Chương 13: Blood in the stillness

I looked down at the plate in front of me and sighed contentedly. Toast with eggs and bacon beat breakfast cereal big time, I thought, munching happily on the perfectly crafted stack of bread and salty goodness. And what made the morning even better was the person I was sharing it with, who also happened to be the reason why we could splurge a little bit more and eat better stuff than just cereal slop sodden in milk. Nadia, the girl in question, was researching on her phone while eating distractedly.

It was a shame, really. She wasn't enjoying the very breakfast she had insisted on cooking, but her research had her pretty engrossed, so I didn't want to interrupt her. She looked so cute, with her little nose all scrunched up, her eyes focusing and unfocusing... yeah. She must have noticed me looking, because she gave me a little smile and a shake of her head before returning to her things.

"Huh," she muttered idly.

"Care to share your findings?" I mused.

"What are you researching?"

"The government bounties," she said.

"Oh yeah." I nodded.

"I remember you telling me about them. What did you find?"

"Apparently there's an app for them," she said, showing me the phone.

"See? They made it rather easy."

"You need to accept the terms of service and share your location." She grumbled something about damn pop-ups always coming up at the worst of times. She accepted, and the app booted up. I scooted closer so that we could both see her phone at the same time, and a part of me enjoyed the physical contact. Our legs were touching, and she didn't shy away from me. Quite the opposite, as her free hand landed on my thigh, dangerously close to my crotch.

The app was official government infrastructure, but the first thing it showed us was the name of the company that had developed and sponsored it. Latnium Industries. The name rang a bell. I remembered the billboard I used to pass on my way to the grocery store, back when I still had that shitty job. Protect this thought and all your other thoughts from unwanted intrusions, it had said, sponsoring their Mind Privacy line of products. Apparently, monster bounties were another one of their public projects.

It made sense. The government wanted dangerous monsters culled, while corporate and government-funded mad scientists wanted the bodies for research. Let powered people solve one problem, then let the researchers pick apart the result. Nadia started setting up the profile under my name.

"Your last name is Hale, right?" I nodded, then she continued the setup and passed the phone over whenever the app needed information only I could provide. We even mirrored the setup into mine, logging on the same account. I wondered why, while noticing that her own name never entered into the profile. As far as the app was concerned, she told me, she was just the ordinary girlfriend helping me navigate the paperwork.

"There," she said when we were done.

"You are now provisionally allowed to risk your life for money. Congratulations, young hero."

"I'm touched."

"You get three completed claims before registration becomes mandatory," Nadia explained from her earlier research (the app's UI didn't make it easy, but luckily she knew everything already).

"After that, basic registration lets you keep taking low-tier freelance work. Bigger and better-paid jobs need a manager." She tapped the phone, and dots appeared on a map centered around our location. Each described a bounty we were eligible to take, with many more greyed out as they were above our pay grade. Most of what we could take, I noticed, were for mutated wildlife.

"Monsters, basically," she said. I hummed.

"Three jobs," I said.

"Then bureaucracy."

"Now that's a monster I wouldn't want to fight." I browsed the available listings, reading the descriptions and looking at what few photos there were.

"Some of these things look mean. Do you think we can take them?" She pointed at one close to us.

"That one. A mutated boar is roaming what little farmland survived the Onset around here. Normal size, the mutation should be only some overlapping plates of unknown material across the shoulders and spine." A note said it was also very fast over short distances.

"That doesn't sound easy to me."

"It isn't. But the risk looks containable." She said, all business and serious, as she expanded the target area on the map.

"I'll track it and plan the approach. You supply the superpower." I grinned.

"I was starting to feel useless." Her serious mask cracked for a moment.

"You're the most important piece, Adrian. You get to carry the enormous axe." The payout was… not enough to rebuild the whole house, but enough to make the roof feel like a problem we might actually solve eventually. We were both rather fed up with ferrying buckets every time it rained. We reserved the claim under my name. The app required geotagged evidence of the living target and the kill, followed by a recovery marker left with the carcass so a contracted service could collect it for research.

Nadia read the instructions twice, then made me read them too.

"I thought I was only here to carry the enormous axe."

"And to follow instructions. Try to be good at both," she said with a wink. The target area was large, so we didn't waste time and set out while the day was still young. Nadia carried a knife and a machete, just to be safe, even though she wasn't expected to fight the monster at all. That part was mine. For the occasion, I found a massive two-handed axe in the shed among Gus's old tools. Nadia noticed me looking at it forlornly and gently asked about it.

"It reminds me of Gus," I said.

"My grandpa. He had a massive axe just like this back at his homestead near Central City." She nodded and gave me space. Thinking about him still touched some raw spots in my mind. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. We stopped after a couple of hours to check the map and have a quick snack. The farmland had thinned into neglected fields and patches of woods and invasive species reclaiming the land.

Or claiming it for the first time, in the case of the invasives. Like the fucking tree of heaven, which Nadia seemed to hate because it stank. I didn't really smell much, but trusted her nose.

"Before we go any farther," Nadia said, "tell me exactly what your time-stop can do."

"It freezes time for roughly twenty seconds. I can move normally while it's on, but I don't have super strength or anything fancy. Just a normal man moving about a frozen world."

"How long before it comes back?"

"I don't know. More than half an hour, or something like that." As she considered that, I decided that I would time it after this was done, so we could keep it in mind when planning the next hit. Already thinking about the next bounty, huh.

"Another hour or so and we should reach the route I want. Remember the plan?"

"Yep. Kill the monster, take the pictures, leave the marker, watch the research people fly in and take it, then get the money." She shook her head, amused but trying not to show it.

"Not that, silly."

"I know. I still don't get why I can't just stand in front of the boar, let it charge at me, and stop time right as it's about to hit. Sure, it might be scary, but once the power fires, it can't touch me." She stopped walking and gave me a serious look.

"No."

"Nadia..."

"It's stupid and you know it, Adrian. You're treating the activation like it's flipping a switch. Maybe it is, but what if you wait too long because you panic, and it kills you? Or it changes direction, and it kills you. Or the report missed something it can do, and it kills you. Your power fails or comes back too slowly, and we get no second attempt."

"When you put it like that..."

"I found a route through a narrow passage. We wait outside the charge line, and once the boar can't change direction anymore, you stop time with room to spare. No heroic last-second bullshit." I looked at her. She had spent years surviving alone, watching people and places and dangers because missing one detail meant someone died. Meanwhile, I had a shiny power and the occasional urge to test it with my face. Clearly, we were not the same.

"Alright," I said.

"Your plan."

"My plan," she agreed.

"Yessir." She shot me a look that told me she wasn't at all amused.

"You better." It didn't take long after we resumed our hike before she started spotting signs. Coarse hair stuck to brambles beside a muddy hollow. Fresh rooting churned the soil near one field, and new gouges scored the lower stones where something plated had forced itself through. Nadia checked the breeze against her cheek, kept us downwind, and followed the damage instead of the faint tracks. That was all she needed. The passage she chose ran between two dry-stone walls at the edge of an abandoned terrace.

Nadia scattered a little bait where it would keep the animal's attention inside the bottleneck, then took the phone and climbed to a safe position above and outside the lane. I waited behind the opposite wall with the axe. We stayed quiet. I tried to keep professional, but still noticed Nadia's warmth when she had been crouched beside me, her perfect ass, and the way she kept stealing glances at me. I wanted to get closer, but neither of us got distracted. Then something moved, and the boar stepped into view.

It wasn't enormous. It didn't need to be in order to look intimidating with its strange uncanniness. It was squat, like a deformed cylinder, and I spotted the plates covering its shoulders and spine like roof tiles. Nadia raised the phone and took the geotagged picture while it was still alive. The animal caught the bait's scent and entered the passage. One cautious step became a sudden violent burst, its hooves scrabbling against stone as it crossed half the distance almost too quickly for my eyes to follow.

Nadia gave me the signal. I stepped out from behind the wall. The boar saw me, twisted its head, and launched again. I stopped time long before it reached me. Silence enveloped me. The wind died abruptly. Nadia froze above the wall with the phone raised, and the boar hung in the middle of its charge, one hoof suspended above the mud, the other making a splash that stretched into a photograph. I breathed, but the world's air couldn't be moving.

The power had to be giving me something else, some facsimile made just for me. It carried no smell at all. No mud, no animal musk, no winter air. Nothing. Sterile. Strange. I gripped my axe. I had roughly twenty seconds before time resumed, and my hands were trembling. The closer I got to the frozen animal, the more I realized that maybe I wasn't as prepared to do this as I thought. I'd never deliberately killed anything before, and this thing looked powerful enough to break me in half.

My knuckles were white by the time I reached it, perhaps five seconds of the stop wasted just like that. Realizing I might still be putting myself in danger, I gritted my teeth and hefted the axe. I didn't stop to think or doubt myself. Aiming for the narrow gap behind the jaw where the plates thinned, I brought the blade down like I was chopping wood. I'd expected the cut to be clean. Not easy, but at least clean. Of course it wasn't. As I told Nadia, my power didn't give me super strength.

And the axe, while sharp, wasn't magical. It hit hard and lodged itself in the creature's flesh, barely a few inches deep. Blood burst around the blade. It moved only as far as the swing carried it, then froze the instant it separated, dark beads hanging in the air. I yanked the axe from the gaping wound and swung again. And again. And again. The spatters increased, becoming a crown of red around the impact site. My arms ached. The boar remained frozen, unable to hurt me.

One last swing cut through farther than I expected and almost carried the blade into my leg. I stumbled back, unable to see the damage through all the suspended blood. Time resumed. The blood exploded outward. It struck my face and chest and soaked into my clothes all at once. The boar's interrupted charge ended in a heavy skid, followed by a squeal and the violent thrashing of a headless, dying body. Its head rolled in the mud. Then Nadia was there, helping me steady myself.

"You cut it close, didn't you?" she said, almost angry.

"I told you not to put yourself in danger, Adrian." This shook me back to the present.

"I know." I told her about freezing up, the wasted seconds, and the last swing that had almost reached my leg. She checked me for injuries before she allowed herself to soften.

"Well," she said, "now you're gross and covered in coagulating blood. I'd say you learned your lesson."

"Very educational."

"And I'm glad I kept the phone. You'd have ruined it." Once the animal stopped moving, Nadia took the second geotagged picture. I attached the recovery marker to the carcass with hands that still shook more than I wanted to admit, and she submitted the evidence under my claimant profile. The app marked the kill as provisionally accepted while the contracted recovery service handled collection. We left the boar where it had fallen and started walking home.

The blood, just like Nadia warned, began to dry and stick to me, making my clothes stiff and foul-smelling. I was grateful it was winter, or it would have been even worse. When we arrived at the house, Nadia decided to have fun at my expense by refusing to let me step inside until I had cleaned myself with the garden hose.

"Strip," she ordered. I stared at her.

"It's freezing."

"So is the blood. Strip."

"So bossy," I commented. She blushed but still didn't let me into the house until I started to remove my coat and shirt, trying not to think about the cold.

"I got the shower running while you were strip-teasing for our nonexistent neighbors."

"Thanks."

"Stop right there, handsome. Pants too." I was suddenly shy. She looked pointedly at the blood caked down both legs.

"Come on," she said.

"Nothing I haven't seen already." I stripped, and Nadia sprayed me with icy water.

"Oh God I hate this," I muttered.

"Kids used to do it as a social media challenge," she said in reply, laughing, then kept laughing while I tried to shield myself with both hands and failed.

"Turn around," she said.

"I hate you."

"No, you don't. Other side." By the time she let me go, my teeth were chattering. I rushed inside and threw myself under the hot shower. Nadia took her own after me, while I started dinner and tried not to remember the feeling of an axe stopping in flesh. Later, clean and dressed, we settled near the fire with Nero stretched between us. Nadia checked her phone one more time. A notification beeped.

"And we have the money." She turned the screen toward me, grinning.

"Nice." I looked at her, thinking about the day. I had put my life in her hands without thinking twice. Her, the same person who snuck into my house looking to steal from me. Her, the person I slowly fell in love with. Funny how that worked. Her bossy, stern face had disappeared the moment we had stepped inside the house. Now all she wanted was cuddles, kisses, and soft words.

"We make a good team," I said, pulling her close to me. She kissed my neck.

"Of course we do, my prince. You're very good at carrying the enormous axe." I laughed. She joined me, and even Nero opened one eye to judge us before deciding we weren't worth waking up for.