Saints of the Void: Atypical (9 page)

“Jakob... and Brayson. They’re...” she tried to say
before Nes took her chin in his hand and yanked her attention to
him.

“Not now, understand?” he said firmly, leaving no
room for misinterpretation. “Not yet.”

Trenna got the gist, and blinked back tears. Nes
pointed up the escalator, signaling the need to crawl up. She said
nothing, but he knew she’d follow.

“Stop rubbing your damn eyes and look for them!”
someone said from the balcony above the pair on this side of the
room.

Someone very near the first speaker complained. “I
am
looking. And I don’t see
shit
at the tunnel.
They’re gone.”

The Stitch worked, apparently, since this person must
have been scanning the area during Trenna’s progress to the
escalator. He’d been hypnotized by the symbols on the paper to
neglect the person or area near it.

“No,” the first man said, “they wouldn’t just leave.
Get everyone still moving and search this place. Fucking kill that
goon, and don’t forget the acolyte bitch.”

Nes started crawling up the escalator using knees and
a forearm, holding the rifle near the trigger with the other hand.
It was a rough go with the steps being metallic and somewhat jagged
on the edges. Trenna was close behind, getting the hint to be quiet
after hearing those two voices so near, voices she would recognize
like she recognized the dead men below. Nes never saw anyone trying
to keep their fear, real fear, in check before, but he figured
Trenna would be a textbook example if Dastou felt like writing
about it.

The pair was near the top of the escalator after a
minute of crawling, and heard a lot of movement, mostly footsteps,
getting closer. Nes was thankful for something to concentrate on,
and he noticed his mind shifting into high gear again. Academy
members called it going “fully Saint.”

Five sets of footsteps, diagonal towards me from
the left, all armed
thought the corporal, and he only barely
understood it as he figured distances in a flash. Looking down at
Trenna, he saw that she hit her breaking point when the footsteps
came, and she froze in place. Tears streamed down her face, but she
was still quiet as a mouse, thankfully. The Stitch he attached to
her shoulder was gone, only a corner of the rectangular slip
remaining on her t-shirt. Nes looked past her and saw it halfway
down the escalator. There was no way they could go back and get it,
and he only bothered to bring one, forced hypnotism not being his
most well-trained combat skill. Her best protection was now gone,
and she would be safe here only if he provided the necessary
distraction.

The corporal went ahead with what was probably a
terrible idea, and started barking a pretend order. “No! Stay down
there, at the tunnel. I’ll check the balconies when you’re safe.”
His acting was probably better in those daydreams Dastou seemed to
have all the time, but it should do.

It worked, and the footsteps stopped. The ambient
noises that revealed their weapons were now more apparent. The
enemies were getting ready to fire wherever he popped his head up,
thinking that he foolishly and accidentally revealed his position
near them. Trenna grabbed his leg near the ankle, and looked at him
from her position lower on the staircase, scared of what he was
planning. Nes smiled lightly, nodded, and she let him go with a
look of worry taking its place alongside her fear.

Nes took a siopane shockwave marble out of a pocket
of his combat belt. A single activation button was flush against
the marble’s polished chrome surface, and he pressed down on it
until he heard a teeny
click
. He took a deep breath, and
threw the petite sphere overhead, aiming for his enemies’ general
proximity. The bassy, powerful, distinctive
cha-whump
of the
grenade’s detonation drowned out every other sound in the
relatively quiet balcony for a split second. The noise was quickly
followed by the just-as-distinctive sound of human bodies being
thrown to the ground. Nes hauled ass.

He bounded up the last handful of steps on the
escalator. On the second level now, he purposely ran within view of
the ambushers, sprinting fast enough to light the muscles in his
thighs and calves on fire. The siopane-fueled marble, meant to be a
non-lethal crowd-control solution, had enough force to toss the
five enemies to the ground, but they were already poising their
weapons to fire upon seeing him, even while on their backs. Faster
than he ever dreamed, Nes took in the rest of his surroundings and
formulated a plan. He might have even seen a glow on the more
reflective objects, like a dream, but that was probably from a
combination of exertion and his worsening migraine.

He saw the clothing of his enemies, again similar to
Trenna’s rags when they found her, noticed that two of them were
women, figured out their age range as between late twenties and
late thirties, and then forced himself to stop examining.
Focus!
Nes screamed at himself as he felt his mind losing
itself in the data being absorbed. He wasn’t good enough to soak up
the level of information a Saint would and still take action, so he
needed to drill down into what was important.

Straight ahead of him were tables and chairs for the
restaurants on this side of the second tier. The two construction
lights on this side were halfway between him and the closest
seating area, a few meters to his left. Nes knew that those last
couple of bits of information were important, but couldn’t put it
all together.

Focus, goddamnit!

The enemies that he needed to dispose of were
actually behind those spotlights.

The tiled, dusty floor could be exploited.

There, done. That’s all he needed.

A square, sturdy-looking table was close enough to be
useful, though it’s thick, centered single leg was bolted down. He
winced in the back of his mind and kept running, having barely gone
a handful of meters while plotting a scenario in his head, the
world seeming to slow as a personal favor.

Nes fired on the move, using longer than usual bursts
and keeping the gun close to his body for control. Just three very
loud
rat-a-tat
torrents of bullets were all he could muster.
Even at the speed he was running he saw that one of the women and
one of the men on the ground would not be getting back up. Two of
the remaining three retaliated as Nes’ position was blocked by the
construction light. Because they were still on the ground, the
angle of their fire was pretty much useless for combat, and all
they hit with their old-looking assault rifles was the spotlight or
the wall far beyond it.
Pings
and
pongs
signifying
ricochets filled the air. The projectiles’ bouncing kept the
strangers from pulling their triggers again, if only for an
instant.

At a full sprint, Nes flung himself down and slid on
the tile. It took only a couple seconds of skimming his ass on the
floor to reach the table he mentally highlighted a moment before.
In an impressive display that he regretted no one saw, the short
slide ended with the corporal shifting to his knees as his momentum
slowed. He dropped his gun on the ground and, with as much force as
he could muster, lifted himself up so that his left shoulder
slammed into the table, jarring it from where it was bolted down.
Unfortunately it only partially worked, the thin flat base of the
leg still half-bolted into the floor, the rest only bent out of
place. Nes grunted as he grabbed the edge of the table, pushing up
with all the power he could force into his legs, arms, and
shoulders. The table top finally tilted and came down, landing on
one side of its square surface accompanied by a booming noise and
cracked tile.

The table-based makeshift cover worked, and when a
few shots hit the hardened wood only one went all the way through.
It hit Nes’s filament-armor-lined uniform shirt just below his
heart as splinters almost got in his eyes. The armor would do its
job against the projectile, so he ignored the eruption of pain in
his chest.

The corporal picked up his gun again, peeked over the
tabletop, and fired twice into the chest of a woman that looked
like she was getting ready to reload. Nes went back down into
cover, sure that she’d be no more trouble, and put his back against
the table. He took his second siopane shockwave marble from the
same small pocket as the first, pressing the activation button as
soon as it was in his palm.

A barrage of fire hit the table, a handful of bullets
going through and slamming Nes in his back. He felt like he was
struck with a bunch of sudden, full-speed strikes from small
hammers. The surprising pain overrode the oh-so-important need to
hold the marble properly, and it slipped out of his hand. The
little sphere fell to the floor at Nes’ feet, and the activated
grenade’s little green status light blinked happily at him,
signaling that it was ready to do its job.

“Shit,” Nes said before jumping away from the
table.

Cha-whump.

The shockwave hit Nes as he jumped, spinning him in a
half-circle parallel to the ground. Every piece of furniture was
thrown away from the center of the blast, creating an empty space
where his cover once was. The table he toppled was hit the hardest
thanks to its position and spread out surface area, and it hurtled
towards the remaining two attackers at high velocity. The table
flipped in the air as it flew, like a coin thrown laterally,
speeding past the closest construction light while the corporal was
mid-flight.

Nes struck the ground with the small of his back, and
saw in his peripheral vision that the flying furniture hit one of
the enemies in the gut, a thunderous-sounding impact. The table and
gut-checked dead man flew together towards the balcony’s retaining
wall, and then both got flipped over the handrail and onto the
track gap below. The landing a moment later had a crunch that was a
combination of broken bones and splintering wood, almost made worse
by the fact that it couldn’t be seen. Nes’ mind connected the dots
manually, figuring trajectories and velocities, the possible number
of broken bones, damage to internal organs. He nearly vomited
again, this time at the horrifying accuracy of the damage tally
being rung up by his pumped-up brain functions.

The corporal stood up faster than he should have –
this wasn’t the time yet to register his own damage, not with
someone left that could get to Trenna – and started looking around
for the final ambusher. The aforementioned enemy found him first,
tackling him out of nowhere. Nes took the hit hard, landing on his
side in the empty space made by the last shockwave, and the
ambusher didn’t even try to catch a breath before he started
swinging fists. This last member of the ambush group had no gun,
probably losing his rifle when hit by the jolt from the recently
dropped marble. Normally being struck by two of the specialty
grenade’s kinetic blasts was enough to knock pretty much anyone
unconscious, but a lot of the direct force was absorbed by
surrounding furniture, so if this guy was in the perfect spot, he’d
only be slightly stunned, his life saved by pure chance. Good for
him. So, awake, hurt, and with no proper weapon, this guy opted to
pound the DSF agent to death bare-handed.

Nes couldn’t see his own gun, having also lost it
thanks to the marble. His head was a little fuzzy from the headache
that was throbbing at his temples, so he was moving sluggishly to
block punches, and not blocking them completely. The ambusher’s
face was a twisted combination of rage and pain, but his swings
were weak compared to a drill instructor. Honestly, Saan-Hu hit him
harder when he forgot her birthday last year. The corporal figured
he only had to block the hits long enough to find an opening to
grapple, but then the enemy saw something nearby that was worth
halting his anger-laced barrage for, and lunged for it. Nes just
barely saw what the guy went for: his standard issue bullpup
rifle.

Every one of the quick calculations running through
Nes’ head ended with him not being fast enough to stop the rifle
from being used against him. Trenna Geil, though, was not a part of
any of those equations, and neither was her running from the
escalator and picking up one of the enemy assault rifles, which is
exactly what happened.

She discharged the weapon as a cry of shock escaped
her, the recoil being too hard for her to handle. She had aimed at
the pissed off assailant and fired right as he was leaping off Nes
to get the loose DSF gun. Four shots hit the final ambusher,
another six going wild, hitting or ricocheting against furniture,
walls, or glass. The body of the raggedly-clothed enemy fell limp,
half on top of Nes.

When Nes recognized that none of the stray shots had
coincidentally hit him in his unarmed head, he felt incredibly
lucky. Then he checked his below-the-belt section, didn’t see any
bullet holes, and damn near wanted to go gambling with his newfound
good fortune. He’d have to take Trenna along, obviously.

The blood dripping from the four holes in the dead
enemy on top of him stained his clothing for the first time. Nes
pushed the corpse off with a sickened grunt. The black of his
combat gear looked fine, the red lining just a little darker where
blood stained it. Thank the void that Dastou’s choice of attire
color for his agents wasn’t something white.

Nes sat up with some effort and looked over at
Trenna, who was lowering herself down to sit on the floor. She
carefully put the weapon she just used on the floor and pushed it
away with a shaking hand, as if it was made of something slimy and
disgusting. She busied herself for a few seconds by cleaning her
glasses with the inside hem of her t-shirt. Nes was resting on his
rear, taking slow, deep breaths, trying to calm his nerves. Every
inhalation hurt, but at least he could breathe. He felt like his
soul was missing a few bits and pieces despite him having done
nothing beyond defend himself and Trenna.