GG Hendrix
06-05-06, 16:59
He was being dragged.
Two people carried him between them. Unable to hear the comments of the people carrying him, and those watching, he managed to open his working eye.
The entire visible world was a mess. Rotating, blurry, and stained with his own blood.
He was being carried to somewhere unknown, in an equally unknown territory.
Barely recognising the door being held open, he gazed into the world appearing before him. A small room with a table in the centre.
The room was poorly decorated. Bare walls and floorboards were the surroundings, and the only furnishings were a simple bench and the table. Floorboards were cracking, and there were many fading red stains on the walls. A bulb was suspended from the ceiling by a cable, and it hovered above the table. A white cloth had just been laid down on it. It had lost most of its original colour, and it was torn in many places, but it sufficed. The infirmary had been kept as clean as the owners poor facilities would allow.
Hung up upon almost every wall was a tool or instrument of both a sharp, and medical nature. All bore scratches, and some tools had needed tying to their handles. Each tool was old and overused, but like the room, they too were kept as clean as possible.
Feet dragged across the floor like a puppets as the two men pulled the heavy patient into the room, one of them struggled for balance as he kicked the door shut behind him. A working eye struggled to open, and it saw the table coming closer. Feeling a split second of weightlessness, the patient was laid onto the table. His eye now stared unblinking at the ceiling. Struggling to breath, he inhaled the vile stench of the room.
One of the figures held out a hand to his side, and then spoke, his voice distorted and distant.
“Light.”
Chapter I - Birth.
Eastern Continent
Metropolis
Sector 7
Amon Street Holding Station
04:13 A.M.
86th day of Tria
1477
Light.
There was a light.
Eyes opening, trying to accustom to the piercing glow. The eyes burnt. They felt as though they had never been used before. Scorching pupils were changing size as he struggled to take in reality. Weakly, the eyes were opened wide, letting the world enter him.
Lying on his side, he looked to his left to the ceiling. Water was dripping onto his left cheek from above. Freezing the skin, splashing into his eyes. As his senses slowly returned he could feel the cold stone floor against him. Groggily, he managed to sit himself up. Clenching his fists in response to the pain in his head, and the ringing in his ears. Standing up, struggling to keep a balance, he looked around him.
The light had been a high set torch on the wall by his side, giving a dark red glow to the room. He was in a small square cell. No windows, a disgusting and filthy bed, a shit stained pot that served as a toilet, and a sturdy and heavily armoured door made of wood and iron. There was no handle on the door, and a slot that could not be opened from this side. The stone floor, walls, and ceiling were all a sickly shade of yellow and brown. The stone was in decay and cracking, and there were some parts where chunks of the wall had long fallen away.
His brain felt a million sizes too large for his head. With every passing heartbeat he felt his skull grind in tune with it. His hand came up to brush some of the water off of the dampened hair. The water that had awoken him had come from the leaking stone ceiling. Though his head hurt too much to be sure, the distant sound of rain pummelling stone was just loud enough to hear.
As he moved forwards, the room span around and threw him to the floor. With difficulty the arms spread and pushed against the stone ground, forcing the body upwards. Eventually he was standing. Time itself seemed to slow down to a crawl. The disorientation increased, and the room darkened. Staggering clumsily towards the bed, he allowed himself to land as gently as possible on it, an almost impossible task.
Straining, the prisoner groaned as a dirty hand came to his forehead. His flesh seemed white-hot to his touch, and he could feel his head throbbing.
His arms were not built, but they were far from thin. Four numbers were tattooed onto his right forearm.
18-09-01-24
He was unaware that he was whispering.
“Issue…Issue number…what?” Barely hearing his own voice, his fingers ran down the numbers, imagining there would be a different feeling, as though the numbers were imprinted onto his skin. There was nothing, the numbers were part of him. The black ink was permanently bound to the flesh as though it had always been there. With difficulty, he shifted his legs over the side of the bed, and managed to sit upright. The examination begun.
His chest was bare, and there were many bruises. As his fingers pressed them, they responded with slight pain. He wore now torn leggings, made of cloth and leather, which now looked tattered and loose fitting. Thick and heavy black boots came up underneath the leggings and ended at his thighs. Experimentally he reached down to touch them, it felt like the boots had metal lining on the inside.
A bitter realisation was upon him.
“Who am I?” He whispered, now hearing his voice for the first time. The sensation in his ears made it sound even quieter than it actually was. It was an alien sound to him. He almost felt shocked to hear it.
Slowly, some of the dizziness faded, and eventually he managed to bring himself up from the bed. Stumbling forwards, though retaining balance, arms reached out for the door. He fell against it, slamming his hands onto it for support. It made no sound as the weight of his body pressed against it, and it failed to move an inch. The door must have been eight foot high, and there was no way he could kick it down. He banged against it, hoping for some response. As his fist landed he heard a reply, an explosion from beyond the door.
Backing away from the sound of shouting, and more explosions, his eyes widened in horror as he heard keys turning in the door. The door swung open, and in an instant there was a blinding light that shone into the cell and pushed him back as though it was a physical blow. Back onto his knees once more, both hands raised in defence against the light.
He could hear footsteps.
He heard a voice shout at him in a language he had never heard, but understood perfectly. Though his recovering hearing made everything sound distant and quiet, he recognised everything that was spoken. The words seemed aggressive, and the language sounded like a guttural retch.
“Are you ready for execution, scum?” The man said.
A large strong hand grabbed both of his and they were pulled away from the eyes they protected. A man with long white hair, and a heavily tattooed face, glared sadistically at him. He was dressed entirely in black leather with robes of cloth hanging on them. There was armour protecting the top of the chest and shoulders
He yelled the exact same inhuman language at him, and struck him sharply in the side of his head with a large and sleek metal rifle.
“I admire you for surviving the fall.” Seemed to echo in the prisoner’s ears, after the man spoke.
The pain in his head was already immense, and the blow had made it worse. With every heartbeat his head throbbed. He barely heard another voice from behind the man shout.
“Zal, get one with it. The Knights are gonna be looking for us.”
His heart pounded fiercely, his head was forced down and he felt a rifle being pressed to the top of his aching head.
The soldier named Zal laughed in satisfaction as he prepared to pull the trigger.
“Time to die, your Excellency.”
His mind reeled, gazing forwards he could see a short hunting knife strapped to Zal’s thigh. Acting on impulse, he lunged forwards for the blade, shot to his feet, and drove the knife into the mans neck. Tearing the rifle from his hands, he kicked his body away from him, and turned the rifle on the man who had stood in the doorway behind Zal.
Without thinking, he held the gun up and shot the soldier in the forehead, hardly needing to aim. He fell without a word. The light-emitting machine that the man had been holding ceased to work as he hit the floor.
He examined his rifle, not knowing where it was from, or how he knew how to use it. It was called a Maximum. That he could remember. The weapon fired single shots, he remembered as fingers ran over the weapon, and it was effective at both long and short range. He turned it over and found the opening. It could only hold one bullet at once. You fed the bullet, pulled the switch on the top back, and fired. Then did the same as before.
Powered by fear, the weakness that had controlled his body now turned to energy.
Not questioning why he could not remember where he learned the knowledge of this gun, the prisoner turned his attention to Zal’s body. Retrieving his knife from Zal’s throat, the prisoner brought the knife to his leggings and wiped the blood off onto them. He removed the scabbard from Zal’s thigh, and wrapped the straps around his right arm, so it could be removed with his left hand without having to swap rifle hands. He didn’t remember being ambidextrous, as he placed the knife into the scabbard with his left hand. His ears seemed to burn as a distant tapping sound begun. Footsteps. He searched Zal, and found a large leather belt around his waist, with many, many pockets for a single bullet. It was almost full. Grinning, he ripped it off and hastily removed a bullet. The prisoner placed it into the rifle, pulled the gauge back, and listened to the bullet clicking into place. Not having the time to attach it to his waist, he crept out of the cell as the footsteps came closer.
“Zal, Krin, come on! What’s taking so long?” Called an almost mute voice, from the solder outside.
The masked soldier cursed upon seeing Krin’s body, and cried out as he saw the prisoner leaving his cell.
“You!”
The prisoner raised the rifle.
As the soldier turned and started to run, the bullet pierced the back of his head, and left through the front. Blood sprayed from the wound, and the soldier hit the ground without a sound.
The prisoner noticed that the soldier was unarmed, and almost felt regret for silencing him. The realisation that these soldiers knew who he was suddenly arose in his mind. He stared at the black numbers on his arm, he bent down and pulled away at the soldier’s sleeve, and discovered that he too had numbers painted on his flesh, but they were completely different to the prisoners.
Examining Krin proved the same. He didn’t bother to check Zal.
He leant back against the walls, and stared at the numbers.
If he got out of this place, he would undoubtedly meet people. Maybe they could tell him who he was? But what if they couldn’t? He tilted his head and strained to think, the pounding in his head was still beating in time with his heart. He didn’t see how the numbers could relate to a name. The rifle in his hands gave him a theory. Maybe he was a soldier? Maybe the people numbered their soldiers, for identification on the battlefield?
He shrugged, and took the name Eighteen, the first number on his arm.
He was in a corridor lined with large doors like the one he had just come through, save that these all had handles on. These were doors to other cells. The stone ceiling here was leaking as well, and some torches had even been extinguished where the dripping was bad. The stones shared the same sickly colour as the ones in the cell that Eighteen had left behind him, and it seemed that the stones out here were in worse condition than the ones in the cell. There were many dead men on the floor of the room, each one dressed in identical black cloth uniforms.
“Prison guards?” He thought as his eyes scanned their bleeding corpses, and then the corridor. One way was a dead end, the other way led to stairs. Remembering the belt of bullets, and cursing his own stupidity for forgetting it in the first place, he returned to his cell, stepped over Krin’s body, and gathered the belt from Zal. Gently laying the rifle to rest, Eighteen wrapped the belt around him, adjusting the straps so it was fixed tightly to him, and took another bullet. Already walking towards the stairs, he gently inserted the bullet, and pulled the gauge back as before. Up ahead, another soldier was coming down the stairs, cursing as he saw Eighteen. Crouching to his knees, the prisoner held the rifle up and fired without aiming. The bullet screamed through the air and pierced the soldier’s neck. In vain, the soldier clutched the wound with his left hand, attempting to prolong the life that faded as fast as the blood that emerged between his fingers. Falling to his knees, the solder squeezed the trigger and fired. The bullet exploding some feet away from where Eighteen knelt. The prisoner rose, and ran to the stairs. He was unaware that he had subconsciously loaded the again.
The stairs were spiralled, and eventually, he came up into the front area of the small jail. There were dead guards here as well, and two more soldiers, these too had white hair, and the rifles. Hearing him approach, they turned and fired. Eighteen went to his knees, ignoring the bullet that whistled next to where his head had been, and fired.
The soldier closest to him turned his head behind him as the other soldier fell dead.
With incredible speed, Eighteen brought himself back to his feet and was running to the soldier. He slammed the top of the rifle into the soldier’s face, the shock causing him to fire at the floor, shattering the stone tiles beneath both men. On the floor, he held his hands in defence as the black armoured boot crashed down onto his chest. Eighteen reloaded, and shot the soldier between the eyes.
The front area of the prison was a large room. In the middle was a large wooden table, littered with mugs of foul looking ale, and cards. The guards must have been playing as the soldiers showed up. The room, like the rest of the prison, was stone, leaking, and barely decorated. Either the prison was in decay, or this was merely a holding area. Either for lesser criminals, or for criminals waiting to be moved onto wherever the better place was. Though it wasn’t hard to imagine any place being better established than this mess. There was a large blackboard against the wall, which Eighteen imagined was supposed to be for writing the names of prisoners. It was dominated by everything other than names. Shopping lists, word games, and various other useless items were chalked onto its surface. In the bottom left corner was a small sentence “Prisoner brought in unconscious, needs questioning.” Eighteen’s fists tightened in frustration. There was no name, nor any indication to what the hell it was he had done to end up in this place. Dismissing the anger, he turned his attention away from the board. The only exits to the room were the stairs he had just come up, and large wooden door at the end of the room.
Reloading again, not bothering to check his amount of bullets left, the escapee walked through the room, and towards the door. As he walked Eighteen was overpowered by a ringing in his ears. Slamming against the wall to avoid falling to the ground, he dropped the rifle and brought hands to both ears. Gasping in pain, Eighteen gripped the ears as though he was preparing to rip them off. The pain, becoming too much to bear, drove him to his knees with tears welling in his eyes. Then just as suddenly as it had started, the ringing was gone, along with the thudding in his head. He gasped for air and let go of his ears. Only now aware of them, he wiped the tears away. Eighteen couldn’t help but smile at the return of his hearing. He was now totally aware. The rain that had once sounded like a million fingers tapping in the distance was now closer and much louder. The low rumble of thunder outside in the storm, added to his satisfaction. The rifle was gathered up, and he was heading to the door once more. As he moved, one thing puzzled him. He could still hear the thunder droning outside.
The moment he opened the door, the noise went from a distant hum, to a powerful roar. The sound came from far to his right. He had heard an engine, not thunder.
He had left the jail to enter a narrow alley, the floor lined with ancient cracked cobbles. Scattered along the brick walls were many small glass torches. Their shape was spherical, and they shone perfectly. These lights seemed to have no flame inside them, and they had strange thin ropes coming from them that ran down the wall and into the ground. They were lined against the wall and each one was an equal distance to the others.
Now outside in the rain, Eighteen jerked at the cold touch upon his bare chest. Death was certain if he stayed outside for long. Casting his head upwards, he saw nothing but blackness in the sky above. An enormous dark cloud stretched further than he could see in any direction. A loud explosion from his left alerted him, and his eyes travelled in that direction. Though the length of the alleyway was long, and the left entrance was quite a long way from him, he was amazed that he could make out the men entering the passage clearly. There were four of them, and although they were similarly dressed, none of them had white hair, and their rifles were different to the one Eighteen was carrying. These weapons were not the sleek metallic ones that the soldiers in the jail had been using; these were wooden, almost clumsy looking things. Whereas the soldiers in the jail all had a rifle and a dagger, these men carried their rifle and a sword that rested in a large scabbard strung around their backs. There were more men behind them in the street beyond the alley who Eighteen could see clearly. They were firing at whatever was making the noise. His ears burned as the voices of the men travelled from the alley entrance, to him. Even amidst the sounds of the rain, the engine, and the rifle shots, Eighteen could make out their voices.
The men spoke not in the language that the white haired soldiers had spoken, but in a tongue more simple. A tongue that Eighteen understood just as well.
“Who the hell are these guys?” Shouted the first man. “Where on Earth is that…Thing, from?” Eighteen guessed they were referring to whatever owned the engine that was making such a racket. All the men turned to the sound of an even louder explosion that seemed to come from what their comrades were fighting. The engines sounded louder, and more erratic. The sounds it produced gave the impression that it was coughing and dying, something that the men showed satisfaction for. Eighteen could hear them cheering and laughing, as the engines grew even louder. A few more shots were fired, and then came a sight that Eighteen would never forget. Slowly rising above the ground, the thing headed in the direction of the alley, hovering just over the gaps above the buildings. It was a large contraption, constructed from wood and metal. There were no visible indications to what made the machine fly. Parts of it were burning, and there were many holes among the metal areas. The machine was too dark for any observer to determine its shape. Eighteen was unable to see where, but there was a soldier on the vessel that shouted in the sinister language Zal had spoken.
Without even thinking of the action, Eighteen dived to his side as three bullets plummeted into the ground where he stood. Instantly back to his feet, he raised his rifle and started looking for the soldier who had fired.
Different voices shouted at each other in frustration from above him, and to his side Eighteen could hear the other men shouting to each other.
“There’s another one here, one that was left behind!”
Panicking, Eighteen fled after seeing them charge into the alley.
He had done some quick evaluation.
Wherever on Earth Eighteen might have been, he knew for a fact that he didn’t belong there. Those soldiers had come here for the specific purpose of killing him, even though Eighteen had no idea who they were, who he was, and where they came from. Common sense told him that they had attacked this city, wherever it was, in an attempt to kill him while in the jail. How could they have known where he was?
In the attack, they had alerted these men, who Eighteen guessed were the local authorities, who were now hunting him under the assumption he was with the soldiers.
At this point, Eighteen didn’t care who or where he was. The overpowering urge to put as much distance between himself and his hunters far outclassed his curiosities.
It had been ten minutes and Eighteen had failed to evade the men chasing him. From what he had seen, the flying ship had gone straight up, and vanished through the enormous black cloud above him. The guards had seen him, mistook him as part of the gang of white haired soldiers who they had been fighting, and had begun pursuit.
Eighteen was surprised with himself. He had ran incredibly fast, at a rate thought impossible to someone of his physique, and after ten minutes he failed to feel even the slightest weakness or need for rest. Reaching a dead end in the maze, he now faced a wooden fence. He turned back and listened for the hunters. They were more of them. They must have got reinforcements.
What Eighteen didn’t know was that the men originally chasing him had given up. His new hunters were people far worse.
Throwing the rifle over it, and then taking a running jump, Eighteen clambered over the fence and fell with a splash on the wet ground. Scooping up the rifle, he instantly set off at the terrific speed as before.
Hearing the sounds of the men behind him as they clambered over the fence, he turned left into another unknown alleyway. So far his entire escape had been set in small alleyways, he had yet to see a street, or another person. Eighteen passed many doors on his journey, but entered none. During the first few minutes of running, he had tried many of the doors along the endless maze of tunnels, but none of them would open, even when he had banged upon them and screamed.
He no longer cared of entering them, the determination to escape had pushed away all cares. The freezing cold rain drenching his entire body was irrelevant.
Turning a corner, Eighteen made the mistake of running straight into one of the men hunting him. Something that didn’t surprise him, as these men undoubtedly knew the area they were hunting in.
The man was bigger than Eighteen, and was only knocked back a few inches as he charged onto him. Eighteen stared up into the eyes of the demonic hunter.
The man wore a suit not unlike Zal’s. Black cloth and armour decorated the man from head to toe, as well as a bizarre black mask protecting his face. What was even stranger than the mask was the part attached to the mouth of the man. A machine of some kind. Panicking, Eighteen brought his foot to connect with the mans stomach, resulting in a agonising cry which sounded monstrous thanks to the aid of the mouthpiece. Jumping over him and continuing his escape, more men who were identical to the one he had just knocked down, were entering at the end of the alley. Eighteen stopped dead as he ran to a point where another turning was on his right, raised the rifle, and fired at one of the attackers. He went down with a mechanical scream, and Eighteen was immediately shocked to see that the men barely seemed to notice. The prey cursed, and ran down the alley on his right, slamming another bullet into the rifle as he ran.
The men following him were shouting, separating, and laughing. Their distorted voices made the hunters cries into terrifyingly bestial sounds. The distorted, machine like voices were not too far away from him no matter where Eighteen fled to. A colossal terror was rising in him, and the possibility of capture was suddenly a major threat to him.
At the end of this particular alley, was one of his hunters. Eighteen stopped, fired without aiming, and the man fell dead. Altered to a sound behind him, he turned. The prod was shot at him the moment that the hunter had a clear shot of his target’s front.
With no warning at all, there was a small pop. Eighteen felt a stabbing pain in his right thigh. It burnt and sent waves of agony into his entire leg. The gun dropped from his hands. Falling to his knees he started to reach in the direction of the agony, gradually curling himself into a ball of pain, his hands started to search. They had shot him with something. There was a small metal stick in his leg. Crying in terror and writhing in the puddles, he tried to pull the thing out, it burnt his fingers and he responded with a scream. Trying to stand brought him down again, face first. The thing caused him more pain the more he tried to move.
Slow and steady footsteps could be heard, and there was a strange beeping sound.
"Got him." Spoke another mechanical voice. Eighteen never wanted to hear the terrifying sound again.
His head turned round to see the black suited figure. Two red lights on his mask shone out, completely visible in the darkness. The figure raised his right arm in front of him, and started to tap on a device attached to it. Frantic beeping emitted from it, sounds of hurried footsteps could be heard.
"Bad news Perp." The voice said as he approached Eighteen. "Rig is on his way."
The man bent down, and flipped Eighteen over onto his back. He extended a gloved hand and squeezed the metal stick in the victim’s leg. Following Eighteen’s screams, he replied with mechanical laughter.
The footsteps ever closer, Eighteen raised his head to see a group of four rush towards him, each one dressed the same as the man torturing him. Eight red lights in the darkness were coming towards him and there were the sounds of more footsteps behind him.
He felt a hand grip his hair, and drag him to his feet, the pain in his leg intensified.
One man spoke, with the same voice as the first man. All of them were using the same voice altering machines. He was holding his right forearm close to his face, there was a small metal device wrapped to his arm. A finger from his left hand was holding down a button.
"Sector 7. Underage citizen captured. Citizen breaking curfew. Citizen showing signs of vigilance. Citizen evading capture. Citizen evading arrest." He pressed another button, and then lowered his arms. He shouted to his comrades.
"Nice and legal." A cheer of mechanical laughter went up.
The first thing Eighteen felt was a kick to his chest, lurching forwards, his body fell straight to the ground. Coughing, and turning his head to the side just in time to see another boot swung into his face, he screamed pitifully. More laughter sounded from the men, and another blow landed on the top of his head.
For the next thirty seconds, all he felt were the fists, feet, and truncheons of the men. His screams drowned out by their shouting. There was a shout, different from the rest of the distorted voices. This one was deeper, and more inhuman, if it was possible.
"Cease."
Like puppets severed from their strings, the men stopped their movement, only turning to face the new arrival. Eighteen was physically unable to bring himself to his feet, and was unable to see him. The man looked identical to the rest, with the exception of a white cross on his mask, and on his chest armour.
"Stand him up. Remove the prod."
Eighteen felt slight relief as the thing in his leg was ripped out. The full effect of the beating hit him as he was dragged to his feet. If it had not been for the men holding him, his body would have dropped straight back to the floor. The leader of the group walked over and examined the child his men had caught. Examining the bruises and cuts scattered all over his body. The voice asked quietly.
"Who kicked his face?"
One of the men raised his hands.
The leader threw, with lightning quick speed, a small dagger. It sank into the flesh like an anchor. As he fell to the ground he emitted a muffled mechanical scream. Then he was silent and still. The other men didn’t seem to care, or show any notice of the event. The leader held up a finger, and aimed it around at all the men.
"Do not damage faces. Corp is too close to having us disbanded. The last thing we need is another brutality inspection."
"Sir." Replied the men in unison.
Rig, the leader of the men, brought his hand to Eighteen's chin, gripping it and examining his face. He examined the child’s details carefully. Fairly long white hair, and something that perplexed him to no end. Eighteen had bright blue eyes that seemed to glow in the dark as brightly as the false eyes of his men’s masks. They glared at his in fear.
“Strange looking kid.” Rig decided. He turned to the closest man. "Too young to kill. Story?"
"Curfew violation. Resisted capture."
Rig laughed, and pushed Eighteen. The men holding him instinctively let go, allowing the boy to fall down into the ever-growing puddles.
"Get his rifle, and take his ammo. Take him to the nearest station."
As soon as they were gone, the body they had left behind stood up.
Scunthorne Street Enforcer Station
Old Man Trine was finding it difficult to stay awake.
The break room was small and rectangular. The grey walls of stone were cracked in few places. The floor was also stone, but was littered with shreds of carpet. Wooden benches lined two of the walls, and there was a small table in the middle of the room with the week’s newspaper. There was a rarely used dartboard nailed to one wall, and in the corner where Trine sat was the stations fabled “comfy chair”. By Trine’s chair was a bottle of whiskey. The room had no window, so the only light the room got was from a small lamp in the corner. Out of the few Enforcer stations in Sector 7, this was the only one with electricity.
Trine opened his eyes and scanned the room, the two other Enforcers who had been sleeping in the break room were both gone. He put the cork back into the half empty bottle, and placed it underneath the ancient cushioned chair.
The chair had been seized during the riots in Sector 4, last year. Corp had taken sympathy on his old friend, and had handed the chair over to Scunthorne Street. Trine could not have been more grateful. Trine practically lived in the station, and he was often content in the knowledge that he had a comfortable place to sleep.
Trine was forty years old and the years had been unkind to him. His long black hair was edged with silver, and his beard had long lost its colour. He yawned and exposed the lines of broken teeth. Trine brought his left hand to his chin to scratch the beard; the middle and ring finger were both missing. His final distinguishing mark was the scar on his face that travelled from above the right eye and ended just to the left of his nose. This had disfigured most of the nose, and the scar had a bad habit of opening sometimes. As Trine himself would say, he was nothing much to look at. He couldn’t care less.
His eyes shut, and Trine sighed impatiently. He wondered how long was left till his watch started. He wouldn’t normally be doing the 5 AM watch. The Chief usually took the liberty of doing it. However, he had set off an hour ago to investigate the explosion across the Sector, the second explosion that night. The first one had happened three hours ago, a dwarven factory had been destroyed. No one was sure of the cause, and the Enforcer’s investigating had not come back yet.
His eyes had barely been closed for a minute when he awoke to the sound of the stations bell ringing. Five ear-splitting cries from the ancient and cracked bell housed in the upper reaches of the building, Trine couldn’t bear the sound. But he counted along nonetheless, whispering in time to each ring.
A few seconds after the fifth call of the bell, he wondered if he imagined the distant roar as a ship crash-landed.
Eighteen could barely think straight. The attack from these armed thugs had left him barely conscious at first. Slowly he had returned to the real world, his head pounding. The taste of his own blood lingered in his mouth. His eyes struggled to open, but eventually showed him the pitch-black sky. There was pressure around his neck, but Eighteen had no idea it was the strong hands of one of the Lawkeepers that were now dragging him to their destination.
Whereas the Enforcers existed to uphold the law, and serve the citizens, the Lawkeepers only lived to uphold their version of the law and oppress the citizens in every way they possibly could.
Eleven months ago, the idea had been forwarded to the council, by an intelligent yet highly overzealous Enforcer named David Karrin. While he had sugarcoated the major bulk of his idea, the basis of it was simple. A “police” force that would operate at night, install curfews, lay down their own laws, and beat any civilian found disobeying any of their laws to within an inch of their lives.
Or in most cases, to death.
By Karrin’s strict policy, the only people that the Lawkeepers weren’t allowed to kill were children. And this was the reason they were dragging this youngling to the proper authorities, a word that Lawkeepers used loosely.
In front of the menacing group, Rig sighed in regret. If he could have his own way, he would have shot the kid there and then. He wouldn’t even remember it in a week. It was his own fault, he thought with annoyance. As the chase began he had contacted Central and told them of the pursuit of a civilian that was breaking curfew. Lawkeeper conduct demanded that Rig bring the prisoner or corpse in. If Rig had killed the youth and just left his body to rot, not only would Enforcers have found him, but even worse, Central would demand to know where the prisoner was. If he had killed him and then brought him in, he would be executed for breaking conduct.
‘If only I never reported it and just shot the little shit’, Rig thought.
He almost stopped as he heard the sound of moaning. Continuing the journey, he merely held up a hand and spoke.
“Knock him.”
As a fist connected with the back of Eighteen’s head, something flew overhead noisily. Every Lawkeeper’s head shot upwards to see the ship pass by, a thick trail of smoke following it. It charged off into the distance, over the buildings and fell. The roar the ship made as it crashed and burst into flames was deafening. The third crash that night.
Rig continued to stare at the sky.
“What the hell are those bastard’s doing up there?”
Trine had immediately rushed out of the break room, seeing chaos. Every Enforcer in the station was shouting and pushing into each other in a panic. Some were trying to head downstairs to the courtyard, and some tried to get upstairs where they could see where the explosion came from. The rest were in the corridors of the station, shouting at each other. Trine walked calmly into the group, weaving his way through the chaos, until he got to the lobby. Trine calmly and gracefully climbed onto a table, and gave one simple command.
“QUIET.” The room fell silent, all eyes turned on Trine. He took a moment to take in their silence and their gazes. “That’s better!” He looked around the room uneasily, “Where’s the chief?”
“Other side of the sector sir.” The nearest Enforcer responded. “He went off to have a gander at that banging an hour ago.”
Trine took this little information in.
“Did he have a radio on him?”
“No sir.”
“Hell…can someone tell me what’s going on?”
“Centurion’s sir.” Someone at the back replied, every Enforcer turned in the man’s direction. Silence fell once more over the room. Trine eventually spoke.
“What?”
The man had only just entered the room, he was one of the radio operators and had just received some information from another station in Sector 7.
“That noise we heard an hour ago, it was a ship. The chief’s at the Meier Street Station, he saw them. Says there were no survivors on it.”
“So that other explosion just now?”
“Another ship.”
“And the first one?”
“The first ship…And apparently….” He drifted off.
“What?”
“They’re not just in Sector 7. There are some that have fallen elsewhere in the city. Quite a few have fallen outside the wall, in the slumlands.”
Outside of the station, something was writing on the wall.
Six miles west of the Scunthorne Street Enforcer station, a small group of men were running through the shadows. They moved silently, their footsteps making no sound. Each of them wore identical armour. Black leather and cloth, with black armour around the chest. Each one held a Maximum, and had a knife strapped to their thigh. Another ship had crashed not too far away, and the men were fully aware of it. They had no way of telling whether it was one of their own or not, and so instinct told them to treat it as Baturium. And to put as much distance between it and them as possible.
They were just at the border of Sector 7, every time they emerged from an alley they could see the huge wall isolating it from the other sectors. Moving from alley to alley, the man leading the group kept a sharp lookout for any sign. In front of him, on a wall was a single chalk drawing. Dace, the leader of this group, was thankful that he had already memorised the new code, and translated the message as “left”. And left they went.
They had approached the end of the alleyway, and had reached a wide and open street. Dace stood against the wall, and edged silently towards the opening, poking his head out as he got there. In both directions he saw no activity. They were on the market street, and it would not be open at this time of night. Dace’s limited knowledge of the human language allowed him to read the banner held aloft above the empty stalls.
“Sector 7 Market” Imaginative name, Dace thought. Continuing his observation he saw that all the buildings on this street were shops, owned by those rich enough to do away with the limited facilities of a tiny cheap wooden stall. Poking his head further out, he looked to the left and froze for a second. Clouds of smoke were rising in the distance. He thought that without a doubt that it was the Baturium. They would need to move fast. Dace ran into the street without ordering his men to follow, they ran after him. One of his men, the young Tabaris, approached him. He had pulled his hood down, revealing his handsome features and short white hair. He spoke with concern in his voice.
“Sir, where are they?”
“They’re here.” Dace smiled and pointed downwards. On the floor just in front of him there was a manhole cover. Bending down to examine it, Dace saw that someone had chalked a small rune on the surface. “Rebirth” it said.
Without pausing to tell his comrades, Dace brought his hand, clenched in a fist, till it hovered over the manhole cover. He tapped once, waited for two seconds, and then tapped three times.
The manhole cover was pushed upwards, and moved aside. One man climbed out of the opening, and stood upright. Dace could barely contain his joy when the man pulled his hood down, though he knew who it was the second he saw the hair, reaching down as far as the man’s stomach. Arthan pulled the hood back and stared at the group of survivors. Handsome, green eyed, and clean-shaven, Arthan stared into a mirror image. Dace rushed forwards to embrace his brother.
“Gods!” Dace exclaimed. “I thought you were dead!”
Arthan smiled, and broke the embrace.
“Almost. We managed to control the landing. Ended up on water…three of us fell. Once we’d cleared the ship we ran into some humans, they put up quite a fight.”
Dace could believe this. Once he and his men barely managed to escape their wrecked ship, they had encountered an even greater challenge in outrunning the human lawmen that attacked.
“Did you know they have rifles?” asked Arthan.
“Aye.” Dace nodded. “Awful and primitive. Disgustingly crude weapons.”
Arthan gestured towards the manhole, and climbed down, speaking as he descended.
“They shoot and they kill, brother. A weapon is a weapon.”
Once all the men were down the ladder, and the opening had been sealed again, the men relaxed.
The sewers of Metropolis were a highly sophisticated network of tunnels, all leading to the centre of the city where they would drain down into the Cell, the colossal underground factory that powered Metropolis. What happened to the sewage when it got there was anyone’s guess.
In this particular area of the sewers, two groups of Centurion survivors had rendezvoused. All soldiers greeted the others as though they were brothers feared dead, just like the twin leaders had done previously. The smell of the sewer was a minor irritation for some of the lesser-trained soldiers, but they didn’t complain. Against the wall of the tunnel, Arthan’s group had placed several sacks of ammunition that they had managed to save when their ship crashed.
Ignoring the foul stench, the warrior Arthan explained the situation.
“Zal is missing.” He began. “His entire crew too. They’re probably dead.”
“Baturium?” Asked one of the soldiers.
“No idea. Might have been humans. He said his Excellency is still alive.”
“Nothing could have survived that…did Zal say where?”
“No.”
“Always the hot-head.” Dace sighed. “What do we do? Check for him? How many other ships have landed?”
Arthan did not answer straight away. Quietly, almost mournfully, he turned his gaze from his brother to the surviving soldiers they both had with them. They had survived hell itself only to reach purgatory.
“The battle is lost.” He whispered. His own men already knew this, their reactions of sadness were quite different to the shocked defiance of his brother’s men.
“No!”
“The General survived. The seventy-odd of us that survived the battle at Redemption, now number at…. forty. Including us. Of the five ships that fell, all five groups survived, although Kren only has two men. You have four, and both me and Zal survived with a full six.”
“Who was the fifth?” Dace spoke
“Nis. He managed to regain control of the ship as it was falling.”
“What? How did he counter the override?”
“The gods alone know.” Arthan shrugged. “You lost your stone?”
Dace nodded, Arthan smiled sadly.
“Kren, me, and Nis managed to save ours. I’ve been in regular contact with Kren, he’s found a place for us to meet at Sector 3.” He stated it as though it were no small thing, but to Dace it might as well be on another planet. “And as for Nis’ lot, humans attacked them when they went off looking for that idiot Zal. Lost contact with them, but I don’t think they’re dead.”
Dace sat down hopelessly.
“One ship, and four groups.” He muttered. Neither Arthan nor Dace had a doubt that Zal had gotten himself killed. “The ships can barely manage to carry seven even when they’re working, how are we going to get twelve men out if the one ship we have access to already has a full crew?”
Arthan replied with the optimism he had retained throughout the years of strife he and his brother had survived.
“We’ll think of something.” He smiled, much to Dace’s annoyance.
“And the Baturium? How are their ships?”
“None of them can fly. Apparently, only one group survived.” Before anyone could revel in this good news, Arthan continued. “Malek’s group.”
All were silent for a moment, taking this in.
“What are we going to do?” Dace spoke.
“The battle may be lost, but we’re still alive. And the Knights have not been defeated. Kren managed to ‘speak’ with Roland.” Roland The Mighty, as his men called him. “As soon as those of us still in the air have gotten the General out of harms way, Roland will be coming for us.” He smiled. “Don’t worry, brother. This is only a setback. We’ve dealt The Eldest a major blow.”
The brothers both nodded simultaneously in acknowledgement. The world was dark, but there was always a ray of light coming down from the sky.
The Knights divided into two groups. Arthan and his men were going to head back up to the surface. Dace was going to head to Sector 3 to locate Kren. Arthan assured his brother that Kren would have left enough (well hidden) signs for them to follow. Time was of the essence, and the Baturium would already be hunting them.
“What the hell are you going back up for?” Dace had asked.
“Come on, brother…Do you really think any of these humans could have killed Zal? The Baturium are up there. And I’m going to put a bullet into that damned monsters face.” As far as Arthan was concerned, he was put on this world to kill Malek Skaife.
“Don’t be a fool, brother. They’re disorganised, they’ll be useless on their own. We’ve killed enough Baturium today, let the humans have some…” He hesitated. “And supposing Obelisk is with them?”
Arthan laughed and shook his head.
“The demon had at least thirteen bullets in him when he went down. Save the coming back to life for children’s stories.”
“If it took that much to kill him, how much will it take to keep him dead?”
“Rest assured brother.” Arthan humoured him. “If I bump into him, I’ll make sure to send him back to hell for you.”
Two hours later.
Underneath the Scunthorne street station, in a dimly lit cell, the young Centurion lay on a bed not unlike the one he had previously woken on. Barely conscious when they had dragged him in, the Enforcers had cleaned him of blood and dried the rainwater, and thrown him in the cell.
This new cell was not that different to the last one, with the exception of a comparatively clean bed, an isolated hollow for a latrine, and another inhabitant. ‘Wake up’
Eighteen awoke with a start. Sitting up in an instant, he found himself gasping for air and covered in a cold sweat. Breathing in short pants, he climbed off the bed expecting pain from the beating he had received. There was nothing. Puzzled, Eighteen examined both his arms and chest. There weren’t even any bruises anymore. Even the marks he had on him when he awoke in the previous cell were gone.
The voice that had pulled him from his sleep spoke once more.
‘The pain is gone. Forget it.’
Eighteen’s eyes darted around the room, turning his head to the voice that was spoken behind him. A bare wall met his gaze. The voice was gone, the room was silent save for Eighteen’s heavy breathing, and someone else’s snoring.
Sitting against the wall was the rooms other inhabitant.
Alex “Black Dog” Cash was the name of the other prisoner. He had been caught at last. The disgustingly foul smelling, and filthy rag clad psychopath had been thrown in the cell, bound in a leather harness, and had been chained to the wall. His artificial claws, permanently fused to his real hands now, were wrapped tightly preventing him from lashing out. A leather gag had been tied around his head, keeping him from biting anyone with his hideously deformed teeth. The unfortunate Enforcer who had caught him, was now in the infirmary having what was left of his hand fixed. He reeked of, what Eighteen was surprised he could identify as, blood, sweat, and shit.
The lunatic had been caught when two Enforcers on patrol heard screaming. Cash had broken into a tavern, killed some patrons in silence, and had raped and eaten parts of the innkeeper’s four-year-old daughter. When the Enforcers found him, he had been cutting the girls eyeball into mush with his claws.
There was nothing left of the murderers sanity, he was now only barely capable of coherent speech. But when he had been dragged to the station, not struggling, not kicking or screaming or trying to escape, the Enforcers saw from looking in his eyes that there existed a primal, bestial intelligence within him.
Eighteen heard the voice once again.
‘You need to get out of here.’
The voice felt as though it came from all around him. Eighteen barely noticed how rapidly his heart was now beating.
“Who’s there?” He spoke, his eyes darting across the room. Still nothing.
‘Pay attention.’ The voice spoke calmly, quietly, and with a very distinguished accent. The voice was one of nobility.
His eyes widened in horror and realization. The voice was in his head.
‘You need to get out of here, now. The Baturium are going to come.’
“Who?”
‘You know those weaklings who tried to kill you tonight?’ The voice replied dryly. ‘There are more. I’d imagine there are much, much more.’
“Why?” He asked
‘Why what?’ Sardonic. Loathsome and mocking.
“Why kill me?” Eighteen spat. “And where the hell is everyone in this city?”
‘Burning objects falling from the sky, and men running around with guns. Not to mention those freaks that threw you in here, doing their rounds. I’ll have to take a safe bet and say that these are all good reasons for the idiotic populace to stay indoors at night.’
“Who the hell are you?” He whispered.
For a moment there was no sound save for the snoring of the other cellmate. His reply came.
‘Now is not the time for you to know. And if you linger here, it will never be the time.’ The voice paused, as though in hesitation. ‘I can help you. I can help you get out of here.’
“Where the hell is here?” Eighteen whispered.
‘How much do you remember? You know your people, your language…The Centurions, yes?’
Eighteen nodded on instinct, not knowing that the voice could tell.
‘We are below our homes, our beautiful flying cities. This is the surface world.’
Eighteen heard…no, remembered something he had once heard.
“A land of primitives.”
‘Exactly. This land is…’ The voice paused once more, struggling to remember. ‘Ashura. Yes, Ashura. You are in The City. Metropolis.’
“A city the size of a country…” Eighteen mumbled, almost dreamlike. “How can I remember these things, but nothing else?”
What the voice did next surprised Eighteen considerably. It laughed.
‘How should I know? Now come. Are you prepared? This is your survival I speak of.’
“Yes.” Eighteen answered without hesitation.
‘Bang on the door.’
Unquestioning, Eighteen marched to the sturdy metal door keeping him in this cell. He raised his hand and banged once. Not sure what to expect, Eighteen was taken back by the response he got. The slot in the door opened. The eyes of the guard outside the cell looked in, meeting Eighteen’s.
“What? What do you want?” He barked angrily.
Eighteen was silent. The eyes of the guard bore into him.
‘Tell him ‘Nothing’. You might want to close your eyes’
Eighteen spoke the word, but did not close his eyes. He had barely any time to react when the guard reared up and spat through the slot before closing it. Eighteen stared at the closed slot, where the guards eyes had been, transfixed by the saliva on his forehead and the laughing in his mind.
‘Humans. Disgustingly predictable animals.’
The words woke Eighteen from his trance. Bringing a hand to his forehead he wiped the spit away, gazing at his wet fingers bitterly.
“What the hell have we achieved?” He whispered.
‘Knowledge, you idiot.’ Came the reply. ‘Already I know how we’re going to get out of this cell.’
We. The word lingered in Eighteen’s mind like a sore.
We’re in this together, he thought.
‘Yes.’ The voice replied. ‘Now shut up and listen. Go to your cellmate.’ What the voice told Eighteen made him weak in the knees. He stepped backwards as though forced.
“What?”
Eighteen heard an audible sigh in his head. Then the voice repeated what it had told him. Whatever essence of grace the voice held has now vanished.
‘Break his fucking neck.’
Eighteen felt the cell spread out around him. He felt as though the other prisoner may have as well as been a million miles away.
‘Do it now, while he’s asleep. Those chains wont hold him long. And you’re far too stupid to fight with him.’
I don’t even know who the hell he is, Eighteen thought.
‘Look at him.’ The voice replied in anger. ‘He’s got a muzzle on him for the gods’ sakes. He’s restrained! Have you seen his damned hands? He’s not going to be a fucking priest, is he?’ The voice paused, as it spoke Eighteen was sure that somewhere the owner of the voice was grinning. ‘It’s not as if you knew any of the men you killed earlier tonight.’
“That was-” He whispered.
‘Survival? What the hell do you think this is?’ The voice spoke with a deliberately mocking sense of encouragement. ‘Come on, you can do it! Just take one step.’
Feeling like he was moving a colossal weight, Eighteen obeyed. This done, and not needing encouragement, he continued the seemingly infinite journey to the soon to be executed. Now on his knees, his face was in line to that of Black Dog’s.
‘Hands. Around his neck.’
Eighteen raised both hands gingerly, surprised at how deathly still they were once up.
His eyes moved from his hands and to the prisoner. For how long he sat there, motionless, he did not know. The voice had lost patience.
‘DO IT.’
In an instant, Eighteen’s hands flew to the prisoner’s neck and gripped tightly. As if on impulse, he twisted sharply and squeezed. The grisly sound of the bones snapping felt as though they were as loud as thunder. Eighteen’s hands pulled away, and the youth stared in horror as the dead mans head sagged sideways and forwards at an impossibly painful angle.
‘Good.’ The word rising in his mind ‘Now…shit!’
“What?”
‘They’re here!’
Two people carried him between them. Unable to hear the comments of the people carrying him, and those watching, he managed to open his working eye.
The entire visible world was a mess. Rotating, blurry, and stained with his own blood.
He was being carried to somewhere unknown, in an equally unknown territory.
Barely recognising the door being held open, he gazed into the world appearing before him. A small room with a table in the centre.
The room was poorly decorated. Bare walls and floorboards were the surroundings, and the only furnishings were a simple bench and the table. Floorboards were cracking, and there were many fading red stains on the walls. A bulb was suspended from the ceiling by a cable, and it hovered above the table. A white cloth had just been laid down on it. It had lost most of its original colour, and it was torn in many places, but it sufficed. The infirmary had been kept as clean as the owners poor facilities would allow.
Hung up upon almost every wall was a tool or instrument of both a sharp, and medical nature. All bore scratches, and some tools had needed tying to their handles. Each tool was old and overused, but like the room, they too were kept as clean as possible.
Feet dragged across the floor like a puppets as the two men pulled the heavy patient into the room, one of them struggled for balance as he kicked the door shut behind him. A working eye struggled to open, and it saw the table coming closer. Feeling a split second of weightlessness, the patient was laid onto the table. His eye now stared unblinking at the ceiling. Struggling to breath, he inhaled the vile stench of the room.
One of the figures held out a hand to his side, and then spoke, his voice distorted and distant.
“Light.”
Chapter I - Birth.
Eastern Continent
Metropolis
Sector 7
Amon Street Holding Station
04:13 A.M.
86th day of Tria
1477
Light.
There was a light.
Eyes opening, trying to accustom to the piercing glow. The eyes burnt. They felt as though they had never been used before. Scorching pupils were changing size as he struggled to take in reality. Weakly, the eyes were opened wide, letting the world enter him.
Lying on his side, he looked to his left to the ceiling. Water was dripping onto his left cheek from above. Freezing the skin, splashing into his eyes. As his senses slowly returned he could feel the cold stone floor against him. Groggily, he managed to sit himself up. Clenching his fists in response to the pain in his head, and the ringing in his ears. Standing up, struggling to keep a balance, he looked around him.
The light had been a high set torch on the wall by his side, giving a dark red glow to the room. He was in a small square cell. No windows, a disgusting and filthy bed, a shit stained pot that served as a toilet, and a sturdy and heavily armoured door made of wood and iron. There was no handle on the door, and a slot that could not be opened from this side. The stone floor, walls, and ceiling were all a sickly shade of yellow and brown. The stone was in decay and cracking, and there were some parts where chunks of the wall had long fallen away.
His brain felt a million sizes too large for his head. With every passing heartbeat he felt his skull grind in tune with it. His hand came up to brush some of the water off of the dampened hair. The water that had awoken him had come from the leaking stone ceiling. Though his head hurt too much to be sure, the distant sound of rain pummelling stone was just loud enough to hear.
As he moved forwards, the room span around and threw him to the floor. With difficulty the arms spread and pushed against the stone ground, forcing the body upwards. Eventually he was standing. Time itself seemed to slow down to a crawl. The disorientation increased, and the room darkened. Staggering clumsily towards the bed, he allowed himself to land as gently as possible on it, an almost impossible task.
Straining, the prisoner groaned as a dirty hand came to his forehead. His flesh seemed white-hot to his touch, and he could feel his head throbbing.
His arms were not built, but they were far from thin. Four numbers were tattooed onto his right forearm.
18-09-01-24
He was unaware that he was whispering.
“Issue…Issue number…what?” Barely hearing his own voice, his fingers ran down the numbers, imagining there would be a different feeling, as though the numbers were imprinted onto his skin. There was nothing, the numbers were part of him. The black ink was permanently bound to the flesh as though it had always been there. With difficulty, he shifted his legs over the side of the bed, and managed to sit upright. The examination begun.
His chest was bare, and there were many bruises. As his fingers pressed them, they responded with slight pain. He wore now torn leggings, made of cloth and leather, which now looked tattered and loose fitting. Thick and heavy black boots came up underneath the leggings and ended at his thighs. Experimentally he reached down to touch them, it felt like the boots had metal lining on the inside.
A bitter realisation was upon him.
“Who am I?” He whispered, now hearing his voice for the first time. The sensation in his ears made it sound even quieter than it actually was. It was an alien sound to him. He almost felt shocked to hear it.
Slowly, some of the dizziness faded, and eventually he managed to bring himself up from the bed. Stumbling forwards, though retaining balance, arms reached out for the door. He fell against it, slamming his hands onto it for support. It made no sound as the weight of his body pressed against it, and it failed to move an inch. The door must have been eight foot high, and there was no way he could kick it down. He banged against it, hoping for some response. As his fist landed he heard a reply, an explosion from beyond the door.
Backing away from the sound of shouting, and more explosions, his eyes widened in horror as he heard keys turning in the door. The door swung open, and in an instant there was a blinding light that shone into the cell and pushed him back as though it was a physical blow. Back onto his knees once more, both hands raised in defence against the light.
He could hear footsteps.
He heard a voice shout at him in a language he had never heard, but understood perfectly. Though his recovering hearing made everything sound distant and quiet, he recognised everything that was spoken. The words seemed aggressive, and the language sounded like a guttural retch.
“Are you ready for execution, scum?” The man said.
A large strong hand grabbed both of his and they were pulled away from the eyes they protected. A man with long white hair, and a heavily tattooed face, glared sadistically at him. He was dressed entirely in black leather with robes of cloth hanging on them. There was armour protecting the top of the chest and shoulders
He yelled the exact same inhuman language at him, and struck him sharply in the side of his head with a large and sleek metal rifle.
“I admire you for surviving the fall.” Seemed to echo in the prisoner’s ears, after the man spoke.
The pain in his head was already immense, and the blow had made it worse. With every heartbeat his head throbbed. He barely heard another voice from behind the man shout.
“Zal, get one with it. The Knights are gonna be looking for us.”
His heart pounded fiercely, his head was forced down and he felt a rifle being pressed to the top of his aching head.
The soldier named Zal laughed in satisfaction as he prepared to pull the trigger.
“Time to die, your Excellency.”
His mind reeled, gazing forwards he could see a short hunting knife strapped to Zal’s thigh. Acting on impulse, he lunged forwards for the blade, shot to his feet, and drove the knife into the mans neck. Tearing the rifle from his hands, he kicked his body away from him, and turned the rifle on the man who had stood in the doorway behind Zal.
Without thinking, he held the gun up and shot the soldier in the forehead, hardly needing to aim. He fell without a word. The light-emitting machine that the man had been holding ceased to work as he hit the floor.
He examined his rifle, not knowing where it was from, or how he knew how to use it. It was called a Maximum. That he could remember. The weapon fired single shots, he remembered as fingers ran over the weapon, and it was effective at both long and short range. He turned it over and found the opening. It could only hold one bullet at once. You fed the bullet, pulled the switch on the top back, and fired. Then did the same as before.
Powered by fear, the weakness that had controlled his body now turned to energy.
Not questioning why he could not remember where he learned the knowledge of this gun, the prisoner turned his attention to Zal’s body. Retrieving his knife from Zal’s throat, the prisoner brought the knife to his leggings and wiped the blood off onto them. He removed the scabbard from Zal’s thigh, and wrapped the straps around his right arm, so it could be removed with his left hand without having to swap rifle hands. He didn’t remember being ambidextrous, as he placed the knife into the scabbard with his left hand. His ears seemed to burn as a distant tapping sound begun. Footsteps. He searched Zal, and found a large leather belt around his waist, with many, many pockets for a single bullet. It was almost full. Grinning, he ripped it off and hastily removed a bullet. The prisoner placed it into the rifle, pulled the gauge back, and listened to the bullet clicking into place. Not having the time to attach it to his waist, he crept out of the cell as the footsteps came closer.
“Zal, Krin, come on! What’s taking so long?” Called an almost mute voice, from the solder outside.
The masked soldier cursed upon seeing Krin’s body, and cried out as he saw the prisoner leaving his cell.
“You!”
The prisoner raised the rifle.
As the soldier turned and started to run, the bullet pierced the back of his head, and left through the front. Blood sprayed from the wound, and the soldier hit the ground without a sound.
The prisoner noticed that the soldier was unarmed, and almost felt regret for silencing him. The realisation that these soldiers knew who he was suddenly arose in his mind. He stared at the black numbers on his arm, he bent down and pulled away at the soldier’s sleeve, and discovered that he too had numbers painted on his flesh, but they were completely different to the prisoners.
Examining Krin proved the same. He didn’t bother to check Zal.
He leant back against the walls, and stared at the numbers.
If he got out of this place, he would undoubtedly meet people. Maybe they could tell him who he was? But what if they couldn’t? He tilted his head and strained to think, the pounding in his head was still beating in time with his heart. He didn’t see how the numbers could relate to a name. The rifle in his hands gave him a theory. Maybe he was a soldier? Maybe the people numbered their soldiers, for identification on the battlefield?
He shrugged, and took the name Eighteen, the first number on his arm.
He was in a corridor lined with large doors like the one he had just come through, save that these all had handles on. These were doors to other cells. The stone ceiling here was leaking as well, and some torches had even been extinguished where the dripping was bad. The stones shared the same sickly colour as the ones in the cell that Eighteen had left behind him, and it seemed that the stones out here were in worse condition than the ones in the cell. There were many dead men on the floor of the room, each one dressed in identical black cloth uniforms.
“Prison guards?” He thought as his eyes scanned their bleeding corpses, and then the corridor. One way was a dead end, the other way led to stairs. Remembering the belt of bullets, and cursing his own stupidity for forgetting it in the first place, he returned to his cell, stepped over Krin’s body, and gathered the belt from Zal. Gently laying the rifle to rest, Eighteen wrapped the belt around him, adjusting the straps so it was fixed tightly to him, and took another bullet. Already walking towards the stairs, he gently inserted the bullet, and pulled the gauge back as before. Up ahead, another soldier was coming down the stairs, cursing as he saw Eighteen. Crouching to his knees, the prisoner held the rifle up and fired without aiming. The bullet screamed through the air and pierced the soldier’s neck. In vain, the soldier clutched the wound with his left hand, attempting to prolong the life that faded as fast as the blood that emerged between his fingers. Falling to his knees, the solder squeezed the trigger and fired. The bullet exploding some feet away from where Eighteen knelt. The prisoner rose, and ran to the stairs. He was unaware that he had subconsciously loaded the again.
The stairs were spiralled, and eventually, he came up into the front area of the small jail. There were dead guards here as well, and two more soldiers, these too had white hair, and the rifles. Hearing him approach, they turned and fired. Eighteen went to his knees, ignoring the bullet that whistled next to where his head had been, and fired.
The soldier closest to him turned his head behind him as the other soldier fell dead.
With incredible speed, Eighteen brought himself back to his feet and was running to the soldier. He slammed the top of the rifle into the soldier’s face, the shock causing him to fire at the floor, shattering the stone tiles beneath both men. On the floor, he held his hands in defence as the black armoured boot crashed down onto his chest. Eighteen reloaded, and shot the soldier between the eyes.
The front area of the prison was a large room. In the middle was a large wooden table, littered with mugs of foul looking ale, and cards. The guards must have been playing as the soldiers showed up. The room, like the rest of the prison, was stone, leaking, and barely decorated. Either the prison was in decay, or this was merely a holding area. Either for lesser criminals, or for criminals waiting to be moved onto wherever the better place was. Though it wasn’t hard to imagine any place being better established than this mess. There was a large blackboard against the wall, which Eighteen imagined was supposed to be for writing the names of prisoners. It was dominated by everything other than names. Shopping lists, word games, and various other useless items were chalked onto its surface. In the bottom left corner was a small sentence “Prisoner brought in unconscious, needs questioning.” Eighteen’s fists tightened in frustration. There was no name, nor any indication to what the hell it was he had done to end up in this place. Dismissing the anger, he turned his attention away from the board. The only exits to the room were the stairs he had just come up, and large wooden door at the end of the room.
Reloading again, not bothering to check his amount of bullets left, the escapee walked through the room, and towards the door. As he walked Eighteen was overpowered by a ringing in his ears. Slamming against the wall to avoid falling to the ground, he dropped the rifle and brought hands to both ears. Gasping in pain, Eighteen gripped the ears as though he was preparing to rip them off. The pain, becoming too much to bear, drove him to his knees with tears welling in his eyes. Then just as suddenly as it had started, the ringing was gone, along with the thudding in his head. He gasped for air and let go of his ears. Only now aware of them, he wiped the tears away. Eighteen couldn’t help but smile at the return of his hearing. He was now totally aware. The rain that had once sounded like a million fingers tapping in the distance was now closer and much louder. The low rumble of thunder outside in the storm, added to his satisfaction. The rifle was gathered up, and he was heading to the door once more. As he moved, one thing puzzled him. He could still hear the thunder droning outside.
The moment he opened the door, the noise went from a distant hum, to a powerful roar. The sound came from far to his right. He had heard an engine, not thunder.
He had left the jail to enter a narrow alley, the floor lined with ancient cracked cobbles. Scattered along the brick walls were many small glass torches. Their shape was spherical, and they shone perfectly. These lights seemed to have no flame inside them, and they had strange thin ropes coming from them that ran down the wall and into the ground. They were lined against the wall and each one was an equal distance to the others.
Now outside in the rain, Eighteen jerked at the cold touch upon his bare chest. Death was certain if he stayed outside for long. Casting his head upwards, he saw nothing but blackness in the sky above. An enormous dark cloud stretched further than he could see in any direction. A loud explosion from his left alerted him, and his eyes travelled in that direction. Though the length of the alleyway was long, and the left entrance was quite a long way from him, he was amazed that he could make out the men entering the passage clearly. There were four of them, and although they were similarly dressed, none of them had white hair, and their rifles were different to the one Eighteen was carrying. These weapons were not the sleek metallic ones that the soldiers in the jail had been using; these were wooden, almost clumsy looking things. Whereas the soldiers in the jail all had a rifle and a dagger, these men carried their rifle and a sword that rested in a large scabbard strung around their backs. There were more men behind them in the street beyond the alley who Eighteen could see clearly. They were firing at whatever was making the noise. His ears burned as the voices of the men travelled from the alley entrance, to him. Even amidst the sounds of the rain, the engine, and the rifle shots, Eighteen could make out their voices.
The men spoke not in the language that the white haired soldiers had spoken, but in a tongue more simple. A tongue that Eighteen understood just as well.
“Who the hell are these guys?” Shouted the first man. “Where on Earth is that…Thing, from?” Eighteen guessed they were referring to whatever owned the engine that was making such a racket. All the men turned to the sound of an even louder explosion that seemed to come from what their comrades were fighting. The engines sounded louder, and more erratic. The sounds it produced gave the impression that it was coughing and dying, something that the men showed satisfaction for. Eighteen could hear them cheering and laughing, as the engines grew even louder. A few more shots were fired, and then came a sight that Eighteen would never forget. Slowly rising above the ground, the thing headed in the direction of the alley, hovering just over the gaps above the buildings. It was a large contraption, constructed from wood and metal. There were no visible indications to what made the machine fly. Parts of it were burning, and there were many holes among the metal areas. The machine was too dark for any observer to determine its shape. Eighteen was unable to see where, but there was a soldier on the vessel that shouted in the sinister language Zal had spoken.
Without even thinking of the action, Eighteen dived to his side as three bullets plummeted into the ground where he stood. Instantly back to his feet, he raised his rifle and started looking for the soldier who had fired.
Different voices shouted at each other in frustration from above him, and to his side Eighteen could hear the other men shouting to each other.
“There’s another one here, one that was left behind!”
Panicking, Eighteen fled after seeing them charge into the alley.
He had done some quick evaluation.
Wherever on Earth Eighteen might have been, he knew for a fact that he didn’t belong there. Those soldiers had come here for the specific purpose of killing him, even though Eighteen had no idea who they were, who he was, and where they came from. Common sense told him that they had attacked this city, wherever it was, in an attempt to kill him while in the jail. How could they have known where he was?
In the attack, they had alerted these men, who Eighteen guessed were the local authorities, who were now hunting him under the assumption he was with the soldiers.
At this point, Eighteen didn’t care who or where he was. The overpowering urge to put as much distance between himself and his hunters far outclassed his curiosities.
It had been ten minutes and Eighteen had failed to evade the men chasing him. From what he had seen, the flying ship had gone straight up, and vanished through the enormous black cloud above him. The guards had seen him, mistook him as part of the gang of white haired soldiers who they had been fighting, and had begun pursuit.
Eighteen was surprised with himself. He had ran incredibly fast, at a rate thought impossible to someone of his physique, and after ten minutes he failed to feel even the slightest weakness or need for rest. Reaching a dead end in the maze, he now faced a wooden fence. He turned back and listened for the hunters. They were more of them. They must have got reinforcements.
What Eighteen didn’t know was that the men originally chasing him had given up. His new hunters were people far worse.
Throwing the rifle over it, and then taking a running jump, Eighteen clambered over the fence and fell with a splash on the wet ground. Scooping up the rifle, he instantly set off at the terrific speed as before.
Hearing the sounds of the men behind him as they clambered over the fence, he turned left into another unknown alleyway. So far his entire escape had been set in small alleyways, he had yet to see a street, or another person. Eighteen passed many doors on his journey, but entered none. During the first few minutes of running, he had tried many of the doors along the endless maze of tunnels, but none of them would open, even when he had banged upon them and screamed.
He no longer cared of entering them, the determination to escape had pushed away all cares. The freezing cold rain drenching his entire body was irrelevant.
Turning a corner, Eighteen made the mistake of running straight into one of the men hunting him. Something that didn’t surprise him, as these men undoubtedly knew the area they were hunting in.
The man was bigger than Eighteen, and was only knocked back a few inches as he charged onto him. Eighteen stared up into the eyes of the demonic hunter.
The man wore a suit not unlike Zal’s. Black cloth and armour decorated the man from head to toe, as well as a bizarre black mask protecting his face. What was even stranger than the mask was the part attached to the mouth of the man. A machine of some kind. Panicking, Eighteen brought his foot to connect with the mans stomach, resulting in a agonising cry which sounded monstrous thanks to the aid of the mouthpiece. Jumping over him and continuing his escape, more men who were identical to the one he had just knocked down, were entering at the end of the alley. Eighteen stopped dead as he ran to a point where another turning was on his right, raised the rifle, and fired at one of the attackers. He went down with a mechanical scream, and Eighteen was immediately shocked to see that the men barely seemed to notice. The prey cursed, and ran down the alley on his right, slamming another bullet into the rifle as he ran.
The men following him were shouting, separating, and laughing. Their distorted voices made the hunters cries into terrifyingly bestial sounds. The distorted, machine like voices were not too far away from him no matter where Eighteen fled to. A colossal terror was rising in him, and the possibility of capture was suddenly a major threat to him.
At the end of this particular alley, was one of his hunters. Eighteen stopped, fired without aiming, and the man fell dead. Altered to a sound behind him, he turned. The prod was shot at him the moment that the hunter had a clear shot of his target’s front.
With no warning at all, there was a small pop. Eighteen felt a stabbing pain in his right thigh. It burnt and sent waves of agony into his entire leg. The gun dropped from his hands. Falling to his knees he started to reach in the direction of the agony, gradually curling himself into a ball of pain, his hands started to search. They had shot him with something. There was a small metal stick in his leg. Crying in terror and writhing in the puddles, he tried to pull the thing out, it burnt his fingers and he responded with a scream. Trying to stand brought him down again, face first. The thing caused him more pain the more he tried to move.
Slow and steady footsteps could be heard, and there was a strange beeping sound.
"Got him." Spoke another mechanical voice. Eighteen never wanted to hear the terrifying sound again.
His head turned round to see the black suited figure. Two red lights on his mask shone out, completely visible in the darkness. The figure raised his right arm in front of him, and started to tap on a device attached to it. Frantic beeping emitted from it, sounds of hurried footsteps could be heard.
"Bad news Perp." The voice said as he approached Eighteen. "Rig is on his way."
The man bent down, and flipped Eighteen over onto his back. He extended a gloved hand and squeezed the metal stick in the victim’s leg. Following Eighteen’s screams, he replied with mechanical laughter.
The footsteps ever closer, Eighteen raised his head to see a group of four rush towards him, each one dressed the same as the man torturing him. Eight red lights in the darkness were coming towards him and there were the sounds of more footsteps behind him.
He felt a hand grip his hair, and drag him to his feet, the pain in his leg intensified.
One man spoke, with the same voice as the first man. All of them were using the same voice altering machines. He was holding his right forearm close to his face, there was a small metal device wrapped to his arm. A finger from his left hand was holding down a button.
"Sector 7. Underage citizen captured. Citizen breaking curfew. Citizen showing signs of vigilance. Citizen evading capture. Citizen evading arrest." He pressed another button, and then lowered his arms. He shouted to his comrades.
"Nice and legal." A cheer of mechanical laughter went up.
The first thing Eighteen felt was a kick to his chest, lurching forwards, his body fell straight to the ground. Coughing, and turning his head to the side just in time to see another boot swung into his face, he screamed pitifully. More laughter sounded from the men, and another blow landed on the top of his head.
For the next thirty seconds, all he felt were the fists, feet, and truncheons of the men. His screams drowned out by their shouting. There was a shout, different from the rest of the distorted voices. This one was deeper, and more inhuman, if it was possible.
"Cease."
Like puppets severed from their strings, the men stopped their movement, only turning to face the new arrival. Eighteen was physically unable to bring himself to his feet, and was unable to see him. The man looked identical to the rest, with the exception of a white cross on his mask, and on his chest armour.
"Stand him up. Remove the prod."
Eighteen felt slight relief as the thing in his leg was ripped out. The full effect of the beating hit him as he was dragged to his feet. If it had not been for the men holding him, his body would have dropped straight back to the floor. The leader of the group walked over and examined the child his men had caught. Examining the bruises and cuts scattered all over his body. The voice asked quietly.
"Who kicked his face?"
One of the men raised his hands.
The leader threw, with lightning quick speed, a small dagger. It sank into the flesh like an anchor. As he fell to the ground he emitted a muffled mechanical scream. Then he was silent and still. The other men didn’t seem to care, or show any notice of the event. The leader held up a finger, and aimed it around at all the men.
"Do not damage faces. Corp is too close to having us disbanded. The last thing we need is another brutality inspection."
"Sir." Replied the men in unison.
Rig, the leader of the men, brought his hand to Eighteen's chin, gripping it and examining his face. He examined the child’s details carefully. Fairly long white hair, and something that perplexed him to no end. Eighteen had bright blue eyes that seemed to glow in the dark as brightly as the false eyes of his men’s masks. They glared at his in fear.
“Strange looking kid.” Rig decided. He turned to the closest man. "Too young to kill. Story?"
"Curfew violation. Resisted capture."
Rig laughed, and pushed Eighteen. The men holding him instinctively let go, allowing the boy to fall down into the ever-growing puddles.
"Get his rifle, and take his ammo. Take him to the nearest station."
As soon as they were gone, the body they had left behind stood up.
Scunthorne Street Enforcer Station
Old Man Trine was finding it difficult to stay awake.
The break room was small and rectangular. The grey walls of stone were cracked in few places. The floor was also stone, but was littered with shreds of carpet. Wooden benches lined two of the walls, and there was a small table in the middle of the room with the week’s newspaper. There was a rarely used dartboard nailed to one wall, and in the corner where Trine sat was the stations fabled “comfy chair”. By Trine’s chair was a bottle of whiskey. The room had no window, so the only light the room got was from a small lamp in the corner. Out of the few Enforcer stations in Sector 7, this was the only one with electricity.
Trine opened his eyes and scanned the room, the two other Enforcers who had been sleeping in the break room were both gone. He put the cork back into the half empty bottle, and placed it underneath the ancient cushioned chair.
The chair had been seized during the riots in Sector 4, last year. Corp had taken sympathy on his old friend, and had handed the chair over to Scunthorne Street. Trine could not have been more grateful. Trine practically lived in the station, and he was often content in the knowledge that he had a comfortable place to sleep.
Trine was forty years old and the years had been unkind to him. His long black hair was edged with silver, and his beard had long lost its colour. He yawned and exposed the lines of broken teeth. Trine brought his left hand to his chin to scratch the beard; the middle and ring finger were both missing. His final distinguishing mark was the scar on his face that travelled from above the right eye and ended just to the left of his nose. This had disfigured most of the nose, and the scar had a bad habit of opening sometimes. As Trine himself would say, he was nothing much to look at. He couldn’t care less.
His eyes shut, and Trine sighed impatiently. He wondered how long was left till his watch started. He wouldn’t normally be doing the 5 AM watch. The Chief usually took the liberty of doing it. However, he had set off an hour ago to investigate the explosion across the Sector, the second explosion that night. The first one had happened three hours ago, a dwarven factory had been destroyed. No one was sure of the cause, and the Enforcer’s investigating had not come back yet.
His eyes had barely been closed for a minute when he awoke to the sound of the stations bell ringing. Five ear-splitting cries from the ancient and cracked bell housed in the upper reaches of the building, Trine couldn’t bear the sound. But he counted along nonetheless, whispering in time to each ring.
A few seconds after the fifth call of the bell, he wondered if he imagined the distant roar as a ship crash-landed.
Eighteen could barely think straight. The attack from these armed thugs had left him barely conscious at first. Slowly he had returned to the real world, his head pounding. The taste of his own blood lingered in his mouth. His eyes struggled to open, but eventually showed him the pitch-black sky. There was pressure around his neck, but Eighteen had no idea it was the strong hands of one of the Lawkeepers that were now dragging him to their destination.
Whereas the Enforcers existed to uphold the law, and serve the citizens, the Lawkeepers only lived to uphold their version of the law and oppress the citizens in every way they possibly could.
Eleven months ago, the idea had been forwarded to the council, by an intelligent yet highly overzealous Enforcer named David Karrin. While he had sugarcoated the major bulk of his idea, the basis of it was simple. A “police” force that would operate at night, install curfews, lay down their own laws, and beat any civilian found disobeying any of their laws to within an inch of their lives.
Or in most cases, to death.
By Karrin’s strict policy, the only people that the Lawkeepers weren’t allowed to kill were children. And this was the reason they were dragging this youngling to the proper authorities, a word that Lawkeepers used loosely.
In front of the menacing group, Rig sighed in regret. If he could have his own way, he would have shot the kid there and then. He wouldn’t even remember it in a week. It was his own fault, he thought with annoyance. As the chase began he had contacted Central and told them of the pursuit of a civilian that was breaking curfew. Lawkeeper conduct demanded that Rig bring the prisoner or corpse in. If Rig had killed the youth and just left his body to rot, not only would Enforcers have found him, but even worse, Central would demand to know where the prisoner was. If he had killed him and then brought him in, he would be executed for breaking conduct.
‘If only I never reported it and just shot the little shit’, Rig thought.
He almost stopped as he heard the sound of moaning. Continuing the journey, he merely held up a hand and spoke.
“Knock him.”
As a fist connected with the back of Eighteen’s head, something flew overhead noisily. Every Lawkeeper’s head shot upwards to see the ship pass by, a thick trail of smoke following it. It charged off into the distance, over the buildings and fell. The roar the ship made as it crashed and burst into flames was deafening. The third crash that night.
Rig continued to stare at the sky.
“What the hell are those bastard’s doing up there?”
Trine had immediately rushed out of the break room, seeing chaos. Every Enforcer in the station was shouting and pushing into each other in a panic. Some were trying to head downstairs to the courtyard, and some tried to get upstairs where they could see where the explosion came from. The rest were in the corridors of the station, shouting at each other. Trine walked calmly into the group, weaving his way through the chaos, until he got to the lobby. Trine calmly and gracefully climbed onto a table, and gave one simple command.
“QUIET.” The room fell silent, all eyes turned on Trine. He took a moment to take in their silence and their gazes. “That’s better!” He looked around the room uneasily, “Where’s the chief?”
“Other side of the sector sir.” The nearest Enforcer responded. “He went off to have a gander at that banging an hour ago.”
Trine took this little information in.
“Did he have a radio on him?”
“No sir.”
“Hell…can someone tell me what’s going on?”
“Centurion’s sir.” Someone at the back replied, every Enforcer turned in the man’s direction. Silence fell once more over the room. Trine eventually spoke.
“What?”
The man had only just entered the room, he was one of the radio operators and had just received some information from another station in Sector 7.
“That noise we heard an hour ago, it was a ship. The chief’s at the Meier Street Station, he saw them. Says there were no survivors on it.”
“So that other explosion just now?”
“Another ship.”
“And the first one?”
“The first ship…And apparently….” He drifted off.
“What?”
“They’re not just in Sector 7. There are some that have fallen elsewhere in the city. Quite a few have fallen outside the wall, in the slumlands.”
Outside of the station, something was writing on the wall.
Six miles west of the Scunthorne Street Enforcer station, a small group of men were running through the shadows. They moved silently, their footsteps making no sound. Each of them wore identical armour. Black leather and cloth, with black armour around the chest. Each one held a Maximum, and had a knife strapped to their thigh. Another ship had crashed not too far away, and the men were fully aware of it. They had no way of telling whether it was one of their own or not, and so instinct told them to treat it as Baturium. And to put as much distance between it and them as possible.
They were just at the border of Sector 7, every time they emerged from an alley they could see the huge wall isolating it from the other sectors. Moving from alley to alley, the man leading the group kept a sharp lookout for any sign. In front of him, on a wall was a single chalk drawing. Dace, the leader of this group, was thankful that he had already memorised the new code, and translated the message as “left”. And left they went.
They had approached the end of the alleyway, and had reached a wide and open street. Dace stood against the wall, and edged silently towards the opening, poking his head out as he got there. In both directions he saw no activity. They were on the market street, and it would not be open at this time of night. Dace’s limited knowledge of the human language allowed him to read the banner held aloft above the empty stalls.
“Sector 7 Market” Imaginative name, Dace thought. Continuing his observation he saw that all the buildings on this street were shops, owned by those rich enough to do away with the limited facilities of a tiny cheap wooden stall. Poking his head further out, he looked to the left and froze for a second. Clouds of smoke were rising in the distance. He thought that without a doubt that it was the Baturium. They would need to move fast. Dace ran into the street without ordering his men to follow, they ran after him. One of his men, the young Tabaris, approached him. He had pulled his hood down, revealing his handsome features and short white hair. He spoke with concern in his voice.
“Sir, where are they?”
“They’re here.” Dace smiled and pointed downwards. On the floor just in front of him there was a manhole cover. Bending down to examine it, Dace saw that someone had chalked a small rune on the surface. “Rebirth” it said.
Without pausing to tell his comrades, Dace brought his hand, clenched in a fist, till it hovered over the manhole cover. He tapped once, waited for two seconds, and then tapped three times.
The manhole cover was pushed upwards, and moved aside. One man climbed out of the opening, and stood upright. Dace could barely contain his joy when the man pulled his hood down, though he knew who it was the second he saw the hair, reaching down as far as the man’s stomach. Arthan pulled the hood back and stared at the group of survivors. Handsome, green eyed, and clean-shaven, Arthan stared into a mirror image. Dace rushed forwards to embrace his brother.
“Gods!” Dace exclaimed. “I thought you were dead!”
Arthan smiled, and broke the embrace.
“Almost. We managed to control the landing. Ended up on water…three of us fell. Once we’d cleared the ship we ran into some humans, they put up quite a fight.”
Dace could believe this. Once he and his men barely managed to escape their wrecked ship, they had encountered an even greater challenge in outrunning the human lawmen that attacked.
“Did you know they have rifles?” asked Arthan.
“Aye.” Dace nodded. “Awful and primitive. Disgustingly crude weapons.”
Arthan gestured towards the manhole, and climbed down, speaking as he descended.
“They shoot and they kill, brother. A weapon is a weapon.”
Once all the men were down the ladder, and the opening had been sealed again, the men relaxed.
The sewers of Metropolis were a highly sophisticated network of tunnels, all leading to the centre of the city where they would drain down into the Cell, the colossal underground factory that powered Metropolis. What happened to the sewage when it got there was anyone’s guess.
In this particular area of the sewers, two groups of Centurion survivors had rendezvoused. All soldiers greeted the others as though they were brothers feared dead, just like the twin leaders had done previously. The smell of the sewer was a minor irritation for some of the lesser-trained soldiers, but they didn’t complain. Against the wall of the tunnel, Arthan’s group had placed several sacks of ammunition that they had managed to save when their ship crashed.
Ignoring the foul stench, the warrior Arthan explained the situation.
“Zal is missing.” He began. “His entire crew too. They’re probably dead.”
“Baturium?” Asked one of the soldiers.
“No idea. Might have been humans. He said his Excellency is still alive.”
“Nothing could have survived that…did Zal say where?”
“No.”
“Always the hot-head.” Dace sighed. “What do we do? Check for him? How many other ships have landed?”
Arthan did not answer straight away. Quietly, almost mournfully, he turned his gaze from his brother to the surviving soldiers they both had with them. They had survived hell itself only to reach purgatory.
“The battle is lost.” He whispered. His own men already knew this, their reactions of sadness were quite different to the shocked defiance of his brother’s men.
“No!”
“The General survived. The seventy-odd of us that survived the battle at Redemption, now number at…. forty. Including us. Of the five ships that fell, all five groups survived, although Kren only has two men. You have four, and both me and Zal survived with a full six.”
“Who was the fifth?” Dace spoke
“Nis. He managed to regain control of the ship as it was falling.”
“What? How did he counter the override?”
“The gods alone know.” Arthan shrugged. “You lost your stone?”
Dace nodded, Arthan smiled sadly.
“Kren, me, and Nis managed to save ours. I’ve been in regular contact with Kren, he’s found a place for us to meet at Sector 3.” He stated it as though it were no small thing, but to Dace it might as well be on another planet. “And as for Nis’ lot, humans attacked them when they went off looking for that idiot Zal. Lost contact with them, but I don’t think they’re dead.”
Dace sat down hopelessly.
“One ship, and four groups.” He muttered. Neither Arthan nor Dace had a doubt that Zal had gotten himself killed. “The ships can barely manage to carry seven even when they’re working, how are we going to get twelve men out if the one ship we have access to already has a full crew?”
Arthan replied with the optimism he had retained throughout the years of strife he and his brother had survived.
“We’ll think of something.” He smiled, much to Dace’s annoyance.
“And the Baturium? How are their ships?”
“None of them can fly. Apparently, only one group survived.” Before anyone could revel in this good news, Arthan continued. “Malek’s group.”
All were silent for a moment, taking this in.
“What are we going to do?” Dace spoke.
“The battle may be lost, but we’re still alive. And the Knights have not been defeated. Kren managed to ‘speak’ with Roland.” Roland The Mighty, as his men called him. “As soon as those of us still in the air have gotten the General out of harms way, Roland will be coming for us.” He smiled. “Don’t worry, brother. This is only a setback. We’ve dealt The Eldest a major blow.”
The brothers both nodded simultaneously in acknowledgement. The world was dark, but there was always a ray of light coming down from the sky.
The Knights divided into two groups. Arthan and his men were going to head back up to the surface. Dace was going to head to Sector 3 to locate Kren. Arthan assured his brother that Kren would have left enough (well hidden) signs for them to follow. Time was of the essence, and the Baturium would already be hunting them.
“What the hell are you going back up for?” Dace had asked.
“Come on, brother…Do you really think any of these humans could have killed Zal? The Baturium are up there. And I’m going to put a bullet into that damned monsters face.” As far as Arthan was concerned, he was put on this world to kill Malek Skaife.
“Don’t be a fool, brother. They’re disorganised, they’ll be useless on their own. We’ve killed enough Baturium today, let the humans have some…” He hesitated. “And supposing Obelisk is with them?”
Arthan laughed and shook his head.
“The demon had at least thirteen bullets in him when he went down. Save the coming back to life for children’s stories.”
“If it took that much to kill him, how much will it take to keep him dead?”
“Rest assured brother.” Arthan humoured him. “If I bump into him, I’ll make sure to send him back to hell for you.”
Two hours later.
Underneath the Scunthorne street station, in a dimly lit cell, the young Centurion lay on a bed not unlike the one he had previously woken on. Barely conscious when they had dragged him in, the Enforcers had cleaned him of blood and dried the rainwater, and thrown him in the cell.
This new cell was not that different to the last one, with the exception of a comparatively clean bed, an isolated hollow for a latrine, and another inhabitant. ‘Wake up’
Eighteen awoke with a start. Sitting up in an instant, he found himself gasping for air and covered in a cold sweat. Breathing in short pants, he climbed off the bed expecting pain from the beating he had received. There was nothing. Puzzled, Eighteen examined both his arms and chest. There weren’t even any bruises anymore. Even the marks he had on him when he awoke in the previous cell were gone.
The voice that had pulled him from his sleep spoke once more.
‘The pain is gone. Forget it.’
Eighteen’s eyes darted around the room, turning his head to the voice that was spoken behind him. A bare wall met his gaze. The voice was gone, the room was silent save for Eighteen’s heavy breathing, and someone else’s snoring.
Sitting against the wall was the rooms other inhabitant.
Alex “Black Dog” Cash was the name of the other prisoner. He had been caught at last. The disgustingly foul smelling, and filthy rag clad psychopath had been thrown in the cell, bound in a leather harness, and had been chained to the wall. His artificial claws, permanently fused to his real hands now, were wrapped tightly preventing him from lashing out. A leather gag had been tied around his head, keeping him from biting anyone with his hideously deformed teeth. The unfortunate Enforcer who had caught him, was now in the infirmary having what was left of his hand fixed. He reeked of, what Eighteen was surprised he could identify as, blood, sweat, and shit.
The lunatic had been caught when two Enforcers on patrol heard screaming. Cash had broken into a tavern, killed some patrons in silence, and had raped and eaten parts of the innkeeper’s four-year-old daughter. When the Enforcers found him, he had been cutting the girls eyeball into mush with his claws.
There was nothing left of the murderers sanity, he was now only barely capable of coherent speech. But when he had been dragged to the station, not struggling, not kicking or screaming or trying to escape, the Enforcers saw from looking in his eyes that there existed a primal, bestial intelligence within him.
Eighteen heard the voice once again.
‘You need to get out of here.’
The voice felt as though it came from all around him. Eighteen barely noticed how rapidly his heart was now beating.
“Who’s there?” He spoke, his eyes darting across the room. Still nothing.
‘Pay attention.’ The voice spoke calmly, quietly, and with a very distinguished accent. The voice was one of nobility.
His eyes widened in horror and realization. The voice was in his head.
‘You need to get out of here, now. The Baturium are going to come.’
“Who?”
‘You know those weaklings who tried to kill you tonight?’ The voice replied dryly. ‘There are more. I’d imagine there are much, much more.’
“Why?” He asked
‘Why what?’ Sardonic. Loathsome and mocking.
“Why kill me?” Eighteen spat. “And where the hell is everyone in this city?”
‘Burning objects falling from the sky, and men running around with guns. Not to mention those freaks that threw you in here, doing their rounds. I’ll have to take a safe bet and say that these are all good reasons for the idiotic populace to stay indoors at night.’
“Who the hell are you?” He whispered.
For a moment there was no sound save for the snoring of the other cellmate. His reply came.
‘Now is not the time for you to know. And if you linger here, it will never be the time.’ The voice paused, as though in hesitation. ‘I can help you. I can help you get out of here.’
“Where the hell is here?” Eighteen whispered.
‘How much do you remember? You know your people, your language…The Centurions, yes?’
Eighteen nodded on instinct, not knowing that the voice could tell.
‘We are below our homes, our beautiful flying cities. This is the surface world.’
Eighteen heard…no, remembered something he had once heard.
“A land of primitives.”
‘Exactly. This land is…’ The voice paused once more, struggling to remember. ‘Ashura. Yes, Ashura. You are in The City. Metropolis.’
“A city the size of a country…” Eighteen mumbled, almost dreamlike. “How can I remember these things, but nothing else?”
What the voice did next surprised Eighteen considerably. It laughed.
‘How should I know? Now come. Are you prepared? This is your survival I speak of.’
“Yes.” Eighteen answered without hesitation.
‘Bang on the door.’
Unquestioning, Eighteen marched to the sturdy metal door keeping him in this cell. He raised his hand and banged once. Not sure what to expect, Eighteen was taken back by the response he got. The slot in the door opened. The eyes of the guard outside the cell looked in, meeting Eighteen’s.
“What? What do you want?” He barked angrily.
Eighteen was silent. The eyes of the guard bore into him.
‘Tell him ‘Nothing’. You might want to close your eyes’
Eighteen spoke the word, but did not close his eyes. He had barely any time to react when the guard reared up and spat through the slot before closing it. Eighteen stared at the closed slot, where the guards eyes had been, transfixed by the saliva on his forehead and the laughing in his mind.
‘Humans. Disgustingly predictable animals.’
The words woke Eighteen from his trance. Bringing a hand to his forehead he wiped the spit away, gazing at his wet fingers bitterly.
“What the hell have we achieved?” He whispered.
‘Knowledge, you idiot.’ Came the reply. ‘Already I know how we’re going to get out of this cell.’
We. The word lingered in Eighteen’s mind like a sore.
We’re in this together, he thought.
‘Yes.’ The voice replied. ‘Now shut up and listen. Go to your cellmate.’ What the voice told Eighteen made him weak in the knees. He stepped backwards as though forced.
“What?”
Eighteen heard an audible sigh in his head. Then the voice repeated what it had told him. Whatever essence of grace the voice held has now vanished.
‘Break his fucking neck.’
Eighteen felt the cell spread out around him. He felt as though the other prisoner may have as well as been a million miles away.
‘Do it now, while he’s asleep. Those chains wont hold him long. And you’re far too stupid to fight with him.’
I don’t even know who the hell he is, Eighteen thought.
‘Look at him.’ The voice replied in anger. ‘He’s got a muzzle on him for the gods’ sakes. He’s restrained! Have you seen his damned hands? He’s not going to be a fucking priest, is he?’ The voice paused, as it spoke Eighteen was sure that somewhere the owner of the voice was grinning. ‘It’s not as if you knew any of the men you killed earlier tonight.’
“That was-” He whispered.
‘Survival? What the hell do you think this is?’ The voice spoke with a deliberately mocking sense of encouragement. ‘Come on, you can do it! Just take one step.’
Feeling like he was moving a colossal weight, Eighteen obeyed. This done, and not needing encouragement, he continued the seemingly infinite journey to the soon to be executed. Now on his knees, his face was in line to that of Black Dog’s.
‘Hands. Around his neck.’
Eighteen raised both hands gingerly, surprised at how deathly still they were once up.
His eyes moved from his hands and to the prisoner. For how long he sat there, motionless, he did not know. The voice had lost patience.
‘DO IT.’
In an instant, Eighteen’s hands flew to the prisoner’s neck and gripped tightly. As if on impulse, he twisted sharply and squeezed. The grisly sound of the bones snapping felt as though they were as loud as thunder. Eighteen’s hands pulled away, and the youth stared in horror as the dead mans head sagged sideways and forwards at an impossibly painful angle.
‘Good.’ The word rising in his mind ‘Now…shit!’
“What?”
‘They’re here!’