"Jackson got separated from us not long after he entered the cave. Snow went AWOL. Dr. Anjali's out with the second helicopter searching for them."
Friedman massaged the bridge of his nose. "Did I not make it apparent to you that staying in this forest at night is suicide?"
"You did," Fry said. "But love conquers all. The only way to get her to give up on Jackson would be to knock her out and drag her out of this forest."
He glanced over his shoulder into the darkness. "Gotta say, though. Little lady's got guts. Saved my ass once, in fact. She's a survivor."
Friedman eyed him. "It's still a fool's errand, but I guess you're right. Love makes fools of us all."
He sighed and beckoned him. "Come this way and I'll get your tank refilled. Where are you headed next?"
"Got to get with the locals and find out about my backup," Fry said, unhooking the cold gun and handing it to the doctor. The doctor opened the back of an SUV, revealing a large metal container around the size of a water cooler with complicated metal components. He flipped the cold gun's tanks upside down and unscrewed the cap connected to the nozzle, then turned a knob on the container. A hissing sound filled the air.
"It's not exactly easy to get helicopters short notice," Friedman said, idly glancing in the direction of the one that had been hauling Baba Yaga. "Especially not this far out. You sound like you're about to wage a war."
"Not far off from that idea," Fry said. "These aren't the same kind of people who came after Jackson and Anjali when they took their first dragon. There's more firepower. They want to make it loud."
"Sounds dangerous."
Fry smirked. "I like loud."
"Why am I not surprised?"
Fry snorted. "You're just a basket of kittens, aren't you?"
"I'm a scientist. Comes with the territory. I don't do people." He switched the knob off and handed it back to Fry.
"It shows." Fry pulled the pack back on. "Alright, doc. Leave the refill tank here, pack up, and bail. Shit's about to get nasty. I want you and the rest of the civilians out of Aokigahara within the next half hour."
"Done," Friedman said, shuddering a bit. "This place creeps me the hell out."
"How far out do I have to go for a phone call to go through?"
"About five miles offsite, I'm afraid. The interference is so intense we've practically had to send people halfway back to Tokyo to get any communication from base."
Fry cursed under his breath. "I don't have that kind of time. Alright, I'll give you the rundown of what to tell my task force back in Cambridge. Relay the message and have Dr. Hudson meet Baba Yaga as soon as she gets where she's going. Any chance you know where that is?"
Friedman shook his head. "They won't tell me. Security risk. Only the driver knows. We're all just following him."
"Understood. I'll give you a one-time authorization code. Once the Japanese government verifies it, contact Dr. Hudson to meet you there so we can keep the dragon in her dormant state. If she wakes up, there's hell to pay. Even if we manage to kill her, she'll take a hell of a lot people out with her."
"Got it." Fry told him all the new relevant information as well as the code and then sent Friedman on his way. He headed over to the small gathering of local policemen and government agents who had been in charge of securing the perimeter.
"How soon would we be able to get a substantial number of men here?"
"They're en route," the commander told him. "ETA fifteen minutes."
"Be ready. I need what men you can spare to follow Baba Yaga's transport. They'll come for her and my gut tells me they're heading for our camp as well to make sure we can't interfere. I need another chopper in the air as soon as possible. The aim is to strike first and catch them off guard. We hit them hard and then get the hell out of dodge. Got me?"
The men around him nodded. "Remember, we do have two friendlies out there, so you be damned sure that before you pull that trigger, the person in your crosshairs is shooting at you. Any friendly fire and you'll answer to me."
He tugged the suit's hood up over his head. "Alright, gents. Let's roll out."
14
ZENITH
"Snow?"
"What?"
"Mind holding up for a second?"
"Why?"
"Nature calls."
The Scottish woman heaved yet another sigh. "I swear to the almighty, I'm going to leave you here to rot."
Jack scowled. "Do that and I'll find you and haunt the crap out of you."
He stepped behind a tree. Pausing, he glanced around the trunk to see her aiming yet another hateful glare in his direction. "Would you turn around, you freak of nature?"
Snow growled. "What are you? A three year old?"
"I can't go when someone's watching."
"I can't even bloody see you."
"Would you just turn around, woman?"
Snow grumbled insults under her breath and faced away from the tree. Jack pulled a face, knowing she couldn't see it, and took care of business. "Christ, it's like you've never been around another human being before. Are you an alien? You're about as warm and cuddly as one of those facehuggers from Alien."
"I could use one of those right now," she groused. "Attach it to your face so you'll shut the hell up."
"Oh, I could do that. And then when I don't have a distraction and I mistake you for a killer clown and belt you one, you can break both my arms and call it a day."
"Legs," Snow corrected. "I'd break your legs, Jackson. That way you either starve to death, freeze to death, or are completely helpless when the yakuza show up."
"Honestly," Jack said, shaking his head. "No wonder your last name is Snow. I'm gonna start singing the Cold Miser song in a minute."
She whirled around, glaring. "Sing a single line and I'll cut your fingers off, Jackson."
A shit-eating grin spread across his mouth. "I'm Mister--"
He stopped abruptly just after he'd zipped up and stepped around the tree. Without another word, he threw himself on top of Snow just as the man who had appeared behind her pulled the trigger.
The gunshot nearly deafened Jack from so close. A piercing whine filled his ears, but Jack didn't have time to notice the pain. The second after he'd tackled Snow, he grabbed a log behind her head and swung it as hard as he could at the man's knee as he aimed at them again. The log made a sharp cracking sound against the man's patella, shattering it, and the shots went to the left, missing them both. Jack lunged forward and grabbed the gun, yanking the barrel up and away from him. Gritting his teeth, he slammed the top of his skull down on the man's nose and the man reeled backwards, dazed. Jack jerked the gun out of the attacker's grip and kicked him in the injured knee. The mercenary crumpled to the ground with a scream.
Jack pointed the rifle at his head, barking, "Stay down!"
The merc glared at him from the ground, but remained still. Jack tried to slow his racing heartbeat and tilted his head slightly, not taking his eyes off the man, as Snow rose to her feet.
"You okay?"
"Fine," Snow said, picking leaves out of her long tresses.
"The word you're looking for is 'thank you.'"
"Piss off," she snapped.
Jack grinned, replying in a sing-song voice. "I saved your life. Ha-ha, ha-ha, ha!"
"Go to hell," she seethed.
"You're welcome."
"Give me the gun, idiot."
Jack shot her a quick skeptical look. "Yeah, that's gonna happen."
She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. "Do you know how to use that thing?"
Jack adopted an accent reminiscent of Antonio Banderas. "Yes. Barrel end points at the other man."
She narrowed her eyes at him. "Remind me which one of us is hopped up on a hallucinogen again?"
"Oh. Point taken." Jack handed her the rifle. She gave it a brief glancing over. To her surprise, it had .308 rounds rather than the .50 cal rounds that the others had been carrying. The implication was chilling. The shooter migh
t have been dispatched specifically to kill them, not the dragon. Their targets had changed. They were being hunted.
"Are you alone?" she asked the merc.
The man didn't say anything. "No one is going to come find you if we shoot out your remaining kneecap and leave you to die in this forest. Answer the question."
Snow swung the barrel towards the leg he wasn't clutching. "Fine. Enjoy bleeding to death."
She fired the rifle.
"Two men!" he blurted out before he could help himself. "Closing in from the rear."
He frowned, realizing she'd shot the ground a mere inch from his leg, and muttered, "Goddammit" under his breath in resignation.
"Lovely. Thank you for your cooperation." She slammed the butt of the gun into his forehead and he flopped backwards unconscious. She knelt and handed the rifle back to Jack.
"Watch our six. I'll see if he's got anythin' useful." She checked the mercenary's pockets, finding extra ammo, a map, and a burner phone. He had a link in his ear as well, which she took and placed in her own. She stood and unfolded the map, checking the marked locations on it.
"There are two sites marked here," Snow said. "One is the campsite I saw. The other...it's heading back towards the city."
"You think that might be where they'd hide the dragon if they got it?"
"Possibly."
"Then we'd better get back to the forest entrance on double-time. We have to warn our guys."
"I'm sure they already know," Snow said, tucking the map into her pocket and then taking the gun back. "Fry's not stupid."
"No," Jack agreed, falling in step behind her once again. "Cold and calculating, but not stupid."
"Not everyone can be as warm and fuzzy and useless as you, Jackson."
"Yep, the warm, fuzzy, useless man who saved your life."
Snow ground her teeth. Jack snickered victoriously.
She held up a fist and Jack stopped. She peered through the rifle's night-vision scope. "There's the other two. Forty yards out straight ahead."
"What's the plan?" Jack whispered.
"Create a distraction and I'll take them out."
Jack aimed an incredulous stare at the back of her head. "Seriously?"
"What?" Snow asked, adopting a facetious innocent tone. "You don't trust me?"
"You just told me you'd break my legs five minutes ago!"
"If I were going to let you die, I'd have done it when I found you. Now make yourself useful and distract them."
Jack let out a frustrated growl. "You are the absolute worst."
Snow smiled smugly and said nothing as he crept off in the direction of the two approaching mercenaries.
It was hard to tell how quiet he was being with the faint screech from the gunshot still in his ears, but Jack did his best to step lightly and stay out of sight as he headed towards the mercs. He went to his left, hoping that approaching from another direction might give him a slight advantage. His rattled mind couldn't focus on anything other than the statistics associated with .308 caliber bullets being fired from sniper rifles. With a caliber that large, he wouldn't even feel it if they shot him in the head. It would just be lights out. Jack shuddered at the thought of making one wrong step and being off to meet his maker in the blink of an eye.
"Distraction," he muttered under his breath. "What does she want me to do? That hula routine from The Lion King?"
Jack paused. "Well, that would make an excellent distraction, come to think of it."
He swallowed hard as he came within shooting distance of the men and flattened himself to the ground in a ditch nearby. He had a few options. He just wasn't sure which of them ended up with him dead.
Jack glanced over his shoulder. He was on a hill. He could make a noise and then haul ass until he was hopefully out of range.
He faced forward again.
Only to find the entire world had inverted itself.
Everything from the top of the hill and beyond it had completely flipped upside down. The cold, endless sky stretched out before Jack like a bejeweled ocean with a huge diamond in the center representing the moon. Above him, the shadowed tops of the trees hung as if they were mountainous clouds. He nearly cried out as the gravity shifted as well, and clung to the tiny patch of land underneath his feet. His hair lifted off his scalp and the folds of his suit tugged towards the air above him. If he let go, he'd go flying upward and smash into the forest floor like a dropped egg.
Jack shut his eyes. "Not real. It's not real. Get it together, Jackson. She's counting on you."
His stomach rushed up his throat, but he managed to keep from throwing up as he opened his eyes to the bizarre landscape and focused until he could see the two mercs again, creeping through the underbrush upside down.
Jack took a deep breath, rolled his lower lip inward, and whistled.
The mercs immediately turned to face him and opened fire.
Jack fled downhill on his hands and knees at first, relieved that only the earth where they stood had flipped upside down, and barreled off into the darkness, zig-zagging between trees. Bullets ripped into the soil near his feet and sent splinters of wood flying on either side of him. He was all but certain that one of them was going to hit him when he heard a third assault rifle join in on the chorus.
Abruptly, the gunfire stopped.
Jack crouched behind a tree and listened hard, cold sweat dripping down his forehead into his eyes, trying to stay quiet enough to feel out what had happened.
Then, a moment later, he heard Snow's gruff, accented voice. "Clear."
He exhaled and stood up.
Only to feel the barrel of a gun press to the nape of his neck.
"Don't move," Aisaka Tomoda whispered into his ear from behind him.
Jack swallowed hard and stood perfectly still.
"Listen carefully," she murmured in that same empty voice. "You are going to bring her over here. If you don't, I will kill you. Nod if you understand me."
Pure terror enveloped the scientist from head to toe. There was no way he could grab the gun in time. She'd blow his brains out. After all the fighting he'd done to survive, it was going to end this way.
But that didn't mean he was going to just hand Snow over to her either.
"Fuck you," he rasped. "Shoot me."
Aisaka jammed the gun harder against his skin. "Do you think I won't?"
"Thought you were all about loyalty in the yakuza," he spat back. "I'm not betraying her. You're going to have to kill me and take your chances."
She didn't reply, but he could practically hear the gears turning in her head. Her hesitation gave her away. Jack realized that she knew Snow was a legitimate threat. If they went toe to toe, it was possible for Aisaka to lose. She wanted an assured victory.
A snarling sound left the female yakuza's throat before she barked out, "Throw down the gun or he dies!"
Visibility was all but impossible, but Jack had heard Snow walking towards him shortly after she'd called out that the area was clear. He heard nothing now. She'd stopped.
"You think I give a damn whether he lives or dies?" Snow said from somewhere in the distance. Aokigahara had a bad habit of causing odd echoes that made it hard to locate someone.
"Go ahead and shoot him," Snow continued. "Show me that pretty face, lass."
"Surrender," Aisaka spat. "Surrender now and I'll let you live."
"I've got a better idea," Snow replied. "Drop the gun and maybe I'll let you live."
Jack shut his eyes for a second and prayed that he wasn't about to have his last words. "Snow, she's stalling. She's probably got men on the way over here. Go. Get back to the campsite."
"Jackson--" Snow said tightly.
"We don't have time for this!" Jack ground out. "Just go!"
Silence. Wind whistled overhead. Leaves rustled. The trees swayed and moaned in the darkness.
Snow's voice came out a bare whisper.
"I'm sorry."
Jack screamed as a bullet tore into his
left side.
Behind him, Aisaka choked and tumbled backwards to the ground. Jack gasped as pain crept through his upper body like acid and blood soaked through the thick material of the suit. He swayed, nearly collapsing, his legs rubbery from the sheer intensity of the pain. As he stumbled, he spotted Aisaka on the ground behind him with an identical wound spreading black blood out through the top half of her bulletproof vest. She was shorter than him. The round had hit the meaty section of her shoulder and had torn a chunk of the muscle away entirely.
Her black doll's eyes were still aimed at Jack, and he could see a deep, rotten hatred filling them as she lay there twitching on the ground, the life leaking out of her.
Her lip curled. Jack knew what she was going to do a second before she did it.
She raised the gun with her working arm and pulled the trigger.
But by then, Jack had already moved.
Roaring, Jack stomped on her injured upper body. He heard a sickening crunch as his boot completely shattered her collarbone and dislocated her shoulder. She screamed--a loud, high-pitched wail like a coyote dying with its leg in a trap.
Panting, Jack collapsed to one knee over her and batted the gun out of her reach. Something ugly and cruel rose up inside him as he stared down at the dying woman.
"Now you know how it feels," Jack whispered. "To be helpless and in pain. How does it feel, Aisaka?"
She convulsed once, twice, as if trying to speak, but she had nothing left. Jack's lips moved on their own.
"Die well."
Aisaka Tomoda gurgled one final time before she went still.
What little strength Jack had left vanished. He pitched over onto his back next to the dead woman, one hand still clutching the bullet wound.
A second later, Snow threw herself to the ground beside him, her knife in her hand. She slashed open the hole in his suit and quickly analyzed the severity of the wound. The round had hit Aisaka dead on, but it had left a nasty perforation along Jack's ribs. His entire side was soaked with blood and the suit sagged with its wet weight.
"You shot me," Jack wheezed in disbelief. "You actually fucking shot me!"
"She would have killed us both, you bloody idiot," Snow growled, ripping open her miniature First Aid kit and sifting through the items quickly.
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