Blood Zero Sky (28 page)

“Thought you might like to be the one to wake him and bring him in, since you two are such great buddies. . . . ” Her tone is laced with an even more lethal dose of sarcasm than usual, but I ignore it and go to get Randal. This time when I approach his closed door, there is no sound on the other side. I enter slowly, not wanting to wake him abruptly, and am startled at the creak of the door’s hinges. I’m even more startled to find Randal not sleeping as I had expected, but sitting up, staring at the lamp’s wavering flame.

“Hey,” I say. “No sleep?”

His jitteriness seems to have ebbed in the hour since I last saw him, and there’s even an air of weariness as he shakes his head.

“Randal,” I say, “what’s going on?”

He looks up, making eye contact with me for the first time since our reunion. His smile seems fragile. “You’ll find out soon,” he says. He bites his lip, seems to consider something, then says, “So, so, are you and that old grizzly bear Grace an item, or what? I saw you checking out her caboose back there. ”He laughs a wheezy little laugh.

“Jackass,” I say. “I’d hook up with you before her, and that’s pretty bad.”

He laughs harder.

“Come on,” I say. I walk over to him, hold out my hand, and pull him to his feet. His hand feels plump and moist as bread dough in mine. On his feet now, he blinks at me without moving. “Let’s go before we piss them off.” I put one hand on the lamp to turn it off, but Randal stops me.

“Wait—” The urgency in his manner catches me off guard. “I need to give you something.” He holds a hand out to me, with something pinched between his fingers; it’s small and flat, the size of a small coin but triangular in shape. I recognize it instantly: it’s a data stick for the new IC. We don’t use them much—it’s far easier to transfer files using the Company network. But for the rare times when greater security is needed, like if we don’t want someone to hack in and look at a new ad campaign before it’s released, we use data sticks like this one.

“What’s on it?” I ask.

“It’s my gift to you,” he says, chewing on his lip, tapping one foot. “I was going to g-g-give it to Ethan, but he won’t want it anymore. Just remember, no matter what happens . . . I always loved you.”

“Randal, what’s going on?” I’m not surprised by the “I love you” part coming from him—it’s the “no matter what happens” that’s a little too ominous for my taste.

He stares into my eyes, his smile fading. “I know, May. About
her
.”

“Know what? About who?”

“About Rose,” he whispers, his lips trembling, “I know about our daughter.”

I’m too bewildered to reply. First, he isn’t the father. Second, how could he possibly know about Rose?

“You should have t-told me, May,” he says, shaking his head. “You should have told me. For a s-spy and a rebel, the worst thing in the world is having something to lose.”

Still confused, I open my mouth to ask what the hell he’s talking about, but before I can, Grace barges in. “You gonna keep the whole council waiting while you two play grab-ass? Let’s go.”

I glance at Randal, hoping to catch his eye, to get some clue about what my daughter has to do with the council meeting, but he’s not even looking at me. Head bowed, he follows Grace through the doorway. I slip Randal’s data stick into my pocket and follow.

~~~

All eyes are on us as we enter the meeting room. At the council table, Ethan sits in the middle seat, with McCann on his right and Clair on his left. Grace takes her seat with the rest of the council, while I take the folding metal chair near the door, leaving Randal standing alone under the scrutiny of the assembly.

Ethan sits up very straight. His expression is grave. “You know how much danger you put us all in by coming here, Randal, so I’m sure your news must be urgent. Speak.”

My heart beats fast. I’m nervous for Randal, standing up there all alone. I know how terribly shy he is, how lousy he normally is at speaking in front of people. For the first time, as he shifts from one foot to another and wipes his brow, I truly pity the odd genius standing before me. Then, all at once, he pulls his shoulders back, straightens up, and takes a deep breath. His voice is clear and his eyes firmly fixed on the council as he begins:

“For years, we have all been brothers and sisters together. I would have d-died for any of you. I will die for you. But,” he looks down and seems to be biting his lip. When he raises his head again, there are tears in his eyes.

“I have betrayed you.” The room holds its collective breath. “The Company was going to kill my child. A ch-child I didn’t even know I had until a few months ago, and . . . I know I’m weak, I don’t need anyone to tell me that. I know I’m selfish, but to me, that one life was worth more than all of yours. Blackwell found out about me altering a security code. When he interrogated me, he threatened my daughter, and I agreed to cooperate—but I told myself I would only tell them a little bit. I thought I could lie to them, maybe even throw them off your trail. But . . . ” His voice cracks. Snot and tears drip from his face. “They changed me. My b-b-brain. There was a surgery—and—I told them where you are. I told them everything. I couldn’t stop myself. After they let me go, I knew I had to warn you. I couldn’t just let you all die. So here I am. And now they’ll probably kill her anyway, my Rose. . . . ”

Ethan is standing now. Several other council members are on the verge of rising, too, but he stays them with a gesture. “What are you saying, Randal? Be very clear.”

Randal meets Ethan’s glare. “By sunset, we’ll all be dead,” he says. “It’s over. They’re coming.”

From outside, the sound of first one air horn, then another, bleeds through even the concrete walls. Alarms. We hear screams. In a blur of motion, Ethan draws his gun. Two deafening cracks cut through the air, and Randal is on the ground, writhing and squealing. The room is in a tumult, some council members dashing for the door, some standing and looking around in confusion, others still sitting, frozen in morbid disbelief.

Ethan turns to me: “Get your
friend
out of here. Send him out the front door, now. He resists, shoot him. The rest of you, spread the word and evacuate the building. Scatter throughout the city. Go underground if you can, and try to stay in tight quarters where the Ravers can’t get to you. Go!”

In an instant, the room is empty, save for the now-disordered furniture, me, Ethan, and Randal.

“Ethan,” Randal says, writhing in his own blood, “I’m sorry. P-please! I’m so sorry!”

Ethan pauses in the doorway. “No,” he says. “I am.”

And just like that, he’s gone.

I walk over to Randal, standing over him as he moans on the floor. Right away, I can see he’s not dying. Ethan’s two shots were not meant to be fatal. Randal has only been wounded—in both his hands.

He notices my puzzled look. “
If any a Benedict Arnold becomes, shoot both his hands so he can’t hold a gun,”
he murmurs, holding his blood-soaked hands in front of him. “So says the P-Protectorate.”

He sits up, trembling violently. “I t-tried to redeem myself by coming here . . . . ”

He looks so pitiful sitting there, but I’m so angry at him at the same time, I don’t know whether to hug him or kick him. He destroyed us all. Maybe ruined the whole revolution. But he did it for our daughter. My daughter.

“Randal . . . ” I say, shaking my head, fighting my anger. “You probably killed three thousand good people today.” I haul him to his feet.

“Come on.”

He rises on unsteady legs and follows me. As we head out of the meeting room and into the main corridor, there’s a deafening explosion somewhere. The air seems to crackle and the building shakes all around us. Dust descends like a veil.

Randal gazes up at the blank, white ceiling of the corridor. “It’s b-beginning,” he whispers.

I give him a little push, herding him ahead of me.

The hall soon opens into the high-ceilinged lobby, the conference center’s grand foyer. The room’s massive skylights were all blown out by the explosion, and the marble floors under our feet are slick and crackling with broken glass. From above, a few shards still drop like falling stars, hitting the floor around us with what might be lethal force. There’s a ferocious screaming sound and, looking up, I see two sleek, black drones streak past, preparing for a second bombing run.

Randal is talking, but whether the nonsense he’s prattling on about is directed to me or only to himself, I can’t tell.

“All this blood, this drug. I . . . I just wanted to live! All I wanted, and n-never could . . . ”

To the exit, now. The doorframe is a sagging parallelogram. The doors are half fallen from their hinges. I push Randal gently through one of the openings.

“Go.”

He turns back to me, suddenly very lucid. “We . . . we had a lot of fun, right May?”

Tears rise in my eyes. “Ah, don’t get all sappy. This isn’t goodbye. It’s just . . . ”

Randal takes a small step toward me. “I did it f-for Rose,” he says. “We c-could have been together, May! Why? Why didn’t you tell me?”

I clamp my teeth together, trying to hold back the torrent of conflicting emotions I’m feeling.
Because the world is ruined,
I want to say to him.
Because I don’t love you, Randal. I can’t. I love someone I can never have. Because Rose isn’t even yours. She was conceived in blood and tears. Because Jimmy Shaw was right, we are a fallen people. But not fallen for want of hard work, like he claims. We are fallen because of greed, endless greed. Endless selfishness. And as for redemption . . .

The blood on his hands shines, thick and slick. He reaches out to me, pleadingly. “D-d-do you think . . . maybe I could just stay?” His eyes are full of tears. He looks so sad, my old friend. This is killing me.

“Randal,” I say, “I can’t.”

“No one w-would know!” he says, taking another step forward. I can see a frenzy building within him, the Peak-fever rising. “P-please, May! They’ll kill me out there! They have a thousand ways!”

“I’m sorry—” I begin, but he lunges forward and grabs my arms. His face is inches from mine, now. He’s trembling, spitting, desperate.

“I don’t want to d-die alone! I want to be here, with you! Just another J-J-Judas—the ones and zeroes—over and over and over again!”

“Stop!” I shout, and shove him.

He falls to the ground and blinks up at me, as if startled out of sleep. My hand rests on my gun. We stare at one another, both of us fighting to catch our breaths.

Finally, he cracks a smile and I know he’s himself again. “May Fields, Protectorate soldier!” he says. I can tell that despite everything, he’s proud of me.

An instant later, the smile has already faded. He stumbles to his feet.

“I’ll go,” he says. “I’ll go.”

He looks at me, and for a moment his eyes are the same as they were in our childhood.

“You get that data stick to an IC,” he says.

“I will,” I say. “I promise.”

“And if you see Rose again . . . ”

“I’ll tell her that her daddy loves her,” I say.

Randal smiles through the prism of my tears. We clasp hands for a moment, then he pulls away and heads out the doorway and down a long, concrete footbridge leading from the convention center entrance to the parking lot below.

Something on my hand is sticky and moist, and I look down to find my fingers reddened with Randal’s blood. Down the causeway, he grows smaller with each step. Though I somehow hate to take my eyes off him, my responsibility lies with the others—so grudgingly, I turn away. Back across the foyer now I hurry, dodging bits of falling glass.

Work to do. I have to help with the evacuation before the drones make another pass. . . . Now, again, the rumble of nearby explosions. My stomach is in knots. I redouble my pace.

Suddenly, I stop. The hairs on the back of my neck are standing up. My skin seems to be crawling with electricity; my teeth vibrate and my scalp feels as if it might creep off my skull on tiny insect legs. Something tells me to turn back, and I do.

Through the skewed rectangle of the door, I see Randal’s figure, stopped halfway across the bridge. Slowly, he tilts his head to the sky. Without warning, white light sears my eyes. There’s a sound like a whip cracking inside my head, and a wave of heat brushes my cheeks, then disappears. My eyes are closed, but the image is still superimposed over my eyelids: Randal standing on the bridge, and the lightning striking him.

When I finally open my eyes, he’s still smoking.

He falls to his knees then topples over, charred black as coal from his head to his waist.

I don’t have to look up to remind myself that the sky is a clear and cloudless blue; I already know. This is the power the Company has. Just like Randal said. The Black Brands—lightning sats—death from the sky—insurmountable.

Somehow, I knew it all along.

Beyond Randal’s smoldering body, a cloud of swarming Ravers rises. Hundreds of thousands of them, coming fast. Ashes of Randal drift in the wind. There’s nothing left but to turn and run.

—Chapter Ø21—

The nightmare has come.

I run as hard as I can through the halls of the abandoned convention center, the buzz of the Ravers behind me growing louder every instant. My shirt is already soaked with sweat and clinging to my chest. I know I need every ounce of concentration I can muster to stay alive, but the image hangs over my vision, obscuring everything else: lightning striking Randal.

The whirr is getting closer.

Turning a sharp corner in the hall, I take four long strides and stop short, my boots skidding across the carpet. I turn back, gun up and ready, and see three darts stick into the wall where I just was. An instant later, a Raver shoots around the corner, faster than I had expected, and I open fire.

CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!

Three Ravers round the corner, three fall.

I wasn’t sure my bullets would bring them down, but they did—at least temporarily. The Ravers might buzz back into flight at any moment, but I don’t wait to find out. I’m already tearing off again, sprinting for my life.

Maybe twenty yards ahead, a set of fire doors stands propped open, flush against the walls of the hallway. I can hear the buzzing behind me again and feel the breeze as darts hum past my ears. My life depends on making the right decision now. If I can close the heavy double doors, I might be able to keep the Ravers out—they can’t be capable of opening doors, can they? But if I can’t get the doors shut fast enough, I’m going to be a dead pincushion in a matter of seconds.

From what I can judge, the Ravers are maybe twenty-five yards back, and closing. This is my only chance. The doors get closer, closer. I’m going to do it.

Now! I spin to a stop, my back slamming against the wall, and fling the near door shut with my left hand while firing two shots with the pistol in my right. My shots miss. The door swings closed.

I watch the darts coming, my death on their tips. Two sink into the door, one passes through my hair and disappears down the hall. The Ravers are fifteen yards away, now ten.

I kick the other door. It’s hooked open somehow, doesn’t close.

Ravers: five yards away.

I yank the door, yank again. More darts coming.

Screaming, one foot against the wall, pulling the door with all my strength. There’s a splintering, snapping sound as the hook holding the door open gives way, and now I’m on my back. Darts pass over my head, the door drifts closed. The Ravers are two yards away, close enough to see the blood-red lenses that serve as their eyes, close enough to see the tiny N-Corp logo on their underbellies.

And the door closes. There’s a loud bang as the first Raver slams into the thick metal. The others turn away in time.

I stand. My lungs hurt, my hands are shaking. Sweat drips, burning, into my eyes. I stand and place my hands on the doors, bracing against them in case my mechanical assailants try to push them open. I hear them buzzing around on the other side, see their black shapes crisscrossing through the crack between the doors, but they can’t get through. For the moment, I’m safe.

As if to negate my last thought, the floor jitters beneath my feet and the whole building seems to jump in a thunderous explosion. I’m safe—unless the bomber drones bring the roof down on my head.

Running again. Black smoke collects around the ceiling. I hear more bombers pass overhead, and somewhere outside the sound of gunfire erupts and continues, unabating. It sounds like the demolition of the world.

I run down several hallways through ever-thickening layers of smoke, until I pass what must be the only unbroken window in the place. It looks out onto a courtyard, and what I see there stops me dead. Outside, thirty or so members of the Protectorate, some with children, are pinned down, hunkered behind cement benches and flattened in weed-choked drainage ditches. Scores of Ravers rake the sky above them, raining death. About a hundred yards away, across a deserted roadway, several squad trucks are parked. The black-uniformed squadmen sheltered behind them fire ceaselessly at the cornered rebels. From my position behind the glass, it’s like seeing an exhibit in a museum of death.

Unable to help, I run on.

I encounter Ethan, Clair, and McCann and the rest of the survivors a few minutes later. They’ve made their way to a shipping-and-receiving area, and from there are planning to escape the convention center via a loading dock door and pass to an adjacent building, hopefully undetected. We all listen as Ethan lays out the plan.

“McCann, you and a few others will make your way up to the café area and fire on the troops positioned across the road. Hopefully you can put enough heat on them to distract them while we make it across the parking lot to the old shopping mall. The rest of us will be running across open blacktop with very little cover. It’s a risk, but in another twenty minutes this place will be ashes. It’s our only option. Everybody got it? Okay, who’s going with McCann?”

“I will,” I say.

Ethan’s expression darkens. “Bear in mind,” he says, “whoever goes will be drawing a lot of fire, and will have to cross after us, with no cover. You’ll be in the open with a lot of Ravers. It’s extremely dangerous. Clear?”

I nod.

“Fine. Who else?”

“I’ll go,” says Grace. She has a long, bloody gash down one side of her face and is limping badly. No doubt, she knows she couldn’t cross two hundred open yards if she tried. Better to be of use with us. She smiles at me—it’s probably the only time I’ve ever seen her smile.

A tall Hispanic kid, one of the ex-prisoners, (his name is Chris, I think), raises his hand. He has two massive machine guns strapped over his shoulders and a fiery look in his eyes. Ethan nods at him.

“One more, at least,” Ethan says.

Clair glances at me.

“I’ll do it,” she says.

A look of concern passes over his features, then melts into resolve again. “Are you—?” he begins.

“I’m sure. I’ll catch up with you,” Clair says.

He looks at her hard, and some unspoken communication passes between them. Finally, he sets his jaw and looks us all over for a moment, no doubt expecting this may be the last time he’ll see any of us. “Okay, then,” he says, “Godspeed.”

McCann musses his son’s hair, then winks at me. He might actually be insane, I think to myself—for even in this, the most dire of moments, he still wears a gigantic smile. He surmises my thoughts and puts a strong hand on my shoulder. “If you gotta die, you should be grateful to die right,” he explains. “Isn’t that right, lady-lover?”

Though a moment before I would have thought it impossible, I smile back at him, and place my hand on his shoulder, too. “That’s right,” I agree.

Before we all part ways, I see Ethan grab Clair’s arm. He pulls her to him. I try not to watch, but out of the corner of my eye, I see him kiss her softly, just beneath her eye. Even amid all this, I still feel a pang of jealousy. But there’s no time to dwell on it. In the next instant, McCann is running like a gazelle down the pastel-painted hallway, a war cry on his lips, and we follow.

When we reach our position, I see that Ethan was right: this is a place one goes to die. The café is a wide, jutting oval of a room with all glass walls, designed to look out upon the broad lawn below. To our right is the courtyard where, by now, the cornered rebels I saw earlier have all probably been killed. Ahead, beyond a wide bomb crater and debris-strewn yard lies the road where the squadmen have taken position.

To our far left, sheltered for part of the way behind a wing of the building, we can see the crumbling parking lot across which our comrades must escape. And all round us, on every side, are nothing but windows, floor to ceiling. The only shelter to be had is behind a serving counter that stretches along the back of the room, and that’s where McCann leads us. Above the counter is a sign: a big, yellow, arched M. In a brief flicker of curiosity, I wonder what it used to mean—then my mind is back on the battle again.

We take position, check our clips, and look at each other one last time.

“Ethan and the others should be in place by now,” McCann says, then nods across the way at our enemy. “Pick one out, get him in your sights, and fire on my signal. Remember to aim for the head; they’ve all got body armor. On three. One . . . ”

“Well,” Clair says, leaning over to me, “this is it.”

Something tells me this isn’t true; we aren’t dead yet. But I don’t contradict her. Instead, I close my eyes and take a whiff of her scent. Even in the heat of battle, she smells of jasmine. I think of all the things in my life that I’ve wanted and never had, or had and took for granted, and am almost overcome with tears. I don’t want to die now; I don’t want to die ever, and certainly not like this. What I feel most is not fear, though I am afraid, it’s regret. I never saw the regions controlled by B&S, or took a nap with Rose, or went to the beach with Clair—Kali. I never did a million things.

“Two . . . ” says McCann.

I take aim at a squad member through the window, but can’t help glancing over at Clair again. For all I know, it might be the last time. With one luminous hazel eye, she winks at me.

“THREE!”

We all fire at once. Across the road, a couple squadmen fall.

“Don’t let up!” says McCann. “Until your last breath, don’t stop!”

And we don’t.

The kid, Chris, seeing me firing with only my pistol, passes me one of his machine guns. Within seconds, the fury of hell is unleashed on us. Bullets come in torrents, breaking away every bit of glass in the windows then battering down the window frames themselves.

Swarms of Ravers amass outside, hovering just above the line of fire. Every few minutes, dozens of the little planes swoop into the windows. We desperately rake them with gunfire, somehow miraculously dispatching wave after wave of them. All around us, every surface resounds with the clatter of bullets. The empty chairs skitter across the floor as if dancing. Tables overturn. Hanging lights fall, and the counter before us splinters and sags. We keep firing, but the end is inevitable.

Chris takes a bullet in the throat.

McCann is hit in the left arm and falls back. An instant later, he is up again, screaming curses and taunts at the Company, redoubling his efforts.

We successfully force back another wave of Ravers, but by now we have a new enemy: a fire in the building, from the bombing, I guess, is catching up to us. The floor is hot to the touch. Smoke fills the air, and it quickly becomes too thick for us to see our enemies or for our enemies to see us. Still, we keep firing blindly—if we were to stop now, we would free up the squadmen to track down our fleeing friends.

The reeking smoke makes me dizzy. My eyes water, and when I turn away for a second to wipe them, I see Grace. She’s sitting with her back against the counter, facing away from the fray, clutching her gun to her chest. Her face is white, her breathing shallow. I step around McCann, dodging the hot casings as they fall from his gun, and stoop next to her.

“Grace?”

She turns her face toward me, but her eyes don’t focus on mine. I look for a wound, but see nothing.

“Grace?”

“May?” she says, smiling weakly.

“Yeah. It’s me. You okay?”

She can’t hear me over the din. “What?”

I lean toward her ear, placing one hand on the floor. The surface is slick beneath my fingers, and I don’t have to look down to know the puddle I’m kneeling in is red.

“You’re going to be okay!” I yell.

There are tears in her eyes, but she’s still smiling, or trying to. She pants, seemingly building herself up to speak.

“You’re my favorite,” she says. She’s trying to yell, but it comes out a whisper.

“What?”

“I bet you always thought there was nobody else in the world who understood you,” she says, “but I was just like you once. Just like you.”

I try to fight the tears that well up.

“Yeah?” I say. “I always thought you hated my guts.”

“No,” she huffs. “I liked you. I’m just a mean old bitch. ”

She tries to laugh, and her face pinches in pain, then gradually grows lax. She’s sweating badly, but when I touch her forehead, it’s frigid.

“Grace,” I say. “Come on, Grace!”

She doesn’t respond, but I can still see her breathing shallowly.

I reach out with one weightless-feeling hand and slowly pull the gun away from her chest. At first, she resists, but a second later her strength gives way. Beneath the gun, her stomach is torn open; I can see nothing but her shredded, soaked shirt and pools of thick, dark blood. I place the gun back over her wound. Soon, she’ll be dead. Not even Ada could save her.

“May!” says McCann.

He doesn’t have to say anything else. I resume combat, though there’s no way of telling what I’m firing at through the black, billowing smoke. It’s all I can do to stay conscious, breathing in the thick, hot, poisoned air.

Seconds later, the structure all around us begins groaning, creaking, crackling. The final disaster comes with a single ear-splitting
pop
. At first I think it’s the sound of a bomb exploding beneath us, then the floor tilts and I’m sliding downward.

Everything is in a tumult—arms, legs, guns, shards of glass, ragged bits of wood, warm blood—mine or another’s, I can’t tell which. I’m tumbling, sliding. Heat lashes my face and debris hammers my shoulders.

Then I’m on the grass. Coughing, dizzy, and nauseated, I get to my hands and knees, staring through the rolling smoke.

“May!” a voice cuts through the haze. I hear another cracking sound, this one coming from above, and throw myself toward the sound of the voice. Behind me, a deafening crash.

I’m kneeling in chest-high grass. McCann is pulling me to my feet. Clair stands next to him, eyeing me with concern. “You alright?” she says.

“I don’t know,” I mumble. My heart is beating fast. I’m so lightheaded I don’t know if I’m alive or dead.

I look over my shoulder. The near side of the cantilevered room we were in has collapsed. The floor we had been standing on, once the second floor of the building, now forms a ramp down to the ground. And the second crashing I heard must’ve been the roof caving in, for now its tarred surface extends from the grass at my feet and up through clouds of smoke to the second floor, where the other half of the room still stands. Now, the whole structure is being engulfed in flames. Only God knows how we made it out alive.