by Ethan Cooper
(victim)
brilliant blue eyes behind a cascade of blonde. Don’t be afraid. Close your eyes and just let me rock you back to sleep. You and I, we’re survivors. We’re going to survive this.
BLINK.
I run.
I fight.
I live.
BLINK.
There’s no end to the eoas, no end to the battle around me. No matter what street I turn down, no matter what alley I duck into, there’s no retreat, no refuge, no haven. There’s only the struggle to take my next breath, the fight to live to see the next second.
BLINK.
Lose track of time. Lose track of my location.
BLINK.
Chased down a narrow street by a cluster of three eoas, I spot a doorway missing its door. I veer onto the sidewalk, up the stairs, and through the doorway to find myself in the lobby of an apartment building. It’s difficult to tell what the place looked like before because everything in here is charred. Nothing’s smoldering, and the stairs directly opposite me are intact, so it looks like the damage was contained.
I rush toward the steps, taking two at a time, ignoring the laser scaring and the smeared, bloody handprints on the walls. The door leading to the third floor has been ripped off its hinges, so I walk through it.
I bend down to let the girl stand on her feet, but she locks onto my arm with a grip so fierce that I pull her up into my arms, let my backpack drop, and put my back against the hallway wall, sliding down until my butt hits the floor.
The static fades. I listen for eoas.
(there are more eoas they will)
(come for you)
My hand is curled so tight around the pulse dagger handle that I have a hard time uncurling my fingers from it. The skin at my palm is rough and raw, cracked and bleeding.
I coax the girl into my lap, smoothing the hair back from her face. We suck down the contents of several food packets and follow that with what’s left of my SuperWater.
We eat in silence. Talking seems like it would take a lot of energy at this point. My body is still shaking with adrenaline, but I’m starting to feel pain across my body—the price to pay for survival. I’m so drained, I can’t imagine getting up, much less carry the girl. How long can we rest before we have to leave? How long before somebody comes in here? How long before I see a Bleed fall through the ceiling?
JACK, please don’t be dead. Don’t come looking for me this time. Get out of here. Swim to the mainland if you have to.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
Her eyes go wide at the sound of my voice. She puts her hand to her throat, shaking her head.
Giving her the best smile I can muster, I say, “I’m (2)Syl.”
She gives me a shy smile in return, then motions for more food.
I reach into the backpack, but my fingers never find a food packet because my left leg spasms, a searing spike of pain shooting up the whole left side of my body. I’m unable to stop myself from rolling over, throwing the girl off my lap and onto the floor. I hear a familiar pop pop pop sound, then I’m thrashing on the floor like I’m back in that room at the top of the city’s tallest building. No, it can’t be. I’m not shackled.
It can’t be him again.
(makeitstopheishurtingthe)
(baby)
Hit my head against something—probably the wall—and there’s a sudden, blinding pain and black spots across my vision.
bzzzzzZZZZt!!!!!
Mind explodes with the static.
A high-pitched whine. The sound of insects as the hallway shimmers like I’m in a fairy tale and somebody’s performing a magic spell.
Roll onto my stomach and close my eyes so I don’t have to watch the world collapse in on itself. I’ve been here before. I know how this goes: the explosion, the cold, the heat, the sharpened clown that appears out of nowhere.
bzzzzzZZZZt!!!!!
Whispered words in my brain, but in a voice modulated beyond recognition: “You’re going the wrong way again. This is a course correction.”
No.
I know my eyes are open, but something’s blocking the signal between my eyes and my brain. I reach blindly for the girl.
My fingers touch hers, but as they do, she’s pulled away from me. I scream, frantic.
Pop pop pop.
I lose consciousness.
59/Plan C [T-minus 1]
2195.12.31/Night
Drifting awake slowly is a luxury I don’t get to experience. Instead, there are shouts, the clang of metal on metal, the hum of pulse weaponry, and the sharp report of gunfire. But no static.
Eyes come open.
I don’t recognize this place.
I’m lying down, on a soft bed, in a room with a low ceiling. The world isn’t stable, but shifting, rolling to one side and then the other. I sit up, careful to avoid hitting my head the ceiling.
No question about it. I’m on a boat, but not the Rusted Whale.
I’m fully clothed, still wearing my skinsuit and boots. Everything’s intact, but crusted in ferocious patterns of dried eoa blood and other stains of unidentifiable origin.
The girl…I…
(failed you failed)
(her)
Tried to protect her for as long as I could. What else could I have done? Thought Calamity Carl was done with me on this island. Was wrong again. Add that to the long list of times I’ve been wrong.
Hurts way down deep inside to think of the girl. Her innocent face, her bright blue eyes.
(we)
(can’t)
(save)
(everybody)
Swinging my feet over the side of the bed, I notice my backpack on the floor. I don’t see my pulse dagger, and a furious check of my backpack confirms that it’s not inside.
Dammit.
The compartment is about three meters wide, with a bench opposite the bed and cabinets around the edges. At the end of the bed is another seat and a square table—big enough maybe for two people. There are long, horizontal windows near the ceiling, but they’ve been blacked out. There’s a door on the far end of the compartment. Everything is sleek and clean. I’ve certainly slept in worse places.
Leaving my backpack where it is, I check myself in the round mirror next to the door. The young woman who returns my tired gaze looks like she doesn’t know who she is, where she came from, or where she’s supposed to be going. A fallen leaf, twisting in the wind. She’s lost so much. Her memories. Her friends. A little girl she was trying to protect.
Whoever she is, she’s alone.
I run my hand through my hair, strands of blue running through my fingers like water, trying to summon the courage to open that door and see what flavor of peril I’m currently in. Then again, I guess I have the option of staying right here and just letting whatever happens happen. Perhaps down here, in the belly of this boat, is the safest place for me. Perhaps this is where I need to stay to survive. Going topside could be what finally gets me killed.
Calamity Carl would be so disappointed.
I let myself laugh out loud at that.
Thought he was done with me, but no, the second I do something he doesn’t like, he intervenes—teleports in and redirects me along the path he wants me on.
(when will you stop being a child?)
I pull the door open and ascend the steps.
BLINK.
Moored underneath a boathouse roof, the boat is at least ten meters long, and it looks like it was built to go fast, really fast. Long lines, low profile, and a dark paint job complete that look. The boathouse is of simple construction, windowless on the sides and completely open on both ends. I can hear water slap against the hull. There are crowds of people on the docks, the beach, and the streets beyond, but none of them are rushing this way.
BLINK.
The full moon is low on the horizon, trying its best to be seen through the haze and the smoke, but all it can manage is a dim, indistinct blur.
BLINK.
The ci
ty burns. But it also bleeds. The flickering orange has been overwhelmed by the gray glow. The skyline, visible against the backdrop of the fires, has been irrevocably altered. I watch a skyscraper fall, dropping vertically as if it’s simply being lowered into the ground.
BLINK.
At the stern of the boat, the man in the trench coat and blue jumpsuit stands up from what he was doing and turns toward me.
BLINK.
“You’re up,” Phoenix says. “You didn’t look wounded, but no matter what I did, I couldn’t get you to wake up.”
Okay, I’m not sure what I expected, but this wasn’t it.
“Where’s my pulse dagger?” I demand. I want to demand a lot of other things, like answers, but I feel better when I have a weapon in my hands.
Phoenix holds up one hand, the pulse dagger in it, as if he conjured it. “It’s right here. Are you going to try to use it on me when I give it back to you?”
I’m not sure what I’m going to do but stabbing a person’s whose life I saved isn’t at the top of my list. I reach out my hand, palm up. He studies me for a second, then hands me the pulse dagger. It’s comfortably solid in my hand.
Phoenix’s stance is casual, as if he doesn’t have a care in the world, but I do notice the way his hands have drifted nearer his pistols in their holsters. He doesn’t seem concerned with the very real threat of all those angry and scared people out there who could come over here and take his boat, but he seems very concerned with the not-a-big-threat blue-haired girl on his boat.
“Why aren’t both of us dead?” I ask, looking over his shoulder.
“I ask myself that every day, Syl, but if you’re referring to the fact that we haven’t been overrun with rioting people attempting to steal my boat—it’s because nobody out there knows there’s a boathouse here.”
“You’ve disguised it somehow. A hologram?”
“Something like that.”
“So, Cyberspace is glitched, but you managed to keep this system working?”
“Yes. You’re impressed, right? Go ahead, you can admit it.”
Maybe I should stab him, if only to wipe that self-satisfied grin off his face. I think he’s trying to be charming. “I’m glad I’m not dead. How did I—?”
“Get on my boat? Yeah, I don’t know. I found you here, in my bed, but like I said, I couldn’t wake you up.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Yesterday. It’s been at least twenty-four hours. You’ve been sleeping that entire time.” Phoenix turns around, apparently having decided that I’m not going to attack him, and resumes fiddling inside the open compartment he was working in. Wires spill out of the opening. I’m thinking that backup plan he told me about isn’t fully operational at the moment.
Twenty-four hours…
The realization that Calamity Carl put me here—that he wants me here, on this boat with a strange man who has the audacity to call himself Phoenix—has my stomach queasy. I put my hand on my belly, as if that will calm the storm inside. Calamity Carl said it was a course correction. Was he saving me? What does he know about Phoenix? What did he know about the Rusted Whale?
The sudden fear that my separation from JACK is permanent takes hold of me, the knot in my throat making it difficult to swallow. It’s not easy to keep my voice from cracking. “I got separated from my friends. I’d really like to find them. We had a ride on a boat—the Rusted Whale. Have you seen it?”
“There’s a boat called the Rusted Whale?”
“Yes.”
He looks up from what he’s doing, stuffing wires back into the compartment and slamming the door shut. “I’m sorry. I haven’t heard of it.”
“It was the big one docked at the long pier. You know, where your aircraft crashed.”
“Hey, my aircraft didn’t crash. It was shot down. But anyway, I know the boat you’re talking about. I didn’t see it leave, but if it makes you feel any better, I know it’s not there anymore.”
That doesn’t mean JACK and the others aren’t dead, but it’s a small nugget of hope that I can grab onto, so I do.
The boathouse begins to shake violently, dust and small bits of debris falling from the ceiling. I put my arm over my nose and mouth to keep from breathing any of it in. In the distance, two tall buildings lean toward each other, shattering like they’re made of glass, the entire scene illuminated by a flickering gray glow.
The very foundations of the island are under assault. It can’t be much longer now. The bleeding isn’t going to stop.
Phoenix takes several steps closer to me, until he’s within arm’s reach. Takes everything I have to not bring up the pulse dagger in reflex. “Listen, I don’t know if you noticed,” he says, his green eyes shining in the low light, “but I’m trying to get this boat working so I can get out of here. It doesn’t look like we have much time left.”
I hold his gaze, trying to think of a reason why Calamity Carl would put me on this boat. “Have we met before?”
He takes a step back, shaking his head a single time. “You don’t look like anybody I’ve ever met. Well, before a couple days ago that is. Anyway, you helped me earlier, lying to those techtrash technomancers, and I appreciate it. I usually dump stowaways overboard.”
“I didn’t come here willingly. Somebody knocked me out and dumped me here.”
He’s trying to hide the fact that he doesn’t believe me, but I don’t care right now. Doesn’t matter how I happened to get onto his boat; what matters is that I’m here. And that I’m out of other options.
“Are you headed for the mainland?” I ask.
“I don’t have a lot of choices.”
“Will you let me leave with you? I have my own food and water.”
He doesn’t answer right away. If he declines, I’m not sure what I’m going to do.
(do whatever angel)
(you have to use)
(the pulse dagger)
There are a lot of complicated things I want to do—find JACK, remember who I was, dig out Calamity Carl’s eyes with my pulse dagger—but when it comes to my reason for wanting to get out of here, it’s as simple as can be.
“I don’t want to die here,” I say.
Phoenix sighs out loud, but is clearly involved in some sort of internal struggle. Eventually, with a glance toward the city, he nods. “You can come with me. I’ll take you to the mainland.”
Given all that’s happened, I shouldn’t be smiling, but I am, a big stupid grin. “Thank you. You’re saving my life.”
“Don’t thank me just yet. There’s something wrong with the propulsion system.”
“What’s wrong? Do you know how to fix it?”
“I might.” He bends down, opening a hatch on the deck. “See that?”
I step closer, bending down to look. The hatch provides access to some of the inner workings of the boat. “Don’t think I know anything about boats. What am I looking at?”
“It’s what you’re not looking at that’s the problem. Those techtrash technomancers stole the regulator, supposedly to help that big boat of theirs. I don’t see how a part from my small boat could help them with their big one, but what do I know?”
“If they didn’t know your boathouse was here, how did they steal the regulator?”
Phoenix sighs. “What do you expect? They’re technomancers.”
“Right. So, you weren’t able to convince them to give the regulator back.”
“I tried.” He sends a hand through his hair. “It didn’t go as planned.”
What, did you find out about the Pure? Is that what didn’t go as planned? Are you one of the good guys, Phoenix?
“We need the regulator to move?” I ask.
“The Lady Luck still has her docking thrusters, but we’re not going to be making it to the mainland on those. We’ll get attacked by one of the Seven Dangers of the High Seas if we go that slow.”
Unsure how I can help, I start exploring the boat, making my way toward the bow, and then down a
set of steps into the cockpit, where the helm is all aglow with various blinking control surfaces. The cockpit isn’t large but has three swiveling chairs—one for whoever’s piloting, and two for passengers. I sit down in the center chair, surveying the various control panels. Nothing looks familiar. Guess I didn’t spend a lot of time on the water in my past. The only item that stands out is an area of the control panel that’s marked out with red and yellow stripes. In the center of this patch is a red metal cover. Flipping up the cover reveals a switch. There are black letters above the switch that designate it as PLAN C. I lower the cover to prevent an accidental flipping of the switch. I don’t see anything in the cockpit that refers to Plans A or B.
“Hey, Phoenix!” I call out. “What’s Plan C?”
If he responds, I don’t hear it. I’m climbing back up the steps to ask again, when something crashes through the roof of the boathouse. It’s trailing fire, and when it hits the ground just outside, part of it explodes. Debris streaks through the air, trailing smoke and sparks, molten shrapnel aerating the roof of the boathouse.
I rush onto the deck, pulse dagger in my hand and activated.
What’s left of an ACCU is a burning lump. I can see armor running like melting wax, and there’s the tip of a boot, but most of it isn’t identifiable as human.
Beside me, Phoenix swears loudly, and I can see why.
The crowd on the docks, and the beach, and even the street beyond—they’re running toward us.
“Can they—?” I begin, unable to finish.
“Yes. They can see us.”
“Well, fuck.”
“Get below, Syl. Strap in.”
The automatic me wants to stay here and fight. She’s telling me that if I and my pulse dagger don’t stay up here, we’re going to be taking on some uninvited guests.
Phoenix puts his hand right between my shoulder blades and pushes me forward. He’s not manhandling me; he’s protecting me, placing himself between me and the oncoming crowd. I hear gunshots. Pulse weaponry.