Machine God: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (16 page)

Hecto shot back up and braced himself for another assault.

“That was your lucky move.”

The giant rammed me into the wall and punched my stomach. The pain squeezed my body and caused me to collapse.

What strength.

That wasn’t a fist, that was a block of concrete hitting my tummy. I crawled on all fours and gasped for air. Hecto walked next to me and spat on the back of my head.

He enjoyed seeing me suffer.

Even with all the ache he unleashed on me, I understood him. He circled around me like a wolf ready for the final claw attack.

“What now, rookie? Where is your wisecracking?”

Stuffed in my abdomen, with the rest of my pain. I tried to creep away but Hecto fired a foot into my ribcage. My body rolled around like a meat package. Hecto pushed his foot onto my throat and pressed hard. I grabbed his boot but the power left me. 

Air escaped my lungs.

I choked.

“Please…”

My mouth couldn’t form a logical sentence as the pressure dwindled my last ounce of strength. 

“I could smash you like a little roach, right now.”

No doubt about it.

The vision darkened. Hecto’s mighty shape blended into the dark ceiling of the bar. 

I closed my eyes and embraced myself for the end when a sharp female voice ripped through the air.

45

Heck, I couldn’t believe I was saying this, but for the first time in my short life, I was glad, yes, GLAD seeing Orden and her soldiers. She marched toward Hecto with her staccato steps and barked.

“Hecto, get off him.”

He hesitated but followed up on her command. Not even the mighty brute could act outside the system. The authority was strong with the iron lady.

“He deserved it,” Hecto said to Orden.

“That’s not for you to decide.”

She ordered her soldiers to pick me up. The air returned to my lungs but I still felt as if a stone wheel rolled over me. Orden fired her stare and pushed her face close to mine.

“You’re 58 minutes out of the medstation and the first activity you embark on is getting into a fight? Something tells me Konforma's Correction Course went straight through your air head.”

The ability to speak returned, although I needed to focus my strength to form a coherent sentence.

“I was just chitchatting…really.”

“One eloquent speaker you are.”

She glanced at her datapad and swiped some menus.

“Sixty-two hours solitary time in your cell.”

“What? But I didn’t start the fight.”

“All criminals deny responsibility.”

“I’m not a criminal. Never have been.”

“Then stop behaving like one. Maybe the isolation helps you become a reasonable citizen of the Bulwark Cluster.”

“There’s no trial? No way to defend myself?”

She coughed up the words that I expected a mile away.

“You don’t have the right for an attorney.”

And that was that. 

Chief Orden waved over her armored serfs.

“Guards, take him away.”

With no power to walk on my legs, the two armored men dragged me toward the bar’s exit. In the periphery of my vision, I saw Orden barking at Hecto. I hoped he was getting the lecture of a lifetime. The guards schlepped me across the sky bridge, passed the bystanders, some of which pointed fingers and smiled. 

First shot, then beaten, now laughed at. 

So much for taking the Bulwark Cluster by storm and shooting up the ranks. I should have written a book, ‘How to lose trust and alienate comrades’.

The armored men carried me all the way to my cell and threw me onto the bed. With a sore throat, I said, 

“Can I have a glass of water?”

The soldier flipped me off and marched through the cell door before it shut down like a dungeon gate. Only this time I hoped the bed wasn’t going to shock me. 

46

My throat ached. 

My stomach weeped. 

My face itched.

My lungs craved fresh air.

And now Konforma blasted on my wall-screen and played the same jingle that corroded my ear channels.

“You have been a bad, bad citizen again.”

I couldn’t stand her voice anymore. Wanted to take a crowbar and smash that wall-screen into a thousand little pieces. 

And then piss on them.

“This is not my day,” I said with barely any strength left. 

I wanted to fly away from here and lie down in the desert, never to arise again.

“Don’t worry,” Konforma said, “we still have five hours of course material left. Not to mention the one hundred interactive lessons. Ready or not, the tutorial begins now.”

She meant torturial.

Exploiting my exhaustion.

Mushing my mind.

Swaying me into submission.

I...

47

...sank into the darkness and tuned out my cell. Konforma kept on mumbling her monotonous lessons. If I had the power, I’d open a super massive black hole and get soaked into it. Landing in some distance place of the galaxy, far, far away from the Bulwark Cluster.

Blackness, wash over me. 

I dozed off, drowned into the nothingness where no sound and sight remained. My body became light, like a leaf twirling into a tornado. Legs, arms and torso whistled through the air until my back vanished with the rest of my mind. I found myself in a landscape where the border between ground and sky vanished. 

This place.

Was unlike any others I had ever been to.

It felt foreign and familiar at the same time.

The curiosity surged inside of me.

I stepped forward and felt the surface under me. At first, it seemed as if I was walking on water, but this substance was neither liquid nor solid. 

Something in-between. 

What was this place.

Gravity didn’t need to apply—the surface, the colors, and the particles floated like reverse rain. 

“Hello?”

My voice traveled toward the horizon.

“Anyone home?”

I stepped forward into the color-overkill of the landscape, watched my mirror image on the ground repeating my every foot. Wherever I walked, it was definitely not the cell in the Bulwark Cluster.

How did I even get here?

My life was an ongoing mystery. 

Maybe I landed in the afterlife, traversing the realm between the living and the dead.

Yeah, right. 

This was a no man’s land, and yet, my feelings told me not to worry. 

I could feel a presence. Something floated in the air, and I wasn't just talking about the particles.

Some dense essence that couldn’t be touched but permeated my body.

Up high, I noticed the firmament of the universe. A showcase of glowing stars illuminated the vast view. A green fog seemed to separate this place from outer space, or maybe it was just some kind of mist that clouded my mind. My legs moved by themselves. Strange, rugged structures protruded from the ground. Boulders and mountains that looked natural and artificial at the same time. With nothing else to do, I mounted the first rock and targeted the next. Why? I didn’t know, but the urge to keep on going increased.

I was someone else’s puppet.

Invisible strings pulled me higher.

One climb after another, I mounted the giant boulder formation. Reached the top and felt closer to the stars than ever before. The greenish fog still remained, but now it looked like a liquid hull. 

Shielding me from space radiation?

Why not.

In this place, everything was possible. I walked across the peak of the mountain and sat down. If only I had the blue liquid and some rations with me—this was the perfect spot for a galactic picnic, heh. I crossed my legs on the rocky ground and assumed a meditative position. Breathed in the sparkling air that blew life into my lungs. Gazed at the amazing stars and felt the marvel of the galaxy smiling back at me. Every orb on the firmament was unique, but one planet stood out.

It was bigger than any other star in the cosmic ocean. An orb that devoured half of my sight, making its star sisters look like pebbles. Why hadn’t I noticed this planet before? It was impossible to ignore. 

Hold on, I remembered that planet. 

From where, I didn’t know.

The atmospheric layer covered the orb like a transparent bed sheet.

Giant amounts of water etched into the brown pieces of soil. 

Yes, this sight seemed familiar. 

Bluetiful.

What was its name? 

It lingered on my tongue. 

A planet called…

Nah, I couldn’t remember. Maybe beauty didn’t need names, it existed for its own sake. 

With my legs stretched out again, I lay down on the peak of the mountain and lost myself in the stargazing. The memories of my past faded into mush.

The pain of my mysterious past, the rigid society of the Bulwark Cluster, the war with the Technoids. All these unnecessary sorrows that killed the joy of being alive. If life was hell, what was there to look forward to?

Something to ponder.

My right hand longed for the giant planet in the cosmic soup and wanted to pull it closer to me. That’s when I remembered its name—Earth.

48

But if it was Earth, where was I?

49

“In your cell,” a stern voice said. 

With my eyes open again, I found the ever frosty Chief Orden in my cell, together with her guards.

“Next to breaking Bulwark rules, are you now breaking the border to the fourth dimension?”

It could have been a joke, but a supernova wiping out the planet was more likely than Orden being humorous. I pushed myself up from my cell ground and stood at eye level with her.

“I think I just had a weird dream.”

“A dream where you climb mountains protruding from the air, while talking to planets?”

“How do you—“

“You mumbled. Quite a lot.”

Jeez, how long had she been watching me?

That’s when I remembered the camera in my cell—Orden and co. watched me 24/7.

“Citizen, the punishment for your violations has been chosen. You have been degraded from the soldier rank to the digger class.”

“Digger?”

“You will be dispatched to different locations in the Lost Lands to search for artifacts and tech that could be useful to our society. You will work six days a week, ten hours minimum. Your first shift will start tomorrow, at 0600 hours. Konforma will wake you up and give you additional details.”

It took my brain a while to compute the ludicrous information.

“Ten hours a day, six days a week? That’s inhumane.”

“Everyone has to play their part. You have lost our trust, now you have to regain it."

She paused.

"But don’t lose hope. If you obey your superiors and achieve the digging quota, the committee is willing to take a new look at your standing after two years of serving. The Bulwark is tough, but fair.”

I ground my teeth and swallowed the ugly sentence that lurked on my tongue. 

Instead, my mouth spat out a feeble attempt to justify my true value.

“I cracked the high scores in the training facilities. I successfully led an attack against the Technoids. I rescued dozens of survivors.”

Pause.

“I’m a warrior.”

“A true warrior knows his place in the command chain. You, citizen, are a rabble-rouser. Let’s all hope the digging teaches you discipline.”

She put her cold hands on my shoulder. 

“This is for the greater good. Trust me on this one.”

She rotated 90 degrees and returned to the corridor with her two armored henchmen. Every time she stepped into my cell, she made my life worse. That woman was the devil in fleshy form. Or iron, for that matter.

“I’ll wake you up in seven hours and thirty-five minutes,” Konforma said from the right wall-screen.

“I’ve unlocked your bed. You’re free to rest without having to fear electro shocks.”

“How sweet of you.”

“I didn’t do it for your pleasure. This is a measure to maximize your potential for the digging session.”

“Jeez, I know.”

Because nothing in the Bulwark was done for the sake of the citizen. It all served the goal of being a better slave to the system. 

The anger roared inside me, ready to vomit from my throat. But no, I wouldn’t give in. I could still turn this around, I just needed to take part in the digging and see how I could get out of it.

50

Next day in the hangar. The superior, dressed like the male version of Orden, maybe her twisted brother from another mother, lectured us on digging.

“Let’s be clear about one thing. You’re the lowest of the lowest. The shit cracks between my boots, the rotten rat that people like me piss on for fun.”

Nothing more refreshing than a little pep talk in the morning. My glance swung around to check out my co-diggers for today. Dozens of disappointed faces in digging gear, old and young, mostly male. But one face stood out. It belonged to a middle-aged guy who sent me the vilest glance known to my young life so far. It took me a second to name-match the man, but then the memory crawled back into my mind.

It was Nathan, the leader of the survivors that my team had found in the last mission. So he ended up as a low-ranking digger? Damn. My grave concerns became reality. And now the superior spoke again.

“Intel shows a major digging site with potential tech artifacts in the locations I've updated on your commcuffs. You guys will be digging till the blood leaks from your gloves. But it’s not all doom and gloom—the first digger to discover a valuable artifact will be granted a tier one right of his choosing.”

Some folks looked up, most didn’t care.

The superior thought he launched the ultimate incentive but gathered nothing but moans and groans.

“Be a little thankful, you little cretins. We’ll feed you and give you sufficient sleep. Most survivors in the Lost Lands can only dream of that.”

Still didn’t change the emotional state of one single digger. The folks were so jaded it took a fusion reactor to light them up. I was probably the only fully awake one around, but then again, it was my first day. Who knew what weeks, months, or even years of digging would do to my psyche?