapped the FloVe in a cushion of telekinetic energy we’d all be dead.” Lara scanned the ruin and spotted one of her rifles. She picked it up, rubbed it down, and checked the charge. It was half empty. “It’s time to get moving. We’re almost home free. Zeke, Creighton and Push are with you?”

  “Affirmative. Worn emotionally but in tact. The FetchMes arrived unharmed too. We encountered unfriendlies guarding the ship, but Push handled it.” He scowled, snapped a crick in his neck. “Handled it so well there was nothing left for the rest of us,” he grumbled.

  Lara tucked the rifle under her arm and winced when she stretched the skin around a laceration on her shoulder. She’d do a patch job with a SkinAid when she had a moment to spare. She’d live. “The spaceship is good to go?”

  “Switch the boat on and we’re gone. Where’s Blue?”

  She closed her eyes briefly, and her face darkened before she masked it with cold indifference. “The Omicron is busy. We have orders to haul ass.”

  Zeke nodded and jogged over to Valiant to help him carry Igor.

  Max glared at Christabella when she slinked over. The pulse rifle she used to take down the enemy Hybrid was tucked into the crook of her arm. She brandished it with a flourish and cocked her hip. “I did good.”

  “Stellar.” Lara nodded towards the weapon. “Keep shooting like that and it’s all yours. I’ll make adjustments for you once we get clear of this.”

  “Where did you learn to shoot like that?” Max demanded. “At the range you couldn’t hit a thing three feet from you.”

  Christabella wrinkled her nose. “Um, it was a date,” she replied as if it was obvious. “I wanted you to get close. I might not be a genius, but I’m not totally clueless. Stars, who can’t shoot nowadays?”

  Kali thought back to the shooting range, when Blue had looked away and said he didn’t know how to shoot.

  Lara sauntered past. Her gaze trawled over Max in disgust. “I can think of someone.”

  *

  Panic took hold of Kali. Standing on the ramp of the spaceship, they prepared to leave without Blue.

  Igor remained unconscious as Zeke and Valiant carried him onboard. They set him down inside, and he sprawled out on the floor.

  “He’s built like a fuxing tank,” Valiant wheezed.

  Zeke snorted the affirmative as he worked out a kink in his lower back.

  They all did their bit whilst she stood on the lowest part of the ramp, torn with indecision. She was too afraid to take the steps that would put her directly in harms way. She liked Blue, and there were times when emotion overflowed within her when she looked at him, but did she want to die for him?

  As if some external force took over her body, she was moving away from the group, and stepping off the ramp.

  Kali had taken a handful of tentative steps into the street when Christabella gave her away.

  “What’s Kali doing?” she asked innocently. “Isn’t it dangerous out there with the red smoke headed this way?”

  Creighton wheezed. On hands and knees, he crawled towards the ramp. He’d taken a beating when they’d secured the spaceship. “Princess?”

  Kali’s heart thumped. Her body swayed in fear, and determination from that unknown source set her feet. Unable to watch and await her possible death, she closed her eyes. Slender fingers curled in empty air, seeking even though she could see he was not there.

  “He’ll make it.” The words fell from her lips though she never thought about saying them. Feeling as disorientated as she was, in the complete darkness she was even more frightened, so her lashes fluttered open.

  “Kali,” Max bellowed. He tried to set Madeleine down and staggered when she held him tighter. He couldn’t take her back out there into danger. “Howl, go get her.”

  Instead of obeying the instruction, the wolf sat and watched Kali with curious eyes.

  Max gaped at the FetchMe in disbelief before turning to his own. “Baby, drag Kali onto the ship.”

  The tiger got up to do as commanded, but Howl’s ears swivelled. The ruff on the back of his neck stood on end, and his claws sprung out. He spun on the female Bengal, growling menacingly, a warning rumble that vibrated in his throat as he
advanced. Baby hissed. Her whiskers quivered as she and the wolf circled each other.

  “Loklear,” Lara barked. “Return to this spaceship immediately.”

  “No,” she mumbled.

  “Useless Human female.” Lara bared her teeth. “I am not coming after you.”

  Kali wanted to turn and walk the ramp to safety, but her body wouldn’t let her. She held her breath. “He will make it. One more minute.” Again, the words came from her mouth, but she wasn’t saying them. Kali bowed her head, ready to accept the inevitable. “Go,” she choked over her shoulder.

  Valiant and Zeke finished their third round of rock, paper, scissors, wormhole, asteroid.

  Zeke lost.

  He adjusted his collar, throat suddenly tight. “I’ll get her.”

  “No,” Lara said, blocking the exit. “Nobody else leaves this ship.”

  Squeezing her eyes shut, Kali shuffled forward. There was something inside of her that would not leave him. If Blue was trapped, alone, she would find him regardless of what the mist would do to her.

  The lights from the spaceship flashed in a spectrum of vivid colours and bounced off the skyscraper walls. The relentless tinkling of the Novae alarm, a clamour of noise that was driving her insane, drowned all other sound.

  Kali paused numerous times, trying to cave into the urge to run to safety. She would have, but a deep push inside her mind forced her to go on. It said, “keep looking,” and, “don’t you dare leave him.” Which was insane, because though Blue was words away from being her boyfriend, things had been strained between them since the Novae had let her go and they discovered her molecular structure was unstable. That would put a strain on the strongest of relationships let alone one in its earliest incarnation.

  She rounded a corner, pressed into the wall, arms waving in front of her. The light flashed off, plunging the street into pitch black.

  A rough hand closed around hers.

  Blue’s irises, a bloody red, blazed unnaturally bright as the light flashed on, highlighting the chiselled curve of his face. His split lip bled sluggishly, and his expression was alarmed. His brow lowered in confusion when recognition of who stood before him, whose reaching hand he’d clasped midstride, clicked.