by John Ridley
She fired…
Fired…
One of the things skittered up a wall, over the ceiling, positioned itself to attack from above. Soledad took the shot, aim off a little. The slug, the explosion, tore up part of the creature. Not all of it. The bulk of the beast, its momentum, kept it moving for Soledad; lifeless when it lost contact with the metal of the structure. Still deadly on its own, a few hundred pounds of projectile. Soledad took the impact in the chest, in the chestplate. Kept her from being crushed as the crippled engine rode her to the ground. The air got punched from her lungs, the gun from her hand. She was pinned tight and easy prey for the little creepies that she couldn't see, but could hear tickety-ticking for her. Her hand flailed for her piece. Her body squirmed trying to pull free of the dead weight.
Tickety-tick came the things.
Soledad gave up on the gun. Twisting, twisting, she snaked her right leg up…
Tickety-tick…
Getting a foot under the block, struggling for leverage…
The glint of light off approaching metal…
The shadow of six-legged mutated movement…
Soledad pushed off with her leg, kicked the block up and back, into one of the approaching things, stumbling it. Hurting from breast to thigh, Soledad rolled, grabbed up her gun, raised it up, fired. The hurt threw off her aim, but it wasn't so off that the slug, the contact explosion, didn't shred the engine and send it to the ground.
How many had she taken out? Nine? Twelve? Didn't matter. They kept coming. The metal-on-metal sound squealing from the dark. Soledad tried to stand. Her right hip wouldn't take the weight. Her left leg wouldn't help out. She was spent. Spent, and good as…
… Ian…
A hand on her vest yanked Soledad to her feet. Vin."Come on. Die now and I'll never get a date."
Weakly: "Fucker…"
Lurching, stumbling backward, Soledad fumbled her way up into a near-running position helped along by Vin at rear guard, firing his weapon, for all the nongood it did.
Eddi in a doorway at the end of the hall: "In here!" Her waving arm, the look on her face urging them for her.
Then her face changed. The hard young woman became a billboard of fear.
Soledad turned, looked behind her, saw one of the things leap forward and take Vin down. The thing blossomed a mouth, a cavernous hole brimmed with sharpened fangs that chomped down on Vin's right leg. It tore out a chunk of meat, blood spraying, then spat it loose, sent it flipping, sent it bouncing off the wall to the floor where the mass spasmed where it lay—eleven feet, more than that, from the rest of Vin. The thing gnawed on. Tearing flesh, the cracking of snapped bones audible under the screams that wailed uninterrupted out of Vin.
The thing raised up, bared its teeth at Soledad, hissed and taunted before going back to its meal.
The bloody mouth was her bull's-eye. Soledad clicked off two rounds. The first erupted from inside the monster, wrenched it with convolutions as the force of the blast punched it apart. The second bullet sent what was left of the mutant skittering back the way it had come… along with more of Vin's severed leg.
Soledad grabbed Vin, hauled him for Eddi and the sanctuary of the waiting room, the chore made more difficult by Vin's uncontrollable body motions that were response to his unimaginable agony. The lingering hurt of taking an engine full in the chest didn't help speed Soledad up any. She limped Vin closer to the door… closer…
From deep in the darkness of the hallway came the tickety-tick multiplied. Another batch of things, scampering, like they could sense they were losing their prey. Little killers afraid they'd have nothing to kill. They came pouring from the dark like banshees out to snatch up souls.
"Oh, shit!"
Soledad sucked a deep breath. Gripping hard, she heaved back Vin, cleaned and jerked him though the doorway as Eddi slammed the wood door shut and threw the lock. A second later came the sound of heavy, misshapen automotive parts thudding against the pine.
They wouldn't get in, the wood like holy water to the unhallowed.
Soledad ignored the things, focused on Vin.
Vin.
His freak-amputated leg, blood free-flowing from it, Vin repeated a disjointed phrase he'd locked into a continual loop: "Not too bad not too bad is it it's not too bad not too…"
Soledad pulled loose Vin's belt, tourniqueted it tight above the knee of his right leg. Of what remained of his right leg. It stopped the bleeding. Some.
She was suffocating. She felt like she was. Taking off her helmet, vest, Soledad peeled off her Nomex top, stripped down to her T-shirt. Still couldn't breathe right.
Fear.
She didn't dig the feeling.
Eddi wiped the sweat off Vin's face. Tried to. There was too much to get clean.
"Not too bad not too it's all right it's not too bad…"
"You're going to be good." Soledad tried to keep the authority in her voice while at the same time excising the blind hope."We're going to get you out of here, get you to a hosp—"
"Behind you," Eddi shouted.
Soledad juked to the side as a metal tendril honed to a razor's edge extended from the crack where door met floor and took a decapitating swipe at her head. The tendril paused at the far end of its arch, then snapped back in Soledad's direction. She flattened herself as the blade sliced just above her. She rolled back and away as its spike-point raised up and slammed down into the ground where she lay a second previous.
Eddi stepped up, her HK leveled and spitting bullets. Rage came spitting from her mouth: "Ahhhhhhh!"
The slugs tore at the metal but did no real damage.
"Hold it! Hold fire!"
Eddi came off her trigger, chest pumping with each hot breath.
"Bullets are no good, and punching holes in that wood isn't going to make things any better." Soledad went for Vin. She said: "Help me."
Eddi took hold. Together they pulled Vin deeper into the room, farther into relative safety.
The tendril swung at them, but the metal was stressed to its limit. Finally it retreated the way it had come, disappearing back through the little crack. Waiting just beyond the door.
Vin managed: "Messed up… messed up good, Solahhh…" He was barely intelligible, his words smothered under a blanket of delirium.
"Saved my life's what you did." Soledad fished a small pack from one of her pockets.
Eddi kept out a sharp eye for any more living metal and, never mind what she'd been told by Soledad, kept her HK ready.
From the pack, a first-aid kit, Soledad took out a morphine injector, cracked it open, exposing its single-use needle.
She said: "Gonna give you a little something. Cut back the pain, put you out."
"Don't wah… want to be out. Want tuh—to hel—"
"You've got to rest some. Might need you for backup." False hope she was giving him. But hope.
A swipe with an alcohol rub. The needle got jabbed into the sterile spot on Vin's arm.
Soledad followed that with: "We've got 'em good, Vin. Don't you worry about it."
"Don't let umm… while I'm ouu, don't lee the doctahhs take mahh leee…"
Gone. Half sedated, half passed out. And when he came around, Vin would know the truth. The doctors wouldn't take his leg. The freaks had beat them to it.
Soledad, to Eddi: "Go to Tac-1, radio for backup?"
Eddi shook her head."If you're coming off the game plan, don't do it for me. I'm not having any boys roll up and save my ass so they can give me shit about it later. Just us girls is fine."
Eddi was impressive. Soledad had to admit it. If she was scared, if she was at all broken up about Yarborough getting speared, or freaked about Vin getting chewed up, she did a good job of keeping it hidden behind a tough front. And Soledad also had to acknowledge, finally, that one day Eddi was going to make for a helluva MTac. All Soledad had to do was keep the girl alive long enough for the day to come. For the minute that meant keeping Eddi's bluster in check.
"Don't kid yourself. It's me they want."
"Looks like they're going to get two of us coming at them for their trouble."
"They're going to get one." Soledad checked her gun's digital counter. Twelve bullets. Not much firepower against animated car parts."You're staying with Vin."
"Soledad, gun or no: You go after both of those freaks alone, you're dead."
"We both go after them, we're both dead. We're split up, it'll be harder for the telepath to track the two of us at once. If I can take out one of them, it balances things in our favor. Give me ten minutes. I'll do what I can, then come back."
"And if you don't?"
Matter-of-fact, like she was giving the time of day: "Then I'm dead, and you're on your own."
Soledad didn't bother gearing back up with her helmet, her vest. She had her piece. That was the only thing that was going to get her—her, Vin and Eddi—through the dark ride that waited.
She sat, listened. Heard nothing.
She went to the door, pressed her ear to it.
Quiet.
Sure it was. If the freaks were going to lull her out, they weren't going to do it by having mutant engines baying at the door.
Soledad thought for a second. Outside the door was the long hall. All metal. That'd be the first part and the hard part. Like running a gauntlet. It was nothing but a canvas for the metal morpher to do with like it pleased. There was the room off to the side that was off limits, the one that stored all the automotive gear. There was another door at the end of the hall. Soledad couldn't remember if it was made of wood or metal; had no idea if the room beyond was safe or freak-friendly. But to even get that far, first there was that hallway.
"Shut this thing behind me. Tight." Soledad flicked back the lock. Her left hand clutched the knob of the door, her right her gun.
From behind: "Soledad…"
Soledad turned to Eddi.
"Kill one for me."
Soledad pulled open the door, went into the hall. Behind her she heard the door get slammed, the lock get thrown.
The hallway was fifty, maybe just more than sixty feet in length. The dark made it seem twice that. A blind run was the temptation but wasn't the smart choice. Moving fast would just keep Soledad from seeing what killed her. So Soledad eased forward. Going slow gave her time to look, to think, to listen. Adjust to whatever waited for her.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Something definitely waited.
Something would happen.
Nothing.
Maybe, she reconsidered, she should make a run. She'd already been there. She knew: Getting caught up in the hall was no good.
Nothing.
Maybe she should—
Something. Something happened quick. The only warning: the cry of stretching metal. One of the walls spontaneously generated a spike that drove pistonlike at Soledad. She moved. Moved with speed. Faster even than she thought herself capable. But potential death's got a way of putting a rush in you. Jerking down, to the side, pressing a hand to the floor and using it to help her spring away. In the middle of all that she had to twist and move again. Another spike, this one formed at the ceiling, plunged down for her.
Rolling now, forward. Always moving forward. No stopping. No pausing. Behind her was killer metal. Ahead, a chance, no matter how slight.
Each move she made was like tripping a wire. Spikes sprang, shot, materialized all around her. They cut, slashed, whipped at her head. Jumping up, she grabbed one, used it to flip over another that tried to cut her down at the feet. An airborne swirl, laying out as yet another spike jabbed itself across her abdomen. Soledad, the living metal that tried to cut her down: They were a blur of motion. A funky ballet.
Soledad's feet touched ground, sent her tumbling, braked her.
Straight ahead: A sharpened metal finger raced to spear her.
Weapon raised, she fired. The bullet, the explosion, shattered the finger, sent metal shrapneling around, slashing at her skin, as she launched forward. Always forward. Alwa—
"Daaaaah!"
Midmovement, Soledad's left thigh went white-hot with a flash-fire. Through the meat, just missing the bone, she'd been impaled. Stuck like a butterfly pinned to corkboard; immobilized, held for the executioner's blow. It came, and came as overkill: a pair of skewers moving for her from front and back to do to the vitals of her body what the other spike had done to her leg.
Except there was the gun, there were the bullets.
Soledad fired in front. The bullet hit, the metal disintegrated.
She twisted. Full-on pain.
She fired at the skewer that held her in place, blasted it from its anchor and freed up her leg.
She dropped, both to avoid the spike and because the blinding hurt in her leg told her to. The pain got amped ten by ten when Soledad gripped hard and ripped what was left of the metal from her thigh. Intense to the point of almost blacking her out. But to go out was to die. That thought alone kept Soledad functional.
Yards from the door. The spikes came, urgent, as if with their animation-owned intelligence: If she makes the door, she's safe. The corridor was bloated with the sounds of slashing, grinding metal. Limbs independently formed and reached and moved to kill. Soledad felt her skin shorn by the tips of the spikes, torn by their edges. From above, an entire section of the roof swept down to guillotine her. To the left and right fresh-formed blades swatted at her side. All were avoided, barely and with a minimal loss of flesh and blood. What couldn't be dodged was blasted to pieces.
Four bullets left.
Three.
The door just ahead.
The metal-morphing freak would have to do better. It'd have to come up with something else if it wanted to stop Soledad.
It did.
With the door just before her, just beyond her reach, there rose one last creation that coiled and twisted and hissed no different than a virtual snake getting ready to strike. It seemed to balloon and swell, seemed to draw up as much mass as possible in deference to the tiny, mighty woman before it. It, by way of the freak, knew she was formidable. It, by way of the freak, knew if it couldn't stop her where she stood, maybe there was no stopping her at all. The thing had one chore: slaughter the woman.
Soledad, knowing all else was just foreplay, stood her ground, stood resolute. She stood ready to destroy or be destroyed.
In anticipation the thing hovered and tensed. Reared back, shot up, then forward, speeding for the kill.
Aubrey took his hand from the metal wall. In his mind he couldn't see the woman, the police lady, no more.
Blood for blood. That's what Vaughn had told Aubrey. When Aubrey was scared, after he'd heard about the cops who'd killed themselves, knowing it was Vaughn who'd done the killing. Blood for blood, Vaughn'd told Aubrey when the others had come for Vaughn. When Vaughn did what he did to them, killed them, he'd told Aubrey blood for blood. Vaughn really bad wanted the blood of the police lady the others called Bullet. No matter he should have run—no matter he wanted to—Aubrey'd promised to help Vaughn.
Vaughn and Michelle had always been there for him. Shouldn't he be there for them; for what Vaughn was doing in Michelle's name?
That's what Vaughn had said anyway.
Blood for blood, he'd said.
Aubrey knew he wasn't smart like Vaughn. Not as powerful. Not nearly. But with Vaughn's help he had been able to do some hurting. With Vaughn's help he had been able to see the police people. Through the sheet metal of the building he'd been able to send his energy, make his little things that did his hurting for him. They'd done some good hurting. One of the cops was dead. One was chomped up. Aubrey liked the little chompy things. Before… before the president said he couldn't use his power no more, couldn't make things, Aubrey liked to make little things, little pets to play with.
But he didn't used to make them hurt people before.
Before.
Blood for blood.
And then there was
the police lady called Bullet. Aubrey was going to kill her for Vaughn. For Michelle. Was going to, but she wouldn't die easy. Aubrey sent his little chompy things after her. She shot his little chompy things up. Aubrey tried to jam her with his pointy points. One got her in the leg. That's it. Not enough. So Aubrey sent that big snaky thing to cut her up just like Vaughn said he should. He made the snaky thing, and the snaky thing struck, and right when it did… Aubrey couldn't see the police lady no more. Aubrey couldn't hear Vaughn thinking in his head no more. Aubrey didn't know if the police lady was alive or killed. Why wasn't Vaughn talking to him? Why wasn't Vaughn telling him what to do? Why wasn't…
Because maybe the police lady, Bullet, wasn't dead. Maybe she had gotten past Aubrey's most excellent snaky thing. Maybe she had gotten to Vaughn. Maybe Vaughn was…
Aubrey bit at his thumb, began to shuffle, back and forth, one foot to the other. A low tone seeped out of him: "Unnnnnnnnn…" A sound he made a lot; a frightened little noise.
If Vaughn was gone, if the police lady had gotten him— Couldn't've. She couldn't've. Nobody could stop Vaughn. But if, if she had… then what was going to keep her from getting him?
"Unnnnnnnnn…"
Rat-trapped-in-a-maze-terrified, Aubrey started to stumble around the room, bumped into a car door frame that slid from the table it was leaning on. It clattered, loud, to the floor and kicked some hubcaps when it landed there. The sound of it all made Aubrey jerk, jump. He was afraid. All that metal around he could control and shape and bring to life. All the metal in the building that he could touch by conductivity, animate by exceptional ability, and he was afraid of one woman.
Not just a woman.
A police lady with a gun and some real special freak-hurting bullets.
"Vaughn…" A scared kid calling for its daddy after a bad dream."Vaughn…" He was still out there somewhere. He had to be. Had to.
A passing shadow made Aubrey's heart skip. A slight noise made his flesh sweat.
Once more, louder: "Vaughn…"
Shadow and sound together. Aubrey turned, looked up.
From above, from the rafters, Soledad sailing toward him. Something in her hands, something that swallowed Aubrey in darkness.