"Precious Thing"

The explosion dyed the world white.

In other words, it raised a cloud of dust and dirt. If it hadn't been for Jamie's intervention at the last moment, it would be his brains flying through the air right now.

He found it hard to believe how close he had come to death.

So suddenly. So easily.

Achieving nothing, once again, not saving his sister, not even protecting the family he had chosen for himself. But now they had a chance.

To run or to fight. Of whatever it was. Whatever worked.

These were government agents. People who were simply doing their job. And he didn't like unnecessary deaths. But he wasn't a hero, he was a mercenary.

If necessary, he would kill them all.

He could feel bad about his actions comfortably once they were out of harm's way.

Jonathan put his enhanced eye to work, his vision easily penetrating the cloud that had previously obscured almost everything from his view.

It was difficult to take on people wearing power armor, but not impossible. In this case, he had to take advantage of the opportunity Jamie had given him.

The cloud of dust and dirt wouldn't last long.

He had to defeat the officer who had almost pierced his skull with her sword before the cloud disappeared.

After that, they would only have... dozens of agents left.

But he could think about that once he had taken care of that woman.

He lunged at her, taking her by surprise, grabbing the sword with his bare hands. The eye enhancements were still costly. And dangerous, too close to the brain. So not many people had them.

He'd had them installed in a period where he hadn't cared too much about his life. He wasn't proud of that, but it had served him well over the years.

And it would continue to be, just like now. It was one of the few advantages they had over these guys.

They began to grapple amidst the smoke.

Jonathan felt the armor vibrating, starting to give more and more power to its wearer. Naturally, humans couldn't go from zero to a hundred in one leap. Not without breaking in the process, anyway.

But eventually it would get to a hundred, and even before that it would become inevitable that it would lose the struggle. But it was all the same. It had been inevitable from the start.

Jonathan's hands were on his opponent's sword, but he had never intended to snatch it from her from the start.

His real goal was rather simpler and quicker.

That is, merely to get closer.

Now that he had managed to get within reach, Jonathan slid his sword into a weak spot in the armor. Well, it couldn't really be called a weak spot, since under normal circumstances no weapon could pierce something so small.

But he hadn't extended it yet.

He extended it only after slipping into the hole.

Tiny as a crack in a huge rock, which was enough to destroy it. That woman's head disappeared in an explosion of blood and her body collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.

Jonathan withdrew the sword, returning it to a more compact size.

That is, sheathing it.

Pulling it would simply have taken too much time and effort, unnecessarily besides. By the time he finished, the cloud of smoke had cleared.

"Shit!" One of the soldiers mumbled, gritting his teeth hard. They were chattering. They had expected this to be quick and easy, surely.

That none of them would fall in battle.

Least of all the one who everything indicated was, well, had been the boss. By everything he meant that she had been the one who had spoken to him and who had taken the liberty of being his executioner.

If she wasn't the boss, she would have stayed behind, just watching like everyone else.

"How did he do that?" exclaimed another.

The question would remain, because they had seen nothing from the beginning to the end. Fear was a powerful weapon, especially when you were outnumbered. In a situation like that, in fact, it could be the only weapon that really counted.

Only there were many ways to apply it.

Jonathan didn't take a deep breath. To do so as if he needed to would show weakness.

Instead, he advanced toward the agents, stepping over the corpse of the woman he had just killed. He advanced toward them as if he had no fear whatsoever.

As if they posed no threat to him.

As he had expected, they backed away.

Not all, but some, grimacing.

It was a bad situation, but they could get through this.... Though he still didn't know how. Incidentally, that wasn't out of the ordinary either. Not knowing. And improvising on the fly.

Jonathan's left eye was analyzing the armors, reading and exposing for him their structural weaknesses. And yes there were, they weren't impenetrable fortresses.

He could do this. He could fight.

The problem was that there were so many. It was unrealistic to expect to be able to win the fight when they were outnumbered to such an extent.

In circumstances like that, he would use the terrain to his advantage, normally. But there was nothing to use. Nothing but road as far as the horizon reached and a wasteland all around.

We'll find a way, he told himself. We'll find it.

"Let's take care of the one with the explosive staff first!" shouted one, taking command, and a dozen agents went after Jamie. The others were still staring at him, unwilling to take action.

Jonathan wasn't ready to make the first move, either.

One of his problems, perhaps, is that he thought too much. He should stop thinking and just do it. As bad as the odds were, the only thing they could do was fight.

They would fight until they reached one of the vehicles. Or they would die trying.

Jonathan gritted his teeth, took a few steps forward, ready to pounce on his enemies like a panther. But he didn't get the chance. That's because he was interrupted.

"Stop! All of you!" That cry, that voice was Roxy's, no doubt about it.

They were severely outnumbered, but "it" in her hands made the situation even. She had crawled out from under the car, just like the others, only with the Pistol in her hands.

Yes, he should have thought of that. But it had still happened too fast, and he' d hit his head. It was normal that he wasn't one hundred percent.

Sure, the last few times he had tried to fire the gun, it had misfired.

But the government agents didn't know that. So it could serve as a scare tactic to get them to cooperate, even if he still couldn't actually fire it.

Jonathan should have thought of that from the beginning. Not that he cared that much, but this way, besides, they could resolve the situation without anyone else having to die.

"It doesn't seem like such a big deal," he heard one of the soldiers whisper. "Not compared to what we've been told."

"Shut up," his partner demanded, nudging him.

"We're getting out of here," Roxy said, "and none of you are going to stop us. Not if you want to stay in one piece."

"Why haven't you fired yet?" one of the government agents demanded to know, with surprising coolness. Jonathan's heartbeat quickened slightly.

That confidence, could it be because he knew after all? That he had failed to fire three shots, for whatever reason.

Maybe, just as they had tracked the signal from the gun, through the same system they knew that right now it was depleted. Or whatever it was.

Roxy said nothing. She simply pulled the trigger.

Jonathan's heart began to pound wildly. What are you doing? If the gun could fire, that was okay. But if the next shot was also a dud, then the bluff would be revealed for what it was. And they would be jumped on. He shouldn't have worried, though. The energy wave shot out smoothly and tore a good number of the agents to pieces, who were simply unlucky or didn't run fast enough to get out of the way.

Their pieces flew through the air, and the explosion set one of the vehicles on fire.

It didn't burn for long, as it too exploded, leaping spectacularly into the air, sending the two nearest vehicles into the air with it.

Jonathan couldn't take his eyes off the pieces of the corpses falling towards the ground. The guts, the blood. But worst of all, perhaps, was the wet sound of it all crashing to the ground. And breaking like a piñata, oftentimes. Jonathan couldn't help but grimace in disgust, even though he was used to killing, to bathing in the blood of his enemies.

As he had said...

The Pistol had the power to change everything. To make the world even more horrible than when he had arrived.

Now, however, that horrible power was working in his favor.

Those who weren't already dead (there were none dying, at least that he could see, no human being could survive even a brush with that wave of energy) were completely petrified.

They had thought they knew what to expect, but in reality, they had no idea what they were getting into.

Jonathan was not proud that they had had to learn their lesson this way. But he wasn't sorry either.

"I hope you understand now that it's a bad idea to test me," Roxy said, giving a perfect appearance of impassivity.

He supposed perhaps it was more than an appearance.

With that power in the palm of her hand, what did she have to worry about? What did they have to worry about in general?

They had already won.

Since she pulled the trigger, it was their victory.

"All the more reason to fight!" one of the agents sputtered, trying to look impassive as well. Only in this case the attempt was transparent and collapsing from the first moment. "To leave such power in the hands of scum like you is unthinkable!"

"Do you think you can do anything about it?" That was Roxy's cold reply.

Just as coldly, she began to pull the trigger. She started, but not quite. She wanted it to be a warning. If she hadn't fired first, they would have thought her too good (or too weak, which was the same thing) to pull the trigger.

But now she had left no room to doubt that she would, if she was forced to.

Predictably, therefore, the few who still had anything resembling composure lost it completely. Now they had truly won.

"Come on," Roxy said, signaling to Mary and Jamie. Without lowering the Pistol an inch. Or her guard, for that matter.

The girls gathered around, standing behind Roxy.

Jonathan did the same.

"Now you're going to let us pass," Roxy said, walking to the side of the road, not taking her eyes off them for a moment.

They were doing nothing, for the moment. But as soon as she got within their reach....

And it was inevitable, because she needed another vehicle and there was little to choose from in this wasteland far from civilization.

When they got close, then one stupid enough would perhaps try something.

Maybe was reason enough to keep one's guard up.

One did try. He lunged at Roxy. With the strength of the armor and his massive body, he pushed her against the car. Jonathan himself almost fell to the ground simply because he grazed him on his way as he rammed her.

At such close range, she couldn't pull the trigger even if she could aim at the enemy freely.

That was the Pistol's only weakness, if it could be called a weakness.

The other agents, like hyenas that now smelled blood, approached at a good pace, but still with some caution, to help him.

"Close your eyes," Jamie said, her voice a warning.

Jamie put an end to the agents' hopes.

As she had done with the bandits and many other people, she made the stupid but brave agent's head explode. And its contents spilled directly onto Roxy, of course, since he had been on top of her until she died.

Fortunately, Roxy had listened to Jamie without a second thought, without question. Nothing got in her eyes.

Everything else, however, wasn't spared. She was going to want to take a good shower as soon as they could stop.

"Bastard," Roxy said, blindly kicking the headless corpse. Not that it would have needed any help to end up on the ground, though, it had already been staggering.

Roxy ran a hand over her eyes, wiping away the blood, then slowly opened them.

"Anyone else want to be a fucking hero? No? Fuckin' A."

With those parting words, the four of them got into the car, and Jamie made sure they didn't have to risk asking for the keys.

Then they set off.

Surely they would soon have them on their tail. These same people, or another group of government agents. The government had no shortage of agents, and they were almost as replaceable as the average citizen.

But at least they would have some leverage.

And, at least for the moment, they were out of harm's way.

Maybe this would even be good for them. To have the government nipping at their heels. Already half-formed ideas were appearing in Jonathan's mind of how he could bring his two enemies into conflict and they would end up on top, at the end of all this bloody mess.

Indeed, that was what mattered in the end. Making sure they stayed on top. Jonathan would do it even if he died trying. And if it happened, only if it happened, at least he would know that his sister would have a wonderful family to take care of her, even when he was gone.

In other words.

Even if he lost, he had to win.

■

They continued on their way to the coordinates that abomination had sent them. Those coordinates were far away, it would take them a few days of travel, that's assuming they didn't run into any more mishaps. Then it could drag on. And considerably so.

But the thing is, even if they drove all day, they wouldn't get there today, or tomorrow.

So he could relax. To a certain extent.

They had time to think, to plan. Of course, only to a certain extent. They had no idea what they were getting into. But that didn't mean he couldn't prepare for anything.

It hadn't been long since they'd left the government agents behind.

Looking back, he didn't see any of those cars chasing them. Maybe they would still be licking their wounds.

Maybe they had lost the will to chase them and were going to do their duty, but not put much effort into it. In any case, they wouldn't be out of danger. If it wouldn't be that group that would try to kill them next time, well, it would be someone else. There were agents to spare. As he had already said.

He noticed that Roxy was watching him out of the corner of her eye. As if to check his reaction.

She must have seen something she liked, because only then did she relax.

Roxy took a deep breath, lowering the Pistol to her lap, which she held in both hands.

"That was... Fuck," Mary, who was at the wheel, said.

"Fuck. Yeah," Roxy said. "That about sums it up."

Absentmindedly, Roxy twirled the pistol in her hand.

"I can't believe your face didn't change after shooting this," Roxy said.

"Do you feel guilty?"

"Never," Roxy replied, shaking her head for emphasis, in case her tone hadn't been enough. "I did what I had to do, what was right and necessary."

"But?" Jamie said.

"This monstrosity... Imagine what would happen if it were mass distributed. How it would change the world."

"For the worse," Mary said.

"Exactly. Exactly, and now I can't help but wonder why? Every year it seems like a thousand ways are invented for mankind to kill each other. Was this really necessary? Something that can destroy houses, vehicles, people, anything, anything at all, with the pull of a trigger? Why?"

Truth be told, Jonathan hadn't even thought about the Pistol being mass distributed. It hadn't occurred to him, or maybe he hadn't wanted to think about it.

Even without it, however, he had been terrified of its potential. Of the power that was in his hands.

"You know, I don't have big dreams," Roxy continued, "I live from day to day. But when I die I'd like to be able to go away knowing that I left the world a little better than it was, if only a little. Now I know that's not going to be possible," she added, sadly. "Now I know I will see it fall even lower."

No one could say anything to that fatalistic statement. Because there was nothing to object to. Such a weapon couldn't improve the world.

The silence went on for a long time.

■

"Are you awake, Jonathan?" Mary whispered.

Jonathan had been keeping his eyes closed, not moving, to pretend he was asleep so they would be calmer. It seemed he hadn't been able to fool Mary, though.

He opened his eyes slowly.

"Can't sleep? "Jonathan asked.

"For the same reasons as you. Sort of," she replied, sitting down next to him. She curled into a ball, her legs against her chest and her hands under her knees. "I don't think the others are asleep either," she confessed.

"Yeah. Probably."

They could all use a rest, but it wasn't that easy.

They had parked and hidden the car, and were now sleeping outside after setting up camp. More comfortable than sleeping inside the car would have been, at least in theory.

In any case, clearly not comfortable enough given the current circumstances.

Today it would have been good for them to sleep in that car, which had been like a home to them as they drove around with nothing to call home.

But they had lost it in that settlement full of cybernetic ghosts wandering at the command of a madman.

Forever.

Even if they had been able to get it out of there, it had been rendered completely useless, surely.

A pity, yes, that he had only realized the value of something so simple once he had lost it. People never know what they have, he thought.

He remembered Roxy's words, not so long ago.

And you can always get lower.

"Do you want to talk about something?"

Roxy looked at him, with a half-smile, pushing her hair behind her ear with one hand.

"Why, can't I want to talk to you just for the sake of talking?"

"Of course, but you have a face that says otherwise. Whatever it is, you don't need to beat around the bush with me."

Roxy laughed half-heartedly, looking away. She lowered her head until her chin touched her knees.

"Yeah. That goes for me, but what about you?"

There was no need to ask what she meant. He couldn't say it was something different. It was not. To be sure of that, he didn't need to know what she had to tell him.

"I'm not holding it against you. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to, at least. But it's difficult. I hope you won't be angry."

"I promise," Jonathan said.

Roxy looked back at him. Very deeply, as if to assure herself of the truth of his words. Finally, she nodded her head.

"What do you think she is?"

"I'm sorry?"

"It can't be your sister. And before you say anything, I'm not trying to talk you out of it. But if she's not your sister, what is she?"

The topic of her sister, he should have guessed. Well, it was natural for her to want to know why they were headed for a suicide mission when Jonathan himself wasn't stupid enough to believe that a dead one person has come out of her grave, not really.

"Everything tells me it can't be her. That the dead are dead, period, that she doesn't seem to have grown a bit since the day she died. But it is her. If I had doubted it for a moment, I wouldn't be on my way to wherever that is, putting your lives at risk."

"How can it be her?" Roxy asked. He hadn't expected her to be so insistent. But he owed her the truth, he supposed.

"I have my theories," he said slowly and after a while. "I thought she was dead in that bathtub. But I was just a stupid little boy. She could have survived."

It could have been a failed suicide attempt, a dark inner voice whispered to him.

"You said yourself that she doesn't seem to have grown up since then," se pointed out.

"Indeed. But there are ways to explain it. Malnutrition or... "He shook his head. "Other things."

"What else could it be?"

He paused.

"Something I'd rather not think about. The most realistic possibility, even if it sounds crazy."

"At the same time?"

"Yes. But I'm afraid that's what it's going to be. I'm very much afraid it's going to be that" "Jonathan felt like crying, screaming, tearing his hair out, just thinking about it.

What good would it do him to do all that?

Nothing, of course, nothing at all. Except disturbing the rest of his teammates or even waking them up if they had finally managed to fall asleep, by sheer miracle. Or rather sheer exhaustion.

So Jonathan swallowed all that anger and frustration, and all he did was close his eyes slowly, again.

Putting an end to the conversation.

■

Days passed and they didn't have any setbacks. Well, that wasn't entirely true. They did have the occasional mishap, just nothing noteworthy.

The kind of thing you would expect on any long road trip. Like having to stop because the battery was dead. And in the end, they arrived at their destination.

"I hadn't expected anything like this," Jonathan said, wide-eyed, his hand on the roof of the car as if he needed it to keep his balance.

Considering the kind of being that he was, Jonathan had assumed that he would have as much interest in hiding from the government as they did. Or like the late Max, or whatever his real name was.

In a way, that was still true.

For this place was far from civilization, though much less so than the settlement Max had taken over.

But, on the other hand, it didn't look like the creature had bothered to hide at all.

In other words, it was too conspicuous. Everything.

The settlements were for people who wanted to live off the grid (at least on paper, but of course it was a hoax like any other) and as such they were manufactured quickly and cheaply.

So that it wouldn't be a sacrifice to abandon them and go elsewhere, which was often the case. As a result, they looked like cities from hundreds of years ago, when technology hadn't advanced that far.

The hellish place they had barely escaped with their lives was no exception in that respect.

However, this was a modern city.

All wires and neon lights. Spacious streets and vehicles everywhere, state of the art, not a trinket in sight. There was something that struck him powerfully about the design, even from a distance, and it didn't take him long to realize what it was.

It was something he should have realized as soon as he thought about it.

Yes, if that wasn't weird enough, on top of that it had a design in the first place. In normal cities there were too many cooks, so to speak. The whole thing was a mess that didn't quite fit together.

The divisions between different parts of the city were especially pronounced, as if you were passing into another city, almost.

From this position, Jonathan had a bird's eye view of the city (and it was a real city, not a town or a small settlement) and saw none of it.

It was as if it had been designed from scratch to fit someone's particular tastes and style. The absence of what you would expect was just as, if not more, important than what was there. Speaking of which, despite being such a big city, he didn't see a single one of its inhabitants on the streets. Empty cars.

Nothing reflected in the doors, in the windows or in the reflection of the neon signs. There was nothing to be seen anywhere.

He wondered if they were already waiting for them. That much was obvious.

They'd been waiting for days. He meant if some hidden sentinel hadn't seen them coming beforehand and gone back to warn everyone. It was possible. Probable, even. Well, it's not like they hadn't expected to be ambushed, without even a false show of civility first.

In other words, they had come prepared to fight. And that was what they would do.

"Are you ready? "Jonathan pulled the Pistol out of the glove compartment, and he would be the one to carry it until this was all over, one way or the other. It was the bare minimum.

After all, whoever carried the Pistol would become the priority target of this abomination.

Said target had to be him. They were putting themselves on the line for his sister, for a person who mattered only to him. So bearing that cross was the least he could do.

Thinking of the Pistol, feeling its weight in his hands, so deceptively light for the power it held, Jonathan couldn't help but think of the world Roxy had spoken of.

One in which this weapon in his hands wasn't the only one. He was barely able to keep from shuddering.

"As ready as we'll ever be," Mary replied with breathtaking sincerity. So true that. Very true.

More than that distant world, he dreaded going down and searching for the creature in those streets, knowing that it surely had an army of robots at its disposal.

Knowing that the weapon was unstoppable, but the user was not, and in the midst of that urban jungle there were many ways to neutralize him before he pulled the trigger or even before he knew to fire.

But what other choice did he have?

As a team, no, as a family they started down the hill. It didn't take long, and next they were deep into the city.

Jonathan hadn't seen anyone from the top... and still didn't, really. He couldn't see them, but he could feel them anyway. His intent told him they were being watched closely.

The rustling and sounds that could be the wind or inhuman breaths did the rest, completing the picture.

That, of course, was to be expected. They had expected it.

He had even warned his team not to start anything, if possible, until they had that abomination and his sister in sight.

Common sense, since the enemy this time had a hostage. But saying it out loud had made him feel better.

Jonathan was going a little off the rails. The point was, well, they were there as they had always known they would be. But why weren't they attacking, what were they waiting for, or was their role just to watch, and they weren't even waiting for the right moment to pounce on them?

In any case, it was only a matter of time before things went to shit.