Fredric Shernoff - Atlantic Island

“Oh, Berty, Berty, Berty, have you been fed a load of malarkey. That gunfire we heard just a minute ago? I bet you ten bucks that was Theo and the rest killing your goofy friends. Guess who they are going to kill next? Your false messiah.”

Bertier let out a scream of rage like a mindless beast. He rushed at Bill, who connected with a powerful right hand. Bertier buckled and fell over. In a second, Bill was on top of him, unloading shot after shot. He hadn’t known he had so much anger in him but here, now, every wrong thing he had experienced: his arrest, Mark’s death, Dale, Menendez, Michelle, everything that had happened to his friends and to him since they had made the mistake to come to the shore, all of that went through his mind. He took all that rage and frustration and channeled it into his fists. Bertier’s face, never much to look at, dissolved into a bloody, misshapen mess.

Bertier reached into his pocket. Bill felt a sharp pain on his arm. He stopped his onslaught. His arm was bleeding from a shallow cut where Bertier had slashed him with a knife. Bertier went to stab at him and Bill knocked the knife away. Bertier brought his other hand up and hit him in the temple. He saw flashes of light in his vision. His own, private Event. Bertier rolled him and got back on top, and now it was Bill who was trying desperately to cover up.

They rolled over and over, each landing shots to the face and body. Bill felt cool water and knew they were at the edge of the ocean. Bertier flipped him into the water and grabbed him by the throat, pushing his head under the waves.

Bill had just enough time to take a breath and now he held it as best he could, as Bertier’s beefy hands squeezed at his throat. No, he said to himself. You didn’t come all this way to drown in a foot of water.

He thought of Mark, whose body had fought for so long after he sustained his injuries. Bill had promised to make his life count for something, to live on so that Mark’s memory would live on through him. He wasn’t going to let it end here. Bill grabbed Bertier’s wrists in his hands. With every bit of strength he had left, he squeezed, cracking the small bones in the thug’s wrists. Bertier’s hands relaxed on Bill’s throat, and the large teen fell backward clutching his broken wrists to his chest.

Bill rose from the water, coughing and sputtering as he reclaimed his footing. Now he was towering over Bertier, who tried an awkward crabwalk away from the edge of the tide.

“Get away,” said Bertier. “Get away from me! The Supreme Leader will make you pay! You’re gonna die, and all your friends. Your girl. Everybody you love. You’re all dead, man.”

“No,” said Bill. He dove on top of Bertier. The Security Force’s young leader made one last thrust backward, and scooped up the knife. His broken wrist moved at a strange angle as he swung at Bill. Before he could think what he was doing, Bill grabbed the knife out of the air and redirected its trajectory down into Bertier’s chest. Bertier continued to struggle for a few seconds and then he was gone.

Bill rolled onto his back in the cold sand. He watched the stars as he struggled to catch his breath. His arm hurt like hell but he was alive. He thought maybe he’d sleep for a while here on the beach. He had been running on pretty close to empty most of the night and sleep seemed like a great idea. But that wouldn’t be right. Not when his friends were still fighting this war.

Bill rolled to a sitting position and slowly dragged himself to his feet. Sleep would come later. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead!” he shouted to the wind. He didn’t like the hint of madness in his voice. Better just get back to the fight. He walked up the beach and found Bertier’s gun. Checking to make sure it was still loaded, Bill walked toward the street, where he would follow the rebels’ steps into the building.

Theo and his group took the staircase as high as they could. Floor by floor the exhausted men climbed. Periodically they heard distant bursts of gunfire. The rebel army was fighting the Security Force. Of that he had no doubt. Each new wave of shooting energized him as he scaled the floors. It meant Kylee’s group was still fighting. Still alive, some of them anyway. He looked at the floor number. Twenty-four. “We’re almost there,” Theo called. Then, suddenly, a wall appeared in his path.

“They built a wall to block the way to the executive floor?” Ryan asked.

“Looks like it,” Theo said. “They wanted to limit access, probably for situations like this.”

“Where do we go?” asked one of the other men… Seth, was it? Theo was struggling to remember the names of all the new people he was meeting. He felt ashamed, asking people to die for his cause when he didn’t even know what to call them.

“We go down there.” He pointed to the door leading to the highest accessible floor.

“But won’t they know we’re coming?” asked Wes. “They’re going to herd us down a chute like cattle going to slaughter.”

“They’re going to try,” Theo agreed. “But we have no choice. If that wall blocking the stairs was drywall I’d say we could tear it down. We don’t have the time or the equipment to get through concrete block. The main elevator is in the middle of the hall and I have to imagine there’s a stairwell there that goes all the way to the top. There’s no other move we can make.”

Theo hoped his voice still sounded calm and confident. His arm was completely useless now, tingling and numb. He wondered just how much damage that bullet had done to him. His head was starting to swim from the slow loss of blood. There was a very good chance that Wes was right. There was only one way for them to get to Tiberius and this was it. The Security Force, what was left of it anyway, would be blocking their path, he had no doubt.

He sat down on the step, trying to reorient himself physically and mentally. He hadn’t feared dying for a worthwhile cause, and he still didn’t particularly worry about it now. What frustrated him was the thought of failing his friends, of dying this close to his goal.

“Are you okay?” asked Ryan.

“I’m going to be,” Theo said. “This will be over soon.”

“I want you to know something,” said Ryan.

“What’s that?”

“Despite… despite everything that’s happened, all the hardships, all this madness… you’ve been spectacular, Theo. I’m honored to be your friend.”

Theo didn’t know what to say. He wrapped his good arm around Ryan’s shoulders and pulled him into a hug right there on the stairwell. He stepped back, ready to see the war come to an end one way or another. Somehow, his friend had given him the strength to carry on.

“Guys,” he said, “I have to be honest. I can’t use my right arm. I’m going to try to keep shooting with my left but my aim may be terrible. I will stand with you to the end but you can’t rely on me to make a shot. I’m sorry.”

“Not a problem, Theo,” said Wes. “We’ll just have to kill a few for you.”

Theo smiled. “Okay, then. Let’s go.”

One of his other soldiers (was it Hugo?) reached for the door and whipped it open. A thunderous round of gunfire sounded and the man went flying backward in a hail of bullets.

“Damn it!” Theo yelled. “Take them!” He led his team in low while the Security Force reloaded. They fired as many shots as they could. He thought they might have hit one or two agents, but he couldn’t be sure. He pulled his men back quickly to the relative safety of the stairwell. Theo looked at the others. They had no way forward. The Security Force was prepared. There was nothing to hide behind in the hallway. All they could do was take potshots through the doorway until they ran out of ammo.