Someone else's shadow

Alex takes a good, hard look at the girl she’s been chasing for the past two weeks, at the girl she’d encountered in the tunnels all those days ago. Her hair is as black as ravens, her eyes the colour of untreated wood. But she seems different somehow, like a vase that’s been cracked and put back together. There are gaps inside of her that will never reform again.

She gives the Tongue-settler a passing glance before she addresses Iris again. “Looks like you’ve taken my advice to heart.” Then her eyes fall on her ripped cloak and exposed, beating, Blumen arm. “A little too well, I think.”

Iris raises her arm and gives a wobbly smile. “It’s a little more analogue than most Cirsium products, huh?”

We match now, Alex thinks about saying, but bites her tongue. The shouting of men reverbates down the alleyway, this time from their front, and with a pang she realises that they’re surrounded.

“Fuck.” She steps forward and grinds her heels into the dust.

Behind her, Jackson mutters, “Why’d we have to trap ourselves in an alleyway? This is what we get for following Tongues.”

“Shut up and get that miracle app of yours working again. And you.” Alex turns to Iris again. “Close your eyes.”

“I—I can handle myself,” she says, and straightens her back. “I’ll be fine. I have to see this.”

“Suit yourself, then.”

Alex sails across the air, her legs whirling like the wind on a stormy day; she caves in a ribcage, shatters another's spine like glass, then lands against the asphalt. Cracks splinter outwards from where she touches down. Some of the soldiers freeze in place.

Behind her, Iris is shaking like a leaf in the wind.

Then one of the enforcers near the front of the crowd shouts, "She's just one girl, gentlemen! You want to run, fine by me—but I'll be damned if I run from a fucking fifteen year old girl!"

Alex shifts her legs and lets her joints crack noisily against each other. But there are many of them, and only one of her—the odds are very clearly not in her favour, and one misstep would spell disaster for the Hare. Her movements are precise, yet fluid; a lazy arrow soaring through clear airs.

Behind the man she has just killed, a woman strangles herself with her Cirsium hands. Alex grits her teeth and kicks through another soldier, sending his body towards the floor.

A shot wizzes past her ear, and Alex fights the urge to turn. The enforcer stands frozen in place, blood trickling down his forehead. Then he falls.

"Stay sharp, Hare," says the Tongue, stepping forward. In their hand is a strange contraption that is unlike anything Alex has ever seen. But it resembles a gun, and that, she thinks, is all that matters right now. “We gotta move. Keep an eye on my back and follow me.”

The Tongue guides them into the restrooms of a bar, then into a brightly lit corridor that seems to go on for miles. By the time Alex has spotted anything resembling an exit, Jackson and Iris are already panting like they’ve run several marathons.

Without a second to waste, Koal flings open the door and the four of them burst through into hot sunlight and towers of glass, streets slicked with white paint and the scent of flowers and manufactured fruit on the wind. Walls flank both sides of them—an alleyway. In front of them hundreds of people pass by them without noticing. Alex is thankful for the cover.

She watches the pedestrians. A woman and her child, both dressed in deep blues that would rival the night sky. Two college students with one hand on their phones and another hand loose and free. Everyone’s got somewhere to go, some arbitrary task to complete before they head home.

Koal swallows. “They look like undercover soldiers to you?” they ask.

Jackson answers for Alex. “Not a Cirsium prosthetic for me to hijack in range. Either they’re not covering this district, or they’re heavily under-arming themselves. Either way: safe.”

The Tongue pauses. “And… you are?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m just her bro,” he says as he slings an arm over Alex’s shoulder. When she scowls, he withdraws his arm and mutters, “Colleagues. We’re just colleagues.”

Koal readjusts their collar until it rests neatly below their mouth. "Right. Well, I'll say this now; we're headed for the Ancestry Hall. You both work for that coin-licker of a man, but understand that we want no part in whatever Mr. Lee has planned for Iris. We won't be coming with you to his offices."

Alex whirls on a heel and steps in front of Koal. “Lukas Lee might be a swindler and a manipulative prick, but he’s done way more for New England than any Tongue in the outskirts. He's a good person—"

"Good people aren't swindlers and pricks."

"He would never hurt Iris. That's not in his character," Alex says, but she can hear her voice faltering. "I've worked with him for five years. I know him better than his own secretary."

"Never trust a rich man with the humility to wipe his own ass," mutters Koal.

"For the love of—we're the GOOD guys! Have you tussled with a Lee merc recently? I'll answer that for you. You haven't."

"Haven't seen any of Mr. Lee's men in the tunnels either," Koal retorts. "It's almost like your coin-licker knows he doesn't need soldiers to take Iris if he has you… weird."

Alex coughs and turns to Iris. "Okay, sweetie, let's ditch this hick and get outta here, okay?"

Iris does not move. Her eyes are hard and dark. "I need to go to the Ancestry Hall."

"Is that you speaking? Or the Tongue?"

Koal's hand hovers languidly over their firearm; Alex makes no move to ready herself. From the way Koal carries themself, she knows that they're no ordinary Tongue. The settler doesn't slouch, but they keep their back arched like a cat as if they are preparing to pounce at any given moment. It's not the stance of a soldier, but instead of a mercenary that has been forged by the streets from childhood.

"We're both cut from the same cloth," Alex says, her voice dropping low. "Whatever that cloth might be. Please. Just… trust us."

"You take us to the Ancestry Hall and escort us up the tower." Koal does not move. "Then we'll trust you."

Silence. Then, Alex moves out of the alleyway and into the streets. "Fine. Let's just take a short detour while every damn soldier searches for us as we speak. I'm sure that'll go well."

"Is that a no?"

"It's a, "you leave me with no choice.""

Koal's lips form a hard line. Their grey eyes don't catch the sun, and they offer no thanks as they follow her into the streets. "How'd you find us so quickly? We didn't exactly leave a breadtrail for you to follow."

She squeezes herself between two unaccommodating pedestrians. "We fought the bank's musclemen first before we got to FERN. We figured you were in trouble. Jackson's little ace in the hole and basic deduction helped us narrow Iris' location down. After that though… it was sheer luck that we happened upon you guys first. Though I'm sure you would've been able to defend yourselves…" She eyes Iris' arm, then Koal's machinery. "...pretty well," she admits begrudgingly.

Koal exhales in response. "Compliments now, from the Hare. Lovely."

"Speaking of incredibly wrong," begins Jackson, "There's not a merc in sight, and we've been travelling downtown for ten minutes now. They should be surrounding us in droves by now. I'm hating this."

Iris is meandering behind Koal, seemingly lost in her own thoughts. Above them, the Ancestry Hall towers over multiple smaller buildings like a candle on a cake.

“Stay sharp, then,” Alex says. “They might’ve figured us out already and sent soldiers without Cirsium. Bullets can still kill us.”

“Yeah… but.” Jackson’s brows knit together. “We should’ve been attacked by now. It’s like they’re not even deployed in Fontanelle.”

"It's much more likely that they're guarding the streets surrounding LeeCorp," Alex admits. This earns a sly grin from Koal. "They aren't expecting us to head for the Ancestry Hall."

They continue down the streets of Fontanelle. It’s almost eerie how normal everything seems. Pedestrians are walking, talking; women sit outside cafe storefronts and poke at cakes with tiny forks. And as the Ancestry Hall yawns ever closer, so do the airs of the city—yawning, sleepy, little big Fontanelle.

"Stop."

Jackson stares at his radar, his features stiller than settled snow. "Something is—all of these readings…!"

Thousands of dots stand in front of them, with hundreds more moving to flank them from their sides. It's like watching a swarm of insects gather around a carcass.

Alex spins and slams her knee into Koal's chest—hard enough to knock the Tongue to the ground, but not hard enough to break bone. Pedestrians—or soldiers, Alex doesn't know for sure anymore—stop and watch in morbid curiosity. "You lied! You lured us into a fucking trap, didn't you?"

Something green barrels right into Alex's chest. It's too quick for her to react—she throws her balance backwards as she falls and quickly launches back to her feet. Iris stands in front of Koal, her Blumen arm outstretched and curling with malice, her rose heads dripping petals like blood.

"Leave Koal alone," she says. "They're innocent."

"Iris, they're a goddamn lia—"

"We're being ambushed by soldiers from every megacorp in the city and you want to fucking beat up a Tongue!" Iris screams. The voice isn't wholly hers—it's like she's speaking with somebody else's mouth with words that are from somebody else's mind. "We head back to LeeCorp, the soldiers flanking us get us; it's forward or nothing. Now are you going to be the Hare, or are you going to stay a rabbit?"

Alex glares at her, her expression fierce, her eyes lit aflame. Iris stares back, equally angry. Equally steadfast.

"Who's talking here?" Alex asks. "You? Or someone else?"

Iris falters. "You—you don't get to decide who I am—"

Then Alex dives into her, tackling her to the ground. The Blumen quivers like an angry fox, but then a shot wizzes overhead. Someone in the crowd screams. Alex swings her leg around just in time to parry a rogue blade aimed for her head—she looks up just in time to see the face of a scowling woman clad in white, her lips darker than blood.

And then she falls, revealing a man whose face Alex recognises from Lukas Lee's training grounds.

She has to stifle a laugh.

Saved.

By Mr. Lee himself.

Like rushing water, men and women approach from all sides—men and women Alex knows all too well. The crowd melts into a flurry of limbs and blood. Without hesitating, Alex grabs Iris and yells at Koal and Jackson to run. They shove and barrel themselves through the fights. Someone takes a swing at her head; they only attempt once.

By her side, Jackson lets loose a braying laugh; it is snuffed out in the brewing violence. "He knew we'd be headed for the Ancestry Hall this whole time, that son of a bitch!"

"Lee's men?" Koal asks.

Alex grits her teeth. "He sent all of his men to help us. Who's keeping him safe right now?"

At that, Jackson's smile fades into a frown before it perks up again. "Chin up. He's not that dumb—he knows what he's doing."

That's what I'm worried about, Alex thinks. That he knows what he's doing. He’s got a plan that doesn’t exactly involve his wellbeing.

With every passing battle the entrance to the Ancestry Hall grows nearer and nearer. Alex spots twin pillars and a huge, yawning gate that is easily over three times her height. When the group enters, the doors behind them click shut, and suddenly the fight muffles like a landscape in mist—it seems eons away. The halls are quiet. Too quiet.

Jackson's assessment of the situation confirms her suspicions. "Dammit, they're in here too. Stay sharp, aite?"

Alex drops Iris' hand like she’s touched hot coals.

The Hall smells sharp, like a mixture of freshly exposed wood and burnt spices. Alex has never been inside, partially because she doesn’t give two shits about her own ancestors, and partially because she’s never had a reason to. Marianne has told her time and time again that, as His Lordship’s left hand man, she should be well acquainted with the Ancestry Hall.

She’s here now. Not under the best circumstances, but she’s here.

They traverse the tower through the glass elevators. The streets and their violence eventually disappear under the Fontanelle smog, and for a moment, Alex nearly manages to convince herself that the outright war between Lukas and the rest of the corporations is all but a bad dream.

The doors slide open. Alex briefly finds herself face to face with the barrel of a gunbaton before the soldier on the other end slams himself into the wall with his prosthetic arm. She turns to see Jackson staring dully at the body with an expression she can’t name, but an expression she’s all too familiar with nonetheless.

“Here, too,” Jackson says, gasping. “Five around the corner. Six further ahead. They’re everywhere.”

They battle on through the halls, but these soldiers seem to be faster, stronger—deadlier. Or maybe that’s the fatigue speaking. Koal’s aim is getting worse, Jackson is lagging behind, and even Alex feels like her prosthetics might give way and shatter at any moment now. Only Iris still stands at her full height, her monstrous arm whipping around the room like a bolt of green lightning. It’s like watching Jackson murder someone with his new technology for the first time all over again. This sort of raw power is scary.

Alex aims a kick to the throat of one soldier only to have another lunge for her own neck from behind her—she stumbles back and slams their body into a wall, and it takes another kick into their ribs to fully incapacitate them. The halls are narrow and wind like a knot of snakes. It’s getting harder to see. Alex can’t see where Iris is anymore.

She elbows another man and shouts her name. She shouts her name again as she knocks heads with another soldier, then another, then another. It’s no use. She can’t see.

Somehow, Alex suspects that she has managed to lose both His Lordship and her girl in one day.