smokeSCREEN : book6.0

"So what's your name again?" he asks.

What is his problem?

"She's Sophie – I'm Crow. Lisa's the one sleeping."

Damn her.

"Salutations Crow, I'm Justin – Sneak Third, atcher service."

"Eager Beaver, isn't he?" Crow grins.

"Justin – Justin was a rat," I huff.

"Yeah – in Secret of NIHM! I loved that!" Lisa says suddenly. She still looks like she's sleeping.

Damn her. "No one remembers that movie," Crow says. That's right.

"...he did kill Jennor."

"That's right," Josh nods.

Damn him.

"No he didn't, Jennor's fat assistant guy did – dagger in the back – duh."

Ha.

"Yeah? What was his name?"

"Uh-"

Damn him.

"No one remembers," Josh grins. "But you knew Justin, badass that he was."

"Damn right," says Lisa. I stand.

"Are you done?" I call a the closed door. It springs open and Cypress strolls out.

"Yes."

"Oh."

The guys all bristle and stand.

"Cypress man, we gotta' talk." Richards strolls forward, a hand on his weapon.

"Go ahead."

"Now a lot of the guys are thinkin' maybe hangin' with chicks is okay, but we're not so sure you're the man to get us outta' here."

"Then take who'll go with you and leave," Cypress says. "Good luck to ya."

"What, you think you'll make it? A bunch of chicks, a nurse and a First sniper?"

"We'll not only make it, we'll start something new. A peaceful colony, well protected but open to visitors. Three couples won't start a city, but the lesson in all this, Richard, is that the world does not begin and end with Winnipeg, Canada. There are others. There are survivors. There are good people, and there are warring tribes like us. And we're not good people, Richard. Not yet. But I will get out of here, with everyone who'll come, all alive and intact. When have I not delivered? On anything? If you don't wanna' come with me, don't.

So who is going with Richard?" he shouts over the room.

Peaceful, silence.

The burning of a cigarette butt.

I look to Justin.

"You're a sniper?"

"Got demoted. Nurse."

"Well who wants to go with the psycho?" he says. Paul stands.

"The psycho'll get us out – they're waitin' for us somewhere. I'd like to know where Herskie is. And Chris."

"Herskie is a block away, with a convoy that'll do. Chris is waiting for us in a guard tower on the south side."

"And how do you know that shit?" Paul snaps. "What is going on with you?"

Cypress lights a cigarette.

"It'll take a while to explain," he sighs through a cloud of smoke.

"Everyone's tired already – I say we camp out here, so weave your fuckin' yarn." "If we camp, the old ones will've set up everything they need to drive us out," I say. Richard spins on me.

"And how do you know?"

"It's common sense," I snap. "We do this fast, we do this now, or we go back to work."

"I'm not going back," Lisa growls, sitting up. "We go now?" She looks to Cypress.

"If we wanna' live," he frowns. She shoots up an arm so I can pull her to her feet.

"Then let's get the fuck outta' here."

* * *

The girls follow en masse. The boys in a trickle that filled up our six pretty quick. Josh and Talky-Talk, of course, stuck right by our sides. Josh has taken a shine to Crow, it seems. I haven's heard her suggest she's with Cypress, and that strikes me as odd.

Are they?

Yes, of course.

They were all snuggly earlier.

And now she's warming up to this Josh.

Apart from his annoying friendship with Talky-Talk, Josh seems to have his head on pretty straight. And of course, he's taken a shine to Crow.

I'm not jealous. I don't think. Shit.

Damn her, I'm jealous. I sigh.

"Smoke?"

It's Talky-Talk. I think he's been talking this whole time, I just haven't been listening. I've been staring at Crow's perfectly perfect, shapely back as she walks in front of me.

And I'm jealous of her lack of scars. I'm jealous of her shiny hair and smooth skin. I'm so tired.

The smoke will wake me up, so I snatch it away from him.

But I touch his fingers for a split-second.

Goddamnit.

"...I can't find my lighter," I confess. Talky-Talk's flares to life in front of me, of course. I lean in, draw on the smoke and don't say thanks.

Chew on that. "So you're really a nurse, huh?" "Whatever – Cypress is really a inner guard – he's not even wall duty."

"Like Crow?"

"He got busted back from Sneak when Jessie caught him reading."

"No shit."

"Didn't know that?"

I might have known that. I don't remember. Have I talked about his eyes?

I promised I wouldn't. I look at Crow's back.

"So Cypress is a guard and you're a nurse."

He sighs. Finally, chalk up a good one for Sophie. Though I pull my toque down.

I'm annoyed with Crow's back, so I look at the ground and her shapely ankles.

As we hurry along the ground quickly turns from carpet to tile to the cobblestone of the driveway, and Cypress lets loose a high, long whistle.

In the distance, engines roar to life. Chris and his collection of men pour from the guard tower and secure the outer gate as we run forward.

Still no sign from the old ones.

"Where are they?" I call up.

"Back at the hotel, waiting for us," Cypress calls back.

Most of the group pour into five vans – Herskie's secured two strong sedans for the lead and end. Herskie drives, Cypress beside. Richard sits in the back, between Crow and I.

"Where to?"

"Go straight – you'll turn left at that tower."

"Where are we going?" Richard starts up.

"The hotel."

"You just said they were waiting for us there," Richard says. Cypress spins in his chair.

"That's where Michelle is, that's where the kid is – you wanna' go or not?"

Richard shuts up.

The kid?

* * *

The convoy stops about two blocks short of the hotel. Night has fallen, and the clouds keep the light of the stars and moon from revealing us as we stalk forward. The sick have remained in the vans, and what stalks ahead is a bristling, well-armed group of pissed-off Canadians.

"They probably have us on night vision," Cypress says.

"They can see in the dark?" Paul says.

"It's a kind of scope," Josh tells him.

"Snipers?"

"There and there," Cypress points to positions around the hotel.

"Who's got a rifle?"

Josh is already squinting through his scope.

"I got 'im," he says.

"Stop." Cypress blocks the scope and Josh pops his head up.

"What?"

"You don't have a silencer – use mine and keep up."

Josh flicks all nessecary switches on the new rifle and squints through its green glow as the rest of us press forward. We don't hear Josh shoot, or the men cry out or fall. He jogs up beside us, grinning as Justin pats him on the back.

The floodlights around the hotel paint its high walls a pale, stony grey. Old dusty windows broken years ago, and that crawling, desperate feeling you get when you know someone's watching you through a rifle scope. I sigh.

Better to die for something than just die.

"You cool, Blinky?" Talky-Talk grins beside me.

"Don't call me that."

"You think we'll get out of the city after this? It's a stupid move, sorta."

I frown at him;

"Would you wanna' be left behind?"

"Shut it," Cypress snaps up ahead.

He crouches down, and we follow suit behind him. As he turns to us, we form a semicircle.

"Here's where it gets a little suicidal," he says. "They got about a hundred and fifty men inside. We have objectives on the first, third, and sixth flooth. Access is limited, but the mass of them is contained to the main lobby."

"So go after secondary objectives first," Justin starts.

"...and hit the first floor on the way out." Cypress is nodding. "Everything quiet like."

"Rock and roll," Crow grins.

"Rock on," we mumble.

* * *

* * *

you fell down of course / and then you got up of course / and started over / forgot my name of course / then you started to remember / pretty tough to think about / the beginning of december / pretty tough to think about / pretty tough to think about

* * *

* * *

Sewers. If I had mystical powers, I'd have found us a nice service door, but Cypress always has his reasons. Trust in Cypress.

We wait patiently while he stares long and hard at a box on the sewer wall, squinting in the flickering light from his Zippo. Trust in Cypress. He flicks a switch, seems satisfied when nothing happens, and closes it. Trust in fuckin' Cypress.

Crow narrows her eyes at me.

She's doing it again! She's doing it again!

I'm five years old, calling out from the bucket seats of the Olds.

But she's looked away now.

Cypress goes up first – he's sent off a few others to take control of certain exits, though I suspect it's more for the sake of diversions – he shoves open a large steel grate, and crawls up into one of the underground passages we'd found before. It's warm and dry, thank God.

"Two days," Crow tells me.

"What?"

"We've been up for two straight days."

"I'm not tired," I shrug.

"Two days?" Justin says.

"Hey." We snap our heads up to Cypress, who's hand is on a trapdoor in the floor. He pulls it open, leading us down into the weapons bay.

"Why haven't they moved them?" I ask.

"They left them as a sign of faith in the girls," he says.

"Holy shit – is that a minigun?" Chris says.

"Take it, if you like. Alright – people, listen up;" He turns to us – we stand at attention. "Take the biggest fucking guns you can find. When it comes down to the big fight, I want us outfitted better than they can dream."

"Won't they have us on the security camera things?" I ask.

"Naw, I cut the power to this part of the house, and the system relies on it."

"When?"

"That switch in the sewers," he shrugs, picking up a huge twelve-millimeter gun, removing it from its tripod, grinning. "Definitely."

In the end, Cypress carries an impossible weight. Two big assault rifles, two Uzis. A shotgun. Two SOCOMSs and two Desert Eagles. Beneath all the straps, the staff is pressed hard to his back. Just above that, the strappings for the twelve-millimeter gun. How he expects to fire it, I have no idea.

We're struggling under three assault rifles each, and he trots ahead of us easily – gracefully. He rounds corners, gunning down guards with the SOCOMS before we emerge from the shadows. He leads us up, up high to the sixth floor. There, we meet Mickey.

He stands before us with twenty-four soldiers. We only make up fourteen. They have big guns, but so do we. Cypress presses one hand out for us to stay back in the shadows, and kneels.

"Can they see us?" Josh whispers.

"No – maybe heard us, though."

"What do you want?"

"Not enough time to flank 'em – hold on."

And so he just stares at them for a while. An soon enough, they're a herd of agitated gazelles that have just gotten wind of a predator. They nervously shift their weight and peer about – even Mickey is affected.

Mickey.

Cypress will kill him first, as an example to the others.

"Someone else," I tell him.

"Someone else what?" he whispers back at me.

"Don't kill Mickey."

"Why not?"

"...'cause he's mine – alright?"

"Josh, giv'er the rifle."

And Josh does, as Cypress goes back to staring at the old ones.

I squint through the rifle – I can just say I missed. I can see Mickey's frown under his mask. He's scared. The crosshairs are between his eyes.

I can say I missed.

I aim at the one beside him.

Somewhere nearby, a wolf howls. The pack of old ones shudder as a group.

"What the fuck," one of them says.

"Hold formation," Mickey snaps.

"Now," Cypress whispers.

Thwip.

Two of them go down – I got the one behind, as well. Oops.

"Jesus!" they cry.

"Hold!" Mickey's shouting.

But they don't. And those that flee towards our dark little corner are gunned down.

Where's Mickey?

I don't see him. When the smoke clears, Cypress trots lightly forward and picks his way over the bodies. We lost one.

"Cypress, we lost one!" I call up.

"Pick him up, get him back to the others!"

I stop. I'm a nurse again, suddenly.

Am I happy about it?

Strangely, yes.

The comfort the routine gives me is a shock, as well. I reach for my flashlight to check his or her eye, when I find him or her.

Assuming he or she is alive.

The others go on ahead while I pick through the bodies back in our dark corner.

Here we go, it's... Paul.

Huh. I don't know how to feel.

He's dead. Two clean shots in the chest.

Shit.

"Sophie," someone gurgles.

I spin. A hand reaches up twenty feet away, and I run over. Maybe I miscounted.

"Help me," he says. "Please."

I stare at him for a while. Fate has once again dropped him in my lap. I lean back against the wall beside him as he struggles for breath.

"Sophie." But I take my moment. I breath calmly. I think it out.

"Your wounds are too severe to help," I tell him.

"Brie can..."

"Not if she doesn't find you."

"Please," he croaks.

"You hurt me!" I scream at him. My voice is of a higher pitch than I'd hoped.

"I'm sorry about your eye."

I shake my head. My eye. Who's talking about my eye?

I lean forward, lean down to him.

In his eyes, I can see my twisted, angry face as I whisper;

"Suffer, Mickey."

I stand, and my boot smashes into his midsection.

He coughs up blood.

I fire my foot in again, and his blood splatters my pants as he coughs and thrashes, but he's too weak to fight back. He's lost too much blood.

"Kill me, then."

"No. Fuck no."

His eyes are screaming at me.

"Suffer, Mickey."

A shaking hand reaches up, and the mask slips from his old, battered and scarred face. I never did ask how it happened, and only now, after so much time apart am I horrified by his face. The ugliness of whatever happened to him. I never asked.

I pull back the hammer on a Beretta, and he seems to smile.

"I l-" but I pull trigger.

I wipe a tear for myself, and I run ahead after the others.

* * *

There are screams up ahead. Shouts. Way more gunfire than Cypress usually exposes himself to. Rounding a corner, I discover I've somehow taken a shortcut, and am behind the old ones as they trade gunfire with my group on other side of a conference hall. It's the place you might have had a high school grad. It's pitch dark, and you can only make people out when they fire off a few rounds from their weapons.

But I am behind the old ones, and they haven't noticed me. Everyone's trading so many bullets, and so many are falling I can only imagine our losses.

Crow – what about Crow?

I have one eye, one good arm, and no silencer. But I can only imagine our losses, so I pull the toque from my head, and stuff the muzzle of the beretta into it.

. When one of them shoots, I shoot back, my toque as a mask against the muzzle flare. One shoots, and I shoot him.

I really liked this toque.

Another shoots, and I shoot. I keep shooting.

I just keep shooting, 'cause it's quiet in my head. I know everyone's shouting, but I can't hear them. I can't even hear my own gun. It's lost in the sounds.

I just see. I see a flash of light that can't be one of us.

And I shoot it. Soon, someone shouts something.

I don't hear it – it's all bass, and doesn't seem to form words.

But flashlights come on from many corners of the room and begin to scan. Scan. Flash across me and hold, blinding me. Should I shoot the lights?

I raise the gun and squeeze the trigger – it dry-fires.

Huh.

A hand claps on my shoulder and I want to go for my knife, but my bad shoulder doesn't think it's a good idea. It's Cypress.

Are we together?

He's not kissing me.

I'm still awake.

"You okay?"

"Yes."

"What happened?"

"It was Paul, dead. Mickey was alive."

"What'd you do?"

"Shot him."

Cypress looks at me long and hard.

He's not working his way into my head, he's just working it out, in his.

"But you didn't want to him to die."

"So?"

"So, Sophie – would'ja kill'em all?"

"...what?"

"You said it."

Did I?

"Yes, I would. I shot him, got it?"

"You need to sleep."

"Where are the others?"

"Downstairs."

"Where's Crow?"

"With them."

"Where are we?"

Am I awake?

"Sixth floor, dining hall."

"Why are we alone?"

"Because you want it this way."

"Do you love me?"

He kisses me.

...I wonder when it was I fell asleep?

* * *

I wake up.

I don't know how long I was out – I'm still wearing the same clothes.

My head is on Justin's stomach, in the back of a van. We're moving, and there are many others in with us.

"Where are we?" I ask. I don't move my head.

"The highway," he tells me. He's warm.

"Where's Crow and Cypress?"

"We took you and the rest of the wounded out," says Justin. "If they're not out in twenty minutes, we take off back to Winnipeg and wait for the wolf. That was the plan, we followed it."

"When?" I sit up.

"'Bout two hours ago."

"They're still there?"

"We followed the plan."

"We have to go back!"

"Fuuuuck that!" the driver calls. He's bleeding, but not bad. Now that I look, the entire van is perforated. We took a shotgun blast, at some point. Looks like an uzi, too.

I sigh.

"Michelle, Lisa, Anze and Cat – where are they?"

"The skinny one?" Justin asks.

"Others too."

"I don't know any of the others – Lisa's one van up."

I sigh.

"Who's got a smoke?"

And as I smoke, we start to talk. And girls, I have to apologize in advance for this;

Boys are the best fuckin' company. None of this bullshit we girls have, just straight up. 'I think A'. 'Well I think B.' 'Well fuck you.' 'Fuck you too, got a smoke?' 'Yeah, sure.'

Suddenly, I have found my true people. They didn't have any CDs or tapes, but they remembered a lot of old songs, and they got through eight whole verses of American Pie before they forgot the lines. Undaunted, they stumbled through the next two verses.

"Do you guys know Snake River Conspiracy?"

"Skank Raper What?" one of them laughs. Another smacks him.

"Never heard of that song," Justin tells me.

"It's a band."

"Them either."

"How long till we hit Winnipeg?" I call up to the driver.

"A while yet – shut an eye, if it suits ya."

"Fuck, I'll shut two," Justin grins, pulling an old ball cap down over his eyes and arranging his pack under his neck. I'm still real tired, but my pack is somewhere else. Justin pats his stomach, invitingly.

I curl up in the corner.

My boots satisfy for a pillow – sorta, and after a while I'm just feeling the old highway, and all I hear is the white noise of the engine.

* * *

Someone's touching me. It's Cypress.

We're together.

He's stroking my stomach, and he kisses me.

Whoah.

We're not at the hotel, or even the Tower. We're alone somewhere. It's dark, but he glows in the light of a single candle.

Whoah.

And he's touching me.

And he kisses me. And his lips are so... soft and...

And he's touching me.

I would give anything to have him. But he's Crow's. Isn't he?

"You're the one," he tells me.

I lean back.

"What?"

"Thinkaboutit."

"WAUGH!" I bolt up, suddenly terrified. Of... something.

"What?" some blond guy asks me.

"Nothing, I'm... nothing! Smoke!"

"We're out."

"Where're the butts?"

"Don't worry, we'll be back soon. Let's maybe stop for a stretch, though?" Justin cocks an eyebrow at the driver, who nods to himself and honks the horn once. The convoy comes to a stop, and he hops out to convene with the other drivers.