The gun barrel swayed back and forth, splitting into two unsteady duplicates, now three. Evan’s mental fortitude detached.

  The soldier’s words were a muffled array of gibberish.

  Evan closed his eyes and accepted his fate.

  Bang!

  Evan twisted, his eyes open, the gunshot a fate for someone else. The Governor had wrestled a weapon from the soldier next to him, who lay bleeding on the ground. The soldier whose gun had been directed at Evan, flicked the barrel at the Governor. Evan lurched forward and tackled the soldier back, his stature and weak condition could only push him so far, but it was enough to throw the soldier’s aim off. Gunfire racketed the roof. The two soldiers next to Blink dropped to the ground with a sputter of blood as the Governor shot them with the stolen rifle.

  Evan grappled the soldier in front of him, clutching the man’s weapon. The black frame collapsed into itself as Evan clasped his hands through it with his powers.

  Kak!

  A bullet crunched through the last soldier’s visor, felling him to the ground, dead.

  Evan stumbled backward, the Governor slouched across the room dropping the rifle, and cupping his torn cheek. He reached his other hand out to Evan.

  Ignoring his reach, Evan stared at the Governor, sickness in his gut. “Why did you do this?”

  “Like I said, I refuse to watch my son be butchered.” He made his way for the door.

  Evan relented. He didn’t understand his father, and he wouldn’t try. Instead, he ran to Blink and worked on unhooking her from the machine.

  The Governor said, “We have to leave-”

  Evan cut his father’s words off. “I won’t sacrifice the people I care about, not even to save myself. If she dies, I die.” He did not turn to the Governor, focusing only on freeing his companion.

  “Very well.” The Governor sighed. “It seems we are out of time, son.”

  A hydraulic beat hissed from outside of the room. It was a familiar snake-like sting that sent chills throughout Evan’s spine.

  Another rhythm followed this one, a squeal that ramped up-tempo. Evan’s mind flashed back to the sewers in Dogma Isle. Bullets, fire, blood. He pulled Blink from the chair, her eyes lethargic from the sedation.

  The wall ripped open in a spree of holes as bullet fire shunted through. Evan dove to the floor with himself wrapped around Blink. The chairs burst into pieces, the computer screens shattered, and bullets zipped into the Governor’s body. One. Two. Three. The man bent over backward until his head hit the floor. Something ripped into Evan’s shoulder, sending fiery pain throughout his nerves. He cried out in agony, but still he dedicated his body to shielding Blink’s.

  The gunfire ceased. Light rays pierced through the holes in the wall. A voice rumbled from beyond it.

  “Governor Hendricks, due to your murder of Federation personal, cooperation with terrorists, and confession of concealing an Afflicted’s identity, execution is marked as sufficient punishment for your breach of law.” He paused for a moment. “I can see your breathing,” Joseph Krow growled, “make it easy and scurry out here like the pests you are.”

  The Governor lay next to Evan, gurgling. His eyes fell to him. He pointed a bloody finger to the back of his head and mouthed the word, “Machine.”

  The wall crumbled as Krow’s thick armor broke through it. He towered over Evan and grinned with his menacing teeth. “The end.”

  Evan sucked in a deep breath. If this was the end, he wouldn’t fear it. With confidence, he stared into the twisting amber eyes of the purifier, those calculating things, defiant to the end.

  “The machine!” The Governor yelled.

  Krow twisted to him and raised the barrel of his wrist machine gun. Evan saw it, what the Governor had meant, a panel embedded in the back of the purifier’s head. Krow’s augmented brain.

  Evan shot his arm out, as if he was grasping the panel between his fingers. It dented and crumpled with the squeezing of his hand. The halo above Krow’s head materialized into a helmet. But the damage had been done. Krow’s head jittered as if he were a broken animatronic creature.

  An automated voice broadcasted from his armor. “Initializing neurological failsafe.” The twitching stopped, and the behemoth raised his gauntlet to Evan, igniting with blue energy.

  Radiant light took up Evan, and he appeared in the hallway behind Krow.

  Blink jumped up. “Come on!”

  Evan snagged onto something. It was the Governor’s hand; he must have grabbed onto Evan just as Blink was teleporting them away. Evan yanked himself away from his father’s grasp.

  Krow’s thick frame twisted to them.

  “Come on, Evan!” Blink reached out for him.

  The temptation to leave his father wasn’t lost on Evan, but he couldn’t abandon the man, not like this, not to the fate of the butcher. He grabbed both the Governor and Blink, and they were taken up in a blur of light. They smacked against a wall as they reappeared in a hallway. He dropped his hands to the Governor’s chest and did his best to close the bullet wounds with his power. The flesh knitted together well enough, but Evan knew he’d still be dealing with internal bleeding from whatever damage the bullets had caused to him. Why he was trying to save his f– the Governor – he’d have to figure out later.

  “We need to find Vihn,” Blink said. She helped Evan lift the Governor. She was already sweating. If they weren’t careful about teleporting, something might not make it one hundred percent intact.

  The Governor croaked, “He’s… in a similar room.”

  “Where?” Evan asked.

  The Governor pointed a shaking finger down the hall, back the same direction they had come from, where Krow blocked their path. Fortunately, he hadn’t seen them yet, his hulking mass shifting like a reanimated corpse.

  Blink went for Evan’s hand again.

  “Wait,” he pulled them into a side corridor. “You only have so many charges. We have to take turns using our powers if we’re going to have enough stamina to get out of here.”

  “What’s your plan, then?”

  He handed the Governor over to her. “I’ll go for Vihn. If anything happens, you get out of here.”

  “Evan…”

  He embraced her, and she squeezed him back. “I’m going to be ok. We have to take turns saving each other, ok?” He pulled away.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  She nodded.

  “Thank you.” He turned to a wall and pressed his hand against it. He still didn’t fully understand his powers, but what he did know was that heightened emotion amplified it, and he could stay conscious longer and regain his stamina quicker having practiced more. Some weight was lifted off him that had held him down. Maybe, it was because he realized the truth of who he was now. He was a defender. The man he thought was his hero was his villain. The man he thought was his villain, was just a pawn. Evan was no game piece; he was the player.

  The wall burst open. He sprinted through it. There was another wall. He thrust his fist forward, busting through the barrier like it was paper. Another wall, another punch thrown, and another pathway opened. What was in the room didn’t matter. He was through the next wall before any soldiers or crew could react.

  Then he found him. Wires and computers snapped as Evan burst into the room where Vihn was strapped to a chair, with a similar VR headset and collar.

  Evan removed these things, but his adrenaline was fading. A surge of exhaustion hit him, and he dropped back against a cabinet and slid to the floor, his legs too weak to hold him up.

  Vihn twitched his head side to side, as if trying to break from his slumber. Finally, he blinked his eyes open and looked at Evan. “Kid?”

  “Hey.” His vision was fading, it’d be so easy to sleep there on the flat tiling.

  “Hold on.” Vihn dropped from his chair, sticking his fingers to the back of his throat. The contents came up, including a very unfortunate looking couple of flowers. His eyes glowed as he placed one of them on his stump. It exploded into vines that formed an arm. He took the other flower and pressed it against Evan’s chest.

  “Oh, man, that was in your stomach?”

  Vihn huffed. “Well, when you were busy getting us all captured – again –I had to think quick. Now shut up.”

  The flower split into a bunch of tendrils that wrapped around Evan and glowed. He felt himself revive as the chemicals from the plant passed through his skin.

  Now on the side of consciousness again, Evan pushed himself off the floor. The plant shriveled away. “Gah, man.”

  “Watch out!” Vihn shoved Evan back to the ground as a burst of blue energy erupted from the wall behind him. Shrapnel and glass showered the room. In place of the wall was the purifier himself.

  “We need to get to Blink!” Evan shouted.

  “Hold on.” Vihn shot the tips of his vines into his feet. He let out a guttural cry as the impact sent blood out of his boot.

  Boom.

  The ship buckled with the rupture of some obscene explosion, dropping Vihn to the ground, and stumbling Krow.

  “What was that?” Evan rushed to help Vihn up.

  The rebel severed a part of his vines and wrapped them around his foot. “While you and Ms. Positive were getting captured, I had time to set up a few explosives. Hid the detonator in my foot and downed some plants too before they captured me.”

  Evan blew up the back wall and ran through the opening with Vihn. “But why did you have to stab your foot to detonate it?”

  Vihn frowned. “It was in my foot. I cut a whole, slipped it in, healed it up. Stop asking questions, let’s go.”

  Alarms blared throughout the ship, followed by spinning lights.

  “Hull breach. Engines critical. Prepare for listing. All crew, make for life rafts.”

  “Dang, Vihn,” Evan said.

  Vihn whistled. “Yeah, that worked out better than I planned.”

  They hobbled down the hallways toward Blink.

  More explosions blasted the walls and rafters around them. It was fortunate that there were so many obstacles to block Krow’s fire. Still, the purifier persisted – shattering wall after wall.

  The ship groaned at the destruction.

  Evan grabbed the back of his head. “Krow’s going to bring the whole thing down!”

  “This is his last desperate attempt to stop us,” Vihn said.

  Blink slid out from a door and waved the two of them over to her. They grouped up in this small control room. The Governor was propped against some consoles, barely breathing.

  Blink smiled. “I was able to use the tech here to reach Rowic. Phoenix One will be here with Addy any moment, we just need to–”

  Vihn whipped his tentacles around the Governor’s neck, constricting, squeezing the little life he had left.

  Evan shoved Vihn to the ground, but the vines held their grip.

  “Stop!” Evan shouted.

  “He killed them, Evan. He killed them all.”

  “I know! I know.”

  Vihn faced him, the Governor still choking. “Then kill him. This is why we came here. He killed your friends. He orchestrated it all. He’s the enemy!”

  “He’s our best chance to stop the Federation, he knows everything,” Evan argued.

  But still, the rebel did not relent.

  Evan grabbed Vihn’s vines, bursting them into green mist.

  Fury filled Vihn’s eyes. He grabbed Evan’s neck with his hand, the grip siphoning the air from Evan’s lungs. “You…”

  Blink kicked Vihn in the face. His hand dropped and Evan slid away, helped up by Blink.

  Vihn wiped blood away from his nose. “What have you done?”

  “Killing the Governor won’t bring anyone back,” Evan said.

  “Screw you, kid. You think I don’t get that? I don’t want them back, I want to avenge them,” he spat. “As long as there’s someone like him living, they’ll keep coming. It’s us or them.”

  Evan squared his shoulders. “No. As long as we keep trying to kill them, they’ll keep trying to kill us. It’s a cycle, Vihn. They kill you, you kill them, and it repeats. You can’t exterminate a people – you can’t even exterminate an idea. All you can do is try and save the people you love. Outlast the enemy; beat them by removing the fragile supports that they’ve built beneath it all. Right now, we’re going to outlast them. We’re done here. It’s over. We’re leaving here alive, and we’ll hit them again when it’s time.”

  “Jeck was right, you are a fool.” Vihn grabbed a desk and pulled himself up.

  “He’s right…” the Governor coughed. “Krow will never show you mercy.”

  “Don’t talk to me about mercy. You’re no better than Krow, you just pretend you are. I’m not saving you because I’ve let go. I’m saving you because I’ve been a killer too. It’s time to end this cycle, and you are going to help make up for what you’ve done,” Evan said.

  His father slumped.

  “I won’t murder people out of fear, or anger, or vengeance. But that doesn’t mean I won’t protect my family if they comes for them. That is Krow’s choice. Mine, is get us out of here before we all die.”

  “Internal gravity malfunction.”

  The ground shifted suddenly, titling up. Again, Evan slid to the ground with the rest of the group as the floor took on a steep angle. The four of them were dumped from the room into a hallway and smacked flat against a wall.

  “Gah!” Evan shouted.

  Blink stretched her limbs over them all. “The ship’s on its side, we gotta go.”

  “Wait,” he studied her eyes. “Are you sure about this?”

  “Yep!”

  They teleported in a flash of light.

  Air rushed out like a great torrent and sucked the four of them toward a gaping maw in the side of the ship. Fire coughed out from machinery to the right of them, and they bashed against the ship’s hull.

  “This is where I set the bombs!” Vihn shouted to them, the moaning of wind and fire drowning his voice.

  Forests and rivers stretched out far below them, slowly growing closer as the ship lost elevation.

  “Addy.” Blink pointed to the ship as it skimmed below them, like a sparrow gliding across the air. They could make it with a few teleports.

  Evan looked at her. She seemed relatively ok, but he could tell by her rapid breathing that she might not have enough in her for the jumps. In fact, all three of them were spent. Which is why Krow’s appearance crushed Evan’s morale.

  Evan, Vihn, Blink, and the Governor lay near the gaping hole, big enough for all of them to fit through. A little distance from them was a boxy room where Krow stood like a statue on a great pedestal. His feet had appendages that crunched the metal beneath them. As the ship listed and Evan’s crew slid further down, Krow stayed in place – a spider observing the flies caught in its web. One of his eyes flickered from amber to black, while the other zoomed and rotated on its own. Whatever Evan had done to him had been enough to disrupt Krow’s augmented functions.

  “Bugs… on a win… dow,” Krow said with twitching lips. He powered up his fist and fired a blast at the group, connecting just above their heads and ripping through the metal they lay on.

  A great grasp of air swept Blink, Vihn, and the Governor out into the open sky. Evan’s heart dropped – caught safely as he saw Blink teleport to Vihn and the Governor, and then away – hopefully to Ad Astra below.

  This was his moment. Evan threw himself through the hole. He should have fallen like the rest of his team had. But he didn’t. The ship jolted just as he tried to move, sending him back from the hole.

  Krow peered down at him from his perch, the barrel of his wrist gun directed to Evan’s head.

  Evan threw out his hand, trying to rip apart the purifier’s armor with his powers. The armor’s bond was strong, masterfully woven together, and Evan’s will had been spent.

  “Purify.”

  The barrel ignited. Bullets flew.

  Evan screamed, flicking his hands at the machinery to the left of Krow. It exploded in a great ball of fire, ripping away the wall Evan lay on. He flipped into the open sky. The ship was above him now, its side erupting again with a greater explosion of smoke plumes and mushrooms of fire.

  Something else dropped from that ship.

  Free falling.

  A man.

  A machine.

  A purifier.

  Plummeting like a meteor, down, faster than Evan, dragged by the weight of his armor. Joseph Krow crashed through dirt and rock, cratering the surface of the Earth.

  Evan continued to fall, through the free air, away from the detonating ship, closer to his death. Light faded, but Evan focused on the crater as his breath seeped away, his mind strung out. If there was one thing he needed to see, one thing he need to know… Was it over?

  Down,

  Down,

  Down,

  In a crater of dirt, his pieces stain,

  Chest,

  Arm,

  Face,

  Many splintered red parts; Joseph Krow’s brain.