Machine God: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (11 page)

“What’s your name?”

She quickly walked away.

Wasn’t ready for stranger talk yet.

Still, the tension eased. Hecto and the rest of our team sat down with the old man called Nathan, who seemed to be the leader of this survivor group. Glitch talked with some boys and watched their wristband tech and customized weapons. Of course he fell for that. 

My ears rotated back to Hecto talking to the leader.

“What about the others? 

“They were captured by the heavily-armored soldiers who attacked us.”

“Scavengers?”

“I don’t know. They wore heavy armor and carried weapons I’ve never seen before. We were no match.”

Interesting. My curiosity kept surging, which didn't seem to please Hecto. I brought myself into the conversation.

“Where are these attackers?”

“They set up base inside a skewed skyscraper with the blood-smeared walls, many blocks from here. You know, the big unfinished one with the steel pillars protruding?”

A description that fitted half of the city.

“What do these soldiers want?”

“I don’t know. I guess they’re looking for survivors that they can enslave for their goals.”

Sounded a lot like Bulwark’s modus operandi. 

His glance sank to the stained ground.

“They also captured my daughter.”

Hecto, probably feeling annoyed by my constant interventions, tried to shift the conversation around.

“How many of your people have they taken?”

“Fifteen, if they’re still alive.”

I did the math.

Eight in this room, fifteen in the enemy’s hideout. A total of twenty-three new citizens for the Bulwark. Good deal. Hecto must have thought the same, because he just started his persuasion.

“You’re not safe here. If four of us can enter your mall undetected, your defenses are worthless. The previous attackers have breached your barricades once and will do it again.”

The man nodded with a tired expression. 

“I know, but we’re not soldiers. And we don’t have many guns.”

“Let us take you back to our place. You will have free shelter, free food and safety for your family and friends.”

The old man looked as if he pondered the suggestion, but something held him back. 

“No,” he said.

The decisive answer even caught Hecto off-guard.

“We can’t leave our captured people behind.”

“They might be dead,” Darwin said, now part of the conversation. 

The man wrestled with his emotions. Darwin carried the tact of a crowbar. 

“I believe it when I see it. But as long as they’re outside in captivity, we have to try everything to get them back. I’m not leaving my daughter behind.”

Hecto licked his lips and pondered his next approach. 

The response was clear as the sun-stormed sky.

To me, at least.

“Then we’re going to help you free them.”

The middle-aged man widened his eyes. A glimpse of hope ignited in his iris. It was time to spread it into a wildfire. 

“We have the armor, the weapons and the tactical know-how to engage with an enemy of their caliber.”

Whoever ‘they’ were.

I offered the man in charge the sunshine of a smile. 

Courage rolled out with every word.

“Besides, our motto is to leave no man behind.”

Not really, but it was the right thing to say.

These battered survivors needed hope more than anything else.

Hecto ground his teeth and pierced holes into my face. He looked like a pressure cooker one second before the detonation. His next words squeezed out like a hot turd.

“Can I speak with you for a sec?”

“Sure.”

Hecto pulled me to the other side of the storage room.

I braced myself for a verbal beating.

32

“I’m in the middle of a negotiation, rookie. In case you can’t remember, I’ve been put in charge of this mission. And that means no interruption from a low-level soldier that has never finished a single operation.”

He showed me his alpha stance but I wasn’t impressed. This was the gesture of a man fearing for his authority.

“The man’s worried about his daughter. You won’t make his people join the Bulwark without her.”

“Then you don’t know my persuasion style. We have a clear mission objective. Retrieve the survivors in the mall. That’s it, no extra gig.”

“We’re in a lawless land, Hecto. Blindly following the rules doesn’t help anyone.”

Suddenly, I sounded like a smart-ass. But rules meant nothing in the Lost Lands. Maybe Hecto needed more clarification.

“If we save his people, he’ll convince everyone to join us. Simple reciprocity. Think about it, Hecto. Twenty-three new citizens for our cluster. I think the Bulwark’s committee will be pleased.”

“That’s not our original plan. Besides, we have no idea with whom we’re dealing with.”

“I think you do.”

“What are you implying?”

“I noticed your flinch when the man was talking about the armored attackers. You know who captured his people, right?”

Hecto wrestled with his face.

Probably wondering whether he should admit his knowledge.

For some reason, I could read his expression like an open data file.

I gave him another incentive.

“Twenty-three people we can save, Hecto. Let that sink in.”

His pause endured but I could see he was giving in.

“There’s another cluster hundreds of kilometers from here, populated by an ill-guided faction we call ‘Technoids’”

Jackpot.

I knew this guy carried secrets the size of boulders.

“Are they related to ours?”

“No. They are very different from us. They believe in some kind of fantasy tech religion. Technoids do abhorrent things to survivors. Who knows what they did to the man’s daughter.”

He looked back at Nathan talking with Darwin and Glitch.

“They probably captured his folks for their sick experiments.”

His big brown eyes rolled back to me.

“Gossip says the Technoid cluster is a dystopian nightmare."

Well, I’m glad ours was the land of liberty.

“Another reason why we have to free the people. Or do you want to keep these innocent folks in the Technoid’s captivity?”

“No, of course not. No reasonable human being could want that.”

“Then let’s check out what were dealing with. We’ll recon the area the man talked about. If the enemy troop size is manageable, we see if the survivors are still alive. If not, we return to the mall and try something else. We have to at least attempt a rescue."

Hecto pondered my statement. 

It was clear his ego didn’t like a rookie telling him what to do, but in dire times like these, survival was more important than pride. Hecto looked up at me.

“We’ll scout the target area. If it’s too hot, we retreat, prisoners be damned. If it’s a handful and we can match their firepower, we’ll go in and free the captives. And I’ll be leading the group. Understood?”

“Yes. You’re the captain after all.”

“Remember that.”

Hecto returned to the old man in charge.

“We have found an agreement. We’re going to look for your people, then we’re all going back to our cluster where it’s safe.”

Nathan’s face broke out in joy. He was one step away from falling to his knees and praying to the heavens.

“Thank you, thank you so much. Oh god, this is the best news I’ve heard all week.”

Hecto swallowed.

“We’ll have to check out the enemy’s position to gauge the threat level. I can’t guarantee anything.”

Still, Nathan’s hope rocketed.

“With your firepower, you might stand a real chance. You’re all veteran soldiers, right?”

Glitch and I exchanged confused glances.

“Maybe not vets, but we’re good with guns.”

“Works for me.”

The man brought us to the wall and pointed at the bloody map. 

“I show you where they’re located at. I tell you everything I know.”

33

Hecto ordered Glitch to stay with the survivors in the storage room. I knew why he picked him—the scrawny kid was loose on the trigger and thin with the cool. The emotional outbreak in the store almost killed an innocent boy’s life. Which made me wonder why Glitch was even part of the fireteam—he was much better suited in Bulwark’s tech division. But then again, the command structure of the cluster worked in mysterious ways, like the rest of this forsaken desert land.

When we reached the mall’s outside, I saw Ceedee leaning against one of the barricades, stroking her impressive sniper rifle like a new-born baby. I wished I could swap places with her firearm.

“Look who’s finally surfaced again. Did you go on a shopping spree or what?”

I had to react first.

“Yep, we got a family-sized package of survivors for the price of a rescue mission.”

Her left eyebrow cocked.

“I don’t understand.”

Hecto clarified my insider ‘joke’.

“Turns out most of the survivors are captured in a nearby zone.”

“Captured by who?”

Hecto swallowed. Taboo-topic, here we went again.

“The group from the rival cluster.”

“Oh.”

She seemed to know exactly whom Hecto was talking about. I didn’t understand why they still made such a big deal out of it. The more I knew about the enemy, the better I could function as a team member. But trust was a rare good with these Bulwarks. And apparently, I still wasn’t worthy of it. 

Hecto returned to his leader role and put on the coarse voice.

“We have to see what we’re dealing with first.”

He updated the route on our commcuffs. The digital path led straight through the city center, or what was left of it.

“Let’s head out. We stay close.”

He walked past the barricades with arms ready.

“And remember, our priority is to gauge the strength of their presence. We do not engage with the enemy until we know how many we’re dealing with.”

“Roger,” everyone said, including me.

We followed Hecto taking charge, dashed across the parking space and repeated the wall-hole-climbing shtick. Thanks to the intensive training back in the cluster facility, my legs moved on auto-pilot. Even after the two dozens or more houses we had climbed through today, my stamina remained consistent.

Just like my curiosity for this mission.

Once in a while, Ceedee flicked a glance at me and whispered.

“How are you keeping up, rookie?”

“As long as you keep walking in front of me, just fine.”

She smiled. I didn’t want the conversation to end yet, but Hecto’s roar interrupted Ceedee's chuckle.

“Shut up and focus on the mission, you two.”

The big guy blew up every time I and Ceedee talked.

Looked like not even the veteran leader was devoid of jealousy.

But he was right, this wasn’t the time for banter.

An enemy imprisoned innocent survivors.

An enemy I knew nothing about. 

My instinct told me that would change.

Sooner than expected.

34

We reached the target territory, using the abandoned houses as our main road and taking cover behind the walls. The sun scorched the grounds. The sand looked as if it bled yellow. My comrades took many sips from their containers, but strangely, I wasn’t that thirsty. Bulwark’s solitary confinement had conditioned me to stay happy with less.

We found a ruinous industrial building near a main plaza and watched out for enemy presence. Still couldn’t see any hostiles, but the tension energized the air. I could feel it with every breath, and it wasn’t just the wind blowing sand after us. Aggression permeated the walls, ready to burst into my face.

I hope this wasn’t the heat playing mind tricks on me.

Hecto halted us.

“What is it?”

“According to Nathan, we're near their hide-out.”

Ceedee sighed as she scanned the area.

“Maybe they have left.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. 

The answer escaped my lips without second thought. 

Hecto turned to me and shot up his eyebrow.

“And why is that?”

Good question.

“I don’t know…it’s just a feeling.”

“A feeling.”

He looked like someone spat in his face. Touchy-feely talk wasn’t high on Hecto’s list. On mine neither, but trusting my senses has kept me alive so far.

“Call it instinct or whatever. But I can sense hostility in the air. It gets thicker the closer we move to the target zone.”

Hecto still looked skeptic, but he must have realized I wasn’t kidding in a situation like that.

“What are you, the air whisperer?”

Ceedee and Darwin giggled. Maybe I should have shut my mouth. I crawled toward the hole in the wall and peeked through. Observed the tall concrete ruins on the other side of the plaza. No sign of a so-called Technoid, except for the red letters that smeared the facades. A bloody font mixed with dust, saying: the prophet of the Machine God cometh.

Not freaky at all. 

“What’s that?” I whispered.

Ceedee snooped through another hole in the wall.

“That’s Technoid writing.”

“It is?”

“They’re fanatics that believe in a technological advanced deity which they call the machine god. They claim that our race was righteously wiped out in the Great Collision because of our sins."

“Is it true?”

I said it half-jokingly, but something powerful did wipe out our world.

Ceedee gave me her WTH look.

“They used to be sound people like us. Way before they had fallen to that twisted tech cult.”

Darwin added his comment. The guy had been quiet so far.

“Maybe the life in the desert has burned their brain cells.”

He turned to me.

“Have you ever seen a Technoid up close?”

“Thanks to the cluster, I hadn’t even heard of them.”

Hecto and Ceedee spotted my micro-aggression, but I couldn’t help myself. Their blind faith in the Bulwark ideology seemed contrarian to their open-minded characters. Darwin ignored my comment and went straight into the horror talk.

“I don’t want to spoil the fun, but picture a psychopath with customized armor tech and savage warpaint.”