Prisoner, page 11
part #2 of The Contractors Series
“They'll either try to cut off me or the rest of the squad,” Jack said. “Can’t afford everyone getting bogged down together again. Splitting up is best for now.” Jack pointed at his map; it was still floating over his wrist, following alongside them. “See this?” Jack said. “The green is our territory. Since I've gotten here we've pushed out into a new space. More territory—”
“Is more points,” Daniel said. “The welcoming committee told me.”
“Who?”
“The Sky Runners tried to recruit me,” Daniel said. “I told them I wanted to wait for you, but when the alarms started going off they decided they didn't want to take no for an answer.”
“Damn,” Jack said. “Lucky you didn't get kidnapped. Left here!” Jack cut to the side, avoiding a broad intersection. “We can't go in the open, just the two of us. That’s like asking someone to attack you.”
Daniel could hear the sounds of battle and see a few flashes of magic over to the right side. He skidded slightly when Jack suddenly changed direction, then poured on the gas to catch back up. Exhaustion was starting to wear on him; it felt like weights were attached to his feet.
“Territory gives you income,” Jack said, “but it also gives you some rent-free living space. Super important, no one can afford monthly rent for an entire team indefinitely. You have to hold territory if you want to stay solvent.”
“Right,” Daniel said between breaths. “So. Psychos. Psychos everywhere.”
“Sorry about that,” Jack said. He didn't even seem winded yet. “We were trying to get to you when it happened, we were all the way across town. The territory battles are random—usually once or twice a week, but you can't predict when.”
“What the hell?” Daniel said. “Why?”
“What the hell is exactly right.”
An explosion resounded ahead of them. Jack grabbed Daniel and pulled him down. A shockwave of wind sliced above their heads, leaving gashes in the stone walls on either side of them. Flecks of rock nicked at Daniel's cheeks.
“What was that?!”
“Looked like wind magic,” Jack said. He was already on his feet and tugging Daniel off the pavement. “Come on, come on! If we stay in one place too long they'll think we're setting up an incursion.”
“Incursion?” Daniel stumbled into a run as Jack's hand let go.
“When you assault and take the territory of another team. It's happening to our territory right now!”
“Why is this happening?” Daniel said. “What's the point?!”
Jack threw the words over his shoulder as he ran. “Short version—imagine a prison filled with the worst dicks of a whole entire interstellar empire.”
Another blast shook the street. Daniel and Jack were thrown against the wall. They shielded their heads from the dust and cinders as a roar of hot wind rushed through the alley. Smoke rose above the roof behind them.
“I don't have to work very hard to imagine this!” Daniel shouted over the noise.
The explosion died down. They slipped into a side alley, away from the immediate sounds of conflict. Jack checked his map, then clicked it shut and tucked his wristband under his sleeve. Daniel did the same—the less light they had to reveal their location, the better.
“Can they see us on their maps?” Daniel said.
“Only if we're in line-of-sight or they're using special tracking tools,” Jack said. “No one here is looking for us specifically, so as long as we stay down we should be okay.”
“Right,” Daniel said. They slinked around another corner. “This is not exactly the maximum-security prison experience I was expecting.”
“Take the prison,” Jack said. “Now make it into a gameshow broadcasted live to the citizens of the empire.”
Daniel hadn't missed the clues pointing toward that state of affairs. In fact, he'd been told as much by several different people, now, in a number of different ways—but he hadn't believed it until he heard it from Jack's mouth. “That's completely insane. The kind of stuff they make sci-fi movies with, insane.”
“It's bread and circuses for the unwashed masses,” Jack said. “We're the circus.”
“This isn't a circus,” Daniel said. “There aren't even any clowns.”
“They ran out of clowns right before you got here,” Jack said. “Sorry.”
“But seriously,” Daniel said. “The demons. They seem...civilized? Rational? They sit back and let this happen?”
“The Romans were civilized,” Jack said flatly. “Didn't stop them.”
“That was 2000 years ago,” Daniel said.
“The demons like war,” Jack said. “It's embedded in their culture. We fight wars over land, religion. They do it as a matter of course. It's pride for some of them. Don't try too hard to understand it, you won't. They're not humans dressed up in fun costumes. Totally different perspective, different frame of experience. If you want respect, you have to be the strongest guy in the room. Otherwise, you’re nothing, you don’t matter, you don’t get to speak. Some demons are more human than others, but that’s the most reliable way to figure them out.” Jack tugged his shoulder and gestured forward. “We need to go.”
Daniel nodded his head and let himself be steered in whatever direction they were going. He'd lost track of the turns, and they took a lot more turns, winding between shadowy buildings, ducking under ledges and awnings and stone projections.
The decor of city around them had shifted. The roofs nearby had steeples with pointed ridges. Gargoyles peered over them from the top of the alley, each one wearing a unique expression of pain, anger, or both. The brick became great slabs of stone, sitting tight together without mortar.
Jack slowed down and put a finger to his lips to signal for quiet. Daniel inched along behind him. He had to stop himself from jumping at shadows. The cracks and clangs of the city's residents trying to kill each other reached their alley after echoing through a hundred other alleys, creating a slow symphony of war that hovered over their shoulders. The sounds shifted in tempo and volume; it was impossible to pick out direction or distance. Sometimes it descended into eerie silence—to be abruptly punctuated by screams or clashes of metal before rumbling back up into full force.
It reminded him of New York. The constant waiting. The paranoia. The suddenness of the fights, the slaughter. Smashing through extractors, the little silver birds, crushing and killing the overseers as fast as possible. The dark green blood that stained his clothes after he beat them to death.
In war, life was cheap. Cheap in the way useless plastic junk was cheap. Rolls under the bed, forget about it. Falls in the trash, don't bother digging it out. Broken? Buy a new one, easier than fixing it.
The blood never came out of his jeans, even after he tried scrubbing them down in the river. Eventually he'd stolen new clothes from a department store. Rachel would have appreciated the humor in that.
She was in his mind's eye. He'd tried to keep her at bay, but the habit was ingrained in him. Thinking of her motivated him, back when he could barely sleep, when he'd been on edge for days, wondering what the hell he was doing and why he was killing so much for people that wanted to capture or kill him in return. Her red hair. Her smile. The way her face lit up when he’d hit the nail on the head, tickled her funny bone just the right way—and the sound of her laughing. The softness when she hugged him and held him.
“Daniel?”
She’d become his center so quickly. And he'd left her there, pale, sickly, and drained. She'd already been dying at that moment. He'd already killed her.
“Earth to Daniel!” Jack hissed. He waved his arm in a frantic circle, trying to get him to move up. Daniel had fallen behind, still hunched down behind a stoop leading to the front doors of a building. Jack marched back, but stopped when he saw Daniel's face. “Are you okay?”
“I'm fine,” Daniel said. He rubbed at his face with the heel of his hand. “I'm good.”
Jack dropped into a worried whisper. “We're in the territory of a really nasty faction right now and we don't have time for this. Whatever you need taken care of, I can handle it later. I've got resources, I've built up a little influence.”
“Money?” Daniel hacked a wet, broken laugh. “That's great. We'll bribe Beelzebub with his own prison points. That'll work.”
Jack's eyes darted around the alley. “Keep your voice down,” he said. “What's wrong with you?”
“Rachel's dead,” Daniel blurted. “She got killed. I killed her.”
Jack drew a breath through his teeth. His face shifted as he grappled with what Daniel said. Daniel kept rubbing his face, as if trying to push the tears back in. All he did was rub his eyes raw. They started to throb in time with his headache.
“Everything's gone to shit,” Daniel said. “I don't know what to do. I'm trying to survive in a madhouse, for what? What's even the point?”
“Daniel.” Jack knelt and grabbed him, shaking him. Daniel pushed him away, but the effort was halfhearted; Jack didn't budge. “Daniel! Calm down for a second. Look at me. Dan, look at me.” Daniel forced himself to look up. “We're going to get back to where it's safe, and then we'll figure this out. Do you understand?” Daniel didn't respond. Jack's grip tightened. “Do you understand me?”
“Yeah,” Daniel said.
“Alright.” He grabbed Daniel under the shoulder and hauled him to his feet. “The Daniel I know doesn't curl up in a corner when things get tough. He laughs at it and comes back harder.”
“I don't feel like that Daniel is doing so hot.”
“He'll get over it.”
Daniel’s eyes were unfocused. He shook his head. “Not so sure about that.”
Jack looked away for a second, checking the alley, then gave Daniel a brief half-hug. “When I was down here, alone...I got by because I tried to think like you. 'What would Daniel do?' I said that to myself a million times. It's how I survived.”
“Seriously?” Daniel asked.
“Yeah man,” Jack said. “Seriously.”
Daniel's face screwed up. “That's like...embarrassing? Or something.”
“Don't make it weird,” Jack said. “Just take the compliment.”
“That's me,” Daniel said. “Greatest man who ever lived.”
Jack gave Daniel's back a hard pat. “Careful your head doesn't swell up again. You might not fit in the door when we get there.”
“Shows what you know. No door can withstand my huge noggin.”
“Now we're talking.” Jack smiled and patted him again. “One step at a time.” He appraised Daniel, trying to gauge his mood. “How about it? You good to keep going?”
One step at a time. Hadn't he told himself that earlier?
Rachel wouldn’t want this. She wouldn’t want to see him like this, giving up. He was better than that. She believed that he was better than that.
Daniel sniffed in hard, as if sucking back the emotion that had dumped out of him. “I'm good. Good enough.”
“Alright.” Jack turned to face the way they were heading. “A bit further and we'll be out of the real danger zone. The problem is we're near the—”
The double doors above the stoop exploded.
Daniel saw it in a series of images. Light, flashing behind the door. Jack, raising his arms to shield himself from a wave of stone and wood shrapnel. And then both of them flying backward, Jack's arm somehow under his leg—while the rest of Jack was above him, missing an arm.
Then he was lying on the ground, staring up at the flashing red lights. His vision blurred.
Daniel tried to move. He couldn't feel his arms and legs. He couldn't feel anything. A whining buzz rolled in his ears.
He saw a shadow; there was a figure in a mask looming over him, holding a blade. It fell toward his neck.
Chapter 5
Rules of Engagement
Daniel dropped on his rear, hands and feet scrabbling across cobblestone. His heart pounded in his chest. His mouth tasted like sand.
He felt at his neck. Head still attached. I'm alive.
“Do you know how many points we had to spend to revive both of you in the middle of a territory war?!” someone shouted. “We've already lost half the new territory, and the other half is under siege from three sides! Your friend isn't even on our team. That's double points, and his rating is the highest I've ever seen for fresh meat!”
Daniel glanced around. He was in a courtyard, surrounded by men and women wearing white wristbands. This close, he could see the symbol on them—a big red cross, with little yellow frills stuck on each of the four ends. It was his first time seeing it up close.
Jack was already on his feet at Daniel's side, facing a tall man with a beard that could have been mistaken for a mane of pubic hair. He also had the biggest, ugliest nose Daniel had ever seen. A thick black robe hung off his body. From the way the other people were looking at him, he was obviously someone important. At least Jack's team didn't promote people based on looks.
“Buy us enough for magic upgrades and we'll take it back,” Jack said. “Between the two of us—”
“The answer is no,” the man said. “I've done enough bringing that one here.” He waved a hand dismissively. “Get to the main courtyard. Lord Dracula will want to see you.” He glanced at Daniel. “You, too. Go with Jack.”
An undeniable certainty filled Daniel's brain. The words made perfect sense. He just had to go with Jack. Go, with Jack. Go see the lord...
Dracula?
The absurdity of it snapped Daniel out of his daze, and it was only then he realized something wasn't right. The warm numbness that settled over him vanished, like a blanket being thrown off on a cold morning. His skin prickled down his neck and between his shoulders. The hell was that?
“We can still take back the territory,” Jack said. He stepped half in front of Daniel, shielding him somewhat from the freak show. “I'd really rather talk to Lord Dracula after correcting the problem.”
“You've done enough damage today,” the man said.
“Take the points out of my pay if we don't take the node back,” Jack said. “Buy me 25 percent. Daniel only needs 10. Ten minutes for me, five minutes for him. You know how strong he is.”
The long-faced man brought a hand to his chin, sternness fading for consideration. “You'll repay the team twice what you're borrowing now.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Jack said. “The team rules say—”
“Twice what you’re borrowing,” the man said, “or you can go talk to Dracula with failure weighing on your back after lending points to a non-member on his dime.”
Jack forced the words out between his teeth. “Fine.”
The man nodded, then tapped his wristband a few times. “It's yours. I hope your faith in your friend is well-placed. You're going to need the capture reward.” The man glanced up. “Units 1 and 2, with me. We'll loop around to the western side and attack 24. Units 3 and 4, reinforce the front lines, do not let us lose zone 23. Jack and...Daniel, is it? Are you listening?”
Daniel looked at the man. His eyes were like wrinkled pits, sunk back deep behind the nose. Daniel felt the same creeping buzz slip up on him—slithering across his forehead, then working along somewhere behind the bridge of his nose. Daniel watched it in his mind's eye, wary. The sensation stopped, then started to tighten, squeezing down on an enwrapped prey.
Daniel reacted automatically.
Whenever Daniel grasped his magic, he imagined it like a floating, ethereal inner hand, touching a core where his power sat. He wasn't sure if that's how normal mages did it, or if it was a contractor thing. It was what helped him visualize things when he was first learning from Xik, so that was what he did. That same hand slapped against the oncoming tangle of power, not at Daniel's direction, but as a reaction, like someone flinching away from a baseball headed toward their face.
Daniel felt the contact—unpleasant, as if someone had grabbed his hand and scraped his nails across a chalkboard—and then it was gone. He blinked rapidly, his attention back in front of him.
The man cocked his head at him. “Jack, take Daniel and hold out near zone 24. Once we strike, you two move in to take the node. That should take more pressure off us, regardless of what happens.”
“Wait,” Jack said. “Just us on the node? Alone?”
“Yes, just you,” the man said. “Unless you think two contractors can't handle it alone?” Rasputin tapped his chin. “I suppose I could ask Lord Dracula to send one of the reserve units, but I don’t imagine he’d appreciate the request.”
“We'll be fine, thanks,” Daniel said. “Come on, Jack. Let's kick some ass.”
Jack and the robed man both looked surprised at Daniel's sudden contribution, but there wasn't anything else to say. The man nodded. “I hope you won’t disappoint. The rest of you, with me!” The team members flooded away in a flurry of armor, cloaks, swords, staves of various shapes and sizes, shields, and other strange metallic accoutrements for which Daniel had no description.
“Come on,” Jack said. “Let's move it.”
Daniel rolled his shoulders. “Great. More running. That's really what I wanted. Yep, definitely more running.”
Jack snorted and picked their path after a quick check at his bracelet-map. Daniel glanced around, taking in the relative safety of the courtyard before he followed Jack back into the red-lit alleyways of the city at war.
The crenellations and gargoyles were gone; this part of town was all brick. Daniel suspected the trim was a different kind of stone, but the red emergency lights made it all look like brick anyway. “I'm surprised you spoke up back there,” Jack said.
“I just wanted out of that conversation,” Daniel said. “That guy was being a dick.”
Jack snorted. “He's a walking bag of dicks. But I mean...you bounced back fast.”
Daniel gave his head a little shake, then picked up his feet, keeping pace with Jack. “I was...this is a little overwhelming,” Daniel said. “Everything is. It’s easier when I’ve got something to hit. Something to focus on. I’m sorry, about before. I don’t know what happened.”
