Reclaim: Books 1-3

by J. A. Scorch

  Without wanting to, Teve thought of the Orb and its control. "Yeah, I guess."

  "Then you will understand that the destruction of the first Zeal carrier was enough to temporarily shut down every Zeal base across the planet, allowing your escape. But that's not what intrigues me the most. You see, Sergeant, the pilot that successfully flew a nuke into the carrier and survived to tell the tale is none other than your brother, Lieutenant Bradley Porter."

  Sitting up on his knees, Teve's mouth fell open. "He's alive?" He thought back to the Zeal base to the moment Bradley entered his mind. He assumed the visions at the time were nothing but a hallucination. Had the Orb allowed them some sort of temporary connection?

  Hoang continued. "Your brother is alive and has managed to save your life from seemingly impossible odds. It would appear fate has led you to this moment. You, my friend, will become the first generation of super soldier the UEF will utilize against the very aliens that created you."

  Teve slammed the concrete with a fist and faced Hoang. "You're lying. I won't listen to another second of your bullshit."

  The doctor in the biohazard suit raised a hand up and entered a few commands into an e-slate. The screen came down again below the camera and switched views to focus entirely on Mish. "One press of a button and she dies. One press of a button and they all die."

  "You wouldn't. You can't just murder UEF personnel."

  "Who said anything about killing UEF soldiers? All four of you have been pronounced MIA with a strong assumption of death or capture. As far as the world is concerned, your fire team is already dead. Don't force me to make that official."

  Teve shook off a transparent layer of anger and stood on two shaky legs before moving up to the acrylic glass door. He leaned into the surface and pressed his head against the stiff plastic. "I'll do what you want, but if you ever lay a finger on any of them, you're dead."

  Hoang raised his e-slate up and pushed a single button. Teve received a jolt of electricity from the door. The half second of punishment sent him to the concrete floor in an instant. After a few quick breaths of confusion, he glanced up.

  "Your days of issuing orders are over. Now get some rest. Tomorrow we start the next phase of your transformation."

  The doctor walked away without looking back, leaving Teve alone on the ground in his cell to wonder if the physician was any different to the insane hybrid he had just escaped. His eyes moved immediately to Mish on the screen. Her soft features gave him a reason to continue until the display went blank and raised back up into the void.

  His thoughts drifted to everything he had put his fire team through in the last few days. Had it all been for nothing? He failed his mission. He failed Adams and Vargas. Now Mish, Moreno, and Harris would share a similar fate. And how could Bradley have been the one to destroy the first Zeal carrier?

  Silence met him head on, leaving Teve alone with his thoughts. The quiet continued through the day, the thickness of the glass blocking the outside world.

  Personnel walked by, all coated in gas masks, lab coats, and indifference. He stared out at the operating room, seeing the spray of blood splatter against the curtain. Teve stumbled back as he realized the fate of his team. How long until they came for Mish? How long until they murdered her in cold blood?

  He wouldn't let that happen. He would use every last piece of strength he had left in him to escape the room and kill whoever stood in his way to free her.

  "I'll get you all out of here," he said to the empty room. "Even if it kills me, I won't let them harm you."

  BOOK 2: REFUSE

  By

  J.A. SCORCH

  Copyright © 2017

  All rights reserved.

  Chapter One

  Private Audrey Williams wasn't ready to die. Four tall, mechanical beasts from another world carried her through the broken city of Los Angeles without fear. None of the organic-machine creatures gave her any attention as they carted her limp body over debris and half-destroyed walls. They appeared careful, yet indifferent to her existence, not taking much notice that this thing they carried was alive.

  Only moments of consciousness ago, she was fighting the lanky, jagged aliens known to most soldiers on the ground as Stiltz. Belonging to the invading force known commonly as the Zeal, these skinny, armored machines kept humanity at bay within the cities they occupied without much care or thought. Williams and her team had been wiped out, one by one, until she was the last soldier dumb enough to keep shooting at an enemy that surrounded the small fire team with ease. All the Stiltz had to do was continue advancing forward until their floating orb-like counterparts could sweep in and blast her with electricity.

  The shock had sent her to the ground and halted her ability to fire back at the eight-foot-tall Zeal soldiers. When she was sprawled out waiting for death, a small level of calm washed over her body. The freedom to let go and remain still on the fractured ground of the dead city felt better than she thought possible.

  Time became liquid in her state as the Zeal moved forward. The sounds of the battlefield raged on in the distance as another fire team engaged the alien invaders, foolishly believing they could be the ones to make a difference. Williams no longer cared. If her mouth could function, she would scream her newfound beliefs out to the last pockets of human resistance and tell them to let the Zeal win.

  Her brows screwed up tight. At least she imagined they did. Why was she thinking this way? Up until the floating drone extended out its cattle prod arm and shot her full of electricity, she had despised the aliens that destroyed her city. She had fought them almost every day, desperate to retake even the smallest section of ground from the mechanized brutes. Something had changed. Something within her mind was gone.

  Hours passed. Maybe less. Time became irrelevant. The Stiltz pulled her lifeless body inside the high structure the Zeal spent their days expanding, taking her away from the twisted battlefield outside to the inner purple glow of the alien fortress. They placed her down in the center of a round room, leaving her on her back to stare up at a never-ending ceiling. Her eyes lowered slowly down, absorbing each layer of the cascading structure to see objects twisting and squirming in an unknown breeze. But they weren't lifeless articles. They weren't inert, inanimate things to be ignored. They were human.

  "Welcome," something said overhead. Williams couldn't move her head to see the source of the twin layered voice. She didn't have to wait long for the greeter to reveal himself. A stern man stepped over her body and twisted down to her level, tilting his head. His face was covered in purple marks, each one forming a perfect pattern over his skin. The lines weren't limited to his face, either. His entire body seemed to be enveloped in the purple, straight dents. If she still had function over her mind, her eyes would be wide and ready for answers.

  "Does my appearance give you pause, my dear? Where are my manners? Let me show you my true form." The man slunk back and lowered his head to give her the perfect view of the dozens of blades that extended from his face at once. The feat continued down his entire body as long, sharp daggers stabbed out from him, flurrying in waves from head to toe, stabbing out with fury before retracting back in.

  "Don't be frightened, my child. One day you will understand the beauty before you, but until then, you will need to take some time to appreciate this place."

  The man turned his face to something beyond her limited visual range and moved back. The Stiltz picked her up again and hoisted her from her feet and off the ground. It took her a moment to realize the Zeal soldiers were still below, standing around the bladed man.

  A mechanical arm from the wall lifted her limp body up and carried her to the nearest edge. The machine locked itself in place and inserted a series of tubes into Audrey's body.

  After a few moments of fading consciousness, she suddenly sensed her body again as her limbs all hung down without a fight. Pain entered her every muscle and nerve at once as she screamed out in agony. The pipes and arm holding her against the wall stab
bed her like knives through bone. In less time than the drone took to disable her, she joined in with the rest of the struggling humans and began flailing her limbs about, merging with the other suffering soldiers of the United Earth Forces.

  "Welcome home," said the bladed man from below. "Soon, you will either join us or be released back into oblivion."

  Chapter Two

  The nightmares were getting worse. Sergeant Teve Porter woke up in a pool of sweat beside his fold-down canvas bed, both legs twisted around a thin blanket.

  He stood on shaky limbs and collapsed back down in a heap by the far corner of his tiny cell. A shimmer of moonlight crept into the room, guiding his pointless wandering.

  The vision he had suffered through only moments ago was the same nightmare he had every day over the last two weeks, each experience growing stronger with time. It was always the same situation embedded inside his mind, trying to escape: The hybrid human-Zeal, blade-covered man Teve identified only as X, haunted his dreams. The creature held Teve's thoughts prisoner during the night while the unofficial unit of the United Earth Forces kept him captive throughout the day to perform test after test on his body.

  The real challenge came in trying to figure out which reality was worse, not that he could choose either one. The only existence he wanted to exist in was one with his only friend in the world, Specialist Roxana Mishina. Her dark-brown hair swayed in a non-existent breeze at the forefront of his mind as she came to him, freeing him from the thick walls of his prison with her sharp eyes.

  A buzz ripped through his dreams, severing the connection he felt with Mish. The acrylic glass door at the front of his cell half unlocked in preparation for several armed and unidentifiable soldiers to come storming through. The harsh warning let him remember that Mish was within the same building as him, desperate and alone, confused as to why she should be trapped in a place like this.

  "Get up," a muffled voice said through a gas mask as he and another guard opened the door. "It's time."

  "Screw you," Teve said jumping to his feet. He wrapped the thinning blanket around each fist to form a makeshift choking device, begging the guards to enter.

  His two keepers were covered in a black uniform consisting of light armor topped off with a solid helmet and mask.

  "You wanna do this the hard way?" a female voice asked, coming from the second guard. "Doesn't bother me." The corporal expanded a long shock stick and pulled on its trigger, showing off a live spark of electricity.

  Teve didn't back down. He had faced the powerful tool every day, never once letting its brutal energy phase him. The two guards entered, weapons out ready to dispense justice to the lone man in his small cell armed only with a thin blanket.

  "Every day we go through this, Teve," the male guard said. "For once, I'd like to transport you to the testing rooms in one piece. Why don't you drop the bedding and come along quietly?"

  "I'm here, asshole. Stop being a pussy and do your damn job."

  The man shook his head. "Fine. Have it your way." He pulled off a small shield from his back and placed it on his opposite arm. The young woman did the same. The pair then rammed Teve into the wall, storming through his blanket to expose enough of his body for them to get a few quick shocks in.

  Teve fell to the floor with a thud. His body twitched with every new electrical jab the two guards gave him until they decided he'd had enough.

  The soldiers put away their weapons and shields and lifted Teve up off the ground, holding his limp head up temporarily until he got some control back over his twitching self.

  "Every goddamn day. What's with this guy?"

  "He's a freak like the rest of them. We should just shock him the second we open the door."

  "Damn straight. So sick of risking my ass for these infected pricks."

  The sound of footsteps clipping the polished floor interrupted the two guards. "Dorsey. Are you and Corporal Adler quite done complaining in there? Because I can always find two soldiers from the front line for you to swap places with."

  The male guard, Dorsey, spun around. "Sorry, Doctor Hoang. Bringing the subject along now. This won't happen again."

  Hoang stared at the two corporals through the window of his biohazard suit until they marched their prisoner out of the room and to the right.

  "We're not taking him to the test chambers today. Bring him to my lab instead."

  "Yes, sir. Right away."

  "Got something you want to cut out of me, Doc?" Teve asked. "Because I'm right here. No need to waste time."

  Hoang stepped up to Teve, craning his head up to the tall soldier. "You look tense, Sergeant. Why don't we give you a little something to calm you down?"

  "No, don't—"

  The doctor pressed a needle gun into Teve's neck and pulled the trigger, issuing out something that made Teve lose control over his ability to fight back. In a few moments, his body would become even more useless than it already was after the electrical shocks. He dropped down only to be held up by the guards.

  Floating along the concrete flooring of the construction that used to be known as the Black Forest Correctional Facility, Teve got carted across the building through many rooms of the modified jail. It was as if a prison had now been merged with a research hospital.

  He made sure to take in as much of the building's inner areas as he could during the short walks from one torture chamber to the next, pretending to be out of it and not observing the staff running about.

  The four of them moved through an open section of the converted prison before reaching one of the facility's many dividing blocks. Teve had been paraded through the entire building each day, taken from test to test to determine the capabilities of the Zeal virus coursing through his system. According to Doctor Hoang, Teve was getting stronger by the day. He couldn't feel it himself, confident the disease was eating him alive from the inside out.

  Hoang approached the guard covering the divider. "Patient Zero-Seven-Seven. Escort through to East Wing Lab."

  The man on duty sat on a tall stool, watching an array of security monitors. Without a word, he picked up an e-slate and entered a few commands to open the cell door, motioning for the group to proceed with a thumb over his shoulder.

  Teve gave the stoic guard a long stare through his dark, reflective mask, trying to see if there was a person on the other side. Part of him was starting to believe the guards were nothing but heartless robots, but he acknowledged there was no truth to the theory.

  Dorsey and Adler walked Teve through a darkened hallway to emerge out the other side of a secondary locked gate at the East Wing. After a few minutes, Teve regained his ability to walk and continued to Hoang's lab without resistance.

  "You two won't be needed for this," the doctor said, dismissing Teve's escorts.

  "Are you sure about that, sir? This patient has shown repeated acts of aggression. I would highly recommend—"

  "That will be all, Corporal. If I need your opinion on anything else, I'll be sure to buzz you."

  Dorsey shrugged and looked to Adler. "Let go." They released their package from their grip and left the way they came, moving on to harass the next patient.

  "Ballsy move," Teve said to Hoang. "Soon as we're alone, I'm going to kill you." Teve could not hide the truth while under the influence of the doctor's chemicals.

  "I know you will. That's why I'll be carrying this with me at all times." Hoang showed him the sidearm strapped to his leg. "I have full authority to shoot you at any moment, without question."

  Teve stared straight through the man's warning and glanced down at the weapon. "Where did you get that?"

  "Familiar, isn't it?"

  Teve recognized his own service weapon and fought off the urge to snatch the gun free from the doctor's holster to shoot him with every bullet in the magazine. But, for all he knew, the pistol was empty and placed there as part of a test Hoang had created.

  "Nothing special about it," Teve said. "Shall we?" He gestured for the doctor to tak
e him inside the lab for whatever it was he had in mind.

  Hoang narrowed his brows for a moment before entering in the long security code to open the door. Auto lights flicked into action with the sudden door activity, lighting up the one room Teve hadn't been forced into over the past few weeks. In general, the doctor dragged him from one machine to the next, running Teve through a series of stress and endurance tests by making him run for three hours straight or seeing what kind of hot temperatures he could stand to function in while wearing extra layers of clothing.

  Inside the sterile, white lab, he found two rows of multi-layered stand-up desks covered in high-tech equipment he couldn't name or decipher. The ceiling contained a blinking bulb camera in every corner, covering all angles with the digital eyes of Black Forest.

  Hoang ushered him through and past the two lines of the lab to a single door at the end of the room. "In here." The windowless door opened to reveal a central chair inside a small space no bigger than his cell.

  "Take a seat," Hoang said, not giving him any other options.

  Teve took a breath in and walked through toward the chair. The large, finely-padded seat had a thick mounting base to swivel in all directions, but Teve knew what the extra bulk would be for. He sat down and placed his arms and legs where the doctor wanted them to go. He glanced up to see Hoang press a few buttons on the wall, setting off the chair's locking mechanism to strap down his wrists, ankles, and chest. The seat reclined back and rotated around to a ceiling-mounted workstation that hung from above.

  Teve had been preparing for this moment for the past two weeks. Finally, the doctor was going to end his life and see what was on the inside.

  The doctor leaned down over his patient's chest. "Time for us to have a little chat."