Floor 21- Dark Angel

by Jason Luthor

  WHAT HAPPENED THAT DAY

  Highpoint Waystation Log 182,511

  Five hundred years is a long time to keep an eye out on the world. It’s so long that you stop thinking anything can surprise you, not that I’ve gotten a good look at things since the Following Fall. Being stuck in one place for five centuries, well, you sort of get used to the mundane. The repetitive. It was Jackie that showed me life could still be exciting, that there were things out there in the world worth fighting for. I might be older than her, but I’d needed someone to remind me of that. Makes sense I grew so fond of her almost from the moment we met. Like two ships passing in the night, except I was the Titanic ready to plow my way headfirst into an iceberg and she was the rescue ship.

  If it sounds like I’m attached to the girl, that’s because I am. So, when the doors to Highpoint Waystation start opening up after hours of not hearing from her, I’m at full attention. I know right away that there has to be something wrong. Turns out I’m right.

  Those blast doors into the station were strong enough to keep the Creep out when it was at its worst. Isn’t a weapon I know of that could put much of a dent in them. It’s just how they were designed. They were also designed to keep out just about anyone. Anyone without the suit Jackie was wearing the first day she waltzed into my life. Anyway, the second those doors start to slide away into the mountain side, I’m running to the entrance. The whole time I’m on the move, I’m thinking up a dozen things that might have happened to make Jackie go quiet for so long.

  My curiosity’s proven right when I see her body fly through the entry, her rockets cutting out the moment she’s inside and her body banging hard against the ground. She bounces off that cold metal floor and goes rolling along until she slides to a stop. My eyes are scanning her the second she lands, and I’m not picking up much to give me hope. All I’m registering’s a faint heartbeat and some bare brainwaves. It’s the worst I’ve ever seen her, and I’m immediately scooping her off the ground.

  The poor girl might be seven feet tall and weigh a few hundred pounds in her armor, but Apeiron didn’t design me to some wilting flower. I’ve got her in my arms in one second and in the medical bay a minute later. Everything in that room’s been designed to work with her armor, and the second she’s on the bed, her suit’s evaporated into Pock Space and left her lying there in her jumpsuit. When I finally get a look at her, I almost can’t believe what I’m looking at.

  I’ve seen the girl soak in so many bullets that you’d be able to recycle the casings and make a building out of them. Seen her get hit by forces so hard they would shatter the side of a tank. So, you’ll forgive me if I’m more than a little shocked to see her stomach blown wide open. Normally, that’s a problem the Creep would take care of in a minute or two.

  Only problem is . . . it’s not.

  Where there should be something, there’s just a hole. Creep’s done some work, gotten some repairs done, but it’s basically her sitting on that medical table with her guts hanging out. Almost a minute after she’s been laid out, she starts convulsing, and I can hear her airways closing up as she’s fighting to breath. Readouts on the medical table start blaring, telling me something I already know. She’s dying, and there isn’t much time to do something about it.

  I’m immediately rushing out of the lab and back into the lobby of the station, the metal floors clanging under my feet as I get up to my face cabinet. “Medical Mechanic,” I announce to the computer, and a second later, the lid on the cabinet’s sliding up and out of the way. There, laid out inside, are all the faces I’m compatible with. At least, all the ones I know of. Major Mechanical, for when Jackie needs a military mind. Robo Repair, for when I need to get the station tuned up. Right now, it’s Medical Mechanic I need, and I don’t hesitate for even a second. My fingers are at the sides of my face in an instant, the invisible seams of my faceplate lighting up as the front of my face detaches into my fingertips. I’ve got it stored without further delay and got my Medical Mechanic face lined up with the seams a second later. I feel when the face attaches, my personality shifting just slightly and a flood of information rushing through my brain, and then I’m immediately turned around and rushing back to the medical bay.

  The second I’m there, I know what I have to do. I can say thanks to my Medical Mechanic face for that. I’ve got my hands rushing for tools that I’d normally be completely in the dark about. One of the first things I do is get a look at the screen behind Jackie’s bed. “A virus,” I mumble as I inject her arm with a serum that’s going to make things worse before they get better. It’s technically known as Dragyn, a modification of an anti-virus compound developed in the Old World in a part of the Deadlands they once called Boston. The cure could have revolutionized medicine, until Apeiron took over research into it and closed the door on releasing it to the public. The genius part of the whole cure was that it could look specifically for infected cells. Actually, it was Jackie who had the idea to change up the virus and make it compatible with her own cells.

  She’s a smart one, I’ll give her that.

  At the same time I’m letting Dragyn do its work, I’m doing my best to keep her from bleeding out completely. That means pumping a cocktail of tranquilizers into her that’d normally be enough to knock out a horse. Even with the virus working its way through her, the Creep makes Jackie pretty tough, and it takes a lot to knock her out. The second she’s motionless on the table, I’ve got a cart rolled over to her with about six tanks full of Creep inside of them. Again, Jackie’s idea. We took samples from her and replicated them just in case things ever got bad. I realize, as I’m standing there, that the kid’s got the kind of foresight that’s about to save her life.

  Creep’s viscous, kind of like liquid muscle, and making sure it gets where you need it to go isn’t a complete science. We’ve got the tools, but it’s strange trying to apply the stuff using what amounts of a jury-rigged gun. The stuff shoots out the barrel, but in slow, long streaks. It’s like spreading hot glue on paper, except this stuff starts reaching out into her stomach and grabbing for her guts the second it’s coming out of the barrel. Creep’s got a mind of its own. Best I can do is guide it to roughly where it’s supposed to go and let it do the rest. Meanwhile, I’ve got an eye on the screen so I can watch her vitals as the anti-virus makes its way through her system. Then I’ve got to get a needle in her so I can start pumping her with new blood from our cold storage. Like I said, kid thought of everything, but I guess I had a helping hand in some of that.

  If I’m making this sound like a breeze, well, it’s not. Just getting through the first stage of the procedure takes over an hour. Then I’m constantly having to reapply more Creep as parts of Jackie’s cells die off. It takes a few hours before the Dragyn does its thing, and I’m stuck babysitting Jackie’s organs until the Creep finally starts to make a comeback. It isn’t until I start seeing the muscle growing back over her belly that I’m convinced she’s going to pull through, and that’s a few hours after she landed. Anyone else with her kind of injury would have been dead the second it all went down.

  Funny thing is, I may not be able to feel tired or exhausted, but I still feel stressed. When I got put together, my makers wanted me to get the full human experience. That includes feeling strained when times get tough. Only difference between me and any human’s that I have the advantage of being able to stay focused. Most folks get too high strung when things get tense. I don’t. Never do. Maybe that’s why I like Jackie so much. The kid’s always able to keep her head straight and make the right calls when it comes down to it. I’m not really sure what I’d do if I ever lost her.

  So, with all the surgery done, I settle in for the night and get ready to watch. Sure, I could power down for the night. Highpoint would wake me up if Jackie took a turn for the worse. But, I decide to stay up and watch her, just in case. I know it’s irrational. Guess it’s that human side of me I was built with.

  Erin’s Recording 01

  I�
�m halfway through a bottle of whisky when one of the fellows waltzes through the door. “Tell me something I don’t know,” I tell him without taking my eyes off my glass.

  “We’ve lost all contact with the Tank. We think she’s dead.”

  My eyes roll over to him. “I said, tell me something I don’t know.”

  “The men want to know what to do next.”

  “Next? Seems we just lost the war. Unless you think we’re in a strong position now that that bastard Yousef’s able to fly his ship around the Deadlands with nothing to stop him.”

  “Well, shouldn’t we be getting the men ready to make another strike? Or at least tell them to get ready for an attack?”

  “Sure. You do that. Tell them to man the walls. Get all the power armor we’ve got up and running and put our vehicles out on the perimeter.”

  “And what about you?”

  “I’ll be out there,” I tell him as I grab the bottle and let it roll in my palm. “But could you give me just one damned minute to mourn over here? I just lost someone fairly important to me. A man gets to shed a few tears, don’t he?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Then, just like that, he’s back out of the door. Problem is that I’m the one left holding the reins once the Tank’s gone. Both of the Tanks, if you catch my meaning. Not that most of the crew knew what was going on behind the curtain. Sure, Ishara was scared that Yousef would find out she was down here, in the south. That’s why she let Tara be the public face of the whole operation. I still remember when they filled me in on what was going on. They needed someone who’d be their man of the people, someone who was engaged with the troops one day to the next. I was comfortable with that, even though I’d never run an operation bigger than my crew. Erin’s Army. Fierce enough raiders to be sure, but nothing compared to what we became once we came south to Zone Delaware. Ishara had the military training to bring the clans together, and Tara was the size of, well, a tank. Most of the men fell in line just because they were scared of Tara and that laser firing arm of hers.

  Now though? They’re both gone, and I’m the next one up on the chain of command. If you’d asked me five years ago if I wanted to be running things for hundreds of thousands of people, I’d have told you no. My feelings on the matter haven’t changed, but here we are, with men, women, and children all thinking that I’ve got some brilliant plan for getting us all out of this mess. Best I can think’s that we may still be able to get our hands on the Panzer, but only Tara had the codes for making the damned thing work. So, with that sort of uphill battle in front of me, I choose the path of least resistance. Drunkenness, if that isn’t clear enough.

  Last Testament of Ishara Suliman 01

  To the person who listens to this, I can only assume that you are the person who killed me. I am recording this now, before my final confrontation with my brother Yousef. It is my intention to kill him, but if you are hearing this, then I failed. I leave this recording to you so that you will understand why he must be killed. Why Yousef Suliman is a threat to what is left of humanity.

  My father was the old general, Supreme General Mohamed Suliman. He was a hard man from a hard life, who lost his parents to the Creep while living northeast of Central Freedom. As an orphan, he made his way with refugees to Central, where he was raised within the boys academy that prepares young men for militia service. I understand this is an organization that no longer exists, but it did during my father’s youth. It was how he received his military training.

  He spent the majority of his life, even at a young age, fighting in the Deadlands. His revenge, I suppose, for what happened to his parents. It hardened him further, and he became the most respected fighter of his generation. It put him on a fast track to command, which is, of course, how he met Nikola Dravic.

  Dravic, unlike my father, had only used the militia as a vehicle into politics. He was the son of an old city representative, and his lust for power was the same as it remains today. Dravic trusted no one and felt power was the only way of securing mankind’s future. He believed no one knew better than him the way to save Central, but though he was intelligent and manipulative, he did not command the respect of the militia, though he had served in it. It was only because of the friendship that grew between him and my father that he began to grow in influence, increasing in respect as my father progressed up the ranks. Dravic was the voice of authoritarian rule, and my father was the fist.

  So it went, and the two remained close for some time. Not until my father met my mother did any cracks appear in that partnership. It was she who changed his perceptions of the world, she who made him realize his harsh approach to life was destructive. These realizations came nearly too late to stop a plan that Dravic and my father had set into motion. A plan to unleash a devastating weapon upon the Deadlands without care for who was hurt in the process, so long as the Creep was destroyed. The Panzer.

  By this time, my father was spending nearly all his time at Fort Silence. He formally broke with Dravic and Central Freedom, relying on the faithfulness of his generals to ensure his departure was successful. Their influence over the soldiers they commanded resulted in Dravic being robbed of most of his military power and the ability to search the Deadlands for the Panzer. However, my father did not want to leave Central defenseless, and willingly entered into an agreement to provide military support to them whenever they might need it.

  Yet for his departure, my father was demonized in Central as a traitor. He refused to divulge the plans he and Dravic had developed out of his loyalty to their friendship, but he also feared what Dravic would do with the power of the Panzer. And so, the stories told of him in Central would make him out to be little more than a monster. Those left behind told a lie, and repeated the lie, until the lie became truth, because one man had honor and the other did not.

  The ‘real’ truth, though, is that the monster died the moment he met my mother. From that time onward, he softened. He learned to love. He applied his genius toward the greater good. And then he and my mother had children. Yousef, and I.

  Dodger’s Recording 17

  So, the plan. Jackie made sure I knew about the plan, the one that Colonel Martin drew up and put together. From scrambling our communications to ways of getting through the city, to even secured locations where troops could fall back, Martin thought of it all. It was only because of the maps he included with his plans that I was able to get away into a remote part of the city, one where it’d be hard to track me.

  After following the map for a while, I find myself about three miles south. Three miles of breathing hard and watching my back, until I reach a building that looks like it’s hundreds of years old. I mean, that far south in the city, it’s located in one of the unpowered parts of Central. So, at first, it’s hard to really know where I am. That late at night, with everything pitch black, I can barely see a few feet in front of me. When the building I’m looking for finally comes into view, it looks beautiful, but . . . you know, ancient. Columns, and statues, and all of it’s made from stone and concrete. It looks so different from the huge towers surrounding it on all sides, but almost all of the oldest buildings in Central got surrounded by skyscrapers eventually.

  Anyway, that’s not my destination. No. My map takes me not far from the building, to stairs that lead down beneath the streets. A long time ago, the old tunnels beneath Central were shut down to prevent the Creep from flooding in. Not this one. With my flashlight on, I walk down the stairs into a tunnel that runs off in two directions, with tracks on the ground that trains once used to get around. On the opposite side of the tracks, set inside a curve of the wall, is a massive plaque. The middle’s filled with a laurel wreath, with two figures seated on either side like some guardians watching the grounds. My flashlight’s burning through the dark as I step up to it, my eyes going to the number “1900” inscribed on both sides.

  “That was . . . seven hundred? Eight hundred years ago,” I whisper as I’m standing there in the dark, realizing just ho
w old that place is. Then, my eyes go to the middle of the plaque and the words that are written there. “The first municipal rapid transit railroad of the city of New York,” I read quietly. “Suggested by the chamber of commerce, authorized by the state, constructed by the city.”

  “It’s quite the piece of history,” a voice says out of the darkness, and I suddenly spin around. My fists are raised and I’m ready to fight as a cloaked person steps into the beam of my flashlight. He’s tall, and broad, but I feel like I recognize the voice. “Good to see you made it, Lieutenant Anne.”

  “Who?” He starts to pull back his hood, and I immediately recognized the worn lines in his forehead and the hair that’s receded far back along his head. “Colonel Martin?”

  “When I caught chatter on the comms that you’d escaped, I figured you’d end up here. After all, this was at the top of my list as far as fallback points.”

  “I thought you were dead. We all thought . . . well, I don’t know what we thought. We haven’t heard anything from Central Primary since . . .”

  “Since Yousef had everyone killed.”

  The words feel like a knife sliding up through my stomach, and my breath just empties out of my lungs. “Tommy. Tommy, did he . . .”

  “He’s alive, I believe, although our dear friend Yousef took him prisoner.”

  “And you? How did you get away?”

  “Fortunately, I’d been dismissed by the president to take care of other duties. When I realized something was wrong, I didn’t think sticking around to die would be the best decision.”