Stephenie Meyer owns The Host, not me.
Mixed Feelings
*Prelude*
Widepetals looked down at the cryotank in her hands, acutely aware of the submachine guns trained on her. *Moment of truth,* she thought, feeling ill. She deftly popped the lid on the cryotank and dumped its occupant into her lap. The Soul unfurled its feelers, and she picked it up.
Part of her saw it as her sibling, a beautiful representation of her people. She fought the urge to run her hand across it, to curl her arms protectively around her sibling and remove it from these humans who would do it harm.
Widepetals closed her eyes, trying to gather the mental will to do what was needed.
Part of her saw it as a representation of everything wrong with her people, their potentially fatal naivety. If anyone involved in Alex's capture had possessed one whit of common sense, he'd have been discarded immediately after they'd finished questioning Moon about her current host, and this poor Soul would not be about to die.
Another, tiny part of her leftover from her host's most deeply-held beliefs, saw it as a pest, a sub-human creature less worthy of life than common insects. She saw a murderous, hypocritical invader that deserved nothing better than a painful, gruesome death. Her hands longed to tear it apart.
She surrendered to her host's subconscious mind, closing her eyes.
"That's enough," one of the rebels said after a few minutes. "I believe you." She opened her eyes, looked down and blanched.
Her hands were sticky with her tiny sibling's blood, and its severed attachments littered her lap. Her entire front was covered with silver.
The world spun, and she felt as though she'd been kicked in the chest. She fought for breath as she processed what she'd just done.
A wave of discordant amusement washed through her, and suddenly she was laughing and fighting not to cry at the same time. Her hands rose almost of their own accord, and wrapped around another one of the Souls attachments, then tore it out at the root.
"You said you needed our help?" Blackbird asked Alex as Widepetals fought not to lose her bearing.
"My friend, Jane. The Seekers took her, and we've got to get her back. Her and a couple of others."
"The sponge? Black hair? Medium height?"
"Sponge?" Alex asked sharply.
"She's still retarded from the de-implantation, right?" one of the other rebels asked rhetorically. "They're like sponges."
"She's a little out of it after I took out Blossoms Sunward, but she's coming around," Alex said angrily. "But yeah, that's her."
"We've got her, and all the others that were in this house."
"Have you hurt her?"
"She's fine," Blackbird said. At Alex's questioning look, he added "We'll be meeting up with the rest in a few hours, soon as we pack up and move out."
*****
Widepetals fought not to shake once she was away from the humans. Looking down at the front of her silver-stained body, she prayed she'd never have to do something like that again. Knowing she'd have to do something like this was one thing; actually carrying out the action with her bare hands against a defenseless sibling was another.
One of the dismembered attachments of the Soul she'd murdered twitched, and she couldn't suppress a shudder any longer. She knew she'd be haunted by this day for a very, very long time. Her only condolence was that in the end, after her people woke up to the danger they posed, the rebels who had made her do this would all be discarded when her people cleared the planet of humans.
The worst thing about it was that part of her, feeling emotions leaking from Sophia's subconscious mind, had actually enjoyed the act. It had helped fool the rebels, but left her feeling filthy. Used.
She wanted a shower to wash herself clean of her sibling's blood. Desperately. But that wouldn't remove the stain on her psyche from what she'd done in the name of necessity.
Someone was talking to her. "Sophia, right?" Blackbird asked. "We've got to get moving. The Seekers are slow, but they're going to show up at some point in time. Get that blood off of your hands and change your shirt - you look like something out of a horror flick. Sorry about shooting you, but I'm sure you understand."
Widepetals plastered on her best borrowed fanatical grin, and tossed aside the handful of severed attachments she'd been pulling apart.
"Gotcha, chief. No hard feelings here." Being sure to step on the carapace she'd peeled open, she headed out to see if any of Jane's clothing would fit.
*****
Unknown to Widepetals, Ice Pillar had bugged her stuff. He'd gone through her things after seeing dirt on her shoes when he came back from the store, and found a plethora of weapons that a Soul would have no desire to have.
There was only one conclusion - Widepetals was being controlled by her host, like everyone had said she would be. He'd wanted to extract her immediately and discard the host, but higher-ups had wanted to follow her and see what she did.
It was not a nice picture. The device's audio stream was very poor, though its GPS signal was coming in fine. From what he'd heard so far, the brother was trying to organize some kind of larger resistance movement, and had kidnapped several people.
He'd heard them arguing about Blossom's Sunward's host, then a gunshot. The audio quality dropped to the point that he couldnt distinguish the conversation from static.
He'd already asked for a team to go rescue Widepetals. At the gunshot, he made up his mind, knowing she was likely already dead. He owed it to her to save her.
After showing up at Blossoms Sunward's house, he'd found the door open and nobody home. A cursory check of the first several rooms found a .357 round along with an expended 9mm that had bounced behind a door - almost a guarantee the rebels were armed. He couldn't think of any reason for a Soul to have such an artifact.
Then he entered the living room, and his stomach siezed - the floor was coated with red and silver blood, and a Soul's body was strewn across the room, having been torn apart piece by piece. He forced himself to look through the rest of the house, and found one of Widepetals' shirts - covered in red blood, silver blood, with a bullethole through it.
After a moment of panic, he realized she was alive - she had to be. Her host was too stubborn to die from a simple gunshot wound, the dismembered Soul was too big to be Widepetals, and there was no human corpse. That meant she was still inside of Sophia, still being controlled by her host.
He'd have to subdue the humans by himself, make sure not to injure Widepetals in the process, and find her a new host. Then he'd have to ensure that she actually went to a comforter - she'd always had low opinions of those who needed to visit the professionals, but now she'd have no choice. He'd drag her by force, if necessary.
And if she wasn't alive, he still had to track down her killers.
He checked their location once again, and headed back to his Humvee.
*****
Alex, Sophia, and the Repo men were on the move to meet the recently de-implanted humans and their watchers. Alex was quickly growing to dislike the rebels, but there wasn't much he could do as long as his sister was hellbent upon joining them, and they had Jane in their care.
Sophia, on the other hand, was ecstatic - the rebels had equipped both of them with rifles. Alex had taken the opportunity to replace the bolt-action relic he'd been carrying with an FAL, and Sophia had jumped at an Uzi.
He was suspicious of the Repo Men - every time he asked whether Jane had been hurt in the capture, they got quiet. Sophia didn't seem to care. He supposed she might after the novelty of meeting other humans wore off, but right now she was all but ignoring him.
The trip took nearly an hour in the Repo Men's van, and he overheard snippets of conversation on the way. They were counting down towards something that was going to happen in the next few days, but he wasnt sure what and didn't care to ask.
Sophia was chatting it up with Greasefire, talking about the best way to break into buildings with a particular type of lock. He wondered whether it was good for her - she needed socialization, but the Repo Men... they were just going to encourage her destructive tendencies.
When they arrived at the meeting point - an abandoned house in the woods miles from anyone's property - Jane ran to him and practically tackled him with a tearful hug.
"Alex! They want me to fight for them!" she cried. "I dont want to fight! And they shot me!"
"Jane, you're not going to have to fight anyone," he assured her, glaring at Blackbird. "And why the hell did you shoot her?"
Blackbird shrugged. Oakwheel, however, took offense.
"Look around you, kid. Do you see the world we live in? We thought she was a Soul, and at some point, she's going to have to realize the world is out to get her. The sooner she learns to fight, the better off she'll be."
"Let's go, Jane. They're crazy." Alex started off into the woods with Jane. "Come on, Sophie."
Sophia glanced at Blackbird, and ran to her brother. "Give them a chance, they're all we've got," she cajoled.
"They shot Jane, Sophia - do you want to stick around people like that? If there are other groups, how long do you think you'll make it with a Soul in your head?"
"It's better than taking our chances by ourselves. They might be able to help us find our parents, Alex."
"Sophie, are you serious? Nothing's going to send up a flag in the Seeker's systems more than humans kidnapping relatives."
Jane spoke up as well. "They wont remember who they are. They'll be like me."
"God dammit, Alex, we find a group of competent people and your first instinct is to run? What's wrong with you?"
"What's wrong with me? I think there's something wrong with you. I dont want to get involved in a battle, especially with Jane. How likely do you think it is that the Repo Men will succeed at whatever they're trying to do?"
"They've made it this long, haven't they?"
"I think that was mostly luck. Come on, lets get a move on." He broke into a jog, and Jane followed him.
"God dammit, Alex! I never thought you were a coward!" Sophia shouted after him.
After they'd gone nearly three miles, he heard an engine approaching and he dropped to the ground, pulling Jane down with him.
Blackbird and Roswell jumped off of ATV's, carrying weapons.
"Are they going to kill us?" Jane asked quietly.
"No," he reassured her. "Stay quiet."
Blackbird began shouting. "Sorry, Alex, but we cant let you go any farther. You know who we are, and all of our faces. If you get caught, we get caught."
Alex swore. "Jane's not going to fight, you hear me?" he shouted back.
"She's going to have to, in the next few years. We're taking the planet back, Alex, and in case you havent noticed, us humans are more violent than Seekers and we wont have police for at least a few months."
"I can protect her for that long," Alex shouted back.
Something hit him in the head. He looked, and saw a can of Sleep hissing at his feet.
The last he saw before he passed out was his sister's face glaring at him with silver eyes.
*****
Ice Pillar tracked the signal across the state. It was coming from an abandoned house along a highway that had been moved back in the 1920s. After the road had been moved, a forest had grown up around the formerly inhabited area as everyone had left.
He stopped the car several miles away and continued on foot through the woods, bringing his M4 with him. He didn't want to have to kill any of the humans, but as there was only one of him, capturing them seemed unlikely. They were probably not suitable as hosts, in any case, as Sophia had demonstrated.
He approached the house through the woods, careful to avoid hitting any branches. The humans had cut down all of the bushes directly next to the house, and he covered the clearing to a broken window in a sprint.
Ice Pillar peered through the window cautiously, his M4 at the ready.
A pair of silver eyes stared back at him, right overtop of a machine pistol's sights.
"You should have let it be, Ice," she said tiredly. "Everything would have been fine if you'd left me alone. Drop the gun and get on your knees."
The safety was on on his rifle, and she was watching him like a hawk.
"Tell that to whoever I found splattered in Blossoms Sunward's house, Sophia," he said, driooubg the gun and raising his hands above his head.
"I'm not her. I'm not," she said, though she sounded unsure. "She's gone. Dead."
"So who am I talking to, then?" Ice asked. "You sure aren't Widepetals - she wouldn't kill innocents. She wouldn't point that gun at me."
Sounding more sure of herself, the girl responded. "Trust me, it's for the greater good, Ice. I don't think you could understand, even if I explained it."
"Widepetals, this isn't you - put down the gun and let's run! Your host's playing you like a piano!"
"I don't think so." She narrowed her eyes. "Having you out of the picture will make everything so much simpler. Bye - sorry it turned out like this. I don't like it any more than you do."
Her hand shook as her finger tightened on the trigger.
"Don't do it, Widepetals! You can fight her!" Ice Pillar desperately urged her.
Her face broke out into a sickly smile. "Trust me, I am, Ice. Every second of every day."
A string of gunfire rang out, impacting his chest in at least four separate places, and he went down. All the shots hit his body armor, but he felt at least one bone break.
"Blackbird, I think I've been bugged!" she shouted, stepping next to his body and kicking his carbine away.
The pistol's barrel gaped wide in front of his face.
"Bye, Ice," he heard her say through a sea of pain. "Sorry it has to be this way."
Stars exploded across his vision as a size nine boot impacted against his face, and then he blacked out.
*****
Widepetals remembered the dream she'd had a day prior, and the phantom that had warned her that something like this would happen.
You were right, she thought, defeated, as several of the Repo men came running. She threw on a disgusted expression as they came into view, and started kicking Ice Pillar again.
"Sophia, what's going on?" Blackbird asked.
"A fucking Seeker," she said, throwing another kick. "Knew the bug in my head, came to 'rescue' it. I don't know how it found us. Search my stuff, I think he planted something in it."
Blackbird swore. "Bookend, search and secure the Seeker. Move everybody to the car - we've got to get moving before more Seekers show up!"
*****
The Repo Men got on the road again within minutes, leaving Widepetals in awe. She tried to get Ice Pillar to tell her where the bug was, but he refused to talk to her.
Not surpising, she supposed. He thought she was a human.
Widepetals had to watch as Roswell removed him from his host and placed him in a cryotank. His host didn't wake, as she expected, so they began searching all of her stuff for the electronic device.
She found it after ten minutes - it was inside of one of the pockets of her backpack. They removed the tracker and attached put it inside of a parked car in a rest area.
They decided to move to one of their backup safehouses - an empty family fallout shelter built during the cold-war scares and subsequently forgotten after the war ended.
Then came the hard part - to keep up the act, she'd have to urge them to kill Ice Pillar, and give Alex another shot at joining the resistance.
She struggled with the thought, but with the memory of the previous killing fresh in her mind, she couldn't gather the strength to do so.
But what were the alternatives? She'd been talking to the Repo Men for most of the day - most of them 'knew' that she absolutely hated the Souls.
The humans had been discussing some kind of upcoming operation. It didn't seem like they knew much about it, but from what she'd gathered, it was going to be big. Big enough that her participation, or lack thereof, would not make a difference. She couldn't kill Ice Pillar, now that the time was upon her, she found she couldn't do it. Just thinking about the possibility made her realize she had to get out of her current host.
*****
The rebel 'leader' such as he was, pondered what was going to happen if his people were successful.
There were three main objectives to the upcoming battle. First and foremost, they had to take the spaceport.
There were not that many interstellar capable ships, and they were not designed for atmospheric flight. The Souls solved this problem by building a space station where incoming ships unloaded their shipments of incoming cryotanks. These cryotanks were distributed via shuttle across the planet's surface. It was an efficient way to make use of the limited number of interstellar ships; the interstellar spaceships carried millions of Souls, but due to the time it took to fly between stars there were only a small number of flights every year.
From the viewpoint of the resistance, taking out that space station was key to retaking the planet. It would take months for the Souls to construct another one, during which time there would be no transport to or from Earth's surface.
The station was relatively tough; it was intended to withstand high-velocity impacts with the accumulated debris that humans had left in their fifty years of space flight. It was not, however, intended to withstand impact with one of the Earth-based shuttles moving at full velocity.
By taking the spaceport and rigging one of the shuttles as a missile, they would effectively have millions of hostages, and could credibly make demands upon what passed for the Souls' heirarchy - demands for food, supplies, space to live, and the disbanding of the local Seeker force.
Next, they had to take the healing center. The building was guarded by several hundred Seekers, in response to that idiot girl's fuel-truck bomb. That meant they'd have to use one of the FAE they'd been planning on using to deter ground-based counterattacks. The Seekers, while more security-minded than the average bug, were still Souls and thus hopelessly naive. Two of the more resourceful cells had a plan to capture a cryotank delivery truck and load it with one of the bombs, which would take out most of the building's defenders. The survivors would be left shellshocked and disorganized, leaving the facility open for capture.
The healing facility contained several tons worth of Soul miracle drugs. The Heal, in particular, would save many lives after the battle. In addition, the Health and Inside clean would be invaluable in dealing with any non-rebel humans who came to the city if the humans won. The rebellion, early on, had been forced to deal with infections and malnutrition as a fact of life in the outskirts of the Souls' world - but with the drugs, they might be able to help any latecomers get over such problems in short order.
Next, they wanted to take the SETI radio beacon. This wasn't as important as the other two tasks, but was still a main objective. The beacon had been upgraded by the Souls - now it was several orders of magnitude more powerful than it had been in human days. It still sent out the same message - basically just an "We are here, please talk to us" along with basic information about humanity. It made no mention of the Souls, and any species coming to investigate the beacon would face a bug infiltration of their society.
He wanted to reprogram it to send out a warning to any listeners about the bugs, and a plea for assistance. If it looked like they were going to lose, the message could be changed to a request for the sterilization of Earth. If anyone heard it, the bugs wouldn't be able to continue their current method of stealing higher civilization's technology, as any victims would be forewarned.
Of course, there would likely be a counterattack. From what scouts had found out, most of the leftover human-era military equipment of the area was tied up around the healing centers. The bugs had made a big deal about decomissioning most of the Air Force's inventory, so they wouldn't have to worry too much about airstrikes, but there were several attack helicopters and a few scattered IFV's in nearby towns. Several cells possessed Stingers for the choppers, but the armored vehicles might pose a problem.
If the bugs caved, that would mean everyone would have to shift their way of thinking. They'd be able to move non-combatants out of the various underground shelters they were in, and set up an actual government. The rebellion hadn't had to deal with much crime, but as soon as the imminent threat of extinction passed, humanity would once again need a police force. This would be made difficult, as pretty much everyone who had survived this long was good at getting around without notice, and nobody was used to following the societal rules necessary for any kind of concentrated population. Any kind of census would be near-impossible - the human survivors had long been conditioned to make it very hard to identify them, and most had dozens of aliases - many of the cells lower in the heirarchy had no members that remembered their real names, and the core resistance members would lie about their names and histories even to other humans.
They'd need to extract the bugs from everyone they captured. He worried there wouldn't be enough people to bury the dead - they might capture as many as ten thousand bugs, and optimistically one in ten would be successfully returned to the ranks of free humans. That meant thousands of bodies to bury, and even with bulldozers it would be a daunting task.
They'd be able to make demands if they captured the spaceport - the bugs would not sacrifice millions of their own for any reason. He doubted they could force them to leave, but they probably could manage to get the city declared off-limits to all Souls and a promise of safety, along with food deliveries. That meant they wouldn't have to worry about feeding the city, but the few bugs coming into the city to deliver food and fix things would need protection from the human populace.
He was about to be a very unpopular figure - nobody wanted any bugs to be in the city, anywhere, but common sense dictated that they would have to work with them if they wanted to live. He worried about rogue attacks on neighboring cities - even some of the core members of the resistance mostly wanted to keep up the momentum and free another city after this one, but they weren't going to be able to. He'd probably have to work with the Seekers to catch them...
It was going to be a long year if tomorrow's attacks succeeded. The top cells were already taking bets on the number of assasination attempts he'd have to deal with.
*****
Alex had been separated from Jane again. They'd blindfolded him for the trip away from the meeting house, and he had no idea where he was aside from an empty concrete room with cold filtered air coming in from the ceiling.
He'd been there for hours when the door opened, and Sophia came in.
"Sophia! Stop this, you're going to get killed when they get caught!"
"I'm not your sister," she said. "Sorry."
Alex took a breath to shout for help, but she pointed a pistol at her own chest.
"You want her to live, right? Shouting might not be the best idea. These bodies - they're so fragile," the Soul commented airily, continuing to point the pistol at itself. "All it takes is a few grams of lead, and it's all over for you. No amount of Heal will fix a dead person."
"Let me let you in on a secret - I hate your species. Of all the species there are in the galaxy, yours is the only one that's come up with the concept of a war. You are, on the whole, potentially the most powerful force for chaos there has ever been, especially since we trashed your civilization. My people are mostly too naive to see it, but its obvious to any of you, isnt it?"
"If you kill her, I will end you," Alex ground out.
"Oh, I'm certain you will. But that leaves me in a difficult situation - if I let you do what you want, you'll kill me."
"So why the reveal, then?"
"I want you to re-implant Ice Pillar, and I want you to provide me with a new host. Male, if you can. Let us leave in peace, and we'll move me to the new host and send Sophia back to you."
"Bullshit. You'll just stay inside of her."
"I want out of her head. Your sister's a psychopath, Alex - all these little urges and violent emotions are too much for me to take. I cant tell right from wrong anymore. She's not awake, but she's manipulating me just the same and I want out. You have something I want, and I have something you want. We can trade and go our separate ways."
"I dont think the Repo Men will like that very much."
"The way I see it, you dont really have a choice. I dont really need the gun - I can just scramble her brain. If you want your sister back, you're going to get my friend."
Alex thought. He had no choice, really - Sophia was at this bug's mercy.
"Let me out and I'll see what I can do."
*****
Sophia woke up looked around, finding herself sitting oun the ground in total darkness. "Am I dead? Alex, are you there?"
She struggled to move, and found that her hands were bound. She swore as a door opened with a metallic noise, and a Seeker walked in with a Soul in civilian clothing. Dim light spilling in revealed she was tied up in the corner of an empty shipping crate.
"Let's just kill her," the civilian urged. "We'd be saving ourselves a lot of trouble."
"You just went through a lot of trouble to avoid killing anyone else, Widepetals. I dont think that's a good idea."
The name Widepetals got her memory moving again - Widepetals had been the Soul she'd been about to be implanted with, and the Seeker looked rather familiar as well.
"Yeah, but... If we let her go, we'll be seeing her again shortly. And she'll be armed."
*Ha! They've got no idea what to do with me!*
Sophia spat. "Go ahead," she taunted. "Murder me, bug-boy. It wont be hard, I'm completely defenceless."
The Souls wouldn't kill her, not like this. It would be in a cold, sanitized Healing facility, under the guise of "discarding". Not anonymously, in the back of a shipping crate like some kind of criminal gang.
"Don't try me, I might do it," Widepetals countered violently, grabbing the M9 from the Seeker's holster.
Sophia laughed. "And hell froze over yesterday. I know you people. You dont do things like this. What do you want from me?"
"We dont want anything from you," the Seeker - Ice Pillar, the name filtered to her - said. "We want peace."
Both Widepetals and Sophia stared at the other bug.
"Well I want a nuclear bomb, and I'm sure if there are other humans out there, they want the same," Sophia eventually responded.
Widepetals agreed. "Ice Pillar, they're never going to surrender. Ever. Unless we have a navy, they'll sterilize every planet we've ever been to. I think the best we can hope for in the next few centuries is a protracted interstellar conflict."
There was another awkward pause.
"Sophia, do you know where you are, and what's happened over the past few months?"
"Last I remember, I'd just gotten shot. How'd dying feel, Widepetals?"
Widepetals grimaced. *Score!* she thought.
"After you shot me, I was implanted into you and tried to infiltrate the human resistance. Ice Pillar didn't know what I was doing and followed me, blowing my cover. Do you remember any of that?"
"That's right... And then you threatened to kill me to free him," she said, slowly remembering Widepetal's plan to sabotage the Repo Men's plans.
She paled - who knew what the Soul was thinking right now? It might very well kill her if it was still thinking like it had been inside of her head.
"So you see our problem," Ice Pillar said. "Honestly, I think Widepetals might be right about killing you. Taking you back to a Healing facility to be discarded would just give you a chance to escape."
Widepetals raised the pistol, and Sophia's eyes widened. "Well, if you have no objections..."
Its hand trembled holding the pistol, and Sophia thought quickly.
"Didn't you promise Alex you'd let me go?" she asked.
"I'm a Seeker. We're allowed to lie," the bug told her, its finger tightening. Sophia closed her eyes.
The gun clicked. "Its off to therapy for you, Widepetals," Ice Pillar said. "We're going back to the Healing facility, and you're going to listen to the Healers this time after we discard the girl."
Sophia was sprayed with Sleep - she tried to hold her breath, but the cloud persisted for too long to let her avoid breathing it.
*****
Any proper first strike requires a great deal of planning and preparation to be successful. The rebellion's attack was no different. Through the past several years, several different cells had been tracking where different Seekers lived, the different routes of communication they used and routes of transportation within the city. When the announcement of the impending attack went out, everyone prepared to disrupt these things in any way that they could.
"Tomorrow's the day, people," the cell leaders heard through their radios late that night. "Drop any unfinished projects you have and start moving things into place. Zero Hour is 0700. Make sure everyone knows how they fit into things, and make sure you are not in the city at seven, or you'll be having a bad day. And remember, do not hit residential areas at zero hour."
Bombs were planted, power lines were destroyed, telephone lines cut, cellphone towers and internet hubs sabotaged. Seeker's cars were vandalized beyond repair, and in one case, a grounded helicopter's rotors were destroyed. The resistance did everything they could to ensure that the city would be paralyzed.
*****
As Ice Pillar drove back to the Healing Facility, Widepetals filled Ice Pillar in on what she'd been doing.
"Sorry about shooting you, Ice. I thought I was doing the right thing, but..."
"Souls have been overcome by lesser humans than that one," Ice told him. "It wasn't your fault. It wasn't really you," he said.
"It was me, that's the thing! She never really woke up - I came up with that retarded false flag plan all by myself."
"You wouldn't have, if it weren't for her. It wasn't really you."
Widepetals shook his head. "It just bothers me. If you think I need therapy, I'll go."
*Thank goodness,* Ice Pillar thought.
"Let's not worry about that now, what were the humans planning to do?" he asked.
Widepetals thought. "That group was called the Repo Men. I think they're part of a larger organization, and from the sounds of it, there's going to be a large operation in the next few days. They dont know much of the details."
"We've got to warn the city," Ice Pillar commented.
"Well, keep driving. Once we get where we're going, we can get debriefed. We're almost there. I wish they hadn't smashed your radio," Widepetals said.
They heard gunfire. A second later, the car lurched as one of the tires blew, and bulletholes appeared around them.
Ice Pillar fought to keep the car from flipping, and thew were thrown against the seat restraints. The car came to rest, and Widepetals grabbed Ice Pillar's M9. Ice Pillar saw a muzzle flash and began firing at the side of the road as Widepetals jumped out of the car.
As she did so, there was a distant boom, and she saw a small mushroom cloud rise above the city.
A/N I'm continuing this story just to find out where it takes me now. It was hard to think of what's going to happen next, but I have an outline for the next chapter.