How her voice reached him stayed beyond her. The cost arrived imdiately. The beacon stone split her palm open and drank enough blood to make the basent tilt. The Reaper thread pulled tight behind her left eye. For one ugly second, every dead na on Waddell's clipboard tried to turn toward her at once.
Aaron Pike. Janice Bell. Mara Ellison. Three more nas she had said with her teeth clenched and her hand burning white. They stayed down. Barely. Kieran grabbed Jade's wrist and forced her hand over the nested pans.
"Drop it."
"No."
"It is cutting you."
"Everything useful does."
"That is a terrible philosophy."
"I learned from the best."
Kieran followed Jade's good eye to the basent floor. The three knocks ca again. This ti the concrete answered. Dust fell from the ceiling. Children whimpered behind the pantry door. One of the faceless responders stepped into the center of the room and looked down, blank face aid at the tile as if listening through bone.
The badge on its chest crackled.
"Bone party has reached Na Office."
Waddell kept his gun up.
"Why are you narrating?"
"Operational clarity improves survival odds."
"You sound like a pamphlet."
"Pamphlets survive wars."
Tyree snorted despite himself. Jade liked that sound. It ant terror had not taken every human corner of the room yet. She pressed the bleeding hand around the beacon stone.
"Ty heard ?"
The faceless responder answered.
"Connection confird."
"Can I talk again?"
"Unwise."
"Answer the question I asked."
The responder turned its blank face toward her.
"Yes."
Kieran's grip tightened.
"No."
Jade looked at her. Kieran held her ground. Good. Jade needed at least one person in the room willing to be difficult for the right reason.
"If he signs whatever they put in front of him," Jade said, "sothing worse happens."
"You do not know that."
"I heard myself say it like I did."
"That is not proof."
"Welco to my day."
Waddell moved beside them, clipboard still in his left hand, pistol in his right.
"What does the title do?"
Jade stared at the stone. Inside the crack, red dust shifted into lines that looked like a desk, a slate, and a row of clerks standing too straight.
"I think it gives people permission."
"For what?"
"To believe he is a monster first."
Waddell absorbed that with a soldier's face and a friend's eyes.
"So already will."
"I know."
"You cannot fix everyone."
"I know."
"Do you?"
Jade almost snapped at him. The old version of her would have. Command voice. Sharp answer. Move on. The basent needed a different version right now.
It needed the woman with one working eye, one bleeding hand, and a clipboard full of nas too human to turn into tools.
"No," she said. "But I am trying."
Waddell nodded once. Then he handed her the clipboard.
"Then count."
Jade looked down.
"The dead?"
"All of us."
The page had changed while he held it. Casualties were only the first column. Wounded. Ard. Children. Food. Water. Ammunition. Doors. People who could carry. People who needed to be carried. People who kept trying to stand and needed to be told once, firmly, to stop wasting blood.
ssy. Practical. Human. It steadied her where comfort would have slid off. Jade took the clipboard with her clean hand.
"You made categories."
"I panicked professionally."
"Good job."
"Thank you. I crave validation during invasions."
The faceless responders shifted. All three turned toward the stairwell. The hidden fourth presence finally stepped into view. Jade expected Erebos's absence before the fourth shape stepped into view. He would not spend himself on a basent door when a voice and a borrowed team could make everyone feel watched.
The fourth was a woman in a gray field coat with a broken crown stitched inside the collar instead of outside. She had a human face, dark hair cut short, and a scar that ran from ear to throat. Her eyes were black all the way through.
Kieran lifted both hands.
"Na."
The woman smiled.
"Rima."
That na ant nothing to Jade. It ant sothing to the beacon stone. The red dust inside it recoiled. Waddell aid center mass.
"Who do you work for?"
"Currently? The person keeping the ceiling above your civilians."
Tyree stepped between Rima and the pantry door.
"Try the honest version."
Rima looked at him with brief interest.
"Griswald, unwillingly. Erebos, temporarily. Myself, always."
"That was worse," Tyree said.
"Honesty often is."
Jade glanced at the faceless responders.
"You are the second team."
Rima bowed with one hand over her heart.
"Second team, third excuse, fourth bad decision."
"Why help?"
Rima's smile vanished.
"Because Erebos said leave the central gym alive, and I dislike being given obvious orders by n who think subtlety is a personality."
Kieran's mouth twitched. The floor stole the mont. The floor cracked across the old cafeteria tile. One line ran from the stairwell to the milk coolers. The dead twitched again. Jade read the first na from the clipboard before the thread could ask.
"Aaron Pike stays down."
The body settled. Another crack opened.
"Janice Bell stays down."
The room held. Rima watched closely.
"That will kill your eye."
"Get in line."
"I an soon."
Jade looked at her. Rima pointed at the beacon stone.
"You are using a death mark like a phone wire. It will collect paynt."
The stone pulsed. Ty's distant voice ca through, broken by static and water.
"Jade?"
Every argunt in the room died. Jade gripped the clipboard.
"I am here."
"Are you safe?"
She looked at the cracked floor, the dead, the faceless responders, Rima, the children hiding behind pantry shelves, and Waddell pretending his hands were steady.
"No."
A pause. Then Ty laughed once, weak and real.
"Good. Honest."
Jade closed her bleeding hand around the stone.
"Listen to . Do not sign anything that makes you easy to sell."
Rima's black eyes widened. The stone burned hot. The floor split open under the milk coolers. From the crack, a dozen paper hands reached up holding pens. The badge on the nearest responder sparked.
"Earth witness accepted."
Jade raised the clipboard like a weapon.
"Then tell the office I have objections."
User Comments
0 comments from readers