by Jeremy Flagg
“Murdock,” she yelled back, “you can kiss my ass.”
Twenty-Seven’s eyes went wide. She hadn’t known Jasmine for long, but realized bravado wasn’t in the woman’s arsenal of emotions. Jasmine meant what she said, almost to a fault. If she spoke, it was because she had something to add to the conversation. Goading the men, an escape plan? Maybe she intended to have them pull over and open up the back. Twenty-Seven tried to read her face, but it remained blank.
The metal viewing door slid shut and they were left alone. “Murdock knows I’d kick his ass.”
Had she known the woman after all? Was this the real Jasmine, and the woman running refugees across the border a cover? The men… the thought trailed off. Jasmine, at least in front of these men, wasn’t a woman, she was one of the guys. More than that, Jasmine, locked up in the back of a convoy taking them back to a military base, was a Marine, an AWOL Marine.
“They yours?” Twenty-Seven asked.
Jasmine’s restraints were even beefier than her own. Both feet were locked into metal boots and her hands were fastened down at her sides in large silver cylinders. A prisoner of war, Jasmine had a look of peace on her face.
“Once,” she replied.
“Now?” Twenty-Seven refused to let the woman dodge the question. Arial lay in a tube toward the rear of the vehicle. Chemicals steadily pumped into the chamber, sedating the mentalist, preventing her from waking, let alone accessing her powers. Ariel stirred in her sleep, head bobbing back and forth.
“Now? I’m a hostage. They’re going to take me to one of the most intimidating men I’ve ever met. There’s a good chance they’ll put a bullet between my eyes.”
Twenty-Seven found the words disturbing, but not as much as Jasmine's affect. She spoke in a low voice, a tone that left no room for argument. Twenty-Seven barely recognized the woman across from her. Somehow, the presence of Jasmine's former teammates wiped away the spark, the iron will she’d grown to know.
Twenty-Seven leaned back. Another bump caused her head to smack against the wall. Her eyes stayed fixed at the ceiling. If she closed them, she’d be Samantha again, a scared woman being led to the Outlands to die. Her gaze focused on the single dim light fixture in the roof, willing away a dead woman’s fearful grip.
“My name was Samantha,” she said aloud. “I killed my…” she paused. “I killed Samantha’s husband. I survived court. I survived prison. I survived a trip in a convoy much like this one. I was scared.” Twenty-Seven let out a humorless laugh. “I was so scared. I thought my entire life was over. How could a trophy wife survive in an irradiated wasteland?”
Jasmine didn’t make a sound. Twenty-Seven listened to the roaring of the tires die down as the truck slowed to make a turn. They had been secured before they sped away from the pier. The truck idled for nearly an hour before it drove away. She assumed the Paladins had been hiding, waiting for a chance to make their exit from the city.
“I know how to bake. I was good at, it too. Fresh bread, pies, cookies. Samantha’s husband had a sweet tooth and to keep him happy she always had something cooking. I knew how to clip coupons and shop for a bargain. You know, that first night in the Outlands I scavenged. I survived. It was amazing.”
“Amazing?” Jasmine asked, her brow scrunching up.
“Vanessa called me Twenty-Seven. The Angel of the Outlands said my name when I was too scared to speak it myself. I thought for a long time she saved me. Vanessa probably kept me from being raped or worse. I’ll never be able to repay her, but she didn’t save me.
"I found a lighter in the glove box of a pickup truck. It had run out of fuel years before, but there was still some in a little bottle. It doesn’t sound like much, but I found it. I found a way to stay warm, heat food. I wasn’t ready to fashion a spear and go hunting, but…”
“You found a new identity,” Jasmine said, leaning her head back, eyes closed.
“It’s funny.” Twenty-Seven chuckled at herself. “I always meant to do something symbolic, write my name on a paper and burn it or something.”
“Got too busy being hunted down by a madman? Saving the world? Stopping the genocide of people who rolled snake eyes against fate? Yeah”—the curl of Jasmine’s lip almost passed for a grin—“burning some paper would have been icing on the cake.”
“Says the woman who used to hunt her kind to keep from having a bomb go off and smearing her gray matter.”
Jasmine’s face snapped back to her usual dispassionate expression. Twenty-Seven gave a slight nod. “Or so I’ve heard.”
The truck lurched again. Men in the front yelled at each other the way men do when there’s a friendly disagreement. The Marines, Jasmine’s Marines, were a finely-honed fighting unit. Twenty-Seven found their level of confidence unfounded. If she freed her arm, that’s all it would take, and she’d be able to free them. Five men, or had it been six? Either way, she might take a few punches, but she’d be able to save them.
“I joined the military because of my dad," Jasmine said a subtle anger slipping into her posture. "The man had been a decorated officer in the National Defense Army of Mexico. He met my mom while stationed in California. I was their half-breed baby. Dad retired after a heart attack. But even years afterwards, I can still remember him in his study, the medals, the flags. The room dripped with pride. I’m sure he rolled over in his grave when I got accepted into the military. He wanted nothing but the stars for his little girl.”
“Did it for him?”
Jasmine shook her head. “I told myself that for years. I loved Papá, but I joined from fear. Mom had passed a few years before and I didn’t know what was going to happen. The only time I felt safe as a child was when he told me how he served his country. I joined because I was scared.”
“Now?”
Twenty-Seven ignored the tears rolling down the woman’s cheeks. Before, getting Jasmine to talk about her past had always ended in the woman disengaging from the conversation. For the longest time, Twenty-Seven believed the woman hadn’t existed before their meeting in a hotel surrounded by gunfire and killer robots.
“I stopped being scared the moment Dwayne’s lightning fried the explosives in my head. I stopped being a victim, stopped hiding behind my sense of duty.” Jasmine let out a staggered sigh, seeming to fight back the urge to sniffle.
“I held a dead girl in my arms. Rebecca. Rebecca was her name. I signed my death warrant the moment I let her go free. Eleanor made me—”
“Bullshit,” Twenty-Seven said. “Eleanor didn’t make us do shit.”
“Her letter—”
“Bullshit,” Twenty-Seven said again. “She didn’t tell me to kill my husband. She didn’t force me to pull the trigger. Eleanor Valentine did the same thing for you that she did for me: she reminded us of our choices.”
Jasmine’s face was streaked with tears. Twenty-Seven prepared to push harder if she resisted the truth. Her rebirth was in part thanks to Eleanor, but it had been she alone who made the decision to resist.
“I got her killed.”
“You saved her once. You didn’t kill her. A psycho with too much power did that.”
Minutes passed as Jasmine gave over to her emotions and cried. Twenty-Seven wondered if this was why she had been reserved, even militant since they first met. For the first time, she saw through the facade of a Marine and discovered a breathing human resting just beneath the surface of her malleable skin. Unfortunately, Twenty-Seven thought, a woman in the throes of anguish isn’t going to free us.
“Snap out of it. I need the woman who fought alongside the Nighthawks to take on the president. I need the woman trained to be a Marine. I need a woman…” Twenty-Seven chose her next words carefully. “I need the woman who wants to avenge Rebecca. I need her. We all need her. Now stop the pity party.”
Twenty-Seven watched as Jasmine's jaw tightened, her lips pulled back as she bared her teeth. She lunged forward as far as her restraints allowed. Struggling against the metal, she attempted to thras
h her limbs, each firmly held in place. All at once, her burst of energy subsided.
A deep breath in, and a controlled exhale, Jasmine closed her eyes. Her body went slack, her shoulders drooping. Twenty-Seven was about to comment on Jasmine’s decision to meditate, to scold her for not resisting. The air vibrated, the slightest increase in pressure. Jasmine hardly flinched. Seconds passed, nearly a minute. Jasmine’s eyes opened slowly, the epitome of control.
With a jerk of her hand, one of the restraints pulled free.
The pity party reached its end.
* * * * *
Dwayne rubbed the stiff muscles of his neck. For the last three hours, he and Needles, infamous freedom fighter, debated tactics to stop the President of the United States of America. Under any other circumstances, their conversation would be considered treason. With a madman usurping power on a global level, they were the last line of defense.
“We need more manpower,” Dwayne said for the tenth time. “I don’t care how skilled they are. I don’t care if you have Children who can open up the Earth and raise volcanoes, we can’t beat an army.”
He found Needles infuriating, a mix of cocky and deceitful. For the last twenty minutes, the man had pushed harder, claiming they had the ability to hold an army at bay. “Leave that to me.”
“Jesus Christ,” Dwayne shouted at the ceiling, throwing his arms up in the air. “I get it. You have this whole cloak and dagger shit going. But there is no way in hell I’m sending my team in alongside a man who wants to play games.” As Dwayne slammed his hands on the table, lightning snapped about the wood, leaving burn marks. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Soo Jung entered the room as if on cue. She raised an eyebrow at the table but ignored Dwayne, focusing on Needles. “He’s here.”
“You don’t have to like me,” Needles said, standing up. “But I never promise what I can’t deliver.”
“Your core values are enlightening,” Dwayne growled.
“What I mean to say…” Needles cranked his neck about, a popping sound coming from his spine. “I needed to make sure our allies were going to deliver.”
Needles didn’t ask him to follow as he and his pet Child walked from their war room. Even your exit is arrogant, Dwayne thought. Pushing his stool back from the table, he followed.
The hallway was a mix of exposed cement and steel girders. Every so often, he’d see a small bundle by the metal beams keeping the ceiling from caving in. At any moment, the people in these caves were prepared to die. They’d rather be killed than be victims. That truth was the only reason Dwayne hadn’t stormed off from Needles's incessant secrets.
“Holy shit.” His right arm tensed, his fist balled up, lightning pooling in his knuckles. The large room, the last stop of a forgotten subway line, held a hundred synthetics. If the synthetics got close, he wouldn’t be able to hit the them without risking electrocuting the nearby humans.
He eyed the beams up above, searching for a bundle of explosives. A single shot and he’d wipe out a small battalion of the machines, even if it meant they wouldn’t make it out alive. For a moment he wished Vanessa were there, willing to steal his body and let loose an electromagnetic pulse like she had months ago. She’d save—
“Power down, cowboy,” Needles said, his expression not reflecting the severity of the situation. “You wanted an army…”
He gestured outward. The humans didn’t look surprised, or even alarmed at the synthetics littering their headquarters. Dwayne caught sight of Gretchen and Skits, his sister rubbing a patch of blue paint on the metallic skull of a nearby machine.
“Can I keep him?” she yelled.
“What the hell?” Dwayne had expected troops, perhaps ragged humans from across the states, pulled together for a final confrontation. He hadn’t expected their army to look identical to the one they hoped to destroy. Standing in front of the robots was a man in a tailored suit, next to him a young woman in black jeans and a black jacket.
“Bonjour,” the man said, stepping forward his arm extended.
Dwayne held up a glowing hand, warning him back. He let a stream of electricity pummel the ground, spitting up bits of rock into the air. The pressure inside him decreased as he let the overflow of power pound the pavement. Metered, he cut off the flow, preventing his body from getting the unwieldy release it desired.
“Très impressionnant,” the man said.
“I know. Now, why should I be impressed by you?”
Should I have my assistant make you a list? Or does this suffice?
Dwayne laughed. Try harder.
* * * * *
For Rebecca.
The doors burst outward as her heel slammed into the metal. They hadn’t swung all the way open before the first bullet struck her in the shoulder. The Marine pulled the trigger of his Glock over and over, each shot landing just south of her heart. She hopped down from the truck among a trio of his buddies.
“She’s loose,” one yelled, stating the obvious.
At a smack across the face, one fell to the ground. Jasmine grabbed the next man by the uniform, hurling him twenty feet. The third, the shouter, drew his weapon. Jasmine’s skull snapped back as the bullet pelted her in the center of the forehead. Two more identical shots forced a low growl.
The bones in his hand were crushed as she clasped the gun. The man’s trigger finger bent the wrong way. Jasmine found herself impressed by his ability to resist screaming. A light punch to the jaw sent him reeling, unconscious before he struck the ground.
The airport. On the west side of Chicago, O’Hare International acted as the staging ground for an invasion. Hundreds of Marines went about their business, at double speed. Jasmine found that in the expanse of the terminal, almost nobody responded to the gunfire. Among the hundreds of troops tending to the vehicles and planes, it appeared the captured Children were the least of the military’s concerns.
“Stand down,” a man’s voice said behind her.
“Murdock, I’m going to throat—”
“I am under orders to shoot, Gentile. I won’t like it, but I will.”
Of the Paladins, Murdock had been the one to fight by her side longest. He wasn’t what she’d call a friend, but he’d been a loyal Marine and followed orders. Jasmine turned slowly to find him holding a rifle against his shoulder, ready to pull the trigger. The barrel glowed a dull red, an energy weapon.
Sims and Belletone stood behind Murdock, while Vazqueze sauntered next to him, his sniper rifle slung behind his back. Each wore a black tactical vest, a newer model, thinner, closer to the body. They were an elite fighting force, one of the best. She knew, she trained them.
“Congratulations on the promotion, Murdock.”
“Don’t make me shoot you, Jasmine.”
“But you’re not the only one with a team.”
His head turned to the back of the truck as Twenty-Seven lunged. Her bionic elbow led the charge, slamming into Vazquez while Jasmine grabbed the energy weapon, crushing the barrel. Vazquez instinctively reached for his sidearm, but Jasmine had already chucked the weapon under a luggage carriage.
Twenty-Seven rolled to the side, ripping the strap to Vazquez’s rifle. She rested in a crouch, the weapon raised, ready to fire. The two men in her sights froze, unsure of the newest combatant.
Jasmine grappled with Murdock, tossing him backward.
“I don’t want to have her shoot you,” she said.
Murdock hit the ground. As he somersaulted backward, he flung a small black object into the space between them. A flash. A bang. Jasmine tried to protect her eyes as the grenade fired. Every one of her senses vanished. White dots in her vision and a thumping in her ear made her all but useless.
Seconds passed. “Stand.”
“No.”
“Down.”
“No.”
Yelling sounded like barely a whisper as her ears tried to adjust. Murdock never carried grenades before. As she wiped the starbursts from her eyes, she wondered if he'd st
arted carrying them just for this situation. Twenty-Seven believed they could fight their way out of this. Her fighting prowess had been learned in the field, she had no idea the skills of these men obtained from years of training. It wouldn’t have surprised Jasmine if the entire thing had been a setup, a plan to lure them out and beat the resistance out of them.
“Hold your weapons.” Murdock’s voice. The man didn’t want them dead. If he wanted them dead he’d have drilled a hole in her head with the laser. She stopped trying to rub the light from her eyes, instead focusing on his voice.
“Jasmine Gentile, you are under arrest by the military of the Free Republic. If you do not come peaceably, we will be required to use force.”
“If you wanted me dead”—she was sure she was yelling—“you’d have killed me. You need me.”
“It’s not you I want.” That deep, booming voice caused her to stagger almost as much as the grenade. In five words, the man behind the voice, the only person she still feared, broke through her steel hide.
Faint images started to push past the bright white light clouding her vision. The General still held an air of absolute authority. He’d slimmed down since the last time they met. The bags under his eyes were so pronounced she wondered if he had slept since he assaulted President Joyce. Once upon a time, the military found the time to hunt down young Children; now, the man knew a real war.
The Marines started to grunt and yell again. Jasmine smiled as their weapons were yanked free of their grasps. She didn’t need to see the tiny bits, but she knew they floated around; the signature move was to remove every screw from the weapons, leaving them useless. Three women surrounded on all sides by an army, and Jasmine started to believe they still had a chance.
“I have a new team.” Skits would be proud of her punchy superhero banter.
“I know,” he said. Two words and he managed to knock the wind from her lungs. Something wasn’t right. While the Paladins stared in awe at their weapons being dismantled, a typical response to the power of a mentalist, the General stepped forward. The man didn’t have an arrogant bone in his body— confidant, sure, but never arrogant.