Escape From Metro City

by Mandel, Richard

  Lisa was not dead, as Cy feared. She was still very much alive. Once the ubermensch had reappeared and the shooting began, Mercy had quickly left her seat and ran over to the wounded young woman. Earlier she had left the side of the gurney down so as not to impede her treatment of Lisa's many wounds, and now that stood her in good stead for what she did next. As soon as Mercy reached Lisa, she grabbed her under her arms and yanked her off the gurney, backpedaling as she did. This caused the both of them to fall on the floor, with Lisa on top of Mercy, and not a moment too soon. The air was now full of shattered plaster and flying lead as a series of high-velocity 50-caliber slugs tore through the examination room from the wall closest to the front of the lab building. Lisa screamed in agony from her body being made to twist and turn in ways that its wounded state could no longer accept, even as the hail of lead passed overhead mere inches from her. It tore through the upper part of the gurney where she had been lying but seconds before, it tore through storage lockers and cabinets, shattering glass everywhere and sending the shards flying along with a number of ricocheting slugs. Miraculously, neither Mercy nor Lisa were hit. She screamed again as Mercy jinked around and managed to get out from under her without lifting her up, causing her to drop to the floor. Mercy could do nothing for Lisa except keep an arm around her until the hail of shells stopped, and Lisa's screaming with it. Mercy looked at the anguished young woman with tears in her own eyes. "I'm sorry," she whispered loudly.

  "I ... know ..." Lisa managed to gasp, her remaining eye streaming tears and her breath ragged. She spoke in a pain-filled hoarse whisper. "You ... saved ... me ... Mercy ... thanks ..."

  "It'll try again unless it knows you're dead," Mercy said flatly, "and it doesn't look like Cy or Raul can hold it off this time." She looked around the room, trying to find her own assault rifle, and finally spotted its twisted ruin lying not far from the door. A 50-caliber slug had hit it dead center and almost bent it in two. She grunted, and that was when her eyes happened to fall on the counter where she had previously set Lisa's clothes and gear. Miraculously, neither they nor the that end of the counter had been hit. Her MAC-11 was there, still loaded and ready to go, along with her pistol and spare ammo. So were her racing boots and her damaged firesuit, still bearing a few bloodstains even though Mercy had done her best to clean them off. Seeing those gave Mercy an idea, and she now looked back at Lisa and smiled. "I think I know a way to make it go away." With that, she let go of Lisa and began to crawl as low as she could towards the counter.

  "What ... what are ... what ..." Lisa struggled to say, still fighting her pain and doing her best to keep her voice down.

  By now Mercy had reached the counter. The horizontal storm of heavy-caliber shells flying through the room had stopped, but the two could still hear automatic weapons fire from the front of the lab building. Mercy reached up and quickly pulled down first Lisa's MAC-11 and then her spare ammo from the counter top before grinning at her. "Catch," she said, as she drew her arm back and then flung them one at a time at the prone Lisa. The gun slid across the floor and smacked solidly into Lisa's thigh. The ammo pouch bumped up and stopped against her shin. Lisa grimaced and groaned softly both times as they hit her, but no more. With a painful effort she managed to reach around and grab the MAC-11 with her right hand, then pull it to her.

  "Got it ..." she said in a hoarse whisper, then fell back to the floor, still clutching the MAC-11. She grimaced and groaned again as her back hit the floor, then turned her head and looked at Mercy. "What ... now ...?"

  "You and I are almost the same size in clothes," Mercy said, as she now grabbed both the boots and the firesuit and began crawling towards the door as fast as she could. "I found that out when I was treating you. That's why I'm going to try tricking Big and Ugly into thinking I'm you."

  "Mercy ...!" Lisa rasped painfully. She was unable to move her body, so she set the MAC-11 on her stomach before holding up a badly shaking right hand towards her. "Don't ...!" she pleaded, while the muffled sound of multiple diesel motors could now be heard faintly somewhere in the distance.

  Mercy reached the door and then turned to look at Lisa. "You need to live," she said. "You know that." She looked around, and then risked lifting up high enough to open the door. She dropped back down after that as fast as she and crawled partway through. Mercy then stopped, looked back at Lisa, and gave her the saddest smile Lisa had ever seen. It was the smile of one who knew they were about to die, and was facing that death willingly as part of a cause greater than themselves. "I'm glad I met you, Lisa. Goodbye." With that, she hurriedly snaked the rest of the way through the doorway and let the door shut behind her on its hydraulic hinge.

  "Mercy ..." Lisa wept, as her tears flowed freely from her one remaining eye.

  The ubermensch was having a field day with General Ryan's armored column. In the space of a mere quarter of an hour, it had taken out the first tank at the Pandora complex main gate that had challenged it, another that was immediately behind it and couldn't bring its main gun to bear fast enough, a nearby Marine Zippo tank that had tried to hit it with its flame gun and missed, and one of the Army Zippo APCs that had been unfortunate enough to be in its way as it finished with its initial counterattack. In that short space of time it had also managed to down one of the Air Cobra attack helicopters with a very large boulder flung into its cockpit, and forced the other to leave the fray trailing acrid black smoke from an engine damaged by heavy machine gun fire. By then, almost a full company of Ryan's men with mixed weapons had hurriedly disembarked from their transports and ran up to join the fray, but none of them were able to stop it. It was too agile and moved too fast for them, regardless of the weapon they were using, whether it be M-16 assault rifle, M79 or M203 grenade launcher, portable flamethrower, or even a shoulder-fired Stinger missile at one point. Most of their weapons fire missed, and it simply ignored what few wounds it was receiving from the combined assault rifle fire. None of the gunners manning the vehicle-mounted weapons were having any better luck. They tried their 105mm main tank guns, their M7-6 flame guns, their vehicle-mounted 50 caliber and 7.62mm heavy machine guns, their tripod-mounted TOW missile launchers, but all to no avail. None of them could land a solid hit on the thing. It was simply too fast, and they couldn't pin it long enough to catch it in a crossfire. On the other hand, the ubermensch was single-handedly decimating Ryan's forces, grinding them down with its own weapons and grenades flung out of its stump arm pouch as if they weren't any threat whatsoever, picking up and sometimes even ripping away new weapons from them and their vehicles as it needed them, or even grabbing the occasional small vehicle or decorative boulder and using those appropriately. This was what it had been designed to do, Ryan belatedly reminded himself as he and Colonel McKeegan huddled down behind the wreckage of his Ford MUTT command vehicle. He looked down at the body of his aide, who lay dead beside him, and wondered how much longer his forces could hold out against that thing.

  Awk! Awk! Awk!

  The clear cry of a raven cut across the battlefield, getting everyone's attention. It also got the attention of the ubermensch. All eyes turned to see not a raven roosting on the top edge of the roof of the Pandora complex's main lab building, but a figure in a black racing suit and black boots running down the stairs, having just come out of the front doors and heading in a straight line for the building across the way.

  "NO!!!" Cy cried. He knew it couldn't be Lisa. He knew who it was, what she was doing, and why she was doing it. It was Mercy in Lisa's racing firesuit, pretending to be Lisa. Raul's eyes opened wide and Cy's mouth opened even as he tried to make a second warning cry, but it never sounded. By then it was too late. With a triumphant cry the ubermensch jumped away from the Army APC whose flame gun turret it had just pulverized, crossing the distance in a single bound and landing only twenty yards away from the running Mercy, set itself and whipped its M60 heavy machine gun around into position, then opened fire. Mercy's body jerked this way and that, her run turned into a craz
y lurching death dance as she moved. She stumbled, tripped, and then tumbled to the ground as multiple M60 rounds slammed into her from shins to sternum. She wound up rolling to a stop less than six feet away from the bottom stair to the building she had been trying to reach, her body surrounded by an ever-growing pool of blood.

  Even as Mercy fell and the ubermensch laughed triumphantly, her diversion had given one of the regular Army M60 Patton tanks just enough time to finish traversing its turret, lock onto the ubermensch, and then open fire with its main gun. The ubermensch's reverie was abruptly cut short when it was hit squarely with the 105mm tank round that the Patton had fired. It was flung into the air, its M60 smashed to smithereens by shrapnel, and various of its body parts flying everywhere. Somehow its head remained connected to its now-limbless torso. This hit the ground hard some distance away and the creature bellowed in agony. It had also just happened to land directly in front of a Marine Zippo tank and less than fifty yards away. The creature didn't even have time to roll over and see its new threat, as the Marine Zippo tank's crew immediately locked on target and fired a long and very hot rod of flame at it. The ubermensch was immediately doused from its battered head to the bloody stumps of its legs in fiercely burning fuel. Its anguished bellow immediately turned into a screeching death wail and it thrashed about, trying to get out of the path of the flames with limbs that were no longer there, knowing full well that it was being flash-roasted alive. The air filled with the combined smells of burning flame gun fuel and copious amounts of overcooked flesh, just as an Army Zippo APC trundled into range and added its own rod of flame to that of the Marine Zippo tank. What was left of the ubermensch let out one more pitiful wail, then its scorched and almost skinless head fell down and moved no more. What remained of its body was already being consumed by the flames.

  Cy saw none of this, although he could smell and hear it. As soon as the ubermensch had been taken out by the first tank he had popped out of cover and commenced a low combat run towards the fallen Mercy, Lisa's AK-47 held in a combat carry as he ran. Raul was right on his heels, although he ran like a civilian, and both Army and Marine soldiers came running up as well from several other directions. By the time Cy had made it to Mercy and was cradling her head in his lap, both General Ryan and Colonel McKeegan had raced up along with a team of three Army field medics. The regular soldiers immediately brandished their weapons and deployed in a protective ring around the group. Blood was freely flowing from all of Mercy's wounds, but she still managed to speak as Cy looked down at her and the others closed in. "Lisa," she gasped, "Lisa ... lab building ... help ... her ... careful ... armed ..."

  "Go!" Ryan ordered two of the medics. They took off at once, one hand on their medical bags and a pistol in the other, as they ran for the lab building.

  Mercy had started coughing up blood in the meantime. The remaining medic quickly examined her, then looked at the other three. He shook his head, and Raul choked back a sob. The stout Mexican let go of the stock of his assault rifle with his left hand, crossed himself, and began to pray in Spanish.

  "Why, Mercy?!" Cy exclaimed, tears beginning to fill his own eyes as he continued to cradle her head. "Why?"

  Mercy turned her head so she could look at him, and spoke with her bloodied lips. "For ... Lisa ... " she got out. "I ... was ... part of ... problem ..." She stopped and took a breath before continuing. "Now ... part of ... solution ..."

  "Oh, Mercy," Cy said, gently stroking her hair. The tears were flowing fiercely from Raul's while he continued to pray. He didn't see a priest anywhere so he tried his best to administer some form of last rites. It was all he could do for her. Beside the pair, Ryan and McKeegan and the remaining Army medic remained respectfully silent.

  The dying Mercy looked up at the sky. Her face had assumed a strangely anxious look. It wasn't one of fear; rather, it was one of a known threat that has been faced, that of a victim willingly accepting its fate. "Do ... do you ... hear it?" she asked.

  "Hear what?" Cy said.

  "That cry ... you know ..." Mercy said. She now looked over at Cy. "It's time, Cy ... goodbye ..."

  "No ..." Cy said, sorrow now filling his voice.

  Behind the group, perched in the middle of the top edge of the lab building roof, a certain raven that had gone unnoticed ever since it had alerted everyone to Mercy's presence had its wings partially spread and its head held high. Its beak was wide open as it cried, although no sound audible to human ears could be heard on this level of existence. Only Mercy and the other fallen on that battlefield could hear it; for its cry was for them alone, and only they could respond to its fateful summons. Mercy stiffened, and then her entire body began to quiver and shake. The same was happening with the other fallen soldiers scattered elsewhere around the Pandora complex. Mercy's eyes were open wide but she could no longer see. Her mouth was open wide, as if crying aloud, but she made no sound. General Ryan, Colonel McKeegan, Cy, and the medic looked at each other in wonder while Mercy's body continued to convulse and Raul continued to pray. Suddenly it was over. Mercy's body arched one final time and then fell lifeless to the ground. Her head lolled over in Cy's lap, her eyes and mouth still wide open. To Cy, as he looked at her, her body now looked more like a waxwork dummy than that of a formerly living being, despite the blood that still flowed from it and the warmth it still had. The same was true for the others who had clustered around the now-lifeless bodies of those soldiers who had fallen trying to fight the ubermensch. Cy abruptly snapped his head up and around just in time to see the raven on the roof edge close its beak, give him what might be described as a supremely satisfied look, then take to the air and fly off. General Ryan and Colonel McKeegan quickly followed Cy's gaze, as did many of the soldiers on foot, the tank crews, vehicle drivers, and other assorted military personnel. Even as all of them watched, the raven ascended higher and grew fainter against the dark, cloud-filled sky. Suddenly it burst into brilliant flame, gave a final and long aaawwwwwwkkk! in the voice of a normal raven, then rocketed away into the sky and disappeared.

  "What ... the ... hell ...?" a slack-jawed Colonel McKeegan muttered.

  "It was the Raven Mocker, sir," Cy said evenly. McKeegan turned to look at him. Both Ryan and the medic were already looking but not saying anything. "It wasn't allowed to take Lisa's soul so it took Mercy's instead, along with all of the other souls it could claim." He gave General Ryan a faint grin. "Long story, sir. I'll be happy to explain it at the debriefing."

  "Yeah ..." Ryan said slowly. He was still having trouble believing what he had just seen.

  Just then there was a faint call from the front of the lab building. "Cy ...?!" It was Lisa. She had been picked up and transferred to another gurney, and the two Army medics were carefully working it down the stairs to ground level.

  "Lisa!" Cy exclaimed. He looked at both Ryan and McKeegan. "Pardon me, sirs!" he said quickly, and then ran over to her.

  By that time the medics had gotten the gurney down the stairs, and Cy ran up as they were wheeling it down the parking lot. Lisa was in obvious pain, there was new blood that had soaked through her dressings, and she was crying, but the tears she was shedding weren't from the pain alone.

  "Cy ..." Lisa sobbed, as she weakly held up her right hand. Cy immediately clasped it and walked beside her with the gurney, while the medics wheeled it towards the two senior military officers. "Oh, Cy," she cried. "Mercy ... she ..."

  "I know," Cy said. "Just remember, Lisa. She did it for you. She did it so you could live, and save everyone else. She died so that all of us could have the promise of life that you hold within you, Lisa. Remember, she did it for you."

  "Cy ..." Lisa said, and with that she began to weep.

  By this time an Army ambulance had pulled up, and General Ryan directed the two medics to wheel Lisa's gurney to it. The third medic joined them as they lifted Lisa's body inside. At the same time a pair of regular soldiers came up almost unnoticed with what looked like a set of rolled tarps under one arm. Th
ey promptly set them down, unrolled one, and then worked Mercy's remains into a body bag. They then zipped it up and went on to do the same with the other bodies of the fallen, while other pairs of soldiers did the same in other places. As this was going on and the medics were finishing securing Lisa's gurney inside the ambulance, Cy turned to General Ryan. "May I, sir?" he asked.

  General Ryan nodded with a smile. "Go ahead, corporal. We'll meet up later. If anyone gives you trouble, just refer them to me."

  "Thank you, sir," Cy said gratefully. The three medics also nodded in acknowledgement, then one of them held the back doors of the ambulance open as Cy got inside with Lisa. Another joined them in there, while the two outside closed the doors. One of these got in front with the driver, and the other left to help his fellows treat the other wounded on the battlefield. The ambulance then drove away with both Cy and Lisa inside.

  "Uhhh, senor? I mean, sir?"

  Both Ryan and McKeegan turned to look at Raul Esteban. He looked nervous and could not look directly at them. He was holding out both his rifle and pistol, and he was looking down at the ground. "I, uh, maybe I no longer should have these, now that you here and me supposed to be in jail."

  "That's right," McKeegan said. "You're that illegal they picked up during their escape." He looked over at Ryan. "Well, Bill?"

  A regular Army soldier came trotting up before Ryan could answer. "Sir?" he asked Ryan politely.

  McKeegan looked to Ryan, who nodded. "Yes, soldier?" he said.

  "We're recovered everything that both ladies had in the lab building, sir. We also found these along with some of Ms. Stanridge's things on one of the counters. I'm bringing them to you. sir, as you ordered provided we were ever laid hands on them." He then handed General Ryan a set of car keys.

  Ryan's eyebrow went up as he studied the HemiCuda logo and symbol on the attached tab, and then he looked at Raul. "For Ms. Stanridge's car," he said. "The one she had to abandon when her group had to evacuate the hospital, right before they went to the police station and rescued you."