Dodging behind a dumpster, freshly polished, I spy Jonathan as a few hover lights zip past his body. He's limp, the soles of his sneakers scraping across the asphalt as two Accostas drag him by the arms. Eyes closed, his head lulls, hair falling in front of his face concealing the dot he has attached to his temple. Thankfully, it doesn't look as though the El Accosta have spotted it.
Marava grits her teeth and sounds like she's chewing on rocks.
"If you're any louder, you'll alert them of our presence."
She whips her head around and snarls, but she doesn't speak. Her gaze falls back onto Jonathan and the El Accosta that have him hostage. One of her nails digs further into my flesh.
"You're doing that on purpose," I say as I yank my arm away.
She doesn't relent and instead grips me tighter. Having taken a beating in the explosion, I don't have it in me to fend her off so I let myself fall into her. The sudden thud of my head against her shoulder causes her eyes to burst open.
Pushing me away from her, and straightening her top, Marava says, "You can't walk on your own."
She's not wrong, but everything inside me screams at me to argue the fact. Grimacing, I say, "I don't need your sympathy."
She snorts, the corner of her lip curling upward. "Trust me, I've got no sympathy for you. But," she nods at the tattered remains of my splint. "You'll slow me down if I let you hobble on your own."
I shrug. "Could just leave me behind."
The smile fades from Marava's face, "Jonathan wouldn't approve." She peers out from around the corner, scraping her nails over the house's siding. "He likes you," she grumbles. I blink. "So what's this plan of yours?"
I fumble for words, but eventually I manage to force a sentence from my mouth."The comm."
I reach up, press the smooth, breathable plastic clinging to the flesh behind my ear, Marava watching intently. "Jonathan, you need to hold your breath." Marava's arms cross over her chest. Her eyes narrow and in her expression I can see her estimating the amount of effort she would need to expend to rip me in two. I exhale. I didn't like this either. "Those Blackhole bags monitor respiration so hold your breath, alright?" I continue. "If you can manage long enough, the sensor will register respiratory failure. Slump over, make the El Accostas stop."
Marava arcs an eyebrow as my finger falls away from the comm."He could die."
I nod. "And he will die if we don't do something. That much is guaranteed."
She growls. "So, what'll we do?"
Picking up a nearby rock, I shove it into her hand. "We'll do what we can and try not to get killed." Her fingers wrap around the rock as she nods.
We wait. There's nothing to do but wait and in that time that stretches out before us like unwanted eternity, I wonder if Jonathan had even heard me. If, at some point, his comm had fallen off his temple? If an El Accosta had seen it, ripped it off and crunched it beneath his foot? Could my voice really carry across the chasm that separates us?
Marava's attention is focused on the rock clutched in her hand. She runs a finger over a groove in its gray surface, then tosses it in the air. It slaps back into her palm and she does this a second time, a third. Her brow furrows.
Finally, it happens. Jonathan falls forward, his body slamming onto the concrete. The Blackhole bag releases a frantic series of beeps. The El Accosta look from one to another. Jonathan writhes on the ground and I have to physically pull Marava forward. She blinks at me.
"We're up," I say.
She nods and we make our way behind the El Accosta so we can approach unseen.
"What's going on?" one of them says.
"Respiratory failure," says another.
Cradled in his hand is the control for the Blackhole bag. He looks down at Jonathan and frowns. There's a click as he presses a button and the cord around Jonathan's neck loosens.
"Now!" I yell.
Jonathan lunges toward the El Accosta, knocking him onto his back, the Blackhole controller flying across the concrete. The El Accosta goes for his gun, but Jonathan's too quick. He knocks it out of the guy's reach and lobs a right hook into the guy's face. He falls back unconscious.
I scramble toward the gun, but just as my fingers graze the grip, someone's pulling me away by my hair. I twist in my struggle to get free.
"Oh no you don't!" a voice hisses. "Stupid bitch!" He snarls, but then the tension from his grip loosens and something slumps on the ground. I turn over and see Marava standing over him, the rock trembling in her hand. Blood splatters its surface. She tosses it as the shock of what she's done wears off and makes for Jonathan's side, brushing strands of hair out of his eyes.
"You okay?" Her fingers graze a bruise along his jawline.
He flinches but manages s smile. "I'm fine." His voice is gravelly, strained. "Thanks to you guys."
He looks toward me, smiles, but a second later, his smile fades. His eyes widen. "Ten!" His arm shoots into the air, finger pointed behind me. "Watch out!"
I whip around, see the El Accosta gun aimed. I grab the gun beside me, and without thinking, fire. A bullet screams through the air, and the El Accosta falls back, his mouth pulled into a grimace. Blood pours out of a wound in his arm. I struggle to my feet, make my way over to him, kick the gun out of his hand.
Looming over him, I can't help but notice how young he is. Fourteen, maybe fifteen. The same patchy peach fuzz that graces Sam's face, graces his. Brown eyes fill with tears. He twists on the ground, his hand struggling to stop the bleeding.
"Ple-please." Spit dribbles down his chin. I aim the gun, cock back the hammer. "Please don't kill me. I-I won't tell them anything." He raises his arms up, flailing them in front of his body.
"But you'll tell them everything," I say. The night around the Codas table, when Della had the Sunshine Vitamins, comes to mind. Did the El Accosta have the pills, too? Did they know the trigger? Would they use the drug to pry tight lips loose? "They'll kill you if you don't," I finish.
A pained yelp escapes his lips and he winces. He shakes his head which causes greasy strands of straw colored hair to fall in front of his eyes. "I won't. Please--"
"Ten." Jonathan's voice cuts through the tension. "Let's just leave."
I stand my ground. Gun aimed. Fingers trembling. The boy looks up at me, eyes pleading with me to just go.
"Would you have shot me?"
The boy's eyes widen. "Wh-what?"
"Would you have shot me? If I hadn't shot you first, would you have pulled the trigger?" I gesture to the gun a few feet away. A sob escapes the boy's throat. Slowly, he bows his head.
"It's different," I say. "Saying you'll kill someone and actually killing them."
The boy screams. Him or us."Please! I wasn't! I wasn't--"
As my finger tightens around the trigger, I realize the choice had already been made, cruel as it was. Snot bubbles from the boy's nostrils as he continues to cry, to writhe, scream and struggle on the ground, plead with his god, blood running over his quaking fingers.
I pull the trigger.
...
The corpse, because that is what I've made this boy, falls to the ground. Blood dribbles down his chin, and if it'd been drool and his eyes hadn't been frozen open with that persistent gaze of terror, he could have passed for sleeping. A boy his age should have been sleeping. In this day and age though, there's no time to think what could have been. It's only what is and what needs doing.
With that in mind, I start to strip the body. Marava's hand constricts around my arm. "What are you doing?"
I yank free. Lift the boy's shirt over his head, careful not to touch the fabric to his lips and smear the uniform with blood. Believability would be key.
Even though it wouldn't appear on the black uniform, guards stationed at the chip ports might be able to smell it and the scans would surely pick up on it. Now more than ever, we needed to be careful.
My fingers undo the boy's belt buckle. Marava asks her question again, this time though she's blushing and it reminds me of a blistering copper kettle, kept over the fire until the bottom gleamed red-hot.
I toss the pants and shirt over my shoulder. Marava fumbles to catch them in her arms. Uncaring of the speculation in her eyes - that I've become more of a mad person than she'd already taken me for - I move to the next El Accosta and begin undressing him.
"Put that on," I say, as I tug one of the man's beefy arms free of the sleeve. "We don't have much time."
Jonathan's hand lands on my shoulder. "Ten, are you--"
"If you're recovered enough to provide unwanted commentary, then you can start on that one." I point at the third body. "We'll all need uniforms."
Marava pushes her head back as the shirt slips over her nose. It sags at the collar and the sleeves hang below her knuckles. we might be able to squeeze past the check points and get out of this sect.
"Tuck the shirt in," I say, and then, tugging at the Accosta's pant leg, I add, "I need you to bring all that Marava-brand confidence to the forefront. Own that outfit."
Jonathan struggles to sit. "What are going on about?"
"We're El Accosta from this point on. We'll pick up Sam and Rima. Pretend they're our hostages," I throw the black longsleeve on over my tee. Standing, I shove my legs into pants three sizes too big. I motion toward Marava. "Get the shoes, too." There's no grimace on her face from being told, by me, what to do. Instead, she's uncharacteristically conformist and quiet. Somewhere in that crazy psyche of hers, it must have clicked how truly screwed we all are.
"And then what?"
"Then we drive through the chip port, hope Izzer is truly as great with fakes as he thinks he is and get back to HQ."
Both Marava and Jonathan's eyes go wide. "You think it'll work?"
I shrug and the chip at the back of my neck shifts. I reach up, graze the corner. "Don't know. But for all Izzer's bravado and self-assuredness," I frown. "And all those hours spent in that chair listening to him hum while he dissected me, it better not be for nothing." I move my fingers from my neck, to behind my ear. Press down on the dot, hold it for three seconds. The comm crackles to life.
While the others get changed, I grab the van keys from the El Accosta and make for the driver's seat. "Te-ten?" a voice cuts through the static. "Ten? Is that you?"
"Rima?" I say, "Rima, is Sam with you? Are you two safe?"
There's a huff on the other end of the comm, and a pause, but eventually I get a response. "Yeah, we're fine. I think they stopped chasing us."
I slump back into the seat. The door opposite me creaks open. Marava, shoulder around Jonathan, helps him into the seat. He's the only one of us who looks suited for the El Accosta all-black fatigues.
"That's great," I grab Jonathan's arm, help pull him in. He winces at my touch, but smiles wearily anyway. "Where are you?"
Silence. "Rima?" More silence. I claw the steering wheel, run my nails along the covering, gouging the leather.
Finally, the comm crackles. "Near Atrius Apartments - Block 2."
I nod and stick the key into the car's ignition. Jonathan clicks his seatbelt into place. He blinks a few times, and shakes his head.
"You okay?"
"I will be. Isn't that the popular saying these days?" He nods at me, bringing attention to the fact I'm more bruises than human being.
Gripping the steering wheel, I flash Jonathan a quick grin. "Sam? Mara? We're on our way. Stay put." I hold the dot down, turn off the comm.
The car pulls forward and I steady my hands on the wheel, positioning the car straight. We inch forward along the single road.
"Turn right," Jonathan calls, his voice distant.
I do as I'm instructed, heading toward Mara and Sam, hoping beyond everything that I've still got enough luck in reserve to call upon. We'd need it.