CHAPTER 22 - SABRA

Sabra shot upright, eyes open and mind alert, surrounded by monsters and demons and the echoes of a chorus shouting her name. Her mind settled and, with it, the specters of her bedroom faded into shadows and familiar shapes. The chorus was nothing but her alarm, screaming bloody murder into an empty apartment.

Exhaling, she sagged back against her pillow, and the back of her head pressed into something damp. She grimaced, shuffling to one side. One day, she’d figure out a way to make herself stop drooling in her sleep. She took a breath in through her nose, to bring herself back to her body, and the familiar tinge of blood bubbled in her nostrils.

What?

Sabra slid out of bed and made for her bathroom, feeling cold and anxious—not afraid, she wasn’t afraid. Groped around in the dark to find the light switch, flicked it on, and found her nose and mouth a mess of blood.

“Fuck.” She squeezed shut her eyes and gripped the sink. Shapes and colors shifted and popped against her eyelids. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something terrible had happened. Or was about to happen. And when you could recognize yourself in the pattern, was there even a difference between now and then and now and then-

“Fuck.” It was getting worse, and she couldn’t jink out of it, couldn’t lie to herself. She hadn’t taken a jab to the nose this time. Sabra shook her head, finding reassurance in the cool ceramic under her fingers. Not again, she thought. Not again.

Her phone stopped screaming and started chiming. Sabra let it ring, splashing cold water on her face. It helped, if only to get the blood off. Her phone kept singing out for her.

“Fuck! Answer!”

Someone’s voice buzzed from her bedroom. Sabra went to it, found it, and glanced at the caller’s number.

“Pavel,” she said, putting it to her ear, “do you know what time it is?”

“Well, you told me you get up at five.”

“Yep,” Sabra said, returning to the sink. “Me and my big mouth.”

“So, you up for another session today?”

Was she? She raised her head, staring into the mirror. For a second, it was like she didn’t recognize her own reflection, like her nose was crooked. A trick of the light, probably. Nothing more. She wiped her thumb at her nose once more, and it came back clean. Just a little bit of blood, that’s all it was. Didn’t mean anything. Just stress. High blood pressure. Nothing to worry about.

“Sabra?”

She forced some levity into her voice. “You know it, Pav.”

“Do not call me that,” Fisher replied. “Otherwise, great. Oh, and bring your suit.”

Sabra squinted into her reflection. “Why would I do that? I’m not wearing it into the middle of the city, Pavel. Not after...”

“Not after what?” he asked.

“Nothing.” Probably wouldn’t do to tell the ex-cape that she beat up some cops. Fisher seemed the kind of guy who’d take it personally. “Everything’s just getting hot out there.”

“Yeah, good point. You know a place?”

“Probably, yeah,” Sabra said. “I’ll figure it out over breakfast. I’ll call you back.”

But, over breakfast, she couldn’t find her appetite. The toast tasted like ash.

----------------------------------------

“What is this place?” Fisher asked.

“You never seen a gym before?” Sabra replied, watching him from the ring. “Damn, man.”

Sure, old Khalid’s gym had seen better days and hadn’t actually been a gym for two years, but Sabra figured the machines and bags would’ve made it obvious. Those that were still standing, at least. The place still smelled like rubber and sweat. It was like visiting an old temple.

“I’m missing my hands, Sabra, not my eyes. I was meaning: why’d you pick it?”

“I’ve gotta have a reason?”

“Humor me.”

Sabra shrugged. Her suit hitched, trying to match her. “It’s my old gym. Where I first put on my gloves, actually. Seemed as good a place as any.”

Fisher looked left and right. “Looks like it’s been out of business for some time.”

“About two years, yeah.”

“Huh,” Fisher said. “Surprised it hasn’t been picked clean.”

“I think everyone respected the guy too much to come and loot his home when he got shot. Then it became Forgotten territory and Mike talked about putting up a memorial for him.” Sabra frowned. And now he never would, because someone had put a bullet in him. She wondered if she should tell Fisher about that.

“So,” she said, “what’re we doing with today’s session? More history?”

“Nah,” Fisher replied. “I was thinking we’d spar.”

Sabra couldn’t help it—she laughed. “Thought you said that’d be a waste of time.”

Fisher ambled about until he found a set of boxing mitts, dusted them off, and pulled them on. “Like I said, humor me.”

He slipped through the ropes with only a small degree of difficulty. “You understand that I’m wearing a suit of power armor, right? I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Then pull your punches. We’ll start slow,” Fisher said, raising his hands. “You’ve run drills before, yeah? Left, right, hook, hook, uppercut? Show me.”

“Whatever you say,” Sabra said, shrugging with her hands, and setting her stance. She tapped her knuckles to the left mitt, then the right, then turned her body into a pair of awkward hooks. Fisher lowered one mitt to catch the uppercut, and they returned to the start.

“I know how to punch, Pavel,” she said. “Aren’t you going to give me the top tips to fighting a cape?”

“There are tips to fighting capes, but you won’t need them for Taurine. How’s your father?”

Left, right, hook. “Recovering.”

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“You been to see him?”

Not since that first night, when she’d seen him in that mass of tubes and wires and beeping machines. When she’d thought, for that sharp, shameful second that the man looked nothing like her father. Couldn’t quite shake the thought, even now, perish the thought, that it would’ve been easier to see him at a funeral.

“Been busy,” Sabra replied.

“Yeah?” Fisher asked, and slapped her on the ear with his left mitt.

“What the hell?”

“First lesson,” Fisher said. “When you fight a cape, expect anything. With Taurine, you’re lucky that we have her mapped out and there won’t be any surprises. And I didn’t say stop the drill, Sabra, come on.”

She stepped back into the drill, moving quickly now, making Fisher keep up. He stepped back and away, leading her around the ring. He swiped at her here and there, but he was old and his eyes gave away his blows.

“How about your mother?” Fisher asked, breathing heavily. “Can’t be easy with her husband in hospital and her only child off playing vigilante.”

Sabra’s face burned, but not from exertion. “She’s fine.”

“Really?”

He jabbed at her, and she caught his hand in her own, held it there for a moment, then shoved him away.

“Really.”

Fisher’s tired eyes met her own, narrow and searching. It was like he was looking for something, but Sabra couldn’t figure out what. Still, they moved back into the drill. “What’s with the weird questions, coach?”

“Just trying to get a better picture of my protege,” Fisher replied dryly. “Are you ashamed of them?”

That threw her worse than having him clip her on the nose or bust her lip. Her left slipped past the mitt and cleaved only air. He smacked her on the ear again. The fire spread from her face and down her spine. “Dude, what the fuck?”

“Or,” Fisher said, “Do you think they’re ashamed of you?”

She hammered Fisher in the gut, hard enough that his feet left the mat, and he fell in a heap. He pushed himself upward, grimacing and winded, groaning.

“Christ, Sabra,” he said, gasping. “I think you shoved my liver up into my ribs.”

“Surprised you don’t have an artificial one of those, too,” she said. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

Fisher remained where he was, catching his breath. There was an awful heaviness behind her ribs. Like a burn on her heart. She would never be ashamed of her parents—could never be. But there wasn’t a week where she didn’t worry about exactly what he had said. That behind the love and the hope there was only disappointment they would never voice.

Hence, Geneva.

“You don’t know my parents,” Sabra said. “You don’t know my life. You don’t get to start playing family therapist, Pavel. You don’t know what any of us have been through!”

Fisher groaned. “You’ve been keeping something from me, Sabra. It’s something that I think is very important.” He rose to his feet. “I can’t help you if you’re keeping secrets. We won’t win if I don’t know everything.”

“Fine,” Sabra said. “My favorite color is green. But let’s get one thing straight—you’re not helping me, I’m helping you.”

Something rumbled outside, stopped. Fisher’s eyes went wide. “Sabra.”

“You bring up my parents again, and you can go fight Taurine yourself.”

“Sabra, shut up!” Fisher snapped. “It’s the fucking APD.”

Sabra turned. There, on the curb, sat one of the big APD trucks—six inches of armor plate on six huge wheels. And stepping into the gym was the Star Patrol cape with the long coat and bucket helmet. Bushranger.

“Not interrupting anything, am I?” he asked.

Behind him, Defenda Eureka descended on plumes of blue fire. There was a pang of anxiety in the thought of the challenge—jealousy, maybe. Eureka made her suit look like the salvaged mess it was. Like looking at a battle tank designed by Lotus.

“Let me handle this,” Fisher whispered, stepping past her. While Sabra pulled her helmet from the corner of the ring, Fisher spoke: “Bushranger, isn’t it? What’s the problem?”

“Don’t have a problem with you, mate,” the Australian cape said. “Just the woman in the suit of armor there. So, how about you step aside?”

Sabra clenched her fists. Fisher glanced at her.

“Sabra,” he said, voice a warning. “Don’t.”

She pushed through the ropes and landed heavily on the old rubber mat. Bushranger held his ground, watching her approach. “Just have to ask you some questions about something that happened last night,” he said.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“There’re two officers who disagree.”

“Sabra,” Fisher asked. “What did you do?”

“Come quietly,” Bushranger continued, “and this’ll go a whole lot easier, mate.”

“It’ll go easiest if you turn around and fuck off, mate,” Sabra replied. What’d that word even mean, anyway?

Defenda stomped closer. Bushranger held up one hand. “Easy, Defenda,” he said. “I’ve got this.” He reached into his coat and withdrew a cylinder. With a shake of his wrist, it became a metal staff.

“I’m not gonna ask again,” he said.

“Cool,” Sabra replied. “Neither am I.”

“Just what I was hoping to hear!”

Bushranger leaped to attack, whirling his staff, and Sabra met him head on.

His staff blasted her in the belly, arcing with a bright pulse. Without her armor, it would’ve put her on the floor but, inside of it, Sabra barked out a harsh laugh. She shoved herself inside Bushranger’s guard, forcing him to give up control of his staff, and open up his limbs to her.

Sabra brought her forearm down on his elbow, felt it give until Bushranger twisted his way out of it. But not fast enough—she punched him in the throat and heard him fall back gagging. She felt nothing but satisfaction, and it felt good. She was a goddamn walking bulldozer. She was a destroyer. She was holy fucking wrath incarnate. And this thug that thought he could come into this holy place, a day after her friend had been shot in the head, and act as if he was anything but a vulture?

He was nothing.

They traded blows. Bushranger’s training against her constant pressure. She pressed in and forwards, hammering away at the cape. He dodged and weaved, throwing his staff down and letting his guard down, waving his fingers at her, beckoning her onward. “Come on, come on!”

“He’s taunting you, Sabra!” Fisher shouted. “Put him on the ground!”

“Aiding and abetting,” Defenda intoned, raising one arm and pointing to him. “Not smart.”

Sabra grabbed Bushranger by his armored coat, wrenched him in and lashed him with a haymaker to the helmet. He stumbled back, hit the old front counter and then, with both of her fists, Sabra drove him down and through it.

Bushranger shook his head, and Sabra booted him in the side. He slid out through the front doors and into the street. He sounded like he was choking. Sabra stalked towards him and realized it was laughter.

“God, it’s been a while,” he said, rising. “This island’s a fucking shithole—I love it! Don’t get anything like this in Melbourne! Come on, keep trying, maybe you’ll actually win!”

Her fury had dulled down to anger, but it was still potent beyond anything Sabra had dreamed of. She stoked it again with hate, with the thought of the Animals shooting her father, the man who had taught her to read, the man who had never hurt anyone, and Mike, who had dreamed of building a community, and the fact that Bushranger had let it happen.

There it was. Fury.

“You’re coming with us, one way or another,” Bushranger said. “Defenda, do it.”

Sabra turned, anticipating the attack, but only made it halfway—her suit hitched, staggered, stalled, and stopped. She pulled against the armor, again and again, but nothing happened. She might as well have been trying to bench press the Citadel. Her HUD vanished like someone had cut the power.

“What the fuck did you do?!”

Bushranger stepped closer and tapped his knuckles against her helmet. Sabra shook her head violently, all the defiance she could muster. “Someone didn’t purge the firmware, did they? Oops. It’s like they say, isn’t it, Defenda? You only catch the stupid ones.”

Defenda marched Fisher towards the waiting truck, turning to glance at Bushranger. “Have you had your fun? We’re wasting time.”

Sabra snarled, “Call me stupid to my face, motherfucker.”

Bushranger ignored her, turning to one of the APD officers. “Sergeant,” he said, “your stun baton, please. Defenda, on my mark, pop the locks.”

Then he turned back to Sabra, and the stun baton lit up with electric intensity.

“Now,” he said. “Let’s see how defiant you are out of that suit.”