Darren Wearmouth - Critical Path

The man pointed his knife at Charlie. “You. Monk. Run. We only want the woman.”

Charlie had to make a quick decision. He had his chance to escape. Unity would probably hunt him, but he had evaded his enemy for years. He could find Denver, the others. The image of Earth exploding in a huge ball of flames flashed through his mind. Charlie had a responsibility, whether he liked it or not.

He kept focused on the attacker and hunched. The old man stood opposite Charlie in an open-legged stance, rocking from side to side, exchanging his weight from one foot to the other, and circling his knife.

Baliska roared behind him. Charlie heard the swish of the alien’s sword. It thudded against something wooden, like an axe burying into a tree stump.

“You’ve got no dog in this hunt,” the old man said to Charlie. “I’ll give you two seconds to move.”

Aimee scuttled behind Charlie. Baliska forced the other two men back down the alley with looping, rapid swings of his sword.

Charlie reached for a metal bucket of waste by a door and grabbed the handle. “I’ll give you two seconds to run.”

“It’s your funeral,” the old man replied. He lunged forward, thrusting the knife toward Charlie’s chest.

Charlie swerved to his left and threw the contents of the bucket in the man’s face, splattering him with waste.

The old man frantically wiped at his eyes. Charlie backhanded the bucket into the side of the man’s head, knocking him to the side.

Baliska had successfully beaten one man back and hacked in his direction. The other lay in the alley with a deep wound in his neck. Charlie positioned himself between Aimee and the old man again. “Give it up. You’re not going to win this.”

The old man edged back. His hunting knife shook in his hand. Charlie raised the bucket over his head and stepped forward.

“Kill him, Charlie,” Aimee said, her voice cold.

Charlie hesitated.

The old man took the opportunity to run. He stumbled along the alley, banging into walls as he groggily fled. At the end of the alley he turned left and disappeared.

Aimee sniffed. “Forget about him. Let him run. I’ll have him hunted down like a dog.”

Baliska dragged two corpses up the alley by their necks. Its sword was back in the thigh scabbard. Blood dribbled from the top, along its suit. It dumped the bodies by Aimee’s feet and wiped its gloves on the side of a house. Charlie threw his bucket to one side. Both victims looked like preinvasion survivors and residents of Unity judging by their crudely manufactured shirts.

Aimee smiled. “Well done, my champion.” She turned to Charlie. “I always knew you were a good man, Charlie Jackson. I assume by your actions that we’re fighting on the same side?”

“Don’t be so sure,” Charlie said.

“I’ll be keeping you in my cells until you make a final decision. It’s for your own protection. You’ll be fed and watered.”

“You make me sound like a dog. But I’d rather be there than the ludus. Do you get attacked often?”

“This is the first time in years. I think I know who planned it, but I need confirmation before acting. To keep the peace in Unity, we must have evidence to convict.”

“You don’t need evidence to throw strangers into the arena.”

“Strangers are not citizens of Unity, but they have a choice. The rules of the modern cities you remember have vanished, and you have to adapt.”

“No shit. Is your number one suspect Augustus?”

Aimee turned to Baliska. “When we get back, take Charlie to the cells. Ask one of the guards in my courtyard to show you the way.”

All three walked back to Aimee’s residence together. Charlie didn’t feel under threat despite Baliska having the rifle over its shoulder. He felt a strange connection with the creature. From a desperate fight in the forest a month ago to sharing a cell and fighting together… strange times.

Aimee quickened her pace around the side of town, perhaps conscious that another attack might take place. They passed the pens and rickety houses again. This time, a few people tended the animals. All shot casual glances at the three of them as they walked by. Nothing out of the ordinary, at least for Unity.

The main gate of Aimee’s residence creaked open as the three of them approached. A bald man dressed in filthy khaki shorts burst out, throwing up puffs of dust from the ground as he staggered straight toward them, waving a black tablet in the air.

Baliska rapidly clicked and reached for its sword. Aimee held an arm across the alien, nudging it back. “He’s one of our coordinators. Unless we’re attacked like before, wait for my order.”

Charlie wondered if Baliska could speak English or just understand it. It seemed to be reacting to Aimee’s commands, but didn’t really show any signs of recognition in the cell. Perhaps it felt like Charlie. They were forced together in an inconvenient marriage due to circumstance. Charlie’s only two vows were to not to try to kill it, and to serve up justice to Augustus.

The man stopped short of Aimee and thrust his tablet forward. “One of the patrol…” He gasped for air. “They… they…”

“Calm down, catch your breath, and tell me,” Aimee said.

The man gasped for air and squinted. “One of the patrols in the field is acting strangely. They haven’t reported back, and their position has barely moved in the last hour or two. Do you want me to send part of the northern ring to assist?”

He jabbed his finger against the screen showing a map of the surrounding area, circled with moving dots, apart from the one that he indicated. Charlie had forgotten about the tracking beads, but using them to assist in Unity’s defense made sense if the croatoans weren’t bothered by it.

“Dead, captured or asleep on duty?” Aimee said.

The man swallowed hard. “We don’t know. He’s the only one in zone four. We thought we’d give him a chance to come back.”

“Coordinate a team and scramble the hover-bikes. If it’s a threat, we need to crush it.”

Mike Strauss yawned as he sank into the old armchair Layla had brought to his office. Situated in the engineering department of Freetown, Mike and his wife had free rein over a group of fifteen eager young students—men and women from the various farms that had either previous engineering skills or showed some proficiency for the craft during their time working under the croatoans’ influence.

Tiredness lurked at the fringes of every muscle and, of course, his brain, which now that he was into his seventies was beginning to slow and lose stamina. He let his body relax into the chair, and he reached over to a small side table, crafted from the pinewood of the nearby forest, and gripped the mug of steaming green tea.

Mai’s perfect blend, his wife called it. She, along with Khan and some of the other trackers, had identified a blend of plants and leaves that when mulched and dried made for a surprisingly pleasant flavor.

It was made even sweeter for the added drop of rum from his own reserves—which sadly were running lower than he anticipated. While he and Mai were still in Manhattan, working in the basement of his and Charlie’s old workplace, Quartanary Productions, they had ventured out into the ruins of the city and managed to salvage a few dozen bottles of choice beverages.

Even diluting it and keeping it to a few drops a day, they’d got through it quicker than they realized, but then Mike rationalized it away, thinking that due to his insistence on not taking the root and thus ageing like a normal human, that he’d likely meet his end before he would take the last sip of rum.

He still believed that despite being down to just three bottles.