Drift pattern, p.44
Drift Pattern, page 44
“Luci, you have to leave,” Ish says, violently tugging at the waist of her pants. “You have to leave now! You’re too important!”
His words fade into the background as she continues reporting to her sightless companion, “They’ve all been roasted! Their flesh is—” She collapses to her knees, bringing Ish tumbling down with her. She finds it odd that there’s no blood until she realizes that the smoking, mangled flesh of the dead is cauterized. The grotesque sight and smell is more than she can bear, and a hot, sour stream of vomit erupts from her gnarled stomach.
When she’s done, she turns to see Ish flailing at the air to find her. “Come on, Luci. You should return to those young people back there and head to the transport. You’ll have a better chance without dragging me.”
Her chest convulses with the aftershocks of retching. Wiping a string of spit from her mouth with her sleeve, she returns to her feet. She studies her blind companion, rejecting his suggestion. Luci turns her head to the side and back again. The motion, repeated more quickly, transforms into frustrated head shaking. “So what? You’re just going to give up? That’s about the stupidest thing that I’ve ever heard you say.”
His expression is somberly resigned and placid. “It’s for the best.”
She’s astonished but then grows furious at the suggestion. Luci repeatedly taps her index finger hard into his chest with the motion of a tiny jackhammer. “Absolutely not! That’s the one thing I know we’re not doing.”
Ish doesn’t expect the forceful contact and stumbles backward trying to steady himself. “I just thought that if—”
“That would mean that these five died in vain.” She sighs. “And I can’t allow that. Plus, I need you . . . I need you, Ish.” She’s relieved that he can’t see her face. He doesn’t witness the tears flowing down the crevice of her nose and cheek. Before he has a chance to respond, she says,” Wait here a minute.”
Her steps wobble, but she forces herself to advance down the alleyway into the heart of the carnage. She cautiously skirts along the wall past Miguel’s corpse as if her footsteps could rouse the man from a deep slumber. His steaming form lies upon a churka. She does a double take upon realizing that his left forearm isn’t tucked under his chest but is completely missing from his body. Luci bites her lip and looks away, not having the courage to slide him off the weapon.
She moves instead to Beaumont, who is on his side facing away from her. He’s clear of his churka by a safe half meter. Taking a deep breath, she snatches the weapon on the ground beside him. Luci makes the mistake of looking back at his face and instantly regrets it. His distorted visage looks like a candle that’s halfway melted in a flame. His only remaining eye looks past her.
She feels the urge to puke again, but her empty insides make the reaction even more painful. The reflex is a painful dry churning and twisting of her already belabored diaphragm and raw throat. Her airway constricts, launching her into a panic—she’s got to flee this spot.
She runs back to Ish, whose face is strained as he cups his ears to hear.
“I’ve got a churka,” she says, refastening his hand to the back of her belt. “Do you know how to operate one of these?”
He whispers sharply, “I’m a Chronal Technician—calibrating longchairs and chronal convergence point expansions, remember?”
“Okay, settle down,” she says, examining the weapon. “I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask.”
They’re on the move again.
After a few steps, Ish asks “What are you doing?”
He tugs hard at the back of her pants.
“Hey, don’t—” Luci spins to face him.
A bulky eight-foot-tall figure armored in crimson hurls Ish against the wall of the alley. The motion is as effortless as a paperboy tossing the Sunday paper on Luci’s block back home when she was a kid. She gasps at the sight of the large “R” insignia on the center of the reflective red breastplate. Luci recognizes the emblem from Totti’s holo vid as one of Macer’s Relicus fighters from the future.
Ish grunts in pain, the sound telling her he’s still alive. She raises the churka, but the attacker is too fast. In a single fluid movement, it spins to face her and bats the weapon away with a downward swipe. Luci turns to run, but something locks onto her left ankle like a vise. The world turns upside-down. She’s dangling in the air, swinging suspended by the grip of the hulking assailant.
“Run, Ish, run!” she screams, doing her best to wriggle free of her captor’s hold. Its face is as stoic and unchanging as the first-generation cybos of this time period.
“What’s happening?” Ish calls out from behind her. “Who’s here?”
“Just go!” she shouts, batting at the red fighter. She remembers the other two survivors of the team and calls out in desperation, “Yuma, help us! Yuma, please!” It’s unlikely that they’re close enough to hear her, but she must try, so she yells again.
The red monster points a rod at her. Luci does her best to knock it away, but the creature has already calculated the length of her reach and keeps the object out of her range.
A bright red beam shines from the rod. Luci surmises this must be a modified churka from the future. She does her best to swing clear of the beam, but it’s no use; there’s nowhere to hide. She braces herself for the anguish of being burned alive.
The beam runs up and down her body. Confusion overwhelms her when her skin doesn’t blister or burn.
“Luci, keep talking for me to find you,” Ish says. The sound is closer to her than expected, as if he’s directly behind them. “I found the churka,” he says in staccato bursts.
“Dr. Luci Gaudiano scan identified and subject secured,” the red warrior announces to no one in a cold, synthetic voice.
“Run, Ish!” Luci shouts.
“No, I can do this,” he protests.
“Ish, you’re blind!” she says in horror.
“Describe it for me, where to aim. I’ll shoot low.”
Remembering how he mentioned only being a chronal technician not even a minute or so ago, she shouts, “How can you—”
A flash of bright blue light illuminates the area behind her. The pungent stench of sulfur fills her nostrils, masking the smell of her vomit from before. The temperature in the alley instantly shoots up as her captor staggers, attempting to right its stance.
Another blast, and Luci’s ankle is released from the creature’s grip. She drops; her hands catch her, preventing her skull from slamming into the ground. Converting the momentum of the fall into a somersault roll, Luci barely registers the pain due to the adrenaline exploding through her body. She rolls over on her side as the slain Relicus fighter tips and collapses like a tree downed by a chainsaw. Through the haze, she realizes that one of its legs is missing.
There’s a third blast, this one a direct hit to the chest as if the R insignia is a bullseye. Luci can’t look away from the sight. The creature is unrecognizable as a thing that was humanoid only seconds before.
She’s shaking as she brushes her hands against her legs struggling to stand.
“Luci?” Ish calls out. “Are you alright?”
She hurries to him, careful to stay clear of the raised churka. “How did you know where to shoot?”
He stammers clumsily receiving her embrace, “What just happened? I . . . I didn’t fire.”
There’s a figure through the dissipating haze at the end of the alley.
Luci releases Ish, squinting for a better view. “Yuma, is that you?”
The figure approaches. As the shape takes on more definition, she realizes the form is too large to be the boy’s or his companion, Sari. She swallows. “Ish, give me the churka and get behind me.”
“You’re a long way from home, Dr. Gaudiano,” Royse’s baritone booms as he carefully steps over the massacred L’inversione corpses. He carries his churka as casually as if it were an extension of his own body. Royse shakes his head, coming to a stop a few meters from Luci and Ish. “I should’ve known about you, Moyta. It all makes sense now.”
Not certain of what to do, Luci instinctively aims her churka at Royse. “What does he mean, Ish?” she asks over her shoulder, her heart pounding.
He’s returned to gripping her belt. “Is that Mr. Timmons? I don’t know what he means—I don’t, I promise.”
Her mind races, wondering about Ish’s potential connection to Gicul or if he, in fact, is Gicul in some way, despite the earlier conversation with the now-dead Danica.
“Stand aside, Doctor,” Royse orders, gesturing with the end of his churka.
For the first time, she sees the open doorway that the Relicus fighter must have emerged from to ambush them. “What do you mean, Royse?” Her voice cracks, and she grips the weapon more tightly with sweating palms. “What should you have figured out about him?”
Ish, hunched over, whispers from behind, “What’s happening? What’s he doing?”
“He’s got a churka weapon trained on us. He’s the one that shot the red . . . cybo.”
“I’m not aiming at you, Doctor. I’m aiming at him. He’s one of them.” He shouts, “Now get out of the way!”
She raises her voice to meet his. “No, you’re wrong! He’s not with L’inversione. They—”
“Not L’inversione,” Royse scoffs, sidestepping for a better angle. “The New Australians. He’s with the New Australians. He helped them come through the vortex portal at the Grange he expanded for them!”
Luci is stunned to silence but shifts around making sure to remain between Royse at Ish.
Royse shouts, “The New Australians are in the city right now!”
“No, that’s not right,” Luci answers. “There is no New Australia.” Her heart skips a beat, remembering the fate of Bru Mandal on Totti’s holo vid. Even worse is the possibility that Relicus City may be infested by more of Macer’s future cybos. She forces herself to focus. “New Australia isn’t real. It’s all a hoax made up by Macer and Cavazos to control everyone through fear.”
Royse shakes his head. “That guy that I blasted on the ground over there doesn’t look like a hoax to me. He seemed pretty real when he was holding you upside down and about to kill you.”
She realizes how badly she’s trembling by seeing the end of her churka shake. “No, Royse, you’ve got to listen to me. You’ve been tricked . . . everyone has been tricked. What you’ve been told isn’t true.”
“Tricked by who?”
“Tricked by Macer. He’s lied to everyone.”
Royse’s posture stiffens. Despite what he said, the churka is aimed directly at her now.
“Royse, he’s not who you think he is. He’s Waleen.” Ish gasps behind her as she continues, “He’s Waleen Macer. There is no Enos. There is no New Australia. You shot one of Macer’s cybo warriors from the future.” She swallows. “I don’t know why they’re here, but it can’t be good, and we can’t stay in this spot for too long now that it scanned me.”
She remembers the objective of the second L’inversione team—Totti’s mission. “There’s a video that shows everything, actual footage of Waleen Macer from the future. It’s in the splash forum, or at least it will be uploaded there in the next few minutes. Watch it and see. What I say is true: Macer is a tyrant.”
Royse furrows his brow and squints at her. “You lie. I don’t know why you’re saying all this, but you’re lying.”
“No, Royse. I’m not.”
He shakes his head. “No, no, no . . . you said you saw a splash vid.” His right hand snaps to his Viatorio. “That’s impossible without one of these.” His hand swiftly returns to the churka. “Enos would never lie to me. I know that there are affairs of state that must be kept secret for the good of the—”
“He’s not Enos!” Luci screams. “He’s an imposter. He set himself up as a god. People in the future are forced to bow and worship him.” Pity swells in her heart for him. Her voice returns to normal. “I’m sorry, Royse, but he doesn’t care about you, he doesn’t care about me, he doesn’t care about Relicus City like he’s always saying. He doesn’t care about anyone.” She snatches a quick breath to calm her pounding heart. “Everyone is just a means to an end for him. Everyone.”
He looks like he’s been gut punched, but he remains motionless, studying her.
Luci’s arms grow tired from holding the churka up, but to lower or surrender it would mean certain death for Ish and capture for her. “Royse,” she begins softly, “in the future, people are bred for food. Relicus City is forced into engineered cannibalism.” She pauses. “It’s in the video.”
He scoffs and shakes his head more adamantly than before. This time, his voice sounds uncertain and lost. “You’re lying. The chancellor—”
“I saw it. They showed me a holo vid,” she says, indicating the slain members of L’inversione scattered on the ground. “The video that the other members of their group are uploading to the splash forum.”
“All splash activity is suspended.” He takes a defiant step closer. “The city’s in red out because of the attack from New Australia. That’s why your friend behind you can’t see. The red out is working just like it was meant to, hampering any traitor’s vision.”
“I’m not a traitor!” Ish shouts, moving in time with Luci as she repositions their angle to the man.
“Move out of the way, Doctor,” Royse says between gritted teeth, taking another step in their direction. “Let’s get this over with and you back to the guesthouse where it’s safe.”
“Hold it right there,” Luci orders. “Don’t come any closer or I’ll blast you.”
He eyes her but stops. “You’re bluffing.”
“Bluffing?” She repeats the word as if trying it out in her mouth. “Bluffing?” Saying it again gives her the notion to do it. “These five people that you see on the ground, they thought I was bluffing.” She tightens her grip around the churka barrel and strokes her shaking finger against the weapon’s trigger. “Why don’t you ask them who was bluffing, Royse? Ask them.”
He nods slowly as if sizing up the deception.
She remembers how Yuma has modified the group’s churkas with a stun option. She steals her eyes away from Royse to look for it on the churka. She doesn’t want to shoot this man, but stunning him would allow her and Ish to escape to the transport with Yuma and Sari.
Royse advances another step.
“Stop it!” she screams.
Royse’s expression is a dangerous mixture of pain, confusion, and anger. The cadence of his speech accelerates, the words bursting free from him. “You’re trying to convince me that my whole life is a lie, that the man I’ve sworn my allegiance to for all these years is a fraud, that he’s broken his own law about skipping into the future?” He takes another step uncomfortably closer. “That he’s making people eat each other?” He shakes his head violently, but the churka in his hands barely sways.
Luci realizes that she’s got to contain this; it’s getting too emotional. She searches for the proper words to diffuse the situation while being truthful. Royse has been tricked and lied to just like everyone else. He deserves to know. “Royse, please listen to me,” she pleads in a soft voice. “Think about it for a second. What advantage do I gain by making any of this stuff up? I’m an outsider, a stranger from the past.”
“New Australia isn’t real,” Ish interjects from behind her.
“Ish, please,” she orders, keeping her eyes fixed on Royse’s wounded expression. Her heart is racing, triggering a faint Jardon headache. “It’s all true,” she says, swallowing the lump in her throat. “All of it.”
Royse’s shoulders slump slightly, and his eyes look like he’s in another place far away. The tiniest light of hope shines within her heart that she’s getting through to him as his churka lowers halfway. Instead of pointing at her chest, it’s inattentively pointed downward at her shins now. “I’m so sorry, Royse. I wish it wasn’t true.” She grits her teeth. “I’d like nothing more than to believe that too, but you’ve just been blinded by his charm like everyone else—we all have, but Macer is evil beyond comprehension.”
“You said that you killed these L’inversione, but you also said they showed you a holo vid.” He angles his head back up to her. “Which one is it? In fact, how can I know for sure this is L’inversione at all?”
He’s got her. She should’ve stuck with the truth only instead of mixing it. “Okay, I didn’t kill them. I just said that as a bluff, but everything else I said is true.” There’s a long pause, and Luci takes in a deep cleansing breath. “Royse, if you’ll trust me enough to come with us, I’ll show you the proof of what I say. You only need to trust me a little, and you can even bring the churka back to where—”
“No,” Royse says softly as his expression intensifies. The lost look in his eyes transforms into a dark hatefulness. “No! I refuse to believe it. No!” With amazing speed and agility for his size, Royse drops to a one-legged crouch and swiftly pivots. Before Luci can respond, his extended leg strikes her left shin, causing her to buckle and crumble to the ground with the force of twin bowling pins. The pain of the impact stuns her as much as the unexpected act itself, but she instinctively rolls to grab her fallen churka.
Royse is already working on returning to his feet. He raises the end of his churka to Ish, who is blindly batting at the air and calling for Luci.
There’s no time for her to focus a perfect shot, so she takes the only one she has, at the big man’s feet. There’s no recoil from the weapon when she pulls the trigger. If it wasn’t for an immediate rise in temperature, the bright blue flash of light, and noxious gas cloud, she’d think that the weapon hadn’t fired.
Royse collapses to his knees, screaming in agony for the now-missing bottoms of his limbs.
Luci scrambles to her feet while Ish squirms free of Royse in a panic. She winces at the sight of Royse hobbling on the misshaped stubs where his feet were.
