When Harrison finally manages to tear his gaze away from the damage to her cheek, he realizes something. Destiny isn’t avoiding his gaze, she’s concentrating. On wriggling. On twisting. On pulling.
She’s trying to escape the shackles securing her to the upright table.
“Do you think there are cameras in here?” she asks.
The question shocks Harrison as he continues to watch her squirm. “I don’t think so,” he says. “I think this place is off the books. I think everything regarding the Destroyer is being kept secret from the rest of Pop Con.”
“Good,” she says, her limbs moving in strange ways that don’t seem humanly possible.
“Destiny,” Harrison says. “Look at me.” Her tearstained face remains stoic, focused. She twists her wrist awkwardly and it makes a faint popping sound, bending way too far the wrong way. “Destiny!” Harrison cries out.
Her eyes finally snap to his. “It’s okay,” she says. “I’m double-jointed in like fourteen different places. It doesn’t really hurt.”
Harrison stares at her in amazement as one of her hands slips free of the bindings. Her wrist looks bent and mangled, but with a shiver-worthy snap Destiny clicks it back into place, flexing it a few times. “See? Good as new,” she says.
Suddenly a quick death for both of them is no longer the goal. Escape is.
Harrison doesn’t say anything more, giving her the chance to focus on the task at hand, watching as, with a free hand to help, she more easily liberates her second hand. With both hands available, she makes short work of the bindings on her feet.
Her brown eyes wide and intense, she carefully ties the towel around her torso while holding the other towel to her chest. Then she rushes to Harrison and releases him.
“You’re beautiful,” he blurts out, kissing her directly on the lips, one hand tucking itself under her chin while the other holds his own towel in place.
Her face shows surprise, and she bites her lip quickly before saying, “How do we get out of here?”
His body stiff and aching from the hours spent strapped to the table, Harrison hobbles to the other side of the room and tries the door, but, of course, it’s locked tightly. He listens for any sounds indicating the Destroyer’s return, but hears nothing. Turning back to Destiny, he says, “We’ll have to fight him.” He finds his pants shoved in a corner and retrieves them, starting to dress.
Destiny shakes her head. “It’s a fight we can’t win. Everything we touch falls apart.”
“Not this,” Harrison says. “Not now.”
“We’ve already screwed so many things up,” Destiny says.
“Yeah, well, screwing up as epically as we have takes a lot of practice,” Harrison says. “We might as well practice some more.”
That draws a faint smile from Destiny, her burn mark rising up toward her eye, as if the echo of the Destroyer’s knife is still trying to carry out his order to blind her. “We don’t have any weapons,” Destiny points out.
“Yes, but we have the element of surprise. When he comes in he’ll see the empty beds. You can make a noise and draw his attention to the right. I’ll be waiting on the side the door opens toward. I’ll hit him from behind with everything I’ve got.”
“Won’t work. He’s made of metal,” Destiny says.
“You’re being negative,” Harrison says.
“I’m being realistic.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“Yes,” she says. Then she tells him her plan, and the more he argues against it, the more he knows it’s their best chance.
Grudgingly, he removes his pants and chucks them back in the corner.
~~~
Time seems to stop completely for a moment, Boris Decker’s crumpled form drawing all eyes. Benson’s feet feel frozen to the floor, like a powerful force is pulling him deep toward the center of the earth, holding him in place. Like gravity is a thousand times stronger than usual.
Then things seem to speed up, like someone’s hit the rocket-speed button on the holo-screen of Benson’s life.
Minda dives for her gun as three black-clothed Hunters pour into the room; Janice grabs Benson from behind, pulling him down behind one of the chairs, which she knocks over to form a protective barrier that Benson is almost certain will not stop bullets; Corrigan Mars fires at Minda and she cries out, but Benson can’t see her from his position on the floor.
“Mom!” Benson shouts, wriggling away from Janice. He pushes to his feet, rushes in front of Mars, who’s stepping on Minda’s hand and aiming his gun at her head while she lies defenseless on the floor, having never reached her gun. Blood pours from a bullet wound in her leg.
Mars retrains his gun on Benson. Benson holds his breath, waiting for the impact, wondering whether it will hurt, wondering whether his death will in any way influence Minda and his mother’s fate.
“You’d take a bullet for her?” Mars says.
Benson lets out a breath, but can’t seem to speak, like there’s a traffic jam of words in his throat. Instead, he only nods.
“Why?” Mars asks.
Benson swallows once, twice, speaks. “I can’t have anyone else die for me,” he says.
Mars laughs, although Benson can’t for the life of him think of what might be funny. “Yes, it’s strange that a life that never should’ve existed has reaped such a wide path of destruction,” Mars says.
Benson doesn’t know what to say, because he can absolutely see the irony. It feels like a punch in the stomach.
Then his mother is beside him and he’s pushing her back, but Mars has already clamped his hand onto her arm and he’s grabbing her, pulling her, trying to get her close to him, and she’s screaming, clawing at his face.
And that’s when Simon shows up. Perhaps trying to be discreet, he clubs the first Hunter over the back of the head, but the falling body draws the attention of the other two Hunters who start firing their silenced pistols with reckless abandon. Simon takes a slug in the arm, another in the gut, but he doesn’t drop either of his dual weapons, which he blasts away with. His weapons are unsilenced, and the resulting booms crash through Benson’s ear canals and into his brain, seeming to encompass his every thought. The remaining two Hunters fall amidst the onslaught.
Too late, Benson grabs for his mother, who’s being pulled away from him by Mars, who’s got a gun to her head.
Minda scrambles to recover her weapon, hobbling to one foot, clutching the back of a chair like a crutch. Three guns, wielded by Minda and Simon, are trained on Corrigan Mars, who continues to retreat across the room using Janice as a human shield, finally ducking behind the edge of the couch, where Boris Decker lies in a pool of his own blood.
Simon starts to stride forward, but Benson yells, “Stop!” surprised when his voice sounds no louder than a whisper to his own ears. Everything is fuzzy, like he’s the one Simon clubbed in the head, and not the Hunter.
“Smart kid,” Mars says. “I won’t hesitate to kill her if you make a move. Do you want to watch your mother die, Benson?”
“Benson,” Simon says, groaning and clutching at the hole in his stomach, which is bleeding profusely, “he’ll kill us all anyway. We have no choice.”
“There’s always a choice,” Benson says.
“Drop your weapons,” Mars says. “I’ll let you all leave alive and we can live to fight another day.”
“Bullshit,” Minda says.
Benson’s mind spins through the possibilities. Most of them aren’t good. He’s about to suggest that Mars bring his hostage to the door and then push her back inside while he slips away, when an unexpected voice croaks out a command. “Drop your damn gun.”
Boris Decker’s arm lifts a few centimeters off the floor, holding a gun. He must have had it hidden somewhere beneath the couch. How he’s not dead is a mystery to Benson. No, not a mystery; a miracle.
“Boris!” Benson says, subconsciously realizing he’s shouting, although he doesn’t mean to. “We’ve got to
get you medical attention.”
“I already told you, kid, I’m invincible. There’s no bullet that can kill me. But I can sure as hell kill this bastard.”
Mars doesn’t blink. “Then Benson’s mother dies along with me,” he says.
“Please,” Benson says. “Don’t.”
Boris rolls his head around toward Benson and for a second their eyes meet. “Thank you for not wanting me dead,” he says. “I don’t know if I’d feel the same way if I were in your position. After all, you’ve got a whole life ahead of you and I’m an old man.”
“You’re a good man,” Benson says. “Now, please, drop the gun so we can work out a way for Mr. Mars to leave here alive.”
Boris nods resignedly, twisting his head back toward where Mars is clutching Janice. His hand starts to drop and Benson breathes again.
But just before he brings the gun all the way to the floor, he squeezes off a shot. Three things happen as a result: Mars screams in agony, clutching his leg with one hand and fumbling his gun with the other; Janice tears herself free of his grasp, bolting like a startled cat for the door; and Simon and Minda start shooting over Boris Decker, their shots ripping off chunks of the couch.
Benson moves to meet his mother, grabbing her hand and pulling her with him out the door, shouting for the others to follow. Walking backwards, Minda and Simon retreat into the hallway, clutching each other to stay on their feet. They’re still shooting, shouting at the various wrinkled heads that are popping from some of the apartments to “Get back inside!”
“Get her out of here,” Benson says to Simon, heading back inside Boris Decker’s apartment.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Minda says, grabbing his arm.
“We have to get Boris,” Benson says.
“It’s too late for him.” Even as she says it, there’s a muffled gunshot, and Benson can tell it was fired from Mars’s silenced gun.
“No,” Benson says, but he allows himself to be pushed down the hallway, back toward the stairs, Mars’s words hammering through his mind: it’s strange that a life that never should’ve existed has reaped such a wide path of destruction. The words are overlaid with that final image of Boris Decker swimming in his own blood, saving Benson’s mother’s life.
Mars is shouting somewhere behind them, and Simon fires off a few more shots, but Benson barely registers any of it, allowing Minda to herd him and his mother down the steps, past the startled woman at the front desk, and out into the blistery winter cold. In a tangled bunch, they push into the waiting aut-car and Minda shouts, “Go!”
The car skids away from the curb, around and out of the driveway, and down Happy Drive.
Benson closes his eyes, grips his mother’s hand, and says a silent thank you to Boris Decker, his invincible Death Match.
Beside him, Minda and Simon bleed all over the brand new upholstery.
~~~
Harrison’s once more strapped to the table, although not nearly as tightly as before. He did it himself, after securing Destiny against the upright slab where the Destroyer left her. One flex of his muscles and he’ll be able to burst free.
He hates this plan with every cell in his body.
At the first sign of things going badly he plans to leap from the table and launch himself at the freak cyborg. Even if he has zero chance of taking him on man to man, at least Destiny might have a chance to escape. He made her agree to run if it came down to that. To leave him behind.
He doesn’t know if she lied when she said yes.
The Destroyer’s heavy, echoing footsteps are returning and Harrison gets ready to act scared and angry and contrite, all rolled up into one facial expression. It’s not hard, because he feels at least two of those three emotions stronger than he’s ever felt them.
Beside him, Destiny begins whimpering like a scared little girl. Even though he knows it’s a lie, that inside her broken tearstained exterior she’s a fantastically brave young woman, it still sends a fresh bolt of anger through him. The desire to kill the Destroyer is like no urge he’s felt before.
In truth, it scares him a little.
In truth, it excites him a little.
The door bursts inward, kicked open with a clang.
Harrison flinches back, so unexpected is their enemy’s entrance. And he’s not done yet, charging forward like an attacking hoverball forward—he’s heading straight for Destiny, his red-hot knife already drawn, burning through the shadows.
He almost does it. Almost breaks free of the table to cut off the Destroyer’s path. He hesitates only because he promised to give Destiny a chance to carry out her plan. It takes every ounce of his strength to remain still, to lock his jaw and grit his teeth and not move a muscle except to growl out, “Please!”
The Destroyer stops sharply in front of Destiny, whose eyes are still closed, and jams the knife a few centimeters from her eyelids, close enough that she can surely feel the heat, feel the lingering memory of the burning metal tearing into her skin.
She doesn’t flinch.
In that moment, Harrison’s belief that Destiny is someone special turns into fact, an unimpeachable truth.
“Tell me everything you know,” the Destroyer says, turning his head toward Harrison, his eyes tinged with orange from the glow of the hot knife.
“I will, I will,” Harrison says, gulping at the air as if trying to catch his breath after a major scare—which might be closer to the truth than he’d like to admit.
“Nowww,” the Destroyer says, drawing out the word.
Exactly, Harrison thinks, holding his breath.
Destiny’s completely-unsecured hand flashes upward and grabs the Destroyer’s metal wrist, using the momentum to shove the knife all the way up and into his face.
No, into his eye.
“Ahhhhhhhhh!” he screams, staggering backward, smoke trailing from the spot where the knife meets his eye. He clutches at his right hand with his left, trying to wrench it free, but he can’t seem to get it, perhaps because the hot metal has impacted bone.
Harrison rips his loose tethers away at the same moment as Destiny does the same, grabbing her hand, stopping only to snatch their balled-up clothes from the corner before bolting through the open door. Harrison slams the door behind them, leaving the Destroyer to burn away whatever remaining human he has left from the inside out.
His screams follow them through the door, almost seeming to beat against it with hollow fists.
They quickly dress, pulling off the towels and staring at each other in the dark, not even attempting to avert their gazes from each other’s nakedness. Being naked in front of each other seems like such a small thing after what they’ve just been through. After what they’ve just avoided. Harrison wishes it had happened during a different time and place of their choosing; a time and place when he could stop to admire and appreciate the exquisite beauty of the girl standing before him.
He vows to savor every choice he gets to make from this point forward.
Fully dressed and adrenaline coursing through him, he pulls Destiny through a dark, dank tunnel leading away from their prison. There are no guards, only occasional spots of yellow light from bare bulbs overhead. Most of them are burnt out, leaving the effect almost like strobe lights, flashing in and out of vision as they run. That’s when Harrison realizes their torture is completely off the Pop Con books. He wonders whether anyone in the department even knows the Destroyer is still participating in the Sliphunt.
There’s a loud creak and a bang as somewhere behind them the door is opened; the Destroyer’s throaty obscenity-laden shouts chase them down the passageway.
Even with a hot knife shoved in his eye, he’s pursuing them.
Stairs lead up, up, up and without proper light they find themselves tripping every other step, but never at the same time. Harrison trips, Destiny holds him up, and vice versa. Their blundering is perfectly synchronized. Thunderous, uneven footfalls echo closer and closer, the sound of a monster hunting its p
rey.
Eventually they reach a rusty ladder and Harrison tells Destiny to go first.
She climbs, one careful foot following one careful hand, and Harrison sticks close behind her, which he thinks is as much for his own comfort as for hers.
It’s not far, and soon she says, “The cover is locked or stuck or something.”
“I’ll harble your froes and triggle your broods!” the Destroyer yells, his words garbled and shockingly close. Nothing he’s saying makes sense. Harrison hazards a look back and instantly wishes he didn’t. Halfway up the steps, the Destroyer has become a creature from a child’s nightmare: His face is ruined, one eye as dark and menacing as a storm cloud, and the other a smoldering ruin, like a meteoric crater, a hideous mixture of melted skin, dried, crusted blood, and ash-dark bone. His mouth is contorted into something more animal than human, as if he plans to attack them teeth-first, ripping out their throats. His movements are staggering and jerky, and, when combined with the nonsense he’s spouting, makes Harrison think the knife penetrated more than just his exterior, impacting the machine parts that provide him with superhuman strength and speed, as well as the ability to speak.
“Give me room!” Harrison shouts as he turns back around. Destiny inches to the side and he clambers up beside her, having barely enough space for them each to have a single foot on the rung. “On three we push,” he says.
“I’ll hash your nokes!” the Destroyer screams, more meaningless gibberish.
“One,” Harrison says, his heart thumping, his injured hand screaming out.
Metal rings out on the bottom rung as the cyborg grabs it.
“No time,” Destiny says. “Push now!”
Together they thrust upward with all their might, but the metal cover holds, almost seeming to push back against them. Beneath them, the Destroyer starts to climb.
“Again!” Harrison commands, and this time as Destiny shoves with her hands, he steps to the top rung and bashes his shoulder against the metal, which seems to jar loose, lifting slightly before booming back down.