World Shift

by K. Gorman

  At least, that was on track now. Even if they had been abducted and imprisoned together.

  “Yes, yes.” She waved her hand, forgetting that he couldn’t see it. “It’s nothing. Let’s go.”

  The hall led into another almost identical one, branching into it with a boxy, ninety-degree turn, and she reactivated her light as the darkness closed in on them. Doors passed on either side. Offices, closets, a washroom, a few unlabeled. One had the biohazard symbol on a green and yellow sign. Through the silence, above the quiet ebb and flow of their breaths and the rustle of their clothes, they caught the occasional sound from elsewhere. Everything seemed still. She doused her light again as they came to another series of windows, looking out of them as they went by. Slowly, an image of the complex’s layout formed in her mind.

  It had a boxy shape, all squares and rectangles and about eight stories high by her count, and sat on the lot in a U-shape, with two wings thrust out from the main building to form a small courtyard that looked like it had been used for training drills recently.

  On the end of the left-hand wing, the building funneled into the recognizable square of a loading bay—not for spacecraft, she thought, unless they were particularly small spacecraft. On the other, the building’s appendage simply ended in a stump. Beyond, a surface of old, buckled concrete spread out in streaks and repaired patches, the lines and guidelines worn and broken. The lack of light, and the darkness of the treeline that rose beyond the fence in a deep, pitch-black mountain, made it impossible to see the curl of razor wire on the top of the fence, but she assumed it was there. It was always there, in Alliance military installations. And it would probably be electrified, too.

  She hoped the current power outage had taken care of that problem. Either way, they had to hurry.

  Taking a few quick steps, she caught up to Marc. “Let’s try to find a window on the second floor. Think we can get lost in the trees?”

  An entire mountain full of what looked like dense forest rose up beyond the pale, straight-angled roofline. Alliance probably had cameras and other surveillance in there, but it seemed like a good bet. She liked forests. She and Nomiki had spent quite a lot of time hiding in them as kids—and during their escape. It felt almost natural for her to return to that history now.

  “Or we could find a way through a window on the first floor, hide out somewhere, get an idea of where the guards are, and make a break for it,” Marc suggested.

  She looked up at him, her eyebrows rising. “If you think we can do all that without getting caught, then sure.”

  “Too bad you can’t make us invisible,” he said.

  “No kidding, right?” She smiled. “You’d think that, with the nature of my abilities that I could do that—Nomiki’s been bugging me about it for ages—but I’ve tried. No dice.”

  She shook her head, quieting as she caught sight of the door to another stairwell. The window beyond showed a few more of the complex’s rooflines at its bottom edge, but at her angle, more of the mountain was visible, along with the sky above. A few stars glittered in the night.

  But, as Marc reached for the stairwell door ahead on the left, their luck ran out. The door gave a click before he grabbed it, and opened toward them. Panic flashed through her chest as she back-pedaled, eyes widening, mind screaming with warning. Marc jerked back, nearly bumping into her, then did a tense, on-the-spot jig, his uncertainty looking like the warm-up of a courtside gravball player.

  Commander Baik stepped through the door, his white uniform looking like a ghost in the gloom. His attention had been trained further down the hallway, his face in profile, but his head jerked to them a second later, eyes registering first surprise, then aggression. The blaster in his hand rose.

  Marc lunged. The hall lit up as the shot fired, going wide. Karin jerked down as it smashed into the wall on her right. Both men crashed against the second door together, making it rattle and thump. Grunts and labored breaths came as they grappled, Marc on top, trying to wrestle the smaller man down.

  Baik’s blaster went off again—once, twice. Two more holes burned into the wall. A third shot winged off the doorframe, showering sparks across both men and eliciting a yelp from Marc. In the brief light, she saw his face turn into a snarl. After a few seconds’ more struggle, Baik’s blaster skittered across the floor. Karin darted in and picked it up, backing away with it in her hands.

  She paused, skirting the edge of the fight. At first glance, Marc seemed to be winning. He’d almost pinned Baik and was working his way toward what looked like a martial hold—but then, between one second and the next, the fight shifted. Inch by inch, Baik pushed back against Marc’s strength.

  In the blink of an eye, he’d thrown Marc to the floor beside him.

  Karin jumped back as the two scrambled, stumbling as the floor seemed to skate under her sock-covered feet. Her heart raced as she lifted the blaster—the safety was already off. With months of sisterly training behind her, she shoved her panicked thoughts down, got her breath under control, and pointed the blaster at Baik as he and Marc sprang at each other. “Stop.”

  He didn’t stop. Instead, he lunged forward, pressing another set of kicks and punches onto Marc, some of them landing.

  She moved the blaster a few centimeters to the left, took aim at the already-hit doorframe, and fired. “Stop!”

  The sudden shower of sparks across his back seemed to do the trick. It took another second, during which he and Marc exchanged one more round of blows, but these were more hesitant than the last, and the two men broke apart. Baik stepped back, his palms rising to shoulder height. His gaze flickered across Marc for a few seconds, then turned to her.

  Except for the labored breaths of the two men, everything seemed to stop. Her heart still raced, its pulse tenuous and flat, the adrenaline and tension in her muscles making her arms and the aim of the blaster shake. As she met Baik’s wary, assessing eyes, a current of tension zinged from the top of her sternum straight into her stomach.

  A small scrape sounded as Marc bent to retrieve his blaster from the corner and raise it to cover Baik from the side. She hadn’t even noticed when he’d lost it, but it must have happened sometime during the fight. She glanced to him, giving him a quick assessment. To her eyes, he looked okay, but it was dark, her eyes weren’t that good, and she wasn’t Nomiki, who could tell a person’s height, weight, injuries, BMI, blood type, and star sign at a glance.

  Gods, I wish Nomiki were here.

  She cleared her throat. “Now what? Can we knock him out or something?”

  There was a pause as Marc considered Baik. The commander’s face tilted to meet his stare.

  “You have a quicksave, don’t you?” Marc asked.

  Baik didn’t move. In the dim light from the window behind him, Karin caught the tightening of his face. Even in defeat, he had a regal air to him. No hunched shoulders, no slouch, no compensation for any injuries he might have sustained—hells, she wasn’t sure if he had sustained any, though he should have. Marc was a scrappy fighter with a lot of strength and power, and he’d gotten more than a few shots in.

  For a few long seconds, she thought Baik wouldn’t answer.

  Then he gave a sharp nod, his eyes still on Marc. “Yep.”

  She frowned. “What the fuck’s a quicksave?”

  She’d heard the term before, but only between Soo-jin and Cookie—and they’d been talking about netgames at the time.

  “It’s an endorphin augment. Keeps track of bodily systems and intervenes when needed,” Marc explained. “I expect his is wired into his brain and limbic for control. If we knock him out, he’ll just wake up in a minute. He won’t stay down.”

  Ah. Sounded liked some of the things Nomiki’s abilities granted her. She didn’t stay down, either. For a moment, Karin wondered if her sister’s treatment program had involved any augments, or, consequently, whether she’d gotten any on this side of her escape.

  “So…” She tilted her head. “What do we do?”
/>
  “We’ll have to find a place to stash him, tie him up, and stuff a gag into his mouth.”

  She raised an eyebrow in the dark. “That sounds way kinkier than it should.”

  With his head turned away from the window, she didn’t see the flat look he probably gave her, but she heard the long-suffering sigh that came from his direction.

  “You’ve been hanging out with Soo-jin too much.”

  She wiggled her nose. “No such thing.”

  “You can’t leave,” Baik said, his tone firm and strong—and she was surprised to hear the pleading in it. His head turned away from the window, addressing her this time. “We need you.”

  “Yeah?” She wrinkled her nose. “Well, maybe you should have asked nicer.” She nodded to Marc. “There was a closet a bit back. I’ll go see if there’s rope or something?”

  He nodded, then answered the question she hadn’t voiced. “Go. I’ll be fine.”

  Good. He has Baik covered. After a moment’s hesitation, she let her aim drop. Flicking the blaster’s safety on, she let a few smears of light leak from her hand to illuminate the labels on the doors she passed, wracking her brain to remember where the last closet had been.

  A high, rending screech split the air—so loud, it rang inside her skull. Lightning flashing through her nerves, vivid and hard.

  As she spun around, a black shape filled the window at the end of the hall, behind where Marc and Baik were standing.

  The creature.

  Both men jumped away as it shrieked again. She started forward, shouting a warning, her light pulling from its sluggish pace into something more vibrant. As if in slow-mo, she saw Baik’s head turn and his motion switch, turning his jump into a lunge for Marc’s blaster.

  A round fired, slamming into Baik’s shoulder, but the man ignored the hit and pressed his attack. He and Marc veered to the side, staggering into the right-hand wall.

  As she lifted her blaster, the yell in her throat turning into a scream of rage, the window shattered. The creature bellowed through the gap, and a pulse of energy hit her skin in a shock.

  A second later, everything went black.

  Chapter 14

  The blackness lasted for an instant, then the hallway was back. Karin cracked off a couple of shots, one hitting the creature’s shoulder and the other flying through the window when it jerked away. The weird energy stuck to her skin like a dim film, visible only at the edges of her sight. As she shook her head and squinted, trying to clear the stuff, the room took on an artificial stiffness. Time slowed down, and she got the impression of a disconnect—as if she were in a separate room from Marc, Baik, and the creature, watching the scene unfold on a holoscreen, unable to help.

  No. No, you fucking don’t.

  She re-aimed her blaster with a snarl, her face twisting in anger and determination. Her light flared within her. She heard a pop and a hiss next to her ear, as if something was burning off.

  Her next shot soared past the creature’s shoulder, smacking against one of its sickle-blades in a shower of sparks that revealed the lean, oily quality of its body—it looked as though it had been made of black paint, then had hardened, with defined muscles and ligaments that moved like worms and eels under its skin—but time still seemed to skip, the kickback and vibration of the weapon registering only a few seconds later.

  She watched in growing horror as Marc and Baik tussled together, fighting for the upper hand. Baik had Marc up against the wall, constrained in movement. Blood soaked a dark patch in his white uniform from where he’d been shot. Marc still had the blaster, but Baik kept batting it away, his blows viper-quick. Behind him, the creature growled a low snarl, its voice like poured gravel. She fought against the slowdown as its body dipped, gathering itself. Her breath dragged, loud, caught in her throat. The pops and hisses around her escalated, like water spitting from a frying pan.

  Then, in a surge of light, she was free.

  The blaster cracked once, twice. Both slammed into the creature’s head as it snaked out for the two men, making it flinch back. She strode forward, shaking herself from the fog it had put on her, and took position, drawing her other hand to help with the aim.

  Another shot smashed into the place its ear should be. The next five pushed into its shoulder. Glass crunched and cracked under its feet as it backed up a step. Its head came up to regard her, attention pulling away from the men.

  Her heart stuttered as their gazes met across the hallway. Light fluctuated around her in a dim, amorphous cloud. There was something familiar about the creature. Intelligent. As if she should know it.

  Then, the second ticked by, and the moment was over. The creature’s head turned back to Marc and Baik with a predatory jerk—the two were still, gods damn them, fighting with each other against the wall. It lunged in a flow of black muscle, snapping jaws, and clicking, slicing blades.

  This time, the men sprang apart.

  Marc went low, throwing himself into a roll that brought him back to the window and on the other side of the creature. Baik went left. She didn’t know exactly what his quicksave did, or if he had any other augments besides it, but he crossed the hall in a single blind leap, staggering his landing against the wall.

  Blaster shots cracked, sounding like pops to her ear. The creature roared as Marc’s rounds caught its other side. In the light of their glow, she saw flashes of Marc’s face over its back, grim and determined, gleaming with sweat.

  The creature turned on him with a low snarl. Its sickle-blades clicked as the nearest one unfolded.

  “No!” Karin fired again, catching it in the shoulder, the neck, the leg, trying to get its attention—but it ignored her, focused on Marc.

  As she fired again, aiming at the point where the thing’s elbow should be, she saw Baik break off from the wall in her peripheral vision and jog toward her. He gestured to her, then to himself. “Give me the gun.”

  “Fuck no.” She jumped into a side step, readjusting her aim to his chest. “You stay the fuck there.”

  The creature lunged at Marc, and she jerked the blaster back away from Baik, firing off another few rounds at the thing. Marc managed to duck under the swipe of its blade, a dodge which left him in an awkward, full-body scramble into the other corner. As the creature shifted, a piece of the wall became visible again, sliced with enough force that the shots from Marc’s rounds exposed the gleam of metal within the structure. A keening growl rose up. She shot again as the thing’s head came around. The round exploded from the windowsill, leaving a black, scorched mark in the paint and showering sparks down on Marc.

  Baik started forward again, his eyes on her blaster.

  She tripped back. Her next round slammed into the floor between them. “I said, stay the fuck back—”

  He lunged with a burst of speed, the movement much faster than she’d expected. He crossed the distance between them before she could even take a breath. She yelped and skittered away, bringing the blaster back up. He slapped it down. Stinging pain cracked across her knuckles, and she felt him try and jerk the weapon from her hands, but she held on, instead shoving into him with her shoulder.

  “Worry about your boyfriend,” he growled, then shoved her away, hard enough to jar her shoulder and make the bones click in her elbow. While she was still reeling, he lifted the gun up.

  The blaster cracked.

  For a split second, her heart stopped. Eyes wide, breath catching in an ugly rasp in her throat, she jerked her head to follow the path of the round.

  It slammed into the tip of the creature's nose, making it flinch back from Marc.

  A click came from beside her. Baik had drawn his other hand to the blaster's top, and the motion slid something into place—a kind of sliding protrusion that she'd ignored earlier—and there was a secondary whine of something starting up. When Baik fired again, the blaster's light had changed. The round was brighter, thicker. When it smashed into the creature's neck, it showered nearly half its body with sparks.

&n
bsp; It didn't seem to notice.

  Fucking hell. It's still not doing anything. Well, nothing other than annoy it.

  Marc had scrambled out of its range and regained his feet. A few dying embers of spent blaster rounds illuminated his silhouette as he jogged backwards toward them, his own blaster raised and firing every second.

  The creature bowed its head away from them, and a low, crowing growl rose up from under the sharp cracks of the blasters. Its surface rippled under the flashes of light, like the surface of the lake rippling under rain, then went smooth and solid again. After a few more seconds, it brought its head back up to face them, confirming her theory that the blasters weren't doing much to harm it.

  Remembering the hiss and pop from earlier, and the creature's apparent similarity to the Shadows, Karin reached back and reactivated her light.

  No sense in hiding now. They'd made enough noise and shot enough rounds that the entire complex would know where they were. Light slipped into her palms, and her earlier defense reignited in a soft, quickly-solidifying glow. Energy crackled through her skin, and she felt the connection slip into place like a long-time friend, cool and easy against her senses.

  The creature's head snapped to her. As its attention locked on her, its eyes somehow glinting in her glow even from all the way down the hallway, she got that same shock of realization from its gaze—intelligence, familiarity, kinsmanship—as before.

  “Karin! Karin, no!” Marc scrambled along the wall, his eyes wide. “Watch out!”

  Five blaster shots, three from Marc, two from Baik, slammed into the creature's front as it stepped forward, its gaze still fixated on her light. Its skin rippled again, the shots affecting it only in the way its steps faltered under their onslaught. As its back and shoulders lowered and its sickle-blades spread out to either side, nearly touching both edges of the hall, she had a feeling that their shots wouldn't matter in a few seconds. She yelled, dragging power into her light, making the hall beam into a solid, blinding glow behind her. A tingling sensation pulled over her face, settling in her eyes.