WnW 6.7

Heeding Tom’s strange advice, I found an exit point, a window that faced the forest whose security shutter had been jammed open by a mop, and slipped outside. Making my way around the side of the university, I contemplated what the next step was.

Pale blue and red flashed against the trees ahead. First responders had arrived. I moved further into the treeline and crouched low before moving around the corner of the building. A pulse from the Tree arrived just in time for me to see paramedics and firefighters cower around the plethora of emergency response vehicles parked in a semi-circle around the front door of the school. Beyond them lay the city sprawling out beneath the Sill.

The dead silence gave me a chill. Nothing about the city skyline gave me any idea of the chaos below, save for a few columns of smoke leaning with the wind. But I bet it wasn’t quiet for those who still had their hearing.

I saw policemen conversing with a professor I didn’t recognize. Firefighters led people out of the building, shouting orders while paramedics tended to those with severe injuries.

I couldn’t imagine what the first responders must be feeling. To them it was as though the city had been dropped into a warzone. No amount of training could prepare you for such a catastrophe.

A large green truck pulled up to the building and soldiers began exiting through the back. I ducked lower. The army was here too. Likely just from the barracks within the city, but no doubt there would be more on their way. Why are there so many first responders here? Shouldn’t they be focusing on the city?

Although I didn’t understand how Tom had known, I understood now why he had warned me not to be seen. At least some of these people would have seen a Cast by now. They may have even gotten specific directions from their superiors on how to deal with the “strange people”. Mac was part of those in the government that knew at least some things about Shapers. But it was impossible to guess how far that knowledge was spread. I eyed the soldiers’ guns. Surely they wouldn’t kill civilians?

A hand settled on my shoulder and I jumped. Richard withdrew his hand and gave me a puzzled look. He kept a finger to his lips and murmured something. Annoyance rose, mostly at myself for being snuck up on. I turned my head and showed him the trail of dried blood running out of my ears. Richard showed concern for a moment before pulling out his phone and wiggling it at me.

I hadn’t received those messages. Our phones weren’t reliable it seemed. I read messages on Richard’s phone:

[ Cops showed up, better hurry. ]

[ I had to hide the car further away. ]

Richard finished typing out another message:

[ Roads are jammed full of people leaving the city. We have to go on foot. ]

I had to hide my frustration. More delays. I nodded and crept through the bush until we were far enough away to stand and start jogging lightly.

Moving down the hill, I saw the freeway out of the city, where cars were packed bumper to bumper. No one was moving. Some people decided to try their luck on foot and exited their cars, leaving immobile obstacles to further aggravate the traffic jam. More than a few fights had broken out and ever so often the Tree would reach out and spark another. People were stressed and full of fear and doubt, they didn’t need much of a push to start seeing the strangers around them as threats.

We passed a woman crouched in the woods, hugging her son close, his leg spasming with something inhuman moving underneath. They both just watched us warily as we went by. 

It took us another ten minutes to reach the city proper.

Shattered glass covered the roads. One man was being pulled away from his burning shop by several others. It was clear the building was too far along to be saved. And not a firefighter in sight. We kept to the alleyways and small roads where we could, staying vigilant for any Ring members. Richard held his gun underneath his jacket as he carefully examined each person that came close to us. Sometimes he would stop for a second, listening to something I couldn’t hear, then he would change our route.

A beeline towards the Old Town would mean going through the entertainment district. I wasn’t keen on seeing Sullivan or his men, but I wasn’t going to afford any more delays. Hopefully they would have their hands full fighting others. 

We crossed a four way intersection and on the other side was a woman leaned up against a wall, smoking a cigarette. She held up a hand to stop us as we tried to pass her. She shook her head and blew out a puff of smoke.

“Not that way,” I read her lips. Her business attire was disheveled and her necktie had been taken and wrapped around a wound on her shoulder. She gestured at the pinstripe tie stained with blood. “Gangs. With guns.”

Then she said something I didn’t parse. When she saw that I didn’t understand, she tried signing it to me. Finally, Richard responded to her in his usual rough way, judging by his expression.

I turned to him and he typed out another message:

[ She says they’re torturing people who have changed. ]

That was bad. Sullivan must have been putting up enough of a fight that the Jiezhi and Fedyaev Rings were targeting anyone who had a Shape. Not all of them would be affiliated with the Gamblers. I nodded my thanks to the woman and moved forwards with caution.

The road ahead was a pedestrian only road, wide and paved with cobbled stone instead of asphalt. Restaurants and tourist shops lined the sides of this venue. The three and four story buildings provided shade from the afternoon sun. Richard stopped me and pointed at a window across from us. A light was on in the fourth story room and a figure was watching the street below.
“I hear them,” Richard mouthed. His face told me all I needed to know. He could hear them torturing somebody.

The Tree pushed at my insides, coiling them up. I nodded and Shaped Locust Legs along with my armour. While we might’ve gotten past without being seen, I didn’t feel like leaving this poor soul to a fate they had little say in. Pouring pressure into my Shape, I braced myself against the raised step of a restaurant entrance. My focus narrowed until I only had the figure in the window in my sight.

I released and shot into the air.

It only took a moment for me to be close enough to see the fear in the man’s eyes. Half a moment more and I had sailed through the open window, landing my knees into the man’s chest, taking him down to the ground, his head slamming forcefully into the mosaic tile floor. His body went limp and his gun spun out of his hand and slid between the legs of a chair.

There were four other people standing in the room who followed the sliding gun with their heads. They all looked like they had been in a fight, cuts and bruises lining their faces and arms. Between them all a girl was tied to a chair. She had packing tape wrapped around her bowed head and blood dripped from her chin, staining her jeans.

I wasted no time, rolling forward then lancing out with crackling bone. The branches sunk into the shoulder of the man closest to me. I had an inkling of what I had done to Alek at the university. Push instead of pull. Liquid pumped through the branches into the man. I sent something with it: a feeling, a memory. The man’s eyes bulged as I dashed past him, breaking off the contact, leaving the broken branches with hollow cores, the ends dripping with datura. The others swung at me with crowbars, bats, and knives already bloodied from being used on their captive.

Their tools beat against my armour. I whirled in place, tearing flesh and pouring fear into them. I caught a glimpse of the first man I’d injected screaming and running away, passing guns that were leaned against the far wall. Catching the wrist and upper arm of one man, I flung him into his fleeing friend. They crashed into each other and wrestled to be the first to reach the exit.

A bat crunched into my side. I ignored it and erupted small sharp antlers from my back as I struck a woman with Ring tattoos in front of me with my gauntleted fist. She spun, blood following in a stream from her nose.

I turned to see that the man behind me was staggering back with porcupine-like spines in his arms.

Where was the last one? I turned further and saw that the last one was by the guns. He leveled one at me, shaking hard. The gun had an odd finish that made it sheen strangely in the restaurant’s dim lighting. A printed gun. A crack followed that was loud enough that I could actually hear it. My arm jerked from the impact almost before I heard it. The pain was immediate and that told me that it had glanced off and not pierced me.

The other Ring members ran, following their peers through the open doorway.

Another crack and this time I felt nothing, no pain, no impact. A miss. The man lost his nerve entirely, the fear making the gun slip from his fingers. He stumbled as he ran after his allies.

I halted my advance and breathed out, thankful that they hadn’t been keen on fighting me to the end. My attention shifted to the person in the chair. She was in rough shape. There were cuts along her legs and bruises already turning a sallow colour on her neck and face. Her head remained hung as I undid the ropes that held her to the chair and then removed the tape that had been wrapped around her face. I tilted her head upward to examine it. Her eyes fluttered, perhaps not yet unconscious from the pain.

“Stay awake,” I said with an empty voice. I glanced at the man I had knocked unconscious against the tile floor. Was it safe to leave her here?

I did a double take. The man on the floor had lacerations on his face that I didn’t remember giving him. And hadn’t the others also had cuts? I looked back at the woman just as the Tree shook the building with a particularly strong wave.

The woman’s eyes fluttered open, already filled with rage.

I absorbed my helmet to show my face.

“Hey, I’m not with those guys. I’m-”

Pain sliced across the corner of my mouth and I immediately tasted metallic blood. I staggered back, looking for the source of the attack. The woman hadn’t moved, she only looked at me with intense anger.

My cheek split open near my eye, the cut stinging me into squinting. It had only been a blur but I had seen it. The woman had small tendrils hanging from her earlobes, hidden by her hair. I reShaped my helmet just as another strike cut into the antler. I spun around and ran. Another cut bit into my heel, cutting straight through the armour. I stumbled and threw myself through the doorway.

I fell, hitting the stairs on the other side with my shoulder, bouncing and rolling down to a landing where my momentum was stopped by the passed out body of one of the Ring members. Groaning, I pushed myself off of the man.

There were ornate patterns of eastern dragons on the railings and a lightless chandelier hanging above that was designed to look like a paper lantern. The landing below mine was dark and bits of glass from a broken fluorescent bulb glimmered in the shadows. I made my way down the stairs, wanting to put some distance between me and the Cast in case she decided to give chase.

The Tree had made the woman lash out without thinking. Did it affect her more as a Cast? Concern for Kay and Tom rose to the top of my mind, but then I was distracted by another of the Ring members collapsed on the next landing. My stomach clenched. Had I given them too much datura? I leaned down to check her pulse and my fingers brushed something sticking out of her neck. A thin needle made of metal.

A chill descended over me.

I stood and quickly descended the last set of stairs while agonizing over not knowing how much noise I was making.

On the third floor, the restaurant was more open and tables with hexagonal tops were placed around the space with the staircase serving as a central pillar. The lights were out and the closed blinds let in only a sliver of sunlight through the bottom. I crept forward and almost tripped over the third Ring member’s body.

I paused to let my eyes adjust to the dark. The last Ring member’s body lay a short distance away. The blackness slowly melted into different shades and I saw a person kneeling on top of the body, their matte black gun aimed at me. Their clothing was clearly designed to blend into the shadows and there wasn’t an inch of skin showing past the straps and armour padding. Military gear glinted at the person’s belt and their face was shrouded by a gasmask and tinted goggles.

Another silent figure was a short distance away, aiming at me from their position laying underneath a table. Another moved out from behind the bar. Two more were at the corners of the room. I was certain there were more behind me. The group watched silently, their movements coordinated and efficient.

A team of reapers to push back against the chaos.