Note: Ava's concern about the reporter possibly having a taser is based on the fact that a powerful electric shock will short out her nanobots, making her vulnerable for a stretch of about two minutes. This is one of the methods that Goodson, her keeper, uses to control her.
I could hear the building dying now, the creaks, groans,
popping and cracking making up its death throes. I focused on the three frightened heartbeats
overhead—if I hesitated now, all of them would stop.
The stairs
were gone, so I scrambled up the walls, gripping whatever handholds were
there. The heat cast stars in front of
my eyes, throbbing through my bones, my chest.
I could smell my flesh burning with my clothes, a heady scent of pain
that twisted my stomach in nausea and starvation.
I paused
for an instant on the second floor landing, both to let my hands heal and to
get my bearings. The little throbs of
life were moving, climbing higher, stumbling through the fire. I heard a pitiful cough, and a brave voice
encouraging the other two. “Come on, there’s some air over here. We’ll be all right, don’t be scared.”
Such
courage twisted my heart. They would be
all right. I would save them no matter
what it took.
Aware that
I was at last doing the right thing for the right reason, I leapt up and
cleared the third floor landing with a somersault over the railing. I was running as soon as I landed, racing
against the fury of destruction all around to save the last victims of it. Following the sounds and the faint scent of
life, I paused, then simply put my shoulder to a wall and heaved.
It gave
easily, showering me with glowing embers.
I straightened and met the eyes of two children, kneeling protectively
beside the third. They were
the only humans—the only living creatures—I’d ever met that were smaller than
me. Their eyes were huge with fear as they stared at me.
Somehow, for a moment I couldn’t speak, couldn’t answer the
questions in those eyes. The difference between us paralyzed me. These innocents
couldn’t understand what I was, couldn’t comprehend that what they feared, I relished
and sought out. I didn’t want to see
their fear, but how could they not be afraid of me, too?
Then the
older boy looked at his brother and smiled.
“See, Mikey?” he said in a voice made rough by the smoke. “I told you they’d come for us.” He looked at me. “Can you get us out of here? My little sister needs a doctor.”
I crossed
the room, ignoring a lash of smoke that blistered my shoulder, and knelt to
touch the girl’s face. She breathed
shallowly, no older than three.
“Of
course,” I murmured. I touched the
younger boy’s face gently, and he smiled, comforted rather than frightened by
my cold skin. “Of course I’ll get you
out of here.”
There was a
roar, and the wall by the door collapsed, startling us all. Under my feet, the floor groaned, beginning
to sink into the room below.
Swiftly I
snatched up the girl, cradling her against my chest with one arm. I lifted the younger boy to my back. “Grab on to my waist and don’t let go!” I
shouted to the third. He did, so quickly
that I was momentarily astonished. Then
a floorboard snapped, the world lurched, and I lunged into the window.
Someone
shrieked as we went through the glass. I
felt sorry that I could not shield the children from the cuts that would not
heal as quickly as mine would. The
smaller boy—Mikey—held on so tightly that my air was nearly cut off, so I
removed the arm that secured him to my back and reached out my hand. It fell around the horizontal flagpole that I
had seen earlier, exactly where I remembered.
I spun around it, ready to drop onto my feet from there.
One of the
children screamed, and the grip around my waist slipped.
I planted
my feet on the flagpole and snatched the falling boy’s wrist. He shouted, but I knew his wrist was not
broken, and I was afraid to loosen my grip.
Small hands slid down my neck, and on my back the child screamed again. I threw my torso forward, stopping his slide
and throwing off my balance. For a
moment I wavered, and the concrete leapt up to my eyes, seeming capable of
destroying even me.
One second
passed, then another, as people screamed and scrambled beneath us. I was twisted into the most precarious
position, my shoulders nearly perpendicular to the ground with a little girl
dangling limply against my chest. My thigh
was crushing my arm against the girl’s warmth; the other foot was braced up
against the building, the brick uncomfortably hot against my ankle. I was bent in half, weighed down by the
swaying child in my hand while his brother scrambled for a better hold on my
back. I couldn’t move at all, afraid to
release the girl, afraid to pull up one boy and lose the other, afraid to fall
and kill all of us. None of us would be
in this position if not for me.
“Mikey,” I
said, just loud enough for him to hear.
“Mikey, you need to climb up and hold on to my neck again.”
“I can’t,”
he sobbed, draped across my lower back and clinging to my waist.
“You
can. Mikey, you must.” My stomach muscles were aching. Soon my legs would begin to shake.
“I want my
mommy.”
“I’ll take
you to your mother. I will, Mikey, I
promise. But you have to climb up to my
back first.”
“You can do
it, Mikey,” his brother called in a strained voice. He held on to my wrist with his free hand and
was trying to keep from swinging at all.
There was a
thick silence below us. All that I could
hear was the roar of the fire and the snuffling sobs of the boy on my
back. The metal flagpole was slowly
getting hotter, beginning to seep through the soles of my boots.
I heard
Mikey take a deep breath. Then he lifted
his feet, digging them into my waist. I
leaned forward as far as I dared, wavering as he scrabbled to get back up to my
shoulders. For a moment, I was afraid
that he would fall. I tossed my head
back, and his hand closed around a clump of my hair. Ignoring the pain, I let him use it to pull
himself up, wrapping his arms around my neck and his legs around my waist.
“Good boy,”
I gasped. I took a breath, but my job
wasn’t near done. I looked down at the
boy hanging from my hand. “Try not to
move, okay?”
He nodded,
biting his lip from the pain in his arms.
Slowly—very
slowly—I began to lift him back towards me.
My muscles trembled dreadfully, but if I let go, he would suffer, and I
would not let that happen. Inch by inch
he rose towards me, his eyes on my face the entire time. I made cautious corrections to my balance and
moved slowly so as not to jar either of the other children.
Suddenly
the boy swung free of my hand, looping an arm around my waist. I instinctively drew back, and just like that
my balance was gone. The crowd below
shouted as we fell.
The impact
snapped both of my kneecaps, and I crumpled to the ground with a cry, trying
not to fall on the children. The boys
rolled free, coughing and crying, but both got to their feet without
trouble. They ran away through the
crowd, calling for their mother above the tumult.
Alone for a
moment, I laid the sleeping girl aside and bent over my injured legs. Broken bones had to be set quickly or they
would heal incorrectly. I had learned
that from experience, which had led to a lesson on how to break my
own bones again.
Fortunately, that desperate measure was not necessary this time.
“There you
are.”
I looked up
through the smoky air to see my fireman friend coming to join me. He knelt beside me and laid a hand on my
shoulder. I was glad that his hand was
gloved—I didn’t want him to pull away from my icy skin.
“Are you
hurt?” he asked. “That was quite a
fall.”
I rubbed my
knees gingerly, grateful for the thick fabric of my pants. There were burnt holes in them now, but at least
he couldn’t see the livid bruises that would quickly fade. “I’m fine,” I told him, picking up the
unconscious child again and pushed to my feet.
“Careful,”
he said, steadying me as I gasped in pain. “You sure you’re all right?”
“Fine,” I
whispered, pressing my forehead against his shoulder and closing my eyes. Ice was still rushing through my legs, and
the swelling was almost gone.
He didn’t
believe me. “Come on,” he said, his grip
tightening on my arm. “You should get checked
out anyway. So much smoke is bad for
anyone.” There was a flicker of doubt in
his voice, as if perhaps I might be excluded from this. But he didn’t ask, and I didn’t offer an
explanation.
As we
walked away from the crumbling building, the adrenaline began to fade, allowing
me to focus on my surroundings. I could
smell the smoky musk of the fireman, saw the nervous glances he gave me over
his quick uncertain smile. The crowd
murmured nearby, and I saw several people craning their necks, trying to get a
glimpse of me. Their eyes made me
twitchy, and I started to look for an escape.
Back to Goodson? Or out into this
terrifying world, which could be deadly even to me? I didn’t know.
“There she
is!”
I flinched,
tensing as a man lunged into my space with a small machine in his hand. My hand tightened into a fist by the little
girl’s shoulder before I realized he was not holding a taser.
“Miss, how
did you accomplish the incredible acts we saw today?” the man asked, pushing
the little machine into my face. I
leaned away, my fingers trembling with the desire to flatten his greasy nose.
“Sir, you
need to stand aside, please, these two need attention,” the fireman said in a
way that showed faint displeasure. He
tried to guide me past the man.
“Just a few
questions, miss, please! What is your
name?”
“Ava,” I
whispered, ducking my head in hopes that he would go away. The fireman put his arm around me and began
to push the invasive man away. But the
skinny man resisted, and now more people were beginning to cluster forward
curiously.
“Ava what?”
the man demanded.
Journalist, I thought suddenly. That’s
the word for this irritating person.
“Fae,” I
answered thoughtlessly, remembering the old stories Kessoli had told me. I closed my eyes and cuddled the quiet little
girl against my chest to stifle the loneliness.
“Make way,
people, come on!”
“Miss Fae,
is the little girl all right?”
I stopped,
shuddering as I realized why the girl was so very quiet. Suddenly I heard the shouting of the mother
that I had been blocking out of my awareness.
She was struggling toward us from one side, the medics from the other,
but both were too late.
I had not
been paying attention—perhaps the child had still been alive when we had
landed. I could have helped her. I should have. For a moment, everything went silent as blood
roared in my ears. I tipped back the
small head to look into the girl’s face.
She was frowning faintly, her eyes closed. I could almost believe that she was having a
bad dream.
Someone
close to me took a ragged breath. I had
never heard a sound of such absolute despair.
When I looked up at the mother, her face was blurred in colored,
quivering light. For an instant I was
frightened; then I blinked and the tears began to fall.
I had not
wept once in my memory. It made my pain
worse to know that this poor mother would hurt more than I ever had. I had caused this pain.
I stepped
forward and placed the small body into the woman’s arms, tears trickling down
my face. “I’m sorry,” I murmured, more
sincerely than I had ever spoken before.
“I’m so sorry.”
She said
nothing, made no sound as she took the child.
Her knees gave out and she fell to the ground, where her sons pressed
against either side of her as she buried her face in her daughter’s neck. I turned away from her stillness, wiping my
eyes with very cold fingers.
“Here, come
on. This way.”
I followed
the voice numbly, not bothering to guess who it was who had hold of my arm. I’d
failed.
“Sit down,
Miss Fae, let’s take a look at you.”
Blinking
through the tears that I couldn’t stop, I looked at the man in the red jacket
who handed me a bottle of water. I
stared down at it blankly as he and his partner began to examine me. The wide-shouldered fireman stood behind
them, a solid wall against the curious crowd.
“Unbelievable,”
the medic muttered, prodding the burned holes in my clothing gently. “You are the luckiest woman in the world.”
I laughed
bitterly, shaking my head so that tears flew to both sides.
“Temperature
is alarmingly low,” the woman told her partner in confusion, her fingers hot on
my wrist. “Shock, maybe?”
“No, I’m
fine,” I said, pushing her hand away.
“It’s just my skin temperature.
It’s normal for me.”
“Hmm.” She poked something under my tongue
anyway. “Hold that between your teeth.”
“Is
everyone out, David?” the male medic asked.
“Every
single one, and not a moment too soon,” the fireman answered. He gestured to me. “Thanks to this lady here.”
I spit the
thermometer into the woman’s hand and wiped my eyes again. “Please, it’s just Ava.”
“Normal,”
the woman proclaimed, squinting at the reading on the thermometer. She shifted her puzzled gaze to me, her eyes
marveling. “I’ll be damned if you aren’t
the healthiest person I’ve ever met.”
“She’s
different. Special.” David smiled encouragingly at me. “And that’s what saved all those people
today.”
“And killed
one.” I wrapped my arms around my
chest. My heart was picking up speed
again, and my fingers twitched against my shoulders. “I did nothing.”
“Nothing? Tell that to the people you saved. Tell that to the mother who still has two of
her children thanks to you.”
“She should
have had them all,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Miss Fae,
from what I’ve seen today, if you couldn’t have saved her, no one else could
have,” David said fervently. “You did
everything you could, and that makes you a heroine.”
“Don’t call
me that!”
I bounded
to my feet and leapt to the top of the ambulance, crouching there away from the
foolishness of the humans. Did none of
them understand?
“I failed!”
I screamed, my tears falling faster, blurring the startled faces that were turned up to
me. “All that came of my actions was
pain and damage! There is nothing good
that I can do, nothing!” I leaned over
the edge of the vehicle, bending the steel under my fingers. “Do you hear?
Noth—”
Had I been
focused, I could have avoided the shot. As
it was, I attempted to twist away, but the bullet ripped through my right
breast, shattering my breastbone and burying itself in my left shoulder
blade. The pain leapt into my mind with
claws extended, hotter and angrier than the real flames. My body spasming, I fell into screaming
darkness and crashed into ice and iron.
Into the
darkness echoed Goodson’s voice, sharp and clear and as loud as a world. “Stand back, ladies and gentlemen! Please, stand away! She is highly unstable!”
“Highly
unstable?” A less familiar voice, filled
with anger. “You’re the one with the
gun! What the hell are you thinking?”
I was lying
on the concrete, my whole body twisted in agony. Ice was tearing through me as the nanos realigned
ligaments and arteries, eating into the hard, cold knot in my back.
“I am
thinking only of your safety, sir. Ava
is powerful and nearly uncontrollable.”
“So this is
a way of controlling her?” David
demanded.
It was
pleasant to have a champion. Kessoli was
never so passionate for my sake. I
turned my head, learning that I now could.
“See for
yourself, sir,” Goodson suggested smugly.
“You are not dealing with an average human.”
I opened my
eyes to meet the gaze of every person within eyeshot. Most of the crowd screamed as I sat up,
grimacing and clutching my flaming chest.
My hand over the disappearing wound, I staggered to my feet, dizzy from
the scent of the blood all down my chest and stomach. I looked up and met David’s eyes. His face was ghastly white as he stared at me
in shock.
“No one
could get up from a wound like that,” I heard the female medic mumble in
frightened amazement.
In her
element, Goodson sauntered forward, tucking the smoking pistol back into her
bag. “Tell them what you are, Ava,” she
ordered me. “Explain what they are
seeing.”
She was
punishing me. I stood for a moment,
learning how to breathe again, wondering if I deserved punishment. I thought of the poor mother’s silent
suffering, of the girl who would never again open her eyes. Yes, probably I should be punished.
Goodson’s
eyes tightened. “Ava?”
I met
David’s eyes, bracing myself. “I am a
metalblood,” I told him tonelessly, holding his astonished gaze. “Chemically enhanced to be stronger, faster,
and more sensitive than humans. I am
equipped with the ability to heal nearly instantly and an altered reaction to
pain. I was created to defend and
protect, to do everything a human cannot or should not do.” I shot a glance at Goodson and deviated from
my script a bit. “To be a mercenary, up
for hire.”
Goodson’s
lips thinned; then she smiled dangerously.
“You see how reckless she can be,” she told the crowd. “Ava is the result of experimental
procedures, and we are still working with her.”
She beckoned, and behind me I heard the clink of chains as Micah stepped
out of the crowd.
David looked
at Goodson. “But she saved all of these
people," he stammered.
“A
beneficial result of her restlessness,” Goodson replied. “Her next actions may not be so
magnanimous. And after all, her control
leaves much to be desired.”
I hung my
head, remembering the fragility of human bones under my fingers. She was right. I put my hands behind my back and felt Micah
twine cold titanium chains around my wrists.
“You can
say what you want.” I looked up to see
David balling his fists, his face determined.
“But whatever she is, whatever you did to her, it doesn’t change what she’s
done.”
Goodson
walked up to me and laid a hand on my head.
“How kind of you to say so,” she said to David. “But I prefer to be realistic.” She pulled my blindfold from her pocket. “We’re going back to the labs now, Ava. Shall we see if you can make it there without
bolting?”
I didn’t
say anything as she covered my eyes again.
Micah nudged me in the back and I walked forward, my back forcibly erect
from the restraints. I could hear the
crowd shrinking away from the macabre sight I must have been, blood-stained and
bound as I was.
Then there
was a touch on my arm. I turned my head
towards David even as the rough cloth of his glove scraped across my skin.
It was a
different pain that twisted through me at that moment, stronger and colder than
any other as it shredded into my heart.
With it came the regular flare of heat, warming my entire body, but it
didn’t fade as quickly as it always had.
“Thank you,” I whispered to him, hoping he heard.
There was
no reply, and I turned my head away.
Staring straight into darkness, I walked through the path created for me
by fear. Then I was shunted into the
car, out of sight of the world once more.
No comments:
Post a Comment