Floor 21- Dark Angel

by Jason Luthor

  It takes me a second to look back down at her and nod. She’s right, after all. There’s still fighting going on for miles around the Green Zone. Even above us, I can see that gigantic ship beginning to fire down, raining destruction across Dravic’s forces. I motion at some of the men still guarding the gates and point toward Yazzie. They’re immediately running toward her. “They’re going to take care of you, Yaz. I’m going to take care of the rest.”

  She smiles. “I know. Go kick ass.”

  Tommy’s Recording 41

  As we’re standing outside the office of the president, I take a glance over at Jackie. She looks so different yet completely the same, all at once. She looks back at me and smiles. “What?”

  “Just thinking about how far we’ve come,” I tell her.

  Jackie lowers her voice to almost a whisper. “We can think about it later. You need to do this.”

  “Jackie,” I whisper back. “You’re the one who’s done all the fighting. You should be the one who goes inside and takes Dravic out.”

  “It can’t happen that way.”

  “I don’t get it. Why not?”

  “Because you’re the one who’s been spending months trying to keep the city together. You’re the one who spent half his time in Central working with Branagh to make this a better place. When the fighting’s over, the city’s going to need leaders. People who can take Central Freedom into the future. That’s you, Tommy. You’re the one. If I go in there and do this, it just looks like another fighter or person from the military taking out a politician again.”

  She looks over her shoulder at the militia men standing a few feet behind us. They’re all staring, wondering what’s the holdup, but she keeps talking. “They need to know that there’s more to Central than one political coup right after another. They need to know the next political leader is someone they can trust, someone who’s going to do the right thing for all of Central. Not just the military. They need to know the city runs by the rule of law. But I need to know too, Tommy. I need to know that when I put my sword down, the city can keep running based on laws and good people. You can make sure both of those things happen, just like Branagh tried to do. That’s why you need to arrest Dravic.”

  “When’d you become such a good speech giver, Jackie?”

  “Sometime between when I died the first and second time. At least the second time wasn’t as painful.”

  “You’re going to give me the rundown on what happened back at Fort Silence, right?”

  “Sure, after you do your job, Mr. President.”

  I shake my head and look away, my cheeks burning hot as I put my hand to the sensor plate next to the door. A second later, the door slides away, revealing the inside of Branagh’s office. We immediately see as Yousef shoves his chair away from the desk, his teeth gritting as he watches me walk into the office. Jackie’s just behind me, and the militia force is just steps behind her. Yousef snarls but manages to smile as he says, “What is this illegal use of force I see in front of me?”

  “Representative Dravic,” I tell him, refusing to give him the pleasure of calling him president. “I am placing you under arrest on charges of treason, conspiracy to murder President Branagh, and conspiracy to murder members of both the Advisory and War Councils.”

  “On whose authority, Thomas?”

  “On my authority, as acting interim president of Central Freedom.”

  He scoffs. “When did you fall into that position?”

  “I was the adviser to the president, consulting on all matters military and political. I might have been pretty far down the chain of command, but you murdered everyone else in that chain. That left me as the last speaking representative for both the Advisory and War Councils still present in Central Freedom. Or, like I told you . . . interim president.”

  “I don’t recognize your authority in this office, Thomas.”

  “It doesn’t matter whether you do or not recognize it, Representative Dravic. I’m placing you under arrest.”

  “What. With your so-called Angel?”

  “The Angel is an extra-military agent working in conjunction with the militia of Central Freedom, but she is not authorized under the city charter to arrest members of the body politic.” I toss a look over my shoulder to the militia members behind me. “But under the authorization of force granted to the militia of Central Freedom, militia members are authorized to perform arrests of those suspected of a crime. You, representative, are suspected of a crime, based on video surveillance and witness testimony. You are free to protest these charges at your trial.”

  I can see his face burning red as he stares at us, his cheeks puffing as he tries to hold back a scream. “You hide yourself behind political rhetoric and citations of law that are meaningless. I am the president. This is an illegal seizure of power.” He looks past me, to the militia. “And all of you will be held accountable when I’m freed. Do you hear me? Or do you think that your lives will be spared when I have my revenge for this illegal coup?”

  It’s sad to see him standing there, a lot of threats but with no power. I look at him and shake my head. “Representative Dravic. Who in the Advisory Council will you go to for political support now that you’ve killed them all?” And when I say it, his eyes go wide, a mad fire burning in them. His hand flies to his hip, a sidearm whipping up to fire at us. I’m just faster. My hand flies to my side and quickly brings up my gun before he can fire. I get off the first shot and catch him in the shoulder, throwing his aim off and forcing him to fire into the ground. The second he grabs at his arm in pain, I run forward, my legs pushing off as my hands brace against the desk, propelling me over to his side before he can fire another round. My legs whip toward him and my boots clock him across the face. That sends Dravic flying back against the wall, blood pouring from his nose before he goes crumbling to the ground. It’s not more than a few seconds more before the militia has surrounded him. Dravic screams as they latch the cuffs around his wrists, his barking and spit flying at me.

  “Representative Dravic,” I tell him. “You are now accused of attempted murder of the interim president of Central Freedom. I wouldn’t add any more charges to your sentence.” His eyes lock with mine, the fire disappearing from them as his head drops. The militia pulls him to his feet and starts to lead him out of the room, while I just hang back and watch for a second. Jackie looks over at me and smiles.

  “You’re a really good fighter, but you’re also an amazing legal speaker. I get why Branagh wanted you to work with him.”

  “I don’t know. I just want to know he’s proud of me.”

  “I’m sure he is, Tommy. No . . . I know he is.”

  Jackie’s Recording 41

  After we arrest Dravic, there’s a lot to do, and it all happens pretty quick. I almost can’t really wrap my head around how fast it goes. When I took Yousef out, the troops from Fort Silence gave up pretty quickly. That’s how I was able to commandeer the Dynamis for our attack on Central Freedom and get some replacement suits running for the DEC troopers. Then, with Dravic out of the picture, what little part of the militia was loyal to him surrendered. After that, we had to round up the inner circles. Dravic kept a few political aids and well positioned militia commanders in his pocket, and Yousef’s circle of generals had to be brought in. Fortunately, the Fort Silence military wasn’t willing to keep fighting the combined forces of Central Freedom and the Sha’b without Yousef. Not to mention, a lot of them felt a lot like Kali . . . like Yousef had been going too far for too long. We shifted the Sha’b into Fort Silence so they could inventory the hardware and bring it under our control. Erin was more than a little happy to be the one who took lead on that. That left the soldiers at Fort Silence basically under his command for the meantime, and with Raiders manning the hardware, I felt fine leaving them on their own until we could patch up relations between them and Central.

  Back home, things were a little more complicated. At Fort Silence, there was a top-down, authoritarian powe
r structure, so leaving Erin and his aides in control was fine. At home, we were supposed to have a representative government, which meant we’d need all the districts to vote in who they’d want next to stand up for them. If you think about all the stuff she did for the community while she was out of the militia, then it shouldn’t be a surprise that Dodger was immediately voted in by emergency vote for her district. Then there was Tommy, who was filling the president’s role. Past all of that, there weren’t many clear leaders. Representative Tan, who’d managed things in Second Freedom, was more than happy to return to Central to help rebuild the government, so we had at least him on board to lend Tommy some legitimacy. Still, we needed to get an Advisory Council assembled, so one of the first actions Tommy took was to order local leaders to set up voting stations. In the meantime, he became the person making all the decisions. I knew he hated it, because he felt like he was stealing it from Branagh, but he was also the right one for the job.

  Then there was the problem of the War Council. With all of the generals dead, Tommy needed people to give him military advice, but he was understandably suspicious. I mean, it’s not as if the whole militia put its weight behind the president even at the best of times. So, Tommy went right to the one person he did think he could trust . . . Colonel Martin. Martin might have distrusted me at first and disliked Tommy from the start, but he also threw all his support behind Dodger and the defense of Central Freedom. So, Tommy promoted him to general and basically told him to get to work remaking the War Council. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that good leaders know how to delegate.

  Then there were all the injured. Sha’b, militia members, Fort Silence soldiers . . . we pooled together all of our medical supplies from every source we could. That also meant me emptying the last of my resources from High Point Waystation. John put it all together, and I shipped it in by Pocket Space, the exact same way I’d learned how to rain down dozens of missiles on an enemy. Except, this time, it all got laid out neatly on tables in Central Prime’s warehouse. I still had to honor my promise to Erin though and get his people out of Highpoint, so Tommy put together a team of people he trusted to get the prisoners I’d been keeping there. After more than a year of housing the people I’d captured while fighting the Tank, the prisoners were coming home. It was a brand new world they’d be coming back to though, one where the Sha’b had a home and didn’t have to worry about scavenging for food. I only hoped they had it in their hearts to cut me some slack for our past fights, not to mention keeping them locked up for so long.

  But the hardest part . . . the hardest part of it all was . . . taking care of our dead. Regardless of who died fighting for what side, I wanted them buried the right way. It was impossible to tell who was fighting for Fort Silence because they were bloodthirsty killers and who was fighting for them because . . . well, because that’s just where life put them, and they trusted the general. Or, like Kali told me, because they were scared of what would happen if they didn’t fight. We were going to have to make a future together with Fort Silence and the Sha’b, and that meant burying old grudges. For every accusation we could make at the soldiers from Fort Silence, the Sha’b could make similar ones of us. There wasn’t any good way to move forward unless we buried our dead, together. So, that’s what we did. Hundreds of bodies, gathered together and buried across the river, on the shores of what they say was once called Liberty Park.

  There’s a huge statue out there, in the river, of a woman holding a torch above her head. And, on this plaque inside the base of the statue, there’s a poem that says, “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.” Honestly, I think that describes all of us right now. And, I guess it’s fitting that we buried our dead at the park there, since in one way or another, we were all working to free humanity from the curse of the last five hundred years. I know some people want me to be angrier at the soldiers from Fort Silence for what they did . . . but then I’d have to be angry at the Sha’b for what they did to Central Freedom, and angry at the militia for what they did to the Sha’b. There was a lot of killing, and the only way I could think of moving forward was by forgiving people and making sure we never repeated the past.

  Because once upon a time, we did something that ruined this world. And then, between the Sha’b, Central Freedom, and Fort Silence, we were on the verge of destroying the last real city that humanity has. We didn’t, because some really brave men and women died to make sure we survived. But freedom doesn’t come cheap. It needs blood and sacrifice, and I didn’t appreciate just how hard it is to have freedom when you let fear infect your way of thinking. When that happens, you attack first and ask questions later. You just lash out at anyone who’s not a part of your circle. That’s how humanity ends up dead.

  Every man, woman, and child paid a price because we couldn’t just do what President Branagh said we should have done in the first place. We didn’t talk. Instead, we took the bait that Dravic and Yousef laid out there. The thing is, they may have tempted us to go to war, but we went along with our own human nature and took the worst route possible. Even me, when I arrived in Central . . . I was ready to fight any Sha’b out there because I thought every single one of them was just a bloodthirsty killer. The truth was that I was trying to prove I was fighting for the right thing. I was anxious to prove that I wasn’t a monster. And, I was so scared of what I’d done at Highpoint Waystation, I ended up making a lot of bad decisions.

  So, like I said . . . we all paid a price for giving into our natures.

  That includes Mike, who paid the ultimate price for this senseless war we fought.

  When I knock on Cynthia’s door, she hasn’t heard yet. It’s not long after I’ve gotten back to Central and we’ve made Dravic’s arrest. Mandy hasn’t even gotten home from the hospital yet, which isn’t surprising considering how Yousef hurt her. So, I’m the first at the door, standing in my white jumpsuit. Just a figure in her doorway. And . . . she looks at me, and she doesn’t say anything at first, right? Maybe it’s something in my face, or my eyes . . . but she gasps and looks away, her hands covering her mouth. It’s been a month since she’s heard from Mike, so I know she’s been torturing herself worrying about him. The sight of me, though . . . She knows immediately why I’m there. “No, no, no . . .” she says as she walks away from the door. “Don’t say it.”

  “Cynthia . . .”

  “Jackie. Don’t. Please.”

  I just stand there for a second before I step inside. Then I close the door behind me and wait. She’s already crying. It’s soft, but I can hear it from a few feet away. Soon, she turns around, her fingers wiping at her eyes. “Just get it done.”

  When I open my mouth, it’s like I’ve suddenly forgotten every word I rehearsed on my way over there. My mouth goes dry, and it’s not until I take in a deep breath that I manage to say, “He died a hero. Saving Central Freedom. He died to protect you and Mandy.” She doesn’t say anything as she stands there, her hands covering her face. “Mike was a hero.”

  “And . . . how did it happen.”

  “He used all of his power to destroy the Northwest Creep Colony. He used his powers to bring it down. From what I understand on the recordings he left behind and the data he recorded, Yousef was planning to trigger the colony into overrunning Central. I think Yousef planned to wiped out just enough of the militia that he could have just taken the city without needing Dravic anymore.” She sucks in a deep breath as she lets out a single, loud cry. All I can do is lower my head out of respect. “He did, uh . . . he did leave you a message.”

  “Can I hear it?”

  “Of course,” I tell her as I step up to her, my finger working at the slimmed down control panel on my jumpsuit’s wrist. A second later, a message begins to broadcast out of the speaker. Even I find it hard to keep it together when I hear him. Mike.

  “Hi Cynthia,” he says. “Leaving this behind because I think I’ve really gotte
n in over my head. Left a message for Jackie and the crew, but wouldn’t feel right saying my goodbyes without saying one to you, you know? Just mean . . . I needed to tell you one last time, you know? One last time that I love you.” When he says that, her head snaps to the floor as her hands suddenly go to her mouth. “And it sucks, you know, thinking that I won’t get to see you in the morning anymore. Won’t get to see Mandy growing up. Never get to hang out at the park with you two again. Just, feeling good about coming home and seeing you . . . Won’t have that anymore. But I love you, and if I’m going out, then the last thing I’m doing is making sure Yousef can’t hurt you. I’m sure Jackie will fill you in on the details. I’d rather just use my last couple of moments telling you how much you meant to me. How much you’ll always mean to me. You know, it’s like you taught me . . . there’s more to life, even after we’re gone. So, I’ll be waiting for you, in the next life. I’ll be thinking about you until I see you again. So, stay strong, and tell Mandy I love her, too. I love you both, just, more than I thought I was even capable of. Live life like you taught me to live it. To the best, every day. Be happy. I love you.”

  And then it’s over, and Cynthia’s crying into her hands . . . and I just lean into her and wrap her up in mine. And, no matter how much I try to hold it back . . . I cry too. I cry with her in that empty apartment.

  I couldn’t tell you for how long.

  I AM THE FIRE

  Jackie’s Recording 42

  Symbols mean something.

  That’s something I’ve learned.

  The day we bury the dead, I show up in my full armor. It’s Tommy’s call, but I do make a few changes. I show up without the helmet, and the armor’s polished white now. It’s a fair compromise. The bodies are buried ahead of time. There’s just too many of them. But, a tribute’s set over the place where they Anyway, I must watch . . . tens of thousands of bodies lowered into the ground. But, they do carve a beautiful statue to put there on the grounds, of three soldiers, each one representing someone from the Sha’b, from Fort Silence, and from Central.