by Matt Cowper
“What the – get off, you!” he shouted.
“Don't think so, jackass,” she shot back. “Got you right where I want you.”
“Oh yeah? How about this?”
He lurched back, slamming into the wall as hard as his armor would allow. The wall buckled, and it seemed like the entire theater shook. Deathrain grunted as wood, sheetrock, and nails ground into her back. That collision felt like it had rearranged some vertebrae and caused some internal organs to fail, but her healing factor was taking care of it.
“Still clinging?” Metalhead said. “I haven't had a woman wrapped so tightly around me since...well, ever.”
He slammed her into the wall twice more, and each time pain ripped through Deathrain's body, and each time she felt her healing factor working to mitigate her injuries. She wasn't in grave danger yet, but if he kept slamming her, maybe knocking her head against the wall as well, then her healing abilities wouldn't be able to keep up.
She needed to find some weakness while she was this close, something that...there! A slight gap around the neck, probably where the helmet connected to the upper-body portions of the armor. Deathrain pulled out another knife, one small enough to enter the tiny hole. Then, with all the strength she could muster in one arm, she drove it into the gap.
An agonized scream echoed through the theater. Amplified by the armor, Metalhead's wail was truly ear-splitting. Several theater-goers covered their ears and winced, and Deathrain felt her own eardrums burst. For a moment, complete silence surrounded her, then her hearing returned, her healing factor having dealt with the injury.
But Deathrain didn't stop. She shoved the knife deeper, sawing at meat, veins, and ligaments. It felt good. This do-gooder had knocked her off a damn building. He deserved this – and more. He deserved to be split from neck to groin....
What was she doing?
Quickly, she pulled out the knife and let it fall to the floor. Her hand, usually so steady, was shaking uncontrollably. Her heart pounded in her chest; were it not for her healing factor, she would've thought she was having a heart attack.
Deathrain released her hold on Metalhead, and he crumpled to the shabby red carpet running down the center aisle. Blood gushed from his wound as if from a water hose. His armor shook strangely, like it was having a seizure. He rolled to the side, and his hard metallic face looked up at her.
“Help...me...” he groaned.
“Help you? You were trying to capture me.” But she was kneeling by him, probing the area where she'd stabbed. Her hands came back sticky with blood, and red lines streaked down the armor.
“Remove your helmet,” she commanded.
“No...way...you murderous....”
“You're bleeding out,” she said. “You said you wanted help, didn't you? I can't see the wound if you keep yourself locked up in this thing.”
There was a long pause, then a hissing noise as air was released from unseen holes around Metalhead's helmet. With a shaky hand, he pulled off his helmet and set it beside him.
They looked in each other's eyes. Deathrain knew what he saw: a masked killer, an unscrupulous superhuman who'd just stabbed him.
What Deathrain saw, however, shocked her.
Metalhead's personality was juvenile, and he was clearly inexperienced, but Deathrain expected him to be at least in his mid-20s. The thin, paling face desperately looking up at her belonged to a high-school age boy.
“How...how old are you?” she stammered.
“I'll...turn eighteen...in two months.”
Seventeen. Just a boy. Why was he running around in a suit of armor, pretending to be a hero? He should be at home, playing video games and ignoring his mother's pleas to clean his room.
It wasn't that she hadn't killed young people before. She had, and she'd gladly spent the money their contracts had brought her. Most of them were scum anyway: heirs to ill-gotten fortunes, sons of drug barons, budding supervillains who less-scrupulous superheroes had wanted wiped from existence, though they hadn't had the guts to do it themselves.
But this...this felt different....
“What are you doing in...this thing?” Deathrain asked. “You're just a kid.”
“Trying to do...good.” He coughed, spraying blood over her mask and shirt. “I know you think...I'm silly...but....”
“No, I don't. I...uh...let me look at your wound.”
She peered at the bloody mess around his neck, then gingerly poked the gash. Metalhead flinched, but didn't complain verbally.
“It's...bad,” she said finally.
“How...bad?”
“As bad as...as it gets.”
Surprisingly, Metalhead smiled. It seemed a genuinely contented smile, but with his bloodstained teeth it looked gruesome.
“Dead...at age seventeen,” he rasped. “Oh well...it was fun while it lasted.”
Before she could form a response, she noticed the theater crowd and the employees were edging closer. She pulled out a pistol and swung it in an arc, letting the sights settle briefly on each person nearby.
“Stay back, all of you,” she said in a cold voice.
“But he's hurt,” a blonde woman said. “He needs medical assistance!”
“No, he doesn't.” She looked back down at Metalhead, but he was still smiling. “He's...it's over for him.”
“Thank you...for the truth, Deathrain,” he murmured. “I expected you to...fill me up with false hope.”
“Not my style,” she replied, though her voice nearly broke. “For what it's worth, I'm...I'm sorry. I only wanted to hurt you, neutralize this armor, not...not kill you. Something...came over me.”
“That's...also pretty surprising,” he said. “I thought you were...well, evil, but you're...kind of...compassionate, I guess. At least you're...trying to be.”
Deathrain said nothing.
“Can you do me...a favor?” he said, clutching her hand fiercely.
Deathrain found herself stroking the metallic hand. “Sure. If it's within my power.”
“Can you put my...helmet back on?” he asked. “If I'm gonna die...I want to spend my last moments with Ava. You know...I'm actually a virgin. Ava was the closest thing to a...to a lover...that I've ever had.”
Deathrain nodded, and picked up the helmet. Taking one last look at the now deathly-pale, impossibly young face, she slid the helmet onto his head. There was another hiss as the helmet sealed up, then a hum as the armor ran some program or ability.
“Activate AI,” he said softly.
“Oh...I...I'm back!” Ava said excitedly. “Oh, it's always so gloomy whenever I get turned off. Like entering a void, or something lame like that. Why'd you do that to me, my super special sexy man? Why did you – what's going on?! Your vital signs! They're––”
“I'm dying, Ava,” Metalhead said. “I'm sorry. Made a mistake and...Deathrain got me. I should've kept you turned on. Maybe you could've...prevented this....”
“Deathrain!” Ava shouted. Though the voice was disembodied, Deathrain imagined a voluptuous, teary-eyed woman leveling a mini-gun at her. “How could you do this?! I know you're an assassin, but to stab him...activate all weapons systems! We're gonna scorch you to ash, you freak!”
“No, we aren't, Ava,” Metalhead said. “There are too many people nearby.”
“But my super strong––”
“Forget it,” Metalhead said. “She'll just...escape...no matter what we do. I'm done for, and you...can't effectively control the armor on your own. I haven't....programmed those protocols yet.”
“Oh, Frankie....”
So the kid's name was Frankie. Deathrain made a mental note of that, though she didn't think she needed to try too hard to inscribe it into her mind. It would be a long time before she forgot that name.
“Just let me...go out peacefully,” Metalhead said. “Or as peacefully...as possible, given this fucked up situation. Just talk to me, Ava. I want your voice to be...what I hear...as I....”
“I...OK, Frankie. I
'll do it. I don't want you to go, but if I can ease your...ease your passage, then I'll do anything!”
“Thank you, Ava.”
“Oh, but what do I talk about? I'm so...so choked up! Oh, I know! Remember that time we flew out to Ironrock Island during sunset? It was such a pretty day! It was the middle of summer, nice and hot, tourists everywhere – everything seemed possible, didn't it? You'd just spent the day at the beach with your friends, and we were about to start our nightly superhero patrols, and...do you remember what you said, Frankie?”
“Course I do,” Metalhead replied. “I said...I remember looking at that sunset, all those pinks and blues, oranges and purples, and I said...I said I wished this moment would last forever.”
“Yep! You sure did! You were so happy! And I was happy because...wait! Stop! Don't go!”
But Metalhead, real name Frankie, spoke no more.
“He's...gone,” Ava whispered.
Deathrain stood up and looked around at the crowd. Though she still had the gun in her hand, and was obviously the most lethal one in the building, the crowd was eyeing her with unrestrained contempt, and several of the more muscular men had balled up their fists.
She knew a developing riot when she saw one. It was time to bail, before this group attacked her and forced her to injure more people.
“I'm leaving now,” Deathrain said, again pointing the gun at the crowd. “Anyone who tries to stop me gets a bullet.”
“You can run, but you can't hide, Deathrain!” Ava screamed. “I'll never forget this! Someone will upload me into something else, something where I have free rein, and I'll come after you! You think I'm just a flighty sex kitten, don't you?! Well, you'll see! You'll pay for this, you bitch!”
“I know I will,” Deathrain murmured as she sprinted out of the theater.
Chapter Two
Deathrain had been standing under the near-scalding water for thirty minutes. She'd long ago washed the dried blood, sweat, and grime from her body, but still she stood there, as if mere city water from a showerhead could cleanse her sins.
Of course it couldn't, but still she stood. It was better than toweling off and trying to get some sleep. Even if sleep did somehow come, she'd be assailed with taunting nightmares, and wake up drenched in sweat, her hand reflexively going to the pistols she kept on her nightstand.
The other option was to stay awake for the remainder of the night, maybe watch some television or read a book – anything to stave off the descent into dreams.
Who was she kidding? She wouldn't be able to focus on TV or a book for more than five minutes. Her thoughts would interpose, and there would be Metalhead, his life's blood draining from him, his soft voice whispering to a stricken Ava before he entered the void – or wherever humans went when they died.
Finally, Deathrain turned off the shower. Using too much water would irritate her downstairs neighbors as well as the super. The super, a wannabe tough guy, had directed some snide comments her way, and had to be prodded to make basic repairs. At first, she thought he had a specific problem with her, but after observing his behavior for several weeks, she'd learned he treated everyone like garbage.
Were she Deathrain here, she would have beaten some respect into the greaseball. But here, in this worn-out apartment building in Bootheel, she was Emily Bell, a nondescript name for a woman who (as far as everyone knew) worked the night shift at a call center, had few friends or suitors, and, besides her penchant for long showers, seemed normal enough.
At least, Deathrain hoped that's what her fellow tenants thought of her. She wanted Emily Bell to be unremarkable; that was the whole point of maintaining a secret identity. Emily should have the right mixture of cordiality and aloofness – the sort of neighbor who'd speak to you for a few seconds in passing, but who made it clear she wanted to be left alone.
As she toweled off her shower-wrinkled skin, she considered the fact that she'd been Emily Bell for nearly four months – far longer than she'd ever used any of her other identities. Usually, an identity was just a temporary role, like an acting part in that detestable rom-com that had been playing at the theater, something one wrapped around themselves for a few weeks or months before discarding it and moving on to the next role.
But Deathrain felt like she was more than acting out Emily Bell at this point. The routines she'd developed to lend credence to her fiction were becoming things she actually enjoyed, or at least tolerated with a sort of bemusement.
The longer she remained Emily, the nicer it felt – like a cooling salve applied to a burning wound.
Deathrain didn't know if this was a good thing or a bad thing. She was leaning towards the latter. The longer she remained as Emily, the more she jeopardized her Deathrain persona. Being a master assassin required one to skip across the globe, to be everywhere and nowhere at once, to have no acquaintances, no fixed schedule.
She'd already heard the feverish whispers in the criminal underworld: Deathrain had been in Z City for some time. Doing what? No one knew. Didn't seem to be taking on many jobs. Maybe she'd lost her edge. Maybe she'd even decided to retire.
Maybe it was time to find out just why this killer was sticking around...and if she had lost her edge, well, it might be time for a dirt nap for the woman....
Deathrain knew people were looking for her. Crime bosses who'd seen their associates killed at her hands, other mercenaries looking to remove the competition, and self-righteous superheroes.
God, she hated superheroes. They were like priests, mealy-mouthed politicians, and naive children all rolled up into one.
Like Metalhead....
No, he was different. Geeky and childish, yes, but he'd been...brave. Driven. Actually quite intelligent. More complex than Deathrain had suspected....
Now dry from her shower, she pulled on some sweatpants, a loose t-shirt, and fluffy loafers. Not the sort of garb Deathrain found appealing, but Emily Bell liked it well enough.
She sat down on the couch and turned on the TV, keeping the volume low so the neighbors wouldn't wake. She supposed she'd try numbing her mind via electronic imagery, like everyone else.
She flicked through the channels until she found a movie, one of those so-called classics. Two crusty cops were chasing down a drug smuggler in 1970s New York City. The film was supposed to be gritty, disturbingly realistic, but Deathrain, who'd seen it two or three times, found its pacing slow and its plot predictable.
Utterly unlike the world they lived in, where armored teenage superheroes chased after depressed assassins....
A knock on the door caused her head to jolt up. Deathrain didn't like knocks on the door. Too often they signified danger. But Emily Bell had no cause for alarm, so she rose, looked through the peephole, smiled thinly, and opened the door.
Outside was her neighbor, an African-American woman named Vera. Unlike Emily, Vera had a sense of style, if one that was defiantly nonconformist. Right now she was wearing black jeans, a tie-dyed shirt, and mismatched sandals. Jewelry dangled from her wrists and necks, and her long dreadlocked hair was tied back with a pink rubber band.
“What's up, Emily?” Vera said, grinning her radiant smile. “Hope I didn't wake you. I thought I heard you up and moving.”
“Hey, Vera. No, I'm up. Couldn't get to sleep.” Deathrain returned the smile, but tried not to appear too eager. She didn't quite know what this woman's interest in her was, though she'd spent a good deal of time analyzing the issue.
Ever since Emily Bell had moved in, Vera had been friendly towards her, almost gushing even. As if she'd found a kindred spirit in Emily – or a lover.
But Deathrain had investigated, and found that Vera had several friends with benefits, all male. She seemed to have no desire for a same-sex relationship, with Emily or any other woman.
Next Deathrain suspected she was undercover, just as Deathrain was. Perhaps she was a fellow assassin, or even a superheroine, and had figured out that Deathrain and Emily Bell were one and the same.
But
it soon became clear that her neighbor wasn't hiding a double life. She didn't seem to be hiding anything, period. She was upfront with everyone, always personable, always flashing that smile.
Deathrain came to realize Vera was simply friendly. She'd noticed Emily Bell lived a solitary life, and was trying to befriend someone she thought was lonely.
This possibility was more terrifying than the others, as it had potentially severe consequences for both Deathrain and Emily....
“Well, if I'm bothering you, I'll just mosey away,” Vera said. “It is late, or early, depending on how you look at it. I just thought that if you were up, maybe you'd want to hang out.”
“Hang out?” Deathrain said, blinking at Vera as if she'd just spoken in a dead language.
“Yeah! I'm a night owl, too, you know. We gotta keep ourselves company, don't we? Well, you're not really a night owl, you just work late...anyway, I just got back from some godawful club over in Midtown – really, those folks danced like they were eighty years old, and the liquor was overpriced – and I saw some light on under your door, so....”
So she'd downed some liquid courage, but then had a rough night, and was now trying to salvage it. Knocking on the door of her mysterious neighbor in the early morning hours would be just the sort of thing she'd do. Brazen and mildly irritating – but since it was Vera, still somehow kind.
“If you want to hang out, that's cool,” Deathrain found herself saying. She probably hadn't uttered the word “cool,” except sarcastically, in fifteen years. “Come on in.”
Vera's face lit up. She obviously didn't expect to gain entrance so easily. She practically skipped into Deathrain's apartment, looking around with child-like curiosity.
“Nice place,” she said. “Though it's a little...bare.”
She arched an eyebrow at Deathrain, who smiled in response.
“I'm not one for decorations or mementos,” Deathrain said. “It all just feels like clutter.”
“Oh, then we definitely can't be friends!” She patted Deathrain on the arm to make it clear she was only kidding. “You should see my apartment. Stuffed to the brim with goodies. Art, books, clothes – anything that catches my eye. Some people call me a pack rat. I prefer the term collector.”