Deimos had his last words on his mind, a whirring machine in front of him, death right outside the door, and a crumpled twenty-dollar bill in his pocket.
His world had suddenly shrunk down to a machine terminal, strings of flashing codes flitting across the screen. All he had to work with was a shitty connection and a little keypad. That was all he had left. No weapons, no naiveté to hide behind, it was just a race against time at this point.
His bandaged fingers flew across they keys, sweat clinging to the bandages wrapped around his head. Maybe it was the stuffiness of the room, maybe it was just another side-effect of the overwhelming anxiety twisting his gut. But this was going to work. It was a last resort, and a pathetic one at that, but it was all that Deimos was going to be able to do.
It had been made very clear to him and Sanford both that Hank would be a crucial component in determining the mission's success. Their last mission, the last few hours remaining until all hell broke loose. Armageddon, that was what they called it? Armage-something. Fuck.
Outside the ground was shaking under sudden bolts of searing light and there was a fucking demon somewhere in Nevada and Sanford was outside trying to hold off the two possessed ATP agents that had followed their trail yet in the midst of it all, Deimos was still managing to be selfish enough to consider his last words.
Maybe it wasn't too selfish. Maybe after nearly nonstop carnage and stress and danger he had earned a few spare moments to think about that kind of thing.
But for some reason, even despite all of the danger he found himself constantly flying headfirst into, Deimos had never even thought about what kind of last words he'd be saying.
Ideally, he would want to say something badass or witty. He'd want to die in a badass way too. He wanted to be like a motherfuckin' Spartan or something if he was going to have to die like this.
Yeah, it was childish, too, but whatever. A guy could be a bit childish when he knew that he more than likely wasn't even going to survive the next hour, right?
Next to him, the heavy metal doors of the tube slid shut. Somewhere inside, Hank's corpse was slumped up against the encasing of the cylinder, blood staining his coat and a ragged cavity in his chest from where he had been stabbed.
How did Hank even do it?
How the hell did he manage to keep getting back up and decide to keep on fighting? It made Deimos' chest hurt a bit. Just because he worked alongside the infamous criminal mastermind that was Hank J. Wimbleton didn't mean that Deimos was anywhere near as good.
Another wave of anxiety hit him, even more intense than the previous one. What the hell was he doing? Why was he the one doing this job? He wasn't badass or a genius or even that brave. He was just a dumb kid trying too hard to be a grown-up hero.
Badass last words were for badass heroes, and Deimos knew that he was no hero.
Even this was too difficult. He was great with technology: hacking, coding, reprogramming, you name it. He'd practically grown up doing it—fuck you very much for that, big bro. But this was insanely complicated. Like seriously complicated. Like so insanely complicated that Deimos was actually starting to get nauseous because he knew that the outcome of the entire mission depended on Hank being revived. There was no way that he was gonna be able to do this.
And this was it, wasn't it? The outcome of the entire mission was hinging on Hank being revived, and Sanford was out all by himself in the hall trying to hold off those agents and they were leaving it all up to Deimos.
Sanford was probably gonna die and he was probably gonna die too but maybe a bit later because Sanford was fucking buying him time and he hadn't even thought about that and holy shit his best friend was gonna die and he was as good as dead himself.
Deimos wasn't sure what hit him then. It wasn't a bullet, which was pretty cool because he still hadn't thought up good last words yet, but something hit him really hard.
Maybe it was that 'I'm going to die anyway today' sort of recklessness. Maybe it was the fact that even if he was just a dumb kid he had still gotten this far. Maybe it was because for a moment, Deimos felt pretty badass.
But then he was typing faster than ever before and his mind was racing and the Magnification Machine was starting to beep and it was happening. Everything was happening all at once. Gunshots from outside. Heavy weapon crates skidding across the tile floor. Whirring and buzzing from the machine. Sweat dripping down Deimos' temples. The sound of a body thudding to the floor outside.
He was in the shit now, and once you got into shit this deep, you couldn't just back out.
Deimos knew that if he screwed up now, everything was lost. But there was no way he was gonna actually mess this up now because after all, he was the shit when it came to technology and he might have been a little cocky and maybe just a lot insane but he knew he was the shit.
Type faster, type faster. Just keep going, you gotta get this done. Be the Leonidas of Magnification processes. Be the Ares of whatever you called this kind of machine. Just don't back out now. Don't give up and flee like you always used to do.
Don't try and listen for the sound of Sanford's body hitting the floor. Just keep the twenty-dollar bill in your pocket and keep working.
Sanford had made him promise, after all. It was a stupid, futile promise and honestly it was pretty full of bullshit from both parties. But it might've been one of the nicest things Sanford had done for him.
Don't keeping waiting for the sound of Sanford dying, Deimos, it's not gonna help you out here.
They'd already said their goodbyes, though, kinda. So he could focus. It was all good. They were both going to die today anyway. Maybe Sanford was just going to be an overachiever and get the whole process over and done with first.
Still, Sanford just had to go and start planting ideas in Deimos' mind. It'd already been hard enough to say goodbye as it was.
"Just take it, you might get out." Sanford had had to practically shove the money into Deimos' hands. It was just a crumpled twenty-dollar bill. A little stained at the edges, a little worse for the wear, but it would still be enough just to get a person on the road.
Sanford must have seen Deimos' expression, because he tried again. "I know you still don't like to listen to me but you really need to just take it in case you get out."
"But we're not gonna both get out, we talked about this and it's cool and all, so let's just get in the car and get going."
Deimos had known what Sanford was implying. That same childish part of him that still got excited over working with Hank wasn't ready to accept it, however. Maybe he could just pretend it wasn't happening. He didn't want to say goodbye to his best friend. They weren't both about to die. It was just a simple little mission. It was just training; it was still just a silly video game.
But this time around it wasn't just saying goodbye to his best friend on the school playground and there weren't any slides to hide under or teachers to avoid. There were bullets and blades with his name on them and this time around sharing wasn't caring.
"Deimos, stop being a little shit for just one second and listen to me. One of us isn't gonna make it today and if you survive this all in one piece, then you've gotta get out of here. You're wanted dead, we all are. If the police find you, you're dead."
"Yeah, being arrested sure is big on my worry list right now. I woulda thought I would have been arrested after killing my first fifty people."
Yeah, Deimos was trying to deflect from the real topic there, he knew he was. But it was better than trying to face the fact that somebody was going to die in just a few hours and he didn't want it to happen and he didn't want any of it to happen anymore but he was gonna have to stick this through until the end.
But sometimes you had to be a grown-up even when you don't want to, so Deimos just took a deep breath and nodded. "Sorry, fine. Where do I go?"
"As far away from here as you can, I don't know. Just not here, you got that part?"
Another nod, from both of them this time. Then after another stretch of awkward "we're gonna die in a few hours" silence, Sanford glanced back over to look Deimos in the eye again.
"Uh, thanks. It was nice working with you, Deimos. You're pretty, uh…you're pretty alright."
A grown-up's chin wasn't supposed to start quivering. "You're pretty cool too, San."
Something flickered over Sanford's face just then, and his stern façade broke for just a quarter of a second, and for just a quarter of a second Sanford's face crumpled.
And Deimos was almost positive that it was the worst thing he'd seen in his years of constant death and carnage and exhaustion.
Then Sanford held out his fist, and shit, a grown-up's chin wasn't supposed to shake even more when he and the closest thing he had to a best friend did knuckles for the last time.
Sanford used to think it was the stupidest thing ever, and maybe it was kind of childish, but whatever. Fuck it. They could do it one last time.
Knuckles.
Then they explode.
Pssshhh.
Everything was exploding. The floor was shaking, and little earthquakes caused by the Normality Restoration process kept shaking everything and the whirring of the machine of the machine was overpoweringly loud now. Trying to focus was becoming increasingly difficult.
Explode, explode, explode. Gunshots were exploding from outside the door and there was the sound of more bodies hitting the floor and everything was so loud and so chaotic and Deimos had never felt so stressed yet so reckless before.
But the Magnification process was nearly complete, all that was left to do was to fix up and edit Hank's attributes. Deimos was so damn close to finishing the entire thing. So, so close. So close that even though he knew that death was inevitable, he still felt a little hopeful for just a moment.
But that feeling of hope didn't even last a full sixty seconds because fuck, there were more gunshots.
Explode, explode explode. There were footsteps outside in the hall. Those were footsteps outside the door.
Fuck.
Type faster, type faster. Explode, explode, explode. There was the sound of another body thudding to the floor, and maybe it was just in his head but Deimos thought that he heard Sanford's voice for just a second and oh, shit, Sanford was dead, wasn't he?
Fuck.
There was something jamming his throat, something making it hard for him to breathe. He was choking on air, but he was still typing. He was gonna finish this, he was gonna stick this out until the very end.
Deimos had never wished so much before to not be able to hear.
He was getting desperate at this point, and he felt like he was going to be sick and his head was spinning, but his fingers were flying across those keys faster than they ever had before and he had to get this done and if Sanford was down then he was the only one left but maybe Sanford wasn't down and—
The heavy door swung open, and no. No. It was the door to the room he was in, no, he wasn't finished, no...
Fu—
He heard the bullet lodge itself into his shoulder before he felt it, and his fingers fumbled and suddenly his own blood was splattered onto the keys. Then there was a bullet in his back and Deimos was thrown forward from the sudden force. His head slammed into the keypad, and even though his head was spinning and he couldn't focus, he managed to glance back over to see his shooter.
Engineer, possessed by the looks of it, it seemed like his goggles were glowing—fuck, his vision was blurring.
Just before the next bullet went straight through his neck, he gasped something out that sounded a lot like, "Fuck."
The next few seconds passed in a haze; the only thing that he could really register was that his body was jerking about on the floor from the impact of all of those bullets. Maybe if he pretended that he was dead and gone already, he would be, instead of being stuck in this excruciating limbo.
Explode, explode, explode.
Then the screen of the game went black and that had been his last life and it was done. Over. Everything was nothing.
Player 5 has been eliminated.
Good night, Deimos.
A/N:
"So, yeah, I'm a kid! And I'm also a goofball! And a wing nut! And a Knucklehead McSpazatron! But most of all, I'm...I'm... I'M...I'M A GOOFY GOOBER! ROCK!"
I thought of that quote when I wasn't even halfway through writing this story and I was cracking myself up. I'm so sorry. But whoa holy crap I wrote a story from Deimos' PoV what is this sorcery. Also this story made me sad to write but it was ridiculously fun, too.
But Happy Madness Day 2013, everyone! May your day be filled with madness and insanity!