Alec Davis © 2020
“Are you ready?”
Weeskind – or just ‘Wes’, as he liked to be called – buried his face into the pillow and took a deep breath. The strong scent of chemicals caught in his throat. The bed he laid on was comfortable, but the plastic film wrapped around it squeeled when he moved.
“I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready for this.” Wes turned to look at the mid-thirties woman in the red headscarf. “It’s going to hurt, isn’t it?”
She smiled and then nodded.
Wes examined the various needles and medical supplies around the room and began to panic. “Well, I can’t back out now. I agreed to this and I’m a man of my word.”
“Shall I start then?” the woman said.
Wes nodded.
“And you’re sure about the design?”
Wes hesitated.
“Yes, he’s sure about the design!” Weeskind’s friend and accomplice, Koji, stood over him with a sick grin and a camera. “What’s not to like?” she said. Koji had dark hair and eyes, pale skin, and several metal studs in both ears. She was wearing plain, loose-fitting trousers and t-shirt – her rebellion against current, mainstream fashion trends.
“But it’s so…so…pink?!” the woman observed/objected.
“And he loves it,” Koji said. “Don’t you, Wes?”
“Absolutely not! But…I bloody agreed to this, didn’t I.”
Wes lost his hair the year after he left school. Since then, he never went outside without wearing a black beanie to hide his baldness. Even though he was currently topless, he still wore the beanie.
The woman grazed Wes’ back with the oscillating needle. At first, there was little pain, and the buzz of the machine was soothing, though soon he realised she was just easing him into it. Once the needle began to pummel his spine, he gripped the pillow against his face to hide his expression – the sort you make when you peel off a plaster gripping to your hair for dear life; that scrunched, squinting mess of a face that we all make.
“So, I’m guessing there’s a story behind this tattoo?” the tattooist correctly surmised1.
“There certainly is!” Koji said, as she snapped a shot of Wes’ ink-stained back. “Would you like to tell it, Wes?”
After several seconds he squeezed out, “No…thanks.”
“Guess I’ll have to tell it then, with all the embellishments I please!”
“Last night we went to my favourite bar, the Vespa,” Koji said. “It had been three years to the day that the Horizon had hit Stratos, three years since the damn planet lashed out at us and snatched away Wes’ and my parents. So, as our tradition dictates, we got smashed and use booze-fuelled logic to try and understand how life’s fair. However, rather than follow tradition, Wes decided to nag me about my career.”
Koji was a gifted architect, well, in theory she was – she’d studied arduously to follow her dream so she knew more about the subject than some of the professionals, and she certainly had better ideas than most of them. All she needed was an opportunity. In Stratos, architecture was a field that many wanted to enter into, but only a select few had the right…friends. It was a classic case of ‘it’s not what you know, it’s who you happened to meet in a bar one night while all the good students were studying’. Though after her parents died in the Horizon, Koji gave up on her dream and took an accounting job instead. She hated it, but it kept her afloat.
Over the years Koji’s passion for architecture laid dormant somewhere, buried amongst the suppressed misery and anger, where it guided her eye once in a while and subtly influenced the odd decision here and there; like a choice of bar for example – the Vespa was named after the architect that designed Stratos’ famous Atrium, Ninette Vespa.2 Koji frequented the Vespa up to four times a week. Before her parents died, however, she’d never set foot in there.
As the tattooist poured out pink ink into a little cup, Koji snapped another photo with her camera, and continued her story: “As Wes nagged away about how I gave up on architecture, a nerdy-looking group – I think they worked at the aerospace facility – overheard us and joined the conversation. A few drinks later and they started laying it on thick about my career motivation too. One woman kept asking me again and again why I gave up on architecture, so I eventually told her I just lost my love for it.
“‘I don’t buy it’, she’d said. ‘No one works that hard for something and then just gives up! What’s the real reason you gave up on it?’ she asked. I’d had quite a bit to drink at this point so I thought, ‘Screw it. I’ll just tell her’. I rambled on for ten minutes or so about how, at the time, I had no money, no family, no job, and currently, no future. There was no guarantee I’d get my foot in the architecture-job-door anytime soon, or at all! So, with my self-esteem at its all-time lowest, I decided to accept that I’d never get my dream job, and started looking for something easy that paid well.”
“We’ve all been there, honey,” the tattooist said, dipping her machine in the ink whilst wiping Wes’ back with a tissue. “It sucks.”
“That it does.” Koji glimpsed over at the banner hanging on the wall that said, ‘I support the Insurgency for our children’s future. FIGHT BACK!’ “It’s part of the reason Wes and I both joined the insurgency – we had little to lose.” Koji took a sip of water from a bottle, offered it to Wes but, cruelly, just out of his reach. To her, his predicament could not have been funnier.
Koji continued: “And then this woman, this complete stranger, managed to turn my evening around with one simple observation – ‘With luck that bad,’ she said, ‘some good must be on its way!’
“I let that settle, as well as the shot I’d just drunk, and I realised that she was right. She was undeniably right. How could life have become so shit, so quickly, if a stream of good luck wasn’t coming my way?”
“AAAARGH!” Wes bellowed.
“Sorry, love, cold water,” the tattooist explained, wiping away some of the pink ink and blood. Without turning to Koji, she asked, “What happened next?”
“I decided to test the theory. I started small, simple – a coin flip. I bet the random woman sat opposite me that if she won the flip, I’d give her all the money in my wallet; and if I won, I’d get her pint. She was keen to prove her theory so she agreed. And you know what? I bloody won.
“Now, I know what you’re thinking, because at the time, Wes was thinking it too: ‘Fifty-fifty odds hardly proves anything, no matter how high the stakes,’ he’d said. ‘One out of four if I win again,’ I pointed out, but he knew where the evening was heading and was keen to put a stop to it. He rolled off some spiel about life being shitty, luck not being a thing, and that lots of bad luck doesn’t get balanced out with the good. I believe he used the phrase ‘cosmic karma is just plain nonsense’. He even went as far as to use the Stratos-Maeda stand-off as an example – ‘If cosmic balance is real,’ he said, ‘why then do the snobs in Maeda get a pass from the Horizon? Why does their city keep them safe from it when ours doesn’t? And why, two years running, haven’t the Maens let even the youngest of our children inside their city wall to keep them safe when the Horizon came?!’
“I saw his point, well, some part of my brain did, but that woman had sparked the hope inside me and the boozy part of my brain was eating it up. So, I ignored Wes’ argument just like the liquor stains on my shirt!
Koji walked around to the opposite side of the bed that Wes lied on, behind the tattooist, and took another photo.
“I tested my luck again and again with the coin flip,” she said, “and again and again I won. When my odds hit over a hundred to one, I started getting cockier. And Wes started getting pissy – he hates being wrong.”
Koji could tell Wes wanted to argue back, but he was too busy gritting his teeth and burying his face (and his pain) in the pillow.
“Tat’s looking good, Wes,” she said with a smile. “Over half way now!”
“How long before you lost a bet then?” the tattooist asked Koji.
“What makes you think I lost?”
“You had to lose eventually!”
“That’s pretty much what Wes said to me when a sleazy guy made me a bet involving cards – he cut the deck in half and asked me to guess the top card. One in fifty-six odds by my reckoning.”
“ONE IN FIFTY…EIGHT!” Wes cried in pain.
“Sorry, sorry. Anyway, this guy bet me any bottle of booze of my choosing from behind the bar for the contents of my apartment3 – I think he was taking advantage of my booze-fuelled overconfidence. And that’s when Wes stepped in.
“He’s always looked out for me, ever since we were kids. As neighbours, we played a lot together back then. I’d always talk about doing stupid stuff, and Wes was always talking me out of it. But last night I was on a roll, and I knew I couldn’t lose. So, again, I ignored him.”
At this point, the tattooist was going over some of the block colours, and Wes was really struggling to hold it together. Koji just knew he was hiding tears in that pillow.
The tattooist jumped ahead in the story: “What bottle did you pick?”
“Hmmm…not sure,” Koji said. “My memory’s not exactly crystal clear after that point. But here’s what I do remember: Wes couldn’t believe I’d won again, and he was determined to make me lose. So, egged on by almost everyone in the bar at this point, he challenged me. It was a bet with odds so ludicrous that there was no way I could win. I accepted. Wes bet me that I couldn’t throw a coin, over the top of the bar – not the actual bar, but the building the bar was in – into a glass on the other side.”
The tattooist put her machine down, sat up, pushed her wheely chair backwards, and flicked her gloves into the bin in the corner.
Koji had her full attention.
“How many attempts did he give you?” the tattooist asked.
“One.”
“One?!”
“One.”
“No way.”
“Way.”
“…Shit. And you accepted?!”
“I accepted. I picked a pint glass with a large rim, placed it in the field behind the one-story building, and took aim. At that point, the entire bar had emptied outside and every punter was watching; their eyes, all of them, were looking into mine. So, I leant into my streak, I put faith in my good luck. I turned my back to the building, to my audience, and to Wes, and then I chucked the coin over my shoulder.”
Koji paused for effect, to torture the tattooist like she was torturing Wes. She took that time to admire the artwork and gig posters that decorated the pristine, white walls. It occurred to her that most band names are dumb.
“AND?!” the tattooist barked.
“I won.”
“No, you did not.”
“Yes, I did so!”
“No way.”
“Way!”
“Sorry, no. That’s impossible!” the tattooist argued fervently, continuing with her work.
“Wes?”
“…It happened,” he mumbled through the pillow.
“Oh…wow. Wait! What did you bet on?!” the tattooist asked.
“Wes, what did we bet on?”
He simply pointed to the nearly-completed tattoo on his back.
“Oh…wow. So, this is…?”
“Lady Luck!” Koji said. “A reminder so he never forgets that cosmic balance exists, and Lady Luck will bless him soon too!”
“I was going to ask if it was you,” the tattooist said.
“Well, I based the design on me of course, but it’s supposed to be Lady Luck.”
“And the relevance of the pink rocket Lady Luck is riding?”
“She always rides a pink rocket. Everyone knows that!”
“Right. Right. Anyway, I’m about finished here. I’ll just patch up your back, Wes, and you’ll be ready to go.” The tattooist turned to grab more tissue, and then blurted out, “Wait! Koji, what did Wes want, if he won?”
“He wanted me to pursue a career in architecture again.”
“You really should, honey.”
Koji paused, and then said, “You know what? Maybe I will.”
Weeskind got to his feet, directing his eyes away from the full-length mirror at all times.
“Don’t you want to have a look at your beautiful piece of art?” Koji teased.
“Absolutely not,” he said. “I’m sure I’ll have plenty of time to admire it over the course of my entire life.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll grow to love it.”
“Anyway,” Wes said, “we need to get moving, the…meeting starts in just over three hours and we don’t want to be late.”
Koji approached the tattooist and handed her a small envelope of money. “Thanks very much for this. We’ll see you again next time Wes loses a bet.”
♠ ♣ ♥ ♦
Saya’s Insurgency was born in the city of Stratos. It had one simple goal: terrorise the people of Maeda until they opened their doors to them. Maeda sat on a giant platform made from an exotic metal called Nameidium, a material which had the properties to protect the city from the Horizon – the planet’s wrath. This platform restricted Maeda’s size, so not every Straton could fit inside its great wall, but the Maens wouldn’t even admit the Straton children when the Horizon came. The Maens claimed that the Nameidium platform could only withstand so much weight before it collapsed and exposed everyone to the dangers of the Horizon, so they prioritised their own people and refused all Stratons sanctuary.
However, this wasn’t always the status quo. Stratos was built on an area thought to also provide protection from the Horizon, and it did so for over three hundred years. Though, as time went on, it was concluded that the site Stratos sat upon wasn’t as safe as previously thought. The Straton people pleaded to Maeda to protect, at the very least, the children inside Maeda’s wall when the Horizon was due. Though every year the Maens refused. All the while, the Stratons tried desperately to solve the city’s vulnerability themselves without avail.
But then, three years ago, without warning, the Horizon struck Stratos and destroyed an entire city sector. In that sector were Koji’s and Weeskind’s homes, and their parents.
Several months afterwards, news travelled around Stratos about an insurgency – a woman named Saya was assembling a group to challenge Maeda and its selfish and cruel policy. Since the Straton government appeared to be doing little to resolve the situation, many people joined Saya’s Insurgency to take matters into their own hands, people like Koji and Weeskind. Soon, the Insurgency had hundreds of members.
“How’s your back, Wes?” Koji said with a grin. “Throbbing pain died down yet?”
“You know it hasn’t.”
The two twenty-somethings had left Stratos on foot after sunset so they wouldn’t be spotted leaving the city – discretion was key for where they were going.
Koji loved Stratos at night. During the day, a smog cloud from the ring of power plants hovered over the city and made her feel dirty just looking at it. Though, after nightfall, the light from the city bounced off the base of the cloud and illuminated the city in a beautiful haze. It was a stark contrast to the barren, rocky plains surrounding the city.
As Koji headed farther north, she turned to admire the view briefly.
Their destination that evening was the ruin of Ark. Koji and Wes’ ancestors came to this planet – commonly known as Sixe – aboard the colonising ship Ark from a distant star. Sixe was not its chosen destination – it had crash-landed there. The spacecraft, nearly as large as a city itself, had broken into twelve pieces which were scattered across the plains surrounding Stratos. Over the years, the abandoned living quarters had been stripped of anything useful, and now only the creepy-crawlies lived there. It acted as an excellent hideout for an insurgency.4
Koji and Wes had been part of Saya’s insurgency for over two years now. In that time, they’d learnt to fight with their fists and swords, and had been taught various military tactics. All in the dead of night of course – if the Stratos police authorities discovered the group of nearly a hundred dissidents, they’d probably all have been arrested.
Saya had set out two stepping stones for her soldiers’ training: first, once they were adept at melee combat, they’d be taught to fire a gun; second, they’d be taught to use EMRs.
Firing a gun on Sixe wasn’t as straight forward as it would be normally. On Sixe, Sparking complicated things – there were some funky physics surrounding the planet which caused explosive compounds to ignite randomly, and no one had the foggiest as to why. So, when a gun was loaded with a bullet, the gun powder could detonate at any time and fire the gun. Though the Sixians weren’t going to let that spoil their favourite toys, so they found a workaround – mixing kits. These useful tools quickly combined two safe powders into an explosive one inside a bullet casing so it could be fired in a controlled manner…most of the time.
As you might expect, handling guns on Sixe required special training so no one shot each other, hence Saya’s hesitance.
Today, Koji and Wes – among others – would start their gun training, though they expected a lengthy lecture from Saya before they began.
“After tonight, do you think Saya will let us join one of her teams?” Koji asked Wes. “Do you think she’ll finally let us wreak havoc at the Maens expense?!”
“I’m not sure how her system works,” Wes said. “If it was me, I’d have a group of specialists, you know, real stealthy types, who snuck into the city and terrorised people in their sleep every day. And at the same time, I’d be building a mob to eventually storm the city and trash everything in sight, until the Maens agreed to protect at least some of us from the Horizon.”
“Sounds like a good plan,” Koji said. “The stealth team could loosen steps in the Maens’ precious, interconnected balconies and bridges, and people would fall down stairs all the time. Or, or, they could set off a series of explosions around the city every night, all night, so they were constantly terrified and couldn’t sleep!”
“I think the latter is more in line with the Insurgency’s ideology.”
“If that’s the case, why do we need gun training at all?”
“Well, if we plan on terrorising Maeda, their city guards are going to resist us, and if there’s more of us pointing weapons at them than they have at us, they’ll have to surrender. Easy.”
“Okay, good, good. Saya’s not planning on having us shoot anyone then?”
“Oh. No, no! The Maens would never grant us sanctuary if we started shooting their people!”
“That’s what I thought!”5
“We may need to get rough with them from time to time though, hence the other training.”
Koji still had lingering questions, but buried them, as she was keen to make the Maens as miserable as she was – as miserable as she really was, the part of herself she let no others see.
Not even Wes.
As they neared Ark, Koji and Wes noticed the looming silhouettes becoming clearer. The section of Ark they approached gave no indication as to what part of the ship it came from, but then, most of them didn’t. It spanned nearly a quarter of a kilometre across and stood at least four times the height of the Atrium. The intricacies of its hull were hidden by the moss and other plants that had somehow grown through the metal plates. Vines appeared to strangle the whole section like they were about to drag the spaceship remnant underground. The section end Koji and Wes entered from had fractured at a forty-five-degree angle, but over the years, the Horizon had torn holes in it leaving the tear less visually satisfying.
They ventured inside. Koji and Wes flicked on their torches as the moonlight faded. Moss and plants initially covered most of the walls, and the bugs that called them home seemed to do their very best to kamikaze into the budding insurgents’ mouths and ears. Koji ended up sprinting onwards into the spacecraft depths to avoid the damn things.
The ground-floor deck was crushed and twisted from the crash-landing, and often it was difficult and outright dangerous to navigate, so they took the first staircase up. Their destination was on deck fifteen, and since there was no active elevator, they were forced to traipse up the steps and complain fervently about how primitive the whole ordeal was.
Koji demanded a rest at deck eight, and took further sit-downs on decks ten, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, and then a lie-down on fifteen. Wes patted himself on the back for having made them leave early, and then made a mental note that Koji needed to cut down on the beer and get some proper exercise.
Deck fifteen appeared to be mostly office space which, at first, seemed odd; but paperwork has plagued civilisation since the dawn of time, and where there’s paperwork – well, in this case, digital paperwork – there are offices. Like the rest of their race, Koji and Wes could extend their eyes’ receiving range into the infrared spectrum to see the deep-red heat of anyone lurking in the darkness, but they panned across each of the offices with their torches anyway. Just to make sure there were no surprises.6
As they walked farther down the barren corridor, voices grew louder and louder, until Koji and Wes reached a large hall at the end filled with nearly thirty people – members of the Insurgency.
Koji scanned the room and noticed the majority were older than she and Wes were. Many were her parents’ age when they had died. She found this was the norm with the insurgency. Many were parents who only wanted to protect their children from the planet, and would do absolutely anything to ensure that.
People who had little to lose.
The Insurgency had many meetings in that hall as it was the largest in any section of Ark. It was thought to have served as a public forum once, as it could easily hold a few hundred people. The hall was scattered with collapsible chairs in front of a small stage with a podium on it. The waxed-wood podium was equipped with an ageing microphone and sound system, but now they were just for show. Though it didn’t stop people tapping the mic every time before they started speaking.
Tap, tap. “Listen up!”
Koji and Wes had only seen Saya once before. It didn’t matter what she looked like, what mattered was the aura only she projected. It was commanding, powerful, and addictive – once you’d met Saya, you’d follow her until the end of time. Knowing that, it wasn’t surprising that the Insurgency’s numbers had grown so rapidly.
Koji basked in Saya’s presence, in her control of the room. It had been several months since she’d experienced it. She missed it.
“You’ve all worked hard, trained hard, to get here, and I thank you,” Saya began, with her partner, Tamir, stood beside her. “You’ve taken risks to be here, kept secrets from loved ones to fight for our cause, and I have the utmost respect for you all.
“Today we will begin your firearm training. You have been chosen for this because of your skill and commitment. There are only a few I trust to come this far, only a few out of many that I bring to the war table.”
Koji whispered to Wes, “‘War table’? Bit overdramatic isn’t it?”
“Ssssssh!” Wes looked troubled.
“It has never been more important for us to have skilled fighters at our disposal,” Saya said. “The Maens put together a strike team specifically trained to defeat us. And I’ll be honest, they’re quite formidable. But they do not have your drive, your passion. They will not stand a chance against you soon!”
Koji interjected again: “Wes, she’s talking like it’s kill or be killed. Please tell me I’ve got it wrong.”
Again he ignored her. Koji had never seen that look on Wes’ face before.
“Together,” Saya yelled, “we will bring Maeda to its knees! We will fight and we will win. Their soldiers will challenge us and they will die! And once they can watch their own bleed no more, they will admit defeat, they will open their doors to us, and the children of Stratos will finally be safe!”
The crowd erupted into cheers.
Koji slowly backed away from the stage. “What am I involved in?” she uttered, trembling with fear.
Bang!
From somewhere, a pistol shot blared.
Koji ducked and fell to her knees. Looking up, she saw Saya take cover, putting the podium between herself and the hall door. She held a gloved hand to her chest – she’d been shot, but she wasn’t bleeding. When Saya leant out to spy the corridor outside, Koji saw the light reflect off the hole in her shirt – she was wearing a metal plate around her chest, a plate which had saved her life.
“Koji, we need to get out of here,” Wes said. “Now!”
“You want to go towards the gunshot?”
“No, there’s a side door. C’mon!”
Wes dragged her by the scruff of her collar and they funnelled through the single door with some of the other insurgents. Once outside, the group ran through the darkness until they reached a dead end.
“What now?!” someone said.
“Hide?” another said.
“What’s the point? They can still see our heat!”
“We should fight!”
“But they have guns!”
“Did anyone get one from Saya?!”
During the chaos, Koji reached for her torch and shone it at the end of the corridor. She saw only rusting panels and floor gratings.
“Turn that off! You’ll draw the Maens straight to us.”
“Shit, shit, sorry,” Koji said. Her heart was racing heavily, and the adrenaline coursing through her veins made her hands shake, so it was hard to comply.
Once again in the darkness, the group felt the corridor walls for unseen doors and exits. They were trapped like scared rats in a cage. For a moment, in her peripheral vision, Koji thought she saw some heat at the corridor’s end. Quietly, she asked Wes to confirm what she saw.
“See what down where?” he asked.
Koji grabbed his head and turned it. Wes saw nothing at first, but then the edge of a face and an arm peeked out.
“It looked like she threw something,” Wes observed.
Koji looked around at the group of lost and panicked recruits, one had collapsed on the floor. She could only see the blur of his heat, so shone her torch on him – he lay face up, the hilt of a knife protruded from his left eye, and blood dripped slowly through the metal gratings beneath.
“Holy shit!” someone yelled behind Koji. She spun and pointed the torch at the wide-eyed, ageing man. Before he could say anything else, a pair of purple-tinted blades silently slid through his chest and stopped just short of Koji’s face. The attacker hid in the man’s shadow. The figure then vanished quickly without a trace. After the sabres were wrenched away, the victim collapsed and toppled over, trapping Koji between him and the ground. Blood gushed from his mouth and chest as Koji desperately tried to free herself as claustrophobia set in.
It took her and Wes’ combined strength to shift the corpse, allowing them to escape. The others were torn apart by the unseen foe cutting the darkness with his blades.
Koji and Wes charged back to the empty meeting hall. Once through, she wedged the side door shut with a folded chair, trapping any who had survived inside with the assassin. Gunfire echoed through the hall from the main entrance in the gaps between their heavy breathing.
“W-what now?” Koji said.
“We get the hell out of here!” Wes suggested. “The same way we came in.”
“Okay, okay. So, heading towards the gunfire?” Koji wiped the blood off her face with her shirt sleeve.
“Any other ideas?”
“None whatsoever.”
“Let’s go then.”
They crept through the gloom, single file, pressed up against the corridor wall like it would diminish the chances of them being discovered. They fought to slow their breathing, to quieten their presence.
The sound of gunfire grew and grew. The muffled tones soon became aggressive and painful, qualities amplified by Ark’s harsh surfaces. Outside one of the offices, Koji and Wes saw several insurgents, armed with pistols, ducked behind a turned-over desk. They took turns clumsily pressing their guns against a mixing kit to load them, and shot at seemingly nothing.
Keeping their heads low, Koji and Wes approached the insurgents, making their presence known quickly so to not get shot. “Who are you shooting at?!” Wes yelled over the gunfire. Koji ducked behind him.
“The Maens!” a woman barked back whilst taking aim. “They’re out there, not many of them, but they’re out there, dammit!”
“How can you be s-”
A bullet tore through the woman’s forehead splashing Wes with her blood. After the initial shock, he realised the bullet had actually grazed his shoulder too.
Koji pulled him to the ground. “Shit! Wes, are you alright?” she said.
“Er, fine, fine.” With shaking hands, he wiped the blood away from his eyes.
“What do we do? What do we do?!” Koji had little control over her emotions and actions at this point.
“I, I don’t-”
“If we’re going to survive this we need a plan,” a red-faced, balding, tank of a man said suddenly. “Firing into the dark blindly until we run out of powder isn’t going to get us anywhere!”
“What do you suggest then?” another said.
“We charge them. We load several bullets into our weapons, sprint to the end of the corridor, and hope we find something to shoot before Sparking kicks in.”
Keeping a bullet loaded in a pistol on Sixe was like taking a terrible gamble – the longer you left the pistol unfired, the more likely it was to go off on its own and blast a hole in your foot. And if you had a bunch of bullets in the gun clip when Sparking hit, it would blow your hand off.
The group shared terrified looks, and then one said, “I’m in.” The rest followed suit soon after.
That left Koji and Wes.
The tank quickly grabbed the dead woman’s pistol from the other side of the desk. He held it in the palm of his hand before Wes and Koji. “Which of you is with us?” he said.
Wes immediately snatched the gun. “I need someone to show me how to use this.”
“Wes, no!” Koji begged. “You can’t!”
“It’s very clear that if we don’t kill whoever’s out there, we’re all dead. One of us needs to go, and it’s going to be me. End of discussion.”
“Why the hell does it ‘have to be you’? Why don’t I even get a say?! What kind of-”
“Fine – take it.”
Wes held out the gun in front of Koji. She was annoyed he’d assumed that only he could take on such a dangerous task, but when faced with the choice of taking it upon herself, she froze. The thought of running out into the darkness to fight murderers horrified her to the point where she shook uncontrollably. She simply stared at the gun and choked on her words.
“As I said, it’s going to be me.” Wes took back the gun.
I’m a coward, Koji thought, ashamed.
Wes inspected the gun and said, “Someone show me how to use this.”
After a quick crash course, Wes loaded a bullet, and the insurgents were ready.
“Wes…” Koji uttered, “…don’t.”
“No need to worry, it’s about time Lady Luck blessed me, remember?”
The insurgents charged.
♠ ♣ ♥ ♦
It’s seven versus one, maybe two. The Maens don’t stand a chance. Wes will survive.
Wes will survive.
Koji crawled under the desk, into its smallest compartment, and she hugged her knees. She wasn’t sure she could manage anything else. She thought back on the previous evening, on how lucky she had been. Was this a turning point to that good luck? Was the terrible situation she now found herself in a result of that good luck?
Screams echoed down the corridor.
Gunfire sounded.
And then there was silence.
That was it, Koji thought. They killed those damn Maens.
She waited but no one returned.
“Wes?!” she prayed.
Koji couldn’t take it anymore – the darkness, the suspense, the fear. She panicked and completely lost control of herself. Before she knew it Koji was charging down the corridor, retracing the steps she took on her way into Ark. She ran past the office, and down the stairwell. Several times she lost her footing but continued to will herself onwards.
“Nearly there,” she mumbled to herself. “Nearly there.”
Another gunshot cut the silence, but Koji ignored it. She was so close to being free of the nightmare and didn’t want to – couldn’t – stop running.
Now on the bottom deck and brimming with hope, Koji turned the last corner to Ark’s exit but tripped. She fell, face first, grazing her hands, elbows, and face. The moonlight seeped in from the outside and illuminated the source of her trip – another body.
The remnants of a man stared at her.
Koji felt hollow.
Now a little more in control of her senses and actions, Koji heard a whisper towards the exit. Peaking around the corner, she saw two women. Their blades reflected the light like two white-hot sabres. One lunged at the other, deftly disarming her opponent, and buried her blade in flesh where it would reflect the moonlight no longer.
The loser mumbled insults between bloody spatters as she slid down the corridor wall.
The winner turned to Koji.
Once, on a clear day three years before, Koji sat before Ninette Vespa’s Atrium in Stratos’ city centre and drew. By no means was this her plan for the day – she’d planned on visiting some friends in the north of the city – but as she passed the magnificent structure, she was drawn to it. As a keen artist and a budding architect, she was happy to devote some time to sketch it. She asked if the building receptionists would kindly lend her paper, pencil, and rubber, and then she got comfortable on the bench outside facing the famous building.
Koji’s quick sketch soon became an intricate drawing worthy of any respectable gallery. Unlike other buildings in Stratos, effort had been put into every part of the Atrium’s design – every column, window frame, and doorway of the seven-story building had been decorated differently to any other. Even the surrounding fence and gate had a variety of themes. Koji devoted considerable time to ensure she’d properly captured the complex curves of the decorative, blown and stained glass into her drawing, though she omitted the smog from the surrounding power plants. Soon, the sun began to set.
When she hadn’t shown, Koji’s friends were worried about her – and she knew it – but the sunset on that night couldn’t be ignored. She spent another few hours shading the sun’s reflection on the Atrium’s glass.
If she continued to pursue a career in architecture, Koji could spend her life drawing, designing beauties such as the Atrium. That day was engraved into her memory. It was a good day, a day of inspiration, and it was perfect; until the sun finally set.
But then the Horizon hit.
Koji’s memories of the following few hours were patchy, as if her brain was trying to suppress them. She was safe, but that didn’t make Sixe’s wrath any less terrifying. Koji remembered two things well: the intense fear, and then the soul-destroying realisation that she would never see her parents again.
When the Maen assassin set her sights on Koji, she relived that same intense fear, and the voracious need to flee. Charging over the uneven ground she tripped repeatedly, cutting her already-grazed hands and knees. Koji didn’t even notice the pain. She entered the stairwell and clambered upwards.
The deck-one door had ceased shut. She wasted no time trying to force it open and charged up another story in the dark. Koji fell through the stairwell exit onto deck two. Now on her knees, she fumbled for her torch and flicked it on.
Bodies.
And blood.
The insurgents she’d met earlier littered the hallway.
Wes…
Koji charged down the corridor checking every lifeless face hoping none of them belonged to her childhood friend. As she neared the last corpse, a knife cut the air before her face. She flinched backwards and stumbled. Lifting her torch, she found a black-hooded figure approaching, brandishing a gleaming blade. Again the figure slashed for her, and again it missed.
Koji wasted no time in making her escape. However, as she ran, more assassins appeared from every hallway door, each of them swung a knife as she passed. Koji dodged them all, but the enemies took chase. Glancing back when she could, Koji saw the corridor fill with more and more characterless foes until the many reflections from the knives they carried strobed like a fireworks display.
But then she hit it – the corridor’s end.
Koji had nowhere left to run.
“Get back!” she yelled, and threw her torch at the approaching sea of hooded adversaries.
Koji backed up against the wall. “Please,” she begged, “I don’t want to die.”
The assassins encircled her slowly, and then they lunged. They thrust the knives into her repeatedly, and Koji screamed.
Koji was alone.
What the hell just happened? she thought.
Koji had fallen to the floor. Inspecting herself, she found no wounds. Not one. She took several deep breaths and tried to calm her pulse.
Was that real?
She crawled forward, grabbed her torch and searched the hallway. There’s nobody here…a hallucination?
The insurgents’ bodies had also vanished.
Koji got to her feet and crept forwards. How can I be hallucinating? What’s going on?!
After several paces, another hooded silhouette coalesced in the distance. It pointed a pistol at her.
Koji froze.
Is this one real?
The muzzle flashed, the shot rang in her ears, though she was unharmed.
It’s not real…
The bullets kept on coming but never hit Koji. Confidently, she approached the hallucination and swung her torch at it. She expected the mirage to dissipate like smoke, but instead, it disappeared without transition, like a sudden shift in reality.
Koji had no idea why this was happening to her – had she lost her mind? Was she unconscious and dreaming? It didn’t matter. Regardless of her mental state, or if a real Maen assassin awaited her somewhere, she had to escape Ark.
Retracing her steps once more, Koji found the stairwell with ease. She was careful, collect. She wasn’t sure why, but now she had control over her fear. She only had one lingering woe – Weeskind. Koji had no idea if he’d escaped, or if he was even alive. She wished he was still by her side to help her out of this mess.
And then, there he was. Right behind the door to the ground-floor deck. He was leant against the wall opposite, clutching a knife lodged in his stomach. His hands and shirt were stained red, his face was pale. With tearful eyes, he said, “Koji, help me.”
He collapsed.
“Koji, I don’t have long…”
Of course Wes is magically here, Koji thought. And of course he’s dying. “I don’t want to see this.”
Koji ignored the imaginary Wes completely and left him to bleed out as he called her name over and over and sobbed.
Just another hallucination. I don’t have time for this.
She headed for the exit. She took several sturdy steps forwards and was hit.
Koji fell flat on her back. Her windpipe had been crushed and she struggled to breathe. Illuminated in the faint moonlight was a woman looking over her. At first, Koji thought it was a grey-haired wraith like those in the horror stories passed around her school, but then she noticed the woman’s hair was, in fact, blonde, and fell over a military uniform of some kind.
Gracelessly, the soldier stepped over Koji like she was part of the scenery. Realising this foe wasn’t a hallucination, Koji did her best to back away towards the exit and watched in horror as the soldier callously ripped the knife from Wes’ stomach. And then it dawned on her…
Wes too is real. He’s real. And I…I just passed him by like he was nobody. When my oldest friend needed me the most, I…
Weeskind was dead. In his final moments, he had slid down Ark’s corridor wall onto his side and closed his eyes. He spent his final moments scared.
And alone.
“No, no, no,” Koji mumbled, scrambling to her feet as the Maen assassin stomped after her in heavy boots. She didn’t get far – Koji was grabbed by the scruff of her shirt and hurled backwards like a small animal. She landed face first.
Looking up, she saw Wes. In those few moments she relived their important memories together: when they were young and Wes took the blame for smashing a window whilst they were playing, when Koji got dumped by her first girlfriend and Wes had moved heaven and earth to stop her crying; right up until earlier that day, when Weeskind had tried to nudge Koji’s career back on track, lost a bet in the process, and ended up with a god-awful tattoo. A tattoo which now stared Koji in the face a hair’s breadth away.
As Koji felt the cold pinch of steel cross her throat, she wondered why Lady Luck had punished them so.
Haven’t we suffered enough?
♠ ♣ ♥ ♦
That day, Saya’s Insurgency was crushed. The Maen soldiers returned home victorious, though they knew the Maeda-Stratos conflict was not resolved. The tension between the Twin Cities – Maeda and Stratos – died down for many years, and the Horizon came and went without incident. Until, twenty-two years later…
CONTINUED IN AXIS: THE TWIN CITIES.
1WARNING: this is not a good reason for getting a tattoo. Good reasons include: commemorating a notable event, decorating yourself with virtuosic artwork, you drew an awesome cartoon ninja which couldn’t possibly go un-tattooed somewhere, and you drew another cartoon ninja to give the first one someone to spa with.
2The fact that the Vespa sold the cheapest pint – by far – was neither here nor there…or so Koji claimed.
3He assumed the contents of her apartment were worth more than a bottle of terrible whiskey – he was wrong. So, really, Koji won either way…
4Of people, not creep-crawlies. Although, I expect the creep-crawlies could hold their own…
5But that’s not what you thought, right?
6…and gigantic bugs. Gigantic, disgusting, blood-thirsting things with far too many eyes…and legs…and heads – who knows what devilish creatures inhabit the darkest reaches of an abandoned spacecraft on an alien planet?!
Deathkat Media 