Swan Song (Book Three of the Icarus Trilogy) (14 page)

For Edward, it had been more than that.  He would never have let anyone know, but he had loved the fact that Abrams had decided to share her nether regions with him.  Yes, he did get a primal satisfaction, but it also relayed a certain level of trust.  Most of the Crows had written him off, thinking him a sociopath who enjoyed the games and the killing that came with them, but it was just part of his personality.  He had wanted to keep it light-hearted and not give into the grey skies and the bloody despair.  When Abrams had started to use him for comfort, he had been secretly overjoyed.  Even with his predilections, someone had accepted him; someone had seen him for more than just a killer.

He had panicked at first when Abrams had revealed she was pregnant.  Norris had never thought he would be a father; he never thought he would last long enough.  And as all ever-adolescent males, he had seen fatherhood as the end of his life.  But as he grew used to the idea, he became fond of the thought of becoming a father.  It was just another beacon of light in the depressing landscape that was this war.  Norris had something to look forward to; he had something to fight for other than the self-righteous struggle for good.

Now he had nothing.  The red-haired killer, who no longer felt like a jester, looked at his feet and inspected the pink bag of luggage.  He hadn’t remembered grabbing it from the briefing room, but when he had arrived back at his apartment he was surprised to find it propped up near the door.  The sniper had left within the hour, not willing to see Abrams when she arrived.  He couldn’t face her, the mother of his former child; not like this.  He needed time to think it all through; he needed time to recover.

The Englishman unlatched the clasp and then removed the false top, covered in dingy and wrinkled clothes, and revealed the deadly weapon underneath.  Norris looked over the concrete barrier behind him and saw Babylon Tower rising through the setting sun.  The building was an affront to the Englishman’s senses; he wanted nothing more than to tear the thing down and spit on Jasper’s grave.  The building was just in poor taste.

He turned absent-mindedly and found the rifle assembled in his hands.  Edward sighed as he realized that he was a subconscious killer along with being the regular kind.  He shrugged and brought the rifle to bear, flicking up the covering to the scope and then peering through the glass.  A slight smile tugged at the corners of his lips as he gave into the bloodlust of a man betrayed.

Norris pulled the trigger and felt the mule kick of the rifle’s recoil, but he didn’t feel relief until he looked through the scope and saw the man falling to the ground, a massive hole through his chest.  Edward had known the man to be a well-known pundit on a show demonizing the EFI and lauding Jasper Montgomery at every turn.  Norris knew that it was all a sham and that Paul Kerrigan was doing it just for the money and fame, but he despised the man’s character.  Such a man should not be allowed to live in this world, even if someone else were to take up his cause.

The sniper was about to pack away the rifle when he noticed a flurry of activity swarming about the corpse of his target.  He looked through the scope and found that there was a man with a small huddle of EOSF officers covering him.  It took Norris a second, but soon enough he realized that it was Richard Masters, an evangelist who had marshaled endless support for the War World Network and it’s destruction of Eris. 

The man’s skin was almost leather because of hours in tanning booths and the veneers on his teeth were obnoxious.  His hair was slicked back and dyed pure black in order to make him look young.  And just to offend Norris’ sensibilities further, the man was in a stark, white suit.  Norris had actually met the man before on Solaris.  This was back in the evangelist’s heyday, where he could take week long trips to the tropical asteroid and return full of righteous vindication.  He was another sham, but Norris had a personal issue with this particular man.

Edward had seen Masters fly into a rage over Ryan Jenkins’ grief-stricken message from the Crows’ escape craft.  Masters had demonized Edward’s friend for promising to avenge a planet full of people who did not deserve such a painful death.  In Masters’ eyes, Montgomery had been right to quell the revolt and kill all the slave soldiers, who were really just criminals and free-loading debtors.  To Masters, Ryan Jenkins was a false messiah.  Ryan was practically the antichrist, and it was the duty of all faithful and obedient citizens to cast Ryan Jenkins and his friends back into the Hell they had come from.

Norris didn’t even think about it as he threw another shell into the chamber.  If it was a normal day, he would have let the man go; he wouldn’t have betrayed his position.  It was only a matter of time before the men monitoring the satellite surveillance would calculate the trajectory of Norris’ bullet.  If it had been a normal day, Edward Norris would be halfway down the stairs of the building and walking to his getaway car.

Instead, the Englishman took aim, adjusted for wind resistance and fired.  It was a small target, Masters’ slicked-back hair was only just visible above the EOSF shoulder plate and it was half a kilometer away, but Norris had plenty of practice.  He had been paid for it only a few months ago.

He smiled as he looked through the scope and saw the back of Masters’ head blown apart by the Englishman’s good deed.  The stark, white suit didn’t look so professional when it was covered in blood.  Norris couldn’t help but laugh as he thought about what a service he had done, even if it wasn’t a sanctioned hit from on high.  He felt righteous; he felt like he was helping the world.

But the joy soon turned to panic as he realized that with two shots from his position there was almost certainly someone watching him.  He picked up his rifle and the open piece of luggage and threw himself towards the roof access.  As soon as he was inside, the Englishman flew into a hurried pace dismantling the weapon and placing the parts inside the appropriate sockets.  Although he was working as fast as he could, Norris felt every agonizing second contributing to his likely death.

As soon as he slammed shut the clasps of the pink luggage, Norris started to sprint down the stairs, letting gravity do most of the work and making sure he didn’t break a leg.  Even with his pace and feeling the pain from every impact, he felt like he was going far too slow.  Edward knew for certain that the side access to the building would be surrounded by EOSF, but he burst through the doors anyway.

Norris was shocked to see that there were very few people walking down Sunflower Street at this time, but what was more surprising was their behavior.  They didn’t seem to take notice of the two loud explosions from Norris’ weapon and the Englishman stood in confusion for a moment.  Then he realized that the citizenry of Babylon was just getting used to the constant gunfire, violence and death.  Their daily lives were filled with it and another two dead people didn’t really matter in the scheme of things.

The Englishman scoffed at the depressing thought, but then walked quickly to his vehicle.  He was welcome for the sight but realized quickly that he couldn’t use it; not if he wanted to be able to use it again on another mission.  The EFI usually scrambled the satellite relays whenever there was an official hit, but since Norris had taken things into his own hands he couldn’t rely on his brothers in arms.  The Englishman bit his lip and walked past the decrepit vehicle, promising himself that he would pick it up after a few hours when there wouldn’t be anyone watching.

-

Norris breathed out heavily once he arrived at his apartment.  The entire walk home had been an anxious thing, especially since most of it took place at night.  Montgomery’s new curfew ensured that the only people walking the unlit streets were with the EOSF, EFI or they were just plain criminals.  Norris had run into a trio of ne’er-do-wells when he was just a few blocks away from his home, but they hadn’t posed too much of a challenge.  The killer had kept up his hand-to-hand combat regularly since returning to Earth.

It was a testament to the Edward’s anxiety that he hadn’t realized that Abrams might be in the very same apartment.  He hadn’t thought about the woman at all since he had planted that bullet into Masters’ head; he hadn’t had the luxury.  Now he was filled with dread for the coming confrontation; dread for the revelation that he had no real place in the woman’s life.

However, as he looked through the apartment, he found that Jessica was not around.  He looked at his watch, seeing that it was already early morning, and realized that the warrior woman must have decided to stay the night in headquarters.  Norris felt relief as he realized that he could delay the conversation for just one more day; that he could pretend that his world hadn’t crumbled down around him.

Edward walked over to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of water.  The machine wasn’t connected to anything, so it was really only useful as another cupboard.  As Norris cracked the seal and started to let the liquid fill his throat, he realized that he felt more than just relief.  He lowered the bottle from his lips and breathed out; feeling that maybe this was what had been missing since his return to his home planet.  Maybe this was the freedom that he had wanted all along, but was too scared to admit.

“You’re a fucking idiot, you know that?” a feminine voice said behind him, causing Norris to turn around in a panic.  He didn’t know why Abrams would be hanging around in a dark room, but now that she was here, there was no delaying the confrontation.

But it wasn’t Jessica that he saw lounging in the chair by the window.  Norris squinted, but he couldn’t make out the woman’s features in the darkness.  It was only a moment before the woman helped with that problem and turned on the lamp nearby.  She was a pretty thing; shoulder-length brown hair and lustrous, golden eyes that made the Englishman’s heart flutter.  Even in the ruddy, plain clothes that she was wearing, Norris could tell that she had all the right curves.  While all of this was appealing, Edward did not recognize the woman and instantly adopted a hostile stance.

“Bloody....!  Who the fuck are you?!” he asked in his confusion, but the woman sitting in the chair only laughed.  She shook her head and leaned forward, which caused Norris to imagine the cleavage hidden beneath the brown shirt.

“Seriously, Eddie?  Do I really need to give you a hint?” she asked, her face filled with mock pity.  At the mention of the name Norris knew exactly who he was talking to, even if he had never seen her in person.

“Cass.  How are you, you bloody, little harlot?  You realize that I could have killed you just now?” he asked as he rounded the sofa and planted himself down on the far cushion.  The woman in the chair leaned back and gave him a wicked smile.

“Doubt it.  You’re pretty distracted,” she said before propping up her head on her right hand.  Edward looked at her and raised an eyebrow.

“Distracted?  By what?” he asked while taking another drink of water.  For some reason he was more than just a little thirsty.  The woman with the golden eyes huffed before looking out the window.

“Besides the pretty girl in your apartment?  How about all the men looking for you?  You kinda stirred up a hornet’s nest with that little hit of yours,” she said as she looked at Norris out of the corner of her eye.  Something about the woman remind the Englishman of an alley cat, but he let the thought slip away from him.

“Who said you’re pretty?” he asked with a teasing smile, but Cassandra was unfazed.  She turned back to face him and crossed her legs, the shape of which were betrayed by the loose cloth covering them.

“No need to hold back, Eddie.  I’m quite self-aware.  You, on the other hand,” she said as nodded towards the window, “don’t seem to have that same quality.  At least, not right now.”

Norris looked at the woman responsible for the success of his missions and let out all the false confidence he held with one breath.  He rubbed his forehead with the empty hand and then looked over to the other revolutionary.

“Had to.... uh, fix something.”

“Fix something?  You mean go kill someone because Abrams slept around on you?” she asked, her face teasing, but the joke caused the Englishman’s light-hearted personality to fall away.

“She didn’t sleep around on me,” he said with a firm tone, unwilling to consider the possibility.  She wouldn’t have done that; it had to be Hawkins and his sick, little experiments.  After seeing his reaction, Cassandra made a mental note not to push the sniper like that again.  Norris wasn’t ready for that kind of teasing.

“Sorry, sorry,” she said as she uncrossed her legs and interlaced the fingers of her hands.  “Too far, I get it.  But you did kill them, didn’t you?” she asked, biting her lip.  The action was enough to force Norris out of his anger and back into confusion; he was feeling quite a few things at this moment.  The Englishman shook his head and looked at the bottle of water in his hand.

“It.... might have been,” he said, shocked to hear the sigh of disgust from two meters away.

“Might have been?  Eddie, I know your signature.  I know how you work.  And, well, I know the kind of people you would hate enough to kill outside of an assignment,” Cassandra said indignantly, which caused Norris to look her in the eye.