“Sam, I can’t let you go! I can’t! Too many people I love are gone, and I won’t let you be the next.”
“I’m sorry.” I drop the gun to the floor and zip the backpack up and let it hang off my back. Then I wrap my arms around Ai and close my eyes. She hugs me back, and for the brief moment that our bodies are interconnected, the world feels normal again. “Thank you for saving my life. Thank you to you and Jake for being there for me, for being my heroes when most people would run away and hid. I am so thankful that you gave me a chance at living again. It’s time I do the same thing for millions now.”
I feel a hot sensation on the back of my neck as I finish speaking. I pull away from Ai and turn around as the pain of an entire chunk of my flesh being ripped out from my neck overcomes me.
“What the hell?” I turn around and reach down to the ground to pick up the machine gun from the floor, but Justin is holding it instead.
Drew is standing right in front of me, his horribly familiar smile showing off his two chipped front teeth. In his hands he holds a small circular device that is coated in dark metal and is no larger than a quarter in diameter. I don’t even need him to say anything for me to realize what he did to me.
He implanted a chip into my neck. The same chip that everyone in the brotherhood has. The same chip that is there to track me for the rest of my life.
“We will see you soon.” Drew laughs, and the moment his chuckle echoes off the walls, the holograph cuts off and the aircraft touches down onto the ground.
I don’t even respond by cursing him out. The fact that he would have the tenacity to stab me with that device doesn’t surprise me, and the fact that the device makes my neck feel like a flamethrower is torching through my flesh is also expected. But it’s what he says next that sends chills down my spine.
“That’s all part of a little experiment, we will have to see how it fares.” Drew walks over to the control center and taps a few buttons. It’s hard to tell if he is doing it for show and the entire ship is powered by artificial intelligence, or whether he actually knows how to operate this thing. “We won’t be able to hear what you say, but there should be a bunch of tiny tracking devices floating through your bloodstream. Millions of them. They won’t ever leave you. We will always be able to find you, my friend. Blood brothers never leave each other behind.”
As he says the words, my hand naturally gravitates to the back of my neck, where a thick, slimy pus has effused out of me. When I put my fingers in front of my eyes to examine the liquid, I feel my stomach turn as the reddish-yellow liquid drips onto the floor.
“Your twenty-four hours begin now.” Drew smiles. “We will be back for you soon.”
“No, this is not how this works.” I pull the backpack off my back and zip it open so that my hand can touch the top of the Chimera Cube. “You can’t do this to me! This wasn’t part of the deal!”
“I advise you get moving now, or your twenty-four hours will be up real fast.” As he says the words, I see an array of guns point at me from the row of men in the back of the aircraft. I gulp as the wall behind the couch I was sitting on slides up, revealing the destruction beyond.
“I’m not letting him go out there alone.” Jake walks towards the exit looking surprisingly confident for a man who was shaking with fear only moments ago.
Right as his foot touches the edge of the aircraft, a gunshot is fired. I flinch, half expecting the bullet to pierce through my heart, but instead it hits the floor next to Jake. It was one of the suited men who shot it at him, and from the excited expressions in their eyes, they are all more than willing to fire a few more in his direction.
“Sit down,” Drew says.
“Blood brothers never leave anyone behind.” Jake stares at me, something beautiful about his bloodshot eyes and worn-down expression.
Right as he takes another step forward, a flurry of bullets are fired in his direction. One connects with his leg and the other one with his upper right shoulder. Any thought he had at getting to the world outside is now done.
“Don’t even try it,” Justin warns Ai, but from the terrified expression on her face, she already understands it’s hopeless.
I run over to Jake with the Chimera Cube, preparing to heal him. My move in his direction is instantly shut down. A flurry of bullets are shot at me. Most are inaccurate, which is exactly what I expect from a group of men who only shoot these things for sport, but when one connects with my left rib, any of my forward motion is stopped.
“External would repair.” I tap the Chimera Cube, knowing that it will heal me in seconds, but Jake is still out of range for the nanobots to detect his agony. The Syndicate knows this, and it’s exactly why they don’t let me take another step further in his direction even as my body feels normal again, nothing but a rip and blood staining my clothes to mark the wound.
“I’m going with him!” Jake screams and claws forward on the floor, blood gushing out of his shoulder and leg. But even he knows it’s too late.
“Let the robots heal you,” I say to Jake, knowing that if I step in his direction, I am only going to make this situation worse for the both of us. “I have to do this alone.”
I refuse to look at Ai and Jake as I step out into the destruction that lies ahead of me. I don’t even allow my mind to fully process my surroundings. I simply walk out of the aircraft, carried by nothing more than my rage as the rubble surrounds my feet.
The door slides shut behind me and within a second I hear the engines of the aircraft starting up again as it prepares to ascend into the dark clouds of smoke above and make its escape. I can’t bear to look at it as everyone I know and love on this Earth flies away from me.
The best-case scenario is that they remain as hostages of the Syndicate for the next twenty-four hours with nothing to protect them from the torture except their own fists. The worst-case scenario is that everyone dies in a fiery crash caused by a Chinese military missile.
But as I finally open my eyes to the world around me, all those concerns feel a world away. When I see the magnitude of devastation in front of me, I can’t stop the shock from taking over.
My eyes hurt from looking at it all as my lungs and skin burn from the radiation and toxic chemicals in the air. This city is completely destroyed.
And I have no idea how I’m going to put it back together.
I have no idea how I’m going to manage to save even one life in this wasteland, never mind make it out alive myself.
Chapter 18
All the horrors I have witnessed in my life combined don’t add up to the magnitude of destruction in front of me.
For a few minutes I am unable to do anything but stand still, my mind in shock, as I try to process the apocalyptic wasteland around me. Every building within miles is leveled. The once massive skyscrapers that held offices and residential flats are now nothing more than piles of ash and rubble. Behind the towers of smoke that have taken the place of the skyline of the city is the looming shadows of the mountains that surround the harbor and center of civilization on Hong Kong Island.
With the explosions likely taking place half an hour ago, the smoke has already started to dissipate, leaving only the heavy toxic ash to infest my airways. I cough, blood coming out of my mouth as my skin continues to burn with every step I take forward. There is practically no light that protrudes from the sun through the heavy smoke clouds, causing the entire landscape to be coated in a film of ominous darkness. But the smell is the worst part. The combination of rotten eggs with dead flesh and sewage is one that my nose won’t ever forget. In fact, I think there is a chance that no matter how hard I try and eradicate this smell from my pores, that it will be one with me forever.
Yet, despite the extreme discomfort the deadly environment brings me, I am numb to it all. In fact, I don’t think that my brain is capable of fully comprehending this disaster even if I had the time to survey it all.
This would be a tragedy if it was only an earthquake. It would have
likely wiped hundreds of buildings and even resulted in tens of thousands of deaths. It would have led to Hong Kong’s market collapsing and likely another opportunity for mainland China to tighten their control on the region.
But this is a different story.
This city wasn’t destroyed by a tidal wave; its harbor doesn’t even face the ocean. This city was nuked. I have no clue how many times, but the mushroom clouds of smoke from the detonation of the bombs are still vaguely visible in the mass of darkness forming above the city.
And this would be terrible enough if Hong Kong Island was the only place that suffered a beating like this. But I know without even having to see it that all of the islands in Hong Kong are exactly like this one, and that every single city that Li Wang horded the most disloyal people to his regime in along the eastern seaboard has met the same fate as this one.
Hundreds of millions of people are dead at a faster rate than any point in human history. It might be impossible for Li to hide this atrocity form the world. It will certainly take all the might of the bamboo curtain of puppet states that he has built around this nation to prevent any footage from this destruction leaking out. And it will take state-of-the-art atmospheric manipulation tactics to ensure that the toxins in the atmosphere are neutralized before they carry over the ocean to countries like Japan and the United States.
But none of that matters.
Even if Li gets caught in a diplomatic mess and human rights disaster in the international community, the damage has already been done.
In a blink of an eye the lives of so many were lost too soon. This wasn’t a tragedy. This was an act against humanity, against all life, and a systematic way to kill millions under the veil of Mother Nature. Just the thought makes me want to cry and scream at the same time, but instead no emotions come out. My senses are overloaded, my brain ringing with all the thoughts that are bouncing around it as the glass and concrete crunch beneath my feet and hundreds upon hundreds of dead bodies come into view. It is silent.
There are no fires burning through what is left of this city. There are no sirens coming to save the people. And there is no one calling out for help, even though there are thousands of people within a few hundred yards of me.
All of them are buried beneath the rubble.
All of them are dead.
Being in the middle of worlds that are falling apart is nothing new to me. But watching the live feed of Hong Kong from up above is way different when it’s actually unfolding in front of you.
I thought I was prepared for this.
I thought that I could come into this city and try and save as many people as possible and then leave. I thought I could lock all of this away somewhere deep beneath all the pain I have experienced so that it will never resurface.
But the moment the reality hits me that this is really happening and that the screams for help and severed limbs crushed beneath heavy blocks of concrete are only the beginning of this disaster, I can’t help but think that no amount of drugs or therapy will ever rid this terror from me.
There are moments in life that you don’t quite see coming, but when they happen, they alter you forever. This is one of those moments, and I don’t know if I’m going to come out of it dead or alive.
“Help!” I hear someone scream, their body likely trapped underneath the rubble.
“Bullet-proof suit,” I command the suit, tapping it. That one sound finally wakes me up from my trance staring at the destruction in front of me. I can try and absorb these monstrosities later. I can let the wave of sadness and endless tears wash over me after I’m dead or a hero, whichever comes first.
I slide on the bullet-proof suit, having enough sense to at least take the necessary steps to ensure that a surveillance drone in the sky or any imperial soldiers that may be lurking in the rubble can’t kill me with one shot. Although it is unlikely any of the military survived these explosions or that the drones are able to get an accurate view of me with the clouds of smoke infesting the air for miles, it is better to be safe than sorry.
As I put on the suit, the cold mesh-like fabric squeezing against my skin, my heart palpitates so hard that I can feel it beating in the tips of my fingers. With every breath I feel a heavy weight causing my chest to nearly cave in. I’m good at compartmentalizing stuff. I’m good at tuning out all the distractions and only focusing on the goal ahead. But even with the eerie silence save for the one woman screaming, there is so much noise in my mind that I can’t seem to slip into the zone.
I zip up the suit, leaving a tiny slit open near my eyes so that I can see the world around me in full color. Then I try to collect my breathing, but every time I inhale, my lungs burn and throat itches from the toxins. I am no scientist, but from playing a lot of video games related to nuclear disasters in middle school, I know that the radiation that results from these blasts is lethal. With all the debris and millions of tons of rubble lining the street, forming a sea of destruction above the earth, it is impossible to tell where the epicenter of the blasts is. But I have no doubt in my mind that every second my body comes into contact with more of the ash and radiation, I’m one moment closer to dying.
“Hazmat suit.” I tap the cube, remembering that in the same notes I have in the backpack it details how the cube can produce a suit that can virtually stop any outside contaminants from infecting the body. The suit itself is made, and due to me not specifying the size, when I go to put it on, the suit hangs off my arms and legs, making me look several inches taller and much heavier than I am.
Given the situation, impressing the people whose lives I’m about to save is the least of my worries. I have to clean this city up and get everyone out of here as fast as possible. Not even the Chimera Cube can neutralize the deadly amounts of beta and gamma radiation that are in the air. The only way to save these people is to get them as far away from Hong Kong and the Chinese military that is likely hovering above and around the city.
“Please!” the same voice calls out again. This time I am ready to go. I keep my backpack unzipped with the Chimera Cube easily accessible in front of my chest.
With every step I have to avoid tons of metal poking out of the ground or climb over large pillars of concrete that didn’t break up during their horrendous smash against the streets. Navigating through the jungle of fallen buildings is not the worst of it, though. It’s having to step over the dozens of bodies that have been reduced to piles of skin and bones, knowing that beneath me in the layers of rubble that lie between my feet and the once clean metropolitan blocks are even more lives lost too soon.
“Clear smoke within a mile radius.” I tap the cube as I deliver the command. From reading the guide to all the commands programmed into it, I know that the maximum distance from which it can efficiently wipe out the smoke and other particulate matter is within one hundred yards. It is programmed with those parameters so that someone doesn’t use this cube as a way to cleanse the Earth of all oxygen in one go, even though that would take days with the power of the cube.
However, the parameters the cube has to limit its power are useless in practice. They don’t prevent anyone from using this cube to destroy the world. After all, one can use the cube to make more of itself and have thousands of self-replicating machines all over the world until the universe is full of them.
For now, clearing the smoke within one mile is more than enough. I can let the dangers of the cube keep me up at night for the rest of my life. Nothing can stop me from doing what I need to do today. And by commanding the Chimera Cube to clear up the smoke, it will free up most of the densely packed areas of Hong Kong Island from the suffocating smoke and allow me to see the areas of most urgent need.
The nanobots work astoundingly quickly.
Although they don’t magically wipe out all the smoke within a mile in a blink of an eye, they do cause the heavy black film in the air to recede like a wave rolling back out to sea. Within a second the air around me is clear again, and after I climb on top of a la
rge marble pillar, likely in the lobby of a bank or other financial center, the air is clear within hundreds of feet around me.
I look up at the pristine, clear air surrounding me in a bubble and then see the dark smoke encasing me on all sides. It feels like I’m at the bottom of an ocean with the mystical power to move water with my hands. And as a result, everything being blocked by the ash and particulates in the air is now visible.
This is even worse than I thought.
Most of the cement is discolored by the blood of the wounded and dead, and as the smoke starts to seep away from the immediate surroundings, more and more cries for help can be heard. What starts as a few people moaning and groaning turns to dozens and then hundreds, all screaming at the top of their lungs.
The most chilling part about it all is that most of the sound echoes from below me, the bodies trapped so far underneath the rubble that their desperate screams are low and muffled as they effuse from the cracks.
I finally make it to the woman who was screaming first.
Her head is poking out from the bottom of a large slab of cement and broken table that has wedged her into a tiny crack in the rubble. She is sweating profusely, and from the fact that her entire body is trapped underneath the crushing weight of the pillar, it is safe to assume that she is in a torturous amount of pain.
“Open up detection tool,” I say to the Chimera Cube. On command it delivers a wand-like stick with a red-pointed tip on the end and a small digital screen at the center.
“Hey!” the woman screams as she sees me stand right above her. I know that if I try and rip her body out, I may injure her more. My best shot is destroying all the cement within a mile radius with the power of the Chimera Cube.
The Conspiracy Chronicles Boxset 2 Page 44