Slow Burn_Deep Darkness

by Stephen Landry

  Log - 14

  Some say the eyes are the window to the soul. I call bullshit. The eyes lie. Reynolds assistant introduced himself to me as 'Jake' and then quietly got up and walked away heading towards the bathroom. We were already an hour into our flight to the surface below so I knew he wouldn't disappear on me, I would have plenty of time to ask him for any questions I might have. The first and foremost being 'how the fuck does Reynolds know I'm here', and the second being 'what do I have to do for this?' Jake had the eyes of a liar. I had had many encounters with his kind and never once had any of them shown me they were different.

  I placed the USB into my tablet set my headphones around my head and stared as the screen flashed black and blue. Reynolds' voice came through my headset. I thought for a moment that he was talking to me in real time but I knew very well that was impossible. Only military COMs and the ship could be used to send signals back and forth between one another. I stopped the playback, wondering for a moment if Miguel could be listening in if he had my tablet tapped. I couldn't take the risk. I needed to hear what was on the USB but I couldn't risk getting my head blown off.

  "Miguel, Miguel are you there?" I asked. I must have looked crazy talking to myself.

  Other passengers were no further than three feet away from me.

  No answer. Well, that was a great start. Maybe, Miguel's thugs had fallen asleep.

  My mind began to wander.

  I began to wonder if it was day or night. The Erebus used universal time (24 hour days, 60 minutes each hour, 365 days a year) but 'Shear' would surely have it's own. On my tablet I pulled up what information I could about the planet. 36 hours in a day. 472 days to rotate around it's sun. Day and night were also very different on 'Shear' then they were on the Erebus. They were inverted in fact. Nights on 'Shear' would be cold. Days would be warm but never too hot. The north and south parts of 'Shear' were practically toxic so we would always be close to the equator.

  God, I'm sounding like a real colonist now. Even beginning to think like one. Distracting myself from the problems at hand. Daydreaming, a bad habit I partake of too often. If I did break free of Miguel's hold on me I could easily survive down on that world but what kind of life would I lead?

  "Hello lover," said Miguel's voice in my ear.

  "Seems you have made a new friend..." he said hissing.

  "Maybe, what is that to you," I said.

  "Just a little jealous is all, thought for a moment I heard a voice from our past, must just be my imagination though, I can imagine all kinds of crazy things," he said.

  "Must have been," I replied.

  "O, just you wait love," he said hissing again.

  Log - 15

  I could spend my time running if only I could get this collar off my neck. I started ignoring Miguel in my ear. Nothing happened. I followed Jake to the bathroom and opened the door. He was standing there soaking his face in the water. I still had several more hours before we reached the surface. I said I wouldn't but I wanted to. I grabbed Jake and placed his hand on my chest. The two of us stayed in the bathroom for another hour. Give a girl a break, it had been four years.

  I was bothered by what Miguel had said about his 'crazy imagination' and I had spent far too much time stressing about my mission. Jake had given me a key but I couldn't use it. I was stuck.

  "Not bad for an old lady," Jake said. I laughed. We were both the same age though in a sense I was four years older than him because of my time in stasis. He said nothing else after that placing his clothes on. He moved slowly occasionally running his hand through my hair and down my back and spine. He was staring at me, his eyes looked so different than they had before. He was studying me. Jake wasn't like most soldiers I knew, he had probably never seen combat the way I had. There was something very innocent about him though he was trying his best to hide it. I hadn't felt like anyone look at me like that since Kal died.

  Pergonae-3

  I was eighteen when I enlisted. I had to get myself off, Mars. I had gone from one shanty town on Earth to another in space. There were few options for people like me and getting a 'real' education was out of the question. My family couldn't afford it nor were there any close by not to mention I would never be accepted having the limited education I had received from the sad excuse for public schools they had inside Pergonae. I had no talents. I tried art, I tried writing, I tried my hand at various crafts such as welding and engineering but I had only been average in all those affairs. Nothing I had or did would be good enough for a scholarship or sponsorship. I was mediocre and alone. The only thing I had was my anger, my rebellious thoughts, and my strength. I had been for a long time stronger than many of the girls (and boys) around me. I was always the one getting into fights around school. I had a short fuse and didn't take shit from anyone. During my early years, I was sent to see several guidance counselors because of my anger issues. That led to seeing several doctors each with their own diagnosis. Depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and many other mental problems all with a note saying 'sociopathic tendencies - be careful with this one'. Seeing the doctors and the pills they each put me on only made me worst. Several times I felt like a zombie. Other times I felt angrier than I had ever been at the world and myself. I tried to take my own life when I was sixteen. Slit my wrists sideways and spent a few days in the hospital. Never again. That was the dumbest thing I had ever done. I stopped taking the pills after that, stopped seeing the doctors. It helped my family couldn't afford it and it was better for them. Even if Pergonae-3 was a shit town they were still my family, they still took me in and I still owed them so much; the last thing I wanted was to be more of a burden.

  I finished school, graduated and then found myself in the enlistment office. I was one of a dozen brats form Pergonae-3 trying to enlist to escape this wretched place. Each one of us had lived a life full of loss and this seemed like it was our only hope. I was the first called into the recruiter's office. I can't remember the man's name or even how he looked but he had treated me better than anyone I had ever met up to that point in my life. He had a psychological report laid out on his desk (with notes from the many doctors I had visited, the report looked like it could have been a book about how not to let your child grow into a murderer) including a report from my school talking about my mediocre grades and fitness. Only one art teacher had anything good to say about me and the recruiter read it to me aloud, she had said 'Elyse has potential to be great'. It was the first time I had heard anyone say that to me. Never once had any of my teachers, especially that one said anything like that towards me while I was in class, in fact, they had made me feel quite the opposite. I could remember several instances when that teacher had lectured me, called me a brat, called me a punk, said I would be stuck here if I never changed my attitude. Kinda funny... I'm alive now and she's dead (along with the rest of everyone I knew) I guess I grew up into something after all.

  The recruiter signed me up and I was gone in three days. Just enough time to sell my belongings (what little I had) and say goodbye to my family. They weren't going to miss me though they said they would. They told me to write and I even did several times but never had any of my letters been responded to. I was alone. Eighteen and out. Basic training began with seven weeks of education and physical fitness. After seven weeks we spent four more going through weapons training and then another six weeks off-world on Deimos crawling through the ashes of a 'the Battle of Memoria'. Off-world I got my first taste of what it was like to wear an exo-suit and combat armor. Some suits were bulky (the ones they trained us in first) and nearly impossible to move in. It was damn near impossible to aim down the sight of a gun with a helmet on and you had to learn how to quickly read and understand the HUD (heads up display) inside the helmet, read pings and messages from other soldiers all while in a combat situation. It was hard to concentrate on any of it with adrenaline going. It was like having six billion threads of information played out before you and your brain had no way of comprehending any
of it. By the time the first month of off-world training had passed several recruits had quit. I almost quit myself but I had nothing to go back to. There was no home for me. I had to fight for this even if it meant I was going to die.

  Log - 16

  Jake was a better lover than he was a soldier. The hours seemed to pass by. Security came and knocked on the bathroom twice. Each time Jake held out his security clearance and smiled as they walked away. Our excuse for being in the bathroom was that the two of us were conducting 'official business' and needed the privacy away from the civilian passengers. Several times the two of us floated together in zero g as the shuttle's gravity came and went. We did our best not to bust our heads but the beating against the wall only made it that much more intense. He found several ways to talk to me in which Miguel wouldn't be able to hear. A way that would have both distracted Miguel and anybody that had been watching. Writing on my body was one. A game of physical charades. Jake told me that when we dropped from the orbit and entered the atmosphere there would be a delay in the signal which Miguel was using to monitor me. I would have three minutes to listen to Reynolds message and disable my collar. I wouldn't be able to remove my collar as Miguel would surely sense something was wrong and send someone out to kill me and follow through with my mission but I could disable it so that I would be free of his threats. I could then continue listening to him and following his plan up until the point I needed to kill Reynolds. From there Jake said Reynolds was planning to fake his death in front of me. Hoping that Miguel didn't execute me then and there (which would be impossible with a disabled collar) the two of us would meet and I would kill him. My mission had gotten ever so complicated changing from one target to the next. I was beginning to now feel like some kind of secret agent. I felt like a freelancer again working for the highest bidder. Either way, only one thing was becoming obvious and that was that someone was going to die.

  Log - 17

  Nothing in training could have ever prepared us for the sight of the children in front of our eyes. Each so broken, so fragile, clinging to their shanty town for dear life. They had no idea what was about to happen to them. They were frightened at the sight of us. All along we had thought we were fighting Section-17 but Area 5 had been something more. It was a home to the homeless, refugees that had fled one country and stumbled here hoping to recover from the battles they had been fighting their whole lives. Most of these kids never even knew a good full meal. For a moment I thought about begging Jack to call off the mission or lie and say we had found something important and call off the strike.

  Jack and Andrews ran by me. They barely looked at the children. They were all ghosts as far as the two of them had been concerned. I thought I was going to lose it. I aimed for a moment through my rifle at Jack. All it would take was one shot and Andrews would have control of the mission. From there I could force him to make the call or take his life as well. Only two people could stop this city from being lit on fire; Reynolds and the Squad 13 leader (and only if there was reason to believe we would lose some valuable piece of information connecting us to Section 17). I was third in line and I could save these kids. If I didn't I would be just as bad as the bomb that dropped. I might as well shoot them all here, end their lives before they burn. My only other choice was to turn and run away, follow Jack and Andrews and leave this place and forget about their charred bodies. No. It was too late for that. I had already looked into their eyes. I had enough nightmares I didn't need anymore. The bomb would be no better than the stray bullet that killed my mother - I would be no better than that stray bullet should I not do anything.

  One minute before extraction. Jack's body hits the ground hard. Andrews stops dropping to his knees and diving for cover. The invisible children that surround me scream. Jack, still alive screams out in pain. I missed his heart by an inch and he was still alive. Andrews began scoping out rooftops looking around to see where the shot could have come from. He wasn't the greatest detective and it would take both of them a minute to realize the shot had come from me. Even if he had looked over at me he could only guess as to whether or not I was the one to blame. As far as he knew I had my rifle in front of me now because I was doing the same thing he was. I used that time to dive behind cover motioning for the children to do the same. With another shot I killed Jack.

  The instant Jack died I received a ping telling me that Andrews had been promoted and placed in charge. On the other side of the cargo valley Cillian, Kal, Tusk, and Mizuki were caught off guard to learn that one of our squad had fallen. Immediately I began to see a swirl of messages asking what happened, whether we needed backup and a private message from Kal 'I hope you didn't do anything stupid'. I felt like in my mind that Kal would have been the last person to see my action as something stupid. If he knew the situation I had just placed myself in he probably would have thought the world of me. Kal had always been putting others first. We had called him the 'heart' of Squad 13. He was also the only person aside from myself I ever listened to or cared for. If Kal had been in charge I knew I wouldn't have shot him but then if Kal had been in charge he wouldn't have just run by all the augmented children. We still had 45 seconds till we had to round the corner and climb into a shuttle. The shuttle would wait another 30 − 60 seconds before taking off giving us just enough time to all pile in.

  Andrews had realized now that I killed Jack.

  Log - 18

  Jake fucked me like a rabid dog on steroids. We were one hour away from dropping into the atmosphere and I had decided that I wanted him to be there when I disabled my collar. I even thought for a moment that his being there would give me an advantage; if he already knew how to do it I wouldn't even need to listen to Reynolds video and the two of us could get back to exploiting Jake's many other talents. Life after the end of the world didn't seem like it was going to be so bad after all. Once I had my freedom it would be pretty nice to just be a civilian again, maybe I could sleep till we made it all the way to Eden and then I could join the colonization ever. Finishing Miguel off for Reynolds would certainly open some doors and opportunities. Damn, already thinking about how to manipulate the world around me in a way that benefits myself. I wish I could get past that kind of thinking. The whole world is gone and I am one of the few humans left, the only thing I could do now is be good at fighting and raising babies. Reynolds would probably prohibit the latter seeing as how I would most likely be a very unfit mother. I have never been very stable, even as a soldier I was breaking rules left and right. I was only kept on because I was the best at what I did. I survived every suicide mission they sent me on and more I survived the drugs and interrogations they gave me when trying to learn why I had made so many of the mistakes I had made. I always had my reasons of course and as long as I believed them, as long as I trusted myself and my judgment that became truth. The only good thing I had ever had was Kal and I probably would have messed that up given the chance. I was still an attractive woman. I guess that means I could have babies (I'm sure Reynolds would approve that, he was just as sick a pig as Miguel) but... don't want to think about that. I'm not ready for that and I would never let them do that to me. This may be a new world but there would still be law and order. They couldn't force someone to do something against their will. Reynolds may not have been a great man but he wasn't evil in the same way Migeul was. I wasn't going to be a mother, not anytime soon. I still have too much killing to do. The future of the human race would probably be grown inside a lab anyway.

  Log - 19

  Andrews looked at me through his scope. I wasn't sure if he was going to fire on me or not at first and I wasn't surprised when he did. He knew I was a threat and it became obvious to him after several seconds what it was that I wanted. The fact that I had hung back and had been caught staring at the children was a big giveaway. Something I would soon regret.

  Andrews was our intelligence officer. He had come from a European background, his parents even working in corporate espionage. He learned at a very young
age how to analyze tough situations, he might as well have been a computer, his mind was always on fire, working on varying strategies and tactics. Most of our training regiments had been planned by Andrews with several combat simulations (similar to the one we were in now) designed to test us. A virtual reality is far different then the real world though and I knew every time that those children presented in his scenarios had been fake or made to force us to express a kind of sad empathy. It never worked before. It was only now in the 'real' that I understood what kind of killing I was and was not capable of. I couldn't kill someone that had grown up the way I had. It was selfish, pathetic. I felt a connection to the children in Area 5 and therefore I couldn't let them die.

  Sometimes it feels like we are all always searching for a place that we belong. Sometimes we think we have found that place but it ends up being nothing but another facade or just a place we can hide for awhile. We separate ourselves into smaller groups, cliques and find others with similar passions and interests as we have finding ways to speak the same language. I had spent my whole life as an outcast living poorly and fending for myself. I enlisted into the Hegemony to escape living in a shanty town and I paid dearly for that. I can still remember the first implants I received. The ones that they gave us two-months into our off-world training. The implants that helped us recognize the information that had been thrown at us. It seemed as if time moved slowly. 60 seconds became an hour, an hour a day, a day a week, a week a month. Time just never felt the same after that but it was all the same.