As far as prisons went, Andy’s golden shell was alright. It was dry enough, with a pile of rags for a bed. He’d been brought two meals and given time to be alone. No interrogations or torture, except for the boredom. Just knowing that Clara was safe made his stay easier, even if there was Julie’s bitter betrayal to wrestle with. For hours, he ground his teeth, wondering why she had done such a thing–join another man’s side, be at his hip like that, ready to shoot for him. It made him feel sick. Her actions were disgusting, and what made it worse was that he didn’t fully understand them. Was she ignorant, or had she joined his nemesis’ side out of spite?

  Things between him and Julie had advanced so quickly over the past two weeks, he could barely keep up; before, they’d just been gun and shooter, but now they were locked in a very physical relationship with one another due to his Affinity delineation. But it felt cheap to explain what they had away as being just a product of his Augmentation’s powers. No, the passion he felt for Julie must be real, it was the first time he’d felt this way about someone or something, and that scared him.

  Andy pantomimed confronting his once-trusty revolver, pacing about his cell, shouting wildly and whispering softly. In one version, he told Julie that he didn’t need her anymore, that he had grown beyond what power she could lend him; in another, he apologised for neglecting her feelings, although he didn’t exactly know where he’d gone wrong. Women, eh.

  Still, the hours crawled by, and Andy hit a dead-end with his imagination. All that could give him closure would be speaking to her directly. Until then, Andy returned his attention to the jagged triangle of gold in his hand. He had been filing its edge on the floor to make an improvised dagger. It was a shoddy weapon compared to Julie, but filling it gave him something to do.

  Somewhere outside of his cell, the voices of his guards rose to a ruckus. He could smell their alcohol from his cell. He’d never needed a drink so badly in his life, something to squash his affliction and kill his boredom. As the sheen of daylight outside his cell settled in the black, so too did their voices until there was just the quiet of night. With nothing at all to distract him, other voices rose to the forefront of Andy’s mind. Some were gibberish, gargling moon-speak, like a choir of babbling babies, but others were sophisticated, philosophical. Andy could comprehend neither, but engaged with them for a lack of anything else to do. He chattered to himself, one voice amongst many, swimming in a pool of souls. Maybe that’s what they were: people he’d killed. Maybe, because he killed them, a little bit of their consciousness stuck with him, trapped inside his skull until the day he died. The more he theorised, the more it made sense to Andy… somewhat.

  “What do you think?” he asked the council of philosophical voices.

  Their self-indulgent response was so elaborate that the syllables of each elongated word bled into one another, forming strings of syllables without any meaning, yet with a tone that boasted grandeur, just a long maggot of vocal nonsense boering away into his brain.

  “I regret asking,” Andy said.

  Footsteps interrupted his thoughts, more real than the illusions, shoeing them away. Andy remembered having once being told that, so long as he could differentiate between the hallucinations and reality, he hadn’t gone completely insane. So at least there was that. Andy slid his golden dagger into his breast pocket and glowered through his fringe at the cell door.

  Clara’s face appeared between the bars. Andy’s chest swelled as his vision came into focus. “Are you alone?” he asked, rising and approaching the bars.

  “Yeah.” Clara was fiddling with the padlocks, inserting a key and bashing it. He’d seen her do it before on several occasions, most recently in a basement full of zombies. “We’re breaking out.”

  “Finally.”

  Clara got the first padlock off without a hitch and started working on the second.

  “What’s the layout like?” Andy asked.

  “Large compound. Four warehouses and a yard in the centre. Everything is made of gold. Don’t ask. It’s a big city, but mostly rubble. There’s a lake two-hundred metres away, and a road alongside it that leads out of the city.”

  “Vehicles?”

  “Motorbikes parked in groups. I know which one to take, found out whose was whose when Alister gave me a romantic tour of the lakeside.”

  “Ow-la-la. We going to have to hotwire it?”

  Clara wiggled her fingers, sparks sputtering out of their tips. “Got it covered.”

  “Look at you go,” Andy said. “Armoury?”

  “Sort of, yeah, one warehouse down. Our gear’s in there, but it’s not worth it.”

  “What isn’t?”

  The second padlock came off. Andy opened the gate and stepped into the corridor. He took a deep breath and stretched his limbs. It felt like he’d walked through a portal into another world.

  “It’s not worth going back for our gear,” Clara said. “We just need to keep quiet and leave stealthily.”

  Andy chortled. “Clara, I fully intended to kill everyone here.”

  “Don’t be stupid. We’re outnumbered, we need to escape.”

  “So they can track us down again?”

  Clara stopped at a doorway ahead of him and peeked around the corner.

  “They want us to join them, right?” Andy whispered. “Be their slaves, or something?”

  “They want to rule us,” Clara said. “Tell us where to go, what to do. Use us as pawns with perks, but I’m not interested.”

  Andy peered around the corner into a large room with a dustbin fire in the centre, and a large open doorway leading outside. The flames had died down, but the light they cast was enough that Andy could see three tarpaulin shelters, inside which men slumbered. A table built from rubble bore the evidence of a good night–cards, poker chips and several bottles of booze.

  “So we kill them. Now’s our chance,” Andy said.

  Clara shook her head. “I zapped those three with a neural shock, put a bit of extra juice into it. They should be out cold for the night. No point killing them. We only risk waking them up and causing a scene.”

  “Okay, them three last.” Andy stepped into the room, senses heightened in the dark. He inspected the bottles on the table, finding one half full of whiskey. Delighted, he gulped it down. “Oh fuck that hits the spot.”

  “This way,” Clara said, heading towards the wide open exit, outside of which was a bleak golden yard beneath the overcast night sky.

  Whipping his lips, Andy glanced at the three shelters. Could his nemesis be inside one? Drawing the tent flap back, Andy saw a man sprawled out amongst rags, sharing his bed with a bolt-action rifle. Andy slipped the rifle out and contemplated killing his captor, but between his dull golden blade, his teeth and the rifle, the kill would either be quick or quiet, but not both. Checking the chamber of the rifle, Andy took a moment to appreciate its weight, the grain of the wood stock and the resistance of the trigger. It was a good rifle, solid and simple, not many moving parts. A chamber, a hammer and a muzzle. Versatile and accurate.

  Clara had taken point behind the doors, watching outside for movements. She appeared to be unarmed, but with her new Augmented abilities, that shouldn’t be a problem.

  “The armoury,” Andy said, strolling outside. He could see well enough in the dark to know the yard was unoccupied.

  “That’s not necessary,” Clara hissed. “Knockoff’s motorbike is beside the lake. Gabriel is waiting for us. If we can avoid alerting Alister, we can get out here and be gone, take some time to regroup.”

  “Whoa whoa,” Andy protested. “Too many names. Knock-what? Gabriel, the computer kid?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’ve thought it all through.”

  Clara set off before he could argue. Together, they reached the outer wall of the second warehouse, lurking there for a moment to check they hadn’t been spotted.

  “Sis, when are we going to get an opportunity like this again? They’re sleeping. We just set some fires, put some bullets in their heads and grenades in their sleeping bags.”

  Clara pointedly ignored him, making a show of looking around, but Andy knew she was stalling for time, stuck on the prospect of what had to be done.

  “If you feel bad about murder,” Andy continued. “You know I’m your man. Just show me the armoury and cover my back. I’ll do the dirty.”

  “It’s too risky, there’s a lot of them.”

  “How many?”

  “Fourty or so in total, and two Augmented leaders.”

  “Huh,” Andy said. “But we should leave a message. Kill a bunch of them so they think twice about tracking us down.”

  “Well, then you’re adding revenge to the list of their motivations.”

  “And fear,” Andy said, then he snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it. We kill their leader–kill their strongest guy, the one who stole Julie away from me, right? Double Denim. I’ll stick a bullet in his face so when his boys think about tracking us down, all they’ll be able to imagine is a big fat exit wound out the back of his skull.”

  “Bloody hell, Andy,” Clara scoffed. “Keep it professional.”

  “I will do if you do.” Andy took a deep breath to control his anger. “You know the rules. No mercy, no exceptions.”

  Clara closed her eyes for a moment, chewing her lip. “Alister won’t quit. He’s fixated, obsessed.”

  Andy squeezed his little sister’s shoulder. “I’ll do it, just say the word.”

  Clara closed her eyes, leaning against the wall, head bowed. Andy nudged her in the ribs with his elbow. “Go on, you know I’m right.”

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Stop it.”

  “Go on.”

  “Owch,” she snarled. “That’s where I’m cut, arsehole.”

  “Oh, sorry.”

  Clara cursed under her breath. “Just Alister.” Her face contorted, lips pressed shut. “But only if there’s a clean shot. We don’t need a firefight, not now. We’re too heavily outgunned.”

  “Show me the armoury,” Andy said. “I’ll even the odds.”

  Clara’s eyes darted this way and that, biting her lip. “We have to play this right. We can’t fight them all. The priority is Alister.”

  “Too right it is,” Andy said, picturing the vile man with Julie in his hands.

  “Okay, this way.”

  Andy grinned to himself, following Clara across the yard, keeping to the shadows. Ahead, a silo stood before a mound of cleared sparkling rubble. Scaffolding climbed the walls like vines. Metal bars, like the ones over his cell, bolted the excavated doorway. Clara started working the locks while Andy kept watch. A flicker of light emanated from the reflective innards of a large warehouse at the front of the yard, about thirty metres away. Beyond that, a knee-high wall bordered a blank expanse–presumably, that was the lake which Clara had mentioned. The hum of chatter skipped towards Andy over the cracked, moss-pitted pavement. A man rounded the far warehouse’s corner, into the shadows of the yard, and leaned against the wall. He was too far away and likely too drunk to spot them in the night, but Andy drew a bead on him just in case, covering his head with the pin of his rifle’s ironsights.

  “Come on,” Clara murmured.

  “What’s the hold up?”

  “Lock’s rusty.” Clara bashed the key and juggled the clasp. Finally, it came free.

  “Hello?” The voice came from directly above them. Andy turned and aimed his rifle directly upwards to the roof of the silo. The bright light of a torch returned. “Who-”

  Andy fired and cocked the rifle before the torch smashed against the floor. There was a banging on the silo roof, which echoed throughout its innards.

  “Dammit,” Clara said.

  “Couldn’t be helped.”

  Clara huffed and bashed the second padlock and swung the bars open, ducking inside. Andy took cover in the doorway. Above them, a bell rang out. So there was a second man up there. Andy counted his ammo, weighing the rifle. Nine bullets.

  The man on the roof started shouting. Across the yard, people gathered in the shadows. Andy estimated the watchman’s position above him and fired into the roof. There was a crashing sound, and the yelling became screaming–he’d hit his target, but not killed the man, likely not enough penetration.

  “Here,” Clara said, tossing him a double barrel shotgun.

  “What’s this?” Andy said. “I want a rifle.”

  “Most of this shit needs repairs.” Clara threw open locker doors, darting around the table in the centre of the room. She slung a rucksack over her shoulders and checked the chamber of a 9mm pistol.

  “Is that it?”

  “Yeah,” Clara said, peering through the doorway. “Still want to fight an army?”

  “How much .308 do we have?”

  Clara pushed a box towards him. Most of the rounds inside were missing their caps, chalky with gunpowder, requiring reloading. “Aww.”

  Clara slapped a handful of shotgun cartridges into his hands. “Change of plans. We’ll hit Alister another time. Let’s bounce.”

  Outside, a group of ten or more people were running across the open yard towards them. They were shouting like a pack of dogs, but the watchman on the roof was too busy gritting his teeth and moaning to update them. As Clara and Andy excited the silo, the first snap of gunfire clipped the wall at his elbow, casting a flicker of golden sparks. It was like the first note of a homebound symphony, held for just a moment longer than was necessary, a teetering whistle and ping before the calamitous drop.

  Andy spun around, shouldering the rifle. His Augmentation’s combat enhancing hormones burst like a cherry on his tongue. It had been too long since shooting something had felt good. Dashes of light flickered their meteorite tails between the heads of his assailants, drawing lines of collision, where one well placed Ricochet Shot might kill three. Like waiting for a fish to bite, Andy held his breath and squeezed the trigger, then struck, launching a magic bullet into the night. Three men fell, one after another–the forerunner lost his head, the man behind him a heart, and the third man crumpled to the floor as his shin snapped in half.

  “Thwar, you’ve got some kick,” Andy said to the rifle.

  Clara dragged him around the edge of the silo by his belt as the militia returned fire. “Fire and move.”

  “Affirmative,” Andy said, mocking the formality in her tone.

  They sprinted through pathways amongst the indiscernible mounds of rubble, snaking towards the lakeside, leaving the calamity of injured men behind. If they relocated quickly, they’d still have half an element of stealth on their side. Andy could smell the fresh waters over the city’s metallic tang when a headlamp lit up the night. Clara dove into cover behind a row of crumbling miniature cars as the light cut through the ruins. Andy remained a few steps behind, peaking between the cracks towards the light. He recognised the heavily armoured vehicle parked some distance down the main lakeside road. The lights blinked as people moved in front of them, spreading out into the ruins and getting closer.

  “There,” Clara said, pointing at a cluster of motorbikes parked across the road. “I’ll start her up, cover me.”

  “Wait,” Andy said, aiming his rifle. There was a shape hiding amongst the bikes, close to where Clara pointed.

  “No,” she said, waving her arms. “That’s Gabriel, he’s coming with us.”

  “Right, sure.” Andy took her position by the edge of the road while Clara dashed over the open ground towards the bikes. The headlamps dazzled him somewhat, but squinting, he spotted five men jogging down the road towards them. Ricochet potential danced in his blurry lamp-spotted vision, too difficult to catch. He’d have to do things oldschool. Targeting the forerunner’s legs–a man dressed in a hooded coat–Andy drew on the aid of his Augmentation’s Enhanced Precision targeting systems and blew his kneecap apart. The man went down screaming–better for Andy than the silence a headshot brought–his rifle clattering across the street. His companions split, taking cover. One of them–a teenager with curly orange hair that soaked up the headlamp’s rays like a beacon–belly-flopped onto the pavement and hid behind the stock of his rifle like it was a shield. Andy chuckled, lining the boy’s skull up with his muzzle... But nah, the kid clearly wasn’t much of a threat, it was a waste of a shot, and he only had six left.

  The rev of an engine barked over the injured fellow. Their position was blown, but the gang was scattered, for now. Clara and Gabe wheeled a bike out of the back of the pack onto the road. Andy chose two of the four remaining assailants, locked onto their heads, and with Enhanced Precision, exposed their brains to the night’s air, replacing his spent rounds in the echoes of their final lamentations.

  “Andy,” Clara shouted, behind the isolated motorbike. “Covering fire.”

  Andy broke cover and crossed the distance between them while she emptied the 9mm’s magazine down the road. The bullets whistled past Andy and panged off the golden streets. Andy reached them, and aimed down the road while they mounted. Clara started the engine. It was a smooth operation–Andy had killed a bunch of them with ammo to spare. It wasn’t as gratifying an outcome as he’d hoped, but he knew when to stick on the cards he was dealt. He was about to take his eyes off the road when a figure caught his eye. A tall man in a thick jacket strode down the centre of the street, backlit by the battlewagon’s headlamps, cane in hand like a pimp. One more kill couldn’t hurt.

  “Clara,” the figure shouted. “Please tell me that isn’t you.”

  Andy squeezed the trigger, but a fraction later, his target flicked his wrist. Somehow, Andy had missed. No, that wasn’t possible, the man had deflected the shot. It was then that Andy noticed the man’s outfit–denim jacket and denim jeans, and brighter than anything else in the golden city, almost too brilliant to look at, the silver hammer of a revolver glittered in a holster at his side. Julie.

  Double Denim thrust his palm out, and a shockwave rushed through the thicket of motorbikes like a wave, demolishing them, reducing their cover to none. Andy crouched and leant into the wave, but beside him, Gabe didn’t have such a good time, crashing into their motorbike, almost knocking Clara off her feet.

  His sis jumped into action, the hot light of a thunderbolt condensing in her hands before launching it like a baseball. The light stretched away from her like a javelin, as fast as a tracer round, illuminating the golden road as it zapped towards Double Denim. It sparked upon impact, energy coursing through the ground at his feet, spreading through the golden ruins like a spark in a powder keg. However, he remained standing.

  “What?” Clara blurted.

  Double Denim flung his hand out as though he was tossing a rope. Something snatched Andy’s collar bone, then it pulled him off his feet. Crashing into the handlebars of an upturned motorbike, Andy clutched his chest, but there was no solid object attached to him. And yet, with another tug, he was pulled backwards over himself like a dog on a leash.

  “Last mag.” The hammer of Clara’s pistol clicked twice before her arm snapped back and the gun was flung from her hands. “The cane,” she shouted. “Now!”

  Andy rolled onto his knees and drew a bead on his target. At the same moment, Clara launched a thunderbolt down the street. The electricity doused Double Denim in sparks, once again dissipating, but for a moment, he was blinded.

  Andy squeezed the trigger. The bullet flew perfectly, not towards Double Denim’s face, where he might deflect it, but towards the cane, snapping it out of his hands. The coiled rod rattled to the pavement as another golden light blossomed behind Andy. Frantically, Double Denim darted to pick it up when a thunderbolt struck him in the chest. This time, Clara’s attack blasted him off his feet. Double Denim landed on his back, electricity dancing over his body as if someone had stuck jumper cables down his pants.

  Andy ran out into the road to get a clear shot on him to finish him off, but a volley of fire returned. A flush of heat coarse through Andy as his Evasive Fire protocol triggered. Skidding to his knees, bullets whizzed past his head. Andy fell to his stomach, aiming his rifle to finish the job, but somebody jumped over Double-D’s body and intercepted the shot. Andy the martyr in the back, surely penetrating his spine, surely hitting his target. But was it enough?

  Andy rolled into the cover of roadside rubble as bullets pinged off the golden roadside beside him. Cocking the rifle, he aimed again.

  “Let’s go,” Clara revved the engine.

  Groaning, Andy jumped up and onto the back of the bike behind Gabe. Clara throttled the engine. The acceleration almost flung Andy out of his seat. He wrapped his arms around Gabe’s waist, bolt-action rifle in the crook of his arm, the double barrel shotgun slung over his other shoulder. Behind them, the flash of headlamps cast their shadows across the ruins. Engines howled like wolves, revving like yipping dogs, exhilarated to chase their prey.

  Andy whooped. “I think we got him.”

  The bike bounced and wobbled, overloaded on the uneven road. There was riding bitch, and then there was sitting behind Gabe’s fat arse, barely holding on above the rear wheel cover while Clara accelerated to forty, fifty, sixty miles an hour on the rubble strewn streets. Andy’s teeth chattered as the base of his spine took the brunt of the force. Given the horrors they faced on a daily basis, dying in a motor vehicle accident wasn’t exactly how he’d envisioned going out.

  The road followed the lakeside, turning steadily and rising towards a mountain range. The crumbled remains of once large buildings narrowed their path. Clara broke to take a corner, but the wheels skidded against the road’s glimmering surface. At once, she and Andy leaned to the right, angling the bike into the turn. Gabe shrieked, shifting in his weight the other way. Andy would have slapped him if he could spare a hand. They cut across the corner with a fraction to spare. The rear wheel beneath Andy churned through rubble as Clara righted their trajectory. But the manoeuvre had cost them speed. With the three of them weighing the bike down, they’d need to get a good head start if they were going to outrun the wolves.

  The straightened onto a direct highway out of the city. Ahead, the terrain opened up. To their left, the golden sheen of the city ebbed and gave way to a more solid blackness of soil and foliage. Hills rose out of the landscape, dotted with sprawling forest. Beyond them, the shaggy peaks of wild crouching mountains held aloft the overcast night sky. The road ahead had a golden shine, but it was toned down, diminishing into the hills. Trees had broken through the cracks in the pavement. At a junction, Clara slowed the bike to a stop.

  “What’s up?” Andy said.

  “Get into the trees.” Clara hopped off the bike and ran back down the road. There, one last ruined building stood gleaming on the roadside before the emptiness of the hills. “Take position. We’ll ambush them here. Gabriel, get the bike off the road.”

  “Why are we stopping?” Gabe said, limping off the bike.

  “Andy was right. They’ll chase us, and we’re not as fast. We can’t keep running.” She clenched her fists, yellow light forming in the centre. “They won’t expect this, not so soon, not here. They’ll think we’ve fled.”

  “That’s more like it,” Andy said. “But erm, I’m running a bit low on ammo.”

  “Do what you can,” Clara said. “Target the battlewagons. I’ve got a plan for the bikes, but the wagons... You need to stop them before they reach us. Can you do that?”

  “Yeah,” Andy grinned. “They don’t know who they’re dealing with.”

  Clara’s face was grave. “They will soon.”

  “Yeah, I reckon so.”

  “As soon as I throw up a flare, get off the ground. Don’t get caught in the blast zone.”

  The air thrummed with engine howls and the battlewagon bellows as the pack of machines neared. Andy whistled. “That’s some last stand shit, right there.”

  “It’s not a last stand,” Clara said. “It’s a plan.”