“You’re breaking my heart, Tiernan.”
“That would be a neat trick,” he said. “You don’t even have a heart to break.”
Lea cultivated her own fury, throwing it right back at him. “So what’s the problem?” she asked. “Go ahead and shoot.”
Tiernan jacked the pistol up to maximum power.
“I’m bringing Avalon in,” he warned, “one way or the other.”
His hand held steady, but the rest of him was all doubt. In that stare, Lea saw everything they had shared together—including the night she had completely given her trust to him. None of that had been an act, she was sure of it.
And now, she was about to make him prove it.
“Do what you have to do,” Lea said, “but I’m not moving.”
Tiernan blinked rapidly, his eyes darting between Lea, Avalon, and the agents. Lea felt Avalon preparing herself, muscles constricting into a combat stance—a taut coil ready to spring at any provocation. Lea did the same, and waited for Tiernan to make his move.
“Your choice, Lieutenant.”
His finger flexed against the trigger. He wanted to do it, and for a few terrifying seconds Lea believed he might—but as the moment passed, Tiernan’s resolve weakened. His hand trembled—and slowly, painfully, he allowed the pistol to drop at his side. Tiernan holstered the weapon, then motioned for the agents to stand down.
“Do as she says,” he told them. “Secure weapons.”
“That wasn’t the deal,” one of the agents growled, every word a veiled threat. “You said the Inru bitch was ours.”
“The deal is whatever I say it is,” Tiernan snapped. “You get your money either way.”
“Not good enough,” the agent said. “The bounty on her head is worth ten times that.”
“The Collective will pay any claim you have.”
“Not without a body.”
Tiernan planted himself in front of the agent, hulking armor making them both look like giants. He took his voice down an octave, implying a host of deadly consequences.
“I told you to secure weapons,” he said. “Now.”
The agent shoved him aside like an afterthought. “Fuck this,” he said, and pointed his rifle at Lea.
“No!” Tiernan roared, and tackled him. The agent squeezed off a single round as both men crashed into the floor, the shot going wild before it careened into the ceiling. Plaster rained down on the infirmary, choking the atmosphere with debris and confusion, capped by a muzzle flash that enveloped the small room. Avalon recoiled from the sudden burst of heat and light, her grip on Lea slackening—not by much, but enough to give her an opening.
It was the best Lea could hope for.
She drove her heel into Avalon’s foot, then drilled an elbow into the woman’s ribs as hard as she could. Avalon folded in half and fell backward, disappearing into the smoke while Lea hit the deck. More pulse fire seared the space above her head—an onslaught of directed energy that turned the entire room into a shooting gallery, kicking up a volley of shrapnel that peppered her like a shotgun blast. Agents scattered in all directions, re-forming a defensive line, their camochrome refracting fog in variable transparency—ghosts against a mosaic of violence.
And then there was Avalon.
A flutter of deepest black, she cut through the chaos and masked her signature in the wake of a pulse beam. The agent who fired upon her, aiming with thermal sensors, never saw Avalon coming. She slashed at the exposed portion of his throat, just below his jaw, fingernails gouging tender flesh. His lungs belched a hollow scream—right before Avalon severed his spinal cord with a sickening crack.
The agent collapsed, dead before he hit the ground. Avalon scooped up his rifle and headed for the exit.
Son of a bitch…
Lea sprang up on hands and knees, searching for a clear spot to make a run for the door. By now, the other agents were getting wise—shortening their fire to controlled bursts, flipping their visors up to see past all the interference. One of them drew a bead on Avalon, at such close range there was no way he could miss. Avalon, her own sensors overloaded by clutter, kept on going like she didn’t notice—straight into an ambush that would cut her in half.
Lea yelled as loud as she could.
“Avalon, get down!”
Avalon ducked, just as the agent opened up on her. Bolts of lightning punched craters into the wall, closing in on her as she rolled away, highlighting her every move in a kinetic strobe. Somehow, Avalon managed to evade the intense barrage and return fire, putting one round directly into the agent’s midriff. His armor plate absorbed the blast, but the impact smacked him clear across the room. He sailed over Lea, plowing into the far wall and landing flat on his back.
Right next to the hand cannon Lea had lost.
Avalon saw it in the same instant Lea did. The Inru agent smiled knowingly.
Lea dived for the weapon.
She fully expected Avalon to nail her in the back—but the kill shot never came. Only the two remaining agents continued to fire, dogging Lea as she scrambled for her gun. One shot carved up the floor next to her, while another shattered the light fixture that dangled from the ceiling. An angry bloom of cinders ignited up above, blue tendrils of naked electricity casting the infirmary in a hallucinogenic glow. Lea grabbed the hand cannon and leaped out of the fire zone, using the sporadic darkness for cover.
Lea whirled around and sighted the weapon on Avalon’s last position, but the Inru agent was no longer there. Pinned down a scant few meters from the door, Avalon traded bursts with another one of the Zone agents—a standoff with each of them darting around to avoid the other, leaving a trail of explosions and flotsam. At the same time, Tiernan wrestled the second agent to the ground, pounding on the man as he kicked his pulse rifle away. The agent quickly struck back, landing a hard chop on Tiernan’s armor seam and grabbing his pistol in the process. He used it to whip Tiernan across the side of the head, into a hard spin that sent the lieutenant reeling. Taking point-blank aim, he leveled the weapon at Tiernan’s chest.
And Lea had a choice: the mission or the man.
It seemed to play out in slow motion: the cannon in her hand, her thumb on the trigger, the compression of matter and energy into a bright flash at the end of its barrel. The gas-expanding round creased the air like a thunderclap, marking its target for death even before it arrived, waves and waves of fluid concussion expanding like ripples in its wake. The bullet hit Tiernan’s assailant sideways, piercing armor and traveling halfway through his body. Like a tiny grenade, it popped off with barely an outward sound—but the internal damage erupted in a spew of molten tissue, reducing the agent’s bones and organs to a liquid stew. His torso collapsed in on itself, the rest of his body spilling over backward with nothing left to support it—a smoldering pile of camochrome where a human being once stood.
Tiernan fell on top of him, unconscious.
The last agent, seeing his comrade burned to ashes, swung his rifle Lea’s way.
“Over here!” she taunted, and sprinted across the infirmary.
The agent shrieked a steady stream of obscenities, blasting Lea with everything he had. Concentrated heat scorched her back as she dodged his line of fire, a blind headlong rush to nowhere. Her only relief came when the agent tried to find Avalon, taking potshots while he backed away toward the exit. The agent squeezed off a few panic rounds, trying to pry open the shadows to find her—but like Lea, he couldn’t see a goddamned thing.
Desperate, he flipped his visor down to aim with infrared. His rifle sputtered, drained of energy and overheating. Lea hugged the floor, keeping still while the agent tossed his weapon and plucked another from his hip compartment: a v-wave emitter, which he gripped tightly in both hands. He waved the thing around, pointing it in every direction, probably hoping to scare Avalon off as he stumbled into a hasty retreat.
Where are you?
A deathly pall fell over the infirmary. Silence displaced the last echoes of pulse fire
, which dissipated into heavy clouds of ozone and dust. Lea heard the agent’s heavy breathing and crunching footsteps, and she started crawling toward Tiernan. Along the way, she also probed the murky corners—catching glimpses in a sudden bloom of sparks, a stop-action movie one frame at a time. She watched the agent slide closer and closer to that black, empty hole of a door, his palpable fear mirroring her own.
“Come on, bitch!” he shouted.
Nobody answered. Lea, meanwhile, closed in on Tiernan. He was still alive, still breathing—a fresh pulse rifle lying next to him.
“Come on out and fight!”
The agent’s voice, weak and frightened, bounded down the medical corridor ahead of him. Lea expected him to run at any moment. She kept moving for the rifle.
“Show yourself!”
Avalon wouldn’t. She was gone—halfway off the island by now, abandoning Lea to the Zone Authority. It was just the two of them now, and the agent had her bottled in.
Lea froze, only centimeters away from Tiernan.
“Spear, this is advance,” the agent said into his transmitter. “I’ve lost the primary target. Secondary acquired and secure, but I have men down. Send backup immediately. Rendezvous at point kilo. Out.”
He then backed into the doorway, taking one last look into the gloom.
“You can’t hide forever,” he said, turning around to leave.
And in the gray light of the corridor, Avalon waited for him.
In the split second it took the agent to react, she snatched the emitter from his hand and crushed it with her prosthetic. As the weapon crumbled before his eyes, he could only stare at her in terror—even when she drove that fist straight into his open mouth. Teeth fragmented into a bloody pulp, his jaw tearing loose from its hinges, momentum knocking him through the air like so much hanging meat. He dropped on the floor in front of Lea, gurgling incoherently. Avalon walked over to his prone form, planting a boot on his chest to hold him still.
She pointed her rifle into the agent’s face and made sure he understood his fate—right before she splattered his brains in a hot spray.
Avalon released a long breath, flecks of gore plastered against her cheeks. She then turned her mechanical attention to Lea, bringing her weapon to bear—but Lea already had Avalon in her sights, the recovered pulse rifle aimed squarely at her heart.
“Drop it,” Lea said.
Avalon hitched the rifle over her shoulder. “I’ll need it if we’re going to get out of here.”
“I figured you ran out on me.”
“I did,” Avalon admitted, “but the Zone agents destroyed my hovercraft. Now you’re the only way off this rock.” She approached slowly, extending a hand. “Besides, I owe you one—and this makes us even.”
Lea didn’t quite know what to make of her. Getting past the blank slate of her eyes was next to impossible—but at this point, neither one of them had much of a choice. With one finger securely on the trigger, she reached out and accepted Avalon’s offer—tentatively at first, then allowing the Inru agent to help her the rest of the way up. Lea then lowered her own rifle, two sworn enemies staring at each other as if for the first time. The old hatred was still there, surging just beneath the surface, but the state of equilibrium worked—at least for now.
“You believe me,” Lea said.
Avalon hesitated, but seemed honest in her answer.
“Yes.” She glanced over at Tiernan, who stirred as he drifted back toward consciousness. “What about him?”
Lea could only muster cold sympathy.
“He can take care of himself.”
Avalon studied her.
“Was he worth the bullet?”
“Ask me later,” Lea said, and left Tiernan behind.
Avalon salvaged what she could from the dead agents, while Lea kept watch in the corridor. Splitting up the gear, the two of them proceeded toward the cellblock—alternating in cover formation, never exchanging a word. They didn’t need to. After all those grueling months of chase, they knew each other’s moves better than anyone.
Fading into the dark, they stopped at the entrance gate to the medical wing. Lea peered through the bars, into the wide-open space between her and the exit, searching for smears of camochrome against the rusting backdrop of the prison.
“Looks clear,” she whispered. “You got anything?”
Avalon’s face hardened, the sensuit feeding raw data into her nervous system.
“Multiple contacts,” she reported. “Three in close proximity, others indeterminate. Probably a full squad, fanning out across the compound.”
“Dammit,” Lea sighed. “We just lost our one shot at doing this the easy way.”
“How far do we have to go?”
“Southeast corner, maybe two hundred meters.”
“That’s a long way, Prism.”
“Thanks for the update,” Lea snapped. “Got any more tactical assessments?”
Avalon leaned into the door. She pointed up at the gun gallery, then over to the second level of cells. “There and there,” she said. “Masked heat signatures—one in the gallery, two others headed this way.”
“Must be the backup rolling in.”
“And a patrol route,” Avalon added. “That’s key. If he gets word out to the others before we can take him down, we won’t make it out of here.”
“Swell,” Lea grumbled, checking the charge on her rifle. “I’m at half. What about you?”
“A third.”
“Somebody should teach these guys how to shoot.” She checked the cellblock again and picked out two distortions moving down the stairs. “Which ones do you want?”
“I’ll take those two. Patrol is yours.”
“I appreciate the vote of confidence.”
“Just pretend it’s me up there,” Avalon said. “You won’t miss.”
Lea smiled grimly. Both of them hunkered down near the floor, holding their weapons at the ready. The sound of boots on concrete grew louder as the agents drew closer—but she left it to Avalon to make the call.
“No matter what happens,” Avalon told her, “don’t stop.”
“Roger that,” Lea said. “Good luck.”
Avalon nodded, placing a hand on the gate.
Then flung it open, releasing a wave of fury.
Lea dived out into the open, rolling away from the corridor—and the protection of Avalon’s cover. Landing on her feet, she broke into a terminal run, zipping past the agents as they dodged the opening salvo—so busy with Avalon that they barely noticed Lea was even there. One of them tried to cut Lea down when he realized her ploy, and grazed her with a single beam across her arm. Lea screamed and returned fire, hitting the agent in the shoulder and blowing off an armor plate. The impact spun him like a top, until Avalon carved off his right leg with a direct hit.
The agent went down hard, blasting off random shots in every direction. Lea turned back to finish him off, but saw Avalon waving at her through the acrid haze of battle.
“Go! Go! Go!”
Lea bolted, across the entire cellblock with the rifle in her hands. One level up, prowling the gun gallery like a caged tiger, she spotted the third agent. He fixed on Lea immediately, tapping the side of his helmet to boost his hyperband link with the rest of the squad and wrestling with his weapon at the same time.
“Spear, advance!” the agent shouted into his transmitter. “I got a rogue, sector—”
Lea lit him up before he could finish. Cinders exploded around the gallery, metal screeching with primordial intensity. The agent held on as the supports beneath him buckled, leaving him wide open and vulnerable. Lea cut him in half before he could reach his own weapon.
She then swung around, back toward the fight she had left behind. Lea sighted her rifle on infrared, staring down the narrow scope at the exchange of fire near the medical corridor—but it had simmered down into an uneasy peace infused with electrical discharges and dying flames. Out of that backdrop, a single figure emerged—grace in sil
houette, a god of war among mortals. She jogged over, surveying the damage Lea had done.
“Effective,” Avalon observed dryly. “Did he alert the others?”
“I don’t think so,” Lea said, “but I don’t want to stick around here long enough to find out. How you doing?”
“This one’s empty,” Avalon said, dropping her rifle on the floor. “You?”
“I still got a couple shots,” Lea told her, tossing her Tiernan’s pulse pistol. “It ain’t much, but it’s better than nothing.”
“Can’t say I like the odds.”
“Probably why you joined the Inru.” The two of them walked over to the main exit, where Avalon had a better view of the situation outside. “If we can get to the gate, it’s a pretty clear shot to the inlet.”
“The ground is clear,” Avalon said. “Most of them appear to be on the north end of the prison complex—but watch for a sniper in the south tower.”
Lea shook her head, amazed at the depth of Avalon’s perception.
“Sure wish you hadn’t gone over to the dark side,” she said. “The good guys sure as hell could’ve used you.”
“We used to say the same thing about you.”
Lea grinned wearily.
“So much for the revolution,” she quipped, pressing herself into the open doorway. She took a deep breath, hoping it wasn’t her last, and looked back at Avalon. “You ready?”
Avalon nodded.
The two women dashed out of the dormitory, into the cold, biting light of day. Lea stayed in front, holding her rifle at high ready and aiming for the guard tower, while Avalon swept the rear flank in case she had missed one of the agents. They made it as far as the warden’s house before a sniper round pierced the gravel at Lea’s feet.
They both dived for cover, taking shelter on the other side of the house. The sniper tore straight through the flimsy building, pulverizing bricks and pillars with one bolt of energy after the other. Stone chips exploded around them as they huddled together, with Lea returning fire in a blind volley.
“Must be using magnum loads,” Avalon said, as a huge chunk of the roof caved in. “Zone agents like the big guns.”
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