Blood Runners: Box Set

by George S. Mahaffey Jr.

  His eyes hardened and he grabbed for her as she ducked and blundered to one side.

  The man’s eyes narrowed, and he stood up, exposing his neck. A memory hit Liza, an image of a class she once took when first becoming a nurse. An instructor detailing the fragility of the human anatomy, particularly the area of the neck. How it was susceptible to all manner of trauma because of the sheer amount of blood that coursed through it.

  A weak spot.

  Liza stabbed two fingers out and pressed hard against the man’s carotid artery. He struggled, but her momentum allowed her to keep the fingers in place so that the artery bulged. The pressure interrupted the bloodflow and this, coupled with the man’s age and poor health, caused him to pass out and slump to the ground.

  Liza quickly knelt and checked his pulse to make sure he was still alive. Then she pulled off his outer smock and shrugged it on so that she immediately resembled many of the laborers she’d seen inside the building.

  She fished in the man’s clothes and pulled out a giant ring of keys of various shapes and sizes along with a rubber-banded wad of paper.

  Swiping the rubber-band aside, Liza unfurled the paper to see a detailed set of schematics. Not necessarily blueprints, but a breakdown of the floors and rooms and piping in the Codex Building. She was utterly unfamiliar with such documents, but was able to decipher a few things. The location of floors, windows, what she thought might be an elevator shaft and a staircase or two. There was a large “X” on one of the rooms and she hoped this represented her present location.

  She slid the schematics into a pocket on the smock and turned to leave when her eye was distracted by a glimmer at the back of the room. She hastened forward and saw that there was something there. A portal. A small door that looked to have been reinforced in the past with thick, steel plates. A metal turn-wheel was bolted to the faceless exterior of the door. A way out perhaps?

  Liza could hear sounds the closer she got. Muted echoes. What might be the faintest hint of a human voice. Closer now. The sounds increased. What were they? Moans? Sobs? She wondered there might be a person or persons behind the door. Somebody else who’d been caged up here? Possible allies?

  The sounds were indecipherable as she drew near the door and grasped the turn-wheel. There was rust on it and it complained loudly, but it budged without too much effort and began to turn. She paused, trying to decide whether to continue on, or to run. Determination trumped her fear and so she continued to turn until she heard a click and then she began tugging on the wheel.

  She pulled the wheel back and slowly peered inside.

  And then, slowly… something coalesced out of the darkness. Spastic movements. A form. Forms. A man. A woman.

  Liza squinted, unease building inside her. Then something moaned horribly and an arm as thin as a pipe-cleaner and as white as chalk swung at her.

  She ducked and screamed as she caught sight of a toothless mouth for an instant before she slammed the door shut. She was unable to fully lock the door, but wrenched it shut as best she could. Then she spun on her heels and ran from the horrors that lay inside.

  Stumbling back, she pulled out the bundle of papers, scanning them, hoping like hell that they would provide a way out of this house of horrors.

  96

  Down below the wall, Moses could see at least one of the guards aiming a rifle at him and he prayed he wouldn’t be foolish enough to fire a shot.

  He stopped a stone’s throw away and waved his arms and then stood, statue-still, clanker box in hand. He could sense the others behind him. They were close enough to gun him down and if that’s what happened so be it. He probably deserved it. At least he would in a few a minutes. What did it all matter anyway? He remembered some famous person in the years before saying ruin is the destination toward which all men rush. Goddamn if that man wasn’t right.

  Suddenly, Moses was startled as Jon emerged from the grass and stood alongside him. This wasn’t supposed to happen at all. Goddammit, the others were supposed to stay behind him! Moses fumed, but realized there was nothing he could do. The dies had been cast.

  “I am so sorry,” Moses said.

  “For what?”

  A gate on the wall started to swing open slowly at the very same instant that armed figures sprang up on the apex of the wall. They were armed guards who quickly fired shots from a turret that turned Jon’s shoulder into raw meat.

  Jon pitched violently back as two figures ran out from inside the gate and Moses started running directly toward them. A barrage of gunfire from the other side of the wall ripped the air as Moses watched one of the figures come into clear view. She wasn’t visible to the others, but Moses could see her now, through the haze and dust. A girl! He didn’t recognize her, but the others would.

  Her name was Ava and her mouth fell open as she screamed as if her soul was being ripped from her body.

  97

  At nearly the same moment that Jon was being shot down, the suicide bombers accompanying Farrow and Locks were readying to charge.

  Locks mumbled a collective prayer and made the sign of the cross as the partisans synched their vests and pulled delayed-timer cords, wisps of smoke curling up from inside. The pair of bombers had a look of sleepy cunning in their eyes as they rose and took off in a ragged run. They made it to within a hundred yards of the fence before the first trip-lights, which had yet to be snapped off, flared on.

  Screams echoed somewhere and more lights snapped on and then BOOM! the first partisan detonated his pack near the fence. The obliterated fence came crashing down and in the resulting confusion, the second partisan bounded through the dust and debris as gunshots rang out.

  From their hiding spot, Farrow, Locks and the others could see the woman buckle momentarily, hit by a bullet before she willed herself to her feet and staggered forward into the front door. BOOM! The explosion chewed a hole in the front of the building, windows shattering, more alarms, more frantic screams.

  “NOW!” Locks screamed. “WE HIT IT RIGHT NOW!”

  Locks, Farrow, and the partisans rose as one and flapped forward as a few disoriented guards emerged from the partially ruined building.

  Farrow and Locks were out front, leading the attack, firing on the run. Longman’s men quickly regrouped and fired defensively. A partisan aside Farrow went down in a heap, his face caved in by a bullet. Farrow stared at the man and even in the half-light he could see his clothes were speckled with red droplets. He froze, unable to move, and then something changed. Something, some deep-seated grief rolled over his visage as if someone had flipped a switch.

  Farrow bellowed and turned, riddling the second story of the building ahead with his angry bullets. He fired out a magazine, downing two of Longman’s men as another partisan galloped past him hurling an incendiary device that exploded near the open front door. Fire smeared the exterior, smoke obscuring visibility as Locks dashed forward, firing out his gun.

  Farrow was right behind Locks as they blasted inside, shooting down anything that stood before them. Two, three, four of Longman’s men fell as the other partisans followed and fanned out. They moved as a strike team through the anterooms and then Farrow kicked down a door and everything faded to the single image that stood before him: an ageing, yet massive, generator, cocooned in wires and conduit, bolted against a back wall.

  Locks pulled a pin on a hand-crafted grenade and handed it to Farrow.

  “GET DOWN AND COVER UP!” Farrow shouted.

  Farrow pitched the grenade forward. He watched it tumble through the air as Locks grabbed and pulled him back seconds before CRACK-BOOM! The grenade detonated, atomizing the generator as the building was instantly plunged into darkness.

  Retreating outside, a cheer rose up amongst the partisans as they watched the surrounding lights, which had yet to turn off with the coming day, instantly go dark. They’d only momentarily blinded Longman, and his web of cameras would only be dormant for a short while, but it was the first time anyone had ever really struck
back against the tyrant.

  Locks stood next to Farrow, his chest rising and falling. There was blood on his hands and clothes, and smoke rose from the barrel of a rifle he was clutching.

  “You know what this is, don’t you?” Locks asked.

  Farrow was silent as Locks smiled.

  “This is it. This is the beginning of everything,” Locks whispered. “This is the zero hour.”

  There was only one man monitoring the surveillance imagery inside the Codex Building when the majority of the cameras turned to snow. The man was alarmed, franticly flipping switches, rejigging circuits and co-ax cables, trying to make things right. When none of his efforts bore fruit, he loped off down a hallway, searching for Mister Hendrix.

  He found Hendrix slumped over a computer terminal, headset on, drunk or drugged, the man couldn’t tell. He roused Hendrix and related what had happened. Hendrix didn’t believe him at first, but then as he began to regain some of his senses he stumble-stepped back into the monitoring room to see for himself.

  Hendrix’s eyes saucered when he saw that a good portion of the CCTVs were down. He had no idea why although he was pretty sure that something heavy was going down. He called over to the Codex Building and let them know his suspicions—that somebody had intentionally knocked out the cameras. He asked if Longman was around.

  The response he received was that Longman was busy with something important. Hendrix, angered that something critical might be underway that he was not privy to, decided not to report the incident to anyone else. Instead, he would head out to the building where the generators were kept, and check it out for himself.

  98

  Jessup rose and screamed when he saw Jon shot down. Instantly he knew that they’d walked into a trap. His instincts had been right. Moses was in on the whole goddamn thing!

  Rising in anger, Jessup raised his gun and drew a bead on the first figure he spotted in the distance. Moses. His back to Jessup, fighting to make it inside the wall. The fact that the guards on the wall were not shooting at Moses, but instead appeared to be offering cover fire for him, made it clear that Moses had betrayed them.

  The very sight of Moses filled Jessup with fury. The bastard. Traitor. Turncoat. Judas. He’d been setting them up all along!

  Jessup’s finger eased around the trigger and he sucked in a breath and squinted. And just then, at the very moment that he was about to shoot, Moses turned. As if sensing the shot coming his way, Moses lifted his chin and stared in the general direction of Jessup.

  But an instant before he dropped Moses, Jessup suddenly spotted two other figures, partially obscured, but charging past Moses. He gasped. One of them was Ava who slashed toward him, her arms chopping the air as she ran for her life.

  Jessup instantly sensed that something was wrong. Why had they released Ava? And where the hell was Liza?

  Marisol was out beyond Jessup and watching the same events unfold in real time. Her heart fell when she saw Ava running out away from the wall. Ava looked panic-stricken and disoriented. Marisol had seen that look before—on the faces of the Runners she’d helped track in the past.

  Sensing an opportunity to help Ava, Marisol rose and caught sight of Terry as he swung past her.

  Marisol watched Terry race out in front of her. She saw him hurtle over a canal and slide past a wrecked car. Her heartbeat filled her ears, dust clouding her vision as gunshots rang out, both behind and ahead of her.

  She jumped over the same canal and instantly saw two things: Jon up to the left, crawling toward her, blood staining his jacket from the gunshot wound, and Ava bearing down on her and Terry, mouth adroop as she screamed for help.

  Elias was well behind Marisol and forgotten in the bedlam. He’d been concealed in the tall grass and undergrowth, watching everything from a distance. He jogged far to the right and alighted onto a fallen I-beam, where he squatted, waiting for the scene to unfold. He saw Ava and the other figure running out from inside the wall.

  The figure, a boy about his own age, became visible and Elias reacted. It was somebody he knew. His red-haired friend from back in the Pits. It was Erik! Elias could see that Ava was going to reach Jon and Terry first with Erik not too far behind. His eyes swung from Marisol back to Erik, who was running with a jerky gait. Something was wrong. Grabbing his gun, he dropped down from the beam and took off after Marisol.

  Marisol moved to Jon whose wound continued to pump red as he pressed his hand down on the entrance hole. Grimacing, he pushed himself up, staggered by the pain.

  “You’re shot!” she said.

  “I’m okay,” Jon said. “I don’t think the bullet hit anything I can’t afford to lose.”

  Marisol grabbed his arm and steadied him as together they looked up and this is what they saw: Ava and some other kid, 150 feet beyond where they stood, beating their feet toward them; Terry closing in on Ava and the boy; and four or five shooters on the wall, pouring lead down at them.

  “We’ve gotta save Ava!” Jon shouted.

  More gunfire ripped the air and Marisol ducked. Jon broke away from her, stumbling forward at the same time that Marisol saw Terry drop to a knee and take aim at the guards on the wall squeezing off a series of shots. One of his rounds must have found a guard, as the man fell from the wall in a spray of red.

  Realizing she had to act, Marisol rose and ran forward until she was beyond even Jon who used Terry’s cover fire to dodge the incoming rounds.

  Marisol surged ahead and as if acting upon some silent cue, she ducked to her left, then to her right, miraculously avoiding the incoming fire.

  Her eyes never left the ground in front of her, so far down in her zone that she seemed to be able to see the bullets before they whipped past her.

  In seconds, she was nearing Ava and the boy who were screaming and waving their arms.

  It was at that moment that Marisol saw it.

  Saw the bulge near the middle of Ava’s back.

  Something hidden there.

  Something studded with a wire.

  Something flashed, blinding Ava as a keening whine echoed and then Marisol hit the ground as—

  BOOM!

  Two hidden bombs, implanted in the backs of Ava and Erik by Longman’s master bomb-maker, Archer Blood, detonated.

  The explosion scythed out and the world seemed to turn over for Marisol, Terry, and Jon, who were lifted off their feet by the sonic blastwave.

  The explosion atomized Ava and Erik, flinging bodyparts and shrapnel hundreds of yards in every direction, including the small packet of ball-bearings taped around Erik’s waist that barely missed Marisol, but caught Jon mid-stride, opening up his chest and legs as he pirouetted through the air, dead before he hit the ground.

  99

  Up on the wall, the guards cease-fired as a shadow passed them, striding along the metal grating. They were shocked to see Longman, cracked spectacles and all, wrapped up in his black body armor. In his right hand was a pair of binoculars and behind him stood a small contingent of his personal guard, well-turned out killers holding the best weapons available in New Chicago.

  Most of the general purpose guards doffed their caps or bowed their heads as Longman stood and breathed deeply. He’d just learned that some small faction, some tiny group of terrorists, had likely attacked an electrical station in an interior part of the city. Undoubtedly it was the pair of dead-enders who’d escaped from the Codex Building, but he barely gave it a second thought. If only they knew, he thought to himself. If only they’d realized that everything that happened was part of his master plan. Smiling at this, he looked down and studied the ground directly below him, including the opening where he could see Moses being ushered inside. Beside Moses was the remainder of Longman’s men. He raised a balled fist to them and pumped it in salute, as they moved out in force, into the grasslands.

  Watching his men stream out, he fixed his gaze on the grasslands and this is what he saw: smoke and debris still rising over the areas flattened by the explosion; Mari
sol lying unconscious; a man moving forward to assist another wounded man; and the boy. He could actually see the boy standing in open ground. Staring up at Longman. It was Elias!

  The little bastard.

  Longman’s rage boiled over.

  “Give me a weapon!” Longman shouted.

  One of the guards handed him an assault rifle and Longman turned and expertly sighted it, and without a moment of hesitation, opened fire.

  Directly at Elias.

  A smile kicked up at the edges of Longman’s lips as he unloaded on the boy who took evasive action, able to outrun a trail of bullets that nipped at his heels as he dove for cover.

  Longman’s gun clicked over empty and he cursed the boy for being so damn fast.

  He handed the rifle back to its original owner and gestured at the grasslands and bellowed.

  “BRING ME THE GIRL!”

  “What about the others?!” someone shouted.

  Longman raised a balled fist. “KILL THEM ALL!”

  100

  Marisol was lucky to be alive. She was on her side in the grass, a wave of bullets sizzling through the air, barely missing her head. The explosion had knocked the wind out of her and she lay quietly in a daze. Fighting to push herself up, she collapsed. Rolling over her line of sight drifted heavenward and she listened to the sound of approaching footfalls, praying that it was Elias or some of the others coming to assist her.

  Marisol was still on her back when the figures swam into view. Men. Lots of men (and a few women) with heavy weapons and impassive countenances.

  She raised an arm and one of them forcefully gripped her wrist and yanked her upright and then spun her around so that she caught a quick glimpse of each of the killers surrounding her.

  She took on their merciless, loathsome stares and didn’t flinch when they began to poke and prod her.