The Sapphire Shadow

by James Wake

  “You won’t!” her mother said. “You can’t! That glass is hardened, reinforced with—”

  “High velocity.” Nadia pulled the hammer back with her thumb. Click-clack. “Armor piercing.”

  “You won’t…” her mother said. “Your own father. Your own father, Nadia!”

  “Did your husband,” she said, “want to be frozen when he died?”

  Her mother went silent, all the wind knocked out of her. Rage simmered out of her stark blue eyes, the only thing that still shone through clear. It was a relief really—seeing her mother look at her with some kind of feeling.

  No more pretenses. Nothing but pure, white-hot hatred.

  “He was sick,” she said.

  “Answer the question.”

  “He was not in his right mind!”

  “Yes or no? It’s very simple.”

  Her mother gritted her teeth, a very complicated set of dissembling coursing through every movement of her eyes as they lowered to the floor.

  It was far more than Nadia had ever expected—the sight of her own mother, shut down, backing down, guilty. Nothing to fire back with.

  For once. At long last.

  “How many?” she said.

  “What?” Her mother’s face shot back up.

  “I saw the Omniplant. Your vault. How many dead?”

  “The cost of progress,” her mother said. “We cannot perform the procedure on your father without testing it. Without perfecting it.”

  “Those people are dead because of you!”

  “They were going to die either way. At least this way they contributed something to society.”

  The sheer arrogance. The words tasted like bile to Nadia, bringing up all the times she had said similar things. “How many?”

  The moment of weakness had passed. Nadia’s mother glared up at her, strong and sure and unassailable. “I’m not telling you anything. You won’t do it. He was your favorite, and you were always his favorite. You want him back more than even I do.”

  She’d known that was coming too, but it still hurt. Nadia glanced down at what remained of her father, her finger tensed on the trigger. The weapon always felt ready to pounce, its weight leaning against the fear in her hand, eager to kill.

  She’d never actually fired it. It was heavy, so heavy.

  “I’m sorry, Father,” she said.

  The look of triumph on her mother’s face meant nothing; she was wrong.

  “I’m sorry it took me so long to do this.”

  The gun didn’t jump in her hand—it leapt in lethal joy, the crash of the shot overloading her earpieces, crackling with static as they fought to correct. Her father’s frozen head shattered to pieces, instantly hidden by frost coating the glass as steaming liquid nitrogen poured out the hole.

  Evelyn wailed and struggled to her feet, the skin of her face straining to keep up with her anguish. “What have you done?” she screamed. “What have you done?!”

  Nadia skipped back from the swiftly growing puddle on the floor, her hand numb and tingling from the shot. Relief flooded her veins, the weight lifting off every breath. She’d done it. Finally.

  It was over.

  “I don’t…I don’t understand!” her mother said. “He could have lived forever. He would have lived forever!”

  Nadia said nothing back, still floating. She’d done it. She had finally, at long last, done it.

  “Murderer!” Evelyn snarled, stumbling towards her eldest daughter. “You killed him. You murdered him! Your own father!”

  Nadia had not intended any further violence, despite what she knew Tess assumed. She looked up at her mother, at the woman in charge of this whole city, the one whose merest whim could condemn hundreds or thousands to death.

  Safe and sound up here in her boardroom, while people like Jackson were forced from their homes, thrown onto the street, left outside to drown one day while this city was shrunk and remade by her edicts. Shaped by her selfish will.

  Tess was right. There was much more at stake.

  Nadia had not intended any further violence. All the same, she pointed the gun at her mother. It was a simple act, raising the damnably heavy thing and holding it steady. Evelyn went stiff, no longer convinced her daughter couldn’t pull the trigger.

  Another first. Nadia cocked the hammer again, taking a deep breath and forcing it out, silently screaming at the trembling in her hand to stop. She did not want to do this; she had to do this. It had to be done.

  “No!” Nadine yelled, throwing herself in front of their mother and holding her arms out. Foolish. The bullet would go right through them both. “Why? She’s our mother!”

  “You’ve answered your own question,” Nadia said, tightening her grip, telling herself to pull the trigger and be done with it. Now. Pull it. Do it now.

  Now.

  Now.

  The trigger remained unpulled. The muzzle of the gun trembled, jittering left to right—Nadia wasn’t even sure she could hit them.

  It was a simple act. A pull of a muscle. It was easy to imagine it was herself in front of her mother, still blond and dressed in the most expensive finery possible. A fitting target. Not a bystander, guilty only of being born and raised by a woman who needed to die.

  Nadia held the gun still, her arm close to giving up under the weight.

  She couldn’t do it. She had to do it.

  It was the same; she had killed before. It wasn’t the same. It wasn’t, and it never would be.

  The double doors crashed inward, flying to pieces as troopers in thick white armor charged in.

  “Run!” Tess’s voice screamed in her ears. An arrow pinged to life in her HUD, leading her to the wall behind the preservation tube.

  Nadia leapt over the growing pool of freezing liquid, seeing a panel low on the wall highlighted in her vision. A thick bundle of cables snaked into a small opening, a gap for her fingers to sneak in and rip the panel off.

  A cramped and dark tunnel waited, barely big enough to worm into.

  “Fire, damn you!” Evelyn’s voice called out.

  Holes exploded into the wall, bullets cracking through the tube behind her. Nadia barely noticed. Something punched her, through her, slapping the breath out of her chest as pain tore out of her side.

  A spray of red painted the wall in front of her eyes. Nadia sank to her knees, collapsing in front of the small opening.

  “Go!” Tess yelled. “Go, go, get out of there, dammit!”

  “Stop shooting! Stop it, now!” Evelyn ordered.

  “Ma’am?”

  “I know what I said! That is my daughter, you brute! Nadia?”

  Words mumbled out of Nadia’s lips, pained moans never rising to anything coherent. She couldn’t think, couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.

  “Retrieve her,” her mother said. “Immediately.”

  Bootsteps behind her. Growing closer.

  “Nadia?” Tess screamed. “Say something! Nadia? Nadia?”

  Nadia’s eyes shot open wide. It couldn’t end like this, not this way. Her hands shaking, still clutching Jackson’s revolver, she forced herself to move. More nonsense crawled out of her throat as she pulled herself into the tunnel, leaving a red trail behind on the floor.

  * * *

  Ringing in Jackson’s ears.

  “What took you so long?” she said, clicking the call open.

  “Former Sergeant Jackson?” an old man’s voice said. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “No time. Listen and listen good,” she said, clicking blindly through more menus. “I’ll take the job.”

  A long pause on the line. “Which job are you—”

  “Whatever you’ve got.”

  “Interesting,” he said. “I imagine you are about to ask for something extravagant in return?”

  “I’ll need extraction from a secure location with a hi
gh-profile target,” she said, clicking “send.” “You’re receiving my twenty now.”

  “Wait,” he said. “Which high-profile target?”

  “You’ll like it. Be there. Fifteen minutes.” She hung up.

  Almost there. Vicks led them past another temporary barricade, Domes securing it to the floor with rivet guns. Every other landing on these stairs was blocked, dozens of guns ready and waiting.

  She couldn’t see Vicks’s face through his Dome helmet. Wedge’s she could see—confidence shifting to unease shifting to sweating fear as they climbed. And still Wedge followed.

  This had been a mistake. Jackson pushed the thought away, barked it back. Someone had to do something. The Sapphire Shadow was just one woman—and look at all she had gotten away with. Jackson could do the same. Someone had to do something.

  Besides, it was too late to turn back.

  “Jackson?” Tess in her ears again. “I need your help, like, now. Well, really, she needs your help. Our mutual friend.”

  Jackson sighed. “Guess I do owe her one,” she said, receiving confused looks from her companions.

  “See that door?” Cheshire said. “You’re not wearing goggles, are you?”

  Jackson clapped Vicks on the shoulder and nodded to the right. Not quite at the top yet.

  “Actually, can you go alone?” Cheshire said.

  “What? Why?”

  “Better that way. Trust me.”

  Jackson sighed as she checked the load on her shotgun. Vicks and Wedge stared at her, awaiting commands. “Wait here,” she told them. “I’ll be right back.”

  * * *

  Wind howled around Nadia the moment she crawled outside, blasts of misty rain whirling through the air. She was several floors below the board room now, pulling herself out of the dark maze of ducts serving the upper floors. The hatch snapped shut behind her, the small light above it turning red.

  “I don’t know how long I can delay them, I’m locking everything I can get my hands on though,” Tess said in her ears. “Are you okay? Let me see it.”

  Nadia ignored her. She glanced at her surroundings. A sheer ledge, a narrow catwalk around drone access hatches. A wide railing held supports for gun turrets above.

  She had thought to brace something against the hatch, barricade it with something, anything, but nothing presented itself. The thought slipped away, slick and elusive. It was cold up here, this high, towering above the rest of the city.

  Nadia limped toward the railing, dragging Jackson’s gun along.

  “Door this way,” Tess said, directions pinging in Nadia’s HUD. “I can open it for you, but you gotta move. It’s gonna be swarming with troopers any second now.”

  That all sounded very tiring. Nadia slowly climbed onto the railing instead, struggling, even with the fibers of her suit helping her along. Something was wrong with the second skin wrapped around her abdomen; it was pulling loosely and strangely along her side. She winced as she finally made it up, her left hand darting to her side and holding tightly.

  Warm and wet. She pulled her damp hand away to inspect it, to see the dark red staining her glove. What had been a stealthy crouch on the ledge collapsed into a sit, a weak whimper sneaking out of her mouth. Her mask’s distortion effect made it sound like an old toy, low on batteries.

  “How are you doing? Bad, right, dumb question, sorry,” Tess said. “Okay, hang on…”

  That loose pull in her suit tightened, snapping closer into place and sending Nadia doubled over with a pained gasp.

  “That should help with the blood loss,” Tess said. “Can you move? I can’t get Theseus up there to you. I couldn’t shut the gun turrets down.”

  “Don’t bother,” Nadia said.

  Silence on the line. Nothing but the wind against her mask, the dewy mist in the air gathering and dripping off her chin.

  Cold. Cold and alone. Fitting. Nadia glanced down, over the edge mere inches from her, a dizzying drop. Endless stories. Smoke rose from what might still be crowds gathered around the foot of the Structure. It was hard to tell.

  “Uh…” Tess said, drawing it out over the connection between them. “Just, uh…having a little breather, are we?”

  Shivering, Nadia pulled her stare away. She had read accounts of fall survivors. Had heard people talk about jumping, panicking, changing their mind halfway down. She of all people could appreciate those sentiments.

  “To be perfectly honest,” she said, raising the gun, “my plan at this point was suicide. I don’t think prison would be very fitting.”

  “Yeah, I was worried about this. Please don’t?”

  Nadia placed the muzzle against the side of her head. It was not so difficult as she had imagined. She would pull the trigger, and her body would fall in a long, graceful dive. Gorgeous. She wouldn’t even land on the street, no, but among the lower levels of the Structure, surely a gorgeous splat as well.

  Also fitting.

  “Don’t! Don’t do it! Listen, uh…” Tess said. “Okay, I guess I can skip the part where I determine if you’ve made suicide plans?”

  “Are you reading a guide on how to talk me down?”

  “Yes!” Tess said. “Yes, goddamn right I am! Why are you doing this?”

  “There’s nothing left for me. It’s over. Does your guide explain how spending the rest of my life in a cell would be better?”

  “I have a safe house and transport out of the city prepped for you,” Tess said. “They’ve been ready for a long time. Just in case.”

  Silly. As if she could escape, as if there was any way out. Nadia’s name was known. Her face was known. She would be hunted wherever she went.

  And Tess would be hunted with her. No, that simply would not do.

  “Won’t it be better for you if I die?” Nadia said. “You’ll have a real martyr for all your propaganda.”

  “Fuck that. Are you serious? Even if that were true, I don’t care. I want you…I want you alive, with me, fighting this fight!”

  “As much as I love your optimism,” Nadia said, not being sarcastic with the word for perhaps the first time in her life, “I don’t think this is a fight that can be won.”

  “What are you talking about? Look at everything you’ve accomplished! Look at everything we’ve accomplished!”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Nadia said, staring out over the city and beyond, to the dark waves beyond the seawalls where another city once stood.

  Perhaps that city had been rotten as well. Perhaps this was always how it was, how all societies broke down eventually. An endless cycle of suffering.

  No. Nadia shook her head. This was the end. All things had to come to an end, even cycles. One way or another.

  “It’s over. Not only for me,” Nadia said. “There’s no hope. This city, this world, all of us… I think we’re far past the point of redemption.”

  “I used to think the same thing about you.”

  It was the first thing Tess had said that actually affected Nadia. She sat up straighter, wincing at the sharp pain in her side.

  “You went from being the spoiled princess of Auktoris to being the Sapphire goddamn Shadow. If that can happen, anything can happen.”

  “The oceans won’t stop rising because you feel warm, fuzzy hope,” Nadia said. “Those seawalls will break and this city will flood, and the parasites living up here will watch the people down there drown, whether or not my mother is alive, and then what will you do?”

  “This is my home,” Tess said. “I’ll be here, fighting to make it better. Floods or not.”

  “That’s admirable.” Nadia meant every word of it.

  “Look, honestly? I get it, I really do. I don’t know if we really have any chance of fixing this. But I’m going to try. And I want you with me. I don’t mean to help fight or anything like that. I mean I don’t want to lose you.”

  Nadia felt her chin q
uiver and stomped it down mercilessly. This time she did load up her meanest sarcasm. “Very cute. Let me guess…It all started out as just another plan, but then you got in too deep? Some nonsense like that?”

  “Well…kind of, yeah,” Tess said, sheepish in a way that was utterly charming. Nadia could hear her blushing, pawing at the back of her neck with her prosthetic hand.

  “Next you’re going to tell me you fell in love.”

  “Well…actually…” Tess said, growing in strength. “I mean, it’s funny, right? I thought I loved you, back in high school, but that was hormones talking. This feels…different.”

  Nadia tried to tear that down and choked instead, feeling strangely empty. Already falling.

  “We can be real with each other—you were terrible back then,” Tess said, making Nadia’s mouth click shut. “But look at you now! The person you are now…it means so much to me to see who you’ve become. To see you trying. To know where you’ve come from and still see you fighting it.”

  This wasn’t fair. Tess was lying. She had to be lying. Anything to keep Nadia from pulling the trigger, any selfish ploy to keep her from tossing herself off the ledge. Hot tears mingled with the cold rain soaking her mask, her chest shaking with every struggling breath.

  “You’re not a bad person, Nadia.”

  That was what finally broke her, to hear those words out loud. Her hand fell, the gun pointing harmlessly into open air.

  “You’re not,” Tess said. “I know you care. I know it seems hopeless. But…please? Please don’t leave me.”

  Nadia sobbed, once, coughing and clearing her throat and trying to put herself together. “You…” She coughed again, not quite anything but a shambles. “You’re a diabolical criminal mastermind who manipulated me and betrayed my trust.”

  “Uh, well…” Tess stammered and hemmed and hawed. “Look, I am sorry, and uh, listen, I don’t know if like, diabolical is the right word exactly…”

  “I think I may be in love with you.”

  “Oh,” Tess said. “Cool. So…why don’t you get down from that ledge then?”

  “And what?” Nadia said. “Simply stroll back home?”

  “Well, yeah. How am I supposed to patch you up and have makeup sex with you if you don’t?”