040

I gasped awake as cold adrenaline slithered into my veins, pumped into me through the tube in my arm. I shook my head to clear the stars from my vision, and glanced around. Surrounding me were my fellow Guardsmen, a dozen silhouettes barely visible in the dim light of the dropship. All of us were decked out from head to toe in black armor, dangling from the inside of the ship like chunks of meat hanging in a butcher shop. The mission brief blinked into my vision, scrolling across the inside of my visor in bright green letters. I had barely started skimming when Lead came over the radio, the voice so lifelike that I almost couldn’t believe I was hearing a computer.

“Dissident Encampment – process or eliminate – deploying A2.”

As soon as my designation – A2 – was called, the floor of the dropship beneath me slammed open with a shunk sound. The clamps on my shoulders released, dropping me into freefall from three hundred feet in the air.

I was only falling for a few seconds before I plowed through the rusting roof of the abandoned steel mill that was the mission site. I landed, rolling as I hit the ground to disperse the force. During training we had been told that the suits could survive falls upwards of five hundred feet, so technically speaking I had nothing to worry about. Yet it was a habit I’d never dropped during training, nor during any of my previous drops.

I had barely stood up before my onboard computer registered multiple impacts. Sparks flew as bullets glanced off my armor, lighting up the surrounding area with each contact. I turned towards the source of the gunfire, to find at least a dozen armed Dissidents, all holding small caliber semi-automatic firearms. They seemed decently organized and trained, having taken covered positions behind several large pieces of equipment. Behind the armed ones I could see others, scrambling to gather their items and running for the exit opposite me. All of their faces were blurred, the Guardsmen helmet automatically censoring the faces of the Dissidents, so as to keep distractions to a minimum.

After glancing at my visor to confirm that no significant damage was being done, I began moving towards their line. The Dissidents poured bullets on me, all of which glanced and pinged off, ricocheting into the surrounding environment. The force of the impacts barely registered, feeling like soft, playful punches against my chest.

As I stepped forward, one of the Dissidents slammed its hand into a button on a control panel on the side of a support column. A huge clunk sound rang out, and I looked up just in time to see something falling directly over my head. They had disconnected one of the huge metal cauldrons used to transport molten steel, and I had walked right under it. I jumped backwards, too late. The cauldron slammed into my chest, smashing me into the ground with so much force that I heard the concrete crack beneath me.

I gasped as the air was forced out of my lungs. I could hear loud celebratory noises from the Dissidents. Lead’s voice came on, speaking softly into my ear.

“A2 - Status.”

I groaned, bringing my arms up and preparing to push.

“A2 – 040.” I said, relaying the code for ‘damage negligible, mission will continue’.

I shoved against the cauldron, bracing my elbows against the floor as I rolled the huge bowl off me. I pushed myself back to my feet, rolling my shoulders as I glanced towards the Dissidents that were suddenly in a much less celebratory mood. I switched on my external PA.

“Dissidents, submit to processing.” I called out, the helmet amplifying my voice so that it practically shook the dilapidated building.

Several of the Dissidents flinched, hesitating as they glanced at one another. One of them yelled at the others, shouting as it reloaded its rifle. This one seemed different; its actions seemed crisper, more intentional. Its face was blurred like the rest, but it was identifiable by its green jacket that none of the others had. It seemed to be the leader. Its voice was garbled, the words unintelligible through the helmets censoring, but it was clear that whatever it said had worked. The Dissidents reengaged, riddling me with bullets. That was fine by me. Guardsmen are only required to give one warning.

I unclipped my weapon from my thigh, followed the targeting computers prompting, and fired. The green-jacketed Dissident’s head snapped back, the hole in its skull starting to dribble as the Dissident crumpled to the ground. I repeated the process. Aim, fire. Aim, fire. It felt vaguely comforting how simple it was.

Only a few moments later, the gunfire stopped, the firearms silenced along with their wielders. I stepped over the bodies, moving further into the mill.

I meandered through the building, scanning the area to see if I’d missed anything vital. The encampment was in disarray. It seemed I had arrived while they were attempting to pack up. The tents were halfway between set up and undone, blankets lay half inside bags, boxes of provisions lay on their side, left behind.

Every so often a patch of pixels would come into my view, whatever was under them something that the Guardsmen helmet didn’t want me seeing. The pixelated portions of my vision didn’t particularly bother me, I did my best to work around them. Whatever they were, I didn’t feel the need to see. They were something that Lead had decided was unnecessary for me to know.

A small clicking noise sounded from my left, drawing my attention. I stepped towards the sound and switched my visor to infrared, reading body heat emanating from one of the half-collapsed tents in the middle of the camp.

I planted my feet in front of the tent, looking down at the cowering heat signature in my view. It seemed smaller than typical, possibly an adolescent. It was holding something close to its chest, a long cylindrical object, probably a pipe or bludgeon of some kind.

I reached down to strip away the tarp as I announced myself.

“Dissident, submit yourself to processing immediately, or face delet—”

As I spoke, I pulled the tarp to find the barrel of a shotgun aimed directly at my head.

I reeled back just as the Dissident pulled the trigger, the barrel throwing an explosion directly in my face.

I blinked my eyes hard, trying to get rid of the spots in my eyes, what little light there was in the mill suddenly seemed blindingly bright. It felt like my head was spinning like a top while my body stayed in place. My ears were ringing, my head felt like my brain was trying to punch its way out of my skull. I could feel the support of the floor under my spine. I’d fallen over.

As I attempted to reign in my senses, I felt a hot metal cylinder touch gently against my forehead. It was only then that I realized that the blast had ripped my helmet off, and the Dissident was standing over me, shotgun barrel pressed directly between my eyebrows.

I felt my breath catch in my throat. In all my previous drops, all the firefights I’d been in, I had never been closer to death.

I made a vain, half-blind grab for the barrel, lunging upwards as I did. My fingers wrapped around the shaft of the shotgun, yanking it out of the Dissident’s hands. I pushed my other hand up, snagging the Dissident by the collar of its shirt, hoisting it up with me as I returned to my feet, leaving the Dissident dangling above the ground.

I glanced down at the firearm in my left hand. On the side of the shotgun, stuck within the ejection port, was an empty, brightly colored shell. The gun had jammed.

I breathed out slowly through my nose as I dropped the shotgun, sucking in another breath as it clattered to the ground.

“Hey.”

My eyes widened. Had I given myself a moment to think, I wouldn’t have looked. I would have turned away, shut my eyes, or stared straight ahead. I would have grabbed my sidearm and completed the mission without another thought. But whether it was the shock of having narrowly avoided death, or of having heard the first voice other than the Lead’s in years, I couldn’t stop as I turned towards the Dissident, my eyes wide open.

The first thing I noticed were the pale brown irises. They weren’t warm or deep as I’d once read brown eyes described. These were cold and shallow, the shade of old copper that had rusted and corroded for years. He looked young, barely post-pubescent. His sharp features were just barely beginning to break through the youthful roundness that clung stubbornly to his cheeks.

The Dissident regarded me for a moment, the pale brown eyes skipping over my features, as if he were scanning me for insecurities. After only a second or two, he scoffed, a sad, sarcastic smile on his lips.

“Always thought Guardsmen were robots. Guess you’re not.”

With that he lifted his hand, revealing the detonator gripped in his palm. He jammed his thumb down on the primer.

I didn’t bother to run, it would have been impossible to get out of the blast radius. I wrapped my free arm around my face, trying to create a makeshift blast shield. I squeezed my eyes tight as the detonator exploded, the blast flaring so brightly that it burned even through my shut eyelids.

The light faded as quickly as it had enveloped me, leaving the night feeling even darker than it had before.

I blinked rapidly, trying to get my eyes readjusted. As I glanced down, my heart twisted in a way I hadn’t experienced before.

My armor was red hot, the metal plating burning different shades of red and orange, almost as if it were still being forged. At the end of my blazing arm was a gripped fist and then…nothing. The Dissident boy had disappeared, not a single shred of his existence left. He’d been completely evaporated, reduced to dust.

As I was trying to process the last few moments, I could feel something in the center of the closed hand. I slowly unfurled my fingers, looking down to find a small heart-shaped locket sitting forlornly in the middle of my palm. I must have gripped it when I had grabbed the boys collar.

I fumbled with the locket for a moment, the armored fingers of my gloves not exactly built for precision work. The clasp had been melted by the heat of the explosion, and after several failed attempts to open it properly, I broke it open, snapping the welded clasp and hinge both.

Pressed into the small capsule was a picture. If I had been wearing my helmet, I have no doubt that I never would have been allowed to see it. In the center was a woman, beautiful and vibrant, a smile that might have been brighter than the detonator. She wore the same locket that now lay in pieces in my hand. Next to her, smiling just as hard, was the Dissident boy.

Oh, I couldn’t help but think, that’s why I’d seen brown eyes described as warm.

A buzzing noise shook me out of my trance. I walked over to my helmet and slipped it back on.

“A2,” Lead spoke evenly, not even an ounce of concern to the cold tone, “Report.”

I looked back down at my hand. Sure enough, the image was now reduced to nothing but pixelated squares. No sign of the smiles or bright eyes I knew lay behind.

“A2.” Lead repeated.

I breathed in, closing my fingers around the picture.

“A2. 040.”