B stands for Bailey. It was the goth, part of the trio of friends who were talking to me on a regular basis at university. Bailey was engrossed in whatever they were doing on their computer. I was suddenly very conscious of the armour that surrounded my face. Had they recognized me? If they had, they were pretending not to know me. It probably helped that I wasn’t speaking normally with this bullet lodged inside me.
The Crowman made another attempt to break away, seemingly fine with the chance he was shot by Richard. I gasped as the struggling made the pain shoot up the side of my neck.
Richard ripped off his balaclava, glaring at the man. “Here, let me take over. I promise not to shoot him. Not yet anyway.”
I relented, pulling my fingers out of his mouth and Richard quickly stuffed the balaclava in to prevent the man from giving any orders to the crows. The birds were perched on any available surface, including the floodlights. They seemed content to watch for now, but their numbers were growing, and they were croaking and cawing to one another, as if discussing what to do. The Crowman’s vitriolic stare didn’t seem to be enough to send them into another frenzy.
I lay down and tried not to bleed to death.
Nell appeared at the stairs, panting heavily, sweaty hair plastered against her forehead.
A tangled mass of green leaves and curled shoots was clutched between her hands. She hurried over and knelt next to me. “Fuck, that was a lot of stairs,” she breathed.
I chuckled and immediately regretted it.
“You are not invincible. I hope you can get that lesson through your thick skull before a bullet does.”
“Never said I was,” I said and then coughed. The pain was getting worse as the adrenaline faded.
“But you act like it. I’m going to try to push the bullet out. Don’t you dare move.”
“Roger. But it’s not like you could do permanent damage.”
Nell didn’t respond. She moved the plant close to the entry wound. The small branches of the plant began to snake outwards, touching the encrusted blood around the wound. “Could it?” I asked nervously.
Instead of stabbing into my body, the branches easily sunk in, as if my flesh was water. There was a spike of pain that overtook the radiating ache that was making it hard to breathe. The pain began to lessen as the odd sensation of the branches moved within me.
I didn’t particularly like the feeling and sought to distract myself.
“Richard,” I called out.
He had been eyeing the procedure while tying the Crowman’s hands behind his back. “What?” he asked distrustfully.
“I’m sorry.”
It was the second time in the last hour that he looked at me with utter disbelief. “What the fuck do you mean? I just shot you.”
I stared at the concrete ceiling. “You’ve lived your whole life like this, haven’t you? Fighting for every little thing you need to live. Taking lives to prolong your own.”
Richard raised his chin. “Since the second I was born. There’s nothing I have in life that I didn’t fight for.”
I nodded and noticed that I could breathe a little easier. “I can’t say I really, truly understand. That hasn’t been my life. I had my struggles, but my parents did provide for me. In certain ways, ways that are important, you were right, I am too soft for this.”
The crows spectated loudly but Richard listened quietly.
“But I hope you can appreciate now that I’m willing to try my damndest anyway. And I’m glad to have someone like you on my side. Someone who knows the struggle intimately.”
“Are we on the same side?” he asked.
“Of course.”
“That’s my bullet you have in you.”
I winced as the pain sharpened again. I looked down and saw a small bundle of branches, stained red, wound tightly around the bullet. Nell gave me a wave of satisfaction as she began to stitch me back up.
“You can have it back if you want,” I joked.
“You Shapers are all sick in the head,” Richard growled.
I looked at Nell and shrugged. She was soaking this all in quietly. Perhaps, if nothing else, it could show her that hostility didn’t need to be always matched in kind.
“It was pretty ballsy of you though,” Richard said. “For a moment you reminded me of Graham.”
It took me a few seconds to realize that Richard had just given me what I imagined to be his highest compliment.
“Any time,” I said weakly.
“All finished,” Nell said, patting my stomach. I flinched, expecting it to hurt, but she had done an impeccable job.
“Where did you get the plants?” I asked. “The construction zone was pretty lifeless, I didn’t see any.”
“Don’t worry about that right now,” Nell said, looking away.
I got up and stretched. She was hiding something from me again. Should I confront her? Somehow I couldn’t bring myself to channel Nell’s own bullheaded nature against her. It did bother me though, that she was asking me vulnerable questions while keeping her own soft points out of sight.
Terry crested the stairs. He had a black eye, but otherwise looked unharmed. “I’ve got to say, the rescue service is appreciated but you could have spent more than two seconds checking if I was okay.”
Terry’s eyes fell on the Crowman. “Oh? Has the situation reversed? This could be fun. Should we be worried that the crows have alerted the Jiezhi to our meddling?”
“Don’t be,” Nell said, turning the bullet over in her hands. “I’ve been stopping any of the birds from leaving the vicinity of the building.”
The Crowman’s eyes widened, then narrowed and he started to fiercely struggle against his restraints. Richard planted a boot on his back. The man was trying to speak through his gag.
“They’ve started to unload the shipment!” Bailey called out, their nose inches away from their screen.
“Graham and Zola are still on the main floor, right? I’ll call them.” Richard said, taking out his phone while kicking at the crows that were hopping closer to investigate the bound Crowman.
I moved over to Bailey and they let me see their screen. It was displaying footage from a bird’s eye view of the building next to us. It appeared to be from a drone, hovering above a skylight. I could make out many Ring members moving large boxes out of the trucks.
“Just need them to hold one still for me.” Bailey muttered to herself. “There! Okay I got a good picture. Let’s take a look shall we.”
She tabbed over to a different screen and brought her hand up to zoom in the picture. “Alright, I got a product code, let me search this up.”
She typed the code out in a blur of fast moving fingers. The search engine loaded the results.
“What is this…” She clicked the first link.
The product page popped up. I saw various pictures of intricate plastic and metal models. A video began playing, showing a mask that had a mechanical system in place to open and close the eye and mouth holes with simple switches.
“It’s a printer. A high-end 3D printer.” Bailey said with confusion. “Huh, let me try to scan another one. Maybe they have guns hidden inside them.”
Richard was talking with Graham on the phone, getting him up to speed.
I leaned over to Nell. “I never asked how you dealt with the Jiezhi on the first floor.”
A fresh wave of guilt hit me before Nell could smother it.
“I… I’d rather you didn’t see.” Nell said quietly.
Bailey made an exasperated noise. “They’re all printers. I don’t understand! The messages said this shipment would be weapons. What are they going to do…” she trailed off.
The realization hit me too. I finished her thought. “They’re going to print their weapons.”
Richard scoffed. “Print guns? That’s ridiculous.”
Bailey was pulling up barcodes from her drone and posting them on a chat log. “3D printers have been around for ages. A lot of local companies do in-house manufacturing-”
“I know that!” Richard snapped. “But guns can be bought or smuggled in. Why go through all this trouble? Is it just cheaper?”
Bailey paused and bit their fingernail. “No. You’re right. It would be more expensive and more unreliable…”
“Timing,” Terry said, pointing to the stairs.
I turned to see the rest of the crew arrive. Vanessa moved over to Bailey and began discussing something with her. AJ moved lockstep behind Graham, his hood up, eyes wide.
“They’re going to go into a frenzy of production. The quantity of guns in Sillwood will balloon over the course of a few days. Not giving the other Rings the ability to match their firepower in enough time.”
A bad feeling was growing in my gut. “So what you’re saying is the Jiezhi are going to arm their entire group very quickly and then do something with that window of time. That can only mean one thing.”
“War.” Terry said, his wry grin holding steady. “They’re going to attempt to upset the balance of the Rings and seize control. That kind of thing won’t leave the city unscathed. Sillwood is going to get a taste of what they’ve been turning a blind eye to in the Old Town.”