Son of Sedonia (43 page)

“Okay,” Sato finally said.

Sato led the way down to a round room with three doors. Never looking back, he walked to the center door. Opened it with a beep. The man stopped dead in his tracks as he saw the inside.

“Move!” Jogun shoved him. Sato stumbled and fell to the carpeted floor as Jogun took in the room. An empty wreck. Furniture flipped, table smashed, windows broken...and blood. A pool of it next to a bloody knife. Footprints of it smeared across the floor leading to—

Jogun clasped his head in his hands and dropped to his knees. The blood in his veins turned to liquid fire. His hands. His feet. His ears. His face. All of it went numb as the fact ripped his soul apart from the inside.

“Listen,” Sato said, “We don’t know wha—”

BRRRAPP! Jogun buried a three-round burst in the middle of Sato’s chest. The Governor parted his jacket and looked down. The pressed white shirt turned quietly red as he dropped to his knees. Jogun stood up with the buzz of servos. Turned a dial on his hip. As the familiar thump-whine-thump-whine pierced the air, Sato closed his eyes and waited.

The kick landed center mass, buckled the ribcage, and launched the Governor limp through the big bay window into the creeping edge of dawn. Fine, red droplets settled on the carpet. On Jogun as he flicked the dial off and let his arms hang. He looked out at the yellowing sky. Took a step toward it. Then another. A humming gathered over the ringing in his ears as he approached the high-arched window.

He stood on the edge and watched the first of the ships pass overhead and all around him. Gigantic gray-green war platforms escorted by tight squadrons of fighters. Other ships zoomed past them, hurtling toward the burning West. Explosions popped off in the distance. First among the pillars of the Inner Ring. Then throughout the Outer.

Jogun felt hollow. Blown through by the violent winds whipping into the room.
It’s all gone. There’s nothing left. I’m nothing...
He leaned forward, trying not to look down first. Did anyway. His chest heaved as the tower stretched forever below him in a sickening slope. But a landing just a few floors down caught his attention. It jutted out from the sheer glass surface like a garden oasis. The faint outline of a body lay still next to a patch of bushes. It wasn’t the Governor.

“MATTEO!” Jogun called out, hoping. The body didn’t move. He followed the bloody tracks on the carpet to the smaller open window.

“MATTEO!”

Jogun whirled at movement in the corner of his eye. Soldiers roped down through the windows of the suite, landing hard on the floor. They stood in unison, each armored from head to foot in bulky, gray-and-white camouflaged Augmentor gear. Ammo mags the size of cinder blocks stuck out of their giant weapons. They turned to Jogun, staring through blank, eyeless masks.

“Engage!” croaked one of their filtered voices. Jogun planted a boot on the edge of the window and dove as a deafening barrage of slugs tore the room apart.

Hurtling downward, Jogun kicked his legs underneath him. As the landing rushed up ahead, the soles of his boots started vibrating.

“OhhhHHHH SHIIIIITTT!”

His heels bit the concrete and punched through, driving his legs deep into the landing. A shockwave blasted the material out from around him in a deep, round crater. He doubled over, pain shooting through the rest of his body. But it subsided. The fall hadn’t broken him. He winced as he climbed out of the crater. Hobbled through elegant cafe tables and chairs to the body on the ground.

His brother lay unconscious with a raw gash seeping blood above the eyebrow and a soaked bit of cloth tied around the arm. A torn, bloody couch cushion sat off to the side. Jogun crouched beside Matteo. Hands shaking, he grabbed him by the shoulders. Shook gently.

“Matteo! Ahh God...MATTEO! Come on, little man,
wake up!
”

47

Redemption

THE VOICE REACHED
in and pulled Matteo out of a pitch-black dream. He expected to open his eyes in their Slum apartment, staring up at the posters and magazine clippings he’d pasted to the container ceiling. Jogun’s fuzzy image gazed down at him, coming gradually into focus.

“Jo...?” Matteo said, lifting his head. He felt Jogun’s thin, aug-covered arms scoop underneath him and squeeze. Tears dropped on his shoulder. Matteo’s arms heaved up. Embraced his brother. Behind him, the blinking red light of Sedonia Tower came into focus, followed by the shapes of tank-like men jumping from the window above. Firing.

“JO!” Matteo yelled, pushing his brother to the side. Jogun rolled and staggered to his feet with Matteo close behind him as the concrete exploded in a hail of sparking debris. They sprinted toward the overhang in the side of the building. As Jogun kicked open the double doors, five armored soldiers slammed down behind them, shattering patio furniture in bursting shockwaves.

Inside was some sort of eating hall. The two of them wove between the white plastic tables and chairs that lined the tile floor. Jogun reached cover first behind a marble fountain set in the back of the hall. A craning sculpture of a beautiful winged woman reached up out of the fountain, covered in ivy. She blew to pieces as Matteo slid in next to Jogun.

“Any ideas?!” Jogun shouted above the gunfire. Bits of dust and rock rained down on them.

“How the hell should I know?!” said Matteo.

“Man, you’ve had your nose in those damn books since Utu taught you to read! You gotta know
somethin
’ about this place!” Jogun reached out of cover and sprayed with the uzi.

“Looked a little different in the pictures, Jo!”

“THINK!”

Images of Sedonia Tower drifted in and out of Matteo’s mind as panic begged him to stay present.
Okay...escape! Travel. Uhhh, elevators. Superway. Landing pads. Parking Garages.
“Parking garages!” Matteo shouted, “Should be one every thirty floors!”

“Sounds good!...Which floor are we on?!”

“Uh...fifteenth from the top, I think! Elevator should be further in...up those steps!” Matteo pointed. At the end of the dining hall, two curving staircases swept around a crystal replica of Sedonia Tower. Tall, silver elevator doors shone above it on a thick marble balcony.

“Keep low and move!” Jogun said. The two of them took off toward it as the shock troops bore down on the fountain. The hailing gunfire dug melon-sized pits out of the replica tower and stairs, missing the brothers by inches. Jogun went left. Matteo right. Matteo bounded up the exploding steps, vaulted over the block marble railing, and punched the button on the elevator. A tiny blue light started moving along a line above the doors, creeping closer to the enlarged number ‘285’ etched in the metal. The two of them took cover behind the marble railing as it chipped away in flying chunks.

“It’s takin’ too long! We gotta go!” said Jogun, checking the ammo left in his uzi mag. He reached over the wall and sprayed down toward the soldiers. Recoiled instantly. The barrage didn’t skip a beat.

“Stairs!” Matteo said. On either side of their balcony, modest hinge doors were set into the walls.

“On my back!” Jogun shouted. Keeping low, Matteo climbed on and wrapped around his brother’s torso. A ridiculous smile crossed his lips. Jo had carried him like this all the time when he was little, dashing across the Rasalla rooftops to run errands. It had always felt like freedom. He squeezed Jogun’s chest tight as the high-pitch whine keyed on. Jogun launched through the air, swung his legs forward, and drop-kicked the door flat off its hinges.

“Holy shit!” Matteo laughed. Jogun sprang up without effort, Matteo and all.

“I know, right?!” said Jogun, “These things are balls-out crazy!” The distorted voices of the soldiers closed in behind them, barking orders. Matteo and Jogun looked down the spiraling staircase. The floors stretched to infinity, fading out of sight into blackness.

“Fifteen down from here?” Jogun asked.

“Yeah!”

“Aight then, hang on!” Jogun cleared the first flight in a single jump, then the second, then the third. Matteo struggled to hold on and keep watch behind them. They got a floor and a half down before the soldiers filed into the stairwell. All five jumped across the center gap in unison and turned their guns.

Jogun planted a boot on the railing and launched across the gap. Matteo’s stomach dropped as Jo’s feet almost missed the railing on the other side. Landed safely. Again and again they jumped across the bottomless pit, matched step for step by the descending soldiers. On each landing, Matteo scanned for numbers. ‘
280.’ ‘279.’ ‘278.’
Missed three or four. ‘
273...’

“Next one!” Matteo shouted in Jogun’s ear. After landing, Jogun spotted the door across the pit. He leaped hands first, planted them on the railing, tucked his knees, and shot forward. The door broke off with a snap. But they didn’t land. They fell through empty space. The concrete deck rushed up to meet them. Jo took the first impact with the boots, but the two of them bounced. Flipped. Matteo lost his grip. Smashed back-first into a rear windshield.

The safety glass saved him when it didn’t shatter. It buckled, cradling his ragdoll body. He groaned as he forced himself up. Shook his head. Jogun, stirring slightly, lay face down on the deck as the troops came through the door and marched down the side-facing stairs. Matteo leaped off the car and sprinted to Jogun’s side. Picked him up under the shoulder.

“Come on, man, almost there! I’m not losin’ you this time!” said Matteo, dragging Jo up as the first of the bullets flew. Jogun groaned and clutched his side. They limped behind a concrete pillar. Matteo quickly took in the surroundings. It was a wide, single-level deck with a panoramic opening to the sky at the end. The relaxed, elegant shapes of Sedonia City leaned toward it.
The way out.

“You go find a car...I’ll hold ‘em off,” Jogun said.

“I ain’t leavin’ you here! You don’t have to save me anymore!” said Matteo. Jogun reached into a cargo pocket, took out a high-velocity ammo mag, and clicked it into the uzi.

“Who saved who?” Jogun said, smiling sadly. Chunks of cement exploded from their column.

“I’m crap at hot-wiring anyway,
go
man!” shouted Jo, “Pick a fast one!” Jogun rolled to his stomach and stretched out with the uzi. He fired controlled bursts at the soldiers’ blank masks. They barely left a mark, but it seemed to at least stagger them. Matteo looked at his brother one last time. Breathed into his belly. Breathed out. Turned to scan the garage.

Not much to choose from. Most people must have bugged out after the attack and headed east. What was left, though, didn’t disappoint. There were two or three government-issue sport-utility transports, the bulky kind people could take over-land, underwater, wherever.
Bulletproof too, but slow.
There was a Pulsar Carbon, a luxury sedan with real leather seats and a galaxy of convenient gadgets, but again...
Slow.
Then there it was. The Solari F5. It crouched at the far edge of the garage like a stalking cat, shining orange and sleek with sharp black accents.
Zero to 100 kph in 2.8 seconds...

“You still here?!” Jo yelled. Matteo snapped out of analysis and took off, weaving through the pillars and sculpted dividers. He slid around the edge of one of the SUTs. Whatever ammo the military used, it punched right through the bullet-proofed windows. Matteo heard shots detonate close behind him as he reached the Solari. A chunk of rebar served to smash the window and set off the wailing alarm.

He crawled inside and yanked open the panel under the wheel. It looked like techno gibberish inside. Stacks of circuits and wire intestines.
Hell of a lot easier to just unhook it and sell it...
But as he stared wide-eyed into it, the patterns emerged. Wires leading to the ignition sensor, interfacing with pin connectors. His hands darted to work, stripping wires, finding leads, and rerouting connectors. The Solari’s alarm clicked off.
Okay, close!
He tapped a couple contacts together. Nothing. Switched a few out. Nothing. Switched again.
YES!
The Solari hummed to life with a cascading vibration.

“YES! YES! YES!” he hammered the ceiling with his fist. Stilled himself as his hands drifted down. One to the wheel. One to the gears.
Jo...
His sweaty palms slipped the Solari into reverse and he gunned it out of the space. A few bullets punched the rear body as he turned to face the exit, shifted to drive, and darted out into the Sedonia sky. The shooting stopped.

“Okay,” he said, puffing the air from his lungs. He air-braked into a one-eighty degree turn then laid on the gas. The shock troops had no time to react. Matteo flew straight at them, banked hard right, and flashed them with a full blast from the hover engines. Parked facing the exit.

He punched a button on the center console and watched as the passenger door hissed up and open. Jogun, head slumped, sat back against the ruined column. Blood trickled from a gouge in his side.

“JO!” Matteo called out. Jogun heaved his head to look. His mouth moved but the voice failed against the storming hum of engines. Matteo threw open the driver door and scrambled around the front end. Behind them, the soldiers started to rise. As he reached his brother, Matteo squatted, scooped under Jogun’s knees and back, and lifted him like a half ration of rice.

“Never
could
tell you anything...” Jogun rasped. Heartbeat drumming in his ears, Matteo carried Jogun to the seat and set him down. As the door slammed shut, high-pitched whines sounded off. The first shots fired as he dove away onto the hood, swung his legs around, tucked through the driver’s side door, and dropped in the seat. He rammed the throttle to maximum.

They fired out of Sedonia Tower like a cannon shot, shoving them both deep into the upholstery. The Tower shrank in the rear-view, fading to a silhouette in the hazy dawn. No one followed.
If they even could...
The pressure stopped as the Solari cabin adjusted to the speed. The ride smoothed, sailing over the Center Ring like a knife through water. Jogun gasped and coughed, clutching his torn flank. His breathing stuttered and heaved.