by Justin Bell
The venom in her eyes surprises me and I take a step backwards, then glance over towards Luxen who is being dragged away.
“She died for you, Brie!” he shouts at me. “She died saving your life! I could have, too!”
I start to move towards him.
“Make your choice,” my mother says.
I turn towards her, then look back at Luxen. My feet don't move. They remain fixed to the carpet, keeping me still. Everything is moving too quickly.
“Brie!” Luxen shouts. He only has time for one word as the guards drag him away, down the hall, and around a corner out of view. . . . Blessedly out of view, so I don't have to see that look of betrayal in his eyes.
You made the right choice,” my mother says in the empty hallway. “We owe him a debt for saving your life, but he is still Bragdon filth.”
“They are not filth!” I shout. The volume and intensity of my outburst surprises even me. My skin crawls, so hot it feels like it’s slipping from my bones.
My mother takes a step back, her eyes wide and her mouth hanging open. It is a look of stunned silence that I have never seen on her face before. It's a look I did not expect.
She blinks rapidly, shakes her head and looks at me again as if seeing me for the very first time. Her narrowed, prodding eyes roam over me, looking at my arms and my legs, then settling on my eyes.
“Brie?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“Go to your room,” she says quietly. There’s an edge there, a sharp, almost nervous edge.
Without a reply, I push past her towards the door to my quarters, then peel right and shut the door behind me.
What just happened. Why did she look at me like that? Where are they taking Luxen?
I thought I was out of the fire, I thought the Athelonian Ships Killers had rescued me, and now I almost feel more trapped that before. Part of me wishes I'd just left Luxen back on Braxis. What kind of person does that make me?
In the past thirty-six hours I've learned many things I never even dreamed I would need to know, but I don't know myself any better than before.
Nausea washes over me, so I step through the main room into the wash room. My face and forehead feeling clammy with sweat. A nervous energy clings to me. My world is spinning and I can't explain it.
My hands touch the cool surface of the sink. My eyes are lowered and my hair is hanging down on each side of my face. Clenching my fingers, I lift my head to look in the mirror.
Breath stops in my lungs. My heart screams.
From my reflection, two yellow, reptilian eyes snap back at me in accusation.
As my reflection glares back at me, with pale flesh, rigid skin, and those trademark yellow eyes, I realize that no matter how much information I have obtained, or how many new skills I have acquired, my entire life has suddenly been thrust into the unknown.
Epilogue
“How many dead?” the tall Bragdon asked. He stood on a circular platform near a wide and elaborate computer console. He faced the screen, his arms crossed behind his back.
Gragson laced his fingers together, trying to remain still, but he couldn’t help but fidget. “Final counts are not in yet, Command,” he said. “The orbital conflict was...devastating.”
Command glanced over his shoulder towards the lizard standing a few yards away. “All for the sake of a single girl?”
“As you are aware, she is more than a single girl.”
“Hmph.”
Gragson let his breath hold steady, trying to decide how far he wanted to push this conversation. “We were close,” he said. “We’ll finish the job next time.”
“You think so?”
Gragson nodded. “Yes, Command. She has completed the first two stages. Her mind is of maturity.”
“Eighteen cycles,” command said quietly. “Eighteen cycles we waited for this and you’re telling me you’ll do it next time?”
Gragson pressed his needle teeth together, but held his tongue.
“Nine hundred,” Command said, turning back to look at the Bragdon Chief of Security. “Nine hundred dead, in case you were wondering.” The head Bragdon military officer stood tall and thick, his visible hide an uneven cluster of layered armored plate. Narrow, blunt horns burst from ridges of hardened flesh at the crown of his scalp and squared scales were embedded along the thick surface of his forearms.
The Bragdon standing down below clenched both four-fingered fists.
“Bring me the girl or it will be nine hundred and one.”
Gragson nodded sharply, turned on his heels, and strode from the command room. He’d do one better, he decided. He’d bring him the girl’s whole family.
III
Weapon of Braxis
Second novella in the War of the Three Planets series
Chapter One
A month ago, I hated running. I hated it with the blinding passion of both of our suns. Every third day, before gym class I'd say a silent prayer to the Mother, begging for it not to be a running day. The sweat and what it used to do to my skin and hair . . . ugh. I get crawly skin thinking of it.
Well, I used to. I don't any more. Tonight the air and wind are brisk, and as my legs pump beneath the cling of my new black pants I feel not dread, but exhilaration.
Is it the running, though, or is it the location of the run? Underneath my slapping soles is a high, angular ledge below the roof of the Second National Adroxis Bank. A mixture of concrete and metal, the ledge is just wide enough for my feet.
As I sprint forward, arms working in tandem with legs, I'm truly free, even with my hair bunched up underneath the black mask wrapped around my face. The wind blasts my face and the danger stabs my heart.
So no, it's not the running, it's the where I'm running.
It's the why I'm running.
It's the who I'm running from.
A splash of spotlight whips over the roof, catching my right arm in its pale glow, and up ahead there's the reverse rev of a turbine kicking back. I can picture the patrol car above and behind me with its rounded front lifting as the thrusters back off to slow its forward progress as it catches a glimpse of the strange girl running along the edges of these tall buildings in the middle of the night.
More turbines rev from my left as a second patrol car falls in line with the first, trying to bracket me in their spotlights.
I should know better than this by now. I have no doubt they're watching me and can see me sneak out of that third floor window, but I don't care. I need this release.
Up ahead, the roof ledge ends in a six foot gap between this building and the next. Without slowing, I charge forward, brace, and launch over the gap, bracketed by beams of light. As the arc lands me on the other side, I continue to run. At my left, turbines whine and one of the patrol cars pulls up next to me, flashing blue lights.
"Rooftop traversing is against protocol fourteen! Please halt your reckless behavior!" the voice booms through the mounted speaker, but I pretend not to hear it. I glance right, pause, and make a twisting leap from the ledge to land on the rooftop itself. I fall into a swift rolling somersault, kicking up dirt and debris.
The patrol car pulls back in a shuddering hover, with the fans slowing as the nose tips up and eases back. From my right, the other vehicle jets straight up towards me, swoops in over the roof, and twists around to head me off with its lights blaring at me like miniature suns.
I drop to a skid on the rough surface of the roof, tearing my dark leggings. I try not to think of how much I love them as I plant my foot to jump upright, charge to my left, and swing behind a raised entryway. At the edge of the building, I'm briefly exposed by the searching spotlights.
The patrol cars converge on my location as I size up the next building, which seems very far away. My new analytical brain measures the distance of the jump and the likelihood of a successful landing.
Yeah, the odds are not in my favor.
Spotlights surround me, press against me, and illuminate my dark colored
clothing in a pale gray hue. They think they have me, but I coil my knees to my chest, flex my gluteus maximus, and fire my knees like pistons, shooting out off the edge of the building.
My throat catches, my stomach lurches, and my knees pump as I soar out into empty air. I can already see I'm not reaching that other building. It looks so far away and my trajectory is already dipping downward toward the flying cars hurtling through invisible lane separators two stories below.
As I start falling, one of the patrol cars surges closer, but pulls up when he realizes I’ve missed the roof.
I see the cars below getting closer and closer. I near the opposite building on the other side of the alley, but the edge of the roof is already ten feet above, and the wind slams my masked face, stinging exposed eyes. I'm dropping way too fast.
As I drift closer to the opposite building, I can see the layered steel and framed windows whipping past me, merging into a gunmetal blur. With a desperate stretch I extend my arms.
The cars meander along below me, completely unaware that someone might be falling to her death. As I see the metal roofs of the cars glistening below me, shining with fresh polish, and hurtling towards me as I fall, my fingers snag on a tiny bit of window ledge, a few inches of steel used to frame in the rows of windows.
My fingers clench and hold, my elbows lock, and my shoulders muscles feel as if they are tearing free. The right shoulder, still fresh from a plasma wound a short time ago, burns in agony. Below me, the cars are wandering along, unaware.
But my fingers hold. They clench, lock, and hold, as my momentum swings me forward, slamming me into the window. I tuck my head to the side and back, let my good shoulder take the brunt of the impact, and slam off the reinforced polymer with an echo even audible above the roaring turbines of the cars beneath me.
In amazement, I assess my situation. A sheer wall of concrete stretches above me and rows of windows stretch to either side. My knuckles are already turning white from the strain of clutching the ledge, my arm muscles are stretched to the point of snapping, and my shoulder blades feel like they are starting to separate. Looking down is almost impossible, but I see the smooth surface of the skyscraper and more windows stretching beneath me.
Nowhere to go but . . . down.
Spotlights splash down on me again as the patrol cars floating into a circular huddle above. The wind from their turbines beats down around me. The smell of fuel mixed with my own sweat is overpowering.
"There's nowhere to go!" the voice bellows from the patrol car above me.
He's right.
But I let go anyway.
When my fingers spring apart, I plummet downward toward the cars roaming beneath me on the two lane skyway. Hugging the wall of the building, I twist in mid-air, kick off from the wall, and reach out towards the slow-moving vehicle I had spotted moments before. I lock my fingers in the groove where the driver's side door meets the roof. Once again my arms recoil as the weight of my impact tips the vehicle.
Engines rev as it rights itself. Its motion helps me vault onto the roof of the moving car. Surprised and angry voices reverberate inside the vehicle as it picks up speed. The patrol cars adjust their trajectory and prepare for hot pursuit.
What the heck am I doing? I mean, yeah, being under house arrest for the past month has driven me to near insanity, especially as these new thoughts and abilities thrash around inside my tightly contained head. These strange hallucinations in the bathroom mirror cause me to question my very own reality and my own lineage. Especially as my father, good old Redax Northstar, continues to hammer on me for the obvious failure I've been and will continue to be if I don't straighten myself out.
I should straighten myself out.
The white car angles right and accelerates, sending me skidding on the roof, towards a spiral into emptiness. With a lunge, I thrash forward to lock my fingers into that door groove again. I'm barely hanging on as my heart slams in my chest, but I'm smiling wide beneath my clinging mask.
Nah, forget straightening myself out. This is much more fun.
I shuffle myself right and glance over the edge of the moving vehicle. I locate a blue car below that is moving along the same route at about the same velocity. I curl my legs, throw myself into an arcing flip through the air, and hit the roof of the vehicle below in a low crouch. The entire vehicle dips before recovering and aligning itself again.
"Get off my roof!" a muffled voice demands from inside. The blue car is slimmer and sportier than the vehicle above it and the driver sounds a bit more particular about hijackers. It pulls out into open space as the buildings veer apart into a square down below.
The patrol cars drift down closer to the vehicle. I come up into a kneel, balance, and look for my next mode of transportation, but we've pulled into a wind stream, and I'm struggling to maintain my balance. Although this brain contains all these new skills and abilities, my body isn't conditioned to perform them all. It's so frustrating.
As the car hurls around the next corner, the choice to dismount is no longer mine. My feet leave the roof, squeak along the smooth metal, and send me cartwheeling backwards into open air.
"Shoot!" I shout, because why not?
I complete a back flip and keep spinning with my arms flailing out to grasp at thin air. My hopes of finding something to grab onto melt into the whirling gray blurs of the surrounding buildings.
I'm over the square with nothing to catch me. In the air, I face downward and keep groping as the patrol cars lower themselves from above to get a good angle for watching the rebellious punk go splat on the ground.
Nobody down below has noticed yet. I don't see anyone looking up at the stupid girl. I don't hear the excited murmur of frightened people who are about to see something traumatic, yet somehow can't look away. I don't see any of those things. I see a blurry mess of colors, and a dark swath of unforgiving pavement.
Out of the corner of my eye I catch a flash of red. I curl and tense as the red station wagon collides with my coiled form. My back and shoulder strike the hood. I slide sideways and roll over the windshield to sprawl across the roof on my belly. I lash out with my hands and manage to clutch each edge of the roof as the car soars forward. My legs fly out behind me, and my heart continuing to pound hard enough to crack a rib.
The patrol cars seem very high above me now. I pull myself forward, scrambling to get a better purchase on the roof of the car which is only about twenty feet over the heads of the passers-by below.
My eyes lock on a bus stop perched in the square. It's a simple polymer enclosure where people sit to wait for a transport to land and take them away to whatever destination awaits. For the citizens of Athelon that means some kind of job. . . . Manual labor.
Flipping from flying car to flying car is not manual labor, hence, is frowned upon by our particular authority. This is Adroxis, the capital city of Athelon, after all, and we need to set an example.
At least, that's what dad tells me.
The car is rapidly approaching a bus stop. It looks like a good place to get off. A few algebraic equations, rather than my life story, flash across my mind. I throw myself from the roof, angling the path of my jump to match my calculations.
I hit the roof of the shelter, skid off, twist to land on the ground behind it and drop into a low crouch. The small crowd of bus patrons scatters away from me as if I might explode.
I snap my head back and forth, scanning the crowd for security, but I don't see any. The two patrol cars remain high above, casting their spotlights down on the crowd where I fell. Their spots lights are meandering, trying to figure out where in the thicket of pedestrians I might be hiding. I ease out of my crouch to blend into the crowd.
As the swarm of people meld around me, I tug off my mask and, whip out my hair, and dust off my clothes. I run my fingers along my torn leggings and the raw scrape of skin, but among this thick crowd I might as well be invisible.
As the patrol cars converge, sweeping their lights, I veer left, mo
ve into the thickening crowd, and vanish as if I was never there at all.
Chapter Two
I wake up as I usually do, thinking I'm in some extremely vivid dream. At least hoping I am. Pleading that this is all some ridiculous hallucinatory fever dream caused by the pain medication for my plasma wounds.
It has to be.
My room smells of flowers, that same garden scent that has greeted me upon waking for eighteen years, and that same scent I was so looking forward to being rid of when I made my way to generational school a month ago.
It was time to move on. I wouldn't say I didn't get along with my father. That's not quite the right way to put it. Without a doubt there was a foundational difference between me and him, and it was the same for him. Where he went to work every single day for the sole purpose of working and gaining stature by the quality of his labor, I was happy to... well... not. He couldn't understand it and he couldn't understand me.
The feeling was mutual.
There were plenty of times when I wondered if he was waiting for me to fail so he could spring out from the shadows and catch me in the act. I have always been a great student and an obedient daughter, but one who disputed the core essence of his being.
That kinda got on his nerves.
Then there was the whole shuttle explosion, voyage to Braxis, and narrow escape thing ... and yeah, somehow, he found a way to hold me responsible.
Don't get me wrong. He was happy and grateful that I made it back alive. He told me so, but when I returned with a Bragdon boy in tow and had a hard time explaining how I'd managed to escape a whole planet of lizard aliens without dying, well, he's having issues dealing with that.
His answer is house arrest.
I suppose technically the term would be 'grounded' but I'm eighteen cycles old at this point. Being grounded seems pretty cheesy. I'm not convinced house arrest sounds much better.