by James Wake
It hurt to laugh, even if it was only a weak, rasping chuckle. Nadia’s hand shot to her side again. Still warm and wet. She couldn’t stop shaking, cold and small and in pain.
“I…I’m so sorry…” she said, low and weak and quiet. “I want to see you again. See your face one last time.”
“You can!” Tess said, loudly sniffing. “I want to see you too. You can do it. You can make it. All you have to do is get down here.”
Tired. It hurt to move, hurt to breathe. “I’m not sure I can manage that.”
“Stop that. You can do it. We can do it. I’m not giving up on you. Don’t make me come up there!”
“Hey.”
Nadia turned, wincing at the motion. Behind her on the catwalk stood none other than Officer Jackson, back in uniform, a lovely sight to Nadia’s thoroughly sore eyes. No helmet, no goggles, a dashing image indeed, the badge on her chest shining bright.
Worth it, staying alive long enough to see this. Jackson peered over the edge, a few feet from Nadia.
“Haven’t I told you not to kill yourself?” Jackson said.
Nadia ignored that, her glowing eyes fixed on the officer. “How long have you been standing there?”
Jackson peered over the edge again but yanked her eyes back instantly. “Listen, I’d really like my gun back.”
Nadia held up the revolver. She’d almost forgotten she was holding it.
“Yeah, that’s the one,” Jackson said. “If you’re gonna jump, don’t jump with it. Please?”
“Why’s this thing so special to you anyway?” Nadia said. “Save your life back in your soldier days? Something like that?”
“It was my mother’s.”
Nadia saw her own stunned blinking in the glow of her mask. “Oh.”
Jackson took a step closer. She started to climb onto the railing next to Nadia, then shook her head and thought better of it. “Nope,” she said. “Don’t know how you’re sitting like that.”
“Are you quite serious?” Nadia said. “Don’t you fly around on a hoverbike? Isn’t that your job?”
“That’s different,” Jackson said. “Kind of why I signed up for bike patrol honestly.”
“Afraid of heights,” Nadia said, in utter, amused disbelief. “And you signed up for bike patrol?”
“I did it because I was afraid. Way I see it, you face it and you deal with it.”
Something about that felt very silly to Nadia. Then again, something about it felt very far from silly. Anything but, in fact.
“You say that as though it’s easy,” she said.
“Didn’t say anything of the sort,” Jackson said, a bit of that delightful accent of hers creeping out. “Besides, ain’t nothin’ easy.”
Nadia stared at her. Jumping couldn’t have been further from her mind at this point. The gun sat forgotten in her hand. It was the first time she’d heard Jackson speak like this.
“Ain’t nothin’ too hard either,” Jackson said. “Now, miss, if you wouldn’t mind me bringin’ you down from that railing…I’d hate to see a sweet thing such as yourself go tumblin’ over.”
“Ha! Ooh…” Nadia winced. Again, worth it. Adorable, that accent.
“That doesn’t look good,” Jackson said, holding out her hand.
“It doesn’t feel very good,” Nadia said. Slowly, carefully, she turned the gun over in her hand, holding the grip out.
Jackson went to take it, but her hand kept going. Past the gun. Taking Nadia by the arm. Slow and gentle.
“Come on,” Jackson said quietly. “Come on down.”
She did. Finally. Nadia let Jackson pull her back down to the catwalk, where she collapsed into a heap in the officer’s strong arms.
“Now let’s have a look-see,” Jackson said, pulling a trauma kit from her belt. “Routine bullet wound. Didn’t hit anything vital, I think. Let me patch you up real quick and give you a dose.”
The skin on the side of her suit loosened. It hurt more, momentarily. Then the warm, numb feeling of a sticky bandage patch full of gel closed in over her wound, tucked in under the ragged hole in her suit.
“And a quick pinch,” Jackson said.
“Ow!” Nadia squeaked. Warm waves washed out from her side, much like the night Tess had medicated her. Not so groggy this time.
Jackson smiled. “This new stuff, it’ll do you good. Enough to keep you fighting anyway.”
Not cold, not anymore. Not alone. Nadia felt her senses come back, felt her mind prickling back into shape. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to arrest Evelyn Ashpool.”
Nadia saw her mask blinking in the low light again. “I knew I liked you for a reason.”
“Your friend Cheshire sure is thanking me a lot,” Jackson said. “Or sorry, should I say your girlfriend Cheshire?”
“Ha!” Nadia and Tess said in perfect unison.
“I heard that,” Jackson said, rolling her eyes, “on both sides. You two, honestly.”
They sat together in the dark rain for a few long moments. Nadia felt her strength return, felt herself float up on a tide of pain-killers. Enough to keep going. Enough to struggle to her feet, slowly and carefully and holding onto Jackson’s arm.
“Am I free to go?” she asked, offering the gun again. “I half expected you to cuff me.”
“Free to go,” Jackson said, taking the revolver once and for all, tucking it into her belt where it belonged. “I’ve got bigger marks to chase.”
“Are you quite sure?”
“You can have a head start anyway,” Jackson said, throwing her a wink. “Go on and get out of here before I change my mind.”
“What about you?”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ve got a plan. My buddies and I will keep ’em busy for you up here.”
Nadia felt the urge to grab Jackson by the vest, to take her along with. She held out her empty hand instead.
Jackson took it, skipping the shake and pulling her into a quick hug, rough and bear-like. “Get her out of here, Cheshire. You hear me?”
“Pfft, like I need to be told that,” Tess said.
“And you,” Jackson said, gently patting Nadia on the back, “don’t die.”
“Likewise.”
Chapter Twenty-Four: Free
This was it then.
Nothing left to do but run. Nadia was back inside, following waypoints in her HUD as Tess opened doors for her.
“Through there,” Tess said. “Left after, then down a shaft.”
“Hang on,” Nadia said, still limping a bit. She put an experimental hand to her side. Numb, warm and tingling and numb. Still felt a strange, displaced tear in her flesh with every step.
“I can’t see if the shaft is closed,” Tess said. “If it is closed, double back and—”
Static tore into her ears. The 3-D outline of a map in her HUD flickered and wavered, splitting into pieces of an image.
“Fuck!” was the only clear word that made it through. “Know…active scanning…move…”
Nadia came to a T-junction, a plain intersection of two bare corridors. No fancy wall displays up here in the back paths—the hidden walkways where the help, robotic and human, moved through the upper levels.
Nadia remembered this, knew every unfeeling twist and turn. At this very corner, she had crouched once as a small girl, curled up in a ball crying.
Left was not the right way.
“I said left!” rang through clearly in her ears.
“Let me drive,” Nadia said. Voices picking up behind her. Getting closer. They couldn’t have her, not now, not after all this. Not before she saw Tess one last time.
She ran through an open doorway into another drone charging room. Perhaps ran wasn’t quite the word—more like a hurried shuffle, hopping along every other step. A shaft in the floor waited for her, surrounded by black and yellow stripes with “C
aution” spelled out in severe red letters.
Not that caution was necessary at the moment. The shaft was closed, a thick metal hatch slid into place.
Only one door in, the one she had come through. Time, how much time did she have? How many precious seconds? Her eyes traced the floor, growing wide at the sight of a thin trail of red spots. Leading right to where she stood.
Voices, distorted through heavy trooper masks. Louder still.
Simple. Another ambush, anything to buy time, nothing she hadn’t done before. Nadia crouched and leapt for the ceiling…and stumbled instead, gasping. It didn’t hurt, quite. It just didn’t work, her muscles refusing to move. Odd.
A soldier in white rounded a corner out in the hallway, catching a glimpse of her before Nadia dove to the side. Trapped in this dead end in these empty hallways, dark pathways where once she ran and hid as a little girl.
No more of that. Nadia had made up her mind, nothing like the sad convictions she’d held to end it all, nothing like that desperate surrender. She would not be dying, not up here in this place.
She crouched by the doorway, ready and waiting, exactly as she’d watched Jackson do in the Omniplant. The trooper rushed through, rifle up and checking the corners, towering over her in faceless menace.
She was still fast enough to clap her palms on his chest and face before he could shoot, her mask flickering on the gleaming white of his armor. He jumped, but that was all—no shrieking collapse, no limp body crashing to the floor.
“Confirmed!” he said, shoving her against the wall with his rifle, “Backup now!” The barrel of the rifle swung over, drawing the sight right over her chest.
No time to think—Nadia flung a stun grenade at him, snatching it off her belt without even pulling the pin. It bonked off the center of his mask, smudging the red handprint where she’d tried to grab him. Only a fraction of a second bought. She kept going, throwing the last of her homemade lightning grenades, then a spare battery pack, then the empty bag off her back, something, anything.
The trooper charged her, screaming a battle cry as he pulled the trigger. Nadia slapped the barrel to the side just in time, then held it in her bloodstained hand as rounds tore holes in the wall beside her head. Piercing ringing flooded her ears.
The butt of the rifle swiped across her face. Her knees wobbled, collapsing utterly. She would have slid into a heap on the floor if the trooper hadn’t pinned her to the wall with his gun, bracing it against her throat.
“I said backup now! She’s here. She’s right here!”
Nadia beat against his arms, weak and flailing, barely able to reach his body. The man kept screaming for help, as if he needed it, the big brute, choking the breath out of her with his rifle.
Not here. Not like this. Nadia unclipped her belt—it was empty now anyway. Valery had taught her a trick for this very situation, and thankfully she’d practiced it until the motions were rote—not requiring what little thought she had left, which was swiftly being choked out of her.
She looped the belt around one of his arms, just so, her hands fast and precise. When she grabbed both ends and pulled, straightening it out and taking his elbow with it, there wasn’t much he could do to fight it. It was a simple matter of leverage. His arm flew back, the rifle loosening from her neck.
“Oof, I’m back, for now at least,” Tess said. “I’m trying to open the hatch next to you. One second. Just…aaaah! Holy shit! Run!”
It was always adorable hearing the exact moment Tess looked at her visual feed. The hatch in the floor slid open, red caution letters lighting up along its side. Nadia shoved her attacker, barely moving him, more like bouncing off him and then the wall as she made a stumbling dive for the hatch.
She didn’t quite make it, stuck crawling the last few feet as the man behind her screamed out the hatch number. The open space of the shaft rose to meet her, an empty drop swallowing her as she scrambled through headfirst.
* * *
The girl had only left her five rounds. Odd, to say the least.
Jackson slapped the cylinder back into place, tucking her mother’s revolver into her belt. Safe back home, safe at last.
The last staircase up was empty, posts abandoned.
“They found her,” Vicks said, hand to the side of his helmet. “Converging on her position.”
Jackson nodded. “That’s no good. Let’s get their attention.”
“Did you plan this with her?” Vicks said.
She almost wished she had. “No.”
“I gotta say, would have been cool if you’d said ‘yes’,” Vicks said. “And that’s from a guy she punched in the face one time.”
“Same. I mean, I’m rooting for her,” Wedge said. “I mean, at this point?”
That got a snort out of Jackson. The stairs ended at a short hallway that led out to a forest.
All three of them gasped, staring.
“Are these real?” Wedge said. “Jackson?”
“What are you asking me for?”
“Weren’t you, like, born on a farm or something?”
Her family had moved long before memory was anything but a fuzzy thing, a hint of smell here, the sound of wind through an ash tree there. Jackson slid up to an elevator door that hung open—broken—her shotgun ready.
The shaft was empty and dark, a sheer drop down at least a dozen stories.
Voices from farther in, past the forest of a lobby. “On me,” Jackson said, moving up to the shattered double doors with the last of Tactical Team Bravo backing her up.
“Mother?”
That voice sounded familiar. Jackson stepped through to see a boardroom in ruins, chunks of a long table lying here and there. A handful of heavy troopers stood at attention on either side of the room. Damn it.
Vicks was on it; he approached the nearest one. “Reinforcements here,” he started to explain.
“No reinforcements were requested.”
“No? I was called up, told to move…”
Jackson missed the rest. The head of the room, and what was waiting there for her, stole all her attention.
“Mother…mother, please!” a blond woman in a prom dress said, standing at the edge of a steaming puddle.
In the middle of that puddle, wreathed in wafting white vapors, sat an older woman in a white pantsuit. Clutching a corpse to her bosom. Stiff and brittle, the body was covered in frost, sweating, dripping fluid onto the floor.
Minus a head.
“What…the hell?” Wedge muttered.
Jackson nodded toward the door, silently ordering Wedge to post up and cover their backs. They didn’t have much time. “Evelyn Ashpool,” she said, taking a step closer to the puddle.
The head of Auktoris Global Funds did not look up, did not acknowledge her presence in any way. Jackson took another step.
“I’m placing you under arrest for…” she said, stopping short when her boot touched the puddle. It crackled and stuck in place, frost climbing up the sole. She jerked her foot back, yanked it to free it from the floor, stumbling backward a few steps away from the puddle.
That complicated things. Difficult to take a hostage if she was surrounded by…whatever this stuff was. Jackson shot a glance out the glass walls around her. Any second now.
There. Motion, in the darkness beyond the lights of the Structure. Most people wouldn’t have noticed, but Jackson had seen federal black-ops dropships before, stealth choppers bristling with guns, probably the only thing that could slip past the turrets up here. Any second now. The room lit up, Jackson’s eyes squinting away from the chopper’s spotlight.
She braced herself for shots, for glass crashing in as their backup cleaned out the room.
Nothing came.
Jackson turned to see the heavy troopers still standing. Targeting lasers shone through the glass, painting their prey. Not the Auktoris troopers, though. Vicks and Wedge each had
dots on their chest.
She looked down at a flickering dot on her own chest.
The blonde in the dress looked out into the night, eyes glazed over. “Yes, thank you,” she said. “No, that will not be necessary. Our men will take it from here.”
The spotlight went dead.
“Officer…Jackson, is it?” the blonde said. “Did you really think the federal government would oppose us? We supply most of their funding, you know.”
Jackson forced her jaw shut as she raised her shotgun. She should’ve come alone. But there was no turning back now.
The blonde shot her a sour look as she hedged at the edge of the puddle. “Mother…would you like me to have them removed?”
Evelyn Ashpool looked up, slowly, her face a stiff mask of surgery. Jackson tried to glare her down but found nothing there to face off with. An empty shell of a person.
Until she saw the gun.
Evelyn Ashpool’s eyes hardened, lighting up and piercing through the vapors. “Where,” she said, “did you get that firearm?”
Jackson glanced at the revolver on her belt. That was none of her damn business. “You are under arrest for the murder of David Ortega. And countless others.”
Evelyn tried to move one of her hands, but the skin stuck to the frozen corpse. She yanked her hand free, not seeming to even notice the pieces of her fingers that broke off and stayed stuck in place, red icicles. She pointed at Jackson’s belt with waxy stumps.
“Where did you get that gun?”
The heavy troopers were paying close attention now, shoving Vicks back and telling him to shut up.
“Come with us quietly,” Jackson said, her shotgun pointed at Evelyn. “All of you, I am placing Ms. Ashpool under arrest for murder. Do not attempt—”
“Kill them,” Evelyn said. Simply. Calmly. “Kill them all.”
One of the troopers stepped up. “Preserve the brain matter?”
Evelyn went back to embracing the corpse in her lap, already done with the situation. “None of my concern.”
Jackson should have just pulled the trigger. Should have executed the criminal sitting before her, served justice once and for all.