2:46 A.M. Thursday
The engine died and I jerked the keys from the ignition, leaving them on the seat. In a few moments more I was at the top of the building, ready to make the leap to the ground below. I accepted the sacrifice I would have to make. This fall probably wouldn't kill me if I made it correctly, but I wasn't coming home. I knew that, and as I readied my gear I started singing softly, my microphone picking up the sound.
"Hold on to me, love
You know I can't stay long
All I wanted to say was I love you and I'm not afraid…"
In the operations room, Leticia froze. "That's an Evanescence song," she said and briskly cued up the track in the CD player, the haunting music playing behind her as she ran the room with a desperate precision.
Standing on the edge of the building, I finished the final two lines of the verse.
"Can you hear me?
Can you feel me in your arms?…"
Then I jumped, the world rushing up to meet me, opening up to me below. As I hit the next rooftop standing and felt the shockwave pass through me but stayed my course, back inside Amy Lee kept singing, scoring the final act of our play of shadows. I could hear her voice in my mind, but the loudest sound was the desperate rising of war fast coming to a termination.
I ran to the edge in one fluid motion and cleared it, almost there now; I could hear the sound of carbon-tipped bullets, smell the active ingredient of garlic in the air. My heart pounding in my chest like a metronomic piston, I could clearly identify voices – Jason's, Lan's, Derek's, Chloe's, Weiss' and Ben's. All of them just trying to stay alive one moment more. Once again hitting the pavement with a sound, I turned the corner and came upon the storm that awaited me at the other end of the street.
Holding my last breath
Safe inside myself
They were all hanging on,
fighting to survive, in the thick of it. There were maybe a dozen Code Fives
and they had just had too much too fast. They couldn't do this anymore. Only I could
complete the stand and save the future of humankind for another day, and I
understood that. My life means nothing to me. Theirs did. Producing the two
SigArms from my jacket, I bolted into the depths of the fray, everything
hitting me in one second of total assured destruction.
Are all my thoughts of you
Sweet raptured light it ends here tonight
"Get out of here!" I yelled. "Now!"
The first one I got to was Derek, him being at the rear of the battle and thoroughly mired in trying to beat a Code Five's skull in with mixed results. He had taken a severe wound to the head and was bleeding profusely but making no move to stop it. I popped off one shot as I approached, grabbing him by the shoulder and separating him from the fight. Interposing myself, I fired off two more shots and the air around me rippled with the explosion. As the others worked a strategic retreat, I worked a strategic attack. They weren't leaving, but I wasn't paying attention to know that.
Out of nowhere a
Code Five descended on me, slamming into me from behind. I went down hard on
the pavement, colliding with it and creating a sick crunching sound. My side
burned as I felt skin tear with the impact. I pushed myself up on one elbow and
my foot connected with his head, driving him backward. As I began to push
myself up, he hit me hard in the jaw and sent me reeling. As Derek and the
others watched, once again I went down hard.
I'll miss the winter
A world of fragile things
Split-second reaction: I leaped up, grabbing the Code Five by the throat and using my forward momentum to drive him down where I promptly capped him twice. Another one came in on me and I lashed out with my arm, hitting him in the nose with the grip of my second SigArm, hearing bone break as a result. Before I could think about it, I turned around and fired another clean shot. The decomposition made the ground tremble, and the blood on my hands shimmer in the moonlight. There were still others coming after me, two of them now, from either side. I had to make a choice.
Both of them collided with me at the same time and I felt the constriction of space around me and inside me as I had nowhere to go. The others were trying to get back in the fight but it almost seemed like the Code Fives didn't care they were there. Still, Weiss and Derek lead the renewed charge, their eyes full of hatred and adrenaline.
Look for me in the white forest
Hiding in a hollow tree, come find me
I was finally able to move both arms upward and fire both guns blindly in a quick double-tap motion. The two bullets caught the two Code Fives in the ribcages and went out and through. Feeling crushed and nearly out of breath, I went down on both knees. Bruises were beginning to form on my arms and I felt something that had to be blood.
Turning my head at the sound of noise, I realized that my team had refused to abandon me. Derek was busy staking a target straight through the heart. We made eye contact and wiping away my own blood I thought I could see water pressing behind his eyes. He was something different, Derek Barnes, something I'd never seen before.
"Get out of here," I pushed out just before the wind was knocked out of me.
I know you hear me
I can taste it in your tears
The blow had come from the side, and I stayed down, desperate for air, feeling black closing in at the corners of my vision. I sucked in one breath, as large as I could get then, and willed my arm to fire. Screaming pain shot down it, but I managed to raise it and pull the trigger. My shot was grazing but it bought me time I needed. I corrected my aim and fired more accurately. Then I got up and started to move, anything to get this away from my friends and somewhere where no one else would get hurt.
I started toward the empty parking garage on the side of the street, but I never made it. I was slammed into one of the concrete pylons by the gate and just about brutalized. It felt like my stomach was imploding with every cheap shot they got in, but I gritted my teeth, held my tongue, and refused to show pain. Finally I closed my eyes and let the darkness fill in the rest.
Holding my last breath
Safe inside myself
It worked – they stopped, and that's when I started. Blindfighting has been one of the areas I've tried to study, and I jammed my knee up into my captor's abdomen, then pushed in on his internal organs with my kneecap, pushing forward on the heel of my other foot. He stumbled backward, and I had enough time to grab my gun off the pavement and fire a responding shot. The resulting explosion was long enough to push back those following him and allow me to recover myself.
My ammunition was largely depleted, so I stowed both firearms and went on to Plan B: the carbon-coated long sword in the scabbard strapped to my back. Reaching between my neck and my jacket, I grabbed the hidden handle and pulled, bringing out the extended blade and holding it tight. I'm a former swordfighting champion, so I trusted in myself to make this work. Surveying the field, I couldn't see anyone else and hoped they had listened to my final command.
Are all my thoughts of you
Sweet raptured light it ends here tonight
Giving the long sword one brief swing to make sure it performed, I swung out in front of myself as the Code Fives approached, tearing them wide open. The carbon burned and I could see it eating away at them; before they could react, I waded in, slashing with quick moves of the wrist until I hit bone and I knew they were going to die slow, painful deaths. Then I backed up, up the ramp that lead into the lit parking garage, hoping to make them come to me instead of the other way around. The tide of Code Fives surged toward me.
That's when it
happened: everyone else appeared seemingly out of nowhere, renewing the attack.
Derek and Jason cut two down before they could get to me, and Lan and Chloe
were at my back providing cover fire. Ben and Weiss were picking and choosing
their targets, and soon the parking garage had turned into the site of a melee.
I didn't have time to question their decision as I had to move to avoid my own
blade, then stumbled backward and fell, my target falling onto my sword.
Closing your eyes to disappear
You pray your dreams will leave you here
With the numbers of the enemy steadfastly depleting, we made one final push to drive them back, back into the empty and now thoroughly trashed street. Every now and then the air would ripple with an explosion. The extent of our injuries was no happy sight either, with Derek, Jason, Chloe and Ben all showing bleeding and God knew what else. Still they pushed on, fighting to slay rather than to capture. I beheaded one more and his head turned into ashes on the pavement as his body dropped.
My own ability to fight back was fading fast. I had taken on eight of them, maybe more, and they had pounded me badly. I felt as if I might give out at any moment. Finally I did, barely having time to let the long sword clatter to the pavement before I fell backward, bouncing my head on the asphalt and not even knowing that Jason had dusted the final Code Five. The pain shot directly to my skull, reverberating there as I tried to get up and failed.
But still you wake and know the truth
No one's there
Resolutely, I tried again and managed to get to my feet. The others were all there amongst the fire and violence, clutching their weapons, playing through their wounds. They had made both a stupid and brave decision to continue to fight when they should have saved their own lives and ensured the security of the cause, but I couldn't think of anything to say to them, wounded soldiers all of them.
Instead, as my body
screamed with blood and fire, I reached for my phone and dialed Vaughan Rice in
London.
Say goodnight
Don't be afraid
Calling me, calling me as you fade to black
Coughing up blood, I managed out the words: "It's done."
Then I dropped the phone and the rest of me followed it down and stayed down this time, and I know they were all watching me as I collapsed on the asphalt amongst the ashes of our enemies and the blood of our own.
