by JM Guillen
“Dammit!” I’d thrown a couple of them by dodging through the increasingly maze-like stones, but the two remaining cut left and swerved in front of me, obviously having found a convenient shortcut.
“Hey there!” The passenger pointed his hefty weapon at me even as his friend drove through a small gulley, bouncing them around. As a result, the man’s gunfire sprayed wildly.
I veered into a sharp left and punched the throttle.
“[ʮ lsɓʎʚʨʕ!!]” Sil screamed, her own weapon barking rapid-fire as she pulled up next to me. I had to admit, Delacruz had been square regarding ‘passing information’ to the young woman.
Hell, she drove better than I did.
Not that I would ever tell Sofia that.
Still, even with Sil driving and shooting, we couldn’t do this forever. The Sadhana operatives swarmed us, and we only had so many bullets and so much gas.
We needed to level the playing field.
I gave it a long moment of thought before I pieced together my next genius plan.
“I have some great news.” I didn’t look at Delacruz as I spoke, instead focusing on not slamming us into one of the stone outcroppings.
“Did you finally finish the packet?” When I did glance down at her, she smiled through her obvious pain.
I had to love her sense of humor.
“No, I don’t think I’ll do that.” I took a hard right and dodged beneath a stone archway just as one of the Sadhana operatives began shredding the ground behind us. “I think I’ve figured out how to save us all.”
“I told you, gringo.” She chuckled. “You’re not here to save me from the bad guys.”
“I need you to pass Sil some instructions. It would also help, as I plot to save our asses, if you didn’t give me too much shit about it.”
“Oh, I forgot they made you Alpha-on-site.” She grunted as I hit a small ditch, and the entire vehicle lurched jarringly upward. “What can I tell her for you, Mike?”
“I think I can pick off a lot of these guys if I stay still while they drive around like maniacs.” I took a hard right turn, barreling straight for one of the Sadhana guys, much like a maniac.
He tried to get his weapon ready, but Sil pulled up next to me and fired.
Damn, she had skills.
I had tossed my own weapon in back the moment I helped Delacruz into the passenger seat, and now I regretted it.
“Um, I don’t suggest stopping.” She groaned and held her arm as if every little movement stabbed her with needles. “I think if you do, this will be over before it starts.”
“Well, that’s the thing. I think that we need to stop long enough for Sil to hop over here and take the wheel.” I veered left hard and took the FAV along a small ravine. “I’m going to hop out and find some high ground. As long as Sil stays within range of my weapon, I should be able to pick them off.”
“Has anyone else ever discussed your tendency to go completely fucking loco with you?” She groaned as the FAV bounced over a large stone. “Honestly, Bishop, I don’t know how you’ve made it this far.”
“We need to stop, preferably close to one another.” I craned my neck around, making certain I could still see Sil.
Less than seven meters behind us, Sil had opened fire, pinning down a couple of Sadhana assholes with some well-placed suppressive shots.
Good.
“Hold on.” Delacruz peered around blearily. “So you’re saying that the point is that she should drive, and you should run around and shoot people on foot?”
Well, no. Not really. However, the fact remained that I didn’t have the time or means to attempt to convince her of my true half-cocked scheme.
“All I need you to communicate to Sil the Barbarian is that I need her to drive.” I took a hard left and dashed through a shallow puddle of boiling, sulfuric water. I winced with concern that some of it might splash on us.
It didn’t at least from what I could tell.
“After that, I’d like her to remain close to wherever I hole up. It will help if the bad guys are near enough for me to shoot.”
“So you think—?” Delacruz gasped and clutched my shoulder.
“I think we don’t have many choices.”
One of the Sadhana FAVs veered straight for us, perhaps intending to flip our vehicle. Fortunately, Sil managed to squeeze off a few rounds, and they pulled away.
“We don’t have to stop to let her on.” Delacruz shifted, twisting and I remembered the small cargo rack behind our seats. “She is a master of temporal axioms. I have no doubt that she can teleport straight here, even while we’re moving.”
“Whatever it takes!” I took a wide curve and dipped the FAV through a short tunnel in the rocks. “I don’t care if she jaunts over here while she’s still driving, but I need to get out. I know I can pick a few off if I can just find some good cover.”
“Fine.” She practically spat the word. “I don’t agree, but fine.”
I shook my head, knowing I hadn’t truly won. I had lived in the world long enough to understand what most women meant by the word fine.
That was okay. I didn’t need her to agree with my plan; I just needed Sil to take over the wheel. If I could just get secure, I would even the odds and take out a few of our pursuers.
I just had to be able to see them.
49
We took a couple of hard turns and skated between two groves of drooping fungus trees. I liked the look of the next straightaway, fairly wide with no assholes lurking about.
“That’s it.” I pointed ahead.
“I’m giving her a ten count.” Delacruz practically wheezed. “We discussed trying to abandon her FAV so that we could slam it into one of them, but we might need the vehicle later. So she will park.”
“Understood.”
I might have been a touch distracted. Three Sadhana vehicles, suddenly close enough to clean my tailpipe, continually shot at us. Nerve-racking enough, obviously, but the fact that they continually missed made me truly worried.
“No way their aim is this bad,” I muttered. “Not even while Tokyo-drifting around the murder-jungle.”
Sadhana wanted Delacruz alive, wanted her badly enough that they weren’t willing to risk damaging their target.
With some idea of what Sil had gone through while in their tender care, I wouldn’t wish that on a Vyriim-ridden Drażeri, much less Delacruz.
A thunderstorm of colorless, eldritch light and fire exploded into being as the fierce bald woman appeared on the back of our FAV.
Sil clung to the wire-rack bed, her weapon slung over her shoulder, large eyes gone wild.
The split-second addition of weight threw me off as I took a hard right, and I worried that we might flip. Heroically, I managed to get all four wheels back on the ground.
“Hey, Sil!” I glanced over my shoulder and caught a glimpse of her toothy smile.
“[ɣɨɼʌʙʖʆ!]” She threw her head back in a wild, keening laugh. “Bitch-op!”
Sofia had called it; Sil’s accuracy was dead on. I couldn’t imagine how Sadhana had managed to capture her in the first place or how her people had not completely overrun them long before they had a foothold here.
“All right, Mike, what’s the next play?” Delacruz twisted again, likely she peered behind us to gauge how far back the other FAVs were.
“Still hurts?” I growled.
“’M fine.” She gave me a clipped, agonized reply. “Got this.”
Sil screamed at the other FAVs. As if we needed to challenge them.
“The next play depends upon if you think we should stop.”
“I honestly don’t think we should. I’m a little afraid of your genius plan anyway, but if we stop, we’re caught.”
“The Adept will let me take a diving roll out of here, no problem.”
Sil opened fire behind us.
I continued, “If Sil could use her considerable skills to teleport into my place.”
“We’d need to be on a strai
ghtaway.” Delacruz pulled herself to one side in an attempt to get a good visual. “Which doesn’t mean I think it’s smart. That’s just how it has to go down.”
“Copy that.” I took a left, veering away from an FAV rudely popping up approximately twenty meters in front of us and forcing it to barrel over a small rise.
It legitimately took me a moment to realize that I knew the scumbag in the passenger seat. Large and broad shouldered, his body promised the kind of strength that could only be constructed in a prison yard, twenty years of lifting iron plates. From here, I couldn’t see the three scars that decorated the side of his face, but I knew they were there.
“The Padre.” I ground my teeth.
“Hey there, sweetheart!” he called to Delacruz as I gunned the FAV and spun past a small group of fungal willows. “Didja miss me? Didja think Daddy wasn’t coming home?”
Delacruz seethed, but before she could retort or even turn to face him, Sil laid down sheets of brilliant automatic fire toward the Padre’s vehicle.
I heard his booming laughter as they veered off.
“Fucking pendejo.” Delacruz turned to me, her voice tight. “If you’re going to go, you fucking kill that one, comprende?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I took an abrupt right turn, followed by a wildly rambunctious left. “I see a straight path ahead. Do you want to give another ten count?”
“Copy that.” I didn’t care for the faintness of her voice. “Just let us know when the stupid is about to start.”
“Right up there.” I gestured to an archway of stone. It seemed like it would be simple enough to climb. “I’m going to leap out just after we pass beneath it.” I toggled the Adept, soothed by the sparkling tingle of grace and speed that immediately trickled along my limbs.
“Fucking ridiculous.” She shook her head. “You don’t have to do this to impress me, you know.”
“I know.” I stared intently ahead, trying to gauge distance. “You’re still impressed from before.”
I would only have a moment. Our pursuers were a little behind us now, thanks to all of my fancy, amazing driving. That wouldn’t last, however, so I needed to make this count.
“My AK is in the back.” I glanced to Delacruz. “Just in case you need it.”
“Wait.” Confusion swept across her face as she tried to track what I might mean. “If you’re not taking your rifle, how are you going to—?”
Channeling my inner Blake Runner, I winked at her and dove out of the FAV.
The Adept didn’t let me down. I tumbled through the air, agile and graceful from the moment I leapt. The stony ground didn’t concern me much. The packet had full understanding of exactly how to account for my momentum, weight, and speed.
I hit, rolled, and came up in a crouch that let me watch my allies speed away.
Yet again, Sil’s temporal skill amazed me. By the time I’d hit the ground, she sat behind the wheel of the FAV slewing it into a hard turn to avoid an asshole that had cut around the far side.
I didn’t have much time to crouch and watch them. Using every scrap of grace that the Adept would lend me, I scrambled up the side of the stone arch.
The dark and jagged stone jutted far steeper than I’d thought, so took me a moment longer than I had intended. However, once at the top, I realized that it stood taller than I had believed as well.
I had a complete view of the valley.
For the moment I saw only five of the enemy FAVs, not a single one in motion. Stationed at various crooked intersections of the segments of stone, their engines puffed idly.
They didn’t even try to give chase. A couple of the guys had even taken a moment to stop and smoke, unconcerned that a Facility Asset barreled around in one of their vehicles.
“The fuck you say!” I peered around, wondering if the remaining two were the only ones actually giving chase.
Sil barreled into view, and I watched as she made a wrong turn, bringing her quite close to one of the idling FAVs.
The moment she came into visual, the Sadhana gorillas pulled the vehicle forward and lurched over a small rise past some of the fungal trees.
One of them laughed and cat called at her as he fired. Immediately, she turned away from them, hit the gas, and took a sharp left turn. Her pursuers stopped, reversed back into position, and picked up their radio.
They weren’t giving chase at all.
The Sadhana operatives had us trapped in the labyrinthine valley, and they held all the key positions.
“Don’t need to tear all around chasing us, do you?”
I ground my teeth as I realized the truth of the situation. Long since familiar with this area, they only needed to keep us here until either our FAV ran out of gas or Delacruz couldn’t take the agony anymore—because of course they knew about whatever bullshit caused Delacruz such pain. They planned to wait us out. They held all of the cards, and they fucking knew it.
Fortunately, I would level the playing fiel—“No, something with cards.” I frowned…
Fortunately, I had an ace up my sleeve. “Better.” I grinned.
I took a moment to make certain that I had a grip on where each of the assholes had holed up. I couldn’t see all seven dune buggies, but I supposed that five would be more than enough for the mischief I had in mind.
I chose my first target, the rail furthest from me. If this little party ended up being noisy, I didn’t want it to veer anywhere near my little hidey-hole.
Clicking my optics on and configuring for distance, I saw the men in my chosen FAV as if they sat right in front of me.
For a moment, I worried that my plan wouldn’t work. After all, I had a limited grasp on Sadhana technology. What if the device had a distance limit? Or what if its creators knew to only use the device once every few days?
“I can’t wait to hear what Rachel will say about this.” I shook my head, certain I’d give myself brain cancer soon enough.
Looking across the small valley of labyrinthine stones, I let those thoughts go. They didn’t help. I focused upon the FAV, decided on the passenger, and pressed the button on my wrist.
CLICK. A moment of spinning disorientation gripped me.
“—can’t begin to guess what he thinks he’s gonna do with her.” The man sitting next to me spoke with an eastern European accent and chewed on a toothpick. “She’s Facility. It’s not like he can take her to Thorne.”
“Right.” I nodded at the man, looking toward the archway where Michael Bishop lay, propped up against the stone. From here, the jerk simply looked like a grey-ish spot against the rock.
“If you ask me, the fact that Facility knows about this place means it’s time to move on. There are other opportunities, and most of them don’t come with silent gentleman knocking at your door.”
I nodded as I listened, going over my options. Each of us had a Calico M960, and I could easily spin it toward him and fill his face with a couple of rounds.
Quick. Easy.
But other Sadhana goons obviously knew where Delacruz and Sil were. If the ladies weren’t near us, all the weapon fire would raise questions.
I couldn’t just give myself away.
The soldier that I had spookily possessed had more than just the rifle. There were two grenades, honest-to-goodness explosives rather than dampening grenades, on his bandolier, as well as an extra hundred round ammunition clip for the Calico. I noted with some disappointment that he didn’t have a knife on his belt, as the other man had. That would have made this simple.
Well, I assumed it would. The possibility existed that, the moment I saw the man’s blood, I’d begin drinking it while rambling about the sweetness of pain. Then, obviously, I would lapse into visions of foreboding, bloody ecstasies.
As one does.
“Is that her?” He leaned forward, eager.
I heard the engine of our rail, but with the scattered outcrops and ravines all around us, I couldn’t determine the direction of the sound.
“There.” I acte
d as if I heard it and gripped my Calico tightly. It didn’t seem that I had a ‘quiet’ option here, unless I strangled him…
Messy it was, then.
“I don’t—” He turned his head in the direction I had indicated.
The moment that he did, I pulled my trigger and filled him with a brief burst of automatic fire. The man’s blood splattered over me, and I made a specific point to pay it no mind.
Breathe, Bishop. That distant hunger swam in my mind.
“What’s happening over there?” I recognized the voice, even over the walkie-talkie. The Padre had decided to check on our situation.
“Wildlife got a bit friendly.” I hoped that would be enough. Just for the benefit of the doubt, I added, “One of those fucking bat things.”
“Out this far?” The Padre’s voice held incredulity but not disbelief. “Well, watch it. That bitch is hiding somewhere.”
“Copy that. We’ll watch for her.”
I released the button on the walkie-talkie and contemplated my next move.
“Huh.” I scratched my head with fingers like sausages. I hadn’t actually thought this far forward.
Now that I had, I realized I had a unique problem: So far, every time I had taken the liberty of driving a Sadhana operative, one of my allies had been there to brutally murder me afterward. Not that I had enjoyed dying, but it did tidy things up neatly.
Being alone complicated things.
I could turn the Calico on myself and eat a bullet, I supposed, but if I did that, my secrecy ended. The Padre would do another check-in, and when no one answered, he would get suspicious.
On the other hand, if I decided to slip back into the incredibly sexy body of Michael Bishop, this asshole would realize that he sat next to his dead buddy and probably go apeshit.
Perhaps, just this once, I hadn’t thought things through.
Stepping out of the FAV, I walked around it and grabbed the vest of my toothpick-chewing buddy. I pulled him out of the driver’s seat and quickly went through his pockets to see if he had anything interesting.
“Cigarettes?” I couldn’t help but grin. “Why the fuck were you chewing a toothpick?”