Space Invaders

by Amber Kell

  My head snapped up as there was a rending sound from outside, as if the sky itself was being torn open. But no rain fell. It rarely did anymore.

  Armise tried to swat me, but I moved just out of his reach. He sat up and wiped at his eyes. He looked more tired than I expected, but his intent to get what he wanted was now crystal fucking clear on his face as he scrunched up his brow and pointed at me. “Fuck you. I’m comfortable.” He pointed out the window. “There is no way I’m going out in that. And the States get much better accommodations. I’m not going back to that Singapore rat hole.”

  “Leave,” I ordered.

  Of course that made Armise grip the blanket even tighter, unwilling to cede any territory to me. “No.”

  He nearly crushed me as he moved over me and switched off the blinding white light as another deluge of lightning crashed to the ground.

  He forced my head down into the pillow, kissing my forehead as he moved back to his side of the bed. The kiss was more frustrated than loving, but anything more affectionate from Armise would be unnatural. And then his body eased against my side, and he draped an arm over my shoulder, pulling me into his chest in an embrace I would have considered protective if I didn’t know him better.

  All thought slipped away too easily under his touch. That should have been enough of an indication that I‘d long ago descended into domains that should have remained untouchable. Personal connections of any kind were taboo in our job. They left us—the cogs of the unending war machine—too vulnerable. The man next to me was my nemesis, through all definitions of the word, and a serious breach of duty that I’d been ignoring for years now. Too many years.

  I couldn’t afford to get this close to him. Even on the eve of my death. And yet I didn’t move.

  The wind whipped up again, ruffling the curtains and rushing through the room. Then it abruptly withdrew, settling the canvas against the frame with a decisive thwap. The pops and crashes of lightning faded, receded into the distance.

  The worst of the storm had now passed.

  But there would be another one. Soon. Of that I could be certain.

  “Sleep, Merq,” Armise mumbled just before his head lolled to the side, nose buried in my sex-mussed brown hair, lips brushing the piercings lining the shell of my ear. He rapidly dropped into a deep sleep, his heartbeat and breath slowing until I knew there would be no moving him now.

  I couldn’t fight the urge to close my eyes, to match my breathing to his. And I was flooded with a feeling that couldn’t be serenity. Because Peacemakers were never meant to know real peace.

  Chapter Three

  I dreamt of war. A war I fought in but never loaded or fired a real bullet. A war where hundreds of millions died but none felt the slice of metal into skin, the shattering of bone from the contact of copper and steel.

  I dreamt of sound waves that crashed and killed. Of bullets that exploded internally, obliterating organs and leaving the body whole, unmarked, yet lifeless. This was the unnatural reality of sonic weapons. The unadulterated power of musical tone altered, harnessed and let loose to decimate.

  I dreamt of the sonicbullet my grandfather, six generations removed, invented. The heritage I was named for.

  I dreamt of Armise’s eyes on me. They were always there. Even when he wasn’t. Blue eyes that were nearly silver. A judgement upon who I was, who I’d become. I clawed at the stronger emotions settling inside me, sliding through my unconsciousness. He was my opponent. Of that I could be sure as much as I wanted to fight it. His gaze, unseen in my dreams but there nonetheless, haunted me.

  My dreams were violent and bloodless. I knew from history that it hadn’t always been this way. That at one time war had meant torn limbs, a sea of red spilling from wounds. Two hundred years ago we’d removed the stain of bloodshed from our inevitable power struggles.

  But carnage was carnage, death still final, regardless of the amount, or lack, of blood spilled.

  When I woke up Armise was gone.

  Which was good. It was much easier to remember he was my enemy when his hands weren’t wrapped around my cock.

  The knock that had awakened me was simultaneous with Coach barrelling into my room. I started, sitting up in the rumpled sheets, even though I knew Armise was long gone.

  “Ass out of bed,” Coach commanded in a crisp tone. It was impossible to miss that his jet-black hair, usually a tangle of curls, had been shorn to mere stubble. I noted the change, knew what the likely motivating factor was, but didn’t remark upon it. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

  He wore the official practice uniform for the States—a deep red that brought my blood-free dreams and blood-drenched future back to the forefront. His gold-brown eyes studied me and then gave an arrogant dismissal of me when I didn’t jump at his words. He ignored me ignoring him and went to my dresser at the back of the room, sliding the window above it shut with a definitive clank.

  “Breathing that shit will kill you, Grayson,” Coach said as he scrunched up his nose and flipped the air purifier on high.

  Coach refused to call me by my first name and I refused to call him anything but Coach. It was an odd stalemate. Completely unnecessary as power plays went, but he and I had a personal history that dated way before my time as a Peacemaker. Perhaps it was our way of distancing each other or, more likely, an unsaid fuck-you every time we had to acknowledge the other’s existence. It didn’t matter either way. For all intents and purposes he owned my ass until I completed this mission.

  He rummaged through my drawers, flinging clothes haphazardly around the room, studying and discarding item after item, leaving only a select few on the top of the dresser. I wasn’t nearly awake enough to care that he was frantically pawing through my meagre belongings. I scowled and slumped back onto the bed, pulling Armise’s pillow over my face. His scent—that mix of musky balms—clung to the fabric and I breathed it in, closing my eyes.

  But Coach’s grating presence brought the reality of today screeching back to me.

  “Nuh-uh. No going back to sleep,” Coach chided me, then added, “We have press waiting for you.”

  I groaned. Coach had told me he would keep me from the media for as long as possible. I had other things to focus on today. “Press? What the fuck do they want with me? Send them to Jegs or Simion.”

  “Neither Jegs nor Simion is a Peacemaker turned Olympian. Plus, they’re profiling the front-runners for who’s going to shoot the first bullet.”

  I threw off my blanket, forgetting for a moment that I was naked underneath. “When did I become a front-runner?”

  Coach threw me a pair of underwear, judiciously keeping his eyes from skimming any lower than my chin. “When the Committee found out there was more to your name.”

  Outing me was supposed to be a last-ditch scenario. What had happened while I was asleep to change the plan? And why was Coach only telling me about it now?

  “Who gave that intel up?” I questioned, infuriated that he hadn’t notified me about this earlier.

  I could see it was a question he didn’t want to answer. “Does it matter?”

  “Should it?” I immediately retorted.

  “No,” he said and nearly broke the door off my closet as he swung it open. “We didn’t give up the infochip or Ying. You need to get up and moving.”

  I pulled on my underwear and trudged to the en suite bathroom. It took me two minutes to make myself presentable, and the entire time all I could think about was my long-dead grandfather and the heritage my parents had reportedly died trying to save me from.

  The same heritage that was now buying me attention and favours from the Olympic Committee, led by and stocked with Opposition members.

  Time distorted the reality of history. Nobody knew that better than I did.

  My grandfather’s invention, at one time lauded as the ultimate tool in the fight against cancer, had been bastardised into a weapon of mass destruction. The sonicbullet was nothing more than targeted sound waves. Sound wav
es that, when tuned to their highest possible frequency, were capable of deconstructing cells at the molecular level. My grandfather hadn’t lived to see his creation manipulated into genocidal proportions. His name was buried in confidential reports that were subsequently destroyed, but he was a folk hero nonetheless. The Opposition spoke of a man who had fought until his dying breath for the betterment of humanity. The passage of time had mythologised him.

  Yet no one had ever known his real name. Until today.

  Merq Grayson.

  Only two men had ever been given that name.

  My grandfather, six generations removed.

  And me.

  I would take full advantage of the favouritism the Opposition would show me because of this connection. It was another step in ensuring I was the only front-runner when decision time came.

  Coach threw a pile of clothes at me. They weren’t the traditional uniform for the States or what I was supposed to be wearing in competition today, but he’d chosen colours that would reflect pride in my country, a style that would accentuate my size and a quality that hinted at my working-class roots. It was exactly the kind of quick calculation Coach was revered for.

  “Anything else change while I was asleep?” I shot at him as I dressed.

  Coach was unaffected by my anger. Very little got through to him anymore. I couldn’t help but wonder again what it was they’d done to break him so effectively. “Nothing,” he answered as he tossed my rumpled clothes into the closet and shut the door.

  “Am I going to get any time on the range?”

  “You don’t need it,” he said in a clipped tone. “Things are going to move fast now. Keep your head up. Smile plastered on like it’s permanent. Shoulders back. Don’t forget you’re a Peacemaker. Chosen to represent your country in the Olympics.”

  I sneered. “Chosen to assassinate my president.”

  Coach didn’t even flinch. “That, too. You ready?”

  I nodded.

  As soon as we walked out the door, Coach assumed his usual position since the DCR, flanking my right shoulder, and the press descended.

  The press corps had a way of setting me off-kilter even with as much interaction as I’d had with them over the years. Their faces were shrouded, bodies covered from head to toe in a grey, clinging material that left them nearly indistinguishable from each other. Similarly, each had been implanted with a chip that gave them all a flat metallic voice identical in tone and pitch. It was impossible to know their gender. And the only indication of where they came from was a badge they each wore on their left shoulder emblazoned with the seal of their respective country.

  From my childhood lessons, so many years ago now that I was surprised I remembered them at all, I knew that the media had adopted the stark uniforms decades ago to prove bias no longer held a place in reporting the news. But the effect of the faceless horde, closing in around me, always made me question what secrets they were hiding. Maybe it was just me projecting.

  I continued to walk, forcing the group to move with me, but I kept my gait easy and slow, as if I was completely unaffected by their presence or the oncoming interrogation. The first tinny voice came from my left side. “Did you know you’re officially a front-runner for the inaugural shot today?”

  I turned my lips up into a practised smile. “Coach just told me. I’m honoured to be considered.”

  “You’re a Peacemaker for the States,” the genderless voice continued. “In fact, you fought as a sniper in the Borders War. Do you think you’re too controversial of a figure to take the first shot?”

  I shook my head. “I’m proud to have served my country when they needed me. If the Committee has placed me as a front-runner then they obviously view my service with the same pride.”

  “Where does your name come from, Merq? It’s so unusual.”

  They would find out soon enough. But for now I had a story to weave. “The origin was lost somewhere in the decades when paper records were purged.”

  “So you don’t know if it comes from your family?”

  “I don’t,” I lied.

  “Your parents died when you were very young. We understand they were casualties in the attack on the capital that led to the power shift.”

  “That’s right. I was lucky I made it out. They are the reason I’m still alive today.” That wasn’t true either. But I knew the orphan story was going to give me more sympathy with the Committee.

  Coach patted me on the back in a pretend show of sympathy. I tried not to flinch away.

  “Do you plan to win today?”

  The rifle competition would be the first of the games, held immediately following the opening ceremonies as an homage to the treaty and how the world had laid down their arms against each other. If I achieved what I was supposed to, that competition would never happen. “I’ll be keeping the gold medal on States soil,” I answered instead. That was merely a lie by omission.

  Then I was asked the question that was inevitable.

  “Who’s your biggest competition?”

  I gave a brilliant smile, meant to disarm. “You need to ask?” The press corps laughed, their metallic voices joining together into a low hum that sent a shudder through me I had to suppress. “Armise Darcan, of course.”

  “You fought against each other in the Borders War?”

  “Yes. We know of each other,” I deflected. Wasn’t that an understatement?

  “What would it mean to you to be chosen to take the shot?”

  My eyes began to mist over. I didn’t have to fake this emotion, but I did. “This is the first gathering of the world since the treaty. To be on the opening ceremony stage representing all of humanity and the change we want to see in this world… It’s overwhelming. Honoured doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of what it means to me.”

  We passed through the soundproofed metal doors into the building that housed the shooting range. It was a large triangular arena with softly shaped curves erected entirely of metal and the synthetic composites necessary to keep the fetid, and sometimes poisonous, outside air from seeping in. We emerged through the break in the stands, rows of crimson cushioned seats slanting towards the gilded ceiling. I restrained any physical reaction to the sheer waste of resources surrounding me. Only the wealthiest citizens would be able to afford seats for this competition. At least they wouldn’t be going hungry for forking out money to a competition that would never happen.

  The press corps followed at my heels, continuing to ask questions, but I’d already answered the ones that were the most important. So I responded, but only with part of my mind engaged in the back-and-forth.

  The other part was searching the arena for Armise.

  Chapter Four

  I saw Armise as soon as I located the rifle course. He was impossible to miss. He was wearing the black and tarnished silver of the People’s Continent of Singapore, his uniform tight across his shoulders—shoulders that should have hindered his ability to shoot the competition Terfiner XMP. But his country had used all the allowable modifications and Armise’s aim was the most reliable on the range.

  I had no qualms admitting it—Armise was a better sniper than I’d ever be. Even though he was only four years older than I was, thirty-nine years to my thirty-five, Armise had been a sniper for Singapore since he was a child. His rifle wasn’t a possession, it was an extension of his body. Unlike the States, Singapore had had no issues with the conscription of children in the Borders War, especially if they showed a natural talent and temperament for battle. From the classified files I’d seen, Armise had been drafted somewhere around the age of six, when he took out an entire Dark Continental Republic unit that attacked his village. Talent, meet temperament.

  Armise was born to hold a rifle. He could stay unnaturally still for hours at a time and he had an innate gift for mathematics and physics, which allowed him to work quickly and without the burden of a partner. He had been built by his country to be strong. Unflappable. And where I saw death as a
means to achieving the goals given to me by my superiors, Armise got a kick when he took another person’s life.

  Yet I’d never been afraid of him. Maybe it was because fear had been drilled out of me during my years in battle. Maybe it was because we were almost evenly matched. But my lack of fear was most likely because, even with as many times as I’d been at the end of his rifle, Armise had never been able to shoot me. I couldn’t begin to reconcile that reality.

  The man was a machine of death, but complicated in very human ways I didn’t have the time to unravel.

  Armise towered above the other shooters, in height and width. I was as tall as he was, but not nearly as wide. Not nearly as muscular. I’d had to spend years in training to build my physique into something that could match his. Years more after the DCR to rebuild what I had lost so he wouldn’t have an insurmountable advantage over me. He was still stronger than I was, but I was faster. Two thousand years ago emperors probably would have paid for the privilege to watch us fight to the death. Although that thought was perilously close to what we were doing anyway.

  I felt that familiar churn of desire coil in my groin as I watched him prowl the course. Wanting him in my bed was a dangerous drive. But I’d let him get closer to me, year after year, regardless of the consequences.

  Armise had been the one to break that first barrier between us—kissing me in a dilapidated warehouse in Singapore—thirteen years ago. And I wasn’t any closer to understanding what this drive was between us.

  I’d been with men before Armise—Coach and Simion were included on that list—but whatever snafu this was between Armise and I was the closest I’d ever been to a relationship. Every connection in my life was one formed of violence, propelled forward for mutual strategic benefit, and this one was no exception.

  I didn’t try to pretend that Armise needed anything from me besides a rough fuck and the opportunity to dig for information when my brain was too shorted out to remember my training. Yet somehow we always ended up at that point—discussing our work as if what we did on a daily basis was the same as any ration shop operator or water purification tech. Sharing body counts in an unofficial, cross-continent competition. But the tensest days were the ones where one of our superiors would give a direct order to kill the other.