Dawnbreaker

by Posey, Jay

  He could of course try to Awaken any Weir that he came into contact with, but he knew the possibilities were slim. More often than not, they were too far gone. Or, if the people that had once been in control were still in there, they were too distant for him to reach. Maybe one day he’d learn what he needed to know to help more of them. Maybe the old man would even be able to help with that. But for now, the odds figured he’d have even less chance at Awakening a Weir than he would trying to fight it off.

  Broadcasting was an option; the way Lil had taught him. The way he’d turned back the tide of Weir that almost took Mama. If a Weir came too close to the entrance, maybe he could turn it away. But that too carried risk. What sent one Weir running temporarily might very well alert every other Weir in the area to his presence. They might coordinate and return in numbers. Or worse. If Asher were hooked in...

  That was too much to consider for now, and Wren spent the next shivering, aching hours mentally rehearsing different solutions to his most immediate problem. Considering options, evaluating the chances of success, the risks they bore, the likelihood that he could actually execute them.

  Noises drifted in from outside; scrapes, shuffles, moans that might have been wind or a cry from a Weir distorted by his hiding place. Rusted metal sighing. A thump. Had he heard it, or just imagined it? He held his breath, listening. Was this it?

  But no, nothing appeared. Not yet. Wren allowed himself to shift positions. He was slipping towards fear again, and to combat it he refocused his mind on tactics. He had to stay on guard. On watch. He had to stay ready. Over time, his plans took on bizarre qualities or he lost his train of thought and had trouble remembering what he’d been trying to figure out.

  He didn’t even notice when he drifted off to sleep.

  SIXTEEN

  For a moment, Cass was frozen in place as she locked eyes with Swoop. Or, rather, with the creature that had once been Swoop. There was of course no recognition in his eyes; only a cold electric blue light emanated. She should have killed him, should have done it the instant she saw him, before he’d turned. Her hesitation had doomed her, and probably Gamble and her boys. All that remained was the white-noise scream she knew would come, followed by the torrent of Weir that would surge up from below and sweep her away. Even now, though, while her mind shrieked for her to kill it, kill it now, her body refused to obey. This was Swoop. Not it. Him.

  The Weir opened its mouth. The cry that would bring destruction.

  Instead, a quiet burst, like a strong exhale blended with a rattle in the throat. If Cass had had any reason to believe it possible, she might have thought the noise almost had the tone of a question. The sound from the Weir dispelled her paralysis and heightened her awareness of the hair’s breadth between her and oblivion. It hadn’t attacked, hadn’t alerted. Yet. Before she’d even thought, Cass did something completely at odds with instinct.

  She backed away. One slow step, then another. Out of view. The Swoop-Weir made the same noise again, as Cass backpedaled back down the hall. And then she heard it move.

  It was coming. And she knew whatever confusion the creature was experiencing wouldn’t last long. It’d taken her for one its own, for the moment. But if she didn’t answer back, there was no question what its next move would be.

  She had to kill it. She would kill it, or it would kill her. There was no option. When it came to the door, she would kill it.

  But no, she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. Swoop was in there, somewhere.

  Her mind scrambled for possibilities, replayed the images from scouting the hall, searched for something, anything, that could change this deadly outcome. Open doors. A place to hide.

  And then.

  A weapon, abandoned. The dislocator. Nonlethal against human targets. Where was it?

  She looked left, then right. She remembered, it was by a door, just inside. But all the doors looked the same now. Behind her?

  There, she saw it just as Swoop’s shadow fell across the entryway at the end of the hall. Reflex took over. She dove, slid across the ground, wrapped a hand around the grip and brought it on target right as the Swoop-Weir came out of the door. It was just bringing its eyes to hers when she fired.

  The dislocator thumped twice, and the Weir made a half-strangled, half-gagging sound as it flopped backwards in a seizure. It shuddered momentarily, and then was still. Cass lay on her back, weapon still pointed at the creature, heart hammering. Three seconds. Five seconds. Silence.

  And then, somewhere from far below, an echoing cry.

  She’d woken the Weir.

  Cass scrambled to her feet and raced to the end of the hall where the Swoop-Weir lay in a heap with its legs bent awkwardly beneath it. When she reached it, an involuntary gasp escaped. The last time she’d seen Swoop, he’d been covered in blood and ichor, and torn with innumerable wounds. But here, before her, the creature was clean and seemingly mended. With its eyes closed, it was Swoop. She shook herself, stepped over the body, and then bent down and hooked it under its arms. It was completely limp in her grasp and unwieldy, but she wrestled the dead weight into position and started dragging it down the hall, back towards the team rooms. There wasn’t much time. The Weir were growing louder.

  She bypassed the first door and as she was approaching the second, she violated Gamble’s directive.

  “Gamble, open up,” she said through the secure channel. “Open up!”

  Just as Cass reached the team room door, it flew open and Gamble appeared, weapon at her shoulder and fury on her face. The range of emotions her expressions traveled through in the next two seconds was incredible to behold. Cass didn’t stop, just pushed past her into the team room.

  Gamble rolled in behind her and shut the door, and then turned on Cass, wild-eyed.

  “Swoop,” Cass said. “It’s Swoop.”

  “What? Where–” Gamble began.

  “They got him, he’s a Weir. I hit him with a dislocator. I think it woke ’em all up.”

  Gamble’s mouth dropped open and she blinked.

  Cass waited for some kind of response, some outburst or fountain of curses. Instead, Gamble licked her lips and then said, “Mouse, get away from the door.” And then a moment later, “Negative, loop back to Sky’s position, wait there.”

  Cass was too busy struggling with Swoop’s body to catch what Mouse had said, but it didn’t matter. A few seconds later, Gamble was there beside her, hoisting their unconscious once-friend.

  “Here, over here,” Gamble said, her voice low. She shepherded Cass over to the wall the farthest from the doors. They laid the Weir on the floor under the window, and both crouched down beside it.

  “You heard it?” Cass said. “Out there?”

  Gamble was looking at Swoop, but she nodded.

  “I’m sorry, Gamble. I didn’t know what to do. But I couldn’t just kill him.”

  Gamble put her hand on the top of Swoop’s head. It was impossible now to think of him as anything other than the man he’d been only the day before.

  “You should have, Cass,” she said. Her tone was even, controlled, but Cass could hear the storm of emotion behind it. “That’s exactly what you should’ve done.”

  A tear dropped from Gamble’s cheek and spattered on the floor. She reached back behind her and drew the long, curved-bladed knife from the sheath she kept at the small of her back. To Cass’s surprise, Gamble bent down and kissed Swoop’s forehead. And then she placed the tip of the knife low on his neck, right where it met the shoulder. Cass sucked in her breath, held it, afraid to let Gamble finish the motion, but more afraid of what might happen if she tried to stop it.

  The two women stayed frozen in that position for torturously long seconds, Cass’s heartbeat in her ears the only sound.

  “But,” Gamble said, finally, “I understand why you didn’t.” She didn’t take the knife from Swoop’s neck, but her shoulders slumped slightly, and with that, the will to carry out the act seemed to melt off her.

  “What do
you think the chances are that your boy could get him back?” Gamble said.

  “I don’t know, Gamble,” Cass said. “Good, I think. Wren always said it was easier with people who fought it. I don’t think I know anyone in the world who’d be better at that than Swoop.”

  “Yeah,” Gamble said. She pulled the knife back off Swoop’s neck and laid it flat across her knee. “Too bad none of us are gonna make it out of here.”

  Cass looked back at the door across the room. She couldn’t hear any sound of the Weir out there, but the team rooms had reinforced doors and walls; they weren’t quite soundproofed, but they were much closer to it than any other place in the compound.

  “You think they’re coming?” Cass asked.

  “No idea,” Gamble said. “But I think we better plan for it.” Gamble slapped the blade of her knife on her knee a couple of times and then returned it to its sheath. She then made some adjustment to her rifle. When she brought her hand back up, Cass saw she’d taken the red light off her weapon. Gamble swept the room slowly with the light, scanning for options.

  “Try to barricade?” Cass offered.

  “Not sure I want to spend my last minutes moving furniture,” Gamble answered. “Plus, two doors, not a lot of stuff to go around.” She shook her head. “If they can breach the locks on those doors, there’s not much else that’s going to slow them down. Where you think that vent goes?” She shone her light on one of the adjacent walls. There was a small vent at the bottom, towards one corner. It looked just big enough to get stuck in. “Next door?”

  “Maybe,” Cass said. “Or straight down. Not sure we could get much through there anyway. Definitely not Swoop.”

  Gamble looked back down at him, lying there like he was sleeping. “This guy. Always had a knack for showing up places he wasn’t supposed to be.”

  Cass looked at Swoop again then too, and her emotions swam. She’d only been presented bad options; had she picked the worst? “I’m sorry, Gamble. I just... When I saw who it was–”

  “Can’t undo it by talking about it, Cass. And if you’d killed him, it might’ve had the same effect anyway. At least this way we have a shot at getting him back.” Gamble glanced up at the window, still sealed off with a heavy-duty blackout shade. The windows were oddly set, raised about chest-height off the ground and running nearly all the way up to the ten-foot-high ceiling.

  “Hey,” Gamble said. “You up for something crazy?”

  “What,” Cass replied. “Like coming back to Morningside, or sneaking into an infested compound to steal some supplies?”

  “I said crazy, not stupid.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  “Grab the bags and bring ’em over here. They’re still by the door. Try to keep it quiet.”

  “All right,” Cass said. She rose and crept over to the rucksacks. Gamble had unloaded a huge quantity of supplies in the short time Cass had been gone. From the looks of it, she must’ve more or less dumped everything on the ground. It was a wonder that she’d been able to pack any of it back up, though at least it was obvious which two rucks had been repacked. The others were nowhere to be seen, presumably having been buried under the pile of gear they were leaving behind.

  Cass grabbed the two rucksacks, one in each hand, and made her way back to the far side of the room. They were still heavy, but not nearly as heavy as they’d been the last time she’d picked them up. Gamble was busy in the cage; her red light swept arcs, making shadows dance on the walls and ceiling like she’d set a fire. While she worked, she came in over the channel.

  “Mouse, you make it to Sky’s position yet?”

  “Negative, not yet,” Mouse responded. “Almost there.”

  “Well scratch that. Change of plans. I need you back at the compound.”

  “Uh, all right. Where?”

  “West side of the building, outside, below the main team room.”

  “Uh, say again,” Mouse said. “You said below it?”

  “Yep.”

  “But outside?”

  Gamble was returning from the cage, cradling a bundle in her arms. “Most definitely outside.”

  “All right, check. Be there in two.”

  “What’s going on in there, Ace?” Sky said.

  “Good news and bad,” Gamble answered. She crouched by Cass and laid the pile of gear next to Swoop. “Too much to explain, and we’re in a hurry.”

  “You in trouble?” Sky asked.

  “Yep,” Gamble said. “You got a line on the main room from where you are?”

  “Not a good one,” Sky said.

  “Go ahead and reposition,” Gamble said, as she started separating out the pile into its components. Some of it, Cass didn’t recognize. Most of it. But one thing was obvious; there was a lot of rope. “Three hundred meters out, minimum. Let me know when you’re set.”

  “Check,” answered Sky. “Moving.”

  “Mouse,” Gamble said, “how much longer?”

  “Thirty seconds,” he replied.

  “I need you for some heavy lifting,” Gamble said.

  “How heavy?”

  “Swoop heavy,” she said. There was a beat of silence over the channel. Then.

  “Say again?”

  “We found Swoop,” Gamble answered. “But they got him first. We’re bringing him out.”

  Another heavy pause; Cass could almost hear the swirl of emotion and confusion hovering there in the nothingness. Then, Mouse clicked in again.

  “Dead?”

  “Negative,” Gamble responded. “They got him, Mouse. Made him one of theirs. But we’re gonna get him back.” Cass marveled at how controlled Gamble was now. Her tone was even, all trace of emotion erased.

  Mouse said, “How you figure on– “

  “Right now I need you outside, Mouse,” Gamble said, cutting him off. She didn’t raise her voice at all, but her delivery made it clear she wasn’t interested in further discussion. “Help me get this on him,” she said to Cass. She was holding up what looked like a tangle of straps. Then Gamble spread it, and Cass understood. A harness.

  “Understood,” Mouse said a moment later.

  Cass had never used a harness like it before, didn’t know how to even begin fitting it on Swoop’s unconscious form. But Gamble was an effective, if impatient, instructor.

  “Sit him up,” Gamble said, and Cass did. “Buckle these. Waist. Then shoulders.” She pointed at the three fasteners in succession as she said it. “Loop in, around, back through here.” It took Cass a moment to figure out how to properly thread the straps through, but once she got the first, the others were no problem.

  She was just hooking in the third strap when there was a dull thud in the hall. Both women froze. Cass looked up at Gamble, but Gamble kept her focus on what she was doing, paused in mid-motion. After a few seconds of silence, Gamble wordlessly resumed fastening straps around Swoop’s thighs. Cass followed suit.

  Once the harness was secured, Cass lowered Swoop back to the ground while Gamble clipped on some kind of device to the front. Cass didn’t recognize it at first, but as Gamble finished rigging it to Swoop, Cass remembered having seen something like it before. The night they’d had to flee Morningside the first time, after Connor’s open betrayal, she’d seen the team use something similar to ascend and descend the city wall. She wasn’t quite sure how it was supposed to work now, though, with Swoop incapable of operating it himself.

  “How much you weigh?” Gamble asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Cass said. “Hundred-thirty, hundred-thirty-five pounds maybe?”

  “That’s what...” Gamble said. “Call it sixty kilos.” She picked up one of the ropes and started unwinding it from the hangman’s noose-like arrangement it’d been stored in.

  “We’re going out the window?”

  “We’re going out the window.”

  Getting out that way was going to be a trick. The windows were reinforced, and they didn’t open.

  Another thud sounded in the hall, loude
r. Closer. No way to know what was going on out there, but anything was probably bad.

  “Gamble, Mouse,” Mouse said over the channel. “I’m here.”

  “Check, stand by,” she answered. Then, to Cass, “You think you can handle both those rucks?”

  “Absolutely,” Cass said. She actually wasn’t sure, but if that’s what Gamble needed from her, she was going to do it.

  “All right, Swoop goes out first. Then you with the gear. I’ll follow.”

  “You should go out before me,” Cass said. “Just in case.”

  Gamble stopped in her preparations and held up another device that Cass didn’t recognize.

  “You know how to run one of these?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “That’s why you go,” Gamble said. She set it down and went back to playing out the rope in a coil on the floor. She glanced over her shoulder at the doors. “We’re gonna have to risk it,” she said, mostly to herself. And then to Cass, “Get that shade open.”

  Cass nodded and started to reach for the switch, then stopped. Power was still out. She was about to ask Gamble what to do but realized the time for that had passed. She was a big girl. She could solve her own problems. Cass extended the claws of her right hand, reached as high as she could, and jabbed them easily through the thick material of the blackout shade. A quick slash to the right and the lower portion of the shade peeled away. Cass caught it with her other hand and lowered it to the ground as the room flooded with daylight, dazzling. She had to shut her eyes against the onslaught that confused her senses. She tugged her veil back down over her face, tucked it into the neck of her coat. When she opened her eyes, she saw even Gamble was squinting against the light streaming in.

  The window flexiglass reinforced with a thin nanocarbon mesh; rumor was it could withstand a direct hit from an armor-penetrating shaped charge, though Cass couldn’t imagine anyone ever having the opportunity to test such a scenario. Whatever the case, they clearly weren’t going to be able to bash their way out with a piece of furniture or the butts of their weapons.