Vertical City (Book 4)

by Mahaffey Jr. , George S. .

“So what are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking we beat Shooter and his boys to that detonator.”

  “Sounds dodgy.”

  “We ain’t got time to beat him to the Flatlands. He’d bring the building down on us ‘fore we hit the first floor.”

  “So we go for the detonator,” Brixton says. “Then what?”

  Del Frisco’s eyes go wide.

  “That’s as far as I got with the plan.”

  Brixton looks to me.

  “Your mate here seems two sandwiches short of a picnic.”

  “Yeah, but he’s the best damn Jumper I’ve ever seen.”

  Brixton eyes his people who don’t have anything better to offer.

  “Alright, we’ve chosen our madness,” he says. “We make a run for the detonator. Let’s do this.”

  Knowing that we’re going to have to beat Shooter down to fourteen, Brixton leads us on a mad dash across porticos and through entranceways and exit doors, keeping an ear out for any sign of danger.

  We’re forced to confront the Dubs when slashing down a mezzanine, all the while listening to Odin continue to preach hellfire (speaking of himself in the third person now), his voice seeming to echo from every nook and cranny of the building:

  “Come, behold the works of Odin, what desolations he has and will make of this place!” he thunders.

  Asian Phil shoots an overhead speaker, silencing Odin’s voice for the moment.

  “We’re close!” Brixton says, pointing. “Just up ahead!”

  I watch him kick down a white door and then he’s falling forward, his momentum carrying him into the nothingness as Donkey grabs his back and steadies him.

  The room on the other side of the door (and the room above it), have pancaked onto the two floors beneath us. Whether this was done deliberately or caused by an explosion up above I can’t tell, but all that’s left is the metal framework of the drop-ceiling on our floor (extending below the roof all around the room) and a tongue of flooring near our door and another one on the opposite side of the space.

  Maybe thirty-feet below us are four or five-dozen Dubs who were caught in the collapse. They peer up at us and snatch at the air and then Del Frisco whistles and points.

  In the middle of the room, fixed to a section of metal roof framing, is something Del Frisco and I have seen before.

  A collection of explosives and a detonator.

  Brixton was right. Someone, I imagine Odin or a team at his request, planted the materials there in the event that they had to blow the building up. They were exposed when the floor above us collapsed.

  “Can you shoot it down?” I ask Brixton, pointing at the detonator.

  “I could try, but all it takes is one stray shot and then boom! we’re dust.”

  “I’ll go,” Del Frisco says quietly. “I’ll go out and get it.”

  “You do know that you ain’t got all your digits right, ace?” Brixton says.

  “They was just holding me back anyway,” Del Frisco says with a smirk. Then, holding up his three good fingers, “all I need is these three bad boys and I’m solid.”

  The rest of us grab sections of the ceiling frame, steadying the structure as Del Frisco jumps up four feet and grabs the metal … and slips.

  Falls.

  Back onto solid ground, nearly nosediving into the Dubs before Brixton grabs and steadies him.

  “Real talk time, kid,” Brixton says. “You need to stand down.”

  “I was just clearin’ the smoke outta my head,” Del Frisco replies.

  He jumps again, still unsteady, three fingers on his right hand hooked around the metal like a monkey as Brixton calls out:

  “Just cut the plunger’s lifeline from the demo blocks and we’ll be right as rain.”

  Del Frisco nods, his lats fanning out, a rawness in his moves.

  He works his way forward, inch by inch, scaling across the metal.

  I grimace when he’s forced to grip a jagged section of the frame, blood streaming between his fingers. The blood drops down onto the Dubs who go berserk, fighting each other for the droplets.

  It’s at that moment that one of the Dubs points up, then another, then three more begin moaning and pounding on the floor. Another grabs a desk and mounts it and jumps at Del Frisco, missing him by less than two feet. Brixton shoots down the enterprising Dub, but two more take its place.

  “Hurry!” I shout.

  Del Frisco swings himself toward the detonator and explosives, more Dubs jumping and mounting objects to get a swing at him. A female Dub throws a paper-weight at Del Frisco, hitting him in the back.

  One finger slips away, then another, Del Frisco’s body twirling like a leaf in a strong breeze.

  He’s only hanging on by one finger and I close my eyes and when they flap back open he’s miraculously latched his other hand across the metal and continues forward.

  Inch by nerve-wracking inch Del Frisco goes until he works himself into a good rhythm, making excellent time.

  Relief floods through me like a wonderful drug, my unease melting away.

  How could I have doubted him? After all the long-range patrols and miraculous escapes and gravity-defying ledge jumps. The most outwardly unremarkable Jumper of us all is the only one who’ll be remembered. The long-haired, rock-and-roll-quoting wildman who ventured out on three or four good fingers to save us all from ourselves!

  And then the other man jumps at him.

  The one who was lurking in the shadows on the other side of the room. The one who vaults out and grabs the metal framework with such force that it nearly pulls away from the roof.

  It takes me a second or two to realize it’s the man who trained all of us.

  It’s Shooter.

  He’s bleeding from what might be a bullet wound, scowling, his body yoked to a rucksack and harness of some kind.

  He grunts and pitches himself forward and I cry out, locking eyes with Shooter and three or four of his men who are visible on what’s left of the floor behind him on the other side of the room, rifles raised. We lift our weapons, but Shooter and Del Frisco are so quickly intertwined, it’s impossible to open fire without hitting one of them.

  Shooter howls and rocks back and I can see that he’s hooked to a wire leader that pays out from his rucksack and leads back to his men who hold it for safety. He’s got a definite advantage over Del Frisco as he dives forward and grabs at the explosives.

  Del Frisco swings at him and now the men are throwing punches with their free hands, fighting for the detonator.

  Del Frisco jabs and Shooter ducks and head-butts him, but Del Frisco’s face was so brutalized before it’s difficult to discern what new damage has been done.

  Shooter taunts Del Frisco, twirling, kicking him in the ribs. Once, twice, four times he punts Del Frisco who coughs up a ball of blood.

  “You always thought you were my equal, didn’t you, you little shit!”

  “Nah, Shoot,” Del Frisco says, teeth bared, fighting to maintain his grip. “I never once thought that.”

  Shooter smiles broadly, pulling his legs back and under his torso.

  “Reason was, I always knew I was better than you,” Del Frisco adds.

  Shooter springs at Del Frisco’s midsection, intent on dislodging him when Del Frisco muscles himself up.

  It’s a move I once saw a gymnast do on an Olympic video Gus had. A motion where the gymnast’s weight was positioned almost entirely on the triceps, allowing him to explode into the air.

  Del Frisco does exactly the same thing, setting his body back and propelling himself up a good two-feet into the air. The twenty-four inches is sufficient to allow him to avoid Shooter’s outstretched hands.

  Shooter drops straight down.

  Past the metal framework, his harness eventually snapping him back as Del Frisco manages to snag onto the metal, grabbing the detonator and ripping it free from the explosives which fall along with Shooter.

  Shooter’s men fight to haul back the slack, bu
t Shooter continues to hurtle down and then he levels off, his body swinging back like a pendulum, smacking against a wall on the collapsed floor below us.

  The Dubs, who’ve been watching the whole thing, fight over themselves to get at the fresh meat.

  Shooter, bad back and all, dangles there like a puppet, arms clawing at the barren walls. He shouts at his men to pull back on the harness and they do, but there’s not enough time.

  Brixton takes a bead on Shooter’s back and then I grab the barrel of his gun and ease it down.

  Shooter pushes back and plants his feet and grabs the harness and begins pulling himself up the far wall when the first Dub swipes at him, grabbing his hair, ripping his body back. Panic quickly sets in, Shooter fighting to free himself.

  In seconds, Shooter’s being dragged to the ground, along with two of his men who are ensnared in the harness and pulled down.

  We can’t see exactly what happens next, but the three men are piled on by at least thirty or forty Dubs who each take their turn pulling off bits of flesh and strings of pulpy intestines. Before I can speak a word, all that’s left is a soup of gristle and bones in a bloody wash.

  I look away as the final gurgles stop, then shout for Del Frisco to hurry back.

  The remainder of Shooter’s muscle are so shocked at the sight of their boss becoming a meal that they’ve stopped paying attention to Del Frisco.

  He’s a few feet from us when one of the goons shakes off his surprise and begins firing. Then the others empty out their guns as Brixton and his people return fire.

  And in the middle of the firefight is Del Frisco, dangling by his lonesome, swinging back across a battlefield as bullets shred the air.

  One nearly takes off his head, another pierces the cuff on his trousers.

  The lead shooter, a female Prowler, takes a bead on Del Frisco. She’s on the verge of planting some lead in his back and I scream for him to jump as—

  The lights go out and it’s suddenly as black as the cover of a Bible and then—

  WHUNK!

  The red lights from the back-up generators kick on, startling everyone, giving Del Frisco just enough time to climb forward. It’s no easy maneuver, but Del Frisco is able to scissor his legs and power forward between the bullets, sticking a landing between us.

  He tosses the detonator to Brixton who breaks it in half and flings a portion of it down at what’s left of Shooter as we fall back.

  The corridors are swollen with Dubs and people, the bodies so closely packed together, it’s often impossible to tell them apart.

  I stand there in a daze, realizing for the first time that I’m watching the world unwind a second time.

  I was here for the creation of it and now I’m watching the unmaking of the Vertical City.

  And then real time suckerpunches me, a Dub grabbing a little kid by the scruff of his neck a few feet away from me. The Dub’s about to savor the child’s flesh when I stiff-arm its body and flat-palm its jaw, giving the boy just enough time to rabbit off. The Dub’s ruined mouth twists back in a snarl and I slam my pistol between its teeth and blow its head off in a spray of black blood.

  The beast falls to the ground to reveal the others similarly engaged in close-quarters combat. Brixton throws a nasty uppercut that shatters a Dub’s face while his people kneel and aerate five Dubs who’ve emerged from a stairwell door. And beyond this is Zeus, crouched over the body of a Dub, pulling free the flesh from its ruined neck.

  “This is no good,” Brixton says. “Too many of them, too few of us.”

  “We have to get past the Keep,” Del Frisco says.

  “Only one way to do that, crazy man,” Brixton replies.

  “No,” I say, “no way, Brixton.”

  “It’s the only way.”

  “What?” Naia asks, “what is it?”

  “We’ve got to go down through the freight elevator shaft.”

  She shakes her head and then summons a weak smile.

  “This keeps getting better and better.”

  We pivot and throw ourselves into the turmoil, heading in the opposite direction, fighting against the flow of refugees.

  We pass by windows and I can see outside that some of Roger Parker’s people have extended ladders and crude rigging platforms from the other buildings. They’re urging the refugees from VC1 to cross to safety. I watch Big Sam and Teddy and even Jason Sullivan scamper across to safety and then I put my head down and plow forward. There’s a faraway hall door that leads to a set of short mechanical stairs that connect our floor with the freight elevator.

  If we can make it there, we might have a chance.

  Brixton swings his arm and we surge forward when there are shouts on the other side of the door, then a keening whine.

  Before Brixton can scream for us to duck and cover the door explodes and out strides Matthais.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Mad Meg starts to shout a warning but is silenced by a bullet from Matthais that hits below her chin. Something ruptures under the soft skin of her neck wattle and a gusher of red that appears almost black under the blinking red back-up lights, issues.

  Her legs give out and she falls back into Donkey’s arms and the fact that her body doesn’t buck once means she’s already crossed over.

  Brixton sprays his gun like a garden hose as Matthais, who looks like a demon with his battle mask on, grabs a male refugee, using the man as a human shield.

  One of Brixton’s bullets strikes the human shield in the chest, killing him. Matthais continues to fire, joined by six of his men who appear behind him.

  A dozen refugees fall in the cross-fire.

  “Pull back!” Naia says, grabbing my arm, “pull back!”

  We do, forced to leave Mad Meg behind as we juke left, an explosion taking down part of the roof and walls behind us.

  We dart forward, moving through panicked residents like hunters, seeking cover and a way out. Peripherally I see some of the residents, now armed, confronting Odin’s guards and I wonder whether a rebellion has occurred.

  A hallway leads away before us and we run through a door and down over a causeway with a long, glass partition.

  I can hear the shrieks of the Dubs in the distance and then there’s a flare of light and a puff of smoke and an explosive projectile is fired at us. What I believe is a missile curls over open space and detonates nearby.

  The heat from the backblast is like an oven door being opened.

  A smell like rubber being cooked over a fire overwhelms me as the concussive explosion tosses me sideways. A wall breaks my fall and then folds under me like wet cardboard.

  I’m dizzy and disoriented, clouded in smoke. Howls of agony and automatic weapons fire rip the air, red lights pulsing overhead.

  I push myself up and turn to eye my surroundings, searching for the others when a gun barrel slices through the smoke-laced air.

  Matthais trails the barrel, lifting up his battle mask to squint at me.

  His face is so screwed up in anger, so drained of color and fissured and cratered that it looks like a hunk of eroded rock.

  He doesn’t say a thing, just silently leans the barrel of his gun against my already bloody cheek.

  A surge of pain bites through me, the metal hot enough that I can smell my skin smoldering. Matthais works the barrel into my cheek, pressing into the pocket between my upper and lower jaws. All the while my eyes remain on him, taking in his terrible visage, the veins pulsing in his neck, his urine-colored eyes, the ammo skull on his hip, the festering scalps tied to his waist, covered, even at this time of year, in fat-bellied flies.

  I struggle, turning away, but he rams the metal so hard into my mouth that I’m worried he’s going to dislodge what few teeth I have left. The pain forces my eyes closed, but then I realize I can’t go out like this. If this is how I cross over I won’t go on Matthais’s terms. I’ll look him in the eye when he pulls the trigger.

  My eyes rocket open and Matthais grins and then—


  WHAM!

  A dark form looms out of the murk and rolls right over him.

  The figure slams into Matthais who lets off a burst from his gun that stars the ceiling.

  What comes next is a blur of motion.

  A swipe of a hand.

  Ragged fingers make the air sing.

  The figure that bodyslammed Matthais flicks his hand to remove a nugget of flesh from the area around Matthais’s Adam’s apple.

  Matthais clutches his neck as a thin line of blood spurts. He forces himself up, gagging, managing to kick the figure off and now the two are grappling, throwing punches, marinated in blood and spit.

  Staggering to my feet, I spot Matthais’s rifle and lunge for it.

  I grab the weapon and pull it around, aiming at Matthais and—

  Gus.

  For God’s sake there he is, looking very much like he did back down on the street: clothes torn and bloody, a halo of dried blood on his skull from where he was scalped.

  Matthais makes a stab for the rifle and Gus throws out a hand and blocks him and then he turns to face his killer.

  Matthais doesn’t retreat, instead pulling a fist back and punching Gus who absorbs the blow and then does two things almost at once: he rips his scalp away from Matthais’s waist-belt and bites off a good portion of Matthais’s hand.

  A cord of blood leaps from the wound and I see real fear in Matthais’s eyes for the first time. He recoils like a beaten dog.

  Then he slugs Gus again and runs off through the smoke, clutching his injured hand and neck.

  I stand there, watching him go and then aim at Gus as he steps to me.

  His head cants and he spits out Matthais’s flesh.

  My gun never leaves Gus who holds his own scalp up like a trophy.

  “What did they do to you, Gus?”

  He looks at me again, cockeyed, and whether it’s the play off light off his eyes or the way his mouth seems to curl into a tight smile, I can tell his humanity hasn’t been entirely extinguished.

  He wipes a finger in his own blood and reaches over and makes two markings on my cheek.

  And then he steps back as if admiring his handiwork and yowls as a contingent of Dubs appear from out of the smoke.