by Tom Abrahams
“What if she wasn’t there?” A lilt of hope pricked Uriel’s voice. “Maybe she wasn’t there.”
“Then I have no idea where she is,” said Zeke, squeezing his fists. “Either way, she’s gone. I’ve failed.”
Uriel pulled her hand from his back, balled it into a tight fist, and punched his arm. He shot her a confused look, and she frowned at him with disappointment.
“Sheesh,” she said, “you sure give up easily. That’s a huge letdown.”
She marched toward the debris, her weapon ready. Zeke followed with his revolver drawn.
“What are you doing?” he called after her.
“Not giving up.”
Zeke caught up to her. His focus was on the afterglow of the explosion and on avoiding body parts. Uriel didn’t seem to notice, stomping on a chunk of something that squished and snapped under the weight of her boot.
“Hey,” he said, noticing a particularly large piece of someone’s body. It was part of a torso and wore familiar black fabric that resembled a uniform. “This is one of the Marines.”
Other remnants also wore the same fabric. More than one was a Marine, though it was impossible to tell how many of them there had been. Two? Five?
Zeke looked east along the length of the street. The smoke was thick enough at eye level, he couldn’t make out much of anything. He marched closer to the blast site, noticing burned sections of wire.
“This was rigged to explode,” he said. “Looks like whatever detonated was inside the compound, not outside. Too hard to know for sure.”
“Why would they blow up their own compound?” asked Uriel. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It’s a last line of defense,” said Zeke. “They didn’t want those Marines getting into the compound. If they got this far, rigging the entrance with explosives would stop them.”
“These Tics are sick dudes,” she said. “You ran in some bad company, Zeke.”
“Yeah,” he said, head drooping. “I did.”
They reached the detonation point, weapons aimed at the gaping hole in the ground. Despite the haphazard lattice of wood and metal that covered much of it, the steps that descended into the underground compound were intact and visible.
“We should go down,” said Uriel.
Zeke scratched his forehead. “You think?”
Before Uriel could answer, another voice called out from behind them. It was forceful and commanding.
“We have you in our sights,” he warned. “Do not make any quick movements or we will shoot.”
The man sounded like a Marine. Zeke had heard the tone before. More than once Marines had tried, and failed, to stop him from making a delivery. He’d always managed to talk his way out of any predicaments before, but he imagined now was not a good time to say or do anything other than what the Marine ordered them to do.
“Slowly,” said the Marine, “and I mean slowly, lower your weapons and place them on the ground. Kick them to the side and out of reach.”
“Where we stand?” asked Uriel with more than a hint of mockery.
“Do it now!” ordered the Marine. “Lower your weapons and place them on the ground. Then kick them to the side.”
Their backs were to the man and Zeke stole a glance over this shoulder. The man was dressed in the black-clad uniform of a Marine and had a rifle leveled at them. Several others were crowded around him, but Zeke couldn’t make out how many there were. They were armed. That much was obvious.
“Zeke?”
A chill ran along Zeke’s spine. His heart fluttered and his pulse accelerated. It wasn’t the Marine who spoke.
He started to turn when the Marine snapped at him to comply. Zeke raised his hands but didn’t lower the weapon.
Standing next to the Marine now, also dressed in black and thinner than he remembered her, was Li.
Li. Finally. She was alive. She looked okay. But for some reason, she was dressed like a Marine.
“It’s you,” she said, the color draining from her face. “How is that possible?”
Uriel had turned around too. She chuckled. “She looks like she’s seen a ghost.” She shrugged. “Then again…”
“You know them?” asked the Marine, shifting his weapon back and forth between Zeke and Uriel.
“I know him,” she said, then shook her head. “I knew him. He’s dead. Or he was dead. I don’t know.”
“What do you want to do?” asked the Marine. “We’ve got to get inside that compound. If these people aren’t a threat—”
Li raised a hand, silencing the Marine. Tears streaked down her cheeks. Her chin quivered. “Give me a second, Davis.”
The Marine said nothing, but he visibly relaxed his posture.
With a confused look on her face, Li marched toward Zeke, weapon in hand.
Zeke started to say something, even opened his arms to her, but her expression shifted from confused to angry. With a swift movement, and without Zeke knowing what hit him, she swung the butt of the rifle in an arc and caught him on the jaw, knocking him to the ground with a violent thud.
Uriel moved to pick up her weapon, but stopped when Li warned her against it. Zeke was conscious but dazed. Lying amidst the debris, he gingerly touched the side of his face where Li had smacked him so hard he thought she’d jostled loose his brain.
His vision swimming and a thick throbbing pain pulsing along his jawline and neck, Zeke squinted up at Li.
Li took another step toward him and aimed the rifle at him. Pulling the weapon tight to her shoulder, she stood there for a moment studying him. “I’ve thought about killing you,” she said. “How are you here? I don’t understand.”
Zeke nodded at the blurry shape standing over him. He tried speaking again, but couldn’t find the words.
“You’ve got ten seconds to explain why you left me,” said Li, “and another ten to explain how the hell you’re standing here after I saw your body.”
“I can explain—” Zeke started, but Uriel cut him off.
“Beg your pardon,” Uriel said with a hand raised, “but he’s not standing. You put him on the ground. So yeah, it’s semantics, but if we’re being honest here, thought I’d point it out.”
Li’s sour expression fell upon Uriel. She didn’t look impressed. “Who are you?”
“Ma’am,” Davis said, “we do not have time for this.”
Li shot Davis a glare that had the Marine snapping his jaw shut. He scowled.
“Who are you?” Li repeated.
“I’m Uriel,” she said. “We’re together.”
Li’s expression flattened. “Why are you here?”
“To find you,” said Uriel. “And let me say, Zeke oversold the goods.”
“I came back for you,” said Zeke. “I shouldn’t have left. I came to help.”
Li’s face twitched, then hardened. “So now you have a conscience? You want to help?” she spat. “Help us clean the Tics out of the compound. Then I’ll deal with you and you’ll explain what’s going on here.”
Davis stepped forward. “What are you doing?”
“We lost three men in that explosion,” she said. “We need all the help we can get.”
“You trust them?” asked Davis. “What did you mean by saying he’s dead?”
Li offered a hand to help Zeke from the ground. He took it and she pulled him up but backed away from him.
“It’s a figure of speech,” she said to Davis, her eyes locked with Zeke’s. “Obviously he’s not dead. And no. I don’t trust him. He’s a Tic. But we need them.”
“You said it,” said Davis. “He’s a Tic. Why would you bring him along? If it were up to me, we’d have them in restraints.”
Zeke watched Li consider the dilemma. He’d seen that look in her eyes before, when she weighed the balance of things, played out the string of possible outcomes.
“Li,” he said, “you know me. I wouldn’t have come back if I didn’t want to make things right.”
For an instant, Zeke
thought he saw a flicker of recognition in her eyes, something that told him their connection still existed despite how frayed it may be. As quickly as it flashed, it was gone. She pulled back her shoulders, straightening herself like a soldier at attention. Without looking at Zeke, she nodded.
“Pick up your weapon,” Li said to Uriel. “You’ll need it down there.”
Uriel saluted her with mock enthusiasm. “Yes, sir.”
Zeke shot Uriel a frown. Uriel stuck out her tongue.
Li passed Zeke and shot him an icy glare so cold it burned. She was hurt. She was angry. She was confused. All of those things were obvious to him. And they were his fault.
This was not the reunion Zeke envisioned. And he wasn’t sure how he’d explain what he’d done or what he’d become. In the moment, it didn’t matter. Li was alive and needed his help. How she ended up with the Marines was a question for later. There were a lot of questions for later.
The squadbegan clearing the lattice of debris blocking the entrance to the compound, making quick work of it, and began their descent into the compound. One at a time they moved down the steps into the darkness and toward whatever resistance awaited them.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Graham checked the magazine in his weapon for the fourth time through the reflective lenses of his glasses. With his index finger, he pushed the glasses up and wiped the sweat from his palms on his worn cargo pants. The explosion told him they were coming. He didn’t know how many of them there were, but he was sure it was fewer than it had been before the trip-activated charge had rattled the compound and served as an alarm to the pending attack.
It was taking longer than he’d expected. His nine compatriots were restless, their nerves obvious as they held their positions and awaited the coming storm. They reminded him of children awaiting the revelation of a surprise, unable to contain or suppress their anxiety.
Graham sucked in a sharp breath, puffed his cheeks, and let it out. As anxious as he was, he was looking forward to this. It would send a clear signal to the Overseers not to trifle with the Tic. They were equals, not subjects. They were a parallel power structure that allowed the Overseers to manage the protectorates as they did.
Graham squatted in the corner of a long hallway that fed into the corridor leading to the compound’s stairwell and exit. His thoughts occupied him while he waited with his weapon at the ready.
He was long convinced, as had been Mogilevich, that the two organizations were symbiotic. It was fine to let the Overseers think they were in control. They weren’t. Their hold on the protectorates was slipping. It was greasy and tenuous. The Overseers had let their power get to their collective heads. They’d grown fat and happy in their naivety. The protectorates’ commanders and their lieutenants had the Tic to provide the black-market stability that kept the citizenry happy enough to prevent them from revolting. Without them, however, the protectorates would fall.
The damned Badlanders had already helped sow enough unrest from the wastelands that filled the empty spaces between disparate protectorates. They’d facilitated the near downfall of three protectorates so far and, if the Tic hadn’t stepped in to provide triage for the wounded Overseer structures in those city-states, they’d be lost to the rebellion.
It was shocking to Graham and Mogilevich that the Overseers in their protectorate were so blind to this. He had intelligence that the hapless lieutenants Frederick and Archibald were the only ones who believed the rumors of revolt. The rest of the council refused to see it.
Now that Mogilevich was dead, the protectorate was Graham’s to run, and he was damned if the clueless, navel-gazing proletariat would cost him this opportunity. That was why it was all the more important to beat back this ridiculous assault from the misguided Overseers. He wasn’t the problem, he was the solution. And when he’d dispatched the Marines sent to deal with him, he’d march straight to the Fascio for a sit-down with Commander Guilfoyle himself.
They’d reach a renewed understanding about the importance of their partnership. He’d convince them of the threat the Badlanders beyond their borders truly posed. First things first, though. He had to kill everyone who entered the compound, one way or the other.
Graham touched the vest he wore beneath his synthetic leather jacket. It was cold in the compound. He ran his hand along the vest’s rough fabric, and he took another deep breath in anticipation.
He’d positioned his men at strategic spots along the maze of hallways that connected rooms used for storage, production, torture, and other things best done underground. All the men, however, were between him and the stairwell. Graham was the last line of defense.
If he had to, and he didn’t believe he would, he could detonate the explosives strapped to his body under his jacket. The vest, like something he was told fishermen used to wear when there were wild, naturally occurring fish to bait and hook, had a dozen pockets. He’d filled them with the rocks and pebbles that coated the edges of streets, nails he’d pried from cedar packing crates, and empty shell casings from target practice with his M27. The pockets also contained the unstable chemical explosive he’d made in the compound’s lab. It was a powdery white substance cooked from concentrated hydrogen peroxide and acetone. Together they made up the highly volatile TATP, triacetone triperoxide. It had worked at the entrance to the compound as he’d planned.
While wearing a TATP-laced vest wasn’t ideal—the explosives could be unstable—it was Graham’s best option. He wanted to inflict maximum damage if needed, and the only way to insure it was to wear the vest and put himself as close to as many targets as he could. His own bones would add to the mixture of shrapnel inflicting wounds on anyone in close proximity.
A trigger at his chest would do the deed. Should he take a gunshot center mass, that resulting impact would detonate the vest without him having to do anything.
All Graham knew was that he would not allow the facility to fall into the Overseers’ control. It didn’t matter if he had to die protecting it from the grubby council of thieves and gluttons, he would do it. It was what any man of principle would do in his shoes. Mogilevich would have done it, Graham was certain.
He listened for any hint of incursion inside the compound. Still nothing. Pulling his right hand from his rifle, he reached to his hip and unsnapped the sheath clipped there to withdraw the bone-handled knife Mogilevich had given him as a gift. Scraping the blade gently across the beard growth on his neck and under his chin, he purred at how good it felt to satisfy the fresh itch. The dull edge of the infrequently sharpened blade did the trick his fingers couldn’t. Graham liked an unsharpened blade not just for this purpose, but because he believed it inflicted more pain than did one honed to a razor’s edge.
Turning the knife over in his hand, he admired the bone handle into which the steel was affixed. He weighed it in his palm. The balance was perfect.
The first crack of gunfire shook Graham from his momentary daydream. He flipped the knife’s handle over in his hand and slid it back into its sheath. He stood, removed his sunglasses, and tucked them into a pocket of the synthetic jacket. Then he braced himself for the assault.
A percussive staccato of automatic gunfire followed the solitary warning crack of that first gunshot and its echo along the solid corridor walls. Mixed with the rapid fire of the weapons and the deafening ricochet of sound that flooded the corridors, there were unintelligible shouts and screams.
From his position, Graham saw the back of one of his nine compatriots. He was stationed at the corner leading from Graham’s hallway to the next. The man was on one knee, aiming. Graham couldn’t see the man firing his weapon, but he saw the jerk of his shoulder and elbow from the recoil, and he swore he could make out its report amidst the crescendo of approaching hostiles.
Graham steadied himself the moment the man jerked awkwardly to one side and toppled over. His head landed beyond the pool of light nearest him, but his blood soon found its way there, spreading across the floor like crimson paint spi
lled from a bucket.
Adjusting his grip against the sweat greasing his palms, Graham worked to maintain his composure. He tried slowing his accelerating heartbeat with long, slow breaths. In through his nose and out through his mouth.
A pair of his men appeared at the corner near the body of the fallen comrade. One of them stumbled over the splay but caught himself and dropped to a knee to rattle off a burst of fire. The other stayed on his feet to return fire. Rounds zipped past the two, errant shots plastering the wall behind them.
The enforcer on his knee rolled over to one side and then retreated toward Graham. The other convulsed and dropped his weapon. It clattered to the floor and the enforcer went limp, a final shot to the head ending him.
The first hostile rounded the corner, a Marine in all black. Graham applied pressure to his trigger, unloading a stream of violence toward the man.
His first shots exploded into the wall near the Marine’s head, but a slight recalibration helped Graham find his target. A spray across the man’s thighs sank him to the floor. He was alive but incapacitated, his screams shrill above the thunder of the fight.
A flicker of a smile twitched at the corners of Graham’s dry mouth. His compatriot joined him at his side.
Running his finger across his neck in a slicing motion, the man shook his head. “We’re it!” he shouted above the din. “The rest of them are gone!”
“What do you mean gone?” Graham asked.
“They’re all dead,” the enforcer repeated. “All of them. We’re it, sir.”
Then the man’s expression flattened. His jaw dropped. He sank to his knees and fell face-first on the floor with a sickening thud. Graham glanced down and saw the pair of rounds that had found his back.
Without thinking, Graham retreated. Pedaling backward, he returned fire indiscriminately. More Marines emerged from around the corner. There were a half dozen of them now, perhaps more. They moved swiftly in formation. Too fast, Graham tossed his weapon to the side and waited for them to close in. Two more seconds and they’d be close enough for him to press the detonator.
