Komae had both hands free and was just working the feeling back into them when he got the message from his sister, followed by her suddenly shutting off. If it had been the more permanent shut off that would indicate death he would have known. The connection wouldn’t tell what or how she had died, but it would have told him that she had. Instead it was the kind that was just a system wide shut down. That wasn’t good since he was pretty sure that he knew what they were doing to her right now, but it also meant that she was still alive. That was good. Good and bad.
The message she had sent him was simple. “Find Mars, ask for help.” The message came with a frequency code that Komae assumed was Mars’. Komae had always tried to protect his sister and this failure sickened him
He glared back up at the window like it how somehow verbally challenged him. He snatched up the mop and reached with it to smash out the window. The glass breaking hadn’t seemed to alert anyone, more proof that what he thought was going on really was. He circled the handle of the mop through the hole of the window until the majority of the glass was gone. Lacerations would only further slow him down. It took seconds, but they felt like eternity and he finally threw the mop down.
He was going through that window, now.
. Komae walked back to the door. He got the longest run he could in the small amount of space that he had to work with, ran and leaped. He slammed against the wall, but hooked a glove covered hand through the window. The glove was leather over the palm and inner fingers. He had put them on for warmth, but now they were protection as well. He felt glass crush under the pressure, but nothing broke through the leather.
It was no great feat for him to haul himself up and pull himself out of the window. His amplified strength made it simple for him to do. More glass crunched as he went through, but he was dressed in layers and that kept the cutting shards away from him. He didn’t have the agility that Kate did, so he mostly tumbled out of the window. The drifting snow broke his fall and kept him from breaking anything.
Then he ran.
YOU ARE READING
Windfall
Science FictionKate and Komae are siblings and one time thieves, but in a world that can't even tell what time it is anymore, they have taken to trying to stay clean. Their world was complicated enough, timelines merging or totally shattered, physical structures...
