No. He's mine.
Weapons still pointed at Richard, the soldiers backed away. The leader approached slowly. He was very angry.
Richard wasn't done yet, though. "Answer. Damn it, I know you're there. Answer me!"
"Richard," Sam said softly. "It's ok. Get out of the way. Maybe they will keep us both alive if I…"
Richard ignored her.
"Please Richard, get out of the way!" She touched the nape of his neck and was once more amazed at how cool his skin was.
No time to think. The leader was in front of Richard and glaring heavily. He struck without warning. The leader jabbed the knife into Richard, but it wasn't a blow that was designed to kill quickly. The leader yanked the blade straight down into the top part of Richard's protruding gut. He laughed wickedly, slicing farther down until he stopped abruptly. He looked confused.
Sam's screams shattered the air. She started to cry uncontrollably. "No Richard! No, no, no!!"
She repeated this over and over; it was all she could say. Blood oozed out as the soldier pulled out the blade and Richard fell to his knees. Was he already dead?
Everything went quiet. The men were staring at Richard completely silent, frozen with strange expressions on their faces. The leader looked livid. He flipped the blade around and brought it down sharply, aiming for Richard's spine. Sam closed her eyes in terror as the knife plummeted towards him.
Suddenly Sam heard a crackling disembodied voice, like the righteous word of god himself, coming from Richard's ear. Richard immediately threw up his arm and caught the soldier's wrist in an iron grip, halting the plunging knife centimeters before it sank into his neck.
The voice rattled off commands one by one.
"Big Daddy to Doughboy. Permission granted. Protect package at all costs. Bravo weapons use only. Engage tangos at will. I repeat. Engage tangos at will."
Twinkle, Twinkle Lonely Star
Time: Current day, evening
Scene: Distant motorway outside Academy City 676 limits
I could feel the rumble at the behind my knees and in my thighs as we roared down the road. The power of the turbo-charged hydrocell engine screamed as he throttled the bike, the whine of the gears pitching higher and higher as the speed increased. Fifty, one hundred, one hundred and fifty kilometers per hour. I didn't know how fast he could go, but I could barely catch my breath as we pushed forward into the darkness. I held him tight, feeling muscle so taut it couldn't be real. My body and mind were like the aftermath of a warzone. I was hot. I was sweaty. I had bruises on my arms and shoulders from the grip of the soldiers. The soldier who had tried…who had tried to…I could not say it. I would not say it. Saying it would make it all the more real. I buried my face in his back.
I did feel comforted. Those soldiers wouldn't be after me, not anymore. They wouldn't be after anyone anymore. I felt tears form at the corner of my eyes, tears that were instantly swept away into the night lost to the wind and road. Lost like me.
My body shivered from the churn of rushing air pouring over my sweaty skin. My shirt was split, whipping up behind my back and exposing my skin to the torrent of the artificial tempest. The violence blocked my senses. I couldn't feel any more. I was numb; at least that's what I tried to tell myself. Actually, I was scared. I was scared of what might be following us up the road.
How many were dead? How many were gone? The faces of my friends, one after another, played over and over in my mind. Cammie. Oh, Cammie. You were so good to me even though I was from Partial Palace. Coda, dirty minded Coda, how will things develop in the future with you and Lacey. Are you in love? Are you ever going to realize Cammie's feelings for you? Are you even alive? Mother, oh my poor lonely mother. For some reason I can't-- I can't remember your face.
The bike coasted, coming to the crest of the highest hill that circle the valley. We slowed unexpectedly to a stop at a place where I could see the valley we had just traversed. The lights of the city and the twinkling of the stars fought to hold my attention. Both of them, the stars in the sky and the lights of the city on the ground, sparkled in their respective element. Beautiful.
More tears formed on my face. I longed to speak. I longed to ask the question and finally found the courage to do so.
"We can't ever go back, can we?"
He didn't say anything. He just turned to look at me, the faint glare of the bike's headlights barely illuminating his face. We sat there staring until he opened his mouth and said a single word.
"No."
He turned the bike and ripped down the backside of the hilltop to the inter-way. Once again, my breath was lost to the wind.
I, Samantha Montgomery of Partial Palace in Academy City 676, had a crush on a foreign transfer student named Adam, was best friends with a high-tracks girl named Cammie, and had once or twice secretly fantasized about kissing Coda, the friend of a friend. I fought with my mom the morning it had all started and said some pretty mean things to her. I deeply regret that now. I wonder if I will ever get the chance to say I'm sorry.
Two months before graduation in the last year of my primary education, violence besieged my school and I was whisked away from my home, my friends, my life, everything I cared about. Looking back, I think I knew, even as we sped down that motorway, that life – my life as I had known it – was never going to be the same again.
Thanks for purchasing Rise of the Magician, Season 1 of Harmonics.
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As a special bonus, we have included the first chapter of Season 2 below.
An Unexpected Hero
Time: Late afternoon
Scene: Academy 676
All thoughts of screaming or crying melted away as the voice came. The words echoed in her mind.
“Big Daddy to Doughboy. Permission granted. Protect package at all costs. Bravo weapons use only. Engage tangos at will. I repeat, engage tangos at will.”
Slow motion, the everlasting cliché from so many a story and Vii theater experiences, commandeered her cognitive function. She could hear and see everything as the bloody mess unfolded.
Richard’s lips moved in a slight whisper. “Bravo weapons, huh? About brickin’ time.”
Richard’s head titled skyward to meet the gaze the Móguǐ soldier trying to skewer him with the wicked looking knife. Richard smiled a half smile as the soldier’s eyes went wide in surprise. Sharp movements so fast Sam could barely make them out and the unmistakable cracking of bone replaced the echo of the crackling voice in her head. The soldier’s scream of pain was abruptly cut off by an odd gurgle.
Next thing Sam knew, Richard was standing tall and undaunted, while the soldier was on the ground, his arm horribly disfigured and obviously broken in several places. Blood flowed across the scarred tile, coating the space with red. The soldier’s lifeless eyes distracted from the gaping hole in his throat. Sam took an involuntary step back. Icy indifference rolled out from Richard in cascading waves of cold.
Richard was saturated with blood. Sam could see it soaked into his clothes and running from his gut. She knew he was hurt. How could he not be hurt after a blade to the stomach?
Light shivs stretched to their full length as the reality of the Móguǐ’s downed leader set in. Murderous eyes fixed themselves on Richard as the Jadian unit fanned out.
“Sam.”
He said her name but she didn’t recognize the voice. Sam couldn’t answer him.
"Sam!”
Sam gulped, “Yeah, Richard.”
He looked over his shoulder at her as he flicked the switch of a light shiv. Now where did he get that?
“Get behind me.”
It was a command. No room for dissent or argument. Sam didn’t think to argue.
Just as she retreated behind him the first soldier attacked. A fast cross body blow aimed directly at Richard’s neck swiped out but struck nothing. Richard didn’t block; he didn’t even
try. He simply leaned back, avoiding the tip of the light shiv by centimeters or less. Richard’s counter was a quick spin and slash from hip to shoulder that ended with Richard facing Sam. It was like Richard was trying to give the man a piggyback ride. Sam instinctively found the man’s face. It was lifeless.
Richard ripped the dead soldier’s light shiv from his hand and dumped the body just as the other soldiers leveled strikes from the left and right. With a reverse and fore grip on the shivs, Richard blocked both blows, put an elbow to the nose of one soldier and a quick snap kick to the gut of the other. He finished the two men with thrusts to the heart. Four men lay dead at Richard’s feet. Blood was everywhere; Richard’s, the soldier’s, and probably Sam’s, though she couldn’t remember getting hurt. She didn’t know anymore. Conscious thought had all but deserted her.
The rest of the soldiers met similarly gruesome fates. They fought and died in a heaping gory mess. Richard dealt with them with speed and violence like Sam did not think possible. She was dreaming. She had to be dreaming. Richard had been stabbed. He was bleeding. He should be dead. She should be dead. Had they had their way with her? Used her and thrown her aside? Had they killed her?
Sam fell to her knees and retched violently, spewing up bile and the lunch she had barely eaten. Lunch…she had just been sitting in the lunchroom with Richard worrying about a mysterious savior and the object of her budding affection and now… now she sat crumpled to the floor, barely able to stand. It all just felt wrong, so very wrong. Richard was at her side. She couldn’t remember him moving there. He held her hair out of her face and her sick on the floor. Instinctively she buried her face in the side of his neck. His skin was still cold to the touch. She felt him stiffen.
“Sam, we can’t stay here. We’ve got to move.”
Tears formed at the corners of her eyes and rolled down the side of her face. “What are you, Richard?”
Richard pulled Sam away from him, moving a healthy distance from her. He stared at her with heavy piercing eyes. Her blood slowed to molasses.
Who was this person?
Richard stood and pulled her to her feet. “We need to move. There are still Móguǐ, school security, Republicans, and MESA.”
He looked at his timepiece. “I think it's safe to say that MESA has called both Containment and S&D. If we don’t move we’re dead. Bravo weapons aren't going to take down those monsters. Same for the Móguǐ Heavy Ops. We could have a real fight on our hands.”
Sam wanted to argue. She wanted to run. Her fear was consuming her loyalty and sense of friendship. Richard. Fat, genius, sarcastic Richard, had just slaughtered those men, butchered them without hesitation or remorse. Could she really go with him?
A terrible thought struck Sam.
It wasn’t could she go with him, but would he allow her to leave? Would he let her go?
Sam inched her way along the hall, away from Richard. Richard’s eyes narrowed as she did. Quick and graceful, far more graceful than his pudgy frame should have allowed, Richard moved in front of her, blocking her escape. Sam’s sucked in a deep breath. He wasn’t going to let her go.
“Who are you, Richard? Why are you here?”
Screaming voices and the sound of gunfire echoed in the distance, close enough to be heard but not close enough to cause immediate concern. Nevertheless, others were coming. Friend, foe, classmate; at this point it didn’t matter. They had only a few moments and they both knew it.
Richard’s eyes didn’t leave Sam. “I’ve always thought you were more intelligent than this, Sam. I would have thought the reason I’m here is obvious.”
His eyes remained passive. Too passive, as if…as if he wasn’t trying to look somewhere. The gears in her head dislodged themselves a single thought forced its way in.
The box. He has to be after the box.
Suddenly Richard’s eyes fixed on something above her head. He flicked on the light shivs and dashed towards her with unnatural speed. Sam felt her eyes clamp down and her arms reflexively shield her face and body. Why was he charging her? Was he going to kill her? Did he know where the box was after all? Perhaps he didn’t need her anymore.
Sam fell a whoosh as ionized plasma scorched the air overhead. A thumping noise to either side of her body forced her eyes back open. Sam looked into his eyes and felt…felt… fear. Their faces were centimeters apart as he held light shivs to either side of her body.
She had difficulty looking away from his eyes. They were cold and dead. No eyes should look like that. She glanced to the side and saw clumps of tiled ceiling. She understood. Richard had rushed her to keep the falling ceiling debris from crushing her head. She suddenly felt stupid for thinking he was going to kill her. After all, if he wanted her dead he could have done that ages ago.
Richard grabbed her hand. “Come on. We need to leave now.”
“But—but what about your wounds? Aren’t you going to—?”
Richard pulled on Sam and they set off back down the hall, Richard’s pace not slowing in spite of his injury. They continued to backtrack, making a couple of turns before exiting the school hallways into the Academy City 676 central courtyard, a massive central yard that divided the different education levels. They made their way to the elementary level buildings where the youngest of the Academy City 676 citizens did their learning.
Sam and Richard ran, but hadn’t moved more than a few meters when the sounds of fighting erupted once more. MESA, some of the rag-tag bunch of fighters, and the Móguǐ were on each other. To make matters worse, the school’s defenses were finally kicking in, blasting just about anything that moved.
A concentrated blast of heat fried a patch of grass right in front of Richard and Sam, cooking it completely. Richard pulled Sam behind a row of unique trees, a cross between pine and oak. They rounded the edge of the tree line just as another group of Móguǐ soldiers came dashing from the other side of the tree line. Light shivs flickered to full length and hands went for their waistbands. Each of the soldiers touched a large blue button and a slight blue haze enveloped them. Sam knew instantly they were in trouble.
Richard hesitated, but Sam didn’t know for what. Was he scared? That seemed unlikely, but he wasn’t doing anything. He wasn’t firing up his shivs or taking a fighting stance. Nothing.
Then Richard attacked himself.
Sam watched in horror as Richard extended his two stolen light shivs to quarter length and proceeded to shear off his own skin. Richard’s actions were so jolting that the soldiers stopped just short of their attack. They stared at Richard in disbelief. Sam just screamed.
“Richard, what in the hell are you doing?!”
Richard’s skin fell off in long strips, the light shivs slicing through it like butter. Sam’s head went fuzzy, her upchuck reflex reacting once again. For a second time she fell to the ground throwing up. She simply couldn’t stand the sight of any more blood.
Her vision was blurry, but she picked up on Richard also hitting the ground. This made more sense than any of the events transpiring around her today. He had lost so much blood, yet he still sheared large chucks of his skin right off his body. It was like he was peeling an apple, a fleshy human apple. Perhaps he had lost it and was committing suicide. In the wake of all that had happened, that at least she could get.
The soldiers advanced, apparently recovering from their dismay at watching a man filet himself. The one closest took two steps forward and –
Crack, Crack, Crack.
Cracking sounds filled the air one after the other. The noise was beyond forceful and made Sam’s ears hurt. Sam struggled to find the source but could only focus on the lead soldier. His blue hazy field flickered. He took two steps back then dropped to the ground. The soldier’s neck flopped to the side, allowing Sam a clear view of his face.
A 2-centimeter hole sat directly in the middle of the soldier’s head. Life fluid trickled from the wound. Again Sam felt queasy. The cracking again commenced, the sound repeating over and over again as the re
maining soldiers fell in the same pattern as their leader, each accompanied by a fluctuating blue haze and a hole in their head.
Sam searched their immediate area and found that she and Richard were alone. Once more, all the soldiers near them were dead.
Richard was suddenly in front of her, attempting to help her up. He was too slippery and she didn’t know why. Nothing about the situation was making sense.
Richard swore. “I can’t get a grip on you. I need to get this thing off first.” Immediately Richard began removing parts of his body, shedding his girth like clothing.
Harmonics: Rise of the Magician (Harmonics Series Season One) Page 19
