by T. C. Edge
My memories will be wiped and I’ll no longer recognise anyone from my past. I’ll be garbed in a black cloak and sent to join the Stalkers, or perhaps forced into some secret mission to destroy the Nameless from the inside.
That final thought, at least, won’t come true. With Burns in a place of such influence and power, my fate will be quickly passed onto the Nameless, and they’ll surely see me coming.
But regardless, I won’t know anything beyond what I’m told and ordered to do. I will become the very thing I hate most in this world, the very thing I’ve been fighting to protect the people against: an empty vessel, used for nothing but to bolster Cromwell’s designs for this world.
And as that thought permeates my mind, and I realise that I have absolutely no idea about the layout of the REEF, or where Adryan might be, or how exactly I’ll manage to get to him with these two Stalkers escorting me, I know that I’ve made a very grave mistake.
My emotion at imagining Adryan being tortured and killed has just doomed me to the one fate I feared most.
And I can’t help but think that, in so many ways, emotion is a weakness. It makes you do stupid, irrational things. It makes you act out of passion, or fear, or desire, without taking the necessary steps to ensure that you’re doing the right thing.
The sensible thing.
The logical thing.
All I had to do was think of Adryan being tortured, think of him being killed, and I’ve sent myself to the very place I never wanted to go.
I made the snap decision to try to extricate my husband from his cell, without knowing just what I would be facing. And now that I’m thinking more clearly, I know full well that the mission I’ve set myself on has zero chance of success.
And with all that fear and doubt now dominating my mind, I begin to seek another way out. Looking up at the Hawks who remain under my command, I know that they, at least, will offer me a last resort.
If I arrive at the REEF, and find myself in a position I can’t possibly free myself from, and if the Stalkers drag me straight to be reconditioned, and I have no chance of escaping their clutches, then I will have one final option available to me.
Suicide.
And looking at the Hawks, I dive into each of their heads, one after the other, and make sure to set the order deep so that it activates immediately, and without hesitation, when called upon.
If I give the verbal order, I tell them, shoot me dead immediately.
In the end, I’d far rather die than become a slave. And as I sit there, I imagine that, from the feeling of elation I had so recently as my powers suddenly returned, I’m now resigned to see my life ended in only a matter of minutes.
Either by death or reconditioning, I will cease to exist on this earth. And all the hopes and dreams that so briefly fluttered through my mind at the thought of escaping Cromwell’s clutches have now vanished. Now, there’s only darkness in my heart.
Once more, I’ve failed.
I sit there, feeling defeated, my emotions once more serving to deflect my mind from the task.
They got me here in the first place, made me give up my plan to escape the vehicle before we crossed the wall. And now they’re at me again, destroying any positivity that might linger somewhere deep in my mind, the growing feeling of fear and desperation serving to numb me as I wallow in my new failure.
In so many ways, I wish I had no emotion right now. I wish I could just flick a switch and turn off my fear, let my mind fashion some way out of this mess without being assaulted by the relentless thoughts of dread and panic that rise up inside me.
But I can’t. Try as I might, I know I’ve made a fatal error, that my affection and caring for Adryan has cursed me.
To put myself in such harm’s way, without any real plan of what I’m going to do, speaks volumes I suppose. And as the truck crunches over the dirt, moving deeper through the toxic jungle, I realise that I’ve never felt this way before.
I realise, right then, that I must love him.
And that, above all else, sends a fresh shard of pain through me. Pain that I won’t get to explore that love, find out what it really means and where it might lead.
That I’ve found it so late, that the man who I married as part of a sham has truly embedded himself in my heart, only to be lost before I can tell him how I feel.
And sitting there, my eyes grow moist, and I lose myself to a feeling of grief. Because love, while giving such joy, can also administer the most grievous of pain as well.
They say it’s better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.
I disagree. With my life about to end, and the man I think I love too, I wish I’d never even met him so I could be spared such pain.
My mind no longer seeks out a plan of escape.
I merely sit there, resigned to my fate, considering whether to just give the order now for the Hawks to shoot me dead. I was so foolish to think that I could make my way into the REEF like this. Shake off these Stalkers, find Adryan, escape through the woods.
How could I have been so stupid? How could I have been so reckless?
I shut my eyes and feel an anger join the grief and dread. And behind the lids of my eyes, I think beyond Adryan and to the others I’ll leave behind.
Others that I might have seen again had I not been so stupid, so rash.
Among them, my brother appears in my mind, so clear to my thoughts. And as he does, I remember that I can speak to him, that my powers have returned and with them, our telepathic link.
I picture his face, and see it as if he’s right there in front of me. And with tears gathering, I think of the words to tell him. To tell him I’m about to be turned into a slave. To tell him that I’m sorry for giving him a sister, only for him to lose her so quickly.
And as I think of the words to use, I feel his presence more strongly than ever, and my heart-rate begins to climb at the strange sensation that fills me.
Opening my eyes, I turn to the left, and imagine that he’s right there, in the woods, just outside the van.
He’s moving, rushing, and suddenly stopping. And then, only a second later, so is the van, grinding to a sudden stop on the track.
My heart flutters.
Hope builds again, embers of a dying fire flaring back to life.
And beyond the van, the sound of gunfire begins to call out from the wilderness.
He’s here...
He’s come…
124
The van crunches to a halt on the dirt track, and I feel a weird energy spread through it, as if it’s been disabled by a pulse round.
Along with the crunching tyres, rounds of lead begin to pepper the side of the vehicle, focusing on the front where the two Stalkers sit.
I hear the bullets crack from several weapons on either side of us, hear glass smashing and the two doors ahead opening. I turn my eyes up to the City Guards and see that they’re snatching up their weapons and moving to the rear door, preparing to engage.
“Stop. Don’t move!” I shout.
Both men go rigid against their own will. I can see the battle raging in their heads as they fight against my orders, desperate to do their duty.
I won’t let them. I won’t let them join the fight.
Instead, I call for the Hawk on the left to come forward to me, to lift his weapon and shoot out the mechanism that keeps my wrists bound. He does so, pulling the trigger and causing sparks to fly in the darkness as my cuffs suddenly come loose.
I shake them off and toss them to the metal floor, and quickly rush towards the rear end of the van. Turning my eyes again to the Hawks, I growl for them to ‘stay here and don’t move’, before opening up the back and letting the bright light of the morning sun spill inside.
Immediately, the sound of gunfire grows much louder, filling my ears and coming from the other end of the van.
I look out upon the track, stretching off through the heavy woodland towards the city many miles away in the distance. And just ove
r the treetops, I can still see the tip of the High Tower, its circular metal façade glinting in the bright light.
Hanging above the ground, the toxic mist here is thick. Within mere moments, it begins to seep forward, its tendrils creeping towards the back of the van and inside.
I quickly draw the doors shut, leaving only a crack to see and listen through as the battle rages on.
I can hear perhaps five or six different weapons, pouring forth their deadly discharge, some of them snapping and spewing out lead bullets, others fizzing and buzzing with pulse rounds.
Two of the latter, I know, will belong to the Stalkers, battling against my brother, somewhere hidden among the trees.
He’s come for me, come to save me.
He must have known my path, been passed the information by Commander Burns, guided to this specific spot at this specific time.
And he will have sensed me too, like I did him, known of my presence within the back of the van as we cut our path through the foul woods and towards an even fouler destination.
He has men with him, at least two or three of them. Hybrids, most likely, like him and me, soldiers capable of fighting these Stalkers on an equal footing.
At least, that’s what I hope.
Hidden inside the van, there’s nothing I can do to help. I turn quickly to the Hawks and call: “Gas masks. Do you have gas masks?”
They nod, and with a new order to give one to me, one of them reluctantly draws out a mask from his armour and passes it into my eager grasp.
I snap it up and drag it over my mouth, before opening the rear door a little wider. I drop to the floor, and feel the swamp of mist begin to rise up and attack any exposed flesh on my body, my outfit of pants and a shirt unsuitable to keep the fumes at bay.
Turning again to the Hawks, I order one to remove his black jacket and give it to me, wrapping the anti toxic garment over my body. I take his weapon too, heavy in my arms as I give a final order for them to stay, directing them like loyal dogs.
Holding the large pulse rifle, I creep around the side of the van and peer through my mask into the wilderness ahead. Flashes of light appear from the murky woods, the fight now stretching off as the participants displace and seek cover as trees and plants are blown apart.
Among the green trees and toxins, I see the sight of red as well. One man lies in a pool of it, blood seeping into the dirt just off to the right, his body half charred and decimated by a pulse round sent from a Stalker’s gun.
I quickly creep forward and look through the mist at his face, terrified that I might make out my brother’s features.
I don’t.
This is another man, another member of the Nameless, garbed in rough clothing and now dead in this attempt to rescue me.
I turn away and continue on, searching for my brother through the dim and tangled jungle, listening closely to the roar of the weapons as I go. A couple seem to have quietened now, two more men falling, only a few remaining in the fight as these hybrids, good and bad, serving the Nameless and the Consortium, utilise their special gifts to try to disable each other.
And right in the middle, I’m the prize. A prize to kill and be killed over…
I hate the thought.
The fighting is now centred off the track to the right. On the left, all has gone still, and once more I spy the sight of a body lying prostrate in the dirt. I rush towards it, and find that it’s another one of the Nameless, a woman this time, her eyes like mine and face young.
Too young to die.
Then, a third body appears, darker than the rest. I hurry on and find the black cloak of one of the Stalkers hiding his frame. I reach down, feeling the sharp burn of the poison, and turn the body over. The Stalker stares up at me, eyes wide open, a large hole blasted straight through his chest.
One down. But what about the other?
I turn towards the sound of the fight again, away into the woods. Only three distinct weapons fire now, only three combatants remaining; my brother, another of his men, and the second Stalker.
But I’m here too. I’m a part of this fight.
So I begin to run, leaping over roots and tangled vines as I dart deeper beneath the canopy. And soon, I’m coming up on them, and through the shroud I see my enemy, cloaked in the black robe of the Stalkers, his gloved hands clasping tightly at his pulse rifle as he sends rounds of red energy through the trees.
I begin to approach him, sneaking silently now as I raise my own weapon. He continues to maintain his gaze ahead, seemingly unaware of my presence as he hides behind the base of a large, broken tree trunk, firing around the side as two weapons batter him from ahead.
And then, as I sneak forward, a sudden lull fills the air, all weapons seemingly to stop firing at once.
Just at that moment, my foot comes down on a dry piece of wood, and the twig snaps beneath my weight, audible now in the abrupt and eerie silence.
Still far enough away from him, I hope he won’t have heard. But my hope is quickly expunged as I realise that this Stalker has been part bred from a Bat, that his ears are capable of picking up the quietest of sounds.
His reaction is immediate.
He swivels around and sees me there, standing foolishly in the open, my feet seeming to lock in place as his weapon quickly rises up and readies to fire.
In that split second, I feel my frame buzzing with energy as my Dasher powers rumble from within. And without hesitation, I start to flow with super-speed away from him, moving off behind a large tree just as a flow of red fire comes pouring from the barrel of his gun.
It greets the tree with a ferocious flame, tearing it apart and sending it crumbling to the earth. I dart away again in search of new cover, a trail of red following my step.
The colours are tremendous. Reds become oranges as the pulse rounds blast into trees, setting them aflame. The greens of the bushes and toxic mist light up amid the blaze, leaves quickly blackening and turning to ash as the whole jungle is assaulted.
I rush away now with no thoughts of returning fire, moving from tree to tree as I seek out new cover. And as the Stalker begins his pursuit, I swerve around a corner and immediately find a new figure waiting before me.
Dressed in the makeshift armour of the Nameless, I immediately know he’s not my brother. He turns to me with his own weapon primed, swerving it up as my Dasher powers start to weaken and fade.
I start to shout out: “No!” but his weapon doesn’t stop. Looking upon me, wearing this mask, dressed in this jacket of the City Guard, his instinct takes over as I take him by surprise.
He doesn’t see my long brunette hair, or the shining hazel eyes hidden behind the mask, or the narrow frame that is far too small for the jacket that covers it.
He thinks me only as his enemy, and his weapon is about to fire…
And then, as I slide to a stop before him, I hear another call coming from behind him, and see a blast of blue come hurtling in his direction.
Before he can pull the trigger, the blue ball engulfs him, disabling his body and leaving it rigid and temporarily paralysed.
I turn my eyes up and see, away through the trees, my brother standing with his weapon aimed forward at his own man, stopping him from making a terrible mistake.
But really, it’s my mistake.
Because with the man now paralysed and unable to move, he’s also completely defenceless. And as I stare right at him, I see a new pulse of energy approach from the left, lighting up the green mist as it surges for the stricken soldier.
This ball, however, it’s not blue, but red. Sent from the rifle of the Stalker, it buzzes and zips its way towards my brother’s man, greeting him with a wholly different effect to the disabling round sent by Zander.
That was meant only to immobilise. This one has the single purpose to destroy.
And destroy it does.
Watching in horror from only ten or so metres away, I see the red round of energy tear the man apart. Hitting him in his chest, it burns straigh
t through him, cutting him in two as his body tumbles to the ground.
A scream explodes from my lungs at the sight. And so too from the distance, where my twin looks upon the ruined form of his soldier, his lungs blaring with a bellow of anger.
And suddenly, I see him all but disappear, my eyes barely able to follow as a trail of clear air cuts through the mist, and he shoots straight around at the Stalker off to the left.
I move forward just in time to see him strike, see his body move so fast that not even the Stalker sees him coming. His fist connects with the hybrid hunter’s helmet with such strength that it shatters, exploding into the Stalker’s face with a thousand shards and blinding him in an instant.
He drops to his knees, grasping at his face as it spews blood, and my brother stands over him with a grimace visible behind his mask. And lifting his own pulse rifle, he flicks a dial on the side, switching it back to its most devastating mode, and aims it directly at the Stalker’s head.
Through the toxic fog, I watch as the end of my brother’s gun spews forth its terrible charge at point blank range.
And right before him, the Stalker’s head explodes from his body.
I wish to turn away, I don’t. I just watch as his frame collapses to the dirt, and his severed neck turns to a fountain of blood.
And despite the gore and gruesome nature of it all, I enjoy it. I want that man to suffer.
Truly, piece-by-piece, my humanity is being stripped away from me.
125
As the body of the Stalker hits the dirt, Zander turns his eyes to me. Even from here, I can see them sparkling behind his mask with a range of emotions.
With a sudden pace, he sweeps towards me and scoops me up into his arms, his muscles squeezing the air from me for a moment as I’m lifted from the mud. Then I’m dropped, and his attention immediately swerves to his fallen man, his body cut in two mere metres from where we stand.
When his eyes return to mine, I say: “The others are dead.”