“Fuck Martin,” Lysette said. “Help the civilians. Come on, Shifty, there’s still one more.”
“No, no, no!” Shifty said, holding her back. “We can’t use the escalator!”
“Why not?”
“It’s a kill funnel! Caleb’s still down there somewhere, and he’ll blast us once we try to go down it!”
“So what? Use one of your shields.”
“That’ll protect us, but there’s civilians all over that escalator, and I can’t cover them too.”
Lysette looked down the length of the escalator and saw that Shifty was right. Civilians were cowering along the length of the stopped escalator, pressed flat below the handrails in an attempt to find any cover that they could from the bullet and magedarts flying around the mall. If she and Shifty tried to charge down it, some of Caleb’s stray firepower would definitely find its way into one or more of them.
A voice in Lysette’s mind spoke up. Who cares? It’s only collateral damage.
She found the thought somewhat unpalatable, though, and shook it off. There was another way.
“Teleport us down there,” Lysette said. “Right on top of him.”
“I can’t. There’s a screen up, remember?”
“Can you fly?”
“No.”
“Fine,” Lysette said, shrugging out of her jacket. “The hard way, then.”
With that, she took off top speed, sprinting down the second floor walkway, paralleling Caleb’s escape route, but safely up above him and out of sight on the second floor. Lysette couldn’t see her target any longer, but she made a guess as to how far ahead he was, and how far he’d be able to travel during the time it took her magically enhanced legs to catch up.
“Hey! Wait for me!” she heard Shifty call out from behind her, but she didn’t slow down.
More civilians lay flattened on the walkway floor, unhurt but staying low. Lysette shook her head. Dropping down for cover was a natural reaction to the firepower flying around the mall, but lingering in the kill zone now only increased their chances that something violent was going to come their way.
Not my problem, her inner voice came again.
All the same, she found herself shouting to the civilians lying flat on the floor, “Get inside the stores! As far away as you can get!”
What are you doing, dummy? her inner voice said. Focus on the target.
She had to admit, it was somewhat out of character for her. Still, something about leaving those civilians lying exposed in the walkway didn’t sit right with her. It worried away at the inside of her mind like a stone caught in her shoe.
Been hanging around with do-gooders too much, she decided.
Now, though, as the civilians scrambled into the relative safety of the nearby stores, the metaphorical stone was out of her shoe and Lysette’s full attention returned to the chase. By her best estimation, she had almost caught up with where Caleb would be on the floor beneath her. There wasn’t any escalator or stairway nearby, though; only the wide gap separating the walkways and a twenty foot drop to the level below.
“Nothing’s easy,” Lysette said, and leapt over the railing like a sprinter clearing the hurdles.
She didn’t land in a three point landing like the movies all suggested was the best way to do it; she knew that was nothing but a recipe for shattered knees. Instead, as soon as her feet touched the first floor, she pushed off and turned her drop into a roll, expending all the energy of her fall in the forward momentum of her roll.
The landing still would’ve snapped the ankles of any normal person, but Lysette’s magically enhanced bones and ligaments held and her roll took her behind a nearby kiosk. She spotted Caleb as she rolled and fired twice at him before a flurry of his magedarts drove her back down to cover.
“Please don’t hurt me,” a small voice next to her.
It was a young girl, cowering behind the same kiosk as her. She looked to be all of seven years old, cowering in a ball with her hands around her knees.
Lysette frowned at her. Another distraction. She tried to turn her attention back to Caleb, but the stone was back in her shoe, rubbing away at the inside of her mind.
Who are you pretending to be? All of a sudden you care about little girls? Stay on the target; kill Caleb, and be done with it.
A terrified cry from her right shook her out of her thoughts. “Jessie!”
It was the child’s mother, cowering inside a nearby store across the walkway. Tears were in her eyes, and Lysette could see by the way her body was tensing that she was about to make a suicidal move across the open walkway to try to get to her daughter.
“Stay there!” Lysette said to her, the words coming out before she knew what she was saying. “She’s fine! I’ll bring her to you!”
Stop this, dummy. Forget this stupid kid and her mother. You can’t afford this distraction in the middle of a fight.
Lysette shook off those thoughts like a dog shaking off water and looked at the little girl. Her eyes were wide and red and streaming tears, and her whole body was shaking with terror.
What, do you think this is going to make up for what you’ve done? Idiot. There is no making up for that.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Lysette said, the words feeling strange on her tongue. “I’m going to get you to your mom.”
The little girl shrank away from her, balling up even tighter, and Lysette felt a moment of frustration at the child’s hesitation. Of course she’s panicking, she thought after she let that moment pass. She’s a little girl scared out of her mind, and you’re a killer holding a gun in her hand. You’re a monster to her.
That thought stuck in her head for a beat longer than it needed to. You’re a monster to her.
She’d been a monster to plenty of people in the past. She wasn’t sure why it should be so troublesome to her now. Still, as before, she found her behavior wandering into new territory as she tucked her gun into the back of her waistband and knelt low to keep from frightening the girl as she talked to her.
“Don’t be scared,” she said. “See? I’m going to help you. We’re going across that walkway and right to your mom and then you’ll be okay.”
Don’t do this! her mind shouted at her again, and as if to punctuate that thought, another long burst of a dozen magedarts hummed and zinged through the air nearby, blasting scorched black holes into the walls.
“No,” the little girl said, shaking her head. “No, he’ll get us.”
Lysette found that her doubting inner voice was now quiet. Caleb could wait his damn turn. She had a job to do first.
“He’s not going to get us,” Lysette said, putting her hand lightly on the girl’s shoulder. “I’m a… I’m a superhero. You know superheroes?”
“Like the movies?”
“Exactly like that. I’m super, super fast. I can carry you and jump across that walkway so fast it’ll be like flying.”
“It’s gonna hurt.”
“It’s not going to hurt. I do it all of the time with my friends. They love it because it’s so much fun.”
The little girl still looked at her with baleful eyes, but her body started to uncurl and she no longer shrank away from Lysette’s touch. Lysette did her best to give the little girl a smile that she imagined was the kind a mother would give to her child to comfort her.
More magedarts flew, and Caleb’s voice shouted to her from further down the mall. “Come on, bitch! Let’s see what you’ve got!”
Oh, don’t you worry, Lysette thought, trying to keep her hard edge from showing through the smile she gave to the little girl. I’ll be right with you, shitheel.
“I’m scared,” the girl said.
“Of that guy?” Lysette said, giving her a wink. “Don’t be silly. The more they yell, the more of a little sissy they are deep down inside. Now let’s get to your mom.”
The little girl resisted for a second, but then let Lysette pull her into her arms and hold her close. She could feel the girl’s arms cli
ng tightly to her; she found it surprisingly welcome and found herself pausing for a moment before speaking softly once more to the child.
“Hold on tight, now.”
Lysette turned towards the nearby store, backing up against the kiosk so that she could put her feet on it like a sprinter using blocks at the start of a race. She locked eyes briefly with the girl’s mother, until a pair of mage darts slammed into the opposite side of the kiosk. She could feel the muted concussion of the impact through the wall behind her.
“Nothing’s easy,” she said under her breath, and sprang off of the kiosk wall with all of the strength in her legs.
The leap took her almost three quarters of the way across the hall. Her feet had barely touched the ground when she pushed off again, leaping and twisting through the air, holding the little girl tightly to her chest with one hand, using the other hand as a post to cartwheel the last few feet across the walkway and into the storefront. Magedarts chased her the entire way, but her speed and acrobatics kept any of the energy blasts from finding her.
She landed on her feet inside the store, next to the girl’s mother. Lysette made sure to keep the impact as soft as possible, moving with her momentum to keep the little girl from getting whiplash from the rapid halt, swinging the girl’s body a bit and setting her down gently on the floor.
The girl blinked a few times dizzily. “Whoa.”
Lysette found herself grinning. “It’s kind of fun once you get used to it.”
“Jessie!” the girl’s mother cried, grabbing her and nearly crushing her in an embrace. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay, Mom. I’m okay.”
Another series of magedarts impacted on the wall near the store entrance, shaking Lysette out of the moment. Okay, Girl Scout, you did your good deed, she thought to herself. Get back on the clock.
“Get to the back of the store,” she said the girl’s mother. “I got this guy.”
Once again, Lysette found herself surprised by the emotions coursing through her. A little girl, she thought. That son of bitch shot at a little girl like it was nothing.
Kind of the pot calling the kettle black, isn’t it? the nagging voice in her mind responded. Considering your own past deeds?
She pushed those thoughts away and drew the small pistol out of her waistband, checking the magazine to see how much ammunition she had left. Not very much, was the answer.
“Should’ve just taken the big pistol away from Shifty,” she said to herself, then sprang once again across the walkway and back toward the kiosk.
She turned her leap into a roll this time, staying low. Caleb’s magedarts flew over her, humming their lethal tune through the air inches away from her. Without the little girl weighing her down, Lysette was able to reach the kiosk in a single jump this time, firing back once at Caleb in the midst of her roll.
The shot went wide. She knew it would; although her enhanced coordination allowed her to shoot somewhat accurately even while twisting through space in a roll or leap or cartwheel, the distance and limited accuracy of her small pistol ensured that the likelihood of her actually hitting her target would be pretty small.
Even though it was inaccurate, her shot still had the desired effect. Caleb shrank down behind cover, giving Lysette an instant to change course and take off at a full sprint towards some cover closer to her enemy, sliding in behind it across the smooth floor before Caleb could pop back up and fire his magedarts at her. She repeated the process once more, firing twice before ducking down behind cover even closer to Caleb.
She took a second to glance at her pistol. The slide was locked back. She was out of ammo, too far away from Caleb to close the distance quickly enough, but also too close to fall back without getting shot to pieces by his magefire.
“Come on, bitch!” Caleb’s voice taunted her. “I said, let’s see what you’ve got!”
Earlier, she’d taken the brass knuckles off of her right hand in order to use Shifty’s small backup pistol, but she’d kept the ones on her left fist, and she decided that brass knuckles were going to have to do. She didn’t exactly like her chances at being able to close the distance to Caleb before being torn apart by magedarts, but it wasn’t looking like she had much choice in the matter.
“Nothing’s easy,” she said again.
Gunfire from behind her made her pause. Multiple shots, coming fast, but not directed at her; a quick glance told Lysette that it was Shifty, having finally caught up to her. He was firing fast and hard at Caleb from thirty yards away, giving her covering fire.
“Lysette!” Shifty shouted at her. “Go now!”
Lysette allowed herself a quick, savage grin at the sudden reversal of fortune before she sprang out from behind cover, rolling sideways and low to give herself a chance to spot her enemy’s position. Caleb was crouched down behind a kiosk, pinned down by Shifty’s gunfire.
He turned to look at her as she came out of her sideways roll and up to her feet. His hand started to rise, fingers held wide, ready to spray magefire into her, but he was too slow. Lysette threw her empty gun full into his face, breaking his nose and stumbling him backwards several steps.
Blood streamed down his face. Caleb’s eyes pinched shut involuntarily from the impact, and his hands reflexively came up to his shattered nose from the pain.
In that instant, Lysette closed the distance. She reached him as his hands dropped from his face and his eyes opened back up, going wide at the sight of Lysette suddenly on top of him.
First, a quick jab to the face with her right hand to daze Caleb and draw his guard upwards, and then Lysette twisted her hips and threw all of her supernatural strength into a heavy cross punch with her left hand straight to the center of his chest. There was a crack as loud as a tree branch snapping as the bones of Caleb’s sternum shattered and give way under the impact of her brass knuckles.
“That’s what I’ve got,” she said.
Caleb’s eyes began to glaze over and he had just enough time to take a sucking gasp inwards before his legs went out from underneath him and he fell backwards with a heavy thud. He landed like a tipped-over statue, inert, his body completely limp.
Lysette spotted Shifty’s empty backup pistol lying on the ground nearby. She had enough time to recover it before Shifty ran up to her, completely out of breath.
“Are you okay?” he said, huffing with exhaustion.
“Fine,” she said. “Here’s your little pussy gun back.”
“Thanks,” Shifty said, taking his backup gun from her and kneeling down next to Caleb. “Is he dead?”
“Pretty sure.”
“Jesus Christ, Lys! The whole front of his chest is crushed in! What’d you hit him with?”
Lysette held up her brass knuckles.
“Oh, right,” Shifty said. “That was actually a rhetorical question. I forgot you had those. You know, Lys, we are law enforcement, not soldiers. We’re supposed to take these guys alive.”
Lysette’s face was blank. “Oops.”
Dread
I really hate fighting Defense mages.
It’s unbelievably frustrating; they hang back behind their shields, impervious to your gunfire, and then they drop the shield just long enough to fire back and drive you to cover before putting their shield back up. Or, they reach their gun hand around the edge of their shield and spray gunfire in your general direction, knowing the whole time that you can’t touch them.
Which is what Oswald did as he and Adjani fled from us down the mall. They had a pretty good head start on us, even though Adjani seemed to be slowed down a bit. Oswald half-dragged, half-pushed him along, pausing occasionally to spray gunfire at us as we chased them.
He was using one of those fully automatic Glock pistols… the kind we used to use on the Wreck Squads… and his fire turned the air around me into angry hornets as the bullets snapped the air around my head. It made me more than a little bit jealous; the pistols Mickey had given to Cass and I were good, solid weapons, but they were re
gular civilian single fire pistols, not machine pistols like Oswald was running.
I could see that he was using the long, extended magazines that each hold about a million bullets, and he must’ve had plenty of spares hidden under his coat, because he sprayed gunfire around that mall like he was getting paid by the bullet. Cass and I, on the other hand, had to hold our fire most of the time, for fear of hitting any civilians with stray rounds.
It isn’t only that you might miss and hit a bystander; bullets hit walls and floors and ricochet around and splinter into pieces and end up going in directions you never anticipated. So you have to fight your instincts to simply blaze away and go bullet to bullet with the enemy.
It’s a pain in the ass, sometimes, being the good guy.
Cass and I took turns returning fire when we could; one of us sending controlled shots at Oswald to force him to cease fire and put up his shield, while the other moved up closer to him. Our fire and maneuver leapfrogs kept us on the move, but our firepower disadvantage allowed our targets to pull further and further away from us.
I noticed that Mickey wasn’t returning fire at all. Either she had panicked and frozen up, or she was too afraid of hitting civilians, but with all that automatic weapons fire coming our way, we needed all three of us to send some love back in Oswald’s direction to keep the playing field level and try to gain some ground on the enemy.
Cass noticed it too, shouting at her, “Mickey! Shoot back!”
“I dropped my gun back there!”
“Damn it, I told you to pick it up!”
“I… couldn’t find it!” Mickey said, flapping her hands helplessly. “And then there was running and yelling and I got mauled by a giant mutant dog so don’t yell at me!”
It’s hard to not lose patience with Mickey at a time like that. Back in the Corps, we had it hammered into us to never, never, never misplace your weapon. If you lost your weapon, you’d best go find it, or be prepared to eat the biggest shit sandwich in history.
Mickey, though, never had any of that sort of training. I had to keep reminding myself of that every time she did something careless or stupid or even cowardly; she’d lived a whole life of stuffed animals and kittens and easy living, and her idea of heavy exercise was watching Netflix after a yoga class.
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