Jacob Burns and the Order of the Algorithm #Wattys2017

Chapter 17: A Eulogy for Jacob Burns

I felt like I'd been hit by a freight train.

The back of my head throbbed angrily as my mind pushed through to consciousness, voices echoing off in the distance as the ringing in my head began to clang louder than a railway crossing. I opened my eyes, only to shut them again, certain I was about to throw up.

I was being carried, slung over the shoulder of a massive man. The jerking motion of his uneven steps made my stomach feel like it was trapped on a tilt-a-whirl gone haywire, but I focused all my energy on the situation at hand. I raced through the blurring images of the last hour in my mind, desperately trying to piece together everything that had happened, but every time it seemed within reach, it slipped through my fingers like so much pale smoke.

When finally, it hit me.

Ilya! Oh God, what happened to her...? She must have gone back down the tunnel, but who knows if there was another way out? For all I knew, she was trapped under a cave in, or eaten alive by a mirelurk, or worse, at the mercy of the Director and his synthetic monstrosities, doing God-knows-what. Her father was tortured to death for this information, what would they do to her?

I wasted no time, formulating a plan even as I feigned unconsciousness. I could tell by the empty holster at my side that they had already taken my weapons, and to make matters worse, I hadn't the faintest idea where we were going. The distant sound of gunfire told me we had left the underground, but other than that, we could be anywhere by now.

It was quickly becoming clear... There was no fighting my way out of this one. Not only was I being carried by a man twice my size, but from what I could gather, there had to be at least half a dozen more surrounding me. As I laid there with my eyes closed, I got the sense that this wasn't just some random ambush. They had known where we were, and a raider doesn't drag his victim halfway across the city to rob him... Something told me this was personal.

Suddenly, a voice called out for the others to stop, but my body kept moving. The man carrying me just continued to lurch forward, seemingly oblivious to his leader's orders.

"Hey, big guy, when I tell you to stop, you stop," the man ordered again.

"AAHG! I tell you before human...MY NAME NOT "BIG GUY"!"

That voice. That horrible, horrible voice. Deep and guttural like a jagged knife that cut right to the bone. A tremor of terror ran through me as the weight of the situation came down like a ton of bricks.

"RAWRHG!"

A roar ripped through the night air as my eyes snapped wide open, suddenly very much awake. The metal collar around my captor's neck lit up like a lightning storm, electrifying him into submission. The next thing I knew, I was on the ground and crawling away as quickly as possible from the writhing beast next to me, but before I could get away, one of the men jerked me back. Sure enough, it was one of Hancock's pinstriped goons. I caught the bastard on the jaw and knocked him off balance, sending him flying into a pair of trash cans, but that was as far as I got. The rest of them were on top of me and had me pinned in no time flat.

The beast was lying on the ground, grunting heavily as it tried to catch its breath. Its face was contorted in an inhuman grimace, its leathery green body covered in the scars that came with the brutal life of such a creature. The scientists of the Pre-War era had a lot to account for, but none greater than their unleashing of these hellspawn upon humanity. They were men once, now twisted and devolved into vicious brutes, with only a single thought in their tiny, bloodthirsty brains.

Destroy. Maim. Kill.

This was a Super Mutant.

They were called "Super" because that's what they were supposed to be. A superior race of men that could withstand the harshness of the apocalypse. Bigger, stronger, smarter... well, bigger and stronger anyways. The eggheads never did perfect their recipe for their virus to evolve humanity into a newer "better" state, and instead, they settled for a serum that would provide them with near invincible super soldiers to fuel their endless war. It only came with a few minor side effects. After all, what was a little uncontrollable rage, schizophrenic hallucinations, and a few genocidal tendencies in comparison to how it would affect the fight on the eastern front?