Chapter 7

Both crews exploded into action. Kaji swore and scrambled for the Black Hand vehicle, shoving one of the other members aside in the process.

Kessa pulled Betsy’s side door open and threw herself inside, narrowly avoiding tripping on the coils on the floor. Tensor scrambled into the driver’s seat, fumbling to start the engine. Rina grabbed the closest seat and rushed to strap herself in. Castor swung in with her mechanical arm. Quill dove in last, remaining half-standing as he stared out the van door at the distant form of Sera running for them. The Ministry tank was coming on fast. It’d be on her in moments.

She’s not going to make it, Rina thought in horror.

Betsy roared to life. Tensor dropped the brake.

“Tensor! Drive to Sera! We’ve got to get to her before they do!” She said.

“And put ourselves right on top of the Ministry? Are you crazy?!” He called back.

“Do it, Tensor!” Quill barked, his face grim. Beneath that hard exterior, she could feel his fear and anxiety roiling in his chest.

Tensor cursed loudly and stomped on the gas pedal. The van’s tires screamed in protest as they fought to find purchase. He spun Betsy around and aimed for Sera. The wheels finally found grip, the entire van feeling like it was going to rattle apart from the torque. They rocketed toward Sera, both her and the Ministry tank rapidly growing larger.

“Get alongside and I’ll pull her in!” Castor called out. She reached out of the open door and grabbed the van’s roof with her mechanical arm, hanging most of the rest of her body out of it. Rina stared out of the windshield, watching Sera and the Ministry tank both rapidly grow larger. Her heart felt like it was going to pound out of her chest.

At the last moment, Tensor jerked the wheel. The van leaned into a hard turn. Rina’s stomach flipped as it felt like the entire thing was going to tip over. Castor reached with her free hand. Fingers grabbed fabric. With a forceful full-body tug, she pulled Sera in. Quill caught her and tumbled backward, slamming hard against the other wall of the van. From the glimpse Rina caught through the doorway, the Ministry tank was less than fifty meters away, and closing fast.

“She’s in!” Kessa yelled. “GO GO GO!”

Tensor whipped Betsy back around. As he did, Castor grabbed the cabin door, slamming it shut and tumbling into a heap next to Sera and Quill. They sped for the other entrance.

“Thanks for coming back for me,” Sera said, yelling over the roar of Betsy’s engine.

“Don’t thank us until we’re safe,” Castor said. “That thing can still catch us!”

Rina stared out of the windshield, trying to manage the fear throbbing inside her. To her surprise, the Black Hands had decided to still try for the conversion coils on the ground. Apparently, they were valuable enough that even the immediate risk of Ministry violence was worth trying to leave with them.

Kessa seemed to notice this the same time she did.

“Those swiving idiots! They could’ve been long gone by now!”

Quill leaned forward to glance out the window, then snorted.

“With any luck, the Ministry’ll go for them instead and let us go.”

They flew past the Black Hands. The entrance in the distance grew closer and closer.

We’re gonna make it. We’re gonna make it, Rina kept repeating to herself over and over.

There was a low thump in the distance somewhere behind them. Seconds later, something slammed into the back of the van, causing Tensor to nearly lose control. He cursed loudly.

“That came from the Ministry transport!” He called out.

“What was-” Rina started, before Castor cut her off.

“Stun charge! Get off anything metal! Now!”

Rina picked up her feet and leaned away from the van wall. No sooner had she done so than orange-yellow energy arced through the cabin, crackling and surging off the walls and the coils stacked in the floor. Rina yelped as it arced across the backs of her hands, burning nasty lines in her flesh. The arc reached the cabin where Tensor sat and surged into the van’s dashboard. All at once, the engine and controls died. Tensor swore.

“Hold on!”

The van swerved back and forth as he fought with the unpowered steering wheel, knocking the rest of them around in the back as he tried to retain control. The lot entrance grew closer and closer, even as they rapidly lost speed. They reached it. The van smashed through the side fence of the entrance. A large metal storage container rose up in front of them. Tensor jerked the steering wheel with all of his might at the last moment. Betsy skidded sidelong into the container, smashing to an abrupt halt. Straps kept Rina and Kessa in their seats, but Quill, Castor and Sera were thrown hard around the cabin. Rina saw Sera’s head hit the cabin door. She wasn’t moving. It looked like the impact had knocked her out. That wasn’t the worst of it, though – one of the flying conversion coils had slammed into Kessa’s leg. She screamed. Judging by the unnatural angle of her shin, it’d broken her leg. Badly.

For a brief moment, besides Kessa’s whimpering, everything was eerily silent. The sound of another engine approached rapidly. Then it went silent. Tires screeched. Metal crunched and glass shattered close by as whatever it was came to its own violent stop a short distance away. Quill was the first to the cabin door. He popped the latch and pulled. It didn’t move. Castor pushed him to the side and grabbed the handle with her mechanical arm. With a painful metallic grinding she ripped the door open.

A dozen paces away, the Black Hand van sat smashed against another metal container. A couple members of the crew were already out of it. One was helping remove the others still remained inside. Kaji stumbled out, a thick line of blood running from one temple. He looked both dazed and furious in equal measure. He raised the rifle in his hands and fired at something out of view, causing Rina to flinch and cover her ears.

Quill bent down and checked on Sera. Her eyes were open, which was a good sign. Castor had undone Kessa’s straps and gingerly lifted her out of her chair. The crew exited Betsy. Quill and Sera first, then Castor carrying Kessa, then Tensor. Rina left last, instinctively checking to ensure she still had the stun wand Quill had given her.

The Ministry tank sat about fifteen meters away, parked perpendicular to the entrance route. A dozen Ministry enforcers had deployed makeshift barricades. For the moment, fire from the Black Hands kept them pinned behind cover.

Probably not for long, though, Rina thought.

Once out of the van, Sera stumbled and fell almost immediately. It was clear that her walking was out of the question, much less running. Quill bent down and helped her onto his back. He turned to the rest of them, the look of determination he wore only barely masking the fear Rina could feel pulsing through him.

“Run!”

Behind them, gunfire continued to ring out. Voices yelled. A radio crackled. Someone screamed as a bullet found its mark. Rina’s heart pounded in her ears, her stomach sick. Ahead, perhaps fifty meters away, the side lot emptied into the street. If they just made it there, Rina thought, maybe they’d be safe.

They made it a half dozen paces when lights flashed at the end of the lot. A second Ministry tank rounded the corner into the lot, thundering toward them. Rina’s heart leapt into her throat.

They were trapped.

Quill stumbled to a halt, his head jerking back and forth between the oncoming tank and the gunfight behind them, his face pale. He looked at Castor, who mirrored the panic on his face.

“Castor, can you make us a way through one of these walls?”

She looked at him, her expression uncertain for the first time.

“I… I don’t know!”

“You’ve got to! If we don’t make another way out, we’re all dead!”

Castor swallowed hard, then nodded.

“I’ll try.”

She laid Kessa on the ground, then looked back and forth between the two walls. Picking the one closer to them, she sized it up, looked at her mechanical arm, then back at the wall, hesitating.

“Hurry!”

She swallowed hard and clenched her metal fist. The arm throbbed and whined as it spooled up energy. She drew back, and, closing her eyes, punched the brick wall with all of her might. With a deafening bang, her fist smashed into the wall, sending a spray of shattered brick and dust flying. A hole maybe a meter in diameter now sat in the middle of the wall around chest height, leading to the darkened interior of what looked like some kind of storage room.

For a brief moment, Rina wanted to cheer. Then she saw Castor’s arm. The mechanical arm hung limp and unresponsive, the entire length from elbow down shattered and twisted into an unfunctional mess of metal. Sparks crackled from the elbow joint, and a steady stream of black liquid ran from it onto the pavement at her feet. The engineer stumbled backwards, her face pale. She looked down at it, then back at Quill. For a briefest of moments, she looked almost regretful. Then she tumbled to the ground, unconscious.

Quill screamed obscenities, looking frantically at her crumpled body, then at the rest of them, then back at the oncoming tank. It was on them now, skidding to a stop. A dozen more Ministry enforcers leapt out, weapons in hand. The lead officer called out.

“GET ON THE GROUND! BY ORDER OF THE VAULTED SEN-!”

A bullet from Tensor’s pistol knocked him tumbling backward. The enforcer behind him went down as well.

“Go to hell, you joy-stealing sons of-!” He yelled, but stopped short when the third guard opened fire. He stumbled backward, half a dozen fresh holes in his chest. He looked at Rina and Quill, his expression muddled between pain and anger. Then the light in his eyes faded, and he crumpled into a heap on the ground.

“TENSOR!” Quill screamed.

“GET ON THE GROUND OR WE’LL SHOOT YOU TOO!” The third officer commanded.

Rina’s head swam. Her heartbeat throbbed in her skull. She felt sick, and dizzy. This was it, wasn’t it? She gets pulled into this horrible place, and the very first mission she goes on, her and everyone who set out to help her was dead or about to be. She could feel the grief and fear and terror and pain of everyone in the crew saturating the air, thick as fog. She was drowning in it.

This isn’t right. This shouldn’t be happening, she thought.

Then do something about it! Something inside her replied back. Stop them!

But how? She asked.

You know how. You’ve done it before. Make every one of them feel what you want them to feel.

Rina didn’t know what that meant. But something inside of her instinctively understood. She closed her eyes and reached out, trying to grasp the feelings of the Ministry agents in her mind. All at once, she was flooded with a torrent of new emotions. Anger and grief at the loss of their comrades. Disgust at these criminal scum. Fear of harm. A resentment at this job. A longing to go home. Love towards spouses. Love towards children. So many other subtleties too nuanced for her brain to grasp. She could feel it all as if they were her own.

Now, make them feel the fear and pain and sickness you feel too! Throw it in their faces! Make them run in terror! DO IT!

Rina pushed the foreign emotions of the enforcers aside and fully embraced everything she felt inside. Every sensation of panic, the horror, the nausea, the grief over losing her new friend, and every single emotion she felt from the rest of the crew. Concentrating everything together, she mentally projected it outwards into the minds of every enforcer, feeling the torrent of her emotion burst out of her soul like an explosion. The sensation of everything rushing out of her burned inside her head, overwhelming her. Despite herself, she found herself screaming something, but she was too lost to know what. She chased after the feelings she sent, feeling them surge through every mind she’d connected with.

Terror. Panic. Horror. RUN! SAVE ME! I CAN’T DIE HERE!

One by one, she felt each break under the storm until nothing remained but cacophonous cries of two dozen other minds, each echoing what she’d slammed into their minds. She watched through blurry eyes as grey-armored enforcers dropped their weapons, screaming, stumbling over themselves to get back into the tanks. The engines roared to life, tires squealed, and they sped off, swerving erratically before disappearing onto the streets. The sounds of their engines receded into the darkness, until, in a few moments, there was nothing but silence.

Suddenly woozy, Rina staggered. Quill caught her with one hand and helped her lower to the ground. She leaned back against the wall underneath the hole Castor had broken her arm creating.

And, despite herself, she began to cry.