by Jake Bible
“You just don’t switch it on to begin with,” Buntu says. “Every time I leave GenSOF Tower I tell myself that it is for the last time. I live like each moment will be my last moment. Those people we just killed? They wanted their last moments to be mine instead, but that’s not how it works. My last moments are mine, not to be shared, taken, given away. This world only exists inside my head. You, my squad, the GenWrecks. It’s all in my head.”
“That’s fucked. I’m a real person,” Jersey says. “They were real people. We exist outside of your head.”
“According to you,” Buntu grins. “And since you aren’t in my head, I can’t trust you. I can’t even trust these deaths. None of this may even be happening. And if none of this is happening then there’s no reason to worry about it or get upset. Just time to move on to the next unreal not inside my head thing.”
Buntu claps Jersey on the shoulder and starts walking, falling in line with the others as they work their way through the piles of corpses that choke the intersection.
“She give you the in her head speech?” Wallace asks, coming up next to Jersey.
“Yeah,” Jersey replies.
“It’s bullshit,” Wallace says. “But each operator has their way of coping. Buntu probably feels more than any of us combined, but she’s convinced herself she doesn’t. Whatever works and keeps her effective as an operator.”
“Aren’t you worried she’ll crack?” Jersey asks. “That her self-denial will break and she’ll freeze up or make a mistake that will get you all killed?”
“I’m worried that any one of my guys will freeze up and make a mistake that will get us all killed,” Wallace says. “And that can happen at any time, at any place, and for any reason. If Buntu wants to play make believe then I let her. She fights as hard as the rest of us, so who am I to question her methods for getting the job done?”
“It sounds like insanity,” Jersey says.
“Now you’re catching on,” Wallace says. “I’m surprised a girl from the Burn, in love with a GenSOF operator that has super bugs in his gut, even questions insanity.”
Jersey sighs. “I guess you’re right. It’s just all this needless death that’s getting to me.”
“No such thing,” Wallace shrugs. There’s a clattering sound in the alley to their right and she stops, holding out one hand against Jersey, her other keeping her rifle steady. She waits a minute then nods and motions for Jersey to keep walking. “There’s no such thing as needless death. All death is needed or we wouldn’t have been born to die. We’d be immortals. Or we’d all just die in our sleep at a specific age. That isn’t how it works. Everyone dies when their time comes. It is a needed thing to keep the natural order of other needed things working.”
“You don’t really believe that, do you?” Jersey asks.
Wallace smirks. “Like I said, we all have our own ways of coping.”
Red gives a short whistle from the front of the line and holds up a fist. He looks over his shoulder at Ton then all the way back at Wallace.
“Come on,” Wallace says and grabs Jersey’s elbow, dragging her up past everyone to Red and Ton. “What’s up?”
“Listen,” Red says.
Everyone stays quiet, their ears straining to hear what Red hears.
“Voices?” Wallace whispers. “Where are they coming from?”
“That warehouse over there,” Ton says, pointing across the street at a haphazardly constructed building of metal and stone. “Someone’s having a meeting.”
“So?” Wallace asks. “Let them meet. We need to keep moving and get to the tower.”
“We might want to see who it is,” Red says.
“There’s no point,” Wallace argues.
“No, Red is right,” Jersey says. “Those civvies and cooties back there were out of their minds. The strain was driving them mad, making them want to kill anyone that wasn’t one of them. If people are in that warehouse having a meeting then that means they still have reasoning ability. They may not be affected by the new strain.”
“Again,so?” Wallace says. “We aren’t here to make new friends, we’re here to get to GenSOF tower. Let these Burn civvies meet all they want.”
“Stop being intentionally dense, Beverly,” Ton says. “I know you want to play and pretend like GenSOF command is alright and going about things business as usual, but that’s crap.”
“We all have our own ways of coping,” Jersey smirks.
“Fuck you,” Wallace says. “Don’t be a cunt.”
“If there are people in there not affected by the strain then there may be a reason,” Red says. “They could be GenSOF and cultured up enough to resist the new strain. Or—”
“Or they could have been exposed to Blaze during one of his outings,” Ton says. “If that’s the case then gathering some intel on them could be exactly what GenSOF needs right now. They could be key to figuring a way out of this nightmare.”
“Could be, might be, maybe,” Wallace says. “You want to risk our lives on maybe?”
“I want to risk our lives to find an answer to this shit,” Ton says. “Isn’t that what GenSOF’s about?”
“GenSOF is about orders, not answers,” Wallace says. “I leave answers to Control.”
“Which is ten kinds of fucked,” Red says. “Trust us. We’ve seen it.”
“What gang territory are we in?” Ton asks Jersey.
“North Burn Wreckers,” Jersey says.
“You had a cousin that was with them, right?” Ton asks.
“Had,” Jersey replies.
“But there might be someone still in the gang you do know?” Ton presses.
“Could be, might be, maybe,” Jersey says, giving Wallace a wink. “And they may not even be part of the NBWs.”
“Let’s find out,” Red says. “Worst thing that could happen is we have to kill them all.”
“Quick recon first,” Wallace says. “Eyes on and assess then we approach. I have no desire to walk blind into something we can’t get out of.”
“Since when can’t you get out of something?” Ton grins.
“Look the fuck around, Alton,” Wallace growls. “You are standing in it.”
28
The leg snaps with ease and bloody bone fragments push through the tattered rags of the cootie’s soiled pants. Blaze grimaces at the sight, but doesn’t let it slow him down. He twists hard on the snapped leg, spinning the cootie over in the air then slamming him down to the ground as two more come at him in the dark, cramped hallway.
A spin to the right and Blaze throws a hard elbow, caving in a cootie’s temple. Blood spurts from the woman’s ear and nose as she drops like a sack of putrid shit. The next cootie hesitates at the rage and determination on Blaze’s face. That hesitation is all Blaze needs. He grabs the cootie by the throat and slams the man’s face into the wall again and again until nothing is left but a couple of teeth dangling from a pulverized skull.
“More!” Collette shouts as she shoves against the building’s stairwell door.
Without the power on, the door is almost too heavy to shift, but she gets it open and just shakes her head at the dozens of cooties and civvies racing up towards the operators. Paulo nudges her out of the way and leans over the threshold.
“Hmmm,” he says. “You don’t think we could convince them to turn back around, do you?”
“So much for trying to blend in,” Blaze says, stepping up behind the two, the cootie rags over his armor covered in blood splatter. “We got all stinky for no reason.”
“Yet I’ll remember this night forever,” Paulo says. “Because this smell is never getting out of my nose.”
“Up to the roof?” Blaze asks.
“Nah,” Collette says, checking the power on her rifle. She reaches back and pats Blaze on the cheek. “We can bottleneck the fuckers right here. Cut their numbers down before they get to us.” She leans back and glances at the three cooties Blaze had just killed. “Not that you aren’t doing a fine job cutt
ing their numbers down already.”
“I’m tired,” Blaze says. “Just fucking tired of fighting these fucks.”
“Ain’t we all, brother,” Paulo says, his rifle to his shoulder. “Shall we?”
Blaze nods and sets his rifle to his shoulder as well. The three operators position themselves, take aim, and open fire.
Cootie after cootie dances and shrieks as static blasts tear through them. Civvie after civvie screams in pain as their flesh is seared, their organs cooked, their bones roasted. But on they come, the press of the massive mob too great to be held back.
“I’m gonna be done here in a minute!” Paulo shouts over the cacophony of death. “My rifle is in the red!”
Collette replies with a guttural scream that makes both Blaze and Paulo wince. She moves ahead of the two men and sweeps her rifle back and forth, wiping the stairwell clean of wave after wave of attackers. When her rifle sputters and powers down, she looks back over her shoulder and gives the men a wink.
“This is how we do shit in the Sicklands,” she says as she flips her rifle around and holds it like a club.
“You know you can snap that into a baton, right?” Paulo says, his own rifle powering down.
“Fuck that,” Collette says. “Batons are for dancing girls. Do I look like a fucking dancing girl?”
She brings the rifle down onto the skull of the first cootie to reach her, splitting the man’s head open in one blow. Brain and goo spill out into the stairwell, making the floor and first few steps slippery as hell. Cooties stumble and fall as Collette swings again and again, crushing, maiming, breaking anyone or anything that gets within her reach.
“Fuck me,” Paulo says. “They sure now how to fuck shit up in the Sicklands.” He flips his rifle around and grins at Blaze. “Batons are for dancing girls.”
Paulo jumps into the fray, his own rifle crushing, maiming, breaking.
Blaze snaps his rifle into a pistol, intent on still going the firearms route. He gets quite a few more shots out of the smaller weapon, but even still, he has to toss it aside once it powers down. His exhaustion is evident on his face, but it is mixed with a fury that he doesn’t quite understand. It’s also mixed with a healthy dose of cootie blood splattered across his cheeks. He wipes at it and spits, trying to get it out of his mouth.
The taste of the cootie blood triggers something. It’s as if a small voice is egging him on, telling him to just let go and destroy whatever he can. The voice builds in volume, a constant whisper, a continual litany of suggested violence.
“I don’t need your suggestion,” Blaze says and something deep down, something that has always been there, crawls to the surface. He feels the change come over him. It isn’t like he becomes someone different, more like he becomes himself. The taste of blood is gone, leaving only the taste for violence and victory.
For the first time since joining GenSOF, Blaze feels whole.
Paulo throws a cootie over the railing of the stairs and then looks back to see where Blaze is. His eyes go wide at the look on Blaze’s face.
“You cool, man?” Paulo asks.
“More than you know,” Blaze says.
He rolls his head on his neck then jumps at the attackers. Literally jumps. His arms are slamming down on skulls like pistons, his fists like slabs of concrete and iron, caving in faces, cracking collar bones, snapping necks. When his feet hit a solid surface, the chest of a screaming cootie, Blaze has already killed seven attackers, sending their corpses below to tangle up the rest of the mob.
“What the fuck?” Collette says. “Where the hell did that come from?”
“Don’t know,” Paulo says, ducking under a cootie’s swing, his fist slamming hard into the man’s crotch.
Paulo dodges to the left as the man vomits then reaches out and grabs the man by the back of the head before the sick is completely past his lips. He yanks back, exposing the man’s neck while at the same time freeing a static blade from a sheath on his boot. Paulo slashes the man’s throat and shoves him away before the geyser of blood can coat him.
“You got another one of those?” Collette asks, eyeing the static blade.
“Sorry,” Paulo says. “But I’ll let you use this one when I’m done with it.”
Collette shifts her weight to her right as a woman swipes at her face. She grabs the woman’s arm and drops fast, snapping it right off, then jumps up and jams the splintered bone into the woman’s eye, killing her instantly.
“Never mind. I’ll be fine without it,” Collette says to Paulo. “You hang onto it.”
Another woman reaches for Collette and she bats the cootie’s hand away then thrusts forward, landing a severe headbutt that turns the woman’s pocked nose into a flat smear of flesh and blood. The woman screams and her hands dart forward and yank Collette’s helmet off. The cootie woman stands there, staring at the empty helmet like it should still hold Collette’s head.
“That’s mine,” Collette says as she snatches the helmet from the woman’s grip and then slams it against the side of her head. “But you can borrow it.”
A painful pressure erupts in Collette’s leg and she looks down to see a civvie trying to bite through her armor. Before she can kick him free, another civvie leaps at her from the railing. Collette swings and catches the man in the ribs with her helmet, sending him slamming into the wall. She lifts her free leg and brings it down on the biter, crushing his neck under her boot.
The civvie that hit the wall tries to get up, but Collette takes her brain-smeared boot heel and centers it right between his eyes, making them pop out of his skull. She catches one and crushes it in her fist then takes that fist and slams it into a cootie that tries to lunge at her. The cootie only gets a couple inches before tumbling back against the other attackers, her jaw hanging by a thread.
“Fuck,” Collette says, looking at her fist. The armored glove is shredded and in tatters. “These fucking city dwellers have sharp teeth. Don’t have to deal with many of those in the Sicklands.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t think you’d deal with many city dwellers out there,” Paulo laughs, snapping a man’s neck so hard that his head spins one hundred and eighty degrees.
“No, I meant teeth,” Collette shouts. “Not many of those in the Sicklands.”
“Oh, right,” Paulo nods then ducks under a swing. He comes up, headbutts the man, and gives him a hard shove back into the others.
Several steps below, and surrounded by cooties and civvies, stands Blaze. His arms move with a speed and power that is blinding. The stairwell is soon nothing but a fountain of blood and bone. His fists fly forward, his elbows slam back; his knees shoot up, his feet stomp down; each blow a killing blow.
Cooties and civvies scream, cry, shriek, wail, yelp, howl. And flee.
They turn and try to climb back over each other, try to put as much distance between themselves and the determined death machine that is Blaze.
Those that haven’t tasted Blaze’s rage rail against their brethren, roaring and bellowing with bloodlust, shoving back so that those trying to run are caught between a wall of cooties and civvies and a relentless killer.
Above it all, Paulo and Collette just stare, their mouths hanging open. They have no one left to fight now that Blaze has sent the attackers up against each other. Paulo turns to Collette, starts to speak, but just shakes his head. Collette nods in complete agreement.
And Blaze kills on.
29
Lewis and Maloch come hurrying back to the squad, running in a low crouch, their eyes sweeping back and forth until they get to cover.
“Never seen so many civvies in one place without static shields on,” Maloch says. “There’re close to two or three hundred in there.”
“Bullshit,” Ton says. “They’d be making a lot more noise.”
“No,” Lewis says. “Only a couple of them are talking. The rest look scared as hell. I don’t think any of them have been around that many people without shields up. Half of them are holding the
ir breath thinking that will keep them clean.”
“What are they talking about?” Jersey asks. “The ones that are talking.”
“Sounds like they are having a debate about what to do next,” Lewis replies. “One man is saying they should stay in the warehouse, keep safe.”
“The other is saying they need to try to get to GenSOF Tower,” Maloch adds. “He seems to think that’s the place to be.”
“Which way is the crowd leaning?” Ton asks.
“Hard to tell with them all so quiet,” Lewis replies. “Weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Paralyzed with fear,” Red says.
“Could be,” Ton nods.
“Oh, shit,” Jersey says and nods towards the warehouse. A small group of people is slowly slinking along the wall in the shadows. “I know that woman.”
“Who? The one in front?” Red asks. “How?”
“She’s a courier,” Jersey says. “She’d pick up my day’s work and drop off supplies at my loft. Nice gal. She got paid double for being the courier between the producers and the company.”
Red smiles and steps away from the corner of the building.
“What are you doing?” Ton hisses.
“I know why these folks aren’t affected,” Red says. “It wasn’t Blaze that spread his special bugs through the Burn, it was Jersey. All that lovin’ with Sergeant Crouch meant she was a carrier too. Worm said as much.”
“Even if Blaze spread it to Jersey, the bacteria wouldn’t be near as potent as what Blaze carries,” Ton argues. “It shouldn’t hold up to the new Strain.”
“Maybe it holds up better,” Red says. “Instead of being mixed with the GenSOF bugs in Blaze’s gut, it mixed with the more benign bugs in Jersey’s. The special bacteria crossbred with Burn bacteria making it more compatible for the genpop.”
“Or these people have just gotten lucky,” Wallace suggests. “They haven’t been in direct contact with the cooties or affected civvies.”
“Let’s find out,” Red says and starts walking quickly over to the warehouse.