by Isaac Nasri
Troy lunges, but she dives from his grasp. Pain arises as she ascends and bolts for the entrance. She screams to a sharp hand grappling the back of her neck, and her legs rise. Her throat lumps upon, locking into Troy’s glacial eyes. Her neck twists.
“St—st—STOP IT,” Soriana begs aloud. She coughs, letting loose two teardrops as she dangles. “Troy! I don’t want to—”
She reaches her legs around him and plunges her fingers into the sockets. Troy’s grip breaks, and her spine hits the ground. Panting, Soriana scuttles back. Sweat racks upon her breasts, and hot saliva rushes out of her mouth. She grunts to a boot pinning her shin and the human halts. Shaking her head with apprehension, Soriana raises her hand. She spots too late to a booming blow setting her nerves ablaze.
BOOM!
Her head takes a landing. Ringing overrides her ears, tarnishing any sound beating around her. Whatever scream she wanted to elicit seizes to the mounting affliction constricting and howling in her muscles. It was extraneous. She glimpses at the puncture crackling on her bleeding ankle, and her lips quiver upon trailing her eyes upward. Troy stood intact, hand set at the vaporizing pistol, and meets her crippling gaze in silence. Steam bellows from between his lips. Blood streaks swell in his eyeballs, but a source of sorrow, fear and rage were nonexistent. Soriana turns her glance gingerly to her phone still plugged. The ringing lingers, preceding her dwindling vision.
Hermana…hermana.
Moses’s voice calls out like an unseen angel, and Soriana gulps. Fighting never seemed so trivial till this point. The air egresses slowly from her mouth, and her reality alters. She witnesses a child no other but herself looking up to Wayne stooping her level at the doorstep, the very young former rushing with the apple at hand. She giggled upon witnessing him bite down at the icing on the surface. It transitions, and the green leaves glide in Rock Creek. Soriana finds her hands clutching to Moses’s own as her hand hangs onto the tree bark. She sighs toward the sight of take long when she sees her present version rushing with the Pokeball replica attached to the chain. She wrapped the pendant around the now towering Moses’s neck, leaning to plant her bright red lips onto his bald temple. So many moments she will never embrace again with him.
You’ve been right. Stay strong, Moses. Always.
Soriana’s gaze falls on the infected Troy. His pistol’s muzzle locks at her sight. Whatever fear she had subsided like sand dissolving to the sea’s tidal wave. She had no reason to run. Her world transmutes, and she steps foot inside the CIA’s Museum. Her flat heels tramped. Her mouth moves excitedly, but her voice unheard as she spoke. Soriana glosses over her shoulder. She frowns at a pallid shadowy figure inches taller strolling alongside her. Minus the ghostly shoulder-length hair, not one feature or expression existed. The empty feeling in Soriana breaks to the disintegration of the colorless veneer, visibly revealing a wholesome Troy by her side.
Memories rush forward, and tennis balls race in both directions. She finds herself in the body of a resident advisor, escorting Troy and his mates into the suite next to hers. She trudged casually, catching a hint of the former human’s smile blended with bright tinkering and amiability as she lectured. Her cheeks reddened as Troy gestured at her boldly in the residential and their hands clasped as they tangoed in the evening. Her sleeveless dress twirled, concealing the advisor and the resident until it whips away to a present-day Soriana alongside a modern Troy in the pathway as the voltaic shield sheltered the two from the rapid gunshots. Outside in the JOA’s airbase, Soriana stopped in her steps, struggling to let her smile go as she observed the Virtual from a distance make his leave into the truck and the sequences fade.
Soriana didn’t regret one-bit meeting eyes with Troy. He’s evolved so much that it was hard to gloss over. She yearns that he will find a way out of this nightmare, with or without her. From there on, Troy will find that clear vision to recover and restore his future. Some day or years passed, he will make a difference again. As she processes everything, Soriana realizes how much she’s let flawed principles determine her judgment, even her own mortality. The Central Intelligence Agency lost its meaning to her. She’s beaten herself too much on errors that were out of her control. That factor was left to be judged by those who held her dying existence at hand. Whatever this world recuperates thereafter that was now out of her reach.
You’ll find a way, Troy. I promise.
Soriana seals her lips to the ruby sparkle illuminating from the eye of the pistol sealed in Troy’s hand. The trigger snaps and the inner clamor concludes.
Chapter 33
Wayne’s foot locks on the acceleration pedal, looking over the vent glass anxiously as his truck speeds. Mist slithers around him. Charred trees scatter the verdant creek’s road, forcing his vehicle’s wheel to bust through the wood and tiny rocks descend at his front window. If it weren’t for this cyber-attack, he would’ve assumed this creek has been inhabited by specters.
He was fortunate enough to hijack this vehicle from the cyborgs when he had the chance a few hours ago. Regardless of this fortune, Wayne’s far from respite. Salazar’s audio message replays on his phone, raising his blood and the reddening on his face with every word she spoke.
“If you catch me still out there, now I am at the Home Care facility. Not at my best to reach. I’m sorry Wayne."
She’s still out there. Yes.
Realizing himself nearing, he initiates a right on Broad Ranch Road. His dopamine ascends as he rotates the wheel. Corpses disperse on the road, and the noisome odor fusing with fuel taints his scent. Wayne glances at both sides hastily, hearing the shallow stream stride quietly. He ends the replay, nodding quickly before pressing the call icon below Salazar’s identity.
The ringing vibrates on top of the car stand while Wayne drives. The mist dies gradually, giving way to the loud chirping of birds in the forest. His palm humidifies on the wheel. The line lingers on, and his pressure on the pedal lessens, slowing his speed. Few minutes go on. He shakes his head, perturbed by the sound waning.
His heart races like a missile bolting its way to the clouds. Wayne halts, staring at the screen still vibrating till all he hears is grim silence on the phone. Gray shadows cloud Wayne’s view, and his arm leans on the wheel. He witnesses a bead of water drop from above, landing at the top of his vent glass. A sharp scorch sizzles within his heart.
Salazar. She’s…she’s…
Wayne’s unable to complete his thoughts as his chest thumps rapidly. His pupils shorten like a set of stars fading in the night sky. Salazar’s final words sing to him, silencing the twitters in the woods. Closing his eyes, Wayne steps out of the truck morosely and leans against the hood. His head sinks.
Leaves rain down, concealing the cadavers of deer in the grass, and the temperature in his blood thaws. Cicadas soar. He couldn’t even inhale. Salazar, his goddaughter, is gone. She’s been taken. So has her family. Wayne’s mind reminiscences to a child with soft brown hair rushing to his legs, and his lips form into a gauche straight line at Manuel and Carmen smiling from the living room couch. Her fingers dabbed at his then brown mustache. He gestured her with the silver jet fighter replica, and the moment Wayne tossed it, the scene morphs. The elder found himself seated in his office while Soriana cracked the door open, waving politely as her heels stepped foot.
“She’s doing fine with you?” Wayne asked.
“No worries. She’s adjusting well to the community,” his goddaughter replied with a smile of reassurance.
Wayne warned her. He admonished Salazar long ago about Moreci and her malicious intent. He wasn’t persistent enough. Salazar wasn’t the same then. He could see the burden of her former companion’s defection had taken its toll on her. Wayne never got the chance to share a piece of his word with her. Here he stood, numb to the blood that was spilled in his arm from a distance.
“This isn’t the end, Brett. It isn’t.”
Even with Robert’s spirit chiming in, Wayne sighs. His bones become frigid until Wa
yne shifts to the ringing of his cell phone. Wayne grimaces at what’s in view.
Unknown Caller
He clicks, saying darkly, “Speak.”
“Oh Wayne,” the renegade greets with cold sadism. Her chilling but striking voice spikes a nerve to his head. It’s been quite a while.”
He rises, catching his feet tremble. “Moreci!”
Pause falls between the two, with the exception of Wayne’s breathing. The silence shatters once Moreci rebukes, “Sound like a broken man who’s lost much, have you? I understand. You can only hold onto that moral persona for so long till it cuts you in two.”
I was right all along.
“It’s true,” Wayne questions. His deep voice picks bass. Leaves continue to fall, and his hand seals a leaflet. His glance trails at the corpses and decimation of the creek. “I KNEW all along, Moreci. This was your whole plan for retribution! Warranting my bounty! Hijacking SMART to start a GLOBAL cyber-attack? Annihilating everything in your path?” Wayne’s palm crumbles the leaf and his nostrils flare. “Now you’ve killed Salazar…my own goddaughter.”
Moreci’s laugh booms and Wayne’s ears shake to the sound waves. His blood fumes.
“So delighted you’ve pieced the puzzles,” Moreci taunts. “As usual. Reality is…yes, Wayne. She was far too broken last night that I HAD to end her misery today.” She snorts. “This time around, I didn’t have to lay a finger.”
Wayne heaves furiously. Fire forms within his veins, reddening his fair skin.
“Even intervening, it wouldn’t have changed a thing,” Moreci continues. “Now SEE what you’ve done. She and everyone else on this planet…they chose this path! 1.5 billion lives in this world you won’t ever get back from hell! A government you got no chance of restoring.” She breathes sharply. “This outbreak you’re seeing Wayne…the forsaken majority—the majority you’ve snubbed, is rising against all of humanity. Shaping this world to something that won’t ever be inhabited by your regulator’s machinations. The end’s nearing, and I have nothing to lose killing you this instant.”
Shadows linger, clouding Wayne’s eyes, and one hand of his draws the knife steadily out of his pocket. His jaw clenches behind his sealed lips, triggered by the bullet entering into Robert’s skull and the ground shaking to the thump of his comrade’s lifeless body. His vision repeatedly clicks, envisioning Salazar’s body substituting that of Robert’s resting like an empty vessel onto the jungle’s muddy soil. The tearing of bones and muscles roars like trumpets from a distance. Meanwhile, Moreci’s disparaging words blend into the echo, kindling an inferno that brightens his pupils. She’s gone too far. This entirety, he thought he could bury the demons. Let it drift behind him, but Wayne grips with uncertainty.
“No,” Wayne says in a whispery tone driven by an ascending fury. His eyelids seal, even with the knife clutched. “No matter what you say…no matter what you got. I will find you. And I’ll hunt you with everything.”
Sulfur consumes the forest’s air, and Wayne seethes in his contemplation. He refuses to open his eyes. Moreci grunts and says, “If you get the chance to survive…I’ll be waiting at the Military Road bridge. Catch you in hell soon.”
The line ceases, and the phone drops, spinning on the floor. Wayne twirls the dagger. His shoulders arch to the intoxicating whiff lingering closely, and his nose stings.
“Found him,” a hostile voice declares.
His eyelids rise, and a surge of energy kicks in. The forest evolves into a tangerine sight as Wayne wheels and slashes the dagger angrily at his first victim. The PMC grunts to the tip screwing at the core of his Adam’s apple, and the blade tears vertically at the skin. Numb to the splattering of the organs, Wayne shoots a critical gaze at a bolting shadow.
The human raises his dagger, deflecting the rogue soldier’s crowbar as he swung. Sparks clatter. The cyborg whirls his melee, and Wayne dives, causing the latter to jam his arm against the foe’s ear. The soldier stumbles against the car until he looks upward. Blood splashes on his sleeve as Wayne plunges the knife at the rear of the soldier’s bumpy neck consecutively. Adrenaline roars like a power juice within him as he ends it with a split to the scalp.
Wayne’s senses tick, and he levels sight at a battle cry roaring from the last soldier advancing. Bolting his head from the magnum shot, he throws the knife, watching it spin forward like shuriken and impale the Virtual at the center of his mouth. Wayne snatches the crowbar, sprinting at the coughing soldier and ending his pain with the twist of his dagger. Blood gushes like a hot fountain from the cyborg’s lips.
The human rises on his feet, seething in his distorted view and glancing like a wild boar at the gadgets and arsenals scattered. Kneeling at the victim he last killed, he glimpses at the gray armor suit, peeling it away hastily. Wayne sets on the armor, hoisting a silver shoulder plate to his left until he glances at the hover-bike’s lights flashing.
He advances and opens one of the vehicle’s small trunks, sighing coldly to the fletcher guns, needle ammunition, and barbed wire inside. Wayne reaches for the wire, and with the tap of a button, the spikes zap. Blue lightings flash to a number of shocks hissing consecutively from the thorns, and Wayne ushers his crowbar. Wayne nods with keen curiosity.
He encloses the wire around the tool, and a vibration spreads in Wayne’s muscles to the hissing charge till it became his own embellished replica. Gathering the material needed and strapping the blades between the bands laced around his legs, Wayne reaches for the phone on the ground and hustles. Blood trails as he storms inside his truck, shutting the door without another glance. Vapor rushes from inside his ears.
Let’s do this.
With the hit of the pedal, the lone hunter speeds relentlessly. Wayne’s truck’s wheels screech on the road. The demon opens his eyes from the darkness, creeping from the tomb and floating its way upward. It ascends until it fuses at one with the man inside the car. Wayne’s muscles harden, making him realize that he had nothing to be abashed with. He’s been trying to bury a substance that proved to be all too inevitable in his lifetime. Something far too ubiquitous to be tamed, and Moreci was right about that one thing.
The cloak’s been lifted. He wasn’t far. Moreci’s dominance still flowed in the cyborgs she possesses globally, and Wayne had one way to end it all at once. He will not go back on his word.
***
He drives forward. Infected cyborgs open fire, and their bullets deflect against the sturdy window. Their work does little to hold back Wayne as he clashes onto their limbs. Scrap crumbles, and a bionic hand mauls the truck’s hood mercilessly till Wayne skids his wheel left, flinging the cyborg at a fallen tree. The human jerks to a number of rounds bolting at the anterior window, obscuring his view until he dives to the first shatter.
Oh dear.
Wayne grabs hold of his fletcher gun as calibers bolt, tainting him in shards. The space rattles to the heavy fire.
“Frag that damn truck!” a JOA agent barks. “DIE!”
He pants, chugging his cube of needle ammunition inside the arsenal in time before the rattling grenade surfs its way inside the seat opposite. Wayne’s blood rises, and he lunges out of the car. The combustion blazes, touching a speck on his boot, and he rolls. Coughing, Wayne winces to a hand grasping his neck and raising him. The PMC can go this far once Wayne plants the gun on his plated torso and clicks the trigger. The cyborg recoils to the needles blaring on his body, and his scream gets muffled by a sudden detonation. Various material splashes.
Wayne races from the blasts that bypass the ball of fire, and he stumbles to the implosion on the street. He cowers behind the scorching barrier of his shattered vehicle, avoiding the cannon fire that whooshes. His skin bites to the scorch’s proximity. A bird glides above and toward the bridge, leaving several titans to stand statically on the road like a barricade, and smoke obfuscates their presence.
Several grenades roll, and Wayne seizes two of them. Branches plummet behind him. Rising, Wayne tosses the grenades on
e by one. The explosives bounce at the parlous band, and the hunter makes his dash to the sight of the erupting fire absorbing a Gorillax.
The second explosion ignites, and soldiers tumble to the fire cloaking their bodies. A sizzling pilot raises a dying hand till it drops, leaving an air of white smoke surrounding the street. Nevertheless, Wayne storms. Streaks darken his eyes upon spotting a short road bridge steps away. His reality twists, and the roars fuel his adrenaline. A wounded cyborg, staggering from the steam and picking up her riot shield, steps forward. The human raises his fletcher gun, firing a set of rounds that dart at her shields surface.
The impact severs her grip on the shield, and the moment the insurgent rolls down the grass, Wayne fires once more. Her life cuts savagely to an ignition annihilating her head, and cranial matter oozes on the ground.
Retrieving the shield, Wayne counters an impending agent’s strike. He wields the shield toward the side of his jaw before unsheathing his dagger. The PMC clutches the human’s wrist in a panic, but his struggle doesn’t last. Wayne draws his crowbar, thrusting the electrifying fork immediately into the howling cyborg’s cheek till the edge protrudes from his mouth.
Throwing the corpse aside, Wayne sheathes his crowbar and near toward an infected insurgent rushing with arms out like a feral beast. Knife tilts, nearing to the tip of his lips as he looks in both directions.
Wayne races toward the host’s bionic arms and halts the cyborg with the plunge. The dagger screws into the enemy’s chest, and Wayne hears the victim’s sturdy skin peeling as the former rips downward. The fleshy layer of skin on the cyborg’s stomach dangles.
Stay out of my path!
His armor’s sleeve moistens grisly to the blood. Fire growls inside his eyes. The human charges toward a throng of shadows repeatedly vanishing at the bridge and slows to a screech. The railings scorch. Sweat slithers from his neck, and a drop lands on his boot. Wayne raises his dagger in time to be met with sharp nails swiping the back of his head.