The thunder of a shot rang out from somewhere to be replied by a cry and a roar of collective anger. More people, men and women, labourers, Enforcers and refinery workers, streamed in through the ruins of the hanger doors, silhouetted against the green of outside. There were more cries and more shots as the knots of resistance that were all that remained of the battered and dwindling Ghost army were overwhelmed.
“Stick to the edges,” Webb said, starting to hurry Hugo along. They staggered together, all three of them, weaving around the stacked-up crates and bays of machine engines that made up the stronghold’s property stockpile. No workers they passed, running, fighting or tending the wounded, gave them a second glance. The few Ghosts that were left had their hands too full to notice them.
Hugo stumbled more than once and Webb felt his heart begin to pound as the man got weaker and weaker. Webb pressed the scarf more firmly against his friend’s ribs and was rewarded by a weak hiss of pain.
They reached the doors and hung back in the shadows, waiting for a break in the onslaught of Havenites scrambling through. Webb panted in the dark and stared at them coming in an endless stream, some wounded or bloodied but all armed with knives, axes, tools, bars of metal and a unity of purpose that Webb hadn’t seen the like of, even in the fighting units of the Service. Most wore night-vision goggles that blanked out their eyes and increased the eeriness of their appearance.
It left him with a chill that went right to his bones.
“Go,” Dana snapped and Webb shook himself and realised there was a break in the charge. They hurried Hugo through the twisted doors.
As his eyes adjusted to the dim light outside, shapes in the shadows slowly took form as bodies and wreckage. Overturned mopeds lay abandoned amongst the dropped weapons and crumpled figures, some still twitching. Dust and shrapnel was scattered about. A monstrous crane, its head still buried in the remains of the stronghold doors, had been run right up against the building. Its great arm was twisted and hanging at a drunken angle. There were the sounds of struggles elsewhere, but the square in front of them was clear of anyone upright.
“This is nearly over,” Webb said, voice low.
“There,” Dana cried, relief lightening her voice. “A low-flyer. It looks like it might be working.”
The machine was shouldered up against the side of a building, hastily abandoned and still attached to a lifter full of cargo. The control panel was lit. Dana made quick work of uncoupling the lifter and then she was helping Webb get her brother into the back seat and checking his pulse and eyes.
“Keep him breathing or I’ll kick both your asses,” Webb said and climbed into the pilot seat.
“Where are we going?”
“The only place we can,” Webb said and fired the engine. He pushed the thruster controls forward and the flyer took off down the boulevard. Some straggling rioters dove out of the way and someone fired at them once, but they soon saw the boundary wall ahead. Webb took a breath. A huge section of it, gatehouse and all, was now a slump of rubble across the gateway. The metal gates were bent under the mound. Teams of workers had cleared a path for the people on foot and some cranes and movers were working at the bigger rubble, but there was no room for the flyer.
Webb cast his eyes over the controls, clenched his teeth and punched in a couple of commands and pulled the stick back.
“Webb,” Dana warned, but he was already diverting all the power to the thrusters and pulling the craft into a climb.
“This thing isn't meant to fly,” Dana cried.
“It just needs to get us to the next sector,” Webb ground out. The control lights flickered but he punched the panel and they came back on. They gained enough height to pass the rubble and kept climbing. People stopped in their work, pointing as they sped past, but Webb kept them crawling up and the noise soon died away.
He got them above the levels of the buildings and steered so the Planning District was to starboard and coaxed more speed from the engine. He didn’t look in the mirror and shut his ears to Dana telling her brother over and over that it was going to be ok.
*
“What the hell? Ezekiel, this is not -”
It was the first time Webb could recall seeing Jazz flustered. She stopped talking as she took in his blood- and dust-stained clothing then leaned out her apartment window further, took in the low-flyer dropped at an angle on her the block’s roof and her eyes widened further.
“Please, Jazz,” Webb said, desperation creeping into his voice. “Hugo’s been shot.”
“Shot?”
Webb nodded and Jazz’s face went grim.
“Is this anything to do with what’s happening in the Storage District?”
“I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Just please, help him first.”
She pressed her lips together, considering him for a long moment. He shivered in the wafting air and tried to figure out what was happening in her eyes but then her face softened and she scrambled out onto the ledge next to him and hurried to the flyer.
Dana was holding herself together with a visible effort. Her eyes were dry but her breathing was ragged and she was clutching at Hugo like drowning woman clutching at wood. Hugo was very pale, grey under his eyes which were only half open. If he was breathing at all, Webb couldn’t tell.
“Dana,” Jazz said after she’d taken in the whole situation with just a glance. “There’s a chair-bed in the back room. There’s antiseptic in the hallway closet, and sheets. Get it all ready, please. Go now.”
Dana looked at her with empty eyes then nodded and scrambled out of the flyer towards the open window. “Ezekiel, you help me. Don’t make him take his own weight. See if we can lift him.”
Webb hurried to straddle the front and back seats of the flyer, Jazz’s calm commands helping him bind together his flagging resources. He got his arms around Hugo as she did the same on the other side and they lifted him clear of the flyer. The Serviceman made a noise but was otherwise a dead weight.
They carried him down the ledge and into her apartment. They found Dana spreading a sheet out on the tilting chair-bed in the gloomy back room, movements jerky and eyes hard and distant. The air smelt of antiseptic. Jazz and Webb laid their burden down as Dana tied knots in the sheet at the base and head to keep it steady.
“Dana, get some lights. Zeek, my kit and my scanner-panel from the store room, please. Bring me a tunic and a box of gloves too. Hugo, can you open your eyes for me?”
Webb stumbled down the corridor as Dana ran ahead to find lamps. He collected the medkit and other items without really seeing or thinking. When he returned, Jazz had already pulled off the remains of Hugo’s clothing, making Dana keep their futile compress in place as she did so. She wiped her hands on her trousers then pulled on the tunic and gloves, talking to Hugo the whole time. Webb looked at the amount of blood smeared across his friend’s chest and belly and the grey tinge to his skin and collapsed against the wall.
“I’m going to put you to sleep,” Jazz said soothingly as she filled a syringe. “Everything’s going to be ok, alright? Just relax.”
Hugo gave a shudder, like he had let something go. Watching him slacken as Jazz injected him was almost more than Webb could bear to see. The broker checked his pulse and leant in over his mouth to listen for breathing then waved to Dana.
“There are utilities in the hall closet,” she muttered as she started laying out surgical plates, tongs and scalpels from the kit. “You two get cleaned up and changed and get some food from the kitchen. There’s nothing more you can do for him.”
“Jazz,” Webb tried.
“Go now,” Jazz said, face blank with concentration as she pulled an Energy Patch out of its packet, wiped a spot clean on Hugo’s chest and applied it. Hugo’s body gave a twitch then lay still. Webb took Dana by the hand and led her out of the room.
Webb swallowed a foul taste in his mouth and stared into Jazz’s hall closet. Dana had to reach past him to grab what she wanted. He woke himse
lf up enough to direct her to the bathroom. She went in without looking at him and shut the door.
Webb sat on the hallway floor with his back against the wall and his arms around his knees, listening to water splash in the bathroom. Dana came out some time later that might have been minutes or hours, hair wet and hands and face red from scrubbing. Her eyes were puffy. She’d left her coveralls crumpled in a heap on the bathroom floor. Jazz’s faded t-shirt and trousers were too long for her and brought out how pale she was.
“Go find something to drink,” Webb said as he got to his feet. He laid a hand on her shoulder, making her shiver. She still didn’t look at him.
He went into the bathroom, locked the door and leant against it, staring at the ceiling and feeling his pulse pound in his ears. The worry, fear and anger had deserted him. He felt sore, dirty and so very, very tired.
He made himself move. He stripped and got in the shower, turning the water up to the hottest setting. He peeled away the stained dressing on his wound and flinched as the hot water ran over it, washing away crusted blood. He made himself examine it. Nam’s surgical staples were holding. It was red and painful but not hot to touch.
He washed it thoroughly then pulled the tie out of his hair and plunged his face under the steaming stream, wishing he was could just flow away with the water. Despite everything, the feel of the dust and dirt of the last few days rinsing out of his hair and off his skin felt good.
He shut the water off when his skin was starting to sting with the heat and dried and dressed in what he had grabbed from the closet. He realised with a pang that they were his own clothes from when he’d lived here. He didn’t let himself think about that too hard and just pulled on the cargo pants and t-shirt, enjoying the feel of clean fabric against his skin.
He gathered up their filthy coveralls and paused, patting at something solid in one of the pockets. He pulled out the hacked gaming panel, its screen dark. A quick boot up revealed no replies to his message and he sighed and pocketed it, then padded through to the living room, hair hanging in wet ropes down his back. He took the coveralls straight to the disposal and forced them all in. The mechanism whined and belched as it shredded the thick fabric but he kept shoving until the scraps that were left had disappeared down the chute.
“You seem to know this apartment well.” Dana didn’t look up as she spoke. She sat cross-legged on the couch, staring into space, a glass of black liquid in her hands. There was another on the counter. The smell of the blask was sharp in the air and made his mind skip over some unwelcome memories. Still, he took the glass and sat next to Dana. There was an open Nutripak on the table in front of her, but she’d only taken a bite and laid it aside.
He tried to think of something to say but couldn’t. He took a sip of the drink instead. It burned in his throat and something inside him strengthened. He set the glass aside and took her hand. They sat there like that, staring at the doorway to the hall, hands clasped together.
They finished their drinks and managed a Nutripak each before they heard a door open and shut and Jazz emerged. They both got to their feet as she came into the room, pulling off her blood-spattered tunic. She crossed to the washer and dropped it in, then came and stood in front of them with her hands pressed together.
“It’s not good, I’m afraid,” she said. Webb felt his stomach drop again. Jazz held first his then Dana’s gaze as she talked. “I’ve removed the bullet. It missed his lungs and wasn’t a direct hit on his heart…but there is tissue damage. And he’s lost a lot of blood.”
“What does that mean?” Webb said, once he found his voice. He could already see on Dana’s face that she understood what it meant, but he needed to hear it.
“He needs transfusions,” Jazz said. “And specialised surgery. But even if we could get it for him…which we can’t…I suspect the damage to his heart isn’t repairable. The Patches are keeping it going at the moment, but they won’t for long.”
Webb put a hand out for anything to steady himself on but there was nothing. He sat down heavily on the edge of the couch. Dana stayed standing. Her eyes were swimming.
“I’m very sorry,” Jazz said.
“Can I see him?” Dana didn’t sound like herself.
Jazz nodded. Dana drifted toward the hallway. Webb rose to follow. Jazz stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. She kissed him on the cheek, skin warm against his face then turned back and disappeared down the hall. He heard the bathroom door shut.
Eventually, he managed to put one foot in front of the other and made his way to the back room. Jazz had pulled a blanket over Hugo. He was still unconscious. He didn’t look asleep and he didn’t look peaceful. He was frowning and his breathing was thin and pained. She’d cleaned him off as much as possible, but his hair was still caked with filth and dust. There was blood on his skin and the sheet around him. Dana stood staring like she was afraid to touch him.
“This is my fault,” she said, after they’d both stood there in silence for the longest minute of his life.
“It’s not your fault.”
“Of course it is,” she said with a huge sniff. She wiped her eyes on the hem of her t-shirt and suddenly looked terrifyingly young. “I always screw everything up.”
“Not true…”
“Shut up,” she cried. “You don’t even know me. You don’t know…” she dissolved into wordless emotion, stepping up to her brother with her hand clenched over her mouth. Her strength visibly crumbled away and she bent over him and buried her face in his neck and shook.
Webb stayed where he was. He almost turned away and left them alone, but he couldn’t make his feet move.
“You’re right,” he said softly when Dana’s breathing had levelled out. “I’ve not known you long. Him either, really. But I can tell you this for sure: your messed-up family is not only the most stubborn and bloody-minded bunch of Service stuck-ups I have ever met…you also have a hugely screwed idea about what is your responsibility.”
Dana raised her head. Her eyes were swollen, dark hair dishevelled and her fingers dug into her brother’s skin.
Webb took a step closer. “It’s great…amazing really…that you all feel this need to go out and make the world a better place. It’s even more amazing that you never stop trying, even after you get knocked down. And I’ve tried to explain this to your stubborn-assed brother I don’t know how many times and I’ll try and explain it to you too. Not everything is yours to fix.”
“If I hadn’t come - ” Dana started but Webb pulled her into his arms before he knew was he was thinking. She shuddered against him. She smelt like tears and soap. Her arms went round him and she clung on tight enough to hurt, but he didn’t care.
“If you hadn’t come, Dana, you wouldn’t have been here to help me get him out of there.” She gave a choked sound. “And either way, it wouldn’t have stopped him plunging into gunfire for a chance at Ariel. Trust me. He doesn’t need you around to be an idiot.”
“That’s just you, then?” She said dredging up a watery smile.
Webb shrugged a shoulder, felt his chest tighten and his smile become harder to keep in place. She stepped out of his embrace. He felt colder for it. He looked at Hugo’s still form and felt it all come up his throat in a rush. The urge to reach out and shake and shout at his friend swept through him but he managed to keep his arms at his side.
“Mother won’t cope,” Dana said in a small voice. “Not again.”
Webb searched her face, trying to think of something reassuring to say.
They both jumped at a commotion from the living room. They exchanged a confused look and rushed toward it, shutting the door on Hugo and hurrying down the corridor. Webb made out a banging noise along with a raised and angry voice. They skidded into the sitting area just as someone hammered again on the apartment door.
“I know you’re in there,” the high and angry voice wailed. “Let me in or I’ll break in.”
Jazz hurried into the room, hastily buttoning a clean shir
t and staring at the door. “What is that?”
“It’s Nam,” Webb said.
“Who?” Jazz asked.
“Don’t let her in,” Dana said, staring at the door. “She’s a maniac.”
“I can hear you, little girl,” Nam called. A louder crash of a boot against the handle rattled the whole door.
“Who is it?”
“The Black Cross killer,” Webb said.
“She’ll get in either way,” Jazz said, moving across the room though her face was grim.
“No, wait,” Webb called but Jazz was already pulling the door open.
Nam shoved past her and stood trembling in the middle of the room. She looked even taller than Webb remembered. Her red hair hung in flaming strands around her face. Her knuckles were white around the handle of her machete. The blade was dark with old blood. There were new stains on her black clothing. Jazz stared at the Black Cross painted on her face in horror.
“You,” she hissed, raising her weapon and levelling it at Webb’s face.
Webb held up his hands and took a step back. “Now just hold on, lady. I don’t know what your problem is, but we’re having a pretty rough day here already.”
“You lied,” she spat, advancing on him. Dana stepped between them but she reached and shoved her away. Dana staggered and fell and Webb glared, fists forming.
“You touch any of my friends again,” he glowered, stepping up so the blade pressed against his breastbone. “Then you and me will have a big fucking problem, understand?”
“You lied,” she said again. “There was no lab.”
“What?”
“You said their lab was in a shuttle on that flagship,” she growled, giving the machete a twitch against his skin. “There was nothing there.”
Haven (The Orbit Series Book 2) Page 31
