Myths & Magic: A Science Fiction and Fantasy Collection

by Kerry Adrienne

  Warren hated being at the microphone. He preferred to be in the darker, seedier side of things, Blake knew. But Blake couldn’t very well walk up to the microphone on his own. He had to be introduced. Obviously.

  Warren executed the introduction quite simply. “Ladies and gentlemen. Citizens of Crowley. I give you the man who founded the city. The man who overcame death for many of you. The man we call our founder, Blake Crowley.”

  The crowd went wild. Or at least they probably did. Blake hoped so. With the wind blowing in the opposite direction, he wasn’t sure how much of what he was hearing was real cheering or pumped in through the loudspeakers. But it was okay. They soundtrack of cheering could make him feel just as good. Everyone around the city would hear the thunderous applause that greeted Blake when he stood in front of his people.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of Crowley,” Blake gripped the podium and leaned towards the mic. Not too far in, though. He knew he couldn’t be too close to the mic but he wanted to give the impression he was leaning towards them, he was one of the people, he could connect with them.

  “It is no secret that, recently, hard times have fallen upon Crowley.” Blake’s voice carried through the entire city named after him. “I will not deny the fact rebels have been more active in trying to destroy our promised land, even though we have welcomed them into it with open arms. And our first line of defense, the hybrids, of which I know many of you are.” He paused here, his head swaying across the crowd, letting them know he could see each and every one. “You were sick and unable to fulfill your duties as protectors of Crowley. A great malice came up on you. But today I am proud to announce something of which every single one of you is so acutely aware. We have found and implemented the cure. How do you know this? Look around those of you in this crowd. Just days ago, you were sick in the hospital. And now you stand among us, ready, willing, and able to serve your duty as a hybrid protector of Crowley.”

  Blake paused for two reasons. One, he wanted the words to sink in so the people remembered their duty to protect his city. He knew the rebels weren’t giving up anytime soon, in fact, some of their attacks had gotten worse, but the hybrids were an integral part of the defense. And Blake knew that some in this very crowd were going to die protecting the city from the rebels. However, he also wanted to give the audience a chance to connect to each other. It was something many of the historical leaders had, in fact, failed to do. A community is strengthened by the individual connections within the masses. Blake discovered this technique of connecting people by reading about the old churches. Hundreds of people reaching out to shake their neighbors hand and bless them could really draw people into the crowd, give them a sense of belonging and build community.

  “Take a moment to greet your neighbor.” Blake’s voice was omnipotent. “Congratulate them on overcoming their illness. Thank them for standing vigil while you were sick. Whatever it was, reach out and let your neighbor know we are all part of this community. And I will tell you this: in the same way we welcome you here, we will also welcome the rebels, should they choose to join us.”

  The words rang out across all of Crowley. And they were heard by Tallahassee, who glanced over at Zeke, who was muttering as he sat on the ledge hidden behind a monstrous decorative piece at the top of the high rise, his RR9xi sniper rifle aimed down at the crowd.

  “Blake probably would just as soon shit on us as welcome us to the city. He’ll try every chance he gets to kill us and wipe humans off the face of the earth,” Zeke growled. “One asshole to rule them all.”

  “Shut it,” Tallahassee said. “I’m not hanging out on this ledge to listen to you bitch about Crowley. You heard the message I got from Trekon, we need to be on our toes if we’re going to save Frank’s hide.”

  “Today, ladies and gentlemen,” Blake’s voice boomed. “We are gathered to recognize the men who did this great and brave act. Now, I might’ve had a small part in bringing these gentlemen together, but they are with the ones who did the heavy lifting. They slaved away, dug into the problem, and came up with a most effective solution. Ladies, gentlemen, I give you the newest members of Order of the Accolade, Sir Dustin Bovey and Sir Charles Richards.”

  Pompous music filled the square and all of the town as Dustin and Charlie stepped out of the recess at the end transit to the town square. Charlie couldn’t believe it. It was just like the final scene in Star Wars, after Luke Skywalker had destroyed the Death Star and they were getting medals with Han Solo.

  He glanced over at Dustin. Dustin was nowhere near as unpretentious as Han Solo, but he was cocky and self-assured. Charlie wondered for a second if maybe he was going to be nice today. Probably not.

  Charlie walked slowly to match Dustin’s pace. Neither was really in a hurry to pass all the cheering residents who were reaching out to shake their hands and waving from a distance. He almost felt like doing a few victory laps and giving everyone high-fives, but you know, there was an image to uphold as the coolest programmer in the history of the known world, and victory laps and high-fives probably weren’t a part of it.

  He still had very little idea how Dustin got in on the accolade action, but it was probably Warren. Glancing up he saw the two make eye contact and Dustin give Warren a nod. Charlie shrugged. Whatever. Execs were always taking credit for their team’s work. Guess some things don’t change. It didn’t matter. Everybody knew Charlie was the hero from the past who stepped forward and solved the problem of the future. Dustin wasn’t solving the problem. If he had, they wouldn’t have had to go get Charlie.

  They finally got to the front of the crowd and mounted the stairs to the platform, which Charlie thought was a little higher than it probably needed to be, and the stairs were a little steeper than he would’ve liked. But, of course, he wasn’t the master planner of ceremonies. Blake was, and from everything he’d seen, Blake knew a thing or two about managing crowds, and expectations. By the time Charlie got to the tenth step he realized why the stairs were so steep. It made him rise higher with each step and the crowd cheered louder as if he was scaling a mountain. Finally, when they got to the top of the platform, the entire square was encased in a deafening roar, ten times louder than anything going on in the ceremony before this.

  Charlie had to hand it to Blake, he knew what he was doing, for sure.

  When Robin stood up, the loud cheering of the crowd softened and fell into the adoring cadence of a child looking at his mother, the bubbling sound of hope and joy filling the space. Clearly, she was someone they appreciated. When she stood in front of Charlie and Dustin, Charlie understood why they were told to stay on the lower step. It made it easier for Robin to take the opalum medals from the hand of a ServBot and slip one, first over Dustin’s neck, and then another over Charlie’s. She reached out to each one then and raised them up onto the platform next to her, as if it were some carefully orchestrated step onto a dance floor. She took them lightly by their shoulders so they would turn and face the crowd.

  And if Charlie had thought the crowd loved them before, they were twenty times more deafening as he turned around grinning and smiling as they received their medals.

  But the medal felt heavy around Charlie’s neck. Not just heavy-heavy, but like internally-settling-in-his-stomach-heavy. Very uncomfortable. Why was Dustin smiling so much? He hadn’t smiled at all until they saw the code worked, now Dustin was just elated. Even more than Charlie was. And this made Charlie just a tad suspicious. His gaze went to Warren, who was also grinning from ear-to-ear with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. Dustin might be the scorpion, but Warren was the snake.

  And where the hell was Jade? He expected to see her up on stage next to Blake, but she wasn’t there and he hadn’t seen her at all since the rebel attack. Of course, he had been in the dungeon trying to solve the problem of the code, but... well, it would have been nice to see her in this, his moment of triumph.

  She must have gone to stop some of the rebel attacks in the city. And he’d seen she was okay.
But well, he kind of thought she would’ve checked in on him. They didn’t exactly have a thing but, you know, maybe they could.

  Charlie frowned.

  The adoration of the unknown masses was great. The appreciation of the city executive was nice. But it was just a little sad, really, not to have anyone to share it with. Yes, some would say he didn’t have much, but he had connections. You could say living at home with your mom was sad, but it wasn’t. Some people have no one. And he had his nephew, and niece. Even his sister. She could be a bitch, but he did think she tried to do what was best for him. Now he didn’t have any of them. Not his sister, or her kids, not his mom, and now it looked like not even Jade, the only friend he actually had in this town. And suddenly there was a slight emptiness and Charlie realized he kind of wanted to go home.

  “Everybody knows I’ve never been one to sweep things under the carpet.” Blake stepped back to the mic, his metal-toed shoes ringing out. Charlie was taken aback. He thought they were done. This is all they had done in rehearsal. Stand up and get the awards and sit in one of the chairs. Weren’t they done?

  Apparently not.

  “But at these times of joy and celebration, it’s always good to remember the struggle going on around us. And why hybrids are so helpful to us. You may have heard when we were working so hard to save our hybrids, the rebels saw this as a moment of weakness. They attacked the very area where we had the machinery needed to heal the hybrids.”

  Charlie frowned, well… that wasn’t quite true, what Blake was saying.

  “While we defeated the rebels, we took many losses. But we also took one prisoner. Today we bring him before you to send a message to all rebels. They are more than welcome to join us, but if they stand against us there is one simple conclusion.”

  What the heck is he talking about, thought Charlie. He had been staring at Blake so long, he still didn’t really notice the commotion over by the side gate. Everybody was looking in that direction.

  “What are you doing?” Monfils asked Jade as he rushed up to the side gate of the Pavilion. He’d only just gotten the message from his Deltas that she had shown up to take the prisoner onto the stage. Knowing Warren, Monfils knew this couldn’t be good.

  “Following Warren’s orders,” Jade stared at Monfils as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

  “Since when do you follow his orders?” Monfils gripped her elbow.

  Jade looked slowly down at his hand on her elbow and then up at him. “Since when do you question my actions?” she asked quietly.

  Monfils let her elbow go, a worried expression settling on his face. Whatever was about to happen couldn’t be undone. He was sure of that.

  Jade didn’t say another word, she gripped Frank by the elbow and pushed him out the door and into the Pavilion. Monfils, with a sinking feeling in his stomach, followed close behind.

  Charlie’s eyes followed the crowds’ and Jade stepped through a door, pushing in front of her the big guy who had spared Charlie’s life when they first arrived because he was human.

  “There he is,” said Zeke, elbowing Tallahassee in the ribs.

  “The girl,” Tallahassee said, shoving Zeke’s arm back at him. “I’m not an idiot, I see him, too. Fire on the girl.”

  Zeke shifted his RR9xi GPS sniper rifle, ignoring Tallahassee’s snort. Sure, it was hundred-year-old technology, but that was all Zeke had access to and he’d supped this thing up something wicked. He barely needed to aim it at Jade and pull the trigger and the GPS in the opalum bullet would do the rest. She walked slowly toward the stage with Frank ahead of her, but Zeke paused. “I don’t have a clear shot,” he said. “There’s too many humans in the audience. I can’t take it.”

  “Shit,” Tallahassee swore. Humans lived in Crowley and worked for Crowley, and Tallahassee thought he did this as a bit of an insurance policy. Lowsmiths didn’t kill humans. Tallahassee wasn’t about to tell Zeke to take that chance. “Wait ‘til she gets on stage. It’ll be cutting it close, but it’s going to be the best chance to get a clean shot.” He squinted above the stage where a shimmer in the air was all that gave way the presence of a GX Silon hovering in silence, ready to take its one shot at retrieving Frank. The shielded bot-driven transport couldn’t take more than one passenger, but Tallahassee and Zeke had agreed: Frank was worth it. They’d figure a way out of here. Like rats in the sewer, they were pretty good at squeaking out of tight spots.

  Charlie’s jaw went slack as Jade, dressed in her black slick bodysuit, came up the side stairs. She didn’t look at him, she didn’t smile, she kept her hands on the cuffs of the prisoner she pushed forward to the center of the stage. He grimaced as he saw Monfils wasn’t far behind. Why did those two always have to be together. Did they have a thing?

  Robin gently tugged on Dustin’s and Charlie’s wrists, pulling them back and giving center stage to Jade and the rebel prisoner.

  A flash of light movement, a reflection in the awnings overlooking the platform grabbed Charlie’s attention for minute. He glanced up and that’s when he saw them, two weird looking guys with guns, tucked up in the eaves, trying to get a good shot.

  And now they had it. Perfectly.

  “Jade!” Charlie called, just as Jade was raising her blaster directly to the rebel’s temple.

  She looked up at Charlie, her eyes black, as she fired the laser directly into the head of the rebel. The large man’s brain exploded in a flood of gore and blood out the side of his head. Charlie’s mouth screamed in horror, but he was already moving as he leapt to stop the sniper round coming directly at Jade.

  It missed her and punched Charlie hard in the chest, knocking him backwards.

  He lay on the stage, his hand landing in some of the rebel brain splattered on the ground. His scream drained away, as he realized he’d been hit.

  But Charlie Richards was used to being wrong. This time, he was the happiest he had ever been about being wrong. The opalum bullet had managed, by some miracle, to hit the dense medal hanging from his neck. The impact had knocked the wind out of him and destroyed the inscription, but Charlie was very much alive and unhurt.

  Jade been expecting there would be a sniper. She knew she should kill the rebel quickly and effectively. Faster than a sniper could pull a trigger. And she’d done just that.

  But now, she knew where they were. She glanced down at Charlie without saying a word, without a friendly smile, without so much as a “Thanks for saving my life.” She wiped off her DC15s HEL and quickly pulled at the scope. She sent off a quick round and clipped Zeke in the left shoulder before shifting her aim to Tallahassee. Zeke tumbled off the side of the building as Tallahassee disappeared down the other side.

  Jade raced off the stage, leaving Charlie alone on the platform, gasping for breath, the dented opalum medal weighing down his neck.

  Chapter 24

  “What was that?” Robin cried, ripping the shawl off her head and throwing it on the couch as they entered their suite. The lights of Crowley glistened below them, but it was nothing Robin wanted to look at right now. She just wanted to close her eyes and forget everything she had just seen.

  “Calm down, honey,” Blake said, picking up the scarf and carefully folding it and placing it on the back of the seat.

  A ServBot popped up next to her. “May I fix you a drink, Madam?” it beeped.

  “Get the hell away from me,” Robin said, shoving the bot in the chest.

  “What is wrong with you?” Blake grabbed her shoulders and turned her to him. “Are you okay?” He peered into her eyes, making every effort to discern what was causing the anger and rage inside of her. But her eyes look normal. Everything looked fine.

  “Since when are we killing humans?” She asked, pulling her shoulders away and stepping back from her husband. “Is this what we’ve become? We are suddenly a dictatorship.”

  “We are not a dictatorship,” Blake said, slowly sitting down again. He realized he wasn’t going to be able to strong-arm his wife into
calming down, so he was going to have to lead by example. He was going to have to show her nothing was wrong. Everything was just fine.

  “However, there are laws that govern this corporation. And those laws dictate we do not suffer other people killing our people. That rebel killed our hybrids.”

  Confusion struggled on Robin’s face. “Jade just executed him,” she said. “She blew his brains out on public display. I’ve never known her to do anything like that.”

  Blake held up his hand as the bot brought over his evening mixed drink.

  “What part of hybrid assassin don’t you understand?” Blake asked. He loved his wife and he honored her and he respected her. But there was only so much he was going to take. This was not the time for weakness.

  “I just- I just thought you had the sense do things discretely.”

  “We had to make an example of him! We need to show them they can’t just break into our city and kill people. It’s not okay. And if we had a bot kill him, well, it just wouldn’t work.”

  “But how did you get Jade to do it?” Robin asked.

  Blake looked at her like she was a little bit crazy. “Do what? She kills people for a living.”