The Reprisal

by Kelly St Clare

  “He was already dead,” someone said.

  The man replied, “And now he’s deader. Charlee?” His voice was strained.

  “Her body has taken a toll. Some of it seems older, and some recent. But she’s not bleeding from anywhere, Atlas. I need to get her to medi-tech and run a complete scan.”

  The man fell to his knees.

  “She’s going to be all right,” the woman said softly.

  Romy twitched her fingers, a tear rolling from her eye at the man’s distress. The man was Atlas. Her Atlas. He was here. And he was hurting so bad because he thought she was injured.

  Gathering her strength, Romy pushed at the fuzziness filling her from head to toe. Then, with colossal effort, she moved her lips. Atlas. Dammit. She swallowed and tensed her throat. “Atlas,” she sighed.

  “She spoke,” he said, bending over her. A wave of eucalyptus hit her senses. “Rosemary, darling. Can you hear me? Open your eyes. Open them for me.”

  For him, she’d do anything. Romy cracked open her eyes. They closed almost immediately, but she did it. Enough to catch a glimpse of shining grey eyes and dusty tear-stained cheeks.

  Enough to know she’d somehow made it.

  He kissed her gently on the lips before pressing his forehead to hers and shaking uncontrollably. She would be, too, if lethargy didn’t infuse her so strongly.

  “Atlas,” Charlee interjected. “She needs attention.”

  He nodded and placed an arm under Romy’s head and at the crook of her knees, lifting her into his arms.

  “Behind tree,” Romy croaked, eyes closed.

  “Behind the tree? What do you mean?” Atlas urged her.

  “Remote,” she breathed, cracking her eyes open.

  Atlas’s face hovered between caring and not caring. He finally said, “Where?”

  She directed him to it.

  “Dr Charlee?” he called.

  The doctor joined them behind the tree.

  “Kindly pick up that remote there and keep it out of sight? Oh, and I wouldn’t recommend pushing the large black button.”

  Charlee gasped. “This isn’t what I think it is.”

  Atlas’s face smoothed. “Probably not.”

  Their voices faded as she closed her eyes again.

  * * *

  Romy woke as Atlas placed her in a bed.

  “Send word to her knot,” he was saying over his shoulder.

  “Yes, sir.” Footsteps receded.

  Charlee began hooking her up to medi-tech, eyes riveted on a number of monitors.

  “Stable,” she announced, with a curt nod.

  Atlas’s shoulders sagged. When he saw Romy’s eyes were opened, he kissed her again. “You’re okay. You’re safe now.”

  He was here; of course she was.

  Charlee whirled away from the bed and wrenched open cupboards, selected the supplies she needed, and moved back and forth to deposit them on the table next to Romy’s head.

  The doctor pulled open a fridge, taking out several bags of blood, but she paused her frantic movements, staring at something inside. Charlee reached into the fridge. There was a long hiss and a small white fog swirled out around her.

  Atlas tensed. “What it is? We have enough blood, don’t we?”

  “Yes,” Charlee said, staring at something they couldn’t see. “There’s something in this freezer.” She flicked Romy a glance and strode to a drawer where she selected a long, thin instrument. Returning to the white cloud emanating from the freezer, she dug around for a few seconds and then drew out a small cylinder.

  “What is it?” Romy croaked.

  The doctor stiffened. “Romy, did Houston take anything from you?” She shut the freezer and the fridge it was stored within, and crossed to the bed.

  Romy could barely remember the last five seconds. “I don’t know.”

  Charlee sat on the bed. “Romy, did Houston take eggs from you?”

  As she heard the words, Romy wasn’t worried in the slightest about the eggs. Her eyes were drawn to Atlas, who had stiffened, his gaze hard and frozen on the small cylinder Charlee held.

  Crap. Romy tore her eyes from Atlas, saying, “Yes, he did. Are those them?”

  Charlee swallowed hard, whispering, “Yes. That’s what the label says. What would you like me to do with them?”

  Houston’s plans had died with him, but Romy didn’t doubt for a moment that he’d had some sort of plan for her eggs. “I don’t trust that Houston didn’t do something to them. Please . . . please destroy them.”

  She ignored the sharp inhale from Atlas’s direction, fixing the doctor with a firm look.

  Charlee tilted her chin, which only wobbled slightly. “Consider it done.” She replaced the eggs in the fridge and began working on Romy’s immediate problems once again.

  “I wish he was still alive. I’d kill him all over again,” Atlas whispered, gripping her hand.

  He and Romy stared at each other for a long time, unspeaking.

  Eventually, she nodded. “I know you would.” Then Romy asked the question she’d been too scared to ask.

  “Atlas,” she said. “Elara? Did she—?”

  She couldn’t watch three of her knotmates walk through the door and wonder if Elara was just at the back and yet to come through. She had to know before they arrived. The cannon fire had been huge. Romy had been one hundred metres away and the sound of the blast had thrown those around her to the ground.

  He looked into her eyes. “She made it,” he said. “They all did.”

  He hesitated.

  There was a commotion at the door and three men raced through, one of them pushing a woman in a wheelchair.

  “Romy!” Deimos said, reaching her side first and taking her hand.

  Atlas snapped, “Careful.”

  “Where did you find her?” Thrym asked, blue eyes on her.

  Atlas quickly relayed what had happened.

  Phobos kissed her on the cheek, concern filling his green eyes. He glanced over at Atlas. “Houston’s dead?”

  “Yes,” Atlas said, peering at her. “Romy killed him. With a syringe, by the looks of it.”

  “What about Tyson?” Romy asked, the blur of events coming back to her. “I only shot him in the arm.”

  Atlas’s brows rose. “We found Tyson trying to sneak away from the base through the forest.”

  He’d snuck away, probably thinking she was dead. Or maybe too scared to actually pull a trigger himself.

  “We brought him back, so we can use him to rewire the cannons over to us.”

  Romy shifted on the bed. “That’s why I only shot him in the arm.”

  Her eyes landed on Elara.

  They burst into tears. Elara got out of her chair and stood next to the bed. “Ro,” she choked.

  “Tina got to you in time,” Romy said, shaking like a leaf as they hugged. “They’d just tased me and I couldn’t move. I was so far away, and all I could think of was that Tina might’ve gotten to a walkie, and might hear me.”

  A terrible silence filled the room.

  “Ro,” Elara sobbed. “Tina didn’t make it.”

  “What?” Romy said, a deafening murmur filling her ears. No.

  Tina wasn’t gone.

  “Tina can’t be gone,” she said adamantly.

  Tears poured down Elara’s cheeks. “They’d drugged me, and I couldn’t see straight. I tripped. And she, she picked me up and threw me out of the way.”

  Romy’s eyes widened in an attempt to keep the tears from tipping over. She’d seen Tina do it. “The cannon caught her?”

  “There were only three metres between us. I thought I’d died when the cannon struck. But I rolled over when I came to my senses, and she wasn’t there anymore. She was g-gone, Ro. Just gone.”

  “I made her promise me she’d do everything she could to save you,” Romy said quietly, wiping her eyes with a trembling hand. “I didn’t mean that.”

  “I tripped.” Elara’s head hung low.

&nbs
p; Atlas reached across the bed and lifted Elara’s chin. “You were drugged, soldier. That’s not on you. Tina was a grown woman, she knew the risks, and she decided to save you and your child. Don’t belittle her sacrifice by blaming yourself.”

  Fresh tears squeezed from her hazel eyes, but she gave him a small nod. Phobos gave him a grateful look over Elara’s head.

  “Tina’s gone,” Romy said in a stupor.

  Half of the people in this room wouldn’t be alive if not for the red-haired commander.

  . . . Tina was gone.

  * * *

  None of them shifted for the next two hours. Except for Charlee, who spun around the various screens hooked into Romy’s body. She told Romy, unnecessarily, that her main problems were exhaustion and what looked like regular physical abuse on top of the night’s events.

  Though her body began to feel better, Romy’s mind wouldn’t rest.

  “Houston planned to reset himself and then use a permanent insanity cure so his madness didn’t come back,” she said into the quiet. Romy stared at the white blanket over her legs, feeling the eyes of Atlas and her knot on her. “But he backed himself into a corner when he formed the Renegades. He didn’t have time to enter the cultivation tank. He knew he needed to step away, but he couldn’t.”

  “If he’d truly inherited his father’s psychosis, the constant pressure of that situation probably made his mental illness accelerate,” Charlee said, pausing to listen.

  Romy sighed. “Do you know he truly believed that what he was doing was the right thing?”

  Atlas’s fist curled, and she reached out to hold his hand.

  “If he’d told me what was happening before he betrayed the Amach and hurt you, I would’ve done everything I could to help him,” Atlas said, staring at the far wall.

  “He probably didn’t see how bad he was until later,” Deimos said. “He got bad fast after we left.”

  Elara shivered. “I’m just relieved whatever terrible plans he had never happened.”

  Romy shivered, too, thinking of the testing he’d done on her recently. “We need to make sure the Mandate can’t just take his place,” she said, throwing off her blankets. “We have things to do.”

  “You’re not leaving yet,” Atlas and Charlee said at the same time.

  Romy glanced around the lab. “No offence to what you do, Charlee. But if I ever enter another lab, it will be too soon. I’m leaving.” Atlas wouldn’t go to work until she was okay, and they couldn’t afford to delay. “We need to secure the cannons before the Mandate attack. If we don’t do it now, we’ll regret it, and I am not fighting any more damn wars.”

  Ten minutes later, they rolled into the large room with the frozen space soldiers. Earlier, Romy had told Atlas the three hundred soldiers were dead, but now she recalled the five caged soldiers. “Atlas, did anyone come across five space soldiers outside? They would’ve been extremely violent,” she added.

  He tore his eyes from one of the upright cases. “I haven’t received any reports of the like. Why?”

  She looked toward the glass window. “Houston let out five insane soldiers. . . . You had this place surrounded?”

  “We did.” He put a walkie to his mouth. “Commander Cronus. There’s a possibility we have five violent space soldiers lurking around. Please set two teams to do a thorough search of this base, and make our people outside aware they need to be on their guard.”

  Cronus’s crackled ‘roger that’ came through a few seconds later.

  Atlas pushed the button again. “Krystal, please have Tyson escorted to the control room.”

  ‘Yes, sir,’ came an answer.

  They made for the small room at the back, where Tyson had set the cannons from earlier. Romy was on Elara’s lap in the wheelchair, Phobos pushing them along. Atlas led the way, with Thrym behind him, and Deimos and Charlee bringing up the rear.

  They reached the room and Atlas withdrew the black remote from his pocket. He set it out of sight behind a computer.

  Tyson was forced into a seat not long after, arm in a sling. His eyes landed on Romy. “You were dead.”

  “I have super powers,” she replied.

  He opened his mouth to speak, and Atlas cut him off. “Tyson, I’m about to make you a one-time offer to save your life. Do you accept?”

  Tyson’s mouth bobbed open and closed. “Y-yes,” he said.

  Spinning the chair to face the computer, Atlas said, “How many cannons are there?”

  “Eight,” Romy said. “Fifty-metre diameter. They’re in orbit.”

  The people in the room blinked at her.

  “I want one pointed to Cairo, one to Dublin, another on Sydney, Rome, Moscow, Japan, Beijing, and Toronto. Get that?”

  Tyson began typing with his right hand.

  Atlas picked up a walkie and turned the top dial to a different radio frequency. “This is your commander-general. I will be making a public announcement in the next ten minutes. Could the tech team please bring the necessary equipment to the control room on level one.”

  They waited in tense silence.

  Three techies arrived a few minutes later, and busied themselves setting up the camera equipment. No one asked Atlas what was happening—it was clear from his eyes.

  He was about to end this.

  “Live in three, two. . . .”

  "Good morning, people of Earth,” Atlas announced, standing dusty and bloodied in his black T-shirt and cargo pants. “I bring good tidings for you today, and some change. At 0400 hours, the Renegades were defeated, thanks to the combined effort of the Mandate and the Amach. The leader of this movement is now dead. His work destroyed, and his depravity at an end. Those who followed him have been gathered, and are being removed to a secure location as we speak. We offer amnesty to any of them who are willing to dedicate their lives to a peaceful future, proving this to us by helping to clear North America of any Critamal. The cannons, for so long in the Renegades’ control, are now in the control of the Amach. Soon these cannons will start systematically attacking the Critamal encampments before our new ground force moves in. I hope we can make this area of New America safe once more.”

  He paused. “Currently, however, these cannons are pointed on eight different cities. The vast majority of humankind came together in recent weeks to take down a larger foe. We got a chance to see we aren’t really that different from each other. For more than one hundred years, the Amach has worked to take down the tyranny of the Mandate. And this has not changed.” He looked directly into the camera. “I ask the civilians within the cities not to be alarmed. The Amach has always strived for the most peaceful solution, and this has not changed, either. We wish to bring equality to Earth, an equality it hasn’t had since global warming tore through our world and split us apart. I now speak to the Mandate’s armies. I speak to those with families, with a child, and finally, to those who have lost someone to the Mandate’s cruelty. Bring me the Mandate members within twelve hours and I will turn my attention to eradicating the Critamal from this world. If they are not delivered to the Mandate’s island prison in Madagascar in twelve hours, please note that you have a further twelve hours from that point to make sure all of your cities are evacuated. I will be destroying them one by one, if the six people who have lied and manipulated you all are not in my possession. Twelve hours. You will not get another chance.”

  His grey eyes softened. “Good change is coming,” Atlas said, emotion filling his words. “Great change is coming.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “Guys,” a hushed voice said. “Wake up.”

  Elara kicked out viciously and settled back into sleep.

  “Does she always do that?” someone asked.

  “Yeah, you’ve got to keep your distance when you wake her. I have a stick in our room that I use,” another answered.

  Romy cracked an eye open at the gathered group: her knot, Nancy, and her small gang. “Whadisit?”

  “What language is that?” Nancy asked.<
br />
  Romy shut her eye again.

  Phobos shook her shoulder. “We’re going to see something you won’t want to miss. You’ve been asleep for seven hours.”

  “The army are handing the Mandate over,” Thrym said.

  Romy sat up and set to getting on her boots. There was no way she wasn’t watching that.

  After twenty-five minutes spent trying to wake Elara, Knot 27 boarded a craft with Atlas, Charlee, Nancy, and her crew to travel to Madagascar.

  “The army just handed them over?” she asked. “Even Mandate Tony?”

  Thrym replied, “Six people or one billion? It’s an easy choice, and it’s not like we’re executing them. It wouldn’t do us any favours, seeing as they helped us beat Houston.”

  “Why didn’t the Mandate storm the Florida base last night?” Elara asked.

  “Because Atlas leaked intel that the cannons were held at a ‘secret location’ in Canada,” Phobos replied. “The Mandate offered to handle the Critamal encampments because they thought it put them in an advantageous position to take the cannons once Houston was beaten.”

  “Outmanoeuvred,” Romy said, fiercely proud of Atlas.

  “We should be executing the Mandate members,” Deimos said. “While they’re in the prison, their friends can conspire to free them.”

  Phobos shook his head. “A martyr is a much greater force. Killing them won’t achieve anything. Let them rot in jail; execution is too quick.”

  Their green eyes met and Deimos smiled slowly. “I do like the sound of that.”

  Romy said, “We’ll be able to focus on getting that cure for the space soldiers.”

  “Already done,” Deimos quipped.

  Romy demanded, “How do you know that?”

  “I’m sleeping with the head of research,” he replied, adding, “regularly. You’ve been away for more than two weeks, remember?”

  Romy screwed up her nose. “So?” she asked impatiently.

  “So, Char found your genetic mutation and mimicked it. She said the results are showing completely different. She’s going to wait a few months, but she’s quietly confident it will provide a permanent fix.”