by Jeremy Flagg
A bullet grazed her forearm just above the metal band. The machine corrected its firing and aimed for exposed skin. The next bullet tore through the outside of her fist, breaking bone, sending a pulse of blood across her face. With only a few feet to go, she focused on the goal, pushing away the dizzying agony.
When she the window overlooking the factory, three sets of eyes stared back. She expected robots. Instead, three men with button-down shirts sat among dozens of computer screens and three-dimensional models of synthetics. Each held a similar expression: disbelief, astonishment, a bit of panic.
They should panic.
Holding on to the window ledge, Jasmine pounded against the glass. The closest man laughed. He had the audacity to laugh. The other two moved to computers, glancing over their shoulders to make sure she remained outside. The laughter grew to the point where she could hear it through the tempered glass.
Machines moved. Synthetics, new smaller ones, started coming off the line. Programmed to protect their masters, the machines dropped to all fours and crawled along the ground, waiting for her to fall. Jasmine pounded on the glass again with her good fist. The barrier refused to give in to her efforts.
“I’m going to kill you all.”
Wedging her food on the ledge, she removed the tether. A ripple spread across her skin. Thump. Crack. Another ripple. Thump. Crack. Muscles started to change, tightening as the strength surged through her body. The lower density of the material she chose this time prevented pain from loosening her grip. Now, her fingers started to press into the exterior of the command center, denting the metal.
Her body made one last change. Then her first against the glass broke the quarter-inch thick bulletproof barrier. Inside, the programmers scrambled, reaching for weapons secured to the walls like “in case of emergency” fire extinguishers. They held the weapons like men with no training, shooting from the hip like they’d seen in the movies.
The half-dozen shots that landed would leave bruises, but nothing compared to what she was about to unleash. The next ripple along her skin came as she pulled her way through the growing hole in the glass. By the time she landed on the floor, the three men’s persistent fire became a distant memory.
Blood pumped through her body, adrenaline starting to overwhelm the pain. Jasmine grabbed the first man, ignoring the rifle in his hand. She hurled him through the three-dimensional projections and he smashed against a row of computers hard enough to leave a human-sized impression. Still, he showed spunk, assessing the damage as he tried to claw his way to his feet.
The other two men –computer techs or perhaps foremen for the factory line– pulled the triggers tighter as if that'd force the bullets through her hide. Jasmine lowered her shoulder, charging one of them and pinning him between her and a wall of flips and switches. She hit the man’s sternum, and as her heels dug into the ground, an audible crack signified his demise.
With her good hand, she punched at the broken bone, driving it deeper into his body. The men were victims, and she a terrorist attempting to overturn the government. They’d dwell on their families, perhaps loved ones, as this Child of Nostradamus snuffed them out. She’d lose sleep over the decision, perhaps even shed tears for the men. But all of the doubts that might arise were dwarfed by the mission. To a good Marine, the only thing that mattered was her duty. The General got his wish.
The only tech left standing jumped out of her reach, through the projection. After tossing a chair between them to slow her down, he started banging away at a keyboard. Jasmine let go of his dead partner, sputtering for breath. The man at the keyboard typed with fury, his other hand reaching for a red button on the wall.
She whipped the chair back at the man, cursing when it knocked him into the button. Sirens sounded, an oscillating screech throughout the building. Jasmine had no idea what it meant. Reinforcements? Troops? What could be worse than the death machines filling the warehouse below?
The sound of stomping was almost undetectable with the security alarm blaring. The man tried to plead with her. He mentioned his family, his wife. Jasmine had a single mission, and he stood between her and completing it. Grasping his button-down shirt, she spun and hurled him through the window. There was no scream as the man vanished from sight. Jasmine had no pity for the minions of the corrupt system she and her allies were dismantling on all fronts.
Jasmine gave the man attempting to crawl away a swift kick with the toe of her boot. Dead. The first objective had been reached. Back in the day, the General would have been talking through her earpiece, complimenting her with words that said good work, but in a tone saying it was never good enough. Jasmine had long since made peace with that tone, knowing she’d never receive his approval.
Computers had never been her gift. Dav5d had attempted to show her basic usage. Even the military required her to take programming courses. The touch screens required a delicate hand and skill in languages that made no sense. Jasmine’s abilities lay in heavy hands and punching. Staring at the machine, she tried to figure out how to make it work.
A series of clicks in the software brought her to a termination sequence. She'd have to thank Dav5d, if Conthan didn’t kill him. The screen blinked, asking for verification. A panel on the side glowed blue, requiring a hand. She dragged a dead tech over and placed his hand on the scanner, producing a flash of red. On the screen she saw name and a small photograph of the necessary fingerprints' owner.
“Motherfucker,” she screamed. The hand she needed, the only man capable of shutting down the factory, lay on the pavement several stories below in a puddle of his own blood.
The only option left: destroy it all. Pulling a small tube from her vest, she flipped open the cap and pressed the small black button. Explosions erupted about the warehouse. The command center rumbled beneath her feet, threatening to plummet to the ground.
The last bit of explosives were placed on the computers, spread about the consoles. Jasmine contemplated transforming her body and testing if she were capable of withstanding the burn of a thermite grenade. Even at her densest, though, she didn’t think she’d survive.
The mission.
She had time; if the others could make it inside, she might live. If not, she’d die serving the mission. The General’s voice echoed in her head: “Duty before life.” As she looked out the broken window at a growing mob of robots who sought to tear her apart, she finally accepted a growing bit of self-doubt.
“I was never free.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
2033
“They’re not human,” Skits yelled.
Scientists weaved between the glass rooms, flooding from doors leading to more secure labs. The first couple didn’t run with purpose; they moved like feral animals. Jerky movements and twisted expressions resembled those of zombies from a graduate student’s thesis project. Conthan loathed film student projects.
Conthan paid them no attention as Alyssa stepped up to do that thing she did so well. A kick here, a fist there, and they’d fall, writhing in pain as she perfectly executed a series of blows like an elegant ninja. When a kick didn’t stop the reaching, gnarled fingers and a fist barely stunned a vacant-eyed skull, Alyssa turned as if to ask, “What now?”
“Portal in the floor,” Skits yelled.
“That’s not the plan,” Conthan returned. Dav5d had been the primary mission, Vanessa the secondary.
The first three scientists had seemed a quaint distraction. The two-dozen that followed, and the twenty after that, no longer struck Conthan as quaint. Lab coats bouncing off glass walls should have been amusing, even hilarious as they knocked themselves to the floor. The primal nature in which they ran, it robbed the scene of any humor.
“Do it,” Conthan said. He couldn’t use the phrase kill, or worse yet, murder, but the meaning carried. Alyssa grabbed a man’s skull, kicking his leg out from under him. She spun his head, and the snap left a corpse. Tonight, as they prepared to do the unthinkable to scores of mindless scientists, A
lyssa and Dwayne avoided making eye contact, preferring to brood in solitude.
A woman in a white lab coat charged. What Conthan lacked in speed, he'd discovered he made up for in bulk. Having been a husky man his entire life, he never thought about going to the gym and testing his muscles. Now, as a Child, he was far more powerful than any human. Dipping down, he caught her around the waist. Her momentum let him lean back to slam her face into the luminous white tile. Blood exploded from a broken nose as she skidded across the floor.
Rolling onto his stomach, Conthan yelped as the woman rebounded, coming at him with grasping hands. Panic caused him to grab her by the shoulders and shove her down. As her head smacked off the tile again, he brought down both fists on the back of her skull, cracking the bone. He’d regret his actions later, but right now, it was either them or him, and he had a world to save.
Alyssa dodged, ducked, and misdirected one scientist, then two, then three. A lab coat wrapped around the head of one attacker. As he struggled to shake free, the clothing from his arms and wrapped about his neck.
Skits skid around the corner, bouncing off one of the glass walls. With unearthly speed, two women grabbed her, sending all three to the floor. Six more jumped on. Skits disappeared beneath writhing bodies, each attempting to wrestle her into submission. The flailing stopped and Skits vanished under the growing number of bodies.
“We need to—”
Alyssa held up a hand at shoulder height for silence. Beneath a pile of bodies, First the light poked through the cracks, and then the sound of searing flesh. Skits flipped the switch. Conthan had seen it before: Dwayne's teenage sister literally turned into a raging pillar of heat. In the close quarters, the smell couldn’t be avoided. Like that morning, the smell of death assaulted him, singed hair and burnt skin. Conthan had to look away, unable to shake the image of dead bodies and the sensation of thick fluids coating his arms.
Conthan, I need you.
“Vanessa,” he whispered.
Help.
The voice in the back of his head whispered faintly. The heat rolling off Skits pushed through the corridor, scientist after scientist falling victim to her powers. Conthan found himself staring through glass labs, expecting to find Vanessa strapped to a table or in a tube out of a science fiction novel.
The hair on the back of his neck stiffened as he caught the sight of the giant gargoyle occupying the hallway. Vanessa's ability to fill a space was only magnified by the wings angrily stretched against glass walls. Conthan flinched as she fell to the side, hand sliding on the glass as she attempted to steady herself. The hospital gown shifted, revealing a stain of blood running the length of the fabric.
“Vanessa,” Alyssa yelled.
Skits finished surprise attack, leaving a heap of melted bodies. The blackened stains along her skin hid her bare chest, but he couldn’t help trying to shake off the tingling on his arms, the memory of drying blood. Nothing about the sensation struck him as okay, not by a long shot.
It wasn’t the phantom sensations that made his skin crawl. Something about Vanessa was off.
“Alyssa, no!”
His power surged, the well splashing over with energy. A portal tore open inches in front of Alyssa. Conthan let his mind drift from his body. In the split second it took for another void to open, defying time and space, he saw the faintest impression of a shadow wrapped around Vanessa like a jealous lover.
Alyssa stepped out of the in-between, skidding to a stop just to his side. She and Conthan had pulled the maneuver more than once before, helping her dodge impending danger. His fist clenched tight, alerted to something going horribly wrong.
“Warden,” said Conthan.
Vanessa pushed off from the wall, the ruse of an injured woman vanished as her back straightened. The angle of her head, the spring to her step, everything about her was close to being real, practically the woman he missed. But the sum of the parts didn’t equal Vanessa. The Warden might be pulling from memories, piecing together memories of the woman whose flesh he wore, but he could never be the Angel of the Outlands.
“Let her go,” Conthan said.
There is no her.
“You have hope?” The Warden flexed his wings as if to emphasize his point, the man growled, a sound filling the rows of glass cubicles. “I have won.”
Vanessa’s head snapped to the side by some unseen force. Blood sprayed across the glass. Conthan silently cheered as her head jerked again. The Warden thrust both hands out, attempting to connect with the invisible assailant.
“Change in plans.”
Alyssa didn’t ask for clarification. The beauty of their cramp home and running scenario after scenario, the Nighthawks came with a rehearsed playbook. As his former friend's wings smacked into Gretchen, knocking her into view, he was already tearing a portal under his feet, shaving off the bottom micron of his sneakers. Down he went into the nothingness.
* * * * *
The body of one of his closest friends rested motionless, still mounted to the pillar. Dwayne pulled away, conflicted. Over and over he reminded himself there was no other option, no way around it. Dav5d had to die. The reality was anything but comforting. Charges of electricity jumped from his hand to stomach. Even with these awesome abilities, a power plant of free electrons ready to bombard anything in his way, he could not rescue a single man.
Outside the room, the rest of his friends were in pursuit of Vanessa. They agreed teleporting from Chicago, if they had the time, they’d save whoever they could. With one teammate dead, it’d be a priority to try and locate their leader. The only thing between him and wrecking havoc: a metal door meant to contain a bomb.
Dwayne rested his hand on the pad and tiny pin pricks of electricity jumped from his finger into the machine. With a scrambled beep, the door unlocked.
Dwayne leaned into it, forcing it open. He found himself in a room stretching for miles in every direction. The brilliant white floors were indistinguishable from the white walls, if there were any. He should be blinded, but the light didn’t hold its expected sting.
“Vanessa,” he whispered.
It’d been some time since he’d been dragged to this world. They'd spent hours in this “head space,” conjuring things from unicorns to tea parties. When they first met, it proved an effective method of helping him grieve for the loss of Michael. At the time he hadn’t realized it, but Vanessa provided a place for him to heal and cope. And she was able to bring him back, citing it as an effect from their bond and frequent trips. It had been the same bond that allowed her to rob his body months ago.
“Where are you?” he asked.
A form appeared in the light, parting invisible curtains. Stretching her wings, she gave a slight shiver. Dwayne was at a loss for words. The robes she wore were a throwback to her stint as the Angel, a mantle she'd done everything to escape. It was appropriate for the moment, the sight of his friend bordering on heavenly.
“I can’t belie—”
He’s here.
“Who?”
The Warden.
Even the sound of his title made Dwayne clench his fist. They hadn’t anticipated running into the mentalist, but if given the opportunity, Dwayne was willing to break every bone in his body. Wound, but not kill. Everybody understood that if the Warden died, they'd would have to hunt down his latest host. No, Dwayne thought, I don’t want to kill him, I want to torture him.
Is that so?
The downside of being a telepath was the inability to shut off their gift. Receiving thoughts like a satellite received broadcast signals, they were constantly bombarded by the outside world. Vanessa had been respectful for years, knowing his every thought but being wise enough to keep the information to herself.
“Where is he?”
Vanessa’s eyes shifted, looking over his shoulder. He followed her gaze and the pointing of a single talon-like finger. Off in the distance, miles away, the light in this mental landscape turned dark. Shadows consumed everything they touched, a
nd they were moving toward them at breakneck speed.
“What do we do?”
Nothing.
“What do you mean, nothing? Are you mad w…”
The darkness swept over them fast enough that Dwayne expected a turbulent gush of wind to follow. Swallowed by the pitch black, he waited for the Warden to show himself. Here, in this world, Dwayne didn’t stand a chance. The electricity running through his muscles wouldn't win a battle of minds. But if he had to stand and fight, he’d do his best.
A light appeared high above, moving back and forth like a swinging lamp. Beneath, revealed as it swung left, Vanessa lay with her wings stretched. As the light returned right, it illuminated an image of the Warden. Dwayne feared the third swipe of the lamp. It froze, mid arc, a beam of yellow projecting downward. A frail man looked up, the light catching on his pointy chin. Dwayne recognized the man Conthan shot in the head. The pained smile spreading across his face caught the light, but the wrinkles in his skin deepened until they faded into the darkness.
“Warden.”
“So I’ve been called.”
“Where’s Vanessa?”
A shadow of the gargoyle stepped through the man, the two people overlapping. Dwayne recognized the smoky tendrils wrapped about her chest and wings, making her resemble a demon. Residing in the center of the woman was the Warden, as if he wore the woman’s skin like armor. Dwayne didn’t need to read minds to know the mentalist had finally got what he wanted most. Rage filled the pit of his stomach as he imagined tearing the man out of his second skin.
“Child, you believe you can defeat me here?”
Dwayne turned his head, pointing to the small square resting behind his ear. Vanessa’s face revealed the Warden’s knew what the device was capable of, he was incapable of anything but snarling. A light tap of the square and Dwayne opened his eyes, hands still resting on the giant metal door.
With a shove, it eased open. Electricity jumped from his chest, leaving blackened marks along the walls. Bolts struck the floor and ceiling of the hallway as he stepped into it, growing more intense with each step. The ceiling tiles exploded, sparks raining down as he moved toward the exit.