by James Wake
“I’m sorry.” Nadine’s voice in the background, unmistakable. “Severe depreciation this quarter. The civil disturbances have been shaking investor confidence with…”
Nadia’s mother, still not looking at the camera, held up a hand. “Report. Now.”
The Domes snapped to attention, one of them stepping closer to the display. “Uh, yes, ma’am, we’ve already apprehended one of the suspects and are—”
“Damage to the sector-five lab?”
The Dome looked around. “Actively being assessed.”
“And the vault?”
Even through the expressionless glass of his helmet, Nadia could see his panic. Her mother finally turned her gaze to the video display at her side, her eyes piercing right to a kneeling Ortega. “Identity?”
The Dome waved a hand past Ortega’s head. “Ortega, David L., city police.”
“Hmph.” Nadia’s mother sneered. “Good riddance then.”
Ortega blinked, dazed and bleeding from the nose and ears. “El pueblo…unido…”
“Kill him,” she said, her attention already gone from the scene.
The Dome raised his gun to Ortega’s temple. Jackson struggled to her feet, and Nadia threw out her arms. She held Jackson back and hissed, “No, no, no!” in a hushed gasp.
“Wait!” Nadia’s mother said.
Everyone stopped moving, hovering on the word of the woman on the screen. Nadia watched in disbelief—mercy was not in her mother’s vocabulary. Or so she had thought.
“In the neck,” her mother said. Still not looking. “Preserve the brain for scanning.”
“Jamás será—” Ortega said, cut off as the Dome shot a burst of needle bullets through his throat. He slumped to the floor, jerking and kicking.
“No!” Jackson screamed, pushing Nadia out of the way and leaning out with her shotgun ready. The first blast of buckshot knocked Ortega’s killer over, his helmet shattered to pieces. Jackson racked the gun and fired, again and again, screaming, “Fuckers, all of you! Fuckers!” as she emptied the weapon.
Nadia shot to her feet, limbs alive and awake again, her body shaking in her suit. Her fault. Her fault, all of this. No, she reminded herself, there was only one person responsible for all of this.
Jackson slammed the last shell out, then pulled a pistol from her belt and fired that until it was empty too. She ducked back behind the corner, dropping the pistol with a low growl of disgust.
“Weak-ass plastic bullets,” she said.
“Come on!” Nadia pulled her by the arm. “Let’s go!”
“Wait,” Jackson said, posted at the corner. She held the empty shotgun up by its muzzle, the butt high like a club. Boot steps drew closer, along with frantic shouts to cover and move and move now.
A Dome rounded the corner, catching the butt of Jackson’s shotgun directly in the throat. He wobbled on his feet as she ripped his gun out of his hands, then shoved him aside to get a clear shot on his backup. Her jacket whipped around with the force of bullets slamming into her chest, none of which stopped her in the least as she shot down the second Dome.
The first Dome was still standing, coughing and reaching for a sidearm. Nadia slapped a palm to his arm, feeling her glove crackle and…fizzle out.
“Ugh!” she growled, planting her other glove right on the face of his helmet. That worked, sending the man shrieking to the floor. She turned to Jackson. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” Jackson said, silver goop leaking from several holes in her armor vest. She bent down to the man Nadia had shocked, ripped a stun grenade off his belt, and tossed it down the hall toward the rest of them. “All right, let’s move!”
“What about Ort—”
“He’s gone!” Jackson yelled, taking off down the hall.
Nadia followed, the blast of the grenade sending her off. Together they ran down winding corridors flooded with red pulsing light, alarms once again blaring in their ears.
What about Tess what about Tess what about Tess?
Nadia tried not to think about it as they retraced their steps here; maps lit up in her HUD again, showing the way out of this maze. They turned a corner as their pursuers rounded the previous corner, bullets cracking into the walls behind them.
The AP labs sailed by, cold bodies strapped to chairs under the emergency lights. Up ahead, the tram platform waited. Not empty—three Domes were climbing out of a maintenance access to the side, looking almost as surprised as Nadia was to see them.
“Cover!” Jackson yelled, launching herself aside and cutting two of them down with her gun. Nadia dashed up the wall, crawled along the ceiling, and dived right at the third Dome. With both hands lit up on his chest, she pounced him to the ground.
Tests complete, her goggles told her. All systems nominal.
“I should say so,” Nadia said. As she peered into the access shaft, she spotted a ladder and sweeping flashlights from above.
“Tram?” Jackson said.
“Tram,” Nadia agreed, sizing up the dark closed glass doors. Even with her suit helping again, she wasn’t sure she could break them.
“Stand back,” Jackson told her. Her gun made short work of the doors, spitting the rest of its ammo out until they were a sagging layer of laminate holding thousands of tiny dull glass chunks.
That Nadia could break. She kicked the panels until they detached, falling to flopping pieces around her. Thankfully the hatch was still there. Nadia stuck her hands to the ceiling, swung her legs up, kicked it open, and slid through with lithe grace.
Jackson lagged behind, pilfering a magazine off the body of a Dome and slapping it into her stolen gun. Nadia waited, crouched over the hatch, holding out a hand, which she was stunned to see Jackson actually take. She pulled the officer up, lifting her weight easily now.
They both looked up. A long, dark climb stared back at them. Jackson took a ladder on the side of the shaft, scoffing as Nadia climbed up the sheer wall right next to her.
“Show-off,” she said.
It hurt, almost exactly the tone Tess always used. Nadia swallowed hard and put that little stab of pain away for later. “Ortega,” she said, “Are you sure he…?”
“I put one in his head,” Jackson said, looking away as she climbed. “Figured it was a mercy. It’ll keep those bastards from scanning him, at least.”
Nadia paused during her climbing. She, of all people, could appreciate that sentiment. “I’m sorry.”
“Not the first time,” Jackson said.
“If it makes you feel any better, I think your friend Carroll was in that vault.”
“How’s that supposed to make me feel better?”
“I believe I’ve put him to rest as well.”
Jackson nodded—not smiling but seemingly pleased with this, in a dark sort of way. As they continued, the top of the shaft drew nearer: a solid, closed metal ceiling.
“That was Cheshire, wasn’t it?” Jackson said. “Running out of the vault?”
Nadia said nothing, the light of her eyes narrowing in the darkness around them. Jackson grunted as she shook her head.
Static crackled in Nadia’s ears.
“Hello?” Tess’s voice. “Comms check? Check, check…”
“I’m here!” Nadia said, startling Jackson.
“Oh! Hey! Neat. Are you alive?”
“For now.”
“Heh, same. Hang on. I’m having a hell of a time now that all these alerts are on.”
The ladder ended for Jackson; Nadia had reached the ceiling. Nowhere else to go. Well and truly trapped.
“Uh…” Jackson said, twisting around to get a look at the shaft around them. “You see any buttons or anything? An emergency release?”
“No.” Nadia switched through various light-amplified vision modes. Nothing but smooth metal and grooves for the tram to lower on. “This might be a problem.”
“Hang
on,” Tess said. “I’m getting a fix on you…Oh, wow. You’re pretty trapped, huh? That sucks.”
Nadia felt that gaping darkness in her chest again as she clung to the side of the shaft. There was a nasty edge in Tess’s voice—she could swear it—taking delight in her certain doom.
Or not. The ceiling above them opened at the middle, creaking to either side until she and Jackson were clear to climb out into more dark tram tunnels.
“There you go,” Tess said.
Nadia’s eyes went wide as she vaulted over the edge and crouched next to the tram rail. A short way down the line, red lights shone through a set of glass doors that slid open as she watched.
“What…why?” Nadia said.
“Hey, we’re still on the same side. At the end of the day. Right?” Tess said.
Several fairly foolish things fought in Nadia’s mouth to be said all at once.
I’m so glad you’re okay.
I want to see you.
I’m so, so sorry.
“You…we…sorry…I…” came out instead, her chin fighting to smash her words into mush.
“I know. Me too,” Tess said. “Can we talk later? I—” Static cut her off. Screams and gunshots and the high-pitched whine of a blade.
“Tess?” Nadia yelled. “Tess?” Comms discipline was the last thing on her mind. All she heard back was shrieking and Tess yelling, “Take that, corporate pig!”
Jackson yanked her onward. “Come on!”
They ran for the doors, Nadia babbling into her mic all the while. “Come in! Talk to me now!”
“I’m good!” Tess said, short of breath. “Sorry. These guys are getting real aggro over here. We’re good… Oh, yeah, thanks for asking about all three of us.”
Nadia only momentarily felt like the terrible person she was. “We lost Ortega.”
“I know. Keep moving! Don’t worry about us. We’re almost to the car.”
Nadia and Jackson climbed up through the doors onto an upper tram platform. One entire wall was glass, floor to ceiling, looking down on a tangled mess of gigantic assembly lines. Still and quiet, every line dormant now because of the intrusion. It was breathtaking—Nadia heard her mother’s voice in her head, Nadine dutifully parroting it back. Millions of dollars lost for every moment the Omniplant was silent.
“Watch out!” Jackson shouted, shoving her to the floor. The report of bullets slapped Nadia’s eardrums inward, shock waves coursing through her chest as the glass walls flew out of their frames. These weapons were a whole different animal from the other guns, much more vicious and brutal.
Nadia crawled to the nearest wall. Her wrist peeked around the corner: an Auktoris heavy trooper was stomping down the hall at them, out in the open—thick white armor plates with a blank plated helmet. Jackson lit him up from across the hall, but he didn’t flinch, the bullets not even marking his armor. He swung his huge rifle over as it spiked rounds through the walls all around them.
Nadia had meant to save this. It had a destiny, in her mind. But perhaps this was more fitting. She reached for the slim bag on her back and yanked Jackson’s revolver out of her secret pocket.
“Hey!” She waved at Jackson, both of them crouching as shattered pieces of wall flew around them. “Catch!”
Catch, she did. The gun landed in her hand like a glove, meant to be. Jackson stared at it for one awestruck second, the only time she wasted before leaning out and placing a thunderstorm of a shot in the trooper’s chest—louder even than the rifle, the loudest thing Nadia had ever heard.
The trooper went down, knocked to the floor with a spray of red in the air.
“Hell, yeah!” Jackson crowed. “What else you have hidden in that bag?”
More troopers down the hall opened fire before she could respond. The wall Nadia was hiding behind fell to pieces, shards of metal tearing into her suit. She rolled and dove; scrambled away from the bullet holes chasing her, blindly fleeing until she felt nothing under her hands. Open air greeted her as she tipped over the edge of what had been glass walls and plummeted down.
“Oof!” Nadia crashed onto a catwalk a dozen feet down, clanging loudly on the grated metal floor. She barely had time to get to her feet before voices made her look up: a squad of Domes above the tram platform, descending on riplines.
One landed next to her, raising his gun and yelling at her to surrender. Nadia slapped his weapon to the side and slammed an open palm into his chest, sending his limp body swinging away from the catwalk on his ripline. Another fired as he landed, zipping bullets over her shoulder as she ducked and weaved. She punched the button on his harness, sending him screaming back up into the air.
Something hit her in the chest…twice, three times. Nadia wavered on her feet, stumbling back and crying out as she clutched at the fresh holes in her suit. When she looked up, the barrels of several guns were pointed at her.
The platform lurched under her feet. Three Domes fired, all three shots going wide as the catwalk shook and bent. One of the assembly arms from the floor below had reached up to claw at the supports.
“Close one!” Tess said in her ears. The arm ripped a support out entirely, the Dome nearest to the edge losing his balance and falling over the side with a single yelp of surprise as he frantically fumbled with his ripline.
Nadia crouched low, sticking her hands and feet to the floor as the catwalk shook beneath her. Too many left, even though they were fighting for balance. The robot arm darted up and grabbed a Dome around the waist, dragging her down off the leaning catwalk as she screamed and beat at the claw with the butt of her gun.
The rest of the Domes rushed at Nadia. She tried to climb up, gasping as a bullet tore a shallow hole in her sleeve. She crashed back down to the catwalk just in time to take a shock prod to the face, throwing loops through her head as she lashed back blindly.
Crackling strikes bit into her gut and head. Her vision swimming, Nadia kicked a leg out from under the Dome, then shoved another one back and saw him keep going as the platform shook again, metal squealing as it fell farther and threatened to dump them all off. The nearest one anchored his ripline to the wall and cracked Nadia on the head with his club.
Bright flashes popped in her eyes. Nadia shook it off—there was something left. One last thing she had to do before all of this was over. A scream fought out of her chest as she caught the Dome’s next blow on her elbow. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, trapping them, and launched a knee up over and over into his gut, groin, legs, anything she could catch.
The robot arm sailed by again, still holding a Dome shrieking for help, and knocked another right off the slanted platform in front of her. The man in her arms went limp, falling and hanging from his ripline, but instantly replaced by an even bigger faceless Dome. He grabbed Nadia by the throat, pushed her up against the wall, and squeezed.
Even through her suit, he could choke her. Nadia pounded his arm, grabbed the front of his helmet and surged thousands of volts into him…to no effect. He squeezed harder, slamming her head into the wall until dark circles closed in around her vision, the sharp smell of burning hair filling her nostrils as her hands kept shocking him.
Then his head exploded.
Nadia gasped for breath, spots of red staining the display in her mask. The Dome went limp, his hands falling away with his body as he plummeted to the assembly line below. Blood trailed from the ragged hole that had been most of his helmet.
She looked up, now hanging from the wall below the tram platform. Jackson was standing at the edge, holding one of the heavy trooper rifles, smoke wisping from the barrel.
“You all right?” Jackson said, holding one hand out.
Nadia took it, pulled up so hard and fast that she flew a foot over the ledge, collapsing onto her knees as she landed.
“Whoa,” Tess said in her ears. “Jackson took out a heavy response team.”
Nadia gazed around the p
latform, at a half dozen ruined bodies wearing thick white armor. “Oh, and I was just…” She coughed, tasting hot coppery blood in her mouth. “…twiddling my thumbs down there?”
Tess ignored the remark. “You guys should be clear to the perimeter if you keep moving.”
Jackson grabbed Nadia’s arm. “You good?”
“Good enough,” she said, struggling to her feet.
* * *
The rain had let up a bit. Calmed down to a cool, dark drizzle.
Behind Nadia and Jackson, in the distance, sirens and searchlights buzzed from the Omniplant. Not safe yet. Nadia stared, hanging from the wall of a sagging building, nanohook pads holding fast on slick crumbling brick. A hive of activity, a throng of drones and hovering choppers combing every inch of the facility.
Jackson climbed up past her, grunting and struggling for handholds. The handle of that huge revolver stuck out of her belt, catching Nadia’s eye.
She needed that back. Somehow.
Nadia hovered nearby, ready with a helping hand if Jackson slipped. It didn’t happen, both of them rolling over the edge of the roof a few minutes later. Nadia meant to stride confidently out onto the roof, steps away from being free and clear. Instead she wavered and drifted, sinking down until she was squatting with her arms wrapped tightly around her chest.
Everything hurt. Aches in her joints and sharp pain. So many bruises, biting every time she moved. It all woke up at once, her entire body shaking.
“Yeah,” Jackson said, standing up straight but working kinks out of her own trembling arms. “I know. Just breathe. Keep breathing. You’re doing fine.”
She tried, forcing long stabbing breaths. Garbled screams in her head—how many were dead now because of her? Ortega directly, yes, but if she hadn’t…if she’d…if Tess…
Cheshire. She felt the urge to vomit but fought it down with wracking coughs.
“Breathe,” Jackson said, “in through the nose. Out through the mouth. Nice and easy.”
Nadia blinked, hard. They weren’t done yet. She wasn’t done yet. “You must think…” she began, clearing her dry throat. “You must think I’m weak. I’m sure this is all nothing to someone like you.”