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  Ninety seconds later, they exited the building and wound their way through the darkened compound. “Gotcha,” Tink said in the team channel. “Nearest roving patrol is on your nine and moving parallel to your path. They should… direction change!” There was a tense instant that a less prepared team might use to ready weapons, as it was the team simply halted, motionless in the dark.

  “Patrol’s coming up quick, left alley ahead.” There was no available cover on the narrow street, and no way to make it back to the nearest intersection behind them, so the team moved silently into the deeper shadows at the base of the wall on their left.

  “On you in three, two, one…” Tink’s voice halted as the patrol walked into the narrow dirt street less than twenty yards ahead of them. The six-person patrol was moving at an easy pace, professional enough not to engage in idle banter. From time to time, a flashlight beam lanced out to explore one of the night’s many pooling shadows.

  Motionless and barely breathing, Crow’s team waited as the patrol crossed the ten yards between the buildings ahead of them.

  Then, just as the patrol reached the alley at the corner of the far building, the light blazed out again, driving Crow’s previously hidden team’s shadows to the wall behind them and throwing them into stark relief. There was a sharp inhale from the man holding the light, the seed from which a shout would bloom, but before it could grow or even sprout, the sound of two wet cracks accompanied a spray of crimson aerosol around him and he crumpled to the ground with two of Tink’s shells through head and chest.

  The well-trained patrol scattered for cover before the body of their comrade had settled on the earth. They didn’t waste time looking for assailants or readying weapons—they focused on the vital business of getting to cover. Still, only two of the remaining five reached cover alive, and one of those came to rest in cover that still provided Tink a partial view. One round from the nearly silent magnetic sniper rifle on a collapsible bipod nearly two hundred yards away passed through his right ear.

  “One left. No shot.” Tink hissed through the comm.

  “Ash.” Crow whispered, gesturing quickly. He saw her nod, and then she was gone, silently sprinting across the street. “Shadow?”

  He was working quickly on his tablet. After a few seconds, he stopped, staring into the dim screen. “Nothing yet. I don’t think they got an alarm out.”

  “Come on.” Crow said, pressing to his feet. Together they moved toward the corner where Ash had disappeared seconds before.

  Around the corner and out of sight, Ash considered the last soldier from the perspective of her own pistol’s sights. She’d been easy to find; a trail of her blood was perceptible even against the dark earth on this moonless night. The trail was barely six yards long and terminated in the shivering soldier’s wounded pleading. The soldier’s compact assault gun lay useless two yards back along the wet trail. Her pistol was still in its holster. Both of her hands were outstretched and trembling in the attitude of a pleading surrender. In her right hand, she clutched a commlink, her thumb hovering over the call button.

  “We… we don’t have t’… do this,” The wounded soldier groaned through clenched teeth, “I won’t be… conscious that much longer. I don’t have to… push this button,” the hand with the commlink shook just a little more than the rest of her, “and you don’t have to make my… kids orphans. You don’t have to do…”

  The hard chuff of Ash’s silenced pistol filled the air between them briefly and Ash was left alone in the dark alley. The unused commlink fell from the soldier’s hand.

  Though duty, logic and long experience pulled Ash back toward her team, she remained with the fallen soldier, lowering her pistol and regarding the dead woman—afraid.

  Ash had lost something important, something she didn’t understand, or maybe just couldn’t quite remember. Still she could feel the hollow spot inside. She felt its phantom borders in the blood on the ground and in the aching tension in her throat. Logic told her that the mission would succeed, that Phoenix’s commanding lead on the leader boards would increase, that they’d get paid and get a bit more famous—that everything was provably fine. She knew that in this empty world, all that counted was her fidelity to the mission, all that mattered was her team. She knew it with a dogmatic certainty that the Clerics had worked so hard to instill in her. But with equal force, she knew that she was sick down deeper than any medtech could repair. The Hallowed World, or ‘the Hallow’, spread out around her, a sympathetic emptiness, resonating with the hole somewhere inside her ribs.

  She heard it before she felt it—a defocused exhale in the heavens, sliding toward her through the chill night air, the sound only partially hidden by the whisper of the shifting breeze. Then the sound of it was soft on the ground around her, sharper on the corrugated steel roofs of the surrounding buildings—rain. It fell across her motionless form, further darkening her grey/black digital camo BDUs, beading on the hard shell of her light armor.

  The fresh smell of the Amazonian rain filled her head and she breathed deep, savoring the sensation, the distraction. The only place she could feel the rain beyond a muted tapping on armor or clothes was on the exposed skin of her face, so she tilted her head to the sky and opened herself to the experience.

  The simple sensual intensity of being—well, not alive, but whatever the Hallow was—grounded her for a precious moment, draining away the hot tangle of undecipherable loss that burned through her.

  “Ash?” Crow asked from behind her, his voice gentle. Though he’d been silent, she’d felt him there, waiting. Still she didn’t move, except to lower her face to examine the pistol now resting on her open palm. It was a thing of familiar beauty, lines both utilitarian and elegant, its every curve and arc a harmony of lethal purpose. At least she knew what it was for.

  “Good to go, Ash?” Crow asked without the voice he wore for command.

  Her lips twitched, and for a moment she and Crow were laughing, watching television at Tink’s apartment. But here, at times like this, that world seemed a hazy fantasy. “I’m… I’m afraid.” She said.

  The mission clock ticked, the breeze shifted the falling rain about them, Crow spoke, and though his tone was light, his voice was soft, “You?” He smiled, widening his eyes a bit in faux surprise, “Here?”

  He blew out a short bemused laugh, “I’m pretty sure there’s nothing for any of us to fear here, Ash. You know there’s nobody else in the Hallow to fear or be feared.”

  Ash nodded, acknowledging his point, but the nod faltered and she again shook her head, her mouth set in a tight, wincing grin. She finally shrugged her shoulders, eyes searching his face, her mind not able to frame the cause, the type, or even the scope of her fear.

  Ash swept her eyes over him, finally coming to a rest on his face: deep as still waters; power frozen in focus; vulnerable eyes.

  Something stirred in her, something close to the missing part. A smile spread across her face. She held up the gun on her open palm, “I’m not the gun anymore.”

  The mission clock ticked, he smiled too, patient under pressure, “Not a gun, eh?” He put his hand to his chin, in a parody of contemplation, “That would explain the conspicuous lack of a magazine well or even a rudimentary safety…”

  She was hungry for distraction and game for a comeback, but the chirp interrupted them. She pursed her lips, “Lot of ground to cover in two minutes…”

  He nodded and keyed his comm, “I’ve got point. Ash has the rear. Tink, one more sweep, then burn it to the primary. Run it hard people.”

  Then they were moving and it was like old times. Swift as schooling sharks, they navigated the dark maze of buildings and shadow. Rotating zones of fire, one fearsome machine, they moved around corners and streaked across open spaces, running flat out. Without slowing, Crow snapped off a two-round burst and a shadowy figure exiting a low barracks fell. They ran past the barracks, but Ash had to twist back just long enough to drop two more soldiers who must have heard th
e muffled cracks of the shots or maybe they’d heard the first body fall.

  They tasted the illusion of blood on hard breath as the seconds passed in the consuming bliss of speed and focus. They sprinted across the final open space and Crow slammed headlong into the perimeter fence, bursting through the long vertical slash they’d cut in the fence when they’d initially breached the compound. The rest of the team plunged through the breach, across a small grassy buffer zone, and into the deeper black of the tropical jungle.

  They continued their prolonged sprint through wet foliage that beat at them like an older, angrier brother of the hard rain. They found the streambed and ran along it, boots impervious to its cool water. Two hundred yards, three, then they veered left across a rocky shore and into light brush.

  They heard the deep growling whisper of the craft’s engines just before they burst from the trees and into the shin-high grass of the clearing. The mottled black of the whispercraft blended its edges into the surrounding darkness, leaving its overall shape to imagination and memory. Like a thirty foot long grasshopper, it perched lightly on four retractable legs with most of its weight balanced on two powerful jets now angled down for landing and takeoff. The wash from the nearly silent jets battered the grass outward, away from both sides of the lowered troop ramp at the rear of the craft. Tink waited on the ramp, looking out of place without his sniper rifle. He held the mid-distance designated marksman rifle at the ready, his focused gaze sweeping the tree line.

  “You’re late.” He said, slinging the DMR over his shoulder as the three runners moved up the short ramp and into the muted darkness of the womb.

  Inside, the low red lighting seemed to enhance rather than resist the cramped darkness. As they moved further into the craft, the sound of the engines deepened into a low-pitched roar they felt more than heard. Behind them, the access ramp raised on hydraulic pistons, shutting out the jungle. Seconds later, the rumbling thrum of the engines deepened until it rattled through their teeth, then bones. The thrum moved yet deeper, and they were surrounded by the familiar strain and disorientation of liftoff. Even the exit from the Hallow was compelling.

  Ash struggled into her mission terminus and busied herself with the tasks of locking herself and her weapons in place. She ignored the burning, cramping pain from the overtaxed muscles in her legs and back; they would only last a moment longer. At a keyed instruction on a panel near her right hand, the pneumatic restraints slid around her, cradling her body in their firm embrace. The smooth metal and plastic of the umbilical slid into its home at the base of her skull and a familiar sputter of static quivered through all five senses.

  In less than thirty seconds, the engines subsided into an almost soothing rumble and she realized that she was avoiding him. Ash’s head was immobilized by the terminal’s restraints, but her eyes were locked on her knees. She could feel the weight of his stare, falling on her from his place directly across the small zebra-striped walkway between them.

  “We’re at liftoff plus two minutes. No sign of pursuit. Successful mission egress in fifty seconds.” The efficient voice of their cleric said from their helmet transceivers. “Nice work, Phoenix.”

  “Ash,” Crow said through the soothing throb of the engines, “look at me.”

  An instant of dread, and then she looked up and it happened again: a nearly jarring connection. Like a hidden current beneath the frozen surface of a deep river, something passed between them—maybe a glitch in the server or a data breach between the protocols governing their avatars. Though it was almost familiar now, neither of them understood what it might be—it felt like an opening between them, a gentle and inviting thinning of reality in the space between their locked eyes. It promised enlightenment, or perhaps a hesitant merging of purpose or identity, a connection burning through thought and muscle and bone that would open her eyes and her slumbering mind. She didn’t know tech stuff so she couldn’t explain it, but whatever it was, it was frightening and it was compelling—it was drawing them somewhere unknown with strange, half-understood promises.

  Whatever it was, it only happened in league play.

  Closer, closer; he was smiling, he was sad—they were smiling, they were sad… she strained at her restraints, trying to go to him, wanting to understand slightly more than she wanted to flee—then came the sparkle at the edge of their senses that always preceded the egress.

  “Mission complete. Amen and amen.” Their cleric pronounced, and the darkness fell like a hammer.

  The Hollow World

  Chicago, 2119: Vestibule of Purpose 8-D

  -- Victory is life!

  From holiness to consciousness,

  I return to life, bearing back purpose

  In grateful arms

  -- Victory is life!

  From the Hallowed World,

  I return to life, having born my charge

  With faith and discipline

  -- Victory is life!

  I return to life, from raised sword to bended knee

  I return to life

  Clarified and grateful

  -- Then wake child. Wake and live!

  - The League Catechisms: Benediction

  First, the sickness: a distant nausea that expanded to fill her, replacing the thousand subtle senses of the Hallow with a single, primal malaise that less filled her body than floated like a dim, vaguely body-shaped cloud around her spirit. The shifting tingle of damaged nerves, the new deadness in nose and mouth that replaced the textured tastes and scents of the Hallow—even the bright static of the broken interface faded and only the brown/gray dimness of reality came to replace it.

  Then, the music: though she had just noticed it, it had not just begun. Martial, bright, but diminished by crackling tinny speakers. It occurred to her that she wasn’t sure that this music ever stopped in the confines of this room. Like the light in a refrigerator, it was always playing when she opened the door to enter. It was playing as she left this hollow world for the Hallow. It was playing when she arrived again in the Hollow, in this room and body; it would still be playing when she stumbled back out the door. She imagined that the Clerics might think this music was rousing, and sometimes in the giddy anticipation before a mission, she had to admit it might be. But after the high of the Hallow, as she woke into the hangover that was life in the Hollow, it made her want to cry herself to sleep. But she knew that could never happen, that both tears and sleep were things she would never know, just two more things stolen long ago from her— from the world—by the Palsy.

  When at last Ash could hold her dim and blinking eyes open for more than a few seconds, she looked about and found herself empty and alone in the embrace of the ancient machine and its underwhelming speakers. A small sob escaped her lips as she woke from the dream of vibrant life and purpose into the slow death of pointless reality.

  Time passed and she sat up, trailing wire behind her. “Copper,” she mumbled, thinking of the phantom taste in her mouth and the feel of her numb, unresponsive fingers. She closed her eyes and faltered through the task of disconnecting herself from the womb.

  “Victory is Life!” the Cleric’s empty voice spoke over the martial music, his voice sounding smaller through the unimpressive speakers.

  “From holiness to consciousness, I return to life, bearing back purpose in grateful arms.” Ash lied.

  “Victory is life!” the Cleric said, slightly louder, as they always did with each repetition. Like the music, Ash was pretty sure the increasing volume of the catechism was also meant to inspire.

  “From the Hallowed World,” Ash droned after a deep breath, “I return to life, having born my charge with faith and discipline.”

  “Victory is life!” the Cleric said with more volume and faux emotion.

  There was a defocused ache at the top of Ash’s throat and she again saw the doomed guard’s pleading face and shaking hands. “I return to life, from raised sword to bended knee.” After a few seconds of debilitating sadness she could neither understand
nor remedy, Ash finally finished, “I return to life, clarified and grateful.”

  “Then wake child. Wake and live!” the Cleric paused, “Debrief in twenty. Post-Op three. Nice work Ash.”

  “Nice.” Ash muttered, trying to stand. She fell back to the hard bed of the womb interface and spent a few seconds staring at her emaciated legs, trying to gauge how long it would be before she needed a wheelchair like Tink’s. Maybe a few more years, she thought, maybe a few more months. She took a deep breath and tried again.

  She made it to her feet, pressing up with her legs and pulling on the stainless steel handrail directly above the womb. As she transferred her weight to the railing on the wall to her right, her knees buckled. She stayed on her feet, but only by leaning in, hands on the rail and head pressed into the wall. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to focus on staying vertical.

  It would be a while before she could work the inactivity of the Hallow out of her muscles and joints, but the next few minutes would be the worst. The mind needed time to remember how to best use muscles made of more than algorithms and imagination, especially when those muscles and the nerves that drove them were ravaged by a debilitating disease.

  Still gritting her teeth against the nausea and the wiggling in her bones, she raised her head and regarded the room. Small and cold, defocused but unfortunately becoming clearer as her eyes adjusted, the room felt smaller than the small couch of the womb. With a wry grin, it occurred to Ash that the dead world outside this small room seemed even smaller. She could almost imagine herself between two funhouse mirrors, looking at her reflection dwindling away to infinity. The first reflection was the Hallow, where she stood, tall and strong in her armor, walking without fear or uncertainty. Behind that first reflection was the ever diminishing vistas of the Hollow. The second, smaller reflection was the womb, where she lay straddling both worlds; behind that, this transition room, the hallway, the post-op debriefing room. Then, finally, the mostly desiccated husk of Chicago outside, the smallest, most distant reflection, shrouded in darkness and distance.