Shield

by Rachael Craw

  The rush of opposing signals makes me brace for impact and I roar with frustration. Ethan grabs my ankle and whips me backwards with so much power he flips me, almost yanking my hip from the socket. I smack onto my back with a sickening thud. He pants above me, eyes fully black with the chase, dragging me down to the landing. “Davis!”

  I thrash beneath him, making his mouth bleed before he pins me with his forearm to my neck. My vision goes dark but ringing in my ears precedes a drawing in of fire in my body – pressure building for a blast. Davis is there, handing Ethan a needle. He launches over us to go for the Stray.

  “No,” I choke.

  Ethan jams the syringe into my neck.

  A pulse of energy explodes out of me. Ethan flies backwards with the force of a cannon blast and the lattice window shatters above my head. A rain of glass. Ethan hits the floor of the corridor below, shaking his head.

  Dizzy, I struggle up and swipe at the sting in my neck. The empty needle clatters to the floor.

  “Evie, stop!” An arm around my neck, a foot taps my ankle.

  Smack! I’m down on the glass-strewn landing again, a burst of fire in my side.

  Davis pins me. “Hurry,” he shouts over his shoulder.

  Ethan clambers over us. “Do not let her go!”

  I thrash to get free, cracking my forehead on Davis’s mouth, catching his blood in my eyes.

  “Shit!” he gasps, clamping my wrists, grinding my bones.

  “Get off!” His blood is in my mouth, glass cuts the back of my shoulders. I think my ribs are broken. I begin to shake, weakness creeping through my muscles as though someone is siphoning my strength. I scream and swear and sob at the encroaching calm. Davis’s signal cloaks mine, a cool blanket smothering molten coals. Above us the sound of a crash, a cry, a thud and then silence. The numb working its way through my body – Ethan’s drug, making my focus slide in and out. The tether tugs but my panic doesn’t rise. And then I remember.

  All the struggle goes out of me. “Oh … no.”

  “No kidding.” Davis straddles me, no give in his vice-like grip.

  “I would have killed him. I wanted to. I still want to.”

  “Yep.”

  “I’m – I’m the Shield – Jessop’s Shield. Me. Davis. It’s me. I triggered. I triggered with Jamie – Jamie’s signal.”

  “Apparently.”

  “Is that even possible?”

  He turns his head and spits blood on the floor. “Pass.”

  “I was going to kill him. I really was.”

  “Relax.”

  My joints are rubber but I can feel all the parts of me that ache and my ribs burn. “Lane. I think I hurt Lane.”

  “You dislocated his shoulder, broke his wrist and nearly ripped his face off.”

  I shiver and moan. “I did? I didn’t mean to. I think I hurt Helena too.”

  “You destroyed the comms link. I don’t even want to know what you’ve done to the van.”

  “Where’s Jamie?”

  He frowns. “I don’t know … The last I saw he was puking in the bushes behind the Freshman Commons. I think he passed out.”

  “He Sparked,” I say dumbly.

  “Looks like it.”

  “Both of us. Together. I don’t – I mean … how is that possible?”

  “How the hell should I know?”

  I struggle weakly beneath him. “Let me up.”

  “No way.”

  The tugging behind my belly button doesn’t quit, though the threat in my mind has notched down from red alert to orange. I finally take in the details around us, the worn linoleum, the busted corkboard, broken window. The room below us looks like a lab. “No alarms. No security. Where are we?”

  “Science block? Someone will come. We need to get out.”

  There’s a noise above us, Ethan grunting, heavy footsteps.

  Then I feel it in the bandwidth – sudden, loud, raw. I stiffen beneath Davis, Jamie’s signal red and blaring in my head. Why hasn’t the blocker cooled him down? I open my mouth to warn–

  Shadow. Scent. Heat. My skin comes alive and my belly tightens.

  “Get. Off. Her.”

  Davis’s eyes widen, his breath on my face and then he’s gone. A strangled cry. The crash of heavy bodies below. I sit up, and almost pass out with the pain in my side. I lean against the landing wall, dizzy as a drunk. Jamie has Davis in a stranglehold at the bottom of the stairs. Davis kicks beneath him. I don’t know what to do. Stop Jamie from killing Davis. Help Jamie kill Davis. Leave them to it. Crawl up the stairs. Find the Stray. Ethan is up there. I’m too weak. The tether is thin but it tugs and tugs … I remember. I remember what we’re trying to do.

  “Jamie,” I call. “Stop. You’ll kill him.”

  Davis finds purchase, his foot against the bottom step. He shoves, sliding them across the floor, ramming Jamie into the opposite wall. Then they’re on their feet and it’s a brawl. Sloppy and vicious. They’ll kill each other. Ethan thunders down the stairs, skidding on the glass before leaping over me. He lands in the corridor, grabs Jamie from behind and drives a syringe into his neck. Thrashing away, Jamie turns towards me, pupils huge and black. He staggers, his gaze shifting ravenously to the stairs above me, then I see the moment it hits him. The remembering: why we’re here, what we’re doing. Horror wipes his face and he looks back at Davis propped against the wall, his leg at an odd angle.

  Ethan bends forwards, bracing his hands on his knees. He spits blood on the floor, his breath rough. “Sehr gut.”

  “Good?” I groan. “This is good?”

  “We have the Stray and nobody is dead.”

  “How are we going to extract the Spark?” Davis rasps from the floor. “You’re the only remaining member of the team still on his feet. We’ve got three immobile bodies to move. The Stray and Spark can’t travel together. The active Shields can’t ride without able-bodied supervision and I won’t be able to drive on this leg.”

  “Malcolm.” Ethan makes a quelling gesture. “I can manage a single-person extraction. The more pressing issue is the local authorities. Helena has notified me that campus security has called the Sheriff’s department for back-up regarding a violent disturbance.”

  Davis swears, Jamie groans, Ethan pulls out his phone and taps the screen. There’s a moment’s pause as we listen to the muffled ring. A voice answers. “Put me through to Counsellor Thurston, Juno Thurston.”

  SIDES

  The rumble of an engine … the narcotic cooling of my blood and its slow thick thlack-thlack in my ears, my chest … the firm embrace of the harness … my anvil-heavy head bumping Ethan’s shoulder … his signal like a cradle … his scent … Jamie’s scent … all my remaining love briefly safe. But there’s a wrongness. An absence in bandwidth. Something loose and unhinged behind my navel.

  Long darkness.

  My throat, dry as bark.

  Jostling. My body, lifted like a rag doll. White pain in my ribs.

  Voices, strained and urgent. Barked commands. Confused replies.

  A hard mattress. Restraints. Ankles, wrists, chest, legs.

  A starch-roughened sheet draped over my body and pulled high over my head.

  Wheels rolling on concrete.

  I blink my eyes open on the inside of the sheet, listening dazedly to the quiet of the transport bay. None of the clamour of agents waiting to be deployed. No rushing feet or angry voices coming to confront us. We were the first team out, maybe we’re the first team back? My thoughts form slowly, a catalogue of worry. Michael Jessop. Knox. Miriam. How can I help her now? I’m tied to a stretcher, headed for the cell block with broken ribs. When I was pleading with Helena in the van, untethered, uninjured with prospects ahead, I knew my plan was dangerous but now it seems impossible and my heart thumps hard in my chest.

  Signals, familiar signals. Muted dark static that can only belong to the Stray. No tugging tether. It makes me anxious but not as anxious as I should be. Hushed words I don’t understand. Helena.
Ethan. Low snatches of German worry. We roll downhill. The long ramp to the service elevators.

  “Ethan, over here,” Juno calls. “Take this one. I’ve cleared the corridor to the lower barracks elevator. Congratulations on securing your test subject. You did the right thing – I’ve already had confirmation from my agents. They’ve secured the Spark without incident. They should be here in a couple of–” Juno cuts short. “What … is this?”

  Ethan drops his voice. “Two Shields. Dual Spark.”

  Silence.

  “Two? The boy and … Evangeline?”

  We stop rolling and even through the drug haze I feel the spike in tension.

  “Evangeline was in the field?” Her voice becomes quieter yet somehow more shrill.

  “Way to miss the point,” Davis says, under his breath.

  “What if she had been hurt?” Juno demands. “What if she had been killed?”

  “She was not in the field,” Ethan says, his voice hard and his accent pronounced.

  “She was with me in the comms van,” Helena explains. “She used her telepathic reach, her link with Jamie.”

  Ethan concedes with a sigh, “I have never seen anything like it before.”

  “Well,” Juno murmurs. “That’s certainly … astonishing. Perhaps … we should keep the details to ourselves.”

  There’s a pause, a lot of clatter – gurney wheels rattling, a change in light. We’re in one of the huge service elevators. The bandwidth gets loud and scratchy, including the strange heavy static of the Stray. The sheet is pulled back. A cool hand touches my forehead, blue eyes above me. Sandy blonde hair. Helena has a split lip and a vicious black eye. Did I do that to her? I go to apologise but my tongue will have nothing to do with it.

  “We are on our way to the lower barracks,” Helena says. “Try to relax and don’t resist the suppressant. We’ll keep the sheet up in case of interference but Counsellor Thurston has cleared the route. We should be fine.”

  I can’t respond. I can’t turn my head. I try to signal her, to remind her about our plan. I hold her gaze and think hard about Miriam but when I push into the bandwidth the sensation is agonising and makes me weak. A flicker crosses her eyes. Acknowledgement? Understanding? She swallows and straightens up. I want to cry.

  “Shall I take Jamie in the next elevator?” Lane asks.

  “Nein. We stay together. If Knox is planning sabotage we cannot risk losing any member of the active triplicate.”

  “Sir,” Davis says, hesitant and weary. “Lane has one good arm. Scrappy here is stoned out of her gourd, tied to a stretcher and I’m pretty sure I broke her ribs. Gallagher isn’t any better. I have one serviceable leg. Best-case scenario I could handle two or three sons of bitches but even I have to admit if Knox is planning sabotage, we’re screwed.”

  “We stay together,” Ethan snaps.

  Jamie’s signal rolls in beside me. I try to gauge placement in the elevator. If Helena’s manning my gurney Ethan must be manning the Stray’s – he wouldn’t leave it to anyone else. The black static is behind me. Unsettling. Distracting. The elevator closes and the lurch in my stomach signals our descent.

  Juno breaks the silence. “Davis is right: the team is a mess. Did the blocker fail?”

  “Evie received no blocker,” Helena says.

  “Don’t I know it.” Lane.

  “And the boy?” Juno asks.

  “Jamie’s dose did not take,” Ethan says. “Perhaps synaptic interference due to Evangeline’s link. I am not exactly sure. The second dose brought him down.”

  “I could’ve taken him,” Davis says.

  “In your bloody dreams,” Jamie says, his speech slurred and gravelly.

  A snort of amusement from Lane.

  “Rest, Jamie,” Ethan says. “You are back in the compound. Do not fight the sedation.”

  Juno clears her throat. “There’s a lot of divided opinion since Knox made the announcement.”

  Lane grunts. “You mean not everyone hates us?”

  “Most people hate the Initiative. A lot of people are angry with Counsellor Tesla but also with the Executive. Some are demanding an end to the Proxy system.”

  “Good,” Ethan says.

  “Except it is the only system we have,” Juno snaps.

  “For now. The cure is the beginning–”

  “You’re getting ahead of yourself, Ethan. The Stray is still a killer until you have proof that shows otherwise.”

  The elevator chimes and Helena pulls the sheet up over my head. The light changes with the opening doors. A new blast of signals and a bandwidth full of menace. My panic can’t get off the ground, pressed down by the drug fog. I try to hold my breath so the sheet won’t move.

  “An awful lot of bodies you’ve got there, Ethan.” It’s Knox, cool as ice.

  “Get out of my way, Robert.”

  “I expect you were planning to drop the girl off to me, assuming she’s not dead under there. Dead would be extremely disappointing. Unless you managed to harvest her eggs first, in which case we’ll make do.”

  Ethan’s anger burns through his ETR, his desire to attack Knox so loud it’s like a shout in my head.

  My stomach churns with a sickly mix of fear and helplessness. I’d clench my fists if I had control of my muscles. The bandwidth seethes with hostility. Knox must have brought reinforcements – a lynch mob.

  “Move, Robert.” Juno steps out to meet him. “I ordered this corridor cleared.”

  The gurney rolls and I have a sudden terrified thought that Helena is going to hand me over.

  “The Executive Council must claim her.” A woman’s sharp voice and my sheet whips back.

  “Alexis,” Juno says. “You don’t understand.”

  “We’re not interfering with the assignment.” Another woman, older – Angela Allen, interim Chair of the Executive, firm and reasonable. “We realise things could have been handled more discreetly before you went into the field but it seems you have your specimen, Ethan. The girl’s involvement is no longer a priority.”

  The whole council. Here. For me.

  “It’s not that simple,” Juno says.

  “No more loopholes.” Knox fills his voice with warning. “No more excuses.”

  “Evangeline is the Shield,” Ethan says, matching his tone. “Her involvement is vital.”

  Silence like a snap frost. In it I find two familiar signals. Stephanie, her ETR blistering with animosity, and Benjamin, brooding and wary. The first scares me but doesn’t surprise me – of course Stephanie would ally with Knox, but Benjamin … He may not agree with Ethan’s politics but the thought of him openly standing against his former boss cuts deeply.

  “You are not telling me,” Counsellor Allen says, “that you allowed an untrained Asset into active field duty against the specific orders of this Council – not after everything else?”

  Ethan sighs. “She responded to the Spark telepathically. We could not have predicted such an outcome.”

  Juno sighs – the detail she wanted kept secret.

  “Really?” Knox stretches the word. “And yet it seems quite predictable to me. Ethan Tesla, fabricating lies to subvert the protocols of this organisation for personal gain.”

  “Give us the girl,” Alexis chimes in. “Delaying the inevitable serves no one.”

  “The only thing that is inevitable is that I will never hand you my child.”

  My child.

  The tension in the bandwidth crackles and sweat makes the back of my shirt damp.

  “She’s right, Ethan,” Counsellor Allen says, imploring. “No one benefits by further delay. Many of our young men and women looked up to you. Trusted you. The truth has devastated them. Hypocrisy. Lies. One rule of law for them, another for you. Can you imagine the burden they’ve carried into the field tonight? How that betrayal must undermine their ability to function?”

  “Robert caused that by announcing it to the world,” Juno says.

  “And he has been censured,�
� Counsellor Allen says. “Ethan, you know the stability of this organisation depends upon unity of purpose. Demonstrate sense, surrender the girl. It will defuse the confusion and division among our people and it may lessen the severity of the World Council’s judgement for your crimes.”

  Ethan’s signal vibrates like a tsunami warning in my head. If they don’t let us pass God help anyone who gets in his way.

  “He can’t,” Juno says. “Evangeline is the Shield and active protocol remains. No one touches her until the assignment is complete.”

  “You take his word?” Alexis asks.

  “I take my responsibility seriously,” Juno says. “Check the readings from her signal.”

  “Assuming tech support can unscramble the data,” Knox says, taunting.

  “Go to hell, Robert,” Ethan, a low growl and a spike in his ETR so raw with hate, I quail inside.

  “Tell me, Ethan,” Knox says. “Are you familiar with the clause in your precious Reform that dictates that serious violators of Affinity law forfeit the right to restorative therapy? Miriam faces charges too. You know these trials can take mon–”

  Whump! Ethan shunts my gurney against the wall and my head rolls to the side, too late for me to catch sight of his strike but I hear the thud and crunch and the shocked cries. Knox hits the wall then the floor, writhing and cupping his bloodied nose.

  “Stand down!” Angela Allen holds her arms out as both sides mobilise.

  “Take the damn girl!” Knox cries.

  “No!” Helena yanks my stretcher backwards as Knox’s agents launch at me and Ethan’s team responds. The flurry of movement is so fast, so brutal, my vision blurs. I catch brief glimpses of Counsellor Allen, arms aloft, screaming for order. Juno and Alexis with her, calling for calm but the field agents want blood. The whine and crack of batons. Shouts and cries of agony. Then the flash of gun metal and a shock of recognition.

  Stephanie breaks from the group, pushes past Jamie’s gurney, training her gun at my head. Benjamin lunges, forcing her arm up. The gun fires, a horrific blast of noise, and the bullet strikes the wall. Everyone ducks. Benjamin wrenches the weapon from her hand, twisting her shoulder and forcing her to her knees. He passes the gun to Ethan then takes his place beside him while Stephanie scowls from the floor.