Twig

by wildbow

  “I’m not seeing the connection,” Jamie said.

  “The cold slows you down, it gets a grip on you, on the surroundings,” I said. The ghost nodded slowly. “I can see it. Kind of. I think Catcher’s been butchering the gestures though. Capture, seize, hold, imprison?”

  The ghost gestured the affirmative. A head nod might have done just fine, but whatever.

  “Big man voice,” I interpreted. “You’re supposed to take us. The boss said so?”

  Affirmative.

  “Well you can’t,” I told her, matter-of-factly. I gestured as I talked, matching ideas to gestures, to drive the point home.

  I glanced at the door, checking it. I held back cusses. It didn’t even have a proper lock that I could pick.

  This narrow balcony and the adjoining tunnel was the equivalent of the space between houses. It probably had deadbolts, and when the space was in use, the door was left unbolted.

  Leaving us only one exit.

  “Excuse me,” I said, gesturing. “If you try those gloves, and they do what I think they do, then I’ll fall down, and I’ll bump you, and then we all go boom.”

  She didn’t gesture the affirmative, leaving me less than positive that she’d understood.

  “Right,” I said.

  To get past her, I had to slink down and under the arm she’d extended out to the wall for balance, then go up and over the rubbish without bumping her arm or shoulder. It wasn’t hard, with my small frame, but I was worried about those gloves. If she got clever, or if she had tricks I didn’t understand—

  My heart pounded, which wasn’t entirely a bad thing.

  I climbed over the rubbish, careful of anything that might slide or fall. Jamie was right behind me, and I moved to the side of where he was going, to let him go ahead, so I could keep an eye and a hand on those same details and things that might fall.

  “Catcher is in the prison cell, he didn’t want to leave because it would have been going against the Academy, and he wants to do what they ask without any room for error. He seems mostly content to be there,” I told the ghost. “I’m just saying, in case you like the guy, which is easy to do, and are worried about him.”

  For a good five seconds, I wasn’t sure she was going to respond. Then her hand raised. A gesture. The affirmative. Yes.

  That was going to be all I got, I supposed.

  “When one of your buddies gets close to us, we’ll tell them where you are. If they’re good buddies, they’ll backtrack and find you. Then you can defuse the mine and walk away,” I said.

  No response this time. I wondered if it was less worthy of a real emotional response than hearing Catcher was okay, or if she wasn’t as optimistic about how helpful the others would be.

  I finished climbing over the rubble, glanced back at her, then carried on my way.

  One more threat dealt with, for the time being.

  “What about you?” Jamie asked.

  “Huh?”

  “Just wondering, about what we were talking about.”

  “If you think I remember much of anything past the last two minutes right now, you’ve got another thing coming,” I said.

  “The reaching, the Lambs projects becoming something more, finding ways of evolving past their initial limitations, often in new packages.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “What about you?” Jamie asked.

  “What about me? I asked, with a different emphasis on the question. “I figure I’m closer to Helen than anyone.”

  “Fray,” Jamie said.

  “Fray? Am I an offshoot of Fray or is Fray an offshoot of me?”

  “I dunno,” Jamie said. “That’s a good question.”

  We reached the space with the trough. I peeked around the corner, then pulled back. Two Brunos were at the street outside. I gestured to let Jamie know.

  “I’m digging through a lot of meaningful conversations, trying to find a good answer to that question,” Jamie said.

  “Rein in those horses and tell me if these rooftops lead anywhere,” I said.

  Jamie paused, looking up. “Sure.”

  I nodded, glanced around the corner again, and then darted over to the window that was over the trough. It latched on the inside, and thus it took me about four seconds to get it open.

  I climbed up and through, then helped Jamie.

  “They saw me. They’re coming,” he said, as he came through the window.

  “Got it,” I said. I reached into my bag, and pulled out another mine. This one I used as it was orginally intended to be used, with the cord pulled out. I hooked the cord around one corner of the window, then closed it, pinching the cord in place between the window and the window frame. I let the mine dangle there, resting against the glass, in plain view.

  Jamie and I backed well away from the window. We watched as the Brunos appeared, making their way to the window. By the time they reached it, I had my finger pointed straight at the mine.

  One of them moved very suddenly as he saw the thing, dropped a short distance in height very abruptly, then stumbled back and away from the window. I could see the top of his head as he shook himself.

  “He put his foot in the trough,” Jamie said. “Poor guy.”

  “Come on,” I said.

  We took the stairs, heading upstairs, while the Brunos went looking for alternate means of entry.

  “When Gordon died, you described yourself as being like water. Flexible,” Jamie said.

  “Are we talking about this because of the trough, or…”

  “Because of the conversation. About the Lambs, and about you and Fray.”

  “I’m not keeping up with you at the moment, Jamie.”

  “Funny how the tables turn, isn’t it?” Jamie asked. “Your memory has been worse.”

  “It’s only worse because I’m focused on things.”

  “That’s not it,” he said. “I think it’s the lower quality Wyvern. The liquid brain is coming at a steeper cost.”

  “Nothing we can do about it in the meantime. What were you saying? Me and Fray. We’re like water. We’re flexible. Sure.”

  “You adapt to the containers you find yourself in. You’ve adapted to Tynewear, to me. Fray adapts in her own way. There’s no chicken and the egg. You intermingle. You’ve said something in the past about being afraid to go to Fray’s side, because you would adapt too much. She would adapt to you, in a way, and you would adapt to her. Two liquids, and you aren’t exactly oil and water.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “I’ve completely lost track of the main thrust of this conversation.”

  “It doesn’t have one,” Jamie said.

  “That’s annoying, then,” I said. “Don’t be annoying.”

  “You started the conversation,” he pointed out. “With a random thought you spoke aloud.”

  “Lies,” I said. “You remembered wrong.”

  I could hear his audible sigh as he followed me up the stairs to the top flight. We were just reaching the top floor of the four story building as the Brunos came charging in the front door.

  All considered, we were in pretty good shape. We needed a way down, but Jamie had given the all-clear on that.

  “Your bag is empty,” Jamie remarked.

  I patted it.

  “Two grenades,” I said. “And the guts from the first mine.”

  “Guts?”

  “I wouldn’t actually make her stand on something live,” I said. “She’s Catcher’s.”

  “Temporarily Catcher’s. You make me wonder sometimes, Sy.”

  “I have to, you know. I pretended to get the hand signals wrong so you’d be more nervous. I wanted her to buy into the shock and believe the mine was real.”

  “Take some of my stuff,” he said, rolling his eyes. “You seem to have your own ideas on how you want to use these things. I’m not going to get in your way while you’re getting your jollies.”

  He handed off some of the items as we strode across the top floor of the building, hea
ding to the window.

  I opened the window, and climbed out and over from the window to reach the roof. I stuck my hand out for Jamie.

  I talked while he took hold of my wrist and climbed out, “Based on what he said before, they haven’t been together very long, and he already started communicating with her, using what he remembered from the jobs with us. Gordon probably sat down and taught Catcher and Dog some stuff, knowing Gordon. The bastard. Finding ways to get in the way even from beyond the grave.”

  “Sure, Sy,” Jamie said. “What are you getting at?”

  “Communication is important. She’s a social creature, a pack animal, made to work alongside her sisters to accomplish tasks. She hasn’t had that, she joins a job working with Catcher, and he starts giving her a voice, a way to communicate effectively? I promise you, absolutely guarantee, she’s going to stay with him to the ends of the earth.”

  “Hm,” Jamie murmured. “I’m glad he has that, then.”

  “And that she has that. She might be an abomination borne from the death of a child, but, aren’t most of us, on some level? The Lambs, I mean? I sort of like her, just because of how broken a creature she is.”

  “The end of a childhood would be a better way of putting it,” Jamie said.

  “Yes. Poetic.”

  He smiled a little and pointed, “This way.”

  We moved along the rooftop. Jamie lagged behind a little, but that was okay. I was happy keeping an eye out and scouting for both trouble and opportunity.

  “Is it even possible to find a hiding place at this point?” Jamie asked, from behind me.

  “Probably not,” I said. “We’ll need to find a way out of the city. If that’s even possible.”

  I turned my eye toward the outermost edge of the city. I could see the concentrations of troops and resources, and the movements of the warbeasts in the water.

  Looking toward the Marina, I slowed my pace, letting Jamie catch up to me. I stared.

  Smoke. The Academy was burning its own military buildings.

  “Jamie,” I said. “Loo—”

  A crack beside me made me jump, and nearly made me fall from the roof.

  “The hell?” I asked. I turned around to look.

  Moving up beside me, Jamie looked in the direction the sound had come from.

  “A bullet struck the roof, right there,” Jamie said, pointing. “I didn’t hear a gunshot.”

  Sniper, I thought, as I spoke, “Move.”

  We jerked into motion, heading forward. I heard another bullet cut through the air, though it didn’t hit the rooftop.

  “Not Catcher’s friend,” I said.

  “No,” Jamie said. “Change direction! This way!”

  He grabbed me, and he hauled me off balance. The two of us moved down to the slope of the roof and skidded down tiles that were wet with damp and still crusted with traces of ice, picking up speed. Out, out, over—

  And airborne, with no more roof beneath us.

  I reached back and belatedly caught the gutter with one hand, catching Jamie with the other. I only barely managed to arrest our forward momentum. We went down, from four stories up, and we landed on a balcony, crashing into the railing hard enough to break the more decorative bits of wood.

  “Tell me—” I said, gasping for breath, the wind knocked out of me. “Tell me you knew this was here.”

  “Remembered,” Jamie said, gasping as well.

  At a space between our heads, the railing splintered, with another fierce crack to mark the impact.

  “Fucking hell!” I shouted, as I ducked, moving back and away, looking for cover and finding very little.

  “Doesn’t make sense,” Jamie said. “The direction—”

  “What?” I asked.

  “The direction of the mark on the shingle, and the railing just now, the bullet—”

  Jamie peeked his head out from the meager cover of the post of the railing, looking.

  He looked over the cityscape, in the direction of the cliffs. The nicest part of Tynewear was perched on a rise, with cliffs separating them from the lowest portion of the city.

  The nearest cliff was a clear mile away and some immeasurable distance up.

  A bullet struck the finer lattice of the railing just to Jamie’s left.

  “He’s up there?” I asked.

  “Even with the fastest, longest-range bullet they’ve got available, it takes the bullets two seconds to reach us. He’s leading like crazy, the wind has to make the bullet move like nuts, and he’s still getting awfully close.”

  “Good sniper,” I said. “I can remember meeting one.”

  “Sanguine?” Jamie asked.

  “That was the name. I wonder if he’s got enough bullets to shoot at us for the rest of the time we’re in—”

  A bullet nailed the post I was resting against, hard enough that the back of my head bounced away from it.

  “—Tynewear.”

  “Safe bet,” Jamie said.

  Previous Next

  Cut to the Quick—11.8

  Bullets reached over and through the railing to pit the exterior wall of the building, as Jamie and I found our cover with our backs to the railing’s posts.

  “Considering how far away he is, it’s kind of amazing he’s getting as close as he is,” Jamie said.

  “Bastard shot me once already. That’s enough for me,” I said. A few seconds had passed without a bullet striking home, so I ventured a look over my shoulder and past the railing. In that same moment, a bullet caught the railing with a crack and a puff of sawdust, dust, or something else that had collected between two pieces of wood. I withdrew, but not before seeing that people on the street had noticed the sound and seen signs of the impacts. Some were staring, others moving to find cover.

  I looked around, searching for escape routes. With one to five seconds of delay between each, the bullets came flying, embedding themselves into the surroundings or glancing off.

  I wasn’t seeing any good options, and as people took notice of the situation, the chance that a bounty hunter might take notice steadily increased.

  “He’s getting this close because he has good eyes,” I said. I tried to imagine Sanguine’s position, the way he was steadily putting bullets into his gun, the way his eyes moved. He would have been sitting there for a long time, having chosen a position that gave him a view of most of the city, gun at hand, while he looked for us. The explosions had let him find our general area, and then he’d spotted us on the rooftop. Now he was using cues to determine the direction of the wind. The general slant of the rain, hanging cloth or flags, people, and places where raindrops pattered at one end of a puddle but intervening obstacles and wind direction didn’t let them fall in others. He was placing most of the bullets within a matter of feet from us.

  I could make educated guesses about his motivations and philosophy. Maybe he didn’t care so much about catching us himself, but wanted to pin us down or hamper our movements so others could catch us. Maybe he had buddies who were making their way to us. Would he try putting bullets in Catcher, should Catcher attempt the arrest? I didn’t want to know either way.

  Him being as far away as he was frustrated me to the point that I wanted to spit and curse. I couldn’t toy with him, if he was so out of reach. I couldn’t communicate or force his hand, I couldn’t corner him, shake him, or manipulate him.

  “If we get down to the ground, we can take cover against the southern or western faces of any buildings,” Jamie said. “North would be best.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But that doesn’t solve the inherent problem.”

  “He’s going to be there, lurking, looking for a shot,” Jamie said.

  “Applying pressure. We can’t talk to guards and manipulate them, we can’t take our time working our way through quarantines and into different sections of the city.”

  Jamie nodded. He winced as a bullet pinged the post, an inch from his ear, then drew his head down, making himself a smaller target. />
  Guns jammed. Specialized guns often jammed more. I imagined Sanguine up there on the clifftop or cliffside. He might have arrived with more than one gun, a gun cleaning kit, boxes of bullets, food, and water. Maybe not the food and water, depending on how heavily he was modified. He’d set up camp, and he was secure where he was. What scenarios would provoke him to take a different action?

  He would lose sight of us at certain points. That was a given. He was playing the long game from an unassailable, unreachable position. We would disappear from his sight, taking cover like Jamie suggested. What would he do?

  My thoughts were briefly interrupted as something punched my arm. I rocked forward and to the side, tried putting my hand out to steady myself and stay upright so I was in line with the post, and in moving my arm I woke it up to the pain, delayed and strange. I had to reach over and forward with my other arm to catch myself.

  Being in that position, left arm out and braced against the floor to my right, hunched over, I was exposed to fire. I’d been hit. Only a grazing shot, but enough to make me bleed and to throw me for a loop.

  A bullet shattered wood as it glanced off the railing, inches above my head. I straightened back up, a hand pressed to my upper arm, as blood welled out and oozed between my cold fingers.

  He’d been more or less alternating between Jamie and I, but the moment his bullet caught the bit of flesh that had peeked out beside the post, which was narrower than my narrow torso was, he’d been ready and able to place a shot in the vicnity of my head.

  He wasn’t magic. Even with good eyes, there were variables he couldn’t control for in machinery and environment. Slim odds that the bullet would have traveled the course he wanted and passed through my head as I was knocked slightly out of cover. But there had been a chance.

  If this continued, he would get lucky.

  Earlier, I hadn’t been able to track the conversation. Amid Jamie’s worries, I’d harbored a hint of concern that I wouldn’t be able to keep my thoughts straight in a serious situation like this, that I’d focused too much on the lockpicking, the stealth, the quiet nights of careful acquisition, and that other skills had eroded, lost to the rinses of lower quality Wyvern and the naturally slippery footing that any idea found in my brainpan.