The Solution (8 page)

“Give me a gun.”
Randal did not ever think those words would come out of his mouth, but he said it again, this time with more ardor, “Give me a gun!”

Wide-eyed, Christopher M said, “Here.”

He un-strapped his sidearm, a plasmagun, and tossed it to Randal, following with a Class 1 electromagnetic charge. After detonation the charge would obstruct most cybernetic operations. Randal was aware such technology existed, but he thought it untouchable. But here he was, he thought, touching the intangible.

Christopher M said,
“I don’t have time to give you a class. Open the cap, press the green button. Throw it. The effect lasts three seconds.”

Class 1 electromagnetic charges were
black market material, near priceless, and internationally prohibited unless assigned or approved by the Solution. If he and Alex’s people were going to take out RMS, this was their only ticket, Christopher M assured.

“These machines a
re equipped with refractor fields. Electromagnetic weaponry is the only chance to drop the refractors. Other than this, it’s either photon bursts or scratch-and-dent nukes only the Solution has access to. Alex has resources, but not those kinds of resources. Let’s go,” Christopher M said.

It didn’t
take long for the soreness in Randal’s body to be trumped by adrenaline and a racecar-heartbeat. Lightheaded at first, he followed Christopher M out of the room and into the corridor heading toward the lobby. They crouched in the shadows, looking toward the mayhem, where violet and indigo plasma shots bit through flesh and left dripping light-trails in the air. For a second Randal thought the air looked singed; he wondered how his fern was doing without him. It probably withered and died.

There were more of Alex’s people
than Randal previously surveyed. Before he thought maybe ten. Now Randal counted close to twenty men and women. Georgia was among them, all running, ducking and dodging as though they were mice fleeing from cats—and they were, the Black Cats. A few runners were gunned down, disintegrated in violet light and cinder. Georgia found cover with Alex behind the large receptionist desk, which would last no longer than a few moments. 

The intruders wo
re stealth, Christopher M concluded. He could only see plasmatic haze in the dark. The Black Cats moved fast, like Black Cats move, never firing in the same position twice, making the enemy believe they had more numbers. Always shifting, always killing. They wore spectra-goggles and saw their enemies through cyan battle-grids, suggesting lines of attack. Black Cats were equipped with sonic-sensors, and their combat training was obscenely advanced compared to Alex’s people, who were mainly unarmed.

From what Randal had seen of Alex’s people
, they’re frail techies; the closest to a genuine fighter was maybe Christopher M and Georgia seemed to have some spunk.

Suddenly Randal’s mettle began melting, draining from his body as if being siphoned by an unseen force. All his insecurities surfaced at once. He wasn’t smart enough, tall enough. He wasn’t handsome, and he was horrible at math. He recalled, how when he was younger a kid named Big Gary used to punch him and throw him to the ground on a daily basis. Randal never fought back. Images of a hell paraded across Randal’s mind—all the torture, hollers, and viscera. 

The RMS were coming.

As Randal
attempted gather his head, to formulate his own strategy, or wait for Christopher M to make a move, an RMS crashed through the lobby entrance, slinging glass and steel and nearly triturating the doorframe and part of the wall. Its particle cannon blazed blue streams and cleaved a man and woman. There were seven of Alex’s people left alive.

After the RMS marched
to the middle of the lobby, it stood in a stationary position, commencing a bio-scan for survivors and casualties, then, it alternated weaponry, oscillating its torso while shooting sporadic plasma pulses into already charred corpses or immobilized humans clinging to life behind rubble.

A second later, another
, larger RMS followed course, halting near the other and popped suppressive chain-gun fire.

Christopher M
wasn’t sure why the RMS hadn’t fired ion-rockets at the reception station and ended the raid—ended it all and obliterated everyone involved. All he knew was that the chances of getting out of this unscathed (or alive) were pretty nil.

Randal looked at the Class
1 electromagnetic charge and held it tight. “How many more of these charges do you have?”

“
One,” Christopher M said.

Then
Christopher M grimaced but didn’t say anything. Randal watched him grip the electromagnetic charge tightly, click the cap open with his thumb and press the green button. Christopher M tossed the charge within ten feet of both RMS. Following a high-pitched knell the charge detonated and spread a thirty-foot radius of writhing web over both machines, locking their systems. The web had also caught a Black Cat, leaving the soldier in stasis due to all the hardware he was wearing. With a small a sense of victory, Christopher M and Randal watched the Black Cat’s stealth-shadow melt off like octopus ink spreading underwater. 

Now was
the moment to make a stand, no matter how inane it may prove to be.

“Shit,” Randal said. “I can’t believe this.”

Not even a half-second passed. Randal waited for Christopher M to give orders or take action before the web would wear off. The anticipation and fear almost murdered Randal’s constitution, then Christopher M hollered, “Fire!” 

Randal
and Christopher M opened wide, eating holes through the larger machine’s torso. Georgia, standing from behind the reception desk, followed suit. The targeted RMS toppled to the floor in a cloud of smoke.

But the last second was up, and the larger RMS powered back on,
refractor fields included, and let loose pulses dead at Alex and Georgia. Even though most of the reception desk was close to cinder, they tried to take cover behind it.

T
here wasn’t much time, and before the Black Cat’s stealth could slide back on, Randal had burned the Black Cat into blistered halves.

“Toss it,” Christopher M said to Randal
. “Toss the other charge. Now.”

Randal hurled
the last charge near the RMS. Detonation. The web spread and the plasma fire tore the machine down. Not as easy as using photonic bursts, nor as globally approved, but it worked.

All things co
nsidered, taking down the machines was accomplished quite minimally, Randal thought.

Then a
Black Cat executed an unexpected tactic. The soldier jabbed a cylindrical stake into the floor, engaged a switch, and a piercing frequency belted.

Ultrasonic pain slammed and blood began dripping
from Randal’s ears and he couldn’t control his thoughts. Vision fuzzed like trying to look through waterfall.

Suddenly a shadow darted
toward Randal coupled with the violet, singeing glow of plasma. Convinced his grizzly end had finally come, Randal was certain he’d been outwitted, which Randal would freely admit couldn’t of have been terribly difficult to do.

Suddenly
there was snag in the gears of time, or reality.

E
verything stopped when a presence of such awesome and terrible force was felt just as much as heard.

Randal wasn’t harmed.
This wasn’t his final windup, after all, but an inception of something larger than himself,
into
something much larger than himself. It was like time had a glitch, Randal believed, and he was then standing at the threshold of the corridor looking onto a nightmarish unreality. The stench of blood, guts, and plasma boxed and punched at his senses. It took all he had to keep from vomiting.

Randal’s perspective had totally changed. The damaged RMS were
now but green blips on the filters of actuality; the Black Cats were gore-covered skeletons locked in midair like slow-motion wraiths, wearing functional spectra-goggles. And it all happened faster than Randal could keep up with.

Randal understood at once what he observed was
not the whole truth but a fraction of truths crammed together to form an illusory state. But then again, how could he really know what was real or fake anymore, the way his life was going. But it
felt
real, realer than his name. The main question he wanted an answer to is, once again, why he was here. He got the notion that he’d not hear a straight answer for while to come, if ever. That was life these days.

Randal
briefly contemplated the carnage in front of him. Before he could make any progress a swell of cool air came like a wave and brushed across his face, as if washing the blood and dirt away. But soon the coolness turned into jellyfish-like stings on his skin. He was certain this dreamscape wasn’t manufactured, but only misunderstood.

The hurt abruptly stopped, and
from the darkness in the lobby, Elizabeth walked toward Randal. She was deathly pale, dark circle under eyes, hospital gown soaked with sweat. At a closer look, her form appeared to be a daunting emulsion of a thousand images; she was a thousand different angles and viewpoints at once; yet Randal conceived her as a singular being, smelling of tulips and rain.

Randal
was overtaken with both dread and awe. He wanted to run, but he stood transfixed, unable to move.

Her
green eyes shown vividly and certain as she said, “Reality has a virus, and I’m it. You’ll have to stop me, or I’ll slay you all.”

The scenes before Randal skip
ped a few beats, palpitating, then, sped up to near normality. The dreamscape corroded and ended, letting another indisputable truth filter through at the Vintage Hotel. If havoc had an appetite, these were the leftovers. Corpses, ashes, and air stained with violet light.

Christopher M said
, “You’re lucky! You almost got smoked. I saved your ass there, twinkle-toes. We aced three more Black Cats. Got their gear.”

Alex Treaty,
Georgia and Plum Charlie kneeled beside Randal. All the Black Cats were dead and the RMS shut down. Randal concluded that his aversion to his circumstances just reached a severity of monsoonal proportions. 

“I hate you,” Randal said
.

Christopher
M volleyed, “Step in line. Everybody that knows hates it, and if you know, you know—then you will hate.”

Alex Treaty said, “We’re leaving. Now.”

***

I’m sorry, Elizabeth,” Mr. Spires said lowly. “I’m so sorry.”

Elizabeth came to as a different person as Dr. Reverence ended the grueling hours of therapy. The monitors flickered blue in the dark.

“I’m very sorry,” Mr. Spires leaned in front of
her, inches away from her chapped lips. She hadn’t seen someone look at her with sympathy in what seemed like ages. His suit was wrinkled, and his hair appeared greasy, his eyes two moony pools in the dark. He put moisturizer on her lips.

“Hopefully that will help you,” he whispered.

She
said nothing, only gazed vacantly. When she had first met Mr. Spires, she respected and trusted him. There was none of that left, and honestly she couldn’t feel her lips in the first place. Mr. Spires sighed and backed away, sitting behind a holocomputer. He put his head in his hands. 

S
tale quietness permeated the room with the exception of humming electricity. In a sober daze, Elizabeth looked at the thick wires plugged into her arms and the network that wrapped around her. It was a selfish yet loving leviathan, she knew, and it was all too real. But it didn’t matter anymore, Elizabeth concluded. Chaos. Death. All the pain, all the hate, she knew them at the atomic level now—and no one knew them better than her. 

She had one body, but her minds were becoming many.
She felt like a rioting metropolis resided inside her, as though a centrifugal mechanism had separated her wholeness into numerous elements. So many thoughts clashed like titans making hurricanes in her head, and the experience was so far from pleasant Elizabeth believed there’s a hell. She was a different person, or persons.

Something inside, maybe a ghost of her self’s past, tried to soothe her, bring her back to the whole, to tie herself back together—but she gladly smothered the little sentiment.
Bring me back to the whole of what
? Scrawny features of her personality deserved nasty deaths just like her mother. Just like the public and like the Solution. She smiled deeply, enough to make her cheeks wrinkle, then the smile faded to nothing.

She stared
at Mr. Spires. He lifted his head from his hands. He couldn’t read her expression, and none of his programs were able probe her mind and see her thoughts. The hair on the back of his neck stood like little trees and his body was covered with gooseflesh.

I
will shred actuality from the likes of every soul on the planet. Each human is a solipsistic, pompous mammal, and I’ll let them believe there is no self unless there is torment, because anguish and woe will be all that’s factual. That, the public must know.