by Isaac Nasri
“Moreci sends her regards—”
Troy lays hold of Ezra’s arm in a heartbeat. The contractor shoots a grave look at his grappler as he’s held in place. Euphoria disseminates like a crack in Troy’s nerves as he tightens his hold. Glaring, Troy lets the fire in him pervade, twisting and crackling on the soldier’s cybernetic arm. The PMC gulps, eyes widening in apprehension to the burn sizzling like stars in his eyes.
The moment Troy breaks the needle apart, the PMC pulls away. His screams flood the living room as he dances and flaps his arms to the blaze gnawing his limb. The more he sways, the room’s inferno continues to devour his armor. Pieces rain down his breastplate and shoulder. Staring coldly at the long needle in his hand, Troy sprints and pierces it into his back.
Ezra stumbles, agonizing to the affliction until he howls to Alana, inflicting the kitchen knife into the sheer fabric of his breast. She bites her lips gravely, screwing the edge further, and Alana draws it away before the flames can get to her. The torment ensues as Troy draws the needle out, inflicting the tip in between the ribs. The color rushes in the victim’s face. Gazing fiercely, Alana nails the final stab, thrusting the knife into his unveiled chest bone. All expression falls moot in Ezra’s face as he stands, quivering like he was ready to explode. He loses stance, and he plummets. The fire’s claws scratch on the remains.
Troy’s lungs dilate, and the glint inside his muscles vanishes. The silence returns, sinking him in an opaque contemplation. He stares down at the wraps disentangling from his hands. His skin tickles, and the remaining wraps slide away from under the Virtual’s torn shirt and pants, incinerating away into black particles. The cloak finally obliterates, and Troy observes and tilts his barren bionic arm, having no longer to be confined to the chains of concealment. Nevertheless, there was no rapture or a sense of rejoicing. What was there to cherish? He directs his blank gaze upward, and the evanescent blurs blind his view of the scorching dust.
Without glancing, Troy feels Alana’s warm hands lean gently on his back. His shoulders arch to her weep. He strolls halfway with her, pausing a few feet from Gabriel’s body. Pain pounds in his head. Alana stalks to her brother’s corpse, letting tears drop at the center of his shirt as she kneels. Linear scars lace like a bracelet on her arms, and blood drizzles. She seals his eyes, all the while sobbing. Meanwhile, Troy looms sanguinely toward Ricardo still lying on the floor. As he moves, one of his boots dissolves. He kicks away the remnants off his foot, revealing the lower cybernetic limb that he’s kept away for months and a break cracks on the floor’s surface.
Emptiness numbs inside of Troy like a hallow vortex storming in the field, leaving nothing in its wake. His cheeks solidify in place, and the Virtual stares down at the second body. Saliva streams from Ricardo’s mouth.
“No more,” Ricardo says in an attenuated tone.
The shadow creeps on top of Troy’s head, gripping him in his melancholy. Even as Alana’s presence steps close, sobbing lightly, Troy never breaks gaze. His lips seal tight, and he brushes his organic palm down his bionic arm as if mortified to the sight.
“No more.”
Ricardo’s lips curl as he says those last words. His eyes seal, and the drool stains as the fragments settle on his lifeless body.
I’ve caused this.
Troy looks away, closing his eyes. Who was he? Who was Moreci? He didn’t know who he was anymore. He thought since coming into this city, he could find solace, and use whatever goodwill he had to bring other Virtuals into its domain. It was no longer the case. The moment he came to this place, his presence brought nothing but omen. To be bald, his damned existence to the public, a myriad of humans that loathed him with sadism, was an omen. He eradicated whatever hope Ricardo had left in cyborgs, set Gabriel’s life in limbo. The last ones of her family were next, and he was the source. Alana didn’t deserve this pain. She dealt with the weight of his burdens just to accept him and look where it led. He, a Virtual, was truly a lethal entity, and it was moot to keep concealing among a society that wished nothing but harm on him.
“You see, buddy? When Neo died, he died knowing, armed with the knowledge of this cruel reality we live in. Each one of us Virtuals is Neo inside, at arms against a society that hates us.”
The posthumous words deliver a beat in his brain. He opens his eyes and turns left to see Lu’s presence. Troy shivers. However, the mirage shimmies, and he looks at no other but Alana beside him. His eyes rise to her hands, taking each of his peacefully. Cinders brush at the surface of her temple and skin, and a tear of blood oozes from a cut on her lip. A final tear sheds before the rest dries up on her face, leaving her eyes swollen in red. A hideous graze shows visibly at the loose surface of her sports bra extending to her midriff, protruding a piece of her breast.
Letting a lump slip down her throat, Alana nods weakly at her boyfriend. Somehow her gaze sees through the affliction inside of him, begging to dissuade him out of it. Many wanted to be stated behind the sorrow in those eyes of hers. Part of Troy wanted to recoil, step aside, possibly shout, but his spirit was in shambles to enact on such irrationality. He shares in her pain, but his eyes were caked like ice, rendering him insipid.
Once Alana wipes off the blood on his chin, Troy blinks at footsteps clamping from outside the door before reverting his glance at the balcony. The temperature reaches its apex. Troy signals to his girlfriend, and she follows. In the nocturnal chaos, an airstrike lands its mark on a capacious tree, and the shrub lands on the top of a SWAT convoy. Troy stops to take a glimpse five stories below the balcony, and he frowns on Riza’s cadaver. Her flesh discolors to the wounds inflicted. Nevertheless, his options were scant.
Confirming his choice, Troy trades a glance with Alana. She rubs her right shoulder anxiously until the reassuring cyborg takes her hand, pulling and gesturing her behind him. He raises a foot on top of the railing, letting Alana arch all the way behind him until her arms wrap around his neck. The Virtual levels his balance on top of the edge as he grapples her ankles in place, and his spine throbs to her weight. Bracing, he lunges.
Vapor whooshes underneath Troy’s bionic cleat as he hovers. His shirt flaps to the detonation roaring above his head. Troy lands on the ground, allowing Alana to gather herself.
He shoves a magazine abruptly into his secondary, seething to several provocative pedestrians nearing Alana’s vehicle. The blurs rush concurrently, aggravating his turmoil. Laughter from hecklers in the train thrusts into his eardrums. Their jeers rattle like ghouls roaming inside the abyss, and “scrapdog” is all that resounds underneath. Then Lu’s vanquished voice lands through, clashing with the human’s censuring. His brain spins. The weapon shakes in his hands as he aims abruptly, and everything snaps.
POP. POP. POP.
“Troy! Troy!”
Alana’s plea falls null as Troy continues to shoot simultaneously. Flashes burst at all sides, dazzling Troy’s view like a plethora of camera lights. The recoil bounces. His veins froth. Suddenly a hand grabs onto his arm, shaking him.
“Troy!” Alana supplicates. She shakes her head anxiously. “Please! Please.”
The air returns within Troy, and he looks around, grimacing at the five corpses surrounding him. Blood drains from the puncture in one of his human victim’s eyes, and her head slumps from the car’s wheel. Ice creeps on his face.
“It’s alright, boo. It’s alright,” she begs softly. Her grasp on him soothes, pulling her boyfriend close. “It isn’t on you, please.”
Troy stares down at Alana, letting her words sink in. Nonetheless, the gray fog stood in place. He follows her into the jeep. The hand he fired with vibrates on his lap. As she closes the door, Troy takes a hard look at what stood of the apartment that Ricardo sheltered in, watching with tremulous pupils at a balcony tumbling down the surface. His pistol heats in his hands.
Chapter 27
The sound thrusts sharply like a bird's talons into Wayne’s ears as he rushes his way toward the stairs. Alarms beep at all si
des, giving a fair chance of lighting through the darkness that imbibed the foyer. He glances vacillating at both his shoulders to the sand spilling from the ceiling. Quad drones glide, watching over him and the others without pause. Curtis follows, panting and tapping a finger rapidly to his watch. Officers storm pass their way, and their frantic murmurs stir cacophony. Portraits collapse to the sinister vibration clamoring the floor they advance on. A fairly aged officer stumbles on his feet, and the Director motions him up, scurrying the man forward. The officer, setting on his glasses, doesn’t look back as he blends into the crowd.
“More bad news from one of the safe houses,” Curtis says imminently.
“Yes,” Wayne says quickly. His eyes flutter to the number of people flooding his way, diverting whatever glance he can shoot at his officer. Nevertheless, he maintains his tameness. “Proceed?”
Light draws from the hacker’s watch, drawing the Director’s attention. Esoteric symbols portrayed were so diminutive to the eyes of Wayne that they didn't even near his nose at the sight.
“Ottoman uh…he’s dead.”
Wayne’s nose reddens, and an icy sensation quakes his bones. The window beams to an explosive aura outside, and infrastructure crumbles behind him. His palms flush as he clutches on the knife. He didn’t know what to make of his demise, but this could only lead to one thing.
Curtis fidgets with the watch, stating, “Aha. I see where I had my problem hours ago.”
“Tone the pace Curtis,” Wayne advises sternly.
The hacker shoots a glance, coughing. “The virus—the bad guys call it, the Infernal Python. It’s running actively as a mother AI inside of a Virtual.” He ducks to a stentorian rumbling shaking the marble area. “Okay. Thanks to this, the PMCs are acting as its carriers, hosting whatever Virtual or Martial they can get on their site...programming them against us.”
“Where’s the suspect now?”
“The boss had just left the Emirates a couple of hours ago, along with the JOA after they ravaged the cities. Hundreds—thousands and I mean, THOUSANDS of cyborgs, starting all out mass invasions Director, even outside the country. They took out their President previously. Now they’re storming their way to Asia.”
Moreci! She’s here! She’s in this city now.
“Tell the operatives to get out of there now!”
The weight in his ankles rises, hearing her past warnings boom. His sixth sense has been ticking like a nuclear explosive over the days, crying aloud and opening his ways to the true perpetuator behind this war. The pictures form into a crystallized sphere. However, his fears couldn’t be anymore short-sighted. Moreci took out Ottoman like a dog for slaughter for whatever vindictive reasons in Emirates. With the corporation now in her hands, she’s crafted a cyber-attack that wouldn’t extirpate only his nation’s federal government. With the world falling into this pervading mutiny, Wayne found it an endeavor to recognize Moreci anymore. She was something that not even Soriana could save.
Rushing, Wayne raises the earpiece settled in his ear. He clears his voice. “All employees must evacuate the HQ! We’re under code red. Everyone abdicates the compound immediately.”
“We got a grave situation Director!” an agent notifies.
“Go on.”
The air ignites as he nears. Wayne’s fingers tingle around the knife’s crusty handle, and his speed slows to kerosene consumption like a swarm of bats howling above. Despite the stone mask concealing him, his apprehension rises. The uprising revealed itself to Wayne like a ghoulish yeti, unleashing what blow it can inflict on its surroundings, and the Director stood in aghast. There was no way for him to cease this hour, no matter his reluctance.
Nothing good can come from this.
“Multiple cyborgs are barraging the entrance!” he rants. Sound begins to fluctuate in the background. “Infantry! Dammit! They’re coming in—”
He blinks to the instant cut in his ear. Wayne’s chest takes a blow to the bodies of his agents inundating the vast floor, and smoke lingers. The Director looks around him, signaling others to a halt as gunfire mounts and their quads make their advance at the scene. PMCs tumble to bullets barraging into their armor, but the enemy’s pressure intensifies. An armed officer scurries from the railing near the escalator, clutching his bleeding thigh and a shot cut clean like an arrow above his pelvic spot. A Prowler lunges from the steps, tackling another victim and casting him downward.
Curtis gulps behind his Director, whose expression struggles to remain intact like a totem. That can only last as he spots one of his officers among the crowd rush erratically toward her dog fleeing out of her leash. Shocked, Wayne paces and calls out to her, but a fatal impact throws him back. The hacker reaches to get him, but he recoils to a swift wave gushing at his direction. Wayne’s blazer stains to the grime spitting at him like a blizzard, and his eyes probe to the particles and glassy shards.
Wayne raises his glance, skidding back to an eight-foot goliath rearing its head. Behind the screen of fog, the cannons plastered on top of the shoulders gyrate at his direction, and the giant grumbles.
“Mister big guy,” Curtis blurts anxiously. He gestures his hands pleadingly. “Uh…we just kindly want to—”
The odds prevail. The Gorillax pilot fires one of his cannons, hitting the hacker squarely in mid-air, and Curtis’s limbs splatter. Horrified, the officers scatter amok, leaving the pilot to glares at the one vulnerable human behind the v-front lens as it raises its gargantuan hands. Wayne rises and screams out of way, and the ground vibrates to the plowing of its fists. The Director swirls around the giant, confusing the pilot’s movement until he stumbles to the corpses contaminating the floor. He hears a man scream to a blast rattling feet from him as he locates and whips off a dead officer’s explosive gear belt containing two grenades and a revolver. Wayne’s stomach cries to a shadow trudging his way, and he finds a grenade at hand.
He tears the spoon away and makes his leap once he tosses that frag. The goliath activates the glow in his cannons, but the explosion beats him to it. The combustion slams at the pilot’s face, and he loses balance.
The moment he rises, Wayne sighs to the figures charging. Virtuals, long sleeves, and jeans shredded, trudge like a pack of wolves. Blood prints stain from their bare feet, and a soldier lets a sparkling hand go off one of the cyborg’s shoulders.
The virus. It’s transferrable!
He staggers to a missile landing on the floor, and Wayne coughs loudly to the smoke. The second and last frag jiggles on the belt, and his nails throb. Wayne flings the grenade, watching it detonate and pervade a wall of fire at the band. His luck shatters once a number of cyborgs advance from the fire. His nerves twirl. Wayne snatches the revolver, stepping back as the arsenal rings in his hand. The magnum splits smoothly at the top of a host’s skull. The second host charges, but the Director evades contact before firing two rounds at the back. The cyborg continues to charge, for all the wounds and clutches his head.
The air in Wayne stiffens to the host’s pressure. As the two engage in struggle, the Director manages to thrust the tip of the revolver at the core of the cyborg’s throat and release two rounds that leave a flicker of matter on Wayne’s cheek.
The body slumps and the Director takes aim at the other foes. However, the revolver falls vacant upon sudden trigger release. He inhales. A sudden knock rams him, and his back skids through the bodies. Wayne looks up to a spear bolting his way in mid-air and hurls a body its way.
He gets on his feet to see an imposing soldier skate his way. Panic bellows into Wayne’s brain. Despite the pain on his side, the Director reaches for the flagpole, but a slash splits against his abdomen. He grunts to the sting, and Wayne draws his knife, readying for the plunge. The Virtual seizes the blade, and the Director’s mouth hangs to the strain flowing in his bones. Before Wayne can get a glimpse of his enemy, the rusty dagger disintegrates. Shock transfixes in Wayne’s face to the blocks raining at him, and a strike whacks him aside.
His
back crashes onto the wall, and Wayne grunts to a seething roar throbbing in his spine. His cheek aches to a sharp pain, and soon as he makes a twitch, blood drips on his shoes. Wayne’s cleat wiggles to a brand knife resting underneath, and he grimaces. Wiping away the blood flow streaming down his chin, Wayne’s expression twists to the dark skinned soldier, natural hair done in cornrows, unraveling the bandages away from his face. Lumps and scars plant on his rigid face, leading speculation to a severe blow he underwent. Notwithstanding the sustained injuries, a lightning bolt ignites toward the enemy’s familiarity taking shape.
“Your time’s up Director Wayne,” the PMC spoke in a deep cutting accent that carved like marble to Wayne’s ears. He angles the two sharp flagpoles in his grip, and one of their tips glisten with the Director’s blood. “Nowhere to run.”
Delgado Hernandez. It’s you.
Wayne was certain that he would never have to come across Hernandez again after the discipline Soriana inflicted on him. He couldn’t be any more erroneous in his assumptions as he stood at eyes with the nemesis who failed earlier in his takedown. His voice, his intentions, though differing from his allies, was all too transparent to Wayne. Hernandez was right about one notion, Wayne was indeed locked down.
Catching a whiff of panic coursing through his breathing, fragments rush like a train bolting during the rush hour within Wayne’s mind. He gasps to the grime in his fingers as he flexes the knife’s bladed tooth in between them. He makes the throw, and the howls echo all the end until he relocates to the present. Wayne glances down at the combat knife wheeling on the ground and nearing Hernandez with brewing tension. His face pales.
Hernandez thrusts the pole but Wayne races in time in snatching and clashing the dagger upon the sturdy surface. Baring his teeth, the operative wields his second pole until Wayne deflects it away with a painstaking swipe.