NANO Archive 01: The City of Fire

by Jason Crutchfield

  Crelyos followed the afflicted into the air; he jumped high enough to clutch the hyped's face in his right hand. With gravity as his ally, Crelyos slammed the back of the hyped's head into the ground, and his head exploded in time with that same deep reverberation that I attributed to a nanite. Without wasting time, Crelyos hurled the arm he used as a mace from his left hand toward the legs of a third assailant scrambling to reach the brawl. The severed limb collided with the hyped's legs and tripped him; he sprawled face first onto the cracked earth.

  The last two hyped not tearing Allen's body limb from limb trampled over their tripped comrade in their mad dash to Crelyos. The mercenary happily reciprocated their dash in order to meet them halfway. When the two sides drew near, however, the mercenary slammed his feet into the ground and jumped skyward in a mighty leap over the heads of the two confused afflicted to the one he tripped behind them.

  The force of his drop accentuated his punch, and Crelyos hammered his right fist into the hyped's skull. My curiosity piqued again. The force of the blow, even when factoring in a basic strength augment, would have no doubt crushed the skull of the unsuspecting hyped, but from the tissue to the brain matter itself, the man's entire head exploded as though disintegrated from the impact. Crelyos' blows were generating far too much power even for the likes of him.

  Slowly, Crelyos stood erect to face the two remaining, and briefly confused, hyped. The crimson blood of his fallen opponents dripped from his clenched knuckles and camouflaged attire, and his eyes gleamed with an ominous desire to exterminate what remained of the afflicted herd. By the time he stood completely erect, however, one of the two hyped gripped a boulder that had been driven into the earth as a result of Oswald's terraforming orders and lifted it overhead. Its diameter easily extended more than twenty feet, and given its density and consistency, I estimated its weight at over two tons. Even if Crelyos' nanites provided enough strength to shatter a boulder that size heaved at him, he would not be able to do so without significant injury.

  Crelyos sighed, and I could see his head shaking in apparent disapproval. With a single swift motion, Crelyos' tugged his pistol from its holster with his blood-soaked left hand; in the sweeping motion of its draw, Crelyos fired a single round straight through the head of the boulder's wielder. With a grunt and a twitch, the man collapsed, and gravity reclaimed the giant rock. Unfortunately for the second hyped, he stood far too close to the daring strongman to escape the boulder's wrath. When it fell, it crushed them both.

  The two hyped still assaulting Allen's motionless body turned and leapt toward Crelyos. Crelyos braced for the impact of their assault, only to watch as the two hyped suddenly vaulted backward. The backs of their heads exploded in a rain of scarlet as they bounced along the earth and came to rest several feet away. The tips of Bojack's rifle and my rifle synchronously emitted wisps of smoke.

  We bore responsibility for the intervention and consequential death of the two speedsters. Normally such a feat would have elicited a grin, but the lack of color in Bojack's face coupled with his crippling emotional pain stayed any such expression. After a brief moment of shock, Bojack rushed down the metal rung ladder to the street below where the majority of the town gathered with dreaded anticipation. I followed.

  Allen's wife and daughter pushed to the front of the crowd. Tears welled up in their eyes as they watched Crelyos' shadowy figure lumber back to town with an equally shadowy lump he carried in his arms. The doctor's persistent attempts to quell the fear and alarm of his city understandably failed, and after what felt like hours, the silhouette of the blond mercenary stood in the shadow of the city's walls. A hush fell over the crowd as Allen's wife and daughter inched forward, unable to discern the condition of their beloved with the scant light.

  Fate and the Reaper, who had been watching all along, enacted the curtain call. Several streaks of lightning scorched the earth nearby and cast an eerie flash of illumination over Crelyos and his burden. In the former soldier's arms a mutilated pile of disgusting pieces resembling Allen haphazardly dangled about in the chilling wind.

  What remained of his face, contorted in horror and broken into oozing chunks, conjured hushed gasps from the crowd of onlookers. Gnarled limbs and shredded flesh completed the painting, and the shades of red splattered across them covered Crelyos in random patterns. The mercenary cast a somber look of reverence, apology, and empathy toward the wife and daughter whose eyes widened like electrocapacitor plates and whose bodies shook with a stormy combination of shock and grief. Bojack was already sobbing.

  “Ihlia… you take care of watch tonight,” Oswald's voice dropped to a compassionate lull; his hand found a home on my shoulder as if to inform me he was counting on me.

  Allen's wife and child sank to their knees in front of Crelyos and began gasping and dry heaving as though building up to an anguished release. As their torment peaked and finally broke the silence with a blood-curdling howl, fate saw fit to accompany their agonizing release with vibrating thunder. The two sounds mingling together in the frigid night echoed like the thud of a falling curtain. At the same time, the bottom of the sky opened and a sheet of biting rain clamorously hammered the earth.

  It sounded like the Reaper's applause.

  File 07: First Departure

  Doctor Oswald's obsessive concern over my unique condition raced through my mind as I stood atop the town's highest obelisk overseeing the wastes. My fingers softly caressed the pair of scars criss-crossing my skull just beneath my hair. Considering a scar's location and shape represented a particular surgeon's brand or mark on their patients, the twin scars overlapping one another on my own scalp reminded me of better days.

  The first scar, which I received as a small child in a normal world, would later be used by Donovan, the man that wrangled my heartstrings. After his vicious murder, his dearest friend and my constant guardian, Doctor Oswald, crafted a new scar across the existing one in honor of his memory. Despite the underlying masochistic tones, I found the gesture to be most endearing of the old codger.

  The frozen sting of night gradually shifted to a more bearable cold as though I stepped out of a freezer and into a refrigerator. The rain shower ceased, and the gluttonous black sky peppered with grumbling fallout clouds brightened ever so slightly with the apparent rise of the sun on the horizon. A chilling breeze carried the scent of the dusty wastes into my face like an ethereal tumbleweed rolling up my nose as I finished the last few moments of my watch. It was quite possibly my last act as a sentinel of Junction City, for no guarantee existed that I would return at my journey's end or return at all for that matter.

  “Oy, Ihlia. I'll take over; you still need to muster up some supplies before your big adventure, don'tcha?” I looked down to see the source of the voice, Bojack, offering me his classic mischievous grin.

  “I suppose. You work too much, though.” I shifted to the side to make room for his bulky figure at the top of the perch. When he finally heaved himself up the ladder, Bojack slumped over the guard rail with either arm hanging over its edge. When his jaw stretched wide for a droll yawn, he reminded me of an oversized, lazy feline. I did not even try to suppress my teasing smirk.

  “After what we saw last night, sleep is a bit difficult for yours truly and work helps take my mind off it. Allen was such a good man.” The stoic manner in which Bojack spoke of the previous night's unfortunate victim may have taken others aback, but I knew it was merely a front to cope with his terrible heartache. While the stubborn man would no doubt assure any inquirer that the puffy red swelling around his eyes was sleep deprivation, the chance that they did not represent a night full of uncontrollable grieving was slim to none.

  “He was a good man, but you heard Oswald… his family will be taken care of. He can rest easy now, Bojack.” I was terrible at consolation. With my own views of life distorted through a stained glass window of morbid sarcasm, I actually considered Allen a su
premely fortunate individual.

  After all, the man endured vicious fear and bodily harm for the sake of providing his wife and daughter with a life full of as many comforts as could be afforded. In lieu of his death, Oswald personally guaranteed the prosperity of his family, and he no longer had to feel any form of fear or pain to achieve it. In my earnest opinion, he was…

  “You were just thinking he's better off, weren't you?” Bojack simultaneously interrupted and finished my silent soliloquy. Bojack was not telepathic, he simply knew me too well. I snapped my head in his direction with a look comprised of awkward shock and frustration.

  “I absolutely hate it when you do that, you know.” My words escaped me with a rush of my breath fogged by the cold morning air. Bojack erupted into laughter; he slapped the rails and grabbed his jiggling gut. I sighed, shook my head, and began climbing down the ladder. As I reached the median of my climb, I noticed that the laughter above me abruptly stopped. When I glanced up, Bojack's husk seemed wrought with quivers as the large man wept alone in silence. After a second of hesitation, I finished my descent.

  No sooner had my feet found the earth than I spun to behold Crelyos begrudgingly dragging himself down the street toward the gate. His camouflaged pants and green tank top were accentuated by a pair of black combat boots, yet the aura of discipline which his ensemble was supposed to radiate seemed contradicted by his slouched posture and lackadaisical gait. Obviously failing to properly console Bojack, I decided to try again at social exercises with Crelyos.

  “Hey, Crelyos… you know what happened last night was no one's fault, right?” I crossed my arms beneath the faint swell of my chest as he drew near. He locked gazes with mine; a mixture of pain and anger saturated his expression.

  “Shut up, it's way too early for bullshit, Ihlia.” He shoved his hands deep into his pants pockets. I nodded sullenly; his implied accusation smashed the proverbial nail on the head. Aside from my burning hatred for Bradich which fueled my desire to live no matter the cost, I felt little else toward other humans.

  Intellectually, I understood the grief Allen's untimely end inflicted upon his loved ones. Without the emotional conviction to support that understanding, however, any comforting words I might otherwise offer were as Crelyos pointed out: bullshit. Once more external stimuli interrupted my thoughts as the crisp ring of two bottles smacking together in Crelyos' hands drew me from my reflection.

  “It's not too early to drink, though?” I inquired and quirked a brow at him; a grin stretched across the corners of my lips. Grasping the offered bottle of sludge in a slender but calloused hand, I tapped the bottom of my bottle against his own and knocked back a solid chug. I wanted to believe I did it to honor Allen's memory, but I probably just wanted to take the edge off a night of constant vigilance.

  “Damn straight. It's never too early to drink,” Crelyos replied bluntly and knocked back his entire bottle in a few gulps. I half expected the gunk to be bubbling up his gullet when he finished.

  “So are we ready to go yet? This place is startin' to piss me off.” I could tell the impatience in his voice stemmed from his somber recollection of the previous night's events. Adjusting my rifle's strap against the center of my chest, I shook my head and began walking toward Oswald's bastion.

  “Not yet, I still need to get a few touch-ups done on my augments. I won't be back in Junction City for a while, and I don't trust anyone but the doc to handle my brain.” I looked back at his figure standing stalwart in the dim gray light just in front of the town's large gate.

  “Fine, I'll wait here. I'm as ready as I'm gonna to be. Try to hurry the hell up though.” He lifted a hand, waving me away with mock annoyance.

  The trek to Oswald's mansion seemed longer than usual. His ardent protests to my departure the previous night resounded like a chorus in my thoughts. I recognized a sunken melancholy tickling the pit of my stomach at the thought of never seeing the old codger again. Somewhere along my journey to reacquaint myself with complex emotions, a part of me had grown attached to Doctor Oswald and his zany, controlling habits like one grows attached to a crazy, overbearing uncle with a seemingly infinite number of interesting stories. As a sad smile haunted the contours of my face, the sight of the doctor's extravagant combination of mansion and laboratory curtained by the early morning fog coaxed me from my trip down memory lane. It was almost time.

  “Hey Doc, I need a last minute checkup before I leave. And don't say anything about it, either. Let's make this quick and painless. Literally and figuratively, if you don't mind.” My tumultuous declaration as I all but kicked in his front door was met with a frantic gesture of dismissal from Oswald. He retorted mid-stride as he weaved from room to room in his complex seemingly collecting supplies.

  “Quiet, that's irrelevant now. Sit down somewhere and wait.” Following in hot pursuit of the doctor, his assistant Minette scolded him with desperate fervor.

  “Doctor Oswald you can't be serious! I'm not ready to take this place over, that's a huge responsibility! If you leave, who will perform the surgeries? You can't possibly be suggesting that I cut open these people's heads by myself!” Her tiny fingers clutched the back of Oswald's bleached coat. Unfortunately for Minette, her diminutive stature compounded by Oswald's stubborn refusal to alter his course resulted in her adorably tiny feet sliding across the ground. She hopelessly tried pulling him from his endeavors only to be dragged along like a supple doll.

  “Doc? What's she talking about?” Following his previous command, I parked my derriere in the contours of one of his quilted chairs and watched the satirical display.

  Oswald abruptly halted his footsteps and whirled about to face me. Like a rocket, Minette was launched with a cute squeak through the air and into a small table fully configured with a clay vase and cloth covering. The resulting cracks and crunches of furniture shattering behind the doctor failed to so much as twitch his brow. In the back of the room at the crash site, Minette's crooning, “ooooww…” sounded like a distance echo.

  “First, after extensive calculation I determined I only possess a two point four-eight percent chance of convincing you that this endeavor is a terrible idea.” He lifted his index finger to support the first item in his apparent list.

  “Well, I'd put them at less than that, but that doesn't mean…” I knew what was coming as soon as I felt the sharp spike of his voice purposely slice mine out of the air.

  “Second, given your one of a kind implant that allows you to cognitively slow the perception of time coupled with having the highest recorded number of nanite implants without suffering from hyperaugmentation, the scientific ramifications of halting my research only to resume it at a time designated by my specimen, that is you, is preposterously disagreeable.” No sooner did he lift his second finger than Minette inched her frail frame toward Oswald's back crawling on hands and knees. She curled her small hand around the cuff of his pants leg and squeezed a groan from her throat.

  “Uugh…Doctor…” Her spectacles hung bent and battered from one ear. The curtain of her wavy scarlet hair, once a beautiful frame to a delicately freckled face, now housed dusty bits of broken antique. She peered up at Oswald only to be silenced by his incessant rant.

  “Third, Minette is well trained and ready to succeed me as a nanite surgeon herself. Furthermore, she is well aware of my governing policies and standards. As long as Bojack is around to enforce what she says, this excursion will prove a valuable training exercise for my dear assistant until we retu— Good Lord, Minette, what are you doing crawling around on the ground? Here I am praising you, and you're acting a damned fool. Get up, get up. My word, you're completely disheveled. Go clean yourself up immediately!” Minette sighed helplessly as she followed Oswald's pointing finger to the lavatory to wash up, but she moved her mouth and twitched her head to and fro, mocking his every word as she obeyed.

  Oswald cleared his throat and re
turned his attention to me as though embarrassed that his train of thought was so easily derailed. Little did he realize how extraordinary the stimulus required to even alter the train's motion a tiny interval, let alone derail it. It was admirable and unfathomably pitiable at the same time. I chortled softly as I stood from my assigned seat and approached the doctor, placing my right hand gently upon his left shoulder

  “Oswald, I appreciate the sentiment, really. But the town needs you, you don't have to put everything on hold just to go gallivanting off with me on a wild…” He cut my words short when he hugged both his arms around my shoulders and squeezed tightly.

  “Besides, Ihlia. Donovan would never forgive me if I let you do this by yourself. So I'll hear no more of it.” His words sent a rush of tingles along the vertebrae in my spine like a crashing wave that ultimately settled into a cozy warmth in the pit of my stomach. I sighed softly and gave his shiny bald head a few soft pats.

  “All right, all right. You know what the D-word does to me.” I shook my head and sauntered over to the restroom where Minette busily wiped the smudges from her face with a synthetic cloth towel.

  “Before you say anything, I'll be all right. If the doctor really has that much faith in me, how can I turn down his challenge?” Minette grinned. Anytime she heard the word “training” her disposition immediately changed. It was a trait she possessed since Oswald and I met her nine years ago.

  “Just make sure you kill that bastard and come home, ok?” She laced her words with a faint grunt as she bent the metal frames of her glasses back into their proper position and tucked them neatly against the bridge of her nose with an airy giggle.

  “Oh believe me, I will. I'll make him pay for what he's done to all of us.” I offered her a nod before turning back toward Oswald, “So, if all this sappy go lucky mushy stuff is done, you ready to head to Texas?” Both my hands found rest on the peaks of my sparingly curved hips. Like he just finished a magic parlor trick, Doctor Oswald stood impatiently tapping his foot with a large rolling cart in tow behind him. He lifted a single brown brow sarcastically.