Five seconds.
Enda fired once, twice—each bullet struck a target, their shoulders wrecked by the passage of metal. Four. The two targets dropped with the force of impact and the sudden pain, and their pistols fell to the ground with a plastic clatter.
Three. Kalashnikov fumbled awkwardly with her spare magazine. The last gunner raised his pistol and Enda charged forward. A flash blinded her right eye and the gun’s report burst in Enda’s ear—she felt the muzzle heat on her cheek as the bullet passed over her shoulder.
Two. With her free hand, Enda stripped the pistol from the target’s hand, felt the snap of bone or tendon as the gun came away. One. She slammed the butt of her gun into his gut—his head came down with the force of the blow and Enda kneed him in the nose, feeling the cartilage break.
K-chnk. Zero.
At that sound, Enda stepped behind the man—boy, really—and pinned his body against hers, pressing the 3D-printed pistol under his chin until his neck craned back. Hostage or human shield. Maybe both. Blinking away the stark white muzzle flash afterimage that still obscured her vision, Enda stared into the barrel of the AK-47—the darkness like a black hole, inexorable.
“Drop the fucking gun,” Kalashnikov yelled, voice quavering, weapon shaking in her grip.
Enda rested her P320 against her hostage’s side, aimed right at Kalashnikov’s belly. “Drop yours, or you’re gut-shot.”
“Drop the fucking gun,” she yelled again, voice straining higher.
Enda fired. Kalashnikov jolted backward with the shot and pulled the trigger—by accident or design, Enda couldn’t tell. Flat peal and chank—the weapon exploded in her grip, the deconstructed pieces falling away in slow motion as she stared at her mangled hand. She dropped to her knees. Blood seeped steadily from her stomach, but she hadn’t noticed, eyes still stuck to the slivers of bone jutting from where her fingers used to be.
“Are you going to behave?” Enda asked her hostage. He nodded once, and quickly lifted his chin away from the plastic barrel of the gun. “Good.”
She pulled the gun away then prodded him forward with her own weapon.
“She would have shot you,” Enda said. He was too stunned to reply. “Put pressure on the wound if you want her to live. If.”
Enda dropped the 3D-printed pistol to the ground and shot a round into the plastic gun, which broke apart into the brightly colored fragments of a child’s toy. Enda stepped over the splayed limbs of the sobbing, groaning, bleeding attackers sprawled on the ground as she entered the apartment.
When they saw her, Dax and Troy emerged from the kitchen, shell-shocked faces oddly pale.
Enda holstered her gun. “We need to go now,” she barked, her voice sounding distorted through the high whine of her ringing ears.
Dax nodded; Troy stared at his bullet-riddled apartment with his mouth ajar. Dax took him by the arm and pulled him toward the exit.
Enda walked through the doorway and leaned over the railing along the landing, scanned the stairwell for more gunners, but found it empty. “It’s clear,” she said.
Enda led them out of the apartment, and the two men stalled in horror at the injured gunners and all the spilled blood. Enda didn’t spare them another glance. Dax and Troy caught up to her, and they took the stairs quickly, Dax wincing, Enda with her pistol aimed low. They reached the ground floor without seeing another soul—gunfire tending to clear hallways and stairwells of foot traffic.
Enda pushed open the door to the street. The constant hiss of rainfall was cut with the distant cry of police sirens. “That’s my car,” Enda said, pointing across the street. “We might get a little wet.”
The rush of water in the gutters had breached the cement curbs, spilling over the sidewalk. Enda splashed out into the road and led the others across to her car.
“Back seat,” Enda said. She unlocked it with a flash of orange lights, and they clambered into the back while Enda took the driver’s seat.
The engine came to life with a low rumble. At the sound of ignition, her Augmented vision blazed red and the words flood warning in effect scrolled across her eyes in tall bold letters.
“Perfect fucking timing,” she whispered as she brushed the warning away. She checked the clip in her P320—half-empty. She took it out and stashed it in the car’s center console.
“Sorry about before, with the wrench,” Dax said, staring at the gun. “I wouldn’t have hit you.”
Enda slammed a fresh magazine into the pistol and holstered it. She looked at Dax in the rearview mirror. “That’s the difference between you and me.”
Enda hit the accelerator and powered down the street with the windscreen wipers at full speed. Familiar roar of the boxer engine as the car reached sixty kilometers per hour, then seventy, then eighty, Enda working her way through the gears while wings of water spread out behind them.
Police cars raced toward the carnage, sparking flares of red and blue off every surface. The engine purred low as Enda dropped speed, braking gently in the wet. The sirens grew louder slowly, then the volume spiked and fell away as three police cars passed, chased by public and private ambulances.
Enda checked her mirrors again, turned east, and gunned the motor, blasting down three city blocks, heading for downtown. Brake lights shone bright ahead, traffic queued through an intersection guarded by flashing amber lights.
“Stop!” Dax yelled.
“Let her drive,” Troy said.
“It’s the AGI.”
Enda ignored him, pushed the accelerator further toward the floor, and veered left into the turning lane, shot past one car, two, three. An auto-car jolted into the lane and Enda slammed on the brakes, feeling the shudder of the anti-lock. She yanked the wheel left and they slid in the wet—all-wheel drive losing traction on the rain-drenched asphalt. The WRX stopped, inches from the auto-car, and the engine stalled. The intersection around them filled with traffic from all sides. Enda hammered the horn with her fist, joining the chorus of confused
