“Private Hackett”

  Three days had passed. Victor had gone back to the bathrooms, checking the water pressure again.

  No luck.

  As soon as he stepped out of the bathroom and found himself in the locker room—alone and surrounded by yet another filthy, damp environment, with lockers and benches nearly rusted, a faint stench of rot in the air and, in the background, the slight flicker of one of the LED ceiling lights—Victor found himself face to face with a superior. A lieutenant. He looked like a normal person, a man with a rigid, composed, disciplined gaze. His hands were clasped behind his back, his head fixed on Victor. And yet, the moment he called out his last name, the voice that came out was deep, but not human; the tone almost robotic, creating metallic vibrations that went straight into the ears. The strong smell of iron and oil coming from his body and its stiffness made him unsettling at first glance.

  But Victor knew who he was, and he wasn’t intimidated at all. Seeing him, he immediately straightened up, saluting as required, closing the fingers of his right hand and bringing it to his temple.

  "Lieutenant Abner. Good afternoon"

  His gaze remained fixed on the Lieutenant’s face. The longer he stared, the more he noticed the absence of ears, replaced by pieces of iron and exposed cables. He didn’t look away even when the Lieutenant released his arms from behind his back, revealing metallic hands, where on the left one the pinky and ring finger seemed to be of a different color and model compared to the other three fingers, which shared the same shape and color.

  "Are you happy to return to the Remnant?" It was the first time Abner, since Victor had arrived on Earth, had spoken in a less authoritarian manner.

  "Affirmative, sir," Victor replied neutrally, showing no emotion.

  "Sir, why are you here? Did I happen to do something wrong?" the young man added, this time letting a hint of concern slip through.

  "Absolutely not," Abner replied, forming a slight smile with his lips, then ordering the young man to lower his hand by saying “at ease,” at which point Victor obeyed, letting out a deep sigh of relief.

  "I wanted to say goodbye one last time. You distinguished yourself during your service, and I commend you for that."

  "Duty, sir. For the People and the American Nation."

  Afterward, there was a brief silence, during which Lieutenant Abner began to slowly walk away, heading toward the locker room exit, located at the far right.

  Every small movement produced an electronic creak, muffled though it was. Simply moving his fingers caused noise. Even his breathing—vibrations—although his face was the only part of his body still human, squared, with a prominent aquiline nose and blue eyes. The short beard was another detail, as were the hair, short and ordinary, shaved and faded at the sides where there was still flesh.

  "You’ve grown," he added.

  "Yes, sir," Victor replied. "I arrived on Earth at the age of nineteen. Today I’m twenty-one. In three months, on August 13th, I’ll turn twenty-two."

  "I see, private."

  Then, another silence. Victor and the Lieutenant reached the exit, where the young man opened the iron, creaking door to let the Lieutenant pass first.

  Outside, the air was completely different. Warm, dry, but clean. The sun was radiant in the sky, heating everything it touched to the fullest. There were no clouds at all. Fortunately, the exit, which led to a concrete courtyard—dirty and in some places cracked and broken, with both small and large holes, uniform across the entire surface—was shielded from the sun by a large canopy that cast shade.

  As soon as he stepped out, Victor immediately noticed soldiers playing soccer on the field in front of the locker rooms. The match was intense, the players sweaty, aggressive, and determined. Shouts and laughter from boys who, though not exactly like him, were enjoying that moment of peace, where even a shove to the ground or a scraped knee was better than fighting.

  One particularly agile boy struck a powerful shot from midfield.

  "5–2! End of the first half!" shouted another boy, who was also acting as referee.

  Victor and the Lieutenant stood still watching. The young man, having recognized who the striker was, felt very pleased. However, his limited ability to feel emotions held him back, allowing him only a faint, almost forced smile.

  At that moment, the boy who had scored noticed his friend and, jogging over in small hops, puffing from exhaustion, reached him. The boy had a prominent burn on his forehead and nose, damp with sweat, as were his brown hair, also dirty with dust. Once he arrived, slowing down at the last second and beginning to limp slightly from overexertion, staring wide-eyed, he stopped under the portico, commenting in a dry voice broken by small gasps that “missed shade”, before stiffening at the sight of the Lieutenant.

  "Excellent match, private Bryce," Abner said.

  "Thank you, sir," the boy replied, trying not to keep panting.

  "Now go wash up. And you…" referring to Victor, "…prepare your things. Departure is in two hours and fifteen minutes."

  Then he left, walking slightly faster than before, making more noise.

  "What was Abner doing with you?" the boy asked, confused.

  "I was trying to take a shower when, as I walked out of the bathroom, I found him standing there," Victor replied.

  "And why…?"

  "How should I know, Duncan," Victor replied, exhaling sharply. "All I know is I’ll go back to my sister smelling like a corpse."

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  "Oh well," Duncan replied. "Worst case, burn your clothes."

  Victor let out a small “hm” as if to laugh, lowering his gaze to the ground for a few seconds before raising it again. "You just gave me an idea," he then replied.

  Afterward, Victor stepped closer to Duncan, slightly opening his arms. "I’ll miss you, man," he said after the two boys hugged.

  "You too, bro," Duncan replied. "You’re literally the third person I can stand in here. I don’t know what I’ll do."

  "Only three?" Victor replied, pulling away from his friend.

  "Besides you, just Hart and that guy from O-2… I can’t remember his name."

  "Oltmann?" Victor said.

  "No, the one with the messy blond hair."

  "Oh, Hardy."

  "Exactly," Duncan said.

  "Didn’t you have it out for him after he destroyed you with that freestyle last year?"

  "Yeah… but thinking about it, it was cool," Duncan said, shrugging briefly. “Should weigh at least a ton!”.

  "I don’t even remember how it went," Victor said.

  "Oh, it was like…"

  Duncan looked up, keeping his mouth half open, trying to remember.

  "I don’t remember… no, wait! There was some line with “my mom” and something."

  "Hardy sucks at freestyle," Victor said. "He just throws in random lines and insults—that’s why it works."

  While Duncan was talking, Victor slightly turned left, observing an armored ICP van, with the UNADF emblem in white on the side, highlighting the sword, Excalibur, pointed upwards at the center of the regular United Nations logo.

  Since he was a child, he remembered that symbol everywhere. By now it was etched into his memory.

  Duncan noticed his friend’s distraction, looking puzzled. "What are you looking at?"

  Victor turned back. He didn’t answer. He gave another faint forced smile, slightly shaking his head.

  "When are you going back?" he then asked.

  "Three more weeks… maybe a month," Duncan said.

  Then both boys turned again toward the van after hearing a metallic boom. What they saw was a team of five soldiers loading a dark armor suit—practically black—that, even from a distance, didn’t seem to have any openings in the head to see through. The soldiers initially struggled; three tried lifting it from below, pushing with their legs and gripping the metal tightly, and two from above, pulling hard from the shoulders.

  After some initial difficulty, they managed to load the armor and secure it inside the truck.

  "I don’t get how those vans even move with that kind of ballast," Duncan said, referring to the armor in the plural. <>

  "Do you remember anything?" Victor said, at first still staring at the van. "I mean, from the fights. From when we went in there."

  "No, man," Duncan replied in a disappointed tone. "Nobody remembers, you know that. You have a nice dream, you wake up and find out three days have passed. That’s what we do. For you it’s been two years now. For me, a little more."

  Victor looked back at the van. By now the armor had been placed inside; it was no longer visible. Only the soldiers remained, following protocol, testing the vehicle to make sure everything was in order, checking tire pressure, engine ignition, oil quality.

  "You know that’s yours, right?" Duncan said.

  "Yeah…" Victor’s reply was sharp and quick. He then remained silent for a few seconds.

  "Well…" he said with a sigh. "I’ll go pack my bags," he added, shaking his friend’s hand goodbye.

  "Make sure," Duncan replied, "as soon as we see each other up there, come to my place. PlayStation, parties, whatever we want!"

  "For sure, man. See you around," Victor said finally, waving again before heading toward the dorms.

  He didn’t have much. Like everyone else. He had a worn dark-blue duffel bag, dusty, where he still kept a few clothes—also dirty—leftover ration snacks, and family photos, not just with his sister but also his mother, father, grandparents, and even uncles.

  They were dated, for the most part, between 2036 and 2040. Back then, Victor had been between three and seven years old. The smiling, spontaneous, living faces were a barrier between the quiet life of a Florida family and a world that was changing without anyone noticing.

  Ijo. In Japanese it means “Anomaly.” They taught us that in school. My mother was of Swedish origin. There in Europe they call them Zmij. When they destroyed Stockholm in 2043, my mother lost everything; her parents died, but she never knew how. She had been living in the United States for years.

  “Soon, they’ll come here too.” That’s what she thought, and so did my father. I started thinking it too. I was fourteen when Naomi, my mother, and I were boarded onto the Remnant. The journey from Earth to the launch base on the Moon was perhaps the most beautiful part of that entire route. Three and a half billion people in line to board what had been called the last hope for our hope. And yet, I always felt like I was living in a second dying world. Two dying worlds, bound by an unknown fate. Far, yet close. Since I arrived on Earth, I’ve looked up at the sky. I looked toward my family. Toward my father, who unfortunately couldn’t come with us, but who I know watches over and protects me, as he always has for as long as I can remember. I protect him too, from down here. I protect humanity from the monsters. Whatever the means, I do it. That is my goal. My mission. To become worse than the monsters themselves.

  "Hey, private!"

  A female, authoritative voice made Victor jump, waking him abruptly. He still had his eyes closed. He had deep dark circles, with visible crust in his eyelashes. His left cheek was red, since he had been resting it on a very hard, uncomfortable plastic crate.

  He had fallen asleep so deeply he hadn’t even realized they had arrived.

  In fact, the woman spoke in Italian, with a strong Lombard accent. Victor didn’t understand at first, which added to his confusion.

  "What…?"

  "Ah, right, you’re American…" the woman replied, then added in fluent English, "you’ve arrived at the base. The shuttle leaves in forty-five minutes, so move your ass!"

  Victor was practically dragged off the plane. Only then was he initially blinded by the dawn sunlight, half-hidden behind the mountains. He kept shielding himself with his left hand, grimacing and covering his eyes. Moreover, the cold—felt by Victor like tiny burning needles in his skin—made everything worse.

  "Oh, come on, move!" a man tossed him his duffel bag, which he instinctively managed to catch midair, lowering his arm from his face.

  He was escorted inside a gigantic metal structure embedded in the rock. It was the Italian Martinelli military base.

  Upon arrival, in front of a gigantic iron gate, they waited for it to open. After an initial deep-toned alarm that repeated every two seconds or so, emitting an intense red light, the gate began to lift, dropping snow and icicles to the ground. Inside was a lit corridor. It couldn’t have been longer than a few miles. The first stretch was traveled aboard a magnetic-levitation car resting on the rails. The ride lasted no less than two minutes at a high constant speed, and through the glass panels of the car, one could see the streaking beams of the tunnel lights, which suddenly opened into a sort of vast quarry, inside of which what looked like a real city stood, full of lights and movement, with over twenty rockets clearly visible, all headed toward the Remnant.

  The Martinelli space launch station was among the most technologically advanced in Europe, as well as the most protected, due to its location in that massive artificial basin carved into the mountains.

  The car reached the final station. Chaotic and full of people. Victor and the escort quickly stepped off. The young man had fully recovered from his drowsiness but was trembling from the cold, since he hadn’t brought anything to cover himself. He had nothing to bring.

  “Attention. Spaceship 14788 bound for Class-Y Space Base will depart in 37 minutes.”

  "Move it, private. It’s just a little cold."

  Meanwhile, Victor failed to notice that, up to that moment, his armor—resting on a large handcart—was being pushed by a soldier in dark gray Type-Hertz armor, widely recognized for its elongated head shape resembling a beak, colossal in size and strength, so much so that he pulled the cart with the armor as if it were a feather. Prominently displayed on the left side of the chest was the Bryte-Rodak logo, which had begun producing them in 2051.

  There were now 30 minutes left before departure. Victor was about 20 minutes from the shuttle entrance. Only two kilometers separated him. That was perhaps the most crowded area of all. Many soldiers that day, but also army officers and workers, were returning to their lives in the sky. The chaos was absurd: people were almost packed together, eager to leave Earth. Among those present, Victor also noticed a few Cyberhumans and Automatons, one less enthusiastic than the other. Those heavy procedures had changed them forever. One had half his body entirely made of metal, head included. From the wounded, they threw everything away to insert the pieces. Only the brain and organs like the heart and lungs had to be preserved. On Earth, soldiers were recycled. Another example was a simple worker whose head had been entirely replaced with a metal one, connected by a neck of exposed wires. Inside was the brain. Those cables pumped blood and electricity into it. Everyone was indispensable, as long as they could be. Victor would return home. Another boy, perhaps younger, would take his place.

  As he headed toward boarding, he noticed that the soldier in the Hertz was taking his armor away, heading back. Soldiers like him had particular need to keep that armor within reach in case of emergency. It was part of the protocol.

  The closer he got to the crowd, the more the emotion rose. Two years on Earth were seen as centuries in Hell. That return home meant salvation and hope for those who made it. For those who stayed, you had to watch your back.

  Then, a boom.

  The alarm was immediate. From the glass of the boarding tunnel, Victor and the passengers saw the explosion. At the base of the launch pad, something ignited a massive fire, melting the engine and generating thick black smoke. The stench could be felt even through the glass, despite the long distance.

  Then, a second boom. More brutal, larger.

  The engines completely blew apart. The shuttle tilted forward about thirty degrees, nearly hitting the other one.

  "Everyone back! Return to the station! Move!"

  The military intervened. Immediately, the enthusiastic crowd turned terrified. Shouts of joy became screams of fear. In their rush to escape, some fell and trampled others. It happened right before Victor’s eyes, as he saw the worker from earlier completely trampled, while he, with a distorted voice, cried for help.

  Victor rushed to assist.

  "Sir, are you okay?! Give me your hand!"

  "Private Hackett! Follow orders!" Victor was grabbed forcefully by the woman and dragged away, under the gaze of that man who, even without a human face, was visibly collapsing. He saw him slump to the ground slowly as he was pulled away, amid the fleeing crowd. He heard only a few moans, final breaths. Then nothing.

  And finally, just as this was happening, one last explosion. The largest of all. It not only destroyed the two shuttles, but also caused the tunnel to collapse. In an instant, Victor found himself falling into a dark abyss of fire, ash, and debris. The fall was quick. And yet, it seemed to last an eternity.