"Jessica!" Babel called.
A droning ring tore through her blurred vision as she pressed the ground. Despair and the boom of an engine were one. Despair had an agent. Despair's white hero entered the top floor from an incinerated entry point. Malvis advanced by leaps and bounds.
David anxiously crawled out of the mad Azarean's path. But the red glare in the alien's embattled and scarred mug vied for Jessica.
She looked down, noticed a piece of glass wedged in her abdomen, and felt her strength waiver. Malvis nearly reached her when Raptor stepped in. The Lieutenant paved his approach with several shots from his handgun. Jess used that time to pull the glass out, biting her lip and inwardly screeching for the sharp pain. It took everything to remove the edge from flesh.
Effectively stalled, Malvis slammed the pistol out of Raptor's grip and lunged. Raptor accepted the blow to his cheek and reprised the strike with a furious jab. Malvis parried, and the ensuing blow-for-blow exchange passed in a cruel instant.
Sheer determination kept Raptor in the fight and Malvis at bay as they traded fists to the chorus of the city breeze, but Malvis had a defined knowledge of martial arts. He was quick, agile, and automatic; in the middle of his maneuvers, Raptor still managed one good punch. Jessica heard but failed to notice the fight until Raptor hit the ground, unconscious, while Malvis clenched his own abdomen.
The agent panted, his hand revealing blood.
Denied reprieve, Malvis dodged a flying knife. The knife heralded Beelz, who advanced with a kick to his wound. With a groan, the Azarean shoved her back. Beelz closed her fists and assumed a fighting stance almost as tense as her glare. Hatred festered in those eyes, dedicated to the alien before them.
Malvis seemed familiar with that look, slumping into a similar stance as the commander of Dissent spoke.
"I would kill you again and again for all the days Amon and I suffered."
"You deny the hand of your maker over pettiness," spat Malvis. "The trait of a devolved species. A shame we could not remove certain inhibitions."
"I'll remove you before I burn this place to the ground." She lunged.
Jessica was on auto-pilot, crawling. Crawling her way to the terminal, past the pain in her fresh cut, she struggled for focus over the chaos. Reaching out, her fingers fell on the cusp of the Goliath node, but the overbearing fatigue—the disorientation and the fear—at long last toppled. She collapsed.
"Come on, Jess," Babel urged.
Her eyes closed to a slit, and the world went dark.
"Jessica..."
...
"Yessica..."
Why do I hear your voice?
"Yess."
It's all flashes. Like a dream at the speed of light, I see him.
I'm sitting on his lap, in his office. He's reading Nietzsche out loud. I can see the Rubik's cube, an R2-D2 bin, a Viola vase, and the brace he's been working on. Babel... I turn around. Dad's smiling.
"Jessica..."
I can hear mom. See her reading on the patio. Black hair falls, and a vanilla scent surrounds her sundress. I used to think she couldn't see me, understand why I subbed tees for everything sequined. Yet, like now, her smile accepted me.
In the end, I'm in their arms, happy they're still alive.
Jessica's hand shot up, crutching her to the final goal. She reached for the nexus node and found the giant Azarean gunship above the toppled ceiling. The beak and the arsenal of its wings opposed her direct line of sight. She grabbed the ornate pistol in stasis above the node, David's discovery. With nothing to lose, she gripped the weapon, aimed at the flying behemoth, and pulled the trigger.
Silence.
Light evaporated above the ship's cockpit. It was instantaneous, visceral, and devastating. Time and space warped around a focal point and the light of the world twisted indescribably. That point in time-space manipulation—in a split second—bent the top of the gunship and imploded. The engines squealed, it lost control, and the mechanical dragon nosedived under the ledge a smoking husk.
Pure awe boiled every theory in Jessica's head as she gawked at the sleek pistol in her hand. Before hearing the ship crash, she mustered the energy in her legs. On the other side of the node, surprisingly, Beelz kept Malvis at bay. Their brutal dance of martial prowess would have staggered anyone else, but, holding her hip, Jessica crept to where she left off. Over the hologram interface, however, hope collapsed.
"I'm locked out..." Her heart nearly wrenched out of her chest; her hands hysterically trembled over the controls. "I'm locked out! I'm locked out!" She slammed her fists on the hologram. "Dammit!" Again, her fingernails hyper-actively ticked the keys before the large neon words mocked her. ACCESS DENIED. She tried again and again then again, persisting until the fight on the other side stopped.
Beelz had lost, stricken, face bleeding on the ground.
Nothing stood between Goliath's agent and Jessica, except for pain and fatigue. When the stubborn Azarean set his red eyes on her, he brandished a small syrette in the palm of his hand then crushed it into pieces. His bruised jaw malignantly aligned into a seething, toothy grin. He was unhinged.
"Options, Babel?
Malvis advanced.
"Unshackle me!" Babel said.
"Never!" She kicked off the ground and flew.
Too late, Malvis caught her pants mid-air.
"Reverse polarity." She shot back down, and her boots stomped the alien into the floor. Strewn on his back and staring daggers, Malvis extended his blade, and the yellow heat highlighted his teeth. He sliced as soon as Jessica pushed off his chest and into the air. The searing edge cut across her protective vest and snapped it off altogether.
Malvis jumped to his feet, waving the blade. Staring him down, Jessica put on a set of earbuds. The alien was visibly puzzled until a loud wail made him fiercely strike his ears. The sharp screech drowned out every other noise. Not until he looked back did the agent noticed a grenade bouncing wall to wall. Thus, he painstakingly inched toward Beelz, who was watching from the ground.
Jessica dropped to the floor and triggered her Vambrace. "Come on, come on, come on!"
The screech ended when Malvis split the mid-air grenade in two, freeing himself from the audio plague. Beelz had fainted by then, so Malvis returned his dreaded gaze to Jessica, who remained glued to her brace. She couldn't type any faster.
Slammed against the node, she felt cold, sweaty hands wrap around her neck and shoulder. Her opponent's teeth, scars, and bitterness lay an inch's length from her pupils. The next words spilled corrosively from his pasty mouth.
"Goliath will remedy itself, but you are a threat to Azarea, that I will end here and now. I will save your brain for study, to fulfill a role beyond a rebel pawn."
Jessica peered directly into his eyes. "I'm the Queen," she corrected.
Malvis shut his eyes, arched his back, yelped and writhed in pain. Dropping Jessica to her feet, he reached around and revealed a knife in his back. Behind him stood David with a stupefied look.
"David!" Jessica jumped on Malvis, unbalancing the agent. Her enemy reached around, desperate to pull her off, but Jessica clung with all her strength. Boldly, unthinking, she went so far as to bite down on his pointy ear.
"Aahhhhh!"
She couldn't explain that feeling or that soppy taste. She simply bit down. Hard.
The alien retracted his blade, quivering but with the leverage to pull her off. He grabbed Jessica with both hands and flung her on her back. The slam expelled a heavy breath from her lungs, leaving her helpless as Malvis stomped above, blade at the ready. One glance. Fear became her.
Bang.
Jessica lay on her elbows, quaking from the inside out, and stared with bated breath as the alien felt the bullet hole in his chest. Malvis towered above, the white of his coat blocking her field of view. Pink blood dripped onto the tip of his finger, and he lifted a single drop to his eyes. Then he twisted, allowing Jessica to see David holding Raptor's pistol, just meters away.
David's stiff lip and glistening eyes shot concentrated cold. In return, at long last, Malvis betrayed an awful look of emotional shock. That shock inconspicuously and quietly submitted to fury. The alien closed his fist.
"XYNOCEPHLES!"
Jessica recalled her Vambrace.
1,001...
The alien charged David, screaming.
1,002...
David discharged one, two, three shots.
1,003...
Malvis collapsed, the soles of his feet on the ground as he awkwardly landed face first.
Jessica rose to her feet, stifled by a weak pulse, but she still made it to David's side. Crouching beside him, helplessness defined his faded eyes. He sat stiffly against the node, a bead of blood running down his lower lip. He was tired, convulsing from the pain. And Malvis, though he lay still, held the tip of his blade in David's chest.
I fucked up.
"I'm gonna get you out of here, David. I'm gonna—I'm gonna—"
He coughed, struggling to breathe.