Breaking Through Read online

  Behind him, the skiff flipped sideways over itself, the remaining engine screamed against the strain. Chunks of composite fell from a gaping hole in the building next to it as the fireball curled into the air. Smoke poured from the wound, as debris streamed away in long arcs. Time seemed to slow as the skiff twisted and then fell. The remaining engine screamed and whined until the skiff smashed down into the pavement and exploded in a brilliant fireball.

  A third explosion sent large bits of fuselage soaring down the avenue in both directions. Anything even remotely flammable immediately went up in flames or simply disintegrated in the immense heat. The twisted frame of a small car launched through the crumbling facade of a long abandoned storefront, sending a cloud of smoke and dust belching back into the street. The fire from the wreck bathed the block in a dull orange glow as thick black smoke billowed over the rooftops.

  Back in the alley, John coughed hard and pushed himself to his knees. A burning piece of scrap bounced down the street pass the alley. He pushed himself up to his feet and carefully made his way to the corner. He felt the heat from the wreck as the fire snapped and cracked to his right. He moved out into the street, and ahead of him, movement caught his eye. He reached for his pulser but stopped when he realized what it was.

  Michael moved slowly, supporting himself against the peeling wall next to him. He was limping, and the grimace he made with every step told John everything he needed to know. He jogged over and saw Michael holding his thigh, blood streaming through white-knuckled fingers.

  “Shit,” John said as Michael leaned his shoulder into the wall, taking as much weight off his injured leg as he could. “How bad is it?”

  Something popped, and John ducked reflectively. Small bits of flame leapt out of the fire and into the air. Red and orange flames completely engulfed the wreckage.

  “I’ll live,” Michael answered through gritted teeth. He carefully took his hand away, fingers soaked in hot, sticky blood. It oozed down his pants leg and splattered onto the dusty pavement.

  John shook his head, “We need to get it wrapped up.” He bent down and unzipped the pocket on his left thigh, “Here, I’ve got—”

  “I’m fine…” Michael argued after inhaling a painful breath.

  Tom touched down just behind John, and moved around so he could see what he was looking at. “Oh shit, you’re hit.”

  Michael motioned to the wrecked flatbed where small wisps of smoke were curling into the air. “Damn shrapnel caught me.”

  “Can you walk?” Tom asked, glancing back over his shoulder, admiring his handiwork. Several more balls of flame spit from the wreckage.

  “I’ll manage.”

  “At least let me stop the bleeding,” John argued. He produced a small plyform wrap from his survival kit and pressed it up against Michael’s thigh. Holding it firm, he pressed a small button and two wide bands slipped out from either end to wrap around his leg. It only took a second for them to deploy, and after sealing together, they compressed, applying pressure.

  Michael groaned. “Shit, that hurts.”

  “It should stop the bleeding, but you need to get the wound treated soon. I do a fairly good battle dressing with my kit.” John held up the small kit for Michael to see.

  He shook his head. “We need to get moving.” He motioned to the burning skiff. “His friends won’t be too far behind.”

  Tom stepped back onto the avenue. “Where to?”

  John looped an arm around Michael’s shoulder, and together they moved out of the alley and around the destroyed flatbed truck. Michael winced, then saw the skiffs burning carcass. “Damn. Much better than Holbridge.”

  Most of the flames had died away, but smoke continued to pour out of gaping holes in the twisted metal. John hadn’t seen anyone emerge from the wreckage, and decided that he hadn’t really wanted to. He’d seen what fire could do to the human body, and wasn’t interested in reliving the experience.

  “Yeah, Tim’s going to have a shit-fit,” Tom bragged.

  Michael took another step and sucked in a painful breath. “Speaking of which…”

  Tom glanced down at his wrist, shaking his head in disgust. “Good question.” He made his other hand into the shape of a gun and jerked it at the blank wrist unit. “My Wristie decided to walk the plank.”

  “Well,” Michael said, “the more distance we put between us and the skiff the better. Finding cover is number one. Number two is getting into a position to signal your brother without getting picked up by the Rats.”

  “Right,” Tom said, “Come on.”

  They’d made it two blocks when Michael became very heavy. His eyes fluttered and his head bounced as they walked. John adjusted his arm and lifted the man higher onto his shoulder. “Come on, buddy, stay with me.”

  “I could really use a stiff one right about now,” Michael said. His words slurred together as if he’d already had four or five too many.

  “I make a mean vodka-cranberry,” John told him with a grin.

  “What’s a vodberry?”

  “Cran-berry. It’s a fruit,” John explained. “Kind of tart, not too bad with gin either.”

  Michael laughed, then winced. “Ow. I guess I’ll just have to take your word for it.”

  As they maneuvered through two wrecked cars, Michael’s foot caught on a piece of twisted metal and almost brought the pair of them crashing down.

  “Shit!” John grunted, stutter-stepping to keep them from slamming down onto the ground. Michael quickly wrapped his arms around John’s neck, gasping with the effort. John fought hard to keep his balance. “Got ya.”

  Michael held his breath, eyes closed, every muscle tensed against the pain flowing from his leg.

  Tom, who’d been scouting ahead, turned back to them. “You okay?”

  John adjusted his grip again then worked to stand up. Michael let out a slow breath and nodded. Tom glanced at John, shaking his head. John said, “We need to get him off that leg.”

  “Agreed,” Tom said, scanning the surrounding buildings.

  Ahead the avenue took a wide left turn, disappearing around what looked like a large department store. Despite the decaying appearance, John thought it shared the same larger-than-life presentation as its counterparts back home. He had little doubt that, in its prime, the store would have rivaled any of the high fashion retailers on Earth.

  The exterior was a very post-modern set up, with high steel beams curving up and back to the composite structure four stories up. Along the bottom half of the facade the glass had long since been shattered. However, some panes remained in the higher sections. The outlines of several massive letters ran along the top of the glass storefront, and even though some were missing, John easily read, “LANDEN & KOTCH.”

  After a moment of consideration, Tom said, “There.”

  Twin metal doorframes hung on their hinges; the glass they’d once held covered the ground around them. The entrance stood between what had once been two large display windows, where sun-washed mannequins lay in broken pieces on either side. One of the faceless heads was twisted at a right angle to the rest of the body; its arm lay detached from its torso.

  As John and Michael worked their way across the street, Tom jogged ahead to grab the empty metal frame. The frame creaked on its hinges, but refused to open. Tom had to give it two hard pulls before it finally relented and gave way. Glass crackled and popped under their feet as John helped Michael through. Tom let go of the frame and followed, the door stayed opened.

  Inside the store was dark; the only light spilled in from the street behind them. John waited for his Optics to kick in and bathe his vision in a dull green, but nothing happened, making him feel very small. The mild irritation they caused seemed worth having to constantly apply the OptiGel. He thought about the tube he’d used not an hour ago, sitting at the bottom of the Atlantic. For the first time since, he wondered if he’d ever get back home.

  As they moved farther into the dark interior, John strained to reac
h his miniHD light, tucked in a cargo pocket on his flight suit. He pulled the light free, balancing awkwardly to keep from toppling over, and clicked the light on.

  White light cut through the darkness of the store in a tight beam, motes of dust floating lazily in the air seemed to blink at them. The lobby was an open-air design, a vast empty space three or four stories high. Numerous display counters sat empty throughout the store, separated by short false-wall dividers and shelving racks. At the back of the store, a balcony ran the length of the building, overlooking the main floor. Several mannequins stood behind an opaque railing, featureless human shapes staring back at them through the darkness.

  As they moved farther into the store, the vast emptiness amplified every sound they made. Careful footsteps echoed through the darkness, and John was sure that anyone within a mile of the store knew where they were. Glass and dirt crunched under foot as they walked. John panned the light around the store, thinking the entire thing was like a ghost town.

  He didn’t see a small can laying on the floor, and sent it clanging across the floor. The trio froze and John’s light snapped down to track it as it rolled noisily across the dusty floor. Tom jerked around and glared angrily at John, who was trying his damnedest to hide his embarrassment. His cheeks flushed red, and he fought the urge to curse. He flipped Tom “the bird” instead. Tom shook his head and returned to scanning, gun in hand, sweeping the barrel the back and forth in the darkness.

  Michael coughed then said, “What do you think?”

  Tom scanned around for another moment, then said, “It’s not ideal.”

  “Hell, this whole night isn’t ideal, Tom.”

  Tom considered his friend for a moment, sighed, then nodded. “Okay.” He holstered his pistol and moved back to help John ease Michael down.

  They propped him up against a dusty wall of a counter. Michael gritted his teeth as he adjusted himself, trying to straighten his leg out in front of him. Dust and dirt had mixed with the blood, creating a clumpy residue on his torn pant leg. “Damn that hurts,” Michael said, gingerly prodding his leg.

  Tom knelt down beside him. “Rats got worse.” He pushed Michael’s hand away. “Don’t touch it.”

  John knelt down beside him and unrolled his survival kit. He fingered through its contents. “Stopping the bleeding is one thing, we need to make sure he doesn’t lose the leg. We need to get a look at the wound.”

  John reached forward and disengaged the plyform. The bands released and retracted silently into the small unit.

  A soft click echoed in the darkness, John looked up to see Tom leaning over Michael’s pant leg, the gleaming blade of a knife in hand. He slipped the blade into the torn fabric just below the plyform and carefully cut down the length of the pant leg. “Oh, man, that looks bad,” Tom said pulling the fabric away from the wound.

  Michael grimaced. “Damn.”

  A jagged piece of metal, stained with blood and caked with dirt, stuck a few centimeters out his thigh just above the knee. His skin was discolored below the plyform but most of the bleeding had stopped. Dirt and grime mixed with blood creating a thick mess in and around the wound. John bent over and made a quick inspection. “Well, it didn’t go all the way through, so that’s a good thing. Probably lodged itself in the bone.”

  “Damn,” Tom muttered, “I thought you’d just been shot. That’s nasty.”

  “Looks worse than it feels,” Michael admitted.

  “Probably would have been better to get shot,” John said. “Not at whole lot to think about with bullet wounds, especially through and throughs. But with shrapnel…”

  Tom scooted forward. “Well, let’s get it out of there then.”

  John held up his hand. “Hold on, let me check it out first. We might not want to take it out yet. Not without knowing we won’t do more damage.”

  Tom pointed a finger at John. “Hey, man, I don’t know you, and I’m nowhere near trusting you. If you think I’m just going to let you mess around on my friend here, think again. How do I know you’re not going make it worse? Do you think I’m just going to sit back and let you kill him?”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” John said, sitting back on his haunches. “If I’d wanted to kill either of you, don’t you think I’d have done it already?”

  “Guys…” Michael raised a hand. They ignored him.

  “I don’t think anything. If it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t even be here. We’d be well on our way home, close to a cold pale and warm bed, not scrambling around in the dark hiding from Rats and Dusters. We should’ve left you up there.” He motioned skyward. “Let you deal with them all by yourself.”

  John had enough. “Hey asshole, it isn’t like I just woke up this morning thinking I’d come crash your party. I didn’t choose to be here, and if you think I’d rather be here than back in my own world, think again. The fact is I’m here now and I’m dealing with that, which is less than I can say for you. So, you can either keep bitching or,” he pulled a grey squeeze tube from the kit and held it up, “we can fix your friend here. Your choice.”

  Tom regarded him with stone-faced contempt. The muscles in his jaw twitched and just as he was going to answer, Michael reached up and put a hand on his arm.

  “Tom,” his voice barely a whisper, “its okay, let him work.”

  John didn’t wait for permission and inched closer to the damaged leg. He unscrewed the black cap off the top of the tube and said, “This might sting.”

  John held the tube over the wound and gently squeezed, pushing a light blue gel out over the wound. Michael hissed and slapped the floor as the gel worked its way around the wound, dust puffed up from between his fingers.

  “Damn it! You call that a sting?”

  “That means it’s working,” John assured him, then realized how much he’d just sounded like his father.

  “What the hell is that?” Tom asked, snatching the tube out of John’s fingers. He turned the tube over, reading the label, “SaniGel 2.1% - NAU Bionics.”

  John resisted the urge to throat punch the smug son of a bitch. Instead, he took a long breath and said, “Standard issue Sanitizing Gelatin, best field cleanser you can have. Hurt equals work.”

  “Must be working hard,” Michael said through gritted teeth.

  It only took a few seconds for the entire wound to become enveloped; the gel glistened and rippled over Michael’s skin as if it was water pooling on the ground. The gel began to bubble white around the edges of the wound as it pulled contaminants out of the skin. The entire surface rippled and bubbled for almost a minute, until eventually, the blue gel had completely faded away, turning white and hardening to a malleable putty.

  John took the tube back from Tom, replaced the cap and slid it back into its pouch. He unsnapped another section and produced a small, single-use injection pod. He popped its cap off with his thumb and said, “This will help with the pain.”

  He pressed the injection pod hard into Michael’s leg and held it there for a few seconds. Michael grunted and John chuckled. “Trust me, once this stuff kicks in, you won’t be complaining. If it’s one thing the NAU does right, it’s their pain killers.”

  Michael’s grimace disappeared, replaced by surprise as the medicine worked its way through his system. “Oh, wow.”

  “I know,” John said tossing the injector aside.

  “You feel okay?” Tom asked.

  “Oh, man, that’s amazing. What is that stuff?”

  “Bio-neural inhibitor,” John said. “Not sure what’s in it. It works, that’s all I ever cared about.” He slapped Michael’s shoulder. “Does wonders for the pain, doesn’t it.”

  Michael gave Tom an unbelieving grin. “Holy shit.”

  Tom kept his tone neutral as he said, “Can you walk?”

  Michael reached down and prodded his leg again. “Yeah, I think so.”

  John unwrapped a wide pressure bandage. “Here.” He laid it out on the floor next to Michael’s leg. “This organic wrap wi
ll keep the entire thing stable and protected until we get somewhere to actually fix it.”

  John reached down to slide the wrap underneath Michael’s leg and was surprised when Tom lifted it. He was about to thank him when a rustling near the back of the store startled them. John’s light snapped up and he swept the length of the back wall. “What was that?”

  “Shhh.” Tom rose up to the balls of his feet and moved around the end of the counter.

  John brought the light back down the length of the balcony and had the strange feeling that there were more mannequins up there than had been a few minutes ago. Something else was different too, but he was having a difficult time putting a finger on what it was. He panned his light over a small group of them, and just as he realized what that something was, he heard Tom curse under his breath.

  They weren’t mannequins.

  The light hovered on a group of four people, standing in a tight cluster near the left side of the balcony. They stood unmoving, faces covered by strange mechanical masks, shrouded in shadows cast by the hoods pulled over their heads. Oversized, mirrored goggles covered their eyes, and long, filthy dust-colored jackets hung loose around their still frames, giving them an ominous appearance.

  “What the fuck?” John whispered, glancing over at Tom.

  “Duster Clan,” Michael explained, “we must have walked right into one of their Enclaves.”

  Movement at the edge of the light caught John’s attention, and he moved the beam just in time to catch a glimpse of another cloaked figured disappearing around a corner. When he brought it back to the group of four they had disappeared as well. “Shit.”

  “What now?” Tom asked, taking a knee.

  Michael used the counter to pull himself up, grunting from the effort. “Sure would be nice to know where your brother is right about now.”

  “I’m going to kick his ass when he gets here,” Tom muttered.

  “Where’d they go?” John asked, his light still trained on the balcony.