Mutant Chronicles

by Matt Forbeck

  As night fell on the city, Constantine longed for a final sunset, one last glorious blaze he could watch sink into the horizon. He’d seen his last over a week ago and had not known it. If he had, he would have savored it more, treasuring every last second until the stars shone bright in the open sky above him.

  When the mutants broke down the doors to the floor, he heard them come skittering and scratching along the hall, dragging their boneblades across the walls and floor. He might have hoped to hear some more gunfire, but he’d sent everyone else away. Only he still breathed on this, the top floor of the tallest building in town.

  He heard them come in through the boardroom. They slashed the table there into pieces. Not once did Constantine flinch at the horrible noises, though, or turn around to see what was making them.

  The creatures didn’t deserve his attention, much less his fear. They weren’t the ones who had killed him, and they would never be. That honor went to the hand of whoever or whatever had put Brother Samuel’s horrible machine in motion.

  Call it the Enemy. The Devil. Satan. Humanity itself. It didn’t really matter in the end.

  And this was the end.

  The mutants gathered behind him until they filled the boardroom. None of them seemed ready to take the first step out onto the balcony to tear Constantine apart. They were waiting for something, although the man could not know what.

  Then he felt it, a larger presence, something indefinable but for one word: evil. It was there in the room behind him, and it hungered for his soul.

  “Do you even have a name?” Constantine asked. He drained the last of the golden liquid and let his glass fall from his fingers to the pavement far below. He would be dead before it hit the ground.

  The mutants behind him hissed their answer in unison, a single word that Constantine seemed to hear in his head the instant before they gave voice to it.

  “LEGION!”

  18

  In a residential neighborhood on the outskirts of the city, Mitch Hunter leaped out of a tracked transport painted olive drab with the Capitol logo emblazoned across the doors. He brushed the road dust off the legs of his dress uniform as he gazed up the street at the gray apartment building that stood there, nestled among others of its kind. The darkening sky to the east gave the only indication that something was terribly wrong—and on its way here.

  Mitch had been here before, although not for many years, yet he dreaded the thought of entering the building again. Despite that, he had a job to do, and he refused to shirk it. Even if Capitol hadn’t ordered him here, he’d have come on his own. He owed Nathan far more than that.

  Mitch slapped the door of the transport to let the driver know he was clear. The soldier would sit there and wait for him until he got back.

  As he strolled toward the building, he rubbed his clean-shaven chin. He wondered what she looked like, and what he would look like to her. It had been far too long since they’d seen each other, and he couldn’t help being nervous about what he had to say to her.

  He laughed a little at himself, a dry and bitter sound. He’d faced certain death more times than he could count, and he would have preferred to go through each one of those experiences again rather than do this.

  As Mitch reached the building’s door, he turned back to gaze behind him. In the sky above the transport that had dropped him off, he spotted three different sky arks blasting into the heavens, leaving black streaks of smoke in their wakes like skid marks on a road. He wondered why he didn’t feel jealous of the people on those ships, the lucky ones who would be able to leave Earth and its problems far behind. Perhaps it was because he didn’t feel much of anything at all.

  Mitch let out a deep sigh as he walked into the building. He found his way up through the central courtyard—a dilapidated cavity that seemed to push the sunlight away rather than allow it in—letting his legs take him up a path they remembered without prodding. He hesitated for a moment, then knocked on the apartment’s door. A moment later it opened, and there stood Adelaide.

  She was as beautiful as he remembered her. The years had been kind to her, even if the past week had not. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days.

  She stared at the man in her doorway for a long moment before recognition dawned in her bloodshot eyes.

  “Mitch?”

  He nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

  The formality grated on him, but he stuck to it. He needed as much distance as possible to make it through this.

  “Nathan’s not here.”

  Mitch’s heart tumbled into his stomach. Adelaide had spoken as if she expected Nathan to show up at the apartment at any moment, as if he’d gone out to the store to grab a gallon of milk.

  The woman stepped back to let Mitch into the shabby apartment, then locked the thick door behind him. The place was small and worn. Although Adelaide had done what she could to make it a home, she’d been fighting a losing battle from the start. The best word Mitch could find for it was cramped, although he supposed he might have substituted cozy if he’d been in a forgiving mood.

  Mitch knew that Capitol didn’t pay its officers a lot, even decorated ones like Nathan, at least not compared with what it paid executives of the same grade. That was just another signal from his corporation that money mattered far more than the people who made it. The apartment confirmed it again.

  Despite that, the place was large enough for Adelaide and her daughter—and for Nathan when he was home on leave. And during the times he was gone, a place this size could never feel all that empty, Mitch guessed.

  The parlor was immaculate, not a trace of dust anywhere nor an item out of place. On one wall hung a picture of Nathan’s graduation from the Academy. In the photo, Mitch and he stood next to each other, grinning like the kids they had been, entirely unaware of how their lives were about to be destroyed in the service of their corporation.

  Adelaide led Mitch through the parlor and into the tiny kitchen beyond. A girl sat by the window, drawing something. She didn’t look up, entirely engrossed in her work.

  “I’ll make some tea. You’ve changed. How long has it been? It feels like forever. You remember Grace.”

  The girl did not look up. Mitch felt relieved at that, then ashamed at his relief. He could hardly bear to look at Adelaide as it was. Grace, who had her father’s eyes, would be too much.

  Adelaide busied herself with the kettle, then found a small white teacup adorned with colorful scrollwork. She placed it on the counter while she hunted up some tea.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Mitch peered down at the girl. She was a beauty, much like her mother.

  “She’s ten now. Ten years old, which means almost five years. Gosh, has it been that long?”

  Mitch nodded. It seemed like far longer.

  Adelaide was rambling, and Mitch could tell she knew it. She was holding herself together by trying to construct a veil of normality. She had to know why he was there. He had not been here in five years, as she’d just said, and never without Nathan. There could only be one reason.

  “Here’s your tea.”

  He accepted it with a nod, his fingers brushing hers.

  “Nobody told you?” He looked straight into her blue eyes as he spoke.

  Her voice became tiny. She held her arms against herself. “They won’t tell me anything.”

  Mitch frowned. He had hoped this part of his duty wouldn’t fall to him, but there was no way to back out of it now. He started to speak but realized he didn’t have the words. He handed the cup of tea back to Adelaide, then fished a laminated crib sheet out of his pocket. He took a deep breath to keep his voice from shaking and read from it.

  “On behalf of the Executive Vice President of Personnel, I’ve been authorized to inform you that your husband, Captain Nathan William Rooker, fell in battle and has been declared missing in action as of—”

  Adelaide held her hand up to her face, and Mitch cut himself off in midsentence. Her tears came silent and fast like a sudden rain. S
till drawing near the window, Grace never seemed to notice.

  Adelaide backed up toward the sofa behind her, unsteady on her feet. Mitch watched her, unable to offer more support. He wanted to take her in his arms, to tell her everything would be all right.

  But he didn’t. He couldn’t. Although Nathan was gone, he still hung there in the space between them.

  Adelaide sat back on the threadbare sofa, falling into it. Her face twisted with grief, and the rims of her eyes reddened and burned.

  “I have dreams. I see him. They’re hurting him. He’s still alive,” she said. “I know he is.”

  Mitch put his hand on hers. “Listen. If you think like that…”

  Adelaide’s eyes burned now so that they seemed to glow at Mitch. “And they expect us to just wait here and die.”

  Adelaide yanked her accusing eyes away from Mitch to focus on her daughter once more. Misery for herself warred on her face with concern for her treasured daughter. Mitch saw now that Adelaide knew more about the war than she had let on and that Nathan had been her only hope through all this. She spoke to him in hushed, choked tones.

  “I just don’t know what to tell my little girl.”

  Grace gazed out the window, watching the black contrail of yet another transport arcing up into the sky. The ship’s jets rattled the building as it passed them by on its way to parts off-planet.

  19

  The whiskey hadn’t done Mitch any good yet, but he was only one drink into it. Give it time, he thought.

  The Imperial Heights pub was dark and empty but for the bartender, who was busy packing up the few valuables in the place. Mitch didn’t know where the man thought he was going. Passage offworld was rarer than a magic bullet, and he could tell from the ambience that even if the man owned the place, he didn’t have enough money to do more than enter a lottery for a ticket.

  Still, there had to be someplace better than this. Mitch glanced around. The place stank of cheap beer, old piss, and things fouler still. At the moment, for him, though, that was just fine. He lit a cigarette, then knocked back the last dregs in his glass.

  The bartender—a no-nonsense man with long dreadlocks—reached for the bottle in front of Mitch. As his fingers touched it, Mitch grabbed the man’s wrist in his fist.

  “Leave it.” It wasn’t just an order. It was a threat.

  Without a word, the bartender released the bottle. Mitch let him go. The man stared at him for a moment, then scuttled off to the back room, leaving Mitch alone.

  Just the way he wanted it.

  Mitch could have kicked the bartender’s ass straight out the door of the place and taken every damn drink in it, but the last thing he wanted right now was a fight. He’d had enough of his violent life. Capitol had made him into one damned fine killer in the name of protecting freedom—they’d even called him a hero—and look where that had gotten him.

  He’d won the Capitol Order of Valor back in the dunes of Mercury, fighting under Nathan’s command. The Mishimans had attacked a Capitol condensation plant at one of the corporate outposts. They figured that if they could cut off the Capitol water supply, they could force the “invaders” off their planet.

  Defending the outpost had been tricky. Protecting a place always was. You couldn’t move it, and you couldn’t abandon it. You could only wait for your foes to make their move and hope you were ready when it came.

  The Mishimans had timed their attack to coincide with a sandstorm so vicious that it brought lightning and thunder with it. “Thundersand,” they called it. The bolts fused the sand in the air into glass where they struck, and afterward—if you were lucky—you might find one of these frozen artifacts of nature half-buried in the dunes.

  Mitch’s unit had been on patrol and had gotten pinned down when the Mishiman strike force had attacked. Rather than burying themselves in the sand and waiting for the storm to pass, he and his soldiers had waited for the Mishimans to rumble past them, then come up at them from behind.

  At least that had been the plan. The Mishiman commaning officer had trailed after his forces in a heavy battle-walker. It almost tripped over Mitch’s unit.

  Under the cover of the sandstorm, Mitch tackled one of the battlewalker’s legs, then stuffed a grenade into its hydraulic ankle joint. He’d just gotten clear when the leg exploded, bringing the CO down. Without their leader, the Mishimans panicked and aborted the mission.

  Nathan put Mitch in for the medal, over his protests. “You did good, Mitch,” he said. “Take some recognition for it.”

  “What good is a medal on the battlefield?” Mitch asked. He didn’t want the attention. He didn’t serve Capitol for the glory. There wasn’t any in war, and that wouldn’t change no matter how many shiny prizes they tacked onto his chest.

  “Use it to impress the ladies,” El Jesus said. He started to laugh but stifled it when he saw the grim look pass between Nathan and Mitch. “Or not. Put it on your fucking mantel after you retire.”

  Mitch snorted. “Soldiers don’t retire,” he said. Nathan arched an eyebrow at him. “Not sergeants anyway.”

  In the end, he’d accepted the medal and endured the presentation ceremony, which had been mercifully brief. The colonel who’d pinned the damned thing on Mitch’s uniform had seemed to hate the whole affair as much as the man he was honoring.

  After the photographer had gone, the colonel had said, “You know what that thing’s good for, Sergeant Hunter?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Free drinks in the officers’ club. Today only.”

  Mitch had taken him up on that. The whiskey there had been the same as he could get in any local bar. It just came in nicer glasses.

  Now he looked down at the drink in his hand again. He didn’t give a fuck about the glasses.

  After his third drink, Mitch pulled the chain of dog tags from the pouch on his belt and began flipping through them one at a time. With each, he read the name and thought for a moment about the soldier who had once worn it. Then he raised his glass in a silent toast.

  A few of the dog tags were too dirty to read, still caked in the mud in which their owners had died. Mitch removed them from the ring, then dipped his fingers in the whiskey in his glass and used the alcohol to dissolve the grime.

  Sometime later, the door behind Mitch opened, letting in a chill draft before it slammed shut again. Mitch didn’t bother to turn around.

  The man who entered the room stopped for a moment to assess the place. Then he strode over to where Mitch sat and stood behind him.

  “Sergeant Hunter?” the man said. His voice was low, and he’d phrased his words like a question, but Mitch was sure the man knew exactly who he was talking to.

  He ignored him anyway. Whatever the man wanted, Mitch wasn’t interested. The spirits that haunted Mitch—both the silent ones of his dead friends and the pungent ones in the bottle before him—were all he cared about right now. He wondered what might have happened to Nathan’s dog tags, but he didn’t need them. He’d never forget Nate.

  “Your name was suggested to me by a soldier in your platoon. Jesus Barrera.”

  Mitch glanced at the man—the monk. He wore red robes and an expression that mixed condescension and desperation. Brotherhood for sure, and a long way from home.

  “‘El Hay-Zoos,’” Mitch said as he went back to his drink. He wondered if the monk would be smart enough to walk away.

  “I need soldiers for a mission,” the monk said. “A mission to destroy the Enemy.”

  Mitch snorted. “Which enemy?”

  He’d seen enough enemies in his lifetime. In his line of work, enemy meant “whoever Capitol wanted him to kill—this week.” Megacorporate politics meant that his allies one day were often his enemies the next and then went back to being his allies the week after that. The word didn’t mean much to him anymore.

  “The Enemy of Man.”

  Mitch could hear the capital letters in the monk’s speech.

  “It will be a dangerous mission. I d
on’t expect that any of us will survive. But it’s a chance to save mankind, to save our world. Maybe the last chance.”

  Mitch knocked back the last of his drink, then looked at himself in the mirror behind the bar. He looked like shit. He’d seen corpses with more life in them. And this man of God wanted his help to do what?

  “Fuck mankind. Fuck the world. Fuck you.”

  The monk didn’t flinch, didn’t even blink.

  “Corporal Barrera told me you would say that. He also said—how did he put it?—you needed a ‘get out of hell free’ card.”

  The monk reached into his robes and pulled out a thin envelope. He set it on the bar before Mitch tenderly.

  “These won’t get you out of hell. But they may put you on the right road.”

  The monk walked away then, giving Mitch room to wonder what that had all been about. The envelope sat there in front of him as he finished his drink. It was long and white and sealed with red wax stamped with a Brotherhood icon.

  The bartender strode back into the room. He tossed a last few bottles into a case on the bar, then latched it. He gave Mitch a final, wordless look. Then he picked up the case and walked out of the bar, leaving the soldier entirely alone.

  Mitch stared at the envelope, then reached out and picked it up as gingerly as the monk had set it down. He opened it and, without removing the contents, peered inside at the two pieces of paper hidden there.

  Imperial Skyways. One way.

  He looked again. There were two.

  Mitch closed the envelope and sighed. Here, at least—at last—was something to fight for.

  20

  Adelaide knew what she had to do, and she went about the horrible process of doing it. She’d heard the reports. Mitch had confirmed the worst of them. The echoes of the shelling near the front lines of the battle rumbled like thunder in the sky, and they came closer with every passing hour.

  If she’d had only to think of herself, Adelaide might have tried to leave. She could have packed a duffel bag, put on a pair of hiking boots, and struck off in the opposite direction from the shelling. Still, she knew she never would have been able to outrun the mutant advance on foot, and the roads were closed to civilian cars.