by Alex Kirko
Tara moved to lean against a stack of crates but stopped when Mark waved his arms frantically at her. “What are the orders?” she asked.
He shrugged. “If we have valuable intel, we are supposed to run. If not, then we are supposed to backstab the Federation when the army begins the siege.” He spat on the floor. “Fuck that, I sure have enough to bail out. Do you have any idea what this kind of humidity does to my computers? Ignorant ancient coots, can’t tell the father end of an adapter from—” She saw him straighten up in alarm. He said, “And don’t even think about hijacking my ticket out of this hellhole. I have encrypted everything with my personal codes and built in enough computer worms into the stuff that they will not only delete the data if handled wrong but also wipe whatever system they are plugged into.”
Tara raised her palms in a pacifying gesture. “Come on, Mark, darling, I wouldn’t do that to you. I’m just thinking that it will be much easier to escape when there is a crowd of mechs and Ascended beating on Seind’s doors. Do you have it?”
“What? Ah, right, give me a moment.”
He scurried to the only pile of boxes not marked for incineration, removed the top two from the top, dived into the third one, and began taking stuff out of it. She recognized a portable short-range communication unit and a food synthesizer. There were many things she didn’t recognize.
She said, “How do you plan to carry all of this out of the city? It looks like there is half a ton of junk.”
“Junk? Shows what you know. This is all I need to survive if I’m cut off from the Council. And I have a car.” He got to the bottom of the crate and fished out a personal digital assistant and a silver cylinder half a foot in length and five inches in diameter.
“That’s it?” she asked.
He watched her for a second and then sighed. “What the hell, you’ve been a lot less trouble than the other two. Hold on.” He bent down to one of the boxes he had taken off the top of the pile and took out two dark-brown boxes out of it that were as large as her palm. “Here you go. The silver cylinder is the EMP. You need to be inside the shields of whatever you are trying to disable, or it won’t do a thing. Also, turn off all your electronic equipment before you use it, and the quieter you keep your nanites, the less of them will blow. This should take out the scanners at the edge of the city, and the artillery should be too busy with fighting off the Republic forces to fire on runners. Activate it by twisting the bottom of the cylinder clockwise three times.” He motioned to the personal assistant. “This has a copy of the city plans that one of the other agents got. If you are about to be captured, keep it on and blow the EMP to scramble its memory.” He took one of the boxes and gave it to her. It didn’t have any markings. “A plasma-concussive-frag bomb. There is a timer and an activation button on the bottom. You press the button for three seconds, release it, then tap it again. It will work only if the timer is set. The plasma will eat through shields, the concussive and frag are to blow stuff up. It has enough power to destroy a small building, so make sure your shields are on and there is something thick between you and whatever is in your way.”
She took the box and caressed its surface as one would a treasure. The things she could do with this.
“Now scram. There is a siege coming, and I’m not packed.” When she was at the door, he said, “Hold on, Here, take a backpack. Can’t carry this stuff in the open. And good luck, Tara. Hope we meet again.”
The evacuation started while she was walking through the industrial district. Sirens blared all around her, and the speakers switched on a second later.
“This is Lyndon Liun, deputy mayor. Our intelligence has revealed that the Council plans to take back Seind, and they have brought heavy artillery. Should the outer city shields fall, these batteries will be able to level an entire residential block in a single hit. An evacuation plan has been uploaded to your personal assistants, and we urge all of you to move away from the south of the city and to the north-east. If you have personal transportation that can take you outside of Seind, you are welcome to go to Lankershire. Do not attempt to leave Seind on foot. The few roads that lead outside are too narrow, and you will only injure yourself. We will engage the Council forces on the south-west edge of town, and they should have no reason to harm civilians.”
Tara cursed and abandoned all pretense of blending in. She ran to an underground station, waited almost five minutes for a capsule, and rode to her apartment drumming on her right knee all the way. Luckily, she lived to the north of the city center. When she exited, she had to shoulder her way through the crowd outside the rapid transit station.
She walked past their door at first, but then stopped. She couldn’t say goodbye per se, but it still felt wrong to leave without thanking the Linds. The communicator rang twice before Kate picked up.
“Hey, Mary, where are you? Are you evacuating? You shouldn’t worry, I’m sure we can hold the city.”
“Actually, I’m outside your door. Let me in?”
Kate hesitated for a second before saying, “Sure, why not.”
The door slid open, and she stepped inside. Arthur was in his boxers, and Kate was fastening plates of reflective armor to his body. He stood still. Even after all this time she couldn’t completely suppress a wave of disgust at the sight of ulcers and lesions covering his skin and at the way he hunched despite trying to stand straight.
“Mary, hi,” he said. “You should probably get farther away. They say it’s going to be a big fight.” He turned to his wife. “Honey, no need to triple-check everything. Primary shields are what matters. This stuff can barely block a blowtorch.”
Kate looked up at him. “If I can boost your chance of survival, I will do it.” She motioned Tara closer. “Mary, are you alright? You look paler than usual.”
Tara shook her head. “It’s this damn war. Look, I see you are busy—”
“We should always have time for our friends,” said Arthur almost managing a friendly smile this time. “But seriously, get away from here in the next three hours, both of you.”
“I just wanted to say thank you, for everything. You know, in case a building falls on me or something. You’ve been great friends. I’m not sure I can ever repay you.”
Kate looked up from securing a grenade belt to Arthur’s waist. “Depressed much? Mary, you are a City Hall employee. If you are so worried, call Lyndon up, tell him I sent you. He’ll give you one of the old police vehicles, and you can ride out of here and to Lankershire. They sure as hell aren’t taking that city today.”
Tara saw the tension in Kate’s shoulders, so she didn’t need to ask, but she did. “Are you leaving?”
The other woman shook her head. “I helped build our defenses, and if the Council thinks they can destroy everything I’ve been working on, they are in for a surprise. I’ll be helping coordinate the battle from the City Hall.” Kate gave her a focused look for a second. “I hope you’ll be alright, Mary. You are a good friend.”
The words tried to break out of Tara’s chest, but she didn’t know what they were. She thought, I’ve been living a lie for too long, and it became reality—we really are close. In the end, she just waved goodbye and went to her apartment.
Tara walked in and opened the hidden compartment under her bed. She took off her civilian shield generator and put on the military-grade one she had bought from Mark two weeks ago. Then she changed her boots for combat ones. She still had several hours until the battle got into full swing and she could get out of Seind. Tara plopped down in front of her console, shut off its network connection, and took a blade out of the top drawer under the computer terminal. This one wasn’t plasma, just a thin metal knife made of high-carbon steel.
She took a piece of cloth, clenched it between her teeth, and slit her left biceps open nearly biting through the fabric from pain. Tara pulled the portable drive out of her body. It was soft, almost fleshy to the touch, but the ports were standard enough. Tara plugged it into the console, made sure the door to
her apartment was locked, and started reviewing the data she would bring to the Council.
“We really should pay more attention to cyber-security.”
Tara spun around in the direction of the voice and froze.
It was Moira Heatsworth that leaned against the wall in her smaller form, of that there was no doubt, but Tara hadn’t seen her up close in a while, and even if six feet four inches of lean muscle wasn’t petite by any stretch of imagination, she now recognized the delicate features as well as the dark-brown eyes the same color as her own. And she recognized that lilt of vowels that her lost sister had now that it wasn’t distorted by a barrel-sized chest.
“No,” she said. “What did you do to look like her? She’s been gone for almost two centuries.”
Moira bared her teeth. “Don’t you recognize me, sis? And I thought you’d understand because apparently I was right, and you can also transform.” Her body began to swell, rearranging itself into something monstrous. “Thinking that any Ascended life was better than living as a human. You sent a nineteen-year-old girl to a serial rapist with illusions of grandeur and thought it was for her own good, didn’t you?”
Tara felt color drain away from her face and she reeled back. “That was all father,” she said. “I didn’t know.”
“And isn’t that dandy. Shipping off your child—your sister—to live forever in a place none of you knew anything about. Did you even try to visit? You sick, arrogant, self-obsessed fucks.” She was ten feet now and almost to the ceiling. “For the last fifty years, the anticipation of this moment is what kept me going. And I don’t even need to break the law, it turns out, because you are a spy—that drive is all the proof I needed. I should give Lyndon a cookie for suspecting you in the first place. Or maybe your still-warm corpse to munch on.”
Tara cringed. There was nothing left of her sweet little sister in the monster before her. She slowly began reaching for a plasma blade she had hidden under the console. “One hundred seventy-six years,” she said. “I’m so sorry, Moira.”
Her sister had stopped growing by that point, and she looked like an angel of vengeance that spent too much time in the gym. “You are sorry,” said Moira. “I’m sure that makes it all better. Only I saw your file, Tara. I was locked up in the basement for the first twenty years. He would come every day. He laughed as he broke me over and over and over. He would lick my ear—always the right one—and with his scalding breath would come the words. ‘You will love it and finally be free. Just endure a little longer,’ he would say. And the worst part? He was right. Like a program pounded into my skull year after year. Telling me it was normal, that there was no escape, that when I accepted it, I would again have other people to talk to. Other broken women. Broken sisters.” Moira laughed and it was a hollow, grating sound. “Do you remember what you were doing at the time?”
Tara’s fingers reached the hilt of the dagger. She shook her head.
Moira said, “You were thinking of going into art. Your paintings were appalling, but you weren’t stopping, and mom and dad were promoting you as if you were the second coming of Ruth Umbolt.”
Tara realized she didn’t have three hours to leave the city anymore. She was sure Moira hadn’t alerted anyone yet, but she didn’t want to murder the crazy woman with bloodshot eyes that remained of the girl she had once known. She didn’t know if she even could.
Moira continued, “After there was nothing left, the other girls picked up the pieces. What a joke, therapy by other victims. But if we had one thing, we had time.”
Tara said, “But I didn’t go into art, did I? I haven’t seen dad or mom or any of them for fifteen years. I didn’t want to be a part of that life anymore.” She began raising her voice without meaning to. “And you know what? Yes, you had a horrible life, but our parents screwed both of us over. All I ever wanted was pretty clothes, good movies, a brawl once in a while, and a nice vigorous fuck before bed to dull the pointlessness of it all. Know what this gets me?” She gestured to herself. “Eternity with a family that doesn’t care, no kick from most drugs, no games, and no relationship without more trust than you can get in this age. So how about you just let me go?”
Moira face went the color of boiling lava. “You bitch. You dare compare us?!” Moira licked her teeth. “You know nothing of my life.” She cracked her trunk-like neck and crouched, predatory attention focusing on Tara. “I hope you fight back.”
Tara bent her knees and went into a defensive stance, rooting herself with her combat boots. On one hand, the room was too small for Moira to move in, but on the other hand, there was the sheer physical power her sister wielded. A single mistake would get her grappled and killed, so Tara shoved down the anger, the confusion, and the light happiness that fluttered in her chest.
Moira lunged forward trying to pin Tara between her and the console. Her left hand moved to grab Tara’s head, but the redhead dived under it. Before she could catch a breath, she felt a hand clamp down on her left biceps. Tara ignited her dagger, twisted and hacked at Moira to get her to release her grip, but not before Moira pulled.
It was pure agony for two seconds before she disengaged the rooting system in her boots and got thrown at the door face-first smashing into it with a thud. Her shoulder got torn out of its socket and it burned like molten lead under her skin. Despite the speckles of light covering most of her vision, Tara spun to face her opponent and saw a massive form barreling toward her. She rolled out of the way and cried out at the pain the maneuver brought.
A fist smashed into the metal where her head had been, blowing back Tara’s hair and leaving a boulder-sized dent. There was a long gash running down Moira’s forearm through which she could see bone, but it was already closing. Tara backed away and her back hit a corner.
Moira was approaching slowly, her arms spread wide in welcome, and Tara had no hope to dodge her this time. She realized that despite how tired Moira looked, her sister could still plan—Tara should have made her angrier. The tiny amount of space hindered Moira’s giant form, but she could take a lot of damage. Tara couldn’t.
I didn’t take the backpack off, she thought. She dropped the dagger with a clang, twisted her healthy arm behind her, and found one of the boxes by touch. Forget winning, she needed to get out of here.
Moira said, “I don’t want you to die just yet—first you get a taste of what it was like. Did you know that Ascended regenerate even if we don’t want to? Just pour some blood and the bruises, cuts, and torn flesh all mend in half an hour.”
Tara made a clumsy attempt to dash to the right, but Moira’s arm swung into her path. She smashed into it with her entire body weight, but it was like trying to budge a mountain. She got caught and only then noticed that Moira was geared for battle. A top and shorts left most of her exposed, and her skin looked like coarse sandpaper and felt like a steel grater. This first minute of fighting had torn Tara’s own business clothes, revealing the combat mesh underneath, and there was nothing to stop her body from touching Moira’s as her sister crushed her in a bear’s embrace. Tara barely had the presence of mind to root herself to prevent Moira from picking her up. Her ankles immediately felt like they might be left in the boots with the rest of her going elsewhere, but her tendons and the floor held for now.
Her sister’s manic grin filled her vision, and Moira’s skin became acid—bubbling, tearing into Tara’s body and setting her nerves on fire. She could feel the nanites going deeper, nibbling at the deposits of protein and fat deep inside her where a normal woman’s womb would be. She felt hapless, and Tara didn’t do hapless.
With a burst of angry strength, she kicked her sister away half a foot even if she remained trapped in her arms. “I resisted too,” said Moira. “Not that it did any good.”
“Get off me!”
Tara whipped the box from behind her, pressed it to Moira’s ripped six-pack and engaged her shield at one hundred percent. A light-blue pane flashed in front of her going through the limbs caught in it and caus
ing her arm to start seizing. Moira barely twitched.
Tara closed her eyes to shield them from the detonation.
There wasn’t even an explosion. The world filled with white light and unbearable pressure, and Tara felt like she would never breathe again. She tried to get her hand back through the shield, but wasn’t sure it worked.
It ended. Tara rose from the same corner she had been trapped in and looked at her right arm. It ended right past her elbow. Her left arm was still dangling, useless. Corners are the most reinforced part of a room, she remembered.
Her room was blown into microscopic dust. The plasma charge that had gone off first must have not only burned her hand and forearm off but also the console along with the data disk she needed to bring to the Council. She had taped a backup under her bed, but it was a smoldering heap of black armature now. Tara blinked thinking there was something more important to check but not sure what.
She took one stumbling step forward, her head filled with ringing. She had to get away. Get away from who? Her world turned red and she stood for a while, rubbing the blood off her forehead and eyes with the remains of her right arm.
Her mind began to clear, and she saw that the explosion had blown apart the wall between her apartment and Kate’s. The Linds’ place had only been hit by the concussive blast and the fragmentation payload, so it was just reduced to splinters by supersonic pieces of metal as opposed to getting incinerated.
Arthur was in a corner behind the kitchen counter, bleeding, hunched over the twitching form of Kate. Tara couldn’t tell if he was alive.
Moira lay against the farthest wall, and Tara could tell it was her only by her size. Her head and both arms had been blown off, and all that remained was a blackened torso that reeked of charred meat and burning metal. There was a hole where Moira’s stomach had been. Smoke rose from her in plumes but there was no fire. Good. Things on fire needed to be put out before they could be used.
Tara took a step. Her ankle was damaged, her arms were useless, and she was so hungry. Somebody must be coming, she thought. She needed to run, and she needed to heal to do it. She dimly remembered family members being more compatible than usual.
