by James Wake
“It’s coming up,” Tess said.
Aleksa tapped a few buttons on the dash, letting the vehicle merge toward the off-ramp for her.
“Off so soon?” Nadia said.
“What? You thought we were driving up to the front door?” Brutus said.
Tess touched her on the arm, her prosthetic fingers stark against Nadia’s white coat. “Okay, whatever you do, do not roll down your window.”
Nadia yanked her arm away like a pouty toddler. If Tess was going to talk to her like one, she might as well act the part. She pointed her eyes out the window, watching as their car descended down the ramp, sinking out of the bright world of the highway into the deep dark below.
Almost immediately, her view was cut off. They were surrounded on both sides by ramshackle tents made of scraps of…anything, everything, too much for Nadia to make sense of as it all zipped by. A red light waited at the bottom of the ramp. Aleksa sped through it, swerving past a stopped car and bolting through an empty intersection.
“Good, Aleksa. Don’t stop for anything,” Tess said.
“Yes, I know,” she said.
Nadia could only catch the edge of Aleksa’s glare from the backseat. She’d never felt so trapped. Worse than zipping through the dark tunnels under the city, worse even than squirming through a cramped vent. Her gloved fingers tapped against her thighs, jerky and rhythmless.
She had heard things about the slums her whole life. Things. She forced her eyes out the window at her side. As a girl, she had feared the city outside the Structure, grim and filthy and poor. Her actually going out into the city, seeing it with her own eyes, had changed everything.
Through the glass, she squinted into the darkness. There was simply no way it was as bad as she’d been told. Certainly the nervous fear in her chest would shrink as she saw it for herself.
If she could see anything. Dark rain ran in gray creeks through the gutters below sagging buildings. Aleksa slowed down to take a turn, passing by movement. A human, ostensibly, trudging down the decaying sidewalk.
He was wrapped in a tattered parka, heavy and soaked. Nadia wondered at his strange shoes a moment before realizing they were his bare feet and there was something very wrong with them. Her lips parted slightly as she tried to discern more, but her eyes snapped away, her mouth releasing a disgusted scoff as they passed by. The man had exposed himself, urinating even as he kept walking.
Only a vagrant, Nadia reminded herself. No reason to be afraid of this place.
“What are you doing?” Tess asked Aleksa. “I plotted a course. This isn’t—”
“Your course,” she said, nodding out the window, “is wrong.”
Nadia followed the nod, seeing roadblocks down every cross street they passed, massive piles of junk and scrap. No people, not in view anyway.
“Oi, one of my old haunts!” Brutus said, slapping Aleksa on the arm a few times. “Right kind of you, Polly.”
Lights ahead. Movement. They took another turn, onto a larger street, cutting into a long line of slow-moving cars to the fanfare of angry horns. Suddenly Nadia was surrounded by life—life that moved slow enough to observe. A market stretched down either side of the road, shacks and stalls cobbled together under rickety awnings pouring streams of rainwater onto the road.
It might as well have been a foreign country. There were faces of every color and signs in dozens of languages. A stall drifted past, full of dingy plastic buckets collecting rain, next to a row of trash drums full of fire. More dogs, these ones stripped of their flesh and hanging by hooks. A large brown-skinned man sliced and diced red, greasy meat on a grill made out of an old radiator.
The smell filled their car, spicy and sharp and possibly even delicious in a way that made Nadia queasy.
“Great.” Tess slumped in her seat. “Now we’re stuck in traffic.”
“If you do not stop driving from the backseat,” Aleksa said, “I will kick you outside.”
They crawled forward. A motorcycle—an actual motorcycle with wheels—zipped past Nadia’s window, dodging around the waterfalls in the road. She’d never seen a non-hovering bike before.
Another one swooped in close to her window and braked. Nadia gasped and shrank away. Nothing happened. The bike crept along beside them, its passenger staring at her. Masked and faceless, he wore scraps of leather and a sparkling green bandanna tied snug under dark goggles.
“Relax,” Tess said. “They’re friendly.”
The bike’s driver revved the throttle, ripping a high-pitched unhealthy growl from the engine. Brutus rolled down his window and gave him a card. In return, the biker shoved a ratty black duffel bag into Brutus’s hands before speeding off into traffic.
It was heavy. Impressively so, judging by the way Brutus struggled to drag it through the car window.
“Those guys give me the creeps,” Brutus said, as he unpacked its contents and shook his head. He held up an assault rifle, the finish worn and scratched.
“What? You don’t like my people?” Tess said, calm and casual, like she was joking.
Brutus said nothing as he passed back an old submachine gun, followed by a pistol, and another and another. Tess made a small pile on the seat between them and held one out to Nadia.
She glared at it. “Really?”
“You’re probably going to want one this time.”
“I shall manage without.”
“Suit yourself,” Tess said with a sigh, accepting spare magazines from Brutus to add to her pile. “Rifle?”
“Only one,” he said. He pulled another long gun out of the bag, an old pump-action shotgun.
“Ugh, fucking rip-off,” Tess said. He offered their only rifle to her anyway, but Tess shook her head.
“I didn’t realize we were assaulting the Omniplant,” Nadia said.
“Ha! Wasn’t planning on suicide, love,” Brutus said. “All this is just to get there.”
Aleksa cranked the wheel, shooting their car into a gap in traffic ahead. The cars thinned out; those that remained coasted along faster now.
“Almost there,” Tess said.
Another roadblock loomed ahead. This one was manned, with masked figures in hodge-podge armor carrying a dizzying variety of firearms.
“Kurwa.” Aleksa screeched into a turn, cutting off several cars that honked in protest. Something heavy ricocheted off the side of the car.
“What are you doing?” Tess said. “Wrong way!”
“Roadblocks, stupid,” Aleksa said, weaving through slower cars.
“This is still the wrong way!”
Faster and faster, barely squeezing by other cars. Nadia tensed up, gripping her seat belt tightly. Nowhere to move. Nothing she could do. Harsh light flooded the inside of the car, pouring in through the rear window. She glanced back to see a white pickup truck following them, hooded silhouettes in the bed keeping a spotlight trained on their car.
They screeched through a turn, tires skipping on the slick asphalt. Aleksa slammed the brakes and slid to a stop in front of a pile of burning tires blocking the road.
“They’re funneling us,” Tess said.
“Obviously,” Aleksa said, turning around in her seat as the car lurched backward.
“Who are ‘they’?” Nadia said.
“One of four major gangs fighting over this territory. Take your pick,” Tess said, swiveling around to watch behind them. As Aleksa swerved the car around the truck, the men inside scrambled to keep the spotlight on their target.
Nadia tried not to watch, tried to focus on Aleksa’s hard brown eyes guiding the car in reverse. The same mad, simmering hatred burned there—the one she’d seen so many times while sparring with the girl. It only made Nadia feel slightly better about being trapped in here.
With no warning, Aleksa slammed them into a sliding 180, sending Nadia lurching against her seat belt. She took off again, hardly slowing down.
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“I thought you said you’ve done this before,” Nadia said.
Tess ignored her. “Where are you going?”
“Old turnpike,” Aleksa said.
“Fuck,” Tess muttered.
Brutus turned around. “What? You have a better idea?”
Tess responded by checking her collection of firearms again, confirming the load on each one. “All of you, keep your windows up no matter what. They’ll stop a good amount of bullets.”
Their car screamed through the rain, the truck following them falling farther and farther behind. The driver gave up entirely as Aleksa leaned them onto a cracked, decaying on-ramp with no signs.
“I don’t understand,” Nadia said, “How did you manage to get into trouble with those men?”
Aleksa laughed, once, cold and bitter.
“By driving out here in a car that’s obviously from inside the walls,” Tess said. “Juicy target.”
“You’re telling me they’re going to attack us based on…” Nadia started to say, trailing off as the sedan sped through a looping cloverleaf. This highway was elevated, although not nearly as much as the one that led out of the city. As they climbed, they passed bodies strung up on crucifixes.
Human bodies. Skinned. Slick. Bleeding with rain.
“Look, these are desperate people,” Tess said.
“They are not people,” Aleksa said through gritted teeth.
Nadia shook her head, filing the skinned bodies away to be horrified at later. “Have you explained to them that you’re sympathetic to their situation?”
“Sadly I think our goals here might be lost on them. The only real difference between Auktoris and the warlords who run these slums is scale,” Tess said.
They merged onto a strangely empty highway, dark for miles in either direction.
“Ha, hey, look, we’ll be fine,” Brutus said, his voice high and cracking. “Two couples fighting together, eh? Just like the sacred band of Thebes.”
“Shut up,” all three women in the car told him at once.
Whatever was going to happen, Nadia found herself wishing it would happen already. Instead nervous silence filled the car, pierced only by a strange clicking. She glanced at Tess. Her artificial fingers were fidgeting around the grip of her gun, tapping at a blurry pace with no rhythm at all. Nothing like when she was typing.
“There they are,” Aleksa said.
Tess whipped around to look out the rear window. “Three behind!”
Aleksa nodded. “Yes, I saw.”
A trio of bikes roared up an on-ramp behind them and fell in at a close chase. Nadia peered at them through the rain. Each had a passenger riding behind, and all of them were masked and goggled, but it was hard to make out anything more.
CRACK
“Ah!” Nadia jumped in her seat, hating every startled motion. Something had crashed into the windshield, leaving a spider’s web of cracks. Another bike swooped past them, the passenger tossing a brick at Tess’s window but missing before they looped around and joined the others chasing, gaining on them with every passing second.
“Just keep driving,” Tess said.
“Yes, I know,” Aleksa said, still quiet, still calm. A low, constant whine of obscenities trailed out of Brutus’s mouth.
“You sure you don’t want a gun?” Tess said.
Nadia scoffed. Trapped in this car, fine, yes, but still not enough to accept charity from her lying “friend”.
“Swerve left,” Tess said, watching the bikes pull up alongside them.
“Can’t,” said Aleksa.
They passed a makeshift barrier of concrete dividers with gaps small enough for a motorcycle to slip through.
“Ugh, okay. This is it…” Tess took a few deep breaths. She pushed a button on her door, which opened her window a crack.
“I thought you said not to—” Nadia was cut off by Tess pressing the muzzle of the old submachine gun up to the open space, pulling the trigger and spraying bullets into the rain.
The bikes beside them scattered, braking and swerving from a tight pack into a loose flock. Hot brass casings spat into the interior of the car, pelting Nadia’s chest.
“Really?” Nadia said. “And you didn’t hit a single one?”
“Load!” Tess said, shoving the gun at her and grabbing a pistol.
Nadia couldn’t find the magazine release right away, her hands flinching at each gunshot from the seat next to her. One of the bikes swerved in close on Tess’s side. Nadia looked up in time to see the black maw of a double-barrel pointed at her. Tess’s window glazed over with cracks as the gun spat out a roaring crash. Some of the lead shot snuck through the space at the top of the window and tore into the ceiling.
Nadia’s arms jumped up to shield her face and froze there, trapping her in with her own shallow breaths.
Tess!
She grabbed her partner’s arm without thinking, feeling for wounds, for blood. “Are you all right? Tess are you—”
“I’m fine!” Another empty gun was shoved at Nadia. “Load!”
Embarrassing. She’d been shot at before. This should be no different. Breathe. Load the gun. Forcing her hands to move, she pushed a new magazine in on the third try.
“There’s no one on this side!” Brutus said, squirming in his seat. “I don’t have a shot!”
“Keep driving, Aleksa!” Tess said, emptying her pistol out the window without even looking. “Keep going!”
The car bumped and slowed, one of the rear tires flapping as it was filled with bullets.
“Load!” Tess yelled, tossing yet another pistol at Nadia.
Yes, I know, Nadia heard in her head, mimicking Aleksa’s tone. Breathe. Focus. This gun was more familiar, similar to the city police models.
“Oh, to hell with…” Brutus said, unbuckling his seat belt. He rolled down his window and scrambled to fit his hefty frame through it. A few moments later, he was sitting on the windowsill and aiming his gun over the roof of the car.
“Get back inside!” Aleksa said. “Right now!”
Rifle shots answered her, a burst of fire above Nadia’s head. One of the bikes dumped onto its side, the driver and passenger ragdolling across the wet pavement.
Tess had emptied the rest of her pistol pile, to no effect. “Gun!” she yelled, eagerly taking the one Nadia pushed into her hand.
Something zipped by Nadia’s head, on the other side of her window. One of the bikes, broken off from the pack. The passenger swung something through the air in long, loose, wide circles over his head as the bike pulled up near Brutus.
“Brutus!” she yelled, pounding on the back of his empty seat. “Brutus!”
Too late. The biker outside swung his cable, lassoing it around Brutus’s neck. Nadia heard him shriek as the man yanked him; saw his rifle clatter across the highway before she lurched to the side, straining against her seat belt.
Aleksa was leaning over, one hand still on the steering wheel, the other desperately holding Brutus’s ankle. The rest of him was still being pulled out of the car as he gagged and clawed at the noose around his neck.
“Swerve left!” Tess said. Another biker was at her window, swinging an ice ax into the weakened glass with a sickening crack.
Aleksa swerved right, but the biker snaring Brutus did the same, still straining to pull him out the window.
“I said left!” Tess said.
“Shut up!” Aleksa screamed.
“Gun!” Tess yelled, slapping Nadia’s arm. “Gun, gun, gun, gun, gun!”
Tess’s window gave way, shattering to pieces. Small shards stung across Nadia’s cheek as she pressed her body against her own door. The biker with the ax pulled back for another swing. Nothing between him and Tess.
Nadia stared, that sharp bite in her mind rising up and up until it was a high-pitched whine that broke through everything else. She whipped an emp
ty gun out the broken window, clocking the ax-wielding biker’s chest. It startled him, just enough, sending him wobbling onto the backseat of the bike instead of swinging his ax.
Tess pulled the handle on her door, kicking it open into the bike. Nadia barely saw the bike wipe out as she slapped a magazine into another pistol and pushed it at Tess. Ignoring the rest of the empty guns, she rolled down her window and unbuckled her seat belt.
Rain and wind blinded her as she climbed out, blowing her hair out in an inky-black trail. Brutus was still drawn between the two vehicles; the biker held the noose while his passenger tried to hack at Brutus’s arms with a machete.
The two vehicles were close enough to touch, barely, swerving back and forth. Leaning much too far out her window, Nadia stretched her arm until she could lay her fingers on the metal of the bike’s tail fairing.
Sparks popped and flew from her glove. The driver and the machete-wielding passenger went stiff then fell limply from the bike, which went tumbling down, the handlebars swiping within inches of Nadia’s face. Brutus fell with it, still dangling from the window but slamming into Nadia.
That weightless, nauseous feeling of falling again. Nadia gasped as her legs slipped over the door frame—falling—speeding pavement rushing up to meet her.
Something caught her ankle. A strong skeletal grip. Nadia felt herself pulled back into the car with one firm yank.
“I said,” Tess scolded her, short of breath, “don’t roll down your window!” She turned back to what remained of her door and riddled the last of the bikers with bullets. “Ha! That’s better,” she said, throwing a middle finger at the corpses rolling out of sight. “Everyone okay?”
Brutus, his arms covered in ragged cuts, was already bandaging himself in the front seat. “Yeah…yeah, I’ll live. This time.”
With trembling hands, Nadia wiped at her ruined hair. She was unharmed, somehow. She glared at Tess. Also unharmed. Somehow. “I see you managed to finally shoot something.”
“Hey, at least my side of the car is good at staying inside the car.”
They sped on down the old highway, their headlights the only thing piercing the dark.
* * *
