i outrank you
“We’re not being robbed,” says Bellamy tightly from the driver’s seat. “We’re being attacked.”
“What?” Murphy says. Everything feels dizzy. He sits up. The dizziness immediately gets worse. The Rover suddenly stops moving. Bellamy swears, pulls the lever-thing to his right, and stops the car. Murphy pulls the blanket off of him, reaches underneath the seat for a water bottle. Takes a long drink. “What?” he asks again. The banging hasn’t stopped. The whole Rover is shaking.
Raven is hunched over a screen. Murphy wonders where she’s plugging it in. “The drones think we’re gonna lead them to Lexa,” she explains. “ALIE’s got people outside, trying to get to us. If even one of us gets chipped again, they’ll know where Lexa is, and —“
“So we get rid of them,” Murphy says.
Bellamy turns around in his seat. “Raven,” he says. “Switch with me. Drive. And unplug all your shit from the Rover, it’s fucking up the battery. Clarke, open your window, use your gun. Murphy, you’re with me. We have the shock batons; those are gonna work, right?”
“Yeah,” says Murphy, unsure where he’s going with this.
“Good. Head up the rear with me.”
Murphy watches Clarke load her gun, and says, as though through a fog: “Look, if you’re not shooting to kill, there’s no point.”
Clarke glances back at him, wary. Raven is unplugging everything from the powerstrip running through the back, but she’s side-eyeing this conversation. “They’re just people, Murphy.”
“Yeah,” he agrees. “But they can’t feel pain. They’re not gonna stop moving if you don’t kill them instantly. Sever the connection to the brain, yeah?”
“We can’t —“ Clarke starts.
“We can,” says Murphy firmly, and he doesn’t even look to Bellamy for confirmation. “We are.”
“I won’t —“
Murphy tastes something like fire in the back of his throat, something burning and dangerous and familiar. “You’re not in charge here, Clarke,” he snaps. “I outrank you. You’re not the Commander, you’re just her consort. The Commander ordered me to do this, and I’m going to see it through to the end. So you either shoot to kill or get out of the car.”
Clarke swallows. Raven slides into the seat next to her. “I’m with Murphy,” she says in a low voice to Clarke.
“Fine,” says Clarke. Her voice is an octave higher than normal. “Fine! Whatever.”
Bellamy is handing Murphy a shock baton. He still kind of feels like he’s out of his body, like he’s watching himself do things, but maybe it’s always been this way? It doesn’t matter. He has other stuff to worry about. He doesn’t really — remember any of it, except he knows he’s on his back at some point and Bellamy shoots someone in the head for him, and there’s the blood splatter and Bellamy’s shaking hands and his throat hurts.
“Thanks,” he hears himself say.
“No problem,” says Bellamy. They close the back doors of the Rover.
Raven keeps driving.
—
Lexa’s holed up in the back of a collapsed neighborhood, and after they get through the gate, it’s easy to track her down. It’s a safe house of some sort, a hidey-hole for the Commander to come to if Polis has ever been compromised. ALIE’s zombies try to climb the gate, but it’ll take them awhile, and he’ll either be dead or they’ll be out of the City of Light by the time they’re done, so it’s not really a problem that Murphy is worried about.
Clarke knocks, but there’s no answer, so they end up breaking the door down, and Clarke’s face is kind of pinched, but the Commander is just on her knees, praying or meditating. She wakes up, maybe, when Clarke enters the room, her hand going for the sword at her back. Clarke raises her hands, palm up, not a threat. “Not ALIE,” she says, and Lexa nods and stands, embracing Clarke. Raven is already coming through, setting up screens across the ruined floor.
“Lukotwar,” she says. “I assume you are here because you were successful?”
“Not yet,” says Murphy. “I want you to take the City of Light chip.”
Lexa visibly recoils.
“Hear me out,” says Murphy. “The last thing ALIE wants is for you to take the chip, so that’s what we’re going to do. And I’ll be going in with you.” Glances to Bellamy. “Can you cuff her?”
Bellamy looks uncomfortable. The Commander is going to protest.
“Look,” he says. “If things go south, Bellamy can take me out easy. But you — we’re gonna need more help.”
Lexa gives a sharp nod, and Clarke bursts out with — “You’re just going to go through with this?”
“The Flame is —“ Lexa says, but cuts herself off. Takes a deep breath, tilts her head, maybe listening to something. It’s. Kind of creepy. Cuts her eyes to Murphy instead of explaining herself to Clarke. “You’ll go in first,” she tells him.
“Sure,” he agrees, easy. “We’re gonna meet up by the town hall, alright?”
The Commander gives a nod, and Murphy fumbles the chip that Raven gives him, almost drops it, and then swallows it dry.
—
He opens his eyes to gray and skyscrapers. His arm is still in a sling. There is still an array of bruises across his torso. Everything still — hurts.
It’s not what he was promised. It’s hardly what he expected. There are people walking past him, and they keep doubling back and just looking at him, like he’s different. He is different. At least he finally feels present in his own body. He ignores them and starts walking.
The City is still built the same. He resists the urge to go look for Emori; she’s not real, here, and she’s not even dead after all, just going by a different name and living in a cave system or some shit, so it wouldn’t help him. He takes the second left, takes a shortcut through the park, aiming for the stone steps in front of the town hall.
And it’s in the park where things start to go kind of — wrong. It’s not just that people are starting to look at him weird now, it’s that they’re starting to look at him and then whisper among themselves. He starts walking faster. They start walking faster around him. They’re closing in now, so — he breaks into a run, and Christ, it’s like he’s running in reality, too, all exhaustion and heavy breathing and strained lungs. And they’ve got no such limitations.
He makes it to the stone steps. He starts up them, and he trips, and he goes down, and they’re upon him: outsider. intruder. wrong wrong wrong
There’s a yell from above him.