Crux

33 CONFRONTATION

Saturday October 27th

Jake smiled, rubbed the children’s heads, and did his best to exude calm and love. Leaving Sunee, leaving Sam, was hitting him already. He could feel it tugging at him, the sense of separation, the fear that he wouldn’t be able to get her into Mira’s good graces, that she’d disappear before he could find her again.

Something came from the house. Sounds like soft pops, and then the sound of something crashing, falling, things breaking. He turned in concern. The minds around him radiated alarm. Then the two men from Mira had guns in their hands.

Fear burst through him. The children!

He grabbed the hand of the man nearest him. “There are kids here!” he yelled.

The man shrugged Jake away with one arm, almost casually, and Jake felt himself hurled through the air. His feet left the ground and for a moment he was in free flight. Then his back struck the van and it knocked the wind out of him. His world dimmed for a moment, and fear coursed through him. The kids! He forced himself to look, forced himself to see. The man still had the gun out, was spinning, looking around. Jake was on his knees. He acted without thinking, hauled himself up, threw himself at the man, grabbing at his gun arm again, with both hands, whirling him around.

Then the gun went off, and a freight train punched Jake in the chest.

Sam dove through the doorway into the boys’ room as the man opened fire. Something grazed her side as she did. She came down in a roll, back up to her feat, her mind working overtime.

“I’m not your enemy!” she yelled out through the door.

No response. The man’s mind was gone. He’d gone into receive-only mode so she couldn’t sense him.

She stepped behind the door, nearest the shooter, then looked around. She could dive out through the window, run towards Jake and the children. But the other men must be armed too. She needed a weapon. She needed to know what the fuck was going on.

Her augmented hearing picked up the footfalls in the hallway. He was stalking her, coming this way, quietly.

She closed her eyes, gave her hearing her full attention. The man’s footfalls gave him away. He was almost to the door, hugging the opposite wall of the hallway to give himself space, keep the advantage of his gun.

He was just across the thin wall from her now.

Sam made up her mind. She backed away from the wall, then hurled herself forward, turning her shoulder into it at the last instant.

Her augmented muscles and organic carbon-fiber bones crashed her through the thin wall. Wood splintered and gave. Drywall exploded. Then she was through, and her momentum drove her into the surprised soldier as he tried to turn, to bring his gun around.

The blow knocked him back, even as the gun boomed again in the small space. He kicked out from her, lightning fast, trying to create room, and she caught the foot with both hands, used it to spin him around like a plank. He hit the ground hard, face first, but rolled like a pro, faster than any normal human, clearly enhanced, the gun still in his hand, rising around to get a shot.

Then her foot stomped down on the forearm of his gun hand, pinning it as she stepped over him. He kept fighting, lashed out with a vicious, inhumanly fast fist towards her exposed groin. She brought her knee up faster, blocked his fist with her shin, then dropped all her weight on him with that knee, knocking the wind from him. Still he struggled, boosted muscles straining at her. So Sam took the gun from his hand and slammed it grip-first into the side of his head, below his ear. Once, twice, three times. And finally the man went limp.

Sam rose, the gun in her hand. Silenced. At least four rounds left. She turned towards the front of the house, kicked the door open in time to see one of the men put a bullet into Jake’s chest.

“NO!” Sam screamed. Distantly she heard the man who’d shot Jake cursing.

Sam raised her gun to fire but Sarai was there, in the line of sight, screaming now. She’d was trying to exit the van but the Mira woman had her by the arm. The other Mira soldier fired towards the house, and Sam dropped and rolled, her heart pounding in her chest.

She heard gravel crunch outside. They were coming towards her. She forced herself to visualize the courtyard. She had to shoot low, aim for the soldiers’ legs, stay clear of Sarai and the van and any other kids that had managed to break free.

Sam popped up in the window of the girls’ room, forced herself to take stock of the situation before she fired, to be sure that no children were in the way.

Her hesitation almost killed her. The Mira soldier who’d shot Jake fired on her and she felt a bullet punch into her left tricep. She fired back twice, ignored the burning pain, and saw the man go down as her bullets took him in the left leg.

Then she dropped below the window, rolled to another spot in the room. The wall would offer only scant protection.

She could hear the woman yelling now. “The children are the top priority! We have to get them out of here.”

Sam popped up again and the soldiers were under cover, on the other side of the van, climbing into it on the passenger side. One slid across to the driver’s side and then the van was moving. Sam took careful aim at his head and fired once, twice, thrice, four times, until the gun clicked empty. The shots hit the armored windshield, spiderwebbed it but didn’t break through. The van rushed forward and out the gate.

Sam threw herself through the window, shattering the remaining glass, feeling it cut into her in a dozen places, rolled, and came up sprinting at the retreating rear of the van. It disappeared out the gate as she crossed the courtyard. She could feel Jake’s pain and fear but she ignored it, pushed herself harder. Her left tricep groaned with the pain of the bullet wound, but Sam ignored that too. She made the gate at a full sprint and could see the van ahead, reaching the turn in the road. She ran harder, putting every ounce of effort into her legs, feeling her lungs burning, willing the van to slow down at the turn.

The van hit the turn at speed, skidded as it came around, its tires biting into the gravel, its driver expertly navigating the road.

She threw herself forward with all she had, sent her body into a horizontal leap, arms extended. One finger brushed the bumper, and for a moment she knew she had it, knew she would stop these men, whoever they were, knew she would have her children back.

Then her finger slipped off, and she crashed, rolling and skidding into the gravel as the van sped away.

Sam lay there panting for a moment. The jeep. They’d abandoned the jeep.

She pushed herself to her feet. There was gravel in the skin of her face. The palms of her hands were lacerated from her fall. A dozen cuts covered her from the glass of the window. Dust was matting blood into her hair, onto her face, everywhere. She ran hard, back uphill, got in view of the gate in time to see the jeep go up in a fireball that hit her with its searing heat from here.

She kept running, her mind refusing to believe, willing herself to find a fire extinguisher, put out the flames, chase them down.

And then she saw Jake.