It's shaping up to be quite a grim story, filled with the dark side of the human condition and spirituality. Still drafty though, lots of plot holes and grammar issues.
The idea behind this piece is that the civil war that is rampant throughout North America gets interrupted by a catastrophe that kills off most of the fighting population. This will have something to do with the sentient spine armour pieces on the back of most of the soldiers' bodies. The main character survives merely because of his reluctance to wear the snake at all times, and the rest of the book is focused on dealing with the death of millions of people because of dangerous experimental technology.
Prologue – Time’s Still Passing
Arizona, August 4th,
2032.
My eyes opened and focused on the
puddle forming at my feet. Warm drips fell off my nose, landing in the red sand.
Air squealed as it rushed through the lips and into the lungs of the water
bottle as I released my grip on it. The splash had awoken me, more so than the
increasing amount of noise. I began to compose myself, closing the clip I had
been loading with 10-milimeters before I had interrupted myself for a cold
shower. The soldiers in the rest of the tent grunted and winced as they added
their exo-plates to their arms, legs and head. The organic Velcro fusing and
melding to their skin. One scrawny looking man keeled in agony while the
cracking and itch of his chest plate incapacitated him, another man caught him
as he fell. They seemed poor,
conscripted from some slum in some dustbowl. It was obviously their first time
using additive skeleton. They seemed to know each other, by the look of the
second man’s smile. Naïve, I thought.
I turned my head to the beating
sun piercing the tent canopy, where shadows from outside were being projected.
The silhouettes of three horned commandos hastily strolled by the tent throwing
sand with the heavy fall of their boots, distinguished only by their medieval
looking helm creating nightmarish figures on the yellowed covering. They
embarked into what I guessed was one of their signature helicopters – they
called them pave-lows – salvaged and modified from derelict military air
support which carried out anything from rocketry, explosive gunnery or commando
drops.
Shit, they found one, I
thought, and took it as a sign to quicken my pace. We were on the move. Most likely a search and rescue, as this was
too sudden for anything else. Whipping off my damp shirt, I touched my chest
plates to my upper torso. They went to work immediately: forming cancerous cartilage
through my numbed flesh and muscle. It fused to my rib cage and pulled itself
tight.
I finished fusing my leg plates
next because I had a feeling I would need to be able to walk in a couple
minutes. The local anesthetic was short, but it’d get you. I called over
Dexter to apply my arm protection. He limped over with one of his legs just
regaining control.
“I've got ya brotha. Help me with
my spine-piece in a minute.” he said, almost tumbling to a kneel.
“Ellie found a horn after we left
last night.” I reply with concern as my shoulder lost integrity.
“That’s where she’s ben?” “You
know, if it’s one from Alpha. Initiative… There were a lot of skull-heads
interested in it, and it’s about time we found one,” I remark as Dexter dropped
my arm, swinging it into my metal bed frame before moving to the other.
He nodded slowly and anxiously. “Skull-heads,”
he said. “They probably kept her up all night, telling them the details.”
“Mhm” I mumbled. Dex was more
worried about Ellie than the M.I.A. count of the Alphas. I was captivated by
the stories of the famous quartet, they were celebrities of war and my
eagerness to meet them was undying, Art Decker, Paul Ocharo, Vivian Roberts,
and Nomad, whose name was still unknown: The Alpha squad. Their endeavours had
almost mythical qualities – unbelievable, yet real. It was all there in their
mission report, and their results were undeniable. They started making the news
early on. Alpha Ocharo, codenamed “Loki” once went rogue, strapping a breaching
charge to his squad mate Nomad and threatening to blow him wide open unless
mission command gave them intel they were holding out on. The most fucked up
thing is that Nomad agreed to the whole thing, connecting the wires himself.
Their higher-ups submitted to the demand, but vowed to disband them for the
threat as soon as they returned. Alpha responded by never returning. Enigmatic
as they were, somewhere out there they were still moving.
The squad was viciously
passionate about their operations, willing to die for a higher objective
success-rate. They were immortal – icons of order and survival in a stormed
world. Then, they went missing, no traces no screams. The other skull-heads,
higher-ups, insisted their insubordinate asses had just betrayed their country,
fleeing, or joining the Sect. That was complete bullcrap. If that horn belonged
to them, they were likely strung up by the Arizona locals or sold to the Sect.
My right arm now had enough
strength to pick up Dexter’s spine-piece. A “snake” we called it. It helped
absorb spine crushing and ballistic shock shielding. He pulled up his shirt,
and I held it against his back. It shuddered to let me know it was upside down.
The snakes were computerized, made of organic tissues. Technically they were a
new form of life, and therefore had previously faced a UN conference on whether
to allow their production. The trial was only halfway through when the president
was marked for death. A Sect assassin administered a dart filled with a slow
acting paralytic into President Tiril’s neck. He held two speeches before his
final breath, one was a slow, inspired, patriotic resignation letter, the other
was pained mutterings from an insane man, shut down halfway through because of
public distress.
Killing him slowly ensured that his
last words were something of a hellish world: fevered, demonic, disturbing to
the point that his followers lost hope, got stupid, got angry. So here we were,
in our home, fighting recklessly without a leader, to get even with the leader
of an ideology. Somewhere in the midst of panic, those amber snakes slipped
their decommission and onto the backs of seemingly every fighting man on the
planet. Tiril was still alive in a sense. Not an inch of him moved, but
something still ticked inside as he watched his country fall apart.
I flipped the snake, and it
stopped shuddering. Applying it to Dexter’s spine, it started hissing adjusting.
Dexter slouched and his back cracked in several different places. Then his
posture jutted upwards, before slouching, and then jutting upwards once again.
The snake was waking up, stretching. Dex fell backwards and I caught his head
and let him down on the mattress. I fitted his four arm plates before standing
and putting my shirt and shoes on. “Thanks Dex” I said.
“Any time,” he said to the upper
bunk, before rolling sideways using the momentum from his legs. Dexter almost
didn't catch me burying my own snake inside my locker.
“Still livin’ in god’s hands,
mate?”
“I don’t want those anywhere near
me after I saw that C.P.I. soldier.”
Some poor bastard from the Charlie
Primary Initiative came back from an op with most of his clothes burnt off. A
majority of his body was unrecognizable, but that fucking snake stood among the
mess, holding his spine intact like a trophy. All his other plates were
shattered and embedded in him; his inside was a balloon of jelly-like blood.
The field medics removed the snake and it all poured out through the slit, and
onto the sand, drying into a foul pancake clearly worthy of an honorable
discharge. The tough bastard recovered, or so I heard, but sometimes death is a
preferable option. He was something of a ghost story among the men of war. A
reminder that if this civil war doesn’t end, we’ll all have purple hearts.
“Alright sisters!” Sergeant Reiss
yelled through the tent opening, signalling a lot of cracks, clinks and protein
bars. “We’re moving in five! Search’n’rescue formation! I don’t want to see any
limps outside.”
Ellie walked through the
entrance, looking motivated but overworked. Dexter sat up, thudding his plated
forehead against the upper bunk. “Looks like everythin’s back to normal,” he
said. The thick Scottish bastard didn’t even notice the dent he had made in the
crossbar.
Ellie put on a smug smile and
shouted in point form. “Alright, I’m boss! Bring your foam! Briefing by the
vees! It’s a biggie!” before pivoting and walking straight back outside.
“aaand… There it goes.” I said
back to Dexter, picking some foam grenades from my locker. We both started
jogging out the door to the Vees while snapping our uniform and vests on.
We made it there first as usual. Dexter
pushed a little ahead. “Authoriteh, heh? Who’s horn you find?”
Horns were exoskeleton pieces
worn on the helm of higher-ups - generally commandos, to show rank. When one
showed up on the ground, it was a sign of distress and queue for a search and
rescue. The personalized engravings could identify the identity of the former
wearer whom had ripped it off, and the location of said missing commando could
be traced by a connection from bio-chips embedded in both the horn, and in the
cortex of the soldier.
“Arthro.” Ellie said, as if the
name were a movie poster. “I recommended a full mobilization, starting as soon
as your lazy asses get out of bed. It’s happening.”
“Heh... Sergeant Reiss’s must be
proud of you. Giving orders to skull-heads already,” I said.
“He was fuckin’ jealous, is what
he was. Spent the whole night boggin’ down ales, and sayin’ words that nobody
called for.” Ellie seemed prideful in her glance, knowing she had hard-assed
the hard-ass for once. Sergeant Reiss picked on Ellie since day one, and in
their escalating dispute, Ellie took him to the pit – the prom of fighters, for
a dance of bruises. The invitation was a blow in itself, but Ellie held her own
against him. Ty Reiss was the king for a reason, though. He had her wincing in
the sand at the 2-minute mark. They respected each other since that fight,
although ‘liking’ is a completely different thing.
The rest of the Delta platoon
filtered from every tent, not burning with the same energy as our little trio.
Temporary Sergeant and hard-ass Ellie stopped the fuel pump connected to the
last of the 5 Humvees and turned around, exclaiming, “We found him!”
“We found Arthro!”
Delta stopped. All 33 of them.
Their arms legs and lungs stood still with attentiveness.
Art Dokelend or Arthro was among
the first of the experimental exo-soldiers, and by far the most proficient. He
was labeled “most wanted” by all sides of the conflict, disbanded, discharged,
or dead - one of the three.
“Get into your assigned jeep.
We’re pushing through the flattened sector and into the underground. Foam up
the road for cover, and plug any holes and flank routes - don’t stop for
anything.”
We mounted the vehicles. Me,
Ellie and Dex were all in separate vessels. I wasn't feeling in a talking mood,
so I fitted my face plates on: chin, cheeks and forehead all went numb. I
stared out the window at the uneasy locals. Old dusty foam spanned the bike
lanes where roadside conflicts must have arisen. I almost missed the city; it
was so unexpectedly similar to a stretch of desert, littered with rocks.
Sandstorms had enveloped the creased and crumbled city, smoothing the otherwise
jagged rubble. My anaesthetic-ridden jaw dropped slightly as we went over large
bump on the pavement. Small glimpses of civil life breached the dried skin of
the earth. A white flag, a blue tarp, red stains, a homemade carpet, a hand.
“Ffffuck!” I , turning my head and realizing my mouth functioned once more. The
Jeep’s inhabitants empathetically swayed their heads to and from me with,
pained with understanding.
“Day 46: time’s still passing,”
Colin said in his deep and surprisingly aged voice. Colin and I only shared
momentary interactions in the time we worked together. He wasn't terribly
bright in spirit, but when I wanted a few words to chew on, Colin’s slow and
daily remarks were something I could relate to.
He handed me his water bottle,
saying “For the nerves.”
I
washed down a large mouthful, coughing up a smirk while trying to look civil.
It wasn't water. I handed the bottle back nodding as my throat burned, his
steely composure was pained and serious beneath his large black sunglasses: an
eerie sorrow in a suit of armour. Everybody became sour when nobody was touchable.
I suppose that explains a lot of things about Colin, like the way he never
replied, but still managed to converse.
The jeeps started to slow in
front of a particularly wide street. “Hoo-ah,” we all said, bumping our clips
together like wine glasses during a toast.
“Ten.. thirty two.” Colin stated,
backing up his first hypothesis. “Time’s still passing,” said Nelson, our
driver, jauntily with an entertained grin.
The first pave-low I had seen
this morning was now noticeable above the trampled city. Circling, and bobbing
at a low altitude, the protruding mini gun pitched and yawed, expelling heat
from the muzzles. Three bulky figures stepped from the deck, rotating mid-air
gracefully like falling meteors until they slammed back first into the ground
with the force of a landmine. The drop created a mask of dust large enough for
them to vanish into one of the spotted tunnels to the underground as rounds
pelted the once occupied sand.
Silence, for just one… two
seconds. The Humvee rolled to a crawling pace in front of the expanse. Six or
so locals strolled up from one of the entrances to the underground. “Watch
‘em!” Nelson said urgently.
Taking a second look, one of them
had disappeared.
That was when the grenade rolled with pitiful momentum from
the empty turret cut out, landing in the middle of all eight of us. We all had
the same thought for a split instant. ‘It’s it, or us.’
Belting out a series of
unintelligible words, we all pushed for the doors. The grenade blew, foam
growing at an exponential rate. The vehicle veered off on an angle, before
beaching itself in a ditch. We were pressed against the windows as the doors
opened, retching six of us from the mess. We lay in the foam as it began to
harden in the dry air. The four other
vehicles halted, steering in opposite directions to block the road. Delta
Company stumbled out, running towards the grey pile of helpless soldiers I
inhabited.
Suddenly, everyone was around us,
hitting the ground while fumbling around in their pouches for anything
useful. The hiss of foam blocked out all
sound as waist-high cover walled us in. Looking back at the Vee, there was
nothing recognizable left. Colin and one other were still in there.
Over the com link, a muffled
voice yelled for help. Dex and four others started removing us from the gummy
concrete. Ellie signaled to open fire on whoever just ambushed us. Stuck on my
belly, I struggled to get a visual while glued to the ground. Exploiting my
hardened elbows, I wrenched my way out. I grabbed my gun in an unorthodox fashion
and starting pummeling the now plastery substance inside the wreck.
Centimeter-thick plates of it chipped away at a time, the wavering voice stopped in probable interest of air.
I thudded the butt of the rifle
again and again, bullets homing closer and closer on my location. The clip
broke, spilling the rounds I had so carefully loaded in the tent. The scope
hinged strangely on the top, and on the sheen of the lens contrasted a crack.
The thuds turned to deep cracks, hollow cracks. A hand was now visible.
Chiseling around the fingers, the concrete gave way. The arm ripped out of it’s
mould, followed by shoulders, a head, a lot more foam, and finally the rest of
the body.
Colin was calm as he cleaned off
his colourless shell on the ground; he shook it off, both mentally and
literally. I noticed him grabbing his sidearm and wondered why he had not
stopped to help me, but after I started moving for the wreck again, his face
sunk and his head slowly began to shake, the first time he’d emoted anything meaningful.
I hesitated, looked at the fully formed foam, and closed the door.
Diving to a crawl, I grabbed the
empty magazine and fell behind one of the bulletproof marshmallows. Sliding
individual rounds from my vest belt, I guided them into the magazine - the
clink of each bullet seemingly louder than the combined gunfire of the warzone
around me. Six men had already fallen, either dead or wounded to the Sect
combatants, our platoon was down to 29.
Dexter, being a field medic was
naturally rolling back and forth from, man to man, checking vitals and
fastening bandages. Colin and Ellie were guiding fire to the three pits where
the ambushers, Sect it seemed, had been flowing to and from. Efficiently they
darted from target to target, communicating with nothing more than hand signals.
A dip in the sound of fire meant an advance, Ellie reloaded, tossing her extra
foam grenades to Colin and Reiss. They sprinted up the ceasefire quickly,
lobbing one live foamer into each underground entrance. Hurrying back, they watched
as the plug was sealed. The next set of strategic holes was 50 metres further
down the road, and for the time being, were empty.
Looking back and the haunting
wreck of the Humvee, I picked up my comm unit and spoke:
“Corporal, I never found out your
name, but... I’m sorry this happened to you. This war turns us sour in ways I
will never fully understand, and I hope it was just coincidence that we never
greeted each other.”
The radio crackled for a brief
second, I wasn't expecting a reply. Two familiar faces from the wrecked vee ran
over to me, grabbing the comm device and putting it to their ears.
“S-Skipper *hhh* sir,” The radio spoke.
“Kelvin Skipper. Who *hhh* is this?”
The breaths were small and
strangely timed - reflexes from a panicked pair of lungs. The two broken
soldiers looked at my torn face, before slowly handing the radio back. Taking
it, I waveringly replied:
“I s-sat in the… I sat in the
vehicle with you… Row behind you, left side,” It’s funny how your brain
remembers these things. There was a pause for a few long seconds.
“*hhh* You *hhh* swore at something outside the window *hhh* 2 minutes
before we arrived?”
“Y-yeah, that was me.”
Silence, again. Colin approached, dropping his post to
join the spectators.
“Tell them to stop *hhh* please.”
Puzzled, the others and I looked
at the wreck. Dexter and one other
man were taking crowbars to the rugged plaster shell of Skipper’s prison. I
looked at the skinniest of the three men in front of me who I recognized as the
scrawny man keeled in pain earlier. “You... Sam is it?” I looked at the tape on
his uniform to confirm. “Get those two to stop. Please.”
“If I *hhh* am going to die, *hhh* I’d like to die quietly.”
Composing myself vocally, I
thought for a second. “Kelvin, hold in there. If you have any last words, now
is the time…”
There was a deathly silence over
the comm channel. Ellie had stopped giving orders and was sitting against a
foam wall with her headset clasped in her hands, listening in. Dex and
approximately 10 others had now joined the audience as well. 20 seconds had pissed
away. The radio had flickered static on and off, but no words had been said.
Then the silence was broken with a faded statement. “You never *hh* told me your *hh* name.”
I looked up, for an instant at
all the invested faces: Dexter bloodied, Ellie wavering, Colin with his
sunglasses over his heart - head in a bow - eyes shut tight in prayer. I was
sure all 29 sets of ears were listening somehow, through some channel, on some
device.
“Cody DeCasse” I said inaudibly,
looking at my squad standing above and around me, and then to Dexter. Dex shook
his head back, confusing me with his intentions. Nervously I raised one of my
eyebrows, beckoning him to expand on the gesture. He said in his most un-easing
comforting Scottish accent: “You can tell em your real name, brotha. We’re all
family now.”
“Cody *hh* who? *hh*”
I nodded at Dexter, and returned
to the transceiver, saying “Cody Dokelend.”
“ your… dad? *sh*” Skipper slowly asked.
“Yes... I’m here to get him out.
I was drafted by whatever government is left these days. Nobody else could coax
him back home.” I said firmly.
One Mississippi, Two Mississippi, Three Mississippi…
“*sh* … The sins *sh* of our
fathers, *sh* I guess. *hhhp*” He gasped, before going offline into
complete static. He was gone, disconnected his link somehow.
“Yeah. I... I guess so.” I said
quietly, letting the radio down by my knees. There was mumbling from every
angle. I wiped my eyes with my raw inner arm, and stood, shaken in the face of
my squad. Colin’s eyes were wide open.
