“Excuse me. We will have to speak more of this later. I have more pressing matters to attend to.”
Luca turned, his elite guard turning with him, walking away as he spoke. “Yes, yes. Go about your politics, Guardian. We will clean up the mess.”
Maksim had to clear his throat just to push down his immediate anger, but then launched himself into the air, flying toward the imperial army. He landed past the front line, where the general's own armored carrier was parked. The general was stepping out of the back of the carrier just as Maksim landed.
The general fell to one knee. “My liege.”
“Please have someone bring one of my suits of armor. I don't think this is appropriate dress to command the troops.”
The general motioned toward a group of servants lingering nearby, and they rushed into the armored carrier. It only took them a few moments before they returned, each one carrying a different piece of Maksim's Guardian armor. After he slid his underclothes on, one of the girls strapped his chest plate, emblazoned with the symbol of a warhammer, over his shoulders.
“I apologize for our lateness,” the general spoke as another girl strapped armored plates to each of Maksim's massive thighs. “We were double-timing the entire way here, but the terrain left much to be desired.”
Maksim surveyed the entirety of the battlefield from that distance. “No matter. The Therians arrived in time.”
“My liege, speaking of the Therians... we also received word from your niece. The message was meant for the entire Zharkov family, but there was no notification you had received the message.”
Maksim instinctively reached for the communicator on his belt buckle, but it too had been burnt away in the fight. His new armor did not include a replacement.
“Zana announces her pregnancy?”
The General looked genuinely surprised by Maksim's guess, but collected himself and said, “No, my liege. It concerns your nephew.”
“Yuri?” The name was accompanied with a sense of fear that Maksim wasn't used to. “What about him?”
“He's with her, my liege. He's in Therian.”
Maksim's eyes bulged for a moment, his throat barely able to handle the gulp that followed. Without another word, he snatched his helmet from the last servant girl and slammed it onto his head, then launched himself into the air. His fists thrust forward, pushing himself through the sky faster than ever before. The sound barrier broke and the clouds were split in two as he aimed directly toward his destination.
Toward Therian.
Toward Zana.
Toward Yuri.
13
LUCY
“Only pack what you can carry on your back.”
Lucy looked down at the small collection of things she had amassed during their days of hotel living and shrugged her shoulders.
“That shouldn't be too difficult.”
A hairbrush. A toothbrush and travel size tube of toothpaste. One extra shirt and two pairs of underwear. A sports bra. A handgun. Two loaded magazines, and a box of extra bullets. That was it. That was her life. She shoved it all in her backpack and tossed it next to the door.
Lucy walked back toward the bathroom, telling herself she should probably use it before they left because she had to pee all the time now. The kid growing inside her really enjoyed putting all of its weight on her bladder. When she sat down on the toilet and saw the black-haired woman in the mirror, she flinched. She wasn't sure she would ever recognize that image. It just didn't feel like her. It felt like she was wearing a costume, playing dress up. She used to love doing that when she was younger. The blanket tied around her neck, running through the house, pretending she could fly, saving her teddy bears from certain doom. Lucy would never admit it to Connor, but she did find herself longing for those days, when she was blissfully unaware of the truth. Being naive was just so much easier.
After she flushed the toilet, she stepped back into the motel room and saw Connor peeking through the curtains that covered the window, glancing out onto the parking lot.
“Looks clear. Let's get moving.”
Lucy slung her backpack over one shoulder and followed him out the door. They hustled down the staircase and across the parking lot, toward the stolen sedan they had parked next to the gas station across the street. As Connor fumbled with the set of keys to unlock the door, Lucy caught a glimpse of something behind the corner of the building, near the restroom doors. It was only a brief glance, but she swore it looked like someone dressed head-to-toe in pink spandex.
“Did you see that?”
Connor unlocked the driver's side door and followed her gaze toward the restrooms. “See what?”
In her peripheral vision she caught another glimpse, this time from behind a semi-truck parked at the diesel pumps. Same pink outfit.
“Connor...” Her voice was shaking. “Unlock my door.”
Connor looked back at her with confusion, but he could sense the fear in her voice. He climbed into the driver's seat and leaned over, popping the lock on the door.
Just as Lucy lifted the handle, the woman in pink stepped around the corner near the restroom, followed by seven more identical copies. Then from behind the semi-truck, eight more. Then on the roof of the gas station, five more women. They appeared from behind everything. The gas pumps. The cars. The front door of the gas station.
Replica was everywhere.
“Okay kids,” she called out, “Don't make any sudden movements.”
Connor stepped out of the car, and all the Replicas flinched, readying themselves for his attack, but he just lifted his hands into the air like he was giving up.
“You don't have to do this.”
One of the Replicas stepped forward and wiped her bottom lip with her thumb. “Yeah, but I kind of do.”
“Please,” Lucy begged, “just let us go. Tell them we already crossed the border. Tell them you were too late.”
Replica balled her hands into fists. “It doesn't work like that. Happy endings are for princesses in fairy tales. Not people like us.”
Connor dropped his hands in frustration. “What are you doing? You were never one of the good little soldiers. You rolled your eyes at all the Zharkovian bullshit as much as I did.”
“You think I want to be here, doing this? Well, I don't. But you had to go and break the law. You had to force my hand. Now get down on the ground, face first, with your hands behind your back.”
“Replica, please!”
“I said get on the ground!”
Connor raised his hands back in the air, and whispered, “Get your gun.”
Lucy raised her hands in the air, knelt down on one knee, and with her eyebrows raised in shock, she whispered back, “I'm not going to shoot an Alliance member.”
Connor got down on his belly so that they were looking at each other under the car and said, “She doesn't go out into the field. None of these are really her.”
The thought sunk in as the Replicas approached.
If they were copies, then it wasn't really killing.
None of them were real.
Lucy's hand slid into her backpack as sparks flickered around Connor's hands.
Replica's approach hesitated as soon as the storm clouds formed overhead. They all glanced up at the sky as darkness enshrouded the gas station parking lot, then back at Connor with anger boiling in their eyes.
“You stupid son of a-”
Lucy fired, putting a bullet between one of the Replicas' eyes, then rolled to the right, crouching behind the front fender of the sedan, and fired four more times, dropping four more Replicas. Each one was a perfect shot. A crack of thunder accompanied a bolt of lightning that streaked down from the sky, arcing between seven Replicas, burning each of them to a crisp. Their blackened corpses dropped to the ground as the other Replicas multiplied, trying to strengthen their numbers.
Lucy gripped the pistol with both hands and braced herself on the hood of the car, popping off rounds as fast as she could. Replicas dro
pped as the bullets found their marks. Each one exact. Each one precise.
She had to keep telling herself it wasn't real. These weren't more lives to add to the list. She wasn't murdering anyone, no matter what it felt like. No matter how much blood was spraying across the concrete from every exit wound. They were soulless clones. Copies of copies.
She dropped the magazine from the gun and dug her hand into the backpack, rummaging around for the second one she had loaded. It only took her a few seconds to find, but by the time she was slamming it into the pistol, four Replicas were lunging for her.
She froze. Like a rookie. Spook would have been disappointed in her.
The pink spandex clad women were suddenly thrown through the air as a gust of wind caught them, tossing them into the side of the semi-truck. Another blast of lightning made sure they didn't get back up. Connor flashed Lucy a wink before returning to the business at hand.
As the second magazine emptied bullets into the never-ending flood of Replicas, both Lucy and Connor saw the futility of their battle. She would keep coming, as long as one still stood. She was an infinite source of bodies unless they could kill them all in one strike.
Connor closed his eyes, his jaw clenching and his muscles flexing as he tried to summon a raging power from deep within. The storm clouds overhead swirled as the Replicas rushed him. Lucy did her best to pound away at their rushing front line, but just as they neared him, lightning bolts crashed down from the sky, blasting the pink bodies across the parking lot. The bolts continued, and Lucy felt every hair on her body lift up in the static power that was being summoned. She could taste the electricity on her tongue, like the air was made of batteries. One after another, the bolts kept coming, annihilating Replica's numbers, but when they stopped, and Connor fell to the ground, exhausted, Lucy could still see a group of Replicas taking cover inside the gas station.
She popped the magazine out of the grip of her pistol, and saw one bullet left. When she glanced back up, she saw the Replicas hesitating, trying to decide if Connor's exhaustion meant it was safe to step outside.
Lucy knew she only had a few seconds to react. Without a second thought, she lifted Connor up by his shoulders and shoved him in the driver's seat. As she did, the Replicas burst out from the front door of the gas station. She knew she didn't even have time to round the front of the sedan, so instead, she leapt in the back seat.
“Drive!”
Connor followed her order, and stepped on the gas, squealing out from the parking lot and hopping the curb. The Replicas were already multiplying, filling the parking lot and jumping into their own vehicles to pursue them. Lucy knew this was her only chance. She leaned out of the window, steadied her grip on the pistol, and zoomed in her vision. She could see the line leading to the pumps, and when she zoomed in closer, she could see the spilled gasoline dripping from the damaged line. Her finger squeezed the trigger, and she watched the bullet split the air, striking at exactly the right spot on the metal line to cause a spark. The gas station erupted in a ball of flame that reached toward the sky like a blooming flower of fiery death.
The back window of the sedan shattered in the concussive wave that was sent out from the explosion, and shards of glass tore into Lucy's side. Connor yelled and hit the brakes, but Lucy screamed back at him.
“Do not stop!”
“You're bleeding.”
“I'll be fine. Just drive.”
Connor glanced at her in the rear view mirror for a moment before nodding and stomping on the gas pedal again. Lucy watched the burning gas station become smaller and smaller in her view. She kept her vision zoomed in, searching the flames for any sign of pink spandex that was still moving, but she saw nothing. The stillness meant they were safe. For now.
14
WESLEY
“You different now.”
Wesley was taken aback by the comment as he sat in the middle of Ntombi's bed, his legs folded underneath him. “What do you mean?”
“Seem... older. Confident.”
Wesley smiled. “I feel older. More confident. Kgosi's training has helped me... release something.”
“What release?”
Wesley tilted his head, searching for the best way to describe it. “I'm not sure. It's something that's still manifesting, wanting to be released. But it's there, I can feel it, and that excites me.”
“I no understand. Powers. Brains. I like real things. Things I can touch.”
Wesley shrugged. “There's nothing wrong with that. Physical or mental. Neither is better than the other. They must co-exist to reach their true potential.”
Ntombi sat down on the bed and looked at him, really looked at him, as if she were studying his eyes.
“You sound like him.”
“Who?”
Her shoulders drooped and she rolled her eyes. “You know who.”
“Kgosi?”
She tapped her forehead. “Sound smart. I like.”
Wesley chuckled. “Thanks. But I'm probably just repeating things I've heard him say. Regurgitating wisdom doesn't make me wise.”
“Re-gur-gi-ta-ting? What regurgitating?”
Wesley chuckled harder. “Never mind. I just mean, I've learned from a wise man. That doesn't make me wise.”
“You say wise words. That is all that matters.”
Even through her thick accent and broken imperial language, she always managed to make him think.
“Perhaps you're the wise one.”
She threw her arm around his shoulder and nodded. “We both wise.”
Just then, the door to Ntombi's room was thrown open with a crash as the door slammed into the wall. They both jumped at the noise and spun around on the bed. Standing in the doorway was Javier.
“You've been in here long enough, pebble boy. If you haven't gotten the job done by now, it's time to give up and let someone else go for a ride.”
His words turned Wesley's stomach. He would never be able to accept the way Javier spoke about Ntombi, like an object he could abuse.
“Back off, Javier. I'm not going to let you-”
Ntombi gripped onto his arm and shook her head. “It okay. No worry.”
“Yeah, pebble boy. No worries!”
Javier took off his shirt, displaying the thick muscles underneath. There was no way he was adhering to Kgosi's rules of starving the body so that the mind could thrive. He wanted to rush to his teacher and tell him about Javier's rule-breaking, but he took a deep breath in through his nose and reminded himself where he was. This wasn't school. He didn't need to tell on a bully. It was time for him to grow up and handle things himself.
Wesley stepped in front of Javier and smiled. “I kind of feel bad for you, Javier. You could have been one of the best.”
Javier tossed his shirt in the corner and untied his pants with a smirk on his face. “I am the best. Ask Ntombi.”
“Oh, I see.” Wesley stepped around the wall of muscle and through the doorway. “Yet... it's strange that she isn't pregnant yet, isn't it?”
Wesley felt pride for getting in the last verbal jab when his body was slammed against the far wall. His head was being pressed into the stone by an unseen force when Javier leaned in, whispering in Wesley's ear. He could feel Javier's hot breath on his neck.
“What's the fun in getting her pregnant? Then I'd have to stop visiting her. And I love torturing you way too much to do that.”
“You're not supposed to touch me,” Wesley groaned through the pressure being applied to his head. “Kgosi forbid you from fighting with me.”
Javier held his hands in the air. “But I'm not touching you, pebble boy.”
Wesley stayed silent, his face being crushed more and more with every second that passed.
“See, you might think you're safe here, but as soon as I takeover, as soon as Kgosi isn't around to protect his little baby...” Javier leaned in closer, the breath of his words filling Wesley's ear. “I'm going to kill you, pebble boy. And it's not going to be because
I hate you. It's not even going to be because you killed my brother. I'm going to kill you because I can. I want to feel what that feels like, to watch the life slip out of your eyes as I slowly squeeze your throat. I want to feel the pebbles beat against my skin as you helplessly try to fight me. Someday I will have all of that, but until then...”
Javier stepped into Ntombi's room, slammed the door behind him, and Wesley fell to the floor of the hallway. He laid there a moment, wallowing in his own weakness. Why was it that the worst people were always the strongest? Did their strength corrupt them? Kgosi wasn't evil. Blind perhaps. Naive to the evil that existed in his family. But the Zharkovs. The Domini. The bullies that pushed him around his whole life. Where were the heroes that were supposed to protect the meek and the innocent?
Wesley pushed himself to his feet and brushed off his clothes as best he could. He knew he might not be a hero, he might not be strong enough to defeat the evil in the world, but he would always remain defiant. He would always stand up to it. His survival was the only way he could rip their power out from under them. Try all they want to beat him down, he'd never take a knee.
Wesley walked through the House of Psi, past the nursery full of children and the wet nurses that cared for them. He passed the classrooms with the few psionic children that had come of age, old enough now to begin their first few lessons. He watched through an open door for a few minutes as they practiced meditating. He wondered if he would have been able to accomplish more if he had started earlier. Would his powers have manifested into something more powerful? Would they still?
“Can I help you?” The teacher of the class was peering over her shoulder, just then noticing Wesley staring through the half-open door.
“Oh! I'm sorry.” Wesley straightened his shirt, unsure what to do with his embarrassment. “I didn't mean to... I was just...”
“Your name is Wesley, correct?” The older woman folded her hands in front of her soft belly, her faded blue eyes lost behind cheeks full of wrinkles.
Fear the Empire Page 9