The Midnight Stand (The Elysia Saga Book 1) (13 page)

“Do it now, Harley!” Ancil yelled. Harley aimed
the gun at Balor and fired. The force of the kickback threw Harley against the
wall. Balor went down, wailing in pain. His knee was completely blown off.
“Again!” said Ancil as he kicked Anderson’s dropped gun over to him.

“Harley, don’t,” Daniel pleaded from the floor.
His knees were up to his chest and his head was down against the wood floor.

Harley picked up the gun and emptied it into
Conway. Ancil got to his feet and ran at Anderson, attempting to block him from
getting at Harley. Anderson pulled out his Billy club. Ancil rammed his
shoulder into Anderson’s stomach. Anderson made an “ooff” sound as the air was
pushed out of his lungs.

“Get out of here, Harley. Run!” Ancil said just
as Anderson brought the club down on the back of his head. He went down on his
knees and the room wavered in and out of focus.

“Grandpa!” Harley cried out.

Ancil knew he was going to be hit with another
blow any second and this one would probably put him out. In the last moment he
had he looked his grandson in the eyes, eyes that were red with tears. Ancil
knew his grandson became a man in the most horrific of ways that day. He would
have a lot more growing up to do and he would have to do it quickly. Ancil knew
he was ready for it.

“Go on and never forget.” These were the last
words Ancil spoke as Anderson brought the club down again, cracking open the
back of his skull. Ancil fell face first into the floor. He felt the world
around him begin to fade away, like the edges were pulling apart, stretching
everything out of focus.

He saw a phantom image of Harley turn to run. Daniel’s
voice shouted from the side. He couldn’t make out the words, everything was a
jumble of sounds.

Ancil struggled to hold on as the scene began to
get smaller and smaller in front of him. It felt as if someone was pulling him
away from it and into oblivion.

Harley ran for the hallway. Balor tried to grab
at his ankle, but Harley jumped over him. Before Ancil could realize it, Harley
was already gone, disappearing into the kitchen and out the back door. Ancil
held on to that thought as the world finally faded to black all around him.

The bullet hit Harley in the stomach. It felt
like a punch and for a moment he thought he was going to suffocate as he tried
to breathe in air that wasn’t entering his lungs. He had never been shot before.
He had been punched in the stomach several times, but this was ten times more
painful than any punch that he ever took.

He fell on his back and lost his handle on the
shotgun. He instinctively pressed his hands to the wound and saw that they were
covered in blood in a matter of seconds. His head reeled. He was shot and
bleeding out right on his front lawn with the crew watching along with his
wife.

His wife. What was he going to do about his wife
now?

Her presence already took Harley out of his zone.
What was she doing here? He made every effort to not make her suspicious about
anything. He thought he covered all his bases. It was the phone conversation,
he knew it. He sounded strange, even to himself and he couldn’t do anything to
hide it. She had picked up on it and in her usual way came running over here in
her sister’s car to check up on him. If she’d called one hour earlier he
wouldn’t have been in a rush and probably could have played it off cool.
Instead she called at the most inopportune time and here we all are now, in
this fucked up situation. Harley didn’t believe in fate, but this was as close
to the universe taking a giant shit on you as ever.

He heard her scream his name and saw her start
to run towards him. Harley put his hand out in a shoving back motion. It said
stay the hell back. He shook his head and tried to yell at her to stay where
she was, but only whispered gasps came out.

The problem was the trip wire. He knew it was
useless, but the crew didn’t. They expected the whole block to blow up once
someone touched it or, in this case, accidentally tripped over it.

He saw Maxon, whose gun still had wisps of smoke
rising from it, try and get to Sara before she got to the trip wire. He
wouldn’t make it. He was too far away to cover the distance in time before Sara
reached Harley. She would trip the wire and everyone would see that this whole
thing was a charade. If he survived, they would surely bring him up on
sanctions for obstructing a wreck and inciting a violent act. That’s when
Harley saw Bruce lift his weapon and take aim at his running wife.

He was helpless to stop what happened. The gun
went off and his wife stumbled to the ground. It didn’t look like she was shot.
It looked like she just lost her footing and tripped, almost like she had too
much to drink at a party and fell down on her way out. The impact of her body
hitting the ground proved otherwise. It hit with a hard
thump
, her whole
upper body doing a slight bounce off the grass as it did so.

Harley screamed his wife’s name. She was
motionless on the ground, her arms sprayed out to her sides. He began to crawl
to her, willing his strength and ignoring the searing pain in his abdomen that
was starting to spread throughout his upper body now. The shotgun lay just to
the left of him. He went to grab it, but Bruce’s booming voice stopped him.

“Don’t you move a muscle towards that or I’ll
blow your fucking head off!” Bruce yelled. He had his gun aimed at Harley.
Maxon stood next to him, a stunned look on his face. He just stared at Sara
lying face down on the ground. Then someone from the crew yelled out. “Holy
shit, the wire!”

Sara’s body lay on top of the trip wire.
Everyone scrambled to take some kind of cover. The crew ran behind the truck
and braced themselves. When nothing happened, each one began to poke their
heads out one by one, questioning looks on their faces.

“It’s a damn fake,” Bruce exclaimed, rather
excitedly. His voice had an ‘I told you so’ quality to it. “I knew it. We’re
standing here like a bunch of chicken shits while he’s over there with nothing
but piano wire and a remote control.  Let’s finish this.”

He started to move in but Maxon once again
stopped him. “Stop! You don’t know what the situation is. It could be a dummy
or it could be malfunctioning. You go over there and touch anything you risk
killing us all.”

Bruce waved him off, “Fuck that. We’re moving in
and finishing this job that should have been done the minute we got here. Wreck
it.” He signaled to the crew and they all complied. It was clear who they all
chose to follow in that moment. Maxon was left to stand by himself without a
crew as he watched Bruce hijack the job and the position right out from under
him.

Harley watched as the dark figures of men in
alien suits walked across his property and into his house. He felt like an
impotent dog lying on his back. One crew member kicked the shotgun out of his
reach. It didn’t matter anyway, he couldn’t bring himself to move even if he
wanted to. All the strength left him. His breathing slowed and he began to feel
desperately cold.

He stared up into the night sky and gazed on the
constellations that twinkled above him millions upon millions of miles away. His
grandfather taught him all the constellations in the sky and how to navigate by
them if he ever got lost in the woods. Looking on them now gave Harley a sense
of comfort for the first time in a long time. It was the feeling of being right
where he belonged, that if it had to end here it was worth it. That image above
him was one that he knew inside and out. It was an image of home.

In that moment it was just him and the night
sky, the eternal void that was soon to take him. He felt his memories begin to
fade from his mind one by one, like someone shutting off a computer one processor
at a time. Even his wife began to fade in the ether of oblivion. He was able to
hold on to one thought. He grabbed on to it like a child would grab hold of a
toy he didn’t want taken away. It was Jasper.

The memory of him teaching his son to play catch
popped into his head. Jasper was two at the time and got excited when he caught
the ball for the first time without dropping it. He ran over with it to show
Harley that he had caught the ball. Harley took him in his arms and lifted him
up in the air. He swung him around as Jasper laughed, giddy with two year old
joy.

Harley lay there, a faint smile on his face, as
he continued to swing his son around over and over until the void began to
overtake him.

Maxon watched as Bruce broke in the door and
entered the home of Harley and Sara Jacobs, both of whom lay on the ground,
ignored, like two disposable objects left to be picked up.

His crew turned their backs on him. An egregious
affront and it would have been punishable to the highest level if it hadn’t
been so unanimous. It was a public vote of no confidence. They followed Bruce
into the house, smashing everything in sight. Windows broke, furniture was
overturned, walls kicked in. The destruction was unnecessary. It wasn’t even
part of protocol. This wreck had ceased to be protocol a long time ago.

Maxon took off his helmet and let it drop to the
ground. Harley and Sara still lay on the grass - neither having moved in the
last five minutes. He had to call it in. Even if he failed in his duties as
Lead, he was bound as a citizen to call in an emergency.

He pressed the button on the side of his suit
and spoke into it. “Crew one to base. Crew one to base.” He released the button
and waited for a response. In less than a second a male voice answered.

“This is base, we read you.”

“Requesting an emergency service vehicle out
here immediately. Two civilians down.”

“Any crew down?”

“Negative. Crew is all standing.”

“What’s your status?”

“Status is normal. Commencing wreck now.”

“Copy that. Emergency vehicle is on its way. ETA
eight minutes.”

“Copy. Over and out.”

More sounds of glass being shattered came from
the house. It sounded like it came from the back. After a few minutes Bruce
walked out. He radioed the crew while he made his way back to the truck. “House
all clear. Commencing wrecking in two minutes. Make your way out.”

The crew all filed out of the house. In less
than ten minutes there would be nothing left of it. The efficiency of the wreck
was a marvel to behold. Maxon mused that it was amazing how far they’d come in
the field of destruction in just under a decade, yet made no strides in the
field of human interaction. Power was still our major motivation. The only
thing technology did was give people the tools to wield it more effectively
against others.

Bruce came back to the truck, nearly pushing
Maxon aside as he walked past. He opened the cab and set the on-screen computer
to the initiate wreck mode. A two minute countdown appeared on screen as the
truck hummed to life.

It pivoted on its axis, turning forty five
degrees until the front of the truck was facing the house. Two pipes extended
out of the top of the truck, creating a kind of railway that spanned the entire
length to the door. These pipes pumped in the special gas that essentially
demolished the house from within. The gas carried millions of microscopic
nanobots that were programmed to eat away at the structure, much like termites
but at one million times the speed.

Maxon checked his watch. The emergency vehicle
was still five minutes away. “We can’t start it now. There are two civilians
still on the ground.” Bruce seemed not to hear. He only looked ahead with an
intense gleam in his eyes, eyes that said this was more than just an operation,
that he actually got personal satisfaction from it. “We have to wait for
emergency services before we do anything.”

“Leave them. We’re already twenty minutes behind
schedule,” Bruce said. He still didn’t look at Maxon when he spoke. “How would
it look if we fall further behind?”

“How would it look if we proceed with a wreck
with two dead bodies lying there?”

“They’re only dead because you couldn’t handle
the situation”.

The truck entered execution mode as the gas
began to be pumped into the house. 

“Besides,” Bruce continued, “they’re not just
civilians- they’re enemies of the Council. Nothing more than terrorist
agitators and protocol is clear when dealing with agitators. It states to wipe
out the threat and proceed as planned.”

“That woman is innocent. You know that.”

“Is she? For all we know this was all an
elaborate plan.”

“There’s no proof of any of that being the case
here.”

Bruce narrowed his eyes at Maxon. “Is that
something you can say for sure? What else do you know not to be the case?”

“What are you trying to imply?”

“I’m not implying anything. You claim to know
certain information that you wouldn’t have unless you knew certain things.”

Maxon saw what Bruce was doing. He couldn’t
allow himself to fall into a trap and say something that Bruce would use later
on to jeopardize him in some way to the Council.

“We know what went down here, anything else you
say is a lie,” Maxon said.

“I only know what will be in the report and it
will be known that agitators tried to block our wreck tonight.”

“I write the reports. The title on my suit still
hasn’t changed.”

“I have an entire crew that I’m sure would be
willing to testify in front of the Council of how you  botched the wreck and
caused the death of two innocent civilians or would you rather them testify to
the stopping of two terrorist agitators”.

Maxon turned to the crew,
his crew
. They
drifted their eyes down from his when he looked at them. They will certainly
play into whatever story Bruce composed. They were young and they didn’t want
to go up against Bruce in this matter, especially knowing the influence he held
with the Department Chief. Maxon looked back to Bruce. Maxon didn’t say
anything, he didn’t have too. His eyes did all the talking.

“That’s what I thought,” Bruce said. “Commencing
wreck as scheduled.” He had one foot up on the trucks front bumper while he
held the steel grill with his hand. He looked like a general surveying a
battlefield before sending his troops in to take it.

The gas was pumping at full capacity now. The
house already started to crumble in a few sections. It looked almost to be
losing color as well, as if the life was being sucked out of it and in many
ways it was. Whatever memories were made in that home were in the process of
being eaten away, molecule by molecule. The gas cared not for precious family photos,
homemade video tapes, pre-school drawings, spelling bee awards, or antique
heirlooms. It wasn’t programed to care, only eviscerate at will.   A hundred
years of history evaporated in a fraction of time. To Maxon, the process didn’t
seem fair, no matter how necessary it was.

He looked over to the two bodies that were the
sacrifices of that night and stopped when he noticed something. Harley’s chest
was moving up and down. He was still breathing. Maxon went over and knelt by
him. He inspected the wound and cringed when he saw the gaping hole in Harley’s
stomach and the mangled remains of his intestines. Maxon felt his stomach rise
and put his hand to his mouth to try and stop himself from vomiting. He was
able to swallow it back down. He thought to himself that it was his shot that
did this to this man. Such destructive force had no business in a man’s hands.     

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, not sure if Harley
even heard him or not.

Harley’s eyes were dilated and staring straight
up at the night sky. They had an empty, blank expression to them. Maxon thought
he might have fallen into a coma, but then the eyes shifted slightly, adjusting
their focus and Maxon knew that Harley was still of this earth, for however
short a time.

“You need to try and hold on,” Maxon said.
“There is help coming.”

Harley’s eyes slowly looked over to Maxon. “My
wife.” Harley’s voice was croaked and weak.

Maxon shook his head. “I’m sorry. If she can be
saved, she will be.”

“It’s over.”

“There’s still time. You can make it if you just
hold on.”

Harley struggled to speak. Every breath he took
was an effort. “Nothing left.”

Maxon knew what he meant. Even if he was able to
survive he’d have nothing to go back to. He gave his life for his home,
something that Maxon couldn’t even fathom someone doing. No one was ever asked
to sacrifice anything in Elysia. You were given all you needed and wanted. No
one ever had to worry about not being able to eat or get medicine for their
child or not having a place to sleep at night. That was all in the dark time
before the Great Change, or so he was taught growing up.

A part of Maxon wanted to know how it felt to
believe in something strong enough to actually die for it, to be so passionate
about something you were willing to leave everything behind to fight for it. He
never put stock in causes or beliefs, there were no need for them, but as he
looked upon the dying body of Harley Jacobs he thought that maybe he didn’t
know as much as he thought he knew. Maybe there was indeed more to the world
out there beyond the borderlines.  

Harley slowly reached into his shirt pocket and
pulled out an envelope that was covered in blood. He handed it to Maxon, his
hands trembling as he did. Maxon took the envelope, unsure of what to do. They
were instructed not to take anything from a civilian on a wreck as it could
mean any number of things. Mostly it was a precaution against an attack, but given
the current state of the person handing him the letter that seemed unlikely.

“My son,” Harley croaked. “For him.”

Maxon didn’t know what to say. He only nodded
once and put the letter in his pocket. He never expected to see the child to
give him the envelope, but he didn’t want to say that to him.

The roof of the house imploded on itself,
crumbling into a thousand little pieces as the gas did its work. It sounded
like the tearing apart of hundreds of pieces of paper at the same time. It was
a sound that he never got used to. There was something unnerving and unnatural
about it that made him uneasy every time he heard it, like his senses were
going to overload. He felt if he listened to it long enough he would have a
complete mental breakdown.    

In the distance Maxon heard the approaching wail
of the emergency transport. It was too little too late. Harley’s breathing had
slowed to a faint rattle and the amount of blood he lost was too much to
reverse. At that moment Maxon wished for nothing more than to be home in bed
with his wife next to him, away from this nightmare, away from Bruce, away from
the crew, away from Harley and his disintegrating house. He wanted to be away
from it all.

He felt Harley’s hand squeeze around his and
there was an unexpected amount of strength in that squeeze. Harley looked at
him and all of a sudden his eyes were alive and on fire. “You can’t demolish
the spirit. You can’t wreck the human will. Remember that.” Then his hand
loosened and his head slumped to the side, the fire extinguished from his eyes
and replaced with a blank void.

Maxon stood up as the ambulance pulled up to a
stop. Two emergency technicians came out of it and made their way over to
Harley’s wife first. One tech inspected her vitals with a bio-unit, scanning
her from head to toe. He read the results and shook his head to his partner.
They moved on to Harley, pushing Maxon aside as they did. He knew what the result
would be. Harley, along with his wife, would be jotted down in the official log
as deceased. Their ages and status would be given but nothing else - just another
reduction from the populace.

He walked away from the scene and the crew. The
house was down to its frame and foundation. Maxon couldn’t bring himself to
look at it, the sight of it made him ill. He put his hand in his pocket and
pulled out the envelope. The blood had dried on it, making it feel stiff as
cardboard. Scrawled on the front were the words “For Jasper”. He fingered the
sealed flap and thought about opening it. He decided against it. Now didn’t
seem appropriate.  

He put the envelope back in his pocket and
looked down the street. It was dark. The street lights stopped working in this
part when the sector was declared Out of Date. Despite the darkness there was a
peaceful quality to it, like you could walk into that night and disappear
forever, no one ever being able to find you.

It was a pervasive thought, but one that Maxon
found very appealing at that moment. Maybe he would go for a little walk. Maybe
he could disappear into the night. Maybe he could walk away forever. He stood
there staring into the darkness as the last remaining pieces of what was once
Harley Jacob’s home, built by his grandfather eighty years ago, evaporated into
the still air and performed the only disappearing act of the night.