by Blou Bryant
With a quick flick, he unbuckled and turned to tell the twins to do the same, but didn’t need to. Both were out of the car and ready for action before he’d put the car in park.
He wanted Emm to stay behind, but she followed him to the door. The twins had taken positions using the car as cover, with chalikars—Sikh throwing circles—spinning in both hands. Reaching the outer door, he pulled it back, prepared to throw his shoulder at the main entrance. There was no time to knock.
There was also no need. Teri opened the door and motioned him in.
Wyatt didn’t move. “You need to come with us, quickly!”
“I know,” she signed and turned back into the house.
She was infuriating. He turned and looked up and down the street. There were flashes of movement in the half-light cast by the few still working streetlights. “Can you turn those off?” he asked Emm.
“Not from here. I don’t have a virus prepped,” she replied and moved into the house. “But they’re coming.”
“They?”
She closed her eyes and turned her head… listening. “Can’t tell who, but there’s a lot of traffic on a closed cell network. Can’t read it, it’s encrypted, but there are at least eight of them. Likely more.” She entered the house through the door Teri had left open. “Come on.”
He half entered and looked back to the twins, who were hunkered down next to the car, scanning for targets. A chalikar flashed in Ari’s hand and went spinning across the street. A black figure fell to the ground.
Emm pushed past him, and said, “Come on, they’re fine.”
He didn’t want to leave them out there, alone, but at a quick jab from Emm, he followed into the house. “Be careful, girls,” Wyatt whispered and let the door close behind him. Teri had disappeared down a hallway. He followed and found them in Marylyn’s bedroom. The two women were signing furiously.
“Let’s go,” he said and turned off the main light. A hallway nightlight let him still see them, but barely, in its faint beams.
“What is this? Why are you here?” Marylyn asked, wiping sleep from her eyes and pulling her robe tight.
“She didn’t explain? There are armed men and they’ve came for you.”
“What?” asked Teri, her eyes opening wide.
“Men?” said Marylyn, and she turned to her closet, quickly choosing a dress. “Who?”
“I don’t know. Teri told us to come, to protect you.”
“No, I didn’t,” the teen protested, giving up on sign.
“You… pathed… whatever… Ira, told us to come quickly.”
Marylyn watched the two of them as she got dressed.
“Yes, I wanted you here, but because you’re sick, you need me,” Teri said, but then cocked her head—just like Emm did when linking into systems—and her eyes widened in surprise and fear. “You’re in danger. We are,” she said. “There are men outside. Many men.”
Wyatt sputtered in frustration. “I just said that, didn’t I say that? We can talk later, let’s go.”
As Marylyn finished dressing, he took the lead and beaconed them down the hallway. Emm was barely visible in the living room, sitting still on a wide sofa. The lights were still on outside the house—why hadn’t she turned them off? “Emm,” he whispered.
As he got to the corner of the living room, he heard a noise to his left. Without conscious thought, he turned into the kitchen. In the faint light, he saw a figure outlined against the glass door. As the man turned, Wyatt picked up the closest weapon he could find, which happened to be a toaster. Ripping its cord out of the wall, he threw it overhead at the man and ducked to the side as he did so.
He felt searing pain in his arm, heard a pop and hiss, and then the toaster hit its target. Wyatt ignored the pain, picked up a stool from the kitchen island and swung it at the intruder. It connected and the man fell to the ground. Wyatt stepped around the island and kicked out at the dark shape on the ground. It connected on something hard, but just in case, he dropped down with a knee, making sure the man was out cold, or worse, Wyatt didn’t care.
Two pops and the sound of a window shattering made him stand back up quickly as he realized the women were alone. He didn’t need to worry. His eyes had fully adjusted to the faint light and it was Marylyn he saw, the fallen gun now in her hand, smoke coming from the barrel. She nodded to the window. There were two dark shapes on the ground.
Well done, thought Wyatt. The immediate threats disposed of, the three of them ducked down to reduce their exposure and entered the living room.
“Emm,” he whispered again.
This time, his intrusion worked—or was well timed. Her eyes flew open as she jumped off the couch. “We need to go downstairs. Is there a downstairs?”
Marylyn pointed to a door in the hallway.
“Go, go,” said Wyatt, trusting Emm’s judgment without question. “I’ll get the twins.”
Again, he wasn’t needed. The front door crashed open and Ari came through, followed closely by Ira.
Wyatt brought up the rear as the group of five made their way down the dark basement stairs.
“Nice gun,” said Ari.
“Thanks,” said Marylyn. “It’s a present someone left in my kitchen.”
Wyatt could hardly see as the only light was from a computer monitor in a far corner, and a digital clock on the other side. As his eyes adjusted, he scanned the room for options. A couch huddled in the dark, and two doors offered the possibility of escape or perhaps a place to hide. The outdoors was too dangerous, but inside was no better. The attackers would be here soon, and this wasn’t a safe place.
As he edged through, one of the half windows shattered followed by a mirror on the far wall as someone outside fired in. Two more bangs and the group ran for the wall under the windows.
“What now?” asked Marylyn.
“We can take them,” said Ira. She turned to Ari, “Yes we can.” She paused and said, “Fine, be chicken. What do you suggest?”
Wyatt smiled at their argument and wondered what it’d be like to live with someone else in your head all the time. “Stay against the wall, make them come for us. When they try…” he stopped talking as Emm stood up and ran to the computer. “What are you... Emm, get back…” he hissed.
She skidded to the machine, and ended up under the desk, a dark mass that wouldn’t be seen from outside. “Wait…” she said and put one hand on the computer. The faint glint of her eyes disappeared, and Wyatt knew she was interfacing, her implants connecting her to the machine and beyond.
Whatever she did, it happened fast. First, the computer came to life, then the lights in the room all came on.
“Emm,” Wyatt said urgently, as she was fully visible—they all were! Ignoring the risk, he stood and ran to the staircase to flick the light switch off. Nothing, the light stayed on. He flicked it again and again. Another window shattered and Wyatt retreated to the relative safety of the wall.
More bullets shattered the monitor over Emm, the light on the table and punched holes in the wall. She skittered out from under the desk and, without bothering to stand, rolled towards the wall. “Close,” she said, her face bright with excitement.
As shots continued to ring out, Wyatt pushed himself up against the wall. “Are you crazy, what have you done?”
“Watch.”
“I said to turn out all the lights, not turn them on.”
Despite his angry tone, she only smiled and pointed up, above them. It wasn’t dark outside anymore. “Darkness helps them, not us.”
“What’d you do?”
“I wrote a little program,” she said with pride. “Watch.”
The stereo came on, and filled the room with the words. “Marylyn is in trouble, help Marylyn.” Then the TV started up, and the same words came through.
“Are you serious? Now they can see us, and know where we are,” Wyatt said, incredulous.
“It’s not just playing here,” said Emm. She leaned against the wall and gave him a
wink. “Marylyn is in trouble,” played over the stereo.
Teri giggled, a strange thing to hear, given the situation. Wyatt glanced at her and saw, next to her, Ira and Ari smiling as well. “Have you all gone nuts?”
“It’s playing everywhere?” guessed Ari. Wyatt still didn’t get it.
“Marylyn is in trouble,” played over the TV.
“Only within a couple blocks. Well, I think so, but it was fast coding. Hell, if I got a line wrong, it’s playing in Russia. I didn’t, did I? You can sense them coming?”
“Yup, lots,” said Ira. Her eyes widened. “Keep your…”
“… heads down,” said Ari. “It’s going to…”
“… get ugly.”
Wyatt looked up to the light streaming through the windows and then back to the TV. “That’s not only playing here, is it?”
“Bingo, he gets it,” said Teri, with the lovely arrogance that only a new teenager could summon.
The sound of gunfire erupted from above them. If silenced weapons fired back, they were drowned out by the bullets fired by Marylyn’s friends and neighbors, roused from their sleep by Emm’s hack. It lasted only seconds, perhaps a minute, but no more. The sound of gunfire ended and was replaced by voices coming through the shattered windows.
“Safe now,” said Teri.
Ari nodded. “I sense it too.”
Emm stood up and walked to the staircase, waving for the rest to follow. Wyatt looked at her with amazement.
“What?” she asked. “You spend too much time in the dark, Wyatt. Sometimes the best way to fight back is to shine a light and realize that you’re not alone.”
Wyatt motioned for everyone to get behind him when they reached the top of the stairs. The group of women smiled and let him lead.
The lights were on through the main level as well, and when he reached the corner, he had no trouble seeing that the battle was over. The front lawn was packed with people, most of them armed, all of them residents and neighbors.
“We’re safe,” he said and walked out the front door.
“Wyatt,” exclaimed several. Two large men and one woman, all in nothing but underwear, walked up and gave him chest bumps. He blushed at the third, and blushed harder when she laughed and pulled him into a full hug.
“She safe?” asked the woman.
Marylyn was who she was referring to, and she answered on her own as she came out of the house. “My God,” she said, taking in the devastation. The house was pockmarked with bullet holes, and most of the windows were shattered. Fragments of brick and broken glass were strewn across the lawn. The beheaded form of a garden gnome joined several human bodies, black clad Watchers.
The woman who’d hugged Wyatt turned to Marylyn. “Sorry about the house, Mrs. Peebles,” she said, a large automatic weapon slung over her shoulder. “And the mess.”
“That’s okay, Bonnie. I’m still breathing thanks you all of you,” replied Marylyn. “Was anyone hurt?”
“Just Sylvester,” said Bonnie, speaking for the large gathering. The men clearly deferred to her, despite her being half their size and dressed in nothing more than a cropped t-shirt and neon-pink boy shorts.
“How is he?”
“My mom’s taking care of him. It’s a through and through, he’ll be fine.”
Marylyn nodded. “Good. Have the police been called?”
“Not yet. Do you want them?”
Wyatt interrupted. “We need to keep this quiet, they can’t be trusted. And I saw other bodies when we drove in. They killed people.”
Bonnie glanced at him but turned her head back to Marylyn, waiting on a real decision.
With caution on the iced steps, Marylyn walked down to join the group. She put a hand on Wyatt’s arm. “I know you don’t trust them, and with good cause. But we still use them, we still work with them and we give them the benefit of the doubt. Yes, call the police. We were attacked, and we defended ourselves, there’s nothing here to be ashamed of.”
“All these bodies,” Wyatt said, pointing around the lawn to the five dead men and women that were in sight. “The police will arrest us, they’ll use this to blame us.”
“They might,” said Marylyn with a shrug. “And if they do, if they’re crooked, we’ll fight back, using the same law they do.”
“And what about revenge for what they’ve done?”
Marylyn pointed to a body on the ground and said, “Any vengeance is beyond your powers to extract, now.”
“We need to leave, before the cops get here,” he argued, changing tact. Vengeance was still an option, it was still the plan, that much he was sure of. They might be dead, but those who sent them weren’t. That was the problem, it was always the soldiers who died, but it was the generals and the politicians who were to blame.
“I agree, you do. And the girls.”
“What about you and Teri?”
“Teri can go with you. I’m staying here, this is my home and I won’t run away.”
At this, the teen stepped forward, signing furiously. Wyatt couldn’t follow, but read ‘no’ several times, and not an easy, polite ‘no,’ but a hard and definitive one.
He didn’t understand why she was angry. “You don’t want to come with us?”
“Learn to sign, you had four years,” she spat with contempt, and signed something he didn’t recognize.
“Teri, don’t, that’s not appropriate,” said Marylyn. “She wants me to come with you, but she knows I have fifty years more experience at being pigheaded than she does, don’t you?”
Ignoring her comment about his poor signing skills, he said, “Argue later. I don’t want to be here when the police arrive.” Wyatt turned to the old Mustang and groaned as he noticed the bullet holes that riddled it, and the flat tires it sat on. Sandra would be pissed.
“Can anyone give us a lift back to the Zone?”
Chapter 9
As they drove back, he leaned back in the seat and tried to relax. As the adrenaline wore off, he could feel the pain from where the bullet had grazed him. Pulling the ripped shirt up, he checked out the wound. It was deeper than he’d thought and would need Hannah’s touch.
They arrived at the HUC fifteen minutes later, to find a greeting party led by Sandra and Trix.
“So, Marylyn called?” he asked with a smile and as much bravado as he could summon.
“What the hell happened?” asked Trix.
“Where’s my car?” asked Sandra.
Wyatt ignored Trix and grimaced at Sandra. He looked to Ari and Ira for help, but they scurried into the house with the others, leaving him to handle the dirty work. “Um… it shielded Ari and Ira from the Watchers… who were shooting at them?” he said.
“You’ve been shot,” exclaimed Trix, her face switching from stern disapproval to worry.
Sandra appeared distraught. “Kurt was shot?” she asked.
“Kurt?” asked Trix.
“Her car,” said Wyatt.
“How bad was he hurt?”
“The tires are blown and there are… well, some bullet holes. Oh, and I ran over someone and they shattered the windshield. And I’m fine, thanks for asking.”
Sandra appeared close to tears. “Where is he?”
“Back at Marylyn’s house.”
She let out a sigh. “At least he’s safe. Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”
Trix put an arm around him, not that he needed it, and walked him back up the steps. “You really needed action, didn’t you?”
“They called me.”
“You could have brought me.”
“They got me out of bed…” he said, “I was half asleep. Trust me, if I’d known what we were heading into, I’d have brought you along.”
Trix laughed. “Now that’s my man.” She leaned in and gave him a kiss as they reached the staircase. “I gotta talk to some people. Go on upstairs, Hannah will be waiting for you. She’s angry too.”
“Everyone’s angry with me.” What else is new?
/> Sandra was waiting three steps up and waved him to follow.
“We need…” Wyatt said and wavered, holding onto the banister to keep from falling as a wave of dizziness crashed over him. His eyes blurred for a moment before he came back to. “We need to prepare.”
Trix guffawed and waved up the stairs. “We’re ready, we’ve been ready since yesterday. Go on, get yourself healed. You look like death warmed over. Sexy death, but still… you’re better with color in your skin.”
Sandra stopped complaining about her car—although he knew the subject wasn’t forgotten—and escorted him up to his room. She handed him off to Hannah, who was sitting, waiting, with Teri.
“You’re bleeding,” Hannah said as he sat.
“Nice of someone to notice.” There was still some dizziness, and he let Hannah pull his shirt off.
Hannah poked at the wound and made a small clicking noise of her own.
“Sure, it’s ugly, but I took out three of them.”
“Very impressive,” Hannah muttered, but her face told another story. She worried about him, he knew that much. They were more off-again then on-again in their relationship, but even during the off phases, she worried.
“Not as much as you’d think; I got two of them with Sandra’s car.”
“You’re kidding?”
“About them, or me using the car?”
Hannah gently cleaned the wound. “I meant Kurt. Sandra will kill you. It would have been better to take another bullet.”
“Don’t I know it.”
She didn’t respond this time, finishing up with ointment on the wound, and closed her eyes, placing both hands over his arm. She wasn’t gentle, but that wasn’t anything new. She was rarely gentle with him. Four years before, she’d crawled out of the truck of a car, called him an idiot and a dumbass, and drove off. That set the tone of the relationship.
He leaned back to let her work, and briefly regarded her with an affection that he rarely let her see, waiting for the familiar warmth. After a few seconds, nothing had happened. “What are you waiting for?”
“Hush.”
With a brief glance at Teri—why is she so intent, why is she worried?—he closed his eyes and let his mind relax. It’d been a long day, a long two days.
