Chapter 14: Chapter 13 - Leavetakings

General Amanda Warner, the woman of the eleventh hour, had taken the Kyros Defence Force upon herself, a “military” force of untrained interns and apprentices, here for the Summer, then to move on to more respectable professions, guard of the warcasket of the unknown soldier, member of a marching band, etcetera, all things as ceremonial and ultimately useless as the Kyros Defence Force itself.

Abldin took the changes in stride, a crazed countenance resting unnatural on her usually unenthused demeanor as she was given a pamphlet on local surveillance systems which she had, apparently, already read. Ogolvy slunked into his seat, spinning the chair from one side of the desk to the other, stopping himself with a foot.

“Would you email the Home Defence to report on their survey.” Ogolvy hated emails. Emails are like the water that drowns a lily, like what freshwater must feel like to a methanewater fish, a dry and meaningless and nutritionless drivel or downpour of superfluous text bereft of any meaning, continuous espousal of brocaded cerebretonism from the voluble hollows of minds corrupted by conformity. Ogolvy’s email pen-pals were the unctuous calfs granting largesse of supercilious meretricion void of significance or savvy communication. “please find below” a list of marketable phrases and jargon to stretch even the most simplistic terminology into a nothingness so… so… nothing... that it could be compared to a toddler’s spech but that a toddler would naturally would boast a far more intellectual conversational technique. A toddler might at least say “baba” and point at a tit, that at least can be surmised and explored as a display of hunger plus an outlining of the strategy for removal of that hunger, a “representative of our organisation”, some Samuel or Rodney from some Human Resources department in the same situation would say:“following considerations of a burgeoning individual’s fostered requirements we have found it responsible to request your attention in the event that you were in possession of an organ which is probable to produce milk, see below our three-page list of requirements and needs, most of which are re-phrased versions of the exact same sentence, should these requirements not be met expect to have difficulty with maintaining silence for the foreseen period.”

Ogolvy hit send with all the malice possibly channeled through a finger. “Yeah, I asked them to give us an update.”

“Okay.” Thumbs up. Then Abldin walked away. She was a head taller than Ogolvy, with brown skin, closer to the colour of soil in the light than Ogolvy’s night-coloured skin, his white hair made him stand out, though, and it gave him a lighter demeanour than even the light-skinned Abldin.

“I want reports NOW you CLITLICKING cocks now do your fucking country proud,” she banged her knuckles on a sheet of paper “Where are the fucking Juj, you wanted to work in the Kyros Defence Force, limp-dicks? Well grow some FUCKING ovaries and tell me where these FUCKING Juj are!” Warner slunked away, blotting the doorway with her physical might.

With one hand she issued the order to all military personnel. Evacuate. Bring only the military equipment that can be carried without hindrance. No armed force is to remain in Prophrecia.

--

A car sounds its rippling crinkling across the gravel road of the empty village. A woman steps out of the car, the sign “Waddow Hall” dangling above her head next to which she holds a pistol. Her associates provided themselves with body armour and higher calibre hand-cannons. Another car pulls in, and another, but those aren’t cars, they’re heavy-duty all-terrains from which a set of 25 women in bomb vests emerge, half of which bring out their shotguns, the remaining teams bringing out their burst-actions.

The woman gives a fist and then points two fingers at the neighbouring buildings, the village being composed first of rows of two houses that descended into a large hodge-podge of homes without much planning in their layout.

Armoured soldiers knock down the door’s of the homes, pointing their peacekeepers from one side of the room to the next, two of them give a thumbs up and another two check the next room over.

“Clear.” crackles through the suited lady’s little device.

Another four go into the next house over.

“Clear.” Another four. Nine left in the open, then 13 as one house is evacuated and they roll down the street.

Ah. Clever. Thinks 078, hoping to have seen them split up. They grab the polyglass shard and signal to 814, who signals with a crackling of their dysfunctional rifle.

Four soldiers enter house number 72. Four soldiers leave 71. Four soldiers leave 70. They move up, caterpillar-like.

“Smoke on your nine-fifteen.”

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“Hold it.” She mutters into her radio. Audible to 078 who is just metres away. Coolant-pump drumming, drumming in his auditory fins and it’s terrible the thought that she might here it drumming.

“Maintain positions, secure the perimeter.” Shit. Manskin waggles their mirror again, catching the light as much as they can, three strokes of light. 814 crackles their rifle again, three strokes.

It takes a while, on the distance, for a number of houses to ignite, the flames climbing higher on the horizon like giants dancing atop the village’s corpse. The woman in the suit moved forwards with her warriors, whatever she was saying was no longer audible to 078, further and further away, still hidden stock-still with terror. But, something must have changed. The groups of four, of the twenty five soldiers, began to motion in the direction of the village-green, to watch the burning buildings, they were out in the open now, scouting from left to right, checking for machines, pointing their awful guns, but always making sure to watch in all directions. They were aware of their enemy now, sure it was here, but it made them cautious, caution could cost lives.

078 flashed at 814, in the trees, two flashes, two crackles of lightning. The team was surrounded by unscouted buildings, each house lightless, doors swinging from side to side as the warriors watched them, watching the fires, most of the warriors aimed at the source of the fires, and they began moving towards either side of the burning buildings but now they were boxed in and they could have stayed motionless, stayed safe.

Patience. Let them make a move.

4 teams of 4 left the grouping, moving into buildings on the side.

078 flashed once. 814 relayed the message. The soldiers entered the buildings on either side of the flames, glints of orange turning to a smokescreen which would have been helpful had it blown in the direction of the village. 714, armed with nothing but rocks, was waiting in one of those buildings, and the four who entered quickly scouted around and watched as 714 ducked down under the window. Two of them stormed upstairs and 714 dared to peep upwards again, for a split second the humans were looking away, and a split second was all that was needed as 714 lept over the windowsill and charged the two who quickly sussed out the 200kg of metal rushing at them and guided their shotguns towards the foe, just for two hands to make their way to either human’s head, one human fired blindly,

“BANG!”

,missed, while the other “BANG!”,smattered purple slime across the floor. But it was too late. Two more hands, armed with a brick and a rock, rushed downwards like meteorites against the exposed mouths of the soldiers whose spines and skulls caved in, mixing blood with coolant. 714 lept upwards at the descending HD-team who delivered a triple-burst “POP-POP-POP-” which tore and burned through flesh that 714 tried to ignore as they rushed forwards again and “PO-PO-POP!” again only for the hulking warrior to grab a soldier and pull them downwards slamming on the stairs as they turned, arched, fired, “P-P-POP!” Against the ceiling and they were disarmed, hands stomped on as the final shots “P-P-POP!” And the final human in the squad watched as 714 lazily drooped to one side, then righted themselves to the other side, then slammed against a wall, purple viscera streaming down their face and exposed metal and bent jaw scraping against the drywall as 714 lurched forward and grabbed the rifle out of the woman’s hands, crushing it, then collapsing against the stairs.

In the house on the other side of the green the two shotgun soldiers and one burst-rifle soldier couldn’t help but watch at the gunshots, which cost them their lives as ‘Looky’ and 323 slammed them against the wall, bursting two of their heads against the bricks, then 804 lunged over at the burst-rifle soldier on the stairs, gut-punching through their spine and back. 323 rushed up the stairs and “POP-POP-POP” was shot but powered through and beat down the remaining human, who watched over the village green as more “BANG!”s and “POP-POP-POP!”s could be heard ringing out. The remaining nine soldiers in the field all dispersed towards the gunshots, a pair of 4 to both sets of 4 survivors.

The machines struck quickly and 605 leaned over into a building containing another four, pulling out the stubby illumination device from earlier, a flamethrower, which spread a plume of hot and glowing gas into the building, screams emerged from the building like gas that escapes from a boiled crustacean, shrill and piercing cries of pain as the jet of fire kept entering through the window of the little house. A woman toppled out of a 1st floor window, likely wounded by the drop, and killed by a shift in aim as a jet of burning gas went right over her for a few seconds before it petered out and the weapon was exhausted, as was the life of the HD soldier whose name tag read “Allana.”

Four more soldiers came rushing forth. By 078’s count there were 13 left. All armed. All dangerous. And that’s when 078 came forth, having eaten the polyglass and rare metals in the jewellery of the villagers, they hacked up a battery, handed it to 814, who slotted it, the final piece, into their own rifle. A maddened frenzy overtook them, and their eyes glinted blue with energy-pulses, as their hair tendrils swung wildly with their shoulder’s precise movements, “KHZRK!” crackles the gun, thundering a hole in the back of the woman with the suit and gun. 814 pulled back on a rod of the lengthy barrel, revealing blue material which hissed in the air, then the machine was swung to the side, an optic held over the ironsights and “KHZRK!” another human was felled. Gunfire came at 078 and 814 but 121 had gotten to the top floor of a building and lobbed bricks at the defending team, pinned on both sides, down a leader, picked off “KHZRK!” one by one. The skeletons of the humans crackled blue. “KHZRK!”

“BANG!”

“POP-POP-POP!”

“KHZRK!”

Every hit on 814 was survivable, 078 pulled them away, up against the corner of a building, the rifleman was crazed with glee, every hit of theirs fatal. Ribcages popped and burst, glowing red like they had lightbulbs up against the skin, legs were blown off, heads popped and steamed.

“KHZRK!” The energy rifle was a wonderful toy and it rendered the humans toys too, with 814 the slobbering toddler.

But the final kill wasn’t with such a crude weapon. Rather, it was something more humiliating or perhaps more honourable, in a primitive sort of way, as the final humans dispersed, fleeing, and they were caught by 323, 605, 121, pummelled with fists, bricks, and rocks.