Brink (Spark City Book 1)

by Cameron Coral

  Gatz and Lucy had entered the room searching for Ida. Shots were fired at them by J-Man and Singlet, who had knocked over the hospital bed for shelter.

  Gatz and Lucy stood behind a large column as they returned fire toward the two men. Lucy saw Nancy’s body in the corner and wondered who she was and what had happened before they arrived. “Can you see Ida?” she yelled to Gatz.

  Shots sprayed around them. Gatz looked around, stealing glances, followed by shots back at the hospital table. “Vance has her. He’s dragging her off to a side exit. He’s getting away.”

  Lucy said, “Cover me, and I’ll run that way.”

  From the doorway, two droids started moving toward them, bullets from the enemy fire ricocheting off their steel frames. Lucy pointed the pulsifier at them. They stalled in place and lurched forward, inert.

  “Cover me,” she said.

  Gatz looked at her. “Are you crazy?” He pulled out a grenade. “Let’s try this first. When I throw it, run like hell.”

  She squeezed his arm for luck. “Go.”

  After more shots from the men, Gatz pulled the pin and pitched the grenade toward J-Man and Singlet. The grenade landed squarely where he intended. It came to a stop behind the table.

  Lucy and Gatz ran as fast as they could in the direction Vance had taken Ida.

  The grenade exploded. The blast was stronger than they expected in the large, open room. Lucy and Gatz hit the ground and covered their heads.

  Slowly, they looked up and saw that tiles rained from the ceiling. They checked themselves, then got up and continued their pursuit of Vance.

  After running through a short hallway into another laboratory room, they saw him. He had pulled Ida into a shower-sized, clear container with a door. They ran towards it, guns and pulsifiers ready.

  “What the…?” muttered Gatz.

  The container was large enough to hold Vance and Ida. It was connected to a large machine with many buttons and controls. The container looked like some kind of oven. Inside, Vance held a small device. He shouted, “Come no further or she’s dead. At the click of a button, molten steel will flood this container.”

  Gatz and Lucy stopped where they were, unsure of their next move.

  “She’s hurt,” said Lucy quietly to Gatz. “Look at her, she’s in pain.”

  Ida was on the floor of the container, clutching her stomach, grimacing, and appeared to be on the verge of passing out. She was barely hanging on.

  “Let her go,” Gatz called out to Vance.

  Inside the container, he smiled and held up the remote that would bring a wave of steel death upon them. “Don’t test me, panda man.” He turned his attention back to Ida. He positioned her body flat on the floor. Straddling her, he removed his shirt, revealing his steel musculature. He placed Ida’s bare hands on his still human, flesh-covered stomach.

  Ida regained consciousness and saw Vance on top of her. She couldn’t feel much below her neck and wondered whether Nancy’s poison was paralyzing her. Her head fell to the side, and that’s when she saw Gatz and Lucy through a glass window.

  Her heart jumped. They came.

  “Focus!” Vance yanked her head back to look at him. “Heal me, or I push a button and they die. We’ll be safe inside this container, but out there, a poisonous gas will fill the room.” He smiled. “My fail safe.”

  “No…” she said, twisting her head to look back at Gatz and Lucy outside. They looked worried and had guns. Everyone else was gone, even the droids. “How did…?” She wondered if she was dreaming.

  “Concentrate. Heal me,” said Vance, squeezing her shoulders with his cybernetic hands.

  She looked at him, his blue eyes fierce, veins enlarged on the human side of his face. Could she heal him? He would kill her friends…if he lived.

  Friends? Ida pictured Lucy in her head, laughing and being goofy. She recalled their fight lessons and how hard Lucy was trying to learn self-defense. The goofball had even been practicing her moves in a hallway mirror when she thought no one was watching.

  Ida felt something unfamiliar arise within her. Remembering her late-night conversations with Gatz, she felt sad that she would never see him again. She was growing accustomed to his furry, strange face.

  Gatz and Lucy had shown up-for her. They had risked capture and death to help her. Ida had never let anybody get this close to her before.

  She resolved to save her friends. She knew what to do, feeling her power surge from a place deep within her.

  Nobody takes them away. Her hands on Vance’s abdomen, she dug her nails into his skin, finding the area where steel ended and flesh began.

  Vance lowered his face close to hers. His eyes widened. “Oh, it’s working, I can feel it now. Good girl.”

  Ida looked at him, feeling a slow spark inside her belly where the poison had pooled. The flicker accelerated until it became a fierce blaze throughout her body. She could feel the strength of the heat carried through her chest and arms into her hands. The combustion inside her flowed into Vance’s body.

  She focused all her will, the entire strength of her being on one thought. Burn. Vance’s skin turned crimson, his facial muscles strained. He brought his face even closer to hers, as his handsome features contorted into a hideous shell of his former self.

  “Die.”

  Ida’s entire being, all her power thrust out of her body. She screamed in agony with the effort of her force.

  Vance’s pain morphed into fear. His facial features went slack, then twisted again in spasms. The poison rose within him staining his skin a deep red.

  Outside the glass, Lucy and Gatz watched as a pulsing, white light emanated from Ida’s body into Vance, jolting his body with convulsions.

  Then a massive blue flash occurred, and it was over. Ida and Vance fell together in a heap on the floor of the container. The remote control clattered to the floor, still gripped in his hand.

  Lucy ran to the door and tried to pry it open. Gatz pulled her back and fired two shots at the lock, breaking it. He slid the door open.

  They dragged Ida’s body out of the container and into the open room. She wasn’t moving.

  Lucy knelt beside her, tears streaming down her face. “Ida, wake up, wake up,” she said as she nudged Ida’s body.

  Inside the container, Gatz slid Vance’s remote away with his foot, then kicked his body twice. He leaned down to check for a pulse, then pulled his hand away in pain. “Shit!” he yelled. He looked at his hand in wonder. It had been burnt.

  He exited the container to find a frantic Lucy trying to revive Ida. She looked at him, shaking Ida’s inert body. “She’s not waking up.”

  Chapter 40

  Four months later, summer had arrived in Spark City. No longer afraid to venture out, people walked the wooded trails near the pond again, and enjoyed the nature around them. Attitudes in the city were relaxing after years of dominant rule. There was a sense of hope, and many areas of the city were being rebuilt.

  Lucy was on her knees in the garden that afternoon. She picked a small bouquet of flowers and pulled suspect weeds. Gardening had become one of her favorite activities. She was surprised to learn she had a knack for keeping things alive.

  She leaned back to rest a moment and lifted her head, tilting it back slightly to take in the warm sun. She squinted her eyes and inhaled deeply. Then she noticed a silver Mercedes pulling into the drive.

  She stood, leaving her flowers on the ground next to the garden shears. She waited for the driver to emerge and brushed her dusty hands on her jeans.

  Gatz stepped out of the driver seat. “Hey, Lucy!”

  “Hi there,” Lucy said as she tiptoed up and gave him a kiss on the cheek. His fur tickled her nose, and she sneezed. He smiled at her, giving a questioning look. “Allergies,” she said, smiling.

  She took his arm and they went inside. Ida’s old home—the conservatory—had been spruced up beyond recognition. Gatz looked around, taking in the polished floors, the many green tal
l plants that lined the edges of the room, and the brightness of the natural light that streamed through the many glass window panes. “You and Vera have done wonders with this place. Truly.”

  Lucy smiled and blushed slightly. “Thanks, it’s been fun fixing this old place up. Mom’s gone out for supplies with Paul. How’s running the city going?”

  They walked into the open kitchen area, and Lucy poured Gatz his usual coffee, black. “Thanks,” said Gatz as he took a drink from the hot mug. “It’s going.”

  “Come on, don’t be so humble. You’re doing an amazing job as mayor so far. It’s incredible how positive and optimistic people are right now.”

  “Interim mayor.” Gatz paused a moment. “It’s easy to look good compared to Vance, but I’ll tell you, unraveling his web of corruption is proving harder than I thought.” He clasped his hands together. “I have a lot of work ahead.”

  Lucy listened and sipped from a cup of tea.

  “How’s my favorite patient doing?” Gatz asked after a minute.

  “Good. You want to see her?”

  Gatz nodded and followed Lucy into a small bedroom. Inside the sun-filled room was a hospital bed. On it lay Ida.

  Lucy said, “I thought I saw a smile yesterday while reading to her.”

  “Is that so? Which book?”

  “One of yours, actually.” Lucy picked up a book from a bedside table and handed it to Gatz.

  He looked at it. “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Yes, a classic. Guaranteed to bring a smile to anyone in a coma.”

  Lucy noticed that he smiled as the words came out, but the edges of his mouth quivered slightly. Gatz visited at the same time every day, despite his demanding new responsibilities as mayor of Spark City. “I’ll leave you to it,” said Lucy, shutting the door behind her. She knew that Gatz talked to Ida and wanted to keep it personal.

  Gatz found Lucy outside, and she walked him to his car.

  “Little did I know I’d be BFFs with the mayor one day.”

  Gatz laughed at Lucy’s joke. It was no small feat to be appointed acting mayor in the wake of Vance Drem’s death. With his business connections throughout the city and his reputation for integrity, he had gone up against four other contenders for the position.

  After grueling interviews, background investigations, and lie detector tests, he had emerged victorious. The committee selected him, just barely edging out the others. As the first hybrid mayor of Spark City, he promised to better integrate the hybrids with the community and bring more business and prosperity to all citizens.

  “It’s only temporary. In a year, we hold an election.”

  “And you’ll run, and the people will vote for you because you’ve kicked ass.”

  “It’s not that easy. I’m a long shot. People still harbor resentment toward my kind.”

  “I hope that changes,” said Lucy. “What’s the latest with the investigation?”

  “The investigative committee released their report on Drem Corp. Now that Vance is dead, they are going to hand over the droids to the military for testing. His writings were discovered—volumes of technical plans that showed his intention to mass produce the droids to fight the Heavies.”

  Lucy’s eyes went wide. “He wanted to save us from the Heavies?”

  “Yes, it makes him sound admirable, but there’s a catch. Ida was right about the vaccinations. Vance was poisoning the returning soldiers to make them turn violent. The committee determined that he was trying to turn the public against the returning soldiers and the military so he could replace them with his machine soldiers. He had plans to take over the city and murder all the politicians, lawmakers, and anyone in his way.

  Lucy’s mouth opened in surprise.

  “Many people would have died if he’d lived,” Gatz said. “The city would have been a police state. I just wish Ida were awake to hear how many lives she saved.”

  Lucy touched his hand and held it. “I miss her too.”

  Gatz looked away. “Same time tomorrow, then?”

  “Yep, see you then.” Lucy hugged him goodbye.

  Lucy watched him drive away and followed his car with her eyes, shading them from the sun with her hands. There had been so much destruction, so much they had gone through, and yet Ida still lay unconscious. She wondered if Ida would ever wake up. Lucy wasn’t giving up without a fight.

  She went back to her place in the garden to retrieve the abandoned flowers. As she walked, she noticed a small bird on the ground. It must have hit one of the glass windows, and now lay on the ground dying.

  An idea formed. Lucy scooped up the tiny bird in her hand. It was still warm, its tiny heart still beat faintly, but it was drawing its final breaths. She took it inside and went into Ida’s bedroom.

  “This is stupid,” she said out loud in the empty room.

  She looked at Ida, studied her peaceful face, and laid the small bird on Ida’s stomach. Lucy gently positioned her hands so they touched the bird.

  That night, Vera made shrimp pasta, and they paired it with fresh greens from Lucy’s garden. Paul had brought a bottle of red wine—“classy red,” he called it. In the months since Gatz had taken office, imports into the city had risen as the new mayor eliminated Vance’s isolationist tactics. Gatz encouraged trading with other cities, and luxuries like wine and seafood were slowly becoming available again.

  They laughed over dinner, recounting the grocery store trip where Paul had to ask someone where to find the paprika, having no idea what it was and horribly mispronouncing it as “pa-per-eeka.”

  As they laughed and sipped wine from large glasses, Lucy heard rustling noises coming from the main room. She left the table as Vera and Paul started to clean up.

  She entered the living room and looked up toward the high ceiling.

  On one of the beams was the small bird, healthy and recovered.

  Lucy smiled.

  THE END

  Bonus Story

  Get a FREE copy of the short story, Breaking Day, that you can’t buy anywhere: CameronCoral.com

  Breaking Day is about a dystopian prep school. Dresden School isn't like regular schools. Electives include Weaponry 101 and Advanced Hand-to-hand Combat. Interesting things start to happen when new student, Rik, arrives and meets Ida. Don't be late to class...your life may depend on it.

  About the Author

  Hi,

  I’m Cameron Coral, a sci-fi and urban fantasy author. Brink is the first book in the Spark City series, and I hope you enjoyed it.

  I love writing above all things. When I’m not dreaming up new worlds, you can find me walking the streets of Chicago, checking out museums & new films, and reading.

  Coffee, green tea, and avocados fuel me. I’m serious about skeeball, and I’m decent at Galaga.

  What did you think about Ida and the other characters in Brink? Drop me an email and let me know. If you’re up to it, I’d appreciate an honest review wherever you bought the book. Reviews are awesome and help other readers like you discover my book.

  You can find me on: CameronCoral.com. While you’re there, be sure to grab a free short story that’s only available on my website. Breaking Day is about a dystopian prep school set in the near future. The story gives you a glimpse into Ida’s high school years.

  Enjoy.

  Cameron Coral

  CameronCoral.com

  Info@cameroncoral.com