The Seven

by Sean Patrick Little

  "No," Sarah said. "You came back for me. I'm not leaving you."

  "Don't be stupid," said Andy. "Suicide is not an answer, here. You got to get out. Get out, get away, and get our story told to someone, anyone who'll listen. If you stay here, you're going to die."

  "Andy's right," said John. "We have to go."

  "No!" Sarah shouted. "You go, John. I'll get you out of here. But, I will not leave without Andy."

  "You're being stupid," Andy said. "I'm too heavy, too slow, and too big a target to get out of here alive. If they're going to freeze me again, I'd rather not get you caught up in it as well. I'm prepared to go down right now. I'll give them a great fight, but I'm prepared to go. This is my time. It's over for me."

  Sarah blinked back tears. "This isn't your time! You never even got to have a life, yet! Andy, listen to me: They already took our lives. None of us have ever been allowed to be free. We have to leave and find out what it really means to live."

  Andy reached out a meaty hand and touched Sarah's arm with his fingertips, a surprisingly gentle touch. "Then go. You live for both of us. Go out and have the greatest life ever. You owe that to me. You have to go."

  Sarah's throat felt tight and her lower lip was wavering. "You don't understand, Andy: I don't want a life where you're not a part of it."

  "And you don't understand," Andy said. "If you don't sprint outta here, I'm going to pick you up and throw you as far as I can."

  "I'll be back here in five seconds."

  Andy rolled his eyes. "You just have to be difficult about this, don't you?"

  "I told you, I'm not going. Besides, if I try to get out of here with John on my shoulder, I'm not going to be able to get enough speed to outrun that sonic cannon. They'll just take me down and I'll be no better off than I am now."

  Andy staggered to his feet and ripped the hood of the jeep from its hinges. With a backhanded toss, he winged the hood like a Frisbee and it neatly bisected the disruptor. Sparks exploded from the wreckage like a Chinese firework. A fresh hail of gunfire answered his attack and Sarah watched in horror as several new wounds suddenly exploded on his chest. Andy dropped back down to the ground.

  "Are you all right?"

  "As good as I'm gonna be," Andy wheezed. "Just don't put your fingers in the hole and I'll be fine. The disruptor's gone. Get out. Get out now."

  Sarah felt her heart breaking. She slowly nodded. Tears began flowing freely. She leaned down and kissed Andy gently on the lips. "I'll always love you," she whispered.

  Andy smiled up at her. "I'll love you for the rest of my life," he said. "The fact that it's only going to last another five or ten minutes shouldn't deter you from finding that statement incredibly romantic." He reached up and traced a massive finger down the side of her face, teasing a curl of hair. "Now go."

  John knelt down next to Andy and clasped his hands around Andy's hand. "You have always been my brother."

  "From another mother."

  "If I can ever avenge your death, I will," said John.

  Andy shook his head. "Not worth it, man. Just go. Get Kenny, Holly, and Indigo. Get out of here. Enough with the good-byes, just go!"

  Sarah looked at John. "You ready? I'm only going to be able to run maybe two hundred yards, tops, with you on my shoulder before I have to stop to breathe. And that's if nothing gets in my way and I don't have to contend with really uneven ground."

  "It'll have to do."

  "I'll distract them so you can get out of here," said Andy.

  "We have to find Kenny before we get out of here," said John. "Which building will be the communications center?"

  Sarah pointed. "I saw it earlier when I was sneaking around looking for Andy."

  "Then we go there first, get Kenny, and we go."

  "Then go," said Andy. He rolled to his feet. "Theirs not to reason why..."

  Sarah didn't want to wait for him to finish the quote. She grabbed John and nodded at Andy. Andy dug his hands into the jeep and began to lift. Sarah put John on her shoulder and engaged her speed. In a heartbeat, she and John were at the doors to the communications array.

  She looked back at Andy and watched as he lifted the jeep above his head and hurled it across the compound and into a fuel tank. The tank split open and high octane fuel gushed out in oily, rainbow streams. A stray spark from the electric cable John shot down earlier ignited the gas fumes. A stream of blue-white flame shot across the compound to the tank and caused a massive explosion. Shrapnel blasted outward over the compound, a massive fireball shot into the sky, and thick, black smoke rose slowly into the sky. Several pieces of flaming wreckage landed on or near some of the other buildings and vehicles. The hungry flames lapped at fuel sources, a stray bit of wood or a jeep tire, and spread quickly. Buildings began to smolder and then turned into fully-fledged flames and began to burn voraciously.

  Andy was standing completely exposed amidst a ring of burning buildings and vehicles, roaring at the soldiers in defiance, a savage in tattered, blood-soaked, bullet-riddled sweatpants. Many of the soldiers ran to get fire gear to extinguish the flames, some recovered from the explosion and launched a barrage of gunshots at Andy. Sarah closed her eyes.

  John shot the lock off the door. He opened the door and shoved Sarah inside. "Don't watch," he said. He put his arm around her shoulder and led her down the hall.

  Sarah felt her body begin to break down. Her legs felt like string, it was getting hard to breathe. She started to slide to the floor but John slipped his hand under her arm and lifted her back to standing. "Be strong," he said. "Andy made his choice. He might be the only reason we escape."

  "That helicopter is going to drop that gel on him, you know. They're going to freeze him and then kill him."

  "I know," said John. He stopped. "Oh, Kenny," he whispered.

  Sarah looked up and saw Kenny's body slumped back against the computers, his shirt soaked in blood.

  John dropped to the ground by Kenny's side and felt frantically for a pulse. Sarah slid helpless to the floor and wept. "This can't get any worse."

  John clutched Kenny's head to his chest. "There's a pulse. It's very weak, but it's there."

  "What do we do?"

  "We need to get him back to the Home."

  "What? Why?"

  "We need a hyper-womb. A hyper-womb can keep him sedated while his body heals. We'll steal a hyper-womb and a couple of tanks of that oxygen fluid stuff out of the basement labs, load it into the back of that old pick-up truck in the shed, and we'll take him someplace where we can fix him."

  "N...no," Kenny whispered. John looked down at him.

  "Kenny?"

  "Not done here," Kenny said. He half-opened one eye. "Need to finish the hack...kill their network..."

  "No, Ken," said John. "You've done enough."

  Sarah crawled over to them. "You've done more than enough," said Sarah. "It's over. We're going to get you out of here and get you well."

  "Too late for...me," Kenny coughed; it sounded like liquid was in his lungs. "Not going to make it."

  "Stop saying that," John said.

  Kenny lifted a hand and dropped it heavily on top of a rack of servers. His eye closed and his head dropped. A trickle of blood oozed from the corner of his mouth.

  "Is he..." Sarah couldn't bring herself to say the word.

  "I can't feel a pulse," said John. "We got to get him to the Home right now. You take him. You can get there a lot faster than I can, even if you have to stop every couple hundred yards."

  "Kenny's a lot lighter than you. I can go farther."

  "Then take him and go, Sarah. Get him to a hyper-womb. Get him healed."

  "I don't know what I'm doing with that stuff!"

  "It's like Sebbins told us, it is full of medicated, oxygenated syrup that allows the body to speed healing and recovery. Just fill a tank and stick him in it. I don't know that you have to do much more than that."

  "What if it's not that simple? What if I have to do more?"

&n
bsp; "If he stays here, he's dead. At least the womb gives him a chance, even if it's a slim one."

  John was right. He always was. Sarah got to her feet and tried not to collapse; she felt so weak and sick. With John's help, lifted Kenny to her shoulder. She tried not to think about how lifeless he felt or how frail he was.

  "How are you going to get out of here?"

  "I'm going to try to sneak out. Do me a favor, though."

  "What?"

  "On your way to the Home, stop and tell Indigo and Holly to run. In case I...you know..."

  Sarah nodded, the lump in her throat felt like a boulder. She could hardly breathe with the heaviness in her chest. "You're not going to leave, are you? You're going to go down with Andy."

  John gave her a half-smile. "I'll hold their attention as long as I can. Just take care of Kenny."

  Sarah wanted to say something, complain, argue, shriek in anger, anything---but she didn't have the energy anymore. It felt like her world was collapsing around her and she couldn't do anything about it.

  There was a crackle of electricity in the room. The tangy scent of ozone filled the air. Sarah looked at the computer and servers. The lights across the servers were blinking wildly. One by one, the servers began to arc blue electric bolts and in a puff of smoke and a flash of light, each one burned itself out, melting components and destroying any information or programs. The monitors exploded sending shards of glass flying across the room. The computers began to smolder and smoke poured from the vents as motherboards melted and chips fried.

  John laughed, a short, choked-off laugh that was balanced somewhere between mirth and sadness. "He did it. The nerdy little hacker did it."

  "Kenny fried the computers?"

  "When he touched the computer, he must have gone back in to overload the system. It might have cost him his life."

  "Not if I get him to a hyper-womb fast."

  "Go. Do your best."

  Sarah nodded and walked to the door. She pushed it open and stepped into the light cautiously. She could hear Andy, still screaming profanities and smashing everything he could. The sharp tattoo of gunfire answered every crash of metal and Andy's roars of pain and anger answered the gunfire. She looked toward the gates. Something wasn't right. "John? John, come here! You've got to see this." John jogged up behind her and looked over her shoulder. A cloud of darkness was coming toward the base.

  "What is that?" John whispered.

  "No idea," said Sarah.

  The cloud was coming quickly. It seemed alive, a moving, pulsating mass. "It's animals," said Sarah. "It's a massive cloud of animals."

  "What kind?"

  "I don't know. It's too far away."

  "Remind me to give Holly a big ol' kiss the next time I see her," John said. "If...I see her again," he added.

  "I guess this is the big diversion she promised. The bugs and birds were helpful until they left. But, Holly was shot. She probably wasn't able to keep her powers going. She must have regrouped, though. She must be okay."

  The cloud grew closer and Sarah could make out an audible clicking noise. She suddenly realized what the cloud was. She made a face. "Oh, gross..."

  "Bats," said John. "Tons of 'em."

  The swarm of bats hit the compound like a biblical plague. One second, there were none, the next second, they were everywhere at once. The air became thick with a living, leathery-winged, brown-furred snowstorm. Their squeaks and chatter was a constant drone. The air was stirred by their wings creating buffeting winds. The stench of their fur, ripe with the oppressive scent of guano, permeated everything in the compound. The fluttering, darting mass of animals carpeted everything, providing a swirling, moving curtain in which to hide.

  Andy stood in the middle of them, battered, beaten, bloody, and more tired than he had ever been. He hadn't eaten in what felt like forever and his arms and legs ached as badly as when he first began his transformation. The painful stings of the gunfire had stopped. The soldiers were screaming and shooting at the bats, but the more they screamed, the more the bats attacked. A soldier broke through the living wall in front of Andy, several large bats were clinging to his face, biting and flapping as he beat at them in blind panic. The bats swirled around Andy's bulky form, not even grazing him with wingtips as they flew. Andy smiled. If nothing else came of it, at least every soldier on this base would have to endure a long and painful series of rabies shots. Holly's powers were amazing. Andy began lumbering toward the entrance. As he moved, the bats parted and he walked freely in their midst, the animals enveloping him like a living shield.

  He walked over to an air conditioning unit outside of a building and lifted it off its base. The helicopter was nearing. He could see the container dangling beneath it that dropped that freezing goo. Andy twisted the unit from its moorings and began a slow hammer-spin. He released the metal cube and watched as it arched lazily through the air and into the spinning rotor of the helicopter. A ghastly metal-on-metal crunch ripped the air and the helicopter plummeted, slamming into the ground. The gel container cracked open like an egg, spilling its contents in a wave of icy froth. Bats and soldiers were covered. The soldiers, lacking Andy's metabolic processes and enhanced tissues, were overcome quickly, the gelatin mixture practically lethal to them. The bats that were splashed stood no chance. Their wings froze, their bodies went rigid, and they fell out of the sky dead. More bats immediately took their place, dropping out of the swirling column in the sky and filling in the holes in the attack.

  Andy kept walking through the cloud of bats. He couldn't see the gates of the compound, but he figured he was headed in the right direction. He caught glimpses of soldiers running amok, slapping at bats, and seeking shelter. Andy laughed out loud. It felt good to laugh. A minute ago, he was wondering if there was any sort of experience after death, and now he was going to walk out of the compound without further injury.

  An engine roared behind him and Andy spun around, ready to smash the hood down with his fists. He stopped short. John was behind the wheel of a big Dodge pick-up. John leaned out the window and jabbed a thumb at the truck bed. "Get in, big boy. I got us some wheels."

  "Where'd you steal that from?"

  "Motor pool. I ran over and grabbed the keys off a desk. The bats were everywhere; no one even saw me do it."

  "Holly is the best," said Andy. "She's getting a big hug later." He walked behind the pick-up and eased himself up onto the tailgate. The tailgate immediately snapped off and Andy rolled to the ground. Andy stood up and eased himself back onto the back of the truck. The shocks protested, but held. "I feel like cattle," said Andy.

  "You smell like cattle," said John. "Hold on, I'm going to fly. We have to get to the Home."

  "What? Why?"

  "Kenny's hurt. Sarah already went there to get him into a hyper-womb." John punched the gas and the pick-up tires screeched on the asphalt. Hidden by the cloud of bats, John guided the truck to the entrance and smashed through the flimsy drop-arm barrier at the sentry post.

  As they broke free from the compound, the lights in the buildings began to flicker and then go dark. Andy watched gleefully as the power boxes around the compound and the adjacent town sizzled and exploded in golden waterfalls of sparks. Inside the buildings, wiring caught fire and plumbing backed up. Every computer in the installation melted down, every hard-drive erased, every motherboard destroyed itself, every back-up memory drive began to smoke and spin data to nothing. Every building went dark, everything with a power cable fried, and every computer became an expensive paperweight. The electrical surge spread into the town outside the compound, with the electrical system melting in every store, every building, and the gas station on the main thoroughfare. Computers throughout the town destroyed themselves. In minutes, the town was devoid of working technology. The army of bats abated their attack and lifted into the air, dispersing in a myriad of directions, and becoming pinpoints of darkness in the blue of the sky. Soldiers lay scattered on the ground and hiding under jeeps, bleedin
g and traumatized. Buildings burned and black smoke drifted over the compound. Flames, stirred by winds, spread and burned the grass, already dried brown by the late summer drought. The ghost town turned military outpost became a ghost town once again.

  When the Home came into view, Andy tensed involuntarily. He hadn't expected to see its dormers and purple-shingled roof ever again. John pulled into the half-circle drive in front of the Home and slammed the truck into park. Indigo leapt out of the passenger side and Andy eased himself off the back of the truck, Holly cradled in his arms. Holly was the second-smallest of the group, behind Indigo, and in Andy's cartoonish arms, Holly looked like a child.

  "I sent Sarah ahead with Kenny," John said. She was supposed to get him into a hyper-womb. I want to get him loaded into the truck and get him the hell out of here. We'll go far away and get Kenny healthy."

  "What about Holly?" asked Andy.

  "Holly will be fine," said Indigo. "It was a flesh wound. The bleeding has stopped. She just needs to get bandaged."

  Andy looked down at the gash in Holly's upper hip. "Looks like she needs stitches. Maybe Sebbins..." He stopped. Indigo and John were frowning at him. "Aw, I'm sorry. I forgot."

  "Let it go," said John. "It's all right."

  Indigo opened the front door of the Home. She and John walked in easily. Andy had to negotiate his new body through the doorframe, walking sideways like a crab.

  The Home was still and silent. It had always given Andy the sense of being like a library, save for when Indigo and Posey were screaming at each other over nothing or he and John were wrestling in the TV room, but now there was a new level of quiet, an almost funerary quality about the room. The four of them strode through the entry, into the kitchen, and walked down the long, back hallway to the basement steps that led to the labs. Indigo paused at the refrigerator and pulled out a package of bologna and a jar of mustard. She grabbed a loaf of bread from the counter.

  "What?" she hissed when Andy shot her a questioning glance. "Like you're not hungry."