At The Hands Of Madness

by Kevin Holton

  “Wonderful.” She sprinted off toward the action, leaving the grenades behind.

  Concerned, I grabbed a spare shotgun from a munitions tent on the way, just in case, because you couldn’t face the Phranna unarmed, unless you wanted to wind up un-armed in the most literal sense possible.

  Darting through our camp, newbies who I’d never had the chance to meet swarmed toward our perimeter. I may not have known them, but they appeared to know me well enough to cut me a little bit of a berth. Or maybe it was that I was running full-tilt with a shotgun in hand, and you don’t get in someone’s way in such a situation. Whatever the case, I bounded up the rickety, improvised wooden stairs to my favorite vantage point: a thirty-foot-high section of wall from a building that had collapsed during one of the first Medraka attacks. It offered the best view of the areas east of our camp, and also had nice symbolism. From a place the foul beast had ravaged, I could protect my people, slaughtering its fetid children one by one, precise, steady, and unrelenting.

  “One bullet.” I whispered my mantra, opening my kit and assembling the gun. “One kill.”

  My weapon of choice, the Black Widow Mark X, used a variety of mankind’s latest technological enhancements, including a predictive scope that tracked enemy movements and highlighted the best place to shoot, so I could split a Phranna’s heart right down the middle no matter what it was doing. It also used a quantum accelerant field to convert recoil into bullet momentum, eliminating any kickback while making the bullet travel that much faster.

  The Phranna, a chittering horde of hard-backed, humanoid-bug hybrid creatures, were drawing closer. They were bluish-gray, the color of long-dead bodies, and smelled almost as bad, preferring to attack by either slicing someone apart with the sharp undersides of their many-jointed arms, or by biting into their prey with unhinging mandibles. Their limbs bore an uncanny resemblance to human limbs, except for the chitinous armor, color, and razor-sharp plating that could slice someone in half with a single swing.

  These hostiles were fast, but not fast enough for me to start picking them off. Bang! And one fell, tripping those behind it. Bang! Another fell. Bang! Three kills, five seconds.

  “Heartbreaker, doing what he does best.” Cindy’s voice crackled through my Bluetooth.

  “My turn. Heads!”

  A far different bang resounded as the battlefield shook, with at least ten disappearing in a cloud of dirt and thick, green blood. NAFTA laughed triumphantly, his booming laugh still audible over the ringing in my ears. Razor sharp limbs hurtled through the air, a few embedding in the walls of my perch. The swarm continued forward, so I squeezed off another few rounds, glancing over to see where Steve was aiming, then choosing the furthest possible target. It was important to take them out from all possible directions. Also, I didn’t want to go blind by staring directly at an explosion through a 10x magnified scope. Being blind would really hamper my ability to shoot.

  Horde closing in, NAFTA fired off another two grenade rounds, wrecking the front line, leaving holes to trip them up. Still, they scampered over the pieces of their allies, undeterred. “Cindy! Light ‘em up!” From the sidelines, he opened his attaché case.

  Charging out of the camp, Grover laughed wildly, fire engulfing his whole body. I’d known them long enough to know he’d only waited to give his buddy a chance to wreak havoc without being afraid of blowing him up, too. Now, seeing the burning man racing toward them, some of the Phranna slowed, confused. I took my opportunity to score a few additional kills before Cindy stole the show. One miss, four kills.

  While far less precise, Grover racked up far more kills far quicker, extending his hands like flamethrowers, shooting columns of flesh-melting heat off to the sides.

  Despite his lackadaisical attitude at pretty much all other times, he knew how to use his powers damn well. His flame jets closed in, centering in from the sides, funneling the Phranna down the middle and scorching those who couldn’t squeeze in tight enough. It was like watching those action movies where the hero is almost crushed by the walls closing in, except in this case, the bad guys were in danger. And they weren’t getting squished, they were melting.

  Then I realized we were short a few people. Grunts lined the base area, but Grover and Steve had this pretty much covered, so where was Allessandra, or Damien? I checked in over the Bluetooth. Damien needed a minute to get his latest mech in gear—startup took longer than he planned. Allessandra hummed into her mic, which meant good things. No news from the new woman, whose name I blanked on in the commotion. Looking around, I sprinted down the stairs, catching sight of an infantry woman glancing between Grover and something to the right.

  “You!” I pointed. “What’s going on?”

  She swallowed hard. “More from the south, sir!”

  “Damn it!” Those two might’ve been idiots six days out of seven, but they didn’t need help ripping the Phranna apart. The others sure as hell might. New woman in particular. I sprinted off to the southern edge of our encampment, finding a far worse scene than the one I left. Mari was hanging back by the edge, where I skittered to a stop. She watched in fascination and horror as Allessandra stood in the center of the battlefield, a few foot soldiers backing her up with submachine guns or heavy pistols. We’d already lost a few of our own here, one poor kid of barely 15 sitting frozen on the ground with his own head in his lap. The Phranna lost more than a few, thanks in large part to Allessandra. She fought like a dance, weaving around her enemies as they swung for her, and, with a flick of her wrist, telekinetically ripped their arms off, or tore their armor off, giving the others more weak points to shoot.

  “You weren’t kidding about her using powers,” the new woman—Mari—said.

  “No.” I crouched, taking aim. “I wasn’t.”

  Bang! Bang! Bang! Three kills. The sound distracted Allessandra though. She turned for an instant, eyes on me. Then one of those bug bastards grabbed her, clamping its almost-human hands down tight on her upper arms, mandibles spreading to bite off her head. Pushing her arms back, it drove its blades along her rib cage, drawing blood on both sides as she cried out. Looking up with a sharp glare, she snarled and its head exploded backwards, as if shot point-blank by a 50-caliber round. Stumbling free of its grip as the creature died, Allessandra dropped to the ground, a shockwave spreading out from its human epicenter, blasting the others back in a spray of blood and organs. Her instinctive, defensive attack thankfully didn’t kill any of our own. I told myself this didn’t count as a loss of control.

  “Where’s your leader?” Mari asked as I landed another two kills.

  “Technical difficulty.” Another kill. The plating over their chests had a slight gap right over the heart. Every bullet landed perfectly in that grove, except for the occasional miss. A perfect Death Star destroying bolt. Had to be perfect, when all other options were failure. “Here. Brought you a shotgun.” Two kills.

  Then Mari flitted past my crosshairs, sprinting into battle. I glanced over. She’d left the gun behind. “What the hell?” I screamed after her. Grabbing the ice-cold double barrel, I picked up the shotgun and chased her. “Take your damn weapon!”

  Turns out, she didn’t need one. Or my help, at all. She raced toward one of our grunts, a woman who took aim at the mouth of a Phranna looming over her, and click, found herself out of bullets. Practically laughing, the creature swung down, slicing her arm off at the shoulder. She screamed, falling backward, as Mari broke into a run. With a swing of her arm, a blade extended from her forearm, just below the elbow, and she leaped over the fallen soldier, cutting off the Phranna’s arm in turn.

  “Yeah, doesn’t feel so good, does it?” Mari said as it reared back. She drove the blade between its chest plates, right into its heart, then extended a second blade from her other arm, running straight at the masses. I guess she’d been watching me closer than I thought, but this changed everything. Our new recruit was a Nanite, or at least partly one, and hadn’t thought to mention it? Damien would be fur
ious.

  More Phranna were charging in, and despite Allessandra’s death dance, my sniping, and Mari’s whirlwind of blades, there were too many. They were gaining ground, approaching our camp faster. I took out those that slipped by, but even without missing, one kill at a time wasn’t going to be enough.

  To my immense relief, all six-foot-three of Lisa Brovsky, callsign Warrior, raced out of our camp. “Sorry I’m late,” she said, pausing near me. “I’d been repairing my blaster when they attacked, didn’t stop to put in my Bluetooth. Good thing I was almost done anyway.”

  Raising her right arm, she took a half-second to show off her new-and-improved bionic arm cannon. It used, in her words, “electro-magnetic fields, photovoltaic cells, chaos theory, and some other fun shit” to essentially fire an energy blast that was equal parts light, electricity, and terrifying.

  A group of four Phranna circled past Allessandra, approaching our camp in a section that didn’t have any grunts guarding it. Lisa closed the distance easily, her height and strength allowing her long strides to keep pace with the creatures, and took aim. For a weapon that could fire six rounds a second, it sure wasn’t lacking in power. The first two blew off a single Phranna’s legs. The second took off an arm, the third, a head, and the last three punched a hole straight through the fourth’s chest. Stabilizing her blaster with her left hand, she charged the beam, and the resulting blast not only removed the second Phranna’s head, but most of its back and torso. They didn’t even bleed. Her blasts scorched the wounds closed, leaving black, charred flesh in its wake. She approached the one she’d disabled as it crawled along the ground, raised her foot, and stomped hard, snapping its neck.

  “West! From the west!” someone shouted. Mari turned to Allessandra, but they clearly knew they were needed here. Lisa glanced over at me with a nod.

  As much as I wanted to watch these sirens sing the Phranna into eternal sleep, I raced back, grabbing my sniper. We were good, but not this good—outflanked on three sides, essentially under siege. Usually, they only attacked from one side at a time. Guess our luck ran out that day.

  Unlike the south, the west did have some vantage point fortifications. I paused for only a second, grabbing some idiot standing around with his mouth agape, and said, “Get Damien! Now!” He raced off, and I charged up to my perch.

  There were at least a hundred, and only a half mile off. Given their speed, I’d be able to kill maybe twenty. Thirty if I pushed it, but then I risked missing.

  I took aim. Bang! Bang! Some stumbled over fallen bodies, but this didn’t help much. Our foot units charged forward, no doubt hoping to stem the tide with their meager weapons. One was immediately eviscerated, left to hold his organs in with his hands as he choked on his own blood. Bang! Miss. Bang! Kill.

  Another three rounds, two misses, Fuck! A boy who couldn’t have been older than seventeen was lifted into the air, and the Phranna holding him bit a chunk out of his side. I killed it, but not before it killed him. A girl—his girlfriend?—screamed and rushed to his side, only to have her head sliced off on the way, her body stumbling, taking a few steps without her, then collapsing at his side.

  We didn’t have many, and we were losing more than we could afford, and it was my fault because I missed three times already, three god damn times! Five rounds, one miss, loaded in a new cartridge, they were only a third of a mile out, Fuck, fuck! Two rounds, two misses. An older man was punched in the skull so hard I could hear the bone break from a football field away, the attacking Phranna looming over him, quartering him, leaving him limbless and screaming, red drenching the cracked brown earth. I didn’t know if my next round should be in the Phranna’s heart or his, but this was life now, this was war in the time of Medraka, where every move was a panicked, split-second decision between vengeance and mercy. My hands shook, cold sweat slick along my grip as I raised my gun, trying not to hear him, trying not to consider his pain and fear, trying to let this be a moment of centered rationality. My gun had never been so heavy, nor my heart so loud.

  Heavy stomping echoed through the area, and I almost shit myself as my heart stopped. Medraka? I thought, looking around, not wanting to scream and cause a panic, but no, it wasn’t the kaiju. A fifteen-foot-tall mech strode onto the battlefield, waving an arm, giving the signal for me to stand down. It was paneled with unadorned steel, no paint or markings, no insignias or war signs. Damien’s latest creation had weaponry built into every limb and joint; I could see enough guns for an army, and there were certainly more hidden in its guts. This had been built to destroy indiscriminately, a sentinel whose presence said, Let all those who oppose me perish.

  I obeyed, lowering my gun, and with one sweep, it unleashed a concentrated red blast from its eyes, cutting through at least twenty of them.

  The rest skittered to a stop.

  Raising its arms, the sentinel took aim with wrist-mounted, high caliber guns, each firing one round per second, never once missing. Huge bullets tore the remaining horde to pieces, splattering misshapen organs along the field. The forty or so it had within its sights didn’t survive the first minute of its attack.

  Right—this was why Damien served as our leader. In times like this, you don’t defer to the person with the best managerial skills. When life is about survival, you follow whoever has the most power, and so long as there were two pieces of metal to weld together, Damien would carve a swath through the Phranna that made The Harrowing of Hell look like Sunday brunch.

  Grover and Allessandra were pretty powerful too, but their power was biological. It had limits. If they were tired, hungry, sick, wounded, whatever, then they wouldn’t be able to fight at full capacity. Damien could set his ‘skills’ to autopilot and destroy an army with his eyes closed.

  The sentinel, as I’d decided to call it, looked over the battlefield, satisfied, then walked toward the southern fields. I scampered down from my perch to attend to the limbless man, who wasn’t too far, but just far enough that, if our medics hadn’t been paying attention, they might not have noticed him.

  By the time I got there, he died. He’d bled out, or gone into shock, or something. I don’t know, I’m not a healer. I’m a sniper. That had always been my job: to take a step back, take a breath, and execute. Before Medraka, every coworker at every job I held knew me by that role, as the decision maker, the one who could come in at any conflict and find the best decision for the whole staff. Here, on the blood-drenched soil of yet another battle against the Phranna, all I could do was reach over and shut his eyes. It wasn’t much, but in a situation like this, it had to be enough.

  Chapter 3

  While I was paying my respects to those who’d been eviscerated, decapitated, dismembered, bled out, and otherwise killed during that last attack, a different conflict was brewing. At first, I ignored it, figuring the loud but indistinct voices were just people cheering, celebrating a good kill, or, like me, mourning the dead. I grew suspicious when the sound didn’t fade away, so I figured I’d address the grunts. More died here on the western front than the other two sides, and Damien found himself indisposed, so morale fell to me.

  Smug Boy laid among the dead, eyes wide, apparently unharmed. I’d later learn he had a heart defect. Shock stopped him in his tracks, dropping him to the ground before he even managed to raise his gun. If he’d stayed in school, he might’ve died at a track meet, or on a football field, or he might’ve lived to thirty-five only to leave a wife and two kids crying over his grave. This knowledge didn’t make it easier.

  The number of teens who’d died fighting Medraka made it harder every time.

  A few looked pale or downright green, so to avoid them puking on our fallen allies, I lined them up. “Today was a victory, even if it doesn’t feel like one. If you, like me, are as concerned, or more concerned, by those we’ve lost than the fact that we stood our ground and survived, good. Backwards though it may seem, that’s a good sign.

  “For most people on Earth, life goes on. Kids are still indoors, play
ing games or going to school. Parents still work, and take their little ones to restaurants. In cities just like this,” I pointed to our Great Bend, “there are people meeting up in bars after their nine-to-five every week. We’re the dividing line. We’re the wall that keeps chaos at bay. We can’t afford to lose a single brick, but we will. That’s just how a life like this works.

  “If the death of an ally sickens, frightens, or enrages you, hold onto that pain. Use it. Whether you want to channel that energy into fortifying defenses, developing weapons, or just training that much harder so you can kill more the next time, make it count. Own your pain, because it comes from empathy. It comes from wanting to prevent death and suffering. If we lose our ability to care about the lives around us, then we’ve already lost.

  “We don’t fight wars to survive, we fight to survive together. So go. Pay your respects to the fallen. Grover, as most of you know, will attend to them later. In the meanwhile, I’ll be attending to…” I looked toward the southern fields, where the loudness had clearly become arguing, “…other matters. We’ll have a funeral later, and send these brave souls on their way to whatever’s next. Just remember that they gave their lives so we could keep ours. It’s only right that we do them the final service of respecting their memories.”

  My company nodded, so I walked off toward the commotion, mumbling, “And please don’t puke on their bodies.” While I wasn’t about to say such a thing to them, I couldn’t resist saying it in hopes that, like a prayer or incantation, speaking the words aloud would prevent that from coming to pass.

  By the time I arrived at the source of all the noise, all the other members of the Core had gathered to watch Mari arguing with Damien. It was almost amusing, with her five-foot-five staring up at the ‘head’ of his fifteen-foot-tall mech, but their words quickly wiped any sense of fun out of the situation.