by Peter Smith
Kellen checked his heads up display out of habit. The ammunition indicator showed what it had earlier, a full magazine and back up ones to match, “Engage on my signal”.
His radio crackled to life in his ear, jamming making it nearly impossible to understand who was speaking to him or what they were saying, even the identifier system couldn’t give him an ID tag “Kell… detected… your location”
“Repeat last” He said. As the Russians got closer, the interference intensified. A second message came through, only this time none of it was understandable.
Another surge of commandos sprinted from Parliament. Moments later London Spire forces and his Marines surged out after them. The entire enemy force was now crossing the bridge at one point or another. The first group was only a dozen yards from his location and was just about to enter the kill zone. He couldn’t wait, they would be on his position in seconds, he’d have to hope that whatever the information was that it wouldn’t be critical to the operation.
“Engage” He shouted, rolling himself around the corner of the pedestal, his rifle going to his shoulder.
His HUD lit up with warning messages as the Russians came into view. Only the indicator system flashed that the new threat was skyward. The heads of the enemy commandos tilted upward and just as he was about to do the same a large white and black mass crashed into the center of Westminster bridge road. The displaced air tore past him, sending a wave of pulverized stone dust to scour his armor. He blinked, his brain trying in vain to process arrival of the titanic unknown object.
His instincts took over, and he rolled behind the pedestal again, his back to the unyielding material as his fingertips wrapped around the edge. A vibration ran through the ground and the object shuddered, breaking into three separate yet equally sized pieces spread out into a triangle shape. A loud hiss filled the air as each of them extended upward and unfold themselves until they were taller than the typical home.
As they revealed themselves, smaller human sized machines detached themselves from their surfaces and dropped to the ground, assuming protective positions around their larger cousins. He realized what he was looking at a moment before his HUD identified them. An entire robotic platoon was now less than a few yards from his position. His jaw set and he could feel annoyance beginning to course through his veins.
The Land Dominance Unit closest to him turned on its two tree trunk sized legs. The shield that provided it with additional protection was still secured to its back, likely situated there to protect it from hostile fire during its deployment phase. The machine took a step back, bracing itself as the large multi barreled Vulcan cannon attached to its right arm was raised. All three of the LDUs appeared in his vision as he received reports from his subordinates, their views of the machines from their various positions on either side of the river giving him a complete perspective of the situation.
All the drones stood in the middle of the pre-planned kill zone, preventing the Russians from entering it and acting as a barrier to any fire that might have been directed at the Russians. Another grouping of the LDUs was at the opposite end of the bridge, Kellen couldn’t decide at this moment if the giant machines were meant to trap the Russians or prevent him from killing them, but regardless he knew exactly whom they belonged to.
A dark shadow fell over this stretch of London and he looked upward to see a fleet of close air support gun ships trundle their way across the blue sky. The turrets on the bellies and sides of the large crafts swiveled smoothly as they tracked their targets below.
The entire battlefield lay silent. No one dared fire their weapons as the giant machines brandished their heady ordinance and the gun ships hung ominously overhead. A chirping from his alert system drew Kellen’s attention down. A small drone had just rounded Belvedere Road and was now gliding toward him. His weapon never raised, though a part of him wanted to blast the flying machine from the air. It came to a stop less than five feet away from him.
A woman appeared below it, at least a projection of a woman did. Her youthful features were still genuine, not the result of the longevity vaccine treatment that he and so many others had received a lifetime ago. The eyes though, they belonged to one who had lived far too much in too short a time.
She smirked, “General Kellen, I think you and I need to talk.”
Pain fountained through his teeth and jaw muscles as he glared at Maria Patterson.
Maria Patterson
New York Spire
Her feet pounded against the walkway. The bricks of the pathway were perfectly encapsulated by verdant green grass. Her heart slammed against her ribs, her breath ran down her throat as if it were fire. The music’s beat pulsed in her ears and propelled her forward down the never ending path. The muscles in her thighs begged for relief as she continued on her sixteen kilometer run. It wasn’t often that she got these opportunities any more, there were so many demands on her hourly. So carving out time to exercise was difficult and getting time to run through the parkland below her home was almost impossible.
She needed this time, more than ever. Since the death of her father, she and her mother had spent much of their waking moments trying to hold the world together. She lost count of the times that she had marveled at his ability to manage something as vast and complex as their family empire.
She still felt a pang of guilt every time she thought about him and her part in his death, at how he had sacrificed himself at the last moment to save her life even though she was trying to take both of theirs. As the tempo of the music increased, she held back tears yet again. If anyone saw, she’d blame it on the chill wind breezing past her eyes.
Her father had been nearly everything to her. He was the model she based her entire life upon and he turned out to be a monster. She had been dealing with the fallout from his actions, those that had occurred over nearly two decades, since he had fallen to his death.
His face came into her mind. The lines of fear and concern creasing his eyes, wanting nothing more than for her to be saved from certain death. The moment the muscles around his eyes shifted, and she knew that he realized what she had done. That she was the reason they had been plummeting to their deaths. That to stop him, the little girl he had dedicated everything to had decided that it was preferable to take not just his life but her own.
She pushed herself down the path even harder. Her lungs screamed for relief almost as much as her thighs and calves did. Benches and lamp posts breezed by as she lengthened her stride and hammered at the brick path. She hoped, yet again in vain, that she could have a few moments of peace, where she wasn’t haunted by what she had done and what had been done in her name.
But that would never happen. There hadn’t been a day since her father’s death that she hadn’t had to remember him, been forced to come to grips with the terrible things that he had done. The world had held its breath for a few days after he had died. The other families licking their wounds as they processed the new political reality that they had all been plunged into. Once they had though, it felt as if the fate of the world were upon her shoulders.
The two most influential patriarchs were dead. Chen’s empire smashed or coopted and Jacob Patterson, the greatest strategic thinker of their era, lay dead at the base of the spire, sent there by his own daughter. The other families would have taken advantage of the situation. If it hadn’t been for the fact that most of their armies and lands had been shattered in the fighting. Her mother had stepped in though, helping her to recover faster than she otherwise would have.
Maybe that was because mom had long ago realized who her husband truly was, maybe she had been preparing herself emotionally and mentally for the day when he wouldn’t have an iron grip on the world and the fate of the human race. Or maybe she had been propelled into action from the relief that she was finally free from her husband. No longer bound to him for eternity, forced to follow his direction and plans for the future.
Regardless of why, her mother had helped to guide her as s
he seized control of the empire, pulling it and her own emotions from the pit of despair. It had been difficult those first few years. Fortunately, the rest of the world had been doing the same thing, giving her the respite she needed.
Her lungs threatened to burst, and she slowed down, her gait coming to a halting stop as her knees and hips absorbed the energy from her run. Her hands swung wildly as she stepped up to a water fountain and placed them on its surface. Her head dipped down, dropping between her outstretched arms as she pulled in ragged gulps of air.
She was out of shape, at least for her expectations. She knew most of the other Spire families rarely exercised, instead choosing to use medical procedures and medications to moderate their BMI and muscle tone. She understood their need to do so, for many it wasn’t a lack of desire that kept them from taking care of themselves but a lack of time. It was the curse of the productive, the more you made of your life, the less time you seemed to have to make sure you lived a healthy one. Her father had never seemed to have a problem with the balance.
She pulled her head back and looked up at the shinning tower that was her home, the beautiful display of color that was the flowers that grew from its automatically tended terraces. It never ceased to instill wonder in her, especially as the sun glinted off the glass surface of the building. Another emotion filled her as she stared at it, one of oppression.
Her home was the greatest reminder of what she had done and how she had betrayed her father and the world that he had created. Even now, after five years she still relied on his brilliance, his long-term planning to keep the world together. The empire that he constructed was the foundation for everything she was doing, and it was the reason for her every waking action and the darkness that plagued her dreams.
She knew that she could never make up for the sins of the man. His evil was so complete that it could never be washed away. That was the burden she bore, knowing that she could never undo what he had done. She had to try though, to make up for the part she played in his plan, both wittingly and not.
Her mother had tried in vain to get her to accept that she wasn’t responsible for anything that her father had done. She knew her mother was right, intellectually she understood that one couldn’t commit a crime when they had no choice in the actions. She was an infant when her father had dedicated himself to the path of genocide, using her birth as the catalyst for his decision. Every day she drew breath was one more that solidified the death of humanity. So long as her father viewed its sins as a danger to her safety and survival, he would never rest until he had rendered it safe for her.
How could she not feel guilt for what he had done when she understood that her very existence was to blame? It was possible he would have made similar choices without her, but the simple fact was, she was the reason for his decisions. The looks that all those still alive gave her let her know that they felt the same as she did. It was a human tradition, to hold the children of those that had committed terrible acts to account for the behaviors of their parents. People rarely used logic or unbiased decision making when they were hurt or scared, and people were definitely still both those things.
So she did her best to live her life, to deal with the competing emotions that fought to wrest control from her and plunge her into the depths of depression. She knew that ultimately it was a loosing battle, that one day she would have to directly face the guilt and worry that had consumed her decisions for the last five years. But not every moment had been dedicated toward making up for what her father had done, for the deaths he had perpetrated in her name.
She had carved out little moments for herself and those brief flashes of regularity, of distraction, were what had kept her sane and made her want to endure all the pain and hardship of this new life she found herself in. F
or as much guilt as she felt for how she had betrayed her father, for the inadvertent part she played in the murder of humanity and how she was using his legacy to hold the world of today together, a conflicting emotion had worked its way through her, gratitude. She was grateful for the life she now had and couldn’t do without it.
Motion out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. Her heart jumped in her chest and a burst of adrenaline flowed through her veins. She lengthened her stride, determined to outrun whatever was about to join her. The sound of new footfalls overlapped her’s, and she knew that the newcomer would be on her in seconds. She took a hard turn off of the immaculately maintained path and plunged into the tree line, the soft soil of the forest floor giving with each step.
She compensated, regaining her balance as she leapt onto a fallen tree trunk and pushed off of it with a single foot. The tread of her running shoe gripped the bark of the tree through the layer of slick moss that covered it. She used her newfound traction to propel herself forward like a rocket, landing on the forest floor, her knees flexing as she transferred the energy from the fall into her stride.
She pushed herself further through the trees when she heard a dull thud and a muttered curse. She looked back over her shoulder and then slowed her speed, bleeding off the kinetic energy of her run as she trotted to a stop. Laughter erupted from her as she turned, gasping for breath in between. She leaned down and placed her hands on her knees, “What’s wrong soldier man, wrong step?”
She smiled as Sean pushed himself up from the ground, moist soil covering his shirt, running shorts and bare shins. He stood at his full height and she let her eyes linger for a moment on his heaving chest. He hooked his thumb over his shoulder and motioned behind himself, “How did you not slip on that log?” He asked in between gasps for air.
Her smile grew, “I guess I’m just more physically capable than you are, is that really so surprising,” she teased.
Sean smirked and stepped up to her, brushing off the loose material clinging to his shirt and shorts, “More likely you’re part mountain goat.”
She rolled her eyes, “There are no mountains here, so lets add mentally capable to the list.”
A grin formed over his face as he reached for her hip, “Not enough blood in my brain right now”.
She slapped his hand away, “There’s never enough blood in there, that’s how we got into this whole mess” she said, stepping backward, biting her lip as she did.
He stepped forward, closing the distance, “I wouldn’t have done it any other way”
This time she let his hands grip her and pull her toward him. She wrapped her arms around his back and interlaced her fingers behind him, “I could do with more sleep”.
He smiled and leaned in, kissing her. For a moment, a long one, there wasn’t enough blood in her brain either and then he pulled away, his eyes sliding to her chest. She leaned back in his grasp, raising an eyebrow, “Um, excuse me, my eyes are up here and you need to get a bath”.
He held back, a look of intense consideration crossing over his face, “The Lake isn’t too far from here…”
The corner of her mouth ticked up, and she looked up at him through a few strands of hair that had broken free. Her hands flew down, smacking him on the ass as she bolted from him and toward the lake. She could barely make out the sound of his footfalls giving chase as she laughed her way to the body of water.
As she ran, she could just make out a red-tiled minaret that was barely visible through the trees in this part of the parkland at the base of the New York Spire. Her father had erased almost the entire city since “The Fall” but he had left the museums. He had always loved the aspirational culture of humanity, though not the parts of it that fed into our tribalism. She pushed the thoughts aside. She didn’t want to think about him again but it was hard when everywhere you looked you could see the remnants of the civilization he had wiped out.
She focused on Sean’s laughter, on the sun shinning off the surface of The Lake and determined that she would not let the past ruin this moment, it could have the next, it would always have the next. But this one would be theirs. She gripped the bottom of her shirt and pulled it off over her
head, spinning to throw it into Sean’s face. She turned toward the lake again, continuing their race and leaving a trail of clothes behind as she did.
The sun warmed her skin, evaporating the beads of water that were resting there. Her head lay against Sean’s chest, the rhythm of his heartbeats helping her to stay in this point in time. For what felt like the first time in months her muscles had unknotted, at least since this new round of fighting had intensified between the free peoples of Earth and the most aggressive Spire families. The sun continued to glint off the glass of her father’s tower and called for her attention. She spun the wedding ring on her left hand with the index finger and thumb of the right, hoping to distract herself.
“You rethinking it?” Sean asked, his brow furrowed.
Confusion filled her as she reoriented herself to look at him and then she realized what he was referring to. A smirk crossed her face, “I’m the one that should ask you that.”
He looked like he was about to reply but stopped, considering what he would say next. She knew he didn’t blame her any more for the deaths of his parents, likely he never had. She had just been a convenient outlet for the years of anger and resentment that had fermented within himself, while he and the rest of free humanity had done their best to hide from her father’s robotic death squads.
Their time together at the hidden Marine facility, a place she still wasn’t entirely sure the location of, had been brief, as had their trip to the Greensboro Colosseum complex.
She and Sean had changed a lot on that excursion. He had accepted that she wasn’t to blame for what her father had done, and she was finally forced to acknowledge the monster that her father truly was. Sean was one of a few handful of people that had separated her from her dad’s actions and he had done so with a minimal amount of exposure to her.