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The floor opened up above him, rubble showering down as Zacharies shot up, held upright on a chunk of broken concrete.
 
It still had carpet attached, and he rode it like a massive surfboard.

“Is…”
 
The feed crackled, Sam’s voice pulled away for a second.
 
“…Like he’s surfing.”

“I was just thinking that,” said Mike.

“You’re…
 
Thing is, we can’t…
 
Clearly,” she said.

Not now
.
 
Mike slammed a hand into the side of his head, and the link flared up again.
 
“So which is it gonna be?”
 
Her southern drawl never died.

Mike hefted his rifle, then sprinted up an incline of rubble after Zacharies.
 
“Show some initiative,” he said.

“You didn’t hear what I said, did you?”
 
Sam sounded pissed.

“Not a good time,” said Mike, as the ceiling above them cracked again.
 
Dim light came through as Zacharies punched up and out.
 
Mike heard his exultant shout, heaved himself over the edge, and saw —

A big room, badly finished.
 
Walls ripped out, carpet mismatched.
 
A raised floor — dais?
 
Was that an
actual
dais? — at one end, people under it.
 
Some asshole in a neat suit with a cheap smile, the Reed guy.
 
Other end of the room another man stood with the doctor, but she looked stoned or drunk or both.
 
A teenage girl was right in front of him.
 
Laia, that’s it, the kid’s kid sister.

“Hey,” said Mike.
 
“You need a hand?”
 
His lips felt thick and puffy, the overtime making the words hard to say.
 
He gave the nod down the link.
 
“Sam?
 
Necklace.”

“Got it,” she said, and the black circle around Laia’s neck cracked down the middle, falling free to the ground.

Her eyes widened slightly, but Mike’s vision was pulled to the side as the Reed man started to move, trying to pull something out from under his jacket.
 
Mike raised his own sidearm and shot him twice in the chest, then turned to the front of the room before the man had finished falling to the ground.

“Kid,” he said.
 
“Time to go.”

“
No
,” said Zacharies, not turning.
 
The slab he stood on hovered in the air, and pieces of concrete and metal swirled around him, their orbits smooth and regular.

The man at the front of the room started to clap his hands, the sound slow, deliberate.
 
Fake
.
 
“Oh, well done.
 
Well done, child.”

“Kid?”
 
Mike raised his weapon, pointing it at the man.
 
“Who’s this?”

“He’s—”

The man held up a hand, and Zacharies choked to a stop, then hunched over.
 
The concrete and metal around him dropped to the ground, the slab he rode landing with a crash.

“You can call me Prophet,” said Prophet.

“Ok, Prophet,” said Mike, and shot him three times.

⚔ ⚛ ⚔

The problem with expectations is they don’t always marry with reality, even when they
should
.
 
Mike stood, weapon held out in front of him, then tipped the pistol sideways a little, leaning his head forward for a closer look.

The three rounds he’d fired — the dull of the depleted uranium shells unmistakable — held themselves in the air a hand’s breadth from the muzzle of his weapon.

Zacharies stood up, the fire gone from his eyes as he looked at Mike.

Prophet laughed, leaning back, the sound deep and merry.
 
“You wonderful man,” he said.
 
“
Michael
, is it?”

“Sure,” said Mike.
 
“Or Mike.
 
I’m easy.”

“Mike, then,” said Prophet.
 
“You’ve brought me a princely gift.”

The overlay chattered to him, a quick scan showing —

Haraway, looking like she’d woken from a dream.
 
Zacharies, a bead of sweat trickling down his forehead.
 
A sound behind him as
—

“Do you cunts never die?” said Mike, raising his weapon and shooting the Reed man again.
 
Red sprayed out the back of the Reed man’s body as he took the hits, taking a staggering charge forward as each round hit him, then tearing the weapon from Mike.
 
A backhand sent Mike tumbling across the room.

That felt like being hit by a truck
.
 
The Reed man wasn’t a man.
 
Not anymore.
 
Metatech didn’t have any milspec upgrades that packed that kind of hit.
 
He reached a hand up to his jaw, flexing it back and forth.
 
The overlay put a skeletal map in the corner of his vision, highlighting broken jaw, fractured —

He waved it aside, pushing himself to his feet.
 
He flicked to thermal, the quick look showing him the Reed man was not even a little bit human.

“Trust is a valuable tool,” said Prophet.
 
“Thank you, Julian.”

“Yes, Master,” said the Reed man, the body’s movements slurred.

“Now,” said Prophet, “watch.”

Zacharies turned to look at Laia, then stepped off the slab he was on.
 
It rose into the air, turned once in a lazy circle.

“Brother,
no
,” said Laia.
 
Her voice was a whisper.

The slab shot off towards her, tumbling through the air.
 
She screamed, her eyes shut and her hands held out in front of her.
 
Mike could only see it because of the overtime, the edges of the slab superheating, molten pieces pulling apart in the air, turning into a shower of liquid rock.
 
The white slurry hit the ground, the heat impossible and close.
 
It felt like a physical thing.

“Fuck me,” said Sam.
 
“Did she just—”

The air pulled around Laia, swirls of smoke and ash swirling around her.
 
Mike’s overlay watched in thermal, the blazing heat of the molten rock stopping at the edge of the bubble of cool around the girl.

Julian — the Reed man — stepped towards the girl, reaching a hand out.
 
She yelled again, and fluid sprayed out the back of the man.
 
His body stuttered, a mechanical grinding coming from it as it fell rigid to the ground, a metal clang sounding as the face of it hit the ground to land in the molten rock.
 
Peels of fire licked from the edges of it before it caught, the heat of the rock igniting the plastic inside it.

“Right,” said Mike, then got to his feet.
 
“Right.
 
One less thing, I guess.”

Something picked him up.
 
The kid’s voice came through, low and nasty.
 
“You want us all to be
slaves
, Mike.”

“No, Zacharies,” said Laia.
 
“Listen.
 
Hear my voice.”

The kid’s eyes flickered, and Mike dropped to the ground.
 
Sonofabitch.

“Laia—” Zacharies seemed confused.
 

Prophet laughed again.
 
“You can see how my puppets work,” he said to Mike.
 
“They — well, look for yourself.”
 
He waved the fingers of his left hand, as if shooing a fly.

Laia laughed, the same nasty sound as Prophet, then reached out a hand towards Zacharies.
 
Her face twisted, real fear hitting her brother’s face, then —

A slab of rock the size of a table hit her in the side, knocking her clear off her feet.
 
She stood, and —

The carpet under Zacharies raged into flame, just as quickly lifted and thrown by an invisible hand as the kid rolled away, slapping the flames on his pants out —

A door swung through the air, Mike’s overlay picking out the letters VICE PRESEDENT still left on one side before it tumbled into Laia —

The sprinklers above them kicked on, boiling water streaming out —

“Stop!”
 
Mike looked between the two siblings.

Prophet laughed.
 
“You see?
 
They’re so easy to use.”

“What…
 
What are you doing?”

The other man looked at his hands.
 
“I reach into the mind of one of them, turning it on the other.
 
Then I swap to the other.
 
They each attack the other, but I let them see what they’ve done as I let go.”

Mike swallowed as the air to the left of him exploded into fire.
 
Three small stones sped almost as fast as bullets, the crack of the sound barrier breaking before they turned into molten mist, lost in the pre-dawn air.
 
“You’re a real…
 
You’re a
total
asshole.”

Prophet shrugged.
 
“Michael?
 
You could have a place at my side.
 
I need men who can find creative solutions.”

“Go fuck yourself,” said Mike.

“No need to be hasty,” said Prophet.
 
“You haven’t seen the world as it could be.”
 
A soft smile landed on his face.
 
“Ah.
 
Julian has—”

The lights in the room — the ones that were left — flickered back on.
 
The machines at the end of the room clicked, then came alive with a soft whine.
 
The room held its breath, the only sound the harsh breathing of Laia and Zacharies as they faced each other, fists clenched.

The smile fell away from Prophet’s face.
 
“And I have a vacancy.”

“A vacancy?”

“Yes,” said Prophet.
 
He turned to Haraway, and the dreamy look fell on her again.
 
She nodded, moving to one of the machines, and began punching code into the device.

The Metatech gunship screamed in from above, the chain cannon mounted on the front roaring into the room, the rounds walking a line towards Prophet.

“Ok, assholes,” said Sam.
 
“Here’s your ‘initiative.’”

The sword pulled itself in an arc around his feet, the metal sparking against the concrete of the floor.
 
This is my space
.

Mason stood near the vaulted door, Carter’s body behind him.
 
The Apsel man who entered first lost his hands, his weapon sheared in two, then his head as the sword cut twice.

This is Carter’s space.

The woman who entered next was more cautious, the blood pooling out the doorway a clear sign to any fool with eyes that death waited inside.
 
The grenade bounced in through the door, and the lattice reached down and tossed it back, Mason’s hand grabbing as it started to bounce erratically.
 
The explosion cut short her scream.

This is Carter’s home
.

They came two at a time next, one jumping high, the other diving low around the edges of the metal.
 
The sword licked out twice, the man jumping high landing in two places as his body separated at his waist, the woman rolling along the ground crumpling in a clatter of armor as her head left her shoulders.

“You shouldn’t have touched her,” said Mason.
 
“You shouldn’t have come here.”

The last three came in, guns firing.
 
They all died as the sword found the gaps between what made them whole.

Mason turned to face Carter, walking up to the dark burnt glass.
 
He pressed his fingers to his lips, then put them against the cold side of… of
her
.
 
“Carter?
 
Please.
 
I’m so sorry.
 
I…”

This is Carter’s tomb
.

He turned and started the climb up the Federate tower.
 
An icon blinked twice in the bottom of his overlay, sender unknown.
 
He opened the message and listened to his dead friend speak.

⚔ ⚛ ⚔

Hey.
 
It’s me.

This isn’t a trick.
 
I’m gone, Mason, I’m gone, just dust and memories and I’m never coming back.
 
You’ve seen me now, you’ve seen the monster I am, and you can see why I couldn’t ever go dancing.

Even with you.

I wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t.
 
They wouldn’t let me.

But I can send this to you.
 
I wanted to say goodbye, and we didn’t have the time.
 
They said I couldn’t ever tell people what I was.
 
They stopped me using the voice they’d given me.
 
I think those rules don’t count anymore.
 
What are they gonna do — fire me?

There are so many things I want to tell you, but I can only compress so much into these last seconds.
 
The most important thing?

You could have made it if I hadn’t stopped you.
 
You would have made it in time.
 
That one’s on me.
 
See, I knew you’d come in, it’s just like you.
 
You wouldn’t listen to me when I said to go — you can see now why I couldn’t leave with you.
 
I ran the numbers, and that Zane Aster motherfucker would have pulled you apart.
 
It’s not a question of skill.
 
It’s not about honor.
 
There’s no merit badge you get for it.
 
He had less meat left, Mason.
 
He wasn’t a person.
 
He was more like me than you.
 
Faster.
 
Better.