by Casey Herzog
He took an awkwardly long breath and turned away from the door, wishing to just slip into his bed and sleep until tomorrow…but there was someone on his couch.
“Rough treatment by your equals there, boy. No need to alienate yourself now that you’re known to be a killer.” Silas Webster lifted a hand before Dante could express his distaste. “Their words, not mine. I keep my ears open, and there is a common feeling of shock. Remember how young you are, and how there’s an aura of heroism surrounding you since your attack. Those are strong points you should take advantage of, not throw away. Once this guilt passes, you might want to attempt to explain what went down to your fellow classmates and avoid their unfair judgment—”
“Guilt?” Dante laughed. “I didn’t know you were a psychologist as well, professor. Thought your role was either beating me up or watching me fight.” His tongue was sharper than usual, angry at having been intruded upon like this. “Can I help you with anything?”
“What a nasty little shit you can be, Healer. Would you rather we practice now? I could kick your ass right here and now, if you’d rather not talk.”
Dante looked away and sat down on a nearby armchair across from Webster.
“I’m sorry sir. I’m just sick of how everything has been about me, and just me, lately. Sure, I’ve had attention before, but never like this. I don’t deserve to have a target on my head, or people following me around and asking how and why I’ve done this and that. It’s driving me insane.”
“It’s not about regretting what your current situation is,” Webster said, shifting in his seat, “It’s doing something about it that counts. This is not the first time we’ve had a high-profile student here, you know?”
Dante tilted his head curiously.
“What do you mean?”
“The University hasn’t been around forever, but we’ve had our fair share of students. I arrived here as a student, and one of my classmates had a rough time as well — not because he wasn’t good enough, but because he just couldn’t get along with the professors or his peers. He turned out pretty good, to be honest.”
The Healer waited for the rest of the story, but Webster seemed to be lost in thought. The blunt professor carried an uncharacteristically warm smile on his face, and Dante allowed him a moment before speaking again.
“Will I get a chance to hear about this student?” he asked curiously. “I’d love to find out whatever happened to him.”
Webster looked up and cleared his throat, standing slowly from the couch as he seemed to spot something at the door.
“You will, boy,” he said, “ask the man himself.”
Professor Webster pulled the door open, and Dante straightened nervously, looking out at a shocked, whispering crowd that stood just beyond his quarters. The throng split in half, moving out of the way as somebody came through, his long strides causing the chains wrapped around him to rattle and shake. The figure entered the room and closed the door behind him, causing a hundred voices to erupt outside, voices which were soon hushed by the sudden closeness of the atmosphere around Dante.
“I have seen you before, sir, you are…” Dante realized.
“Webster, young Castello, it is nice to see you here,” the tall man nodded.
“…one of the Chosen,” the Healer finished.
“Yes, child. I am Shermont of the Chosen, and I have come to deal with you.”
Callum could see the shockwaves Russell’s selection was causing within the block. The prisoners who had already become the thug’s allies were becoming anxious at his sudden departure, and already there were ugly looks being shot at Fillmore, the Whisperer — Reiner, as Callum had discovered his name was — and himself, of course. Russell had already fed enough venom into the prisoners’ minds, Callum knew. It was Ayia all over again.
And so it begins, Callum told himself.
The soldier heard a group of prisoners blaming Captain Fillmore for Russell’s removal and transfer to the outside work area, and it seemed to Callum that the patrol officer was overestimating his ability to keep everything in control. Sure, there were quite a few of Fillmore’s men infiltrated within the blocks of the prison, and even in the Coalition guard force itself, but they would be nowhere near enough if a riot broke out within their block and the three of them became targets.
Reiner had been looking less and less focused in the past couple of days, and his men were already starting to distance themselves from him slightly. The mercenary seemed to have other things on his mind than getting the hell out of the prison, although Callum wouldn’t have been surprised if he was planning his own escape without any companions. He’s still got a bone to pick with me. The battle at the village won’t be forgotten this quickly. Just like with Russell, Callum had brought the Whisperer’s leadership to an end when he destroyed his small army. They had already battled three times, and Callum himself knew he couldn’t trust the mercenary or his men anyway.
A thought nagged at him in the corner of his mind, and the soldier let it intrude with a smile. Dante. Are you okay right now? Are they treating you well? Do you have enough to eat? Can you say your time at the University has been worth the effort we made to get you there? Whatever else happened to him, Callum wished for all of those questions to have positive answers when it came to the gifted boy. He needed Dante to succeed. It gave him warmth to imagine it.
When it came to remembering the community itself, Callum felt a different kind of positive feeling. He’d fought hard enough in the war to be able to retire and make a dream come true. Callum had always wanted to build things, and he had done much more than that: he had created a community of promising youngsters who would take part in rescuing what was left of the world.
As for me, however…
The alarm interrupted his thoughts, and he knew they were about to be returned to their cells. But that isn’t exactly what’s going to happen, is it? Unlike Reiner, who was too lost in his thoughts on one side of the yard, and Fillmore who believed himself in control of everything, Callum could see the signs and the flow of his fellow prisoners’ behavior. It was like watching a fire starting to burn: first, the flames began to catch, and then they spread. Only then would the actual blaze begin to form. The first stages of the conflagration were similar to what had been going on now for hours, and Callum knew that at any minute the actual fire would start.
“Captain,” he said loudly, watching the guards as they began to approach and escort their lot to the elevators. Fillmore ignored him, but Callum had to make the fool open his eyes. “Captain. We’re in danger. Fillmore!”
The patrol officer turned slowly from his conversation with another prisoner, his smile turning curious as he looked at an agitated Callum.
“Yes?”
Suddenly, a fight broke out on one of the walkways above them, two prisoners burying makeshift blades into the joints of their escorting guards in a single coordinated attack. The savagery and surprise of their strikes were such that the other captors standing on the same floor took an instant too long to react. Immediately, it was as if a signal had been given, and more prisoners threw themselves onto the guards without a second thought, pulling weapons from hidden sheaths and aiming for the crueler or more severe of the Coalition sentinels. To the neutral prisoners, it was a fitting act of bloody justice taking place, but to Callum, he knew what was to come next.
Fillmore never saw the attacker, but Callum was already moving towards the man as he watched the prisoner tugging a makeshift weapon out from his underwear, pulling it back to stab the sharpened bunch of wires into the patrol captain’s heart.
“Move, Fillmore! Get out of the way!” he screamed, and the ex-patrol prisoner standing beside the captain pushed him back and stepped in the way of the attack. A painful cry escaped his lips, and Callum pushed his way to the man desperately as he saw the blood gush out of the ugly wound the wires had opened in the prisoner’s chest. For all it was worth, the victim held onto the attacker’s wrist a moment longer t
han the killer had hoped, keeping him in place long enough for Callum to reach them.
Callum’s hand shot through the crowd and pulled the attacker by his shirt collar, wrenching him back between two other prisoners and sweeping a leg under him to topple him to the ground. Guard reinforcements were already pouring into the yard from a nearby gate, but Callum’s instincts had already kicked in. The fallen prisoner had only an instant to cry out before the soldier fell forward on his knee with all the weight in his body behind it, cracking the man’s neck, allowing himself an extra second to stare into the dying man’s eyes before walking away.
“What’s happening?!” a young guard asked, shoving the prisoners out of the way with his riot shield and baton, before he stepping through and catching sight of the corpses. “Two dead here!” he yelled.
Coming up on the elevators, the other sentinels controlled the disturbance — it wasn’t big enough to be called a riot — by brutally smashing bones and cracking skulls, and soon it was over.
Callum approached Fillmore through the angry looks of other prisoners and put a hand on the shocked man’s shoulder.
“Do you see what happens when you let your guard down for even a moment? Something like this happens.”
Fillmore swallowed awkwardly and looked around at the captives. There were several glaring at him, their eyes promising vengeance and pain in the near future. He then looked at the dead body lying nearby with a bundle of sharp wires shoved in his abdomen, and his expression saddened.
“Moreno,” he sighed. “What was that about, Callum?”
Callum watched as the last of the troublemakers was thrown over the top-floor rail to come crashing down to the ground below. He had been beaten so sadistically that one of his eyes was hanging from its sockets.
“It’s about staying safe,” Callum whispered, as one of the higher-ranking captors began a threatening speech about how the prisoners were going to learn their lesson and see what’s what. “It’s about staying alive, you fool. This plan doesn’t get done without you, so stay awake and stay alert. Moreno here was quick enough to act this time, but there might not be any Moreno to save your ass the next time you’re targeted.”
Fillmore looked forward and pretended to listen to the speech, but finally, he turned back to look at Callum.
“Callum…thanks.”
The soldier nodded and prepared to return to his cell as they were marched up by the pissed-off guards.
“The next batch to exit their cells better not try anything stupid,” the Coalition lieutenant barked furiously. “I’m setting the snipers closer to this yard for the next forty-eight hours. Anyone who gets too brave dies. In the end it’s all in your hands…so go ahead and attack us again if you want, you fucking criminals!”
Callum returned to his cell with his head down and his hands at his sides, keeping his harmless act intact, despite the intimidation from the guard walking beside him and breathing down his neck. Another guard waited at his cell door and closed it behind him once he was inside. Relief spread through the soldier’s body as he sat in the middle of his coop and prepared to spend the night watching the stars as he always did, but the guard took a moment longer than usual to move.
“Good job, soldier,” he heard the man whisper, only then stepping away from Callum’s cage and walking back to the elevators.
Callum stood and ran to his cell door in an attempt to catch a glimpse of the man’s face, but the guard was gone. He breathed deeply and stepped back.
This prison is fucked up. I can’t wait for us to get the hell out of here.
It was just a matter of keeping Fillmore alive. If they could ensure that the patrol officer moved his pieces, they were all home-free.
Can I pull it off? Callum wondered, but then a voice spoke to him in his mind: Damn right you can.
With a smile he hadn’t been able to flash since arriving, the soldier slid back into the back wall of the cell. He was going to need his energy if he wanted to kill more attackers in the coming days.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Unbreakable
His bionic eye had taken a single second to adjust, to the disappointment of his captors. The cavern was dark — a darkness that could easily be confounded with absolute blackness if not for the eye’s amazing ability to grow accustomed to the gloom. The older workers made their way around deftly, while the newer ones seemed to stumble and trip more often. Russell had no such trouble.
Since arriving, something had stuck out at him like a sore thumb: everyone who had been brought into the mine with him on the current shift was either aggressive towards him or couldn’t care at all about him. You motherfuckers, Russell thought with a knowing grin. Someone is doing their homework. The Coalition weren’t sloppy, that much he had known, but to make the necessary moves to get him out of the way without any allies to accompany him…It took some work and some balls.
Unless…
Russell smirked to himself slowly as he pushed his recently-emptied wheelbarrow forward. He had seen the looks, the whispering and the awkward meetings. His enemies had had something to do with his transfer. The patrol trooper and the soldier. Callum Thorpe. His enemy, the soldier who had brought Ayia to a burning end, finally had a name. At some point he lost the boy and ended up with me in this prison. What are the chances of that? Reiner was also locked up, but the enhanced killer had begun to feel little more than pity for his old ally. The blue-eyed mercenary definitely looked more lost with each passing day. The circles around his eyes and the emptiness emanating from him whenever he was in the yard showed an increasing depression growing within.
I’ll kill him last, Russell thought.
“You,” a deep voice said, and Russell turned to see a helmeted Coalition guard with soft green light shining from his visor. He resembled everything humanity had imagined futuristic troops would, from the helmet to the short rifle hanging at his side. “Take the east route to the metal deposits, and make it quick.”
Russell’s temper flared, but he knew better than to fight the man giving him orders. My sword, he reminded himself, I need to stay on their good side. He’d been underground for two days, and hadn’t been able to get as much information as he’d wished. Nevertheless, he’d gotten a name. Chief Inspector Vladimir Zverev, ‘Lord’ of the Blue Cobalt Mines. The pale, scarfed guard controlled everything in the darkness, from the meals to the men, and Russell had attempted to decipher a schedule of some sort to no avail. He was never in the same place at the same time twice, and he was accompanied by an entourage that Russell had already witnessed executing a prisoner for so much as approaching Zverev.
It wasn’t going to be easy for him to recover his sword, but it was necessary.
It was a mistake to bring me into this side of the prison — I’ll teach them that.
He followed the path the guard had sent him down and stepped out into a massive cavern, larger than any he’d already been in. Prisoners worked arduously along the walls, and guards stood by every few yards with spiked lashes or batons in their grasp. The sight of the Coalition employing whips to keep unarmed prisoners under their thumb infuriated Russell, despite his own cruel nature. If he had learned one thing from his experience in this post-apocalyptic hell of a world, it was that the so-called good guys were nothing of the sort.
“Oh lookie,” a tall, female guard barked, “It’s that big-mouth who called himself ‘Lord.’ Now he’s nothing more than a beaten dog.” She and another guard walked over and looked Russell up and down. “Get to work; the pickaxes are on the benches, and the buckets are over there.” She pointed to another wall, but Russell wasn’t looking. His eyes, both bionic and biological, stared into the woman’s visor with an unconcealed hatred.
“What would you know about me, Coalition scum?” he whispered softly. The female guard’s body language changed, and she looked uneasy for a moment. Russell grunted and walked away from the two guards, picking up a pickaxe and testing its weight before grabbing a bucket and getting to wor
k. He knew this task was without reward, and it took him nearly ten minutes of picking at the wall before he saw the first glint of metal within its inner rock. Each of his strikes with the pickaxe became killing blows; with each section of wall he struck a face belonging to his enemies. Russell released his frustrations and anger on the stone shelf and used his bionic arm to tear pieces of metal from its insides, throwing them into the bucket with an aggression that soon attracted stares — not that he cared.
The hours passed, and finally the shift ended with the distant sound of a horn. Russell remained where he knelt for a few more minutes, sensing the other prisoners stretching around him and walking back to their squalid quarters. The work would begin again the next day like it had every day, until one morning they were returned to their cellblocks. Poor fools, Russell thought, making a realization. Now I understand how and why the prisoners return to their cages looking grateful to be back. The Coalition makes them feel glad to be away from the mines, or wherever else they take us, so that once they’re back ‘home’ their desire to rebel has effectively been broken. Incredible. Even he hadn’t manipulated his prisoners so well.