by B N Miles
“Don’t move,” Jared shouted. “Don’t be stupid.”
Templeton stared at him. He had a square jaw, hair cut short and stylish, and wore a dress shirt unbuttoned in the front. His pants were down around his ankles and his cock slowly went soft.
“Templeton,” Lumi yelled over the music. He turned his head and Jared saw the recognition. “If you want to get out of this, you’d better listen.”
Jared walked around the side of the room and found the stereo receiver. He turned the volume down until the speakers were quiet. The pop-pop-pop of gunfire sounded and the room shook ever so slightly.
“What’s going on?” Templeton said. “Lumi, what are you doing here?”
“We’re here about the Worldhopper.”
Jared walked to the Dryad girl. She had her back pressed up against the wall, her knees pulled to her chest. He knelt down and looked into her eyes, though she couldn’t seem to meet his gaze.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She didn’t move or answer.
“You’re safe now. I promise.” He moved away from her and turned back to Templeton. “Where’s Wade?” he asked.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Templeton sneered at them and went to move, but Jared raised his rifle.
“Keep your hands there. And don’t think about using magic. Lumi could crush you into a little ball without breaking a sweat.”
He grunted but his smile didn’t disappear. “What do you think this will accomplish? Do you think my family will care?”
“Where’s Wade?” Jared asked again.
“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“The Worldhopper. I know you have him here.” Jared walked forward, gun raised. “Where the fuck is he?”
“I don’t know.” Templeton stared into his eyes. “You must be Jared Bechtel. My family has been talking about you and your little band. Attacking our outposts, killing our minor members. Do you really think you can stop what we’ve begun? You’re a fly buzzing around the head of a giant.”
Jared shoved the barrel of his gun against Templeton’s forehead. “Last chance. Believe me when I say, I don’t need another excuse to end you here and now. Think about all those outposts I attacked. Do I ever leave survivors?”
Temple’s smile drained away. “We don’t have him.”
“Wrong answer.”
“We don’t!” His voice turned up an octave and his eyes went wide. “I swear, we don’t. He was here, but they moved him three days ago.”
Jared clenched his jaw and glanced up. Cassie was frowning and shook her head.
“I smell his scent in this place,” she said, “but it’s really weak. He might be telling the truth.”
“Where did they take him?” Jared asked.
“I don’t know. They didn’t tell me.”
“You’re lying now.”
“I’m not lying. They didn’t tell me. He was here for a little while but they took him and left a battery behind.”
Jared hesitated. “Where’s the battery?”
“Upstairs. There’s a power room. It’s connected to the main power supply and feeding the whole building.”
Jared took a deep breath and looked at Lumi. She shrugged, not sure what to make of it. If Templeton was lying, then they might lose their chance at saving Wade and getting them all out of this mess—but if he was telling the truth, then that meant this attack was all for nothing.
“Are you talking about the shifter?”
The Dryad’s voice cut through the tension. Jared hesitated then half-turned toward her, keeping his gun trained on Templeton.
She looked up at him with a frown on her lips. She had a black eye and a puffy lip, and Jared felt another surge of anger.
“His name’s Wade,” Jared said. “He’s Cassie’s cousin.”
The Dryad girl looked over at Cassie and chewed her lip. “I saw him around a little bit. They were doing things to him… I don’t know what. Things they do to all of us, I guess, but I haven’t seen him in a couple days at least.”
“You think he’s telling the truth?”
Her face twisted into a look of disgust, despair, and pure rage. “He’s a sick piece of shit but he’d tell the truth if it meant saving his life.”
Jared looked back at Templeton. “Looks like that girl just saved you.”
Relief flooded his expression. “I told you, I wasn’t—”
Jared shot him in the gut. The bullet tore into him and set blood spraying onto the couch. Templeton gasped and groaned then doubled over, hands trying to staunch the bleeding.
“Just kidding. I already told you, I don’t leave people alive.”
Templeton looked up, eyes wide and wild with fear. “Wait. Wait. You don’t have to— You just already—”
Jared shot him in the skull. His head snapped back and brains exploded outward.
Cassie cursed and stepped to the side. She flicked skull and brain fragments off her sleeve and glared. “You could’ve warned me.”
“Sorry.” Jared made a face. “Couldn’t help myself.”
Cassie shook her head then came around the couch and knelt in front of the Dryad. “Come on. We’re getting you out of here. Where are your clothes?”
“He doesn’t let me have any.”
Jared felt another pang of anger but pushed it away as he walked to the door. Down at the far end of the hall in the prison ward, he could see Annie breaking into cells and freeing their occupants. She had a small army gathered around her.
“I’ll find you something. Do you know where he keeps his things?”
“There’s a room. Two doors down.”
“Stay here.” Cassie left and gave Jared an odd, pained look. She disappeared into a side room and came back a minute later with a sweatshirt and a pair of dark sweatpants.
The Dryad girl pulled them on. She had to roll the ankles and the cuffs, but they covered her at least.
“My name’s Tina,” she said.
“Tina, I’m Cassie. I’m Ward’s cousin. This is Jared and Lumi.”
“Nice to meet you,” Jared said.
“We’d better move.” Lumi walked to the door and stepped into the hall. Annie had a small army of released Meta women milling around, some of them looking confused, some angry, but most looked like they wanted to start murdering the first Medlar soldiers they came across.
The last cell door opened and Annie took a couple of steps back as an enormous woman stepped out. Her jumpsuit barely covered her muscular body, and Jared had to do a double-take as he realized she was an actual Ogre. Her skin was a deep green color and her jaw was twice as large as a normal Human, but her eyes were bright blue and piercingly intelligent as she swept her gaze around the space.
“Who’s in charge of this fucking shit?” the Ogre growled.
“Careful,” Tina hissed. “She’s a nasty one.”
Jared stepped up to her and shouldered his rifle. “My name’s Jared Bechtel. We’re here to get you all to safety and to burn this place to the ground.”
The Ogre swung to him, her eyes wide and her hands bunched into fists. “Bechtel?” she growled. “The Magi family?”
“Formerly of the Magi family,” Jared said. “I left that life behind.”
“We fight the Medlars now.” Cassie stepped up beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. He felt strangely thankful for that—otherwise, he was pretty sure the Ogre would’ve attacked, regardless of whether he helped save her or not. Being locked in a cage and experimented on doesn’t exactly help people see nuance.
The Ogre took a step closer, huffing from her mouth, but Tina pushed her way forward, hands held out. “Marnie, it’s okay. They saved me. They killed Templeton.”
“Templeton’s dead?” The Ogre named Marnie narrowed her eyes.
“I shot him in the skull and won’t miss any sleep over it.” Jared gestured toward Annie, and the Demon girl drifted over. She gave Marnie a wicked smile then leaned her head on Jare
d’s shoulder. He felt a surge of pride, his two girls surrounding him, standing before a massive Ogre and talking her down, and he knew he was doing the right thing.
It had uprooted their life, this quest, this desperate fight. Beatrice and her militia were dedicated to killing as many Medlar as possible, and Jared was ready to back her up in the fight—but his main goal was to find Wade and to stop whatever ritual the Medlar had planned. He knew the future of the world hung in the balance, and nothing would ever be the same if they failed.
“I was like you, you know,” Annie said. “Locked in a cage, experimented on—but Jared set me free. There’s a place we can take you, a house where you’ll be safe, where you’ll all be safe.”
Marnie let out a low, rumbling grunt. “Forgive me for finding this hard to believe. Two days ago, they shoved an electrode so far up my ass I felt like my guts were on fire.”
Jared felt Annie tense and stand up straight. “That’s over now. Come with us. Fight with us.”
As if to underscore her words, more gunfire popped in the distance and another explosion rocked the building.
“We need to get moving,” Jared said. “Marnie, can you protect these girls? That gunfire you hear is from another group of women just like you, but they’re fighting now, and they’re winning.”
Marnie gave him one last skeptical look, but she nodded and turned to the other prisoner girls. “Come with me, ladies,” she rumbled. “I’ll gate you all to safety.”
“Annie, take them back to the rendezvous point in the woods. Get them ready for extraction.”
Annie nodded and walked forward. “Ladies, with me.”
The group followed her and Marnie took up the rear. As they filtered back out the way Jared had come, they left the cellblock empty again, the ghosts of their tortures and the ghosts of the dead still lingering in the air. It smelled like bodies, like sweat and misery and blood and pain. Jared hated the Medlar for what they were doing, hated them with every ounce of strength he had left.
“Come now,” he said, voice low. “Let’s find Beatrice and finish this.”
Cassie squeezed his hand. Jessalene took point and led them back through the building, but instead of turning toward the exit, they moved deeper into the structure, heading toward the sound of gunfire.
3
The compound was a maze of twisting corridors, side rooms, and large cavernous supply areas. They passed scientists huddling under desks, civilians cowering behind tables, and a few scattered pockets of Medlar soldier resistance. Jared slaughtered the soldiers and ignored the civilians—he’d let their own consciences weigh on them for the rest of their lives. He led the girls upstairs, up a long flight of concrete steps until he reached the top of the building and slipped out into a long corridor with windowed walls on either side.
The lights flickered and red emergency lights glowed from the ground. Beyond the windows were more rooms filled with row after row of what looked like server racks. Cassie stared inside at one and shook her head.
“What is all this?”
“Computers,” Jessalene said. “I think they’re computers.”
“We’re here for one thing. Leave the computers.”
“But there might be something important on them.” Cassie lingered at a doorway that led into the server space. “We should check, right?”
Jared shook his head. “We have limited time and the battery is more important.”
Cassie reluctantly nodded and followed as Jared pressed onward. The hallway ended with a heavy black blast door with a radiation symbol pasted in glowing neon green in the very center. Jared slung his rifle over his shoulder and pressed his hands together.
“Take a few steps back,” he said, and the girls complied.
It wasn’t hard to break open the door. He had any number of spells at his disposal, and over the last few months of fighting, he’d gotten stronger and stronger. He felt as though his magic was at its peak right now, his body trained and used to the whirling, wild power of the priori as it flowed through him and took shape in the world. Lumi said his Magi Mark was deep black now, like a stain on the universe, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that—most Magi of his station had powerful Marks, but most Magi of his station were also psychotic assholes.
He didn’t feel psychotic. He felt in control of himself and his power for the first time in his life thanks to his girls. They helped him release the Need before it got too bad and began to affect his mind in ways he couldn’t fully comprehend. The Need was an addiction, a gnawing, brain-altering magical state wherein the body was still half-filled with priori and all it wanted to do was either release the magic or get more. It was the curse every Magi had to live with, and most went insane sooner or later—unless they found a way to deal with it.
Jared thought he did. Sleeping with his girls allowed him to clear the magic from his body before it became too much for him. He even noticed that Lumi—his former Medlar girlfriend—seemed brighter and lighter than she had when they’d first met, and he wondered if it was the regular sex and releasing all her Need that helped.
The memgram he needed floated into his mind. It was a variant of the rose-crushing memgram. In this one, a glacier stood on the precipice of nothing, and Jared stepped into that nothing, his body becoming one with the darkness and the quiet, before reaching out with a fist made from the gaps between stars and crushed the glacier into a small, compact ball so dense it began to pull light into its gravity well.
Jared snapped the memgram into place, reached out his hands, and released the magic. The door buckled, twisted, and warped until it turned into a steel ball that glowed red-hot on the ground.
Beyond, the room was filled with wires and machinery. Jared stepped over the ball and looked around. There was a central core surrounded by glass and control panels on all sides. Inside the core was a battery, an unmistakable and priceless artifact that could store priori for future use. Wires were connected to the battery, and Jared guessed this was what Templeton was talking about—they were using the battery to power the compound. Jared guessed Templeton came up here once or twice a week and topped the battery off, which allowed them to run off the grid and to harness free energy—and made Templeton a sort of glorified gas station attendant. The thought made Jared smile, just a little bit.
A man in a white coat stood pressed against the far wall, his eyes wide. “What—what are you doing in here?”
Jared took his rifle off his shoulder but didn’t aim it at the man. Cassie and Jessalene came in after him and looked around the room, poking at control panels, opening up service hatches. Whitecoat twitched and looked like he wanted to tell them to stop, but Jared’s rifle was keeping him at bay.
“How do we turn this thing off?” Jared nodded toward the core.
“It doesn’t—you can’t turn it off.”
“Someone had to be able to get in there and touch that battery, right?”
“Ah, I mean, uh. Yes, yes, they did.”
Jared stared at the man for a long, intimidating moment, though he was secretly having some fun. “Let me inside.”
“I can’t. It’s not safe.”
“For who?” He showed his teeth and the man cringed back.
“I have to power it down and that takes time.”
“What happens if I tear that thing out first?”
“I don’t know. Catastrophic failures. Containment breaches. It would be—”
“I found a door,” Cassie called out. “Right over here.”
“Don’t move,” Jared said to Whitecoat and turned to find Cassie yanking open a hatch in the glass.
Whitecoat groaned behind him but remained cowering against the wall. Jared walked over, kissed Cassie on the cheek, handed her the rifle, then slipped in through the hatch. The battery sat on a pedestal ten feet inside the core containment area, and the place felt warmer than the air on the outside had. He approached and could taste the magic in the air. Jared wondered how much priori Templeton would ha
ve had to channel into this thing to keep it running like this.
Jared thought about how best to disconnect it and then chose the simplest route. He snapped a memgram into place—lightning slicing through a mountain—and slashed in the air with his hand. The cables connected to the battery broke apart and fell away.
Sirens blared and lights flashed. Jared grabbed the battery—but it was burning hot and he had to juggle it hand to hand for a moment. When it was cooled enough, he stashed it away in a satchel he had lying against his back then climbed out of the hatch. Cassie handed over his rifle.
“We should probably get out of here,” she said as Whitecoat ran to the nearest control panel and began to furiously press buttons. “He looks upset.”
“I’m pretty sure this place is going to blow up,” Jessalene said, squinting at a monitor. “Or maybe not. I’m not sure actually.”
“Let’s get Beatrice and move.” Jared walked to the door but Whitecoat kept typing, pulling levers, flipping switches, and sweating like a maniac. “Hey, if you want to survive this, you should probably run.”
“There are people in here.” His eyes were wide. “I can avert the worst of it. I think I can keep the place from going up.”
“Good luck with that.” Jared left the room and didn’t spare the man a second glance.
The lights were out except for the emergency LEDs in the floor. The server farm was quiet and dead, and he realized there had been a steady hum of cooling fans, now gone completely. He used a light spell to guide their way back down the steps and through more black, silent corridors.
Gunfire popped sporadically, but it sounded like the main battle was over. As Jared moved through the building, he found more civilians, more people huddled behind desks, hiding in empty rooms, terror etched in their faces, and he wondered how much they all knew. If they understood that the Medlar were experimenting on people—on real, live people—then they all deserved to die in a fiery explosion. But if some of them were ignorant and were only here to do a job, then it might not be so simple.
As they moved to the far side of the compound, there were fewer people but more signs of a struggle: blackened walls where explosives went off, bullet holes, bodies on the ground, blood splattered on walls. He pushed through a side door and stepped into a large, open space—and found a line of soldiers on their knees, hands behind their heads, and Beatrice and her women standing behind them with rifles like they were about to execute the lot.