Swan Song (Book Three of the Icarus Trilogy) (9 page)

Norris had no idea who he was.  He took his orders just like everyone else.  Unlike everyone else, he didn’t bother to care about who had to die.  He did what he could not to feel the weight of all these deaths on his conscience, but that was the thing about war.  Norris didn’t have the luxury or incentive to care.

The jester dropped the smile as the man neared the doorway; he had to concentrate.  Wind direction and gravity needed to be compensated for, so he aimed slightly to the left and just above the man’s head.  Even with all the power in his rifle, Norris couldn’t ignore physics.  As the target walked through the doorway he stumbled a bit, which made the sniper hold his fire for just a moment.  He really didn’t want to miss.

Unfortunately, the doorman who helped the target to his feet decided to stay in the way.  Norris was losing his window and he knew it; the sweat was already starting to accumulate on his brow.  He breathed rapidly and wordlessly urged the doorman to return to his spot, to move half a meter in any direction.

“Teucer, what the fuck are you doing?!” the voice whispered with urgency. 

Norris decided he didn’t have a choice; collateral damage happened in war.  The Englishman pulled the trigger and time seemed to slow down.  He felt the kick of his rifle and heard the muffled compression of air as the bullet streaked out of his weapon.  But neither of those things mattered; Norris was only concerned with the scene playing out in the scope of his rifle.  He watched as the doorman’s shoulder separated from his body and cursed when he couldn’t see the businessman behind him. 

The sniper was already grabbing another shell from his arm bandolier before he saw the doorman fall to the side and could see the grisly blood splatter behind him.  The businessman’s head was lying on his shoulder, most of the neck had been blown away and only a small part of the tissue still connected the man’s head to his body.  Norris unintentionally gulped in a mouthful of air at the sight, but soon recovered himself.  He placed the shell back into the bandolier and then went to work disassembling his weapon.

“Jesus, Teucer.  You think you coulda been easier on him?” the voice asked over the radio, the shock causing the resistance agent to soften her tone.  Norris unscrewed the scope and was setting it in the black case as he touched his ear.

“Is he dead?” Norris asked in annoyance.

“Well, yeah,” the voice said, trailing off in her confusion.

“That’s all that fucking matters, Cass,” Norris said under his breath as he placed the stock into the case.  The Englishman had gotten quite proficient at pulling the weapon apart; he was on top of four or five rooftops every week.  Edward unclipped the bandolier on his arm and set it beside the stock and looked at the whole kit.  He brushed his hand against the smooth plastic and metal of the barrel before closing the case, disguised as a young girl’s carry-on luggage, and then walked towards the roof access.

“Yeah, but you could ease up on the brutality,” Cassandra said in a defeated manner.  She had been Norris’ spotter for the last two weeks, but she was still pretty new to Edward's behavior.  His light tone outside of the missions was confusing to her; she was used to the morbid attitude of most of her teammates from the Mastodons.

“Cass, you know what happens to people when you shoot them with a sniper rifle?” Norris asked as he opened the door lazily and started to walk down the stairs.  He was in no hurry; the response time of the EOSF in circumstances like these was absolutely abysmal.  They weren’t prepared for the EFI’s habit of destroying the support structure of the Trade Union; it was difficult to anticipate.

“They die,” Cassandra said in annoyance.  She figured it would just be best for Norris to get it over with quickly.

“True enough,” Norris said before laughing and adopting a crooked smile.  “But something happens before that.”

“And what’s that?” Cassandra asked, obviously getting distracted by something else on her end.

“Well, they feel a metric shit-ton of pain for a fraction of a second, no matter where they get hit, Cass,” the Englishman said, the smile disappearing for just a moment.  “As long as I kill them fast, I don’t much care about where I hit them.  Our little target was lucky I took out the spine.”

“Well, what about the doorman?” Cass asked, taking a breath in the middle of the question.  The spotter was moving out of her position, it seemed.  Norris heard the question and stopped in the stairwell.  He let the silence fill the concrete structure and after a second he could hear his own heart beating.  Norris pursed his lips before he continued to walk down the stairwell.

“I didn’t want to shoot him, Cass.  I just had to.  Besides,” Norris said as he jumped down two steps to hit the landing with a thump for emphasis.  “He’s dead, too.  You can’t get torn apart like that and live.”

“But he didn’t die instantly, Teucer,” Cass said, her voice dropping into a serious tone.  Edward flinched at the code name.

“Don’t call me that,” he said as he opened the door at ground level to expose himself to the chilly air of Babylon.  Orchid Street was busy as always, completely unaware that just a few blocks away on Poppy there was chaos and blood.

“Fine.  He didn’t die instantly, Eddie,” Cassandra said, the sneer in her voice clearly audible to the Englishman.  Norris was shocked into raising his eyebrow as he started to walk down Orchid.  He had yet to meet this spotter in person, but he wasn’t sure he would ever want to.

“No, Cass, he didn’t.  But that’s war, isn’t it?” Edward stated as he sauntered down the street towards his getaway car.  It was a dinged-up old antique, but he loved his old sedan.  As he walked, he saw the men and women looking at him strangely and laughed; he was used to the stares.  Not many thought a tall, red-haired Englishman would like to carry around a flowery pink and green piece of luggage.

“Is that what you think this is, Eddie?  Shooting unarmed people is war to you?” Cass asked as she closed the door to her own vehicle.  Norris walked up to the trunk of his car and placed the case inside, smiling at the floral print.  He closed the trunk and then looked down the street towards Babylon Tower.  Norris knew that Jasper Montgomery was sitting there on the top floor, probably staring down at his city while nursing a glass of scotch.  At least, that’s what Norris imagined that Montgomery would do on business days.  The sniper brought up his right arm and cocked his fingers into a mock gun before sending a fake bullet towards the old man.

“It’ll have to do, Cass,” he said as he looked down at his hands and tossed his keys between them.  He looked back up at the tower and smiled before walking over to the door of the vehicle.  Norris grunted as he realized he had walked up to the right side as always and shook his head at his own antics.  As he walked to the other side of the car he thought about all the ways he had screwed up in his life.

At least he was good at this.

-

“Hey, you wanna grab a drink, Jimmy?” Urlov asked as the two of them were unclipping their combat armor from their limbs.  James Kaspar looked back at his teammate of four years and smiled.  Urlov had always been a sweet guy, but that was the only real selling point.  He was big, dumb and ugly and ten years older than his fellow Lion, but he was Kaspar’s friend.  The smaller, sandy-haired man laughed and set his boot back into his locker.

“I don’t know, Demetri, it’s Tuesday,” James said as he looked up at the bigger man.  The revolutionary gave him a big grin filled with lopsided teeth and laughed.

“Is it?  I totally forgot.  I bet we can still get plastered, though,” Urlov said as he placed his breastplate back into his own locker.  James could see the hammer and saw of Wyland’s Hardware on Urlov’s breastplate and shook his head.  They were still using their old armor from the games against their former employers.  There were a few adjustments for more durability, but it was essentially the same suits from Eris.  It was enough for James to give a small smile towards his compatriot.

“Yeah, but we gotta work tomorrow,” Kaspar said as he stood up and closed his locker door.  He was always much faster at removing the high-tech suits and would wait around for the balding man to finish.  Demetri gave him another toothy grin and sat down on the bench so he could remove his boots.

“Jimmy, we work every day.  No excuse to not enjoy a good drink or two or twelve,” Urlov said as he chuckled to himself.  Kaspar looked down at his friend and shook his head.  Demetri was a lovable guy, but he was practically a kiddy pool.  James looked back up towards the lockers and stared into space as he contemplated another night of drinking.

He was in the middle of remembering their last foray into Freesia when his giant friend stood up in his perspective.  Kaspar looked up into the pale eyes of his friend and knew that he wouldn’t be able to say no.  Urlov was just so earnest.

“You know you’re coming,” Demetri said, his talent for stating the obvious in full effect.  Kaspar shook his head and walked towards the exit of the locker room.  He could hear Demetri’s heavy footfalls behind him and tilted his head slightly to continue the conversation.

“Yeah, yeah.  It’s just....”

“What?” Urlov said while flexing his arms.  Kaspar could hear the pop of the man’s shoulder from half a meter away and shivered.

“Look, it’s just that I kinda want to find something better to do with my time,” Kaspar said and immediately heard a sound of disgust from behind him.  He turned to see Urlov frowning at him.

“I’m offended, Jimmy,” he said, the play-frown already starting to turn at the corners.  James rolled his eyes and turned back towards the other end of the hallway.  It was a dirty thing, a former athletic complex that had been turned into a bunker, but it felt almost like their barracks back on Eris.

“Stop that, you know what I mean.  I want to get out there and do something rather than just drink every night and waste my time.  I want to, I don’t know, live, I guess,” Kaspar said to the air in front of him.  He could hear Demetri sighing.

“Jimmy, you know we’re making a difference.  We go out there every day, risk our lives, and for freedom, to boot.  We’re fighting the good fight,” Demetri said, but Kaspar huffed at that.

“We don’t really do anything.  We raided an IT company today, Demetri.  I feel useless and like I’m not getting the most out of everything.  I want to be, I don’t know, important.  I want people to care about the shit that I do,” Kaspar said as he looked at his feet. 

He thought about Ryan Jenkins and how he had turned into the figurehead of the movement.  Jenkins was certainly someone to look up to, but Kaspar knew that there was something special about the Crow.  He still remembered the game where Ryan had jumped into his mech cockpit, blowing them both to Hell.  At the memory, James shook his head and came back to the present, not wanting to dwell on past violence.

“What are you talking about, Jimmy?  Remember last week?  We raided that compound in Nevada and rescued a bunch of our guys.  Hell, that Douglas guy, remember him?  We saved his ass.  Sure, he’s not lookin’ so hot, but we were there right when that blond guy was about to kill him.  We saved his life, Jim,” Demetri said as they neared the door.  James put his hand up to the doorway and was about to push, but the comment stole him of his strength.  He frowned and then looked behind him at his earnest teammate.  The brute was giving him a small, reassuring smile, but for some reason James didn’t feel reassured.

“I know, I know,” he said as he looked at his hand.  It was weathered and the veins were popping out, not what James expected for his late twenties, but he was still young, essentially.  He just felt like he was running out of time.

“And people care, Jimmy.  I care, at least.  I count for something, right?” Demetri asked.  Kaspar looked at him and saw the toothy grin again.  Again, he felt lucky that Urlov was one of his friends.  The smaller man pushed through the doorway and saw the hub room of the revolution.  Off to the right was the briefing room and ahead of him were the rooms for the higher-ups, but their destination was the exit to the left.  Kaspar wanted some relatively fresh air.

“Do ya, though?” Jimmy asked through a wicked smile as he walked towards the exit with his hands in his pockets.  He looked around the hub as he ignored Urlov’s exaggerated reaction.  Most of the tiling had fallen away and the EFI had dug out most of the complex, but for some reason it still felt massive.  It was an appropriate setting for anti-establishment planning.

“Sometimes you’re a bit of an asshole, Jimmy, you know that?  Maybe that’s why no one likes you but me,” Demetri said as they started to climb the stairs out of the complex.

As they exited out of the labyrinthine tunnels that led out to street level, Kaspar wished he had brought a coat.  Winter was starting early this year, it seemed, and James was not prepared for it.  He debated on going back inside and grabbing another layer, but Demetri slapped him on the back and pushed him forward down Rose Street.