A whine and thump in the distance was the only warning before the ground ahead of them exploded. Shion Uzuki ducked as twisted, black chunks of nanocrete flew overhead. Smaller debris peppered her skin; they stung, but there was no time to brush more than the larger pebbles off of her body. Around her, Shion's friends did the same.
Dasgupta was a transformed city. Shion had spent the last day confined within Labyrinthos, the U-TIC Organization's headquarters, but she knew, from the advisories that'd played on the overhead, when the fighting had started. She'd envisioned the city the day before, recalled the wide, clean thoroughfares and clear roads, and wondered how the place was being changed. The reality was so much worse than she'd imagined. It was so much worse than she'd remembered. She wished she'd never been sent to this past.
The Third Descent Operation had taken place before Dasgupta could be properly evacuated; if Shion looked hard enough she could spot a bare hand or a torn piece of clothing among the rubble. Behind them a line of city planters had been demolished by mortar shells, all the carefully arranged flora shredded and withering. Smoke hung thick in the air: from broken buildings, from gun barrels and cannon muzzles, from fires that were left unchecked to spread.
There was no time to dwell on the horror. Shion ran, only dimly aware of the friends who ran beside her, except for a sense of gratitude at their presence. But somewhere past the explosions and the screams a little girl needed saving. Broken memories flashed before Shion's eyes. The trampled flowerbed where she'd grown pink cosmos. The blocked off roads. The soldiers—both U-TIC and Federation—that she'd felt compelled to avoid.
She'd gone to the old church back then—now—to the only place that could offer serenity among the havoc. Shion didn't need anyone to tell her where she'd gone. She remembered. So she ran her legs to jelly, in a quest to save herself.
The toe of her sneaker wedged itself under something, and she went flying, landing on her hands and shins. She stood up on her bloodied limbs to look at what she'd tripped over, and regretted it instantly. It was a man's head and upper torso, his brown hair turned gray by the smoke and dust, the shirt he wore torn and singed. Shion could just make out the Sabotage logo, and for a moment her mind froze.
She was fifteen years older than the child who'd originally survived this night (who might not survive this time; Shion! Move!) and she'd seen the memorials and wept with the others who'd managed to live and escape, but now, seeing this literally broken man, the deaths became real to her.
Her father had hated Sabotage. Not for their music, which was loud, frenetic, and often sexual—or their message, which was aggressive but generally positive—but because of the neighbor who played their songs long into the night. Suou Uzuki had complained when something like "Want You On My Shoulders" or "Dry Heaves" played on the public music channels, or on the sound system in the big Hyams showroom. Shion remembered the way he'd growl when the first synth-horn notes of their third album could be heard through the walls.
For one insane moment Shion thought that the man on the ground might be that neighbor, then she rejected the idea. Their neighbor had been old; this man was only a year or two past thirty.
But their neighbor had been seen through an eight year old girl's perception . . .
She tried to recall their neighbor's face, and drew a blank. She hadn't been interested at the time. There was her mother in the hospital to worry about. There was her brother Jin, who hadn't come home on leave when he said he would and had stopped answering messages. There were the people from school whom she never saw in class anymore, because all her lessons had been changed to remote. Their neighbor hadn't figured much in younger Shion's awareness.
"Shion."
Her head shot up. It was Jin who spoke beside her; he too had survived the past. Thoughts of her old neighbor fell away and a new flood of memories took their place: running back to the hospital, because the old church offered no comfort; the ringing of alarms as hospital staff were held to the wall by gunpoint; her mother's room, and her father—so angry—she hadn't understood why. And there'd been blood, on the walls, and dripping from the bed to the floor. She'd huddled in the corner, waiting for anyone to come.
Someone must have shown up. Shion remembered a pair of strong arms and a soothing voice, remembered that the person who'd saved her knew her name. She'd fallen asleep, finally able to forget the terror. But that was then and this was . . . a different then. There was no knowing if her original savior was out there anywhere, alive or among the burning wreckage.
The battle around her had seemed distant while she'd been trapped in the thrall of memory. That was an illusion; as if to drive home the understanding a Kubel helicopter drifted overhead, its rear rotor trailing smoke. Its surreal progress through the air took on a horrifying reality at the last moment as it slammed into an apartment building. Glass shards and chunks of steel and nanocrete rained down on the ground below.
Shion shook herself. This was real. Whatever had happened had happened. But it might not happen again. There was still a lot of distance to cover between the church and broken-down street she stood in. She had to put her memories away for the time being, and get back to running. Her shins burned after the fall. Her muscles wanted to spasm. None of that mattered.
She forced herself to get moving again, each footfall sending a shockwave of pain through her legs. The others trailed behind her for a few seconds before catching her up. It was good to have them around her.
She couldn't let a memory sabotage her efforts to save herself.