by Posey, Jay
* * *
“Dry!” Finn shouted, and he lowered his rifle to swap in a fresh magazine. jCharles spun and went to a knee, let loose with both jitters into the crowd of pursuers that were ever gaining ground. Two seconds later, Finn shouted “I’m up!” and returned to firing. “Move, Twitch, move!”
jCharles gained his feet, and took off again, but he watched over his shoulder as the Weir bounded after him. When he turned back to face forward, he’d overrun his turn by two yards. He swiveled back, saw Finn looking back at him from the alley, eyes wide, and starting back towards him. But an overeager volunteer made the decision for him by firing off another fibrasteel web that sealed off the alleyway. Finn flinched away and was lucky not to get hit.
jCharles was not so lucky.
“Run!” Finn shouted, and he jammed the barrel of his weapon through the metal mesh and fired into the Weir. “Run, man!”
jCharles let off another long burst from both pistols as he backpedaled. There was no choice now, no plan except to make it to Downtown. Behind him, he could hear the report of gunfire from above; Mouse and Able and Wick no doubt trying to cover him as best they could. It wouldn’t be enough, though.
He ran then, ran faster than he’d ever run in his life, hoping that he wouldn’t miss a step, stumble, or slip. It was just four hundred more yards to Downtown.
Three hundred.
His lungs felt like they were going to burst.
Two hundred.
The cries of the Weir were so close now he knew if he even glanced over his shoulder, that would be the end. Just ahead came the cutthrough. Through there, his friends were waiting for him. And just as he entered the alley, he felt a sting and a tearing across his shoulder blade, filled with fire. He twisted away from it in reflex, stumbled, felt himself careening forward. There was another Weir blocking his way, rushing at him. They’d cut him off.
He fought to get his balance, to bring his weapons up, but before he could, the Weir in front was upon him.
Except, it wasn’t.
It stepped up on the alley wall, ran two steps along it and leapt, claws flashing, as jCharles finally succumbed to gravity and spilled headlong to the ground, out into the open.
He flipped around on his back, brought his jitterguns up. But no Weir followed after. Hands seized him, started dragging him backwards and to his feet.
“Come on, come on!” he heard a voice say. A voice he knew. Mr 850. His friend was dragging him towards safety. And as he was regaining his footing, he caught a glimpse of his savior, emerging from the alleyway. Not a Weir. 4jack, knives in hands, spattered from war.
Together he and Mr 850 ran towards the massive concrete bunker where everyone had gathered. Or, everyone who had survived. The last stand.
* * *
How Cass recognized Swoop amidst the awful melee, she didn’t know, but when she saw him, she came back to herself, heard him calling her name.
“Cass! Cass! We gotta move!”
He and Kit both were cut up and bloody, firing their way back towards the door. And then, finally, Cass understood. Somehow, some way, they had found their way to the machine. Cass dropped low to avoid a Weir’s attempt to grab her, punched up into its solar plexus with her jittergun, squeezed off a burst, and then leapt over it as it collapsed backwards. Swoop and Kit, made it through the first door into the chamber. Cass grabbed a Weir that tried to block her off and drove it backwards into the chamber, and killed it as they fell to the floor. Swoop slammed the door shut behind her, put two more rounds into the Weir on the floor when she got up, and together all three started up the stairs.
They’d made it almost three flights when the whole building filled with thunder and shook.
* * *
Wren’s defenses practically disintegrated. Whether he was too spent from the battle, or Asher had finally figured out how to break through, Wren knew he had failed.
Pressure grew in his mind, a feeling that his own thoughts were bulging and warping, as if the thoughts of another were shoving his aside. As a last defense, Wren tried the feedback loop, just to buy himself some time, but Asher was too strong and pushed through it before he could finish getting it in place.
Asher was trying to force his way in to Wren’s mind. Wren could feel his brother’s presence stretching into his own consciousness. Everything that he’d fought for, everything he’d trained for, was coming apart now, and even as the rage and anger built within him, Wren knew it would not be enough. Asher was simply too powerful. Wren couldn’t resist him...
And in that moment, Foe’s other teaching came to mind. The warning he’d given Wren. About how fathomless the mind was. And Wren knew what to do.
He reversed. Opened himself completely and fully to Asher’s invasion, felt Asher’s consciousness sweep into his own, flooding him, elated, full of vengeance. Asher’s laugh echoed through Wren’s mind.
“Oh, Spinner,” he said, a voice in Wren’s head now. “Beautiful, stupid Spinner.”
Wren remembered what Foe had said, about a name emerging from suffering. But in those last few moments, he didn’t find any new name. Wren was what Mama had called him, and that was who he wanted to be, until the very end.
“My name is Wren,” he said. “Baptized in blood, forged in fire. Son of the dawn.”
“What are you babbling about?” Asher said. And Wren answered.
He attached to Asher’s signal, locked on, fed both back into his own.
Immediate, breathtaking agony seared Wren’s every synapse, every nerve. But he took a further step, and broadcast, multiplying the power of his output, feeding it back into itself, combined with Asher’s own power. Wren’s body convulsed with the pain, but still he pushed on.
And to turn his mind from the torment, he reached back to his oath.
Truth, my foundation.
Discipline, my shield.
Life, my charge.
Honor, my way.
Service, my strength.
Only then did Asher seem to realize his danger. And, just as Wren knew he would, his only solution was power. He raged against Wren then, trying to escape, and in doing so only added even more disruptive energy into the feedback loop.
Discipline, my shield.
Wren mastered himself completely in that moment, turned mind and body to a single purpose, without regard to cost. Asher screamed.
Service, my strength.
This was it. The final moments. Wren understood now what Three must have felt. A fulfillment of purpose. Sadness at not being able to see how life would change afterwards. Gratitude for the life he’d been allowed, however short. Wren focused on all those who had done so much to protect him. All who had given, that he might live. And here, now, he laid down his life that others could go on. Peace descended on him.
And in Asher’s last fit of explosive rage, Wren felt the cascading failure, and darkness took him.
* * *
There at the bunker, jCharles ran to join with the rest of his ragtag army. Greenmen fought side by side with Bonefolder’s thugs, citizens with improvised weapons stood amongst Lil and her well-armed warriors. Lil was singing her warsong, urging her companions to stand strong. And next to Lil, firing a pistol he hadn’t seen for at least a decade, was his wife, Mol. Emptying round after round into a monstrosity that was charging its way toward her.
It happened in slow motion. Mol fired the last round from her pistol as the behemoth reached out for her.
jCharles was too far away to do anything.
The abomination bulldozed into Mol and she fell backwards, the creature collapsing down on top of her. jCharles’s heart stopped cold.
And then the creature kept going, flipping up and over her, landing like an earthquake on its head behind her. And there, on the ground, little Mol, his wife, lay with her legs extended, having thrown the creature with expert technique.
She rolled with the motion, and twisted, got to her feet and somehow, before jCharles could close the distance, she a
lready had a fresh magazine in her gun and was firing again.
jCharles barely had time to feel relief at seeing his wife unharmed. He came up next to her, and together they fought side by side, moving together, helping those they could, as they worked their way towards the main structure.
Everywhere it was chaos. Whatever cohesion the Weir had shown at the beginning of the assault had disintegrated. Now they came from all sides, from every direction, attacking whoever was nearest. Each posed a deadly threat, but the sudden lack of coordination between them was impossible to overlook.
And as they made their way through the tangle of friend and foe, a second change came over the Weir. The first had been subtle; this was like a lightning strike. All at once, it seemed as though the Weir were breaking down. Putting up less of a fight, reacting sluggishly, looking confused, even turning on one another. It was still another hour before the collection of warriors and civilians could gain clear control of Downtown, and another two before anyone considered anything safe.
But somehow, miraculously, as dawn broke over Greenstone, the people discovered that they had weathered the storm. Somehow, after the crushing wave of Weir had crashed and receded, Greenstone was still standing.
There was no spontaneous celebration, no great collective cheer of victory. The survivors were far too exhausted, too shellshocked, and the losses too great for anyone to see much joy in it. But those loved ones that found one another still alive huddled close and held each other and wept together and laughed together. After the battle was over, and Gamble and Hollander both gave the all clear, jCharles and Mol went back to get Grace; Mol had left her with an older woman, secured safely inside the massive concrete structure that had incredibly never been breached. Apparently their daughter had slept through the whole thing.
Mol of course had promised jCharles that she and Grace would stay in the bunker until it was all over, though to hear her retell it, she insisted she’d never said anything about herself. The damage to the city was substantial, between the ravaging Weir and all the explosives they’d used to stem the tide, but as the people searched through the city, jCharles was amazed at how many citizens they’d been able to save. The Greenmen had born the heaviest blow. Hollander didn’t have much to say, and jCharles didn’t expect anything from him, given the circumstances. But each knew what it had cost the other to see their way through to the end, and whatever their relationship had been in the past deepened into a rare friendship. jCharles doubted there was anyone in Greenstone who hadn’t lost a loved one or a neighbor or a friend. But for his part, as selfish as he felt even thinking it, jCharles counted himself most blessed.
jCharles, Mol, and Grace picked their way back through the city towards their home. When they got there, jCharles wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry so he did some of each. The street was cluttered with debris and there were some scorch marks on the building across from the Samurai McGann, but otherwise the place was intact. It didn’t even look like anyone had tried to open the door.
Mol was the one who pointed out the worst of the damage.
“Oh, Twitch,” she said. “They got him.”
She pointed up at the drawing of the ronin, still red-eyed, still holding his sword aloft, defiant, victorious. There was a hole where a stray round had struck, right in the whisky bottle hanging from his belt. It was so absurd, jCharles burst out laughing.
“Couple of inches either way, and that could’ve been real nasty,” jCharles said. “Think our ol’ friend’s got a new lease on life. How about you?”
“Oh, you know, Twitch. Greenstone’s always been a place for second chances,” Mol said. And she went up on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek.
* * *
It was the sound of quiet sobbing that first brought Wren to his senses. A gradual awakening that found him first hearing, then feeling the ground beneath him. He opened his eyes to a dark sky above, dotted with stars. But though his eyes were open, and he could perceive his surroundings, he felt as though he’d gone blind. Deaf, though he could hear crying. Utterly isolated and alone, though there beside him sat another.
Wren had felt this before, though not so intensely.
He looked over at the person who lay doubled over nearby. Recognized him. Painter.
“Painter,” Wren said. And Painter started at the sound of Wren’s voice. He sat up, wild-eyed.
“Wren? Wren... you’re alive?”
“So it would seem,” Wren answered.
A choking sob erupted from Painter’s mouth, and for a time he couldn’t speak for his weeping. Wren waited patiently, too stunned, too spent to offer any consolation. When Painter finally recovered himself enough, he spoke.
“Why?” he asked. “Why didn’t you just kill me?”
“Because,” Wren said, “if I had taken your life, I couldn’t have given it back.”
Painter fell into silence again, staring blankly at Wren. He shook his head once, and then again. Finally, Wren pushed himself up to his knees, struggled up to his feet. He felt hollow, as if his insides had been burned out. Painter remained on the ground, looking up at him.
“Painter, I need you now,” Wren said. “I need you to help me get back to Greenstone.”
“I can’t,” Painter said weakly. “I can’t go there.”
“Please, Painter. I can’t find my way. I need your help.”
“You don’t need me, Wren. I saw you. I saw what you can do. There’s nothing that can hurt you now.”
“I do need you, Painter,” Wren said.
“Why?”
“Because you’re the only one here,” Wren answered. “And I’m disconnected.”
* * *
It was mid-morning before Cass got back to Greenstone with Swoop and Kit. They were all suffering multiple wounds, and whatever Swoop had done with his charge on the machine had had a much more substantial effect on the signal in the area. It’d been degraded pretty severely until just a couple of miles outside of Greenstone, and that was the first time they were able to establish firm contact with Gamble and the team. The initial reports were all fairly good, all things considered, but when Cass got to the city itself, she couldn’t believe the news could be good at all. She searched all through the city, through the rubble, amongst the wounded and the dead. It wasn’t until almost noon that she found what she was looking for.
He was standing outside the eastern gate, a little distant from the town, with two others. Cass recognized his silhouette as soon as she saw it and she wasn’t sure if her feet even touched the ground as she flew to him.
“It’s all right, Mama,” he said, as she held him tight. “It’s all right now. We did it.”
Epilogue
Painter and Wren had found Snow as they walked to Greenstone. She’d just been sitting there when they found her, like she’d been waiting for them to catch up.
“Wren?” Painter asked. “Do you think...?” And then he trailed off.
“Not anymore, Painter,” Wren said. “I’m sorry.”
Painter nodded.
“But,” Wren continued, “maybe my mom can help.”
* * *
jCharles headed back to the Samurai McGann after a long talk with Hollander. Gamble and her team had been talking about next steps, and with the loss of so many Greenmen and all the work that needed to be done, it seemed like a natural fit. It hadn’t taken much to sort it out for Gamble to move into an officer’s role, and for the rest of the crew to step in as instructors and senior Greenmen. When word went out, the number of volunteers for the Greenmen jumped to such levels, Hollander had to turn folks away. Why jCharles had even been involved in any of it was kind of a mystery. People had started treating him like his opinion mattered when it came to Official Town Business. He’d helped get the materials together to patch up the east gate until it could be properly repaired, and he’d handled some logistics of getting people temporary housing while the town got put back together. And every time he helped somebody out, it seemed like
two more people showed up. It’d been happening ever since the battle, gradually at first, but steadily growing. It was all starting to feel uncomfortably political.
When he came in to his saloon, he was surprised to find Kyth sitting at the bar, nursing a short glass of something amber. Something off the top shelf, he guessed. It was still early, not even midmorning yet. Nimble hadn’t even taken the chairs down off the tables. jCharles went over and plopped down on the stool next to Kyth. 4jack and Mr 850 had both rolled out already, returning to their normal lives, relationships refreshed and some stories to tell that no one would believe. He figured Kyth would be following suit shortly.
“Rough start to the day?” he asked, looking pointedly at the drink.
“Not at all,” she said with a smile. “Had a good, long talk with Mol.”
“Uh oh.”
“All good things, honey,” Kyth said, and she took a sip, rolled it around in her mouth. “Think we both understand each other a little better now.”
“You know she told me to call you?” jCharles asked.
“She did not mention that, no. But it makes sense. She always was the one with the good ideas.”
jCharles sat quietly with her for a bit, waiting to see if she had anything to add. Apparently she didn’t, so he switched topics. “Headed out soon?”
“Nah,” Kyth said. “Think I’m gonna stick around for a while actually. Place has character.”
“How long’s a while?”
“Oh, you know,” she answered with a wink. “A while.”
“Kyth.”
“Fine... I got a job offer, OK? I want to see if it pans out.”
“You did not,” jCharles said. “Kyth, tell me you did not agree to work for the Bonefolder.”
Kyth shrugged, flashed her smile.
“Oh don’t worry so much, Twitch. She’s about ready to retire. And she likes my ideas.”