RED SUN ROGUE

by Taylor Zajonc

  The lobby was a classic example of corporate modernist architecture—towering windows and marble pillars, devoid of art or color. A long picket line of glass security turnstiles neatly divided the room in half, separating Freya from the twin escalators and elevator bank on the other side. Her dramatic entrance had achieved its intended effect—the half-dozen, grey-shirted security guards stood paralyzed, mouths hanging open as they watched her claw her way out of the ruined hybrid. She paused for a moment, bending down to pick up a long aluminum pipe from the debris-covered marble tile. Freya passed the pipe from hand to hand, gaining a sense of its weight and balance. Satisfied, she pointed to the largest of the guards, daring him to approach. Her vision narrowed, pulse once more joyously pounding in her ears.

  Focus. Breathe in. Breathe out. Get ready to fight.

  She didn’t need to see the man rushing her from behind. Her instincts guided her from the first sound of approaching footsteps. Turning to face him mid-swing, the aluminum pipe vibrated in her hands as it connected squarely with her attacker’s jaw, and rung with a sickening, wet crack. The other guards charged from all sides, the fight devolving into an indistinguishable flurry of metal and blood as the pipe landed on flesh again and again.

  Focus.

  Breathe in hatred.

  Breathe out fire.

  She no longer needed the mantra to direct her fury; her body moved in flawless synchronicity, the blood-flecked pipe an extension of herself. Freya screamed, her voice unintelligible as she crushed a guard’s eye socket with bare knuckles before burying the rounded-off end of the pipe into the forehead of a second, watching as their bodies crumpled before her wrath. Only one guard remained, frozen between advancing and retreating, wobbling feet failing him as he fumbled with his radio, unable to find the transmit button through his paralyzing terror. She smashed the end of her pipe into his chest like a home run derby all-star, sending him flying backwards and through the glass turnstile. He fell as though in slow motion, twisting in a cascade of falling diamonds.

  Freya stepped over the destroyed turnstile, hem of her hospital gown swaying as she moved. She bent over the collapsed man, grasped the security pass around his neck with her fingers. She gave it an experimental tug, but the magnetic card wouldn’t part from its lanyard. The guard had buttoned it the grey epaulettes of his uniform.

  It didn’t matter. She just needed the pass. The badly-injured man could come along for the ride without slowing her down. Freya dragged him by his lanyard, his limp body gliding across the cool, polished tiles towards an open elevator at the end of the long bank. She glanced at the buttons, using a bloodied hand to request the penthouse. A small yellow indicator light patiently blinked until she waved the guard’s magnetic card below it, satisfying the automated security procedure. The elevator doors closed as she released the lanyard, letting the guard slump into the corner of the elevator, breathing, but unconscious.

  Focus. Hatred. Fire. Lies.

  The maddening, twinkling pop music was barely audible over the ragged breath in her lungs, the pounding heartbeat in her ears.

  The doors opened with a gentle chime, revealing the partially-darkened penthouse, a tastefully designed expanse of frosted glass and empty conference rooms. The corporate hierarchy was made clear by the long, narrow hallway leading to a single office at the far end of the expansive floor, the surrounding décor all gently leading the eye towards its ornate doors. Well-designed buildings always had a way of telling you who was in charge.

  Freya stepped from the elevator without casting a backwards glance towards the injured security guard. A general alarm began to sound from the public address system, strobe lights accompanied by a soothing, authoritative voice she couldn’t understand. The few staff that had braved the storm to come to work began to emerge from their glassy offices, casting worried glances towards Freya as they flowed around her like a human river.

  She walked towards the main office with a slow deliberateness, leaving a bloody path on the carpet from the cuts on the soles of her bare feet. Silently rotating on perfectly oiled hinges, the heavy, ornate metal doors swung open revealing a massive corner office surrounded on two sides by floor-to-ceiling glass and antique art.

  An older man glanced up from behind his desk as she entered, shock and confusion written on his face. She could only imagine how she looked—probably a full six inches taller than him, heavily muscled compared to his slight build. Her pale skin was still wet, her long blond dreadlocks dripped, and her stained hospital gown was soaked and smeared with blood. Crimson rivers from her split knuckles turned to smears on her wrists and forearms. She clutched the aluminum pipe in one hand before setting it behind her shoulders like a yoke, and waited for him to make the first move.

  The man was older than her grandfather, but stood upright with unmistakable authority, his intelligent eyes sharp and penetrating. He shot a look from her to his desk phone, hand reaching out to pick up the receiver. Freya closed the gap between them before he could dial a single number, bringing the pipe down on the keypad with all her strength. It exploded into shattered plastic and circuit board as he jerked back in surprise. She leapt across the desk, grabbing his collar with both hands and hauling him bodily off his office chair. Her eyes darted across his desk, passing clear Lucite awards and mahogany plaques, commemorative paperweights, photos, family souvenirs. She reached towards the nearest of his framed photographs, knocking aside images of his family, vacations, and corporate retreats.

  And then she found it—a photo of Yasua Himura, blind eyes unseeing yet smiling, as he posed next to the grandfatherly man she held by the lapels. A satisfied smile crept across her face and she dropped the aluminum pipe on the carpeted floor. The man began to struggle as she cocked back a fist, preparing to beat him unconscious with her bare hands.

  A short, sharp whistle rang out from behind her. Freya whipped around, sweeping the old man into a choking headlock, teeth gritted as her muscles strained against his struggling. She saw the pistol first, the glint of nickel-plated steel held with unwavering intent. Instantaneously reacting on mere reflex alone, she hefted the CEO in front of her as a human shield. The CEO’s head lolled—she’d inadvertently put too much pressure on his carotid artery, knocking him out. Still, she held onto him.

  Freya eyed the man behind the pistol. He was tall, over six feet, dressed in a yellow rain slicker and heavy boots. He’d pulled his hood back, revealing a gaunt, bearded face with a fading tan, close-cropped blond hair, and piercing, animalistic eyes that seemed to cut right through her. She grasped the CEO by the back of his belted suit pants and braced her bare feet against the soft carpet. And then she hurled him across the room.

  The intruder barely had a chance to get a protective shoulder between himself and the unconscious CEO before he was hit with nearly a hundred and fifty pounds of flopping deadweight, knocking him to the floor. He grunted, tried to wrestle the body off of him, and point his pistol towards her once more.

  She wouldn’t give him a chance. Freya flung herself headlong toward the intruder, slamming him to the ground and burying a fist between his eyes before he could bring up a forearm to block the blow. Swearing, the lanky intruder twisted his weapon toward her, trying to bring the pistol muzzle under control. Her hand met his wrist the instant before he pulled the trigger. A deafening pop-poppop erupted between them. A singed, blond dreadlock fell to the carpet, severed by the near miss as microscopic gunpowder particles burned the skin of her exposed neck. The smell of cordite drifted from the hot metal barrel.

  Infuriated and now straddling the man, Freya pinned the intruder’s shoulders to the ground. He punched her repeatedly with his free hand as she struggled with his weapon, his fists landing hard against her ribs and exposed stomach. Sweat and rainwater dripped from her forehead, obscuring her vision as she twisted her thumb inside the pistol’s trigger guard. She yanked back, the next deafening blast annihilating a ceiling tile and sending a rain of debris down on them as she bent his hyp
erextended wrist away from her. The pistol went off again, twice, three times. Bullets shattered two tall panes of the floor-to-ceiling windows. The heavy glass fell in broken sheets, and howling wind filled the plush office with torrents of half-frozen rain.

  Freya cocked her hand back and slammed a single bloody fist into the intruder’s face, sending him reeling as he slid out from underneath her. Wobbling to his feet, he barely had time to raise his pistol before she tackled him, slamming him into the wet carpet once more. They were pressed against each other now, writhing with punches and kicks, neither able to land a fight-ending blow.

  Sirens and gunshots drifted up from street level. She used the momentary distraction to shove the muzzle of the pistol against the side of his head and clumsily jam her thumb against the trigger. His eyes went wide as the gun clicked. Empty. Visibly shaken, the intruder allowed the pistol to fly from his hand as she violently kicked at it with a bare foot, sending the shiny weapon tumbling out of the window and into thirty stories of nothingness below.

  She had her hands around his throat now, squeezing against his windpipe. Pinned helplessly underneath her, the bulging-eyed man gritted his teeth, desperation in his eyes as she watched him die. Freya willed him to give up, succumb to the inevitable.

  Focus on the eyes. Breathe in pain. Breathe out death.

  Movement—his knee slid up and underneath her ribcage. The intruder braced himself and used his legs to flip her entire body off of his, and send her flying through the air before landing hard on wet carpet and broken glass. Freya was on her hands and knees like a cat, but not quite fast enough. Already up, the intruder spun around and kicked her hard in the side of the face with his shinbone. She careened backwards, tumbling out of the broken window and into the void. Barely conscious, she flailed and reached toward the sill, almost catching the edge but slipping again with the stomach-churning lurch of free fall. But then she caught fast. Something stopped her. She swung back like a pendulum before slamming her legs against the glass exterior of the skyscraper.

  Freya slowly came to her senses, barely aware of the strong hand holding her wrist. She hung limply, swaying from side to side in the wind and freezing rain. The intruder had half his body and one arm hanging out of the broken window, his eyes wild and bloodshot as he collected himself, nose broken and bleeding, swelling bruises already developing around his trachea. Another few seconds straddling him and she would have crushed his windpipe for good.

  The intruder watched as she rocked back and forth in the wind, blood flowing from her palms and through his gripping white-knuckled fingers. She tried to grasp at the window ledge, but her sliced-up hands couldn’t grip the tooth-like shards of broken glass.

  Swearing, the intruder shoved his foot against the base of the window and began to pull, using all his strength to slowly winch her back into the plush office. With one last strained grunt, he yanked her body up and over the edge, leaving her to flop onto the wet carpet beside him, both laying on their backs as they struggled to catch gasping breaths.

  He spoke first, finding his words through ragged coughs. “Is it just me, or would it be totally weird to keep fighting at this point?”

  Freya tried to answer but couldn’t. Air caught in her burning lungs as she attempted to slow her pounding heart. Every part of her body hurt.

  “I could be done,” she finally said.

  He held his side and winced. She’d clearly broken one or more of his ribs.

  “Good. Because I’m not sure how much more of this I have in me. Holy fuck, you’re strong. Like, Ivan Drago from Rocky III strong.”

  “Drago was in Rocky IV,” corrected Freya. “Mr. T was in Rocky III. I’m, like, eighty percent sure.” The pair lay in awkward silence for a few more moments, listening to sirens and the intermittent retort of gunfire far below.

  The intruder took a moment to consider her response before speaking again. “I don’t want to jump to conclusions here, but were you trying to kidnap the chief executive officer of SABC Industries?”

  “Yeah,” said Freya. She glanced around the office before looking back to the intruder. The CEO was nowhere in sight. “But it looks like you let him get away. What’s it to you?”

  He ignored her question. “What exactly were you going to do once you had him? Given the whole bare-assed, escaped-mental patient look you got going on, I’m going to hazard a guess that your plan didn’t include a ‘part two’.”

  “I would have figured something out,” grunted Freya as she turned to look at him, simultaneously drawn to and made uncomfortable by his penetrating eyes. More gunfire sounded from the ground floor.

  “That’s the sound of my people keeping the cops at bay,” said the intruder, pointing his finger down towards the sounds. “They’re waiting for me, but I’m not sure how long they’ll be able to hold out. I don’t know exactly what your deal is, but let’s get out of here before any more reinforcements arrive. We can figure out whether or not we’re on the same side later. I have a feeling you don’t want to wait for the cavalry any more than I do.”

  Freya eyed him suspiciously. “You got a getaway car?”

  “My name is Jonah Blackwell,” he said, his grin shockingly white below his two blackening eyes and broken nose. He seemed to have trouble breathing, each breath faster and shallower than the one before. “And, no, I don’t have a getaway car. I have a motherfucking getaway submarine.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Jonah’s chest rose and fell to the near-silent vibration of the Scorpion’s engines, his swollen eyes too heavy to open. He shifted in his bunk as a fresh wave of pain washed over his body. Every inch of him hurt. It hurt to clear his throat, wiggle an eyebrow, tongue the roof of his mouth. Jonah tried to raise his palm to his face, but stopped as a jabbing spasm radiated across his ribcage. His fingers crawled up towards his bare chest, crossing over his undone belt. He could feel the bandages over his ribs as he moved his hand to his pectorals, fingertips caressing a strip of wet plastic taped to his chest. The plastic went taut when he breathed in, tight against his skin, but gently fluttered as he exhaled. A fresh drip of warm liquid ran down the length of his abdomen. He opened his eyes slowly, fuzzy and useless as they drifted to a hanging IV bag before closing again.

  He counted backwards from five, willing himself to open his eyes against the pain. It was easier this time, the harsh fluorescent lights muted, the surrounding room coming into focus. He’d been left in Hassan and Alexis’ cabin, alone in their tiny bed. He noticed with a pang of embarrassment that his broken nose had bled profusely across their sheets, staining them badly.

  The homey cabin smelled like them, albeit with the taint of antiseptic and rubbing alcohol. Jonah let his gaze pan across the small space, taking in details he’d never bothered to notice before. There was an old Polaroid camera on a small shelf beside several selfie-style photos of them together. They’d taken no more than a single picture at a time, carefully conserving the scant film as they traveled across the Pacific Ocean. The doctor had painted things for her as well—colorful Moroccan designs on shells next to a lovingly rendered portrait, every detail of her smiling face reproduced with careful brushstrokes. The flowers he’d picked for her on the mysterious island had begun to wither, she’d removed them from water and hung them upside down to dry and preserve.

  Jonah’s pearl-handled pistol awkwardly completed the ensemble as it lay next to a wooden bowl of ripening wild fruits. Maybe Dalmar retrieved it after it had gone flying out of the skyscraper window. He didn’t reach for it, but simply knowing it was there was a comfort of sorts, an understanding that some minor order could be returned to a chaotic universe.

  The cabin door creaked open as Hassan let himself in without knocking. The doctor looked no worse for wear himself. His face was covered with a number of small adhesive bandages and still-blossoming purple bruises. He carried a tablet computer in one hand, and his well-worn medical kit in the other.

  “I’m happy to see you awake,” Hassan said with
a smile. He spoke slowly, careful not to presume that all of Jonah’s faculties had returned. “You’ve been out for nearly three hours.”

  “And I’m happy you managed to drag my broken-down ass back to the Scorpion.” Jonah could barely get the words out through his half-crushed windpipe. “We’re still floating, so I’ll take that as a good sign. What’s the latest?”

  “We’ll soon exit Tokyo harbor,” said Hassan. “Between the commotion created by the storm and the gathering fleet, Vitaly believes we will not be detected as we slip out to sea.”

  “So what happened to me? One minute I couldn’t quite catch my breath—and the next I was out cold.”

  “Broken rib and punctured lung,” said Hassan. “Your chest cavity was filling up with leaking air with every inhalation—you were essentially suffocating from the inside out. I managed to release the pressure before your lung collapsed. I took the further liberty of administering a general anesthetic to keep you under while I added a plastic dressing to your upper thorax that would prevent the cavity from re-filling. The dressing should suffice for now; at least until the wound begins to naturally heal. You’ll need a thorough course of antibiotics as soon as you’re able to eat. I’ll prescribe some painkillers as well. The punctured lung was far from the only injury you sustained.”

  Jonah’s eyes closed momentarily and then opened, refocusing on the doctor. “Bottom line is that you poked a new hole in me. Is that about right?”

  “Indeed. And as I did not have the medically correct implement on hand, I’d rather not go into how the procedure was performed.”