The Edge of Living

[FloatingAroundSpace]

Private between

@HeyGayzelle and @FloatingAroundSpace


This is the way the world ends


This is the way the world ends


This is the way the world ends


Not with a bang but a whimper.
​

-- ​

The Hollow Men

by T.S. Elliot

 

[FloatingAroundSpace]

Isamu heard the roar of machines churning, turning their gears and their presses and their strange contraptions over and over again, in a dull thud that she still heard when she slept. She heard the rumble of the people that lived on the edge of life walking to and from their jobs in dusty corners, where the smoke painted their skin and their hair and their lives. She heard the sharp shots out in the desert, ricocheting off of nothing and echoing into the darkness where no one would welcome them.


She heard them as she had for the past few years, filling her mind and clogging it to prevent her from having any true thoughts.


Isamu stood straight at her position, her boots planted firmly into concrete, her eyes staring out into the coming dark. The only good thing about being stationed where she was was that the sun could be seen when it set, blazing and bright and so alive compared to everything else. It was golden and bright with rays that stretched out like arms to hug the sky which turned blazing colors. The purples and the reds filled her vision and burned into her and for a second, she felt light and airy, as if the colors were washing away the noise at her back.


But those moments were always interrupted as figures moved before her, before the gate she was stationed at. She was by a window so she could see, a weapon strapped to every side of her and tucked into every layer of the clothing she wore, always accessible, always ready. She could recognize the figures darting by, dark and small and hunched over, trying to salvage a life in the cold. Some of them dreamed of entering the city, of what lay beyond the high grey walls that shielded most of its inhabitants from the cruel outside. Isamu wondered what they saw in the black clouds of smoke that rose from the ring where she came from, where people labored to make whatever it was that they were needed to make, whatever they were commanded to make. She wondered how cruel the world could be that they preferred the site of darkness rising from beyond the grey walls to darkness that came over the horizon as the sun set.


Then again, the figures may have cared more about the grey wall than what was beyond it, for the grey wall held people like Isamu.


People who pulled triggers and launched fire and metal and burning lighting. People who threw burning bottles and sizzling packs that exploded and sent rock spitting everywhere. People who had iron eyes and cold hands and who stared at the darkness creeping over the horizon without flinching, without caring because they knew it well. Because they had accepted it, become part of it, welcomed it. Because they had been consumed by it.


Isamu hadn't used any of her weapons that day, a victory. Her shift was to be over soon as well and she dearly hoped that she would make it through without any weapons. A few guards were already moving, leaving their posts as others filed through, their feet silent and hard at the same time against the stone floor, creating empty thuds that rang across the equally empty hallway. Isamu didn't move, still watching the sun set and the figures of dark move about, scrambling to find somewhere safe to wave off the night and the cold.

 

[HeyGayzelle]

The shroud of night continued to encroach inward from the desert, that ocean of desperation whose tide drew ever near. The soft crackling amber glow of fires began to dot the sidewalk as the last of the ground-level guards finish making their rounds before rotating out with the next shift. A trio of sentries wearing opaque full-faced helmets made their way down a dilapidated road patched with bare sand and the sparkling glow of broken glass as some of the desperate-looking figures still populating the street observed with uneasy interest. Some averted their eyes while others could do anything but. Yet the synthetic masks worn by the sentries gave no expression, no thoughts, no words, betraying no aspect of their motivations or methods.


The trio soon approached one of the several outposts dotting the wall and disbanded shortly after making their report. The fluorescent white glow of the outpost interior held the darkness at bay, preventing it from intruding beyond that stark grey threshold, that singular boundary which often meant the difference between living and surviving. The omnipresent beam of light from the Chicago skyline pierced upwards as it grew ever clearer in the night sky.


One of the sentries bearing a designation tag with the surname “Yevdokimov” made his way towards an equipment locker that automatically swiveled outward on his approach, producing a number of articulated slots of varying sizes. He unslung a heavy rifle from his shoulder and fed it barrel-first into the robotic apparatus. The man did the same for a heavy pistol of faded chrome that rested in a holster of black synthetic fabric so dark that it seemed to drink in the light that filled the station. Finally, the man removed the opaque helmet from his head and placed it an elliptically-shaped socket which accepted it before hiding it somewhere amidst the labyrinthine machinery of the equipment locker.


Yevdokimov’s face was worn and weary. Sweat glistened on the dark creases of stress that formed underneath his eyelid and made them shine like oil. The humidity of the helmet matted his short brown hair into distressed, sickly streaks that brushed limply against his forehead. He took a moment to let out an exhausted breath before gesturing to the biometric reader concealed behind a monocular dome-shaped eyepiece on the locker. The automated cabinet withdrew its manifold parts and nested itself back into the wall as the man walked towards an exit.


And when Alexei Yevdokimov stepped through the door leading towards the wall, he caught sight of Isamu peering into the darkness. He took a moment to remove a cigarette from a small envelope of folded plastic and ignite it with the blue jet flame of a butane lighter before verbally taking heed of her.


“Ah, Isamu. I hope that your post did not provide too much unnecessary complication today,” he said as he exhaled a plume of grey smoke.

 

[FloatingAroundSpace]

Someone spoke to her, interrupting the string of noise she had gotten accustomed to.


Isamu did not turn towards the voice. She knew that those who roamed the streets feared the guards more than they appreciated them. She knew that they saw their hard faces, their weapons, and cowered. She herself had used a weapon or two against the populace when they had become too rowdy, causing individuals to collapse where they stood before being moved away to be questioned as to why they had decided to cause havoc. Her weapon of choice was a thin metal rod, where one end allowed her to feed in pellets made of compressed chemicals that caused the body's nervous system to lock up, a painful change. She would fire the pellets by pushing a button on the rod after aiming it at an individual. It was one of the only non-lethal weapons she had been given and it was one of the only weapons she frequently used.


Even when she only caused them to fall, Isamu did not feel well. They were people, humans, scared and frightened. They could all look into the distance when the smoke had cleared for a moment and see the dull outline of that strange shape that had arrived by the Earth, haunting and burning into their minds without their permission. The shape that had brought to them weapons and medicine, that had brought them knowledge and cryptic riddles. That had given and taken and had done nothing but hover.


"Do you have to smoke?" she asked dully, settling on a safe topic. Or as safe a topic as she could speak on. She was, after all, a killer in some regards.

 

[HeyGayzelle]

“Well, don’t have to smoke,” Alexei responded, “but any leisure activity that might hasten my own death seems like a fitting way to punctuate a shift where they have me go digging through those slums.”


Alexei, on the other hand, was completely unarmed, having just surrendered his weapons to one of the automated armory cabinets. And yet still, Alexei felt far safer in the immediate vicinity of any of the outposts dotting the wall than he ever did out on patrol or when out making an arrest. There was no doubt that even the lowliest guard or operative representing any of the interior authorities was better trained and better equipped than the any prospective assailant they might encounter in the slums, but what their opponents might have lacked in equipment and training, they made up for in numbers, and a sheer will to fight cultivated by a lifetime of desperation. Though slum-dwellers bore the brunt of the casualties in clashes with the guards, it was not uncommon for some crudely-made improvised explosive or other similarly deadly implement to claim the life of some unlucky guard.


Alexei pulled smoke through his cigarette once more as he collected his thoughts before responding, “I’ve often wondered why the higher-ups even allow this godforsaken place to exist. Sometimes it feels like the best long-term outcome to this scenario is that the desert raider bands decide they want the outer rim and the two groups just kill each other out. Probably not the tidy “diplomatic” solution they might have hoped for, but really, what else is the endgame here?”

 

[FloatingAroundSpace]

Isamu glanced over at the other, turning her head ever so slightly to view him smoking. A part of her understood wanting to destroy and be destroyed, wanting to curl up and let the world overtake her and consume her whole so that the noise in her head may stop and the clouds would fade into the distance. Some days, when she gazed out into the dark and heard cries of agony and pain, when she had to step out the grey walls and face them with metal and fire and pain, she would wish she was greedy enough to end it all. But she had Honoka to feed. Her younger sister still needed nourishment, whether it be true food or stories about the edge, about the world that could be waiting for them. Even though she was a full grown woman, Isamu still felt the need to tell her lies, to feed her stories that would tear her apart if she knew the truth of them.


Some days, Isamu wished she was a little less selfish and let her sister know of the cruel world outside, of the cruel way the world inside was run. Some days, Isamu wished she didn't need her sister as much as she thought she did. Some days, she wished that she could set Honoka free to join her parents and some days she wished that she could drag her down into the depths of the true hell they lived in.


"They want an illusion," she said simply. "We all do. We all want to pretend this is alright, that this will work. We all want to pretend that we're not living the way we are. The higher-ups especially. They want to believe everything's fine."


We all do.

 

[HeyGayzelle]

Alexei took a few steps towards the edge of the wall and gazed out into the slums once more, that labyrinth of turmoil and despair. Most of the buildings had gone dark, though perhaps that could only truly be said of the lucky ones with electricity. But most of the buildings did not have this privilege, and many of the slum-dwellers were not lucky enough to have anywhere to go back to during these nocturnal hours. The fires from earlier grew more vibrant in the closing night, muffled out only by the featureless silhouettes of hunched human figures.


“Seems more like a spectacle than a façade,” Alexei commented with a scornful note in his voice. “Can’t really think of a more potent threat than the prospect of winding up out here. Somehow it really doesn’t seem like a coincidence that they keep the working-class citizens close enough to this mess to rub their noses in it.”


Somewhere on the other side of the wall, a distorted square wave of sound and a gradient ruby pulsing of light announced the end of a shift. An enormous polygonal aperture door dilated itself with a rusty groan as a procession of fatigued workers wearing graphite boiler suits poured out into the streets of the working-class district. But no armed guards accompanied these workers, only the piercing illuminated spires of the upper class district looming high in the Chicago skyline.


“Though hope is nothing without fear,” Alexei continued. “In some sense, the two things are nearly are identical. For some of us, hope isn’t the desire to attain something more; it’s the desire to retain what we have left.”

 

[FloatingAroundSpace]

The noise was dying down, the grinding of the gears slowing for the night as the clouds of smoke began to melt into the night. The stars couldn't be seen and Isamu could not remember ever seeing them. She remembered being told that they were there; tiny white pinpricks of suns far away, of potential life far away, of the fact that they were not alone in the universe. But the smoke covered them and all she could see was black in the air and in the night.


Beyond the smoke were faint colorful lights of the inner rings, where they never seemed to sleep or need to. Isamu had always wanted to go there, to go beyond the dust and the smoke and the dying. But the lights would not let her in and the people there had not seen the smoke, or always ignored it. The people there turned their backs on the pulsing dark that was filled with the dying. They turned their noses up to the smell and pretended like they were doing the right thing, or perhaps they believed they were. They did not have to live where Isamu lived, did not have to do the tasks she did. They did not have to see the faces of the barely alive, crawling through life. They could pretend.


She turned her head slightly to gaze at Alexei over his remarks and kept quiet. The working-class were disposable to the inner rings; they could simply find more or use their technology to replace them. The factories were places to house them, to make them work and not think about the world around them.


"Wasn't there a legend once?" Isamu asked the man. "Of a woman that opened a box full of horror and the last thing left was hope, a tiny thing at the bottom?" She snorted. "An absurd story. If there is one thing at the root of humans, it is not hope. It is fear."


Fear drove the people to continue moving as they always did. Fear drove Isamu to the grey wall every day to continue her job. Fear drove the inner ring's residences to put up the walls, to point and stare and command that they remain where they were. Fear was what clogged the air and their lungs, not hope.

 

[HeyGayzelle]

“Hell if I’ve heard it,” Alexei responded with a sense of weariness as his hands found their way into his pockets. He sucked the cigarette in his mouth down to a short, narrow stub of white ash and heat before extinguishing it underneath his heavy boot.


But it was hope and fear, those two omnipresent human impulses that brought Alexei’s family to Chicago generations ago, away from their nominally middle class life in Kiev before the last pillars of order and control there had collapsed. The Dnieper River burned with the plasmoidic blue wisps of cluster bomb fire on the night of their escape. Moments like those were the currency with which the Chicago administration bought the loyalty of migrant laborers desperate to prove themselves during their tenure as “prospective citizens.” And for a time, the powers that be were willing to reciprocate those gestures in some limited sense. But when the increase in social utility and productive power afforded by these new bodies had started to wane, the stance of the administration had started to change as well. Worker’s permits and travel licenses became increasingly difficult to come by while citizens suspected of subversion might find themselves unable to return to their home district. But above all else, the outer rim slums continued to grow, that perpetual simmer of unrest threatening to boil over at any moment.


“But enough about stories or legends,” Alexei said before letting out a dry cough and continuing. “What I’m hoping for is a rotation of my beat. Put me in the middle sector report and they’ll get no complaints from me. Hell, throw me in a security booth and make me run permits and biometrics and I’ll be perfectly cordial as I turn them away.”


Yevdokimov walked towards the edge of the wall and peered outwards once more, taking in the sight without looking for anything particular. “And what about you,” he continued, “did they give you your shifts, or are they keeping you in the dark too?”

 

[FloatingAroundSpace]

Isamu watched the last bit of smoke curl into the air from the other man's cigarette, fading into the darkness. She sighed slightly, a breath barely escaping her lips and her shoulders moving up and down slightly. The stories she had swallowed as a child were useless to her now, serving as nothing more than memories. They made no difference in the world she lived in, in the cold darkness, in the dusty smoke, in the endless abyss that was her job and her role. No one cared for them and most days, she did not either.


Her parents had died, perished long ago in the smoke that was the world of Chicago now, killed for whatever reason the government saw fit to take away a man and a woman for resisting work in an effort to change something. They had made an example of all those that had tried once, in vein to change something, to make a fuss, to drag attention back to the slums. It hadn't worked, of course. Because the majority were still trapped in the dark, the desolation, the depression and hopelessness.


"They won't move us," Isamu said simply to the man's hope of leaving the outer ring. "We're residents here, as much as the people down there." She jerked her chin towards the tiny houses down below, dilapidated and exhausted as the people who lived in them "If I stand by this wall today, I'll stand by it forever. They don't want change."

 

[HeyGayzelle]

A gust of ash and sand blew through the night air, tracing out intricate patterns in one of the sharp floodlights of the outpost as the two stood there. A sickly pale blue-white fluorescent glow seemed emanate from the entire building. Through the thick ballistic-resistant window panes surrounding the outpost, Alexei saw another small group of patrols return and begin the same disarming procedure that he has just finished moments ago.


“You know,” Alexei began with an unusual air to his voice that suggested a strange combination of wistfulness and cynicism, “the pretense of some upward mobility in this field was one of the only reasons I enlisted to begin with. I don’t expect to get put up in some high rise joint, but after all of this, I don’t think it’s presumptuous of me to expect, I don’t know, something.”


It was those ambitions and false promises that stoked the fires of production, and yet these thoughts were also taboo for workers of the lower class. Under the weight of repressed desire and sheer human need, many were liable to take whatever rare piece of power could be afforded to them; a bribe, an opportunity to settle a grudge, or whatever other ephemeral act of defiance they might be able to take for themselves. For members of the lower class, those rare opportunities to invigorate their atrophied will to power could be breathtaking, though it sometimes made no difference who their victims were.

 

[FloatingAroundSpace]

"They lie," Isamu responded simply. "They need people here because people can be turned into machines. It's what they did with everyone down there," she said, jerking her chin towards the cloudy smoke and the mobs moving about in the shroud of darkness. "They tell you what you want to hear and then don't give it. Oldest trick in the book."


They told the ones in the desert that there was life in Chicago, that if they were good, their lives could be. They told the ones in the outer ring that their behavior mattered, that if they were good, their lives could be good. They told the ones in the middle rings that the ones that lay closer to the wasteland were there because they had committed mistakes, that their lives could not be good. All around there were lies, spun to make them complacent, spun to make them want something and then have it taken away. It was also a dangerous game.


Those that resisted were proof of that. And there were more and more as time flowed on, constantly vying for a way to break through, a glimmer of hope as the facade began to decay, as the lies began to shake off the smog that clouded them.


"Though, with the way things are going, that might change," Isamu muttered as an afterthought.

 

[HeyGayzelle]

“It might,” Alexei added grimly, “don’t know if it will, though. Can’t say if I foresee any of the possible alternatives being any better either. You have any idea what they would do to people like us if they took over?”


While it could be questioned whether or not whether the rising civil unrest would be a catalyst towards change, the ever-present reality of conflict could not be denied. Chicago had learned from the collapse of many of the early sovereign cities, those careless few naïve enough to profess commitment to quaint, old-world values of openness and equality, the seeds from which they would cultivate their own ruin.


Comparatively, the parallel societies of Chicago were a bulwark against internal strife, but the telltale signs of the administration’s secret wars littered the outer rim slums. It could be the brilliant sparks of guided high-incendiary rounds in the night, or the acrid astringent scent of neuroshock gas. But at other times, the lack of transparency provided the perfect cover for nipping strife in the bud. Small-scale operations such as arrests and assassinations could be carried out covertly and then, if desired, utilized for ad-hoc political leverage. If times were good, the missing persons could have “officially” been upgraded to a better sector. And if times were bad, those people could disappear after an investigation and trial “proved” their connection to the social or political crisis of the day.

 

[FloatingAroundSpace]

Isamu turned herself so that she could walk to the other side of the wall they stood on, to peer out into the dusty sky that was peppered with lights from the inner district, where people danced the night away and sometimes she could hear their laughter. It was neither happy nor sinister. It felt blank, open, as if waiting for someone to come in and fill it with what they wanted to hear. It was how the entire inner districts seem to function. The people were empty opulent shells, waiting for the government to command them to act a certain way to avoid punishment. They filled their lives with the objects that they were given to be distracted from the smoke that pillowed from beyond. They threw parties, wasted money and lavish goods in order to remember how things used to be.


Lately, however, it seemed that the goods were running out, their unabashed spending causing many to begin to loose more than they could be given or gained.


Perhaps that was the irony of it all. In their quest to keep the people distracted, they had unknowingly opened the door to allow them to view poverty, to view disaster in its rawest form as some skittered ever closer into the outer rings as their lives fell apart. More were beginning to protest, to ask for a reason why they suddenly could not have as much as they used to. They still worked like they used to, were given orders like they used to. Why could they no longer live like they used to?


"We'd all die," Isamu said, thinking about the people like her sister, who dreamed of things impossible. "Someone in the inner circle doesn't know how things work out here. Someone out here doesn't know how things work in the inner circle. Wherever you are, you will forget about how someone else lives and assume and piss them off. Then, they'll resist. Then, they'll be war. Then, they'll be destruction and we die, slowly or quickly."

 

[HeyGayzelle]

“Whether we’d go slowly or quickly seems to be the only real question,” Alexei commented with a chuckle. “They’d probably kill us a hundred times over if such a thing was within their power.


“But…” Alexei continued, allowing a pause to hang in the air before completing his thought, “it would ultimately be their doom, and most – well, let’s say some of them understand this. The outer rim’s a hard place, sure. Anyone who’s lived here long enough has probably become accustomed to seeing bloodshed in the streets. But for the most part, they get used to it. They try to move past it, keep their head down, whatever it takes.”


“Compared to what goes on out there,” Alexei declared as he extended an arm outwards towards the wastes, now completely enveloped in the black veil of night, “…it’s nothing.”


Desperation and need were undeniable constants of this reality, but the wastes truly were another world. In the minds of those impressionable few who still held onto the dream of a better world, it represented the promise of a society without limitations, an opportunity to free themselves from the hegemony of not just Chicago, but all of the sovereign cities. But those that knew better could see it for what it was; an endless war without flags or victors - a hard and bitter life where each and every day was guided by a single maxim: kill or be killed.

 

[FloatingAroundSpace]

Isamu glanced out the window towards the darkness that lacked any light. She hummed her agreement; the world out there was horrid, full of nothingness and dark. She knew the screams of the pained, the cries of the suffering, the way that voices could be snuffed out with a single pull of a trigger and ear-shattering explosion.


Before she could speak more, there was the sound of boots against stone and she turned to see the night shift appearing, their faces worn and weary and sunken. She had always hated the night shift as well. The dark had always seemed suffocating and it was always somehow crueler to kill in the dark, when they couldn't even see them, couldn't even protest or make a cry or plea.


"I suppose our time here is done," she said simply, and made her way to the exit, a set of stairs that would take her down to the dark and the machines.

 

[HeyGayzelle]

Alexei looked up as the sound of heavy footsteps filled the air and caught sight of one of the night shift reports about to begin their rounds. Seeing the next rotation of guards always felt like it heightened Alexei’s sense of futility surrounding his work. But at the same time, the sight always gave him a small sense of closure and relief. It somehow solidified his sense of confidence in the thought that he would live another day, though the question of what tomorrow could bring always loomed over him. But to always dwell on the question of what tomorrow might bring was, in more ways than not, a trap in this world. Nobody knew. And even if they could, would one person ever be able to truly make a difference?


“Well, at least it’s another day,” Alexei comments to himself before heading towards the exit.

 

[FloatingAroundSpace]

Isamu made her way out of the wall, down the steps and out into the darkness that was the outer ring. Her feet knew where to go even though her eyes could hardly see where and she slowly walked through the dusty streets, clogged with filth from the machines that constantly pumped out their products and the people who had so little to call their own. While water ran well through to the showers and faucets, they were all too aware that their water might not be the cleanest unless it was scalding, burning away the potential bacteria and toxins lurking in it. The cures that were needed sat far beyond the district they were allowed to move beyond and as such, most did not wish to risk it.


She made her way through the darkness, seeing faintly the tiny pinpricks of light that appeared in windows from candles and lamps and other sources people managed to salvage as the main factories that usually polluted the land with dull yellow had been shut off. Isamu spotted her apartment building, tucked behind the other dilapidated and crumbling structures, a simple brick building that stretched upwards and allowed her in without a fuss, her boots moving up the stairs and towards the door with the golden numbers that were hers.


Opening it, she sighed heavily and took off her boots, laying them by the door as her sister lay on the couch, dozing peacefully.


Isamu glanced at her wistfully, wishing she had that innocence and ease at sleep.


Her dreams were always full of noise and screams and the smell of the dark.

 

[HeyGayzelle]

Elsewhere, two detachments of guards converged under the dim halogen glow of one of the outer rim’s decrepit street lamps. Detachments #570 and #314 rarely operated within the same jurisdiction, but the recent rotation of patrols in the area positioned the groups as the closest units within operating distance for a high-risk detainment. Reports had recently came which suggested that a well-known criminal known on the streets as "The Calm" had been located in a neighborhood called Rolling Villa. Gathering comprehensive enough telemetry information to make a precise, surgical strike could take time that they didn’t have. But based on the surveillance metadata they were able to access on such short notice, the reports were deemed to be credible enough to orchestrate an ad-hoc operation with the most competent forces they could muster.


The teams began by unearthing one of the concealed weapons caches stored throughout the outer rim. The equipment was nested in small, mechanized chambers fixed directly into the ground, not unlike the automated cabinets in the station. While technically classified as “reserve” gear that was nearing the end of its operating lifespan, the contents of the mechanized container were nonetheless formidable enough for any reasonably trained person to trust their life to. Many were initially aghast at the council’s decision to simply leave such potent implements within the grasp of the desperate outer rim slum dwellers, but it didn’t take long for grisly rumors about the anti-intrusion biometrics on the caches to spread. Most of those rumors were true, and the caches continued to rest undisturbed.


The team’s entry point would be a small set of double doors that led out into an alleyway. The front door was an option, but any semblance of secrecy would probably be lost in the visibility of the open streets. The population density of this section meant that peering eyes filled the street at all hours. The alleyway did not provide perfect cover either, but it would provide a noticeable measure of discretion without adversely affecting their operating time or vantage for a sweep of the building.


Detachments #570 and #314 approached the entry point within minutes of their initial rendezvous. A row of heavily armored figures bearing a variety of firearms hold the front line as they make a path towards the door, the subdued clicks of boot heels resonated between the tall walls of the alley as they draw near. A shoulder-width opening in the front line forms as a guard wearing an overburdened harness passes with through with a pistol in his left hand. He kneeled down and fed a small, electric lockpick into the ancient integrated mechanical lock on the metal door. The instrument vibrated in his hand for a moment until the old, rusted deadbolt inside the door audibly rotated with a conspicuous, raspy click.


The guard with the lockpick retreated back to his row once more as one of the frontline guards approached the door and gave it a soft push, but the door remained fast shut. They pushed again with a bit more force, but the result was the same. The seconds stretched out in the air as the realization of what was this meant set in. The door was barricaded from the inside, and they were trapped.

 

[FloatingAroundSpace]

There were shapes moving behind blacked out and dusty windows above the detachments. The building they were trying to break into was both dead and alive, hissed commands emitted behind clenched teeth demanding they get into position, point their weapons that they had just received down at the figures trying to break in. The people were not soldiers; most had not seen the weapons that they had in hand until that day, bulky and clumsy. Their hands were rough and their faces tired but young. Most were still clinging to some helpless hope that they could do better, break out from the cycle that seemed insistent on trapping everyone in Chicago.


None had killed before, at least not in such cold blood. But they were angry, with dark eyes heavy with a lack of sleep and a lack of choice. There hands were already rough and worn from physical labor and their lungs already filled with smoke and smog. They had no uniforms; instead they had on what could only be assumed were scraps, sewn together haphazardly with whatever thread they could get. As a result, while they all had dark clothing, not all of it came from the same fabric and not all of it came from the same piece of original clothing. Their bodies were tired but their minds were alive, alive and angry as they stared down at those from below.


A sharp command was given and the dusty windows were raised upwards and the barrels of weapons they had never seen before were pointed down at the guards in their sleek uniforms and fired.


There was the shrill sound of whirling bullets, of concentrated electricity, of fire being spat out. Some lost their balance and fell backwards, their weapons slipping from their grasp. Most missed, their eyes struggling to see in the dark and their bullets pinging off the ground, the walls, the rooftops. They had no clue what they were doing, fumbling as they struggled to reload, to examine why the hail had stopped. There were hisses and spoken words as they scrambled for clips and magazines and ways to reload, to gain some sort of ammunition. They were children, after all, and they were playing at winning.


Somewhere, most of them knew they could not. Somewhere, most of them knew that the guards down below were far more armored, far more equipped than they ever were.


But some knew of the thing they had been given, a thing that was promised to serve them one little victory in a sea of losses.

 

[HeyGayzelle]

“Flanks!”


The low shout lingered in the air for a fraction of a second before being cut apart by the sounds of civil unrest. The mismatched reports of crudely-built zip guns drowned out the sounds of boot steps as the front line guards broke their entry formation to converge around the less-protected core. Small flaming pools of brown liquid formed on the blackened asphalt of the alleyway after being punctuated by the shattering of broken glass. Even underneath their heavy armor, the focused, concentrated strikes of the crude bullets could be excruciating. Agonizing waves of kinetic energy pulsed through the torsos of those who were protected by their armored vests, cracking ribs and drawing the air from lungs. Many stood strong against the assault while those unlucky enough to be hit in places where their armor would not save them fell to the ground and clutched at their wounds. Two guards let their weapons hang slack in their harnesses for a moment as they reached out for their fallen comrades and pulled them back towards those who still stood fighting.


“Enclosure! Go!”


One of the guards placed a heavy matte black tube on the ground as numerous reticles danced along the inside of her visor. The digitized points and lines froze as the machine produced three beeps of synthetic affirmation in her earpiece, indicating the mechanism was ready to be deployed. She gave a large dial at the top of the nozzle a quick twist before depressing the firing mechanism at the base of the tube. A sharp, pneumatic hiss that sounded like the point of a dagger biting into a truck tire echoed through the alley as a bundle of heavy black cables fixed together at junctions of unidentifiable black modules soared through the night air and unfurled like an enormous set of interconnected bolos. A second round of smaller hisses rang out as the modules outer modules jettisoned themselves to the ground and pulled the apparatus into a parachute configuration. And only milliseconds later, the device produced a large amber bubble that loomed over them like an enormous artificial jellyfish and hummed menacingly.


Viewed from the exterior, the bubble appeared to be a distorted golden mirror of non-Euclidean madness that obscured the ambushers from interpreting the size and composition of the guards’ formation. But from the interior, the view of the alleyway was as clear as it had been before. The small fires that still danced around their feet slowly suffocated within the confines of the bubble. All of them knew that the kinetic barrier would not protect them completely or indefinitely, but to break formation and charge down the alleyway would have been suicide against such overwhelming numbers. Their backs were to the wall, but they were trained for this. They weren’t prepared to let themselves die easily.


One of the guards from the center of the formation stepped forward and unfolded a collapsible miniature carbine. The gun was all hard lines and angles, sinister in its geometry. He drew a long black magazine capped with a red heel of worn plastic, fed it into the weapon, and pointed it upwards towards the attackers lining the windows.


But before he opened fire, the guard depressed a thumb button towards the end of the firearm. A hexagonal cavity took shape in the barrier following the path of the gun's sights. And after one tiny moment of pause, he pulled the trigger and unleashed focused, concentrated bursts of high-explosive incendiary gunfire at the attackers in the windows. The tiny explosions illuminated the interior of the rooms like strobing fireworks as panicked screams poured out into the alleyway. The small rounds lacked the penetration and stopping power of a slug, making them fairly useless against armored combatants. But against unarmored groups clustered together, they could be devastating.

 

[FloatingAroundSpace]

No one was sure what was happening down below, the firing slowly stopping from above and the breaths of many were heavy. There were no shouts, no groans, no sound coming from the guards anymore. Any wounded were now out of site alongside any still standing. "Maybe we should fall back?" someone offered, a youngster who was there for the adrenaline rush of fighting against something that he could not fully understand.


"Don't be stupid," someone who only had the air of authority snapped back. "We're going to push forward, we're going to fight no matter what. You are here because you said you were loyal, remember? Prepared to die?"


The youngster seemed to regret his earlier words, color draining out of his face in the cool darkness of the night. The gun he had been given was pulled closer to his chest, a black metallic thing that could quite possibly be a relic of the past, salvaged and not at all updated. Many others around him had similar weapons, ones that were weak and offered little help to their users, often pushing back against them and making it difficult to aim. There were no lasers to point to where they were aiming, no quick reload that allowed them to fire one shot after another. They were rustic and old and wholly unprepared, similar to their users and to those that were trying to resist but failing.


"Something's happening," someone said, peering out into the alley. On instinct, a thousand others leaned forward, trying to discover what it was that was happening and seeing nothing. Some did not move but turned curiously, as most did.


Then, there was an explosion.


Then, there was fire.


The rooms lit up, flames crackling on all sides that ate at the floors, licking red and orange and yellow streaks up walls. The people within screamed in horror as pain traveled up their bodies, as their clothing burned into themselves, as guns clattered onto the floor, useless. Some shouted at others to stop moving, to get on the ground, beating the flames on their bodies with whatever they could get their hands on, usually a misplaced floor board or other similar structure.


Someone shouted to fire, for anyone standing to fire, and a few who had managed to crawl away, who were somewhat higher up or farther from the center of the explosion, managed to unleash a barrage of bullets, cracking at the barrier. The flames had also attracted the attention of neighboring buildings, who suddenly seemed to fill with life and the sound of feet was heard on the other sides, as people that had remained in hiding on the rooftops emerged, their own guns cocked and loaded to fire.

 

[HeyGayzelle]

The staccato pulses of HDEP rounds continued to ring out like the displaced fortissimo rolls of an overtightened snare drum. Sharp flashes of momentary illumination painted out fleeting vignettes of suffering until the last bullet had been expelled from the gun’s tiny barrel. After completing his barrage, the man with the miniature carbine shrank the hexagonal void that was the bedrock of his vantage point and stepped back into his formation before loading another magazine into his weapon.


One of the guards towards the rear of the formation spoke into the integrated commlink in his helmet, “HQ. HQ. This is 570 & 314. We’ve been led into an ambush. Attackers engaging from a pincer formation. Size and composition of attackers is unknown, but we are outnumbered. Requesting immediate evac. Dispatch an autodoc from tower DH-012 and have med staff on-site. Do you copy?”


An uneasy pause loomed over the team before the response came through,


“Th-“


A wail of distortion cut through the team’s earpiece before the hazy signal returned.


“Ar….nding…...reque….”


But those were the only sounds they could interpret before the signal went completely dark.


Any guard with enough experience would have told you about the effect that the kinetic barriers had on their commlinks, but this was something that went beyond normal interference. The Chicago administration naturally made whatever reasonable effort they could to protect the utilities infrastructure from tampering and sabotage, but they could not have eyes everywhere, at least all the time. Encryption and anti-communications jamming protocols were a constant game of cat-and-mouse between the administrations and those who sought to challenge them, but the possibility that their attackers had directly disabled the signal extenders that the communications network relied on remained a possibility. They were fighting on their own home turf.


Another voice rang out, “Velez! Two-stage! Go for spread and hold them back!”


A woman holding a small shotgun adorned with three cylindrical modules near the end of the barrel took the same position as the first shooter. She drew the weapon into her line of sight as orange bars sporadically flickered across her visor’s sight picture. The modules struggled to find the intended trajectory amidst the featureless dark of the alleyway until finally, her HUD painted out a yellow cone that fed into one of the outermost windows.


Velez drew out another hexagonal opening in the barrier as she pulled the trigger and fired, letting two sharp cracks of sound bounce between the concrete walls. The two-stage shotgun shell spiraled through the alleyway before exploding a second time in front of the window and delivering its deadly cargo into the attackers who shielded themselves in distance and darkness, avoiding the incendiary bursts from before. Bodies fell to the floor as others retreated, already well aware of the deadly effectiveness of the so-called “knock-knock” rounds. In earlier days, before nights like these, the computer-guided rounds would have seen comparatively limited use. But now, it wasn’t uncommon to see them in some capacity on lighter patrols.


Velez voided the hole she used to fire her shot as the modules at the end of the barrel hunted out their next victims.

 

[FloatingAroundSpace]

With the focus drawn to the windows, the unnamed faces lining the roofs turned their weapons to the group. Theirs were nowhere near the level of advancement that the guards had but where they lacked in quality, they made up for in quantity. And rage.


Rage against the guards, rage against the government, rage against everything those down below stood for. They moved to aim and send hell raining down upon them, aiming for any guard they could see and the weapon that was firing at their allies, their guns lighting up in the dark, the bullets streaking in a blood-red path towards beating hearts and pulsing veins. Their positions were clear, however, as each bullet fired emitted a spark of deep light and their hardened eyes, with mouths shut tightly and their bodies rigid showed that they were older than those in the building, probably much more so. They were the more experienced, the more bitter, those that had decided that they would take a stand as well, potentially their last stand depending on how it went. They could hear the screams of their allies falling but did not move; if they could cripple the guards now, there would be no need to fight later.


The air was alive with the sound of gunfire, of bullets that pierced but did not explode, though several aimed at the weapons hanging on the belts of guards, intent on using the ammunition stored there to create fires. The sparks latched onto clothing and began eating at the dark fabric, though they were easily put out with a hefty stamp of a glove. It was the sheer numbers that was making it difficult, that was felling the guards. They could not fight against a swarm of anger, a swarm that knew only to kill and devour.

 

[HeyGayzelle]

Velez repeated the methodical process of dishing out another knock-knock round and then shielding herself a second time, and then a third. The computerized rounds carved out small openings in the crowd, but the volley of gunfire only intensified in response.


The reflective gold shield struggled to hold the barrage of metal at bay. Whizzing fragments whose kinetic energy had previously been soaked up by the barrier pierced through and flashed against the concrete and metal surrounding them. The optical distortion on the barrier waned and flickered like the ruined picture of some 20th century television set as the certain realization that the barrier was about to wane set in.


“Spread columns! File! Move!”


Seconds later, the amber bubble died out as the modules detached themselves from the cables and fell uselessly to the ground, many were blown to pieces in the hail of gunfire. Clustered groups of three to four guards scattered from their previous vantage point like packs of fire ants storming out of a toppled mound of red dirt. Many only made it a few steps before being mowed down by the torrent of metal hatred. A small trio led by a man holding a computer-guided grenade launcher was instantly extinguished by blinding stream of white phosphorous flame after one of the heavy shells loaded on his carrier harness was struck by a bit of hot lead. A few other guards unlucky enough to get caught in the spray desperately try to smother the flames from their vests faster than the flame-retardant fabric would on its own. Three sharp thunderclaps fill the alley in quick succession as some of the guards bearing incendiary ammunition have their whole payload detonated by the deadly flames.


And the rest of the guards held their position wherever they could in the alley. A dumpster and pipes along with a tall stoop provided a modicum of cover to those who could reach them, but many were trapped in the open. Some resorted to using the armored corpses of their fallen allies as cover. The alleyway had become a killing field.