Blackjack Wayward (The Blackjack Series) (52 page)

“Moe, don’t stop compressions.”

“Sec, nigga. He’s trying to say something!”

“Let me go,” I said, aching for an end, daring to flash open my eyes. Or my one good eye, rather.

He stared at me, angry, bewildered. Betrayed.

“Fuck you, man. You understand me?”

I tried to smile, make a joke of it.

“It’s okay,” I mouthed.

“No, goddammit! It’s not motherfucking okay!”

I shook my head.

“If you quit on me, you white motherfucker, I’m going in there and I’m going to beat the fuck out of you, you understand me? You don’t quit on me, you hear?”

I wasn’t worth this, all of this. I had done my part, been the punching bag, now it was time for me to check out. I was fine with it. I knew I had done a good deed, and besides, how could I come back from this? A broken body, a shattered spirit? How could I put it all back together? I couldn’t feel my legs, or my back, only an awful coldness that spread upward to my chest. My arms were maimed and grotesque, and I could only imagine what my face looked like. Why come back from this? Why make a grand return, when I had already said my goodbyes?

“No! You don’t quit, you hear me? You don’t ever quit.” Moe was crying. The big guy was weeping and I could feel the pitter-patter of his warm tears against my face. “You the baddest motherfucker I’ve ever met, you understand me? You are the fucking man. You saved the whole goddamned world, and now we gonna celebrate, Blackjack. You and me, you hear? We gonna celebrate.”

“Moe, the compressions!”

“We gonna get some medals and shit and go throw back a few and celebrate. You hear me, motherfucker?!”

He said more, but he was shoved aside and someone replaced him, pressing at me, the rhythmic crackling of my smashed chest bones ringing through my thorax like a symphony of pain.

“Motherfucker,” Moe said, moving back and overcome with grief.

“ETA 1 minute,” Superdynamic said, and I knew it was he who had taken over. Despite the pain I felt in my chest, I knew he was being careful, pressing only enough to keep my heart pumping blood through my pulverized body. He went on, I think complaining to the doctor who wanted to put me into the helicopter, but a hurricane of wind overcame us. Daring a peek, I saw Apogee standing there, her arms grasping Mirage’s robes. The Chinese man reacted to the sudden stop with a violent racking from his stomach, doubling over to vomit.

“Save him,” Apogee said, helping him up, and when he rose, I caught his eye; I saw the deep anger behind them.

I smiled.

“No,” he said.

“Chen, we don’t have time for this! Move back, Jeff. Everyone take a step back!” Her voice was forceful, commanding, filled with anguish.

I slid my eye closed, not having strength to keep it open further, but from Mirage’s expression, I knew he was going to let me die. I was slipping already, feeling the lapping waves of the cool, dark pool against my extremities.

“I will fucking kill you!”

Was that me, yelling?

I didn’t know. I was rushing off, no time to talk, no time to linger on. In a moment, I was back in the dark room, alone again, the cold waters rising up to engulf me.

“Dale, no!” I heard Apogee cry in the distance, a muffled voice fighting through a heavy wind, barely carrying the sound to me.

I drifted this time, the familiar expressions with their corresponding memories dancing up to me, not bothering to taunt me this time. We were acquainted now, familiar enough that a mere glance registered full knowledge. Instead, they remained off in the distance, wary, watching me with contempt.

I didn’t belong here. This place was the lie.

I tried to summon her face, to remember what she looked like, if only to take that final glimpse with me to the bitter end. She came to me, that last image before I fell, a lined, injured face, so beautiful and loving, wracked with heartbreak and misery. She loved me, despite everything I had done, everything I had yet to make amends for.

I looked at my hand and saw the beam of light again, except it was brighter, so much that it overwhelmed the haunting memories. They faded out into the shadows and again I raced upward.

“It’s working!”

It was Apogee again, but her voice was muted by a loud, approaching whine and a heavy wind that could only mean one thing: Superdynamic’s jet.

“Dee, you’re a fucking genius. Goddamn.” It was Moe, his voice additionally dampened by his open weeping.

I rose toward a blinding light, away from the silent, absolute darkness. I rose away from a vacuum as if every particle of my being was stretched in every direction. Bouncing about, I was carried toward this light, back to myself. Daring a glimpse, this time shot down the length of my body toward my hand, I searched for the point of light that had saved me, the beacon of hope that had brought me back from the Abyss. I saw Apogee’s fingers grasping my mangled right hand.

“It’s just too much damage....” It was Ruby, somewhere to my left. Her voice was a whisper, barely audible over the roaring of engines as Superdynamic’s ship howled above us.

“Careful with the cabling,” Superdynamic said. He was above me, pulling the stretcher up a ramp that led to the main hold of his ship. Countless wires stretched from his body, spider webbing over my face and into my shattered frame. His suit was alive with lights, moreso than I had ever seen it before. We were plugged into each other, his body keeping mine alive.

More people surrounded me, their chatter like the buzzing of flies over a corpse. Some of the other voices I recognized, like Moe, Templar, and Focus. Others were new to me, yelling orders, making requests, an aural blur.

Still holding my hand was Apogee, pushing me up to the open rear cabin of the Cicada. Her voice was soft, direct, and focused, as opposed to everything else that whirled around me.

“You’re going to be okay,” she pleaded, more with the grand forces of fate than with me.

“Lock the gurney down,” I heard Superdynamic say, and then I felt Moe moving around me, working beneath the level of my bed. Apogee had to clear away for the big man, letting go of my hand for only a moment before taking it in her steady grasp once more.

“What are we going to do?” she asked with an edge of terror in her voice, as if she knew something I didn’t.

But I did, I knew. I had made it back from the pits of hell, I had seen her once more, but there was no guarantee that my body could hold me for much longer. In fact, I doubted they could piece me back together. It was only a matter of time before it all ebbed away.

“I need to see how bad it is, first,” Superdynamic said. “Moe, get me the outgoing HDMI end of that monitor.

“Jesus, Jesus,” Madelyne said, coming closer so I could see her face.

“It’s stuck to the wall, Dee,” Moe said.

“Rip it out and bring it here,” Superdynamic retorted, the tension clear in his voice.

“Maddie,” I tried to speak, but my jaw was shattered.

“Don’t talk, Dale,” she whispered, kissing my cheek and lips.

“Excuse me,” Superdynamic said, standing over me, tearing into an arm module to modify it somehow. Apogee rolled over to my right, holding my hand with both of hers.

Moe brought over a cable that Superdynamic stuck in his mouth, stripping it with his teeth. It reminded me of what I’d had to do in the desert to make my rocket boots. Whereas I had a lack of tools in the middle of the Australian Outback, Superdynamic had no time; the shake in his hands, the sweat in his brow – now that he had taken off his helmet – were evident.

He plugged the cable into his armor and ran his hand over my body. I could feel a buzzing from him tingling against my skin as he scanned me. In the space of seconds, he had modified his palm light emitters to act as an MRI, giving him a clear picture of my insides in the nearby monitor.

“They’re giving us immediate clearance to take off,” Ruby said from the cockpit.

“Then get us to the Tower,” Superdynamic said, almost before Ruby had finished. “Damn, the major bones are pulverized.”

Someone heavy leaned against the railing to my left, opposite of Apogee. I focused and saw it was Moe.

“What the fuck do we do?”

Superdynamic moved away from me as much as our conjoined cabling would allow and I saw the concern on his face. I didn’t need an impromptu MRI to know how badly I was injured. What his face told me was that it was far worse than just a few broken bones. My internal organs were probably shot too.

Apogee saw the same thing in her friend’s face. “Jeff, please.”

“I’m thinking,” he said.

“Do something!”

I’m thinking!” he repeated.

“Oh, God,” Madelyne’s head dropped and I felt her hair dancing on my chest.

Moe leaned in over me, “You gonna be all right, okay?” I looked over at Superdynamic and saw him cross his left arm over his chest, resting his right against the forearm and nibbling on his nail.

Focus was there, too, weaving in and out of the bunch, connecting me to sensors, working an IV into one of the many wounds on my body.

“Should I read him his last rights?” Templar said from beyond my sight.

“Who the fuck are you?” Apogee exploded, releasing my hand.

“Apogee....” Moe started.

“I’m just concerned for his immortal soul,” Templar said.

“Look, kid. You shut the fuck up about that if you know what’s good for you–”

“Apogee!” Moe said, but she went on over him.

“–I will fucking throw you through a wall you hear me?”

“Apogee, calm down, goddammit!” Moe said. “He’s just being cautious.”

“Fuck cautious,” Madelyne said, her voice coated with growing desolation. “He’s going to make it.”

I felt the ship shudder and a long, slow pull as we started away, Ruby flying us across the Atlantic on a voyage that despite Apogee’s most desperate hopes, I was probably not going to make.

“Jeff, what can we do?” Apogee asked again, her voice cracking, losing all the rage she had flashed at Templar.

“Maddie,” I said, reaching for her. My arms weren’t strapped down, but it felt like arm-wrestling Epic to raise my hand just a few inches.

“Baby,” she said, coming closer again, filling what remained of my world.

“It’s okay,” I said again, but she just cried, shaking her head.

“No,” she wept.

I smiled, but I could only imagine what that grimace must have looked like.

“It’s not okay, dammit,” she said. “I have so much more to say.”

She cried, her low sobs the only sound in the cabin as Moe, Superdynamic, and the others just watched my final moments.

“I’m so sorry, Dale,” Madelyne said. “I’m sorry for everything.”

I shook my head.

“No,” she said, placing her soft fingers on my face. “You need to know.”

Madelyne looked up, sniffing back the tears, staring at the overhead lights, her big shadow keeping me from them.

“I was wrong,” she cried. “I....”

She looked back down at me, grimacing as tears streamed down her face. To me she looked more beautiful than ever, and this was reward enough for everything. If it ended now, I wouldn’t have any complaints.

“I deserved it,” I tried to say, but my mouth wouldn’t cooperate. The jaw was shattered and the inside of my mouth glistened with globs of drying blood.

She shook her head.

“I’m so sorry, Dale.”

I forced it, putting every last ounce of energy into it, ignoring all the pain of moving, of speaking.

“I love you,” I said.

Her face cracked further.

“Shut up,” she said, shaking her head with her eyes closed.

“I do,” I said.

She nodded, lowering her head to my shoulder, sobbing.

“I love you, too,” she said.

The pressure against my shoulder was painful, but the tinge was like the light in my arm, healing me with the basking glow of knowing. Now I could go. Now I could fade.

“I love you, Dale,” she repeated, her voice muffled against my skin.

I reached over with my left hand and put it on her shoulder, pressing her closer and felt her touch my head with her free hand as she pulled back and kissed me. Her first touch was tender and tentative, scared she would hurt me more, only a pair of nervous pursed lips in a tingling touch, but after a moment she settled in, her mouth opening to welcome my lips.

It might have been the one part of my body not in pain, unbroken, and now it radiated with warmth that spread throughout my broken body. Her free hand glided through my hair, touching my scalp, and her breasts and chest pressed against mine, but it was her lips that were the center of my existence, the only thing that I felt from head to toe. Until Superdynamic spoke again.

“Okay,” he said, breaking the moment’s reverie. “I think I have an idea.”

“What?” Apogee said.

“Ruby,” Superdynamic said. “Throttle us to 175% on the reactor and keep us there. I don’t care if we burn out the superthrusters.”