Everything swayed in the wind: the trees, the shadows on the forest path, the tall grass, knee high in some places. It was like we were on a ship, rocking in the waves, making every step feel unsteady. The soldiers fanned out over a wide area and moved with weapons raised at our dark surroundings. A few were wearing night vision goggles, the protruding scopes making them look insect-like in a way that made my skin crawl. Too much like the Arachknights.
The rest of the crew and I were positioned at the back, with the Captain of Squad One and a few soldiers carrying bags that I’d seen were full of explosives. A reminder of what little time we had left.
One of the soldiers stumbled, catching themself by placing a hand on the ground. The soldier made a hand sign before resuming their position in the formation.
“What did that mean?” I murmured.
To my surprise, the Captain answered, “Code C1. Potential attack on cognition.”
Terry chuckled. “Or he just tripped and felt embarrassed about it.”
I noticed a few more soldiers making the same signal. I did feel a bit nauseous from all the movement in the dark. Stumbling didn’t seem out of the question when we couldn’t see the ground.
Leaning over, I whispered to AJ, “Notice anything?”
He blinked, as if rousing from a daydream. “Uh. Not really. It’s dark, things are moving, but I think it’s just wildlife.”
“Okay. Good. Are you worried about your mom?”
“A little. We found a decent spot to barricade but she could still be found.”
“You couldn’t get her out of the city?”
AJ tugged on the drawstrings of his hoodie. “She’s not the easiest to manage. ‘Specially when she’s sobering up.”
“I’m worried about my parents too. I wonder if they made it out okay.”
“I bet you have great parents. I’m always fighting with my mom. But she’s all I’ve got.”
I raised the corner of my mouth. “I dunno. My dad fucked up in a pretty huge way. My mom was kind of passive about it and I resented both of them for a long time. But despite that I don’t want anything bad to happen to them.”
Another soldier lost their footing, but this time they fell into the grass, disappearing from view. Soldiers nearby paused while they waited for them to get up. I stared at the spot where they had vanished. They didn’t stand back up.
A soldier approached the spot and peered down.
“What the f-”
He was cut off as a shadow sprang from the spot, a blade flashing. The soldier blocked the strike with his gun and locked the machete arm under his armpit before twisting and falling into the grass with his assailant. Nearby soldiers rushed to assist.
I heard the Captain of Squad Six bellow out, “LIGHTS ON! Engagement!”
The forest became a pale diorama, the depth feeling flat as flashlights painted the trees. Several more shapes sprung up from the grass. Men with wild grins. One rushed a soldier who took a blow to the helmet, staggering and failing to keep his balance.
AJ cried out, “The trees!”
My heart lurched as more Ring members flipped down from high hiding places. They hung upside down by their legs from branches, aiming guns.
“Lethal force authorized!” The Captain shouted as the Rings opened fire. The force of the guns caused the Rings to sway on their perches, causing the bullets to spray erratically. The Captain cursed and clutched his leg, a bullet finding its mark.
Graham moved in front of us and my armour crackled as it grew over my skin.
“No- no Shaping,” the Captain protested.
“Fuck that.”
Our ambushers reveled in the chaos, whooping and hollering. A soldier fumbled his magazine while reloading, dropping it into the tall grass. Despite the strange clumsiness, H.E.S.P. began to dispatch the gang members in the trees with accurate bursts of gunfire. Bodies dropped down heavily to the forest floor like large birds falling from their roosts.
Then suddenly the forest fell silent, the last gunshot ringing out before being swallowed by the sound of leaves rustling in the night breeze. Soldiers remained tensely in position, waiting for new ambushers to show themselves.
A soldier fell back to wrap a bandage around the Captain’s bleeding leg. “Code C3,” she gasped as the bandage was tightened. “Definite impairment of reaction speed and coordination.”
“I have a feeling I know which Ring this is,” Graham said darkly. He moved over to one of the dead and lifted their arm to examine their hand. “Yes. It’s the Red Ring.” He raised his head and shouted into the dark, “Louis! Stop immediately! You’ve made a terrible error in siding with such monsters.”
The response echoed back through the trees. A hearty laugh. Other voices joined in, all laughing with cruel glee, like vengeful spirits.
I turned to the Captain, feeling sick as I explained, “We’ve run into him before. You’re right, his Shape causes cognitive impairment to everyone in the area. Like everyone is getting drunk.”
“Graham!” Louis’ voice rang out from the shadows. “I should have known it would be you. Siding with monsters, you say? I see you still haven’t learned your lesson. You can’t seem to stay out of my business.”
Graham’s hands tightened into fists. “Your business is hurting thousands.”
“Am I a lost cause to you, Graham? I notice that you’ve stopped trying to talk me out of it.”
“I’ve tried a thousand times before. I’ve wept. I’ve made angry threats. Rational arguments. Nothing gets through to you.” Graham shook his head. “Now it just makes me sad.”
“I see… Well, I have a couple of your other lost causes here with me. Perhaps this is the time to get reacquainted.”
Louis fell silent. The Captain got back to her feet, supported by a soldier and motioned to the squad. We began to move forward cautiously, still en route to the cliff’s edge.
A gunshot flared and a body fell from a tree, screeching. Two more pops and they were silenced.
“They’re all in the trees,” AJ whispered.
Occasionally the Rings would get the jump on a soldier, either by popping out from the tall grass or by shooting at us from a hidden spot in the branches above our heads. But they rarely scored a hit. H.E.S.P. had only lost a few. Trained cool heads prevailing over wild guerilla tactics, even with Louis’ drunkenness Shape making everyone clumsy and less accurate.
“Why are they all hiding in the trees?” Richard asked, fingers clenched and unclenching like he really wanted to grab a printed gun off of one of the bodies.
AJ’s hand clamped down on my arm, his eyes wide. “Something’s coming,” he hissed.
In the moments of quiet, a sound could be heard over the howling wind. Scraping. Branches breaking. Bark being flayed from the trees as they groaned from something passing through.
“It’s big.”
Everyone could hear it now. Heads turned to follow the sound as it intensified. A cacophony of crashes and snaps as wood gave way to something large and fast. A soldier cried out as a blur thrashed through the trees and snatched them up. They were dragged off into the darkness, their cries fading away. More laughter came from the trees, some of them even mocking the soldier’s scream.
“What the fuck was that,” Terry breathed.
Graham’s face was pale. “No… It can’t be,” he mumbled.
A loud thunk drew my attention from where the soldier had been taken. It was a far heavier sound than the crack of a gun. My skin went cold. An operative had been skewered onto a tree by a long piece of rebar. It quivered from the impact.
“Flank!” the Captain roared. More Rings hung down from the trees, gunfire erupting in bright flashes like cameramen ambushing a celebrity.
Graham took a step toward the direction the projectile had come from. “Oh… Rami. Emily.”
“No!” The Captain shouted over the sounds of engagement, sweat beading on her face. “You will stay here.”
Terry appeared at her shoulder. “Leave the sniper to us, Captain. You have your hands full here. We must work together.”
“No,” she said stubbornly. “Follow my orders.”
Everyone ducked as a bullet whizzed over our heads.
“We’re a distraction you can’t afford right now,” Terry explained calmly. “Remember your objective. Focus on the battle in front of you.”
The Captain turned away and began to shout orders at the soldiers.
I moved to Graham’s side. His focus was on the dark forest.
“It’s Emily,” he explained. “Dice made her an Aberrant all those years ago. I thought she had vanished…”
“That explains why they’re keeping to the trees. I’ll clear the way,” I said.
He nodded. “I’m sorry.”
I didn’t know how to respond, so I just Shaped Locust Legs and sprung high, leaping over the treetops for a moment. Gunfire flashed from below the leafy canopy like lights beneath water. Branches rushed up to catch my fall. Movement gave away the location of a Ring hiding in the tree across from me. The man didn’t see me, his focus was downwards, where my friends were approaching. I launched myself at him, the tree creaking as I kicked off it. The man barely made a sound as I hit him, wrapping my arms around him. The momentum carried us both out of the tree and I crashed down to the ground on top.
He gasped and I rolled forward. Two more Rings rose out of the grass, guns raised at me. I tried to get to cover and stumbled, my movements feeling sluggish.
“Shoot yourself,” Terry’s raspy second voice commanded.
For a split second, reason left my brain and I lunged for the gun of one of the men. The gun jerked in his hands as he pointed it at his face and fired. The other Ring did the same, shooting himself in the leg. I stood in shock for a moment, processing what had just happened.
“You bastard,” Richard grumbled as the group approached me. “If I still had my gun I could’ve shot myself.”
“I took that into account,” Terry said blithely, massaging his neck where his lipless mouth lay exposed to the open air.
I shook my head and surged forward again. I leapt a few times before I saw any more Rings. These ones were just sitting in a circle, talking. Without pause, I dropped into their midst and stabbed them with branches. Like before, I pumped datura that I’d created through hollow branches, giving the Rings a piece of my mind. With it came memories of fear and they reacted, reeling backwards from the vivid visions. I knocked away their weapons, making sure they wouldn’t find them once they recovered.
Was I losing memories by “giving” them to other people? It didn’t feel like it. If anything, those memories were crystal clear at the front of my mind. The Cathrow slaughter, my father’s doomed eyes, the feeling of losing track of Nell in that subway station.
My hands shook as I continued onwards. I had gained some distance on the rest of the crew. Was I still heading in the right direction? I paused for a moment, waiting. Another deadly spear whistled through the forest. I was close.
I launched myself skyward again, spying movement through a gap in the trees. Landing nearby in a fork of branches, I scanned the darkness. There. A shadow moved. Someone muttered something. A powerful whoosh of air as the spear was loosed in the direction I’d come from.
I slid down the tree and crept close. The voice was louder now.
“I don’t like this… I don’t like this. It’s terrifying,” the voice mewled in incomplete sentences.”
Another voice replied. “Hit. Wind pattern shifted. Wait. We’re safe.” From behind a tree in front of me, a long black arm reached out and grabbed another rebar from a pile that rested on the ground.
“I don’t feel safe,” the first voice replied.
I slowly moved around the tree.
A young man lay on the ground, covering his face. Out of his bare skin, a torso grew, charcoal black. It had no legs, instead it seemed to simply emerge from the man’s lower back. It had arms far too long to be proportional, with shoulder blades that arched far above its strange triangular head. It reared back, arm audibly creaking with inner tension. Then the thing threw. I heard the snap as the Shape became a blur for a split second. The rebar was gone, sent impossibly fast and accurate through the trees.
The man uncovered his eyes and raised his head. He wore a turban and the cloth was frayed and dirty. “Did you hit the bad men, Braveman?”
To my shock, the Shape replied, a mouth splitting its head. “Hit. We’re safe.” I felt a chill as I realized that the Shape seemed to be thinking for itself, independent of its owner.
Then the man turned his head and he spotted me, eyes going wide.
“Help! Braveman!”
An arm shot out lightning fast. The forest tilted and I was too slow to get my balance. Long sinewy fingers locked around my throat and squeezed. I felt a crunch as the armour around my neck gave out. Sharp fragments of bone cut into my neck as the thing tightened its grip and raised me off the ground.
The Shape’s face turned slowly to look at me. Tiny white eyes jittered on an otherwise featureless plane. It spoke haltingly, with no inflection, “Surprise. Enemy. Kill. Keep us safe.”