Outlanders 50 the janus.., p.24
Outlanders 50 The Janus Trap, page 24
LYING ON HIS BACK on the desk as the false Brigid strangled him, Kane felt the pressure increase on his throat, saw his vision blur. And his blurred vision was good, for it meant that he didn’t have to see what it was he did next. His right fist swept around, jabbing Brigid below the rib cage, pounding hard into her kidneys. He tensed his wrist tendons as he punched, calling the Sin Eater to hand, his finger immediately squeezing at the trigger. Kane felt the recoil against his hand as the Sin Eater unleashed a volley of bullets, point-blank range, into the fake Brigid’s guts. He shook as her body leaped in place, bouncing back and forth as the slugs drilled through her, her gripping hands jarring against his neck as she tried to cling to him, cling to life. It took just three seconds. Then her grip loosened and she fell from Kane, collapsing over the side of the desk in a lifeless heap, her bright red mane of hair flop- ping over to hide her face. Kane lay still a moment, sucking at the glorious air as the pressure on his throat eased. “Baptiste is never going to let me live that down,” he muttered as the Sin Eater returned to its holster at his wrist.
SPRAWLED ON THE FLOOR as the battle continued above her, Domi snapped back to consciousness just as Broken Ghost leaped over her, bullets from Grant’s Sin Eater cutting through the air all around. There was something sharp digging into Domi’s belly where Cloud Singer and the fake Brigid had tossed her on the floor like so much worthless trash. She reached beneath her to find out what it was. A glass shard from one of the damaged computer monitors was digging into her, its sharp edge pressing against her belly. As Broken Ghost snap-kicked Grant in the eye, knocking the larger man off his feet, Domi plucked the shard free. Broken Ghost landed beside Domi, readying herself to execute Grant with the taut cord of the bull roarer as he struggled on the floor. As the assassin stepped forward, Domi lashed out with the glass shard, swinging it like a knife. With a spurt of blood, the glass cut through the tendons at the back of Broken Ghost’s bare ankles, and the assassin cried in agony as she found herself toppling forward, no longer able to stand. She crashed against the floor tiles and rolled into the mat-trans unit, unleashing a shrill cry as blood pumped from her ruined ankles. Domi was crawling across the floor then, the shank of glass glinting in her hand as it caught the lights of the monitors. As she raised the shard above her head, preparing to plunge it into the assassin’s breast, Domi felt a hand grasp her wrist, halting her attack. When she turned, she saw Grant there, a firm, no-nonsense look on his face. “No, Domi” was all Grant said, but it was enough. Domi’s grip on the glass loosened and it dropped from her hand, clattering to the floor. Across the room, Brigid Baptiste was using the flex from one of Skylar’s broken computer units to bind Cloud Singer’s hands. The young warrior was unconscious now, from equal parts exhaustion and the effort of a solid right cross from the feistiest archivist that Lakesh had ever seen. “Put her in there,” he directed, pointing to the jump chamber, “then close the door. We’ll secure the redoubt, then decide what to do with them.” “We all okay?” Kane asked as he looked around the shadow-filled room. “I believe that we are,” Lakesh announced after swiftly eyeballing the room himself and counting heads. Kane stepped toward the Cerberus leader, with Grant and Domi a few paces be- hind, making their way through the debris-strewed room. Lakesh cleared his throat, relief evident on his features. “I believe that I owe you—all of you—my deepest thanks,” he said.
Exhausted, her shoulders drooping, Domi pulled the rebreather from her face and passed it to Lakesh. “Save them until we’re out of here. This place isn’t safe.” Lakesh took the mask gratefully as Domi went to the equipment locker to find more gas masks for her companions. Kane looked at his surroundings, almost as though he was seeing them for the first time, and then he extended his hand toward Lakesh, gripping the older man’s hand tightly. “I think we all owe you some thanks of our own,” he said. “For a moment there it was starting to look like we’d never get out of Cobaltville.” Lakesh had no idea what the man was referring to, but he nodded regardless, just relieved to still be alive. As Domi passed around gas masks, Lakesh updated the others on everything that they had missed while they had been trapped in the digital limbo. As he spoke, Grant noticed a woman’s leg sticking out from behind one of the desks, where it had been almost hidden by the shadows. He stepped over the fallen body of the false Kane and made his way over to the shapely ankle, crouching beside its owner. “Shizuka?” he asked in a gentle voice.
Face spattered with trash and blood, sporting a fat lip and a darkening bruise on her forehead, Shizuka looked at him, eyes flickering as she struggled to regain consciousness. “Grant-san?” she asked timidly. “Is that really you?” Grant shrugged. “Who else would it be?” he asked as he reached one arm gently behind her head and, rolling her toward him, lifted her from the ground. Grant stood, holding the feather-light form of his lover in his arms. He looked at the dried blood on her face, the food and garbage stains that spotted the silk of her familiar dressing gown. “What happened to you?” he asked. “I got trashed,” Shizuka said and she began to giggle as Grant’s expression turned from concern to bewilderment. They filed out of the ops center to convene on the plateau outside the redoubt where the rest of the Cerberus personnel waited. When the anteroom was empty, the emitter array beneath the mat-trans unit began to whine, and mist began to swirl as the gateway powered up.
Chapter 21
Cloud Singer opened her eyes and peered around her. She was lying on a bed, the sheets tangled about her legs, sweat shining on her tattooed body. She reached out, fumbling in the darkness until her fingers found the switch that turned on the bedside lamp. It came to life, lighting the small bedroom with a warm, orange-hued glow. She lay on a double bed in a box room barely large enough to accommodate it. Rolling, Cloud Singer kicked off the damp sheets and sat up on the bed, trying to get her thoughts in order. She had come from somewhere, traveled here somehow, but she couldn’t remember how or why. Rubbing sleep from her eyes, the tattooed warrior stood up, barely taking in the weirdly familiar surroundings. She stepped through the doorway, out into a compact room that contained a sagging, dilapidated couch, a single shelf holding three books, one of them a hidebound tome labeled The Law. A simple kitchenette stood at the side of the spartan room.
Cloud Singer padded across the room on bare feet, switched on the kitchen light and splashed cool water on her face, trying to remember where she was. Opposite the kitchen, she saw three windows reaching from floor to ceiling, long, characterless brown drapes dangling before them. She made her way across the room toward the windows, groping for the pull that operated the drapes. The drapes inched back on their rails, revealing the impressive view from the windows. It was nighttime, a sliver of moon peeking from the thick clouds that am- bled across the sky. Beneath the sliver of moon, a forest of lights sparkled and glinted like jewels or stars. It was a human settlement, a ville dominated by a massive tower that strained toward the heavens, a perfectly ordered, self-contained society. Cobaltville. Cloud Singer blinked, fear worming its way up from deep in her belly. She was trapped.
A SUDDEN JOLT OF PAIN and Broken Ghost was awake. She struggled to open her eyes, but they wouldn’t open. She felt so lethargic and yet, strangely, she was utterly awake. And the pain. The crazy pain. It was so intense, so absolute, that it threatened to overwhelm her, consume her. She clenched her fists, holding on to her tenuous grip on wakefulness. Did her fists really clench? She couldn’t tell, couldn’t be sure. No matter now, what really counted was the pain. All that counted was the pain. She calmed her mind, remembering the techniques that she had been taught by Bad Father years before. A wet worker is never ruffled, never swayed by emotion. Pain assaulted her, high in her right leg, a rending, tearing, ripping pain. She struggled once more to turn her head, to open her eyes. I’m awake, she told herself, but I can’t wake up. The pain worsened then, threatening to overwhelm Broken Ghost. And suddenly her eyes were open, assaulted by lights so bright that it stung to look. She saw them as shadows first of all, shadows moving back and forth until they took proper form. She was lying on her back before them, these shadow people, dressed in their starched clothing, masks over their shadow mouths.
The air smelled of antibacterial wash, and from somewhere nearby she heard the regular beeping of machinery, the hissing of a pump. Suddenly one of the doctors, a middle-aged man with a shaved head and vibrant blue eyes, wearing a cotton mask over the bottom half of his features, leaped back from where he stood at the foot of the gurney, and Broken Ghost watched as a fountain of blood flew up and splashed over the doctor and the other people there. Her leg, she realized. They were cutting through her leg. As the thought spun through her mind, Broken Ghost sank back against the gurney, feeling the darkness of sleep take hold once more.
THE COUNCIL OF ELDERS granted an audience to Decimal River within their cave. He brought his laptop with him under one arm, closed up like a clamshell until they agreed to look at the data that it contained. The programmer felt empty, drained, no longer able to engage with others as he powered up the computer, having failed in all of his attempts to change the information that showed there. The councillors peered at the screen as Decimal River brought up the information. Eight words glowed in a box on the screen as the data stream surged behind. Subject: Singer. Status: Active. Subject: Ghost. Status: Active.
ONCE THEY HAD PURGED the air vents, a service was held outside the Cerberus redoubt to honor the recently departed. The body of Michaels was recovered from the machine room and buried, while Lakesh led his people in tribute to Trent, whose body had been destroyed in the recycling processor. Skylar Hitch remained on the list of those missing in action, although the general consensus was that she was probably another victim of the savage assault on the redoubt. The fate of the two invaders was a mystery, as the jump chamber was empty when they returned to the ops center. That afternoon, three more bodies were recovered and buried beside those who had died bravely defending Cerberus redoubt. These three graves, however, were unmarked. It was an onerous task, but Kane, Grant and Brigid felt it was somehow their responsibility. The corpses wore their faces, serene in death despite all that they had been through in those final hours. “It’s a lot like losing a brother, isn’t it?” Kane observed as he leaned on his shovel beside the three freshly dug plots. “Or a sister,” Brigid said sadly, “one you never knew you had.” Kane peered at her then, hearing the emotion in her voice. “You okay, Baptiste?” Brigid stood for a moment, gazing at the blanket-wrapped body that shared her form as sunlight played in the trees around them. “I’ll be fine,” she finally said, but it was clear to Kane that she had a great burden weighing on her mind. Grant, the third member of the party, took the opportunity to lighten the mood, reminding them that they had survived, hale and hearty, despite trying odds. “Everything’s getting back to normal,” he assured his colleagues. “We should, too.” “If this even is ‘normal,’” Kane said, sweeping their surroundings with his gaze. “What’s to say we didn’t walk out of one trick and into another?” “You don’t want to start thinking like that,” Grant told him. “That’s the road to madness, Kane. Let it go. Be damn thankful we all have two arms and two legs, my friend.”
Kane nodded his agreement and, after a few moments of thought, Brigid did, too, thanking the ex-Mag for his concern. “Before long,” Kane said as he and Grant got to work filling the graves with soil, “all that happened will just be a bad, old memory.” As they replaced the topsoil over the mountain graves, Kane felt something tug at his senses. He glanced up and saw Shizuka standing at the edge of the clearing, watching the three of them work. He nudged Grant and pointed out Shizuka. “We’ll finish up here,” he assured his partner as Brigid placed flowers on the unmarked graves. “Thanks, man,” Grant said, resting his shovel against the trunk of a nearby tree. Brushing dirt from his clothes, Grant made his way over to where Shizuka wait- ed. “Hey, you,” he said quietly.“Hey, yourself,” Shizuka replied tentatively. She had dressed once more in casual clothes, light cotton trousers and a blouse of warm peach. “You all done?” “Yeah,” Grant told her, and then his words began to tumble out in a rush. “Look, Shizuka, I’m really sorry for what happened, for what ‘I’ did. I mean, it wasn’t me but it was, and I understand if maybe you feel uncomfortable with that just now. It’s okay, really it is.” Expressionlessly, Shizuka looked up into Grant’s dark eyes. “That monster attacked me, Grant-san, tried to rape me. It was horrible and it had your face.” “I know,” Grant said. “It must be hard to—” Shizuka stopped him, holding a finger to her lips as Grant watched. “Grant, that thing wasn’t you. My eyes were deceived for a while, but never here, never in my heart.” She clutched a hand against her chest, her expression sad. Grant looked at the wonderful warrior woman who stood before him, trying to put into words things that could never really be said, and he nodded. “You’re sure?” he asked eventually, not knowing what else to say. Shizuka nodded. “I love you, Grant,” she assured him, stepping forward and reaching her arms around him. A moment later, Grant had his arms around her, holding her close, as if he would never let go. “Grant?” Shizuka said quietly from within his enveloping arms. “I just had a call through. I’m expected back at New Edo this evening.”
Still holding Shizuka tightly, Grant kissed her on the forehead. “Then we’d better make the most of our time together,” he said.“Always,” she replied, her voice barely a whisper. Arm in arm, Grant and Shizuka made their way to the redoubt’s entrance. Watching the couple walk off from where he stood beside the three fresh graves, Kane spoke quietly to Brigid. “What do you think they’re talking about?” She smiled. “Things that happened to other people, living other lives,” she told him. “Those things don’t matter,” Kane said firmly as he saw Grant and Shizuka disappear into the redoubt. “Not anymore.”
AT THE END of the long day, Brigid found herself alone in her quarters, readying herself for sleep. She stood there, staring into the bathroom mirror as water splashed from the faucet. Her eyes were so green in the sharp lights, so bright that they almost glowed. She turned off the faucet and looked at her reflection a moment longer, focusing on her emerald eyes as the water rushed down the drain. Her eyes were just like hers, just like the girl’s. Brigid switched off the bathroom light and padded across the room on bare feet. She climbed into her bed and leaned across for the book that waited on her bedside table before thinking better of it. She was tired and her body ached with the need for rest. She reached over and switched off the bedside lamp, plunging the room into darkness. Lying in bed, gazing up at the ceiling, Brigid whispered words to her empty room: “Good-night, munchkin. Sleep tight.”
James Axler, Outlanders 50 The Janus Trap
