The Glass Runner

by Thomas Davis

  Rocky grabbed Catherine by the arm to restrain her. He was furious with the blackmailer for withholding vital information from him. The man was obviously an amateur and Rocky was now kicking himself for not picking up on that fact when they met. He was too preoccupied with his own goals, with leaving Bethlehem. He wanted this job too much. Rocky tapped an earpiece beneath his hat. “Babe, how’re we looking up there?”

  “Fine. I got this.” Yvette responded in his ear.

  “Good. Meet me at the spot when you’re done.” Rocky began to pull Catherine towards the alley.

  Catherine screamed out, "Where are you taking me?"

  "Don't worry lady. We're just going someplace a little more quiet to talk." Rocky stopped for a second as he finally recognized who Catherine was. I’m gonna kill that nerd for this. He didn’t mention anything about the Governor being the mark.

  Catherine could see a transport parked at the end of the alley. Its design closely resembled that of a 1930s panel van but with two wheels in the front and one wide wheel in the back. The cargo door was open. "Oh no." Catherine struggled to break free of his grip on her arm but the tall man was too strong. He picked her up and carefully placed her into the back of the transport then shut her inside. He jogged to the front of the vehicle, sat down into the driver’s seat, slammed the door shut then accelerated the vehicle out of the alley.

  “Simon?” Catherine cried as she whispered into her comm, “Simon. Where are you?”

  Simon heard her words and the fear in her voice. He had to act quickly before the transport got too far away. He picked up the barrel of his destroyed firearm then raised it above the roofline. A gunshot rang out as the part was violently yanked from his hand and flung across the roof floor in front of him. He now had an idea of which direction the shooter was in and how fast their reaction time was.

  Yvette watched the roofline while waiting for movement. She licked her lips, “Alright Slick. You gotta poke your head out eventually.” Simon stood into a low crouch slightly visible above his cover spot on the roof. Just as Yvette fired off her rifle, Simon tossed himself off of the roof narrowly avoiding the shot. Her eyes went wide. “What the void was that? Did he just throw himself down a 5-story building?” Yvette stood up from her perch. She was nervous. There is no way that guy just offed himself without even trying, she thought. Yvette slowly backed away from the edge.

  “I must admit,” A voice spoke from behind her. “You gave me quite a scare.” It was the man, Simon, but how did he survive the fall? She turned and fired her rifle twice. Simon slid his right foot behind him and narrowed her target. The bullets sailed passed him on either side. He turned up his palms and his black three-piece suit began to burn away. Underneath he was wearing a Versatile Layer. Unlike Takeda’s suit, the accents of Simon’s Layer glowed blood red. “Now shall we?”

  Yvette fired more shots from the rifle that he evaded. She yanked her quilt from the ground and tossed it between them. She shot her rifle through the blanket as she backed away. She was near the edge of the rooftop now. The quilt twisted in the air from the force of the projectiles before slowly falling down. Simon was gone. She scanned the area, moving her hips and the rifle in each direction she inspected. Suddenly Yvette felt tightness around her throat followed by her feet leaving the ground. Simon casually slapped the gun from her grip as he marched her over the edge of the roof dangling from his left hand. Yvette slapped and clawed at his arm but it was of no use.

  "You do not possess my conviction." Simon tightened his grip on her neck. "The knowledge that you are right and just. You're only after credits." He eased his grip, "how many of you? Tell me and I'll let you slither back to whatever hole you came out of."

  Yvette forced a smile. "You think I'm just gonna roll over on my guy?" She coughed. "You're dreaming pal." Yvette pulled her favorite revolver from her the small of her back. This gun was special to her. Rocky gave it to her after their first date. It was the first gun she ever fired. It seemed right for this to be the last gun she got to shoot. She knew she would fall to her death once Simon let go of her neck but she opened fire anyway. She wanted to protect Rocky. She had no regrets about how she had lived.

  Simon let go of Yvette to avoid the bullets flying at him. Thanks to the speed and enhanced reaction time allowed by the Versatile Layer, he managed to mostly only get grazed. One bullet found its home in his side. Yvette continued to fire the gun as she fell from the roof. I’m not gonna be able to make our trip Rocky. Do your best babe. Live. Even after she ran out of ammo she kept pulling the trigger until she inevitably hit the ground five-stories below.

  Simon fell to one knee clutching his side. There was still work that needed to be done.

  10. Short-Stack and the Saboteur

  Amarillo Outpost 01:23 hours

  Chase walked the corridors of Amarillo Outpost lost in thought. He couldn’t sleep this night. He was too upset with how things went down with the captain after the competition. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed someone standing in a hallway as he passed. He halted and took a few steps back to see who had piqued his curiosity. Standing there with her back towards him was a very short woman in full uniform with bobbed ebon hair subtlety spilling from a very casual red cloche hat. She looked slightly to her left revealing a black eye-patch with a white skull embroidered onto it. She was far shorter than he imagined but Chase recognized her from the battlefield. This was Edith Fafnir aka Deadeye.

  Chase approached her from behind. When he got close, without looking the small woman spun her hips, glided on the balls of her feet, and grabbed Chase around the wrist and between the thumb and index finger. She shifted her hips again and a sharp pain shot up his arm forcing him down onto one knee. If he hadn't acquiesced his wrist would've been broken. He looked up to see that she had him in a wrist-lock. Her service sidearm was pressed to his cheek.

  "Hello," she said as her right eye continued to scan the environment.

  "Do you mind?" he grunted.

  She gradually released her impressive wrist-lock and placed her weapon back into its holster. She squinted her eye in recognition, "You must be Shonen Boy."

  Damn Takeda and that ridiculous nickname, Chase thought. "Chase. My name is Chase Turner."

  "Whatever," she replied as she fingered the bevel on her holster.

  "How do you?"

  "Brown hair, big adorable green eyes, at least that's how Princess Hawkins described you"

  "She said adorable green eyes?"

  "I may be paraphrasing. Don't get the wrong idea kid." Deadeye looked the young man up and down. "She's not into that sort of thing," she smirked.

  Why are all of the Strike Team Personnel so odd? Chase thought to himself. “Are you going to tell me what you’re doing or do I have to guess at it?”

  Deadeye scanned the corridor once more before studying Chase again, “I guess you’ll do. From what I hear you got some skill, Shonen Boy.”

  "That’s right… Short-Stack.”

  A small vain popped out of the side of her forehead and she crossed her arms, “You enjoy one plate of pancakes in front of those rejects and suddenly that’s your name for life.” She settled herself then leaned uncomfortably close to Chase as she grabbed him by a belt loop on his uniform near his gun holster, “You packin’ cadet?”

  Chase blushed before answering, “Of… Of course.”

  “Good… Follow me.”

  They walked the corridors’ length then proceeded through a hatch leading to the orbital cannon operations deck. It was deadly quiet, even given the hour. Short-Stack gestured with her left hand for him to stop, “Have you noticed?”

  “We should’ve run into at least one patrol by now.”

  “You’re smarter than you look Trophy Husband.” She kicked a small storage compartment on the wall. The cover panel clanged onto the floor and a lifeless arm flopped out. A guard was stuffed inside. There were small circular burn marks on his chest and one mark on his forehead.

  “How di
d you know?”

  “If I had to hide a body in a hurry that’s exactly where I’d put it.”

  “You hide a lot of bodies?”

  “A girl’s gotta have some hobbies. Ha, that rhymed.”

  “I don’t find dead soldiers funny.”

  Edith got serious for a moment. She realized her attempt at gallows humor had offended the young man. “Cracking wise… It’s just how I deal with this crap. We’re going to make whoever did this pay.” She led Chase down another hall. “This is definitely an Arez attack and it looks like they’re going after the cannon.”

  “We should radio in for back-up.”

  “Yeah… That would be the smart thing to do,” she said as she continued to press forward. “You should go and get on that.”

  Chase tapped his communicator but all he got was static. “A localized jamming field.”

  “Yep. We go back now and they got time to do ‘Valhalla knows what’ to the cannon’s operational equipment.”

  They were about to enter into a bulkhead when Edith abruptly stopped Chase by grabbing him by the shoulder. Her nails were digging into his flesh. It hurt but he knew she had a reason.

  “Booby traps. We can’t go this way.”

  Chase examined the room but he didn’t see anything. Edith slid her eye-patch from over her left eye to her right. She had a cross-shaped scar beneath the patch. She opened her left eye. It was a glowing blue prosthesis with a targeting reticule for a pupil. The eye began to shift between different colors. It stopped shifting on purple. “There they are. Phase mines. We wouldn’t last 2 seconds crossing this room.”

  “We’d be cut to pieces.”

  “Well. This is your base… How do we get to operations without losing too much time?”

  Chase thought for a few moments before it hit him. “Follow me. We can access the ventilation shaft. That’ll get us there in one piece. If the enemy knew about that route they wouldn’t have needed to set these traps.”

  “Beauty and brains. Lead the way, Hot Shot.”

  “Finally, a decent nickname.”

  “Hey, you do good you get a nickname that doesn’t make you want to jump out of an airlock.”

  “Then why does the team call you Short-Stack?” Chase smirked.

  “Oh. Because I do bad,” she slyly smiled as she ran her finger across his cheek. “I do really bad.”

  Chased blushed as he deeply gulped then sheepishly proceeded to lead the way. He couldn’t figure Edith out. She was almost like the opposite of Sam Hawkins. Where Sam was a thought out and considerate, Edith was a wild improviser who relished in pushing buttons. She enjoyed aggressively invading into your personal space and playing games. This potentially life-threatening situation didn’t seem to bother her in the slightest. It appeared like she was getting a thrill out of it. The Strike Team seemed to be full of individuals with extreme personalities. Maybe that was necessary to operate at such a high level. Perhaps only the eccentric could excel in this work. Chase felt dull as he led Edith to the ventilation hatch.

  “Get your head back in the game soldier,” Edith said as she slapped him on the backside. He was starting to become accustomed to her oddness. “I need you backing me up in there, Cornbread. I didn’t drag you along for no reason,” She confidently cocked her head back with a warm grin on her lips and a pistol in her grip.

  “Let’s do this,” Chase beamed back at her and produced his side arm.

  After a short crawl they reached the operations area. Through the vent they had a view of the scene. An Arez woman in full infiltration gear stood at the control console. The floor was littered with the bodies of outpost personnel, the late shift. The console was a redundant system access in case the main bridge was destroyed. She was targeting the Terran fleet with the orbital cannon. Once the sequence was programmed she would get off one shot before the cannon was locked down. But that would be enough to throw the fleet into disarray and secure a decisive victory for the Arez armada.

  “She’s definitely got more traps in there,” Chase observed

  “Yeah. I see’em,” Edith’s cybernetic left eye glowed intensely. “I have a plan but you might not like it,”

  “I figured as much.”

  “It’s really reckless, kinda stupid and stunningly brilliant,” Edith excitedly whispered as she grabbed Chase by the arm. She quickly explained her plan and Chase’s part in it.

  “That’s crazy.”

  “I know right. This is gonna be fun.”

  “Not the word I would use right now.”

  The Arez infiltrator was hard at work bypassing the targeting apparatus. She was one step away from acquiring a target lock on the Terran flagship. Chase kicked the vent cover open, jumped down and ran for cover, all while firing his pistol at the intruder. A stationary energy shield protected the saboteur as she returned fire with her laser pistol. Chase took aim at the phase mine closest to the enemy’s position but he couldn’t see it. He didn’t have Edith’s enhanced vision. It took him five shots to finally hit the mine that exploded in a flash of light, which temporarily disoriented the intruder long enough for Edith to drop down into the room unnoticed.

  During the commotion Chase was struck in the hip by a stray laser blast. He fell to the floor behind cover. He frantically checked himself to assess the severity of his injury. He wasn’t in any pain, which he found odd. He was relieved to discover he wasn’t hit by the shot but he soon discovered his ammunition pouch was. He checked his pistol’s chamber and magazine. Only two bullets remained.

  Deadeye stood up from behind her cover location. Her eye swiftly scanned her pistol and the environment. A display of potential trajectories appeared before her. She confidently took aim and fired three shots just beyond the edge of the alien shield before retreating back behind cover. The Alien fired her laser pistol at Edith. The bullets Edith fired flew passed the intruder then ricocheted off surface behind her. One of the three projectiles struck the intruder in the shoulder blade causing her to stumble forward through the transparent energy shield.

  “You’re up space cadet!” Edith yelled.

  Chase sprang into action taking aim. He would only have one chance at this. If he missed the intruder would retreat back behind the shield and they would’ve lost the element of surprise. Edith was the only one who could make the ricochet shot but it was obvious that she would be forced back behind cover afterwards. It was up to Chase to close out this deadly exchange. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion as he took aim. With a full clip this would be easy but with two bullets? Doubt coiled in his belly as he pulled the trigger. The first shot stuck the saboteur in the upper shoulder. He used that marker to line up his next and final shot. Chase slowly exhaled as he fired his last round. The bullet sailed through the air for what felt like an eternity. It struck the Arez warrior in the neck and she fell to the floor face first.

  “Did you take her out,” Edith called out for confirmation of an enemy kill.

  “She’s down,” Chase responded.

  Edith stood up from behind her cover point. She looked over at the intruder who was still alive. The Arez had her hand squeezed around something on her infiltration suit near her abdomen. Edith trained her gun on the infiltrator. The object in the Arez warrior’s hand was similar to a ripcord. She pulled the cord without hesitation.

  “Chase get down,” Edith screamed.

  Chase looked towards the intruder. An explosion erupted from the Arez’s body, which engulfed the control panel and the cannon operational equipment in the room. The wall of flame and death encroached upon him. The young man ducked behind cover once more. He could feel the flames licking at his back as they passed over him. He tightly pulled his body into a ball as he rode out the chaos. The wave of noise and destruction eventually passed leaving silence in its wake. Chase jumped to his feet patting at his burning sleeve before ripping off his military tunic and throwing it to the ground. He wore a white tank top beneath.

  “Edith,” he yelled acros
s the burning room. He initiated a search of the area, occasionally waving his arms to dispel smoke. As the atmosphere calmed he finally saw Edith. She was standing at the blast site with her fancy red hat dangling from the fingertips of her left hand. Her eye-patch was back to covering her unique left eye and she appeared to be catching her breath. She proceeded to twirl the cap around on her finger before flicking it into the air; catching it with her right hand and mashing it back down upon her head. She turned her head to acknowledge Chase as he approached.

  “You got any candy?”

  Chase didn’t flinch at the peculiar request. He was beyond questioning her quirks at this point; it was just her way. He explored his pockets to no avail. He walked to his singed shirt and snatched it from the floor. Within the breast pocket he found something. He tossed the shirt away as he returned towards Edith with her prize. “Found some butterscotch.”

  “Good I looooove butterscotch,” she beamed. “Open it?”

  “Sure,” Chase unwrapped the small piece of candy as he walked towards her. He cupped the treat in his fingertips as he presented it to her. With a devilish grin Edith; instead of taking the candy from his hand, gently bit the piece of butterscotch and pulled it from his fingers. Her lip brushed against Chase’s index finger as she made the move making his heart skip a beat. Feeling emboldened from the battle Chase reached out and took Edith by the forearm.

  “Oh… You wanna play Shonen boy?” She pressed her body against his and looked up into his eyes. She could feel his nervous heartbeat. “I don’t think you’re ready to spar with me.” They stood frozen like that for a few moments. Neither of them willing to admit defeat nor push things any further. Before things got too awkward Edith’s communicator beeped. She pressed her left breast into Chase’s chest to activate it. “Yeah,” she barked while still staring him in the eyes.