Track 023: Parley

  Neon

  “What happened?” I say, my hands still in the air. I don’t know exactly to put him at ease. Trying and project friendliness with my tone and give an off-beat smile. Hoping to get him to open up and figure out why he’s pointing his gun at probably the first new human he’s seen in a while.

  “Who are you?” Captain Lewis Armstrong asks, his voice betraying his unease. As he walks out from the dark doorway.

  The picture I was shown of Armstrong showed a capable man with a handsome face. The look of him is night and day difference from how he appears now. His light brown skin was pale and wan. His cheeks were gaunt and his eyes were haunted. He’s definitely seen some shit. This scene is a little too close to the end of Night of The Living Dead to me.

  He white knuckles his rifle in both hands, not pointing it at me, but I can tell he’s already close to the edge. Not a thing I’m doing is putting him back on solid ground. His hands aren’t shaking, though; no, he’s too well-trained for that. He’s so damn tense I make any sudden moves and I’m the new stain on the street.

  “My name’s Neon. I came here to bring your squad in from the cold. Vintage said she wanted to me to find out what happened to you guys and lead you to joining them. I have found a few abnormalities, but if we move out quickly, I can bring you to The Resistance with no worries.” My tone was calm and matter of fact. Dropping the smile, making sure not to look flippant. It’s code switching, but I’ve been doing that my whole short life.

  “Vintage sent you, Private…?” I don’t even think he believed it when he asked. I mean, look at me. Wearing a new set of running shoes and a Killer Clowns From Outer Space tee, I don’t think anyone would believe I was for real.

  “No, sorry, I’m not part of The Resistance.”

  “All of humanity is part of The Resistance.” Passion flickers behind his eyes, a backbone returning. This guy might be worse than Sess. I resisted putting my head in my hands or rolling my eyes.

  “We are all resisting, just not part of The Resistance.” Pushing back on his preconceived notions probably isn’t the best, but there’s no way he really believes I’m a soldier unless the dress code took a wild deviation. “There are a few outfits I know that are fighting back against The Dominance. You guys, The Resistance, The Cyborg Paramours, and us, Rebellion.”

  “So all hope isn’t lost…” He looks up at the sun. A wobbly smile appears on his face. Like he isn’t sure he should and if he does, it will mean the other shoe will drop. The low slunk camo cap on his head kept me from seeing his eyes and the finger-width under his left one. I wonder what got him. If it’s a story, that’s any good. “You’d better come in.” The relief I feel as those words are finally said.

  The room inside is a warehouse breakroom and calling it that is a little much. It’s just four walls protecting people’s food from the pallets and forklifts without a roof. Couldn’t quite see what all was on them, but if it was food, he and the others wouldn’t look so starved. And if it was something useful, they would have torn into them, begun using them. These people had next to nothing.

  Out through the door, I could see someone had reinforced the forklifts with wood from the palettes to protect the driver and make gun holes for sightlines. It’s a battlelift! I instantly thought about driving them and running over a few of The Dominance. The voice in my head rings and my vision goes black just for a blink but it’s unsettling.

  I must have stopped walking because I’m face to face with the captain. He looks concerned.

  “I’m fine.” I say, realizing I’ve balled my fingers into fists.

  He looks to me as if he wants to push things, but a wild exhaustion behind his eyes clouds over. There’s no way he’s got the energy to deal with my strange bullshit. Not that I have time or energy to deal with mine, either.

  “So what happened?” I repeat. We sit across from each other and he looks anywhere but at me. I wonder if it’s the androgyny or if he’s just out of sorts cause of what’s been going on. He doesn’t know what to make of me. And honestly, he isn’t the first, won’t be the last. I make people uncomfortable.

  “We’re an outfit from Norfolk, the 721st. We fought the good fight for a while, but we were losing ground every day. When the heat in the kitchen got too hot, a lot of The Resistance thought it was a good idea to get away from the major military bases. They were too easy for them to reinforce. Decided to join up with the 822s, Vintage and Sess’s squad in Electric City. A small vanguard was headed over the bay.” He points to himself. “We were to clear the way for a full scale retreat. The moment we set down on West Harbor, we were ambushed.” The way he gives the situation, he snaps into some version of military decorum. It snaps him out of the melancholy a bit. The rituals keeping him sane in the face of despair. “We lost four of our thirty man team in our first contact. And Five were wounded. Every time we found a place to set down, we were ousted in a few days. We were running low on food and scavenging was getting harder. We lost people in every skirmish. Norfolk all over again. It wasn’t until we came across a few civilians that we could fight back again. We created a minor militia. It helped a bit and for a while we could keep them off us.”

  He ran his finger around the lip of the disposable cup. “They fought back harder. Now it wasn’t only two or three commandos, it was seven. Feet to gills in armor and armaments, we didn’t stand a chance. And the worst part is they didn’t even kill most of us. They took them. Sent some creepy spider things to web them up and throw acid on our weapons.”

  “Trackers, yeah, we fought them.” I give a small shudder just thinking about those weirdoes.

  “Oh, for real? Those things have hides like a tank! We could barely tag them.” The look he gives me shows he weighs me a little differently, considering me.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “We got lucky.” I say quickly, making sure not to give too much away. “We have a specialist studying weak point and helping us decide what ammo types work the best on them.”

  “I wish we did that. Not too much time for R & D on the road.” He nods his head, as if it makes sense.

  “It wasn’t until last week when we came across a group down on Chuck Berry Avenue. They had been hiding out in the Asian market over there. Some of that group is still with us,” He says, looking through the wall as if he can see everyone moving around out there. Living their lives as close to normal as possible. Chatting with each other, watching the few children play quiet games, and not trying to think about what comes next. “Turns out a young man in that group tapped into some power… Don’t know if it was witchcraft or he was a mutant or something but, it was wonderful until it wasn’t.” He looks down. Sighing deeply. “I admit it was my fault. We had him on the front lines. He could do more damage with a crowbar than we could even think about doing with a grenade. He was a hero.”

  “What powers did he have?” This is an awakened. It has to be. I can’t imagine anything else doing that.“He exploded…” He says sheepishly.

  “What?” I snort. And when the tension in the room doesn’t let up, I realize I may have made a mistake. That’s old Neon, not the “ we really need this guy to come with us, so be on your fucking best behavior” Neon. We need that one right now.

  “He could control fire.” He said firmly. It’s clear he thinks I was making fun of him. He locks gazes with me and says so in a matter-of-fact-way.

  “Oh, it’s not that I don’t believe you.” I wave my hands to calm him down. “I’ve seen some weird stuff since this all began.”

  “You’re telling me!” He looks away, probably remembering some of the nightmare creatures we saw at the university. “Anyway, if I’m being honest. We weren’t good to the kid-I mean the young man. We put him in every combat we had. He was just too good not to use. The problem was, as things went on, he got a little less stable.”

  “By less stable you mean he started ‘sploding on his own?” The look that answered my comment told me he wasn’t in a place for my inopportune humor.Which, fair. The fact I’m already unraveling after a five-minute conversation isn’t the best endorsement of my skills to finish this mission.

  “For lack of a better term… yes. It got so bad he hurt someone.”

  “That must have been difficult to make sense of it at the moment.”

  “Yes, he was an asset to us and if we knew better… we probably would have slowed his involvement in the fighting. We weren’t that smart. The civilians got angry at us for allowing him to stick around and came together to push him out. We couldn’t wrest control and it almost turned into a revolt. We only have a few of the people still here from that group.”

  It makes there were maybe 30 people even counting the kids in the warehouse. The numbers didn’t add up. “So what happened to those that couldn’t stand it anymore?”

  “I am ashamed to say they left.” He wouldn’t look at me anymore, avoiding the horror in my expression he already knew was there. His voice is hollow and tinged with ennui. “You’ve got to understand I wasn’t supposed to be in charge this long. The rest of the men were coming across the bridge. I was supposed to be relieved of duty. Herding this many civilians? Creating a militia? Holding them off… I got my promotion right before they shuttered the military. I’ve never led this many people. I’m at a loss here.”

  He was out of his depth, true. However, we lost people and they could have been recaptured or, worse, dead. Whatever is left of these people needs someone to take charge and get them out of this bind. Say what you want about Carl; he isn’t this whimpering pile of man.

  Damn, I wish Mix were here. They’d trust Mix or hell, even Kohl could inspire people to movement. I’ve got to do this without powers and still get everyone to safety. I sigh and shake my head. Why can’t things be simple?

  “We need to get moving. I have cleared a corridor for our escape and if we don’t take it soon, we’ll be in trouble.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I crossed no-man’s-land to get to you, so we have to do it while there are no reinforcements.

  “Yes… Neon!” He didn’t know the form of address as he falters, but he seems like he’ll follow for now and that’s all I can ask.

  “Are you sure about this?” Armstrong says, as we’ve all ten combatants and the two of us into the four battle lifts. The civilians and the children and the children are being dragged behind each of them in makeshift wagons made by pallet jacks and pallets to give them the most protection. It wasn’t the most solid solution, but it was as safe as I could make everyone.

  “I’m sure. This will be faster than it’d be if we have to herd everyone on foot.” A new notification popped up on my HUD.

  Congratulations, Neon!

  You’ve resisted impulses inside and out.

  This was no small task.

  Locating a huddled mass and questioning your very existence has brought you closer to a realization.

  

  Track down Dragon.

  He needs your help.

  An Outcast, he’s fighting a losing battle on his own.

  My Quest app forcibly updates. What Dragon? Isn’t that the person on the leaderboards? I pull up the app and it says they’re far and away with the highest kills of enemy combatants. Why does he have a connection with these people? That’s what the notification is implying, right? It must. He has to have been the guy the captain was talking about. He kept them alive for weeks and he got kicked to the curb when he lost the least bit of control. That kind of thing pisses me off. The big question is, what could a guy like that be capable of?

  Seeing Mix and Rebellion on the come up makes me think the training is either going really well or really badly. I trust Mix, and if they can’t get them started on their way, no one can. We’ll have another badass who can help us take the fight to The Dominance. I want them gone one way or another.

  Of course, it couldn’t leave me alone with my own thoughts. A silent moment would have been too much.

  Disembarking the battlelift again and re-situating the powered pallet jacks for the eleventh time is getting old fast. Turns out their wheels aren’t so great for anything other than warehouse floors. I wish someone would have told me. It’s going to be a long way back at this rate having to move carefully like this but, I’m going to figure this out and save Dragon. Voices in my head or not. I’m not giving up.