“Hm,” I grunted, “whether it can or not, I no longer think it’s a good idea.”
“Oh?”
“Humankind is a species of miserable, brutish animals,” I said, “getting rid of any consequences for acting on their sickening nature can only make things worse.”
“I just love your optimism,” she smirked.
I sighed. “Whatever ends up happening, we’re working against the tide here. This might not be the last night for the two of us, but if we die here, the delay might turn the highly improbable into the impossible.”
“You’re saying that this really might be sort of a ‘last night’ for us?” Sachi asked, taking a step forward.
I glanced over my shoulder at the refugees, seeing many of them asleep on the packed snow, a few others sitting up, huddled beneath blankets.
I turned back to Sachi and said, “if you and I die tomorrow, the next time we meet will probably either be in another dark age amongst the radioactive ruins of a failed global society, in a worldwide corporate technocracy that will have such a stranglehold over people that every action we take will be futile, or amongst the carnage of a World War on a scale we can’t even imagine.”
Sachi said nothing for a few moments and then a smirk spread across her lips, “the least we can say is that it won’t be boring.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at this, Sachi joining me.
“Maybe in the new world we’ll kill each other again,” I said.
“Maybe,” she said, taking another step forward, bringing her exoskeleton clad hands to my face and then leaning in, pressing her lips against mine. I pulled myself away, taking a step back.
“Relax,” she said, “I have no hard feelings about the times we may have killed each other, and I definitely don’t have any about you hooking up with Laura. If things turn out one of the ways you say it will, we might as well fuck like it’s our last night together.”
I glanced back to the refugees again, none of them paying any attention. When I looked back to Sachi, she once again leaned in and started kissing. This time I didn’t protest, dropping my helmet to the ground and bringing my hands up. Sachi pulled away, smiling, and started undoing the gloves of her exoskeleton. I followed suit, unlocking and unclipping mine, letting each one fall to the ground. Sachi leaned in and started kissing me again, bringing her bare hands up to the sides of my face, her fingers brushing across the weeks’ worth of stubble on my cheeks. After a minute she pulled away again, this time reaching up and undoing the arms of my exo suit at the shoulders, setting the gun mounted components gently onto the packed snow. Afterwards I did the same for her.
“The last time we did this, things were the other way around,” Sachi said, starting to undo her leggings, giving me a mischievous grin.
“Not something a lot of people get to experience,” I said, starting to undo mine, “I suppose that makes this a unique experience.”
“Just think,” she said, finally getting to the point she could pull the armor off herself, “we may or may not have killed each other before, but we also could’ve fucked in a past life.”
“That’s right,” I said, my hands stopping before I got my leggings off.
Sachi reached out, undoing the last clip and pulling my leggings off, tossing them into the snow, “that doesn’t mean we can’t count this as our first time.”
She tried kissing me again, but I stepped away. Sachi looked at me hurt, sighing.
“What’s the problem now?” she asked.
“No,” I said, “no problem. But, you said you had that kid in the Indus River Valley…the one who was able to formulate all those theories…I wonder what happens when two people like us have a child?”
Sachi furrowed her brow, thinking about this for a moment, and then said, “well hell, there’s one way to find out.”
I gave no argument as she stepped forward, locking lips with me again, feeling her tongue find its way into my mouth. But I barely noticed as she reached down, putting a hand in the front of my pants and stroked. The idea of people born with the altered chemical in their body being the offspring of two immortals raced through my head. Sachi undid my belt, pulling my pants down, the cold hitting my tumescent flesh for only a moment before finding its way inside her, warmed in her amorous embrace. But my thoughts went to the woman being held by the PRA – asset A – trying to figure out if I somehow fell somewhere in her pedigree.
“You should pay attention,” Evita said, “because you might be filling Sachi up with the next Jesus Christ, or you might be whelping an abomination the likes of which the world has never seen.”
Just as she said it, I felt myself release inside of Sachi, the pleasure stained with a brief crescendo of pounding in my head, as if Evita was trying to tell me that she had felt it, too. A threesome between us. Sachi let out a quiet moan, holding me inside her so that every ounce of my seed found its way into her.
And then a gunshot went off nearby.
Chapter 64
Sachi and I hurried to reattach our exoskeletons. Refugees scrambled to their feet, looking to each other in confusion and hushed whispers. I fumbled with the clips at the shoulders of Sachi’s exoskeleton as she bent over, fiddling with the leggings.
Footsteps crunched through the snow, coming toward us. Sachi pulled her arm away, only two thirds attached, her leggings falling back into the snow as she brought the 30 mm up. Emma and Aveena stopped, looking at her in surprise.
“What the hell was that?” Sachi asked, lowering her weapon, allowing me to go about finishing the attachment.
“I don’t know,” Emma said, “but…the prisoners…they’re gone.”
“All of them?” Sachi asked, glancing in the direction of Forrester’s camp.
“No,” she said, now helping Sachi to put on her leggings, “just ours.”
Aveena went about helping Sachi put on the other arm as I started with my own leggings, still fumbling with it, my fingers not wanting to cooperate. I inhaled and exhaled slowly, trying to get myself to calm down, finding the process difficult.
“Are you sure it’s nervousness?” Evita asked, “Or is it just the loss of motor function from that tech taking a shit inside your brain?”
“Who the fuck shot their weapon?” Sachi asked, looking down at Emma working at her leggings.
Before she could answer, an explosion echoed over the snow, everyone standing up straight. It had been a ways away, in the direction of the road. Sachi threw on her helmet and took off toward the blast, Aveena just getting the last clip locked on the arm. Emma started after Sachi, Aveena looking to me wide eyed.
“My arms,” I said, signaling to where they sat on the ground.
She picked the right one up and slid it over my arm and started attaching all of the clips while I reached over and started trying to do my left, the gash in my triceps flaring with pain. I looked up, watching Sachi and Emma spreading out.
“Where are all your people?” someone barked.
I looked over, seeing Major Ellison and Corporal Roman approaching from their camp. Ellison had his usual scowl, but Roman looked anxious, glancing over at the refugees. Even in the cold, I could see sweat on his brow through the open visor.
“How come these refugees aren’t being guarded?” he demanded.
“They are,” Rosy said, limping toward them in her exo, holding the helmet.
Ellison grit his teeth, “as far as I’m concerned, you’re using stolen property to do it.”
“Why don’t you go back and guard your own refugees?” Rosy said.
“That’s what I’m doin’,” Ellison said, the visor going down on his helmet.
I barely had time to react as he lifted the 30 mm, muzzle flashing in the night, the thunderous bang barely registering as I watched blood and brain matter erupt from the back of Rosy’s head. Her feet stumbled backwards a step before her body crumpled onto the packed snow. I could only stare for a moment, trying to process the empty space where her head had once been, no
w able to see right through to the red snow above the jagged flesh of her gushing neck.
The ringing in my ears turned to screaming. Refugees recoiled in horror. Aveena put a hand to her mouth to stifle the shriek, her knees buckling. Major Ellison and Corporal Roman were fleeing.
Not fleeing. Attacking.
I glanced to Aveena and then took off running, only then remembering that I wasn’t fully suited. Aveena had managed to reattach the right arm, but the left was only half done, neither glove attached. I scooped up the helmet from the snow with my bare hands and put it over my head.
A burst of gunfire went off, bullets hitting my exo from behind. Refugees shouted in fear. I turned back around, seeing someone in an LPX-033, the refugees dispersing as he fired a burst into the panicked crowd, two of them falling to the snow.
“Sachi…” I whispered, looking back, unable to see Ellison or Roman anymore.
The refugees were at Frank Davis’s mercy. I ran back toward them. He turned to me, knowing he’d been able to draw me back. All coordinated.
I raised my 30 mm to fire, but stopped, seeing the refugees behind him. I could hear muffled laughter from under his helmet. He raised both of his arms, spraying with the .50 cal as he fired the 30 mm as fast as he could. I jumped to the side, bullets clattering against my exo, a sharp pain flashing through my left shoulder just before I landed on it.
I howled in pain. Bullets flung snow up all around me, hitting my exoskeleton. The armor on my right arm crunched as a shot hit it. And then the bullets stopped. I tried scrambling to my feet, the pain in my left shoulder flaring up, buckling my knees. Frank stood fifty feet away, both arms still up, but no longer moving.
The innate drive to stay alive overrode my pain. I staggered to my feet just as another 30 mm round went off, sending Frank Davis sprawling sideways, a geyser of blood thrashing out the side of his abdomen.
I looked over, seeing Aveena wearing Rosy’s exoskeleton arm, the big gun still pointed to where Frank had been standing. She let it fall from her arm into the snow, falling to her knees beside it. I rushed up to his body, seeing two gaping exit wounds on his right side.
Without lingering I turned around and started in the direction that Ellison and Roman had gone. There weren’t any gunshots going off. But I knew that could just mean the firefight had finished during my own conflict. I followed the trails made through the snow – only two, as Ellison and Roman had followed Sachi and Emma’s.
The trails continued on for quite a while, making their way into a cluster of thick pine trees. My adrenaline began to wear off, allowing the pain in my shoulder and the numbing cold on my hands to return. I continued on anyway, weaving through trees and coming on the area where the explosion had gone off. The snow had been flung out from the center, revealing the blasted ground beneath, branches from nearby trees torn away, the trails obscured.
I slowed down, my eyes darting about the woods. I still saw and heard nothing. I looked for where the trail might continue away from the blast crater, but couldn’t see anything that-
“Stop,” someone said.
I halted, turning my head slowly, finding Corporal Roman near a tree a few feet away. His 30 mm was aimed right at my head as he slowly moved closer. His visor was up, breaths coming in nervous panting.
“Where’re your friends?” he asked.
“How the hell am I supposed to know?” I asked, trying to turn toward him.
“Don’t move,” he said, “don’t you fucking move!”
I grinned. “Have you ever looked into someone’s eyes as you killed them?”
He didn’t answer. I continued turning so that I was facing him, but he still didn’t shoot.
“I didn’t think so,” I said, “it’s not something most people have the stomach for these days. And something tells me you won’t start now.”
“Fuck you.”
“Fuck me?” I asked, looking around at the crater I was standing in, “you’re the one whose paradise is lost.”
Roman stopped creeping forward and pressed the barrel of his rifle just above my visor, but said nothing.
“Your peaceful anarchy failed,” I said, channeling Evita, “you can kill me. It’s really not that big of a deal to me. Nobody will even know. Hell, you’ve probably already killed some of those soldiers when they were attacking us. But trust me, it’s different when it’s personal this way. It’ll haunt you.” I looked over his shoulder in the direction of our camp. “I assume you knew Ellison was going to kill Rosy, too. What’s one more death on your conscience? The CSA’s already told you that violence and force will always win over against peace and idealism. So, go ahead and solve all your problems the only way that has ever worked throughout all human history.”
Roman was breathing quick, struggling with internal conflict, before finally pulling his gun away from me. He glanced back over his shoulder once, seeing only trees behind him, and then raised his arm so that the 30 mm was pointed under his own chin.
I sighed, “If you do it that way, you’re going to-”
The shot went off, tearing the front of his exo helmet away, his face going with it. He fell back, a terrible hissing shriek coming from the bloody hole where his mouth used to be, shattered empty eye sockets staring into darkness for salvation. I watched in horror and astonishment as a single tooth hung in the red, stringy maw, droplets of blood splashing across it from his throat.
“Will you show him mercy?” Evita asked.
“You said I should show them all mercy,” I said, still watching the figure writhe on ground, clutching at what used to be his face. “It would be the human thing to do.”
“You’re not human,” Evita said. “When the world goes down in flames, every second of your existence will be as his is now. And there will be no one there to show you mercy. There will be no death to relieve you of your agony.”
“That’s why we need to create a better world,” I said, standing over Roman’s twitching body, choking his last gasps of air through a blood clogged opening, “a better human.”
“By making them your equal?” Evita asked, disgusted.
“No,” I said, turning to look at Evita, “by replacing them with something better.”
Instead of Evita, I was surprised to find Savita standing next to me, her visor up. Behind her was Sachi, Emma, and Manny with Major Ellison between them with his helmet removed, right arm broken and the mounted weapons torn from the exoskeleton.
“Remind you of something?” Savita asked, bringing her gaze to mine. “Are you getting off remembering how you killed Eddie?”
“She’s an animal,” Evita said, “who thinks she can talk down to you.”
I took a step toward Savita and said quietly, “Eddie wasn’t the first. And by the time I’m finished, he’ll be far from the last.”
“I demand that you turn the prisoner over to me,” Major Forrester said as we returned to camp, his eyes narrowed angrily at Sachi. Corporal Wallace and one of his other men were there to accompany him.
The crowd of refugees had gathered back around at the top of the hill, the ones who had gone with Forrester joining in the spectacle. Rosaline Riviera’s corpse was covered in a blanket, lying next to two other bodies – a refugee and one person from Savita’s unit who had been guarding Big Terry and Isaac. Rocky was there with Doctor Taylor attempting to comfort Marlina and Enrique – the remains of Rosy’s family. Marlina was crying, embraced in Doctor Taylor’s good arm, but Enrique only stared at the blanket concealing what had once been one of his mothers. Agent Brie was using her hands to dig into the frozen ground, the polymer gloves scraping through frozen dirt, Aveena standing next to her with a look of shock on her face. Victor and Álvarez were with Savita’s remaining people removing the exoskeletons from their dead comrade and Frank Davis, trying to salvage the intact pieces.
“You demand?” Savita asked, “What the hell makes you think you can throw demands at us?”
“What you’re going to do to the prisoner is-.
”
“That’s your man,” Sachi said, signaling to Frank’s body on the ground.
Forrester grit his teeth. “What are you trying to imply?”
“There’s no fucking implication,” Sachi said, bringing her gaze back to him, “I’m accusing you of being behind this shit show.”
“Don’t blame your incompetence on some hair-brained conspiracy,” Forrester said, “I happen to know for a fact your leadership was all off fuckin’ each other like some kinda perverse orgy when you shoulda been makin’ sure nobody was comin’.”
“Your man killed one of mine,” Savita said, pointing to her dead soldier, “this was an organized attack from within.”
“That you shoulda been watching out for,” Forrester said, looking satisfied to have this argument.
I looked to Wallace, his visor open, looking nervous.
“How did you know our leadership had left their posts?” I asked.
“Are you kidding?” Forrester asked.
“No,” I said, keeping my eyes on Wallace.
“Well, the botched fuckin’ response to-”
“They knew that was the best time to attack,” I said.
“They’re nothing but animals,” Evita said, “don’t treat them like they’re your equal.”
“Corporal Wallace,” I said, “you were sent to spy on us earlier.”
“Like you didn’t have spies over at-”
“And you voiced doubt in Forrester’s ability to lead,” I continued, “were you letting Major Forrester know what was going on over here just before the attack?”
“We fucking acted alone,” Ellison spoke up, “don’t try and-”
“We’ve got incoming!” Brie screamed, standing up straight, “west!”
All of us turned in the direction of the road, visors down. Soldiers were silently fanning out across the snow from the pine trees about a hundred yards away down a hill, lit by early dawn light.
“Positions!” Sachi barked over the radio.
Incarnate- Essence Page 103
