I, Cassandra

21 | RYAN MADDOX

'Shit,' Akron mutters, tight, into my earpiece. 'He's UFF, probably her handler. Hold for orders.' The link cuts off.

Blue moves on, slower this time. The drone maps out a route to the apartment. Two blocks. I ease her door open—unlocked as usual—with the nose of my weapon. I slip inside, cautious. It's dark. Two patches of scarred wooden floorboards stare back at me, bone-white, highlighted by the pale, insipid light of a crescent moon.

I glance at the heat sensors again. The small smear in the corner moves towards me, hesitant. Miro emerges from the shadows, her eyes huge in her thin head. She walks, unsteady, starving, towards me. She sits by my feet and looks up at me, hopeful. I kneel and hold out a gloved finger, letting her rub her cheek against it. I can hear her purring. I have nothing to give her. In the kitchen, I search bare cupboards. My heart clenches as I run a finger along a thick coating of dust, guilt almost crushing me. This is my fault. When I called down the strike on myself, I left them to die. I glance at Miro, who hasn't moved, though her eyes continue to plead, her message boring into me, visceral. Please. Feed me. Please.

'Maddox,' Akron's voice cuts in, urgent, 'you have to be quick. The one shadowing Vallis is tight with Zandiki. GC has been looking for that bastard for a long time. We need the one following Vallis. He'll lead us straight back to UFF's headquarters.' He pauses. I hear typing, rapid. A French-accented voice murmurs in the background. So de Pommier is there after all, via her droid, watching me. 'Yes ma'am,' says Akron. 'Maddox,' he continues, tense, 'you have seventy seconds to get out before you compromise yourself.'

'Copy that,' I say, low. 'Get the shuttle ready. Will intercept the target in the stairwell.'

'No,' Akron says, his voice hard. 'Abort mission. You don't have time. We can't afford to lose this lead. Vallis can wait for another day.'

I look at Miro, looking at me. Starving. I think of the blood trailing down Blue's legs. Her eyes empty, bleak, her hope gone.

'No she fucking can't,' I mutter. 'I have time. Send the shuttle. I'm doing this.'

'Maddox. Fuck!' A slam judders through the earpiece, followed by a shear of silence. I don't care if he's cut me off to save his skin. I know they won't leave me here—not after what it cost GC to create me.

I scoop the cat up into the crook of my arm. She hangs, trusting and boneless in my armoured grip. She's still purring. I heard cats do that when they are just about to die, to comfort themselves.

'Hold on, Mir,' I say, soft. 'Wait till you see your new home. Cat food galore.'

I head for the stairwell. Against its concrete steps, the heavy cadence of booted feet approach the fourth floor. In between the soldier's unsteady tread, the rapid, thin clack of Blue's stilettos. The pair breach the landing of the floor below me. Between the broken railings, I have a clean shot. I take it, the silencer doing what it says on the box. Blue's oppressor drops, his weight yanking her down with him. She panics, frantic, struggling to free herself from under him. Her eyes find me as I step out of the shadows holding the pistol up against my helmet in a silencing gesture. Her eyes rake over me, pausing on Miro, still hanging, quiet in my grip.

'Ryan?' she whispers, my name on her lips almost undoing me. Hope blossoms from her, brightening her eyes, radiant with sudden tears.

I don't answer. I lift the pistol over my head and point it towards the top of the stairwell. She's trembling. Her stilettos come off and she runs barefoot and sobbing up the stairs, desperation bleeding from her. I holster my pistol, take her outstretched hand and lead her onto the roof. As I close the rusting door behind me I run a quick thermal scan of the stairwell. Nothing lights up apart from the cooling body of Blue's oppressor. We're clear.

Hovering on the other side of a scavenged ventilation shaft, the shuttle waits for us. The door to its cabin slides open. I bite back a shudder of relief, having half expected de Pommier to put the shuttle's welfare over mine. I hurry Blue through the wreckage, desperate to get her away from this hellhole before it's too late. I lift her in, her weight so slight I endure another deep, burning surge of guilt. With Miro still tucked into the crook of my arm, I haul myself in, my attention fixed on the surrounding rooftops for anyone who might have seen us.

Silence greets me, palpable, dense with lethargy and starvation. I realise in the last six months, London has turned into a graveyard, with only those in the UFF still left alive, and by the look of Blue, barely. The door slides closed in total silence. I back up, still wary, watching the door to the stairwell, tense, willing it to stay shut, willing my gamble not to fuck up.

A shimmer ripples along the walls of the shuttle and a message scrolls across the inside of my visor confirming cloaking has been enabled. The shuttle ascends, steady, silent; the city's ruins shrinking, fading, smearing until only the inky, polluted sprawl of the Thames River reflects the faint white light of Earth's long-dead companion.

The line clicks on again. 'You are in so much shit, Maddox,' Akron snaps. The line cuts out. I'm fine with the silence because I'm not sorry. I would do the same thing again. I glance at Blue, who huddles, bloodstained, bony, and shivering in her seat, eyeing me, raw, naked with hope.

For her, I would do anything.