The Reaper’s Legion
Chapter 91
Liberation Radio
-Alice P.O.V.-
I turned my attention to Richard, fragments of the glass window we’d destroyed still laying across several parts of the room.
“Alright, we’re ready to start,” he nodded to me, “at least, I think so. I have no idea how this stuff works, honestly.”
The man that stood next to him, the only one who we had stayed behind in the radio control room tower nodded emphatically, “I-it’ll work. I still don’t know why you want this-” he quickly gestured defensively, “-not that I need to know. Can I leave now?”
Richard glanced up at me, seeing me shrug. “Yeah, just as soon as we test it.”
He was sweating profusely, not that I could blame him for being afraid. We’d come up four stories into a building, broken in the window, and effectively took control of the most important part of the building in the span of thirty seconds. No one had been injured, and hiding in another building nearby was our lookout in case anyone was coming to stop us early. Arthur didn’t exactly have a method to scale walls, not like Richard and myself, so we decided his team would be better off just being on the sidelines.
“Alright,” I took a deep breath, linking my obelisk to the modified radio station controls in front of me. There was a light buzz on the back of my hand, the gemstone resting there the physical manifestation of anyone connected to the Obelisks. Through it, I dully felt the connection to the controller, and with a thought I could activate it.
There was no resistance as I accessed an official channel-at least I assumed it to be. The thing was digitally tagged as ‘Caution - Official Channel’ and had a sub tag stating that it was absolutely not to be used for test communications. I snorted at that, knowing that this may as well have been a test communication for all my lack of public speaking.
‘No, no cold feet, Alice, you got this.’ I blew a long breath from my lungs, idly uploading the data packet that Matthew put together for me. That was our evidence, our comparisons and thoughts, the structure of our government in Gilramore, the who, what, and why of our people. It was strange, thinking of another city as a completely different people. A little over two years ago, we were all one nation. Now? It had so quickly devolved into an ‘everyone for themselves’ free-for all bonanza that it made my head spin to think about it.
‘But no more,’ I thought with determination. If we all died from biotics, I wanted humanity to at least have been unified in defeat. What was happening here disgusted me, and I knew that it wasn’t going to be uncommon to see this. How many places and people had fallen prey to the same methodology? Us vs. them? To keep and hoard that which should be shared in order to further the communal good.
I hadn’t seen myself as much of a one-for-all kind of person before the apocalypse, but my perspective had certainly changed. We needed to be working together in order to survive this. The monsters outside our gates didn’t care what our political allegiances were.
With that thought in mind, I turned the man waiting eagerly to bolt for the door. “Thanks, you should probably go.”
The man blinked and then turned, moving with a few glances over his shoulder. He was probably not sure how to feel about us being as polite and kind as we were, in spite of the fact that we were, in fact, hijacking the radio station.
I chuckled at that.
“Fun times we live in,” Richard commented with a grin.
“That they are,” I shook my head, shaking my hands as though I could rid them of the jitters that rolled through me.
“You’ll do great,” he said, “besides, we won’t have to do this for very long. At worst, you can tell them to look at the packet of info you’ve got there and let them digest it.”
I scoffed, but couldn’t keep the amusement from showing on my face, “I don’t think that’d be distracting enough. Not that I’m keen on going live on the radio.”
“We fight for our lives every day,” he shook his head in amusement, “and yet somehow public speaking is daunting.”
Helplessly, I shook my head, “it is what it is.”
Richard stood next to the controller as tense as I was, “alright, you ready?”
“Yeah!” I cried out, trying to hype myself up. He didn’t flinch at the outburst, having gotten used to how animated I could be. Thankfully.
“Five seconds,” he put up his hand, “four, three,” and then only mouthed the countdown, letting his fingers do the talking.
I dug in deep then, thinking of all the people I’d ever spoken to, all the friends I’d ever made. I imagined that they were my audience, trying to piece together an audience that I wanted, that I needed to have.
People who weren’t strangers, but instead close to me. And I put myself in the crowd.
I knew that I’d want to be saved in a situation like this one. I imagined what I would feel like if I had been living in these circumstances, if in the beginning I wasn’t in Gilramore, but had been in Sunvilla from the onset.
I imagined a jaded, hungry, afraid version of myself, living on between biotic attacks in the night and the constant, grating tension between Mack and Benjamin. The unknown that was Gerry casting everything into yet another layer of uncertainty.
When the broadcast came live, I felt a solemness rise within my chest and knew that I could do this. Not just for the Legion, but for those here that wanted for something more, something hopeful.
“My name is Alice DeLeon.” I started, “I ask that everyone who can hear me now take the time to listen closely to what I’m about to tell you. At this moment, we have confiscated the use of the radio tower here in Sunvilla in order to speak to all of you. You, a people who have lived under harsh and ruthless conditions and may doubt every word I say to you now.”
At that moment, Richard sent the data packet across the comms, the Obelisk allowing it to transfer from the official channel to everyone in the city. “What you’ve just received is equal parts evidence and promise to you all; that the way you are living is not the only way, and that we will save you from your circumstances. We are from Gilramore and have reclaimed Damond, a people united as one to fight against biotics. Our people are not hungry, not oppressed, and live as best as one might expect in the apocalypse.”
“I know you’ll probably doubt us, and that’s alright. Between Mack Thompson and Benjamin Hart, you all have been told so many things that you don’t know who or what to believe, if you’ve even thought to question how things are. What I was here to tell you was that we are here, and to allow us to do our work without your action,” I paused then, “but that is no longer the case.”
Richard tilted his head at that and looked to me with a question on his tongue, but waited to see what I was going to say instead. He trusted me, though I could see that he wanted to keep this to the general script we’d had in mind. All we needed from these people was their neutrality, just the willingness to do nothing, something that would have been easy given how little it would cost them. They stood the world to gain and nothing to lose, not that most of them could get to the Obelisk in time to do anything at this point anyways. Benjamin and Mack would be hard pressed to send any more personnel to the Obelisk to defend it as well. Everything would depend on their preparation to this point.
But for the people, what would that mean? That they would have no hand in how they were saved? To me, that wasn’t right. I’d seen my family, I’d seen the people around living some simile of normality that was hollow, one step away from falling apart. Even here, in the supposedly ‘upper class’ area that Benjamin controlled, I could see the people happy only in comparison to the squalor that Mack’s people lived in.
When a food stand was viewed as the height of luxury, there was something very wrong with the situation. Where electricity was reserved for only the elite and critical tools - like this very radio tower - and other resources were directed to those who pandered to the top dog.
It was that exact situation that Gilramore had sought to extinguish with extreme prejudice.
The people deserved more, and they deserved to know it.
“Now, as I speak to you all, having seen the way you are all forced to live, the fear of what is lurking just outside of your walls, I find my words failing me. I cannot express how it hurts to see my home town like this; you’re forced to turn on eachother like animals, you fear being dragged away in the night by biotics, and worse yet, the future is not filled with hope, but despair. Yet there are people among you that gain in strength, that abuse your trust and condition,” I grit my teeth for a moment, voice shaking as I continued, “your supposed leaders have been lying to you. We’re here to remove that power that hangs over you, but you deserve more. You deserve the one thing stolen from you that we can’t give you back. Sunvilla, we of The Reaper’s Legion call upon you to reclaim your pride. Stand up with us, all of you, whether you be civilian or soldier, now is the time to share in your liberation!”
I felt zeal and fire in my gut as I spoke, passion in my words. It was strange, I’d never thought I would have fun saying this. Even so, I knew the words I was saying would create conflict, but I couldn’t stop, something within me looked at Sunvilla and felt a raw, clawing outrage for what had been done to my family, my city, my home.
“To those who work alongside Mack and Benjamin, I ask you to stand down. Now is not the time to lose your lives in a transition that will happen. The Legion comes, and we will tear down this order and build it anew, the question is where you’ll stand at the end of the day. Against the people, or with them?” I paused, feeling my heart thrumm with a strange kind of elation.
In the distance, I heard several explosions, a dull thunder rolling through my chest as I looked out the window. It was in the direction of the Obelisk, a conflict that would be heard all across the city.
‘Well, looks like Matthew’s gotten started,’ I smiled, hoping that we could make this transition as bloodless as possible, and knowing that my words had virtually guaranteed that it wouldn’t happen.
“It has begun, people of Sunvilla,” I spoke, “I hope that you will stand with us, set your fear aside and look not at despair for what you have now, but hope for what you can have together with us. This has been Alice DeLeon of The Reaper’s Legion, with love.”
Richard cut the connection there with a quirk of his eyebrow as I reddened.
“With love?” He paused, “that’s a unique closing.”
“Shut up! Ah, crap! I didn’t mean to say that, it just happened!” I clawed at my helmet, “aaaaah, that’s soooo embarrassing!”
Richard laughed heartily, “you did great, though. That was way better than what I had planned.”
“I just hope… well, I don’t want people to get hurt.” I said, seeing the way he shifted on his back feet, packing together a few devices and throwing them haphazardly into corners of the room and in the center of the room.
He turned to me and spoke seriously, “Alice, people were bound to get hurt either way. While I might not exactly be an advocate for faith in humanity, I do believe you gave them the choice that everyone should have. Hell, I know that if I was in this situation and heard you, believed you, I’d want to have my shot at revenge.”
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“Uh… the point isn’t revenge, though?” I blinked, “it’s to reclaim some human dignity?”
“Eh,” he shrugged, “I think it’d be both for me. Ready to go?”
Helplessly I nodded, knowing that there were some things that Richard felt strongly over. He could be a bit prideful at times.
We both took a running stance, low to the ground as our respective suits flexed. With a burst of movement we blasted out of the window, going across the street to a building one floor lower and landing, Richard rolling to disperse momentum and I cantered to a stop with my stilt augmented legs.
Behind us, the chemical pods that Richard had planted mixed the varied materials within, sizzling for a moment before small explosions went off, chemical acids eating into the equipment and ruining it.
“They probably have more radio towers somewhere.” I noted idly as Richard glanced towards the Obelisk.
“Probably, but how long will it take for them to set it up? I imagine that the battle at the Obelisk will be long over before they get that done.” He smirked, leaning down and sitting on the rooftop.
“What are you doing?” I asked in confusion.
He patted the spot next to him with a wide smile, “our parts done. I don’t think we’d get there in time to do anything meaningful, so why not just enjoy the wonderful weather?”
That moment a much louder chain of explosions rang out in the direction of the Obelisk.
We glanced at each other, “alright, so I guess we can go that way anyways.”
I sat down next to him, much to his surprise, “I’m pretty sure we’d be late to the party, anyways. Right?”
He grinned widely, “definitely.”
Together we idly noted the fact that the sounds of combat was dwindling by the second after the explosions. Neither of us were worried, though.
Knowing Matthew, he probably caused most of those explosions.
-Matthew P.O.V.-
I heard the broadcast, though it was sorted to the back of my mind as I expanded my awareness to Strauss’ team. Alice was doing quite well, and her broadcast paired nicely with the start of Gerry’s assault. They raced forward in an assortment of power armors and vehicles, a few full-blown mechs leading the attack. It annoyed me to see that all of this had been prepared already, but I filed my discontent with Gerry away. Later I might deal with it, or leave it to Bulwark to sort out. I’d hold up my end of the deal, even if I felt incredible disdain for being blackmailed.
Funny how that worked. Maybe I’d refrain from blackmailing others in the future.
Maybe.
“We’re starting,” I heard Strauss say just before mortars rained down around the defenses around the Obelisk. Many of them fell short, the point of the attack being to harass and annoy, rather than kill or cripple. They aimed primarily at the structures themselves, trying to avoid clumps of people.
The return volley fell short or went wide, Gerry made sure his forces were spread out and in defensible positions. Those that weren’t were hardy enough to tank a few shots without difficulty.
They approached closer, a steel line of mechs arranging themselves and blasting away with little decorum. Cannon fire roared from their shoulder mounted weapons and tore into the defensive ring around the Obelisk. The walls stood at ten meters tall, hardly the largest in the city, but were far more durable than the haphazard collections around the encampments.
It grated my nerves to see such a blatant shift in priority, but I couldn’t be surprised to see it. So far I was glad that Legion wouldn’t be responsible for any of the legal pursuits that would come after all of this. It was enough that we’d meddled in civic affairs as is, the last thing I needed was to set the precedent that we were judge, jury, and executioner.
If they turned up dead, though, I certainly wouldn’t mind.
Part of the wall shifted as cannon fire punched a two meter-diameter hole into it, the top of the wall somehow still maintaining structural integrity. All around the wall I witnessed both groups elites shift towards that side of the wall, shock wearing off as they clicked into gear.
Unlike a trained force, though, they left far fewer people on the other side of the wall than they should have. Never before did the wall get attacked, there being no reason for anyone to go near the Obelisk these days.
All of this happened far beneath me, my vantage point several hundreds of meters in the air. Shade hummed, an urge more of a question reaching across to me.
I grinned, “go, but make sure to bombard the ground around the Obelisk first, just in case.”
The engines surged, vibrating the hull mildly as we went from our hovering position to a dive.
Weapons unfurled from the belly of the craft, lances on the front of the craft opened, firing shells that pelted the ground punishingly. Smaller weapons fired from beneath and the sides of the shade. Though, ‘small’ was highly subjective - they were still the same size as the cannons Gerry’s mechs were using. A pair of fully automatic metal spitting rapid fire cannons began spinning then. They were similar to vulcan cannons on gunships, though were augmented with pseudo-railgun technology. The rifling spun the projectiles for greater accuracy.
The result of the hail of gunfire lead many to turn their heads in terror, the sounds of a gunship not something many below had ever heard.
It was with no small amount of terror that even those fully armored in power armor ducked behind whatever cover they could find.
Already bullets tore into the ground around the Obelisk, sweeping in a grid pattern from several barrels, correcting their aim as we approached. Shade cackled excitedly at the display, especially when the mines hidden beneath the ground began to explode.
Fire and smoke exploded up into the air, instantly shrouding the Obelisk and ourselves in our own veritable smoke screen. The craft beneath my feet closed intake ports, relying on momentum and self contained propellant units that didn’t require the presence of air to use.
Ten seconds of sustained firing had turned the area around the Obelisk into a warzone, gaping, smoldering, and sometimes burning craters pocked the earth.
“Reaper, the hell was that?” I heard Jeremy ask, voice between concern and hysterical laughing, “we felt that from here!”
“Just a minefield,” I smiled, “think you can keep their attention?”
“Well, I can’t say I can do better than that-” I noted the plume of black smoke that limited my visibility on the visual spectrum to nil, “-but they’d be stupid to ignore what we’re doing right now.”
I nodded, wondering what they were up too.
And then saw Denise pull out the larger grenade launcher she kept on her back, a triple barreled abomination that connected into a deep backpack, one that I recognized had its own power supply.
I blinked at that, ‘is that an ammo storage bin?’
My question was answered after as the three tubes began to spit grenade after grenade down range, hammering into the wall at six a second. The grenades themselves were on a level of destructive that outclassed my Reaver Claymore grenades.
The wall bucked after four seconds, beginning to sway as the grenades - to my surprise - were punching deep into the solid material. Perhaps they’re more similar to my shaped charge grenades than I’d thought.
“We’re landing now, shouldn’t take me long.”
“Good, I don’t want to say take your time, but,” I heard Denise say, “we’ve got plenty of grenades.”
Shade came to land, Determinators stepping off of it and spreading out around the Obelisk, bringing their shields to bare. A pair of them tested my route closer to the Obelisk, and the rest walked in the areas that Shade had ‘tested’ with it’s attack.
Coming beside them, I knew that the only thing I’d rather have at my side would be my team, and honestly, the Determinators were better in some ways.
At the worst, if their bodies were destroyed they’d just have their consciousness still hidden away within my processes. Living people… well, not so much.
I could feel some of the Determinators giving the background equivalent of thumbs up to each other in the wake of my seeming recognition of their superiority.
With a chuckle, I retrieved the core from my bag, feeling my connection to it as I put a hand on the Obelisk.
[System recognizes interactable material ‘Biotic Core, Gen 1’. Assimilation possible.] The message came to me, surprising me as it sounded like a dispassionate and hollow version of Sis.
‘Ah, it’s the automatic sub-system. Makes sense, since this Obelisk was modified.’ I clicked my tongue in frustration.
I pushed my awareness to the Obelisk, attempting to interact with the sub-system.
[Warning: Unauthorized access will result in lockout.]
‘Alright, so brute force isn’t an option,’ I sighed, feeling for any kind of input system.
I reflected on how it felt when I was moving through the data channels that Sis had in place when I’d managed to piggy-back on her conversation with the Council. Slowly I remembered the feeling of those connections, how to interact with them. It didn’t take long, likely only seconds in reality, before my mental body was able to interact with the coding like it was natural.
The core vibrated at my side, and I felt for the connection the Obelisk established to it. From there, I was able to see densely packed bits of information, and carefully I moved between them. So long as I didn’t interfere with anything, the system was content with ignoring me.
When I finally found the other bundle of data similar in feel to the one that the Obelisk wanted to establish now, I realized that this wouldn’t be quite so easy as to just remove the other cores and their settings.
The information, as I parsed through it, was related to a permissions and taxation on transactions. I frowned as I looked at it, feeling inherently that the system must have had an error when these were installed. The permissions portion seemed to have interfered with the Obelisks general management functions.
This had happened when Sis was first fully initializing with the Obelisks all around the Earth, so there was a distinct possibility that this wasn’t necessarily how this system should have worked. I’d have to check with her later to see.
For now, I’d figured out how to fix this. The Obelisk itself would refresh when I added this core, so Sis would be able to fully interact with this device in the first place. Then, anyone would be able to add a core to make modifications, though she probably wouldn’t allow one like this again. She was a learning system, and after seeing how this played out, I’m sure that permissions in regards to Obelisk access would probably be carefully monitored going forward.
I created a data framework and filled it out, having, effectively, the opposite of every setting that the first core had. This would repeal it, but wouldn’t have any other effect.
Fortunately for us we didn’t need this Obelisk to do anything but the generic.
Though, I grinned as I considered one other tiny thing I could modify.
“And… there we go.” I breathed, allowing the Obelisk to accept the core. All at once I felt my mind sink back into my body, something that would have rocked me on my feet just a short while ago. I’d adjusted well to this dual existence, and was able to watch the silvery substance envelope the core and melt into the base of the black structure.
[Obelisk updating… refresh occurring… please wait…] The message shot through my mind, as well as the minds of every individual in Sunvilla.
It didn’t seem to have taken long, but around me I realized that it had been longer than I’d thought it was. There were five Determinators that were heavily damaged, most of them having formed a shield wall around my position.
I felt their consciousness as they stoically endured the long range shots from anti-material rifles. The firepower they’d had to endured declined sharply over time, not the least of which was at the end of Alice’s speech.
It surprised me that any of those here had done so, but I supposed that seeing was believing. They knew I was here, and after firing for what had been a few minutes in reality, they’d seemingly come to their own conclusions about how this would end.
Shade had helped, of course, hammering several of the more offensive positions and, to my surprise, turning the automated turrets against the defenders on Benjamin’s side.
Mack’s people had been devastated by Gerry and Strauss’ attacks, early thirty meters of wall in shambles and simply being expanded from there. The defenders knew then that they could have suffered far heavier casualties than they had, but in truth there were far more injured than dead.
The fact that there were still dead rankled me, but I couldn’t be naive, this was probably the best case scenario.
[Obelisk update and refresh complete. Thank you for your patience.]
People all along the wall, attackers and defenders alike, stopped.
The people on the walls checked the situation with the store with mixtures of dread and shock, perhaps not having considered the possibility that this could have happened.
On our side, I could hear the cheering from here, the stark difference driving the point home even further.
Tapping into the Obelisk, I broadcast my simple message to the city.
“This is the Reaper of the Legion. Sunvilla, you have been liberated.” I smiled, “cease conflict and savor in this victory. It is long overdue.”
The defenders seemed at odds with what to do, but as Shade made a lap around the wall, seeming to dare them into action, the reality of the situation settled in.
There was nothing left for them to fight for.