Inalienable: Book 7 of the Starstruck saga

by S E Anderson

  “The coats!” said the out-of-breath rebel. “They’re loose! And they’re pissed!”

  “You fool! You led them right to us!”

  The door blasted open, a massive blue cape flying inside and wrapping itself around the man’s neck, squeezing his life out until his face was the same color as the fabric. Before anyone could react, a yellow overcoat and a random assortment of light beige jackets rushed in after the cape, dive-bombing the men closest to the door.

  “The Sand!” screamed Barshook. “The Sand is behind this, isn’t he?”

  Outside the door, madness flew through the hall. The coats were attacking any movement on the catwalks with impunity, choking men with their many sleeves and tossing them off the catwalk to break on the ground far below. It was hard to tell what exactly was driving the coats to kill, but they seemed to be fueled entirely by bloodlust.

  A big blue coat with innumerable arms drifted to the middle of the room and let out a bloodcurdling screech. In an instant, all the coats flocked to it, and in the next, they were rushing out of the shattered windows, hundreds if not thousands of coats rushing outside in one cloud of furious textiles.

  It had been only a few seconds, but the damage was done: the rebel’s numbers had halved. A small voice in the back of my mind rang clear. I could take them alone, couldn’t I?

  Could I seriously end the lives of a dozen or more angry rebels?

  Maybe, but not in twenty minutes.

  Oh god, was this really my thought process now?

  It was only when Barshook grabbed my arm that I realized I hadn’t moved since the coats first barged into his makeshift base of operations.

  “Fine.” Barshook nodded—actually nodded! “Give me Zander, and we’ll discuss this.”

  They let me stand. They let me walk. I strode out of the office and back onto the catwalk, making no mistake that I was in no way clear just yet. I clutched the railing with both hands and leaned over.

  The scene at my feet was of utter devastation. Two bands of rebels piled on top of the corpses of the ball guests, a colorful strata of carnage. No sign of Kork and Sekai, thank goodness.

  “Zander!” I shouted before I turned my head and smacked myself with a megaphone. “Oh, thanks.”

  “You know, I told them about our branding being off. We’re not appealing to our target demographic. Especially not with all the—” Shizel mimed shooting down below as I took the megaphone from his hands.

  “Killing?” He nodded.

  “Yeah. The other rebels, the First Pact group? Suns, I hate them. Now everyone will think we’re all about shooting when all in all we’re about blowing people up. Well, the ones who deserve to be blown up.”

  “Well, thanks, Shizel. Do you have any idea what that coat thing was about?”

  “They get territorial,” he said with a shrug. “When we’re in charge, we’ll outlaw the breading of exotic coats. They’re an abomination. Your friends must have riled them up somehow.”

  I held the megaphone up. “Hey, Zander! You up for any negotiations?”

  This was not the Zander I knew.

  He strode out from the shadows, rifle in hand, a gaudy coat replacing his once-immaculate silks. His face glowed resplendent under a layer of terrifying gore. My heart stopped for a second, and I realized it was the first time I had ever felt revulsion seeing him.

  This was the Zander Foollegg had warned me I would find. This was the Zander that struck fear in the heart of the Alliance, the one man who terrified the terrorists.

  “I agree to negotiations,” he said, his voice carrying through the now-silent hall. “So long as you agree to a ceasefire for the duration of the talks. Deal?”

  “Deal,” yelled Barshook. I handed him the megaphone. “Deal!”

  “Good,” said Zander and, in an instant, he was standing on the catwalk with us. His coat was ripped through with bullet holes, and his own blood mixed with the fibers, body matter dripping from his face.

  It’s hard to describe the feeling of disgust and relief welling up side-by-side inside my chest. My man, the scourge of the galaxy. This was how the Alliance saw him. Not in the glory of victory but an omen of death.

  How he must hate this.

  He stared Barshook in the eyes. “Then let us discuss the terms of this—wait, is this your surrender or something else?”

  “Leave your rifle at the door.”

  “Fine,” Zander acquiesced. “Only if you put yours down as well.”

  Barshook stood still, frozen. Zander shrugged, keeping his rifle as he entered the office and sat across the desk from the rebel leader in the chair I had been sitting in only mere minutes before He crossed his legs, leaning back casually.

  “I’ll start,” he said, not waiting for anyone else to speak. “We want out of here. All of us, in one piece. But you already know that.”

  “And we want the Alliance to fall.”

  Zander frowned. “That’s a tall order. You killed the president and quite a lot of the ministers.”

  “That was … unfortunate,” said Barshook. “Our predecessors were less delicate than we intended. Our intention was to take him hostage.”

  “That doesn’t matter in the eyes of those waiting outside to see if their loved ones survived this massacre. Their deaths won’t make the Alliance fall. It’s much too big for that. This is a terrorist act, not a full-blown rebellion. It’s not going to be easy to get out of this on top.”

  “Whose side are you on?”

  “Anti-Alliance, but I’ll work tooth and nail to get everyone out alive.”

  “Hey! That’s our name! Brand recognition!” said Shizel.

  “Then join us,” Barshook offered. “With you on our side, the Alliance would fall in a day.”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t do that,” he paused, but no one pushed him. “What were you, before you became a terrorist?”

  “Rebel. And I was a guard. Alliance Library. Before that, child-hire.”

  “And now you’re here, murdering the guilty and the innocent at the same time, with no attempt to differentiate between them. Deciding who lives and who dies based on what? From where I’m sitting, I can’t see much difference between you and the Alliance, and it seems like you don’t have much of a plan for after your big take-over, either. How will you manage and maintain a thousand different worlds and their subsidiaries? How far will you fall before you realize that you can’t do it like this?” Zander paused, waiting for the man to say something. Anything to redeem his name. Instead, the man bared his fangs. Boy, they were sharp. “Now, our earlier offer still stands. For you to take the president’s wife in exchange for our lives. What do you say?”

  The leader shook his head. “Never. We do not need her. Trading her for everything we have in our power is a tall order, one which we shall not take. “

  “So, you surrender?”

  “We will not surrender. We will not withdraw. The bomb stays active. You still have seventeen minutes.”

  “And your initial threat still stands?”

  “Yes.” Barshook nodded. “The presidential hall will blow, and all those who have not surrendered will die in it.”

  “And you realize the consequences of this?”

  “I do. Sixteen minutes now.”

  “Fine, then. These negotiations are over, and so is the ceasefire.” He gave the man a mischievous smile. “If you ever want to agree to our terms, then all you have to do is shout.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Defusing bombs and other tense situations

  The biggest lie that physicists have ever told is that the relativity of time only affects things that are in motion.

  I don’t know about you, but I was perfectly immobile when time stood still. I didn’t have to move when Zander flung himself onto the catwalk, Blayde appearing by his side, their weapons drawn. I didn’t have time to even attempt to move when they began to fire.

  The rebels hadn’t moved either.

  What scientists have fai
led to study, too, is when time has stopped for long enough that it has to snap back into place, moving extra fast to make up for having forgotten to move forward at all. In an instant, the world was in motion once more. Zander and Blade were gone, and I was alone in the abandoned office, my jaw practically to the floor.

  First things first, pick that jaw back up, Sally Webber. You need it to keep the screaming inside.

  Second step, take all those feelings, every confusing reaction, every panicked curse, and shove them deep, deep inside. Calculate and react, no matter how much screaming you want to do. I promised myself I could scream later.

  Third step, do something. Because I was still in this office, and time was ticking down to the explosion that would end us all.

  I pelted out onto the sentry walk, leaping at the first guard I saw, knocking him out with a well-practiced punch—my only move, but a damn good one—grabbing his gun and dropping the heel of my dress shoe for a much better replacement.

  Now finally armed, I ran, best as one can with broken sky-high heels, down the catwalk, glad not to encounter any security since they were caught up with Blayde and Zander somewhere on the other side of the building judging from the ruckus.

  I reached the small hostage room in less than a minute, taking a shot to the elbow in exchange for giving a badass kick to the face. He screamed as I apologized.

  I threw open the door to a sea of red.

  “Shit, wrong hostages,” I stammered, before accidentally unleashing the first wave of rebels back into the fray. Don’t blame me. It’s not like I had much time to memorize my surroundings here. They slammed into me, knocking me down as they rushed out onto the catwalk, screaming war cries. I didn’t have time to get trampled. I rolled off to the side, only to roll entirely off the catwalk itself.

  Luckily the ground was a long way off. I felt myself fall—once my greatest fear, now a mild inconvenience—and jumped back to a safer place just before hitting the ground, the coolest moment of my life so far.

  Don’t think about the massacre; don’t think about the massacre.

  The men in red spandex suits were now fighting the remaining guards, which at least was an adequate distraction, leaving me able to move around almost entirely freely. If it wasn’t for the flying plasma beams, I wouldn’t have been able to stroll around avoiding the conflict entirely.

  The next door I found just happened to be the right one, so kudos for me this time. I barged into the room of hostages and felt a wave of relief wash over me when I saw they were unharmed.

  “Alive!” The amoeba became a puddle once more. I sure hoped she was quick about becoming solid this time.

  “This is part of the trap, right?” asked the human woman, flinging herself away from the cat person. “The Alliance is seriously testing our faith in the president!”

  “Shut the void up, Karen!” screamed the cat.

  “Are you kidding me?” I stammered, slinging my weapon over my back. “I’m going to get you out of here alive, but if you don’t come with me, you have a very high chance of dying, okay? Now, hands, quickly! And don’t look so angry. If the wind changes, your face will stay that way forever.”

  The cat and the human grabbed onto each other in an instant, though it seemed they had been rather entangled a moment before. A lump rose from the puddle of goo and wrapped itself around my leg.

  Right.

  I grabbed as much goo as I could carry, casting a glance over the edge of the catwalk and jumping them to the ground. The rebels were too busy dealing with the siblings and each other to keep an eye on us, and we ran—or, in the case of the amoeba, squelched—toward the young woman in the shadows who waved at us.

  “This way!” she called. “Coat check!”

  “Go, go over there!” I ordered, as Sekai barged into the hall, waving her arms wider and more excitedly than her human counterpart. I could only hope Kork had made it there too.

  “What about you?” the cat person asked, her furry paw still clutched in mine.

  “I have stuff I need to do. No, don’t worry about me! Just go!”

  I ran down an avenue of columns, relieved to see more people were alive and trying their best to remain hidden in the shadows. Some of the people I had thought were dead on the dance floor were pushing themselves up on shaky feet and rushing for the coat check, either living-dead or formerly playing dead. A wave of water trickled out of a giant hamster ball that rushed toward the stairs, letting out little moans of disgust.

  “They’re too busy to shoot down here!” I told everyone I encountered, as I tripped over the bodies of the already deceased. “Just run! You’re getting out of here!”

  Maybe Sekai and Kork had found a way out; there was no way to be sure. All I knew was that this building was going to blow in who knew how many minutes, and Zander and Blayde were too busy fighting the onslaught of rebels to find and defuse a bomb.

  Did I know how to diffuse a bomb?

  Hell no.

  I took a breath and jumped back to the catwalk. How could the fighting still be going on with so many already dead? There couldn’t possibly still be rebels up here, but they were fighting tooth and nail.

  “Oh, come on, be reasonable!” shouted Zander over the fray. “You’ve lost. Just give up already!”

  Obviously, they took no heed of his advice. Most continued to try to shoot at the siblings from various vantage points around them, but it proved as unsuccessful as trying to ask the chicken why he actually crossed the road. The men in the red spandex suits—the First Pact?—seemed to think the siblings were on their side since they were so obviously fighting the other rebels in black, so there was a lot of cheering despite the confusing mess.

  The bomb, the bomb, where was the bomb?

  I turned around and ran back toward the office, not having a clear line of sight to jump there directly. I did eventually get there, leaning back against the wall as I listened for the sound of anyone inside. The din of gunshots made it impossible to hear anything, so I just had to go for it, gathering my courage and holding my rifle up and steady.

  The office was empty, luckily for me. I breathed a sigh of relief. Even Barshook had run off, probably to hide away from any actual fighting. He seemed the type to run; he had the flying boots.

  Damn, I wanted flying boots. Why didn’t I steal a pair from the catwalk?

  Not the time, Sally. There’s a bomb somewhere here.

  Near the wall, a lunch box-sized gadget lay on its side, cables running from it into the wall. I picked it up, certain it had some importance. I was not wrong. Each of the cable inputs were marked, each with the name of a door.

  The detonator.

  Wow, that was easy.

  I looked from left to right, making sure I wasn’t missing anything. Nope, this was the only detonator-looking thingy anywhere in the room. On the top, a big, flashy countdown was on 1:56.

  Now to defuse a bomb. I pulled my phone from my bra. A minute and a half to go.

  “Come on, come on,” I begged my phone. Screw the data costs; I needed access to the internet, and I needed it now.

  It wasn’t connected.

  “Siri!” I begged. “How do I diffuse a bomb?”

  “I’m sorry,” said my phone. “I do not speak panicked screaming. Do you need me to call emergency services?”

  I grabbed the megaphone off the desk, checking the settings and boosting the megaphone to maximum power. I could probably distract them with some horrible, off-key signing, but what use would that be?

  “Does anyone know how to diffuse a bomb?” I shouted. “We only have a minute!”

  “Turn that thing off, please.”

  I turned. Behind me was literally the last person I expected to see.

  Myself.

  She ripped out wires with expert precision, fingers flying over the device. So much faster than my own. She was dressed comfortably in jeans and a plain, brand-free t-shirt, like she’d just come from an inoffensive event where she’d won a contest for
not standing out.

  Except she was so much more muscular than I was now. I reached up, feeling my flabby excuse for arms, wondering when my biceps would finally show. Because other than that, she looked just like me.

  “You’re … me?” I stammered.

  “Shush, I’m working here,” she replied.

  Nothing exploded. Not that I had expected anything to. It was just nice that I wasn’t responsible for the entire building blowing up. Either one of me. She took the detonator device and handed it to me, her hand brushing mine for a second.

  “Shit,” I swore. “Doesn’t that make this a paradox?”

  “I don’t see why it would,” the other me replied. “It’s not like the universe has rules against this.”

  “Doesn’t it? I mean it shouldn’t be possible that two of me exist in the same space and time.”

  “First of all,” she said, and I wondered at what point I was allowed to feel like I was treating myself unfairly, “we are not the same person. I’ve grown since I was you. I’ve died more times than I can count since I was you. The only thing we have in common is that I was you. Once. A long time ago.”

  I squinted. “How long ago?”

  “You’ll figure that out when you are me. A little something to look forward to.” She winked.

  “Hold on a minute,” I said, taking a massive step back. “How do I even know you’re me? Not that I’m not grateful and all, but I saw the Pachooleeans pull this same trick just last week.”

  “Oh right.” She reached up, pulling a hair from her head, letting it fall to the floor. It remained intact. “And you shouldn’t do that time-wasting thing where you ask me a dumb question and I impress you by answering with amazing swagger you haven’t gotten yet.”

  So, I asked her a question, one so private I won’t even put into writing. And she answered with a swagger I could only imagine having some day.

  “Will today ever make sense?” I asked. “Like, who are all these people? What’s going on?”

  “Oh, it’s been a while,” she said, scratching her head. “Right. So, the First Pact—the rebels in red—wanted to make a whole big statement by massacring everyone and getting away scot-free. Just create chaos and throw the Alliance in shambles, especially since the prince is missing. You will not believe who that is when they resurface, by the way. But the Anti-Alliance Alliance also had a coup scheduled for the same night, planning on taking the president hostage and forcing action. Most of them are former child-hires, so they really do have an axe to grind. They get here, see the place already in shambles, decide, ‘frash that, let’s do this anyway,’ and issued demands—but most legislators are dead, so fat chance they’ll go through. And you’re probably wondering why the biggest event of the year was so easily turned into a nightmare. Well, your bomb problem was a freebie. I have something I’d like to trade you.”