NANO Archive 01: The City of Fire

by Jason Crutchfield

  “You do it liberally enough. In fact, you're one of the more efficient killing machines I've had the honor of working with.” I crossed my arms as I recalled the various members of my squad during my days as a Bald Eagle. They were good, but Crelyos was in a league of his own.

  “I'll pretend that wasn't a slap in the face.” The blond mercenary furrowed his brows and turned around toward the bunch of youngsters playing together in the distance.

  His eyes softened, and he scratched the back of his head nervously, “It's them. I mean, if you think about it, the people that survived the Titan Crisis already made their choices. Most of ‘em went rotten. It sucks, but it's true. Guys that rape, steal, and kill are everywhere, and there's no system of law to protect those little guys. They haven't had the chance to choose yet, and it's not like they're goin' from a world of plenty to a terrible war to a global catastrophe.”

  “This world is all they know, so it's kind of their world now. We're the old generation just holdin' onto it until they're old enough to choose. If the only thing left I can do is bloody these hands for their sake, then that's what I gotta do. I hate killin', but I hate the thought of someone takin' the choices away from those kids even more. If I have to choose, I'll bear the disgust of dirty hands any day.”

  I smiled at the overgrown teddy bear. “I hate arguing with you. I always lose,” I muttered under my breath. That strange vibration touched my chest again; it fluttered through my torso like a splash of warm water. I turned to watch the children as well.

  “What was that? You say somethin'?” Crelyos nudged me with his elbow.

  “I said this sappy stuff is the kind of stuff you usually blabber on about when you're drunk. Isn't it a bit too early for that?” I rammed my fist into his rib and playfully twisted. His face lit up, alarmed, and he swatted at my hand.

  “Ow, ow, ow! What the hell, girly!” Crelyos laughed between mock grunts, “The tavern around here has some really nice sludge. Where do you think I go every night? I've slowly been stockin' up my supply for when we head off to Colorado, too. What do you say we drink the night away tonight? For old time's sake, just you and me.” He reached down and curled his left hand around my slender wrist. As he pried my fist from his ribs, I smirked.

  “That's fine. I need to talk to Oswald first. Raze, too, for that matter. We know that we're going northwest to Colorado, but we don't know exactly where or what to look for when we get there,” I shrugged and snatched my wrist from his iron grip.

  “Yeah, I guess that info would be helpful. We can't just roam around an entire state lookin' for somethin' suspicious, and I don't really know the landscape all that well once you talk about goin' beyond Texas.” Crelyos folded his arms over his chest.

  “You sure you want to come? You could just head back to Junction City and reclaim your seat at the bar there.” I glanced over at him. For some reason, a heavy lump hung on my chest, and its destination depended entirely on his next words. Either the weight would lift, or it would sink deep into my stomach. It was a strange feeling, but somewhere I understood that I wished for him to accompany me.

  “I thought about it. But Sarge is involved now; I can't just leave things the way they are. He was my squad leader, I gotta find out why he's doin' this. Why someone like him would follow someone like Harbinger blows my mind.” Crelyos shook his head, “Besides, we both know you'd get dead without me. I can't let you have all the fun.”

  “I think I'd do just fine. But…” I looked up at the mercenary and his dopey grin, “I'm glad you'll be there all the same. It means a lot.”

  “You got it, girly.” Crelyos lifted a finger and pointed at one of the strangely shaped buildings a few houses to the right of Mayor Trumark's home. “That's the tavern. I'll see ya there when they turn that giant light in the sky off.”

  “I've been wondering about that. Ever since we got back it seems they turn it off at night and on during the day. When we got here before, when it was Raze's Haven, it was night and the thing was burning bright. What gives?” I stared up at the enormous incandescent hemisphere illuminating Loftsborough.

  “Apparently keepin' it lit all day and night was Raze's order. It represents fire, so, you know how that goes. The citizens use it to mimic the cycles of day and night, so they turn it off when the outside world goes from the gray of day to the black of night. Plus, keepin' it on all the time must consume a hell of a lot of sludge,” Crelyos noted.

  He turned slowly in place and surveyed the various buildings cluttering the city, “I just wonder if they ever plan on demolishin' and reconstructin' it all. Raze had control of this place for a year, when he got here he had all the buildin's torn down and rebuilt into some weird abstract architecture. There's no uniformity, the houses all look like somethin' out of a weird paintin'.” A frown touched Crelyos' lips. I hypothesized that my ally's frown indicated his general distaste for what Raze considered art. It coaxed a chuckle from me.

  “Well I'm going to go talk to Raze. I'll see you tonight, big guy,” I offered Crelyos a faint slap against his shoulder before traversing the town square toward Trumark's house.

  The large two story building to the right of Trumark's home reminded me of the tavern in Junction City. During the day, it was a desolate building the cracks and doors of which whistled like a haunted house with the passing of the faintest chill breeze, but when night fell it would stand as the only beacon of light in the entire town. The noises that erupted from a lively tavern were unlike any in the world. The thought painted a genuine smile on my lips.

  To the left of Trumark's residence, however, stood a drafty stone building. Its simple design suggested a hasty construction; within the confines of that building, lining the walls of the first floor; the first basement; the second basement; and so on, steel cages and built-in cells framed with stone and iron formed Loftsborough's makeshift prison. Under normal circumstances, it was likely a mere temporary punishment for citizens who broke Trumark's laws. I surmised that Raze and his subordinates, however, were in for an extended stay.

  I entered the prison. Dust caked the rocky walls, and the floors, smudged with streaks of blood and sludge, smelled stale; the prison must have seen many years without use. I remembered that during the year of his occupation, Raze sent all offenders to the upper plate to fend for themselves against freezing winds. I simply failed to comprehend why Crelyos believed even an ounce of humanity existed in the duke of flame, much less enough to warrant sparing his life.

  The entire building functioned without electricity. With no generators to power lamps or light fixtures, the only illumination in the musty building stemmed from the lanterns that lined the wall in an efficient array. The sludge housed within the metal casing fed the flickering flames dancing behind glass. To the left of the doorway, a single guard sat at a stone desk facing the row of ironclad cells against the back wall. Directly across the room, a flight of stairs led down to subsequent basement levels of the establishment. In the grand architecture of Loftsborough, those basement levels actually cut into the city's lower plate, and the metal saucer formed a natural architecture for the walls and ceiling in the lower levels.

  The guard nodded to me with passing recognition. He seemed uneasy. I glanced to his waist; a ring of rusty keys loosely hung around a loop in his belt. My eyes darted from the keys to the sludge-filled torches lining the walls. Finally, I stared at the cell in the far left corner of the room. Behind the thick iron bars, a small cot fit neatly against the back wall. Raze sat completely still atop its uncomfortable surface. His eyes, crystalline blue shards housing an intense sharpness that rivaled his small sword's, stared forward at the guard who anxiously kept watch. I strolled in front of the duke of flame's quarters and placed my hands on my hips.

  “Raze,” I glared at him with cold eyes.

  “She-wolf,” He mocked my tone but failed to take his eyes off the nervous guard.

/>   “I need more information. Colorado was a big place. Crelyos and I aren't familiar with the territory. We need more to go on.” I shifted my weight to one leg; my body rocked slowly in front of his eyes. Perhaps subconsciously, I attempted to alleviate a bit of the guard's unease, though I instinctively knew he possessed little cause for fear.

  “You do, don't you?” A smile briefly passed across his face like a bolt of lightning in a cloud: there one moment, gone the next.

  “Are you going to tell me or not? I have little patience for games and even less for seeing your face.” My brows furrowed involuntarily. Raze, though healed through Panacea's efforts, retained the scars of our exchange. His bald head, once coated in lush strands of beautiful golden hair, gleamed after the tongues of his own fire consumed his illustrious locks.

  Without his hair and in normal clothing, Raze looked like any other passerby one might meet on the streets. The only difference lay in those eyes of his; their pure icy hue belied his tainted, frozen heart. Perhaps the true source of my rage stemmed from the possibility that I was merely looking into a mirror similar to the one in Eugene's house. Did I perceive the frigid depths of his murderous heart within those frozen eyes, or did their shimmering surface reflect the monster hiding within me?

  “I assume the doctor has maps? The coordinates are 38 degrees 44 minutes 45 seconds north latitude, 104 degrees 47 minutes 6 seconds west longitude. Crelyos should recognize those coordinates, it used to be an old military installation way before the Global Conflict. Before we got all enlightened and shit, too,” Raze quickly recited.

  “If that gorgeous pea-brain doesn't remember or you don't have any maps, just keep following the road north-northwest until you reach a small town called Uriel. It's nearby. Ask around, do some tracking, I don't know. Stop bothering me,” Raze dismissively waved his hand.

  I memorized the coordinates and directions and ignored the remainder of his rant. Without uttering a farewell, I spun on my heel and began for the door. Another quick glance to the keys attached to the oblivious guard's belt and the sludge-fueled torches gave me pause. I knew Oswald and Crelyos explained the dangerous capabilities of the duke of flame to Samson during our journey back to Loftsborough, yet there he sat surrounded by potential tools due to stupidity or negligence. Despite his ability to use finite psychokinesis to orchestrate an escape, Raze remained peacefully locked away in his cell. Why?

  “I have nowhere to go anymore. My men are all but wiped out, the organization will kill me if they find me, and I have a lot to think about anyway. Don't even ask,” Raze piped up after watching me take notice of the variety of small, dangerous objects littering the prison house. Perhaps he possessed telepathy as well, but it was more likely I failed to properly conceal my concern. Then again, I never attempted to do so.

  “Hmph,” I responded and continued from the dank structure that served as Raze's confines.

  File 21: Oswald's Checkup

  I spent the majority of the day meandering through the crowds bustling through Loftsborough's central plaza. Though my eyes roved the established shops for items of worth, my vacant gaze would likely have skimmed by the best items due to my wandering thoughts. Unable to reconcile Crelyos' logic regarding his two friends, Eugene and Raze, I dwelt upon the circumstances surrounding my quest for revenge.

  After pledging my allegiance to the Bald Eagles, Bradich and the unit became more than mere bosom buddies. They replaced my family who died in the hyped attack on Yordleton. Larz, my sniping mentor, and the other members of the company grew closer to me than my own parents. We sang together, ate together, laughed, cried, and bled together.

  I gritted my teeth when I imagined their faces blank, their eyes rolled into the backs of their heads, and pin-point accurate bullet wounds in each of their foreheads. Thankfully, Larz perished a year prior to Bradich's scheme. As Bradich's closest friend, Larz would have been most devastated by the betrayal. When I reminisced on my former leader's twisted face as he waltzed off into the desert rain after taking my second family away from me, my vision blurred from my unbridled rage.

  “Ihlia! Hey, I've been calling you for like five minutes.” The sound of a vaguely familiar voice snapped me from the dark hole of my own memories. I placed my thumb and finger against my eyes and gave them a good rub before glancing over to behold the face of Samson. A sigh escaped my lips.

  “What is it, Samson?” I asked in a less than patient tone.

  “Uh… did I interrupt something?” Circumstances prevented me from properly discerning his appearance the first time we met, but after a second gleaning, I realized his countenance was fairly easy on the eyes. He stood taller than I, an easy feat to be sure, at six feet even. He kept his head shaved; small stubs of brown hair cleanly jutted from his scalp. His surgical scar, a wide crescent stretching across the side of his head, afforded his buzz cut a bit of character. His dark brown eyes were soft but piercing, and his posture indicated a strong muscle frame and moderate combat training he likely obtained after the Titan Crisis.

  In light of his exploits at Raze's fortress, Trumark offered Samson a position as the town's top mercenary. It was a guardsman's position at best, but it came with good pay, nice perks, and a snappy uniform, if one could call clothes a small cut above normal “snappy.” I teasingly grinned at him.

  “Ah, my apologies, Officer Samson. What can I do for you this evening?” I offered him a mock salute.

  “Oh, stop it. I'm here on unofficial business. It's Doctor Oswald, he's looking for you. He said he'll be outside of town at the dune buggy; whatever that means,” Samson shrugged.

  “Got it, thanks, captain,” I laughed jokingly between pursed lips.

  “Ugh, whatever. I gotta get back to work. Have a nice day, ma'am.” Samson offered me a salute far more serious than the one I displayed. I grinned and nodded; as Samson disappeared into the crowds of people, I turned in the direction of the elevator that would take me down from Loftsborough and into the surrounding deserts. The old codger's need to speak to me was quite conducive to the pressing matters I needed to discuss with him. Namely, I needed him to confirm or shatter my desperate hope that he possessed old maps of America.

  The drawn out ride down the elevator shaft drew memories of the laboratory in Cairo, Egypt, to the forefront of my thoughts. I furrowed my brows in frustrated recollection. During that fateful mission, I rode down a similar elevator, albeit smoother in its descent, alongside Bradich and his brother, Donovan. Our jokes and teases served as intermittent breaks from the weary silence back then. Donovan's research on nanite personalities consumed him, and Bradich offered him as much support as his unscientific mind could muster. Their bond seemed unshakeable back then.

  I clenched my fist only to be jarred yet again from my trip down memory lane by the mechanical hiss of the elevator reaching its destination. I stepped from the rusty sliding gate and traversed the length of the bridge hovering mere feet above churning quicksand. The blistering wind tore through the flat landscape and peppered the exposed portions of my flesh with cold nips. In the distance, the deep gray light filtering through rolling fallout clouds faded as the sun sank beneath the horizon.

  On a small, dusty plateau atop a ridge sat our little group's dune buggy. The attached trailer leaned precariously close to the edge of the cliff. Though steep, walking up its side proved only a minor challenge. I ascended the short distance to the top of the outcrop; a few pieces of rubble rolled harmlessly down the rocky surface when I finally reached the apex. I stepped into the back of the trailer following the sounds of a micro-drill and the flashes of electric sparks. Hunched over an impromptu desk, Oswald busily labored over the same project to which he dedicated his life: nanites.

  “Ah, Ihlia. Do come in. I take it Samson was able to convey my message with little difficulty? Excellent, excellent.” Oswald's hand lifted from his work to wave me to a chair he prepared in the cente
r of the trailer. Its partially reclined position immediately sent off red flags; I folded my arms beneath my breasts. Assumedly, the old codger felt my burning glare since he halted his work completely and spun around in his stool. “What, dear child?” He attempted to mock my stare.

  “You want to slice me open again,” I stated matter-of-factly.

  “Yes, that is the point of summoning you. I will also offer to give you that checkup I promised. If your body is indeed ready for more potentially fatal action, then we can be on our way tomorrow. That's a day earlier than I promised was the minimum required time for your recovery! Not a bad bargain, if I do say so. Which I do.” The doctor playfully depressed the trigger of his mechanical drill in two quick successions. It whistled at me. I made a face.

  I sighed, shook my head, and removed the rifle from my back; after leaning it against the chair, I took a seat and began bunching up my flowing strands of hair near the back of my head. Oswald's firm hands took the job from me, tying off the strands of hair and folding them over my shoulders until the first few layers parted to reveal the stubble against the bulbous rear of my skull. I heard him shuffling about on his wheeled stool behind me, but I remained facing the trailer's exit. After a few moments, I felt the sharp pinch of a hypodermic needle.

  The fluid Oswald injected into my brain always afflicted my senses with a powerful disorientation. He claimed it was a common drug used to inhibit the reaction of Panacea while simultaneously serving as an anesthetic. That way, an incision made would not simply close due to the nanites' speedy recovery process. The operations felt like daydreams to me. I existed in an interim state between conscious and unconscious, and it usually led to random rants. The old codger likely dealt with it often with his patients, since his only responses for the majority of my ramblings consisted of, “M'hm, yes, of course, dear, okay.”