Company Ink

by J. A. Cipriano

  As bullets pinged off the shields, I launched myself from the doorway, slamming my shoulder into the closest soldier. My blow knocked him off his feet, and as he landed flat on his back, shield falling to the ground with a clack, I stomped his groin. The blow caused his eyes to bug out of his head as I followed it up by dropping my knee hard on his throat.

  He convulsed beneath me as I grabbed his weapon, an Israeli made Tavor TAR-21 assault rifle and used it to cut a burst through his comrades. Bullets tore into them, and while most of the shots bounced off their body armor as I emptied the weapon, it didn’t much matter because it made them drop their shields. Their screams filled the air as the Gatling guns punched holes right through them.

  Bodies flew backward as I moved forward, grabbing a dropped assault rifle from the closest corpse and rolling to cover as the advancing soldiers planted their shields.

  I flung the weapon back to Ronnie as they opened fire on me, but I was already moving before they could pump me full of lead. Bullets ripped into the dirt where I’d been as I leaped sideways, hit the ground in a roll and came up right behind one of the shields they had dug into the ground.

  The owner was dead, his life leaking away into the mud thanks to a Tavor round to the face just beneath the brim of his helmet. Grabbing the shield, I jerked it from the ground and planted it in front of myself, blocking the incoming fire from the soldiers.

  As bullets bounced off the front of the shield, the Gatling guns continued to fire, keeping them pinned down and unable to get a good shot at me.

  Unfortunately for them, that left them wide open for Ronnie, and with their attention focused on me, it only took her a split second to take the rest of them down from her perch in the hallway.

  A few moments later, the Gatling guns stopped firing, and the sudden silence of it was unnerving. Only as Ronnie started to come toward me, I saw the Gatling guns swivel toward her, their barrels starting to spin.

  “Stay back!” I cried and threw my hand up in the universal sign for don’t fucking move.

  Ronnie froze, and when I was satisfied she wasn’t going to move out in front of the automated guns, I glanced back at the Gatling guns and issued a command. “Add Ronnie to the security database.”

  As the confirmation pinged in my ears, the Gatling guns that had been struggling to reach her, ceased trying to do so and returned to their idle positions. Watching it happen annoyed me a bit. The Gatling guns should have been able to cover the doorway. It was a bad design. Yet another thing to fix.

  “You’re okay to come out now,” I said, moving forward and picking up one of the Tavors, and as I stared at the man dead on the ground, I took a deep breath. Ronnie had shot him through the left ear, blowing his brains out across the dirt despite his helmet. That was worrisome. If Ronnie or I got shot in the head, we’d be dead.

  “It’s a good thing they were focused on you.” Ronnie gestured toward the fallen soldiers as she came toward me, pausing just long enough to scoop up some fresh magazines. When she saw me looking at her, she shrugged. “What? We need them more than they do.”

  “I wasn’t thinking about that,” I said, getting out my pad and pen. Then I wrote.

  In moments, Ronnie’s body armor had morphed so that she had no unprotected skin, her helmet turning into a full-face job with a variety of sensors. Part of me worried it’d still get negated since I was working on a hunch, but at the same time, it’d just turn back into body armor.

  “Wow, thanks,” she said, looking over herself and clearly satisfied with the changes.

  “You’re welcome. See if you can find anything useful.” I nodded to the corpses.

  “Right.” She went to it as I began the process of stripping down the closest corpse, dressing in his armor, and making similar modifications to my own set while keeping the armor as similar to the soldiers as I could so they might not notice us at first glance.

  By the time I was done, I felt relatively protected, and what’s more, Ronnie had found a few grenades of various make and type as well as a combination of Glock 19s, Glock 17s, and Jericho 941s, but no radios or communications devices.

  Opting for a Glock 19, I tucked it into my stolen holster and readied my Tavor. I wasn’t sure where the rest of the bastards were, but I knew one thing. They hadn’t breached the Gatling gun room from this way. That meant it’d be better to check out the other rooms because if any of my people were still out there, they’d be in trouble while anyone inside the rooms beyond the Gatling guns would be safe.

  18

  I made it about six steps before another group of soldiers appeared in the entrance at the far end of the room. I pulled the trigger of my Tavor as I threw myself out of the entryway. Bullets tore into the soldiers’ riot shields as they backpedaled for cover, giving me time to roll to my feet and take cover behind the shields the dead had left behind.

  Ronnie fired, pinning the soldiers down as I spun and wrenched one of the shields from the ground behind me. Then, bracing it in front of me, I took off running while the soldiers were still focused on Ronnie.

  I slammed into the first soldier’s shield with my own as Ronnie’s Tavor clicked empty. I rolled, spinning my body past the goon I’d shield-slammed and swept past him and into the throng of grunts in the hallway. Then I went to town on them, and as I punched and dodged and kicked, I found it strangely satisfying to beat them down with my own fists.

  Soldiers went flying with every step I took until their bloody, broken bodies littered the hallway. I knew that Ronnie had helped, had been picking them off while I’d pounded them into the dirt, but as I stood there, lungs heaving and covered in the blood of the fallen, I couldn’t help but smile.

  I’d taken out an entire squadron of goons in under ten seconds, and as I stepped over their bodies and out into the corridor at the far end of the hallway, I was feeling a lot better about myself than I had before. There might be a lot of them, but I was better.

  Still, I knew I didn’t have very long before more soldiers came, so I beckoned for Ronnie to follow me once I verified the coast was clear. As she approached, I pointed to the left, where the tunnel spiraled off into the distance. When she nodded, I took off sprinting toward where I knew Cami’s lab to be.

  An explosion rocked the hallway, nearly shaking me from my feet as debris fell from the ceiling. Like the rest of the base, most of it had been reduced to dirt, so nothing large hit me, but even still, it made me swallow. The tunnels might still be here, but anything could cause a cave in.

  “What was that?” Ronnie asked as I peeked around the corner.

  Instead of replying, I sucked in a breath. There wasn’t much of a lab anymore since what I could see through the smoke had been reduced to a twisted mishmash of metal and wires. Steam filled the corridor, spewing from a broken overhead pipe. I clenched my fist around my gun. If they’d done something like this, that meant one of my people was in here…

  “I’m not sure,” I whispered right before a soldier stepped out from around the corner, gun leveled at me.

  I fired at him. Two quick bursts that took his legs out from under him, and as he collapsed in front of me, I soccer kicked him in the head. His nose shattered into a spray of blood as he flopped bonelessly onto his back.

  Beside me, Ronnie fired, her shots causing another soldier to dive for cover. As he hit the ground behind another one of those shields, she pressed her attack, stepping around and firing again. Bullets slammed into the shield, and as the soldier maneuvered to return fire, I saw Skye pop up from the far end of the room with an M16 in her hands.

  She unleashed a burst of fire that tore into the guy’s back, pitching him forward in a spray of blood, and for a moment, it was quiet.

  “Are you okay?” I called as Skye got to her feet and came toward me, evidently unconcerned about more soldiers.

  “Yeah.” Skye nodded to me. “Are you?”

  “Of course,” I said right before she wrapped her arms around me, hugging me. “Guess the bait thin
g was a dumb idea.”

  “Well, it was my dumb idea, so don’t feel too bad about it. You wanted to come back.” She ran a hand through her blonde hair. “We worried about you after the first attack hit. We did okay at first, but then our shit started vanishing. Most of us managed to pull back here—”

  “Most?” I raised an eyebrow at her. “What do you mean, most?”

  “Gail hasn’t checked in, which makes sense because she was on the east side of the base by the croc pond when this all went down and most everyone is with Maggie on the west end trying to keep the remaining soldiers from getting inside.” Skye glared at the hallway to our left. “This is as far east as I’ve been able to make it.”

  “I’ll go get Gail.” I nodded to Skye. “You, go help Maggie. Seems like she needs all the help she can get.”

  “She does.” She nodded toward where the showers were. “They must have come through where the plumbing connected to the main waterway…”

  “Make a note of it.” I tried to keep my anger in check. If anything happened to my people… No. I didn’t even want to think about that. Instead, I needed to focus on getting Gail back while Skye and the others dealt with the soldiers. Then I’d come back and help them. “Ronnie, can you help Skye?”

  “Um … sure.” Ronnie looked from Skye to me and back again. “Um… hello?”

  “Don’t worry, honey,” Skye said, waving for me to go. “You can trust me. I’m not the jealous type.”

  “Right. I’m going to get Gail and then I’ll be back.” I turned and made my way east.

  Like most of the rest of the base, the pathway to the east was a dark empty hole of dirt mixed with a few sparking wires, and I was glad for the night vision granted by my new helmet because it allowed me to see the six armed guards when I turned the corner.

  “There!” one soldier called, pointing his gun at me. I threw myself sideways as he pulled the trigger, giving me enough of a head start to dodge the shot. It slammed into the dirt wall behind me as the rest of the soldiers opened up, filling the corridor with bullets.

  While a couple bullets hit me in the leg as I scrambled to my feet, the pain never hit me. Instead, my focus intensified as I reached the crowd of soldiers, emptying my Tavor in the process. As one of the soldiers flew backward, his chest a bloody mishmash of flesh, I slammed my empty gun into another’s nose. His head snapped backward as I tore his gun from his hands and smashed the still firing weapon into his partner’s face.

  The soldier’s night vision goggles shattered in a spray of black plastic as I whirled, ripping weapons from their hands and using them like high-tech clubs. A moment later, I was standing in the middle of a squad of dead soldiers, their broken bodies a testament to my power.

  Then I stepped over them and continued east.

  I soon found myself at the entrance to a large room filled with soldiers, but that’s not what made my heart fill with rage.

  No. It was the sight of Gail standing there with a gun pointed at the back of her head while several other soldiers were unloading what looked like explosives from the back of a truck. That was also when I realized what they planned on doing. This was the main entrance and exit to the surface, and if they blew it, my people would be trapped here. And with soldiers occupying the waterways to the west, they’d be screwed.

  I had to stop them from doing that, and I had to save Gail. There was just one problem. The moment I started shooting, the bastards would be on to me, and that was assuming they didn’t just shoot Gail since she was obviously some kind of hostage.

  No. I needed a better plan, and as I stared at the soldiers, I realized I had one. It was just risky. Because it meant my pen had to work.

  Still, it was better than the alternative. Taking a deep breath, I started writing.

  Gail is aware of what will happen three seconds after I finish writing. The ground in the room beneath the truck will vanish, and everyone but Gail will suddenly be five hundred feet lower.

  Then I waited.

  I’d wanted to do more, but anything I did risked either not working or getting undone, and I couldn’t have that happen. Not with the life of Gail, and everyone else, at stake.

  The ground vanished. Well, most of it anyway.

  While I was used to the effects of the pen, something about seeing everything suddenly plummet five hundred feet was strangely disconcerting. Everything but Gail anyway, because she was already moving as the ground vanished, dropping flat to the floor. As she did, the guard holding the gun on her started to fire.

  Unfortunately, since he was already falling, he was unable to aim properly, and his bullet zinged through the spot where she’d been an eyeblink earlier. The rest of the room fared even less well, and as everyone disappeared down man-sized holes, I smiled. It had worked.

  “Gail, are you okay?” I asked, moving forward into the room as she looked over to me, a smile on her face.

  “I am now.” She got to her feet and came toward me, careful to avoid the myriad of holes around the room. “Thanks for coming to get me.”

  “You don’t seem that worried—”

  She cut me off by kissing me hard. When she broke away, she shrugged. “Why would I be worried? I knew you’d save me.”

  19

  Gail gave me the rundown on what had happened, which was pretty much as I’d suspected. At almost the same time I’d gotten attacked in Le Château de Tissu Extraordinaire, a group of soldiers had stormed the place, literally burrowing through one of the walls in one of those moleman-style machines Wayne had used.

  Then, as my team scrambled to react, stuff started vanishing, or at least, that’s what Gail had put together from what the soldiers had said since she hadn’t actually seen the attack.

  Her words angered me. These assholes had burrowed into my base and then started taking it apart. They would pay for that.

  “Well, hopefully, one of them stays alive long enough to get some information out of him,” I snapped, glaring at the tunnel ahead as I made my way to the west since that was where Skye had said they’d been fighting back the attackers.

  “Perhaps,” Gail tightened her grip on her pistol. “Though I’d rather they all got fed to the crocs.” She shook her head. “You don’t know what they talked about doing to me.” She shivered. “Vile people.”

  Another flash of anger ripped through me as I contemplated her words. I was pretty sure I knew exactly what those soldiers had planned for my girls. Well, I’d just have to teach them, and everyone else a lesson.

  First thing was first though. Take the base back.

  Focusing on the tunnel ahead, I crept along, the Tavor in my hand. Part of me wanted to use my pen to fill the base with toxic gas or something, but I didn’t want to risk it without having eyes on my people. There was too big of a chance for something to go wrong with a plan like that.

  It didn’t take long for the sounds of gunfire to fill my ears, and as I turned a corner, I saw why. Six of those giant drill contraptions had burst through the far wall of the great amphitheater and were providing cover for a metric fuck ton of soldiers.

  While I couldn’t see exactly where my team was, I could hear the ping of their bullets bouncing off the steel skin of the vehicles.

  Turning quickly to Gail, I handed her my Tavor. “Cover me.”

  She nodded and took the weapon from me as my pen went into my hand. Then I wrote.

  My first try, repeating what I’d done with the soldiers when I’d saved Gail, didn’t work, and as I stared at the scene, I tried to think about how to handle this so the other pen holder couldn’t undo it. It seemed like whoever this guy was, he couldn’t erase real things or modifications to real things — only the stuff that was completely fabricated with the pen. It also took him a few seconds to undo anything I wrote down instead of spoke aloud. So, I’d have to work with what was already here, and what I could make happen fast.

  Then I had an idea.

  “Gonna need just a minute here,” I called to Gail as I
started with My people know the whole plan two seconds after I finish writing.

  Gail grunted between squeezing off rounds with the Tavor. “I trust you. Just hurry, okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said as I quickly scribbled out the rest of the plan, which included my people knowing how to operate the moleman machines and moving them to where Marty and the girls had taken cover. Since those things were real, we’d just use their own weapons against them. I added a few more details, including that none of the enemies were going to escape because they wanted to fight to the death, and then wrote the last line.

  A bunch of Claymores go off in the middle of all the soldiers.

  I held my breath for a few seconds until the lines I’d written failed to disappear and a series of explosions ripped through the enemy ranks. The giant-ass drilling machines vanished and reappeared, three along each side of the amphitheater, which told me that my people were split up.

  Without their armored cover to hide behind, the front lines of soldiers started falling to the bullets blasting from both sides of the area, where my people were now protected by the machines.

  “Go help them,” I said to Gail, waving at the closest group to the right as I penned one further line. My bulletproof suit also covers my head, but I can still see and breathe. Instantly, the black goop of the suit Cami had made surged up and over my head and face. It was a weird feeling being completely encased in this stuff, but all my senses still functioned.

  Gail nodded and ran for the group on the right, firing the Tavor as she went. On that side, Skye had eased around the back of the line of moleman machines and was taking potshots at the soldiers, while Vanessa, the girl who’d opted to magically gain doctor skills along with Maggie, climbed up to the top of a machine for a better vantage point.

  They were really mowing the enemies down now, but we still faced a ton of them hanging back in the tunnels their machines had punched through the base, trading bullets with a vengeance.