Free Silence by Tyler Vance Page A

shined brighter than a
million suns. Howling wind clutched and pulled at Indigo’s loose
fitting clothing. A second later, the massive rush of energy
disappeared like it had never been.
    Indigo’s assault rifle stuttered three
more bursts of energy and then came stopped. He took in the
impossible scene in front of him, cradling his weapon in the crook
of a muscular arm. His eyes glanced left then right, looking around
as he tried to find bearings. The street… this was
impossible.
    Indigo began laughing to himself. The
sound was shot with half-repressed hysteria. Indigo didn’t know
what had gone down, or what’d happened, but it didn’t matter in the
slightest.
    Somehow, he’d survived.
     

Chapter 4
    Ambushing the Ambush (Part
II: Sheikoh)
     
    Sheikoh staggered forward, trying to
think things through. Though blinded, his memory led him to cover.
The twisted metal carapace of a carriage or some kind of similar
machine. His foot caught on a piece of rubble, and he stumbled.
Blind luck saved his face; his hand caught a rough piece the metal
frame he’d been making for.
    Sheikoh swung his body
behind it, trying to ignore the pain from the hand that’d saved
him. He squinted into the square. His right eye was already able to
take in the blurry outlines of the four men’s green plasmafire
pelting a concrete wall. His left eye was all but blind, but not
his right. When Emili had saved him back so long ago she had given
Sheikoh so much more than what he’d had before.
    He glanced down at his right hand, the
one holding his humming electroblade. He smiled. His right eye had
adapted to the point where he could make out the details of the
circuitry winding across the face of the elegantly sculpted weapon,
its blurry wires arranged in pursuit of lethal
efficiency.
    “ Thank you, Emili,” Sheikoh
whispered fervently.
    He turned his attention to the hazy
battlefield. Green-rimmed plasmafire battered a building’s stone
wall. Presumably where Indigo’d taken cover. Sheikoh could only
make out three of the assailants firing, but he remembered that
four of them had followed him and Indigo here. He searched around,
expecting the fourth to be sneaking towards him or Indigo, but no,
there was his body lying on the dirt.
    Unfortunately, it seemed like the
remaining three were more than enough to take care of the ganglord.
Their barrage of destructive, green-rimmed plasmafire was slowly
eating through the wall that the ganglord hid behind. Even
half-blind, Sheikoh could see Indigo didn’t have the breathing room
he needed for retaliation. However, for whatever reason, Sheikoh
did.
    Sheikoh knew that he’d severely
underestimated these guys, but luckily it seemed that they were
responding in kind. They must think that the ganglord was the only
threat, that the flash grenade would keep Sheikoh blind and
helpless for as long as they needed. So Sheikoh had one
shot.
    He held up his pistol, intending on
snapping a blast at the closest one, but his finger hesitated on
the trigger. Sure, taking one of them out would mean that there
were only two left. He could divide the heat between himself and
Indigo. Each of them would only have one to take out.
    But these guys were definitely better
than Sheikoh’d thought. He didn’t want to trust his life to this
blacksteel mixer he was hiding behind, and he certainly didn’t want
to underestimate these guys again. If the one he shot at was
wearing a field, he would’ve just wasted his shot and pulled them
onto himself.      
    Sheikoh sheathed his electroblade in
his boot in a quicksilver motion, and then grasped his pistol
firmly with both hands. His thumb flipped a switch on his pistol’s
chamber. Straightening his arms, Sheikoh pointed the barrel in the
vague direction of the shooters. He smiled, a little sadly. Emili
had been the one to show him how to rewire a weapon for this trick.
So many years ago.
    He could see that the piece of wall
hiding Indigo shudder under each jet of