Deus Ex Machina

Chapter Five

As Abel had been furiously trying to contact Cain, the men who had been waiting patiently on the rooftops of nearby buildings finally got their order. It was simple as it was deadly, one word to end the lives of two brothers.

"Purify them"

Cain, who had discarded all communications in fear that he was being tracked, had no idea that his suspicions and fears were indeed true. To simply appease his feelings, he had taken a roundabout route, bypassing the workshop completely and moving to another warehouse block. Above him, men clad in tight fitting suits of black armor followed silently, their crosshairs on the back of their suspect. Their orders had been to capture the subject if possible and kill if it wasn't.

The men who had been part of dozens of such operations had no second thoughts about killing. In fact it was second nature for the purificators, just a month prior they had been deployed to stop a cult who opposed the great machine. It had ended in a massacre. Blood had run free on the streets of the small city, much like the one they operated in now. Whatever the case, their loyalty and fanaticism towards the cause was as unwavering as their aim.

With the green light given to move on to the next stage of the operation, the squad leader tasked to capture Cain, muttered instructions into his communicator. Two of his men split off and moved to cut off Cain at the intersection. The squad leader himself unslung his rifle from his back, setting it on the rooftop parapet. With practiced ease, he loaded a tranquilizer dart into his rifle through the loading breach. Pushing the slide forward to lock the dart in place, he aimed the rifle at the nape of Cain's neck, waiting for his men to stop Cain.

Below, Cain staggered through the street unaware of his predicaments. His mind was reeling, fear and adrenaline coursing through his body. Whether it was paranoia or his sixth sense Cain did not know, but he somehow knew that he was being hunted. His panic clouded his judgement, various scenarios springing up from his imagination, none of which involved him walking away from this encounter alive. Even as he trudged through the snow, slightly limping from his twisted ankle, he constantly felt for the weight of his flechette pistol tucked into the folds of his harsh weather gear.

As Cain walked into a dark side alley to stay off the main streets, a light thud behind him caused him to turn around. A black suited man stood behind him, truncheon stick in hand. Blue sparks fizzled from the weapon as he held the weapon towards Cain. Cain heard another soft thud as the second purificator landed on the other side, blocking him off entirely. As they advanced towards him from both sides, Cain floundered for his pistol, panic flooding his senses. With an exaggerated pull, he freed his pistol from his clothes and bodily aimed it at the man in front of him. The assailants eyes widened in recognition of the fire arm but it was too late. With swift pulls of the trigger, Cain unloaded four rounds into the general direction of the black swathed fanatic. Despite the fact that he was not aiming, the very nature of the flechette pistol and the short distance ensure that the man was hit. About a meter away from the man, small charges within the bolt exploded, spraying dozens of razor sharp quills into the body of the assailant who was still reacting to the threat. As his body fell with a sickening thud, Cain spun on his heels and emptied the rest of the magazine into the body of the other purificator, who was a mere arms length away from him. Seven deadly bolts which magnified to about a hundred darts smashed into the man, turning him into all but a pulped mass.

Pulling in deep ragged breaths filled with the tint of bloody iron, Cain held the pistol gingerly in his hands as he rushed out of the alleyway as fast as his injured legs could carry him. Above him, the squad leader of the purificators cursed as he watched his target escape his sights. He had been moving to another position when he had heard the loud shots of the flechette pistol. Immediately writing away his men, he had ditched his dart rifle for a lethal firearm. A wicked assault rifle with a sickle mag on behind the trigger was now clutched in the hands of the trained killer as he personally went after the target. He had underestimated him once and he would not let himself do the same mistake again. His target had signed his own death warrant by killing two purificators.