Tim

  Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance.

  --Sun Tzu

  I see flashes of light above as we race upward and hear distant cries. As we hit the final car ramp – the exit – I see multiple shells of light appear – glorious golden hemispheres like radiance blown into purest crystal. And then they shatter with a sound like tinkling glass and a relentless drumbeat.

  A dark cloud forms, twinkling with motes like fiery embers, and it sculpts itself into the form of raging beast – like a bear several stories tall. The smoky creature lunges towards something on the ground, then howls as it stumbles backwards, a bolt of lightning caught in its jaws and bouncing up and down and side to side. Until the thunderbolt lunges down its throat and pounds rhythmically back and forth within its guts.

  The dark bestial cloud flares from darkness to incandescence and then bursts apart in scattering shards of burning stormcloud. The lightning strike flashes to the ground with another thunderclap, and then the drumbeat begins again.

  A painful scream fills the world around us yet somehow makes no sound as it fills my mind. And then ceases between one heartbeat and the next.

  All this, and I’ve taken a single step. And so I stumble, shaken.

  “The Circle’s brought their worst,” Ghost tells me as she darts past, “but also their best.” Laser beams lash out from a point in the sky, spinning around a single dark spot like a whirling projector, scything through everything nearby. A ruby beam scores a burning gouge a couple inches deep across the concrete a few feet over our heads, and sets off car alarms further inside the structure. A sapphire beam follows, slicing just above that one right before the laser projector explodes in a flash of sparks and shrapnel.

  “What’s their game?” I gasp out, steadying myself against the wall. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a good sprinter, even uphill, but we’re both moving like our lives depend on it. For all that we’re sprinting towards danger.

  Or whatever’s going on out there.

  “Game?” Ghost snorts as the squealing of what sounds like a herd of giant boars rushes past the deck, just out of sight. “They’re brainwashed down to their last brain cell. They don’t have a game. Whoever’s pulling their strings, though?” She shrugs again as a crackling flash bursts near the unseen pigs, and a smell like barbeque wafts in from the street. “Might want to blow Waycross’ cover, brainwash key students or…” Ghost spreads her hands as another rumbling boom and a whiff of ozone greets us from the sky outside. “Or someone wanted a distraction.”

  “A distraction?” I huff, flattening myself against the concrete wall. For all her casual air, Ghost does likewise. We peer out. We’re at the entrance now, and it’s time to look before we leap. Assuming we don’t just fade back into the deck. We edge a few feet past our cover.

  A vast shadow towers over us as a foot comes down outside with a thunderous boom. A dark steel figure like a titanic armored knight fills our horizon and I see blazing beams in every color and a shower of dozens of tiny missiles blurring through the air, all aimed into a corner of the square just out of sight.

  There is a sound like tinfoil crumpling only a thousand times louder, and the metal warrior seems to wrench a quarter turn one way and then the other, then rise in the air and slam down with a sound like shattering I-beams. And suddenly the shards of its armor and innards are falling to the pavement in a deadly rain.

  The relentless pounding starts again but draws away before I’m finished gasping.

  A giant mecha head crashes to the earth beside the entry ramp, and our instinctive duck puts us back behind the concrete slab as a shower of dirt, leaves and broken parts sweeps over our heads.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  We sit there in silence and a slowly falling cloud of dust, searching for something to say. My companion straightens and brushes her hands together as if removing the dirt. Which, I notice, doesn’t really seem to be settling on her pure-white wardrobe. Because of course.

  “Not Hammersmith’s,” Ghost observes with a sniff. “Not even a castoff. Even her junk is better than that.” She shrugs. “That’s good, at least.”

  “Who?” I say, peeking out over the top of the concrete barrier. Other than the wreckage of the machine outside and a bunch of unconscious paramilitary troops, there’s nothing to be seen.

  But seriously, how many things have hit just outside in the last two minutes?

  “Hammersmith? Colleague,” Ghost answers with a shrug.

  I stare at her. Some answers would be incredibly helpful right now. I pride myself on gathering information, but I’m way out of my depth. Like, so deep I can’t even see a glimmer where the surface should be.

  “One of our best.” Ghost waves away the unspoken question. “Or their best. She’ll probably try to help.” She tilts her head at me, and I can somehow see a quizzical expression through her white cowl mask. “You have a codename or something? Like ‘Fade,’ I guess? Or should I just call you Tim?”

  “Fade will work,” I say offhandedly. I didn’t really plan for enough people to see me to need a codename, but since the this is the third person in two days to pop my invisibility like a soap bubble, I guess it doesn’t hurt to plan ahead.

  She nods. “Nice to meet you, Fade,” Ghost says, and I can see she’s smiling through her mask.

  “So… are we just going to out there without a plan, hoping no one shoots us and look for people to ‘save?’” I ask. The question seems pertinent.

  Because rushing out there looks like a death sentence, in all honestly. And I think the civilians are clear now anyway. I hear the rumbling and clanking of a tracked vehicle, out past the far side of the square. Followed by a huge crunch and clang. A quick glance shows a futuristic battle tank tipped over and driven nose and gun-barrel first into the ground.

  Ghost shakes her head. “Nah. Staccato seems to be outdoing herself. I thought I’d snipe some bad guys if she needed the help, but most of what I’m seeing out there would have me outclassed if I had all my weapons.”

  I nod along. I’m feeling outclassed, too, the main difference being that I don’t have real weapons.

  “You do this often?” A sound like a barrage of plasma being fired by a line of troops just outside thunders over us. Followed by a dozen bodies in body armor and crackling with microlightnings, all slamming into the wall opposite of where we’re half-crouching. They land with a groan.

  “Hacker, really. Mostly I deprogram these poor guys.” She gestures at the fallen troopers.

  “‘Deprogram,’” I echo. “‘Poor guys.’”

  “Mmm-hmm,” she answers, staring into a smartphone as she holds it up. She tucks it away again. “They’re out,” she reassures me, “but Caduceus says they’ll be fine. Enhanced healing. Just give ‘em a day.”

  “Oh.” That didn’t answer my unspoken question at all. I decide to be more straightforward, just as her eyes widen under the mask and she seems to realize my point.

  “It’s not their fault they’ve been mindwiped,” Ghost tells me. “They could be us. So I do what I can.”

  “Oh.” I think about that. “What can you do?”

  “I’ve figured out how to break down their programming,” she tells me. “Must be working. There’s apparently a standing kill order on me.” She pauses and gives me an intense look. “Don’t tell my brother.”

  “I don’t even know who that is,” I respond.

  “Then don’t tell anyone, and you’re covered.”

  “A… kill order,” I muse. “Doesn’t that, um, bother you?”

  She bites back a laugh. “Have you seen these guys? They’re mostly a threat to themselves.”

  Apparently we’ve been watching two completely different battles.

  “Well,” a slightly rasping voice says out of the depths of the parking deck. “I’ll try not to disappoint then.”

  I see a athletic guy who looks to be just in his early 20s. He’s wearing a hooded gray jacket and carrying a high-tech rifle in his right hand, pointing towards the ceiling. A few white patches like dried suds decorate the otherwise pristine firearm.

  The notable feature, though? A ball of fire flares up in his left palm, his fingers curling around it as if holding it in place.

  “Nice trick with the bubbles, Ghost,” our new acquaintance says, eyes staring at her intensely. “That was you, wasn’t it?”

  Suddenly a thin sheet of red-gold fire ripples over the rifle. And the white patches, doubtless from Ghost’s disarming mist, are gone.

  “Kev,” Ghost says. “Stop. You don’t want to do this.”

  The rifle drops level with us. In fact, as best I can tell, level with Ghost’s heart. I wonder if I can get in its path, or knock her out of the way.

  “Don’t I?” Kev asks in a smooth, menacing tone. “Look at you here, all by yourself. It’s fate, don’t you think?”

  Oh, I think. He doesn’t see me. I glance sideways at Ghost, who’s paying no attention to me at all. Which is good, since I don’t want her to give a tell which might get this guy looking closer. On the other hand, if he’s got any sort of Enhanced senses, I am right next to his target.

  No time to think. I move.

  Patreon page for subscribers there. The first chapters released on here are already up there, even for free subscribers.