Beyond the Black

“S o much for routine patrol.” Sergeant Chase Montgomery sighed, readjusting his visor. The damn thing had a bad habit of blinking out at the most inopportune times. This was one.

Acceleration in high G sucks, but it’s better than being dead. They were hauling through a canyon of steel and concrete, the remnants of South City. Concrete flew from the canyon wall where the railgun’s bullets impacted as shapes passed by in a blur. The staccato bursts of gunfire ahead twinkled like fireflies at sundown.

“Bravo One?” One of the young guns clicked onto the comlink.

He grunted an acknowledgement. “Bravo Three?”

“Sarge, you’re haulin’ ass out there. Everything ok? I can’t catch a read off your vitals.”

“Everything’s fucking perfect, corporal. I’m flyin’ blind out here. Check altitude and cover right wing.” He pulled up on the center stick and the plane climbed higher into the air.

“Roger, Bravo One.” The comlink clicked off and the faintest rattle told him cover was there. The kid was fresh, with a squared jaw and the slightest glimmer of mischief in his dimpled face.

He liked the boy well enough, but that poor boy was green as could be. He had to watch him closely; Sarge chuckled, the kid reminded him a bit of his own kid out there in Bastion.

Seeing the world through the tint of a broken visor really puts a damper on your day. Gray-brown buildings rose in the distance, smoke curled out of the ruins of a tower off to his left. He caught the faintest outline of three super soldiers holding out in the ruins of an old skyscraper.

They were big as a house and aiming massive guns his way.

With a quick flick of his wrist, he adjusted the ailerons and went into the gentlest of rolls as he banked to the left, nearly missing a secondary volley from the railguns. Maybe he was imagining it, but he could have sworn he saw the bastard flip him the bird.

“Think he would have had the decency to give you a reach-around first.” Hawk Eye’s voice was static on the other end of the comlink. “Want I should teach him some manners, Sarge?”

“Bravo Three - Hawk Eye’s got the tail. Peel off. Bank left and let Hawk Eye unleash hellfire.”

It took three years for them to get this far, and he’d be damned if he let those freaks take the city. There were parts of it that still seemed like home, tiny little idyllic streets with trees and sidewalks and curbs. And then there were parts like this.

Vacant and empty, they were hollowed out corpses of skyscrapers and office buildings. Somewhere down there he imagined there used to be condos where the lifestyles of the rich and famous played out their private existence, preening themselves out on chaise lounges overlooking glistening ocean vistas without a care for the rest of society.

It was a place where wealth and privilege fueled a guaranteed survival from the virus.

Until one day the virus came knocking at their doors.

And then they cared about the rest of the world. But, when the police couldn’t stand a chance against rampaging beasts two stories tall, they sent in the military.

It was too late.

They were always too late.

Now the oceanfront property had new tenants. They were genetically enhanced weapons of mass destruction, things that ate planes like his for dinner. One caught the ploy, turning around just in time to see Sarge hurtling toward him.

Sarge yanked the lever westward, the plane twisted violently enough to make him glad chow wasn’t for another hour. A sharp buzz sounded in his ear as the world came to life. He closed his eyes against the blinding light as his systems came back online. The glass of the windshield turned sunward, he caught the subtle shifts of purple and black as the sun set across the gulf.

And then the blinding light of sunset smacked him hard in the face. Despite the glare, in the haze of drifting ash it was still beautiful.

Sarge reached into his flight suit and pulled the wooden rosary out of hiding. If they were supposed to save the world, then they needed all the help they could get. He whispered a prayer to whoever was listening and flew past the skyscraper, miles passed in minutes and he twisted the fighter jet back to come around from the rear.

Hawk Eye’s cannon unloaded and the plane climbed high, banking eastward as the mutants returned the volley.

“Wahoo! Back online!” Sarge grinned, spinning the plane into a barrel roll as he circled back east into the canyon.

“Welcome back, Sarge.” Hawk Eye unleashed a volley and came up on his right flank as Bravo Three brought up left guard. “Think it’s just about time we call it a day.”

“Roger, Hawk Eye. Looks like we got one. The other two bailed out the building. FLIR’s got ‘em heading southbound from their twenty. Oh, shit. You see this?”

“Looks like they got some friends.”

“C-Com you seeing this?” Sarge asked through his comlink.

“I see it, Bravo One. Looks like they’re heading for Bastion. Standby while I get ground support up and running. By my count, we’ve got at least two hundred mutants pounding ground. Drones showing light artillery mostly, but they’ve got two of the SS with em. Jesus, they’re big as a house.”

The camera flew by in a slow pan, revealing the ugly mottled gray of scar-streaked skin. Two giants led the pack of mutants, flanking the smaller creatures into a line three bodies wide.

The taller of the two stared straight ahead with one purple eye. Fangs dripped saliva that bubbled the asphalt. A drop caught one of the mutants and its flesh sizzled, turning to a charred black husk that marched dumbly on.

“God, I hope the FOB can hold ’em.” Bravo Three’s voice was tinged with fear.

“My family’s set up in Baston.” Sarge grunted. The heads up display blinked and refreshed, ground support was ten minutes out. “Christ, you see that?” A secondary screen popped up. Satellites were picking up activity to the south. They were flanking the base. “Fuck these guys. We’re going in. C-Com, redirect ground support to the south flank. We’ve got this.”

“Roger, Bravo One. Good luck.”

“Bravo Three, unleash hellfire on your position. Hawk Eye, roll here. Take center strike. Drop payload at two clicks. I got left flank.”

They went in hot.

Sun set off the western shore, sonic booms resonated like hollow gunshots across an equally hollow landscape. Yellow and green shapes flittered across the length of his vision, dancing numbers and twisting lines stretching from green to red as the targeting algorithms worked their magic.

Front and center was an almost orange reticule showing like a Maltese Cross pointing the way back home. Underneath the sleek body of the B-151 was a twisting mass of death.

Scores of mutants marched in a double helix that stretched across the middle of his field of view. Drone cameras beamed the images of their prey across the bottom line of his head’s up display.

The creatures had staked out a wide swath of land measuring at least a half mile wide. Thousands milled beneath the jet, blockading the narrow interstate that spread across the plains like a gray artery.

The camera passed across the slaughtered carcasses of cattle as the half dog things chomped away on the bleached bones. One stood up on its haunches and sniffed the air as the drone passed by in a slow crawl.

As if by instinct, the thing reared and drew, static replaced the display and the soft firecracker pop-flare of the machine dying barely registered from his height. Sarge shrugged and hit a button. “Adios, mother-fucker.”

“What happened to I got first crack?” Hawk Eye’s voice crackled through the comlink.

“Bravo Three? You up and ready?” Sarge ignored his wingman’s grumblings.

“Roger sir. Locked and loaded.”

“C-Com - Delta Five is down. We’re engaging.”

“Careful, Bravo One. That was the last drone we had ’til Command re-ups us next month.”

“We’ll be careful.” Sarge and C-Com had gone back a way. Three tours across the WDC Campaign, two in Great West, and now this hell hole that used to be South Theater. The man had never steered him wrong. Truthfully, C-Com was the closest thing to a best friend he ever had. And to think, Sarge never once met the man.

“And if not? What do you want me to tell your family?”

“Tell them I’ll be home for supper.” It was a thought he didn’t want to acknowledge. Sure, he lived his life in the shit. And every day was just as dangerous as the last, but to think there was even a possibility that he wouldn’t be going home was one of the few superstitions he allowed himself. The other was sitting around his neck in the form of his mother’s old rosary. He pulled a picture out of his flight suit and fitted it across the panel gap between instruments. His wife, Kiara’s smiling face lit the cockpit in a warm glow.

The distraction nearly cost him his life. He reversed thrust and slowed his speed, coming up on a near fatal shot that punched through the nose of his plane. Six more caught the fuselage on his starboard side.

“Request permission to engage.” Lost in his own thoughts, Sarge almost didn’t catch the request. The chirp of static on the comlink hid the tenor of Hawk Eye’s voice. “Shit.”

“Hawk Eye’s hit.” The young gun’s inexperience squeaked his voice. “Bravo Three to Command, Hawk Eye’s down. Mayday. Mayday. Mayday.”

Sarge caught the tail end of the plane spiraling down as the engines gave out, three shots punctured the cabin before the hatch blew off. He caught the vaguely distant shape of an ejection seat as Hawk Eye went down. Flames blossomed across the aft engine, swallowing the plane whole.

“Hawk Eye’s down! I’m going in after him.”

“Negative, Bravo One. We show you at Drop Point Zero. Adjusting heading south by southwest. We have ground support waiting.”

“Shit! Sarge. I need to pull-” A static squelch silenced the voice of Bravo Three. The plane twisted nose over tail and careened into a tall building, its fuselage splintering into pieces as the boy died.

In ten years as a squad leader he never lost a man. Pilots came and went, but Hawk Eye was always there. And the new kid, the poor young hopeful kid. Their blood was on his hands. Why did he have to be so foolhardy? Three fighters couldn’t destroy an entire platoon.

If anything it was a suicide bandaid. But when he saw the flank closing in on the last forward operating base of the South Theater, he had to do something. Fools might rush in, but there was always one last stupid chance that it just might work. Deep in the bottom of his heart he knew it the moment he tasted his failure. But he tried. For Charlie and Kiara’s sake.

Damn it he tried. If they said one thing about Sergeant Chase Montgomery, it was that he died fighting and gave it the best damn shot he had.

Two shots gummed the glass on the cockpit. A fifty cal cut through a piece of his tail. And in the whistle of the airlock seal breaking, a cry went up. A lone, mournful howl of a midnight freight train pushing for home. Sarge bit his lip and spun the plane home. He fought down the urge of stupidity and martyrdom.

He wasn’t a kamikaze pilot. And as much satisfaction as he’d get out of taking out as many of the bastards that he could, he couldn’t do it.

The thought of a closed casket funeral broke his heart into millions of pieces. Damn it; if he was going to die, he wasn’t going to deny his wife and son the last chance to look at their hero.

He pushed the joystick forward and kicked his old steel horse into full throttle. The engine roared as he pulled up and set heading for the ocean. He dropped his payload and caught sight of the tiny explosions from his rear display.

That gave him some satisfaction.

It was one last hurrah before the plane banked low, hurtling toward the purple bruise of the oceans beneath him. As the slideshow of his mind played out, he couldn’t help but smile. One image superimposed itself above all others. A baseball hurtling toward the ashen skies. His son, Charlie, smiling as he hit his first home run.

The plane spun forward, increasing speed as it dropped altitude. If you’re going to crash, they say the best chances of survival are on land. But he was a dead man, and he knew it. So, it was a chance to pick his poison. Land meant explosion. Explosions meant big boom full of blood and guts. It wasn’t how he wanted to go out.

The home run flew out of the park, hurtling into a nearby skyscraper. A window shattered and glass twinkled down like thousands of tiny stars.

Yaw pulled him hard. Dropping that much altitude in such a short amount of time would make the most seasoned pilot sick. Sarge pulled the air mask from his mouth and hurled up every last bit of food he ever ate. Tears streamed down his face in salty rivers.

It wasn’t the motion sickness or the sharp pressure compressing his lungs into the tiniest bits of meat. It wasn’t the pain of taking his last breath that seeped through his body and deep into his wounds.

It was the pain of leaving. Of never being able to say goodbye. He hoped C-Com didn’t deliver his message. He prayed for salvation as he pulled the picture from the gauges. His mind fixated on the smiling faces.

Time slowed to an infinite crawl as the world dimmed with the fading sun. He twisted the joystick hopelessly as it spun on and on against its center axis. The plane refused to obey. He kicked at the instruments. Aluminum dislodged with a groan. Glass shattered. But still, the plane would not obey.

“Fucking pull up! Goddamnpieceofshit…” He smacked the glass. As the plane arced lower and lower, pushing closer to the black of the sea he pulled desperately at the latch and hit the ejection button. It was a last ditch reflex, more hope than circumstance. The seat wouldn’t budge. He refused to give up, pushing harder and harder as the weight of the world crashed down around him. The sky kissed the ground and everything went black as the ocean rushed to meet him.

He wished he was in the Pacific Theater. At least there was a real ocean there. Real salt water from one of the three still left. One of the three that wasn’t a blighted stinking desert.

No, the Atlantic was much worse. Poisoned by the bombs and the explosions, the last of the oil rigs went up in smoke years ago, leaving their drills to spin endlessly beneath the surface and tear gaping scars into the sea floor.

Sludge pooled on the surface, creeping across like the slimes the mutants so desperately courted as pets. The yellow gold of the fading sunset turned the oil to radiant pools of bliss. It was eerily beautiful to see something so breathtaking on the day you died.

The wings shredded, ripping from the fuselage with a great piercing howl. The whole of the world passed by in an earthquake of screaming metal. Water rushed around him, filling the cabin with white caps and eddies that danced across the shattered glass. They played gently at the glass and came back two - three times with force. It shattered, spilling safety glass around.

“Bravo One?” C-Com’s voice was distant as the plane sank deep into the ocean.

H e came to in a dark place. There was nothing. No one. He stood shakily, feeling the ground beneath his feet. He bent down and touched it, finding himself off balance. The rough texture scraped against his calloused hands, a splinter came loose and lodged in his finger. He cursed and finally took a moment to breathe, tasting the musty air.

Copper danced around his tongue, he spit twice, feeling the coagulated blood free itself from his throat. He flexed. Every finger, every toe. Moved his limbs to make sure they were all still there.

“Hello?” Sarge called out to the darkness, looking around for pearly gates. He listened a moment, wondering where the angels were.

He counted to ten and called again, louder this time, "Is anyone out there?" His own voice echoed back.

Peter did not show. The choir did not sing. There were no bells, no song, no white light or tunnel of rainbows greeting him. Death is a curious thing.

He stepped forward, his legs shaky. He was lost. There was no light, no sound. No birdcall or song of insects.

But there was something. It called to him, faint on the musty air. It hung heavy without the loving embrace of the winds to ease his tension.

He remembered it for what it was, but could not call it by name. It was familiar, so damnably familiar. Perhaps this was death itself, the slow rumble of a tunnel opening and the feel of falling upwards, defying gravity.

And then it hit him. Something deep inside his memory woke in an instant, sending sharp needles of remembrance and terror to stir his body into awakening. The dream ended, and reality emerged. An explosion lit the world in a crimson glow.

His ears popped with pressure, the floor rumbled beneath him. Sarge squinted through the darkness. He reached into a pocket, found the small flashlight he kept there. He pushed the button, but nothing happened. He tapped it against the palm of his hand.

It sputtered and blinked a dim glow, illuminating barely more than the path below him. But it was something, something he could see and feel. Something real.

A low rise wall ended just above his hip. He checked over his shoulder. When nothing stirred, he leaned over the balcony, casting the dim beam of his light forward. Land stretched far into infinity, an endless sea of burned plains and bruised ground with no horizon in sight.

Here was a world of twisted trees and brown, defeated grass. Something whispered through the surrounding trees, teasing against the skeletal limbs of the gray painted trees. A path was carved into the floor beneath him, emitting a strange orange light.

The landscape stretched onward, highlighting a small copse of deadwood forest that twisted into a strange serpentine and faded off in the distance towards a small ridge. The stench of burned wiring hung heavy in the midnight air. A faint blue light pulsed somewhere far above, but throughout his surroundings all was black again, all except for the blinking light below his feet.

Twisted trees dotted the surrounding landscape, gnarled and bare, pushing elongated fingers upward to clutch at the night sky. His flashlight sputtered and went dead.

Sarge shivered against the unnatural cold twisting through his body. There wasn’t time to consider it. The path throbbed off to his right. Its pulse quickened, a gentle hum buzzed softly behind his ears.

“Hello?” He called out again, reaching for his hip and popping the safety on his duty rig.

He felt something flutter, prickling the tiny hairs on the back of his neck. Just a breeze. Nothing to worry about. He put his back to the wall and sat down, his eyes never leaving the shadows beyond.

“Well, hello there darkness, my faithful friend.” He humored the silence with an uneasy laugh.

The old Colt rested patiently against his hip, its cool metal subdued in the unnatural air surrounding him. He reached down, tickling the hammer and wrapping his fingers around the handle, stroking the cracked and faded leather of his holster.

Something popped deep in the darkness, echoing like a gunshot in the silent air. Instinctively, he broke leather and slid the barrel out of hiding. He presented it to the darkness, drawing the gun back into a low ready as he pulled the slide, dropping a finger in and press-checking for a live round.

The brass beneath his finger was comforting, he released the slide and tapped the magazine, hard, making sure it was seated. He aimed the barrel up and pulled the trigger, not really caring where the round landed.

There’s no point checking for back stop in a world of ghosts. The round exploded with a deafening crack, the muzzle flash briefly bathed the world in a pale white light.

He was trapped. Just another challenge. Nothing he couldn’t handle. He put his hand inside the trigger guard, squeezing lightly on the soft metal as he reset the trigger.

No, this was hell. Here was a twisted, dark place. It had to be hell. There was no other rational explanation.

He wanted to sleep. He hoped that the sun would come up soon.

The orange light blinked in and out of sync with the beating of his heart. Footsteps echoed in the darkness.

“Whoa. Cool it, big daddy.” The voice was female, but its owner was anything but. She opened her hands in a symbol of peace.

Sarge cocked an eyebrow at the webbings between her fingers. If that wasn’t enough to convince him to pull the trigger, it was the strange fin-shaped mohawk of blue-pink hair and the lithe grace of a killer shark.

A red slip of a dress hung loose about her hips and chest, where gold medallions fashioned in the shape of an octopus draped her form. A pistol sat on her left hip, cocked and ready. An officer’s saber in a dark wooden scabbard rested against her right leg, the polished brass of a basket hilt shined in the darkness.

She took a step toward him. Sarge freaked and squeezed the trigger. “Fucking muties won’t take me alive.” Like rain on a window pane, the air shimmered, and the creature vanished, materializing a moment later two steps to the right.

“This is the thanks I get? Damn it. Ryu - remind me never to do anything stupid again.” She blinked, the milky gaze of a nictitating membrane pierced through him. “Name’s Lag. Lag Nebios. You’re probably hungry, put the gun down and come grab some grub.” She held out a webbed hand.

His stomach groaned. Sarge considered it, shook his head and stared at his captor, a mix of confusion and resignation played across his face. Lag didn’t waver in her resolve, leaving her hand.

“Look. The crazy eyes thing isn’t going to work out here. I promise I won’t eat you. I’m not,” she paused, gazing off toward the imperceptible horizon, “like those things. Down there. So, soldier.” Her smile was wicked. “You got a name, or should I just call ya Sarge?” She winked and traced a clawed hand across the bronze chevron on his chest.

“Chase, Chase Montgomery.” He sputtered without realizing it. He sighed in resignation. They train and train you for years on end, drill lies and double-talk into your head just in case you ever got caught.

But when a seven foot mutant smiles at their supper, it didn’t matter. Hell, he wondered if anything even mattered anymore. Miles from home and behind enemy lines, he was as good as dead anyway.

Maybe some shred of humanity might let him live another day. Maybe just long enough to figure out how to get away from them. But still.

Sarge had heard of a small minority. They were no different from fables. Stories that parents had told their frightened children to convince them all mutants weren’t really evil, to bleed some small glimmer of hope into the future of humanity.

It was a hope that he had planned to instill in his own son one day. A hope for a better world, of a brighter tomorrow. A new day where the stench of death doesn’t hang heavy on the air or exist in a false sense of security owned by the belief that an iron gate and a clean neighborhood was all it took to keep the scourge of the virus out.

He wasn’t jaded, no not yet. But he did have a hard time believing that a mutant would stick their neck out for a human like him. Usually, that belief was reinforced when they tried to rip his flesh off.

Shadows flickered off to Sarge’s right, there was a sudden burst of orange light and the vague shape of a boy just short of manhood materialized from a sea of sparks. Sarge turned and fired. The round struck center mass and melted into the shadow.

As his form coalesced, Sarge eyed the gray-green armor that covered the boy from head to toe. It looked solid, not too far off from the heavy gear the grunts wore in ground missions. A rifle rested, strapless on the kid’s back. The square shape of a handgun jutted out from his left hip.

Something pulsed against the kid’s chest, blinking lights that reminded him of gauges on his plane. Sarge stared up at the orange glass of the kid’s helmet, challenging him. Sarge reset the trigger and watched the kid’s hands.

“Is it true?” There was the sharp hiss of an airlock releasing as the boy’s helmet retreated into the armor. The boy shook sweat from his strange blue hair. “Did he really come from above?”

Lag nodded. “Ryu this is… our hero. If he’d just stop shooting us.”

“Hero?” Sarge laughed. “I ain’t no hero. Thanks for the rescuing, but I’ve got a family to get back to.” He stood. Maybe they weren’t so bad. But they were delusional. He didn’t deal in delusions. Especially when they kept him from home.

“Mom used to tell me stories…” Ryu’s eyes went wide. Memories flickered across his boyish face. Sarge couldn’t help but smile. Maybe it was the twinkle in his eye, or maybe it was the same reckless way the boy flicked his hair out of his face; but the kid reminded him of Charlie, his own son back home.

He caught himself, still unsure of whether these two were worth the trust. He bit his lip and forced stoicism back into his face.

It didn’t work. “What’s so funny? Finally heard that thing screaming in your stomach? Come on. I’m sure you’ve got a bunch of questions.” Lag sauntered away, the orange lights lining the ground blinked in time with her steps. Ryu brought up the rear, turning his back to Sarge.

He took a moment to gather his thoughts, stealing a glance over the wall to the ground that passed slowly beneath him. He stood, gripping the top of the wall, contemplating running for the hills. He could take cover and wait until daylight, find his way back to Bastion and get back home.

“You might not want to do that.” Lag cooed from somewhere behind him.

“And why not? You going to put a bullet in my head?”

“No. I just don’t think you’re stupid enough to enjoy that much pain.”

His heart thundered in his ears. Pain? Maybe he should have just taken the chance and run for it. He heard something click behind him, he closed his eyes and waited for a bullet that did not come.

“It’s a long way down. Don’t be stupid.”

Sarge blinked. He heard laughter behind him and decided he had enough. He turned around and tightened his grip on the pistol. Light flared around him, he grimaced and dropped his gun, shielding his eyes.

“Sorry.” Lag stepped closer, she picked up his gun and rested her arm on his shoulder. “You dropped this.”

When the pain of the sudden light reduced to a half dull ache behind his eyes, Sarge dropped his hands and looked around, seeing his surroundings for the first time. Wood and steel stretched into the shape of an old pirate rig, like something he’d seen on tv when he was a kid.

The whole of the ship looked almost comical. Wooden beams criss-crossed holes like patches on an old ripped pair of jeans. Steel bolts were welded to the outsides of portholes. Above, a mast held a torn black flag. The sails were crimson in a world of dull earth. Beneath his feet, clear tubing held tiny lightbulbs that faded with the increasing brightness.

“Mood lighting.” Lag laughed, “I like it dark. Makes this big ol’boat invisible in the black.”

“The black?” Sarge holstered his gun.

An earthquake groaned beneath his feet. The hull shook with impact. Sarge spread his legs and dropped his center, scrambling to regain his balance. He heard Lag curse as she rushed past him, pushing him out of the way with one webbed hand.

As her other hand reached between the folds of her dress, pushing it aside and revealing black leather armor stretching across her leg. She curled her hand around the gold basket hilt of a sword. “Downstairs. Now.” She hissed and her voice took on a deadly tone.

One gray wing reached across the side of the ship, a tail lashed down, spiking into the wood panel floor. It pierced through one of the clear tubes, orange bugs flew from the hole, spinning into a tiny tornado that took to the sky.

“What the-” Sarge scrambled back. The thing rocked the ship again as it freed its tail and curled up, drawing two leathery wings into its body. Ryu opened fire, blue lightning arced from the muzzle of his rifle hurtling toward the beast.

The bolts fizzled on its skin. The faint smell of salt and burned flesh sailed across the sky. Sarge coughed and reached for his holster.

Ryu fired three more bursts. The creature beat its wings, sending up a blue wall. The rounds puffed out, petering harmlessly to the ground below. He flipped a switch, the gun went full auto. The creature floated above the bullets and circled the airship, toying with its prey.

Its tail spiked down, whipping across the boat and severing the mast at the flag. Fabric floated down like ash from a cloud. The thing opened its mouth and cried an inhuman wail.

Sarge fell to his knees as the sound pierced his brain. He felt something wet hit his hands as blood leaked from his nose. He dropped, landing on his back as he drew and fired three rounds into the thing’s mouth.

Death came swiftly. The beast reared back, flapping its wings. Screams curdled his blood. It spun end over end before tumbling to the ground with a hollow thump.

Turbulence tore through the ship as the beast went down, knocking it fore and aft.

Something snapped, the ship keeled over and dropped altitude.

Sarge gripped the railing as the ship sliced through the air, sinking from the sky like a stone to the sea.

“Damn it.” The lights clicked off, the world returned to its bruised darkness, punctuated by the scattered orange light of the path beneath their feet. Lag stepped across the pathway, retreating toward her cabin as the ship righted itself with an angry groan.

Beneath him, he felt the familiar vibrations of an engine rumbling to life. The ship limped on, its fractured mast pointing toward the hull of the ship where it formed an inverted triangle that rested on the cabin roof.

“What the hell was that thing?” Sarge stood, checking himself. His right arm hurt bad. It was a gnawing pain he hadn’t felt in a long time, the type of pain that screamed of broken bones. He lifted his arm, something in his shoulder popped and white fire erupted down his arm, coursing down to the base of his spine.

Yeah. This wasn’t going to be good.

“Rays. They’re Selechai scouts. Real nasty things. That’s the first time I ever seen one go down in a fight. Usually we run dark in the black, for some reason they don’t seem to see very good come night time ‘round these parts. You really are something special, ain’tcha soldier? I’m going to wash up. Hope you’ll join us for dinner later.” She winked and stepped through the door.

Sarge grunted. He’d been fighting mutants for a long time now and never once saw a Ray. The thought of flying mutants sent a chill through him. Uglies were bad enough, but flying uglies were worse than bad. It was just as intangible as the minority, but there was at least one here.

And the airship? Hell, this stuff hadn’t been seen in the history books in close to two hundred years. But this thing didn’t look like the ones in the books, no. It seemed more solidly the antithesis of everything history had ever taught him.

He checked his surroundings, wondering if the boy would materialize again. If this was weird, that shit Ryu did on the bridge was creepy. People shouldn’t appear in a shower of sparks.

They just shouldn’t.

But Ryu did. Again. “Seriously, I can’t believe you killed that Ray. I mean how cool is that? Maybe if we can fix the ship right, Lag’ll take us back out into the black and we can go kill some more. I’m gonna skin one. It’ll totally make an awesome rug or something, right Sarge?” The boy elbowed him.

The armor plating caught Sarge just above the elbow, sending a skein of pain to thread up his arm. He tried to hit the kid back, but the pain was too much to bear. And the movement was all but non-existent.

“Shit. Maybe it is broken.”

“You don’t look good man. Come on and get something to eat.” Ryu gestured toward the open door. “What’s it like up there? On the other side?”

“Huh?”

“I mean, Mr. Browne tells us stories and stuff, but I think it’s been a while since he’s been topside. And since you’re not dead, I think you’ve been up there a lot more recently than him.”

“Ryu!” Lag’s voice called from inside the cabin, “stop pestering our guest. Wash up, it’s dinner time.”

“I bet you have a lot of questions.” Lag settled into a high-backed wing chair. She swirled an amber liquid in a glass. “Whiskey. Want some?”

Sarge nodded. Whiskey would be good. Maybe it’ll calm his nerves and settle his mind. Lag smiled, it was a grin full of alabaster fangs and mischief. She rose and poured a glass. He checked out her tail, it responded and curved upward inquisitively, the barbed end bounced from side to side.

“Cool, huh?” She handed him the glass.

“Cool?”

“My tail.”

“I wasn’t - I mean.” Sarge took a sip, letting the subtle vanilla notes dance around his tongue. The burn was good.

Lag couldn’t help but to laugh. “It happens. Guys dig the tail.”

“Don’t get cocky. I’ve just…”

“… Never seen a tail before? I get it. Riight. Bet you tell that to all the halfers.” Lag flipped her tail back and gently swirled the ice cubes in her glass.

“Where the hell am I?”

“In my cabin. Come on silly. Welcome to the RAS Seawolf.”

The blank stare on his face was supposed to tell her he was lost. The drop in hers told him she didn’t get it. Was it deceit? Maybe. Sarge cleared his throat. “No. I mean… where am I? Feels like this morning I was kind of in the middle of a war. And now I’m — not.”

“Don’t fool yourself, sugar. We are definitely at war. Might not be the one you’re used to fighting, but it’s just as ugly. Just as deadly.”

Copper light seeped across the room, bathing it in an unnatural glow as sodium crystals popped to life, the crackle of the energy overpowered the comforting white noise of the engines in the distance. A golden kraken tapestry fluttered from the breeze whispering in through a cracked porthole. A small sofa sat at the foot of Lag’s curtained bed. Bookcases dotted the wall.

“But where?” Sarge sighed, he brought his arms up and dug his fingers into the tangled mess of his hair, massaging the frustration out of his temples.

“Seriously?” Lag quirked the corner of her mouth up, alabaster fangs glowed in the sodium light of the cabin. “Oh that’s too damn funny.” She laughed uncontrollably.

Sarge grunted his displeasure.

Lag set her glass down. “You really don’t know?”

He emptied his glass and stood up on shaking legs, stepping toward the half full decanter on the bookcase. He paused and looked down, studying the cracked spines of the books below. His eyes caught on the plastic spine of a three-ring binder. It wasn’t the title that caught his eye, it was the red stamping of a classified government document.

She caught him staring and rose slowly. “Don’t. It’s not worth the heartache.” She paused. “Or the aggravation. Trust me, I’ve read it enough times to be an expert on aggravation.”

“What is it?”

“Project Omega.” She took a few steps forward. Her breath was sweet, her body was warm. And she didn’t smell like a mutant. Her scent was like a faint ocean breeze. It was refreshing.

Sarge blinked.

“Project Omega.” She said it again, softer this time. Her tail quirked up, twisting into a hook. Sarge’s discomfort shined through, she pulled her hand away and stroked her tail. She turned away, but not before Sarge caught the slow trickle of tears dripping down her face.

Sarge stepped closer, she put her hand up, pushing him away.

“Were you around during the Cold War?”

Shit. That was damn near two hundred years ago. Sarge shook his head.

“What do they say about the War in your world?”

Sarge shrugged. “Not much. Russians tried to blow us up. We stopped it, saved the world.”

“You sure about that?”

He wasn’t. Truth was, no one knew where the mutants came from. Far as he knew, they were just always there. From the time he was born until the time he would die. The blasted lands were an everyday part of his normal existence.

“Mutually Assured Destruction.” Her words were matter of fact.

And they were. It was a matter of fact. Russia struck first, the United States countered and everything exploded in hellfire and brimstone.

“What do you know of Naval Station Foxtrot?”

The world slowed. Sarge felt heavy. Everything started to sway. His stomach danced a happy little jig inside his body. Foxtrot was long since declassified. It was a science project, designed to stop the theory of mutually assured destruction. Far as he knew, it was a horrible joke gone horribly wrong. He blamed it for everything wrong his life.

“It failed.” Sarge said honest enough. “If it would have worked the way it was supposed to, the holocaust never would have happened. My family wouldn’t be running from monsters and worse. Maybe the world wouldn’t be as bad as it is now.”

“Yeah?” Lag grinned. “Ever wonder what happened to Foxtrot?”

He hadn’t given it much thought, but the pieces started to fill in the blanks. He humored her anyway. “I actually kind of figured it was vaporized in the first volley.”

“Nope. Guess again.”

“But that’s impossible. That whole area was vaporized. They say the whole of the islands fell into the sea.”

“And you thought your world was fucked up.”

“Then we’re…”

“Under water.” She laughed. “Hope you’re a good swimmer.”

Tinkling bells sounded overhead. She opened her parlor door to a small metal man pushing a silver tray.

“Hungry?” She lifted the top of the tray, the stench of boiled cabbage filled the room. “All yours, handsome. I’m uh… not hungry. Anymore”

Sarge nodded greedily. He didn’t know how long it’d been since he last ate, and a good soldier never turned down a meal. You just never knew when it could be your last. It tasted like seaweed and stunk to the high hells, but it was filling enough and didn’t come back up. He washed it down with the whiskey.

“Sorry.” Lag said when Sarge had finished wiping his mouth. “We’ve never been beyond the black for this long without resupply. I’ve been looking for you for a long time. I promise, tomorrow there will be real food. Oh, and I’ll see if we can fix something up for you too.”

“Why were you looking for me?”

“You can’t pretend an earthquake never happened.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Neither did you crashing in the black and shaking the ground from here to twenty mile bend. There’s an awful lot of people pissed off. Just be glad I found you. If the Selechai didn’t get you, I’m sure that whole oxygen deprivation thing would have. Unless humans topside have managed to learn the fine art of not dying.”

“Some of us have gotten pretty good at it. How long was I out there?”

“Probably been about a week or so. I don’t know how you made it more than five minutes. You may be just too stupid to die.”

“I hear that a lot.”

“Honestly, I’m more curious how the hell you made it out of the wreckage and into the protected zone. No one’s done that in,” Lag began counting her fingers, “like a really long time.”

“So - my plane?”

“Million little pieces buddy. You couldn’t put it back together with a glue stick. And I’m pretty good with a hot glue gun.”

“Can I see it?”

“Not if you want to kill us all. The Rays are still out. And there is that whole oxygen deprivation thing. Congratulations. You got yourself a one-way ticket to the happiest place on earth.”

“I don’t believe it. Not a fucking word. If you’re here to torture me or whatever, I won’t talk. So just kill me and get it over with.”

“Relax. Finish dinner. I wouldn’t risk the lives of me and my crew just to kill you here. Come on. I’m not a gal much for gambling, but those are odds an idiot wouldn’t run with. Even with a dead man’s hand. I don’t want to go back beyond the black, but if it’ll make you feel better, fine. Hell, I’ll even do my best to get you back topside. But you need to promise me one thing.”

Sarge grunted.

“Come with me to Tar Valley. After this. Please? I promise we won’t eat you.”

Night was insufferably dark. He stood in a starless, moonless black as eternal as the grave. The dimmest blue blinked somewhere high above, in the silent floating of a ship at anchor, he could almost hear the thrumming of energy pulsing in the distance. The occasional wisp illuminated the darkness so far above, whispering nothing but a pinprick of strange multicolored light.

The airship was empty, Lag had made it a point to stay far inside. The orange guiding lights of the floorboards were absent in the black. Something whooshed above him, but deep within the black, shadows have no meaning. His chest was tight, the air was thick with a briny humidity that coated his nostrils and made him choke out his breathing in slow rasps.

Something floated mid-air, just out of his periphery. Sarge turned around to meet it head on. The thing stretched the length of the ship, constricting with every movement it made. Dazzling lights blinked from the length of its leviathan body; purple and crimson sparkles created a terrifying parade of lights.

Sarge dropped his hand low, trying his best to be unassuming as he unsnapped the button of his holster and drew the pistol. The clasp unlocking sounded like thunder in the silence. The creature flashed, twisting like a flower blooming, its legs stretched out into a star as it dropped altitude and came at him.

And smacked into something hard. Stopping just short of the prow. Its legs unfurled, the lights blinded him as it smacked its legs and arms against the impenetrable object between them.

Curious, Sarge reached out and felt the prickling of energy just beyond his reach. It reminded him of a toy his son used to play with, a nifty little thing that made his hair stand on end. The energy tickled like a mild electric shock as it stretched up as far his eyes could follow it. The pulsation faintly illuminated into the shape of a wall.

A very large wall.

Beneath the thing’s body, he could see the faint outline of a steel corpse sprawled out on the ground. A metal ribcage was covered in an obfuscating silt. Beyond it, pieces of fuselage created a breadcrumb trail that spread out back toward a larger cigar shape.

The thing on the wall spread its tentacles and dropped off into the black, its purple light blinking down toward the floor, illuminating a square at the foot of the wall that appeared to be made of a strange colored metal. Sarge reached into his shirt and absently fingered the shape of his mother’s cross he wore around his neck.

The creature floated out into the black, Sarge watched its lights fade to darkness.

A Ray approached from above, following the fading form of the giant creature. Sarge screamed a warning. Lag came running, pistols in hand. The thing retreated back to the wall. The Ray followed, lashing out with its barbed tail. The creature fell into a pathetic heap of red mist that coated the wall as its dying light blinked out.

“Jesus! Don’t scare me like that.” Lag huffed, holstering her pistols.

“What?” Sarge blinked, confused. “The Ray.”

“That wasn’t a Ray.” The way she said it made Sarge feel stupid. Like there was a difference between the giant winged beast that just felled an equally frightening monster and the thing that tried to eat them for dinner. “I mean, I guess you were half right. That’s our friendly neighborhood stabber’s older, dumber brother. Don’t worry, it can’t break the gate. It’s the other ones that can. Those are what we need to worry about. Seen enough yet sailor? Ready to head home?”

“What was that thing? The blinky thing down there?” Sarge pointed to the faint purple strobe far beneath their feet.

“Damn thing got a kraken.” Lag sighed, tugging at a wisp of her hair. “Are you satisfied? Dead krakens don’t make me happy. I’m ready to sail. Let’s go.”

“I’m not leaving with you. I’m going down.”

“Where?” Her laugh was like tinkling bells. “Down there? To the gate? Oh honey, you’re dumber than I thought. Still cute though.”

“Bring the ship down or I’ll get down there myself.”

“You’re serious about this?” She quirked an eyebrow.

“Like a fucking heart attack.”

“Whatever.” She sighed, “it’s your own funeral.”

The ship descended.

“Look, since you’re new here, I’ll give you this one shot. We can play Perry Mason this time. It’s a terrible idea though. Just want to throw that out there.”

“This dude killed a Ray, Lag. A Ray! We were just down here. No scouts then, probably no scouts now.”

“It’s the probably that worries me. That crash made way too much noise, if the scrappers aren’t out digging through the wreckage, something’s wrong. And you know what comes with scrappers.” She turned to Sarge, putting a silver key in his hand. “We’ve got five minutes before submersion. There’s a locked cabinet under my bed, suit up. You’re going to need it more than us.”

“Need what?”

“Insurance.” She walked out the door.

“Ryu. Help me out. Please.”

The boy nodded. “Don’t mind her… She hasn’t seen someone from topside in a long, long time. The last time we rescued someone, it didn’t end good. But you’re different, right?” His doe eyes shined.

“Different. Right.” Sarge grunted as he got to his knees, his back and neck still sent white heat up and down his body every time he moved. But it’s better than being dead. If Lag was to be believed, there’s no way he should have survived the crash.

The case slid out on casters, he stuck the key in the lock and turned it. With a hydraulic whoosh, the chest opened.

“Tech’s gotten better since the last guy wore that. But, it should be good enough for now.” Ryu smiled. “I hope it fits.”

Inside was the strangest diving bell Sarge had ever seen. Like something out of an old, old movie. Sarge couldn’t help but laugh at the comically oversized helmet. The suit was made of a shiny material that reminded him vaguely of shark skin. Serrated gills were cut along the side of its chest. The fabric was soft to the touch with a solid kevlar weave.

“Is this?”

“Strong enough to resist a couple Selechai spears and maybe a few rounds from their plasma rifles. Problem is, you don’t want to take any of those. Because they hurt like hell and will probably kill whatever life support systems are still functioning in there.”

“Sounds reassuring.”

“We won’t need it though. There haven’t been scouts here since I was a guppy.”

Sarge snorted. A guppy. “Really?”

Ryu only nodded.

“Don’t you need a suit or something too?”

“Don’t worry about me.” The boy held his hands out to his side and closed his eyes. His breathing slowed as his clothing shimmered, the cloth fading away to solid metal. Within seconds, the boy was gone, replaced by the armored figure he first met on the bridge of the ship. “Tech’s come a long way since then.”

“Look. I’ll give you fifteen minutes, no more. But probably less. My boys up top will run the ship and hopefully be able to kill whatever doesn’t get them first. Listen for the klaxon. If you hear it, that means run like hell.

When we get down there, remember that suit’s probably at least twice your age, if not older. I don’t have a clue how much oxygen you’ve got left in that tank. If you start seeing red lights in your eyes or start to die, just raise your left hand. Ryu or I will come out there and scoop you up.”

“Sure you don’t want to tag along?”

“Down there, on the other side of the wall?” Ryu’s eyes went wide. “Can we, Lag? Can we?”

“No.” Her voice was coolly distant. “That’s not our place. We don’t belong there.”

“But you can cross the barrier! I know you can.”

“And you can’t. I’m not leaving you alone.”

“I’ll be fine!” He flexed his arms. The suit made him look more like a kid playing dress up. Sarge smiled, worry lines stretched out across his brow, his smile made the crow’s feet tug against his skull at an image he had of his own son wanting so desperately to try on daddy’s soldier clothes.

He didn’t know what the barrier was, but he had a good guess that as soon as he crossed it, he wouldn’t look back. No matter what. He did a quick calculation in his head. The ocean was about thirteen kilometers east of Bastion, given the wind speed and drop time, he figured it shouldn’t be more than a thirty mile hike back west toward home.

The ship paused, hovering just above the cracked earth. A large cable shot down from the balcony, stretching into a ladder with a slow, gelatinous lurch.

“You sure?” He put his back against the wall. Beneath, the ladder danced a slow circle in the placid air.

“We won’t go beyond the black. I’ll get you far as we can. Gate’s probably about six miles out. We stop where the blacktop ends.”

Sarge nodded his thanks. He took a deep breath and jumped the ledge.

Climbing down was the easy part. He put his feet on solid ground and stretched his legs, bending down into a runner’s stance. Brown dirt and shell-rock stretched across the earth. Strange colored shrubs dotted the landscape, bright coral and dull reddish lumps in an otherwise unimpressive landscape. He caught the faint scent of wood smoke on the salty air and sighed.

His suit was cumbersome, and he felt sweat begin to bead against the nape of his neck. His legs burned with each lumbering step. Sarge wasn’t accustomed to hitting the ground in full gear. He was a flyer, that brought certain privileges. Like sweating ten thousand feet up instead of on solid ground.

Still, after the first three miles he decided that he liked his job much better as his lungs and legs began to burn. After another two he found his cadence, and the steps became lighter; his body adjusted to the gravity of the suit.

Behind him, their ship faded into a haze. Its lights began to dim and darkness encroached. As the night grew darker, his steps grew wearier. Every twig snap sounded like a gunshot by an unseen assassin. His mood turned sour and his attention grew sharper.

Black shadows flashed before him. He ducked, taking cover in a nearby copse of deadwood. Behind him, Lag hissed a warning. “Selechai scouts, three just beyond the rise.”

“So much for scrappers not coming this far into the black.” Sarge mumbled as he reached for his holster.

“No. Don’t.” Ryu sparked into sight off to his left. “They can see a lot better than you. Just don’t move. They can’t see what’s not there. I’ll scout ahead.” Ryu blinked back into darkness.

“He’s a lot better at this than you.” Lag was whispering behind him, and though he was sure she was doing her best to not make a sound, her voice seemed to carry high into the trees. “Just sit tight. Don’t do anything stupid.”

Shadows approached. Two off to the left, no more than inky shadows within the darkness.

“Define stupid.”

“How about you just shut up and close your eyes?”

Before he could protest, the world ignited in a white light. Sarge blinked back the blinding pain. Too late. He caught the shape of the closest creature. It was hurtling toward him faster than he could have thought possible. The thing seemed to be floating in the air, swimming toward him with the blinding flash of a shark about to lunge. He canted his body to the right, pivoting to a forty-five and sent three rounds down range before the flash faded the world into a ghostly after-image.

Something yelped in the distance.

“That. Was stupid.” He heard her voice somewhere behind him. And then all at once he was running, being pulled along by her. Sarge scrambled through the dirt, trying to leverage his way back to standing.

He pulled at Lag’s hand, she only replied by digging her claws deep into the suit.

A link broke, and he felt a thin bead of blood worm its way out of his skin.

His knee popped; he collapsed in a heap, unable to continue any longer. His lungs burned as he gasped for air.

Lag settled down next to him, huffing and puffing, her breath making little white wisps. The world was starting to seem real again.

The blackness faded to a dull gray as he caught sight of a spotlight far off in the horizon. Sitting up, he leaned his back against the broken trunk of a red-barked tree and sighed.

“What the hell?”

“We needed to split. Fast. That was stupid.”

“What? Killing them before they kill us?”

“What you call stupidity, I call survival.”

“They’re linked together. Like one giant alarm. What one sees, they all see. When one dies, they all know. And when you graze one with a bullet, well — that means you just piss a whole pack off.”

“There’s at least ten more out there gunning for us. I tried to hide our path as best I could. But, well — they’re pretty dedicated.” Ryu sighed, “guess I really screwed this one up.”

“No.” Lag said. “You got far enough away to flare us into safety.” She turned to Sage, and for a split second he thought he saw a sheer look of contempt etch across her blue skin. “He screwed up.”

It vanished just as quick as it appeared, and the toothy smile returned. “Look, things are different here. There’s a million things that can kill you just as dead down deep like this. We just need to get in and out. This place freaks me out.”

Freaks her out? Sarge smiled inward. He bit back a retort and assumed the stoicism of a soldier bred for war.

“What happened to the ship will save us?” Sarge rubbed the back of his neck, more habit than reassurance.

“Something’s wrong.” Lag’s voice was like cold iron. “Ryu, take him out to the gate so we can finish this foolhardy mission and get back to Tar Valley.” She pulled her pack off and handed it to him. “This is the last of it. If you don’t hear from me before sunset, assume the worst and hoof it out to Tar Valley. We’ve got company out here and I don’t like it.”

They crested a narrow ridge. All around the world blossomed with a thin gray band of light that stretched out like an eel wrapping its girth across the world. Sarge grinned as the dim light grew just a little brighter. He found that he could see shapes without squinting. “Thought I’d never see the sun again.”

“I’m surprised it reaches this far out in the black. Give it another couple miles and you won’t be seeing much of anything again.”

Sarge took his surroundings in with each passing footfall. Clouds of white dust plumed beneath his steps. There was an ever present humming sounding somewhere off in the distance. Pink and orange shrubs dotted the horizon barely rising higher than his knee. Leathery grass crunched under his armored feet.

He hated to admit it, but the kid was right. Within five minutes of walking, the light that had been so promising faded back into a pinprick, replacing the gray with the steel blue of shadows falling.

The hum grew louder.

“Almost there.” Ryu waved his hand toward a hollowed-out trunk off to their right. “Hide in there.” His voice carried on a tinge of authority. “I’m scouting ahead.”

Sarge chuckled to himself at the thought of the boy playing soldier. His mind briefly flashed back to his son trying to hold an infantry helmet over his eyes. It brought a sad smile to his lips.

The boy wasn’t kidding. He lifted up the mirror of his mask and stared through Sarge. As he shouldered his girth into the trunk, Ryu popped away in his flash of sparks. All around, the world was silent. Sarge poked his head above the rim of the tree, finding nothing he dropped back down and waited.

And waited.

It felt like forever before Ryu returned, silently waving Sarge forward. The boy’s armor was spattered with blood. His helmet was up and Sarge couldn’t help but notice the grim lines on the young boy’s face. He toyed with the gauges in his suit. It took his mind off the kid, who only seemed to want to be left alone.

A series of numbers appeared in front of his face: Oxygen sensors, heart rate monitors, all the standard features he was used to seeing. A reticule danced in front of his face, circling around his right eye.

He flipped a switch inside his gauntlet and his arm swept up like a marionette being jerked by a string. Green fire erupted around his hand as the reticule began to pulsate.

Ryu caught sight of the fire blossom and screamed the first words he had said in nearly an hour. “Yeah. You might want to turn that switch back off.”

Sarge blinked and hit the switch, the flames withered to a faint puff of smoke that floated away with a wave of his hand.

“That cannon hasn’t been serviced in like twenty years. I wouldn’t go shooting it off if I were you. Don’t want you to explode if the line’s clogged.”

“Yeah. Guess that wouldn’t be too fun.”

“I’ll take a look at it tonight when we camp if you want. When we get back to Tar Valley, I think we can scavenge some parts for you. Probably get that thing tailored too.”

“Negative Three Thousand? Is that right?” Sarge shivered, as if feeling the pressure for the first time.

“Give or take a couple feet. That elevation meter hasn’t worked since the war.”

“Three thousand below sea level?”

“Yeah. Probably.”

Suddenly, the world felt heavy. “I think I need to sit down.”

“No. We need to keep going, we’re almost to the gate.” He paused, as if tasting the air. “And we need to move quick.”

Something fluttered behind him, Sarge moved to turn around. Ryu grabbed him. His grip was like steel. “Don’t stop. There’s two Wave Squadrons back there. Probably about six or seven miles out, but they’re moving pretty quick. Radar’s going nuts. They just split up, probably looking for us. If we make it through the gate, we might be able to hide out in the black. I’m kind of hoping they lose us out there.”

“Wave Squadrons?”

“Remember the Rays?”

“Yea.”

“There’s two of them. They’ve got six Selechai Hunters on their backs. You don’t want to fight them.”

Sarge only nodded.

“About a quarter mile ahead you’ll see a black box, don’t touch it.”

Sarge snorted. He had no intention of touching anything down here. And even if he thought about it, the multitude of wires stretching down, across, and around it would convince even the stupid to think twice. But he couldn’t deny his curiosity. “What’s that?”

“Energy cell. No one knows what it powers, but the rest of us have enough common sense not to mess with it. You wanna find out?”

Sarge did. But he wasn’t going to admit to it. “I think it’s a decoy.” He spun around, following the path of a blue wire that nested on a narrow ledge of ruined concrete. A lizard poked its head out of the wires and flicked a forked tongue at him as if threatening him to approach. He shrugged and drew his pistol.

“Don’t!” Ryu came running behind him. “They’re harmless. Mostly. Just don’t get too close.”

“Or else?”

“Or else it sticks that tongue right through your eye and sucks out your brain like oatmeal.”

Yeah. That settled it. He pulled the trigger and blew the little thing’s head off. “I like my brain.”

Ryu blinked. A stunned silence followed the blast. It lasted just long enough for spotlights to flood the area. “Shit!” He spat, pushing a button and dropping his visor back across his face.

The shadow of a Ray floated above the horizon. He made out six separate fins rising like a pirate’s flag across the mast of the Ray’s back. Sarge shielded his eyes from the light as Ryu blinked into shadow, melting behind the ruins.

Sarge pressed his back against the wall and dropped his magazine, fishing a fresh one from a pocket built into the side of the suit. He dropped the old one in and reloaded in a single motion.

The Ray grew closer, becoming more massive. Sarge felt the wind whip up from the beating of its wings. Three of the passengers dropped from the beast’s back and approached at a diagonal, pinching him closer against the wall. He caught the faint flicker of movement from his peripheral and took aim with his pistol.

It was an old 1911, a gun that was an artifact when he first signed up for the military. The gun held fifteen shots and had been deadly accurate for as long as he carried it. And long before that when his father held the same weapon and fought off the first wave of the Super Soldiers some thirty years ago. He hoped to pass the legacy on to his son one day, preferably without the SS monsters.

But as long as sentience existed, people and things would always find a better and more fun way to kill each other. The first Ray floated up into the heaven, spiking its tail down at the ground. The earth shook and chunks flew, splattering his face and arms.

He wiped the grime away and opened fire. His first two shots clanked harmlessly off the armor of the advancing squadron.

Sparks off to his left. Ryu faded back into the fight and leveled his plasma rifle. “Sarge! Hose!” The first shot arced through the thing’s neck, spraying hot, black blood everywhere. The bolt passed through the creature’s neck, decapitating it before the blast faded to ash against the concrete backstop.

One down. Five to go. Ryu turned and opened fire on the farthest one, cutting their V formation in half. Sarge took aim at the point man and slowed his breathing. Tensioning his finger against the trigger. He breathed out as the blue wire above the creature’s head blurred. The trigger snapped back.

A hair slow. The beast leveled its rifle and spiked him in the chest. He cursed, dropping his gun and falling back onto his ass. The shot was dead center. Should have been a killing blow. The electronics went dim behind his visor and a klaxon sounded in his head. He sucked air and traced a finger across the outline of the hole in his chest. After the first knuckle sank in, he began to panic.

Sarge slowed his breathing and closed his eyes, picturing Bastion in his mind. Sidewalks. Bike rides down the street. Charlie. He smelled roasting vegetables and marinating turkey. His stomach grumbled, and he forced himself to stand up.

No way he was dying here; not on this shit-stained broken sidewalk. He balled his hand into a fist and flipped the switch inside his suit.

Ryu was still in the fight. But it wasn’t looking good. His suit was leaking oil from three different wounds and his rifle was jammed. He watched Ryu struggle to work the action and clear the malfunction.

There was no cover.

Poor kid was mutant meat just standing there in the open.

Green fire pooled around his hand. Mutants opened fire. He heard muffled screams as his right arm opened into a cannon; the suit’s targeting systems took over.

He raised his arm and unleashed hellfire. Something pierced his shoulder. The pain was unreal, it felt like liquid fire melting his arm into a puddle of goo.

Above, a volley rained down. His helmet absorbed the brunt of the attack. The targeting sensors went dark, a sharp hiss followed his airlock releasing and there was acrimony on the warm air. All around was a sticky ichor. Something thumped down next to him as his cannon fire blossomed into a dome that touched the sky. Inhuman screams filled in a chorus of despair as the green light faded to black, the last words on his lips were a whispered goodbye to his only son.

H e awoke to the faint glow of a candle flickering.

Shuffling feet to the rear. Three voices. None he knew.

What he did know: It wasn’t the frog like staccato of the mutants.

Where the hell am I? The waking world arrived slowly. The candle’s light was brighter than flying into the noon sun. Near blinded, he groaned and struggled to rise. His body was weak, it hurt to move. He pushed up feebly, lifting his body upwards with wasted arms that shook with the effort. Inches passed by in agonizing minutes, his strength gave out and he collapsed back against the pillows.

He slumped back down into his cot. At least the bed was comfortable, goose-like down played softly against bare skin. His gear was a mess, but it hung from a nearby peg. He eyed the hole melted into the chest of his suit.

A shudder passed through his body in rolling tremors. Absently, he fingered his chest, feeling the rough bandages that stretched the length of his upper torso. He twisted his wrists, feeling for bonds that weren’t there.

A small curtain swayed in a gentle breeze, filling the room with the sounds of burning lard and meat.

His stomach growled. How many days? Six? Seven? The mystery meat casserole they served back home would have been a welcome treat for his starvation. He wouldn’t even turn down that boiled seaweed Lag had back on the ship.

Where was she? Did they make it? He lay back, staring up at the cheesecloth hanging from the ceiling. It slumped down, defeated. His eyes darted across the room.

Dusty, bottle lined shelves were scattered haphazardly across the room, hung uneven across rough wooden studs exposed beneath rotting stucco. A rusty saw was tucked into a corner of the nearby desk. Bonemeal littered the floor. An old bottle of whiskey gleamed like freshly polished boots. His mouth watered.

Drums sounded in the distance. There were cheers outside. Someone was speaking, faintly. He strained to hear. The sensation was too much, his head exploded in starburst and he collapsed back into the bed.

“Oh. Shit.” He groaned, tried once more to sit up. Found the strength to move. He pushed a leg up from under the covers. Swung it over the bed and forced the second one to mirror. Standing failed miserably. He held onto the nearest table. His legs shook, wobbly and weak. He blinked, images flashed before his eyes. He found himself drifting back in time.

It was getting dark; he couldn’t hold on to his memories any more. His mind was slipping away. He was back in the present. Back where he had two legs that weren’t good for standing. Legs that gave out suddenly. He found himself falling, falling backwards.

The world spiraled out of control; the tiny flickering candles gave out.

They’re coming for him. Few things in life are certain. Death was one of them.

And here he was, left here to die. Alone, at the bottom of the sea. He wished for more time. To see his son one more time. The staccato tremor of the drum increased in rhythm, got louder. Beat in time with the throbbing in his head and in his limbs. So, this was it. He sighed.

It’s funny how time works. By the time you realize everything you’ve ever fucked up in life, it’s already too late. But it never fails. In your worst moments, you see the best of everything.

Everything that you took for granted, all that wasted time.

And what was he doing? Laying here wasting time. But it hurt. Yeah, damn it hurt. But it was just pain. What did they teach him all those years ago? If there’s one thing you can control, it’s the pain in your body. All you have to do is swallow your pride. Accept you are human and that things were going to hurt.

But if things hurt, that meant one thing.

That meant he still wasn’t dead.

And that meant he could still fix things, still get back home. And he promised himself that he wouldn’t take another day for granted.

He didn’t want to go out this way. He swore and forced back the pounding headache, promising himself he wouldn’t go down without a fight.

It materialized in front of him, fading into the room through the curtains. He could picture its dripping fangs, hungry for the taste of blood. His blood. He tried to stand again, tried to pull his fists in front of him.

“You won’t take me alive.” He croaked out as the thing moved closer. He could smell the charcoal and sweat from its body. The curtain flared open, everything was so bright. He saw nothing but shadows. There were three of them, no more than insubstantial blobs.

The one in the front took a step. Then another. The shadows spread out, flanking the bed. He took a swing at the closest thing. His fist hit weakly, a soft thud that was more of tap. It was unmanly, it was pathetic.

“Well, good morning to you too,” it was a girl’s voice. Unfamiliar, but lined with a subtle snark. “Are you done trying to hit me yet? Or should I see if Freddie Blassie wants to wrestle?”

“Stop squirming, damn it.” The girl’s voice betrayed her frustration. “It’s for your own good. I promise.”

Sarge grunted. He kicked up with his bound legs, the shadow danced harmlessly to the side. He heard frustrated sighs off to his sides.

“Will you relax damn it?” Finally a familiar voice. The curtain fell and Lag materialized out of the shadows. Sarge blinked away the darkness, shapes coalesced into tangible things. The things became people. Living, breathing people.

People like him.

Well, sort of. The girl he’d been kicking wildly at looked no more harmless than a preteen girl. Even with her green hair and bright lavender eyes.

She giggled. “There! Now isn’t that better? I’m Amber. And you’re a pain in the ass.”

He shrugged hopelessly.

“You’re way too hurt and nowhere near stupid enough to be fighting like that.” She busied herself checking his bandages. “Ah damn it.” She stepped away and started digging through the jars and bottles lining the walls.

She seemed to find what she was looking for and turned back around to face him. “So what’s your name?” Her eyes stared through him. Dimples dented her cheeks.

“Chase Montgomery.”

“Sergeant Chase Montgomery! I call him Sarge. It’s so cool.” Ryu gave a stiff salute.

It was terrible, the angles were wild. But the kid tried. Sarge couldn’t resist the smile creeping across his face.

“We fought hard out in the Black! We tried to find his plane, but it was long gone. I think the Selechai found it first, probably stripped it clean. Looked like we surprised them coming back through for it. I’d never seen a real plane before. It was so cool. I bet it was really fast, wasn’t it Sarge?”

Amber yawned. Sarge didn’t think she was too into the war stories. Still, it was cute watching the boy try to impress her. When he was the kid’s age, Sarge probably would have done the same thing.

“Yeah, it was pretty quick. It flew really high too.”

“I bet it did. The Selechai wanted it bad! You should have seen them. There were like a hundred of them. And twenty-six Rays. They had plasma rifles and everything. There was a whole talon too, riding the Rays. Had these crazy lance things that shot lasers.”

“Oh really?” Amber was half-listening. She had walked away and was fretting over the crumpled form of someone much smaller than her.

“Yeah. And they were shooting at us from everywhere. I think they may have even hit the generator at the edge of the Black. I saw it spark.”

This statement caught Lag’s attention. “You sure about that?” She finally found a bottle she seemed to be looking for and walked back over to Sarge. “Drink this.”

“Think I’ll pass.”

“Think you’re missing the point here. It’s not an option. Especially if you like breathing.”

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure I saw the whole world blink for a minute after they hit the generator.”

“That’s impossible.” She popped the cork and handed the bottle to him.

Sarge resisted, she harumphed. “What kind of soldier are you?”

That hurt. He grunted to sit up, snatching the bottle from her hand. He tilted his head back and took a long swig.

It burned all the way down. He coughed, feeling it come back up.

“Swallow it.” She said, forcing his mouth closed.

His stomach did somersaults. But the liquid went down, settling into his stomach with a gurgle and a growl.

“I’m pretty sure I saw sparks fly. That blue blink thing at the top of the dome stopped blinking.”

The oh-shit look on her face told Sarge this was something he should be concerned with. Lag fretted over him, readjusting pillows and tightening his bandages.

Whatever that briny stuff was that Lag fed him, he felt himself starting to feel a bit better. His whole body tingled, butterfly wings fluttered against him. Things were slowing down, and he felt numb.

It was good.

“Ryu,” her voice was cold. “Please tell me you’re embellishing this. Please tell me you did not see sparks fly.”

“I saw white lightning, Lag. Right before Sarge went down.”

“Did he touch the generator?” Worry etched her face, “Sarge. Tell me you didn’t touch the generator.”

“All I did was kill a lizard. I hate lizards. I’m sorry.” Sarge cocked his eyebrow and raised his inflection. The words came out more like a question.

He had all but forgotten the drums in the distance. It seemed like they had faded into background, but their sudden resurgence didn’t sound so friendly anymore. They beat louder and louder until they didn’t sound like drums anymore.

No. They didn’t sound anything like drums. It was artillery. They were under fire.

“I swear to everything above, if we make it out of this alive - I’m going to kill you myself.” Lag’s voice dropped, she straightened her shoulders and took a deep breath. Seconds passed between her frustration. Gone was the spunky girl with the cute tail. She had the calm fury of a commander preparing for war.

Sarge tried to swing his legs off the bed. He had good intentions, you had to give him that. Her glare killed whatever momentum he had. Like a scolded child, he shrunk back onto the bed.

“Amber, get downstairs. Tell Drew to ready the cannons. Ryu, I want you out here with me. Cover the hospital until Drew gets our weapons systems up.”

“What do you need me to do?”

“Shut up. Stay here and don’t do anything stupid.” Lag disappeared out the curtained doorway.

“What’s happening?” Sarge’s voice cracked.

Wax dripped onto an old table. The candle went dark. He heard Amber sigh as she walked toward the door, pushing the curtain open and tying it onto an old rusted nail.

Warm light filtered through a cheesecloth drape as one by one the candles were extinguished by another nurse. He was in some sort of field hospital, surrounded by the sick and injured.

Beds were lined up in narrow rows. People flailed frantically, crying out in pain as white linens ruffled and voices croaked for water and food. For something to take the edge off. Something to make the pain go away.

All around, men and women in white cloths busied themselves with charts and syringes as they spread from injury to injury. The stench of rot told him some didn’t fare as well. Those shapes lay still with the soft crimson of dried blood blossoms their only adorning decorations.

A vase of white flowers on a nearby table took some edge away. But even its sweet smell carried the sickly stench of sadness. An old man hunched over the nearest body, whispering too low to hear as a chorus of voices cried out in pain and regret.

The constant rat-a-tat-tat of artillery fire out beyond the curtain was an almost soothing white noise. For a minute, Sarge felt like he was home.

In his delirium, he saw Kiara fretting over Charlie, her long fingers brushing back his chestnut hair. The boy was sulking. Sarge reached out to her, opened his parched mouth to croak out what was no more than a whisper. “Relax kid. You’ll be okay. Get back out there and hit a home run. You can do it.”

Something fell off to his left, clattering to the ground with a resounding thunk. Sarge clapped, tried to stand. Found his legs bound at the ankle and nearly fell out of the bed trying to recover. She walked over to him, reached out a hand to feel the scar above his left eye.

And then pain. Sharp and hot, like charcoal burning deep in his chest. He screamed out in pain and the world ignited in an orange haze.

It was Amber, refreshing his blood-soaked bandages. The wound had clotted around the gauze, every piece shorn out was another hot poker straight through his veins. She grabbed his arm, flipped it over and found a vein. A bite, and then the rush of warm liquid coursing through his body.

“You okay, Sarge?” Lavender eyes stared through him. “You had me worried for a minute.”

“Who? Who are you?” His lips were cracked, it hurt to speak. He reached out to her, his hands opening and closing like he was milking a cow.

“Lag said you’re probably in shock still. She said I shouldn’t give you anything to drink yet. But you’ve got to be dying. By your stink and your size, I’d figure you’d probably been out beyond the black maybe two - three weeks? Tops.”

More gunfire. Closer. Sarge groaned and tried to stand.

“And in the three weeks you’ve been here, you’ve managed to get your self shot damn near half a dozen times, I just patched up a sucking chest wound - and it’s going to take you maybe another week or so before I even want you to stand. So I suggest you lay your ass down and sit this one out, soldier.”

Sarge blinked. There was nothing else to do after getting scolded by a child. You just kind of sit there, taking it all in. And it was a lot to take in. The girl had a point, he was no good like this. He needed to rest, to save his strength.

If they were playing the waiting game, he would just have to play it that much better. He needed time to plot his next move, to figure out how to get out of this freak show of an aquarium.

To get back home.

“Look. I know I shouldn’t do this, and if you die Lag is going to be wicked pissed. But if you can keep a secret, I’ll get you some water.” She beamed a smile. “Deal?”

He nodded. She stood there a moment, weighing her options before walking away. She returned a minute later with a blood pressure cup and a stethoscope. She checked his vitals, sucking on her lower lip as she ran a few tests. She appeared satisfied with the results and pulled the cup off his arm.

Dropping the stethoscope around her shoulder, she turned and walked to a porcelain pedestal sink at the far end of the room. Her feet stepped across tile covered in a light coating of dust, puffing up tiny gray clouds in her wake.

Sarge followed her movements as she walked beyond the rows of beds. Amber grabbed a cup and filled it from the faucet, returning a few moments later with lukewarm water.

It was the most amazing thing he’d ever drank. Salty and sweet, with a slight sulfur odor. The water broke through the dam across his cracked lips and sluiced down his throat with each calming gulp as he sucked it down, emptying the cup before he knew it.

Sarge mewled softly, begging for more. They say dehydration fuels delirium. One more cup of water and he hoped he would wake up home in Bastion, safely tucked away in bed behind fortress walls. He would wake up to the sun shining, birds chirping, and the soothing sound of artillery fire.

As he finished his second glass, his senses came back to life. Slowly, like the dim awakening of a bad hangover. Iron and sickness were sharp on the salty, humid air. Short, staccato bursts of gunfire faded into a gentle background noise of waves crashing ashore. Bright light filtered through cheesecloth curtains that served as a nearby door.

He blinked against the blinding glare. When his eyes opened again, the craggy features of an ancient man were staring down at him with cold gray eyes. The man’s brow furrowed and, Sarge guessed, what the man called a smile appeared on his face.

“Good morning. Sergeant Montgomery, I presume?” The man held out his hand. “Jackson Browne, Lag has told me much about you. Welcome to Tar Valley. I hope you find our accommodations to your satisfaction. We’ve had some - ah… trouble as of late. So, my apologies if there is something amiss. Please let me know how I can assist you in making your stay more enjoyable.”

The man had the shifty qualities of a used car salesman and stunk of politics. Still, he was the most human looking person he had seen since he woke up. And that says a lot. Especially when surrounded by the unknown. A little homogeny can go a long way. Sarge took his hand, clasping it with the strongest grip he could muster.

It was pathetic.

But, still. The man smiled just the same.

“Pleasure.”

“I bet you’ve had a long journey, it’s been many years since someone came from beyond the black. You must be exhausted.”

“Understatement of the century right there.”

“What century is it up there?”

Browne’s question puzzled him. “2183, last time I checked. Was deployed most of the holiday season though, so.”

“You’ll find time moves-” he paused, as if checking his words carefully “-much more slowly here.”

Yeah. It was going to be a long day. If Browne’s question puzzled him, the last statement really lost him. Time was time. An endless, eternal ticking of a clock far more ancient than civilization or its own self-destruction.

It was the one constant left in the world. No matter what happens, time marched on. Always and ever, so it had been since the beginning and so it would be to the end. Or at least that’s how it should be. Anything less than normal was impossible.

As impossible as life under the sea. And even more implausible than Project Omega surviving the blast. But, shit. That was damn near two hundred years ago.

Two hundred years is a long time to be lost from the world, forgotten by all but the oldest history books.

Everything hurt. If this was all a bad dream, it was one hell of a lucid nightmare.

“Allow me to apologize. Our electricity has been on the fritz as of late. Something is wrong with our generator, and I can’t offer you the newest episodes of the Cisco Kid. Or air conditioning. I hope you don’t find our weather uncomfortable.”

It was hot. But he was used to it. The humidity though, that was one thing. Sarge shrugged off his blankets, he put on his best poker face. “It’s hotter than hell where I come from. Humidity may be a little better though, feels like I’m drinking air.”

And he was. Except, it was saltier than he remembered. And it stuck to him. Clinging, like plastic wrap to his already clammy skin.

“Yes. That is the unfortunate part of our living conditions. It is something, I fear, that takes an awful lot of getting used to. I admit, truthfully, that I am not quite accustomed to it either yet. Even after all these years.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Going on almost seventy years, as I recall. May be quite longer, actually. It’s been some time since I was north of Tar Valley.”

“How did you?”

“We all come from somewhere, Sergeant Montgomery.” After that, the man went silent, he closed his eyes and sighed. When Jackson Browne opened them again, they were transfixed on something far away.

It was the thousand-yard stare of a man who’d seen some things. Maybe even done some things. Regrets always have a funny way of catching back up to you.

“But, how did…”

“You should get some rest, Sergeant. I take it this has been most overwhelming. We will speak again when you are well.”

Sarge’s eyes followed the man’s shuffling feet as his blue robes swayed across the dusty floor, sending tiny whirlwinds spinning in his wake.

“S o. Is it true?” The kid was young, hardly old enough to sign his life away. Back home, no matter how desperate - the government still had morals. Still had rules. And there was no way in hell he’d have let Charlie enlist. Still, the kid had that same mischievous sparkle in his eye, though dimmed by the scars criss-crossing his face and the way his mouth gummed out words, as if missing tooth or tongue - he still had that same young spark.

A small spark Sarge had at one point. Not the spark of survival. No, when he enlisted it was for all the wrong reasons. Pussy and a paycheck, at least that’s what he told his dad some twenty years ago. At the time, the old man just smiled and shook his head.

“Is what true?”

“You.”

“Me? Yeah. I’m pretty sure I’m real. Name’s Chase. Everyone just calls me Sarge.”

“Echo.” The kid sat up with a groan, forcing his eyes to meet Sarge’s. They stared at each other, nodding a mutual respect.

“You’re young.” Sarge said, matter of fact.

Echo dismissed him. “Not too young to kill.”

Sarge set his face in a grim smile. You can’t argue that logic. Never too young to kill. “Never easy, either.” Some things you can experience, improve upon.

Death was not one of them.

No, no matter how many times the gun goes off or the bayonet slices. It never gets any easier. Whether you’re ten thousand feet up in the air, or ten inches away. The bed squeaked with his motions as Sarge struggled to sit up, he coughed up gummy phlegm, forcing saliva back in to his mouth. It was damned hot in here. Humidity clung to the air, strangling out clean air and replacing it with the sick scent of the infirmary.

“Is it true?” Echo asked again, his words growing more forceful. “Did you come from beyond the black?”

“Yeah.” The wind let out an asthmatic wheeze, pushing the curtain to sway in the stuffy air. Light peaked from beyond the curtain, contrasting with the dim haze of the field hospital’s interior.

“You don’t look so great to me. You’re old.”

“I’ve been doing this a long time, son. Age doesn’t mean dick after thirty.”

“I don’t believe them. You ever kill a Selechai?”

He shrugged.

“I’ve killed three. They all know it.”

“That how you ended up here?”

“It doesn’t matter how I ended up here. All that matters is I’m going to get out and kill them again. All of them. Until there’s no more.”

“And then what?”

“Live.”

“You going to do all that by yourself?”

“If I have to.”

“Strength in numbers, kid.”

“Numbers?” Echo laughed, it was the hollow laugh of a mad man. “Numbers.”

“Someone’s got to watch your back.”

“There’s no going back.”

“Nothing wrong with a tactical retreat, son. You can always regroup. Study. Prepare. Plan.”

“Retreat?” The boy’s voice bordered on lilting insanity. “They’re all gone. Diver, Badge, Gunner, Alamo. All gone. He ate them. There’s no going back. No way in hell. I’m going to cut his fucking head off. I’m going to cut his head off and bring it back here for everyone to see. Mr. Browne said he’ll let me put it on the gate; we’ll let them all know just who the boss is. You ever been eaten, sky man? No. Me either. But you know who was? All of my friends. Every last goddamn one of them. You know what it’s like to be hunted? For fucking sport.”

“Sure do.” Sarge’s answer was simple enough.

“Bullshit.” Echo’s words cut deep.

Sarge’s temper flared. Red filled his vision as the stitches pulled against his skin. He bit back the urge to reach across the aisle and rip the kid’s throat out.

“They say you’re some kind of super soldier sent from beyond the black to fix this fucking problem. And yet here you are, sitting in an infirmary damn near dead just like the rest of us. What kind of hero is that? You’re no fucking Superman.”

“You’re right. I’m no fucking Superman. And I’m no hero. I’m a solider. Just like you. I’m a soldier of the New American Empire. I fight for the safety of my family, every last damn person left in the blight who still clings to the hope that one day there will be a new day.

A day where kids can go outside and play, where Scree don’t come swooping down from the sky to rip you to shreds and mutants don’t break down your wall and use your fucking head like a goddamn volleyball.”

“They’re all gone.” Echo broke. His words faded to a sob.

“Lost half my squad the day I ended up here. My wingman, Hawkeye. SS Shot him clear out of the sky. He was a good kid, was like a son to me. And I can’t even tell his family, because I’m stuck here. I don’t want a stranger to tell his wife and kids he’s gone. That’s my job. He was my boy. I was his commanding officer. And he was my wing man. Ten years. Ten long damn years, never lost a man after thousands of flight hours. We lost two that day.” Sarge coughed, brushing his finger against his brow, wiping away the tears he didn’t want anyone to see.

“He’s still out there. Waiting. We can’t farm, we can’t leave the town. We’ve got no food and the road’s closed, by order of the City Eternal. But, he’s out there, picking us off one by one. So, we thought we’d send two. Then three. Soon, whole squads went out and never came back. So, what did we do? We sent troops out there. Some never came back. The ones that did told us about the bone pile they found. Ours. Smashed gear, broken carts, supplies spilled everywhere. Alamo managed to bring some back, but what he told us was even worse.

So, we all went out there. And now most of us didn’t come home. We broke rank and hauled ass back to Tar Valley. Diver and Badge didn’t get more than twenty - maybe thirty yards out before he got them. Seen Diver get swallowed whole. Whole. Every last goddamn piece of him. Badge went quick, his head cleaved clean off by the Oger. He stepped on Gunner while he was chasing us. Me and Alamo split, he ran left toward Clay. I went right back home. He’s got to be out there, somewhere. I’m going to bring him home. One way or another.”

“You can’t do it alone, kid.”

“Already tried the group thing. That didn’t work. I’m going alone.”

“You can’t. You’re no better off than me.”

“Watch me.”

“Bullshit. Tombstone courage kid. That’s just going to get you killed dead.”

“Dead is dead. We all die some day.”

“Not on some stupid fool’s errand.”

“Glory to the brave.”

“No. It don’t work that way. Yeah, they’ll throw you a big funeral, maybe promote you, give you some fancy rank and big title. But, you’re still dead just the same. And your momma will cry just the same. No, son. Dead is dead. We all die some day. But, you’re a soldier damn it. You’re supposed to tell death ‘not today’. We ain’t supposed to die. Not like that. I won’t let you.”

Echo laughed. “Watch me.”

Afternoon brought no change. The sun remained perched just out of sight, casting filtered light through the same cheesecloth curtain. He was still thirsty. Still hungry, too. So when Lag Nebios returned, it was like an angelic gift sent from heaven above. And when she came bearing presents of salted meat and warm crusty bread. Sarge fought back the urge to kiss her right there.

“Christ, you don’t know how good it is to see a friendly face.”

“I bet you say that to all the pretty girls.” Lag smiled. “Don’t kill yourself choking that down. Damn, man. When’s the last time you ate?”

“Days.”

“I haven’t been gone that long.”

“Well. Since you’ve been gone then.”

“Sorry, Sarge. It’s getting bad out there. Relax. We’re in town, there’s plenty more where that came from.”

“Food. Is good.”

“Beer is better.” She reached into her shoulder bag, shuffling things around. “Here. Drew made it himself.” Lag popped the top and passed an amber bottle over to him.

Beer. Holy hell, if this was a trap - it was the best damn trap he’d ever been in. Mutants don’t drink beer. Or, at least he thought. Still, he couldn’t help but smile when she popped her own top and leaned back against the wall.

“You drink like a fish.”

“Only half.” Her fangs sparkled in the sunlight. “Booze feels good. It’s hell out there, Sarge. How you holding up?”

“Feeling pretty good, don’t know what it is, but it’s almost like I can move again. Feeling more and more human as the days go by.”

She pushed off the wall and moved toward him, her tail swishing with every step she took. It curved up into a curly-cue as she got close and put his hand on his chest. A mischievous smile crossed her lips. “You think you’re so good, huh soldier? Let’s have a looksie.” Her claws walked their way up to the bandage on his chest. “This is probably going to hurt.” She ripped it clean off. “What the hell?”

“That your official diagnosis, doc? I want a second opinion. Don’t much like the sound of that.”

“No. It’s just. This shouldn’t be.”

“Yeah?” He took a sip. The beer was still cold and had a nutty aftertaste. A little hoppy, but he wasn’t about to complain. “Real reassuring, doc.”

“Shut up.”

“Amber!” Lag shouted, “get over here. You need to see this.”

“You trying to give me a heart attack or something?” He downed the beer and dropped the bottle as he pushed up against the bed into a sitting position.

Amber came running out of the back room. “This better be important. Oger’s been hitting us hard outside the walls. He’s killed six men since breakfast. We can’t keep sending our troops out to the slaughterhouse.”

“That kid, Echo?” Sarge tipped his head toward the sleeping soldier. “He one that Oger got?”

“Yeah. No. Wait. This isn’t right.”

“You two. I swear.” Sarge craned his neck and brought his hand up to his chest.

Amber batted it away. “Sit down and shut up. Let me see this.” She ran over to her desk, coming back with a magnifier. “Don’t squirm, damn it. No. Definitely not right.”

“What the fuck are you girls talking about?”

Amber ignored him as she walked back to the desk, grabbing forceps and a scalpel. She came back and started cutting.

That was just impolite. Or it would have been more, if he could even feel it. He could still perceive it, still see her digging and cutting into his chest.

But he didn’t feel a thing. Yeah. That couldn’t be good.

“Sergeant are you feeling this?”

He shrugged. Not one bit.

She took his silence as permission and carved a wedge of skin from his chest. “The fuck! I’m not a goddamn science project. Knock it off.”

“Ssh. Ssh. Just one more snip.”

He slapped her hands away. “Damn it. I said no more.”

Amber looked up, dejected. She pouted and flashed him the puppy face of doom. Sarge only shook his head. This was ridiculous.

“Fine.” Amber stowed her tools on the side of the bed and grabbed an empty glass slide from her desk. Her hands shook as she picked up the forceps and lifted a cobalt blue piece of skin, dropping it carefully onto the center of the slide and slipped the cover on. She looked up and beamed a smile. “This is wonderful. I thought you’d be dead by now.”

“Really?” Sarge was not amused. “Sorry to disappoint.”

“You were going septic two days ago. That cut had one wicked infection. You shouldn’t be here right now.”

“Thanks. I think?”

“But now you’re all better. I can’t find a single infected piece of skin.”

“What about that blue stuff? Looks pretty nasty to me.”

“That’s just it.”

He couldn’t take it anymore. Sarge craned his neck down to stare at the blue patch growing out of his chest. The thin scales layered atop one another vaguely resembled patchwork armor.

“We haven’t seen something like this here in years. Congratulations. You’ve got the Virus.”

Well, damn if that didn’t sound fantastic. Viruses kill people. And if they were excited about that, well then - this was no place for him. He needed to go home. Back to Charlie, back to the real world where fish don’t flirt with you and viruses are still bad.

“The hell you mean ‘virus’? Where I come from a virus is not exactly something someone wants to shout from the rooftops and tell everybody. No. Back home, virus means go get married, pop out a kid or two quick and hope that your dick don’t fall off before you make your own legacy. Up there, viruses kill people. Kill ‘em nasty.”

Lag sipped her beer. “They do that here too.”

“Then what’s with the balloons and cheerleaders?”

“Things work - different here than where you come from. But, if Amber is right - shit.” Lag batted her eyelashes. “You really are something special.”

“Why are my boobs blue, Lag?”

She sighed. “I don’t know how to put this.”

“Bluntly, I prefer.”

“You’re special.”

“That helps. Thanks for the clarification.”

“No. I mean. We haven’t seen the virus around here in a long, long time. Browne’s got it too. I think it’s got something to do with where you come from and where you’re going. Think of it like…” Lag scratched her forehead and grimaced as if deep in thought. “You know Plastic-Man and how he was shot and hit by chemicals? When they entered his blood, he became a super hero.”

Sarge nodded. Classic comics had been a pastime of many soldiers he worked with.

“Yeah. It’s kind of like that.”

He snorted. “So, I’m some kind of super hero? That’s funny. You’re funny.”

Lag’s face remained the perfect picture of stone.

“You’re serious?”

“Everyone knows you’re special. There’re prophecies.”

This was too much to take in. He couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m no hero, Lag.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

“Prophecies? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

“Look, Sarge. I’m going to be real with you for a minute. Shit’s real hard around here. Life sucks. The Selechai pick us off like game. We’re nothing more than cows in a fucking pen, just waiting for them to slaughter us. Do you know how many people they’ve eaten in the last month? Our supplies are short. They control the sun out in Duval City. The only reason it’s on right now is because you can’t eat us when we’re just skin and bones. They need meat to survive, just like you or I. Darwin’s an asshole. Evolution theory is a fucking joke. A sick joke. If that’s what evolution does, when’s it our turn to evolve? To get better? Why do they get to be bigger and stronger than us? What makes them better than you or I?

So yeah. People talk. They make stories. They say one day someone will come that’s bigger and stronger than them. Someone’s got to be better than them. Isn’t that how it always works? You’re top dog until someone else climbs the ladder and knocks you back down a peg. So yeah. You ending up down here has people excited. Real excited. They think you’re better than them. They think you’re a god.”

“And what do you think?” Sarge asked.

“I think you’re a pain in the ass who just needs a kick in the ass.”

“This virus? What’s that all about?”

“You should have been dead when I found you out in the black. You can’t breathe water. It’s impossible to survive that much atmospheric pressure. If you step on a tomato, it’s going to go splat. You should have gone splat. But you didn’t. You were snoring like a fucking baby when me and Ryu found you out there. And then you get shot, stabbed, and beat all to hell. You should be dead, Sarge. Somehow you’re too stupid to die. That wound was nasty. I didn’t think you were pulling through. Amber did her best to keep you around. But somehow, someway, something changed. Your wound healed. On its own. And whatever those blue scales you got growing around your chest are, consider it a fucking blessing. Pray to whoever you feel like praying to and thank him that you’ve got another day. And do some fucking good with it.”

Lag stormed away as the sun clicked off, and the world faded to black.

Insufferable darkness. Feet shuffling.

The creaking of old, rusty springs. Movement off to his left. Someone cursed as they hit something solid in the blackness. Sarge sat up, wide awake. Blood pumping.

Adrenaline dumped into his veins, pulsing through him and raising his heartbeat to thunder into his ears.

He was helpless. Sarge croaked out a whispered alarm. It was useless.

He was useless.

Sarge rolled off the bed, falling to the ground with the lithe grace of a falling rock. Landing on his shoulder, he rolled and bit back a yelp as pain coursed through his arm. Dragging himself forward, reaching for something solid, he swept his hands across the bottom shelf of the nearby table for a beaker he knew was there. It wasn’t the greatest, but it would still leave a nasty scar. If he could get the strength to wield it.

Or stand.

His legs resisted. Choosing to burn instead of move.

The beaker slid across the tiled floor with every inch he gained, he hoped whoever it was thought rats. But he knew no one would be that stupid.

Still, there was always hope.

“Who? Who’s there?” It was a voice he didn’t know. Not like that counted for much, half the injured didn’t have the time of day for him.

More scraping. A whispered curse.

“Echo?” Sarge crawled closer, whispering. “Echo? What the fuck are you doing?”

“Going to find my friends. You shouldn’t be here.”

“You shouldn’t be out. There’s no way you’re ready.”

“Ready is only a state of mind. I’ve made my decision. And there’s not a goddamn thing you’re going to do to change my mind.”

“Wait for me.”

“No.”

“You can’t do this by yourself.”

“Watch me.”

Sarge grabbed his leg. “Get back to bed.”

“Go to hell.”

Sarge pulled on the boy’s leg, trying in vain to knock him down.

“Get off me.”

“I’m coming.”

“The hell you are.” Echo stomped on his hand.

Sarge yelped in pain, releasing his grip. The boy stepped over him, walking toward the door.

A klaxon sounded, lights flared on. Sodium lamps sparked, illuminating the infirmary in a yellow-orange glow.

Echo was gone.