Collider X

by Fox Lockster

  X gasped as if shocked, and covered her mouth with one overly manicured hand whilst gripping his arm tighter. “Is he dangerous, this rebel? What does he look like?” she asked in awed tones.

  Y frowned exasperatedly. “He is a she,” he said. “She could look like anyone.” X clapped her hands over her mouth. “Oh my god!” she squealed in high pitch tones, drawing looks of everyone in the room. “There's a rebel here!” she yowled, waving her arms in the air in ditzy sort of fashion. There were a few muffled squeals and concerned remarks heard from others on the floor.

  “He's a hunter come to shoot us all!” She forced her voice to an even higher crescendo as she pointed at Y. Y simply bowed his head with a curse, covered his eyes with his gloved hand and shook his head as the entire floor burst into chaos with crying and screaming and the pounding of stilettos.

  Taking advantage of the chaos to slip out through the main doors with a plethora of other panicky women, X giggled all the way back to her little apartment, an unauthorized dwelling nestled between two other registered apartments. It was nothing more than a room really, and a small one at that. On the official plans it was designated boiler space, but as the owner of the building preferred his tenants freeze their asses off, there was no boiler installed.

  She stripped off her disguise and slipped into something more comfortable, smiling to herself like an idiot. She had done it, the virus was disseminating. A quick glance at the small monitor connected to the Che' Bro nationwide network told her that, not to mention the sound of horns and chaos outside as some of the lower control functions began to spasm, making traffic grind to a standstill at red lights.

  Before she could properly celebrate her triumph, heavy boots out in the hall made her start. She had no time to grab her weaponry before the door was blasted open in a hail of shards. Standing in the opening, Y grinned horribly. “Nice try.” He said, leveling his gun at her chest.

  “Thanks.” X took the opportunity to acknowledge his compliment before hurling herself through the window in a hail of glass and bullets.

  She fell two stories, landing in a forward moving roll, up on her feet and running in an instant. She was weaponless aside from her inbuilt systems, some of which were running haywire as the Che'Bro tried to combat the virus which was steadily multiplying, eating away at its cognizance. The pedestrians she passed by seemed equally affected, showing signs of becoming disoriented and confused. She hoped Y might be affected as well, but from the way he burst out the window, a barreling missile of metal and muscle, she surmised that he hadn't yet succumbed to the virus. Hunters were a higher function, it was not likely that he would be affected until the very end.

  “Stop,” he shouted, incongruously firing at her.

  Pounding the pavement, X wasn't sure where she was going, panic had momentarily taken over, and with it her sense of direction took a big hit. She turned a corner and ran hard down an alley, cursing as she realized it was blocked by a large truck trailer unit. Jumping up and grabbing the metal edge, she vaulted up, landing heavily on the top of the cab before continuing her run for her life.

  She was on the street now, running about in heavy traffic which was hurtling about the place at ridiculous speeds as the controlling programs lost their sway over the drivers who suddenly discovered they could put their foot down, really put their foot down.

  Espying and quickly leaping onto a tram car which had slowed to let passengers off, X slid down the wall and crouched against the floor, catching her breath for a moment. The hunter was close behind her, she could still feel his presence, ominous and hot, locked on to her like a guided missile. The deep hum of a motorcycle approaching the carriage confirmed that she had not lost him, so as the tram slowed to let passengers off once more, she catapulted from the interior into a crowd of holiday shoppers, dashing between them as they made their way from brightly decorated store to brightly decorated store, consuming as they were compelled to, carrying pretty boxes of molded plastic to decorate their dwelling spaces and gift to family and friends.

  Unable to fire upon a crowd, even in this extreme instance, Y was briefly stymied, riding slowly alongside the stream of humanity, unhurried. Like all true hunters he was well used to stalking his prey for hours, days, months if need be. Through the crowd, X glanced out at him, catching his eye. He smiled as they made eye contact, locked together in that moment, the eternal couple of predator and prey. She felt a smile teasing at her own lips as adrenaline surged in response to his threat, filling her body, making every sense tingle. The hunter was death personified, but she was at peace with the knowledge of what she had done. Her life may be coming to an end, but so too was the rule of the Che'Bro. A new day was dawning, and her death would not, could not change that.

  The virus continued to leech through the system and the movements of those around her became more and more erratic as carefully constructed social programs which had directed their every thought broke down, leaving the bewildered citizenry to make their own way in the world. In front of her a fight broke out between two men desirous of the sexual favors of the same young lady, who stood by gaping mutely at the spectacle. In the brief scattering of people avoiding the flailing arms and legs, Y took the opportunity to make a grab for X, leaning off his bike and into the crowd with a powerful arm, but she was already gone, dipping past an old lady inspecting her most recent purchase, a bright purple dish rack embellished with sparkling hearts and remarking aloud to anyone who would listen that she had no idea why she had, as she put it, “bought this crap”.

  As X darted across the street, it began to rain, the deep gray clouds unleashing their fluid entrails in a thick shower which instantly made the situation a great deal more dangerous as she ran between cars, seeking to lose Y in the thick streams of traffic which flowed back and forth between tall buildings. If she thought that would be enough to lose him she had severely miscalculated both Y's daring and his superb control of his metallic mount. With a low chuckle he followed her through the traffic, sending the bike through the gaps between cars with reckless abandon, dodging the hurtling metal vehicles with absolute precision, taking advantage of an infinitesimal break in the traffic to close in for the kill as he gained on her running figure, almost close enough to reach out and grab her.

  A squeal of brakes was all X heard as Y slammed the brakes on and slid the side of the motorcycle against her body, tossing her like a rag doll, propelling her through the air directly through the opening of a trash alley and into one of the many stacks of trash left out for collection. The rotting heap cushioned the shock of her landing, but as she clambered out of the stack, the taste of blood thick and metallic in her mouth, she could feel she was hurt badly, and what should have been a nimble leap from the trash container was instead a painful fall to the ground where she knelt, her breath coming in shallow painful gasps as the headlight of the speeder both blinded her and announced the final arrival of the hunter.

  Tears were appearing throughout the land in shafts of strange light leaking through in unexpected places. The reality the Che'Bro had constructed was failing and with it, so was much of the world. Still largely filtered in what they were allowed to see, the already confused chipped people ignored the anomalies, walking through spontaneously generated patches of grass and wildflowers as if they were simply not there and falling through the sudden gaps in reality with all the aplomb of blind lemmings.

  As the streets slid into chaos around him, Y leapt from his trusty steed and approached X slowly, his heavy boots ringing out with each intimidating step, an air of undeniable triumph about him as he grabbed the front of her shirt and roughly yanked her up to look at him, savoring her bruised and battered appearance. She returned his gaze steadily, a calm acceptance of her fate evident in her eyes.

  Her composure irked him. With a wicked white toothed grin he dumped her on the ground and lashed out, the armored back of his hand making contact with her unprotected skull with an exceedingly pleasing dull cracking sound, sending h
er reeling drunkenly to the right. She crashed onto her hands and knees on the rough pavement, opening a gash in her forehead that began to bleed immediately, crimson staining her pale skin and trickling into her eyes.

  “Guess what, bitch,” he spat, cruelty twisting his handsome features into an ugly mask of hate as he drew his weapon with practiced smoothness.

  X's blurry gaze mirrored his face back at him, her breath coming in ragged gasps. “I'm going to die,” she announced quietly, her voice ragged as she knelt where she had landed, too stunned to move, too tired to fight.

  Y's brows drew together, and for an instant, his gun wavered, the steel glinting with the speeding missiles of water raining from the heavens. He was almost reluctant to end this hunt, it had brought him such extreme pleasure, but the purpose of his intent had a momentum of its own. The symphony of death had begun, and they were in the final movements of the piece, she, soft and wet, he, hard and unwavering.

  She was so raw there before him, finally stripped of her defenses, finally defeated. He could smell her fear, it crept into his nostrils in curling tendrils that teased at his most primal instincts. The rain continued to beat down on them both, diluting her blood, making it run pink down her cheek like the soft blooming of delicate petals.

  “Yes, you are,” he announced, drawing the moment out, savoring it for its exquisite sweetness, leaning down towards her, tipping her head up with two fingers and claiming her mouth, his lips closing over hers, her breath sweet and tinged with blood.

  “Mine to hunt,” he murmured against her lips with a soft kiss. “Mine to kill,” he drawled, cocking the pistol and sliding the tip of the barrel down her neck, then down between her breasts and across her torso until finally he slid the length of the barrel between her kneeling thighs.

  “You're dead,” he repeated her words back to her, rubbing the shaft of the gun along the seam of her crotch, his eyes gleaming with delicious sadism. Raising the gun again, he stepped back, his eyes on hers, hers on his, their gaze locked together one last time as he began to squeeze the trigger slowly, drawing out the moment.

  The hammer slammed down, the gunpowder exploded in the barrel, but the bullet intended for X's skull never touched her. Human death is nothing compared the the complete dissolution of a persistent reality and as the Che'Bro reached critical system failure, both X and Y ceased to exist entirely. They blinked out of reality, just two pixels going dead on a screen of millions.

  Che'Bro. Too Much.