Freedom
Chapter 44
It wasn't the home stretch, even if Matrix – or rather, Wesker Velvet had stayed back to cover our escape. GI Velvet and I were held up in another building, looking down at a street, where a seemingly endless line of – of whats? What were these dozens of identical Velvets in black armor that were marching in ranks?
She pushed up her helmet, which had slipped over her eyes again, and peered down. "Too many," she said. "We can't travel right now. We'll have to wait for dark." She grabbed me to pull me away – but stopped.
"What is it?"
"Look." She pointed.
Down the road, directly in the path of the marching Dark Velvets, another figure had stepped into the road. It was, of course, another Velvet – but this one was dressed differently. To me, it looked like she was wearing a prom dress. An odd choice when it was snowing, but there was no time to think about fashion – the Dark Velvets were heading for her.
"Shouldn't we do something?"
"Too many," GI Velvet said sadly, watching them knock – er, Prom Dress Velvet – down. The beating began. GI Velvet looked on with a grimace, and I just watched too, because I didn't believe any of this was real. That didn't make it easy. You can't see violence done to someone – especially someone you like – and not feel anything.
We couldn't see much, though – there were so many Dark Velvets around that most of the actual action was obscured. We just watched all the dark shapes moving around, and heard the muffled sounds. It went on for a while. I'd have liked to leave, but GI Velvet just crouched there and watched, so I did the same.
In time, the dark shapes moved off down the street, leaving a scene I didn't expect. They'd strapped together a sort of rough cross, and planted it in the rubble. Prom Dress Velvet was hanging on it, torn and bleeding.
"Jesus," I said. I wasn't even trying to be clever. My confusion had just gone to the next level. "She's still alive."
"Yeah." GI Velvet got to her feet and leaned out the window, scanning the street. "Wait here."
I had, in some way, decided that she was in charge – so I did as I was told. She headed down the steps, and a moment later I saw her emerge below, keeping low and crossing the street as cautiously as she could. She'd left her BAR behind, and it was clear that she could move a lot better without it.
A bomb went off somewhere not too far away – and there was a brief rattle of gunfire. Then the ruins were quiet again.
The sudden gunshot startled me. The Velvet on the cross sagged. The GI Velvet lowered the .45 she'd used to execute her. Disbelieving, I watched her hurry back to the building.
"Why did you do that?" I hissed. I mean – it was pretty obviously who the good Velvets and bad Velvets were, right? The ones looking out for me, and not being hostile without provocation were the good ones. That meant the ones in black were the bad ones. She'd just shot one of the good ones.
"She'd just turn into one of them," the GI Velvet said. The seriousness on her face was jarring, especially with her childlike appearance in the oversized uniform. She tucked away the pistol and picked up the BAR. "Come on."
I gave up and followed her deeper into the building. What would you have done? Far from any of the rooms facing the streets, we finally stopped to wait. She leaned her BAR against the wall and sat down beside it. I joined her.
"We'll move when it's darker," she promised.
"Where are we?"
She turned to me and raised an eyebrow. Then her helmet slipped down and covered both eyes. Scowling, she pulled it off and set it aside. "Uh – east sector."
"Of what?"
"What do you mean of what?"
"Of what?"
"Of… the city."
I stared at her. "Who are you?"
"I'm a soldier."
"I can see that. Do you have a name?"
She cocked her head and looked at me like I was insane. And all things considered, that seemed very possible. I've never done drugs, but I imagine if I did, there would probably be something like this.
"I'm either on drugs," I said aloud, still staring at her. "…or I'm dreaming."
"You're not dreaming," GI Velvet said, and she sounded very confident.
"This isn't real. None of it is."
"How sure are you?"
"This sure." I leaned over and kissed her. To my surprise, she reacted positively. But I shouldn't have been surprised, right? It was a dream – things happen the way you want them to in a dream, right? This was something I'd been thinking about quite a bit lately, and she was just as soft and warm as I'd imagined. I pushed her down and got started on her uniform, but someone cleared her throat behind me.
I looked up guiltily. I hadn't wanted this to happen. These Velvets weren't following dream rules. It was Matrix – or Wesker Velvet – or whatever. She stood in the doorway, arms folded, expression mild. And there I was. I leapt off of GI Velvet who, blushing hotly, sat up and started to button her uniform. Cut off before second base. I suppressed my fury.
Wordlessly, Wesker Velvet sat down against the opposite wall and sighed. "Glad to see you're doing well," she said to GI Velvet, who coughed and straightened up.
"Are you okay?"
Wesker Velvet produced a very distinctive, heavily-customized handgun. She ejected the magazine, which dropped to the ground. "I am completely out of ammunition." She paused, and without her sunglasses, I could see that she looked rather lost. "That's never happened to me before." She let go of the gun, and it thudded to the floor as well. With that, she put her head in her hands, and didn't say anything else.
Well, I didn't have anything to say to her, and no way was I going to make eye contact with GI Velvet now, so things got pretty awkward. But not for long. Jedi Velvet showed up about ten very long minutes later. She looked tired out. Nobody said anything. She just sat beside Wesker Velvet, sat back, closed her eyes, and a minute or two later, began to snore adorably.
If only there was some tea, the whole Alice in Wonderland thing would have been complete. I could see that it was getting darker from the amount of ambient light in the room – but none of the Velvets were moving, so neither did I. It was cold, and I was hungry. That seemed off. You don't get hungry in a dream, do you? That seemed off. I tried to think about how I'd gotten here. What was the last thing I remembered? Well… there was the fight at Kevorich. And there was the soft bed. And Velvet. But not, damn it, at the same time. And there was us setting off into the Zone. It was foggy. I rubbed at my eyes – but not because I was tired, because I definitely wasn't.
All I could see was the face of the Velvet I'd killed. And the one that GI Velvet had executed. This was the stuff of nightmares.
Another Velvet appeared in the doorway. This one was wearing a big trench coat, big sun glasses, and had a cigarette in her mouth. She sat down beside me, looked at me with her opaque sunglasses, then flicked her cigarette at me. I brushed it off before it could burn me, puzzled. She took out a hundred dollar bill, lit it with her lighter, then used it to light another cigarette, which she leaned back and puffed at it for a while. I recognized this one – but I didn't recognize the next one.
She was wearing a skin-tight costume, more of a leotard, cut high at the leg, white with a red cape, and a nice big opening to show off incredible cleavage. I didn't recognize it. I didn't get the reference, and that disturbed me. How could there be something in my dream that I didn't know about? This was being generated by my brain, but this was completely new to me. It was impossible.
Quietly disturbed, I watched her sit down on the other side of GI Velvet. They weren't all being still like statues, but they weren't talking, and they weren't really fidgeting. It was a little creepy, what with them all being identical and everything – and yet it was hard to stay creeped out when it was so easy to be distracted by the one in the leotard. I resisted the urge to discreetly ogle her, and turned back to GI Velvet, maybe to apologize – but she'd nodded off.
I pinched myself. It didn't work.