Floor 21- Dark Angel

by Jason Luthor

  She lets go of his neck, and he drops to the floor, collapsing into a heap as he coughs and struggles for air. After that, Jackie just stands there for a minute, taking a deep breath before turning back to us. She looks at the doc, the two of them exchanging nods. Then she takes a knee beside me and puts an arm on my shoulder, her other hand squeezing Mandy’s arm. “Come on. It’s time we save our friends.”

  “Jackie,” I tell her. “We’re hours away from Central. How do we move a whole army back? How do we . . .” I wipe at my face and try to not lose it. “Dodger. She’s back there, right? How do we save Dodger?”

  She looks down at me, and her eyes . . . They’re full of silver light, and she just looks and sounds perfectly calm as she says, “The doc will take care of Mandy. But you, Tommy . . . I need you with me. Come with me, Tommy, into one last fight.”

  Dodger’s Recording 26

  A bullet passes right through Yasmine’s leg, and I must hear her scream at almost the same second. I watch as she crumbles onto the floor at the same time that she’s trying to keep her rifle leveled and firing into the crowd. I’m trapped in a crowd, watching as she’s screaming, blood pouring out of her leg and onto the pavement. I don’t have time to fight my way through, and my hand goes above the crowd, tractor pad firing from my glove and whipping me out of the fight. My legs hit the building wall and push me off, my body crashing into the street. I barely tuck into a roll, avoiding most of the pain and instantly going back into a sprint. One of the soldiers tries to jump in front of me, but I drop beneath the butt of his rifle before he can do anything. Then I’m back at his jaw with my own gun, cracking him in the mouth and sending him sprawling out on the floor, which gives me enough time to drop to Yasmine’s side. Some of my people turn around the sides of barriers and debris, giving me some cover while I grab at her.

  “Get out of here!” she screams. “I’ll slow you down. You have to defend the Green Zone.”

  “I’m not fighting for the zone with you lying dead out here,” I scream back at her as I put my arm around her back. “Now get up.”

  “Dodger . . .”

  “I said do it, Yasmine!”

  She nods, gritting her teeth as my legs press against the pavement. The blood pouring out of her leg is seeping into my pants as I help her limp on, the clear whizzing of bullets ringing in my ears as pieces of pavement go breaking apart around me. The militia keeps firing back, giving me just enough time to pull Yasmine far back enough. In one hand, I’ve got my rifle, and in my other arm, I’ve got my hand underneath Yasmine’s shoulders. She’s grunting the whole time I drag her back, the two of us dropping beneath a concrete barrier at the gates of the Zone. As we collapse onto the floor, my eyes circle the sky, the huge arch of the gate looming behind us as we take a second to breathe.

  “Thank you,” she tells me with a huff. She wastes no time as she starts pouring biofoam into the wound. “I don’t think it got anything important.”

  “Good. I need you with me, Yasmine. So we can finish this fight.”

  She peeks around the corner, and I look around with her. The road leading east away from the Zone is packed with soldiers returning fire, hiding behind armored transports or the few tanks that were left behind in Central. She grunts as she leans around the corner with her rifle, firing at the enemy before return fire starts dancing toward us. We both tuck behind the barrier and hold tight as bullets rock the concrete, the barrier chipping away into pieces that go flying through the air above us. When I open my eyes, it’s in time to see one of the concrete walls surrounding the Zone go exploding into the sky. “Tank!” I scream as I watch men and women go falling to the ground, the impact scattering people around the street. Behind them, cracks form along the enclosure around the Zone, threatening to send panels of broken glass falling down on everyone. The sound of the explosion feels like something filling my ears, but it’s replaced by this long ringing. In the haze and smoke that’s moving over the ground, I see everyone looking like they’re about to lose their minds. It’s like they’re finally understanding that it’s the last push. There won’t be any second chances.

  Yasmine looks up at me, and she looks like she’s in pain but sad at the same time. “We’re not going to pull out of this one, are we?”

  “We’re not done yet,” I tell her with a smile. “But if it was our last fight, I think I’d tell you thanks for always believing in me, Yasmine.”

  “Dodger. You know you were one of my best friends.”

  “You were one of mine, too. But remember, this isn’t our final fight together, alright? Let’s just fight as if it was.”

  “Sister and sister. Back to back.” She nods and squeezes my arm. “I’m right there with you, Dodger.”

  Another explosion blows apart a wall further along the sidewalk, and I start shouting into my earpiece. “All channels, hold your positions. We have family and friends behind the walls of the Green Zone. Those are people you love. From 110th south to 59th Street, keep fighting until you don’t have anything left. Let’s hurt that Golden Jackal so bad he regrets stepping foot inside of our city.”

  Yasmine grabs hold of her rifle and grits her teeth. “Take us to the end, Dodger.”

  “Until Tower’s end.” I lift myself over the barrier, rifle sitting on its lip as I start firing at the crowds of soldiers starting to pour out from between the buildings that line 5th Avenue. It’s not much of a distance, maybe about the width of two buildings. A kid could run that distance in a minute. But for just one second, we’re able to hold them back. With every gun lining the walls firing, we’re pouring bullets into crowds that are all bottled up in narrow streets. The problem’s that there are so many walkers out there, and we might slow them for a few minutes, but we don’t stop them. Armored carriers erupt onto the avenue, soaking up fire but only stopping when we send waves of grenades rolling at them. The whole street goes exploding into flames, and for all of a second, a lot of us probably think we’ve stopped them. Then, a second later, we’re being fired back on as soldiers take shots at us from inside those transports while others fire from around the sides of the vehicles. They start to form a wall of their own on the other side of the avenue, a wall that protects them long enough to send back some heavy fire. I see militia members down the walls of the Zone snapping back to the ground and mists of blood bursting into the air, bodies sprawling out on the pavement. Between watching everyone dying around me, I somehow manage to find that one tank, making its way between the lines of buildings but trapped in the crowds of soldiers coming at us. I just think, that has to be the one firing on us. “That tank will wreck shop when it gets here. We need to keep it from getting this far.”

  “How?”

  “We were saving our grenade launchers, but there’s nothing left to save them for. This is it.” I duck beneath the barrier and put my hand to my head as I’m motioning to one of my people on the scaffolding lining the walls. We lock eyes as I’m screaming at him, “If that tank reaches the Zone then we’re finished. Our grenades won’t take out that tank, but we can make those armored transports a barrier. Use what’s left of our grenade rounds to tear them apart and then tell all our grenadiers at the gates to do the same.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Yasmine looks over to me. “What are we doing?”

  “Making sure the street’s so packed that the tank can’t reach us. Slow it down . . . then we try to get in a few good hits underneath the treads. Might get a win out of it.”

  Almost like they’re reading my mind, I watch as militia men along the wall haul up the few grenade launchers we have and fire. At short range, without much distance between the walls and those transports, the grenades pack a ton of firepower. Vehicles all along the street go blowing apart. I watch people diving away as balls of fire go roaring into the sky and the sides of the transports open up in twisted metal and fire. The second they do, I pull my gun back over the edge and start firing, picking off people from the crowds but feeling like I’m getting n
othing done. Every person that goes falling to the floor is replaced almost a second later, and the barrel of my rifle’s just dancing left and right, firing constantly but not putting a dent into the invasion. That’s when I realize the enemy is in a full sprint, charging the walls. For a second, they’re mowed down as our defenders fire back at them, but every soldier that gets sent sprawling is replaced right after. It’s an endless flood as they charge, and they’re seconds from us when I swing out from behind the barrier. For a few seconds, my eyes are staring down my rifle barrel and squeezing off one round after another, Yasmine backing me up along with every militia member who’s still guarding the walls.

  But then we’re swarmed. It’s like we’re literally drowning in soldiers, and again I’m having to fight, hand to hand, the butt of my rifle cracking jaws and popping people in the chest. Some of the soldiers get picked off by rifle rounds and others get into fist fights with the defenders out in front of the gate. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Yasmine force herself onto her feet, her knife out and driving it into someone’s thigh. A second later though, her bad leg gives out underneath her as someone collapses down on her body.

  “Yasmine!” I scream just before I feel a fist clock me across the face. The punch is so real, so intense, that I immediately taste blood under my tongue. I see the drops of blood from my mouth on the pavement as I’m forced to a knee, my hand barely planting against the ground and saving me from going face first into the street. My hand flies up from my hip, my sidearm coming up in my palm and firing into the stomach of the soldier in front of me. Then I’m swinging it in half circles, taking out everyone I can that’s coming at me, including putting a shot into the side of the attacker that’s hovering over Yasmine. I’ve barely gotten the shot off when someone knocks into me from behind.

  I’m back on my hands and knees when Yasmine goes rising up, her knife sliding into the stomach of the soldier that’s leaping at us, blood seeping over her hand as she pushes him to the ground. He goes tumbling aside, and I’m immediately on top of him, my hands grabbing at his rifle and firing upward into the circle of soldiers that are closing in on our position. There are a lot of dead men in seconds, a crowd of bodies falling to the ground. One comes down on me, lifeless, and before I can push off, another comes crashing down on us. I scream as I try to push up, only to have one of our militia members fall back onto the pile, his arm stretched out as he fires his sidearm into the crowds. Rifle fire tears through his chest, his blood painting my face as he collapses lifeless on top of the pile, men and women collapsing onto it as they brace themselves and fire back into the enemy. Suddenly, I’m struggling to breath as the circle around us tightens and more people collapse backward, everything constricting until I’m covered in blood and dying soldiers. Yasmine spots me struggling to push the weight off, and she rushes to defend me. She launches off on her one good leg, but she’s caught in the air by somebody and thrown back down. Yazzie collapses onto the pile already lying on top of me, and I can feel the air shoved out of my mouth. Everything’s too heavy. There are too many bodies, and all I can do is stare up into the red clouds above us as I struggle to breathe.

  Yasmine rolls off of the pile, her hand swinging out with her knife, only to have it knocked away. She’s swinging for her attacker half a second later, but her shoulder suddenly whips back as blood explodes into the air. Her fingers are grabbing for her shoulder as she collapses backward, blood flowing down her arm as she pushes back up with one leg. “Yasmine,” I try to say through the pile of bodies. “Yasmine, stay down!” But she’s on her feet as another soldier raises his rifle and fires at her, a single bullet flying out of the back after passing through her stomach, stomach, blood splattering the pavement as she clutches at her belly.

  My eyes go wide as she falls to her knees, her body twisting sideways as her blood loss finally catches up with her. There’s just this . . . this long second when she’s still on her knees before she finally tips over, falling so quick that she doesn’t even try to brace herself. The sound of her face hitting the pavement makes me wince, her body twisted in directions it shouldn’t as she lies, face down on the ground, and all I can do is stare at her. Still, even with as much injury as she’s taken, I can see life in her eyes. Somehow, she manages to smile at me, even if she can’t say anything else. I don’t have the breath to say anything either, but I smile back, even as I’m feeling my eyes burning and watering up. Honestly, I’m just glad that she knows I’m there with her. Even with more bodies falling dead around us, at least we have that.

  That’s when both of us hear something.

  Somewhere above us, there’s a noise. It’s this deep, thundering horn. It’s like listening to the trumpet of God. That’s honestly how loud it feels as it echoes through the city. It’s deep and bone rattling, and there’s just one second when I think I must be hallucinating. Like . . . is that what people feel right before they die? At the same time, this bright light suddenly starts tracing the ground, moving across the street until it settles on us, like some huge spotlight shining down from heaven. Somewhere around us, I can hear someone from Fort silence screaming, “The golden horn? It’s the golden horn!”

  That’s when I see the clouds swirling in a vortex as a huge silhouette descends out of the sky, so big that it fills the air. It’s massive, probably the biggest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s . . . a ship. The lights on its sides and at its nose shine down on the battlefield, crossing us as it searches the ground. I don’t know what to think or say, but it feels like the fight stops as everyone looks up at the sky. I hear another voice screaming, “The Dynamis. Report to President Dravic. It’s the Dynamis.”

  I’ve never seen it before personally, but hearing that . . . I suck in one last, deep breath as I pull myself out from underneath the pile of bodies stacked on top of me. With everyone distracted by this enormous ship that’s pushing clouds out of the way while it drops out of the sky, I just . . . breathe. I breathe, and then I reach over to hold Yasmine’s hand as the two of us just stare upward, wondering what comes next. And that’s when I hear a voice in my ear. Someone I know. “Central Freedom Militia.” It’s Jackie. “Central Freedom has existed for seven hundred years. You are going to make sure it stands for another hundred more. Hold your ground for a little while longer. You’re not in this fight alone. Not anymore.”

  As we look up toward the ship, we see explosions igniting from the outside hull. They’re not guns though. There aren’t any bullets or missiles firing, and we don’t see explosions hitting the ground. Instead, we see lights, like stars falling out of the sky. They cut through the air, falling to the earth and with one light burning so bright, it’s almost hard to look directly at it. It literally hits like a meteor, thundering into the ground with so much raw power that the street craters out beneath it. When it does, white fire goes flaring out as a shockwave ripples along the ground, sending half the crowd along the avenue tumbling to their knees. The whole world shakes as more streaking lights slam into the street, leaving huge, armored bodies standing there. It’s these giant figures holding rifles as big as men and with blades strapped underneath their gauntlets.

  But it’s the person standing in the middle of the fire that I recognize. Jackie, with no armor, just a white jumpsuit and her sword in her hand. All eyes are on her as she’s standing there. Still, even with all that pressure, she looks over her shoulder and spots me out of the corner of her eye. I can see her smile before she looks forward again, her arm holding her sword up as white fire wraps its way around it, the light surrounding the blade cutting through the darkness. “DEC two, spread out and take the avenue. The rest of the Vanguard, you’re with me.”

  And then she’s rushing forward, her sword trailing behind her as she dashes into the crowd, her legs sending her skyward in a leap that’s impossible to believe. Over the front line she goes, the armored troopers around her crashing through the crowds. Their massive shoulders send men and women flying backwards, and their huge, g
loved hands lift soldiers right off of the ground. Gun fire starts to erupt from every soldier from Fort Silence, all rifles trained on the gigantic fighters that are tearing through the lines. One of those giants, in particular, stands out. She’s right at Jackie’s side the whole way, her helmet like a death’s head mask and her chest decorated with the symbol of a goddess. Her huge fists pummel men to the ground, and the walkers from the fort go crumbling to the floor as her hands throw them aside like they’re dolls.

  But at the center of it all is Jackie, moving like a dancer. She twists beneath rifle barrels and slides away from clenched fists, her sword slicing the limbs off of powered armored while her legs and fists hit with enough force that soldiers go slumping to the ground. At the rear lines, she must see the tank, because she leaps up from the crowd, spiraling toward one of the buildings. The barrel of that tank elevates and fires at her, the energy blast ripping into the wall and sending concrete and steel flying into the crowds. Jackie’s already gone though, her body circling above the street as she flies forward, her sword stretching outward as she plunges toward the tank. She slides across the front of it, her blade slicing the turret off of without any trouble.

  Then she’s on the ground, her hands underneath the front of the vehicle as she lifts up. She must be stronger than I’ve ever seen, because the tank goes flipping backward without any effort, soldiers tumbling out of the way to avoid being crushed. And then she’s gone. She just vanishes, completely disappearing as she moves faster than I can see. Seconds later, soldiers are crumbling to the floor, totally knocked out, before she reappears again at the end of the street. It takes her troops just a few seconds to catch up to her, and then it’s her and her . . . her Vanguard, all of them staring down the road at the soldiers further down the road. And then they’re charging, cutting a way out of the Green Zone for us.

  Yasmine grabs me by the arm. “Dodger . . . This is it. I can’t move, but . . . you need to lead us out of here. There are still people fighting at the other gates. You still need to make sure everyone’s safe, from 110th to 59th.”