My back cracks as I awaken, and painfully I peel myself way from the floor. A small buzzing in my pocket is numbing my side and I reach down, my hand barely registering the shape of the visor, my hand still asleep. I prop myself against the window and swipe away a soaked tuft of hair clinging to my forehead, and slide on the visor. I see the bright grey room, with an unfocused line of light in the corner of the lens. With a moment of extreme effort, my eyes focus, to make out a message, white text poorly projected onto the wall of the room.
dqve5j5 - ATHENA IN DANGER. DEADZONE AT WORK SAVE HER
I'm not done registering it completely when I'm pushing past the door of the apartment and stumble at the fountain. My hand painfully scrapes the side of the fountain, my other cramming my visor into the jacket pocket. When reach the kiosk, I kick the side of it, sending it all falling into pieces, into a spray of rotting wood and plastic across the floor. Between two sheets of plastic, a second, last bag gets pulled off tape holding it down. Inside it, I rip out a black belt with two black packs. I'm flying down the hall as I strap on the belt, and check the two packs. In them, I feel the weight of two sharpened daggers, of a magnificent silver sheen that would be painted a dark grey on the hilts. I hastily tighten the belt, pulling to check it, and start a sprint that won't change in pace until Athena is safe.
I'm sweating and gasping for air when Zack finds me. When he does, he doesn't call out or warn me; he pulls me by the shoulder and the shirt and drags me to the ground with himself. Before elbowing who I think is a stranger, Zack pulls himself on top of me and doesn't budge, pressing me down with everything he has. Strangers walk over us and crush our arms, causing me to yell, but he doesn't move. For several seconds, he's on me shaking, staring into me with harsh breathing. Above all the yelling of the mob, I can hear the doors creak open slowly, the crowd cheering. The cheers stop as Zack shuts his eyes; the doors' creaking stops as gunfire starts, my head smashes into his jaw when the screams begin, like that'll cover my ears, but Zack presses himself even closer to me. I can feel several people step us, mashing our faces together, a tide of shrieks pass over us in time with their feet. As the shots and screams ring out, Zack become heavier; people are falling on him.
The cavern's silent. The entirety of the slums is quiet, and nothing can be heard over the pounding blood in my ears and my feet striking stone. In the distance, all light is gone from the last station, except for a few flashlights and a small spark. Soldiers. Every second of my run adds an aching at the bottom of my skull, as every steps on the hard ground sends shocks through me.
The bobbing little lights move closer, so I force my booming stomps to become pin drops; there can't be a loss in speed, no loss in time, but I force a silence. When I can make out the details of the nearest soldier's uniform, I draw the knives with clean, practised motion, and fall into a crouch, keeping my momentum. Before any of them can react, I lunge at the neck of the loner close to the tracks, directly in the soft spot between the helmet and collar. I don't look to see the knife puncture, but feel the too familiar mix of bone and flesh of the guard at the end of the blade, and don't let a glance slow me down. There must be about thirty, wandering about, welding metal, looking into the dark about me.
I catch three more about the tracks before they notice me; they all notice, all at once. Some spray shots at my feet, but I don't think any connect. I let them shoot as I break straight for one welding the main doors shut, and lunge, both knives pointing straight at them. We slam into the doors, blood from their back smearing across the white wall with the welder still letting plasma spray out, missing me, cutting someone else's leg viciously. I pull out the one knife before I feel something strike me in the temple, hard. I don't stop; I start to scream.
"Athena!...Athena!"
The other welder falls back, out of reach of my free knife; my knife waves pointlessly, as they fall behind several guards, all guns pointing at me. I pull out the last knife as blood covers my vision, as several blows to the head causes all the white suits to blur into a cloud.
There are muted screams around us. Zack drags me by the arm from under people. When I look over the pile behind me, I see that the doors are completely shut again, blood smeared over them. The lights over us are dead, the only light coming from skylights far down the hall. I can barely stand I'm shaking so badly, but Zack gets me to move. He stumbles over people, but he never changes pace.
I can feel smothering; I'm still under all those people, drowning. Zack is worse, worse than ever; he looks like he's choking. We're nearly at the square, when he stops at a random spot along the wall on the left. From his pocket, he pulls out his black box, and starts clenching it, his knuckles turning white. He collapses at the wall, and pulls me down with him between a couple of leaning bodies I can't tell are alive. Several minutes pass, with us lying there. I'm staring mindlessly at Zack's hand. He never stops holding that box, rhythmically squeezing. I glance up, and see he's looking past me down the hall, his eyes dead and his face pale. Then, I hear a banging in the distance, deep within the wall, not quite in tune to Zack's hands, but close. I gasp, my body taking in nothing.
There's a scratching on the other side, nearly inaudible with our faces placed on the wall. I gaze into Zack's image, blurring into a character I can't recognize. Unable to move, the wall falls back; at the same time we collapse onto the floor, and the last thing I see is Zack being pulled into oblivion.
I'm inside a room. It's cold and small. When I try to move, I can't. I stay pressed against a chair. Opening my good eye, I see at my feet the belt, amidst a tangled heap; I think I see the two knives still there. I'm confused, I hurt. Jail here doesn't give you weapons back.
I crane my neck, and I can feel a pressure forcing it to cave to the ground. In the corner of my eye, I see Earth, and it's blurry. It turns fast, falling behind and out from the wall every few seconds. I'm close to center of the station, somewhere I've never been. It's somewhere they take criminals who don't steal, but murder. I let my neck give, and I collapse to the side onto something soft. Someone's beside me, and they're completely out; they don't react at all. I don't try to move. I see that they're wearing a heavy grey jacket, and it's soft. Very soft. In the distance, I make out a shape silhouetted by the stars. It's a collection of rings, turning slowly across the sky, each about a rod connecting everything. It's Algieba in the distance. It's the last thing I see before I give in and close my eyes. My last thought is spoken clearly and loudly in my mind, intense in the way that nothing else seems clear, like the image of the sharp white station across the vast, blurred image of space.
"I want to see you again, Athena."
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