Falling One by One

by S. A. McAuley

  I stared at the hybrid’s body and waited for a hint of movement. There was nothing. “Grimshaw,” I said into my comm.

  “I’m here,” he answered.

  Another beat of deepening silence settled in around us as we stared at the hybrid’s unmoving body.

  “Don’t attempt to remove any of the shield chips.”

  “Okay,” Grimshaw agreed without question. “Tiam is secure whenever you’re ready for him.”

  Fuck Tiam. The possibility of any of the hybrids surviving what Ahriman had forced on them was less and less likely. And now Chen could be included in that number. I hoped that maybe where she had implanted the shield would be to her benefit.

  I went to her side and wrapped her under my arm, holding her close. She trembled and it was as if the ground itself was unstable. I took a deep breath. “I’ll call in the D3 orders and we’ll head back when the camp is destroyed.”

  Jegs poked at the enemy hybrid with the toe of her boot. “We sure he’s dead?”

  “Let him die with honor,” I gritted out, echoing Simion’s orders.

  Jegs glared at me. “Because he would have done the same for us.”

  “We take all the bodies back,” I said to Grimshaw’s hybrid. “Figure out how to make that happen so we can move in five.” I closed my fingers over the strap around my neck and spoke in a low voice to Chen, so no one else would be able to hear me. “I need you to be able to move too.”

  Chen swiped at her eyes and released her grip on me. “I’m good.”

  Good wasn’t the word I would use to describe her mental status, but I would take it. I kept my hand over the communication strap so one else could listen in and motioned for Armise, leading him away from the group.

  He followed my lead and covered his own comm, but waited for me to speak.

  I stepped into his space, his chill radiating off him and bringing my heart rate down. I put my fingers to a trickle of blood below his ear, swiping it away and setting my palm on his neck. I needed his steadiness. Needed his strength. Because there was a thought working through my brain and I wasn’t sure if it came from a place of fear or awareness.

  His eyes narrowed and his jaw ticked as he stared at me. His skin warmed under my touch. “What’s wrong?” he finally asked.

  I swallowed, trying to bury the dread building at my core. “Why would Tiam have stayed in the camp when he knew we were coming?”

  Chapter Eight

  “You think this is a trap?” Armise asked, his voice angry and low-pitched.

  I caught on to what he was insinuating. “If so, I don’t think it was anything set up by Grimshaw.”

  Armise’s brows furrowed in confusion. “Ahriman then?”

  “Neither,” I said.

  Armise swatted me on the side of the head and his strike surprised me.

  “What the fuck?”

  He got in my face. “You say I am the one who cannot give a direct answer.”

  “Because I don’t know what the fuck to think,” I growled in response. “All I do know is that it wouldn’t make sense for Tiam to stay there once he knew the camp had been compromised. The PsychHAg I knew from my training would have transported out immediately.”

  Armise tipped his head and considered this. “Maybe he can’t anymore because of his injuries.”

  “He doesn’t give a fuck how ripped apart his body is”—I tapped my head—“as long as his mind is intact.”

  “Would he have second thoughts about his participation in the experiments?”

  “No way in hell,” I assured him. “Which means he wanted to be taken.”

  Armise grunted agreement. Or displeasure. Likely both.

  “I’m going to call in the D3,” I said, turning away from him and letting the strap of my comm go so I could be heard over our channel. “Chen, get me a secure channel into Revolution command.”

  I watched Chen, Jegs and Armise talk with Grimshaw’s hybrids as I called in the orders to destroy this camp. The analysts on the other end of the comm advised me that all of the camps except for two had been reclaimed by Revolution and Nationalist forces. There wasn’t time for me to get the details of just how many pre-hys we were talking about, or what the casualties had been in any of the other fights. Right now I had to concentrate on this camp and making sure it was demolished. That it became a piece of ground that would never be habitable again.

  The low thump of Thunders echoed around us, drawing closer by the second. We were far enough away from the camp to avoid any fallout, and our forces were familiar enough with this protocol for it to be rote—for a D3 to be performed exactly as expected each time, every time. I turned toward the sound of the oncoming helis—

  Fuck.

  “Those aren’t ours,” I yelled and gave the group the hand signal to find cover. “Jegs, get Chen out of here!”

  But I was too late, the helis were cresting the trees, dropping a sickly sweet stream of white mist over us, and none of us were outfitted for an onslaught of Chemsense. There was no route of escape, no timeline for rescue. Revolution forces were on their way but I didn’t know how long it would take for them to get here. I tried to find the voice to call for support.

  Each inhale was like swallowing emptiness.

  I struggled not to breathe and yet to move. I had to get Chen out, to get to Armise, to find him.

  Tears flooded my eyes, washing out my vision. The black of Chen’s hair stood in relief against the backdrop of white around her, of the white washing over my eyes, of the white tears tracking down her skin as she panted out stuttering, shallow breaths and dropped to the ground.

  I knew better than to call out, to scream, but my inhalation was reactive.

  There was a thud and the shaking of the ground at my feet and I forced my head to turn only to find Armise on his knees, his body shaking with the effort not to breathe. In front of me Chen was scratching at the ground, kicking out with her feet, scrabbling for purchase she wouldn’t find because there was nothing to grasp onto. The Chemsense was flooding all of our lungs, starving us of oxygen. Chen was so far away, mere feet but what felt like miles. I dragged my right foot forward, trying to get closer to her. If I could drape my body over hers maybe it would be enough of a barrier to keep the worst of the Chemsense from shriveling her lungs. But my legs were going numb, my arms flopping at my side, and I couldn’t get closer to Armise, let alone Chen.

  There were flashes of awareness, a cutting in and out, voices on my comm, then nothing. Then I was on my back, the sky collapsing around me. Red droplets falling, hitting my face, scorching. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. I was being burned alive, fire raining from the night sky. I reached out, digging my fingers through the rock and dirt until my skin met the cool smoothness of wood and stone beads…and a cold hand wrapped around my wrist.

  At least I would die with Armise at my side.

  * * * *

  Not like this, Merq

  Not like this

  Not like

  Not

  Armise’s voice repeated. Faded.

  I struggled to stay awake. To keep my fingers from slipping from Armise’s wrist when he let go of mine. I couldn’t hold on.

  There was an explosion and a concussive popping in my ears, a release of pressure that was accompanied by jags of pain that bored deep into me, as if someone had taken a hammer to my bones. I was flattened to the ground again with the detonation, the heat from the blast scorching my lungs when I gasped…but that meant I could breathe, if only a fraction more than I had been able to minutes ago.

  You’ve survived worse than this, asshole.

  The thought was enough to snap me to full consciousness. I rolled to my side, coughed, and dug the heels of my hands into the earth. I forced my head up to find the black sky slashed with the beams from Revolution helis, the sunburst emblems revealed then shrouded again in darkness and smoke as their spotlights searched for life below. I should’ve known when the embers started falling from the sky—the Re
volution forces were firebombing the periphery to rid the area of Chemsense.

  I blinked, attempting to swipe the leftover Chemsense from my vision with the tears that filled my eyes and spilled over my cheeks. The sickening sweet taste of the chemical lingered on my tongue and burned in my nose even as the air around me began to fill with smoke. Now that I’d let Armise go I couldn’t see him through the film hazing my vision.

  “Armise,” I tried to call out, but my voice cracked, my vocal chords protesting like I had swallowed flames. Fuck, I probably had.

  A groan came from a short distance away. “Here.”

  I sat up, brushed my hands off on my pants and rubbed my eyes. The burn increased. “Where’s Chen?”

  There was no movement I could feel, no sound, and yet Armise was suddenly at my side. “I think she’s dead. Tip your head back.”

  I gulped a thick breath and did as he asked and a lukewarm liquid splashed across my face. “What is that?”

  “Water.”

  Armise’s reply about Chen sank in, making my stomach churn. “It won’t help,” I scratched out.

  “It won’t hurt either,” Armise insisted and handed the bottle to me.

  I stared at the bottle. I couldn’t force my eyes away from the sloshing of the water. I felt the coolness of the liquid against my skin and breathed in, my lungs aching and yet responding to my will to inhale deeply. I was alive and Chen wasn’t and water couldn’t fucking make that better. I clamped my eyes shut because I couldn’t look at where she lay. “I didn’t mean—”

  He cut me off. “I know. Take a drink.”

  Once I’d taken a swig and my throat was marginally better, I opened my eyes to find Armise’s hand outstretched where he stood in front of me. I grasped it and he pulled me to my feet. A fireball mushroomed on the other side of the forest, framing the scene behind him in a red-orange halo of flame. As if we were all meant to burn. I wouldn’t let that happen.

  He frowned, put his finger through a circular hole that had been burned into my shirt. “At least one thing went right today.”

  “I don’t know if it was worth the cost,” I said.

  I dared myself to look over his shoulder at the spot where Jegs was hunched over Chen’s body. My throat caught on just the thought of her name. I choked for a moment and had to swig back more water.

  I’d lost both the president and Chen in less than a week, and if I was going to survive—if I was going to be as strong as Simion needed me to be—then I wouldn’t deny those losses, wouldn’t ignore the way my insides twisted with anger when I thought of them being ripped from this world—being ripped from me. I would use that rage to fuel me.

  “I’m sorry, Colonel,” Jegs said as we approached her, one hand resting on Chen’s stomach, the other over her heart. “I couldn’t get her out.”

  She lifted her eyes to mine and there was that practiced detachment. I’d let Jegs deal as she needed to, but I wouldn’t be cut off from my humanity again. I’d spent too long lost, and fought too hard to reconcile who I’d become since the bunker, just to separate myself again.

  “There’s nothing more any of us could have done,” I reassured her. Or maybe I was reassuring myself.

  I hunched down next to Jegs and swiped a strand of hair away from Chen’s forehead. This was the most still I’d ever seen her. But if not her death today then her life could have ended when we had to activate the chip. Maybe this had been easier. But even as I thought it I knew it was a lie—no death was ever easy. I stood. “Will you take her back to Neveed?”

  “Yes, Colonel.” She lifted Chen into her arms—Jegs only inches taller than Chen, yet able to hoist her body with ease—and headed off for the place where she could transport out.

  “We just lost the key,” I said to Armise as I turned away from them.

  “You just lost a friend,” he replied.

  “I can’t think of it like that. Not yet.” I took a deep breath and held that fire inside, letting it sizzle at the edges of my nerves until it was time to unleash it. Time to build to an inferno.

  Armise nodded. “Let’s go fuck up the PsychHAg.”

  * * * *

  “He’s not speaking,” Grimshaw said, stepping in line with Armise and me as we crossed the boundary into his compound.

  The grounds were void of any people but I’d learned enough about the hybrids to know they would have sentries posted to ensure everyone was safe. Especially tonight.

  I couldn’t concentrate on security plans now anyway. My memories of my time with Tiam were too close to the surface as I got closer to the door to where he was being held.

  I couldn’t count the number of times I’d told myself I wouldn’t speak when the PsychHAgs sent me in for another session of torture training. Some days I’d made it through without uttering a word, most days I hadn’t made it longer than minutes, sometimes seconds. Tiam, however, knew the secrets of PsychHAg methods—had undergone everything I had and then some during his advanced training—so his silence would be of a steadfastness I couldn’t anticipate how to break. I tried to clamp down on the lick of fear running through my veins. Tiam was our captive, a prisoner and not my overseer. He wouldn’t be able to touch me if I didn’t allow it.

  I wasn’t any less afraid of him and what he could do to me if he decided to because of that reality though. The defensive shield I’d placed around me seeing Chen lying there on the ground—those white tears staining her cheeks, in pain to her final breath—wasn’t keeping the hurt out.

  It was holding my anger in.

  Each thump of my heart, each crunch of my boot, each thought, memory and emotion that passed through my head was a reminder of what Chen would no longer be alive to experience.

  I’d killed before I was her age, and all she had done was build, uncover…protect. She’d watched over me from afar more times than I could count and I hadn’t been able to save her when she was just outside my arm’s reach. I was ultimately the one who had failed her, but Tiam was complicit in the tragedy that had forced her there.

  “I don’t want him to speak,” I said to Grimshaw. “I want him to suffer.”

  Grimshaw yanked on my arm, pulling me to a stop. “We need to know more about Anubis and what Tiam’s done to the hybrids. We need to know if there’s a way to remove the kill switch without them dying.” Armise stepped up next to me and eyed the place where Grimshaw held onto my arm. Grimshaw dropped his grip and backed away from me. “I don’t want any more of them to die.”

  “He will not tell us,” Armise asserted and I had to agree.

  It didn’t matter what we threatened Tiam with, or even what we actually inflicted on him, he was a torture trainer by trade. A sadistic, sick fuck by nature or design. The lives of the jacquerie children—my life and of those of my training class and the decades before them—would never matter to him. I feared Tiam but in this moment I hated him more. There would never be a true count of his victims, and as one who could count himself among that number…

  There was nothing we could use to break him, nothing of reliable value to be gained abiding by the laws of war, so I would make him bleed. For the hybrids. For Chen. And for me.

  “Where is he?” I asked, and when Grimshaw didn’t respond immediately I got in his face. “Which building is he in?”

  Grimshaw pointed to the building next to his. It was the same white box structure as the rest with a door in the front and a window on each side. There was movement inside the one-room building, a fluttering of curtains as someone brushed past the fabric hung to keep the dust out.

  “Athol and Elina are with him,” Grimshaw added.

  I stomped toward the house without another word and threw open the door. If I hesitated I would freeze up. But I didn’t have time to consider my fear because Elina had her hands around Tiam’s neck, her boot set on the seat of his chair for leverage as she wrenched his head at an unnatural angle. Athol was against the wall, blood pouring down a spot on his arm where he was attempting to use hi
s hand to staunch the flow.

  I went for Athol first. I didn’t give a fuck if Elina popped Tiam’s head off here and now.

  “What happened?” I asked him as I approached.

  I could hear Armise behind me ordering Elina to let Tiam go.

  “When I went to put a gag into his mouth he lashed out and gnawed a fucking hole in my arm.” Athol laughed and cocked his head in his twin’s direction. “Elina didn’t take that well.”

  “How much damage?” I asked, lifting his hand off the wound.

  “Nothing,” he sneered. “He designed me to be impregnable and he knew that.”

  I swiped at the blood now trickling down Athol’s arm and found the wound already healing, the circle of teeth imprints and torn flesh filling in as I watched.

  “Is that the stitch mod?”

  Athol nodded. “I don’t know what the official name is, but that sounds right.”

  He was looking over my shoulder and I remembered that Elina had had her fingers around Tiam’s throat when I walked in. Whether or not Armise had been able to stop her from killing the PsychHAg, I didn’t know. Athol was fine and that was more important than Tiam’s life—or lack thereof.

  I ventured a glance to where Tiam was restrained in a chair and his head was hanging to his chest, Armise holding Elina’s arms behind her back as he whispered something in her ear I couldn’t hear.

  “He alive?” I asked Armise.

  He nodded. “For now. She may have cracked his spine.”

  “I will rip his spine out,” Elina spat. Her eyes were on Athol, surveying him.

  “No need, sister.” He held up his arm. “The creator designed us well.”

  I put a hand to Athol’s chest. “Are you saying Tiam was your creator?”

  Athol nodded. “One of them. He would…tweak our settings after the transition was completed.”

  “Who else was there?”

  “We were asleep for most of it,” Elina answered. “I think Tiam enjoyed seeing us suffer, though. He wanted us to be awake to see how we would react to what he was doing to us.”