I follow for a good hour, its shape constantly disappearing around the next bend on the road. No matter how much I quicken my pace, the silhouette seems to always await me at the same approximate distance up ahead. I consider the possibility of a hallucination, but am determined to try and catch up to it anyway.
After a while, I begin to note the added weight of Ty’s body and his backpack draped across my shoulders. I had tried to wake him up numerous times, even splashed a bit of water on his face, but he hadn’t budged even as the clear liquid turned brown and dripped from his face. After passing an industrial part of town, with buildings which had probably looked shady and rundown before the war hit, I come to a bridge over a wide basin. I can see the head of the figure along with the metallic thing it carries over its back as they disappear over the overpass’ curvature. I notice black smoke rising ahead, over the bridge, and quicken my pace. I notice repairs have been made at some point to make certain the bridge stood, although what exactly had been done I have no desire to figure out.
I jog across and think what I had seen earlier. Not that it didn’t cross my mind before, but the saucer-like shape I saw felt like it didn’t want to be remembered. Every time I think about it or attempt to recall what it looks like, I find the image of it slithering past my conscious thinking and escape into the hidden recesses of my mind as though avoiding my attempts of mere contemplation of it. But the more it attempts to hide itself, the more I discover myself thinking about it.
I needed to wake up Ty, ask him what he saw. I don’t know when he collapsed, and I could only hope he had managed to glimpse something before he did.
Ty stirs and moans. I gently sprawl him over the concrete. It takes a few moments for him to regain some semblance of composure and sit up.
“Merd–What? Where are we?” he croaks.
“I’m following someone,” I tell him, “any idea what that smoke is?” I ask and point to the billowing cloud rising from beyond the bridge.
He looks half-dead at where my finger is pointing. “No clue,” he says. “Haven’t heard of any settlers living here or anything. Who you following? I don’t see anyone.”
“He disappeared over the bridge, get up, let’s go.”
“Fine,” he grumbles. “But there’d better be some food at where we’re going, man.”
I realize that, in my excitement, I had actually forgotten the fact that I’m hungry as all fuck. I take a sip of water and help Ty to his feet. We soon reach the top of the bridge. Below it, a dried-up river bed winds between the yellow-grey hills to our left and right. Railway tracks run on the hills to the left of it, and I can see parts of it had been stripped for some purpose or another.
On the other side of the river bed, I can see a hill covered with blackened trees and a fortified facility spewing out garbage from its make-shift chimney, all constructed out of corroded sheets of metal. A stage stands built around the central hangar-like structure and I can spot soldiers patrolling the elevation. The soldiers wear gas masks and helmets, grimy clothes colored in the standard military-grade patterns of dark browns and green, although they more grime than color. Each holds a scoped riffle. I count five on the wall, but who or what they are guarding is anyone’s guess. I can see more of them beyond the open gate, walking about like they own the place. Which, by the looks of things, they probably do.
“Can you see him?” I ask Ty, pointing to the black-clad figure walking slowly towards the fort. Up until then, I still wasn’t sure if the person actually existed.
“The skinny dude in the black suit? Yeah I see him,” Ty reassures me. “By the way, what the hell happened back there? What was all that noise?”
“You don’t remember?” I ask him.
“Remember what? We walked out of the bank and…” he says. “At least, I think I did. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I did.”
“You don’t remember being frozen in place?”
“What?”
“Frozen. In place. You had a real manic look about you. Freaked me the fuck out,” I murmur to him.
“No feckin’ way,” he attests.
“There was a craft,” I say. I see the puzzled look in his eyes. We hunker down as the guy in black pulls the elongated silver device from his back. We are about three hundred meters away, yet the hiss of the magnetic clamps releasing is easily heard even from a distance. I had seen the technology before – a pre-War remnant which often found its way into the hands of the profoundly lucky or the profoundly reckless. I haven’t seen anyone part with such tech willingly and I guessed whatever the person had done to get his hands on it most likely went beyond any simple feat of ‘finders keepers’.
One of the solders shouts something and points at the man in black. “Stop right there!” I think he said it from atop the gate platform. His face is hidden behind the gasmask, his voice roughened by the air-filter. A red beam of electrified plasma spits out from the soldier’s rifle and lands before the feet of the individual approaching the fort. A warning shot.
A mechanical whirl begins to sound, and it’s at that point that I notice the huge elongated device is actually a massive minigun. Suddenly there’s a collection if invisible blacksmith hammering an anvil in successions too fast to behold. The sound is deafening. The two soldiers atop the platform are moved down in a second. Their limbs part from their bodies as the mass-reactive shells smash into each and explode them from within. The shape moves towards the fort, full autofire, the sound of it gratting the air with razor-sharp reality. The blare of the gun lights up the ground ahead of the figure. The soldiers inside don’t even have time to respond in kind before they are moved down. Each simply explodes into a cloud of red mist. Angry smoke and shimmering heat rises from the tip of the minigun, enveloping the shape in exhaust as it moves ahead, a horizontal storm of lead dismembering anything which moves.
The two of us remain dumbfounded for a moment, then rush closer to try and scavenge anything left behind on the butchered bodies. A stupid move if there ever was one, but I guess these days call for stupidity. I blame Ty. We creep, careful not to rouse the madman and make him turn back towards us.
I shudder as I bear witness to man after man slain by the puncturing projectiles, some of which fail to detonate and slice through the flesh of one, only to explode inside the man behind or blast away a chunk of the building. I can hear empty shells bouncing off the ground. The soldiers keep rushing out of the barracks with guns blazing, their shouts and screams as they die bleeding through the air and hitting my ears with freighting intensity. I notice each barrel of the minigun had been sharpened and worked into a blade and I stop for a moment. The men of the fort fire volley after volley into the individual, but the heated plasma looks as though absorbed by a field of radiance around the being. The shield becomes visible with each expulsion of superheated gas smashing into it. Soon so many men are firing their guns at the figure, the individual seemed enchased in a cauled bubble of liquid fire. Sparks flee about like furnace-white metal bits. The defenders attempt to hide behind barrels, behind sandbags, even behind remnants of the building and its crumbled walls. But to no avail. The targeting of the attacker is impeccable and before the minigun’s awesome power, no hiding place seems good enough or thick enough. Everything alive gets shredded and its pieces are sprayed over the ground. I smell the gun’s metallic smoke as it drifts towards me. One of the defenders tries to flank the madman, but it’s like the guy has eyes on his back. As soon as the flanker gets close enough, the attacker spins around and without pausing to fire, makes a wide sweep with his weapon. The heated barrels and their sharpened edges slice through the man as though he were air. Others begin to notice there’s little point in trying to shoot the bastard, and instead attempt to charge him instead. The move puts my own and Ty’s to shave with its shear stupidity and temerity. The minigun continues to whirl even when its barrels are no longer spewing fire. In wide-spaced strides – as though swaggering through water – the man in black moves down another advancing soldier. New elements of
the squad spring out behind cover and begin to converge around the figure in a matter of moments, firing as they go.
I run towards the man in black, the pebbles crunching beneath my feet. I can hear Ty’s footsteps behind me, yelling for me, asking me what the hell I’m doing. With each sweep of the minigun I can tell the movements of the person wielding it are getting sluggish as each swing takes a bit more out of him. They have him surrounded. I come in the fray with my MP5 blazing. I position myself the same way I had seen Ty do it the other day and make every shot count. I had seen the soldiers do enough atrocities for the decision to aid the killer to be almost a no-brainer.
Short controlled bursts. That’s what the old man in the shack I helped rebuilt told me. “Remember this whenever you fire any automatic or semi-automatic weapon,” he had said. “Mind the recoil and every bullet shall hit its mark.”
When the soldiers see me they begin to slowly retreat, most while firing their weapons. Their surprise makes their shots wild and none manage to hit me. One eventually grazes me over the shoulder. It burns like hell even through the Kevlar and I can smell the thin layer of leather over it burning. The figure holding the minigun charges ahead, moves down a few of the wounded, while the rest flee back inside the hangar-like barracks. The heavy-duty door remains open, probably too heavy to close by hand. Panting, the figure collapses beside the door, resting on it. I race to the stranger as he rests the minigun, the huge death-machine clattering over the stonework. I take in the leathery attire, the pants and high-collared jacket full of small belts which are tightened around the too-big-outfit and made to fit the smaller frame that wore it. The leather is caked with dust and grime, and the army boots show their age. Small batteries lie all over the thick shoulder pads strapped onto the jacked by small belts. A large square device on his chest shoots out arcs of electricity and produces a slight hum, until the figure adjusts something on the screen on his wrist and powers it down. Strange goggles with big and circular, blackened lenses refract light with a green sheen. I can see myself approaching within them.
A fair face, symmetrical and beautiful in an almost boyish kind of way greets me with a sly smile as a hand pulls the goggles off. “Go ahead, shot me,” says a higher-pitched voice. “You’ll find my gun is out of ammo and the batteries for my disruption field nearly depleted. Not that you could figure out how to work it anyway,” she murmurs and pulls a knife out of her boot. Her raven hair is cut short at her sides and falls slightly to the side on her forehead, reaching over her eyes. Her dark eyes regard me with ice as her eyebrows await, arched in anticipation. Her elegantly full, sharp lips are cracked.
“I won’t shot you,” I say, hoping my face doesn’t betray the fact I thought her to be the most beautiful sight I had seen in a while.
“Daaamn,” Ty yells behind me and halts by my side, “that was some merde.” He almost chokes on his words as he sees the ‘man’ is actually a woman. “Well, well,” he says.
“I see you already managed to pick up one of those weapons, nice,” I tell him as I notice him carrying what I could only categorize as a plasma rifle.
“Damn right, I heard these things never run out of ammo either,” he smirks. “What about you, girl? What do you propose we do with you?”
“Fucking pigs,” she spits and stands up, picks up the minigun and holds the trigger. The barrels spin wildly as she approaches in short strides.
“Whoa,” I say. “Settle down. The hell you doing? I just saved your life!”
“You’re implying I actually needed your help,” she says. “The shit you guys want? I saw you following me back there, so I’ll ask again. What do you want?”
“I just wanted to see where you’re going,” I answer honestly.
“Bullshit,” she spits. “I saw you standing before the sphere, I’ve never seen anyone able to resist their field without collapsing, you’re one of them aren’t you?”
“One of who?” I ask. “The sphere? You mean saucer?”
“Don’t play dumb!” she says and moves dangerously close. I jump back, reluctant to use my guns, not sure if I even have any bullets left.
“Look,” I bargain, “relax for minute. Don’t you think I’d have shot you in the back already if I wanted to kill you?”
“That could just mean you two want me alive,” she says.
“For what?”
“Fuck you!” she says and motions her minigun at Ty.
“Hey now, what the hell did I do?” Ty protests.
I throw my MP5 on the ground and raise my hands, approach her slowly.
“Don’t,” Ty urges, “the chick’s fucking nuts.”
I don’t know what it is that made her trust me in that moment – I do seem to have that affect on people, had long since discovered my eyes were something special. People told me they hold the color of the sky before the Great Conflict. They told me my irises possess a serenity humans used to find when gazing up on clear days. Days which none of them had ever seen, so how could they know?
Her obsidian eyes lock with mine and it seems that, in that instant, she notices the color of mine for the first time. I smile a toothless, barely discernable smile.
Vaguely, I sense she had never seen anyone like me. A face she could trust.
“Who are you, what’s your name?” she says as she stops squeezing the trigger, unsurely lowering her minigun.
“A friend,” I tell her. “Nomad.”
CHAPTER 6