Shattered Light

by Fredrick Niles

  The news twisted Clark’s good mood a bit. Rogue SEUs weren’t something to laugh at. With their insider-knowledge, they could be a deadly enemy. Thankfully, there weren’t many. In fact, he could probably count the amount left alive on his right hand.

  “Did Weaver get a good look at them?” he asked, trying not to bite his lip.

  “One tall light-skinned female with medium-length blonde hair. One dark-skinned male with short-hair.”

  “Shit,” Clark grimaced. Kittredge Patel and Nadia Yahantov of Malachite Squad. Almost certainly. He had seen them run training exercises back when they were being programmed, and while all of Clark’s SEUs were good, Kit and Nadia had something most of them lacked: chemistry. The two of them could all but anticipate each other’s moves, fighting almost as a single unit.

  Clark thought back to the day he had received news of their supposed deaths. Both of their drop pods had malfunctioned and sent them plunging off course into a massive lake known for its powerful undercurrents. Their bodies had never been recovered and now he knew why: the whole thing had been rigged from the get-go. They had gone AWOL.

  Something about the fact that both of their pods had malfunctioned had never sat right with him but after a few years had passed without so much as a photo of the two coming across his desk, he figured the tragedy was indeed just that.

  But now that he thought about it, maybe they had been seen. Facial-recognition analyzed every scrap of footage from every militia attack but neither Kit nor Nadia were ever flagged. They knew standard PUC security camera placement and procedure and could probably avoid it without a second thought, showing only the backs of their heads.

  Maybe that had been enough though. Maybe not as conclusive proof, but when Clark thought back to the footage he had seen of the attack on Kilo Base a few weeks back he remembered the footage of the two figures decked out in SEU armor. He hadn’t even been viewing it in a professional manner but rather watched a clip on TV one night while drinking a beer on his couch. He remembered watching the footage of the group of outlaws open fire on the staff in the control room—the clip lasting less than 10-seconds—and remembered feeling a slight niggling in the back of his mind.

  Sets of SEU armor were stolen and reproduced on occasion and there were more than a few militia members that had successfully jerry-rigged the neural interface necessary for wearing the armor. So it was reasonable that that had been the case—just a few insurgents with above-average skills carrying out an attack on a fortified military base with stolen or counterfeit sets of neural power armor.

  But apparently, that wasn’t the case. Kit and Nadia. They were alive and they were operating. Shit.

  It was a surprise, to be honest. Kit had always been so empathetic that his desertion had always seemed unlikely. Most people thought that empathy meant something like “love and understanding for all of humanity” but they were wrong. As far as Clark could tell, empathy was a mechanism built into human behavior that strengthened inter-tribal bonds. It was the “momma-bear” feeling people got when someone in their tribe was under some sort of attack and this feeling would immediately kick their protection response into overdrive, wiping out any room for negotiation. Kit had ranked extremely high in empath-testing, so it was naturally assumed that he would be a great addition to his SEU squad. But apparently, the definition of his own tribe that had been hammered into him since birth had blurred a bit and extended outside that of his immediate teammates.

  The two rogue soldiers on the ground complicated the situation but not terribly. Clark would simply strengthen security and lookouts. And when Kit and Nadia finally came knocking—and they would come knocking—he’d take care of a long-overdue task and dutifully remove them from the face of existence.

  The Flagship began to move slowly toward Desia, and as it did, Seamus Clark walked off the bridge to board his personal landing craft.

  6

  Capture

  By the time Raquel realized Kit and Nadia weren’t coming, it was already too late. Soldiers could be seen making their way down the road, house by house, kicking in doors and dragging people out into the streets. Drop ships roared overhead, shaking the Jackson home. Occasional spats of gunfire could be heard and even the oldest of Byzzie’s siblings looked worried as they crouched down beneath the dining table and along the kitchen walls.

  Raquel hoped that she didn’t look the same. Ritz and King were standing close to the front door while Raquel, Byzzie, and 49 stood in the dining room. Together, they formed a protective circle around the Jackson family but if anyone decided to come through either the front or porch door then Raquel wasn’t sure they’d be able to do much.

  By this point, she was thoroughly worried. Their ship and two of their best on-the-ground assets were nowhere to be seen. Armed forces were closing in on all sides except for the waterfront, and she wasn’t sure she’d be able to make eleven kids swim out into the massive lake, even if they looped back around toward a safe spot on shore. And as of right now, they had absolutely no plan and Raquel could feel the weight of that fact pressing in and smothering her.

  She looked at Ritz and saw his eyes flicking back and forth in search of some sort of answer. Stay or go: that was the question. If they fled they’d almost certainly be caught with a high chance of their group being split up in the process. It wasn’t easy tearing through the jungle with a bunch of kids and the odds of them making it out on the other side with the same amount they had gone in with were low.

  If they stayed they would be captured for sure. Their faces would likely be run through a database and flagged for their crimes on Kilo Base. Kit and Nadia had been in their Marauder armor at the time so they’d be in the clear so long as they weren’t captured within the vicinity of the Leopold. That much couldn’t be said for the rest of the crew though. King, Ritz, and Raquel all had their faces captured on film gunning down a group of control room staff. It wasn’t like they had lined them up and executed them—one of them had been hit by a ricochet from Raquel’s weapon as she was disabling a combat synth—but the unintended casualty had quickly died, causing the rest of the staff to respond as if they were next.

  They could have worn masks or helmets, but they had made the mistake of not thinking them necessary. After all, the security system should have been brought down. When King had tripped the alarm to run a bypass, the whole operation had gone belly-up, resulting in the massacre that followed.

  The firefight had lasted less than two-seconds but by the time it was over, half of the Leopold’s crew had been caught on-film gunning down a group of PUC personnel. If they were captured they would not be getting off lightly. They would probably be executed.

  But there was still the Jackson family to worry about. Ritz had promised to take care of them and right now they stood the best chance if the whole group went quietly. Sure, their names would be forever smeared by the fact that they were connected to known criminals and outlaws, but at least they wouldn’t be abandoned in some jungle or cut down in the crossfire in some skirmish that they might accidentally stumble into if they ran.

  The choice was made for them.

  Before landing on a concrete plan—however dangerous or risky it might be—the roar of a gunship passing overhead drowned out all other noises. This one was just as close as some of the others had been, but this time it did something different. It stopped.

  When the growl of the twin engines failed to die away as the others had, Raquel sprinted to a window and peeked out from behind a curtain. She was just quick enough to watch a group of armed and camouflaged soldiers sprint out of the trees beside the house to run down along the beach before their progress was suddenly cut short.

  Dual sets of .50 caliber chain guns spun to life on board the gunship and sand puffed up into the air as the soldiers slid to a stop. Freezing for a single fatal second, most of them were chewed into red mulch by the torrent of bullets. A couple had the forethought to instantly reverse directions before the hail of gunfire r
eached them and they barely managed to escape back the way they had come.

  The exposed figures bolted toward the Jackson house.

  “Get down,” Raquel yelled. She was barely able to get the words out before her voice was drowned by the chain guns spinning up for a second time. The thick stream of machine-gun fire struck low as it cleaned up the remaining Desian soldiers, and while none of the rounds came through the walls or windows, Raquel felt the entire house lurch as the lakeside support beams were shredded to splinters.

  Floorboards groaned and busted, nails popping in every direction like little bullets as the house buckled in half. A gap had appeared right along the floor between the kitchen and living room and a few of the kids screamed and scooted in closer to Ritz and King. Byzzie made it over the gap and into the kitchen, followed by 49. Raquel, however, wasn’t as lucky. Being the closest to the lake-facing side of the house, she had the furthest to travel. And as the floorboards split and rose into the air like a drawbridge, the surface on which Raquel stood quickly sloped downward at an extreme angle.

  Lunging forward all the same, she managed to grip the jagged edge of the floor before gravity could pull her backward. Splintered wood dug into her hands as shingles and roofing pulled apart overhead and rained down on her. She tried to pull herself up to jump the quickly widening gap between the collapsing house and the kitchen but wasn’t quick enough. She had just begun to lift her knee up when the collapsing side of the house jolted from the massive impact of the porch slamming into the beach. Raquel’s grip shook loose and she began to fall.

  The drop down to the ground below was no more than 50 feet, but with a house falling apart around her, the chances of injury or death were high. In fact, she stood an incredibly good chance of plummeting down onto the shattered sliding glass door and the pulverized porch beneath. The drop felt as if it happened in slow motion. She didn’t see her life flash before her eyes but rather, felt the world freeze as control slipped out of her hands like an oily rope.

  A metallic hand shot out and grabbed her by the wrist. Raquel’s body slammed forward against the now vertical floor as 49 secured his grip. The blow almost knocked the wind out of her, but it was better than the alternative. She looked down to where she would have landed and felt an icy hand slide across the back of her neck.

  Beneath her yawned the shattered boards of the busted porch like a hungry set of jagged teeth. If she had fallen straight down, she almost certainly would have been skewered by no less than three of the makeshift spears.

  The house hadn’t settled yet however, and boards once again screamed in protest as the crushed living room wobbled and then finally began to tip towards the now exposed slope that the house had been hanging over. 49 yanked up and back, barely managing to pull Raquel into the kitchen before the roof sliced down past the edge of the floor like a guillotine, nearly cutting her in half. Turning back, she watched as the beams of the roof buckled and broke upon impact, the fallen half of the house finally collapsing in on itself in a plume of dust.

  “Thanks,” she managed to gasp, wide-eyed. She turned back to look at 49, who was staring into her eyes and even though he had just saved her, the expression on his face was unsettling. Holding both hope and shock, his golden eyes and silver face peered into hers like the face of some angel or devil. She didn’t know it at the time, but she would soon find that she was right to be unsettled.

  Less than a minute after the house had split in two, armed PUC soldiers had busted in the door and leveled their weapons at the scared and panting faces of Ritz, King, and all the rest. Ritz briefly considered going for his gun, but the chances of a stray round flying past him—or through him for that matter—were relatively high. This wouldn’t have been a problem if everyone currently in his charge wasn’t placed directly behind him, but as it stood he kept his gun holstered.

  “On the ground,” the lead soldier barked, jabbing his gun forward. Ritz and the others raised their hands and slowly spread out belly-down on the dusty kitchen floor.

  “What the fuck is this thing?” one of the other soldiers said, walking up to 49, his gun raised.

  “Not sure,” the first one said, “maybe you should just kill it to be safe.”

  The second soldier appeared to be giving the idea genuine consideration, raising the barrel of his weapon up to 49’s expressionless face. A beat of tension passed and then the barrel was lowered again.

  “Kinsey. Barnes.” The soldier shouted the two names and looked back toward the blasted doorframe. Two more soldiers hustled inside, weapons tilted downward. “Bring this synthetic to the prisoner processing station. Tell them I sent him to have his data downloaded.”

  Ritz let out a barely audible sigh, just loud enough for the soldier to hear and was rewarded with a tight little smile.

  Good. He thought. Let them think 49 is important. The captain wasn’t sure of 49’s fighting capabilities in his current state, but he figured that the android would fare better facing two soldiers alone than he would facing ten while also surrounded by a group of children.

  After securing a pair of metal manacles to the android’s wrists and escorting him out, the other soldiers zip-tied Ritz’s and the rest of the prisoners’ hands together, right down to the youngest of the Jackson kids. They were then hauled down the street at gunpoint. All around them people were being marched along with guns at their backs, those who resisted being beaten and dragged.

  “Where are they taking us?” asked one of the young Jackson boys; Ritz thought his name might have been Cory. The kid had a perpetually wide-eyed look about him that made him seem as if he were constantly discovering everything for the first time.

  “We’re just going to the center of town,” Ritz said reassuringly. A few of the older Jackson kids shot him a distrusting stare but he ignored them. “They can’t have anyone sneaking up on them in the middle of the night so they’re just going to get us all in one place where they can keep an eye on us while they figure things out. Cool?”

  The boy didn’t look like he bought it exactly, but the interaction seemed to reassure him nonetheless.

  Ritz breathed through his nostrils. Now if only he could reassure himself. In truth, he had no idea what was going to happen to them. He tried to adjust his arms behind his back, the hard plastic of the zip-ties biting into his skin. The guy who had pulled the tie had yanked on it as if he was trying to win a tug o’ war contest, and if that was any indication of how lenient the PUC would be here then they were in for a rough ride.

  Byzzie, who was a few feet up toward the front of the line overheard the exchange and dropped back. “And what if they execute us in the center of town?” she said out of the side of her mouth, just loud enough for Ritz to hear.

  The captain shrugged. “Then we don’t have to go be executed somewhere else,” he said, just as quietly.

  If the PUC had been planning any executions they had either changed their minds or were saving them for later. The Leopold and Jackson clan were marched into the center of town where they were huddled into hastily thrown-up cages. In the short amount of time it had taken them to seize control of Desia, the PUC had already constructed rows of electrified fencing up and down streets, sectioning them off into squares where prisoners could be densely packed inside.

  Ritz watched as what looked like a large family of at least fifteen people struggled to press in on themselves to keep those on the outer edges from touching the wire. The young and the old seemed to make up those who existed in the center of the huddle while the healthier adults stood facing inward.

  One woman—looking to be roughly 40 years of age—shifted just a hair-too-much and Ritz watched her yelp and jump as a crack of electricity sliced through the air. Hopping and trying to get away, the crowd jostled and churned and a few more cracks and cries of pain could be heard from the other side.

  Ritz turned away.

  Ritz’s group was marched down to the last cage at the end of a row, and when they got there, the captain w
as dismayed to find five people already in the cage.

  Should have given up sooner, he thought to himself. At least then we could have gotten a more spacious holding cell.

  The two soldiers that had first knocked down the door of the Jackson house were the ones leading this particular unwilling parade, and as they reached the doors, one of them—the one who had zip-tied Ritz’s hands—reached up and keyed in a code. The lock on the door clacked upward and the other soldier stepped up to open it wide.

  After filing into the tight little area, the door snapping shut behind them, Ritz followed the example of the family he had observed and urged his crew to take positions on the outer edges so that the younger of their group didn’t have to stand next to the buzzing wires. The four others who had already been in the cage seemed somewhat reluctant to do the same, but after one of them—a large man with a salt and pepper beard—looked at the battle-hardened adults and teary-eyed children he quickly acquiesced, the others following suit.

  Ritz himself was on the furthest edge of the cell and had to shrug his shoulders together and lean slightly inward to avoid the electric wires. The position he achieved was just manageable, but he wasn’t sure he’d be able to hold it for long. He gently twisted his hands in back, feeling the hard plastic dig into his skin. His hands had begun to go numb, but he thought he might be able to figure out a way to shock some life into them, freeing himself in the process.

  But the timing would need to be just right.

  Vanessa Jackson did her best not to react when the Minister of Defense himself walked into her holding cell. The room was cramped and stuffy with a plain 3x5 foot aluminum table in the center. Unlike the polymer zip-ties she had seen on some of the other prisoners, Vanessa had had her hands secured in front of her by two large steel manacles, the cuffs of which were so big they dug into both the middle of her forearms up top and just below her thumbs on the bottom. The manacles were secured by two chains that met at the fork of a single chain and then wound through a giant steel loop bolted to the floor at Vanessa’s feet. She didn’t even try straining against it; she knew it was secure—she knew because she had built this room with her own two hands, yanking and testing the chains and bolts when it was all finished.