Standoff

Ken ascended the final step to the roof. His lungs were ablaze, each breath bubbling in his throat. The loss of his foot having immobilized him for upwards of two months, combined with dragging himself up some twenty flights of stairs, left him gasping for a brief time, doubled over from the discomfort.

Finally, though, he collected himself.

He placed his hand on the pistol at his hip, and pushed open the door to the roof as quietly as he could.

Wind pressed back against it, but it gave with some effort, swinging wide. A bang rang out from it as it slammed against the wall.

Across the roof crouched a figure in a dark cloak, leaned over an unconscious Irina. The person from the video. That same lithe figure from the hidden lab. Her head turned at the sound of the door, revealing that featureless, swirling mask, poking out from beneath their cowl.

The wind howled in Ken’s ears. He leaned on his crutch, idle hand still resting on his gun. His heart pounded in his ears, and his mouth tasted of dust and metal.

“You,” they said, their voice distorted. Its timbre shook him, resonating deep inside even over the wind. They stepped toward him, turning around completely. “You should leave.”

Irina sat behind them, now tightly bound to a plastic chair.

Ken scoffed. “Right.” He pulled the pistol from his waist and raised it, pointing the end at his target. He reached his other hand up from his crutch, grabbing hold of it with both hands. “I’ll give you one chance. Back away.”

“I cannot do that, I’m afraid.”

“Who the hell are you?” Ken asked.

They didn’t respond. The wind lulled. The door behind him hissed shut, clicking as it latched back into place.

“Answer me!” Ken thrust the gun forward, reminding them of his advantage.

They lazily raised their hands. “You don’t need to know that.”

“Then back away, or else.”

“Or else you’ll kill me? We both know you haven’t the spine, Doctor.”

“Oh, I don’t, huh?” He slid his finger to the trigger.

“You were warned not to get involved. This is what happens.”

“You’re insane!”

“No, I’m a realist. Your ‘research’ moved up the window by seven days. Who was going to hold you accountable for that?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You wouldn’t understand. If only you’d heeded the warning, neither you nor I would be here now.”

“Yeah, right. This isn’t my fucking fault!”

“No… you’re right. This woman caused all this. She took my family from me. It’s hers.” She swung a closed fist at Irina’s unconscious face.

With a grimace, he squeezed the trigger.

The air cracked. A bullet streaked out across the rooftop, echoing off the surrounding buildings. The gun kicked against his arms, sending him reeling into a kneel, driving his knee hard onto the concrete rooftop. Pain streaked up his leg from his knee and missing foot and his face set to a grimace.

He looked up.

The figure’s head was thrown back and the cloak fell from their shoulders, revealing that same lithe, toned body. They reeled toward the edge of the tower.

Ken smirked.

Their heel made contact with the ledge, and they began to fall over it. Ken struggled to stand.

But as he watched, their body went rigid, and with a stomp, they pulled their head back down. In the front of their mask, aligned with their eye, was a hole. But the flesh behind it was intact.

Ken dropped to a kneel again, readying to fire at a different part of the body.

His adversary’s hand shot into the air. A small, reflective piece of metal was held in it. Ken froze.

“What is that?” he asked.

“If I am made to release this button, you will all die, do you understand?” Now, through the broken mask, Ken could hear their voice more clearly—almost certainly a young woman’s. It was layered among the distortion, but it was there. He couldn’t place it, but…

He shook his head. “Bullshit!” he called, clutching the pistol tight in his hands. A deep tremble shook his fingers, his index hovering over the trigger. But it did not squeeze. It just remained there, suspended in air.

Slowly, they started to move, sliding back over to Irina. Ken’s pistol tracked them all the while.

His eyes flicked to the side, looking at Irina. A fresh stream of red blood trickled from her head, dripping onto the ground beneath her lolled-back head.

Her eyes fluttered open. Her head rolled forward, and she blinked the daze from her eyes. “Ken?” she mouthed, seeing him.

She turned, seeing the figure standing behind her. Ken saw her eyes light up, shooting wide. She struggled against the ropes that bound her, a grimace on her face.

“Irina!” Ken called.

“Stop struggling, stupid bitch,” spat the one in the mask. “Or I’ll tighten your bonds.”

But Irina didn’t heed the warning. She shuffled forward on the chair, sliding it across the coarse ground. It moved in small hops across the concrete.

The chair skittered backward, nearly toppling over. The masked figure stood just behind, dragging it back with inhuman ease.

Irina jerked back her head. It struck the mask—hard. Irina winced, but began hopping forward again.

The masked woman cried out distortedly, reeling back. “I keep trying to do this quietly, courteously! But you all just keep fucking everything up!”

Ken felt a familiar sensation against his skin. The air trembled. Lightly at first.

Then the air started bending the light; refracting it; breaking it.

He snarled, and fired another round. It whizzed out of the barrel, striking the masked woman’s arm with a near-silent pop. She reeled back, dropping the silvery device from her hand. It clattered to the ground near a large machine a few feet from her.

She dropped to a knee, clutching her arm—

The door to his right burst open, and May came charging through, sliding to a halt. Alice followed, standing behind her sister.

“Dad! What’s happening?”

Irina was still hopping toward them, moving a few inches a second.

“We’ve gotta get Irina out of here!”

The masked woman stood, dropping her hand from where it had rested by her face as she cradled her damaged arm. She moved a few paces toward the device.

“Hey!” Alice cried. “You’re that weird lady! From Opal Tower!”

At the words, her masked face whipped to look at them. Her gaze paused on May, and Ken saw her eye go wide through the hole in the mask. “May…” she muttered, somehow audible over the distortion.

What? Ken thought. But there was no time for that now.

“Bianca?” May cried. “What are you doing? What’s going on?”

“May...? I thought you were dead.”

“What the hell is happening, Bianca? What happened that day? Why did you run?”

Instead of replying, the masked woman blinked, tearing away her gaze and lunging for the silver device. But with another crack, a bullet ricocheted off the concrete floor just next to it. She jumped away, landing near the ledge.

Ken’s eyes flicked to his daughters. Each covered their hands with their ears, the sound of his gun still piercing through even the distorted, otherworldly air. He turned back to the woman—

She’d disappeared. And her cloak, too. Her mask teetered on the ledge, abandoned.

Ken didn’t miss the opportunity: gun still in hand, he hopped over and began untying Irina. May ran over too, sliding in beside her on her knees.

Irina’s head still bled. It seemed like the vibration from being inside an extirpation was disturbing it, not allowing it to close.

At last, they got all of her restraints off. Ken and May pulled her to her feet. She was shaky, and still groggy, but with their help, all of them walking together, they moved toward the door.

“Alice!” May called back. “What are you doing? Come on!”

Ken whirled around, nearly dropping Irina. Alice crouched down, knees pulled to her chest and her head turned down. She just… sat there, unmoving.

“Alice! Come on! Now!” he screamed.

She jolted, stuffing something in her pocket. “Coming!”

All working together, they made it down the stairs as efficiently as they could given their collective brokenness. Irina’s head still dripped with blood, a drop coalescing and falling from her chin about every third step.

They burst into the lab, falling over each other as the door spun out of the way.

Ken and May hurried across the room, but felt a tug between them: Irina’s hands pushed against them, urging them forward.

“I have to get the data!” she shouted. “It’s too valuable to leave behind!”

“No!” Ken yanked on her clothes, pulling her toward the door.

“I’ll be out just after you!” She thrust some notebooks and her laptop, which he hadn’t even seen her grab off the floor, under his free arm. “Go!”

He groaned in protest, but reluctantly Started hobbling toward the door. May grabbed his shoulder, supporting him. Alice ran up alongside him, taking some of the notebooks from him and running out ahead.

As they passed up the stairs out into the alley beyond, Ken caught a glimpse of Marcel still laying in the deep shadow next to them. His face was blank. Ken couldn’t tell if he was dead or alive.

Outside, the boundary extended well beyond where Ken anticipated. Some thirty feet from the door, the air shimmered and warbled more ferociously than it did near them. That was their goal. Outside the boundary, a contingent of policemen stood, idling.

Ken and his two daughters pressed on.

And together, they emerged from the boundary, feeling like the surface of a pool of water when pulling out one’s hand.

The police received them, but Ken didn’t hear their frantic words. He waved them off, turning back to look into the boundary, waiting.

A moment later, Irina barreled out the door, carrying a box stuffed to the brim with binders and notebooks. She waddled out the door, clearly still disoriented, squinting as her eyes adjusted to the warping daylight.

“Come on!” Ken shouted at her.

She shuffled forward. But Ken had felt the vibrations intensifying. He could see the rainbow colors shifting more violently.

He clenched his jaw, stepping forward to help her. But the policemen's grips on him were iron—they fixed him to the spot.

His eyes met Irina’s.

A bang rang out from a window high above. Shards of glass rained down onto the ground. 

Irina froze.

Ken's eyes shot up, searching for the source. Before long, he saw it: the barrel of a rifle, glinting in the sunlight high above, poking down and out of a broken window. And the man holding it... Ken swore he saw a mask... that same swirling, twisted mask as he'd seen today, and so long before. 

He looked back at Irina. “Come on!” he shouted again, struggling to no avail against the hands that restrained him. 

The box fell from her hands. Her eyes turned down, his following. In the center of her shirt, a patch of red grew downward.

Blood. A gunshot wound. Deep. And big.

Through the boundary, he couldn’t quite see. But… as he stared at her face, he could swear he saw her mouth the words, “I’m sorry.”

The lab, along with the rest of the twenty-story building, disappeared—and Irina with it.