I level the Omnivore at him. “I will shoot you in the fucking head. Get in the car.” I step forward. “Now, ruster.”
“What…” Dano steps back in terror, but not of me. I turn to see a hulking mass emerge from the hole in the ship. All shoulders and thighs, the Telemanus with the red beard slumps there, held up by his hands on the door, his legs butter from the anacene. His eyes filled with hate. I drop Lyria and raise my pistol. The anacene slows the man; he fumbles for his razor before giving up and lunging forward like a drunk bear. He hits me in the sternum so hard my vision flickers black. My gun flies from my hand and I’m lifted off my feet. I slam down into the floor, skidding into a wrecked flier.
From the concrete, I watch as Dano pulls up his gun and shoots the monster twice in the chest. The bullet goes through his tuxedo and slaps into the ship. It doesn’t stop him. Stumbling, the Gold reaches Dano. He grabs the top lip of Dano’s chest armor, holding him still as the Red claws desperately to escape. Then the Gold swings a lazy punch. It hooks in from the right, casual, almost like an afterthought. The reinforced knuckles cave in the side of Dano’s skull. His head lolls, ear touching the opposite shoulder. A white root of spinal cord juts upright into the air.
Drenched in Dano’s blood, the giant hurls Dano’s corpse to the side and turns his horrible bulk to me. He takes an awkward step and is blasted sideways as Volga fires through the windshield of the aircar. The plasma stream hits the Gold in his side, melting through his arm and hurling him off his feet into the ship’s hull.
Volga rushes to me as I try to stand. There’s a dent the size of a grapefruit in the center of my chest armor. Several broken ribs scream as Volga hauls me to my feet and drags me into the car.
“Torch the body. Get the girl…” I say through gritted teeth.
Volga stands over Dano’s body and holds down the trigger on her rifle. Concentrated energy melts through Dano’s corpse, leaving a steaming heap of crackling tissue and oozing bones. She rushes back to Lyria. The Red girl issues horrible moans from her paralyzed throat toward the big Gold man on the ground. Volga throws her in the trunk. She grabs my gun from the ground as I stare out the windshield as the Gold, impossibly, pushes himself up to his knees. The flesh of his right side melts off the bones, anacene pumps in his blood, but he’s still trying to stand. “Paxxx…” he roars. The room vibrates as ships try to pound their way in through the roof.
“Drive!” I shout at Volga. “Drive!”
She jumps into the driver’s seat and slams on the pedal. As we shoot away into the darkness of our escape route, we hear the door finally give and crash down into the garage. Volga drives at breakneck speeds through the half-constructed hospital, faster than Dano did in our practice runs. We weave between support beams and equipment as I stare out the back of the car, watching in terror for pursuing airborne knights.
I hold my chest and wheeze.
Like an egg. Dano’s head caved in like an egg.
After a kilometer of switchbacks and vertical elevator shafts leading to connecting buildings, we reach the staging ground in the abandoned canning warehouse and pull up in front of a makeshift clean room—metal frame pipes with plastic sheets enclosing it. I half-expected a dozen Syndicate thorns to be waiting for us with heavy weapons and Gorgo at their head. But they want to stay as far away from this shitshow as possible. Our headlights illuminate Cyra standing nervously with the two needle-thin contractors I met two nights ago. They wear operating smocks, one a Violet, the other a Yellow.
“Where is Dano?” Cyra asks as she comes to greet us from her mobile station. A dozen holograms from cameras she placed fill the air around it. On the holos the hospital is swarming with soldiers come for the boy. The cameras inside the garage have gone black.
“Dead,” I say.
“How?”
“Gold.”
“Shit. Shit. Shit,” Cyra says under her breath as Volga drags the children out of the back of the vehicle straight into the clean room, where she loads each onto a table. Inside, the Syndicate technicians move with haste. They slice open the children’s clothing till they are naked. No. Not children. They’re killers in training. I know what they’ll become. Golds that pop heads like eggs.
Without even thinking, I pull out my dispenser and pop several zoladone in my mouth and crush them between my teeth. They fizz and I feel the cool fire spread against my tongue and the inside of my cheek, radiating into my blood vessels and carrying the warmth down into my body, sending chemicals to my brain to kill the fear and the pain in my ribs. I exhale a calm breath and look back at the car where Lyria lies inert.
I turn my attention to the technicians. We’re on schedule, but the schedule doesn’t feel fast enough anymore. I shouldn’t have wasted time in the ship getting Lyria. Dano’s neck breaks again. I grimace and glance at the holograms. A flight of armored soldiers is landing around the hospital just four buildings from where we stand.
“Hurry up!” Cyra says to the Syndicate men.
“Don’t distract them,” I say. “Recheck the detonators. Then get out of here.”
I don’t have to tell her twice. Cyra’s hoverbike whines as it departs through the escape tunnel. Only when I’m sure she’s gone do I go back to the junker. I haul Lyria out and move her into the backseat of our clean car, a ten-seat taxi that sits next to the other rides. I take out our bags and dump our changes of clothes onto the floor, then lean back in to speak with Lyria. Her big red eyes stare up at me.
“You’ve been drugged with anacene-17. It will last another hour.” I consider the Telemanus. He was four times her body weight. “Maybe less. We’re going to meet some very bad people. When the drug wears off, do not speak, do not move. If you do, they will kill you. Afterwards, if you behave, I will take you wherever you want to go and give you enough money to start a new life.” On the zoladone my voice sounds like a robot’s. It’s a lie I’m telling her; she’ll be hunted forever, but I’ll still give her a running start. She deserves that at least. “Do you understand?” She can’t blink or move. Hate is all she can manage. “Good.”
I stack a bag on her face and cover the rest of her body. Even beneath the zoladone, I know I will hate myself later. I know the look in her eyes is one I’ll never forget. Add it to the pile. I strip my gear and toss it into a metal barrel and dress in one of my black Kortaban suits.