by S. M. Nolan
Her face hardened, “If you were any kind of a leader they wouldn't have left.”
West grabbed her through the cage, spun her around and held her by the hair with one hand. He stretched her backward against her wound, pain forced a tremor through her body. She felt a blade press her throat. Cold steel threatened to sever her windpipe.
“I could do it right now,” He hissed in her ear.
Maggie straightened against the blade, “Miles to go, West. You kill me and Thorne'll never decode the weapon.”
West pulled his knife away begrudgingly, sheathed it. “You're right, I can't kill you… yet.”
He reeled back, expended his speed and strength to jab a fist into her wounded side. She cried out, instantly in tears. He released her to her knees, kicked her forward through the bars with a heavy boot, and began to walk away. She fell onto her stomach, fighting not to sob but finding it impossible.
She rounded, screamed with rasp, “You fucking tool!”
He stopped, turned on-heel, “What'd you call me?”
He charged the cage again. She whimpered, pushed herself to her knees, rasped, “I said you're a fucking tool. Black's tool. Omega's tool.” Her eyes narrowed. She spit venom, “It doesn't matter who claims you. They use you and you let them.”
West drew his pistol, aimed it on Maggie. He spoke slowly, his upper-lip twitching, “I'd choose my next words carefully.”
Her face was red, her eyes leaking. Spittle dripped down her trembling lips, “You don't scare me. You and I both know you can't kill me until Thorne's done. And if you leave without the weapon Black will kill you.”
He smiled, “I could kill—”
Maggie forced herself to her feet, doubled over, “Don't delude yourself. You're a pawn. You've always been a pawn. You think you hold all the cards, that you're in control. Your just another piece to be used and sacrificed as they see fit. You've never had control. You left your team after you beat them senseless, then expected them to sit-pretty like trained dogs—like you.” She rose to stare him down. “You cost yourself everything. Took what Black and Omega offered, and lost all hope in the process. All this time you've never questioned it. Never once asked, why? You're a junkie, and you don't even know what the weapon does.”
“Tell me then,” he mocked.
“Don't tell him anything,” Reese gasped.
He turned the gun on her, “You think someone'll die for you?”
“Go to hell,” she wheezed.
“It's meant to exterminate us—Humans—we're a blight to a superior species.” Maggie laughed at the irony. “You're exactly what they saw in Humanity that forced them to create it. Every. Single. Person. in the world will die by your hand.”
West's eye twitched, his upper-lip curled, “No-one lives forever.”
Maggie's rage built, “So that's how it is? The world dies because you're looking for a fix? You deserve no mercy. You won't leave here, West. I promise you'll die by my hand.”
West's mouth crept into a wide smile, “Is that what you think you've done? Granted mercy?” He laughed wickedly, “Ever wonder how Reese was recruited? Tell her Reese.”
“Fuck you, West.”
“Tell her!” He screamed, thrusting the gun forward.
Reese took a deep breath. Maggie whipped around to stop her, but her moment had come. Maggie'd feared Reese's reaction, but her sorry state on the floor looked more pitiful than dangerous. She'd never imagined it this way. She'd trusted Reese, however warily, but never thought her capable of succumbing to the fight. Reese could only force a few words before she had to stop, take another breath; she couldn't be a threat if she wanted to be.
“It… was me,” she said blankly. “I killed them. My mom. My dad. My brother.”
Maggie watched Reese's eyes lock on the floor. She shook her head with disgust and shame, “I hated them. My father. Abusive fool. Lost in a studio for hours playing. With colors like a child. My mother worked herself to death. Stupid for allowing him to.”
Maggie watched the hatred in Reese's eyes turn to regret.
West spoke, near-giddy, “And your brother?”
The regret dissolved into trauma. “I. strangled him. with my bare hands.”
“Why?” West demanded with a sick satisfaction. Reese was silent with contemplation. “Why, Reese!?”
She took a deep breath, “Because…”
“Say it,” West said with a sadistic smile.
“He n-never paid like. Like I did.”
“You killed him, because… what?” Maggie asked, confused.
“She killed them, because she's a monster,” West said. His eyes burned with satisfaction. His smile remained as he spoke, “Like me.”
West began a raucous laughter that made Maggie's head spin. Reese's face flickered with remorse, guilt, and a thousand memories and emotions she might never know.
West's voice prompted each one, “She left for basic an angry little girl. Came home a twisted killer. She killed them for breathing. We picked her up. Cops wanted someone to blame and she needed an out. We gave her one. She's a psychopath—a twisted one.”
Maggie watched Reese stare into nothingness, swallowed by an invisible abyss. She finally understood. Maggie was everything Reese regretted taking from the world; an artist, an innocent, someone that worked themselves to death. Most importantly, she was a road out and a chance at redemption.
“You see? You've changed nothing,” He laughed. A faint voice emitted from the radio at his chest. “Go ahead.”
Maggie ignored him, eyes on Reese. West turned away, but she called after him, “Maybe that's the difference, West.” He stopped, turned to her with his sickly smile. “Maybe you are beyond redemption.”
“We all are, Doherty.”
He turned for the tents across the chamber. Maggie stood, still confounded, as Russell stirred beside her. He groaned, rubbed his throbbing head to catch Maggie motionless in front of him.
“Is everyone alright?”
Maggie hung her head, closed her eyes, “We're… alive.”
34.
Desperate Times
October 9th
6:08 AM
The Omega Device
Thorne's fear pulled at his breaths with a fiendish malice. His eyes darted to the surveillance feeds long enough to know where everyone was. Unfortunately, his decryption was moving too quickly.
While the majority of the Cuneiform on-screen was more complex than even the tomes, the slab's markings required only character translations; a simple, sight-based inference of definitions from his compiled databases.
The lack of further information meant there was no way to determine whether interfacing with the device might also trigger it. In addition, there was nothing more on any part of the stone console to use as a clue. He looked elsewhere through the surveillance cameras, but the walls were smooth, unadulterated beneath the blue-light they emitted.
Only one possible course of action lay ahead, but it might be too slow-going; manually deciphering the screen's text. Although it might not make sense without further context, he had to try. Otherwise, it meant directly accessing the weapon's interface, and possibly—inadvertently—triggering the weapon.
An alert dinged in his headphones. A small window opened in the corner of a monitor, displayed a notification: “SAT-LINK ESTABLISHED: OMEGA DATA TRANSMITTING.” His fingers sprinted and Black's disturbing, modulated voice frittered a cold over his skin.
“I want answers,” Black ordered in harmonic discordance.
“Thorne's deciphering the device, sir,” West replied.
“You've said that,” Black responded. Irritation seeped through the shifting frequencies. “We're growing impatient. The rebels have taken Misrata. Kohms is in the pathway to Tripoli.”
“ETA and force?”
“It does not matter.” The modulator fluctuated into a low, rumbling growl. “We want that weapon operational before they reach the city. We are not interested in their conflict. If
you fail, we will send the response team to deal with you.”
“You mean eliminate us, Sir?”
Thorne savored West's fear.
“Yes.”
“Sir, I—”
“There will be no further excuses,” Black interrupted. “The weapon will be operational in twenty four hours or your contract expires.”
“Understood, sir,” West replied.
The screen flashed: “SAT-LINK TERMINATED: EXTERNAL DISCONNECTION.” Thorne watched West storm from his tent on the security cameras. He began shouting orders, “I want this place searched top to bottom, now! Thorne's got twenty-four hours.”
“Yes, sir,” a man said. “And when he's finished?”
“Kill him,” West instructed. “I'll deal with the others then.”
Thorne fumed. His fingers doubled their sprint. The room ignored him. He had twenty four hours before West killed them all. Choice-less, he ran searches through the satellite up-links that connected him to Omega's databases across the world. He remote-hacked a network reserved for emergency communications at a foreign embassy in Misrata, began sending packets to a Parliamentary building.
The minute, digital scraps, slowly deposited themselves across the Parliament's network, opened, and expanded over its nodes to fill their screens. Thorne breathed deep, read his message several times.
Arabic text was translated to English below; “Rebels of Misrata, infidels invade the land of your ancestors. Within the ruins of Leptis Magna, beneath Kohms, you will find them. Destroy them.”
35.
Hope
October 9th
12:00 PM
The Omega Device
Reese's chest heaved, her lungs wheezed, but her body was otherwise stilled by devastation. Maggie sat beside her, silent. The chamber was a quiet din in the wake of Reese's forced revelation. Russell stood at the edge of the cage, hands on the bars, to watch Omega's patrols.
An unfathomable atavism bubbled in his chest, infected him with fury. Maggie had told him what West had done. Hitting Maggie had pushed him over the edge, but emotionally eviscerating Reese filled him with a hatred he could no longer measure.
Rage permeated his every breath. He watched West, planned every move of a thousand different attacks. If he could reach him, West's life would end. The cage served kept him in check, but slowly fueled his blood-lust. Maggie sensed the perversion of his collected, logical nature.
Thorne peered between monitors then rose for the cage. A guard stopped him, “Get back to work!”
“I'm compiling code, it'll take time. I just want to talk to them.”
“Get to work or the L-T to will put you to work!”
“Listen monkey man,” Thorne spat, consumed with frustration. “West's gone to sleep. You want to wake him, be my guest, but I'm talking to them.”
The guard's eyes narrowed. He planted a fist in Thorne's gut, “Five minutes.”
Thorne limped away, doubled over, “Yeah, thanks. Asshole.”
He approached with deep breaths. Maggie rose, “You alright?”
He fought back a cough, “Black's putting the strangle on West. We've got less than a day before he sends in the cleaners.”
“The what?”
“Specialists,” Reese spoke at last, her eyes fixed on a distant point. “Murderers. Come in, clean up. Slaughter.”
Maggie looked back to Thorne as he leaned in, “I think I've figured it out. I've decoded some more passages. They explain, well, a lot.” He continued, his voice a shaky whisper, “It's the columns and the section above ground hidden by the piers.”
“What is?”
He kept his voice low, “I'm running a scan to double-check, but I think the control panel just activates the columns. I don't think it'll trigger the weapon, but it could buy us time.”
“Don't do it,” she pled, thinking of the cost.
“I don't have a choice, Maggie,” he said, terrified less for himself than them. “I can't stall any longer.”
“There has to be another way.”
He shook his head, “The language is too complex. I can't learn more than I have otherwise. All we know right now is that this is the control panel. It might even be that there's more—”
“Thorne—”
He begged forgiveness, “I have to. He's going to kill you.”
“This machine was built with the sole purpose of exterminating us. It's been hidden for a reason.”
“You can't know what it'll do.”
“You heard the message.”
“She said it is the weapon. It doesn't mean there isn't more—”
“Time's up fuck-wad, back to work!” The guard called.
“Don't do it, Thorne!” Maggie pled, verging on tears.
“I have to, Maggie. Please—” The guard pulled him away from the cage.
“Thorne!” The guard tossed him back toward the dais. “Damn it!”
She turned from the bars, sank back beside Reese. Russell's trance shifted to the guard with a possessed glare. The guard examined it with a curiously tilted head.
“So this is how it ends?” Reese breathed. “Stuck in a cage. While the weapon's deployed. At least we'll. Kill that son of a bitch.”
“Maybe Thorne's right.”
Reese faintly shook her head, “What's it matter? Once the weapon's active. None of us is any use. We're all going to die. In this cage.”
Maggie's confidence waned, “Thorne'll figure it out.”
Reese accepted her fate with a sharp breath, “I've done. A lot of bad things in my life. What I did to my family was. Hardly the worst. They never really did anything wrong they were just. Stupid. Like Thorne. He didn't hurt anyone. Didn't. Deserve any of this. I did.”
“You,” Maggie hesitated, confused. “You feel guilty?”
She exhaled a sharp breath, “Guilt was never the question.”
The conversation ended there. Maggie was stunned by Reese's words. She felt guilt, always had. Her unpredictable hostility was not the cause of her issues but the result of it.
Despite the obvious cold-blooded murders, she'd been fueled by pain. West and Omega would have them believe she was always twisted, sick, but her actions were a defense against external trauma. Omega used that to billow guilt into a raging self-hatred that fueled her dark side, caused more self-inflicted pain.
They, along with West, had manipulated her into becoming a monster, not simply leashed one. Her guilt had resurfaced when faced with Maggie, drove her to risk her own life to protect her. She was Reese's only route to redemption.
Unfortunately, they might not live long enough for her to pursue it.
36.
Rising
October 9th
12:45 PM
The Omega Device
“Get West!” Thorne shouted. “Get him now!”
Maggie hung her head, defeated. She'd watched Thorne from the cage, helpless to intervene. She wanted him to listen, silently begged him to, but he'd learned all he could at this stage and saw no further path to stalling.
With his natural, technological curiosity, he couldn't help but try to learn more, hope he could stall in the meantime. He was compelled by curious fear to interact with the device. Even if he was somehow right, and they did survive, it was only a matter of time before Omega attempted to tamper with the weapon.
Maggie's forehead pressed against the cage's bars, her face blank. West rushed to Thorne with a group of men in tow. They stopped at the dais' edge as West ascended it.
The room fell into absolute silence, and Thorne explained for all to hear, “I can only read so much right now, but I know this: The columns lead up into the Arch's piers and draw heat and power from the stone, sun, and the Earth's magnetic field.”
He paused, cast a glance toward the cage. West fidgeted.
He continued, “Activating this console will power the room and bring up the weapon's primary interface. It'll take a while to decipher, but from there we're in business. In the mean-time
, you can tell your boss you're moving ahead.”
West sneered, deduced Thorne had eavesdropped on his comm, “Do it.”
Maggie's head rose slowly beside Russell, his eyes locked on West. Thorne instructed the soldiers at the edge of the dais, “Get the gear out of the way. The columns are the power source, if something activates it's going to come from them.”
West shouted orders and the nearby group dispersed. Dozens of bodies all worked at-once to lift tables and gear, move them from between the columns. An alarm sounded on a computer-bank, but went ignored.
With the area cleared, Thorne stepped to console, looked down on it. “They have to be activated in pairs.”
“Just turn the fucking thing on,” West commanded.
Thorne cast West a glance, looked back at the console to hide a snarl, “Whatever you say.”
He depressed the first pair of large switches. A loud hum ignited. It revved through-out the cavernous room, reverberated off stone walls to settle at a low frequency. Thorne glanced at West again. His eyes narrowed with a deep breath.
The final switches depressed to another ignition. The collective hum apexed to a mid-range oscillation. The room shook. Sections of floor slid away between the four columns. Stone conduits rose, ground upward along the columns to bridge the distances between them. The rumble stopped with the conduits at-rest mid way up the room. The humming intensified subtly, and the random, white striations of stone began to glow.
“What the hell?” Maggie breathed.
The subtle rise of sound climaxed in a wavering buzz of frequencies. The dull striations flared. Thunder cracked. An intense light burst through the room. It blinded Maggie, forced her to shield her eyes. The light retreated to reveal the bridging conduits and columns glowing white-hot.
The glow streamed a syrupy current along the striations, a power-flow visible with its loud oscillations. Light streamed into the columns, rose upward through the ceiling to the piers. A second crack, and a flash arced between the columns and above the dais. It bubbled out, descended around it to trap Thorne and West.