Silvereyes

The glass vial stood stoppered on the small table, silvery liquid swirling inside like yeasty back alley wine. Next to it a long fine glass dropper nestled carefully in a fitted box.

She knew of them, glass and the Serum, but in her thirty some odd years had never seen either. Moving forward she reached out one cautious finger and stroked the glass. How is it that something so fragile and beautiful for it in this hard world, was the only substance capable of housing something so powerful and valuable? A thought for the philosophers of old, and one she could not waste energy on. Not now.

“Have a seat, you know how this will work, yes?” a curt nod and she perched on the chair Cal gestured to. He un-stoppered the bottle and suctioned the liquid up the eyedropper with delicacy she had seen in some fathers as they took their squalling babe in their arms for the first time.

Cas moved behind the chair and placed his hands on either side of her head, thumb and index fingers poised to hold her eyelids open. The Serum was too precious for even a drop to be wasted to a reflexive blink. Cal moved in front of her with the dropper. The calloused hands on her cheeks tilted back her head. Every muscle in her body tensed against the move. She was a girl again in the fum choked alleys of the lower levels and the ragged former Peace Keeper, so ruined by the thing that had once given him so much power that he could no longer smell the miasma of his own piss and vomit soaked clothes. She had passed too close, once, in her own scroungings. Bony hands with cracked fingernails grasped fistfuls of her tunic, pulling her so close his unkempt beard tickled her face. "Don’t you see?” he hissed. “you are Blind! Livestock! Less than...Slaves!” spittle flecked her face. “I saw! I lived! I could see more than you are capable of, and you took it away. All of you filth!" And he had shaken her so violently that she thought maybe this would be her end. Another nameless body so far below the feet of Justice she may as well have never existed at all. But he had released her, suddenly, with a shove and then crumpled, weeping. She hadn't understood at all until years later, and even still he wasn't sure. But some piece of her quailed at using the thing that had driven that man to what he was.

Cas met her eyes upside down. "Hel, you do this or leave now." his voice iron. "You're good, damn good. But not like this will make you, and if there is any trouble everyone on your tail will be."

With effort she relaxed the corded muscles in her neck. So perfect the glass dropper, now poised over her eye, that the liquid its self seemed reticent to leave, forming a perfect globe, surface rippling, clinging, before the weight was too great. One for each eye, two on her tongue

Hours later, hands steady on the familiar controls of the MX80, centering the normality of it to counter the oddity of her new reality. She thought she understood now, the man in the tubes, she could See. Everything. They were parked in a docking port of an empty manor house on the Third Level. And she could see; the warm pulses of transports through the building, between their Pod and the main flyway. And a different pulse of the uppper caste, seated within their new DL3000s and ModelK luxury cruisers. She saw spaces where an entry port led to a dead-end garage, or spilled into the lower levels. All her potential paths, those she had mapped out before the job, and possibilities she had never seen.

They were poised to hit a medical supply transport as it moved off the main flyways and around to the loading docks of the hospital. It would be guarded, but lightly. Most raids happened in the mid Levels where the populace of the Upper and Lower mingled, grudgingly, and often violently. Consequently, that was where most of the force of the Peace Keepers was focused. This was also a low level target, drugs and equipment people up here wouldn't bat an eye at. But on the lower levels it was a trove that would offer a glimpse of sweet relief; either as a cure or the temporary boon of forgetfulness. And, can't forget, it would bring a pretty penny to Cal and Cas's organization.

She saw the transport turn off onto one side street, then another. "Here she comes". She pulled out of her dock smoothly, emerging ten feet above their target. Her co-pilot lifted his door and dropped a small sonic bomb. It let out a quick pulse that shattered the polymer viewing shield and fried most of the circuitry. The three crew in the pod dropped quickly on steel cables, shot the guards in the cab with a blast that would leave them unconscious for hours and in pane when they woke, but alive. The work was done quickly, the snatched boxes and bags from the storage bay, prying at hidden compartments that Hel directed them to. Smooth. Efficient. Then a cold whisper in her ear. "Holy shit...Hel..." he faltered. She knew. She Saw.

"Grab it quick and let's clear out. Now." There had to be heavy security close. They had probably set off alarms with that pulse beetle. Sure enough, two Keeper cruisers turned off the main road, and one from the direction of the hospital loading docks.

Shit. Hel lowered the pod feet above the transport and the other three clambered in with their haul. "Strap in, we gotta go." Strait up, as much as she could, then full blast out just as the first cruizer came into view. A clipping blast rocked the pod, and then all three were behind, but not far. Weaving through side ways and docking building, always they were tow corners back. A fourth cruizer joined. Cursing she veered into the main traffic, where several major flyways converged, hoping to loose them in the chaos of vessels. She slowed. and her co-pilot swore low. "You can't hide, at least some will be Silvereyes and they have us tagged. You have to out run them. Make them Blind."

The Keepers spewed into the thoroughfare and moved deliberately towards them. She hesitated, just a moment, then burst out, cutting across rows of traffic and back into the side streets. "One hell of a test!" she went fast, too fast, sometimes clipping the corners of buildings, leaving long rents in the pod. Faster. She could feel the pulse of their pursuers grow fainter. Faster. They blipped out of her conciousness, but she didn't slow. The crew muttered curses and prayers. There it was, their escape. She veered quickly into a large building docking port, down, back, stop. "We have explosives, yes? Blast the wall."

An old access tunnel to the next level down, probably sealed up when the building went in. These were scattered around, closed up and forgotten...by most.

"Are you mad? We're sitting ducks!"

"Now! I don't know how much time we have. They are blind right now, but so am I. We have to go down."

Three hurled charges struck against the wall and exploded in a count of ten. Too much? She steered the pod into the tunnel before the dust settled, and quickly down, down down, in long lazy spirals. She counted the revolutions. There was a tickle at the back of her mind. They had found the blown tunnel. Out. Now. With luck they were low enough. She saw and exit shoot and Saw that it emptied into a defunct and filthy alley. The grate over the exit was rotted from fumes in the air. No need for gel charges, she powered through in a screeching of metal. Level 11, this was her space. She took a circuitous route to an abandoned building, a safe house of sorts, and waited hours. Until Hel felt well hidden, but with enough time left of her Serum to get to Cas and Cal. She could see that too.

Only when she set the bags on the table before them, where that delicate vial had sat before, did she breathe easier. She could feel the Serum fading out of her, and she wanted more. Out of one of the bags she took a glass vial, holding it up to the light, mesmerized by its whispers. Then set it on the table, trying desperately to do it casually.

"There are more than twenty vials in that bag. The rest are filled with the goods we expected." Silence. "What the hell was that doing in a medical transport?!"

Cal just sat, head shaking lightly with incredulity. Cas spoke. "A question we will probably never have an answer to. But our luck that it was. You did good. Everyone alive and one hell of a haul. The Pod is in rough shape, but we will need to lay low for a bit anyway. Get some rest." She was dismissed, her steps slow, reluctant to leave all that wealth, that power...

She had almost taken a vial, just one, slipped into her pocket. But the broken ex-Keeper's eyes, bloodshot, dialated to pin points, but unsettlingly clear. He spoke the Truth. Resolve settled, she would be the best, and never ever let herself become Blind.