Free Radicals

by S E Zbasnik

  The commander laughed and jabbed his elbow to Orn, “The drunk.”

  “Hey! That’s racist!”

  “Or the ancient miser?” he continued to the goblin. Dabore waved his hands not wanting to have a thing to do with this. Though, if there weren’t so many guns involved, he would have pointed out that he was actually only 37 and donated 10% of his profits to charity every quarter.

  A look transferred from Taliesin to his sister still gripping onto the man’s wrist as it wedged a knife above her collar bone. Variel seemed to shift back, as if she were plotting her aim. Even Orn got the hint and listed to one side to pick up a wad of glass in his hand, grateful for his glove obsession.

  The air grew thick with tension, every muscle taut, every eye strained while waiting for someone to push this into sudden death. As the band was about to snap, a voice chattered across the air. “Stand down! Stand down!”

  Everyone checked their PALMs looking to see who got the call. It was rather awkward as each realized they were supposed to remain on high alert and not check for messages.

  “Captain Kim, do not, I repeat, do not engage her,” the man — apparently named Kim — pushed his hand against his thigh, opening the line.

  “Ma’am?”

  “I want her alive, do you hear me? Alive.” It was the same voice that dogged Variel through the pleasure palace and then mocked her in the promenade. A voice that could etch glass.

  “What do we need an elf for?” Kim asked, his grip tightening.

  “Not the elf, the human woman. Bring me the elf.”

  “That is not an option,” Variel said before Taliesin could, lifting her gun again. Orn used the distraction to inch forward, his fist full of glass.

  The disembodied voice crowed, “If you do not step back now ‘Captain,’ he will kill her. How certain is your aim?”

  She eyed up the two men and one woman, both sporting rifles and then looked to her unarmed elf and the dwarf acting as if he could do anything with a bunch of thin shards of glass. It was a no win situation all the way. “You’re not leaving with her,” Variel said, even as she lowered her weapon. She tried to brush off the yellow glare from beside her.

  “It is not her I want. Come,” the voice continued from the man’s hand, “come and find me. Oh, but I believe we should stay in contact.”

  “Fat chance of that. I destroyed every one of your little chips,” Variel said, clouds hovering over her head. Negotiating wasn’t really her strong suit.

  “I see. Kim!”

  “Yes, Ma’am!” The idiot probably would have saluted a voice if his hands weren’t full of elf.

  “Give her a communication chip.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Cut off someone’s hand and give it to her!” the voice raved so, one could swear spittle flew up from his hand.

  “Yes ma’am. Spelling!” He ordered a bit too quickly for Spelling’s liking as he passed Brena to the woman, who butted the barrel of her gun under the elf’s chin. With far too little of a pause, Kim laid Spelling’s hand across the counter and he said, “For the race.”

  “For the race,” Spelling muttered as a blade sliced through his hand. Blood drained down the counter, the red light reflecting back upon the girl still lying hidden. Spelling tried to bite back his scream, but passed out instead.

  Kim picked up the bloody stump and pushed the PALM on, saying “Testing, one two three” before throwing it at Variel.

  She caught the macabre thing, not saying a word as Kim grabbed back onto Brena, the blood soaked knife again at her throat. Only the disembodied voice responded, this time from the hand in Variel’s clutch and echoed in the one trying to kill Brena, “If you turn this off or bring any backup, I will kill her. Now, Kim, bring me the girl!”

  Kim eyed Variel and she stepped away from the door. Taliesin gritted his teeth, but stepped back as well. As he passed them both, the female terrorist asked, “What about Spelling?”

  “He has served his race, leave him,” Kim said. Without looking back, he drug Brena with him. The woman only cast a single gaze upon the man bleeding to death before following her commanding officer.

  Variel sagged as they vanished down the hallway, every fiber of her being wanting to give chase, but she knew she was being watched. “Orn?”

  “Yeah?” he called to her.

  “You okay?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Okay, okay,” she yanked off the helmet and tried to wipe away the sweat pouring down her face. As she did she got the full eyeful from Taliesin. “I’ll get her. I swear.” She felt the curious gaze of her pilot and added, “She’s still a paying customer.”

  Taliesin growled, an honest growl as if he were about to rip someone’s throat out with his extra row of jagged teeth and he whispered, “He should not have taken her.”

  “I…gods I could use a bird’s eye view. Anyone know where this batshit lady is?”

  The batshit lady piped up from the severed hand still in Variel’s sticky fingers, “You should have said something. I can provide you explicit directions.” Variel almost threw the damn thing against the wall, but gripped it tighter knowing it was one piece of keeping Brena alive.

  “Okay, then start talking,” she said as she fought through a rise of bile in her throat.

  But Taliesin placed a hand upon her and whispered in her ear, “I will follow behind you.”

  “No,” Variel shook her head. “Could you repeat that last bit?” she shouted aloud to the severed hand. Taliesin narrowed his eyes, unhappy he couldn’t protect anyone. “Look, this lady is fucking crazy but there’s only one thing she respects.”

  “Oh?”

  “Humans. She sees any elf and she’ll shoot on sight. I have to go in alone.”

  “It is a trap,” he said, wanting to break everything in the room and also hold her for a moment. Instead, he stood with his hands dangling limply.

  “I know,” she said, glaring at the severed hand still beeping instructions she ignored.

  “Does that somehow make it better?”

  Variel’s lips rose in a forlorn smile and she ordered him loud enough for the others to hear, “Taliesin, stay and assist Orn with any of the injuries.” She didn’t want to draw any more attention to those in serious pain, “It sounds as if the cavalry is on its way.”

  Orn nodded, “Yep. What’s a cavalry?”

  Taliesin glared at the man whose hand Variel still held, “What do we do with him?”

  “Bandages, ligature, the usual.”

  “A bullet would be easier.”

  “He’s gonna be answering a whole lot of questions from some very scary people soon. Rather him than me,” Variel said, trying to put from her mind how she’d talk her way out of this mess. A problem for another day, assuming there was another day.

  “Right. I’ll bring Brena back. I swear,” she said, checking the low battery on her gun. Not enough if she got into a real fire fight, but every nerve in her body said it’d be smooth sailing to the security booth. This lady wanted her there.

  “I…know,” Taliesin finished, letting his private thoughts die in a fire of ellipses.

  She yanked the strap off her rifle and used it to knot up the hand so it could dangle off her neck. “Stay safe.” Without stopping for an awkward goodbye not-kiss, she jogged after the men carrying Brena.

  “That was my line,” Taliesin muttered to her retreating form.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Despite her assurances to Taliesin, Variel expected some resistance as she jogged through the hauntingly empty halls. Yet, whenever she’d get a whiff of black armor around the corner, by the time she’d get near they’d be fading into the distance. Probably running to try and stop the coming forces. Even barricaded, they didn’t stand long against the tide of Corps from the rest of Whisper.

  “What was the point of this?” Variel wondered aloud as she stopped before a drinking/chair recharge fountain.

  “Whisper belongs to the people,”
the voice chirped from the hand swiping a trail of blood across her armor’s chest plate.

  Variel jumped an inch and then groaned. She forgot about the damn thing, “And you speak for all ‘the people,’ then?”

  “It was taken from us, by the undesirables, the thugs…The hooligans who infest this galaxy with untested technology and uncontrolled disease.”

  “Hooligans?” Variel mouthed without putting breath behind it. Who says hooligan anymore? Are we all going to the circle dance after raising a barn, too? But the ranting woman didn’t acknowledge Variel’s silence, a manifesto about gods knew what raging from the hand. She wished she could push the mute button, but Variel tried to mentally part the words buzzing around her head as she eyed up the platform.

  “Hey, hey! What floor is the security booth?” she asked, trying to fight through the rant, but there was no breaking the unmoveable wall. “Great.” She did what almost no one in the history of travel has done, consulted the station map upon the wall.

  “I’m somewhere in the here range,” she muttered aloud, “so that would put a security office either…crap, is that a tiny triangle or a tipped party hat? Possibly a ‘Play’ symbol for media nodes? Whoever designed this must have been given specific instructions by his deity of choice to ensure a state of constant confusion. All hail Losto, the god of the astray.”

  “Talking to yourself isn’t a healthy state of being,” a new voice chirped from her hand and not the one hanging off her neck.

  Variel bumped her PALM, then brought it to her lips as she whispered, “Ferra? That you?”

  “What?! Speak up! I’m near a…what is that, Monde?”

  “Very loud, very dangerous looking machine,” the orc’s voice echoed over the sound of what wasn’t static, apparently.

  “I’m under surveillance, can’t talk louder,” Variel said as she realized the rant had died away.

  “Give me some credit,” Ferra said, “she won’t hear a damn thing on this channel. The pitch of the signal is in an untransmittable range.”

  “Okay,” Variel said, not understanding a word, “Did Orn fill you in?”

  “Fucking crazy lady who saws off arms kidnapped Brena and you’re off to rescue the princess.”

  “Close enough, but I can’t find the security office she’s dragging her to.”

  “What would you do without me?” Ferra asked as the sound of her single hand pecking at keys filtered through the line, “Nope, nope, nope, ah! There ya are!”

  “I already know where I am,” Variel said, tapping her finger against the gun casing. Time was wasting and if the corps burst through before she got to Brena…

  “Not you you, her you. Get on the platform and go three decks up, then a right and you’ll see a staircase. She’s hiding up…Monde! Don’t touch that!”

  “I was not about to…” her doc complained over the open line.

  “You break that seal and the entire deck floods in radiation,” Ferra chided as if she were speaking to a five year old.

  “I had no intentions of…why would that be located here?” he asked, probably tempted to touch it now.

  “Like I know what floats through the cerebellum goo of an NC. Variel, what are you waiting for?”

  “I was curious if I’d have to concern myself with radiation poisoning,” she said even as she stepped onto the platform and pushed the 5 button.

  “Ha ha, get your ass moving.”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Variel said and the platform, big enough to hold a party of eight (or three and a half trolls) rose slowly into the air. This is probably when one half of the elevator will shudder, then snap. I’ll have to jump to the side to catch myself before plummeting to my death. Or, the door will open to a swarm of black uniforms and I’ll fight my way out. Another worst case scenario floated through her head as light music with wind chimes and birdcalls filtered through the air. What about space bees, that lay their young inside your brain and when they hatch control your every move? That’d be new for an elevator.

  Against all narrative logic, the platform crested to a gentle bong and the door opened to an empty hallway. “Ferra, you there?”

  “No, I went home. Left, Monde! What do you want?”

  “I’m here,” Variel said, wishing she had the elf in her ear. Talking to her gun made her feel silly even if the gun was talking back.

  “Bully for you.”

  Variel sighed, “Updates? Intel? Suggestions?”

  “I’d suggest you go in there and kill people. In my professional opinion.”

  “What are you and Monde doing?”

  “Oh you know, the usual; running through the gnome holes, deactivating the security lock down, occasionally exploding decks and taking some of the bastards down with us.”

  “Exploding?”

  The elf’s chipper voice paused as she handled some tricky bit of code, “Gotcha! Try and survive without gills, fuckers. Oh, yeah, you’re down a couple explody thingies.”

  “Which explody thingies? Ferra? What are you throwing around down there?”

  “No time to check, but it’s sure scaring the shit out of ‘em. I tapped the camera in the office. Brena’s there, looking as cold as an icicle and so’s your good friend. I’m surprised she hasn’t—“

  “I see you’ve made it to the festivities. Come in, come in,” the voice beeped across the disembodied hand.

  “So fucking creepy,” Ferra answered back. “Another door open. Run, Monde!” Crashes thundered across Variel’s flashing hand as she steadied her own nerves.

  This floor was clearly not meant for the denizens of Whisper. Utilitarian walls, gun metal and decorated with safety signs about not decompressing sections with people still inside, enclosed around her. The area was tinier than it should be, hinting at vast expanses hidden behind the walls. Variel shifted the gun up and crept forward.

  “Ferra?” The slap of hands plopping onto the grating was all that answered back. “Right, on my own for now. What else is new?”

  She glanced up the twin staircases, each leading to a booth overlooking a vista of the station. Variel walked up to the wall and climbed the safety rail to stare down the endless drop. Whoever built this section had a real god complex, and that speckle of grey surrounded by bits of red down at the bottom was probably him. She eyed up the security booth again and saw the jagged edges framing a very obvious hole.

  Slipping from her perch, she watched two black uniforms dash down the stairs. They froze as did she, but only for a second. Without looking back, they blew past her, down the platform and probably towards whatever havoc her team were wreaking. Strange to think of them as her team; she was sleeping with the only disciplined and trained one.

  “Okay, looks like it’s just you and me,” Variel said to herself.

  “Then get in here already. Killing time will get others killed,” the hand said.

  Variel shuddered, forgetting the stupid thing again. Ferra was right, she did talk to herself too much. Climbing the unfinished stairs, her still live PALM ran along the wall. Cold. No NC fields in place. Either whoever operated this didn’t need them or she shut them down. Good.

  As Variel came to the door, she paused and steadied her shoulders. Blowing her breath out once, she reached for the door pad when the portal opened. Variel stumbled back, not expecting such an open invitation. She’d been figuring on having to blow out a panel or employ excess force. Hairs she didn’t know she had rose as she stepped into the security office. The lighting wasn’t low, unlike the rest of the station Party-23 claimed. It was raised to an almost blinding white light while a shadow and her captive danced before the control panel. To Variel’s left hung the wall of screens, each displaying a tiny section of the station. On the far top right she saw fire spitting through one door. In another, a pair of corps in their steel blues marched past a hallway.

  “I’m here,” Variel said to the woman watching the silence below. Where there should be chaos as the life of the galaxy shopped and ate, worked and pla
yed, there was only stillness. It was the wrong kind of beauty, like a corpse frozen in the ice.

  “So you are,” the voice crackled not only from the woman before her but also the hand dangling off her neck.

  “Brena, are you all right?” Variel asked, ignoring the crazy woman.

  The woman rose and turned, dragging Brena with her. A new knife hovered near the elf’s kidneys. Or where a human’s kidneys would be. For all Variel knew, the woman would stab through an elf’s smug bladder. “Tsk tsk, we should begin with introductions first.”

  “Hi, you’re the one holding a member of my crew hostage.”

  “And you’re the one who slaughtered half of my family.”

  “Displeased to meet you,” Variel said, her gun not quavering as the woman began to slide back and forth with Brena.

  Her head tipped to the side as if she couldn’t figure Variel out. “Are you not curious why I let you come here? Why I did not kill this weakling from the start?”

  “Not really, but I’m pretty sure you’re gonna fucking tell me anyway.”

  She didn’t laugh, never a good sign. Even most super villains would get a chuckle or two out of that. The breathing through the leader’s helmet slowed. With her free hand, she momentarily let go of Brena and cracked the seal on her helmet. The face that appeared was not one Variel expected. Tan skin with narrow eyes and a nose that could get lost on a flat face. With the slick black hair and glass cutting cheekbones it all marked her as a member of the Snake Crest. But that was insane, Snakes never bothered with Party-23. They didn’t need to. They already controlled most of Arda.

  The Snake dropped her helmet, cracking it across the metal grating. Grabbing onto Brena’s arm, she said, “I want you.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m spoken for,” Variel quipped, regretting the words the second they left her mouth.

  “Oh yes, I figured it out,” the Snake nodded slowly. “You were the one in that despicable place. Sin, while abominable, is something one needs to overlook when building a utopia.”

  “I don’t think you know what any of those words mean,” Variel said. Brena’s yellow eyes landed on her, and she felt a ping of shame. Gods, she needed to stop spending so much time with Orn. “Look, whatever you want from me, we’ll talk about it after you give me the elf.”