by Amanda Cyr
Just as I ejected the empty cartridge, a fist landed across the side of my face. Pain shot through my teeth and far up into my head. The gun was knocked from my hand and lost somewhere in the red snow. I staggered, caught myself on a fallen dockworker, and shrugged the rifle off my shoulder to fire.
A mill worker beat me to the Grey Man, running him through the middle with a pitchfork. A second mill worker, armed with a bat, knocked the Grey Man across the head. Bones snapped, and the Grey Men fell to the ground.
As the bat-wielding worker gave a rooting holler, another Grey Man charged up behind him. I raised the rifle, and shot the giant between his eyes. “Thanks, bro! Two down!” cheered the young man, flashing me a thumbs up before chasing after his partner with the pitchfork. Two down, I thought as I got to my feet. Two down and two-hundred and ninety-eight to go.
“Nik!”
A set of arms latched onto me from behind. I couldn’t see who it was, but the embrace was all too familiar. No time to return the display of affection just yet. “Hi, honey,” I said, doing my best to sound nonchalant, even with the rifle raised and firing into the sea of Grey Men around us.
“Honey?” Val scoffed. His arms fell, and I heard him reload a gun behind me. A moment later, he was shooting at the Grey Men approaching from his side. “We’re doing pet names now?”
The banter kept me from getting caught up in the chaos around us, and yet, somehow it didn’t manage to throw off my aim, so I worked to keep it up. “What you don’t like it?”
“Sounds a bit girly.”
“Eh, well, you’d beat up anyone who made fun of you for it. By the way, Fritzi says we’re cute.”
“We kind of are.”
“Yeah. Back-to-back shooting Grey Men in the head. Super cute.”
Val chuckled behind me, and I couldn’t stop myself from smiling at the sound. It was all a bit ridiculous, but I didn’t care. I could have kept it up for hours, until every last Grey Man fell dead in the snow. I would have, too, if I hadn’t heard him suddenly swear. Val fell heavy against my back. I planted my feet in the snow to keep us from going down and tried my best to stay focused on the fight, even as I feared the worst.
“Where?” I asked.
“It’s not bad,” Val insisted. He shifted against me like he was trying to get up, wincing and cursing only to slump most of his weight against me. I had to give him credit for managing to keep shooting, but I couldn’t resist the urge to look over my shoulder.
Before I could see what happened, the sound of chopping helicopter blades pulled my attention skyward. We both looked up in time to see a large, white helicopter hover low overhead. It lingered ten yards away to drop something before taking off again. A scream echoed over the icy battlefield.
“GET BACK!”
It was Gemma’s voice. Everyone ran past us in frenzy, even the Grey Men, and as the crowd thinned, I saw a dozen black orbs the helicopter had scattered around one of the black circles in the snow. I hadn’t put it together when Tibbs charged at us out of nowhere and tackled both me and Val to the ground, my ribs aching under his weight. An earth-shaking explosion ripped through the night air. I stared up through the thick clouds of my own breath and watched as the sky was eclipsed by snow, debris, and bodies.
The ground shook again as a pillar fell. I climbed out from underneath Tibbs, cursing the stabbing pain in my ribs as I stumbled to my feet. Warmth seeped along the left side of my face, and I ran a hand carefully through the blood leaking from my ear. My vision rocked in and out of focus as I stared at the enormous hole in the earth.
Tibbs was on his feet again, but he looked terrible—one eye swollen shut and blood oozing from a broken nose. He held his right arm with his left, which looked like it had been stepped on by four Grey Men at once.
Injuries proved to be the least of our troubles. Cracks formed around the crater in the ground, and soon everything would fall again. Only this time, instead of watching it fall, I risked being caught in it. Though I couldn’t hear him, I made out the words Tibbs mouthed, “Oy! Gotta get away from here!”
I nodded and helped Val up, doing my best not to fall over in the process. He looked just as disoriented, and I immediately noticed him favoring his right side. As I’d expected, he’d taken a bullet. Nasty looking shot right above his hipbone with no exit wound in sight, indicating he’d suffered serious internal damage.
Now wasn’t the time to dote on him, not with the ground ready to fall out from underneath us. I snatched him up in my arms and fled for safety. The battle had already resumed, but my focus wasn’t on the hundreds of Grey Men anymore; it was on the helicopter circling back around.
“Nik?”
My hearing must’ve been returning, because I could faintly make out Val trying to get my attention. He saw my eyes follow the helicopter and figured out the rest for himself, urging me to put him down. I let him go once we were far enough away from the crater that we wouldn’t get sucked in.
Val kept one hand pressed over the hole in his side and wrenched the pistol out from under my belt with the other. He provided cover fire while I shrugged the rifle off my shoulder and scanned the skies for the helicopter. I followed the shadow it cast on the snow, looking along its path to figure out which black circle it was heading for.
“Think you can make it?” Val asked.
I nodded, refusing to take my eyes off the helicopter. I knew I could make it. I had to. There were only three pillars left. If one more came down, the entire city beneath us would be crushed. I took a deep breath and raised the rifle. The world went silent. I trained my aim on the shadowy outline of a pilot through the cockpit window and pulled the trigger.
The bullet left the barrel, and I could almost see it jet through the air and strike the metal panel above the cockpit, a mere four inches shy of where I’d aimed. Four damn inches too many. I fired again, my aim even worse.
“Nik, come on,” Val urged.
I gnawed at the inside of my mouth, blood pooling in my cheek. The pain distracted me from everything else, but as soon as I tried to focus on the pilot, my mind flooded with thoughts of what would happen if I didn’t make the shot. All those people still down in the city. Screaming. All those lives that would be snuffed out. Everything I’d sacrificed would have been for nothing.
My finger closed around the trigger a third time. The cockpit window shattered, a splash of red splattering the glass. The helicopter swayed off course, and Val and Tibbs cheered behind me as it crashed just a few yards from the black circle marking another Oxford pillar.
The helicopter was down. The Grey Men looked dumbfounded, blank stupors on their faces. The armed people of Seattle took advantage of their dazes and charged at them with everything they had. It was a slaughter, and we were winning.
I laughed and dropped the rifle. My hands were anything but steady, my nerves and relief getting the better of me. Val seized them with his own as he cheered and laughed at our impending victory. Tibbs threw his good arm around me, and a moment later Fritzi, rushed up to throw her arms around my neck, sobbing into my shoulder and calling me all sorts of horrible names in German for cutting it so close.
Then I saw him. Over Fritzi’s shoulder, the pilot, a limping Grey Man, staggered from the helicopter with an armful of circular, black bombs.
“No.” I barely breathed.
The others looked confused, but I shoved them all out of the way the second it connected in my head. I dove into the snow for the discarded rifle. By the time I raised it, I was already too late. The Grey Man dropped the armful of bombs as he collapsed on the line of the black ring. They detonated on impact.
The ground opened with a roar, and the world fell in on the city below. Someone pulled me, leading me away from the splintering snow, but I didn’t want to go. I wanted to dive into the pit and find the Grey Man with the armful of bombs. I wanted to force the rifle in his mouth and spend the rest of my life filling him with lead.
At the top of the hill near the docks,
we stopped and looked back. Ghostly skyscrapers collapsed through the ground, the cracks spreading further and further into the city and eating everything in its wake. Everything I’d done was for nothing. Seattle was gone. We’d come so close. So very, very close, just so one, oversized devil could destroy it all. Seattle was gone, and it was all thanks to one, sorry Grey Man.
Something in the back of my mind snapped. I ran my free hand over my face. My fingernails dragged across my cheek and dug deep into my grinding jaw. Behind me, people screamed, cursing God, and sobbing for loved ones they’d left in the city below. They all sounded foreign.
“Nik.”
There was a hand on my shoulder I didn’t want there. I shoved it away and dropped to sit on my heels. The battle between the Grey Men and the people of Seattle raged on around me. Everywhere, people fought for a home that didn’t exist anymore. I bit down hard on my knuckles, a growl working out around my fist. I’d failed. I’d failed everyone.
“Nik,” Val repeated, more firmly this time. He stepped in front of me and dropped to my level. I shut my eyes so I wouldn’t have to look at him. I’d failed him.
“Nik, look at me.”
I couldn’t.
“Nik, this isn’t your fault. You did everything you could.”
“And it wasn’t enough,” I mumbled over my knuckles.
“Look at me, God damn it!” Val snapped as he seized me by the shoulders. My eyes opened. They stung, my lungs burned, and my entire body felt ready to cave in on itself. Val was there, though; despite everything, Val was there.
“I’m here. I’m right here, and we’re okay,” he said, staring me in the eyes. I couldn’t look away. His voice was harsh but soothing. His hands shaky but his grip firm. I failed him, but he didn’t push me away.
“We’re okay,” Val repeated. He leaned forward and pressed his forehead against mine.
The frozen skin lingered just long enough to coax a sigh from my lips. And then it was gone. I was so wrapped up in Val’s compassion, compassion I knew I didn’t deserve, that I didn’t even notice the Grey Man coming up behind him. He hauled Val to his feet, one arm around his throat. I saw the flash of a blade, and my heart stopped.
Val’s hands flew up to catch the knife inches from his chest. It carved deep into his fingers and forced an awful cry from his lips. Val wouldn’t be able to hold him off. I snatched the pistol he’d dropped, stood, raised the gun, and pulled the trigger.
“Wait! Nik wait a—”
Click.
Instead of a bang, there was a sickening click. I had a clean shot of the Grey Man, and the gun was empty. My hand dove into my jacket for ammunition half a second before the Grey Man slashed the knife out of Val’s bloody fingers and stabbed it deep into his chest. Innate autopilot was the only reason the clip made it into the gun and the bullets into the Grey Man’s skull. He dragged the knife out as he fell, but it was already too late.
The way Val’s body collapsed was different from the countless others I’d watched. It felt slow, agonizing. I could see his gray eyes dilate. His chapped, bleeding lips hung open as they were robbed of their final words, and over the din around us, I heard the last raspy breath leave his lungs. Veins in his pale, blood-soaked hands bulged in the most beautiful shades of blue and purple I’d ever seen. I reached to seize the hands extended toward me. He fell forward into my arms, and everything within me shattered under the weight of his limp body.
“Val! Val, no! Christ, please… No, no, NO!” I yelled, clinging tight to him as I dropped to my knees. I leaned him away just enough to press a hand over the hole in his chest. His head fell forward ‘til his chin hit his chest and lolled to one side. I hid my face in his hair, begging him to wake up. I kissed the top of his head over and over again. Tears welled in my eyes, and for the first time in years, I sobbed.
I didn’t notice the way our friends fell around us, or the black figures closing in. Suddenly, a sharp needle jabbed deep into my neck. The pain began to fade.
My vision teetered out of focus, but I was determined to hold onto Val, even as I fell over and figures in S.O.R. uniforms towered overhead. They were going to take him away from me. I gave a defiant shout as they tugged us apart; it was all I could do with my body going numb so fast. Somehow, I managed to throw my hand out. I’d hoped to grab Val, but one of the S.O.R. operatives snatched my wrist and jabbed a second tranquilizer into it.
Russell Medical Ward, Eisenhower Building—Washington, D.C.
Thursday, November 26th, 2076—3:00 a.m.
he red numbers on the clock flipped as another minute passed, and I wondered if this one would be my last. Any minute now, a group of Grey Men would burst into my room. They’d rip me from the hospital bed and drag me into the basement, perhaps taking time to parade me in front of other dogs. By now, Aiden had relinquished my power of attorney, and there was nothing left in this world to keep me from the electrocution chamber. If I was lucky, which lately I didn’t seem to be, they’d do it fast before the effects of my earlier shock wore off. The muscles in my arms and my lower back twitched every once in a while as the electricity worked its way out of my body.
What will they do with Val after I’m gone? Maybe they’d give me a last request before they killed me, and I could ask for him to be released. It was unlikely, though, and even more doubtful they’d release him.
Sometimes, the military got fancy with their executions. Mine would be open to all levels of officers to watch through the two-way panel of glass, like I was some kind of spectacle at the zoo. It occurred to me, though, that they might even try to make a good show of it by throwing Val in, too.
The door to my room opened, and I shut my eyes. Time was up. Only one set of feet marched up to my bed. The other Grey Men must have been waiting outside. No need to waste manpower on someone in my battered condition, I guessed.
“Lieutenant Colonel?” piped a meek voice.
I opened my eyes to see who was naïve enough to call me by my old title. A lithe girl with dark skin and long, straight hair stood by my bedside with a small box clutched to her chest. Though her face was set and her shoulders square, the nails digging into the side of her box betrayed her fear.
She didn’t wait for me to respond, explaining, “The brigadier sent me.”
Quickly I sat up, regretting the action when a jolt of pain shot through my entire body. The girl took two hasty steps back and glanced toward the door, ready to bolt. I raised my hands—well, only one, since the other was still cuffed to the bed.
“Don’t go. I’m not going to hurt you,” I assured her, unsure if it sounded comforting at all, given how on edge I was.
The stiffness in her neck barely allowed her to nod. “I’m… I’m supposed to give you this.”
I imagined she referred to the box that she clutched for dear life. My eyes locked onto it, fingers itching to rip it open. I extended my hand to take it, but the girl took another half step back.
“I know what you did.”
Her tone caught me off-guard, so accusatory from someone so terrified. I didn’t have time to indulge whatever power trip she was on. Grey Men were coming for me. I lowered my hand, took a calculated breath, and tried to reason with her. “You say Aiden sent you?”
She didn’t respond. I didn’t need her to.
“Then you don’t need to worry,” I lied. “He’s not going to let anything happen to you.”
If I hadn’t been on death row, I might have felt bad about deceiving her. Aiden would throw her under the bus in a heartbeat, but the small smile on her lips assured me she didn’t know that. One of his secretaries, I suspect. “Nishayla, right?”
Her smitten smile vanished, eyes going wide. My hunch was right.
“He told me about you. You’re as pretty as he said you were… What’s in the box?” I asked, extending my hand again.
Nishayla didn’t back away this time, nor did she come any closer. I was losing patience fast. If she didn’t come to her senses soon, I’d take
the parcel from her by force. Foolish girl was just close enough that if I lunged out of bed, I could grab her. But then she might scream, and I’d have to silence her. It seemed wrong to kill the messenger, though, especially when it was Aiden’s secretary. Lucky for her, her grip relaxed, and she held the box out toward me.
I took it without dropping her gaze, offering an earnest, “Thank you.”
She didn’t budge. I’d expected her to run as soon as her delivery was complete, but she remained. “I’m supposed to wait until you open it.”
Aiden had always been masterful when it came to training new recruits; it seemed that he had similar knack with secretaries. The poor girl clearly wanted to flee, and yet, she stayed glued to the spot. It wasn’t until I pried off the lid I understood why Aiden told her to stay.
No loose ends.
I didn’t need to read the post-it more than once. The gun and its silencer confirmed Aiden’s message. Also in the box was a small key, the sort that unlocked a set of handcuffs, and a syringe of morphine. My gut knotted and throat closed. I was being given the chance to save myself, an opportunity that put both me and Aiden at risk, so long as loose ends like Nishayla ceased to exist.
“Thank you, Nishayla. You can go,” I said, forcing a grateful smiling. “Give Aiden my thanks.”
I felt bad for her, for shooting an innocent in the back of the head as soon as she turned away, but there was no other option. Aiden sealed her fate the second he sent her on this errand. If I didn’t kill her, he would. No matter how fond of her he might’ve been, dogs were notorious when it came to not trusting others. Even if I chose to refuse his gift, and she returned to him with it in-hand, I knew he’d still kill her. We both understood the danger of allowing someone like Nishayla, an outsider who knew too much, to live a second longer than necessary. The least I could do was give her a quick death and spare Aiden the possible anguish of killing her himself.
