“Seriously? You mean, if I think about how imposs-”
“Stop it!” Poet called from the cockpit. “We don't have time to rig up another flight!”
“Okay, okay...” Allan relented, sitting back, his head spinning.
Banks, Duncan and Wilson took seats around him, strapping in. They all wore some manner of armor, all geared up for war. The back ramp began to close as the engines cycled up. Allan closed his eyes for a moment.
“Okay, I need to...talk this out a little,” he said.
“Better if you don't,” Banks replied.
“I'm not really here, none of us are,” he said. “I'm...lying on an examination table on the Atonement, and Hawkins and two med-techs are looking over me.”
“Yes,” Greg replied. “That's right. And that's where we should leave it. Being inside your head requires a certain...suspension of disbelief, I guess you could call it. Everything in here follows rules, but those rules can be bent, to a certain degree. Everything must follow your own internal logic. That's why we have guns and armor, because that's how you deal with your problems. That's why this seems like a mission, with a briefing and objective and a team, because that's how you've handled problems for most of your life.”
“And this thing?” Allan asked, motioning to the modified jump ship. The engines were fully cycled up now, so powerful they were rattling the frame of the ship, but it was strangely muted within the confines of the actual structure. Beyond the windows, Allan could see the hangar give way to distant stars and space.
“We had to reach back quite a ways for this one. It was risky, because it made sense to you when you were a child. Children's logic makes sense to them...but obviously not as an adult. That's why this is all so unstable. So stop thinking about,” Duncan explained.
“This is crazy,” Allan muttered.
“Tell me about it,” Banks replied. “Like I don't have anything better to do than help you hunt down your own insanity.”
“You don't! You're dead,” Allan replied. “And even when you were alive all you'd do is skulk around the base and keep to yourself. Now, hold on-” Allan said.
“I don't like where this is going,” Banks murmured.
“If you're dead, how can-”
“-she be here? Because you believe, in your heart of hearts, that when people die, they live on in your memories. So shut up and be thankful,” Wilson replied.
Allan opened his mouth, then closed it. “Fine,” he said.
The ship continued to rattle and shake as it punched into FLT flight. Allan sat back, closed his eyes, tried to clear his mind. What could his insanity look like? His immediate reaction was to consider the thing in black armor. The killer. But apparently his insanity had begun before Lindholm, on Frontier. What did that mean?
He tried to remember traumatizing events on Frontier. He supposed there were enough of them. Having to gun down his first man. Investigating his first rape. Dead partners. Shitty relationships. That dark six months where he'd gotten fed up with the system and taken to murdering the murderers that got away with it. He supposed he was going to find out, one way or the other. For the moment, he sat back and tried to keep his head clear.
* * * * *
At some point, Allan drifted off. He dreamed of a sterilized, white examination room and several men examining him. A sudden jolt that rocked his entire body smashed him into consciousness, leaving him confused and terrified. His eyes snapped open and he found himself looking around a smoky, flickering cabin.
“What happened?!” he called, instantly remembering where he was and what he was doing.
“Someone's shooting at us!” Poet called back from the cockpit. “Direct hit to the engines! We're going down!”
“Where are we?!”
“Lindholm!”
Allan tried to get himself under control. He'd survived crashes before. Suddenly, he found himself wondering just exactly how this whole thing worked. If he did here, did he in real life? Wasn't what they said about dreams?
If so-
“Yes,” Banks said, next to him
“What?” he asked, startled, looking over at her as the ship continued to tremble, diving towards the ground that was rushing up to meet it.
“Yes, if you die here, you die back in the real world,” she said.
“Can you read my mind?” he asked.
“No...not really...it's complicated,” she replied.
“Fantastic.”
The ship slammed into the ground.
* * * * *
“Man, I hope he's not dead.”
“Of course he's isn't dead you fucknut. If he was dead, we'd be dead.”
“That seems kind of rude.”
“Shut up. He's coming around.”
Allan opened his eyes. The world slid into focus. He found himself staring up at familiar, dead gray skies. A light rain fell. Allan sighed.
“You know, when I blew this place up, I was pretty sure there was a one hundred percent chance I'd never have to come back,” he said.
Poet leaned over him.
“Hey, you made a joke,” he said.
Allan closed his eyes. “God, I did,” he moaned.
“No, that's good,” Poet said. Allan opened his eyes again. Rain beaded on his faceplate. Poet knelt, smiling over him. “Jokes are a way of dealing with your problems. You're making progress. Come on, we caught a lucky break.”
Allan groaned as he took Poet's and then Greg's hands and was hauled to his feet. He looked around. The wrecked, smoking remains of their modified jump ship lay a dozen meters away, having carved a deep furrow in the desert landscape. Behind him lay a handful of buildings next to a mountain. It looked familiar.
“How is this lucky?” Allan asked.
“We managed to get here ahead of the target, at least, we think so. He has to come this way,” Poet replied.
Allan decided that made enough sense and returned his attention to the colony.
“This place looks familiar,” he said.
“This is where you and Spec Ops faced down the killer, in the abandoned mines,” Greg replied.
“Ugh...that was a nightmare,” Allan muttered.
“Yeah, let's hope it goes better this time. Come on. He'll have to go through the mines. We should set up an ambush,” Wilson said.
“Hopefully history doesn't repeat itself,” Allan replied.
They set off, into the abandoned colony. It wasn't long before Allan found himself walking past derelict structures, staring in through broken windows. He remembered that these weathered husks that populated the area were the result of a mining operation gone bad. Although he'd never actually confirmed that, it had just made the most sense. A mining colony that had popped up practically overnight that had been abandoned just as quickly because it turned out there weren't as many resources as they'd hoped in the mountainside.
For a moment, the surreality of the situation hit Allan. He was inside his own head. He honestly wanted to know just how the hell the machine he was hooked up to worked, but also knew that it was very likely he'd never really understand it. Technology was just that way sometimes. You had to be an expert in a given field to really comprehend it. Allan stopped thinking, or tried to, and instead focused on his surroundings.
Up ahead, the mountain loomed in the grim twilight. The rain continued to fall all around, saturating the colony.
Allan looked over at the person who was walking nearest to him, who turned out to be Wilson. He drifted a little closer.
“I've missed you,” he said.
“I know. If I was still alive...well, really, if things hadn't gone so wrong that day, you'd likely be dead. You wouldn't have gone on the mission and stopped the killer,” Wilson replied.
“That's true, I suppose,” Allan said.
“It is, because we're not really having this conversation. You keep talking to us like we're really here, but you're just talking to yourself.”
“That's...also true.”
&
nbsp; “Does it make you uncomfortable?”
“Yes.”
“I don't think it should. People talk to themselves all the time, some out loud, but basically everyone talks to themselves inside their own heads. They reason things out. This is really just a manifestation of that process.”
“I want to get out of here,” Allan said. “I'm scared.”
“Why are you scared?”
For a moment, Allan couldn't respond. All he could think of was the killer, the thing in black armor, destroying the planet.
“I guess...just being here. I don't know. My emotions kind of feel like they're out of whack again, like on the Stygian,” he replied finally.
“That's because they never really got back to the way they were supposed to be. And...I mean, come on Allan, you've been messed up for most of your life. Over the past year you've tried to suppress your emotions. You'd decided that you'd rather feel nothing. But you can't live that way, Allan. You just can't,” Wilson said.
“Why not?”
“Because then you drain the meaning out of your life, not to mention you make it a whole lot more difficult. Humans are emotional. Fact. You can't get around that. What drives us is our emotions. You've been suffering, you've been relishing in your suffering, because you feel guilty about Lindholm. But your suffering isn't for their benefit, it can't be. Everyone affected by your actions on Lindholm negatively are either dead or don't know you. Your punishing yourself to make yourself feel better,” Wilson explained.
“You realize that makes no sense, right?” Allan asked.
Wilson smiled and shook his head. “It does, it just sounds like bullshit at first. Think about an apology. On the surface, you apologize to make another person feel better. But at its core, you apologize to make yourself feel better. You apologize to relieve your guilt when the other person forgives you. Your suffering because you think you deserve to suffer, thus fulfilling your own inner need to punish yourself. This is your way of apologizing to the dead. But they're dead. They don't care. Their families and friends that survived don't know you. They don't blame you cause there's no one to blame as far as they're concerned. And again, you sacrificed millions to save countless billions. Not an easy call, but you made it.”
Allan frowned. “I don't know. It makes a certain kind of sense but...”
“Okay, let me appeal to your logic. You being miserable benefits no one. You at least trying to be happy benefits several people.”
“How?”
“It'll benefit you. It'll benefit your friends. Callie. Not to mention the people you might save on future missions because you won't be so miserable you no longer care whether you live or die,” Wilson replied.
Allan considered it. “That does make sense...but this isn't even a real conversation. I'm telling myself this to make myself feel better.”
“Yes. So? What difference does it make?”
“I don't know. My head hurts.”
They were approaching the entrance to the abandoned mines. Soon, they stood before it: a dark, ominous hole cut in the side of the mountain, famed by steel girders, unlit. Poet was in the lead. He flicked on a flashlight mounted on the end of his rifle. The others quickly did the same. One by one, they disappeared into the opening.
“What's the plan?” Allan asked.
“There's a small assembly area just beyond the rear exit, the Spec Ops mobile command. There's some ships there. He'll want to get there. He needs to take another ship to go back deeper in the memories,” Banks explained.
“What? Why?”
“It's...complicated,” Banks replied.
“And we don't have time to explain it, we need to get back by there, lay in wait, then we pop out and blast him when he gets close enough,” Greg said.
They made their way into the mines, past the initial staging area and into the damp, dark network of earthen tunnels carved into the mountainside. For several moments, nobody spoke. There were only the sounds of muffled movement. The deeper the went, the more a growing sense of tension began to plague Allan. He played his flashlight across the walls, the ceiling, the others, looking for some hint as to what was making him so pensive. He'd finally shrugged it off as his out-of-whack emotions and being here again when they stopped in a large cavern.
“Wait,” Poet said, holding up a fist. Everyone froze. “Something's wrong.”
“What?” Banks asked.
“I don't know...”
Allan frowned, feeling it too, more so than ever, and knew suddenly that it wasn't his emotions. It was his instincts. They were telling him something. He played the pale beam of light across the ground suddenly as an idea came to him. Up ahead, the way yet gone, he spied something. His whole body went cold as he realized what it was.
Bootprints in the mud.
“He's been here already!” he called out, turning to face the others.
That's when he saw it.
Something detached itself from the ceiling and landed directly behind Banks.
“Banks!” Allan heard himself scream.
It seemed to happen in slow motion. Two gloved hands came up, one on either side of her head, and came together, grabbing her. Her eyes went wide. She dropped her gun, hands coming up to try and detach the grip, but then her head was twisted sharply to the side. A loud crack filled the air, and the life instantly faded from her eyes.
“Open fire!” Poet screamed. “Open fire!”
Allan expected to see the tall, imposing shape of the killer as Banks' body fell away, but instead, to his horror, he saw his own armor. Instantly, he remembered his nightmares. Now it was happening for real. Sort of. Banks' body fell away and then the armor moved. It moved fast. Everyone opened fire, including Allan. He ended up spraying down where it had been with several bursts from the assault rifle he'd grabbed.
Whoever was wearing his armor was hidden completely within it. The faceplate was perfectly opaque, a black shield against identity, making the wearer seem inhuman and almost insectile. Allan quickly realized that this was how he looked to everyone for several months. Chaos reigned in the cavern as the mysterious assailant moved among them, dodging most of the gunfire, occasionally taking a hit.
What was most disturbing was the way he moved in total silence. Even when a wild shot landed, he made no noise. Allan emptied his rifle, cursing, trying to keep track of it and land a shot wild simultaneously avoiding hitting the others. He slammed a fresh magazine of armor-piercers in and took aim once more.
The assailant came to stand before Duncan, who had just run out of ammo. In a flash, it made a fist and punched straight through the man's faceplate. The assailant's bloody gauntlet punched through the back of Duncan's head and helmet in a spray of gore. Allan let out a scream of surprise and fury, snapped the barrel to the assailant's location, flipped to full auto and squeezed the trigger. A concentrated array of bullets punched directly into the man's back and out his chest. Allan riddled both the hostile's body and Duncan's with an entire magazine's worth of armor-piercing rounds. The gun began clicking as the ammo ran out.
Finally, Allan released the trigger.
Both the man wearing his armor and Duncan collapsed to the ground.
Allan knew there was no chance Duncan was still alive. He walked slowly over, trembling with adrenaline, covering the man in his armor after slapping in a fresh magazine. He knew there was no way anyone could survive a full mag of armor-piercers to the back, but...stranger things had happened just recently.
“Let's see who this son of a bitch is,” Allan muttered, genuinely curious as he kicked the armored body over onto its back.
The others gathered around him as he reached up and flipped open the visor. He let out a startled shout and shot to his feet as he realized there was nobody and nothing in the suit. It was simply an empty suit of power armor.
“What the fuck?” he whispered.
“That makes sense,” Poet replied.
“What? How?!”
“Think about it. It's
all figurative in here. You were a prisoner of your armor. You felt safe in there. If you were going to get through this whole thing, you'd have to get past your armor. It was part of what was keeping you from reconnecting with the world around you,” Greg replied.
“Fuck...fine, so what does this mean? He's already come and gone? Or was this thing waiting for us and he's still coming? Or was this my insanity?” Allan asked.
“No, this can't be it,” Poet replied.
“Why not?”
“Just...because. It's not right. You didn't start wearing your armor until Lindholm. We have to go back further. And yes, I think this means he somehow got here before us. Which means...shit, come on, the mobile command center.”
Poet turned and hurried out of the cavern. Allan, Greg and Wilson followed. Allan cast one last look over his shoulder, wishing he could have done more, or at least thinking that maybe he should say something now that Duncan and Banks were gone, but there wasn't any time. There was never enough time, it seemed.
Outside, the storm was worse.
The mobile command base looked like it had been abandoned for a long time. In a way, Allan supposed that made sense. There was a single jump ship among the forsaken equipment and gear. The team split up, checking the area, but found no trace of their target. Allan hurried onboard the remaining jump ship, worried that it had been rendered inoperable. But when they tried to activate it, the vessel turned on without a problem.
“He must have taken another one,” Poet said, settling into the pilot's seat and closing the back ramp.
“Now what?” Allan asked.
“There's a starport that should have FTL-capable ships a couple dozen miles north of here. We'll grab one and press on to Frontier,” Poet replied.
“Why don't we just go back and take the other ship?” Allan asked.
Poet shook his head. “It was never meant to get further than Lindholm, too unstable.”
Allan settled into his seat with the others, sat back and waited for the ride to be over.
Chapter 12
–Home & Heartbreak–
Quarantine (The Shadow Wars Book 7.5) Page 11