Herculanium (40 page)

Her eyes widened in horror. The officer, she realized, had turned the tables and made her the trigger-man, to cleanse Combattra of any wrongdoing before a world-wide audience. She glared at him, then wheeled around to face Preston, extending her arms forward to push him out of the way. Jayna barely managed to shove Preston back before hearing a muffled splatter on her upper chest.

She stepped back and glared at her shirt.

“Good looking out,” said Preston, regaining his balance. “These fucking birds are shitting everywhere. I think it got you, instead. How did you know that one was aiming for me?”

Jayna closed her eyes and gritted her teeth.

“Take it easy, girl,” he said. “It’s not that bad. Let me wipe that off you.” He took out a handkerchief from his pocket and gently dabbed it on the smudge. The liquid was unusually thick and pungent.

“Jayna, honey,” said Preston with a tremble, “this is blood.” He caught Jayna by the shoulders as she collapsed, in denial and fighting to resist the pain. Preston gently lowered her to a sitting position on the cement, using his body as a pillow brace to make her as comfortable as possible.

“Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy,” said Agent Rivers, speaking into his lapel microphone and shaking his head. “Marksman, you were supposed to pin the target, not the trigger-man. Your superior is going to hear about this.”

Preston rested Jayna’s head on his shoulder and embraced her softly. He grimaced in tears at the thought of losing his best friend, especially while protecting him. He knew was responsible for everything.

“Preston Jones, by order of the United States of the Americas, I am placing you under arrest for treason and crimes against humanity.” Agent Rivers flamboyantly retrieved a gun from his coat pocket and aimed it at him. “Game over, pal. On your feet or on your back inside a body bag, we’re hauling your ass in.”

For the first time since he’d known her, Jayna was speechless. She was as much in shock as she was in pain, still fighting and refusing to accept their situation. Preston took off his jacket and laid it out on the pavement, using it as a makeshift blanket for her to lay on. He held her hand and closed his eyes.

“How touching,” continued the officer. “Who’d ever thought a selfish wretch like you could have feelings?”

Preston stood up slowly and faced him. “You’re not going to get away with this. I’ll make sure of that.”

“Really? I have my army here, surrounding you. Where’s yours?”

Preston appeared to kneel back down with Jayna when he suddenly changed directions and rushed the officer, bounding forward like panther ambushing its prey. He parried the gun sideways while simultaneously slamming his palm upward into Agent Rivers’ jaw, sending both men sprawling off-balance to the ground. Staking his knee squarely on top of his chest, Preston grabbed the stunned officer by the collar and pummeled him senselessly, before dragging him back to the cab. “You my bitch, now.”

Preston lifted Jayna’s head and shoulders onto his lap, taking care to cup and support her form like a pillow. He brushed her bangs aside and stroked her cheek, smiling at the despairing eyes staring back.

“Are you alright, Preston? Did they get you?” Jayna gripped his sleeve in a tight ball and held on for dear life.

“You pushed me aside in time. You saved my life.”

“I was so worried. I thought I failed you.”

“Don’t talk. I’m applying direct pressure to your wound. I’m going to get you to a hospital.” Preston pressed the handkerchief against her chest, causing her to wince.

“I don’t think I’m going to live through this one, mate. I don’t think I’m going to make it.”

“Stop talking. Now it’s
my
turn to protect you, and I’m not going to let you down. No one is going to hurt you. Ever.”

“Combattra snipers are very thorough. I can’t feel me arms or legs. I can’t feel you holding me.”

“We have a hostage,” said Preston. “I’m going to use him to negotiate getting you to a hospital.”

“Don’t be like them. Don’t become what you hate in others. That’s my job. I’m sorry I failed you. I’m so sorry I couldn’t make it to the end to save you.”

“But you already have. You’ve saved me from them, and you saved me from myself. I can’t imagine what my life would’ve been like if you hadn’t been there for me.”

“Kind, kind words. You are a very dear man. Always remember that I’m your friend. God willing, we’ll meet again.”

Jayna gritted her teeth and arched her back, still not admitting defeat. With tears streaming down her eyes, her mask of pain suddenly deadened to a look of peace and contentment.

“You have a kind face,” she whispered, examining his features. “Thank you for this last memory. You’re a free man, Preston. Don’t forget to have a good life, too…”

Preston wept openly, clutching his best friend’s limp body into his bosom, wishing against all hope to will it back to life. He was instantly drowned in an ocean of memories, causing him to re-live a lifetime with each tear. He would never again hear her regal voice of counsel, nor feel the fire and loyalty she dedicated her life to living. Even in the stillness of death, she was still the most beautiful woman he had ever met.

Jayna laid quietly in his arms, her face finally at peace.

He gently rubbed a cross symbol on her forehead with his thumb, then rested her head on his jacket. He stood up and looked all around him, realizing for the very first time where he truly was and what was being done around him. Preston felt the thunder rumbling in his heart, and the ice-flow coursing through his veins. The nausea spiking his gut wasn’t from fear and despair anymore, but from vengeance.

“Preston Jones,” coughed Agent Rivers, propping himself up against the cab’s trunk, “by order of the government of the United States of the Americas, I hereby place you under arrest.” He wiped the blood he received from Preston’s beating off his forehead, panting heavily from pain and exhaustion. “Come with me.”

Ignoring the iridescent targeting blips suddenly pocking his body, Preston again grabbed him by his collar and slid him across the course pavement. With each stride, he felt himself getting stronger from seething rage and adrenaline. Combattra would pay for what they did to his friend, and he was going to start with its now-cowering herald of death.

“Go ahead and shoot,” yelled Preston into the officer’s lapel microphone, daring the gunships and the snipers. “One drop of my blood can wipe everybody out here. This man’s life is small compensation for our suffering.”

“Somebody shoot him,” screamed Agent Rivers in the air. “He’s going to kill me.” He looked over his shoulder and glared at the glittering police cars and barricades behind him, expecting a tactical response to spare his life.

Colorful targeting blips continued to dance up and down Preston’s form.

“You have a clear shot,” screamed the officer. “What the hell are you waiting for?”

The gunships and snipers remained vigilant, but silent.

Sprawled on the ground, he began to crab-walk away from Preston in a clumsy effort to escape. “Preston Jones, you are ordered to stand down and submit yourself to summary arrest and judgment,” he repeated. “Somebody shoot him!”

Preston hovered over him closely, cutting off corners and limiting the agent’s mobility to a small radius. He began mentally planning the surgical dismantling of this worthless patient: an elbow on the rim of the eye sockets so blood would seep in from the corners; fish-hooking his eyes and mouth to pull and tear his flesh apart; snapping his joints simultaneously at the wrist and elbow; lifting him high in the air and then spiking him down on his head; or perhaps stomping his crotch and grinding whatever was left in beneath his heel.

He grabbed the screaming officer by his flailing pant leg and dragged him back to the cab. Preston then smiled at the media helicopter and the police, contorting his face into a mad grimace of sadistic pleasure.

“They don’t
dare
shoot me right now,” he explained to Agent Rivers with glee. “We’re right above the freeway, next to that missing section. All I have to do is fall over and splatter over a bunch of cars. Major accident, major blood, major contamination. You, sir, are expendable. I know it, they know it. I’m going to make it where you don’t even get the chance to pray.”

Preston mounted the man and squeezed his throat, digging his thumbnail deep into his Adam’s apple. He raised his right fist high in the air, loading his punch with an eternity of grief, anguish and hatred for what his world had become. This strike was to be a death-blow, meant to shatter flesh and bone and conscience. Doing this was catharsis and would release him from his world of sorrows.

Preston screamed as his tears burned his eyelids, ready to unleash his fury like a divine hammer of justice. He glanced at Jayna one last time, to justify his final act and avenge her murder.

Jayna stared back, as calm and peaceful as if she was still alive and ready to rise from her spot. Her eyes had remained opened at the time of her passing, and Preston didn’t have the heart to close them in his hour of need. He clenched his fist tighter, building momentum in his head to strike his fist down and liberate himself. But he couldn’t stop staring at Jayna’s angelic countenance. From even beyond death, she seemingly continued to argue and offer him guidance.

“Don’t be like them,” she told him before passing on. “Don’t become what you hate in others.” He could clearly hear her voice resonating inside his head, imbuing wisdom he barely noticed in the middle of combat.

Preston stared at the cowering agent, and then lowered his fist to view his knuckles. The police cars from both sides of the bridge continued to glitter around him, as silent and as formless as a mirage. The two gunships remained stationary above them, two bright streetlamps looking down on traffic. In the distance, the building billboards continued to broadcast his every move.

“No,” he told himself. “Somebody has to pay for all this. I can’t let this one go.” He stood up and grabbed the gun from the near pavement. He aimed it pointblank at the agent’s face, his hand quivering from anger and insecurity. He squeezed his grip as hard as he could, but he couldn’t bring himself to press the trigger. He kept looking over to Jayna, wondering what she would say about his choices.

He tossed the gun aside and wrapped his arms and hands around the agent’s head and throat, in position for a naked choke/neck break that would all but decapitate his victim. Agent Rivers sobbed for mercy. Preston closed his eyes and collapsed his arms and shoulders into a tight ball, squeezing his entire being into a single spot.

He inhaled, but then slowly loosened his grip around the man’s throat. He looked over to Jayna with a look of understanding and smiled.

“I won’t be corrupted by this world. I’m not a murderer. Even if it costs my life, I won’t kill.”

He released the man to the ground and walked over to his best friend’s body. “Thanks for always reminding me who I am, and where I belong. I didn’t want to say goodbye like this, but considering where we are, I’m just happy we spent it together. If I never told you how much you meant to me, then I’m telling you now. Thank you for everything.”

Preston stepped back and turned to face the police barricade. Agent Rivers was already sprinting back to hide behind it, perhaps the luckiest man in the world to be spared in this encounter. Preston was truly alone now, surrounded by an army and cornered into a precipice overlooking an ocean at night. He smiled again at the irony of his life, of living past his lifetime and dying in a future he neither knew nor belonged in. His sport of choice had become a mockery of life and war, twisted alongside a world devoid of purpose or conscience. He was a relic, holding on to memories, faces and accomplishments that existed only in his mind and in obscure books at the basement of old museums.

“This is all about choices,” Jayna had told him. He had the power to give his life direction, to ultimately decide where and when things were to be. He could either turn himself in to the military and suffer their decision, or try to escape and live a fugitive. Both options had no future, but at least it was his choice to make in deciding which destiny to follow. Only
he
could decide what could affect him.

With the Arrest Administrator safely behind their barricade, Preston knew it was only a matter of time before they would open fire if he didn’t give up. The targeting blips continued to dance across his form, and the helicopter gunships were in perfect position to execute a surgical strike. They probably didn’t need to draw blood to kill him, anyway.

He closed his eyes and made a silent prayer, smiling at the thought of joining his friends and loved ones. Throughout this entire ordeal, he remained himself, a man out of time just doing his best to be who he was. He didn’t become what he hated in this lifetime, and his best friend and guardian angel made sure of that. It was up to him now to live up to her vision.

Preston Jones raised his hands high in the air and screamed, celebrating as if he had just won the championships with a monster dunk. He glanced at Jayna a final time, then sprinted to the side of the freeway.

With a searing spotlight trailing behind him, Preston leapt high over the railing. He suddenly became one with the universe, feeling the emotions of the surrounding military, his own heartbeat, the biomechanics of his form, even his favorite rap song.

The night air hit him with the force of a hurricane, and he felt his sweat turn instantly into mercury. As he floated over the roaring ocean, all he could hear was the wind rippling through his flapping jersey.

He was weightless, a naked astronaut rocketing to the moon.

Preston Jones dove headfirst into the blackness.

Into the light, and into history.

Bodega Bay, California

May 24, 2032

Preston instinctively jerked his head above water the moment he felt himself sink. He spat out the salty water with revulsion, wiping his eyes clear with one hand while keeping his body afloat with the other.

The fuselage’s emergency parachutes bobbed and rippled in the distance, like a giant tattered jellyfish dead in the surf.

Micky wept openly as she gripped her floating chair. She had already given up hope when she saw Preston floating by himself in a lonely fold of waves. Had he not jerked his head up to catch his breath, she would’ve gone in the opposite direction and floated away.

She tried to yell Preston’s name at the top of her lungs, but she could only produce a hoarse whisper. She paddled her chair in his direction, aiming at best for an intercept course. When she finally reached him, she placed her arm around his shoulder and tried to pull him upwards on her chair. Maybe they could share the floatation device while waiting for a rescue.

Preston barely noticed her as he gazed up to the sky. The clouds had taken on a shaded pearl luster, swirling mountains moving to the horizon. He stared at each subtle crevice and nuance, praying that a rescue plane would magically burst through the clouds and rescue them. But there was only thunder, reaching one crescendo after another, and itself broken up by flashes of lightning. The winds picked up, causing the ocean to rise and fall as if moved by the breathing of a sleeping giant. Each swell brought him closer to the sky, making him instinctively reach out with his hand.

But there was something wrong with the heavens. Preston took a deep breath, closing his eyes as a painful wave of nausea coursed through his body. The clouds continued to churn, creating mesmerizing swirls above the crash site. The thunder and his heartbeat quickly synchronized as one, and the lightning flashes grew closer and closer together.

A single bolt of lightning suddenly burst above him like a nova.

Micky screamed and pointed to the helicopter that suddenly lowered into view.

Preston shielded his eyes from the spotlight by extending his palms forward. Without warning, heavy objects fell around him in deep swallows, causing him to bob helplessly in place. But before he could react, hands and arms grasped him from all sides, their owners begging for him to remain calm.

A floatation device was quickly strapped around him, and he and Micky were spirited off into a speed boat waiting just beyond his view. He breathed a sigh of relief when he was laid down on the solid floor, bundled in thick blankets, and then made to breathe into a respirator.

But just as he lost consciousness, he stared at the rescuers looming over him.

“My God,” said the lead diver, removing his face mask, “we actually have a survivor. I think it’s…it’s him.”

With a gentle current of numbness washing over his body, Preston Jones smiled, then fell unconscious from his adventure.