18 Walls

by Teo Xue Shen

  I don’t really like where this conversation is going, so I change the topic.

  “What’s your Extension like?”

  She looks at me, eyebrows raised.

  “Wanna see?”

  There’s a gentle breeze as she unfurls a pair of alabaster wings from her back. They are massive, enough to cloak her entire body. The moonlight reflects off every immaculately produced feather, illuminating the intricacies of her Extension. She looks amazing.

  “Like an angel,” I murmur.

  “Ever see an angel toting a rifle?” she smiles.

  “I guess not.”

  In a far corner of the room, Raine groans and tosses listlessly in her sleep. Beads of sweat have gathered on her forehead. A nightmare.

  “Your girlfriend?” Ivy asks. Her Extension has vanished.

  I shake my head.

  “I see. You should go wake her up. Leave the sentry duty to me for now.”

  “Thanks.”

  I step over the sleeping figures of the others and gingerly tap Raine on the shoulder. She wakes almost immediately, grabbing wildly for her rifle. I catch the butt of the rifle as it whistles towards my head, feeling the pressure on it diminish when she realises that I’m not an enemy.

  “Nightmare?” I ask, even though it’s obvious.

  She nods. I hand her a bottle of water, which she hurriedly gulps down.

  “They were after me,” she whispers. “The Savages I killed. Their faces…the way they looked at me…goddamn shit…as if I wanted any of this shit in the first place…”

  I don’t know how to comfort her. It’s a good thing to hear that she still has her reservations about killing the Savages. I lost mine a couple of weeks after Street 51 happened. The worst part comes when you don’t even care any more, when the nightmares plague you no longer, when you’re numb to your own actions. But I can’t possibly tell her that. Not now. Not when she’s trembling from a nightmare that has haunted her for the past few hours. So I let her rant. I can feel her heartbeat when she leans against my shoulder. A powerful thumping that reverberates through her body. It takes about ten minutes before her heartbeat begins to slow and her body begins to relax, sinking lower onto my shoulder.

  Her shoulder brushes against my chest and a sharp pain makes me wince. I’d forgotten about it. The place where the Savage slashed me earlier today. I didn’t mean to trouble her, but Raine notices when I tense up.

  “What?” She looks at me over her shoulder. “Oh. Shit, I’m sorry. Here, I’ll bandage it.”

  “Nah, I’ll be fine. Just leave it as it is.”

  “Infection says different,” she says, getting to her feet and pushing a finger into the corner of the wound. I jump in pain. “See? Now take off your shirt and wait.”

  “You should be sleeping instead of this.”

  “And you should shut up and let me finish it so I can go back to sleep. Besides,” she adds softly. “I don’t know if I want to go back to sleep.”

  I give in. I shoot a glance at Ivy, who’s still by the window, keeping an eye out for danger. Undoubtedly, she’s more interested in what’s going on inside the room than outside, for she catches my eye within seconds and gives me a thumbs-up.

  Raine returns with a bandage in hand and proceeds to tenderly dress the wound. Compared with the brash, abrasive Raine whom I met months ago, she seems like a completely different person.

  “Hey, hey.” She nudges me, hard, in my side. “Look over there.”

  I take it back. She’s the same Raine I know.

  “What?”

  “At the wall to my left. Rick and April.”

  “Oh.”

  April has fallen asleep against the wall. Rick’s head is on her lap, her hand resting on his forehead. Well, I knew they’d gotten closer since our deployment, but not that close. And besides, Rick’s always taking a jab at Raine. Sometimes, I really can’t figure out what goes through that guy’s head. Raine is grinning ghoulishly, probably intending to tease them about it first thing in the morning.

  “All right, all right, stop gloating and go back to sleep.”

  She does. I return to the window, nodding apologetically to Ivy. She grins knowingly, then tenses up and takes aim through the scope of her rifle. There’s something moving down there. After a few agonising seconds, she relaxes and takes her eye off the scope.

  “Cat.”

  The Extension must have done something to her eyesight. From this distance, I couldn’t even tell if it was human. I’m dying to know how an animal like that can survive in such a god-forsaken place. The answer is, it can’t. Quicker than the eye can follow, something snatches the cat in mid-stride, dragging it into the darkness beyond what my enhanced body can sense. Ivy hasn’t seen it yet. But she’s seen my eyes widen and, like any other trained soldier, she knows that it means trouble. I raise a finger to my lips and point to where the cat once was.

  “Something took it,” I whisper.

  “Shall we pursue?”

  I shake my head firmly.

  “It’s too dangerous now. We’ll wait for daylight.”

  She nods reluctantly. Eyes glinting, she returns to the window, staring obsessively down the scope of her rifle. We don’t have long to wait. At the crack of dawn, four sentry shifts later, they come for us. A group of nine Savages. They don’t know our exact positions, but they know we’re here. I keep my eye on them while Hyung wakes the rest.

  When we’re all positioned at the windows, I give them the signal to proceed.

  “So you, Ivy and I fire the first shot, then we move in and screw them over, right?” Raine hisses in my ear.

  “Yeah. Something along those lines. Maybe a little more…eloquently put.”

  I trace my target with the crosshair of my scope. A barely visible silhouette, creeping across the rubble towards us. There’s so much cover around that I’m not even confident of hitting my target. I take a deep breath, hold it, steady my rifle and fire. The silhouette falls to the ground.

  The shape directly behind my target falls too, Ivy’s bullet punching a hole through its leg. Raine misses hers entirely. Ivy fires again, but the figure rolls behind the remains of an apartment complex. The rest of the Savages scatter. We move.

  If you’re wondering what falling from four floors up feels like, it’s horrible. That little niggling voice in my head which constantly hints at Extension failure only makes things worse. If our Extensions were to go out of control at such a moment, well, we’d probably end up looking like a bad piece of modern art. That is why we avoid using our Extensions when we’re exhausted; they’re exceedingly difficult to control.

  We land safely amid the rubble below. Hyung, Raine, Sean and I attack the Savages with our Extensions while Rick, Ivy and April cover us from the fourth floor of the building. At least that’s how my plan was supposed to work.

  Right in the midst of the battle, I hear an exhilarated whoop and a figure crash-lands on my left, wrapped securely in a layer of feathers. Ivy. Her wings fan out and she lets fly with her rifle, taking out a stunned Savage on her left.

  “Ivy! Weren’t you supposed to…”

  She isn’t listening. Her eyes are crazed. With an excited howl, she leaps off the top of a broken wall, shielding herself with her wings as she barrels towards the Savages.

  “She’s insane!” Raine yells. “I swear, it was a mistake to join up with them!”

  I glance over at Hyung for help, but he has his hands full at the moment. His rifle is jammed between the modified jaws of a Savage, his Extension keeping another at bay. The Extension is nightmarish, even by my standards. Long, smooth, glistening and featureless except for eel-like jaws at the end, it’s a formidable one. Even as I watch, the Savage catches the upper jaw in one hand and the lower jaw in the other, hell-bent on tearing it apart. Big mistake. A second set of jaws, attached to some sort of muscle, springs out from within the first, its teeth slicing into the Savage’s skull. The Savage gibbers madly and dies. The jaws release it and
chomp down on the Savage with Hyung’s rifle in its mouth. It struggles desperately as the muscle attached to the jaws contracts, dragging it towards the main set of jaws. Crunch. Another one bites the dust. Given our current circumstances, I decide to put off Ivy’s matter for now. However, Raine is less ready to compromise.

  “Do something about that squad member of yours, will you?” she roars over the din of gunfire, stabbing a Savage in the neck with her dagger. “She’s gonna attract the attention of every single Savage around.”

  “Do I look like I can do anything about that?” Hyung gestures helplessly at the rampaging Ivy.

  He’s right. In her current state, it doesn’t look like anything can stop her. Despite the fact that her Extension is defense oriented, she flings herself at the Savages with wild abandon, using only her rifle and blade to attack them. She isn’t a very effective killer, but she sure as hell can keep them busy. With six of them dead and three focused on Ivy, things are looking pretty good at the moment.

  Yeah, I emphasise, at the moment. Unfortunately, we underestimated our foes. The next moment, Rick and April have ditched the building, joining us in the rubble below. That’s how quickly things can go to shit out here. The nine we saw are probably scouts, sent to recce the area. And they’ve found us.

  “They’re all around!” Rick yells. “We’re surrounded! Fifteen at the rear and at least eighteen more in front! I didn’t know what to do so I took April and jumped.”

  “Yeah. Would’ve done that too,” I reply, signalling to the others to take cover as the air around us turns into a sea of lead.

  12

  We’re pinned down on all sides. There’s no other way to describe it. With enemies approaching us from every single bloody direction, it’s only a matter of time before they tighten the noose on our necks.

  “Where’s that crazy red head?” Raine yells from behind a broken column. “Oh. Finally.”

  Even Ivy has been forced to take shelter, her Extension peppered with tiny cracks.

  “Ren! Call for backup!” Hyung taps desperately on his own forearm, indicating the radio on mine. “We’ll all die at this rate!”

  “He’s right,” Rick seconds, pounding the compound behind us with his machine gun, keeping the Savages stationed there at bay. “Even if they don’t kill us immediately, we’ll be out of ammunition, food and water in a couple of days. All they have to do is wait us out.”

  My face is ashen. Forearm millimetres away from my mouth, I shout into the radio. It crackles unintelligibly. I try again. At first, I can’t hear a single word of response. Then, there’s a pause in the firing and everything becomes clear.

  “This is Squad Seventy-Two, I repeat, this is Squad Seventy-Two. We cannot advance. Backup is required.”

  The radio crackles.

  “Squad Seventy-Two. Your orders are to advance. You must make it to the following coordinates, which have already been sent to you, in six hours. I repeat, you have six hours. Backup is currently unavailable,” comes the response.

  “This is Squad Seventy-Two. We are pinned down by over twenty of the enemy,” I argue. “Advance is impossible. Requesting permission to wait for backup. We will hold out till then.”

  “Negative. You must advance to your intended position within six hours.”

  “Squad Seventy-Two. We will die if we advance, I repeat, we will die if we try to advance.”

  I’m getting increasingly frustrated, my finger forcefully depressing the button on the radio. I poke my head out from behind a slab of concrete and immediately jerk it back as the Savages shoot at me. The gunfire has started up again, but I can tell they’re not trying to kill us, merely forcing us to stay under the cover of the rubble around us. We’ve been forced into some sort of large room, which probably had been a convenience store of some sort. Hemmed in at all sides, we fire sporadically out of the holes in the concrete, drawing severe but controlled return fire. As Rick suggested, they are simply waiting. A war of attrition. A war we are destined to lose. Everyone present knows it, yet we push on as if we don’t, as if we still have a scrap of hope to cling on to.

  “If you do not advance,” Ulas’ voice comes through the radio. “I will have to press charges against the lot of you for disobeying orders on the battlefield. And I’m sure you know, the punishment for that is execution.”

  “You’re telling me to send my men to their deaths!” I shout into the radio, losing whatever remains of my composure. “How the hell can you expect me to do that? Are you insane? These are people you’re talking about!”

  “Squad leader Ren,” Ulas treats me to one final dressing-down. “You will follow your orders, or you and your squad will face the necessary punishment. Incompetence is not an excuse for your failure. Remember that well and I hope to hear from you in six hours.”

  “Goddamn son of a bitch,” I swear at the obstinately silent radio. “What the hell? That bloody piece of…”

  I continue for a good three minutes without repeating myself more than once. I don’t know why I’m cussing the radio out, but there’s nothing much else I can do. Raine is the only one who looks amused. All eyes are on me. I can feel the weight of their gazes on my back. I glance around the room to see resignation, despair and, most of all, frustration. We’ve come so far, only to die now? A nameless death in this broken down, ramshackle store surrounded by Savages which don’t even think we’re worth wasting a couple of bullets on. Screw that. I’ll fight my way out of here if that’s the last thing I do. I sure as hell didn’t put up with a couple years worth of Idphor just to die here without a fight. My eyes flick from Raine to Rick, to Sean, April, Hyung, Ivy and back to Raine again. I hesitate. I might not give a damn about my own life, but what about them? What about Sean and Hyung, who probably have loved ones waiting for them back home? I can’t knowingly send them aboard Kharon’s ferry without giving them a chance. I just can’t. As I tussle over the best course of action, something hits me on the back of my helmet.

  “What the hell are you waiting for?” Raine smacks me once more. “Give us the order. If we’re screwed anyway, I’d rather go down fighting than be executed.”

  “I can’t…” I begin.

  “You have to,” Hyung breaks in. “We’ll be executed otherwise.”

  “Either way, you’ll die.” I stare him in the face. “I can’t order you to your deaths.”

  Hyung returns my gaze. His eyes are steadfast and determined. After a few seconds, I turn away. No, it doesn’t matter how determined he is. There’s no way I can allow this. Maybe I can act as a decoy? Attract the attention of the Savages long enough for the rest of them to get away?

  “You don’t have to,” Raine says before I can speak. “We’ll just follow you on our own accord. That’s fine, right? And I’m not listening to your self-sacrificial crap.”

  “What…”

  “Your eyes say it all.”

  She isn’t giving me a choice. She’s saying she’ll follow me no matter what, that the responsibility won’t be mine alone. But saying it so obviously…

  “That’s cruel,” I whisper, more to myself than anyone else. “I…”

  I take a deep breath, hold it for a minute or so, then let it out very slowly.

  “Let’s take a two-hour break. We’ll move out after that.”

  That seems to take all of them by surprise.

  “What are you playing at?” Rick asks. “What’s gonna happen in exactly two hours?”

  “Nothing,” I shrug. “I just thought it would be nice to live just a little longer. Or would you rather we move out now?”

  With weary smiles on our faces, we sit with our backs to the walls and pass around whatever rations we have left with us. Despite what I told them, I’m still brooding over the matter. These two hours are crucial. Basically, if there’s a way out of here, I have two hours to figure it out. My eyes wander over to Raine. She looks like she wants to go to sleep, but is afraid to. I know why. They must be haunting her. Even after a couple of d
ays, she can probably still vividly recall the faces of the Savages, contorted with rage, as she cut them down.

  “Something wrong?”

  April calmly sits down beside her. I’m eavesdropping, I know, but I can’t help myself.

  “Not really,” Raine replies. “I just can’t get used to killing. I’m afraid that there will come a time where I’ll be unable to act and compromise the safety of the entire squad.”

  “I sacrifice what I can, so that I can protect what I cannot sacrifice. Sound familiar?”

  “Nope.”

  “I guess not. After all, you were sound asleep when Idphor said it,” April smiles. “I trust that you will never falter because of this.”

  “I don’t have anything I want to protect.”

  “Sure you do,” she says, gesturing about the room. “Them.”

  It should have been obvious from the beginning. The reason for fighting. I feel the same way, even if that statement wasn’t meant for me. Somewhere along the line, when I fought alongside these soldiers, I’ve probably thought that. The only difference now is that April has explicitly stated it. Raine falls silent for a good minute.

  “You’re right,” she finally says lightly. “Is this why Rick fell for you?”

  “Shut up,” April flushes. “We’re not like that.”

  So she says, but her eyes are fixed on his hunched, bulky figure, a wistful smile playing across her lips. I now know that they feel the same way about me as I do about them. I steel my resolve. We have to do this. Together. Slowly, a vague plan begins to take shape in my mind. I wave the rest of them over.

  “From what I’ve observed,” I say as they gather. “A huge proportion of the Savages have Stracheas which are either feline or belonging to an animal usually land-based and possessing claws or sharp teeth.”

  “Yeah,” Raine seconds brightly. “Can’t imagine them doing a fish can we?”

  “Anyway,” I cough to hide my smile. “Our best bet would be to get them into close combat. Which means we’ll have to shield ourselves from their bullets.”

  “And how are we going to…”