"Alright, Dracs! Move your lazy asses and get out there, if we want to be out near Zone 6 by midday, we should be off by now!"
Stuart tried to block out the obnoxious sound of the Scarecrow's yelling. Of all Scarecrows who could have been in charge of his squad, it had to be Zap, didn't it?
When Stuart had first been sent to the elite academy for BL/ind agents in training – or 'Drac school' as it was often called – Zap had been his trainer. Stuart had spent five miserable years training under the insensitive, uncaring, rude and ill-tempered brute, and when he'd graduated he'd rejoiced, thinking he'd never have to listen to Zap's griping and bitching again.
Not so. When he was posted to Squad 15, Stuart had discovered to his horror that his old trainer was now his new senior in command – the Scarecrow.
Why couldn't he have gotten someone cooler, like Korse? Or that new Scarecrow that everyone was talking about, the Doublecross chick? Apparently she was smoking hot, too.
Zap was far from smoking hot. The closest he got to smoking hot was when he was about to blow his top off at some unfortunate Drac over something stupid like not putting his high-beams on in an acid storm. Those times, you could practically see the smoke pouring out of the overweight, ugly man's cabbage-like ears. Smoking, but in the worst kind of way!
Zap was a smoker, too. Stuart hated getting close to the man, who constantly reeked of bitter cigar smoke and occasionally weed. Stuart didn't even think a weed smoker could be a Scarecrow, but there Zap was.
BL/ind funding must have gotten low if they were resorting to potheads for Scarecrows.
Stuart sighed and swung his leg over the white standard Drac-issue motorbike. No use grouching about Zap now. He had a job to do. And not a particularly exciting one.
He and his squad were on routine surveillance.
Again.
When Stuart had signed up for Drac school, he'd dreamed of smoking firefights with renegades and bandits. Laser duels with zonerunner idealists, handcuffing hot desert chicks.
However, he hadn't even seen a bandit yet. Since he'd started, he'd been put on basic tasks, like reconnaissance, surveillance, checking traps and surveillance cameras, routine repairs on data collectors, and zone cleanup.
Life had not been exciting or glamorous since he'd started working. Nope, life had been extremely dull.
He kicked the bike into gear, revving up and following his fellow Dracs out over the desert for the long ride to Zone 6. They were hoping to reach the plateau, the border between Zone 5 and Zone 6. The plateau had never been properly explored due to the difficulty in reaching it and the long time it took to get to the plateau – you didn't want to be still out riding back to Battery City when the sun went down. It was too dangerous.
But Stuart secretly wanted danger. He was sick of safety. That was the whole reason why he'd become a Drac – to leave the sterile padded-wall security of Battery City. He was sick of being wrapped in cotton wool, blanketed in a safe, mundane world where nothing exciting ever happened. It may have been okay for his family, for the other drones who lived in the city taking their daily medication and leading boring lives, but it was not okay for Stuart.
At first, being a Drac sounded perfect. Exciting escapades in the desert, fresh air and physical exercise; and it was all for the greater good. It was all for the good of the city, to keep its denizens safe and to assure that justice was carried out even in the barbarity of the desert.
Plus, he was getting paid damn good wages for all of it.
But it seemed that the one part that had really hooked Stuart, the "exciting escapades" part, was yet to occur. Much to Stuart's dismay.
He sighed, readjusting his mask and goggles. Perhaps today was the day. If there was one thing that kept him going, kept him going out on these tedious jobs and chores, it was hope.
Hope that each coming day might bring true adventure. Hope that fate would smile him and give him what he'd been longing for since his life in Battery City had begun – true fear, true excitement, the thrill of the chase.
He wondered if the other guys on his squad were the same. He didn't know them that well; they rarely had time to talk. He'd got the impression that most of them were doing it mainly for the money.
His friends back in Drac school had been doing it either for their families or money as well. Some more disturbing individuals he'd met were doing it for darker purposes. The opportunity to kill, maim, torture.
Disconcertingly, they usually tended to be the favourites in his classes, for their ruthlessness and Machiavellian attitudes - the means justifies the end. Even if it means resorting to underhanded methods like cheating, lying, murdering.
Stuart didn't take pleasure in murder or torture. He hoped for adventure and action, this was true, but he didn't think he could ever enjoy killing someone, even an uncivilised renegade or a filthy bandit. He'd had to kill before in Drac school – it was part of the training, to harden prospective agents to the horror of murder. Stuart knew more ways to kill a person than he knew ways to cook a meal, and he'd been desensitised to the grotesque nature of death – the animalistic terror in their eyes, the shaking hands and doglike groans. Some of the test subjects – usually jailed criminals or captured zonerunners who were due for execution anyway – soiled themselves. Death was messy, unglamorous. Stuart's mind had been dulled to it.
But that didn't mean he liked it. Not one bit.
He noticed a hand signal from Zap up the front of the squad. He was pointing at the mountain range up ahead, which was growing gradually closer. Stuart glanced at his latest-model Tokyoflash watch; it was almost midday. Time had passed more quickly than he'd expected.
As they got closer, Zap led them up into the mountain range, up a steep rocky track littered with rubble. It was treacherous biking, and the whole squad had to slow down to avoid an accident.
Eventually the track led them up to the plateau. Zap signalled for the squad to stop. All of the Dracs braked to a halt, and began to dismount their bikes.
As he was knocking the kickstand into place, Stuart looked up and caught his breath.
He'd seen it for a split second. He wasn't even sure if he'd seen it; a mirage from the sun, perhaps? A heat-induced hallucination?
But there it was again. Behind a large boulder, he noticed a flash of brightly coloured feathers. His heartbeat quickened.
He ran up to Zap. "Commander, there's something behind that boulder," he said. "Possibly a renegade or bandit."
Zap turned to him with a disdainful glare. "Oh, really?" he said sarcastically. "Well, that's great, Stewie." He spat the words with a scalding tone, deliberately using the humiliating nickname he'd given Stuart way back in Drac school to embarrass him in front of the other Dracs. They all fell silent, turning to stare at the spectacle.
"Well, if memory serves me, I remember a certain trainee who fell off his bike in terror when a bush of tumbleweed rolled out from behind a rock."
Nobody except Zap laughed. They were all too busy wondering what was going to happen. To react would be too risky; drawing attention to themselves when Zap was in need of a smoke was dangerous.
"Well, Stewie old buddy, if you're so sure about this renegade, how about you go take a look for us all?" Zap announced. "I'm sure we'd all appreciate you keeping an eye out for us."
Stuart sighed and pulled out his raygun. Typical of Zap to pick on him when he was just trying to help. If there really was a dangerous bandit about to launch an ambush on them, he'd have the last laugh for sure. Hopefully Zap would swallow his joint and choke to death in shock.
He peeked behind the boulder.
To his shock, a flurry of feathers and metal was launched at him. He dropped his gun and fell backwards in shock. The sharp point stabbed down at him again. With a gasp, he rolled out of the way.
Everything started happening then. Zap was shouting orders, Dracs suddenly began pulling out guns and shooting wildly.
"Don't just fucking shoot you braindead drones you could hit the fucking Drac and then I'd have a hell of a lot of fucking paperwork on my hands!" Zap was bellowing, his face beetroot red.
A pair of small tanned hands grabbed his collar and wrenched Stuart behind the boulder with astonishing strength. The same hands launched his body over someone's shoulder and that someone leapt with a jerky, ungraceful lope over and behind several rocks and boulders, and eventually into a small cave.
He was roughly thrown against the cave wall. The point of what appeared to be a befeathered spear pressed into his chest.
"Make one teensy tiny fucking move and I'll skewer you like a shish kebab," a female voice growled.
Stuart's eyes didn't seem to be focusing; the shock of the attack had made everything all blurred. He blinked hard and struggled to focus, but he'd forgotten to remove his tinted goggles; it was too dark to see.
He turned his eyes towards the mouth of the cave. It was covered with a curtain of dead roots, which he realised made the cave look like just flat rock wall. The Dracs were never going to find him here. He could hear them yelling and calling his name.
Eventually the voices faded, and Stuart heard the revving of bike engines. The bastards, they were abandoning him. Zap's idea, he bet. Heartless sonofabitch, it almost didn't surprise him. No doubt they'd even take his bike as well to "save resources".
The spear prodded him painfully. "Get up," the female voice commanded. "Don't run or I swear to God I'll impale you."
Stuart was prodded and poked out of the cave and into the sunlight. Eventually a booted foot kicked him hard in the small of his back, knocking him to the ground. Scrambling, Stuart rolled over to face his attacker.
The same boot connected with his skull.
Before his vision went black, Stuart caught a blurry glimpse of a pair of angel wings.
"Angels really exist..."