Ash stared at Hath, then at the city around them. It was night, but the streets were bustling and the neon glow of the lights almost gave the illusion of day.
“So, what?” he said at last. “This isn’t real?”
“That is correct.”
“None of it?”
“None of it is real,” said Hath. “It is all a simulation.”
“Like… the city. The people…?”
“None of it. Even I am not really here.”
Ash cupped his hands around his mouth. “Hey, you big jerk!” he shouted. A passing pedestrian turned and glared at him, then gave him the finger.
Ash and Hath watched the man storm off. “He seemed pretty real,” Ash said.
“It’s a very convincing simulation,” Hath said. “But a simulation is all it is. It has been designed so you can test your powers without being harmed.”
Ash’s face lit up. “So you’re a simulation, and I can’t be hurt? Cool. That means I finally get to do this. This is for scaring the crap out of me with that gun thing.”
He swung high with his fist, catching Hath on the chin. The alien didn’t flinch, but pain exploded at Ash’s knuckles and vibrated all the way up his arm. He leaped back, pressing his fingers beneath the opposite armpit and hopping on the spot.
“I thought you said I couldn’t be hurt!” he hissed.
“I said you couldn’t be harmed,” Hath said. “There’s a difference.”
Ash flexed his fingers and gave his knuckles a rub as the pain eased away. He looked around at the busy streets. “So, what am I supposed to do? Just start shooting?”
Hath sighed. “These are innocent people. They are not your target. Your target is the man with the hostage.” He pointed past Ash. “There.”
Ash turned and felt his legs go weak. There, just a dozen feet away, was a middle-aged woman. Her eyes were wide and staring, her cheeks streaked with mascara tears. An arm was across her throat, the muzzle of a gun pressed against the side of her head. Over her shoulder, her abductor’s face was twisted into a sneer.
“Ash, baby. Help me,” the woman sobbed.
Ash’s voice barely made it through his tightening throat. “Mom?”
Eighteen
“What do you think of the others?”
Daryl blinked, surprised as much by the question as by the simulation around him. He was standing in the gym hall of his school, listening to the sounds of teenage chatter somewhere out in the corridors beyond. The simulation was perfect in every way, right down to the lingering smell of decades’ worth of sweaty teenagers. Accuracy: 10
“What do you mean?” Daryl asked.
“It is not a difficult question. What do you think of the others?”
Daryl shifted uneasily. “Riley’s OK. She’s, I mean, she’s good. She seems to know what she’s doing, even if she’s a little… whatever she is.”
“She has been with me a few days longer,” Hath said. “She had a head start. And what about Ash Stone?”
Daryl screwed up his face. “I was too quick to judge him before I’d met him,” he said. “I used to think I disliked him, but now that I’ve actually spent some time in his company… I really dislike him. He’s just… Yeah. Not a fan.”
“Irrelevant,” said Hath.
“What is?” Daryl frowned.
“Everything you just said. Everything you feel about the others. Like, dislike. Love, hate. It is irrelevant. What you think of them is of no consequence. You shall work together, or you—everyone—shall die. It is that simple.”
Daryl nodded his understanding and looked around at the hall. “So what’s the training? It’s not basketball, is it? The last time didn’t exactly end very well.”
“Your task is simply to get to the end of the simulation without dying,” Hath said. He stepped back as the double doors at the side of the hall swung outward into the corridor. For a moment, nothing appeared to happen. Daryl stared into the corridor’s open mouth, wondering what was about to come through.
Something hit him hard on the back of the head and he staggered forward. He spun, clutching his skull. A PPA operative lunged with the butt of an assault rifle, trying to smash it into Daryl’s face.
Daryl turned sideways and the butt of the gun swished past him. He caught the barrel of the weapon in his left hand, while driving a panicked elbow into the PPA man’s nose, spreading it across his face in a fountain of blood.
The man half-gargled, half-roared as he drove a punch into Daryl’s ribcage. Daryl twisted, deflecting the worst of the blow. He tore the gun from the man’s hands and spun the stock one-eighty, smashing the handle into the side of the operative’s head.
The PPA agent crumpled to the ground, snuffling and coughing back blood. As the man hit the floor, he and his weapon vanished, leaving Daryl completely alone in the hall.
“Hath?” Daryl whispered, his voice sounding unnaturally loud in the cavernous hall. “Hath, where are you? Is that it? Am I done?”
From out in the corridor, Daryl heard the clumping of running feet. He spun, just as a full squadron of PPA agents raced in, half-crouched, their weapons trained on him. Instinctively, Daryl raised his hands.
“Don’t shoot,” he said. It may have been just a simulation, but the crashing in his chest and the fear flooding his veins was all too real.
“Down on the floor. Hands on your head!” roared one of the men, jabbing his gun toward Daryl as if drawing attention to it. The agent approached Daryl head on, as the rest of the squadron fanned out around him.
On auto-pilot, Daryl did as he was told, getting down on his knees and placing his hands on top of his head. There were too many of them, and he could see no way of getting out of the situation without being blasted full of holes. Even if the bullets weren’t real, he’d had quite enough of being shot for one day.
Someone grabbed one of his arms from behind and he felt a handcuff latch around his wrist. As the metal clicked into place, he spun on his knees, catching the man behind him by the arm.
CRACK! The man’s arm snapped and he howled in pain. Daryl felt a pang of guilt, but his body was moving on its own accord. He felt like a bystander as he bounced to his feet behind the man and sent him pirouetting into another PPA agent dead ahead.
They collided hard and began to fall. Daryl ran forward, using their falling bodies like a springboard to launch himself over their heads. Gunfire erupted and plasterboard rained down from the ceiling, falling on the PPA agents on either side.
Daryl ducked, flipped, hit the ground shoulder-first, and rolled upright. He caught a gun by the barrel and drove hard with his right foot into an agent’s stomach, separating the man from his firearm.
He turned, taking aim, but the gun disappeared in his hands before he could find the trigger.
“Too easy,” said Hath’s voice from nowhere.
Fire spat from the muzzle of one of the other guns, and the walls of the hall shook with the roar. Daryl leaped sideways, flipping into a one-armed cartwheel and driving both feet into the chest of another gunman.
He almost laughed. The front of his mind—the conscious part—could hardly believe what he was doing. His body was completely under the control of his subconscious, which it turned out was really very good indeed at fighting.
Before the man hit the ground, though, another stream of the agents flooded in through the gym hall doors. There were over twenty of them now, all armed, all dangerous, all out for his blood.
He ran toward the group before they could take aim, hurling himself into them like a bowling ball. As he fell among them, he thumped himself on the shoulder. “PPA operative,” he said, hoping the simulation extended as far as his outfit.
Yes! The red fabric swam and squirmed until he was dressed identically to the men around him. They spun in confusion, quickly losing sight of him in the throng of bodies.
“Where is he? Where did he go?” one of the agents barked.
“There!” cried Daryl, pointing at another of the men. All guns
turned toward the agent, who lowered his own weapon and began to protest his innocence. Daryl saw his chance and ran for the open doorway.
He dived through into the corridor, then stumbled to a stop as he ended up back in the hall. The agents turned, guns training on him once more.
“Your simulation only extends as far as this hall,” Hath’s voice told him. “There’s nowhere for you to run, Daryl Elliot.”
Daryl raised both hands and shoved. He felt a wave pass through the air between him and the gunmen, driving them back. His legs powered him forward, closing the gap in two big strides.
He kicked, punched, chopped, taking down agent after agent in quick succession. A driving kick to the kneecap sent one folding to the floor. A powerful uppercut lifted another off his feet.
Daryl cut through them like a surgeon, anticipating each move before they made it, blocking, ducking, bobbing, weaving, making himself an impossible target for them to hit. As each of the PPA operatives hit the floor, they vanished, and soon the group had thinned to half a dozen.
By the time he’d halved that again, Daryl was breathing heavily. His body was in constant motion, all four limbs working almost independently to take the gunmen out. His brain, too, was in full flow, planning his attacks several stages ahead, and anticipating every possible move the men could make.
His limbs were feeling heavy. He knew he had to take the last three agents out before he started to get sloppy.
With a roundhouse kick and a series of powerful open-hand strikes, Daryl dropped the men. They blinked out of existence as they hit the floor. He turned, panting. He’d done it. He’d beaten them.
He groaned. An entire platoon of black-clad gunmen had appeared in the hall behind him. His own black outfit was chicken-pocked with the red dots of dozens of laser sights. Daryl clenched his fists, but he knew there were too many of them to fight, and he suspected that even if he somehow did beat them, they’d just keep coming.
“Strength. Agility. Telekinesis,” said Hath’s voice. “There’s more to you than that, Daryl Elliot.”
Daryl hesitated. What did Hath mean? Get to the end of the simulation, he thought. Get to the end of the simulation.
“What’s the matter? Did I make it too hard for you?”
Hard. Fighting the gunmen was hard.
“The hard way isn’t necessarily the correct way,” Daryl muttered, remembering what Hath had said to him before the floor had swallowed him and the others up. Daryl heard a dozen fingers tighten on a dozen triggers. “Yufo, end simulation!” he cried, just as fire spat from the gun barrels all around him.
Daryl gulped in a breath as the black ooze left his lungs. Beside him, he heard Ash and Riley both let out frantic gasps. The black ran down them like liquid metal. It pooled at their feet for a moment, before being absorbed back into the floor.
Ash looked around frantically. “What happened? Is it over?”
Wheezing, Daryl looked up at Hath. The alien gave him a curt nod. “It’s over. One of you found a way to reach the end of the simulation.”
Riley folded, putting her hands on her knees. “Phew. Thank goodness. If I had to smash another flying space-guy with another rock, I… don’t know how to end this sentence,” she admitted, then she leaned against the wall for support.
Ash approached Hath angrily. “That was out of line, you son of a bitch,” he seethed.
“It was necessary. You had to learn accuracy and control. Blasting randomly doesn’t get us anywhere.”
“I should blast you randomly right now,” Ash said.
“I’m sure we all had it rough,” Daryl said, trying to intervene. Ash turned to face him, his eyes dark.
“Oh, did you have to watch your mom die?”
Daryl opened his mouth to say that he had, albeit a long time ago, but he just shook his head. “No.”
“No, then shut the hell up,” Ash said. He turned back to Hath, but before he could say any more something slammed against the side of the ship, making it roll suddenly to the left.
“What the hell was that?” Daryl cried.
“Visuals!” barked Hath. The walls remained exactly where they were. “I said visu--”
Another explosion rocked the ship. Yufo’s black walls flickered for a moment, revealing an armor-clad figure in a leering skull mask. He took aim with a pistol which looked so oversized it would have been funny, had it not been about to spell their doom.
“Impossible,” Hath hissed. “It… it can’t be.”
“What’s happening?” Ash demanded. “Who is that?”
A long, straight blade pierced the side of the ship and Yufo let out a high-pitched electronic whine. “Hull breached,” she said, surprisingly calmly, Daryl thought, given the circumstances.
The blade withdrew with a SHHHHNKT. Two metal-clad hands pushed in through the slit and began to force it apart, bending the metal outward. The skull-like face pushed in through the gap.
“He’s here,” said Hath, his nostrils flapping rapidly in and out. “The World Killer is already here!”
Nineteen
Ash raised his hands and fired through the gap in the wall. His energy bolts crackled brightly in the half-dark, and Daryl had to move quickly to drag Riley back from their searing heat.
Ash was roaring, pouring everything he had into the beams. The black walls on either side of the hole began to glow first red, then white-hot. Smoldering lumps of black goo sizzled as they hit the floor.
“Did you get him?” Daryl shouted. Ash switched off his beams and peered through the gap. There was no sign of the masked figure.
“I got him,” Ash said. “I think… I think I got him.”
“Don’t be so certain,” Hath warned. “The World Killer is strong and cunning and will not be beaten easily.”
“What are you, his fan club?” Ash snorted. He approached the hole, gaining confidence with every step. “I got him. Boom. Job done. If you’re troubled by evil alien warlords in the middle of the night, who you gonna call? Ash--”
A hand grabbed through the gap, catching Ash by the front of his bodysuit. Ash opened his mouth to cry out, but there was no time. With a sudden yank, he was pulled through the partially melted wall and out onto the platform.
Daryl tried to hold Riley back, but she pulled her arm free and raced to the wound in Yufo’s wall. The World Killer had Ash above his head, held there with one hand. Riley and Daryl could only watch as the alien slammed Ash hard against the floor. Once. Twice. Ash went limp, and the World Killer tossed him across the platform. He tumbled through the air like a doll, then hit a tiled wall and crumpled to the floor.
Curving her fingers into claws, Riley mimed pulling the floor apart at the World Killer’s feet. The ground snapped open like a pair of hungry jaws, and the alien tumbled down into the hole.
With a strangled cry, Riley clapped her hands together. The whole station shook as the hole in the floor smashed shut. Riley clapped again. Again. Again. Each shuddering impact shook tiles from the wall and plaster from the ceiling.
She kept smashing, spitting out a word every time she brought her hands together. “Don’t… hurt… our… musical… artists!”
A rusted light shade fell from the ceiling. A crack raced up the closest wall. Daryl leaped forward, catching Riley’s hands before she could spread them apart again. She glared at him, eyes blazing furiously.
“You’re going to bring the whole place down,” Daryl said. “You did it. You stopped him.”
Riley blinked and the rage was gone. Tears welled at the corners of her eyes and she looked down at her hands as they started to shake. “I… I…”
“You’re OK. Wait here. I’m going to check on Ash.”
Leaping the narrow crevice in the station floor, Daryl hurried over to where Ash lay. He was bruised and bloodied, and his whole forehead had almost doubled in size where he’d hit the ground, but he was breathing. Each breath was faint and rasping, but they were there.
“Daryl!” Riley cried.
>
Spinning, Daryl saw a gloved hand wrap around Riley’s ankle. It yanked her down toward the hole in the floor and she screamed as something in her knee went pop!
Daryl launched himself forward, but another sudden yank dragged Riley down into the hole. She caught the floor, her eyes wide and frantic, her fingers clawing at the crumbling edge.
Diving, Daryl reached for her hand, but as he slid toward her, her head snapped back and her grip slipped away and she fell into the dark gap.
“Riley!” Daryl cried, sliding right up to the edge of the crevice. The only reply was his own echo and a waft of cool air from the hole below.
Hath forced apart the tear in Yufo’s wall. He glanced around, taking in the scene before him. “We have to leave, Daryl Elliot. It is not safe.”
Daryl bounded to his feet. “We can’t just leave Riley, she--”
The floor began to vibrate, shaking down more plaster and tiles. The edge of the crack collapsed, forcing Daryl to leap clear. From inside the gap, there came a scuffing sound, as if someone were climbing free.
“Riley?” he whispered, but as a skull-like head rose into view, he felt his blood run cold.
Flecks of blood splattered the World Killer’s mask as he climbed out of the hole. Red dripped from the end of the helmet’s pointed chin, making tiny flower patterns where it hit the floor.
“Run!” Hath hissed, but Daryl had no intention of going anywhere. He hurled himself at the World Killer, lashing out with a series of fast kicks and punches. The alien easily dodged and deflected each blow, then crunched a backhand into Daryl’s face.
Daryl’s nose exploded, flooding his eyes with blinding light and his throat with a gush of blood. He staggered, shaking the pain away, holding his hands up to protect his head.
A fist smashed into the spot where his stomach met his chest and Daryl felt his lungs go tight. His arms came down, instinct driving them to protect his chest. He blinked through the tears in time to see the leering skull fill his field of view. The head snapped forward, the metal mask destroying what was left of Daryl’s nose and shattering his eye socket.
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