by Shaun Barger
“WHAT?”
“In twenty-two minutes the Synth will attack,” she said. “Twenty-three minutes and Machado will launch the nuclear arsenal rather than let the Synth take the base. The last one, he’ll detonate here—ground level. The Synth won’t even have a chance to shoot it down.”
She shook her head. “Twenty-two minutes isn’t long enough for us to find a way out of here. And even if we could, the Synth forces are closing in—no way to sneak through that line. If the Synth weren’t looking for us then maybe we’d have a shot at getting away. But now?”
“These people were going to lobotomize you!” he practically spat. “What about your memories, and “Hey Jude,” and all the other things they wanted to cut out of your head? Don’t you want to keep all that? Don’t you want to see the stars? Don’t you want to go to Venus?”
She shook her head, cold. Resigned.
“What I want isn’t worth the end of this place. This place—and all it represents—people die trying to get here. There’s no satellite communication—your people shot them all down. So for all we know, this might be the last place on earth where a person can be a person.”
“I know that,” Nikolai said gently “And I want to help. My people want to help. Will help. But if I—”
“You’re just one soldier, Nik,” she said. “You said that if they took you alive, it’d be over. That if we were caught I should kill you. If what you’ve said is true, then the only danger to the colonial effort is you being caught. Not killed.”
She shrugged, expression hardening.
“If I kill you, and give Machado’s men your body, they can get it to the Synth before it’s too late. Maybe the colonel will kill me after. Maybe they’ll try to hand me over to the Synth. Maybe I’ll be able to convince them that you kidnapped me. But it doesn’t really matter what happens to me.”
She clicked off the safety, no longer trembling. Her eyes devoid of emotion.
“Goodbye, Nikolai. And thank you.”
“So that’s it?” he said, words brimming with contempt. “You’re just giving up? You’re not even going to try to find another away?”
Maybe we could’ve found a way.
Blue’s voice flooded Jem’s mind in an unbidden rush.
“A few blocks away, where we got dropped off,” Nikolai said, seizing the opportunity of Jem’s hesitation for one final placation. “There’s a garage that has those hovercrafts things—whatever you call them! What if I turn one invisible, and shield it with hardened air? Then we fly out, wherever the Synth line is thinnest. As soon as we’re behind them—we drop the invisibility. I start a big light show, and we fly for it. You pilot, I shield. They’ll probably get us—it probably won’t work—but at least we’ll have tried! Twenty minutes, that’s plenty of time if we go now. Plenty!”
Jem stared at him, torn.
“Promise me one thing,” she finally said. “If it looks like we won’t make it—you let me kill you. A bullet in the head, as promised.”
“Absolutely,” he said in a rush. “I swear it.”
Slowly, Jem lowered the gun.
She’d regret this. She knew she’d regret this. But . . . Nikolai. He really did remind her of Eva.
Especially when he was lying.
XI.
THE MAGICIAN’S PROMISE
Nikolai led the way as they dropped invisibly from balcony to balcony.
They could hear soldiers within, slamming through doors, goggles on, rifles out, screaming at citizens. Down below, scattered groups of civilians ran, ignoring the shouted orders of armed soldiers to get back inside as they searched desperately for bomb shelters that weren’t already at capacity.
Two hovercrafts made a quick patrol of the street as Jem and Nikolai crouched behind a couple of trash cans along the side of the apartment complex.
An SUV screeched to a halt as more families came out with bags slung over their shoulders and made a run for the nearest shelter.
An agitated soldier climbed out of the passenger-side door, rifle pointed at the sky.
“Get back inside!” he screamed at the terrified civilians. Then, as they faltered, looking at one another and then back at the street, seeing the other civilians making a break for it, “I said GET BACK INSIDE!”
As the soldier continued to scream, the driver watching him with a frown as he waited for his partner to get back in, Jem wordlessly pulled Nikolai from behind the trash can, dragging him by the front of his shirt with a viselike grip in a low crouching run around the SUV. No way was she going to let Nikolai slip away.
The driver, still uneasily watching his friend scream at the civilians, didn’t notice as Jem came up alongside him. With a graceful, lightning-quick motion, Jem reached in, opened the door, and pressed her gun against the soldier’s throat.
“One fucking noise and I pull the trigger,” she hissed.
Nikolai reached in with his blade and cut through the soldier’s seat belt so Jem could yank him out onto the pavement. The soldier came out in a tumble, wide-eyed and baffled by his invisible assailants.
“THEY’RE HERE!” he screamed, coming to his senses—not caring at all about the gun pointed at his throat. “I FOUND THEM, THEY’RE HERE!”
“SHIT!” Jem said, shoving Nikolai through the door and scrambling in after.
The moment Jem took the gun off the man’s throat, he rose up with a roar, blindly grabbing at her.
The other soldier turned, pulled on his goggles, and pointed his assault rifle right at Nikolai through the still-open passenger-side door. Nikolai brought up his baton and sealed the door with a frantic wall of akro just in time to block a burst of high-caliber shells.
Jem kicked the soldier grappling with her once, twice, three times in the face before he finally fell back, letting go. She slammed the door, violently shifted the truck into reverse and pulled away so hard that Nikolai was flung forward—accidentally letting their invisibility drop as his face cracked against the dashboard—letting out a cry as he went flying back when she spun the truck around and punched it.
Bullets ricocheted off the rear of their vehicle and Nikolai could hear the soldiers shouting into their radios as he struggled with his seat belt, desperately pulling at it, yanking it, trying to figure out where to plug it in as Jem barreled on, dodging and weaving with impossible machine-like speed and accuracy. No normal human would have been able to maneuver like this. Nobody without enhancements.
“Put on your seat belt!” she shouted.
“I’m trying!” But Nikolai had never used a seat belt before and couldn’t get the damn thing to come out far enough to latch.
He held on with a white-knuckle grip as she barreled down the street, twisting and dodging through scattered groups of civilians and the occasional oncoming traffic. With every truck or SUV they passed, another joined their tail, and soon there were four trying to keep up—though none drove with Jem’s mechanical accuracy.
“When we get there—do you even know how to fly a hovercraft?” Nikolai shouted over the gunfire.
“I’m reading the manuals now!” she said, spinning the wheel, serpent quick, back and forth as she continued to weave. “For several similar models. Older but similar! Shouldn’t be a problem!”
Reading them . . . now? Oh Disc.
To their right an SUV sent civilians screaming and diving out of the way as it swerved up onto the sidewalk to get alongside them. A gunner sitting in a nest atop the cabin leveled his rifle, aiming right at Nikolai. So much for them trying to take him alive.
Nikolai blasted a torrent of akro into the man’s gun like a stream of water—freezing it around the barrel as he fired—suspending the bullets in the air and blocking more shots. Another soldier in the passenger seat aimed his pistol at Nikolai, arm crossing over the chest of the driver, but Nikolai sent a column of flame at the front driver-side wheel. The tire might have been bullet- and puncture-proof, but under the white-hot blast it immediately sent out a spray of molten black and tur
ned to shreds.
The vehicle veered wildly, smashing into them and then swerving away as Jem struggled to regain control.
“Jesus Christ!” Jem screamed, too occupied to look back. “Are they okay?”
“Um . . . yes?” Nikolai said, glancing back at the overturned SUV. Looking forward, he let out a shout, gripping the seat and door as a scattered group of civilians froze ahead of them, deer-in-the-headlights style.
“Everything’s fine!” Jem shouted over the squealing of tires in a way that sounded to Nikolai like everything was not fine as she snaked through the mob in an impossible weave while Nikolai screamed with terror and adrenaline.
Somehow free of the crowds, another of the vehicles came up along Jem’s side—another SUV with a driver inside and a crow’s nest atop, gunner taking aim right at her.
“Lean back!” Nikolai yelled to Jem, and snapped out a tentacle through the other vehicle’s passenger-side window—wrapping it around the driver’s wrists and yanking back—pulling him halfway out of the SUV.
The driver screamed, clinging desperately to the car door as it rolled off to the side, slamming into a ditch.
“HANG ON!” Jem screamed as they approached a T intersection. She spun the wheel and took the turn.
For one sickening moment the truck began to tip over as they screeched around the corner, but then the wheels settled back down and they roared up what appeared to be a completely empty boulevard.
Jem howled triumphantly, looking over at Nikolai with a ferocious grin. “I’ve got this shit calculated! Weight distribution momentum surface friction suspension capabilities—rain or shine motherfucker! Can’t catch me!”
Nikolai was grinning too, a big stupid grin stretching painfully across his face, until he noticed the two hovercrafts waiting up ahead, black discs difficult to see against the darkened skies in the surging rain and mists. Too late did he see the soldier with the grenade launcher, aiming down at the street before them.
The soldier fired and they drove headlong into a wall of fire, a wave of heat that shattered the windshield as Jem spun out. For one sickening moment that seemed to stretch out forever the vehicle tipped over, flipping back over front.
“ELEFRY!” Nikolai screamed, blasting out the featherweight weaves into the frame, guts, and siding of the SUV—and all of a sudden the vehicle was spinning faster, nauseatingly fast as it ascended, now a fraction of its weight.
Stars blurred at the edge of Nikolai’s vision. Jem’s eyes rolled up into her head as she blacked out and slid over like a rag doll, flung into Nikolai’s arms as his back hit the passenger-side door. Sky, ground, sky, ground, sky, ground—flashing and flashing as the SUV soared through the air, spinning and spinning.
Nikolai featherweighted Jem and himself—waiting for just the right moment, and—
He pulled the latch to the door behind him, arm wrapped tightly around Jem as they were flung free of the wreckage—up into the air, the soldiers atop the hovercrafts below gawking up in awe, the truck spinning away like a toy as it began its descending arc.
Airborne, Nikolai quickly rendered the two of them invisible—his magical pools straining from the effort, after having had so little time to recharge. He was burning through his dwindling reserves with a quickness.
Jem came to, screaming and grabbing onto him as they fell.
“HOLD ON!” he shouted against the wind, gripping onto the baton around her waist and clutching it as he released a jet of jellied akro to ease their descent.
There! The garage! And up the street, from where they fled—chaos. Fire. An explosion as the featherweight weaves dissipated from the SUV and it came smashing down from its impossible height. They’d lost them! In the chaos, in the confusion, in the fire and the mob—they’d lost them!
“We’re gonna make it!” Nikolai laughed over the wind. “We’re gonna—”
There was a sound like a thunderclap and a high-pitched whistle. A high-caliber bullet struck him in the leg with such force that he feared it might have broken his leg despite his uniform’s enchantments.
Reeling from the pain, Nikolai spun out of control. It was all he could do not to drop his baton or let go of Jem as they began to fall, faster and faster, and—
At the last moment, Nikolai managed to twist around so that he was underneath Jem, and just before they struck the pavement his uniform released a powerful burst of akro, a cloud of softness to break their fall.
Ten feet away from the garage. Ten feet from the hovercrafts within. They’d made it.
Wheezing, Nikolai untangled himself from Jem as she slowly came to her senses, gripping his baton in one hand as he began to drag himself across the pavement over to the golden light spilling out onto the blacktop from the garage. So close. SO close!
An SUV, black paint shining slickly in the wet, gray light of predawn, screeched to a halt in front of Nikolai, blocking out the golden light as it sprayed him in the face with filthy water. Nikolai fell back with a howl of frustration as the soldiers poured out of the truck, shouting, assault rifles trained on him.
Nikolai stood, slowly—and he could feel the muzzle of Jem’s pistol pressed against the back of his head as the six soldiers formed a ring around them, screaming and shouting.
“We almost made it,” Jem said. “It was a good try, Nik. I’m . . . I’m sorry.”
Nikolai closed his eyes, breathing hard as he waited for the shot to go off, knowing that he wouldn’t feel it, that he’d just switch off like a light, and he could see them, hear them—Stokes and Astor and Albert Red Jubal Marblewood New Damascus Ilyana—
NO.
Nikolai ducked and snapped out a tentacle around Jem’s waist from his baton and flung her into the three soldiers in front of them, below their rifles, into their stomachs, knocking them back.
Arms thrown over his head, he leaped over Jem and the fallen soldiers, rushing into the garage as they frantically shot at him, the air roaring with gunfire. He screamed as he felt two of his ribs shatter from the force of their shots, felt the skin on his calf split and bleed from another—but he kept going, twisting around with a tentacle from each of his Focals as he yanked the heavy slatted gate down with all the force his magic could muster.
The instant before it came crashing shut on the cement floor, Jem dove under it, landing in a roll.
“You promised!” she howled, running at him with her hand balled up into a fist.
“I’m sorry!” Nikolai said, just barely fending her off with a tentacle from his baton, locking the gate in place with bolts from his dagger as the soldiers shouted and struggled to force it open. “I’m so sorry, Jem, I couldn’t do it, I just couldn’t do it. But it’s okay! We still have a chance! We still have time! We just need to shield the hovercraft, and then we can try to break through, and—”
The Synth’s trumpeting wail filled the air like the death cry of some immense behemoth. Jem and Nikolai doubled over with pain from the sound, hands gripped tightly over their ears.
“We regret to say that your time is up,” Armitage said with a thousand voices, sounding very much like a disappointed parent. “We will now commence occupation. Those who surrender peacefully will be assigned to homes in nearby cities. Neither friends nor families will be separated. You will be assigned jobs, if you choose to work. Your lives will be those of comfort and plenty. Those who resist, however, will be assigned to Torment. It is our sincere hope that this won’t be necessary.”
Explosions began to thunder in every direction. Roiling clouds of dirt and smoke rose into the air from the minefield strip surrounding the base.
Jem looked at Nikolai accusingly.
The soldiers opened fire on the gate. Jem and Nikolai hit the floor, covering their heads as the gate was riddled with bullets, each hole sending out a slender shaft of dim light across the dusty garage.
But then the gunfire stopped, and outside they were shouting and screaming at each other, heated.
“They don’t matter anymore!” on
e of them was saying. “It’s too late! We’ve got to go we’ve got to GO!”
There was more shouting, and then a short burst of bullets. Doors slammed shut and the SUV tore off, wheels screeching as the soldiers rushed to join the battle.
Nikolai stood and went over to the still-crouching human. Slowly he offered her his hand.
“I’m so sorry that I lied to you. Sorry that I broke my promise. But . . . please. Let me take you out of here. Let’s at least try to get back to my ship. Maybe we can make it. And maybe, someday, we can come back. Even if we can’t help these people, we could . . .”
Jem stared up at Nikolai, her eyes full of hatred. Contempt.
She took his hand.
* * *
Nikolai spat blood as he coated the outer hull of the hovercraft with a thick layer of akro armor. Jem coldly pointed out which parts of the vehicle could be sealed up and which couldn’t. He staggered around the machine, leaning heavily against the hull, clutching his side. The broken ribs made breathing agony, let alone moving.
The street was clear beyond the gate. Jem searched around briefly, retrieving her gun. After that, she busied herself at the craft’s control panel, flipping switches, hands a blur over lights and buttons. The craft gently hummed to life and silently lifted into the air.
“All systems go,” she said without looking at Nikolai. “I’ve built a virtual representation of the vehicle in my head—I’ll be able to see it. You can make it invisible now.”
It was all Nikolai could do to cling to consciousness as he finished up, covering the whole thing with a sheet of invisibility so big and so draining that it felt as if he were pulling the flesh from his bones. There was a pulsing, abstract agony in his magical pools that made him terrified that he was about one step away from burning himself out and becoming a half-mage, like Hazeal, who’d claimed to have done so while battling a Moonwatch.
Meanwhile, on the radios, they could hear Machado screeching threats—explosions continuing to roar out all around them as the Synth triggered the mines.