Shoot the Future

Drakdrakdrakdrakdrakdrakdrak—

Her feet smacked the concrete, wind rushing past her as she charged through the passage, skipping left and right without having time to look at what she was dodging. What the hell was she doing? She swung her hips to one side then the other as she swerved between two large containers of some sort, using a hand to pivot around them, and kept running forward, forward was the only direction now, too late for looking back. She had no idea if the geist… geists… had noticed her. Strangely though, all her tension had gone, like it had fallen out of her pockets after she’d stepped off a cliff.

She clutched the pattern-breaker in both hands. All of a sudden it felt less like she was wielding it than clinging to it, like a teddy bear or a religious totem or a drink at one of those awful academy parties where everyone seemed to know everyone except for her. She winced at this memory. Maybe geists weren’t the worst thing in the world.

She looked up at the warehouse wall briefly as she ran. Where were they? She was within range now. She could see Kurama just ahead. He was still staring up at whatever the hell he was staring up at - she couldn’t make out anything above the glare of the streetlights. The geist swung into view at the end of the passage and she ducked to the side, skidding against a wire fence beside the warehouses and pausing to catch her breath.

If she got any closer, or shouted out she might draw its attention. She looked back up at the warehouse walls just behind her. There. The numbers in her visor were just a couple of blocks away now and closing.

90 meters. Dancing up and down between the eaves and the ground like a ping pong ball.

The first geist must have picked up on something as its filaments stiffened, the procession of lights freezing so that it really looked like a Christmas tree now, complete with baubles.

She lifted the breaker and aimed it first at Christmas tree, then toward the warehouses. The sights wavered as the numbers passed through them, like weak magnets were pulling at the weapon’s nose.

70 meters.

Her hands were shaking more than ever, her eyes stinging from the cold air and wind.

Come on. She thought. Make a choice.

Her vision blurred and she wiped the water from her eyes, her hands passing straight through the holo-visor. She switched targets back and forth a couple of times. Still no movement from Christmas tree. Another holiday ruined. She had to stop calling it that.

40 meters. The numbers were accelerating. Whatever it was, it was jinking left and right like a plane trying to shake a missile lock. Her visor tried to adjust somewhat but the cross-hairs were too slow to catch a lock. She flicked a switch at the side of her helmet and with a wheep her visor vanished completely. She’d have to go manual. She felt a sudden sense of freedom as the cool night air rushed against her skin.

She tried to focus on her training.

Instead, it was a memory from high school that came back to her. You really can’t tell your brain what to do. The basketball hall. She had been so nervous. The ball in her hands. Panting, sweating, bent over turning this way and that to protect it. Girls’ faces looked at her from all around the court, hands raised in the air like passengers thrown overboard from a sinking ship. She looked between them. Which one? Which one? Then, unseen by the others, a girl made a beeline toward the basket…

Lead the pass, you always lead the pass.

You don’t shoot the target, you shoot where it’s going to be.

You shoot the future.

10 meters.

Shoot the future, moonbeam.

5–

She let the lids of her eyes fall, the breaker suddenly becoming soft in her hands. It seemed to aim itself, her grip tightened, the resistance of the trigger against her finger—

***

Gunsmoke filled the room, blocking her view though the safety goggles. When it cleared, her face sank.

Zero.

Again.

The two-dimensional geist cutout stood unhurt at the far end of the shooting range, looming at her like some ridiculous horror movie poster. The wall behind it however, was a different story.

She sighed and checked the ammo clip was empty.

A sound from behind startled her. A middle-aged guy in battle gear walked towards her, clapping slowly. ‘Not bad, not bad.’ He said, and pulled a light-stick from his lips.

She turned away.

He leant his head over her shoulder. A cloud of indigo light-smoke mingled with the thinning gunsmoke.

‘Though what you got against that wall I really don’t know.’

She sneered and shook him off. ‘Go to hell, Tagawa.’

He held his hand up to his chest. ‘I’m hurt. And here I was just coming to pass on the good news.’

‘Pass on…?’ She frowned, packing her sweatshirt into an academy sports bag. ‘You’re emigrating?’

He ignored her and held out a slip of paper. ‘—Seems like someone likes you up top.’

‘What?’ She looked round and saw the paper.

He pulled it away as she reached for it then let her take it the second time. A smile dawned slowly on Rinako’s face as she looked over the sheet.

Placement approved.

‘Takeru looked pissed off… went home early.’ He said.

She turned back to the range, slid the goggles back over her eyes, picked up the weapon and fired off a salvo of shots, this time without thinking.

Tagawa looked up, waiting for the smoke to clear.

Three holes leaked smoke from the centre of the cutout. She smiled. For some reason it looked a lot like Tagawa. Like Takeru too. Like every instructor she’d ever had…

***

Her finger stopped, the weight of death suspended just beneath it.

No more than a meter from Kurama the snaking numbers had broken off at a sharp diagonal… heading straight toward the first geist. Even up close she couldn’t make out what it was, just a blur of speed. The geist had sensed it. Its filaments tensed up and tightened against its body so that the whole thing lost half of its size in diameter. She thought of the zig zagging movements of the second geist’s approach. Was that what you were doing… keeping out of its view… ?

Kurama was now crouched in the warehouse doorway, apparently finally having noticed that something of note was going on around him. She wasn’t looking at him for long. A sudden explosion resounded from the street where the geist was standing, or less an explosion than the sound of energy being sucked away. An uneven hoop of dark smoke was already dissipating into the air, trailing a gust that marked the passage of some vanished entity. The numbers. She squinted. It took her a moment to understand what she was seeing.

Several black ligatures seemed to have taken hold of the geist, its filaments compressed between them. It shook for a moment and the ligatures closed even more tightly. Then she saw it. Toward the top, on one side, glinting beneath the streetlights. A gold human-sized head. Like some priceless relic out of a museum. Only this wasn’t a museum. Like a code had suddenly been broken she now understood the ligatures to be the limbs of a humanoid body. The geist rolled back slightly, the black and gold creature remaining perfectly still on it. Its jaws were clamped into its flesh.

Is it… feeding on it… ?!

As she watched two black slits opened up on the golden face.

A chill went through her but the eyes were empty, completely devoid of awareness. In a way that was worse. Some section of her brain gave way to all of this as though upon seeing what the world was serving up, the part that dealt with logic and reason had just packed its bags and announced its immediate retirement.

Did this happen? Geists fighting each other?! The manual hadn’t said anything about it. Probably not the best way of getting new recruits she thought, looking up at the scene before her.

As she watched, the Christmas tree geist’s lights started to fade in and out to a rhythm, that she realised with some horror, matched slow pulsations that were travelling along the humanoid creature’s throat. Small points of light started to grow in those black lifeless eyes, like molten gold filling two dark chalices. The first geist shuddered violently a couple of times. Rinako couldn’t look away. The gold lights swelled like comets rushing toward her. She couldn’t tell if their vessels were looking at her or just staring blankly, held in some lifeless rapture.

The first geist then slumped to the ground. Over it stood a black silhouette, its eyes glowing in the night.