Breach the Hull Page 7

  Training kicked in like gravity; nothing to think about, just do it. I rolled off the security goon I had accidentally tackled and snapped my foot into the kneecap of the woman to his right. There was a slight bit of resistance before the joint bent with a distinct wet pop and muffled crackle. She collapsed, screaming and holding the ruins of her leg as a sharp pressure slammed into my shoulder blade. I spun, gritting my teeth, and leading with an elbow, aimed instinctively to catch the poor bastard just under his chin. My armored elbow plate, hard and unyielding, crashed against the soft ballistic cloth over his Adam’s apple. He went down, trachea collapsed, his last seconds of life gurgling away wetly.

  And then I was running, crossing the street with well-practiced strides as bullets impacted all around me. Stairs came out of nowhere, materializing out of the darkness only when my foot went looking for hard ground and found none. Again I fell, world spinning. Air exploded from my mouth, diaphragm and lungs slapped as I landed flat on my back in a pile of loose trash. My shoulder erupted into full scale agony. The sloppy pile of boxes half collapsed around me and I couldn’t breathe, had to breathe, must breathe . . .

  . . . My shoulder was still on fire. I must have passed out for a moment; as it turned out it was a moment I didn’t have.

  Like every animal ever given birth, I froze as my natural enemies began pouring past me in an endless wave. One or two missed the first step, but those behind saw those in front and managed to double time the stairs just fine. They raced down the alley, lights stymied by those in front, creating daylight through the upper half of the alley, but bodies blocking light to cast the floor in shadow.

  And there I sat, half-covered with stained boxes, ruined clothes, half-eaten sausage, and broken toys as they ran past in ranks without number. Then, they began to slow, and trickle, until one, lone man came jogging behind. Without a light of his own, and without any real sense of urgency, he descended the steep flight of stairs carefully. Then he looked ahead, fumbled with armored fittings to expose his fly, and took a leak on an innocuous pile of trash.

  He kept watch in front and behind, clearly more worried about discovery by an ally than an enemy, and I toyed with the idea of murdering him right here and now. The problem was every soldier in the area was now south of me, giving me a straight shot to the RV as long as I didn’t leave a fragging corpse to point to where I really was. So I stayed as still as the grave, bit my lip against the burning in my shoulder, and let him piss all over me.

  I finally decided to start officially hating both this planet and everything on it.

  It seemed like forever, but soon enough he zipped up and jogged after his comrades. I forced myself to slowly count to one hundred before I moved. A quick glance at my improvised bed revealed a dark, bloody pool near where my head had lain and I cursed. Someone must have gotten a lucky round off. I made it to another alley and another shadow before breaking out the powdered coagulant and pouring it over my left shoulder. I couldn’t exactly see what I was doing, so I was generous. I scrabbled with the bandage for minutes before figuring that there was hump-all I could do about taking care of this myself. I reached around to the small pack and felt the avalanche drive there, safe and sound. I had to keep moving.

  I headed west, the world taking on harsh angles and severe lighting, a paranoid genius’ eye lending the feel of reality to this gruesome nightmare though the lens of his camera. I blinked furiously, righting the world for a second before it began to swim again. I was probably still losing blood. Lord knows if my brain was swelling inside my skull. Everything felt a little broken and a little off kilter, somehow distorted. I rechecked the map, stowed it and popped one street to the north. I snuck a peek out onto the main boulevard, looking out onto the gently arcing downhill grade that flut-tered down for a kilometer or so to the shore of the river. It all looked so peaceful.

  I reached for my gun, and found it was still gone.

  Without any other real choice, I moved out. I fooled myself into thinking I’d actually make it, too, when another light enveloped me, followed by shouts and shots. I sprinted for the mouth of another nameless alley, and turned to crash though the door to another cheap, dingy apartment block. I made the stairwell before the enemy made the front window, and I vaulted up the stairs as holes sprang up on all sides. Bullets made their tinny, cracking music as a more subtle backbeat began to brush my brain. I made the first landing and slung around the banister, turning one hundred eighty degrees before launching myself up the next flight.

  And the next.

  And the next.

  I burst onto the roof, shattering the door with my good shoulder and setting my bad shoulder screaming again. Footsteps thumped behind me, ghostly bass bounced on all sides, I looked around the roof and realized it was, indeed a roof. I wasn’t sure what my brilliant plan had been, but roofs aren’t generally known for having an abundance of escape routes. I saw the building to the west and instantly decided to do something I haven’t done since I was a boy. I jogged to the east edge, spun on one heel, and put everything I had into the soles of my feet.

  The memory of a hundred million steps flashed through them, the remembered prayers for safety and speed. Thick boots bit into the gravel like the claws of a wolf, and thighs contracted in perfect harmony, pushing faster and faster. I grew up in a place where, the strong preyed on the weak, the good were eaten by the bad, and law was lynched by the criminal. It was a place where you avoided the cops, for they always wanted something from you, it was a place where there was no self defense, only murder and murder again. It was a place with no armor, no help, no hope, where the only safety lay in speed. I grew up to be fast, very fast. And sometimes, just sometimes, those who wanted to use you as entertainment would chase you onto a roof. And there would be nothing left to do but fight, jump, or die.

  Three security goons burst from the stairwell behind me. One managed to open fire as my right foot caught the edge of the roof and gave one last push, a wrenching, roaring, screaming push to propel me up and out, further, further. And for a second, just a second, I was free. Free, as the air washed all fear from me, as gravity gave me a moment’s respite, as my enemies saw me and were amazed.

  Thirty meters stretched beneath me, rendered into infinity by vertigo. The far building came closer, closer.

  I stopped rising and began to fall.

  Right foot, strong foot, stopped wheeling ineffectually, reached out. I was dropping fast. Too fast.

  I pulled my leg up tight to my chest and held my breath.

  My right foot caught the edge of the building, slamming my knee backward into my chest. The roof of the building even with my crotch, I lunged forward, desperate to roll away from the endless edge of oblivion. Gravel scraped underneath me as I rolled and skipped, scrambling behind the west building’s stair penthouse. I sat and gave a breathy sob as bullets careened ineffectually against my cover. I took the chance to breathe. Just breathe.

  The bass beat was stronger here, a physical force, a current just under my skin as the building resonated with the sound. I steeled myself for a dash around the stair’s cupola to the door when I realized it was on my side. I pulled and found it was unlocked. Suspicious of any help from fate, I opened it only a crack. Even so, music hit me in the face like a physical force, squeezing my ears to the center of my head and rumbling inside my chest. I crept downward into a cacophony of sound.

  I exited the stairs on the third floor, and burst into pure chaos. Lights played whimsical games of sex and violence on the walls and across hundreds of gyrating bodies. Electronic rhythms crashed, flew, bounced, and slid on every side, infiltrating my head and taking up residence. Suspicious eyes glared at me on every side and I swept my helmet off and held it at waist level. I passed into a bar area, music only slightly muted, where drinkers took note of my holsters, packs, boots, and blood. I had better things to do than blend in. I took the stairs down to the bottom dance floor and I saw KelRon Security pushing their way past belligerent bouncers.
Suddenly, becoming invisible was much more important.

  I made my way to the edge of the dance floor and grabbed an overlarge, purple coat off of a wall-mounted hook. The owner of the coat must have been truly gargan-tuan of proportions, because the whole thing fit over me, my pack, and my armor. I put it on and disappeared into the crowd, looking for a window, a door . . . any way to get out. As I disappeared into the dancers, KelRon security was close at my heels.

  Then I saw Her.

  Hair splayed out like the spray of a fountain, clothes so tight they could have been genetically engineered, She moved like a cat as the music flowed through Her. Inside Her was a tsunami, fierce and fantastic as She projected it in every direction in expressions of anger, joy, sadness, and ecstasy. I couldn’t stop staring, caught as a bug in amber, as She moved. Then She looked at me and I forgot about anything else in the universe except Her eyes. I glided toward Her, crowd parting on either side like the Red Sea. And still, She stared at me, lips barely parted, eyes wide. I noticed She had stopped breathing. So had I.

  I glanced back, and saw my hunters dive into the press of bodies, grabbing people and roughly turning them around for a good look. As each was eliminated as a suspect, they continued toward me.

  I spun to increase the distance between us, and came face to face with the danc-ing girl. She and I came closer and closer, drawn together through forces nobody can claim to understand. Even in the press of bodies I could smell Her, vanilla and san-dalwood hitting me like a rockslide. For a panicked instant, all I could think of was the scents coming off of me: blood, cordite, sweat, and urine. But then She reached out, placed a cool hand on my cheek, and pulled me close. The heat between us built into fission, two bodies of significant mass glowing ever more brightly with a light no-body else could see. The whole world faded out, urban drums sliding away as we began to move, pulled like puppets by the tensions between us. Amidst the shadows of gyrating bodies, we pressed together tightly. Then She stopped and glanced down at the rest of me, wondering why I was so hard and angular.

  The world slammed back into my consciousness. Music swirled around me in a violently angry flood, the heat of the dance floor seared me, faux drums rumbled in my skull. I tried to explain my armor, who I was, what I was doing . . . but my words were lost in the eddies of an electronic symphony and She shook Her head sadly. She pulled me close again and whispered something in my ear that was swept away like a loved one in a riot. I tried to talk, She shook Her head and shrugged . . . And then Her eyes went wide. Something pressed into my back and a commanding glove closed on my good shoulder. I dropped my helmet and went backward with an elbow, connecting with a face that crumpled under the force of the blow. His weapon tum-bled to the floor and he went down on top of it. KelRon security had found me.

  I reached out and grabbed another guard, still dealing with another dancer, by the front of his armor. His eyes focused on me as my steel-toed boot snapped up into his groin. The hard armor codpiece did its job perfectly, stopping my hard steel-toed boot from mangling his privates, but it did nothing to eliminate the raw kinetic force of the blow. He bent over and I brought my knee up to meet his jaw. He sprawled backward into his remaining partner. He turned with a curse on his lips, a curse that changed into a scream as I launched over the falling body of his com-rade. We went down in a pile. With one hand I slapped up his visor my other fist jackhammered into his face over and over. His nose disappeared in a smear of blood, the constant shocks up my wrist kept time with the schizophrenic music. Every pain, every frustration, every moment of fear and hatred unleashed upon his too-fragile skull through my hand. I felt it seed, grow, and begin to consume my san-ity in an orgy of conflagration until a soft touch, as gentle as a breeze, as strong as steel, alighted on my shoulder. Like cool water, it drenched the storm inside my soul and I glanced back onto the face of Her. Instead of knowing love, or beautiful radiance, She was looking at Her hand, dripping with my blood. My damn shoulder must have come open and soaked through the stolen jacket. I got off the mauled guard.

  I wanted to explain, I tried to explain, but the music wouldn’t let me. Worse, the crowd was losing its dance trance as it noticed the three sprawled bodies bleeding on the floor. In a few seconds someone would get frightened, someone would summon the bouncers, who would call the cops, which would alert KelRon, bringing them down on my head. I grabbed a guard’s rifle and my helmet, feet prepping to bolt when I was stopped again by light hands of unimaginable grace.

  She was frightened. She was terrified, but whatever I was feeling staring into Her endless eyes, She must have felt it too; She was not ready to abandon me just yet. She pulled me through the crowd toward the back of the building, opening a door marked ‘employees only’ and led me down dark stairs into the relative quiet of the basement. I stumbled on a loose plank, saving myself from another fall by leaning into the wall. A wall hook dug into my injured shoulder and I stifled a scream as my legs went all weak and wobbly. I forced the world to stay in focus through will alone, and made it to the bottom of the stairs without collapsing.

  And She was there, opening a hatch into the earth.

  I walked to the opening, favoring the side nearly paralyzed with singing pain, and glanced downward. It led into a tight utility tunnel, the kind that wandered un-derneath nearly every city in the galaxy. It would be a tight fit, in fact I would have to crawl, but I knew it would drastically increase the chance of me making it out of here alive.

  I turned to my savior and tried to speak, tried to vocalize the apocalyptic tempest of emotion that burned, froze, healed, and killed all at once. She placed a hand over my mouth, Her eyes breathing life into mine. Then She leaned in and kissed me. Most people go their entire lives without ever finding someone they can fall in love with from across a crowded room. Most people will never know someone utterly, com-pletely, wholly from looking into the other’s eyes. I had traveled millions of light years and dodged gunfire to be here, with Her. Now I had to leave. And She knew it. It was a beautiful kiss. Beautiful and sad, a tender moment that said both ‘I love you’ and ‘goodbye.’ It killed me and buoyed me to the surface of my emotions all at once, a baptism that washed away the fire and pain. She turned and left. I fed my stolen rifle into the hole, stripped out of the awful purple long-coat, and followed behind my weapon, chest threatening to collapse around the vacuum inside.

  The passage was even tighter than I had thought. I crawled on my belly for most of a kilometer before I could find an access hatch to the street. I shot the lock off with the rifle and crawled back into the open air. Stiff hands unfurled the map, and I confirmed my position. I managed to find a fire escape and lever myself up, one rung at a time, to the top of the dilapidated office building. There, in the cool air, I looked over the fallen stars of the city and sent out three letter codegroups to The Radiation Angels, telling them to come and get me.

  I should be checking carrier signals. I should be finding cover. I should be scanning the streets below and sky above for the next wave of KelRon security. Instead, all I did was sit, and bleed, and think about the astronomical nature of chance, about love and life, about men gurgling and dying, about the billions of bits in my backpack screaming out silently for justice.

  I heard the engines of a flier coming close. I crept to my feet like an old man, looking into the sky and tracking the two tons of steel racing toward me on four pillars of flame. I hoped for painkillers and a medic, but I’d take the former over the latter to be honest. I managed to scrounge up enough strength to wave at them before the machine guns opened fire.

  Adrenaline dumped into my system from all directions as my feet found purchase. I dove through the air, demonic sparks flying up from all directions as bullets screamed in to drink my blood. I rolled behind an air conditioner unit and bounded outward again as enemy fire punched through it as if it were tinfoil. The big craft slewed around again, touching off automatic fire that flashed in my path like a solid wall of lead. I skidded to a stop and fell over
backwards. I dropped the rifle and it was shredded as it passed through the deadly rain. My back arched, bringing my full weight down upon my wounded shoulder. My helmet came loose and launched into the night. The world swam, fluttered, and came back into focus. All I could see was the KelRon flier, lining its guns up for a final volley.

  I closed my eyes and thought about those eyes, Her eyes. Of all the random cruelty of this night, of the entire galaxy, one thing pierced me like a misericorde: I was going to die without knowing Her name.

  There was an explosion. Heat ran along me like the hand of a devil. It tossed me like a rag doll in a hurricane . . .

  . . . I came to, hanging half off of the building and looking straight down to the street below. Blood dripped through my short hair and ran down my face, leaping from my nose and slapping into the pavement stories below. I rolled away from certain death and laid on my back, looking up into the sky where a new flier hovered warily as the wreckage of a KelRon flier burned the roof across the street. My vision swam, and I swear everything went black and white for a second, but through the haze I saw the sword, wings, and trefoil of The Radiation Angels emblazoned on the side.

  For what seemed the thousandth time, I took inventory: Everything hurt. My ears registered only ringing. I was bleeding from a few places I could see and untold number I couldn’t. But nothing felt broken. Nothing refused to work when called upon. And it appeared that the avalanche drive was still in my backpack. All of which meant it was time to stop goldbricking and get back on the job.