52 Project #3: Graduation Day (Patreon)

 Science fiction, superpowers, inspired by cyberpunk and also anime. Contains violence, gore, lots of made-up future slang. 

***

Teal waited silently in her cell, trying to control the vicious excitement that coursed through her. Today is my final exam. I'll see Essell again. They had promised her that if she survived today, she would see her brother again, for the first time in five years-- for the first time since both their lives had been destroyed. Of course, one could not necessarily believe their promises, but they themselves had trained Teal as a killer, and they had to know that if they lied, she'd turn her skills on them. So she expected that they wouldn’t lie, not this time.

The door opened, and a Drone entered. "Teal A-3ß. Come with me."

Teal nodded once, sharply, and stood. She was a tall, androgynous 15-year-old, with short white hair crowning a pale face. She wore black today, a bodysuit made of a tough polymer fabric, somewhat resistant to bullets and knives and with lines of silver shot through it to diffuse lasers. They had offered her body armor, but she'd refused. Teal needed to be as light as possible, especially now that she'd gotten her growth. 

She followed the drone down the corridor to the battle chamber. The door opened, and momentarily, Teal was blinded by what looked like sunlight, before the artificial film on her retina darkened enough to let her see. She stepped forward, staring about her in surprise. The simulation today was a replica of the Grove, where she and Essell had grown up. Why? Are they trying to remind me why I want to win? Or of what happened, the last day I saw this place? Do they want to throw me off my guard somehow? I can probably expect a trap of some kind. She breathed the air in deeply. They didn't have the smells exactly right, but close. Very close.

Standing, drinking in the air and the scenery, she showed every sign of fatal distraction. But the moment the door opened and the men with guns charged in, Teal was in the air. She'd been too heavy to fly for some years now-- her teek rating was 5, and she'd long been over 50 kilos-- but she could still boost. From a starting position she leapt, boosting, and flipped out of visibility into tree cover before the gunmen could track her.

Ten men fanned out slowly throughout the grove. All carried jectors, some machine, some sniper rifles. Some packed lasers or knives as well. Teal checked her weapons-- razor claws strapped to her fingers, blades on the edge and tip of her footgear-- and then leapt down on two men, backboosting to control her fall. The first saw her and swiveled to fire. Not near fast enough-- Teal slashed his throat open with her footblades on the way down, landed, and brought her hand down in a chop on the other man's neck, crushing his artery and dropping him.

The other men saw her. They turned and fired, but Teal was gone again.

She crept through the trees, using teek to bootstrap, lightening her own weight so that she could crawl along branches far too thin to take her full 62 kilos. She stayed high in the trees, on the thin branches, hidden by meters of foliage, and reached a point where she could peer down over the Grove. With her lens implants, controlled by her eye muscles rather than any kind of cybernetics, she could compensate for vision that was naturally not very good. She scanned the Grove, looking for the hunters to make them her prey. 

By now, her opponents apparently had no idea where she was. In pairs and threes, they roamed, searching behind bushes and in the trees, far lower than she was. Perhaps they didn't realize she could stay up so high. Boosting was an obvious application of teek-- teek rating referred to how many kilos you could lift for a sustained period of five minutes, and anyone could figure out that you could carry more in short bursts of effort. But bootstrapping-- where you used sustained teek on your own body to lighten your weight-- was less evident to non-teeks. They might assume she couldn't be as high as she was, because the branches wouldn't hold her.

Should have done their research.

Three men in a small clump. Teal leapt from the top and waited until she was two meters over one man's head before backboosting to slow her fall. Even still, her momentum drove her into him, crushing his skull and collarbone. She boosted off him for a split second, landed on the ground, and took out the other two's guns with a circle kick. One of them grabbed for her, but Teal wasn't there-- boosting up and over his head, and flipping in back of him, where an elbow smashed down into his collarbone dropped him. The other lunged forward, swinging. She dodged back and kicked, ripping out his throat with the blades on her foot. Then she bent and drove her claws into the neck of the one on the ground. She got no points for disabling-- they all had to die.

Stupid waste.

The remaining men ran at her. Teal boosted up and hid in the trees again. Now they had wised up-- four of them were together, and she couldn't take four at once, especially since they were watching the air. Where was the fifth? Teal started to look for him, and her eye was caught by the ladder trees.

She and Essell had called them that because they were close enough together that you could string ropes around them, to make ladder runs. They'd been constructing a treehouse between the two-- had been working on it for weeks when the black day came. The treehouse had never been finished.

The black day... They'd been playing Air Tag. Teal had weighed twenty kilos less, but she'd had her full teek already, so she could fly and have teek to spare. Essell, also, had been smaller but at full power, able to make a wingspan large enough to fly with. They'd been flying through the trees, chasing each other, laughing...

"There she is!"

Machine gun fire sprayed at Teal's perch. Startled, she boosted up, out of the guns' range. There was the trap she’d expected. Everywhere in the Grove simulacrum brought back memories she hadn’t dared focus on for five years, and now, they were flooding in, distracting her.

I won't let myself think about it. If I win today, I'll be with Essell again... and we can avenge the black day, together. I can't let myself think about it until then.

From a higher vantage point, she searched again for the fifth man. He didn't appear to be anywhere. Maybe she had counted wrong, and there had only been nine to begin with? Unlikely – she wasn’t that careless. She checked the places in a direct line from where she intended to come down. He wasn't in any of them that she could see, which meant she could land and he wouldn't have a clear shot. Good enough.

She threw a broken tree limb down some distance away from her. All the men turned as it landed with a thud. Then she leapt down among them, hands and feet knocking guns out of the way. She inflicted bloody score wounds, but didn't manage to kill any with the first blows. That was all right-- without their guns, they were no match for her. She moved in‑‑

--and from hiding, the fifth fired a sniper rifle at her head.

Teal sensed it before it was really moving. That still didn't give her much time, though. Throwing up the full force of her teek, she caught it, in a split-second burst of power. The recoil threw her backwards onto her butt, as the bullet dropped to the ground.

A big blond man, closer to Teal than his companions, threw himself on top of her and pinned her down with his body, wrapping his legs around hers and holding down her wrists with his hands. He was close to 140 kilos, a big heavy man, and he was tangled with her tightly enough that a teek lift wouldn't work unless she could sustain it, and pry him loose. And of course he was far too heavy for sustained lift. And she had no leverage to use her physical strength. She battered at him with short bursts, trying to force him off her, but she couldn't pry his arms and legs loose-- she hadn't that kind of fine control-- and catching the bullet had exhausted her. She simply couldn't manage a burst of more than 120 kilos lift, max, and that for no longer than a few seconds. 

He pulled out a Bowie knife, while she was still struggling to force him off her, and brought it around to cut her throat open. In desperation, Teal focused all her teek on the knife, and knocked it from his hand. He shifted himself slightly, trying to grab for the knife as it went flying, and with a burst of physical force and telekinetic panic, Teal threw him off in a violent spasm. She couldn't throw him far-- he fell off her to the side, a hairsbreath from pinning her again, and so she jerked away and rolled frantically, just evading his grasping hands. She got up and leapt from a crouching position, with no time to stand, boosting up. The force she could muster was almost not enough to reach the nearest tree branch, and when she pulled herself up, she found herself achy and weak, and so overheated she was close to feverish, with a savage headache. She'd overused the TK.

That was the simulacrum's second trap, she thought dizzily. The sniper had been hidden someplace that he shouldn't have been able to hide, that he wouldn't have fit in if this were truly the Grove. There would be subtle, minor differences that could kill her because she didn't expect them. Now she had five men to take out still, and she was weakened from overusing TK.

Teal climbed the tree with hands and legs, not bootstrapping at all. She was drastically overheated-- it was a warm day anyway, and overusing TK generated more heat than she could easily get rid of. There used to be a small lake in the Grove, she remembered, and prayed that it was in the simulacrum as well-- yes. There it was. If she lured them over there and dragged them into the water, she could cool off and recover more quickly from overteeking. Assuming there wasn't a hidden trap in the lake, too.

Teal crawled along treebranches, until she was near the lake, then dropped and began to run. The men, hearing her, pursued. She plunged into the water, letting its coolness close over her head, soothing her fever.

Gunfire sprayed the surface of the water. Teal went down, into the murky bottom of the lake, where she couldn't be seen. It was far easier to teek through water than land-- a relatively minor push could produce as much effect underwater as a big push on land, because of the way water buoyed flesh and clung to itself, and because of the fact that, being a denser medium than air, it was easier to push against. Push on water, and you could see the effects. Teal opened her eyes, trying to look up through the water to find the men on the shore, but no luck. She couldn't see them any more than they could her.

She rose to the surface at the center of the lake and sucked in air. The machine jectors that fired at her hadn't quite the range to reach her, and the man with the sniper rifle wasn't apparently by the lakeshore with the others. One of the men holstered his machine gun and pulled out a laser. Laser range was effectively limitless, but the refractive index of water made it almost impossible to aim one at a person underwater. Teal dove, with the men's positions fixed in her mind.

She needed a low-hanging tree. Her overteek headache was almost gone, soothed by the balm of the water. Once she got out and took her nutrient mix, she should be fine. It was time to finish up here. Fortunately, she knew of a low-hanging tree. She swam over to it, staying deep under, then boosted from the middle of the lake. Water was a better medium for teeking through, but didn't provide the support for leaps that hard land did-- she needed to boost against water for three meters of lake before she had the momentum to shoot up and grab the branch a meter over her head. That took an effort. Once she was up and in the trees, though, she quickly vanished into them.

The men were ranged along the shore, looking for her. None of them were close enough to each other for her to take two at once. The one with the laser, however, was under a tree, and all the trees linked to each other if you could bootstrap along high branches and jump across gaps. Teal reached the proper tree, leapt down on the man, and knocked him into the water.

Momentum and surprise gave her the overwhelming advantage. He barely had time to struggle before she'd slid her hand through the water and sliced open his throat. Blood flowed around her, crimson plumes in the water. She left the body to rise to the surface, as she herself dove for the deep water, heading back for her tree. 

Same drill this time. She rose up from the bottom of the lake, six meters deep, and boosted all the way, up to the low-hanging tree, shooting out of the water--

--and a gunshot rang out from the hidden sniper.

Teal pushed against the bullet, but the fact that she was airborne meant she had no leverage. The speed of the bullet made it much more effectively massive than she was. It was Teal's trajectory that changed violently. The bullet went on its way, barely deflected in its course, but it missed Teal because she had knocked herself back into the water with all the force she possessed. She fell on her back, so the impact with the water didn't knock too much of her wind from her-- but she hadn't had time to get a breath, and now she was tired from overteeking again.

Stupid, stupid, going for that tree again-- you know better! Teal snarled at herself. Twisting her body and cupping her hands, kicking and stroking her way up, she broke her downward plunge and headed back up. She broke surface for a second, long enough to gasp a spoonful of air, before gunfire forced her to dive again. Lungs burned, and arms and legs turned to leaden weights, as she forced herself back to the middle of the lake. This time when she surfaced, she was able to get all the air she needed. None of the men left had lasers. The sniper made no attempt to hit her-- which made sense, as being in the middle of the lake she was on the lowest ground in the Grove. If the sniper was hidden in a bush, or on low ground himself, shrubbery and the contours of the land might block him. But he could move, and probably was doing so now. She dove again before he could get a clear shot at her, and swam to the shore, staying deep under. Then she let herself drift upward. 

There was one man standing far closer to the lake than he ought to be. Teal let herself float to the surface near him, tucking herself so that her white hair and skin was hidden by her black-clad body, almost upside down. She controlled her ascent, coming up slowly enough that he wouldn't necessarily register the movement if he wasn't looking for it. Then she twisted upright and shot both hands out, grabbing her opponent and dragging him into the water. He screamed and tried to orient his gun, but she had only to yank him hard enough that he fell on his butt, messing up his aim. He couldn't get the gun positioned in time before she'd pulled him all the way into the lake. Teal slashed his throat, grabbed his gun, and leapt out of the water, aiming the jector at the one man within range to hit her.

She and he fired at the same time. Teal used teek to slingshot the bullets away from her, rather than trying to stop them. The other man, with no teek, died quickly.

Two left-- the sniper, and a man on the shore some distance away. The sniper fired again, but Teal was already boosting up, leaping into the trees above the lake. 

Once safely hidden, she undid the velcro fastener on the inner thigh of her left leg and took out the packet of concentrates there. The packet was semi-permeable to water, so the lake water had gotten in and turned it to sludge-- but better sludge than powder. It might almost be palatable now. She opened it and dumped the contents into her mouth, gulping them down, trying not to notice how much the concentrates tasted like chalk. There were simple carbohydrates for energy, minerals and nutrients to replaced what she depleted through overteeking, and specialized painkillers for overteek headache. The stuff wouldn't take effect for several minutes, and so she might be overly optimistic in taking it-- several minutes from now, she could be dead. But if she lived, and if she won, she would suffer a terrible reaction to the overteek unless she took the packet now. And she had plans, for what to do after she won. She and Essell had things to do. She couldn't afford a reaction, later.

Only two more, and she would see Essell again... Teal searched for them. The one by the lakeshore had hidden too well-- she couldn't see him. She couldn't see the sniper, either, but him she had clues for. She replayed in her mind the two most recent shots he'd fired at her, and triangulated back from them. Right there, yes.

He'd moved, but not far. Once Teal knew where to look, she found him fairly quickly. Silently she crept through the trees, along branches, until she was directly above him. Then she leapt down.

He jerked with surprise, turning and trying to move back from her. Teal didn't give him a chance. Her claws dug into the sides of his neck and dragged down, slashing both carotid arteries. The sniper died instantly, pitching forward, with blood fountaining from the sides of his neck.

One more. She climbed back into the trees, to look for the last man.

Now that there was only one left, and the test almost finished, she had the time to allow herself to wonder who these men were. They weren't captured Corpsmen, since they weren't psi, obviously. They could be captured mercs from the minics or mils from some nash or another, or they could be Hands of the Bright goons who had failed and were given this as a last chance. They could even be desperate freelancers, gambling their lives on their skill for a huge sum of money. Some people would do that, though Teal couldn't understand how-- money wasn't enough for her to risk her life.

She rather hoped they were gamblers, or at least that they'd been given some sort of choice. That this was the lesser of two evils, for them. It hurt to think she might be killing people who were as trapped as she was. But it couldn't make a difference. They could be sole caretaking parents of six dependent babies, they could be world-renowned philanthropists, they could be saints and she would still need to kill them. It was her life or theirs, and the death she gave them was far easier than the one she'd suffer if she spared them.

Of course, she had some degree of a choice, now. She was skilled enough to run away. She didn't need to be here, committing murder. Except that if she ran, she'd never see her twin again. And she had been punished for Essell's transgressions, enough in the first days of their captivity, that she suspected he would be tortured and killed if she ran. No, she had to stay here, obey her hated trainers, until she saw Essell again. And then the two of them would escape together, and kill those that deserved it, for once.

I'm sorry, she thought to the one remaining man. She wasn't a teeper, but that was all right, since she didn't really want to speak to him. It was an abstract concept she was talking to. I'm sorry, but you have to die. It's my life and Essell's, or yours. I have no choice.

There he was, crouching with machine gun in hand. Teal crept up on him, the same way she'd gone for the sniper, and leapt down.

This one was faster than the sniper. He dodged back, rolled, and came up, aiming the jector. Teal flung herself at him, trying to knock the jector out of his from his hand before he could point it at her. He dropped it, caught her wrists, and flung her, fast and hard, making her smash into a tree before she had time to brake. Then he grabbed the gun again and aimed it at her before she could get up.

There was no time. Teal threw all the force of her teek against the gun, pushing it sideways, but she couldn't seem to knock it from his hands. His grip on it was like iron, and she was still weakened from overteek, her drugs not yet in effect. That didn't matter, though. Now that it was pointed away from her, she had a chance to get up and lunge at him.

He dropped the gun and grabbed her wrists again. Teal focused her strength and her teek on his hands, trying to break her wrists free. For a minute, at least, they were deadlocked-- him trying to flip her, her trying to break away. Then she attempted to bring her knee up into his crotch, but he used his legs to block hers. This changed both their balances. He started to flip her up. She boosted, so she could control the flip. As she went up over his head, she locked the serrated blades on the side of her footgear against the sides of his neck.

He screamed, released her wrists, and tried to pull her legs free. Teal's head fell as the wrists came free. She put out her hands, caught the ground before her head could slam into it, and braced herself, holding her legs tightly against the neck. She began to scissor slightly, trying to reach the carotids. The skin of the man's neck was broken and bleeding, but she hadn't yet hit the vital spots. The enemy managed to pry her legs free, pull them hard over his shoulders, and yank them down, pulling Teal up. What he intended was unclear; what he accomplished was to get Teal's hands in range of his neck, with his own hands locked around her legs. She dug her claws into the vital points and ripped.

As he toppled, releasing her legs, she kicked free of him and fell on the ground in an undignified heap. Quickly she righted herself. Her opponent was still not dead-- dropped to his knees, clutching the sides of his neck as blood seeped around his fingers. Teal walked over to him. He looked up at her with terror and hatred in his eyes.

She wanted to apologize. But apologies were worse than useless, when you were killing someone. Teal drove her claws into his jugular vein and killed him instantly.

Ten dead. How long had it been? She tried to think. About half an hour, and she'd used a gun, and they'd gotten the drop on her several times-- probably a B, possibly a C. But she'd passed. That was all that mattered. She'd passed. She was alive.

Jaxson unlocked the doors and came into the simulator. "Good work, Teal," he told her. His hawklike features were actually somewhat animated for once, though it didn't show in his dead flat voice. "You did well there. I think the evaluators will probably give you an A."

Yeah, and I'm the King of Quebec. She didn't deserve an A, and she almost certainly would not get one. But she didn't say this to Jaxson-- she'd learned to talk as little as possible to her trainers. "Where's my brother?"

"He'll be here in a few minutes. Relax, calm yourself down after your fight."

As if she could be calm. A few minutes! Teal was tired, but the excitement that surged through her dumped out the aches of the past half hour. She turned and ran for the lake-- she was sweaty and overheated, and if she was going to see Essell she would rather drip than stink.

The cool water closed over her head, and Teal fell back into it, relaxing taut muscles and letting the heat and smell wash away from her. Five years...

Five years ago was the black day, when her parents were gunned down by Hands of the Bright, when she and Essell had been dragged away and separated. They had tortured Teal until she learned to stop openly resisting, to accept their training and work to be the best possible assassin she could be. To hide her hatred, pretend she was loyal to those who tormented her. But she'd never given up her hopes for escape, for revenge. Since they'd completed her training, there was no force that could hold her here anymore. She'd mapped out an escape route already. All she was waiting for was to take Essell with her when she ran.

She surfaced and climbed ashore, where she lay on the grass to let herself dry in the artificial sun. Teal forced herself not to tense with anticipation, making a conscious effort to keep each muscle relaxed. She needed to rest, to get back her strength, to force down the waves of excitement that raced through her. Trying to stay calm.

Then the door to the simulator opened.

Teal jumped to her feet and faced the door. The young man who entered... was a stranger, a tall young man with broad shoulders and bronzed skin and a mane of beautiful golden hair. Nothing she remembered. But she knew the blue-green eyes, the color of the sea; and in his face, there were still shadows of the Essell that had been, five years ago.

"Essell..."

He was a golden lion. The sun to her moon, shining and gold where she was pale and white. He always had been.

She ran toward him, and threw her arms around him. "Essell!" she cried, being careful to keep the razor claws on her gloves away from his flesh. "Oh, Essell!"

"Teal,” he said in an amused tone, as he ruffled his hand through her short hair. “You're so emotional. When did that happen?"

His voice was strangely cool. Teal looked up at him. "Well, aren't you? It's been five years!" Urgently and softly she murmured in their private language, the twinspeech of their childhood, "Essell, let’s get out of here, now. I've made a plan--"

"What are you talking about?" Essell asked in English.

Teal blinked. "Essell? Don't you remember Mooganooga?"

Essell shook his head. "You're such a child, Teal. You mean you've been cluttering your brain by hanging onto all that crazy stuff from when we were kids?"

"Crazy stuff?" Teal whispered. She stepped back from him and looked at him, hard.

"Teal, we're Children of the Bright. We're adults now. Why would we need to cling on to things from when we were little kids?" He snorted. “You’d think that after you’d passed your final exam, you’d be mature.”

Children of the Bright. The Children of the Bright were the most loyal, most skilled servants of the Bright, verified by telepathic probe. Teal was a blockpath, and never could be so verified, therefore could never be so trusted. But Essell-- for Essell to be a Child of the Bright meant that he would have to be loyal in truth, no part of him hidden from the Bright. "You're-- a Child of the Bright?"

"Aren't you?"

Five years she had learned to bend without breaking. Five years she had borne everything, plotting secretly to escape and get revenge. Five years, she had only been waiting for Essell... but he was not here. They had killed her brother's mind. It was his voice, his face, but it wasn’t him anymore. Some impostor looked out from behind his eyes now.

Oh, she should have guessed. She should have expected this; she shouldn’t have allowed herself hope. Shapechangers were highly adaptable, and therefore easy to brainwash. And she would never get him back. Essell was a Child of the Bright, loyal and beloved servant of the creature that had killed their parents, stolen their childhoods, mutilated his sister and killed all the children she might ever have. That was not the Essell she remembered. Her beloved brother was dead. This creature only used the same name.

Tears blurred her vision. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, even though it was the only thing that mattered. “I love you, Essell, you know that?”

He shrugged, elaborately embarrassed, but he didn’t try to stop her from hugging him tightly. “I guess I—"

The sentence never finished. Teal drove her claws into his back, turning whatever he would have said into a scream. She slashed through his spine, cutting it in pieces, and continued to rip until she'd torn through his kidneys. Essell's scream cut off, and his body folded. She stepped away with bloody claws.

"Teal!" For once, Jaxson had some emotion in his voice. Teal flung herself at him, boosting, slashing out. He dodged back from her once, but her second swing took his face off, and the third ripped out his throat. Then she ran for the simulator doors and charged through.

She had very little time. They had to have been monitoring her. There were probably guards mobilizing to stop her right now. But she still remembered the escape route she'd plotted. Essell, why? Why did they brainwash you, destroy you? How could you have let it happen?

The Hands of the Bright murdered you. All I did was lay your corpse to rest. I'll avenge you and our parents both, Essell.

I swear.

There would be guards to kill and traps to evade on her way out, but Teal didn't care. They'd trained her to be unstoppable. They wouldn't be able to stop her themselves.

She ran for the exit and freedom, tears drying on her face.