Motor oil, cheap whiskey, and stale cigarette smoke clung to his leather cut like a second skin. He was a patched Hell’s Angel, a man wired for brutality and cracked knuckles, but the tiny blind girl gripping his heavy boots was his only religion. Then, a street rat changed everything. Gasoline fumes mixed with the smell of scorched desert asphalt.
It was the kind of dry, suffocating heat that made the inside of your nose crack. Joel leaned against the scarred gas tank of his Harley-Davidson Panhead, a lit cigarette hanging from his lower lip. Sweat pooled in the collar of his faded T-shirt, right beneath the heavy leather vest that bore the winged death’s head.
The patch meant everything to the men inside the corrugated steel clubhouse behind him. It meant loyalty, blood, and a total disregard for the laws of a society that had already spat them out. But out here, standing in the gravel parking lot, it was just thick, hot animal hide pressing against his shoulders. Maisie sat on the motorcycle seat.
Her small hands, stained with chalk dust from the driveway, ran frantically over the chrome handlebars, mapping the cold metal. She was 7 years old. She wore a faded denim jacket too big for her narrow frame, and a pair of pink Converse sneakers that had never once chased a ball.
Her eyes were milky and unmoving, the color of dishwater left in the sink overnight. They were useless things. They only served to make civilians at the grocery store uncomfortable. “Daddy,” she said. Her voice was thin, almost swallowed by the low, vibrating idle of Riggs’s chopper firing up near the chain-link fence. Joel didn’t answer right away.
He took a drag of his cigarette, feeling the harsh burn in his lungs. He looked at her. The world was a miserable, grinding machine of a place. He had broken men’s jaws over unpaid debts. He had spent nights in county cells where the walls smelled like vomit and despair. Yet, here was this fragile, bird-boned creature that had come from him.
It felt like a sick joke the universe was playing. He flicked the cigarette butt into the dirt and crushed it beneath his steel-toed boot. “Yeah, Maybug, I’m right here.” He said, his voice a low, gravelly rumble. He reached out and wrapped his massive, calloused hand over hers. His knuckles were permanently scarred, the skin thick and discolored.
Her fingers felt like twigs under his. “The engine is hot.” She observed. She didn’t smile. She rarely did. Mayzie processed the world with a solemn, clinical precision. Without sight, she had built a map of reality out of vibrations, temperatures, and smells. “Been sitting in the sun.” Joel said. He unhooked his helmet from the bar.
It was scratched, matte black. “Time to get some grub. You want pie?” Mayzie tilted her head. Her blind eyes stared blankly toward his chest. “Cherry pie, with the crust that flakes. Not the soggy one from the place with the screaming man.” Joel exhaled a harsh breath through his nose. The place with the screaming man was a diner two towns over where a meth addict had lost his mind in the booth next to them a month ago.
Joel had dragged the guy out by his hair, leaving a trail of blood on the linoleum. Mayzie hadn’t seen it, but she had heard the wet thud of bone against the pavement. She had smelled the copper. She remembered everything. “Right.” Joel muttered. “Not that place. The one on highway nine.” He lifted her under her armpits. She was too light.
He hated how light she was. He settled her in front of him on the saddle, framing her small body with his thick, tattooed arms as he grabbed the handlebars. He kicked the starter. The panhead roared to life, a deafening mechanical scream that vibrated right through the bone marrow. Mayzie didn’t flinch.
She leaned back against his chest, her small hands gripping his forearms. The ride was a blur of wind and engine noise. Joel hated the open road when Mayzie was with him. The romance of the ride was All he saw were distracted drivers and SUVs, gravel patches that could wash a tire out, and guardrails that looked like meat slicers.
His muscles were locked in a constant aching state of vigilance. He rode defensively, aggressively, daring any minivan to drift into his lane. The wind whipped her blonde hair into his face. It smelled like cheap baby shampoo. 20 minutes later, they pulled into the gravel lot of a roadside diner. The neon sign above the roof buzzed with a dying electrical hum.
The E in diner flickered, emitting a high-pitched whine. Joel killed the engine. The sudden silence was heavy. He swung off, pulling Maisie down with him. “Smells like bleach and burnt onions,” Maisie noted, adjusting her denim jacket. She reached out, her fingers finding the heavy fabric of Joel’s jeans. She grabbed his belt loop.
It was their system. No white canes, no guide dogs, just Joel’s heavy, plodding steps. “Spot on,” Joel said, limping slightly. His left knee was a mess of surgical steel from a wreck back in ’19. They walked through the glass doors. The bell jingled a cheerful tinny sound that felt entirely out of place. The diner was mostly empty.
A few truckers hunched over their coffees like gargoyles. The waitress, an older woman with tired eyes and a name tag that read Brenda, gave Joel’s patched vest a nervous, sidelong glance before forcing a tight smile at Maisie. Joel guided Maisie to a booth in the back corner. He always sat facing the door. Always.
It was a habit bred from paranoia and survival. He slid into the vinyl booth. It sighed loudly under his weight. Maisie slid in beside him, her hands immediately patting the table, mapping her territory. Salt shaker, pepper shaker, sticky patch of spilled syrup, napkin dispenser. “You want water, May?” he asked. She froze.
Her head snapped toward the window beside their booth. The glass was grimy, looking out into the alley behind the diner, where the dumpsters sat baking in the heat. “There’s someone out there.” she whispered. Joel glanced out the window. Nothing but a rusted green dumpster and a pile of broken wooden pallets.
“Just a stray dog, maybe.” Joel said, opening the laminated menu. “You want a burger before the pie?” Maisie shook her head. Her brow furrowed. “Not a dog. A heartbeat. Fast. Like a bird.” She pressed her small hand flat against the glass of the window. “And dragging something heavy. Canvas on gravel.” Joel’s jaw tightened.
He trusted Maisie’s ears more than his own eyes. He dropped the menu. “Stay put.” Joel stepped out the back door of the diner. The alley smelled like rotting lettuce, sour milk, and hot rust. A swarm of fat, iridescent green flies buzzed furiously around the rim of the overflowing dumpster. He rested his hand on the heavy buck knife clipped to his pocket.
He didn’t draw it, but he liked knowing it was there. “Hey!” Joel barked. His voice echoed off the brick walls. A shadow darted behind the pile of broken pallets. The scrape of canvas on gravel. Maisie had been right. Joel stepped forward, his heavy boots crunching loudly. “I ain’t playing hide and seek. Come out or I drag you out.
” Silence. Then, a ragged cough. Slowly, a figure edged out from behind the wood. It wasn’t a grown man looking to jump a biker for pill money. It was a kid, maybe 14, maybe 15. He was rail thin, swimming in a filthy, oversized gray hoodie that looked stiff with dried dirt and sweat. His jeans were torn at the knees, revealing scabbed, unwashed skin.
He had a mop of greasy brown hair and wild dark eyes that darted around the alley like a cornered animal calculating its death. Clutched tightly to his chest was a heavy olive green military surplus backpack. The canvas was frayed. Joel relaxed his grip on the knife, but his irritation spiked. Just a homeless rat scavenging for half-eaten fries.
“Get lost, kid.” Joel sneered, waving a heavily tattooed arm toward the street. “Before the kitchen staff comes out and beats you with a mop handle.” The boy didn’t move. He stood frozen, his knuckles white as he gripped the straps of the backpack. He stared at the Hells Angels patch on Joel’s chest, but it didn’t seem to register.
The kid was terrified, but he wasn’t looking at Joel like he was a threat. He was looking at Joel like he was a roadblock. “I ain’t doing nothing.” The boy mumbled. His voice was cracked, raw from disuse and dehydration. He smelled awful, a sharp, pungent mix of stale sweat, urine, and copper. “You’re trespassing. Beat it.
” Joel turned his back, ready to head inside. He had a blind daughter waiting in a booth, and he didn’t have the patience for street urchins. “I need food.” The boy’s voice was slightly louder this time, desperate. Joel stopped. He turned his head, spitting a wad of saliva onto the asphalt. “Go beg at the church off Main Street.
” Before the boy could answer, the heavy metal door of the diner creaked open. Joel cursed under his breath. Maisie stood in the doorway. She held her hands out slightly, feeling the shift in air pressure. “Maisie, I told you to stay in the booth.” Joel snapped, stepping toward her to block her view, even though she didn’t have one. “I heard talking.” she said softly.
She turned her face toward the boy. “Who is it, Daddy?” The boy took a step back, his eyes wide as he looked at Maisie. He noticed her milky eyes. He noticed the way she stood, perfectly still, head tilted, listening to the dust settle. “Nobody. Just a scavenger. We’re going inside.” Joel said, reaching for her shoulder.
Maisie stepped out of his reach. She walked forward, her sneakers scuffing the concrete. She didn’t trip. She walked straight toward the boy. Joel felt a spike of pure adrenalized panic. He lunged, grabbing her arm. “Maisie, stop.” “He’s scared, Daddy.” Maisie said. She didn’t struggle against Joel’s grip, but she didn’t step back, either.
“His breathing is jagged. Like when you wake up from a bad dream.” She raised her chin, addressing the empty air a foot to the left of the boy. “Are you hungry?” The boy stared at her. He swallowed hard. “Yeah.” Joel glared at the kid. He wanted to throw him against the brick wall and tell him to run.
He hated the filth of the world touching his daughter, but Maisie was stubborn. She had a strange, terrifying empathy that Joel couldn’t comprehend. “Fine.” Joel growled. He looked at the boy. “You want food? You sit on the curb. I’ll bring you a burger. But if you come inside, or if you ever come near my kid again, I’ll break both your legs.
We clear?” The boy nodded quickly, sinking down onto the curb beside the dumpster. He kept the heavy canvas bag clutched tightly to his chest. Joel guided Maisie back inside. They ordered. Joel paid Brenda an extra 20 to put a double cheeseburger and fries in a to-go box. When he walked back out to the alley, the boy was still there.
Joel tossed the Styrofoam box. It landed with a soft thud on the pavement near the boy’s feet. “There. Now disappear.” The boy scrambled for the box, tearing it open. He didn’t eat like a human. He ate like a starving dog, shoving handfuls of fries and greasy meat into his mouth, barely chewing. Joel watched him with a mixture of disgust and pity.
He turned to leave. “Wait.” the boy choked out, spraying crumbs. He swallowed hard, pounding his fist against his chest to clear his throat. Joel paused, looking over his shoulder. “What?” The boy wiped his greasy mouth with the back of his filthy sleeve. He looked at the diner door, then back at Joel. “Your your little girl, she’s blind.
” “Observant.” Joel said coldly. “Keep her out of your mouth.” “I I have something.” the boy stammered. He pulled the heavy canvas bag into his lap. His dirty, shaking fingers fumbled with the rusted brass zipper. “I found it up north in the dumpsters behind that big glass building, the medical tech place, the one with the security fences.
” Joel turned fully around now. He crossed his arms over his leather vest. “I don’t buy stolen junk, kid. I ain’t a pawn shop.” “I didn’t steal it. It was in the trash, the red bins, the biohazard ones.” the boy insisted, his voice rising in panic. “It’s broken, I think, but it hums. It does something.” “I don’t care.
Throw it back in the garbage where you found it.” The boy unzipped the bag completely. He reached inside. Joel tensed, his hand dropping instinctually to his pocketknife again. You never knew with street kids. Could be a gun. Could be a dirty syringe. But it wasn’t a weapon. The boy pulled out an object that looked like it had been violently ripped from a science fiction nightmare.
Joel stared at the object in the boy’s grime-caked hands. It was heavy, evident by the way the kid’s wrist strained under its weight. It looked like a brutal, unfinished prototype of a headset. The main chassis was constructed from matte black, high-impact medical plastic, but large sections of the casing were missing, exposing a dense, chaotic nest of microwiring and green circuit boards.
Two thick, heavy goggles protruded from the front, but there was no glass in them. Instead, the eye sockets were filled with dozens of tiny, metallic pins, like a bed of nails, surrounded by copper coils. Thick, braided cables ran from the back of the headset into a heavy, rectangular battery pack that looked like it had been ripped out of a defibrillator.
It didn’t look like a cure. It looked like an instrument of torture. “Put that away,” Joel ordered, his voice dropping an octave, taking on the dangerous edge he usually reserved for rival clubs, “before I make you swallow it.” “You don’t understand,” the boy pleaded, struggling to hold the heavy device. “I put it on by accident, just messing around.
I pushed the button on the battery.” “I don’t give a damn what it does,” Joel snapped, taking a threatening step forward. “It’s garbage. You’re trying to hustle a biker out of a $20 bill with some broken tech trash.” The dinette door banged open. Joel spun around. Maisie was standing there again. She shouldn’t have been able to open the heavy metal door by herself, but she had dragged a busboy’s mop bucket over to wedge it open.
“Maisie, what the hell did I say?” Joel roared. He was losing control of the situation, and it terrified him. But Maisie wasn’t paying attention to him. She stepped out into the alley. Her head was tilted, her sightless eyes wide. She was walking slowly, deliberately, toward the homeless boy, or rather, toward the object in his hands.
“It’s singing,” Maisie whispered. Joel froze. “What?” “It’s singing, Daddy. A high, sharp note, like a mosquito, but made of metal. She reached her hands out into the empty air, her fingers twitching. Joel couldn’t hear a damn thing over the distant rumble of the highway and the buzzing of the dumpster flies, but he knew Maisie’s hearing was freakishly attuned.
If she said it was making a noise, it was. The boy looked terrified. He held the bulky headset out. I didn’t turn it on. It just does that sometimes. Maisie kept walking until her shins bumped against the boy’s knees as he sat on the curb. She reached down. Her small, delicate fingers brushed against the harsh medical plastic.
Then, she touched the exposed wiring. She didn’t recoil. Her fingers moved rapidly over the device, reading its shape like Braille. She found the heavy, pin-filled goggles. She found the battery pack. “It’s warm,” she murmured. “It feels like like it wants to wake up.” Joel closed the distance in two long strides.
He grabbed Maisie’s wrist, yanking her hand away from the device. “Do not touch that dirty crap, Maisie. It was in a biohazard bin.” Maisie struggled against his grip. It was the first time in her life she had ever physically fought him. “Let me go. It’s for me. I know it’s for me.” “It’s a piece of junk,” Joel yelled, his patience snapping. He glared at the boy.
“Pack it up and run. Now. I’ll count to three.” The boy scrambled backward, frantically trying to shove the heavy headset back into the canvas bag. But in his panic, his thumb slipped. He hit a recessed toggle switch on the side of the battery pack. A sharp, audible crack echoed in the alley, like static electricity discharging.
Suddenly, the exposed copper coils inside the goggle sockets began to glow with an intense, pulsing blue light. The faint hum Maisie had heard suddenly escalated into a low throbbing vibration that Joel could actually feel in the soles of his boots. Mazie gasped, her whole body going rigid. She wrenched her arm free from Joel’s grasp with a sudden burst of frantic strength.
Before Joel could stop her, before he could even register what was happening, she dropped to her knees in the dirt. She grabbed the heavy glowing headset from the boy’s loose grip. “Mazie, no!” Joel lunged, his massive hands reaching for the device to rip it away from her. But she was too fast. With a desperate feral motion, she lifted the heavy wire-tangled contraption and shoved it onto her head.
The thick pin-filled goggles slammed down over her useless milky eyes. Joel grabbed the edges of the plastic, preparing to rip it off. But the second his fingers touched the casing, a violent electrical shock threw him backward. It wasn’t a lethal jolt, but it was enough to numb his arms to the elbows.
He hit the gravel hard, cursing, scrambling to get back on his feet. Mazie screamed. It wasn’t a scream of pain. It was a sound Joel had never heard a human being make. It was a sound of absolute, overwhelming neurological terror. It was the sound of a brain being flooded with an ocean of data it had never evolved to process. She fell backward onto the asphalt, her small hands clawing desperately at the dirt, not at the headset.
The blue light from the copper coils pulsed faster, bleeding through the gaps in the cracked plastic casing, casting eerie, shifting shadows against the brick wall. >> Take it off! >> Joel roared at the homeless boy, who was pressed flat against the wall weeping in terror. Joel threw himself at his daughter.
He ignored the risk of another shock. He grabbed the heavy battery pack and yanked the braided cables. The wires tore loose from the main headset with a shower of sparks. The blue light instantly died. The throbbing hum ceased. The heavy plastic headset clattered to the gravel. Mazie lay perfectly still on the ground. The alley was dead silent save for the flies.
Joel fell to his knees beside her. His heart was hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. His breath came in ragged, shallow gasps. “Maybug.” He choked out, his calloused hands trembling as he reached for her face. “Mazie, talk to me. Please, baby, talk to me.” For 10 agonizing seconds, she didn’t move. Joel was ready to draw his knife and gut the homeless kid right there in the dirt.
Then, Mazie drew a shuddering, jagged breath. Her small chest heaved. She rolled onto her side, coughing weakly. Joel scooped her into his massive arms, pulling her tight against his leather vest, burying his face in her blond hair. He was shaking. The big, violent Hells Angel was crying, hot tears tracking through the dust on his face. “I got you.
” He whispered fiercely. “Daddy’s got you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Mazie slowly pushed against his chest. She didn’t want to be held. She wanted space. Joel loosened his grip, terrified he had broken her. She sat back on her heels. from the heavy plastic pressed deeply into the pale skin around her eyes. She opened her eyes.
They were still still the color of dirty ice. Joel felt a crushing wave of despair mixed with profound relief. She was alive. She was just shocked. Nothing had changed. He turned his head to glare at the boy. “I’m going to kill you.” he stated, a simple, cold fact. “Daddy.” Mazie whispered. Joel snapped his attention back to her.
Mazie wasn’t looking blankly forward. Her head wasn’t tilted to listen to the vibrations. Her chin was tucked slightly. She was looking down. She lifted her trembling right hand. She held it 6 in in front of her face. Slowly, deliberately, she wiggled her fingers. Her milky eyes tracked the movement. Left, right, up, down. Joel stopped breathing.
The world seemed to tilt on its axis. Maisie lowered her hand. She raised her head. She looked at the heavy scarred leather vest covering Joel’s chest. She didn’t reach out to touch it. She just stared at it. The skull, she said, her voice shaking, barely a breath. The skull has wings. Joel stared at her. The blood roaring in his ears.
She had never felt his patch. He had never allowed her to touch the emblem of his violent life. She didn’t know what was on his chest. Maisie slowly lifted her gaze. Her dead, milky eyes met his dark, terrified ones. They locked dead on. She wasn’t staring through him. She was staring at him. A single tear spilled over her lower lid, cutting a clean track through the dust on her cheek.
You look, Maisie whispered, her voice cracking with the unbearable weight of a brand new world. Just like you sound. Heavy and broken. Joel couldn’t speak. He couldn’t move. He sat in the filthy alley smelling of cheap whiskey and exhaust while his blind daughter looked at the scars on his face for the very first time.
Against the brick wall, the homeless boy hugged his knees to his chest, trembling violently as he stared at the discarded dead headset lying in the dirt. The street rat hadn’t just brought garbage. He had brought a miracle wrapped in copper wire and biohazard plastic. And Joel knew with a sudden chilling certainty that whoever threw that miracle away was going to realize it was missing.
And they would come for it. Maisie squeezed her eyes shut, clapping her hands over her face. She let out a high distressed whimper. “Turn it off.” she begged, her voice muffled behind her dusty palms. “Daddy, it’s too loud. The light is too loud.” Joel’s brain was misfiring. He was a man who solved problems with blunt force, but he couldn’t punch the light out of his daughter’s eyes.
He scrambled forward on his knees grabbing the homeless boy by the throat of his filthy hoodie. The kid gagged, his eyes bugging out as Joel hauled him to his feet. “What was in that thing?” Joel snarled spraying saliva. He shoved the boy against the alley wall. The brick scraped audibly against the canvas backpack.
“What did you do to her?” “Nothing. I swear to God.” the boy choked out, his hands clawing uselessly at Joel’s massive tattooed forearm. “It just shocked her. I’m Leo. My name is Leo.” Joel dropped him. Leo crumpled to the asphalt gasping for air. Joel turned back to the broken sparking headset lying in the dirt. He didn’t understand the science, but he understood consequence.
If a piece of discarded biotech could rewrite a blind kid’s optical nerves in 10 seconds flat, it was worth billions. And the people who owned it didn’t just throw it away. They lost it. And they would be hunting for it. He snatched the heavy plastic device from the dirt, ignoring the residual heat radiating from the battery pack, and shoved it roughly into his left saddlebag.
“We’re leaving.” Joel ordered. He grabbed Maisie’s arm gentler this time. She kept her hands clamped over her eyes. “I can’t.” she cried. “It hurts. Everything has sharp edges. It’s making me sick.” Her brain, entirely unaccustomed to processing visual data, was drowning in the sheer volume of reality. To her, colors were physical blows.
Depth perception didn’t exist. The alley walls looked like they were pressing directly against her corneas. Joel stripped off his heavy leather cut, then pulled his faded black t-shirt over his head. He wrapped the shirt around Maisie’s head, tying the sleeves behind her skull to create a makeshift blindfold.
“Better?” he asked, his voice tight. Maisie took a shaky breath. “Yes.” The dark is quiet again. Joel put his leather vest back on over his bare chest. The heavy hide chafed against his skin, but he didn’t care. He grabbed Leo by the collar, dragging the teenager toward the panhead. “You’re coming with us.” “No, I gave you the thing.
Just let me go.” Leo thrashed, his sneakers slipping on the loose gravel. “You turned the beacon on when you hit that switch, kid.” Joel growled, shoving Leo onto the rear fender of the chopper. “If the suits track it here, they’ll find you picking through the fries. They’ll peel your skin off to see what you know.
Sit still, or I’ll chain you to the bar.” Joel hoisted Maisie onto the gas tank, settling her between his arms just like always. He kicked the bike to life. The roar of the engine felt different now. It didn’t feel like freedom. It felt like a target being painted on his back. They tore out of the diner parking lot, throwing a spray of gravel.
The ride back to the clubhouse was a nightmare. Every time a car passed them, the headlights pierced right through the thin cotton of the t-shirt, blinding Maisie. She buried her face into Joel’s bare chest, trembling violently. The clubhouse was a sprawling reinforced concrete bunker on the edge of the industrial district.
Chain-link fences topped with razor wire surrounded a lot filled with dozens of chopped and bobbed motorcycles. The air smelled permanently of motor oil, stale beer, and ozone from the welding tanks. Joel bypassed the front gate, skidding around to the maintenance bay. He killed the engine, hauling Mazie down and dragging Leo inside before the heavy steel roll-up door clattered shut.
Inside, the harsh fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. Dutch, a massive bald biker with a jagged scar running from his ear to his collarbone, looked up from a dismantled carburetor on his workbench. “Thought you took the kid for pie, Joel.” Dutch rumbled, wiping a grease-stained rag on his jeans. He eyed the shivering, filthy teenager.
“Who’s the stray?” “Get Riggs.” Joel said. He untied the t-shirt from Mazie’s head. She gasped, immediately squeezing her eyes shut again. “Daddy, it smells like metal in here, but the light is yellow. It makes the metal look sick.” Dutch dropped his wrench. It hit the concrete floor with a sharp, ringing clang. He stared at Mazie.
Everyone in the club knew Mazie. They all treated her like glass. They all knew her eyes were dead. Mazie slowly cracked her eyelids open. She looked at Dutch. Her milky eyes darted unsteadily, trying to make sense of the visual noise. “You have a red line on your face.” she whispered. “It’s bumpy, like a zipper.
” Dutch took a slow step backward, his hand instinctually reaching for the heavy wrench he’d just dropped. “Joel, what the hell is going on?” Joel dumped the broken headset from his saddlebag onto the steel workbench. The plastic clattered loudly. “The kid found this in a biohazard bin at a corporate park up north. Mazie put it on.
It shocked her. Now she can see.” Riggs pushed through the swinging doors from the bar area. He was the club president, a man who had survived three club wars and two prison stints. He took one look at the device on the table, then at Mazie, who was currently staring in horrified fascination at her own dirty fingernails.
“Where up north?” Riggs asked, his voice dangerously calm. He didn’t ask for proof. He looked at Leo. “Cerberus.” Leo whimpered, shrinking back against a stack of dry rotted tires. Cerberus Biosolutions. Big glass building. Lots of guards. Riggs cursed, rubbing a massive hand over his graying beard.
That ain’t just a corporate lab, Joel. That’s DARPA money. Military contracts. Experimental neural link garbage. If they threw that in a burn bin and this rat pulled it out and turned it on, it pinged. Joel finished the thought. His stomach turned to ice. It lit up blue, hummed like a generator. Then they already triangulated the signal, Riggs said.
He walked over to a heavy steel cabinet, unlocked it, and pulled out a pump action shotgun. He tossed a box of shells onto the workbench. They won’t send cops. They’ll send private contractors. Cleaners. They’ll burn this whole block down to scrub the tech and anyone who touched it. Silence was the first warning. Not sirens. Not shouting.
Just the abrupt, sickening absence of sound from the chained Rottweilers in the scrapyard. One second they were tearing their throats out at the desert wind. The next, nothing. Joel’s stomach dropped. He tasted old coffee and adrenaline at the back of his throat. He grabbed Maisie’s narrow shoulders, shoving her behind the heavy, grease-stained Snap-on tool chest.
Head down. Knees to your chest. Don’t open your eyes, he ordered. His voice was a harsh, rasping whisper. He grabbed Leo by the hood of his filthy sweatshirt and threw him down beside her. You move, you die. Joel drew his 1911 from the small of his back. His thumb swept the safety off. The heavy, metallic clack sounded absurdly loud against the buzzing of the dying fluorescent tubes overhead.
Across the garage, Riggs racked a pump action shotgun. Dutch killed the breaker switch. Darkness swallowed the room heavy with the smell of spilled motor oil and stale beer. Then the corrugated steel bay door buckled. Metal shrieked in protest. A matte black armored bumper sheared right through the heavy industrial hinges.
The door folded inward slamming onto the concrete floor with a deafening crash that vibrated up through the soles of Joel’s boots. Dust plumed into the sodium light bleeding from the street. Three figures moved through the haze. No badges, no windbreakers. They wore molded ballistic armor and four lens night vision goggles that made them look like mechanized spiders.
They moved with a terrifying fluid silence. They didn’t announce themselves. They simply raised suppressed submachine guns and squeezed the triggers. Concrete exploded. Sparks rained down from the ceiling as bullets chewed through the overhead lighting fixtures. The air instantly filled with the bitter choking stench of cordite and pulverized brick.
Riggs fired his shotgun. The boom in the enclosed cinder block room was a physical blow to the eardrums. A spider-eyed contractor took the heavy buckshot dead in the chest plate staggering backward into the shattered door frame. “Cover!” Dutch roared over the ringing. His AR-15 chattering short controlled bursts from behind a dismantled Harley engine block.
Joel leaned out from the tool chest lining up the heavy iron sights of his .45. He squeezed the trigger twice. A contractor ducked behind a stack of dry rotted tires bypassing Dutch completely. The man was a professional. He ignored the bikers. His spider gaze locked dead onto the workbench.
He was looking for the headset. Joel stepped sideways to intercept. That was his mistake. A suppressed burst caught him in the right side. The impact didn’t throw him backward like in the movies. It just felt like being hit with a flaming baseball bat. His breath vanished. His right leg gave out instantly. He hit the oil slicked floor hard, scraping his jaw against the cold concrete.
His gun skittered out of reach into the dark. A hot, wet stickiness began to spread beneath his leather vest. He gasped, tasting pure copper. The contractor loomed over him, vaulting the workbench. The man snatched the broken plastic biotech device, shoving it into a dump pouch. Then, the spider lenses swiveled toward the tool chest.
Toward the sound of Maisie’s frantic, ragged breathing. Joel clawed at the floor with his good hand, his fingers slipping in a puddle of transmission fluid. He couldn’t get his legs under him. The contractor raised his weapon. A shadow lunged from the corner. Leo, the street kid screamed a high, raw sound of absolute animal terror.
He swung a heavy, rusted iron tire iron with both hands. It connected with the back of the contractor’s knee joint. Body armor doesn’t cover the bend of the leg. Bone cracked loudly. The contractor crumpled with a grunt. Before he could raise his sidearm, Dutch materialized from the smoke.
The massive biker brought the heavy steel stock of his rifle down on the contractor’s helmet. The spider lenses shattered into green glass. The man went limp. The garage fell completely still, save for the hiss of a punctured acetylene tank and Joel’s wet, rattling breaths. Joel. Riggs limped over his own leg, leaving a trail of dark drops. Vanguard’s down.
Main unit will be 3 minutes behind. We have to go. Dutch hauled Joel to his feet. Pain spiked through Joel’s ribs, white-hot and blinding. He clamped his heavy tattooed arm against his side, trying to hold his own blood inside his body. Maisie stepped out from behind the tool chest.
She hadn’t kept her eyes closed. She stood in the dim, smoky ruin of the only safe place she had ever known. She looked at the bodies. She looked at the casing-strewn floor. Then, she looked at Joel. She walked over to him, her pink sneakers stepping carefully over a pool of blood. She reached up, her trembling fingers brushed the wet red stain soaking his shirt.
She stared at her hand. She was seeing the color red. She was seeing violence. “It’s loud here, Daddy.” She whispered, her voice hollow. “The colors are so loud.” “I know, baby.” Joel choked out. “I know.” “Nevada.” Riggs grunted, tossing a canvas duffel bag to Dutch. “Old silver mine near Ely. Take the kid and the tech.
Ride the panhead till the tank is dry, then hotwire another.” Joel didn’t argue. Dutch helped him strap Maisie to his chest using a heavy leather belt, binding her tight against his bloody vest so he wouldn’t drop her if the pain made him black out. Leo scrambled onto the rear fender, clutching the heavy tech bag to his chest. Joel kicked the starter.
The engine screamed. They tore out through the back maintenance alley just as the rhythmic thumping wash of a helicopter rotor descended over the neighborhood. The cold desert night slammed into them. Maisie didn’t hide her face in his neck this time. She kept her eyes wide open. She watched the black asphalt blur beneath the tires.
She watched the yellow lines violently streak past. And as they hit the open highway leaving the burning wreckage of their lives behind, she looked up. She saw the stars, millions of cold, distant, piercing pinpricks of light in an endless black ocean. It was terrifying. It was beautiful. And it changed everything.
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Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction created for entertainment purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, events, or places is coincidental.
