CHAPTER 43 - SABRA

Once, Sabra’s father had told her about the application of violence: if you can’t be kind to them, he had said, then spare them any suffering.

Her first punch took Arachnicide on the cheek, crushed his eight-eyed helmet inward, and sent his head whipping around, spittle arcing like the tail of a comet. The moment stretched out, awareness flooding her senses: the structure deforming, lenses shattering, skull fracturing and neck snapping...

It was like she had done it before.

She worked a combination, caught Arachnicide with an uppercut and all of her suit-empowered strength, hurling him into the air and twisting his neck beyond all recognition. If the first punch hadn’t killed him, that one did.

She had expected nausea, a moral sickness, as she struck the first blow and so utterly made it the last. But the adrenaline roared through her, and the only thought she had was: well, that wasn’t so hard. Arachnicide’s associate, the one who had called her zealot, screamed and ran for it.

Sabra grabbed the corpse by its coat and hurled it towards the pack of gunmen by the door. Arachnicide exploded into a boiling, devouring mass of spiders. Hundreds, if not thousands, poured out from under the man’s trench coat in an insane frenzy, consuming everything in their path—including each other.

To her right, the cape in the helmet readied his ax, popped his visor, and thick, inky smoke poured out from his helmet. The kitchen might’ve been burning to the ground as thick as it was and as dark as it became. The head of his ax flared to life, a cobalt edge in the gloom, and then off again.

Sabra banged her fists together and turned a circle. Surely her helmet could pierce the thick smoke, but she hadn’t exactly read the manual before taking off. The giant came through the smoke, swinging with broad, vicious strikes. She ducked back, darting left and right, lest any of his strikes lop off a limb or split her in half.

It was all instinct now, and the single blazing thought that killing wasn’t so hard.

Better you than me.

She danced with him, drawing him in and pushing him back, getting a feel for how he moved—his rhythm, his pattern. Something had reached out and laid out Taurine. Maybe it had always helped her. Maybe it’d do so again. All she needed was the right moment, to embrace the pattern that had existed when the stars were young. In this suit, she wasn’t a bulldozer but a lioness.

There! Axman overextended by just an inch, and Sabra jabbed him in the face. Broke the ridge of his helmet, shards shattered inward. He stepped back, howling, smoke pouring free like a volcano in miniature. She stayed on him, drawing her fist back to finish him, and something kicked her in the side.

A glimpse through the gloom of a man with a shotgun and a burning red eye. His gun boomed again, and the force stumbled Sabra. That brought enough time for Axman to put his head down and catch her like a bull, armor and all. Something shattered as he carried her through his smoke, and Leopard shouted out, and she slammed into the wall.

He brought his ax up. Sabra beat him with her forehead, her helmet against what was left of his, and ducked to the left—his ax came down on her shoulder, shearing her pauldron clean off. She found his elbow, yanked and twisted with all of her strength, and felt it give. His elbow skewed about, his shoulder popping free.

The ax dropped from his fingers, electron edge embedding it to the haft in the floorboards. Sabra pulled his guard open and shoved him back, opening space so she could boot him in the chest.

She hit him hard enough that he left the ground, careening through the smoke like he was a rock she’d kicked down the street. For a second, he flew—until he collided with the single surviving edge of the kitchen island. Something snapped and Axman bent too far backward. The smoke spluttered and died.

Who was left? Redeye was on the ground, still and unmoving, like he’d used his last moments to try and kill her. There was Arachnicide’s lie-detecting associate, but she’d fled for her life. The spiders had handled the shooters. That was that, and how easy it had been.

The smoke lifted slowly. Sabra turned, seeking Leopard or Tiger or both. “Hey,” she said, and the ripples return towards the source, waves of sound and energy and thought, winnowing multitudes to possibilities and certainties, everything becoming one, and Leopard shouts, Defiant, behind-

“-you!”

She moved, but not fast enough. Something caught her on her helmet, and there was a split-second flash of her visor splitting, a terrible blue glow, and a white-hot line across the right-hand side of her face. Sabra stumbled back, screaming, clutching the ruins of her helmet.

Christ and Allah, my eye—my fucking eyes!

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you,” Liarbird said sweetly, “to keep your eye on the birdie?”

It hurt. Christ and Allah, it hurt. She had to push through it—no pain, no gain, get it together, Kasembe!—but it wasn’t just the pain. She was blind, she’d lost an eye—no, both of them. She couldn’t see, she couldn’t fucking see.

Sabra stepped backward, bumped into something, and went down in a heap. She rolled over, acting on instinct, and got her hands under her. Then a handgun barked, and something heavy hit the floor. Footsteps, and another gunshot.

“You okay?” Leopard asked.

Sabra grabbed at her helmet and wrenched it off, throwing it to the side. “I— I don’t know,” she said, raising her fingers to her face. She hesitated an inch away from her cheeks and then slowly, gingerly, afraid of what she might find, touched at her face and eyes. A thin line led up towards her right eye.

“Are my eyes— Leopard, are my eyes?”

A moment’s silence and the awareness that he could kill her, too.

“They’re fine,” he said. “Electron flash. Give it a minute or two.”

“What the hell were you doing here?” Fear of being blind shifted into anger at almost being blinded. “What the fuck happened?”

“Let’s not talk about it here,” he replied. By the sounds of things, he was cutting Tiger’s bonds. “We’ll talk about it back at the hideout. I promise.”

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“Hey, it’s not like I don’t have a few minutes.” The world returned in vague shapes and colors. Sabra blinked like she was winning a competition. It helped.

Leopard took a step away from her, towards the corpses, then paused and turned back. He held his hand out to her. Sabra frowned, but took it. Not that she needed it, but it was a nice gesture—and more human from him than she had expected.

Leopard made his way over to the broken, twisted Arachnicide. He gave the corpse a kick, perhaps checking for lingering spiders, and then began going through his pockets.

“Hey, whoa,” Sabra said. “Man, what the fuck?”

“This is what we were doing here,” he replied, not looking up. “These people came by our hideout earlier today. They were looking for us, they knew who we are. That means we’ve got a mole, a planted tracker, or a bounty on our heads.”

“Who?” Sabra asked. “You two or what?”

“They way he told it, it sounded like all of us.” Leopard paused and halted, like he was about to admit something embarrassing, or vomit. “Look. Thanks for saving us.”

Sabra exhaled.

“You would’ve done the same thing for me, right?”

“I don’t know,” Leopard said, moving over to pick through Liarbird’s outfit. He’d shot her twice—head and chest. “Maybe.”

Sabra walked over to the dead gunmen on the far side of the kitchen. The spiders had made them suffer, before turning on themselves. Just because she’d saved two lives didn’t make this right. Her father had always talked about cause and effect. And there was a simple causal relationship here: if Leopard and Tiger hadn’t come out here, then no one would’ve died.

Unless Leopard was telling the truth. It was a rough thought to grapple with. But if he was a liar, and he was, Sabra was pretty sure that he was the sort to lie out of stupidity and not malevolence.

Pretty sure.

Out of the corner of her eye, Sabra caught a flash of Tiger stumbling, grabbing onto the remaining corner of the kitchen counter over which the body of the axman lay. Leopard caught her, kept her upright. “Hey,” he said. “You good?”

“I’m fine, kid,” Tiger breathed. “God, I’m fine.” She pushed herself away and waved off his support. “It’s just a... scratch.”

“A scratch?” Sabra asked.

“Something clipped me. Got through the patched-up bit of my suit. Nothing major. I’m fine.”

Leopard nodded, then began inspecting Axman’s corpse. “Defiant,” he said, pointing to the bodies at her feet, “Check them.”

“Check them?” she asked. “For what?”

“The back of their necks. Not the capes, the others. Start with the guy with the cybernetic eye.”

She did. The man’s face was swollen and grotesque, and his red cybernetic eye was still lit. She rolled him over onto his front—partially because Leopard said so, and partially to avoid looking at the face of a dead man. Something trembled in her gut. Leopard stepped up behind her as she ripped his shirt open.

“Yeah,” Leopard said, sighing—it sounded like an electronic growl. “I didn’t want to see that. Don’t bother with the others. Chances are they all have it in the same spot.” He pointed to the back of the man’s neck: a snake wrapped around a stylized skull.

“What’s it mean?”

“That these were Syndicate enforcers,” Leopard said. “Someone very rich and very influential wants us dead.”

“Why?”

“If I knew, I’d tell you.”

“Christ and Allah, is there anyone on this planet you haven’t pissed off?”

“Guys,” Tiger said, shuffling towards them. “Uh, I’m not sure how to put this.” Her helmet was off, under her arm and her face, even in the moonlight, was far too pale. “But I think it’s a bit more than a scratch.” She pulled her hand from her side, and the glove of her suit was slick and wet.

“Oh, fuck,” Leopard murmured.

Tiger grimaced. There was red around her teeth. “Hurts to breathe.”

“Time’s up,” Sabra said. “Sam, I’ll carry you.”

“No way,” she said. “Fuck that. I’m not going to be a burden. I’ll keep up. But if I fall down, the two of you leave me behind.”

“But,” Leopard said.

“No buts, kid,” Tiger said, smiling crookedly. “I mean, we both know I’ve had worse, right?”

And while Leopard nodded, Sabra wasn’t so sure.

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They double-timed it back to the hideout. Tiger, true to her word, kept pace. She made it within the last three feet of their front door before she stumbled. Two steps from the front door, her legs went out from under her and she collapsed. Leopard caught her as Sabra flung open the door. “Tiger!” he shouted, dragging her inside. “Sam! Don’t you fucking—!”

Sabra crushed her fear and her panic down, and called the first name that came to mind. “Revenant!”

Revenant burst out of the garage, already in motion, jacket falling from her arms. “Jack, give her to me. Sabra, clear the kitchen bench. There’s a medical kit in the garage. I need it.”

Sabra crossed to the bench in four long strides and swept her arms across the bench top. Utensils clattered to the floor. A salt shaker shattered. As if on cue, Revenant had Tiger on the bench. Sabra ducked into the garage, found the bright green medical kit. Tiger screamed.

“No! No, don’t let her—! Don’t let that metal bitch—! Don’t let her touch me!”

Tiger howled, thrashing and clawing at Revenant. Bloody froth speckled both of their faces.

“Jack, Sabra,” Revenant said, “Restrain her.” Sabra passed her the medical kit, then grabbed Tiger and held her down. Tiger screamed, arching her back, kicking. It was a horrible kind of terror.

Leopard stood to the side, helmet off, eyes wide and dragging his fingers through his hair again and again.

“Jack!” Sabra snapped. “Goddamnit, Jack! Leopard, help us!”

That got through to him. He moved over and grabbed Tiger’s legs. She was sobbing now, a mess of curses and invectives and wordless pain, and then fight went out of her, and her head lulled back and limp.

Revenant raised her arm, panels and pieces realigning. “I don’t have the ideal tools for this,” she said, but sliced open Tiger’s armorweave suit from collar to navel with a quick spear of light. Underneath, she was awash in red. The words NO CODE were stamped under her breasts. Sabra couldn’t see her chest moving.

“The shrapnel has damaged her left lung,” Revenant said, drawing things out of the kit—gauze, a scalpel, tweezers. “Surgery is required.”

“You can do that?” Leopard asked.

“Yes, but I need to work quickly.”

“Okay, do it.”

“Do you—” Sabra stared, and her gut twisted again. “Can I do anything to help?”

Revenant’s eyes didn’t waver from her work. Her hands moved with mechanical precision. “No.”

“But—”

“Kasembe, trust me, I will let you know if there’s anything you can do to help.”

Someone came thundering down the stairs. Despite everything, it was that sound that made the blood drain out of her face. Fisher.

For a second he stood there, bleary-eyed, like he wasn’t sure if he was awake or dreaming. Then he blinked once, and he saw and his face came alive with shock and horror. He looked left and right. He looked at Sabra, then to Leopard, and then to Revenant up to her elbows in blood as she operated on a pale, dying Tiger.

“Does someone want to tell me,” he began, voice rising to an angry crescendo, “just what the fuck is going on?”

Sabra’s gut flipped. She found herself looking at her hands. Her gauntlets were covered in blood, and she had no idea whose it was.

“I can explain,” Sabra said, giving Fisher her most winning smile, and then leaned forward and vomited all over her boots.