Night Legions

by Jeremy Flagg

  “The Body Shop?”

  He shook his head. “Barely operational. Those logged into the network, ravaged. Thousands of troops immobilized. If they were lucky it fried their brains until they died. The ones not so lucky are nothing more than breathing shells. The Paladins weren’t on the network when the virus struck. Otherwise, you’d be the last man standing. So, you’re going to—”

  “No.”

  “What?” asked the General. Jasmine couldn’t be sure if he wanted her to elaborate or if he simply wasn’t used to being questioned.

  “Your idea.” She pointed with her chin. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

  “I am your super—”

  She stepped in and shoved him against a wall between windows overlooking the tarmac. He looked down, as if the spot she had touched burned through his clothes. What little intimidation was left about him faded.

  “Superior? Were you just about to say superior? Let’s get one thing straight, asshole.” She closed the distance between them. The man, easily eighty pounds heavier, didn’t flinch, his chest raised and shoulders squared, still attempting to be the regal General.

  “You tried to steal my fucking humanity.”

  “Get off it, Child. You executed those orders without question. Don’t try to heave your regrets on me.”

  Jasmine’s face grew hotter. “You put a bomb in my head and beat me until I was your perfect Marine. You isolated me. You made sure every day I knew I was less than human. I wanted to protect people.”

  “You wanted to fight.”

  Jasmine launched a fist. The wall just to the right of his head cracked inward on impact. The General hardly blinked. She stood close enough that her face was only inches from his, the heat of his breath washing along her cheek.

  It’d only take a moment, a hit to the chest and knee to the forehead. He’d be dead in seconds, another demon from her past vanquished. Squeezing his ribcage, the breath escaping as she refused to let it back in. Every scenario had her standing over the man’s corpse.

  “You claim to fight for humanity.” The words were quiet; if she spoke any louder, she feared she’d reach her tipping point and kill the beast. “But you have none.”

  “You will join the Paladins.” Clearly having decided the discussion was over, he returned to the statement that started the conflict.

  Unlike his ability to intimidate, his ability to enrage reached new heights. Anger was unlike any other emotion for Jasmine. Starting, in her chest the warmth spread through her limbs until it burned beneath the skin. Unlike any other emotion, anger had a taste of comfort. To Jasmine, anger was like returning home.

  The muscle in her left arm strained, bugling until her compression shirt stretched. For as long as she could remember, she had been strong. The Nostradamus Effect mutated her body until her limbs had twice the strength of a human. It also came the inability to get sick. Being a Child had advantages.

  The Gen—Jonah grasped at her hand, clutching at the fingers suspending him two feet from a tacky carpet with one of those patterns making it impossible to stain. Not a big man by any stretch of the imagination, he attempted to free himself from her, a menace. His skin, clammy against her hand, steadily transitioned from the red of anger to the bluish purple of asphyxiation.

  Both of his feet slammed into her chest, sending her tumbling backward. He sucked in air as she bounced off the floor. She growled. He attempted to yell, the words coming out as sputtering coughs. Jasmine rolled to her feet and started the sprint that would place her shoulder square into his sternum.

  “Enough.”

  Jasmine, entangled in her own anger, had forgotten Ariel was still in the room. The power the woman exerted defied logic. Now Jasmine's limbs refused to move, encased in an invisible prison. Muscles flexed as she attempted to break free, but Ariel didn’t allow it. Jasmine feared her, not for the raw power at her disposal, but for the temperament she managed. Ariel’s emotions were a mystery, locked away behind a wall Jasmine had never witnessed, and hoped never to.

  “Ariel—”

  “No.” A single word silenced the General. “Jasmine is right, your plan is to overwhelm them with firepower?”

  The question was rhetorical; even the General knew not to respond. Ariel walked over to the large table with computer graphs and tactical readouts. Without a gesture, both Jasmine and the General’s bodies drifted toward the table, the adversaries side by side.

  “It’s a trap,” Jasmine said, staring at the battlefield.

  “We have the numbers—”

  “To win a battle? Perhaps.”

  Jasmine tried to make sense of the board. She’d spent years in the field, even assisted in planning a handful of operations, but rarely was she at this level when planning an initiative. She hated to admit it, but she wasn’t the strategic mind. Jasmine had always been a soldier, the Marine, a grunt on the ground, a fact the General refused to let die.

  “The war,” Ariel said. “This has always been about the war.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Jasmine.

  “Ivan,” she said, “he doesn’t want to win a battle, he has always been willing to sacrifice himself for gain. First Mark. The Warden built an army of Children. I should add it was the two of you who supplied him troops.” Ariel’s jab stung. Jasmine broke eye contact, the woman’s accusing gaze burrowing through her.

  “He’d have consumed them, creating a formidable fighting force. Next, Jacob. The man is in control of one of the most advanced corporations in the country. The Society he rules has direct ties to the president. But it’s not enough.”

  “It will never be enough,” Jasmine said.

  “He holds the presidency. He has an army. The rest of the world is watching, waiting for a victor from this civil war. No, the battle is not going to win the war. You may squash his…” Ariel reached into the map and with a few gestures zoomed outward.

  “Detroit.” She pointed at one of the synthetic facilities.

  “We’ve considered it. We can’t split our forces,” the General said. “The roads between us and Detroit are crawling with mechs. It’d require more manpower and time we don’t have.”

  “The war,” Ariel said deep in thought, ignoring his protests.

  “What happened to you, Ariel?”

  Jasmine couldn’t hide her surprise. It was the first time she’d witnessed even a modicum of humanity from the General. Jasmine tried to imagine them young, picture whatever had happened between them. Friends? Lovers? Ariel’s story remained off limits. Her rebellious spirit called to Jasmine, but seeing the pain in the older woman’s eyes, Jasmine respected her boundaries.

  “Mark. Arturo. Elizabeth.” Whatever memories broke down her emotional wall, it was an onslaught. “Penelope. He murdered them. He stole my life from me. He crushed my childhood, and now…” Jasmine had never seen the woman cry, but recognized her look of anguish from every time she had stared in the mirror. “Now, Ivan wants to destroy my, our, future.”

  “Ariel.” The General's voice was soft. Jasmine started to get uncomfortable; the iron wills that controlled the future of mankind were crumbling.

  “I can do it,” Jasmine said.

  “What?” Ariel didn’t understand.

  “I’ll go to Detroit. Give me the Paladins. I’ll do it.”

  “The Marine returns.”

  The invisible hold on her body evaporated. She swiped with a chop against his throat, knocking the wind from his lungs. Jasmine nodded at Ariel. “Thanks.”

  Ariel returned the nod. “He deserved that.”

  While Jonah continued wheezing, Jasmine reached into the holographic projection and started spinning the map about. The image scrambled for a moment, the data from satellites corrupted since Dav5d brought the military network to a standstill. Jasmine eyed the park, the open grounds where the General planned to wage a full war. The leader’s brute-force tactics were legendary, but as they discovered in Washington D.C., their foe wasn’t about showmanship.
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  “I’ll go to Detroit with the Paladins.” The statement was not for the sake of other two in the room. She had joined the Nighthawks to save refugees and fight against a tyrant. She joined Ariel and Twenty-Seven to make amends for the death of Rebecca, a stain she found impossible to escape.

  “Begin simulation.” The dots on the board moved, charging toward one another. Small segments of the military flanked the robotic army. The synthetics attempted to dodge and circumvent their tactics.. Heavy infantry and tanks cut through the machines until the larger mechs emerged and started firing. Casualties started to spike, the number on the readout spinning too quickly to read

  “Stop.” The toll already had nearly half the military’s force eliminated. The number on the table read over two hundred thousand dead troops. Half. The man had only brought a small portion of his available military resources. She imagined the rest safely tucked away on the West Coast, awaiting his return to begin their next operation. Jasmine never wanted to understand the bigger picture, instead following any and all orders like a loyal Marine.

  Why only bring half his forces?

  In the pit of her stomach, she started to understand Jonah’s—no, the General’s—tactic. The fighting spilled into the nearby high rises, into the streets of Chicago. The innocent casualties amassed. Final death tally on the screen blinked a bold “92% military.” Even Ariel reacted, her brow furrowed and the edges of her lips turned down.

  “This is a suicide mission,” she blurted out.

  “The military refers to it as 'acceptable loss'.” Jasmine accentuated with air quotes. “The General here, he has a high tolerance for acceptable losses. Don’t you?” Anger, a warm comfort.

  Jonah's body contorted, shrinking in his invisible cage. Jasmine recognized Ariel’s grip, tightening until the pain started in his bones. The woman rose above the table and lowered next to him until their eyes were level. Seconds turned to minutes as she stared, hardly blinking as she read him.

  “I feared you were as lost to me as Davis,” she whispered. Seeing the sting on the General's face, Jasmine got a glimmer of a human, a man, behind the uniform. Somewhere, hidden beneath protocol and the ruthless leadership, Ariel injured a lingering sliver of humanity. Jasmine hoped the man’s eyes would water, but he only shook his head slightly.

  “Prove me wrong, Jonah.”

  Jasmine wanted to witness Ariel tearing through the man. If her fists couldn’t elicit a modicum of humanity, she’d settle for Ariel’s version of torture. Ariel started to speak, but the General cut her off. His voice was weak, almost sheepish. With downward eyes, he muttered a simple, “How?”

  Victory. With that one word, Ariel vanquished Jasmine’s demon.

  The victor turned to Jasmine, then eyed the hologram. “How do we all win, Jasmine?”

  Jasmine leaned over the map. Their dots were humans. On the other side, the unyielding synthetic horde. And behind that robotic onslaught, a single man with an ability to cut through the United States Corps with surgical precision. The battle for Chicago would not be won in Chicago alone.

  “Get your commanders,” she said, a plan starting to form. “I never thought I’d say this…” She could only suspect the amount of grief she’d receive. “We need Conthan.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  2033

  “To the people of Chicago.” Twenty-Seven stared directly into the floating orb, reading a script projected into the air. “President Jacob Griffin, a tyrant, is declaring war on the citizens of Chicago. Evacuate west. The military is providing safe refuge for all humans.”

  Past the orb, Needles gestured for her to continue. Twenty-Seven shook her head, waving away the script. “I don’t have much time before the government shuts us down. We’re at war. The president’s synthetics are gathering in Chicago. I know you’re tired. I know you’re frightened. I am too. Griffin has bought his way into the government; he used a conflict started by former President Joyce to start this tyranny.”

  Nothing she said felt like enough to sway public opinion. Anger gripped her chest, a sense of futility mixed with disgust. She held up her mechanical arm in its new shimmering chassis. “Jacob, your men tore my arm from its socket. You should have made sure they'd assassinated me instead.” The robotic middle finger erected until it was in the face of the camera. “The Nighthawks are coming for you.”

  A roar of cheers erupted throughout the subway station. The camera zoomed in on her face. It was cheesy, something out of a comic book. But when surrounded by a rebellion filled with people wielding uncanny powers, it was hard to deny the similarities.

  “Lock and load, people,” she yelled at the folks clapping and hollering. “We’ve got lives to save.”

  * * * * *

  The Paladins occupied one of the best views in the airport. Their makeshift shantytown, with mats rolled along the floor, was no nicer than the others, but a bathroom only a few feet away spoke to status. Jasmine remembered being housed in the storage area of the base for days at a time, until the General…until Jonah had need for their tactical precision.

  Murdock and Vazquez held the tallest guns. Snipers, the duo relied on an uncanny ability to read each other’s thoughts. When positioned upward of a mile away, their sole purpose was to predict and eliminate danger. Jasmine never said it out loud, but Murdock, the only living original member of the Paladins, would always be her favorite.

  Belletone and Sims had arrived later, recruits she personally pulled from over a thousand records. Belletone had been transformed into more machine than man, but the disapproval in his ocular enhancements was human enough. Sims had remained the soul of the Paladins, the only man with a moral compass. Jasmine remembered him being dragged to the brig for pulling a gun on a superior officer. In hindsight, she deserved the bullet resting in the chamber of his pistol. If she met herself from two years ago, she have do the same today.

  The new body armor was uncomfortably tight. The red suit, the sign of the incoming elite guard, had been traded by something far more advanced. Jasmine only had a moment to ponder how the military developed such technology in a short period of time. She wondered if this had been acquired from Japan, or perhaps Canada? If she survived, she’d need to ask more about the covert operations behind the scenes.

  “No,” Sims said before she spoke.

  Feet shoulder-width apart, arms neatly crossed behind her back, she found the position all too familiar. Confronting a band of Marines who loathed her existence came like second nature. The man’s words were ignored.

  “File a complaint with your superior.” She tapped a small dot on the front of her uniform, sneering as the colors shifted, displaying a patch with her newly appointed major rank. “And that’s no, sir.”

  Jasmine allowed them time to process. Seconds passed as she held the position. When the glances between each team member and the next stopped and nobody dared speak, she continued. “We, I, have one more mission with the Paladins. I’ve never bullshit you before.” She stepped closer, entering the perimeter of their makeshift bunk. “I’m not going to start now.”

  Freshmeat. The kid’s face, like the rest lost, had its soft curves and with it, the naivety of a new recruit. It took a moment to notice the missing ear on his right side. The scar tissue reached down his neck. Since the last times she led him, he had seen enough battle to carry the scars, a decoration making him blend with the rest of his unit.

  “Name?”

  “Charles, Preston Charles.” The kid didn’t have the hate the others did. “Sir.”

  “I know I can’t call you Freshmeat anymore. What do your brothers call you?”

  “Brass.”

  “Brass?”

  “Ma’am, on account of I’ve got a brass set of—”

  “I get it.” The man’s southern accent started to slip into his speech. “If we’re going to die today, we’re going to do it as a team.”

  Jasmine stared at Sims and Murdock. “Neither of you have to like the order, but you’re
going to follow. You’re going to be the Marines I trained. You’re going to be best—”

  “Because you recruit the best,” Murdock said. He stood from the plastic seat, his chest puffing out. With a slow and deliberate motion, he saluted her. Vazquez, Belletone, and Brass followed suit, leaving Sims the only man to disrespect his superior.

  Jasmine leaned in close to him, their bodies grazing one another as she whispered into his ear. “The day I killed Vlad, I earned your bullet.” The sound of Vlad’s neck snapping had been the end of a hard-fought battle. “He was right to say I was less than human, just not for the reasons he claimed.”

  As she pulled back, the expression in Sims's eyes hadn’t changed. Nothing she said would rectify his fear. With Jasmine lording over Vlad’s body, Sims had seen a monster emerge. The General hadn’t been completely wrong; his machinations only amplified a reality she locked away in the deepest parts of herself. Since that day, every deed had been for atonement.

  “That monster died months ago when she buried the body of a child.”

  Sims's eyes widened as his expression shifted toward horror. Jasmine felt no need to elaborate, instead letting his imagination run wild. She took another step back and with a snap of her arm, she saluted her subordinate.

  Boot heels clicked together and Sims gave a slight nod before bringing his hand to his forehead. “Orders, sir?”

  “We were assembled to be the very best of the Corps, of humanity. Paladins were the most trusted, loyal, and fierce fighters. Their values were so true, they became legends in their own time. In front of me, I see five men worthy of the title. Not just a callsign on a uniform, but true Paladins. Today we are going to prove that America is no place for a sadistic tyrant. Today we are fighting for the rest of humanity. We are the last bastion of hope. Get yourselves prepared, we depart in fifteen minutes.”