The Mantis Synchronicity - Book Five - 23. Chapter 23 - Apprehended

From the broken door of Abernathy’s Apothecary came a loud banging that stopped as suddenly as it started.

“What the blazes was that?” Croosen barked as Abernathy headed to the front and pulled open the door.

He could smell that someone had just been there, but they were gone. Abernathy looked both directions up the street, but there was no one. A paper was dangling from the front of the door, held in place by a very large nail. Abernathy snatched the paper.

“There’s a note!” he called back to Croosen, and he read it aloud as he closed the door again. “It says I know you killed those Shifts, and it’s signed The First Organic Mechanic of Teshon City. Ha! Who does that girl think she is?” He crumpled up the paper and threw it into his trash bin. “I’m going to go pay her a visit to teach her some respect.”

“Show that little bitch who’s boss, boss!” Croosen hollered to him as he headed out front.

She was glad when he closed the door behind him; Croosen was barely keeping hidden the fact that her mind no longer felt like her own. The dead Biological Shift’s memories had become no clearer, and the thoughts were now almost constant alongside her own. She brought her head to her hands and closed her eyes. Her mind swam in an ocean of bizarre and terrifying mysteries.

Out in the street, Abernathy found his way blocked by a group of his fellow Demifae. They were there to confront him and bring him in for questioning. There were people he considered friends among the mob.

“We know it was you, Abernathy!” one of them shouted. “We know that your utter failure with the attack on the Shifton Youth Outreach Center prompted you to go rogue, and we know you killed those three Shifts!”

Another voice shouted, “Don’t resist and come with us.”

Abernathy gritted his teeth. He knew he could not get away from the group, and there were too many for him to simply shoot them all. “Very well,” he said flatly. “Take me to Gilnik.”

Several people laughed, and one of them replied, “You’re going to the High Chemist.”

Abernathy was alarmed. “I’m sorry, what? Why am I being taken to her?”

“You’ll have to let the High Chemist tell you herself.”

Abernathy was led to the old Oselian military structure with a set of metal steps leading to what used to serve as the officers’ complex. In a council chamber, the High Chemist was seated at the head of a committee table.

“Sit,” she ordered, waving at the only empty chair in the room, and she began. “Despite the decisions made by this council, decisions which were decided for the good of all Demifae living in this city, you have acted on your own behalf and for no one’s benefit except your own. You are found guilty by this chamber of your superiors, and sentencing will be carried…”

“Superiors?” Abernathy interrupted. “You who hide in the shadows, who begged like dogs for scraps from the Messiahs’ table, you are superior to no one. I am more than you’ve ever been. You should all be thanking me for doing what you could not.”

Everyone present was shocked to see the weapon concealed within Abernathy’s shoulder, as it rose and aimed at the only Demifae guardsman present. Abernathy opened fire, and the man was dead before his body hit the floor. The room exploded into chaos. One of the councilwomen dove from her seat and grabbed the High Chemist’s arm, pulling her to the floor, as a Demifae man threw a little purple orb at Abernathy. It was made of thin glass, and it shattered against his chest, engulfing him in a cloud that choked him and had him almost unconscious, but he managed to fire his weapon one final time before darkness swallowed him.

Abernathy’s shot was wild, blasting through the table, but he hit his intended target. The High Chemist screamed in pain; the beam had not killed her, but it burned a hole straight through her upper arm. She writhed on the floor in agony with her bicep smoking. She managed to groan through her teeth, “Lock him in the cell, and rip that thing out of him!”

The other councilmembers began treating the High Chemist and dealing with the dead guard, as Abernathy was laid on a gurney and brought into a barred room.

“Keep him unconscious,” a prime Demifae medic ordered. “Let’s see what he’s got in his shoulder.” The man cut away Abernathy’s shirt. “What a fascinating little device.” He leaned close and looked at it from all sides. “It’s part of him. It’s been installed in his shoulder as if he were some sort of machine. What is this thing?”

The prime medic picked up a pair of tweezers to shift the device and examine its other side, but the instant his tool was in contact with Abernathy’s weapon, a brutal protective bolt of energy discharged. The medic’s body seized and he made a horrible noise, as the current flowed through him into the floor. It burned his insides, and as the electricity deactivated, his corpse collapsed.

His assistants were aghast, and no one else touched Abernathy. The electric blast had not affected Abernathy, and he moaned, coming to from the knock-out dust. He pushed himself up. “That bastard,” he mumbled, shaking his head. He focused on the dead prime medic, the prison cell, and the other stunned medics. Abernathy did not wait to try and figure out his situation, and he opened fire again and again and again until he was the only living person in the room. He grabbed the keys from one of the dead bodies and unlocked the cell.

Abernathy came to a hall, but he paused at the doorway and slapped himself in the face a few times, trying to focus through the residual haze left by the chemicals he had breathed. “Bleeding knock-out dust,” he grumbled. He stepped into the hallway and made a beeline for the door at its end, but another Demifae stepped out and tried to stop him. It was a friend, a man everyone called Mosquito.

“Get out of my way,” Abernathy said as loudly as he could, but his voice was weak, and when Mosquito grabbed him, Abernathy opened fire.

He shot Mosquito in the neck at point-blank range, taking out a huge chunk of meat and bone and cartilage. Mosquito’s head lolled to the side, no longer completely attached, and he crumpled to the hallway floor. The blast had not killed him outright, and Mosquito lay in a twisted position with his head facing the wrong direction. His mouth gaped at the air, and his eyes bulged as his fingers reached for nothing. Abernathy knelt close to Mosquito. He did not apologize, did not say anything at all; he simply stared into his dying friend’s eyes until the life in them slipped away. The corpse convulsed a few times and fell still.

Abernathy stood and staggered to the metal staircase that would lead to his escape. He leaned against the wall as he made his way down, and when someone opened the door below, he fired. It mattered little who the person was; Abernathy was determined to get away. He reached the door and stumbled out into the blaring sunshine, squinting and ducking around the corner of the building.

His enhanced ears heard a tiny whistling from above, and he stepped back as another little purple sphere sailed down right in front of him and shattered on the pavement. Abernathy stumbled away from the cloud and glanced up to see who was above him, just as another orb burst against the wall. He rushed off as quickly as his drugged body would go, and two more glass balls smashed near him, but a moment later, he was out of range. He had breathed in a little of each purple cloud, and he was functioning on mostly adrenaline.

He found a narrow alleyway at the border of Gate Town with high walls and deep shadows. His enhanced ears could hear running footsteps pursuing him, and he dipped into the darker space.

“Wha’tha fuck do you want?” slurred a voice from the shadows behind him.

Abernathy spun around.

“Ge’the fuck outta my street,” the voice ordered, as an empty glass bottle flew through the air and smashed on the concrete beside Abernathy’s foot. “Thisss iss my street!” The speaker leaned into the glow of the sun, and Abernathy was startled to see a Biological Shift glaring at him. The individual had green fur.

Abernathy’s weapon was still out of its housing unit, and he fired. The Biological Shift dropped dead in the gutter, and Abernathy realized there was a perfect hiding place right in front of him. He rolled the dead body to the side, crawled into the hovel where the Biological Shift had been living, and he pulled the dead man’s greasy blanket over him.

Abernathy’s ears could still hear his pursuers, but he was unable to stop himself from drifting into unconsciousness★