by James Harden
Chapter 15
I start swimming towards the plant. My brother taught me to swim a long, long time ago. My younger brother, teaching me, his older brother how to swim. It was kind of embarrassing.
And I couldn’t figure it out. We live in a Buried City. In the middle of the Wasteland. The world’s oceans and lakes and rivers have all but dried up.
What’s the point?
He’d said, “The point is, so you don’t drown in a desert like a fucking moron.”
It was a fair point.
And here I am. Swimming through an underground lake.
My brother was always the smart one.
I’m putting his lessons and advice to good use. And even though on the surface the water looks calm, even though it looks down right inviting, swimming across it is a lot harder than I thought it would be. The water has a strong undertow. The water is moving and flowing and churning because it needs to be moving and flowing. Can’t have stagnate water. Still water will pool and become dirty and polluted. Flowing water is essential for life. Almost as essential as the sun.
And as I swim across, I feel the presence of something very big under the surface. A giant propeller. Giant blades, mixing and churning the water. If I go under, I’ll be chopped into mince-meat. I’ll be food for all the little fishies down there. And the big ones.
Overhead, I hear the crack of Angel’s sniper rifle. She has already started taking out the Mercs. I look up in between strokes, between breaths. She’s not actually killing any of them. She’s taking their legs, their arms.
She’s putting them down, but not killing. I don’t care who you are, that takes some serious skill. And some serious empathy. She understands that these Mercenaries are not bad people. They’re not out to kill us. They’re just desperate.
She’s a lot kinder than I’ll ever be.
By the time I reach the shore, by the time I climb up on to the metal structure of the Water Treatment Plant, the Mercs are all flailing around on the ground. There’s blood everywhere. The ones that had any sense fled with all their limbs attached and no holes in their bodies.
I walk through the treatment plant. I don’t bother hiding or stalking my way through. I know the Overseer is here somewhere, and I know he will want to face me.
He needs to. He needs to know what I know. He needs to know who I’ve talked to. He thinks he can get this information from me, by torturing me, by asking the hard way. He is sorely mistaken. I walk through a room and a bunch of doorways and turnstiles that normally would be guarded. Normally you’d need some sort of security clearance to get through.
Normally.
But this ain’t normal.
And now I’m standing in front of the largest vault door I have ever seen. Bigger than the ones at the bank. And I know there is treasure on the other side. I know on the other side of this door is a tunnel, a very long tunnel that leads to Wonderland.
The keypad is next to the vault door.
There is an elaborate looking keyhole.
I never get a chance to enter the code.
Never get a chance to find out what kind of key it takes.
There is a pin-prick in the back of my neck.
More poison.
A lot more.
This is how the Overseer likes to do it. Quick and clean and painless.
Not me. He won’t be so lucky. It won’t be quick and it won’t be clean and it won’t be painless. I turn around and he’s standing there with a dart gun.
He’s reloading it.
I grab the needle in my neck and throw it on the ground. “Poison won’t work on me,” I say, hoping that Angel’s serum will still be in my system, still working its magic.
The Overseer ignores me and reloads the poison dart gun. He puts it back in its holster and he checks his watch.
He looks at me.
And then back at his watch.
And he says, “Maybe you are right.”
I draw both guns in a flash. My brother’s antique, it’s got a fifteen bullet magazine, the rapid fire’s got thirty. These bullets fly towards the Overseer faster than the speed of sound, faster than the eye can see.
Little promises of pain and death and revenge.
They hit nothing but air and metal and concrete.
I let go of the rapid fire and it swings to my side. I reload my brother’s gun.
I take aim.
At nothing.
At darkness and shadows.
I see a glint of something.
A flash of steel.
A knife.
The Overseer cuts my arm and my hand and just like that I drop the gun. I still have the rapid fire, but if I take my eyes off him to reload it, he’ll end my life. So I keep my eyes on him. I get ready for the fight.
He slashes with the knife. He’s fast.
So fast.
He’s thin and he looks malnourished, but he’s got the energy and the power of a prize fighter, a gladiator, a Wasteland Raider. His arms are deceptively long. Even longer with the blade of the knife.
For a moment, we’re dancing around each other and I’m in awe of his quickness and his strength.
We stand eye to eye. Toe to toe. Face to face.
And then I decide to end it.
I move in close and he stabs me with the knife. He stabs me right in the ribs and the blade catches on bone, on my ribcage, protecting my vital organs.
I feel pain. A lot of pain. But I shrug it off. I keep moving.
I grab his neck with both hands and I twist it. I do this with force, with all the hate and emotion that I’ve been carrying around with me. I hear bones crunch. I hear sinew and tendons and ligaments snap.
I see his spine. His throat is still intact.
I drop him on the ground and kick his knife away. “You’re a fast son of a bitch, I’ll give you that. But you’re not fast enough.”
I stand over him and the blood from my knife wound drips all over his thin and once powerful limbs.
His eyes are still open. Still looking at me. I think he wants to scream in pain, but he doesn’t. He is sort of moaning and gasping on account of his throat being wrapped awkwardly around his spine.
I hear a single round, a bullet slide into the breech of a rifle.
Angel is behind me, sniper rifle at the ready. “Let me finish him off. This bastard has made my life a living hell.”
“Sure. Shoot him as many times as you want. He’s not going anywhere.”
“I heard you earlier,” he whispers.
I hold my hand up, telling Angel to hold off on the execution.
“Heard what?”
“Talking about soldiers.”
“So?”
“I just want you to know… that I too am a soldier. I am following orders. I am following protocol.”
“And what were your orders?”
“To find you… study you. And… destroy you. To stop the flow of information to the outside world. To protect the interests of Omega Camp. The killing, it was not personal.”
I pick up my brother’s gun. It is loaded. The safety is off. The barrel is still warm. “My brother used to say that every day is a school day. Because every day, you can learn something new. And guess what? You’re about to learn something new. The killing… it’s always personal.”
The damn thing closes its eyes and maybe even nods its head like it agrees with me. Like it is actually learning something new.
I think about shooting him, but I don’t. I step aside and Angel puts a bullet square between his eyes and his head explodes and vaporizes.
I reload the rapid fire gun just in case.
