Firebreak

by Nicole Kornher-Stace

  One of the gun-arms discharges and blows out the street right in front of 06 and 22. For a second they’re silhouetted against a wave of searing blue fire like something out of a goddamn movie.

  06 doesn’t miss a beat. She picks up a chunk of the rubble and hurls it like a snowball, a hundred feet if it’s an inch, and lands it in the barrel of the first mech’s second gun-arm just as it readies to fire. There’s a low detonation, then a louder one, and the point mech drops to its knees, burning.

  I try to narrate this, but it’s hard. Everything moves so fast. Specifically, 06 and 22 move so fast. When they open up to top speed, they literally blur. Especially what with the street now being on fire, it’s a little hard to make out. I tell the crowd what I can.

  “I think 06 just jumped off the downed mech and swung herself up onto the gun-arm of another one and it shot off the gun-arm trying to aim at her?” I say, but that’s just based on movement patterns and the fact that I can’t see 06 on the ground anymore, and the fact that something obviously drags that gun-arm down and then it gets shot off and tumbles to the street.

  “22 just got up onto the third mech and took out the pilot module,” I say, but I don’t catch the process between standing on the street a hundred feet from the mech and someone in the pilot module choking off a scream as 22 withdraws his sword.

  One mech left, something visibly wrong with its gun-arms—the cannons are having a hard time spinning up, or there’s something else lodged in the barrel, I don’t know—and 06 darts sideways toward an object she’s spotted at the side of the street, near the remains of a barricade.

  That’s when I hear the helicopter.

  It’s coming in from the other direction, fast and low from the sound of it, slaloming between the buildings. A few people burst past me and out into the street, firing into the sky.

  They’re just wasting ammo. The helicopter isn’t within range yet. It’s not even in sight. They don’t care. They’re just dying to feel useful. I can certainly appreciate the sentiment.

  Thing is, I’m having the same problem. If these people get themselves killed, I’m going to feel like I personally let 06 and 22 down, and that is not even remotely an option.

  “Get the fuck back in here,” I stage-whisper at them, for all the good it does. “You’re not going to hit it.”

  But 06 has already noticed them. Of course she has. She tears back toward the alley, shouting, dropping whatever it was she found by the barricade.

  22 picks it back up. It’s a looped length of steel cable.

  I want to help 06 corral these reckless idiots back into the alley, but I can’t. I’m physically incapable of taking my eyes off 22. Partly because it’s 22. Partly because I have no idea what the hell he’s doing.

  What he’s doing is unlooping the cable, tying something onto one end of it, listening a second, and then flinging the end of the cable up into the air, straight into the path of the helicopter as it appears between two buildings, strafing the street on its approach. The cable tangles in the tail rotors and whips the helicopter into a one-eighty, and he gets a grip on his end of the cable and rips the helicopter from the air. It whirls around and slams into the third mech.

  The impact seems to knock something free in the gun-arm, and the cannon discharges. A ball of blue fire slips past 22 like a whisper and wipes out the front half of a building down the street.

  22 comes back to the alley at what I can only describe as a leisurely stroll. Behind him, the entwined mech and helicopter explode together, blowing out windows on both sides of the street.

  “I was just going to try to tangle its legs,” 06 informs him when he gets here. Apart from a bullet hole in 06’s shoulder where the helicopter’s fire must have caught her when she came back to deal with these people who were my goddamn responsibility, they both look pretty much pristine. She nods up at the blaze. “But that works too.”

  I feel awful. 06 is having her shoulder bound right now by one of the men because of me. I mean, nobody told me to babysit these people. But I also didn’t expect them to run out into the street.

  “There’ll be more,” 22 says. “Soon.”

  06 nods. She doesn’t look tired as much as she looks like she’s trying to look tired, so the rest of us don’t feel like such shit about our weak human bodies and weak human minds. Or maybe I’m just projecting.

  “No rest for the wicked,” 06 says, levering herself up. “Okay, everybody, on your feet. We’ll have a roof over your heads by sundown, but you have to do exactly as we say.”

  It’s getting on for evening. I remind myself that, 06 or no 06, 22 or no 22, I really do need to figure out my bus situation eventually. If there are buses even still running. I don’t know. There are thirty-five messages from Jessa piled up in the corner unread. As I glance at the notification, the thirty-sixth lands.

  i’m ok, I send. running late. talk later. don’t be worried i’m fine

  Something touches my shoulder. “Hey.”

  I turn. It’s 06.

  “I know you don’t need the hospital,” she says, “but every one of these people does. I can’t fix their eyes in the field. And it’s going to be dark in an hour.” She’s rolled her sleeve up at some point, so when she runs a hand through her cropped hair, I catch a glimpse of the number tattooed on the inside of her forearm, just below the crease of her elbow. “We don’t usually do this. But you’re here. They trust you.” She raises her eyebrows at me like this last part’s a question.

  I shrug. “I guess? I mean, maybe? I kind of just met them and—”

  “Would you be willing to help us escort them to the hospital? Just keep them together while we worry about keeping them safe? And then I’ll personally make sure you get where you’re going.”

  “That’s against regulations and you know it,” 22 says. I didn’t even know he was listening.

  “Next you’ll probably tell me I look like I care,” 06 responds. She leans in to keep her voice from carrying. I’m standing in a genuine strategic huddle with 06 and 22, and I can barely hear her over the pounding of my heart in my ears. “You want to walk two miles through this shit with all those people getting lost or hurt? Don’t you think they’ve been through enough already without hanging on to your sleeves the whole way? We need her.”

  “I don’t recall receiving orders to come out here in the first place,” 22 replies evenly.

  “We went over this,” 06 said. “I felt like taking a walk. Get some fresh air. You decided to come with me.”

  “We are under orders to accompany each other outside the building,” 22 says. “As you well know.”

  “Exactly! So if they ask: I took a walk. Accompanied by you.”

  “In a restricted area.”

  06 grins. “Restricted to civilians. Not to me.” And then she angles her head a few degrees and winks at me. 06, hero of engagements, savior of thousands, turner of tides, real-life motherfucking superhero winks. At me.

  22 opts to ignore this. “Nor do I recall receiving orders to escort anyone anywhere.” He sets his gaze on me like a weight, holds it for a second, sweeps it back to 06 while the rest of him stays motionless. “That said,” he continues slowly. “However we got here, we’re here. And we’re headed more or less back that way anyway. And you didn’t abandon these people when you were given ample opportunity.”

  It takes me a second of fumbling to realize he’s talking to me. I shake my head. “Their lenses are all fu— They can’t see. I couldn’t just leave them.”

  06 is losing patience. She bounces on her toes a little. “So we’re good?”

  22 is looking at me like he’s reading secrets etched on the folds of my brain through the backs of my eyeballs. What a terrifying concept. After a moment he gives me a little half nod. “We’re good.”

  “Then let’s get the fuck out of here.” 06 steps out of the huddle, raising her voice to the crowd as 22 glides away from me and out to the street. “Okay, everybody. Sorry about that. Just working
out the details. Hospital time. You are all going to follow—”

  06 looks at me quizzically. “Mal,” I say.

  “Mal. Do just like you did to get here. Stick to her like glue. 22 and I will take point and rear guard with you all in the middle. Got it?”

  Nods and got its and a couple of yes, sirs.

  “All right.” 06 nods back. “Let’s get this done.”

  0010

  OUR WEIRD-ASS PARADE GOES 22, THEN ME, then sixty-two civilians hanging on to my backpack, then 06. We walk through the sunset, and nothing stops us. The streets have gone quiet like somebody’s hit pause on the war. There aren’t even any more wounded to pick up. Nobody around to comment on us. No drones arrive to stream this gold mine of SecOps footage online, or if there are, I can’t see them in the gathering dark. Everyone’s inside, and this place is as dead as a freshly cleared playfield. I lead my group around busted barricades, seas of broken glass and machine oil, the smoking junk-metal twist of a helicopter. Most of the fires we pass have already gone out.

  With a group of this size, it’s an obstacle course. We walk single file, and when someone behind me trips or slows, the pull travels up the line and ends with a backward jerk on my backpack. Not that I for one second hold it against them. If the wind had blown slightly differently, it’d be me hanging on to someone else’s backpack, and I know it. This mess has room for all of us.

  Still, I’m dragging ass, falling over with exhaustion. I’ve done more walking today than I have in a month. All my nervous energy has burned out, and I’m running on stubbornness and fumes and the desire to not look like a fuckup in front of 06 and 22.

  22 must hear me stifling curses, because he periodically throws back to me what he seems to think are words of encouragement.

  At least we can breathe this air. If that changes, you’ll be the first to know.

  Snipers are usually pretty quiet through here. In any case, they’d be aiming at me.

  If you hear a resonance grenade activating, drop to the ground faster than it can imprint and you’ll probably survive. Pause. And we’re en route to a hospital anyway.

  If 06 sounds like an alien who’s learned how to pass as a human, 22 sounds like an alien who skipped class on small-talk day. Try as I might, though, and walking this maze of wreckage is giving me ample time to think, I can’t square this 22 with the one who sized me up like a specimen and then stabbed me in the throat. My random sampling of his dialogue and mannerisms and bizarre, awkward, stone-dry humor is lamentably small, but still. Maybe the SecOps NPCs aren’t as copy/paste as BestLife’s marketing claims.

  The hospital is surrounded by barricades. Their searchlights are visible before the hospital complex itself is, beams of grainy brightness cutting through the orangey purple of the sky above the setting sun.

  22 calls a halt before we hit the barricade. It’s a twenty-foot wall of wrecked vehicles and corrugated metal, topped with razor wire. A guard hails us from somewhere. “Hospital’s full,” she calls out into the dark. “Move along.”

  22 steps into the light. He says nothing. He does nothing. He just stands there like he’s wearing a giant lit-up sign that reads DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM.

  “What’s happening?” voices ask behind me. “What’s going on? Is that the hospital? I think I can make out the searchlights.” Et cetera. Drowning out any chance I had of hearing what 22 ends up saying to the guard. Which probably wasn’t much of one to start with.

  “I don’t know,” I tell them. “We’ll get an answer in a minute.”

  Whatever the guard tells 22, it takes a few minutes of back-and-forth, and then 22 switches out with 06, who’s shouldered up to the front, muttering something about people skills, to see what she can see. 22 sweeps back down toward the tail of the crowd to take up 06’s abandoned rearguard, and 06 resumes the argument or whatever with the people at the barricade. I still can’t hear a thing over all the questions coming in thick and fast from behind me.

  “Is it full?”

  “I told you it was full.”

  “You said no such thing. I told you it was full.”

  “Well now what do we do?”

  “Listen,” I tell them. “06 and 22 are taking care of it. The second I know, you’ll know.”

  I’m trying to keep it together, but I’m tired and I’m hungry and I gave away all my water and my arms have gone dead from the constant pressure on my backpack and Jessa must be losing her mind wondering where the fuck I am.

  While we’re stopped, I take the opportunity to message her again real quick, just enough to let her know I’m okay. Then I check the bus schedule. Not that it tells me anything I didn’t suspect. Today’s last bus ran over an hour ago.

  I pull in a long breath, hold it for a ten-count, then exhale. It doesn’t help.

  It’s fine, I tell myself. I’ll rent a hotel pod. I’ll sleep in an alley. Plus, 06 said she’d—

  As if on cue, 06 comes stalking back, her mouth mashed into a line. She gives the street a once-over, nods the all clear, and signals to 22. He appears almost immediately, and the two fall into whispered conference at the head of the crowd.

  This I can hear. At least one word in every maybe six. I strain my ears and catch choice and days and protocol and reprimand and shit.

  All at once the whispering breaks off, and they turn back to us like parents in a movie about to announce a divorce. 06 has her gloved fists pressed knuckle to knuckle in front of her like she’s trying to physically hold this situation both together and off the ground by force alone.

  Then she takes a half step forward and collars me with her eyes. “You good to get these folks a little farther?” she asks me quietly.

  The hell else can I do? I’m dead on my feet and my arms are falling off and I nod.

  06 nods back. “Glad to hear it,” she says, and claps me on one shoulder. It feels like being walloped with a sledgehammer.

  “New plan,” she says loudly. “I promised you food and beds and medical attention, and you’re going to get it.” Behind her, 22 is keeping his face studiously blank, like he really wants to argue but knows this is really not the time. 06 plows on, oblivious or uninterested. “Sorry, but you’re gonna have to walk a little farther than we thought.”

  06 starts walking back to resume her rearguard position, and before I can think better of it, I reach out and touch her sleeve. She stops and raises an eyebrow at me.

  “I promised I’d tell them where we’re going,” I say.

  “Stellaxis Innovations,” she says. Then, with an ironic twist to her mouth, she adds, “Home.”

  I blink. “Wait. What? We can’t go there. They don’t let civilians—”

  06 silences me with a gesture. “We are escorting a party of civilian casualties. They will not turn us away.” Something sparks in her eyes, something dangerous and sleeping. “I won’t let them.”

  “But I’m not injured,” I protest. “I could be arrested, they’ll think I’m an infiltrator, that literally just happened on the news, someone was there trying to sneak in with a protest sign and—”

  “Very well. I hereby temporarily requisition your services under the 2109 Stellaxis/Greenleaf Neutralities Accord, section eighteen-point-three-five-C: Temporary Requisition of Civilian Services. This is not an honor bestowed lightly. Congratulations.” 06 salutes me. “Now let’s get out of here.”

  “You just made that up,” 22 hisses. “There is no section—”

  “Well, yeah, but.” 06 shrugs one shoulder in my direction. “She didn’t know that.”

  06 executes a swift ninety-degree pivot and takes up the rear guard. We move on.

  It’s not all that much farther from the hospital to Stellaxis HQ. Either that, or I’ve passed into some kind of walking haze where I lose all track of time and exist only in a kind of bubble of diffuse discomfort.

  It’s getting dark now, though, real, true dark. Which scares me a little. I can increase the brightness on my lenses, but that’s not going to be much
help in this landscape with sixty-plus people relying on me to place each footstep perfectly. No more mechs appear, nothing that dramatic, but there’s glass and rusted metal and burned-out lumps of who knows what all around. I’d know an in-game resonance grenade by the sound it makes as it wakes up, but was that rendered accurately from life? How the hell would I know?

  We step around a string of downed breakaway drones that’s spewing something orange and noxious into the air. 22 kicks them out of the way, and we file past, coughing, breathing through our sleeves. Next we have to make a detour because the entire top of some building has sheared off and is lying in the street. Then we walk unimpeded for a few minutes while in my head I run the loop of questions I wish I had the guts to ask 22. After a while they condense down to one question, which becomes the metronome of my footsteps: who are you who are you who are you.

  Eventually we break out of the skyscraper landscape of the city and into a tidy park, a weird blob of green in a sea of glass and steel and concrete. We approach a checkpoint, but this one is unmanned, just AI with ginormous fuckoff guns. It takes one look at 06 and 22, and we file through without incident.

  On the Stellaxis lawns there’s a decorative pond or two, and some trees that are winter bare, but I know from photos will be covered with tiny pink flowers in the spring. There’s a sunken concrete area with benches and a softly lit fountain with a statue in it. Fish dart in the basin, flickering like flames. There are weeks’ worth of water rations just spewing out of the top of the fountain like nothing, and I want to climb up there and shove my face into the spray and drink forever. It’s like we stepped through a portal into another place entirely, some other city that hasn’t completely gone to shit.

  In the middle of all this the black glass dagger of Stellaxis Innovations HQ rears up before us, blocking out the moon.

  Not even in BestLife have I gotten this close to this place. It’s crawling with disgustingly high-level players, racking up points on a robust constant spawn of disgustingly high-level mobs. We tried once and got sniped off our bike from eight hundred yards. But even from a distance it looks exactly like its in-game echo.