by Nathan Ward
“I’d be happy to help, under your supervision, Captain” Lynch replied, feeling the burning sensation of eyes scouring over his tattoo.
“If you don’t mind, may I ask why…?” said Thomas, raising his finger ever so slightly, as if half afraid to raise a question to this man.
Lynch knew exactly what he was asking for he had already felt the question burning on their minds.
“I’ve been through it before, Thomas. We all made a mistake and now we pay the price…” Murdock interrupted before Lynch had a chance to speak but Lynch cancelled out his effort, being too glad to speak for himself:
“Now don’t you go making up shit like that, the fact is…I’m a fucking bastard, I won’t accept any lighter note than that. I’ve just always cared too much about myself, and what’s the harm in that? Hmm?…But as Murdock said, we didn’t know the severity of what was going to happen and maybe…just maybe that makes my story worse,” Lynch concluded, weaving his fingers through the white stubble upon his chin. His head dropped for a moment allowing time for reflection, with a sudden look of remorse seeming to deepen the lines on his face, “I guess that’s what life makes of you, when you play the game and end up with nothing, no family, no children...”
“You’re in your fifties, I assume. And you have no children?” Thomas questioned, before Josh intervened.
“It’s not always as simple as that, you don’t know the guy, and he might not be able to have children for all we know… sorry, here I am talking as if you’re not standing beside me…”
“No don’t be sorry, I have children…” Lynch replied calmly.
“You just said you didn’t?” Thomas exclaimed as his expression turned to one of utter confusion.
Lynch paused for a brief moment, then he met his gaze with shades of remorse reflected in his eyes that could have only been brought about by war, and painful time to reflect on all of life's decisions.
“That’s because I never gave them the light of day, I wasn’t even told their names because I didn’t deserve them…I’m scum, the sooner you realise that the better, then maybe we will all get along,” Lynch claimed, turning away from the group with a smirk pinned to his face as if resigned to the fact that one day upon his death his tombstone would simply be etched with the word Bastard because he could not change a damned thing about all that had been and gone.
“I think we realised that the moment you stepped out of that piece of junk… didn’t we?” Murdock asked, turning to Josh and Thomas who just stood in an awkward silence nodding their heads, “What an asshole...”
“I’m going to head towards the elevator shaft, Stephanie. Will you show me the way?” Lynch asked as he entered the far corridor and approached Steph.
She looked up at him, not feeling so intimidated by this man now, she was kind of awkwardly getting used to him and as the moments ticked by, feeling strangely accepting of his company, although she wasn't quite sure why.
“Of course, I just need to get this last incubator open,” she replied, casting her eyes downward, away from the sight of his near naked body as she looked down at the control panel.
“I would go on my own but when they captured me it was all a blur, my eyes had swollen closed,” he told her.
“They did that?” Steph asked, sounding surprised.
“They did it to us all, just turned on us. It was the usual procedures then the next moment their robotic soldiers were taking over. I think he’s the only one left…the rest had their bodies drained and were thrown on the corpse heap, we were left till last,” Lynch explained, standing behind Steph as she punched in the release code.
“What did they do with the bodies? Or don’t you know?”
He paused, knowing his answer would shock her.
“They cremated them, and I was forced to stand and watch. Damn good job I’m a hard mother fucker because that would have broken any other man or woman, but not me. I just stood there…and I didn’t feel a thing, not a single tear was shed for my people, my team. Just goes to show how fucked up my life has been,” said Lynch as Steph turned to cast her gaze over her shoulder towards him.
“We’ve all seen things now; and yeah maybe some of us have ended up having to take a darker path than others but it’s no competition. If anything that gives us more of a reason to stick together,” Steph reminded him.
As she looked up at him a sense of uncertainty still remained afloat in her mind as she tried to look beyond the resilient front that Lynch was trying his damnedest to uphold.
“What’s his name?” she asked, pausing for a moment to wait for a response, a response that didn’t seem to come.
“General? What’s this guy’s name?” she asked again, curious why he had gone silent all of a sudden.
Steph decided to turn her attention back to the incubator which had jammed as the lid was released – she placed her hands around the edge of the frame and gave it a sharp yank, which seemed to do the trick. The lid swung open and the body of the male captive fell to the ground in front of her, his body was much larger than Lynch and the tubing seemed to have dug far deeper inside of him, Steph could see them moving about under his flesh before they suddenly launched out of the wounds and recoiled back inside the incubator, and once returned the tentacle-like arms became lifeless, swaying from left to right by the subtle breeze blowing in from the broken window.
Lynch dropped on to his knees to assist the man, placing his hand behind his head as he and Steph attempted to turn him on to his back, it proved to be a task but together it was a piece of cake, they both thought as they took a deep breath and caught each other in their gaze, Steph felt sure she saw the ghost of a flicker of warmth in his eyes as she met his look with the same expression and then turned back to her task...Yes, she concluded, she and Lynch made a surprisingly good team...
Lynch then decided to spread some light on the mans identity, after all Steph seemed like someone he could trust and she didn’t seem likely to judge the circumstances that he had been found in, so without any further hesitation, he explained.
“This is Michael Parsley, he served with me within the UNA’s first regiment – just us two left now, isn’t that right boyo?” Lynch claimed, turning towards Michael and pushing aside his sweaty brown hair.
“Is he going to be alright? I’m no Doctor…” Steph asked, with concern in her tone as Michael laid scarily still.
“This used to happen…a lot,” Lynch said calmly, before thrusting his elbow into Michael's chest which immediately caused his heart to spring back in to life, he regained consciousness and broke out in a painful series of coughs until his chest felt clear. Lynch helped by giving his back a soft smack until the coughing died down.
“You alright, boy? You had us both worried there for a second…”
“I was near on petrified,” Steph added as Michael finally opened his eyes in brief bewilderment, much like a new born baby, he’d almost forgotten what it was like to be outside of the incubator.
“How…How long have I been out of it?” Michael asked wearily.
“Feels like a lifetime…” Lynch replied, unable to give an accurate response.
“I’d guess about a week, it’s been roughly seven days since the android soldiers became mobile,” Steph explained, casting her mind back to her journey along the rail road and the first encounter with Captain Williams, it felt like so much longer but in reality it had barely been a week since they had embarked on their rescue journey in search of food and water.
“It can’t be a week, can it?” she questioned.
“After a few days, your body goes so numb you have no concept of time. A passing second feels like an hour…a day feels like a week, a week feels like a month. They’ve caused so much damage in such a small period of time,” said Lynch, attempting to sound somewhat intellectual, even though he knew it never suited him.
“Are you going to be alright to stand?”
“I feel great; I feel loads better already…” Michael assure
d Lynch, sporting a smile as he spoke.
“Good, because we’ve got a job to do... Murdock! We might need a gun or two over here…Just in case your friend down below lets any of our mechanical friends slip by!” Lynch shouted from down the corridor.
“She shouldn’t… but here…” Murdock replied, launching a bandolier of goodies towards Lynch and straight in to his grasp.
“Ooh, not too shabby, not too shabby at all. These excite me, these excite me a lot!” Lynch exclaimed, wrapping his hands around two cylindrical grenades with hazard tape wrapped around the casing.
“There’s also a couple of hand guns, here…” Lynch handed over one of the weapons to Michael as he rose on to his feet.
“If you need us, Stephanie – we’ll be outside this elevator shaft”, Lynch added. “Don’t you need me to show you the way?” she said.
“And that I do…” Concluded Lynch as Steph took her first step towards the blast doors and begun to lead the way in the direction of the spiral stairwell.
Chapter 36: The end game pt.4
Not the slightest glimmer of light rode along the horizon, only the sharp blue emulsion filling and oozing from the clouds overhead cut through, as vicious strikes of lightning ripped in and against the war torn city scape while the battle raged on in to the early hours of the morning, one that could have perhaps been a turning point for what was left of humanity – a final battle to decide between good and evil - with humanity becoming as bloodied and bruised angels waging war against the machine devils as the day to decide the future as dawn arose to witness the bloody carnage.
Murdock’s boots remained grounded against the shattered glass and dirt awash underneath him while what was left of the human remains continued to seep from the oval room and down the side of the tower that stood tall and defiant as it over looked death and destruction in the city streets below. The crimson finally seemed to have eased off and now trickled rather than poured, perhaps a sign of the struggle and torment finally coming to an end.
An end to this was so desirable, yet seemed far out of reach, thought Murdock as bolts of lightning illuminated the urban landscape, casting light over his murky face, hidden by the smoke and dust climbing from the explosions and burning corpses of the UNA and Howlers alike.
He had done so well to hide himself away from those around him, but as the last fork of lightning struck against the top of a nearby building, there was no denying the defined image of a tired man that leaped out from under his roughened skin. But the show had to go on; there was no stopping it as Murdock countered by raising his wrist and punching a sequence of commands in to his trusty yet awfully mucky computer system that had been firmly strapped around his forearm. To his surprise it still worked at optimum efficiency and wasted no time in activating the engines of the war bird that had remained positioned a few flights down on the raised helipad.
“One thing’s for sure, you can’t knock their reliability,” said Murdock with a slight smirk etched on to his face as he swiftly turned his head to catch a look of uncertainty from Thomas, Enrique and Josh who had been stood behind him.
The craft's thrusters immediately sprung in to life, emitting a vicious burst of flames into the surface of the platform it was resting upon until it begun to ascend.
The sight of the rising war bird lifted a heavy mental weight from Joy as she took a glance over her left hand shoulder, seeing the bird slowly rising up the side of the tower and out of her field of vision. Alarm bells then rung inside her head as she questioned what could have been happening up above where her fellow friends had climbed to, but there was no time for sidetracking as more and more UNA soldiers continued to fall in to her trap, finding bullets lodged inside their heads as they marched up and on to the platform.
Joy still had her work cut out if she was going to stop the UNA advancing to the higher levels of the tower, but she really had felt good about herself, believing that she simply could do this, and the courage she ran on seemed to be never ending as more and more navy leathers joined the rising mound of corpses in the doorway. Two by two the bodies fell - which had become quite a problem for both Joy and the soldiers - as the mound had now grown so tall that it was partially blocking their line of vision which allowed for the enemy soldiers to fire off a few rounds from behind the heap and towards Joy, who stood defenselessly in the open.
Laser rounds hurtled past her head and burst into a flurry of sparks as they collided with the wall behind her. She had no other choice but to fire in the enemies’ general direction, watching carefully as more blasts of laser projectiles flurried from behind the corpse heap and narrowly avoided slicing through her limbs.
Suddenly, she knew she was trapped. The UNA now had the upper hand and it was a turn of tides that Joy never saw coming until it was too late and stone cold fear began to close about her body, suffocating all hope of survival.
The gunfire had become too much to handle so without a moments thought, Joy acted on pure instinct as she dropped to the ground and it was almost as if time had slowed as she watched the blinding sharp streaks of energy travelling over her head. Multiple shots collided with the blackened wall that had now begun to smoke from the extensive amount of projectiles pounding against it. But Joy had fallen in to a comfortable position to counter the attack, shooting aggressively and efficiently back towards the soldiers that had now gathered behind the large mound of bodies.
Many attempts exploded against the wall but after a few seconds to adjust to her positioning, Joy begun to pick off the remainder of the soldiers through the tiniest of openings. She didn’t know when to ease off the trigger, there was no real way of telling if her shooting was in any way paying off in her favour until more UNA bodies fell forcefully to the ground. As they fell they had begun to push the bodies underneath them out to the sides of the mound like the river of blood overflowing out of the tower, Joy had never seen anything like it but strangely it felt exhilarating, it had almost become an addiction, watching on as the bodies spread across the ground, erupting in to a blaze of fire as their internals popped and sizzled but as the flames rose high and across the entrance to the level, with every body that fell, it seemed a promise that maybe, she would get out of this alive.
Finally, the resistance seemed to have stopped, and Joy had managed to catch a few breaths and even wipe away the sweat from her brow. As she looked away from the blaze she noticed in the corner of her eye a panel flashing brightly beside what they had assumed was a form of elevator shaft.
“Do I chance it?” Joy questioned cautiously, looking warily at the capsule that had just descended and come to a sudden halt at her level.
“But what if they need more time?” her doubts whispered.
She dreaded the uncertainty of the events upstairs and could not forget the paralyzing fear that had taken over her body, that fear of potentially losing her life as the enemy threat had proven to be much more of a challenge than she had ever expected - their consistency and drive to succeed had slammed home the realization of her own mortality and that truth had hit her with the force of a speeding train: Everybody dies one day and perhaps, today was her turn...
It seemed their never ending armies would continue and this had been no plan that Joy had held her own against, even with her eye still solidly in the game something had begun to push her towards the attractive escape route, knowing that when the UNA soldiers reappeared, their game would be on a whole new level and perhaps that she would be no match for it, no matter how much she had hoped she could...
Joy had no choices left so she swiftly scrambled back on to her feet and traipsed her way over to the elevator doors while the mound of corpses continued to burn out of control. The thick black smoke had created a murky haze within the room and left a large, dark stain on the ceiling above them, it looked out of place contrasting with the glistening appliance white walls and doors but no one was in a position to give a damn, especially Joy as she slammed her fist against the pulsating button on the keypad, ho
ping it would activate the doors, but nothing happened. Joy paused as silence fell around her, only the crackle of the blaze could be heard behind her as she pressed her hand against the pad once again, but like last time, nothing happened.
The lights continued to swirl around the device but the elevator doors showed no sign of releasing and Joy wondered if it was being controlled from the other side as she took a step closer to the archway, carefully placing one foot in front of the other while turning back and glancing over her shoulder to make sure that she was still alone inside the room, even though she realised if she wasn’t, there would be no time to avoid a laser through the skull.
Joy hoisted her firearm firmly to her chest and turned herself around to face the vibrant, tangerine furnace of a blaze while her feet slowly stepped backwards until she felt the cold surface of the elevator doors against her bare neck. Beside her head were two oval windows positioned inside the panels that would slide away to welcome use of the elevator shaft. The glass was two inches thick with a fine reflective glaze layered upon the surface to diminish visibility, but it didn’t make it impossible as Joy found out, turning her head while her eyes remained fixated on the flames. Then suddenly she glanced inside the elevator, expecting the frosty blue glow of the UNA eyes looking back at her, but instead it seemed to be empty which sparked a thought of puzzlement, she had tried everything to open the doors yet they still remained closed.
“What have I done wrong?” Joy desperately wondered as sweat beaded her forehead. She decided to take another glance just to make sure she hadn’t missed anything, reluctantly removing her sights from the opposite entrance engulfed in fire, but as she did a strange vibration struck down her spine before the elevator doors begun to pull apart. Joy gasped in a moment of fright, it was almost as if her heart had jumped in her chest as she leaped forward and turned her body to face the elevator with her weapon directed in front of her in case of any nasty surprises lurking inside, but like always it had failed to deliver as the platform behind the doors appeared to be empty. Perhaps it was just faulty, or maybe time had progressed at a slower rate inside of her mind, so that the difference between pressing the button and the doors opening seemed like much longer than it actually was, but Joy was relieved to say the least – so relieved that her rifle had now begun to slump further down beside her waist.