Hollow

by Lee Doty

  “Less than four minutes.” Their Cleric said into the channel.

  “Egress conditions?”

  “We will terminate the simulation if you are not in the woods when the first wave arrives. Your pickup cannot be closer than forty miles and we will not green-light a hot extraction. It’s get away clean or not at all, Chrome.”

  “Acknowledged!” He switched back to the team channel, “Trunc, see if you can slow them down, even if you can’t bring them down. Everyone else, we’re in the woods in less than four minutes or we’re in the library! We’re going to take Phoenix’s path whether we bring them down or not…they are likely heading for the breach they made during the attack! Fleet! If you get a target, that’s your top priority, then head for the tree line if you drop them or if they make it away.”

  Everyone acknowledged through the hard breath of the extended sprint. The chase was on.

  ***

  Shadow stumbled as one of the big, slow .45 caliber rounds smashed into his unarmored left calf. At this range, it had enough velocity to bury itself in the muscle, but not too deeply. Shadow made two faltering steps, then tried to juke left to avoid the follow-up shots that were whistling by him at leg level. When he landed on his left foot, he tried to put almost no weight on it, but his leg buckled and he went down, rolling across the grass.

  Crow also juked left as the bullets whizzed by. He grabbed the strap at the neck line on the back of Shadow’s plate carrier and hauled him to his feet. They staggered forward for a few steps, bullets cracking off their armored backs and whizzing by their legs. Crow glanced ahead: still about seventy yards to the first fence. He glanced back over his shoulder and saw one of the Delta Falcons standing in the open in a shooter’s stance and taking aimed single shots at them. In a short series of seconds, the tactical situation became clear: Delta had split up to try to reacquire them and now it was a race between the teams. Phoenix was racing for the tree line and Delta was racing to get Fleet, their sniper, a sight line on Phoenix. As dangerous as any Falcon marksman could be, the current shooter had the disadvantage of trying to make a one hundred fifty yard shot on moving targets only using subsonic .45 caliber ammunition delivered from a suppressed submachine gun optimized for discreet CQB. Crow couldn’t be sure at this distance, but he thought that the shooter was Trunc, Delta’s close-quarters specialist. Crow knew the league stats of everyone in Delta and he knew that he’d gotten lucky. Trunc was a phenom with hands and knife and pistol. He was an artisan of hip-fire too, but of everyone in Delta, he had the worst fixed point, long range shooting stats.

  Of course, he was still a Falcon, Crow thought as another of the big, slow bullets thwacked painfully into the center of his back, half an inch from the spine. Though the Kevlar/ceramic armor turned the bullet, the impact was intensely painful, and a stab of numbness moved down his right leg.

  “To the tree line! Straight line. Don’t get behind me, we need to give him discrete targets! Best speed!” Crow shouted, pushing Shadow forward. He then rolled to his right, limbering his own SMG in mid-roll, came up on one knee, pivoted, and dropped into a solid base kneeling with one foot on the ground, already aiming down the sights. He used his thumb to move the weapon from safe to single shot mode and snapped off two quick rounds. The first round sparked off the brick wall behind Trunc, then the second, corrected shot hit him in the center of the chest plate.

  To Trunc’s credit, he didn’t flinch much, but his next two shots missed Crow. Crow’s next two bounced ineffectively off Trunc’s face plate and the right shoulder of his armor. No damage, but it was enough to foul Trunc’s next two shots. The third shot pinged off the shin plate of Crow’s forward leg, it then bounced sideways and down scoring across the side of Crow’s other leg, drawing blood from the unarmored calf, but thankfully not burying itself in the exposed flesh. Crow’s calm mind went completely blank, there was no pain, no sounds, no tactical situation beyond the problem of the shooter before him.

  He blew out a quick breath and two aimed shots. The first impacted on Trunc’s chest plate, an inch below the raised weapon in Trunc’s hands, Crow corrected again and the next shot went into Trunc’s left wrist between the light plating on the back of his hands and the heavier plating on his forearms. At this range, with this ordinance, the damage wasn’t catastrophic, but it had been enough to break bones or damage nerves because Trunc faltered, and his weapon came off target.

  Trunc corrected quickly, switching grips, now holding the pistol grip of the SMG in his left hand, and dropping to the ground to steady the gun across his damaged right arm.

  With a nod of satisfaction, Crow rolled back to his feet and sprinted after Shadow. The bullets continued to snap past them as they ran, but now maybe one in six managed to hit their target, and those were on the armored torso. Crow caught up to Shadow, who was now barely limping, having been able to nearly completely compensate for his damaged leg.

  “You are running like an old woman again!” Crow shouted as he caught up to his teammate. Shadow gave one theatrical “Ha” in reply and they closed the last fifteen yards to the inner fence around the compound. Crow reached the fence first and rolled through the hole they’d cut on the way in, then held the wire open as Shadow dropped and crawled through it after him. They again got to their feet and ran to the hole they’d cut in the outer fence and slipped through, just as the fire around them intensified. Crow shot a glance back and noticed that there were two shooters now firing on them from the edge of the compound, but thankfully neither of them was Fleet. As he watched, Trunc fired his weapon dry and began to sprint after them across the open field. The other shooter was Chrome, Delta’s annoying captain.

  Crow smiled, knowing that they were too far away, that he had won. There was now only fifteen yards to the tree line. Crow could see the small trail they’d used to move up to the fence when they’d arrived. Crow turned and ran after Shadow, who had not slowed when Chrome had started shooting. Shadow disappeared into the trees as Crow ran the last few paces down the slight grade and into the forest.

  The crack of the twin sonic booms filled his heart, if not his clear mind, with a terror so bright and hot that it had a physical sensation, like electricity arcing through him, like balled lightning darting through his body, clenching his limbs inward, pulling his head reflexively down. He was likely in partial view, or had been, the thought as he rolled down the slight grade, coming to a stop flat on his back on the damp earth. Crow knew Fleet’s leagues stats, and he was a better sniper than Tink. Tink, who now lay in that sterile white hallway, defocused eyes filled with burst blood vessels, the blood from his eyes, ears, and nose staining the clean white linoleum tiles.

  Even if Fleet didn’t have time to settle into the perfect shooting position, even if his target was under partial cover, even if he had no time to set up the shot: Fleet did not miss. Yet Crow lived, for now.

  Which meant that he was likely now alone.

  A long breath shuddered out of him.

  Crow could remember being anxious, it had happened frequently in the intensity of the Hallow. What he had never known until recently was fear. Back in those simple, dim days, he had no conception of why anyone would fear. Quite simply, he’d had nothing to lose more important than a game. He’d had no stake in life and no real fear for its loss.

  He’d felt fear for the first time when Ash left Phoenix. Sitting in that dim restaurant with the fork sticking out of his arm, laughing as the only light he ever saw began to move away from him.

  He’d had time to become acquainted with fear’s loving tortures as he lay, wired into the Womb, waiting for this mission to start. As he waited to be a part of a machine set to extinguish that pure, beautiful light. Ash, he thought, mind filling with the vision of the last time he’d seen her. She was rigid with convulsions, graying skin traced with black veins as the enemy’s doctors tried to save her life. The fear had flashed hot then, but he’d buried it in purpose, the purpose of giving those doctors time to work.

/>   But now, lying on the soft ground outside the fence of the compound, with the leaves of the forest trees stirring peacefully in a breeze tinted with the scent of moss and the fresh green of the trees, he felt a despairing fear that seemed bigger than the universe, a black hole of loneliness that seemed all the more intense because of the peaceful beauty around him.

  Alone, he thought. Alone.

  He drew in his next breath and he was moving with all of the focus and purpose he’d been built for.

  ***

  Chicago, 2020

  Crow exited the window without incident, flying through the smell of cordite, the few falling pebbles of shattered safety glass, and the newly empty window frame with ease, even grace. In the air over the alley, the rustling snap of his coat in the wind of his speed grew in pitch and intensity as gravity bent his arc downward, increasing his overall speed.

  He hit the window on the other side of the alley with somewhat less grace. He’d misjudged the jump slightly and had to bring his legs up, throw his arms forward, and hunch his body not to slam into the wall below the shattered window, then fall like a chump to the pavement below. His outstretched arms went through the window that his new friend had shot out, but his knees hit the bottom of the window frame and his shins raked through the broken glass that still clung there. His elbows, then wrists then face slammed into the thin ornate carpet of the hallway in the other building and his slung weapon’s barrel hit the floor and the collapsible stock slammed into his armpit with enough force to dislocate the shoulder with an audible pop. He slid to a stop across the glass-strewn carpet acquiring both rug burns and cuts on his face, hands, and even through his simple clothes on his forearms and thighs.

  The final insult was that Crow realized that he’d stopped with his feet still dangling out the window like a comic relief sidekick or perhaps one of the foes of the road runner or the wascawy wabbit.

  In spite of his injuries, Crow rolled quickly left, avoiding his dislocated right shoulder, and onto his back. He pulled his feet into the building ending up on his back with his feet on the carpet and his knees bent. From this position, he was presented a view back through both the windows through which he’d passed to see Jackie standing a few feet back from the window on the other side of the alley, looking at him with great concern. Also looking at him, he noted with some exasperation, with a smile restrained on lips and much less so in her eyes. That partially controlled smile promised many good-natured jabs at his skill and his performance, should he not be immediately and horrifically hurt. Fortunately for him, his injuries were trivial, but more fortunate, she was too far away to make her well-deserved jabs verbally without compromising the operation.

  Yet still, the mostly hidden smile said enough, and Crow smiled up at her warmly. She would have made a good Falcon.

  Crow got unsteadily to his feet, and used the strap on his weapon to set his shoulder back into place with another painful pop. He quickly surveyed his situation—no immediate threats, but he knew they would likely present themselves due to all the gunfire. He also unfortunately saw Jackie again across the alley. She was now pantomiming exuberant applause, with all traces of the filter removed from her smile.

  Crow gave her a theatrical frown and then a small, ironic bow. Jackie responded with a sunny grin and an enthusiastic thumbs-up. Crow turned away from the window and back to the work before him.

  He was now at one end of a long hallway with doors to apartments on both sides. On the other end of the hallway was another floor-to-ceiling window like the one behind him, though that one was less broken and less strewn with small smears of his blood and the remains of his pride. Halfway down the hall, another hallway intersected this one at a right angle. Crow knew from Jackie’s description of the floor that that hallway had the elevator bank and the door to the stairwell in its center. On the other side of the stairwell, another hallway parallel to this one intersected that central hallway. Jeremy’s apartment was near the end of that hallway on the far side of the central hallway.

  Since he’d arrived in such a loud (and unfortunately, embarrassing) fashion, Crow was expecting a response from the Falcons, unless they had already captured or killed Ash and were now hurrying away. Or, he supposed, it might be because Ash had killed them all, which was a possibility in these close confines. Of course, the current lack of an overt response could also be because the Falcons were now baiting a trap for him. He was reasonably sure that they were here somewhere… he’d heard the pops of breaching charges and stun grenades from the other building, and he could now smell the hint of explosives in the air, even this far from the theoretical location of the action.

  Crow limbered his weapon, checked it for damage from the hit it had taken during his impressive landing, and did a quick press check to verify there was a round in the chamber. He switched the fire selector from safe to auto and tucked it into his shoulder, sighting through the close-range optic as he moved down the hallway, pressed to the left wall. As he moved, he listened.

  He had not gone three steps when he heard a scream. It was not a scream of pain or fear, it was a pure expression of rage.

  And it was Ash screaming.

  ***

  After the twin explosions of the breaching charge that took down Jeremy’s door and the flashbang that had gone off in his living room, there was a hustling sound of boots from the other side of the door behind which Jo hid. She was reasonably sure that there would be nobody left in the hall, as the Falcon team applied all its focus to the task of securing Jeremy’s apartment.

  Now was the time to act, when the team was in transition, still focusing on the wrong apartment, still focusing more on the danger they thought was in front of them, and not yet realigned to the fact that it was behind them, behind another door, wrestling with what to do when it should be moving. Move, Jo thought, move and the right thing will happen. But Jo had killed too many innocents simply by moving, by putting her focus on the mission and letting her brainstem work. She felt the weight of the pistol in her hands, the ten remaining rounds in the mag well being pushed upwards by the spring in the magazine. They seemed in that odd instant like eager wolves only waiting to be released by the pull of the trigger, ready to rend and tear, to kill. And in that instant, she knew that she would not use them to kill. Never again.

  But if she did not kill, then the Falcons would kill: her, Smith, Jeremy, probably Miss Pollack. And not just tonight, but the Clerics would continue using them, continue sending them out to kill the innocent. If Jo didn’t stop them, then she might as well be ordering them to do what they would then do… it would still be her responsibility, her moral choice that avoided murder now only at the cost of much more murder in the future.

  All of this took about two seconds to play out in her mind. The conclusion she was left with was that this sucked. She looked back toward the back of the apartment where the people she must protect hid… and stopped, staring into the kitchen.

  She’d seen Disney’s ‘Tangled’ just a month ago. She had a plan. An incredibly stupid plan, to be sure, but a plan… sort of.

  She actually giggled as she strode quickly into the kitchen. Like the Holy Grail sitting prepared and tempting in its holy vestibule, there was her weapon, its inviting handle already facing her hand. Before her was an ornate block of wood on the counter near the stove with many black knife handles protruding toward her, tempting her. There was a medium-sized cleaver hanging with other kitchen implements over the stove. On the stove was an old black cast iron frying pan filled with the cold remains of dinner—some kind of pasta with chicken in white sauce.

  Her mouth gently curved into her nearest approximation of a princess smile.

  ***

  “Go.” The Cleric said into the command channel. “Go.” Chrome echoed into the team channel. Zed’s thumb jerked down and the breaching charges on the door tore all three hinges off the right side of the door, as well as both locking assemblies off the left side. The door itself bent, as the heavy me
tal at its core deformed, the wooden veneer splintering away. Trunc gave the door a solid kick and it fell with a heavy clunk into the apartment. Before the door had hit the floor, Chrome and Fleet had thrown their flashbangs into the newly empty doorway and the team moved to the edges of the doorway as the twin flashes and the pressure wave from the stun grenades burst from the doorway.

  Trunc entered first and went left, Chrome was next, moving right as he tracked across the large apartment through the smoke from the grenades. He saw no immediate threats, but focused on covering his zone as his team moved in around him. Zed was to Chrome’s left, crouched just inside the doorway, while Fleet remained in the hallway, braced against the doorway with his weapon up and using the zero magnification red dot sights that were mounted at a forty five degree cant on his rifle.

  “Clear!” Trunc shouted. “Clear!” Chrome confirmed, and the two of them began to move into the apartment, toward the bedroom.

  At the doorway, Fleet covered the smoke-filled apartment as his teammates advanced around the edges of the room. A sudden awareness: Fleet wasn’t sure what brought the awareness: he heard no sound, saw nothing amiss, but somehow he knew there was a threat… he spun around, tracking with his rifle. Before he could acquire the target he’d somehow felt behind him, something cold and wet and oddly lumpy slapped him in the side of the helmet. A salty smell filled the inside of the helmet and it was an intriguing smell, and oddly distracting smell. Some of the substance had splashed under the lip of his faceplate and covered his neck and lower face. At the speed of his focused thought, he had time to wonder if it was some kind of narcotic toxin, as the messages his mouth was now flooding his brain with were distracting in the extreme. This odd distraction knocked him off his game enough that he lost half a second of reaction time and never acquired the threat before a crushing impact on his face that drove the light from his eyes temporarily.