by Russ Linton
Then she's gone. Out into the open air, the cannons already blazing.
Fuck. This is not my brightest moment.
"Cyrus! Get yer ass over here!" Hound is trying to patch Danger. He shakes the dust off a wad of gauze and tosses it to the ground with a cry of anguish. "Hang in there, Reggie! Cyrus'll patch it up. Just fight, soldier! Eric, get the goddamn data!"
Gunfire and explosions echo outside. Everybody is staring in disbelief at the fallen Augment. Jackie stands, her knees shaking. Even Ember has given up trying to pummel Cyrus. I don't care what sort of Kung Fu bullshit this guy has, he's going to fucking help.
I stumble toward him and seize his arm. "You're the healer on this raid, bitch. Make it happen."
Nobody can understand. Death could never find Danger even if he had an ankle bracelet. So many times, he'd sensed it coming and this time, he walked right in front and took the hit. With Cyrus here though, maybe that's why he did it.
Hound is up and righting the toppled operating table for his fallen friend. He trashes the surviving supply cabinets and counters. He might not believe Cyrus is going to help and he's planning to play field medic.
But this isn't a flesh wound. I squat beside Danger. The smell is horrendous. In through his back, exploding out the front, that's how the round had traveled. The mess of flesh is unidentifiable and streaked with tissue running the gamut of every organ once beneath his dark skin. He struggles with each breath.
"Why?" I ask. I'm not worth a man's life. I'm not one of his soldier pals or even a distant friend. He didn't have any real commitment to my Dad. And his powers, they seemed to guide his every move. He could've lived forever maybe.
He can't answer as more blood spurts with a cough. All he can do is turn his head. His eyes land on Mom.
She's still on her side of the room, just past Wormfood. She's no longer transfixed by the odd hatch in the wall. She'd facing everybody but studying the ground, intent on not looking us in the eye.
"The woman in the armor...I couldn't control her." She says softly.
Cyrus mutters some sort of curse in Arabic. He kneels, his hands ignite, and Danger makes one agonizing move. With a shaky aim, he puts his gun to Cyrus' face, pressed close to the center of his mustache.
I'm confused, trapped between my mother's guilt and my own at the refusal from the man who saved my life to keep his own. What the fuck is happening?
Cyrus and Danger lock eyes. They peer into one another until Danger, his mouth drawn tight, grunts and casually spits blood to the side. An internal debate rages inside Cyrus. An oath he'd probably taken won't let him watch somebody he could save just die. But what if they wanted to? Can he force him to live?
Cyrus stands and turns his back.
Hound roars and swats the tray he'd been prepping to the ground. Jackie and I both jump with the chaotic crash. He vaults the operating table and Cyrus has just enough time to turn before Hound drives him painfully against a countertop.
"You will do your fucking job, traitor! Heal that goddamn soldier! I ain't about to lose him, you hear me?" Cyrus flops limply in Hound's grip. He isn't fighting, and he's doing everything he can to not engage. A roar of rage and Hound tosses him to the ground. He presses his gun against the back of Cyrus' skull, execution style.
"Don't!" I shout.
Hound's lip curls and he digs the barrel into Cyrus' neck.
"He wants to die." Mom's quiet voice fills the room. "He's ready. This was the only way. He couldn't do it himself. The compulsion of his power kept him from it."
Danger signals his agreement by letting his gun hand drop. Sorrow etches his features and overrides the pain. Tears drip from the corner of his eyes.
"I want to be free of this," he croaks. "Free." Hound falls at his side and struggles to keep back his own tears. Danger turns his head and fixes his dying gaze on me. "Don't waste the life you got. What's done is done."
Danger lets the gun fall and digs through his pocket, the shaking of his hand turned to violent tremors. I’m about to help when he produces a compact memory card held between trembling fingers. He forces his grimace into a smile and offers it to Jackie.
Jackie gives a mournful sigh, but she doesn’t move, her face wracked with sorrow. I take the card and hold it out to her. She shakes her head, refusing whatever it is he’s offered.
We stay at his side until he passes. It isn't much longer. I don't know when to move until Hound reaches up and yanks the dog tags off his neck. He rises and flares his nostrils, bloodshot eyes swimming.
"Eric, you get that data yet?"
"Uh, sure," Eric whispers. "Almost done."
"That bird on standby? You get us a ride?"
"Uh, yeah, no problem," Eric replies, every word subdued.
Hound nods vacantly and heads for the hallway. "Gonna see if Chroma's done," he says.
"What about Cyrus?" I call out.
"Don't think yer Mom'll let him hurt ya," Hound mutters.
"No, what do we do with him?"
Without turning, he says, "Don't care what happens to that son of a bitch."
Outside the gunfire has quieted. I know the sound of the jets and each weapon, and they've all stopped too. Multi-role Augment Neutralization and Threat Intervention System. It's the and part which does it. No threat too great or too small. A lightly armored team like Ayana's security squad, no matter how well trained, wouldn't stand a chance.
"Jackie, you should go get your clothes," Ember says, stopping to pick up Danger's discarded gun and follow Hound through the exit. "I'll be right back. If there's some motherfucker to shoot after all this."
Jackie glances from face to face. She's been quiet throughout. No screaming, no running for the exits, I suspect she's got more experience dealing with the chaos than I know. But the uncertainty she shows now feels misplaced. Her robe shredded, she's got it partly under control. There's nothing showing, but it takes two clenched fists for it to work. Concern at everyone staring is the last thing on her mind.
"I thought we were going to die when the new Beetle showed. I really did," she says, nodding to herself as though confirming the thoughts are valid.
"We're fine. You're fine." Ember tries a pained smile.
"I really thought we would," she says. She looks down at the ground. "Someone had to do something."
An empty syringe lies in the rubble.
CHAPTER 49
JACKIE LIES ON THE operating table while Cyrus checks her over. She seems fine. There isn't any uncontrollable halo of fire, no muscular swelling of her limbs, no dramatic bolt from the high-altitude skies infusing her with otherworldly power. She looks like any normal human being should, given the events—frightened, though not uncontrollably so. I wonder what her story is and how she's both come to be here and accept the chaos her mother's involved with.
Cyrus has placed a sheet over Danger's body. Before that, he'd closed the Augment's eyes and lowered his jaw while muttering something in what I guess is Arabic. A prayer of sorts followed. I didn't press my palms together like he did but lowered my head all the same.
Who Danger would've spoken to, I'm not sure. Allah, God, Buddha, I didn't know him well enough. Who is the God which Augments answer to? A guy here who could sense when death reached out for him to send him to whatever heaven or hell, a guy who had to choose to go and not be taken. What sort of divine power controls his afterlife?
Eric barely budged when Jackie made her announcement. He's deep in the code trance, hacking his way through Nanomech's security. I could help him. If he hits any snags, I will, but I get the feeling he's retreated into a safe space not just to finish the mission but to maintain his own sanity.
Watching the vulnerable girl lying on the table and Eric working away, the rank hubris of the last few months drains out of me. Push came to shove, and I made the wrong choice. Martin, who could've been some masked billionaire vigilante after his parents died instead went on to help others. Emily, while she may not have had much of a choice, dedicat
ed herself to stemming the tide of disease and outbreaks wrecking collapsing cities back home.
I tried to convince myself I was containing a plague of a different kind. And maybe I was, but at what cost?
Mom's joined us. The lab is wrecked, but Cyrus has dug up what he could. He can heal, sure, and even temporarily shut off whatever changes Jackie might face, but he seems to need at least the basic equipment.
"Maybe I should get Ember," I say.
Jackie disagrees. Mom takes her hand and gives her a warm smile. The gesture doesn't seem to make her feel any better. Disturbed, really.
I can't blame her. Mom's appearance has gone from shocking to an uncanny middle ground. Her hair has come back in to hide the metal studs and interface left by Killcreek, though they occasionally poke through like emerging horns. She looks tired, as if she's been working all day and night in her sleep. Charlotte's crazed look isn't there but every so often when the light strikes her just right, her eyes gleam, mercurial and infinite.
I take Mom's other hand as Jackie slips out of her grasp. "Will she be okay?" I ask. "Don't tell me you've got bodies buried under here from your failed experiments. Because if something happens to her."
Cyrus shoots me a cautious look and Mom's grip tightens. The threat was a pre-prepared response. I don't feel the sting I used to when thinking of this moment. Even all the hatred I'd built up about Cyrus has cooled in the aftermath of my catastrophic fuck up.
"She's in the process, her body assimilating the new genetic material. Every case has been different so far. In the beginning, we had some whose abilities were transient or subsurface powers, perhaps latent. They needed a maintenance dose delivered through nasal inhalation to continue. Now, the powers manifest right away but aren't always obvious." Despite all that's happened, he manages a reassuring, bedside manner. "And no, she won't die. I'll make sure of that."
"Will she want to live?" My mouth is once again acting before my brain. It's hard not to think the worst with Danger's body not far away.
"Seriously?" Jackie says.
"Things will be different for her," Mom says. "She'll need to learn to control whatever gifts she's been given. After that, she won't have any limits. She'll be able to right wrongs. Stop the needless suffering."
Mom isn't speaking about Jackie anymore. Remembering the last time we met in her remote psychic world with Dad standing atop the cliffs, comprehension of what she's referring to is close, but I deny it. I keep that particular door shut tight. For a distraction, I join Eric.
"Almost got what you need?"
"Oh yeah, crackalackin," he says.
"Goin' junior high for that call out?" I try to sound casual and not drained.
"More like Elementary. Xamse's usually got primo security but this machine isn't hardwired, so somebody got lazy. There was a transfer of data at one point, several months back, then they cut the cord. Air gap to keep it tight."
"And keep your girlfriend away," I add. Eric doesn't acknowledge or deny. "When was that data transfer?"
"By the looks of it?" He taps out a few commands and gives the monitor a whack as the pixels scramble. "Three months or so after...well after I last saw you."
Nobody wants to mention Detroit. Obsessed with the event as I have been, I don't even want to go there anymore. Figuring out what I feel about Eric and everyone else involved is going to take time. Three months in a jail cell certainly wasn't a great start...
"Three months?" I suddenly ask.
Eric nods.
I find a blistered edge of glass and stare into the rough surface. Cyrus goes to Xamse right after the fire. He knows where I am, all of us. For three months, he keeps me in his pocket by leaving me in a cell, one he could've sprung me from any minute. He's got to have time to set all this up. To run tests maybe and get his own Augment production line going. They needed time, knowledge, and a starting point.
Can you even slap together an Augment program in three months?
"Cyrus," I say. I don't get a verbal response, but I continue anyway. "How much did you know about the program? You knew how to do all this?"
He's reluctant to answer. Jackie chimes in. "Don't tell me I'm just another experiment, Doc."
"Once I figured out my powers could shut it down, that was the starting point."
I pick through the rubble to the center of the room. "That wasn't when you went to speak to Xamse. That was before, in the hospital where Dad confronted you. You knew even then you could stop him. You'd already started reverse engineering things, hadn't you?"
He sighs. "I need to concentrate on my patient."
Jackie looks nervously between us. "Once again, you aren't helping here."
There's that spark of rage. No way this guy gets out of answering my fucking questions. Not now.
"You'd begun to figure out the process on your own. Maybe you used some of the leaks which gave us the Djinn. Shortwave would've had access to those, wouldn't he? All your talk about ending war, shutting down the United States war machine, and you wanted to make an army of your own, am I right?" He continues fussing with equipment with what could be bullshit stalling. He's hooked up a heart monitor, and now he's prepping a saline bag with ever impatient motions, growing more abrupt as my volume raises. "Am I right?!"
He snares the bag on an IV tree and tosses the lines to the table where Jackie jolts, watching the two of us with extreme annoyance. "Confronted or destroyed, it had to happen. It was inevitable. Until the Detroit event, we knew we didn't have a chance without Augments of our own."
"So an army for Shortwave or a hostile takeover for a mini-dictator, it didn't matter to you how it got done?" I shout.
"Don't you dare question my methods," he snarls, his eyes leveling the accusations I'd been steeling myself for only a few minutes ago. "We had to share the powers to break free of a crushing global hegemony! A new CM protocol had to be developed!"
The accusatory glare withers. He's fucked up somehow. What did he say? CM protocol? Crimson Mask.
Mom's near. I don't need to look to know she's stepped in behind me to block my view of the far end of the room. The place of sanctuary from my assault.
"Spencer, don't worry. I am taking care of this," she says. She struggles to sound like she's in control. "We'll be together again, soon."
Realization dawns on Jackie's face as she looks past where Mom stands. She's recognized a truth we share. I've known too, but I've been avoiding it.
In a former life, I used to spend my time lying in an escape pod, pretending it was a coffin. Tight, confined, accessible by a single hatch, it was one last place where you surrender. I'd lost hope then, too. Just like when I saw my father.
I don't want to turn around.
Jackie slides off the table. She takes hold of my hand. I can't explain why but I let her. She's been mostly quiet, but she feels like the most grounded person at this moment. There's a balance to her which I desperately want to share. Acceptance, understanding, she's come here along a similar path. Her mother an Augment and I'm guessing her father a mere mortal, she can help me cope. I don't do the fate thing, but there's a reason she's here.
Cyrus is no longer angry. Withdrawn and sullen, he senses the inevitability of what's to come. Mom's stricken face watches as we move across the room. The chrome hatch in the wall beckons.
"Spencer, please. You don't need to see. It'll all be fine again, soon."
We ignore her anguished cries. I'd truly been stuck in one tragic experience. A recursive loop which a subroutine of revenge couldn't escape, only nest deeper and deeper. It required me to not deal with this. To deny the loss and pretend I could make a change.
"Xamse," begins Cyrus, a weak attempt to prepare me, "received one thing for payment for his services rendered to the government."
How desperate did the U.S. government have to be to doom everyone else? Did they assume he'd be unable to untangle the genetic code on his own? Were they under the impression the slick businessman would share any secrets g
ained? Did they think he'd merely asked them for a trophy?
I reach for the lever, the locking handle which has sealed the space beyond. Jackie squeezes my hand. Her fascination with this isn't clear, neither is mine. Do I have to look to move forward?
"Spencer, no."
The metal slab glides outward. Frigid air sighs across my skin like a final breath. I reach out to the white cloth draped over him with a trembling hand.
"You don't have to suffer through this again." Mom claws desperately at my hand. I refuse to turn around.
Jackie draws back the sheet.
Dad. He's been cleaned up. His skin is pale and waxy, drained of all color. Despite the time, he looks like he could stand and walk away. Without thinking I touch his forehead, ice cold and hard. I don't need to pull away the sheet and see his chest. I know the damage.
Mom's mouth works in a silent scream. Tears stream uncontrollably. Shivering she reaches down to hold his cheeks. She saw him fall but not afterward like I did. Her new powers exhausted by saving me from myself, she'd had to race down to the theater floor on foot where Cyrus intercepted her.
"He has been treated with respect," Cyrus says, trying to rationalize this.
I don't care about him anymore. I place an arm around Mom as she sobs into Dad's chest. We'd both refused to deal with this. Anger and grief had driven us to places we'd never wanted to go. On the island, she'd attempted to recreate him in the same bizarre manner Charlotte had clung to her thread of life. Given her experiences, I might have done the same.
We grieve. It's too short because this isn't the place or time, but it never will be. It's never right, I realize, only a burden you have to find a way to cope with. Hopefully not destructive and shortsighted like the path I'd chosen.
The hiss of the Battle Armor beginning to close takes a second to penetrate. Startled, I almost panic. But I can only shake my head in dismay.
Cyrus thinks he's found his escape route. Even if he could launch, Mom could likely convince him to fly right back. Then there's the prototype outside helmed by two layers of AI psychosis. Then there are the biometrics which will prevent his ever activating any of the systems in the first place.
