Hammer of Angels

by G T Almasi

  SAME MORNING, 6:44 A.M. CET

  CHERBOURG, PROVINCE OF FRANCE, GG

  The cargo elevator slowly ascends to the dockside warehouse’s fourth floor. I hide under a mound of packing blankets. Finally, the car gronks to a halt and the doors clatter open. German voices call to one another, but nobody joins me on the elevator.

  I peek out from under my cover. All clear. I throw off the blankets and walk to the main floor. The high unfinished ceiling extends away from me in all directions. It’s striped at regular intervals with long tubes of fluorescent lights. Rows and rows of shipping crates create temporary passageways and innumerable hiding places. It’ll take me forever to physically explore every inch of this warren. I check out the ceiling again. That’s it. I jump on top of a wall of boxes. Now the entire space is laid out in front of me.

  A half dozen brown-shirted knuckle draggers have clustered near the windows overlooking the Longstreet. Gunshots and screams resound across the harbor. Grey and Raj are really bringin’ the pain.

  Behind the jerkazoids, huddled away from the action outside, is a group of kids. I double-check with infrared.

  Yep, little heat sigs.

  It won’t help the Rising retain popular support if I make these kids witness the untimely demises of their elders. I move across the stacks of cargo toward the wall of windows. When I reach the wall, I turn toward the men and speed up. My feet skip and skim across the containers until I’m right on top of the dirtbags looking out the windows.

  My body sails into the group. I grab two heads and bash them together. My hands wrench rifles away from two more men, and I spin like a semaphore, my arms out straight with the rifles extended. After two revolutions I’ve clubbed the remaining opponents to the floor.

  I scoop up their firearms and carry them to an emergency exit on the far side of the cargo grotto. Through the door is a small metal catwalk with stairs leading down the outside of the building. I pitch each weapon over the small building next door and into the water beyond.

  When I go back inside, one of the men, a late-twenties-looking guy, is trying to stand up. I grab him by his jacket and hoist him until his feet leave the floor.

  “Your name!” I shout in German.

  “W-Wilfried,” he stammers.

  “Wilfried,” I repeat as I lug him over to the kids. “Get…those…children…out of here!” I throw Wilfried on the floor and scream, “Mach schnell, mutterfinken!” This sort of language may not be so great for young ears, but their asshole parents have probably exposed them to worse things than R-rated curse words.

  Wilfried gathers the munchkins together and leads them to the emergency exit. The shorties all look at me with big saucer eyes as they’re ushered out the door.

  “Brando, be aware that I’m sending a group of kids down the fire escape.”

  “Roger that, Scarlet. I see them.”

  “I’ve disarmed their chaperone, so don’t shoot him.”

  “Got it. We’ll leave him alone unless he tries something.”

  I return to my entry point and pitter-patter down the metal stairs wrapped around the elevator shaft. As I descend to the third floor, I take in my next battleground, first looking for small heat signatures. No kids. Everyone I see skulking about is a full-grown adult.

  The warehouse’s third floor has permanent partitions dividing the floor into six sections. The closest zones are full of refrigerators and washing machines. The areas farthest away are lined with black fifty-five-gallon drums. In the middle are towers of brown cardboard boxes, smaller wooden crates, rows of plastic bottles, and a half dozen automatic-weapon-toting brownshirts. The men watch the line of kids descending the fire escape from above and look questions at one another.

  Their answer comes from Li’l Bertha’s hail of suppression fire. Her pellets splinter chunks out of crates, leave pinging dents in barrels, and break the windows overlooking the dock. The men drop behind the nearest divider while I rapidly advance at them. I jump over the low wall and put on an ass-kicking clinic. They’ve fallen into the amateur’s trap of bunching together, which allows my pinwheeling arms and legs to hit them all at once. The biffs and boffs come so quickly, it sounds like a bunch of boxers working out on a side of beef.

  My hands grab their guns and throw them in a corner, near the front windows. Nearby is a short stack of opaque blue plastic one-liter bottles with white caps. Hidden among the luridly illustrated stickers with melting fingers and all-capitals warnings like DANGER and ACHTUNG is a black-and-white label that reads “Salzsäure.” My onboard English-German dictionary translates this as “hydrochloric acid.”

  Perfect.

  I rip the cap off one of the bottles and empty the contents onto my pile of confiscated firearms. The clear liquid pours over the metal and splashes to the floor, where it condenses into a white cloud of evil-smelling gas. The repulsive odor makes me picture tin cans full of superconcentrated chlorine. My eyes, nose, and throat start to sting as the guns and floorboards begin smoking.

  Wow.

  I back away from the angrily fizzing mess and comm, “Darwin, I need to ask you a chemistry question.”

  He replies, “What’d you do?”

  I tell him.

  “Scarlet, get the fuck outta there and don’t breathe any of that shit!”

  “What about the Purity Losers?”

  “Crap. Uhh, move them away from the spill, but make it quick.”

  I hold my breath and blink away burning tears. My hands hoist and shot put each of the six beefcakes far across the room. They ungently splonk into walls or bounce off wooden pallets full of stuff. Meaty cracks accompany their awkward landings.

  Nobody said nonlethal meant non-limb-splitting.

  I race back to the stairs, wiping salty dampness from my cheeks. As I rush down to the next floor, my eyesight slips into Weirdo-Vision again. My hands look orange, and Li’l Bertha is a charcoal silhouette against the bright yellow steps.

  “Darwin,” I comm, “something’s wrong with my vision Mods.”

  “You’re still functional?”

  “Yeah,” I reply with more confidence than I feel.

  “Okay. Well, Grey and Raj have finished their sectors. Want help?”

  “Sure; I still have two floors to clear out.”

  My infrared seeks out more little people but comes up blank again. It seems like they had all their brats on the top floor.

  Wait, there’s one kid. Ah, two. No…just one? Hang on.

  Two of the five heat sigs in front of me switch from adult-size red blobs to child-size red blobs. Then they switch back again. Next, all five shrink to kiddy sigs before popping into grown-ups again.

  “Darwin, I definitely need assistance. My vision Mods are so screwed up, I can’t distinguish adult hostiles from juveniles.”

  “Okay, Scarlet. Sit tight; help is on the way.”

  All this time I’ve spent being defective has given the militiamen plenty of time to see me and open fire. I duck behind a rack of long iron pipes and listen to the fog of lead whoosh past overhead. The gunsels adjust their aim, and the pipes absorb a clanging broadside of slugs.

  Before I dived for cover, I saw that the second floor is dominated by a colossal pair of metalworking machines. They’ve each gotta weigh a couple of tons. I can’t tell if they’re installed here or waiting to be shipped out. They’re a problem, though, because they’re providing cover for this squad of militiamen.

  “Cripes,” I comm, “there’s a lot of fucking jerks in here! What’d they do, bring every butthead in Greater Germany?”

  “Scarlet.” It’s Grey. “Lay some Incendiaries near the competitors so Falcon can see them.”

  “Sir, I can’t tell if they’re adults or children.”

  “Raj and I are right outside, and I see five adult heat sigs. Light ’em up.”

  “Yes, sir. Falcon, you ready?”

  “Affirmative, Scarlet.”

  I hold Li’l Bertha above my pile of pipes and return fire wi
th a volley of small Incendiaries. Blaring orders resound from the other side of the warehouse, near the metalworking mills. The hyped-up voices are joined by deep rifle reports from the Longstreet. Two of the shouters turn into screamers as F-Bird scores a pair of hits through the windows. I stand up from cover and take aim, but the three remaining chowderheads have hidden behind the metalsmithing machines. They take turns blindly firing in my direction, trying to keep me suppressed.

  The floor begins to pulsate in sync with a ballad of loud bangs and crashes from downstairs.

  “Heads up, Scarlet.” It’s Brando. “Raj has entered the building and engaged the enemy.”

  Music to my ears.

  All the racket down there must be the big man and his Bitchgun. “Darwin, tell him to shoot up, through his ceiling.”

  Brando comms, “Raj, did you hear that?”

  Raj’s comm-voice rumbles through the bedlam. “I hear you, Scarlet. Clear the area.”

  I crouch behind my cover and peer toward my competitors. A gigantic hole erupts in the floor from downstairs. Chunks of wood ricochet off every surface, and my incoming fire drops to bupkis.

  “Raj,” I comm, “shift your aim thirty-five feet toward the water!”

  Another inverted crater punches through the deck. Raj’s shots are so close to one of the giant-ass milling machines that the floor gives way beneath it. The monstrous device tips over and bashes a hole ten feet wide in the deck. The joists snap like matchsticks, and the floorboards sag like a hammock. The second machine loses its balance and follows the first one, expanding the instant atrium to a width of fifteen feet.

  Two of my remaining opponents get sucked through the hole and cascade into Raj’s merciless clutches. I aim Li’l Bertha at the remaining militiaman. Before I can fire, the man’s head twitches and he falls over backward. A smoky shape resolves itself into the figure of Grey.

  He holds his hands up and pretends to surrender to me, “Nicht schiessen, fraulein.” He laughs and checks his fallen opponent’s pulse. I walk over to the jagged hole in the floor. Raj stands in the heap of brown-shirted body parts he’s created next to the two tipped-over shop machines.

  Raj looks up. “You all right, Shortcake?”

  “Yeah. Thanks for the help.” I jump through the hole and land next to Raj. “You guys made me feel like Catherine the Great.”

  “How’d we do that?”

  “Well, you know—” I pretend to primp my hair. “—behind every successful woman is a devoted gang of homicidal maniacs.”

  49

  SIX MINUTES LATER, 6:50 A.M. CET

  CHERBOURG, PROVINCE OF FRANCE, GG

  “What are you talking about?” I gripe at Brando. “They’re right there. Let’s blast ’em!”

  “With what?” Brando takes off his glasses and wipes them on his shirt. “This is a cargo vessel, not a warship.”

  We’re all in Longstreet’s bridge, smokin’ ’em if we got ’em. Sitting down for a bit has given my vision’s oversaturation a chance to return to normal. I’m holding my eyes closed as Captain Demet tells Grey and Brando he can’t risk moving his ship out of Cherbourg’s harbor until Kruppe’s proslavery militia on the two fishing craft has been eliminated.

  I open my peepers. “Raj, can’t you hit them with your Bitchgun?”

  Raj leans on a desk in the corner. “Sure, if I had any ammunition for it, but my last shells brought down that warehouse floor.”

  I already know Falcon is out of ammo for his rifle, and even he’s not good enough with a pistol to neutralize every person on two bobbing boats from a half mile away. If F-Bird actually hit someone out there, the rest of the assholes would motor in and sink us with a barrage of rockets.

  “So…now what? We’re stuck here?”

  The entire ship’s company has gathered outside. They volunteered for this voyage with the understanding that they’d be protected from proslavery scum like the Purity League. The government vastly underestimated the scale and severity of the far right’s response, and Berlin’s attempts to restore order have been comprehensively overwhelmed. I think Longstreet’s crew is worried we’re going to abandon them here.

  Grey squints through the front windows and rubs his stubbled chin. He hasn’t had a chance to shave since we left Paris, and his beard grows in fast. He turns and quietly scrutinizes me, still brushing his scruffy facial hair with his fingertips. Then he smiles.

  I spread my hands. “What?”

  Finally, he says, “How fast can you swim?”

  “Real fuckin’ fast. Why—oh! Wait, you’re not thinking to—”

  “Swim out there, yes,” Grey says. “You and me. We each attack one boat and eliminate Kruppe and his men before they can react.”

  Captain Demet, his crew, a contingent of former slaves, Raj, Brando, and Falcon—all of them—watch Grey and me. I never miss a chance to fuck people up, but this is crazy, even for us.

  “Grey, our pistols will be so waterlogged, they won’t—”

  He holds up one hand and cuts me off again. “No guns.” A nasty sneer slithers across his face while his eyes narrow down to slits. “Knives.”

  My heart thuds like a mallet. He’s practically daring me, and Alixandra Janina Nico never, ever turns down a dare.

  I lean toward Grey. “All right, tough guy. We’ll do them with knives.”

  The two of us walk outside. Everybody follows. We’re hidden from Kruppe’s boats by the Longstreet’s bridge. I hand Li’l Bertha to Brando, who carefully accepts her with a solemn nod. Grey gives his small arsenal to Raj.

  Grey and I both kick off our boots and socks. I unbuckle my belt and pull off my pants and then my coat, sweaters, and shirt. Whoo! Chilly! My nipples get as hard as pebbles in the winter air.

  The sailors hoot and holler, their worries about imminent death washed away by the sight of female flesh. I’m glad Marie has simple taste in skivvies. The black cotton underwear she bought for me has a bit of lace around the edges, but besides that I’m essentially wearing a plain bikini.

  I buckle my knife holster around my upper thigh. The overstimulated crewmen loudly proclaim how much they like this sexy swashbuckler outfit. I shout at them in French, “Sorry, maternal parent fornicators. No American tail for your soft-as-cheese dicks!” Or something like that.

  Grey has also shucked down to his underwear. He’s pale, fit, and hairier than I would have thought. After he straps his knife around his waist, he turns to me, bares his teeth like a pirate, and snarls, “Eyyyy!”

  I grit my teeth back at him. “Arrrr!”

  We each take a long, deep breath, run across the deck, and dive overboard.

  Holy fuck, this water is freezing!

  I paddle after Grey to the ocean-facing side of the Longstreet, dose a bunch of Madrenaline, and shoot away from the ship like a torpedo. I add a measure of Overkaine to numb the pain from the cold.

  “I’ll go for the boat on the left,” I comm to Grey.

  “Yeah. I’ll take the one on the right.”

  Our arms and legs churn the water and propel us toward our targets like a pair of biorobotic sharks. Grey can run faster than I can, but we’re evenly matched as swimmers since here we work against liquid resistance instead of gravity.

  With fifty yards to go, Grey comms, “Try to swim underwater the rest of the way to max the surprise.” I switch to a backstroke and hyperventilate for a few seconds. Then I descend four or five feet under the surface. I raise my arms over my head so I’m shaped like a missile and kick furiously until I pass under the enemy vessel.

  “In position,” I comm.

  “Me, too,” Grey replies. “Give ’em hell, Scarlet.”

  I surface at the boat’s stern. My last stroke launches me like a flying fish. I’m reaching for my fighting knife before my feet hit the deck.

  Two brown-shirted men lounge on a pair of plastic chairs. One is a tall, chubby guy who holds a rocket launcher across his lap. The other guard is shorter and armed with a machine pistol. Th
ey’re immobilized by the sight of a furious, nearly naked girl erupting from the briny deep like a merpsycho.

  I yank my knife from its holster and charge them. Their eyes move from my tits, to my face, and then to the glittering blade in my left hand. The one thing they aren’t looking at is my right fist, which crashes into their faces—one after the other—and smashes them out of their chairs.

  First things first. The rocket launcher goes overboard, then the automatic pistol. I reach down and wrench the chubby guard off the deck by his coat. I herd him to the rail and shove him into the water. The shorter guard stands and puts up his dukes, like I’m going to box him.

  Yeah.

  I sweep my knife across his fists and gouge cuts into all his fingers. He recoils with his blood-spurting mitts against his chest. This presents me with so many options that I have trouble deciding how to finish this fool.

  Finally I settle on a feint to his knee, then a crushing right uppercut to his chin. His colliding molars sound like a pair of bricks being slapped together. Down he goes.

  Another KO for the Dazzling Dame from D.C.

  I pick the unconscious guard off the deck and drape his warm, limp body against my icy skin. As I shuffle him forward, my bare feet smear thin streaks of blood across the deck, and my frozen teeth click like maracas.

  A thin wail shimmers across the water, followed by a heavy sploosh. Grey is on his game. The morons on my boat are so distracted by watching his murderous rampage that I make it all the way into the wheelhouse before anyone sees me coming.

  The thug nearest the door gets an agonizing trip to the disabled list when I shove my knife through the back of his knee. The remaining competitors spin around. There are four, and one of them is Johannes Kruppe. My sudden proximity and shocking appearance render them all speechless, but Johannes recovers quickly. The tall, white-haired rat-fuck swings himself through a small hatchway between the wheel and the navigator’s station and disappears below.

  There’s no help for me out here, so my tolerance for back talk is much lower than it was on shore. When two of the brutes point Lugers at me, everyone in the room automatically qualifies for express checkout.