The Sapphire Shadow

by James Wake

  One last flailing try for self-preservation won out, though. She turned and opened fire on the heavy troopers instead.

  * * *

  “Where are you right now?”

  Tess didn’t answer right away. They were still on her, hot on her heels—glimpses of suited guards and faceless Domes and heavy troopers around every corner, slowly but surely corralling her.

  “You’re outside of gun range,” Tess said. “You need to get outside now, Theseus can pick you up.”

  Ah, yes, her noble steed. He’d come so far from his humble police-bike beginnings.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Nadia said.

  “I’m right about where you left me.”

  More outraged than ever, Nadia made a few indignant, sputtering gasps “Excuse me?”

  “What?”

  “What do you mean, ‘right where I left you’?” Nadia said, picturing the banquet hall swarming with guards, entire tactical squads surrounding the area and yelling at Tess to surrender. “Why haven’t you left the building?”

  “Look, they know I’m in their systems now, and they’re actively countering. If I wasn’t connected here, I’d probably lose my link to you and—”

  “Actively countering?” Nadia said, climbing up a wall with nothing like her usual grace. Red handprints followed her, showing exactly where she’d gone. “You mean to say they’re hunting for you?”

  “I mean they definitely have orders to prioritize hunting you, but basically, yeah.”

  Nadia growled and grumbled and shook her head, barely paying mind to the squad of Domes that had just caught sight of her. What were a few more at this point? “Shouldn’t you be running? Shouldn’t you be—I don’t know—putting as many miles between yourself and…” She paused, diving off a wall to zap a Dome into submission and tossing his gun at his backup’s helmet. “Our office is full of evidence. They’re going to come after you!”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that,” Tess said. “That’s being taken care of right about…now.”

  Nadia wondered if she was supposed to be hearing or seeing something. “What do you mean?”

  “That was the sound of Functional Fashions exploding. Sorry.”

  Honestly, deep down, Nadia wasn’t surprised. She feigned it anyway, drawing on her true annoyance at losing her collection of stolen gems. It was easy to bring forth an appropriate scandalized, indignant tone as she grappled with another massive man in a dark suit, trying but failing to crack her skull open with a shock prod.

  “You had an explosive device…in our home…this whole time?”

  “Calm down. I sent Lil’ Cheshire to a safe house already.”

  Rolling her eyes, she struggled for the shock prod for a moment, grunting and straining against the guard's fist before deciding fine, he could keep it. She kicked his knee out from under him and finished with a crackling open-palm strike.

  “Besides, I thought you liked to live dangerously,” Tess said.

  “Not exactly my preferred brand of adrenaline,” Nadia groused back, but she was smiling the whole time. “Are you leaving yet?”

  “Without you? Fuck no.”

  A needle bullet caught her in the leg, but it was only one of the small, weak calibers the Domes carried and failed to pierce her suit. She gasped and hopped for a few steps but kept moving.

  “Is that…? No, no, don’t go there!” Tess said.

  “I’m running out of other options. Not exactly—oof!” A Dome tackled her, desperately trying to slide her arms into a lock. Nadia fought and squirmed and slithered, not quite able to put her palms on him.

  “You don’t want to go in there,” Tess said. “It’s crawling with security!”

  Tess said this as Nadia’s head was slammed into a large set of doors. She threw her elbows, fought to turn around and face her attacker. He shoved her against the doors, delivering a punch to the soaked-red side of her suit.

  “Aah!” Nadia gasped, feeling it draw out and rise into a growling, shrieking scream. The man tried the same punch again, meeting her numb and shaking arms instead, pushing her back into a pair of doors that had endured far too much.

  They burst open. Nadia fell backward, dragging the Dome with her as they tumbled to the floor together. Bright, wide-open space assaulted her eyes. She blinked as the goggles corrected, peals of static crackling through her visuals as he hurled his fist into her face.

  He was on top of her, trying to pin her, striking her again and again. Foolish. Nadia finally zapped him, feeling him shudder and go limp, collapsing, deadweight holding her down. She shoved his body off her and struggled to her feet, seeing shocked faces all around her—clean and gorgeous, with perfect teeth, well-tailored suits, and glittering dresses—and small drones flittering around to take in all the commotion.

  Someone screamed. Her entourage of Domes was already pouring out of the doors behind her. The banquet hall turned into a stampede, a mad mass of bodies rushing away from Nadia, all knocking into the ones too dumbfounded or curious to move.

  “Nonlethal! Civilians in play!” a guard yelled from behind her. “Nonlethal only!”

  “Where are you?” Nadia said, holding her side and running at a limping shuffle again.

  “Goddamn it. Of course you had to crash the party,” Tess said. “I love you and I hate you. So much.”

  “If you can’t handle me at my worst…” Nadia said.

  A fleeing man in front of her attempted to run through one of the robot waiters, sending himself and the bot to the floor, hors d'oeuvres scattering everywhere.

  “Ugh, don’t say that,” Tess said. “Problematic, to say the least. Don’t get me wrong—you’re still my fave…”

  Scant steps ahead of her pursuers, Nadia missed a few words. A partygoer tried to block her path, drawing a shining chrome handgun from his tuxedo jacket.

  “But like, a problematic fave, for sure,” Tess finished.

  He went down fast, barely a hindrance—the lightest tap of her glove, and he collapsed, dropping the gun. It was enough to slow her down, a step or two, enough for a Dome to swing a prod into the back of her knee and bog her down in another wrestling scrap on the floor.

  “Oof, ouch! No, don’t—ugh, be careful!” Tess said.

  No time, not with so many Domes and guards trying to mob her. Nadia tried to crawl out of his grasp, felt him yank her back, then wrapped a hand around his neck and blasted thousands of volts directly into his vocal cords, making his scream crack and waver.

  “Sorry. Should I shut up?” Tess said, “I don’t want to distract you.”

  “Don’t stop!” Nadia said, sucking in ragged, desperate breaths as she climbed back to her feet. “I need your voice!”

  “Uh, okay, uh…” Tess said. “Ugh, they’re right on top of you. That’s it. I’m gonna come and try to help.”

  “No!” Nadia said, crashing through a table with a suited guard on top of her. “They’ll know your face!”

  “You want me to just keep watching while you get the shit kicked out of you?”

  “Yes!” she yelled, successfully reversing, rolling over and pinning the guard to the floor. A Dome nearby fired a stun gun at her, the wires passing over Nadia’s head as she pressed herself against the man she was choking and shocking into the ground.

  Instead they hit a woman in a gorgeous ball gown to her side, her elaborate jewelry throwing sparks as she collapsed into a heap.

  “Ha!” Tess said, “Good to see excessive force being used on a member of the upper class. For once.”

  “Hardly…excessive…” Nadia said, throwing another Dome off her. Low-battery alarms blared in her HUD, red warning banners blinking around the edges.

  Too many. Too close. Nadia tried to run again, but a suit clamped his grip around her wrist. The countermeasures there sprang to life, nestled needles like spider legs snapping out, mangling the man’s hand. />
  Nadia was yanked backward—the countermeasures were supposed to snap back into place, retracting out of her attacker’s ruined hand. Instead the needles jittered and clenched against his flesh—tangled, still bent from Jackson’s cuffs.

  “Aaaaaaaahhh! Oh, God. Fuck. Shit. Aaaaaaugggh!” he screamed, blood pouring down his arm.

  Similar sentiments rang out in Nadia’s head as she pulled against his arm, trying to free herself. Others caught up to them, striking blows on her chest and shoulders, one of them hammering her into a headlock. Her free hand flailed around, shocking anything it could touch.

  There was an attachment point for the gloves, a nearly invisible seam near Nadia’s elbow. With one final, grunting scream and a pull, she braced a foot against the man’s leg and sent herself sailing backward, dragging several Domes with her. Her glove peeled off, spikes still stuck in the man’s hand as he wailed on.

  Still locked with an arm around her neck from behind. She squirmed and fought, barely keeping her balance, feeling her mask being pulled tightly against the seam of her collar.

  “Watch the mask!” Tess said. “Careful with the mask!”

  A boot stomped into her gut, hands grasping at her flailing arms. She felt it being pulled, felt the seam barely holding on. Easy to sink down on her knees, harder not to collapse all the way—her head slipped out of the lock, leaving her mask behind.

  Cool air against her damp and swollen face, suddenly on fire. Her eyes shrank away, blinking without the goggles to shield them. For one gasping, glorious moment, everything stopped.

  She was surrounded, yes. Beyond the armed men, slack-jawed faces that hadn’t yet fled gawked and pointed and murmured, eyes and glasses recording everything. A swarm of drones hovered above, their cameras clicking hundreds of times a second.

  No doubt her face was being plastered all over every news feed in the city. Surely Tess would…

  Tess.

  Her friend, her partner. Her lover. Tess was there, so close yet miles away, behind the armed men, moving at the edges of the crowd. Their eyes met, and for one perfect instant, Nadia stared. Just stared. Standing there, forgetting even to gasp for breath, staring at the one thing she had left in the world.

  Her Tess.

  One of the suited guards broke the moment, charging at her. Rude. Indescribably rude. Nadia screamed and threw her fist through his knee. The rest followed him, about to dogpile her into oblivion.

  Part of the drone swarm above her broke and attacked, hummingbird-like robots kamikaze diving into the faces of every Auktoris goon in the room. Nadia found herself at the center of a group of men cursing and swatting at their heads, distracted just long enough. She dashed through and between them, slipping through and free again, free to run, free to keep fighting, running on the adrenaline fumes that coursed through every pounding beat.

  She dashed up a nearby wall—tried to at least. Her ungloved hand failed to stick, her fingernails peeling off like wet paper while she clawed for purchase. With gritted teeth she climbed anyway—awkward one-armed hops up.

  “That was lovely,” she said, “with the drones. Well done.”

  No response. Her earpieces had been ripped out with her mask, nothing left to put Tess’s voice in her ears. She faltered, slipping and sliding down a few feet before catching herself, then scrambling up and away.

  Bullet holes popped into the wall above her.

  “I said nonlethal!” someone below screamed.

  More bullet holes, creeping up behind her. Harder and harder to climb, the suit growing heavier with every passing moment. She crested the top and rolled onto a balcony above the banquet floor.

  Heavy—the fibers in the suit were helping less, lazily pulling a fraction of a second after every motion. Surely her mask would be blaring alarms at her right now, her blue eyes blinking red.

  She looked up, forcing herself to a crawl and then onto her knees and then shuffling along. A large, open archway waited ahead, the dull orange nighttime glow of the sky beckoning her.

  Alone. All alone up here, her pursuers surely rushing up the stairs. Too late.

  Nadia pushed herself outside, past parked hoverbikes and landed choppers, past anything like pain; nothing left in her lungs but numb, burning madness. She wouldn’t stop, couldn’t stop, and all the screaming voices behind her didn’t make a bit of difference.

  Right up to the edge of the platform. Nadia didn’t slow down, didn’t hesitate. She closed her eyes as she jumped. More like collapsed and fell, really, rain stinging her face as she plunged, falling through open air down the side of the Structure.

  Something hard broke her fall, hovering down as it caught her on the saddle. A sleek black hoverbike with Theseus scrawled down the side in florid cursive hit the brakes on its own, slowing their descent until it was levitating in place.

  Nadia coughed and retched, shakily pulling herself from being flopped over the thing to properly sitting on it. The throttle buzzed in her hand. The engine purred between her legs, eager and ready.

  Sirens clicked on above her. Flashing lights.

  One last race then. So much more fitting than falling.

  * * *

  “Loading!” Jackson screamed. She crouched low behind the scraps of the boardroom table, slamming shells into her shotgun.

  “Jesus, die already!” Wedge said next to her, blindly firing over the top of their cover. “These guys won’t go down!”

  Fuckers and their heavy armor. Jackson loaded the last of her spare rounds. She looked up to see Vicks in the lobby, on the other side of what remained of the doors, huddled close to a wall. He leaned out to take a shot, then jerked back as bullets tore the wall to pieces where he had stood.

  “Jackson?” he said.

  “Still alive!”

  “Good!” he yelled back, still faceless behind his Dome helmet. “If we make it out of this, I swear I’m gonna kill you!”

  “Yeah, remind me why we followed you up here?” Wedge said.

  “Because…” Jackson said, wincing as bullets ripped holes in their cover, “you two are both…” She growled, standing up enough to rip off a few shots. “…great cops, damn it!”

  She knocked a trooper off his feet and he stayed down, finally. The remaining soldiers had formed a wall around their matriarch. The solid slugs in Jackson’s shotgun were only barely enough to pierce their armor, it turned out, liable to glance off if the angle was anything but dead on.

  She counted six heavily armored troopers left. None close enough to swipe a gun from.

  Her shotgun barked one last time, the chamber popping open and staying there. Five bullets in her mother’s gun. Jackson shook her head as she drew the revolver from her belt. Five whole bullets.

  Best make them count then. She stepped out to the side, swinging the pistol out to do its deadly work…and felt her arm collapse under the weight.

  “Agh!” Her limbs went stiff and flopped to nothing, the fibers buried in her muscles seizing up, no control, no strength. Jackson fell out to the side of their chunk of table, fighting to stay on her knees.

  “Jackson?”

  She looked up, at Vicks’s faceless helmet. If she could have moved, could have screamed, she would have told him No, don’t, stay back.

  It wouldn’t have made a difference. He dashed out to her, no delay, no hesitation, jumping out of cover to shove her back to safety behind the table, taking a hail of bullets meant for her. Jackson released a long, breathless wail as his body danced and crashed to the floor.

  Andy?, she tried to say, still wracked with pain.

  He didn’t move.

  Her vision blurred, trying and trying to call out his name and hearing nothing but croaking gasps coming out of her mouth.

  “Andy?” It was Wedge’s voice. She shrieked something incoherent as she sprayed more fire over the table, screaming obscenities with every shot.

  Vi
cks. Dead. Just like that. Another one gone. Jackson stared at his body, at poor dead Andrew Vicks. She shouted at her own goddamn limbs to move. Please, for God’s sake, if there ever was a time for it, move.

  “Jackson?” Wedge yelled, pounding her shoulder. “You hit? Are you hit?”

  The tip of her boot was sticking out from behind the table. A bullet tore it off, singeing some skin off her toes. She still managed only a weak kick back.

  “Behind!” Wedge said, firing her gun into the lobby. Too late. They had taken too long and were trapped now, attacked from both sides.

  Well and truly fucked.

  Move. Move, damn it.

  Jackson forced her trembling arm to bend, feeling something tear along the bones. Just a few seconds; a few gasping, screaming seconds. Fight through it. Fight, Move…

  Wedge went down at her side, going stiff on her feet before collapsing into a pile. Shit. Jackson managed to lean over enough to peer into the lobby. Another heavy trooper stood in the open, letting his armor take the hits. This one, strangely, had a bloody handprint on his helmet.

  Fuckers, all of them. Screaming in pain, Jackson swung her gun over, ending him with one lucky shot. His head flew to pieces, painting the wall behind him bright red.

  Move. Jackson fought to her feet, already feeling it pass, feeling her muscles unclench, weak and trembling but usable. Wedge was alive—gurgling and choking on blood from a gushing neck wound, but alive.

  “Stay with me!” Jackson said. She grabbed her last friend by the collar and dragged her, ducking under bullets as she moved into the lobby. “Keep breathing!”

  Wedge fired a few shots as they went, popping her empty mag out. She tried but failed to replace it, bumping a fresh magazine up against her gun but not quite slamming it home.

  Jackson leaned her against the wall, trying to think, trying to breathe. Four shots left. A trooper rifle behind her. Risky to try for it, but…

  Wedge finally managed to load her weapon and reached for the action with shaking hands. Their eyes met, Wedge’s quickly going blank behind her goggles.