LOCKED (18 page)

His body and the branches
slammed into the catwalk. I held onto the branches tightly, waiting for his
next move. When the bridge he laid on groaned, I realized that there wouldn’t
be a “next move”. It squealed and collapsed, sliding him into the damning
stream below.

"No...!" Miller
whispered to himself with wide eyes. No matter what he had done, my human
instincts forced me to reach my hand out to catch him, but he was already far
gone. His body fell into the acid along with the branches that were broken.
Both immediately started to steam and hiss in immolation...

I pulled myself up to the
second level. The
Sci'Lyk
stopped yanking on wires
and levers, and simply stared at me. I quietly scooped them up in my arms, and
they hardly reacted. I found a metal door off to the side, and opened it.

Ironically, there was a
stairway that descended to the ground here. It twisted around this steel
obelisk of lances, and each step felt like it was going to give out under me.
They creaked out, whining, begging, asking, “Why don’t you just go home where
you belong?”

“I wish I could…” I found
myself whispering to them. Or was it to the observant darkness?  Or the
Sci’Lyk
, the otherworldly creatures in my arms?

My adventure was finally
over.  There were parts of it that I would carry for the rest of my days,
whether I wanted to or not. I knew deep down that Danni would always be by my
side, but what about Eddy? What would happen now that Miller was gone? And just
because he’s gone, the
buala
is still running
rampant. What of
that
?

At the bottom step, near the
gate that I knew would open obediently, the realization barreled into me.

Miller was dead.

 As foolish as it
sounded, I knew what had happened but it didn’t catch up with my brain until I
had a moment of peace to process it. I was caught in the moment, simply
fighting for my life. My conscience was split in two: had I seen a human being
burn from his outermost layer to his very core, or did I watch a monster being
dragged back to hell by its ankles?

I walked on toward the wall
at the base of the stairway, and it hissed and crackled open. Sparks leapt at
me, and my first instinct was to protect the
Sci’Lyk
as I made my shoulder the target of the electric burst. After studying what was
beyond the shower of sparks, I realized that I was at the grave of the turret
that slaughtered Ortiz. Even from beyond a sin-ridden grave, Miller’s blatant
disregard for logic played with and teased the minds of his opponents. I
couldn’t imagine how the spikes had all gone away, how a stairway appeared in
their place, or how I ended up above ground when I was certain I descended a
staircase in the basement of the tower. I shook my head, and eased my weary
curiosity with whatever answer it pointed to first. Optical illusions, Penrose
architecture, whatever was good enough to fill in the blanks. I shuffled my way
around the wreckage and leapt onto the dirt. Danni and Eddy glumly sat with
Tank, who had been fully repaired. Their eyes lit up when they saw me,
especially with the
Sci'Lyk
in hand. Both ran up to
me.

"Leo! What happened?
Are you ok? Why are they here?" Danni asked a million questions per
minute.

"God... Miller's dead.
I pulled the smoke grenade, it bounced off of a lever on Miller's desk... we
fought in some sort of acid pit. He beat me up pretty bad, but I found these
guys messing with the controls!" I held up the
Sci'Lyk
.

"He ended up falling
into the acid and dying... and here I am. I don't know how the
Sci'Lyk
got there, I'm just glad that they were..." I
continued.

"God only knows how
they could’ve come along with us... I guess it’s possible that they hopped in
some of the cargo we brought along, and snuck inside when we weren’t
looking..." Danni offered her own explanation. The three of us wordlessly
looked around. Ortiz's body had been fully cremated. U.S.P.L. soldiers prepared
for the long trip home. Guerilla fighters mourned their dead leader.
Jahnged's
corpse was sprawled near the gate to the spire;
there was no doubt in my mind that
Beich
would love to
get his hands on such a specimen.

"Now where do we
go...?" I asked to no one in particular. I received no response, but
instead looked over the land. Miller was out of power, and the power he once
held on the world was loosened. Chaos still ran rampant, but perhaps another
chance to restore order was given. In a way, without Miller, the rules of the
land were even more loose. Any factions that ran at the very sight of him
before may come crawling back out of the shadows.

“Well…we need to get the
guerillas back to the junkyard. The ones who stayed there must be worried like
hell,
wonderin
’ what happened.” Eddy reminded us. As
if under a spell, the whole convoy began the trip back, but this time, with
heavy thoughts. They were no longer charging into battle for the spoils of
victory, but were now returning with the scars of war on their minds. Eddy,
Tank, Danni, and I followed in their dusty footsteps,
Sci’Lyk
in hand.

Later in the day, the sun
was beginning to dip below the horizon. Its decent reminded us that life was
far from over, and those that fell were in a better, less chaotic place. The
night would come and go, and just as it faithfully did for countless
generations, the sun would return. Besides, would they really want us to mourn
their death for the rest of our lives?

After a few moments of our
reinvigorated steps, we came upon the bloody scene where we had been ambushed,
haunted by black and red blood. Limbs were scattered on the land that was once
green and peaceful but devitalized by swift disease and combat.

Hours later, the mad
junkyard came into sight far quicker than any of us hoped. Even after the
entire convoy arrived at the gate, the keeper refused to raise it.

“This door won’t open
without Ortiz’s permission!” he defiantly stood. His loyalty was boundless, but
would do him little good at this point. Nobody in the crowd wanted to break the
news, but it had to be said.

“Ortiz is dead. But Miller
is too.” I yelled to him from the back of the crowd. Just as I suspected, he
couldn’t believe it. Who could blame him? The guard looked over the crowd,
hoping he’d find some sort of impossible semblance of his leader, his master.
When he didn’t find it, he dutifully raised the gate without another word. The
guerilla warriors stepped back into their lawless home without any sort of
goodbye. I felt awkward in this bitter farewell, standing amongst the U.S.P.L.
and parting guerillas. The gate shut after the last mech trailed through the
dirt.

Even though the U.S.P.L.
turned to head home, Danni and I stood in place. After all the two factions had
been through, they didn’t even exchange a single goodbye? Ortiz had died in
combat, but it was for a worthy cause... There was no doubt in my mind that if
he foresaw his death, his resolve wouldn’t have faltered at all. Wouldn’t there
at least be a bittersweet acknowledgement of that mixed with the mourning?

Our response came in the
form of a sharp tooth that was thrown from behind the gate. Its tip was
blackened, and it was about six inches in length. Danni and I held it, knowing
it had come from one of the mutants. Before we could ask, we received an answer
that would strike inspiration into any man’s heart.

"It’s from the first
one that Ortiz killed, a souvenir that he wanted us keep. We'll never forget
him, but we're not helpless without him."

“LEO! DANNI!” we heard in
the distance, coming from somewhere in the U.S.P.L. convoy heading back home.
Eddy, Tank, and the rest of the convoy were far off in the fading desert. We
threw the tooth into our pocket, and made a mental note to keep it somewhere
safe.

The U.S.P.L. HQ after the
earlier attack was a pitiful shadow of its former self. Steam was streaming
from its sides and tip. The bodies of mutants were strewn across its perimeter,
even mutants we had not seen before. Not only were there the chaotic and
ferocious red devils, but there was a breed we hadn’t seen yet. They had
spider-like appendages sprouting from their human back. Most had their hairy
legs blown off, but this only increased the disturbing factor of their
appearance. Their human portion had shriveled limbs and a neck that was twisted
beyond belief. I felt blessed that Danni and I never had to face them in
combat.

The U.S.P.L. soldiers
filtered into the base. One by one, they crawled back inside, just like the
guerillas had. Eddy and Tank stayed outside with Danni and I. We watched the
rest of the convoy pour in until every soldier was accounted for.

“It’s done.” Eddy sighed. We
silently nodded, and stared at the burning tower. Eddy interrupted our
thoughts.

“Well…now that we’ve fought
Miller with the guerillas, things should go a lot smoother. Think about it. The
news’ll
spread quick. As soon as a cure is made for
buala
, we’ll kill what’s left of the mutants, and rebuild.
We’ll rebuild everything. Nobody can stop us now. We made history! We’ve never
had to deal with anything like this, but we made it through! We can make order
again…” Eddy sighed once more.

“What do you expect us to do
now?” I had to ask, pointing to Danni and myself.

“You two…? Well…you’re free.
You’re not drafted in anymore, you’ve fulfilled your obligation. There’s
nothing left that you can do. In fact, I CAN’T keep you here, you know I would.
I could justify keeping you around for your blood, but everyone else wouldn’t
let me keep Danni around…” he shrugged. It didn’t even need to be said that I
wouldn’t stay if Danni couldn’t.

Panic struck me, and it must
have hit Danni just as hard. “You can’t! There’re still mutants out there!
We’ll get killed!” Danni pleaded.

“Relax! We’re tightening up
security as we speak. As soon as one district is clear, we’ll move on to the
next and the next and the next. We’ll clean the whole world, just like I said
before.”

“Who’s ‘we’ when you want
nothing to do with us…?”

Utter silence, except for
the sound of
Sci’Lyk
scurrying around in my pockets
and on my shoulders.

Danni and I trekked back to
the ruins of the city after we realized we were unwanted. We kicked around an
old can of soda that we found lying in the shadows of weakened titans. The
sound of its dented body being kicked resonated through the empty city, trying
to guide any who had lost their way.