Raising his rifle to his shoulder, he hesitated to pull the trigger until all the rebels had exposed themselves in the open. The two members standing at the top of the ruinous heap were approximately three hundred fifty meters out. They appeared to be waiting for the rest of their team before making the final dash. Assisting one of their wounded comrades over the rubble, they were finally exposed… and alone.
With a limping gait, an injured soldier draped his arms over the shoulders of both a female deserter on one side and a male on the other. Behind them, another female carrying several weapons over her shoulders covered their rear. John steadied his aim, keeping his iron sights covering the body of his already suffering target. He was wholly prepared to place a bullet into the man’s mask-covered face.
As they reached the base of the mound, John squeezed the trigger, sending a single projectile spinning from the muzzle of his rifle. The explosive impact of ruby mist dropped the wounded deserter dead in his tracks, bringing his two helpers to the ground with him. Firing off another shot, he watched the female at the rear fall to her knees, writhing in pain as she grasped at her leg.
As John was about to release the death blow into her body, a shot from the last remaining male soldier whizzed past his head, ricocheting off the wall behind him. Rushing to take cover inside the building, he headed down the stairwell leading to the street below.
Cautiously clearing the exit, he ran behind the charred and rusty remains of an old vehicle just outside. As he peered around its edge, he caught a glimpse of one of the deserters ducking down on the other side of the high-walled remains of an ancient courtyard another three hundred meters along his line of sight.
Advancing to a low-lying wall twenty meters ahead, John was able to gain the advantage of concealment and mystery, allowing him to close in on his unsuspecting prey. Firing into the air in order to keep them constantly guessing as to the number of men they were fighting, John was testing their psychological strength, initiating the tormenting trials upon his enemies that he had learned through his years of practical application on the battlefield. He knew that the growing anxiety would skew their judgment, causing them to make mistakes. Eventually, their fear would allow him to narrow the gap between them to such an extent that they would be dead before they even knew he was in their presence.
After nearly forty minutes of cautiously progressing towards their holdout, John was finally within a stone’s throw of the courtyard. Pulling the last two canisters of poison from his vest, he removed the pins. Pulling his arm back, he hurled them in one at a time.
As the explosive follow-up indicated that the gas was being released, John waited for the visible, rising cloud of death before moving to finish them off.
Kneeling down and pressing his shoulder against the broken wall of concrete he was using for cover, the shadows of the buildings overhead slowly began drawing back towards the Great Star. Reaching its arms over the city, the Giver of Light dropped its particles upon the gray and deadly streets.
A soft breeze began to develop, rustling the papers and ashen soot that littered John’s surroundings. It was the first time since he had entered the ruins that the stillness of the air had been naturally broken. Feeling the warmth of the Savior running along his shoulders as its illuminating essence continued up towards the skin of his arms, John pulled his sleeves into his hand, covering himself from its rays.
The rising plume from the courtyard signaled to him that the target environment was saturated with his murderous chemical. Gripping his weapon tightly, he prepared to make his move.
Raising the rifle to his shoulder, John stood from his cover, advancing the last ten meters towards the threshold of the courtyard, surveying its entrance and noting the details of its outer walls. There was no disturbance from within: no coughing, no movement. From his crouched, battle-ready stance, he fast-walked up the sidewalk leading to the open entryway, keeping a steady aim, ready to engage, or rather, destroy, the first deserter he came into contact with.
Each step forward was like a rhythmical drum, the beat of which was orchestrating the crescendo of the soft breeze as it began to dance to his tempo. Picking up speed, it swirled the gaseous cloud through the air.
Recognizing the potential for diluting its potency and effectiveness upon his adversaries, John realized that he only had seconds before losing his advantageous ground. Leaping over the corpse of his first victim, he subconsciously gave his own body over to the spell of rote motions.
Entering through the walkway, the breeze suddenly became a strong gust of air that lifted the thick fog of poison into the heights above, swirling it into the windows and gaping wounds of the war torn structures of the city street. With a cleared visibility, John was able to catch a glimpse of movement out of the corner of the circular eyepiece of his chemical respirator. Rotating his rifle’s sights towards the stirring creature, he found himself staring down the barrel at a bleeding woman lying on the ground, her muffled scream barely audible through the fogged lenses of her gasmask.
The light of the Savior fell upon her as he squeezed the trigger. He heard the crack of his rifle. Through the aperture of his rear sight, he fell into a hypnotic awareness of the bullet as it traveled mid-flight, a sluggish motion of surreal imagery of a projectile shattering into a cloud of particles. Splattering into the concrete behind her, the woman’s unblemished silhouette was the resultant effect: an ornamental mural etched upon the wall. Without hesitation, he squeezed the trigger again. As he heard the audible crack of the shot, the stock end of a deserter’s rifle caught him across the back of his helmet, breaking the strap of his mask, sending his next bullet to bury itself deep into the ground beside the woman’s leg.
Crashing to his knees upon the fragmented slab beneath his feet, John’s respirator followed close behind, slamming down beside his knee. The reflective face protector of his helmet subsequently fell into its closed position, covering his face.
Partially dazed, but still running on years of repetitive conditioning, John pulled the knife from the small of his back, stabbing and slashing wildly behind him, thrusting the dagger into the belly of the deserter that had struck him. Ripping the knife out, he slashed it again across the cheek of the man’s gas mask causing his enemy to fall backwards, dropping his weapon and screaming out in pain.
Lifting the knife above his head, John prepared to plunge it into the man’s heart. The pain in his skull and the throbbing of his neck were justification enough for him to eliminate the rebel from the living.
As the blade made its downward fall, an explosive impact against John’s face-shield sent heavy shards of its fibrous material ripping into the skin of his face and the side of his head, tearing away the lobe of his right ear, staggering him with its deafening ring.
Momentarily disoriented by the blow, John stumbled about, shielding his eyes. He could feel the warmth of his own blood oozing from his facial wounds and smearing across the palms of his hands. Through the spaces between his fingers he could see the only deserter that he had not wounded, pistol at the ready. Her hands were trembling and struggling to keep her aim. Her dampened, distressed cry was scarcely audible through the thick rubber of her respirator. His own hearing and sight had been amazingly spared from harm.
Feigning to be struck blind by her bullet, John continued to stumble around moaning and screaming, inconspicuously inching himself closer to her. The woman appeared to be falling for his act. As her weapon began to lower, her attention moved to her wounded mate that lay at her feet.
With her arm within reach, John grabbed the soldier by the wrist, tearing the firearm from her hand and jerking her towards him before throwing her down. She hit the ground hard, landing beside her wounded female companion.
Taking aim at the writhing man groaning at the end of his barrel, John’s passing glance caught the eyes of the woman that had shot him. She was staring deep into his soul, as if to plead with him for mercy. She was exactly where he wanted her: witnessing the end of he
r comrades. He could see the terror in her expression, horrified from behind the plastic windows of her mask. The satisfaction he was experiencing warranted the dramatic delay in all of their executions.
Behind her, the other woman continued to bleed out from her leg, laboring to unstrap her respirator. Panting, pale and sweaty, she deserved her pain, he thought.
As the latches of her mask unhinged under the trembling of her frail, weak fingers, it fell from her face. John stepped back, dropping his aim. In all the years of peering into the eyes of death, he had somehow found himself gazing once again into the familiar sky-blue eyes of a life once lost.
“Don’t shoot, John,” she spoke through the quivering lips beneath her tears. “It’s me, Sofia.”
Overcome with amazement and a sudden sense of dread, John looked about in the courtyard, visually taking in the familiarity of the battlefield destruction: it was something real, something that could ground him in reality. All he needed was an item of material value to let him know that he was merely hallucinating.
The womanly apparition appeared all too veritable, too genuine. He could not look into its eyes again without killing it. Raising his pistol towards its head, he fired a single shot. The bullet exited the darkness of the barrel, entering into the world of light. And, just as some unseen force thwarted John’s previous attempts, so too did this projectile’s end come in the same manner, shattering into a million pieces before his eyes.
As if there was a beckoning from above, John turned his face to the Savior, and began to curse. He was hallucinating… there was no other way to explain what he had just seen.
Over the shoulder of Maryanne, John was standing in the rays of light that fell through the splintered beams that crossed over the yard. Sofia wanted nothing more than to run to his arms and hold him. Ignoring the pains from the wounds in her leg, she fought against her body’s desire to stay and rest, giving in to the yearning of her heart.
“John,” she called to him. “Please, come to me.”
Slipping his helmet off his head, John let it drop to the ground. It landed at his feet, settling beside a crack in the concrete through which a tuft of red grass had grown. Rolling away from him, it settled beside the crimson pool that formed under the dripping blood from the deserter that was struggling to his knees behind him. The hatred was burning him up. He had no desire to give into his wishful thinking. Closing his eyes would make it all go away, he thought.
Undoing the straps that were tangled in her hair, Maryanne crawled beside Sofia. Removing her gasmask, she motioned to her mate, Stephen to remain still.
“That’s John, Mary,” Sofia said. “He’s here to save me.”
Removing the backpack from her shoulders, Maryanne unsnapped the pouch on its side, pulling out a small folding knife.
“You’re hurt, dear,” she said nervously, trying not to call the Sweeper’s attention to them. “You’re going to be alright, Sofia. We just need to stop the bleeding.”
Tearing through Sofia’s pant leg, Maryanne exposed the extensiveness of her wounds. Placing a thick, gauze padding upon the gaping holes, she moved Sofia’s hands upon the thick pile of absorbent, encouraging her to keep the pressure needed to help alleviate the flow.
“I need to go help Stephen, okay? I’ll be right back,” Maryanne said, removing her hands from tending to the sites where John’s bullet had entered and passed through.
“Maryanne, go get John for me, please,” Sofia wept. “I need him by my side.”
“I’m sure you do, dear, but not right now. You just keep the pressure on your leg, okay?” she whispered, as she unzipped the top of her sack, anxiously looking over her shoulder at the murderer standing behind her. Maryanne knew all too well what these men were capable of. Whether or not this man was actually Sofia’s lost mate made no difference to her. She wanted nothing to do with him.
With her trembling hands, Maryanne apprehensively gathered up the medical supplies necessary to attend to Stephen’s wounds. Avoiding any hint of eye contact with the agent, she stood up. Staring at the ground, she began walking towards her comrade.
As she was about to pass by the courtyard’s entryway, three men entered through with their guns drawn. Their visors reflected the terror of her expression. Dropping her provisions, Maryanne stood motionless in the firing line of the surviving agents of John’s Sweeper team.
“Sit down,” one of the men whispered the command, motioning for her to move away from him.
Maryanne immediately obeyed, stepping back and lowering herself back down beside Sofia.
The second agent, seeing John standing with his face to the sky, bleeding from his torn skin and lacerated forehead, kept his sights on Stephen as he moved towards his team leader.
“Is everything alright, John?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” John stuttered, lowering his head towards his three captives.
Touching the torn skin of his ear, John felt the coagulated thickness of his liquid life dripping from his wounds. Wiping his hand across his shirt, the blood smeared, settling upon the creases of its fabric.
“I’m wounded,” he said, as his eyes met Sofia’s once again.
“Are we going to eliminate them, or are we going to drag them along with us?” the agent asked, unconcerned about his Sergeant’s trauma.
Writhing and suffering, Steven’s contorted image reflected off of the blued metal of John’s pistol as he raised it up from beside his thigh. John could feel the rising burn of anger and hate filling his mind, running through his veins, drawing out from the pores of his skin.
A fool had once called him a god, yet he had not done the deeds of a god. He had not created anything. He had only taken away. What kind of god does that make him? He had been deceived. A god could never be deceived. Sofia was alive. They knew it all along. The flames filled his eyes. They all knew it.
The cause of all her sufferings of the past: that is what I am, John thought. Sofia’s bleeding out of a wound caused by my hands. What have I done to cause others to want me to suffer so much? “What had she done?” he whispered
Like a thunder’s roaring riding upon the tails of lightening, the searing scorn of a decade of destruction poured through him. Three shots fired, three men fell… just like they taught him.
Before the last agent’s hollowed corpse could hit the ground, John’s pistol landed at his feet.
Staggering over to Sofia, he reached down, tearing the medic’s kit from the body of one of his dead comrades as he passed him by. Kneeling down beside her wounded, leg John unzipped the satchel. Removing the rapid-clot material from its paper shell, he placed it into the openings of her wounds. After wrapping a dressing around her injured extremity, he looked into her eyes, worn and tired. There were no words exchanged. Sofia just smiled, watery-eyed and pale. The soothing blanket of her embrace was the first step in a long run leading to the healing of his soul.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Maryanne was not quite as forgiving and accepting of John’s presence as Stephen and Sofia. As he took the helm of their vehicle, racing it through the city streets of the ruins, speeding and weaving wildly through the debris, John’s rough handling of the transporter reminded her of the carelessness of the Security personnel that she used to see blazing their deadly paths through the streets of Basket Town. Having been several years since dealing with those awful experiences, the jarring drive was bringing back all the painful memories of her past.
Struggling to keep the threaded needle steady under the rugged conditions, Maryanne pulled the sharp tip through Stephen’s skin as she unevenly sutured close the stab wounds inflicted by John. Although her mate’s years of experience under Raw’s Security had, up to this time, seemingly purged his mind of reacting to painful stimuli, Maryanne was left feeling a sense of cold nausea with each piercing of the jag. For the first time in their lives together, he was writhing with discomfort.
Lying across one of the side seats with his mate kneeling beside him o
n the floor, Stephen was cognizant, despite his misery, of the presence of John and Sofia. He was making a conscience effort to maintain control of his outward suffering to the best of his ability.
As John cornered the vehicle around the edge of a fallen building, Maryanne slid across the puddles of Stephen’s blood, leaving a smeared track in her wake as she slammed into the opposing side of the transporter. Glaring over her shoulder, she pulled herself back to Stephen’s side. The intensity of John’s demeanor, not to mention his Agency history, was giving her cause for the increasing suspicion she was beginning to hold regarding his motives in helping them. Seeing Sofia sitting beside him was effecting a burning in her gut. He was obviously experienced behind the wheel, swerving between the waste, running it at top speed while constantly looking back to be sure that they were not being followed… but he was still a Sweeper. The hatred in his eyes bore witness to it.
Exiting the ruins and entering the red sands of the desert, John spied out several air transporters rising high into the atmosphere. The burning blue-white lights of their glow were like shimmering stars visible in the afternoon sky. Following close behind, the billowing smoke of another group of transporters preparing for lift-off was filling the valley just over the peaks, leading John to their point of arrival.
“Where are all those tranporters headed?” John yelled over the rumbling of their engine as he leaned over the steering wheel, gazing up at the thick white contrails.
“Each one’s heading towards one of the asteroids that exists on the other side of Raw,” Stephen returned answer, cringing under Maryanne’s handiwork. “Central’s been working on this plan for years. We’re finally getting our chance to change things to our advantage.”
The Lover's Parable Through A Seven World Journey Page 31
