Global Acquisitions LLC
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Day 17 of the Red Storm
Swann heard voices.
Only voices, and only parts of the things they said. He tried to open his eyes, but either he was blind or the world had turned to shadows and ashes. There were only vague shapes that moved through the blackness. A man shape. A woman shape. Other shapes lay sprawled, unmoving.
“Fuck,” said a man, “I think they killed the poor son of a bitch.”
“No,” said the woman. “He’s alive. Barely, but alive. His chest is crushed. The sternum’s in pieces. I think one of them is pressing down. Here, let me see what I can do.”
Then there was pain.
So much pain. White hot pain, though the brightness of the pain did nothing to push back the darkness. All it did was fill his mind with an unbearable glow of pain and then it switched off all of the lights.
Swann did not remember waking up. Awareness of consciousness came slowly, reluctantly, and incompletely. It was still dark, but then he realized that he was seeing actual shadows instead of the darkness of injury and disorientation. He tried to blink his eyes clear but clarity was elusive.
The voices were still there, though. Nearby.
“The hell’d you even know I was here?” asked a man. Was it Captain Ledger? Swann thought so.
The woman, Violin, laughed. It was strangely musical. An odd thing for so horrible a place. “I did not, Joseph. I followed Anatoly Grigorson and his team.”
“So, you’re saying it was your plan to attack them all by yourself?”
“There wasn’t time to wait for my team,” she said.
Swann heard footsteps. Wet footsteps as the big soldier and the strange woman walked through blood toward him.
“He’s breathing,” said Ledger.
“He’s awake,” said Violin.
He saw them now, shapes in the darkness, but they became more visible as they squatted down on either side of him. They were smiling, but it was the kind of smiles people wear when visiting the sick, or the dying.
“Hey, Doc,” said Ledger with surprising gentleness. “How we doing here?”
Swann tried to speak. Failed. Managed a weak mumble.
“What did he say?” asked Violin.
“Doc,” said Ledger, “hold on, okay? We have a medical team on the way. You’re hurt but you’re going to be okay.”
Swann thought Ledger sounded false. Lying or uncertain. Trying and failing to encourage him; offering no believable comfort.
“He’s saying something else,” said Ledger as he leaned close.
“…Fayne…?” whispered Swann. It cost him a lot to force out that one word.
Ledger leaned back and Swann could see the answer in the man’s face. Defeat, fear, anxiety.
“Gone,” said the soldier. “Sprull’s people got the body out before we even got here. Maybe more of the Red Knights, I don’t know. But we lost, Doc. The Red Empire has their fucking messiah.”
Swann heard the words and felt them punch him back down into the darkness. This time he didn’t try to stop his own fall.