Refuge (2 page)

   The access door that’ll get us off the roof is on the opposite side of the building. I hand Sierra my blaster pistol as I ready my rifle. She looks at as if I’ve just handed her hot embers from the meal room fire. Luke’s spinning around and shooting by the time I’m shooting. He goes down behind a large metal box on the roof. It’s small but big enough to offer protection.

   “Luke, you okay?” I shout, as Sierra and I continue running away. “Talk to me.”

   “The door. Get off this roof,” Luke shouts back.

Node: 010

My thoughts have been of Luke’s safety, not of the door. The roof ahead dips; the difference creates a low wall. Sierra and I go over the edge and down. “We’re going through that door together or not at all,” I say.

   Luke fires, pulls back just as the wing shreds the air he’d occupied an instant before. “This thing’s too shielded. I’m not even sure our rifle rounds can penetrate that armor.”

   “The intake, left of center”—it’s what One told me, not that it worked—“aim for that.”

   I jump up from behind the wall, firing as the wing goes after Luke. Luke has to scrabble up and over the metal box to get away.

   “I’m here, here. Come and get me,” I shout, my rounds ricocheting off the back of the wing. As it spins around and comes at me, I pull down, seeking refuge beside Sierra.

   “Sierra, I need you to—” I start to say, but stop when I see panic has set in. With all that’s happened, I forgot that she hasn’t been through what Luke and I have been through. She has no idea how to fire a pistol—little idea of what one even is. I guess I should be thankful that she’s held onto it.

   I take the weapon and press a hand to the side of her face. “Look at me,” I say, “I need you, stay with me. We’re going to get through this.”

   “Cedes, talk to me,” Luke shouts anxiously. He draws the wing away with several well-placed rounds.

   I watch him dive for cover as I aim and shoot, aim and shoot. My shots are my response to his words. They say, “I’m here. I’m still here.”

   “It’s hopeless, hopeless,” I tell myself. I’ve never taken out a wing even with One’s advice.

   Sierra comes up next to me, peering over my shoulder. “It’s not hopeless,” she says, taking back the pistol. “Where’s the intake you’re talking about?”

   I place two rounds. “There,” I say.

   Sierra draws in a breath and holds it as she squeezes the trigger. Her first shot is right of the intake, but somehow it’s closer than either of mine. Before I can ask how she did that, she’s on her feet, jumping over the low wall and charging at the machine.

   The wing veers away from Luke and turns toward Sierra. All I can hear is the rat-a-tat-tat of its twin guns as they rip their way across the roof. I provide cover fire, but Sierra’s rounds are the ones that strike closer and closer to target.

   Luke seizes on Sierra’s move and joins her charge from the opposite direction. I follow up and over the wall because I’m not going to let them die alone, shooting and shouting, “Don’t you hurt them. Don’t you dare hurt them.”

   Just when I think Sierra can’t last another moment, the wing jerks to the right and explodes. The blast knocks Sierra back and sweeps Luke from his feet.

   I’m at Sierra’s side before I completely realize what happened. “How did you do that?” I say. My voice is thick with emotion, so thick I’m surprised it doesn’t choke on the way out.

   “Cedes, you were gone so long,” she says. “It’s been us against them. We lost four before we learned how to defend ourselves.”

   Sierra stands with my assistance. We greet Luke, hands extended.

   “Quickly now, quickly,” Luke says, pulling us away. “We have to get off this roof.”

   Behind me, I hear sounds like a dying animal and scratching. It’s Matthew, moaning and using his one arm to claw his way toward us. He’s a pitiful mess, leaving a bloody trail. I don’t know how he’s still alive; I look to Luke and Sierra. He shakes his head, and her eyes won’t meet my gaze.

   “We’re not leaving him,” I say. “He was one of us once and maybe he can be again. Besides, if he was working with them, we need him or we’re not going to survive the day.”

   Sierra’s questioning stare tells me I’m wrong. I run back to Matthew. Kneeling down beside him, I empty the contents of my pack. The lightweight pack is one of two we took from the mobile standing room the night before. Except for the rolls of black gauze, I have no idea what any of the wrapped packets are for.

   “Those,” Sierra says, grabbing two bags of what look to me like white sand. “His arm”—she points and I retrieve the bloody mess of what remains—“push the pieces together and hold steady.”

   Sierra rips open the bags and pours them over Matthew’s wounds, and I know at once the white grains aren’t sand at all. I know because the tiny specks come to life, scurrying about on tiny legs and wings. The way the nanites knit ragged flesh together is horrifying and fascinating at the same time. I can’t look away, but I must because Luke is rushing away and I don’t know what he’s about to do with his blaster pistol.

   The access door is painted black like much of the roof. It’s heavy, metal and fastened. Luke makes quick work of the locking mechanism with two well-placed rounds.

   Once the four of us are in the stairwell, I know it’s going to be a long descent. Eighty stories isn’t easy to climb; it’s not easy to go down either. Soon the echo of our footsteps fill the air.

   There’s an urgency to our moves. I’m sure the others fear what will be waiting for us at the bottom as much as I do. The train brought us a fair distance away from the human augments that followed us up to the platform, though clearly not far enough or fast enough to outrun all of the machines set against us.

   We’ve only reached the second landing on our way down when Luke pulls Sierra aside. “What you did back there was incredible,” he says.

   I think he’s going to put a hand on her shoulder to reassure her, but that’s not what he does. He pushes her down, his pistol pressed against the side of her head while he shouts, “I know you’re one of them. Talk, tell me what they want. Tell them to get out of my head.”

   I try to put myself between him and her. Luke is so determined and so angry that I might as well be trying to break through the concrete walls that enclose the stairs. “Luke, don’t do this, not to Sierra,” I say. “She’s not like Matthew. She’s one of us.”

   Sierra collapses, sobbing. She wipes her cheeks every few seconds and rocks back and forth.

   Matthew is standing very still, too still. It’s almost like he’s trying to determine whether he should stay or run down the stairs.

   Luke turns to me. There’s a darkness about him that cuts into me. “How can you possibly know what she is or isn’t? What’s happened or what hasn’t? I’m telling you. She’s one of them.”

   He’s so enraged he doesn’t see me. He’s lost all self-control. I know this. I’m not afraid. “I told her what to do, where to fire, just as I told you. We all tried. Sierra’s shot hit the mark. Ours didn’t.”

   “I’m talking about more than that and you know it.” He’s pointing at her, shouting. “She’s one of them. One of them, I tell you. Leave her or we’re going to die.”

   “No, Luke, no,” I say. “You don’t know Sierra like I do. She’s my sister. She would never do anything to hurt us.”

   Matthew breaks away, starts running down the stairs. Luke shakes his head and mutters something under his breath. He’s almost gentle when he puts his hands on me. The intensity and darkness haven’t fallen away, however. “We have to get out of here. We have to.”

   I see fear in his eyes. The way he talks—it’s as if he feels trapped. “This isn’t a cage, Luke. We’re going to get out of this. Don’t let them take away what makes us who we are.”

   Behind us, Sierra is crying softly, saying over and over, “I am like Matthew. I am.”

   Luke grabs her by the throat, lifts her off the ground. “You’re going to die now.”

   “Luke, please, no,” I shout, trying frantically to break his grip. “You’re not yourself.”

   “I am what I’ve been made to become. This is what they’ve made me into. This—” He drops Sierra and throws his fists into the wall. “—killer is me.”

   I put my arms around him, press myself into him so he knows he’s not alone. “Sierra’s one of us, kill her and you’ll have to kill me too.”

   Luke spits out his words. He’s so angry. “She’s one of them. Give her the chance and she’ll turn on us.”

   I hear a blaster pistol charge up. At first, I think it’s Luke or Matthew returning with a weapon, but it’s Sierra readying the pistol I gave her. “Don’t,” I say putting myself between her and him. “Don’t.”

   Sierra rubs the red handprints on her neck with her free hand. “His turn,” she says. The intensity of her focus makes me believe she intends to shoot him. I can’t let her do that, I can’t.

   I look from her to Luke, from Luke to her. “I don’t want to be in the middle, but you put me here. Don’t you see? They want us to turn on each other. They want us to be thoughtless, heartless, soulless. It’s why they had Matthew and his go after you instead of going after you themselves.”

   “Go ahead, shoot,” Luke shouts, goading Sierra on. I watch helplessly as Sierra squeezes the trigger. There’s nothing I can do to stop her except to put myself in the place she’s targeting.

Node: 010

My body slams into Luke, and then the wall as I jump into the shot. I go down with a groan and lie there moaning. Everything hurts.

   Sierra screams like she herself has been shot, dropping pistol as she gets down beside me. “Cedes, no, no,” she says, “I didn’t mean… Not you... Never you.”

   Luke, on the opposite side, sits, his hand clasping mine. “Cedes, I’m not myself,” he says. “I don’t know who I am anymore.”

   “Get out of here,” I say. “Go after Matthew.” A yelp escapes my lips as I try to sit up. “Your pack.”

   “Cedes, I—” Luke starts to say.

   His streamlined, black backpack is a match to mine. “That,” I say, grabbing a roll of black gauze. I lean forward and turn so my right shoulder is exposed. “Unzip me.”

   Luke complies. I pull down on the fabric and slip my shoulder out of the jumper. Sierra gasps at the sight of blood and the wound. I grab her arm before she pulls away from me.

   “You didn’t do this. I did this,” I say.

   Sierra’s eyes speak volumes. She’s scared, shaking. “I didn’t mean to, I didn’t mean to.”

   “This wasn’t you,” I say more firmly. “This is from before. I opened the wound just now. You didn’t hit me. You missed. You missed.”

   I tear off a section of gauze for Luke. Luke applies it. I can’t see it bind to my flesh, but I feel it. I slip my shoulder back into the jumper. Luke zips and helps me up. Before Luke or Sierra can step back or start again, I wrap my arms around them both.

   “We only have each other. We can’t let them come between us,” I say. “It’s us against them, not us against each other.”

   “I know, I know,” Sierra says. She’s still shaking. Her face pressed against me is wet with tears.

   Luke doesn’t say anything. His eyes are fixed on Sierra, on the angry red marks on her neck.

   “Don’t,” I say, touching a hand to his cheek. “What’s done is done. We can’t change it, can’t go back. We’ve all done things we never thought we were capable of.”

   Luke reaches out to Sierra. She backs away. “Fair enough,” he says. “You didn’t deserve… I’m sorry. I can’t control…”

   The pinch of Sierra’s eyes tells me she feels everything Luke’s feeling. “They’ve made us into something we’re not,” she says, her voice cracking, “We’ve all killed, all of us, and we have to carry that with us forever. I feel so…”

   Luke’s not one to come to tears easily, but I see why he turns away, even if he acts like it is to retrieve his gear.

   “Go after Matthew,” I say to Luke. “Don’t let him escape. We need him.” He hesitates, then rushes away. To Sierra, I say, “I’m sorry. I didn’t think, didn’t know any of this would happen when I left.”

   A sob racks her body again, and I wrap my arms tightly around her. I feel her try to hold in her tears, but her weeping gives way to fits that know no limits. It’s ugly, her mouth is open, her face is contorted, and deep guttural rasps as pain and grief-stricken as Matthew’s earlier come from her throat. I know if this continues she will break apart, and I don’t know if that would better or if there’s anything I can do to stop her from shattering before my eyes.

   I don’t know why I rock her gently, but that’s what I do. As I move back and forth and try to comfort her, I realize I don’t know the person I’m holding. I mean, it’s Sierra, but not the Sierra I left behind. So much has happened to her, to me, and neither of us is the person we were before.

   I don’t say anything for a long time, until she quiets.

   “We’re going to be okay, you know,” I say. “You and me, I mean. Like sisters, like before. It’s going to take time, but we will be.”

   She doesn’t reply. I stand and offer her my hand. Then I grab my rifle and head down the stairs, Sierra at my side.

   When One steps toward me seemingly out of nowhere, I know I’ve entered the place between places—the place of thoughts. Nanospace.

   “No, no,” I say, my voice breaking. “Not now, why now?”

   “That, you already know the answer to,” One says, speaking with Relic’s voice. “I would not be here if you did not activate me. You must stay connected to Luke. Don’t let him slip away. You won’t be able to control—he won’t be able to control—what happens if you don’t.”

   Both hands gripped tightly in fists, I say, “Send me back. Luke and Sierra need me.”

   “We need you,” One says. “We need you to live. Give us control, so we can identify a new threat we perceive.”

   As I step toward her, her translucence dissipates. “Control of what?” I say.

   “Control of you,” she says. “You’re in danger. There’s more happening than you understand, so much more than the ceaseless war between the Cogents and the Ardents.”