Memento Mori

4.11 - SOME MISTAKES

MY HAND FLASHES to my JOY. Matthias senses the violence rising in Carto's mind. But the gangster is faster than us both, seasoned by the same streets we were. His first punch leaves an impact crater in the tube. The second chases me as I scramble across the tight confines of the lift, blowing right past Matthias. A three-hundred-pound hipcheck smashes the frail Psi against the wall. Then Carto's fist connects with my back and my nose breaks as I slap into the metal door and rebound like a rubber ball.

Gasping through spotty vision. My hand flashes for my JOY, racing through the menus of my class to kickstart the creation of another gun. The cyan nanolines start knitting together inside my hand, way too slowly. Blood spilling from his lacerated knuckles, Carto roars and snaps his foot in a low-high motion, slicing my face as he continues the motion through my arm. I scream as my wrist snaps ninety degrees to the side. Sheer kinetic force flips me end over end, the momentum dying as I hit a wall and my lips kiss the floor.

Metal clatters across the lift where my JOY fell. The deck shudders in fear.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Carto's skull-crushing shoes stomp right up to me. But right before he caves my head in, his feet suddenly come to a stop. His shins vibrate like twin batteries. Face contorted in rage. Sputtering at the mouth, free hand clenching and unclenching in a portent of what it so very badly wants to do to my neck. Yet he's not moving.

I scramble up in a concussed daze as Matthias gasps from the other side of the lift. His brow is furrowed in concentration, eyes squeezed shut, hands outstretched at Carto's back.

"Get the gun...!" he groans. His fingers clench tighter, like he's pulling invisible strings connected to the gangster's bald skull. "...finish it, Mori!"

A guttural roar builds in Carto's throat as he fights against the mental strangulation. "I'm going to fucking pulverize you, little bitch! You and every one of your friends! You're dead fucking MEAT!"

I dive over to my JOY and restart the 6-Teba's formation in my offhand. It's almost done. Then Carto lets out an evil howl. I whirl around. His eyes flash madly in the reflection. Bloodlust and worse rising like a tsunami. Whole body trembling from the amount of psionic power Matthias must be pouring into his brain to keep him still.

"Don't want me to kill her first?" He cackles. "You turn then, pretty boy!"

His huge hand flashes like a knife. The bottle of Nirvalian Blue, pulsing with internal light, accelerates into a sapphire blur and collides, shatters, sprays over Matthias' face. The Psi's skull snaps into the glass with a sickening thud. His body spasms and curls inwards on itself like a dying insect. Dark teal hair matted with gore. More blood than skin on his face. Glowing alcohol flows down his forehead, into his mouth and dripples onto his robe. More puddles on the ground.

Carto smashes through the liquid on a warpath. The gun's not done, but I can't wait for it to finish. I can't stop him in a fistfight, gotta hit weak points. A shard of glass slices into my palm as I grab it and lunge forward, jamming it into his kidney. He's so huge it almost doesn't even leave a dent, just sticks in the flesh. A JOY-powered backhand slap catapults me away.

Microsecond spasm of unconsciousness as my head hits something hard. The memory of hitting it, and ending up on the floor, a missing space in my consciousness as I groan awake.

"I'm gonna make an omelet out of you both," Carto sneers, yanking Matthias up by his hair. He spits on the boy and throws him to the floor. Raises a heel to stomp. "Can't." The heel smashes down. "Fret." Bone and body snap together. "Over every." Punctuating every word. "EGG!"

I don't even hear Lain screaming in my ears. Don't feel the lift slow as we close on the sixth floor. Done with his grisly work, Carto wheels on me next, face a mask of unfathomable hate for the embarrassment I made of him those days ago. His bloodied hand reaches for his belt buckle, worse in mind than what he did to Matthias. My fingers spasm inwards. Fear coiling in my stomach. No. No no no. Where's the gun? Always in my hand.

The 6-Teba shudders upwards, grip cool, irons clean. A heavy caliber smacks into Carto's thigh with a wet, meaty sound. He stumbles, slows, doesn't stop.

Then a mass of black and orange leaps at him from the ground and attaches to his back like a hunchback parasite, a blood-slicked arm suddenly circling the gangster's throat. Dragging him off course so they crash into the door together. Matthias yells through the agony, choking the huge man into submission.

"Save him!" Lain is screaming. Carto's ankle explodes as I fire again. "Save him Mori!"

My finger tightens a fourth time right as Carto rolls to put Matthias in the way, forcing me jerk the gun to the side at the very last moment. A thunderclap-skitter-ricochet splinters the lift controls. Before I can stagger to my feet, the man blindly rears back one meaty elbow like a sledgehammer, braining Matthias against the floor. He rolls and is onto him in an instant. My mouth opens in a silent scream as I rush forward.

Killing hands driving into Matthias' face like pistons anyways, destroying everything that's left of the boy. His hopes, that dreamer's conviction, painting the deck in gore.

Everything I see goes red.

Hearing my bare feet approaching, Carto looks up, the black barrel of the 6-Teba reflected like a mirror in his stunned eyes. One clap of thunder gives him a third eye. Then the screams locked in my chest start coming out. I plant my foot on his chest and pull the trigger again. His body convulses, a two-finger hole in his heart. But the thunder doesn't stop. Again and again and again the lift reverberates with the bag-of-chains clang, a bell that only signals death. Violent gunpowder burns my retinas. Smoke and fried ozone replace the stench of death, searing salty tears into my cheeks. I slam every one of the 6-Teba's twelve remaining bullets into Carto's dead body one after the other. I pour my rage into him, numbing myself to the horror spreading across the floor. And I'm still pulling the trigger, screaming and sobbing, heedless of the empty clicks it continues to make, when the lift announces its arrival with a shudder and a fractured beep.

The doors begin sliding open. Lain's cry vanishes in a wave of static interference. Wailing klaxons pour through the widening gap. And I'm staring down five Duelist-classed enforcers.

Thank you to the reader who gave a rating at my first chapter :) your support is greatly appreciated!