Blue Bloods

Centurion cradled Siren's still form in his arms and wept. With a thousand tiny fingers of his mind he held her wounds closed, but it hadn't been enough. He'd reached in and forced her heart to beat, pushed air into her lungs, but her face remained still and slack beneath her sheltering mask. He pulled her to him and rocked back and forth, unable to contain his grief.

Rubble crunched, but he didn't care if someone snuck up and stuck a knife in him. Knives and bullets couldn't hurt him any more than he already had been. Tears dripped on her cold, blue lips, and he kissed them away. The man behind him came so close Centurion could feel him, all the way down to the badge pinned to his left breast pocket. The police officer reached out a hand and touched Centurion's shoulder, the gesture oddly hesitant.

"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to come down to the station and answer some questions."

The same fury that had taken him when Siren fell washed over him again. Hands unsteady, he looked for a smooth place to lay Siren's body down. Every spot in sight bore the signs of the recent struggle.

He knew that as a lie. It hadn't been a struggle after she fell. It had been an execution, even for the gangbanger hopped up on Blue. Centurion could still feel his unseen hands gripping the 'banger's head and body. He'd twisted the man, not the quick twist a farmer used to break a chicken's neck, but the slow, compressing twist a housewife used to squeeze the last bits of water from a rag. The rest of the scum ran when they saw that, or they tried to. He hadn't let them go. He'd reached out his unseen hands and gripped each firmly by the scruff of the neck.

They'd resisted, of course. A ring of bullets marked the spot he'd made his stand. They'd had a lot of guns, but what were bullets to a man with impenetrable unseen hands in a sphere around him. Hands strong enough to rip the facing from the bank, dexterous enough to rip that facing into even chunks, mad enough to fling one chunk at each of his attackers, killing them the same way their leader had killed Siren.

"Sir, I said I need you to come with me."

Fury filled him. "Get your hands off of me!" Centurion roared. The officer staggered backward, gasping, unseen hands lifting him by the neck. He tried to choke out something, but Centurion's incoherent scream of rage cut him off. Still screaming, he flung the officer away. He landed, rolled, and scrambled for cover unsteadily.

Centurion's scream went on long after the breath had gone from his lungs. It built on itself, echoing from the skyscrapers around him, glass vibrating until it shattered, each fragment reshattering again and again until only a fine dust remained to drift to the ground. The police in the street fell to their knees, hands clutching uselessly at their ears. Static filled Centurion's eyes, his own unending scream drowned out by rushing wind.

His scream rushed outward at the speed of thought, echoes covering the entire globe and the skies above.

***

Walker looked down on the glittering blue and white globe below, reveling in its beauty. He'd been working on the communications array since dawn, and he needed a break. The thought brought a smile to his face. He could walk unprotected in vacuum, survive the ravages of the sun's radiation unshielded by suit or ozone, but he still got tired after a few hours of doing basic maintenance. It seemed nonsensical, but at the same time very right.

He'd been granted a gift, perhaps the greatest gift he could have imagined, but he was still, at heart, human. Still bound by his oaths to serve, still connected to those inside the station he stood on.

"Will you be coming in for lunch?" A faint crackle marred Grzba's words. Johnson had a conniption every time he thought about Walker hearing and sending radio signals without a transceiver, but he'd also been the one to figure it out. No sound carried in vacuum, but Walker could respond to the radio, so he must be a living transceiver. Again, practicality built out of insane building blocks.

"I'm not sure yet. I'm really tempted to bring it out here. The view's awesome."

"Show off." The smile in her voice took the sting from her words. They'd grown surprisingly close since the disaster. Maybe he could convince her to emigrate.

"I just wish you could see it the way I do. I wish..."

A raw, agonized scream rent the aether. It drove Walker to his knees, forced him down until his hands touched the hull. Distant screams echoed through his link to the station, but he could only hunker down and try to keep from being swept away. His knees slid a few inches, and he wrapped his ankles around a protruding antenna. He clung to the edge of an open panel, the raw metal cutting into his skin, blood making his hands slippery. No matter how he clung, the wave of raw agony tugged at his wings, pulling him away from the surface of the station. He'd been in space too long, gotten used to the freedom of flight without wind. Desperately hoping he remembered the errata from a flight school lesson he'd never used, he twisted to angle his wings so the lift generated by the solar wind cancelled out the gusting of the flood of pain. Both currents fought against him, lifting him from the hull then slamming him back down, but he forced his wings into the remembered configuration.

They slipped into the pocket, and all became still. Both forces still pushed at his wings, but each cancelled the other out. He'd found serenity in balance, despite the raging torrent of heartfelt rage and grief pouring from the planet below. Holding his wings in place, he took a deep, cleansing breath.

Walker blinked as bracing vacuum rushed into his lungs. It didn't hurt, but the sensation would not be denied and would not let him remain in the half-aware haze he'd drifted in since the scream washed over the station. He flickered his wings just a touch to be sure they were still...

Walker froze, one thought filling his head.

Wings?

***

Angela looks strung out.

Drew perched on the counter in the break room. Most of the chairs were just gone; Angela sat in the last whole folding chair, her hair sweaty, her face pale. If Drew didn't know Angela so well, she'd assume her friend was a recovering addict. Instead she just sat there, worrying, as Jesse gave Angela's vital signs a once over.

"I'm fine, Jesse."

"Your heart rate and blood pressure are normal. The only thing wrong with you is your hands. You're shaking."

Angela closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and held out one hand. Drew stared at it. It didn't twitch, not one iota. "I'm not sick. I'm furious."

"You should have told us it's that time of the month." Steve could be an unbearable ass. If she hadn't seen him run into disasters more than once to get people out, Drew would have demolished him a long time ago. Angela just swung her rock steady hand over to point at him, clenched her fist, and stuck her middle finger in the air.

"I'm not really into that, but if you're projecting, I'm willing to give it a shot."

Sergeant Maliss shifted, the floor creaking slightly under his weight. Steve didn't look around, but Drew could tell how his shoulders tensed at the sound. "Son, I warned you about that before. I suggest you apologize to the lady. Now."

"I'm sorry, Angela. I shouldn't have said anything about you riding the cotton pony."

The Sergeant started to move, but paused when Jesse, sitting out of Steve's field of view, waved him back. She leaned over beside him and whispered, "Steve?"

"Yeah?"

"You can keep that up, and I'll break your fingers one by one and send you back to the emergency room, or you can pretend to be an adult and we'll let you sit quietly and listen in on the grownup's conversation." All of that in a singsong so sickly sweet it made Drew want to retch.

Of course, it had the expected effect on Steve. He looked Drew straight in the eye and said, "let me guess, you broads are all synched up and you're going to pick on me next?"

The Sergeant started toward Steve, but stopped a moment later, turning to stare at Drew as the laughter she'd been straining herself to hold inside burst forth. She laughed until she fell over, clutching at her sides. Since the Rain of Fire it seemed like everything had changed. Everyone treated her like some kind of freak, and she still didn't understand why. The dust had fiddled with her figure a little and turned her hair black, but nothing that should have everyone walking on eggshells. It felt wonderful to have at least one person treating her like the same old Drew.

Even if it was Steve at his most... Steve-ish.

She stood back up and looked around at the others. Jesse smiled, Angela looked thoughtful, and Jack looked confused. She opened her mouth to explain, but Jesse cut her off.

"Steve is who he is, Sergeant. You all need to see this though, and I did warn him."

Steve's hands crunched. He writhed, trying to get free, but the hand Jesse clamped around his forearm never moved, except to turn his hand up so everyone in the room could see the damage she'd done. Bones gleamed white where they'd poked through his skin, but where she expected to see crimson, instead the lacerations filled with a pale, glowing blue. Even more disturbing, the fingers slowly twisted themselves back into place, the skin sealing seamlessly over the bones. After a few moments, only the blood remained to show he'd been injured.

That and his swearing, but foul language was part of the whole Steve experience.

Jack said, "I've seen a lot of weird sh... stuff in my life, but I have never seen anything quite like that."

"I suspect I'd find the same thing if I could get a blood sample from you, Mr. Maliss." Angela's simple statement forced every eye in the room around to look at her. "I'm guessing with the exception of Steve, each of us has suffered some severe blood loss in the past forty eight hours."

"Why do I gotta be an exception?"

"You lost all yours the first day, Steve."

Even Steve had no response to that. Drew said "yeah", Jesse nodded sheepishly, and Jack mumbled, "I needed to talk with you about that, Doc. Y'see, I..."

A moment later, a figure clothed in what looked like jumbo sized trash bags, a belt, and a gas mask appeared in the middle of the room. Before Drew could react, Charlie's voice sounded through the vents in the mask.

"Guys! I've figured it out! It's so simple! We're supposed to..."

A scream filled the room, so loud it bypassed ears and hammered straight into Drew's brain. She clutched at her head, barely able to stay on her feet as the screamer's agony woke answering pain in her. The building shook beneath her, and time seemed to slow. Charlie lay on the ground, a fetal ball of plastic. Jesse clutched at Steve, her features slowly melting from her face as she oozed out of her chair. Steve tried his best to hold her together, the only signs he might be in pain narrowed eyes and clenched jaw. Sergeant Maliss crouched, ready to spring in any direction, his eyes haunted.

Angela crouched in her sofa fort, fingers in her ears. Her lips moved, but Drew couldn't quite make out what she said. The moment she stopped talking, the room around Angela started to warp. For a sliver of a moment, the twisted wreckage of the sofa seemed almost straight compared to the space around Angela. A few inches around her stretched into infinity.

The next instant the warping stopped. The scream continued, but now Angela sat, a look of wonder on her face as she felt the glossy red open-faced helmet covering her head. She said something else, and a flat of chocolate bars appeared in a much smaller, faster twist of reality.

After that, Drew decided the world could do without her for a few minutes, and passed out.

***

A distant scream pushed Grace toward wakefulness. Without thought, she stored the sound as a perfect example of despair. Before she could wake fully, two thoughts invaded her mind.

One, a scrap of lyrics echoing down an infinite tunnel that led right around the corner, So long since I heard an Angel scream. Perhaps this is the end of my dream.

The other, the mountain around her speaking to itself, Humans. Always so loud, with so little purpose. Sleep, little one, we've not arrived yet.

Grace had no choice. She slept.

***

She strained endlessly to open her eyes and end the silence. She could not know whether it took days or seconds. She needed to see the sounds, not know the time. Air, water, and food came without asking, but sound eluded her. She strained to open her eyes.

A scream rent the very fabric of light in front of her. Laced through with darkness, the cry of rage and pain ripped her from her bed, light lifting her by her hands and feet until she hovered upright in the center of the room. She saw...

She saw the room around her...

She saw the hospital beyond her closed door, every room and hall...

She saw the parking lot, the highway, and the ripples of agony tearing the sky...

She listened to those ripples, followed them back to their source with her infinite gaze...

Twelve souls black as night flowed across the ground. They seeped inexorably into the wounds of a warrior made of light, slowly shading the brilliant blue glow of his life. He didn't seem to notice as they sucked him dry; he could only pour his light into the fading glow of the maiden he cradled before him.

She could not let this injustice stand. Knowing the cost, she whispered in the maiden's ear from the infinite closeness of her hospital bed.

"You can't go. Get up."

The maiden stirred, spoke. The scream ended, and silence returned.

The floor smelled of sweat and blood and copper when she landed, so strong it almost threw her from her single minded pursuit entirely. She'd gained another piece of the puzzle, and she refused to lose it. Ignoring the smell of broken bones and bruises, she strained once more.

She strained to open her eyes and end the silence.

***

The world was nothing but endless pain, and Centurion screamed in agony. The buildings around him bowed inward, steel corroded by the ongoing erosion of his pain. The pain and the scream consumed everything...

"Okay, okay, I'm awake. Stop yelling at me."

Centurion choked on his own breath, shocked into silence by Siren's words.

Katrina smiled up at Damien. He pulled her close and held her like nothing else in the world mattered. At that moment, nothing else did.