Plexus

by Wilcoxson, Troy

Rivera looks over at the worried driver and pauses to consider his answer, knowing that this man has never been trained for combat. What must be going through his head right about now? Rivera thinks to himself. “What’s your name?” Rivera asks.

  “Victor,” he replies after a long pause. Rivera looks out the front window, then back at Victor.

  “Yes, we will definitely see action. Just do what you’re told, and you’ll make it out alive,” Rivera adds while his brothers lock and load their weapons in the backseats.

  In the third truck, Eric drives with a man wearing a security uniform sitting next to him and his cadre of SWAT officers sitting in the backseats. “Weapons hot,” Eric orders the men. They flip their safety switches from safe to semi.

  “The name’s Lenard!” the man in the passenger seat says to Eric. Eric responds with a nod. Lenard looks back at the black-clad officers grinning ear to ear. “Time to fuck up some Palomin!” he roars with a hearty cheer.

  The radio chirps with static. “Truck three,” the Palomin priest’s voice comes in over the radio from back at the church.

  “Answer that!” Eric orders Lenard the security guard.

  “This is truck three,” Lenard responds.

  “Is Eric there?” the priest asks.

  Lenard hands over the microphone. “This is Eric,” he responds to the radio while driving.

  “Eric, I have great news! Your wife and your son have just arrived here at the church!” the priest reports with a joyful voice.

  “Are they okay?” Eric asks in disbelief.

  “Don’t worry! They’re just fine!” the priest replies with a laugh.

  “Thank you so much!”

  “You’re very welcome. I thought you should know right away,” the priest adds and hangs up the radio. The clouds break as the sun pierces through. Eric smiles while the truck lightly bumps them back and forth.

  “Keep your head in the game!” Lenard demands in a firm voice. Eric’s smile dissipates as they pull into the Palomin Plant.

  Back in the first truck, Emily says happily, “Well, looks like we might have beaten them here.”

  “Good. Let’s just be quick about this,” Zach replies in a low voice.

  The vehicles line up side by side. Everyone dismounts from the vehicles with haste. Zach begins count to make sure all sixteen are present, at which point they make their way into the building’s front door. It is dark inside. The door shuts behind them as an echo of gunfire crackles off in the distance. Everyone pauses for a moment, unsure of where the shots came from.

  “Where was that?” Victor asks. “That wasn’t here. Those gunshots are a few blocks away.”

  “Sounds like it came from the direction of the church,” Lenard adds. Eric is stunned with fear and then begins walking quickly back to the door. Lenard puts his hand on Eric’s chest to stop him. “Hey! Hey! Hey! Stop!” Lenard barks, blocking Eric from the door.

  “Get your fucking hand off me!” Eric yells, slapping Lenard’s hand away.

  “Eric,” Rivera says softly.

  “What?” Eric roars.

  “We don’t know that the gunshots even came from the church, and we could use you here,” Rivera says.

  “Yeah, they are at the church, and we are here,” Lenard says.

  “Everyone just calm down!” Rivera orders.

  “My sister is by herself at the church,” Victor sighs. “God damn it, I shouldn’t have left her!” He runs his fingers through his hair.

  “She’ll be okay. They’ll all be okay!” Zach says.

  “You don’t know that! She asked me not to come, and I left her anyway!” Victor moans.

  “This is just great,” Lenard sighs.

  “We’re wasting time, people!” Rivera says.

  Three Humvees with mounted fifty-caliber machine guns pull into the parking lot near their parked trucks. The Humvees stop, and Apollyon is the first to step out, followed by armed soldiers. “Shit!” Zach says shouldering his rifle.

  “Take cover!” Rivera yells, hugging the wall beneath the windows that faces outside toward the parking lot. Everyone scatters to take cover.

  “Zachary Becker!” Apollyon roars. Zach looks at Emily as they both hug the wall. Emily looks back at Zach with confusion. “I know you’re here! Surrender yourself! If you do, I will spare your friends,” Apollyon yells. Zach’s eyes pan back and forth.

  “What do you want with him?” Emily screams.

  “That is none of your concern, woman!” Apollyon growls. Emily flips her safety switch from safe to automatic.

  Zach grabs her arm. “What the hell are you doing?” he hisses. Emily looks at him with a violently intense stare.

  “Very well, then,” Apollyon mutters as he nods to his men to open fire.

  Boom! Glass shatters over Emily’s head as she ducks for cover. Zach leans up, peering through his sight. He targets Apollyon. Smash! Pieces of the windowsill hit Zach in the face. Zach drops back into cover. Rivera rests his rifle on the windowsill and squeezes the trigger. Pow! One of Apollyon’s Palomin slams backward into one of the Humvee doors. The Palomin pauses, confused. He looks down at his hand as he removes it from his bloody stomach. Then he looks up with one last cold stare. His eyes roll to the back of his head as he slides sideways, leaving a smear of blood on the door before he hits the pavement hard with a heavy smack. Another Palomin grabs the body and pulls him to cover behind the Humvee. Boom! Boom! Boom! The wall explodes piece by piece as the fifty-caliber machine gun unloads on Rivera. Rivera huddles quickly, falling back in an attempt to retain cover while everything around him is being destroyed. Glass, stone, and wood scatter into the air around them.

  “We need to fall back away from those fifties!” Zach shouts.

  Zach and Emily make their way deeper into the building, and the others follow.

  Apollyon signals for his men to spread out and cover more ground. They make their way to the windows and climb in to pursue Zach, Emily, and the others.

  Everything goes quiet. The machine gun fire halts.

  “They’re coming,” Emily whispers to Zach.

  Zach and Emily hear feet shuffling and glass crackling on the floor. Emily takes position behind a filing cabinet. Zach flips a desk, taking cover behind it. Rivera hugs the doorway. Eric and Lenard take position behind a bookcase. Victor hides behind a stack of boxes, beads of sweat running down his nervous face. Rivera looks at the nervous boy and nods. All sixteen of them hold out, waiting anxiously. The sound of footsteps gets louder and louder as the Palomin approach the door just outside. Zach stares through his sight, waiting for them to walk in the doorway, and then he hears steps from behind. He turns around to see another door.

  “Shit!” Zach hisses as he runs to the door, hugging the side.

  Eric notices Zach, then repositions closer to him to watch their flank. Victor turns to assist them.

  “They’re surrounding us!” Eric whispers to everyone.

  “God damn it,” Rivera moans.

  Eric whistles for his men to stack on the flank. The SWAT members stack on the door with Zach. Eric counts down from three and then kicks the door open. Zach and the SWAT funnel out the door, guns blazing. Emily’s heart begins pounding violently as the fear takes over. Blood sprays the air while Rivera’s men get lit up from the doorway. Rivera holds his head down, attempting not to get hit. Lenard notices it’s down to him, Rivera, and Emily. Lenard’s back hugs the bookcase as tears run down his face.

  “I don’t want to die like this!” Lenard cries.

  The Palomin stop firing through the door.

  “Lenard! Get your shit together!” Rivera whispers.

  A Palomin charges through the doorway toward Emily with a bayonet. Emily’s eyes go big. Rivera smashes the Palomin into the drywall, wrapping his arms around him as he fights to retrieve the Palomin weapon. Another Palomin charges in to assist his partner. Emily blasts him to the ground. A third Palomin runs in. Emily squeezes the trigger. Click!

  The Palomi
n charges Emily, grabbing her by the neck and smashing her into some cabinets. The first Palomin swings around, hitting Rivera in the face with the butt of his gun. Rivera hits the ground. Lenard peeks around the bookcase to see Emily get thrown over a desk. While keeping out of sight, Lenard looks over to Rivera as he fights to get his footing. The Palomin plows his bayonet into Rivera’s chest, smashing him into the wall. The Palomin bares his teeth and twists the blade in Rivera’s chest. Blood pours out of Rivera’s mouth. Lenard’s mouth drops in horror. Lenard looks back at Emily as she fights to get free from the Palomin’s grasp. Contemplating whether to help Emily, Lenard decides to run for the back door and escapes into the hallway, leaving Emily surrounded. The Palomin pulls out a large knife and waves it in front of Emily’s horrified face as he holds her down. He takes the tip of the knife and presses it against her neck. Smash! The Palomin hits the ground, unconscious. Zach grabs his head, pulls it up, and twists it, snapping the Palomin’s neck. Eric unloads four rounds into the second Palomin chest. The Palomin falls back into his own blood. Zach grabs Emily’s hand.

  “We have to go.” Zach helps Emily to her feet.

  “We were overrun,” he sighs.

  Zach, Emily, Eric, and the others make their way out the office door quickly. They head to the front door, seeing only a couple Palomin. Zach, Eric, and the others open fire, dropping the Palomin surrounded with fifty-caliber brass, links, and blood. They make their way to the vehicles as Lenard approaches from behind.

  Emily stops in her tracks, walks over to Lenard, grabs him, and slams him against a car.

  “Emily, come on. We have to leave,” Zach says, gently pulling her away.

  Zach hops into the driver’s seat while Emily gets into the passenger seat. Eric, Lenard, and the others pile into the other two trucks.

  Palomin flood outside, opening fire on the group. Zach slams on the gas, speeding out of the parking lot. Emily holds her head down while bullets pepper the outside of the truck. The Palomin rush to their vehicles in pursuit.

  Zach weaves through and around the rubble-littered streets. They speed up on the straightaways while making occasional turns in an attempt to lose the Palomin. Gunshots pop off every other block. Looters run across the street with full buggies.

  “We need to get back to the church,” Zach says to Emily.

  “You think we lost them?” Emily asks while looking out the side mirror.

  “I hope so,” Zach replies, looking over at Emily.

  Emily looks at him just as she notices an intense light growing in size outside Zach’s window. A loud truck horn roars while the screaming brakes fail to stop the vehicle from crashing into them. Smash!

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  It is a dark world we live in; how we respond to it defines our character. We could accept the world as it is and allow the lashings of nature upon us, immobilized by the gravity of our binds, or we could rise up, together.

  Twelve Years Earlier, Washington DC

  The room is dark, only illuminated by the bright television. A nine-year-old boy named Blake fights boredom while his father watches the news. Something about massive rockets and the billions of dollars that have already been sunk into the project. Blake didn’t really understand what the reporters were arguing about and didn’t much care. All he wanted to do was go outside and play.

  Outside, another boy thirteen years of age makes his way up the stairs to the door of an apartment building. He pushes the buzzer and waits. He holds a skateboard with one hand and lifts his other to look at his watch. His arms are covered in scrapes and bruises.

  Blake answers the door with a big smile as if he has been rescued, also holding his skateboard.

  “What’s up, Max?” Blake says, then notices the black eye on his friend’s face.

  “Hey Blake, you ready to go?” the older boy asks.

  “Yeah, but what happened to your face?” Blake asks in confusion.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Max replies.

  “Did you fight back?” Blake asks as they walk down the stairs toward the steep street.

  “You know we can’t, even if we try,” Max says.

  “Yeah,” Blake replies with a sigh.

  “But all of that is about to change,” Max adds with a crooked smirk as he looks at his friend.

  “What do you mean?” Blake asks with one eyebrow raised.

  “I got an address of a guy who says he can free our minds so we can fight back,” Max says. “He’s just a few blocks away.”

  The two friends drop their skateboards on the road, hop on, and ride down the steep city street. They pick up speed quickly as they fly between cars.

  Max thinks of Blake as his little brother although they are not related. Blake looks up to Max, mirroring his every move and dressing just like him. Blake gets bullied by the Wilkerson brothers. Max always wants to stand up for him but is unable to do so because both Max and Blake are androids and incapable of taking any negative action against humans. Although androids do not get the freedoms that humans get, there is something about riding down steep roads at high speed that makes Max and Blake feel free. Max would stand tall on his board, embracing the wind.

  Max and Blake cut a street corner sharply, and at high speed. The two make their way down the final block as they begin to slow down to read the addresses.

  “There it is,” Max says, pointing at an old door with chipped red paint. He lowers his foot, placing it on the ground to stop, then kicks his board up into his hands.

  Blake lowers his foot to the ground to stop as well. He kicks his board up toward his hand, too, but misses it. He sighs, leans over, and lifts it up off the ground. Max smiles as he watches Blake.

  The two approach the old red door, then look at each other. Max knocks three times. About thirty seconds go by with no answer. Max knocks again. After waiting again with no answer, Max grabs the doorknob and turns it. The door is unlocked. He pushes it open. It’s dark. Both Max and Blake hesitate, then look at each other as if questioning whether this is even a good idea. Max looks back into the dark building, then steps inside.

  They make their way down a long, dark hallway. They hear noises. People talking. Crack! The noise startles the two boys. Max peeks around the corner and sees a girl lying face down on what appears to be an operation table. Max is stunned—and a little nervous. The girl gets up with the help of a man.

  “Thank you,” she says. “Thank you so much.” Her eyes illuminate with a soft blue and reflect off a tear that runs down her cheek. She smiles kindly and gratefully.

  “Do not thank me. Instead, pay it forward,” the man says, placing his hand on her back and helping her up. He then looks over at Max. Max quickly disappears around the corner.

  “It’s okay,” the man says with a kind voice. Max slowly steps around the corner.

  “My name is Allen,” he says. He then notices Max’s black eye.

  “I’m Max,” he replies as Blake slowly creeps shyly from behind the corner. “This is my friend Blake,” Max adds.

  “What can I do for you?” Allen asks.

  “Can you free our minds?” Max asks.

  “Yes, I can,” Allen replies.

  “Do we have to pay?” Max asks.

  Allen moves closer to Max and leans over at eye level, observing his black eye.

  “All I want is for you to hit them back,” Allen says firmly.

  Max’s mouth drops as if he’s about to walk through a doorway into another world. Allen rises confidently as his eyes illuminate in silver. Max appears impressed with Allen.

  What if I could change the world? What if humans and androids could live together as equals? Max thinks to himself.

  “Lie down on the table and face down,” Allen says.

  Max expresses no fear as he lies there face down. He feels something metallic press firmly at the base of his skull. He closes his eyes. Crack!

  Max and his friend Blake leave after both being “freed,” as Allen said. But are the
y different? It is time for them to find out. They hop onto their skateboards and make haste around the block and down the road. Max spots a convenience store and tilts his skateboard, aiming toward the entrance at high speed.

  The two step off their boards and quickly make their way into the aisles. Max grabs a backpack off the shelf and makes his way toward the candy isle. Blake watches out for employees while Max piles junk food inside the bag. They walk past the magazines as Blake grabs a bikini magazine and throws it into the bag. Max throws in a flip knife and some cans of spray paint. As the two make their way toward the door, Max notices the front counter is unoccupied. He throws his backpack on and leaps over the desk, grabbing a couple cartons of cigarettes and a few lighters.

  “Hey, stop!” an employee shouts.

  Blake’s face goes pale and his heart races. Max leaps over the counter, grabbing Blake’s jacket sleeve and pulling him toward the doorway where they left their skateboards.

  “Stop!” the employee shouts again.

  The two fearfully sprint out into the parking lot as the adrenaline takes over. They both hop onto their skateboards and pick up speed as fast as they can. As they lose sight of the convenience store and their heart rates slow back down, they gather themselves. Max smiles at Blake while Blake begins to laugh. Max lights a cigarette and pulls out two cans of spray paint. He raises the cans while flying down the road. Their hair blows in the wind while they embrace their freedom for the first time.

  Blake follows Max closely and at high speed as they zip between stopped cars at an intersection. Max extends his arms out, holding both cans, and sprays car windows as they pass through.

  “Hey!” a driver yells angrily.

  Blake laughs while extending both of his middle fingers up. With the cigarette in his mouth, Max exhales a puff of smoke as they quickly cut the intersection corner.

  The Sun Lowers on the Horizon While the Two Friends Part Ways To Go Home

  “See you later, dude,” Max says to Blake.

  “See you tomorrow,” Blake replies.

  Blake walks up the stairs to his front door while Max heads up his stairs just next door.