The dark room was illuminated by red light lamps hanging sporadically from the chipped and worn ceiling. On the back wall, photos, maps, and lines of yarn indicating connections were plastered to the chipped white plaster. Along the left wall were two sleeping cots, on the other was furniture pushed together to form a table. The front wall was interrupted by a sliding glass door which lead to a balcony. Black tarps had been hung behind the glass doors, to keep anyone from seeing the dim red light.
A kitchen table sat before the tarps, with a sniper rifle on a tripod. The weapon was pointing towards a small four-inch hole chipped into the wall, allowing a shot line from the room to the area beyond. Next to the kitchen table was a stool and smaller table, which had a tripod and a telescope. The telescope, once meant for star gazing, had been heavily modified, now resembling more of a piece of military equipment.
Decree sat on the stool, looking through another small hole, a note pad on her lap and pen in hand. She wore a long loose black hoody, ripped combat pants that where grey camouflage, a headset lying over a black skull cap on her head, her face covered in grey charcoal face paint. She gently twisted the knobs of the optic, scratching down notes as she looked through the scope.
Aj was standing in the bathroom across from the furniture table, the doorway next to the cots. The bathroom was filthy and bloodstained from the residents ending their lives in the bathtub, a blanket laid over their bodies as Aj and Decree couldn’t risk being detected for disposing of their bodies. The stench had been unbearable at first, but now neither of them could smell it.
Aj was leaning on the kitchen sink, staring into the cracked and dirty mirror, studying his reflection. He barely recognized the face that stared back. Aj looked down, at the picture of Sammy in the sink. He sighed, then picked up a pair of sheers.
Slowly, with prolonged snips, the dreads began falling into the sink, over the picture. After a while, once the dreads where cut, Aj plugged a hair clipper into the outlet. The soft stealth generator in the other room sputtered a bit from the extra voltage, as the clippers buzzed and ate into his scalp. Aj winced, as the hair shortened further nearly to the scalp. Aj then unplugged the clippers, and poured water over his head, then smothered the scalp with shaving cream. With long, careful motions, he began shaving his head with the straight razor they found packaged in an abandoned mall.
Once all the hair was gone, Aj studied the soggy hair covering the picture. He reached down, and picked up a can of fuel, and began pouring it over the entire bathroom, walking backwards. He led a trail into the room, then put the can down. He turned, and silently went to the furniture table. Here he had a long line of bullet, along with the ashes of his family. Aj sat down on a plastic chair.
His hands where shaking from the lack of alcohol, a mind splitting headache making his ears ring as his eyes burned. His scalp stung, he wanted to vomit and sleep until death. He had been eating and drinking fluids, but the fever dream like experience of withdrawal was testing his resolve as he huffed deeply.
“Tummy pills in my pack bubba,” Decree whispered.
“Stop smelling me,” Aj seethed silently.
“You’re the one who smells like a sick baby, you should stop doing whatever it is you’re doing,” Decree spat.
“I’m fine,” Aj snarled.
“What is it with people and putting poison in their bodies to numb pain? Just embrace it, makes you tougher,” Decree rolled her glowing eyes.
“You sure you’re related to Lion?” Aj arched an eyebrow.
“I question that every day. Then I wind up in situations just as stupid as his and I’m certain I am. Runs in the family I guess.”
“Must be a pretty fucked up family to have people like you and Lion. Not to mention Sterin.”
“Steriness is the best out of all of us. She’s the only one who doesn’t deserve her banishment,” Decree muttered.
“Why did your family banish you all?”
“It didn’t happen all at once. Took a few thousand years and a few lifetimes. I’m the latest one, but let’s just chock it up to our family’s knack for getting into trouble and leave it at that,” Decree sighed.
Aj was silent, not knowing if he wanted to ask or not. Finally, he spat it out.
“Who is your family?” Aj asked softly.
Decree pulled her face from her scope and looked at him, an odd look in her gray covered face. Her eyes glinted but looked sad.
“House Acamese. Our father is the fucking Emperor, for now at least,” she shrugged.
“Why you say that?”
“Cuz at this rate he’s gonna banish all his heirs and some other house will pounce on his throne when he finally runs out of lives.”
“You guys run out of lives? Huh.”
“Same way printers run out of ink; nothing lasts forever. You look funny with a bald head by the way,” Decree chortled.
“Thanks,” Aj rolled his eye, turning his head to the table.
“It suites ya.”
Decree turned back to the scope as Aj leaned his elbows unto the table. He picked up a pair of plyers, and a bullet. One by one, he carefully pulled out each bullet from the casing, making sure not to spill the gunpowder housed within. Once all fourteen bullets were taken out of their casings, Aj pulled out the jar of ash. Decree had been kind enough to burn whatever chunks had been left, leaving a small power like pile of ash in the bottom of the mason jar.
Aj carefully poured the ash out unto the table. He then took the smallest teaspoon he had found, and gently began pouring the ashes of his dead family into the bullet casings. Not enough to interfere with ignition, but enough to give each bullet a small piece of them. Once all fourteen casings had their extra ingredient, Aj began stamping the bullets back into the casings with the bullet press they had hauled from Decrees hideout.
Aj loaded the bullets into two magazines with orange tape and stowed them in his pocket. He then gingerly scooped the remaining ash into a small vial, so that if he survived, he might spread their remains over the dunes of Mars. And if he died in this wretched place, at least they would all rest together.
Satisfied, Aj stood up and stretched. He walked over to his cot and made sure everything was packed. Once everything was secured, he put on body armor, skull cap, headset, and slung a short barrel rifle over his back, a pistol on his hip. The Carnage serum sat in his cargo pocket, tightly secured. He would use his human skills to kill Shrike Prime. But if it came to it, he was going to pop the vial and take him out in a last-ditch effort. Either way, Aj was going to avenge his wife and dead child.
He swung a dark grey parka over his equipment, with slots for his arms. He then walked over and sat down behind his rifle on the table. It had been the one from Decrees hideout and was a magnificent piece of equipment. Chambered in Earth 50 BMG, the long sleek barrel specially modified to fire a single 50BMG shot at a time. Preferably slowly to prevent overheating. The chamber was perfectly tuned and milled. The sleek plastic furniture had been taped over and spray painted so it would blend in with its surroundings, the optic offering up to six times zoom.
Aj rested the stock into his shoulder pocket, and loosened his body as he leaned forward, his left arm resting over his right elbow as he slowed his breathing. He looked through the scope and gazed down the perfect sector of fire into the dark courtyard square.
“Just to confirm, we kill the captains, that saps his energy, right?” Aj whispered.
“Yep, less walking power reservoirs, better chance we got,” Decree said softly.
“Still don’t get why we can’t just put a bullet through his skull.”
“Cuz then his energy just rallies on a captain. His original body died long ago. He’s a ghost who siphons power and manipulates now. Those replicants where once stupid powerful light bearers, he can’t just make them, he’s gotta find and kill them. Why do you think he’s baiting everyone into fights with his clones?”
“Fair enough,” Aj sighed.
Aj reached into his pocket and pulled out one of the magazines. He gently slid it into the open magazine well, then racked the bolt back, then forward, the familiar feeling of the bolt seating a bullet into the chamber reverberating ever so slightly through his gloved hand.
The plan was simple. Before Decree had been captured, she had been infiltrating the station and mapping out the traffic patterns of the Dark Axium. In exactly two minutes, a captain would enter the near pitch-black square. Aj would have to time the shot to the exact second, for the shot to hit perfectly. Decree and he had spent hours calculating panic patterns, where the captains would falter or pause, and according to her, Aj had a fifty seven percent chance of landing the shot.
Once the shot had been fired, they would immediately exfiltrate, burning the apartment as they ran to the roof. They would confirm the kill on the move. They would follow the skyline, sticking to the shadows until they reached the next hide out, and enact the same shot the next day. Luckily for them, Decree had a few safehouses set up through the station.
“One mike,” Decree whispered.
Aj slowed his breathing, relaxing his body while cradling the rifle, keeping his weight off it. Seconds felt like hours as Aj looked down the sight into pitch black.
“Range, 1900 meters,” Decree confirmed.
Aj looked at the ticks in the sight picture as he moved the left knob up nineteen clicks, counting every single one with patient expertise.
“Confirm.”
“No wind, half gravity of Earth, adjust by two clicks,” Decree whispered.
Aj was used to shots in Martian gravity, thirty eight percent of earth. Aj gently pushed the knob up, stopping halfway before the next click.
“Thirty seconds,” Decree whispered.
Aj softly switched the safety off and rested his exposed finger on the trigger. He had cut off the pointer fingers of the gloves the night before so he could accurately feel the pressure of the trigger pull. The trigger pull of this rifle was four pounds, he had disassembled the rifle the night before and had practiced the trigger pull for an hour.
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“Ten seconds,” Decree muttered.
“Flash,” Aj whispered.
“Mark,” Decree nodded.
Decree softly ignited her energy and shoved her finger nail into the extension cord power outlet. She had said she could light up the square, and while he doubted her, Aj took Decree for her word. The lights in the room flickered, and Aj saw lights flicker on and off, forming a flickering wave as lights turned on then burst all the way down the buildings to the target. In an instant, the electric wave smashed through the power grid, and bathed the square in light.
Nearly fifty Sylos corpses scrambled, panicking from the sudden burst of light.
“Shot?” Aj asked.
“Shot!” Decree confirmed.
There was no captain in the sight picture, but Aj pulled the trigger. The rifle roared, the shockwave of the bullet smashing the silent room and rustling papers nearby. Had neither of them not been wearing ear protection, they’d have been temporarily deafened. For a split second, Aj watched the tiny spec of grey air pocket fly, then jumped up.
Decree collapsed her tripod and slung it over her back, her scope and rifle in both hands. She sprinted for the door and wrenched it open. Aj collapsed his tripod, clipped it to his pack, then put it on. He grabbed a flare off the cot, then the rifle.
With the rifle resting on his shoulder, Aj followed. In the doorway of the apartment, Aj turned, gazed at the insides. He had started this mess leaving an apartment. Distant memories of his old apartment with Sammy flashed through his mind as he then lit the flair. He tossed the flaming stick into the apartment, and a fireball erupted as the fuel soaked, blood-stained carpet caught fire.
Aj and Decree sprinted down the corridor and climbed out a window to the fire escape. Both attached their belts to the prepared bundles of rope they had hidden under a tarp, then threw the rope over the metal railing. As Decree swung herself over the railing, Aj pulled out a small pair of binoculars. The square was still illuminated and swarming with activity. The Sylos where all milling about a vehicle which had stopped. Aj grinned.
He swung his legs over the railing, anchoring his feet to the steel as he clicked the rifle buttstock to his belt lanyard. He then let the rifle dangle as he jumped off the fire escape balcony. The cold dark hair rushed past him as he nearly free fell into the darkness. Multiple stories passed, and as Aj looked up, he saw the entire top floor of the apartment complex was now roaring with flames. Secondary explosives laid by them where popping and exploding, and the floors and walls inside collapsed from the vacuum of the explosives.
As Aj hurtled downward, fast passing glimpses inside the windows showed him fast moving Sylos corpses and Dark Axium soldiers sprinting up the stairs. As he continued downward, large explosions inside the building erupted. Guess the enemy was in such a hurry they didn’t bother checking for the trip wires connected to Decree’s pipe bombs on the stairs.
Aj smirked as the roof of the next building approached. He braked, the rope burning his thick gloves. Breaking while keeping his trigger fingers extended so they didn’t get chewed up meant breaking way earlier than usual. Thankfully he slowed to a crawl as he neared the roof. Decree was already detached from her line, arms fully extended. The dangling rifle fell into her hands, as Aj then landed on the roof. His boots shifted the gravel covering the building top as he unclipped from the line, then took back the rifle.
As they sprinted across the roof, Aj slung the rifle over his chest. He was a running bundle of equipment, so the run was exhausting and slow. But he had to push, for them. They arrived at the corner of the end of the roof, heaving.
Here a long metal cord was anchored to a steel column and ran across the street to the other building. Aj pivoted, and Decree unzipped the bottom compartment of his large pack, pulling out two metal handles with hooks at the top.
She handed him one, then hooked hers to the metal line, and jumped off the roof, zip lining across the street. Aj hooked his and followed, the crisp dark air stinging his face as he sailed silently through the air. Soon, Decree arrived first, and jumped off at the last second, running away. Aj let go, his stomach dropping as his feet hit the roof with a clang. He pushed forward as Decree jumped off the corner of the roof.
She landed on an angled roof of a high-rise restaurant and pushed onward. Despite all the weight, she was nimble and moved with inhuman stamina and speed. Aj followed, jumping off the roof, not daring to look down at the street a hundred feet below them. He gathered himself on the angle roof and pushed on.
On the middle top of the slanted roof, Decree was lying on her stomach, peering through the scope. Aj took a knee, providing security with his rifle as he caught his breathe.
“We got the fucker! Only thing left of the cunt is her legs!” Decree silently giggled.
Aj smiled, nodding.
The flight to the next safehouse took a few hours, as they gradually slowed down. They would take time to stop and hide, as patrols went past. Large formations of blood red comets the size of humans were crisscrossing the level, combing the city, and trying to find them. But finding a sniper team in a dense urban area in near pitch-black permanent darkness was like trying to find a needle at the bottom of a lake.
Aj had recommended traveling by the sewers and tunnel networks, but Decree kindly pointed out that’s where the living failed experiments from the Foul Labs went. So, it was rooftops and high rises for them.
After almost half a day of careful stalking, Decree called a halt. They were in a dead garden, on top of a luxury penthouse. Aj’s body screamed, his joints and limbs aching from the long movement. Decree grinned, pointing up. Aj wearily looked up and saw a gondola descending from level above the habitation sector.
Aj rested his rifle on a dead tree and peered through rifle scope. As he zoomed in, he noticed not one, not two, but three of the now thirteen remaining Dark Axium captains along with nearly a hundred fighters in the massive gondola.
“That’s one fucking sweet ass target, but I can’t take them out from here,” Aj sighed.
“But I can!” Decree grinned maniacally.
“The fuck are you talking about?” Aj snapped.
“I need a whole ass computer!” Decree spat.
“What?!” Aj seethed.
Decree ignored him and sprinted across the garden. Aj looked back up at the gondola, easily a few miles off the ground as it slowly lumbered down unto their level. He shook his head and followed. Decree smashed her rifle into a window and cleared the glass. She then leapt inside the penthouse, as Aj wearily followed. “C’mon you slow fuck! We need an intact computer!” Decree called from inside the dark building.
“Why?” Aj moaned as he slowly clamored into the dark living room.
Decree poked her head into the hallway that lead from the dark, destroyed living room full of broken furniture.
“That Gondola has a remote detachment box to the connection line. They use it to detach the transport from the metal line in dock for repairs. If I can get inside the network,” she tilted her head.
“You can drop them from a few miles in the air,” Aj realized.
“Jamming all the hatches, emergency doors, and releasing the Gondola is the easy part. I just need a fucking computer!” Decree smiled as she ducked back inside the room.
Loud noises erupted from the adjacent rooms as Decree ransacked the penthouse. Aj cleared the halls and rooms with his short, barreled rifle, his fifty caliber back by the broken window. As he cleared, he noticed every piece of technology that had input keypads or controls had been smashed or burned. Was this done on purpose?
“Whole city full of luxury and pirates, but no computers,” Aj called angrily.
“Yeah! Cuz I’m here! Dark Axium started a technology purge cuz I was haunting their asses!” Decree called from another room.
Aj shook his head. She was good, really good. She would have given Spider a run for his money with her gift for technology, but was she really that bad?
“Oh, fuck yes,” Decree purred sexually from across the penthouse.
Hesitantly, Aj walked down the dark torn up hallway, and found her. She was hugging a small ancient computer tower that had seemingly been ripped out of a closet. She had her head pressed against it; yellow eyes wide open as she stared directly into his soul.
“Jack pot,” she whispered, not breaking the soul shattering eye contact.
Aj had faced off against vectors, demons, gods, horrors beyond his own comprehension. And yet those eyes, that look, her demeanor, was by far the most unsettling thing he had ever seen. The hairs stood up on the back of his neck as he shifted his weight uncomfortably.
“There’s no keyboard, or monitor. Probably no data network either,” Aj mumbled as he looked away.
“Just need a connection cord,” Decree cackled manically.
She plugged a grey cord into the wall, then the console. As she worked, she started humming a low tune, her wide eyes not blinking, sweat pouring from her forehead, her grin not fading. She didn’t seem like a living thing anymore, more like a life-sized clamoring doll as she furiously worked. The tower was now set up.
“Won’t you, won’t you, come out and play with me? Hmmmmmm, mmph, hmmmmmmmmmm, mmph, won’t you, won’t you, come out and play?” Decree sang in a whisper.
“You’re kinda freaking me out man,” Aj muttered.
The lights flickered, the radios and speakers crackled, smashed tvs flickered on and off, the phones started ringing, holograms of floating faces began flashing on and off through the penthouse.
“Won’t you, won’t you, come out and play with me? Hmmmmmm, mmph, hmmmmmmmmmm, mmph, won’t you, won’t you, come out and play?”
All the electrical appliances where now singing the tune as Decree stood up, humming. She took her boots off, all the equipment, then her jacket. She cracked her neck, then her knuckles.
“Decree? This isn’t cool man,” Aj whimpered.
“Witness the power of a Laydren Virus,” Decree whispered.
Decree’s eyes rolled into the back of her head. Her skin began to melt, as her body collapsed like a grey mass jell. Aj shrieked, holding his hands up as he fell backward, crawling away. The grey mass slunk across the carpet, and sunk into the computer tower, disappearing inside the tower.
“Come out and play. Come out and play. COME OUT AND PLAY! COME OUT AND PLAY! COME OUT AND DIE!” the cacophonic choir of demonic electric female voices shrieked.
Aj screamed and jumped upward, tearing down the hall. He ran into the living room, grabbed the rifle, and jumped out the window. He smashed into the ruined flowers, with a crunch and pain. He ejected off the ground and sprinted to the far wall. He looked back, and saw the entire penthouse was flashing and buzzing, as holographic faces danced in the windows. The demonic electrical choir was singing the tune like a miasmic crowd of specters who had crawled out of hell and were waiting to bring him back with them.
Aj wiped the sweat from his forehead, and slowly turned, gazing up at the gondola. The lights inside where flickering on and off. Aj knelt, and propped the rifle on the wall, gazing through the scope. The Dark Axium members inside where pounding on the doors, trying to open the windows. Several of them had their energies alit, trying to break out. But some kind of electrical field kept them trapped inside. Aj scanned upward, and gasped.
There was Decree, naked, covered in blood, with several bodies of Darktars surrounding her, standing on top of the Gondola. She waved at him. Aj wrenched his face from the rifle scope and vomited. There was a great metallic groan, Aj turned, and saw the Gondola detach from the wire line. It hurtled to the ground; all people trapped onboard. It smashed into the ground and erupted in a huge fireball.
The faces in the windows disappeared, as the penthouse fell silent. Aj nervously waited, when soft footsteps sounded from inside. He turned, and saw Decree walk out of the shadows, a towel wrapped around her bare and malnourished body. She stood in the window frame, staring at him without any expression, just a blank face.
“What in the everlasting fuck are you?” Aj gasped, his body shaking.
“I’m a virus,” Decree shrugged.
Aj pointed a shaking finger at her.
“How-how did you do that?” Aj asked, his voice breaking.
“I, am, a, computer, virus,” Decree slowly annunciated.
“Those things can’t just walk around in the real world!” Aj bellowed.
“I can,” Decree smirked.
Aj held his hands to his head, hyperventilating.
“Awwww, is the poor human having an existential crisis?” Decree giggled.
“Stay the fuck away from me!” Aj shrieked.
“Don’t be such a pussy dude!” Decree spat.
“Ragh!” Aj shouted, bending over.
Decree rolled her eyes, groaning.
“Look, I am alive. I piss, I shit, I fuck, I eat, I bleed, I can die, all right? I just literally got sucked into a computer one day and now I can do cool stuff. Chill out man,” Decree called as Aj paced back and forth.
“I am so sick of you alien fucks! Gods why do I always have to be in this kind of shit?” Aj moaned.
“Hey fuck you! You’re the alien to me! Not my fault I was born in a hyper advanced civilization and not on some stupid back water piece of rock that still thinks the nuclear bomb is the zenith of mass destruction!” Decree seethed.
“If you can do all that, then how the fuck did they overpower you?!” Aj moaned.
“Because I’m a scalpel, not a fucking hammer. I can’t take on Shrike Prime by myself, I need someone like you!” Decree snarled.
“Wheeeeeew,” Aj exhaled as he held his hands behind his head.
“Look, we don’t have to be buddies, but we do need each other. Okay? You help me kill Shrike; we both get revenge. Okay?” Decree snapped.
Aj shook his head, looking at her. Why did everyone he fought alongside with have to be so overpowered.
“Fine,” Aj spat.
“Good, cuz they’re coming.”