At The Hands Of Madness

by Kevin Holton

  “Good. Knowing you, the recruits are all set, too. You both trained today?” His six-cylinder voice rumbled, ready to roar into action at a moment’s notice.

  “Yeah.” Ammo could get scarce, so my training involved a BB gun and carrying my rifle around to make sure I could physically handle it. Steve and I would occasionally box to keep ourselves prepped for hand-to-hand, just in case of human targets like raiders, and to help with weapon recoil.

  “Me too.” Allessandra didn’t use firearms. Her training consisted of meditation, to keep herself focused, and using her psychokinetic abilities, to keep herself ready. She scared the living hell out of some newer recruits, but those of us who knew her well weren’t exactly used to her powers either.

  “Good. Take a break, then. Dinner should be in a few.”

  “Thanks.” We didn’t bother to ask if he’d join us. Damien himself didn’t know—never did. He always joined last-minute, based largely on how his newest endeavor captivated him, and whether we’d been in combat that day.

  We returned to the main concourse, where, in the center of everything, sat a firepit with a variety of cooking stations, rotisserie set-up, and tables to eat at. Steve, a burly, tan-skinned man of roughly 6-3 and maybe three hundred and fifty pounds, sat at a picnic table, relaxing. “Yo, Heartbreaker,” he said, voice booming its way over to us as he addressed me by my call sign. He had a long, scraggly beard and a mop of black curls on top of his oddly cherubic face and squashed up nose.

  “Hey, NAFTA.” His callsign made more sense than his actual name.

  “Hello, Steve,” Allessandra added.

  He gave a hearty hello, addressing her by her regular name. Though we were all pretty casual about them, and most came from some stupid joke, her call sign wasn’t one to laugh at: Mindcrusher.

  “How’s things?”

  We shrugged. “All’s good on our end,” I replied. “You?”

  “Waitin’ on Cindy.”

  Cindy was Grover’s callsign, not that anyone would know if they didn’t know him, first. Once you spent time around him, it was pretty obvious why he’d been dubbed Cindy. It was partially a joke about him getting the unpleasant chores around camp, the name being short for ‘Cinder.’ He also served as our pyrotechnician.

  Steve and Grover were one of the few people in our group with a semblance of actual friendship. They’d known each other before Medraka’s arrival, and allegedly, due to their mutual love of video games, comic books, and all things chaos, they charged straight into battle, treating the arrival of a monstrous, headless kaiju as, essentially, a boss battle to be overcome. So far, they’d managed not to get themselves killed, even though each yelled “Dibs!” the moment the Phranna showed up. Steve handled heavy ordinance—any form of explosive, really. RPG, grenades, flashbangs, dynamite, C4, if it exploded, he was in charge. Anything but incendiary weapons. He always left fire to his buddy.

  Grover, by contrast, was wiry, of average height, and light skinned with short hair. He used to have diabetes, but gene splicing cured him. It also granted him pyrokinesis, which he often referred to as a happy accident. He hadn’t even bothered to learn to use guns, because, well, why would he? Bullets weren’t as effective as fireballs, and he never had to worry about ammo. The worst-case scenario would just leave him fatigued.

  We didn’t have to wait long. At that moment, Grover came stumbling back from the latrine. Looking over at Steve, he said, “You ever piss for so long you get thirsty, so you start drinking water, but then the water makes you have to piss more, and you wind up pissing for so long you start feeling awkward and laugh about it to yourself, then laugh even harder because of how weird it is that you’re laughing about pissing and then you get piss everywhere?”

  “Yes,” Steve said.

  Grover looked over, a momentary expression of surprise on his face before he grinned sheepishly. “Oh, hi. Don’t worry, that totally didn’t happen to me. On an unrelated note, where’s the Windex?”

  I directed him to a supply closet nearby and he walked off. “Gotta give him credit. The guy’s got no sense of shame. Good for keeping morale up.”

  “Do you think he washed his hands?” Allessandra said.

  “God, I hope so.”

  Now I couldn’t stop thinking about it, because nothing smells worse than burned piss, except a person who’s been turned inside out. I’d seen that happen maybe three times and it was always a mind-shattering assault on the senses. Seeing it is hard enough, but I had the misfortune of being close to someone when Medraka inverted the person, literally dragging the person’s brain right out his asshole.

  No one should ever have to see, hear, or smell that. I just prayed I’d never find out what it felt like.

  The last time was definitely the worst, though.

  A scout caught our attention, running up breathlessly. “People! We have a, uh, visitor? Guest? New recruit, maybe? I dunno.” Their training didn’t cover formal courier or announcement duties, mostly just getting the job done and staying alive, so these young punks improvised. At least it got the point across.

  Another scout came up with a woman in her late twenties with a sharp nose and angry eyes. Her expression was serious, jaw set with resolve, ready to put up a fight before one even started. She’d folded her arms over her chest, trying to give an appearance of toughness, but I got the feeling she was compensating for vulnerability elsewhere. Damien sidled up beside me and I jumped, surprised at how stealthy he’d been for such a gruff guy.

  “Who’s this?” he said to me.

  “No clue.”

  “New recruit, I hear?”

  “Sounds about right.”

  “What you think of her?”

  I shrugged. “Tough, in a soft way.”

  “I got the same feeling.”

  He nodded and approached her, extending a hand. “Damien. I run this operation.”

  Glancing warily at his hand, the woman shook it. “Mari. I want to fight Medraka.”

  “Okay,” Damien said, unfazed. Of course she did. Saying you wanted to kill the headless monster crushing out life and destroying whole cities was the same as saying you like puppies, or that the sky is blue. “How do you plan to do that?”

  She cast a glance at Allessandra, Steve, and I. “Figured you all would have an idea. A void to fill, a… a need, somewhere.”

  He looked over at us too. “Most of our front-line people all have specializations. Something that sets them apart from other soldiers. A steady hand for sniping, unusual gifts, the propensity to blow up literally everything in god damn sight at a moment’s notice.” NAFTA grinned proudly. “What do you bring to the table?”

  “Anger and determination,” she replied, voice steady, never breaking eye contact.

  Damien thought for a moment. “Good enough. Why us, though?”

  Now the woman hesitated. “No one else would let me join.”

  “Why not?”

  She bit her lip. Tapped her foot. Looked away. “I’m… pregnant.”

  Our leader hesitated too. “You know it’s not exactly safe out there, right?”

  “I do, but either I die in the field, or I die sitting around. Are you also going to deny a mother the right to fight for her child’s future?”

  With a wry smirk, Damien said, “Not at all. My call sign’s OPR. One of my crew will set you up with an earpiece, so you can contact any of the specialists, should you need to. You’ll be kept close to the Core Division until Hennessy talks with you more. Typically, I wouldn’t invite a non-specialist into the main fold, but given your condition, I figure we should avoid unnecessary risks. Not gonna stop you from fighting, just avoiding extra risk.”

  Grover chose this rather opportune moment to return, Windex dangling from a single curled finger. “Who’s that?”

  Steve piped up. “Tough ass pregnant chick who wants to kill the kaiju with Mom Rage.”

  “Nice.”

  There was something reassuring and equally worrisome about the
fact that no one cared who she was, or her pregnancy, so long as she was willing to fight. The parental instinct in me wanted to object and keep her off the front line, but I knew better than to say anything. Those instincts had let me down before.

  Damien sauntered over to us four, speaking low. “Okay, so we’ll be taking her in, not that I have a position for her. We really don’t need any other people running guard patrols, so talk to her. See what she’s like. Get a feel for her background, her history, what she’d be good or bad at. You,” he added, looking at me, “you’re a good speaker, so give her a tour.”

  “Don’t want to give that tour yourself, Boss?”

  “Nope,” he said, walking back to The Scrapyard. I could’ve sworn I saw him smile, but didn’t press it.

  “Okay,” I sighed. “Tour duty’s on me.”

  “Good, ‘cause I don’t know half of these people.” Grover looked around at our various guards, grunts, and radio crew. “I’d be a terrible tour guide, just making it up as I go. I mean, I can tag along and do that if you want, spice things up, make them more interesting, fake names and all that.”

  Allessandra leaned around me to look at him. “Shouldn’t you be cooking?”

  “Oh, crap, yeah.” He laughed, a grin splitting his face as he turned back to Steve. “Dude, where’d I leave the onions?”

  “The hell’s that mean, ‘Where’d I leave the onions?’ How the fuck would I know?”

  I shook my head and walked over to Mari. “Hi there,” I extended my hand. “My name is Hennessy Jones. Nice to meet you.”

  With a glance at Allessandra, who had elected to stay back and watch Grover and Steve trip over themselves, she said, “Quite a team you’ve got here.” Her tone stung with a hint of sarcasm, but not enough to suggest she regretted coming to us. Like her attitude, her voice had a suggestion of deep-seated vulnerability, each word annunciated with the stopping thud of a brick through a windshield. She wanted to be the brick so she could stop being the glass.

  “We try, Mari. Mind if I ask what brought you here?”

  “I want to fight for my child. For its future. For everyone’s future. Do I need a better reason?” She scrutinized me.

  “No,” I said, slowly, “but I doubt that’s the only reason. Medraka showed up over a year ago. You’re not showing, so your pregnancy is recent, but not too recent, or you wouldn’t know for sure. So… I figure something happened to bring you here. You don’t have to tell me what, but I thought it’d be polite to ask.”

  Mari’s gaze softened, her barrier broken. “You’re observant, aren’t you? You take your aim and shoot for the heart.”

  “I’m the sniper. Call sign’s Heartbreaker. So, yes, that’s exactly what I do.”

  She almost looked surprised, maybe intimidated, but pressed her lips into a resolute line and said, “My husband… he went out to fight it. About two months ago, in a battle about two hundred miles north of here. He died there. Figured… This is the only way I can do him justice. Revenge.”

  I nodded. “Can I ask his name?”

  “James Crones. I’m Mari Crones, but I assume you figured that out.”

  I had, and I recognized that name. “James Crones… stationed with the Shadow Fox militia, right? A battalion out of Chicago?”

  Confusion, a pause, a look of shock. “How’d you know that?”

  With a sigh, I decided my turn to confess something had come. “I also fought at that battle. My son… died there.” We didn’t need to go into how he died.

  We fell silent, with only the wind, jogging newbie recruits, and Grover babbling incessantly about potatoes and his ‘proud Irish heritage’ to break the tension.

  “Medraka did a number on a lot of people there, but still, I’m sorry for your loss. No matter how many die, each remains a tragedy,” I said. Death brings people together, and these days, we couldn’t pass up a chance to band tighter and fight harder, side by side, for our collective future.

  Besides, we had something in common. I wanted revenge too.

  She nodded. “I’m sorry for your loss, Hennessy.”

  “Well, they say the only guarantees are death and taxes, and I don’t pay taxes anymore, so I guess my options are pretty low.” I tried to smile. Her face remained unchanged. “Bad joke. Sorry. Let’s go meet the others.”

  Chapter 2

  Grover and Steve were laying out ingredients as we walked up. Mari already met Damien, so I figured we didn’t need to bother him. Allessandra watched from the sidelines, sitting on a cooler, eyes occasionally flicking off to the side to acknowledge something exclusive to her version of reality.

  “Everybody,” I called. “This is Mari. She’s with us now, it seems.”

  “Ah, the more the merrier, right?” Grover began juggling two onions in one hand, cycling them up and down, endlessly.

  “Party on,” chimed Steve, before turning back to Grover. “Holy fuckin’ balls on rye, would you stop playing with the food? You dropped, like, all the potatoes yesterday.”

  “So? They come from the ground! What’s a little extra dirt?”

  I led Mari away, because they could keep up those conversations for hours.

  “So here’s the run-down.” I pointed as I went along. “That’s Allessandra, over there. No guns for her. She just uses psychic powers. Acquired them through an implant of some kind. I’ve only been here two months. Since Shadow Fox. I haven’t really pried. Seems rude to show up out of nowhere and start asking about the medical devices lodged in someone’s brain.”

  Stepping out of the main concourse, I directed her attention to the medical tents, supply stations, and guest lodging, where she’d be staying until we arranged a more permanent placement. A small cadre of younger faces jogged past, nodding at us, not breaking stride. “Lisa is somewhere around here. She’s a vet, joined to whip our grunts and newbies into shape. Surprisingly chill. More tactical than anything else, but she has a variety of bionic limbs to swap out for different battle needs. Lost her right arm when Medraka first showed up. Popped on a replacement and kept kicking ass. Her callsign is Warrior.”

  We circled back to the main area, because a militia camp doesn’t exactly have a lot in the way of sightseeing. Dinner would be up soon anyway, and those new to Hyperion generally got a kick out of watching that happen. Grover and Steve kept bantering, barely noticing our return.

  Turning to the two goons arguing over what kind of onions to use for dinner, I said, “That’s Grover, callsign Cindy, and Steve, callsign NAFTA. Steve’s the tall one. He’s our explosions, demolition, grenades, heavy ordinance guy. We get him out in the field first because all his weapons are area-of-effect, you know? Blow you to pieces if you’re not careful. Can’t use that crap in close quarters. Otherwise, he does our heavy lifting.”

  “So, big and loud, just like him?”

  “Yeah pretty much,” I laughed. “He and Grover were friends long before all this started. Grover’s the scrawny, shirtless goof with the food. From what I understand, he used to have all sorts of illnesses, and decided to undergo gene splicing as an experimental treatment. The doctors cured him, and also accidentally gave him a few other gifts. The program got real popular after that, I hear, but became far more exclusive after someone tried creating Spiderman and instead wound up with Arachne. Either way, it’s pretty helpful having him around.”

  “I’m the best,” Grover beamed, flashing his biggest toothy grin.

  Mari snorted, giving him a half smile. “So what guns do you use?”

  “What huh do I use?” Grover said.

  “Guns,” Mari said.

  “Don’t play this game. He’s an idiot.” I tried to warn her, but she didn’t get it.

  “Play what game?” Mari looked over at me.

  “I just don’t know what word you just used. Is there another?” Grover feigned confusion.

  “You don’t know the word ‘guns’?”

  “Nope. Steve, you know what she’s trying to say?”

  Steve l
ooked his way. “I think she means firearms.”

  “FIREARMS?” he yelled, raising his hands to the sky as his arms burst into flame. I’d learned to avert my eyes by this point so as to not be blinded by the ignition, but Mari cried out, shielding her face. Grover laughed hysterically, fire forming from the air around him, enveloping his limbs. The same weird, broken physics that allowed him to create fire from nothing and not get burned in the process also kept his clothing from burning off, which was great, because our group might’ve been supported by the local government, but it definitely wouldn’t have had enough of a budget to keep him clothed.

  “Jesus, fuck!” Mari shouted. “Warn a girl next time, alright?”

  “You got it.”

  “Ten-to-one that he’ll forget.” She deserved a heads up.

  “Yeah, I’m not putting a lot of stock in the dude who, I’m guessing, cooks bacon with his shirt off.”

  He looked down at his bare chest. “How else do you cook it?”

  A harsh blare sliced through the mundanity. The camp’s alarm. We all jerked around as a few lower-ranked members shouted in confusion.

  Grover raised a flaming hand. “No, guys, it’s okay, it was just me! We’re fine!”

  Damien sprinted up, an equipment bag over his shoulder. “Phranna, a mile out!”

  “Oh, thank god, they weren’t sounding it over me again.” Grover, still on fire, smiled at Steve. “What do you say: time to rock this bitch?”

  Steve nodded with a smirk. “Smash and sizzle.”

  Scowling, Damien tossed me and Steve our weapon kits. It would only take me a few seconds to reassemble my weapon at this point, so I usually waited until in position. Allessandra had already sprinted off toward the commotion, ready to throw herself into the action, with Grover hot on her heels. Steve picked up a grenade launcher and an attaché case, tossing a cluster of flashbangs to Mari “just in case,” then raced after them.

  “I didn’t ask for this!” Mari’s yells fell on empty air.

  “Nobody ever does.” I loaded my weapon. “Most times, you call in bomb drops or plant explosives way ahead of time to make sure the field’s clear of friendlies beforehand, but he just unloads. That’s why his callsign means ‘Nobody asked for this, asshole.’ It’s an acronym.”