She heard a breath. Hard and sharp, it cut through the far away screams. It was close, only a few feet away. In the pitch dark she could not see anything, and so could only stop and hope that it had not noticed her. She wished her heart would quiet, foolishly for surely the sound of it was only magnified to her. Another breath, this time though it was closer to her.
Another.
And as the fourth breath came she lunged forward, and slammed against the figure. They both fell, she on top of it. It struggled, trying to bite and grab her. She held it back, using her weight to subdue it. Teeth came forward again, then realizing the futility of its position, the Chaot began to shriek. Nyx brought her head down, crashing her skull against its.
Everything went black, even more so than the black of the corridor. But she struggled to stay conscious, falling to the side of the Chaot and laying on the hard tile. The hit must have knocked out the Chaot, for it lay motionless besides her.
Get up. It took all her effort, but she knew that the sounds may attract more. She stood unsteadily, and continued on. As she turned a corner, she saw some light and came to a room with a window to the outside where the break of dawn could be seen. She looked through, and saw Chaots everywhere. But they were moving toward the entrance to the research station, about twenty feet away. She silently opened it, and slipped out of its narrow crevice.
She began to run through the ferns that seemed as tentacles wrapping around her legs. Thoughts flooded her mind as she continued running through the forests and into the swamp. Her kinship with the Chaots was understood in basic science, not as she thought it would be. She fantasized that mystical, esoteric and primal philosophies explained her affinity with the Chaots. To have her spiritual realities replaced by simple biological mechanics tore at her deeply. But what dug deeper, tearing her apart, was a voice:
If I die because of you, I will be honored.
Hector had said this once. But she did not bring honor, only damnation. She had lost Hector, unsure if he lived or died. There was no honor in that. Even if indirectly, she had made Dio into something that no longer bore resemblance to the cheerful bloke. Leander left. Megaira was killed because of her. She caused the Armageddon; all died because of what she was.
She ran on alongside such thoughts. She ran on until her energy finally escaped her and she fell to the mire.
The mud swallowed her; the breeze yielding to the murky depths surrounding her. She wished to stay there and become one with the swamp, to forever lay and not again face what would come. The swamp of sorrows, of sadness, that consumes the hearts of the brave. Surrender, it whispers. Her heart heavy, all she could do was plea silently, yes. Take me. End my struggle.
The Pathfinder looked out, watching. Even as a Chaot himself, he was responsible for the raids on the humans. He orchestrated her demise—not from life, but from the final strands of humanity that surrounded her. Of the soldiers, of her own humanity, making her his own. Recognition came to him as he looked at her. Recognition of a life forgotten, and of the origins of his life now.
Chapter Seventeen: The Pathfinder
Three years previous: In the skies above
“Hook up!” shouted Jason.
The call boomed from the Jumpmaster’s voice, reverberating through the aircraft. The elite team of paratroopers heard Jason even above the wind. During the intermittent silence between his calls, the noise swallowed them in the metal shell of the plane as if being sucked through a vortex.
“Check Static Lines!”
No pitch, no resonance, just a monotone yell. He showed no emotion, just an overriding control over the situation. Sweat dripped down his forehead. Nerves maybe, though mainly due to the sweltering compact oven of the drop plane. It was small in order to go undetected. No comfort. A smile hitched his mouth. Sure, must have been made that way to deter any last minute cold feet in the men. To jump from the metal conductor was all they wanted at about this moment, even considering what it was they jumped into.
Enemy territory, occupied by the Uprising.
They would go into virgin land, in order to assess the layout and pave the way for the rest. Identify safe landing sites, ideal approaches, and areas to circumvent. To cut the way; they were the metamorphic machete carving the path. The first to face danger. The first to shape the unknown into the known.
“Check Equipment!”
Whatever they faced below though, he mused, it was better than being cooked alive in this craft.
“Sound off, equipment checked!” Many voices in one unison rang out in response. His boys have done him well and would continue to do so in flight and on the ground.
“I blaze the way to far-flung goals—” Jason called out, and as soon as the last word left his mouth the others of his platoon called in a resounding unity.
“Behind, before, above the foe’s front line!”
“And beyond,” he added as the plane slowed to drop speed. Three Minutes. He opened the door. The blast of air swelled within the innards of the plane, calling for the soldiers to jump into its freedom.
Huh, cooked alive. Hope that that was not what waited for them if caught.
The one minute reference point passed, and he called the same. He continued sweating, despite the cool air now being shuffled among the fully geared paratroopers.
“This is it, live together, but we do not die alone. Die together, while carving the enemy’s tombstone,” he said. “Got it?”
“Yes sir!”
The thirty second reference point passed.
“Stand-by!”
The tension of those thirty seconds passed faster—and yet at the same time slower—than anything he had experienced. His life was for one purpose: go in first, carve the path for the rest. Live ahead of it all, live ahead of the fear.
“Go! Go! Go!”
He would jump last. Knife clearly defined on his lower calf, if anything should happen to his brothers-in-arm, such as a faulty chute, he would have to be the last to be able to dive to them through the air.
They jumped. So did he.
The blast of cool shot up around him. The metal surface was replaced with nothing. Sweat steamed from his face, as he looked out through night vision goggles to account for all of his platoon. The parachutes pulled open in sync; olive clouds amidst the green glare. All accounted for. All ready for the war below.
They were called the Pathfinders, they would fulfill their namesake and lead the rest to victory.
Over one year previous: On the sea below
Rising smoke circled Jason’s head from his cigar. No longer over enemy lines, he stood aboard the Destroyer ship looking over the fleet of the Scipian across the Atlantic. Fresh from the frontline, his aircraft had landed here to refuel supplies. He also had supplemental orders: Determine the research being done aboard, specifically the hazard versus performance ratio. The Bavarian Coalition had decided to use Commander Triton’s biological research, and needed to be assured it would meet their needs and end the Uprising. Not a far jump for Jason: from assessing the situation of the foe to now the supposed friend. What he found out was that the friend was by far the worst of the two threats.
The bio-agent was war-worthy, yes. It was dangerous. Unethical, even, he thought as he walked down the stairway to the ship’s laboratory. He stopped in front of one room and looked through the polycarbonate glass cell to view the confined female subject. Nevertheless, the questionable ethics did not make him waiver. This was war, and the Bavarian Coalition needed to fight against the insurgency. But the contagion that the head of the Scipian, Triton, procured for wide-scale use was more than a simple bioweapon that could be contained in attack. It was unmanageable. It would bring the entire world in danger, and not just their enemies. Hence, he could not deem the research consequence worthy.
He squinted through the puffed fog as he looked out toward the woman before him. Dressed in white, behind an impenetrable glass. She glared out as he looked at her, as if she could escape her cage. Despite t
he conditions, she was willful to the end.
He was not supposed to be here. Hell, if that stopped him. Hell, if that was not part of his job description: go against restrictions. Go where no one else should.
Several clacks of footfalls on the hard ceramic floor echoed as someone came up beside him. He had no need to turn to see who it was, he knew the smell and breath of acidic evil anywhere. Instead, his gaze remained on the woman. As Triton approached to stand next to him, Jason could see the change in her. The fear that became present.
The other spoke to him; his voice was cunning. “She is intriguing, is she not?”
They both knew he was in a restricted area, that need not be said. They both also knew what would happen; but, that would come later.
“Not for the reason you see, Commander Triton.”
“You see her on another level. Is that why you contacted your superiors to end this research?”
Hard, stern as ever, Jason did not allow the hidden threat to deter his confidence. The communication was classified, and if Triton knew of it there was the possibility that his message never got out.
“No, it is not. Your research jeopardizes civilization. If what you are working on ever breached the hull ...” he paused, knowing specifics would not have to be spelled out. Triton knew clear well what would happen. “I cannot allow you to continue. You should soon be receiving the orders to terminate your work.”
“I chose you. A Pathfinder for the Army. I hoped that meant you could see beyond what others could not and be the first to support this world altering cure. But ... well, I am disappointed in you, Pathfinder. We intercepted your message.”
A cough came from Jason through the smoke, not of uncertain surprise but of confirmation. Realization, and undoubted confirmation. He saw the woman looking at them and listening, curious of the two despite her situation. But also if felt as if the fear he had saw when Triton came was now directed at him. That she feared for him, not for herself.
“I cannot condone these experiments,” Jason replied as he put the cigar in his mouth for one last drag. Scars painted his face from the wars he had survived. He did not have the typical soldier build, for his shorter stature put him at five foot six. It was best for the jump to be small, he joked, less likely that enemy fire would land on you. One would never guess his size looking at him, for height would go ignored as his eyes glowed as if fresh from the forger. And now he looked at Triton, the fire clear. “This work will end.”
“We intercepted your message,” Triton repeated, the tone the same; the expression the same. “And we terminated it. Your superiors will not receive word, our research will not stop.”
Two armed guards stepped out from the hall at Triton’s words, and stood to protect the Commander though Jason knew Triton did not need protection. He knew the man’s background: Naval Special Warfare Command Unit, highly respected among his peers, many battles under his belt. Older now, but he could see he was still a force to be respected. Jason knew what would come, but was powerless to stop it. Even so, he fought. The cigar fell from his hands. Grabbing his weapon, he fired at Triton.
No bullet discharged. The leader of the Scipian did not fall.
“Did you truly believe it would be that easy, Pathfinder?” Triton laughed, as two of his guards grabbed hold of Jason. The gun itself had never left his side, even in sleep, for it to be robbed of its bullets. Except at the check point boarding the Destroyer ... did Triton plan this that far in advance? Even before Jason had decided that the research was not safe?
However, he was not about to make it easy for Triton either. Pivoting backwards to make the guards first unbalanced, he swooped his arms out from in front to behind their heads as they fell forward. They struggled to keep hold of him, though he did not need them to let go for his plan to succeed. His hands now in back of each head, he used their momentum against them as he crashed their skulls together. They dropped, one hitting the door lever hard as he fell. But as they did so Jason felt a stab to his body. Triton brought the metal point of a needle to his side as he was distracted, piercing through his clothes and into his flesh and pumped the liquid into his bloodstream.
He sank. His mind still alert, but his body fell paralyzed. The cigar was on the ground near him, smoke still rising. Triton stepped on it, crushing the tobacco and smothering the smoke underneath.
“I am sorry. But you should have never undermined my operation.”
Triton looked on from above. Jason felt nothing, not even the cold floor underneath his cheek that was smashed against it. He could only hear and see as if a powerless bystander from inside a shell he no longer had control of ... and one he feared he would never again have control of.
“Though you do have it right. I do not make a weapon to help end the war. I make one to begin a new kind of one. With exposure to the Drakōn mund prion that we procured, the prefrontal cortex will not die, it will transform. Death of the Uprising will not come as the Bavarian Coalition wanted; instead, the contagion will fuel the Uprising’s cause and end the one world government’s regime.”
Triton leaned over him, another syringe held tightly between pinched fingers. The liquid inside red. The hand that held it gloved. No emotions splashed on his face, only cold eyes looking through a blank stare of scientific separation.
Jason could guess what it was and what Triton meant to do. He did not plea or threaten him. He accepted fate.
“Unlike the pathogen that was constructed, which needed to be in vapor form, you will be able to experience it unmodified. Pure.”
The metal syringe sunk into his neck. The red injected into his own bloodstream, leaving the container only with a tinge of what was left. His limbs may have been immobilized, his movements limited, but pain still came. He felt blood trickle down his face. Down his nose. His eyes watered of red tears. His last sight was of the woman forcing herself against the door that had been compromised during the fight. Trying to reach him.
It felt as if he stood again on the plane before the jump. What lay down this road was unknown, but he would face it—even embrace it—and come out leading the rest. He was the one ordered to always go first. And now he was the first to be transformed by this pathogen.
Even though tranquilized, the torture he had previously faced was nothing compared to this. The only thing he could compare the pain to was an antiquated reference: the mummification process of the Egyptians. The hook sliding within the nasal cavity, the rod pressing against the brain, hooking it and yanking it out. This was what it must have felt like if the process was done alive, and surely a few misdiagnosed souls had underwent it in ancient times. Having their brain scrambled and then ripped out alive. Only that could define the pain he felt.
His body convulsed. His mind tore away as if a witness to his transformation. Though still everything was seen through a red glare, reminding him it was not over. Triton took several steps back, wishing to part himself from the risk of contamination, though not from the scene. Scientific curiosity? No, that was not it. Something else haunted Triton’s eyes. The woman had wrapped her arms around him, and it felt like a parting embrace of who he was once and a beginning to who he became.
Pain still. But now it drained, though ever present.
Now the chaos came.
Images of his past he grasped to, of his platoon standing beside him, of the jump. Of them conquering uncharted territory, and leading the rest forward. As if grains of sand, they slipped, sifting through his clasped fists.
I never surrender, though I be the last. Though I be the first.
One year previous: And through hell
Static.
It came in interludes. Realization, lapses—horror. Blood over his hands. No, not his, not now. He was still aboard the ship, he felt the sway below his feet. But no longer locked in a cell. How long had he been caged away? Weeks ... months ... years? Time seemed an inescapable prison in itself, but when walls and solitude are added it became insurmountable. Yet here he was, finally fr
ee.
A body lay in his grasp, intestines strewn down his lips in feast.
He continued. He could not stop.
He was hungry. Hunger that could never be satisfied.
Screams abounded from around. Shots fired. He ran to the gunfire, ripping the gun away and then trying to do the same with the arm that had welded it. First it would not tear away. He pulled. Again pulled, pushing the figure down and standing on it as he tugged on the arm.
Ribs cracked beneath his stance. Blood poured from the mouth. The arm still in his grip as he pulled.
He looked at it. Recognition shimmered. Was it the same as his? He looked from the appendage to his own.
He clasped the almost lifeless fingers with his own, closing them into a fist.
Catch the sand that falls away. Plea the wind to come, to bring it back. Falling from the skies, falling from sanity.
One grain came back. One grain remained: You are the Pathfinder. You will lead.
He dropped the arm and looked out.
Two lay dead in his wake. But he needed to kill one more.
And then he would lead. As he had always done, as he had been trained before. As what ran through his bloodstream as potent as the contagion itself. He would lead.
Chapter Eighteen
The earth began to take Nyx.
Around all sides she felt the mud devouring her, bringing her to her origins to be reborn. Sinking, she looked away from the sky to the marsh. As all hope was about to be drowned, her gaze became lassoed by the hint of color vividly dancing before her. It appeared in transfixion against the background of gloom, the metaphor spoke of by the Fisherman: The Dragon’s Mouth. The orchid, Arethusa.
Crashing Tides Page 18
