by Carl Damen
Norgent nodded, his attention shifting from the present and to the future. "Take as much time as you need."
Jack continued his march to the elevator, aware again that this would probably be his last time seeing this place...
Out of the elevator, down the hall, and into his sanctuary. His tower stood in one corner. It seemed to burn brightly in the darkness, previously unknown significance pushing to the forefront of his mind. For the resurrected Jack, it had been a hobby, a private passion. For the old Jack, the dead Jack, the tower served as his one link to sanity, the tenuous thread tying his mind together, keeping him sane until he got safely back to Lauren.
And now he was back, and now he wondered: why had he forgotten her? Who had taken her? There was still an unknown, a mist of forgetfulness around her heart-shaped face.
Bypass the tower; its purpose had been served. Circle the apartment, gather a bag of essentials: three shirts, two pants, a week's worth of socks and underwear, toothbrush.
And now he was back at the door, staring around at his life, the one he had fought through hell and back to get to. The realization that it had all ended months—years—ago, that it had been nothing more than an illusion, came slowly, and with it came the final dissolution of resurrected Jack's walls of normalcy. The new memories were still there, but the old ones were slowly forcing their way to the surface, and the dead Jack turned his back on the apartment, his second life becoming nothing more than a brief diversion from the one life he had always lived.
A brief sojourn in the lobby, then Dolad and Norgent were back in the elevator. They exited on the fourth floor, wound their way through a huge laundry room, and towards a door in the outer wall. They pushed through, and Jack was unsurprised to find himself in the freezing night air, standing on a mesh-work balcony that narrowed into a catwalk extending over the mall's roof for a quarter of its length, ending in the bloated insect form of a passenger helicopter perched on the building's helipad.
Jack spent a moment looking around, seeing the vague illumination that spilled from Sky Crest, contrasting it with the utter darkness of the city beyond. It could almost be a metaphor for his life right now, he thought, then rejected the notion. Sky Crest had proven to be nothing but a fantasy. He nodded to Norgent, and the they stepped out over the sea of glass, drifts of snow creating stormy whitecaps on the roof below.
The helicopter, rotors slowly spinning, was surrounded by a cadre of E.H.U.D. clad soldiers. Seeing them jogged something in Jack's memory, and he turned to Norgent. "I assume it's okay if I keep in contact with my family?"
"So long as you don't call during takeoffs and landings."
"And my friend, Alice, who was in the car, what happened to her."
Norgent chewed his lip for a moment, then shrugged. "The reports mentioned a woman, aside from Cyd, but honestly, she was kind of forgotten."
"What about Cyd?"
"We obviously wish to speak to her, but as soon as you left, she disappeared. Seems she wasn't so crazy after all."
Jack nodded in confirmation. "She was always pretty level-headed. I'm assuming it was all just an act. Or... maybe something went wrong when they scrubbed her." Jack shuttered at the thought. What mental ramifications were there to erasing a vast swath of someone's personal experience? And who's to say all of the Defender were released as found, as Jack was... Can't think of that, not yet.
The rotors were overhead now, and they were walking between the E.H.U.D.s. Norgent stepped up onto the small boarding ladder on the helicopter's side, then gestured to Jack and the soldiers. "All aboard, folk."
Jack stepped forward, but the soldiers remained motionless. Jack's hand reached out to grab onto the stair rail for balance, and one of the soldiers moved, an arm swinging up to bring an assault rifle to bear. A crack of gunfire, and Norgent was laying inside the helicopter, gasping.
Old reflexes acted, and Jack tried to throw himself to the catwalk, but suddenly found himself unable to move.
The soldier dropped his rifle, then stepped resolutely towards Jack. The other soldiers remained perfectly motionless. The soldier raised his hands, brought them down with his helmet held between them, and there stood Ken, his face split in a wide grin.
"Goddamn, Dolad, didn't think I'd get the chance to see you off. So glad you called."
The mist of forgetfulness dissipated, and there stood Lauren, bright and present in Jack's mind. Another mind intruded onto the memory, the hope of the future.
"You're never going to get back to her, you know that."
Jack lay, gasping and naked, on the concrete floor.
"I'm not too happy with what you did last week. Fucked up a lot of well-laid lans."
Jack swished saliva in his mouth, then spit blood onto the floor. Ken crouched down in front of him, his uniform baggy on his thin frame.
"You listening? I want you to think about her now, remember her as much as you can. Cause after this... she's gone. I told you I'd do it, too. You fuck around with me, I'll fuck around with you." He paused, smiled. "Then I'll fuck around with her."
Jack began to breath heavily, rapidly, anger boiling inside him, his starved body unable to do anything about it. He tried to hold Lauren in his mind, to remember her, to know he could get back to her—
Get back to who? There was someone Jack was supposed to remember, someone he needed to remember... but now there was just a void.
"Itches, doesn't it, knowing you know she's there but not... quite... able... to put your finger on it." He prodded Jack in the head.
Her. A woman... His mother? No. Suzanne? As much as he wanted it to be otherwise, she was dead. Alice?
"Her name's Lauren."
Jack jerked away from the finger, the woman reappearing in his mind, forgotten memories resurfacing—and vanishing.
"Nope, can't have you remembering her. Hell, can't even let you know she's missing..."
Darkness enveloped the form of Lauren, cut off her smiling face... And now she's gone, buddy...
And now she was back. Now Ken was back, smiling out of the carapace of an E.H.U.D. in the cold November wind.
Nothing for it, then; the president would just have to reschedule. Jack pulled his focus inward, built, released. Ken twisted backwards, his armor shifting and hardening to hold him semi-upright. Jack dropped his travel bag, gripped the railing of the catwalk, and jumped backwards, falling to the glass below.
He hit the roof, rolled, began to run. Behind him the rotors whined faster, booted feet clumped over mesh, Norgent grunted and cursed as he thudded down onto the helipad.
Over the other noise, Ken could be heard whooping in excitement.
Blue light filtered up through the glass, pulling Jack's attention momentarily downwards. The mall was deserted, its arterial chasms undulating beneath him. He had to fight off the feeling that he was suspended over a pit, about to fall. Focus, think of those old cartoons—as long as he kept moving, he wouldn't fall. Well, that and the inch thick glass.
Several thudding vibrations passed through the glass, and Jack felt an unsettling ripple that threatened to knock him off balance. He looked back and saw a trio of armored troops running across the glass towards him.
He picked up his pace, hoping to get to street level, to a hiding place, before the soldiers got him. In theory, they weren't a threat on their own; get them far enough away from Ken, and they were just a bunch of confused kids with no idea of where the were or how they had gotten there. Still, better safe than sorry: they had arms and armor. Jack barely had control of his powers.
There was a groan of metal, and then the helicopter's deafening whine shifted in pitch, began to move closer. Ken wasn't going to play for subtly.
Why, Jack thought, why didn't Ken just give him another push, another scrub? Then Jack would have been out of his life forever, none the wiser as to Lauren's existence. The last six months must have been far more real for Ken than they had become to Jack.
The helicopter whined closer.
&n
bsp; Time to really run. The edge of the roof seemed to jump forward as his speed increased. His pants, previously loose and roomy, now tangled with his legs as they pumped harder and farther than seemed physically possible. They were starting to cramp...
Ripples propagated through the glass, diminishing in intensity, telling Jack his pursuers were falling behind. That gave him what, a matter of seconds to decide how to get down from here?
Can't think of that; can't think. Old training was making its way back into his mind, unknown possibilities returning to their rightful place as second nature. Let them return, float away into them... conscious thought sank away until Jack was nothing more than a blank sensory receptor, left bobbing on the surface of the world, trailing a bundle of combat reflexes. Now, up on the edge ledge, seeing the ground, guesstimating the distance, feeling the wind shift as the chopper ascended.
Down, tucked into a ball, one level, two, three. Balls of the feet, forward, left shoulder, jacket catching on the cement, rolling out of it, left shoulder again, shirt ripping, skin coming away, back to the feet, up, running, every joint sore.
The plaza on this side of the mall was bright, the harsh blue halogen lamps illuminating a small cluster of National Guard soldiers. Some must have seen Jack's leap of faith; they were starting to stream towards where he had landed. A moment later they were pointing, open mouthed, and Jack knew his pursuers were still following.
Likely, they didn't tuck and roll. Likely, they came down hard, like children jumping a flight of stairs, standing still for a moment as the armor dealt with their kinetic force, then starting forward, continuing their pursuit.
Beyond the ring of light now. Here, the city was dead.
A wavering cluster of lights appeared in the distance, and Jack instinctively veered towards the subliminal warmth and safety it represented.
Blood was now beginning to dry on his shoulders, tearing his skin even more as the remains of his shirt, now a massive scab, shifted with his movements. He shucked it off over his head, held back a pained yell, and ran on, momentarily too stunned to register the cold.
When the cold finally worked its way into his awareness, when he felt it stab into his bare arms, he found himself lying on the ground, steam pouring from his blueish lips as he twisted around, trying not to freeze to the metal floor.
"Got to be ready for any conditions." Ken stood above him, dressed in a thick parka and rugged-looking boots. God, those boots. What Jack wouldn't give for a pair of good boots...
"Never know where we'll send you..." He was probably insinuating St. Petersburg, Murmansk, Helsinki, somewhere truly cold, not running Philly in khakis and an undershirt...
Sudden blinding light pulled Jack from the memory. A spotlight had turned on overhead, bobbing and moving with him, definitely from a helicopter... The pitch of the engines was wrong, though. He listened for a moment, matched the sound with the engine of a small troop-transport, designed for combat-zone drops.
Jack fell to his left, rolling in the street and under a truck just as machine gun fire buzzed down from overhead, ripping the street apart, cutting into the truck, slicing it nearly in half. He continued to roll, through a snow bank, onto the sidewalk next to an alleyway. A small jump and he was inside, in the darkness, gasping in lungfuls of chill air, his body shuddering as it dealt with the demands of actions long forgotten.
The whine of the first helicopter joined the whir of the second, and underneath that was the stomp of boots as the pursuing soldiers clumped into view, then made a bee line for Jack's hiding place.
He was about to bolt when he heard another sound, saw another light come down the street from the direction he had been running. A small Humvee, spotlight wielding soldier poking out of the top, careened into view, sliding on the damp asphalt as it braked. That must have been the light Jack had seen earlier.
A door swung open and a soldier leapt out, silently yelling and gesticulating. He pointed to the lead E.H.U.D. soldier, then to the divided truck, then yelled something that was lost under the sound of the helicopters. Jack could make out intention now, could almost pick up discreet meanings from the man's mind, felt sudden pain and betrayal as the helicopter opened fire again, reduced the soldier to a twisted pile of meat, cut off the light, the Humvee, cleared the street of any further distractions.
Time to run.
The buildings on either side slowly sloped together, narrowing the alley until Jack could sense his pursuers were in single file. Okay, now was a good as time as any for action. Ideally, Jack would just loose the soldiers, or push inside them to kill them, but he was too out of practice, and Ken was far too strong for him now.
Jack abruptly halted, felt the soldiers close in behind him, leapt up, back, landed on the first soldier, the armor's broad shoulders and protective frill making a passable seat. He hooked his foot under the soldier's rifle, kicked up, grabbed, inverted, drove the barrel down between frill and helmet, wiggled it until he felt the end pass between a confluence of plates at the top of the spine. Normally, this place was unreachable. From within the frill—
Jack stood and fired, felt the bullet rip through bone and into the chest cavity, through the torso and— The armor did its job; the bullet did not pass. Jack flipped from the still-running body, slipped in the snow, let his momentum drop him to one knee, swing around, bring the rifle to bear on the second charging soldier. He braced the rifle, emptied the magazine, dodged just in time as the soldier passed over him, kept running, tripped over the body of its fallen comrade. No time, deal with it later—on to number three.
Just enough time to fall to his back, kick out and take the behemoth's momentums in his leg, roll backwards, pivot the third soldier up and over, letting him fly and fall onto his compatriots.
Jack continued with the roll, curled, came up on his feet, stumbled back. He turned, ran up onto the writhing pile of E.H.U.D.s, leapt over them, came to the end of the alley.
A spotlight burst into being, and Jack came back to himself to realize that another drop-zone transport hovered before him. He fell and rolled just as the spray of bullets ripped into the street.
He had just a moment to think, to focus, as the helicopter rounded on him. As long as he was on the ground, he was vulnerable. Against normals, he could run and hide. Against a Defender, against one of the two men who had trained him, there was no choice but to directly engage. That meant getting to the first helicopter. That meant getting to this one.
Now... now was when he really needed some of his powers. Falling into the empty sense, dancing with the world around him, that wasn't enough; he needed a direct effect.
Bullets exploded around him, and he jumped, dodged, and rolled until he was below his enemy. He dropped into a crouch, focused everything down into himself until there was nothing in the world but his hips, thighs, calves. His muscles began to pull tighter and tighter, bringing the crouch deeper, twisting the meat and sinew into something dense, solid. And then—release.
Jack shot into the air, his legs streaming limp beneath him, ten feet, twenty—metal. His torso hit the underside of the helicopter, his legs swung around the side, gave him enough momentum to flip up and sprawl out on the deck. Bullets continued to churn out of the machine gun for another few seconds before the armored soldier manning the gun noticed his erstwhile passenger.
By then, Jack was up, swinging an elbow at the soldier, feeling his humerus shatter as it took the force of the impact with the helmet. The blow wasn't enough to hurt the soldier, but it was enough to cause him to step back, to walk into open air, to fall from the open side of the helicopter, to land in a churned pile of asphalt and molten lead.
Jack lunged for the machine gun, grunted as his right arm swung limply at his side, pulled the trigger. Compared to the pain of hitting the E.H.U.D. helmet, the gun's recoil didn't seem to have that much force. The soldier below twitched and slowly tried to stand as round after round after round after round rained down on him, but eventually the heavy 50mm darts had the
ir way. Blue gel exploded from the dark suit visible in places beneath the armor, and the soldier died.
Two minds at the edge of Jack's awareness saw the blue spray in the harsh halogen light, felt a sense of invincibility slowly drain away. A third mind, farther out, pounced on the first two, silenced their screams of sanity, pushed them forward.
The two remaining soldiers charged out from the alleyway, only to succumb to Jack's endless barrage.
The third mind seethed, recalculated. Jack was doing better than he expected. Only one thing left to do...
The helicopter jerked violently as the pilot began to wildly swing controls. Jack lurched forward, grabbed the barrel of the gun for support, screamed as the metal seared into his flesh. He gritted his teeth and hung on, even as tears blurred his miraculously whole glasses.