by Paul Tassi
“It’s not … going to do anything,” he said weakly. “Save that for yourself, you’ll … probably need it.”
It was true. The small vials of gel were simply disappearing into the gaping holes all over his body. There wasn’t enough to stitch one of the gashes up, much less all of them.
“It’s fine … I … I just need to find someone, and they can come help,” Lucas said frantically, his hands now slippery with blood.
Silo shook his head.
“There is no one. And if there was, they couldn’t do anything for this.”
It was clear Silo couldn’t move his arms or legs, which were sprawled out uselessly around him. Lucas wasn’t eager to see what his spine looked like if the rest of him was this mangled.
“They’ll fix you. You people can fix anyone.”
“There’s no fixing dead,” Silo said with a painful chuckle. “Even we … haven’t figured that one out yet.”
Lucas emptied another gel vial into a wound.
“Stop,” Silo said calmly.
“Stop.”
Lucas finally obeyed, and dropped a quartet of now-empty vials on the ground. His head was throbbing and he felt like he was on fire.
“You don’t have much time, you’ve got … got to get out of here. They’ll be coming.”
It was Lucas’s turn to shake his head.
“No, I’m not just going to leave you here.” A thought occurred to him. “Do you know what happened to the ship? Was it shot down?”
Silo winced before speaking. The ground was drenched beneath him.
“Seems like it, though I can’t say for sure. I was in cryo, woke up … out here. Been running around for a few days. Ran into these guys with only a makeshift pike, but I think I did … pretty well.”
Silo attempted a smirk. The slashes across his face made Lucas cringe just looking at them.
“You know, I never got to thank you … for those credits,” Silo said.
“What credits?” Lucas said, caught off guard by the shift in topic.
“That … 50,000 marks you threw me back in Elyria. Might have been pocket change for the Earthborn, but that’s a lot … a lot where I’m from. Sent my little brother … to flight school.”
“Oh,” Lucas said, embarrassed. “It was nothing.”
“Maybe, but that kid’s going to be an ace pilot someday … thanks to you.”
“It’s more because of you, I’m sure,” Lucas said.
Silo pressed on.
“And I’m sorry about the fight on the Spear. They … juiced me for that. Made me so mad it was like you’d just slept with my sister or something.”
He paused, drawing a wheezing breath from punctured lungs, and continued.
“I would have killed you without thinking twice. Even without the drugs I’d have to do it … under orders. But you didn’t.”
Lucas put his hands on his knees.
“Where I’m from, you don’t kill your friends. For any reason.”
Silo laughed.
“Guess your lady … forgot that rule.”
“She’s forgotten a lot of things,” Lucas said darkly. “But come on, we’ve got to get you out of here, let’s go.”
He bent down, slung Silo’s arm over his shoulders, and attempted to lift all three hundred pounds of him. Lucas barely got six inches up before he collapsed to his knees under the mass of dead weight. Silo started coughing and wheezing, more blood pouring from his mouth.
“You still don’t get it, huh? This is it. I can’t even move, and you … you look about three steps away from the Oak Thrones yourself. Just take this, and get … out … of here.”
Silo looked downward, and Lucas saw a chip hung on a cord around his neck.
“Your Final?” Lucas said as he snapped the cord and took the device into his hand. Silo nodded.
“Who do I give this to?” Lucas asked.
“You’ll know.”
Silo’s circuitry tattoos on his arms and shoulders had been ravaged and his bodysuit was torn to the waist. Across his bloodsoaked, muscled chest was a string of curved text. Through the gore Lucas could make out what it said.
“Forsaken are the strong who do not protect the weak.”
Involuntary tears were welling in Lucas’s eyes, and he felt like he was about to pass out. Lucas could hear new heartbeats from the device on his wrist.
“Go,” Silo said, recognizing the danger.
Resisting every urge to stay and fight and die, Lucas finally turned to leave.
“Wait,” Silo said, considering something. “One more thing … before you go.”
Lucas looked at him and understood.
Don’t ask me to.
“I … I’m going to need you to break your rule.”
No.
“No warrior’s death for me if they find me like this. I’d do it myself, but I can’t.”
Lucas stared at him. It was the same sight as on the Spear, the same broken friend with his life in his hands. But this time the stakes were different. This was mercy. Wasn’t it? That’s what he’d have to tell himself.
“Alright,” Lucas said, his voice a whisper.
“Don’t worry,” Silo said with a weak smile. “The way things have been going for you, I’m sure I’ll see you … soon enough.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Lucas said, attempting to keep his composure. He thumbed around with Natalie’s options, fingers trembling.
“You know,” Silo said, looking out into the trees as Lucas circled around to stand behind him. “It’s kind of nice here.”
His voice was growing fainter, as was his heartbeat. The other pulses on the display were becoming more pronounced. Lucas couldn’t risk him expiring naturally in time.
“It is.” He raised Natalie, the rifle’s mode switch set to Carnage. He didn’t want to leave anything behind for the Xalans to experiment with.
“I’ll see you around, Lucas,” said Silo as he stared out into the clearing.
“Sure,” Lucas said, his stomach one giant knot.
The echo of the blast would haunt Lucas for an eternity. The jungle roared in disapproval. He sprinted off into the darkness, his head pounding and vision bleary.
12
Lucas had killed many people over the years, but none had shattered him like what he’d just done. None had that much weight that would now be forever attached to his soul. He kept telling himself it was a kindness given the circumstances, but that didn’t scrub the image from his mind.
He tore through the jungle like a madman until the heartbeats on his monitor finally faded. He’d lost them, for now. But when he stopped, it didn’t register with his quickly deteriorating body. His thoughts were fractured, and he no longer had any idea which direction he was going after two days of careful navigation. His face was hot and flushed and the air smelled like putrid milk all around him. The right half of his torso itched furiously, and he started cutting away his bodysuit in a frenzy. On his chest a series of black-and-red tendrils crawled down under his skin from his neck wound. His vision was blurred; the jungle’s hue shifted from green, to blue, to orange. And then he saw him.
A hallucination. A ghost. One and the same. Lucas stumbled toward him and his swollen tongue tried to form words. He only managed to get one out.
“Adam.”
It was him, or at least a spectral vision of the man who’d been Sonya’s sibling but whom Lucas had thought of as a brother; Lucas had always been the one he had to look out for.
“Hello, Lucas, it’s been a while.”
It certainly had. Lucas hadn’t seen him since the wedding, and after that, Adam had shipped out on his next tour. His last tour. Here he was, standing in the jungle exactly as Lucas remembered him. Bright eyes and dress blues. He was a fixed force in Lucas’s vision as the rest of the jungle seemed to vibrate around him. Lucas’s fingers were starting to go numb, and his rifle felt like it weighed a metric ton. He slung it over his back.
“Can you h-help me?�
� Lucas pleaded with the vision before him.
“Why do you need help?” Adam replied coolly.
Lucas flexed his fingers, but couldn’t regain feeling.
“I’m a-alone out here.”
“You’ve always been alone.”
That feeling of being watched was back, more pressing than it had ever been. Lucas could feel the presence in the jungle around him somewhere.
“Who’s out there?” he called.
“They can’t hear you, Lucas,” Adam said calmly.
“Yes they can. Where are you?” he shouted again, spinning around in a circle so violently he almost fell. A brightly colored flock of red birds flew across his vision, startling him. He couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t anymore.
“Is he really dead?” Lucas whispered, his brain burning inside his skull as his thoughts returned to Silo.
“Yes.”
“Are you?”
Adam remained silent. Lucas knew the answer, even in his delirium.
“Why did you have to go back?” Lucas screamed at him. “The w-war was over!”
“Wars are never over, not really. Peace is a necessary illusion.”
“Who are you?” Lucas yelled.
This wasn’t Adam, the kindhearted Marine Lucas once knew. This was a demon, a twisted manifestation of Lucas’s own subconscious tormenting him.
Adam merely smiled. The right half of his face became mangled. Slowly he shifted into the autopsy photo Lucas had seen after the IED tore through him.
“You know.”
Adam decayed completely. Standing in his place was a creature like none Lucas had ever seen before. It was an enormous wolf-like animal covered in black scale plating separated by tufts of dark crimson fur. A serpent-like tail writhed at its other end. Its paws revealed curved talons six inches long and, when it snarled, rows upon rows of white teeth glinted, surrounding a forked tongue. Standing on all fours, it nearly met Lucas’s gaze, and he couldn’t look away from its piercing yellow eyes. He knew these were the eyes that had been burning into him throughout his trek around the jungle. They blazed through him now, staring straight into his soul. Was this death? Had it been stalking him all this time, waiting for its moment to strike?
Lucas couldn’t even lift his arms to unsling Natalie from his back. His body wasn’t letting him. He stood there frozen, the rest of the jungle spinning around him, lost in the creature’s gaze.
“Naali,” came a voice in the ether. “Chit-ka’lik.”
The animal broke eye contact with Lucas and walked a few feet to the right. As Lucas turned his head to follow him, he felt a piercing pain in his neck. He grasped at it and pulled out a long needle coated in a viscous green gel. It fell from his fingers and he collapsed on the spot. The last thing he saw was the face of a child with dark skin and wild hair. White tattoos circled his features and his hazel eyes watched Lucas slip quickly into unconsciousness.
Fevered dreams in the darkness. Only voices. Too many voices. Too many from days long past.
Michigan.
“Sir, do you know why I pulled you over?”
“I may have been going a bit fast coming out of that turn.”
“Sir, have you been drinking tonight?”
“No! Well, I had a couple a few hours ago, but that was—”
“Sir, I’m going to need you to step out of the car.”
“But I have to get home, I’m—”
“Sir, step out of the car.”
“Seriously, please just—”
“Sir.”
Oregon.
“He was sitting there for two hours.”
“I know I’m sorry I—”
“Two hours. He tried to walk home by himself. If Jean hadn’t seen him—”
“I set a reminder in my phone, it just didn’t—”
“You need a reminder to make sure your own son is safe after baseball practice? Where the hell are you anyway?”
“Work, it’s just crazy here and I lost track of—”
“Is that a fact? Because when I called Mark he said you left three hours ago.”
“I had to—”
“Wherever you are, just stay there. We deserve better than this.”
“I know.”
Florida.
“I’m sorry, but I need your car.”
“What? Who the hell are you? Get away from me!”
“I really am sorry, but you need to get out, now. I have to get back to my family.”
“Look I don’t know what—”
“Those things started shooting. It’s a war out there. My family is on the other side of the country and every airport on Earth is shut down. I need your car.”
“This is a $90,000 Range—”
“I’m sorry to have to do this.”
Louisiana.
“What are you doing, Greg?”
“I’m done.”
“Just take a step back. Let’s talk.”
“No more talking. No more walking. I’m done.”
“We’re almost to Texas.”
“You don’t know where we are.”
“We’re almost to Texas.”
“I don’t want to go to Texas. I don’t want to go anywhere, anymore.”
“Greg, take a step back. The whole group is watching.”
“If they were smart, they’d be up here with me.”
“Greg—”
Colorado.
“Any last words?”
“Eat shit.”
“Okay then.”
“The others will find you.”
“They won’t. And cannibals shake so much they can’t even aim straight.”
“We can, we’re military.”
“Who isn’t these days? Why are you in my camp?
“I like that gun. And those canned peaches. Would’ve gone great with your liver.”
“You’re insane. You all are.”
“We’re survivors.”
“You’re not.”
Lucas opened his eyes, but the darkness didn’t leave him. He blinked, but there was nothing but a rich black void. He was lying flat and could barely move his arms and legs. Voices were whispering a ways away from him.
“Hello?” he called out to the void.
The whispering stopped.
“Sinaa-sti vindala ki’lek,” came a voice speaking an unfamiliar language from down by his feet. More whispering and the faint sound of hurried footsteps in the dirt.
“Chun saunto,” came another voice, this one much deeper.
Lucas still couldn’t see. He felt sweat pouring down his face. He raised his right arm to his neck and touched a goopy paste that was spread there. The itching had ceased but his insides still felt like they were cooking.
“Kala lo’tonti, Rokaan ma’l loro ‘Soran.’”
Now there was a word Lucas recognized.
Where was he? He felt around the surface he was lying on. It was a kind of mesh netting that appeared to be woven out of tiny branches. The sides were held up by solid wood logs. Lucas’s lack of vision was starting to cause him to panic. Was he permanently blind? What had happened to him? The last thing he remembered was the wolf and the child. A child? It couldn’t have been. Another hallucination.
“Lucas!” came a booming metal voice he would recognize anywhere. Every muscle in his body breathed a collective sigh of relief.
“Alpha,” he said hoarsely.
“Indeed!”
The enthusiasm in his friend’s voice was palpable, even if Lucas couldn’t see it on his face.
“I was elated to hear the Kal’din had stabilized you after your Moltok sting. I have been informed that the toxin of that insect is among the most deadly in the forest. Thankfully, across generations the Oni have developed a treatment that reverses the effects.”
Kal’din? Moltok? Oni? Lucas didn’t understand any of these words. But first questions first.
“Why can’t I see?” Lucas asked.
“It is a side effec
t of either the Moltok poison or subsequent cleansing treatment. I am assured it is temporary. In most cases.”
Most cases? Alpha was reassuring as ever.
“What happened to the ship?”
Alpha fell silent before his tone turned dire.
“Upon entry into the atmosphere of Makari, we were shot down by a highly concentrated barrage of surface-to-air ordinance. The ship broke up and was scattered throughout the jungle.”
Then it was true.
“How is that possible?” Lucas asked incredulously. “What about the stealth drive?”
He could hear Alpha moving around him.
“They must have improvised a way to detect the ship, knowing that we had appropriated the vessel. It was likely relayed by [garbled], by my mentor before his capture at the Fourth Order base. They may have predicted we would attempt to reach the colonies on a mission such as this for sabotage or other purposes.”
Lucas felt the medicinal goop in between his fingers. There were coarse grains in it. His brain felt numb.
“Where’s Asha? The rest of the crew?”
“Many Guardians died in the crash despite the safety systems onboard the Spear. Others landed in the jungle. Some are still there. We can track their vital statistics remotely from here and locate them, but retrieval has proved … difficult due to Xalan interference. They scour the landscape hunting down survivors.”
Lucas was starting to get groggy. Someone was lathering more paste on his neck. The corpse-like odor burned his nostrils, but fogged his mind.
“Yeah … I know, I ran into a few of them. But Asha … Where …”
“She has been located and is presently en route with her Oni escort. Her vitals are stable.”
He was floating up toward the blackness, trying to keep his thoughts straight.
“Where is … here? Where … are we?”
“That is something better explained with the benefit of sight.”
Lucas hoped that was something that would find him again. He succumbed to the all-encompassing abyss.
When Lucas woke this time, the blackness had been replaced by a bleary light and amorphous shapes. With each blink, his vision became a little clearer, and finally he rubbed his eyes to the point where his surroundings were finally revealed.
