Chapter Text
Cami breathes on the eyeglass of her scope before rubbing it with her sleeve, clearing a smudge but managing to make a new one. She brings her eye back up to it, her cheek pressed against the soft pad on top of the rifle. She cracks her back absently as she pivots the rifle on its bipod, scanning the view from the sixty-sixth floor window of the building she’s in. It’s a bright, sunny, and warm afternoon towards the end of spring, the greens of the city’s foliage vivid alongside the twinkling reflections from smashed-out skyscraper windows, leaves and seeds floating lazily on the wind alongside long-faded papers and pieces of plastic.
She has full view of the overpass cutting across what was once a large street, arcing over the sea of dense brush and forestry below. The cracks and crumbles in its structure suggest it would have collapsed years ago if not for the vines and trees that had grown around and into its support columns, replacing asphalt and concrete with roots and stems like some kind of Ship of Theseus. In the dead center of the road atop lies a single box truck, stopped in its tracks where its motors finally gave out. By no standards is it new or shiny, but its white paint and visibly metallic rims stand in stark contrast to the overgrown wreckage of the surrounding city. The overpass itself is relatively free of debris, being a part of one of the few remaining passageways that receives any level of maintenance.
The truck had appeared four days ago. No doubt all the tribes around the area had been keeping an eye on it, waiting for someone to make a move. The overpass being neutral territory meant that the truck could be anything: a score, a trap, or just a bust. Working vehicles only showed up in the city every few months at best, and it had been almost a year since one had stopped in the open. If it had just stopped, it’s probably in repairable condition, or at least has lots of valuable parts, not to mention whatever goods it might be carrying. This could be a sorely needed break for the Amr Tribe.
Cami wonders to herself what fate may have befallen whomever abandoned it. Her thoughts turn to Jace, the only survivor of capture she’d met. He was a broken man, spending his time sitting limply on the bench in the courtyard of one of the Amr camps, watching the young children playing. He died last year at forty-one; one of the scouts found him on a balcony. They said he fell from at least thirty stories up.
Cami had always liked talking to him, hearing his stories from the Tribe’s glory days. He had been a Face, a field diplomat, fighting alongside her mother, and the two of them had been close. She died in the same op’ he was taken prisoner by Blackbird Tribe. He liked to talk about the days when there was always plenty of food on the table, the lights were always on, and there were always plenty of pretty girls around. Not everything was better back then, he would joke; they used to have to filter water through sand and stones and it would still be brown and acidic. The streams run much clearer nowadays.
He never talked much about his time as a prisoner, but what he did say was enough. Of the many rules of being a field operative, he drove home just how important one was: accept death before capture.
Amr Tribe had kept 24/7 surveillance on the truck since it was spotted, Cami herself spending two nights watching it; she’d scoped it out from all angles, as well as taken as many readings as she could from a safe distance. They had to operate with the assumption that at least Malleus, Norwell, and Blackbird tribes had been doing the same.
“Polaris, Check?"
"Check," Cami mutters softly into her mouthpiece as she reorients her scope to watch her team: from here, just three tiny dolls dotted at the base of the overpass.
"Romeo, Check?"
She listens as Viola runs through the roll call to check comms: Hal, Mavis, and Mason each respond in kind when their leader lists their callsigns. Cami watches her superior's back from her sniper roost in the stairwell landing, a small smile on her face as the other woman's long auburn hair bobs and rustles as she prepares her climbing gear, twin submachine guns holstered at her thighs. In the gentle sun and clear air, her hair has orange hues glowing through, shining like rose gold, matching the orange spray paint on her armored outfit, alongside the dark purple of their tribe colors. The scout and leader, her armor is slim and form-fitting, and she carries only a small selection of light-weight equipment, much like Cami. Under her scope's magnification, Cami can just make out the letterwork velcroed onto the back of her plate carrier: 'Nova.'
Viola's song-like voice rings again, "We're clear to go, Amrs." The three people on the ground begin to set up their climbing equipment on the side of the column. "Let's make this a pretty one."
"Copy that, Nova," Cami says. She smiles deviously to herself. "...But it won't be prettier than this view of your ass."
Cami laughs as her girlfriend throws a middle finger over her shoulder, knowing she's watching from over half a mile away.
"Noted, Polaris, but understand you're here to watch my back ."
"Don't think I can't watch both. Sir ." Cami referring to Viola as her superior was a kind of tease, because out of combat she technically holds higher status by quite a bit. Being of the Arthur family puts Cami at 6th in command of the tribe, and in a couple years she’d have a spot on the council. Regardless, in the field and in the sheets, Viola is in charge.
Before she could respond, Hal cuts in with a sigh, "Drop it girls, keep your heads on." The team's technical specialist is camped on a rooftop separate from the building Cami is sniping from, ready to process any readings or data, but also acting as the designated survivor for the op'.
“Fuckin’ clamjammer…” Cami mutters.
There’s a slight pause as Viola probably rolls her eyes, “Alright fireteam, we’re making initial approach,” she says, mostly just talking for the blackbox records. She turns to Mason, the heavily-armored large man beside her, covered head to toe in equipment affixed to his trenchcoat-like outfit. “Rook?”
He nods, raising his arm as though checking a watch, fiddling with some gadgetry. At the press of a button, most of the bulky bracer suddenly detaches from his forearm, jumping a few feet into the air. The device reconfigues form, metal and polymer pieces shifting to take the shape of a small quadcopter. It falls only a few inches before settling into the air, rotors spinning to hold its own weight, then quickly begins to accelerate upwards. It flies over the three ground operatives, following the support column up to the bed of the overpass, and makes its way along the road over to the abandoned truck. It roams the area, producing a few red lasers as it tests and checks for any traps.
Mason’s voice is gruff and short-spoken, “Drone deployed.”
They had chosen to ascend the column closest to the edge of what was once a street so they could take cover in the nearby buildings if necessary, even if it meant spending more time traversing the road above. At this point, any snipers or scouts in the area would absolutely have noticed the team’s presence.
There would be no more jokes or flirting, a cold and tense air settling over the team. It was a feeling they all know well: time standing still as your mind is forced to consider a thousand possibilities that could erupt at any second. They had cleared all the surrounding buildings and the jungle in the street multiple times, but enemy tribes were nothing if not sneaky.
The ground team exchanges a few quick nods to each other before beginning the climb. Cami watches as Viola braces herself against the column with her hands above her head, then suddenly begins to float up the side as though by magic. Repulsor cells were one of the technologies Amr has pretty much figured out, devices that can manipulate gravity and relative space. Small ones attached to Viola’s hands and feet levitate her off the ground, negating her weight while maintaining a set distance from the pillar, allowing her to climb without any handholds or footholds. When she’s around halfway up, Mavis follows suit, then Mason.
As they top out on the road bed, readying their weapons and setting up repelling anchors for a quick escape, Hal gives a report on the drone. “Nothing so far… you seem to be in the clear. No electromagnetic activity, no radiation, nothing funky on the infrared...” The drone continues to circle the truck, scanning it with all kinds of instruments. “...No response to physical, EM, or particulate stimuli… No chemical imbalances, no sitting voltage, this thing’s docile.”
“Copy that, Romeo.” Cami could hear the smile in Viola’s voice. With a hand signal, she leads the ground team across the overpass. They form a tight triangle, watching each other’s backs as they move quickly. The drone flies back, hovering above the group as they approach their target.
This is a pivotal moment of the op’, crossing the overpass puts the team at their most exposed. They rely on their trust in one another; years spent together has built an unbreakable bond. They’d lived together in the wild, killed together, lost friends together. Routine and practice almost made comms unnecessary, they all know exactly what to do, how to react, and move as one like a well-oiled machine. With Cami watching guard, the ground team stays calm and steady; there’s nobody in the city who could be relied on more.
Cami is what Amr calls a giftblood. Through some ancient science, humanity figured out how to genetically modify their own species. From what history they have, it was only around for a decade or so before the burnout, but because of the many varying physical advantages of being a giftblood, a disproportionately high number of them survived to pass their genes on; natural selection at work. Cami has extremely sensitive hearing, supposedly adapted from feline genes, so when her proximity sensor begins rapidly beeping with a carefully calibrated high-pitched sound in the stairwell ten stories beneath her, she hears.
“Shit.”
“Polaris, copy?” Viola’s voice is tinged with worry.
“I’ve got movement on my 56th.”
“...Shit.”
Cami glances at the stairwell behind her, her heart racing. Whoever set off her alarm could appear at any time. If they knew where she was already, probably within the minute. “...Your call, Nova.”
“Fuck, Polaris.” Viola exhales anxiously, genuine concern in her tone. “This is too important. Romeo, pack it up and get to her building. Polaris, hold your angle. If the movement hits your minus five you tell us and you cover your own six, copy?”
“Copy,” Hal cuts in dutifully, background noise of mechanical whirring undercutting his audio as he quickly packs his equipment to provide Cami backup.
Cami swallows, allowing herself one more glance to the stairwell before locking her gaze back down her scope. “...I copy, Nova.”
She watches the ground team reach the truck, fanning out around it. They move quickly with mechanically practiced precision and coordination. Mason retrieves a clunky device from a satchel, tossing an identical one to Viola while Mavis holds her weapon at the ready, an assault rifle decorated with a painting of an angel. The thin but well-armored girl joins Cami and the drone in holding guard, covering her teammates as they work.
“We’re at the target. Setting up shields.”
Viola and Mason set up the devices on opposite sides of the overpass. With some manipulation and affixing into the dirt and rubble, they each suddenly erupt with blue energy, projecting a translucent semisphere-like shield ten or so feet across, guarding the team in their exposed position from most angles of potential sniper fire. Viola gives the team a few more hand signals and they shift formations.
A tinge of anxiety sprouts at the edge of Cami’s awareness. Whatever happens between those shields she has no angle on. She reminds herself to trust her team; if they weren’t competent they’d already be dead. The shields put them in a much safer position, even if they can’t rely on Cami’s marksmanship if a close quarters fight breaks out. Regardless, her deep-rooted urge to protect Viola and her friends makes itself known.
“Let’s make this quick. Romeo, Status?”
“I’ve got the wire up, I’m about to cross.” Cami shifts her gaze over to the building she knew Hal was on, and sure enough he’d launched a zipline over towards her roof: a barely visible glint like spider thread in the sun.
“Copy. Polaris?”
The beeping continues to ring in Cami’s ears. She has another sensor on the 61st floor, but so far it was quiet. She resists the urge to check behind herself again, staying focused on covering her team, scanning back and forth for any unaccounted-for movement. “Nothing yet, Nova.”
“Alright. Let’s breach it.”
Viola reaches out, grabs the handle of the large roll door on the back of the truck and pulls up. It opens with surprising ease, gliding up and out of the way.
There is a momentary pause as a look of confusion crosses Viola’s face.
“...Rook, what am I looking at?”
The windows shatter first.
A spherical shockwave explodes from the truck, tearing through the overpass, leaving everything even more rubbled, cracked, and decrepit in its wake, ripping plants from their roots and causing huge fissures to form in the sides of the concrete. Even at her distance, Cami’s braids are blown over her shoulders to her back, and she is forced to tense up to stay in her seat.
No.
There’s only a split second of impending horror before the entire street is filled with a fireball, engulfing the overpass in a red inferno that burns brighter than the sun.
Cami is forced to close her eyes, and the light is still blinding even through her eyelids.
The roar drowns out the static flooding her earpiece, tearing into Cami’s head and instantly drawing out a splitting headache, any thoughts eclipsed by the unfolding explosion.
No. No. NO.
Seconds pass, the fire giving way to gray smoke and clouds of dust that begin to dissipate in the thin, clear air. Cami opens her eyes.
She forces herself to take a deep breath before her heart suddenly sprints into a rapid pace. Somewhere in the chaos, her alarm from five floors down had started to beep.
She continues to force herself to breathe. Her hands remain steely with deadly stillness, thousands of hours of training culminating to keep herself from breaking down in shock.
She steadies her grip on her rifle, Kochab , her off hand touching the ring hanging on a chain from the side of the rifle, drawing calmness from her mother’s heirloom as she looks back down her scope.
“This is Polaris. Can anyone read me?” Her voice wavers.
Static.
The zipline hangs limply, no longer attached to Cami’s building. The blast must have knocked Hal out of the air, and the communication equipment with him. She’s alone.
Where the overpass stood is now an impressive mountain of rubble, torn asphalt and concrete in an enormous heap. Trees fall and debris settles into what remains of the decemated area of jungle. Flames lick out from the collapse, taking hold of anything flammable until the concrete itself seems to be burning. There is not a sign of her team or the truck.
Footsteps on stairs join the sounds of her beeping alarms. Cami doesn’t turn around.
Two tiny dots of people emerge into view from either end of what still stands of the overpass, approaching the wreckage. Cami’s jaw tightens and an icy resolve settles over her. She missed where they came from, but she doesn't care. Her crosshairs meet a black and dark blue uniform. Blackbird.
She pulls the trigger and a bullet slips between the upper part of the operative’s chest plate and the lower chin protector of their helmet. They fall limply to the ground, revealing a fresh red shadow on the pavement.
“126.”
Alerted by the gunshot, the footsteps increase pace, getting louder by the second.
Cami pans her sights to the other end of the bridge, and another gunshot rings out into the city.
“127.”
Slinging her rifle, Cami stands from the cheap plastic chair she’d found to sit in, and turns to face the landing. She draws her autopistol Yildun from its dropleg holster and aims down the stairway just as a man’s head comes into view, right between the arms of her holographic sight.
He pauses on the landing just below, looking up at her, and Cami hesitates.
He’s moderately armored with a fair amount of equipment, and he wears an old 22nd century pilot’s helmet, the sleek dark visor and filter blocking his face, decorated with paint, stickers, and age.
In the corner of his chest, just above the Blackbird flag, is his callsign:
Dreamcatcher.