Silence (9 page)

They stepped onto the rough dirt of
the construction site.

“
Now,” Indigo whispered
sharply, used to being in the lead.

They ducked below the
yellow tape surrounding the area and melted into the crevices
outlining the dusty street. The ground was plaited, half-dried
concrete. Rebar poked out, twisting outwards like grasping
tentacles. The air hung still and heavy with the scent of dried
sweat.

Sheikoh crouched in the shadows of
late afternoon, his hand on the comforting handles of his pistol
and electroblade, the latter humming softly. He was in his element,
invisible in the dark and he knew it. He gripped the hilt of his
pistol a little bit tighter and silently waited for the men to
appear in his line of sight.  

His eyes were locked on
the path the men would have to walk to follow them. There was a
flicker, and a clank, barely perceptible in the shadows of the tall
buildings. It looked like the suits had thrown something down the
alley. It looked like a little, thumb-sized toy, rolling across the
concrete with sharp, metallic clinks.

Sheikoh instinctively made to dart
behind the iron carapace of a nearby cart, but his attention was
stolen for half a second. His face twitched towards Indigo, who was
shouting something like;

“
FLASH GRENADE!”

A thoughtless second later, Sheikoh’s
vision exploded into a sheet of blinding white light.

Indigo ripped his thick arm from over his eyes, glanced at
Silence. Then cursed vehemently. He could see that the kid had his
weapons drawn, but from the dazed look on Silence’s face, he knew
that the thief was out of it for at
least
a couple of minutes. It was
looking to be a firefight and now Silence was little more than
deadweight. Indigo watched the kid stumble towards the
wall.

Briefly he considered
settling his score with Silence, Interim’s
greatest
criminal, the heartless kid
that’d stabbed Colli in the throat. Silence was all but useless
now, blinded. He cursed again. He knew that firing on Silence would
give away his position. Besides, he needed the kid alive.
Damn flash grenade,
he
thought savagely.
And damn that kid. Most
useless criminal prodigy I’ve ever met.
Indigo ducked into cover.

Silence was going to have to look
after himself.

The foreboding hiss of plasmafire
echoed, and Indigo’s face hardened with focus. The four guns
streamed down the street, firing their weapons with astonishing
accuracy.

A jet of blazing light hit the wall
inches from Indigo’s cheek and exploded in shower of sharp dust
that bit into his skin. He flinched to the side, his head half
exposed and then threw himself back behind cover. Silver-green
whirls of plasmatic energy sizzled through the space he’d just been
a second before.

Plasmafire battered his wall like
raindrops. Those spiraling bolts of green destruction ripped the
alleyway apart. Indigo had never seen anything like it. He whipped
out his assault rifle and ducked out of cover, blasting one of the
men in the face. Then he threw himself back behind the wall. Just
in time to see two green streaks tear furrows where he'd just
been.

His mouth curved into a
feral grin.
One down, three to
go.

It didn’t seem to have
helped him in the slightest though. If anything the relentless
suppressive fire
increased
. Molten concrete bulged
outwards like it was trying to punch him. He watched his cover
shudder under every blast. Cold sweat ran down the back of his
shirt. They hadn’t seen Silence, either that or they didn’t
consider the kid a threat. All of their plasmafire now pummeled the
rapidly dissolving section of wall shielding Indigo. The scorching
concrete wasn’t going to hold for very long. If something didn’t
change fast, he was a dead man. Each of his breaths suddenly felt
precious and fleeting.  

Guess this is it,
Indigo realized. His chest leapt with chemicals
and electricity. He knew that he’d never been the kind to go down
hiding. He just didn’t think he’d die so soon. He took a deep
breath to steel himself. Then he jumped into the center of the
street firing wildly screaming insults at the top of his
lungs.

A gut-ripping explosion of crimson
light rendered his words unintelligible. It shined brighter than a
million suns. Howling wind clutched and pulled at Indigo’s loose
fitting clothing. A second later, the massive rush of energy
disappeared like it had never been.

Indigo’s assault rifle stuttered three
more bursts of energy and then came stopped. He took in the
impossible scene in front of him, cradling his weapon in the crook
of a muscular arm. His eyes glanced left then right, looking around
as he tried to find bearings. The street… this was
impossible.

Indigo began laughing to himself. The
sound was shot with half-repressed hysteria. Indigo didn’t know
what had gone down, or what’d happened, but it didn’t matter in the
slightest.

Somehow, he’d survived.

Chapter 4

Ambushing the Ambush (Part
II: Sheikoh)

Sheikoh staggered forward, trying to
think things through. Though blinded, his memory led him to cover.
The twisted metal carapace of a carriage or some kind of similar
machine. His foot caught on a piece of rubble, and he stumbled.
Blind luck saved his face; his hand caught a rough piece the metal
frame he’d been making for.

Sheikoh swung his body
behind it, trying to ignore the pain from the hand that’d saved
him. He squinted into the square. His right eye was already able to
take in the blurry outlines of the four men’s green plasmafire
pelting a concrete wall. His left eye was all but blind, but not
his right. When Emili had saved him back so long ago she had given
Sheikoh so much more than what he’d had before.

He glanced down at his right hand, the
one holding his humming electroblade. He smiled. His right eye had
adapted to the point where he could make out the details of the
circuitry winding across the face of the elegantly sculpted weapon,
its blurry wires arranged in pursuit of lethal
efficiency.

“
Thank you, Emili,” Sheikoh
whispered fervently.

He turned his attention to the hazy
battlefield. Green-rimmed plasmafire battered a building’s stone
wall. Presumably where Indigo’d taken cover. Sheikoh could only
make out three of the assailants firing, but he remembered that
four of them had followed him and Indigo here. He searched around,
expecting the fourth to be sneaking towards him or Indigo, but no,
there was his body lying on the dirt.

Unfortunately, it seemed like the
remaining three were more than enough to take care of the ganglord.
Their barrage of destructive, green-rimmed plasmafire was slowly
eating through the wall that the ganglord hid behind. Even
half-blind, Sheikoh could see Indigo didn’t have the breathing room
he needed for retaliation. However, for whatever reason, Sheikoh
did.

Sheikoh knew that he’d severely
underestimated these guys, but luckily it seemed that they were
responding in kind. They must think that the ganglord was the only
threat, that the flash grenade would keep Sheikoh blind and
helpless for as long as they needed. So Sheikoh had one
shot.

He held up his pistol, intending on
snapping a blast at the closest one, but his finger hesitated on
the trigger. Sure, taking one of them out would mean that there
were only two left. He could divide the heat between himself and
Indigo. Each of them would only have one to take out.

But these guys were definitely better
than Sheikoh’d thought. He didn’t want to trust his life to this
blacksteel mixer he was hiding behind, and he certainly didn’t want
to underestimate these guys again. If the one he shot at was
wearing a field, he would’ve just wasted his shot and pulled them
onto himself.      

Sheikoh sheathed his electroblade in
his boot in a quicksilver motion, and then grasped his pistol
firmly with both hands. His thumb flipped a switch on his pistol’s
chamber. Straightening his arms, Sheikoh pointed the barrel in the
vague direction of the shooters. He smiled, a little sadly. Emili
had been the one to show him how to rewire a weapon for this trick.
So many years ago.

He could see that the piece of wall
hiding Indigo shudder under each jet of green plasma. It was at the
very precipice of collapse.  

‘
You can do this Mr. Wall,’
Sheikoh encouraged. ‘I believe in you!’

He took a deep breath,
closed his eyes, and loosened the muscles in his anxious arms. A
phrase glanced through Sheikoh’s thoughts.
You’ll always be my hero.
He wasn't
totally sure who it was referring to.

The concrete
wall?

Or Emili?

For a second could almost see
her.

Sheikoh stood there, for a moment
procrastinating; this was going to hurt. Then burned,
heat-shattered stones began to trickle down the side of Indigo’s
cover. It was now or never. Sheikoh squeezed his eyes shut, took a
deep breath and pulled the trigger.  

Arms jerked skywards, Sheikoh was
blasted back, as the backlash of force blew the chamber of his
pistol into bits. Hurtling through the air, he felt his gun
wrenched free from its trigger-guard. If it hadn’t been detachable,
his right index finger would have been torn off his hand. As it
was, he’d almost-certainly broken it. Sheikoh slammed onto his
back. His breath gasped out and his eyes popping open.

His fuzzy sight stuttered at the edges
of focus as he lay there. He objectively noticed that Indigo had
burst out of his hiding spot, screaming and firing his assault
rifle wildly. Then the ganglord stopped and looked around, at a
loss. Sheikoh wheezed a giggled. And then Indigo was laughing with
him. It was like they’d just realized they were still
alive.

Their harsh, crazy-sounding laughter
burned bright with chaos and energy. The harsh sound echoed
hollowly around them discordantly, out of place among the death. A
trickle of wind gusted, twisting a small cloud of ash from the
remains of the dead men.

Sheikoh lay on the ground stuttering
out gasps of manic laughter, surveying the devastated, charred-
black alley through both eyes now; his left eye was finally able to
see blurred shapes through the formless, rainbow shock of the flash
grenade.

Some criminal mastermind
you are,
Sheikoh silently berated
himself
. You let your guard down.
If it hadn’t been for his former enemy he’d be
one of those blackened bodies lying in the rubble.

Indigo’s hysteria had subsided to a
gasping chortle. He stood ten feet away panting, hands leaning on
his knees. Sheikoh was unable to quell a grudging camaraderie for
the ganglord. When Sheikoh’d been blind and helpless Indigo had
been the only thing between him and death. He still wasn’t sure he
trusted Indigo, but if it hadn’t been for him, those gunslingers
would have picked Sheikoh off without a second thought. He
shivered. His mind’s eye dredged up the hours of target practice
that he’d spent shattering glass bottles. He could almost feel the
plasmafire burning lethal holes in his body…

Sheikoh shook his head, they’d
survived. He had no reason to worry about an imaginary death.
Indigo came over and helped him up. He met Sheikoh’s eyes, flashing
a white, appreciative smile. Sheikoh noticed that the ganglord was
still breathing heavy.

“
Worka’ beauty, kid! I
thought that flash had knocked you outta action! What did you do to
‘em all?” Indigo asked with wonder through a raw voice.

“
Overloaded my guns core,”
Sheikoh dead-panned. In his peripheral vision, he saw the
ganglord’s expression flicker with comprehension.

“
So you don’t have a gun
now?” asked Indigo in a strange, smiling voice.

Sheikoh nodded warily looking at the
muscular man now, full in the face. His eyes were sparkling with a
strange amusement.

“
Not until I pick up a new
one,” said Sheikoh without inflection. Indigo’s smile widened a few
teeth.

“
Dangerous city, mate. You
of all people should know not to leave home unarmed.” Indigo
commented. His tone was full of suppressed meaning.

Come on…
really
? He’d just saved
Indigo’s life. Annoyance mixed with apprehension, as he stared at
the enormous, grinning man across from him. He suddenly noticed
that Indigo was still holding his gun, a sheared assault rifle the
ganglord was able to hide in his coat.  

Unbidden, his one on one
melee with Indigo jolted through his mind. Hand to hand, Indigo
was
superior
. Not
just to him, but to every gangster or fighter in Interium. Sheikoh
didn’t stand much of a chance at the moment. Indigo was a fighting
virtuoso, an artist in the chaotic school of physical domination.
Sheikoh shuddered. No matter his special skills and attributes, he
was literally bringing a knife to a gunfight. And even if he still
had his pistol there was the simple matter of his broken trigger
finger. He thought of Dorothi sadly as inspiration, as he searched
for some means of surviving this hopeless situation, but there was
nothing besides-