by Scott Cramer
Three paladins approached in the open. Keeping an eye on them, Caleb positioned himself between Raissa and the paladins, wanting to shield her from taking another direct hit.
Suddenly, one of the three stumbled sideways and crashed to the ground, twitching. Seconds later, a second paladin collapsed. Ashminov was firing from fifteen meters away.
Raissa’s joule was on the ground ten meters away. About to lunge for it, Caleb looked in her satchel and instead grabbed her antique gun. He aimed at the third paladin. BOOM. His arm jerked in the air, and he missed high, but the paladin dived for cover behind a tree.
Raissa mumbled, and Caleb put his lips close to her ear. “Can you walk?” he asked.
She mumbled again.
Ashminov jogged up to them, breathing hard.
“Let’s help her to the gate,” Caleb said. “Get her joule.”
Ashminov retrieved the joule and immediately put it to good use, dropping the paladin who was peering out from around the trunk.
Caleb lifted Raissa to her feet, and she stumbled forward as he supported her. Ashminov lent a hand and they moved, as a cluster of three, toward the security gate. Sirens sounded in the distance.
They stopped outside the security tunnel, and Raissa shook them off. “I’m fine.” She teetered and nearly fell. “Really.”
Caleb took out his messenger, identified Ashminov’s visitor code, and punched in the number. The light turned green. “Go,” he told Ashminov.
“I’ll get us a taxi,” Ashminov said before he entered the tunnel.
Caleb punched in the second code, Raissa’s, and the light turned green. She limped all the way through.
When he looked into the retinal scanner, the light stayed red. Damn. Had Petrov revoked his security pass? A group of paladins was closing in.
Petrov’s voice crackled through the speaker. “Surrender, Adam. My surgeons will take care of the rest.”
“Doctor, I feel fine,” Caleb said and moved to the mouth of the tunnel. Raissa and Ashminov needed his messenger to fly the blimp, but he wouldn’t be able to hand it over, confined to the campus. He reared back and hurled the device. The messenger bounced and skidded to the other side.
Raissa picked it up. “Caleb, hurry.”
“I can't get through. Go to the port! Now!”
“We’re not leaving you.”
He waved his arm frantically. “I can’t make it past the blister guns.”
Raissa put down the messenger. “I’m coming to get you.”
He flushed with panic. “You can’t. You’ve used your code already.”
She started for him.
“Stop!” he shouted.
She stopped. “Try. You can do it!”
Caleb put his head down, took a deep breath, and sprinted through the opening. When the first blister struck him, he cried out but stayed on his feet. The pain was worse than anything he'd ever experienced. He staggered, and the blisters hit again, knocking him sideways, but he persisted. He stumbled forward three more steps, absorbing more hits before his legs buckled from the sheer agony. As he fell forward, trembling uncontrollably, he saw Raissa standing at the end of the tunnel. “Stay out!” he shouted as he tumbled to the tunnel floor.
Now that he had lost his momentum, the blister guns couldn't miss. From above, the weapons repeatedly fired as he rose to his knees. It felt as if he were crawling through a shower of boiling oil. Raw blisters on his hands and forearms oozed pink liquid.
He cried out as a blister hit the right side of his face, and his right eye closed at once. With his left eye, he could see the inflamed cells around the bridge of his nose rising like dough in an oven. He pushed himself forward through the wall of pain, inch by inch, with gritted teeth, crawling blindly, and relying on Raissa’s shouts to steer him. He tried to slide his right leg forward, but he was too weak to move.
Picturing Raissa in his mind’s eye, he struggled up and summoned all his energy to pull himself another meter before pitching forward onto his stomach. His loud, erratic heartbeat drowned out Raissa’s voice, and then his world went dark and silent.
* * *
Caleb was only ten meters away, but it might as well have been ten kilometers. She had never seen blister guns in action before. They were relentless; he lay motionless, yet the weapons continued to target him.
The sirens were getting louder, and every brain cell told her to leave. She and Ashminov had one chance to stop Petrov from slaughtering the world’s population, but first, they had to go to the blimp port. Every beat of her heart told her something different. I cannot leave him. Willing her nerves to go numb, she charged into the tunnel, but her nerves remained sensitive and vibrant, and when a blister struck her shoulder, it felt as if a sledgehammer was driving a hot spike into her bones.
A second blast scalded her neck just as she reached Caleb. He wore a gruesome mask of blisters, but she swallowed her sorrow, knowing she had to channel her energy. She grabbed his wrists and dragged him, his body leaving a wet sheen on the tunnel floor. Receiving multiple fiery blasts, she screamed until her vocal cords became too frayed to issue noise.
Ravaged by the blisters, and still reeling from the joule blast, Raissa thought her body would quit, and she’d collapse. She tightened her grip and commanded her leg muscles to contract and relax, contract and relax.
She stumbled backward and, on the way down, slammed into something. Ashminov grunted. He had caught her, wrapping his arms around her waist. She held on to Caleb’s hands as Ashminov hauled them the final meter.
Somehow, they made it, and the three of them lay in a heap outside the range of the blisters: Ashminov exhausted, Raissa dazed and overwhelmed by the scalding pain of her injuries, and Caleb dead or near dead.
To check for a pulse, Raissa positioned her fingertips against Caleb's neck and pressed down through a cushion of blisters until she came to his carotid artery. It proved futile to try to feel anything above the thunder of her heartbeat.
Ashminov stood in stages: one knee, then two, one foot planted, finally hauling himself to both feet. “The taxi is here.”
“Help me pick him up,” Raissa said.
Ashminov shook his head. “It’s too late.”
“Help me!”
“We have to leave him.”
“No!”
“Raissa, he’ll slow us down.”
“Go,” she shouted. “Your taxi is waiting.”
Grumbling, Ashminov moved to Caleb's feet, and she placed her hands under his arms, but she was too weak to lift his torso. They traded positions. Raissa strained to pick Caleb’s feet off the ground as Ashminov picked him up at the shoulders. They carried him all the way across the sidewalk to the taxi, a journey that felt like a thousand kilometers.
Exhausted by carrying the dead weight, Ashminov scrabbled for the door and pulled it open, and together they placed Caleb in the back seat. Raissa collapsed beside him and cradled his head in her lap.
Ashminov climbed into the front seat. “Taxi, Arlington Blimp Port.”
“Taxi, hospital,” she croaked.
Ashminov looked back. “Caleb would want us to go straight to the port.”
“Hospital,” she pleaded.
He sighed. “Taxi, hospital.”
She wanted to thank Ashminov, but the words died in the parched landscape of her throat.
* * *
Going to the hospital is the right decision, Ashminov kept telling himself. It was too late to save Caleb, but perhaps Raissa could get help, a shot of Numb, or synthetic skin. Turning in the front seat to check on them, he choked back a sob at the swirl of tenderness he witnessed. Raissa was using the three fingers of her right hand, the one that had escaped the blisters, to stroke the small section of Caleb's scalp untouched by the chemical weapons.
“Raissa, how bad is the pain?”
Blisters covered both her arms and one side of her neck, and her face was a tortured mess of tears and exhaustion. “Caleb is unconscious,” she said.
>
“I mean you.”
“It hurts a lot.”
Ashminov grimaced. Raissa never complained. To admit that she was suffering meant that her pain was horrific.
“Taxi, stop here,” he said a block from the hospital. “Stay here, I'll be back in fifteen minutes with synthetic skin.”
She didn't react.
“Raissa?”
She looked up. “Every paladin you see will want to kill you.”
He twirled the joule. “Thanks to the Captain and Colonel, their oldest son is a crack marksman.”
Unimpressed, she said, “Make it ten minutes.”
* * *
Caleb, organs failing one by one, existed in a tiny part of his brain. He ached to shout, “I love you,” but blisters had fused his lips shut. Raissa will never hear me say those words. His physical pain was an unrelenting hammering of his senses, but his inability to express his feelings to Raissa hurt far worse.
He had heard everything Ashminov and Raissa had said. At first, he had agreed with Ashminov: they should have gone straight to the blimp port. To go to the hospital would add unnecessary risk. But he had changed his opinion when he had realized that Raissa, too, had suffered injuries from the blisters. The trip to the hospital would benefit her even if it were were too late for him, which it clearly was.
Raissa’s tears splashed at random on his cheeks and forehead, warm and soft as precious kisses. Drawing air slowly through his nose, he filled himself with the spice of her skin and the sweetness of her breath.
He felt a tickle inside his ear canal and knew it was her breath. Is she singing to me?
“Raissa is coming,
She is almost here,
She is bringing toys and gifts.
She’s also got a box,
Inside there's a duck
That goes:
Quack quack quack
Quack quack.”
* * *
Ashminov—joule in one hand, trans in the other—trudged up the hospital stairs. Miraculously, he had slipped through the lobby undetected. He was quite certain that if a health paladin spotted him, that paladin would set aside the Hippocratic Oath.
When he reached the eighth floor, he stopped to check the time. Theoretically, he had seven minutes to return to the taxi with the synthetic skin. But knowing Raissa as he did, he’d better make it back in five.
On the tenth floor, he confirmed the joule was set to stun and then exited the stairwell. He hurried down the empty hallway. The element of surprise was his best friend, and he put a hard shoulder into the ward doors. They flew open as he burst inside.
Dr. Honey gasped, her eyes widening in shock as she stared at the armed intruder. The wheels turning in her mind, Dr. Honey’s chip fired impulses into a dark part of her brain she didn’t even know existed. She drew in a sharp breath at the moment of recognition, and her eyes glittered with bloodlust. “Christian Ashminov,” she growled, without a drop of honey in her tone. As she charged at him with outstretched hands, he opened fire and dropped her before she could strangle him.
The rest of the staff flinched as their chips infused them with murderous impulses. He zapped them with six quick bursts.
Ashminov rushed to the incubator, gathered up ten packs of synthetic skin, and then moved to Roscoe’s bed. “I can disable your chip.”
Roscoe, confined by polycuffs, had a quizzical smile as if to say, “What took you so long?” Then he nodded.
“Freedom is a mixed bag,” Ashminov said, pressing the wand against his friend's forehead. The beep and Roscoe's gush of tears happened simultaneously. Was it unbridled joy or a flood of unproductive emotions? Ashminov would never find out. After spinning the dial above the bed to release Roscoe’s polys, Ashminov charged out of the ward.
* * *
What’s taking Ashminov so long ?
Raissa dragged a sleeve across her eyes, fearing that her tears splashing on Caleb’s face were adding to his discomfort. She glanced at the taxi clock. Nine minutes had passed. If she were to save Caleb’s life, she couldn’t wait any longer; she’d have to get medical help now.
She gently lifted his head and set it on the seat. “Caleb, hang in there.” If he could hear her, he didn’t show it. “Taxi, wait here.”
She climbed out of the back seat, feeling as if molten lava was pouring down her back, and limped to the main hospital entrance. She stepped into the lobby. “I need a doctor. I need a doctor.”
A nurse approached with concern in her eyes. “How did you get those burns?”
“I don’t need help,” Raissa cried.
Another nurse trotted over. “Someone, get a wheelchair.”
The hospital staff assumed Raissa was the patient.
She pulled her joule and trained the weapon on the nurses, then on a paladin coming with a wheelchair. “My friend needs a doctor. He’s dying. Come with me.”
The number of attentive health paladins surrounding her grew. They ignored everything she was saying. The doctors spoke to each other. “Give her an injection of Fade,” one said.
No sooner had the doctor brandished an injector, than his eyes bulged and his hair puffed out. After he collapsed to the floor, more paladins dropped as Ashminov fired on them from across the lobby.
When he had neutralized the threat, he ran over to her and held up a fistful of synthetic skin packs. The first doctor to take a slug got to his knees, bared his teeth, and lunged at Ashminov. Raissa stopped the advance with a low-amperage shot to his head.
More paladins burst through a corridor door. “I’ll cover you,” she shouted at Ashminov. “Get to the taxi. Help Caleb. I’ll be right behind you.”
He sprinted for the door with two paladins on his heels. Raissa dropped both.
Ashminov was already in the taxi by the time she stepped outside. She hurried over to him and screamed until the air bled from her lungs. Caleb was not in the cab.
* * *
“Get in,” Ashminov shouted as paladins poured out of the hospital.
Ignoring the threat, Raissa remained outside the taxi. “We have to find him.”
He opened the door and pulled her in. She let out an anguished wail, but he thought it had little to do with the seat scraping her blisters; the pain of losing Caleb drove a knife into her heart.
“Taxi, Arlington Blimp Port,” he instructed, and they pulled away from the curb.
Two paladins chased after them on foot. Aiming his joule out the window, Ashminov was about to end their pursuit but decided it was smarter to save ammo. He checked the time. “We have twelve minutes to get on a blimp. Taxi, faster.”
The acceleration pushed them back in their seats, and they rocked left and right as the taxi dodged other vehicles and pedestrians. He ripped open a package of synthetic skin and draped a thick sheet of polymer over Raissa’s arm, soothing her blisters at once. He plastered another layer on the back of her neck. But if she felt relief, she didn’t show it. Her cheeks sagged, and her eyes had lost their brilliant green luster. They looked more like an odd shade of gray. Where’s the fiery rebel?
“Petrov won’t let Caleb die,” he said. “He told me he has plans for Adam and Eve. I bet paladins took him to the Citadel.” Ashminov waited for that information to sink in and reignite her fervor.
She tossed Caleb’s messenger on the seat between them. The messenger was crucial; without it, they couldn’t pilot a blimp. He feared she had given up.
“Approaching your destination,” the taxi announced.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“I can’t.”
“Can’t what? Save eight billion people?”
She shook her head. “I did the best I could.”
The taxi rolled to a stop across the street from the port, and he draped the remaining sheets of synthetic skin on her face and hands. He wanted her to be comfortable in her final hours. “Can I conquer my fear of heights? I'll try. Can I storm the Citadel alone? Sure, why not? Too bad Caleb suffered in vain.”
Her shoulders folded over.
“If we went as a team,” he continued, “we'd have a slim chance of stopping the transmission of ricinware and killing Petrov. Going alone, it's a suicide mission. But that's better than moping in the back of a taxi, waiting for the slaughter of the world's population.”
She hung her head.
“Raissa, if Caleb is dead, you’re the one responsible. You told him to run through the tunnel. You already had his messenger. He’d be alive if it weren’t for you.”
Ashminov kept his eye on her hand, expecting her to make a fist and throw a punch at his face; he would have gladly sacrificed his jaw to her knuckles if she snapped out of her funk.
“Look, I didn’t mean that. Nothing could have stopped Caleb. I was trying to motivate you. You’re a much better person than I’ll ever be. You tried your best. I’ll always remember you.”
He grabbed the messenger and climbed out. How am I going to pilot a blimp with my eyes closed? He started for the port; he had two minutes to figure it out.
IMPLEMENTATION
IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 01
Tears trickled down Raissa’s cheeks as she played different scenarios in her mind.
I should have carried Caleb into the hospital earlier.
I should have insisted that Ashminov stay with us.
I encouraged Caleb to enter the tunnel. I was selfish; I didn’t want go on without him.
Ashminov had crossed the street. Every woman, man, and child on the planet, unbeknownst to them, was counting on him to save their lives. Raissa knew that Ashminov had the best of intentions, but he didn't stand a chance on his own. He had even forgotten to take a weapon.
She sighed hard and then, with a heavy heart, firmed her jaw and locked her tears deep inside. They had forty-five seconds to hop into a blimp before it lifted off. Slinging the weapons satchel over her shoulder, she jumped out of the taxi and raced to catch up. The blimp port was like the port in Jerusalem: a vast tarmac dotted with magnetic tie-downs and ringed with tanks of helium.
