The Sapphire Shadow

by James Wake

  Tess raised a finger, looking like she was having a hard time hearing. “Hold on a sec. Since when do you care about what’s right or wrong?”

  That one stung. She winced through it. “This is an atrocity. These should all be destroyed,” Nadia said, hardly believing the rage in her voice. “These people were killed.”

  “And you’re saying their deaths should be for nothing?” Tess said, seeming to relish the confused blinking in Nadia’s goggles. “You have no clue what this research is worth. It’s priceless.”

  “I’m sure you’ll find some anonymous buyers.”

  “I’m not talking about money!” Tess said, finally standing up for herself. Finally sounding upset. “This could change everything! Do you want everyone to have a chance at living forever, or do you only want people like your mom to have it? Because that’s what will happen! The rich and powerful will cheat death, and everyone else will keep suffering like we’ve always been!”

  “Then let’s destroy it,” Nadia said, palms open, gesturing around her. “All of it. This whole wretched place.”

  “Someone is going to do this. One way or another, it’s going to happen.”

  “I don’t care. I won’t stand by and let this happen. Not like this.”

  “You’re not wrong that the methods here have been horrible,” Tess said, softening for a fleeting moment. “But we can still use the results for good. Besides, what are you going to do, smash them all by hand? You’re talking nonsense.”

  She was. Nadia felt weightless, lost, wanting nothing more than to drop to her knees and give up. What could she do? These people were dead, gone, living on only in cruel mockery. Just like her city, just like her father, just like the one friendship she thought she’d had in the whole world.

  There was nothing left.

  “You…” Nadia choked, surprised at the cracking sob in her breath. “You were using me. This whole time.”

  “You were using me to get back at your mom,” Tess said, not flinching in the slightest.

  “Why?”

  “Well…I mean, you ended up being so much better at all this than I ever imagined. And no one’s noticed even a little bit of what I’ve really been up to when they’ve had you to look at.”

  Nadia sniffed loudly. “I suppose that’s quite clever.”

  “I have my moments.” Slowly, gingerly, Tess reached for another drive on the wall.

  “Stop,” Nadia said.

  “This is what I came here to do,” Tess said, grabbing the drive and shoving it into her case. “We don’t have all night.”

  “Not one more!”

  Tess looked her dead on, enhanced eyes meeting custom goggles. Not breaking her gaze for an instant, she reached up again.

  Nadia took a step closer. “I said—”

  Tess pulled something from behind the cart: a short stocky blade with a squared-off tip. Much like the one she’d shattered against the dummy’s head. It hummed to life with a high-pitched whine, the edge vibrating and glowing bright red, then quickly shifting through orange, yellow, blue, and stopping at an intense, blinding white.

  After all this. After everything. Nadia fought hard against the lump in her throat as a yawning dark hole opened in her chest. Tess couldn’t. She wouldn’t.

  “Look, I don’t want to hurt you,” Tess said, holding the blade between them. “But you are not stopping me.”

  At her sides, Nadia held out her hands, both crackling with lightning. She said one word, low and mean and daring Tess to do it already.

  “Likewise.”

  There was nothing near the same malice on Tess’s face. She took nervous, shuffling steps back, holding the blade out in front of her to shield herself.

  She looked afraid. Terrified.

  Good.

  “Stay back!” Tess said. “I mean it!” She gripped the blade in her prosthetic hand, waves of heat distorting the air around the edge of the weapon.

  “Or what?” Nadia yanked off her mask and let it hang at the back of her neck. Cool air stung her damp face, her stinging eyes blinking in the sudden darkness. “Go on. Look me in the eye and cut me down!”

  “What? No!” Tess yelped. “Stay back!”

  Nadia stepped forward.

  “Last warning!” Tess said, her eyes now lit up with an overlay.

  Nadia stepped a few measures to the side, circling her. “What are you watching?”

  Tess matched her steps—not nearly as gracefully, though. “Clips of you. I’ve been watching you fight for a year. There’s nothing you can do that I haven’t seen before.”

  “Stop stalling.” Nadia darted forward with her right hand chambered to strike.

  Tess shuffled back, her blade swinging faster than Nadia could even see. It swiped through the air several times, leaving trails of light. Her footwork was less impressive; she stumbled into the cart, spilling the contents of her case all over the floor.

  “So cool,” Nadia said, hanging back out of the blade’s reach. “Such a badass,” she added, enunciating the words as sarcastically as possible.

  “Says the stuck-up spoiled rich bitch!” Tess shuffled forward with a few blurred slashes.

  Nadia dodged back, sliding well away from each attack. “Glad to finally hear what you really think.”

  “Ugh, no, look…” Tess said, adjusting her glasses with her free hand. “Sorry. I don’t—”

  That wouldn’t do. Nadia lunged forward, reaching for Tess’s human arm.

  “Aah!” Tess yelped, jerking back and countering with a strike, an overhead swing coming down right at Nadia’s shoulder but stopping inches from her suit.

  Nadia didn’t move, didn’t dodge. She felt the heat from the blade. Tess froze, stuck, staring wide-eyed at her own weapon.

  “Come on!” Nadia said, jabbing Tess in the ribs. “You can’t even fight honestly! Stop pretending!”

  “Why are you like this?” Tess said, shoving her away with an open left hand. “I don’t want to hurt you!”

  “Then you can watch me smash every one of these!” Nadia reached behind her and swiped a few dozen drives off a rack. Gorgeous little lights clattering across the floor.

  She stomped on the nearest one, feeling it crack beneath her boot.

  “Don’t!” Tess screamed, lunging forward with her blade held out straight. Again, Nadia didn’t bother to dodge. The side of the blade grazed her suit, just below her ribs.

  She felt nothing, heard no sizzling slice. All the same, she jerked and yelped in pretended pain, clapping her hands to her side.

  “Oh, fuck!” Tess lowered her blade and crept closer, her guard down. “Are you okay?”

  Nadia turned and, in one solid, strong motion, punched her fist deep into Tess’s gut. A pained, shocked “Oof!” burst out of Tess as she flew back, coughing and dropping to one knee.

  “Did you have a clip of that one?”

  “Fuck…” Tess growled, rising to her feet and raising her weapon. “Yooouuuaaaaaa-aaah!” She charged, blade ready, all fear replaced with rage.

  “That’s more like it!” Nadia dodged and dodged again, watching the blade slice through one of the racks of drives, sparks and shards flying everywhere. Tess attacked with blind, furious slices, side to side, her prosthetic arm moving at inhuman speed.

  The blade rose over her head. Tess’s midriff was exposed; on her belt, Nadia spotted a small, familiar device.

  Of course.

  Nadia hadn’t had anything like a plan. Not until that moment. She sidestepped Tess’s slash, staying in close and grabbing Tess’s sword arm, right where the prosthetic was attached, and braced herself against the follow-up strike.

  All she needed was an instant.

  She didn’t get one. Tess’s elbow bent backward, the blade swiping at her before Nadia could react—a hiss, followed by a whiff of smoke in her nostrils as the skin on her suit’s arm burned in a
shallow cut.

  Nadia jumped away, barely avoiding a whirling flurry of cuts as Tess’s prosthetic arm spun in impossible arcs, tangling and tearing the sleeve of her coat.

  “Superior range of motion!” Tess said, ripping off the tattered pieces of the sleeve on her right arm with her free hand. She advanced again, faster and meaner and surer on her feet now, her blade burning through the air. “You’ve never understood.”

  “Understood what?” Nadia said, struggling to dodge.

  “You put on all this fancy synthetic muscle.” Tess cut off Nadia’s sidestep and left a sizzling, glowing arc in the floor. “And you take it off when you feel like going back to being little Miss Pretty Priss.”

  Nadia was swiftly being cornered, backed up against the wall.

  “I live with this!” Tess yelled, cutting more curves in the floor, herding Nadia back. “Every! Day!”

  Nadia’s heel struck solid wall. Trapped. It didn’t even occur to her to climb away. Tess dashed forward, one mighty downward strike coming to end all of this.

  Finally.

  Instinct more than anything else threw Nadia’s arms up in front of her, her forearms crossed. She cringed, her eyes closed, as a small whimpering Tess, please nearly crawled from her lips.

  Something solid struck her arms. No sizzling cut. No whiff of burning flesh.

  Nadia opened her eyes.

  Tess’s arms were braced against Nadia’s, the blade still high in the air. A low, burning crackle came from the edge, inches from her face.

  Their eyes met, empty wonder on both sides. Tess easily could have angled forward and struck her, could have ended her at any moment.

  But she didn’t. She couldn’t. Or she wouldn’t.

  Either way, this was Nadia’s chance.

  She darted forward, shoving the blade to the side and planting a quick, gentle kiss on Tess’s shocked lips. Ignoring the sputtering gasp that followed, she slid around and behind Tess before leaping away, her hand fast and precise.

  “What…what?” Tess said, turning to face her with nothing like malice.

  Misdirection. The most crucial part, as any seasoned pickpocket knew. Nadia held up the device she’d grabbed from Tess’s belt and pulled an identical device from hers. “Now,” she said, holding one in each hand, crude shells of cases no bigger than her palms. “What was it you said about these reacting?”

  A deeply satisfying look of surprise. Tess felt at her waist, her jaw working soundlessly. Her blade went dark, clattering to the floor as she held up her hands. “Whoa! Be careful with those!”

  “I wonder what would happen if I activated them at the same time, hmm?” Nadia said, waving them about carelessly.

  “Don’t!” Tess screamed. “You’ll kill us both!”

  “I imagine it would be detrimental to the contents of this vault?”

  Tess stared at her, even more terrified than before. “You’re insane.”

  “Perhaps.” Nadia turned and stared at the rows and rows of scanned brains. How many then? Even if what Tess had said about multiple copies was true…

  She’d only taken her eyes off of Tess for a moment. Nadia heard a clattering scrape, the snap of a case being shut. Tess was sprinting for the door, blade in one hand and a case full of drives in the other.

  Nadia smiled. No matter. She had intended to give Tess a head start anyway.

  * * *

  Minutes had passed.

  Jackson was still pointing a shotgun at the skull of the sap kneeling in front of her. No one had said a thing since the Sapphire Shadow had vanished into the darkness of the vault.

  Long minutes.

  “Where’d you get this thing anyway?” she said, nudging Brutus with the gun. It was a heavy pump-action, old school, the kind she loved when she was a feral little slum kid.

  Brutus didn’t move, but the blonde kneeling a few feet away gave Jackson a simmering, lethal look.

  Jackson grinned. “I think I like this gun. I might have to borrow it for a bit.”

  “Fine with me, ma’am,” Brutus said, holding his open hands out in deference.

  “And by borrow, I do mean keep.”

  “Yes, that is clear,” Aleksa said, rolling her eyes.

  “You two can relax, you know,” Jackson said, despite the gun she was holding. “I’m not here for either of you.”

  “We want Cheshire,” Ortega said.

  “You know we don’t know where he is, or even who he—” Aleksa said.

  “Run!”

  They all turned to the scream. A girl—not the Shadow—tearing ass out of the vault. Jackson just about did a spit take; she knew the face, but she couldn’t place how right away.

  “Is that a sword?” Ortega said.

  Tess zipped past them and kept going, screaming the whole way. “Run! Run away! Run, run, run, run!”

  Brutus and Aleksa scrambled to their feet and bolted, following Tess down a side hallway.

  “Hey!” Jackson said, not following them yet. “Hey, hang on. Freeze!”

  A wall of sound came crashing out of the darkness of the vault—tears of angry, popping lightning. Jackson and Ortega hovered near the door, peering in at flashes of blinding light.

  “Think she’s still in there?” Ortega said.

  Louder and louder, building on itself, whining, jagged pops and a strong breath of wind sucking in toward the vault.

  “I’m going in,” Jackson said. The Sapphire Shadow wasn’t going to walk away that easily. “If I’m not back in one minute—”

  A silhouette against the crackling flashes in the vault dashed toward them. A black outline in the shape of a small woman, stumbling and struggling to get her mask on.

  “Run!” she screamed. Jackson only caught the barest glimpse of her mouth before the blue-eyed mask was back in place.

  Ortega was already moving, sprinting toward the tram. Jackson waited, making sure the girl cleared the vault doors before turning and running, pounding away as fast as her boots could carry her.

  “What happened?” Jackson shouted, straining to be heard over the building roar behind them.

  “A reaction!” the Sapphire Shadow said, overtaking Jackson and still gaining speed.

  “What the hell—”

  Does that mean, Jackson tried to say. A deafening wave crackled through her, blasting ringing white noise into her ears as her limbs went stiff. She crashed down to the floor, where she slid and blanked to darkness as every light in the ceiling popped.

  * * *

  Red.

  Nadia blinked, curled up in a ball on the floor and shaking. Something blared in her ears, fuzzy and far away.

  She could still move, if slowly. Her limbs were heavy, weighted down and swinging through thick mud. It might have been five seconds or five minutes, as she forced herself up to her knees.

  Ringing, stinging in her skull. Her teeth ached. She was fairly certain her eyes were open, but all she could see was a dull red. Something in her mask popped and hummed, the dull red in front of her eyes lighting up to a dull black.

  Booting.

  Lines of code scrolled past her eyes, too fast to read. Long lines of dots, sequences of hex numbers, calmly spooling out as she realized the blaring in her ears was an alarm, piercing through the air.

  Finally her vision activated, fuzzy and flickering. Red emergency lights bathed the corridor around her, pulsing and casting shifting shadows. She turned around and leaned on her right hand, immediately regretting it for the vicious pins and needles that screamed to life in her fingers.

  Ortega lay curled up on his side, hands clutching his head and screaming. Jackson was nearby, deadweight on the floor, her limbs convulsing. Nadia tried to rise to her feet but managed only to crawl on her knees.

  No strength in her suit. Lengths of code still cycled through her vision, systems ticking on one by one.

  She
made it over to the two officers and grabbed each of them by the collar. Like dragging bags of cement. Any other day she could’ve dragged them easily, even as big as Jackson was. Now every inch was a war, a brutal slog of attrition, the knees of her suit scraping along the floor.

  Tingling against her skin. Hair standing on end. The suit was coming alive, bit by bit. Still not enough. Nadia strained and grunted, getting on her feet but still failing to move very far.

  “Come on!” she yelled. Her hearing crackled and adjusted, lowering the alarm and enhancing what had to be distant boots and shouts. No time. “Get up!”

  They’d barely moved. No time.

  “I’m sorry!” she said, letting go of Ortega’s collar and throwing all her weight into dragging Jackson down the hall. Jackson’s body shook less and less; her hands still clutched Brutus’s shotgun, dragging it along the floor. How much did that damned thing weigh?

  Nadia pulled her around a corner, out of sight of the vault. Meaning to go back for Ortega, she turned but immediately stopped, pressed up against the wall.

  Her wrist camera wasn’t working yet. Peeking with only one eye, she watched as a platoon of black-armored Domes moved in, covering one another with compact submachine guns.

  “Visual!” one of them yelled. In moments, they’d pounced on Ortega and pulled him to his knees. A second later, he was unmasked, hands cuffed behind his back.

  “Tram still down,” one of them said.

  “Contact in aux shaft, second squad—”

  “Backup! Move!”

  Tess!

  Did Brutus and Aleksa have implants? Were they at least in fighting shape right now? Aghast, Nadia watched a frightening number of Domes stomp off down a side hallway, leaving a spare handful with their prisoner.

  Something grasped at her arm. Nadia jumped, making a silent yelp as she turned to see Jackson fight her way up off the floor.

  “Ortega…” Jackson moaned. “Ortega?”

  “I’m sorry,” Nadia said.

  Jackson dragged herself up and ducked low to peek around the corner as well. “You left him!”

  “You’re welcome.”

  The blaring alarm died, though the red lights still pulsed. A large display on the wall lit up, cracked with static. An old blond woman in a severe white suit appeared, barely paying attention to the camera.