Authors: John Koetsier
Servitors were already coming out of their damaged room by the time we were finishing, and without comment or complaint began the unpleasant task of removing the bodies of our enemies. We made sure all the varipods were disabled, having no desire to be ambushed by quickly-reborn combatants.
After clearing all the chambers and corridors, we checked back with Kin and Sama, and moved on to the control side. Moving through the servitors’ chamber, we entered cautiously, hesitant to believe that all the enemy had been found. The control room itself, with the same small dining area as in our base, appeared to be deserted, but we carefully swept it to ensure no-one was hiding under a table or desk.
Moving to the corridors that led to the machinery rooms and the departure room, some instinct prompted me to quietly grab a chair, place it by the corner which turned into the hall, stand on it, and quickly peek around the corner.
That chair saved our lives.
As I was pulling back, bullets chipped the corner and just missed my head. Walking around the corner would have been suicide, and even peeking around at normal head height would have been deadly.
“This boy is talented,” I said to Livia as we armed a couple of grenades, held them for a couple of seconds so he couldn’t just toss them back, and tossed them around the corner.
Bullets reached out and licked the edge of my lower arm as I threw the grenade, creasing the skin. The explosions sounded and Livia and I immediately charged, blind, into the smoke, firing and dropping to our bellies on the floor. The smoke cleared without revealing a body, and we knew that this was a very talented foe indeed.
“He saw the grenades and took off in about a second flat,” I said to Livia admiringly. “Not bad. Not bad at all.”
“Stop admiring and start figuring out how to get this guy,” she shot back, pointing to a blood streak on the floor. “Looks like we did get a piece of him.”
She had a point. I stopped, motioned for her to stop as well, and just kneeled and thought. In a few moments, a plan suggested itself.
“OK. Right now, he has the advantage, because he knows both where he is and where we are. We have half as much knowledge — all we know is where we are,” I said. “We need to even up the information battle if we want to win.”
And, I thought but did not say, both stay alive.
First some misdirection. I put my submachine gun around the corner and fired on full automatic, emptying a mag while swiveling it around to create as many ricochets off walls, floor, and ceiling as I could. Only a lucky shot would do any damage, but the point was to make him believe he was in a standoff, and that he was facing us.
Livia and I turned, went back the way we came, intending to circle around through another hall and come up on this fighter hopefully from the rear or side, but at least from an angle he did not anticipate. Before we completely cleared the corridor I stooped and attached a little motion-activated mine to the wall at knee height, hidden by some grenade damage.
“Hopefully that will at least slow him down if he gets impatient or flushed out and decides to come out this way.”
Then we backtracked along the hall, through the control room, still empty with its desks, chairs, and tables, and down another path. We slowed and moved as silently as we knew how, trying to keep below the quiet murmur of ventilation fans, the distant muted throb of machinery plugging away at arcane tasks, and the slow sounds of servitors moving the husks of former enemies.
We took a right turn. If he had not moved, then we were coming up very close. We slowed, approached the next corridor. This time, with no chair to change heights on, I bent onto my knees and quickly peeked around the corner. I saw a shape that looked like a man, waiting, rifle at the ready, but couldn’t be sure in the milliseconds of vision that I had. Changing levels again, I stood, and took a longer peek this time.
Only to recoil in haste as bullets chewed the wall at knee height, right where my eyes would have been. Without a second’s pause I armed a grenade, tossed it hard around the corner, then pushed my gun around the corner, held it very low, and emptied another clip exactly parallel to the floor but about four inches high.
I was getting more than a little pissed off by this dude.
When the grenade exploded I charged down the corridor, Livia right behind, firing as we ran. Time to end this, I thought. Time to finish this fight. Only to see Livia go down as we passed a dead-end side-corridor, almost a niche in the wall, and get kicked in the side by a hammer blow myself. Twisted with the impact of multiple bullets, seeing Livia go down hard, and landing on my knees. Hit and hurt, but not penetrated.
Then the enemy soldier exploded out of the niche and attacked with all the ferocity of a wounded animal. He was bleeding from a cut on his cheek, so the grenade or a ricochet must have caught him somewhere, but I had no time to wonder how badly he was injured as he ran towards me, aiming a two-legged jumping kick at my chest. Must be out of ammo.
I twisted off my knees and down to the ground, avoiding most of the kick while doing my best to trip him. Rolled over my head in a sort of impromptu somersault and jumped to my feet as he rose to his. This time we ran right at each other, at the limits of our self-control, eager to close, to connect, to punish.
We traded blows at close range: huge, heavy punches. I blocked a kick and walked into an uppercut. The world turned a little hazy, and I stumbled backwards, buying time, while warding off further blows. Met the wall behind my back and instinctively slid right as his fist just missed my chin for a second time and blasted right into the steel behind.
He grunted, almost cried out, and I pushed off the wall, gathering my strength and delivering it in a hard shove that gave me space and breathing room. Followed it up with a feint to the head and a wide sweeping kick that took out his legs and dropped him to the floor, still shaking his doubtless broken hand. Stomped that hand mercilessly, seeing the pain in his eyes, and then dropped on his prone body with my knees, seeking to crush his ribs and still his breath.
Only to land with both knees on hard concrete as he twisted away at the last moment, causing instant and massive pain. But not total incapacitation, thanks to my armor. Saved enough presence of mind to duck as he swung from his knees, then turned my agonized wobble into a half leap, half fall forward onto the enemy, dropping him down, and, laying half over him and keeping him down, connected my fists and elbows with his face at speed.
Until he convulsed with sudden internal pain and I knew that the scratch on his face was not the only wound he had suffered. I pulled back, observed his face, and saw the frothy blood on his lips. Lung shot. Probably dying, slowly, by drowning in his own blood. Not the best condition to be in for intense hand-to-hand combat.
It was over.
Carefully, slowly, I pulled him to the wall, propped him up against it, and searched him for any guns. None. Then, keeping an eye on him at all times, walked backwards to Livia, lying on the ground. Dreading what I might see, I turned her over and was almost overwhelmed with a sense of relief to see her chest rising and falling. She was still breathing.
“Livia?” I called, touching her face.
She stirred, opened her eyes. Pain filled her face, but then she mastered it, smiled.
“My side,” she said. “I think I took four or five rounds right in the same spot.”
She was breathing quick, shallow breaths. I unzipped her heavy jacket, opening her body armor, and peeled up her shirt. It was unbroken, which was a good sign, but I cursed under my breath when I saw her side, which was already showing bruises on the lower ribs.
“Looks like the force of those bullets overwhelmed the body armor at that one point,” I said. “I don’t know if those are just bruises or if you’ve got some broken ribs.”
She sat up, wincing, and I helped her move over to the wall. I re-zipped her armored jacket — this level was not necessarily totally cleared — and propped her up against the wall. Asked her a question with my eyes and she nodded, sending me over to our injured prisoner.
He too had pulled himself up, leaning against the opposite wall. I grabbed him, more or less gently pulled him into the niche that had saved him from the worst of the grenades, then went back over to Livia and helped her rise and follow, determined that we were not going to be easy targets for another enemy soldier who just happened to walk along the main corridor.
Then I crossed back to our prisoner and searched him for further weapons. Finding a few knives and a cleverly-concealed grenade, I tossed them in Livia’s direction. I stripped off his combat jacket and boots, found a bullet hole high in his chest, and bandaged it roughly with his own shirt. From the look of the wound it was not a survivable injury, but I wanted to talk to him before he died.
Finally, I sat down facing him, looking him in the eye.
“My name is Geno,” I said. “I am a soldier for those who have told me they are gods, the ones who live in the city of light and sky. I have lived many lives in many times, and I have pursued you, the enemies of Hermes, across millennia and planets.”
“But,” I continued, “After all these missions, I don’t really know who you are, or why I am fighting.”
Or, I thought to myself ... why I am killing so many people.
“This is only the second time I have been able to talk to those we are fighting. Who are you? What is the quarrel between you and my gods?”
The enemy fighter twisted, unsuccessfully trying to find a more comfortable position. Then his face twisted, at first I thought in pain, but then I realized sorrow, as huge tears formed in his eyes, and began to drip down his cheeks. Shocked, I listened as he began to speak.
“My name is Jonas,” he said with a grimace, gripping his chest as the pain of his wound and hit emotional distress seemed to crescendo together. “I am a leader of the ‘enemy’ of which you speak, the enemy which you have sought and fought all through Earth’s long years. And I am … or I have been … your friend.”
He paused, seeing the shock on my face.
“You were not always a warrior, Geno. Nor were you always living in a box, training, fighting, dying, and being reborn. Once you and I were boys together. Once we played together as children in the most marvelous city in the universe.”
Something gripped my chest and I felt as if enclosed in a shrinking box. Seldom had the thought occurred to me — to any of us — about any kind of childhood, any kind of youth. It was not something that impinged on our existence, or something we had any definite memories of. It was a black hole in my life that I had avoided almost without knowing it, and even thinking about it now made me uncomfortable in ways I did not understand.
“I … I have no memories of being a boy.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Jonas answered. “He made sure of that.”
“Who?” Livia said. “Who made sure of that?”
“It’s a long story,” Jonas replied. “And I’m not sure how much time I have left to tell it,” motioning at his wound, which was still oozing blood. “You didn’t save any of the varipods, did you?”
“No, we destroyed them all,” I answered.
“Well, then you have killed me,” he answered. “Only a healing pod can help me now.” He angled himself into a less uncomfortable slouch, breathed heavily, and resumed speaking.
“We grew up in the city — a place that you may not remember, Geno, but the city that we established as a utopia, a heaven on at least one earth. At the center was our floating headquarters, and the towers and homes that we lived and worked in paid as little attention to the dictates of gravity as they did the sensibilities of those who grew up in more traditional places.
“The city was established by a group of forward-thinking scientists, humanists, artists, and engineers as an example of what the best of humanity could do, and to be a shining symbol for all men and women. You and I grew up in that city, and we became leading figures in its life, and in its science. So did, for that matter, Livia and many of the other members of your gang of now-soulless killers.