Vendetta Nation (Enigma Black Trilogy #2)

by Sara Furlong-Burr

  “Is that really them?” a woman’s excited voice broke the newfound stillness.

  “Just stand back, don’t approach them,” a masculine voice ordered.

  Unaffected by our appearance—or so it seemed—the soldiers continued their advance from the north down the deteriorating roadway. The closer they came, the clearer we could make out their personal body armor, which they wore from head to toe. Hard-plated and jet black, the color of their protective gear rivaled that of our suits, blending in perfectly with the darkness surrounding us.

  “I don’t understand why they need the armor,” Ian observed. “They’re the ones with the weapons.” I peeked behind my shoulder, realizing that Ian was right. Carrying merely flashlights, the people behind us were otherwise unarmed.

  “They’re trying to scare them,” I said.

  “By bringing a war to a picnic? I don’t think so. Look around, Celaine, they outnumber them ten to one.” Ian was right. Appearing from various vantage points on the roofs of the surrounding buildings and down nearly every alleyway, the soldiers emerged ready for a fight. “If anything,” Ian said, “they’re here to make an example out of them.”

  “Well, it’s a good thing we’re here to prevent that from happening, then.”

  “I hate to break it to you,” Ian’s nervous laugh reverberated in my ear bud, “but they kind of outnumber us as well.”

  “One of us equals like twenty-five of them,” I answered. “That alone makes it a somewhat fairer fight.”

  “Even if your mathematical assessment is dead on, they’re still dominating us…by a crap load.”

  “A crap load, eh? I like those odds.” I walked out into the street, hearing Ian’s footsteps on the pavement directly behind me. When I reached the center of the roadway, I stopped, facing the onslaught that was heading our way. Sandwiched between buildings and conflict, the once peaceful night was beginning to feel downright ominous, and I couldn’t help but wonder what the next several minutes would bring. Ian stood slightly in front of me, a tenseness overcoming him. “The consummate protector,” I said, trying in vain to calm him. He didn’t budge. Inching my way forward, I made myself level with him.

  The soldiers advanced. Their footfalls fell in unison, bouncing off the buildings in a synchronized thunder. Vocally, they were silent, only adding to the tension from the crowd, who stood their ground behind us. Moments later, when they came within ten feet of where Ian and I stood in front of the protesters, they stopped, and a deafening silence prevailed. I inspected the men before me. From what I could see, they were all similar in build and stature. All of them appeared to be male, young and in the prime of their lives. Curiously, all of them even appeared to wear the same blank expression on their faces as though they’d been programmed to be devoid of emotion, awaiting orders from an unseen command. Their silence persisted only moments longer until one of them —their leader, perhaps— addressed the people on the street.

  “You are all in direct violation of the President’s curfew regulations,” the soldier to the left of Ian announced to the crowd. He was more heavily armored than the rest, which I presumed signaled a sign of importance or rank among the others. “Return to your homes immediately, or face imprisonment.”

  “We will not be returning to our homes,” the same male voice I’d heard just moments ago shouted from the crowd.

  “Swell.” Ian’s voice was barely audible in my ear bud.

  “Go ahead, use your weapons; fire upon a group of unarmed citizens,” the male voice called out again. “By doing so, you’ll only lift the wool over the eyes of the country.”

  Shut up, shut up, shut up, I repeated in my head.

  “We’re here for your protection, sir,” the soldier answered back. “If you can’t comprehend that, then maybe incarceration will give you some time to clear your head.”

  “What power do you have to remove us from a public street?” a different male voice yelled from the darkness.

  “If you haven’t heard, President Brooks has declared martial law across the country. This is our jurisdiction. He’s given us control over what happens on these streets.”

  “He’s given you no such control,” the man answered. “You’re the one who’s being controlled. By following his commands, he’s keeping you under his thumb, allowing him to run us all into the ground.”

  “I’m only going to ask you all one more time,” the soldier sighed. “Return home, or we will be forced to apprehend you and take you into custody.”

  Ian and I glanced at each other and then back over our shoulders. “Please, just leave,” I said quietly. But after several seconds of inactivity, it became apparent that the crowd wouldn’t be backing down any time soon.

  “So be it,” the leader raised his gun, motioning for the others to follow suit.

  “What are you doing!” I screamed, charging the armed man. But before I could reach him, I felt Ian’s arm grab me around the waist. His grip, however, wasn’t strong enough, and I threw him to the ground, resuming my offensive. Their leader was fast, but not fast enough for me. Before he could defend himself, I had one hand firmly gripped around his wrist, while the other one ripped the gun away from his grasp. He struggled, and I kneed him in the stomach, throwing him to the pavement. Instantly, I found myself surrounded by his men, guns drawn, all pointed at my head. I put my hands up in the air, knowing that I was hopelessly outgunned. That’s when I was knocked to the ground by their leader.

  “Don’t touch her,” Ian shouted, rushing into the scuffle. His strength was incredible, more so than my own had been, and I watched in awe as he effortlessly tossed soldiers aside. When he reached me, he grabbed my arm and helped me back up to my feet. “Are you injured?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” I answered him. But that was short-lived. A sharp blow struck me on the side of my ribcage, knocking me sideways into Ian. I righted myself, rubbing my throbbing body.

  Approaching us from all directions, the soldiers advanced, their hollow eyes reflecting nothing of their emotional state. “We don’t want to fight you,” I announced to them. “All we want to do is find a resolution to this conflict, one that isn’t so black and white. Surely, you can respect the public’s decision to hold a peaceful demonstration. We are still a democracy, are we not?”

  “These individuals are breaking the law, and must be dealt with accordingly,” their leader’s voice broke through the commotion somewhere off to the side of us. “If we allow some of them to get away with acts of insubordination, then others will expect to be able to do the same.”

  “Where’s your sense of humanity?” Ian asked. “Can you not see that you’re both being oppressed here? This is a lose-lose situation, with the only person coming out on top being Brooks. These people are not your enemies. If you would actually listen to them, you’d see that you have some common ground. Imprisoning them would solve nothing. It actually could quite possibly do the opposite and lead to even more inane regulations.”

  “It’s a shame that you do not stand with us, and an even bigger shame that we must do what we need to in order to maintain a sense of peace and order.” The other soldiers came to life at that moment, advancing toward Ian and I.

  “Remember our simulations,” I said to Ian. “Just think of this as nothing more than just another one of Cameron’s programs.”

  “One with real deaths,” he muttered. Taking our defensive stances, we readied ourselves for the onslaught. They came at us from all angles, some with guns drawn, most relying on their own brute force.

  “We need to take out the ones who have their weapons drawn before the others,” I said.

  “Agreed.”

  We ran, meeting their charge head-on; two against two hundred, each fighting for different principles. Right before they could slam their fists into our bodies, we jumped up into the air; I made contact with one of the soldiers with the heel of my boot, while Ian grabbed another by the arm, flinging him onto the pavement and popping his helmet away fr
om his head. When our feet hit the ground again, we took off running in the direction of those training their weapons. One by one, shots rang out, causing Ian and I to duck, roll, and jump out of the way. But despite their efforts to deter us, we made it to the first line of armed men, easily disabling both them and their weapons.

  “This is going smoother than I thought it would,” I said, feeling hands grasping my shoulders from behind. I quickly twisted my body and threw my assailant to the ground.

  “Yeah,” Ian said. “Best of all, there are no glitches. Every punch lands where it should.”

  Shots from off in the distance resounded, biting through the air. Ian and I abruptly stopped to see the soldiers from the rooftops firing on the civilian protesters who’d used our distraction as their opportunity to wage an attack of their own. Another shot was fired, and I saw one of the unarmed men fall to the ground, a bullet lodged in his skull.

  “Get back,” I yelled to the crowd of protesters. “Don’t risk your lives because of their ignorance.” Before I had a chance to fight back, I was knocked off my feet by two soldiers, each taking shots at my body. I threw my arm out, making contact with the sternum of the one on top of me. He fell back, rolling into the street as two of the civilian men pulled the other soldier from me. I pulled myself up and struck the man with my knee, dropping him instantly. The two men who pulled him from me stared at me, mouths agape. Smiling, I nodded my head towards them in an unspoken thank you.

  “We have no choice, you know,” a girl spoke next to me. She couldn’t have been more than eighteen, if she was even that. Petite, with cropped blonde hair, my tall frame dwarfed hers, almost making her look vulnerable in the middle of this virtual war. “Ignorance is like a disease. If you don’t fight it, it will spread until we all succumb to it.”

  “Thank you for your bravery,” I told her.

  “You and your partner are our only hope for change,” she said. “Please don’t forget that.” She ran over to where members of her group were huddled next to another wounded member, looking back at me as though she wanted to ensure her words were understood.

  For the first time since the bombing at The Lakes, I began to see the big picture. My focus had been set on The Man in Black, but he was just one piece to a much larger puzzle, and taking him out would only leave a small hole in the landscape, one that could easily be replaced by someone or something else.

  “Ian,” I said into the microphone embedded in my helmet, “where are you?”

  “I’m not too far from you,” he answered. “I was thinking about scaling one of the buildings to access the men on the rooftops, but it looks like they’re falling back for some reason.”

  “Well, at least that’s some positive news tonight. It’s probably a good idea that you stay down here, anyway.”

  “Always wanting me next to you,” his voice replied through my ear bud.

  I felt someone grasp my arm, a firm, yet unsure hold that caused me to turn around. A soldier, his helmet missing, stared up at me, his dark eyes into mine. “Please, where am I?” he asked.

  He must have been hit over the head. His expression pleaded with me as though I possessed the answer he was looking for. “I...you honestly…” I began, unsure how to answer him.

  “The last thing I remember is being in the briefing room back in the town hall, and then I woke up on the street.” he said, frightened.

  “What’s going on over here?” Ian ran over to where we stood, grasping the man’s wrist in his hand and twisting it until he let go of my arm. The man bellowed in pain, forcing Ian to release him.

  “It’s okay, Ian, he’s a little confused.”

  “I’m not confused,” he answered. “Something isn’t right. Not with me, not with any of them.” He gestured to his comrades, his hand shaking. “I don’t know where I am or how I got here, but I know who I am, and I know who most of them are, and they aren’t themselves right now.”

  “What?” Ian asked, giving me a sideways glance.

  “They’re running around like zombies. I tried talking to a few of them, but they won’t answer me back. It’s as though they’re not even in there, and I assume that I was like that too.”

  “What’s the absolute last thing you remember?” I asked him, hoping that it would trigger some sort of memory.

  “We were being issued new body armor, new boots, guns, and…”

  Before he could finish his sentence, the ground shook, and a blast erupted from a building a quarter of a block away; a blast that threw everyone off their feet; a blast that shattered glass, granite, and people; a blast that put an abrupt end to the skirmish in the street.

  Chapter Eleven

  The Missed Opportunity

  The first thing I thought, quite selfishly, after opening my eyes was that I must have gone deaf from the explosion. Although my eyes took in the devastation around me, I couldn’t make out so much as a moan from the people lying broken in the street, nor could I hear the crumbling of the bricks as they parted ways with the building that had served as the source of the blast, striking the ground at its base.

  I unclasped my helmet and pulled it up partially until my ears were free of its confines, then I took my finger and jostled it inside my ear, which sparked a ringing from deep within my eardrum. Several seconds later, my hearing began to right itself as though it, too, had to dig its way out of a pile of rubble in order to function again. Yet even though I could hear the world around me, it wasn’t the same. Every sound I heard appeared muffled, like I had cotton balls stuck inside my ear canal.

  The second thought that came to mind as I remained prone in the street was of Ian. Where was Ian? My head throbbed when I moved it from side to side to scan the street around me. “Ian, where are you?” I said, hoping that he would be able to hear me through his ear bud. Nothing. Pain shot through my body, and a groan escaped my lips. I couldn’t stay here, I needed to get up, and something told me that I needed to do it now.

  Despite the searing pain, my aching arms somehow managed to push my body upwards until I was in a sitting position. Bits of metal, glass, and concrete covered my legs, and I hoped the impact of them hitting the ground and the rubble raining down on them hadn’t been enough to break any bones. The last thing I needed right now was to have a broken leg or, worse, two broken legs. With pain coursing through my upper body, I lifted bits of cracked concrete from my lower extremities. Surprisingly, the discomfort in that half of my body wasn’t as bad. Still, I wasn’t fully satisfied that nothing had been broken until after I saw that I could move my legs with ease. Clearly, I hadn’t been injured too badly.

  “Ian,” I called again, only to be met with an even more profound silence. A panic overcame me, further fueling the adrenaline in my body. This wasn’t Ian. He would have answered me if he were…alive. I stood up faster than I should have given the beating I’d just taken. Dizziness struck me, my body weakened, and it was all I could do just to remain standing on my own two feet. But I knew time meant everything in a life or death situation. Wherever he was, I had to get to him if I was going to be able to help him. If time hasn’t already run out for him. “Ian!” I shouted, more desperate than authoritative. Stumbling through debris, I choked back tears through the blinding dust that had managed to breach the outer shell of my helmet.

  Though it seemed further in the state I was in, I’d only walked a matter of feet from where I had landed in the rubble before I felt something grab my boot, nearly tripping me. Looking down at my leg, I saw a familiar gloved hand. “Hey,” I heard Ian’s pained voice. He was almost entirely covered with bits of the decimated building. Only his head, upper torso and one of his arms remained free of the carnage.

  “Shit,” I said, stooping down entirely too fast. Agony reared its ugly head once more, and the piercing pain crippled me. My body crumpled over Ian. “Ah,” I moaned, doing all I could do not to completely collapse on top of him.

  “Celaine...”

  “I’m okay…really,” I answere
d him, trying not to scream.

  “You look real healthy.”

  “Look who’s talking…And damn you!” I exclaimed, punching him in his arm. “Next time answer me when I’m frantically calling for you. I thought you were dead.”

  “No. Not dead. I just had the wind knocked out of me. It’s not exactly like I’m used to being thrown into the air and almost buried alive.”

  “Almost buried alive? Ian, you’re covered nearly head to toe.”

  “I know it looks that way,” he said, wriggling himself out of the hole from which he was entombed. Grimacing, he stopped trying to free himself until the pain subsided. “I landed in a crevice. All this junk just landed over where I came to rest on the ground, but it didn’t actually make contact with my body.”

  “I’m beginning to think you have nine lives.”

  “I hope not,” he groaned. “Because if that’s the case, I just burned through two of them in the last twenty-four hours.” He finished pulling himself out of the fissure, groaning every inch of the way, until he stood on his feet again.

  We surveyed the scene unfolding around us. Next to me, I heard a slight hitch in Ian’s breathing, and I could tell by his rigid stance that the memories he’d kept tucked away in the recesses of his mind were being unearthed at this very moment. “Son of a...gah…” he bellowed, walking through the remnants of the city, his fists clenched. A fire burned with intensity throughout the building that had been the source of the blast, casting a much needed, but nonetheless macabre, glow on the street. Both soldiers and protesters alike, dragged themselves out from under debris, some critically injured, others with nothing more than mere scratches. Much more prevalent, though, were the dead. Bodies lay in distorted angles scattered throughout the remains of the block. “Do you think he’s still around here?” Ian asked. “Or does he normally bail after the explosion?”