Flight

by J. A. Huss

  Moju takes his frustration and anger out on me. "You're the Seven, Junco! You're in charge of them, they have to listen to you. Make them listen and open up!"

  "Soli's unconscious, Moju." I keep my reply level to try and bring him down. "How can she listen if she can't hear us?"

  "Fix her."

  My patience is wearing thin now so I sneer up at him. "Tell me how to fucking fix her, Moju. Because I have no idea what to do. I came because Tier said I had to or everyone dies, so what the fuck am I supposed to do?"

  "Just talk to her, Junco. Talk to all of them. If you cut it open they'll die. I know it, they'll die!"

  I recognize his insanity because I've lived it myself and I give in. "Fine, I'll talk to them."

  I leave Soli and walk over to the next tube and reach out to the frightened girl inside. I'm Junco, the Seven. What's your name?

  She looks like Esta, but with yellow eyes that give her a slightly demonic look when they glow, and this causes me a fraction of hesitation. You are all out of your mind if you think we're coming with you. Especially you! You're just her in another uniform!

  Well, that's fucking wonderful. There's a crashing sound from one of the entrances and Arel and Isten start firing behind me. I try to remain calm as stray plasma bounces off the domed ceiling. We're taking you home. Back to the Band. It's nothing like this, I promise.

  Her voice comes to life. "Talk is cheap, you crazy fucking Seven. We know what your role is, and it's nothing good, that's for sure. There's nothing good about you!"

  Moju is behind me screaming. "That's enough, Irin. Shut the fuck up. I told you we're all leaving here together and Junco's the one in charge, so shut the fuck up and do what we tell you!" The last part comes out seething in anger and I step away for a second. His eyes are balls of glowing fire as he looks at Irin through the tube barrier. "One more mouthy comment from you and I'll break this fucking barrier and kill you myself."

  I push Moju back an inch or two and look over to Irin. "I have a mouth on me too, Irin. So, looks like we've got something in common." I smile at her, but she turns away.

  OK, that went well. I move on to the next one and start again, but Moju interrupts my thoughts and introduces us. "This is Tukker, Juncs. He's the Three. And that" – he points to the last tube – "is Sariel, the Five. Irin is the Six."

  I nod to the guys who handle my presence with detached acceptance and then look away. I walk over towards Tukker. "Will you open up if we can get you in the medical tank immediately?"

  "It won't work, Junco." His eyes search mine without a hint of glow. "I don't think it will work. We're all gonna die if you make us come with you."

  Tier steps up from somewhere. "No, Tuk. Layla is the best there is on all our worlds. The best there is. She saved Junco. Rewrote a lot of code to make her whole again. And Junco turned out perfect." He turns to look over towards Sariel, then back to Irin. "We're gonna make it right. You'll go in the tank on board ship, Layla has a team member for each of ya. It will work, ya just have to trust us."

  I look over to Irin and speak out loud. "I know it's asking a lot. I know it is, but we would not hurt you. We need you. You're special. Very special. And Esta is waiting for you back in the Band. You'll all be back together in just a matter of weeks. It will all be over."

  I turn away and go back to Soli and Gid. They will have to figure this out on their own so it's better to give them space. I can hear Moju arguing with Irin in my head. Hopefully he knows her well enough to get her on board. It only takes one to fuck it all up.

  "How's it going?"

  "She's moving now, waking up maybe?"

  "Soli? Can you hear me?"

  She groans but my excitement is cut off by an explosion that shoves me against the blue tube face first. I hear screaming and yelling as rockets are launched. Gideon pulls on me just as the ceiling falls on my back and I drop to the floor. When I look up several blue showers of light have penetrated the roof of the building. Isten and Braun are desperately trying to push back the flood of mutants and Runout soldiers pushing their way into the room.

  I get to my feet and find Moju screaming at Irin again. I stumble over to her. "Open the fucking thing right now, Irin! Or we're all going to die!"

  She shakes her head at me and I pull out my SEAR then swipe it across the tube before Moju can stop me. The tube shatters in an electrical explosion and sparks fly out, catching Moju's non-flame retardant wings on fire. I flap against him to put it out, then push him out of my way. Irin is already on the floor convulsing in the aftermath of her destroyed tube. I pull her hand and then Rikan is behind me, throwing Moju up in the blue lights. He comes back and grabs Irin and throws her in too. I look over at Tukker. "Open, motherfucker. Or you'll get the same treatment!"

  He opens and Sariel follows. They make the few steps to the blue light and then Rikan pushes them in and they fly up. A grenade comes hurling in at us and Mish dives for it and is just about to throw it back at the Runout soldiers when it explodes and his body disintegrates. The dust clears as wind current from the open ceilings blasts down on the room and there is nothing left of my teammate. Rikan goes ballistic with the rocket launcher and I'm paralyzed with the reality of what just happened. He explodes four of the six entrances in a matter of seconds and the walls crumble around us.

  I begin to panic.

  Another explosion throws me down on the ground and Arel and Isten are next to me, pulling me up. "Get Soli! Get Soli!" Isten is screaming at me and I'm watching the words come out of his mouth when his head explodes.

  I'm in shock. How can this be happening? Two teammates, gone! Isten's death beacon activates, and then Arel is next to him, dragging him into a blue light and they ascend up towards the ship in a blur of sparks. I try and get to my feet but Isten's memories flood into me, knocking me back towards the ground as my brain fills up past capacity. I feel like my head is being crushed in a vice as I let out a wild scream of anguish.

  Tier is next to me then, pulling me up from the ground. "Get Soli! Get Soli!"

  Gideon is screaming at Soli to wake up and open her tube. I force myself to get back up and push all thoughts of Isten and Mish out of my mind. I stumble over to Soli. "Open up, dammit! I didn't just lose my fucking twine for you to fuck up the entire goddamn motherfucking mission! Open the motherfucking tube!"

  Her tube evaporates and I grab her arm and shove her into a light and feel a little bit of satisfaction as she wails in pain on ascension up to the She's All Mine.

  Mutants flood the room, our grace period after Ryse's interruption over, and the real fight begins.

  I'm looking at dozens of mirror images of myself. They open their mouths and all I see are row upon row of jagged teeth. One gets up next to me, her spittle leaking out all over her shirt and projecting out in all directions, when Tier's talons reach out and take off her head like she's Cole back in the Stag.

  Almost everyone is gone now, only Gideon, Tier, Braun, and I remain behind. All the blue lights are on the other side of the tubes, out of reach. Braun is launching rockets and pieces of fake Junco are flying everywhere, splatting against the walls and slicking up the already polished concrete floors. I slip and fall, miss a plasma cannon blast that was aiming for my brain, then crack my head on the hard concrete. My eyes stare up and catch Braun being blown into a million pieces.

  I scream because Braun never had a chance.

  The lights disappear and then reappear closer to us. Tier grabs my arm and pulls me in to the shower and then look back to see if Gideon is following.

  I cry out when I realize he's on the other side of the tubes, trapped and unable to get to the new position. I look up at Tier just as he enters the flood of blue, and then he's taking me up with him, pulling me in at the same time.

  Instincts take over in and I spin around and kick his arm, breaking his hold, then fall back and hit my head on the concrete as he flies up without me.

  Moments later Gideon grabs me and I watch him look around for
a blue light.

  But they are all gone.

  We've been left behind.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Gid yanks me to my feet, shakes me hard, and then is yelling up in my face but his words are coming in like I'm underwater or something and the constant barrage of warning alarms isn't helping. He starts pulling tabs off grenade canisters and tossing them, then grabs Isten's 50 cal and my arm and drags me behind him as the explosions rock the holding area.

  My vision blurs but my hearing picks up and I can finally make out what he's yelling.

  "– get out of here now! Junco?"

  I yell to placate him so his attention focuses on what's in front instead of me. "Yeah, OK." That's all we need, to get ambushed because he's not looking ahead.

  He stops at a grate and starts removing the screws as I concentrate on standing up. The blood is no longer running down my head, but my fingers find a coagulated mess of gel intertwined with my hair as I check my wounds.

  Isten's memories flood into me again and I wail in pain as my mind replays the final moments of life for my three lost brothers. "Isten!"

  "Junco, not now, you can't lose it on me now! Push it down!"

  "I can't, Gideon, his memories are inside me, they're flooding my head. I feel like I'm gonna explode!"

  He's got the grate open and he pushes me to bend down and swing my legs into the hole, then grabs my hands and lowers me into the dark. He drops me several feet off the ground and I fall and roll in small puddles of gunk. The 50 cal comes in after, then Gid. He stops to pull the grate over and then grabs me by the arm, slings the rifle over his shoulder, and hauls me along with him as we stumble through the sewer.

  We move along this way for several minutes before Gid makes a detour and we start climbing a slope. At the end of the ramp there's a small opening, like the ones every now and then in the access tunnels on our way up the mountain.

  Was that just a few hours ago? I cannot believe it. It feels like days ago when I took that nap. My head begins to fill again, the memories coming in spurts and the visions play out in my mind. Isten as a child in the clutch, training and running, then on Earth, in Texas, for his hosting. I watch through his eyes as his little sister is violated over and over again, how the grown-ups do and say nothing. His fear and anger leach into me as he gets the gun and stalks his brother out to the field where he blows his brains out in the wild wheat.

  I watch like it like a screen as he reports back in the Band. Back when he was a nobody, just a fucked-up eight-year-old that Lucan didn't admire and protect. His eyes wild as he drops onto the 313 asteroid, his sickening fear as he makes his way past all the terrible challenges and the moment when Tier saves him, heals him, after he's hit with orbital fire.

  The memories flip forward and I see Isten with girls, lots and lots of girls. I smile inside myself and realize Isten is popular in a very sexy kind of way.

  And then I feel his pain and fear as he takes the plasma shot in the head and it all goes blank. The tears begin to stream down my face as I let reality catch up with my adrenaline-filled body. The sobs come out when his memories overfill me and it hurts so bad, but I can't bring myself to try and stop it. Can't stop him from entering me, because if I don't let him in, I'll lose him forever. And he promised me, he'd never leave me. He promised.

  Gideon sets the weapon down and tilts my chin up to look at him. "Are you OK?"

  I shake my head. "Isten is inside me and it hurts, Gideon. He's too much. But I can't – won't – make it stop. I have to keep him with me forever, I can't let him go, not yet. I can't, Gideon. But there's too much, I feel like I did when Sera was downloading. It's all fucked–"

  "OK, look, I can take some out. Will that help? You give them to me, and I'll take some out and give them back when you're ready."

  I nod. "OK, if you can do that then–"

  And then his mind is there, inside me as well and I cry out I am so full. "Please, don't lose him, Gideon. Please don't lose him!"

  A few seconds later the pressure inside me dissipates, like a valve has been turned. My eyes squeeze out tears as the relief swells to take the place of the memories.

  "Better?"

  "Yes," I say, "that's better, but please don't–"

  "I won't lose him, Junco. Who knows how long that download will last, so we might have to do it again in a little–"

  I cup my hand over his mouth and put a finger to my lips as I snap back into my business suit and pick up sounds from the grate high above our heads. I turn my wet cheeks up to watch shadows pass overhead, along with voices.

  Two female voices.

  And one of them is mine.

  "Where did they go then? I clearly saw that both of the Sevens were left behind. Where is she?"

  My voice answers the stranger. "They threw grenades and got out, through access hallway nine we believe."

  "Did you check?"

  My voice snorts. "Of course we checked, what the fuck–"

  I hear a smack and the girl who sounds like me falls over the grate face first. I panic as I realize she might be able to see us down below, but she doesn't. She gets back up. "We checked," she continues, like it never even happened. "They got out somehow."

  "And she's with Gideon?"

  I look over at him and he winces but shakes his head at me.

  "Yes, I saw him."

  "Is he working with them or against them?"

  I look at Gideon one more time. His finger goes up to his lips and I hold it in.

  "We don't know. He's not been in contact for four days, so–"

  Her voice drops off after that and the other woman picks up the conversation. "Find him. If he has her, it's because he's posturing for a deal."

  I look down but Gid's fingers lift my chin up again and he leans into my ear. "All lies, Junco. I don't need a deal. I don't need anything from them or anyone else. You'll see."

  The other woman's voice comes in faintly again. "– to the rendezvous point on top of cryo." The two are busy with something up top and then their voices trail off as they move on to another room.

  Gideon shakes me, whispering. "Junco?" An evil grin develops on his face. "We've got fifty-six minutes until the core blows. What do you want to do?"

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "We can go outside and wait for your team to come back for you, or we can follow them and take out that bitch, Inanna."

  "You did not just say that bitch, Inanna."

  "You know her?"

  "Oh my fucking God, are you serious? She's here? What is she? Is she human?"

  His eyes squint down at me. "How do you know her?"

  "I am her, goddammit! I have all her attributes, all of them. They all think I'm Inanna back in the Band."

  He laughs. "Holy fuck. That is almost funny. Anyway, it's up to you. Chances are Tier is threatening Ryse with his life to come back for you, so if we go outside we'll get picked up. But we have fifty-five minutes left, we can take her out and make that part of this whole fucked-up mess go away right now."

  "How do I know you're not just setting me up? To take me to her?"

  "Junco, if I wanted to do that I'd have given us up down here. We'd be in custody right now. Like I said, I don't need anything from anybody. You don't understand that yet, but it's true. I've been around your mother long enough to know how to play the game, and Snowbird, we're at the end right now and we're winning big. So, what do you want to do? Take out Inanna? Or go find Tier?"

  I hesitate. This does not feel like winning big. At all.

  "Now, Junco. I need an answer. Cryo is all the way across the compound and their hovercopter will be on the roof–"

  "On the roof?"

  "Yeah, to pick them up–"

  I look over at the 50 cal. "Is it less than two miles from here to there?"

  He smiles as my intentions leak out with my words. "Yeah, but we need to find a clear shot."

  "OK, let's kill her. You're right, Tier's not leaving without me, h
e'll find us. Besides, I have a tracking beacon on me somewhere, so he'll know where I am. And if the only thing I get out of this whole mission is revenge for Isten, then I can die satisfied."

  The words are out before I realize what I just said. I shudder and shake it off. Oh well. Fuck it. If that's all it takes for me to get my promise of satisfaction, then it is what it is. I'm not going home without killing someone for Isten.

  Gideon is already shoving the 50 cal into my hands. The weight of it sinks me for a fraction, but I adjust and distribute the weapon that is almost as long as my entire body across my spread-out arms.

  I watch Gideon as his eyes go distant. "Do you have a vision screen too?"

  His eyes focus back on me. "Yeah, of course. We both have them, Juncs. We're partners, in this together. Don't you get that yet? Come on, this way. We can see the cryo building from molecular biology."

  He leads me out of the little room and we continue along the tunnels.

  "How do you know where everything is?"

  "I have a fucking map, Junco. And like I said, I've learned how to play the game from the best. I've been here more times than I can count. And, well – you might not still be hooked into Sera, but I am. She's still on our side."

  My nose is running from my crying and I sniffle a little. "I don't understand any of this. What's going on? And fuck, do I have to carry this monster all by myself?"

  He stops. "Sorry, forgot about that." He picks up one end of Isten's sniper rifle and the weight evens out between us. "OK, look – it's like this, Junco. We grew up together. I'm a Seven too, but not the real Seven. That's you. My clutch was killed. They were defective. All but me. Your clutch is all still alive, Moju and the rest, right? So as long as all of you are alive, your clutch is the one that fulfills the prophecy. If the avians can get the six back to wherever it is they live, their genetics will be clean again. You can die after that, and it won't change the future for them. But if you stay alive you can fulfill your end of the prophecy. Which can't happen until some higher power or order or something comes back to Earth and moderates the punishment of Lucan."