by Azalea Ellis
Sam was loading up with medical supplies and a couple shields of his own, while Jacky fitted what looked like gauntlets onto herself, and Adam filled his utility belt with ink cartridges and electrical cells, which had been provided specifically for him.
“Bunny!” I called. “Come grab a gun and a shield, at least. We’re running out of time.”
“Oh, I was thinking I’d just . . .” He caught sight of my scowl. “Okay, okay. Battle gear it is.”
I turned to Chanelle and helped her dress in the top layer bodysuit, then strapped a light pack onto her back and filled it with ammo and first aid supplies, just in case.
Birch yowled scratchily up at me, drawing attention to himself for the first time since the announcement had gone off. He reached up with his forepaws toward one of the smaller packs, and yowled again.
With a tiny smile that left almost as quickly as it had appeared, I grabbed the pack and helped him strap it on, and tossed the few remaining grenade rounds in, along with some random supplies that I’d learned through experience might come in useful, and wouldn’t weigh his small body down too much.
Adam tossed the rest of the guns into the airpod and started it up. We all jumped in with only seconds to spare before the hangar door on the wall opened onto a war-torn cityscape.
Chapter 4
It is easier to break than mend. For everything I learned to heal, I learned a thousand times to end.
— Sha Du
Adam placed his hands flat on the dashboard, and closed his eyes as little tiny sparks of electricity jumped from him into the airpod. It took about thirty seconds, but then the craft shuddered and took off, angling forward and shooting into the city.
"Stay low," I said. "If they're flying, too, I don't want them to know where we are. And Bunny, you read the objectives, so you should have best idea where the 'civilians' are. Navigate for Adam."
I closed my eyes, letting my awareness spread out from the ship, into the life-size, three-dimensional model of the city. One whole level of NIX was devoted to the mock battles and the three-dimensional printer that created the environment anew every few days.
I didn't notice any sign of life, or the other team, which I hoped was a good thing. "Bunny," I said. "Tell me about Squad Ridley. What are their Skills, their specialties? What have people done to beat them?"
"They've never failed an objective," Bunny said. "Not completely, anyway. I know the leader has like six different Skills, or something. He pushes his team hard, and they're always training. I'm pretty sure the team is geared toward "attack" type missions. Kinda like this one, I guess. Except, you know, they're probably way better than us. As far as specifics go, I don't know. I wasn't the Moderator for any of them, and I haven't really paid too much attention to that stuff."
I kept my eyes closed, since my awareness was enough to notice the fast beat of his heart contrasted with the slightly mocking smile on his face as he looked out over the front window onto the city. I wasn't sure whether he was lying, or just slightly creepy.
We arrived without incident at a large building, one of the tallest in the area. The hostages were supposedly within somewhere.
I didn't like how exposed the ship was, or how vulnerable I felt doing this type of mission. I preferred when we were the ones attacking with the element of surprise, plenty of preparation, and no one to worry about protecting. We had no experience as a team on this type of mission. I directed Adam to fly the ship into the cover of a half-destroyed building nearby. "Okay," I said. "We've got to assume the other team also has this location, and will be coming soon. How many ‘civilians’ are there?”
“About twenty, according to the objectives.”
“Okay. Jacky, Sam, Zed, and Adam. Go get them. Highest priority on the important targets, if you can tell them apart.”
They nodded, and left at a run, Adam at the lead.
I hated to send so many of my competent team members away, but I had no idea if they’d encounter obstacles or difficulty of some kind, or end up needing to physically carry the ‘civilians.’ Their protection and rescue was the main objective of the mission, and not one we could afford to fail. I turned to the remainder of the team. “Blaine, if you needed to, could you fly this ship?”
“Not as well as Adam, but I could fly it.”
“Good. I’m pretty sure there’s a training program built into it. Start practicing.” I paused, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath, pushing my awareness outward with a forceful swirl, like the beginnings of a tornado, quickly aborted. Still no sign of our opponents, but I could feel Jacky breaking down the door to the building, and I pushed my awareness inside on the wind, stretching to try and find the civilians. There were no signs of life, but down in the basement I found a group of robots. Little more than manikins capable of rudimentary movement, really. That was why I hadn’t sensed any human presences, but those were undoubtedly the target. I sent a Window to Adam.
—The basement.—
-Eve-
I opened my eyes, and caught Bunny staring at me curiously, his face far too near my own for comfort. “I’ve got a plan,” I said, pushing my palm into his face and forcing him back. “Grab the extra guns.”
I walked over to Birch, who was crouching near the open door of the airpod, ears pricked and teeth bared, as if daring something to try and attack.
“Good thing you’re here,” I said, ruffling the fur on his little head, and reaching inside his backpack for the spool of plastine wire and duct tape.
He growled a little under his breath, not averting his attention from the self-appointed duty of watchdog.
We knocked out the windows on the ship, and fastened the guns to them, pointing outward. We disabled the safeties, and tied the wire around the triggers, strings leading inward to the center of the little airpod.
I had Bunny strap himself down in one of the seats, and tied the ends of each plastine wire to the armrests. “When they come, Blaine is going to fly this ship off. You’re going to man the artillery for him.”
“What!?” Bunny squawked.
“Pull the wires for the gun you want to fire. Try to be sensible about it, and don’t waste too much ammo, since I doubt you’re going to want to unstrap and get up to reload any of them.”
“Eve, we need this ship to escape with the hostages,” Bunny said, in the tone of someone trying to reason with a crazy person.
“No. We need a ship. This one is going to be a decoy, and I’m going to get us another one. I don’t have time for you to argue,” I said. “I’m taking the kids and Chanelle with me, and we’ll put them out of the way where the other squad isn’t going to think to come after them. You two are going to run away and fire at them as if you’ve got plenty of people on board that you need to protect, and I’m going to commandeer a ship to pick up the hostages and the kids.”
Bunny muttered something about not being a bait-worm, and that he should have been hiding somewhere safe, too, but I’d already turned to the kids.
“Are you ready?” I asked.
They both nodded, though Kris was pale and kept wiping her sweaty hands on her suit. Gregor’s face was stony, but his eyes darted about restlessly, searching for danger.
“Blaine, do you have anything to add?” I joined him at the control panel, where he was furiously fiddling with the controls with both hands.
He grunted. “Keep them safe,” he said, his attention obviously on his task. “I am going to fly this ship as if I am a desperate madman. The enemy will not have a choice but to devote some of their attention to me.”
I squeezed his shoulder, and with a nod to the kids, grabbed Chanelle’s hand and hopped out of the airpod. Luckily, she was pretty responsive to basic physical stimuli, so she ran along with me, though I had no idea if she actually understood anything that was going on around her.
I sent another Window to Adam.
—Take hostages to the roof. Will be doing rooftop pickup, using an enemy ship.—
-Eve-
—Risky. I’m sending Jacky up first to help. Got it handled here, no opposition to hostage pickup.—
-Adam-
I ran along at a pace the kids could barely keep up with, though Birch seemed to manage just fine with four legs instead of two. I was just turning a corner when a glint of light up above caught my eye. I dug my clawed toes into the ground, stopping so fast that Chanelle and the kids ran into me before they could stop themselves.
I scrambled back around the edge of the building, and sent my awareness out and upward. My range was much better than it had been when this faux Skill had first developed, but I still could barely reach the edge of the roof a couple blocks over and many stories up. Even so, it was enough, and I confirmed the presence of an enemy. I hadn’t even noticed them move in! Did they have airpods, or had they come in on foot? If they were all on foot, my plan was going to be ruined.
I stretched my awareness to its limits, ignoring the whispered questions from Kris and Gregor as I searched for other enemies. I found none, but that didn’t reassure me. “A Player from the other squad is up on the roof over there,” I said. “We have to go a different way. Gregor, I’m sorry but you’re going to have to ride piggyback. Your legs aren’t long enough for the speed we need.”
The solemn boy nodded, his lips pressed together, and climbed up onto my back without complaint, latching on with both his arms and legs. “Run fast,” he murmured into my shoulder.
And I did, Chanelle and Kris barely able to keep up with my preternatural speed.
We reached one of the other tall buildings near the hostage’s hiding point, and I fed the children and Chanelle through one of the seemingly long-broken windows on the ground floor. The door to the stairwell was locked. But even though I wasn’t as strong as Jacky, the lock was rusted, and a few kicks and a yank with all my might broke it open. We ran, upward, step after step. A glimpse out one of the sparse windows we passed showed an airpod arriving. It was smaller than the one we’d been issued, made for attack rather than transport.
Kris was panting, her breathing ragged. When I told her to move faster, she nodded, and kept up with me, if only barely.
Chanelle was gasping for breath as well, but in an easier way, as if she wasn’t really bothered by the fatigue or muscle pain she had to be feeling, without any Seeds left in her body.
Atop my back, Gregor was silent, clinging tightly so as not to unbalance me.
When we got to the door to the roof, I stopped.
Kris fell to the ground, heaving. Her face was pale and beaded with sweat, and she looked almost sick. As soon as I had the thought, she leaned over the stairwell and threw up. “Sorry,” she muttered, still panting. “It’s just the running. I’m okay.” She wiped her sleeve across her mouth, and used her arms to pull herself up by the rails of the stairwell.
“You did well,” I said, letting Gregor down. “You guys are going to stay here for now, okay? I’m going to go attack the airpod out there, and once I’m finished, I’ll come to pick you up in it. Shoot anyone that comes who isn’t me. And don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”
With that, I cracked open the door onto the roof, and spread my awareness once more. “Damn,” I muttered aloud. Three airpods, not one. All of the attack-style variant, and closing in on the target building from three different directions.
Birch growled under his breath, hunching low at my feet.
“You should stay with the kids,” I murmured to him. “Especially since you can’t fly yet.” On the upside, at least the enemies weren’t all on foot, and there was a ship for me to try and commandeer, moving toward me at that very moment. I wished Blaine had a VR chip, so I could contact him and tell him it was time to go, but instead I had to wait.
Luckily, I wasn’t stuck hiding against the door of the stairwell for long.
Our ship rose from the half-demolished building, scraping against the walls a little as it did so. It fired a couple shots at the nearest enemy airpod, both from the ships’ guns, and from the rigged windows, and then turned at a sharp angle, racing away at top speed. Blaine handled it surprisingly well, weaving in and out among the buildings like he had a death wish.
The two airpods that had been closing in from the ten and two o’clock angle turned to follow him, already spitting shots of their own, while the one coming in from behind me, at six o’clock, seemed to actually slow for a second instead of speeding up.
Was someone inside able to sense me, maybe? I worried for a second, but the airpod sped up again, on a trajectory to pass right next to the building I was on.
I burst out of the doorway, slamming it closed behind me and running toward the edge of the roof.
The pilot must have seen me for sure, then, because the ship slowed, rotating in midair to face me.
It was too late. I jumped off the side of the roof like an animal, claws fully extended, and slammed into the side where the seam of the doorway allowed me to dig in. This close, the airpod’s guns wouldn’t be able to hit me.
I was digging my claws into the door, preparing to try and rip it away, when the whole door blew off and outward, with me on it. I twisted in midair, angling the door under me and looking up at the airpod, where a Player glared down at me. I had only a second to be surprised, before the door and I both hit the roof of a lower building and went tumbling.
I rolled with the momentum, tucking my arms around my head to protect it, and came to a hard stop against the lip of the roof, bruised and winded.
The Player jumped down after me, the force of her thrust making the airpod wobble for a moment before the pilot regained control. She walked toward me calmly, her eyes just a little unfocused, as if she was looking more at the area around me than directly at me.
I let my awareness wash over her, and was dismayed by how brightly she shone. I wasn’t sure exactly what her Skill was, but she was strong. And obviously not afraid of me, if the slight smile on her face was any indication.
I stood up, and slid into the fighting stance Jacky had shown me. Inside, Chaos swirled eagerly, and I took a shuddering breath, trying to ignore it. I attacked first, claws out in a straight thrust toward her throat.
She slid to the side as if I was moving in slow motion, gripped my wrist, and slammed her hand toward the back of my elbow.
I panicked, I’ll admit it. The thought of my arm bending backward, the tendons tearing and the joint ripping apart, was enough to make me act without thinking. Chaos bubbled up in a wave from my stomach, rushing along my outstretched arm.
She released me immediately, jumping back so hard she skidded when she hit the ground and had to stretch out a hand for balance.
My attack dispersed futilely in the air, leaving only the arm of my outer bodysuit a little ripped up, as if it had been a surge of little razors that passed. The backlash hit me. I should not have used Chaos. I hadn’t meant to, but now it was only more imperative that my team won, because I’d need the Seeds to mitigate the damage.
I dashed forward, but only made it a couple steps before the airpod she’d arrived in shot at me. I tried to dodge, and in an instant, she was in front of me again, her hand smashing into my face, my solar plexus, my kneecap. She swept out a leg, knocking my own out from under me, then kicked me with a forward thrust before I even hit the ground, so hard that I flew. I once again crashed into the lip of the roof.
I rolled over, and pushed myself up, but my knee buckled and I barely caught myself. I let out a low keening moan, and unhooked my gun.
Instead of shooting at her, I aimed for the airpod. I hadn’t wanted to damage its flight capabilities, but at this point, I just needed to reduce the number of concurrent threats.
My shots didn’t even come close to hitting, and I was about to turn my attention to the girl, who was now sprinting toward me, when both Kris and Gregor burst out of the nearby roof’s stairwell, rounds slamming out from the muzzles of their guns.
Gregor shot down at the girl, who avoided the airburst rounds just as eas
ily as she’d avoided my claws, while Kris doubled up on my fire at the airpod, and actually got a few hits in, which caused it to tumble away out of sight.
The girl turned her attention toward the kids, and I screamed at them. “What are you doing? Go back inside!” I ignored the grating sensation in my knee and pushed myself toward her, hoping to distract her before she got any ideas about attacking the kids.
The airpod rose from between the two buildings, having recovered from the temporary loss of control. It shot at the ground around the kids, obviously not aiming for them directly. Whoever was inside at least had a little bit of a conscience, I guessed.
“Go back inside!” I screamed again, my voice breaking.
Instead, they threw a couple of the nerfed grenades from Birch’s pouch at the airpod, and ducked down back behind the lip of the roof.
The force of the explosions made the airpod tumble sideways and lurch drunkenly, but it recovered, and by then the girl was attacking me again, her hands and feet lashing out even faster than Jacky’s, seeming to anticipate my every move.
—Jacky, I need your help.—
-Eve-
I sent the Window with a thought, backpedaling frantically, desperately avoiding the other Player’s attacks.
—I’m almost there.—
-Jacky-
She was true to her word, leaping off the side of the civilian target building, arms and legs circling as she sailed through the air. She slammed into the side of the airpod, and then jumped off again, heading toward the girl.
The girl sidestepped just as Jacky was about to hit her, but Jacky corrected easily, touching down with absurd lightness based on how fast she’d been hurtling through the air, and spinning around to attack.
The much-abused airpod finally seemed to lose control, its side dented a little where she’d made contact.
Kris and Gregor appeared over the edge of the roof above, and threw some more grenades, which seemed to seal the deal.