by Alex Ziebart
Kristen looked to Gabby. “Isn’t yours pointing right at Seidel? We could go together.”
Gabby swept his stone back and forth through the air. “Unfortunately not. Pointing right past it. Let’s split. And remember what Cole said: don’t get cocky.”
“I won’t.”
I probably will.
Kristen’s Temple phone alerted her to a new message. She checked it and was presented with a map, locations marked in each quadrant. Referencing her stone, she set a course and jogged off, dropping her latte in a roadside trash can after a final sip. Cole’s map directed her to a back alley dumpster. She threw open the lid and pulled herself up onto the ridge to be struck by the stench of rotting trash. Her grip on the dumpster faltered and she slipped, falling to the concrete, gagging.
“Fuck that.” She spat and clambered to her feet. Looking up and down the alley and finding no one, she tore off her wig and stripped her outer layer of clothes, leaving her in her Under Armour. Wrapping her wig and purse in her shed clothes, she dropped the pile further down the alley. Stone in hand, she followed the needle at a run.
She relished the feeling of the run. The wind felt wonderful on her skin, cool and refreshing without her extra layers. When she broke back out onto the city streets, she weaved through pedestrians even as they fell back at the sudden sight of her—a blur of a woman—and was exhilarated by the demands of agility. She leapt benches and cars with effortless ease, spinning and pivoting to avoid near-collisions like a running back escaping tackles. Citizens left in her wake screamed in equal parts terror and recognition. In one ear she heard alarm and in the other, excitement. That’s Maiden Milwaukee!
Kristen’s eyes flitted like a hummingbird in flight, trying to take in everything at once while ensuring she followed the compass needle. She changed directions twice before skidding to a stop, tapping her earpiece, finding it was too hard to simultaneously talk and run at those. “Mine is on the move. Can’t tell how fast—can’t even tell how fast I’m moving. I went east; I hit Juneau and Water, and it just swung south.”
“Keep on it!” Cole barked.
She turned south and ran down Water Street—straight down the middle of the street—and was greeted with more screams and a cacophony of honking cars. The needle swung southeast. She turned west onto State, then south on Broadway onto Kilbourn. The needle focused on the Plaza East offices, twin fourteen-story buildings of glass trimmed in red. Kristen pushed herself faster, sprinting around the block to be sure. The needle remaining on Plaza East. When she completed her circle, the scene had already changed: people flooded out of the office doors despite office security screaming for them to remain orderly. A second later, the flood boiled up the ramp from underground parking. Kristen touched her earpiece, jogging toward security. “Something’s happening on Kilbourn and Broadway. Evacuation maybe. Looks bad.”
Jane said something in her ear, but she didn’t hear it as she worked her way through the evacuees. A woman recognized her, grabbed her, but Kristen pulled away. She, in turn, grabbed the arm of a security guard in a brown uniform. “What’s happening?” she demanded. He whirled on her, a bark of orders on her lips. Kristen hushed him. “I’m Maiden Milwaukee. What’s happening and how can I help?”
The guard’s eyes widened at the realization. “Someone just announced a bomb threat over our PA and gave us five minutes to get out. Sounded like a robot, creepiest shit I’ve ever heard. We need to get these people out of here.”
Kristen turned a circle to observe the chaos. Running. Screaming. She looked at her compass stone. The needle pointed down. Straight down. Kristen turned back to the security guard. “I don’t know anything about crowd control. Frankly, I don’t know anything about bombs. But maybe I can get this person and stop it. Just…do what you do. Okay?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
She cut a straight line for the ramp down, a finger on her earpiece. “Bomb threat on Kilbourn and Broadway. Compass pointing underground. I’m on it. Cole, don’t tell me not to engage because fuck you, I’m engaging.”
“Engage like you’ve never engaged before, Maiden.”
Chatter continued on the comm—Todd and Gabby providing updates—but she paid no mind to the details, descending into the garage. Wailing horns echoed through the complex, cars lined up behind the flow of evacuees on foot. Drivers revved their engines, fists pounding their wheels in a fury, eager to escape the depths. Bright headlights blinded Kristen as she pushed through.
A driver lost his patience and slammed on the gas of his SUV. Kristen gasped, her body suddenly frozen. The scene played out in her mind faster than reality: that man and his truck mowing people down to escape and pushing through the evacuees above. She forced herself to move. In a fraction of a second, she was there. Slamming both fists down on the hood of the truck, she collapsed the metal and drove the vehicle's front end into the concrete. The driver jerked with whiplash, and the engine cut out. She whipped around to the driver's side in time to see horror wash over his young face. Kristen threw his door open and dragged him out by the collar. Tossing him away onto the concrete, her fingers cut into the metal of the truck like spears and she pulled, turning it sideways to block the lane to all but foot traffic. Rushing to the second vehicle, she extracted the driver, and did the same to the third. When she reached the fourth, the driver jumped out on her own—the rest followed suit down the line. “Go!” Kristen ordered. “Don't be assholes!”
In moments, the chaos diminished. Kristen remained still for a moment, listening to the relative silence. Noise still filtered down the ramp, distant sirens along with the sea of voices, but the garage was empty. She looked at her stone. The needle still pointed straight down. She shivered.
Kristen followed the signs to the next ramp down. With every step, doubts about her position grew stronger: who was she to be dealing with something like this? If the bomb was real, she knew she couldn't do anything about it. She wasn't even sure she could survive it. Maybe there wasn't even a person down there, just the ring to bait her into suicide. And if she couldn't stop it, what was the point of going down there?
The lights in the complex flickered. They went out, buzzed into dimness, then went out again with the crack of a circuit breaker. Kristen froze in place, blind and smothered in darkness. She listened and heard nothing. Not even the sirens outside penetrated the lower depths of the garage. Kristen shuffled forward one step at a time. “Whoever is in here, I know who you work for. I know what she wants to do. You don't need to hurt all of these people.”
“I'm not here to hurt them.” A mechanical voice like an artificial voice box echoed through the garage. “There's no bomb. It's just me and you, Templar.”
Kristen scrambled for her phone and held it aloft. She swung it through the air, trying to cast light on the garage with the screen's glow. It managed to light only a few feet around her. Fumbling with the phone, she tried to turn on its flashlight function. Something struck from the darkness and knocked the phone from her hands. It hit the concrete and went skidding away. For only seconds, the screen remained lit, and in its light, Kristen saw an arrow. The screen went dark.
“An archer?” Kristen asked as she ducked for cover behind a car. “You can't be serious. That's the worst comic book trope ever. You know we have guns now, right?”
The robotic voice began anew. “Select US Special Forces units were once taught the bow. They were given the skills to survive in the wild. If they had to live undetected in a jungle for months, they could. Sometimes silence is worth more than a bullet.”
Kristen kept her head down and listened even as she spoke. “Number one, we aren't in a jungle. Number two, you said all of that in past tense. Sorry, pal. Guns are where it's at.”
“You're right. It's a lost art. Modern military doctrine is to do nothing until you're prepared to bomb the jungle to bedrock. As I told you, there's no bomb here. That isn't my style.”
“What a load of—” An arrow bit into Kristen's shoulder. She
reached for it, but it fell away. Exploring the wound with her fingers, she discovered it was shallow—more like a cut than a penetrating shot. Recalling the bullets she'd taken, she supposed an arrow couldn't be as bad as that. Confident, she stood up. “Nice try, asshole. You know what's happening here, right? How can you say bombs aren't your style? Delphi's here to do worse.”
“What Delphi does has purpose. A building condemned must be destroyed before something new can take its place.”
Cognitive dissonance much?
“Make a move, Templar.”
Kristen slapped her hand against the car beside her. The car’s alarm screamed to life, horn shattering the eerie quiet, headlights piercing the darkness in rhythm. She saw him in the headlights one flash at a time, tall and shrouded in darkness—a cloak or a trench coat, maybe—all in black. His arms snapped up, bowstring drawn, and he loosed an arrow. Kristen dove forward. The arrow soared over her and she came up to her feet in a roll. He shuffled back, but she stayed on him, driving forward with a fist. He leaned aside to avoid the crushing strike and she felt his bow at her back. Using it for leverage, he pivoted both of them around. She hadn’t expected it—hadn’t set her feet—and stumbled with the motion. He drove a boot square into her stomach and pushed off. Already off-balance, Kristen fell back and hit the concrete. She was only down for a second, but it was enough. She heard the sound of breaking glass. Though the car alarm still wailed, the headlights stopped flashing, broken.
Rolling onto her stomach, Kristen pushed herself back to her feet. The darkness was worse now—the headlights had killed her night vision, and her eyes were forced to readjust. Thwip. Thwip. A pair of arrows struck her: one in the chest, one in the stomach. She felt the bite, and a second later, a dampness where they'd struck. She moved at a dead run in the direction from which they'd come, but without sight, it was useless. Another arrow, this time to the chest. She cut to the right, toward the parking spaces, and groped blindly until the felt metal. She slapped it. Another alarm sprang to life.
There.
She moved like lightning and swung again. He danced away. Her other hand grabbed him by the collar and pulled him in. He tried to jerk away, but accomplished nothing. She heaved him off the ground with both hands—a difficult task, as he was much taller than her—and he writhed, delivering solid strikes to her head with his bow. Kristen ignored the blows. With a thought, she dismissed the pain and felt nothing. She tightened her grip on his collar and spun with him, driving forward toward the car’s flashing lights. His free hand flicked to his quiver. An arrow fell into his palm. He stabbed down and Kristen felt the arrow sink in behind her clavicle. Kristen slammed him down onto the car's hood. The windshield shattered under the impact in a cloud of glass. A robotic groan sounded from his artificial voice. She fell back, grabbing hold of the arrow stuck above her arm. That one had taken hold; he'd found a vulnerability. Kristen pushed down the pain as the arrow came free. She looked at where the man’s face should have been, but it was a blank black mask. Though she couldn't see his eyes, she was sure she felt them stare back at her for a nanosecond before he jerked away—a moment of fear or recognition?
He rolled off the hood of the car and fell to the concrete. Nursing his back, he rose and scurried away, putting cars between the two of them. “Wait,” he said. If it was meant to be a plea, his voicebox didn't translate the inflection. “I didn’t know. I see you now, though. You're the Maiden.”
Kristen touched her shoulder. Her hand came away bloody and she was struck by a wave of nausea. She tried to move the wounded arm. It seemed to be alright. She yelled over the car alarms. “Going to run away now?”
“The thought did cross my mind. But no. It’s started. Can you feel it?”
“The arrow you stuck in my arm? Uh, yeah. I felt that.”
The archer held his bow above his head where Kristen could see it. Slowly, he set it down on the trunk of a car and stepped forward, leaving it behind. He stopped, waited to gauge Kristen’s reaction, then continued when she didn’t leap at him. Reaching through the window of the smashed car, he jammed something into the steering column. The alarm went dead, but the flashing lights remained. “Maybe now you can focus. Do you feel the ground moving?”
Kristen held herself still. The concrete vibrated beneath her—it was slight, but it was there. The archer stepped away from the silenced car and approached the second wailing vehicle, his coat fluttering behind him in the strobing light. He held a slender spike in his hand in reverse grip; its steel caught the light. He reached inside the window and jammed the spike into the steering column. The second alarm died, too. In the quiet, Kristen could pick out the sound of trickling water in the distance. “What is that?” she asked. “The ring?”
“Yes.” His robotic voice was starting to irritate her. He cut the lights on the other car, too. While Kristen stood in the strobe, he was wreathed in shadow. “Maiden, if you of all people have come to stop her, I’ve picked the wrong side. I’ve seen your work.”
Kristen clamped her hand over her shoulder. “Delphi trying to destroy fucking everything wasn’t enough to tell you that?”
“Her plans don’t go that far. But you’re right. This isn’t the first time I’ve doubted her. Understand, we’ve lived in fear of what we are our entire lives. The Gifted hide in silence without training or protection while things beyond our understanding prey on us. Seems you hid better than most until now. Delphi promised us better lives than that. She said she could bring us out of the shadows and into the light. Look at us now.”
“Who’s us?”
“If we’re going to stop her, we don’t have time for that right now. If she’s started her work, she’s inside Seidel Tower.”
“Shit.” Kristen spat. “Inside? Gabby was right—we should’ve kept eyes on the place.”
“Delphi has been preparing for this opportunity for decades. She knew you were undermanned. A tracking spell was the most obvious way to find the ring. Heads up.”
A coin flickered in the light as it soared through the air. It hit the ground and rolled on its side, stopping at Kristen’s toes. She picked it up and held the coin to the light. The obverse bore the image of a woman reminiscent of Nenet. On the reverse was the image of a prowling tiger—or a jaguar, some sort of cat. “What is this?”
“An extremely well-preserved coin from the lost land of Mu. Something about the materials used in its creation makes it receptive to their magic. In other words, we spoofed the signal. I'm a distraction. If you want to stop Delphi, you need to go. Now.”
“I know what she is. If I kill her, she'll take someone else's body. She's a mind reader, too. If she finds out you let me go...”
“I'm not going back to her. You've already stepped into the light. If you stop her, you're taking another step toward helping all of us. She's seen my mind, but that won't do her any good. I don't have anyone she can hurt. The only people I care about can handle themselves.”
“The police probably have this place surrounded. Do you know a good way out of here?”
“I do. Follow me.”
Kristen jogged to his side, scooping her phone off the ground as she went. She peered at it in the darkness. Cracks in the glass caught the flashing lights behind them. She pressed the power button. Nothing happened. “Shit.”
“What's wrong?”
“You broke my phone.”
No phone, no way to get Bernice's messages, no way to find Emma.
He held out his hand. “Let me see it.”
Though suspicious, she handed it over. He popped it open, removed the battery, and threw it aside. Then he pulled out the SIM card and pocketed the shell. Pulling his own phone from his pocket, he switched the SIM cards and passed it over. “Good as new.”
“Uh, thanks.” She tucked the phone away. Her next stepped splashed water up her leg. She shook the moisture off, hopping after him. “Where's the water coming from?”
“The shaking is forcing groundwater through cracks in
the structure.”
Kristen listened to the trickling water. It was getting louder, and the shaking grew worse, no longer a subtle vibration. “Liquefaction, right?”
“A similar process, but no. If we don't stop her before liquefaction begins, we've lost.”
“Then we need to be running, not walking.”
“You're bleeding.”
The reminder brought the nausea roaring back, but she played it off. “I'm fine. I make sure to bleed at least once per month.”
“Wow. Did not expect something like that from a superhero.”
“I've been a woman for twenty-five years. I've been a superhero for a few weeks. I don't have that wholesome righteousness thing down yet. Let's go.”
They took off at a run, Kristen relying on the sound of his footsteps for direction in the darkness. She called out. “The people you're talking about. Gifted, right? What's your gift? Creepy robot voice?”
“No, not creepy robot voice.”
“Then what?”
He stopped running. Kristen stopped, too. She peered at him in the pitch black—where she thought he was, anyway. “Why did we stop?”
The sound of his footfalls returned, more distant than they were. “I didn't. Silence is my gift.”
“Neat.” Kristen jogged to catch up. “Now tell me about Delphi.”
“We don’t have a lot of a time.”
“Walk and talk. Tell me what you can.”
He led her to a service stairwell, which opened into a service tunnel. “She recruits the Gifted with promises. For some, all it takes is a promise of power. For others, a better life—a better world. There are good people who follow her. Bad people, too. Somehow, she maintains harmony. I suspect being the only person trying to support the Gifted at all helps with that.”
“I’ve heard she can hop bodies. Is that true?”
