by Zac Strong
“Wait, you know Kronos? Like, know them know them?”
“Of course,” he scoffs as if I offended him. “In my line of work, it pays to have friends in all places. Shit can get messy, quick.”
“Is that what this is for?” I ask nodding at the pipe gun shoved up against the metallic casing of an unused nano-injector in his middle compartment.
He curves a rough smile through his forest of a beard. “Something like that.”
Our shuttle clamors to stop midair at the barrier checkpoint. Gravity lock.
“Don’t move a muscle,” Griffin orders snappishly. There’s no telling what they’ll do if they catch us harboring Athan and Rome.
I can hear the humming of the orbital drones, hoovering in pattern around us, scanning the contents of the shuttle from outside. Remaining as still as possible, I search the bay for anything I can use as a weapon.
They're getting closer.
Their lasers pass over me and continue towards the rear.
A pleasant tone chimes from outside Griffin’s shuttle, accompanied by the green lights now glowing from the orbital drones.
The gravity lock releases. Into Olympia, we coast.
“How did we make it through?” I ask stumped, still trying to calm myself. “Thought for sure we were dead.”
“I do this typa shit every day, mate. It’s easy when ya bring a jammer,” says the outlaw pilot, tapping a metal box fastened under his dash. “For all they know, we’re Suits.”
Despite the periodic flicker of the forcefield, Olympia seems darker than usual, foreign even. Every street’s empty, every bar’s closed. You can smell the paranoia in the air.
“Where is everyone?” I ask, face smashed to the cleaner side of a dusty window as we soar over empty streets and air lanes.
“Anyone caught out after dark is executed on the spot now, city ordinance.”
“What? You’ve got to be shitting me.”
“I shit ya not. We’ve got ‘bout an hour till,” he says, pausing for a second. “Ya know, I don’t see how you people do it.”
“Do what?”
“Live like this. Under the rule of another man, living in fear, day after fucking day. Does it not get exhausting, keeping up with all the countless things someone else doesn’t want you to do? Is it even possible to memorize them all?”
“Opposed to living in chaos? Disorder? Like some scavenger in the Outlands?” I reply.
“Nah, not like that. Chaos doesn’t always have to be pillage and plunder. Chaos without violence is freedom. Shit wouldn’t be much different in my world. Not at all perfect, but at least ya wouldn’t be a slave to a society that doesn’t give a fuck about ya.”
“Some see that as being selfish. We are a social species. Maybe Lethe isn’t right, but there needs to be something, don’t you think? What about everyone else? Strength in numbers? Our moral duty to those that can’t survive on their own? How do you think we made it this far?”
“Meh.. Fuck ‘em. Selfishness is the path to happiness, lad. You should be the motivation of all ya actions. If ya want to be a prick, be a prick. If ya want to help people out, then fuckin’ help ‘em out. Just leave me the fuck be and let me go about with my peaceful life.”
“Yeah, we would go extinct in like a year if everyone just did what they wanted,” I reply, cloaked with a sense of intellectual superiority. This guy is a bigger piece of shit than I am.
“If so, then I die happy, but I don’t think so. See, shit like murder and rape lowers ya chance of survival, which is pretty fucking high on almost anyone’s selfish lil’ want-list. If everyone just did what they wanted, for the most part, the world would be…eh, decent. Peace and harmony, love, all that shit. No rulers required. It’s only when some asshole believes he has this magically fucking authority, do we see shit like this.”
“I mean, I see where you’re coming from, but my guess is a world without rulers would just lead to a gang of violent thugs taking over, dictating our every move.”
“Well, ya certainly right about that, mate” he replies smugly, steering past a massive billboard of Archer Lethe’s face with his message in bold above. IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING.
We land the shuttle on the vacant sky-plat outside my flat’s entryway and decide to go in for a much-needed drink with our remaining few minutes of daylight.
Athan passed out an hour ago. Completely exhausted. I carry him down to the door on my shoulders. The little shit is pretty heavy.
Rome still hasn’t said a word. He’s beginning to creep me the fuck out. I almost regret rescuing this guy. What if he turns on us? Tries to kill us in our sleep or something? At this point, I can’t trust anyone.
When I reach my door’s code-reader, I hear something. Music. Loud. Coming from my apartment.
“Who’s here?” I shout, swinging my front door open. Legs beginning to tighten, I cautiously step inside.
My eye zooms in, detects movement directly down the hall under the washroom door. Music’s blaring. Griffin pulls out his pipe gun from the inside of his jacket. Athan’s awake now, sensing something is wrong. Rome still has that same blank, thousand-yard stare as he stumbles behind us.
The washroom door opens.
Griffin aims.
“Whoa! What the fuck!? Don’t shoot!”
“Poth! What are you doing here?” I scream with a mixture of relief and excitement, forgetting that I told him he could crash on the couch.
“Fucking shit! You scared the fuck out of me, man. What the fuck? I’ve been waiting on you to show up, bro,” Poth says, silencing his horrible taste in music. “Umm.. What the fuck is that thing??” he asks pointing directly at Athan behind me. Olympia hasn’t seen a child in ages.
“This is Athan, and a huge, massively huge secret. Look at me, Poth. You can’t tell anyone, okay? You’ll get us all killed,” I warn sternly. “I’m serious.”
“Yeah, man. No problem,” he replies cutting his eyes awkwardly at Rome.
“Where’s Sophia?” I ask half expecting her to be here, half trying to change the subject.
“Who? Oh.. Sexy-Sophie. Yeah, things didn’t work out with that one. What about yours? You send her on her way yet?”
“I’m not sure where she is actually.”
“Shit has been wild as fuck here lately, man. Lethe’s got everyone all worked up.”
“Yeah, I heard. Hey, you’re done with this, right?” I ask rhetorically, seizing a warm slice of his pizza in each hand.
Food. I didn’t realize how close to starving I was. We devour the entire pie as Poth kindly mixes a few drinks for us.
Finally able to relax, I tell Poth and Griffin about my adventure to 34 and Cau. The loveseat does its job on my back as I drift in and out of consciousness surprisingly quick. The wail of the wind outside is as good as a lullaby.
Athan bounces around the apartment with childlike amazement, fidgeting with nearly every piece of tech he can get his miniature hands on. Poth can’t stop staring at him. Rome continues to look vacantly out of the window in the most fucking weird way possible. Griffin finishes his drink, stands, and pulls out the knife Athan traded him. He admires its beauty for a few long seconds, rubbing his hand down the dark blade before asking Athan for a quick origin story before he departs.
“It’s worth more if my guy knows its story.”
“I know its story.” I stand, taking the knife from Griffin. My fingers glide over the frayed handle, gripping it as if the years molded it for my hand and my hand alone. “This knife was first given to a man named Palin, Athan’s father. He died heroically, fighting against Lethe over 100 years ago.” Poth’s eyes snap to me in confusion. “He was trying to free someone from them, someone they kidnapped. I never met him personally, but he was a great man. Fought for what he loved and what he believed was right. Just before he died, he gave it to Athan’s apparently pregnant mot-“
The front door bursts open, jerking the locks and hinges with it.
Red-eyed d
roids swarm the flat in seconds. Two of them wrestle Athan to the ground.
A gunshot.
Griffin drops his weapon. He grabs the hole in his chest before falling face down on the floor. Blood seeps into the rug beneath him.
Reeling back towards the door, it's Oriyen standing before me. His mechanical arm is stretched out, contorted in the shape of a gun. A single string of smoke stems from the barrel above his wrist.
“Thanks for the tip, Poth. I see you’re not completely useless after all,” hisses Oriyen as he steps past me, adjusting his rolled-up sleeves. His words like a scalpel down my spine.
My eyes find those of Poth’s in disbelief. He cowers, shying away against the back wall of the common room.
“What have you done?”
“You know, when I got the call, it broke my heart, E,” Oriyen says wiping the dust from the 2-D picture of us on my desk, back when he only had the one arm upgraded.
“At first I didn’t think it was true. My old friend, a traitor, a murderer. After everything Lethe has done for you, this is how you repay them?”
“Lethe is murdering people! Innocent people because they were born with the wrong genetics.”
“I know.”
“You know? What do you mean you know?”
“Who do you think has been hunting all of these freaks down?” he replies looking down at the blood seeping from Griffin’s leather jacket. “There are two types of people in this world, E. Hunters and prey. If we stand by and do nothing, we become the prey. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m not okay with that. It’s either us or them. I pick us, every mother fucking time.”
“Listen to yourself! This isn’t you. You’ve fucking changed, man. It doesn’t have to be us or them. If this is about what happened to Thea… it’s not your fault. It’s not anyone’s fault.”
“It’s their fault! Thea jumped because Kronos hacked her. She couldn’t handle the bullshit they put into her. It doesn’t matter anymore, E. She’s gone, and so will be you, along with every piece of shit born with genes that could threaten the Lethe Corporation. Cuff them,” he orders, as the droid in front of me marches in my direction.
Rome’s slammed to the floor. His expression doesn’t change as his hands are zip-tied behind his back.
Athan is already pinned to the ground, fighting. A droid strikes him limp with the butt of his rifle. Slides the ties over his wrists and pulls.
One of them grabs me. Before I know what’s happening, the full length of Palin’s blade is pushed into the droid’s titanium core. Sparks sizzle erratically as it drops to its knees.
“You really shouldn’t have done that,” growls Oriyen.
I yank the knife out, grabbing the fallen droid’s weapon with my other hand.
“Kill him.”
Gunfire tears through my apartment.
I sprint, firing into the glowing eyes of the droid guarding the doorway. It hits the ground smoking behind me.
A glimpse of red snatches my attention before I realize my gun has fallen to the floor. The bicep of my shirt is soaked with blood.
They fucking shot me.
With the realization comes the pain. It takes me to my knees as I slide the corner of the landing pad entryway, slipping. Gunfire rains heavy down the path I just escaped.
Apply pressure. Control the breathing.
The clanking of metal footsteps race after me.
Forcing myself to not go back after Athan, I sprint towards Griffin’s shuttle. I’m no good to either of us dead.
They hit me again. The bullet rips through my abdomen, lodging itself in the blood-splattered door of the shuttle. No time to die. I have to keep going.
Lifting the door, I crawl into the cockpit. Their bullets pierce the hull, shattering chunks of metal and glass, like a thousand sledgehammers beating the sides.
Pushing my wrist against the ignition port on the dash, the engines rumble to life. The controls are a bit foreign to me, but I can’t hesitate.
Losing blood fast.
I slam Griffin’s nano-injector into my chest and jerk back on the throttle. The shuttle clumsily takes off the sky-plat as bullets and particle fragments continue to slice through the metal flyer.
On the other side of the shattered glass windshield, I see Oriyen. He calmly steps from the shadow of the entranceway awning and onto the sky-plat below me. I look into his cold eyes and no longer see my friend.
He raises his rifle. Aims with the posture of an expert marksman. Pauses. Exhales. Fires. One round exits his weapon, tearing through the air and into the nose of the shuttle.
Blue flames engulf the dash.
The onboard alarm wails on repeat.
Red emergency lights strobe from the roof of the cabin.
The shuttle stalls.
Over 100 stories high and falling. All systems powering down.
I’m thrown to the back of the cabin as the nose tilts vertically. Sinking faster, the screech of freefall through the busted dash carves through my ears.
An internal snapshot of a neighboring tower is stuck in my eyes. Frozen stiff, I brace for impact. There’s nothing I can do to stop it.
The wild, crashing sound of tearing metal rips me from the loose cargo strap I cling to. An explosion sends pieces of the dash into my arms and face as I smack the roof of the shuttle hard.
The crystalline building, I collide with, gives like wet sand, pulling the tail off the shuttle, spiraling out of control.
The sound is deafening. A gaping vacuum where the tail used to be pulls me towards death as covered crates are sucked out beside me. I’m almost too weak to fight back.
Another explosion.
The entire right side of the shuttle collapses on itself, rolling down the apartment tower, tumbling towards the asphalt.
A scream, I’m not sure if it was me or someone in the way.
Suddenly, the sensation of falling claws to the pit of my stomach. I try like hell to not look down, but immediately I betray
myself. Clutching the back of the pilot’s seat, ready, I expect the worst.
What’s left of Griffin’s shuttle smashes violently to the ground, throwing fire and rock high into the air as it pushes through its crater to a grinding halt.
The sloshing flow of water adds to my crippling disorientation. Sparks of electricity crackle through the billowing smoke I fight as I dig myself out of the wreckage. I’m alive, somehow. Judging by the amount of blood I’m wearing, not for much longer.
The shuttle is destroyed, mangled past the point of recognition. Water from the ruined marble fountain extinguishes the small flames smoldering from the wreck. Damn… I loved that fountain.
Curious onlookers begin to peek from their windows. My upgrade spots at least three of them dialing the emergency line before I have time to reach for a cigarette.
I catch movement. It’s coming from a screen, partly hidden behind the tower Griffin’s shuttle just plummeted through. The massive 2-D billboard screen projects an image of itself on the screen, but it’s somehow being shown from my perspective. When I move, the feed moves.
I snap around.
Different screen. This one suspended from the building the next block over. Same video feed.
Through an open window, another.
Spinning chaotically, I see them all. Every television in Olympia, every monitor, every pixelated screen towering above, the same live stream. Me.
Why…?
How long have they been watching??
Red and white fireworks explode high overhead as the presidential anthem blares, pulling the attention off me and into the air.
My eye zooms in, focuses.
The fireworks and music are coming from a civilian flyer. Hatch open, it coasts through the night’s sky, no regard for law or curfew. The beautiful act of civil disobedience brings a painful smile to my face as I find myself hoping the pilot gets away with it somehow. Fuck Lethe.
It circles in the overcast, coloring the clouds in bright d
efiance until the anthem sounds its last note. Like a shooting star burning over Olympia, the rebel pilot accelerates, smashing the shuttle into the peak of the Lethe Tower in an unimaginable explosion. It detonates on impact, raining fire and debris in every direction.
I hit my knees in disbelief.
The forcefield surrounding Olympia flickers sporadically a few seconds before tessellating to nothing.
Alarms sound. All of them.
Smoke.
Flames.
People, everywhere, rush outside to see what is happening.
Every screen within eye’s range glitches.
Where my live feed just was, is now white noise, glitching, all but the cold words of Kronos dripping down every screen in red.
The time is now.
“Get in,” orders a hooded woman from the open door of her cycle in front of me. Its pale, slender frame mirrors hers, hovering inches above the pavement. She peers at me with familiar crimson eyes.
“Kalli?” I gasp.
“Actually, I go by Iris now. No time to explain. Get in or die.”
My current circumstances coerce me into the small cabin of her hoverbike. Oriyen will be at the scene any second. I’m not trying to be around when he gets here.
We jet away from the direction of my flat, dodging horror-struck Olympians along our path. Smoke has taken the night with the swiftness of a Lethe enforcer. A dozen of them coast above, scrambling. Off-balance for maybe the first time in their eternal lives.
Ground units patrol the area, going building to building, searching for something to blame, to kill.
Gunfire.
Screaming.
Chaos.
She turns, hands me two clear capsules, and orders me to eat them. I do without question. I’m too cold to argue, too weak and confused.