Dying
For Private Matthias Anderson, the sharp pain of the two hits was only the beginning. Two metal rods had punched through his armor, one in his right leg and the other in his lower back. The sensation wasn't as bad as the simulated gauss hits he'd started to get used to during training…
But it very quickly got far, far worse. Toxin warnings flashed on his HUD, but this was totally unnecessary. The burning, twisting agony radiating from those two hits quickly told him all he needed to know.
Varon-T neurotoxin… intended to destroy an entire squad's morale by inflicting a slow, agonizing death your comrades can't prevent…
He'd experienced this toxin in two simulations. The first time, he'd been reduced to a shrieking helpless wreck after about a minute, and the agony just kept getting worse until his implants declared him dead at the eleven minute mark. The second time, he'd remained somewhat functional for roughly two minutes before collapsing, and he'd managed to keep from screaming until the four minute mark, but he'd still "died" after eleven minutes.
No antidote had yet been developed for the highly-illegal compound, which was able to reproduce itself inside the human body, similar to Theragen gas.
This is it. All my training, everything I suffered through… and all of my life prior to enlisting… I've got eleven minutes left… and they'll be absolute hell…
But for at least two of those minutes, he could still contribute.
Eléa ordered him to get to a medical pod, but from the strain in her voice it was clear: she knew there was no point. HQ couldn't help him. These were his final moments.
The tattered remnants of the main enemy column drew near. Allistair's defensive equipment couldn't endure many more hits, with two thirds of its heavy armor layers already blasted away. Anti-armor missiles and ammo were running low, their tank and gunship were off dealing with flanking forces, and the entire squad might be seconds away from disaster. Through it all, Matthias would grow more and more pained, becoming helpless, and then succumbing to minutes of mindless shrieking. He'd wreck everyone's morale just when they all needed to perform flawlessly.
But there was a simple solution to his piece of the puzzle. A way to spare his squad.
Without giving himself a chance to reconsider, Matthias snatched up Gunter's abandoned rifle, sprang to his feet, and charged down the hill at a full run.
Lieutenant Blanchet shouted for him to stop, but she hadn't thought it through yet. This was the best option for everyone, and he was not going to second guess himself. The agony of the neurotoxin flooded him with adrenaline, and at first he managed to keep his balance. He sprinted down the icy slope, spraying fire from both rifles in the general direction of the enemy. At this range, a number of his shots hit. Acid rounds from Gunter's rifle ate away at vehicle armor, and a lucky shot from his own rifle blew off an enemy soldier's leg. His reckless, headlong descent made him a difficult target, and Allistair lowered the magnetic cone of his device to better cover Anderson. Shots veered away from Matthias and smashed into the hillside.
Blanchet swiftly exploited the situation, as more and more enemies fixated on Matthias. Armor piercing rifle rounds punched through the weak spot in a tank's armor from Anderson's acid rounds, and a final salvo of Damocles missiles took out undamaged tanks. Two gauss rounds glanced off his armor at shallow angles, and Gunter's rifle ran out of ammo. Dropping it, Matthias reloaded his own rifle and continued to spray shots at the enemy to hold their attention.
A surge of intensifying pain caused him to finally lose his balance, and he tumbled the rest of the way down the icy slope. This probably made him an even trickier target, and his allies continued to exploit the enemy focus on him. He came to a jarring stop at the bottom of the slope, and he struggled to his feet, proud that he hadn't lost his rifle. He dropped an enemy soldier before a shot struck his left shoulder head-on, punching through his armor. It missed the joint, and his implants had simulated the brutal pain of gauss rounds dozens of times before, so he kept shooting as he ran. He maneuvered to limit the number of enemies with line of sight to him at any given moment. They should have responded by redirecting their aim at the defenders high on the ridge, but thankfully, they were succumbing to target fixation. Taking so many losses without killing any of the defenders must have badly damaged enemy morale, and they were focusing on the one person they knew they could kill.
A direct hit ripped through Anderson's right lung, splintering ribs in the process. Nothing he hadn't felt before, though he wouldn't be able to hold a weapon much longer. He reloaded his rifle for what would surely be the final time, unloading his full supply of explosive rounds. They couldn't breach vehicle armor on their own, but it sure made for a good show, holding everyone's attention while obscuring the enemy's vision.
Three more vehicles and a dozen enemy soldiers were neutralized by fire from his comrades up on the ridge, who could focus on aiming without the pressure of heavy return fire.
A high explosive round from the nearest tank detonated nearby, throwing Anderson through the air in a shower of shattered ice. Without his armor, the blast likely would have torn him limb from limb. Fighting through the growing agony, he managed to get to his feet one last time, but he could no longer lift a rifle. He sprinted perpendicular to the enemy line, throwing his supply of grenades one by one, more to feed the chaos and enemy frenzy than out of serious hope of doing damage.
It's working… it's really working… Instead of lying up there on the ridge, dying slowly where my friends can watch helplessly, I'm holding the attention of an entire enemy column… I'll never be promoted, or see another posting… but all the brutal training… mattered…
A vehicle mounted chaingun took off his right leg at the knee, and three shots punched through him as he fell. One hit dead center, and he lost the use of his remaining leg. But it also stopped the pain—and all other sensation—from his lower half. Precise fire from his allies took out the chaingun, but it was too late. Matthias had done all he could. His part was over.
He slid to a stop, sprawled out on the ice, his upper body quaking from the multiple hits and the spreading toxin. He managed to turn his head toward the enemy, and was gratified to see a tank with damaged armor fall to a well-placed EMP round.
A soldier put one more shot into his torso for good measure, and he barely felt it. A tank aimed its main cannon right at him…
A sonic boom beat upon the battlefield, and a shadow from high above passed over him. Every enemy tank redirected their cannons skyward, then a rocket from directly above blew one of their turrets clean off. Grenades rained down on the enemy, and despite the number of explosives, they were not tossed randomly. Each blast hurled enemy soldiers or wrecked the equipment of vehicles. Then a storm of rifle fire from above ate through the armor of four vehicles, and after a short pause, EMP rounds disabled them all.
Detaching his parachute while still ten meters up, Captain Benicio Martins tossed aside his rocket launcher as he fell. He landed on an enemy tank, planted an explosive, and sprang away, all in a single rolling lunge. He fired his rifle as he hit the ice, dropping two targets, and sprang up onto the next tank in a leap that could barely be believed. He placed another explosive, jumped onto the roof of an APC, and swung on its mounted chaingun to reverse directions in an instant. He shot away before enemy fire could converge on him, tossing yet another explosive as he did so. All three charges detonated, blasting holes in enemy vehicles, and the Captain never slowed.
Despite the agony, the exhaustion, and the inescapable knowledge that he had seconds left, Matthias managed to relish this moment, watching his greatest hero in action. The Captain Martins was a whirlwind of destruction, always moving at a full sprint, leaping from cover to cover, reversing directions, diving under vehicles, all while unleashing accurate fire.
Matthias had held the enemy's attention so his allies could exploit openings. The Captain made his own openings. Leaping into a tank with a breached hatch, Benicio briefly seized control of its main gun, destroyed two other tanks, and then leapt clear just before return fire blew the vehicle apart. His every movement was perfection, his awareness so unreal it felt like he could almost see the future. Countless shots glanced off Benicio's armor, as he knew exactly how much it could take. He twisted and turned as he ran, never presenting a head-on target for enemy fire, but every shot he sent back hit dead center. With genius-level understanding of personal-scale tactics, absolutely zero wasted motion, and athleticism that could have won him the gold in virtually any competition, humanity's mightiest champion unleashed chaos and ruin. Those who threatened the Watchers would be denied, and no more of the defenders would be harmed.
Then flanking fire began to tear into the remnants of the enemy column. The scored and dented Kratos gunship poured thirty rounds per second into the weaker side armor of enemy vehicles. The Sunflash tank had lost its coaxial chainguns, and its left side armor was compromised, but it presented its right side armor as it raced along the edge of the broken formation. It blasted away with its main cannon, effortlessly shattering vehicles at such close range.
As enemies frantically turned to face these new threats, Benicio grew even more aggressive, punishing the enemy for their split attention. And all the while, Anderson's squad continued to fire down from the ridge.
It was finally too much. The surviving enemy vehicles came about and fled in a disorderly rout. The few surviving infantry, seeing they'd been abandoned, threw down their weapons in surrender.
Bloodloss and trauma caught up with Matthias, and his vision darkened. The agony of his injuries and the torturous neurotoxin began to fade.
The Captain saw my final charge… and I got to see him in real combat… The Watchers… are safe…
His eyes slid closed, his last sight having been Captain Martins standing triumphant atop a burning tank.
Shouldering his rifle and pivoting away from the fleeing enemy, Captain Benicio Martins sprinted toward the blood-stained ice where Private Anderson lay. The kid's biometrics had already flatlined, but the Captain needed to be sure. Benicio had lost comrades before, during his years with Brazil's Special Operations Command. He hoped it never stopped hurting, just as he hoped he'd never stop caring about every life he took.
It certainly hadn't stopped hurting yet. As he reached Anderson's still form, the pang of loss stabbed deep. Multiple holes had blasted all the way through the young man, he'd been tortured by neurotoxin, he'd lost a leg…
…and he'd saved his squad. Blanchet's position had been seconds away from disaster when Matthias broke cover and charged, drawing attention away from the others. Benicio had known the kid had grit, and he'd proven it today.
Blanchet skidded to a stop just as Benicio pulled off Anderson's helmet and his own right gauntlet. Knowing what he'd find, he checked the kid's pulse.
Then he stood, stepped back, and made room for the rest of Squad 4 to crowd around their fallen hero.
Relief, triumph, and loss flooded through Chief Hasina Rakoto. For the first time in the history of the Organization, the most elite and best equipped military force in history had suffered a battlefield fatality. Their perfect record was broken. Their youngest soldier lay dead.
But then she swept her eyes across the glowing holofield of Antarctica. Thousands of enemy aircraft, drones, and vehicles lay burned and broken, littering the ice and snow with wreckage. Fragments of five thousand missiles lay scattered amongst the burning hulks. It had been decades since such a force had been assembled for any purpose, and today that tremendous concentration of power had been smashed. The attackers must have been drawn together from every secret faction and terrorist organization that wished the Watchers harm, likely with the secret support of multiple nations. But by uniting to launch this attack, they'd doomed themselves. The few surviving enemy vehicles sped toward the coast, unaware of the thirty-seven naval battle groups and sixty-eight airwings converging on them. The Watchers had shattered the attacking army, and their allies from all over the world would round up the few that tried to flee.
Thousands of enemies lay dead, and their weapons of war burned. HQ had suffered damage, but the last of the Theragen gas was being sealed off or vented from the facility.
The combined hate of every organization that opposed the Watchers had succeeded in killing only one defender.
And Hasina still felt the sting of that loss.
Standing in the heart of the Dying Zone, Maximus felt a sickening dread, unrelated to his natural fear of what he was about to do. Animals and even insects were consistently repelled by this sensation, and Max felt a primal urge to run.
He would not.
The ATV was parked nearby, so the new Maximus could escape, even if Charlotte failed to take Lamia offworld. That had him a bit worried. His replacement would have all of his memories, including the difficult decision to take this terrible risk. What if the new Max refused to leave? If he died, that was it. No new Max versions would appear.
I need to have two conflicting goals in my heart at the same time. For myself, I must be willing to be bait. But for my replacement, I must be determined to summon Lamia and then sprint to the ATV. It's still an easier task than Charlotte faces. She needs to grab Lamia and then immediately do something Watchers didn't even know was possible an hour ago…
"Thank you, Maximus Angelos, Eighth of your line," Charlotte said, giving his hand a little squeeze. "If this works, you'll deserve a huge share in the credit… but I know that's not why you're doing it."
"I'm ready," he said, hiding his growing anxiety. "Let's put a stop to twenty-four years of death and terror." And let's avenge my Third, he silently added, and your dear Klaus.
The change pressed at Max, trying to alter him, to displace him, to take away his power to learn and grow. But it would also connect him to Lamia. It would empower him to be the bait.
Letting go, Max stopped resisting. He briefly seized up, his whole body clenching in sudden pain… then a young man manifested in front of him.
His thoughts slowed, and he grew confused, but not so badly as what most Unwanted typically faced. At the heart of the Dying Zone, he experienced less disconnect with his surroundings. Concentrating, he understood that the newcomer was him, an identical duplicate. Max had just traveled into the past by the smallest possible unit of time. Both copies of him persisted, and his duplicate had been displaced spatially. But he had been left behind, altered in ways he couldn't really understand, despite spending so much time with his predecessors.
This was harsh, and difficult… and part of the plan.
One change, though, was positive. The ambient, oppressive dread of the Dying Zone felt far softer now. Before, standing here had felt horrible. Now, the sensation was mild.
The new Max looked deeply sad as he came to terms with this reality. "This will be the hardest thing I've ever done," he said. "I remember choosing to be the bait… but instead I'm supposed to be a coward…"
"No," Charlotte said, her voice intense. "You might remember that choice, but you didn't make it. Your predecessor did. You aren't breaking a promise by getting clear. You're upholding our plan. You must escape. If the worst happens… your family will need you."
Clenching his jaw in frustration, the new Max reached out his hand. It took a moment to understand, but eventually the Eighth accepted the handshake.
Not trying to hide his tension and reluctance, the new Max spoke the necessary, terrible words. "Lamia, Lamia! I call to you! Take this Unwanted… brother… away. He's for you to do with as you please. Lamia! Lamia! Claim what is yours… if you can."
Then, clearly hating himself, the new Max sprinted toward the ATV.
"This is it," Charlotte said, trying to look every direction at once. "I'm ready."
Thoughts flowing sluggishly, fighting to keep his mind on track, Maximus tried to keep watch as well. But, as expected, Charlotte saw it first. The Watcher pivoted and dashed away, and Max awkwardly turned to watch. A patch of dirty concrete nearby shimmered, and the crown of a head appeared. Small, blonde-haired, Elsa's pale blue eyes had barely become visible when Charlotte bent down and placed a hand on her head.
For just a moment, all went still. The girl's eyes widened in confusion and alarm, while Charlotte visibly strained with effort.
Then an inhuman, hateful shriek burst from the little girl, and Charlotte flew backwards and into the air.
For just a moment, while the enemy rose the rest of the way out of the ground, Max's muddled mind didn't understand.
Then he blitzed toward Lamia.
The girl didn't even bother turning toward him. Maximus slammed to a stop, as if gripped by an invisible giant.
Briefly, he felt only confusion. Nothing stood between him and Elsa. Then, his thoughts wavered still further, and he wondered how this fragile child could be anyone's enemy.
But his thoughts sharpened when Charlotte yelled, "Let him go! I'm far more dangerous! Compared to me, he doesn't matter! Forget about—"
"Silence, foolish phantom," the girl commanded, clenching a fist. Charlotte's voice choked off. "You may give me more nourishment than him, but his death still has value to me. I don't know how your kind can fly about in an immaterial state, but by fully manifesting, you have doomed yourself. You saved me the hassle of trying to catch you first, and you came alone. Where are the others, who make such nuisances of themselves, needling me with their soft hearts and weak emotions?" Lamia's fist opened, and Charlotte gasped as she filled her lungs, but the Watcher refused to answer. "No matter. I recognize you as the strongest of those who have tormented me. But what is the story of this Unwanted? Did you bring the ignorant thing with you? Is he a mere tool? Odd that you consider him expendable... Your kind have risked so much to help others of his sort, but now you callously bring him right to me?"
Though Maximus still had some difficulty thinking clearly, he would not let this monster dismiss him. "I… chose."
Lamia didn't turn Elsa's head, but it did shift her eyes in Max's direction.
"I.. am only expendable… because I chose to be."
For just a moment, Lamia's expression changed. A softened, almost empathetic look directed his way, tinged with hints of respect. But then the cold, cruel look replaced the fleeting compassion, and it turned back to Charlotte. "So, he chose to help you… but his trust was misplaced. Because whatever you hoped to do… you failed. Your last experience before I turn you into red rain… will be to watch his death…"
The girl kept her eyes on the airborn Charlotte, but sidestepped toward Maximus. Though his mind was still cloudy, he poured his iron will and fiercely trained strength into fighting the invisible force, pushing far past the point of pain.
It wasn't enough.
Lamia pulled out a red stained pencil and rested its tip against Max's chest. "He dies… because you chose to bring me to him."
A wooden pencil, especially in the hands of one so young and small, never should have been deadly to a nineteen-year-old man, especially one with such a powerful build.
But this was Lamia.
The spike of wood and graphite felt as hard as diamond, and the strength driving it vastly exceeded what any normal girl could have managed. Slowly, relentlessly, the pencil drove into the young man's chest, piercing muscle layers and even a rib with ease, and finally entering his heart. Now, every heartbeat was agony, and he still couldn't move.
I'm glad… this didn't happen… to a child…
Lamia dug the pencil about mercilessly, keeping her eyes fixed on the weeping Charlotte. Though held in place, Max was still capable of speech. But he wouldn't give this horrid thing the satisfaction of hearing him beg. He'd chosen to be bait. The enemy survived the trap, but at least he'd done all he could.
Eyes still locked on Charlotte, the little girl's face twisted in savage cruelty…
The pencil… burst. It shattered into splinters, shredding Max's heart and driving shrapnel through the surrounding flesh. Now breathing was agony, though he knew he wouldn't suffer for long.
Charlotte's cry of anguish was piteous to hear, but Max still made no sound. He wouldn't give Lamia the satisfaction of knowing just how much this hurt, and Charlotte didn't need to know either. Blood stopped flowing to his head, and he had mere seconds of consciousness left…
Then Lamia's invisible power released him, and he dropped to his knees. "You are nothing, Watcher," Lamia hissed. "After you die, the others of your kind will—"
Max's fist smashed into the side of Lamia's head, hurling Elsa's small body to the ground. He felt the rest of his fingers break, but he barely noticed compared to the agony in his chest.
Unwanted, mortally wounded, he had still dealt one final, defiant blow.
Max, Charlotte, and Lamia all hit the concrete. Landing hard, aggravating the pain of his many wounds, Max saw Charlotte scramble to her feet and race toward their fallen enemy.
He'd only wanted to knock the smirk off the little monster's face… but it looked like he'd given Charlotte a second chance to complete the plan…
As thoughts and sensation slipped away, the Eighth Maximus managed a satisfied smile.
A boy half my age died in agony because I failed… I will not waste the opportunity he bought me…
Max lay still.
Lamia sat up, dazed.
Charlotte lunged.
Getting a grip on Lamia's shoulder, Charlotte triggered a second heavy dose of MD-Δ and entered her Trance. Lamia screamed with rage, raising a hand…
…but then she turned away from Charlotte. The ATV, driven by the newest Maximus, shot in, aiming to pass dangerously close to 17, guided toward the unseen foe by the woman's outstretched hand.
With a high-pitched shout of exertion, Lamia turned the vehicle aside, nearly flipping it, so that Max missed his invisible target by centimeters.
It had given Charlotte barely enough time.
She'd already projected her mind into Elsa's brain, and she immersed herself in the conflicting emotions, which Charlotte now had the context to understand. The hunger, the hatred, the ancient detachment from everything humans loved… those feelings belonged to the otherworldly Lamia. But the sadness, the suffering, the guilt, those deeper emotions, all but buried, belonged to Elsa. A tortured little girl, an untrained Watcher, taken by an alien intellect, overwhelmed, dominated, used.
Forced to kill her identical copy. Forced to kill her whole family.
To kill Max…
And Klaus.
Forced to slaughter millions.
Embracing Elsa's guilt, her loss, her decades of suffering, Charlotte felt this girl's pain. And as she did so, Charlotte also dwelt on her own loss. The death of the kind, selfless man she would have joyously shared her life with. And the loss of the brave boy who had just given everything trying to save his family, and free his world.
Charlotte's power spiked, transcendent, and she felt herself anchor to Elsa. Even as the girl turned back toward Charlotte, ready to blast her away… the Watcher launched her mind to distant Eden.
Her body, and her enemy, followed a millisecond later.
The stained concrete, the fetid stream, Max's crumpled form, and the oppressive sense of dread… all vanished. Charlotte stood on lush grass, surrounded by flowers, with the little girl sitting in front of her.
The telekinetic blast hurled Charlotte away, and she felt bones in her right leg snap as she tumbled and rolled. The pain tore at her serenity, and her first attempt to restore her Trance failed.
"What did you DO?" Lamia shrieked, scrambling to its feet. "Where are we?" The monster sounded scared, not just confused or angry.
Good. We're probably right about it needing to be near the Dying Zone. This many lightyears away, I can only hope Lamia's powers fade quickly…
"Send… me… BACK!"
That voice... was not that of a little girl. It was guttural, deep, monstrous.
Charlotte took one look, and terror clawed at her heart.
Lamia was changing.
Elsa's small body bloated, and warped, and elongated, her limbs swelled, and hundreds of needle spines extruded all over the undulating surface. As the hideous thing expanded, sliding out of the bloody nightgown, the flesh grew translucent, and…
Clamping her eyes shut, trying to block out the fear, Charlotte pulled an injector pen from her pack. She pumped pain killers into her broken leg, overrode her implants' attempts to sedate her, and tried to focus her thoughts on Earth. At the cost of Maximus, she'd accomplished her mission. Lamia was now stranded, far from Elpis, with no means of replenishing itself. Charlotte had been willing to die for this, and that selfless boy had, but what if this abomination tortured her? It needed to return to Elpis, and Charlotte was its only hope. But it didn't know that torture would render Charlotte incapable of using her powers. Her suffering might drag out for however long Lamia managed to keep her alive…
With a heavy rumble and the gut-churning sounds of tearing flesh, the horrific thing gathered itself to spring, but Charlotte didn't dare open her eyes. Duri could have used fear to power his trance, while Niko and perhaps Peng could have used the pain of a broken leg. But Charlotte's only hope was to keep calm, put those factors out of her mind, and focus on her memories of the fallen. With Klaus dead, the Watchers had already lost too much. With the Eighth Maximus dead, Khalil's people and the Angelos family would be grieving too. The new Max had just seen an identical brother die, and losing Charlotte too would likely fill him with undeserved guilt.
If Charlotte died here, everyone's pain would deepen, and humanity would lose a vital resource.
She successfully entered her Trance, and saw the frantic bustle of doctors in the HQ Infirmary. Many wounded soldiers were being treated, some from serious injuries, and alarms sounded continuously. Charlotte's broken leg was minor compared to the condition of some of the patients, so she centered her perspective on a closed side room. Her arrival wouldn't cause a panic, but her implants would alert Hasina of her return.
Surviving would not be selfish. It would be a gift to everyone who knew her, and everyone she might be able to serve in the future.
The painkillers finally took full effect. Her Trance sharpened, and she poured her will into completing the projection.
Sudden sharp pains in her hand, likely from launched needle teeth, didn't quite break her Trance, and her power spiked for the second time in half a minute. She fell into the hospital bed, utterly exhausted, aching, her hand and leg throbbing, ill, with a raging migraine… and mourning for the Eighth Max.
But at least Lamia would starve, and all the surviving Unwanted would be safe from—
Clammy, pulsing flesh engulfed her arm, and dozens of needle spines drove into the trapped limb. A deep, animal growl and a vile stench all but stopped Charlotte's heart, and her eyes snapped open.
The nightmarish thing filled the small room.