Fix (4 page)

“
D
addy
, no!
” Savannah screamed.

The gun didn't worry Aliyah: no single bullet ever killed a player in the games she played. Headshots merely chipped away at your health bar. Savannah's father couldn't bring himself to pull the trigger, but if he had shot, then Aliyah's videogame confidence would have transformed his .45 gunshots into flesh wounds.

Aliyah was more concerned about Savannah's daddy's safety.

“
Valentine, no!
” Aliyah yelled, as Valentine dove and rolled towards Savannah's father, her Batman-cape fluttering behind as she came up in a quick snapkick aimed at his neck.

Aliyah hooked into Aunt Valentine's game and swelled into the Joker, intercepting Valentine's attack with a double-block of crossed arms. Then she shrank back into a girl wearing a mud-stained soccer uniform.

The gun slipped from Savannah's father's fingers. As he hyperventilated, Aliyah read the emotions on his face: his need to protect his daughter, his self-loathing that he'd pointed a loaded gun at a girl he'd sung gospel songs with an hour ago, his confusion about why Aliyah would protect him after she'd tried to kill the goalie with a soccer ball…

“He's
scared
,” Aliyah said, blocking Valentine as she swung again.

“Scared enough he's practically shitting bullets in your
face
!” Valentine roared, her voice Batman-guttural. “Why
shouldn't
I take him out?”

“Because friends don't punch each other!” Aliyah remembered how scared
she'd
been the first time she saw magic. “And we're friends. Aren't we… aren't we friends, Savannah?”

Savannah shivered, taking in the unconscious bodies lying around the soccer field, the black smoke rising from the burning soccer goal.

She squinted at Aliyah. “Have you…” Savannah swallowed, glancing uneasily at the curvy Valentine-Batman hybrid as it cracked its knuckles. “Do you kill people with your 'mancy?”

Aliyah shook her head. “I don't–”

– “I said
burn
!” Aliyah shrieked, raining down fireballs on Anathema as she begged for mercy. “'Mancers burn! Bad people burn! All the bad things in the universe burn!” –

– A fire poured in through the doorway as K-Dash and Quaysean drew their guns to protect Aliyah, the two lovers struggling to hold hands as their fingers blistered to the bone –

“Not anymore,” Aliyah pled.

“Not any
more
?” Savannah echoed.

“I didn't ask to be this!” Aliyah yelled. “It just happened, Savannah! 'Mancy's
hard
to control! And nobody–”

There was a wet noise, like the skin being pulled off a man's back.

Aliyah whirled around, the hair on the back of her neck horripilating. That shredding sounded like it'd come from behind – but no, everyone still standing on the soccer field was turning in circles, trying to locate that horrid sound's origin. The noise had disobeyed the laws of acoustics.

Then she heard the low buzz of hundreds of insects boiling out – and
that
noise swelled until they clasped their hands over their ears, hundreds ramping to thousands, thousands multiplying into millions.

The sun darkened as something sucked the tint from the sky.

Aliyah looked back towards Daddy. The space above his empty wheelchair had burst open like a blister, revealing an eye-watering glimpse of alien worlds beyond as the buzzsects chewed their way out with chelicerated jaws.

The air around the rip stretched sickeningly, sagged like too much garbage tossed into a bag, burst open to birth more buzzsects.

“Aunt Valentine,” Aliyah whispered, unable to look away. “Is that a broach?”

Valentine didn't answer.

Her silence terrified Aliyah. Aunt Valentine had walked straight into a serial killer pyromancer's lair to save Aliyah, had charged head-first into SMASH teams to buy them time to escape.
Nothing
scared Aunt Valentine, except maybe commitment.

Yet Valentine had taken off her sunglasses to stare straight into the abyss. Her remaining eye was filled with despair.

Aliyah remembered something Daddy had told her once:
If there's a broach, get me. You can't seal a broach. No 'mancer can. The only people who've ever done it are me, or Unimancers – everyone else has died
.

Then she realized: the broach had opened above Daddy's wheelchair.

Daddy might be dead.

She reached out to the Contract, checking for signal, got a blank line.

Daddy
was
dead.

You killed him with your flux you killed everyone now no one can stop the broach

Panic flooded through her; she squashed it. Aliyah had too much experience in combat to let fear jumble her thoughts. She contemplated a retreat; if she called in the Unimancers, they might – might – arrive before the incursion swelled to obliterate Kentucky. If Daddy was dead – and some screaming part of her was already weeping at Daddy's funeral – then her best bet for survival was flight.

“What
is
that?” Savannah shrieked. Her father crouched down to press her face into his shoulder, shielding her as best he could.

The buzzsects surged out from over the wheelchair; the grass wilted purple as they flowed across it, chewing the photosynthesis from the plants and excreting their own universe's rules. They chewed the wave-forms from the sunlight's photons, leaving strange radiations sizzling in their wake.

They expanded outwards, headed for the people.

“I love you, princess.” Savannah's dad shut his eyes. The buzzsects flowed towards the unconscious bodies on the field, ready to consume the rules that kept humans' hearts beating.

“Ha-
douken
!”

The
Street Fighter
fireball surged out of Aliyah's palms before she'd even thought it through. Yet as the blue flame sailed towards the broach, she felt the correctness: she could not leave these people to die. She'd brought this upon them.

Who's to say she couldn't seal the broach?

The buzzing noise dropped in pitch as they sensed Aliyah's 'mancy. They swirled around in great arcs, converging on Aliyah's fireball–

And snapped it up like the fireball was the most delicious morsel ever, poured back down the trail back to Aliyah, homing in on the source of this delicious 'mancy.

Well, at least I distracted them
, Aliyah thought, running backwards to draw the buzzsects away from Savannah and her father. Savannah's father looked baffled as Aliyah pulled the buzzsects away, squinting as if he couldn't quite understand why she'd rescued him.

She pulled up a menu in mid-air, white text against blue; the world paused helpfully while she flicked the cursor down the available options. The soccer players' mouths hung petrified in mid-shriek, the smoke from the burning soccer net freezing in place like a snapshot. The buzzsects cruised to a stop, caught like flies in amber.

If anyone's left standing after your best shot
, Aliyah thought,
then find a bigger gun
.

She flicked through her selections:

• Attack
  
• Magic
  
• Summon
  
• Item
  

Aliyah selected “Summon,” then browsed the submenu:

• Anima
  
• Zodiark
  
• Eden
  
• Nova
  

“When in doubt, go with the classics,” she muttered, moving the pointer down to “Nova.” But as she made her choice, she realized in horror:

The buzzsects had started moving.

The rest of the world had paused, but the buzzsects ignored her 'mancy.

Above her, the dim sky turned midnight-black, the now-bright stars sweeping overhead as the heavens glimmered with mathematical formulae. A distant star glimmered into existence, swelled, producing blinding explosions as it smashed through meteors and small moons alike, hurtling inexorably across the solar system.

The buzzsects moved in counterpoint to the impending destruction, sluggishly headed towards Aliyah.

Come on, come on
, Aliyah thought, trapped in the animation cycle. She'd chosen the most powerful effect at her disposal, a videogame finisher so overwhelming it took almost two minutes for it to land – but in the game she'd stolen the Nova Summon from, everyone waited patiently for their next turn.

The buzzsects slowly woke from torpor, chewing Aliyah's 'mancy, growing faster.

Her blazing star zoomed past Saturn, obliterated the asteroid belt, swept the atmosphere off Mars. She stood, trapped by her own rules, as the buzzsects split into flanking curves to surround her–

“
Run!
” Valentine screamed, yanking Aliyah out of her animation with a surge of counter-'mancy.

Aliyah stumbled backwards as the Nova Summon went off.

Aliyah's 'mancy roared down from the sky like a nuclear missile, the clouds parting to make way for the star Aliyah had ripped from a distant galaxy and flung at the Earth.

It hit the buzzsects' center mass dead on, sending Aliyah flying. The ground buckled around them, rocks hurtling into the air–

The buzzsects soared up in merry clouds to devour the rocks.

They gulped down the shockwave, shuddered, swelled, burst into fresh swarms.

Her 'mancy was
aiding
the buzzsects. They erased the laws of physics, and so did she – fighting a broach with magic was like fighting fires with gasoline.

Flux clogged her sinuses–

“I tried that once!” Valentine cried, hiking her shirt up to showcase the angry red buzzsect scars crisscrossing her flabby belly. “
We can't beat them
.”

“Then
how
?”

“
Valentine! Aliyah!
”

Her mother's voice rang across the battlefield like a gunshot – assured, confident. Despite the mayhem as the buzzsects wheeled around towards her, Aliyah felt at peace.

She knew her family: Dad had a vision. Mom had a plan. And Aunt Valentine had the firepower.

“
Mom!
” Aliyah squinted through the teeming madness, glad the buzzsects were so busy devouring her 'mancy they hadn't wolfed down the laws of sound. “
What do we do?
”

“
Get your father!
”

“
Is he–”

“
He's out cold!
” Mom yelled, pointing beyond the wheelchair – Daddy must have been thrown to safety. Valentine hugged Aliyah hard. “
I can't revive him. But
you
can!
”

“
Dunno if you've noticed, Missus T
,” Valentine yelled, “
but we've got an aerosolized Cthulhu standing between us and Paul, and right now they're Aliyah-seeking missiles! What's your plan?
”

“
She made noise – you make more! Go over the top with bigger 'mancy and lead them off!
”

“You mean–” A dreamy smile floated across Valentine's face. “You're
finally
authorizing me to go full super saiyan?”

“
Yes!
”

Valentine cracked her knuckles, turning to face a sky teeming with hungry invaders. “Years of ‘Play it safe, Valentine. We'll bring you out when we need you, Valentine.' I haven't had a good scrap in
ages
!”

“Aunt Valentine! You…” Aliyah almost warned Valentine to be careful, realized she was still bloated with flux. She clamped down, blanking her mind before her flux made her worst Valentine-fears come true.

Valentine looked down at Aliyah with love. “No worries, kid. It feels good to be needed. Now link into my game.”

She put a finger over Aliyah's lips, never looking away from the buzzsect hordes fighting to get at this cluster of 'mancy. Then she spread her arms wide, embracing the incoming chaos.

“If it takes the apocalypse to let your parents take the reins off, then I say ‘
Good Morning, Gotterdammerung!
'”

She snapped her fingers. A large red “S” with fluttering angel-wings dropped from the sky, bounced on the grass to land next to her. She stomped on it; the “S” shattered into gray metal shards that leapt up to swirl around her, knitting weaponry around her torso, fashioning a ludicrously large machine-cannon with three barrels pointing in different directions. It was so cumbersome the gun had to be strapped to her body – but she bore its weight proudly, sliding her finger through the trigger-guard as though touching a lover for the first time.

She let loose a disbelieving cackle as the buzzsects raced towards her.

“
Contra spread-gun, motherfuckers!
Anyone who's not an extradimensional roach? Run for cover!
”

Aliyah tore off in a long, looping end run as Valentine opened fire.

She couldn't resist looking back. Magic was terrifying, a constant chaos.

But when Aunt Valentine went full-nuclear on someone, it was a work of art.

Howitzers boomed across the soccer field, flexing Aliyah's eardrums. The three cannons unleashed a steady stream of bright orange grenades, each exploding into the clouds of buzzsects with a fiery thunderclap, sending them spinning away. She was a one-woman battleship, filling the air with obliteration.

The buzzsects split apart, confused – some battened upon the explosions, others gnawed at the 'mancy until they gave birth to shiny new ruptures spilling free with buzzsects, others fell upon their wounded compatriots to shred them alive. The rest homed in on Valentine. They came in such numbers, no way Aunt Valentine could dodge that many of them–

Valentine backflipped out of their grasp.

“
I beat Gradius!
” she cried. “
R-Type! The greatest shoot-'em-ups in videogame history! You think you fuckers can overwhelm me?
”

“
Aliyah!
” Mom cried. Aliyah looked away, clamping down on her fear that Aunt Valentine was making a last stand.