Daniel Abraham - Inside Straight

Slowly, he turned.

Curveball, a duffel bag over one shoulder. Earth Witch beside her, frowning with her arms folded. The wheelchair-bound minister, Holy Roller, smiling and avuncular even now. Hardhat, grinning. King Cobalt, maybe grinning; under the mask, who could tell? Simoon and Bubbles looking more like runway models than warriors. Rustbelt standing in the back like an old-time locomotive with self-esteem problems.

“Uh,” Jonathan said.

Curveball stepped forward, her duffel bag sliding to the floor. She walked past Jonathan and Lohengrin, straight to Fortune. For a moment the pair were silent. Then Fortune—Fortune, not Sekhmet—nodded.

“So,” Curveball said, “what’s the plan?”

They talked all night. It was epic. I slept through a lot of the last part, and more than a little, because getting a little hope can make you realize just how tired you’ve been up until then.

The strategy was pretty basic, since none of us really knew what the hell we were doing. But we had a plan, and we had a bunch of aces and some guns and the determination that the killing was going to stop.

And it would. Either because we’d turn them back, or they’d run out of people to slaughter. One way or the other, it was coming down there.

We’d picked the place to make our stand.

The moon was beautiful, a crescent of silver floating in the black sky. The city lights of Syrene and Aswan were dark, each side keeping information from the enemy. Jonathan sat on the street, his hands on his knees, looking up at the stars.

“Hey,” Simoon’s voice said. “Bugsy.”

He looked over his shoulder. The woman stood in the doorway of the restaurant. The voices raised in debate behind her sounded oddly joyful for a council of war.

“How’s it going in there?” he asked.

Simoon stepped forward, letting the door close behind her. The voices didn’t vanish, but they grew distant.

“It’ll be a while before anyone decides anything,” she said. “But I think it’s going well. What about you?”

“I could sleep right here in the gutter,” Jonathan said. “Seriously. Just stretch out and snooze off.”

“Probably should. Rest, I mean. Not the gutter part.”

“Yeah. I’ll get to it,” he said.

“I wanted to say thanks.”

Jonathan looked up at her. She was prettier than he remembered. She’d been good-looking, but now in the moonlight, with her hair down, she was beautiful.

“Thanks?”

“For butting in,” she said. “For listening in on my phone calls. For getting John Fortune involved. All like that. I wouldn’t have had the balls.”

“I’m not sure I really did you any favors,” he said. Simoon shook her head, her gaze lifting to the buildings, the horizon, the sky.

“No,” she said. “I’m glad. I’ve never actually been here, you know. But I’m from here. So, you know, thanks.”

“Anytime,” Jonathan said.

There’s a real problem playing defense. We didn’t get to pick when the shit came down. That was all them. The Living Gods took their aces and a bunch of guns across to Sehel Island. Hardhat went too, the theory being that he could build a temporary bridge with his girders to evacuate if the army managed to land there.

Then we got ready.

“Harder!” Bubbles said.

Rustbelt raised his balled fist, and then lowered it. “Ah, cripes. This is just… I mean …”

Bubbles, now looking like a woman of a healthy hundred and seventy pounds, put a hand on Rustbelt’s arm and tried to keep her temper.

“Sweetie,” she said. “We have to get these bubbles in the air, or it’s only going to be Simoon’s sandstorm to stop all the planes and helicopters they throw at us. So it’s not really me you’re hitting. It’s them. Just think of it like that, okay?”

Rustbelt smiled, but the expression seemed forced.

“You ready to try again?” Bubbles asked.

“Sure,” Rustbelt said. “Let’s try it.”

“Okay. Beat the shit out of me.”

Rustbelt closed his eyes and swung. The impact sounded like a car wreck. Bubbles put on another thirty pounds.

“Much better,” Bubbles said. “Do that again.”

“Okay,” Rustbelt said. “You know, this is really uncomfortable, though.”

Bubbles nodded. “That speaks well of you, sweetie. Now hit me.”

Well, folks, we didn’t know what dam they’d cross at, only that we had to hold them off at the places where they’d only be able to get at a few of us at a time. Lohengrin, Curveball, Earth Witch, and Simoon were south with almost a hundred of the followers of the Living Gods, ready to get to the High Dam if they came across there. Holy Roller, King Cobalt, Fortune, Rustbelt, and Bubbles were at the Low Dam where they actually attacked. I went with all of them.

The Egyptian army came at us right at dawn. I always thought that was a cliché, you know? “We attack at dawn.” Turns out there’s a reason. The sun really does get in your eyes. Well, not mine, since I was mostly bugged out by that point.

The boats chugged out from the east bank, dark marks in the sun-bright water. Hardhat and Sobek squatted by the shore. The croc-headed joker hunkered down, his hand shading his eyes.

“This could be a problem,” Sobek said. “If they reach the island—”

“Those dick-lickers have about as much chance of getting out here as I’ve got of ass-fucking Mother Teresa,” Hardhat said cheerfully. “Watch this shit.”

The first girder appeared across the bow of the first boat, forcing the craft lower into the water. There was the distant sound of voice raised in alarm. A second girder appeared. The boat rode lower, water lapping up over its sides.

The other boats hesitated as the lead craft tried to turn back to the shore. A third girder appeared. The boat sank. The boats idled and then turned back.

Sobek chuckled.

“Elegant,” he said. “Could you do that to all of them? If they all came at once?”

“Probably not,” Hardhat said, folding his arms, “But I could fucking sure get the first two cocksuckers, and then let the pussies fight it out who gets to go third.”

“They’ll have to come by land, then,” Sobek said.

It started with a few boats putting out from the east, back toward the islands. That was just a distraction. The big push was at the Low Dam.

It’s eighty feet from the top of the Low Dam to the river north of it. The top of the dam is about as wide as a two-lane highway and about two miles long. We’d put some barricades across it—an old bus parked at an angle, a pickup truck Rustbelt tipped on its side, some cars we’d commandeered. Every hundred yards or so, out to almost the middle of the dam, we had something to hide behind. And on the far end, the army was making cover of its own.

That was where they came.

We didn’t keep everyone. You should know that now. We lost one right off. But he didn’t die a stupid death. Honest to God.

“It’s a bulletproof shield,” King Cobalt said, leaning against the upended pickup truck. “Like riot police use. I just hold it toward them like this, charge in, and when I get there, I’ll rip ’em apart.”