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The fiery orb trails behind me, steaming through the damp air. Even with the helmet I hear it sizzling. I leap over the motorcycle, more interested in unlatching the storage hold than landing nimbly. I stumble on the other side, but the lid pops open.
A good start.
I force myself back to my feet, thankful I’m wearing my boots, and barely dodge the orb as zips past my back, radiating a burning heat. I hope the dress is flame retardant, but I’m not going to count on that.
Instead, I take a hard right. The orb overshoots me as I circle back to the motorcycle. I reach in, fumbling to grab the gun...
The orb darts after me. No more time to search. I try running around the bike, but the Fae seems to catch on to what I’m doing. For a moment, the orb hovers above the bike. Then it slams down onto the gas tank.
I have just a moment to dive to the ground, expecting a searing cloud of hot air before an explosion sends a concussive whumph of burning wind that sends me sprawling across the pavement. My back slams into one of the Fae’s motorbikes. I roll onto my side, my heart racketing in my ears, my elbows and knees smarting from the rough fall, when I see a reddish fireball careening over some sort of smoky shield that surrounds me and the Fae.
The flying Fae lady’s expression is still stoic and cold, a perfect mask despite the flickering orange fire highlighting her pointed face and turning her emerald green dress a murky yellow.
One of them curses at her, though I don’t quite hear what he’s saying. I’m not sure if it’s because of the ringing in my ears or because he’s so used to talking via his internal communications augment that he’s not comfortable with speaking anymore.
Maybe it doesn’t matter what he says. He’s venting, and he has a reason to. Somewhere in the distance, red and blue lights flicker. If I had my hearing, I’d bet there would be the wail of sirens, too. The Fae can get away with quite a bit.
But going unnoticed from an explosion?
Not so much, even if they can talk their way out of actually being taken in for questioning.
The flying lady looks down at me, the little lights in her irises spinning like an amusement park ride. She smirks, but doesn’t say anything. I’m not sure she can. Their leader might be the only one with the tech to break through my jammer and talk mentally.
My ride is gone—hopefully Blanc doesn’t kill me later—but now’s my chance. I grab the jammer on my necklace, struggling to my feet so I can get a head start running. I just need to figure out how to turn up the power—
Something clocks me in the back of my head. I slam into the road. Thankfully, the helmet takes the brunt of the damage. I roll over, and then skedaddle back from an angry Fae lady who obviously has a strength enhancement because she’s carrying what looks to be something from the remains of Blanc’s bike.
I shoot backward as she starts toward me.
Frantic, I look down at the jammer. There’s a small dial on it’s face with tiny ridges to keep from having its power adjusted accidently. Thankfully, there’s also a small illustration denoting which direction increases power.
I twist the dial sharply, no time to experiment.
My Network connection is already down, so I don’t get hit with the wave of disorientation that hits everyone else—though my wrists tingle as the nanites from the skin flaps over my poison vials sift away like sand, leaving the cartridges open. Thankfully it’s only the skin flaps that are held together by nanites.
If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be using my arms for the rest of this fight.
The others aren’t quite so lucky.
The Fae lady drops the bike remains, stumbling and clutching at her temples. She definitely had a close connection to the Network. The flying lady shrieks and collapses in a heap on the ground. There’s a sickening squelch as one of her legs breaks, though I doubt it will stay broken for long. Once the jammer signal ends, her nanites will probably heal her. Even the NEL scramble back, far outside of my jammer’s reach. Did the Fae anticipate something like this happening?
Is that why the NEL hung back? Otherwise, they should have attacked me by now.
Really, though, one of wolfhounds doesn’t seem in any position to attack. He got caught at the edge of the jammer’s radius, and he howls in pain as nanites dissolve from the back of his legs.
The Fae leader, however, has the worse luck. He screams as he claws at his face, and chunks of nanites crumble from his skin in droves, as if he’s dissolving in the same chemical bath that Dr. Johnson uses on her victims before making changeling bodies.
A cold weight plunges through my stomach. I think I’m going to be sick. All I can do is stare at him, caught by the memory of seeing Corona’s body halfway submerged in the vat of yellow sludge.
Their leader wasn’t a changeling. More like one giant Assist bot held together by a sapience chip. But reality clicks in, driving me to my feet. I don’t have much time before the jammer runs out of power, and I need to get out of here.
I steady myself, wobbly—the jammer’s apparently doing something to my other augments—and I turn around to the nearest Fae... the sandy-haired man who tried to hold back the Fae lady. He’s on the ground, staring into the distance with one hand to his forehead as if he’s trying to reacquaint himself to the world without the Network.
On one hand, I feel a little bad going after him, since he’s the only one who hasn’t actually done anything to me. On the other hand, he’s the only one right now who still can go after me other than the NEL, and I’d rather not take my chances.
I grab him by the wrist and inject everything I’ve got from my left hand into his arm.
Or I try to.
Nothing happens.
Crap. The jammer is interfering with my mental connections to the toxin’s release mechanism. But I can’t lower the power of the jammer because I don’t know how low to put it without allowing the house arrest function to activate. Which means that I’m stuck unable to use my augments until it runs out of juice, and once that happens, the house arrest augment is going to make me as disoriented as the Fae.
I know I can’t drive a motorcycle right now, so instead of stealing one of the Faes’, I sprint down the street, praying I can make it back to the Snow estate before the jammer runs out of power.
