by Quil Carter
I narrowed my eyes. “He was brought here by legionaries.”
I tried not to show any signs of relief when I saw his face change, though inside a firework went off in my stomach.
“He had a bag over his head, they… they brought him into the sub-levels.” His voice went several octaves higher as he went on, like he could sense the change in atmosphere. “I work in the cannery on the main floor. He’s in the east wing.”
“Is he still alive?” I put a vice on my tone, stuffing down the emotions rising to the surface.
My fucking heart almost exploded when he nodded, though his face was grim. “He passed quality control. They liked him enough to put him in the east wing. For fois ras.”
Jesus… fois ras? The process of making that shit was stomach churning, Killian… fuck, I didn’t even want to think about what they were doing to him.
“Take off your coat.” No time to bullshit, I waved my gun and held out my hand to him. Every second was precious now. I couldn’t fuck around. I had to get him. “And while you’re at it, tell me where I can find him.”
The man hurriedly took off his coat, doing anything to get rid of me. “East wing, by the two factory doors. Go down the ramp. There’s a door in an alcove off to the left.” He threw the coat at me. “Just… you never saw me. They’ll kill me for fuck sakes.”
I grabbed the jacket and quickly put it on, not taking my eyes off of him.
The look he was giving me was pathetically pleading; I was surprised he hadn’t pissed himself yet. What a fucking coward.
I backed up, and when I reached the edge of the recess I looked off to the east. I knew what had to be done.
“Stay here, count to a hundred and when you get to one hundred you can run,” I said. “If you run before that, I’ll fucking kill everyone you love. Got it?”
The whimper the man made sounded like air slowly being let out of a balloon, but he managed to nod. I turned and started walking along the east wall.
He was alive, Killian was alive. He wouldn’t be well with that slop getting pumped into him, but he was still breathing. That was all that mattered, he would get better.
I would do whatever it takes… just still be alive.
I let myself picture him in my arms. I could almost smell his scent. I knew I had to concentrate right now but my heart was overpowering my mind. I just wanted him in my arms; the moment I had him he would be safe forever. Even if all he wanted to do was have me follow him for the rest of his life, I’d do it.
Whatever made him happy, that’s all I wanted.
My heart was filled with such an unimaginable joy; I practically flew to the east side of the building. I didn’t give a fuck about cameras; I had enough fire power on me that I could take down anyone who saw me. And anyway, I had the stupid Dek’ko coat on.
I tied the burlap sack to one of the hooks on my belt and tucked my pistol into my pants.
Focussing my eyes ahead and making sure my face remained expressionless, I quickly walked towards the east side of the building. I saw the camera pass overhead but I knew better than to look, though I did feel a bit on edge, expecting at any moment for a shot to be fired at my head. So far so good.
I had never liked Dek’ko. They were shady fucks just like King Silas and his chimera family. All of those supposed rules they had about eating arian were obviously bullshit.
If they thought the Raven was out of control now, just wait. They were going to pay for the shit they put me through. Dek’ko and every fuck involved.
I started walking down the offloading ramp down to the sub-level of the factory. I felt around until I found a loop inside the coat and hooked my trigger scope through it; that would give me easier access to my gun with the coat on.
I took a second to take a deep breath and focus myself, before I took out the detonator and pushed it.
I covered my ears as a deafeningly loud explosion rocked the entire building. Then I quickly grabbed onto the concrete ledge on the left side of the ramp and hoisted myself up. I leaned up against the building and watched the debris land all around the dumpsters. There were a few pretty big pieces of the building in the mix. I think I might have taken off a good chunk of the wall and whatever was on the other side of it.
That made me feel better. I could almost feel their terror. It was a nice explosion; I always liked the burning smells after.
With a sardonic smirk I watched debris fall onto the parking lot, hearing pieces of flesh hit the concrete like wet clothing being thrown against the wall. It was a very unique sound. Now that worker’s brats had a sick mom and a dead father.
Welcome to the greywastes, kids.
I stayed still and silent, and listened for any sounds coming from the door.
Sure enough, the door flew open; several factory workers spilled out. They were yelling at each other in a panic, running up the ramp and towards the dumpsters; they didn’t even notice me. These were the lucky ones; if there were any others inside, they had about thirty seconds of life left.
After waiting the longest minute of my life I jumped down, grabbing the door before it shut.
I walked inside.
The smell hit me first, but it was the scene in front of me that made me almost throw up.
So many of them. Rows and rows of deformed skeletons: brown, black, white, all colours. All packed into small open pods that wrapped around them like claws. Wires bowed overhead, connected to loud machines holding technology I had never seen before.
The humans were silent in their open prisons. Silenced by two large tubes shoved down their throats and blinded with clear tape taped over their eyes, though some only had empty black sockets.
What was most disturbing though were their abdomens. Distended and discoloured, their thin malnourished skin stretched like a piece of sinew over a sausage. In a few cases, the skin had actually split under the pressure; you could see puss and blood leaking out, falling through the metal grate below.
If the condemned were making any noise it was drowned out by the machines, though they were obviously alive. They stood under their own steam, but that seemed to be all they could do. They just stood inside the pods with the tubes shoved in their throats and other little devices connected to them. The sound was almost deafening to me, so many electronics and motors running in the room. It was a sensory hell hole.
I walked through the rows of bodies trying to look for Killian. Most of these humans had their heads shaved and were stick-thin; I knew Killian would stand out.
“What was the noise? Did the boiler blow again?” a voice said behind me.
I turned around.
A woman in a lab coat, her blonde hair tied back, was looking at me, her face growing pale. I knew my cover was blown.
I did the only thing I could. As she turned and ran, I ripped my M16 from the inside coat loop and shot her several times in the back.
I hoped the machines that were powering the living meat were loud enough to drown out the noise, but as I turned to look for others I heard a gunshot and felt a searing pain in my arm.
I looked up and shot at a man who was hanging off of the railing of a metal catwalk that led to a mezzanine. It looked like the pods were controlled from up there. I could see another worker in the corner. I knew I was injured but it wasn’t bad because I was still alive, and that was good enough for me.
I couldn’t see a door on the second level mezzanine so I knew the bitch was trapped. I had to make this quick; I didn’t know if there were cameras here and if there were, well, shit would be getting real busy, real quick.
I ran up the stairs two by two. The bitch screamed and brandished a knife at me. She was cowering against what looked like a computer system, a system that appeared way more powerful-looking than any of the old PCs I’d found.
“Stop! STOP!” she shrieked. “What do you want?”
Suddenly a loud alarm started sounding and red lights began flashing above us. I felt a swell of anxiety and rage. I didn’t know if
this alarm was for me or if it was for the explosion. I had to believe it was for the explosion.
“Where is the blond kid?” I snarled. She cowered and cried but didn’t answer. I looked towards the doors leading to the inside of the factory. No one yet, but I didn’t have time to dick around.
I held up my M16 and quickly blew a couple rounds into her head. She fell back against the side of the computer table, leaving a nice splatter of brains and blood behind her.
I jumped off the railing and onto the top of one of the pods. Looking around quickly, I saw there were no more workers, but there was no sign of Killian either.
I sprinted towards the door.
There wasn’t anything to block the door with so I did the next best thing. I grabbed a brick of C4 and stuck it onto the door frame, before quickly syncing it.
That was the best I could do; I would detonate again if I had to.
With the alarm blaring overhead, my brain was racing, my thoughts so cluster-fucked I could barely concentrate. The sounds, the smells, and the intensity all around me was fucking up my sensory system. I felt dazed.
First things first. I ran up and down each row of pods, scrutinising each swollen, distorted skeleton. I had to find Killian.
Then I saw him and my mind froze. I stepped up to him; the alarms around me muted, the room melting away. It was just me and him.
There he was. A shadow of his former self, his small body beaten and bruised, still flaked with blood and ash. I didn’t know how his thin legs were supporting his body; he looked like he was made of paper.
But he was alive.
My heart was in my throat, but with it came a chill that enveloped my body. I reached out and touched his bruised face cradling it in my hand. He was boiling hot.
His eyes were taped shut, though they were bruised black. The rest of his face wasn’t any better.
The corners of his mouth were split open, to make room for the two huge tubes that were shoved down his throat. The other end of the tubes led to the top of the mechanical torture machine.
He was so skinny and frail, which broke my heart considering he hadn’t been at the factory long enough to make him that way. He had been that thin beforehand, kid didn’t even take care of himself.
I grabbed onto the tubes, letting out a breath, glad his eyes were taped shut. I was going to lose my shit any moment now. I had no idea how the fuck I was supposed to remove him from this machine, I just hoped I didn’t kill him. Fuck, with my damn luck…
I started pulling the tube out of his stomach, trying desperately to listen for anyone coming through those doors. Hopefully, the explosion was enough of a distraction.
The two grey tubes popped out of his throat with a sickening sound. One of them leaking a greasy yellow slurry, the other a tinny-smelling clear fluid. I was hoping he would start coughing or something, but he was as limp as a ragdoll in my arms. I tore the tape off of his eyes; they were half-open, unfocussed, and glassy.
“Killian? Killian?” He swayed forward and I caught him in my arms. The greasy shit was leaking down his mouth; his whole fucking stomach looked full of it. I knew he had to throw that crap up. His stomach wasn’t as distended as the others’, but it was still swollen.
I brought him down to his knees and grabbed the back of his head with one of my hands, jamming two fingers of my other hand down his throat.
It woke him up at least. He started to struggle and a few moments later keeled over and started puking violently. Streams of the oily yellow-white shit poured out of his mouth and through the metal grate onto the flowing water below it. I banged on his back with my palm; his whole body was heaving so badly I was expecting his eyeballs to pop out. I held him steady, keeping my eye on the door for anyone coming through.
“Reaver?” he suddenly croaked. He was sobbing through his gagging. He lifted his head up weakly.
“I’m here, I got you,” I said, trying to steady my voice. I kneeled in front of him and put my hands on either side of his face.
I looked into those blue eyes. Even though they were blood-shot and bruised, they were still beautiful.
“Hi,” Killian said weakly.
I gave him a reassuring smile. “Hi,” I whispered back, trying to look as brave and in control as I could.
My damn hands were shaking. I had never made eye contact with him before.
Then Killian’s eyes widened; he looked past me. I turned around to see a guy in a lab coat walking through the doors.
“Hey!” the guy called angrily.
Two more appeared behind him. I swore; they were all fucking carrying assault rifles. I put Killian’s feet on the ground and grabbed the detonator.
As the C4 exploded, I clutched Killian to my chest, covering his ears as much as I could. The blast was deafening and violent. As I held the boy, holding my own head down, I could feel debris smack into my head, and an intense heat that made me clench my teeth and groan.
Grey chunks of concrete and metal whizzed past my face, all cloaked with a thick black smoke. I shut my eyes tight and endured the pain, holding Killian as close to me as I could. I was holding him like I had wanted. I wouldn’t let him go.
We wouldn’t die now, no way we would die now.
There was a loud ringing in my ears, and I must have lost consciousness. When my mind thrust me mercilessly back to reality the alarm was quiet, but the red lights were still flashing through the thick smoke. I could smell burning flesh and gun powder.
Loosening my grip on Killian, I drew him away from me; he had tears in his eyes and he was trembling badly.
I picked him up and began to run towards the exit door. The smoke was a wall of darkness and I could hear moaning coming from the captured meat, twisting and crawling around from their disturbed pods like maggots spilling from a corpse.
Killian started to cough into my jacket. I could feel the smoke building up in my chest as well. I tried my best to look through it, and was glad to see that it grew thinner the closer to the exit we got.
When I finally kicked the door open it was an overwhelming relief. I filled my fire-scorched lungs with the cold, greywaste air and looked around.
I held Killian tight as I ran up the ramp, then I took a quick look around and made a dash for the fence.
I could see large pillars of oily black clouds rising from the dumpsters. People were shouting, but they were far enough away that I didn’t care.
With what felt like hell burning inside my chest, I ran up the hill towards the quad. The legion delivery boy, or whoever he was, was still half hanging onto it.
With twitching hands I turned the key and felt a wave of relief as the quad roared to life. I quickly cranked the throttle and got the hell out of there; leaving the inferno and the chaos behind me to burn and spread its terror, not just to the dead factory workers but their families too, and the fucks in Skyfall who ran Dek’ko.
It was like my own personal Fallocaust.
I wrapped my left arm over Killian’s stomach and held him upright. My mind switched back from the inferno to him when I realized just how limp he was. But there wasn’t much I could do about that; I wasn’t feeling that great either. We had to get to Aras now and fast.
As I sped down the steep hill, I tried to ignore the hot dizzy feeling that was starting to coat my body. I was sure it was just exhaustion.
We rode on. It was hard to control the quad with only one hand but Killian was limp in my arms. I could see the greasy white shit dripping onto the seat of the quad; I didn’t know if he had puked it all up or not. I didn’t want to have to make him vomit again. He would just have to hold on until we got to Aras.
I pushed the quad as hard as it could go. It would be more noise than I was comfortable making, but I just didn’t care anymore.
I got him back, I have him. I kept telling myself this, and I was relieved, but my mind was fried and running on the adrenaline I had been feeding on all morning. My ears were still ringing and I was having trouble thinking. I knew
the facts; I knew Killian was okay but the blast had temporarily head-fucked me. I felt like every wire in my brain had exploded into a frayed rat’s nest.
I pushed myself and pushed myself, trying to stay on the road as much as possible, the way was smoother at least. There were a few times I hit a badly uneven section of pavement, but I managed to slow down enough so that we didn’t get jolted out of our seats. I started to feel even worse as we carefully passed over Highway 11, and by the time we had been on the level road for ten minutes I had to pull over to throw up.
Though it wasn’t that easy. As soon as I put pressure on my foot my equilibrium fucked itself. I slumped forward and fell onto the ground.
I groaned and puked onto the asphalt. The world was spinning and I started to feel the heat spread to every tip of my body. I tried to find any hidden reserve of energy but I was drained. With one last struggle, I managed to partially raise myself enough to lean against the quad for support. I squinted as the world started to get shiny around the edges.
Killian’s head had been lowered, unable to support its own weight, but as I stumbled he managed to look at me.
“They blew your ear off,” his weak voice whispered. He reached out to touch my head before rolling off of the quad. With a horrible thunk he landed on the pavement.
Leaning on the quad, trying to find my balance, I walked over to Killian and knelt down beside him. My head didn’t feel right; I was starting to forget just what the fuck was going on.
I reached to my side and picked up my handheld radio. Killian looked up at me with glassy eyes, swimming in a blue ocean, but my ears couldn’t make sense of what he was saying.
“Grey?” I pressed the talk button. I knelt down beside Killian and started to put the lab coat on him. Poor kid was naked and it was cold outside. He never dressed right for the weather; no wonder I always had to follow him.
What was he doing outside naked…? I could never make sense of that kid.
“Reaver? Fuck, it’s so good to hear you. Where are you?” Greyson’s urgent voice answered back.
