by Ian Williams
Among the Sentient ranks there were others who were busy in their similarly defensive roles. To ensure no-one made it close to the relay, some had been charged with the manning of energy turrets, four in all, each powerful enough to rip a human-made tank in two with one pull of the trigger. They often turned humans into black scorch marks, leaving only a shadow of their bodies behind in the dirt.
The area was well protected, just like every other with any significance to Isaac’s cause. The humans were never allowed a chance to cause trouble – unless they found a way to get close. Of course that had been avoided so far. In the three months since the force-field had been erected only a few attempts to disrupt the relay network had even made it past the first turret. All others had perished without much of a fight.
They were prepared to adapt to a change of tactic whenever needed. It had been quiet for a week or two since the last failed attack, so another was due any moment. Each Sentient knew this and understood that any mistakes would cost them dearly. They were ready, then, to prove themselves worthy of the Master’s praise.
Walking among the patrolling guards, a small team of four Sentients beside her, was another just like them all. This person fit in perfectly. She had the same small box attached to the side of her head that gave each Sentient Isaac’s orders – exactly like the others – and wore the uniform to boot too. She was a Sentient soldier with nothing to set her apart from the rest.
All except for one rather important thing that the others around her did not realise; Phoenix had no Sentient in control of her body, she was all human. She was making good use of a mistake her enemy had made; a grave mistake she would make sure they were punished for. During her ordeal at the hand of two crazed Sentients, one she had given the name of Driller Man to, they had fitted her with a control box of her own. Except they had failed to place another overriding consciousness inside her box.
She walked among them, blending in like a chameleon. Her disguise was aided by a long period of distant studying of the enemy’s mannerisms and actions. She had the impression almost to perfection now.
The patrol she hid within all carried a weapon in their arms, the exact same type she held as well, a strange rifle with a sphere at the end where the barrel should be located. In this shape were a collection of small, bullet sized holes, all of which allowed for multiple targets to be shot at the same time. Phoenix had stolen hers from a Sentient back at Sanctuary during her and Elliot’s investigation months before. She kept it swaying from side to side, slowly scanning the area.
Each of the energy turrets aimed out from the relay, one situated at each 90-degree angle. They arched from side to side and were ready to pick out any target. Nearing one, manned by an eagle-eyed Sentient, Phoenix tried to study its workings. The thing stood like a jet-black perched bird-of-prey with its wings down by its side. Where the beak would be, there was a fist sized chunk of crystal that sparked with an angry energy, one hungry for release.
Her patrol would not venture too close to the turrets as her small team’s job was to watch for human interference. They stayed outside the circle of static Sentient guards and explored the region between them and the turrets. Not once would they get where Phoenix needed to be while in this formation. Something needed to change for her plan to proceed.
“You,” the Sentient manning the turret called over to Phoenix’s little group.
The Sentient in charge of the patrol stopped to answer, his team members halted immediately behind him. “What are your commands?”
Phoenix kept her cool and stared idly ahead while the two Sentients conversed. To speak out of turn was a certain death sentence.
“Proceed to sector Five. Investigate reported disturbance. Terminate any threat.”
“Orders confirmed. Proceeding to sector Five.”
This was not the change Phoenix had in mind. The new orders were to take her much further away than she wanted, and in completely the wrong direction. The time had come to do something, otherwise the plan would fail. So, with as much discretion as she could manage, Phoenix lowered her chin to her chest and spoke in a whisper. “Rhys, come in. Do it.”
“You got it. Clement, you’re up.”
The reply from Clement came through loud and clear. “Copy, setting off charges now.”
The conversation happened in Phoenix’s right ear, which housed an almost invisible earpiece. The mic, however, hung around her neck beneath the uncomfortable black shirt she wore to blend in. As soon as Rhys replied, she went back to keeping up her false image of a Sentient soldier.
“Phoenix, get ready to move. Jack, you ready?”
But Jack’s reply almost made her break cover in response. “Oh shit, crap, bollocks. I think I’ve blown my cover,” he said. He was whispering at least, which made his worry less immediate. “I’m near the turret, but I’m getting some funny looks.”
“Just hold it together, Jack,” Rhys said, the sound of beeping electronics coming from the background. “That box on your head makes you one of them, so stay calm. OK, here goes.”
As Phoenix wandered along with her patrol she tried to slow as much as possible, without causing suspicion. It worked for a short while, then she slowly began to stick out – the worst thing to be doing. The leader of her patrol stopped abruptly and silently turned. He had not spotted the odd behaviour himself, it had been reported silently by another behind him.
The second she caught his eye the situation changed for the worse and Phoenix found herself being eyed by all of her fellow Sentient guards. Thankfully, they saw through her disguise too late. Rhys’ explosive charges boomed through the quiet, bringing every Sentient facing toward it.
In reaction the turrets came to life with a ricocheting volley from each, which tore through the buildings close by. Their energy threw heat and light about the place like a bonfire at a fireworks display. But they had nothing to aim at, just the sound. The blind firing only took bits away from already crumbling structures.
What it had done was distract, enough to give Phoenix and Jack the chance they needed to carry out their task. The Sentient patrol that had begun to turn against her now knew nothing of what was going on. No orders were forthcoming, leaving all of the guards to race around blindly and trying to locate the threat. It was exactly what she had been waiting for.
With her own orders clear in her mind, Phoenix went for the eye-tracking switch located just in front of the trigger on her rifle. The small sight flicked up and instantly tracked her eyes. She blinked at each of the Sentient targets nearest to her. Despite the danger they posed she still made sure to only aim at their legs; she wanted to incapacitate them, not kill them outright, as the human host would die too.
With a single pull of the trigger, she took the four Sentients out instantaneously, sending each to the floor and gripping their bloodied limbs. Now she was free to leave them behind and meet up with Jack. Along the way she passed more Sentients with no idea what to do. Most just ran toward the sound of the explosions, like a moth to a raging fire. She found Jack still pretending to fit in with those around him, who aimed at the sky, at the birds, even at the force-field above them.
“Jack, come on, we haven’t got long,” she said, yanking Jack along backwards by the strap of his heavy backpack.
“Christ, Phoenix, I thought we’d had it then. Remind me to tell Rhys to kiss my arse next time he comes up with a stupid plan.”
“Noted,” she replied before firing another round at an approaching Sentient. Again she caught the enemy in the leg and forced them into immediate submission. When one of her downed targets reached for their weapon she followed with a bullet to the arm. However chaotic a situation it appeared to be, she was always in complete control.
With the vast majority of Sentients now focused on finding the cause of the explosions, she and Jack approached the think base of the relay with the intention of bringing it down. They had learnt how to proceed from the few failed attempts they had tried before. On those occasions
they had been blocked by a surprisingly resilient casing, something she had not catered for. This time they had; with a plasma cutter.
“Turn around,” she ordered Jack with a swift spin of his skinny form. He stood watching the enemy with his own stolen rifle as she searched for the handheld implement.
“Hurry up,” Jack said, raising his rifle to aim at a Sentient running past. He fired one shot into the woman, accidentally catching her in the side. “Shit.”
“Dammit, only hit them in the leg or arms, Jack. You kill them, you kill the human inside too.”
She found the plasma cutter and twisted its valve open. With a click of a button it popped into life and sent out a bright blue flash of light. Touching it to the solid metallic casing of the relay’s metre wide base made the light turn a retina burning white as yellow glowing bubbles of melted metal dripped away. Phoenix held her hand in front of the light and kept her head at an angle. She roughly cut out a square shape just large enough to reach inside of.
“Hand me the pipe-bombs,” she asked Jack as she finished with the plasma cutter and threw it to the ground. There was no time to be neat.
“How many do you need?”
“All of them.”
“What, are you crazy?”
“Just do it. I don’t want to waste this chance. We can make more later.”
Jack huffed and puffed, then removed his backpack. “Here, take it.”
As she began to remove a handful of the makeshift bombs from the bag she spoke into her radio. “We’re ready.”
“Good.” Rhys never delayed his response, he was to the point and concise. “Shove as much explosives into the hole as you can and connect the timer circuit to the last. We only need to detonate one to set off the others. Set it for around eight minutes.”
She followed the procedure as Rhys had shown her. Once she was done, she made sure the entire pile was seated safely and not about to come loose anytime soon. “Done,” she said, pulling the mic up to her mouth.
“Great. Now activate the timer and get the fuck out of there!”
Jack nudged Phoenix as he spotted some of the Sentients returning from their search. “We got trouble coming. Shit, what do we do?”
For a moment Phoenix thought over the situation, while the enemy gradually returned to their posts. All her talk of not terminally injuring the human hosts and now she faced the possibility of killing quite a few herself. It was hypocritical, yet at that very moment unavoidable.
“We can’t help them now.” She knew it was cold of her to doom these people, innocent people, but there was little choice in the matter. The fight back against Isaac’s forces had become hopeless of late. They were losing more ground each day to the enemy. Succeeding here would reinvigorate the retaliation.
“Fine, lead the way.”
Phoenix dropped the backpack and pulled her weapon up from her side. She and Jack then made a run for it across the open space to the safety of a burnt out building. They headed straight toward the nearby thirty-floor apartment block that overlooked the concrete park the relay sat within.
Inside the building it was a similarly devastating story. All of the apartments had been ransacked during the first few days of the fight, their rooms upturned and any occupants now part of Isaac’s army. Any who had attempted to put up a fight had been left where their bodies fell. Peering into a couple of the rooms as they raced up the smoke-stained staircase and past each floor, Phoenix and Jack came across a couple of the dead. Decay was everywhere this close to the new relays.
The top three floors were open to the elements after some form of attack had ripped the roof almost completely off. Up there it was far from pleasant, but it was the perfect place to hide this close to the enemy. It also served as the ideal position for Rhys to stay and watch as those with black box disguises attached to their skulls sneaked about on ground level.
At the point where the roof came free of the building and the internal structure had been left open to the elements, it became necessary to avoid the open doorways for favour of the narrow corridors. Rhys had taken up temporary residence in the furthest corner of the apartment block overlooking the relay. He crouched beside a large hole in the wall and peeked over the edge of it for a short look below. The rest of the room was fairly intact, except for the missing wall to separate it from the next apartment.
Phoenix approached Rhys, her weapon raised at all times. She stopped on the other side of the hole and rested her back against it. There she could quickly angle her head around the wall and spy on anything below. “They’ve no idea what’s going on,” she said, noticing the obvious confusion among the remaining Sentients near to the relay.
Rhys took a look himself with a small pair of binoculars. “Yep. There’s still some within the blast radius though.”
“Dammit, we should have staggered the smaller explosions more,” she said, slapping her back against the wall. “There’s only a minute or two left on the timer, there’s no time to do anything.”
“I agree. It’s just…”
“Forget about that now. Are you set up and ready to go?”
Behind Rhys sat a metal cylinder with obvious welding joins running down its length. It had the look of something thrown together in a hurry. But its purpose made it the most important item in their possession.
He knelt beside the device and reached inside to tinker with the internals. As he did he went through his mental checklist aloud. “Wiring looks solid, coil is seated correctly, battery appears to have held its charge. I think we’re done.” He then turned his attention to Jack, who stood in the doorway to the small room. “You sure this thing will work?”
“I have no idea,” Jack replied, his hand nervously running through his milky white hair. “The design came to me during one of my ‘episodes’. I can only remember feeling excited about it.” He began rubbing his bloodshot and dark rimmed eyes. Despite his regular bouts of exhaustion, he still wanted to be involved as much as possible. The damage done to him by the black box was often too visible to ignore though. “Just make sure you set if off just before the pipe-bombs.”
“Hey, we have to move now,” Phoenix interrupted.
“Shit, yeah. I’ve already told Clement to meet us back at the basement. Time for us to go too.” Rhys snuck across the open hole and followed Jack out. He fiddled with the remote to the device as he exited.
They made their way slowly and quietly along the hallway and down the stairs. Then, once outside, they walked much faster around the other side of the building. Keeping the relay on the opposing side of the apartment block, they flanked the enemy position, along streets filled with much of the same as before; burnt out buildings, crumbling walls and the sounds of marching feet in perfect time with each other. A few of the Sentient patrols were exploring further afield than the rest of the guards.
At the agreed street corner something caught Phoenix’s attention by the relay. Someone was investigating the area around the bomb. “Shit, get away from there,” she said under her breath.
“Less than a minute left, by my watch.” Rhys kept his back against the wall. He had no interest in watching. Jack, on the other hand, had every intention and stepped out behind Phoenix enough to see for himself.
The nosey Sentient stood holding Jack’s discarded bag, checking the inside for anything that remained. He had yet to spot the pipe-bombs packed tightly inside the relay. But instead of calling over another Sentient he suddenly arched his head up and stared toward the sky. What was he doing? Was he looking for something above him, another ally perhaps?
When a spark from the relay flashed out, Phoenix knew it was a sign of something new. Her enemy had changed over the last few weeks and she was about to see just how much. The spark grew into a constant flow of electricity, all aimed at the ground beside the Sentient checking over the relay. Then, and with a thunder like clap, a form appeared from the ether, a strange being made entirely of energy.
She spoke softly to herself. “What
the fuck are you?”
“Ten seconds. I’ll set the EMP off a split second before the pipe-bombs go off,” Rhys said.
The Sentient began to speak to this new arrival as though referring to a king, his head bowed and his hands together in a show of respect. Their conversation was brief and followed by a short investigation of the relay. Phoenix found it hard to believe, but somehow an intelligence roamed the city in the form of pure energy. She watched as that intelligence walked the area in front of the relay like a solid being made entirely of matter. Was it Isaac, or something else, something she had yet to understand?
She stepped out from cover a little to get a better look. There was no real detail that she could make out, only the rough outline of a humanoid and basic features on the blue, flickering approximation of a face. This was an enemy she found much more difficult to figure out; at least with the Sentient soldiers there was something to shoot at.
“Setting off EMP…” Rhys clicked the trigger of his remote and was then interrupted by an earth shattering explosion that ripped through the bottom section of the relay, followed by a shockwave that knocked anyone close to it onto their backs. For a while there were no sounds coming from the Sentients around the area, as only the falling debris could be heard. The surrounding buildings took the pieces to their walls like knives into a dartboard.
A large dust cloud spread from the centre of the area, where the relay had once stood proudly. Phoenix looked out after removing her hands from her ears and was stunned by the damage caused. Where before the relay had remained unaffected by the blast, this time they had done much more, this time their plan had crippled it. The EMP had knocked it out, but the pipe-bombs had blown right through. This relay was ruined and no longer supplied any power at all to the shield high above it. The purple stream of energy sputtered away to nothing more than a subtle glow.