War_Apocalypse

by JC Andrijeski

  It never in a million years occurred to me that Jon would give me to our enemy. Because, as much as I’d been in denial about that fact––that’s what Cass was now.

  She was the enemy.

  She’d been waiting for me.

  I walked around the edge of the cement shelter around the metal-plated door, and I saw all of them just standing there, on that open section of roof, waiting.

  Cass stood in front, legs planted slightly apart, hands on her hips. Her black and scarlet hair whipped in the wind, dramatic against the dark gray sky. Her red leather pants were the only other splash of color, since the soldiers standing with her all wore solid black.

  No helicopter stood there, not at the time.

  The roof was totally silent.

  Guns aimed at me in a straight line. The dozen or so soldiers I took in at a glance all wore helmets and organic armor, anti-grav boots and holstered weapons in addition to the combat rifles. The rifles were FN Scars, all organically-enhanced with grenade launchers attached. They shone a deep, almost unreal black rippled through with a shimmering, metallic green from the living parts in the machine.

  Cass didn’t move or speak as I took this all in. Her pale hands sat on her hips and somehow, my single, lightning glance caught her manicured fingernails, painted the same scarlet-red as her hair and her pants.

  She, alone, wore no armor. A smirk lived on her lipsticked mouth.

  My mind never really caught up. Not the conscious, directive parts of it.

  Instead, that other part of me kicked in. The Bridge part of me, as Vash called it. I shifted into fight mode before my conscious mind could make sense of Cass’s facial expression. Light flooded up from my heart and belly into the structures above my head––moving upward in a hot geyser that blinded me when my eyes ignited into a sharp, green glow.

  My telekinesis snaked out.

  Physically, I couldn’t see.

  Thanks to the pregnancy, I couldn’t see with my regular seer sight, either.

  I couldn’t aim anything, and in that split second of delay, I found myself overly conscious of Jon––of Cass herself. I didn’t want to kill either of them on accident. Even then, I didn’t want to hurt either of them, not beyond what they could recover from.

  That hesitation may have been my undoing, too.

  I hesitated, then I let that hot, electric-like light go.

  Despite my conscious hesitation, the Bridge part of me aimed it at her anyway… and in the direction of that line of black-clad soldiers standing behind her.

  A cut blast of light left me…

  Some part of my inner eye watched it leave, saw Cass reach up with her own light, with something that felt like a shield. I thought she would bounce it off that, aim it back at me, but instead she diverted the stream I sent at her in some way, veering it off her, and into the sky.

  I fought to see through the green glow in my eyes, even as I watched the current dissipate.

  Cass began walking towards me, her strides casual. The black clad soldiers followed, pacing her, their rifles still aimed at me. Backing up as they walked, I fought to pull my aleimi together, to get all of the structures working roughly in the same direction again––

  Then pain hit me. Hard. Too hard to fight.

  It felt like someone stabbed a hot iron through the middle of my back, or maybe electrocuted me with some kind of sword. I couldn’t move it was so bad, except to try and get away, but I couldn’t do that either. I just stood there, screaming, my back arched.

  Then the current ended.

  I fell forward to my knees, panting, fighting to see. I tried to pull my aleimi together, to use it to shove them back, but a man behind him, one of the soldiers I hadn’t seen from the other side of the roof, jabbed me with the black, long-handled weapon again.

  I screamed, frozen in place while the charge went off.

  Even as I did, my mind whirled that I hadn’t felt them, hadn’t seen them there because of the pregnancy blindness and whatever Cass had done to hide their light––

  When my vision cleared, I looked up, and found Cass looming over me, smiling.

  I fought to pull my aleimi together, even then. I knew I’d already lost. I was surrounded by black-clad soldiers. Rifles, electric prods and grenade launchers were all pointed at my face, but I couldn’t stop fighting. Some part of me couldn’t even think logically about it, and it wasn’t all panic, or fear. It transcended those things.

  The thought of the life inside me, of Revik––

  I looked around frantically for help, but Jon was gone.

  I couldn’t reach anyone with my light. Mere seconds had passed since I’d walked out on the roof, but already, every illusion of safety had been stripped from me. No one would know to look for me. No one would know anything was wrong.

  After all, I’d last been seen with Jon.

  My throat closed. I looked for him again, but he was gone.

  Jon was gone.

  I slammed out with my light, and Cass blocked it, grunting a little. When I could see again, she was wiping blood from her nose, her mouth curled in a frown.

  By then, the helicopter was landing. The beating rotors filled my ears. My hair whipped around my head and I hit out with the telekinesis again. And again. And again.

  My strikes grew stronger each time, closer together, maybe out of desperation––

  Then that debilitating pain returned, so badly I thought it would kill me, maybe rip me in half. That time, two of the soldiers hit me in the spine and the side with those long black poles.

  When I’d stopped screaming, two other soldiers were already fastening binders around my wrists and arms, a collar around my neck. I could only kneel there, panting, as Cass watched them work, a faint frown on her face.

  I hit out at her a last time with my light, before they could activate the collar––

  And she kicked me in the face.

  My physical vision returned as they hauled me to my feet.

  When it did, I saw that the blasts from my telekinesis hadn’t all veered up into the sky. Broken glass sprinkled the helipad under the black, converted Sikorsky. I saw a crack in the windshield of the same, and five of the seven or so landing bulbs had exploded into powdered glass. Two soldiers lay on their backs and didn’t move.

  Another had fallen to one knee, screaming. His gun had cracked in half, sending shrapnel into his chest. Yet another lay on the edge of the white target circle of the helipad, his upper body on fire from where his rifle had exploded.

  When I looked up, I saw Cass surveying the same damage, that smile back on her lips. Looking at me, she wagged a finger, smirking in mock disapproval.

  One of the soldiers grabbed me from behind, likely to activate the collar. I slammed my head back, hitting him in the face.

  I heard him grunt in pain, right before he released me.

  I barely noticed.

  I continued to struggle, fighting them away from the collar around my neck with my elbows feet and head, jerking and lunging so they couldn’t lock it in place.

  Crying out for Revik in the Barrier, I did everything I could to fight my way past their shields, trying to pull my light back together well enough to attack them again with the telekinesis. My nose bled as I slammed up against their construct. Pain exploded behind my eyes, worsened by the electric shocks and the intensity of my attempts to concentrate.

  I barely felt any of it.

  As I pulled more light up into the structures I used for telekinesis, I tried again and again to reach Revik, to reach Wreg or Balidor. I was half-blind from the light in my eyes, but I saw it when Cass took a rifle from one of the soldiers standing next to her.

  I saw her shoulder the rifle; I saw her aim it at me.

  Cass was smart, just like Cass had always been smart. She didn’t point the gun at my head, or even my heart. She didn’t bother to make threats.

  She pointed it at me, right at my belly.

  My head cleared without thought, se
emingly outside of my control.

  In a way it never would have for anything else.

  “I don’t care if the baby dies,” she said. “I really don’t, Allie.”

  Looking at her, I believed her. Staring at her, still panting, I clenched my jaw. Obviously, if she was bothering to threaten me, there was still some chance I could reach Revik, and raise the alarm. There was some chance I could stop this.

  “What makes you think I care, either?” I said. “We could have another.”

  Cass grunted, but I saw real anger skate across her eyes.

  The gun didn’t waver.

  “Big words, Al. Although they might be more true than you’ve admitted to yourself… or to your husband.” She smirked. “You never wanted to be a mommy in the first place. Did you, Al? Isn’t that what you always said, when we were kids?” She tilted the gun’s barrel up towards my head. “Is this better? Or are you willing to sacrifice your precious Syrimne d’Gaos, too? Somehow I think his dick might be worth more to you than the baby. Want to bet I’m right?”

  My throat closed. I looked at her, then at the soldiers around her.

  I got it. She knew she’d won.

  She was toying with me. She was wasting time up here, toying with me, because she knew she could. The thought made it hard to breathe.

  “What about Revik?” was all I could think of to say.

  “What about him, Allie?” she said, that smirk still in her voice. “Are you implying I’m in love with your guy? Still?”

  I barely heard her, though.

  I’d just seen Jon. My whole body froze as I stared at him.

  He stood near the metal-plated door that led back into the hotel, his eyes aimed blankly in our direction. From the look on his face, he might have been half-awake on his couch back in San Francisco, watching kung fu movies and eating microwave popcorn with me at two in the morning. I saw no alarm there, no concern––not even any recognition.

  He watched me look at him for a few blinks more.

  Then he turned away, walking back to the metal-plated door. He grabbed the handle while I struggled for words past my closed throat. I watched him disappear back through that opening without a backward glance, thumping mindlessly down the cement stairs on the other side.

  It felt like being kicked in the stomach.

  I turned back to Cass, conscious that tears ran down my face.

  “Why, Cass?” I said. “Why are you doing this?”

  Her red painted lips lifted in a thin smile, right before she shook her head.

  “Really? You’re going to ask me the stupidest, most clichéd thing you could possibly ask me, Al?” Rolling her eyes, she lifted the gun, aiming it skyward where she propped it on her shoulder. “I should have gone after Revik… let Ditrini bag you, like he wanted. At least Revik would have had some good insults for me.” She smiled, her voice musing. “I remember him from the Caucasus. You wouldn’t believe some of the shit that came out of his mouth.” She smirked. “…Or that went into it.”

  My jaw hardened. My eyes shifted back to the soldiers with her.

  The Black Arrow goons had their guns back on me, as soon as Cass lifted hers.

  “Come on, Allie,” Cass said. “I don’t want to have to keep hitting you with those prods. I have no idea what that might do to the baby.” Still smiling at me, she cocked her hip in that pose I remembered. The wind caught her hair briefly, whipping it around her back. She motioned towards the helicopter. “We’re going for a little ride. We need you collared. You can be conscious for that, or not.”

  When I didn’t visibly react, Cass’s voice turned openly impatient.

  “We have more people downstairs.” Pursing her lips, she motioned at me with one hand, seer-fashion. “Do you really think I’d let you waltz up here, fully loaded, if I didn’t have a way to kill Revik on the lower floors?”

  “You’re lying.” My arms shook, but my voice came out steady. “You wouldn’t kill him. He saved your life. Why would you kill Revik?”

  Her smile grew. “But you don’t doubt I would kill you? Why is that, Esteemed Bridge? Guilty conscience much?”

  I just stared at her, unable to pull apart and put back together the parts of her that were so familiar, next to the parts of her I didn’t know at all. The woman in front of me was a complete stranger, yet so much of the Cass I knew shone through, I found myself hesitating.

  Or maybe I just knew it was already over.

  My mind went strangely to a self-defense class I took in college, and the teacher, who’d been a cheerful, incredibly physically-intimidating, red-headed Scot with a few belts in boxing, judo, ninjitsu and whatever else.

  She’d said something that day I’d never forgotten.

  “Every predator has his or her favorite hunting ground.” She pointed a stern finger around the room, right before she went back to kneading her hands together, wrapped in boxer’s tape. “…and every predator has his or her favorite feeding ground. These are rarely, if ever, the same place. You never want a predator to get you from their hunting ground to their feeding ground, ladies. Once they’ve moved you from their hunting place to their feeding place, your chances of ending up dead increase exponentially.”

  Staring at the helicopter behind Cass, I had no doubt that that if I got in that thing, I was gone. Dead. Or worse. Revik’s face flashed in my mind, even as I looked back at her.

  “Don’t do this to him,” I said. “Cass… please. Just, don’t.”

  Cass gave me a wry smile. “Always the little martyr when it comes to the ball and chain. Jesus, Al. That’s tired. Even for you.”

  “Why?” I asked her, swallowing. “Why, Cass? Why would you want to hurt us? Why would you want to hurt either of us?”

  My best friend, one of the few people in the world I trusted absolutely once upon a time, who I would have gladly died for, who’d defended me and fought for me for years, who’d gone through my father’s death with me, who I thought of as a sister––laughed.

  The laugh held so much hatred I flinched.

  I tried again to reach Revik through the connection we shared, but that time, I felt the utter blankness of the wall that stood there. I tried to crawl through it with my light, like a blind person on their knees, but I couldn’t feel anything––

  Cass raised the gun again, pointing it at my head.

  With her other hand, she shook her finger at me, that thin smile back on her lips.

  “Bad girl,” she warned.

  “I’m dead if I go with you.”

  Cass shook her head, lips pursed. “No. Not dead. Scout’s honor.”

  Staring at her, I felt a wave of sickness so intense, I could barely stay upright. I choked on an attempt at words, overcome with feeling as I found myself seeing her again, remembering her from San Francisco, from when we were kids, from the last time I’d seen her.

  “Cass… gods. Please don’t take me to Shadow. Don’t do this to me… to us.” My throat closed as I heard my own words, as the meaning behind them suddenly felt totally and unalterably real. “If you don’t care about me… don’t do this to Revik. You know what that bastard did to him.” I fought to breathe, unable to see as tears ran down my face. “I love you, Cass. You’re my family. Whatever you think I’ve done to you, please, let me make it right. Don’t do it this way… please. Don’t do something that will make all of us hate you. Don’t do something you and I can never come back from.”

  When I could see her again, Cass only looked impatient.

  Even the anger had gone, leaving an emptiness that scared me more. The mirrored look I could see in her brown eyes told me I wasn’t reaching her.

  Worse, it made me wonder if there was anything there to reach.

  “Cass––” I began, at a loss.

  “Get in the helicopter, O Holy of Holies.” Her voice grew as irritated as her eyes. “If you insist on playing the drama queen, we can do it en route. But I have to say, this isn’t as fun as when I thought you might actually put
up a fight.”

  Checking a very expensive-looking watch, Cass waved the gun back towards the military-plated bird. “Seriously. I’m bored. Five seconds. Lower your head so they can activate the collar. If you don’t, I flip a coin, and you get to pick heads or tails on whether I shoot your precious Sword first… or I practice giving you a home abortion right here.”

  Around that time, I got hit with a dart.

  Unfortunately, I’m not Revik.

  That thing had me down on one knee in about ten seconds.

  The drug must have reached my mind at the same time. I flinched back in panic when Cass walked closer, half-convinced she was about to do exactly what she’d just threatened to do, and cut whatever lived in my womb right out of me.

  But all she did was walk around behind me and yank my head forward by the hair. I could only kneel there, gasping, as she flicked the switch to the collar’s lock, and activated the retinal scanner. The collar clicked in as I tasted blood, still gasping.

  I groaned when the tendrils wrapped around my spine, bringing a heavier cloud around my light and head, like metal shackles. All I could do was kneel there, gasping, sparking like a burnt-out transformer.

  She had her Black Arrow guys strap me into the helicopter a few minutes later.

  They pumped me full of another drug once I was cuffed into the seat. That time, they used a syringe, not a dart.

  I was crying by the time it kicked in, crying and fighting the chains until my wrists, ankles and neck hurt. Seeing the look of pure disgust on Cass’s face when I cried and pleaded with her a second time killed something in me––some light that shone in my heart.

  It bothered me more than anything Ditrini had done to me, much less Terian. It hurt more than most of what Revik had done to me, as Syrimne, or even in the Tank.

  I knew it was only the beginning, though.

  I knew the pain was about to get a lot worse.

  CASS WAVED A hand in front of my face, pulling my mind back to the present.

  I found I was facing out the window of the Sikorsky, looking down on a wash of buildings, water and land that made no sense to my eyes.

  “Wow, you look stoned,” Cass observed. When I looked over, she folded her arms, pushing up her breasts. “I might have to try some of that stuff myself,” she added with a smile.