Clara was near the end of the bridge when she heard Andy shooting. Thick black cables grappled him, stretching out of the open doorway behind. The metal torso of a massive lava lamp pressed against the widening gap, its shattered glass head reduced to a jagged bowl of murky lava. Clara aimed her submachine gun high above his head and opened fire as Andy got to his feet and ran.
Suddenly, the lamp popped through the gap and bowled over, flooding the walkway with the remains of its molten belly. The bridge shuddered with the impact, then creaked and began to collapse. Clara grabbed the railing at the edge of the pit where the walkway’s brackets hadn’t given way yet, but Andy disappeared into the pit beneath her. He clung to the collapsing railing as the walkway crumbled around him. Clara reached her arm down for him, but he didn’t have the strength to pull himself up. Splotches of lava ate through the steel, severing what remained of the bridge. Then he fell.
Time moved slowly. Clara unslung her backpack and gun, at the same time wrenching the chord free of her grappling hook. Activating the teeth, she fixed it to the railing, tugged the mechanism to make sure it was strapped to her belt, and dove in after Andy.
The wind rushed in her ears, stinging her face as specks of lava dashed her cheeks. Andy’s pale face shone in her headlamp like a mask, falling into blackness. She reached for him desperately. Her legs spasmed as a shot of thunderous energy ran down her spine, shooting out her feet. Blue sparks dashed from her hand as she accelerated, connecting a jagged path towards Andy. Grasping his ankle, her Electrically-enhanced Musculature clamped down like a magnet. Clara’s shoulder tore against the weight. She tensed her whole body as they continued to fall, her mind drenched in adrenaline. The lava lamp knelled like a bell against the walls of the pit beneath them, disappearing into the darkness, its red lava fizzling out like embers dashed with water.
Finally, the brakes kicked in and the grappling mechanism strapped to her waist slowed their descent. Andy dangled like a fish in her grasp, his long black hair flowing over his face. “How aren’t I dead yet?”
Clara gritted her teeth, straining to pull him up. “You’re too heavy.” She activated the grappling mechanism’s recall. The line shook, the internal gears whirred. They rose slowly, one click at a time. Too slow. Clara tried to stretch her other hand to Andy’s ankle, but she could lift him high enough to connect the two. He was slipping. Beneath them, the pit shook, low and distant, as the goliath lamp continued to fall into its depths.
“Have you got me?” Andy said.
“Grab my hand.”
He strained to bend upright in her grasp, fingers touched hers, then he fell back down. Clara gritted her teeth as her shoulder lurched. Her belt dug into her hip as the blood rushed to her head, making it hard to breathe.
“Andy, just do a situp,” she snapped.
“That’s impossible.” He tried again, climbing up his leg with both hands. Each time he moved, his entire body swung on Clara’s shoulder joint. The muscle tore and screamed for her to let go. Blue sparks crackled down the length of her arm as her muscles clenched painfully. The sensation of cramp seized them. Tears stung Clara’s eyes. Then Andy’s fingers wrapped around her wrist-terminal, then he hauled himself up and grabbed the grappling mechanism.
Clara put her hand over his, sensing the electrical current within the device. Her Current Control module envisioned the circuitry like a painting; it appeared in her mind’s eye: swirling colours in a still pool, flowing and condensing, diluted at the edges of the stream, but strong and vibrant where they coalesced. Clara willed her own energy into the pool, exciting the current, brightening the colours. The grappling device creaked and sped up. Clara transferred more energy, vibrating the box against her hip as the whirring rose in pitch. The line jolted into action, pulling them up, gaining momentum.
Above them, the walkway’s edge was bent and sharp where the metal had torn. Clara got her feet on the walkway before her hands, tugging Andy over the edge. He clung to her as the grappling line pulled them flush with the railing, then kept on pulling, grinding its internal mechanism incessantly. Smoke seeped through the cracks in the gearbox. Clara unfastened the device and left it dangling from the railing, then staggered off the walkway and collapsed against the stairwell door.
Andy picked up her rucksack and submachine gun, then knelt beside her panting. His eyes were wide, obscured by the fringe of his tangled black mop. He brushed the hair from his face, falling onto his arse, patting himself down to check his gear. Behind them on the railing, the grappling mechanism churned and crackled with sparks; white smoke choked the sound until the gears finally shut down and slowly spun to a stop. In its absence, the room was silent except for their breathing.
“You okay?” Andy said, rubbing his elbow and flexing his hand.
Clara rubbed her shoulder. It was painful to lift her arm. “Definitely pulled something. You alright?”
“Julie gave me a bit of a kick,” he said. “New power.”
“New power?” Clara picked up. “What is it?”
“Just like a super vortex missile thing.”
“When you shot that massive lava lamp? I heard something.”
“Yeah, that was it.”
Though she was wracked with exertion and adrenaline, a trickle of excitement seeped into Clara’s gut. Her breath fluttered. Andy had developed another new power, already, and all it had taken was two more near-death experiences. She was towing the line with these extreme contracts, but it was still paying off. How much longer could she push them both though, before they went too far? Perhaps, once Andy recalibrated with the New Patricians, she would back off for a bit… let his new powers settle in.
“That’s a deep pit,” Andy said. “Not a very lava-ly way to die.”
Clara scowled, but her mind raced for a response. “Yeah, not very magma-animous of us, letting it die like that.”
“What?”
“Magnanimous. It means merciful.”
“I preferred mine.” Andy rose to his feet and cursed. “Rifle’s gone. Almost dropped Julie in there too, but my special ability saved her.” He patted the revolver at his hip.
“Which ability?”
“Special force-pull magic.”
“What’s it called?”
Andy glanced at the darkness above them. “Fatal Attraction, I think.”
“Well done.”
“Well done what?”
“You remembered.”
Andy scowled. “Yeah well, me and my AI just had it out. It was playing up, throwing a fit about being mutated again.”
“Has that gotten worse?” Clara asked.
He shrugged. “Apparently, yeah. But I told it who was boss. It obeyed me in the end. Besides, Julie would never betray me.”
“Right,” Clara said. “But, just to clarify, Julie is still a part of your Augmentation.”
“I guess so.”
“So she’s connected to the AI.”
Andy shrugged.
“I mean, they’re the same thing, right?”
Andy smirked and shook his head. “Oh sis, how little you know.”
“That’s cause you never explain anything!”
“That’s because you’d never understand.”
Clara grumbled to herself, but sought an angle of persuasion. “You know, if you recalibrated now, that would really stick it to the AI.”
Andy’s face was blank. “Huh?”
“It obeys you now, right?” Clara said excitedly. “So go into the AMC chamber and tell it who’s boss. Lock down this new vortex ability with your revolver too.”
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Andy raised an eyebrow. “Erm, okay.”
Clara sighed. No matter if Andy was playing along with getting stronger and developing new abilities, he had always been reluctant to recalibrate at an AMC.
“It’s gotta be done, hasn’t it?” Andy said.
“Yeah,” Clara said solemnly, and although she didn’t understand why the procedure caused him pain, she felt guilty for demanding it of him. “Can’t be helped.” Clara held her good arm out for Andy to help her up. “Let’s go. I’m sick of breathing in all this soot.”
Together, they climbed the stairway high above the pit and through the ceiling. Small antechambers broke off from the shaft, but they kept on climbing to the top, where it opened onto a balcony in the warehouse above. Clara scanned the huge room with her flashlight, mapping out a route amongst the rubble towards the escalator exit. The warehouse was dark and quiet; the lesser lava lamps had seemingly gone to ground after their goliath master had been defeated. Clara climbed down the access ladder onto the warehouse floor, picking her way through the rubble until they reached the exit. She paused at the bottom of the escalators to catch her breath, holding the balaclava over her mouth.
Clara gazed at the steps heading upwards, her light diminishing before the top, dreading the climb. Then an idea struck her. Each escalator housed a control panel at the bottom of the steps. One had been fused shut by heat, but the second escalator panel opened a crack on its hinge. Clara pried it open with a knife and felt around for the electronics underneath. Touching what she thought was the motor mechanism, Clara opened her senses of Current Control and let a trickle of electricity transmit through her hand. It wasn’t enough, so she clenched harder at that new muscle developing in her mind. A surge shot up her spine and through her arm, breathing life into the elevator like puffing on a fire’s embers until they roared into flames.
Clara jumped up, yelping with excitement. She danced her fingers, glowing with blue light, in front of Andy’s face. “What did I tell you? Magic hands.”
Andy nodded to the stairs, one eyebrow raised, his expression neutral. Clara turned back around. The steps were moving downwards, disappearing underground. It wouldn’t help at all. They had no choice but to take the second, inactive escalator. “Dammit.”
As the adrenaline of combat wore off, Clara grew weary. They stopped to rest three times on their ascent to the surface. Dim sunlight shone through the doorway at the top. Clara lugged her gear, her injured shoulder hanging limp at her side, climbing hand over foot at the top of the stairs. Once above ground, she breathed in the fresh air, waiting for Andy to catch up on the steps behind her. The lobby was eerily quiet, completely unaffected by the battle which had commenced below. Clara tied her rucksack to their bike, double checking that the lava lamp payload was still inside. A small gift shop–long since pillaged of useful items–stocked a row of lava lamp teddies. They came in all shapes and colours, but the most prolific was the company’s red mascot: Barry. Clara glared at them, wondering how much fuel she would have to waste in order to burn the giftshop to the ground.
Andy reached the top of the stairs and staggered onto the back of the bike as Clara revved the engine and set off. By the time they returned to Milltown’s Haven Inn early that evening, they had been gone for just six hours. Stowing their weapons in the storage shed, Clara retreated to their room, slung her backpack on the floor and lay in bed. Within the safety of civilisation, and with the mission complete, she fell quickly asleep.
Hours later, somebody shouted outside her window, rousing her from slumber. The man sounded drunk. He went on a tirade about injustice and discrimination, then a second man raised his voice, putting the threat of violence behind his words. The drunkard fell silent. Clara woke and peeked out of her window, watching a man hobble down the inn’s path towards the bridge. He sat against a brick pillar, sipping a bottle in the dark of night.
Clara watched him quietly as the dreariness of sleep settled in her mind like debris in a riverbed. She dressed herself in a clean pair of clothes she’d bought earlier that day–a simple brown top and baggy trousers. Her combat jacket, which until recently had been seasoned with sweat and grime from long weeks on the road, now possessed a layer of soot too. Leaving it hung on her bed frame, Clara went downstairs into the common room. After reassuring the barkeep that they would be paid for a job under the Patrician’s commission soon, Clara extended their tab and bought a hot meal and a pint of cider. She sat beside the fire, replaying the events of the mission in her mind, focussing on how she had used her powers.
Each time Clara had summoned a surge of electricity, it had felt more natural than the last, as though she’d always had the power within her, she’d just never known how to use it. She knew that was a fallacy, but the fantasy of being a chosen one with magical powers made her feel lighter. If the world could have its crazy apocalyptic stories, then why couldn’t she entertain her own lighthearted prophecy-warrior tale for a little while?
She remembered something which Alister had told Andy the other night. You are the chosen one of many. As much as she was excited to get paid and recalibrate, Clara expected there to be a catch. Alister had taken a special interest in them; she assumed that their success was meant to prove something to him–their worthiness of some sort. Alister was a fantastic–that always spelt trouble. Clara made her mind up. Once she and Andy used the New Patricians’ AMC, they’d leave town greener pastures
It was never simple, was it? Clara sat back with a resigned smile on her lips. Her shoulder ached, but the pain receded as she relaxed. In the warmth of the firelight, Clara recited each ability which she had used earlier that day, revising the list from her wrist terminal. Her powers were rudimentary for now, but she could tell that already, her experimentation was yielding results. While falling for Andy, a jolt of electricity had shot through her body, speeding her up. That ability wasn’t on her list. It had come naturally, like flexing a muscle–a basic expression of her abilities: propel thunderous energy in a certain direction. But it was the start of an idea, like a splotch of wet paint on a canvas, willing to be reformed and aligned into a more complex function.
Clara relayed her thoughts to her AI, whispering to herself in the common room.
I am collecting data from your recent encounter, Ohm informed her. Conceptualisation of new abilities is in progress.
“How quickly can I advance? Get new powers?”
The speed of your progression depends on the frequency in which you engage your abilities in extraneous circumstances. Doing so allows me to gather required data and test experimental models, while strengthening the programming and synchronisation of your DNA.
“Okay. How would you rate my recent performance?”
Recent performance was ideal.
“Yeah, but rate it. Give me a number.”
Ten out of ten.
Clara grinned. “That’s what I’m talking about.”
A serving boy approached her with a message from the New Patricians: they knew she and Andy had returned from the factory, and requested her presence at their camp. Clara picked herself up. Her thighs complained on the stairs up to their room.
“Get up.” She kicked Andy’s bedframe. He rolled over in his blanket and grunted, kicking an empty bottle of booze out of bed. Clara picked it up. “Whiskey?”
“Uggh.”
“Was this on our tab?”
“No,” Andy spoke into his pillow. “I swiped it.”
“Ah, even better.”
Pulling the blanket off him, she sent sparks through her fingertips, looming over him threateningly. That got him up quickly. He inspected the burned patch on his leather jacket, poking his finger through the hole and wriggling it. “Aww.”
“I’ll patch it up,” Clara said. “Come on. Let’s go.”
They withdrew their sidearms from the storage shed and travelled to the opposite side of Milltown into the New Patrician’s camp. Clara walked up the church path and knocked on the heavy doors. This time, Alister answered.
“Welcome back,” he held his arms out wide. “You do not fool around. You were very fast.”
“Did you underestimate us?” Clara said.
“Of course not. But the challenge was difficult, no?”
“Hmm.” Clara stepped aside as Alister led them around the back of the black lorry where the doors were already slung open. The technician was hanging in her hammock, a mug danling empty in her hand, dozing in the orange winter sunset. Alister grabbed the hammock’s latch, rattling her awake. “Debbie. Boot up the console. Our guests have returned.”
Clara took the lava lamp out of her bag. Its light had diminished since they had taken it from the factory as though it was sad, but that wasn’t possible. Glass didn’t have feelings, even if it was full of strange lava. “You might have downplayed how dangerous that factory was.”
“Factory?” Alister said. “I believed it was a storefront and a warehouse.”
“I’m sure you did.”
“Honestly,” Alister held his hands out. “Our information was limited.”
“Yeah, well, it was enormous, and densely populated.”
“Stairs,” Andy said. “Thousands of them.”
“Clearly, it was not too much for you two to handle.” Alister grinned, showing his teeth. “An Augmented pair. That is rare, you know.” Alister extended his hand for the lava lamp, but Clara hesitated.
“The price we negotiated was based on false information,” Clara said. “We need more in exchange for this item.”
“That is not what we agreed on.”
“The way I see it, is that I’m holding something which you need, which I could just as easily sell to someone else.”
“Something you obtained using our ammunition,” Alister said. “Furthermore, there is the debt of recalibration.”
“I’ll take that into consideration.” Above Clara, inside the lorry, the resident technician activated the Augmentation Master Console. The machine’s internal fans whirred to life as the screen blinked on displaying the calibration interface. “We lost an assault rifle down there, so we’ll need a new one. We also need more ammunition, a lot more, and two canisters of uncut fuel.”
“One canister,” Alister said.
“Then we don’t have a deal.”
Alister paused, looking to the technician for an opinion.
“It’s worth more than that,” she said.
Alister tilted his head in and narrowed his eyes as though to say ‘Don’t tell them that.’ He combed his blonde hair out of his face. “We don’t have an assault rifle to spare here, but I could perhaps source something similar.”
“What do you have?”
“Shotguns, pump action, military grade.”
“That will do.”
“Okay, deal.” He extended a hand.
“And you pay our tab at the Haven Inn once we leave town.”
Alister nodded. Clara shook on it and handed him the lava lamp.
Alister passed the lamp on to the technician, who stowed it away in a lockbox beside the AMC’s console. “Is there enough power left for two more uses?” he asked.
Debbie booted the casing, rattling the metal chamber. A faint red light permeated from inside, seeping through the slits of a vent, like an ember coaxed by the wind. “About five, I reckon.”.
“Well then.” Alister extended a hand to the lorry’s gated chamber. “Andrew, I believe it is your turn first.”