by Lars Teeney
“Wow, you don’t think that’s a tall order for me?” Gale passively protested.
“You’ll surprise yourself. Besides, we need to test what your neural implant is capable of,” Hades-Perdition encouraged her.
“Fine. But you better have my back,” she replied.
“Girl, you know I got you,” Hades-Perdition teased.
“Alright, here I go. Make sure to call out any new targets you come across.” With that Gale scurried off through the tall grass. She made a beeline toward some old tanker cars that formed a sheltered approach to the rear of the rail depot’s central structure. She reached the rear of the building and found a rusted ladder that lead to the roof. She ascended the ladder when she was pinged by Hades-Perdition. Gale opened a channel, and he told her to halt. She stopped cold.
Hades-Perdition locked on to the Ranger on the roof in his sights, who was moving toward the ladder Gale was on. Hades-Perdition squeezed the trigger, and a fifty caliber round escaped the barrel and a split second later bore through the cranial cavity of the Ranger, depositing the head’s contents on top of the roof.
“Proceed,” Hades-Perdition instructed.
Gale reached the precipice of the ladder and hoisted herself onto the roof. She moved quickly across the roof to an overhang and peeked over the edge. Two Rangers flanked a doorframe below, a second later a fifty caliber round passed through both heads sequentially. The men fell dead. Gale was shocked by the gruesome spectacle. She pulled herself together and rushed over to the roof access door.
“I am going to enter the building. I suppose that’ll leave me blindsided. But you can’t watch over me all the time,” Gale teased sarcastically. She opened the dented and rusting door. Even moving it slightly the door complained in a high pitch screech.
“I hope no one heard that,” she whispered through the channel to Hades-Perdition.
“I’ll keep an eye on the exterior of the building. Good luck,” Hades-Perdition urged.
Gale stepped through the threshold. She found an old, industrial stairwell with paint peeling off the wall. Gale kept her assault rifle at the ready, scanning every potential approach as she moved, and she realized the tactics alien to her. She had been acting without thinking. She theorized that this was the behavior programmed into the neural implant by ‘Sam’. Gale thought that she might as well not fight the instinctual actions that the implant’s programs instilled into her. She traveled down a hallway with scorch marks scarring the wall. At the end of the hall was a row of offices. Gale stepped into a middle office. The room was covered with dusty, vintage office furniture. There was mildew stains spread about the walls. She gazed around the room looking for anything that could be used as intelligence.
Gale moved around to the back of the desk. There were signs of it having been used recently. The dust coverage was interrupted by shuffle marks. She opened the large, shallow, middle drawer to have a peek at its contents. Inside she found a curious black, rectangular object that resembled a domino. She guessed that it might be some kind of storage device, so she tucked it away in one of the utility pouches slung across her chest.
“Gale! A patrol is approaching from the East. Withdraw!” Hades-Perdition warned.
Gale shut the desk door and moved rapidly across the room toward the door. She swung around the corner and out into the hall and collided head-on with a L.O.V.E. Ranger. The Ranger grabbed the barrel of her gun and tried to wrench it from her grip. She recovered her bearings and a struggle ensued for her gun. They were interlocked. The Ranger raised the gun and Gale off the ground and heaved his weight forward to slam her back into the wall. Decades of dust and grit were jarred loose by the impact, and plaster caved in creating a huge dent. The Ranger shoved his forearm up under her chin attempting to choke her out. She responded by throwing a knee to his groin. He recoiled in pain and loosened his grip. She dropped to the floor—landing on her feet, setting her up to perform a leg sweep, which she executed. The Ranger lost his balance and fell broadside to the floor. She could feel the air forced out of him by the fall. Gale reached for her boot and snatched a small knife from its ankle scabbard. She lunged onto him with the blade point down, aiming for the exposed trachea. The Ranger threw his left forearm in the way of the blade’s trajectory and it bit into his muscle and bone. He let out yelp from the pain, then wound up his first and caught her in the temple with a right hook. Gale was temporarily stunned. The Ranger jumped to his feet and was moving toward her assault rifle that had fallen to the floor when she slide across the floor toward his back leg and racked his right Achilles heel with the blade. The Ranger collapsed to the floor; screaming in agony. She finished him off with a rapid stab to the neck. Still charged up with adrenaline she retrieved her weapon and sprinted to the stairwell that led to the roof.
“Gale, the main enemy body is back. I’m going to draw their attention away. You get the fuck out of there when I give you the signal. Make sure you aren’t followed back to the Mothball fleet!” Hades-Perdition said excitedly.
Hades-Perdition let off a round with his side arm and immediately the twenty-strong force started moving in the direction of the gunfire. Hades-Perdition moved off the ridge and away from the railroad tracks down into a heavily wooded gorge with pines and spruce.
“Go now! Get out of there!” Hades-Perdition exclaimed as he crossed a small stream and climbed up the opposite bank.
Gale descended the ladder from the roof and charged into the brush in the opposite direction from Hades-Perdition and the pursuing Rangers. She could feel the side of her face swelling up. She sprinted through the underbrush. She recalled her close-quarters fight: it had yet to fully impact her that she killed a L.O.V.E.R.: one the Regime’s best, although she recognized that outcome could have easily gone the other way. Gale deduced that this was her trial by fire and there was no disputing that she passed. She rounded the base of a hill and crossed through an open meadow to double back to the railroad tracks. From there she determined she would follow them south back to the Mothball fleet. Gale’s face was throbbing now and the adrenaline had subsided and pain pierced.
She couldn’t help but think about Ravine-Gulch and his drunken episode before they departed the fleet. He had been trying to numb the pain through day drinking. Ravine certainly didn’t help the situation by picking a fight with the most dangerous member of the Apostates. She thought about how confident Hades-Perdition was about the operation that they had just pulled off. He was certain that Gale would be able to handle herself in the thick of danger and encouraged her. She remembered how he had dispatched those Rangers so effortlessly—a true killer. But, he didn’t come off like a psychopath. He had retained his humanity. She realized that because of her ‘trial by fire’ that she was now one of the Apostates. No turning back. She had murdered a Regime agent. There would be no forgiveness.
Her thoughts turned to ‘Sam’ and his lecture. She pondered if anyone in the Apostates had ever met him in person. Who was he? How do they know if they can trust him? What if this entire situation was some elaborate entrapment scheme cooked up by L.O.V.E. to root out seditious individuals? What if the Apostates were part of some experiment set up for sick pleasure that ‘Sam’ had for manipulation and suffering? Her thoughts were neurotic and rapid. Gale felt she was being a tad paranoid, but, she was going to keep her suspicions in the back of her brain, because she had been given a second chance at life and she wasn’t going to let ‘Sam’ torpedo it.
Gale had been walking for hours and she felt her stomach roil. She had a cottonmouth due to dehydration. Gale descended an embankment—half sliding in the loose dirt and gravel. She reached the bottom with a jog to counteract the momentum. Gale reflected on her mission and decided now she could truly say she was ‘born again’.
⍟ ⍟ ⍟
L.O.V.E.
His heart rate increased as the incline angle got steeper. He rose up off his saddle, gripped the sides of the drop bars, and heaved the muscles in his legs to force the rot
ation of the pedals; left then right, left then right. He could feel the burn in his calves and thighs. The incline leveled off as he reached the crest of the hill. He had always favored single speed bikes over that of geared fair. He thought that it gave a more intense workout by keeping the resistance constant no matter the angle of incline. No cheating on hills. He constantly drove himself even when it was time to relax. Letting one’s guard down and being complacent was a weakness to him. If he could forego sleep he would in a heartbeat. He rested on his bike for a moment surveying the view from the top of the hill. Beyond many rolling hills and tree patches, he could see the Great Lake stretched out on the horizon. He kicked off on his bike to gain momentum and launched down the hill.
Rodrigo was an avid cyclist. He was dressed in a spandex L.O.V.E. jersey and biking shorts and donned clip in shoes. He loved pre-war bikes; he kept a collection of French bike frames in his quarters and would swap them out for rides periodically. He had always wanted to come out West and ride the fabled California hills. His love for biking overshadowed most other aspects of his life, except for his duty to the organization.
Rodrigo reached the bottom of the hill then turned hard and followed the old access road toward the rail depot. He cranked hard on the pedals of his Mercier model road bike. When he came upon the old parking lot of the rail depot, he hopped the back tire, locked his legs and broke into a skid, stopping on a dime. He leaned his bike against a rusted out propane tank. He walked in an awkward manner due to his clip in shoes. Being dressed in his bike spandex and safety helmet gave him the air of an adolescent, and not a trained killer. The Head Ranger, a man named Frank, was approaching him.
“Inquisitor Rodrigo, we have finished conducting our investigation of the site. There are four dead at the scene. Three had been shot outside and one dead inside. It doesn’t appear that anything had been taken. We honestly do not know what the motive was,” Frank reported while standing at attention.
“Please take me to the bodies,” Rodrigo requested.
“Right this way, sir,” Head Ranger Frank escorted the Inquisitor to the pair of bodies laying by the main entrance to the central structure; a cavernous warehouse.
Rodrigo examined the two bodies. He checked the head wounds on each, then, looked off in a southerly direction. He walked over to a woodpile due north of the bodies. He paced back and fourth in front of the pile, then focused in on a hole in one of the pieces of wood. Rodrigo shoved a finger into the hole, then, turned around to look south again.
‘Please show me the body on the roof,” Rodrigo requested.
“Yes, please follow me,” Head Ranger Frank responded.
The duo walked around the back of the structure to the old, rusted ladder that stretched up to the roof. They ascended to the roof. Frank led Rodrigo to the body. The head was gone and a crimson spray extended for some feet to the north of where the head used to be. Rodrigo knelt down to examine the body for a spell. He then stood up, and turned to the south, and trained his eyes to a ridge roughly nearly a mile to the southwest. Rodrigo walked over to the edge of the roof and stared at the ridge. He stayed in that spot for roughly ten minutes.
“Yes, of course,” he murmured to himself.
“Sir?” Head Ranger Frank asked.
“Head Ranger, please take me to the last body,” Rodrigo ordered.
“Yes sir, right this way. Down the stairs,” Head Ranger Frank lead the way into the interior hall that connected to the office block.
They proceeded to the central office and Rodrigo stood in the middle of the room. He quickly glanced around at the dated and dusty office furniture. He trained in on the desk. He moved closer. Rodrigo noticed that the central desk drawer was ajar.
“This is the commanding officer’s desk, correct?” Rodrigo asked suspiciously.
“Yes sir,” Head Ranger Frank responded.
“His encryption key is missing,” Rodrigo said matter of factually, “Please take me to him.”
“Sir!” Head Ranger Frank clicked his heels.
They traveled down to the central rail yard. The commander of the unit and his lieutenant were being interrogated by a couple of Rangers. The two were perched on an old picnic bench and the interrogators hovered over them like predatory birds. Rodrigo, decked out in his spandex cycling outfit, slowly swaggered over to the scene. The commander looked up at Inquisitor Rodrigo as he approached. He had a look of dread on his face.
“Commander, I am glad to see you well,” Rodrigo said.
“Thank—Thank you sir. I am fortunate,” the commander said hesitantly.
“Yes! Very fortunate. A true blessing.” The sarcasm in Rodrigo’s voice was apparent now. “It was very fortunate that the majority of your unit was away,” Rodrigo prodded.
“I am glad that we were not wiped out, Inquisitor,” the commander said nervously.
Rodrigo paced back and forth in front of the commander. He glanced to the south, appearing to be contemplating a matter. Rodrigo unlatched his cycling helmet from under his chin, and removed it, leaving it dangling from his right hand by his side. He turned and faced the commander.
“Commander, what was the nature of your excursion?” Rodrigo asked.
The commander glanced at the Inquisitor, then at the Head Ranger nervously. He was visibly shaken. “We were scouting the surrounding area for signs of the Apostates, sir,” he answered.
“Lieutenant, can you confirm this as the objective?” Rodrigo pressed.
“No sir, I can’t. We went to get some “R and R” at a neighboring town’s brothel,” the lieutenant was truthful in his answer.
The commander looked down and muttered a profanity under his breath.
“Interesting. Commander, do you have any clue as to where your unit’s encryption key is located?” Rodrigo looked tense as he asked the question. The bike helmet swayed in the breeze.
“Well, uh...sir, I believe I left it in the desk drawer in the office I use—”
“Yes you did! Unsecured. You left your post with most of your force. Only leaving a skeleton crew to secure your base of operations. You went on an “R and R” excursion without permission, and you allowed your encryption key to be taken by the opposition, potentially compromising our most secure organizational information,” Rodrigo was furious for a split second, then the poker face took over.
“What really hurts my feelings...is that you lied to me,” Rodrigo finished his sentence then raised his arm, wound up the helmet with a few rotations and brought the bike helmet down on the top of the commander’s head. The sound of molded plastic on skull rang out. Rodrigo rotated his body and landed another backhand swing with the helmet square on the commander’s nose. The crumbling of cartilage was heard. He landed further successive blows, cracking skull and splitting flesh. In those few moments, he had the look of a demon possessed. The plastic of the helmet cracked and jagged pieces of plastic caught skin and tore flesh away from the face of the commander. No one dared intervene. When Rodrigo was finished the commander was unrecognizable and he was out a bike helmet.
Rodrigo composed himself, then, turned to face the lieutenant, who was wide-eyed with fear, but had kept calm throughout the beating. Rodrigo stood over him, gazing down and rubbing the bit of stubble on his chin.
“Thank you for your candor, lieutenant. I appreciate honesty in my officers. It is a commendable trait. That is what this organization runs on; honesty and loyalty,” Rodrigo confessed.
“Th-Thank you sir. I try—” He was interrupted.
“But, you served under an ineffectual officer and must pay the price,” Rodrigo delighted.
He bent up his leg toward his torso and snatched off a clip-in bike shoe from his right foot. He held it from the toe section with the cleats facing outward. Rodrigo drew his arm back and landed a blow across the face of the lieutenant with the sole of the shoe. He continued the onslaught against the lieutenant’s head until he felt satisfied that it had compromised the skull’s structural integrity. Rodrigo,
looked down at his handiwork, dropped the shoe, turned and walked awkwardly away with one shoe on his left foot. His asymmetrical walk led him to his armored vehicle where, within awaited a shower and his fresh uniform.
The Inquisitor entered the armored vehicle via a rear hydraulic ramp, which lowered to the ground. He entered a small living quarters equipped with a bunk, workstation, mini-bar and small bathing area with a basin, toilet and shower. Rodrigo peeled off his bloody spandex, then reached into the shower to warm the water. Rodrigo felt reinvigorated. He felt like he did some good to make an example of the two officers. That was the only way he understood to keep L.O.V.E as a crack organization; show them tough love. He stepped into the shower and scrubbed off the spattered blood that had pelted his face and arms. He rubbed the soap and lathered up his hands and washed his body. As Rodrigo was shampooing his head, he was pinged, which triggered his retinal H.U.D. It was an incoming transmission from the Minister of State Security. Rodrigo willed open the channel. It was Kate Schrubb on the other end.
“Greetings, Inquisitor Rodrigo. I received your initial communication about the incident. Do you have any other information to add?” Kate inquired.
“Minister, yes. I investigated the scene myself and concluded it was Apostate operatives that attacked. It seemed they hit while the commander had most of his detail away for a brothel visit. But, not to worry, I took...corrective actions,” Rodrigo reported as he stepped out of the shower and dried himself with a towel. He tied the towel around his waist.
“This is encouraging news. It seems your information was correct. With the increased frequency of enemy contact it would indicate that they are very close to your position,” Kate surmised.
“Yes, I surveyed from the top of a small mountain. I believe that they are just to the south of my location. Most likely right around the Great Lake,” Rodrigo finished drying himself then put on a fresh pair of undershorts followed by uniform slacks.