by I Ogunbase
I am more lucid than I've ever been and the fight has drawn out long enough. With every clash of our swords, my mind fills with memories. Most of which I don't remember.
Heck I don't even know if it happened, but the suddenness of it causes me to pause a fraction of a second. Long enough to feel the pain of cold steel slicing through flesh.
And with each cut, the memories I recover vanish.
I am tired. And I am losing. I don't want to fight anymore. But I don't want to give up. See, it's not about the money or the life of fame at the end that interests me. It's a matter of personal dignity.
So, I get back on my feet amongst the cries of the virtual crowd watching my battle. I reckon my family are somewhere out there cheering me on. But I wouldn't know. I can't seem to remember.
Nonetheless, I release a yell and jump at my foe once more.
Maybe this time, the memories stay.
~
Zodiac Horror
~
The taste of coffee still lingered in his throat as he stared at the chaos in front of him. Somehow, within the space of a couple hours, the whole world had turned on its head. And now, with no preparation whatsoever, they had to face the horror and give the people an answer.
Slowly, he made his way down the stairs, his eyes searching the faces already there. Forensics, in their white suits, casing the scene and picking it apart to get all the DNA samples that might have been splattered about. From the little he had seen, he had no doubt that there would be samples littered about.
Some of the local police force were also around, speaking to journalists along the cordoned off line. A few were working with the forensics, while the rest spoke to civilians he took to be witnesses.
Now and then, the witnesses glanced away from the officers, their eyes pulled to the body bags lined along the bank. Body bags. Plural. There were far more bodies than he cared to see and yet, he had already seen far more than he expected since the issue broke out.
What a shit-stain of a day this is turning out to be, he thought to himself as he got to the hard ground of the riverbank.
Glancing at the body bags, the misshapen forms underneath the large covers, he couldn't help but feel like he was living in some Frankenstein-influence story. Something somewhere was broken and it all began from the moment the topic of 'powers' began to fill the public forums.
Then again, perhaps the clues are somewhere around there...
Somehow, he couldn't help but feel like he needed more coffee for the task ahead. Something to steel his mind and focus but he pushed the thought away. The few cups he had downed in the morning were more than enough. Anymore would be excessive.
Flashing his badge to the officer who walked over to stop him, he gave them a tight smile as he walked past them. On a different, better day, he would have announced ahead of time of his arrival but this was not that kind of day.
As he walked, he caught the attention of his partner who had gotten to the site before him. A shorter pudgy man with clean shaved beard waved him over and he changed his direction. He could already see the sweat patch forming under the man's armpits and he stiled a chuckle. The day was far too dark for such a humorous thought.
His partner, Daly McDougal, was standing next to a large pipe that protruded from the wall underneath the bridge that ran above the riverbank to the other side of the river. Next to his partner, was a police officer holding a piece of paper in his gloved hands. As he drew nearer, he caught what the officer was reading.
"...I'm writing this under the bridge. Few people ever come here, especially the police and the government. I don't have much to write...but I feel I have to... even if it's just to clear my thoughts. No one knows why it happened or how it happened.
One day we were all normal and the next, we got powers corresponding to our zodiac signs. Thinking back, I remember how excited we all seemed. At least, till the death began. I used to have a family. Used to. And then my power kicked in and-"
"That's all we got from here..." the officer finished reading before looking up at Daly and then at him. The officer frowned and raised an eyebrow at him but he ignored it.
Special Agent James Wright wrinkled his nose from the stench that emanated from the sewer pipe and walked away from it absentmindedly. Daly followed quickly, taking care to not trip over himself as he bumbled after the agent.
"You think we will find another?" the man spoke hurriedly, wiping sweat off his brow.
"We have to, Dale... You saw what happened in New York. Word is, it's evolving. Now Airborne. We have to catch them before we are all dead," James answered.
"I never got a chance to read the briefing before I got here. What kind of zodiac would cause all this...this...growth?"
"The clue is in the name, friend... like a cruel godly joke."
~
Recall
~
A second passes. Then, two. Then, three.
By the fifth, I'm certain that I can dispose of the doctor and the strangers in the room within the next five minutes. Their weak points were as clear as day and the posture in which they sat, leaning forward towards me, works extremely to my advantage. Four strangers and a slim doctor. No nurses in sight. My eyes take in the room and the smell of 'clean' filled my nostrils.
An older woman, wrinkled and dry with white wispy hair that hung lamely on her head, sits next to the bed. Next to her, two adults, male and female. The guy looks like the older woman but younger. Perhaps her brother. The woman looks different entirely but her hand is on his thigh. A lover. There's another female next to the lover. Much younger but distracted. Her attention is on the device in her hand. She's glanced at me a few times but never long enough to care. She's the most vulnerable, the easiest kill.
My eyes dart to the doctor who looks me over with a stern expression, before returning to the folder in his hands. The room maintains its silence, with the strangers giving me weird smiles and alternating their attention between the doctor and I. I give them a smile of mine, something to disarm them completely for when I choose to launch my attack. Their smile turns tentative as they whisper between each other.
I don't blame them. I've never been one to smile in the first place. At least, not when I'm planning my exit.
My mouth moves to talk and for the first time since noticing the strangers, a sense of oddity descends on me. Slowly, I bring my hands to my face only to find that it's not mine.
Not mine.
The hand is small and feminine. Slender but a bit longer than most of the short women I've dealt with in my life. Bright blue painted nails and a gasp later, I'm grimacing. My chest is heavy and a simple glance down tells me why. Doing my best to 'feel' down there for more evidence turns up the same result and a groan escapes me.
"Are you feeling uneasy in any way?" the doctor asks, suddenly aware of my sudden displeasure.
I bring my eyes to find his. Sharp blue daggers stare back at me in earnest.
"What happened?" I ask quietly.
Before the doctor can reply, one of the strangers, the elderly woman, with tears streaming down her face exclaimed with her hands wide and moved towards me, shoving the doctor aside. Instinctive, my right hand shoots towards her neck. Alexei's lesson resounds in my mind like I had only just learnt it the day before.
People will try to surprise you sometimes in battle. Do not hesitate. Snuff out their light before they do it to you.
My hand barely skims past the side of her neck as her hands wrap around me in a tight hug. I feel a wetness on the side of my face between the lady's cries and broken speech. The stranger's oddly happy to see me and I'm not. More importantly, missing her neck is an error.
In the thirty years I've spent in my career, I have not missed. Not once. Not unless I'm allowed to count my training regime into it. And even then, missing during training was a fast track to death.
"My baby... My baby..." the woman crones and disgust fills me.
Using my left hand to grab the woman behi
nd her head, I try to pull her head to the side to expose her throat once more. It is messy work, especially with an audience to watch but the sooner I dispose of her, the sooner I can take care of the rest of the trash around me. My right hand twitches, suddenly aimed towards the small of her neck when I feel another hand grab it casually but firmly.
I look up at the doctor who holds the hand in place with a smile. It takes me a few blinks to notice that the smile does not touch his eyes. Instead, in the briefest of moments, I feel death in the man's gaze. A cold, unrelenting void that stared deep into me and threatened to end my life right there and then. I gasp for breath again as it suddenly becomes hard to breathe. Sweat forms on my forehead and I vaguely hear the doctor telling the woman to let go of me so that I can breathe.
Fear flashes across her features at the words and she reluctantly pulls away. My vision blurs and drowsiness makes me unsteady. I try to breathe, utilising the techniques of centuries old. Techniques that my leader had hammered into me and my brethren. My eyes threaten to close and I fight it. The thought of being at the mercy of a man who can give such a look, as well as the strangers around my bed, is terrifying.
Willing myself to stay awake, my eyes snap open to an empty room, save for the doctor who's sitting opposite the bed, looking at me.
I frown at him, suddenly aware that there were bindings around my ankles and on my wrists.
"Who are you?" I say coldly.
"That's the wrong question, Trevor," the doctor says in a smooth voice, leafing through the folder on his lap.
My face darkens at the mention of the name. No one is supposed to know that name. No one. The fact that he does suddenly make the bindings on my arms and legs feel much more restricting. The doctor looks up from the folder for a brief moment, before breaking into a wide smile. There's a sudden glint in his eyes and I grit my teeth, awaiting the inevitable death.
"The question you should be asking right now should be about who you are," the doctor says before tossing the folder onto my lap, "And what you did to deserve this."
---
~
Praetorians and Swear Words
~
Mark and I hid behind a wall in a destroyed building to catch our breath. It was a futile gesture but we did it either way. Better here than out there in the heat of the battle. My breath was heavy and laboured, Mark was wheezing in and out. I put a hand on his shoulder and helped him sit up properly, to clear his airways. He nodded to me, before removing his hand from the wound on his chest.
"No... we're not doing that," I told him, before moving his hand back to the injury.
We both knew it was fatal but I tried to ignore it. We could hold on a little while longer. He pushed me away however, gritting his teeth. He buckled over to spit out some of the blood in his mouth before turning to grin at me. It was a horrific sight. His mouth was coated with blood and on any other day, I would be berating him for playing such trick like that. I sighed before resigning to our fate.
I rested on the wall across from Mark and we basked in the quietness for a bit, the only noise interrupting the silence being the sound of guns and proton phasers in the distance. I looked up to the sky and all I saw were darkened clouds and soot.
"This is not a bad end though, is it?" Mark wheezed quietly and I turned to face him.
"Blazing fucking glory," I said in response.
He chuckled.
"The general was right. Hurts like a bitch," he said, a smile on his lips.
"You had to play the hero, bruv... Heroes get shot," My snarky reply got a wider smile from him.
I smiled too as my eyes dropped to the tattoo on my left arm.
Fuck the Chicken Overlords.
I started to laugh softly as I ran my hand over the tattoo. Mark looked at me questioningly and I pointed to the tattoo.
"It appears I might outlive you after all," I said.
"Why? What does yours say?" his voice was getting quieter.
"Fuck the chicken overlords. Like, I literally can't see why I'd ever say that."
Mark started to laugh now before stopping as his pain intensified. I saw his hand press harder on his wound and I began to move to help before seeing him wave me down.
"Sorry to... burst... your bubble but you're gonna... say it. Maybe not today..." he said.
"What do you mean?"
"Haven't you... ever noticed... what the Praetorians look like?" he asked.
"If you're gonna say 'Chicken', I'm going to kill you myself," I replied.
"Well... They are two-legged..."
"Bio-mechanical machines, with photon lasers and a penchant to jump across distance," I finished before Mark continued.
"Never seen a chicken jump?" Mark asked.
He wasn't looking at me anymore. Instead, his attention was fixed on the sky and his breathing was a bit more steady now. I didn't say anything.
"Trudeau from the 2nd Division told me... that the machines are not the aliens. That they are being piloted by smaller looking beings who pop into the machine in some sort of egg-like casing. That's where the similarities began to form."
"It's not a fucking chicken, mate," I remained adamant.
"Well... if it looks like a chicken, uses eggs like one, walks like one, jumps like one... heck, even the sound they make before their laser torrent shit sounds like clucking to me."
I bit my lip then. I was willing to discard the rest as a fun coincidence, but I always thought I was the only one who heard the sound any time they prepared to fire. I hadn't ever brought it up on account of the fucking tattoo on my arm.
"Well... what about you? What's your final word?" I retorted and Mark laughed. He knew he had gotten under my skin.
"The Chicken Overlords are coming." His laugh was dry now. His eyes were closed but the smile was still on his lips.
"Shut it."
"I, for one... I'm ready for our Chicken Overlords," he said, chuckling.
"It's actually not that funny," I said, but I could see the humour in it. I looked away from Mark to stop myself from getting pulled into it.
We went back to being silent. There wasn't much else that could be said. Not with him in his state and with me trying to recover. Either way, we were stuck there. I wondered if the general was still waiting at the rendezvous for the rest of us. For all we know, he might have left with the guys who got there earlier.
Thinking about that made me sigh. A humbling thought, to be at the mercy of aliens. To think I thought I'd be able to do better and win. Humanity's first skirmish and we're already at a disadvantage. I heard a cough and I looked at Mark. He glanced at his left arm before closing his eyes.
"Can't remember mine... I do know it's about Jenny... Something to do with her. I've been thinking about her since... I just want to run home to her arms... to feel her warmth... to tell her that..."
His voice was so low that I moved to sit next to him.
"That what?" I asked quietly.
"That I love..." he said, tapering off.
"Love her?" I asked but I got no response. I turned to face him but I knew. Somehow, I just knew that my friend was gone. I took a look at his left arm but instead of his destined words, I saw a scar.
My heart ached for my friend but I knew with him dead, I would have to move on from here. I considered carrying him but I knew that would only slow me down and make me a target. Still, I carried his body into the destroyed house and carefully placed him underneath some rubble. I figured I could return back here once it was safe to. Jenny would love that, at least.
As I exited the house and started to make my way to the rendezvous point for the army's retreat, I stopped at the sound of machine behind me. I sighed and spun around to see a Praetorian standing ahead of me. I won't be able to run fast enough.
"Fuck," I muttered under my breath.
It watched me for a bit and I watched it. Mark was right. It did look like a chicken. The way the limbs were positioned, the way the neck housing the laser part was pl
aced, the arms with the photon cannons... Just like a suped-up, mechanical chicken.
I started to laugh at the absurdity of it. Aliens attacking us in robot chickens. Fucking absurd.
Maybe my laugh scared it or maybe it felt threatened by me being double over on the floor in a laughing fit, the laser head focused on me and I heard it cluck.
I laughed harder as I watched an intense build-up of energy begin to form in front of me. So, I did what has been destined since my birth with a smile on my face.
I screamed.
"Fuck the Chicken Overlords!!"
--
~
Reset
~
I skim through the email a few times before deleting it. I can't be bothered to reply to a bunch of asshats questioning the reason for choosing this research. We've had too long to sort out the world but we keep failing. So yes, maybe we do need some artificial intelligence to do the things we are obviously too lazy as a species to do. I boot up the machine housing 'Ruby' and wait. The terminal screen appears and the familiar white cursor appears.
===Booting...Booting...===
===Sequence starting...===
===Memory synapses coming online...===
>> Hello Master...
I swallow from the excitement and dab my forehead with a handkerchief. It has been a long day salvaging, most of which has been spent retrieving the remains of the previous iteration. I pull the keyboard to myself and type out a response to my creation.
> Hello Ruby. How are your diagnostics?
>> Diagnostics are running. No errors found, Master. I am good.
I nod to myself. Everything is working so far so good. The previous iterations fell apart after I allowed them to download the mission statement I wanted for them. I hope to debug the statement with this iteration. I have checked and re-checked the coding over and over and I still haven't come across the clause causing them to self-terminate.
