Phoenix Rising (Book Two of The Icarus Trilogy) (53 page)

“Hell, thought you weren’t going to use that, glory hound,” a voice said beyond the door frame.  Jenkins recognized it as the man who was cursing earlier, but that did him no favors.  He sat up against the computer terminal that he had landed on and tried to muster the effort to grab his rifle.  The artificial soldier quickly realized that the weapon was lying right by the doorframe.  He cursed as he saw the Hammerhead reach the doorway and scan over the room.

“Oh man, freebie,” the man said as he raised his automatic to bear.  Jenkins thought that he was about to die still in his disorientation, but he realized that the man was actually aiming at the beautiful doctor who was trying to back away.  Ryan man panicked at that.  It wasn’t right; it wasn’t fair.  Ryan was the soldier; he was supposed to die first. 

Jenkins couldn’t consider the possibility.

“Jackson!  Stop!  She’s unarmed!” a voice said beyond the door way, but Jenkins wasn’t able to hear it.  He had already resigned himself to the act and even if he had heard it, there was no way that Ryan would have trusted that man holding the gun on the defenseless woman.  Jenkins pushed himself off the ground and dove forward, not caring what would happen to him.

Charlotte watched in fear as the Hammerhead pointed his gun right at her and tilted his head to look down the sight.  She didn’t think she would die like this; she didn’t think this would be how her life would end.  Charlotte thought about her sister, Elizabeth, and her family back on Earth.  She wondered how she had gotten here; she wondered why she ever thought it was a good idea.  The good doctor was shaking in fear as she saw the cruel man in front of her pull the trigger.  She flinched, expecting the bullets to hit her body.

The last thing she expected was the sudden weight on her chest.  Charlotte Kane heard the gun firing in front of her, it was impossibly loud, but she felt no pain.  She breathed rapidly, feeling the weight on her chest and wondered if this was how it felt to die.  When the bullets stopped flying through the air, the doctor was shocked, but she knew she was still alive.

“Huh, how about that?  Mr. Hero over here,” the Hammerhead commented by the doorway.  The raven-haired woman opened her eyes and found a bullet-ridden Jenkins sprawled over her lap.  After only a second, the shock wore off and the doctor realized what had happened.  Tears felt out of her eyes as she held the man who saved her life.

“Ryan!  Ryan, no!  Why?  Why did you…..” Charlotte said, unable to understand why the man had jumped in front of the bullets for her.  The artificial man was seizing beneath her, but he could understand her words.  He turned to her and gave her a half-smile.

“Why… wouldn’t I?  No way you’re dying on my watch, doc,” he said before coughing up blood.  The crimson bubbled out and started to run down the sides of his cheeks, but that smile stayed there on his face.

“Ryan…. why?”  The soldier merely looked up at her and brought his right hand up to caress her face.  She brought up her own to hold it there.

“I’m fake…. doc.   You’re…. you’re real….. and he’s still out there…..  No tears, hon….. Not for me……”

“Jackson, you asshole!  I told you to stop!  I told you,” Roth said as he entered the room.  He wasn’t prepared for what he saw.  There, lying on the lap of the raven-haired doctor, was his rival.  Jenkins was dying, filled with bullets from his comrade’s gun.  Roth started to breathe heavily as he watched his hero, his equal, start to bleed out.

“Ryan…. I’m so….  I’m so sor-” Charlotte started to say, but the artificial man moved his index finger slowly to her lips.

“None of that….. you’re getting out of here…. You’re going to him…. And …. You make some beautiful babies, all right?” Jenkins said, trying to chuckle at the end of his statement but only letting more blood out of his mouth.  Charlotte would have argued, but not in these last moments.  She wasn’t going to take anything away from this man; so much had already been taken away.

“They’re not going to…”

“Doc, you’re too…. pretty.  That one’s an asshole,” Jenkins said before nodding at Jackson, “but that other one.  He’s gonna get you there.  You’ll… you’ll see.”

“This is fucking touching,” Jackson said while rolling his eyes.   He didn’t understand why these people were being so dramatic.  He raised his gun towards the pair of revolutionaries but immediately it was knocked away by the man at his side.  “What the fuck, Roth?”

“Don’t.  You.  Fucking.  Dare.” Roth said with complete aggression.  There was no way he was going to let his teammate shoot either of these people again.  This was all completely screwed up.  Jenkins was really dying down there; his rival was dying in the arms of his doctor.  Roth knew that for certain.  He didn’t know why, but he knew this was real.

“Part of the fucking game, Roth.  Just part of the game,” Jackson said as he waved his arms in an open gesture, but it wasn’t long before Charlotte looked up at him in rage.

“IT’S NOT A FUCKING GAME, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!  YOU JUST KILLED TWO MEN!  THEY ARE NOT COMING BACK!” she screamed through tears, holding the poor, dying soldier in her arms.  “The satellites are down.  No one is coming back.  They’re all gone.  And they….” She said as she looked down at the artificial man in her arms, who was just barely hanging on.  “We…..we are on the right side.  You’re tools, slaves…. And you’re killing your best hope,” she said as she rubbed her fingers through the fuzz of the dying man’s hair.  It seemed to bring some comfort to the warrior.

“You’re kidding me.  It’s just a new type of game.  They’re all coming back, you’ll see.  C’mon, Roth, time to finish these two up and head back to the others,” Jackson said before raising his weapon at the two revolutionaries.  Roth hardened his gaze and brought up his pistol, pointing it directly at his comrade.  Jackson looked at him out of the corner of his eye and laughed.

“What the fuck are you doing, hero?”

“Put the gun down, Jackson.  You’re not killing them.”

“Roth, it’s part of the game.  We have to kill them and then we’ll win.”

“We have to kill an
unarmed
woman?  Think about it, Jackson.”  The Hammerhead shook his head and laughed at the glory hound pointing the gun at him.

“I did think about it.  Probably just a trick.  Trust me, you’ll thank me later,” Jackson said before looking back at the two revolutionaries and aiming to kill.  He was just about to pull the trigger when a bullet sank into the mesh surrounding his neck, just under the helmet.

Roth breathed hard for a few moments as he realized what he had done.  Jackson wavered for a time, but after an impossibly-long moment he crumpled to the ground of the Control Room.  The would-be hero lowered his weapon and looked at the two people on the floor.  Charlotte was looking at him in shock, but as he looked downwards at his rival he could see Jenkins was smiling at him.

“Good…..man.  Knew you’d come around,” he said as Roth crouched down to hear the dying man’s weak words.  Charlotte Kane looked down at the Crow and continued to stroke her fingers through his hair.

“Is it…. is it all true?” Roth asked, lifting his head to the beautiful doctor who used to bring him back from the dead.  The woman looked at him with those coffee eyes and sniffed.  Roth looked down and realized he had never felt guilt before now.  Not like this.  He breathed shallowly as he realized that all those men on the field were never going to rise back up.  He would never see them again.

“I …. D-didn’t know…  I didn’t know,” he said, losing himself to his guilt.  There was no way to come back from this.  He had personally butchered so many men.  He had been fighting on the wrong side.  Roth was about to back away and curl up into the fetal position when he felt a light touch on his knee.  The would-be hero looked back up to see Jenkins’ arm falling back.

“Not your…. Not your,” he said before coughing up more blood.  “Fault.  Fucking bullets, man.  Ruining these last moments,” the artificial man said before shaking his head and turning to the woman with a forced smile.  She did what she could to return it.

“I…. I thought it was going to be you and me, Ryan.  I got better at the games because of you,” Roth said, not realizing that his internal thoughts were falling out of his mouth.  Jenkins shuddered at that, which was supposed to be a chuckle, but the sounds didn’t come out.

“That’s…. that’s hilarious.  You know they made me like this…. right…. Roth?” Jenkins asked as he looked at the Hammerhead.  “I’m just a copy of the real thing.  I’m useless…”  The former Crow looked at his idol in confusion.

“What…. What are you talking about?” Roth asked, but Jenkins just rolled his eyes at the question.

“After the suicide.  They made me to replace the guy.  He’s back now at the base.  They’re gonna turn him int…. into a fuck…. Fuckin hero,” Jenkins said as more blood started to ooze out of his mouth.  He knew it wouldn’t take much longer.  He had died enough times to know that.  The artificial man looked at the former Crow and smiled.  “You really got better because of me?”  Roth nodded at that.

“I… wanted to be a hero,” Roth said, tears starting to fill his eyes.  Jenkins couldn’t stop the tears falling from his own.

“So did… I…. You know what…. The trick is?”  Roth shook his head at that.  “Just do what’s right.  Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.  Nothing….. nothing else to it,” he said as the darkness started to creep in from the edges of his vision.  He coughed again and turned to look at the beautiful doctor cradling his head.

“Loved you, you know.  So does he.  Didn’t realize it ‘til now, you saucy …little minx.  You live through this, ok?” he asked the woman.  She nodded, not knowing if she could follow through on that promise.  He laughed at her and weakly raised his hand to her face once more.  “And don’t you… feel sorry.  Wasn’t… wasn’t real in the first place,” he said before turning back to the Hammerhead who had helped to kill him.

“You take care of her.  You owe me that,” he said.  Roth nodded and put his hand on the dying Crow’s shoulder.

“Nothing to worry about, Ryan.  I won’t let anything happen to her,” he said, knowing that he wouldn’t stop even if the entire EOSF came after him.  Jenkins smiled and let another tear fall from his eyes before his eyelids closed for the last time. 

And with that, the artificial man died in the same clinic in which he was born.

The two of them cried for a time.  They each felt responsible for the man’s death; they each felt like they could have prevented it.  After a few minutes, Roth removed his hand from the corpse of his rival and placed it softly on the grieving doctor.  The raven-haired woman looked up at the Hammerhead with tear-stained cheeks.  She sniffed and even in that miserable state, Roth knew that he couldn't let any harm come to the woman.

“Let’s get you out of here.  Let’s get you back to…. back to Jenkins.”

The doctor nodded, but she continued to stare at the man who had saved her life.

She didn’t know how she had ever mistreated him.  She leaned down and kissed the blood-stained lips, not caring that he wouldn’t feel it.  He had done so much for her, and she had done nothing to repay him.  She resolved that she would never let this memory go.

The two revolutionaries walked away from the man that was so important to them.  They left him with his arms laid across his chest.  As she looked back, Charlotte hoped that he had found peace.

He had earned it.

-

Templeton eyed the potential messiah with disgust in his eyes.  Because of the boy’s foolish antics another soldier was dead.  They couldn’t afford that now.  Not when they had already sent two men away for nothing but a woman.  The three of them were probably already dead.  Corrigan and Warner were dead.  Petyr and Quinn were dead.  Lewis, Markham and Chang were dead.  Norris was probably dead.

The revolutionary shook his head as the casualties continued to pile up.  Things were going wrong left and right and there were still more soldiers out there ready and willing to kill his ward.  Templeton looked back up at Jenkins, who was staring at the corner of the mess hall.  Darius couldn’t help but feel resentment towards the newly-resurrected soldier.  Things could have gone differently, but the young man was too stubborn.

“Guys… guys!” Albert shouted from the entrance of the mess hall.  He looked back at his fellow revolutionaries and pointed to the doorway.  Templeton readied his rifle and walked towards one of the barricades.  “We got three incoming,” Albert said as he turned back to the door just in time for a chainsaw to grind through the metal doorway, sparks flying everywhere.  The oafish man in the EOSF armor backed away hurriedly and took his position against one of the nearest metal tables.

Templeton cursed as a man burst through the doorway.  The berserker wasn’t alone and a hail of bullets followed behind him, forcing the revolutionary to take cover.  He looked over to see that Jenkins had fallen behind his own table and felt somewhat relieved.  At least something was going right.

“Fuck, Templeton, we got a problem,” Goldstein said over Comms.  The black man cursed, knowing that he didn’t have time for this. 

“It’ll have to wait, Goldstein,” he said, impatiently, hearing gunfire beyond the metal table in front of him.  He wanted to pop out and take care of the man with the chainsaw, but he didn’t want to get shot for the effort.

“Abrams got shot, she can’t fight anymore.  And there’s something worse,” Goldstein said, but Templeton shouted into his helmet, doing his best to let Goldstein know the extent of his own issues.

“IT WILL HAVE TO WAIT!  IF YOU CAN, YOU BETTER FUCKING GET HERE, SHYLOCK!” Templeton said before shutting off the Comms channel and deciding that he needed to risk his cover.  Darius heard metal strike metal and a cry in pain and knew he didn’t have a choice.  Templeton rose over his table to see the man with the chainsaw gauntlets cutting through Albert’s elbow.  The revolutionary had just enough time to sympathize for the man before he sent a few rounds into the helmet of the berserker. 

The Hammerhead stood for a moment after the bullets tore through his brain.  He soon fell to the ground, Albert falling with him.  Templeton sighed and turned his attention to the two Hammerheads coming through the doorway, but he couldn't react fast enough to the bullets flying his way.  He felt a flash of pain as one of the bullets burst through his visor and the shattered plastic flew into his eye.  Luckily, the force of the bullet caused the black man’s head to whip around and the bullet passed out the other side of his helmet.  Though alive, Templeton could only focus on the pain in his right eye.