Hugh Howey - Molly Fyde and the Blood of Billions

“Hey, wait,” Molly said, hurrying after him. “Shouldn’t I have a gun or something?”

“No, you don’t need a gun.” The sheriff paused at the door and peeked through the glass, cupping one of his hands by the side of his face. He grabbed the knob and turned to Molly. “Just stay behind me. We’re here to arrest them, not kill them.”

Molly nodded. She looked at the quickcuffs he’d handed her and figured she’d still feel better with a gun.

“Let’s go,” the sheriff said.

He pulled open the door and stepped inside. Molly followed him into a dimly lit foyer; she let the door slam shut behind her. Once her eyes adjusted, she saw an empty reception desk at the end of the hall with a set of double doors beyond it. The sheriff strolled across the room and glanced behind the desk. He placed one hand on the set of doors and turned his head to the side.

“Let me do the talking.”

Molly nodded once more.

With that, the sheriff pushed open the doors to the immigrations building. He and Molly stepped inside, expecting to find a labyrinth of cubicles, or perhaps a maze of tiled hallways studded with fluorescently lit offices. Either option would’ve felt familiar and would’ve matched the cliché of a large building built on bureaucracy.

As the doors yawned wide, however, the sheriff cursed out loud at the sight that greeted them. It wasn’t the office building Molly had expected. And yet, it was a sight more familiar. More sickeningly familiar.

“Flank me,” Sheriff Browne whispered.

Before them lay a room of high beds, most of which were occupied by prone figures. What Molly was drawn to, however, were the bags. Rows and rows of them hung from the beds, many of them already full of blue Callite blood.

“Holy shit,” she said.

She was so focused on the bags, on all the blue spirals of blood flowing from strapped arms and through the tubes that she was barely cognizant of the flurry of activity. About ten workers, their aprons splattered blue, cried out in alarm and rushed toward Molly and Sheriff Browne. The first gunshot startled her out of her shocked reverie. Molly flinched and dropped the bundle of plastic strips. One of the men running their way spun around, his arm flying akimbo, a bright, wet wound flashing out on his shoulder before he fell behind a gurney.

BLAM!

Another shot, and another man twirling from the impact. Browne held the gun straight ahead and lined up for another squeeze of the trigger. He fired again, and Molly found herself ducking from the noise, her hands going to her ears. Two more rapid shots, and Browne started backing up, yelling something to Molly, but her ears were ringing from being so close to the gun’s report.

One last loud bang, and the sheriff lowered his gun and started fumbling with it. Molly glanced through the smoke from the shots, the smell of spent gunpowder tickling her nose. Slowly, gradually, the world around her came back into focus. She watched Brown’s lips move beneath his mustache, saw him cursing at his gun. She watched him drop a handful of shells; they spun toward the floor and bounced and rattled there.

Molly looked back up at the remaining workers running their way. They came around the last row of gurneys topped with draining Callites, yelling and jostling and full of rage. Molly’s ears continued to ring. She remained frozen in place, watching events as if through another’s eyes. Her gaze fell to a nearby Callite, who was lifting her head and looking Molly’s way.

It was Cat. Her lips were moving.

“Run,” she was shouting.

Molly could hear it, now. Could match up the ringing in her ears with the movement of Cat’s lips.

“Run.”

But the men were already upon them.

The first man headed straight for Sheriff Browne, tackling him before he could reload. He crawled on top of the older man and began pummeling him senseless. Molly moved to help—she felt the Wadi fly from her neck—when a figure reached her at a dead run, his fist a blur.

Molly ducked and twisted out of the way just in time, letting the man fly past; his splattered denim coveralls barely registering in the back of her mind as something she should recognize.

Two more men scrambled around Cat’s gurney to join the fray. There was a shout from behind her, and Molly turned in time to see her Wadi slung by its tail and thrown down against the tiled floor. The creature went limp, and the man, his neck bleeding, went back to pounding on the sheriff.

Someone slammed into Molly’s back, sending her flying forward. She landed near her limp Wadi and was unable to take her eyes off it. She felt a rage coursing up inside, filling her up. A man stood over her, his boots planted to either side. He reached down to seize her, to drag her up, and Molly let him. She let him pull her up by her collar while she kept her body limp and half balled-up. As soon as her feet came under her, she kicked off the floor, jumping straight up as hard as she could, sending her head into the man’s nose.

His screams seemed to frighten off the ringing in her ears. The world returned to a normal speed as it resumed making noises. The man over a limp Sheriff Browne turned and realized the fight wasn’t over. He stood to join the others as Molly backed toward Cat’s gurney.

“I got this!” the man with the bleeding nose said, but the other men kept creeping forward. Molly finally recognized one of them as being Pete. She watched him spit through a sneer as she circled Cat’s gurney. She reached for the straps across her friend and started fumbling with them. The man she’d attacked lunged forward and grabbed at her wrists, forcing her to stop and pull them back.

“Nose!” Cat yelled.

Her head lifted off the gurney and turned to Molly.

“Now!”

The man was still leaning over Cat, his hands on her straps. Molly reared her fist back and threw her shoulders into the punch. She cracked the man on his already bleeding nose and felt a jolt of pure pain shoot through her knuckles and waver up her arm.

“Palms!” Cat said. “Use your palms!”

Molly obeyed and threw her left palm after the last punch. She struck him with the heel of her hand, using her armbones like battering rams. The blow slammed into the man’s face as he was already falling forward from the last blow. His head bounced off Cat’s stomach and flew back; his body crumpled on the other side of the gurney. Molly shook her right hand and watched as the other three men strode forward.

“Fight their joints,” Cat told her. Her voice was solid and unwavering, despite her condition.

“What?” Molly looked around for something to wield as a weapon, or someone to help her, but it was just a sea of still bodies and blue bags.

“You aren’t fighting them ,” Cat said. “Just their joints. Pick a joint and fight it .”

One of the guys rounded Cat’s table and swiped at Molly. She bobbed her head under the blow and circled away, all the while pondering what Cat was saying and trying to remember everything she’d learned in her Naval combat classes.

The figure yelled something to the other two, keeping them at bay. He lashed out with a spinning kick meant to decapitate Molly. She fell into a crouch as his boot whizzed by, then lunged forward with her own foot. She caught him on the side of the knee as hard as she could and watched him wobble backward.

Molly turned to see what the other two men were doing—

“Forget them,” Cat said. “They’ll come one at a time.”

“Why?” Molly yelled. She danced to the side as the enraged worker shot forward, his attacks angry and telegraphed. As he passed by—his fists attacking the space where she just was—she threw the ball of her knee into the side of the same leg she’d already attacked. The man roared and fell to the ground, clutching his leg. Molly lined it up like a Galaxy Ball and kicked his knee as hard as she could with the steel toe of her flightboot. The man gurgled with pain, but a kick to his chin cut the sound off.