Author's Note: I hope that some of my readers are also fans of Motorcity. This fic will follow Mike Chilton's journey to becoming the Mike we know in the series, starting immediately after he discharged himself as a cadet.
Becoming a Burner
Mike Chilton was a man of action. Self doubt and hesitation never held a candle to his unquenched proactivity when faced with tough decisions or fearful situations.
Never had he depended on that instinctive decisiveness moreso than now as the building around him began to cave in on itself with each strike of the demolition cube. There was no time to contemplate the complete paradigm flip he'd just gone through regarding his purpose in life, and to do so would mean to risk the lives of the individuals still inside.
People's lives were in danger; it was as simple as that. No matter how confused or lost he now was as an individual, he never doubted his responsibility to help people in need. That was why he was currently dodging falling slabs of concrete and covering his eyes from the chips of exploding debris coming from every direction.
Thinking strategically, he'd rushed to the top floor, yelling as he went for everyone to get out as quickly as possible. Why hadn't they been evacuated beforehand? There was no reason for this to become a hostile situation.
No. He had enough questions to last a lifetime and now wasn't the time to be asking.
"Get out! Now!" Kicking a door in he saw a man rushing to the out with a child in his arms calling for his wife to hurry as she stuffed a bag with their belongings.
"There's no time for that" Mike growled, grabbing her bag from her and tossing it out of the nearest window "this building won't last but another minute. Now run!"
They didn't argue, dashing out as quickly as their legs could carry them. Mike noted the way the father covered his little daughter with his arms, as well as the fear in the mother's eyes. He'd never seen people act that way before. His life had been filled with peace and tranquility up to that point and it shook him to see such raw panic firsthand.
No time for that. No time for thinking, only action.
Relieved to see that the majority of residents were already rushing to the stairs, Mike quickly glanced into each room as he followed after them. Another blow was struck to the crumbling building, knocking everyone off their feet. Several people shouted in panic.
"Just keep moving everyone!" Mike yelled, using his authoritative tone he had expected to only use on soldiers for the rest of his life. "Staying put will only put you in more danger!"
Down to the third floor they rushed, Mike taking up the rear in case anyone fell behind or were trampled in the panicked stampede. He had just reached the second floor when the building was struck again, this time the entire east wing began to collapse, the roar of crumbling rock and screeching metal deafened him. Broken glass and rock showered down from above, along with a massive cloud of sawdust.
He was just wondering if he would survive before the entire place collapsed when he heard horrified wailing down the hallway where the east wing had once stood.
"Oh no" he gasped, realizing that there had still been people in there.
Desperate not to have blood on his hands, he charged back from where he had been fleeing seconds before. Something struck his head hard, blurring his vision for an instant, but he was too pumped with adrenaline for it to slow him down. More debris fell but he was undeterred, calling out for the victim he had heard.
The voice didn't reply to his calls but the cries didn't waver so he had no trouble bee-lining it to the room where he needed to be.
What met his eyes hit him harder than any physical blow. A child with bright red hair was scream-crying beside his mother who lay unmoving beneath a massive pile of rubble and furniture from the demolished room above.
Skidding to her side, his heart pumping a mile a minute he brushed the hair out of her eyes to see that they were open and unseeing. Horror caught hold of him, freezing him where he sat as the walls of the building crumbled around him much like his world was tearing apart at that moment.
"It wasn't supposed to be like this" he whispered out, his tears joining those of the kid beside him. "We're supposed to bring safety to the people here. Liberate them from their harmful society. I didn't… How could-"
It was the ceiling that snapped him out of his stunned state of mind as it slammed into him from above. The blow sent him to a prone position on the dirty floor, the massive slab of rubble mercifully tumbling off of him after doing its damage.
Gasping from surprise and pain, his instinctive protectiveness kicked into gear again and he was suddenly on his feet again. Grabbing the kid with his large hands he charged out of the room just as the rest of the floors above it gave up their fleeting battle to remain above them.
"Moooom" the kid cried, weakly struggling against his grip, but the brunette hardly heard him.
Multiple times he was hit by more falling bricks and debris and at one point he recalled striking into a protruding metal pipe but his survival instincts were stronger than his limited pain tolerance and before he was even conscious of its happening, they were out the back door.
He half expected the building to collapse the second he stepped out, but it didn't. Another three blows by the demolition cube did the trick, and by that time they were well out of the way.
Mike was still in a haze when he dropped the kid who didn't move from where he sat, staring blankly at the ruins of the building that had been his home just minutes before.
Needing to keep moving, Mike turned from the demoralizing view and made his way to the crowd of, now homeless, individuals. Some had managed to snag some of their belongings, but he saw too many who huddled together with nothing but each other to hold on to.
He wanted to direct them somewhere to go or give some comfort but if he was honest with himself he was probably more lost than they were. There was nothing he could offer. All of those years of training presented nothing for this situation and now all he could offer was a confused and lost man.
Wandering down to the small group, he sat down, not really in the crowd but near enough to be counted as one of them. He wasn't one of them though. He was an alien in a world he had crash landed into by surprise.
"Ok Mike, take this one step at a time" he thought as he rubbed the dust out of his hair.
As if to inform him which step came first, his hand brushed across a gash by his temple. All at once his injuries made themselves known: a variety of bruising along his back and arms and more importantly the injuries around his abdomen and ribs. Feeling the warm ooze of blood seeping down his shirt, he realized he'd received a serious wound from the pipe he'd had trouble with on that last run. He hurt, there was no denying that, but complaining or expecting sympathy from anyone would do no good. He was on his own.
"This is your fault!" he heard a child scream, turning his head to see the red-head he'd just saved. The kid had tear tracks running down his face but his expression had changed to bitter rage.
"You brought them here! You killed mom!"
He hadn't made the call. He wasn't to blame, but he could find no words to present in his defense. If the kid could blame him for anything it was for his ignorance.
"Silence child" an elderly man exclaimed, surprising the two in conflict "you cannot blame this man for what has happened."
"Shut up old man!" the kid shouted "I'll never forgive him!"
With that the boy threw a rock at the ex-commander and ran away. Where he was going, Mike couldn't venture a guess.
"The words of a child who needs someone to strike out at" the elderly man spoke as they watched the boy vanish into the darkness "don't take it to heart lad."
"How could this have happened?" Mike asked. He appreciated the man's non-condemning words, but they weren't necessary. He wasn't one to wallow in self-blame, the only guilt he was feeling was towards the respect he had had towards Kane up to that point.
"It happens all the time" the man replied, sadness hidden in his words.
"But why? Couldn't Kane just ask you to leave? Warn the residents that we were taking the building down."
"There was a time when the people of Motorcity were warned before deconstruction took place, but they refused to cooperate. They didn't have the manpower or machinery to oppose Kane's strong hand, so they fought by refusing to leave their homes. Not to be swayed by our protests, demolition went on as scheduled and soon they'd quit telling us at all."
Mike sat down, bringing a hand to his head, careful to avoid the gash on the side of his temple. It was a lot to take in.
"But why not just let us-… them destroy it? The plan is- was to clean out the lower district of Detroit and replace it with the clean and safe Deluxe. Why protest?"
The man let out a sad humorless chuckle. "I guess for someone like you our stubbornness wouldn't make sense. You've never tasted freedom so you wouldn't know the pain of losing it."
"What's so free about living in the slums? This world has presented you with nothing but decay and darkness. Sorry but I can't see what you'd miss by leaving here" Mike countered skeptically as he lifted his jacket to eye his injuries on his side.
"Individuality. Faith. The freedom to do stupid things and make dumb decisions."
As odd as it sounded, those concepts struck a chord with the discharged soldier, though he didn't know exactly why. He already had all of those things didn't he? Suddenly he felt that he hadn't.
"Perhaps you'll see what I mean if you stay down here a while" the man suggested.
"I don't think I have much of a choice at this point" Mike said satirically. "I dunno where I'm gonna go. I don't know anyone down here."
"Wish I could help you son" the elderly man replied, genuine concern in his voice "but seeing as I don't have a place to offer you, I can't."
"Don't worry about it" Mike said with a smile "you don't owe me any kindness. No one down here does, I guess. Seems I'll just have to take care of myself for a while."
He spoke with confidence in his voice but he honestly had no idea how he was going to get by in this new world. He'd learned about Motorcity in school and while training to be a cadet. The underground city was always presented in a negative light up there. He couldn't expect any nutrition gelatin cubes, and nothing was free. Deluxe always provided everything that was necessary for basic survival at no cost (after taxes of course, but still). Then there were his injuries to consider. In Deluxe he's been hurt plenty of times (which was uncommon for most individuals up there) so pain wasn't an entirely new experience; however, medical aid was always readily available seconds after the damage had been done. He had almost no experience in dealing with bodily trauma; had never expected to need it.
The whir of the squad travel bot could be heard behind them and he turned to see the last of what had once been his troops make their way into the machine. He'd planned on getting to know them and raising the most elite squad in Kane's army. Those were the dreams of a man he no longer was.
A part of him wanted to run after them and beg them to let him back on. Once that bot took off he would never again be able to return to the beautiful world above, exiled forever in this dark and strange territory.
His consciousness and pride kept him planted where he was, watching with fierce defiance as his last chance to turn back hovered in the air for another moment before it rose into the sky till it was only a tiny red dot in the black abyss above them.
He looked away before the dot disappeared. No need to give it some teary-eyed send off.
Again he found himself wanting to take charge and help these people who had just lost their home, and again he was stuck with the realization that they probably had more than he did and would probably be insulted if he tried to take a leadership role.
"You have any advice sir?" Mike asked the elder who had kept silent while the cadet watched his ship sail away, be it out of respect or sympathy.
"Find work" the man replied, though he didn't sound very optimistic and that didn't help Mike's spirit whatsoever. "You need money to buy things and money doesn't grow on trees around here. You have to earn it. No one's handing out anything for free, and the age when there were charitable organizations to take care of the needy has passed. There are still a few churches down here who're looking out for those who come to their doorsteps, but there are so many people going to them who are crippled or orphaned that an able-body lad like yourself might not want to add to their burden."
"No, I wouldn't."
"You're a good kid" the man said with a sad smile "if I'd been your father I would be proud of what you've done today."
"Thanks" Mike said, returning the smile as he thought of his father who'd died a few years back. His eyes found their way back to the crowd of newly-homeless individuals, narrowing in on a mother who was holding an infant in one arm and pulling her daughter closer to herself to keep them warm. It wasn't quite winter yet but a chill was in the air and he knew it would be a miserable night. He needed to get moving while he still could.
Getting up was more of a struggle than he'd expected, his arms aching from the multiple blows of falling debris and even moreso his gaping wound on his side. Another thing he noted was the painful shift of his ribs when he put strain on them, leading him to conclude that a few of them had been broken when the ceiling had landed on him before.
Still, he made it to his feet and hardly wavered when his head spun a bit. Turning back to his new and first real acquaintance of Motorcity, he smiled a genuine smile at the old man.
"The name's Mike Chilton" he said, lifting a hand to the man "and I won't forget the kindness you've shown me sir."
Quickly taking his hand, the elder smiled back with those sad eyes. "You can call me Jeb Sawyer, and thank you son, for reminding me that there are still good men in some of the most surprising places."
With that the ex-cadet turned and made his way directly to the woman with the two children who looked at him curiously. Without pausing he removed his large blue and white jacket and placed it over the babe in her arms. She gazed up at him in surprise, her confused eyes surprisingly beautiful for a woman her age.
"It's going to be a chilly night ma'am" he said with a smile "you'd best keep that little one warm.
She looked down at the large bloodstain covering his left side. It was much more visible now that he was only adorned in his white t-shirt.
"No" she said, though he noted how she cuddled her baby deeper into his large jacket, still very warm from his own body heat. "You'll need it" she argued.
"Ma'am, I've got nothing else I can give to help you people. Don't let me leave with my head hung in shame."
She looked about to cry and he was surprised at how much that touched his heart. A part of him wanted to cry as well so before he let it get to him he quickly arose and made his way out from the group.
"Thank you" he heard her whisper just before he made it out of hearing range.
At that moment, despite what terrible shape his body was in, he felt a great sense of elation. All of those years he'd been training to help people, it was funny to think how sourly those plans had gone. Yet here he was, incredibly happy after simply giving a woman his coat.
As he walked down the dark lonely street leading God knew where, he allowed himself to contemplate why he felt the way he did. He had planned on saving the world from this corrupt dismal place and was going to be the savior to these poor souls down below, yet despite losing that dream in its entirety, he wasn't depressed.
Then it hit him. This wasn't about civil duty or being the most beneficial person to people in need, this was about sacrifice. There was no doubt of his intentions now. He felt he could believe in his objectives now that he'd proved, if only himself, that they were sincere.
Now he stood, having lost everything, feeling he had done what was genuinely right and no matter what consequences that led to, he would face them with a smile.
TBC…
I hope you enjoyed this first chapter. A few more to go to see how Mike survives on his own in Motorcity, and how he comes to know the Burners.
Please review :) Since this is a fairly new and unknown series I know the feedback will be scarce so every comment will be much appreciated.
Thank you for reading
