Crashing Tides

by Gwendolyn Marie

  “You must withdraw immediately from the area. I will arrange a transport at coordinate alpha five at thirteen hundred.”

  “I have to search for my squadron first.”

  “Thirteen hundred is all I can do. Under any circumstance, do not remove your respirator,” the radio controlled said, pausing for a moment before offering one last piece of guidance. “Do not be late.”

  “I need more time. There may be other survivors.”

  Static answered.

  And through hell

  Unknown noises flared in the distance. They guided Hector through the city, as if sirens urging him into the depths of the germ sea. And here he traveled, in the bottomless fog, searching for his comrades and hoping that it would not be bodies he found. Could it be that in the face of this attack, the people of Kalambaka took arms against his squadron and now held them captive? At that thought, Hector removed his rifle’s safety. If the tides had turned, he knew he must fight against the local civilians. He must free his fellow soldiers.

  Moving in opposition to the breezes, Hector forced the bio-agent fog to part in his wake. It did not matter who the true enemy or true victim was. He was a soldier, one who thrived off war. Athanasios may have believed otherwise, though there was one truth: Hector hunted. He needed this, for without it he was merely a shadow. And a hunter is what overrode whatever insights of pity he had, and instinct replaced it.

  The thermal vision module mounted on his firearm picked up a harlequin haze against the monotone backdrop as Hector looked behind himself. He was being followed.

  Whatever situation arose, one could adapt and fight—or die. And so he chose the former, limiting his movements and hence what was projected of him through the fog. His respirator caused considerable noise and disrupted the fog due to the fan forcing air through the filter. It would give away his position, and so he turned it off but kept the sealed mask on, gauging that he could hold his breath for three minutes. He took the chance he had enough to neutralize the pursuer.

  Hector acted in stealth, using the mist rather than being encumbered by it. Keeping himself low, he retraced his steps back and behind his pursuer. Something was amiss, but Hector could not place it. He concentrated on subduing whoever followed him. Not killing, for they could simply be one of his own or even a civilian, but he had to act. Delaying even for a moment could place the upper hand in the potential adversary’s and he could not risk that. Standing behind him, he took the blunt end of his weapon and struck it into the skull base. The form fell.

  Quiet, quick.

  Something else moved. Hector heard it and turned. The fog folded in on itself. White. But he saw grey splattered in the bleached fog, revealing many shadows. Every shift in the gathering rippled the clouds as if water disturbed by a skipping stone. Breezes, breathing, any movement caused a skip in the fog. One shadow in the mass of many took a step. Circles moved outward. Another step, another ripple materialized further along in the distance. Hector looked through the thermal vision module; a portrait of hues wept together in a multicolor rainbow. The threat revealed itself in the throbbing mass of heat, a threat of many, of at least twenty humans in front of him.

  But he saw more than that. These people were not civilians confused by the bio-agent that entrenched their city. He saw the multicolored human forms swarm upon a smaller figure. Spine chilling screams of pain and rage coalescing into one unnatural, eternal cry from the mob as Hector watched it being torn apart; though whether it was a dog or a child, he could not tell.

  In an immersion of stealth and urgency, he took to the ground and toward a back alley. He needed oxygen; his lungs burned as each second passed. But even more-so, he needed an escape from the hell he witnessed. He entered the alleyway and activated the gas mask’s fan again. Breathing deeply, Hector stood ready. The alley was narrow between the buildings, offering the perfect stand against the shadows he saw. As used in Thermopylae, the war tactic still offered hope in a battle of the few against the many. Taper the enemy by way of the environment. Narrow the pathway thus assuring that the entire bulk of the attack would be gradual and only from the front.

  Noise erupted behind contradicting his tactic. Pivoting his weapon to fire, Hector turned to face a man. His clothes were old and his hair dirty; several empty whiskey bottles littered the ground near where he sat. Most likely homeless, Hector surmised, posing a negligible threat.

  “Get inside,” he instructed the vagrant, the mask making his voice seem artificial. “Seal off the entranceways. Remain inside.”

  The man said nothing in response. Probably drunk. Hector’s attention shifted back to the entrance of the alleyway and the perceived danger. Behind him, the man stood. He took one step toward the soldier, causing Hector to shift his firearm once more to behind. The man became clearer. The vagrant’s eyes gushed with blood; his nose and ears did the same.

  “Stand down. Get inside.”

  Hector repeated his commands. A warning in the undertone, for if the vagrant continued Hector would have no choice. And no choice was given—the man advanced. Hector fired into his leg.

  Screams came forth, but even through the pain, the homeless man continued his approach. Hector took aim again, firing into his heart. To go from instructing safety to killing a civilian was an inescapable drop, and one he handled with composed control. With the vagrant neutralized, Hector immediately turned his attention to the entry, knowing that the gunfire would lead the enemy to his position.

  And it had. Except it was not a foreign rival that he saw. It was one of his comrades.

  Relief came. Followed by alarm.

  A ribbon of scarlet dripped from his comrade’s nose. An unfamiliar depth laid behind his eyes of one driven beyond madness. Even though the soldier’s movements were unprecedented for humankind, Hector could read them anywhere: they were of attack, not kinship. Its aim was to kill him.

  To rip him apart.

  He fired. Through the heart this time, skipping the futile step of warnings. His comrade fell. Sorrow tried to break his emotions, but Hector pushed it away. These were his fellow soldiers, but as they attacked, he was left no choice. And if remorse overcame him, he would fail. All he could do was build a wall, one which was impenetrable. A wall of fortitude to block his emotions, in order to kill those who once fought by his side. Another came, this time Hector shot him through the head with the same effect.

  His comrades struck the ground, dead. His friends. His brothers in arm.

  Hector could stay here. Die himself in this chaos. Or he could make it to the coordinates and escape the fate that befell his brethren. It was not a choice though. Survival being the sole option, to live to fight another day.

  Leaving the alley and back to the cover of the toxic clouds, Hector ran forth to the street. Killing those who moved to attack him, he made his way through the city in order to get to the pick-up coordinates in time. Hands came at him from the fog, trying to grab him, bring him back and consume him. He mentally separated himself from the slaughter he sowed, and from the carnage he now reaped. Die or kill, there was no other way.

  No longer could he consider them brothers—or even human. Humanity did not animate their forms; no rhyme or reason arose, or rationale. Chaos had taken them; Chaos was all that existed now. All that moved, all that they were, were Chaots.

  Chapter Twelve

  Hector and Nyx emerged from the cave. Above ground stood the other three soldiers scattered in the forest’s plateau. They secured the perimeter, having dispersed the band of Chaots. Some Chaots had not made it; their corpses slept in silence before her. The foliage no longer scattered the sun’s rays to the forest floor; smoke and ash replaced it. The massacre weighted Dio; his jolly spirit dwindled. Only a glint of his former self persevered as he saw Nyx safely emerge. In stark opposition walked Megaira. Gun alert, its aim shifted momentarily on her just waiting for a sign to continue the carnage. Eagerness spewed from her tightly wound body.

  Then there was Leander. He rushed t
o her side.

  A tempestuous call, stronger even than the waves of the ocean, lured her to his embrace. He was now the siren to her own desires.

  Hector let his hand slide from hers as Leander took her in his arms. Hector went ahead to be on the lookout, motioning Megaira to follow. Megaira did not look happy about seeing Nyx alive and again with them, but heeded Hector’s unspoken command and walked off with him. Nyx buried her head within Leander’s shoulders as his arms offered her warmth from the chill of the barren caves, glad to feel him but also glad his gear provided a barrier between their touch, still worried of the possibilities that loomed.

  “I thought you ran from us again. I thought I had lost you,” he murmured within her ear.

  “I did not want ... I would not leave you,” she said, though did not tell him what happened, how Megaira had banished her. She would not, for she knew Megaira was right in her intentions and did not want to make more of a rift between them. Instead, she offered Leander a faltered smile and a more emotive embrace, clinging to him to forget all that had happened. To forget the insatiable affinity she had seen in the monster’s eyes. To forget her exposure, a continued cloud above her. In Leander’s arms she could abandon everything and return to the threads of normalcy. And even though her heart stirred to be with him, the wind of her soul resting to a breeze, she needed answers about the Chaots. Her query could not wait, for who knew how long she had—if the symptoms would come, albeit late. Curiosity lingered in urgency, causing her to question rather than find repose in her escape.

  “The contagion. How did it come to be? You spoke of a prion?” she spoke, hoping to understand the disease more, and understand if she could still turn and still be a threat.

  Leander loosened his arms from around her, startled by her pursuance of what caused the disease. But he spoke, first tentatively as if trying to draw back his emotions. “Prions are infectious agents, but different from viruses and bacteria. They are composed of proteins and do not depend on self-replication. Instead they affect the proteins already present in the host’s brain, causing them to mis-fold and affect the infected’s behavior.”

  He hesitated, still confounded by her sudden inquiry, for she had previously seemed indifferent. He was not unwilling to grant information; his reluctance was based on the distinct feeling that she was not telling him everything. He continued, hoping his doubts were ill found. “Examples are Kuru among the Fore tribe of Papua New Guinea and mad cow disease which caused Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease in humans, though thus far, prion diseases have been limited due to their long incubation periods. Due to this reason, they have never been used in warfare situations. Supposedly the pandemic was caused by a new, previously undiscovered type of prion, one whose infectivity decreased the time between exposure and onset of symptoms to null, creating a devastating weapon.”

  “I thought you were a soldier, not a scientist?” she questioned, somewhat surprised that he had a more biological grasp than she expected.

  “I am both ... to a certain extent. I entered the forces of the Bavarian Coalition as an officer, already having earned my degree in oceanography in the Naval Academy and was subsequently stationed aboard Thalassic after training. Though my major focus was not pathology, I did take courses in all facets of biology and is why I understand the basic structure of prions,” a somewhat embarrassed smile broke out along his features, as he continued in explanation. “I am not a soldier as Hector is, I never saw war until now.”

  She knew he wanted to stop talking about the disease, wanted to simply be glad she was back. As did she, but she had to know, hoping that some shred of knowledge may help her understand why she had not yet become a Chaot. “And what does the research station you are looking for have? What do they know about the disease?”

  “We are uncertain on the specifics,” he said, not wishing to convey that unsubstantiated hope was the only thing that led them. “The Thalassic lost contact with the mainland and Bavarian Coalition soon after the pandemic struck. From what we can conclude they were searching for the origin and design of the contagion.”

  “But I thought the Bavarian Coalition were the ones responsible for using the prion?” she asked. “Shouldn’t they already know about the prion if they were the ones to create it?”

  “Yes, they used the prion. But the group commissioned to engineer the bioweapon, as well as all their research, disappeared after the initial attack. Without them, the Bavarian Coalition had nothing to go on. So they recruited other scientists to study the prion’s construction in hopes to understand how to eradicate it.”

  “Why?” she asked. She understood technically why: their survival versus the Chaots, always would your own survival be chosen. But why not try to find ways for the survival of both, humans and Chaots, for were not the latter once friends, family, comrades? Her question was met by the expected though: his expression buckled in wonder why one almost mutilated by the Chaots would question their destruction.

  “Humans were not meant to live in the fringes of life,” he answered, “not meant to revert to cannibalistic animals without reason, without society. We need to eliminate the disease for with the end of the prion, comes our ability to rise from the ashes and to begin our civilization anew. They are a threat, you should know that Nyx. They almost killed you.”

  She could not hide her frustration; her thoughts being anything but identical to Leander’s. Would he believe her as human if her life was ruled not by reason but by whim; would he seek to eradicate her? Lawless, winged and unconfined. She epitomized the poetry written long before her time. Unwilling to cave under the pressures of an unknown civilization, unwilling to conform, she could not accept his view.

  She could not accept that if she should turn, he would want her dead.

  “Eradicate it,” Dio said, the interruption breaking his more good-natured humor. The usual smile and laugh did not cross his face; rather, the atrocities of the past, the darkness that lay behind his outer happiness, came forth. “The Chaots are not evil; they are people such as ourselves. But I cannot say the same for the disease. That is why we have to destroy it. It took everything ...”

  His voice cracked. Everything, he had said, and it was clear he thought of everyone who had been taken from him.

  “Dio,” Leander said, as if he witnessed a dam that stood strong in spite of the torrential downfalls, suddenly shatter. And he was tentative as to whether he should help repair that dam, or allow Dio to let what he had been harboring loose. “Your family. I need to ...”

  “No, Leander,” Dio replied. “I know. I always knew what happened.”

  Grief alongside memories overcame Leander’s features. He stood silent, unable to answer to his friend.

  “I saw it. Through the video feed on the Thalassic, I saw everything,” Dio said. “I know you did everything you could to save my daughter. I know you even tried despite her already being infected. Not telling me the truth, believing it was for the best.”

  Hatred was clear in his voice. The hatred of losing his family. And more so in himself for hiding away in Leander’s lie, in wanting to believe his family may still be alive despite seeing their watery grave. For not being strong enough to accept the truth. Yet the hatred found its reprieve in absolution as he spoke of forgiveness. “Do not bear that weight alone; let us fight the disease together.”

  No words could reveal Leander’s feelings; nothing could atone for him not being able to save Diomedes’s family. But the weight lessened, as Leander brought his hand to Dio’s shoulder and a re-found brotherhood passed between them.

  “We need to destroy it, Nyx,” Dio said. The words hard; the words unyielding in their resonance. “Not the ones who are infected by it, they do not need to be destroyed. The disease itself is evil, that and those who created it. And those who turned their backs away from the infected, leaving them to die rather than help.”

  At the last words, Dio looked at Leander. She saw something pass between them, an understanding of exactly who h
e referred to. She wondered who it was that turned their back away, who could make Dio falter in his stance that none are truly evil.

  “Don’t forget that, Nyx,” Dio continued, bringing his gaze back to her, giving her a wink to assure her he was back to his old self. “But I’ll let you two talk, I am sure Hector needs my help with the nav system. God’s mercy be with us if I left him to lead us himself. Probably will try to make us climb a cliff to cut off a few minutes of our hiking time.”

  He left the two, this time giving a wink to Leander, as if he could blatantly see the captain’s feeling towards her.

  She smiled at first in goodbye to Dio, but unspoken questions raced through her mind. They saturated her consciousness until it felt as if she would drown. She had felt absolution through Dio around the camp, but now guilt. What was her life before? What was she long ago?

  What was she now? A creature of the wild and not the wise, she understood more her connection with Chaots than with humans. It became clear in Leander’s wish of an ideal society and her need for none. He could not see that she was not one of them, and never could be confined to his civilization. And it became clear in Dio’s justified reason to destroy the disease, when she desired only understanding and not its elimination.

  “Hey, Nyx ...” Leander said.

  He caressed her arm sensing her discontent. His desire clear to take her in his arms again but she did not turn to face him. He led her to the side, away from the ears of the other soldiers who busied themselves with the global positioning system. They plotted directions to the research compound, paying no heed to the two. Around them the wind quieted to a hush, sweeping between the trees in a never relenting lattice of a maze. The hive of Chaots lay in dispersed purgatory, but it was as if they still watched. Watching under the shrouded shadows of the forests depths, a waiting maelstrom in a restful ocean. The Pathfinder was near, she knew it.