Flesh Blood Steel

by David Jones

  Jake clenched his jaw. “I’m not going back.”

  Of all the strange things to notice in that moment, he caught a breath of Oliver’s perfume, an expensive tincture of lavender and cinnamon with just a hint of vanilla. It was strangely tantalizing, alluring. It tried to spark some memory in his head, but he couldn’t seem to grasp it.

  She stared at him for a long moment, obviously reading the tiny expressions he could not block from his face. Her green eyes jittered in their sockets, drinking in his unintentional communication.

  “You don’t remember me do you, Jake?”

  He shook his head slowly. “My first memory of you is when you marched into that apartment in New York.”

  A millimeter of flex in her right cheek told of frustration and, surprisingly, disappointment. “We met seven years ago, during the war. You were Sergeant Harris then, my squad leader, and already a cybrid though I didn’t know what that meant at the time. You were deep undercover, leading ops in Prague—taking the fight to ISIL.” The gun in her hand wavered slightly, trembling in sympathetic time with Oliver’s fingers.

  Jake tilted his head. “You weren’t a cybrid then?”

  “I was a soldier. Private Rebecca Oliver, sworn to defend hearth and home, bright-eyed and innocent, and madly in love with my squad leader.”

  Jake felt his eyes go wide.

  Oliver’s grin widened. “Didn’t expect that, eh? You don’t know how I looked up to you—how I sought to please you. Even undercover, trying to look like a regular man, you were extraordinary. You never led us into impossible situations, you never squandered a single soldier’s life. You cared for us the way a commander should even though it wasn’t really your mission.

  “And when we were ambushed by ISIS elites, and my legs were blown off in the opening salvo, you put me on your back and ran me to the nearest medic—ran me right out of the kill zone with frag filling the air around you, and bullets ripping at your legs. You held my hand as they cauterized my wounds, and said it was all going to be okay. I would be like you soon, a step above human. We shared our first kiss there in that squalid, makeshift med tent. And I knew I would love you forever.”

  Jake’s hands were trembling as much as Oliver’s. Why hadn’t he seen this before? They were together. Of course they were together. Oliver didn’t want to kill him. She wanted to restore him.

  “You want Harris back,” he said.

  She nodded. “You’re not yourself, Jake. You’re not the man you’re supposed to be.”

  “That man, the Jacob Harris you know, is a killer. It’s not me. I don’t know how I became that monster, but I’m not going back to that.”

  Oliver’s lips firmed. “What you call a monster, I call a hero. I’m certain your friends in Crown stuffed your head with their valiant tales of standing up against corruption and corporate oppression. How our people kill them in droves, executing them in their sleep. But did they tell you of the harm they’ve caused globally? The Dissolution movement has caused more suffering around the world than all three world wars combined. They’re the ones who have wrecked the economies of whole nations, sent families to the brink of starvation by inciting political coups and upheavals in formerly stable countries. And do you think these are bloodless revolutions? Dissolution has executed more people than our kind could in a hundred lifetimes. Yes, we are assassins, Jake. I won’t lie to you about that. But which is more important, the life of a hardened criminal bent on sowing instability throughout every part of the civilized world, or the thousands, even millions, of people who will suffer because of that one terrorist’s actions?”

  Jake shook his head, unable to respond in the face of her heartfelt passion.

  “You taught me that. You taught me there are tough choices in this world—choices few people are ever forced to make, but only because those who make them are willing to bear the pain—the damage those choices bring. We save people from that burden so they can go on playing their video games, loving their children, and just living their lives without knowing how close they may have come to losing it all. Perhaps that’s hard for a sixteen-year-old to grasp. But it’s as true a thing, and as noble as any concept on this planet. We are the wall that keeps this world from anarchy, and we are so few. Jacob, we need you.”

  For a long moment, silence held sway in the Le Bristol penthouse. Jake’s thoughts spun about in his head like straw in a whirlpool. If there was one thing he was sick of besides the guilt and pain he felt at thinking of his mother, it was his general confusion about this strange world where he found himself. Nothing made sense. Every time he thought he could see an edge, something to grab onto as truth, that well-defined line became blurred. Everything he had ever known about the world seemed distorted.

  But if he let Cymobius restore his memories, assuming they could do such a thing, that confusion would end. The past thirteen years would act as a bridge between his current understanding and that of the man known as Harris. At last he could view both sides—Cymobius and Dissolution—from a perspective of knowledge. Who was to say that he would necessarily go back to being the same stone killer he had been? Perhaps this short period spent as his sixteen-year-old self would change the twenty-nine-year-old version. Maybe, as uninformed as he was, he could give his older self some insight on compassion. And with that insight, perhaps he could change.

  But what if he didn’t? What if Harris chose to ignore this time completely? Jake had gone so long thinking of Harris as a wholly different person from the mind now running his body that it seemed strange trying to predict what that other man might do. Didn’t most adults talk of how stupid they were in their teens? How, if they got the chance to go back with the broadened experience of adulthood, they would make different decisions? So what made Jake think Harris would want the reverse? What adult would want to take advice from his younger, more ignorant and admittedly, more naïve self?

  “I—” Jake began, uncertain what to say. How weird was it that when he had first seen Oliver he had considered ways to break a chair over her head, and now he was concerned about hurting her feelings, even though she was still pointing a gun at his chest. “I can tell we had something special.”

  She nodded, her jaw tightening as she did. It wasn’t like he could hide his feelings from her. She saw what was coming, but she let him go on anyway.

  “If I go back with you, I’ll die. There’s no question about that. Sure, this body will still be alive, but the mind inside it won’t survive. I’ll be a man I never meant to become. A man who thinks differently from me—who, like you said, makes choices I would never make. I think this is my second chance at choosing right, and I’m not going to give that up.”

  Jake expected to see tears glisten in Oliver’s eyes. He felt them stinging his own. But as he spoke her face grew calm, her attention razor sharp. Her hand ceased trembling, her grip firming on the pistol until it hovered before her far steadier than any regular human could manage.

  Perhaps it was that cold calm which warned him, or maybe it was the minute pause in her breathing—a split second hitch like hitting a pebble on the highway—but something caused him to juke sideways just before Oliver squeezed the trigger.

  The bullet missed him by so slight a fraction that Jake felt it tug at his t-shirt. Oliver’s little gun barked about as loud as a cork popping from a champagne bottle, which was probably not loud enough to be heard outside the suite.

  Jake lunged, grabbed Oliver’s gun arm by the wrist, careful to avoid a cross-armed grip lest she switch hands and shoot him in the head. He reached for the pistol, planning to twist it from her grasp, a move he wouldn’t have known without his cybrid, but Oliver was much too fast to fall for such a ruse. With colossal force, she brought her free elbow around like a hammer, to strike his temple. A flash of dark spots occluded his vision on that side as pain shot momentarily through his head. He staggered, but kept his grip on her wrist, desperate to keep her from turning the gun on him.

  Oliver tried to strike h
im again with her elbow, but Jake saw it coming. He moved into the blow, lifting his free arm to smother her strike with his body. Again the pain was terrific, ripping through his side, and down into his hip before his cybrid could quell it, but at least this time he didn’t momentarily lose his sight.

  Jake snaked his arm around hers, pinning it.

  Oliver laughed. “You really don’t know anything, do you?”

  With practiced grace, she stepped back and planted one heel on the floor before bringing that knee rocketing into Jake’s crotch with such force his feet left the ground.

  Jake screamed. His stupid cybrid—was it taking longer than usual to dampen his pain?—had plenty of time to analyze the beauty of Oliver’s technique. She had lulled him into the strike, making him think she was overpowered only to reverse their roles. It was brilliant, and Jake really didn’t need that information at the moment. He would have taken six more elbow strikes to the head in lieu of the excruciating torment thrumming through his wounded crotch.

  Of course, Oliver wasn’t done. She followed her first knee strike with a second one to his stomach that leeched all the air from Jake’s lungs. Then she started with the head butts, two to the nose and a final one right in the teeth.

  Jake reeled back, the room spinning. Had he imagined he could overpower Oliver? The woman was every bit as strong as he was. Maybe stronger.

  What happened to her gun? He had been holding her wrist, but in the onslaught of pain and crushing blows, Jake had somehow forgotten it. He glanced stupidly at the hand that had been holding her wrist. It was quite empty. Then he lifted his eyes to Oliver. She shoved the gun’s barrel into his stomach and smiled.

  The little gun barked and Jake forgot all his other ills, even the rapidly dulling ache from his man parts, as the first bullet ripped into his flesh. It felt at first like a blow, not unlike being punched by Oliver, but then came the fire. It seared through him, sending tendrils of fresh pain sizzling through his abdomen, into and up his spine.

  He cried out, trying to move before she could fire again, but it was too late. His muzzy head was no match for her lightning quick reflexes. She shot him again, the wounds so close they became one in pain and outraged injury.

  Though Jake’s cybrid had never spoken to him in words, and indeed its thoughts were so closely mirrored to his own that he could rarely separate them, it sent now the clearest message he had ever received from it.

  Too much.

  The pain seizing Jake’s body had exceeded the cybrid’s ability to hide it. All the damage that Oliver had incited was overwhelming him. He staggered, tried to keep his balance, and fell.

  Hitting the floor was just another insult to the mass of injuries he had already sustained. Luckily, he had missed the ornate end table, and managed to simply bounce his head off the suite’s luxurious carpet. Compared to getting shot twice, this was like reclining on a soft bed. It even smelled pleasant, like fabric softener. Jake pressed both hands to the wound in his stomach to staunch the blood flow, and stared up at Oliver, too weak to lift his head.

  She sighed. “It’s going to be a mess getting you out of here. Do I have to shoot you again—maybe the leg this time—to keep you from struggling?”

  “No,” Jake croaked.

  Oliver pulled out her mobile, keyed it on. “Call Winston.”

  Someone on the other end picked up immediately. The suite was so quiet now that Jake could discern it was a man.

  “Go,” he said in French.

  “I have a situation,” Oliver said. “Need extraction. Send an ambulance.”

  She keyed the mobile off and crouched next to Jake, peering into his eyes. Much of her predatory look had fled. For once, Oliver’s face looked almost compassionate. With deft fingers she found the switch for his Spearcast behind his ear and pressed it.

  As it had once before, Jake’s cybrid flooded his conscious mind with information, tantalizing waypoints like a map of all human history and knowledge. Pervading the link was an overpowering urge to travel east. He had to get to Geneva, and though he had no memory of ever visiting that city before, he knew exactly what building he must reach, the street it was on, and even how heavy the traffic would be four hours from now—the soonest he could reach there by car.

  Oliver grinned. “It’s making more sense now, isn’t it?”

  Jake nodded. It really was.

  Chapter 17

  Transport

  It took fifteen minutes for the paramedics to arrive. They rode up the ancient elevator with a gurney and the hotel manager. A rotund, balding man, the manager yammered in French loud enough that Jake could hear him even over the elevator’s insistent rattle.

  “If there is any problem at Le Bristol, I should know first,” he complained as the doors opened. “Before you set out to come here, you must call the concierge desk. Our guests are sensitive to seeing medical people traversing the lobby.”

  The paramedics ignored the him. They wore dark dress pants, proper scrub blouses, and jackets festooned with patches proclaiming their allegiance to a local ambulance service. At first, Jake though they might actually be medics until he saw a handgun handle poking up from the dark-haired one’s shoulder holster when he bent to lower the gurney.

  “Madam,” the hotel manager was saying to Oliver, “I do wish you had called the front desk with your emergency. We are busy today, and this sort of unpleasantness can upset people.”

  The guy hadn’t bothered to ask what had happened or if Jake was okay. Couldn’t he see all the blood?

  In fact, yes, he could see the blood. Jake noted the look of dismay that crossed the manager’s face whenever his eye lit upon the darker patches of red staining the suite’s bright, crimson carpets. He clucked his tongue, as if Jake had spilled Kool-Aid.

  For her part, paid the man no attention. Her eyes remained on Jake, making certain he said and did nothing that might blow their cover.

  Her diligence was unwarranted. Jake had no intention of saying a word. He wanted to get to Geneva as much as Oliver did. If he went blabbing about how she had shot him and that he was being abducted, the French police would get involved, which would slow them down.

  The fake paramedics lifted Jake onto the gurney and Le Bristol’s manager gasped.

  “Oh, God,” he said. “So much blood. The carpet is ruined. This suite will be unlettable for at least two weeks. Who is going to pay the bill, madam? I ask you, who?”

  Oliver turned narrowed eyes on the him and he took an involuntary step back. “You care more about the room than the boy who was shot in it?”

  The manager’s eyebrows rose and his mouth came open in affronted shock. “Shot? No one said anything about a shooting. You cannot sue us if you discharged a weapon on the premises.”

  Oliver rolled her eyes and shoved past the man, heading for the elevator with the paramedics. The manager tried to join them, but Oliver pointedly shut the gate before he could climb aboard.

  “Too crowded,” she said.

  They rattled downstairs and then rolled through Le Bristol’s lobby without incident. Apparently, no one had called the Gendarmes, and though the clerk at the concierge desk looked on with concern, he said nothing as the fake paramedics wheeled Jake out the front doors.

  They manhandled Jake into a waiting ambulance, securing the gurney to the floor. The rough handling sent sparks of pain zipping through Jake’s stomach. He ground his teeth trying to ignore them.

  Oliver climbed inside after him. She sat on a cushioned seat meant for the bereaved, gun in hand.

  “Should we head to a real clinic?” asked the driver as he navigated the ambulance into traffic. The vehicle was large for these narrow streets, and Jake could tell the guy was forcing his way into the flow.

  “No.” Oliver motioned vaguely North with her pistol. “Head for Geneva.”

  Jake couldn’t see the men, but he felt an awkward silence pass between them.

  “Those weren’t our orders, ma’am,” said the driver. “We’r
e to take you to the airport, assuming the target is fit to travel. You’re to be in New York by 10 p.m.”

  “Winston,” Oliver said.

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “We’ve known each other almost five years.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Have you, in all that time, ever countermanded one of my orders?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Are you going to start today?”

  A long pause as the van hummed along through afternoon traffic, and then, “No, ma’am.”

  They drove for twenty-two minutes, during which time Jake’s cybrid got a handle on his pain, before Oliver commanded Winston to find some food. Though it seemed much had changed about the world during the years Jake had lost, one thing remained true: no matter where you went in the civilized world, you could find a McDonald’s.

  Jake ate three Bic Macs, two large fries, a large water, and a large vanilla milkshake. Only then did he feel the least bit sated, though he could have eaten more.

  “Should I worry about the bullets?” he asked.

  “Your nanites will break them down,” Oliver nodded at his bloodied shirt. “In a few hours they’ll be gone.”

  “I’m sorry I fought you. I didn’t understand.”

  “I know,” Oliver said. “But you want to come with me now, right?”

  “I’m sick of living in the dark. The rebels didn’t tell me anything about who or what I am. At least with my memories restored, I won’t feel so ignorant.”

  “You’re no longer afraid of becoming your old self?” she asked.

  Jake thought about it—tried to think about it. But his thoughts skittered away from the idea of becoming Harris. It was as if some part of him simply didn’t want to consider the idea.

  “I guess not,” he said.

  Oliver nodded. She chewed a fry, looking thoughtfully toward the driver’s seat.