Tim Akers - Heart of Veridon

“Oh, that’s nothing, Em,” I said. “We’ll just fly. Sprout wings and fly.”

She snorted, but her hands were still white on the gun.

“Wilson,” I yelled. “You got a ladder up there or something? A way up?”

There was silence, then the cycled whining of metal. The sound was coming from the door Wilson had entered moments earlier. Emily and I looked at each other, then took cover behind the bed.

The whining stopped, but seconds later came the thud-thud of boots in the hall. The door kicked in, and the iron masks of Badge in full storm gear peeked around the corner. We didn’t move.

“This is it,” the lead guy said. He didn’t sound too sure, more like a question than anything. He poked his shortrifle in then crept into the room. Others followed. He wasn’t ten feet away when Emily started shooting.

She had the shotgun low, braced on her shoulder as she lay under the bed. The shot went out through the metal framework of the bed, cutting a bright red line through the Badgemen. A couple fell, their knees pulpy red, screaming. Their mates fired back, grabbed the downed officers and dragged them out. The door closed again.

“What the hell was that?” I asked.

“It worked, right? They’re gone.”

“They’re going to come back, lady. They’re going to come back with more people.” I stood up and slid one of the tables so it blocked the short hallway to the door. “They’re not going to take any chances with sneaking in or clearing the building. They’re going to burn us out.”

“I think not,” Wilson said from high above. “They have enough people out here. They seem intent on taking us alive.”

A heavy rope fell in the center of the room, its end trailing up into the darkness. I grabbed my bag.

“Get up,” I said to Emily. “They’ll take a few minutes before they try again.”

“After you,” she said. “I won’t have you looking up as I go.”

“Godmercy. The daintiest whore in Veridon. I half think-”

She really stepped into the blow. She put the heel of her palm into my jaw, twisting my teeth into my tongue and spinning my head. I sat down on the floor.

“Watch the fucking door,” she spat, then hiked up the rope with her satchel across her back. I waited until she was good and clear of the floor before I followed. My mouth was leaking blood.

On the roof, Wilson seemed to have resumed his civilized demeanor. He still had his legs out, and his eyes were wild and free, but when he talked it was with a reasonable voice. He was perched at the top of a steeple, his legs pinched down on the windvane, his hands clutching a long rifle. The rope came out from a skylight that ringed the steeple, the panes blackened with pitch. The whole roof slanted precariously to the street. I held on to the rope and hunkered down.

This collection of buildings was on a narrow terrace between broader districts. All the stone had settled like tired soldiers at the end of a century of marching. The narrow, crooked streets were full of Badge. Wilson’s building fronted a tiny square, part of the old academic district, from before the Algorithm’s dominance. The walls were all close together, the streets shadowed by stone and mossy eaves. They weren’t built for the large automated carriages that dominated traffic in modern Veridon. The Badge had all the routes blocked. I could see two whole fists of the gray-coated officers standing in bunches or knocking on doors in the district. The sky above was slate, a low cloud cover that threatened rain.

“What the hell are we supposed to do? Fly?” Emily whispered.

“We’ll go by roof, until they see us. If the zeps get involved, we’ll just have to bite the bullet and find a way out by street.” Wilson checked the load on his rifle then scampered down the roof. We followed, but carefully.

Wilson led us to what looked like a warehouse. His building was part of an academic complex, the whole block seemingly abandoned. Getting to the warehouse was a trick, but it looked like Wilson had practiced this route before. He scuttled down the roof then pounced across the alley and rolled behind a chimney. Emily and I waited at the gutter, looking at each other nervously, until the thin man reappeared with a board. It wasn’t wide enough to make for a comfortable crossing, but we made it. He was pulling the board back when he stopped, his face pale.

“The beetle.” He turned to us. “You have it?”

“I don’t,” I said. “Emily? Where’d you put that little bottle?”

“Back on the table. You can always make another.”

“I need to go back,” Wilson said, scraping the board back into place. His spider legs were twitching spastically, their hard talons clicking against the brick of the warehouse walls. “I don’t know what that pattern means, but I don’t want to hand it to the Badge.”

“We’ll wait,” I said.

“No, you won’t. Go down the roof here. You’ll have trouble crossing to any other buildings without my help. There’s roof access from that little shack, a stairwell that leads into the building. From there-”

“We’ll wait,” I said. I crouched behind the tiny brick wall that ringed the roof and nodded to the domed building we had just abandoned. “Go get your bug.”

Wilson looked between us, then nodded and hurtled across the gap. His human limbs didn’t even touch the shingles as he scuttled up to the peak of the roof and disappeared into the skylight.

I glanced over at Emily. She had her head down, the shotgun peeking over the roof’s edge at the street below. She wouldn’t look at me.

“Where’d you say you found this guy?”

“An old friend. He fixed things for me, back when I was a kid.”

“He’s a little creepy,” I said.

“Hm,” she said. She turned her shoulder to me. I kept my eyes down on the square. The Badge seemed to be organizing. The word was spreading. They’d found the building, and reinforcements were on the way. I looked over at Emily again. Her back was stiff.

“Look, I’m sorry. You know I don’t mean shit like that.”

“What?” she asked.

“The whore thing. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“How did you mean it?” she asked. “The whore thing?”

“Just… I don’t know. I didn’t mean it in a bad way.”

“Sure.”

I pocketed my revolver, spun the cylinder then drew it again. Spun the cylinder and shifted on my heels. Emily still wasn’t looking at me.

“Anyway. I’m sorry.”

“Sure,” she said. It was quiet for a little while.

“Your creepy friend is taking his time,” I said. “You sure you left the bottle on the table?”

“I said so, right? I put it right back where-”

The building across from us exploded in gunfire. The blacked-out skylights were limned in red. Wilson burst from the open window, his back to us, the long rifle dipping into the building. He opened up a long line of fire. The Badge in the streets below looked up. I cracked a shot at them, enough to keep their heads down.

Wilson got to us in a flash. His face was black and thin lines of blood traced the path of shattered glass across his cheeks.

“I couldn’t find it. They came through the door with a storm engine. Didn’t think I would make it out.” He shot a look down at the street. The Badge was swarming. “We won’t be taking the stairs. Follow me.”

Behind us the dome of skylights wrinkled and a terrible roar tore up from the roof. Glass shattered in a long cascade, and a thin rope of wind twisted up from the building. Lightning flashed down its length, then the whole entity collapsed into dust. There was a lot of yelling in the streets.

“They’re not fucking around,” Emily said next to me. I shook my head and turned to Wilson. He was already gone, scuttling to the next building over, hopping to the roof with practiced ease.