by David Brush
They both sat there silently, sipping what whisky remained in their glasses.
“Dante’s reign won’t last forever, James,” said the doctor, setting her empty cup down on the table. “I don’t agree with you, obviously, but I think we can both agree that if a higher power does exist, Dante is not the mouthpiece.”
James nodded.
“You aren’t here because you want to be,” she continued. “Dante has the same gun to your head that he has pressed up against everyone else’s. I asked you to join me here tonight because I want your help. In one week, the Crusaders will be mobilizing the entirety of their military against the Atria Plant. We have to overthrow the false prophet before he destroys whatever remains of this organization. Thousands will die if we attack, and nothing will be gained from it. Help me assassinate him and we can prevent a massacre. This group has bled enough for his insanity. It’s time to end the war, James. There’s nothing left to gain by continuing down this road.”
“I agree with you that it’s time for the war to end, Mira, but I can’t help you stop the attack. You’ll never be able to touch him while he’s surrounded like this in his bastion of power. Your faction can’t be strong enough to fight him outright, or you would. Even if you could manage to kill him here, you’d all be executed for treason and a new opportunistic zealot would rise out of his entourage to fill the gap. Hell, the Templar Knight might even come back. That means you need a battle like the one that’s coming. It’ll give your group the perfect opportunity to seize control and end Dante’s tyranny permanently.
“After the battle, I’ll be dead or gone, but either way, I have nothing with which to assist you. Let the battle happen, Mira, or millions will die in your attempt to save thousands.” He placed his empty glass down on the thin metal coffee table between them and left without another word.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Dr. Nightrick glanced up at the large screen projecting numbers out to the occupants of the command center located next to his lab on the second floor of the Atria Plant.
“Unbelievable…,” he muttered. “These figures have been validated by Director Fox?”
“Yes, sir,” replied General Bismuth from his seat at the helm of the long conference table. “They’re compiling a full risk assessment as we speak.”
“How could this have gone undetected? Why even fucking bother having Central Intelligence if they can’t catch something as massive as this?” yelled Nightrick at the assembled war council in a rare display of fury. He looked around the room, finding a sea of faces diverting their gaze from his in a desperate bid to avoid making eye contact. Only General Bismuth had the steel to meet his stare.
“I wouldn’t have thought it possible,” said the general. “The diplomacy between these groups changes daily. It’s hard to get a solid read on who exactly is backing who and for how long. They spend half their damn time fighting each other. The CLF has suffered multiple heavy defeats against both the Crusaders and the Human Liberation Army over the last couple of weeks, not to mention all of the beat downs that we’ve handed them personally. Up until now, they’ve been faltering heavily under pressure from the more belligerent factions. No one could have seen this coming.”
“Couldn’t have seen it coming? Well it’s pretty damn impossible to miss it now, isn’t it? What good are spies if they’re only able to tell me things that I can see with my satellites? Useless!” screamed Nightrick, throwing his datapad against the wall. The shattered machine rained tiny parts down onto the otherwise spotless floor. “I should have half of you hung for treason for harboring the ineptitude required to allow a buildup like this to take place so close to the capital!” He turned away from the sheepish group to study the map again. “Twenty miles away from the main campus. The CLF has managed to cobble together a massive coalition of different groups and no one can figure this out until they’re twenty fucking miles from the main campus. We’re already losing land like a goddamn fire sale and now this. That force they’ve assembled is the same size as the one that Dante will be sending here. They’re going to run straight through Northgate, raze the main campus, and capture Dovaruss. Anyone want to take a guess at how effective our government will be once we’ve lost the capital to insurgents?”
Bismuth cleared his throat. “I could always turn the army north. We could get the bulk of our force back to the capital before they even fire a shot if we mobilize now.”
“Out of the question. If you take the entire military back, we’ll save that corridor but lose the Atria. We can’t afford to lose another production facility; it would literally take Induction offline for years. Unacceptable.”
“Well then, we could always split the force into two separate armies. What we have massed here would be enough to fight an actual nation. It’s overkill in my opinion.”
Nightrick shook his head. “If you take half the military, we won’t be able to fully encircle the Crusaders and they’ll be able to slither back into their dark hole with a nosebleed instead of a mortal wound. After that, you can bet that luring them out in full force again will be next to impossible. Again, out of the question. I will not risk prolonging this conflict when victory is within reach. What we need, General, is to entice Dante into attacking now. If we can finish the Crusaders rapidly enough here, we’ll be able to quickly divert the army back to the capital and turn away the CLF Coalition.”
“And how exactly would we do that?” replied Bismuth, who was quickly becoming concerned with the look on Nightrick’s face. “We’re already working with a borderline skeleton crew here as it is. If I move any more soldiers or hardware away from the plant, we might risk losing the Atria anyway.”
“Send the entire air force back to defend the main campus. Even if the coalition breaks though Northgate, they’ll get hammered in the corridor. That will buy us some time.”
“We need the air force here.”
“No, General, we do not. What we need to do is make sure that we avoid losing our asses. Send the air force back. And then, once you’ve done that, send half of the remaining defenders here out to rendezvous with their respective units away from the plant,” said Nightrick with a tone that told everyone in the room that their discussion had ended.
“Dr. Nightrick,” said Bismuth, rubbing his forehead. “With all due respect, you’re going to get us all killed. The army might be able to encircle the Crusaders still, but this plant will fall and we’ll fall with it if you send away all of our holding force.”
“This conflict ends here and now, General. If you’re uncomfortable with risking your life by staying in the plant, then you have my permission to leave. Go command your troops from the field. I, however, will be staying here and holding the Crusaders at bay if I have to do it with my bare fucking hands.”
Bismuth let out a long sigh as he sat back in his chair, defeated for a moment. “Then we’d better hope that your hands are made of the same steel as your balls,” he said with a small grin. “I always knew that at some point or another you’d end up taking me down in a blaze of glory with you.”
Nightrick smiled at his old friend. “Trust me, General. Have I ever steered you wrong before?”
“Numerous times actually, but so far you’ve been smart enough to keep nearby for when the shit hits the fan,” laughed Bismuth.
“Well then, keep it up. I’d like a word with you in private, if you would,” said Nightrick. “The rest of you, go transmit the necessary troop movements. You’re dismissed.” Once the commanders had filed out of the council chamber, he walked into the laboratory adjacent to the room, signaling for the general to join him. As they entered, the doctor pointed to a sealed test tube suspended slightly above the workbench near his fume hood. A watery, translucent liquid rested within the confines of the glassware. “General, I present to you the volatilizer. It took me a while, but late last night I finally figured it out. The compound relies on the Karrion Catalyst for thermal stability, otherwise it burns out within minutes. It’s incredibl
e really. Mercer must have devised and synthesized that product with little more than basic laboratory equipment. He had no super-intelligent AI or team of world class chemists working on it, just ingenuity.”
“It’s quite a feat,” replied the general as he eyed the container. “What do you plan to do with it now?”
“No idea yet, to be honest. This one was more about the chase than anything else. I’m sure that there’re plenty of industrial uses for it, but I didn’t just invite you in here to show off. We have another problem, and I wanted your opinion on the matter.”
Bismuth nodded, already well aware of the issue. “What to do with your captive if the boy never arrives.”
“Yes,” said the doctor, leaning up against the bench. “After those fools at Charon cast Mercer out into the barren waste, who knows what happened to him. I’ve spent a fortune combing the Brukan Desert, but we haven’t found so much as a scrap of cloth with which to identify him. Those treacherous dogs are lucky that all I did was hang them. I should have had them flayed first for their blatant insubordination. That boy was worth a thousand of them. And now, every member of High Command is calling for me to execute the girl as a symbol of strength, as if the blood of one rebel makes up for the public embarrassment of losing a prison, especially one as renowned as the Charon Detention Facility. Killing hostages to put on a show is not a sign of strength, it’s a sign of desperation.”
“They think only in terms of image, not substance. It’s a tricky issue really. She’s clearly an insurgent and more than qualifies for the death penalty. You could have her killed, obviously, but if you wanted to do that, you wouldn’t have brought it up. You’re considering freeing her.”
“Yes. I hate to admit it, but I almost admire her spirit. Most people just shut down once we get our hands on them, but she’s different. We’re barely containing her as it is at the moment. I need the army stationed here just to keep her in the plant. I suppose I could simply reformat her mind and release her. I’m well within my rights to do so, but there’s a principle at stake here. If people begin to think that I just let rebels walk free, then it might encourage poor behavior. Too much mercy is as toxic as too little.”
They stood in silence for a moment.
“She could always die in the attack,” said Bismuth. “Just like Dr. Cortez did all those years ago. It wouldn’t be too difficult to believe that the Crusaders had killed her in their invasion.”
Nightrick flashed a small smile. “Perhaps she will. And what a pity, she was so young after all.”
Haley gazed up from the book that she had been consuming for the last few hours. The sun was beginning to retreat across the sky, staining the clouds pink and red as it went. She lay down on her bed and stared up at the rafters above her. Two knocks on the oak door, and it opened once again.
“Good evening, Ms. Hall,” said Dr. Nightrick as he stepped into the room. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
“Would it matter if you were?” she said, setting the book down on the cabinet next to her.
“No,” he replied, taking another step into the suite. “I just wanted to stop by and inform you of the situation. We’re anticipating an imminent strike on this facility by the Crusaders. Before the battle begins, I mean to move you to a safer location.”
“Why are you telling me this? It’s not like it matters to me.”
Nightrick shrugged. “Common courtesy? Perhaps that’s something insurgents are unfamiliar with. Either way, you’ll be brought down to the command center when the fighting starts. There isn’t a more secure location in the entire facility.”
“You said imminent? How imminent?”
“Within a week, but it’s hard to say really.”
She sat up. “Any word on James?”
“None.”
“He’s gone, you know. No one could survive in the Brukan Desert alone.”
“You don’t sound particularly bothered by it.”
“James died with his father. What happened to his body after that is your concern, not mine.”
Nightrick stood there for a moment, staring at Haley’s exposed neckline, visible above the red, low cut shirt she had on. “May I ask you how you got that scar around your throat? I noticed when we brought you here that it wraps all the way around. Now I’m not trying to be presumptuous, but I’d recognize a mark like that anywhere. You’ve been hanged before.”
“Yes,” she replied, running her finger along the elevated scar tissue. “When I was young, both of my parents died in a car crash and I was sent to live with my estranged uncle in Dunton. He tried his best, but I never really saw him as family. It didn’t matter what he did, every year the creeping darkness I felt looming over me got stronger and stronger. I understood something that no child should be able to fathom; death can wrap its cold embrace around any person at any moment. By the time I was fifteen, I had been depressed for so long that I couldn’t even imagine feeling something other than static despair. Have you ever felt that, Doctor? Like a heavy weight is sitting on your chest, pushing down, making it hard to breathe properly? That’s the sort of feeling you get before finally reaching the edge. It’s the feeling of death, trying relentlessly to force its way into your lungs. It just became too much. One night, when my uncle was out of town on business, I decided to speed up my slow and steady march into oblivion. Gravity and a noose seemed to be as good a way to die as any, so I threw a rope around a ceiling fan in my room and got on with it. The second that the chair beneath me fell away and the rope pulled tight around my neck, I remember feeling something that I hadn’t felt in years: the will to live. I flailed desperately, trying to find some surface with my feet to hold up my weight, but there was nothing. Just blank space and me, hanging there for what felt like an eternity, jerking pitifully in my pointless struggle, regretting ever having let the darkness drag me over the edge of the abyss. As the corners of my vision began to fade into a deep, black nothingness, the ceiling fan gave way, and I crashed to the ground, pinned underneath a mountain of debris. From there, my memory is more dreamlike than anything, foggy from the lack of oxygen that I’d endured. The only thing that I can remember clearly is clawing at the rope to gain some slack, eventually slipping my fingers in between the noose and my throat, finding some relief from the constriction. I lay there in the wreckage of my room for a long time that night, swearing that I would never allow myself to lose hope again. I had seen the face of death, and while I still didn’t fear it, I no longer craved it either.”
The doctor regarded her for a moment. “It’s the illnesses we conceal that pose the greatest threat. I can heal you, Haley. Depression is a scourge of the past.”
“There’s nothing left to heal. I met James the following summer and the rest is history. We sustained each other, becoming something greater than we ever could have been alone. We used to talk about how one day we’d stand hand in hand, looking out across eternity and losing ourselves in the endless light of a billion stars. There was comfort in knowing that when the shadow of death rose to meet me once again, I’d face it with him, and we’d go as we’d lived: together. Now I see that it was nothing more than a child’s dream, Doctor. You killed the one person I truly loved in this wretched world. You can’t cure me, but if you want to cure Coren, you can start by joining James and putting an end to this pointless war.”
Nightrick shook his head. “I’m afraid not. There’s only one cure for Coren, and that’s cauterization.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
James pushed his way down the long hall, through throngs of people, trying his best to keep Dr. Reya in sight. “What do you think this is all about?” he said, shoving past another black-robed Crusader.
She turned her head towards him. “I’m not sure to be honest, but if I had to guess, Dante is preparing to mobilize the army. Everyone is here now; the final battalions arrived last night. There aren’t many reasons for him to call together the entire complex.”
When they finally made it to t
he large opening at the end of the hall, James slid into the already packed crescent-shaped room, trying to find a spot to stand where he wouldn’t be getting smashed the entire briefing. Turning to address Dr. Reya, he found that she had disappeared into the crowd somewhere. As the last of the Crusaders gathered around the doors, Dante approached the podium that stood on the elevated platform in the center of the room. Behind him, three large screens flanked the lectern, each broadcasting the black flag of Crusaders. He waited a moment for the murmuring to die down. “Brothers and sisters, thank you for joining me. As most of you are now aware, we stand on the precipice of total victory in this holy war which we’ve waged for the better part of the last decade. With the Reborn program proving to be an unprecedented success, it has become clear to all of us on the council that we must act in the interest of maximizing results. To that end, we require a volume of tools and instruments not obtainable through conventional routes. That is why I have gathered you all here today to announce the beginning of the offensive that will forever turn the tide of this war.
“With our power united into one concerted army, we will capture the Atria Plant and, using the machines and tools found within the facility, match the dying government in the ability to perform Induction. The blood of the fallen will consecrate our quest, and no mortal or mortal weapon will prosper against us. Together we will build the Kingdom of God here on Earth, and with the brainchild of a demon no less. For our effort, we will feast in the glory of our Lord’s victory, content in knowing that we played a part, however small, in bringing it about.