by Vanessa Muir
“I’ll kill the ambassador before I let him take those,” Nathaniel said.
Trent took another step toward Charlie and Levi. “You touch me, Mr. Spade, and your entire country will be plunged into war. You really think all the ambassadors don’t have contingency plans?” He flashed a white-toothed grin. “Your threats are illuminating, however.”
Nathaniel licked his lips, glancing at the gun, then at Charlie. “Don’t do this. You’ll regret it.”
But Charlie was done with her father’s threats. She walked toward the ambassador, as the screams rang out behind her—the Delirious banging and roaring. She held out the hard drive and the container toward the ambassador.
Nathaniel watched on, sweat dripping from his brow. Two guards had appeared from the front of the shuttle. They watched, but didn’t move toward Nathaniel or Levi, or the ambassador for that matter.
Charlie stretched out her arm.
Ambassador Trent took the container and the drive. “Thank you,” he said. “What do you want me to do with this?” he asked.
“I want you to know what’s really going on. Do you hear those screams? That’s what Absalon Shamood and Nathaniel have done to the people of the State. We need help. We need outside assistance to stop this from escalating any further.”
“That’s not technically true.” The voice was accompanied by the smart click of shoes on the pavement. Absalon Shamood had appeared from one of the buildings, smiling broadly and holding a gun of his own. “Nathaniel has nothing to do with it.”
18
The world slowed. The screams continued, the banging, and Absalon Shamood advanced, grinning like he’d achieved something already. Nathaniel had gone white as a sheet. Trent looked from one man to the other, tucking the container into his pocket as he did, the drive after.
Levi’s gun hadn’t shifted its aim from Nathaniel, but, for the first time, the end trembled.
“What are you doing here, Shamood?” Nathaniel growled.
The men were more focused on each other than on the Black Mars operatives. Nathaniel scowling, Absalon grinning.
They could get away, surely. But it would take careful maneuvering. Perhaps, this wasn’t a suicide mission after all.
“You know what I’m doing here,” Absalon said and laughed. “I’m here to take what’s mine. Firstly, what the good ambassador over there is carrying.” He shifted his gaze to Trent, the smile never wavering. “Don’t worry, Ambassador, as soon as you hand all of that over to me, you’ll be free to go home.”
Trent didn’t budge.
Charlie and Levi exchanged a quick glance. This was a disaster. If things bubbled over… there were too many variables.
“I’ll expect you not to tell anyone about what you’ve seen here, and I’ll know if you do, Ambassador,” Absalon continued, speaking past his smile like the psychopath he was. “And there’s a little package on board the airplane to sweeten the deal.”
Trent kept his peace and remained in place, perfectly still. What could he do?
What will he do?
He had no loyalties to Black Mars. He didn’t care what happened to the folks in Corden State because it wouldn’t affect him. And keeping the status quo probably would help the other regions.
“Don’t do it,” Charlie said, giving up the game of silence. God damn, what was she supposed to do? Let him hand over the evidence they had collected and then leave?
“Quiet, bitch.” Absalon directed his weapon at her. “What do you think you’re going to achieve, girl? You’ve been led along through all of this. You were never a player in the game. You were always a passenger, and that’s something you’re going to have to accept.”
Charlie kept her mouth shut despite the insults. She had to focus on how to salvage this situation.
“Give me the information I need,” Absalon said. “Now.”
“Don’t do it,” Charlie repeated. “Please, you have no idea how crazy things are in the cities. You hear the screams, don’t you? That’s the Delirious. The general population has been reduced to aggression and mindlessness, and if it’s not stopped, there will be nothing left of any of us.”
“Quiet.”
But she’d started now. “Nothing left for you either, Nathaniel,” she said. “Nothing left to preside over for either of you. Is that really what you want?”
Trent was frozen. The ambassador hadn’t asked for any of this.
The shrieks and banging from the other side of the airport’s closed gate grew louder.
“Please,” Charlie said.
She had no power, that was the point here. She had to beg because that was all she’d been left with, and it bit at her. They couldn’t win.
“You shouldn’t give that to Absalon,” Nathaniel said suddenly.
Absalon swung the gun toward Charlie’s father again and narrowed his eyes. “You, piece of shit. I’m done dealing with you.” His finger shifted on the trigger.
“Don’t!” Charlie yelled, but too late.
The pop of the gun sounded, and Nathaniel’s arm jerked backward. He collapsed back onto the pavement with a strangled scream. The guards next to the shuttle made to move forward, but two more shots stalled them, and they stopped too.
Absalon spun the gun toward Levi as the noises intensified from the gate behind them. Levi now had his gun trained on Absalon.
The gate was shaking from the impacts of the Delirious on the other side. The screams grew louder, and a head popped up over the edge of that gate. A man, glaring wide-eyed, roaring and clawing his way over.
“Watch out,” Charlie croaked.
The ambassador had spotted them too. His jaw dropped, and he backed up a few steps.
“Don’t move, Ambassador,” Absalon said.
“Let him go,” Levi said.
Nathaniel groaned and rolled over. He’d been hit in the shoulder, blood staining his coat sleeve, already. His eyes were open, lips parted and blowing frantically as he sucked in breaths.
“Help.”
Charlie stared at him. It was surreal. She didn’t have even a moment to contemplate her father dying; she couldn’t unpack the emotions that might be attached to that. And now…
The screeches had reached their zenith. The Delirious scrambled over the gate and crashed down on the airport’s side.
“You move, Ambassador, and I’ll kill everyone here.” Absalon was confident too.
Ambassador Trent didn’t seem to hear him. He turned on his heel and ran for the airplane, taking the container and the information with him.
“Bad choice,” Absalon said and squeezed the trigger again. A shot sounded.
Then another shot rang out. This time from Levi’s gun.
It took Charlie a second to register what had happened. The pop of the gun, the splatter of blood, and the body falling. Levi was down. He was down on the ground, the gun dropping from his fingertips and crashing onto the concrete.
Charlie’s heart thumped in her chest.
Time slowed and thickened around her, like molasses on a cold day. It oozed. And odd details stuck out to her.
The wildness in the eyes of the approaching Delirious, compared to the dead glaze of Levi’s. Nathaniel’s rocking back and forth, scrambling backward toward the open doors of the shuttle. Absalon with blood staining one shoulder where Levi’s bullet had hit, swinging the gun up, toward the fleeing ambassador.
And all backed by the constant thump of Charlie’s heartbeat.
If he brings the ambassador down, it’s over. It’s all over. This was for nothing.
Charlie had a millisecond to make the decision.
She launched herself across the space, a raw scream tore from her throat, lamenting everything that had happened. That Levi had been killed because of this. That he’d been right all along.
Suicide mission. Never coming out.
Charlie crashed into Absalon, tucked her arms around his middle and sent him straight to the ground. The gun slipped from his fingers and dropped.
It landed with a clatter but didn’t discharge.
Ambassador Trent had gotten to the door of the airplane. He was inside, closing the door. Safe.
Relief would have come, except for the fact that the Delirious were almost upon them.
Get up. Move.
Charlie pressed her hands to the pavement on either side of Absalon and brought herself up. He caught her by the shirt.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he yelled.
She brought her fist back as far as it would go and then rammed it into his nose. There was a crunch beneath her knuckles and pain flared in her fist. Absalon screamed and released her.
Charlie straightened and scampered across the pavement. She glanced back once, in time to catch the true horror of what MemXor and mX were capable of. The Delirious scrambled onto Absalon, biting, tearing with fingertips, sticking greedy fingers into his eye sockets, his mouth, his ears.
His screams were horrifying.
Keep going. Get Nathaniel.
There was no loyalty to her father now, but if she didn’t grab him, it would mean that no one would be liable for this. There had to be punishment for him. A prison sentence. Justice other than at the hands, teeth, and feet of the Delirious.
Charlie lifted the gun from the ground as she ran. More of them were coming, and they wouldn’t be satisfied with just Absalon. They would come for her next.
“Help!” Nathaniel screamed.
Charlie grabbed him by the back of his jacket and tugged. “Use your feet. Move! Move!”
By a miracle, Nathaniel heard her, listened, and he followed her commands. She dragged him into the interior of the airport shuttle, then reached over and slammed the button to shut the door. It slid closed with a pneumatic hiss.
The guards who had been guarding the shuttle were gone! They likely ran off when the Delirious breached the gate.
“I need the hospital,” Nathaniel sniveled, touching at his bloodied coat sleeve while chaos unfolded outside. The Delirious slammed against the windows, and Charlie caught one last glance of Levi, lying dead on the pavement, untouched.
Charlie’s heart squeezed. She turned and clambered through to the front of the vehicle, then leaped into the driver’s seat. She belted herself in, then started the engine.
“What are you doing?” Nathaniel yelled.
Charlie slammed the vehicle into gear and tore out of the lot, heading toward the broken gate. She was out and into the street, with the soundtrack of her father’s yelling for a backdrop.
19
Charlie stood on top of the hideout’s roof, her hands tucked into the pockets of her jeans, her chest squeezed with emotion. Everything had fallen into place, for the most part. The helicopters had already arrived, and the city itself, though the screams were rife, would be tamed.
It was the breath before the storm. A storm of bullets? She hoped not.
The news had broken two days ago.
Nathaniel had been arrested, taken from the hospital where he’d been recovering, where Charlie had dropped him off, practically thrown him out of the shuttle, in truth.
It was the European Alliance that had come flying in. The rising sun brought her the sight of more helicopters, shuttles, as well, bringing resources for those who were hiding out in the sectors. Those who hadn’t been turned aggressive and criminal.
“Are you ready?” Charlie asked.
Cole stood next to her on the roof, watching, the dawn reflected in his eyes. His arm was in a sling. “Ready for it.”
“Are you sure this will work? You called it a contingency plan, what if—”
“For the last time, Spade, it’s going to work. This was approved by Levi. He agreed with the plan.”
Just the mention of his name made her throat close. Levi was gone. He wasn’t here to see what they’d achieved. She imagined he might be watching, somehow, from somewhere. That was what she hoped at least.
“Charlie?”
She’d become the leader of Black Mars by default after Levi’s passing, and it pressed on her, that fact.
“Do it,” she said.
Cole tapped his temple.
The tuk-tuk of a helicopter’s blades slicing the air filled the quiet between them. They watched as the helicopters flew away, looking like black birds in the sky, and then a distant plume of smoke rising.
“It’s done,” Cole said.
Relief pressed out from her chest. Cole had organized it all on Levi’s instructions. They had created a virus that would tear through the memory cloud and rip it apart. Everything that had been stored, every thought, every plan by the State would be ripped apart. Shredded.
It was just the start. They would have more to do before the end.
Actions that Levi would approve of. Actions that would fix what her father had broken. Ensuring that every last Memory Facility was closed down, that the serum was destroyed, that a cure was found for the Delirious, and that any hint of the rebellion was wiped from public memory.
The risk was too great that if they didn’t do this, their efforts would all be for nothing. The next power would swoop in and take over the reins. They would run Corden State into the ground, just as Absalon and Nathaniel had tried to do.
And the Councilors? God only knew what had happened to them.
“He would have liked this,” Cole said.
“What?”
“Standing here on the edge at the end of all things.”
“All things, Cole?” Charlie looked over at him, raising an eyebrow. “Really?”
“What?”
“This isn’t the end of all things,” she said, and for a moment, she saw a future without Absalon and her father trying to control the people. A future where the Councilors were truly held accountable.
“It’s not the end of all things, huh?” Cole sniffed, dragged his finger down his nose, and then gave her the side-eye. “All right, what is it then?”
Charlie sighed, lifted her chin, and stared out at the horizon. “It’s only the beginning.”
THE END
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