by Ann Pino
“Make me. Or are you scared?”
“I ain’t scared of you, darling.” He glanced at his buddies, then took a step toward her. “But I’m going to hate cutting up your pretty face.”
In a move so quick Cassie almost didn’t see it, Danica whipped a throwing blade from her belt. Her aim was off, but the wound to the Pharm’s shoulder stopped his sneer.
“Now I’m going to kill you, bitch.”
Danica drew her fighting knife. “Try it.”
Julilla dragged Cassie back to their lines. “This isn’t a TV show, girlfriend.”
Cassie stumbled over clumps of weeds, remembering too late that she was a captain and was supposed to act like she was in control of things. “Let me go. I’m not a child.”
“Then quit acting like one, because as soon as this fight is over—”
A gasp went up from the Pharms as their man fell. Cassie and Julilla, safely back among their soldiers, looked up to see Danica bend over the dead Pharm. She slit his belly open and dug in with her hands, spilling out intestines and other organs in a gory, glistening mass.
“What is she doing?” Cassie said to no one in particular.
“Trying to get a reaction from the enemy, it looks like,” Julilla said.
While the Pharms stared in shocked silence, Danica reached into the dead man again, punching upwards in the body cavity with her knife and fumbling with both hands. Her body now drenched in blood, she jerked back and got to her feet, holding something wet and bleeding aloft.
“What the fuck,” Julilla breathed. “I thought she hated blood. Does she think she’s an Aztec now?”
Danica threw the heart at the stunned Pharms, and an angry buzz arose from among them. “Who’s next?” Danica demanded. “Come on fuckers. Show me what brave men you are!”
The buzzing grew louder, like an angry hive, and there was movement among the ranks.
Cassie turned to Julilla in alarm. “They’re going to kill her.”
“Yes.”
“Aren’t we going to save her?”
Julilla shook her head. “Do you think she wants to live without him?” She signaled to her bugler to stand by. “Go to your unit, Captain. As soon as she’s down, we move.”
“But—”
“It’s an order.”
Cassie backed away, trying to keep Danica in her sight as she taunted the Pharm front lines. Then someone called Cassie’s name. Cursing, she turned her back on the battlefield. She had taken only two steps when the shot rang out. She spun around and saw Danica lying on the field, and this time the blood spreading onto the grass was her own.
Julilla gave the signal to her bugler, and Cassie ran toward her command.
* * *
The battle began with an agonizing wait while the front lines moved toward the enemy and the north and south flanks awaited their signal. Finally Cassie heard the call to move her line forward. Shouting encouragement, she led her troops into the fray, where she lost her sense of direction amid the guns, knives and flailing clubs. She halted an attack on her left with a shot from her semiautomatic, then shoved her way to the aid of Zoo girl under fire as she beat an Obit bloody with her club. There was no time to reload, catch her breath, or even think as she threw herself into the full force of battle, kicking, shooting and stabbing wherever she could get a move on the enemy.
The sun rose higher and the boys working the Fresnels got their beams focused. They trained the concentrated heat on the Pharms’ back lines where their fuel was stored, and the explosions halted the Pharms’ progress long enough for the alliance to push them back a few yards. Then one of the Obit leaders gave a signal and a group of motorcyclists roared onto the battlefield, scattering allied troops ahead of them.
Julilla rallied the troops under this fresh attack, screaming at them to shoot the tires, shoot the riders, and fight. Alone near the front, Cassie urged her group forward and was cutting a hole into the Pharms’ front line when someone shouted that Mundo was down. Her troops hesitated in confusion.
The Pharms pressed their advantage, pushing back hard on Cassie’s unit. But now Julilla’s troops moved forward again while Jason and his Romans finished off the motorcyclists. Blocked from moving forward and pushed from behind, Cassie tried to wipe the sweat from her eyes while bodies fell around her and a red-haired girl with evil in her eyes lunged toward her with a knife.
Inexplicably, the girl collapsed at Cassie’s feet. The Pharm attack faltered and Cassie glanced around in confusion to find Galahad, the sleeves of his shirt torn off to reveal his Regents gauntlet, leading his subcommand of Obit turncoats as they cut down the Pharms from within their own lines.
In the mayhem that followed, Julilla roared her approval as the Pharm attack faded and her troops surged forward. The allied flanks closed in and Cassie let herself be swept along, slipping on slimy battlefield gore as they moved faster and faster until they were running, chasing the Pharms through the burning remains of their ordinance, to the bunker.
Pharms and Obits alike pounded on the bunker doors, but no one let them in. Surrounded and betrayed, they turned as one, backs to the wall, and waited to be cut down.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“I know another way in,” Galahad said. “Station a guard here in case they try to escape, then the rest of you follow me.”
If Julilla was offended at Galahad taking charge, she didn’t show it. She frowned at Cassie, who was using a torn shirt to try and stop the bleeding from a gouge in her thigh. “Hurry, before it stiffens up.”
“You really should lie down for a few minutes. Just until the bleeding stops.”
“When we’re this close? No way.” Julilla met Galahad’s eyes. “What are we waiting for?”
Galahad led the ragged group toward one of the office towers, slowing his pace to Julilla’s limp while he explained about the network of tunnels and how he had rigged a few doors.
“How did you gain access?” Julilla asked.
He cast a hesitant look in Cassie’s direction before answering. “I needed medical treatment when I arrived. A lot of the Obits were ex-Kevorks and I got in good with them.”
By now Jason had caught up. “But why did Banquo say—”
“Severing ties with the alliance was the only way I could make sure they didn’t find me out. Banquo said he was one of your best actors, and he told you what we agreed he would.”
“We didn’t suspect a thing,” Jason admitted.
“So what’s in the bunker?” Amy said, looking remarkably tidy for having fought a battle.
“Just what we thought,” Galahad told her. “Sort of.”
Julilla had been leaning on Cassie for support, but now she pushed her away so she could walk on her own. “You mean there really is a cure and it’s not all bullshit?”
Galahad gave a jerk of his shoulders. “I have no idea what they’re doing in there. But it is grownups and there’s some big secret that I couldn’t get anyone to tell me.”
Cassie edged her way to Galahad’s side and slipped her hand into his. She thought her heart would burst when he smiled at her and observed she hadn’t been saying much.
What could she say that wouldn’t sound stupid? That a Telo cure was nothing compared to seeing him again? That she had never been so happy as in this moment, with him by her side, even though friends and allies lay dead on the office park lawn?
They arrived at the office tower and someone took a swing at the glass doors, which Galahad hadn’t found a safe way to prop open. Suddenly Doc burst into their midst, his hands and lab coat stained with blood. “What’s the matter?” Cassie asked.
Doc shook his head, but before Cassie could ask again, the doors shattered.
Whooping and shouting, the troops surged into the building. “Come on,” Cassie said, pulling Doc along by his sleeve.
They charged across the lobby and into the stairwell. At the bottom, Galahad was nearly crushed as he fumbled to open the door into the tunnel. No sooner had he got
it open, when they were met with a staccato of gunfire. Galahad and a few others drew their guns and killed the Obit guards, and then the crowd rushed forward, the few who had lights running ahead and holding them aloft. In a mob they reached another set of doors and Galahad pushed his way to the front to open them. This time they were prepared for resistance on the other side, but found themselves instead in a still and pristine reception area. The room was unguarded, so they broke the glass door on the other side and stormed through a series of narrow hallways that terminated in a heavy steel door.
This time Galahad couldn’t get through the frantic, howling mob. Fueled by adrenaline and desperate hope, they pounded on the door and walls with clubs and the butts of their rifles. Someone got the idea to shoot the lock and a few people tried to move out of the line of ricocheting bits of metal as Neal fired his city-issue Glock over and over. A Thespian got to work shooting at the hinges until finally with a screaming wrench of metal, the door moved in its frame. The crowd shoved against it as it fell and trampled over it in a rush, only to stop, startled into stunned immobility.
The lab was clean and orderly, bright with electric lights and the flash of images on computer screens. But more startling than the autoclaves and test tubes, the hum of fluorescent bulbs and the beep of monitors, were the men—actual grown men—who stood lined up in front of a table to meet them.
For a long moment, no one moved or spoke. Then Doc pushed his way to the front of the crowd and one of the men stepped forward to meet him.
“Hello, Johnny. Nice to see you again.”
Doc stared. “Hi, Dr. Fielding.”
The man’s smile was strained and didn’t extend past the tight curve of his lips. “Please call me Frank. I’m sure your father would’ve wanted it that way.” He cast a nervous glance at the crowd. “Welcome to our lab.”
Neal shoved his way forward. “Fuck your welcome. I want to know where my brother is.”
Frank exchanged a guilty glance with one of his colleagues. “I’m afraid I don’t know you or your brother, and—”
“Liar!” Julilla said. “You used him for his brain hormones, like you did all the others.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You children are delusional.”
“Bullshit. You’re a bunch of killers.”
Frank turned to Doc, as if their prior connection might hold some weight. “There are things happening here you can’t possibly understand, son.”
“I’m not your son. And quit lying. We know you bring children here and kill them.”
“It’s for a worthy cause,” said another scientist.
“Do they know it’s a worthy cause before you murder them?”
Frank ran a trembling hand through his hair. “Look, kids.” His eyes scanned the group, challenging them to see reason. “We’re close to finding a cure. We’ve got the materials, we’ve got the supplies—” he indicated the lab with a sweep of his arm. “What we don’t have is time. What we’re doing is distasteful, but the future of humanity is at stake.”
Angry murmurs rose from the crowd and another researcher stepped forward. “Who do you think will find the cure if all the trained scientists are dead?”
“At least they died with their principles,” Doc said.
Frank turned on Doc with an ugly light in his eyes. “What kind of morality makes a man like your father choose a needless death when he has a boy to raise? What kind of ethics say it’s better to go to the Telo pits when one has the skills and knowledge to save the human race?” When Doc didn’t answer, he turned back to the group. “We were going to share the cure with you once we had it. Please believe it was never our intention to hoard—”
“So there isn’t a cure?” Julilla said in disbelief.
“Not yet,” Frank said, his voice softening. “But we’ll keep doing research until we have it or until the hormone treatments stop working and we die. We’re completely dedicated.”
“Wait a minute,” Neal said. “There isn’t a cure and you want more hormone. Does that mean…?”
Frank threw up his hands. “We’ve tried other methods. We agonized over this course of action.”
With a scream of rage, Neal drew a semiautomatic. In the chaos of shouts and gunfire that erupted around her, Cassie heard someone call on them to stop firing while others shouted that they should kill all the bastards. Behind her, the crowd tried to move and as she felt herself pushed forward, Cassie slipped in a spreading pool of blood and pitched forward under trampling feet.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Cassie awoke to the dim rustle of movement around her. Remembering that she was in danger but confused as to what the threat might be, she made to sit up. A hand on her shoulder stopped her. “Stay quiet,” Galahad said. “You took a pretty nasty kick to the head.”
So that was why her head was pounding. She opened her eyes and saw she was in a reception area, lying on the carpet near several bandaged teens resting quietly in the dim light of yellow glow sticks. Nearby, a Thespian nurse in a white uniform and starched cap moved among the patients. She noticed Cassie was awake and came over. “How are you doing?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Galahad smiled. “Let her finish waking up.”
The nurse took her vitals, asked a lot of questions and made Cassie tell her how many fingers she was holding up.
“Three. There’s nothing wrong with my eyes.”
“I think she’s fine,” Galahad told the nurse. He helped Cassie to her feet and held her while she saw spots and swayed. When she was steady on her feet, he led her into the tunnel that would take them to the stairs and daylight.
Are they all dead?” Cassie asked. There was no need to clarify who she meant.
“Yes.”
For a moment the only sound was the echo of their footsteps. “So that’s it, then. No cure.”
Galahad’s arm tightened around her. “It may be possible for May to make something of the lab notes, but… no disrespect to her intelligence, but if a group of elite biomedical researchers couldn’t figure it out….” He held open a door so they could enter the stairwell. They emerged into an open area of marble floors and elevator banks, sunny with the afternoon rays angling through the plate glass windows.
“Well,” Cassie said with a sigh, “It’s not like we expected much.”
“Some kids did. The twins died thinking the cure was real.”
Cassie cringed at mention of the twins. “May tried to warn us. She said we would probably be disappointed.”
They stepped into the sunshine and walked toward the parking lot and the rolling fields beyond. Scattered about were the bodies of the dead and the bloody forms of the injured. Weak voices called to them as they passed, begging for water and medicine, but Galahad steered Cassie away, assuring her that care of the injured was under control and that Pharms and Obits would likely be shot anyway, so it was best not to waste any sympathy on them.
Cassie tried to feel something for the doomed enemy soldiers but found only indifference. This disturbed her more than anything else so far. “I can’t take this any more.”
Galahad looked at her in alarm. “You’ll feel better soon. We’re going to help each other through this.”
Realizing he had misinterpreted her words, Cassie shook her head. “I’m not planning on doing the Telo’s job. What I mean is I can’t go back to the city. I want to go to my family’s retreat.”
“Is that wise?”
“I think I can do it. I know how to forage off the land, and my parents stocked the place like they were preparing for the apocalypse. A different kind, of course.”
“If that’s what you think you need to do.” Galahad looked away, his jaw set and his eyes fixed on an imaginary point of interest on the horizon.
Cassie stopped walking and made him look at her. “I was hoping…” she felt herself blush and hated herself for the sudden wave of bashfulness. “I thought maybe you’d like to come.”
“Are
you sure you want me?” His features were stern, but there was no mistaking the spark of hope in his eyes. “There’s things I can’t explain about my past.”
She took his hand, knowing what was troubling him. “You didn’t do it.” When he didn’t answer, she added, “Even if you did, I wouldn’t care. Everything is changing so fast.” Cassie struggled to come up with words that would capture what she meant. “We’re not who we were a year ago, or even last week. I should’ve had faith in you all along, but I do now and… can we just start over?”
“On one condition.” He tugged at her necklace and pulled the ring out of her shirt. “That you’ll wear this on your finger instead of around your neck.”
He unclasped the chain and held the ring in his hand for a moment where it sparkled with a fine white light. Then he slipped it onto her finger and closed his hand over hers. “With this ring, I thee wed.”
Cassie sucked in her breath. “We can’t.”
“Who says? The dead people? What did they ever know?”
She pulled her hand out of his and examined the ring in the golden light of late afternoon. There was so little time and she wanted so much!
EXCERPT FROM CASSIE’S JOURNAL:
Jay and I are leaving. We asked a few of our friends to come with us, but Doc and Rochelle want to return to the hotel and open a clinic for the general public. Julilla thinks we’re crazy and said she was too much a city girl to consider “living in the forest like an animal.” I think her real issue, though, is that winning the battle has given her clout with the alliance and she sees an opportunity to take a leadership role in the city. I hope it works out for her and that she doesn’t let it go to her head.
Elissa is grieving Mundo’s death on the battlefield and making such a show of going around in a black dress and veil that I’m glad Kayleen stayed at the hotel. Jason is effectively in charge of the Thespians now and Elissa doesn’t seem to care. To their credit, none of the Thespians have come up with a skit to commemorate Mundo’s heroic death in battle. Or maybe one already did and I just haven’t heard about it.