World Divided: Book Two of the Secret World Chronicle-ARC

by Mercedes Lackey; Steve Libby; Cody Martin

  “Oh…I don’t know about that…I don’t think it works like that. She’s out! I might have, before—”

  “Well, then why didn’t you?” Scope demanded, furiously.

  Harmony put her back against the machine, shrinking away from Scope’s rage. “What do you want from me? I’m not like you! I’m not…I’m not cut out for this! I got scared, all right? I panicked! I’m still panicking! I’m all sorts of panic right now! Call me Panic Girl! Call me—”

  Scope leaned forward and slapped Harmony. Hard.

  “Ow! What the hell are you…?”

  “Stop it, Harm. Take a breath. Remember how you were at the beginning? Remember why Bull gave you your callsign?”

  “Be-because I was…I was kinda…excitable.”

  “You were batshit psycho, yeah. But we helped you, didn’t we?”

  “Yes,” Harmony said in a whisper.

  “You learned to bring it down, to ease it out, to breathe. Harm, breathe.”

  Harmony took a breath.

  “Now exhale.”

  Harmony exhaled.

  “Again.”

  Harmony took a few long breaths and then let out a long, wavering sigh. Her lips began to tremble. She looked up at Scope with terrified eyes.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she said softly.

  “Help me,” Scope replied, with a firm conviction that she wasn’t sure she actually felt. “Juice me up. We need to take these bastards down and get back to Bull.”

  Harmony raised her hand and tentatively laid it upon Scope’s shoulder. She gripped hard, then stopped, her eyes going wide.

  “But what if Bella was right?” she asked, her voice shaking. “What if this messes you up for good?”

  Scope didn’t answer. It was possible. Her eyes were on fire. She could feel the light hitting her retinas like daggers. Bella wasn’t kidding—her eyes were dying. She gritted her teeth, and made her choice.

  “Do it.”

  ***

  If there was one thing Bulwark was really good at, it was waiting. Hundreds of stakeouts, countless patrols, shifts on guard duty and an overly stalwart sense of responsibility lent itself well to patience. But this time, even he had to admit he was feeling a bit…itchy.

  He knelt motionless between the still rows of the old armor, his head back, his eyes steady on the highest point of a dislodged power suit, upturned by the battle, its sword angled up and locked in place. He glanced up once, as his flare died away. In the distance, he heard the Hunters descend again and again on the ladies. He heard their shots ring out, he heard the groan of metal shifting on metal, but nothing else. The shots continued. The women, at least one of them, must still be up.

  The noise from Djinni’s quarter had subsided. Red had somehow defeated his foe, or had been taken down himself. Either way, Bull kept a sharp ear trained in that direction. It wouldn’t do to be taken by surprise from behind, especially now, with so much at stake.

  That was, perhaps, why he felt a twinge of apprehension. He wouldn’t be much help to anyone without taking out his current foe. And to do that, he had to rely on Acrobat.

  Bruno was your typical Misfit. Here was someone with enormous potential, but with so many self-imposed limitations that active fieldwork was, at the time of his enlistment, completely out of the question. Still, a meta was a meta. Better to segregate them, keep tabs on them, keep them on the roster and out of trouble. They could hardly turn him away. The solution? As usual, the Misfit was sent to Bulwark.

  Let Bull make ’em or break ’em.

  Why Bull?

  It’ll keep him busy and out of our hair.

  The few higher-ups that actually valued Bulwark as a capable officer, as a remarkably successful trainer, always wondered why he took such contemptuous and unremarkable assignments with little argument. When asked, he told them, but they never understood.

  Bulwark didn’t believe in Misfits. He believed that when you gave someone a challenge, they could rise to it. He believed that in their hearts, they wanted to.

  “Rise up. They can break your bones, but only you can break your spirit.”

  He said it often; to his recruits and even, in the quiet hours of the morning, to himself. Why walk when you could run? Why run when you could fly? How will you ever know, until you test yourself?

  As Acrobat flew into view, somersaulting over the toppled armor and down past Bulwark, Bull saw the crazed smile of sheer confidence flash across Bruno’s face. Acrobat, the one-time loser and presumed lifelong member of the Misfits, had just graduated at the top of his class.

  And behind him, in deadly pursuit, the monstrous wolf followed.

  It leapt over the armor at full speed, determined not to let this silly, bouncing man escape. Bulwark watched it descend and rose quickly to his feet, his arms again wide, and willed his force field to flare up. Fast.

  Time seemed to slow down, and Bull kept his breathing steady as he locked eyes with the roaring beast. He bounced lightly on the balls of his feet, his shield bobbing merrily with him, until just before contact.

  Most of the time, Bulwark was a quiet man. Even so, his rumbling voice carried a strong undercurrent of force, as if anything above a whisper would tear down the walls around him. It was rare to hear him bark an order, rarer still to hear him shout, and to hear him scream? That was unheard of. But when he did, it was like the snap of a thunderous whip, a massive blow to the head, the crash of lightning landing at your feet. It was his authority, and it was a force of nature.

  Acrobat had landed softly behind Bulwark, had grinned as he saw the shield light up around him, and turning…

  …he fell back, in shock and awe, as he witnessed his mentor’s fury.

  Bulwark bore down, leaned into the impact, and screamed his rage and determination. The shield, flashing in strength and a burst of pure light, almost holy in its intensity, met the descending wolf. The wolf was not expecting this. Not that there was anything it could have done to stop itself, short of growing wings.

  It hit the edge of the field, and exploded backwards, impaling itself with a deafening crack upon the tip of the fallen power suit’s sword. It thrashed wildly, trying to free itself, emitting sparks and a horrible stench of burning insulation and plastics.

  Acrobat stared as the wolf shuddered once, convulsively, then froze in its final contorted position. He blinked, and a wild, uncontrollable laugh erupted from his mouth. He leapt to his feet, his arms pumping high into the air as he hooted and hollered in triumph.

  He turned to Bulwark, fully prepared to deliver a victory hug to the giant man.

  “Bull! That was amazing! You were amazing! You were…”

  He stopped. Bulwark was doubled over, his right arm bent at an angle that was horribly wrong. Bull grunted something unintelligible, and slowly dropped to the floor.

  “Bull!” Acrobat yelled, scrambling to his commander’s side. “Bull, what…?”

  “Get to the others,” Bulwark muttered, painfully turning onto his back. “They’re going to need you.”

  “Not a chance, old man. Semper fi. We don’t leave anyone behind, remember?”

  “Don’t be an idiot, boy. Arm’s broken, and that feeling in my gut’s telling me there’s probably a lot of internal damage. I think my ligaments might have snapped too. Come back for me, get to the girls.”

  “Shut up,” Acrobat replied, bending down and pulling Bull’s good arm over his neck. “I’ve seen enough slasher movies, I know what happens if I leave you behind. Krieger zombies will show up and eat you or something. Get up. Giving up’s for ordinary people. We aren’t, and we don’t got that luxury. Right?”

  “Be realistic,” Bull coughed harshly. “I can’t help in this state, all I can do is give you another target you have to protect.”

  “Rise up,” Acrobat said with a grin. “They can break your bones, but only you can break your spirit.”

  “Oh sure, throw that in my face now…”

  Bulwark grunted as he sat up a
nd, with Acrobat’s help, struggled awkwardly to his feet. In the distance, they saw the Hunters raining deadly blasts down on some target they couldn’t see for the intervening metal monsters.

  “Let’s go,” Bulwark said. “Hop to.”

  “Yes, sir,” Acrobat replied.

  ***

  The wolf was confused. It had lost sight of the red man. Well, most of him. The telltale trail of blood had stopped between the rows of armor, ending in a heap of fabric. A hastily discarded combat suit and a long, red scarf. Millions of calculations passed through its systems. Probabilities. Maps of the storage facility. Game theory.

  Scenario #1: Manifestation of metahuman ability—teleportation.

  Processing…

  Conclusion: Improbable. Spontaneous manifestation of teleportation always results in inaccurate initial jumps. If already extant, quarry’s appreciated limitations in speed and agility, while superhuman, would have necessitated earlier use of said ability in evasive efforts.

  Scenario #2: Manifestation of changeling ability—mass and size manipulation.

  Processing…

  Conclusion: Improbable. Current metahuman registry lists three metahumans with mass/density/size-altering abilities. None can exceed size limits greater than a factor of two without severe compromise to internal organs, a factor of three without fatality.

  Scenario #3: Guile.

  Processing…

  Conclusion: Probable. Quarry exhibits cunning and ingenuity, as well as agility. Shedding of garments may indicate a stratagem to confuse one’s predator.

  Transmitting data.

  Course of action: Wait. Monitor. Quarry is now uncovered and vulnerable, targeting systems adjusted accordingly.

  ***

  And from his ambush point, Red “watched” the wolf. Stripped, every cell of his skin fed him a constant stream of information from his surroundings. His fingertips, extended into hard, curved hooks, gripped the back of a power suit. He hung there, motionless, surveying the minute movements of the wolf, just feet away on the other side of the armor. His skin had cooled to the exact temperature of the armor. Infrared sensors were not going to help the wolf now.

  Red felt the crackle of electricity coursing through the mechanical predator, the echoes of tiny gears as its head swayed to and fro, the cooling of his blood on the robot’s claws…

  It wasn’t enough. He had bought himself a moment to breathe, to think, but it wasn’t enough. Even at rest, he sensed the power in the beast, the raw torque in its limbs and the snap of its jaw. All he had was somewhat mutable flesh, bone, and a meat-space brain. He needed something more. He needed a closer look.

  More. Listen. Look. Center in on the damn thing…

  It wasn’t easy, focusing on a nonliving creature around the cold barrier of a steel statue. Slowly, Red felt for the echoes, the signals, and defined the wolf. It appeared a bit beaten up and battered. A few dents and scratches here and there. Of course, it had crashed into a few power suits during the chase, and at full gallop. What happens when indestructible things collide? Something’s gotta give. And something had.

  There.

  It wasn’t the largest opening, but as far as he could sense, it was the biggest he was going to get. On the back, at the nape of the neck, the wolf was…well, he was bleeding. Bleeding energy. A chink in the armor, enough to expose something within, something vulnerable enough to shed flashes of heat and electricity. Was it enough? Was there enough of a breach to gain the advantage?

  In answer, a spark fizzled through the exposed crack and popped with a guilty burst.

  Contact.

  Red relaxed his body, took a breath, vaulted high over the power suit and crashed down onto the wolf’s back. His legs gripped the curved sides of the torso and locked on as he leaned forward and threw his arms around the wolf’s neck. He was anchored.

  The wolf went wild. Its head reared back, jaws snapping in a futile attempt to ensnare its unwanted rider, but to no avail. The armored neck simply did not have the flexibility to allow such a maneuver. In desperation it began a series of jumps and hops, but Red held fast. It paused for the briefest of moments, growling, and threw itself on its back and began to roll about. Red grunted as the sudden impact almost knocked the wind out of him. He gritted his teeth, and willed the armor to come, to grow. It was sporadic, and very ugly, but he was soon covered in layers upon layers of skin, alternating between dense and chitinous to pliable and spongy. It took the brunt of the attacks, and the wolf roared in frustration. But it didn’t stop moving. Red held on, his eyes locked on the tear in the wolf’s neck.

  Finally, the wolf gave up and came to a dead stop. It was pondering its options.

  That’s enough. Go time.

  He released his arms from the wolf’s body and reared back. His hands, held aloft to strike, spread wide as the claws erupted from his fingertips. He drove them downward, angling them sharply to drive into the wound and up the wolf’s neck and into its brain. Red gasped as he felt his claws snap apart upon entry. He had overestimated the opening. Secondary armor and the jagged tear in the hull had blocked the killing stroke.

  And now, the wolf was off again, leaping, spinning, frantically trying to buck him off. Red screamed as the bones of his fingers, now anchored in the wolf’s neck, crunched and shattered. His breathing grew quick and shallow as he forced himself to endure, to keep pressure with his legs as his trapped hands held him fast to the wolf’s back. Fighting off the vertigo, grunting through the pain, he let his broken fingers feel for cracks, for holes, for anything, any way through to the vulnerable brain. Nerve endings screamed for relief as he flexed the muscles of his arms, pulling at torn and broken ligaments in his fingers, in futile attempts to worm their way deeper through a mess of wire and torn metal and components he didn’t even have a name for. He stared in disbelief as the middle finger on his right hand flexed and bent in a shape no finger should, and popped out to dangle free, like some grotesque horror movie prop. He was in danger of losing his grip. But he had to try, he had to find an opening…

  And there, in spite of the pain, he heard himself erupt with a booming laugh as he felt the tip of a pinky finger inch its way through the armor and into the mesh of wires lining the wolf’s spine. He dug in hard, thrust up the wolf’s back and willed the pinky claw to heal, to grow and shoot up the inner tunnel of the neck.

  He felt a moment of victory. Just a moment. The razor tip of the claw found its mark and shot through the jumble of nerves tethering the CPU to the body. There was a terrific flash, a sudden squeal and hiss of release as the wolf’s brain lost function, lost its connection, and the enormous electrical potential housed in the head discharged through its body, through Red, and the combatants fell to the ground together, lifeless.

  ***

  Scope took a stance as the Hunters went to the top of their arcs. They had to keep flying like real birds, it seemed; something of a design flaw, since it meant they had a limited time for a kill-sweep on a dive before having to climb again. This would have been a piece of cake if she’d had good eyes. It would have been ridiculously easy, in fact, since the Hunters had to present the target to her before they could open fire. She had her guns trained in opposite directions, ready to make the shots.

  The Hunters opened their mouths.

  It felt as if someone was throwing sand into her eyes. All she could see through the fog and the pain were the open mouths. She couldn’t see the relatively tiny muzzle of the energy gun.

  Damn it! She dove for cover just before they opened up in her.

  Scope screamed. “No good, vision’s better, but not enough for that shot.”

  “Well, what can you hit?” Harmony shrieked.

  She couldn’t see, damn it! How could she hit something if she couldn’t see it?

  …and how could they?

  Their eyes were big, huge in proportion to their heads. Probably had several kinds of sensors packed in there. If she took those out…

  By now she cou
ld tell where the Hunters were in their attack pattern by the timing and the noise. They were climbing again.

  She threw herself out of cover, ignoring the harsh stabbing pain in her retinas, her guns blazing away at the glowing red eyes just as they turned into their dives.

  As it always did when she was doing this sort of a shot, time slowed for her. Three bullets—one eye out on the right-side Hunter. Two more—the corresponding eye on the left-side Hunter. Their heads jerked around, bringing their other eyes around to face her. One more bullet each, and the heads were dark, the Hunters were blinded. She rolled back into cover as the birds tried to pull up, the wings making screaming metallic sounds under the strain. But it was too late, far too late. Gravity is an unforgiving mistress. The birds slammed into each other in midair, then fell in a tangle of mangled metal, thrashing as they did so.

  ***

  Sounds came in on one channel. Not good sounds, and all in the distance. No telemetry or feeds on anyone.

  Vickie didn’t even have time to think of an easy way to signal she was back online. Not with several kinds of nasty bearing down on her team from the sound of it, and her boards showing only one signal in, and no signal out.

  And then, just as suddenly, before she could say or do anything, it seemed to be over. There was no sound at all.

  Red’s litle dot wasn’t moving.

  She started to type in commands, and—

  Wait. Wait. She had signal out on him. And suddenly, camera too. A stunning view of a tangle of metal that he seemed to be hugging.

  Of course she had him live. Of all of them, it would have to be him. Maybe it was the fact that he had grown skin over his mic, earpiece and camera that had protected them. She screamed into the mic. “Red! Red! Wake up, you miserable rat-bastard S.O.B.! Wake up, you’re the only one I can talk to! If you’re dead I swear to Hades I will resurrect you so I can kill you all over again! Wake up!” She unloaded all the invective she knew in the eight languages she was fluent in. The Russian was particularly choice. Russians really knew how to cuss. If only he could appreciate it.