CHAPTER 19 - SABRA

It didn’t take Sabra long to think that perhaps, just possibly, she had made a mistake.

When she had something to work out, she worked out. Ever since she’d ended her first day of ‘training’ with Fisher, she’d found herself wondering what she was getting into. It was something she should have investigated at the time, not later that night, halfway into her third set of push-ups.

She wasn’t sure what she had expected from Fisher, but it hadn’t been that. Some part of her, however small and stupid it was, had hoped for something miraculous. Some induction into a team of superheroes on a secret mission, where she’d be the rookie who no one trusted, but maybe there’d be some heroine who’d vouch for her. A redhead, maybe.

Instead, Pavel had turned out to be exactly what he seemed to be—an old man nursing a grudge in one hand and a whole lot of pain in the other. Perhaps he was not the best person to be taking advice from, but Taurine was a danger, and she was linked to the Animals. Sometimes, someone just had to get got.

Sabra hit the end of her fourth set and stood up from her living room floor, wiping sweat from her brow, then her hands on her shorts. Now that she had a head full of thoughts and a face full of grit, it occurred to her that she should’ve done those in reverse order.

Have to start thinking, Sab. Really have to start thinking.

She moved into her warm-down stretches, eyes wandering to the far corner. There stood Tess. Her head sat on the coffee table, running diagnostics on the latest repairs Sabra had done. How long had she gone toe-to-toe with Taurine? Five minutes, maybe ten at the outside? It was taking a hell of a lot longer to fix the damage.

Her helmet beeped.

Sabra hopped up, shook out her limbs, and scooped up her helmet. It beeped again, and then it sounded like someone was murmuring. Sabra set it on her head and caught the tail end of a scanner report. Shots fired, fatalities, car en route, an address. Something about it was familiar.

She checked the address against her map. Crossbones Bar. Sabra felt her heart skip a beat. That was Mike’s place. That was where they had first discussed their arrangement. And under that memory, the taste of ash and blood.

Her mind whirled. If Mike was in danger, he had the Forgotten at his back—he could handle it, couldn’t he? But that word, fatalities. If Mike had handled it, then there was no way that the APD would’ve been getting involved.

Something was deeply wrong. Terribly wrong. Sabra could feel it at the edge of her mind, like a half-remembered earworm. There was no decision to make, no time to think. She already had her helmet on, after all.

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Crossbones Bar was two blocks away. The scanner had no further news as she leapt from roof to roof. Something wasn’t happening there, something had happened.

The APD had gotten there first. A single squad car sat outside the front door, lights flashing. One officer was standing there, having a smoke. The other stepped out of the front door, shaking his head. Sabra watched them from the other side of the road. Her helmet picked up what they were saying, boosted it.

“How’s it look in there?” the first officer asked.

“Shit,” the second said, “Bodies everywhere. Pretty ugly.”

“Bad guys shooting bad guys?”

“Looks like it. Gang war, bad deal, whatever.”

“This’s Forgotten territory, right? Kinda surprising.”

The second officer laughed. “Come on, brother,” he said. “Do you really give a shit?”

Had they even checked for signs of life? Or were they just going to stand around, laughing and smoking, while people bled to death? Her mind flashed with an image of Mike lying on the floor, dead or dying, hoping for help that wasn’t coming.

She leapt off the roof and landed in the middle of the street with a perfect three-pointer. The cops snapped to attention as Sabra rose and strode over towards them. She ran through opening lines in her head. The most important thing when dealing with the police, her mother had always said, was knowing what to say and how to say it.

“I’m responding to the scanner alert,” Sabra said. “What’s the situation?”

“It’s under control,” the second officer said, the one who had been inside, the one who had been laughing.

“Then you won’t mind if I take a look inside.”

“Can’t let you do that. The only capes that’re authorized to enter the crime scene are the Australians.”

“They don’t come out here,” Sabra said, “they never do. I know it, you know it. So, let me through. I—”

No, she couldn’t admit she had a friend in there. That’d raise too many questions, and the officers were already looking at her as if they were trying to place her. Did they recognize her from the bank robbery?

“I’m here to help,” she said.

“With all due respect, Miss, I don’t think there’s anybody left to help.”

With all due respect? It always sounded like: how about you kiss my ass?

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Sabra said.

The cop stepped in front of her. Sabra laughed. What was he going to do, shoot her?

“I’m going to need to see some identification.”

“I don’t have to give you shit,” Sabra said. “How about you go back to laughing at the dead?”

“If we call this in, you’ll be making this harder on yourself.”

“Then move,” Sabra said, taking one step forward. “Or you’ll be removed.”

There was a soft click to her left as the other cop popped his holster open. The sound resonated through her, deep and heady, echoing through her mind. Sabra took a breath in. What would happen, would happen–she had done this before, and she would do it again. And let it out.

The closest cop went for his handset.

Sabra punched him in the chest, grabbed for his radio handset as he stumbled, and tore it free. The first bullet pinged off her back, like someone was tapping her on the shoulder. She turned into the second, a new scar across her chest plate, and took the second officer’s wrist in her hand.

She’d let him decide what happened next. His third shot slammed into her helmet—answer enough. Sabra shrugged and broke his wrist like she was crushing a can. He dropped, howling, folding around his middle.

“Why don’t you laugh it off, fucker?”

The first cop was crawling for the squad car. Sabra grabbed him, dragged him to his buddy, and yanked the cuffs from his belt. Attached his leg to his friend’s arm—the one she hadn’t broken, she wasn’t a monster—and left them in the street. She’d call them some help once she was done here.

Maybe.

She stepped into the bar. Toppled stools lay next to fallen people. Blood mixed with alcohol atop the floorboards. Her HUD highlighted shells, listed the caliber, as she checked the bodies. Not one of them was alive. Not one of them was Mike. She kept moving, up the stairs.

Stolen novel; please report.

The carnage continued on the first floor, too—bodies on the floor, bullet holes in the walls. One of the dead towards the end of the hall was a masked cape. Blueburn, her HUD noted. Her throat was dry.

“Mike?” she called, stepping towards the security door at the end of the hall. “You here?”

And, in a way, he was. Mike Romeo lay on his back in the middle of the room, eyes open and staring at nothing. A scarlet line trailed down from his forehead and over his cheek, strikingly apparent against the intricate work of his painted skull.

Her stomach twisted, like she’d pushed herself too hard in the gym, and she was faced with the horrifying prospect of bringing up her last meal. It was like she was screaming at herself to check his pulse, to give him CPR—but he was dead. There was a hole in the middle of his forehead and a bullet in his brain. No one could survive that, not even a superhero.

Who the fuck had done this? What on Earth was happening to her city? Why did it feel like she had seen this before?

“There’s a warrant out for your arrest,” someone said, behind her. “I assume you won’t come quietly.”

That voice—her nemesis from the Dynazon factory.

Revenant.

“You can’t be serious,” Sabra said, turning to face her. There she stood in the doorway, silver visage peering out from under her black hood. “Do you have any idea what happened here? Christ and Allah, have some respect!”

Revenant stepped into the room, walking over to the window. Her bulky jetboots gave her an odd, almost-stomping stride.

“Fourteen fatalities, all of them known members of the Forgotten organization,” she replied, clasping her hands behind her back. “Two APD officers assaulted while in the process of securing the crime scene.”

“I didn’t do it, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“The police officers disagree.”

“I wasn’t meaning them,” Sabra snapped. “They started it, I finished it. It’s just a broken wrist and a busted radio. I cuffed them together, so what?”

“I would advise you not to admit to any more crimes in my presence.”

“Fine,” Sabra said. “Whatever. But I didn’t do the rest of it.”

“I’m aware,” Revenant said, turning her head to glance at her. “It is not what I was wondering. The wounds on the dead bodies are consistent with firearms and bladed weaponry. You, I imagine, would leave them with blunt force trauma and broken limbs.”

Behind her mask, her eyes were golden, glowing faintly. Luminescent contacts, probably, to go with the whole avenging angel motif.

Revenant caught her gaze, Sabra was sure of it, before she turned back to look out over the street. Somewhere, a gunshot echoed out into the night, then several more. Close enough that Sabra felt her heart spike, but far enough that she knew there was no danger. Not from the gunshot, at least.

If Revenant noticed, she gave no sign.

“The APD has a warrant out for your arrest,” she said, “and Dynamic Horizons still has a private contract to apprehend you and retrieve their stolen property.” Revenant glanced at her again. “I expect that it would require me to remove it from the housing in the back of your suit.”

“So, give it your best shot. I’m standing right here. I’ll even give you a free shot, but you better make it a good one.”

“Are you always so combative?”

Her voice was so flat, her tone so dull—so bored! It was like she was just going through the motions.

“What do you want?” Sabra asked.

“There are certain injunctions operating against me right now, and I’m trying to operate in the space between all four of them. If I wanted to arrest you, I already would have. But out of respect for the deceased, I will not.”

“Don’t give me that shit. You didn’t even know him.”

“No,” she said. “I did not. I won’t say that I wish I had. But I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Fuck off. You would’ve threatened him to get to me—yeah, he told me what you’ve been up to. You can’t just threaten to drop people off buildings because you’re upset about a goddamn battery!”

Revenant cocked her head like a curious bird. A hawk standing among the corpses of rats.

“How many of them did I kill?” she asked. “How many did I injure? Do you think your friend Mike knew that Taurine’s agents had infiltrated his organization?”

“What?” Sabra asked. But Bryce had a tattoo of a bull’s skull, didn’t he? Had been there on a mission of his own, one she had assumed Mike had failed to tell her about...

“Is that what happened here? He got betrayed by some inside job?”

“This is your investigation.”

“Are you just here to be a sarcastic bitch, or can you actually give me something useful?”

Revenant turned away from the window and stared at her for a long moment. Sabra clenched her fists, preparing for her to make good on that warrant.

“It is unlikely to have been an inside job,” Revenant said. “The fighting started at the bar, which means the assassin either announced themselves or was spotted by one of Mike’s people.”

“Then whoever it was shot their way to him. But if that’s the case, how didn’t he see it coming? Why did he stay?”

“I do not know. The gunshot wound to his head indicates that he was executed at close range.”

“An execution? Oh, Christ and Allah.”

“Yes,” Revenant said flatly. “Christ and Allah.”

“Who could’ve done this? I thought there were rules.”

“Did you check the security footage?”

“What? No. I didn’t even think—”

“Then you are lucky I am here. I will upload the footage to your heads-up display momentarily.”

In a moment, there it was. The bar resolved into grainy monochrome against the vibrant colors of her HUD, like she was perched in one of the front corners, looking over the door and the bar itself. Men and women talked and drank and laughed, like it was any other night.

Then, someone stepped through the door, armored and helmeted. One of the mercenaries from the bank robbery, with the chrome cat helmet. Not the lady she had fought, but the one they’d called Leopard. He walked to the bar with every eye on him and a lack of concern for any of them. Leaned up on it like he was ordering a drink. The bartender spoke.

“What’s he saying?” Sabra asked.

“Nothing important,” Revenant replied.

One of Mike’s people leaned up on the bar by Leopard, drew his jacket open to show off the handgun, probably trying to intimidate him. But then Leopard snatched it up, shot the man in the head, and the violence started.

There was no sound, which Sabra considered a blessing. She watched him shoot his way free of the bar, shrugging off a point-blank gunshot to the back of the helmet, and up the stairs. Someone came tumbling down it, and Revenant switched feed to the corridor.

Leopard moved up it, shooting and shooting. He stumbled now and again, little puffs from where he was getting hit, but didn’t go down. Someone rushed him from a side corridor, and the two of them fell in a heap. But only Leopard got back up.

“They keep hitting him,” Sabra said.

“Armorweave,” Revenant stated. “High-grade, perhaps even artificer work. Additionally, the suit contains armored sections reminiscent of designs from the American Imperium.”

Sabra shook her head. Who cared where their fancy armor was from? It didn’t matter. All that mattered was what Leopard and his pals were doing with it. First her father, and now this. Cutting a bloody swath through her city, and that’d been before they made it personal.

The angle of the feed switched again. Leopard stepped into the room they were now in, handgun up. The light from the doorway dimmed and went out. The angle didn’t change.

“Can we see inside the room? Where we are now?”

“No,” Revenant said. “There're no cameras in this room.”

“Gotta know what happened in here,” Sabra murmured, and she turned a circle. Looking past the heads-up feed of the deserted hallway, as if she could see into the past, to just will into existence some clue as to what had happened. Seconds ticked up her HUD, turned into minutes.

On her HUD, a dark figure came down the hallway. Same gear as Leopard, but with a chrome helmet that resembled a bird. He stepped into the doorway, raised his rifle, and fired once. In a flash, Leopard had slammed his buddy against the wall, leaned in close like he was shouting, and threw him to the ground. Put his handgun to the visor of his helmet.

“Curious,” Revenant said.

“Looks like they’re not on the same page,” Sabra replied, waiting for the gunshot. But Leopard got up off Birdman and the pair of them double-timed it down the corridor, on the way out. Revenant cut the feed and canted her head to one side.

“Star Patrol is on their way.”

“You told them?”

“No. You have two minutes.”

“Well, thanks for the heads-up,” Sabra said, heading out. “And the footage. Maybe I’ll give the battery back when I’m done with these Animal guys.”

Revenant spoke up when she reached the door.

“Let me make one thing clear,” she said, just as unerringly calm. “If I see you again, I will be putting you in a cell.”

Sabra paused and glanced back, over her shoulder.

“Bet you’ll find yourself disappointed, Rev.”

“Is that so.”

“Yeah,” Sabra said. “Abacus.”