Blood Runners

by George S. Mahaffey Jr.

  Farrow chuckled. "Just one?"

  "I dreamed I was on the other side."

  "Of the wall?"

  She shook her head.

  "The Grasslands?" he offered, and she nodded.

  "When I came with my family we stopped at the edge of it."

  "Thank God you didn’t go in."

  Her head canted and she froze him with a look. "What’s on the other side of the Grasslands?"

  The slightest of smiles tucked up the corners of his lips and then he shook his head. "That’s for another day."

  "You’ve been there? Tell true. You’ve seen what’s beyond?"

  He leaned into her, whispering conspiratorially, "Nobody goes over the wall, squid. At least nobody who ever makes it back to talk about. As such, now is not the time to talk about things that aren’t good for either of us."

  "When, then?"

  "Later."

  "It’s always later with you," she said with some heat.

  He grabbed her wrist with such force that she nearly yelped and touched her forehead with his. "You know why it’s not smart to ask so many questions? Sometimes you get answers. Understand? So if you wanna live to see another sunrise, you’ll let it go."

  Her eyes never strayed from his. "I don’t care if I see another sunrise."

  Farrow nodded and smirked, "So now you’re what? A natural hardass, Marisol? A true warrior?" She didn’t respond, surprised that he’d used her real name. He clapped his hands and said, "Guess it’s all meant to be, huh? This whole thing’s perfect for you. You’re the star of Absolution and it don’t matter what the outcome is because warriors were meant to die in battle, right?" She turned from him in a slow-burn and gripped her rifle and spotted Harrigan watching her while simultaneously grabbing a cylindrical grenade-launcher as the ceiling lights flashed green and the rear of the machine dropped open with a thunderous roar.

  CHAPTER 24

  Elias already had his nose pressed to the ground when the siren ripped the air, signaling the beginning of the run, what some called "The Harrowing."

  He was watching Marisol and the others exit their transport machine from a nook nearly a quarter-mile away, hidden adjacent to a scarp of rock that jutted out behind an old smelting plant. His gaze blurred into middle distance, enabling him to barely make out their forms. He couldn’t discern faces or details, just the faintest outline of the Apes as they formed ranks and moved out.

  He wrapped a scarf that resembled a keffiyeh around his face and donned a pair of black sports goggles so that his eyes looked like two small fires burning inside a cave. He reached in a disposable plastic pouch and held up a thin needle which housed a dose of epinephrine — "liquid scream," as Max called it. He chewed off the cap on the needle and exposed a bit of thigh flesh and plunged the needle in.

  Tossing the spent needle aside, he wormed down the rock and checked the watch that had been strapped to his wrist, which started blinking down… 59:58. He had to last an hour or make it past the Apes into the safe-lands near the bottom of Zone 5. He hopped onto a wall cast of cement and dropped to his haunches and glassed the land that spooled out in front of him with his hands.

  Elias watched the Apes tread through a narrow corridor between blocks of former two-story buildings that had gone to seed. They were bottled up with little room to maneuver, but were fanning out. Down to his left lay a rusted metal chute that jutted out of the broken windows of a building that once housed a drywall manufacturing plant. Elias’s real father was a construction hand in the old era, and he remembered seeing such a place, where glops of slurry were squirted onto the chute and then dried and cut and stacked to form sheetrock.

  The chute angled down perfectly, allowing Elias (if he could remain unseen) to nimble past the Apes and then drop to the ground and blow past the Apes and sprint to safety. He held the high ground presently, but it was only a matter of time before one of them spotted him. From his perch, he could see the tall, thin figure sprinting out ahead of the other Apes. The figure, whose face was obscured, moved faster than the others and seemed to be leading them. He would have to act quickly. He sunk to his belly and began crawling down the chute, which was suspended twenty feet off the ground but visible to the Apes through gaps in the building’s shattered windows.

  Flinty eyes swept the streets and grounds ahead. Farrow was on point behind Marisol, searching for any hint of movement. The Apes had itchy trigger-fingers. Harrigan errantly let loose with a flurry of grenades from his launcher which collapsed a shuttered liquor store whose inventory and fixtures had been pilfered during the calamity. Marisol cocked her head and checked the display on her HUD and then jogged out ahead of the others. She turned a corner and stopped and did what she did best: she listened.

  She heard Elias before she saw him, the purr of fabric flapping as she ducked through an alleyway just in time to see Elias tuck his elbows and prepare to drop from the chute. He hung suspended in the air and then dropped, his hands snapping out for a drain pipe that he grabbed and used to whip his body forward. She pulled up her rifle and sighted it down, but a second of indecision was all it took and Elias was gone from view. Without alerting the others, she ran laterally through a wasted storefront, heading toward the rear to cut Elias off, a back door coming up fast. Marisol jump-kicked it open as — BOOM! — the door exploded into Elias, knocking him sideways.

  Elias dropped to the ground and assumed a position akin to a person doing pushups: hands out shoulder-width, feet planted and cocked in the soft soil. He was shocked to see Marisol and she to see him. Elias resembled some kind of insect with his goggles and scarf. He hesitated, rose to his knees, and then she was on him.

  CHAPTER 25

  The butt of her rifle came down across his trap muscles, instantly timbering him back to his knees. Her curled leg caught him in the face next as he spiraled back onto his ass as she brought the rifle around and aimed as — WHACK! — he flicked a boot at the last second, tipping the rifle barrel up as Marisol fired a burst that ripped the air, the recoil unsteadying her, buying Elias precious seconds.

  He scooped a handful of dirt and flung it in her face as she crabbed back, and he took off like a tailback, lowering a shoulder, upending her. He drove her into the ground and then slugged her jaw as she took the punch and returned it with a nasty jab that knocked his throat and sent him reeling. Marisol’s hands ripped the scarf from Elias’s face and she gasped audibly when she saw him under it. "YOU?!" she shrieked.

  Elias had no idea who she was, and so he pulled back a fist to strike a more serious blow, girl or no girl, and that’s when he saw them: the other Apes appearing in the distance, trailing the faint echo of Marisol’s gunfire. Elias reacted, spun on his heels, and took off across a weed-strewn lot as the Apes took up firing positions. Harrigan was the first to fire, bellowing as he let loose with his launcher, flinging a grenade that spun past and air-burst in the vicinity of Elias. The explosive backwash threw Elias sideways with such force that it looked like he’d been pulled on an invisible string.

  Grunting to catch his breath, Elias shook off the shock and the thrumming in his ears and sprinted across open ground as bullets churned the ground all around him. He dove into an empty sewer pipe and elbowed forward and out the other end, and then clipped to his feet and hit a perimeter fence.

  He hauled himself over, bloody and torn by tangles of razor wire, as Marisol watched the Apes fire a blizzard of bullets at him, emptying out their rifles, slapping clips in, firing again. Farrow lowered his smoking rifle and turned to gauge Marisol’s reaction, but she was nowhere to be seen. He smacked his commo device to get a spike on her, but she’d disabled it. She was on her own. Moving in for the kill.

  Overhead, Longman’s drone was capturing the action in real time, beaming it back to Longman who reacted at the sight of the grenade exploding. He blanched when he saw Elias rise and run off, wondering just who the hell this boy was to survive an explosive detonation nearly right above his head. He watched the images change
as the drone circled, the time clock counting down at 41:24 and dropping as Elias entered the lower Zones that were awash in booby-traps. It was only a matter of time, Longman thought.

  He gaped back at the handful of people who were similarly watching the macabre spectacle of the hunt from one of the verandas on the Codex building. Other principals in the Codex and various other lesser Guilds, along with Hendrix and Moses O’Shea. People who had an interest in maintaining order and the new ways. Longman thought, for an instant, that they resembled the revelers who came out to watch the First Battle of Bull Run in another war that was long forgotten.

  He turned and moved through the onlookers like some illustrious potentate, taking in their anxious, wide-eyed faces. They appraised him with various looks: fear, hatred, and something that bordered on adoration. It was far better to be feared than loved, and most feared Longman. A few were even bold enough to whisper that they knew Longman’s secret, that he alone had possession of a small device (allegedly kept on his person at all times) synched to still-functioning satellites that could trigger a weapon and end the world. Whether this was a black lie or simple hearsay, it had the unmistakable ring of truth to it, especially in light of all that Longman had done. He turned from his followers, not a hint of panic or urgency in his face as he gazed upon the downtown cityscape and wondered how long it would be before the blood of the boy would be shed.

  CHAPTER 26

  The echo of gunshots and the dull thud of Harrigan’s grenade caused necks to crane down in the industrial hinterlands that bordered the Absolution Zones. A passel of Scrappers of various ages turned from prying piping and wires from the wreckage of a former consumer-electronics showroom. The Scrappers, three adults and a teen, hustled over to a section of fence that wreathed Zone 5 and gazed at Elias as he streaked by on the other side, maybe 100 yards away.

  The Apes appeared next, pouring down over an embankment like fire ants as they took potshots at Elias, who bobbed and weaved to avoid their bullets. The Scrappers took it in and, all of them being of low station and having run afoul of what passed for law enforcement under Longman’s reign at some point in the past, were not naturally inclined to root for the Apes, and so they thrust fists up into the air and cheered for Elias. Still, they were in awe of the sight of the Apes who looked like the personification of war with their body armor and heavy weapons.

  Elias galloped down a hillside, leg clipping an exposed root that sent him into an unchecked swoon as he tumbled elbows-over-ass past and down until he lay splayed on an old, soiled mattress. He bellied across it and bolted to his feet as bullets shredded the foliage around him. Back up on the hillside, emotion had overtaken Marisol, who triggered her gun, the wax-laden bullets inside lasering down at Elias like tracer-rounds. Her line of fire followed him as he juked across a field and into a building, the bullets shattering brick and mastic just behind his head and across the façades of big-box and franchise stores that had been built back during the years of gentrification. More bullets flew and a section of wall fell like a cataract of ruin, barely missing Elias who tumbled ahead.

  Elias plunged through a section of cement conduit that was tall enough to fit three men side-by-side. His vision whited out as he burst from the other end and skidded to a stop in a section of downtown that had been walled off in the past with concrete jersey walls. Catching his breath, he checked his watch — 38:39 left — as he looked over his shoulder and caught the faintest hint of one of the Apes signaling for the others to follow.

  He turned and scanned the road before him. Formerly asphalt, now little more than dirt and gravel. He discerned a section of the road where what appeared to be fresh soil had been packed. The slightest of lumps was covered by the soil and Elias bent and grabbed a clutch of wet newspaper and nimbled up to the edge of the fresh pack and used the paper to conceal it.

  He was making sure to avoid the wires that jutted out of the pack, the telltale sign of an IED, as he hopped onto a sidewalk of segmented concrete when — CRACK-BOOM! — the building next to him vanished in a titanic grenade blast. Elias covered his head and clawed his way through the dust kicked up by the explosion, using it as cover, listening to the invectives and war cries of the Apes grow louder behind him.

  Marisol broke from the Apes and loosed a fusillade in Elias’s direction, shell casings pinging the cement beneath her. She’d never seen a Runner move with such dexterity, and was shocked at how Elias seemed to be able to run between her rounds. Her peripheral vision fixed upon a pair of Apes that were bounding out and away from Farrow and the others. They moved in patterns, checking lines of sight, clearing them. Scan. Sweep. Repeat. Moving heel-to-toe, knees bent, bodies angled forward, searching for targets. Typical Ape movements that were preached back in the barracks and writ in forgotten training books.

  Marisol saw the hidden IED before they did, raised a hand to signal for them to stop when — BOOM! — one of them triggered the hidden bomb, which turned both men into bone-confetti. Farrow and the others instantly dropped to the ground as the blast echoed off the storefronts and buildings. It was in that instant that Marisol and the other Apes knew this Runner was different. He’d taken down more of them in one session than had fallen in the prior three years. Infuriated, Sikes, Harrigan, and the other Apes wove forward, bloodlust in their eyes, as Farrow swapped glances with Marisol, who headed in another direction.

  Elias nodded with grim satisfaction as the IED blast echoed and then faded into nothingness. He checked his watch — 34:45 left to go. He scooted across a dusty verge, spotting the Apes dashing to cut him off. Doubling back, Elias rattlesnaked through the broken front window of a garage and headed toward the back when he noticed the ground giving way underfoot. He looked down and saw that the floor was one sheet of metal, rigged to drop: a booby-trap!

  Spinning like a dervish, he pushed forward as the floor dropped. Elias vaulted forward through the air, landing hard against the rim on the other side, grasping for purchase, finding a handhold. He looked back and down to see that the metal floor had fallen away to one side of a pit awash in sharpened pieces of rebar. With great effort, Elias utilized his chinning abilities and pulled himself up. As he flopped on the other side, he heard the sickening sound of a depression plate lowering.

  His eyes skipped left and right, and he watched hidden weights fall down metal shelving. As he bopped to his feet, the weights fell, triggering guns lodged in the recessed walls. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! The guns fired in what seemed like slow-motion to Elias, who ducked and covered and managed to avoid the slugs as he rolled out a rear door that nearly came closing down on top of him before he squirted out, leapt to his feet, and took off into a stand of shrubbery.

  Marisol was gliding down over bricked walls and past the ruined façades of franchised and corporate eyesores, reloading her rifle on the run. Time was running out. She bulled through an alley as a tree-trunk arm snagged her midsection and she brought her rifle up into the face of Farrow.

  "Stand down, girl," he said. "Stand down."

  She did, her face flushed, red as a candy apple. He half-smiled and said, "You only know how to play the game at one speed, huh?"

  She nodded and wiped back her sweaty locks and looked for the other Apes, who were nowhere to be seen.

  "How long?"

  He checked his watch. "Less than thirty ticks."

  "He’s headed for the maze," she said with certainty.

  "How can you be sure?"

  "Because I can feel it. Because that’s where I’d go."

  "This grunt ain’t like you, Marisol."

  "I know," she responded. "He might be better."

  "Charlie Mike," was all Farrow said. Marisol nodded, repeating, "Charlie Mike." Continue mission.

  CHAPTER 27

  Moses O’Shea could barely contain his glee as he watched his boy Elias make fools of the mighty Apes. He’d already vanquished two of the galoots and was certain to take down a few more. At this rate, Moses would have more money than he could spend. Hi
s elation was muted only when Longman’s shadow fell over him and he heard the words, "Are the tales true, O’Shea? Is your Runner really green?"

  Moses looked up and took in Longman’s grave and decorous demeanor and nodded. "S’all true, Mister Heller. The kid’s first run."

  "Lovingly, I would say his abilities are hardly… suboptimal."

  "He’s a dandy indeed, sir. Got real nice instincts."

  Longman noted this, his eyes straying upward to heaven, then back to Moses as he replied, "Oh, I think we both know it’s a little more than that. I think he had an awful good trainer."

  O’Shea didn’t know whether to smile or grind his teeth. Others had gone mad trying to divine the meaning in Longman’s cryptic responses, and so he simply lowered his head and went back to watching the imagery shot by the drone, hoping like hell that the bet he’d placed on Elias’s back would pay off.

  CHAPTER 28

  The minutes blurred past as Elias sought cover in the remnants of a forgotten stock-yard, and a rusted tin warehouse littered with overturned rail-cars, before running down a ramp that curved through a toy store before stopping at a ledge that dropped away to a basement twenty feet below. Elias ran down a ramp that curved through a toy store and ground to a stop at a ledge that dropped away to a basement twenty feet below. Time and the elements had crushed the store like a tin can, exposing another ledge eight feet away that led to safety. Elias crabbed back, then took off in a dead run. In one fluid motion, he sprung across the chasm and grabbed the ledge and directed his momentum up and over it, where he collapsed to the ground and checked his watch, which showed 4:29. A thrill passed through his frame. He was nearly home free.

  He looked up, and sensing no movement anywhere hurtled toward a stairwell and slid down the metal railings and caught sight of Longman’s drone prowling lazily across the sky above.