Symphony of Descension

by Robert D. Armstrong

  Vala barreled forward for another quarter of a mile through the open field, bumping along the way. Ahead, she noticed an abandoned house tucked inside a thicket of trees. She stopped just before it. “Good a place as any,” she said.

  “Fine, we fight them here!” Michael roared.

  “Go inside that house and get a line of sight. We both know they’ll be coming from the freeway.” He pointed toward the road, then snapped the barrel to his energy rifle together, handing it over to her.

  Vala immediately dropped into a low military stance, spinning around, and scoping in with the energy rifle.

  “They know we’ll set up here. I’ll flank them. Let’s go, ten seconds,” he said. She noticed his titanium fangs gleaming in the moonlight as he spoke. During intense moments like this, he was quite terrifying to look at no matter how much she loved him.

  The dramatic lines of his skull resembled a metallic reaper, like something from the back of a biker gang’s jacket. He donned his hood, casting a shadow over his face, and disappeared in a flash. The sound of his long coat whipped in the wind as he dashed into the dark forest.

  Vala gazed out toward him, her enhanced vision struggled to follow his blazing speed. She took a deep breath and hurried to the old house with Michael’s rifle. As she approached, she noticed it was a one story, red brick home, and part of the roof had collapsed in on itself.

  Vegetation had grown up all around, vines spreading wildly throughout the outer wall. Knee high weeds and saplings littered the front yard. A pink and white tricycle was turned over by the porch, the wheel spokes rusted and warped. The front porch was a concrete pad with broken stepping stones leading from the old dirt driveway on the left.

  In a hurry, she noticed to the right of the front porch landing was a wreath, similar to something you’d see on a tomb. She glanced by as she darted toward an open window. ‘To my beloved family’ the caption on the wreath said. Vala leaped through the open window, but while in midair, noticed a hole beneath her. The floor had collapsed. She braced her legs outward, nearly doing the splits on the outer edge of the pit that dropped into the basement. She nudged forward, clambering to her feet.

  She moved down to the adjacent window and sat down. Vala crossed her feet Indian style, propping Michael’s rifle on the window. Outside she saw two sets of headlamps on the outer edge of the field, two trucks traveling side by side.

  The one in front stopped, then floored it across Vala’s line of sight killing the headlamps. “Shit.” She scrambled to the opposite side of the house, stepping over pitfalls, toys, boxes, and ragged furniture, glaring out a broken window, careful to stay within the shadows.

  The two trucks rodeoed through the rugged terrain as if they were under fire, but neither Vala nor Michael had risked a shot. The vehicles disappeared into the tree line, taking away any advantage of a long-distance sniper.

  “They’re flanking us, Mike!” she yelled.

  Vala concentrated, listening to the faint rumble of the solar/diesel hybrid engines. One of them turned off, but the other continued idling, She heard two doors open and could almost make out the voices whispering between them. She glanced toward Michael as he ran out toward the attackers, putting himself between the attackers and Vala’s location. She followed him for several steps before he melted into the thick brush again.

  She peered into the darkness as sounds of rustling branches and footfalls erupted deep in the forest. Her enhanced hearing detected at least five attackers spread out in a V formation. She trained her rifle in the direction of the audible cues, waiting for them to peek out from the trees.

  “Watch your spacing, short controlled bursts,” a rugged northwestern accent called out. The order told Vala and Michael two things. The men carried rapid-fire weapons and had military training. This was expected intelligence, but a valuable confirmation.

  “Who the hell are these guys?” Vala mumbled.

  “Shut up. Both of them can hear us.” Vala overheard the order. That must have been the Cilan, his own advanced hearing giving him insight to Vala’s.

  Ahead, she saw a figure prowling low. He wore all black and a hockey type mask. Around the eyes were built-in goggles that likely had a range of detection systems. He was very careful about his foot placement as his head swiveled in all directions. He motioned the other guards ahead toward the abandoned house.

  Suddenly, Vala’s eyes detected motion high in the trees. She snatched the rifle scope up and sighed.

  It was Michael. He’d scaled a tree above the pursuers and clung to the bark on her side, setting up an ambush. He was attempting to get her attention, gesturing off into the distance, away from the aggressors below him. She quickly shifted positions on the window’s edge, aiming in the direction he signaled. She scoped in and panned around the forest, switching vision modes from night vision to infrared.

  “What the hell is Michael talking about? I don’t see it,” she whispered. She aimed down the holographic gun sights, panning back and forth until a mass of heat appeared, partially obscured behind a tree.

  “I bet that’s it.” She zoomed in with her scope as volley of energy flashed toward her, knocking her rifle from her hands and into the hallway.

  “Dammit!” She rolled low, staying under cover as three more energy flashes scorched the walls above her. The flashes lit up the otherwise dark house, exposing her rifle laying on the floor.

  She prowled low and snatched the rifle, unsnapping the scorched long barrel.

  The soldiers must have smelled blood, quickly stepping toward Vala. “Full attack, she’s in the house!” someone yelled. She could hear their footsteps rapidly approaching.

  The men rushed under Michael, with their guns trained on the house, as he waited patiently for the last soldier to pass under him. He dropped forty feet, landing on top of him.

  There was no scream or groans of agony, only the crunch of several dozen bones snapping in unison.

  His body folded like a chair as Michael’s retractable talons made first contact, plunging golf ball-sized holes between his collar bone and trapezius muscles, nearly splitting him in half from the aerial impact. The soldier’s knees, hips, and lower back buckled under the tremendous force.

  The guards ahead of Michael spun around, firing blindly in his direction. Vala kept out of the sniper’s view by backing away from the window.

  She rose to notice the guards in front of her with their backs turned, firing into the forest at Michael’s glowing green eyes that zipped about like a pair of highspeed fireflies.

  Without a hint of hesitation, she aimed the short barrel energy rifle at them, mercilessly cutting down three of the guards. The entire exchange took less than two seconds. The fourth soldier turned around and aimed his rifle at Vala, squeezing off a round that went straight into the air as Michael drove his searing plasma blade into the man’s upper back.

  The fiery green blade erupted through his chest, illuminating his face as he stared down. The man wasn’t wearing a helmet. He appeared in his mid-thirties with a look on his face that seemed to communicate a vacant acceptance of the situation, no panic or pain—it was over. His knees buckled as Michael held the scorching hot plasma blade, allowing gravity to do the work as it ripped through his skull, splitting his head completely in half as he fell to his knees.

  “Ugh,” Vala muttered, grimacing at the gruesome scene.

  Michael snatched the soldier’s gun before it hit the ground, firing into the wood at the sniper to give Vala a bead.

  “There!” he yelled, rushing behind the sniper.

  She changed positions, running into a spare bedroom in the back of the house, she stopped on a dime aiming into the forest as the sniper retreated over the hill. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Michael barreling toward the sniper, running low. Every few steps, his arm would touch the ground for balance as he whipped around trees and pounced over fallen logs, his talons churning into the soil, slinging dirt high into the air.

  His speed was
mind-bending, an even mix of precise steps and visceral power.

  “Mike!” she yelled. He put on the brakes dropping down to all fours and glaring over his shoulder. His ghoulish green eyes bobbed up and down while he panted.

  “Together! We do it, together,” she yelled.

  More than likely, the sniper was the Cilan they encountered on the freeway. If so, he was extremely dangerous, and it only made sense to tackle him as a team. They weren’t just skilled at concealment and disguise, most Cilans, like Vala, had military training and possessed incredible human reflexes and speed.

  Besides, splitting up never worked out well for them.

  Michael dipped his head, annoyingly jerking it back toward the fleeing sniper as he waited. He let out a long, perturbed sigh that seemed soaked with ravenous saliva, his mouth slightly open, his fangs gleaming in the moonlight. It seemed what little predatory instincts remained were on display. Maybe he was genuinely excited like a big cat, running down fleeing prey.

  Vala rushed toward Michael as they set off after the assassin. They moved up a hill that overlooked a basin, catching a glimpse of the Cilan as he melted into a tree line. “There,” she said.

  “Oh, believe me, I saw him.” Michael darted after him with Vala in tow. Despite her superhuman speed, she was no ECHO.

  “Wait,” she said.

  “Come on!” He snapped back.

  He tampered his approach slightly, allowing her to catch up. “You see?” he asked while they ran forward.

  “No, what?”

  “There’s a cave down there. The sniper went inside, and he’s wounded,” Michael said, cycling his vision modes to detect the even spaced blood droplets.

  “We’re backing him into a corner.”

  “It’s obviously still a threat if it’s moving that fast,” Michael said.

  “Cilans are always a threat,” she reminded. Michael glanced back, then blasted forward toward the cave, following the blood trail. He approached the rocky terrain, planting his shoulder beside the cave wall, cautiously leaning around it. Vala stacked behind him, awaiting his instructions.

  “Careful, he might have a line of sight,” she whispered low enough that only Michael could hear.

  He paused, then peered around into the cave, a dark, circular tunnel that angled downward slightly and leveled out. If the Cilan was planning an ambush, he was at the bottom. The cave almost seemed artificial, as if some machine had drilled an underground passageway. The diameter of the tunnel was even throughout, about seven feet and over a hundred feet long.

  Vala reached on her belt. “I’ve got a grenade, maybe we should just—”

  “No, I wanna see what he knows.”

  “Risky.”

  “I know, Val, believe me. You ever hunted a groundhog before?” Michael whispered, narrowing his green eyes in the darkness.

  “Can’t say I have.”

  “Me either. The problem is we’re obviously exposed if we push down this tunnel, no room for evasive maneuvering if we come under fire. The laser rifle the Cilan was using, did you get a look at it? What’s the rating?” he whispered.

  “Three hundred kilowatt, maybe more.” She stared at him.

  “Shit. Alright, I’ve got an idea,” he said. The Cilan’s rifle had enough juice to bore a hole through Michael’s light armor. A mere one hundred and fifty kilowatts was enough to pierce through him with relative ease.

  Michael exposed his shoulder, giving the Cilan a clean shot.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Vala asked.

  “He doesn’t have a clear line of sight, he’s deep.” Michael narrowed his eyes.

  “Hey. Don’t do that again, you got me?” she kept her voice low, stabbing her finger into his chest, “I’ll grenade that fucker before I let him injure either one of us.”

  “Okay! Okay. You still got that hologram decoy? That app?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Hm. I see where you’re going with this. I stole this in Korea so maybe he hasn’t seen it.” Vala backed away from Michael a few feet. “Okay, walk forward slowly like you’re creeping through a cave,” she said.

  “Ready?”

  “Just make it look real. I’ll record it and rebroadcast it into the cave.”

  “Like this?” Michael ducked low, lurching forward while feeling around with his hands. A blue beam emitted from her wrist watch that scanned his body from head to toe.

  “Okay, done.” She pointed the wrist watch away from him. A copy of Michael appeared, initially neon blue in color that quickly materialized into an exact copy of his likeness. It stuttered slightly while replaying on a loop, like a gif animation restarting.

  “Eh, decent. Wouldn’t fool me.” He cocked his head.

  “But if he’s deep in the cave, waiting to ambush, he’ll shoot first, ask questions later,” she said.

  “I know, and that’s all I need is that split second. Beam it into the tunnel,” he said.

  “Mike.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Please, be careful.” She cut her eyes at him.

  Michael picked up his rifle. “I will. Let’s go.”

  She aimed the hologram into the cave with her watch, tilting her wrist to adjust for the slope.

  “He’ll see the hologram first. Looks like it levels out down there. Strategically, that’s where I’d be waiting,” Vala said. “Here.” She handed him the energy rifle.

  “I need to be close when he does. Stay alert up here.” Michael panned around before entering the cave behind his hologram, he edged along the side of the cave so Vala could project the hologram in front of him. He trained his rifle forward, waiting for any sign of movement.

  Michael’s infrared optics detected fresh blood splatters on the rocky floor beneath him. As he stepped forward, cockroaches scurried beneath his feet, some of them unusually large, almost four inches. His fingers grazed against jagged cave walls as he edged forward, prying for any signs of a heartbeat with his built in ultra-sensitive seismometer. He glanced back to ensure Vala wasn’t exposing more of her body than needed to guide the hologram into the cave.

  Suddenly, he stopped, a very faint heartbeat was detected.

  da-dum….da-dum…da-dum….da-dum

  HEART RATE – 28 BPM – LOW

  STRESS LEVEL – LOW

  Perhaps the Cilan had lost a great deal of blood, maybe it was calm, or both. Michael crept forward one step at a time. Michael likely understood the Cilan could hear him. His hologram approached the bottom of the slope as Michael kneeled, peering into the blackness for any signs of the Cilan’s heat signature ahead.

  The hologram’s lower portion dropped into the basin as a flash of light erupted from deep in the cave, “Mike!” Vala yelled. The hologram flickered as Michael disabled his infrared and dove forward, sliding and shooting at the origin of the light discharge.

  “Arghh!” the Cilan yelled out as his sniper rifle clacked against the rocky floor.

  The Cilan yanked out a pistol, returning fire as Michael shot from the prone position, striking the Cilan in the upper right portion of his chest. A small bellow of smoke wisped into the air from the scorched entry point. The Cilan groaned, throwing his hands up as he flopped back against the cave wall, slowly sliding down it, his breathing labored.

  “Don’t move!” Michael yelled.

  “You alright!?” Vala stormed down the slope, drawing her projectile submachinegun.

  “Yeah!” Michael stood up, cautiously approaching the Cilan. He kicked away the pistol as he stood only a few feet in front of him. Vala approached from behind. “It isn’t good for us both to be here Val. It’s possible there are more threats topside,” Michael said.

  “I’m not going anywhere. We stay together.” She glared at Michael and leaned around him to observe the wounded Cilan.

  “Oh God, Mike. I thought he looked familiar. I know him.”

  “What?”

  “I ran into him years ago in Korea.
I filled in for him on a Star Rust mission,” she said.

  “Are you sure?” Michael followed her with his eyes as she stepped forward.

  “Marcos,” she said. The man coughed up blood as he peered forward. “Vala,” he whispered. The man appeared about thirty-five with dark features.

  “So, you knew it was me? Before or after you took the contract?” she asked.

  “B-before,” he muttered.

  “Thanks for the honesty. Some people won’t ever admit when they stab you in the back,” she said. He began to nod off from the loss of blood.

  “Who you working for now, Marcos?” she asked, kicking his wound and pressing down on it with the bottom of her foot. “Wake up!”

  “A-Ahhh!” he yelled. She eased up on the throttle.

  “You of a-all people know how this works. You can’t get it out of me,” he said.

  “That’s him? That’s the one you told me about?” Marcos asked.

  Vala glanced over her shoulder at Michael. “Yeah.”

  “Glad you found him.”

  “Shut up, you’re not glad about shit or else you wouldn’t be out here trying to put a stop to it. You knew it was me,” she asserted, removing her foot.

  “I didn’t know for sure, more like a hunch. They said he was being accompanied by a Cilan so, yeah, I had an idea.”

  “What was the job, exactly?”

  “Assassination and recovery, you know. Y-yeah, I’m here to recover him, but I was told his capabilities were limited now,” he said.

  Vala chuckled. “How are those limitations working out for ya?” she asked. The Cilan’s eyes blackened as Vala pressed her submachinegun against his forehead. “tell me what you know, we both know your enhancements will make death a slow process, tell me and I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen,” she said.

  He nodded slowly, gazing up at the ceiling for a moment. “Doesn’t really matter now, does it?” He smiled, the gaps between his teeth full of blood.