I examined the top of the wall peppered with open flame torches and twitched my brow, annoyed at Raze's obvious recklessness. Either the man possessed extraordinary luck or the brain of a mathematical genius. The flames flickered and danced just outside the range of the sludge's explosive fumes. I shifted my gaze to the compound's interior to seek out the sludge's source. I expected to find massive fuel reservoirs or open containers overflowing with the inky liquid, but no, the powerful odor wafted from two enormous hangars situated on either side of the compound.
From the safety of the shadows, I further noted that the scarce light fixtures dotting the inside of Raze's compound possessed a luminescent quality as opposed to the torchlight lining the tops of the walls. Rather than illumination through heated lamps or fire, the bulbs used gas vapors similar to florescent lights. I thought florescent technology vanished after the Titan Crisis, but it would have certainly solved the safety problem of irresponsibly storing such large quantities of fuel in a single place.
Besides the two hangars storing an incalculable amount of sludge and the archaic stone wall, a surprisingly militaristic organization dominated the compound's layout. The lights, though scarce, maximized the compound's illuminated surface area through carefully selected placement. Two sets of barracks lined the far back corners in perfect array, combining a seamless blend of aesthetics and efficient space management. With a quick estimate, I figured at least fifty men would be able to lodge comfortably within their confines.
Toward the front corner of the compound, a large warehouse shrouded in darkness towered over the hangars which stored fuel and coupled as our shadowy hideaway. I cautiously slid up the building's metallic surface and peered into one of the windows. Dune buggies lined the warehouse's interior along with several empty spaces where dune buggies would no doubt park once they returned from their forays.
In the opposite corner of the compound roughly fifty yards from our location, another large warehouse stood against the perimeter wall. As I focused on it, three men emerged from its confines and slid the enormous door shut behind them. After locking it down with a large iron pad lock, they began conversing and walking toward a long rectangular building positioned in the center of the massive courtyard. I activated my auditory enhancing nanite to eavesdrop on their conversation.
“That oughta hold 'em just fine until Duc Raze comes to get 'em. Let's rustle up some grub. I hear the cook's figured out a new way to fry up some of that starch,” One of the men laughed.
“Say, what do you suppose the Duc does with all those hyped anyway? They're here one minute, then gone the next.” Another of the men looked back toward the locked warehouse. With my enhanced hearing, I detected the muffled sounds of guttural howls and enraged grunts. They undoubtedly belonged to the harvest of hyped I witnessed earlier when I acquired the passcode to enter Raze's domain. The feral sounds emanated from the padlocked warehouse. “What a fancy prison…” I thought.
“Who cares… if all we have to look forward to is Chef's starchy gruel I'd rather just head to bed.” The third thug yawned and rubbed the back of his neck. His two comrades laughed.
The crunching of gravel beneath boots reached my ears. The sound was close, so I instinctively whipped my hand to the side and forced Crelyos and Oswald flat against the vehicle warehouse. Within a few seconds a man emerged from around the corner. The manner in which he rotated his shoulders suggested he drove the vehicle and ached from a long day of holding up his arms. As he closed the distance between himself and his three friends, he called out to them.
“Hey you three, heading to the chow hall so soon?” The man's words were laced with a grunted chuckle.
“Yeah, come join us,” One of the three cried out and gestured toward the building in the center with his thumb.
“You know we have to relieve the guard for the next few hours.” The man a few yards from us crossed his arms and shook his head. His three companions groaned and gripped their foreheads.
“Duc Raze is working us like slaves! Come on! We're hungry!” They grumbled.
“I know, but you know we're spread thin right now with all the hyped hunting parties. Those guards haven't been able to eat either. We'll get our turn. Teamwork, gents, teamwork! Haha! By the way, how many of the Raze Haven menfolk raiders came back?” The man attempted to change subjects; he was likely trying to take the men's minds off food.
“Ugh, you had to remind me,” One of the three distant bandits exclaimed as they all began walking toward the wall, “I've gotta babysit one of those groups tomorrow. Such bullshit.”
As the men neared the staircase leading to the top of the wall, I exchanged a glance with Crelyos. He nodded, and we rushed across the dusty earth in the direction of the group. Our footfalls were like the hushed sound of fingernails drumming atop paper mache. By the time the three men sauntering in our direction noticed our approach, we reached the man with his back to us.
A commotion atop the wall itself halted the alarmed eruption of their voices. From the corner of my eye, I noted three guards at the wall's apex gathering together. Two of them seemed to be pointing down the other side of the wall where Crelyos had dropped the corpses of his previous victims; one rushed to the edge facing us and cried aloud, “Quick, sound the alarm! We have intruders! The other guards up here were killed!”
“Everything just got a lot more complicated,” I thought as I closed in on my target.
File 14: The Duke of Flame
Apparently, the patrols rotated wide enough that even sentries from the other side of the wall eventually circled around to the side with the iron door. Frustrated, I continued to the men Crelyos and I marked as our prey. When I reached my particular target, I clenched my teeth and drove my foot into the back of the unsuspecting man's leg in perfect timing with the call to sound the alarm. His body gave from the force of my blow, and he dropped to a knee. I used momentum to propel myself over his surprised figure and toward his three friends. I tore my twin daggers free of their sheaths and twisted them so the blades faced down during my descent. As the three men struggled to free their firearms, the two closest to one another and in my direct path met a quick end. I shoved either blade down through the tops of their heads, simultaneously freeing both men from their mortal coil and cushioning the impact of my fall. Behind me, as soon as the man serving as my catapult dropped to a knee with a “Hey, what the—” Crelyos arrived and gripped the back of his head in his right hand. The sound of Crelyos' nanite became clear to me then, the crackle of vibration building up through his right arm tickled my heightened audio senses. He slammed the man's face into the dirt, and the exchange of force transferred the millions of units of stored vibration through Crelyos' palm and into the bandit's cranium. The explosive thud marked the discharge, and the spray of the man's brains and blood became the finished product. Though it still seemed rather mystical to me, understanding what transpired for the first time birthed a powerful sense of respect for Crelyos' capabilities.
The man on the wall gasped and gestured for his two allies to rush over while he synchronously aimed his rifle in my direction. The last man alive on the ground finished drawing his submachine gun with shaky hands and trained it on my body. I resolved myself to endure the pain of his hail of bullets and retrieved my daggers from the heads of his friends. “You monster!” he screamed.
The sound likely would have marked the moment his finger squeezed the trigger, but though I steeled myself to accept the pain of his revenge, I found myself pleasantly disappointed when a flying, headless corpse rammed into his body. As he toppled to the ground with a distinct “oof,” I glanced over to see Crelyos poised as though he had lobbed a beach ball. I wasted no time in plunging my dagger through the fallen man's skull, “Sorry, you're out,” I whispered as I twisted the dagger and yanked it free.
“Crelyos, the wall!” I called out. The man brandishing a rifle finished takin
g careful aim at my forehead. I harbored few qualms with preparing myself for a hail of nine millimeter rounds to the body, but a high-powered round to the forehead was a headache for which there was no ointment.
“On it!” Crelyos called back and rushed toward the fortification's perimeter. I followed in hot pursuit; I flipped both daggers around in my palm so the blades faced skyward. Just as the first man prepared to depress the trigger, one of his friends reached up and gripped his rifle.
“Hey, you know we can't fire that into the base! Duc Raze's orders! It could ignite his sludge!” The first man jerked his firearm away and took aim once again.
“The others almost lit this place up with submachine gun fire! It'll be fine!” He growled at his cautious ally.
“Yeah, but they didn't! They got iced, and it's a good thing, too! They could have blown us to hell!” His ally retorted.
“We don't have time for that! We have to alert the base anyway!” He shouted at his comrade.
“Then fire it into the air, stupid!” The “duh,” look that crossed the man's face as he shouted was priceless. Unfortunately for them, their hesitation would prove a fatal mistake.
After reaching the wall, Crelyos leapt as high as he could and attached his enormous hands to its jagged surface. As he hung, he twisted his head and shouted back in my direction, “Ihlia! Alley-oop!”
I understood even without his ancient terminology. The moment he drove his hands into the rock and the crumble of dislodged stones assured me of his secure grip, I activated my Supersoldier nanite and used my strengthened legs to launch up the side of the wall. The power of my propulsion granted me enough height to plant my feet onto his shoulders. With a second spurt of power, I leapt the remaining twenty feet needed to clear the top of the wall.
The brief second my face hovered mere inches from the enemy sniper's, I beheld in great detail the horrified lines of despair running like veins across his skin. After that second passed, however, I sailed over the top of his head and swiftly curled my body into a ball. I turned a front flip above him, and as my legs circled around, I flexed my ankles and drilled the heels of my boots into the center of his spine. Using him as a platform, I launched toward his two surprised allies like a rocket; unfortunately, a platform is generally far sturdier than a human body.
For every action, physics demanded an equal and opposite reaction. As I vaulted forward, the unfortunate man serving as my springboard cried out and toppled over the side of the wall. I passed between the two remaining guards and drew my arms across them in a blinding flash. The sing of steel as it cut through their throats left the two men gurgling. Try as they might using both hands, they were unable to stop the geyser of crimson life force spurting from their necks. To ensure their demise and end their suffering, I spun both blades around to face behind me and swung my arms back. The blades sunk into their brain stems with little resistance.
The shouts of the man who fell from the wall were stopped shortly after; I assumed Crelyos leapt from the wall to meet the flailing man midair. The former soldier's hand likely encompassed the thug's entire face, and as Crelyos descended he probably activated his nanite. The impact with the ground would be unfortunate for Raze's minion, for as Crelyos previously noted, the harder the impact, the stronger the vibrations transferred. The dull thunk that resulted from the strong chance that he drove the man's face into the ground ceased any further noise. I gingerly hopped from the wall myself and landed with the same grace Crelyos displayed the first time he landed; though given my small stature and light body, I was far quieter.
“Oh shit… oh damn, oh man. Intruders, what do I do? That's right, push this button… the alarm, yep.” Crelyos and I looked over to see a frantic bandit inching toward a giant red button near the vehicle hangar. I gritted my teeth; just when we succeeded in salvaging our stealth operation? That guy. No matter how far into the future mankind progressed, “that guy” would forever remain a cause for ire.
The man's finger quivered, but right before it reached the button, the soft sound of metal piercing flesh stopped him dead in his tracks. My brows relaxed, and I offered a few surprised blinks to the man; his tongue lolled from his mouth, and he muttered a few lines of drunken gibberish before collapsing to the ground. Oswald was left standing behind him holding an empty syringe.
“By Jove, it actually worked,” Oswald crossed his arms quizzically and stared at the needle between his fingers. Crelyos notably cringed.
The doctor continued, “I was saving this for our impertinent blond comrade if we ever needed to render him unconscious. It's an experimental serum designed to induce sleep and shut down Panacea more efficiently than current formulas. I've been working on a new formula designed to bypass, or trick, the activation programming of the nanite's AI more quickly to allow surgeons like myself to begin operating much sooner than current nanite anesthetics allow. Didn't expect such smashing results on a first attempt, though. Astonishing.” Oswald's self-satisfied smile was almost creepy.
“Fancypants, shh. Honestly.” Crelyos began rubbing his arms as though the cold weather cut through his skin. I knew better. Crelyos despised needles and anything related to them. With Panacea, most vaccinations were a thing of the past, so even as a military man he had rarely experienced the bite of a needle. I wondered if needles and other pointy objects remained part of the reason Crelyos refused to allow Oswald operational privileges on him.
After terminating the unconscious “that guy,” our group decided that swiftness was key. We held no knowledge as to the guard rotation schedule or the next time a hyped raiding party was due to return. Subtlety and haste would prove our closest allies, but as we rounded the corner and started across the main courtyard, the sight before us gave me pause. Behind the large rectangular chow hall, an ostentatious building similar in design to the houses in Loftsborough towered like a mansion over the other structures in the fortress. I understood what Mayor Trumark meant when he claimed Raze revised their entire architecture. The inspiration for the strange abodes in Loftsborough was clearly that giant attempt at “artistecture.”
“Yep, that's his house. He calls it his chateau.” Crelyos seemed completely unaffected by its appearance.
If the combination of blocked corners, random unnecessary arches, and asymmetrical spires jutting from random areas of the roof were not enough to conjure a gag reflex, then the color scheme would assuredly do the trick. Blinding white swirls colored the foundation of the house just below the first floor windows. The yellow columns supporting the roof matched the rest of the first level up to the second story windows. Above that, gaudy florescent red paints that I thought no longer existed splattered the remaining height of Raze's dwelling; the entire pallete looked like the crime lord had offered a paint bucket to a toddler. The most sickening part was that, despite the horrible presentation, I was able to discern that Raze wanted to portray his house as a roaring fire.
“Let's just get this over with…” I placed a hand on my forehead, and our group returned to its stealthy infiltration. We passed the chow hall with relative ease, and as the general population of Raze's gang either slept, ate, or died, slipping into his chateau proved as easy as opening the door and sauntering inside. The smell of sludge diminished considerably, but a mix of lingering grime and a synthetic concoction resembling old world perfume replaced it. I honestly felt, for a moment, that the odor outside seemed more inviting. The interior of Raze's sanctuary differed little from its exterior. With the flamboyant colors and pseudo-artistic patterns decorating the walls, I understood why Crelyos claimed the man suffered from madness.
“Hm, I don't like it. Way too easy to get in; last time I was here he had the place crawlin' with guards.” Crelyos scratched his chin as we continued inside.
The main hall in which we stood consisted of an enormous open floor; it reminded me of an ancient ballroom dancing hall like the ones in antique Victorian ma
nsions showed to us in historical films. Situated above the expansive floor, a second story accessed by ornate, curved staircases on opposite ends of the room loomed overhead. A long, polished steel table stretched across the balcony; atop its surface sat several stone bowls of salvaged nonperishable rare foods, and in the center of the table, a large container sat with an open lid. The faint smell of sludge seeped from it.
Toward the back of the elevated balcony, several monitors lined the wall displaying every nook and cranny of the compound which we just invaded. I even noted the corpses of several men lying dead on the screens. Surveillance systems? Oh no, that meant that our surprise attack was actually…
The sound of methodic applause interrupted my thoughts. A man seemed to float from his seat at the end of the table toward the rail designed to prevent an individual from a nasty fall off the balcony. When he stood, he slid slender fingers around a fine steel chalice embroidered with dirty but nevertheless impressive gemstones. As his free hand came to rest against the rail, his form was illuminated in all its androgynous glory. Long tresses of blond hair more silken than my own flowed about his shoulders. His bangs, parted to one side to dramatically cover one of his crystal blue eyes, defied gravity as they bounced with his every breath.
He donned a white suit with a red shirt beneath, and bright scarlet frills framed his entire ensemble. Frills jutted from his collar; frills jutted from his wrist and ankle cuffs; frills even jutted from his leather belt. Attached to the fancy belt, a strap holding a rapier sat in perfectly poised position against his hip. His black shoes shined like obsidian and even possessed a makeshift buckle and strap.
“Felicitations, mon ami! I knew zat your head was more zhen just a place to hold zat pretty face, oui?” His voice made me cringe. In fact, every time a morbidly forced 'z' replaced one of his 'th' sounds, I died a little inside. The accent was not merely fake; it was abysmally fake. I shook my head and stepped forward.
NANO Archive 01: The City of Fire Page 16
