Chapter 8

- 3 MONTHS LATER-

"Please! No! I don't wanna die!" Then man tied to the chair shrieked to the two men standing in front of them wearing full suits.

"Well maybe you should've thought about it before you gave valuable Hyperion evidence out!"

Jack yelled at the man pulling out his gun holstered on his shoulder.

Axton was standing right next to him looking at Jack when he pulled out his pistol. They were inside of a small room that had little to no lighting whatsoever. Hyperion caught a man giving out weapon technological blueprints for their line of next generation guns, without the consent of Hyperion. Hyperion considers this treason and must be dealt with immediately, so they left it to the executives Axton and Jack to deal with it.

"So tell me now...WHO DID YOU CONTACT!?" Jack yelled at the man.

Then man was breathing extremely fast from the pressure he was put through but managed to stutter out.

"Uh...uh...I gave some info to Maliwan...I figured that this technology would be put in the right hands!" The man said

"Hehehe, you hear that Axton? Sounds like this man wants to have even competition!" Jack said to Axton

Axton took a glance at Jack then looked back at the man. Jack then walked up to the man and pointed the gun to his face and said

"Well, I appreciate you being so honest with us"

The man completely frightened screamed "Hey HEY WHAT THE FUCK MAN! I...I TOLD YOU EVERYTHING!"

"Yeah but you seemed to give out info, which is the equivalent of treason," Jack explained "Tellin' us why you did it doesn't earn you a reprieve..."

Jack then smiled at the man and said "Goodnight..."

BANG

"NO!" Axton yelled witnessing Jack scoop the man's head clean off.

"What?" Jack said looking at him confused

"You didn't have to-" Axton said but interrupted by Jack who said

"WHY? You would never do it you left me no choice! Damnit Axton when will you get your head out of your ass and figure out that this is our job!"

Axton then looked back at the now decapitated man the said

"There's always a choice..."

"Well when you're done actin' all wise-ass, we gotta ship to catch," Jack said beginning to walk out of the room.

"To where?" Axton asked

Jack turned around and said to him

"Athenas."

It was about a 6 hour ship ride to the planted of Athenas, due to the incredible speeds of the Hyperion transport ships. When they arrived, they were escorted with Mr. Blake onto a helicopter that took them to the city of Helios, about 10 miles away from the city. Axton and Jack were still wearing their suits when they stepped out into the bright sun. Axton began to wonder why they would drop down roughly 10 miles from the actual city itself.

"This is the city of Helios," Jack explained "They call this the city of the sun. This is the place where we show them our true strength, maybe it will give you some as well.

"What exactly are we doing here?" Axton asked

"Were trying to root out a person who can disrupt our plans, think of it as tying up loose ends," Jack said pulling out a little device.

"Who?" Axton asked looking at the device the looking up at Jack.

"A Siren," Jack said before pressing the button.

A Flash. That was what all Axton could see, and then chaos unfolded before as he watched an entire city that supposedly contained the woman that Jack wanted dead was hiding out in Helios, the intelligence isn't solid, but he didn't wanted to take any chances, was nuked.

"No..." Axton said quietly.

"This is the start of something incredible Axton," Jack said still looking at the mushroom cloud that enveloped the city.

"Incredible?" Axton asked "You call pointless genocide, murder and manslaughter Incredible?!" He yelled at Jack

"Oh spare me," Jack scoffed " You seriously think that a conservative mindset like that can chart a successful direction for Hyperion's future? You seem very misguided if you think that. Aggressive expansion is key when running a business, make fear your greatest ally."

Axton couldn't believe what he was hearing, it's what he was afraid of this whole time. This executive appointment all got to Jack's head, and he began to lose sense of what was right or wrong.

"Now if you're done looking at the view, we have to get out of here," Jack said walking back to the helicopter which had Mr. Blake standing in front of it waiting for them.

Axton stared at the nuclear cloud that shrouded the city in darkness and death and he thought to himself before getting in the chopper

'What have you done, John?'

They were only about 20 minutes airborne looking down at the wreckage of Helios now that the smoke has cleared. Then a whooshing sound was heard in the distance. Jack noticed it and looked around the cabin then asked

"The hell is that?"

Axton could see from the corner of his eyes a gleaming white metal object approaching the chopper very fast with a smoke trail coming from behind it.

"Incoming missile!" Axton yelled

It was a direct impact on the tail of the helicopter, causing the chopper to take massive damage and lose completely control of itself. As it spun uncontrollably towards the city of Helios, Axton yelled to everybody.

"HANG ON!"

The helicopter rapidly approached the city and right before it hit the ground, Axton braced for impact. Then...Silence...

Axton slowly regained consciousness after the crash, he reckoned he must've been out for about 10 minutes. He crawled towards the cockpit to find both of the pilots completely mangled beyond recognition.

"Damnit," Axton coughed wiping the blood that trickled from his mouth. He then took off his suit seeing as it wasn't a necessity and so he could get around easier.

He went back into the cabin to look for Jack and Blake, Jack was lying on the ground along with Blake, both were in good shape. Axton reckoned he may have 2 cracked ribs by now.

"Hey...John," Axton said shaking Jack.

Jack slowly began to regain consciousness and grab his head in pain, followed by Mr. Blake standing up wiping the dust from his Jacket

"Ughhhh...What happened?" Jack said slowly coughing a bit.

"I dunno..." Axton said "I think we crash landed in the city of Helios, or was Helios, and both the pilots are dead."

"Fuggin' perfect," Jack said

"If I may sirs" Mr. Blake said " We'd best get out of this wreckage and head for inside cover, this nuclear fission can prove most harmful to us,"

"Alright," Axton said "I'll get the door,"

It took some effort to get the door open because it was jammed due to the wreckage so some force was needed from Axton to pry it open, and when he finally got the door open, he was greeted by a completely destroyed city, with not a living soul in sight.

"My God..." Axton said quietly "What have you done John?"

"Showed the world our true strength," Jack said handing Axton a shotgun from inside the cabin

"Didn't you hear my speech before the shit winds occurred?"

"Yeah..." Axton said "Let's get inside before our skin burns."

The three of them sprinted to the closest building they could find that actually had four walls, a ceiling, and a floor that surrounded it. Most of the building were vaporized by the blast, and others just began to slowly deteriorate.

"How the fuck will you explain this John?" Axton asked while looking around the dark building

"Me? Fuck that, I'm gonna say it was Atlas," Jack said laughing

"But you said-" Axton tried to say before being interrupted

"Aggressive expansion, snuff out the competition so we dominate, if Atlas is supposedly responsible for this, they're gonna get shut down, permanently. You should be taking notes," Jack said

Axton then glared at Jack, then looked at Blake then asked.

"Do you know how many people lived here Blake?"

Blake then looked up at the ceiling then said

"90,844 people approximately sir."

"Jesus..." Axton said to himself

"I've requested an evacuation sir," Blake said to Jack putting down a communicator "A jumpship should be waiting for us approximately 2 miles from our location,"

"Alright, so we best keep movin-"

"Wait.." Axton said

He heard faint footsteps from across the room. Survivors? How could they have possibly survive an atomic blast? Axton had to figure out for himself so he slowly walked over to where he heard the disturbance.

"What is it?" Jack whispered

"I heard something," Axton whispered back

Axton then slowly approached a human like figure that was slouched over eating something from off the ground. Axton then shined his flashlight on the person to find out that the man's skin was entirely burnt, off, and as the man turned around, his face was missing and his eyeballs had no sockets in them, yet he could somehow see, his teeth were blood red along with his eyes. His cloths must've burned off from the glass, and the radiation must've affected his mind because he was eating another human. This man must have been indoors when the blast happened, otherwise he would be completely vaporized from it. As the flashlight came into the mans vision, he completely freaked out and sprinted at Axton screaming his lungs, hoping that he would get another meal, only to be shot down by Axton's shotgun.

"What...In the fuck...was that," Jack asked blown away by the ghoulish appearing man.

"He must've been irradiated after the blast, he was indoors when this happened, this man was better off vaporized." Axton said having a closer look.

As soon as Axton finished his sentence, he heard several screams from a distance, more of them were coming, and equally as hungry as the one Axton killed.

"Aw fuck, we gotta MOVE!" Axton yelled making a break for the exit along with Jack and Blake.

All three of them made a break to the exit, chased by a crowd of ghouls that were equally as irradiated as the last one.

"Where's the evac?!" Axton yelled to Blake

"About 2 miles from here!" Blake said keeping up with Jack and Axton "Its on the main street!"

"Move your asses lets GO!" Jack said taking one look at the crowd of ghouls following them through the radiated city of Helios, the main street was in sight, along with the jump ship evac.

Axton shot a couple of rounds back at the crowd to try and thin out the crowd, which worked, taking out about 6 of the 100 ghouls that were following them.

The hatch for the evac dropped down and a squadron of soldiers wearing hazard suits stepped out and helped thin out the hoard even more. They then escorted the three to the ship, then the soldiers boarded the plane.

"We're good. Take off!" One of the soldiers said

"Roger, we're Oscar Mike." A soldier said before punching the throttle taking the shuttle to the air.

Axton was sitting on one of the stool wiping the sweat and blood from his face. His hands were very scratched up from the crash and his face and body was bruised and aching, all that running didn't exactly help his cracked ribs either. He ran his hand through his messed up hair that was covered in blood and sweat. He took a glance outside of the window to see once again, the destroyed city of Helios. One of the skyscrapers collapsed to the ground shortly before they left. He never really got to experience the true destructive nature of an atomic blast, up until now. Both Blake and Jack had no severe wounds on them aside from some bruises and cuts, so no medical attention was needed immediately. After looking at the destroyed city for about a minute, he turned back to Jack and thought to himself.

'What happened to you Jack? You used to be a good guy...'