Side-Step O.2
"Hold still." Orga pushed Hush's hand against his shoulder.
"I'm fine," the boy replied.
Orga looked him in the eyes. He regretted it. He always regretted it.
They had the same eyes. Eyes that didn't seem to waver or look away. Eyes that knew they held nothing. Eyes fixed on him, asking him what came next.
"Stay down," Orga repeated seriously. "That's an order."
He pulled back, taking Hush's gun in hand. He added one to four to make five. Easy math, even for him. Five injuries since the fighting started. More would come. Gunshots echoed through the streets. Shouting, engines, and cries carried far in the city. The shattering of glass and the breaking of doors.
Orga stalked across the street, ignoring the occasional bullet that whizzed by him.
He didn't know why he never got shot. Hush. Shino. Aston. Mika. Everyone was shot, but never him. Some lived. Some died. Some didn't walk anymore because the back alley clinics didn't amount to medicine. They were only good for removing bullets and maybe getting an infection.
As he moved, a Merchant came crashing in from an alley to his left. He raised the gun and fired. The man's leg exploded in red, and he fell to the ground screaming. Orga aimed for his head but stopped himself. Shino ran over and snatched the gun away as both the man's hands reached for his leg.
His finger still lingered on the trigger, remembering how Jet died. Surrounded and alone, caught out by a bunch of Merchants looking for easy money. His heart hammered in his ears at the memory. The sight of the kid dumped in a drain and left to rot.
No one cared. Just another body in a crime-ridden city. Another dead refugee who didn't belong there in the first place. Another piece of debris like the rest of the garbage.
No justi—
"Orga!"
The gun went down, and he turned. "Akihiro?"
The big man stood behind a truck, peering over the roof toward a side street. "It's Yan. His guys are funneling them toward us."
Of course they were.
Orga looked back at the Merchant, watching with cold indifference as Shino tied a shirt around his leg and told him to stay down and he'd be left alone. Orga turned his back before he changed his mind and let Shino drag the injured Merchant—probably no older than they were—to a small alcove with a half dozen others.
His eyes swept the street. Cars and panels of sheet metal were used for cover. A small group of Merchants a block down took shots at them with pistols and shotguns. Bodies littered in the street in between. Some moving. Some still. By the sounds of gunfire, Orga could hear that the bulk of the fighting was further south, to the east. They'd have to move up soon, or it would be obvious they were holding back.
Orga tried not to think of Hush or Krem. Somewhere a block back, a puddle of Coby's blood dried in the street, his body stashed somewhere they could find it later.
They had to move. Those who didn't move died more than those who did.
Orga still dreaded the decision. The weight that came from all the eyes at his back, waiting for him to tell them what to do. How to proceed. How to keep on living.
They were so close. Lung's wrath was easy to avoid if you kept your head down. The biggest dangers were the captain and lieutenants, and Newtype was ruining all of them. She sparked the fighting. Let her. It weakened everyone else. If she kept going just a little longer, none of them would be in a position to threaten the wharf rats living in the Trainyard and minding their own business.
As unambitious as the plan was, it was safe. They'd be safe. They could pull free, one inch at a time.
Just a little further, Orga told himself again and again.
Yan had to go. He was petty and shortsighted. Too stupid to do the smart thing. The kind of fool who lashed out and dragged others down with him.
"Where's Mika?"
Akihiro turned toward him. "He said you told him what to do."
A smile crossed Orga's face. Damn kid. He always knew when to strike, and Orga could always count on that. He'd take care of Yan, and everyone would blame the Merchants for it.
"Alright." His phone rang, and Orga pulled the device from his pocket. "Get everyone ready, we're going to—"
His voice halted, and his fingers turned white against the phone.
That was insane.
Shino crossed the open space behind him, gun turning on the roof and firing. Three other guns turned as the younger kids took aim and the body tumbled over the edge and hit the street.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Lung is going after Newtype," Orga said. "He's telling everyone to move toward her factory."
Akihiro snarled. "While the Merchants are running this way?"
"It's suicide." Orga cursed. "He's ordering us into a damn vice with Newtype on one side and the Merchants on the other!"
"The Empire is moving too," Shino added. "Old Nan down on Lord sent me a message. Says they're moving north."
A four-way fight between everyone in the damn city? No, five. The Protectorate and PRT would get involved in that. Cops too. There were already SWAT teams roaming the edges of the Towers.
"I heard Newtype nabbed Oni Lee," Akihiro reported. "He hasn't been anywhere he's supposed to be."
Newtype took him? Orga cursed again. "It's a trap."
"Trap?" Shino asked.
"Newtype attacked everyone. She's trying to draw us all in. A fight at her factory is a fight at her workshop. She's trying to trap all the gangs at once."
Lung might know that, but he wouldn't care. The Dragon considered himself invincible, and where he was vulnerable he had to prove he wasn't. He'd fight. He had to. If he didn't, the captains might start whispering. Grabbing Oni Lee ensured Lung would make that a fight against her. Going after her factory was something she couldn't fly away from.
"This is bad," Shino mumbled.
Best case scenario, they were arrested and sent to American prisons. Worst case, they were arrested and sent back to Japan, Korea, Singapore, and wherever else they came from. Death sentences were bad enough. Dying in the street like mad dogs had some dignity in it. At least they could fight for their lives.
Dying in sunken cities and irradiated fields was worse. A slow death. A death without hope. Without the promise that dying meant something to those who moved on.
"What do we do, Orga?"
And there were the eyes again, at his back begging for the answers he didn't have.
Merchants on one side. Empire and Newtype on the others. Lung and Yan ready to notice any weakness and exploit it. Mika could handle one of those problems, but not the others. It felt like a cruel joke. For all their rotten lives, Orga had never seen a wharf rat trigger. None of them had powers.
Power never came to those who needed it most.
He could only chalk it up to the cruelty of fate.
Coby was already dead. How many more were going to die today?
He already knew the answer.
More. It was always more. More blood. More pain. More tears. The price of staying alive in an uncaring world.
His options, as always, were many. Most of them would be wrong. Running was hopeless. Going from being under Lung's thumb to being under someone else's might be doable, but Orga didn't see anyone to turn to now. Simply leaving was always there, but they'd run out of money and food quickly. Naze was offering help but the girls in the brothels needed it more. A life without dignity and justice wasn't the same as a life without pride. He couldn't take his own out while they suffered.
The Turbines would split his group up anyway. Selfish as it was, he didn't want that. The blood they spilled was theirs. They spilled it for each other and those left behind them. He couldn't take that path. He didn't want to and neither would those behind him.
He only had one real choice. That didn't make the choice any easier. Yan might go down, but his men wouldn't. If he didn't do as Lung said, Lung would turn his eyes their way. They were rats. Replacing them was as easy as checking the next boat to dock in New York or Boston.
"Orga."
Akihiro looked him in the eye. For all his intensity, he wasn't dumb. After Mika and Biscuit, Akihiro was the one who recognized the weight on Orga's shoulders. He appreciated that. As much as he didn't want to show strain or weakness to those behind him, it helped knowing a few understood it.
"We—"
A wall behind them exploded. Orga spun, gun going up with a dozen others.
Another one of Squealer's tanks was his first thought. The Merchants still had a few, and he could hear the whirling of an engine in the dust blowing over the street. Another explosion rocked the earth and kicked the air. The smoke blew back, and Bakuda stumbled in the road.
Her head looked up, the red lenses in her mask meeting his eyes for a moment.
Then she spun, her grenade launcher snapping up and firing a puff of smoke at the looming figure behind her.
Trainwreck's arm swiped through the air, almost batting the explosion aside. His suit lumbered and roiled, a mechanical and steam-spewing behemoth compared to the smooth white of Newtype's machines. A big mechanical hand smashed down into the crowd, breaking the asphalt and showering Bakuda in chunks of rock. She stumbled back and threw a small sphere at the ground. Trainwreck's suit rolled back, treads on the feet of his suit spinning out and squealing into the air.
She looked at him again, and Orga snapped.
"Move!"
Shino and Akihiro fired. Small figures emerged from the ruined building behind Trainwreck—Merchants, a dozen or so kitted out with armor on their arms and legs. They carried bats, guns, and wrenches. Bullets pinged against their bodies, and Orga fired his gun with the others.
"Aim for the gaps in the armor!" he shouted. "Akihiro, the rear! Shino, cover Bakuda!"
"Bomb lady, got it."
Orga moved as the others rose behind him. Akihiro and three others pushed a ruined car into the road. Merchants were coming from the other direction, no doubt trying to reach Trainwreck.
Silently, he thanked Alice for the opportunity.
Fighting the Merchants on two sides was better than fighting the Merchants on one side, and Newtype and the Empire on the others. He could manage this. He could direct it, and when it was said and done they could manage Lung after the fighting ended. A problem for later. At least they'd be alive to try. Akihiro at their back to keep the junkies at a distance, Bakuda and Mikazuki at the front to sow chaos. Use the bombs as a distraction and disable the armored Merchants one by one.
They could make that plan work.
So he moved. He pulled Hush to his feet and then Jo. When one of Trainwreck's armored Merchants turned toward them, Orga called her out and the others around them fired. The woman stumbled as a hose on her leg exploded and sprayed her with steam.
She screamed in pain, collapsed, and Orga moved onto the next target.
The smoke began to settle, revealing the building ruined by Trainwreck and Bakuda's arrival. More Merchants lingered back there, climbing over the debris. They could be isolated. The rubble offered them no footing.
Trainwreck began to turn their way, his shadow rising with his suit. An explosion blasted over his back, and Bakuda threw another bomb into the crowd of armored Merchants. Three were blown into the air and a fourth hit the ground as his leg went spinning off into the smoke behind them.
A figure moved through the dust, and Orga smiled as Mikazuki tackled one of the Merchants from behind. The woman spun around, but Mikazuki climbed onto her back and pressed a gun into her leg. He fired twice, and jumped back as the crying Merchant fell.
"Mika!" Orga pointed and the boy turned in time to duck under a swinging arm.
Trainwreck drove his fist into the ground. He began to turn, cutting into the street and throwing up a cloud of rock and dirt. An explosion knocked him off balance and Bakuda jumped back as his other hand came down on top of her. She hit a wall as she fell back, and fumbled in her coat for another explosive.
Conventional explosives, not the exotic ones she'd handed to other groups.
Orga reached into his own pocket and grabbed hold of the sphere inside. "Mika!" He pulled the device out and threw it. His gun aimed and fired, knocking the Merchant looming over Mikazuki off balance.
The boy threw himself forward and grabbed the bomb from the air. He turned his gun on the Merchant's ankle and fired. The man gritted his teeth and tried to drive his fist toward Mikazuki's skull. The boy ignored it, scrambling to his feet as a dozen guns poured bullets on his attacker. The bullets planked and dinged off the armor, but the force carried and knocked him back.
More figures began emerging from the smoke, more than Orga wanted to fight, but they carried mostly bats and other such weapons.
"Take down the ones with guns. Keep the rest at a distance!"
Shino grabbed Bakuda's shoulder and helped her up quickly. Trainwreck found his balance again and turned to follow. Mikazuki ran up behind him, thumb pressed on the button at the top of the sphere. He dodged between two armored Merchants and ran to the monster tinker. An arm swiped back at him and Mika ducked under the rush of air. He rolled forward and between Trainwreck's legs, rose, and shoved the device into one of the pipes sticking out of the tinker's back.
"Cover!" Orga yelled.
He threw himself to a wall and shielded his head. The explosion snapped at the air and rippled outward. Metal groaned and snapped, and the engine of Trainwreck's suit sputtered.
Orga's ears were still ringing when he lowered his arm and moved. He caught the light as it shot overhead. A green trail moving north. He ignored it. Let her fight Lung if she wanted. Let her live out her fantasy, while the rest of them lived in the cruel reality of the world.
Orga patted Aston's shoulder and pointed. "Move!"
He took aim as he shouted, seeing the others rise in the corners of his eyes. Mika jumped up from the ground and tackled one Merchant, and Bakuda turned her launcher on Trainwreck as he tried to keep his suit upright.
It was always like this, somehow. Always a fight. A fight to live another day. A fight to move.
To keep moving.
They had to keep moving. There's no going back, and nothing to return to if there was. No homes. No families. No hope. Their lives were rotten and bloody and short. A raging storm with no light. But there was always somewhere to go. Somewhere to move.
He grimaced as a bullet struck Han in the neck. He fell to the ground, eyes toward the sky and choking. Orga fought past it. No one could save him now. There'd be time for pain later. Mikazuki took care of revenge, running up behind the shooter and pressing a barrel to the back of her head.
"Keep going!"
Those who didn't move died.
He could give them that. Keep giving them that. It would be good enough. It had to be. They had nowhere to go back to, nowhere to return.
There was only the destination. Until their eyes found something to fill them. Until they were satisfied with their place in the world.
"Never stop!"
This chapter was actually written almost a year after the rest of arc 8 in an attempt to correct my forgetting to mention these characters exist which became a problem in Arc 9 and 10 XD
