by A. M. Geever
They veered east, away from the line of the freeway toward downtown San Jose. They flew over the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Joseph flashed by as they approached a long ellipse of mostly green park, its rounded ends lined with palm trees and blocks-long, straight sides hemmed in by downtown streets. Something down there had gone very wrong.
“That’s the plaza,” Miranda said.
The center of the park was an open square of gravel and stone. One pie-shaped section of it had been a ground-level fountain built of gray and black squares of paving stones. The fountain had operated intermittently over the years, but now there was a structure on it: long and low and black. It hulked over the rest of the open area, its lines and angles those of ruthless practicality. It looked like a stage, but something about it wasn’t right. The plume of smoke billowed up from a crater ten meters from the structure. A few cars that had been parked alongside the park were turned on their sides, wheels turning lazily in the air. The whole place churned with bodies, some running blindly, others being hustled into cars and SUVs.
“Are they zombies?” Miranda gasped, horrified.
“People. They’re running away from that impact crater,” Victor said tersely.
Victor cut the airspeed, and Miranda saw glimpses of faces, contorted in pain or fear, as the people who must have been assembled just minutes ago fled the explosion.
“What’s going on out there?” Sean’s disembodied voice asked.
“Some kind of public gathering,” Miranda said. “Something exploded.”
She squinted at the structure. It looked like people were being dragged against their will.
“Are those ropes?” Victor asked.
Miranda squinted as they flew by, her line of sight obstructed by the smoke. “I can’t tell.”
“What’s going on out there?” Sean asked.
There was a break in the smoke. There were ropes hanging down, but they weren’t just ropes…
“It’s a gallows!” Miranda cried. Then she spied a tall, spindly figure with a shock of sandy hair blowing in all directions from the rotor wash. Doug, and he was being dragged toward the nooses.
“It’s Doug!” she cried. “They’re going to hang him! Land! Land now!”
The gravel on the roof spit from under Mario’s feet. He sprinted to the edifice—to the other RPG. A faint wub, wub, wub—the sound of his hammering heart—filled the air around him. He scooped up the second RPG from its case. The wub, wub, wub of his heart grew louder. He could see that Skye’s shot had gone wide, exploding on the side of the plaza nearer to them, not the gallows. Black smoke billowed into the sky from the smoking crater the RPG had made.
Even though the shot had gone wide, it helped. There were fewer men trying to slip nooses around Doug’s and Walter’s heads, but Mario could hear gunfire. Even though his hands were still tied, Mario saw Doug fighting. He jerked himself forward, smacking his forehead into the head of his attacker. The man staggered back, stunned.
Mario hoisted the RPG to his shoulder, the wub, wub, wub of his heart louder than ever. Skye was stomping on the head of the downed man in front of her. The wub, wub, wub was almost deafening—almost on top of them.
“Holy shit,” Mario said, his mouth feeling as if it had been filled with dust as he put it together.
A second later, a helicopter streaked overhead. He hadn’t seen a helicopter in the sky in years, and now the Council had one?
“Shoot it down,” Skye shouted.
The helicopter zoomed over and past them. Military grade, and it looked like a flying tank. Gunfire erupted from the helicopter as the wind beat down on them, causing him and Skye to crouch, almost curling up into balls on the hot roof. By the time Mario was back on his feet, strafing fire from the helicopter was bisecting the plaza.
“Mario! Shoot it down!”
He couldn’t see what was happening on the gallows; the helicopter filled the RPG’s sights. The targeting indicated ready. His finger curled around the trigger. But who were they? Air support didn’t make sense. The City didn’t have helicopters. Things hadn’t changed that much while he’d been away. Skye’s screams, urging him to fire, filled his ears. Debris flew up around the helicopter, people on the ground crouching and falling flat in the wash of its rotors. He could see the matchstick-sized figures in the helicopter’s open doors, preparing to exit when they touched down.
He hesitated. What if the people on that helicopter weren’t on the side of the Council? What if they were here to help? Rooted to the spot, unable to decide, he watched the helicopter’s struts ease against the ground, dust swirling around it.
Below them, most people on the ground and gallows huddled, or fell as if they’d been sucker punched off their feet. Some crawled, unable to get up against the fierce barrage of the helicopter’s rotor wash hammering down on them. It felt like hours, but was probably only ten seconds before Miranda felt the skids settle lightly on the ground.
She unbuckled her safety harness, then scrambled from her seat. Sean and Phineas were already on their feet by the time she reached the cargo hold door.
“You’re with me,” she said to them, unholstering her gun. “They’re trying to hang Doug on that gallows!”
She wrenched the door open and jumped down, adrenaline pumping into her bloodstream. It was a storm of noise outside the helicopter, with alarms and shouts and the cries of the injured—and gunfire. It occurred to her that she was charging in with no idea how badly they might be outgunned, but it didn’t matter. She had to save Doug.
Dirt and pebbles pinged off her helmet, stinging and biting against her exposed chin. She crouched as she ran around the helicopter and out from under the slowing orbit of the rotors. The gallows was seven or eight feet from the ground, too high for her to climb.
She jammed her gun into her holster. “Boost me up,” she said to Phineas, not wanting to waste time trying to find the stairs.
He laced his hands and she stepped into them, then almost face-planted when she landed above from how hard he pushed her. She got to her feet and looked around. Doug was crouched low and had gotten his shoulder under the legs of another man, whom they’d started to hang. Horror overwhelmed her when she realized the purpling face was Father Walter’s.
She sprinted forward, knife in hand. Sean held Father Walter by the waist, loosening the tension while Miranda cut the rope. Miranda tugged at the noose as Sean lowered him to the floor. She pulled off her helmet to screaming, car alarms, crackling fire, and choking smoke. Volleys of gunfire were to their left, but sounded a block or two away. It could have been six inches away—Miranda wasn’t leaving Father Walter.
A woman ran over and trained her gun on Miranda. “Freeze! Let him go!” Miranda glanced up at the woman as if she was nothing more than an annoying fly. The woman’s eyes drew together, and she blinked in surprise in rapid succession, as if she didn’t believe what she was seeing. “Miranda?”
Miranda turned back to Father Walter.
“Father Walter,” she said desperately, turning to his slight form. She leaned down to start mouth to mouth, but Father Walter gasped and coughed in her face. “Father Walter,” she cried again.
His hazel eyes focused on her, his face already pinkening to a healthier shade. His croaking voice was barely audible.
“Miranda?”
“It’s me,” she said, leaning over him again. “You’re going to be okay.”
The woman who’d pulled her gun on Miranda stood beside them, keeping a watch on the rest of gallows, for chaos had engulfed it. Smoke from the explosion whipped around them. Shouts and screams seemed to come from every direction. The guards and executioners were running away, unnerved by the appearance of the helicopter, and probably thinking there were more than four people on it. Some of them had been tackled to the ground by people in civilian clothes who restrained them.
Miranda said to Sean, “See if you can find a medic or something.”
“We had someone near that end of the gallows.
Look there,” the woman guarding them said. As Sean left, Miranda suddenly realized the woman was one of the bartenders from The Hut.
Sean nodded and disappeared. Before Miranda could turn her attention back to Father Walter, someone dropped beside her and pulled her into a hug.
“Miri…my God. Where the hell did you come from?”
She returned the hug, recognizing Doug from the hundreds that had preceded this one before her brain caught up. His incredulous voice felt like a caress against her ear.
“Are you okay?” she said, breaking away to look at him.
Blood dripped through an eyebrow and down his face from a nasty gash on his forehead. She pulled off her bandana and pressed it against his forehead. He flinched and grimaced, but then smiled as he raised his hand to hold the bandana in place.
“Better than okay,” he said, but he cast an anxious glance at Walter.
“He’s breathing,” she said.
Doug slumped against her. “Thank God.”
She took Father Walter’s hand, warm and gentle, in hers. When he opened his mouth, she said, “I don’t think you should talk until someone looks at you.”
He nodded weakly and smiled at her. She squeezed his hand again. Phineas skidded into view.
“He’s with us,” Miranda said before their sentry bartender shot him. She had lost track of Phineas, only now realizing it. He cradled an assault rifle in his arms that he must have picked up here, because they hadn’t brought it with them.
“I just saw Sean with a lady who said she’s a nurse. They’ll be here in a sec,” Phineas said. “The helicopter really freaked people out, just like you thought it would. They’re all running off.” Then he said, sounding disappointed, “They’re not very tough bad guys.”
“What are you doing here?” Doug said to him, sounding stunned.
Phineas’ teeth flashed white against the sharp edge of a relieved grin that mirrored Miranda’s own. “I couldn’t let my best girl do this without backup,” he said, winking.
Doug reached over and ruffled Miranda’s hair, pulling some free of the pins holding it tight against her head. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, Coppertop, but you’re like an angel, swooping in here at the last minute to save us.”
Miranda laughed. Happiness, relief, joy…the swirl of emotions swelled inside her until she felt they might overflow. Doug’s glacier-blue eyes flashed with relief and amazement. Father Walter’s hand was warm against hers, his gentle, plain face overflowing with love. Phineas hovered over them, his eagerness to help shining through the chaos and noise. The love she felt for them welled up inside her, sharp and true. She’d missed them so much, more than she’d known—her friend, her mentor…her family.
In the plaza below, the blades of the helicopter were slowing to a lazy orbit around the aircraft. The guards and executioners and council members in attendance were all running for cover. They seemed more intent on getting away than mounting much of a defense. Bodies lay still, and a running gunfight was taking place between a group of Council Security and people in plain clothes a few blocks from the plaza. Walter lay on the gallows, the people from the helicopter crouching around him. The man who’d cut the rope took off his white helmet, a bright-blue bandana tied tight over his head. He dropped to his knees and leaned over Walter, blocking Mario’s view. Then he straightened up, and the tense posture of those surrounding him and Walter relaxed.
“Skye!” Mario shouted. “I see Doug. He’s alive!”
Mario picked up the discarded binoculars and looked through them. Blood gushed down Doug’s face from a cut on his forehead, but his hands were now free. He dropped to his knees beside the man in the blue bandana and pulled him into an embrace. They parted a few seconds later, and the guy pulled the bandana from his head and pressed it against Doug’s forehead.
Mario’s knees buckled.
He felt them giving out, his stomach plummeting down to meet them while it also tried to vomit itself out of his mouth. Then his knees kicked back in, bearing his weight. He looked at the RPG at his feet, feeling dizzy and sick, then back to gallows through the binoculars. It took him a minute to find them again, between the smoke from the explosion, and all the people streaming away. City Council SUVs raced away from the park, and bodies—some in the dark suits of Council Security, others in civilian clothes—lay inert on the ground. Then Doug came into focus, his hand on the woman’s shoulders. Her fiery-red hair was wound tight against her head. The happiness on her face had an almost unnatural incandescence. Her profile was clear as crystal, like a deep lake so still and transparent you can see all the way to the bottom without realizing its depth.
The pointy chin and high forehead. The straight nose and freckles. The dimple in her cheek. He knew them instantly, could have identified them in the dark vacuum of space. His whole body ached with longing to touch the familiar contours of Miranda’s beaming face.
33
Seventeen floors to the ground. Mario skidded around another landing, taking the stairs three and four at a time, Skye following so close behind him that it felt like she was going to trip over his heels. His brain kept shouting at him to slow down before he fell and broke his neck. He’d already wiped out once and been damn lucky it hadn’t been worse. His banged-up frame screeched, Don’t you know you got hit by a car last night, dipshit? But he couldn’t slow down… Couldn’t stop the hammering of his heart, the harsh rasp of breath, the urgency propelling him forward, insisting he not stop, not slow down, and get there. He felt trapped by the echoing beige walls, by the endless stairs that had sucked him into a horror show where his destination moved farther and farther away no matter how hard and fast he ran.
When he finally saw sunlight brightening the landing below, he caught the bannister post, slingshotting himself one hundred eighty degrees. Dread gripped him in its icy fist. He’d had the RPG on his shoulder, the helicopter in his sights, the targeting software urging him to take the shot, and he’d almost done it. He’d almost killed the woman he loved.
Mario burst through the doors and into the pedestrian walkway. He sprinted through the double circle of palm trees in front of the building, smoke from the RPG detonation burning his throat. He hit Market Street at a full run, then crashed to a halt.
“Watch it!”
Mario caught a blur of a man’s angry face, and a woman’s, drawn and pale and bloodied, as he pushed away from the human obstacle in his path. The crush of dazed, fleeing onlookers pushed him backward. Car alarms blared from the far side of the park, adding to the chaotic mix of fear and danger. He shoved and pushed, fighting for every inch of ground.
He stumbled along the edge of the crowd, through a thinning veil of smoke. The ground slipped out from beneath his feet and he teetered for a long moment. Then gravel bit his hands, the impact with the ground happening before he realized he was falling. He’d fallen over the lip of the still smoldering crater, a jagged edge of concrete slicing into his knee. The brutish hulk of the helicopter loomed ahead, a dragon made of steel and glass.
Skye darted ahead of him. He followed her around the front of the helicopter. He glanced at the pilot, but it was impossible to see who it was because of the helmet and mirrored sunglasses.
“Doug!” Skye cried, desperation filling her voice.
Mario saw her change direction and almost knock Doug over when she reached him, colliding into his embrace. Mario searched the gallows, where he’d last seen Miranda, but there were so many people up there, and bodies, too. He hurried up the steps he’d seen Doug and Walter march up not ten minutes ago. If she was anywhere, she’d be with Walter. Mario hoped he wasn’t badly injured and that he hadn’t been moved, taking Miranda with him.
At the top of the steps, Mario searched the platform, his anxiety growing with every second. A lone noose swung in the dying gusts of the helicopter’s rotors. Beside it hung a cut rope. A group of Council and City officials sat in the center of the gallows platform, hands tied, looking like they couldn’t be
lieve the reversal in their fortunes. Mario thought he caught a glimpse of Phineas…what the hell was he doing here?
He looked back toward the park, and there she was.
She knelt beside Walter, who looked gray and old and frail. She held his hand, nodding at him, and Mario stood, transfixed. She looked just like he remembered, and not. She leaned toward Walter, putting her fingers on his lips. He recognized the expression on her face. She was laying down the law, telling Walter what was what for his own good, but the naked vulnerability on her face was new. The armored facade she usually wore was absent. He could see the difference even in the small movements of her hands, mixed with anxiety as she admonished him not to speak. Worry carved into the lines at the edges of her smile, pinched the crinkles at the corners of her eyes, even as her love for the priest who had become like a father to her radiated from her. He caught a flash of cornflower blue, and the last time he’d seen her rushed back, when she’d looked at him across the bustling parking lot before he left LO. Then, her face had been a study of puzzlement, like she didn’t understand what he was, or how he’d once fit into her life, before she turned away.
A woman with a small red medical kit knelt beside Walter across from Miranda. Miranda’s face lit up with recognition, and she reached out to grab the woman’s hand. They spoke for a moment, before the medic motioned for Miranda to get out of the way. She leaned over Walter, kissed him on the forehead, then scooted back and stood up.
She looked around, then her eyes met his. Mario watched them go wide with shock. Blood drained from her face. Suddenly, she looked on the verge of tears. She rubbed her hands on her shirt, took a tentative step in his direction, and he realized she was scared. Her mouth had fallen open a little, and the world around him began to look watery. Her chest rose and fell rapidly enough that he could see it. His feet felt rooted to the spot. He wanted to go to her, touch her, make sure she was real, but he couldn’t get his body to cooperate. What if she still felt the same as when he’d last seen her?
