by Casey Herzog
“I was always a big jazz fan, though some of the electronic music that I came across was so good…” he trailed off and his smile disappeared. “What is that?”
There was a noisy roar coming from the city streets that made Callum instinctively turn sharply off the road and lead Dante into the muddy, weed-ridden earth beside it. They both lay down their bikes and watched from prone positions as several motorcycles roared up the main avenue of the city. One of the drivers even pulled his cruiser bike back into a wheelie. The motorcyclist at the front of the formation drove a chopper, his body thin but well-built as he revved the bike and sent it forward past the rest. Behind them came a large truck with a cage fitted onto its open-topped cargo. Dante could have sworn there were disheveled people crouching inside it, but he wasn’t sure.
“Okay. We’re safe, keep going. Keep an eye out.”
Callum breathed and began to wonder if this mission was truly worth it.
I need to bring them back, but if we die out here…No. I can’t think about that. We won’t die out here. The worst thing that can happen is we go back home with nothing but the rags we’re wearing. That won’t happen either, though.
With a grunt of frustration, he pushed his bicycle forward one more time.
Soon, they would need to abandon the bikes and continue on foot to avoid being seen.
Things were about to get more dangerous.
The young woman yelped in pain and fell to her knees. She was bloodied and bruised, her wrists tied together with a piece of crude wire that chafed her skin.
“Please,” she begged. She had been walking for days when the truck arrived, her boots now torn and busted-up versions of what she’d been wearing when she left. The men who had taken her and the others were savages, animals who had beaten them bloody and taken all of their belongings. Even after they had repeatedly explained their purpose, begging for a moment of mercy as they told their stories while the men punched and kicked, it was ultimately useless.
The women had been saved from a worse fate by one of the thugs, who had threatened any of his fellows with death if they tried to go too far with any of the females. Johanna decided he was the best of them, even if he had been the one to break her finger with a careless stomp on her hand.
The man leading her away from the cage ignored her as he walked, pulling on the long wire that extended from her wrists. Other men dragged the rest, and even a woman pulled Frank along with a cruel smile as she forced him to limp faster than he humanly could.
Of the eight who had left the community, seven still lived. Tears welled in Johanna’s eyes for the hundredth time as she remembered how the motorcyclists had come out of nowhere and fired a hail of bullets at them. They hit Adam several times before the cruel one with the burn scars finished him up close with a shot to the head.
“This is our land,” he’d said simply, the shining metal teeth in his mouth forming a grin as he put the revolver back into its holster. Johanna had made a silent promise to herself, hoping that she would get at least one chance in the future to avenge her lover’s death. If she did, the grinning man would never smile again.
The city was an eerie place, she saw, as they were pulled forward towards a tall skyscraper. There were armed men on several sections of the block, even more of them waiting just beyond the front doors of the building. There were snipers visible on several windows, and a tall, powerful man holding back a pack of chained dogs.
“Fresh meat?” the man laughed, his booming voice making Johanna jump.
“Aye,” the woman leading Frank said. Johanna noticed that their leader, the one on the chopper, hadn’t bothered to grab a prisoner of his own. He simply walked past them all, pushing the doors of the skyscraper open and walking inside with his shotgun resting on his shoulder. The leader had been silent for the entire ordeal, his blue eyes observing everything, but giving nothing away. He looked like the type of man who had already done this a hundred times, bringing human prisoners to his boss, something which had probably become to him like a farmer leading cattle to slaughter.
Johanna stumbled the last few steps up to the building and walked through the doorway. Some men leered at her; others looked at the group in hopes of recognizing any of them. It’s a lonely world, yet still we’re hurting each other. Humanity is doomed, even if we utterly annihilate the Outsiders.
She thought of the group back home. It was sad to think that she and the rest weren’t making it back, that kids would keep waiting for them, unaware of what had ultimately happened to their parents and teachers.
She thought of her wonderboy. His beautiful, color-shifting eyes and his ability to bring health and happiness to the world. The man dragging her gave a sharp pull, but for a moment it didn’t hurt as she was wrenched forward almost off her feet.
I’ll see you again, she promised the image of Dante in her mind. I’ll get back and keep on caring for you as if you were my own son. I promise.
They stopped as they reached an elevator. The sound of a noisy generator was activated somewhere beneath them as it powered up and the doors opened to reveal a glass capsule that served as the cabin.
“In there, two groups,” one of the men said. He was perpetually smoking a cigarette, his arms entirely tattooed. Johanna was pushed forward with the first group, her eyes darting in the direction of those left behind. Paola was trembling and whimpering, her expression one of terror. The cook had already been through so much, the poor woman. To end up here without knowing if she’d ever see her niece again, the niece that had become like a daughter since her mother had died…it was torture.
The cramped elevator capsule began to rise and one of the thugs tapped his pistol against the glass noisily until the silent captain turned to stare at him, causing the man to stop immediately. Through the glass, Johanna watched as they flew past more than a dozen floors, the elevator reaching the building’s midpoint at around the twenty-second.
“Where are we going?” Frank asked. Stupid, Johanna thought, as one of the men punched him in the face and silenced the man for the rest of the ascent.
When the elevator’s doors opened, the entire design of the place changed. Dusty, dirty floors turned into blue velvet carpet and bland, featureless walls were now plastered with antique weapons and rare paintings. The guards on this floor were a mix of men and women armed to the teeth and in peak physical condition and masked killers with blades and close-combat weapons in their hands and sheaths.
Johanna shivered. This was surely not ending well for her or the rest, not with a man who surrounded himself with so many unhinged monsters, that was for sure.
“They’re here,” a man called out from a desk, his eyes shining. He had curly red hair and the look of an aristocrat. Piles of shining pieces of jewelry and bottles of various types of liquor sat in front of him as he took notes on a ledger. “Let’s hope they have something interesting,” he said with a grin as he spun an elegant pen in his hand.
“Nothing interesting at all, actually,” the leader of the group leading Johanna and her companions said, speaking for the first time. He had a rasping whisper of a voice. Behind them, the elevator closed its doors and descended once more.
“Such a shame,” the red-headed man said with dismay and continued his work.
A man stood up in the background and everyone on the floor turned to look at him with their heads bowed. Johanna’s heart skipped a beat. The atmosphere in the room immediately changed. Even the temperature lowered a few degrees. She was shoved to her knees along with the rest, and they watched as the figure stepped down from his raised platform to walk over to them. All of the men and women in the room turned as he passed them, nodding and muttering words of respect under their breath. He clearly had them all in an iron grip.
Johanna watched him approach and understood then that the ‘iron grip’ was more literal than she had imagined.
He was tall, a dark-haired and broad-shouldered man with clear signs of enhancements on his body. Half of his
face was a metal mask with a bionic eye that focused and unfocused as he stared. One of his arms was entirely bionic; its form encased in a red-gold shell that shone dully as he lifted it and pointed it at them.
“You,” he said, as he looked them over with his natural black eye, his voice one of cruel authority, “Belong to me now. We better make that clear from the start. I am Russell, Lord of this city. A city formerly known as ‘Ayia,’ now known as Lawlessness.” He paused, turning to one side. Johanna flinched as she saw his face. He had only one human eye, the other having been replaced with a bionic. I know who this is, she realized with terror. “Now,” the man continued, “I need to know…where is the healer child?”
CHAPTER SIX
Infiltration
Callum regretted — not for the first time — the moment when he’d allowed Dante to come with him. It was a dilemma, sure. He had already thought of the advantages of having a child with such abilities at his side, but the risk of the kid being taken away and hurt by these monsters was too high.
They hugged the doorway of a building and peeked outside with caution. They had long abandoned their bikes elsewhere. The soldier began to wonder. He had heard of an organization out in the snowy tundra that took care of victims of Outsider experiments and trained them in a variety of ways. A sort of University, they called themselves. After all, Dante was in danger for as long as he belonged to the community. Despite their hidden location and thick blast door, the hideout back home wasn’t entirely safe. Even Dante himself knew it.
A cruel thought crossed Callum’s mind and he felt guilty despite its dark honesty: all of the other children could die and the world would be no different. However, Dante was a unique child. One of a kind. Callum knew that he could not allow the kid to fall into a gang’s hands where he would be mistreated and used like a slave for his gift.
“It’s clear. We should go,” Dante said, interrupting the man’s thoughts. Callum had handed him the pistol, giving up on keeping the boy ‘pure.’ Dante had been taught how to shoot; Callum only hoped he knew when to do it.
“Let’s go then. I trust your judgment.” They left their building and sprinted along the sides of the street, keeping themselves low and close to the remains of vehicles parked on the sidewalk. “Quiet but quick steps, remember your training,” Thorpe whispered. He remembered how bad it had been on that night when they’d escaped. It would only be worse now that the enemy warlord had acquired more men and more resources. Somebody needs to put him down. That somebody could only be him and a nine-year-old. It sounded hopeless, but they had managed a lucky escape from the same monster just twelve months ago.
A door opened to one side of them and Dante gasped as an armed man unknowingly stepped out.
“Who the hell are y—” the man began to say, but Callum slammed the butt of his rifle into the man’s head and pushed him back into the doorway, pulling the boy behind him. He rushed into the store the sentry had exited, scanning the room with his firearm. Nobody else seemed to be inside, but he went into the back all the same. The shop had been converted into a bedroom and living room, a sort of guard’s quarters. Dante grabbed a shirt from a coat hanger and tied the man’s hands before Callum came out.
“Good job. Let’s take him to the back.” Handing his rifle over to the boy, Callum pulled the man out of sight and slapped him awake. Immediately, there was understanding in the fellow’s features.
“You…you two, from a few months ago…Help!” he cried, but Callum placed the barrel of his rifle on his head.
“You stop that right now. You saw what we did last time we came; I won’t think twice before ending your life. Now tell me; where is your leader and where are our people?”
Johanna was the first to answer, her mouth forming more words than she could think.
“What kid? What healer?”
How did the man know who they were? Callum had explained what had happened before, but none of them had said they were from the community that Dante belonged to. How?!
Russell shook his head in disappointment. His smile soured. His metal hand clenched and unclenched in a sort of silent fury.
“So we’re going to play that game, are we?” He shrugged and Johanna looked unflinchingly at him. “Bring that woman.”
A guard stepped forward and she flinched, preparing to be executed on the spot, but the man dragged Paola ahead instead. The leader put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed.
“What is your name?”
Paola trembled and shook, her jaw unable to form the words she wanted — needed — to say.
“P-p-p…Paola, please d-don’t hurt me…”
“Oh, this won’t hurt at all.” Before anyone could move, Russell grabbed her by the neck with his bionic and there was a loud crack. The cook fell to the ground, dead.
Johanna screamed and the others stepped forward, but the warlord’s men lifted their guns.
“Take them away, and let them think about what this means. Bring the rest up now. Hopefully, I don’t have to repeat this act for them.”
As Johanna was pulled away by a guard, she made a silent promise to the smiling man who was staring into the capsule and mocking them all.
I am going to cut your throat right open.
It didn’t take any time at all for Callum to get what he wanted. He dropped the guard onto the floor and finished tying him up and gagging him. Our group is here. He knew it.
“The fortieth floor of the tallest skyscraper. There’s an empty alley behind it used for garbage disposal. We can take the unguarded fire stairs to the top. Got it?”
Dante shook some thoughts away and nodded. He’d been staring through a dusty window with a look of fear at the skyscraper.
“Fortieth, fire stairs. Empty alley. We should go right away.”
Callum looked at Dante.
“Are you okay?”
The boy sighed.
“I had a bad feeling. As if something terrible just happened, is all.” He turned away from Callum and peeked outside. “Coast is clear. Let’s go, sir.”
Callum grabbed the boy by the shoulder and stopped him in his tracks. Turning Dante around, he gave him a warm hug as the lad stopped trying to hold the tears back and began to sob in his arms.
“It’s okay, boy. It’s okay. We’re going to bring them back…and then we’re going to mount the leader’s enhanced head on a spike.” Callum’s eyes became hard. “We’re going to set this city alight.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Break-In
Johanna sat on the cold floor, staring at each of her companions in turn. There were quite a few prisoners besides them, but nobody spoke. It didn’t matter; Johanna didn’t care about anyone except the people in her group. Adam and Paola’s absences were painful scars that ached with each passing hour, an ache that wouldn’t go away easily for any of them. Luckily, the three others who had entered Russell’s throne room had survived the terror of seeing their dead friend lying face down on the ground. Luckily, Johanna thought ironically.
As she sat remembering how the thugs had gunned down the man who she had always felt so comfortable around despite his many flaws, a tear ran down her face. She couldn’t help it. Knowing now that Callum was probably the only one who could take care of the children, and how despite how dangerous a warrior he was, he had no chance of holding off all of these men if the location of the community was revealed.
It wouldn’t be revealed, though. She wouldn’t allow anyone to speak.
“Where do we go from here, guys?” Frank asked with a grimace as he shifted on his bad leg.
Nobody responded. Frank became silent.
Suddenly the door opened. Light flooded into the dark room and two men stepped inside. They walked straight towards Johanna and lifted her up off the floor.
“What is your name?” One of the men asked as he tugged her forward by her shoulder.
“My name is Johanna; what’s going on?!” she shouted, trying to pull away from the men before one of
them put a blade on her collarbone and barked an order at her.
“You’re coming with us — Russell wants to talk to you.”
The last thing she saw as she turned at the doorway was the terrified faces of her friends.
I’m going to die, aren’t I?
Dante felt much better after having let out all of the emotions.
It was ironic to him that despite his gift’s ability to make him feel so healthy and fit, it could never help him feel happy.
He broke into a run as Callum made the signal and slipped past a sentry who passed his hiding spot unaware. Sliding behind a car and then ducking under it, Dante looked out across the street. They had finally arrived at the building where their friends were. It was massive — a skyscraper that was probably once the headquarters of some big company, one which surely had housed a lot of employees. He imagined himself all grown up, with a suit and a tie. It made him smile.