Both Cayden and Leah squeezed off a round or two more, before pausing to reload. She looked his way. Her voice, automatically amplified over the engine, boomed in his ears. ‘What now?’
‘We keep going!’ She cocked her head, and he went on. ‘We gotta limit their movement, force them up against the shoreline. Then we’ll have a clean shot!’ And so will they, he added to himself. But if we make a run for shore, now, they’ll just do the same to us.
Leah said nothing, only slotted in a fresh magazine. Greg poked his head above the panel, still looping the boat back and forth at random. He spotted the loading docks that marked the eastern corner of Clam Bay. Rich Passage lay immediately beyond. He turned the wheel to port, angling for the inlet. Another volley ricocheted off the panel’s edge, and he ducked flat again, keeping his hand on the throttle as far as it would go. The deck vibrated under his feet, causing his teeth to chatter despite his clenched jaw.
He kept up the zigzag pattern, hoping it wouldn’t cost too much of their lead. He looked back again. The pursuing boat was still a good distance behind, but gaining. They’d also become cagier with their ammo; only when Greg held in one direction for longer than two seconds did a spate of rounds zip over his head, or punch into the hull. One tugged at his shoulder; the clinger kept it out. A shout from Leah made him whip around. She was fetched up against the side, clenching a hand to her left shoulder, now a mass of red – but the clinger fabric was already returning to normal. Long as nothingheavier gets aimed our way, we’re fine.
His head snapped up. Nothing heavier… Behind the hood, his lips skinned back in a smile. It was crazy, but… He yanked the wheel hard right, bringing the boat into a wide arc. The eastern shore of the Sound passed in a blur. Another volley zipped over and around him; none struck. He held the wheel all the way over, then brought it straight again. His free hand yanked down on the throttle again. The engine rose to a roar, lifting the bow momentarily clear of the water. When it slammed back down, Greg scanned the water. The attacking boat was still some distance away, maybe three or four hundred yards, but it had peeled off in the same direction, probably hoping for a clear broadside angle: ‘crossing the T’, in other words. Now it was slowing, righting itself for another charge – and lined up almost perfectly with his craft, bow to bow.
Gripping the siderail, Leah pulled herself up beside him. ‘What are you doing?’ she bawled in his ear.
‘Remember that ride we took?’ he shouted back. He shot her a knowing look. ‘In Atlanta?’
She stiffened. Her eyes flicked to the enemy boat, and back to him. Her mouth shaped a word: No. He stared at her for a second, then turned back to the controls. ‘You can’t – you gotta be fucking kidding me!’ she yelled.
Instead of answering, Greg leaned back. Leah shouted something else, but more gunfire made her duck and roll, hunching low at the stern next to Cayden. The older Golem shot a quick look at Greg, then widened his stance, grasping the edges of the boat with both massive hands.
Greg chanced another glance above the dashboard. The boat was still bearing straight for them. Three figures were standing near the motor, SAWs in their hands. Bullets tore into the hull, sending chips and chunks whirling. A single round at extremely close range – or several all at once, in the same spot – and the clinger wouldn’t help much.
Two hundred yards… One-seventy-five… A fist-sized piece of fibreglass struck Greg in the face and glanced off. He hardly noticed, staring straight ahead. The distance shrank, more and more. The other boat showed no signs of wavering. He was close enough to see the faces of four men now, and make out their hair: two black, one brown – and one blonde, at the controls. The other pilot’s eyes – a cloudy green – locked with Greg’s. His three partners kept firing in steady bursts, their legs spread wide apart for balance. More shots buzzed around his face and shoulders; amazingly, not one found its mark. The engines and gunfire merged in his ears, becoming an insane cacophony. Seventy-five… Fifty… Twenty-five… Fifteen… He girded himself, knowing it wouldn’t help.
Without warning, the other boat’s bow jinked left, trying to evade; the pilot wasn’t up for ‘chicken.’ Another two seconds, and it would be right alongside, giving the gunners a perfect shot. Except there weren’t two seconds – because Greg had already swung his boat straight for the other’s flank.
There was an almighty crunch of tearing metal and fibreglass. The bow of Greg’s craft splintered as it ploughed through the attacker’s stern. He had a brief, vague image of the three shooters rising several feet into the air, as though by levitation, still firing. A heartbeat later, the bow struck the engine, and the tank of reserve fuel beside it.
The fireball swallowed him in an instant. Heat and blast tore at his arms, wrenching him off the wheel. He felt the hood rip back from his face and screamed as the skin of his face flash-burned. Two human-shaped forms flew past him, vanishing into the haze of smoke, fire and debris. He tumbled backwards, bouncing off the deck. Something snapped in his chest and back, sending lances of stinging fire through his torso. His hands scrabbled for something, anything to grab hold of.
Suddenly, he found himself pawing air. Dazed from the pain, he could only focus on ahead of him. All he could see were clouds, grey and forbidding. Strange; shouldn’t they be white? he wondered idly. Then he struck the water, headfirst, and all was cold and darkness.
*
Soft white light beamed down, pressing through his eyelids. Bit by bit, he felt other senses returning. He was lying on something soft, giving and wet. Cold water was lapping back and forth over his lower legs. His ears were filled with a dull ringing sound. He could smell damp, smoke, and burning oil. A thick layer of salt caked his lips.
He drew a shallow breath. A dozen cold knives stabbed into his chest from both sides. He hissed in and out through his teeth, struggling to ride out the agony. When it began to ease, he inched his head back and forth, looking this way and that. The light was beginning to fade, bringing new shapes, sounds and images into focus all around him. Grey-black sand, stretching in all directions. The soft roar of surf. The rustling of stunted, dark green bushes, growing near the edge of the sand. A beachfront house in the far distance, its walls sagging inward, its porch a tangle of decaying wooden planks.
The light was nearly gone now, leaving a general blurriness over everything he saw. The pain was receding with each passing second, supplanted by a paralysing weakness – one he hadn’t felt in years. The ARC was obviously kicking in by now, so he must have done even more damage than he’d thought. Squinting, he looked harder at his surroundings. Two human-sized lumps were curled up a few yards away, unmoving. They were garbed in clingers, covered with clumping sand. The closer one had close-cut dark hair; he could see a serious gash to its temple closing. The other’s hair was similarly dusky, and longer, thrown about in a wild, soaked fan, like a woman’s. Its face was smeared with sand, muck and watery blood, half- hiding a gruesome mask of cuts and a shattered nose.
A shadow fell over his vision. Looking up, he could see the dark, blurry outline of a human-shaped figure. It was clad in some sort of shiny, dark green material; when it leaned closer, a pig-snouted gas mask resolved into view. He tried to call out to the others but could only manage a hoarse croak. The figure stooped, extending both hands. One grasped his neck, gently rubbing at the carotid. The other moved to the figure’s side, reappearing with a pen-shaped object. When Greg saw the needle extend, he struggled harder to move away. Nothing responded. With surgical precision, the figure stuck the syringe into his neck, pressing a button at the top.
Cool tingling rushed out from the injection, spreading over his body in waves. He braced himself, expecting his breathing to stop in the next second. Instead, the feeling sank deep into his bones. He felt his fingers twitch, and his legs begin to shift at his brain’s commands. Every movement was still agony, and the weakness was still pressing down like a straitjacket – but the pain in his chest and sides was vanishing all the faster.
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The coolness began to fade. A deep fatigue seeped in to replace it, weighing him down like he’d been draped in lead-lined blankets. Above him, the figure stood upright, moving out of Greg’s sight. he angled his head to follow, and saw he was making for the next body. His eyelids were drooping lower and lower, but he fought to stay awake.
The figure turned over the closer body, revealing Cayden’s mud-smeared, burn-scarred features. His motions assured yet careful, the figure brought forth another pen-syringe, and pressed it to the older Golem’s neck. Just before Greg’s eyes closed, he saw the stranger withdraw the pen – and gently stroke Cayden’s cheek, with a strange sort of affection.
Sound was the first to return. Cocking his ears, he picked up the soft drip– drip– drip of water nearby, from a pipe or faucet. There was a faint pinging noise – an EKG machine; he’d heard them plenty of times. Next was smell: gauze and harsh antiseptic, mixed with latex, dried blood and other, less recognisable odours lingering beneath. Then touch: hard padding beneath his hands and body, swathed in cloth, and the softer, yielding feel of the pillow under his head and neck. He seemed to be partly propped up, starting from the waist. There was a light pressing sensation on both sides of his head, which he couldn’t identify. His eyes stayed closed, held down as though by lead weights.
Taking all this in, Greg wiggled his fingers and toes. All of them responded. He rotated his ankles, and his hands at the wrist: same story. The weakness and fatigue from before were gone; now he just felt tired, and content to lie where he was, maybe for hours. He relaxed a little, letting his back flatten against the padding. A much-needed rest, after that insane trick out on the Sound.
The Sound – the boats – Cayden – Leah.
His eyes snapped open. Everything was dark and blurry, though starting to come into focus. He sat up, arms out in defensive posture. The room spiralled around him, and he shot out a hand, grabbing the nearest object – a surgical tray table, by the feel of it – to keep from crashing off the bed. He sucked in breath after breath, waiting for the world to right itself.
When it had settled into a tepid rocking, and his vision had cleared to normal, he let go, and looked down at himself. His clinger was gone, along with his undershorts. He felt at his face: no sign of burns. A set of remote lead pads, each the size of a quarter, were pasted to his chest, and an IV lead ran to the crook of his right arm. Reaching up, he gingerly felt two more leads at his temples. Tracking the pinging with his ears, he spotted the EKG machine behind his bed. Two other slim, boxy devices were set up on his left, their displays turned away from him. He couldn’t guess what their purpose might be.
He looked around the room. To even the trained eye, it was a standard hospital exam room. A set of light-blue curtains, pulled back, hung around his bed. A plain black clock above the door said it had been nearly two hours since the attack, give or take. There was a set of grey metal cabinets not far from his bed, and a sink. Tiny drops fell from the tap in a slow rhythm. The light above was subdued, flickering every now and then. There was a bare metal door a couple of metres in front of him, closed. Above the frame was a domed glass bulb, with a dull blue light at its centre. A security camera, or something like it.
Two other beds were to his left, both occupied. Leah lay in the nearest one. She was likewise undressed, the sheet pulled up to her shoulders; he saw no sign of any injuries. The same EKG and IV leads as his were attached to her temples and arm. Cayden lay in the third bed, also unconscious and hooked up. Looking past his companions, Greg saw another counter, covered with scalpels, other instruments, and cloth bandages. Most of these were soaked or speckled with blood.
On a metal table beside this display, he spotted their clingers, neatly folded, with a set of fresh undershirts and shorts beside each. Their knives and pistols had been placed atop all three outfits, cleaned and prepped. He even spotted an extra clip of ammo for each of the guns. Argues againstthis beinga prison. Or else it’s one so tight there’s no point in using them. There was no sign of the canister.
Cautiously, Greg pulled out the IV lead, ignoring the spike of pain from the healing injection. He lifted his legs out from under the sheet and stood up. The dizziness surged, before fading away completely. Still cautious, he yanked the sheet off the bed and wrapped it around himself one-handed. Reaching out with the other, he gently shook Leah by the shoulder. ‘Wake up.’ He hesitated, for a second. ‘Hey, babe, come on. Wake up.’
Leah shifted, groaning. Her arms and legs jerked a few times. Her face twitched, as if stuck by multiple tics, before settling back to serenity. Eyes still closed, she murmured, ‘Greg?’ She reached out a hand, groping blindly. ‘I can’t see, my eyes won’t—’
‘Easy, easy.’ He took her hand in his, gripping it tight. ‘It’ll pass in a second – keep them closed for a little longer. Can you move everything else?’
She wiggled all limbs and extremities again. ‘I think so… Yeah.’ Her head turned his way. Her eyes fluttered for several seconds, then opened. They locked onto his at once. The grip squeezed all the tighter. She started to scan the room, gently lifting herself up at the waist – maybe she’d managed to get past the vertigo quicker. ‘Where—?’
‘No idea,’ Greg answered. He looked around again himself. ‘All of us are here; same with our equipment. No clue how long we were out, either – I’d guess a few hours.’
Leah looked around the room, taking everything in. When she was done, she gave Greg a new look: half furious, half admiring. ‘You just had to do it? The same trick on that op in Atlanta, when we were tracking a gunrunner to the militias springing up all over the state. Guy was cornered in an alley, right by a gas station, on a cycle; we’d been chasing him almost an hour on our own rides. He decided to play chicken – and so did you.’ She punched Greg’s arm, hard, bringing a wince from them both. ‘Only goddamn luck the whole block didn’t go up then – and that we didn’t get charbroiled now.’
‘They’d have cut us to shreds in seconds, if I hadn’t,’ Greg replied, seriously. ‘If I’d tried to bolt anywhere, they’d have just run us down, or kept us away from land until we ran out of fuel, then picked us off from a distance.’
‘Fair enough,’ Leah said. ‘Whoever those guys were, they obviously hadn’t seen you try it – or expected to.’ She bent down to rub at her knees, and check her lower legs and ankles. Only at that moment did she notice the IV in her arm. Pulling the lead free, she studied it, and the bag of liquid. ‘What’s this? Boosters?’
‘Maybe,’ Greg said, cautiously. He gave the bag a harder look. He’d never seen what the boosters really looked like, in any form. Why should he have? With the ARC already in his system, he’d never paid attention to the shots received after more gruelling missions. He held each arm out in front of him and looked over his chest and torso. No residual trauma. Aside from the aches and vertigo – now almost faded completely away – he felt perfectly normal.
That was a surprise, and a concern. No matter how quick or well the ARC worked every time it kicked in, and the boosters when they were needed, every Golem went through anywhere from one to three hours – commonly the latter – of fatigue and general weakness, before they were fully up and running again. Training, instinct and sheer will could compensate at times; it certainly had for the two of them. But neither he nor any of the Golems he’d ever worked with could be back on their feet so fast, after an encounter like that on the Sound, even with multiple boosters – not without prompt help. That argued for a new kind of booster, one that they’d never encountered, and acted faster and went deeper – or something completely different, altering their ARC and physiologies in unknown ways.
A new groan brought him back. Cayden’s head was shifting back and forth, face creased mildly in pain. He moved his arms and legs, sliding the sheet down to his waist. Gradually, his eyes opened. At the sight of Greg and Leah, he grunted in surprise, and sat up, which made him wince and grab his head with both hands. When the spasm passed, he looked hard
at the two of them. ‘What’s going on?’ he growled. His gaze moved about in all directions, like a trapped animal. ‘What is this place?’
Before Greg could answer, a new voice cut in. ‘Don’t worry, Cayden.’ The voice was female, soft and melodious. ‘All of you are safe, and in good hands.’
Cayden froze, looking about in every direction. Greg was rooted to the spot. That voice. A chill dropped down his spine like a waterfall. But that would mean—
‘I know you,’ Leah murmured. Both men looked at her. Her eyes were wide, and perplexed. She climbed delicately out of bed, clasping the sheet to her body. ‘You – you were always there. At the Facility, all through the Project. When we were training… when we came back… all the time.’
The voice chuckled – nostalgically? ‘Yes, Leah. I was entrusted with your care, from the very first days. You, and Gregory, and Cayden – all of those who passed through the Project. All of you proved beyond extraordinary. I can’t express how much it pleases me to see you here, whole and recovering.’
‘Where’s that?’ Greg asked. Casting about again, he traced the voice’s source – the security camera, if it was that. ‘I went through every room at the Project, and I know this isn’t one of them. So what is it?’ He stepped closer, squinting at the blue-lit glass. ‘Who’s holding us here? Why are we being held? Who the hell are you?’
The voice went silent, as if hesitant. When it spoke again, its tone was the same mix of pleasant and soothing as before. ‘My name is Gaia, Gregory. And everything will be explained, and soon. First, though, there are some things you’ll need to see.’
A low buzzing sounded from the direction of the door. All four of them turned their eyes to it. The heavy metal slab swung open, hinges squeaking. Beyond it was a dimly-lit corridor, turning out of sight at a sharp right angle.
None of the three Golems made a move. Leah’s body was outwardly relaxed, but her eyes were wide with astonishment, one hand inched toward the wheeled tray table at her bedside, ready to grab it as a weapon. Cayden sat stock-still, lips pressed tight. Greg hardly dared to breathe. At last, he let the sheet fall to the floor, and reached for the clothes and his clinger.
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