Spitfire — Cybernetic Fracture, pt III

Glass hit tile like frozen rain, Blue lights flashed through hospital pain, Real cops yelled, “GET DOWN, STAY!” Wrong men came with no names. Sirens chewed up the night sky, Smoke drew ghosts by the bedside, Diamondback spoke inside, “Move now, Firewall — don’t die.” White hall split like a bad bone, Shots rang out by the payphone, Cops made shields with their own clothes, Feds bled out by the room doors. Glass rain fell from the ceiling, Nurses screamed through the bleeding, I kept crawling, barely breathing, Every exit started speaking. Security doors slammed behind, Opened up when I hit the line, Closed like teeth on the kill signs, Cut their squad into thin lines. One fed grabbed me by the wrist, Said, “Move fast, don’t look at this,” Then a round cut past his lips, And the wall coughed plaster chips. Black masks moved like bad news, No names, no court, no tattoos, Clean guns, black gloves, flat shoes, “Asset live — extract and move.” I said, “Fuck your asset claim,” I got blood and a borrowed name, Diamondback burned in my brain, Like thunder locked inside a frame. They brought war to a white gown, I heard boots, then the lights drowned, Every locked door opened somehow, I won’t let them take me now. SPITFIRE — hands in the air, They shot first like they didn’t care. SPITFIRE — light in my eyes, I’m still breathing, I won’t die. SPITFIRE — run through the war, They kicked hell through the patient door. SPITFIRE — scream to the sky, Diamondback says, “Move or Fucking Die” Monitors blinked down the hallway, Green words cut through the all-gray, “STAIRS LEFT — TAKE THE LONG WAY,” Like fear learned how to talk straight. Every screen knew my heartbeat, Every light bent beneath me, Elevators lied to the kill team, Dropped them down to the wrong wing. I hit stairs with my lungs split, Bare feet burned on the cold grit, Radio chatter turned cryptic, “Subject moving — system’s glitched.” Floor signs flashed like confession, Tenth floor lost all reception, Eleventh floor lost power connection, Twelfth floor screamed in possession. FBI fought in the stairwell, Blackfall moved like a death spell, One fed yelled, “What the hell?” As locked doors opened by themselves. I didn’t know what was helping, Didn’t know what was melting, Only heard the walls yelling, “Roofline, Firewall — keep stepping.” Top floor doors blew open wide, Cold wind cut through the inside, Rifles rose in a straight line, “DON'T FUCKING MOVE!” — then they fired anyway. I put both hands in the air, Too scared to move, too numb to care, They saw a girl standing there, Then filled the hall with fire and glare. Rounds smashed flat in a halo, Shells dropped slow like dead snow, My feet rose where the lights glowed, Green eyes lit up the windows. I rose up from the floor clean, Every gun jammed in the kill team. Diamondback tore through my bloodstream, Not a voice — a fucking war machine. The hallway bent when I breathed back, Guns went cold, then the walls cracked, Men flew hard from the blast back, Then the roof door slammed back. Rain hit hard on the rooftop, City burned in a red wash, Helipad glowed like a crosswalk, LifeFlight waited with the blades locked. Diamondback said, “Get the chopper,” I said, “I can’t fly, motherfucker,” It said, “You don’t need to — run harder,” “Your hands know me. I know rotors.” Halfway out through the wind scream, Spotlights sliced through the smoke stream, Two black birds rose from the city, Twin death machines, slick and pretty. Hummingbird frames in a hover, One left side, then the other, Miniguns spun like a gutter, Sky got teeth in the thunder. I raised both hands in the rain blast, Green light snapped through the aircraft, Target locks broke on playback, Their own guns chewed their wings black. Left bird fired into right bird, Right bird answered with bright murder, Steel rain tore through the roof blur, Fireballs broke like the world burned. I reached glass in the cockpit, Every dial lit toxic, No flight school, no logic, Diamondback said, “I got this.” SPITFIRE — hands in the air, They shot first like they didn’t care. SPITFIRE — light in my eyes, Bullets stopped when I should’ve died. SPITFIRE — run through the war, They kicked hell through the patient door. SPITFIRE — tear up the sky, Diamondback says, “Get up. Fly.” Rotors chopped up the skyline, Smoke wrote ghosts in the moonlight, Blackfall burned on the roofline, Every radar learned my sign. I don’t know how to fly, Diamondback said, “I do.” Rotors ripped through the black sky, And the city fell from view.