Black Rain

by Matthew B. J. Delaney

  “Reload!” Sharp’s voice commanded.

  Jack listened to the scrape of rammers being pulled up. He reached into the pouch at his side, shakily pulled out another cartridge bag, and tore off the paper top. He poured the black powder into the pan. A lone rifle cracked on the Houston side and a lead ball whistled in the air.

  Powder spilled from the pan and dusted the tops of the grass. On the Houston side, a second rifle ignited, then a third, sending balls rocketing toward the Braves. A voice cried out and a Synthate collapsed to the ground. Then another fell on his left.

  There was a whirring sound above them, and the fog began to dissipate, sucked up into the exhaust at the top of the dome. Regal Blue was still alive. He stood further down the line. The muscles of his jaws bulged tight knots. His eyes looked strangely hateful.

  “Fix bayonets!” Sharp ordered from the sideline.

  Jack’s bayonet hung from a loop on the belt around his waist. He lowered the butt end of the rifle to the ground until the barrel was just below his chin. Tearing the loop, he held the bayonet in his other hand.

  The bayonet was long, three-sided, with ridged blood grooves. The bottom of the blade was swivel-locked with the top of the barrel, fixing the knife into position.

  “Line, make ready!” Sharp called out.

  Jack raised the rifle to his waist. The bayonet extended a foot and a half past the end of the barrel. His legs felt sluggish and weak. There came a steady chant from the stadium, “Charge! Charge! Charge!” From the massive loudspeakers came the sharp, piercing scream of a diving eagle.

  Condensation from the fog machines beaded up into little droplets along Jack’s rifle.

  Jack inhaled once, long and steady, then readied himself.

  “Charge!” Sharp cried. In unison the men on either side opened their mouths and roared. Jack joined them, the primeval sound coming naturally. They ran across the length of the field, bayonets extended. His legs suddenly felt incredibly powerful, his strides long and fluid. Everything melded together, the feel of the ground beneath his feet, the quickly approaching Houston line, and the roar of the crowd. Time stretched out. And snapped.

  The two lines met with sudden and violent intensity, two waves smashing into each other. As they ran, Jack had chosen a target, a flat-faced Domestic-class Redcoat. The opposing Synthate had seen him as well, and they locked eyes from twenty yards away, each speeding to end the other’s life.

  As their bodies collided, the Redcoat head-butted him viciously and Jack felt his brain go light. He fell backward, the Redcoat on top of him, his hands wrapped around Jack’s throat. His enemy’s eyes were wide and dark, with flecks of tiny red veins that circled the irises. His mouth was open, lips pulled back against his gums.

  Jack brought his knee up into the Synthate’s groin. There was a bursting sound from deep within his opponent’s lungs, a sharp exhalation, and he loosed his grip on Jack’s throat, rolling over onto his side. Gasping for breath, Jack sat up, rolling away quickly through the long grass. He rose to his knees and, seeing his flintlock a few feet from him, picked it up.

  The Redcoat had risen to his feet, knees pressed tightly together. They made eye contact once more. Jack swung the rifle around, still on his knees, and squeezed the trigger. The pan flashed as the powder exploded, while at the same instant, Jack saw the .69-caliber lead ball tear away half of the Redcoat’s right arm. The Redcoat stood, staring down at the remains of the ragged stump. Jack charged forward and buried the bayonet deep into his enemy’s chest.

  The Redcoat twitched, more air escaped from his mouth, and suddenly the rifle became heavy in Jack’s arm. The weapon slipped from his hands and fell to the ground, still protruding from the dead soldier’s chest. The horror of the moment overwhelmed Jack in a dizzying wave. He stared at the destruction he had caused and felt his sanity slipping away from him.

  A short alarm sounded from the loudspeakers overhead.

  “What’s that?” Jack cried. Regal Blue appeared next to him, panting and bloody.

  “Houston’s sending in more soldiers!”

  Jack followed Regal Blue’s gaze, eighty yards away to the Houston sideline. The large Plexiglas doors were sliding open. Something was coming out.

  “They’re coming!” Sky King shouted to the remaining Braves on the field. “How many of you are wounded?”

  Several hands went up slowly.

  “Take the rear line and reload weapons. There’re only seventy yards between us and whatever comes out that door, so we won’t be able to get off more than a few shots. We’ve got to make them count!”

  One of them cried out, “We’ll be massacred. There are only eight of us! Why doesn’t Sharp send us more reinforcements?”

  “You can’t control what the coach does,” Sky King said, his voice deep. “The only thing you can control in this life is what you do and how you choose to live the next few minutes. There is no place else to go but here. We are locked in this arena until the battle ends, and wherever you go on this field, they will find you. So we fight and gamble with our lives like men, or we run and let them hunt us down like animals. I choose to fight.”

  The door continued to open. In the stands, thousands stood upright, necks craned as they stared toward the opposite end of the field.

  The heat from the battle had turned the fog to rain, cool, light drizzle that tasted of plastic. The eight Braves stood near the very center of the field, far from the cover along the sides. Sky King looked around them wildly.

  “Grab as many rifles as you can hold, then fall back to the redoubt!”

  Flintlocks lay everywhere in the grass, dropped by the fallen soldiers. Jack picked up two, carrying them awkwardly along with his own under his arms. The men turned toward the redoubt and Jack joined them, running through the high grass toward the log-and-dirt fort almost fifty yards away. As he headed there, Jack could see that the structure had been struck by artillery fire. A small fire burned along one side, the flames sizzling and crackling in the rain. The artillery on both sides was quiet now.

  Reaching their goal, the team climbed over the wall. Inside lay a half dozen dead Synthates, most torn to pieces by shrapnel from grapeshot.

  “Push the dead out, strengthen the wall with them,” Sky King said as he grabbed one of the bodies and propped it against the broken front wall.

  The fortification was small, about ten feet wide, enclosed by a camouflaged earth wall that reached up just past Jack’s waist. Rain had turned the inside to slippery mud. The battle call sounded a third and final time. The crowd inhaled one massive breath, every eye glued to the end of the field.

  Jack shielded his eyes against the rain. Something was coming toward them, breaking through the grass, moving over fences and stone walls.

  Jack peered through his spyglass. The distant parts of the field jumped into focus inside the magnifying circle and he swept the view across the field.

  “It’s men!” Jack cried out. “Thirty of them! On horseback!”

  Sky King snatched the glass from Jack. “Dragoons!”

  Massive horses bore down on them, two long rows thick with muscle, flanks shining. Their riders had pistols slung across each shoulder and long cutlasses. Sweat showed on the beasts’ flanks as their hooves pounded through the rain.

  “Dragoons are coming! Form a line!” Sky King called out.

  Jack crouched down below the wall, seven rifles lined up on his side. His vision blurred and danced with the falling rain. He swiped at his eyes. The black powder in the pan was growing damp. He could feel the mud that had seeped in through his pant legs, weighing down his uniform. Streams of water ran off of his hat and formed tiny rivulets that trickled coldly down his back. The horsemen galloped closer, then leaped the last remaining stone wall. They drew their swords.

  “Wait . . .” Sky King’s voice was steady. “Wait . . . wait . . . almost there.”

  Jack could see the approaching riders clearly now. Slowly, he took aim at the lead horseman. He he
ard nothing except the fall of the rain and the resonant beat of the hooves. He waited.

  “Fire!” Sky King cried.

  Jack pulled the trigger and the black powder flashed, igniting in the rain. He turned his head away from the explosion, but heard the whinny of horses in the distance. Jack looked back and saw animals bucking, riders thrown as the invisible wall of musket shot rushed up to meet them.

  More riders followed and Jack dropped the empty rifle next to him, rapidly pulling a second from the row against the wall. He cocked the hammer and once more fired. The leaden ball caught one of the horsemen in the shoulder. The Redcoat twisted wildly in his saddle before he fell from his mount.

  Jack took up a third rifle. Dead men lay around him. The lead horseman had reached the earth wall. Jack ducked into the mud as a giant black stallion cleared the mound over him. The small fort was filled with the sound of beating hooves. The dragoons had their swords out and they swung wildly down, hacking and cutting at everything.

  In the chaos, Regal Blue pulled Jack’s arm. “Time to go. Fall back.”

  Together they climbed up and out of the redoubt. Keeping low, they moved out quickly across the wet fields. Regal Blue led him toward one of the stone cottages that lay beyond. Thin trails of smoke rose from the single chimney and chickens lay huddled together under the dry eaves of the roof.

  “There!” Regal Blue shouted.

  Jack looked back over his shoulder as they ran, seeing the horsemen still inside the redoubt. They reached the front of the cottage.

  Inside was empty except for a squat metal object the size of a furnace that made a humming noise and periodically loosed a cloud of steam up the fake chimney. There were four windows, one on each side of the building, and Jack could see six long pieces of two-by-four industrial timbers supporting the roof. The cottage was simply a prop for the field, part of a theatrical set.

  “Get down! Get away from the windows!” Regal Blue hissed, as he crouched near the smoke generator.

  Jack squatted next to him and together they cautiously peered through the window. The horsemen had scattered, three of them heading directly for Jack and Regal Blue. Jack ducked beneath the window and pressed his back tightly against the plasterboard wall.

  Slowly, he reached down and pulled out a powder cartridge. Just above, Jack heard the snort of horses and a whisper of conversation. Two shadows fell across the window. The dragoons were hunting them now, and it was only a matter of time before they began checking the cottages.

  Lifting his head, Jack peered out the window again. Close to his face was a long, fibrous horsetail swishing back and forth. A single Redcoat sat in the saddle, looking out at the field.

  “We have to take him now,” Regal Blue whispered.

  Slowly Jack raised himself toward the window. The horse still stood in place, its rider checking his watch, anticipating the approaching halftime.

  Jack raised the butt of his rifle and smashed the glass of the window. The effect was instantaneous. The horseman spun around in his saddle as Jack brought the rifle up through the broken glass, braced it against his shoulder, and fired. There was a loud crack, a flash of light from the black powder and a thud as the ball’s force knocked him out of the saddle.

  “Hit! Reload!” Jack shouted as he dropped down under the window.

  Regal Blue stood immediately and propped his rifle against the sash. Jack quickly pulled a second cartridge from his pouch and began to reload the rifle. Regal Blue fired, then ducked down next to him.

  Jack stood up again, taking his place. A second Redcoat lay in the grass where Regal Blue had shot him. This one was not yet dead and he rolled back and forth screaming, his hand over his abdomen. Two of his teammates ran through the high grass toward the cottage. Jack took aim. They were still forty yards away but moving quickly, their equipment jangling. A pistol shot smacked into the side of the cottage. Jack pulled the trigger on his flintlock and the ball caught one of the Redcoats just above the knee.

  And then he saw Sky King.

  The giant New York warrior rose up from where he’d been concealed in the tall grass, just in front of the still-running Redcoat. Spotting him, the enemy combatant tried to stop and raise his pistol in the same motion. But it was too late. Sky King grabbed his throat and brought up the short metal bayonet into the man’s gut. The Redcoat’s entire body shook before he dropped to the ground as Sky King released his grip.

  “Houston!” Sky King shouted, raising the still-bloody bayonet. He pointed across the field. The last Redcoat halted on his mount beneath a large oak. Hearing Sky King’s cry, the rider drew his sword, then kicking hard against his horse’s flanks, he urged his steed forward. Sky King held steady, the bayonet drawn. As the horseman approached Sky King, Regal Blue’s rifle exploded from the broken window. Just as the horse reared up, its nostrils flared in terror, Sky King sprung through the high grass, jumped onto the animal’s back and buried his bayonet into the Redcoat’s neck.

  Horse and rider fell to the ground.

  Slowly Sky King rose to his feet. Blood had stained his chestnut-colored uniform and almost obliterated its original color. Jack and Regal Blue left the cottage through the battered door and joined him.

  “Kill outside,” Sky King said, staring at the cheering crowd, “and they put you in prison. Kill in here, and they make you a hero.”

  CHAPTER 31

  Arden had grown up in Brooklyn and remembered it fondly. The borough had real neighborhoods back then. There’d been crime, sure, but that was just New York; stray too far from home and you never knew what might happen. In those days, midtown Manhattan was a special, shining place to window-shop for luxurious goods, or sit, transfixed, in the upper balcony of a Broadway show. Then everything changed.

  After the initial line of Synthates had begun rolling off the assembly line in faraway places like Malaysia and China, one of the first modification facilities was built in the center of Manhattan. Problem solving was behind certain critical decisions. For example, a family purchases a Domestic Synthate to take care of Granny, but then Granny dies and a geriatric caregiver is no longer needed.

  No problem: The modification center would refurbish the Synthate, then sell him out to the DOT or Sanitation to pick up garbage or repair subway tracks or something similar. And of course, he needed a place to live, so he settled in the area around the modification plant. Synthates soon began to take over the area.

  Most of them lived in poverty and thus crime started to rise. After tourists started complaining, the city took notice. Then came the effort to evict all Synthates from Midtown. Synthates rioted, set fires, and destroyed businesses. Realizing their mistake, city officials now regretted the earlier settlement policy.

  The trouble was, by this point, the city had become dependent on Synthate labor. If the military was called in to solve the problem, daily life, with its need for sanitation workers, hospital orderlies, dishwashers, factory workers, etc., would grind to a halt. The solution arrived at in the end was the designation of a ten-block area as a Synthate habitation zone. Soon Midtown had the highest population of Synthates in the city, more even than Governors Island. They lived crowded on top of each other in vacated office buildings, leaving their zone only to travel to work.

  The address Benny Zero had given Arden and Sanders was 30 Rockefeller Plaza, 65th Floor, the old Rainbow Room. A few vidBoards advertised sex shops, and prostitutes lingered around the chained and abandoned doors of the Rockefeller Center subway station. Where once had been glistening banks and restaurants now featured a few naturals who wandered in and out of seedy pleasure parlors. Arden and Sanders parked along the curb in front of Radio City Music Hall.

  The hall’s iconic sign had long since burned out, and a steady stream of addicts wandered in and out through the destroyed revolving door looking for Euphoria fixes. The homeless had encamped themselves with boxes and shopping carts inside the old ice rink of Rockefeller Plaza. Above everything the golden statue of Prometheus stoo
d untouched in the center of the plaza, a monument to optimism.

  The front lobby was gloomy, the fractured edges of lightbulbs visible in their sockets, like glass flowers in the dark. Sanders turned on his flashlight and swung the beam around, illuminating dusty display cases featuring advertisements of forgotten 2Dee television shows.

  One elevator was in working order, and the detectives rode it up to the sixty-fifth floor. The double-frosted glass doors leading into the Rainbow Room were locked until a strong kick from Arden burst them open. Drawing their service weapons, the two advanced slowly into the darkened room beyond.

  Sanders found a light switch behind an immense mahogany bar, and, an instant later, the chandelier over the dance floor flickered to life. Once the space had hosted dining and dancing, but it was now empty, filled with overturned tables and dusty booths. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out across Manhattan. On the parquet floor stood a single bed, wooden chair, and table. The bed appeared recently slept in, while a lamp, some scattered papers, and a vidBoard sat on the table.

  “What you got?” Sanders asked as Arden picked up the device. Through the window, the Genico tower loomed distant and dark against the night sky.

  Arden glanced through the vidBoard. Some familiar faces appeared. He pushed the display tab and a holographic image of Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds hovered in the air.

  “He’s got images of our victims.” Sanders poked through the papers on the desk and pulled out a yellowed architectural diagram. “And the layout of the murder location.”

  “Still think Jack Saxton is the right guy on this?”

  “At least he had a connection to the victims. What’s the motive here?”

  Arden looked again around the sparse living space. A small plastic rectangle fell from the papers to the floor. Arden retrieved it. A Genico security pass. He held it up. “This is a start.”

  “You think someone in Genico was behind it?”

  “I don’t think someone in Genico, I think it’s Genico itself.”