Exodus

by Jamie Sawyer

  —not dead: really me—

  I roared in defiance as rounds bounced off the simulator-tank’s canopy.

  Kwan grabbed Zero, pulled her to her feet.

  COMMENCE TRANSITION.

  Another simulant, out of the capsule.

  I’d never made transition so many times in such a short period. The pattern of being born, dying, reborn—it had a kind of rhythm to it. A perverse calm settled over me, my senses so hyper-alert that I wasn’t scared of dying anymore.

  Another commando advanced on the terminal Tang had been trying to reach: what I took to house the controls to the power supply. That was lucky, I suppose. Because this technology wasn’t native to the Directorate, they had not managed to fully integrate it into their systems—which meant someone had to manually flip the switch in order to shut it down, rather than do it wirelessly.

  Well, we can’t have that, I thought.

  I body-slammed the commando. His fire went wide, PDW spraying the ceiling as he collapsed under my weight.

  Words came to me through gritted teeth, and I spoke as I worked.

  “My name …”

  The third commando was on me.

  “… is Keira Jenkins …”

  I twisted. Fast and lithe: making the most of my unarmoured state.

  Gunfire sliced the air—

  —bounced off the simulator-tank—

  I closed a hand round the muzzle of the lead trooper’s weapon. We wrestled momentarily, but there was no contest.

  I was a sim. He wasn’t.

  I forced the weapon low and thrust a fist into the trooper’s face with lethal force.

  “My rank is lieutenant …”

  I grabbed the PDW as the man went down. It was small and delicate in my oversized hands. The closest commando became my next target. I fired a volley from the PDW. The trooper crumpled as gunfire hit him full-on in the chest.

  Act. React. Act. React.

  One hand to the body on the floor. Without even thinking, I unclasped a grenade from the commando’s body-harness. The cylinder had a red tip. If the markings on the Directorate’s equipment were anything like those on standard Alliance munitions, that meant that the grenade was a standard fragmentation type. In a closed environ like this, a frag grenade would work wonders.

  I sprayed the open hatch with weapon fire, using the compact machine gun one-handed, absorbing the recoil through my right hand. With my left, I activated the grenade. Tossed it through the hatch. The commandos shouted warnings to one another, and scrambled away from the grenade. That gave me a second’s grace.

  “Danger close, Zero!” I yelled. I was so wrapped up in the carnage that the warning was nearly an afterthought.

  I vaulted to the hatch. Slammed a hand to the door control. It slipped shut.

  The grenade went off. The detonation made the deck rumble, but the hatch took the force of the explosion and held firm. In that contained space, I knew that there would be no survivors.

  “I am serving with the Alliance Army Simulant Operations Programme …”

  How many of them were there? Not enough. I wasn’t done yet. The kill-frenzy had me now. I was riding the wave of simulant euphoria so high that I barely noticed how many Directorate there were lined up behind the first attacker.

  They had to die. They all had to die. I took out everyone I could: techs, commandos, every target.

  “No, no, no!” I heard Tang repeating.

  The Surgeon-Major was at my feet, desperately scrambling away. Fire and Ice fired potshots at me, obviously trying to close on Tang, but they knew that anything more intense might endanger the officer. I made the most of that, and dodged their gunfire.

  “Please, no!” Tang screamed.

  She threw her hands over her face, smock spattered with the blood of her own soldiers. I grabbed her by the shoulders and put my weapon to her temple.

  “Cease!”

  Kwan stood mere metres from me, at the end of the cabin. He held Zero across his chest, an arm locked around her neck. His own pistol was rammed against her head, not the redactor, but something more instantly lethal.

  “Stop this,” Kwan said. “Immediately.”

  I fought the rage. Controlled it. I’d destroyed the medical chamber. Bodies, armoured and unarmoured, were strewn over smoking consoles, over the remains of the Directorate’s burgeoning Simulant Operations Programme. I didn’t even remember killing some of them. Only Tang, Kwan and the twins were left. We had ourselves a standoff …

  “I will terminate her,” Kwan said. “Understand?”

  Zero wriggled against the strength of Kwan’s exo-assisted arm. He restrained her effortlessly, and ignored her protest.

  I answered by twisting my gun a little harder into Tang’s head. “You harm her, and the Surgeon gets the same.”

  “I know what she knows,” Kwan said. “I have her intelligence. I have the intelligence.” He didn’t explain what that meant, but said, “Let the Surgeon-Major go.” He tossed his head. “Comply. Now.”

  “Why would I do that?” I asked. “I’m disposable.”

  “You might be,” Kwan said, “but you value your squad, and you value the sergeant’s life.” His eyes flickered over my shoulder, to the simulator-tank. To my real body. “Your real skin has almost expired. You know this. Surrender now, Prisoner.”

  Tang was limp in my simulated hands, her sense of self-preservation almost too much for me to stomach. Both Fire and Ice covered her, training their AUG-30s on me.

  “Kill them both!” Zero said, her voice rising in pitch. “Just do it, Jenk!”

  It was nice to know that Zero’s mind wasn’t any more scrambled than usual, but I wasn’t about to risk my friend’s life. Zero was a Jackal. My anger was blunted, cooled, when I noticed Carmine’s body out of the corner of my eye. Kwan wasn’t blustering. He really would kill Zero. My squad: Kwan knew that was my weakness.

  I lowered my weapon. Released Tang.

  “You comply,” breathed Tang, her relief palpable. “How very wise.”

  “Now let her go, Kwan,” I said.

  “This is for the best,” Kwan said. “The Directorate will achieve greatness again. The Aeon will be ours.”

  “Quit this Aeon shit,” I ordered. It didn’t mean a damned thing to me. “Let Zero go.”

  The subcutaneous circuitry under Kwan’s face flared with activity. He took a step backwards, still holding Zero. Towards the door at the back of the chamber, which would take him farther up the train. Fire, Ice and Tang followed him, Tang making sure to place herself behind the big commandos.

  “We’ve got all we need from this one,” Kwan said. “The redactor was not allowed to run its full course, but we have enough.” He locked his arm a little tighter round Zero’s neck, and she struggled some more, face turning red. “Make peace with your maker, Sergeant.”

  The train rocked with new vigour.

  “What—?” started Tang. She was almost thrown off her feet again.

  As tactical situations went, this was off the scale. The list of potential threats that could end us on this train was too long for me to properly assess.

  “Zero!” I yelled. “On me!”

  Kwan’s grip on her momentarily relaxed, and Zero saw her chance. The commander stumbled backwards.

  The sound of tearing metal filled the air, and the cabin roof peeled back. The rent sucked out the module’s processed atmosphere, instantly filling the chamber with Joseon-696’s sickly pale light.

  Zero was in my shadow now. Not safe, but safer.

  “Stay down,” I ordered.

  “S-solid copy,” she stammered.

  Something enormous swooped from the hole in the roof.

  Kwan, Fire and Ice opened fire on the shape that came through. Rounds bounced off a carapace shell.

  He might be insane, but Kwan knew when the game was up. His eyes flashed to the tear in the metal deckhead, and he saw his opportunity for escape. He yelled something in Korean—an order—and the joints
of his exo-suit popped and whined as he activated the thruster-pack on his back.

  Fire and Ice obeyed Kwan’s command. One grabbed for Tang, the other glaring back in my direction.

  “This isn’t over,” Fire said.

  “I think that it is,” I shouted back, raising my PDW.

  With that, Fire activated the mobility pack on his hard suit, the thrusters glowing white hot, sending out a ripple of heat in the closed space. Zero put a hand to her face, but I weathered the blast as the Directorate bastards left the train.

  The enormous creature that had just landed, literally, in the middle of the carriage turned to face Zero and me. Zero gave a sharp intake of breath. Recoiled closer to me.

  It was Krell, that was for sure.

  Words escaped my lips. “Well I’ll be damned …”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  REUNITED

  This wasn’t just any Krell, and it was immediately obvious that this fish was different from the others on the train. It wasn’t infected, for a start: that much was clear from the pallor of the alien’s skin, and the way that it moved. But more than that, this was our Krell.

  “We are here,” said an electronic voice.

  “Pariah!”

  Although I recognised the alien’s carapace patterning, the sweep of its crested head, its shape had changed. Newer, fresher, angrier injuries covered the alien’s torso and head, and the xeno had gained muscle mass, become much bigger than when I had last seen it aboard the Santa Fe. The alien stomped its feet impatiently, and shook its body like a wet dog just out of a river. Ice crystals covered its carapace, cryogen dripping from its six limbs.

  “We are here,” it repeated. “We have sustained injury.”

  “Right, right,” I said. Nodded.

  “The not-Alliance requested information,” Pariah replied, as though that were some sort of explanation.

  “It’s okay, P,” I said. “I can see that you’re angry.”

  “We followed your directive, Jenkins-other. The not-Alliance are enemies of the Kindred. We wish to get …” the alien said, pausing to cock its head. “Even.”

  “I hear that,” I said. “You’ll get your chance, P.”

  “Hold your fire,” came another voice. “We’re coming in.”

  It was Lopez. She, Feng and Novak—his gang reduced to only a handful of prisoners now—lingered at the lip of the hole in the roof. They rapidly clambered down into the cabin, with Novak going first and pulling the others through.

  “Whoever the fuck is helping us just freed Pariah,” Lopez said, expressing unlikely support for the alien. She brushed hair out of her face and tried to compose herself. “It was being held in the last cabin.”

  “We are grateful,” it said in an electronic monotone that almost reminded me of the Voice.

  Pariah’s speaker box—the apparatus that allowed it to communicate with us—was still fused to its chest, but the flesh around the device was puckered and swollen, as though someone had tried to prise it free.

  Feng was the last through the hole, and Lopez helped him down. Zero’s face illuminated at the sight of him.

  “Chu!” she said, throwing her arms around him, despite—or maybe because of—our situation. “Are you hurt? What did they do to you?”

  “I’m fine,” Feng said. “I’m good, honest.”

  “You don’t look it.”

  “What about you?”

  Zero gave a weak grin. “My head hurts like you wouldn’t believe.”

  Feng’s hand went to Zero’s head, gently pulling hair away from an ugly series of burn marks that covered her scalp. It looked as though the redactor’s probes had been responsible for those injuries, and the smell of burning hair lingered in the air.

  Zero shrugged off her condition though. “I … I don’t think that Kwan finished the process,” she said.

  “That’s good.”

  “You’ve lost a tooth,” Zero said, more concerned about Feng than herself. “Let me see—”

  Lopez rolled her eyes. “This isn’t the time or the place. Feng’ll live, Zero, and that’s all you need to know right now.”

  She had a good point. Another, more violent impact rocked the train, and the pair parted, all business now.

  Novak stepped up. “Fish,” he said. He put an enormous hand on the xeno’s shoulder, or at least where a shoulder joint might’ve been beneath the rows of shell-like carapace plating. “Glad to have you back.”

  Novak’s gang didn’t look so impressed with the alien’s arrival, and they kept a safe distance. I guess they’d never seen a talking fish before.

  “We are glad to be back,” the alien said. “The not-Alliance threatened termination. The experience was … unpleasant.”

  “Is Kwan dead?” I asked speculatively. Hopefully.

  Feng shook his head. “No. We couldn’t go after them. They used flight-rigs, took off farther down the train.”

  “Let the train take care of them,” suggested one of the convicts. “They will not get far.”

  “We’re on a train?” Zero asked, staring up at the hole in the roof in disbelief.

  “Yeah, we’re on a train,” I explained. There was little time to bring her up to speed, so I gave her the abbreviated version. “The Directorate were taking us cross-country, although I don’t know to where, exactly. The prisoners are in revolt, and we’ve been in touch with an interested party via a mystery communicator.”

  “Okay …” Zero said. Of course, she was struggling to take all of this in. I couldn’t blame her for that. “And you haven’t suffered any recent head injuries …?”

  “This is for real, Zero. I’m not imagining this shit. The others will vouch for me.”

  “The lieutenant is telling the truth,” Feng affirmed. “I know it’s a lot to deal with, but we can explain properly when we have time.”

  “If we have time,” Lopez added.

  “Ever the optimist, huh?”

  “I’m just saying, is all,” she muttered back.

  “Who are these guys?” Zero asked, indicating the prisoners. She obviously had the same impression of them as I did.

  “They are okay,” Novak said. “Are with me. I swear for them.”

  How that was supposed to provide reassurance, I wasn’t quite sure, but Zero left it at that and didn’t ask any more questions.

  “This bucket is full of Shadow commandos,” I said. “We’ve killed some, but it feels like the whole Bureau is stationed here.”

  “Must be one big train,” Zero suggested. She still didn’t sound very convinced.

  “You can see for yourself, soon enough.”

  “Is not all good news,” Novak grunted. “You forgot to tell best part. Infected fishes are everywhere.”

  All remaining colour drained from Zero’s face. She looked a paler shade of white. What with malnutrition and the incident with the redactor, there hadn’t been much there anyway.

  “We should get out of here,” Feng said. He stood a little taller, throwing off some of his injuries, or at least burying them. Either as a result of Zero’s discovery, or perhaps because of his enhanced clone physiology, he already looked as though he was recovering from the punishment beating. It was impressive.

  “Affirmative, trooper,” I said.

  “Ah, ma’am,” said Lopez. “Can you walk in your own skin?”

  I sighed and looked down at my simulated body. I knew that I was going to have to lose this skin. My real body had started to reflexively curl up inside the simulator. The golf ball–sized wound in my bicep was still bleeding, but inside the simulant, I was impervious to the pain.

  “That your tank’s canopy held out during that was quite something,” Feng suggested, inspecting the mass of cracks across the armourglass.

  Lopez tapped the casing experimentally. “You’re going to need something for that gun wound,” she said.

  “And you’re all going to need weapons if we’re going to get off this planet in one piece,” I said.

&
nbsp; I palmed one of the Directorate personal defence weapons, passed it to Lopez. She took it and inspected it.

  “Works just like any other gun,” I said. The AUG-30 was a Chino mass-manufactured submachine gun, made for close in-fighting and personal defence. “Point and fire.”

  “Got it. Nothing for Novak?”

  “Do not need a gun,” Novak said, grinning. Although I hadn’t even seen him do it, Novak had broken off a piece of plastic from something inside the carriage, and was now testing the makeshift weapon in his bare hands.

  “Guess that you can make a shiv out of anything, hey, Novak?” I said.

  Novak nodded. “Is true.”

  As the Jackals stripped the Directorate commandos of anything useful, I paused in front of Carmine’s body. She was faceup, staring at the deckhead. Head blown apart. Her uniform was bloodstained, dishevelled in a way that—in life—she would never have allowed.

  “I’m sorry, Miriam,” I whispered. “But I’ll make them pay.”

  Zero stood at my shoulder, trying her best not to look at Carmine. It could so easily have been her.

  “What’s our next move?” she asked me.

  In my real ear sat the communicator-bead, our only channel to the Voice. I needed that for our next instruction. For all I knew, it had been trying to contact me throughout the assault, but in the simulant, I couldn’t hear it.

  “Looks like we’re about to find out.”

  I extracted back to my real body.

  Lopez taped a medi-pack over the wound on my bicep, which dealt with the blood loss. The pain in my forearm was pretty wild, but I could still use the limb, so maybe it wasn’t broken after all. I knew I had at least one busted rib though, because I could only take short, painful breaths. But a hypodermic that Feng assured me was filled with pain-reliever—only he could read the instruction text—and a handful of uppers saw off any immediate risk of giving in to my injuries, and we got on with what mattered.

  I left the carriage in the same way as I’d got in, wedging myself between two cabins.

  “You there, Voice?”

  “I copy.”

  “We’ve cleared the modules, and I have my officer.”

  “Good. Follow the carriages towards the driver cabin. You can take the roof again.”