Dante

  I smile politely at the oncoming girl while my thoughts whirl. She looks about my age, her bare arms toned, her face heart-shaped and the whole of her stunningly beautiful – one of the worst tells of an Enhanced engineered to look utterly extraordinary rather than completely forgettable.

  I’m not going to criticize. My own looks draw enough stares, despite being a guy, and I’m not even an extreme example. But I need little more than a hoodie or a hat to drop off the public’s radar. Moving with a dancer’s grace and an indefinable presence, this girl would likely draw every eye in a burka or a burial shroud. Her self-assurance hints at someone used to being the center of attention.

  For the first time I feel slightly nervous. Not about small talk, but about what brings someone so clearly Enhanced into my train compartment, and whether someone so blatant might be trailing other watchers.

  Watchers she suddenly needs to deceive.

  Or if she is one herself.

  I scan her intently and I’m sure Lyrica and Foresight, at least, are doing so as well. Being unnaturally pretty or fit can sometimes be a tell with Enhanced, but one of the true markers of someone with savant abilities or Enhanced contacts is the tech they have access to.

  Of course, the smart ones may keep their greatest trump cards hidden, but anything you can pick up on is an advantage. Or less of an advantage for the person planning to surprise you with it.

  Unfortunately, other than a spectacular face and build, she doesn’t seem to be carrying anything unusual. Which is probably a bad sign. People with the brains, the money and the expertise to be circumspect often have the best technology on the market. Or specifically not for sale, but only for their private collection.

  “Excuse me,” she says, her voice like liquid light being suddenly stuffed into the corset of common courtesies. “Dante Alistaire?” She gives a brilliant smile. “Andrea Aspect. Your uncle asked me to look out for you.” Perhaps it’s my imagination, but strains of music seemed to be flowing into the train car, and I could swear the girl is softly glowing. Then again, I’ve seen stranger things with the Enhanced.

  And Lyrica will yelp like an electronic pack of hounds if anyone tries to hypnotize me. Still, my uncle?

  Barry? I think. Or? “Which one?” My uncles are not all created equal. One, in particular, has no equals, and knows it.

  “Well, the Commander sent the text, but Lucero followed up with emojis. So technically both of them.”

  Not Barry, then. Uncle Kieron I can see, I reflect. But Lucero? There’s a twist. It’s nice he even knows I’m alive. “I appreciate the thought. Do you go to Waycross? Going to help me with the ropes?”

  “Yes and yes. But first, I thought I’d help you with the ride down. We’re about to have some unplanned passengers. And an unscheduled stop.” She gestures to my bag and partly opened Logos laptop. “You might want to gather your things.” She pauses. “Now.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Something’s incoming fast, boss,” Foresight warns. “Listen to her.” I have my laptop and phones back in the bag in an instant, and zip it shut decisively. The bag’s tough, and more likely to survive a crash than I am.

  Andrea starts, then whirls back towards the front of the compartment, pointing her left fist towards the rest of the train. I notice a crystalline disk in front of her knuckles – like a glassy set of brass knuckles or something – just as her thumb crushes a button flat on the grip she’s holding in that hand.

  With a faint hiss, an incredibly thin film telescopes out perpendicular from her fist like a single feather… or a blade. Instantly, that swordlike crystal points straight out to the left of her hand. And then it whirls around her fist, leaving blade after blade in its wake like afterimages, until a perfect circle of overlapping feather-blades over seven-feet across stands before us. With Andrea’s fist at its heart.

  “Graphene?” Foresight asks, of no one in particular. “But ho—"

  “Get ready,” Andrea snaps.

  A crimson beam burns through the front of the train car and slices neatly down from the roof through the floor like a descending guillotine… striking exactly where Andrea was sitting two minutes ago.

  A sudden rumble and a hot rush of wind sweeps into the compartment. I can see the rest of the train pulling away from us. Droplets of molten glass and metal hiss and sizzle against the thin barrier Andrea holds up in front of us.

  We aren’t derailing, I think, stunned. I must say it aloud, because the girl hears me.

  “No, they missed the tracks,” Andrea says. “Deliberately. They want you alive. For now.”

  An immense figure of brass and steel slams into the front of the compartment, and bats away part of the roof to make room as it steps into the damaged car. Knives of glass and fragments of metal race towards us, borne by the fierce winds of our still slowing vehicle.

  “But not uninjured,” Legios mutters.

  Only my new friend’s barrier saves us from the lacerating shards. Debris pings like hailstones across her shield, and I instinctively crouch, adding the seat’s slight cover to the shield’s as I pull on my backpack and tighten the straps. The Circle? I wonder. But no, this towers over the ones I saw in Chicago. And brass? Far from looking like some steampunk cosplay gear, the intruder moves fast and almost sinuously as it steps towards us, helm turning in our direction as if sizing them up.

  Another crash shakes the train car as a second massive armored figure slams into the side, great armored gauntlets of gold-chased steel shattering windows and tearing into the interior. I blink, my mind accelerating to make sense of the insanity.

  The world slows around us.

  This armor has to be over ten-feet tall – more than three meters. Yet the limbs rip through the wall – not just the windows – like scythes through paper. More than just mass, then, it has power. Not to mention speed.

  The machine throws a leg over the side of the breach and tumbles in, eyes flashing towards us both as it does so. Despite my perceiving time moving several times slower, the huge invader seems to be moving all too quickly.

  The figure in the front seems to be in similar armor, and its eyes flash as it stares at us.“You!” it thunders at Andrea, it’s voice stretching out in dilated time. The armor raises an open gauntlet towards the girl, as though reaching out, and I glimpse the flash of a ruby embedded in its palm, just before it blazes brighter. Another crimson burst of laser light lashes towards us, aiming straight at Andrea’s heart. Her wafer-thin shield flashes silver where it strikes, and I can see the reflected light bounce back at the intruder, striking its armor a glancing blow that melts metal like butter.

  With a roar, the figure stumbles, his blazing beam rising above her shield and the other intruder pulling into the compartment behind us.

  And with a single sweep, slicing off the roof with one clumsy wave of his hand.

  The armored trooper behind us raises an arm before its face instinctively just as the roof rips free and crumbles in midair, pelting him with debris. He starts to move forward, when the largest chunk of roof hits in his chest, driving him back a few yards as he struggles to remain upright. He slips, and suddenly drops to one knee with a thunderous crash I can feel through the floor.

  Which appears to be buckling under the second knight’s kneecap. I can also feel a certain wobble in the movement of the train-car wheel beneath us, and wonder exactly how soon we’re going to lose our tracks. It’s definitely time to go.

  The first trooper, however, is unconcerned for his personal safety. He’s still gamely trying to draw a bead on us with his laser – stymied partly by the cloud of dust and debris rising around us, and partly by the reflective properties of whatever coating Andrea has added to her graphene shield.

  “Time to go,” Andrea says. She jumps a half-step towards me, now looking for a way out of our crumbling deathtrap of a train car, lunges behind me, and wraps her right arm around my chest like a vise. Her left arm comes up, brandishing her disk to cover us.

  With a single heave, she leaps upward, blue jets of flame bursting from the bottoms of her stylish boots as the train car tears apart all around us. And unfolding from her shirt at her shoulder blades, I see more crystalline films expand outward.

  But this time, not as a shield… but wings.

  Perfect, crystalline wings flexing as they stretch out to a span of fifty feet or more. Like a giant eagle’s made of frozen light.

  Or an angel’s.

  The wind catches us with a roar, and we are gone.

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