Phoenix Rising (Book Two of The Icarus Trilogy) (29 page)

“I remember…..I remember a lot of things.  I remember being in the mess hall, and my room.  I remember shooting my guns at something, but I also remember being here.  Or some place like here.  I don’t know what’s real, Doc….” He said, unable to keep his gaze on her.  “I don’t… I don’t know anything.  Did …. Did I even live?  Am I just imagining things?  Who…. Who am I?” he asked to the air above him.  “Are you even here?” he asked as he turned back to her.  Kane could not help but whimper as he spoke, but as he addressed her, Charlotte mustered her nerve and sniffed, doing what she could to hold back the tears.

“You’re here, William.  I’m he-” Charlotte began, but the warning beacon erupted from the display by her side.  She had almost forgotten why she was here in this room and she panicked at the sound.  The William Haywick given the mercy of living in the real world had just died in some fashion and it would not be long before the satellites surrounding Eris would bounce his soul back to another clone.  If Dr. Kane did not kill the broken Haywick lying on the table in front of her, the clone would only have the memories of the real-world Crow.  Hawkins’ experiment would be ruined.

The good doctor looked down at her patient.  She desperately wanted to answer him; she felt burdened by the weight of it.  Charlotte quickly worked through scenarios where she could save the man from his fate and possibly relieve him of his failed perception of reality.

That was when the image of Jenkins lying dead on a medical table popped into her head.  She remembered a flash of seeing Roberts’ twisted body as he suffered a pain spasm while he ran on a treadmill in the training room.  The good doctor remembered why she was in the room.

“What?  What are you doing?” the Crow asked as Dr. Kane set about preparing the euthanasia materials.  It was only a few seconds before Charlotte sent the lethal concoction into the man’s veins and watched as his eyes widened in horror.  After a few moments the life left from the man’s eyes and Charlotte was alone in the room; only a corpse laid beside her.

The good doctor sat on the stool and forgot her good posture.  She felt dead and empty on the inside; party to the murder and torture of a largely-innocent man.  Whatever crimes he had committed, he had more than paid for.  She was staring against the opposite wall, trying to justify her very existence when she heard the door open behind her.

“Did you… Oh, good, good, Charlotte,” she heard behind her.  She turned her head slightly and put on a mask of normalcy for her audience.  The weasel-faced scientist was grinning at her and held his portable terminal at his side.  “You killed him and everything.  It was about time,” Hawkins said as he entered the room and examined the freshly-made corpse.  “He was throwing things off, this Crow.  I had covered the last clone with second and third-degree burns, but the soldier out there was just living with the memories anyway.  Maybe this one will yield better results,” the overweight man said before turning to the woman.  She wanted to strike this man with the malicious grin on his face.

“Seems like you weren’t just bluffing about your help.  I wouldn’t have been able to get any of my work done with Markham if I didn’t have you here.  I think,” he said while giving Charlotte a lecherous smile, “that we can definitely work something out here.  How about you head up to the resurrection chamber and prep things for our new subject?  I’ll be up in a bit,” he said as he stood up to his full height, a few centimeters shorter than Charlotte, herself. 

The good doctor rose with a deliberate sigh and stepped towards the door.  She felt shock and indignation as the weasel took his chances and slapped her butt on the way out.  It was only through great restraint that she did not turn around and scratch out his eyes.  Instead, she breathed out again and turned to look at the scientist with a side-long glance filled with false desire and a crooked smile.

“Oh, stop that.  I’ll see you soon,” she said as she turned and swept her hips back and forth in a deliberate show of feminine grace.  As Charlotte walked towards the entrance she felt disgusted with herself and hoped that she would feel better when she no longer felt his presence.

Charlotte realized it would be difficult, as she now bore his sins along with him.

-

Feldman lumbered after the sprinting child in front of him.  It always shocked the giant when he saw Roberts moving like this; he knew that Christopher felt so much pain with each step, dulled only by the constant medication he received from Goldstein.  It was an awful set of circumstances and Feldman wished so much more for the tortured boy.

But that was not his place.  Gregory could not change things for the little child in power armor.  Feldman felt the very ground beneath him resonate as he pounded after Roberts.  He was not accustomed to running so much and would have preferred a more leisurely gait, but he knew that Roberts would feel uneasy and paranoid if they stayed out in the open.  Feldman could help with that particular issue, so he allowed the young soldier to lead on and kept up his stride. 

The giant was not even really running as he followed, as his pace more resembled a pattern of springing forward in a short leap and then repeating with the other leg once he landed.  He had too much weight bearing down on his shoulders and hips to consider anything else.  It was tiring work, but the giant suffered through it.  If the child could bear his pain from resurrections, the least he could do was muscle through his own.

They had not encountered very many Jackals during the match.  While they dropped from the sky Roberts had already noticed a pair of the soldiers and, upon landing, took it upon himself to outmaneuver them.  Feldman hadn’t even had a chance to pick up his sword before Roberts had planted a few rounds into the back of the first Jackal.  The giant did what he could to run towards the sporadic gunfire which followed, but found only that he had rushed to the defense of an already-victorious comrade.  Roberts had a great deal of experience in his skirmishes and had been reloading his weapon as Feldman made his appearance.

Since then, the pair of Crows had seen nothing of the enemy.  Feldman had counted six corpses on their travels, but they did not matter much.  Most had been there for weeks, perhaps months, and he could not discern any colors beneath the dust and grime which covered them.  Whatever information they held was long past value.

“You doing ok back there, Feldman?” Roberts asked between breaths.  The young soldier was considerate enough to know that the giant was not used to this kind of exercise, and knowledgeable enough to know that the great man would not complain in the slightest.

“I’m fine, Christopher.  No need to stop,” Feldman said, holding his breath between the words so that it did not seem like he was tiring.  When he turned off the Comms channel he breathed hard in order to compensate.  Roberts turned his head to look back at the giant and knew that there was no use in denying the truth like this.  He decreased his pace to a jog and then to a slow walk, allowing the giant to catch up to him.  It wasn’t long before the giant and the child stood side by side; the boy soldier holding his rifle in his hands, the giant’s sword holstered against his back.

“I told you there was no need,” Feldman said, careful not to let the resentment flow through his statement.  The child need not cater to his weakness; Feldman could always push himself further.

“Who said anything about needs, big man?  Maybe I just want to go for a stroll,” Roberts said with a coy smile underneath his helmet.  He knew the titan did not see it, but the boy soldier could tell that Feldman was aware of the gesture.  Roberts had always known the giant to be quite intelligent.

Feldman gave a short grunt of a laugh in response.  The child was admirable in quite a few ways.  Feldman would miss the soldier when the EOSF came down to kill them all.  The giant had tried to keep his thoughts away from the failure of a revolution that was about to crash down above their heads.  Templeton’s last words on the subjects had made their mark, and even though the titan would do nothing to harm the cause, he also knew that it was doomed. 

The giant had done what he could to resign himself to his fate.  He was going to die, all of his friends and compatriots were going to die, and the most they could show for it would be a minor headline that would be relegated to dust within just a few weeks.  Their lives would be written out of history and that would be it.  Just another failed revolution; just another uprising of criminals and undesirables stamped out by the hand of the righteous.

As the pair of soldiers walked through the gray landscape between broken transports and cement outcroppings, Feldman wondered what the best manner of death would be.  He had only two days left before Death would sweep down on them for the last time.  Feldman tried to think of how he would want to spend his last hours.  He had thought about merely laying in his bed until the EOSF broke down his door and riddled him with bullets, but the giant had decided instead to spend his last moments in the library, surrounded by the books he had read so many times.  If Gregory was to be abandoned by history, he would at least want to lose himself while the odor of those old pages filled his nose.  The titan could not help but feel sentimental.

They ambled in silence for a time.  Roberts knew not to push the giant into an unwilling conversation, and Feldman was grateful for it.  He broke from his thoughts of impending death and looked at the child by his side.  The giant suddenly felt a wave of guilt as he realized that this boy beside him would be dead as well, and would not have the comfort of resigning himself to death.  Feldman had a special relationship with the specter and would embrace the end of his life with dignity, but the medicated child would not.  He would despair and want to cling to his life.  Feldman knew for certain that the boy would fight alongside these other Crows; Roberts would grab at any hope for freedom.  He would die, crying and sobbing while Feldman sat with his books.

Gregory mustered his nerve and breathed in deeply.  He knew that Templeton had not bothered to tell the addled soldier to his side any of the details of the coming uprising.  He could tell that the resistance agent thought little of the boy addicted to the painkillers.  But the titan knew better; he knew that Roberts had a right to know what was about to happen.  Feldman was about to utter the sparse words to his companion when the boy raised his hand suddenly.

Roberts had noticed a corpse laying against the small mound of machinery and scrap to their right.  Feldman unclipped his sword and held it by his side as the smaller soldier walked up to inspect the body.  His words could wait until they were relatively safe.

When Roberts hunkered down next to the body, the first thing he noticed was that it was a fresh corpse.  What dirt and mud caked the armor had been placed there recently, so it was rather obvious that the corpse was from this particular game.  The body was lying face-down against the incline, so the boy soldier reached out and grabbed at the shoulder so that he could get a good look at the team symbol.  As he peered at the corpse, he noticed the crimson crow emblazoned across the arm.  Roberts sighed as he turned over the body and noticed the bullet holes scattered across McCoy’s golden crescent.  Christopher unclasped the helmet and sighed once more before turning back to the giant.

“It’s Haywick.”  It required no response.  Feldman turned his head slowly to analyze his surroundings.  That Haywick’s corpse was alone meant that a Jackal had to be close by.  While it was possible that the Crow had been killed early in the match, it was much more likely that Haywick had been wandering around alone for some time.  Roberts picked himself up and readied his rifle, joining the giant in his watch.  The soldiers backed up to each other so that they could watch any approach, and soon enough they were in the middle of the clearing, anxious at any possible attack.

“You see any trail?” Roberts asked, his voice tense and wary.  Feldman continued to look at their surroundings and after an eternity of a moment noticed something odd.  It seemed like something had been dragged off to the right of his vision.  He reached out behind him and tapped on Roberts’ shoulder, and after the young soldier turned Gregory pointed towards the markings.  He motioned with his fingers and then started to creep towards the two lines.  Roberts kept his position as the giant crept forward, anxious for a possible ambush.

The titan slowly made his way to the markings and as he reached the beginnings of the lines through the mud, Feldman was sure that they had been made recently.  He stepped gingerly along the path, doing what he could not to make any noise.  Gregory cursed silently when the joints of his armor started to squeak, betraying his position.  He knew that it was the exact wrong moment for something like that.

The Jackal popped up over the ridge directly in front of the giant and started to fire in Feldman’s direction.  The titan had no time to react and no choice in the matter.  It was a suicidal distance to cover, but he ran anyway, using the kinetic motivators in his suit to propel him forward in a mad dash.

As he neared his opponent he noticed the Jackal was firing past him; the giant did not understand why and he had no time to care.  He was only thankful that the soldier had missed so spectacularly with such an obvious opportunity presented to him.  Feldman brought his plasma blade up in a sweeping diagonal arc from his lower right.  The giant cursed as he saw the soldier start to duck, but as the burning plasma was brought across his body the blade caught the top of the Jackal’s helmet.  Feldman heard the weapon burn through the metal and plastic which protected the soldier’s head from bullets.  It did little to stop super-heated energy, and Feldman was somewhat relieved to see the soldier collapse as a sizable portion of his brain and cranium separated from the rest of the Jackal’s head. 

The soldier started to collapse as Feldman continued forward, but Gregory had no way to stop his momentum now and he barreled into the dying soldier with his massive legs.  The giant tumbled through the air along with the Jackal and they landed with their limbs entwined beyond the ridge.  Feldman hoped desperately that the soldier would be dead and unable to fire at him with a piece of his brain missing.  The giant would not be able to swing his weapon like this.