The Anvil Beneath the Treads

Fire.

The first salvo catches me in the sternum and I don't step back. I open my arms. The thermal shells smash against the obsidian, burst, and their heat enters me through the wound in my side, that infected hole I took for my weakness. It becomes a mouth. It swallows. My knees buckle under the load, my teeth chatter, the skin of my neck splits in red lines. Three shells. Five. I count the impacts to Marisol's rhythm, boom-tak, boom-tak, and every blow I take fills a reservoir no Stability engineer ever put in their tables.

Jolanda shouts my name behind me. I can't answer. I've had no voice since Cuzco-Nova.

So I strike the ground.

The wave runs under the pavement, low, and climbs into the shins of the crowd. The Forgotten take it in their bones before they understand. An old woman drops her bag. A kid picks up a concrete block wider than his chest.

I walk toward the treads.

The first tank fires again, point-blank. I lay my glass hand on its flank and give everything back. Everything they gave me. The metal reddens, sags, runs between the links like grease on a pan. The crew bursts out of the hatch coughing, gloves smoking, and no one chases them: the crowd steps over them.

It pours past me. Hundreds. Bare hands on warm steel, iron bars jammed into turret joints, Lio in front, mouth open on a scream I envy. No more procession. They run. The Mutation has put blood in their cheeks.

The steel line bends at its center.

I drop to my knees. My side smokes. The wound has sealed into a black crust, cauterized by other people's fire.

Jolanda grips my shoulder, pulls her hand back cursing. Burned. She puts it back anyway.

"Up, kid. They're watching you."

Beyond the wrecks, the Citadel turns on its floodlights.