ã€ŠWhy Gunã€‹


 Ch 1 - Late Delivery

    Gases vented from relief valves. The discoverer wiped the glass window with his sleeve, and gasped at the person he found. He drew his comrades closer. One found the controls, deftly punching stubborn buttons, until finally, a rusted arm calmly extended, and let the stainless coffin down upon the floor.

    Jack gripped his head as if a bullet had struck it, then he opened his eyes for the first time. Three others surrounding him leaned in for a closer look. One was a young man in faded-olive military fatigues, another was a tall woman draped in bursts of colors and patterns on pigskin, and the last was an older man in an off-white, long-sleeved shirt with a wing-tipped collar and a pen in his breast pocket. From where Jack laid, they all towered over him.

    "Parasol!" the woman declared. She prepared to strike with the blunt of her staff. The man in fatigues held her back.

    "He ain''t army! Frill!" the young man cried, "He don''t wear anything like them!"

    While he struggled to contain her violence, the other man quipped, "True, his garments reflect the style of Parasol, but I''ve never seen this pattern in my travels."

    Jack was wearing a neon green jacket and beige cargo pants. On his jacket, Garb Delivery Co.''s logo featured prominently on the right breast.

    "English?" Jack remarked in a slur. He got up from the pod, which laid haphazardly on the floor.

    "You mean Inglish?" "In''lish?" "Aelish?"

    So said the wingtip-collared gentleman, the man in fatigues, and the tribal-looking woman. The variations by which they called it didn''t make sense to Jack, but it sounded close enough.

    For the three, though, the way Jack called it only served to confirm something.

    "Parasol?"

    "Frill, stop."

    Jack shook his head and wiped his face. He glanced around at the odd mix of dim white and green lights, all blurred to his eyes. It''s like Christmas in here, good god¡ªhe thought to himself. The last thing he remembered¡ªdelivering pizza, entering the office, then, maybe¡­ He got lost? Then he tripped?

    Kentucky Fried Christ¡ªwas that what happened?

    "If I may be so bold," the wingtip-collared man said with a slight bow, "This metal-glass bed in which you lay, we had opted to open it as it was making dangerous noises."

    "Tha''s right! Smoke was a''gushin too sumwhere¡ªthough, just by me, I didn'' for-reals think we shoulda woked ya. Could''ve done wrong without anyone knowin'', you know?"

    "Parasol?"

    Jack understood only a little of that. Something about smoke¡ªmight have actually been bad, so I guess they did a good thing?¡ªhe concluded. Though, this lady constantly insisting "Parasol?" was a bit of a mystery¡ªthe speaker and the question both.

    A growl caught everyone''s attention, and footsteps rattled the metal-grated floor. "Singer," the wingtip-collared man called. "One, out!" the man in fatigues replied. Two cords and a pouch sprung from his right hand, and his left hand cradled a fist-sized rock. In less than a moment, the rock was in the pouch, and in less than the next, the sling made just two circles over his head before the moment of release. Clarity returned to Jack''s eyes just in time to watch a person''s forehead get squashed in by a quarter-brick-sized projectile.

    In a panic, Jack screamed a stifled scream and fell out of the pod. "You killed him!" he cried.

    "¡­Yeah?" Singer replied.

    "What? Are you insane!"

    "¡­Nah?" Singer replied.

    The other two looked confused.

    "Hey, Neruz," Singer bumped the wingtip-collared man by the arm, "He ain''t believing me."

    Neruz sighed and faced Jack. "Surely, you know about zambies?" he said.

    Jack''s eyebrows formed a tilde.

    "Zambies? Zumbies?" Singer added, "Some people pronounce it differs. Neruz here''s traveled a lot, so he''d know¡ª"

    "Zomzee, sambeshe, muernahito--"

    "Hey, where''d that last one come from? That ain''t even close," Singer interrupted.

    "From the Nipo?ol Quarter, why?"

    "What?" was all Jack could say to curse his fate.

    He slumped down against the side of his cryo pod. He just wanted to deliver pizza and make ends meet, just doing odd jobs until his writing gig could take off. He''d already written for a couple of magazines, but it wasn''t like he was living off of royalties. If anything, he''d say he was at about 5% of the way to that kind of life.

    Now what, though? Live life as a post-apocalyptic writer, scavenging for food and stationery supplies?

    "Parasol," the woman whispered. She crouched next to Jack, staring at him. He looked up at her, a little bit spooked, pulling his head back. "Parasol?" he asked.

    Hold it, wait a minute¡ªright! That''s the office he was delivering pizza to!

    "Parasol," the woman repeated, pointing at him. After a second of confusion, he shook his head.You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

    "Jack," he replied, pointing at himself.

    "Jack¡­ from Parasol?" she asked.

    "No? I don''t work there?"

    "So your name''s Jack, huh?" Singer added, "Mine''s Singer. The traveller here''s Neruz, and that nomad''s Frill."

    Jack got out of the bed and on his feet. Most of his brain fog''s gone, and his eyesight''s adjusted, too. He got a good look at his current companions. Frill''s staff was set flat beside her, but beside that was a Wabanaki-style hunting bow made with two adjoined fiberglass bows, and Jack recognized the faded brand printed on the back, too. He looked up at Singer, who''s got a handle of a hefty little club poking out from his hip between all the slings and cords tucked away in pockets all across the strap of his messenger bag, and that bag looked heavy. He looked up at Neruz, who looked like a writer from the Victorian Era or something. He wore six sheathes for six knives on his sides, and strapped to his legs were two thigh-length sheathes covering up some sort of straight-handled weapon.

    At once, the echoes of gunfire and growling clashed among the hallways of the facility. Shouting and the trooping of boots underscored the gunfire brought against a rolling tide of the dead.

    "My time here is over," Neruz said.

    "Ah shi-et, they''re here!" Singer quavered.

    "Can''t fight¡ªrun!" Frill exclaimed.

    The three dashed off before Jack could mutter a word. He took off after them, following them down the facility. He ran under dim red lights, past hundreds of opened cryo tubes¡ªsome of them starting to rust¡ªand past windows that peered into dark, furniture-less offices.

    He didn''t remember seeing any of this; he was delivering pizza to an office tower, not to whatever kind of place this was. He lost the three as they ran around the corner, and the sound of a door opened, light shining their shadows on the wall far down the corridor, then the door closed, and their shadows disappeared. He ran after them and slammed his hands into the bar of an emergency exit door.

    He emerged to a huge warehouse, where light struggled to come through the dirtied skylights. Instead, a pillar of light waited for them at the other end of the warehouse. He joined up with the three, who had paused in front of an opened crate. Jack took a peek at what they were staring at, and there, lying in a neat stack, were layers of assault rifles stacked on top of each other. Small ammunition cans were also scattered around the opening of the crate. Great! Now they can¡ª

    Singer''s eyes went wide and he whisked himself away. Neruz grimaced before following. Jack and Frill made eye contact.

    "Please," Jack begged, "Please tell me you''re gonna get a gun."

    Frill shook her head.

    "Gun complicated too much," she said before running away.

    Jack cried. He cried, because he agreed with her. He didn''t know how to use a gun. There were levers under the switches, and switches under the levers. He also roughly knew that guns would jam for whatever reason, and he didn''t know how to deal with any of that.

    He spotted a few hand grenades mixed up in the pile, though. ''Pull the pin and throw'' was as simple enough a concept for him or a 6-year-old Call of Obligation player to grasp. He picked up the case of grenades like he would a case of beer and promptly ran after the trio.

    They reached the open warehouse door and emerged to a nice, sunny afternoon. The grass was green, and the birds chirped happily from the trees. This wasn''t right.

    "Where the hell am I?" Jack blurted out. They were in a square area fenced off by a rusting chainlink fence, topped off by rusting barbed wire. There was a helipad above the grass, and nothing grew in its shadow.

    The gunfire from within the facility hadn''t stopped. Singer felt kinda bad for Jack. He could kinda relate¡ªhaving once or ten times gotten drunk and woken up in strange places. This was just one of those times, probably. The others didn''t want anything to do with him¡ªthey didn''t want anything to do with each other, even.

    Singer put his messenger bag around Jack.

    "Are¡­ are you making me your friend?" Jack asked.

    "Just play along for now, okay?" Singer replied.

    "You! You four! Hold it right there!" someone shouted. Everyone turned to see two Parasol soldiers who had emerged from the warehouse doors, their rifles pointed at the group.

    "Stand down!" Singer shouted, "I said stand down, goddamnit!"

    The two soldiers eyed each other. Singer''s accent had shifted.

    "Sir, with all due respect, what''s your unit?" one of the soldiers asked.

    "Twenty-first!" he replied. The two soldiers shuffled their feet. Singer continued, "We were trackin'' down a smuggler here when we got separated in the facility. I managed to get out, then I met these civilians salvagin'' around in the warehouse."

    Singer took off the dogtags around his neck and threw them over to the two soldiers. One of them picked it up and read it. "Checks out," he said. They lowered their guns, and the soldier approached and handed Singer his dogtags.

    "Apologies for the rudeness, sir!" they announced.

    "Exterminators?" Singer asked.

    "Yes, sir!"

    "Mind if you point me to your caravan? I''ll escort these ones there for evacuation, then I''ll like to put in a word with the case officer."

    The soldiers pointed to a hole in the fence that led to a trail around the facility. "It should take you to the access road," the soldiers saluted. Singer saluted back and led the group out through the hole in the fence.

    Soldiers and volunteer militia guarded a caravan that was waiting on a road some distance away from the warehouse. "Halt! Who goes there?" a soldier shouted, pointing his gun at a group of motley civilians who suddenly emerged from the bushes. "Pleas'', sir," Singer begged, now wearing plain trousers and a ragged, dirtied shirt, "We were a-merely scavengin'' what we thought was another ruin¡ªbut alas! Zambeez descended upon us, but t''was when we met the exterminators!"

    The soldier slowly lowered his rifle. "Sure," he said, nodding his head in the direction of the caravan, "Ok."

    ''Sure, ok''? That''s it? 3 years in drama school for a ''Sure, ok''? Singer cried real tears. "Huh, he must be exhausted," the soldier thought.

    Singer did some more smooth-talking, spewing out ambiguous facts and unverifiable truths, before they managed to hitch a ride in the MEDIVAC wagon. Big tubes, slick with oil, carried the wagon''s body on its chassis. They squeezed themselves between the various wounded soldiers¡ªmost of them asleep, and some of them missing a limb.

    "Medic! Medic!"

    Upon the shouting, the attending medic hopped off and dashed towards whichever poor lad needed the morphine. For a while, they could let their guard down.

    "Where''s this cart taking us, anyway?" Jack asked. Singer bit his lip¡ªhe did all that smooth-talking without ever asking for the destination.

    "Samarin," Neruz replied.

    "Oh, how''dya know?" Singer asked.

    "That''s where I came from before coming upon the ruin. It''s the closest city, but nevertheless a fair one."

    Jack looked outside through the view ports. Forest transitioned to sturdy fences and farmland, where sentry towers dotted the paddies and fields, then paddies and fields transitioned to villages and guard posts¡ªthen to towns and barracks¡ªthen finally, late at night, after a seven-hour journey, the back of the wagon opened, and the gentle glow of Samarin''s gas lamps greeted them.

    As they got off, he struggled to wrap his head around something. The only logical conclusion to everything he''d seen was that, somewhere along the line, humanity conquered the zombie menace. Was there a trick to it? Maybe. Maybe not.

 Ch 2 - Monsters in the Night

    "A''ight, I''m off," Singer said, walking off to one direction.

    Frill offered everyone a parting glance before walking off to another.

    "Wait, are you guys just going to leave me here?" Jack pleaded.

    "I believe everyone was under an impression of transience in our meeting," Neruz replied, "As it so happens, I do not believe it beneficial to you to deepen any relationship with me. Talk to the wagon guard. He will bring you to Castle Samarin, where, perhaps, you may meet more of your kind."

    Jack bit his lip. "Damn, well, I guess it''d be pretty unfair of me to keep asking favors, huh?"

    "True. I''m glad you understand."

    With that, Neruz disappeared into an alley. Jack approached the nearby guard dressed in beige fatigues and asked him about the castle.

    "Huh? The Defense Castle? Sorrie, we won'' be passin'' through there. We''n be passin'' through a guard post that''d be close, though."

    "Fair enough."

    Again, he braved the creaky suspension system of the wagon¡ªon the other hand, the presence of a suspension system at all was a godsend. He looked out through the back of the wagon and watched the cracks in the broken asphalt road get left behind. It was a better sight than the blood and bandages that hadn''t yet been cleaned from the walls of the wagon. The incense started to wear off¡ªguess that was more for the convenience of the wounded¡ªand the iron in the air mixed with the horseshit in the dungpouch dangling by the asses'' asses. How the driver beared with it was anyone''s guess.

    He waited, slumped down by the wagon''s side. The guard sat by the edge, his legs dangling above the asphalt. There were less and less gas lamps lighting the way. Leaves rustled, and the now-distant lamps produced swaying silhouettes of overgrowth that crawled up the buildings.

    The guard clenched his teeth, scanning the surroundings. Jack heard a click from his gun. He overheard the guard and the driver talk through a speaking horn connected to a pipe that snaked its way to the front of the wagon.

    "I''m tellin'' ya, we shouldn''ve passed through here!"

    "What choice''ve I got? Carmelite Bridge collapsed the other day. We don'' really have a choice, do we?"

    The wagon guard reached for a dangling length of cord and pulled himself into the wagon. "Best keep away from the tailgate, stranger," he told Jack.

    "Why? What''s going on?"

    "Red Faction''s got the hold ''round these parts."

    "Red Faction?"

    "Top supplier for the Red Market. If ya wanted somethin'' that can only be get by killin'', that''s where you go."

    The wagon stopped.

    "Oi, Darran, why the stop? Darran?"

    No reply.

    "Stranger, slowly¡ªget all the way back behind me," the guard said. Jack crawled on all fours, avoiding the bandages, while the guard crouched and set his gun level towards the back of the wagon, ready to fire. Jack looked on. The night was still. Not even crickets chirped. Not even a breeze rustled the trees.

    At once, the viewports all snapped open, and a hail of bolts impaled the guard from every direction. Two goons climbed inside and speared him to make sure. "Get his gun! Get his gun!" one of them hushed. Another goon came in with a lamp, and that''s when they saw Jack.

    "Oi! We''ve got a live one here!"

    He didn''t know what to do. He couldn''t even breathe nor whimper. They threw him outside, knocking the air out of his lungs.

    "You think he''s worth anything?"

    "Looks thin, but healthy enough. Might be enough for a month''s lease."

    "That''s a kindly good bonus, don'' you think? We got horses, Medivac, a gun, and free rent!"

    Maybe, just maybe, he could run. The three of them were carrying equipment, so he might be able to outrun them. "Boss!" another one appeared. Behind him, there were even more. Right¡ªthere were more than just three bolts that hit that poor guard. There were too many of them. Would they just let him run away? It''d be easy for them to run him down if he tried to escape.

    They leashed him with a chain tied to the wagon. They drove the wagon through the streets at jogging speed. The texture changed from hard asphalt to something more coarse. His shoes sank through something wet and messed with his gait.

    He didn''t last more than 20 minutes before he stumbled, getting dragged through mud-and-gravel streets. His captors wouldn''t stop and wait for him to get up.

    "Alright, that''s enough!" one of the goons said, "The horses are tired!"

    They laughed. For now, he got his reprieve, lying down, stretching out, and panting on the ground. Escape, escape, escape¡ªeven if he thought of running away, he couldn''t run anymore. Not a single muscle wanted to move. Maybe that''s why they wore him out. His body ached with scratches and sanded flesh. It didn''t look like there was a way out for him, not like this, or even, not anymore.

    Footsteps approached, and, in the dark, a blurred figure of a man knelt over him.

    "Perchance, do you know yourself to be a man of cursed luck?" the man asked.

    Jack passed out. Neruz quietly unchained him while the bandits wore themselves out on alcohol. He wouldn''t be able to carry Jack far enough before they''d become alerted to Jack''s disappearance. He had to take care of them, and he had to do it now.

    The goons laughed around their kerosene lamp, unafraid of the night. Some kept on idle lookout. A volley of smoking knives stuck onto the trees and soil around them. One of them landed by the foot of a lookout. He jumped and, once calm, inspected the small, smoking thing. It, along with its sister knives, exploded in a flash, blinding the lookout and all his other friends. An orchestra of whistles rocketed around the battlefield, drowning out their voices. Neruz threw needle knives with unerring precision, and every goon that they cut experienced unnerving pain that made them drop and writhe, crumpling down, screaming in anguish, and curling into a shrimp. One of the disoriented bandits scrambled for the gun they had looted. A blur of grey flashed by, and he fired at it, hitting one of his accomplices. The fireball that spewed from the barrel served to blind him even more in the night, and a knife hit him in the neck, and he dropped down, paralyzed by searing pain.Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

    Neruz made his retreat into the winding alleys, carrying Jack on his shoulder.

    Morning came. Jack sipped coffee, the gentle glow of a window behind him. Stripped to his boxers, moringa-boiled bandages mummified him from foot to shoulder. As he ruminated on the events of yesterday, Neruz came back with a steaming pot of moringa infusion. "Allow it to cool by a slight, and off your bandages and splash this amongst your wounds," he said. Jack nodded and sipped.

    He was in a workshop of sorts. Hand tools were neatly arranged by benches and tables. There was this peculiar table, butted against a wall, surrounded by a halo of tilted mirrors, one of them reflecting light from the morning window to light up the tabletop. Many books and bookshelves surrounded it in arm''s reach. Small, black bottles and reed-esque pens lined one of the shelves.

    "Perchance, are you interested more in my side venture than the fact of your being bloodied and bruised?" Neruz asked.

    "I think I''m more confused," Jack replied, "I¡ª You¡ª Who are you?"

    "Why, don''t tell me you''ve forgotten yesterday?"

    "No, yeah, I know¡ª I mean¡ª You''re not just some Indiana Jones, are you?"

    "I apologize, but whoever may that person be of renown in your era is now a lost tale in this one."

    Jack ran out of coffee. Neruz offered more, and Jack nodded. Neruz poured him some and set the pot away.

    "Please, steady your mind before you make questions. Would you care try yourself upon my writing bench?"

    Jack shrugged. "Okay. I guess."

    "You guess? Strange way to say yes."

    Jack stood up like a creaking, old, derelict machine. Neruz offered to help.

    "It''s fine. If I move slow enough, I won''t squeak."

    Neruz pulled the chair out for him, and he sat down in the middle of the glowing halo of mirrors. From there, he spotted some books lying about the desk, with titles like "How Come the Mouse Squeaks" and "A Castle Beneath the Ground". He took that second one in hand and cracked it open.

    "Nothing and no one towers over the other, under the ground. Only deeper do secrets lie; in silence their seekers die," he read aloud. He closed the cover and saw the author.

    "You wrote this?" he asked. Neruz showed him a warm smile.

    "How do you find it?"

    "Feels like one of those old-timey novels. I''m not sure how the publishing industry works nowadays, but for me, I think I''d invest a few more minutes into it after reading that first line."

    Neruz shed a tear.

    "A man of culture," he declared.

    "What?"

    He put his hand over his own heart.

    "Will you be my friend?

    "I mean, I¡ª wait, didn''t you say it wasn''t good for us to know each other or something?"

    "Ah, that was for the fact that I resided within the Red Faction''s domain."

    Jack turned pale. He hadn''t truly escaped the clutches of human trafficking just yet.

    "Ah, that reminds me."

    Neruz rolled him up in a carpet and hauled him into a dusty l''il gun shop around the corner. Any initial complaints on Jack''s part were simply ignored. Onlookers in this area simply thought that Neruz was hauling a corpse for disposal.

    He unrolled the aching body of a man who has never killed a roach in his life. Jack groaned as he pushed himself up off the floor. He got on his feet, and he looked up to see an old man and his granddaughter on the other side of a counter, with a backdrop of a metal rack filled with weaponized plumbing parts.

    "Why, nice of you to bring me a new customer," the old man greeted. His hair was a mix of silver and black, and though his skin drooped, his muscles absolutely did not.

    "The defenseless must be defended, should they not?" Neruz replied, "I believe a quiet beginner''s pistol is best. Please charge it to my account."

    Jack limped over to Neruz''s side. "Dear god¡ªwhy? Where¡ªwho''s that?"

    "This is Messiah, and this is his store."

    Messiah produced what could be better-described as a "pistol-looking thing", placing it on the counter. His granddaughter dilligently started tapping away at the abacus. Jack waddled over to inspect the weapon, just as Messiah placed a few other objects beside it.

    "Are these¡­ crossbow bolts?"

    "Crossbow? Why, haven''t you seen one of these?"

    The image of that guard getting impaled from every direction flashed in Jack''s mind.

    "I can''t say I haven''t," he replied.

    "Well, in whatever case, this is simple."

    The old man screwed on a hotdog-sized steel cartridge onto the rear before sliding a short bolt over a thin pipe that acted as the barrel. He aimed it at a chewed-up target down the counter¡ªthe opposite way from his granddaughter of course¡ªand squeezed the trigger. After a hard pop, almost as loud as a real gun in these confines, the bolt dug into the target.

    "Course, one shot''s all you can manage," he explained, "I''ve a two-shotter here, but for the freshest men such as yourself--"

    "On the contrary, I believe we should be taking the two-shot variant," Neruz said.

    "Oh?" the old man gave him the look.

    "It is how it is."

    Back in Neruz''s place, he unraveled the carpet once more and out came tumbling Jack.

    "Why?" he asked, not bothering to ask about the carpet, "Why the gun?"

    "That''s no gun, friend. It is a mere airbolter."

    "But still."

    Neruz took care to assemble a new wooden case for Jack''s new weapon. It would be like a scabbard, allowing him to pull out the airbolter in an emergency.

    "Not even the soldiers of Parasol enter this territory. Not even in this workshop are you safe."

    "Well¡ªwhy are you even staying here?"

    Jack''s frustration finally reached Neruz''s ears.

    "The Red Faction is an inconvenience to Samarin''s peace. The conditions of my work entail that I, in turn, be an inconvenience to the Red Faction."

    It was at that that Jack understood Neruz''s previous reluctance to help him. He settled for resting for a while, and at least having dinner with the closest thing he had to a friend in this timeline. They had some kind of pumpkin soup mixed with bits of meat and corn. Jack''s pants, delivery jacket, and undershirt had been torn up, and so Neruz spared him a few articles, though what clothes Neruz could spare were either too hot for the weather or too thin to wear without embarrassment¡ªbetween the two, Jack ended up getting the cotton articles. The brown pants felt much coarser than denim, though otherwise felt just as robust, which Neruz explained was because of the small amount of recycled abaca fibers added to the weave. The reddish-brown shirt was what it was¡ªa round-collar shirt with little deviation from the style of the Old World.

    From one writer to another, he also gave him a bamboo dip pen, a bottle of ink, and a few scrap pages.

    "Are you not a writer as well?"

    "Huh¡ªwell, yeah, I guess I am."

    "A strange way of saying yes¡­"

    The pen intrigued him just as much as the ink and the paper. The tip of the bamboo reed had been fashioned into its own nib, with a slit running down the middle and a bit of wire twisted around above it to serve as a reservoir. The bottle of ink read "Neruz #2", and the paper was rough, thick, and upon closer inspection, there were long, discolored strands of fiber running across it, forming a dirty mesh of different colors in white, yellow, and brown. The pen laid down thick, black lines that blotted the page, and against his expectations for dip pens, he could write an entire sentence with the pen before having to dip it again.

    Neruz finished assembling the wooden case for Jack''s pistol. He called for him to see how it fits.

    "Huh, guess you''re a craftsman, too."

    "Do spare the praise. A box is a box."

    Jack eyed the knife by his side.

    "Reminds me," he asked, "Why don''t you have a gun?"

    Neruz turned around. His eyes glared with cracks like fractured jewels.

    "Upon mine honor, I will have nothing to do with the instruments that took my family."

 Ch 3 - Kept from the Light

    Again, Jack found himself consumed by darkness. Bet the scene through the hole at the end of this tunnel has gotta be nice¡ªhe thought to himself. Voices of people and crowds went and passed by, and so did dust and clouds thereof from the hooves of passing cavalry and wagons. The rustling of the leaves tempted his skin to feel an absent breeze¡ªif only he weren''t wrapped up in a damn carpet. That his clothes were hot didn''t help as much.

    "Sir, you can''t¡ª"

    "No, let him through."

    "But the carpet! He obviously needs a furniture permit¡ª"

    "Look, man. Look at the clearance."

    "Oh¡ªoh¡­ Okay, then."

    Were those guards? Neruz didn''t even speak back there. Voices and footsteps echoed, and the rustle of the leaves had gone. There was a sway in Neruz''s step, and a pattern to the other footsteps: step, step, step¡ªquiet¡ªstep, step, step¡ªstairs? They must be going up, then.

    A door creaked open and closed shut.

    "Ah, Neruz. What brings you here¡ª"

    Jack''s gravity went in circles until he found himself splayed upon the ground. A wash of fresh air evaporated the sweat on his skin, and a blinding light racked his brain. Dazed, he sat up and realized that it was just light through a window. He looked to his right, and there was a mister eyeing him from behind a desk¡ªa cigar in one hand and two brass stars on his shoulder. Though half his receding hair was silvered, the other half remained coal black. His brown skin remained clean and taught, even if scarred in some places, though his forehead wrinkles were plain to see.

    "A new friend?" the man asked. Neruz helped Jack up.

    "I believe him to be one of your people. I found him on expedition to your Cryo 6."

    "Cryo 6? That facility''s been abandoned for years."

    The general cut his cigar, wrapped it up, and set it aside. He eyed Jack up and down, and noted his Nighkey-branded shoes.

    "Any good reason why you brought him in a carpet?"

    "Red Faction."

    The general sighed, taking his cigar out and lighting it anew. I hate my life¡ªwords that quietly escaped with his first puff.

    Jack stared outside the window, overlooking a courtyard and the thick walls that shielded it. A troop of militia, with uniforms that looked like they''d come out of World War 1, stood to attention for their commander in front, who had all these gadgets on his helmet and body, clearly something which had come from a more modern time. A ramp led up to the top of the ramparts, where cannons, sophisticated in their design, mounted on oh-too-simple carriage wheels, stood sentry, pointed towards the surrounding city, or maybe even beyond it. The general saw him in this daze.

    "Has Neruz filled you in?" he asked. Jack snapped out of it, surprised.

    "Uh¡ªwell, somewhat, I think?"

    The general looked back at Neruz, half disappointed, half annoyed.

    "You see," he replied, "He was supposed to arrive here last night, if it were not for the Faction''s alleywaiters."

    "Understandable."

    The militia outside started singing, and their commander whipped them with words to spur them along the jogging track. To Jack, watching some 21st century spec-ops dude drill a bunch of infantrymen in outdated uniform brought out a kind of chronological dissonance that could only ultimately be summarized as "heh".

    "Strange, isn''t it?" the general asked. Jack nodded. "Before we came here, there was a king. Lorded over a thousand people. He had knights in scrap armor, conscripts with crossbows, and a thin sheet of steel surrounding his city¡ªguy called it a wall, even. Said he didn''t need us. Heh, that''s ''til one day, a ten thousand-strong horde came out of nowhere. The farmers that paid him tribute all abandoned their farms and flooded the city. They couldn''t leave. They had maybe a week of food."

    "What did you do?"

    "Sent in B Company, swept up 10K in a few days, got the king worshipping firearms and heavy artillery for the rest of his life, and struck a one-sided deal trading economic and military control of Samarin for essentially nothing, of course."

    "I''m not sure if you''re playing dirty or the guy''s a real pushover."

    "A bit of both, maybe."

    "I suppose that concludes our understanding," Neruz said.

    "Wait, hey, where ya going?" Jack asked.

    "Back to Faction territory, of course. None of those attackers from last night have died, after all."

    The door closed behind Neruz. Jack showed the general a confused face.

    "You saw him in action?"

    Jack nodded.

    "Neurotoxins. It''s like pepper spray, but coursing through your blood."Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

    "Sounds rough."

    "I''d know."

    "What?"

    Ignoring Jack''s inquiry, the general handed him a form and a visitor''s pass. "Bring this to the office down the hall and come back. We can''t do time travel, but you can still have a life here."

    "That''s nice of you, huh, general?¡ªGeneral, right?"

    "Paladin. General Paladin."

    They shook hands. "I think we''ll be seeing each other around here more often, sooner or later¡ªand Neruz, too, though he''s a busy man," he added with a smile.

    Like Paladin said, Jack went out into the corridor and followed the line of white paint on the cobblestone wall to the administrative office. He was surprised to find functioning printers and computers in there. "Alright, sign here, here, and here," said the assistant. At least this one scene was familiar to him. He was surprised to find that he actually missed this kind of bureaucratic treatment. It inspired both a sense of consistent inconvenience¡ªand of civilization.

    He found his way back to General Paladin''s office, but when he opened the door, there was no general. Rather, there was a militiaman with a sash across his chest, belt worn way above his hip, and a revolver holstered by his left arm. He carried a clipboard and started with a "Sorry, the general went about t'' the Johnny. He told me t'' bring you downstairs. Is that alright?"

    On Paladin''s desk, his cigar laid on the ashtray, uncut and still smoking.

    Jack followed the militiaman downstairs. He led him past the courtyard, where the militia looked beat, scattered about the grass in various states of exhausted, their commander scolding them for tapping out without his permission. They arrived at a cul de sac, and it was there that Jack stopped and regretted being a pushover. He thought about running away. Looking behind him, there was another man following them, wielding a club.

    Now or never¡ªJack''s hand went for the pistol in his pocket and pointed it forwards. The man with the club stopped in surprise. Though Jack aimed the pistol at his would-be assailant, he couldn''t squeeze the trigger¡ªhe was about to kill someone. The face of the man in front of him twisted from surprise into a grin, and that was the last thing he remembered before blacking out and hitting the ground.

    He came to in a lightless place. I couldn''t do it¡ªhe thought, recounting his moment of hesitancy. It smelled like piss¡ªthat''s awful, for real. Dirt and grass gritted his face and lodged themselves under his nails. Water soaked through his shirt.

    Why, even? Why him? He squirmed up against a wall just to sit himself up. There was something in his mouth¡ªa gag. So that''s what used rags tasted like. There was a rectangular outline of light.

    It opened. The sudden brightness hurt his eyes. A silhouette of a militia guy was standing there. "This the one? Really?" he said, "Don'' see why they''d want him in particular."

    Another militiaman stepped in and started tying a blindfold around Jack. "Eh, not our job t'' think."

    They stood him up and held him by the arms, pushing him along. The light got brighter, even under that blindfold. It echoed differently here. He bumped his shoulder against a wall, so the other guard yanked him on and away. Tight quarters. There weren''t any other voices, but there was something¡ªhorses?

    For a moment, he thought of the possibility that Paladin sold him out, somehow, for some reason. None of it made sense to him.

    "This the one? Show me his face."

    For a moment, they took off his blindfold, and there in front of him was another one of those spec ops guys. Jack''s suspicion of Paladin grew. They put the blindfold back on him and tossed him into a wagon.

    It''s nothing like a car. He tried doing one of those movie things where you''d track the speed and count the number and direction of turns that the car''d take¡ªguess that only worked when the suspension system was actually good. The carriage juddered him around until he threw up, choking on his own spit.

    He managed to get the blindfold off by hooking it against a splinter in the box he was dumped into. He wasn''t sure why he even tried; he was still tied up. They breezed through checkpoints, for the most part, but stopped at one. For a moment, the lid lifted open, and he and an inspecting militiaman made eye contact. The guy was visibly surprised. He looked up at the driver then back down at Jack. His wide-eyed surprise turned into wide-eyed fear, and he quickly put the lid back on. "Alright, it''s good," a muffled, quavering voice said from beyond the lid.

    They threw him down from the wagon, then picked him up, and threw him into his cell. Two guards walked in and picked him up, pinning him face-flat against the wall. They took off his blindfold and untied him, pulling him away from the wall and throwing him down again, knocking the wind from his lungs. The bars closed. He took off his gag, gasped, and laid flat, his eyes tracing the sun-lit cracks in the ceiling.

    "Well, they sure like throwin'' ya ''round, huh?" a familiar voice asked. Jack scanned the room and saw the shadow of a man in tattered fatigues leaning over from behind another set of bars. "Hey wait-a-minu''t, do I know ya? Well, darn! Ain''t it the guy from yesterday?"

    "What¡ªSinger? You''re Singer, right?"

    "Con-tra-ree to popular belief, I ain''t actually good at singin''¡ªwell, I''m right ''round fair, I''d say."

    Jack dragged himself over to the bars where Singer was singin''.

    "So," Jack asked, "What''re you in for?"

    "On the pain o'' death? Jaywalkin''."

    "Hmm. Yeah. Makes sense."

    Singer looked down at him with a sly smile.

    "No, for-real," he said, wiping his sly smile and replacing it with a straight grin.

    "I still don''t believe you."

    "What?" Singer laughed, "I''m fine sure lots-a people did it back then, arenairight?"

    "Well, sure, but the worst that could happen was a 2k fine or something, not a death sentence!"

    "Money? That''s fine light for darn jaywalkin''!"

    Jack looked up at him.

    "Wait, what do you mean ''jaywalking''?"

    "What?"

    "You don''t sound like you just crossed the street."

    "Cross the str¡ªwell, I darn well crossed somethin'' alright!"

    "What?"

    Singer slumped down against the bars. He let out a sigh.

    "Lookie ''ere. Found me a shady bunch, but I''m shady too, so tha''s fine. Anyway¡ªthey''s said they''d set me up for a runner out o'' the city. I coughed up the gold they want''d, then they''s said ''hah, we gon'' run ya outta the city alright''! Managed t'' nail one-a them, but the rest-a his buddies got the drop on me."

    "Sounds rough."

    "Aye, well, I hear kidneys been pricey nowadays. How bout you? Your kidney worth anythin''?"

    "I don''t know, man. I''ve been rolled up in carpets, thrown around, knocked out, locked up, thrown around, and locked up again. Kidney''s probably busted."

    Jack began crying. "I was just delivering pizza the other day¡ªthe hell, man!"

    "Pizza? Can y''eat that?"

    "Yeah," Jack wiped his tears, "It''s amazing."

    "Darn, even the history food''s outta this world, huh?"

 Ch 4 - Escape

    "Ey."

    "What?"

    "Wanna get outta here?"

    "You make it sound easy."

    "It''s eazy when there''s two o'' us, come on."

    Singer took off his shirt, revealing swathes of scars painted over a thin frame. He tore his shirt into strips and began tying knots into it.

    "What''re you doing?"

    "I''m bettin'' even ya know about that one story with a David and a Goleath?"

    "You mean Goliath?"

    "Ehh, Ynglish is Ynglish."

    Singer ended up with two slings, a moderately-sized one, just a bit longer than his forearm, and a shorter one, cut down by just a few inches. He tucked the longer one into his pocket.

    "Say, I didn''t see you carrying a gun back then," Jack implicitly asked. Singer winced at the mere mention.

    "Those¡ªI''d ain''t wanna go near ''em. ''Sides, it ain''t the best for my line-a work. Gettin'' caught''s one thing, but gettin'' caught with a gun''s a darned death sentence, y''hear? Anyways¡ªwatch this."

    He walked up to his jail door and blew on it, and it swung open.

    "What¡ª"

    "A''ight, so count us lucky, so''z one-a the guards ''ought he locked it¡ªbut hah, we lucked in!"

    "You mean ''lucked out''¡ª"

    "Sit tight there, Jacky-boi. I''ll get ya the keys."

    Jack watched Singer crab-walk almost all the way down the corridor, picking up debris as he went along, finally vanishing around the corner. He waited quite a while, listening to echoes of water dripping into an empty bucket. Singer came crab-walking back with a satchel slung across his person. He stopped in front of Jack''s bars and produced a ring of skeleton keys from the satchel. In his excitement, Jack grabbed the door''s bars, and right before Singer inserted a key, the door swung open.

    They both froze and looked at each other. Jack scratched his head while Singer held back a laugh, slapping Jack across the back.

    They left through the corridor, passing many other cells. Between the detritus behind those bars, browned bandages laid around piles of old clothes. Best not to think about it¡ªthey moved on. They turned the corner, passing a guard who laid still, face down on the floor, beside a tipped-over chair. Singer signaled to stop. Jack stayed crouched down behind him while he huddled up against the closed wooden door. He pulled at the handle, and it creaked ajar. He took a peek through the opening, eyeing a tight alleyway with two guards having a smoke by the end. Vines crawled up the buildings on either side, and roots punched through the walls to cross the footpath, making for shaky footing all the way. Singer carefully closed the door and faced Jack.

    "Sorry to tell ya, both-a them''s got guns. I''d take out one-a them with one shot, no prob¡ªbut we ain''t gettin'' past the other one."

    Hollow calls of gunfire crept through the cracks in the door. Singer snapped around and huddled against the door, peeking through it once more. "Go! I''ll get Richard!" one of the men in the alley shouted. The other one nodded and disappeared around the corner, while this one jogged towards the door.

    "Jacky! Stay by the door!"

    "What?"

    "C''mon!"

    Jack positioned himself by the hinge. Singer placed a fist-sized rock in the pouch of his sling. He cocked his hand over his shoulder, and the pouch hung across his back, his elbow like a blade pointed towards the door.

    "On two, pull the door open and keep yer head down! One! Two!"

    Jack pulled the door open and threw himself down. Like a trebuchet suddenly loosed, Singer''s arm unfurled in one swing. He let go of the knot on the release cord. The sling flew free, and the stone shot onwards. The surprised guard skidded to a stop to aim and shoot, but the butt of his rifle hadn''t yet reached his shoulder when the stone knocked off of his forehead. The impact joggled his face, and his body lost motive power. He fell to the ground and laid still thereafter.

    Singer pulled Jack back up on his feet. "C''mon, let''s go!" he said, his eyes all wide, and his teeth clenched. "Pick that up!" he pointed as they passed the guard. "What¡ª" "Just get it!"

    Jack picked up the shotgun-looking thing. As they reached the end of the alley, the distant gunfire got sharper. They halted right by the corner and Singer took a peek. There, a squad of rough-dressed goons piled down the alleyway, coming right at them. The one in front spotted him. He raised his gun and fired off a shot, grazing against the concrete in front of Singer''s face. He pulled his head back, letting out a growl.

    "Jack, git ready t''shoot!"

    "What? But I don''t¡ª"

    "You don'' gotta hit ''em! Just shoot!"

    Singer snuck another peek and quickly pulled his head back before it got blown off. He placed a stone in his sling and helicoptered it over his head. Keeping his distance from the corner so as not to get shot, he imagined seeing the enemy through the wall, watching them come down through the alley, and released. In the 360-degree arc above his head, there was a 10-degree window in which the spinning stone peeked around the corner.

    He let loose, and the stone came off with a clean release, but it ricocheted off the side of the alley. Nonetheless, the ricochet managed to hit the guy in front, knocking him down. The force of the ricochet was not unlike a bullet impact, and, seeing their comrade downed, the goons instinctively ducked and hugged the walls for some semblance of cover.

    "Jacky! Shoot!"

    Jack fumbled. He had one foot out, and his hands were on the trigger and pump, but he couldn''t bring himself to step out into the open.

    Singer pushed him out. Jack fell down into the middle of the alley. He watched as one of the goons raised his sights at him. Fearing for his life, Jack gripped his gun and fired blindly into the alley¡ªracking the pump, pulling the trigger, racking the pump, pulling the trigger. The muzzle flashes from his own gun blinded him, and the bang deafened his hearing. Thin smoke thereafter fogged his sight, and the dust from his bullets'' impacts further obscured the goons from him. Whether or not he was hitting anything, he didn''t really care, and neither did he want to know in the first place. By the third shot, the bang of the rifle had turned into mere thumping to his ears. His gun spat out smoking brass cartridges onto the floor, and they bounced off onto the walls, and off the walls and back onto Jack''s face¡ªthe hot brass plinking off his face felt like being sprinkled with drops of liquid nitrogen.Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

    The bullets he sent downrange ricocheted along the walls. He swore he heard abridged cries. Once Jack''s gun went "click", Singer pulled him back in by the legs, and just in time. The ground where Jack had laid was ripped apart in a booming rain of dirt and dust. Amidst the violence of the popcorn kettle that was the floor, Singer itched to take another peek around the corner, but just then did it also erupt in explosions of debris. He pulled his head away and elected to blindly shoot off another stone from the edge of the corner with his sling.

    From the floor, Jack had a blurred, tilted view of Singer sending off round after round of corner-shot stones, seemingly even perfecting his technique while he did. He looked down at the rifle he clutched. He hadn''t realized that he''d been clutching it by the barrel. He looked down at his numb, burnt fingers. Why couldn''t he feel anything? He couldn''t feel his legs, either, though he looked down, and they were clearly there. Sounds turned into suggestions.

    How did it come to this?

    * * *

    Neruz climbed through a window, landing on an untidy mess of blankets skewed every which way at the foot of a heavy wooden door. He looked up and caught a glance of a pair of eyes through the door''s viewing port before it shut closed. He promptly apologized to the family hiding in their safe room. He went and properly closed and bolted the window and its zombie shutters, and made sure to avoid stepping on their sleeping mats, taking care not to dirty anything more than he did. He strode past their unwashed dishes and set the deadfall bar before coming out of the family''s apartment. Closing the door, the deadfall bar fell shut. This family should be safe in the meantime.

    He hurried up the building''s common stairs, up to the rooftop, where he heard sharp cracks of gunfire. Too early¡ªhe thought¡ªPaladin''s men must have been found. His boots clacked upon chiseled stone, and his grey duster fluttered in his wake. He hopped between the roofs of the Shade District, some green with bottled gardens, and others green with weeds growing from cracks. He traversed the path he thought he''d tracked some goons earlier. As he did, more gunfire erupted, this time from an alley much closer¡ªa lost battalion?

    He skidded and changed direction, catching a glimpse of muzzle flashes from the alley below as he hopped over to the other side. He stopped and creeped to the edge of the building, and saw Jack crumpled up on the floor like a discarded first draft. Standing beside him, there was a topless Singer slinging rocks every which way. He whipsnapped another rock down the alley, managing to hit a goon with a ricochet. Incredible technique¡ªNeruz thought, though he knew they wouldn''t last much longer.

    The maybe-dozen goons steadily advanced, with two men in front firing as two other men crouch-walked forwards to replace them, themselves standing and firing for another two men to crouch-walk to the front. Instead of reloading, they passed their rifles to the back and received a new one, while the ones at the back loaded fresh clips of ammunition into empty rifles and passed them to the front.

    Neruz hopped to the next rooftop. Dust sprinkled over Jack, and he looked up and saw only a crack of light in the sky. Just take me¡ªhe thought, informing the heavens of his resignation.

    From the many pockets of Neruz''s vest, he produced a number of happy little steel sausages. He pulled the pins from all three and scattered them onto the goons below. The alley lit up with yellow flashes, and men screamed, bloodied by shrapnel.

    They will be here soon¡ªNeruz thought. He backtracked and looked over, down at Jack and Singer.

    "You there! Jack, my friend!" he shouted. Jack and Singer looked up.

    "Ey! Ya that guy, ain''t ya!" Singer remarked.

    "Escape upon my signal!" Neruz shouted.

    He disappeared from the edge, leaving Jack and Singer uncertain and no-choice trusting. Their captors'' reinforcements no longer traded shots, and seemingly had even refused to advance further, though the distant gunfire continued nonetheless.

    "Now!" Neruz shouted. Jack and Singer looked up to the silhouette breaking the sky. "This is your chance to escape! Run!"

    Singer pulled Jack back up. "Leave the gun!" he ordered. Jack dropped it without hesitation, and they ran. A scream from behind them stopped Jack in his tracks. He looked back, and a person''s shadow shambled through the mist of gunpowder smoke. By the blood-streaked wall, a figure behind it rose from the ground. Something grabbed him by the arm. "Jacky! Move it!" Singer ordered in a hush. Neruz ran along the rooftops ahead of them, lighting huge, oil-soaked matches and dropping them along a path for the two to follow.

    Whiplashes soon dominated the air, as if the whole city had erupted. As they stumbled around in the confusion, coming to intersections and checking each of the four cardinal directions for the light of Neruz''s matches, Jack and Singer found no life along the path that Neruz had left. The people had simply gone. Jack caught a glance of Messiah''s gun shop. The surroundings looked wrongfully familiar, as if a layer of grey had fallen across everything he knew, but thankfully, the oil matches stopped at a homely dead end. A huge door rolled open beside them. "Come in, come in!" Neruz ushered them in.

    Neruz and several other men braced the door with a huge bar. The Argand lamps were kept dim amid wounded soldiers and civilians. Singer panted and walked in a circle around the same spot. Jack crashed on the floor. "Oi, oi!" Singer took his arm over his shoulder and helped him up onto a mat. Neruz crouched over to take a look at Jack.

    "Not much better than yesterday, friend?"

    "No¡ªnot really, no," Jack quietly replied.

    Another man leaned over. Bandages and stitches obscured his face.

    "Ah, well, I didn''t think we''d meet again like this," he said.

    "Who¡ª" Jack uttered.

    "General of the 3rd Parasol Combat Brigade. Nice to meet you again."

    "General¡­ Paladin?"

    Jack carefully sat himself up and leaned against the wall. "What happened?" he asked. He lifted his hand up to his face. It was shaking.

    "Seemed the Reorganization made their move," the general said, "Cut me up real bad, too. Used to it, though."

    "Hah. Well. I''m not."

    "That it seems."

    Paladin shook his head. Poor Jack wanted more answers than that, he knew. He sighed and eyed Neruz. "Better if it came from you," he said. Neruz nodded.

    "Friend," he explained, "The Reorganization is a splinter faction of Parasol, and it seems that they''ve a particular interest in you."

    "What?"

    "We don''t know why."

    "Oh. Okay."

    "Okay?"

    "Okay."

    Neruz looked up at Paladin then back at Jack.

    "I''ve been tasked to help you into hiding."

    "Okay."

    "You seem terribly calm about this."

    "Yeah. Well¡ª"

    Jack scratched his chin and wet his lip before looking up at Neruz.

    "I don''t know. I''ve been here for what, two days? I''ve been chased, dragged, bruised, rolled up in carpets¡ª"

    "Sorry¡ª"

    "¡­knocked out, thrown in a cell, shot at, and now, here I am. I almost died, what, four times already? I just can''t help to do anything other than to just agree that it happens. It just happens, right? It just happens."

    Paladin couldn''t say anything about it, and neither could Neruz nor Singer. Jack''s mental state wasn''t going to get better¡ªrather, yesterday''s Jack had already died. The personal identity of a civilian, however, could not take precedence over denying the Reorganization of their objectives. Neruz would take Jack and leave Samarin for the border, the only issue being the lack of a guide who intimately knew the way there.

    The general eyed Singer¡ªWasn''t this the guy the trackers''ve been trying to pin down lately? He stood beside him, then put his hand on his shoulder.

    "Accompany Neruz and Jack until shit''s sorted out and I''ll get your smuggling records cleared."

    "Aye, sir!"

 Ch 5 - Journey

    By nightfall, Paladin''s troops had retaken and solidified control over the Defense Center, but most units were still separated in their own little pockets of resistance against the Reorganization''s own troops and their apparent co-conspirators, the Red Faction. "Don''t worry about this place," Paladin told Jack, "You''re their objective. All you have to do is survive."

    Paladin ordered a series of attacks on enemy positions¡ªon the apartments and schools turned into headquarters for the rebels, and their desperate barricades that clogged the arteries of the city. Artillery from the Defense Center took direct aim at their targets and thundered with precision, the rebels themselves firing back with weaker artillery, but to no effect. Paladin''s agents looked for these rebel artillery batteries, singling them out for raids by their special forces.

    Under the cover of night and chaos, Neruz led Jack and Singer through a secret route. They left the hideout, and at the foot of what should have been the alley''s dead end, Neruz pulled out some bricks, opening up a crawlspace to the other side. From there, Neruz led them through the winding spaces of the Shade District, all the way until a two-story apartment building. Just beyond it, and across the gravel road, was the least-guarded section of Samarin''s outer defensive wall. It was a great hodgepodge of interlocking chiseled stone in some places, and poured concrete in others. They entered the apartment building, and in a janitor''s closet, Neruz uncovered a hatch. He distributed skateboards improvised from pipes and planks, and took the lead into the dark beyond.

    With their bellies on their boards, they tugged on a rope to pull themselves deeper into the tunnel. The generous number of wooden supports they passed under gave some confidence in the integrity of the tunnel. The candlelight from the oil lamps nested on the front of their boards flickered precariously. There was a weak flash, and then darkness. "Fuck," Singer uttered from the rear. His lamp had gone out. Neruz passed an oil-soaked stick backwards to Jack, who lit it with his lamp, then passed it back to Singer, who relit his lamp.

    After an hour-long ordeal, they reached a chamber. It was just big enough to accommodate all three of them if they were crouched and curled-up¡ªwhich they were. Though their legs wavered from the lack of movement, it was still a welcome respite from the claustrophobic confines of the tunnel. Neruz covered the tunnel behind them with the skateboards, covering them with dirt and mud to disguise the tunnel. "You''re not doing it right," Singer said. He tore down the dirt that Neruz had already padded, and went to collect dirt from different places in the chamber. "Dirt ain''t th'' same consistency everywhere. Y''gotta treat it like it''s art," he remarked. Neruz grew confident with Singer''s performance in his little test.

    They left the chamber and went through another hole, where they climbed up an incline with the help of a rope. After a minute, Neruz pushed out a thicket of branches and leaves, and they emerged from a bush. The darkness of the forest was in front of them, and Samarin''s walls were behind them. Separating them from the wall was a 200-meter dash across a moonlit field of tree stumps, bloodied stakes, barbed wire, and calcified artillery craters.

    Neruz looked back towards the wall¡ªWe''ve come 300 meters¡­ on a hundred-kilometer journey.

    They entered the forest. "Ah! This place!" Singer remarked. Turned out it was a popular smuggling route, one which he took the initiative to lead them through.

    After getting their bearings, Singer led them to a trail frequented by those in the Coyote business. There, they bumped into a guy with a family in tow. As shadows in the night do usually meet, they jumped out of their skin the moment they saw each other, though not long after, Singer realized that this was the guy who owed him a notable sum. In lieu of money, he got him to pay him back with updated information: the locations of Parasol checkpoints, bandit camps, military movements, and other smugglers on the road. His smuggler friend took the whole 30 minutes to recite every single detail about the lay of the land ahead.

    The patrols were numerous, and bandits filled the gaps. Their hundred-kilometer journey doubled to two hundred kilometers from the circuitous route they would have to take. They would have to avoid Parasol''s checkpoints in case they were rebel-controlled by now, but that only left them with the more uncertain factors.

    "Bandits"¡ªso they were called.

    "''Bandits'', they are not," Neruz remarked about Jack''s inquiry, "It is patently clear. In a land of plenty such as this, who would turn to true banditry? Not even strife in Azerkal made the roads so dangerous. Any you meet are but political mercenaries paid to set the stage."

    Samarin smoked even as they left for the horizon. The gunfire had become suggestions in the distance, though the cannonfire remained clear enough in their enunciation.

    After over a week of travel, and having barely avoided getting clamped between bandits and a checkpoint, they encountered another one of Singer''s acquaintances: an arms dealer who went by Lourde. A carrying pole playfully pivoted about his shoulder, with a box of munitions hanging off one end, and a box of firearms hanging off the other. He tipped his boonie hat for the trio.

    "Care for a selection of mediocre-yet-reliable ballistic weaponry?"

    "Nah thanks man, y''know how I roll," Singer said.

    "Not on my honour," Neruz said.

    "What''s it cost?" Jack asked.

    Neruz and Singer snapped a look at him. Jack snapped a sharp look back. It only took them a second to understand his quiet insistence.

    "For you, a friend-a Singer''s, nada," the dealer replied. He winked in Singer''s direction. Singer pfshed and nodded, his face twisting with annoyed lines¡ªa certain dealer''s all too happy to pay off his debt as soon as possible, and a certain smuggler''s too keen to reserve favors for better emergencies.

    Jack perused the selection, a mix of gunpowder and air weapons. Something caught his eye, and he sunk his hands under the pile of guns. What came out was an air rifle with a barrel that seemed needle-like against the rest of the body, extending far beyond shoulder-to-fingertip. A 6-shot revolving cylinder rested in front of the trigger, sticking a bit out to the left. The dealer showed him how to operate the crank pump, which manifested as a small cashbox-sized mechanism hanging off the right side of the weapon, just forward of the buttstock. A small air bottle remained under the barrel, where the shooter''s supporting hand would be. A small scope along the top encouraged the shooter to keep at a distance.

    Along with the rifle, the dealer gave him a hundred rounds of ammunition¡ªmore steel dart than bullet¡ªand two extra air reservoirs. "Each one''s good for the first 10 shots¡ªfair by the 14th, and dirt-shit terrible by the 17th," the dealer explained, "Recharge often, and when you can."You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

    They parted with the dealer. The barrel unscrewed partway for travel, and Jack capped the ends with leather drawstring pouches to keep mud and dirt out.

    "What made you decide?" Neruz asked.

    "I''m tired," Jack replied, "People beat me down and¡ªwhat am I supposed to do? Take it lying down?"

    "I suppose not."

    Jack eyed Singer. "Hey. Singer," he called. Singer turned around, and once his gut faced Jack, he took a breath-stealing punch to it and fell to the dirt. "That''s for before," Jack said. "Guess I owed ya that one, huh?" Singer replied with a weak breath. Jack extended his hand and pulled him up.

    "I''m not sure how accounting''s done, but consider that one downpayment. The rest''ll be in installments."

    "Yeah, yeah¡ª"

    They continued down their route, through the forests and through the plains, far from cities, towns, and counties. Jack insisted on learning the ways of the wilds and free men, asking Neruz and Singer how to climb trees, ascend and descend with ropes, set traps, hunt, and cook frontier food. On some particular days, he''d ask either of them to teach him their specialties, like how Singer could hit anything he saw¡ªor pretended to see¡ªwith a sling, or Neruz''s strange affinity for throwing things.

    As with all skills that take lifetimes to cultivate, Jack met with failure on a business schedule. It took Jack 4 days to learn how to sling a rock roughly in some direction, though he did often still accidentally release the stone straight up, or even backwards. He had more success with throwing things, but only insofar as most people already have a natural affinity for throwing things¡ªone at a time, and at stationary targets. Neruz''s skill came in throwing one object with speed and precision, doing so at moving targets, and perhaps most dauntingly, throwing multiple objects with independent trajectories with only one hand.

    Realizing that Jack might engage in combat very soon, Neruz and Singer agreed to teach him how to fight close-up. They had very little time left¡ª2 days'' journey to the border¡ªand so they went and gave him a sturdy stick and taught him the top dirty tricks in the book.

    What''s better than pocket sand? Pocket ash. The Boiler Nomads taught Neruz about the wonders of wood ash, as it contained two major "compounds", so they said: calcium carbonate, and potassium hydroxide. The earlier would simply irritate the eyes, and can be washed. However, the latter would react with water in the eyes and cause mild chemical burns.

    As a stick user, himself, Singer emphasized a simple rule: attack whatever part of the dude was closest. If the weapon''s closest, hit the weapon. If the weapon''s out of the way, hit the hand. If the hand''s out of the way, hit the guy. If the guy''s out of the way, then there''s nothing in your way.

    By happenstance, Neruz had made sure that Jack trained left and right-handed throwing equally, though this only meant that he was equally as bad on either hand. Nonetheless, "You don''t have to land a good hit. You only have to remember that normal human beings will instinctually avoid projectiles. Herd them in any direction you please, like this," Neruz explained. He tossed a pebble just past the left side of Singer''s head, causing him to duck right and trip on a rock.

    Two days passed. Jack had made good on refining his new skills in that time. They''d reached the border, but there''s no real border here. There were no lines nor flags delineating Parasol''s and Azerkal''s territories. Here was just a staggered flux of camps being set up and torn down, all trying to out-maneuver each other in some strange, bloodless wargame.

    They followed the trail through the jungle.

    "Somethin'' ain''t right," Singer said. He crouched down by a tree. Neruz looked over and saw an encircled cross etched into the foot of the tree. "Smugglers'' signs?" he asked. "Yeah, this one''s sayin'' a no-go up ahead."

    Upon hearing that, Jack crouched down and screwed the barrel back onto his rifle. "There ain''t no other trail than this one," Singer continued, "S''either we doubl''in back or we push on."

    There was a scream, then a gunshot. It came from up ahead, just over the trail''s incline. Everyone got to hiding behind something. Another gunshot. Singer kept low and climbed the incline, stopping right before the peak. He looked over, then looked back and signaled the other two to join him.

    "Oi, Jack, how good''s the scope?"

    "Well, it¡­ works, I guess."

    "Good ''nuff. Can ya take a peek over the top? I can''t make out what''s goin'' on, branches in the way."

    Jack shifted to the side, closer to the vegetation. He crept up, trying to keep himself in the shade as much as possible. He pulled his rifle up to the front and looked down the scope. Blurred branches and leaves shifted about, concealing the trail beyond the steep downslope. However, for a moment, he saw something. The branches and leaves shifted, and for a moment, a view flashed of what was beyond.

    "I think I see a body," Jack said, "It''s not moving. Clothes look red. I think it''s blood. I''m not sure if there''s anything else moving besides those branches in the way."

    "Think ya can make anything else out?"

    "Give me a moment."

    Unerringly, he waited, never taking a moment to take his eyes off the scope. He only allowed himself to blink. Even with the scope, the body looked somewhat tiny. He couldn''t see the face, but it was long hair, and the clothes looked like a woman''s dress. Momentarily, the leaves shifted again, and there was a second body¡ªa man, also probably dead. It looked like blood was pooling from around his head.

    "Second body. Looks dead. Still don''t see anything moving," he announced.

    "I don'' think any''d disagree¡ªthis''s a trap," Singer said. The others murmured in disconcerted agreement.

    "Even if we sought an alternate path, I''m certain such paths are occupied by bandits from the same employer of these ones," Neruz remarked. The others murmured in disconcerted agreement.

    After an exchange of glances, they inched forward. In hindsight, advancing as a row of three in a jungle wasn''t good maneuvering. After taking just three steps over the top, Singer looked down. The dirt''s color was off by a shade.

    The ground collapsed. They rolled down to the foot of the slope, sliding, skidding, tumbling head-over-foot. Jack held fast to his rifle, and as soon as they reached the bottom, he urged himself to stand. Left in a spinning daze, he struggled to maintain balance, managing to get by, crouched on his knees. That''s when he saw a bandit show up in front of him¡ªwearing green trousers streaked with olive and black, and a simple shirt, dyed the same. A net covered his body, local vegetation woven throughout the mesh.

    The man raised his hand, and under the foliage camouflaging his hand, there was a pistol. At the same time, Jack raised his rifle. "You don''t have to land a good hit," he remembered Neruz''s words. He fired a shot, and the man ducked away, panickedly firing off his own shot. The bullet whizzed past Jack, and he, too, flung his body out of the way, landing on the ground with his arm. Just as Neruz and Singer got their weapons out, bandits came out of the bushes, all armed with automatic firearms.

    Outnumbered three-to-one, a hail of gunfire washed over them.

    Jack opened his eyes. From the dirt, he looked to Neruz and Singer. They all looked at each other, as if confirming they hadn''t gone to hell together. The bandits all laid dead. In their place, soldiers appeared, sporting firearms inherited from the Old World, and wearing fatigues that made them seem like floating heads. Their faces were hidden behind dark mosquito nets draping down from their helmets. They kept their weapons ready as they approached the three, unaware of their intentions. Jack let go of his air rifle and slowly raised his hands. Singer spat out mud as he tried to get up.

    "Azerkari na karda," Neruz said. The soldiers lowered their weapons. "Ex," he continued. The soldiers pointed their weapons all at once.

 Ch 6 - Borderland

    The soldiers lined them up and had them kneel. Three of the soldiers kept watch over them, one of whom spoke into a radio clipped to his chest. Two soldiers carried the bandits'' bodies, lining them up neatly along the side. Another soldier went around taking photographs of the bodies with a film camera, going so far as to rip their clothes and take photos of their tattoos. The amount of gunfire earlier didn''t justify there just being these six soldiers. There must have been more, hidden in the jungle around.

    "Excuse me¡ª" Jack piped. One of the soldiers glared at him. Though he didn''t quite see the soldier''s eyes through the mosquito net, even just the soldier''s body pivoting towards him by a small inch was enough to give that impression. The fact that these soldiers closely resembled special forces from the Old World¡ªmuch like the spec ops dudes that Jack saw training the militia in Parasol¡ªand that he towered over Jack with a rifle tricked-out on so many attachments of what could be lasers, scopes, and grenade launchers, shut him up fast.

    The soldier on the radio stopped speaking. "Para," he said. "Hah," the other soldiers quietly replied. Quite a while passed¡ªit must have been a half hour¡ªbefore the foliage rustled, and a soldier came out, accompanied by someone in a drab tunic and trousers, stained with thick stripes of black and green. He wore a conical hat, foliage sticking out of it wherever which way, and in his left hand, he carried a staff. His face couldn''t be seen behind the curtain of brown and green-dyed fibers hanging from his hat.

    The mysterious man walked in front of the three, examining them at arm''s length.

    "Oso," she said. All three of them were surprised that a woman''s voice came out, but beyond that, her voice sounded familiar. She lifted the camouflage veil, revealing her face.

    "Wh¡ª Frill?" Jack blurted.

    "Oh? Parasol?" she replied.

    "My name''s Jack!"

    Frill said some things to the soldiers, and they went lax. The one who seemed to be the squad leader relieved some of the soldiers that were guarding them, but they weren''t completely let go. Frill and the squad leader spoke to Neruz in what was most likely the Azerkal tongue. For Jack and Singer, things had looked like they''d gone really complicated really fast.

    It took a while for Neruz to finish speaking with the two. Meanwhile, Jack wondered about Neruz''s real identity¡ªit wasn''t as if he had been putting up a fake one, but that it just wasn''t complete. Just as he was wondering that, Neruz turned towards Jack and Singer.

    "My friends, I regret to inform you that¡ª "

    "We''ve been roped into something complicated, haven''t we?"

    "Tha'' Paladeen fella''s gon'' pay me bonus aft''r this is done, goddarn¡­"

    In the background, the Azerkal-Parasol border had become a four-way between Azerkali royalists, the opposing Azerkali federalists, Parasol''s long range patrol units, and an unknown faction wearing Parasol uniform, but was witnessed to have engaged other Parasol units as well.

    Originally, the royalist border guards and Parasol patrol groups simply tried to outmaneuver each other, avoiding outright confrontation. Nevertheless, someone fired the first shot. Whoever did so wasn''t clear, but this was around the same time that both the federalists and the rogue Parasol forces emerged in the vicinity.

    "And how do we factor into this?" Jack asked.

    "As you might have conjectured, my homeland is Azerkal," Neruz explained, "For now, it will suffice you to know that I was a part of the Azerkali Guard, but personal circumstances forced me to live a roundabout life."

    "Ey! So I ain''t th'' only wun runnin'' from somethin'', huh!"

    "Escaping the claws of one''s regrettable past cannot be compared to escaping the consequences of engaging in unlawful activities, my friend."

    Just as Singer almost put up a fight, Frill came by. The mosquito net that was supposed to be draped over her face was rolled up over her hat. They looked at her, and she looked at them. It was rather sudden, so it took a while to gather a new topic of conversation.

    "Ah, Ms. Frill," Neruz said after some delay, "Friends, we may consider this lady our friend in this jungle."

    "Oh, so yer takin'' my job, too, huh?" Singer complained, holding dearly onto his title as ''trail navigator''.

    "Jack?" Frill said. He was surprised at hearing her say something other than ''Parasol''.

    "Y-yes?" he replied.

    "Danger. Even here," she said. This piqued Neruz''s interest.

    "What do you mean?" Jack asked.

    Just then, Jack picked up the rustling of leaves behind him. He turned around, and saw the barrel of a rifle being lifted towards him. He blinked, and the moment his eyes were open again, Frill had already parried the gun with her staff, and a panicked spray of automatic fire swung away from them. All the while, Frill stepped in and threw the soldier off balance, finally taking him down. "Feredal!" she shouted. A swarm of soldiers responded to the sudden call, and none of them were more at a loss than the squad leader. "Pereho!" he shouted, giving the traitor a beating on the spot.

    That guy on a suicide mission or something? The infiltrator was restrained. Jack made no attempt to mentally process this random attempt at his life. He chalked it up to some sort of conspiracy that centered around him. Even with such a thought, his personal mission did not change: survive.

    The Azerkali commander gestured in the air, stirring up the rest of the soldiers to file up and move on. With Frill''s negotiation, Jack and the others were allowed to follow them. They withheld any further talks until they arrived at the camp proper.

    Even with the attempt on his life, being around a camp was better than being left out in the middle of nowhere.

    They reached the outskirts of the Azerkali royalists'' camp. Camo netting and well-placed vegetation obscured the approach to the camp, and commandos kept watch from unobvious foxholes. At some point, the bush by Jack''s feet moved, and a sniper greeted him with what surely was a "Fuck off, don''t step on me!" in their language. It spooked Singer, too, but Neruz didn''t even look impressed¡ªwith ample motivation, even he could hide himself right at his enemies'' feet. His expertise even extended to pretending to be bad at doing it, if only for the sake of annoying a fellow expert¡ªlike, for example, Singer¡ªand forcing them to reveal their skill.The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

    The closer to the camp they got, the more the sentries looked bored. Among them, the uniforms were mixed¡ªlikely Azerkali royalists and some Parasol patrolmen working together. In the camp itself, the atmosphere seemed more hassled than tense. Even the wounded being ferried to the triage tent had the strength to complain. At some point, Jack made eye contact with one of the commandos, who was sitting up from his stretcher. The man gave Jack a thumbs up, to which he squinted and realized that the commando''s thumb was nowhere to be seen.

    Along the way, Neruz had been explaining their to-be role in the conflict in this area.

    "So we have to help negotiate with the Parasol patrols around here?" Jack asked on the way.

    "It is most likely that they are not aware of the events unfolding in Samarin. It is also most likely that they would listen to a general''s personal agent," Neruz replied.

    "Oi, don''t that mean we gon'' end up crossin'' the rogues ''least one time?" Singer complained. Tentatively, the Azerkali special forces were referring to the fake Parasol forces as "rogues".

    "Man, the Reorganization''s a hassle¡ªwhat''s even with the name?"

    "Regardless, if this is to be a safe haven for us, the royalists and legitimate Parasol forces must first be able to identify each other before they can cooperate. Before then, we face only fatal confusion in this war."

    Although Jack said "we", it was Neruz who was expected to carry the burden of messenger, Jack and Singer not being expected to do anything particularly important. The guy was perfect for the job, being able to speak both Azerkali and Inglish¡ªmaybe bilingualism was actually more common here than Jack thought, especially since Frill was also bilingual, even if she only really spoke in curt fragments.

    Speaking in curt, yet understandable, fragments in two languages was still its own type of impressive, really. Such a thing really only proved that Frill more than likely perfectly understood full sentences, and might even be more learned than she let on.

    Being learned, though, was something that Neruz exuded in excess. Jack''s first impression of him was that he was the adventuring intellectual type¡ªat least, that was before the neurotoxin-laced knives and grenades that he kept in some back pocket. That he even intentionally taught Jack some of the simplest yet dirtiest tricks straight from his metaphorical travel journal¡ªthe man''s origins sure were mysterious. The man himself was surprisingly straightforward, in delightful contrast.

    "Hey," Jack called. Neruz turned around and let Jack catch up ''til his side, and they continued walking. "Why''d you ever leave your country?"

    "Friend," he replied, "I am actually a dead man. Please refer to me as Zurei in front of the officers we are about to meet. You as well, Singer. When asked, uphold¡ªand insist if insisted¡ªonly that we are acquaintances."

    "Ain'' that right, though?" Singer remarked.

    It was true that they had only known each other for a few weeks, regardless that those weeks had been intense enough to shake Jack''s sense of normalcy. At the same time, Neruz had, once again, skillfully evaded the question by answering it with an even deeper mystery: I am actually a dead man. More than likely, he might be willing to speak openly about his background, if only his background hadn''t an indefinable depth of which he was not quite sure that his acquaintances would be capable to accept¡ªDon''t ask questions if you''re not prepared for the answers, so they say.

    In the wider scheme of things, there were likely two different conspiracies at work in both Azerkal and Parasol, and¡ªclear as day¡ªthe two were just as likely related. Jack was also clearly being targeted. The connection between him and these country-shaking conspiracies, however, remained vague. The optimum strategy, therefore, was just not to think about it.

    They arrived at the command tent.

    Inside, there were two different uniforms mixed together. Though they both looked like commandos, Parasol''s special forces did not have as intricate a camouflage pattern as Azerkal''s. A mix of such commandos, armed and ready to go, stood in a circle around two men representing the two sides. They looked young¡ªlieutenants or captains, at most. They discussed strategy, hunched over a map, and there was an interpreter in the middle who hadn''t a wink of sleep in the last 24 hours.

    The Parasol officer looked up and eyed the new arrivals. "What''re these civvies doing here?"

    The commando who led them here answered with jumbled Azerkali words with a "de Samarin" somewhere in there.

    "Important information¡­ escape¡­ refugees? From Saramin," the interpreter repeated.

    The Parasol officer had a sparkle in his eyes.

    ***

    The sparkle in his eyes dimmed. "The fuck?" was all he could muster as a reply. The Azerkali-born interpreter faced his CO and said "De puta?" in the most neutral voice he could manage.

    Neruz¡ªor as everyone else in the room knew him, "Zurei"¡ªpresented to the Parasol officer his RFID card, which proved him to be General Paladin''s personal agent. The officer nodded along and went on to trust his story of Samarin being currently embroiled in urban conflict.

    "Even the core units, huh?" the Parasol officer said, "I''d understand the local militia going turncoat, but I didn''t think there was somethin'' going on that even our own people got their dirt on."

    He scratched his head.

    With the fresh intel, the officers in the room agreed that the incursion by Azerkali federalists and rogue Parasol units couldn''t be coincidental. As it stood, there was a good chance that the federalists and rogues aimed to take control of the border in order to reinforce the uprising in Samarin, even if it was so far away.

    Risking his neck to a later court martial, the Parasol officer corrected them¡ªSamarin wasn''t actually a hundred kilometers away from the border. That was a lie intentionally spread by Parasol counter-intelligence. In actuality, Samarin was just 47km away. Animal-drawn vehicles would be forced to slow down on the dirt roads, so it may as well have actually been a hundred kilometers for a contemporary army. However, engine-driven, all-terrain vehicles could easily make the trip within a day, and Azerkal still maintained a fleet of such vehicles. The royalists possessed these vehicles at the start of the civil war.

    However¡­

    "Enemy¡­ take base¡­ three weeks ago," the interpreter said.

    "¡­Okay, what about the base?" the Parasol officer asked.

    "Base, many¡­ ah, erm¡­"

    The war room waited intently.

    "¡­Base have ''brum brum'', go fast?"

    Jack couldn''t believe that the others in the room could keep a straight face. On the contrary, they were horrified at the military implications of the man''s belabored translation. Jack hid behind Zurei¡ªor in his mind, "Not-Neruz"¡ªin a bid to conceal his chuckle, while the others pondered on the possibility that the federalists might actually be able to take Samarin¡ªbut why Samarin? The officers debated to no clear conclusion. As Parasol''s southernmost territory, it was isolated, leaving it practically economically independent from the rest of Parasol''s allied cities. It had its own agricultural and manufacturing facilities, weapons production being part of it. If someone wanted to invade Parasol, taking the Samarin Region and its infrastructure was a must to sustain the invasion.

    Still, it made no sense. The royalists succeeded in dragging on the civil war, stretching the federalists thin to the point that it could be said that they were losing. Why take a staging ground for an invasion they can''t commit to? Why would they risk a counter-invasion from Parasol''s dozen-member alliance just for control of one city?

    Well, none of that ain''t worth jack for Jack.

    Peace was in short supply, and here, he was just hoping to find some. Sadly, it was quickly looking like it was going to mean shooting up the place a bit. The Parasol and Azerkali officers easily agreed to cooperate, and they placed Not-Neruz at the center of their strategy to deal with the federalists and rogues. It didn''t seem like it bothered him, who had obligations towards both General Paladin and the Crown of Azerkal. Singer thought he''d get a bigger payout if he''d joined in. Frill was an enigma, and Jack had just noticed that she had disappeared somewhere between entering the camp and entering the tent.

    As for himself, he begrudgingly agreed to go along. He was better off being with his trustworthy fellows in the middle of an otherwise-dangerous operation than being stuck waiting in a camp filled with potential suicide hitmen. The main goal of surviving besides, he also wanted to know why he had a target painted on his back¡ªsome reason deeper than "Pizza delivery guys from the past are a threat to the shadow state and must be eliminated!"

    Given that he had not met any other pizza delivery guys from his time, perhaps there was some merit to that hypothesis.

 Ch 7 - Flower of Thorns

    It had been a week since then. The de facto commanders of the temporary alliance¡ªthose two young men who could be seen arguing over a map once every other hour¡ªpushed the job of being bait onto Not-Neruz. His role was as a jester and clueless fool, acting as a refugee and begging understanding from the men of stray patrols and unknown camps, suspecting nothing of Not-Neruz as he gauged their allegiances.

    There was no better man suited for the job. He was already an actual spy, and he had fluency in Inglish and Azerkali. All he had to do was pretend to be monolingual and call for help in the opposite language of the unknown force. Careless soldiers would spill secrets in broad daylight, believing that the person in front of them couldn''t understand them.

    A small insurance force tailed Neruz. If he signaled for help, they would create a diversion, or, if needed, call for the main force to get him out. So far, he hasn''t had to do so.

    Neruz''s acting skills terrified Singer. He wasn''t just acting as a refugee, but as a refugee with a severe case of PTSD. It was a flexible excuse to wander around or even run away in a fit of mania. Singer¡ªa real graduate of a real drama school¡ªtried to nitpick at any hints of excessive or underwhelming acting, but every single scene was just too real, even indecipherable from actual traumatized refugees he''d smuggled across the border himself.

    At times, Neruz was straightforwardly turned away, and the force in question would quickly pack up and leave. In the eyes of military intelligence, it was a technical loss, but at least it was left at that. Smooth-going, though, it was not; he got stuck being interrogated in a federalist camp the other day. The support force heard Neruz''s pained crying for his mother¡ªan exaggerated call for help, but a call for help nonetheless. Within 20 minutes, the support force set off some fireworks while the main force quickly ambushed a real enemy patrol to be convincing. In the confusion, Neruz escaped.

    Today was slightly different, however.

    "Why am I here?" Jack asked. His trigger finger, and the rest of his hand, itched from mosquitoes. Perhaps the bugs would get him before the Reorganization did.

    "Jus'' t'' suffer, Sherloc," Singer replied. His eyes were glued to a pair of binoculars. "Told ya t''get gloves."

    The two were lying prone behind some thick roots, watching Neruz do his usual "I lost my whole family and now I''m here" routine¡ªa surreal and perfect replay each time. Perhaps, it may have even been partly real, drawn from the unexplorable breadth of the man''s background.

    As usual, he was escorted into the unknown force''s camp. Even if it was hidden behind trees and foliage, any discerning eye would notice that the bivouacs and fighting positions, though sparse, extended across a kilometer. The place bordered on being a stronghold, even if it only had some sandbags and shallow, 5-minute trenches for fortifications.

    Just as Neruz was about to be escorted into a tent, a firefight erupted. Jack and Singer panicked to determine the direction. "Oi, that''s the supportin'' group, right?" Singer hushed. The pair was the second insurance in case the much larger supporting force was discovered. Without thinking, Jack almost stood up to rush back, but Singer reflexively pulled him down. Largely because of Singer, they managed to remain unnoticed.

    Looking back towards the camp, they spotted Neruz breaking down, true to his traumatized persona, and then making a run for it, crying all the while. A guard tackled him.

    "Shit," crapped both Jack and Singer. Just then, whoever looked like the commander started shouting orders, and within a minute, a small army of patrols trooped out of the foliage and combed the jungle. The patrols passed by them¡ªif any of them had bothered to look down at their feet, they''d have spotted the pair. After the patrols passed, Singer made an effort to make their camouflage more professional. They were going to be stuck there for a while.

    * * *

    "Don''t go there."

    "Hey now, it ain'' weird ''til ya make it weird."

    "We''ve been stuck like this for hours and I''m still not used to it."

    Maintaining a 5-foot minimum personal distance was the least of their worries. There was a crescendo of gunfire not long after the patrols came out, but it had long died down. Through the breaks in the canopy, the sky teased a pleasant orange, beckoning them to come home. Such a sky could never pierce the thick canopy flesh, turning the jungle floor into its own green abyss, and Jack and Singer hid in its crevices.

    A patrol stopped right beside them. "I thought I heard some voices from around here," one of the soldiers said. Flashlights waved over where the pair were, and at times, the beams flashed by their eyes. "You sure?" "I''ve got better hearing than you, trust me."

    Their radio blared.

    "Bravo 2-4, move 100 meters west and confirm Bravo 2-3''s whereabouts," so it said.

    "This is Bravo 2-4, roger¡ª "

    The radio suddenly screeched. The soldier holding it ritualistically hit several buttons in annoyance, but it wouldn''t off. "Dawson, fix it!" "I''m trying my best, sir!"Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

    The tone finally cut out. He must''ve turned it off.

    "Dawson, run communications. Tell HQ we''ve got suspected activity in this sector, and we''re moving to 2-3''s last position like they said. And take that thing back with you and have it checked out¡ªeveryone else, NVGs on! Let''s move out!" he ordered.

    The squad''s flashlights turned off all at once, and they left the runner behind. Meanwhile, he didn''t budge. It looked like he had trouble getting his nightvision gear working.

    The moment he took off his helmet, bushes and leaves rustled to make way for his body as he dropped to the ground. In his place, a figure emerged. It was almost like a moving bush, but it soon stopped, and seemed to look directly at them.

    "Parasol!" a familiar voice hushed.

    "Frill?" Jack replied.

    Singer hit him across the back. They were lucky it was actually Frill, and it wasn''t the enemy checking on his comrade, whose first name might have coincidentally been Parasol¡ªSinger knew someone like that, so it wasn''t funny for him.

    "Frill, what¡ªwhat?" Jack''s words stumbled over each other.

    "Kill enemy, yes?" she replied. "Easy."

    She looked over her shoulder and whistled, and shadows came out. Men and women moved past them, with not a single crunch nor rustle in their footfall. Jack took a moment to confirm, but they were indeed armed with bows. He looked at Frill and she, herself, was also an archer.

    Neruz mentioned something about them in his travels. He met Boiler Nomads¡ªthose who routinely traded in dyes, herbs, and exotic natural compounds that could only be extracted from nature with some knowledge of the chemistry involved. There were all sorts of such nomads, each specialized in what they gathered and traded. They maintained mostly peaceful lives, trading in towns or with whomever they came across.

    Frill must be one of them¡ªhe thought. Around them were even more, and they all came for war.

    * * *

    She had already scouted the entire perimeter and memorized the layout of the jungle encampment to the best of what she could observe. Before her friends had even come, she had single-handedly thrown the camp''s southern perimeter in disarray, with the aid of a device a kind traveller not long ago offered her, one that he called a "jammer". She understood now why that traveller entrusted such a thing to her. She, of the Signal Nomads, traded not in products, but in their services. They taught their kin the art of war through information and deception. They fought by manipulating not only the enemy''s five senses, but their sixth sense of truth and direction.

    She had enough information¡ªcatching even a surprising glimpse of Neruz¡ªand now it was time for action.

    * * *

    Among the Reorganization''s sub-commanders, Maj. Ravager was the one with the most jungle fighting experience. They employed him when it came to border scuffles, and he, in turn, employed collaborators from both Parasol and Azerkal. Control of the border was critical to the Reorganization''s plans, and he never intended to lose out. To lose here meant losing the Reorganization''s trust, and thus, the Reorganization''s favors. He needed their power.

    A year ago, the Signal Nomads turned down his request. The price of their employment was often steep, but also often worth it. By his calculation, employing an entire chunk of the whole clan would guarantee operational success. He was prepared to offer money, weapons, land, and even favors from the Reorganization¡ªgaining all these things together was enough to create an independent Nomad state. Those Signallers were never known to take sides, thus he thought, "They have no reason to turn me down."

    Turn him down, they did. The basis wasn''t clear. "The council declines" wasn''t much of a reply. It was an unprecedented request on his part, he knew that. Afterwards, no amount of diplomacy gave him a passable outcome. Since it came to that, he knew that once the operation went underway, opposing factions would end up employing their own Signallers, and they would oppose him, in turn. That would have been fine if he were also able to employ them the same, but he was blacklisted. With that, the Signal Nomads were a guaranteed threat. With that, he gave the order: "Wipe them out."

    Two months ago, the operation went underway. "Bandits" slowly cut off communications between the border guards and their home cities. Spies, hidden amongst the refugees fleeing Azerkal''s civil war, were set upon sabotaging long-range communications posts and equipment. One month ago, some 3000 men were sprung upon the Signal Nomads, and after massacring them, took over the whole border.

    For there to be survivors was within calculation. For the survivors to seek revenge was also within calculation. So why, then, was this battle so hard to fight?

    Frill drew her bow, and after a smooth release, the arrow quietly joined the silhouette''s neck.

    * * *

    Jack and Singer trailed behind the Nomads'' quiet offensive, hoping to find Neruz and scoot out of the place. It was a strange sight to see someone, dressed all tribal-like, wearing nightvision goggles with a bow drawn. Some of them had crossbows, and others still had rifles. The ones with guns weren''t shooting¡ªit seemed that the plan relied on getting as close as possible to the encampment and getting the enemy in range of their arrows.

    It wasn''t long before a scout ahead got spotted, and an exchange of fire occured. With that, the southern perimeter was sure to be alerted. Frill blew a two-tone whistle, and the others echoed that sound. The nomads fanned out from their column, and they began moving in small teams, leapfrogging between trees and natural cover.

    "We''re only here to get Neruz, right?"

    "Righ''."

    Unconsciously, the pair followed Frill. She stopped, turned around, and looked at them. Those nightvision goggles sent a chill down the pair''s spines. That there was an arrow nocked on her bowstring didn''t help. "Why follow?" she asked.

    Jack and Singer eyed each other, mentally in agreement that Frill was the most commander-like allied entity in the immediate area.

    "Uh¡­ help?" Jack managed to say. He covered his mouth and bowed his head in embarrassment. Frill tilted her head.

    "Ey¡ªmissy Frill? ''member that old guy back when we all first met?" Singer explained. Frill nodded. "Yea, y''see, he''s sort of¡ª"

    He pointed in the direction of the camp. Frill paused for a moment, but seemingly having understood him, continued moving on ahead. The pair followed, but they weren''t sure if this was an implicit agreement that she would help, or if she was just satisfied with the explanation and went on with her own agenda. Whichever the case, they were content to have more allies by their side.

 Ch 8 - Honorless

    Those with guns attracted fire and shot back from a long range. Those with crossbows ambushed enemies that walked past them. Those with bows were able to maneuver to a close range with the enemy. It was a slow, gruelling process of attracting enemy fire, suppressing enemy positions, and getting around stubborn defenses. The air of combat intensified with the entrance of faraway gunfire. The joint Azerkali-Parasol forces must have launched an intense attack. This should keep the pressure off the southern perimeter.

    They had to leave corpses at the foot of every other tree, but thankfully, they had already managed beforehand to get close to the encampment before they were spotted. After 30 minutes of bravery, they managed to push all the way up to the edge of the encampment proper. There, sandbags lined the sides of each tent and bivouac, and so each housing quarter was, in itself, a fighting position. Even as the nomads'' arrows whistled past the edge of the camp, the combat engineers hastily piled on sandbags blocking off the inroads of the encampment. Cheap and reliable, no one sane would think that arrows could do much damage to anyone hidden behind sandbags. On the other hand, neither would anyone sane make a perpetual enemy of an entire clan of Nomads.

    A combat engineer ducked his head down, raised his gun over the sandbags, and shot wildly into the darkness. He had his back against the sandbags, and next thing he knew, there was an arrow sticking out from his gut. The pain came later, somewhat numbed and made unreal by the adrenaline. The flashlights of his reinforcements thankfully arrived and blared on him, and he reached out to the lights. "Help me!" he cried. His reinforcements couldn''t believe that an arrow could pin a sandbag to a man. The medic took too long to register the arrow coming out of the wound, and he was peppered by gunfire and arrows.

    From those who learned of the fact firsthand, word quickly spread throughout the rest of the base: "Arrows can pass through sandbags!" In those few words, the paranoia of getting impaled through the walls spread with contagion. With crossbowmen lying in wait around every corner, squads'' movements were hampered by fear, and those with more courage opted to pre-emptively shoot at cloaked corners and wherever else shadows favored to wait, wasting bullets and occasionally hitting their own friends.

    * * *

    Amidst the confusion, Jack and Singer went around looking for Neruz in every tent. The rush of combat prevented them from ruminating over the bodies left in the advancing battle''s wake. They had searched whatever tents they could, but there wasn''t even a peep of him anywhere.

    The thundering of frighteningly quick cannonfire ripped the air. Singer tackled Jack to the ground, and over them, sand exploded in quick, concerted beats, splashing around like water while something whizzed past them. Looking up, half the height of the sandbag wall was gone.

    "What the hell was that!" Jack shouted.

    "S''a fucken'' gun cart! They got a gun cart!"

    The pair scrambled to their feet. "We''re leggin'' it outta ''ere!"

    They made a run for the edge of the camp. Every time that gun ripped through the air, even Jack didn''t have to think, they''d dive and eat dirt if they had to. Just one of those bullets would explode several sandbags at once.

    The whistles of escape blew. They encountered some nomads trying to escape, but the gun ripped through them, too. Jack tried to save one of them, but the man simply gave him a locket. Singer pulled him off, and the pair kept running.

    They reached the edge of the camp, only to be greeted by an encirclement and a little suggestion: "Hands in the air!"

    * * *

    Frill and her clansmen pushed all the way to the middle of the base. Even if their arrows negated the enemy''s sandbags, it only meant that more and more of the enemy learned to avoid staying too long behind them. They''d pop up, take a few shots, and disappear around the corner. It was troublesome, but the nomads were unconcerned. Not once did Frill question her clansmen''s self-sacrificing intent¡ª"Me, decoy" "Stay here, shoot when they shoot me". She didn''t mind it at all, if only for the sake of reaching one target: Major Ravager himself.

    The central area was an open field bonfire, with the command tent in the middle engulfed in flames. Grenades fell behind the sandbags, and explosions wracked the nomads¡ªmen could be heard crying for their mothers afterwards. Ravager''s men stayed well away, and had set up shooting galleries to trap the nomads in a maze of killzones. The gunfire became more frequent, and it was then that the nomads'' offensive came to a standstill. No matter how much blood they shed, Frill came to believe more and more that they didn''t have enough of it.

    The shouts of Ravager''s men echoed each other in succession. Shadows scurried away, clearing the path for something.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

    From far away, it seemed like a box cart. "There!" Frill shouted. The clansmen directed their attention at the box cart and shot arrows at it, which glanced off. Some of the gunners fired at it, but they were answered by the pinging of metal against metal. The ricketing of its wheels became louder and louder, until it stopped. The enemy shouted, "Field, clear!" "Left post, set!" "Right post, set!" "Fire mission confirmed! Fire at will!"

    There wasn''t just one of them, but three of them, whose thunderous gunfire gored the clansmen. Sandbags offered no cover against the terrible breath of three times'' heavy machine gun fire. One of the clansmen pushed Frill down, but that man himself could not reach tomorrow. Just as his body flew and hit the ground, the barrage stopped, and from the ground, Frill saw the dim cherry-red glow of the gun''s barrel. "Needs cooling? Can''t shoot!" she concluded. She wasn''t the only one who thought the same. The other clansmen attempted to retaliate, but no matter their war cries, arrows, and gunfire, the cart''s armor was too thick. Frill got up and tried to sprint around the side¡ªa cart that size could only have strong armor to the front, otherwise they wouldn''t be able to move its weight around in this jungle. Betting on the cooldown time, she was confident that they could somehow get past this new enemy and hit it from the back.

    "Barrel change!" the enemy shouted.

    Not in five seconds, the steaming red barrel was ejected, and a new one was slid into place. All the while, the crew also replaced the emptied ammunition box. "New box in!" "Box loaded!" "Let ''em have it!"

    Frill made a dive for the dirt. The horror resumed. She crawled and wiggled across the floor, hoping that, by a miracle, she would at least be able to find and kill Ravager. Getting out alive wasn''t anymore realistic. Each bullet that landed near her blew off basketball-sized chunks of earth. Falling arcs of sand and dirt obscured the path forward, sometimes lit up by the torso-sized fireballs that flashed from the muzzles of those war-rending guns. With this barrage, she was sure that there weren''t anymore enough clansmen to even make a dignified last stand. Kill Ravager¡ªthat''s all they had to do. Even at the cost of the entire war party, if they could just get him¡­

    The barrage stopped. "Barrel change!" they once again shouted. She, however, could not get up. Was she too shaken? She crawled over dead clansmen and Ravager''s men alike. Was that the image of someone too shaken to stand? Even with her strength sapped from her mind, the inertia of her spirit pushed her on, and her body, satisfied with mindless auto-pilot.

    Boots shook the earth, though strangely, she couldn''t actually hear them. A squad had trooped over to where she was. She couldn''t even lift her head to see their faces. Maybe they were saying something. It was all muffled, though. They weren''t yet bayonetting her, so maybe they still had a use for her. She reached out to the leg of the one standing in front of her. Maybe it was Ravager''s leg. She pulled out a poison-soaked stiletto, and weakly stabbed it into the leg. It glanced off¡ªArmor? My luck bad like Jack.

    Her vision went black, but she retained her other senses¡ªah, they bagged her head. They bound her hands, pulled her up, and pushed her to walk. Her hearing got a little better. She could hear the sharp clanking of chains. There were footsteps that she recognized amidst the ones of the enemy, then they bound her to the same chain. She felt its weight drag against her ankles. It was bound to someone in front of her as well, she could tell. "Walk!" a sergeant ordered.

    * * *

    In the morning after the attack, the bag on Jack''s head was taken off. The rush of light hurt his eyes. In the central area of the base, there was a heap of ashes, two platoons of soldiers in formation on either side of it, and an important-looking villain standing on the platform of a gun cart, towering over the crowd of prisoners whose feet threaded on the ashes. The gun cart that faced them was just about the size of the back of a pickup truck. A huge snowplow-like frontal shield protected the crew as long as they crouched down. Peeking over the top was a huge machine gun that bordered on being a cannon. It had a semicircular shield and an angled roof with a periscope. The wheels were thick, reinforced by steel. Thick leaf springs mediated between the body of the cart and the wheels¡ªa measure that looked more to protect the cart from the recoil of the gun rather than to give the crew a pleasant time.

    Jack was at the very back of the mob of prisoners. All of them were bound with their hands behind them. In a glance, he couldn''t find Singer nor Neruz. Hopefully, they had escaped. The rest of the mob were all clansmen who had participated in last night''s attack. At the front of the mob, there was a lone woman, who stood in the shadow of the lead villain. The two seemed to be having a passionate exchange, the woman craning her head up to challenge his gaze.

    "Never!" the woman loudly declared. The commander nodded in disappointment. He looked at one of his subordinates, raised his thumb to his neck, and drew it across. The subordinate nodded.

    "Ready!" he ordered. Immediately, Jack was dragged away from the back of the mob, and brought to the front. He was made to stand beside the woman from earlier, and they, in turn, were made to stand beside the gun cart, out of the way of its line of fire. There, a crew of three manned the gun, remaining frozen in position, full-knowing what they were about to do.

    The moment Jack''s eyes looked forward to the clansmen, the order was given. The gun thundered for four seconds. Under that ear-splitting sound, they were close enough to the gun to hear the brass casings hit the floor. The smoke and dust kicked up under the gun''s muzzle partially obscured its falling victims from Jack''s sight. For a moment in those four seconds, he turned his eyes away from the tragedy unfolding before him. In that moment, his eyes landed on the woman beside him¡ªFrill. She continued to look on as her people''s lives were flushed into oblivion. She was frozen¡ªnot because of sadness, nor anger, but just surprise. People were too easy to kill. Just one little metal slug like that¡ªjust one¡ªwas enough, and if it passed through more than one person, then a higher efficiency was achievable. There was efficiency to be found in killing¡ªa terrifying concept, and to think she would be watching it firsthand. There was no honor to be found in a weapon as fearsome as a gun.

    Above all, she wondered, "Why was I left to watch?"

 Ch 9 - Ravager

    The execution of the nomads was a regrettable decision, but one that he had to make. He couldn''t afford treating prisoners of war to free grub. Their operation had already gotten delayed by several days because of the sudden uptick in the local resistance. The pace at which Parasol and the Royalists joined forces was surprisingly slow, though last night''s attack served as a wake up call, reminding him that there were still enemies gathering whose existences he was not aware of. That his intelligence network wasn''t as wide as he''d wished was just a consequence of the distrust the Reorganization had against him. To win that trust, he needed to succeed in this operation no matter what.

    The capture of Samarin.

    The uprising there was underway. The fort hadn''t fallen, but it surely would once they reinforced the forces already there. Why the Reorganization needed that place, he didn''t know, but that was the task set for him.

    In truth, he had two tasks, and the capture of Samarin was secondary. The capture of the most recently-awakened person from the dilapidated Cryo 6 facility, and the capture of the facility itself, was tantamount. That the dumb guy would, himself, traverse nearly a hundred kilometers of roads, jungle, patrols, and bandits, and land right in his base in the middle of a night raid, was wildly out of his expectations. Between here and there, there were countless opportunities for the man to get killed just by chace, and thus he would have failed his primary objective without realizing it.

    That the other man that Jack had come with had escaped was also regrettable. He seemed talented and persuadable with the right amount of money. There was also that other man from right before the attack. He was most likely a spy, or not¡ªit was unbelievable that that was just acting. As a professional commissioner of atrocities, Ravager knew very well how a confused and traumatized person acted. If that man were a spy, he must have been reliving some terrible memories to have been able to act that way.

    That didn''t matter. Jack and Frill were his prisoners now, and per Azerkali decorum, he had unfinished business with Frill.

    * * *

    The battalion packed up their camp and loaded up on trucks. This was Ravager''s personal command¡ªout of the 3000-strong brigade occupying the border, his absolute command extended only to 500 of them. The rest were merely collaborators under the command of various purchaseable influences¡ªmercenary companies and corrupt governors alike.

    Unlike the common horse and foot soldiers of this backwards world, he had assumed command of a mechanized force whose mobility and firepower were unmatched. They directed their loyalty solely towards Ravager, a lost soldier of Parasol, revived from a cold, decades-long slumber, risen through bloodshed as the fearsome governor of their province, their homes, their very lives.

    For their forces, the trip to Samarin would not take two hours. The roads to get there were all already secured.

    Not 30 minutes into the advance, the convoy halted. Frill was taken from the truck. Ravager observed as his men cut the ropes binding her hands. She was free. She looked at him, surprised, but no less seething with contempt.

    "Don''t be so surprised," Ravager said, "Did you know? When two Azerkali governors fight each other, they completely defeat their opponent by killing all of their enemy''s beloved soldiers in front of them, before parading them through their own town, and then courteously seating them in their own office. It''s soul-crushing for a prideful leader, isn''t it? Making them into a governor of no one; a defanged snake; a deboned fish."

    The convoy left Frill. She stood, unmoving, until the last truck was a speck in the horizon. She watched them go. She watched them disappear. She looked up into the sky¡ªit was still early in the day. She only had her clothes on her. Ravager was right. All of her clansmen were dead. Only the children and the elderly remained concealed in their abode. Though she was concerned for their wellbeing, she could not return, for she, as well as everyone who went with the war party, was marked as a Ghost. They, who sought death for death, were considered already dead. They bid their goodbyes, and did all their crying in the ceremony. She had no tears left to weep, and no life left to live.

    That''s why she could forget about the massacre¡ªyou can''t kill what''s already dead. Ravager killed no one. She was not some governor¡ªsome snake, some fish. The dead hadn''t even a desire to survive. Ravager couldn''t rob her of what she didn''t even value. What was honor, what was dignity, to a Ghost like her?

    She looked down from the sky¡ªit was still early in the day. She''ll make it. She took a step on the road that led to Ravager.

    * * *

    Ravager toured Cryo 6. The cleaning operation a few weeks ago had mostly secured the area. They were also supposed to have caught Jack in the process, but that hadn''t come to pass. Nevertheless, he detached a unit from the battalion to secure the area, and then he sent the rest of the battalion to support the uprising in Samarin and break the siege.

    "Ah, brings me back," he remarked. Jack followed behind him, accompanied by Ravager''s personal protection team. "You just woke up from here a few weeks ago, right? Headache was terrible, wasn''t it?"

    Jack stayed quiet.This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    "I don''t blame you," Ravager replied, "Before I went to sleep all those decades ago, you wouldn''t ever find me giving those orders¡ªbut, don''t blame me, either. I just want my son back."

    They passed by a familiar part of the facility. Glass capsules lined the walls, and there was one on the floor whose door laid opened. "That thing just fall off the wall or something?" Ravager thought out loud. "You didn''t feel that?" he asked, looking at Jack¡ªnot that he expected a reply.

    Jack felt lost in the maze of corridors. Even if he made a run for it, he probably would just get lost in the facility. They arrived at a long, unlit hallway. The soldiers beamed their flashlights down the length of it. At the end, there was a heavy metal door.

    "We''ll take it from here. Secure this entrance, and at all costs, do not enter the corridor," Ravager ordered. He took out his pistol and grasped Jack by the arm, pressing the barrel against his back. The hard touch of it made Jack break into a cold sweat.

    "We''re ready, sir," a man in a white coat said. He carried an impressive briefcase that was surely filled with terrible instruments¡ªor a laptop that could destroy the world?

    The three of them started walking down the corridor, with Jack in the lead, gently pushed along by Ravager and his handgun. The lab tech followed closely behind. The moment Jack stepped foot in the mouth of the corridor, the ceiling by the end of the hall popped open, and two gun turrets sprung out on either side. He almost jumped backwards, to which Ravager replied by pushing the gun''s muzzle against his back.

    The three continued along, and the ceiling turrets stayed unmoving. They reached the door, and there, a panel on the side wall started blinking blue. The lab tech tapped a card against it, and the door opened. The air rushed in from behind them.

    * * *

    They entered the room. It was cold. Air conditioning?¡ªJack thought. He didn''t quite understand how it worked, since there wasn''t any ventilation noise coming from any part of the building. Stealth air conditioning?¡ªhe thought once more. It was a dumb thought, but it might make sense if the facility was intentionally designed to appear dysfunctional without closer inspection.

    "Equipment''s a bit basic, but it''ll do," the lab tech announced. He was fiddling with a clear glass pod, inside of which was a comfy bed. A small robotic arm inside the pod came equipped with some scary-looking surgical instruments, enough that it might even come with a fully-automated kidney extraction feature.

    "I''ll be blunt here," Ravager said, "You won''t make it out of that thing alive."

    Instead of terror, Jack found himself exhaling, half in relief, half in disappointment. Ravager offered him a seat, zip-tying his legs to the chair''s. "You''re cautious," Jack remarked. The major looked up at him and smirked a bit. "That''s the first thing you''re going to say to me?" he replied.

    He pulled some decades-old tea powder from a cryogenic freezer and made some half-witted joke about the Cryo Engineering Dept calling it "iced tea".

    "Some guy named Robert stashed this here. Wish I could thank him in hell, but he''s actually a really nice guy, I doubt he''d end up in the boiler room."

    He added some ice and offered a cup to Jack¡ªwith a straw, just a little courtesy.

    "You''re being too nice, you know?" Jack said. Ravager smirked a bit.

    "If I just said I was just following orders, you probably wouldn''t take it too well."

    "No, I wouldn''t."

    "Well, care to hear my circumstances?"

    "Coz the dead tell no tales, is it?"

    "Hey, I''m not like the other commanders."

    "That''s what they all say."

    The two managed to share a laugh. That the executioner and the prisoner shared a laugh was something that they realized a bit late, but it was unreal enough that they didn''t mind it. Perhaps, they both just had their circumstances.

    "Really," Ravager explained, "I didn''t order those massacres for nothing."

    "So you knew, and you still did it?"

    Jack''s expression stayed unchanged. So did Ravager''s.

    "I knew. And I did it."

    "Why?"

    "Moral code in this age just isn''t the same as where you and I came from, you know?"

    "And that makes a difference because?"

    "Survival is the law here. Our transport''s capped, so''s not like we could take on some POWs. We can''t just slow down to let the POWs walk with us, either. If we''d just left them, they''d stab us in the back someday. So, they had to go."

    Jack was laughing like his mind was slowly losing its way. He shook his head¡ªLife is cheaper the less of it there is, is what you''re saying?

    "That''s cold, you know that?"

    "If you get hung up on things like that, you''ve got no right to live around here."

    Jack shook his head. He couldn''t wrap his head around how the snap of a finger could have that kind of power over death, but it does, and he saw how it did.

    "Your son," Jack asked. Ravager''s eyes met with his. It was some inexplicable sense of grief and contempt that he saw in that soul''s windows.

    "If you die, he gets to live," Ravager explained.

    "Simple as that?"

    "Simple as that."

    "Why, even?"

    Ravager was taken aback. His body had gone a bit stiff.

    "What do you mean?"

    "Why me, of all people?"

    Ravager looked to the lab tech. "It''s alright, isn''t it? He''s gonna die anyway," he asked. "It''s fine," the lab tech answered, without so much as turning his head their way.

    "You caused all this, you know?" Ravager answered, "You''re why the world almost ended. You''re why my son is dead."

 Ch 10 - Abandon

    Abandon what is imminent, to save what is important.

    Blood ran dry on the floor of the command tent. Neruz flipped through documents like cash; records of communications and codebooks sparkled like gold in his eyes. He''d always found that paper and ink were far better conversational partners than real people¡ªthe latter would oftentimes change their minds, which made them even worse liars than the written word. He wanted to enjoy a good fact or a good lie, leaving no space in between, nor even time to let the spoken word drift away.

    He sat fire to the command tent, adding to the fury of the night. Combat raged all around him as he escaped with evidence and confirmation. These precious documents sung about it: the link between the uprising in Samarin, and the Azerkali Civil War.

    He followed a retreating squad from the Azerkali-Parasol border resistance forces all the way back to their camp¡ªthough, showing up in the middle of the night after a tense encounter was not the best of ideas, as such tense people fired several shots in his direction just because he brushed against a few bushes. Shouting profanities in Azerkali, followed by the codeword, helped to establish some familiarity. There had been better ways to go about this, but Neruz lacked time.

    And in the spirit of lacking time, he barged into the resistance''s command tent, interrupting the argument between the two commanders and the breakdown of their interpreter. Here and now, his crafted identity had to be sacrificed, operational security be damned.

    He threw his family''s Dagger-and-Sword Crest on the desk. Few things could have been more important than the loss of a significant portion of the resistance''s forces, but the two commanders recognized this Crest as one of those things¡ªproof and status of nobility and absolute loyalty to the Crown of Azerkal. The fact that he was, at the same time, a Parasol agent, only led to the interpretation that he was a double agent whose primary loyalty lay with the Crown. The Parasol commander frowned, while the Azerkali commander almost prostrated himself in deferrence.

    "Rajo largo, necesito," he requested.

    The Azerkali commander quickly returned Neruz his Crest with a bow, before pointing at a mark on the map. Neruz nodded, turning about and leaving.

    "Wait," the Parasol commander called, "I can''t just ignore this."

    Neruz stopped, almost snapping his fingers as he remembered something. "Everyone in this room is bound to secrecy. The Crown of Azerkal and General Paladin are in agreement in this one matter," he said, repeating it in both languages for everyone to comprehend.

    The prerequisite paygrade for this threat level having risen, both commanders reached a tacit agreement¡ªThis man was never here.

    Neruz hurried for the closest long-range communications outpost on the Azerkali side of the border, sprinting where he could, and climbing up cliffs instead of taking the long way. It was a sleepy hill guarded by a moderate contingent of royalists. The fighting never reached here. When Neruz appeared, heaving and drenched in sweat, the sentries on duty almost forgot how to properly raise a challenge. They almost did, until Neruz flashed his Crest. He picked up a recruit and told him to tell his CO to prepare for a long-range transmission.

    Dragging his legs his way up the hill to the transmitter, the camp all around him suddenly woke up, bewildered by his presence. The commanding officer received him, saluting with caffeine-buzzed hands. Neruz lazily saluted everyone off and ushered everyone out of the communications tent, growling in low-intensity profanities and threats of being sworn to secrecy. He recalled two transmission frequencies and their unique encryption keys, sending to each the same message:

    "SHADOW FALLS ON WINTER CASTLE. HASTE."

    That facility was not a mere derelict cradle that had once held and awoken a part of the sleeping armies of Parasol. Records of the apocalypse also slept there¡ªas comprehensive it was enough to defeat it, just the same as it was to revive it.

    The barricades of Samarin roared with gunfire. The castle thundered with cannonfire. The rebels controlled three-fourths of the city, and were apt to gain more ground. Amidst all of that, General Paladin, cooped up in a bunker with his general staff, received an urgent communique. Paladin''s heart skipped a beat. Nothing mattered more than the issue he was about to issue: "Send B Company to capture and hold Cryo 6"¡ªan order that would almost cost them the city. B Company loaded up on their vehicles and rode out of the Western Gate under heavy fire from the rooftops. Aerial drone surveillance found a convoy of Parasol-modeled vehicles coming from the south¡ªflying the wrong flags. Paladin gritted his teeth, and ordered B Company to avoid contact. His forces had lost strength, while the opposition gained it in excess. At this rate, the opposition would bring up heavier weapons, and even the castle could fall¡ªbut such a thing was a small price to pay in exchange for Cryo 6.

    In the audience chamber of the Crown of Azerkal, a messenger, coated in gunpowder and soot, knelt at the foot of the unpainted and cracked concrete steps that led up to the throne. A fine wire mesh divided the Queen from her subjects¡ªand obscured her surprise. From surprise, her visage twisted into contempt. "Take the fastest border forces and eliminate the rogues"¡ªsurely, such an order would leave a gap in their defenses and tempt the federalists to attack, which was not to speak of surely gaining the contempt of Parasol for violating their territory. To make the order herself, however, and not to use a mouthpiece, only meant that there was some profound reason, something that was a matter-of-fact beyond her generals'' understanding, that was potentially worth even the cost of the war.

    Although the Allied Cities of Parasol and the Kingdom of Azerkal stood apart, they were the same of mind¡ªInheritors of the same accord. Between the Parasol Corporation''s Board of Directors and all of the Old World''s governments, the secret of the apocalypse was made known, and those governments who survived, or merely transformed, still knew the locations of Parasol''s laboratories, who once labored to bring the apocalypse to a standstill.

    By tacit agreement, those facilities that could not be easily destroyed were hidden, shadowed by agents under every nation''s employ, and any who wished to revive those facilities were marked an enemy of humanity.

    * * *

    Frill followed the road the convoy had used. It was a familiar road, and perhaps she had a guess to Jack''s whereabouts. Ravager seemed more interested in Jack¡ªso Jack''s trailed, she followed.

    She arrived at a checkpoint. Its blockhouse was just a simple box fort made from logs, and its base was fortified with stone. There was a dead Parasol militiaman by the blockhouse''s door, riddled by bullets. His coffee was still quite warm.

    A man came out of the blockhouse''s door, wearing a Parasol militia uniform.

    "Ah. Frill."

    She looked down at the body then at Singer again.

    "Wasn''t me!"

    "Enemy?"

    "Prol''ly? From last night? Didn'' think I''d see a truck in my lifetime, so yea, it''s prol''ly them!"

    Singer''s carefree attitude was a bit laughable. Perhaps, it was because he wasn''t there to witness the slaughter of her people¡ªtwice, now.

    "Ya alone?"

    Frill nodded. Singer already figured what happened.

    "Well¡ªya wan'' me t''walk with ya?"

    Frill nodded. Accompanying someone was all he had ever done in life. He had a guess that this might be the last time he could exercise his supposed profession¡ªthe war''s spilled out of Azerkal''s borders, and Samarin itself was burning. There wasn''t another city until another 50 kilometers from Samarin. It was doubtful whether he could survive long enough to get there.

    He''d been walking with people for a long time. A lot of them walked like how Frill walked¡ªlike it was the last leg of their journey, and that their suffering would finally end. S''a shame¡ªhe thought. He couldn''t voice his pity, nor was he sure whether he should pity her.

    Well, there was one assignment that he could fulfill right now.

    He took out a locket and gave it to Frill. He had snatched it from Jack right before his own escape. It was somewhat of a bad habit¡ªtelling himself that at least something of that person should escape with him.This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

    In that locket was an image of Frill herself.

    Her hand refused to open it. She already knew whose it was. Instead, she grasped it. Her gait took on a heavy burden.

    * * *

    Jack''s breathing¡ªwas he breathing?

    Something about him floated about.

    He dreamt of nothing¡ªfelt nothing.

    Yet something¡­ was digging into his chest.

    Ravager watched on as the lab technician extracted secrets from Jack''s body. He felt nothing about it. He''s killed many people before, some personally. Some of them begged for mercy, while others died standing. In contrast, this was just like watching a dissection¡ªa medical exercise. The man in the glass tube was, in his eyes, already dead. He was a stranger with whom he had a few exchanges with, someone no better than the bartender. Well, he might have actually liked that bartender from back then better than whoever this was.

    They called him "Jack"¡ªsuch a plain name. That probably wasn''t even his real name.

    Well, anyway, he was practically dead. Even so, Jack''s body was restrained and contained inside a surgical capsule, capped by ballistic glass. The technician did not make direct contact with the body. The robotic tools inside the capsule would deal with all of that, and finally, extract whatever it was the Reorganization was looking for.

    The telephone on the desk rang. Ravager picked it up.

    "Enemy units ETA 30 minutes, sir."

    "Alright. Hold and defend for one hour."

    "Yes, sir."

    Having competent subordinates was one of life''s luxuries. Ordering them to die was its own sort of hell. Even if those subordinates didn''t have a problem with it, he himself had every complaint to lodge.

    Though, he crossed the Rubicon a long time ago.

    122 motorized troops from General Paladin''s B Company came in from the north, while 389 horse riders from the Azerkali Guard''s 5<sup>th</sup> Riders came in from the south. Ravager''s own men only numbered at 86. As long as he held the facility for an hour, the Reorganization''s aerial troops would arrive and claim what they considered theirs. Until then, they would squeeze as much as they could out of their defensive advantage.

    The scouts of B Company and the 5<sup>th</sup> Riders made contact with both each other and Ravager''s defenders. The two forces agreed to cooperate, under the same secret orders, and they would not rush in uncoordinated, since the defenses would definitely just cut them down. There were snipers shooting down both the 5th''s and B Company''s drones, and they, too, had been shooting down Ravager''s drones since a while ago.

    As far as information warfare went, this was the norm between this world''s most modern forces.

    However, Ravager was not only infamous for his massacres.

    Explosions rained around the 5<sup>th</sup> Riders, spooking some of the horses. They weren''t so untrained for explosives, however, which disappointed the defenders. Still, that was just the welcoming salvo. Wherever the horses went, mortar shells got dropped right on top of them. Some of the shells hit the trees, exploding and spraying wooden splinters to become fragmentary death rain. It was as if the defenders knew in real-time where they were.

    Except, they didn''t.

    Gunfire erupted all across Ravager''s southern defensive positions. It was as if the Riders'' momentum wasn''t even stunted, as if the Riders simply got up from their dead horses and charged onwards regardless.

    Though many of their horses were dead, their riders did not go down with them. A woman followed closely behind the Riders, advising their commander with seemingly-nonsense acts¡ªlike instructing most of the Riders to dismount, and to use the unmounted horses as a ruse to confuse the enemy''s senses. Although it was a guess, she gambled well; the wireless microphones scattered all throughout the battlefield fed the defenders with the sound and trampling of lies and deceit.

    A battle cry rose from one flank, followed by several explosions¡ªthe Riders'' grenadiers assaulted a shallow trench, filling it with grenades, buckshot, and bayonets, to which Ravager''s men responded with their own grenades and pre-sighted mortar fire, halting the assault there. In other places, the Riders were caught in killzones between the defenders'' hidden positions, marking fields of death with Azerkal''s fallen, further inviting the fanatical, militant nobility of Azerkal to come and stake their honor¡ªonly to die.

    But to die in vain, they refused to do. Each person who fell guaranteed that two others would live. They would cross into enemy fire to distract it away from their comrades. They would charge bayonet-first into a foxhole to even just panic the defenders. Even in their last breaths, they would lock eyes with their enemy and crawl towards them, knife in hand and hell to pay.

    It was hell for the defenders, and a dream-like blur of mortality for the Riders.

    To the north, the members of B Company weren''t so eager to die, nor to scream a battlecry. For them, the only battlecry they needed was overwhelming firepower.

    Thick smoke weaved through the forest, while little camo men walked with steady, unerring step. The first shot came from the defenders, and it hit one of the soldiers square in the chest. His buddy pulled him back behind a tree while the rest of his squad leisurely returned fire, keeping to single shots. The bullet cracked his chestplate, and maybe a rib, but he was alive.

    For this operation, Paladin instructed them to spare no munitions. The moment their machine gunners laid a straight line of tracer bullets into the enemy, they launched two grenades into the end of the line. The moment someone put a laser on-target, they dropped another two grenades at the end of the rainbow. The moment there was red smoke, every single squad with line-of-sight to it would drop a grenade into that pot of gold. Their slow march of exploding death blended into the defenders'' own mortar shells, and one too many times did both sides mistakenly call out friendly fire. For both B Company and Ravager''s defenders alike, they were constantly showered by shrapnel and wooden splinters, unknowing of when and where the next shell or grenade would land. Snipers and booby traps prevented B Company from advancing any deeper, and together with the persistent mortar fire, they were accruing casualties at a steady pace. Whether or not they would outlast the defenders was only a matter of time¡ªand munitions.

    Ravager''s mortar crews on the roof of Cryo 6 dropped shells on both the Riders and B Company. Their crews, four soldiers to one such weapon, fed tail-finned, grenade-like bombs through the top of a meter-long tube. It slid down, and, with a thump strong enough to force the firing crew to keep their heads down and their ears cupped, the bomb flew up a high arc, and came down steeply onto its target. Amongst all of the defenders'' implements, these light artillery systems¡ªfour of them in their account¡ªwere their tendrils that reached out and stabbed their opponent from an unstoppable angle. That their shells would occasionally hit the tops of trees, and turn living wood into fragmentary death, only bolstered their effectiveness at suppressing the enemy assault. In fact, these mortars were the sole reason why their tiny force could withstand a concerted attack from an enemy over five times their number.

    That B Company opted to leave their own mortars for the benefit of the defense of Samarin Castle was an oversight on their part.

    Cryo 6''s roof was vast, to say the least, and out-of-sight of the surrounding forest. The mortar crews had fortified their position with sandbags, rubble, and furniture, and kept some counter-snipers on guard, just in case a daredevil climbed up a tree and tried sniping them from there. On the other hand, B Company was much too far to fire grenades with any precision against them. Their grenade launchers were simply far too unstable as a platform.

    Despite this, an explosion hit the roof.

    It was a small explosion, much like a hand grenade, and it was far from any of the mortar crews. However, the fact was that they were being fired upon by some sort of artillery. As professional as they were, they remained calm and assessed the direction of the incoming shells. After a few seconds, there was another explosion, landing 30 meters from one of the crews¡ªthough they were protected by their hastened fortifications, this was dangerously close. That parts of their barricades were chipped off in the blast indicated that they were being hit by fragmentation grenades. If any of those grenades were to detonate in mid-air, they''ll easily have wounded on their hands.

    Even after five such hits against the roof of Cryo 6, none of their spotters could find the source of the bombardment, not by sound nor by sight. Moreover, the precision at which they were receiving the attack implied that the source was within 200 meters of their position, which made absolutely no sense¡ªnone of the enemy had even come within 400 meters of the facility. It certainly would be foolish to sneak behind enemy lines and set up an artillery system inside enemy territory. Had that been the case, they would have heard the weapon being fired well before its munitions struck them.

    That artillery system, however, was Singer.

    He pulled the pin and carefully sleeved the hand grenade inside a can, which kept the grenade''s lever from popping out¡ªits fuze would not yet light, and Singer would not need to praise Heaven for luck. He helicoptered the can over his head with his left hand, then with a slight heave, he allowed the sling to unfurl to its full length.

    His sling extended to its full two meters'' length. No longer could he use just one arm to swing the sling¡ªhe pirouetted his whole body around, allowing the world to spin around him. His experience in drama school¡ª3 years of it¡ªtaught him how to pirouette without losing his sense of direction. Like a ballet dancer, his head remained fixed in a certain direction, towards the roof of Cryo 6, and when his body rotated far enough, his head snapped around and reacquired the target just as easily.

    At two meters long, the sling was no longer a quiet weapon. The air oscillated deeply with each turn, and the noise could be heard up to 50 meters away. The mere sound of it, however, did not draw attention¡ªthe air diluted by the reverberations of gunfire and explosions meandering around the forest.

    With a loud but brief whisp, he loosed the grenade¡ªthe bottom of the can, nothing more than a leather flap, lost its tension and opened willingly for the grenade''s momentum. Not far in the grenade''s flight, its lever snapped away, and the fuze in its bowels spurred alight as it arced above the trees and landed in the midst of a mortar crew.

    Singer looked down at the five "talking sticks" that Frill had left him. From her hidden vantage point up in the trees, she noted that one of the four mortars were obliterated. She yanked on a thin string, and Singer saw that the stick for "Good" fell down. He propped it back up and readied the next grenade.

    It was weird that Jack had carried out a party case of hand grenades back when they first escaped the facility. Good thing Singer remembered where he buried it.

    Losing that one mortar had severely weakened Ravager''s northern defenses. B Company, mistakened but convinced that the enemy mortars had nearly run out of ammunition, pushed for a more determined assault.

    Not long after, the northern defenders faltered, and Ravager gave the order to retreat to a tighter defensive position inside Cryo 6 itself. This placed B Company''s grenade launchers within range of Cryo 6, and they promptly pummeled the roof almost endlessly, forcing the mortar crews to abandon their artillery. Without mortar support, the southern defenders suffered heavier losses during their retreat as the Riders chased them down in a high of vengeance and glory. Taking advantage of the chaos, Neruz and a handful of Parasol commandos infiltrated the facility.

    The fighting carried over in the weaving corridors of Cryo 6, where Ravager fumed at his superiors'' mistake¡ªand the appearance of a third enemy unbound by reason. Even he recognized that this enemy took precedence over something like awakening his infected son from cold sleep. Perhaps, one day, his son could awaken to a more peaceful time, even if he, himself, wouldn''t be there to see it.

    Never mind the Reorganization. They wouldn''t entirely trust Ravager, anyway. The bastards probably had their own agent in the facility the whole time. Said bastards screwed up somewhere¡ªhe was sure¡ªand now he had to clean it up on his own.

 Ch 11 - Why Gun

    <code>Test</code>

    When Jack came to, he was still inside the glass capsule. Ravager was rubbing his head while the lab technician hurried to pack up some equipment.

    "We''ve done you a serious fuckup, Jack," Ravager said. Jack just looked at him. His head hurt, and something felt wrong about his body. He hadn''t the strength to raise a worded question, but the intent must have shown on his face, regardless, since Ravager pre-empted him.

    "It wasn''t you, after all," he explained, "The higher-ups jumped the gun this time, and we all paid for it."

    The phone rang, and he answered.

    "Sir, it''s reached the second basement."

    "Close off the first basement. If it reaches the surface, there won''t be a Cazar left to go home to."

    "Yes, sir. It''s been an honor, sir."

    "I''m sorry we couldn''t go back together. See you on the other side."

    As he returned the phone, muffled machine gun fire racked the hallway behind the laboratory''s door for a good few seconds.

    "I can feel it from here... It''s got a huge influence even from down there, huh," he mumbled to himself.

    The surgical capsule''s glass door popped open, and the lab technician saw to removing the needles and wires coming out of Jack, and finally removing his restraints. Not that he had the strength to move afterwards.

    "Sorry for the trouble, Jack. Looks like I wasted my anger on you."

    As Ravager said this, he placed a lanyard around Jack''s neck, from which dangled an ID card.

    "Bit of a consolation. The turrets won''t lock onto you as long as you have this. You''ll have to go on your own way, I''m sure you understand. Goodbye, then. Sorry for the trouble."

    He placed a loaded revolver and a handful of spare bullets on the desk. With that, he and the lab technician vanished beyond the door.

    Dizzy and faint, Jack sat up and eyed the revolver on the desk¡ªanother consolation, was it? Though it was clear that he had to leave, he only had a dismal amount of strength, and the surgical capsule''s bed tempted him to stay. He elected to duct tape the capsule''s door open and sleep in for a bit. Not even the machine guns on the other side of the door could rouse him.

    * * *

    When he awoke, the guns had gone silent. The lights were still on, and he could still feel the gentle blow of the airconditioning system. It was tempting to stay in such a comfy room, but the cupboards were empty, and the clock was at 4-o''clock. Whether that was in the morning or afternoon, he wasn''t so sure.

    Ravager had left him. "Sorry, we were wrong" was a little bit underwhelming as an excuse. He''d gone through hell because of someone else''s mistake. Something like that¡ªunfair. Unnecessary suffering found him in every turn, and just when he thought he''d settled into some sort of constant, someone would pick him up and kick him out into some other box.

    He picked up the revolver. He hadn''t touched one in his entire life, but there it was in his hands. It only took him a while to figure out what unlatched the cylinder, and just another moment to figure out how to remove bullets from it. It had helped that the revolver''s operation was in plain view¡ªthat the cylinder turned while the trigger traveled, and the cylinder stopped in the briefest moment just before the hammer fell and hit a pin, which hit the rear of the aligned bullet. He fired one such bullet into the desk, confirming what the recoil felt like. The bang wasn''t as loud as he thought, though that could just be the hearing damage from the past two days finally acting up. After removing the spent case¡ªit was still quite warm¡ªand replacing it with a new one, he collected himself.

    The spare bullets, 11 in total, went into a leather satchel he had discovered in one of the desk''s drawers. He wore the RFID lanyard inside his shirt, which was still stained with dirt from the Azerkal-Parasol border, and smelled of long-dried sweat. Looking around the room, there was a pipe wrench under the laboratory''s sink.

    With a revolver in one hand, and a long wrench in the other, he stepped out of the laboratory''s door.

    It was dim, but not dark, only managing to be lit up by the green emergency lights. The corridor leading up to the laboratory''s door was littered with corpses, riddled by machine gun fire. The machine guns themselves, hanging on either side of the ceiling by the door, were pointing downwards¡ªperhaps some sign that they had run out of ammunition. Jack proceeded onward, stepping between the bodies as best as he could. Soon, he had to step on the bodies themselves, as the density of the dead reached to the point that he finally recognized the plug on the end of the corridor.

    It had been filled with corpses, each one trying to climb over the other. He beat on a few of them with the wrench, ascertaining whether they were truly dead or simply dormant. None of them moved.

    With some hesitation, he tugged on their arms and pulled them out of the way, finally managing to clear enough walkspace after the better part of half an hour. He deferred from being in a hurry. He was still tired, probably some mixture of fatigue from the past few days and the physiological drain that a rushed surgery inflicted. Perhaps they had even accidentally forgotten to put something back, or even left something in¡ªwell, anyway, it wasn''t really a problem right now.

    He might die soon, for one reason or another. Regardless, there was something pushing him onward; perhaps some form of nihilistic curiosity about what life looked like in the moments before his end. No, beyond even that, there was a force that was calling to him from somewhere¡ªsomewhere down below.

    He squeezed through the plug of bodies and followed the corridors, passing by empty offices and armories, or whatever these places were. Most of the corpses were wearing civilian clothing from his era, and most of them had decayed appearances; the clothes themselves only looked aged, but the skins of the dead themselves were dessicated. Here and there, however, seemed to be fallen soldiers with modern equipment, and others with antiquated styles. There didn''t seem to be many of them, at least from what he could tell from the bodies that were still relatively intact. They were like bread crumbs that traced the retreat of their comrades.

    For whatever reason, he went the opposite way¡ªtowards the reason for their retreat. He''d shoot it. He''d put all his spite in each of his bullets and shoot it in the face, whatever it was. It was calling him, and he hated it already. The guy just wanted to deliver some pizza and use the cash to fuel his writing gig. That''s all he''d wanted to do.

    He labored to breathe, labored to walk, and labored even to stand. He came into this era as a weak man, and it seemed that he''d be coming out of it as the weakest of all. Even so, it didn''t even take a speck of energy to just pull the trigger. As long as he could do that even once, he''d be happy.

    See that guy on the floor? Half his torso''s gone, but his trigger finger never let go¡ªhe thought, looking to a dead man for inspiration. A trail of bodies died reaching for, but never quite reaching, the soldier in question, proof to him that there were still impressive ways to die.

    He reached a blast door that had only managed to close halfway. A red warning light on the far wall spun ''round and ''round without so much as a sound. A number of bodies died fanning out¡ªcrawling out of the mouth of the blast door. It was like a diorama of some nth circle of hell, souls trying to escape its gate before it swallowed them whole, their dry, trunk-like faces lighting up in intervals as the warning light spun about.

    He ducked under the door, expecting to find cerberus or some other disappointed gatekeeper.

    Instead, he found Ravager. In the wide underground space, what looked like rugged shipping containers had been tossed about. Ravager leaned against one of them, right by the blast door. He was missing his left arm. Just past him, there were many other body parts and rifles thrown about.

    "You came down here? That''s amazing."

    His voice was weak, but he still managed to tilt his head towards Jack. He chuckled with a bloodied cough at the absurdity of a civilian willingly coming down here. Jack walked over and crouched by him, finally noticing that many other wounds covered the commander''s body, entire chunks of him gouged out.

    "It''s still here. It moves fast. You''ll lose a limb just to make it keep still for a second," he advised, waving his red-black stump, the bandage around it already dripping blood. The man laughed as he did, which, Jack admitted, was somehow pretty funny under the circumstances. "The skin''s too hard¡ªtry the eyes. Maybe the nose and mouth, too, while you''re at it. It shields itself with its arms."Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

    "That''s it?"

    "Don''t follow me where I''m going. Good luck."

    Ravager didn''t even close his eyes. He just laughed, then stopped moving. Not that Jack thought much about the man. He stood and got moving.

    Ahead of him, about 50 meters away, a small hallway of pure fluorescent white beckoned to him, and so he moved towards it. There was no plan. There was little chance of him doing anything smart or fancy in his condition. He had a wrench in his right hand, a revolver in his left, and a pouch of 11 bullets, for a total of 17 bullets at his disposal.

    As he got closer, the form of the hallway became much clearer. By the mouth of the hallway, one ceiling turret hung with its gun pointed down, while another turret had been ripped out of its mount, electrical wiring frayed out and unfired bullets scattered. The hallway itself was like an overlarge shaft that extended out of the ground on one end, bent to become horizontal, then extended another 100 meters to meet the machine guns. It was nothing but a dedicated kill corridor, meant to contain or stall whatever came from the lower levels.

    That two machine guns¡ªboth of a caliber much larger than those that guarded the laboratory¡ªcould not stop whatever killed Ravager and his men, only meant that Jack had very little chance to kill whatever thing it was.

    Little did that matter to him. As long as he could royally piss it off, then something else on this earth could feel the same thing he did. Shame that Ravager was too dead for him to piss off, too.

    He stepped foot in the corridor. Blood painted the otherwise-white corridor¡ªevidence that the guns had consistently hit their target, but also evidence that the target ignored such damage.

    On the other end, a shadow lept up from below. At this distance, they were nothing more than vague figures to each other, nothing more than something else to attack.

    The shadow charged¡ªsprinted straight ahead with reckless abandon. Jack, too weak to reciprocate, idly stood his ground. His heart slowed, and he accepted his fate. It shields itself with its arms¡ªthat''s what Ravager said, wasn''t it? He couldn''t just shoot it in the face while it charged him. He really, really wanted to piss it off, and doing something that anyone else would do wouldn''t piss it off.

    He waited, and waited, and the shadow grew larger. It took another step, and it wasn''t a shadow to him anymore, but a raging, damned spirit¡ªsomething that hated life and absolutely wanted Jack gone, but Jack wouldn''t go, not even in the face of its jutting spines, black veins that spread like roots across its pale skin. Two arms, two legs, one head¡ªbarely qualifying as human-like. Its mouth gaped, more like a maw of two rows of serrated teeth, and its eyes sharpened into slits¡ªa vision so narrow that saw only its prey.

    Even so, until the penultimate moment, Jack stayed his hand. The monster lept.

    He stabbed both the revolver and the wrench into its maw.

    The momentum of its diving charge started to push Jack''s arm into his body, and in turn, he started to fall on his back. Even then, his grip was strong, and the revolver never fell away; the barrel never left the monster''s jaws. It tried to bite down, and Jack felt the points of its teeth dance over the skin of his wrist, but the pipe wrench, spread to its widest, kept its maw propped open.

    The force of his back hitting the floor sent an electric shock up his spine, to which his brain replied: squeeze.

    The bullet dug into the back of the monster''s mouth, and the explosion that followed flooded through every other orifice. Gore and gunpowder ricocheted inside its own mouth, some of it erupting out onto Jack, who felt the arms and hands that grappled him twitch.

    For a moment, he could not escape its grasp, but he felt no resistance from it, either. He pried its arms away from him, and, lacking the strength to push it away, he squirmed from out underneath it.

    He was alive. Somehow, he was alive. Lying beside it, he saw that it was still breathing, and its slit eyes still radiated hate and looked at him with contempt and hunger.

    I pissed it off! His half-assed attempt had managed to bring down an impossible enemy. He had the sudden idea to rub this shit in Ravager''s competent face.

    Though, the thing''s twitching was growing stronger. Now that he had a chance, Jack got up on his knees and crawled over closer to the monster. Again, he shoved the revolver into its mouth and fired. Its twitching weakened, but it was still breathing. It wasn''t enough. All of his problems were right in front of him, and he could physically shoot it in the face. He''d kill it. He''d absolutely kill it.

    He kept shooting into its mouth until it was drowning in its own gore. When he ran out of bullets, he leisurely popped open the cylinder and emptied the spent cases over the monster''s face. One by one, new bullets found their seats in the cylinder. With a close, snap, and click, he pointed the revolver into the monster''s eye. The iris sharpened with fuming rage before he blasted it off, not once, but thrice. Three bullets per eye¡ªits breathing stopped, but it was still twitching.

    He said to try the nose too, huh¡ªhe thought back to Ravager''s advice. He sprinkled spent cases over the monster''s face once more, and, loading his last five bullets, he put two rounds through each nostril. He wished for the strength to imagine that the monster''s brain had become a puree of brain matter, its skull and tissue too thick for bullets to pass through.

    Well. Anyway. It''s dead.

    No breathing, no twitching, and no rage¡ªthe heat from its body dissipated, and so did Jack''s purpose here.

    Maybe he could find something like a pizza delivery job in this world. There was a coup in Samarin, so maybe they needed delivery boys or something. The pay might be shit, but at least he could fuel his writing gig with it or something. Neruz''s writing desk looked nice. He vaguely remembered an unused brick oven there as well. Singer asked about pizza back then, didn''t he? So pizza doesn''t exist here? He could totally reintroduce pizza and make a killing.

    He steadied himself to stand. He gave the monster one last glance. Perhaps it hated being alive just as much as it hated the living.

    Well. Anyway. It''s dead.

    As he limped away and reached the blast door exit, all the while letting a feeling of soreness envelop his body, something moved in the corner of his eye. Ravager reached out to him with its one good arm. He hadn''t noticed earlier, but both of its legs had been broken. All it could do now was reach out.

    Jack stepped up, just out of reach of him. "Thanks for the advice," he said. He pointed the revolver at his head and fired. Ravager joined his men.

    "Friend."

    Jack turned to see Neruz by the blast door. Parasol commandos were already spread out around the area. Some of them went to checking the monster.

    Neruz''s mission ended here, as only Parasol''s agents knew what else laid waiting in the lower levels. He escorted Jack out of the facility, shouldering him as he drifted in and out of lucidity. Out in the helipad, Singer and Frill were waiting. There were no smiles nor celebrations. Jack removed his revolver from his satchel. He popped out the cylinder and carefully extracted a single spent case, and handed it to Frill. She only looked at it for a moment, then understood what it meant.

    Jack hadn''t noticed¡ªa crashed helicopter smoldered over the twisted and bent chainlink fence of the helipad. Two of Parasol''s soldiers chatted idly by an armored car outside the warehouse entrance, sharing swigs from a flask of what couldn''t be anything other than alcohol, as if the place wasn''t a danger zone.

    "It had already escaped," Neruz explained, "It reached as far as here, and we only managed to drive it back to its retreat. Even if you had killed it, the air spreads its contagion, now. We were too late."

    Ah, so the soldiers weren''t relaxed. They were resigned.

    "Then, everyone here¡ª"

    "Survivors," Neruz replied, "It was only fate''s consolation that the three of us already knew enough of this facility to hide."

    Glances and gazes passed between the four of them. They each knew that there was nothing left for any of them, and all of their lives had already ended. Frill''s ended when she hunted Ravager, and he was already dead, and it wasn''t even by her clan''s hand. Singer''s ended when there were no more safe places to bring people to¡ªonly more war. Neruz''s ended when Parasol and Azerkal failed to contain the threat within Cryo 6, and thus the world once again faced a scourge; as an agent, he was no longer needed.

    And Jack''s life ended the moment he woke up.

    His knees buckled, and Neruz carefully let him down on the floor. He called for a nearby medic, who was busy tending to bodybags by the side. The guy jogged over and looked much too delighted to find someone who, though messed up as Jack was, was actually alive.

    It was empty. He had a life as empty as the gun in his hand. Being left with nothing but an empty gun, one kinda-friend, and two kinda-acquaintances, in the middle of a secret-nowhere while Joe and Bob over there drowned their optimisms away in liquor¡ªit didn''t make sense.

    The battle''s survivors spent the night in the warehouse, gathered around barrel fires and keeping watch¡ªfor threats within and without. Zombies prowled the shadows, and their rations dwindled. Someone like Jack was a liability in the coming days, but people like Neruz, Singer, and Frill did not mind.

    * * *

    Gathered around the fires, survivors stood. He needed to stand, but he couldn''t, so he asked for a hand, then a shoulder, then a crutch.

    Traveling through the night, survivors feared. He needed to walk, but he couldn''t, so he asked for a cart, and a helper, then a torch.

    Stalking the wilderness, survivors hunted. He needed prey, but couldn''t hunt, so he asked for a knife, a pot, then a fire.

    Lined against the barricades, survivors fought. He needed to fight, but he couldn''t wield the shield, so he asked for a gun, a bullet, then a target.

    As to why he lived, the power of one man was the power of many;

    Steel forged by factories

    Barrels bored by lathes

    Bullets cast in places

    Where gunpowder waits

    Woe be the many

    For those that they shun

    Humbled be the strong

    When the weak hold the gun