Original Design

by William Latoria

  There was silence for a moment as the people in each group seemed to really think about what the man said. The first pin pricks of hope began to sprout inside of Blackshade as he saw the resolve waiver inside the Wiccan and Christian groups. Then a young man’s voice pierced the silence like a knife. The voice was deep, loud, and boomed in the night, “FUCK YOU! GOD IS HIGH-TECH AND YOU’RE A STUPID PRICK!”

  Blackshade saw something take flight from the general direction of the voice and sail towards the pro-Omega group. He couldn’t be sure, but it looked like a big rock or a chunk of brick. “Look out!” Blackshade shouted trying to give the people in its path a warning.

  The throw was poorly aimed, but with this many people packed together it didn’t matter. The projectile arced high, hit a drone, and then dropped fast into the group of Wiccans. It was dark and the object fell fast. It crashed into a large woman’s head inside the Wiccan group. She was wearing a thick woolen dress with a white knitted hat and heavy silver necklace. When the rock, he was pretty sure it was a rock, hit her head blood poured from the gash it left in her scalp. There was a collective gasp from all three groups as the woman, clearly in shock, put her hand to her head, saw the blood, screamed, and then fainted. Blackshade began to make his way toward the fallen woman, when another man’s voice shrieked from one of the groups,

  “GET THOSE MOTHER FUCKERS!!!”

  It was as if the words had triggered some sort of primal instinct inside the minds of the gathered people. Screams of guttural rage bellowed from all three groups, before they charged into each other, intent on causing as much harm to the others as possible.

  Blackshade’s military training kicked in, “Medic! To my position!” he called out. Instantly there was a medical drone at his side. He tapped it once and pointed to the woman who was struck by the rock. “Assist!” he ordered it and felt a moment of relief when the drone flew toward the injured woman; protestor or not, she hadn’t deserved that.

  He slapped at his arm input, “Soearth, open up! Tab ‘em all!” he shouted at his arm. The melee was alive now, with members from all three sides viciously attacking each other. The guards at the barrier were actively engaged and being overwhelmed. Instinctively, he reached for his 2057 and momentarily lost his balance as his hand passed through the space where the weapon should have been. Soearth’s and Zahera’s words begging him to bring a weapon with him echoed through his head, and the shame he felt for not taking their advice cut through him like a laser. The feeling was short lived though, as a new wave of hope struck him. A flock of drones flew past firing coma-tabs on full auto. The first group they came upon were the Wiccans, and they hit them in the flank. Dozens of people fell on top of each other as the tabs did their job. The same thing was happening on all sides of the fight on the outskirts of each group. Pro-Omegas, Christians, and Wiccans fell as soon as the tabs made contact. As the people around the fallen realized what was happening they threw their hands up and surrendered. The hope Blackshade felt was beginning to turn into relief when he spotted a couple of young ladies pop up from the pro-Omega side of the fight with when looked like plastic tubes. Too late, Blackshade realized what they were and what group those women really belonged too.

  Simultaneously, the women pressed an input on their tubes and two large mesh nets flew from each of their homemade weapons. The nets flew through the air and wrapped around the flock of drones firing coma-tabs into the crowd. The nets caught the massed drones in their webbing, and the combined weight of the entangled drones brought them hurtling down to the ground. More nets came firing out from the different groups, and Blackshade watched as bundles of netting came crashing down around the protestors. With the drones taken down and the threat of being tabbed gone, those that had surrendered jumped back to their feet and rejoined the fray with renewed vigor.

  “NO!” he cried out as the fight began to spiral out of control. He raised his arm up in front of him, “Soearth, send all available troops to my location immediately! And get more drones out here now!”

  “We’re working on that now. There are Air Soldiers heading your way, Bill! The drones might take longer. The protestors have been able to take most of them out of commission. See if you can cut the ones in the nets free!” Soearth responded. Blackshade assumed that without any drones to pilot, Soearth could finally respond.

  “I’m on it!” Blackshade answered. Looking around, he saw the two nets full of drones. Throwing himself into the melee he pushed and shoved his way towards the bundles of drones, desperate to free them as quickly as possible. When he finally reached them, he moved to cut them free and realized he hadn’t brought a knife with him. He cursed himself, again, for being such a fool and looked around for anything that might help. As he searched, he saw one of the guards behind the barricade finally get overpowered. Three men and two women had driven him to the ground and pinned him in place. One of the men, clearly in a fit of rage, had the guard in a head lock and was twisting at his neck violently. The guard’s armor was protecting him for the most part, but if the man kept at his neck like he was it was only a matter of time before he killed him. Fury flowed into Blackshade, and he sprinted directly for the guard.

  “GET OFF OF HIM!” Blackshade shouted to no effect. The guard was about thirty feet away, and he closed the distance in seconds, barreling over anyone that got in his way. The first person he reached was one of the women holding one of the guard’s feet down. He kicked at her hard and felt her ribs give as his foot made contact with her side. The woman spun in the air once before crashing into the other woman who was struggling to hold down the guard’s arm. The women slammed to the ground, one of them seemingly unconscious, the other curled into fetal position and crying. Blackshade wasted no more time on them. He threw himself at the man holding down the guard’s other arm. He was a smaller man with an old fashioned moustache that curled at either end. Blackshade punched him in the face as hard as he could and felt the satisfactory crunch of the cartilage in the man’s nose. The squeal of pain the man uttered before breaking into intense crying made him grin. Blackshade jumped to his feet, intent on taking down the man that had the guard in a choke hold, but when he got up, he saw the guard now had the man pinned to the ground and was currently punching him in the face repeatedly. Apparently, once his arms and legs were freed, the guard was more than capable of taking care of himself. Blackshade smiled until he realized that the guard intended to kill the man that had been strangling him.

  “Trooper! That’s enough!” Blackshade yelled, as he caught the guard’s arm on its way up for another punch. Blackshade couldn’t see the guard’s face through the helmet, but he knew the man was fighting the rage inside of him, trying to regain control. Blackshade felt the man relax and together they stood up facing each other as the mob behind them continued to brawl.

  “Thank you for the assist, Sir!” the guard said through the helmet. Blackshade could barely hear him over the melee.

  “Of course,” Blackshade replied humbly, “Do you have a knife? We have to cut the drones free.”

  The guard reached down to his boot and pulled a concealed knife from its sheath. It was military issued, with a black metal blade and a steel grip. It was a crude and ugly tool, razor sharp, and it only had one function. The guard flipped the knife around in the air, caught it by the blade, and offered it to him.

  Blackshade reached for it, but a moment before he could grasp the handle another hand wrapped around it and before either he or the guard could react, the owner of the hand thrust the knife into the guard’s stomach. The knife was military grade and specially designed to pierce armor. It slipped through the armored scales of the guard’s armor and into the soft flesh of his belly with barely any resistance. The attacker grabbed the guard’s helmet and shoved him backwards. The guard tried to catch himself, but the shock and pain overwhelmed him, and he went down like a sack of bricks, his assailant yanking the knife free as the guard fell.

  “MEDIC!” Blackshade screamed instinctivel
y as he swung at the assailant. The man that had stabbed the guard was in his late twenties, Caucasian, thin, and had a weasel’s face. Red facial hair made up his simpering goatee and his head was shaved bald with a tattoo of an eagle’s head on his exposed scalp. His most prominent feature however, was his impossibly large nose that seemed to take up most of his face. It was crooked, and slanted to the right, probably from being broken multiple times over his life. The man didn’t seem like any sort of threat, but he must have had some experience with fighting, because he ducked almost contemptuously under Blackshade’s blow and nimbly bounced back out of range. Blackshade hadn’t expected to miss, and the momentum of his swing threw him off balance. He never took his eyes off the assailant though, so he was able to see the man point at him.

  “Get him.” he ordered. No sooner had Blackshade heard the words, than he felt multiple people slam into him and pin him to the ground. A strong, hairy arm wound its way around his neck and tightened. A scrawny woman had his right arm pinned to the ground, but she had made the mistake of not controlling his hand. Instead, the woman in her eagerness to pin him down had straddled his arm and pressed her chest on his hand trying to use her bodyweight to keep him down. Because of her positioning, his hand was up against the side of her almost non-existent left breast so he grabbed it and squeezed with all of his strength. He felt her clothes tear almost immediately with her flesh following soon after. Hot, sticky blood flowed over his hand and began to trickle down his wrist and into the grass. The woman shrieked in pain, the sound shocking in both its pitch and tone. She tried to pull away, but Blackshade didn’t let her go, anger was beginning to take hold of him and with it, his already enhanced strength felt like it had tripled. He used his building rage to lift her off the ground and slam her into the man that had him in a choke hold. The man behind him must not have seen the attack coming, because while Blackshade couldn’t see the impact, he knew he must have struck the man in the face with the shrieking woman’s skull. There was a gasp and then the arm around his neck was gone. A fat man was holding down his left arm and had seen what just happened. Before Blackshade could react, the fat man adjusted his position in order to make sure Blackshade’s left hand had nothing of his to grab. His feet were pinned down by five large men which made kicking impossible, but his head and right arm were free and he planned to make them all pay.

  “Hold him down, god damnit!” the large nosed assailant demanded, and more people came from behind him. Twelve hands pinned his right arm and head to the ground. Blackshade tried to struggle, he tried twisting and turning, or anything that might allow him to get free and fight, but with so many people holding him down, even his enhanced strength couldn’t overpower them. The man that had stabbed the guard walked over to him with a sinister grin on his face. The words, ‘Government Pig’ scrolled across his forehead. For the first time that night, Blackshade felt the sharp sting of fear forming in the pit of his stomach. Yet again, he cursed himself for not wearing his armor like his friends had advised him to. Not that it would have done him any good against the knife his assailant had. The man was holding it up in front of him, letting him get a good look at the weapon that may have killed the guard. He knew the knife, it was a Tech-4 S-Bar, known as a ‘Serpent Slayer’. The blade was made of a similar alloy as the OGTS armor. The blade’s point and edge were specifically designed to penetrate armor as was just so horribly demonstrated on the unfortunate guard.

  Blackshade knew he was screwed, the riot would monopolize the attention of anyone responding to the fighting, and even if the drones somehow got here in time, they would focus on the mass and not this little skirmish. He was completely on his own and woefully outnumbered. He looked at the man that had stabbed the guard, “What do you want?” he growled, determined not to let his growing fear show.

  The man sneered at him, “For the government to dissolve. For the people of the world to throw off their shackles of oppression and govern themselves just like we did in the beginning. Humans shouldn’t be ruled, they should be free!” he retorted, never breaking eye contact, “I want oppressors like you to die so that my brothers and sisters can live the lives we were destined to live, and I want you to answer for your crimes.” he told him zealously. The words, ‘Gut this pig’ scrolled across his forehead.

  The people holding him down voiced their approval. There were almost twenty people holding him down now, and judging by how many voices he heard behind him there were a dozen more waiting to take their place. The situation was getting worse by the minute.

  “So you think killing me will lead to that?” he asked, his voice cracking for just a second. He hated himself for letting it happen, especially since it did not go unnoticed.

  “Ohhhhh! Did you guys hear that? Big tough government man is afraid now that he’s not in control anymore.” a brutish man said from behind him.

  “That’s cause he knows he’s going to die.” a woman with a pretty voice said from somewhere near his feet. The group of people around him were laughing now and seemed very happy with themselves. Blackshade knew he was dead, his arrogance and stupidity had gotten him into this mess and now he was going to pay with his life. What was worse, he had no one to blame but himself. Closing his eyes, he made a silent apology to Zahera and Tremendous for dying like this and hoped they would find a way to forgive him for getting himself killed. As he finished his silent goodbyes, an odd sense of calm came over him, his confidence came back to him, as well as a newfound clarity. He locked eyes with his soon to be murderer.

  “So, you’re the leader of Humanity’s Paragons?” he asked.

  The man made a mocking bow, “You government pigs sure do take a while to catch on to the obvious, not that I care. You’re all better off dead, and I can’t wait to make it happen.” he answered happily.

  There was no warning from the man that he was going to strike, even with Blackshade’s enhanced abilities, he wouldn’t have seen the strike coming had it not been for the words, ‘DIE NOW’ scrolling across his assailant’s forehead. Time seemed to slow down as the knife descended towards his heart. He had no hope, all he was wearing was the robe Artificer had given him, a thin t-shirt, and a pair of shorts. He closed his eyes and thought of Zahera, the last thought he wanted to have on this Earth was of her smiling at him. He felt terrible for getting himself killed so soon after finally being with her.

  He felt the knife tip press against his chest, he felt the pressure increase and waited for it to cut through the cloth of his robe, pierce his chest, and skewer his heart. He wondered how much pain there would be and how long it would last. He had to fight back his tears. If nothing else, he didn’t want these people to see him cry. Then something odd happened, he felt the blade of the knife shift suddenly, and the pressure on his chest was gone. The pressure almost immediately returned but it was much heavier now and grunted when it hit him. Blackshade opened his eyes to see what had happened, but all he saw was his assailant. The man had somehow lost his balance when he went to stab him, and was now sprawled on top of him. As he tried to catch himself, the man must have flailed, because he had buried the knife in the back of one of the men holding down his right arm.

  At first, Blackshade couldn’t fathom how this had occurred, until he saw the patch of robe that covered his chest. There was a slight indention where his would-be murderer had stabbed down at him, but around the indentation the material had bunched up and increased in density, which had deflected the blow; the Omega robe had saved his life! Vaguely, he recalled Artificer telling him something about the robes offering him some protection, but there was so much happening at the time, he hadn’t given it any real thought. Not for the first time tonight, he felt foolish for not listening. Determined not to waste this second chance, Blackshade quickly assessed his situation. His assailant was still sprawled partially on top of him, his followers were still holding him down, but the man that had been stabbed was now slouching forward, possibly paralyzed, possibly unconscious, or even dead. Blackshade was
n’t sure and at the moment, didn’t care. What was important was thanks to this unexpected turn of events, their collective hold on him had slackened, which gave him the chance to go on the offensive.