From the Ruins

by Keith Silvas

  They had just gotten onto the street where the warehouse was, when Raymond stopped short and looked upwards in horror. There, rising to the heavens was a terrible arrow of blue light. “No!” he shouted, dropping his pack and breaking into a sprint that Xetza could not hope to match. Raymond ran with all the augmented power in his limbs. “It’s not her,” he kept saying to himself. “It’s not her. It’s not her…”

  By the time he reached the warehouse, the light had vanished. He bolted up the stairs and broke the door off its hinges and saw Maria’s body, lifeless on the floor. He ran to her, checked her pulse and breath, but his sensors had already confirmed the truth: she was gone.

  He collapsed to his knees, leaning over her body, his tears wetting her peaceful face. Xetza knelt down next to him and the two of them were silent for a long time. What could either of them say?

  “She never knew anything better than this,” Xetza finally broke the silence. Tears were rolling down his cheeks too. Nothing else was said again for some time as the two of them wept.

  “I will make sure she is given a cremation,” Xetza vowed. “I don’t care how much it costs or if my parents fight me. She’s not going to be thrown in some trash heap in the Underworks.”

  Raymond drew a deep breath. He had felt this pain only once before, when the family that he had loved and served was killed. That situation was different, most of the world had died in the Cataclysm. He’d had no one to blame for their deaths, no way to avenge them. Rage flooded him, a cold fury that would not be appeased until such a thing could never happen on earth again. The Corporation with their lies and disregard for human life was to blame. Nexus was to blame.

  He reached down and removed Maria’s necklace, the one with the tree pendant, and fastened it around his own neck. With that he stood up, placing a hand on Xetza’s shoulder in a gesture of silent farewell, and exited the warehouse.

  Out in the street he drew up his hood once more and began his final trip to the Complex.

  Chapter 10: Fallen Angel

  The alarm in the Complex was going off. Ruda woke with a start and glanced at the clock: not quite 3 a.m. He dressed quickly and went out into the main hall to see what the trouble was. He squinted at the brighter light for a moment, but when his eyes finally adjusted, what he saw sent a wave of panic through him. All of the screens in the Complex displayed the same footage: Raymond the android stood just outside the gates. The plebs had gathered around him. Curiosity had brought hundreds, although they kept an ample distance from him and the Complex. Still, the situation might take a turn for the worst at any moment. He could already hear the chanting of the Sons of Freedom in the crowd. “Down with the Boss. Down with his men. Take them down. Be free.”

  Raymond had taken off all of his clothing, uncovering the cold metal body that separated him from humanity. He unfolded those terrible blades from his arms and looked up, directly into the lens of the drone that was recording him. His stare, even on the screen, sent a chill through Ruda.

  ∆∆∆

  Raymond could feel the crowd behind pressing closer. He ignored them. Even if they believed Nexus’ lies about him, he didn’t think they would risk attacking him here, not with the guns of the Complex already fixed on him. He cast his gaze from the drone’s dark lens to the Complex, with its gunners’ eyes on him, and its golden pillar of light reaching to the sky. He shouted, “Nexus! You and the Corporation are murderers. How many lives have you stolen? How much innocent blood is on your hands?

  “You all live in comfort and luxury that’s bought with the suffering of the people down here. Every day you feast on the poor and the helpless! You’re all cowards: just a group of men playing God!

  “Well I pray to the true God, that He’ll give me the chance someday to stand face to face with every one of you, and give you the death you deserve. But even if I never get that chance, I know that He will pay you back far greater than I ever could.”

  In the lull before what came next, Raymond heard the words of Hamlet echo faintly in his mind. He had not consciously called them to mind, but now that they were here, how eerily fitting they were.

  ‘Tis now the very witching time of night,

  When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out

  Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood

  And do such bitter business as the bitter day

  Would quake to look on…

  “Guns fire,” Nexus commanded, the inhuman voice echoing over the loudspeakers. “Destroy the android!”

  The gunners up in the turrets began to fire. The crowd scattered in panic as bullets rained down. Although three guns fired on him, Raymond was too quick, he leaped high into the air, over the walls and, in a heartbeat, he was inside the Complex. The guns were useless now; they’d been designed so that they couldn’t be turned back on the Complex. The Boss's Men swarmed him, but they fell as quickly as they came, their screams filling the courtyard. Six men—eight men now lay dead. Four more charged in, swinging shock sticks at Raymond, but none of the blows connected. With a lethal flourish of antimatter, two of them lost their legs, the other two, their heads.

  A shower of bullets exploded pockmarks in the wall behind Raymond. A few of the bullets hit his body, but ricocheted, spiraling off. Men were coming from the armory. Two Blackcoats had turned automatic rifles on him, and more were lining up on the steps of the Complex to try their hand. The bullets, however, lacked the power to land anything more than glancing blows. They shouted in terror and held their ground, blasting thousands of rounds as Raymond leaped forward and cut them down.

  Blood ran down the steps and joined the growing puddles in the courtyard as he moved inside. Men were already running down the stairs to meet him on the ground floor as he entered. He turned to face them, but then the elevator sounded and its doors rolled open to reveal ten more men. There were close to twenty now, circling him, closing in. They brandished an array of weapons in their hands: shock sticks, nightsticks, axes, guns, and even the dull glow of antimatter blades quite similar to his own.

  They were not fools, they all charged him at once in hopes of overpowering him by sheer numbers. The onslaught might have been enough to dismay him in his right mind, but Raymond was in a frenzy, half-crazed, and fearless like the legendary berserkers of old. He killed nine of them, before the others retreated and regrouped. More Blackcoats poured down the stairs to bolster their ranks. There were now somewhere between thirty and forty men in the room.

  Again and again they charged him, crashing like waves against a stony cliff face, but like a stone, Raymond held fast and each charge broke upon his blades. He saw the fear in their eyes, the exchanged glances of doubt between them, then he took the offense. He did not intend to be held in the lobby, spilling the blood of men who were not truly his enemies. It was high time to end Nexus’ rule, to break the communications down, and ring the death knell of the Corporation’s control over Zero System.

  Raymond chose the stairs, as his route. He would not chance putting himself at their mercy by taking their own elevator up to Nexus. They might do any number of things, the most obvious of which would be to halt the elevator between floors to try to trap him. He rushed his enemies savagely, cutting through their ranks, until he had reached one of the winding staircases that hugged the Complex’s octagonal walls. He climbed, slicing all those who stood in his way to bits. Those who climbed up to attack him from behind lost their heads, or limbs, and their bodies tumbled downwards. Corpses littered the floor of the hall, and by the second, more bodies fell to join them.

  Raymond gained the second floor and then the third in this manner, but the men on the third floor inadvertently did more harm than good for their cause. In their panic, they had gone to seek out more powerful weapons, and thought to intercept Raymond with hand grenades. Their trump card, proved to be more of an asset to Raymond, since he wasted no time catching one that had been thrown at him, and tossed it downstairs to stifle pursuit. The self-styled grenadie
rs realized too late, that their weapons meant suicide in close quarters, and met their ends quickly on his blades.

  Raymond lobbed half a dozen more of the newly procured explosives down the staircase before continuing upwards, and cleansing each new landing with a grenade before passing through. His munitions were exhausted by the time he gained the tenth floor, but they had served their purpose: the Blackcoats had stopped following. Over a hundred Boss’s Men lay dead beneath, and the rest had either taken to hiding or run away.

  Raymond found the titanium doors to Nexus chamber sealed fast. They were strong, and thick, but nothing withstood a continuous flow of antimatter. He hacked away, sending off bright flashes of light and heat as matter and antimatter collided and annihilation occurred. The doors finally gave way and he broke through.

  The chamber was dim, lit only by the hundreds of holographic screens. The image of the angel stood, facing him. “Raymond, stop,” Nexus commanded.

  Raymond ignored the voice as he began his destructive work. That voice that had told so many lies, controlled so many, brought death to so many, was utterly powerless to stop him. He hacked at panels, broke circuitry and cut at cables as though they were the unrelenting heads of the Hydra.

  “Raymond-tz48, you are out of control. Surely you see this is madness. The people will riot without any government. It will be anarchy!” Nexus tried.

  “Anarchy is better than what you have put them through,” was Raymond’s only response. He did not speak for some time, and merely went about his business of ravaging the room’s hardware in silence. The rows of holographic screens showed holes of blank space now, like so many broken teeth.

  As the screens died and room dimmed more and more, Nexus’ appeals changed from attempts to reason with Raymond to pleading. “Please, stop. We will bring you and the girl out of here. She will have a better life. The two of you will live in one of the colonies—”

  “It’s too late for that. Didn’t you know?” Raymond shouted. “You’ve killed her. I want you to hear this and tell the men of your corporation what I’ve said: I will never forget what you have done here. As I said before, if God, or luck, grants me the opportunity, one day I will meet every one of you, and on that day, every one of you will meet death.” He slashed through one last thick power cord and the image of Nexus vanished.

  Raymond cut the turret gun free of its rotating axis and turned toward the Complex. The Blackcoats had all forsaken their ill-fated stronghold. It was high time the building, and all it had stood for in Omega Seki, met its ruin. Raymond squeezed the trigger of the massive rotary cannon and braced himself against the steady recoil. The gun was taller than he was and discharged hundreds of rounds per second. The walls of the Complex crumbled as the powerful rounds struck them. He focused on the bottom floor, where he knew the power generator stood. He was certain it was that generator, so guarded inside the Complex, that powered the city’s golden canopy.

  When the bullets of his gun ran out, he dropped it, barrels glowing red-hot, and moved to the next of the wall’s eight guns. The rounds of the second gun had not yet been exhausted before the generator exploded inside, and the domed building toppled in on itself. Two things happened at once as a direct result: the pillar of golden light ceased, and the canopy began to dissipate. After a few seconds, it was gone.

  It was early morning, but still dark outside. The multitude who had gathered to watch the destruction of the Complex gasped at their sudden exposure. Fearful cries of “toxic” and “we’re all dead now,” could be heard as the people began to disburse to await their imagined fates.

  “You will not die,” Raymond shouted over the din of their voices and tramping of feet. He broke the gun in his hands and threw it down, then sat on the wall and watched as the dust settled. All that remained of the Complex was a huge pile of rubble. The words of Isaiah came to his lips “Babylon is fallen, is fallen! And all the carved images of her gods He has broken to the ground.”

  He walked the circuit of the wall, destroying all of the remaining guns. He did not know if anarchy would break out with the new void of rulership, but he did not want the power of such weapons falling into the wrong hands. The eight guns destroyed, he leaped down from the walls and tore the gates from their hinges. There were no walls to hold the people back now, neither within the city or at its borders.

  ∆∆∆

  “Will you come with me, Xetza?” Raymond looked earnestly into the young man’s face. “It is less than a day’s journey to the Canyon of Eden from here. I want to bury her there, beneath the tree.”

  “Yes, of course I’m coming,” Xetza replied.

  Raymond lifted Maria’s shrouded body, cradling her lovingly in his arms. Xetza fell in next to him, and the two of them began their pilgrimage. They paused at the outskirts of the city alongside hundreds of people, who stood blinking and looking, for the first time, into the foreign landscape that was their world. Raymond looked off toward the east, toward the canyon. A faint glow could be seen over the tops of the mountains. The night had ended; light was dawning on Zero System.

  Acknowledgements

  A huge thank you to everyone who helped me out along the way and made this thing possible:

  God and his son Jesus for saving me and giving me new life

  Fufu for your constant encouragement and help with the editing

  Jonathan and Ryan for the music that inspired it all

  Madeline for all of your test reading, suggestions, criticisms, and the song

  Debbe for reading all my little stories and making much of me (even if it’s all just to appease Mom)

  Brian for your help with the editing

  Vincent for bouncing ideas and your artistic renditions of some of the scenes

  Mom and Peter for your support

  Taylor for test reading and your feedback

  and Alan for bringing the cover to life

  Zero System | Immersive Music

  thezerosystem.com

  Keith Silvas is a half nerd, half bro writer who finally got around to publishing a book. His other notable hobbies include drawing, working out, singing, and occasionally acting. He lives in Montana with his wife Madeline.

  keithsilvas.com