“30S, this is Command, answer immediately!”
The communicator threw the sniper off focus. He cursed under his breath before answering. The subjects were moving again, so he had to hurry up if he wanted to finish it. They were at a critical distance already, it would not be an easy shot, and the further away they got, the more room for error he would leave for himself.
“Go ahead, Command.”
“Report your status.”
He could not believe they had to disturb him just to report back. He could have been over with it by now.
“Engaging now.”
“30S, hold your fire, and dismount your position without delay!”
Great!
“Roger that. Should I maintain surveillance?”
“No. Return to your official route. Command out.”
“Acknowledged, will comply. 30S out.”
Scout 30S was perfectly motionless. The order was not what he had expected. He was now watching the illegal move up the road, slowly leaving the range of engagement. A few more steps and he would be unable to guarantee a clean shot, which also meant that his weapon’s AI would not allow him to open fire. He watched the illegal move. It dropped the gun it was holding before and looked like collapsing. Now the white scum ran up to it, caught it, and began carrying the invader slowly out of firing range. One more step…
They were now too far away. He silently applied the safety catch on his gun. He never questioned orders, not even mentally, but it was a difficult thing to disengage when he was all prepared for a kill. He found it easier to simply allow the situation to take such a turn where engagement became difficult or even impossible.
“If you only knew how close you were to it. Lucky plucker,” he muttered under his nose.
He was preparing to dismount his position when he noticed some movement through the eye-piece’s lens. He adjusted focus and turned towards his former targets. He saw an armoured van pull up by them rapidly.
***
Alex was dragging the black man with him now. They had run as fast as they could, but the African was less and less able to catch up, and now he was near collapsing. Since the path came out in the open again, he felt they should be going faster than ever. They were all exposed, he knew they should be running, but it was not possible. The man had spent all his strength and now it was up to Alex to get them back to the HQ alive. They were close. According to the map it must be little more than a mile away; but to carry another on an open road, a mile was just too long. His own strength was slowly slipping away too. He had thrown away the automatic weapon he had captured earlier and was now focusing all his remaining energy on helping the African.
When he had charged the four machine-gun wielding soldiers, that had been his last desperation turned into strength. He had never expected it to work, never hoped he would get out of there alive, but he had been determined to take as many with him as he could. The drone had followed and kept firing. The guards were taken by surprise, and by the time they could react they were caught in the line of stray bullets. He had been shot too, his left arm badly damaged and disfigured, but the four soldiers were practically blown to pieces.
That was the ugly part, seeing these people exploding into bits of flesh, immediately ceasing to be human in shape. Pieces of skin were torn from their bodies, white bone fragments flew, and blood sprayed in every direction until only mutilated corpses remained. He found this more difficult to cope with than when he had pulled the trigger himself, taking two lives away. Those soldiers he had killed, had died as men. They would be buried properly. But those four just ceased being human, their bodies losing composition in front of his eyes. He did not know where to put this in his head, or what to do with it.
The drone had immediately ceased firing and pulled away. If there was a human operator somewhere, they must have been aware of the mistake. What kind of weapon would be capable of such destruction, he could not imagine. Those drones were apparently not only meant to hunt people down, they disintegrated bodies into unrecognisable pieces, not only killing but completely dehumanising their victims.
Throwing up did not help. The sickness he felt came from somewhere deeper, not from the stomach, but from somewhere inside, somewhere behind his intestines, deep in his being like a small, almost sizeless hole in there that poured out darkness and this sludgy sick feeling. It filled him up, all his body and mind and he could not shake it loose. When he had collected himself, he picked up two of the machine guns and went to look for the African. He found him where he had left him, still crouching behind the bushes, not even raising an eye.
When he put his hand on the man’s shoulder, the other seemed happy to see him. Alex tried to smile, but felt nothing inside. He was aware of the emptiness of his stomach, the bitter taste in his mouth reminding him of vomit. He was aware of the tiredness and the pain in his left arm, where he was hit. He looked down, the arm was bleeding and it had lost its shape. And the world somehow felt just empty.
Then they started down the path which fell into the road again. Soon the African began to lose strength. He picked him up and dragged him along, keeping his arms under the man’s shoulder. He felt no compassion. He was conscious of his duty for his companion, but did not feel anything. His mind had told him he had to keep going, and that if he wanted to keep his humanity, he would make sure the African survived. So he had done his best. But his strength had been failing.
Dragging a man for a mile or so would be the easy part. The difficulty would be not to be killed on the way. And he was sure that everyone was on alert and the whole army was on their tail now. He knew they would not make it, but he was going to do it, anyway.
The wall, the scorched earth, the minefields, those unmanned drones disembowelling people with bullets that were designed to take out vehicles, and the armed patrols firing at anyone or anything that moved; these were all part of a world so sick, he did not want to be part of it any longer. The fact that the very soldiers who killed the innocent had got killed by their own instrument of destruction did not give him any satisfaction. He did not feel avenged. He felt nothing. Being shot now would have been bliss, but he would not give in. Not to those. Not like that. If he was to be killed, he wanted to die fighting. As a man, who clung to his humanity until the last moment, in a world where humanity was not even a concept anymore. So he carried the African for what seemed to be an eternity.
Then he heard the sound of thick tyres on the asphalt. He tried to move faster, but he felt powerless. Still he dragged on, aiming for the trees now. A van pulled up beside them and its side door slid open. A voice was shouting out at him, but he did not understand what it said. He tried to drag the African onwards, but two men dressed in engineers’ overalls jumped out and took the African’s inert body off him.
He watched them put the man gently in the van. He was losing focus, the events and his surroundings becoming dream-like. He struggled to keep his consciousness now. He felt someone lift him off the ground. He looked back and saw the path. It was so close. It felt like he had been going on forever, yet it was only a few steps away. He tried to struggle with the man who had put him in the van, but his muscles would not obey him. His head was pushed down and he was inside. He turned around and saw a bush move in the distance. It had many leaves and a gun. Then it took a human shape and started to walk down the road. I’m hallucinating. It will soon be over. He heard the engine roar, and felt the world move around him, pushing him from side to side. He struggled to stop the movement, but he could not do anything. Some muffled voices talked. Then silence.
***
When Alex came to his senses he found himself sitting in the van which was just being unloaded. He saw unknown faces around him, all resigned and emotionless, but they wore civilian uniforms. Workmen. Where did they come from?
Nobody said a word, and he was too weak to talk. He saw the African being pulled out of the vehicle. They handled him gently. Then somebody extended an arm towards Alex. He made a vague gesture. Then a man grabbed him under the arms and pulled him out of the seat.
He was helped to his feet. Somebody gave him a shoulder to lean onto. He was grateful. He saw two men carrying the African into a building which looked strangely familiar. There were men…
***
He came to his senses again; he must have slipped away. He glanced around himself. It looked like a hospital. There were tubes sticking out of his right arm. His left arm was missing. A man dressed in white was talking about bullets damaging his limb and serious damage, but he did not know where to put these words. A nurse came and put something to the end of the tubes. He felt peaceful, but there was a strange sickness in this peace. He threw up. A familiar sensation began to occupy his senses now. Suddenly he felt light. The world no longer hurt. He felt free. Oblivion…