“This is so exciting!”
“I can’t wait to learn about all the stars!”
“Why are there so many Enforcers?”
“Nightstalkers, dummy! They’d eat us all alive if we were unprotected!”
“How come no one brought telescope equipment?”
The Rehabilitation subjects chattered excitedly amongst themselves. Cook smoked his cigarette down to a stub in just five minutes, scanning and rescanning the area. We were all on knifes edge—even Westin had shut up with his incessant bragging. I shifted my grip on my staff over and over, trying to stop my palms from sweating so much. It’s so strange out here. So… lonely. Quiet.
“I think we can rule out a landing attack. Let’s get the chattering monkeys moving.” Cook dropped the butt of his cigarette on the ground and crushed it under the heel of his boot. What Cook lacked in height he made up in sheer bulk; the man was built like one of the artillery vehicles I had seen on the Launch Deck. Every cord and sinew stood out in his neck, and his arms bulged like he had some kind of growths under his skin. His face seemed vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t think of why I possibly could have ever encountered him before. He was definitely a man I didn’t want to see angry. The main attack element, two teams of eight heavily armed enforcers each, took to the front of the column, following the street—if it could be called that—in the opposite direction we had come in the flying craft. The Rehabilitation subjects followed, making no effort to remain quiet. Alicia looked my way, but I knew she didn’t recognize me in my strange clothing and in the company of Enforcers; for all she knew, I was dead. In fact, that’s probably all she knew, thanks to Solstice’s apparently non-existent policy of truthfulness. The final squad brought up the rear, setting a casual but steady pace. Our detachment held back until the main group had ventured a couple hundred yards ahead. Our job was to lull the rebels into a false sense of security, and counter attack when their ambush came.
It suddenly occurred to me that an ambush was indeed inevitable; the rebels only needed to track the object I had swallowed back in my quarters. Stupid!
I scolded myself, gripping my staff more tightly and falling in step behind Westin, bringing up the absolute rear. I never should have picked up that card, rescue or no rescue.
“Can’t wait ‘til the slimy rats show their faces,” one Enforcer boomed, cracking his knuckles for added effect. “I haven’t been on a ‘beyond.’ mission in almost year. Been itchin’ for some action lately.”
There were some murmurs of agreement. Westin, surprisingly, seemed oddly quiet. He seemed to be lost in thought; that, or he was too preoccupied with his stupidly cumbersome load.
“I’ve never been to this area of the old country,” another Enforcer commented. “It’s nicer out here… more trees.”
“More places to set a trap.” Cook remarked, eyes ever so relentlessly scanning. “Keep your eyes open.”
“The ‘old country’?” I asked, unsure if I should speak or not.” A few of the Enforcers looked my way as if acknowledging me for the first time since we had landed.
“That’s what we call all this land,” the Enforcer who had spoken explained. “The city was built on top of the ruins of the old world… literally. This area used to be mile after mile of overcrowded city; amazing what two and a half centuries will do to a place.”
I looked around again, this time a little more closely. Sure enough, the evidence of an abandoned civilization was easily recognizable beyond the huge, neglected buildings that lines the street on each side. Vines covered a myriad of rectangular metal shapes on the edges of the pavement. Small woodland creatures darted from structure to structure playfully prattling amongst themselves. A sign that said “BUS STOP” (whatever that was) lay rusted beneath a coating of moss. I marveled at how the earth had reclaimed its land in spite of the immensity of the concrete and steel. As we rounded the next corner, we were greeted with the sight of a tree sprouting through the top of a blown-open military vehicle. I lost myself in the wonders of a lost world as we picked and prodded our way through the ruins, never falling out of eyesight of the main element.
“Halt!”
We all froze simultaneously. I dared even breathe. Cook motioned for all of us to keep our heads low. He crept up to the rusted skeleton of some kind of civilian transportation and rummaged in the rubble beneath it. We all watched wide-eyed as he removed a sizable bundle of old garbage sporting a confusing array of colored wires. Cook examined it for several long moments before seizing a blue wire and yanking hard; the object let out a shrill, dying beep and then went silent.
“Remember what I said about traps?” Cook looked none-too pleased—had the device gone off, all of us would have surely been killed. I shuddered at the thought.
“That’s… creative,” I remarked out loud. A couple Enforcers scowled at me, mistaking my observation as praise.
“Aye, the bastards are very sneaky, I’ll give you that.” The Enforcer who had explained the “old country” phrase fell back to where I was so that he could walk with me. “The Nightstalkers aren’t called as such because they’re a blundering bunch of idiots, you know.”
“You seem to know a lot about the world outside Solstice,” I commented, not unkindly.
He smiled warily, stroking his greying mustache. “You don’t get to be my age in the Enforcer Corps without learnin’ a thing or two about the enemy.”
“Anything I should know before the attack?” I yearned for any little hint that might help me survive, and to save Alicia as well. I strained my eyes to see her, but the rapidly darkening landscape his all but their silhouettes from my view.”
“You have to be as crafty as they are,” the man advised, studying me with careful eyes. “The Nightstalkers are few, but they are as deadly as a knife to the throat, and often more quiet. They favor fear and confusion… be neither afraid, no confused, and you’ll be just fine.” He smiled at me, the first real smile anyone had given me in… months. “Besides, I think you have a certain advantage over the enemy.”
“What advantage?” I asked dumbly. He laughed heartily.
“If the rumors are to be believed, I hear that you are… Well, to put it crudely, invincible.”
“Hardly,” I muttered bitterly.
“Ah, so it is indeed just a rumor?” He looked relieved, for some reason.
“No, it’s technically true,” I admitted. “They… they changed me. My wounds heal… quickly.” I could feel my face grow hot; it made me very uncomfortable to speak about my… my curse on such casual terms. The man seemed to understand; he dropped the subject and we walked in silence for a few minutes longer.
“What do you know about Number Two?” I blurted it out. I have to kill him, I realized very suddenly. If I want Alicia to stay alive, I might have to kill him. Sam. He has a name. It wasn’t nearly as easy to think about when I remembered his name. Or the fact that he had saved my life. Then again, I didn’t know him, and my best friend’s life was at stake. I was hopelessly, horribly torn in that moment.
“I’ve only seen pictures,” he admitted, tearing me out of my thoughts. “They say he’s a ruthless killer, bold and fearless. The Executive has had many units—ours included—dedicated to hunting him down. Must’ve started… oh, probably five years ago or so. I hear they have a history… a personal vendetta.”
“I’ve met him.” I put forth thoughtlessly, then cringed at my own lack of restraint.
The Enforcer stumbled, jaw dropping open. “You’re not serious?”
“I… I shouldn’t say anything.”
“When?”
I hesitated. “Two months ago, maybe. It… it was the day of the QM festival.”
My companion’s eyes widened in revelation. “The city was shut down! The festival never happened! No wonder! Tell me about it!”
“I really shouldn’t…”
“Humor me. Please?” He must have been in his late thirties, maybe a little older, but in that moment he looked like a child awaiting a bedtime story. I wanted to say “no,” to drop the whole thing all together, but part of me wanted to believe that talking about it would make it easier to wrestle with the idea of, well, murdering someone who had saved my life.
“We had gone into Wall District, a friend of mine and I, and we ran into a rally of sorts… a rebel gathering.”
“That’s not too uncommon in Wall District, I’m afraid,” he said. I blinked, surprised.
“Really?”
“It happens… oh, about once a month I’d say. More, since when the QM was cancelled. Surgos are unhappy people, I reckon.”
“Why didn’t they ever inform us on the evening newsreel?”
“Ha! Why would they? It would just shatter the illusion of peace. It’s better that they don’t.” My companion chuckled bitterly and shook his head. “So, you stumbled upon a rally?”
“Yes,” I continued, trying not to be too disgusted at yet another unearthed grave full of lies. My friend and I were accused of being city spies. Sa—Number Two—” I caught myself, dodging a bullet, “he intervened. Called off the accusers, and tried to lead us to safety.”
“Really?” He sounded awestruck; enthralled. Not an ounce of suspicion or disbelief his in his voice. It was a welcome change from my interrogators, them being the only ones I had ever recounted the story to. “What do you mean, ‘tried’?”
“We were bombed,” I said simply. “The whole rally was obliterated. My friend and I barely escaped with our lives.”
“Sounds just like Number Two,” he said, shaking his head in disgust.
“No!” I exclaimed, causing some of our group to look at me. I lowered my voice, “It was the Enforcers! I hissed, forgetting to whom I was speaking for a moment. Cook barked an order and we looked up ahead to see what was going on.
It hit me then. I remembered why he looked so familiar! He was there. He was at the ferry dock after the bombing! My heart tried to pound itself out of my chest. A gunshot sounded in my head, and I saw the pleading face of the Surgo once again as the Enforcer—as Cook—planted a bullet in his brain. I touched a shaking hand to my face, which had gone cold and sweaty. I’m in a company of murderers!
I did not want to be a murderer. I was NOT going to be a murderer.
The only person who could save Alicia was me. No more relying on the Executive’s empty promises, and no more playing his impossible games. I wasn’t going to watch as the Enforcers—as I, Natalie—played part in the murder of a boy, even if he was a rebel. A rebel against what? Lies? Control? I might as well be a rebel myself. I had to find Alicia.
It was at that moment that the world exploded.
As my companion and I had been talking, I hadn’t noticed it growing darker and darker until only the faintest remnants of the day were left, a haze of light above the tree line. When the explosion ripped across the street, it lit up the world like a blaze of sunlight, instantly blinding me. The shock and the heat came less than a moment later. I felt like a helpless doll in a hurricane, flopping end over end until I crashed into something fleshy and solid.
The world was silent; I could hear nothing but the ringing sound blaring in my ears, disorienting me. Somehow, I had managed to hold on to my staff through all my tumbling, but I couldn’t see past the starbursts in my vision enough to tell what direction I was facing. With a suctioning pop, my eardrums resealed themselves, only to be met with the sounds of gunfire and the cried of the dying. I rolled over onto my knees, fighting the ever-present urge to throw up, but slipped in something warm and slick. I brought my hand to my face and recognized the metallic, sickly smell immediately. I retched, pulling away, and bumped into whatever had broken my fall. In the darkness, I couldn’t quite make out what it was. I strained my eyes, wiping my hands on my trouser legs. Somewhere up ahead, with a pop and a hiss, something bright and red shot up into the air, lighting up the whole area. Smoke hung over the street like a thick haze. I rubbed my eyes, instantly regretting it.
My companion, the only one who had shown me kindness in the last two months of my miserable existence, was lying in front of me in a pool of his own blood—or, at least, half of him was.
I gasped and choked back a scream, stumbling backward and moving in the opposite direction as fast as my legs would carry me. My urge to vomit subsided surprisingly quickly; my urge to curl up and sob uncontrollably, however, did not. I move toward the source of the red light, only vaguely aware of the fact that I was the only one from my group still standing. I passed Cook’s mangled body, or what was left of it. They were planning for our counter attack, I realized. They hit us first.
The gunfire only grew louder as I approached the main element. The scene was chaos; the Nightstalkers had chosen the perfect point of attack, a chokepoint between two tall buildings at the narrowest point in the street. I couldn’t see our attackers, but I could see the flashes of light where their weapons burst out with their cackling death. The Enforcers, about thirty of them, had spread out in a half circle surrounding the utterly petrified and hysterically screaming rehabilitation subjects. I moved toward them, blocking everything from my mind except for finding Alicia and getting her out—her, or her body, at that point.
As I passed a pile of broken concrete and junk, something snatched out and grabbed my leg. I yelled, half-mad with shell-shock, and lashed out as hard as I could with my short staff. Who—or what—ever it was yelped in pain and began blubbering unintelligibly. “Westin!?” The blonde captain was a mess of tears and blood. He cradled his right arm in his left, peering up at me like a pathetic lost puppy, tears streaming down his cheeks and blood from his nose. I’d never been so happy to see someone I hated in my entire life.
“Come on!” I shouted, grabbing his arm and giving it a solid tug.
“I… never… battle… never… attack…” Nothing that came out of his mouth really made any sense.
“You’ve never been in battle before!?” I finally piece together, throwing myself down as a fresh wave of bullets rattled the concrete around us. Westin could only nod. I couldn’t help it, I screamed in frustration, grabbed him by the back of his pants, and yanked him to his feet. Fear and fury alone allowed me to drag his sorry butt fifteen yards to a crater in the street where we could take cover. The main group was only fifty yards further than that, but the Enforcers seemed to be dropping like flies; already they were down to two dozen or so.
With a chorus of chaotic shouts, the remaining Enforcers broke and ran for the buildings, only for almost half to be cut down in their tracks. The last few bullets hissed over our heads. I pressed myself lower into the mud.
I slapped a hand over Westin’s uncontrollable blabber when I heard voices drawing near. My body stiffened in terror; the voices didn’t belong to any Enforcers.
“I’m telling you, it’s around here somewhere!”
“It’s a mistake. There’s no way.”
“I’ve got a strong signal.”
“It’s a piece of junk. She’s in the city, moron.”
“We’ll find her, relax!”
“We better. We lost four back there and Robus doesn’t look like he’s gonna make it”
“It’ll be worth it, trust me—” a burst of gunshots drowned out the words of the first voice, and then there was silence. I picked my head partway up out of the muck in the bottom of our hole to try and see something—anything. Westin gave a pitiful whimper and I elbowed him stiffly to shut him up.
“HU-AH!”
The yell startled me so badly I froze, mouth open, as a pair of strong hands wrapped me up on a strangle hold from behind, pulling me bodily from the ground; Westin was yanked in the opposite direction. I tried to lash out, to no avail. The arms holding me were like iron. One of them snaked up through my armpit and across the back of my neck, forcing my chin down into my chest. I could only just make out the shape of the hand clamped down on my other arm.
The hand had only two fingers, and the thumb.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” A familiar voice said in disbelief.
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