Although their hands were tied tightly, they hadn’t been secured in any other way. Sienna was limber enough, and built correctly, to bring her wrists below the apex of her tailbone and along the back of her legs, before righting them in front of herself. She immediately began to help Gemmel, the few nicks he had endured making it harder for him to hold the bone shard with bloody fingers. Sean, in the corner, attempted to duplicate his sister’s feat to repeated fail.
“Shit, Sienna… I’m sorry,” grumbled Gemmel as she sawed at his ropes.
“What the hell for?”
“For gettin’ you in this mess.”
She grabbed his jaw, forcing him to look at her. “You wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for me.”
“Couldn’t leave you,” he mumbled, averting his eye from her glare.
“Damn it, you and my brother need to figure out that I can take care of myself.”
“No, it’s not…” he tried as she broke through the ropes.
“What then?” Sienna hissed.
“Um, guys?” Sean called out. “Could you untie me? I think something’s going down in crazy town.”
A racket had picked up down the alley, a cacophony of screams and gunfire. The sound of rushing footsteps and panicked commands. An explosion in the distance rocked the shed faintly off its foundation and the chorus of screams increased.
“Now what?” Sean mused as Sienna got his ropes off.
Peering out the door, they saw Leechers running towards the spot where they had been held before Anne Gimme, while others fled past them. One retreated clutching a sparkling blue wig to his head. Another smaller explosion took a building up in flames.
“We need guns,” said Gemmel.
“We need our Servants,” observed Sean.
“We need to get the fuck out of here,” concluded Sienna as she bolted from the shed.
They kept to the side of the alley, passing two more escaping Leechers. They didn’t have any weapons on them and didn’t even give the formerly captured trio a second glance. Pausing at the corner, Gemmel stuck his head out around the edge, but jumped back. Moments later, a woman came running by, only to be snagged up in his powerful arms.
“Lemme go!” she squealed.
“Stop, just tell us what’s going on!”
“Missy Big-Britches!” she wailed.
“Wait, that’s your name?” asked Sean.
“Nah, Missy Big-Britches took! Ms. Anne taught us to take, and she did!”
“What?”
“She took! And now she’s a’ feedin’!”
Gemmel let her go to scamper off into the morning.
“I think she just said somebody named ‘Missy’ is a Feeder now,” he said.
“Why haven’t they taken her out?” asked Sienna, peeking around the corner.
“Uh, Sienna,” said Sean quietly. “You decimated half their people and most of their weaponry.”
She could only reply with an, “Oh.”
The trio crept out from the alleyway and into the madness. Everyone was either attempting to engage the Feeder or running from it screaming. Sean, Gemmel and Sienna stayed concealed and moved closer to where the makeshift table had fallen over. The battle itself was another block over, but hopefully in the outbreak, no one had thought to swoop by and abscond with any of their Servants.
Sure enough, one still lay face up in the dirt at the side of a broken chair. Sean prowled along the outskirts a bit more and spied the other two at behind. He dashed out, scooped up the first two and was reaching for the third when a howl echoed through the plaza.
“You!”
Anne Gimme stood there, the flames backlighting her like some demonic figure from literature. Her face was pinched in indignatious rage, a single bony finger pointing at them. Blood dribbled down from a wound at her temple.
“Users! Enemies! I’ll see your corpses stink for this injustice! I’ll see you all…”
A single rock flew out of the Sienna’s hand and cracked the Leecher in the face, knocking her unconscious.
Gemmel started to open his mouth but she just held up a hand.
“She was a lunatic. Now can we run?”
Darting up through another alley and then onto a wider road, the trio kept moving in a direction they took to be north. One Leecher popped out of a window, but Gemmel clotheslined him without breaking stride. At one point they hesitated, the highway winding west, but they jumped to a nearby underpass and continued north. With the sun now rising, it was easier to judge. Their running had turned to jogging, only speeding up again when they heard a commotion inside a warehouse close by. Less than an hour later, the steel beam latticework of a bridge rose up in front of them. A few vehicles seemed to be strategically parked on it.
“I’m going to pass out,” Sienna groaned.
“No problem, once we’re across,” said Sean.
They had taken a few steps onto the bridge itself when three distinct shots landed only paces in front of them.
“Hate to be un-neighborly like that,” came a voice. “But we don’t really care for Gimmes here, nor their problems. Best turn ‘bout and go home.”
A man as huge as Gemmel, both in muscle and in gut, materialized from behind a van. A schlock of red hair and an equally bushy red mustache stood out in contrast to his weather-beaten pale skin. He was only slightly less imposing than the Gatling gun he held causally in his hands
“A modified M134 Livermore!” gasped Sean.
“Shut! Up!” Sienna stressed.
“Jackie’s up on high with his long scope, and Jackie don’t miss,” said the ginger giant conversationally. “Now, ‘course, given my distance and this here toy I’m carryin’, don’t likely think I’d miss neither. Be on your ways now.”
“We’re… we’re not with Anne Gimme,” said Sienna.
“Uh-huh.”
“No, we were captured by her!” she exclaimed. “We were coming here, told to come here, we…”
“And jus’ who woulda guided you lost lambs in our direction?”
Sienna took a single step forward, Sean hissing a warning behind her.
“I was told to tell Old Man Mandela that Jean-Baptiste Camus says to ‘remember Shelby Park.’ Camus says remember Shelby Park!”
This gave the massive man wielding a Gatling gun quite a start. He gave second one when an elderly black man strolled out from behind the van next to him and placed his hand carefully on the weapon, lowering it.
“Well then Child, you should have opened with that.”
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DataLog Text-LiveJourn: Doyle, Sienna A. / 23-10-24
Pittsburg is pretty much the nightmare I thought it would be, some absurdist concoction of overgrown greenhouse and over-enthusiastic butcher shop. I can sense the Feeders lurking in this blood-soaked jungle, but few wander too near. Those that do, don’t wander anywhere again.
I don’t need backup, but I wish I had some. More for the company than anything else. I’ve thought a lot about Sean these last few days. And Gemmel. Jay Gemmel.
I wonder what Camus what say if he could see me now, knee deep in a slush of human gore and vegetable rot, skeletal limbs and thorny vines hanging in my face. Probably something esoteric and confusing. I once told Mandela that he was as smart as Camus, and I thought the old man was going to have a heart attack from laughing so hard. Turns out Camus was some big shit academic writer before the world ended. Mandela also had the impression that Camus had seen some really bad shit in those early days of the Mancer Wars.
Old Man Mandela. The few months we stayed with him and his crew, I like to think we were actually happy. While Anne and her Gimmes were ruthless scavengers, ready to kill each other for scraps, the Northerners (as they loosely referred to themselves) acted as a community. Mandela didn’t even like to be considered their leader, although everyone knew it. Teddy, the huge redheaded guy, oversaw most of the daily operations with Jackie the Sniper in charge of security. They had a system that worked
better than what we had used at Sigma-8, although a bit more dangerous with what was creeping around across the river. Sure they were Leechers, but they had learned how to deal with the addiction best they could. Every now and again, somebody succumbed and they were dropped. It was sad, but it was life. Nobody judged each other; nobody judged Sean and Gemmel for not leeching.
And only Mandela knew about me.
I only leeched two more times while with the Northerners. Once when out on patrol with Sean and Gemmel. Yeah, we got our old jobs back. We ran into about half a dozen Feeders, and since it was just us, I thought it would be easier. Sean yelled at me for days. Of course, the second time happened when one of Mandela’s own people lost it in camp. Most people were already out on their duties, and this guy bought it real close to the infirmary. A score of people saw me tear open a Feeder with my bare hands, but nobody said anything or ever treated me weird. Who knows, maybe Mandela did tell them all something.
Things were good, or as good as they could be, but I felt the sword still hanging over my head. She won’t be a Feeder or a Mancer – possibly something worse! I didn’t experience any type of hunger like the other Leechers, but that didn’t mean that one day I wouldn’t wake up a monster. I guess I always feared, even expected, that day would be the very next. In all my concerns about tomorrow, it never occurred to me that somebody would be worried about me.
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DataLog Text-MemxJourn: Doyle, Sienna A. / 07-07-24
“I seriously don’t envy those on regular farming rotation.”
“Damn it, Sienna,” rumbled Gemmel.
Sienna arched her shoulder, trying to work out the pain knotted there. She had peeled off her shirt and tucked it into her waistband, her navy blue cargos hanging low on her hips. Her white, military-issue bra was soaked with sweat and she briefly considered going to change it when she caught the look on Gemmel’s face.
“What? What did I say?”
Rainie, a young woman she had befriended, laughed so hard behind her she almost started coughing. “For a smart chick, Sienna, you can be really clueless. I’m talking incredibly dim.”
Sienna attempted to decipher Rainie’s blushing amusement and the nuclear holocaust worthy glare Gemmel was giving her friend.
“Gemmel, don’t get mad at…” she began, but he was already storming off.
“Wow, I’m totally not getting involved in your domestic squabble,” quipped Rainie.
Domestic squabble? Rainie was a petite, hyper, blonde girl barely out of her teens. Highly opinionated and vocal about those opinions, people either loved or hated her. Sienna had instantly gravitated to the manic young Leecher.
“So, what just happened?” Sienna asked as she and Rainie started hauling a pitiful daily harvest of leaf lettuce back to camp.
“Oh gosh, Gemmel! Farming is such hard work!” replied Rainie in a mocking high voice. “I’m so hot, I better strip down naked here in front of you!”
“Wait, what?”
“Like, why you two aren’t fucking like drunk…”
“Whoa! He’s like my big brother!”
“Eh, maybe in your celibate fantasy land.”
Sienna was stunned. Gemmel? He had always been there, like family, her brother’s best friend. She had known him for so long, it was ridiculous. Giant, grumpy Gemmel.
With the sack of lettuce slung over her shoulder, she thought over what she knew of his personal life. Sienna really never knew him to bed up with anyone, long term or short. There had been that one girl, years ago, some mouthy brunette named Polly, but that had ended before it started. It wasn’t that Gemmel wasn’t attractive – dark complexion, shaved head, those deep-set brown eyes, and… oh, hell.
Sienna shook her head. It couldn’t be. She was just feeling the pangs of her own miserable, lacking sex life. She hadn’t been laid in over a year, not since she had broke off the casual thing she had been engaged in with Collin. Since the spiral into weirdness that forced her out of Sigma-8, she hadn’t felt comfortable getting close enough to anyone to consider it. Even though Jackie was an insanely pretty man.
Sigma-8. Gemmel had left Sigma-8 because of them, because of her. Oh, hell.
“This is bad,” said Rainie.
“Gee, you think?” replied Sienna sarcastically.
“No, look you dumbass,” said Rainie, pointing. “There’s nobody at the gate.”
Spacey Sienna, she thought to herself.
A rudimentary perimeter had been erected around the central hub of camp, with five gates as access points. They were guarded at all times, always closed except when people where moving through them. Now, it stood open and abandoned. Rainie dropped her lettuce and produced a Colt .45 that was probably over a century old.
“Stay behind me,” said Sienna, dropping her sack as well, and pulling out two CZ75’s.
Gemmel had restored the fully automatic handguns a month ago. He wanted her to have something powerful, but light enough for her to use. She recalled the way he had presented them to her, the concern on his face. I really am incredibly dim! How hadn’t she noticed all the little signs?
Had this situation not coincided with her revelations about Gemmel, she wouldn’t have been distracted. Sienna wasn’t one to get blown over by flaky, girly things. Regardless, she almost missed the Feeder until it was nearly upon her. Rainie’s sudden intake of breath alerted her, she dropped to her knee, and took out the creature’s head.
Sienna was up on her feet and rushing the gates without another thought. Except, instead of a battle, or even a slaughter, she found half of the camp prostrate and surrounded by statue-still Feeders. Her eyes went wide when every black maw turned in her direction. Then, they went above her.
“So, you’re the little guttersnipe causing so much anxiety.”
Shimmering flecks of coal for eyes in pale, doughy features, he was attired in a pin-stripped suit and red tie. He held his hands primly in front of him, sanctimony evident in his posture. He was also standing on a narrow stone pillar that Sienna swore wasn’t there earlier, twelve feet off the ground.
“You will refer to me as ‘Mr. Rove,’ although I would prefer a simple Sir from your kind.”
He took a step out into open air, as if falling wasn’t an option. It wasn’t. Another second pillar of stone, eleven feet high erupted from the dirt to meet his foot. A third came, ten feet high, then a fourth. The fifth one lowered him down to the ground with a single flick of his fingers.
“For the sake of my time and your ignorance… geo-thermals,” Mr. Rove said.
“What do you want,” Sienna asked the Mancer, guns never lowering.
“You will leave immediately with me, without dalliance or incident, and I may allow these wretched stains to live a short while longer.”
Sienna lowered her weapons. There were over forty members of the Northerners camp surrounded by at least that many Feeders, half a dozen more lurching through the gates now. Rainie scrambled through and found a spot next to the other.
All this for her? For what she may or may not become. It was pointless, she was pointless. But Sienna wasn’t about to allow these people to fight a Mancer for her. This wasn’t their battle, their responsibility. They had been lucky enough that Mandela had taken them in. No, best to go before…
… before Gemmel and Sean did something stupid like fire a rocket launcher at Rove.
They had situated themselves high up across from the scene in a rickety old bell tower. The propulsion of the rocker firing was enough to start the tower swaying, the two already scurrying back down as soon as the slim, arm-length missile was away. Rove tapped into something – heat, velocity, who knows – and brought it to a shuddering halt only feet from himself. The enormity of will must have been staggering, because the Feeders had begun to stumble around and take swipes at the Northerners. Many started to escape. Sienna found her CZ75’s back up at Rove’s face, this time with the triggers pulled.
Bursts of electricity stunted each
bullet or veered them wildly off course. Rove stomped forward, a gesture directing a group of Feeder to tear into a group of Northerners who had taken refuge behind two large steel kegs. The blood sprayed in high arcs, almost as high as their screams. Sienna tapped at her triggers again, aiming closer to his feet in an attempt to unsteady him. Taking a step up, he simply began floating.
She began to backtrack deeper into the camp. The signal strength from the T-Net towers to her Servant was weak here, but if she could make it another one hundred yards, it would have full bars. If she leeched, she could put herself on an equal playing field. She twisted to take a few more shots at Rove, and saw it. Even without the nirvana from leeching, she saw the inevitable.
Gemmel was rushing straight at Rove, shoulders down and ready to tackle. The Mancer was more than aware of his presence. At the last moment, he summoned some type of energy, changed his density or something, and backhanded the huge man with a single stroke. Sienna could hear the sound of bones cracking, see his neck shift at a weird angle. She abruptly ran back to where he fell on the dirt.
His feet were twitching, chin was pressed down tightly against his chest. Eyeing rolling around spastically, blood began to dribble from the corners of his mouth as she pulled herself closer. Tears streamed as his eyes came to rest on her.
Sienna knew there wasn’t much time.
“Why?” she screamed, gathering him up in her arm. “Why did you… I was going to leech!”
Gemmel stared at her, unable to speak. Unable to even say the words.
“Just… just leech off me, Gemmel. C’mon, Jay! Please!”
Unable to say the words. Unable to say goodbye.
Sienna sobbed, clutching the body of her dead friend. Her best friend. Her brother’s best friend. A man who had honestly loved her, and she had been too stupid, too blind to see it.
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