by Logan Jacobs
The sound of applause drifted through the last of the dust specks. For a second, I thought it was sarcastic applause from the Brit, but it was more than one set of hands.
I spun on my heel to see my team emerging through the dust all around me. There were unsightly new holes in everyone’s clothes and skin, but everyone’s extremities looked intact. Tempest and Olivia leaned on Nova, and PoLarr’s eyebrows were gone, but otherwise it looked like everyone been relatively unhurt by the explosion.
“That was so fucking inspiring.” Tempest wiped a tear away from her eye.
“Super badass.” PoLarr clapped me on the back.
“A rousing statement of defiance!” Nova said.
“I feel very rallied,” agreed Aurora.
“What did the fish have to do with anything?” Olivia asked.
“I’d explain the reference, but I only heard Marc’s half of the conversation, so I’m not really sure how pertinent the fish thing is,” PoLarr said. “The important part is that we’re all here.”
“Now, I’m not a theologist, but my understanding of it is that the Metatron is the voice of God if you’re of the Jewish faith,” Thomas explained to Olivia. “I’m not sure how the fish comes into it.”
“Forget the fish,” I said. “I’ll show you guys Dogma later. Did you actually all just follow the sound of my voice after the ceiling exploded?”
“Pretty much,” Thomas said. “I couldn’t tell where you were coming from until you started to yell, but at least that walkie-talkie thing let me know you were still alive.”
“I ran into these two on the way,” Nova said and indicated to Tempest and Olivia. “They were a little trapped.”
I realized that there was a huge pile of splintered dark wood sitting in the middle of the pale blue shards of broken glass and twisted bits of white plastic. Those hadn’t been there before. I raised my eyes a little further. The ceiling was about twice as high up as it had been before the explosion, and the wood paneling got a lot darker much more suddenly about halfway up.
“Yeah, the whole ceiling was rigged,” PoLarr said. “It didn’t matter if we went through the vents or not. The entire thing blew the moment I moved that tile. Talk about preparation. They must have done this on every level.”
“So we’re not going to go through the floors either, because they’re going to explode on us too,” I said. “That is super, super great. What a fun and exciting problem to have, right guys?”
I heard a tinkling crash somewhere to the right of me and turned to see a square grate sitting in a pile of glass shards. More grates fell around us. I looked up as several armed and masked Skalle Furia descended from the open ceiling tiles on rappelling ropes. The boots above each head made it clear that there were more on their way.
“I have had enough of these motherfucking terrorists in this motherfucking office building,” Thomas groused. “I’m getting us a ride.”
“This is seriously not fair,” I said as I drew my pistol. The Ar’Gwyn made it easy to pick off the dangling Skalle Furia as they descended. “I can’t believe the bad guys get to crawl through the vents of Nakatomi Plaza and I don’t.”
Bullets flew through the air as we traded shots with the Skalle Furia. Bodies fell through the air and landed with tinkling crashes in piles of glass as the combatants we picked off lost their final grip on the rappelling ropes. A few Skalle had clipped themselves onto the ropes and still hung where they had been shot like limp counterweights that made the ropes twist and spin. Their fellows clambered over them like army ants.
The whum-whum-whum of helicopter blades filled the room. Rotating shadows chopped up the light into pieces. Thomas had really come through on getting us a ride.
I ducked under a toppled chair just in time to avoid a brand-new source of bullets from the shattered floor-to-ceiling windows. The bullets from the helicopter chewed up the metal mesh of the security grate and sliced through the Skalle ropes. The rest of the Skalle hurtled through the air as bullets pierced their falling bodies.
“Get to the chopper!” I yelled in my best Arnold Schwarzenneger voice, and I ran for it.
The black military helicopter maneuvered neatly into the open space it had blown in the windows and landed on the floor.
“There’s only room for three of us,” Thomas said to us. “Marc, Olivia, come with me. I’ll call in more air support for the rest of you ladies, so hang tight.”
I helped Olivia into the chopper. I didn’t like the idea of leaving my four beautiful teammates behind and exposed in an open floor with enemy combatants all around, but I knew that their special powers and upgrades would help them stay alive a lot longer than Olivia could.
Thomas followed us in and shut the door. I watched my teammates through the window as the helicopter took off.
Nova and Tempest settled into the tank and sniper position they’d been using for clearing rooms. Nova stood square and absorbed the blows while Tempest settled behind her, rifle thrust through Nova’s shapely legs.
PoLarr balanced between an overturned desk and a chair on its side as she picked off Skalle. A purple flash let me know that Aurora was keeping them all safe.
As we rose higher and higher, I kept my pistol out and ready for when we landed. Olivia and Thomas had theirs out as well.
I could see the helicopter’s reflection in the blue glass of the windows. Each window was perfect and identical, except for the one that was flipped open. The barrel of a rocket launcher stuck out of it.
“Aw shit,” the pilot said right before his seat disappeared.
Then the world spun wildly around us as the helicopter whirled out of control. I grabbed the seat in front of me to steady myself and curled into a protective position to shield my head from the inevitable crash.
I had expected the floor to drop out from under my feet again as we plummeted towards the ground, but instead we pitched forward. The windows rushed closer and closer. I closed my eyes and ducked behind the seat as the helicopter plowed into the glass window and through the metal security grate, then skidded to an abrupt stop.
Thomas flung the door open. It fell off its hinges and clanged to the floor, bent and warped.
Thomas jumped down to the floor and turned back to help us. “Anyone hurt?”
“I’m fine,” I said. I jumped down onto the floor. Olivia was next, and I held out a hand for Olivia to take as she stepped out of the chewed-up cabin. “Captain?”
“I think I’m fine,” Olivia said. She sounded out of breath, which was the least of what could have happened.
It looked like we’d landed in the building’s gym. The lights were out. One of the walls were covered with mirrors, most of which were actually still intact. Exercise machines stood in neat rows. A whirlpool burbled away in one corner next to a padded area that was littered with barbell racks.
“So not quite the top floor,” I said, “but a lot closer than we were. That’s good, that’s progress.”
“If we can get back into the stairwell, maybe we have a chance of making it,” Thomas said. He patted his shirt. “Now, I know I still have that torch you gave me. I bet that’ll cut through those security gates like a hot knife through butter.” His face fell. “Crap. Weapons check, everyone?”
“Went out the window when we started to spin,” Olivia said mournfully. “Marc?”
I poked my head into what remained of the helicopter to see if my pistol had dropped onto the floor and magically stayed there somehow. It had not. “Nope,” I announced. “Do you guys still have those walkie-talkie raygun things on you?”
Olivia shook her head. “Tempest and I decided to get rid of ours when you were talking to that prick,” she said. “We were pretty sure they were using it to track us.”
“I did too,” Thomas said. “I figured they were probably tracking our movements that way, or at least listening in on us. Those little gadgets were just too useful to pass up.”
The door to the back stair was right next to the barbell rac
ks. It started to rattle and click as the metal mesh of the security grate slowly began to roll up. More Skalle would come through the door in just a second. We might have had warning, but we had lost our guns and all ditched the only extra weapons we had. Thomas and Olivia were undoubtedly right about the walkie-rayguns being a way to track our progress, which would have made a huge difference if we hadn’t gotten that helicopter. Helicopters seemed like they would be easy to find in an office building.
I ran over to the barbell racks and grabbed the biggest weighted set I could put my hands on. It didn’t budge from its position on the rack, which was a little disheartening. I’d been training like crazy for the Crucible, but I still wasn’t up to the standards of whichever celebrity beefcakes worked out here. Then again, my training was focused on speed, reflexes, and tactics as well as strength, not just looking as large as possible on camera. I tried a weighted bar that looked to be about half the size of the one I’d taken. It hefted easily in my hand. I took up a position by the door and checked on Thomas and Olivia.
Olivia followed my lead and went to the barbell racks. She grabbed an unweighted bar and one of those hand barbells. “I’m going behind the chopper,” she told me.
I nodded at her. It was the best cover in the room for her.
Thomas joined me with an unweighted bar in one hand and his tactical flashlight in the other. He stuck the unweighted bar behind his back. “Let me at them first,” he said and indicated his security guard shirt.
I took up position behind one of the barbell racks.
The door finally swung open to reveal the skull mask of a Skalle.
Thomas stood square in the Skalle’s way and shone the flashlight in the Skalle’s eyes. “You boys sure took your sweet time coming up here,” he said. “Nothing but barbecue left in that chopper, real nasty scene.”
“I still need to do recon,” the Skalle rasped. “Put that goddamn thing down, I can’t see.”
“I get it, I do.” Thomas said. “Look, just bring a couple of guys in, make it quick, and then we can get out of here.”
“Fine.” The Skalle stepped past Thomas and held up two fingers at his compatriots behind him, then waved two of them in.
The moment all three Skalle were inside the room, Thomas slammed the door.
I brought down my weighted barbell over the head of the nearest Skalle. His neck snapped forward at an unnatural angle, and he crumpled forward onto the padded mat of the gym. His head lolled at a right angle to his neck, and a trickle of fuschia blood seeped out on to the floor.
I made a mental note that the Skalle headgear didn’t seem to offer the best protection in the world. The Skalle Furia may have been well armed, but they didn’t seem to value the actual lives of their operatives very much.
Thomas ran the end of his unweighted barbell into the Skalle’s stomach at the same time as he drove the end of his tactical flashlight into the Skalle’s nose.
The Skalle staggered backward, and his counterpart raised his gun to shoot, but the small barbell I had seen Olivia pick up flew through the air and smacked against the side of his head. He staggered and dropped his gun.
Thomas tackled the Skalle who’d just lost his gun and kept going as he pushed the Skalle backward.
The other Skalle still had his gun. He was too far for me to reach with the barbell. It was nice and heavy, but heavy enough so that I knew its weight would slow me down if I tried to run with it.
I dropped the barbell, then circled around from the Skalle’s side and leaped at him. I wrapped my arms around the gun and threw elbows and knees hard. Each jab with an appendage garnered a satisfying “ugh” from the Skalle I’d assailed. He shoved me away, but I had more of a grip on his gun than he did at this point, and I tore it away from him and hit the wall with my back.
I raised the gun to fire, and the Skalle backed up and raised his hands in an “I surrender” pose. The Ar’Gwyn told me to fire at him, but the sight of a Skalle Furia actually ready to surrender was so unexpected that I stayed my trigger finger for a beat. It was the equivalent of a surprised blink from my nervous system.
Olivia’s arms wrapped around the Skalle’s neck from behind, and the asshole went down hard with the beautiful cop on top of him. She kept her arms around his windpipe as they wrestled on the floor, but each roll and thrash moved them closer to the row of exercise machines, so I knew I was going to have to do something before long.
I willed the Ar’Gwyn into my arms and let it do the aiming for me, but there was nowhere I could shoot at the Skalle without the threat of hitting Olivia as well, so I hit the back of the Skalle’s head with the butt of the rifle instead. It made a sickening crunch.
The Skalle’s forehead slumped forward and hit the metal frame of an exercise machine, and then I grabbed the back of his mask with one hand and used the other to lift a good handful of the weights that controlled the exercise machine’s resistance. I shoved the Skalle’s head through the gap and let the weights fall on his neck, then held them down on the Skalle’s windpipe until his body stopped moving entirely.
Across the room, I could see Thomas by the whirlpool holding a bad guy’s head under the water. The Skalle’s limbs thrashed, and his body jerked, but he was clearly no longer in control of the situation. Then the thrashing stopped altogether and he went limp.
Olivia propped herself up on her elbows and surveyed the wreckage of the situation. “Thanks for the assist,” she said.
“Hey, I can’t resist a threesome,” I joked. “Are you okay?” I held a hand out to her.
Olivia took my hand. “You’ve been very gallant this mission,” she said to me. “On your best behavior in front of the old man?”
“Gotta make a good impression on your long-lost dad, right?” I joked.
Olivia stood and squeezed my hand. “Marc, I know I don’t have a lot of the same physical advantages you do from the Crucible, but I’m not some frail desk jockey. That’s why I’m here with you and not back in Valiance City. I appreciate the gestures, but I’m honestly fine. If this is about what I said on the stairs, you don’t have to worry. I know how to compartmentalize. The therapist is there to help me with everything that comes afterward, and they’re all very good at their jobs. I’m holding up.”
“I love getting to see how badass you are in the field. I’m not worried about you because I don’t think you can handle yourself, I promise,” I said. I squatted down and lifted the weights from the Skalle’s neck, then dragged his head back out of the opening. “It’s just that everyone who’s not a Champion seems a little vulnerable to me now, you know?” I tugged off the Skalle Furia’s mask and handed it to Olivia. “Like, I tore up my hands on all that glass on the fourth floor, and I’m already fine. Regen mod. You don’t have that.” The cuts still stung a little every time I moved my hands, but they’d already stopped bleeding and had started to close up.
“Marc, I’ll be fine,” Olivia said. She hadn’t sustained as much damage, but in the light that filtered in from the hole the helicopter had blown in the windows, I could see that there were a few dark cuts on her sapphire skin that still trickled navy blue blood.
She knelt down and began to strip off the Skalle’s body armor. Her hands moved quickly and surely over the straps and buckles. “I might be a little easier to injure than everyone in Team Havak,” she said, “but I promise I’m not some damsel in distress.”
“Okay,” I said, and I headed to the Skalle I’d dropped with the barbell. “But if you do get really hurt…”
“I trust you’ll assess the situation strategically,” Olivia said as she pulled the Skalle mask over her head. It was thick enough to conceal her glasses. “Keep an eye on your father, too. I’m stronger than you think, Marc. My race is very long-lived. To me, you humans are the vulnerable ones.”
I knelt down by the Skalle Furia I’d dropped and stripped him of his clothing. The body armor was sewed into the black jumpsuit, so it was pretty easy to pull on over my clothes. The mask’s e
ye holes didn’t quite line up with mine, but a few seconds of tugging and pinching got them into place. Maybe whatever race the Skalle Furia were just had a slightly different skull shape than humans. I traded my boots for the Skalle Furia ones, then picked up the body under the armpits and dragged it to the helicopter. I pitched it in the still-burning wreckage, then went to gather the stripped corpses of the other two Skalle. It wouldn’t exactly barbecue them, but it would hide the bodies from sight at first and spread that unpleasant burning flesh smell into the room to give some extra credence to Thomas’s cover story.
We met Thomas at the door to the stairwell. He had his gun tucked under his arm as he wrung pool water out of the drowned Skalle’s mask. “They put way too much chlorine in that whirlpool,” he complained as he pulled the mask over his face. Fortunately, the water didn’t seem like it had affected the appearance of the mask any, even with the extra chlorine.
I looked through the window in the door to see more Skalle Furia. A few of them held their guns at the ready, but there I also saw a few who leaned against the wall casually, heads turned like they were chatting with each other. They could have been exchanging important strategic information, but it was also possible that they were just chatting to pass the time until the right time they were needed. Or maybe it was another trap. Whatever they were doing, we needed to get through anyway.
“Everybody act casual,” I said. “They’re not ready to storm in or anything.” I slung my gun over my shoulder and held it loosely so I was ready to fire but not tensed up. Hopefully that would make the Skalle Furia let down their guard a little and make it easier for us to get upstairs.
I opened the door more slowly than I really wanted to and waved my arm in an “all clear” sign at the Skalle Furia who stood in the landing.