CHAPTER 48 - FISHER

Something exploded and Fisher lurched out of bed, cold and anxious. In a moment, he knew what’d happened: Star Patrol had found them and Southern Cross himself had dropped from the heavens, ready to rumble.

The moment passed. The explosion sounded again, but it was fainter now. It was more like someone was throwing something against the fence, the boards crashing together under the impact, than a superhero making landfall. Fisher pulled a shirt on and headed downstairs. He wasn't quite awake yet, and his eyes were still bleary. It took him a second too long to recognize Sam holding a pot of coffee.

“Want some?” she asked.

“Hey, welcome back,” he said.

“Never left. You want some or not?”

“Sure. Hey, did you just drop something?”

“What am I, an idiot?” Sam asked, filling a mug and passing it over. “It’s our two girls. They’re doing... something out there. Woke me up, too.” The banging sound continued, like a metronome to the conversation. What was Sabra doing out there?

“Huh,” Fisher said, sipping from his mug. “So, she can revive the dead, too.”

“So does this shit you all call coffee.”

“It’s better than nothing.”

“Yeah, for pouring down on people from atop the battlements, maybe.”

“Take it easy. I’m going to go see what Sabra’s up to. Thanks for the coffee.”

Sam grunted. “Hey,” she said. “How’s our idiot boy?”

“I think he had a bit of a rough time last night,” Fisher said. “Might be best to let him sleep it off.”

“Roger.”

Fisher stepped outside. The grass was dewy, and his breath misted before him. To his left, Sabra yelped and darted back, clutching at her face. A tennis ball rolled away along the stone patio. Revenant stood on the grass, hands clasped behind her back. The athletic top she was wearing seemed far too little for the cold, but it wasn’t like she had to worry about things like that. There was no trace of vapor upon her lips.

“What on Earth are you two doing?” Fisher asked.

Sabra muttered something into her hand. Revenant said, “Reflex training.”

“It looks like you nailed her in the face.”

“She said she could dodge.”

“I’m fiii-iiine,” Sabra said. “I think I almost had it that time. Maybe it’s not working because it’s just, like, a tennis ball. Hey, Pavel, can you grab us one of Sam’s guns?”

“Sabra,” he said, frowning, “please don’t get yourself shot.”

“I’m not going to get shot,” Sabra said, and let out a long breath. “Look, I know how these things work. Like Taurine, like the guy with the ax—it only wakes up when I’m in danger, when I get in the zone. It’s like they always say—keep your eye on the ball, go hard or go home, no pain, no gain.”

Fisher settled on a stone bench. Sabra hopped from foot to foot, humming to herself. “Ah,” Revenant said. “It appears she’s lapsed into a sports-cliche-ridden fugue state.”

“Try a different kind of training, then," Fisher said. "How about sparring?"

The smile that lit up Sabra’s face was so bright it could’ve lit up the world.

“It wouldn’t be a fair fight,” Revenant said. “And I have no desire to bruise Kasembe’s ego as I just did her face.”

Sabra laughed. “Oh, ho! That’s some top-tier trash talk, Rev.”

“It’s a statement of fact.”

"Only fact I'm aware of so far is that it's one-nil to Kasembe."

Revenant huffed at her bangs. Sabra made a show of running through her stretches. Sam stepped out onto the patio, a cigarette between her lips. Something about the sight seemed incredible and hard to believe, given the damage to her lungs, but Fisher figured that Sam wasn’t exactly someone who had a long string of bad yesterdays.

“What’s happening out here?”

“I’m fighting Revenant!” Sabra blurted.

“Sparring,” Fisher warned, fighting down the image of one or both of them knocking out each other’s teeth.

“Huh,” Sam said. “Okay.” She settled next to Fisher, tapped out the ash against the edge of the bench. “Yeah, fuck sparring—do it live. One point for each solid hit. Don’t bite each other and don’t break anything—sound good?”

Sabra was already wrapping her hands with gauze. “You’ll keep score?”

“I’ll count for the robot. Dad’ll count for you.”

“Fine,” Revenant said.

Sabra stepped out onto the grass, loosening up her arms and neck. Revenant held her position and her at-ease stance. Fisher peered at them both over his mug. Sabra was good, there was no denying that, but he had the distinct impression that she’d break her hands on Revenant’s sheer indifference.

“You ready, electric lady?” Sabra asked, grinning.

“I’m a cutting-edge war machine, Kasembe—I was made ready.”

Sabra held her fists out. After a moment, Revenant bumped them in salute.

“No hard feelings?”

“That would require me to have them.”

They each stepped back one pace, then another. Sabra set her stance, fists up, already bouncing from foot to foot. The grin had faded, and she was determined now, concentrating. Revenant set her hands behind herself once again, and waited.

“Your move, Kasembe.”

Sabra stepped closer, threw a quick jab at Revenant’s face. But she didn’t even twitch or flinch, and Sabra’s blow would never have connected. Maybe she was probing her defenses, seeing how she reacted. Or, Fisher thought, remembering their banter and her smile, maybe it was something else.

Stepping into Revenant’s space, Sabra began throwing punches. Revenant gave up the ground, but at her decision. She stepped backward and away from Sabra like she was out for a leisurely stroll, her hands remaining clasped behind her back. Wherever Sabra’s fists went, she was never there: the only thing Sabra ever struck was air.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Revenant wasn’t dodging, that much was clear. These weren’t blows that she was evading at the last second. These were strikes she had seen coming, seconds before Sabra had made them. This wasn’t a question of reflexes, Fisher figured, but processing power.

Still, Sabra tried. She shifted from boxing into something mixed, a flurry of elbows and knees and fists and one powerful kick that felt like it would’ve taken Revenant’s head off. None of it mattered. Revenant was in whatever space Sabra didn’t occupy. Fisher leaned forward, watching. Sabra had height and spirit. If she could fire up her precognition, then maybe, just maybe...

A third attempt. This time, Revenant stepped inside Sabra’s guard and, with a single palm to the solar plexus, sent her flying. Sabra hit the dirt face first. Fisher winced.

“One,” Sam said.

Sabra pushed herself up, turning her head and spitting out grass. She stepped up again, pumping her arms like a pair of shotguns. Revenant held her ground, and the panels along her arms rippled down from her shoulders to her hands and back again. When Sabra went in for a fourth offensive, Revenant caught her fist in her palm.

“What’s wrong, Kasembe?” she asked, “Are you afraid of hurting me? Stop thinking about that. Stop thinking about anything. Stop trying to hit me and hit me.”

Revenant shoved her away. Sabra opened her mouth to say something and then shook her head, tore the gauze from her hands, and something changed. Fisher wasn't sure what. Then, her gaze went off somewhere into the middle distance, and Sabra erupted. She threw a jab and a cross, and a wicked combination that made Fisher’s head spin from the sidelines. She was fast. She was goddamn fast. But Revenant stepped past all of it. But quicker now, the distance closing between prediction and dodging.

“Sam,” Fisher said. “You seeing this?”

“What?”

“Sabra. She’s getting faster.”

Sam lit up another cigarette, eyes like a hawk.

Revenant gave up ground more quickly now. Sabra was pressuring her, starting to dictate tempo. Sabra, twisting, uncoiling like a viper, threw a long, straight cross square at Revenant’s jaw—who drew her head out of the way at the last moment, Sabra’s strike tearing through the space it had just occupied.

Fisher swore he caught her gunmetal eyes widening.

Revenant brought her left arm into play.

Now they were fighting. The rhythm of the fight pushed back and forth across the yard, Sabra and Revenant throwing blows at a speed Fisher couldn’t remember seeing. Revenant gave up ground, forced to do so now, and untied her second arm. And Sabra—Sabra was smiling.

“Look at them go,” Fisher said. “She’s doing it.”

“Doing what?” Sam asked. “Well, whatever—I’ll put ten on the robot.”

“You’re on.”

He heard the fight more than he saw it—the slap of blows blocked and deflected. The fight pulsed in one direction, then back the other way. Sabra didn’t have a pendulum step, but an onslaught step. She gave up ground only in the sense of how a tide receded before a tsunami. She just had to draw the fight to whatever moment she’d seen. Just like Taurine. But Revenant had surely pulled her punches in their first bout, and Fisher had the disconcerting feeling she still was.

Revenant caught Sabra’s fist, shoved her back towards the fence. Sabra bounced off it, ducking under Revenant’s next strike, which cleaved through the wooden boards, sending splinters and fragments arcing through the air. Fisher leaned forward, aware of the coffee splashing out against the stone and running over his toes.

Come on, Sabra.

Revenant turned, arms up, and Sabra’s heel found her cheek—a spinning kick she never could’ve pulled off in her armor. The blow whipped her head around, even as she grabbed Sabra’s leg and threw her against the fence. The boards cracked and buckled, but Sabra bounced right off the metaphorical ropes. It was like watching the unstoppable force meet the immovable object. Distantly, Fisher thought, maybe we should stop this.

They locked again. Sabra pinned Revenant’s arm beneath her own, then grabbed the other. Fisher saw her next move before anyone else.

Sabra, don’t go for the-

Sabra headbutted her, and somehow the sheet audacity of employing such a technique against a robot resulted in little other than Revenant returning the favor twice over. Sabra stumbled back with a yelp that was more surprised than hurt, but Revenant did not pursue. She stood there, rolled her head left and right. Sabra blinked rapidly, the smile fading, like she was remembering where she was—like she’d knocked herself out of, as Revenant had put it, her fugue state.

"Nice try, Kasembe," Revenant said. "But I am coming for your title. Now."

Revenant closed on her, weathering Sabra’s strikes. She wasn't blocking now, she didn't need to, she never had to. Every gap in Sabra's onslaught, Revenant slipped into with the precision of a surgeon's scalpel, stepping deftly and striking hard. Fisher didn't know how many points Sabra had, but he was damn sure Sam had lost count, too. Revenant had Sabra's arm then, locking it down so she could wrench her guard open, and punched her under the ribs, just in time for Sabra’s fist to find her chin, and stay there.

The fight paused. Sabra spat to the side. Blood dribbled from her lip or, perhaps, her nose.

“You'll have to do better than that, Rev."

"We're sparring, Kasembe."

"You have a funny definition of sparring."

"So do you. Let's call it a draw."

"A draw?" Sabra scoffed bloodily. "No. I'm keeping my streak, and my title."

Revenant arched one eyebrow. "It's your title or your life, Kasembe—look down."

Fisher looked with her. There, Revenant’s arm was a gunmetal cannon from the elbow down, and she had it pressed under Sabra’s ribs. Golden light glimmered between the pair.

"Do your worst," Sabra said.

“As you wish," Revenant said. "Bang."

Sabra flew backwards, landing on the grass in a heap. It took Fisher a second to realize that she hadn’t been shot, that she’d only thrown herself as if she had. Sabra writhed about on the grass, groaning and gurgling, tongue hanging out of her mouth, pantomiming her idea of a death scene. Revenant shifted her arm back to its humanoid configuration, her expression as sardonic as ever.

“Regular Swiss army bot,” Sam said. Her cigarette had dropped from her lips at some point, smoldering in the pool of spilled coffee. “I’m going to go get Jack. He has to hear about this. Have my tenner ready for me when I get back.”

“They said it was a draw,” Fisher said. “And I think I agree.”

“Don’t care. Didn’t look that way to me, didn't sound like Sabsie accepted it, and I like money.”

“Sure,” Fisher said, then called out to the fighters. “Hey, are the two of you okay?”

Sabra sat up. “I think I’m going to be feeling it tomorrow.” She looked up at Revenant. “How about you?”

“I would be more worried about your hands than my construction, Kasembe.”

“She’s fine,” Sabra said to Fisher, grinning. Then, once Revenant had pulled her to her feet, she took some time to examine her knuckles. “Wow,” she said. “They are throbbing.”

“I’ll get you some ice,” Revenant said, and headed inside.

“Did it work, Sabra?” Fisher asked.

"Did what work?"

Fisher frowned. "Your precognition."

“Oh, that. I think so. It was like she said. Stop thinking.” She sucked at the knuckles on her right hand. “I just let go, like I was dancing. But it’s all kinda hazy. I think I wanted to impress her. I mean, wow—talk about a gun show!”

Fisher ignored that last part, but an emotional cue was an emotional cue. If impressing the robot girl was the key to the lock of her ability then, well, let it be. But he had an impression of a train derailing, a ship sinking. He couldn’t see any good coming of it—Sabra was all do-or-die exuberance, and Revenant was as cold as the Antarctic wastes, and twice as unsettling.

“That’s because you headbutt her,” he said, “and I’d bet her skull is denser than your own.”

“Hah,” Sabra said. “Yeah... But Pavel, look. I have to work this thing out. I have to control it.”

“Easy, Sab. You’re coming into this late. Your mind’s already formed all of its neural pathways, you’re already used to calling on your ability in a certain way.” That’s what everyone said, anyway. The earlier something manifested, the more control you had, and the heights you could reach were so much higher. But that’s just what people said—Taurine had come into her mantle years later than Sabra, and she’d possessed a terrible form of control.

Hadn’t she? Or hadn’t she said something? Fisher frowned, thinking back to the sight of Taurine in her cell, but couldn’t remember.

The door opened. Sam stepped out, frowning. “Hey,” she said. “Either of you seen Jack this morning?”

Sabra shook her head. “No,” Fisher replied. “Why?”

Sam clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Okay, then we’ve got a bit of a problem.”

“Sam,” Fisher said, “What’re you talking about?” But somehow, he already knew.

“Jack’s not here,” she replied. “He’s missing. And wherever he is, his weapons and gear have gone with him.”