by Alan Janney
“This place is massive,” I say. “They could be in any plane, and take off a mile removed from us.”
“If I know Blue-Eyes, and I think I do, she’ll want a private jet. Public transportation is beneath her. There. Right there, see? Those business hangers on the south side. So we —”
PuckDaddy interrupts us. “Warning! Rocket launch detected! Surface-to-air! Move!”
“She’s shooting at us!”
“Affirmative!”
“Time to ditch our ride!” Samantha shouts, and I swear she wants to crash. She thrusts our nose downwards and punches the engine, and the slate tarmac begins plummeting closer. “Prepare to jump!”
I see the rocket a half second before detonation. Samantha’s evasive dive prevents a direct hit but the payload erupts near our tail rotor. I’m struck deaf and blind for a half second. The jarring explosion knocks the blue Robinson sideways, and the force of our sudden roll flings me up and out of the cabin. Sudden roaring silence. Nothing but the rush of wind as I flail arms helplessly. I fall end over end, the sun and earth revolving in Carmine-centric orbit, until I smack the deck of a 747’s starboard wing. I skid across the hot surface and thud to a stop against passenger windows.
Samantha is also flung from the helicopter. Directly downwards. She hits the runway, a violent collision which would shatter normal humans. She only has time to raise her head before the flaming wreckage of our small Robinson lands directly on top of her. She disappears in the twisted metal. Heat and flames flair outwards from the impact. Rotors splinter and launch in every direction. The helicopter, still carrying leftover velocity, pivots off her and turns three full rotations before resting.
Samantha isn’t moving from her fetal position. Maybe because she can’t. She’s not on fire, though. Small blessings.
Well. We’re here. I have no phone. No headset. No backup. Nothing except fury and a body intact.
Blue-Eyes brought Variants with her. I see three Leapers bounding in our direction from southern terminals. Two men, one woman. They’re my age and dressed in military combat fatigues, Hurling themselves skyward in grotesque bounds. They advance at breakneck speed, carrying knives and tasers, and converge on the smoldering chopper. I detect something other than their disease…a madness I’m unaccustomed to sensing. A trace of Blue-Eyes?
Samantha lays crumpled on the tarmac and I leave her as bait. My enemies arrive, their eyes naturally drawn to fire and the body. They don’t bother searching their surroundings, which is their final mistake. I fall on them from the wing. Their bodies are thick and hard, bones reinforced, skin tough, but even so I remove the closest man’s throat on contact. The woman spins at the sound but I’m ready, and I shove her own taser into the soft flesh under her jaw. She seizes and drops.
“Stop,” I order the last man. Not a man. He’s so young. He doesn’t stop but he pauses, a natural response to orders from someone with authority. He pauses long enough to die from his own knife. I don’t want to execute Variants. I know they’ve been through hell and are barely capable of functioning. But these mutants in the employ of Blue-Eyes are brainwashed and rabid for their master.
The sky is high and blue and salted with small cloud clusters, and the wind whips through our aviation graveyard like it’s peeved. Across the runway I spy activity at the Atlantic Aviation terminal, a newer construction on the LAX campus. Those are privately owned aircraft, sitting on a recently poured blacktop tarmac. She’s there. Has to be. The planes are thick at that terminal and she’s hidden beyond. A couple guards keep watch, crouching behind tires.
“Gotcha,” I whisper. I circle to the south, bolting between structures and airplanes, staying out of sight but running like hell. They know I’m coming, but they can’t stop me either.
This might go terribly wrong. The plan was for me to confront the Witch and for Samantha to shoot her from half a mile distant. However, that was before a helicopter landed on her head. Ideally I’d have help. Mason. General Brown. Kayla. Somebody. I’ll be forced to resist mind control long enough to crush her skull.
I’ve become a monster. Only savages survive.
I hear the whine of engines as I get closer. A jet warming up. Not much time. Her guards are vigilante, two Herders, but I’m fast. They don’t even see me before I hit them with a scavenged iron wrench. I drop their limp bodies to the ground and proceed.
Blue-Eyes is here. She waits for me on a comfortable chair stolen from the Mercury terminal. She sits, legs crossed, in a wide clearing encircled by abandoned aircraft. She’s even more breathtaking than her picture because here I can see the breeze toss her hair, because I can smell her scent, because I can hear her heartbeat. She is smaller than I expected, cozied on the chair like a cat. There is another chair situated opposite hers. For me. For our showdown.
Chase sits at her feet. A macabre collar is fastened around his throat. His face is buried into knees drawn to his chest, and he clutches tufts of his hair into fists. Like he’s in pain. Or like he’s straining against something. My heart breaks for him. For us.
“Hello Carmine,” she says, and my name is beautiful on her lips. My body lightens and I experience a spasm of pure euphoria. “Please have a seat.”
Her getaway vehicle is a pearl HondaJet, small and sleek with a blue nose. Looks as though it holds seven people max. The engines are idling and the stairs are down.
I’m startled to realize I’m sitting in the chair she indicated. When did that happen?
I say, “Chase? Can you hear me?”
She answers, “He can hear you. But he chooses not to respond. Credit where credit is due, sweet Queen Carmine. I never suspected you’d face me yourself. Most cowardly world leaders sent diplomats, but you? You are preternaturally brave, my dear. And apparently ubiquitous. Recent reports placed you elsewhere.”
“Likewise,” I say. Speaking requires effort. Adoring her would be as natural as gravity, and I’m fighting against it. “Next time call first, so you won’t be forced to sneak through sewers like a rat.”
Her face pales a shade and for an instant she’s speechless. It’s been a long time since someone insulted her, I bet. “I hope you didn’t harm the poor men keeping me company.”
“Release the Outlaw.”
“The Outlaw remains, I’m afraid. Not an hour ago he professed his love for me.”
Chase tenses and shakes his head.
“Chase,” I call. “Wake up.”
She casually raises a small device the size of a thumb drive. “He warned me you might intervene. That your understandable jealousy runs wild. So he wears a collar, and I hold the trigger. Once pressed, the trigger cannot be released. Or perhaps, should not be released, is more accurate phrasing. As long as I maintain pressure, he lives. If I release the trigger…well, let’s not dwell on such butchery.”
Mary’s words are battering rams I have to fight through. She is everywhere and everything.
“Do you have a weapon?” she asks.
I don’t answer.
“Find one. And use it. On yourself, please.”
Kill myself, she means. Without hesitation, I stand. Those two guards each had a firearm and an electroshock weapon. That would work. I can kill myself with one.
What? What are you doing? Sit down.
Katie’s words are loud and angry and they shatter against Mary’s. I’m reeling, holding the chair for support. I will not kill myself. She’s holding Chase hostage. You need to snap out of it.
I sit.
“Carmine,” she says. “Now. You are dismissed.”
No. We stay. Do you understand me? We stay.
“I’m staying.”
She sucks lightly at her teeth while considering this. “You have backbone. Not so easily overmatched? Very well, let us barter.”
“I think instead I will simply kill you.”
“You cannot, sweetie. What a factitious story you must be telling yourself.”
She’s right. I cannot. If I had a gun, I wouldn’t sho
ot her. This is a problem.
The HondaJet is behind her. A man emerges from the cockpit and descends the stairs. “Madam Secretary?”
Mary angles her head to the side and speaks casually over her shoulder. “Yes, David.”
“We require more fuel. This jet was never prepped.”
“Then. Get. Some.”
“Yes ma’am.”
The man is wearing combat fatigues, and he scrambles to a nearby fuel truck and drives it closer. There are two other fuel trucks nearby, nestled in among the abandoned aircraft. He fiddles with the mechanism, clearly unused to civilian machinery. She cannot see either the jet or the fuel truck, but her agitation mounts. “David, how long?”
“Five minutes. Maybe ten.”
She turns her attention back to me. “Let us barter. I will trade you. You keep the boy. And I’ll take the Inheritors.”
“The Variant children?”
“Yes. The Variant children. The Father’s final subterfuge. He never confided their existence to me.”
“I killed them all. There are no more Inheritors.”
“Killing children requires an unsound mind. It is the pursuit of a sociopath. You could never commit such an atrocity. You’re soft. Intrinsically weak minded. Tell me where they are.”
“I do what I have to do. They are dead.”
“You cannot protect them.” She is irritated. Her words grow clipped, losing their dreamy sensuality, and they hurt me.
Don’t answer that. Say nothing.
“You cannot protect everyone. I will find them. And you will fail.”
“I will—”
Quiet. Keep your mouth closed.
She says, “You are powerful, sugar. I will grant you that. If not for the recent surge of Infected, you’d be the debutant of the decade. The prettiest girl at our ball. However, your timing is poor.”
I’m desperate for options. She’s pinned me to the chair with her eyes. I can’t think of anything to do other than keep her talking. “Can you and your presidential boyfriend not handle your own affairs? Why abduct the Outlaw?”
“Can you feel him? The Outlaw radiates power. This is why the Father coveted him so.” She closes her eyes and tilts her head upwards, and breathes deeply. It’s slightly easier for me to think when her eyes are closed. “You are merely an invention, Carmine. A manufactured tool. But the Outlaw is pure born. His body is saturated with the disease, and it calls to us. Can you feel it?”
“I feel it. His power repulses me.”
“That’s because you’re a simpleminded demagogue. A cute woolgatherer, at best. You perceive him as a threat. But the gods of this age, the Infected, we see him as our future.”
“Do you always speak in histrionics? Must be exhausting at the dinner table,” I say, and I’m about to continue but I notice something odd. Mary’s pilot is lying face down on the tarmac and gasoline is gushing freely from the hose. How’d that happen?
“I’m undecided, sweet little girl, concerning your fate,” she says. “A place in the new aristocracy must be earned, and you simply have not done so.”
Without breaking eye contact, I search the peripheral for movement. Something is happening. Her pilot didn’t just fall dead for no reason. My skin crawls, and there’s an odd tang in the air. The pool of gasoline expands, now a small pond beneath her HondaJet.
Find her. Find Hannah, the Cheerleader. Where is she?
The Blue-Eyed Witch continues, “Our world shall be rearranged rapidly in the coming years. Bifurcated between the powerful and the weak. Those with the disease, and those without. In other words, you have worth, young Carmine.”
“I’m relieved to hear it.” I shift in my chair and risk a quick glance to my right. A second fuel truck is hemorrhaging gas. The two bodies of liquid spread closer to connecting. On further inspection, one of the smaller jets is also leaking. Petroleum drizzles down the fuselage and the rear landing gear. The hot blacktop warms the liquid and radiates its sharp fragrance. I look to my left. Those planes are leaking too. Gasoline is pouring from everywhere.
I’m struck with sudden understanding. Gasoline. The Cheerleader.
The Fire Girl is here.
She’s come for the Outlaw. Followed him by scent. Tank told me the Cheerleader is obsessed with Chase. I’m stuck between two earthquakes of insanity. Powerful women hellbent on getting what they want. But then again, what am I?
Blue-Eyes is too caught up inside herself to notice my distress. To notice I’m suddenly sweating. Where is the Cheerleader? Is she behind me?
“I think perhaps I’ll leave the decision with you,” Mary says. “Would you prefer to die? Or join my menagerie of beautiful creations? I can find room for you, I believe.”
I look in every direction. All three fuel trucks are leaking, and so are several airplanes. Mary, Chase, and I sit on a shrinking island surrounded by an ocean of gasoline. My heart pounds so furiously it hurts.
“Carmine? You will listen to me, little whelp, this instant,” Mary snaps. “This conversation itself is beneath me.”
“I doubt it. Considering it’ll probably be your last.” I stand up and scan our surroundings like a woman possessed. Where is she??
Mary prepares a retort but her face goes slack, her focus shifting to something beyond my chair. I spin, following her gaze.
The Cheerleader is here. She is pretty in the way a barbie doll is pretty. She’s perfection crafted from plastic. Her face was either melted and reattached, or it is constructed entirely of skin grafts. The result is not unattractive, but it is not quite human either.
She is athletic in appearance, like a girl who’s practiced gymnastics for sixteen years. Her hair is a short shock of platinum, approximately the length of Chase’s, longer than mine. She’s my height, tall for a girl. Maybe 5’10. She wears a stylish skirt and strapless blouse, tight and white and worth thousands, something an actress would wear to the Academy Awards.
Her eyes don’t quite focus. Like she considers everything at once. Like she can’t concentrate. Like she’s unhinged.
“Oh my god,” Mary breathes. I back away from the Cheerleader until we stand shoulder to shoulder. “David, it’s past time we depart,” she calls.
“David’s dead,” I report. Both our voices shake.
“I can’t control her,” Mary says. “If I can’t control you, I certainly can’t stop that freak.”
Hannah Walker, Katie pants. The Cheerleader. Don’t leave Chase. She’s here for him. Hannah’s insane. I watched her die. We have to help.
The Cheerleader walks barefoot through the gasoline and stops next to a gushing hose. She crouches next to the hose, a surprisingly feminine motion, and collects a small pool of gasoline by cupping her hands together. She splashes her face with the gasoline, and then her shoulders, her chest, her legs, and finally drenches her hair with handfuls of the stuff.
Fully soaked, she stands and walks our way. Petite, girlish footfalls. Brown fuel drains from her hair, streams from her skirt, clings to her eyelashes.
“Katie,” she says. “You found Chase. Thank you. You’ve always been a good friend to me.” Her voice is a husky scrape, the result of damaged vocal chords.
“Hello Hannah Walker,” I say. Probably a bad idea to admit I have no memory of her.
“Sit down Hannah,” Blue-Eyes orders. Her voice is so full of magic and desperation that I nearly obey her. “Sit down now.”
“No, I don’t think so,” the Cheerleader answers. “You’ve never been my friend.”
Blue-Eyes says, “Carmine, please remove the intruder.”
No. No. She’s using you. Stay.
I don’t move, but I feel as though my soul’s tearing in half.
Blue-Eyes hisses, “Carmine!”
Hannah reaches into a small pocket at her waist and retrieves a Zippo lighter.
Oh no.
I say, “Hannah, no. You’ll kill us. There’s too much gasoline. You’ll kill Chase.”
How fast does fire t
ravel through gasoline? I could make it, most likely. I could get clear. But not without Chase, who still sits crosslegged near the chair.
“I will not kill Chase,” she says. “I’ve come for him. We belong together.”
Ugh. There’s a lot of that going around.
“Mary, let her have Chase,” I whisper. I can recover him after we escape the gasoline lake. After we get off this bomb.
The Cheerleader won’t be consumed by fire. Her story is legend. She nearly died in an accident during the Chemist’s attack on Los Angeles, but she was re-born from the flames and the Hyper Virus in February of 2018 after the Chemist saved her charred husk from destruction. I read about it online because of Chase’s prompting. Over six agonizing months, the virus rebuilt her body and provided immunity from fire.
I don’t have that immunity. Mary and Chase and I will burn alive and die. Painfully.
The Blue-Eyed Witch raises the device in her hand and depresses a trigger. The device emits a soft beep. So does the collar around Chase’s neck. “If I release this trigger the explosives at Chase’s neck will count down from three,” she announces. “And then neatly sever his head. You comprehend this, Cheerleader? I am not to be trifled with. I’d rather he die.”
Hannah Walker flicks the lighter and a small yellow flame begins dancing on the wick. The air is so thick with pungent fumes that I’m a little surprised we don’t instantaneously combust. She says, “Chase comes with me. He kept me safe during the flames. During the darkness. The nightmares. And so I will do the same for him. Chase must transform in the fire. As I did.”
“Hannah, no. You’ll kill him.” Summoning nerves I didn’t know I possess, I move to stand between her and Chase. His collar has a small locking mechanism. It’s not meant to be permanent and I could rip it off. Maybe. “Let’s find another way, Hannah. No one needs to die.”
“Katie. Move.” She speaks through a yawn, and she rubs her eyes. Like a tired three-year-old would. She doesn’t know what to do with me.
“Come with me, Hannah. Come home with me. We’re friends, yes? Let’s go home and talk. Please?”
“I’m tired,” Hannah says. “So tired.”