by J B Cantwell
I was the first one out. I had to be. The days I might’ve excused my own cowardice were over. I fired a spray toward the stairwell and didn’t stop before both the men were still.
As I let out my breath, tears rolled down my cheeks. Was I crying? I wiped them away with my dirty palm and went to check pulses.
Dead.
In my memory they had been men, frightening enemies intent on killing me and my crew.
But in death … One of them had been female, her face forever stuck in a look of surprise. I supposed that dying might surprise just about anyone right at the end.
As I inspected the man, saw his many wounds, for a moment I thought it was Sam, the kid from back in the woods who had helped me escape. But on second look, I saw it wasn’t him. I shook my head, trying to tell myself the truth, that these dead Fighters weren’t the friends I had made. That I hadn’t killed Sam, that I didn’t even know if he was still alive or not.
I stared and stared. I couldn’t hide myself from their humanity. I couldn’t make it so that I hadn’t been the one to kill them. Everything my team did was on my head, my responsibility.
“Pink,” Hannah hissed from behind.
I turned.
“We have to go, now!”
My reality was a bloody one, but that didn’t stop it from being real, didn’t stop all our lives from being in danger.
I put my finger up to my chip, and then I stopped. They were watching me, I was sure. Alex certainly was, if no one else. How would he rate my performance today? My stomach turned over and I tasted bitterness on my tongue.
“Let’s move,” I said.
Everyone followed, pausing behind the blown out doorway, glass littering the floor of the once opulent building.
I searched the streets, sure that as soon as we walked out the door we would be under fire. Were they in the windows? On the rooftops?
I recognized the building we were supposed to capture, and just as I was about to step outside, several drones buzzed by in the air. They seemed to be having a fight all their own. The enemy drones flew back and forth, dropping bombs that rattled the buildings, sending piles of debris out into the streets. Our own followed in pursuit, firing not at the Fighters below, but at the enemy drones instead.
“Wait!” I said.
But we couldn’t stay long. In my imagination I heard the heavy footfalls of Fighters making haste down the stairwell. Was that real?
I stood for just another moment, waiting for the drones to fly farther down, too far to target us.
“Now!” I whispered.
We tried to be silent as we went, but if we had shouted to one another, the bombs that went off every minute would have drowned us out anyway.
The debris from the continued shelling was everywhere in the street. I could hear the gunfire, but only because it was missing me so close to my head.
“Run!” I yelled, risking it, unsure if anyone heard me at all.
We no longer stopped to take cover. I sprinted for the building on the corner, not daring to look behind me at the battered crew that followed.
When I reached the building we had been instructed to take, we found it gutted, a mere shell of whatever had once been there. Had we done this? Or had the Fighters tried so hard to kill us that they were destroying their own city in the process? Flashes distracted me as we ran on. Images of people here in this place, of life during the time before war had ripped it apart.
Now it was all destroyed.
We ran on, and the farther we went the fewer gun shots we heard.
“Wait!” Lydia called.
I turned back and saw that Jim was on the ground twenty paces back. He had taken that bullet to the calf, and he had run all this way without a word.
Lydia was trying to help him to his feet with her one good arm, but he was cradling his leg, tears streaming down his face.
I knew what had to be done. What was expected to be done.
I walked over to him and knelt at his side.
“What are you doing?” he groaned. “Get out of here. I’m as good as dead.”
“You’re not dead,” I said. “Not yet.”
The blood was soaking his fatigues now, and through the hole torn through the fabric I saw a bloody mass of flesh.
I unstrapped his gun from his shoulder and pushed it into his hands.
“They’ll come for you,” I said, my voice a whisper. “But they won’t kill you.”
“What do you mean?” he asked. “Of course they—”
“They won’t,” I said. “You have to trust me. Give them your gun when they find you. Hold up your hands, show them your injuries, whatever it is you have to do to get them to lower their weapons. They’re not murderers.”
The distant sound of gunfire was growing closer now.
“We have to go,” I said. “Sit back against this wall, throw your gun to the side. Good luck.”
I turned then and left him there. Not dead, but in as much danger as anyone could be. I didn’t know for sure that they wouldn’t kill him, but hope was the best thing I could give.
“They’re not murderers, eh?” Lydia taunted.
I fought the urge to sneer in her direction.
No, the Fighters I had met were not murderers. They were fighting for their land, their country, their resources. Not an ounce of bloodlust flowed through their veins.
“Let’s go!” I called.
And we ran.
Chapter Five
The night was nearly pitch black, no moon in the sky to light our way.
“We’re past the building now,” I said into the microphone. “We need to keep going. This is as quiet as it’s been.”
“Affirmative,” Alex responded.
My stomach knotted at the sound of his voice, so cold.
In the distance the battle raged on between the army of drones. For a moment I wondered why they had sent foot soldiers in at all. But I realized, the drones might be expert at targeting one another, but it was clear that their aim at those of us on the ground wasn’t the best. They were best suited for dropping bombs, not picking off individual soldiers. Without us, the Fighters would take all the drones down and claim this city as their own. And rightly so.
We moved toward the center of the city where the tallest buildings dominated, ducking into burned out shops, now just rubble, to keep watch as we went along. I wondered what had happened to Jim. Had they found him yet?
The other four were getting tired, I could tell, and Lydia was panting more than all the others combined.
But I was buzzed, still fueled by adrenaline from the fight. Was it from the phasing? Was that what kept me going?
“We need to stop,” Hannah finally said. There was just enough light from the stars that I could see she was irritated.
“We can’t stop until we find somewhere safe,” I said. But I looked over at Lydia. Blood had run all the way down her arm now, and drips were steadily streaming from her fingertips.
My eyes widened as I realized what I had done. I had saved her. She had been able to move on her own, but now maybe not for much longer.
“Ok,” I said, pushing down my own desire to continue on. “We just need to find somewhere, behind stone.”
I had learned before this mission that our infrared vision upgrades would not be able to detect heat through solid walls, or at least not much of it. But just a little bit might be enough. Our whole flight away from the lobby I had been worrying that the enemy would have the detectors, too, that we would be caught and fired upon easily as the heat from our bodies gave our game away.
Maybe they don’t have them.
The sound of gunfire had died down as the night darkened. It seemed the whole city was at our feet, that we could’ve gone anywhere during this strange silence. We might even make it to the central district, where we were instructed to take over one of the tallest buildings, the Pearl. I couldn’t let the opportunity pass us by.
“Come on,” I said.
I
ducked into a store, now abandoned. I marveled at the variety of foods that were offered so casually in a place like this. The team immediately started rummaging through it all and filling their packs to bursting.
Lydia slid down the wall near the register, leaving a wide, red smear of blood that followed her all the way down to the floor.
I dropped my pack and pulled out fresh bandages. She was sweaty and cold as I reached for the used cloths. They were drenched with blood, and I saw that I had never really stopped the flow. The tourniquet was barely helping. I retied it a few inches closer to the wound and immediately saw a reduction in blood. Then I rewrapped the bandage, tight, sitting back to inspect my work. This time the blood didn’t soak through right away, and after a few minutes I felt relatively certain that it wouldn’t. She would be ok.
“Here, drink this,” I said, holding my canteen up to her lips.
She gulped at it eagerly, her eyes closed.
“Here,” Mark said. “Give her some of this.”
He handed me a bottle full of a strange, blue liquid. It reminded me of the stuff pumped into us during the phasing. I read the side of the bottle.
Supercharge Energy, Blue Raspberry, it read.
I had no idea what blue raspberry was, but I held it out to her, unscrewing the lid as she took the bottle with a shaking hand.
She tasted it, tentative, then licked her lips and started chugging it. Her eyes were open now, and she smiled as she stopped drinking to take a breath.
“I guess it’s good?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said, her voice quiet and rough.
I looked up as Mark handed me one for myself. I cracked it open and just the smell of it was sickly sweet. I took a sip and immediately understood Lydia’s reaction. Sugar. Sweeter than just about anything I’d ever tasted. Mine went down in a flash, and the effects of the sugar in my bloodstream were swift. I felt awake, more awake than I had in a month. I stared out at the empty street. This was the time, while the fuel in our bodies was burning, while the Fighters around us had gone dark.
“It’s time to go,” I said. “We jog.”
I pulled up the Edmonton map on my lens and immediately shared the information with everyone on the team. It showed our current location and where we were headed. Between the two, a blue, squiggly line was drawn. This was our route.
“Everybody got it?” I asked.
They all nodded, and Lydia peeled herself off the floor, ready as well.
The sound of broken glass beneath our boots was enough to make me cringe, but still nobody came.
“This is as good a time as any,” I said. “Let’s go.”
I led the team out into the street. We had hours until dawn, but the lack of Fighters was making me nervous. I felt watched, studied by people I could not see.
We rounded the first turn, following the map on our lenses. The program automatically told us where other humans were, at least if they were out in the street. We had our drones to thank for that. A small team of them hovered over the city, not engaging in the fight, but instead studying the streets and sending back information to keep our flight as safe as possible, guiding us through the areas it read as less dangerous. Either the fighter’s drones were commanded to focus on killing, or our drones were just too high for them to reach, I wasn’t sure.
I was getting more and more nervous and started moving faster. Hannah ran right behind me, Lydia in the back.
“We shouldn’t have brought her,” Hannah said. “She’s weighing us down.”
I looked back and could see that Lydia was struggling to keep up. Immediately, I started searching for somewhere to hide for a few moments so she could catch her breath. I ducked into a blown out building, damaged enough that I couldn’t determine what this place had been.
“We stay here five minutes,” I said.
“It’s too long,” hissed Hannah.
“You know very well that you wouldn’t want to be left behind,” I argued.
In the footrace we had just before leaving boot camp, Hannah had fallen and twisted her ankle. I didn’t help her then. So many times she had drilled it into my head that soldiers don’t stop for anything, don’t go back to help the injured. But that day she was so angry at me when I had done just as she had always said; I didn’t go back for her. It took her days to recover her old demeanor, though I supposed that she had finally forgiven me in her own time.
“And you know very well that this is different,” she said. “This isn’t a race back at camp. These people are trying to kill us.”
“It’s no different,” I said, thankful in that moment that the Primes couldn’t hear our exchange.
“Why leave Jim, then?” she asked.
“Jim couldn’t move,” I said. “He was injured beyond what we could manage. Lydia can still run. She still has a chance. And you would want the same; don’t tell me you wouldn’t.”
She stared hard at me, and even in the darkness I could see the anger in her eyes.
I stared back. “Five minutes.”
Everyone was breathing hard, both from the run and the fear of another battle. Lydia sank down to the floor, cradling her battered arm.
The truth was, I wasn’t sure she would make it with us. The blood was slowly starting to seep through her bandages again. If we didn’t make it to the Pearl soon, she could easily die from simple loss of blood.
The minutes passed quickly, though, and soon we were all on our feet again. I extended a hand to Lydia, but she didn’t take it.
“No need,” she said, struggling to her feet on her own.
I caught her eye for a moment, but she quickly looked away.
I couldn’t leave her. She had gone from an enemy to a friend, at least enough of a friend that I had started to trust her. But what did she know of these Fighters targeting us? Had she befriended them, too? It seemed to me that she should have escaped their bullets if she was really fighting on their side.
But maybe, like so many of us, she had no side. Maybe she was playing war just so she could get out of the Service, shedding her Orange designation on her way out. And what of her Prime brother? Would he make it full term, too?
I led them out through a broken window, and our jog continued. I had always had problems with my leg after I had broken it badly when I was a child. But the phasing I had received seemed to take away the pain that I had become so accustomed to hiding. I was strong now, and despite my horror at the Service’s treatment of its soldiers, its phasing, I was grateful to be back in one piece.
We jogged right and then left again. The Pearl stood tall just a few more blocks away.
Then the shooting began. We ducked into a store, the firing following us through the glass windows still intact.
It was chaos. We all had our weapons out and firing, but in which direction? I didn’t know how many rounds we burned through as we used the shelving as cover. We had to get out.
“Come on!” I yelled over the firing.
I turned and ran to the back of the store, certain that there must be an exit back there somewhere, a place where deliveries could be made.
I wasn’t disappointed. A back door led to a long corridor lined with doorways into the shops beyond. I went right as fast as my legs would take me. Then I started checking handles. The third one I grabbed was unlocked. I burst through it, gun raised, but found it empty of Fighters. It was a furniture store, the place full to bursting with fancy dining tables, bedroom sets made out of exotic woods, couches stuffed with too many pillows. I locked the door behind me.
On this side, the glass storefront was still in tact. I didn’t stop, hoping that an empty street would meet us on the other side. I unlocked and pushed through the front door. Instantly, a blaring alarm echoed through the place, and it was all I could do to not stop to cover my ears, to keep running.
Outside it was silent once more. No gunfire. No visible threats. I upped the pace. We had to get out of here. The Pearl was so close now. If we could just make it into
the building, we would meet up with the other teams, take the evacuated building for our own.
I wondered where the people of this place had all gone. Had they left the city behind them, fearing too much for their lives to stay? Or was it their eyes I felt staring at my back as I ran through their city’s streets?
Just five more blocks, four forward, one right. Adrenaline coursed through me again as we made our way closer and closer to our target. I was prepared to fight my way across that last intersection, and as we neared the corner, the shooting began again. One bullet hit me in the back, hard, only my body armor keeping me from death.
I didn’t wait.
“Two left and two right,” I called, pointing my gun left.
We sprang out into the street and ran for our lives. The entrance to the building was just ahead, and I could see one of the Primes holding the door open, beckoning us to come inside.
Grenades exploded behind us, and I felt my face sliding on concrete as I hit the ground. More came as I crawled toward the door.
I looked back, trying to see if I had my team along with me, trying to count the enemies that pursued us, but it was hard to see through the smoky air. I scrambled to my feet and ran for the door. Hannah, Mark and Rachel were all in step with me, and we made it through the doorway into a barricaded space, untouchable by all but the bigger bombs the Fighters were, so far, unwilling to use.
We made it.
We collapsed to the left side of the door, and I recognized Prime Fowler as he slammed it behind us.
“Everyone on your stomachs!” he ordered.
There was chaos in the huge, grand lobby, which was suddenly under attack. Soldiers lined up along the windows, too many to count.
As we all turned over, I looked up and realized that the entire space was lined with barricades. Small holes for eyeballs and larger ones for gun barrels were drilled through the thick wood.
“Take them out!” Fowler commanded.
We each found a place to shoot from, and everything seemed easy from there. The grenades were still being tossed, but inexpertly, exploding uselessly in the street. We fired, and soon the five Fighters outside were down on the ground. Everything but our labored breathing went silent again. I looked around at the team, proud and exhausted. But then I noticed the terrible truth about our sprint through the city. I counted only three heads left on our team, Hannah, Mark, and Rachel.
