Jade Gods

by Patrick Freivald

  The doorknob jiggled, then warped in a hail of gunfire from outside.

  The kids, white-faced and terrified, took cover behind pallets piled high with cardboard boxes, one of them whimpering, "Ohfuckohfuckohfuck."

  "SURRENDER!" she yelled. "Don't die for me."

  "We already tried," a boy hollered back. "Jim's dad threw down his gun. They killed him on his knees."

  The back door banged open. The carpenter swung inside to the sound of a shotgun blast, and his head disappeared in a splatter of red against the wall. Someone moved behind him, but backed away as another shot tore through the empty space.

  Monica grabbed the handle to the giant metal freezer, jerked it open with a groan. The pain in her ribs flashed white in her mind. She shook it off, shoved Adam into a stack of ice-rimed cardboard boxes. "COME ON!"

  As she dragged it open, teeth gritted against the fire in her ribs, the boys backed toward her, shooting indiscriminately out both doors. She joined them, emptying her second magazine, pinning down their attackers long enough for everyone to retreat inside. At the last moment, two of them stopped outside the door.

  "Hide in here with them, Steve. We'll draw them off."

  Before the youngest could object, they closed the door, leaving Monica, Adam, and the blond-haired boy in the pitch black.

  The freezer reeked of gunpowder and fear. Her chest throbbed, and each successive breath came out more of a wheeze. She dug out her phone and flipped on the light. A glance at the door handle and her stomach sank – a plain pull-bar, it had no lock, no pinning mechanism. Opening outward, they didn't even have a way to jam it so it wouldn't open.

  "We're trapped," Steve said as yelling and gunfire receded from the freezer.

  Monica backed as far as she could go, took shelter behind a pile of ice cream cartons. "Save your bullets for people breaching the door. If we make it bloody enough then maybe we can hold off until the real cops get here."

  Steve sank to the floor and put his head in his hands. "I'm out of ammo."

  "Me, too."

  Adam hugged her leg, and put a hand on Steve's shoulder.

  * * *

  Matt slapped a pistol to the ground and punched another cop in the chest, pulling back at the last moment so his fist didn't crush the man's chest. "RUN!"

  As they stumbled away he turned on the mob of kids. They hit him at full speed, dragging at his clothes and armor, throwing themselves into his legs to try to drag him down.

  But kids were just kids, and on a bad day Matt could bench-press a truck. He waded through them, throwing them off, shoving them aside, using ferocious speed and strength to spin, slap, and shake off anything that threatened to drag him down or grab at his grenades or ammo. He stumbled away from the last few and bolted for the school steps, taking them six at a time and flying through the front doors into the school.

  An unimaginable reek permeated the building, a thousand years of pus and infections left to swelter in the midday sun. In the near-total darkness, his infrared vision picked up a massive glow down a hallway to the right, illuminating mud-streaked floors and walls, scattered books and papers, and doors left ajar. Impacts rang off the glass in the lobby behind him as his HUD overlaid the school blueprints with the scene in front of him.

  Sakura appeared at his side, REC7 in her hands. "Doors are locked. Should keep them some time."

  Matt clicked his COM in acknowledgment and moved out, footsteps soft along the hallway despite a strong suspicion that Shamsiel knew exactly where they were. They cleared rooms one at a time, not looking for kids or normals and instead focusing on the fallen angel. Matt trusted the whispers to warn him of anything behind them, and Sakura had proven time and again that she could take care of herself.

  The smell grew as they approached the warm hall, sickly stench bad enough that Matt engaged his air filters. He rounded the corner and grunted.

  "Janet, you getting this?"

  Tendrils spilled from the gymnasium, filling the hallway with fat, mucus-covered tentacles. Several dozen children suckled on them, pulling fat pink nipples into their mouths to drink down the gray-green liquid leaking from countless others.

  "Roger," Janet said. "Looks pretty gross."

  Matt fell back around the corner and turned to Sakura, whose mirrored visor reflected his own in an infinity of images. "This thing is enormous. Advice?"

  "Clear out what children we can, hit it with Hellfires."

  "We can't—" Matt started.

  "I'll clear it with the President," Janet interrupted. "I think we can 'Clear and Present Danger' this one pretty well. He's not going to want a Cholula-scale disaster on his hands."

  "He may already have one." Matt closed his eyes, took a deep breath. "Yeah, scramble the drones, call the White House. And evacuate the area."

  "You got it, bud."

  * * *

  Monica shifted her weight, more to slide the cold to another part of her ass than because of any muscular discomfort. The bleeding had slowed, but every breath came harder than the one before it. Her heart stuttered in time with the occasional gunshots outside, and her mind swirled with the sirens.

  The frost from her breath coalesced, mingling with Adam's and Steve's, hanging in the air in impossible whirls and eddies like leaves in a windstorm frozen in time. She watched in amazement as the shapes resolved into feathers of silver and ice, and a familiar voice called out to her.

  "Do not be afraid. All will be well."

  She'd last heard it in the snows outside White Spruce, on the day Humans for Humanity had burned half the town, killed and injured her friends. They'd taken her captive, held her, drugged her, and had just started to rape her when her husband had burst in and killed every man and woman responsible, then hunted down the rest to find and rescue their child.

  "Adam, baby, is that you?"

  Her son snuggled into her, shivering, and the voice answered in her mind. "Yes and no. Not all who fell remained defiant, and—" a syllable shattered her mind, ringing like a gong through her being and wracked her body in ecstatic spasms, "—is forgiving. I'm sorry your Adam is the vehicle, but we have to hide from Her."

  "We? Her? I don't understand."

  "Shush. Be at peace."

  "Lady," Steve whispered, "you need to shut the fuck up or they're going to find us."

  The door handle rattled, and Steve's hands tensed on his empty rifle, fingers blue from the cold.

  * * *

  Matt sliced away another tentacle and pulled the last child free, this one a girl no older than six, licking her lips and smiling even as she reached out for another taste. He passed her back to Sakura and tried to peek past the writhing mass into the gym to see if there were any more.

  Shamsiel, for its part, had yet to resist. The tentacles slithered away from their grasp, and a pathetic, mewling whine erupted from the gym as they cut the children free, but they'd encountered no violence they hadn't brought themselves. Sakura had her hands full keeping children from rushing back in once freed, electing to lock them in rooms further down the hall, and Matt's muscles ached from sawing through sticky, ropy nastiness.

  The fleshy ropes crumbled to powder when severed, and he worked fast enough to kill them faster than they regrew, at least so far. With the last kid out of the way he waded in, hacking and slashing with razor-sharp knives, the ceramic-composite carbon fiber shredding ropy meat to dust in a blur of oddly dry carnage.

  He reached the doorway, cracked his neck, and waded in. Shamsiel pulled back with a whine, tentacles collapsing farther and father in on themselves as they sought to escape his relentless advance. He stomped, cut, and hacked as the ball shriveled smaller and smaller, and wondered at what point the thing would decide to fight back.

  The Dragonflies blipped, and the IFF lights in his HUD triggered on four bogeys swooping in from the South at two hundred miles an h
our.

  "Janet?"

  "Not us. Flyboys say it isn't them, either."

  "Don't suppose they want to intercept?"

  "Offutt's pretty light on fighters and combat choppers. I'll see what I can do."

  "Sakura?"

  She charged in next to him, arms a blur as she sent dusty pieces of nothing across the room like a weed whacker set on 'annihilate'. A pattern emerged to Shamsiel's retreat – the tentacles collapsed toward the ventilation system in the rear of the gym. Matt unshouldered the shotgun, lifted it, and took aim.

  "Sakura, see what you can do about cutting off that vent."

  He pulled the trigger, and the fin-stabilized grenade plunged into the soft flesh before detonating. The tentacles collapsed in wisps of nothing, fading from view and IFF as if never there.

  The building rocked, and fire bloomed outside.

  "Company," Janet said.

  Matt swore. "Sakura, get back here."

  "It's in the basement. I'm going after it."

  He shifted his feet to maintain balance as the building rocked again. Dust rained from the ceiling, and Shamsiel's whimper turned into a nervous giggle.

  "Just get back here." His voice rang funny in his ears.

  The Dragonfly data disappeared in a pixelated fuzz.

  "Janet?"

  "I know, I see it."

  The wall exploded inward, concrete and brick spraying across the room. Matt fired the AA-12 as the whispers rejoiced in his death at the hands of the monstrosities coming through, biomechanical suits ten feet tall and painted construction yellow. Yardley had almost killed him with one of these suits, but he hadn't been armed.

  "Come get some." He fired high and triggered the frags to explode downward. The thing in front stumbled as red-hot fragments rained down around the human head mostly protected by a helmet stylized to look like a football helmet. It caught itself on the wall with a giant hydraulic claw, crumbling brick and slicing through rebar as it shifted to the side.

  Matt took the delay to swap directional frags for depleted uranium-tipped sabot penetrators. The ultra-sharp darts lacked the fin-guided smart capabilities of the frags, but could punch holes in an Abrams tank.

  A voice sounded over his COM. "You're getting expensive, Rowley. Just lay down and let the inevitable happen."

  Keene. Shane Keene had posed as an FBI agent, set up Matt to die, and captured Sakura. He had to know Matt wasn't the surrendering kind.

  The behemoths charged, and behind them shapes flickered in the dust and smoke, human silhouettes moving three times faster than the average man. Matt waited for the footballer to close, dove through its legs, and fired twice straight up, behind groin and buttocks and into the pressure pump powering the suit's motion.

  Sakura's REC7 chattered somewhere below, her location obscured by the compromised Dragonfly system.

  As the first behemoth sagged Matt rolled to his feet. The whispered chittered their precognitive disappointment as a target dove left to dodge his shot, so Matt pulled the weapon left and fired. The target dove, and the armor-piercing burst blasted most of his intestines into the wall behind.

  Matt spun as bullets whizzed through the space he'd just occupied, grazing his abdomen.

  "Fuck, they're fast," he muttered. They darted forward, flanking him. Using the disabled giant for cover, he shot the second behemoth through the chest, then the helmet. It stutter-stepped and froze in place.

  Two tight bursts dropped another assailant, leaving three.

  Whispers chittered. Turning—

  The AA-12 tore out of his hands, along with most of his trigger finger. He stumbled back and yanked a grenade from his bandoleer left-handed, pulling the pin with his teeth. Ducking fire, he skittered it across the gym toward the man circling by the far bleachers.

  Heat seared through his right thigh, then again, even as the whispers warned him. He stumbled, dove, as another round shattered his right knee. Rounds hammered his chest plate as he scrambled back toward the double-doors leading to the hallway. His visor cracked, a spider web of glitching pixels across his vision.

  A woman dropped next to him, assault rifle aimed at his chest. Matt drew his pistol and rammed it into her stomach, the .50 caliber round exploding out her back even as she fell.

  Bullets punched up his armor as he realized his mistake – pausing to eliminate her had left him open to the others. Flopping back under a wall of pain, he had to admire their professionalism: small caliber shots hammered his armor, solidifying the bullet-proof gel and bruising the flesh underneath without doing significant damage, while larger bullets reduced his legs and arms to ribbons and shattered bone.

  Debilitating. Non-lethal.

  He twitched and shuddered as electricity seared through his body. Head to the sky, panting, the world closed to only a hazy red sky and the whispers, rejoicing in his pain.

  * * *

  Adam put his hand on Steve's shoulder as the door opened. Monica felt the tension flood from his muscles even as she tensed, the fight-or-flight instinct trying to give her ravaged, weakened body enough adrenaline to move.

  Two men stepped inside, masks and goggles obscuring their faces, sleek black outfits reducing their forms to shadow.

  "Sir?" One turned around. "There's nobody in here."

  Another person stepped in, jerked off his helmet to reveal a grizzled face pock-marked with old wounds, his bald head half-covered in mottled scar tissue. "Bullshit."

  The subordinate stepped aside and gestured right at them. "Nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. They're not here."

  The grizzled man threw boxes to the side, flipped a pallet in the small space, and roared while frozen produce tumbled off of Adam's wings. "YOU'VE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME!" He took several breaths, eyes closed, before snapping them open. "I'm not telling Keene they got away. Clear the store again. Every fucking aisle. Now."

  "We've already—"

  "NOW!" He shoved both men out the door, and hollered over their protestations – the cops, the real cops, were already there, and more were coming.

  They left the door open, and warmth streamed inside, turning the air into a thick fog. Steve twitched as if to move forward, and Monica squeezed him tighter.

  "Not yet," she whispered.

  "What… what just happened?"

  "It's a miracle. Roll with it. And stay still."

  * * *

  Three men dragged Matt – or at least his head and torso – toward one of the four Sikorsky Super Stallion heavy-lift transport helicopters idling next to the playground. Sakura crept forward, a bandoleer of grenades in one hand, her REC7 in the other. As they carried Rowley up the ramp into the back of a helicopter, Sakura bolted forward and heaved.

  "Now," she deadpanned. The grenades fell inside one helicopter. Someone screamed.

  Hellfires streaked from above, slamming into another two as the grenades detonated.

  Sprinting against the heat wash, she let the fourth machine shield her from the worst of the shrapnel, as she'd hoped it would shield Rowley. As fire billowed skyward she launched herself up the cargo ramp, her first two bursts pulping the head of the man holding Matt under the armpits.

  The others dropped Matt and turned, reactions much faster than human. She shot one in the chest, kicked the other in the chin, and spun to avoid the knife-thrust from the first. It grazed her stomach, drawing a line across her armor, and he jerked back before she could break his elbow with a downward chop.

  As the first drew a pistol she closed the distance, grabbed his wrist left-handed, and spun around it, using the momentum to drive the elbow of her rifle hand into his temple. He rolled with the blow but lost the gun, and as he flew away she pointed the REC7 at him one-handed and pulled the trigger.

  The helicopter lurched.

  A knife sank into her right shoulder and the rifle fel
l from her grip. She threw herself back, slipped on Matt's blood, and fell, driving the knife the rest of the way in. Her opponent dove for the pistol and she smiled. No matter how fast a person could be, gravity was gravity, and Sakura was faster. She kicked out, drawing one of her own combat knives left-handed, and placed it pommel-down against the floor under the falling man's abdomen.

  As it tore through his armor she drove him back into the wall, ripping the knife free through half of his stomach, turned, and threw it.

  Her other opponent caught it in his neck, eyes wide in shock, and sat back down, so she yanked the knife from her shoulder and stalked to the cockpit, drawing her sidearm as she went.

  The helicopter hovered twenty feet above the ground, the copilot turned with wide eyes to watch her approach. She shot him in the face and pressed the hot barrel against the pilot's temple. He winced as it hissed against his flesh.

  "Put us down."

  He pulled the stick, and the helicopter dropped. As it touched down he licked his lips. "I—"

  She pulled the trigger, then wiped the blood from the barrel on his uniform before turning back to the cargo hold. "Requesting extraction."

  "Roger. How's Rowley?"

  Muscle and veins writhed around the shattered remains of bones, and his eyes had glazed over in unseeing pain. She kneeled and ran a hand over his forehead, an unfelt kindness she wasn't sure he could feel. "He's going to be hungry."

  "Okay."

  "And Janet? Call the White House. Tell them the angel got away."

  "What? How?"

  "Down the drain. It got… small."

  * * *

  Hours later, Monica dared to leave the freezer. Her gunshot had healed, a fact that should have surprised her but didn't.

  A man in white overalls and a mask startled back as the door creaked open. He looked her up and down with eyes wide in shock. "WE'VE GOT SURVIVORS HERE!"

  Approaching with hands outstretched, he stepped over the shattered body of a teenaged boy, his tan shirt stained dark red. "Ma'am, it's okay. You're going to be okay."