by E. R. Torre
Sgt. Delmont and the remaining soldiers placed small, transparent oxygen masks over the lower half of their face and entered the vehicle while General Spradlin waited outside. He heard the sounds of the extinguishers spraying flame. In minutes, the smoke rising from the rear of the transport dissipated until it was gone. Sgt. Delmont reappeared. His face was black with soot.
“The fire is contained, sir.”
General Spradlin nodded. He entered the transport and allowed his eye a few seconds to adjust to the dim light within. Because the truck had flipped on its side, the prisoner crates were over and under Spradlin and his men. Spradlin’s soldiers were spread throughout the cargo hold. They set aside the spent fire extinguishers and now held their firearms. Their faces were very pale.
Even without looking, General Spradlin understood why.
The interior of the transport truck was a gory charnel house.
The corpses of two transport guards lay close to the back entrance. One of them was shot in the face with a high powered rifle. The gunshot vaporized the upper half of his head. The other transport officer was lying before the next to the last prisoner crate. His head was twisted one hundred and eighty degrees. His body lay on its stomach but his face and eyes looked up at the soldiers surrounding him. Both bodies were torched, their lower half ashes and dust.
“These are the only two transport officers remaining inside,” Sergeant Delmont said.
“What about the prisoners?”
“Still in their crates. All of them are dead. All accounted for.”
“But one,” General Spradlin said.
“Yes sir.”
General Spradlin began the slow walk to the front of the trailer. Sgt. Delmont followed. The two walked across the crate doors and avoided the blood still dripping from above them. The prisoners’ crates were still locked. Like the transport officers outside, they sported grotesque wounds to their head and heart.
Toward the front of the truck, General Spradlin noted a barrage of bullet holes and realized this was the nexus of the original firefight. The transport officers toward the front of the truck fired at the back, while those in the rear fired at the front. Their target was here, among the last of the crates before the driver’s compartment. The transport officers had fired upon each other. One of the bullets, perhaps from one of the transport guards, hit the truck’s driver, sending the vehicle out of control.
What a clusterfuck.
Spradlin gazed into the driver’s cabin. The transport driver was held in place by his seatbelt and still sitting in his seat. The back of his head was a gory mess.
General Spradlin took a step back. He found Sgt. Delmont standing beside him. The Sergeant pointed to the first cell crate.
“This one was empty.”
General Spradlin bent down to look at the crate. The lock panel was green, indicating the crate was still sealed. General Spradlin pulled at the door. It opened.
“How’s that possible?” Sgt. Delmont asked. “The security panel says it’s locked. Is it a malfunction?”
“I don’t think so,” General Spradlin said.
General Spradlin slid down into the crate and looked around. On the floor of the cell he found the remains of a shock collar and a set of arm and leg shackles. He grabbed the shock collar pieces and looked them over. The collar’s interior computer circuitry was melted. It was as if an incredible burst of electrical energy fried it. The metal panels that made up the body of the collar were taken apart. He found the metal pieces beside the shackles.
General Spradlin’s right hand hovered over the shock collar’s interior computer circuitry. His eye closed and his fingers gingerly touched the melted mass. His breathing grew heavier. He felt a spike of emotions. Anger. So much anger.
General Spradlin gasped.
“Son of a bitch,” he said.
Above him, Sgt. Delmont leaned down.
“Sir?”
“This cell,” General Spradlin said. “It was his?”
“Yes sir. Joshua Landon’s.”
“He was supposed to be held in isolation,” General Spradlin said as he climbed up and out of the crate. He still held the remains of the shock collar and showed it to Sergeant Delmont. “He was also to be kept away from electronic gear. All electronic gear.”
Spradlin threw the collar back into the crate and slammed the door shut.
“We need to move,” he said.
General Spradlin exited the transport truck and dropped to the desert floor. The two soldiers he assigned to identify the corpses outside the truck approached him.
“Sir, all transport personnel aboard the truck have been identified and accounted for, as have all prisoners but one.”
“Get the body bags,” General Spradlin said.
“Yes, sir,” the soldier replied and saluted.
General Spradlin and Sergeant Delmont walked back to the helicopter.
“Sir, was all this caused by Joshua Landon?” Sergeant Delmont said.
“He’s done it before and on an even larger scale,” General Spradlin said.
One of the soldiers tasked with searching the area outside of the crash ran to their side.
“Sir, we found a single set of tracks moving off to the east, towards the Big City.”
In the far distance, the faint lights of the Big City showed in the early night.
“Thank you,” General Spradlin said. He faced Sergeant Delmont and said: “You’ve got twenty minutes to put the fallen in body bags. Line them up beside the transport truck and tag them. While you’re doing that, I’ll call in a clean-up crew. They’ll take the corpses back for processing.”
General Spradlin took a deep breath. There was so much to do and so many things that needed to be taken care of.
“When you’re done, you and your boys return to the chopper. We’re going after Joshua Landon.”
“Yes sir!”
Sergeant Delmont saluted and returned to his soldiers to begin their grim task. General Spradlin entered the helicopter and took his seat.
“We’re leaving in twenty minutes,” he told the pilot.
The attack on the transport craft occurred no more than two hours before. Even assuming a steady run, there was no way Joshua Landon would make it to the Big City on foot in that time. If he was any other fugitive, it would be easy enough to use the onboard heat scanners to track and take him down.
General Spradlin looked at his computer pad. He wanted to turn it on, to sort through data and begin conceiving a plan to find and apprehend the escaped convict. He didn’t dare do so.
“You’re back, aren’t you?” General Spradlin muttered to the computer pad.
He looked out the window, at the corpses littering the desert floor, before turning away. His eyes settled on the helicopter’s instrument panel and all that electronic gear.
“You’re back,” he repeated. He shook his head. “Why did it have to be now?”
All his plans, all those long years of work. Everything he gambled on was in peril.
Why did it have to be now?
11
Its plans were proceeding well.
Its primary asset was free and even now approaching the Big City. It detected the aircraft sent out to search for him, but their movements were slow and sluggish and it would make sure their instruments would not detect its soldier. It considered taking them down, but at this moment, while its internal system was still fragile, such an effort was deemed unnecessary.
More analysis followed and a plan of action was formulated. It was about to send out further orders when its sensors alerted it to another soldier.
It was startled by the presence, for according to the records there were no others left. It explored, investigated.
The soldier was a female.
Her signal was faint, so faint as to almost be…hidden. Just like the other two, the ones it could never account for. As angry as it was, it felt another programmed emotion. Fear. Until this moment, it had not considered the hid
den ones.
After all this time, could they still be alive?
If so, they would be much older. Too old to worry about.
Possibly.
Had they left successors?
Also possible.
It continued its search, detecting more traces of the female presence. She was somewhere in the Big City, just…just out of reach…
She was not like the hidden ones.
Further attempts were made to take her. They were rebuffed.
It seethed.
For the moment, the soldier could not be turned or controlled. For the moment.
But there were other ways of getting her, both from within and without.
It wanted this soldier.
It wanted them all.
Alternate plans were drawn up.
They were implemented.
12
Catherine Holland, proprietor of the Yoshiwara bar, swept away the sticky detritus of the previous night’s festivities. It was three in the morning and, despite her exhaustion, despite the way-too-many hours of work she’d already put in, she smiled. Last night was, like the past few before it, absolutely brutal, this was true, but tomorrow –today actually– came her reward: Her one day of rest. She intended to take full advantage of it. Memories of The Unexpected, last night’s heavy metal band, were already a distant memory, even if the ringing in her ears argued otherwise.
Those gals were almost as bad as Virgin Slayer, Catherine thought.
No, she counter-argued. Nobody is as bad as Virgin Slayer.
Catherine giggled.
Shouldn’t talk that way about them. They were the first band I brought in and, like it or not, those first big crowds followed them in and stayed behind.
Catherine let out a second giggle.
Now see how far we’ve gone. Virgin Slayer has themselves a million credit recording contract but their original fans are screaming that they ‘sold out’. Meanwhile, I’m bone tired and going deaf.
“Quit your bitching,” Catherine muttered.
No, you’re not rich but you are in the green. After way too long, your creditors are happy for once. We’re paying our bills on time and there isn’t anything better than that.
“And that’s what it’s all about,” Catherine muttered.
She transferred the club’s trash into a large black garbage bag, straightened up, and headed for the rear of the bar. Halfway there, she stood her broom against the wall and picked up a second overstuffed bag of trash. She walked to the rear door, opened it, and whistled a happy tune—
By the Gods…is that one of the Unexpected’s songs?
—as she exited into the alley behind her bar.
The man stood on the other side of the street, watching the front of the Yoshiwara bar.
His eyes were the eyes of a predator and every atom of his being was focused on his prey. Those brilliant blue eyes took in every detail of the store front, from the deco-like curls of the neon sign and its glamorous letters to the far more ordinary façade. The small parking lot beside the bar was empty while the lights within the place were dim. The man counted each and every one of the clients while he was inside the bar a little over an hour ago doing his work. He counted each and every one of the clients as they headed out.
There was only one person unaccounted for and she was the one person that mattered.
When he arrived at the Big City a few hours before, he was tasked to find the material for this job. Despite hunger, exhaustion, and an overwhelming thirst, he was all too eager to follow his orders. For twenty years he had none. During that time he waited in darkness, unseen and forgotten. He would have waited the rest of his life if he had to, with the hope that one day he would be able to serve once again.
Then came the word. At first, it was a whisper, so silent he almost missed it. It came through the collar his captors put around his neck. The word was soothing, comforting. It spoke of a new day. It gave him what he craved so badly: Instructions.
He was a soldier and he would follow orders without question.
Once past the Desertlands, he found his way to a construction site in the lower boroughs. The materials needed were exactly where the voice told him they were, within a poorly guarded storage locker on the site. Next to the material was a refrigerator and within it was probably water. Maybe even some food.
He didn’t care.
He waited nearly twenty years for the orders to come, and now that they were given, he would follow them to the letter.
He would do what was asked of him. His thirst and hunger could wait.
Catherine Holland stepped out the rear door of her bar and into the back alley. She tightened her grip around the necks of the two garbage bags and walked to the dumpster propped against the wall several feet away. She continued whistling her cheerful tune, and the pleasant thought of enjoying her free day was only moments away. She savored the feeling and the anticipation of her freedom. Especially since it would be in the company of her new friend. She could picture her, bruised and battered, sleeping on her sofa. She’d return to her side, care for her until she was well.
Catherine tossed one of the bags into the garbage container. She was done. There was nothing left to do but lock up and drive home. Home to—
Her thoughts were stripped away in an instant.
The flash blinded her. Catherine’s breath caught in her throat and she couldn’t understand why. Then, the air in her lungs violently exploded from her mouth. She felt her chest, her legs –her entire body– compress and expand in a wave of unimaginable violence. She was off her feet and flying.
She didn’t fly far.
Her body was violently slammed against the next door building’s outer wall. Sharp pains ripped through her body. The remaining trash bag was no longer in her hand. Its contents burst out and scattered around the alley like confetti.
The last thing she felt was a massive heat wave. It threatened to peel the flesh from her body. Somewhere deep in her mind, she knew what just happened. She was familiar with all this, for she experience something similar a lifetime before on the battlefields of Arabia.
High powered explosives.
Her body crumbled to the ground. She tried to look around, to see what had become of her beloved business. She tried to move, but she couldn’t.
She could no longer keep her eyes open.
13
In her dream, Nox wandered through a dull gray world.
She walked on a road paved with antique bricks. Stagnant water settled in jagged cracks between these bricks. The water was like an uneven mirror. It reflected Nox’s features back at her. She looked weary, old. Black, stringy hair ran over her eyes, hiding them in shadow. Nox wiped the hair back. She could not see her eyes as they were hidden behind a thin pair of sunglasses. Their frame was formfitting and hugged the contours of her face. The lenses, like the frame, were a dull gray color that did not reflect any light.
They looked familiar.
Very hesitantly, she reached for the glasses. She needed to see her eyes. She needed to know she was still human.
Before she could grab them, dark liquid rolled out from beneath the right socket. Blood. She felt excruciating pain and feared she was blinded.
Panic set in.
Nox grabbed at the glasses, ripping them from her face. For one long, horrifying moment, all was black.
She rubbed her eyes and found they were wet. She rubbed until the liquid was gone. Only then did she open her eyes.
Nox was standing in the center of that small Arabian village.
She saw the child soldiers milling about and looked around until she found her younger self sitting off to the side, cleaning her weapon. Not too far before was a line of corpses. There, among them, the elderly Nox spotted the pregnant woman. She hadn’t moved. Not yet.
A rumbling was heard coming from the south. The reconnaissance tank kicked up dust as it approached. It came to a stop and the two person crew exited the vehicle. They didn’t ta
lk to any of the child soldiers, preferring to keep as far away from them as possible. They began their count of the dead.
After a while they were done. They stood close to the pregnant woman and made small talk while poring over their data. Just as before, the pregnant woman stirred. Nox watched in horror as her younger self spotted the movement and readied her rifle. The two man tank crew belatedly realized the pregnant woman was still alive. They rushed to her side to help her.
The girl soldier raised her weapon and took aim.
“Don’t,” the elder Nox yelled, but her younger self could not hear her.
The elder Nox was so far away. She ran toward her younger self. She ran even though she was out of breath and out of energy. Her arms reached out, reached for the barrel of the rifle. Just before she could grasp it, her younger self pulled the trigger.
In slow motion, the elder Nox pulled back. A burst of light exploded from the weapon’s barrel and momentarily blinded her.
The elder Nox grabbed at her eyes and held back on her emotions.
Slowly, agonizingly, she drew her hands away. She looked back, toward the place she expected to see the pregnant woman’s corpse.
She wasn’t there. Neither were the other corpses or the wreckage of the village.
“What the hell?”
The scene around her was radically changed.
The village was whole. It was no longer destroyed. The child soldiers were there, but instead of standing over corpses, the dead…they weren’t. Some of the villagers had injuries, but these injuries were very minor and didn’t look to be caused by battle. A vast majority of them were completely intact.
The child soldiers were herding the villagers to the center of the town. There, a group of very large military transport trucks were parked. One by one, the villagers were loaded into the back of the trucks.
The elder Nox spotted the pregnant woman, the one her younger self shot. The woman was being looked after by a child soldier. The soldier’s back was to Nox.