Broken Angel Read online

  Next, she stuck small gas cylinders roughly the size of a cigar tube to the inside of each doorway. Within a few minutes they would arm themselves and automatically gas anyone who walked by. Xandrie nodded in satisfaction once all the illegal items were set up. (It paid to have connections.) Then came the hard part: waiting.

  ****

  Xandrie examined the dark kangaroo meat, before cutting it and chewing on its rubbery texture. She wrinkled her nose. Her quest to try one of New Chicago’s 877 types of ethnic food each day was progressing slowly; she was on number fifty-six. Life had passed the point of being boring and lonely over a month ago. Unable to leave home in case she missed Jan, everything Xandrie needed was delivered. And then it happened.

  The eyeball cam she had set up to watch discreetly out of the front window had spotted one of its compatriots flying along the street, invisible except to anyone or anything that was looking up at exactly the right moment. Xandrie excitedly rewound the footage on her wallscreen. The tiny device slowed down as it neared her house, and then sped up again. She smiled. This was proof that Jan was getting ready to attack.

  One feature Xandrie had built into the new house was a bomb shelter. She headed into the closet under the stairs and down into the tomb-like concrete box. It was no bigger than the closet under which it resided. She sat down on one of the concrete steps and rested her chin on her hands. There would be no sleep tonight.

  Using small eye movements, Xandrie scrolled endlessly through camera views of empty rooms and a featureless lawn with occasional passersby. The streetlights came on as the simulated night fell. She thought enviously of the other families on Maple Avenue, having their dinners and putting their kids to bed instead of waiting on hair-trigger alert.

  The hours ticked by slowly. The chill of the small space began to press in on Xandrie—she had dressed for protection and mobility rather than warmth. She began to do squats and push ups on the steps to keep her blood circulating. After half an hour or so, she felt toasty warm again, and settled down to read. The delivery guy had looked at her funny when he had he had handed over real paper books, but it was a science fiction series she badly wanted to read. The small hours of the night began to lay their oppressive hand on the pensive woman. She yawned, and began to feel cold again from inactivity. Time for more push ups.

  The morning rolled around. Why wouldn’t he just attack already? She cursed having not brought food into the little cellar, and certain bodily functions were making themselves known. Being hungry had always made Xandrie feel cold, and it was doing so now. She was going to have to risk a trip upstairs.

  Now standing in the kitchen Xandrie’s eyes never left the camera view as she waited for the croissants to warm through. Three seconds left…oh crap!

  She saw the rockets a fraction of a second before they hit, and was midway through her dive to the floor when both the front and back of the house erupted in fire and exploding wood and drywall. The kitchen cupboards and countertop narrowly missed her head as they were flung across the disintegrating room. Shards of glass and other bullet-like debris cut her left cheek and temple. She was raising her head to look around, when burning roof timbers began their groaning, splitting descent towards her. Xandrie backed up and got to her knees just in time to avoid being hit. Now driven purely by adrenaline and her training, she leapt over what was left of the kitchen wall, landing on the concrete path outside just as a hail of machine gun bullets ripped through the destroyed space.

  She landed nimbly on her feet, having already withdrawn her pistol from its holster. Twenty feet away was a hitman striding down the path towards her toting a machine gun. Before he could squeeze the trigger, Xandrie raised her weapon in a two-handed grip, still kneeling, and fired. The gun was knocked from his hands. Another shot into the man’s chest proved ineffective against his body armor as he charged into a running tackle. Xandrie leapt into the air, just high enough to avoid his grip, and kicked him in the head. Her soft-soled running shoes didn’t knock him out as she’d hoped.

  As he collapsed, prone, onto the concrete, Xandrie landed and sprinted towards the front of the house, picking up his machine gun. She whipped around and squeezed the trigger. Halfway through getting up, the man slumped to the ground again as bullets tore through him.

  More muted rat-a-tat-tat fire came from the front of the yard, hitting Xandrie in the shoulder. Many rounds peppered into her chest, knocking the breath from her but stopping at her bulletproof vest.

  She lunged forward to escape the stream of metal, flattening herself to the pavement. She raised her weapon and fired, just as the line of destruction was sweeping downward, and the shooter’s face was reduced to a red pulp.

  And there he was. Jan Sevcik, dressed in his combat blacks, grinning from the middle of the road. “Sayonara, Xandrie.”

  A supersonic stream of metal bore into the back of Xandrie’s armor as she instinctively curled into a ball, hiding her head and legs.

  The pulse grenades! She supposed there was a slight chance they and their firing mechanism hadn’t been destroyed. Xandrie reached for the switch, clipped to her pants and…nothing. Ugh! It had been blown off.

  Xandrie resigned herself to the fact that she would very likely die, when some burning timbers shifted in the house. Aaargh! Pain shot through her right eye. The stream of bullets now angled up away from her, smashing into the siding and roof of the next house and then shattering pieces of the facade that was the artificial sky. What was going on?

  Xandrie lifted her head and looked around. Jan was lying on his side, grabbing the gun with both hands again to renew his aim. This was her chance! She leapt up and sprinted behind the burning rubble. There was a dark square in the vision of her right eye. The settling of the wall joists must have pressed on the pulse grenades, setting them off! This had fried her AR chip, while also disabling Jan’s legs. What to do now?

  Jan was still deadly. The thin, high dual tones of incoming police cars echoed from the ground and sky. Xandrie peered through the flames. Jan was trying to army crawl through next door’s gate! He wasn’t getting away this time. Xandrie sprinted past the left side of the burning house, jumping over burning timbers as she went, and planted her right foot squarely in Jan’s back, momentarily winding him. He tried to flip over as best he could using only his arms.

  “You’re not going anywhere, asshole,” Xandrie spat.

  “Go to hell!” Jan spat on her leg.

  “Fuck you,” she growled, kicking him in the face. She then pinned him down again as two police cruisers pulled in from both directions.

  “Back away! Hands in the air!” an officer instructed, pointing his gun at the unlikely duo. Xandrie did so.

  “He’s Jan Sevcik, a wanted drug dealer,” Xandrie said.

  “Yes, he is,” the officer said a second later when his AR chip brought up the information. “Wanted for murder, too. You’re coming with us, pal.”

  ****

  “Tyrone, I found a place for you topside,” Xandrie said in the near darkness.

  “Did you now?”

  “Yeah. Please come and live up there. It’d be much better for your health, among other things.”

  The old man’s brow creased, silhouetted by the light of a single dim bulb. He shuffled to the window and looked out on the dark street.

  “I don’ t’ink I’d like it up dere. Too bright, too much noise and fuss and commotion.”

  Xandrie’s heart fell into her stomach. “But… Tyrone! You served your country, and got dumped on because of it. You’d have a real bed, heat, light, hot and cold running water, and you wouldn’t have to eat rats for your dinner.”

  “Well, ol’ Tyrone do find that temptin’. But that’s a lot to think about.”

  “Yeah, it’s a pretty big decision. Okay, a very big one. Have you even been topside since you came down here?”

  “No ma’am, I ain’t.”

  “Do you want to come with me to check it out, at least?”

  “I du
nno that my eyes would stand the light.”

  “That’s why I brought you these.” Xandrie produced a pair of sunglasses.

  Tyrone took them, examining them as though they were a newfangled invention.

  “It’ll be okay, honestly. If you don’t like it, you can come straight back down. And if you stay here, I’ll keep bringing you food parcels.”

  “Well, lemme t’ink about it.”

  “Okay. I’ll come back in a few days.”

  ****

  Xandrie breathed deeply, smelling the fresh, sweet air of freedom from fear, as she watched the robotics bulldozers clear away the wreckage of her house for a second time in as many weeks.

  “What the hell keeps happening here?” Xandrie, no longer on a hair trigger, turned to see her elderly neighbor. “Oh hi, Mr. Perkins.”

  “I mean, that’s two cracked window panes I’ve had to replace now.”

  “I’m fine, thanks for asking.”

  “Oh well, I didn’t mean… you know, I’m glad you’re okay too,” Mr. Perkins fumbled.

  Xandrie smiled. The old fool was a good man at heart.

  “Your insurance paying for that?” he asked.

  “Yeah, but the claims adjuster gave me a really hard time the second time.”

  “I’ll bet he did.”

  “Say hi to Betty for me,” Xandrie said, to try and end the conversation.

  “I will. And no more explosions!”

  Xandrie waited until his back was turned to chuckle. She then resumed her jog, down the escalator and across the park. Suburban life’s not going to be the same now, she thought. And then she stopped dead. Her PTSD hadn’t flared up at all during the final fight with Jan! How could this be? It was even more devastating than the first attack. She should have been paralyzed by fear and flashbacks, but she wasn’t.

  Xandrie thought on this for several more minutes, but couldn’t make sense of it. She shook her head and resumed running. If she was no longer disabled, maybe she would seek out more adventure by joining an elite private security agency. They’d have her in an instant, given her background. Then 248 Maple Avenue would just be a crash pad between assignments. She smiled. You could take the girl out of the war, but not the war out of the girl. Only the ghosts wouldn’t be in control any longer—she would.

  ****

  “So, what do you think, Tyrone? Are you going to come topside with me?”

  Tyrone’s face was illuminated from the side by a flickering bulb that was on the verge of dying.

  A low grumbling sound came from his throat. “I ain’t got it in me, girl. I is an underworld dweller, and I’ll always be one.”

  Surely not? “But, Tyrone! You can get that cough taken care of, take real baths, and eat real food!”

  “It’s a mighty generous offer of you, missy, but ol’ Tyrone’s gonna stay put.”

  “Oh…” Xandrie’s heart was as crushed as though it were in a vise. “Well, okay,” she said heavily, after a long moment. She looked up again at his stubbly face. “I’m gonna keep bringing food, though. You can’t stop me doing that.”

  Tyrone laughed. “I was never gonna stop you from doin’ that! I been eatin’ better dan I have in years!”

  “And I’m going to get an aid organization to bring supplies for your entire block. I insist,” she said, with her hands on her hips.

  “God bless ya, missy. You is an angel.”