Streetlethal

by Steven Barnes

  "We take care of our own."

  "But I'm not one of you." Aubry caught himself in mid-sentence and shook his head. "All right, then—how do we play it?"

  "Close. We have to wait for them to hit us. They aren't the U.S. Militia—there has to be a limit to their manpower. No matter what kind of maps they have of this area, we know it better. If we're overwhelmed, we split up and seven group leaders will lead the evacuations, out through the death tunnels. We've already cut into them pretty badly—let's wait and see what happens."

  Aubry watched Warrick's men creeping about the upper levels, planting booby-traps. As they retreated downward they used equipment or merchandise of any kind to create blockades. "I don't like this," Warrick muttered. "I'd rather have high ground. The only clear openings are at the top, and that's where they'll come from. We'll do the best we can before we split off."

  Mira settled in between Warrick and Aubry, head hanging with exhaustion. "This is crazy," she said, "but it's always been crazy, from the very beginning."

  "I think you'd better stay with the wounded, Mira," Warrick said soberly.

  "No, Kevin. I'd rather be here, with you. I ... I think I can handle a rifle." Aubry rubbed her shoulder with a strong hand and she smiled weakly, kissing him on the cheek.

  Aubry settled back, cradling his rifle in his arms, not thinking of how things might turn out or of what had been, but thinking of Promise, hoping that she was well, and thinking of their child safe within her womb, wondering idly if she was thinking of him. It didn't matter, as long as she was safe.

  The first crackle of sound came into his headphones. "Moving into Multiplex area. Expect heavy resistance. Request permission to use high explosives."

  Aubry tensed, then relaxed when he heard the reply. "No. Not under any circumstances. We want Knight alive —" That was reassuring. Aubry almost smiled before he heard the second part of it. "— but if We can't get him, at least we have the woman."

  It felt as if someone had taken an electric cable and attached it to his groin. He rose to his knees, peering up through the splintered plaster branches of the Christmas tree, his entire body shaking. He felt Warrick's strong wiry hand on his shoulder.

  "Whoa, Aubry—don't expose yourself."

  "They've got Promise, damn it."

  "Alive?" Mira asked.

  We have the woman.

  "Yes, alive."

  "Then you can't do her any good by getting yourself killed. If she's alive, they're keeping her alive for a reason."

  "Me. They want me, for killing Luis."

  "Are you sure that's all they want?" she said, almost under her breath.

  "What else?"

  "The mushrooms. They've triggered a whole chain of death. Don't be surprised if the chain hasn't ended yet."

  "Jesus Christ. All of this for a handful of mushrooms? I can't—"

  There was a shattering explosion that wreathed the entire top level of the Multiplex in flame. A smoking body arced out of the top level and fell, twitching, to the bottom, its scream chopped short by the impact.

  Warrick plucked a rifle off the ground and handed it to Mira. He clicked his own safety off. "They're here," he said blandly.

  A quick burst of weapon fire gouged furrows in the wall above their heads, and Aubry could see the crouching soldiers along the rail of the first level high above them. He squeezed off three shots, missed, then placed the weapon on automatic and emptied his clip, ripping sparks out of the railing and finally hitting one of the men. Around him, the other Scavengers were returning the fire.

  There was some kind of work being done up on the first level: Aubry could see a box being lashed to the wall. At first he thought it was a weapon. Then the men fastening it disappeared, and the box spoke. "Scavengers. Lay down your weapons. There is no escape. All we want is the man Knight and the drug which is rightfully ours. We have no quarrel with you. Scavengers—"

  "That's interesting," Warrick said as he raised his rifle, "but we have a quarrel with you now." His bullets crawled along the wall and into the speaker, shattering it into spinning bits of metal and plastic.

  The Scavengers were moving out now, creeping behind the railings of the fourth and third levels.

  A grenade exploded near the top, and plaster chunks rained down on them. Aubry wiped his faceplate clean as another flash shook the complex. A door splintered open behind them, and Aubry whirled just in time to see Ortega soldiers pour through, firing at the group of Scavengers around him. Two screamed in pain, hands clawing for the bulletholes.

  Aubry flipped on, emptying his clip into the thick of them. He picked up the corpse of the nearest Scavenger and held it in front of him as he charged. He felt the body shudder as two slugs slammed into it. The explosive rounds had little penetration, although they did massive surface damage.

  He heard Mira's cover fire during the four steps it took to reach the soldiers, and then he was there, too close for any of them to use their guns as anything but clubs. There were six of them. He hit them without thought or concern, three going down under the force of his charge alone. He felt a rifle butt graze his head, and he rolled one of the soldiers on top of him so that the next stroke cracked the wrong skull.

  There was no thought, only a blur of feeling; there was pain and pressure, and the sound of blows given and received. He had a sensation of weight and heat, intense heat, but his mind was far away, in darkness, as his body strove. One moment he seemed insubstantial, a wisp of vapor, a snake wriggling too quickly to be grasped, the next as solid as an iron bar, breaking bones and delivering crushing strikes at impossibly short range.

  He was covered with soldiers. Scavengers rushed to him, pulling the men away and off into smaller knots of conflict. Aubry shook off the remaining man and stood. He was cut and bruised, and a crack in his faceplate leaked air.

  Mira squeezed her eyes shut and clubbed a man down. Aubry ripped off the soldier's faceplate and donned it quickly, adjusting the plastic straps above his ears. Mira stared in shock as he turned to her. His eyes were glassy, and held something beyond anger or fear or anything else Mira had ever seen, something so feral and powerfully human that it was frightening and beautiful in the same instant.

  Then Warrick's voice behind them broke the spell. "Problems," he called, voice muffled by the facemask. "Some of the soldiers are wearing different gear. It looks like full-body armor."

  Aubry still had the last man by the throat. The soldier clawed at his hand, eyes bulging and veins standing out grotesquely on his forehead. Aubry smashed the man's head into the wall and tossed him aside. "What does that mean?"

  "I don't know. Maybe nerve gas."

  Mira gripped Aubry's arm. "Our facemasks will be useless. We've got to retreat."

  Aubry shielded his eyes as a phosphorus grenade exploded against the trunk of the tree, wrapping the branches in crawling light.

  "It's time to go," Warrick said calmly.

  "All right. To where?"

  "Back up toward Q-area. We can make a stand on the far side. That gas is heavier than air, and the storm drain is an uphill gradient. It should help."

  Aubry nodded. "Let's get moving, then." There was the sickening thud of more explosions, duller explosions, and light orange smoke curled out. Warrick watched it uneasily, and began to edge backwards.

  There were ten Scavengers left on the fifth level, and Warrick gathered them up and hustled them out the broken door. Behind them, the Christmas tree was a mass of flames and showering sparks. Gunfire and explosions echoed in the Mall, and wherever the orange smoke drifted, unarmored fighters collapsed.

  Mira watched the progress of the smoke, horrified. "We don't even have a chance to clear out the upper levels."

  "They want me alive, if possible," Aubry said. "That must be knockout gas. Stronger than the green, but no deadlier. Later, though, they can go around and cut throats."

  "There's got to be something we can do," she said sadly.

  Warrick watched a branch sag o
n the tree and fall, blazing, to the ground. "Don't worry," he said. "There is."

  They retreated through a service tunnel into a storm drain. Its bottom was slick with rain-washed sewage. A few Scavengers lay facedown in the muck, and it took every ounce of control Aubry had to keep his emotions in neutral, to keep them from straying into anger or fear. That would only sap him, weaken him. There would be revenge, but he couldn't dwell on it or take pleasure in it.

  Mira and one of the men brought up the rear, and Aubry could hear their weapons bark intermittently. He hoped that they were firing at shadows, that the enemy wasn't that close behind them. He could run faster; in fact, he would welcome the chance to use his body so freely. But beside him, Warrick was trembling, his eyes staring glassily, and his mouth was open as he heaved with soul-deep fatigue.

  Behind them, ten or twelve Scavengers, frightened, determined, trotted wearily along, carrying whatever captured or makeshift weapons they had been able to put their hands on.

  A gas grenade exploded in front of them—but it was the green gas. Aubry fired into it, and then charged. He collided with one figure and struck from reflex, gratified to hear bone crack. He felt another man go down at his side as Warrick tore into him. There was a brief struggle in the murk, grappling shadowy figures, the other Scavengers beside him, each lost in his own death struggle.

  From the corner of his eye, Aubry saw a woman armed only with a knife attack a fully armored soldier. She actually managed to work the blade into his neck baffles before he clubbed her in the ribs with the butt of her gun, felling her with a downstroke.

  Suddenly Warrick was between them, hands twisting the gun barrel up to the ceiling. As the two fighters stood locked together, a blade flashed from the rear and Warrick took a knife in the back.

  Aubry was there instantly, shattering the knifeman's arm and driving the barrel of the rifle through an armored facemask.

  He dropped beside Warrick, checked the knife wound, and grimaced. In a hospital, or even with decent medical care, Warrick would pull through. But in the midst of a war zone, there was nothing to be done.

  Mira knelt beside them, running her hands over the wound. She was matted with sweat and dirt. "No! Kevin—"

  Aubry gathered Warrick up in his arms. He had never noticed it before, but the Scavenger leader seemed as light as a breath of air.

  "You can't carry me—"

  "The hell I can't," Aubry growled. "Like you said, we take care of our own."

  Warrick closed his eyes and pawed at his wound with a crimsoned hand.

  The nine remaining Scavengers trotted on until they could hear the sound of pursuit behind them and felt the dull explosion of gas grenades. The floor grew steeper, and more difficult to climb, but at least the gas tended to flow back down. The walls began to narrow as they reached the spot where the branching tunnel had caved in on Aubry and Warrick. Aubry slowed, waving the others on. Mira watched her brother with disbelieving eyes, the blood draining from her face.

  Aubry spoke sharply. "What's up ahead?"

  She gulped, and tried not to look at her brother. "It keeps getting narrower in here. It used to lead back to the surface, but we walled it up. This is it, Aubry—there's no more room."

  "Then we'll make our stand here, dammit."

  Warrick's eyes opened. "No—Aubry. There's another way. We're under the spot where we first found you and Promise. Do you remember? Do you understand what that means?"

  Aubry looked at him and thought, nodding his head. "It might work." He checked his rifle, saw that there were still two rounds left in it. "I can do it."

  "This is my play," Warrick gasped.

  "Warrick—"

  His eyes lit up, and for that moment there was no weakness in them. "Don't sass me, boy. You still have to find Promise."

  Aubry set him down gingerly, and Warrick almost buckled with pain. "This is mine, Aubry. The rest is up to you now. These people need someone as strong as you—if you'll have them." He winced, feeling the wound. "You could have a home here if you want it." He reached out, took the rifle from Aubry's hand, and nodded to him. He turned to Mira. "You're everything you need to be, Mira." She held him tightly, staining the front of her shirt with his blood. "I love you so much."

  "Kevin—"

  "Help him, Mira. Help them both." He turned and wobbled back to the ragged hole that led to the caved-in tunnel.

  "What is he going to do?" Mira said, walking shakily away from the opening, her eyes wide.

  "There's a gas leak," Aubry said quietly. "The rifle is loaded with explosive bullets."

  Mira began to cry, and Aubry took her by the hand and dragged her up the tunnel, up the steadily increasing gradient. Aubry packed them back when they reached the walled-up end. The eight of them were filthy, tired, wounded. Aubry squatted on his haunches, rifle pointed at the bend of the drain, waiting. Beside him Mira sobbed, and he reached out an arm and encircled her shoulder. She huddled against him, the others huddled around him, and they waited.

  Waited until they heard the sound of cautious footsteps, until he knew that the soldiers were gathering, perhaps two dozen or more of them concentrating for the kill. They lobbed more of the gas ahead of them, and the canisters burst yellow. This gas seemed lighter, and spilled out towards them, flowing smoothly and venomously, creeping further, until it was only meters away, until Aubry could feel his feet growing numb—

  There was a gunshot, the sound of an explosive cartridge triggering, and then a second small explosion—

  And then a monstrous roar as the thousands of cubic meters of vaporized gasoline exploded. The wall of the tunnel burst out, and the soldiers disappeared in a flash of flame, mortar, and powdered brick. The breath was slammed from Aubry's lungs and he was crushed against Mira, hanging onto consciousness with the barest wisps of strength. The flash of heat was horrifying, killing, and Aubry felt the cloth singeing against his skin—

  The restraining wall of the underground parking garage gave way.

  The fireball vanished in torrential water and sludge, paper and wood, live rats and rusted pieces of automobile. It flooded the tunnel, and Aubry braced himself, pressed back against the sucking current that plucked at him, lapping against the faceplate of his mask, then washing away down the tunnel, taking with it the charred and blasted corpses of the soldiers.

  A second tide rose and fell, and again Aubry turned his head away, glad that the radio in his mask was deadened by the water, the screams of the dying and wounded lost to him.

  There was the sound of a third wall breaking, and the entire tunnel seemed to collapse, debris raining down on all of them, water and flame filling his universe for an eternal instant. Then the tide swept out, almost pulling him with it, and there was quiet.

  19. Old Friends

  Mira bent down until she was looking at the floor. "He knew he was dying, Aubry. He carried a time bomb in his head since he was trapped in the cave-in, years ago. He just wanted to build something that was real."

  "What? This is all dead." He pushed her away, hard. "Warrick died for nothing."

  "No, Aubry. Kevin didn't fight to protect people, or things. Not even for his own life. He died to protect an idea: that your life isn't based on your past. Only on what you are at the moment. On your becoming."

  When he looked at her, there were tears streaming down his cheeks; his eyes were those of an automaton.

  "There is something in you, Aubry, and even you haven't found all of it yet. You're so much more than you were when you came to us. You and Promise both. Kevin knew he was dying—but hoped you might be strong enough to carry on."

  He seemed to look through her. "I'm going to kill him, Mira. I'm going to find Tomaso and kill him. No matter what it costs me."

  "It's bigger than death, Aubry."

  "You're wrong," he said, his voice utterly chill. "Nothing is bigger than death."

  Aubry stood, and walked slowly past the wrecked tables, through the heavy curtain. Mira followed him, limpin
g to favor a bandaged knee.

  There, still intact, were the mushrooms.

  "Jesus. Not even looking for the drug. Just for me. Just for Promise."

  He picked three of them. "This will get me into Casa Ortega. Promise is there."

  "What will they do with her?"

  "They'll probably send a finger a day until they get their damned mushrooms. That's their style. What's yours? Do you call the police?"

  Mira shook her head. "Too many of us would go to the Camps. To prison. And when they saw what we'd built ... no. We have to handle it ourselves." She took his hand. "Aubry— don't just give up."

  "Don't try to stop me."

  "I won't. But there's a way that will buy you more time." She walked over to the row of cabinets against the wall and searched them until she found what she was looking for. "Here," she said, handing it to him. "The sporeprint. They can grow mushrooms from this."

  He looked at it suspiciously. "What the hell's the difference?"

  "It will take them about three weeks to isolate the strain and produce mushrooms."

  "So?"

  "They'll keep the both of you alive until they're sure they have what they want. It will give you time to think. To find a way out." She came to him and took his face in her hands. "To finish discovering who you are. Their trap is set to catch the old Aubry. Don't play into their hands. Don't be what you were. Be who you are."

  He fumbled the mushrooms out of his pocket, holding them up to the light. "What should we do with these? One part of me says to destroy them, that the world would be better off. The other part says that if they're going to exist at all, that they should grow wild, everywhere. I don't know, Mira. I just don't know."

  "Come back and lead us, Aubry—then you can tell me what to do." She threw her arms around him, kissing him hard on the mouth. "That's for you," she said. "You're going to need more, but it's all I have."