Dazzle Ships

by E. E. Isherwood

  “Elle, don’t stop. Not for anything.”

  As if agreeing on the new target, the dead men dropped like rain from thirty feet above. A few were close to hitting us, but one came down right on top of me. I only had time to plant my staff to the ground and duck.

  With a sickening sound of bone cracking, the man landed square on top of my spear. He came down head first and it went into his chest. I jumped out of his way rather than let him come down on top of me, but I had to let go of the staff at the same time.

  “Leave it!” Alex shouted from next to me.

  But I couldn’t. It was our only weapon; I was attached to it.

  I closed my eyes and grabbed the wet end and yanked it out of the double-dead man. It had gone clear through his chest from one end to the other.

  And still the man grabbed for me. Others shouted.

  I looked back. Though their legs were universally broken from the fall, the men dragged themselves after us.

  “This can’t be happening.”

  Alex tugged on my shirt and got me moving. “We’re almost there. One last jump.”

  I ran after him, keeping his pace. More men fell, but only a few were still above—more entranced by the departing Xandrie than by us down on the floor.

  We jumped a second pit on the far end at the same time. There was only one sickly man ahead of us. He was the guy who got close to Xandrie before she left the room.

  I spun the staff until it was star-bright, intending to take off the thing’s head as payback for a series of close calls. The old man had a white beard—filthy—and had a look I found familiar.

  “Mr. B?”

  I stayed my staff at the last moment. The man on the floor had two twisted ankles and was unable to stand properly, though he gave it his best shot. When we arrived he had slouched to his knees and was prepared to grapple with me.

  “It’s not him, Bells. Leave him.”

  I held my staff as if to strike, but the resemblance was amazing. The poor soul grasped for me, but Alex pulled again as if knowing I was in a dangerous spot.

  “I’ll boost you up. Then you pull me from above.” Alex cupped his hands as Tom had done so long ago to get me up and out the chimney crack of my hidden room.

  I brightened, even as the groans of the men behind intensified. The one closest to us had a gentle murmur of a groan, further reinforcing my sorrow for the man’s fate. I slung my staff on my back, knowing I wasn’t going to need to kill him.

  I jumped up and Alex boosted me the rest of the way. I pulled myself to the surface, then laid down on my stomach and extended my arms toward Alex.

  He jumped, and we locked wrists. My left hand still smarted from my experience on the climbing wall, but I didn’t let that affect me. I dragged myself backward and held on until he was able to grab the edge himself and further pull himself to safety.

  I couldn’t resist looked back at Mr. B’s clone as we both got to our feet. He was still on his knees, clearly not a threat.

  “Goodbye,” I said with a little salute.

  Alex pulled again. “Come on, we have to catch Ms. X.”

  We walked down a short hallway and found the next room. We were in front of a complicated metal gate looking out over a fifty-foot square room that was hardly lit. On the far side we saw Xandrie’s white skirt tip-toeing, it appeared, around a host of dead bodies.

  “Go, L. We have to hurry.”

  The latch for the gate required lifting and squeezing at the same time, but once we were through we fast-walked through the bodies, attempting to go along the most open path.

  Alex tripped on an extended arm ahead of me. “Whoa!” he whispered.

  I noticed the blue shirts on all the dead men.

  Silence.

  “Move, move, move!” Alex chided.

  We made it half way across before Xandrie got herself through the far gate. She turned around and I figured she was going to gloat.

  “Elle. Staff. Now.” Alex was strangely all business.

  I pulled out my staff. It was already aglow from its earlier use, though the slime of the dead man it had passed through was cringeworthy. I held it at my side, but the tension and silence convinced me not to twirl it. That tended to make me feel better, but it was also very loud once the staff began to howl as it cut through the air.

  Ahead, Xandrie began to clap. Somehow she was a master at it. Each slap was as loud as a gunshot.

  “Oh sorry,” she shouted. “I didn’t mean to wake them.”

  She stayed just long enough to see the men spring to life. Someone had interrupted a long sleep.

  4

  That got me spinning. My blue light illuminated the blue shirts, which seemed to make them glow. There had to be twenty or thirty men all around us.

  Neither of needed prompting to run faster. Alex caught two men by surprise when he stumbled into the first and sent that one tumbling into the second. He almost fell into the mess and kept himself from falling with them by pushing off them like a man possessed.

  I swung my staff and met the head of a middle-aged man with dark skin. Even in the low light I saw the red in his eyes and the red hue on his teeth.

  His head split open and my stomach protested at the sound it made. He fell backward and I felt the spray of blood on me. I was shocked at how hot it felt.

  “These are alive!”

  “It doesn’t matter. Run!”

  I knew he was right. Whatever these men had become, they wanted us dead. I had no choice.

  Alex reached the gate first and began to uncouple it from the wall. I stood my ground next to him while the blue-shirted men converged on us.

  When the first one got close I lurched with the end of the pole and caught it under his jaw. He flailed back, but I knew he would get back up.

  Next I swung the staff in a flat arc with my arms extended. It made a satisfying crunch with another old man. He would never get back up.

  “It’s open!” He pulled me backward, and I almost lost my footing. When I was through the gate he slammed it shut. Hand after hand came through the gate, reaching for us.

  I don’t know why, but my first instinct was annoyance. “Hey, can you quit pulling me? We’re supposed to be a team.”

  “I’m sorry. I had to get you through. There wasn’t any time.”

  “I know. But I can do this. Just talk to me.”

  His look was serious, pointing down the hall. “After you.”

  “Together,” I replied.

  We took off at a fast jog until we came to a large opening. It was the beginning of a dark hallway that was vaguely familiar.

  “Do you hear that?” I asked.

  I strained to listen.

  “Puddles,” Alex replied.

  “She's running through them.”

  I wiped my staff with my shirt, giving it that much more of a glow. I used it to illuminate the entire rectangular hallway and it became evident we were inside a quarter-mile long hall that was just like home.

  “This is a Standing Quarter. We know this like the backs of our hands, Alex.”

  “Let’s knock it out, Bells.”

  We smiled and picked up the pace. With my staff it was easy to see where we were going, but there was no way to avoid the huge puddles. Some were as wide as the thirty-foot hall and a couple were twice that long.

  “Looks like this bunker could use some boats,” he added with his old charm.

  “It just needs a few lights. That makes everything better.”

  Far down the hall there was a square of light. Our destination.

  Where it was dry we made great time. I was able to pace Alex though I knew from hard experience he could have gone much faster than me.

  He can catch her.

  No. I need him.

  Arguing with myself was something new. The voice in my head had come back. It was so weird to hear myself respond to myself.

  It only took a few minutes to get from one end to the other. We were almost as the intersection a
t what I anticipated would be the start of the Outer Ring loop when we heard a motor start and the roar of an engine speeding off.

  We rounded the corner to see a kicked-over motorbike and a long tunnel with glow goo sparsely applied on each wall.

  “Well, that’s not nice.” Alex ran over, breathing heavily, and worked at picking it back up. I looked ahead and saw a little red light just disappearing around the curvature of the ring. On the other side of the intersection there had been a cave-in. Whatever was going to happen, we couldn’t go all the way around the six-mile loop and end up back here.

  “Okay, m'lady, get on.” Alex had mounted the motorbike and got it started. The dirty fumes spit out in a cloud behind him.

  “Do you know what you’re doing?”

  “Trust me, girlfriend. I’ve ridden these things for eighty years. A boy’s gotta have some fun when the girls are away.” He laughed, nodding for me to get on. For an instant I wished I had my own bike, if only to not slow us down, but also I was still smarting from his guiding hand in the earlier challenges. I knew it was silly, and he probably did save me, but it felt a little like cheating.

  I slung the staff and jumped on and got comfortable behind him.

  “Hold on tight.” He advised.

  I wrapped my arms around his mid-section, both comforted and embarrassed by our closeness.

  All thoughts of impropriety were tossed out once he hit the gas. If I hadn’t been holding on there’s no doubt I would have fallen off the back.

  “We have to catch her,” he shouted. It was an obvious statement, but it explained the dangerous speeds he took us.

  I noticed the red light a few minutes later. We’d caught up to her.

  “We did—”

  My voice got caught in my throat as I felt the bike lift into the air. We hung there for a long moment, and it took me the entire time to fully grasp how we’d left the ground. Something angular had been placed on the ground.

  We slammed hard on the wet ground and Alex shouted in annoyance as the bike slid like it was on ice. Somehow he managed to keep us upright and we were going much slower when we hit the second ramp. That jump was much more controlled.

  There were at least ten inclines. We had to slow way down as we got over one after the other, which explained why we appeared to to be catching up to Xandrie only to see her roar ahead again. When we came off the last one the glow goo was stronger and we didn’t see any more bumps in the road. Alex gunned the motor and it only took a minute before we saw Xandrie’s bike again.

  “We’ve got her,” he shouted.

  5

  It took another few minutes to close the gap. Xandrie had the lighter load, but Alex was the more skilled driver. At least that’s how it looked to me. I also had moments of intuition—flashes of insights during our drive. Once I nudged Alex to the right side of the hall, totally avoiding a huge puddle that almost stopped Xandrie in her tracks. That's when we caught her.

  “Glad you guys made it,” she shouted, obviously not happy to see us.

  “You’re pretty good, for a girl,” Alex replied.

  The scowl told me his blow landed where he intended. She was able to accelerate back up to speed and we paced each other in the curving hallway as the light from the glow goo grew brighter. It was as if the hall went from old to new as we progressed through it.

  I couldn’t do much more than watch as we traded a few feet here or there. Sometimes Xandrie would veer to the right while we went left to avoid puddles, but always we came back to the middle and mirrored each other.

  Processing. Open access mode. Uploading directive.

  I felt the voice in my head that time.

  “Get out!” I shouted.

  Alex turned a little but kept guiding the bike forward.

  A picture formed in my head. A schematic dreamed up by a computer for how I could end this contest in one simple motion.

  No. Get out of my head.

  I leaned into Alex’s back, keeping my eyes closed. I felt him drop a fraction of his speed, as if sensing my discord.

  “You okay, Bells?”

  “The computer. It’s in my head. It wants me to win.”

  “Sounds like you should listen to it,” he laughed.

  But the vision it provided was one that I couldn’t fathom doing to another person.

  One poke with your staff into her wheel and you win.

  That’s not how I want to win.

  The computer unloaded maps of the cave, schematics of construction diagrams, distances, dimensions, and inhabitants—all dead—within a mile of our motorbike. It definitely wanted us to beat Xandrie.

  Why are you doing this? How?

  I shut out more of the data that pulsed inside my mind. It was too much.

  I am programmed to survive.

  I fought with the voice for the remaining couple minutes until we reached a brightly lit doorway. A series of flashing lights on top of orange barrels blocked the Outer Ring ahead, so we had no choice but to turn right. As we decelerated I felt the sting of anger inside my head. The voice was not happy I’d passed on the opportunity to crush the opposition.

  The new room was lit up by scores of light bars. A few were out, but most shined bright and steady. If I had to guess it was roughly the size of the excavator room back in the Complex, minus any of the equipment parked in that room. Instead, there was a raised platform far across the cavern. A series of benches were strewn along the driving path and they converged on the left and right side of the stage.

  Alex drove right for it.

  I’m sorry, the voice said.

  For what?

  For this.

  System Interrupt: Override mode.

  “Oh, hell no!” I shouted, but my voice didn’t come out of me.

  I could only watch as Alex sped across the hall, hooting that he was going to beat Xandrie. I wasn’t so sure, as she hung next to us the whole way. When we entered the seating section both bikes decelerated sharply and arrived at the base of the stairway up the middle of the platform at roughly the same time.

  I hopped off the bike and gripped my staff—only it wasn’t me.

  Upload Wen bō staff training.

  I jogged over toward Xandrie rather than up the steps. I spun the bar over my head faster than I’d ever been able to do on my own. The light was somehow amplified, and it became brighter than any of the white lights over our heads. I was mimicking what I’d seen Wen do back in the Outside.

  Yet I wasn't just mimicking. I knew what to do. Somehow the voice inside my head had trained me. It would be too easy to take her down, especially as she was unprepared for such an assault. She let her bike tip over and stepped onto the first step.

  “Xandrie!” I shouted, lunging for her with fire in my eye.

  She turned at the sound of my voice.

  Strike her!

  I swung the staff right at her head, but in the last instant I snatched control of myself from the rogue computer and I pulled at it—just enough to draw it short of her face. She was surprisingly quick, too. She flinched and furthered the distance between her head and my ill-timed swing.

  She lost her balance and fell hard to the steps. To her credit she got right back up, but paused when she saw me stand back. I didn’t want her to win, but I wasn’t a killer.

  “I’d rather lose than win like this. Xandrie, run,” I shouted, out loud. I heard myself say it.

  Alex had dropped his bike and run to me. “Elle, what’s wrong with you?”

  She will kill you. Must kill her.

  The voice was as calm and firm as every other interaction. That alone was disturbing. It had tried to control me and do a vicious thing, but it had all the enthusiasm of brushing teeth. As if murder was a trivial thing.

  Get out of my head.

  She will kill you.

  I screamed, so done with the back and forth. “Get out!”

  I felt Alex try to lift me. I allowed him that time, and together we walked up the steps. But w
hen we got up the little flight we found Xandrie standing there with the look of a victor.

  “Thank you, sister Elle. You let me win. You know that? Right?”

  I nodded, still not sure if the voice inside me was gone. The feeling of being “taken over” was creepy and I walked as if any second I would lose control of my own body. I threw down my staff to remove a potential weapon.

  Alex picked it up while still steadying me.

  “Winner: Xandrie Ellison. Congratulations.” Meg’s voice carried a hint of emotional victory.

  “Losers must standby for the loser’s bracket.”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad,” Alex said, while getting a better grip around my waist.

  “Nothing down here is good. We’re meant to die. I’m so sorry Alex. It wanted me to win, but I wouldn’t let it. It wanted me to assassinate her. I’m not a cold-blooded killer.”

  He spoke with sadness, but he also wanted to boost my spirits. “I know, Bells. I guess that’s why I liked you from the get-go. You’re a good person beneath that salty exterior.”

  Two pillars rose out of the stage and I recognized them for what they were the instant I saw them. It suddenly clicked into place. The end of the race course. The stadium seating. The high stage. The bright lights.

  As if in answer, the lights of the room snapped off and the rear wall behind the stage lit up with a brilliant star field. The number of distinct stars I could see was more or less infinite. I thought of that first night on the Outside and I felt more tears at the sight of nature’s beauty. How we could have ended up deep inside the earth fighting each other, I’d never know. After the emotional ups and downs we’d just suffered through I doubted I could even think straight, much less devise an answer.

  I knew what all this was about.

  The two pillars passed a spark between them and a blue light linked them together.

  “Looks like we’re about to visit the stars,” I said with a great effort at not crying.

  6

  “I knew I could beat you. The Commander said it was dangerous to engage you—that’s why he tricked you into going outside. When that didn’t work he fled his bunker rather than risk unleashing hell by killing you. He turned out to be a typical male. It took a sister to beat a sister.”

  “What are you going on about?” Alex asked