The Last Encore

Jinx groaned, the metallic taste of blood heavy in her mouth. Her ears were ringing from the crash. She forced herself up onto her hands and knees, fighting through the agonizing pain radiating from her ribs.

"Stella?" Jinx rasped, her voice swallowed by the howling wind. "Stardust, where are you?"

"Here," came a weak whimper nearby.

Jinx scrambled through the snow. Stella was huddled against the guardrail of an exposed steel suspension bridge. The holographic dress had short-circuited entirely, leaving her in thin, torn undergarments. Her lips were turning a terrifying shade of blue.

Jinx checked her surroundings. The crash had thrown them right onto the edge of the city's automated Mag-Train bridge. The structure stretched out into the blizzard, a narrow ribbon of steel suspended over a terrifying, bottomless chasm of black ice.

There was nowhere left to run.

Through the whiteout conditions, Jinx saw the surviving syndicate glider hover into view. It didn't fire. Instead, it touched down at the foot of the bridge, and four more heavily armed mercenaries stepped out, advancing slowly, confidently. They knew they had their prey cornered.

Jinx checked her kinetic-pistol. Empty. She tapped her shield gauntlet. The power gauge flickered red and died. She was out of ammo, out of shields, and out of time.

A low, vibrating rumble began to build beneath their feet. The steel grating of the bridge trembled. Through the driving snow, the blinding single headlight of an automated Mag-Train emerged, hurtling toward them along the tracks. It was moving fast, a massive, unstoppable bullet of reinforced steel.

Jinx looked at the approaching mercenaries. She looked at the speeding train. And then she looked down at her shivering, terrified sister.

The math was painfully simple. There was no way to fight. There was no way for both of them to board the train before the syndicate squad opened fire. Jinx felt the old, crushing guilt of her lost squad rise up, but this time, it crystallized into a cold, absolute resolve. She was not going to watch someone else she loved die. Not today.

Jinx unclipped the heavy, metallic square from her tactical belt—her last personal thermal-generator. She slammed it onto Stella’s chest, activating the magnetic clamps. Instantly, a warm, golden glow enveloped the pop star.

"Jinx? What are you doing?" Stella’s voice shook, her eyes widening as she read the terrifying finality in her sister’s expression.

"I'm keeping you warm, brat," Jinx said, her voice eerily calm beneath the roar of the wind and the approaching train. She reached back toward the burning wreckage of the snowmobile, yanking the highly volatile thermal-detonator core from the cracked engine housing. It pulsed with an angry, unstable red light.

"No," Stella sobbed, grabbing weakly at Jinx's arm. "No, Jinx, stop it! Stop joking! We can fight them!"

"Listen to me, Stardust," Jinx said, grabbing Stella by the shoulders. She forced a classic, obnoxious smirk onto her face, fighting back the tears that threatened to freeze on her eyelashes. "You are going to get on that train. And if you let the record label use cheap auto-tune on my posthumous tribute album, I swear to God I will crawl out of hell and strangle you myself."

"Jinx, please—!"

The train roared past them, slowing just enough to navigate the ice-covered bridge.

"I love you, you glittering idiot," Jinx whispered.

With a surge of desperate strength, Jinx hauled Stella up and violently shoved her backward. Stella screamed as she tumbled through the open side-doors of an automated cargo car, landing safely inside just as the doors clamped shut.

Jinx didn't look back. She couldn't afford to hesitate.

She turned to face the advancing syndicate squad. They raised their rifles, the red laser sights cutting through the snow, painting her chest in a dozen lethal dots.

Jinx armed the thermal-detonator core. The red light shifted to a blinding, continuous white.

"Show's over, boys," Jinx sneered.

She charged directly at them.

The mercenaries opened fire, but Jinx was already plunging the volatile core directly into the primary structural support column of the suspension bridge.

The explosion was magnificent. It wasn't a fire; it was a localized sun detonating in the middle of a blizzard. The thermal blast instantly vaporized the steel, the ice, and the mercenaries. The shockwave shattered the foundational anchors of the bridge. With a horrific, groaning scream of tearing metal, the entire front half of the suspension bridge collapsed, swallowed whole by the dark, freezing chasm below.

From the reinforced glass window of the speeding train, Stella Vance pressed her hands against the freezing pane. The golden glow of the thermal-generator kept her warm, but she had never felt colder in her entire life.

She watched the bridge fall. She watched the explosion fade into the swirling whiteout.

The train hurtled onward into the blizzard, carrying the most famous rock star in the galaxy away into the dark. She was perfectly safe. She was perfectly warm. And she was completely, utterly alone.