Flex (15 page)

P
aul held his breath
, knowing what SMASH tear gas did to his motor functions – but as the gas billowed into the factory, a helicopter plowed through the roof.

The ’copter hit the factory’s far side at a skewed angle, as if the pilot had jerked it to one side in a frantic attempt to land. Its landing gear punched through the corrugated ceiling by the eastern wall, catching in the steel beams before the wheels tore free, sending a shower of rust and old birds’ nests onto the concrete floor. The overhead lights sputtered indignantly and died as the aircraft’s insectile frame crashed through the roof, smashing through the wall like a bowling ball. The rotors disintegrated as they tried to Cuisinart themselves free. Paul saw the stumps whirling as the copter tumbled, erratic as a severed head, through the freshly exposed parking lot.

There was a creak as the building wobbled, like a fighter recovering from a punch to the face. Raphael cheered as the warehouse’s eastern half lurched downward, sagging in terrifying ways as the beams and walls argued amongst themselves how best to stay upright. The debate settled itself as chunks of roofing pulled free, the walls buckling outward as architecture collapsed into new and semi-stable formations.

Emergency lights flickered on by the doorways, too thin to illuminate the factory’s vastness. It was just enough for Paul to see the murky brown tear gas arcing up off the floor, sucked towards the ceiling by the air pressure of the collapsing roof on the other side of the warehouse, then following the helicopter through the destroyed wall.

All this destruction, created for one reason: one of the thugs had wanted that gas gone. And Paul’s Flex had made it happen.

Then a barrage of gunfire took down the emergency lights, leaving Paul in shadows.

Bringing SMASH here had been a risk. Time was not on his side – Raphael was correct that if Paul hesitated for too long, then Gunza would hunt for Paul’s other weaknesses. Aliyah in Gunza’s hands was game over. Paul also knew he couldn’t get Valentine out on her own, not with Gunza’s team of artificial ’mancers guarding the place – he’d need a distraction. What could pose a serious distraction to Flex-fuelled gangbangers who could engineer coincidence?

A SMASH squadron would take Gunza and company down in short order – too short. But make a small batch of Flex to get Gunza’s guard down, dump an earthquake on SMASH’s headquarters to reduce their numbers, and it’d be an even battle between the two. Which gave Paul and Valentine a chance to battle their way out in the confusion.

If Valentine was good enough.

He looked around, trying to remember where the exits were; he could see the gaping windows high above, but the ground floor view was blocked by rows of shadowed smelters and crucibles. Paul could feel the low pressure of magic in the air; the messy wash of the thugs burning his stolen ’mancy shoving up against the hard incoming curve of the SMASH team. The SMASH unit was threading their way through the maze, working as one organism, checking corners.

Raphael applauded. “This is
amazing
! Like fuckin’, I dunno, movies!” He looked adoringly at Valentine – the closest thing to affection Paul had seen Raphael express. Valentine missed it; she was peering into the maze, feeling the various ’mancies intersect.

She held up her hands, an invisible controller cradled between them. Paul felt her ’mancy, subtle and insidious, thread itself into the flat push of Unimancy.

“They think as one,” Valentine said. “And
whoo
, that helps. Follow my lead. Don’t do anything I don’t do first.”

She took off through the maze at a brisk pace, Paul following. Raphael loped behind them both, eager as a kid on his first paintball run. She turned right, left, then shoved them both against a set of supply shelves.

“What one sees, they all see,” she hissed.

Paul looked down to where the machinery formed a T-junction. A dull cone of neon green bobbed into view, followed by a SMASH agent in a gas mask and goggles. The green light-cone emanated from the end of his rifle: an infrared projector.

Wait a minute
, Paul thought.
Why am I certain that’s infrared?

The agent walked straight ahead, making hand gestures at no one Paul could see, focusing down the center of his field of vision. Paul gripped Valentine’s hand; if the agent glanced left, he’d see them.

The guard marched past like clockwork, remaining bizarrely, absurdly focused on the end of the hallway.

“How come I know that’s an infrared beam?” Raphael whispered. Then: “How can I
see
infrared?”

The guard froze, then straightened. “
Who’s there?
” he said in a mechanical tone, scanning from left to right and back again in clockwork rhythm. Valentine slapped her hand over Raphael’s mouth. Paul was certain the guard would investigate – but after staring befuddled for a few moments, he went back to patrolling. Paul peered out to see the guard make it to the end of the hallway, pause dramatically, then pivot on a perfect ninety-degree turn to sweep the next corridor.

Valentine released the breath she’d been holding. “Move forward. He’ll loop back around soon.”

“Wait, what’s going on?”

“We’re in a stealth game. They’re in patrol mode. Still deadly, but operating on dumber AI.”

Paul grinned. “Brilliant.”

“It could be better. Everyone here knows the rules, at least on a subconscious level, so the thugs have a chance, too. Plus, I had to expand the factory floor – it was too small for a videogame level…”

Paul realized he could no longer see the hole where the helicopter had crashed through. The factory walls had faded into blank darkness. He tried to wiggle through a gap between two pieces of machinery; an invisible barrier blocked him. Everything had coalesced into impermeable videogame hallways, an unreadable maze.

An alarm blared to their left, revealing a red glow. Paul heard gunfire, yelling, the surprised shouts of combatants – and felt the clash of magics. Then silence. Paul wasn’t sure who’d won.

“Use your portal gun,” Paul said. “Shoot across the maze and get us out.”

A look of purest incredulity. “You can’t mix videogames, Paul.”

Paul swallowed back a retort. Some other gamemancer might be able to. But if his logic didn’t make sense to Valentine, she couldn’t make it happen, no more than Paul could use his bureaucromancy to fly.

“This is – this is Metal Gear Solid, right?” Raphael asked. He looked like he’d gotten a free pass to Disneyland. “I was awesome at that game. Even better than I was at Halo.”

“This isn’t Halo,” Valentine said, freaking out. “This is game-plus difficulty.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s fine.” He shook his head, his whole body rejecting the idea, then lifted his fists in exultation. “This is fucking
unbelievable
!”

Valentine grabbed his face. “They will kill you, Raph. Their guns have bullets. I have spent my life mastering videogames. Do
not
think you can outplay me.”

“Yeah, s’cool, whatever. Let’s find the boss monster.”

Paul frowned. “There’s no boss monster, is there?”

A pool of green light bobbed around the corner as the SMASH agent reappeared.

“Go,” Valentine said. The guard froze – “
Who’s there?
” – as they dashed down another corridor.

“Whatever happens,
do not let them see your face
,” Valentine repeated. “If one of them sees you, all of them will. It’s a Unimancer trick. Once they get your face on file, we’re Refactored for sure.”

They rounded a corner made of an old smelting pot. One of Gunza’s thugs was dragging a body out of sight, leaving a sticky trail on the ground; a second SMASH agent lay crushed nearby under collapsed machinery. The kid had slung a stolen SMASH rifle over his shoulder.

“Yo, man,” the kid said. “Hook me up with some Flex. I’m low.”

Paul held up empty palms. “Can’t. Gunza has it.”

He poked Paul with the rifle. “Well,
make
some, motherfucker.”

“I can’t. You saw what it took.”

“Fuck!” The kid kicked the SMASH agent so hard, the helmet popped off, revealing a face that had lost all expressivity long before death. Paul recognized the body: Death Metal.

The kid geared back for another kick. Paul grabbed him. “
Don’t
.”

“The fuck you care?”

“He is – was – a ’mancer.”

“You friends?”

“Not really.” Yet Paul felt bizarrely protective of the corpse; this poor bastard had been a ’mancer like him, with hopes and dreams and such a love for music that he’d made magic out of it. The army had wrung that strangeness out of Death Metal, remolding him into a weapon.

Paul swallowed back vomit. He thought he’d been calling in faceless SMASH soldiers to distract Gunza. But now, he realized, he’d called in brain-burned victims to be slaughtered for his convenience.

The kid turned to Valentine for support, but one grim glance from her shut him down. “You fuckin’ crazy. He’d kill you if he could.”

“That’s not him,” Valentine said. “They made him a hive mind.”

There were no alcoves to drag the kid into, so Paul and Valentine propped Death Metal up against a windowpane cutter, sat him up so he at least looked comfortable. His gray face was drained of humanity, the same as the last time Paul had talked to him.

“You know any death metal?” Paul asked Valentine.

“What?” Valentine bent to tug the helmet off the other agent. “That shit is terrible. Why would I know any of that crap?”

Paul gestured. “It’s what he did.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh.
Oh
.” Then: “Holy crap, you can make ’mancy out of the worst things in the world. Somewhere, there’s a fuckin’ polkamancer…”

“Yeah, well, you’re talking to the guy who turned the DMV into an art.”

“That’s just
it
, Paul. Magic can make the shittiest things in the world beautiful. I wish… I wish I could have seen him work.”

“He was something.”

She pushed Death Metal’s helmet over Paul’s face.

“…What the hell, Valentine?”

“It covers your face!”

Paul ripped it off. “They know I’m here. Their records show I placed a phone call. They think Gunza took me hostage after he caught me snooping around.”

“When’d you do that?”

“When I made the Flex.”

“
Mastermind
.” She turned to pull the helmet over Raphael’s face, tightening the straps with the care of a mother putting her infant into a baby seat.

“Like a
helmet’s
going to help!” The kid jabbed Paul in the ribs with the gun. “We gotta get out! They’re hunting us down!”

A flash of green light. “
Who’s there?
”

“
Fuck!
” The kid hoisted his rifle at the incoming guard. The SMASH agent’s pace loosened into a terrifying combat readiness as he reached for the taser at his belt. His green glow shifted to a coal red as an alarm began blaring.

What had you been, once?
Paul wondered.
What ’mancy had you commanded?

“Surrender, and you will not be harmed.” The agent was male but spoke in a reassuring feminine voice – as though someone else spoke through him. “You will be brought to the Refactor. If you’re a mundane, you have nothing to fear.”

“Fuck your Refactor!” The kid burned the last of his Flex to get off a lucky shot that punched through the SMASH agent’s bulletproof vest.

The agent plunked down face-first into the floor, dying. Valentine shouted “
Run!
” as the kid knelt to grab the taser.

–Flex–

A surge of magic spiraled out of nowhere, roaring past Paul towards the kid. The SMASH agent’s last dying twitches activated the taser – which malfunctioned, pumping every watt into the kid’s body. The kid’s hair caught fire as his heart seized.

Raphael took the whole thing in, horrified, extending his arms towards them. It was as though he wanted to touch the corpses, as if verifying their existence might make sense of this…

He’s never been in a fight
, Paul thought dizzily.
Someone’s always shielded him from the worst of what happens around him – and now he’s realizing some of his actions had a cost
.

Valentine shoved Raph down an alcove just as more SMASH agents converged on their downed agent. Paul struggled to keep up on his artificial leg.

“That surge wasn’t Unimancy,” Valentine said, her voice taking on a Stormtrooper-like echo from inside the helmet.

“Gunza,” Paul wheezed, out of breath. Gunza knew any survivors would testify against him. He was hidden in the factory, sniffing Flex, ensuring once they finished their ’mancy, they would meet a horrible end…

“Fuck, he’s got a tub of that shit…”

“We can’t – can’t stop him – he’s got all my ’mancy – ”

“No. We can fucking fight him. When it was six temp-o-mancers holding Raphael hostage, no, I couldn’t get past them. But one guy? I’ll kick his ass.” She cuffed Paul, furious. “Goddammit, Paul,
I told you to put the fucking flux in
!”

“Should’ve,” Paul huffed apologetically. He’d only wanted to make a small batch here, just enough to lengthen the fight. He hadn’t known the factory itself would kick in to help produce – that made this battle much more dangerous…

“We can get past Gunza and these Unizombies,” she muttered. “We – shit. They’re onto me.”

The machinery around them shifted, the spaces between them expanding wide enough for a man to walk through – then slammed shut. The ceiling above flickered wildly between pitch black and an ordinary shadowed darkness, as if two realities were battling for supremacy.

“Seven of them, one of me,” Valentine grunted. “But they’re fighting on two fronts. And don’t know how to fight dirty. And want me alive.”

“You gonna be okay?”

“I’m taking a lot of flux. This is… a massive restructuring of reality, Paul.”

“Can you bleed it off?”

“I
have
been. All the easy stuff’s been burned off. Now my apartment’s been broken into, my electricity’s been cut off, and I’ve just contracted herpes. I don’t know how much more flux I can dump without it affecting our luck
now
…”