A pile of electronic components was scattered around the bench, some wired together with alligator clips. An LED screen sat in the middle, showing a stylised display of a lock. Jason spent a minute looking it all over and figuring out how the circuit was supposed to fit together, then removed four clips and reattached them, one to the ball of the generator and one to its base. The screen flashed to show the lock popping, and he gave a nod of satisfaction and moved on to the chemistry bench.
“Nice work,” Mister Truman said.
“Thanks,” said Jason. “You know, that’s just about the first time a new acquaintance has said that instead of asking whether I’m on the autism spectrum. That, or to stop telling puns.”
Mister Truman hesitated. “Uhm. Does that bother you?”
“It does make me feel a bit put-upun, yeah.”
“I meant the autism thing.”
“I know,” Jason said. “And yeah, because it’s an actual psychiatric term. Like, you know how there are people who don’t like the taste of peanuts? You don’t call them allergic, even though –”
“Did you hear that?” Mister Truman said sharply, looking around.
“Hear what?” said Mother Bright.
They went still for a moment. Silence.
“I thought it might have been a raptor,” he said. “Never mind. You were saying?”
“I was saying that both allergic people and people who just don’t like the flavour avoid peanuts, but you don’t say the latter are allergic, because it’s a technical term to do with autoimmune reactions. There’s a hard difference there. I happen to have an autistic cousin; he spent most of his childhood screaming at the wall for no reason. This is also a hard difference, and it’s a feature I don’t have.”
“You’re obviously not like that,” Mister Truman said, “but it’s a spectrum.”
“If you said I was on the obesity spectrum, I’d say that was fair enough,” Jason said, “because I’m not obese, but I am a bit overweight. Fatness is a spectrum, and obesity is just some arbitrary cutoff point on it. But I don’t ‘a bit’ scream at the wall all day for no reason. It’s kind of counterproductive if most of the world thinks that people like my cousin just have a severe case of being good at science.”
As he spoke, he mixed two flasks of coloured liquid together in a precise ratio and swirled them, until it turned clear. He poured the mixture into a beaker wired up to a pH machine that was in turn wired to another LED screen with a lock, which flashed open.
“I don’t know exactly what’s wrong with my cousin’s brain. But it obviously isn’t just that he’s slightly further along the screaminess spectrum. It’s not like this is a ghost story.”
“What do ghosts have to do with anything?” Mister Truman asked, frowning.
“In ghost stories, screaming is spectral,” Jason said, pleased with himself. Truman facepalmed.
“Please stop,” said Mother Bright, her hand twitching for her raygun.
“All I wanted,” he said, moving over to the biology table.
He wrinkled his nose: living in a city does not prepare one for a tableful of reptile guts. There was a row of scalpels; he ignored them, of course, and pulled out his chainsaw. He considered going through the frogs and raptor, but instead just chopped the third LED screen in half. It sparked, and the two parts showed the lock popping.
“Huh, wasn’t sure it’d accept that.”
“Biology’s a stupid subject,” Mister Truman said.
There came a series of whirrs and clunks, and a large square area of floor opened up. From the hole rose the cloner. It was shaped like squatter version of a wireframe cube, divided into four sections, with girders along the frame’s edges and black-and-yellow hazard tape demarcating each section. In one quadrant was a collection of boxy grey machinery bolted together, studded with blinking diodes, looking something like an old-fashioned mainframe. The other three quadrants were open spaces.
“How do you use this?” Jason asked. “I don’t think these lights even do anything, they’re just hooked up to an RNG to make it look sciencier.”
“You won’t use it at all,” Mother Bright said, and she pulled out her raygun and shot him.
He was quicker than people gave him credit for, and she’d wasted a moment giving a one-liner before firing; he dropped to the floor and rolled behind the counter, and the raygun’s incandescent white energy beam went high and sparked against the cloner, spot-melting a hole through it that let off electrical arcs.
“Hey, what’re you doing?!” Mister Truth exclaimed, flicking out his chainsaw and kicking the ignition.
Mother Bright turned and blasted him through the chest.
“This is how these things work,” she said, turning back to the counter Jason was hiding behind. She began circling the amphitheatre, training her gun down at the science area, looking for a line where the benches wouldn’t obstruct her shot. “I’d thought you understood that. That’s the problem with working with an idealist.”
Jason scrunched his eyes shut and focused on keeping his breathing regular. His asthma, normally only a minor problem, had chosen the worst possible time to play up. He wasn’t exactly surprised that the ambitious, heavily-armed woman with relationship issues was so violent, but actually experiencing it was very different from merely considering the possibility. Without consciously thinking about it, his hand went to his chainsaw, but he wouldn’t be able to get close enough while she stayed in the stands with rows of chairs between them. He was more inclined to run for it, but that would give her a very easy shot at his back. Either way, he needed a distraction.
“Pr-pretty cold,” he called, then, not wanting to let her dwell on how his voice had trembled, “I can see why Michelle doesn’t trust you.”
The act of talking forced him to not freeze. It struck him that the raygun could probably punch straight through the counter, so he scooted along, but she either didn’t think of it or chose not to.
“Leave my daughter out of this!”
He could vaguely tell she was moving around by her voice, and he crawled along to keep the counters between them. It wasn’t a long-term strategy; there were gaps between the counters, and sooner or later she’d get a bead on him. He had to keep her distracted while he thought of a plan.
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“What, like you did? Or does she hate you so much because she knows you’re a murderer?”
“I didn’t shut her out,” Mother Bright said. “You can’t possibly have any idea how hard it is, trying to raise two kids, deal with a dead marriage, and keep up one of the highest-pressure careers ever, when the worst you’ve ever had to deal with was failing a test.”
“You really want to know the worst I’ve ever had to deal with? Knowing that the people who gave me life couldn’t be bothered doing the job properly. That was your choice to marry whoever that was, to have Michelle and whoever the other one is, and take that career. If you bit off more than you can chew –”
A streak of burning white energy lanced through the bench directly over his head and into and through the floor, revealing a glimpse of the room below, which seemed to be a crayon and circle-drawing compass store room. Jason froze a moment, then scooted over.
“What if I did? You literally aren’t old enough to imagine a decision that will decide the next twenty years of your life. And if who or what you picked turns out different to what you expected, or you get a daughter who doesn’t exactly make things easy, you don’t get to start over.”
“So you try to help them, but it’s just so hard?” he asked, as condescendingly as he could.
“I do my best!”
At her words, a siren went off. Trapdoors opened in the ceiling, and raptors dropped in. They had barely landed before Mother Bright was blasting through them.
There came the roar of a chainsaw coming to life, and a thump of something heavy hitting the floor. Jason hesitated. It could be an opening, or a trick.
“Sorry I took so long, Fisher.”
“Blank?!”
He risked bobbing his head over the lip of the counter. Blank was standing where Mother Bright had been. She was looking down at a chainsaw with an underslung slug thrower, a cloth in hand, methodically wiping the chain clean.
“The big guy almost spotted me a few times,” she said. “I was waiting for an opening. Shame she zapped him, he might have been interesting.”
He had the distinct feeling he was less safe than he had been fifteen seconds ago. “Er. Why did you come here?”
She looked up, showing a spatter of blood on her cheek, and smiled. “Like I said, there’s no way out of here. There never was. This entire world is a dead end. So what are we supposed to do here? Does it even matter? The only difference is who’s the last one standing. So why not focus on that?”
She bent down and took Mother Bright’s raygun. When she straightened, Jason was halfway to the door.
“Er,” he said, then glanced off to one side, “look out!”
She took a step to the side and half turned so as to keep the raygun trained on Jason while she scanned the area he was looking. Another cyborg raptor leapt out and tackled him; he fell backward, brought his legs up in the same motion, and kicked the raptor off, sending it flying, coincidentally into one of the cloner’s three open spaces. There was a flash like that of a camera, and two identical raptors appeared in the other open spaces. They gave confused chirps, then turned to Blank.
She shot the first raptor; the energy beam overkilled, turned the bottle of acetone on the lab counter into a fireball, and hit another part of the cloner machinery. It flashed rapid-fire, and suddenly the three open spaces were packed to overflowing with raptors. The gun hummed while its capacitors recharged; she stuffed it into her belt and drew her chainsaw.
Jason was long gone, sprinting out of the room, skidding on the junk underfoot, making his way back to the room where Sue and the others had left him. Sue had the back of her hand to Charlotte’s forehead; Charlotte seemed to be in pain.
He doubled over, out of breath. “Mother Bright, Blank,” he began.
There came a cheery little ding, and the elevator doors opened, revealing Roger bridal-carrying Michelle. Sue raised her eyebrows; Michelle gave her an insouciant look, like she did this sort of thing all the time.
“Lottie’s having a migraine,” Sue said.
“Michelle tripped and hurt her leg,” Roger said.
“Mother Bright murdered Truman, Blank chainsawed her in half, and the cloner’s mass-producing raptors,” Jason said in between gasps for air.
Roger stared. That escalated quickly.
“Rog, I think he’s serious,” said Charlotte. She winced and rubbed her temple.
Jason nodded. Sue looked anxiously from him to Roger.
Roger wasn’t entirely convinced, but there was stupid, and then there was ignoring the person telling you that a flock of raptors was probably about to attack. Besides, it looked like Charlotte could do with a lie down. “I have to take Michelle to the RAYS anyway. Sue, take the lead. Sis, lean against her.”
They turned and retraced their steps through the classrooms and halls of the deserted school, hurrying without quite breaking into a run, finally reaching the wide room with the French windows and the entrance to the RAYS.
“You dawdled, didn’t you?”
They turned. Blank had followed them. She was covered in oil, ichor, and blood, and her movements were graceful enough to suggest that none of it was hers. She still held the gunsaw.
“I guess it must be pretty hard to move fast,” she added to Roger, “carrying her.”
“Ngh,” Charlotte said, swaying on her feet, before falling to her knees, clutching her head. Sue crouched next to her, taking her pulse.
Roger glanced back at her, then at Blank. At this range, she was certain to hit at least one of them, and he assumed that the gun had more than one bullet.
“Wait, let’s talk this through,” he said.
She raised the gunsaw and shot him. Jason froze. Sue stepped away from Charlotte and reached for her chainsaw, and Blank shot her too.
The French windows shattered into a thousand pieces as Jill crashed through, arms over her eyes and neck. In one flowing motion, she combat-rolled to her feet, pivoted, and swung her dented golf club just as a raptor leapt after her, snapping its jaw and neck.
“Clever girl,” she said.
She turned and did a double-take, only now seeing everyone who’d been shot, and that Blank was aiming her gunsaw. Jill dropped to the ground, taking cover behind the raptor, and a bullet whistled overhead.
Roger dashed forward and tackled Blank about the midsection, sending both to the ground. Jill was only a moment later, running forward to kick the gunsaw away. Blank and Roger tussled on the ground; she got on top of him at the same time he got his legs up and kicked away, sending her flying through another window. A moment later, she thudded into the field, two storeys below.
Jill stuffed her glob club down her bra and offered Roger a hand up. “Sorry I took so long,” she said.
He looked her over. She was a mess: covered in raptor scratches, burns, and soot, and half her shirt had been torn or burnt off, revealing a black tank top beneath. She was breathing hard, clearly at her limit.
“What?” he asked, numb.
“Come on,” she said. She picked up the gunsaw and checked the magazine. “I failed again, and we’re out of time, there are too many raptors coming. We’ve got to get your sister to the RAYS.”
He looked around, at Michelle, who’d taken the bullet meant for him, and Sue. He didn’t have to check pulses to know that neither was getting back up. He nodded. He went over to Jason, who said nothing but moved when prodded. They went to Charlotte, took her by either arm, and carried her to the RAYS, only pausing for a moment to read the fine print on the overhead plaque: Raptor And Yandere Shelter.
Jill came in behind them, kicked the door shut behind, and staggered in. She collapsed against the stone altar. Roger barely noticed, instead looking around, at the pedestals with photos of Charlotte.
“This isn’t a RAYS,” he said, setting Charlotte down.
“No,” Jill said. “But the real enemy’s coming here, and if we didn’t come inside, we’d just get picked off out there. It’s the only way to even have a chance of protecting Charlotte.”
“What’s going on?” he asked. “Who would want to hurt her?”
“I don’t really know,” Jill said. She cradled the gunsaw, aimed it at the entrance, then tucked it under what was left of her coat. “I’ve been trying to figure it out for a while now, but I can’t do it on my own. All I know is, the enemy’s trying to get Charlotte onto this altar, and I’m doing everything I can to keep her away.”
She helped disarm Blank. That has to count for something. “Praxis,” he said. She looked at him, not understanding. “Antonio Praxis. That’s the name of my superhero. I heard someone say the word and thought it sounded cool.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I won’t let you down.”
He knelt beside Charlotte, who was unconscious by now. “I’d settle for a box of paracetamol. Is there –”
“I hope you don’t mind me joining.”
The girl with black hair pushed the RAYS door open, then shut it behind herself with a click, careful not to close it on her gown or wings. She stepped forward, her golden eyes skating past Jason and Jill to Charlotte and Roger.
“I’m so tired,” she said. “I hope –”
Jill took three shots rapid-fire, punching three more holes in her coat. The lead slugs stopped and hovered in thin air, a handspan away from the winged girl’s heart, right lung, and forehead. The girl blinked owlishly and yawned.
“– that the troublesome girl didn’t make it this time,” she finished, monotone. “Oh no. A gun, hidden under a shirt. My one weakness.”
Jill got to her feet and revved the saw. “Sooner or later, I’ll figure out something you can’t block.”
“Whatever,” said the girl. She stifled another yawn. “Feel free to give up any time.”
Jill dashed forward, and the bullets turned into chunks of concrete and flew to meet her.