Greg Rucka - Alpha

Gabriel runs, chasing after Vladimir. Yanking the Pooch head off with one hand, feels a new shock of pain along his scalp. Whoever shot him must’ve hit high on the mask, just skimming his skull. He lets the mask drop, feels blood running through his hair and down his neck.

“This way!” he shouts, leading, running as fast as the Pooch costume will let him to the Friends Only door alongside the Dawg Days Theatre. Hits it with his shoulder, costume cushioning the impact, knocking it wide and then covering their backs as Vladimir, still half carrying, half dragging Bell’s daughter, crashes through past him. Gabriel takes a last look, sees nothing, nobody chasing, and steps fully into the little courtyard, allowing the door to fall closed.

Vladimir has dropped the girl, is yanking at the Kurkur costume, and Bell’s daughter is still for a moment, holding her head in her hands where she was clubbed with the gun. Then she’s on her feet with a burst of speed, and Vladimir, his arms caught in his costume, tries to reach for her, misses. She’s coming straight at Gabriel, trying to get past him, and he catches her with his arm across her chest, sends her bouncing back. She tries again.

Gabriel brings the MP5K up, both hands, barrel straight at this teenage girl’s face. She stops herself, mouth in a scowl, eyes full of the same hate, stares at him, and for a flicker of a moment, Gabriel actually thinks she’s daring him to do it, to shoot her, and he wonders if it’s courage or rage or both that’s fueling her.

Then Vladimir’s out of Kurkur and his hands are free, and he’s grabbing the girl from behind, spinning her around. Before Gabriel can speak, before the girl can react, Vladimir is punching her, swearing in Russian as he does it, once, twice in the stomach, then in the face, and the girl collapses, broken, and Gabriel is shouting.

“Stop it! Stop it, we need her! We need her!”

Vladimir rounds on him with a snarl, catches himself, catches his breath. There is a silence, broken only by the sound of Bell’s daughter, a soft, keening noise that she’s making. She’s fallen from her knees to her side, one hand guarding her stomach, the other to her mouth. When she looks up, Gabriel sees blood coming between her fingers.

He moves closer to Vladimir, into his face, hissing in Russian. “We want her alive.”

“You care too much about them. They’re meat, to be used.” Vladimir spits off to the side, then turns away, retrieving his own submachine gun. Without looking at Gabriel, he asks, “Now what?”

Gabriel reaches down, offers Bell’s daughter his hand, and she recoils. He reaches again, and she tries to hit his hand, and he has to reach a third time before he can catch her arm. He pulls her to her feet, points at the flight of stairs leading down into the Gordo Tunnel. Vladimir grunts, starts down the flight of stairs, and Gabriel follows, hand still on the girl. She comes docilely now, more slowly, head down. Blood is running from her mouth, her lip already beginning to swell.

At the bottom, a view of the tunnel stretching north, bright and vacant. Vladimir, not more than ten feet ahead of him, turns to look at him.

“Which way are we going?” Vladimir asks.

“Straight to the junction, then right,” Gabriel says. He’s pulling at his own costume now, trying to shrug out of it.

“To do what, Matias?”

“To get the fuck out of here.”

“What about the device?”

“Fuck the device!” His raised voice echoes, bounces off the finished concrete surfaces all around them. “Do you want to do that Uzbek fuck’s bidding or do you want to live?”

Vladimir turns without a word, shaking his head slightly, begins walking down the tunnel. Gabriel kicks the Pooch leggings free, then gives Bell’s daughter a shove, and she offers no fight, stumbling along, and they are moving slowly, steadily, ten paces, twenty. Vladimir looks over his shoulder once, shakes his head again.

He has to do it now, Gabriel realizes. Now or it’ll be too late. Kill Vladimir and Bell’s daughter both, and then run for it, just run and run until he is out and free and clear. Dana is safe now, there’s that, at least, and with her safe, he still has hope.

Then he hears Dana’s voice, and hope, along with what remains of Gabriel Fuller’s dream, dies.

Bell puts two rounds into Pooch, and another two rounds into Soccer Betsy, because he’s certain; he puts one round into the S.E.E.K.E.R. Robot’s leg because he isn’t, and there’s always time for apologies later. Chain chattering in his ear the whole time, traffic overlapping, Bonebreaker repeating the message from Athena, relayed via sign.

“Kurkur, Gordo, Clip, and Pooch.”

Bell swings his weapon left, up and away from Soccer Betsy, tracking. Identifies White, Angel is moving forward, firing at the Tango in the Lola costume.

“Tango down.” Her voice is hoarse.

Tango down, Angel advancing.

Continues tracking, swinging about, eyes on Green, furthest away, over a hundred feet, bad range for a pistol shot, he has no shot. Hearing the gunfire as he starts to advance.

“Tango down,” Cardboard saying.

Rip of gunfire, still advancing, Bonebreaker echoing Cardboard. New cascade of shots and then his daughter’s voice, calling for him, and he feels a new rush of adrenaline, is sprinting up the path, climbing the lazy slope. Sees Pooch, sees the weapon, hears Athena screaming for him, hears Chain in his ear, urgent, all of it at the same time.

“Bonebreaker, Bonebreaker,” Chain says. “Bonebreaker, respond.”

Training trumps passion. Bell shifts, throws himself to his left, against the retaining wall along the side of the path. Can smell the flowers planted there, feels his pulse thrum, the.45 in his hand. Bonebreaker isn’t responding.

“Cardboard!” Bell says.

“I’m pinned, Bone is down,” Cardboard comes back immediately. “No shot, no shot.”

Bell moves to break cover, hears another burst of shots, hears rounds whine past as they skip high off the ground.

“Bonebreaker is down,” Chain says. “Bonebreaker is down. Angel, do you have the shot?”

“No shot, I have no shot. Two Tangos moving back, they have a hostage, they have-”

She cuts off, another fusillade, the echo off the wall beside Bell disorienting, making it seem as if the shooters are somehow behind and above him. Chain swears in his ear.

“Warlock, move, move, move,” Chain says. “I have eyes on Tangos, go, go, go.”

Bell pushes away from the wall, sprinting forward, pounding his way upslope, pistol low and ready in both hands. More shots, the rattle from the MP5Ks, and Cardboard curses. Bell crests the rise, finds eight figures lying on the ground, and back toward Wilson Town, he sees Kurkur the Unending disappearing around the side of a building, Pooch chasing after him.

Eight figures on the ground, blood pools, soaks a Gordo, saturating his costume. Clip Flashman lies dead, his helmet in fragments around his head. Smooch face down, his trunk trapped beneath his body, and Bell hears a girl sobbing from within the costume. A Betsy is struggling to get out of her own outfit, her hands already free, a Hollyoakes student on either side of her, and she’s using ASL. He sees Dread Flashman, the same boy whom Athena was flirting with hours before, lying with his arms around his belly. Cardboard is coming up on Bell’s right, Angel behind him, already out of her helmet.

He doesn’t see Athena, he doesn’t see his daughter, and he knows what that means.

“Chain,” Bell says. “Track them.”

“On it, looks like they’re going for the tunnel at Dawg Days.”

Cardboard is moving past, toward the bowls of Rascal’s Tailspin. “Bonebreaker!”