Catch the Lightning

by Catherine Asaro

  “Nug, please,” I said.

  “What’s wrong?” Nug said. “I got everything he has. Maybe better.”

  I was sure he had sent his men after Althor. They probably pulled him into one of the back rooms. And Nug wasn’t stupid. Although we were in a library with a large window, Buzzer’s body hid me from view. Anyone outside would see only what looked like Buzzer and Nug talking Nug glanced at String and jerked his chin. I heard a thud, metal hitting muscle, followed by a grunt, and the bigger thud of a body hitting the ground.

  “Come on,” Nug said. “We’re outta here.”

  As they took me to a side door, String jogged up next to us. We came out in an alley between the library and the cleaners. No windows broke the walls on either side, no place where someone might look out and see I needed help. A mist of furious red sparks hung around Nug, smelling like vinegar and soot. Another one of his men was waiting in the alley, a skinny guy named Pits.

  “Get the car,” Nug told him.

  Pits took off, sprinting toward the parking lot in back of the library. Jerking up my foot, I stabbed the spike heel of my shoe into Buzzer’s leg. As he yelled, his hold loosened and I twisted out of his arms. I ran for the plaza in front of the library, lurching in my high heels. If only I could get out of the alley. San Carlos was a busy street Once I was in the plaza, someone had to see me. They had to. I could run into the street even, make a car stop.

  Another of Nug’s men stepped into view, blocking the end of the alley.

  With a cry, I skidded to a stop in front of him. Footsteps sounded behind me, and I spun around to see Nug. Buzzer came up on his left and String on his right, chests heaving as they gasped for breath.

  “I’m getting real tired of this,” Nug said.

  “No!” I said. “People will see—”

  “Shut up.” He grabbed my arm and threw me back into Buzzer. I tried to scream, but Buzzer clamped his hand over my mouth. An engine rumbled, and an old car turned into the alley from the back parking lot, with Pits driving. He rolled toward us and stopped a few feet away.

  Nug glanced at me. “We’re going to my place, baby. For a party. All of us.” He looked around, then scowled at the guy who had stepped into the alley. “Go find the others.”

  As the guy took off, Buzzer dragged me to the car and opened the back door. He pushed me down on the seat, on my back, pressing one hand over my mouth and holding my wrists. The other door opened, bringing the greasy auto shop smell Nug carried around with him. Buzzer let go of my mouth, but as soon as I opened it to scream, Nug stuffed in a wad of cloth and covered my mouth with duct tape.

  String opened the front door and tossed Nug a rope. “That’s all we got.”

  Nug caught the rope. “It’ll do.” Leaning over me, he took my wrists from Buzzer and pulled off my bracelet.

  I struggled to yank my hands away from him. My mother had given me that bracelet, and her mother to her, and on back for more generations than anyone in our family knew. It could never be replaced.

  Buzzer motioned at the bracelet. “Think it’s worth anything?”

  Nug watched me struggle. “She thinks it is. Maybe we can hock it.” He laughed. “Hey, it’s a prize. Whoever does her the longest gets it.”

  I yelled No! but all that came out was a muffled grunt. Nug dropped the bracelet on the floor. They flipped me over onto my stomach, and Buzzer held me down while Nug tied my wrists behind my back. When they turned me over again, I clenched my teeth on the cloth in my mouth and jerked up my knees, jamming them into Buzzer’s crotch.

  “Shit!” Buzzef jumped back so fast he hit his head on the door frame. He fell against the door, his fury leaking out of his pores like drops of lava.

  The boot whipped up in such a blur, I didn’t realize it was a person kicking his leg until the heel hit Buzzer’s chest and threw him away from the car. Then Althor hurtled into Buzzer and they spun out of sight. Behind me, Nug swore and opened the car door.

  I scrambled out of the car, nearly losing my balance with my hands tied behind my back, just in time to see Althor and Buzzer hit the wall of the cleaner’s. As String ran up behind them, his switchblade drawn, Althor whirled around, holding Buzzer by his jacket, kicking his leg up in a move of deadly grace. An unnatural speed controlled his body, as if he were a machine directed by someone else. His anger filled the air with spears of ice only I could see. I didn’t know then that it was a programmed emotion, a state-of-the-art defense designed to smother his em-pathic abilities during combat.

  His kick sent String’s knife spinning and his heel slammed into String’s chest. As String flew backward into the car, Althor threw Buzzer after him. Both men crumpled to the ground, broken and unconscious. I later learned that the only reason they still lived was because Althor’s biomech web had calculated that lethal force wasn’t needed. The web couldn’t completely control-his actions, but it helped keep him in check.

  Up to a point.

  Somewhere, far away but coming closer, sirens wailed. An explosion cracked here in the alley, and Althor staggered back into the wall of the cleaners as if someone pushed him. On the other side of the car, Nug stood with his arms straight out, his Luger aimed at Althor. He had hit Althor’s side, at the waist above his left hip, between the edges of his vest and pants. His second shot missed: just as he pulled the trigger, light flashed across his face, making him shut his eyes. Althor had drawn his knife. In my room it glittered; out here it bounced and refracted light in a blinding display of radiance and rainbow colors, like a gigantic diamond.

  Althor snapped his wrist and the knife streaked through the air. Nug was already moving, so the blade missed his heart and stabbed his shoulder. As Nug shouted and dropped his gun, Althor ran around the car, straight at him. He slammed Nug against the car, but Nug was smarter than the others; instead of trying to best Althor’s strength and speed, he grabbed his vest and used his weight against him, throwing him over his shoulder onto the hood. Althor rolled easily across the car and came down in front of it, landing on his feet.

  The sirens were closer now, their wail going up and down, changing in tempo to a faster beat, then back to the drawn-out cry. Althor lunged at Nug and they grappled with each other. With them moving so fast, it was impossible to see who had the knife. It flashed around their bodies, stabbing in a blur of light.

  The sirens swelled and pulled into the plaza out front. Pits couldn’t get his car out of the alley without hitting the fighters, so he jumped out and took off like fire on oil. I wasn’t sure if he was running from Althor or the cops.

  Althor stopped moving—and Nug collapsed to the ground in a limp heap. He wasn’t breathing.

  “Drop the knife,” a voice commanded.

  Looking up, I saw a policeman at the end of the alley, his gun out and aimed. Althor stared at him. He was standing over Nug’s body, his boots on either side of Nug’s hips, the knife still raised in his hand. Blood dripped off its diamond-bright edge and splattered on Nug’s closed eyelids.

  “Drop it,” the officer repeated. “Now.”

  For a moment I was afraid Althor wouldn’t respond. Then he opened his hand and the knife clattered to the asphalt.

  Footsteps sounded behind me. Turning, I saw a second officer coming up the alley. Another siren was wailing, faint but growing louder. The side door of the library opened, revealing Martinelli with a policewoman. Martinelli’s clothes were rumpled and an ugly bruise showed on his forehead.

  The woman came over to me and carefully pulled off the gag. “Are you all right?”

  I nodded. But I was lying. I had never witnessed a murder before.

  “It was self-defense,” I said while she untied me. “My boyfriend was protecting me.”

  “You can give your statements at the station.” She tilted her head toward Martinelli. “Go back inside with him.” Then she headed toward the others.

  As I grabbed my bracelet out of the car, I heard a man say, “Stand up against the wall.” Straightening up, I
saw the three officers watching Althor. He stared back as if they were enemies, his head turning from one to the other like a well-oiled machine.

  “Move it,” the first officer said. “Now.”

  I didn’t like the way the cops looked, as if they believed they might have to shoot. Althor! I thought. You have to do what they say. I made an image in my mind showing him facing the wall, ready to be searched.

  Althor shot me a look, as if I had yelled in his ear instead of in my own head. A thought brushed my mind, cold and impersonal: Combat mode toggled off. Moving slowly, he backed up to the wall of library, still facing the three officers.

  “Turn around,” the first man said.

  Althor watched him, wary and silent. Then he turned, put his palms on the wall, and spread his legs.

  The police wasted no time. One picked up the knife, squinting as it flashed in his eyes; the second pulled Althor’s arms behind his back and handcuffed his wrists below his guards. No one yet realized he had been shot. Although blood covered his clothes, it could have come from Nug. His vest hid his wound and he didn’t flinch even when the officer searched him.

  When I stepped forward, intending to tell them he was injured, he looked directly at me. Tina, no.

  The sound of his mental “voice” startled me into inaction. I stayed put, praying I was making the right decision. The siren I had been hearing swelled in volume, and an ambulance pulled into the alley. People jumped out of it, some striding to where Nug and the others lay, others running into the library.

  The first officer motioned to Althor. “Walk out front.” He glanced at me and motioned toward the second officer. “You can go with Stevens, miss.”

  We walked in silence. The traffic on San Carlos sounded distant, as if we were all trapped in a bubble, waiting for it to explode. Two police cars were parked in the plaza. We went over to the first, and Stevens pulled out his keys.

  Suddenly Althor whirled, the shimmer of his inner lids snapping over his eyes. As Stevens whipped up his gun, Althor simultaneously kicked up his leg and threw his body at the other officer. His heel smashed into Stevens’ chest and Stevens flew over backward, the bark of his gun cracking in the air.

  As Althor thudded into Stevens’ partner, he lost his balance and fell against the car. It looked bizarre, as if Althor were falling in two directions at once, sideways into the man and backward at the car. Stevens’ partner couldn’t have thrown him there; Althor had hit him too hard and too fast. The man’s head thunked against the car and he collapsed to the ground, unconscious.

  Althor’s breath came out in a gasp. “Tina, get in the car.” He half fell, half dropped to one knee. With his hands behind his back, he grabbed Stevens’ gun. Sweat ran down his face, which had paled under the metallic tint. As he lurched to his feet, he worked his cuffed wrists around his body until he was holding the gun at his side. “Can you drive this vehicle?”

  “Steal a police car? Are you nuts?” Then I saw the blood pumping out of his shoulder and I knew what had knocked him against the car. Stevens’ shot had hit him.

  The policewoman called from the alley. “If you take her, you’ll only make it worse.” She stood half-hidden at the corner of the building, her gun up. Another officer was behind the front door of the library. Neither tried to shoot Althor; they would have risked hitting me.

  “Tina, hurry,” Althor said. “And get my knife. I can—only carry gun.”

  I grabbed the knife and Stevens’ keys. As I slid inside the car, Althor pulled himself after me and slammed the door. I dumped the knife in his lap, then started the car and jammed the accelerator to the floor. I had no plan, aside from knowing we had to stop the police from following us. Only one idea came to me: I careened across the asphalt—and plowed into the driver’s side of the other car. Then I backed up, tires screaming in protest, and sped out of the plaza.

  As we drove down San Carlos, I glanced at Althor. He was bleeding, both from the bullet wound in his shoulder and the one that had cut through his side. “We have to get you to a hospital.”

  “No. They’ll see—I’m not human.” He swallowed. “If they catch me, go with them. Say I forced you to come.”

  “No.”

  “Tina—”

  “No.” I felt as if I was on a too fast ride at a carnival. But I had no intention of deserting Althor. I owed him. I’ll never know if Nug and his men would have killed me after they were done, but even if they hadn’t I wouldn’t have felt much like living when it was finished.

  I swerved into a closed gas station and stopped behind the building. A stretch of lawn separated us from the freeway. “We have to get out of this car. We’re too easy to spot in it.”

  He took a breath. “Put back my knife.”

  The knife slid easily into its sheath inside his boot. As I straightened up, a runnel of blood ran over my hand. Bluish blood. ‘Althor, what’s wrong with your blood?”

  He grimaced. “Is coming out of me.”

  “I don’t mean that. The color is wrong.”

  “Is fine.”

  “It’s not fine.” I turned back to the wheel. “I’m taking you to the emergency room.”

  “No. I’m fine.”

  I started the car. “It’s better they figure out you aren’t human than you die.”

  “Tina, stop!”

  As I put the car into drive, words flashed in my mind: Prepare to download.

  The data hit my mind like water thrown out of a bucket. In only a second, it told me what I needed to know. Althor has a blood disorder similar to sickle-cell anemia. Sickle-cell comes from a mutation in one of two genes that make hemoglobin, the molecule that carries oxygen in the blood. In Althor’s anemia, both genes contain mutations, with the result that each of his hemoglobin molecules contains two incorrect amino acid residues. It’s like putting the wrong pieces in a puzzle; force them in and the puzzle twists out of shape. Left untreated, his distorted hemoglobin clumps up and deforms his red blood cells. His spleen then takes them out of circulation like bad money, giving him severe anemia.

  To fix the problem, his doctors extracted erythropoietic stem cells from his bone marrow and equipped them with a corrected gene that codes for the right amino acid. Blood cells form in the marrow, so when the doctored cells were returned to his body they produced corrected hemoglobin. But the doctors fixed only one of his bad genes. The other not only affects his hemoglobin, it also contributes to his Kyle abilities: “fix” it, and he becomes less of an empath.

  Instead they populated his blood with nano-meds, each a protein with an attached spherical molecule. The sphere contains a picochip, a molecular computer that operates on quantum transitions. It directs the activities and reproduction of the med. The protein portion locks onto Althor’s hemoglobin, causing it to change shape, making the final adjustment it needs to carry oxygen properly. The meds also have a side effect: when exposed to ultraviolet radiation and nitrogen gas, they turn blue. In his body only a small number exist in the blue state; without a steady diet of photons and N2 they quickly return to colorless form. Outside, in sunlight and air, many more convert, giving his blood a bluish tinge.

  “I won’t take you to the hospital,” I said when I understood. “But your blood is all over this car. If anyone analyzes it, they’ll know you aren’t like us.”

  Sweat dripped down his face. “What do you suggest we do?” That question shook me. ISC deliberately designs Jagernauts to seem more than human, making them symbols to build morale among civilian populations. Althor hadn’t felt much pain during the fight because his biomech web can release nano-meds, similar to morphine, that block pain signals. But his will release only limited amounts; too much, and he could become addicted or even overdose on it. Seeing him bleeding, at the end of his options, I realized he wasn’t invincible. Strong and fast, yes, but also human. Vulnerable.

  I got out of the car and ran to his side. As he opened his door and dragged out his legs, he motioned to Stevens’ gun. “Bring that.”<
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  “I can’t.”

  He struggled to his feet, holding onto the car. “Bring it.”

  “I hate guns. They killed my cousin; they almost killed you. I won’t bring it.”

  “We need defense.”

  “I’ll get us protection.” I slid my arm around his waist, behind his handcuffed wrists. When he leaned on me, I almost fell; he was more than a foot taller and twice my weight. I nodded toward the freeway. “We’re going down there.”

  I took him down the grassy slope that separated us from the freeway. Although it was only a few hundred yards, it felt like miles. We stumbled together, my heels sinking into the lawn on every step. Finally we reached a tunnel that ran under the freeway. It was dark inside, with names spray-painted on the walls. I took Althor halfway through, far enough from both ends so no one could see us. After trying most of Stevens’ keys on the handcuffs, I found one that unlocked them. As soon as Althor was free, he clamped his hand over the bleeding hole in his left shoulder.

  I put my arm around his waist again. “I know a place we can go.”

  He draped his good arm over my shoulders, leaning on me as we continued through the tunnel. It let us out in an empty lot surrounded by a chain-link fence. We picked our way through a clutter of junk: old tires, hamburger wrappings, twists of wire, broken bottles. I guided him over to a tear that split the fence from the ground up to about my height. Bending his head, he managed to squeeze through, but on the other side he had to grab the fence to hold himself upright.

  I pushed through the tear. “Are you okay?”

  Althor nodded. He spoke in another language, one different from anything I had heard him use before. My mind played games with it, filling in sounds here and there, changing inflections, making the alien phrase into Tzotzil words from the healing ceremony of a Zinacanteco shaman: Ta htsoyan hutuk ’un: I shall entrust my soul to you a little.