by Jacob Holo
Nicole was about to stop the knife with her shoe, but the knife halted without apparent cause. She opened her hand and, shockingly, the knife jumped into it, handle-first.
She turned and pulled her arm back, ready to throw. The reaver raised its body off the cracked pavement. Pus and liquid fire streamed from its wound. The ground hissed, and fires started wherever it bled. It lunged towards her like a thicket of blades.
Nicole fell back. Razor-tipped legs sailed over her head, almost decapitating her. She flung the knife before she hit the pavement.
The knife accelerated towards the reaver like the first, somehow picking up speed and striking the reaver underneath its horrible mouth. Twisted metal, fire, and pale fluid burst out of the wound. The knife punched all the way through, and more liquid fire blasted out the back of its body.
The reaver cried out with a high-pitched screech. Its legs gave out, and its heavy body crashed down on its side.
Nicole ran over to Daniel, who had cut a strip off his trench coat and had wrapped his leg in a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. His breaths were labored, but his face still had color.
“Nice throw,” he said weakly. He tightened the tourniquet with a wince.
The reaver started to get up. Nicole turned sharply around. But the reaver didn’t attack. Instead it whimpered like a beaten animal. Slowly, it crawled back into the subway station, trailing pus behind it.
“What a truly awful smell,” Nicole said. She started laughing. Or crying. She wasn’t sure which.
“You get used to it,” Daniel said.
Nicole wiped under her eyes with a shaky fist.
“You okay?” she asked, looking at his leg.
“Believe me, I’ve had worse. The reaver missed the big blood vessels in my leg, and I stopped what bleeding I had, so I’ll last until a resetter can look at it. I think there’s a safe house not far from here. But look at you! A kinetic!”
“Yeah, that certainly was something.” She felt like sitting down and having a good cry, but for some reason she kept going. “I don’t even know how I did it.”
“Still, that was amazing. I can barely believe it.”
“Was it really that unusual?”
“Are you kidding? There hasn’t been a kinetic tau guard in something like twenty years! And that second throw right through the main pump? Perfect! It’s like you’ve been doing it all your life.”
“Yeah, about that. How did I do that?”
Daniel shrugged. “I don’t know. Same way I jump around like I do. Same way a pyro lights stuff on fire. Some people have an innate ability to bend the mutable laws in a tau freeze.”
“They what?”
Daniel screwed his face up as if trying to remember something.
“What’s with that look?” Nicole asked.
“Well, it’s been a while since I studied the actual theory,” Daniel said. “To be honest, I didn’t pay much attention in that class. I never saw the point when several tons of angry reavers are rushing towards me.”
“Yeah, I guess I can see that.”
Daniel pushed himself up with his arms and craned his neck. “Well, this is a surprise. Better late than never, you damn commie!”
Nicole followed Daniel’s gaze down the road. A dozen Russians ran towards them, some moving extremely fast. They slowed and looked around, aware of their surroundings. Five of them had swords like Daniel’s. The others had no obvious weapons. All of them moved with a professional confidence, as if this was just another day on the job, and they were the right badasses in the right place.
The Russians wore civilian clothing, but Nicole couldn’t help noticing a pattern. Nearly all of them wore at least one black and one red article. It gave the group a strange sense of uniformity.
Nicole stood back, watching the group fan out and form a perimeter.
A heavily-built, square-faced Russian with a graying buzz cut stopped in front of Daniel. He looked down with a grim expression.
“Hello, Viktor!” Daniel said, waving weakly from the ground.
“Horosho. Jar ad chto my hashli vas vovremji.”
“English, Viktor, if you please.”
“Yes. Sorry. We were delayed by a large infestation near the Winter Palace. Resetter, pomogi emu s ranami. I’m glad you’re alive.”
“You and me both,” Daniel said.
A red-haired Russian girl in her tweens bent down and looked at his leg.
“And the reaver?” Viktor asked.
“It went down into the station. Watch out. It’s a big sentinel-type, at least a ten on the Novikov scale.”
Viktor nodded. He turned to a stern-looking woman with a sunken, skull-like face and short, white hair.
“Anya! Vozmi svojo grupu zahvata e zakonchi ego!”
“Da!” the woman said. She gathered the squad and led them into the subway station.
“I’m glad you brought a resetter with you,” Daniel said, nodding towards the girl removing his tourniquet.
“Yes,” Viktor said. “Our timing was fortunate. We were able to tunnel most of the way here.”
“You don’t seem too surprised by the size of this reaver,” Daniel said.
“We fought a sentinel almost as big at the Winter Palace.”
“Damn, really? Just what the hell is going on?”
“I wish I knew.” Viktor turned to Nicole. “Who is this girl?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Daniel said with a stupid grin. He didn’t seem to be in any pain. Nicole stood on her tip-toes and looked over the resetter’s shoulder. She watched the torn flesh in Daniel’s leg knit back together.
“Try me,” Viktor said.
“She got stuck in the tau freeze with me and you know what? She’s a kinetic!”
Viktor furrowed his brow. “You’re kidding.”
“No, she’s a kinetic, all right. She’s the one that chased the reaver away. Threw one of my knives right through its main arterial pump.”
“An untrained amateur fought a class ten sentinel and lived?”
“Yeah, isn’t that something?”
“And she’s a kinetic?”
“Pretty cool, huh?”
Viktor turned to her. “Is this truly your first time in a tau freeze?”
“Look, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Nicole said. “I’m just happy to be alive right now.”
Viktor frowned. He seemed to do that a lot.
Daniel sprang to his feet, his thigh and pant leg completely mended.
“You know, someone’s going to have to watch over her,” Daniel said.
The scowl on Viktor’s face deepened.
“Come on, what do you say?” Daniel said.
Viktor glowered at him.
“Oh, don’t give me that look,” Daniel said. “It’s not like I’m going to abandon Overwatch. Come on, it’ll be good for me to do something else for a while. And someone’s got to watch over her until she’s trained up.”
“Wait a second,” Nicole said. “What was that about watching over me?”
“We will find someone else,” Viktor said.
“Someone else to do what?” Nicole asked.
“Like who?” Daniel asked. “She already knows me. Nicole, you trust me, right?”
“I hardly know you!”
“See, Viktor. It’s perfect. She already likes me.”
“What are you two talking about?”
“No, Daniel,” Viktor said. “I refuse.”
Daniel flashed Nicole a toothy grin. “Please excuse us for a second.” He walked away with a firm hand on Viktor’s shoulder. Nicole had no idea why they stepped away. Even though they were out of whispered earshot, their voices kept getting louder until both were yelling at the top of their lungs. The resetter actually cringed a few times.
It didn’t matter, though. Nicole had no idea what they were talking about. Triple-C this and Overwatch that. It might as well have been a foreign language. She walked over to the girl who’d mended Daniel’s leg.
“Is that how they normally act?” Nicole asked.
“Ia ne razgovarivau po angliski,” she said.
“Never mind then.”
A thunderclap boomed. Nicole faced the subway entrance. Three more explosions cracked the air. She backed away.
The resetter smiled and gave her a thumbs-up.
“Oh, so that was a good sound?” Nicole said. “You could have fooled me.”
“Good news!” Daniel said from behind her.
“Ah! Damn it! Don’t sneak up on me when stuff is exploding!”
“What?”
“Didn’t you hear the bangs from the subway?”
“Huh? Oh, those! Don’t worry. That’s perfectly normal. Two of the tau guards in Viktor’s group are pyros. I imagine the reaver is painting the walls now.”
“Oh, is that all?”
“Anyway, Viktor has some good news for you. Right, big guy?”
“You must work for us,” Viktor said.
“Excuse me?” Nicole said. “I have to what?”
“Now, Viktor. She isn’t a tau guard yet. Don’t try ordering her around.”
“If you insist,” Viktor said. He took a deep breath. “I mean we would like you to work for us.”
“Ah, no,” Nicole said. “No-no-no-no-no. No way in hell am I going to do that again. One time was more than enough. I mean, I almost got killed fighting that thing, and I still have no idea what’s going on.”
“If you agree, I will assign Daniel to guard you until you can be properly trained.”
“Sorry, but nothing is going to change my answer. Now can you please tell me how to get out of this time freeze thing?”
Daniel wore a crestfallen expression. Or at least tried to. His expression was so patently fake Nicole knew he had a backup plan.
“You sure?” Daniel asked.
“Yes, I’m sure!”
“Okay. Well, I suppose this is goodbye then.”
“Yeah, umm, I guess so.”
“It was really nice meeting you.”
“Yeah, err, you too,” Nicole said. Maybe he didn’t have a backup plan. She was almost sorry to see him go.
“You’ll reappear on the escalator when we let the freeze end, same as before. You can catch up with your class from there.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“No problem,” Daniel said. “I’m sure you’ll do fine with the next reaver you meet. Well, come on, Viktor. No need to take any more of her time. Ha ha. Little tau guard joke there since time isn’t—”
“What-do-you-mean-the-next-reaver?”
“Didn’t I say?”
“No, you didn’t!”
“Only now that they found you once, they might send more.”
“They what!”
“They tend not to forget when one of them has been wounded or killed. You might say they have your scent now, though that’s probably not a good analogy. Actually, I don’t think they have a sense of smell. That’s why I’m so surprised you don’t want to come. But then, after all, it is your life and you may lead it—”
“Is this true?” Nicole asked Viktor.
“Yes,” Viktor said. “You will almost certainly encounter reavers in the future.”
Nicole put her face in her hands and dropped to her knees. “Oh, no. No-no-no-no-no. What have I gotten myself into?”
“Hey, don’t worry. That’s why Viktor is going to free me from my normal duties. I’m going to protect you full-time until you’re trained up. Right, Viktor?”
“That’s correct.”
“So we’re going to take this nice and slow. You get to go back to your friends and keep going to school. Where did you say you were from?”
“I didn’t.”
Daniel paused, expectantly.
Nicole sighed. She stood up. “Burlington, Massachusetts.”
“Burlington, right. You can keep living there and we’ll figure out some sort of compromise with training that doesn’t involve bringing you to Chronopolis.”
Viktor nodded. “And in return, we get the first kinetic of this generation.”
“See? And it’s not even Christmas yet.”
Nicole felt she didn’t have much of a choice at this point if what they said was true. Maybe it wasn’t, but the risk of being wrong was facing another reaver alone, and she didn’t want that.
Besides, having Daniel nearby would be comforting. He didn’t pay attention to anything she said and under any normal circumstances she’d find him insufferable, but she couldn’t help liking the guy. At least a little.
Daniel turned her way, and she quickly looked at something else. She wondered if she’d been staring.
“Hey, Viktor,” Daniel said. “I’m going to need another sword. The reaver broke mine and ate the pointy end.”
“Pick one up at the safe house,” Viktor said. “They should have some spares.”
“Right.” Daniel looked to the subway. “Aren’t they done with the reaver yet?”
Ten tau guards exited the subway and walked down the stairs towards Nicole and the others.
“Ah, good,” Viktor said.
Daniel patted her shoulder. “You okay?”
“What could possibly make you think I’m okay right now?”
“I don’t know. You survived your first encounter with a reaver and still have all your limbs. That’s a big plus. And look at it this way. You’ve made all these new friends today.”
“Has anyone ever said you can be insufferably cheerful?”
“Hmm, now that you mention it, I think Shoko said that once.”
“Who’s Shoko?”
“Osvobodi zamorozjenoe vremia cherez desiat sekund!” Viktor said.
“Da!”
“Oh, I know what that means,” Daniel said. “Get ready.”
“Ready for wha—?”
Blackness swallowed her.
* * *
Nicole gasped, lost her balance, and stumbled against the escalator railing. She was back in the subway station.
“Damn it, give me more warning next time,” she muttered.
Nicole looked around, but couldn’t see Daniel anywhere. She waited for the escalator to take her all the way to the top, then took it back down. The train was gone when she got back to the platform.
Feeling suddenly tired, Nicole put her back to a column and sagged against it.
“What a horrible day.”
Her cell phone vibrated. She took it out and read the text message from Mrs. Woytowich.
where r u can u meet us at the next stop?
Nicole wrote a quick reply about becoming distracted and missing the train. She didn’t mention Amy’s little game. It wouldn’t get her anywhere. It never did. She looked up at the train schedule marquee, which fortunately had enough English on it to decipher.
“Seven minutes till the next train. Not too bad.”
Nicole grimaced, head suddenly throbbing.
“Ouch. What the heck?”
She massaged the back of her neck, but that didn’t seem to help.
“You okay?”
Nicole looked up to see Daniel walking over.
“Where have you been?” she asked.
“I was seeing Viktor’s group off. Are you feeling all right?”
“I don’t know. I suddenly have this pounding headache. Is that normal after one of those freezes?”
Daniel’s eyes widened. “Your head hurts?”
“Yeah. Why, is that bad?”
“You sure you didn’t have the headache before the freeze?”
“No, it just hit me. Come on, what’s with that look?”
“I’m just wondering if we can get the resetter back here in time before… well, maybe it’s better if you don’t know.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better? Because it didn’t!”
“Hold on. I think I have something that’ll help,” Daniel said, patting his trench coat. “I always keep some on me just in case of emergencies.”
“
Oh, good,” Nicole said. “You had me worried there for a second. What is it?”
“Special medicine for what afflicts you.”
Daniel proffered a small red and white packet. Nicole took the packet. She turned it over in her hands and read the label.
“Extra Strength Tylenol?” she asked.
“It’s great stuff for headaches. Even the tau ones.”
Nicole punched him in the arm, but he just laughed.
Chapter 3
Two Secrets
Nicole awoke in the hotel room, sweating despite the air conditioning chill. She sat up in bed and ran fingers through her damp hair. Amy had her back to Nicole and was practically cocooned in the comforter.
“Is something wrong?” Amy asked.
“Nothing. Just a bad dream,” Nicole said, tossing the sheets aside. She dropped out of bed, walked into the restroom, and closed the door.
Nicole stared at herself in the mirror. She looked like crap.
“Come on, Nicole. Get a grip.”
Nicole started the faucet, splashed cold water over her face, filled a plastic hotel cup, and drank. She felt sticky, nervous, and sick to her stomach all at once.
Nicole grabbed her cell phone off the counter and unplugged the charger. She scrolled through her contacts and selected DANIEL CADINSKY. The phone rang four times before taking her to voicemail. She didn’t leave a message.
Nicole shook her head and tossed the cell phone onto the counter.
Eight minutes and two cups of water later her phone vibrated. She flipped it open and read Daniel’s text message.
coast clear sleep well
Nicole smiled and set the phone aside. The nervousness and the sick feeling in her stomach didn’t all go away, but they did subside a little. Enough to get some sleep, she thought. After another cup of water, Nicole slipped back into bed next to Amy. She even managed to get a few hours sleep before the alarm clock sounded off.
Amy was already awake, sitting in a chair next to the bed. She’d applied her purple lipstick and black eyeliner, and had inserted about a dozen facial piercings. Dark purple hair extensions hung loosely around a lacy collar and drooped off bare shoulders.
Flecks of paint dotted her hands, sleeves, and a few places around her waist. Most of it was black and green, but a few droplets were bright blue or yellow with a smattering of different metallic shades. Amy could be a sloppy painter. Most of it stained her clothes, but a few smears were dried to her hands from before the trip started.