The Queen

Chapter 5: A Queen's Gambit

Sabrina stepped out onto the street and reached back into the cart. She selected the Middle Class Plate button and removed her arm before it got pinched between the doors.Then the temperature hit her. The freezing air filling her lungs with driving shards of icy pain with every breath she took. It dropped her to her knees, causing her to brace her left arm against the ground. Reaching over, her hand shook violently as she flipped through the control screen on her wrist, selecting the internal temperature controls and brushing the growing layer of ice shards off the readout. She twisted the knob next to the screen and watched the temperature readout climb. She felt the water sacks stored in the suit ‘kidneys’ empty and flow through the veins in the suit. Slowly the water heated up and she heard the soft clang that came from the suit's thermal protective facemask. The air in her lungs began to warm, eventually allowing her to pushed herself up from the ground.

Surveying the area around her, she realized just how tricky this would be. Nearly every surface in sight was covered in a layer of thick ice. Icicles – several inches thick -- hung from the roofs and railings like a killers dagger about to take of someone’s head.. Snow drifted down from the sky. Tapping the button to activate the magnets in her boots, she took a confident step forward, losing traction on the ice and throwing her arms out to catch her balance. She steadied herself before taking another step forward, more tentatively, losing her balance again. Crunching sounds swarmed from every side. She whipped around, drawing her pistol, and once again, losing her balance. This time, unable to steady herself, she hit the ground in a flash of pain. Her board fell from her back and went skidding across the ice, out of reach. Before she could react, men in puffy, black jackets and  masks came at her from every side. Two grabbed her by the shoulders as several pointed their weapons at her. They used old, out of commission assault rifles; they were probably the only weapon that could withstand the cold.

They dragged her across the ice as she struggled against them, trying to get traction on the ice. They turned down an alleyway. She began to examine her abductors. Their jackets appeared to be made of multiple layers and large amounts of fur around the face, to stave off the cold. Masks over their mouth and nose and goggles over their eyes protected their faces from frost bite. The masks probably warmed the air before it went into their lungs so they didn’t freeze from the inside out. Metal flashed on the bottom of their boots and they seemed to high step as they ran. She looked to her left to see small holes driven into the ice as the man lifted his feet. She got a count of the men. Three aimed at her, two dragging and one leading; there were five.

She watched as one of them moved off towards a frozen door and drew a hammer off his belt. The crackle of breaking ice filled the alley and then a solid thunk as he threw a lock back. Dragged through a doorway and out of the immediate cold, they dropped her on a hard metal floor. She lay on her back looking up at them, ready to make the best of this situation. She curled her legs into her chest, ready to lash out, and brought her hands up to her face in tight fists.

"Hey boys, looks like we caught ourselves a party," one of the men said. His voice distorted by the mask over his face made it hard to tell which said it.

A boot lashed out at her and she rolled out of the way, flipping over and getting to her feet.  Sabrina grabbed her knife, removing the well oiled blade from the sheath. Brandishing it out in front of her, she dropped into a crouch. The floor here was metal, no ice to be seen and easy to get traction on.

"It seems we've got ourselves a fighter," a man said.

Sabrina swore she could hear a smirk in his tone. She had a job to do and these assholes wouldn't be getting in the way for much longer. A quick glance around alerted her to the weapons. Three had rifles – though they wouldn’t use them in the enclosed metal space unless they wanted to risk ricochets -- one of those three had a baseball bat outfitted with a pair of scissors affixed to the fat end, a second carried a tomahawk, and the third produced a chain which he wrapped around his knuckles. Of the two men without a gun, one carried a pipe and the other simply stood there, his hands shoved in his pockets. She'd leave him for last.