The Sapphire Shadow

by James Wake

Jackson nodded, waving him forward. He dashed to a point of cover near the dead body, quick and easy. He wasn’t completely green then. Jackson waited for his wave then moved past him, taking a corner around a grand staircase that led up to the rest of the exhibit halls.

  A Dome lay bleeding out on the stairs, both arms full of wounds and bullet holes punched all over his chest plate. Panting quick, panicked breaths, he nodded toward the other side of the staircase.

  Jackson took a knee by him, eyes and gun still up and ready.

  “Two of them,” the Dome said. “Took my gun.”

  “Moving!” said the Dome behind her.

  “Hold on!” Jackson said, to no effect. He was right at her side when two terrorists rounded the corner in front of them, armed with real submachine guns.

  Exactly the worst possible scenario—all four of them out in the open, staring dumbly at each other for one awful instant.

  Everyone opened fire at once.

  Jackson dove onto the stairs, shielding the wounded man with her body. The terrorist closest to her fell from her shots, her chest full of ragged holes. The other emptied his gun and reloaded much faster than her Dome, who was stumbling backward and fumbling at the magazines on his hip.

  She got one more shot off, punching a hole full of silver gel into her target’s chest. The gun jumped in her hands, a grinding snap resounding as the next round partially burned, sticking in the slide instead of loading. Fucking cheap caseless ammo.

  She dropped it and drew her stun gun in one quick motion, popping the terrorist with a pair of electrodes on cords. He went stiff and screamed, dancing in place as the clack-clack-clack of her weapon coursed agonizing bolts through his nerves. His gun sprayed until it was empty, hosing her Dome companion with flechette rounds.

  Both men hit the ground.

  “Medical!” Jackson put a hand on the Dome bleeding out on the stairs, then gave a look toward her temporary partner, who was bleeding out too, his mask cracked and shot out. “Medical now!”

  Her Dome wailed and tried to move but didn’t get very far. Jackson swore under her breath as she yanked a trauma kit out of her belt. The department was still charging her for replacements, cutting it out of each paycheck. But she’d be damned if she wasn’t going to try anyway.

  * * *

  Nadia had this place to herself, for now. She drifted down the aisle of one of the upper halls, letting her hand trail over a display and tracing her eyes past another. Nothing in particular caught her eye.

  “See anything you like?” she asked Tess.

  “Huh?”

  “Ugh, you’re not even looking.” Nadia pouted under her mask. She swept her goggles slowly and steadily over a display full of prosthetic arms, a dazzling array of limbs in various colors and configurations.

  “Ooh, neat,” Tess said halfheartedly. “Sorry. I’m too busy plundering AGF’s entire directory to watch you go window shopping.”

  So disappointing. There was hardly anything worth stealing. Hardly anything physical anyway. Nadia had seen much more impressive products in hidden labs and corporate vaults. There was nothing but toys here, more of the same that could already be had.

  “You hear that chatter?” Tess said.

  The echoes of gunfire from the building’s central shaft had faded to nothing. The sound of Auktoris Private Security forces drifted in her ears as they cleared the area downstairs. Situation under control. Proceeding to upper levels.

  “That was fast,” Nadia said.

  “Wasn’t exactly a fair fight. Go back upstairs and get out of there.”

  “I haven’t finished looking around.”

  “It doesn’t sound like she’s with them anymore. Come on. Don’t be dumb.”

  So Jackson was here. Nadia had thought she’d heard her favorite officer in the background of the radio chatter. “You filtered her out, didn’t you?”

  “Only because I know you can’t help yourself.”

  “For shame,” Nadia said. “Lights?”

  “Ugh, really?”

  “Lights, please,” Nadia repeated, raising her hands and clapping twice. The hall went dark, its aisles bathed in the ghostly glow of red emergency lights in the floor.

  “This is so stupid,” Tess said.

  “Please don’t pretend you don’t deeply enjoy watching me work.”

  Tess let out a long, excited sigh. “Yeah, guilty.”

  Nadia climbed up a booth, leapt to a nearby column, and disappeared into the darkness of the vast vaulted ceiling. She switched off her goggles, becoming just another shadow. The security team had thermal scanning as well, of course, but it wouldn’t help them. The skin of her suit would make sure of that, coated in an ionic compound that could extinguish her heat signature with the click of a button.

  “Six of them, incoming.”

  Camera feeds in the corners of her vision, silhouettes lighting up in her HUD. Six men moved in, pair by pair, covering each other like good little Auktoris goons.

  “As stealthy and silent as I can be…” Nadia whispered.

  “Ha!”

  “Something funny?” Nadia said, glaring down at the men below her.

  “You snore. Every night.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “So loud.”

  “How dare you! Making up such dreadful slander.”

  “Whatever,” Tess said. “What are you thinking?”

  Nadia had to force herself to stop pouting and backtrack, remembering what she had wanted to ask. “Music?”

  “Oh. Hmm. Yeah, I have the PA system, easy. Something loud and distracting? Like your snoring?”

  Flashlight beams crisscrossed below her as she ignored Tess’s remark. “As much as possible.”

  “Okay, how about—”

  Nadia winced when the music cut in, almost as badly as the men below her did. A bass blast beat assaulted her ears, clashing with arrhythmic shredding and frantic screaming in what she guessed was Japanese.

  “What is this garbage?” Nadia said.

  Tess made an exquisitely upset gasp. “Uh, digicore? Written and performed by algorithm? It’s my favorite garbage.”

  One of the Domes came to a stop directly beneath her and knelt against a column for cover. She dropped down, landed next to him in a crouch, and slid a gloved hand around his ankle.

  The only thing better than his yelp of surprise was the immediate yelling over their comms channel. Nadia blasted enough electricity into his leg to turn him into unconscious weight. She scrambled behind a nearby display before his partner could turn to look.

  “Number four down!” he yelled. “Four is down!”

  “Visual? Who has visual?”

  “Fuck, was it her?”

  Nadia could scarcely hear the music of their panic over the noise Tess was playing. “Might I make a song request?” she said, waiting for her victim’s partner to check on him… Closer…one more step, and…

  Nadia pounced out of hiding, making sure to light up her goggles as she clasped a hand around the Dome’s arm. He went down as well, collapsing on top of his partner.

  “Uh, yeah, here,” Tess said.

  A list appeared on the side of Nadia’s HUD as she climbed back up into the shadows. She hung upside down, idly flicking through the list with one hand. “No, no, ugh no, eww… This is your collection, isn’t it?”

  “Snob,” Tess said. “You wanna talk about garbage. How about this?”

  The digicore went silent, with a few seconds of ringing in Nadia’s ears while the system loaded. A burst of gunfire lit up below, a Dome cutting loose on an innocent collection of consumer products.

  “Contact? Confirm contact!”

  “Negative!”

  “Group on me!”

  A new beat started. A thumping, pounding beat, building and folding and tearing Nadia’s heart into pure, high adrenaline the moment she recogniz
ed it.

  “Ooh, I love this one!” Nadia said, watching one of the Domes below straggling, left by himself for a moment long enough. “How did you know?”

  “Are you serious? I was kidding. This really is garbage.”

  Nadia’s head bobbed in time as she crawled to intercept her quarry. A moment later, she dropped on top of a booth and caught the Dome’s helmet in one electrified hand, sending him crumpling to the floor. “This was my dance song. You knew, didn’t you?”

  Tess made a strangled choke of disgust before reading the lyrics in a deadpan voice. “’Cuz I just wanna fuck all night / Come, on stud. Make me feel all right / No, I don’t wanna talk or fight / Babe, I just wanna fuck all night.”

  Nadia peeked around a corner. The three remaining Domes were clustered, back to back. “Excuse me for enjoying a guilty pleasure.”

  “You’re a guilty pleasure,” Tess said.

  Smiling, Nadia pulled a small disk from her belt, a coil of wire around a clump of batteries the size of her palm. When thrown, it would erupt into arcing bolts of electricity almost as nasty as the ones in her gloves.

  Her other hand drew a stolen stun grenade, standard issue for APS officers.

  The three Domes in front of her huddled even closer, guns out, ready for anything.

  Anything but her.

  * * *

  It had been a long time since Jackson had killed anyone.

  Both of the Domes were gone. Alive but gone, wheeled away by EMTs to the relative safety of the plaza outside. She sat on the stairs, right next to where she’d hovered over her wounded coworker. Holding one of his hands and telling him not to move, again and again, until the pain-killers had calmed him down.

  The corpse of one of the terrorists was still on the ground nearby. The one she’d shocked had already been cuffed and dragged off, but this one had been declared dead and left for the cleanup crew. A woman. The one Jackson had seen first as she fought her way inside the building through the fleeing crowd.

  A trim, petite young woman. Well dressed. Jackson still hadn’t seen her face, shrouded as it was in that rip-off Sapphire Shadow mask. A sad joke. The real Sapphire Shadow was probably kicking back in a hot tub somewhere, counting her ill-gotten gains, smirking at all these people throwing their lives away while wearing her face.

  Or maybe this had been the plan all along? She hadn’t heard from that damned cat in a while either. Between the two of them, it was enough to inspire desperate people. And these people were surely desperate. Lashing out, snapping after watching protest after protest crushed under an unfeeling, unsympathetic boot. Under Jackson’s unfeeling, unsympathetic boot.

  She scowled at the dead body. She’d seen real desperate people in her time. No one on this side of the walls could claim that word. It didn’t matter anyway. This woman had attacked innocent civilians and Jackson had killed her, and justice had been served. Her head sank, her helmet resting in her gloved hands. She knew she was wiping that Dome’s blood all over her helmet but found it hard to care.

  One day the real Sapphire Shadow’s corpse would be resting nearby. Jackson couldn’t make the thought go away, couldn’t make up her mind as to whether that would be a good thing or a bad thing or a nothing-at-all kind of thing.

  “Jackson?” Ortega’s voice in her comms. “Jackson, you there?”

  Remaining city police personnel had been instructed to gather at the main entrance minutes ago, but Jackson hadn’t budged.

  “She wasn’t hit,” Wedge said over comms. “I saw her.”

  “Jackson? Waiting on you,” Ortega said.

  She still didn’t move. The corpse stared back at her. Big, blank blue eyes still softly glowing.

  Her ears pricked up. Faint gunshots echoed down at her out of the exhibit halls upstairs.

  “Ortega?” she said.

  “There you are!” he said, relief plain in his voice. “What’s the holdup?”

  “Patch me into APS comms.”

  “What?”

  “I know you can. Just do it.”

  Jackson heard a long sigh back from Ortega’s end, then a full second of silence. Followed by faint gunshots from upstairs ringing directly in her ears.

  “Contact? Confirm contact!”

  “Negative!”

  “Group on me!”

  A thumping, pounding rhythm blared over their words, making Jackson wince and hurry to turn the volume down.

  “Dispatch, confirm sighting?”

  “Confirmed!” a man nearly screamed. “She’s here!”

  “Backup en route.”

  Jackson glared at the mask on the corpse. She was here. Using these saps as a diversion. At least these fools in the lobby had tried to stand for something. As far as Jackson could tell, the Shadow only stood for herself.

  She didn’t bother picking up her pistol, instead loading her stun gun with a new cartridge, battery and darts bundled in a single canister and clicking into the front of the barrel. She’d seen the girl laugh off bullets. Hell, she’d been there for the infamous skyscraper leap. But she hadn’t seen her get a taste of her own lightning yet. It was worth a shot.

  “Jackson?” Ortega in her ears again. “Main entrance. We’re all formed up, waiting on you. You coming or not?”

  “You know I’m not.” She made her way past the bloodstains on the stairs, up, toward the screams and gunfire.

  “Orders are to rally here,” he said.

  “What are they gonna do? Fire me?”

  “At least wait for us?”

  “No time.”

  The upstairs was a large ring balcony, looking down on the main hall. Side halls branched out all along its length, all of them lit up and inviting. Except for one. One was dark and loud, a black maw of an opening with muzzle flashes fighting to be heard over some kind of thumping beat.

  “How’s it looking down there?” Jackson said.

  “Blocked off. APS doesn’t want to let us upstairs.”

  “I meant their backup.”

  “Still on the way.”

  Figured. All the really heavy teams were busy a few blocks away, probably still cuffing protesters and cleaning up. Probably all part of the Shadow’s plan, in and out before backup could arrive.

  Stun gun up and ready, she drew close to the dark entrance. She’d seen this before too—whatever the girl’s suit was made of, thermal didn’t pick up on it. All you could trust were your eyes.

  “Fuck! Where is she?” Jackson heard, echoing at her from inside the hall. The loud snap of what could only be a flashbang followed, her goggles cutting a good part of the glare. Screams over comms. Darkness, flashlight beams gone. Jackson held her position, watching and waiting.

  When a Dome scrambled out of the dark, she very nearly pulled the trigger. He yelped and skidded to a stop when he saw Jackson, raising his gun and pointing it right between her eyes.

  “Whoa!” Jackson said, raising her hands. “Same team!”

  He lowered his gun but paid her no mind past that as he sprinted toward the stairs. Shaking her head, Jackson trained her stun gun on the arched entranceway and steadied her hands.

  “Report!” she heard in her ears.

  “Team down,” the Dome said, panting, still sprinting away. “Retreating!”

  Jackson didn’t have to look to know that, not with everything they said being piped right into her…right into her ears.

  Her eyebrows shot up. She could hear everything they were saying, read their every move before they made it. Of course.

  “Officer Jackson, on site,” she said, loud and clear into her mic on an open channel. “Assisting APS team.”

  A chorus of voices on her comms broke in to ask her what the hell she was doing up there, to remind her that city police personnel were to vacate the area immediately. She ignored them, reading the signs posted above the entrances to the halls around her.

&n
bsp; “No visual on suspect yet,” she said. “Pursuing.”

  But not into the darkness. No, Jackson shot one look at the black void in front of her and took a few steps back. The girl had made that her turf, dark and smothered in noise, ripe for an ambush. Jackson knew better.

  * * *

  “I’ve been done for a minute now,” Tess said.

  Nadia ignored her, picking up one of the Dome’s guns and holding it out at arm’s length. A hideous thing, square and chunky and cheap. In one smooth motion, she unloaded it. Mag out, chamber empty, gun tossed to the winds.

  “Comms check?” Tess said.

  “Loud and clear,” Nadia replied, not moving.

  “Ugh, come on! Get out of there!”

  “Hush, you.” Nadia crept into a dark corner behind a booth with her “eyes” turned off. She huddled low, watching the door. Waiting. “This won’t take long.”

  “I’m gonna cut your comms feed,” Tess said.

  “Don’t you dare.” She’d let the last Dome run out to the main hall, fleeing for his life. Surely he must have passed Officer Jackson on the way out. The music ended, one drawn-out note fading to nothing.

  Still no Jackson. Nadia was beginning to wonder what the delay was when her favorite officer’s voice rang out in her ears.

  “Visual. Proceeding into Exhibit Hall D.”

  “Visual?” Tess said. “On what?”

  “That’s the next hall over, is it not?”

  “Yeah. Nothing in there, though.” A cluster of camera feeds appeared in Nadia’s goggles, showing empty rows of booths.

  Curious. She swept her eyes over the darkness above, seeing gaps along the top of each wall where conduits ran through. Each had plenty of space leftover for a drone.

  Or a shadow.

  “She’s not in there,” Tess said.

  Nadia was already climbing the wall toward one of the gaps. “Then where is she?”

  “Hang on. I’m cycling through cameras…”

  A short length of narrow tunnel led to Hall D, lit up and beckoning. Nadia perched at the end of it, looking out over a sea of this year’s consumer offerings. Everything unmanned, unminded, unprotected.