Sergeant Quintin Huxley dashed through the jungle as it disintegrated around him. A storm of bullets ripped through the dewy undergrowth, filling the air with equal parts fresh mown lawn, toasted sawdust, and gunpowder.
The bullets buzzed past like angry hornets and blasted chunks out of the nearby trees, but the squad of nine child soldiers could barely control their oversized weapons and Hux stayed one step ahead of them.
He already plugged their handler, and now it was just a matter of baiting the amped up coke heads into wasting the rest of their ammunition.
One bullet clipped his shoulder, knocking him forward. Hux committed to the fall, diving into a roll.
“Fuck.” He cursed as he landed on the fresh wound, but he didn’t stop moving forward. These kids might be bad shots, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t get lucky.
“You okay sarge?” Whiz’s strained voice crackled from his earpiece.
“Approaching Waypoint Alpha,” he advised his team. “Targets are still active, hold position.”
A glowing tracer round lanced over Hux’s shoulder and he dove behind another tree.
“Screw that.” Bill said “You’re a sitting duck.”
“Hold position and hold fire. That’s an order.”
Hux vaulted over a fallen log, slid down a muddy slope on the other side, and dove over a briar patch, rolling behind another tree just as a fresh wave of bullets poured down the slope after him. Damn those kids were fast. Two more streams of bullets cut off and Hux peeked around the trunk to see muddy kids with sticks and leaves in their hair charging down the hill, several falling hard but scrambling up to their feet again as if they couldn’t feel pain.
Hux pushed off of the tree, deliberately exposing himself once again to draw out more fire. This time a bullet found the back of his knee and he went down hard. More bullets buzzed overhead, and buried themselves in the dirt all around him. Hux rolled himself into a depression between tangled tree roots as he was showered with dirt and splinters.
Another stream of bullets ceased, then another. Then the last three sputtered out. Shrill voices screamed for my blood and Hux peeked out of cover to see a pack of knife wielding children bearing down on him. They had emaciated faces and sunken eyes with a manic gleam to them. They looked like tortured souls fresh from hell.
“Now.” He commanded.
“Flash out!” Several voices shouted at once. Some of the kids stopped, staring in several different directions as they recognised that they were surrounded. Most kept going forward, driven by bloodlust. Hux covered his eyes as a trio of canisters tumbled to the ground at their feet.
All three flashbangs went off within a second and Huxley’s fire team leapt on them instantly. They disarmed the children with practiced efficiency while they were still reeling. The blinded, deafened little monsters still fought back ferociously, biting and clawing at anyone who touched them. Their flailing did little against veteran soldiers in full kit. They were quickly knocked down and secured with zip ties.
Hux sat up with a wince and Whiz rushed over, dropping his medkit and snapping it open.
“Dammit Sarge. I told you this was too reckless.” He admonished while pulling sanitized tools from plastic sleeves.
“I have to do something dumb every now and then.” Hux winced “Keeps me from getting promoted out of the field. Besides, It worked, didn’t it?”
“You got shot! That’s a fail in my books.”
“It’s not that bad. What’s a soldier without a few scars?”
“Your kneecap is gone, sarge.”
Hux looked down at his mangled knee.
“Oh.” he said, sounding surprised.
“Yeah, oh.” Whiz dug into Huxleys leg with gleaming steel forceps, looking for the artery which was gushing blood.
Huxley gritted his teeth, but only grunted.
“I couldn’t do it.” he muttered, “I couldn’t give the order to kill them.”
Whiz clamped onto the artery and stapled it shut. Then he poured more IPA over the wound before wrapping it in bandages.
“Well don’t expect to walk again anytime soon after a stunt like that. I wouldn’t be surprised if you end up behind a desk permanently after this.”
Huxley looked over at the struggling kids.
“It was worth it.”
One of the kids slipped a hand free, yelled something hateful, and reached into his pocket.
A fireball tore apart the clearing and everyone in it. Whiz partially shielded Hux from the blast, but it threw his body across the depression Hux was still lying in, pushing his head to the side. Hux felt an awful snap in his neck and the pain from his shoulder and knee abruptly ceased. Another, much worse pain took its place.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
His eyes snapped open, It was painfully bright, and an angel leaned in over him. Her gentle smile reminded Hux where he was. Where he had been for months now.
“It’s okay,” she stroked Hux’s head. “It was just a dream.”
The rapid beeping of Huxley's heart monitor slowed and the wooshing machine that breathed for him quieted.
“You’re safe now.”
But Huxley didn’t want to be safe. He didn’t deserve to be safe.
“There there.” Grace cooed. “It’s all in the past.”
Huxley looked down at where she gripped his hand. He couldn’t feel it, he couldn’t squeeze back. When his heart rate steadied out she went back to his sponge bath. He blushed with embarrassment as she cleaned his withering body. It wasn’t as mortifying as it was when the gorgeous bombshell first started taking care of him, but the helplessness and the humiliation still got to him.
“Why?” a flat toneless voice asked from the speaker mounted over his bed. Hux could still move his mouth and form the words, but his lungs were hooked up to life support and couldn’t push air across his vocal chords even if they weren’t paralyzed.
Grace stopped to give Hux her undivided attention. Large amber eyes, so full of caring.
“Why what?”
“Why do you waste your time with me? There have to be others you can help. People who can heal, people who can live again.”
“Don’t be silly,” She tweaked Huxley’s nose “You volunteered to go through hell so people like me don’t have to. It’s an honor to help you in any way I can.”
“Then turn off my breathing machine.”
“That’s a hard no Sergeant. Not after I went to all the trouble of arranging a surprise visitor for you!”
The beeping heart monitor sped up again.
“You did what?”
“Oh, I might have written a few, hundred, letters on behalf of some of my patients. I just thought you all could use a little something to boost your spirits.”
“I don’t want anyone to see me like this.”
“And my children don’t want to eat their vegetables, but this will be good for you and I won’t hear another word against it. I’ll send him a message saying that you’re eager to meet.”
She pulled a glossy transparent phone out of her pocket and sent off a message that was clearly drafted beforehand.
“I won’t do it.”
“You will, and you will be pleasant unless you want me to leave Enya playing on a loop by accident.”
“You wouldn’t.”
She arched an eyebrow.
“Is that a risk you’re willing to take?”
The Lifesupport beeped, clicked, and wooshed for a few seconds before she smirked.
“I knew you would see things my way.”
Her phone chimed and she glanced down.
“Looks like he just finished up with another patient. Let me finish getting you cleaned up and then you can have a nice visit.”
“This better not be a clown, I hate clowns.”
It wasn’t a clown, it was even worse. A clean cut suit wearing a man with greasy, slicked black hair stepped into the room a few minutes later.
“Sergeant Huxley! What an honor it is to meet you. I am Samuel Bennett Jr. and I represent OtherRealms Incorporated.”
Grace pushed fingers into her cheeks behind his back, forcing her lips into an exaggerated smile.
“Drop the kiss ass routine.”
Grace facepalmed.
“Oh,” Sam removed his square rimmed glasses and began cleaning them, “Very well then.”
“I am sorry Mr Bennett, Sergeant Huxley is having a rough day.”
He replaced his glasses.
“Not at all, not at all. I would be more than a little frustrated myself if I got all my men killed and then woke up in this useless prison of a body.”
”How dare you?” Grace went red in the face but unclenched her tiny fists when a sound like a jamming fax machine came out of the voice synthesizer. The laughter was short lived, thankfully.
“Finally. Someone comes out and says it. At least he respects me enough to deal with me straight. So Bennet. What does this Other thing Incorporated want with a useless failure like me?”
“We want to see if we can help.”
Hux shot him a practiced glare. He could still do that much at least.
“And there may be good press in aiding wounded veterans, not to mention an entirely new market if the medical applications of our latest hardware proves viable.”
“Give me the bottom line up front Bennet.”
“I can offer you an experimental treatment regimen which may alleviate some of your… symptoms.”
“I’m not a guinea pig. Find some other desperate mark to con.”
“Perhaps I misspoke. There is nothing experimental about the treatment I propose, aside from it being used as a treatment. You see. Other Realms Incorporated builds state of the art virtual reality games. In one week, we are going to release a new generation of hardware to the public. It has already been rigorously tested and approved by all the appropriate agencies.”
“Don’t bullshit me son. How is a video game going to cure me? In case you haven’t noticed, I can’t even wiggle my thumbs. How am I supposed to play your stupid game?”
“Again, this is a treatment, not a cure. The game will interface directly with your brain. Once you are playing, you will only experience game related stimuli. Your injuries out here in the real world won’t be a part of that game so you can wiggle your thumbs all day long if you like. You can even walk again! All you have to do is say yes.”
“And hand over my medical records right?”
“Of course all your personal information would remain confidential. Nurse Grace will continue to monitor your condition as always. She will ensure that any information she sends along is entirely anonymous.”
Hux’s heart rate monitor began to speed up as he ran out of options.
“You really think that I am going to sit around all day and play some game for kids?”
“Did you have anything else planned for the next thirty years?”
Hux didn’t, but he wasn’t about to admit that. Whatever this techno gizmo was, it had to be better than staring out a window, slowly watching the seasons change as the world left him behind. Hell, it might even fry his brain, putting an end to his suffering and landing this suit in hot water.
“I suppose I might as well give it a try.”