Rena stepped past Lukas and into the hallway. “Did you really mean what you said earlier?”
“All of it. But which part do you mean?”
“About me changing you.”
Now that their objective had been decided, the tension between them had all but dissolved. “Definitely.”
“So you’ve been looking for me all this time. You disobeyed an order to return to headquarters. You came here to wait for me instead, and you didn’t kill me like you were commanded to do. It sounds like you might have left something out?”
Lukas hadn’t officially confessed his love for Rena—the motivator for those actions. Confessing his respect seemed like something she’d value more, but maybe he should have approached the situation differently.
“I heard it anyway,” she said.
He smiled. “I bet you did. Eldric designed you to be more perceptive than the rest of us.”
Rena stopped in front of the keypad beside the front door. “So …?”
Lukas crossed his arms, and his smile broadened into a grin. He could admit how he felt about her, but that would only diffuse the suspense developing between them. This banter was fun, and he wasn’t ready to part with it yet. “Someday.”
Rena pursed her lips as if deciding whether or not she liked the answer. Then she turned away and began pushing buttons on the keypad.
Lukas took the opportunity to consider how he was going to sneak Rena past the assault teams, who were likely gathering in formations around the Outlier forces at this very moment. With a thought-command, he summoned a map of the surrounding area to orient himself in relation to Esh’s Center. At once, the nearby presence of ten blue spheres grabbed his attention. Then the tan color of the wooden flooring at his feet separated into concentrated points of brown and yellow and white, as if made of dust. It shifted to blues and greens before melding together again, flattening out into a drab, concrete floor.
Three seconds was all it took for the cabin to be replaced by the row house in Segment Eight—the same amount of time it took Lukas to realize why the two assault teams outside weren’t moving in a cluster as they would have been if chasing Outliers. Why their spheres were positioned in a circle around his location.
Rena grabbed the door handle and rotated it. The door opened inward, revealing a sliver of the porch and the street beyond.
“RENA!” Lukas lunged, shoving her toward the stair landing with one hand and pushing the door shut with the other.
She sprawled as she hit the floor.
Before the latch snapped into place, the thin covering of metal on the door popped outward in a dozen places, holes appearing at the same time as bullets chewed into the wall along the hallway where Eldric’s study had been.
Something slammed into Lukas’s shoulder, throwing him off balance. He hit the floor of the entry on his side before noticing the door being pushed open from the impact force of the bullets. He kicked the door shut and dragged himself across the floor toward Rena. “You OK?”
“Who was that?” she asked, rolling to her back and staying low.
“Two OCON assault teams. Are you OK?”
She scooted back into the corner of the landing and pulled her rifle up to her chest. As she flicked off the safety switch, she finally looked up. “Yeah. Are you …?”
“I’ve been better.”
“Lukas!” She reached out and grabbed him by the lapel, pulling him onto the landing. Then she began peeling off his suit jacket.
Lukas looked down at the mess of his left shoulder. His shirt was already soaked with blood around the larger-than-expected entry wound at the front. There was no exit wound, probably because the round had been deformed by first going through the door. That would explain why the initial numbness had already been replaced by a searing pain, something that Lukas had been told should take several minutes.
Rena ripped open his shirt and winced at the sight of his mangled flesh. Then she unzipped a pocket on the front of her uniform and pulled out a small medic kit.
“We don’t have time to dig out the slug,” he grunted. The blue spheres projected onto his retinas told him that the assault teams were leaving their concealed positions across the street. “Do you have something to stop the bleeding?”
“Yeah,” she replied, holding up a thick syringe with no needle, loaded with white pellets.
Before he could ask how it worked, she shoved it into his wound and depressed the plunger. Lukas flinched, but relief came quickly. The painkiller spread through his shoulder, numbing it with a pleasant tingling sensation while the pellets expanded to pack the wound and staunch the flow of blood.
“Thanks.”
Rena’s eyebrows dropped. “Hey, why are your eyes glowing?”
“Oh, yeah. Hands-free interminal.”
“In your eyes?”
Lukas nodded. “Speaking of which … we need to get out of here. The assault teams are moving.”
“Wait. How could they have tracked me here?”
“They didn’t. I’m the target. Terrell must have ordered my execution when I abandoned my post at the bank. They may have seen you walk in here, so you might be on the hit list now too.”
Rena squinted. “When I entered the code and everything changed around you, it must not have interfered with your tracking signal. Or else they would have rushed in right then.”
“What are you getting at?”
“I have an idea. Where are they now?”
“The shooters are across the street between the houses. The others are spread out in case we try to run.”
Rena pulled Lukas up into a crouching position. “We’re not going to run. We’re going to draw them in.”
“What?”
She wrapped her arm around him and took the silenced pistol and the extra magazine from the holster at the small of his back. Then she handed him the assault rifle. “We’re going back to the cabin. Get ready to move down the hallway and out the back door.”
Lukas slung the gun strap over his head and nodded.
Rena crept across the entry to the other side of the front door and began punching in the code on the keypad. When she finished, the drab interior of the row house dissolved around them.
“Go,” she whispered.
Lukas started running down the hallway toward the back of the house, trying to maintain his equilibrium while the concrete and brick surfaces flickered out of existence, replaced by planks of rough-hewn wood. The back door of the cabin materialized where the end of the hall had been. Lukas grabbed the handle and threw his weight against the panel of wood, stumbling onto the back porch as it flew open.
Rena came out behind him and slammed the door shut. “See that tree stump in the meadow?”
He looked out into the field and noted the remains of a thick tree that appeared to have been cut down long ago. “Yeah.”
“Go out there and get down in the grass behind it. That’s your cover,” she said, walking off the porch. “The assault teams will see your signal moving and think you found a way into the sewers. They’ll come in through the front door and try to follow you.”
Rena’s plan was starting to make sense. “Got it. Where will you be?”
“Around this side. Stay hidden and don’t start shooting until all of them are out in the open. That’ll be my signal.”
Lukas could picture the crossfire ambush in his mind and gave Rena a crisp nod of respect. It was the perfect counterattack.
She didn’t wait for a verbal reply before turning and walking around to the side of the house.
He stepped off the porch and jogged out into the meadow. With Esh’s map still layered on top of his vision, he passed through the semitransparent walls of the row houses behind Eldric’s place. The impossibility of such movement led the soldiers to the conclusion that Lukas had to be in the sewers, and just as Rena said, their indicators were no longer spreading out. They were converging on the front door.
Swishing through the tall grass, he moved around the back side of the stump and estimated it to be only forty or fifty meters from the back door of the cabin. The blue spheres were clustered now at the front porch. They worked in unison, each soldier covering his sector. Once they breached the door, their cautious movements would become rapid, offensive maneuvers designed to overwhelm an enemy.
Lukas set his rifle at the base of the stump and lay down in the damp grass. From his prone position, the rear of the cabin was partially obscured by long blades of vegetation. But the camouflaging effect would more than make up for the deficit. No sooner had he taken aim at the back door than the blue spheres merged into a row. It lasted only two seconds as they passed through the front door, then they spread out again.
“Clear!” came their muffled voices from inside. One announcement after another, as they found each room empty.
That’s right. Keep coming.
The spheres merged again into a row as they came down the hallway. All of a sudden, the back door burst open and crashed against the outside of the cabin. Soldiers in black assault armor poured through the opening and immediately spread out to take up cover positions on the back porch. But their training couldn’t have prepared them for this environment. Lukas watched as their heads swiveled in every direction. He couldn’t see the expressions behind their face shields, but he imagined wide eyes and open mouths.
None of them had ever seen a blue, cloudless sky before. The yellow sun hanging directly overhead. The wall of trees marking the edge of the forest several hundred meters across the meadow. Lukas knew what they felt because he’d experienced it less than an hour ago, hiding as he watched Rena wander through the fantasy of her childhood home.
The soldiers’ rigid formation began to break as they stepped off the back porch. Some gazed up at the sky. Others reached down to touch the grass. One soldier pointed across the meadow to the trees and said something to the man standing beside him.
Lukas centered his sights on the nearest man and waited. Waited until someone remembered what their objective was. That their target was still positioned forty meters ahead of them. It took about ten seconds before one of the team leaders turned his head in Lukas’s direction and pointed his rifle.
Lukas slid his finger down from the receiver and laid it on the trigger. He knew they couldn’t see him, but they could see his indicator projected against the inside of their face shields.
The team leader waved the others forward, and the remaining soldiers focused their attention on the stump. They brought their weapons up, taking aim as they moved in careful, deliberate steps.
Lukas watched their dark outlines through the blades of grass. Ten of them. Slowly advancing. Moving farther away from the protection of the cabin with each second. He could feel the pounding of his heart inside his chest. Virtual adrenaline surging through his virtual body. His heightened sense of self-preservation had a negative effect on the stability of his aim. So he compensated in the way he’d been trained to—by focusing on the breaths slipping in and out of his lungs. Waiting until the bottom of his breathing pattern, when his body was at it calmest state. Then he eased back on the trigger.
o o o
Three-round bursts of automatic gunfire tore across the meadow, and the once peaceful environment erupted into chaos. Two soldiers fell backward before anyone returned fire. Then a third went down just as the OCON assault teams unleashed their firepower. Muzzles spouted orange and yellow flames as they advanced through the grass with deliberate steps.
Rena stepped out from the side of the cabin and targeted the man on the far left flank. She stood behind them all, their attention focused on Lukas. She pulled the trigger, and the silenced pistol was undetectable over the other gunfire as it recoiled in her hands. One round in the center of the man’s back was all that was needed before she took aim again and dropped the man on the far right flank.
o o o
Lukas crouched with his back against the stump, arms and legs pulled in, trying to make himself as small a target as possible. Fragments of wood and grass and dirt clouded the air. The sharp bursts of gunfire were mirrored by rapid, low thudding sounds of bullets slamming into the stump and the earth around him. Blades of grass shook as rounds passed through them, and Lukas could tell by their trajectories that the soldiers were fanning out, hoping to get a clean shot from either flank. But the bullets coming from those directions ended abruptly. And the overall volume of gunfire steadily lessened. Rena was taking them out from behind, and it was only a matter of time before they figured it out.
Lukas watched the triangle of undisturbed grass behind the stump, steadied his breathing, and waited for his next opportunity. It came only seconds later, as the impact noises around him disappeared. He rolled to the side and planted his knee in the grass, leaning out from the stump. Only three soldiers were left, two of which stood close together, firing their weapons at the right corner of the cabin where Rena had been. The third still faced Lukas, but his head was turned away. Lukas aimed at the other two and pulled back on the trigger, spraying a long burst at their combined outlines. Both men stumbled backward, and the third soldier turned his head.
Lukas let off the trigger and ducked behind the stump again.
The incoming barrage of bullets lasted only a few seconds before silence descended on the meadow.
He brought his rifle up again and leaned out from the stump.
The last soldier was on the ground, and Rena stood at the left corner of the cabin, still pointing Lukas’s silenced pistol. She’d gone all the way around to the other side.
Lukas climbed to his feet.
“You OK?” she yelled.
“Yeah. You?”
She lowered the pistol. “I’m good.”
Lukas took a moment to gaze around the meadow before walking back toward the cabin. No more spheres floated before his eyes, only the semi-transparent walls of the row houses as he passed through them. Rena stepped away from the cabin, and he met her near the bodies of the fallen OCON soldiers. “That was intense.”
“You did great,” she assured him, as if he were a trainee.
Which wasn’t far from the truth. At least one of the people from which Rena had been built was a highly-skilled veteran of a terrible war. In a way, this was nothing compared to the experiences buried in Rena’s memories. Contrasted with that level of experience, Lukas was a trainee.
“How much do you remember of the Sickness Wars?”
Rena slid a fresh magazine into the pistol and put the other in her pocket. “Not much. Just a few random seconds. But this type of thing,” she said, motioning to the bodies lying in the grass, “it feels like I’ve done it hundreds of times.”
“Yeah, it looks that way. So … what do we do now?”
Rena knelt and began removing ammo clips from the nearest soldier. Then she reached up and handed them to Lukas. “Stock up. We’re going to the Center.”