by R. M. Olson
He cursed silently. Every time he saw her, the cold anger burning in his chest grew just a little more intense.
He should never have agreed to this. He should—
There was a sound behind him, and he turned. Ysbel and Tanya were bringing the two children, very gently, out of the tiny walled-in compartment. Olya was looking around, blinking, eyes still swollen from crying, but when she saw him, her face lit up.
He cursed again.
And that’s why he’d agreed. Because he hadn’t had a choice.
“Ysbel. You take Olya, I’ll take Misko,” said Tanya, lifting the boy into her arms. Ysbel nodded, holding out her hand, and Olya grabbed it.
From outside the room, alarms blared, lights flashing through the crack in the door, muffled shouts and commands coming through the prison coms.
He sighed. No one could say that they didn’t do things with style.
“I’ll take the gun,” Masha said, and Lev nodded, crossing quickly to Jez and Tae.
“Jez,” he said softly, not entirely sure of his voice. “I’m going to put your arm around my shoulder, OK?”
She glanced at him blearily, and his stomach twisted at the sight of her bruised face.
“Hey genius-boy,” she slurred.
“Don’t try to talk,” he said, biting back his anger.
There would be plenty of time for that later. Right now, they needed to get out.
“Tae,” he said quietly.
Tae nodded, and shifted Jez’s weight onto Lev. Her angular body was limp, sweat and blood soaking through her prison uniform.
“Just a minute,” Tae whispered. “I’m pretty sure there’ll be a master key in here.
Lev shifted his arm gently around Jez’s waist, trying to hold her somewhere it wouldn’t hurt, but even that movement made her gasp in pain.
He froze, and closed his eyes for a moment.
Someone was going to damn well die for this.
Tae returned a moment later, a grim smile on his face. “There was. If the guards wanted trouble, they have it now. I opened every damn cell in the prison.”
“Ready?” said Masha, her voice somehow still calm.
“We’re ready,” Lev said, voice slightly choked.
“As ready as we’re going to be,” grunted Ysbel. She leaned over and kissed Tanya briefly on the lips.
“Get a room, you two,” said Jez indistinctly.
“Jez. Shhhh,” he whispered.
“Alright.” Masha gave them one last quick look, then kicked the door open and stepped outside.
“We’re clear for the moment,” she called back. He glanced at Tae again, and they half-dragged the stumbling Jez from the room. Tanya came next, carrying Misko, and then Ysbel and Olya.
“One moment,” said Ysbel. She let go of Olya’s hand and stepped back into the guard room. She returned a moment later, tucking something inside her prison jacket.
“Alright,” she said. “Let’s go.”
They started off down the hall, Masha in the lead.
Before they reached the bottom of the first flight of stairs, they began to catch glimpses of the chaos below them. Clusters of guards ran past the stairwell, too intent on whatever they were doing to even notice the rag-tag band of bloody, desperate-looking prisoners on the stairs above them. He glanced at Tae, who had a grim smile on his face.
Apparently the master key had worked, then. Although to be fair, they hadn’t been overly subtle about their own escape attempt. Presumably if you locked up a sufficient number of guards someone would notice them, in closets and bathrooms and around door-frames—alright, that one may have been a little extreme. But he’d been quite angry at the time.
He glanced over at Jez’s bloodied face and clenched his teeth.
No, he was still quite angry.
She caught her foot on a step and stumbled and gave a small whimper of pain, and his heart almost stopped. Tae caught his eye, his own face drawn with worry, and for a moment Lev was certain that they were thinking exactly the same thing.
If Zhurov happened to show his face, it would be something of a competition as to who got to him first.
They reached the bottom of the stairs and, after a quick glance around, Masha beckoned them forward.
The corridor was empty for the moment, and they hurried down it.
A group of guards sprinted round the corner and almost ran directly into them. Masha pointed the dummy gun in a no-nonsense way, and Ysbel gestured them into one of the empty prison cells.
Good. The prisoners weren’t just sitting around, at any rate.
The guards glanced from her to Masha to Jez to Tae to him, and obeyed.
Masha locked them in with the key on her com, and they continued forward.
The alarms were so loud he could hardly think, worming inside his brain and sending a dull, pulsing throb across the back of his skull.
“Were are we going?” he shouted to Tae. Tae shrugged.
“Suggestions?” he shouted back.
Another group of guards pounded around the corner, only to be intercepted by a hard-faced Ysbel and a gun-wielding Masha, and directed into the nearest cell. Once the door had locked behind the guards, Masha fell back slightly so she was walking only a step in front of Jez.
“Whatever’s going on, it buys us a chance,” she said. “We can’t get Tanya and the children out without killing them, but perhaps there’s a chance we can hide them until we find a solution.”
“Just keep going,” shouted Lev. “We’ll figure it out as we go. Sounds like the guards are pretty distracted as it is.”
It wasn’t a good plan. But then, they’d passed the point of good plans a long, long time ago.
Jez stumbled again, head sagging forward. She gave a gasping moan that turned his stomach and slurred out a choked curse.
“Can’t—”she muttered, voice shaking with pain.
“Do you have any more painkillers?” he asked through clenched teeth. Masha shook her head grimly and pulled something small and white out of the inside pocket of her jacket.
“I’m going to regret this, I’m certain of it,” she said.
“If we can keep Jez conscious and on her feet until we’re through this, Masha, I quite honestly don’t give a damn.”
She dropped the pill into his hand, and he turned to Jez.
“Jez. Come on. Open your mouth.”
Her face was drawn, her eyes dull with pain. She shook her head.
“Can’t,” she muttered. “Hurts.”
Her jaw hung at a slightly unnatural angle, and he bit back another wave of nausea.
“Come on, Jez,” he said quietly. “It’s small. Can you try?”
She looked at him with dull, pleading eyes, and he could feel her body trembling under his arm.
“It’s OK, Jez,” he whispered. “Just open a little.” He paused. “This is what Masha gave you earlier.”
She managed to raise an eyebrow slightly, and the corner of her mouth twitched in what was probably supposed to be a grin. He gave a rueful answering grin.
“Come on. This is probably the only time Masha will be offering you drugs.”
She managed to open her swollen lips a crack, and he pressed the white tablet into her mouth. She bit down on it reflexively, her head sagging.
“Come on,” Ysbel growled. “We don’t have time to waste.”
“I know,” he said shortly. “I’m doing the best I can.”
The endless, blaring alarms felt like spikes drilling into his head through his ears, and he clenched his teeth in frustration.
If he could only have two minutes to actually think.
“Our best option is going to be out through the courtyard,” he shouted. “If we can get around behind the cell block, there may be some places there we can take cover. There are equipment sheds, and they’ll check them, but it may give us something to work with.”
Masha nodded, and they set off again at a stumbling run towards the courtyard, he and Tae half
-carrying, half-dragging Jez between them.
They ran into three more knots of guards on their way out the door, and left them in various empty cells, but now he was seeing prisoners, too. The noise of voices was growing louder, shouts and yells and the sound of fighting.
Ysbel grabbed one of the prisoners as she ran past, and the woman spun around, hands coming up in a defensive position. Then her eyes widened.
“It’s you!” she gasped. “We thought they’d killed you.”
“What’s going on?” snapped Ysbel.
“Someone unlocked our cell doors. Ivan said it must have been Tae. He got us together, and we’re all in the courtyard. Like we planned.”
“But you don’t have weapons.”
The woman gave a sharp shake of her head. “We don’t. But they’re much more disorganized than they should be, and it took the Rims and the Blood Riots about five minutes to start fighting, and now there’s a full-on gang war in the courtyard. I don’t know what happened, but the warden hasn’t stopped us yet. We have a chance. We figured we may as well take it.”
Ysbel let go of her. The woman straightened.
“I’ll let them know you’re coming,” she said with a grin. Then she dashed off down the hallway.
Lev and Tae stared at each other, and from the corner of his eye, he caught the slightest hint of a satisfaction on Masha’s face.
For the first time since the guards had jerked them awake out of their cells that morning, he felt an actual smile on his face.
Tae was grinning back at him, his expression a mixture of disbelief and relief. “They actually—”
“I think they’re doing it. I think they intend to break out, weapons or no weapons,” he said.
Jez raised her head slightly. The painkillers seemed to have kicked in—she looked just as bad as she had before, but some of the sharp desperation was gone from her eyes.
“We getting out then?” she mumbled.
“Yes, Jez,” he said, and he couldn’t keep the relief from his voice. “It looks like we’re getting out.”
There was a shout, and the sound of a scuffle from the hallway ahead of them.
“If we survive that long,” he amended.
By the time they broke out into the courtyard, whatever organization the breakout may have originally had had devolved into a full-out brawl. Prisoners were shouting and fighting, guards were screaming through the coms and running along the walls, shouting to each other.
He scanned the scene quickly. At a closer glance, the prisoners seemed to have been formed into two or three loose bodies, and they were concentrating themselves into the corners Ivan had pointed out, where the angle of the towers would make it impossible for the wall-cannons to reach them. That, at least, was good. But the key to the plan had been the guards they’d take as hostages.
It appeared they had no hostages, or if they did, it was only one or two. He’d counted on at least fifty or a hundred.
He swore to himself. They’d locked up a dozen guards on the way in and out, but it was too late to go back and get them. And a quick glance at the walls told him that the guards, no matter how unprepared the breakout had caught them, were getting back into position in a depressingly-efficient manner. It would be a matter of minutes before they’d have their long-weapons drawn, and the prisoners would have no choice but to surrender.
“Come on,” he shouted to Tae, and dragging the stumbling Jez between them, they pushed forward. Ysbel broke a path for them through to the courtyard, and a moment later they were in the open air.
“We outside?” Jez mumbled, voice sounding vaguely interested. “’S nice.”
“What the actual hell happened to her?” came a familiar, strained voice. He glanced up to see Radic, a smear of blood across his face and a broken shock-stick in his hand, standing in front of them.
“Long story,” said Lev grimly.
“Is she—dead?”
“Do I look dead?” Jez slurred.
They all turned to look at her.
“Yes,” said Radic after a moment. He turned to Lev, face a mix of anger and confusion. “What’s going on?”
“You tell me,” said Lev. “Jez got us out, and we got Tanya and the kids out, and then we came out into this.”
“We’re not doing well,” Radic said grimly. “We don’t have weapons, we don’t have hostages. They should have shut this down long ago, but something’s happened, and they don’t seem to be organizing. Even so, there’s too many of them, and they have too many guns.”
Lev glanced up at the wall. “I give us maybe three minutes before they start firing on us.”
“Suggestions?”
“You should try that stuff Masha has,” Jez mumbled dreamily. “Better than your cat-piss, I’ll tell you that.”
“Other than that suggestion,” said Radic. “Although,” he glanced around, his shoulders drooped in despair, “that may turn out to be the best option, honestly.” He shrugged helplessly. “We don’t have weapons. That’s what’s killing us. Ivan is trying to keep everyone out of range of the wall guns, at least, but that will only last until they get their long-guns set up.”
Lev glanced across the courtyard, then up at the walls.
Already, the guards were setting up the tripods.
He shared a hopeless look with Tae.
Then Masha strode through the crowd towards them. Somehow, people stepped out of her way, politely, as if they’d suddenly realized it would be a shame to not let this nice, friendly woman through.
Or maybe, he thought, they saw the cold glint in her eye, and realized it would be a Very Bad Decision not to let this woman through.
She pulled out her makeshift gun as she reached them, gave Lev a meaningful glance, then stepped in front of Jez, levelling her weapon at the sagging pilot.
“Stand back, or we kill the plant,” she shouted.
For a moment, the noise around them faded. Radic stared at Lev, and Lev gave a quick shake of his head.
“I mean it,” Masha shouted. “We’re already half-way there. Stand down!”
The guards on the wall looked at each other in confusion. The prisoners stared at them as well, and moved inconspicuously away. Lev couldn’t blame them, to be honest. There was something terrifying about Masha’s air of competence, and the businesslike way she held the dummy gun.
“They know she’s not a plant, don’t they?” Radic whispered to Lev. Lev shook his head again.
“I—think so. But the shifts just changed. Maybe word hasn’t been passed on yet.”
Behind them, he heard someone scrambling through the crowd of prisoners. He glanced over his shoulder, and swore.
“It’s Vlatka,’” he said through his teeth. “Radic—”
Radic managed to catch the furious woman before she could reach the half-conscious Jez, shoving her back.
“This is not the time,” Radic growled.
“Better hurry, I’m not going to be able to hold them off for long,” said Masha, her voice hard and businesslike. “The other prisoners aren’t too happy there was a plant in the middle of us.”
A couple of guards started down the stairs from the walls. More stood as if not entirely sure what to do.
“Get her back,” Masha shouted to Lev.
He glanced at Tae, who shrugged helplessly, and they started pulling Jez back into the crowd of prisoners.
Off behind them, the situation between Radic and Vlatka had devolved into a full-out brawl.
One of the guards reached the courtyard floor, and someone shouted from the wall, “No! Don’t go in there! She’s not—”
Another guard reached the floor. Up on the wall, Lev caught sight of another guard’s furious face. She was shouting something to two guards in front of her. They nodded, grabbed two more guards to accompany them, and pounded down the steps, presumably to stop the first three guards who were already on the ground.
Lev turned back to the fight behind him. “Go!” he hissed at Radic. The man
pulled himself back from the fight, glanced around quickly, and nodded his understanding. He jerked his head at a handful of other prisoners, and they spread out to the sides around where Lev and Tae supported Jez.
“What’s—” Jez began groggily.
“Not the time for it,” Lev hissed. She turned a fair approximation of a glare on him.
“I’ll shoot her! Stay back!” Masha shouted.
“Why’s Masha shooting me? What’d I do?” she mumbled. “Must’ve been good.”
“Jez, shhh.”
The guards spread out, focused grimly on Masha, weapons drawn.
“I’ll shoot her,” Masha snapped, holding the dummy gun to Jez’s head.
Behind the three guards stalking towards Masha, the four guards the warden had sent had reached the ground and were pounding towards them.
The moment they were close enough, Lev caught Radic’s eye and gave a faint nod.
Radic grinned. He gestured to the other prisoners, and they sprang forward, grabbing the guards around their necks or by their gun-arms and yanking their hands behind their backs.
“Cuff them,” Radic shouted, then grabbed one of the guns and swung it, hitting the guard he’d just disarmed in the temple. The man collapsed, and Radic hoisted him up by the arms and pulled him backwards into the crowd.
More guards were pouring down the stairs now, weapons drawn, but the prisoners were using their hostages to their advantage, and the guards pouring onto the field didn’t dare shoot.
Atop the wall, guards were shouting instructions that, it seemed, no one could hear, and other guards were frantically retracting the stairs.
But it was too late.
Lev glanced around quickly.
There were no armed guards on the ground any longer. Every one had been disarmed and cuffed with brutal efficiency, and were now being guarded by a knot of prisoners each.
And, looking at their faces, he realized that they wouldn’t need weapons to threaten the guards’ lives.
Slowly, the shouting on the walls died down, and the courtyard gradually stilled as well.
He held Jez closer, pulling her weight onto his shoulder, relief making his legs weak.
