Rated:R
Renfro just stared for a moment. Uneasy, unsure. Her options were limited,
and she couldn't tell which was the most promising. |A runaway X5 suddenly shows up
right after a massive, coordinated assault on the base, and offers to help out by revealing
the location of the attackers, who she may very well be working with. Then again, X5-
734's reindoctrination was extremely thorough and she showed no signs of rebellious or
dissenting behavior during the whole time she was with us.| A odd, discomforting mixture
of emotion rose inside of her. Something like fear, rage, a mixture of many feelings that
lead to the dehabilitating sense of that nasty little thing you called helplessness. To
someone like Renfro, such a thought was utterly intolerable. SHE was in control, X5-734
and the prisoners were at her mercy, SHE had to be the one to know exactly what was
what and who was sided with who. That was just the way it had to be. And now she was
unsure, this soldier, through her bizarre, unexplainable behavior, exerted power over her,
made her feel weak, like one of the pawns she routinely used to ensure her position of
power within the institution.
And she wasn't going to take it.
Voice tinged with a unexpected dash of menace, she spoke. "And where
would the rest of the attackers be exactly?" Face blank and without expression, Brin
answered. "About two klicks away, west of here. Near the 2nd stream you'll find, camped
in a small clearing near drill area E." Renfro turned and barked out an order to one of the
team commanders. Two full platoons of troopers moved off in the said direction. Another
continued to center their weapons on Brin. The rest guarded the prisoners. Renfro turned
her icy blue eyes to Brin. "This better not be some kind of trick soldier, cause there's
going to be hell to pay if it is. But I don't think you'd be stupid enough to try anything of
that sort and expose yourself to this type of risk, now would you?" Her voice still reeked
of rage and frustration at her own uncertainty. Unwaveringly, Brin answered. "No Ma'am.
Never." All around them the guards tensed their muscles in anticipation of the upcoming
battle that was sure to take place.
A few minutes later a massive series of explosions lit up the treeline to the
west of them, flinging flaming bits of wood and foilage up to 40 feet in the air. Massive
plumes of smoke and flame plumed into the air, filling their nostrils with the powerful
scent of high explosive destruction.
Almost simultaneously someone opened fire on them from two different
directions, one from a building in front of Renfro, another from behind. Soldiers dropped
like flies as they scrambled for cover, abandoning the prisoners. The X7's moved to
protect the director, one of them tackling her to the ground while the rest returned fire,
even as a few of them were cut down.
The director pushed the X7 away from her and got to her feet. She began
to hurry for the protection of the nearest cover.
Only to be intercepted by Brin in one blindingly fast dash, who seized her
with a grip of pure steel and locked her arms around her throat, instantly applying harsh,
suffocating pressure, and rendering her unable to move. "Nobody move or I break the
bitch's neck!" In the midst of struggling to inhale enough air to keep herself alive, Renfro
noted that the side in power of the situation had drastically and suddenly changed.
Everyone in the area remained where they were, the shock inflicted by the quickness of the
assault more at fault than Brin's sharp, fierce command. "Let them go. Now!" The guards
hesitated. Brin tightened her hold on Renfro's neck. "I said now!" The director gasped
quietly. "Do it." They uncuffed the threesome and moved away from them. "Drop your
weapons." Brin noticed out of the corner of her eye an X7 slowly creeping towards her.
She whipped her hostage around so that she was between her and the incoming threat.
"Tell the little fuckers to back off" she whispered menacingly into the other woman's ear.
Renfro paused for a moment, as if caught in indecision. Everyone held their breath.
Then, voice wearied and drained, she told the kid to stand down. At the
same time Logan helped Max onto her feet and wrapped his arm around hers, gently
pulling her along as she limped forward slowly on her uninjured leg. Zane joined them,
grasping his shoulder where he had been hit. Brin watched nervously as her comrades
made their way to her side. "You guys alright?" "I've had better days." Max replied.
"Let's get out of here." Brin stalled for a moment, as if recollecting some obscure piece of
information that she had neglected to consider. "What happened to Kri—" Her words
were cut off by the defeated look on Max's face. No more words were needed for her to
understand. Pure rage flowed like water through Brin's body as her arms tightened around
her hostage's throat, wanting more than anything to rip the foul bitch's very head from her
body. She almost did too. A alarmed look from Zane and her own willpower and self-
control narrowly prevented it. She fought back her feelings just in time to avoid destroying
their only escape route. Reconnoitering, she began to drag Renfro backwards as she spoke
again. "They got the van. There's a garage----" she motioned with her head—"with two
hummers in it, not far from here. Let's m---"
Max looked past her head and saw the black barrel of the rifle sticking out
of one of the building windows behind Brin. Words formed in her mouth to call out a
warning. She was too late. Again.
They all watched as the bullet punched a neat hole in the back of Brin's
head and exited out the other end, splattering dark red, fleshy gore into the director's
platinum blonde hair.
As her final act, Brin's arms twisted quickly and violently, producing a
sharp cracking sound as she snapped Renfro's neck in half.
Syl and Jondy, who had been hiding in the building on the opposite side,
opened fire before the guards could get to their weapons, driving them back into cover, if
only temporarily. Max stared at her sister's body, frozen in horror for nearly two seconds
before Logan pulled her away from the pool of crimson emanating from Brin's head and
towards the building which housed the nearest escape. They weren't moving fast enough,
as stray bullets thudded into the ground near their feet, uprooting grass and chunks of dirt.
Zane rushed to her side and screamed to Logan "Go!, I'll take care of her!" Logan insisted
on staying with her but was jolted awake to the dangers of their current location as
another round whizzed past his left ear. He turned to follow Zane, who was carrying her
towards the garage, moving with incredible speed despite his load. He was hard pressed to
keep up, and more than once he thought that one of the bullets would surely find it's way
into his back. Fortunately for him, he made it into the building intact.
"Zane, get the car ready!" He took 4 steps into the room, then abruptly plowed to
a stop as he heard a gunshot and saw Zane crumbled on the floor, blood pouring from his
body and spreading across the floor. Max lay several feet from where he was, glaring in
hot defiance at the person who had shot him.
Eva stood there once more, gun pointed directly at Max's head. "We could
have been a family. We could have been great soldiers together. But no Maxie, you had to
go and fuck it up." Her voice trembled with a mixture of pain, sorrow, and hatred. Max
remained calm. She made her voice one of pleading. "Listen Eva, you don't have to do
this. This place is not good for you, and it's not where you belong. You don't have to be
their lapdog and do their dirty work. Come with us." "SHUT UP! I don't need to listen to
your filthy propaganda." "It's the truth! Manticore is where they use you as a slave for
doing horrible things to people. It's where they hurt you and torture you and keep you
from living a real life! Don't you see, you're a prisoner here! They don't care about you!
They don't love you! You're nothing but an expendable asset to them, and once you're no
longer useful, they'll probably kill you to cover things up!" "SHUTUP!" "They'll make
you hurt your family Eva, is that what you want? Don't you remember what they did to
us?"
Eva thought of the horrible acts perpetuated against her and the others
during their childhood, of the beatings, abuse, and torture that they were put through. Of
all the experiments and training exercises firmly etched into her memory like an permanent
scar upon her soul. Of those that didn't make it.... those that were dragged away to be
dissected like frogs due to the seizures and those who were executed to make an example
for the rest of them. Of the constant hell they all went through day by day, hour by hour,
victim by victim, an endless symphony of fear, pain, and unspeakable horror.
"They were for our own good" she said calmly, with utter conviction. "We
were soldiers. Soldiers need discipline. Training. Proper motivation. We were born weak,
they made us strong. They made us better than the dirty filth and degenerates on the
outside. It was the right thing to do. But now I see you've become dirty and corrupt, just
like those rats on the outside. We tried to bring you back, but you refused to cooperate.
So I'm sorry I have to do this now." Her voice became tremulous and stricken with grief
as her finger tightened on the trigger.
The entire time they had been talking, Logan's attention was directed at
the bulge in his right boot. A little something the guards had forgotten to take care of. He
went for it now. His hands dashed towards the gun, snatching the 9mm from it's hiding
place, dropping to his knees as he lifted it to fire..... only to be struck again and again as
Eva's bullets slammed into him, spraying his blood outwards from his chest, causing it to
pour down in little murky streams along the length of his shirt and soak deep into the
fabric. The intense burning pain and severe puncturing of his heart and lungs overcame
him as he started to fall forward, but as he did, he made a weak yet surprisingly skillful(Or
was it lucky) flick of his right hand, flinging the gun lightly and almost gracefully towards
Max.
Her mind stopped and her instincts took over as she caught the weapon
with one hand, and shifted the black oblivion of it's muzzle towards Eva.
Eva had already shifted her own gun back at her, and discharged it, taking
Max in the shoulder of the arm she was holding the gun with. The bullet made it's way
clean through, inducing searing, undeniable agony through the entire portion of her upper
arm, as if someone had poured hot volcanic lava all over that part of her body. Ignoring
the blinding pain and torn muscle, she raised the gun and fired. And again. And again. The
force of the shots knocked her target backwards as the jacketed lead bullets pierced
through her heart, tearing into the ventricles and arteries, jerking her limbs about like a
puppet master from hell. Hot crimson came out in thick sprays from her chest,
accumulating on nearby objects and the floor in little beads of moisture. Eva's gun
dropped to the floor, the sleek black metal making a dull, inaudible clanking sound as it
made contact. Finally there was a loud, empty click as Max's weapon finally emptied. Eva
herself seemed to quiver slightly, and then toppled over backwards as if she had lost her
balance. She lay very still as the curtain of red mixed with the colors of her uniform and
spread outwards from her torso.
Max's mind flashed back to that cold winter night of so long ago, to the
face of a little girl holding a gun, and of Lydecker firing a single earth shattering metal
bullet directly into her chest. Her mind replayed over and over again the sound of the
deafening shot, the large circular stain of blood appearing as if though magic on the child's
chest, and the same girl toppling over, her thin nightgown clinging to her body.
|Except this time *I* killed her.|
She shivered in horror as she crawled closer to Logan's unmoving form.
As she looked down on his wounds, she knew they were certainly fatal.
But she could not, would not believe it to be true. He was alive. He had to be. It wasn't
possible--- her heart stopped, and everything was purged from her mind except the need
to know he was alright, that he was alive, for him to open his eyes or talk or breath or do
anything to prove her fears wrong. She checked him for a pulse, hoping against hope,
unrelentingly willing herself to find one, for him to have one. And she found none. |No.
This can't be happening. This isn't real!!! He can't be—He can't be---| she continued to
search for vitals, some sign of life, some sign he was still here, with her.
And found nothing. |No. Logan. GODDAMMIT DON'T DIE ON ME!
DON'T GO! PLEASE DON'T! TALK TO ME DAMMIT, DAMN YOU YOU CAN'T
DO THIS TO ME, YOU CAN'T, I WON'T LET IT, I WON'T LET YOU---|
But part of her knew he was already gone.
She was not conscious of what happened next, as her body ceased to obey
the commands of her brain, and her brain stopped functioning altogether. She vaguely
remembered holding him, cradling his head in her arms, rocking him back and forth like a
mother holding her child, the hot wet tears streaming down her face, all the pain of all the
years and all the suffering she had carefully kept hidden inside of her came flooding
through the cracks of the walls she had set up to shield herself. All accompanied by deep,
throaty noises that seemed to be coming out of nowhere, akin to sobs, though she couldn't
seem to hear them. The whole world seem to fade away and vanish for an indefinite
pocket of time.... She was unaware of Jondy and Syl's presence until Jondy had her face
right next to her's, and was yelling into her ear, whatever words she was spewing forth
slipping into her ears as nothing but muffled, silent, incomprehensible jibberish. Nothing
but nonsensical background noise to the bottomless well of her everlasting grief and pain,
a pain greater than anything physical she could ever suffer, far more than anything she had
ever felt or possibly imagined.
For an indeterminable, seemingly endless series of seconds, she was falling.
Falling and falling and falling, towards a bottomless black pit inside of her mind, nothing
around her but images of the gun firing again and again, his chest being pierced and
bloodied over and over, like some sick fucked up movie being played to torture her for all
eternity. And then she felt someone's fingers on the back of her neck, pressing down on
her pressure points, and she collapsed into his cold lifeless shell of a body as all her senses
vanished into nothingness.
Author's note: Hell yes, Logan is dead. Bring on the hate mail. I could care less.