Free Requiem by B. Scott Tollison

arm.
    'Get in there!'
Another voice cried.
    Another man
appeared at the entrance to the alley. An arc of blood spurted from
the side of his head, his eyes rolled back and he collapsed to the
ground.
    'Oh shit!'
Another voice from out in the street. 'What the fuck just
happened?! Who the hell is that?'
    Seline stood
with her back hard against the brick wall. Her eyes shifting
between the dead men and the opening to the alley. Muffled voices
and the splitting report of gunfire filled the street. A figure
darted past the alley. More gunfire then silence. Only her heavy
breathing and the groans of the injured man. A hooded figure
appeared in the entrance.
    'Are you hurt?'
The voice was feminine. The words scratched at her throat.
    'What the hell
is going on? Who are you?' said Seline. Her voice was shaking.
    The stranger
strode towards her, casually glanced down at the man.
    'We'll find
you, you son of a -' A sharp pelting sound as a bullet was
discharged into the man's skull. She kept walking towards
Seline.
    'NeoCorp is
after you.'
    'What? Why?
Don't come any closer. Who the fuck are you?' Seline pressed back
against the wall as the stranger approached. She tried to ignore
the two dead bodies. She looked down at her hand. Blood was
dripping from her fingers.
    Another figure
appeared in the entrance. 'Seline, it's okay.'
    'Sear?'
    'Athene, get
the others. Prep the ship.' Athene turned to Sear and stared at him
for a moment before leaving the alley.
    Sear spoke to
Seline. 'That was NeoCorp. We think it's something to do with your
mother. We have to leave – now.'
    Seline looked
at the blood from the man's head running down the wall, soaking
into the sand. Her words were slipping away. Sear stood between her
and the body and approached her. He placed his hand on her
shoulder. She pulled away sharply and set her eyes on his. They
were darker than the shadows in the alley.
    'I don't have a
choice do I?' she said.
    'Of course you
do. Coming with us just happens to be the best option.'
    No reply.
    'NeoCorp's
reinforcements will be here any minute. We have to go.'
    'Go where
exactly?'
    'Off Earth. Out
of Sol. Probably to Saranture.'
    Probabilities,
scenarios were racing around her head etching their tracks into the
inside of her skull. If it really was NeoCorp who were after her
then getting off planet could be problematic; made harder by the
fact that she didn't actually know how to get back to the maglev
station in Vale. Sear had been kind to her over the past couple of
days but there are a million different reasons for someone to lie.
He said he worked for the Yurrick government – not exactly known
for their violence – but that other Yurrick, the one Sear had
called Athene, had just shot that man in the head, point blank and
it's so hard to tell what someone's thinking when you can't even
see their eyes.
    If I stay here
and go it alone, I'm fucked. If I go with the people who were
trying to drug me, I'm pretty sure I'm fucked. If I go with Sear I
still might be fucked but better the devil you kind of know when
the other devil is openly trying to drug you... I guess.
    She looked at
her hand again. 'Alright, fine,' she finally said, speaking more to
herself than to Sear, 'but we need to get Abigail first. They'll
probably be after her as well.'
    Another voice
came from the street. 'Sear get a move on! They're already
here!'
    Sear rushed
back towards the street. Seline followed, keeping her eyes trained
on Sear to avoid having any more details of the two corpses commit
themselves to memory. There were two more hooded figures standing
in the street, black, carbon rifles held loosely in front of them.
Yurrick. Friendly. Gunfire came from back down the street.
Somewhere close to Abigail's house. Faint, rasping screams soon
followed. The two rifles were now pointing down the street. A
naked, skeletal figure hobbled from around the corner, running its
hand along the outside wall of the building to keep itself up. A
faded, raggedy