Brian Steele: 4POCALYPSE - Four Tales of a Dark Future

“Here!”

Gemmel rolled out of the battered jeep with the gun she had handed to him. “I hate Uzis.”

Wild, erratic shots had started to pepper the jeep.

“You brought it!”

“Yeah,” he replied dismayed as they both fired back into the dark recesses of the buildings.

“Shit! That asshole almost tagged me!” yelled Sean. “Well, we shouldn’t have rigged the TAC so well, so we can write it off. Anybody see a line of retreat?”

“Back and to our left!” Gemmel called out.

“Hold them until we can get to that tower kiosk. We’ll cover you’re retreat.”

Sean took off without looking back, Sienna right behind him. She could hear the rapid pop of the Uzi as Gemmel sprayed choice spots. Bits of concrete flew up around her feet, and Sienna weaved to avoid the gunfire. The familiar tingle in her arm was starting to subside, the healing almost complete. Sean slid into the shallow protection the kiosk provided them, taking aim above his sister’s head as she dove in behind him.

“Here, take the FM6. You’re better with it.”

He hefted the small sub-machine gun as Sienna reloaded clips in two Brownings. “We have about…” she started to say when another explosion knocked them to their feet.

“Gemmel!” Sean bellowed, craning his neck out of the kiosk.

He was fine, still shooting, but the space between them now contained a smoking pile of rubble. It would be dangerous enough to climb over it, let alone with who knows how many manic Leechers taking shots. He’d be an easier target than he was now.

As Sean swore repeatedly and tried to crunch the numbers that would allow him to rescue his best friend, Sienna examined the interior of the T-Net tower kiosk. As plentiful as payphones had been centuries ago, they acted as both boosters to the T-Net and routers to each person’s Servant. And while they were self-sustaining, powered by the T-Net itself, that power was converted in the kiosk’s hardware design to basic electricity. This one had been down for some time, no longer tapped into the zettahertz frequencies where the T-Net existed. No power. Sienna started pulling off panels and shifting around wires.

“What the hell are you doing?” roared Sean over the sounds of gunfire.

It was her turn to ignore her brother as she scrutinized the innards of wires and circuitry. It didn’t look damaged. She had watched Anton repair tower kiosks countless times, piecing together a rudimentary knowledge of how they ran. He had always been a huge proponent of keeping the T-Net running, always fixing any downed kiosk they ran across. Often, he discovered, it was just a matter of bypassing the security protocols established to prevent leeching. Sienna didn’t have time to link in with her own Servant, so once she found the tiny device behind a mass of dataflex, she simply ripped it off the daughterboard.

The kiosk wouldn’t have to run for long.

“Aw, what are you…” Sean began.

The T-Net tower kiosk lit up, alive and tapped in. For a moment, all shooting stopped. Silence. Then Sienna clutched her entire fist around the electrical feed surging through the main conduit.

Enlightenment shined from a billion different points, glimmered in streams of raw energy and fed every aspect of her being. Sienna knew she was out of the kiosk, felt it, just as she felt the presence of Sean, Gemmel and every Leecher in the area. Bullets didn’t matter, bombs didn’t matter. Possibilities did. Choices did. Actions did.

Many of the Leechers had been drawn out of their hiding places. Sienna glided, twisted, kicked and shot. She took two steps up the side of a wall, coming back down with a knee to the face of one Leecher, her heel to the gut of another. She didn’t have to aim, she didn’t have to even look — the guns were extensions of her hand, extensions of her will. Bullets were released with precision, with their trajectories already calculated. Sienna flipped through the air, gravity only a suggestion now. She fired twice below, a third time in the direction she was landing. More Leechers fell.

She didn’t even consciously acknowledge the Browning in her right hand was empty until it had flown from her grip, smacking another Leecher in the throat seconds before her fist connected to his chin. His gun never even hit the ground. Up, cocked and firing. Information saturated her, bombarding her with sensations and abilities. Energy. She vaulted the entire length of the rubble and came down in front of Gemmel.

A Leecher had a pistol raised to his head. “I’ll kill ‘em!”

“I can kill all of you,” Sienna replied, her voice echoing from every atom in her body.

“Before we kill both of them?”

She spun, her Browning out and her acquired assault rifle trained back on the Leecher holding Gemmel. From where she had left, what felt centuries ago, another stray citizen of Nashville had dragged Sean out, gun to his head as well. Probabilities and variables hammered inside her skull. The man holding Sean fired inches away from his foot. The galaxy of possibilities expanding inside her came to a crashing halt.

No way out. Sienna collapsed to the ground, the excessive leeched energy dispersing. Consciousness was the last thing to abandon her.

“Somebody tie up that freak!” she heard.

DataLog Text-MemxJourn: Doyle, Sienna A. / 25-04-24

A not so subtle elbow to her ribs woke her up. Sienna groaned, blinked, and tried to raise her head. Her headache was comparable to the last time she had tried that stunt.

“Wake the fuck up,” Sean whispered into her ear.

They were in what used to be a narrow city plaza, a mosaic of cobblestones underneath them. Sienna squinted and saw a handful of Leechers gathered around a makeshift table rigged together with an old door, duct tape and a few barely useable folding chairs. They were filthy and dressed in rags, most of them attending to a severe looking middle-aged woman when they weren’t eyeing the three Servants on the table. Shit! A tall older man stood behind the woman, teetering back and forth. She made some type of proclamation and the Leecher scattered. As she sauntered towards them, Sienna couldn’t help but notice her outlandish costume.

“What the fuck?” murmured Gemmel on her other side.

“You shut your filthy mouth!” screamed a man behind them, taking Gemmel to his knees with a blow to the back of the head.

Sean and Sienna were also pushed to their knees before the woman. Perhaps originally designed as some mock military outfit decades ago, its cut and style had been exaggerated to outlandish proportions. It was also bright red. Its owner had seen fit to customize it with “medals,” or random slogan buttons found from some forgotten novelty shop.

“I want these,” declared the woman. “I want these, and I’m going to take them!”

“Uh…” Sean began.

“Might makes right!” screeched the woman. “And me and mine are the mighty!”

“Right… mighty crazy,” Sean said under his breath.

“I’ll learn you, boy!” screamed the man behind Sean, backhanding him in the side of the face. “You’re gonna learn to speak proper to Ms. Anne!”

A huge bald man, eyes bugged out in madness stood over Sean, his fists quaking in rage. He was fully in the grip of Seeps, lesions rippling up his neck. They oozed as he fumed and danced some furious jig meant to intimidate.

“You see? Hard Dwight knows this truth!”

“Who are you?” Sienna had to ask.

“They call me Ms. Anne Gimme. It’s because I learned to take what I want in this world. Taught it to my friends here, too.”

“I should just zap them for you, Ms.Anne!” squawked the old man, holding an ancient hair dryer out in trembling hands.