Part 1.1: Fighting Fire With Fire (Flaming Helen Takes the Fall)
***
Smoke rose from the carcass, the smell of burned, rancid meat making her nostrils flare. Still, she surveyed the kill dispassionately, waiting for that tiny, telltale twitch. It took a while; sometimes, even when she thought the spores were as thoroughly cooked as they could be, there would still be something left, something alive in their warped, rotted,fungal brains that always took too long to get the message.
And the message was always that she wanted them dead.
When the twitch came, as she knew it would, she blasted the thing again with a stream of fire from her thrower. Its skin was now blackened and cracked, fluid seeping out and onto the pavement. The breeze crumbled its stalk, the first place her flame had hit, into fine black dust. Coolly, she hooked the thrower’s nozzle onto the pack and stepped over it, suppressing the exhaustion that tried to smother her alertness.
She had been patrolling her sector since midnight, when Ben had woken her from a few precious hours of sleep to tell her that he’d seen a pack gathering at 5th and Memorial. It’d been a fresh kill that had drawn them, as it usually was – she’d never seen anything else that could get them together in one area so quickly. The dirty scraps of a little girl’s pink umbrella had said all too plainly what the kill had been.
Helen refused to speculate on what a little girl had been doing out by the park that late, in that sector. What was done was done. But there had barely been any meat left on the bones by the time they’d arrived, which meant that the spores and the beasts were already beginning to drift away, the spores with their ghost-white mushroom stalks already receding into their neck cavities, and the beasts with their sharp, inhumanly black eyes already scanning the streets for new kills.
Their hunt had been successful, though, at least by her standards. Three spores, their stupid, grinning faces blackened and melted by her flame, stalks instantly pacified, and four beasts. Ben even got two on his own, with the new shock arrows Yasi Clan had sent from Quadrant C. The arrows would last for at least half a year, if he was able to retrieve them after each shot and remembered to keep them charged. The boy was getting better, and she hoped it would be enough to keep him alive. After the ground fight they’d split to watch their own blocks, Ben from his favorite spot in the second floor window of an abandoned apartment, and her on foot.
Filmy gray light was beginning to make its way between the shining blue skyscrapers of Atlas City, blending the shadows together until everything took on a misty pallor. The dense, interlocked foliage of the yellow new aspens formed a frame of gold above her as she cut through the park, amplifying the weak dawn light rather than smothering it. It was her favorite place in the city; the new aspens, a modified implant from the Old World, spent their seasonal changes in various cloaks of yellow, orange, and red. They were like her hair, which never seemed to know which color it wanted to be, and like her flame, which always met its mark.
The park was the only place in this godforsaken city that she ever came to for pleasure alone. She never hunted here on principle; it was all to easy to imagine a stray blast of fire leaving a slice of burn on the pristine white trunks of the aspens. Besides, the park was small, and the trees close-set; it was simple enough to lure the beasts and spores out onto the surrounding streets for more maneuverable battle.
As the dawn light became stronger, however, Helen began to feel something that set her already-humming nerves even further on edge. It began quietly, a small tickle behind her eyes. A flash of light at the peripheral of her vision that could easily have been imagined. A sick feeling that slowly crept upwards from her belly.
She upped her pace to a trot, keeping her eyes peeled for any strays that might be drawn by her movement. The tree trunks, all the same smooth white speckled with gray, began to keep time with the flashes. There were no paths through this park, and suddenly she was disoriented. Had she come from the north or the west? Why couldn’t she remember? Taking deep breaths, she reminded herself that it didn’t matter as long as she kept moving in a straight line. The park was surrounded by roads on every side. She just had to make it out to one.
But she was running out of time.
***
Ready for part 1.2? Get it here.
And the message was always that she wanted them dead.
When the twitch came, as she knew it would, she blasted the thing again with a stream of fire from her thrower. Its skin was now blackened and cracked, fluid seeping out and onto the pavement. The breeze crumbled its stalk, the first place her flame had hit, into fine black dust. Coolly, she hooked the thrower’s nozzle onto the pack and stepped over it, suppressing the exhaustion that tried to smother her alertness.
She had been patrolling her sector since midnight, when Ben had woken her from a few precious hours of sleep to tell her that he’d seen a pack gathering at 5th and Memorial. It’d been a fresh kill that had drawn them, as it usually was – she’d never seen anything else that could get them together in one area so quickly. The dirty scraps of a little girl’s pink umbrella had said all too plainly what the kill had been.
Helen refused to speculate on what a little girl had been doing out by the park that late, in that sector. What was done was done. But there had barely been any meat left on the bones by the time they’d arrived, which meant that the spores and the beasts were already beginning to drift away, the spores with their ghost-white mushroom stalks already receding into their neck cavities, and the beasts with their sharp, inhumanly black eyes already scanning the streets for new kills.
Their hunt had been successful, though, at least by her standards. Three spores, their stupid, grinning faces blackened and melted by her flame, stalks instantly pacified, and four beasts. Ben even got two on his own, with the new shock arrows Yasi Clan had sent from Quadrant C. The arrows would last for at least half a year, if he was able to retrieve them after each shot and remembered to keep them charged. The boy was getting better, and she hoped it would be enough to keep him alive. After the ground fight they’d split to watch their own blocks, Ben from his favorite spot in the second floor window of an abandoned apartment, and her on foot.
Filmy gray light was beginning to make its way between the shining blue skyscrapers of Atlas City, blending the shadows together until everything took on a misty pallor. The dense, interlocked foliage of the yellow new aspens formed a frame of gold above her as she cut through the park, amplifying the weak dawn light rather than smothering it. It was her favorite place in the city; the new aspens, a modified implant from the Old World, spent their seasonal changes in various cloaks of yellow, orange, and red. They were like her hair, which never seemed to know which color it wanted to be, and like her flame, which always met its mark.
The park was the only place in this godforsaken city that she ever came to for pleasure alone. She never hunted here on principle; it was all to easy to imagine a stray blast of fire leaving a slice of burn on the pristine white trunks of the aspens. Besides, the park was small, and the trees close-set; it was simple enough to lure the beasts and spores out onto the surrounding streets for more maneuverable battle.
As the dawn light became stronger, however, Helen began to feel something that set her already-humming nerves even further on edge. It began quietly, a small tickle behind her eyes. A flash of light at the peripheral of her vision that could easily have been imagined. A sick feeling that slowly crept upwards from her belly.
She upped her pace to a trot, keeping her eyes peeled for any strays that might be drawn by her movement. The tree trunks, all the same smooth white speckled with gray, began to keep time with the flashes. There were no paths through this park, and suddenly she was disoriented. Had she come from the north or the west? Why couldn’t she remember? Taking deep breaths, she reminded herself that it didn’t matter as long as she kept moving in a straight line. The park was surrounded by roads on every side. She just had to make it out to one.
But she was running out of time.
***
Ready for part 1.2? Get it here.
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