by Jason Luthor
“Knowing how you feel about the raiders? Yes.”
“Alright then. What is it?”
“Not too long ago, I sent a scout out into the Deadlands. Someone I could trust, with a message for Neddy Lancaster’s son, Ned Jr. I wrote to let him know that there was a potential for things to go south between Central and For Silence and that, if it did, we’d put all of our efforts into taking down Yousef. And that we’d appreciate his help.”
Martin looks absolutely furious when I finish my sentence. “You did what?”
“Martin, Ned’s got one of the largest forces out there in the Deadlands, behind only the Tank and the Pearson’s Wild Forest armies. All reports tell us he’s just as good of a leader as his father was and just as honorable. I think that if push came to shove, he’d respect his father’s alliance with us if it meant going up against Fort Silence.”
“But you don’t know that, Mr. President, and to make matters worse, if Yousef ever found out you sent a message like that—”
“I get it, Martin. I wouldn’t be president much longer.”
“That’s the least of what I think he’d do to you. Do you think men like that walk around with titles like ‘supreme general’ just for the parades? You’ve seen the hardware he’s got stocked at his fort.”
I nod, trying to calm him down. “All the more reason for us to have a backup plan. This can only go a few ways. Either Yousef turns out to be the leader we hope he is and honors his promises, or he turns his back on his agreements and never leaves the city.”
“Or he intends to leave the city but then discovers you sent that letter, and it triggers him to embrace his monstrous side. Did you ever think about that?”
“I had to have a backup option, Martin.”
He turns away, looking Tommy for a second, but the younger man just looks stunned and unable to talk. After a second, Martin turns back to me. “I just wish you would have at least told me. It’s not . . .” He sighs as his hand brushes across his mouth. “It’s not the worst idea, but this isn’t a good position for us. Worst case scenario? If Neddy’s completely allied with the Tank, he won’t send help. If Yousef finds the letter, he turns on us once the raiders are dealt with because he thinks you’re trying to undermine him. Then we end up with no allies and all of Fort Silence bearing down on us.”
“Would it at least ease your mind if I told you the letter got through to Neddy?”
“It did?” A wave of relief suddenly passes over his face. “Well that . . . Way to bury the lede, Gabriel.”
“I’m sorry. Our scout reported back and said he’d delivered the message personally. From the messages we got back, it turns out that Neddy’s aligned with the Tank, but hasn’t committed any personnel or weapons to her. He did open his territory to house her forces, in Zone Delaware.”
“So, the scout actually went there?”
“No, the meeting happened at a halfway point. I don’t think it’s surprising that they weren’t exactly enthusiastic about having one of our people enter their territory?”
“And now we’ve got the Angel going in there. If she gets caught, that blows your whole backdoor deal out of the window.”
“She won’t.”
“Mr. President, this plan is relying on a lot of assumptions that things go our way.”
I shake my head at him. “It’s a backup. That’s all. Best case scenario, we keep that Panzer from ever moving, beat back the Tank, and convince Neddy to act as an intermediary between us and her. Maybe this time we actually get some real peace talks going. It’s a hell of lot better than going through that loose cannon, Erin Donoghue, and maybe the Tank would actually be willing to come and talk herself, knowing that we’ve stopped her biggest chance at taking Central.”
“Maybe. But it’s still a lot of risk based on a lot of assumptions.”
“Honestly, Martin? I’m more scared of what happens if Yousef decides not to leave town like he said he would.”
He takes a deep breath and hesitates for a while before saying anything back. “You’re right. I may not like where we are, but . . . you’re right.”
Jackie’s Recording 18
We all think of Central Freedom as the city and everything else as the Deadlands, but the truth’s that, 500 years ago, it was all the same place. Hundreds of miles of glass and steel, just sprawling out over hills and connecting over rivers. It’s an endless urban sea that stretches to the horizon. The parts of the city outside Central, the Deadlands, just aren’t very livable because of the miles and miles of Creep infection. As I’m flying along over those abandoned parts of the world, it occurs to me that I’ve never flown so far south. I went west when I woke up in the Tower for a bit, then north to Highpoint Waystation. I never came south.
Speaking of Highpoint Waystation, I get a message in my ear that gets a smile out of my face. Johnny. “You got one hell of a view there, kid.”
“I was thinking the same thing.”
“You know, nothing’s supposed to be powered up that bright, not outside of Central. At least, that’s what you’ve told me.”
“Looks like I was wrong.” John’s not exaggerating. As far as civilization goes, I’ve never seen anything like what I’m seeing at that moment, at least not outside of Central Freedom and Fort Silence. The military bases and small colonies you see cut into the Deadlands are normally a few blocks large at best. At night, they typically don’t run lights outside to avoid catching the attention of Creepers. This though? There’s miles of lights. Just like with Central, the biggest skyscrapers are dark, but the smaller buildings along the street are glowing, like a glittering sea that’s spread out through the dark. Streets are lit up enough that you can make out the sidewalks and buildings lining the roads. “It’s a whole city, John. How did the hell did we miss this?”
“A few things come to mind. We know from those broadcasts the Tank’s been sending out that old Neddy’s son, Ned Jr., is the one who settled down here first. I’m thinking he took the experiences he had from helping manage the Roost and put it to some good use down here, where the Creep’s thinner. Either that or the Tank’s just some leadership savant who knows how to build a society in under a year.”
“She does sound impressive, but I’d bet it was Neddy Jr. who got things rolling down here. Intel says he’s got the manpower for it. Maybe she just brought the tech that made the place more livable. Tanks, power armor, that kind of thing.”
“Which brings up the larger question of where she got the hardware. You’ve spent the past year hunting down old caches of weapons and depots full of Old World equipment. This women looks like she’s known exactly where to look.”
“Yeah. That’s pretty much what it looks like,” I tell him. I’m quickly zooming up on the edge of the city. The Deadlands are pitch black, just a sea of nothing until they comes to a hard stop at the lights of Zone Delaware. My helmet’s visors zip in from thousands of feet in the sky, zooming in on the buildings that form the perimeter, and I can’t help but take a short breath when I spot something familiar. “They’ve got repulsion poles, John. Dozens of them, all wired up at every intersection.”
“That’d make sense. It’d make for an easy explanation as to how they’ve managed to carve out some space for themselves in the middle of nowhere. It wouldn’t be as effective as the field over Central, but it could be enough to keep most of the Creep away.”
“That’s not all they’ve got,” I tell him as my eyes move further down along the rooftops. There are huge cannons mounted to the tops of buildings, their barrels facing the streets or sometimes pointed to the air. “Gun emplacements. Looks like enough firepower to level the surrounding blocks if they ever got invaded by Creepers. I’m not exactly happy that they’ve got their guns pointed to the skies, too.”
“How’s your stealth mode holding up out there?”
My eyes flick to the side of my helmet, checking the readouts streaming into the periphery of my vision. “They’ve definitely got radar bouncing aroun
d up here, and they definitely know something’s flying around above them. They just don’t know what.”
“Well, so long as the suit’s scattering their beams, you’ll be just fine. I wouldn’t risk it too long though. I don’t care how tough you are, anti-aircraft guns won’t care much about the armor you’re wearing.”
“I know. I’m getting ready to make my dive.” My eyes go to a large skyscraper carving its finger into the clouds, a tall dark monstrosity rising up out of a sea of light. “I’ve got an LZ in mind. Switching over to command frequency, I’ll be in contact later.”
“I’ll be keeping tabs on you through your visor, champ. Don’t give me any reasons to worry. My old ticker can’t take it.”
I smile. “Your old ticker’s about a hundred times stronger than a human’s. I’ll be back on the line later. Dark Angel out.” I cut out my thrusters when I’m right above my target, my channel switching over to contact with Central. “Dark Angel to Central Primary.”
“Dark Angel, this is Captain Jones. President Branagh and Colonel Martin thought, given our history, I should be your OIC on this one.”
“I can work with that,” I tell him as the tower below me is getting larger and larger, the air whipping by me as I’m plunging at terminal velocity toward the rooftop.
“Angel, I’m getting a lot of background noise out there.”
“That’s what happens when you’re falling out of the sky at a hundred miles per hour,” I tell him as I curl up and turn my legs downward, my thrusters igniting for just a half second and keep me from slamming into the top of the tower. For anyone else, coming to a stop that suddenly and at that speed would be fatal. It used to be that when I fell from high distances, my bones would actually fracture and need a few seconds to heal up. That sucked. These days, the Creep apparently just keeps my bones from breaking at all. “I’ve touched down, but I’ll need to go radio silent once I go lower into the city. There’s no way to know what sort of equipment they’ve got out there listening for signals.”
“Well, can you at least give us some kind of initial report on what’s out there?”
“I’m taking a look,” I tell him as I head to the edge of the rooftop. Above me, the tower’s got an antenna that lifts up into the air another few dozen feet. Nothing to write home about. Well, nothing to radio home about. Below me, though, everything looks amazing. “Some of the streets are as bright as Central here. The perimeter’s got repulsion towers set up and enough guns to evaporate the street if they had to. All the streets leading further in are walled off with barriers. Concrete barriers, cars blocking the road. A few intersections look like they’ve been gated to let troops in and out. They’ve got checkpoints for every road into the zone, but deeper in, everything comes alive.”
“Come alive?”
The lenses in my helmet zoom toward the street almost a hundred stories below me, following the pavement and catching sight of people walking back and forth. “Street vendors. Stores. There’s lots of electronic billboards and street signs that aren’t lit up, so if I had to guess, I’d say they have the same problem keeping the city running and the repulsion towers powered up that Central does.”
“I guess I’m just a little surprised to hear they’ve got stores and shops. That sort of thing. When you think about raiders . . .”
“You don’t think of them as civilized? Yeah. I’m having a personal crisis trying to understand it, too.”
“So, you heading in?”
“Yeah. Don’t call me. I’ll call you.”
“Got it. Central Primary out.”
The line goes quiet and I’m left perched there on the corner of the rooftop, staring down into the city below me. I launch myself from the top and go angling to the roof of a building closer to ground level but high enough that I’m still out of sight. Again, my thrusters ignite for just a split second, enough to keep me from hammering into the roof. Then I take a moment to look down, my eyes going to the street.
It’s random. Not every street is lit up, but what is lit up forms an intersection of neon light sitting beneath speakers that are pumping low music along the road. There’s an odd bunch of people there that look like they could come from every part of the Deadlands. Some are rough looking, wrapped up in black or brown leather and talking on street corners. Tough looking men and women that look like the kind you’d find trying to start a bar fight. Others I see walking down the street are wired along their arms and heads with cybernetic implants, low quality biotech that’s five steps down from what Yousef uses in his arm, but not anything I haven’t seen before. Still, they look cool with all the wires dangling from their arms and heads, their arms implanted with controls like the one in my visor or their heads wrapped in visors. So, there are a lot of weirdos in the crowds, but there’s also a lot of people that look like they’d fit in at Central, just wearing thick jackets to stay warm in the cold winter night and with their legs bundled up in sweatpants.
There’s no secret war being waged in the streets, nothing sinister happening between the average people living in Zone Delaware. People sit at tables outside enjoying hot drinks that leave trails of steam in the air. Lovers tuck themselves into the shadows of the surrounding alleys, kissing each other and hoping nobody notices. It’s the two elderly people holding hands as they shuffle into an apartment building that really get me. They’re . . . not the raiders I know, the ones from fights across the Deadlands. Out there, everyone’s an enemy. In Zone Delaware, it starts to hit me that a lot of these people look like they just want to live their lives.
“What the hell is this place,” I whisper as I keep looking around. It could be any colony from Central if not for the leather clad weirdos standing security on the streets. Then again, at that moment, I don’t see how they’re much different from the soldiers patrolling Central. Not apart from the clothes, anyway. They’re doing the exact same job, keeping an eye out on the streets and making sure everyone’s safe. I just think their choice of patchwork leather armor is . . . tacky, but then again, I spend half my life in a giant suit of black armor. Anyway, I move along the rooftop, keeping low to the ground and jumping from one building to another. Another reason I’m perfect for missions like this is because, with my Creep powered legs, I can leap between rooftops without needing to use the thrusters on my back. It’s just one more way of making sure I stay hidden.
Down the street, I can see the road split in two directions, with only one of them lit. At the intersection where the roads meet, a huge building rises up to the sky, a massive electronic billboard flashing images across its face. It’s the only billboard on the street that’s actually working. A second later, I understand why. It fills up with the face of a woman I remember from my briefing. The shock of white hair across the top of her head forms a flat top and the bulging neck looks like it would fit on a man. She’s a woman who looks as physically strong as some of the strongest guys I’ve ever seen. The Tank.
“To every clansman and woman. Be well this winter night. I thought it was important that we discuss the war to come.” I cringe a little inside my helmet. A speech. Why do all these military people love giving their precious speeches so much? “Everyone within our borders heard the call to fight back against tyranny. To fight back against dictatorship. Many of you came from the infested Deadlands. A few of you came from the empty wastes to the west.” She’s talking about the edge of the city, where there’s nothing. No buildings, nobody alive, no Creep. The scored earth that the few people living out there call the Wastes. It’s a place I only went to once before realizing I had to turn back. I wasn’t ready to head that far out. “All of you have heard me say this to you before, but it is a truth we must remember. I don’t say anything different from what our ancestors said, from what the freedom fighters before us said. We don’t share their blood, but we share the same spirit. We share the same belief, that ‘The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.’ Soon, we will all need to make gre
at sacrifices. Many of us will make the ultimate sacrifice, with our blood, but that blood will buy our freedom. For those of you who can’t follow us into war, prepare the city to welcome back those who return from the war. Their efforts are what will finally break us free from dogs of war and their masters, the tyrants who would break us. But we cannot be broken. We come from all walks of life, and our diversity is our strength. From many, we have formed one, and together we shall remain united through to the end of our struggle.”
The screen goes blank for a second before it’s replaced by another stream of mundane images of what I think are places around Zone Delaware. Everyone watching the Tank’s speech from the street get back to whatever they were doing, and soon life’s back to normal for them. Meanwhile, I’m still crouched there, thinking about what she was saying. The scariest part to me is that it sounds like the Tank’s moving soon. At the same time, I’m shaking my head at the thought of Central as some tyrannical nation. President Branagh did everything he could to make an alliance work between them. He lost most of his authority to Fort Silence by gambling on that, so hearing the Tank talk like Central Freedom’s the problem pretty much makes me laugh. Then there’s the slaughter that happened at Highpoint Waystation. Nobody who could do that, then lie to themselves about how noble their cause is, can be trusted. The Tank wouldn’t be the first leader who’s ever lied to me, either, the biggest offender being Tower Director Pygmalion. Just thinking about how he tried to have me killed halfway down the Tower, well, I put it out of my mind to focus on what’s actually important at the moment.
I’m leaping over one alley when my helmet’s enhanced audio picks up two guys messaging each other. It’s hard to miss the message, because one of them starts out by saying, “You hear about this Dark Angel?” The second I hear my name, I come to a stop, my eyes looking down the dark path between buildings but not spotting anyone.
“I heard,” another one replies back. “Word says she’s full of fire and just cuts through the sky. No mercy.”