Shoot to Kill

“You’re sure he’s here, sir?” a grizzled, middle aged soldier questioned.

The woman beside him spoke through clenched teeth, “I’d bet my life on it, Sergeant.” Her voice was gruff, commanding, nothing like her small frame would suggest.

“It has been sixteen years since the Scorch. Why here, why now, Captain? We’ve been chasing Talin’s ghost all this time and now is when he decides to get sloppy?”

“That’s just the kind of swine he is, Medina. He’s always taunted me, every step of the way.”

Before the sergeant could voice another thought, the Captain quickly rose from her crouched position and stalked forward. As she did, two new soldiers, Thompson and Prentis, jogged up next to her from the treeline.

“Captain Del, look,” said Thompson, handing her a large white machine that required two hands to carry. It was shaped after a bird, with three wings on the top and a fourth wing hanging vertically from the rear. The metal casing on it was rusted and burned in places, and although the chassis showed definite signs of aging, a cabin of shining new cables and circuit boards displayed itself through a translucent shell.

“A WeatherCrafter?” Sergeant Medina gasped.

Del dropped the machine, then shot a smug glance at her second-in-command. “Trust me now?”

“Sir!” he responded, stiffening into a sharp salute.

Captain Del barked orders at her soldiers. “Thompson, rendezvous with Bravo Team and approach the compound from the eastern walls. Prentis, rally up, we’ll be heading in through the front door, and don’t expect any of that great southern hospitality you’re so fond of. Keep your guns up and your eyes sharp. Every village Talin takes up residence with tends to keep a few muties among them. Shoot at will.” They took off, falling into formation and beginning the assault.

The squad of eleven soldiers accompanied their captain towards the front gates which were little more than wooden doors cut out from the larger walls that surrounded the compound. Four men braced themselves against either side of the swinging gates and pushed them inwards, the soldiers filing in the courtyard with practiced efficiency. Her second team would be nearing the eastern walls at the same time, probing into a weakness they had discovered a day earlier.

Instead of an armed force to greet them, there were filthy men, women, and children toiling away. They had barely noticed Del’s arrival until a young woman cried out in fear.

“Where’s Talin?” Del yelled out, attempting to holler over the screams from the villagers as they ran for cover.

The young woman who had noticed Del first ran at her, falling at her feet and pleading, “Please, don’t hurt us, please.” She racked with sobs as Del grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled her to her feet.

Captain Del pointed her pistol skyward, three shots ringing out as she pulled the trigger. The crack of gunfire silenced the dense crowd in front of her and she asked again, this time in a quieter voice, “Where is Talin?”

No one dared to answer her, and the only noise that could be heard was the shuffling of feet and the young woman crying next to Del.

The woman’s whimpering turned into full-on panic as the cold metal barrel of the pistol pressed against her temple.

“You are willfully aiding a criminal. The man you are protecting is solely responsible for the Scorch. If you are unwilling to provide me with his location”—she fired, punctuating her words—“you will be found just as guilty as him.” A sickening thud hit the ground and instantly the villagers flew into a frenzy, running deeper into the village and away from Captain Del.

“Captain,” Medina said slowly, “they are unarmed civilians.”

“Until we find Talin, they are criminals who are aiding and abetting whatever it is he is doing here, and will be treated as such if we have any chance of preventing another disaster from happening.”

“I… we can’t…” Medina started.

“You have your orders, Sergeant. Find Talin if you want to stop the killing.”

Shots began to ring out sporadically. Bravo Team had engaged as well. Captain Del directed her men to meet up with them. A few moments later, Thompson came running towards Del.

“There’s a warehouse near the southern edge. Signs of activity inside, some sort of manufacturing work. Tried to do some recon to find out what, but a bunch of muties came out when the shooting started. Bravo Team is engaged right now.” Thompson bent over to catch his breath. Without another word Del took off, signaling for the men to follow behind.

A few minutes later Captain Del and her team joined the firefight. Scores of muties, had taken to the field to fight. They were horribly disfigured; muscles and skin overgrown and freakish in seemingly random places. They soaked up bullets with hardly a missed step, and it took precision to shoot where the sickness hadn’t changed them. Their inhuman strength and speed nearly removed the advantages Captain Del’s men had with their guns. The muties rocketed across the destroyed landscape, ducking behind rubble and makeshift barriers on their approach.

Captain Del motioned for Sergeant Medina and Private Prentis to rally to her and follow to a small side entrance to the warehouse that was free of danger. The battle raged on ahead as she forced her way inside and cautiously followed the hallways in front of her.

It wasn’t long before she could hear ruffling papers and chests being slammed shut. She chased the sound into a small office room on the second floor and came face to face with the man she had spent so much of her life chasing. She quickly put a hand up behind her telling the soldiers with her to stand down.

The man turned to face her, his weathered features wrinkling into a tired smile. Long black hair fell in coiled clumps across a pock-marked and scarred face.

“Adelia,” he whispered.

“It’s Del.”

“Are you so ashamed of the name your mother and I gave you?” Talin asked.

“You’re no father of mine, Talin. You can’t murder half of the world, poison the rest of it, and still call yourself that.” Her words came out hard, the bitter edge in them barely concealing the years of hurt she had endured.

“What happened…” he ran his hands through his hair, revealing a delicately engraved silver hear shaped locket as he did. “Christ, Adelia. You think I wanted this?” Talin’s words cut deep, his frustration evident.

“You authorized it. You built the WeatherCrafters. We didn’t need a system to control the weather, but your own ego blinded you. You are guilty, intentions are worthless before fact,” she spat.

“You had only just got out of college, Adelia-”

“Del,” she glowered.

Talin sighed, “Del. You don’t know the pressures I was under. It was out of my control by that point. I was rushed. I didn’t realize that when the drones left the lower atmosphere, the fumes made by the thruster fuel would seep into the cargo bay. In all of our tests we had never seen it. Those fumes changed the dust solution we created, turned it to poison.”

Captain Del lifted her pistol towards her father, contempt in her eyes. “It does not matter, Talin. The only thing that matters is that you are responsible for the Scorch. You destroyed this planet.”

“Don’t you get it, girl?” Talin leaned into his own anger, “What do you think I have been doing all these years? I found the antidote!” Responding to the anger, Medina and Prentis pointed their guns, as well.

Del ignored him, “Do you know what they commanded me to do, the day it happened? They told me to find you and kill you. A command from the highest office telling me to kill my own father. That you”—she gestured vaguely with her pistol—“did this to us.”

“Wait. Did he say he found the cure?” Prentis asked, receiving a sharp look from Medina in reply.

“Del, it’s right here.” Talin opened the heart-shaped locket hanging from his neck. Inside was a small data card. “This has the formula for a new compound. All I need to do is enter it into the WeatherDrone programming and they can make it themselves. It’ll counteract the poison and prevent it from harming anyone else.” He closed the locket again. “It’s even shown some promise in helping the mutated ones in returning to some sort of consciousness. Help me, Adelia. We can-”

The door of the office exploded inwards. A man with an overgrown arm the size of the rest of his body crashed into the room, bumping into Captain Del. In that brief moment, Del panicked and pulled the pistol’s trigger. Medina responded with a few shots of his own, putting down the mutated intruder.

At the far end of the room, Talin had collapsed to the floor, a red stain spreading across his chest at his heart. Del dashed over and knelt next to her father, tears welling up in her eyes despite herself.

Talin was already dead. His hand held firm to the chain, but beneath that the locket was shot cleanly in two, one half missing entirely. A small shard of the data card tumbled out of the surviving piece of the locket and fell unceremoniously to Talin’s chest.

It was all she could do just to stare down at her father. Stunned silence washed over Del, and she slowly found her way back to her feet. Outside, the sounds of the firefight had died down, and her legs carried her out to the battlefield. Her soldiers followed behind, anxiously trading glances.

She fell in a heap, disturbing a pile of dirt beneath her. She couldn’t make any sense of her surroundings as her eyes darted back and forth, looking for something to focus on. Then they landed on the hard sheen of her pistol.

She reached out with a hand that felt alien to her, grabbing on to the gun.

And she lifted it.