Pop Kult Warlord

by Nick Cole

  Agreed.

  We take the stairs and emerge into the hazy Martian daylight. Sporadic gunfire and explosions come over ambient, but it’s distant. The League is losing their targets of engagement as we pull out of the ruined city like the ghosts of Mongol hordes.

  I lean over the concrete abutments that block the station entrance from the park and see the combat engineer vehicle we brought to demo the arch. High-yield explosives will be inside.

  “Frost, you take the turret in the vehicle. Drake… set up a base of fire from here. I’ll plant charges and we’ll go back down. Got it?”

  They do.

  For the most part it goes down just like that. Most of our units have fallen back to the edges of the burning city and are preparing to execute a scatter. Still, as I pull the charges from the engineer’s truck inventory and get them attached to the base of the arch, some COEXIST Troopers, still in the area, spot me.

  They come in firing subcompact automatics with no range. Frost cuts them down as he pivots the gun turret from left to right. But more are coming, and StrongIronWoman is streaking across the sky toward our location from some other battle along the city’s fringe.

  “Let’s boogie!” I shout.

  Drake lays down fire from the smartgun as more COEXIST Troopers try to swarm our location. It’s close and hot and we’re down tunnel as quick as we can to reach the subway car, which Hicks assures us is ready to move.

  We’re firing and falling back along the platforms, cutting down black-and-red riot troopers in the muzzle flash-lit darkness. Someone throws a Molotov cocktail at us and the flames throw shadows in among the bright flashes. A snarling rioter comes at me from out of the darkness, and I engage up close and personal. The guy goes down and two more firing from nearby send bullets smashing into the support column I’m hiding behind.

  I’m out of ammo for the M4. I ditch it and draw my .45 as they close. The laser dot lands on one, and I put two rounds in. The other is so close I fire wildly and blow the top of his skull off, among other horrible things that happen to the rag-dolling avatar.

  “Problem is the choo-choo only goes deeper into enemy territory.”

  I assume he means the subway car, and what other choice do we have.

  “Let’s roll.”

  “All aboard the choo-choo,” giggles Hudson.

  We board the last car. Over chat I ask Apone for his loc.

  “In the bird, sir. We can pick you up.”

  The futuristic subway train begins to pick up speed rapidly as we leave the rioter-swarming station with Drake firing dry. The smartgun makes an ominous humming blur as we shoot down the tunnel, indicating it’s gone empty.

  “Hey…” asks Hicks soberly, over chat. “Did you set off the charges?”

  “Oh yeah!” I equip the detonator from inventory and left-click the trigger.

  The lights in the subway flicker on and off as a distant explosion erupts through the digital rock and ground strata. The train rocks back and forth a bit in the moments that follow. I can only imagine that massive rainbow arch raining down in chunks across the freaky city. My mom and dad never talked much about the democratic socialist world before the Meltdown… but if even half that SJW nonsense was actually serious, then it must have been a real freak show.

  “Company…” notes Hicks over chat.

  StrongIronWoman is zooming down the tunnel after us.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  We’re low on ammo. StrongIronWoman uses some kind of rocket attack that ravages the back of our speeding subway car. Flares spark from her hands and feet as she lands in her power armor suit amid the swiss-cheesed ruins of the rearmost car.

  Hudson unloads what remains of his ammo. I reply with the .45 Longslide and get ricochet flashes off her shiny lavender-and-silver armor. Hudson burns through his last mag and cries, “Outta tricks, sir!” on chat.

  I toss some C4 and shout “Run!” because she’s coming after us. I don’t even make it ten steps or see if anyone else is moving before I left-click the detonator for the C4 and take beaucoup damage in the resulting explosion. Most of it is shrapnel, and my VR helmet is whining and popping. The game is simulating a sudden loss of hearing.

  The subway car continues to shoot down a dark tunnel. Then we’re above ground in a sudden vertigo-inducing moment. This isn’t a subway… it’s a bullet train. We’re racing along an aboveground rail system speeding across the terraformed Martian valley that is the home field of the Geek League.

  “Ferro, need extraction. ASAP.”

  StrongIronWoman is darting all around the back of the flaming train. Hovering and keeping pace with us. I can’t hit her to save my life as she keeps up her dancing. But her armor is smoking and ruined, trailing debris from a dozen places. I’m just hoping for a lucky hit.

  We pass under a weird canyon arch made of ancient Martian rock. StrongIronWoman smacks straight into it—and busts right out the other side, sending rock showering out and over the speeding train.

  The livestream replay networks will run this clip for two solid days. TWITCHNN will make it one of their clips of the year. Or so I’ll find out later. Much, much later.

  We enter a series of tight turns and dips that turn the train into an out-of-control roller coaster, but StrongIronWoman tracks us and keeps firing pulsed energy bursts from her open gauntlets.

  Then the Colonial Marines’ desert-skinned iconic dropship looms behind her, and in a wail of repulsors and engine noise, it deploys its rocket launchers.

  StrongIronWoman is unaware of its lethal presence on her six. She closes in for the kill. We’re without the ability to reply in lead, and now we’re just dodging fire and retreating back up the speeding train.

  Behind her I see CPLFerro salute from the cockpit, a cynical smile beneath her mirrored aviator shades. Then the dropship fires multiple rockets, smoke trails erupting behind them. The dropship dances as the train weaves through a tight canyon.

  But the missiles go wide and squirrel away in all directions.

  StrongIronWoman must be running some kind of static EM jamming software.

  A second dropship appears. This one is more the WarWorld standard Albatross variant.

  “Hello, my friend,” says Rashid over chat. “Of course I am here to rescue you and look like a hero, as we discussed.”

  StrongIronWoman pivots in midair and is now firing backward at both bogies. Missiles streak out from her wrists and smash into the Colonial Marines’ dropship. One engine goes up in a sudden explosion, sending black smoke pluming up and streaking away from the wing, but Ferro keeps the craft crabbed sideways and moving forward, intent on her target. The player tagged CPLSpunkmeyer opens up with a door gun on the flying superhero. Bright flashes of ricochet erupt all across StrongIronWoman’s armor, the tracks, and the speeding train.

  A moment later the train dives down into a steep canyon and both the dropship and StrongIronWoman struggle to adjust altitude, nearly ramming into one another before following. It’s like watching circus trapeze artists switching places above you at two hundred miles an hour. Or it’s what I imagine that would look like.

  “Enigmatrix…” I’ve brought up the tactical chat. It really doesn’t matter what happens here. We’ve smashed their cities and my units should be moving on to their next objectives.

  “Enigmatrix here,” she replies.

  “Phase two of the operation…” I prompt. She’s running strategic and command and control. I’m just the tip of the spear.

  But it is my plan.

  “You were right, PQ. And I’ll admit I thought you’d be dead wrong on this. Geek League formed up on the valley floor ready to do battle. Thought they were going to get a big old engagement. All the streaming networks even sold big advertising rates on the airtime. But we’re scattering, as you directed. And they don’t know what to do about it.” She seems happy with all the chaos and frustration the corporations and gaming networks must be undergoing right now. “My guess is they’re still waiting
to see if we’ll come at them from all directions.”

  “Probably,” I agree as I watch Rashid try to acquire the armored superhero. He edges his Albatross forward, gun pods spooling up into an urgent whine beyond the thunder of the train’s passage. Then he pushes full forward on the engine throttles and drives at the seemingly floating StrongIronWoman like a bull spitting fire and poison. He adds more power and smashes right into her.

  She flares her rockets and grabs the Albatross’s nose canopy.

  “Uh… Rashid,” I warn over chat.

  “No problem, Question. I’ve got her now.”

  He noses over into the rocks below and smashes the dropship, his avatar, and StrongIronWoman all over the red Martian rocks of the canyon.

  “That’s one way to do it,” quips Hudson over chat.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  When I leave the Cyber Warfare Center it’s just a few minutes before dawn. Everything in the Gold Coast zone, and all of Calistan at that moment, is quiet. A deep kind of quiet. The kind where you just have to stand there and listen to the quiet and wonder if the world will ever come back to life. And then you realize the silence is so complete it’s deafening.

  I slide behind the wheel of the Porsche Rashid gave me and try to figure out how to start it. Rashid had it delivered while we were fighting the Geek League.

  In the east, over some mountains, the sky begins to turn a soft shade of blue. The hill of palaces, where princesses like Samira sleep on beds the rest of the world can only dream of, remains in shadow.

  I don’t hate her for that.

  I want to. The way I hate Rashid. But I don’t. I can’t.

  I start the Porsche and pulled out onto PCH. I’m the only one on the road at this time of the morning. The only one other than a lone street sweeper, leaving the streets wet and clean. I drive onto the peninsula, thread some old docks and ancient apartment towers, and find the small bridge that leads onto Rashid’s apocalypse-soon-to-be paradise island.

  It’s not for Samira. She probably has no idea what she’s getting into.

  I feel bad for her.

  Nothing will ever be hers. Nothing will ever be theirs.

  Everything will always be Rashid’s.

  And I’m tired.

  I park on the empty island in front of the dock leading down to the sailboat. Out in the bay, a dolphin, or a porpoise maybe, swims placidly through the water. Then it dives down and is gone.

  I go down the dock and onto the boat.

  The bottle of bourbon, half full, is right where I left it. I consider a drink. But I don’t. I’m too tired.

  In my room I find a neatly folded blanket and pillow. I guess Mario stopped by. I kick off my shoes and lie down, listening to the water lap gently against the hull. And soon I’m asleep.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  I walk away from that place. That old place. That monastery—no, manor house—sinking into the mud and stagnation beyond the slaughtered village. That place of giant snakes and other monsters. And all the corpses I left behind, slain in the dark passages beneath it all.

  Just like that angel.

  I walk away.

  I know I am someone else. Some other person with some other life.

  I know that.

  But this life… the life here in the valley. The life as this samurai… it feels right. I can smell the dust and the forest and feel the quiet heat of the sun on my skin.

  I make my way through the swamp, and soon the land rises and climbs broken rocks, taking me up into an ancient forest. Tall pines cluster. I hear birds. A few. And I continue smelling the scent of the wood and the dust of the day that lies over everything. It’s a pleasant smell. Like sandalwood almost. It reminds me of the very essence of summers long gone.

  And for a moment I connect with that other someone. That person I may really be. The summers they remember… or rather… the feelings those memories evoke within them.

  It’s the smell of old books. Yellowed pages of comic books found and hoarded like pirate treasure. I remember the rasp of each carefully turned page beneath my fingers. Sitting in a room with old model cars on the walls. A bookcase that seemed like something more. Like a treasure chest… and a gateway to many, many other worlds. A single bed. A window staring out into trees and other houses.

  A neighborhood that was known and could have been counted as the entire world.

  Summer.

  And just as quickly as the memory of that long-lost moment came upon me, it’s gone for the samurai who finds himself on a trail of blood and vengeance.

  I am standing on an ancient forest path. Great gnarled roots twist and wind up out of the ground. And the great trees above, oaks, carve a hall I know I must follow. A hall that leads to the temple of evil where I will find and slay this Alucard.

  But for a moment I struggle to hold on to that summer comic-book memory. And even as I demand I hold on… it slips away.

  Like sand through my fingers.

  Like a missing clue.

  Like losing the truth.

  I know there was so much more to that life I remembered, that other me, than what I can barely sense now. There were…

  …

  …

  … things I know and cannot name.

  Like I am in some kind of prison that denies me the freedom to know those memories of who I once was.

  But they were real. All of it was real to whoever I was. Once and long ago.

  And this life… the samurai’s life here in this lost valley with a strange keep on the border, and dark dungeons, and real monsters and brave warriors… this too also seems a kind of real. And if I just let it, it will be as real as I’ll ever need. And all things that were in that comic-book-summer moment will be gone. And this life, the life of wandering adventure… this is what lies ahead for all the days I might count.

  But that’s not right.

  What… is possible?

  And that too is a kind of hope.

  As though eternity and nostalgia are somehow one.

  I continue on through this lonely forest, knowing darker times lie ahead. And I am not afraid of what I might find. I only fear forgetting what I once knew.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The dark woods grow close along the road that winds through the tall trees in this part of the deserted forest. In time the sun begins to fall into the east and thick clouds come to stand between the pines and its parting rays. The road reduces itself to little more than a narrow trail as it winds up carved steps onto a high plateau. By twilight, fog and mist clutch at the dirt and the trees.

  In the distance I can see the outlines of a small building. It’s raised on stilts. It’s made up of large curving timbers and thin walls. Steps rise to a door made of paper. From within comes the glow of fire and light. It is the opposite of the murk that consumes the forest as twilight surrenders to night.

  “You have reached the Lost Inn,” says the smoke-and-bourbon voice from nowhere but my head. And immediately I think the voice must’ve meant the Last Inn. But my memory says differently.

  The Lost Inn.

  Some forlorn bird calls out in the gloaming as I stand watching the small silent building lying along the forest trail. Another bird answers from a short distance off. But there is no comfort or warmth in these things. It is as though they have each wished each other good luck as the night comes on. Knowing the other will need it. Uncertain if they shall call out to one another again.

  As in… I hope to see you in the morning.

  I make for the inn. And while I do not rest my hand on my sword, I know where it is.

  I mount the wide wooden steps and hear their almost hollow thump beneath my sandals. I slide back the paper door and step into a bare room.

  A stranger in a hooded cloak sits at a low table. A small bowl of steaming soup waits before his bowed head. To the side of the bowl are a clay bottle and a tiny cup filled with clear steaming liquid. Next to one wall, a small hearth and brazier are filled
with glowing coals. An old woman, hunched over, stirs a pot and sings some soft song that seems off-key. Or atonal. And yet calm.

  “Another visitor,” she mumbles. “On such a night as this… rare indeed.”

  She takes up a bowl from near the fire and ladles soup into it.

  “There is a stone well out back. You may draw and clean. I shall have your soup and a hot drink ready by the time you return.”

  She returns once more to her singing.

  I drop my roll but keep my sword. I cross the long hut to another paper door at the rear of the building. Out back lies an old well. The fog has come close and seems almost a living thing in the twilight. It rolls and roils and smothers all sound. I hear neither bird nor bat. And yet I feel as though there are things out there in the fog. Things that wander and watch, and yes… even wait.

  Or maybe it is just the trunks of the trees that look like the legs of cyclopean giants out there in the gathering mists.

  I draw ice-cold water from the ancient stone well and splash it across my face and chest. Then I drink. It is so cold and clear, it reminds me how dry and thirsty I was from my long hours on the road.

  I return to the hut.

  Inside I feel warm. Not safe. I look back at the fog. It seems to come closer to the hut. As though it wants to follow me, but will only go so far. As though the old hut remains an island in the forest that is like a sea where things live beneath the surface.

  The smell of the savory soup draws me away from the mesmerizing movements of the fog. And to shut the paper screen is to shut out all that the forest hides.

  On the long low table where the hooded stranger merely hovers over his soup, I find a bowl and bottle waiting for me. Also a tiny cup. The old woman crosses from the hearth and takes up the bottle.

  “Be careful…”

  And there is a very long pause between that and what she says next.

  “The bottle is very hot.”

  As though the two statements are separate things to be considered. Being careful. And that the bottle is very hot.