XXXVII

(untitled)

Luigi and Daisy crossed the threshold together. The portcullis slammed shut behind them, which made the entry hall black as pitch. Luigi farted with the jolt of the clanging door, which made Daisy blast a laugh that bounced down the arched stone walls. She slapped her free hand over her mouth to muffle herself and laid her head on his shoulder feeling the tension begin to ease.

They made their way hand in hand through the darkness. He gripped her tight, which made their palms begin to sweat. He wiggled the fingers of his other arm, cold and sterile. There was no life in it, just the pantomime of life. But the hand that held Daisy's was lively and strong. Through his fingertips, he felt his pulse and hers and they beat like a drumline in perfect rhythm. On the one hand was the cold reality of war and on the other was the thing worth fighting for.

After a stretch, they saw a strange glow appear like a penlight at the end of the hall. It flashed for a moment and then was gone. A moment later, it was replaced by another light, which, again, shone for a second and then disappeared. As the light grew with their advances, Luigi realized they were seeing the blinking lights of some kind of control room. They reached the end of the hall and stepped into the central monitor room. There was a massive server in the corner, screens adorned the walls and rows of desks formed the stations that controlled the lights, locks, and loadouts of the bunker.

"I'm going to try to get the lights on," said Daisy, approaching one of the stations. She placed a finger on the keyboard but before she could start, the fluorescent lights came on by themselves. She squinted until her eyes adjusted to the bright white lights. In the corner of the room was a small intercom of brown wood that housed a mesh speaker. Something was growling through it. They thought the floorplan was open and didn't notice the hydraulic door that separated the control room from the entry hall. Before they realized what was happening, it slammed down and locked shut.

"Shit," said Luigi. He tried to hook his fingertips under the door but it was flush with the stone flooring. There was no muscling it open. In his panic, he began to pace the room.

"We walked right into it."

"Thirty-five koopas," growled the voice on the intercom. "Ground squadron, dead. Five paratroopas, cloud squadron, dead. Two boomerang bros, dead. That's a lot of my people for you to get into my bunker."

"Mario, can you hear me?" asked Daisy.

"Your coms won't work here." His voice was low and level. Any trace of emotion had left it long ago.

"Disruptors," Luigi said gravely.

"Who are you?"

"I am Roy. The youngest of the bastard koopalings. My father is coming."

"Let us out of here," Luigi said in his most commanding voice.

"You don't make demands of me."

Luigi took a deep breath and puffed out his chest. This was his moment to prove himself, to stand up for him and Daisy. He stepped up to the intercom and looked right at it, his steely gaze unwavering. "We're the squad that took down Petey, the Piranha Maw," he called out in feigned confidence. "We defeated the rachquids and captured Lady Bow. You don't want to mess with us."

"I don't care." The simple response was like a punch to the gut. Luigi deflated and felt like his chest was going to collapse in on itself. So much for 'fake it till you make it,' he thought.

"Your paper medals won't save you from me," Roy said with a twinge of sorrow. He was a monster in monstrous times but it didn't have to be this way. It could've been different. The dark was cold but they had what they needed. They had enough. The expectations of his father weren't at all fair but what was he to do other than toe the line?

Daisy turned her attention back to the monitor and began typing furiously on the keyboard. "Keep him talking, Luigi," she whispered. "I'm gonna try to hack the door."

"Good idea," he whispered back before speaking to the intercom in a full voice. "What do you mean you're the youngest of the bastards?"

"My father only claims one of us as his own. He will get the throne when the time comes."

"If he doesn't respect you, why fight for him?"

"You mean instead of the federation who kills my people?"

"You're doing great, Luigi. Keep going. I'm almost in." She smiled as she clacked away on the keyboard. She didn't have Toad's hacking expertise but she could manage when the situation called for it and the hacking program for the bunker was nothing so advanced. Perhaps, the koopas didn't consider that anyone would make it this far that they would need a more secure system. The hack was a simple line puzzle. Using a tray of shapes, she had to connect two nodes while avoiding the red hazard lines. There were five puzzles in all, each with increasing difficulty, but it was more tedious than difficult. She was confident that she would be through in no time.

"You attacked us first. The Air Raids…" Luigi suddenly went silent. Daisy began the third puzzle.

"It was a good attempt," said Roy. "But it ends here." The intercom hissed static and then cut out and Roy Koopa was gone.

Daisy heard the words but was too busy for them to register. Her palms were sweaty and kept slipping across the keyboard. She finished the fourth puzzle, wiped her hands on her suit, then clapped and whooped. This was it, the last hack. Take that, assholes, she thought.

Suddenly, a lightning bolt of pain went through her leg and she crumpled to the floor before she could finish the hack. She rolled over onto her butt and pushed her back against the wall. She looked down at her left thigh and saw a two inch hole through the flesh and bone. She screamed as blood bubbled over, the source of the pain made manifest. She looked up and saw Luigi, his prosthetic arm holding the gun on her. The power light glowing red meant that it no longer belonged to him. She was so focused on hacking the monitor that she never even heard the gunshot.

"Daisy, get back. I can't control it." The blood vessels in his forehead and shoulder throbbed as he strained with all his might to regain control of the arm. Sweat beaded on his forehead but the hand that held the gun remained steady. He shook and raged. But the hand remains steady, she thought. In all his uncertainty and fear, in all the chaos of his mind, now he finds clarity? Now he finds resolve? And he points it at me.

She wanted to tell him "no," that she couldn't move, that the leg was shot through. She wanted to tell him to fight it but the pain overwhelmed and reduced her to sobbing on the floor. The thermal clip had shot a hole through her leg the size of a rebar. The meat was obviously obliterated but the femur was fractured and displaced, much of it poking out of the exit wound. It disfigured the entire frame of her leg and hip joint, which caved in and dropped from the dislocation. She screamed until the air left her lungs and it turned into a hoarse and quiet moan.

His eyes bulged in terror. But the hand remains steady. A large and bitter pill that caught in her throat. He struck at the metal arm to get the fingers to loosen. Just enough give and the gun would fall. He wasn't a strong man by any stretch but surely he could manage that. For her, he could lift the Citadel from its axis, throw it straight into the sun, and right now, he would get the gun to fall. A necessary thing needed doing and he would see it done. It was altogether that simple. Daisy was not going to die at his hand. "Come on," he growled. "Drop it, dammit."

But the fingers did not relent. And the hand remains steady. She bit through her lip and tasted blood. I worked so hard for us. To make you happy. To raise you up. Only for you to knock me down. It shouldn't be this way. He punched at the arm but it was like punching a steel wall. It didn't move. It didn't dent. It didn't even twitch. He punched it with all his strength and felt the third and fourth finger fracture on the live hand. He wailed insanity as he looked from the gun to Daisy. He felt the finger tense on the trigger. It didn't belong to him anymore. "Daisy," he sobbed. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

With his eyes shut tight, he cried and shook. But the hand remains steady. I know you love me. I know you're not a bad person. But you have to live with this… for the rest of your life. He heard her moans descend into loud, full bodied sobs and he opened his eyes. He wasn't going to take his eyes off her for anything. He would be with her to the end. She returned his gaze but was in too much pain to say anything at all. He didn't need her to forgive him and he didn't need her to say goodbye. He just needed her to know that he would not look away.

"Daisy, I love you," he said. "So much."

"Ahh," she breathed. "I-I…"

Bang!

She was dead.

He held his eyes open as wide as they would go. Every last detail would cement in his mind. Of that, he would make sure. He screamed rage and madness as the tears fell from his cheeks. His mind was a chaos storm of color, neurons firing in all directions in an unsynchronized disharmony. Every plan they made, every promise now unkept. There never was enough time for us, he thought darkly. The grounding of his life had fallen away in an angry avalanche and now, he looked out over a precipice into a darkening abyss.

But the hand remained steady.