The Praegressus Project: Part One

by Aaron Hodges

  No doubt they would be watching her now, but she knew Chris wouldn’t be foolish enough to return here. It just meant she had to be more careful with her own objectionable activities.

  After her daughter’s death, Maria had been consumed by her rage. She had fed it, directed it, allowed it to give her knew purpose. Instead of wallowing in her grief, she had gone looking for others like her, for the relatives of dissidents, the families of those taken by the government. It had been a difficult search. The government’s policy of arresting the immediate family of traitors appeared to have crushed all notions of resistance. It had been weeks before she heard the first whispers of a resistance group.

  The Mad Women.

  Even now, the name made Maria smile. She didn’t know who had coined it, but it could not have been more appropriate. In respect for the generation who had fought in the American War, those over sixty-five were pardoned for the crimes of their relatives – even in the case of treason. In their arrogance, the government no longer saw Maria and her aging generation as a threat.

  One day, Maria hoped to prove them wrong.

  For now, their numbers were small, and they could not risk outright defiance. But they could remind the people of the past, of the war they had fought for their freedom. They could wear the uniforms and commendations of their fallen heroes, could stand in protest against oppression.

  They could march.

  CHAPTER 1

  “We are still gathering information, but it is with profound regret that I can now confirm twelve civilians have been killed in the worst terrorist attack our nation has seen in decades.”

  Chris stared at the television, watching the scenes around the courthouse unfold. He barely heard the woman’s words, until the camera flickered back to an image of her. She stood alone on the podium, her face sombre as her hazel eyes stared into the camera. Blonde hair hung down around her ears, untouched by grey. A splash of make-up added colour to her pale cheeks. Prominent cheekbones, a narrow jaw, and mascara around her eyes gave her the look of a predator. Chris shivered as he realised they were now her prey.

  She wore a neatly tailored blue suit and an expensive pearl necklace around her pale throat, but there was nothing else to suggest she was the most powerful woman in the Western Allied States. But then, the Director of Domestic Affairs did not need expensive clothes or jewellery to remind the people of her authority.

  “We can now reveal that, an hour ago, the four renegades we have been hunting launched a treasonous attack against the Supreme Court in San Francisco. Using black-market rifles, they attempted to execute the judges and attorneys they believe responsible for their convictions. Fortunately, the timely arrival of special forces brought an end to their attack. Through the bravery of our soldiers, one of the fugitives was killed. Unfortunately, the remaining three again escaped custody.”

  “Richard,” Jasmine groaned.

  “As a precaution, the President and I have decided to implement a temporary period of martial law while we seek to apprehend these criminals. The army is being brought in to patrol the streets of San Francisco and aid in our search for these fugitives–”

  The television gave an audible clunk as Chris flicked it off and tossed the remote down on the wooden coffee table. It was about the only thing in the room left in one piece. The rest of the apartment had been torn to shreds by the SWAT team that had ambushed them there just a few days ago. The front door had been smashed off its hinges, the kitchen table was missing several legs, and broken glass from the shattered window covered the floor. They had done their best to prop the front door up in its frame, but there was nothing they could do about the cold breeze blowing through the window.

  “What now?” Sam asked in a hollow voice.

  Chris looked around and found him seated on the floor beside the coffee table, his long legs stretched out across the floor. He looked up at Chris with haggard brown eyes, his expression partially concealed by long strands of brown hair. The broad expanse of his copper wings hung limp behind him. His dark skin looked pale, and his muscular frame radiated exhaustion. Of all of them, Chris had expected Sam to be the most optimistic after escaping the clutches of Halt and his guards. But then, Chris could only imagine the horrors his friend must have suffered after Chris and the others had escaped.

  “We go back,” Jasmine replied as she paced the length of the room. “We find him, save him, like we did with you.”

  Her voice trembled, and Chris could sense her rage, lingering just beneath the surface. Fists clenched, Jasmine reached the window and spun to face them, her emerald wings stretching out to either side of her. Her black hair fluttered in the breeze as her brown eyes travelled over each of them, daring them to defy her.

  “Jasmine…” Chris trailed off as she took a step towards him.

  “He’s alive,” she grated the words between clenched teeth.

  Chris flinched back from the fury in her eyes, but another voice rose to meet Jasmine’s challenge.

  “I’m sorry, Jasmine,” Ashley spoke in a voice sucked dry of emotion, “After what Liz saw…he couldn’t have survived.”

  Ashley lay with her head in Sam’s lap, her amber eyes staring up at the ceiling. Her scarlet hair dangled around her face in a dishevelled mess, but her white feathered wings were tucked tightly against her back. She had always been thin, but now she was almost skeletal, her cheekbones standing out in stark relief on her pale skin. In the weeks they’d been separated, she seemed to have shrunk – not just in body, but spirit. The fire in her eyes, the one that had given them all courage on even their darkest days at the facility, was gone.

  Jasmine strode across the room until she stood over Ashley. “You survived.”

  On the ground, Ashley didn’t move. “Barely,” her voice was little more than a whisper, “and sometimes I wish I hadn’t.”

  “There were too many, Jasmine.” Liz moved between the girl and Ashley, forcing her back. After what had happened in the courthouse, no one wanted to get too close to Liz. “I saw him, at the end. They all opened fire. It was too much, even for one of us.”

  Chris nodded his agreement. It had only taken one bullet to knock Ashley from the sky. And despite their enhanced strength and accelerated healing, she had been incapacitated for weeks. Even now she still sported a red mark where the wound had almost healed. But from what Liz said, Richard had taken a dozen bullets or more in his final stand. There was no coming back from that.

  Liz and Jasmine stood off against each another, their eyes locked in a silent battle of wills. Liz’s curly black hair matched Jasmine’s, but her eyes were a crystal blue instead of brown. Staring into those eyes, Chris felt a yearning to go to her, to pull her into his arms and run his hands down her black feathers, to lift his fingers to her chin and kiss her. He imagined those big blue eyes staring up at him, alight with passion.

  Then he saw them changing, hardening to grey, and he felt again the agony of her touch. The Chead rage had changed her, turning her lightest touch to agony and death. Shivering, Chris forced himself to look away before she saw his terror.

  “I don’t care,” Jasmine snarled. “He’s one of us, remember. We’re family – that’s what you said. We have to go back for him.”

  “Jasmine…” Liz’s voice dropped to a whisper, and Chris could see her pain.

  Jasmine snorted, her eyes flashing as she looked at Liz. “So that’s how it is,” she shook her head, “I guess he was right. We should never have looked for you. Maybe then he would be here instead of you.”

  With that Jasmine spun on her heel and fled up the corridor. Chris watched her go – flinching as a door slammed – and then turned back to the others. After fleeing the courthouse, they had taken to the sky and disappeared into the winding hills of San Francisco. Their pursuers had never stood a chance of keeping up with them. They had taken refuge here, in Daniella’s apartment, in the hope it would be the last place their hunters would look for them.

  When they’d final
ly reached the apartment, the six of them had entered cautiously, taking care not to make any noise in case Daniella or her mother were still home. But the house was silent, and it was only when Chris and Sam entered Daniella’s bedroom that they’d discovered what had become of the two women.

  Daniella had lain facedown beside her bed, her mother just a foot away. A trail of blood marked how the woman had tried to reach her daughter. Both were long dead, murdered by the same government they had sought to protect.

  Looking at their long dead bodies, Chris had struggled to find some emotion, to feel something for their deaths. It seemed like he should feel something, that their deaths should mean something to him. But after watching the vile guards attack Liz, after witnessing Halt murder the old Chead, Artemis, and seeing Richard die, it felt as though he had nothing left to give.

  Now, Chris wondered how much time they had before someone noticed the women were missing and came looking for them. The apartment had clearly been staged as a home invasion gone wrong – only a giant crack in the television screen appeared to have spared it from disappearing with the rest of the apartment’s valuables. Sooner rather than later, they would have to leave this place, though where they went then, he didn’t know.

  After the news broadcast they’d just seen, nowhere would be safe. They were terrorists now, the culprits behind a terrible attack on innocent civilians. Where before a few people might have recognised them, now their faces would be known to every citizen in the country.

  “What about… Artemis?” a small voice croaked from the sofa.

  Chris looked across at Mira, the final member of their ragged little group. She sat on the couch, her grey wings wrapped around her tiny body, watching them with her mismatched blue and green eyes. She had hardly spoken since fleeing the courthouse, but now she sat up and wiped a tear from her cheek.

  “I’m sorry, Mira,” Liz whispered as she moved across and sat beside Mira. Reaching out, she rubbed the girl’s back, taking care not to touch skin. “We couldn’t save him either.”

  The girl’s lip trembled, but she only nodded. “I know,” her eyes flashed, “I want to make them hurt.”

  On the floor, Sam chuckled. “Where did you find this girl, Chris?”

  Even Chris found himself smiling. “Don’t worry, Mira,” he said, “We will. But first, we need to rest.”

  The girl nodded, and standing, she jumped down from the couch and disappeared up the corridor without another word.

  “Does she give anyone else the creeps?” Sam murmured, still staring after the girl, “Like, maybe we shouldn’t close our eyes around her…”

  “Are you afraid of a little girl, Sam?” a wry smile twisted Liz’s lips as she shook her head, “You probably missed it – she’s Chead, a proper one. Or she was, until Halt injected her with our lovely virus.”

  “Why would he do that?” Sam asked.

  “That’s…a long story,” Chris sighed.

  Suddenly his legs felt wary, and he realised he was still standing in front of the television. Glancing at Liz, he carefully moved across to the sofa and sat next to her. His heart sank as she edged away from him, but he supressed the urge to pull her back.

  “I suppose it doesn’t matter much now,” Sam gave a sad smile, “Thanks for stopping him, Liz.”

  Liz shrugged. Her eyes remained fixed on the floor. Now the discussion had petered out, the energy seemed to have drained from her. “It was Richard who got us out,” she whispered.

  They fell silent at that, each of them drifting off into their own memories. Guilt swelled in Chris’s throat as Richard’s face flickered through his thoughts. The boy’s emerald eyes shone in the darkness, angry, accusing. They had left him behind, left him to be overwhelmed by the soldiers, to fall to their bullets. In his heart, Chris knew there had been nothing they could have done, that Richard had chosen to sacrifice himself to save them all. But even so…

  He shook his head, and his mind drifted again, returning to the cold words of the Director.

  Terrorists.

  He shivered. The word had terrible connotations. Every citizen in the Western Allied States would be hunting them now. There would be nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. It was only a matter of time before they were caught. And this time, there would be no cages, no steel collars and injections. Just a line of soldiers on a stage, a camera in their faces, and the flash of gunfire ushering them into the darkness.

  CHAPTER 2

  Liz let out a long breath as she moved into the corridor. The silence in the living room had become suffocating, and she was glad to escape to the darkness of the hallway. Coming to a stop, she leaned her head against the wall. A scream built in her chest and she clenched her fists, struggling to contain it. Images of the courthouse ran through her mind, over and over, an endless loop she couldn’t seem to break.

  Halt thrashing in her hands, his face turning red, then purple, his strength slowly trickling away.

  The look on Chris’s face when he had looked at her, the terror in his eyes.

  And Richard – brave, stupid Richard, telling her to run, while he turned to face the soldiers.

  She shivered, fighting back tears. It was all too much. How could she go on after what had happened, after what she’d done?

  Looking down at her hands, Liz searched for some hint of a change, some indication of the new power at her fingertips.

  Nematocysts.

  That was what Artemis had called them, the tiny stinger cells that now lined her skin. But even to her enhanced vision, her hands looked as they always had. There was no sign of their deadly nature, of the agony they could unleash at just a touch. She clenched her fists again, feeling the sharp pain as her fingernails dug into her flesh. But that pain was nothing compared to what Chris had felt when she’d touched him.

  Nothing compared with the agony in Halt’s face as he died.

  Shaking her head, Liz cast the image aside and looked up. She sensed movement from behind her, as the others prepared to sleep. She heard distant voices whispering about setting a watch, and quickly moved deeper into the corridor. After her fight in the courthouse, she figured she’d earned a respite from first watch. The door to her right led to Daniella’s room, and Liz had no desire to face the horror there. Steeling herself, she moved to the door on the left, and slipped into Danny’s room.

  She paused as the door clicked closed behind her, waiting for Jasmine to scream at her to get out. When there was no response, Liz shrugged and moved deeper into the room. Danny’s bedroom was sparsely decorated – the white walls were empty and the dressing table was bare except for a couple of family portraits. Jasmine lay tucked beneath the blankets of a queen bed pushed up against the far wall, while she spied Mira’s smaller figure curled up at the foot of the bed.

  Shaking her head at Mira’s strange sleeping preferences, Liz moved silently across the room and lay down on the other side of the bed from Jasmine. Staring up at the ceiling, she wondered whether Jasmine had fallen asleep. But something about the other girl’s rigid stillness told her otherwise.

  Listening to the soft whisper of Jasmine’s breath, Liz searched for something to say, for some words of comfort. Jasmine had been closer to Richard than anyone; the two had been cellmates, had faced the trials of the Praegressus Project together.

  A dull ache began in Liz’s back where her wings extended from her spine and she rolled onto her side to face Jasmine. To her surprise, she found the other girl staring back at her.

  “I can’t do it, Liz,” Jasmine murmured.

  “Can’t do what?” Liz whispered back.

  Jasmine’s eyes were stained red and wet from crying. Sniffing, she used her sleeve to wipe away her tears and then shook her head.

  “Go on. Keep running. Keep fighting,” she took a breath, “I’m not strong enough. I feel like I’m teetering on a cliff, and without Richard there to hold me, I’m about to fall off.”

  The image of Richard screaming for them to run flickered through
Liz’s mind. She shivered and pushed it away. “But you have too,” she replied, “We all do. Otherwise, he died for nothing.”

  “I never asked him to!” Jasmine sat up suddenly, throwing off the covers. Along her back, her emerald feathers stood on end as she looked away. “I never wanted him to.”

  To her surprise, Liz found herself smiling as she thought of the blonde-haired boy. They hadn’t gotten off to the best start, with herself and Chris getting caught up in the feud between the older prisoners. There had been no love lost between the two prison cells – Richard and Jasmine had hated Sam and Ashley. After the atrocities Halt had forced them to commit, it was difficult to blame them. But since their escape, they had been forced to work together, and Liz had come to respect Richard’s quiet strength.

  Looking back at Jasmine, she shook her head. “Sometimes we don’t get to choose what people do for us,” she sighed, remembering the sacrifices her parents had made to send her to the private school she’d hated. “But you still have to accept it.”

  “I can’t!” Jasmine was standing now, her wings extended, her face a mask of rage. She shook her head. “Don’t you get it? He did it for me, because of everything I said after he fell asleep on watch, because of what I said about family and going back for you.”

  Slowly Jasmine slumped to the floor, where she knelt in a pile of ragged clothes and feathers. Liz crouched on the bed watching her, thinking again about the time in the woods, when the soldiers had almost captured them. Only the intervention of the Chead had saved them. The incident had left Jasmine shaken, and she’d lashed out at Richard, blaming him for their being taken by surprise. But she didn’t think that was why Richard had decided to sacrifice himself.

  “I don’t think it was you, Jasmine,” she whispered, remembering a conversation she’d had with Richard high in the Californian mountains. It seemed like a lifetime ago now. “I think it was for Jeremy… to repay his sacrifice.”