Two Girls Book 2: One Nation

by Justin Sirois

  “Fuckin’ move!” Dixon yelled and yanked Sam back, making her stumble. She followed the retreating group.

  Penny stood her ground.

  The gunship’s tail hammered the earth. Smoke and dirt exploded. Sam shielded her face to the oncoming heat and debris. The weight of the ship balanced on the tail for a second before falling. The screaming of straining metal. One of the large rotor blades sliced the earth, cutting grass and sand as the front of the machine crunched. The ground rumbled. Sam’s chest and stomach felt like a banged drum. An explosion filled the cockpit, contained by shatter-proof glass.

  “Yeah!” Penny yelled.

  “No,” Clint said through the group’s radio. “Hold your fire!”

  Behind the wreckage, a figure emerged. Sam recognized his slick armor, his weapon, his confident saunter.

  Sam shook Dixon off and ran to Penny.

  In her earpiece, the base’s commander yelled, “All fighters stand ready to engage. Secondary wave take stations outside.”

  WarWalkers stepped out from the base in preparation for the final fight, leaving only two to stand guard as the main gate slid shut with a clang.

  “Penny, we can’t win this,” Clint said.

  “Yes we can,” she said, not having seen Prince yet.

  At her sister’s side, Sam pointed at the man who she knew was Prince, but the darkness had swallowed him somehow. He was just there, she thought.

  “Bravo!” Prince said through everytwo’s radio. “I’ve never seen somebody take down one of our gunships with a damn bowling ball before.”

  “Where’d be go?” Penny said, out of breath.

  Sam touched her shoulder to her sister’s shoulder, pressing as close as she could, and scanned the field with her rifle’s sights. “He’s… cloaked.”

  Gray Altar soldiers materialized from the woods. Twice as many as before. Drones circled above them like vultures. Each one gave Gray Altar a targeting advantage. The WarWalker next to Sam shook its turrets left and right, unable to train on a reliable target.

  Clint stayed close to her and Penny. “Nobody needs to fire yet. We’ve got our armor. Trust it.”

  “Yeah, for the next ten minutes before we lose our charge,” Mason said, crouched and aiming. He was right. The vests wouldn’t last much longer. Sam could feel him shaking, terrified. “Then what?”

  “We’ll fight before that, but not until we need to,” Clint said.

  More soldiers advanced, surrounding the sixty or so One Nation guards.

  “We don’t want a bloodbath!” Clint called to Prince. “If you force us, you’ll lose a lot of men and the whole world will watch.”

  Prince laughed. Echoing through their earpieces, it felt like he was everywhere and nowhere. “A bloodbath? No… you don’t want that.”

  “The base is rigged to blow, Prince,” Clint said. “You won’t get in there without destroying what you came for.”

  Prince laughed again.

  The thumping hiss of an automatic weapon knocked five silenced bullets into a One Nation guard’s magnetic armor. Bullets ricochetted away. The sound made everytwo turn toward the shielded guard who cringed and aimed in circles.

  “Steady!” Clint called. “Hold. Your vest will deflect their fire.”

  In the opposite direction, Sam heard a gasping gargle. Turning, she saw a One Nation guard fall to his knees with his hand over his throat. Blood flooded his laced fingers. The men beside him jumped back, firing at nothing. Whoever had slashed the guard’s throat was gone.

  To her right, a drone projected a hologram of Prince as if he were standing yards away. “You and I both know you’re not going to destroy a miracle. The child is a gift. For the world.”

  “We will if you make us,” Clint said, rifle aimed at the drone.

  “Medic!” a man yelled, applying pressure to the guard’s slashed neck.

  “Make you?” Prince said as the hologram flickered and disappeared. Penny clamped her claw so tight that Sam could hear it screech. A drone they could barely see projected another hologram of Prince, this time further away. “You steal property from the United States government and think that I’m making you do something.”

  “We’ve stolen nothing!” Clint yelled. “The mother and child…”

  Prince cut Clint’s transmission and spoke through their earpieces. “Are stolen property. As well as the girls.”

  Again, a burst of silenced bullets ricochetted off a guard’s magnetic armor. Sam turned toward him to see if he was okay. The guard was shaken, but unharmed. At the base’s entrance, another guard grasped his neck and toppled over. A mist of blood sprayed in the floodlights. Again, no attacker could be seen, though it was Prince, Sam knew.

  Another hologram flickered alive, this time only feet from Clint.

  “Mother fucker!” Clint yelled.

  Prince’s calm sent shivers through Sam’s arms and legs. Made her stomach feel liquified. “Know what else you stole?”

  Clint aimed at the hologram and then up at the drone projecting it. “We open fire in five… four…”

  “You stole those antiquated mag-vests from our R and D,” Prince snickered. “They’re cool, I’ll give ya that.”

  Clint grit his teeth. “Three…”

  One Nation guards braced. Sam shook so hard she thought she might drop her rifle. Penny reached out with her natural hand and gripped Sam’s wrist and this was the only thing preventing Sam from throwing up from fright.

  “Where is he?” Sam whispered.

  “Penny,” Mason whispered. “Run if you need to. I love…”

  Prince’s hologram wagged it’s finger at Clint. “Really cool. Bullet deflecting. I saw one blow back a grenade once.” Prince’s hologram said. “But there’s one thing about those old vests.” And then it pointed its finger at Dixon. “They’re a little teeny bit… volatile.”

  Prince’s hologram tapped on its forearm display.

  Sam looked over at Dixon as his vest began to vibrate.

  “What the hell?” Dixon said, looking down, his free hand moving to touch the buzzing metal chest.

  “I mean, we stopped using them when we discovered they were hackable,” Prince said, holding up with hands as if shielding himself from something. “I mean, c’mon guys. You had to know we could hack our own tech.”

  “Dixon! Take it off!” Clint yelled, running to his son.

  “I can’t!” Dixon screamed, clawing at the clasps. “Dad!”

  Penny reached over and clamped on the vest’s shoulder and twisted, but it wouldn’t pry open. Dixon’s face strained. Eyes panicked. The vest shook harder, turning his neck and arms red. His rifle flipped to the ground.

  “Stop!” Clint roared, both of his hands wedged on either side of the vest, pulling.

  “Y’all might wanna back away,” Prince said, flicking a dismissive wave at Clint and Dixon. “Could get messy.”

  “No, no, no, no, no,” Mason moaned, clawing towards his brother. A One Nation guard grabbed him and pulled back.

  “Back!” the commander yelled through their earpieces.

  Dixon’s vibrating increased to trembling. Clint kept pulling at the back and chest plates of the vest, but they wouldn’t separate.

  Other guards pulled Penny and Sam away as Clint started shaking along with his son. Dixon fainted. Clint held onto him as he fell, easing him down.

  “The blast radius is pretty wide, depending on how charged up the vest still is,” Prince said.

  “Stop!” Sam screamed.

  Around her, guards were taking off their vests, knowing they were wearing suicide bombs. Still backing away, eyes on Dixon and Clint, Sam reached over to Penny’s chest and unclasped hers as she unclasped her own. The heavy chest plates popped apart. Sam slinked out of her vest. Penny tossed hers with her titanium arm.

  “Dixon!” Sam screamed, tears obscuring her sight.

  Clint turned to them—to Penny and Sam and Mason—face red and shaking. “Open fire!”

  On
e second.

  Then two.

  Sam, breathless, watched.

  The WarWalkers were first to respond. Their muffled machine-gun fire like a hundred rabbits thumping the ground. Sam ducked and followed Penny up the grass and away from the four-legged machines. Gray Altar drones exploded midair. Sparks rained along with shattered metal. Explosions rang in her ears. Pushed at her ribs. Gray Altar soldiers fired back at the WarWalkers, ricocheting rounds like zipping flies.

  Multiple holograms flickered around them. Prince laughed, a voice echoed through every earpiece like the dark vesper that he was. Sam saw one of the holograms tap its forearms again and Dixon’s body stopped shaking. Clint looked up in disbelief. The vest stilled. He cradled his son, trying to make sense of the chaos.

  Sam and Penny watched Mason run to his brother. He heaved the vest off with Clint, asking, “Is he okay? Is he?”

  Clint threw the back panel of the vest. “I dunno. Help me get him to the base.”

  Sam could see the scorched skin of Dixon’s neck and shoulders, the patches where his button up shirt had burned.

  Around them, One Nation guards were falling dead. Men yelled to take cover in the woods. Others rallied closer to her in an effort to cover them. White and gray and black smoke choked the air.

  “You girls should be inside!” a guard yelled and fired into the darkened treeline.

  “Stick with me!” Penny yelled. “C’mon!”

  Sam gripped her rifle, hands shaking. “What!?”

  “Duck!” Penny said as she spun.

  Sam crouched in time to dodge Penny’s arm and the wrecking ball firing from it. She turned to watch it fly at a cluster of soldiers, missing them. Their faces changed from fright to elation as they realized the girl had missed, though they had no idea why Penny was still aiming her claw, wide open, at them. Sam knew. She’d seen her sister do this before. Drawn and quartered, the engineers called it. A sick joke.

  Behind the soldiers, the wrecking ball collapsed into four equal wedges. They spun in the air by the claw’s magnetized field. Penny twisted her claw and pulled back, commanding the quarters to return. As fast as throwing knives, the wedges spun past the men, cutting a leg off one, a head off the other, and sticking into the back of the third. He toppled over, blood pooling between his shoulder blades. The headless soldier dropped. The soldier with one leg too, but not as fast. He gripped his gushing wound and rolled in the dirt.

  “Penny!” Sam screamed.

  Her sister’s smile said it all. She gestured with her claw and the wedge stuck in the soldier’s back flew free to join the three other pieces, joining back together to form a ball. Blood and grass matted to the metal. Penny crouched and watched it roll back into her open claw. “Yeah?”

  Sam opened her mouth, not sure if she could say anything. Before she could, one of the WarWalkers close to the base exploded, throwing heat and shadows across the field. Sam and Penny ducked. The fire lit another gunship veering above the treeline.

  Sam looked to Clint and Mason, between them Dixon’s limp body dragged.

  “Is he…?” Sam could utter the word dead.

  “I dunno,” Penny said.

  Sam could see Clint holding Dixon’s head as a medic rushed over.

  “I never thought,” Prince said in Sam’s ear, his actual breath on her lobe and neck and cheek. “I’d be bested by girl twins.”

  Sam dodged and aimed her rifle into the blackness, firing. “Ah!”

  “What?” Penny yelled.

  Prince was gone.

  Sam panted and shook. “Him. He was right there. Next to me.”

  Both girls whipped around to spot any glimpse of Prince.

  Now that Dixon was laying at the base’s entrance, Mason and Clint fired back at the oncoming soldiers, their empty magazines dropping and replaced with loaded ones. Chipped concrete dusted the air above them. Clint was mouthing something and pointing. Mason fired in that direction.

  Slowed by the shock of violence, Sam waited for Prince to appear behind Clint or his sons and slice them open for everytwo to see. The thought gripped her, stopped her from reacting—from doing anything but surrendering her body to the debilitating fear. The man, the ghost, could appear out of nowhere. To taunt. Torture. Kill.

  The WarWalkers had shot most of the drones out of the air, diminishing Gray Altar’s advantage. Sparking tangles of metal littered the field. Gusts from the gunship fanned every flaming wreck and the smell of rusty blood tanged the air. In the woods, rolling in the grass, the panicked sounds of people dying surrounded them.

  “I’ve got to admit,” Prince whispered over the radio. “You two are impressive.”

  “Mother fff…” Penny screeched and flailed her arm. “He’s…” She looked left and right. “What the fuck?”

  “He’s playing with us,” Sam said.

  “He was right here,” Penny yelled, blood dripping from her clenched claw. “How?”

  In the middle of the field, Prince appeared among the smoke, arm outstretched with his pistol. He fired a thumping stream of bullets at a group of guards. Every man he aimed at instantly dropped as if they had been yanked to the ground. Prince turned, still firing, and sprayed two running men who flipped and collapsed in a pulpy mangle.

  “We need to cover each other!” Penny yelled.

  “Pen…,” Sam cried, arms and legs tight to her body. There was nothing she could do, but shake.

  Penny roared and lobbed her wrecking ball at Prince, firing it like a missile. But as if something was signaling him, Prince ducked and pivoted and flickered into nothingness. Gone.

  “Don’t think your bouncy ball can knock me out of the game, girl,” he chuckled.

  Penny was quick to pull the ball back into her open claw. “Coward!”

  The sound of the heavy main gate opening made Sam turn. Clint and a medic pulled Dixon inside, his body still motionless. More WarWalkers stepped outside, rattling bullets at the approaching soldiers.

  Penny hadn’t stopped scanning the field for Prince.

  “All I have to do is…” he said, “decide who I’m going to kill first.”

  Sam dropped her rifle. She hadn’t realized until she felt it clack against her knee, but she had dropped her only weapon. Her hands wouldn’t stop trembling. Every cry or shriek made her cringe. It didn’t matter how much shame she felt at that moment, she simply couldn’t move. Ears ringing. Heart beating so fast she could feel her chest moving. A trapped animal.

  Prince appeared for a few seconds, climbing one of the WarWalkers to attach something to its turret before vanishing again. It was like he could roll away into the shadowed night. The WarWalker bucked, spinning. A few seconds later, its turret exploded, flipping the entire machine over. Gun barrels twisted like paper towel rolls. Legs spasmed and stopped altogether.

  “We’ve got to get inside!” Sam yelled to her sister.

  Penny wasn’t listening. Eyes squinting, she crouched and aimed her claw upward, popping the ball in the air. She held it there, levitating, spinning, ten feet over her head. Sam crouched too, unsure what her sister was planning. The ball slowed and split into quarter wedges again, rotating the four pieces in a wider circle.

  When Prince appeared again, he looked to be strolling along the perimeter of the low-standing base, a few yards from the entrance. He raised his pistol to aim at Clint.

  “No!” Sam screamed.

  Penny’s reaction was all impulse. She pointed her open claw at Prince. Four spinning metal wedges sliced through the air. Prince snapped his aim to them, firing a stream of bullets, knocking one then two down. Penny arced the remaining two wedges, bending their path up and down as she stabilized her titanium wrist with her hand. “C’mon!”

  A third wedge pinged as a bullet struck it down.

  The forth screamed closer and Prince hosed the air with bullets. Clint saw Prince and aimed his rifle, but Prince turned to Clint and fired first. None of the shots hit as the wedge slammed into Prince’s pistol. The barre
l spun one way, the receiver and handle the other.

  Prince held his injured hand. “Ah!”

  “Penny!” Sam cheered.

  Before Clint or Mason could react, Prince was feet from them. He threw a dagger into Clint’s shoulder, sending him twisting to the ground. He managed to kick Mason’s rifle and then punch him so hard in the face that Mason dropped, facedown and knocked out.

  “Mason!” Penny screamed. She pulled the wedges back, forming a ball, but one of the four pieces was dented. Each time the wedges joined to form a sphere, they immediately separated. Penny flexed her claw at the partly joined ball. “Shit!”

  The second gunship fired rockets on the WarWalkers further away from the base. Flaming pieces burst. Shrapnel spun into a cluster of guards.

  Sam crouched so low she was almost laying down. Why aren’t they attacking us? she thought. The gunship could have machine gunned them down within minutes. Its rockets might even be able to penetrate the base’s concrete walls.

  Drones descended around Prince. He scooped up Mason’s rifle and fired at the oncoming guards, hitting each of them with ease. Holding Mason by the collar, he gestured for a large drone to swoop down and lift the boy into the air. Unconscious, Mason sagged limp in the drone’s grasp.

  “No!” Penny screamed, running to him.

  Clint strained to get to his feet. Hand on his shoulder where the dagger stuck half way in. “Mason!”

  Another drone grabbed Prince by the backpack and lifted him. “We came here willing to negotiate,” he yelled. “It’s clear that One Nation isn’t willing to peacefully surrender the property they stole.”

  “Let him go!” Penny yelled. She pointed her claw at Mason, but could do nothing to help him. The gunship’s bottom hatch slid open. The drone gripping Mason flew into the gunship so fast it looked like it was vacuumed inside. Prince followed. The hatch slammed shut.

  “Nooo!” Penny cried, falling to her knees.

  Sam stood next to her, holding her sister.

  The gunship turned and raised, churning smoke and dirt. The remaining Gray Altar soldiers picked up the discarded mag-vests and receded into the woods. All of this unfolded in slow motion to Sam—like sometwo was turning the volume lower on a movie she didn’t quite understand yet.