Dan, Artur, Sonya, and Tom, the four protectors of the child, arranged themselves in a defensive formation. Dan carried the boy in his arms, hiding behind Arthur's massive figure upfront and flanked by Sonya on the left and Tom on the right. It was Sonya's idea, and it was a good one - someone would have to pay close attention to spot a kid, let alone examine him.
Nevertheless, the feeling of impending disaster was not letting Dan go. His instincts were usually correct, and this time all the alarms rang loud in his head. He could not explain how all this mess got neatly arranged around them.
They went down deserted, narrow streets, untouched by war. It was one of the rare pockets where the frontline held firm. It would have looked normal had it not been without any light. Dead storefronts, dead signs, dark windows - it all took Dan back to Elpida Plaza, to the beginning of the invasion. He got hit with a sudden wave of panic and looked up, expecting dead bodies to fall. None did. Dan closed his eyes to recollect himself.
A few twists and turns later, they were back on the scorched battlefield. Ironically, that was when they came across the first sign of life. A team of four paramedics, covered in green portable medical devices, walked through the messy scene of death before them, turning people over, lifting facemasks, scanning armor, and tagging everyone with red holographic crosses. The ambulance hovered over, humming deeply and illuminating the scene from above. The paramedics noticed the approaching group, glanced at them briefly, and moved on with their duties.
"I got a code!"
The team of paramedics surrounded the body and fell to their knees. They unlocked the mid-sized armor with trained moves, exposing the cadet's chest and her t-shirt covered in blood. One of the medics waved her arm over the body, and a hologram appeared above it, showing the bullet that punctured the lung.
"She died thirty minutes ago," she said. "The armor pumped her full of Freezer, so the brain should be preserved. Code Lazarus confirmed. Let's do it."
The paramedic with two green armbraces moved closer and placed his metal hands around the wound. The bullet emerged from the chest, followed by the blood from the lung, then the hole turned into an old scar. The dead cadet started twitching gruesomely, shocked with electricity until she coughed blood and took the first raspy breath.
"Welcome back to the living!" said one of the paramedics, an elderly woman with a harsh voice. "How do you feel?"
"I see purple!" said the cadet coarsely. "Everything is purple!"
"What, you don't like it? Ok, fine, we'll clean your blood from Freezer."
"My units! Where... my unit..."
"Don't lift your head and close your eyes!"
Dan and the group passed by the cadet, feeling both relieved that she had come back to life and awful as she was yet to see her entire unit dead around her. The kid in Dan's arms tried to guess what had just happened as there were many conflicting emotions around. He produced a few signs, but Dan halted them, just in case.
"It's nice to see somebody return," said Sonya in a flat voice. "If they were to get to our position in time..."
"All of ours are buried under the arachnid, or worse," said Tom. "Don't keep your hopes up."
That conversation made Dan's heart race. In the day's chaos, getting scooped up to another mission, he never checked on people he knew, aside from his dad on the Wall. What about his mother? His wife? They both lived far from the frontline but were hotheaded enough to rush onto the street and join the fight.
Dan pinged both their statuses to the central. One second. Two. Three. Usually, pings don't take that long. Five. Ten. Fifteen.
Mother's status came back. Zeina Sage: located on Engineering Level under the city, weapon factory. Alive. Dan still held his breath, waiting for the response about his wife.
Thirty excruciating seconds later, the report about his wife came back. Liza Sage: relocated to bomb shelter on the 124th floor, self-enlisted as a volunteer for relief efforts, pending assignment.
Dan allowed himself to exhale. Should he check on others too? Would he be able to take the bad news as stoically as the cadets did? He now needed a clear head more than anything. Should he risk it? Just one more name. Leroy, his brother-in-arms with an unpronounceable name.
Leroy's ping came back instantly, as they were both active members of the Aeon Guard. Alive, still on the Wall. Thank Gods! He left Leroy without backup today because he fell for his dad's stupid prank. He would not have forgiven himself had Leroy died in action.
Dan decided to call it a day on the checkups as he saw a lot of activity ahead.
The alley turned and widened, merging into one of the major streets: Elpida Avenue, where a massive rescue operation was taking place. Everybody was mobilized, and thousands of flying machines were in the air: ambulances, firetrucks, shipping containers, and hearses.
The city called upon every first responder fit for duty. The firefighters, enclosed in red A-class power armor, were jumping from their flying trucks to the burning buildings, saving those trapped inside and extinguishing the fires using clouds of white smoke that they dispersed with special guns and grenades. A crowd of paramedics several thousand strong was walking down the street, reviving the dead and sending them off to the hospitals. Behind them, they left many bodies marked with red holographic crosses for coroners to put in bags, laser-etch IDs, and ship away. The night crew that worked on minor repairs a few hours ago had since donned power armor and was busy pulling apart heavy debris, accessing the damage, restoring the critical infrastructure, and cleaning up the body parts, blood, and rubble.
Sonya led the group into the mess, not slowing down.
"That's too busy for my taste," said Dan. "Too many eyes."
"Makes it easy to blend in," said Sonya. "The first responders are here to help."
"And we don't need any help," said Tom. "They're zoning us out."
Sonya and Tom were right. A child with no ID and a blank friendly tag would raise questions. However, today nobody among the thousands of people participating in the operation paid them any mind. They looked as disinterested as Artur.
The skyways remained drawn into the buildings so Dan could see the end of the street and the massive building dominating it. The Cathedral, the largest structure in Libra, a mile and a half tall with more than five hundred stories, grew with every step. Today, it was unrecognizable and dark. A beacon of hope was no more, standing amidst the dark city it failed.
"You think they'll ever turn the lights back on?" wondered Sonya.
"Not with Aeon Shield down," said Dan. "We can't be blazing light into Twilight."
"Isn't the Shield transparent?" asked Tom.
"Fuck, you need an AG clearance to..." started Dan. "Ah, whatever. The Genie is out. Nope, Aeon Shield was pitch-black. You'll see why Twilight got its name now that it's gone."
"Huh, I know many people who just got vindicated," said Tom. "Opaque Aeon Shield is the largest conspiracy theory of all. Talking about it is what they call "minor heresy," and it's the quickest way to get five years. The Church is not kidding around and handing nickels like candy. A couple of my friends with no priors did the whole time, no parole."
"I always found heresy to be bullshit exempt from the Freedom of Speech," said Dan. "Luckily, it isn't without loopholes. Did you read my dad's "Guide to Atheism?"
"Any petty criminal worth a damn did," said Tom. "Send your dad my compliments. His book is a lifesaver... Anyway, why did the Church lie about the Shield?"
"To keep humanity contained within the Wall," interjected Sonya. "If you think Twilight is empty, you have no reason to care about it, right? Gods want us to stay here and sort out our sins. Therefore, the Church did its worst to keep us in line, including breaking the rules from its own Bible."
Dan and Tom looked at her suspiciously. Artur remained unengaged in the conversation.
"What?" said Sonya. "Tinfoil hats are like jewelry in the Music League. I wore a few myself."
"Religion and politics aside, the Shield had a practical reason," said Dan. "It had to keep the city hidden from the creatures called Leviathans and stop them from getting in. They're drawn to light and driven by a desire to destroy everything in their path."
"Wait, that's not a legend?!" Tom looked freaked out.
"I was taught that in AG HQ," said Dan. "Officers treated it very seriously. They said they'd kick anyone out of Aeon Guard for having any lights on the other side of the Wall."
Artur halted ahead as the group found itself at a dead-end, surrounded by body bags from all sides. They had to backtrack.
"AG goes beyond the Wall?" asked Sonya.
"There's an observation deck on the other side," said Dan. "It's called Night Deck. That's where AG spends most of its time, sniping the Lepers out. But yes, some units also go into Twilight to recover the bodies of the Lepers, although they never venture too far. It's rough there. The Call of Nought is loud."
"What's in the Twilight, anyway?" asked Tom.
"I only saw pictures and the newly-appeared reflection in the sky," said Dan. "From what I know, it's bare terrain, rocks, a few rivers, some mountains. A whole bunch of nothing."
"That nothing made quite an army," said Tom. "There must be something out there."
"Indeed," said Sonya. "This army relied on walking too much for being "disembodied lost souls haunting the endless void," or however the Bible puts it. The Church is so full of it."
They got back on track, and the Cathedral returned to dominate the view.
"My dad says that the Cathedral is a perfect metaphor," said Dan. "It's a neatly stacked pile of shit in the middle of our critical thinking."
"It now looks the part, too," said Tom.
"I don't know. I always liked to go there," said Sonya. "It's an inspirational place to be. Even though preachers disapproved of some of the songs I wrote about them."
"Songs you wrote?" asked Tom. "So that poetry outburst was not accidental? I would never take you for a songwriter. Do you play any instruments?"
"I sing and play holo-guitar," said Sonya. "Some drums too."
"Love of drums must be what landed you in the army," said Tom.
"No, it wasn't that," said Sonya. "It's a long story for a later time."
Tom wanted to ask more, but Dan had a comment of his own:
"If your songs pissed off the Church, my dad would love to hear them. He'd probably make an inappropriate remix out of them."
"I'm not sure more insults can fit in there," said Sonya. "What about you? What did you do before the army?"
"Studied," said Dan. "Did lots of sport. Stayed out of trouble."
"Study and sports are the highlights of your life?" asked Tom. "I expected more out of the Sage family."
"Oh, there was a lot of shit in-between," said Dan. "Pranks, setups, and raids of the Church, all courtesy of my asshole dad. But I need a lot of beer to tell you about it."
"The beer you shall have, buddy," said Tom and pat him on the back. "I promise you."
The street ended between two dark skyscrapers and opened to the massive area surrounding the Pyramid – the Six Plazas. Dan and others raised their face masks to breathe some fresh air.
The Six Plazas was Dan's favorite place where he came to enjoy festivals, celebrations, concerts, tournaments, prayers, and empty nothing above his head, not counting Mirror Sky. The Six Plazas were Elpida, Seela, Terra, Mizu, Laoshi, and Radnik, all named after the only districts that faced the Pyramid. Together they formed a hexagon framed by half-a-mile-tall buildings – the best apartments and businesses in Libra. Dan rotated through one such apartment once. It was great to have a view out of his window that was not someone else's window. However, today all these views dispassionately showed the full extent of the crisis in the city.
The Plazas were covered with hundreds of thousands of dead bodies lined up in a never-ending maze. The air was thick with hundreds of flying machines that, like some deranged artists, were unloading more bodies and drawing the horrific maze further. Each body had a holographic portrait with an ID over it, waiting to kill all hope in the passing-by relatives or friends.
Such hope was dying every second in hundreds of people at once. They were left crying in anguish, their screams echoing through the night and cutting into Dan's soul. The white coats strolled all around, of course. Deacons, priests, bishops, archbishops, and cardinals. Dan even spotted a few matriarchs and patriarchs he knew. They walked through the maze, looking like ghosts in their all-white robes, condoling the living and praying for the dead. The only people they were not praying for were the Lepers. The invading army was stacked in a fifty-story-high mountain of naked bodies, stripped of all their equipment, clothes, and dignity, prepared to be shipped underground for recycling. Good. Dan preferred not to think that the same trip, after proper respects, was also reserved for his dead homelanders.
The Plazas' landscape was further altered by fifty-foot-long barrels of artillery. Some pieces were ancient, and Dan remembered seeing them at an artillery museum. Some pieces were brand new. Where did they come from? Could production begin so quickly?
The artillery was manned by diverse civilians of all sexes and ages. It must be the nerds from the Historic Reenactment League that the military pulled out beds in the middle of the night to write the history instead of preserving it.
Those brave civilians, and the dead bodies on the ground, received routine guilty looks from Pax Guardians. The no-shows from Terra and Laoshi fortresses were stationed in rings around the Pyramid, at last doing something useful. They had allowed the backup frontline of the cadets to take a hit for them and were now serving as backup themselves. Dan was confident they would never live these fuckups down.
Dan and the group were walking through the open-air morgue in solemn silence. They did not speak or look anyone in the eyes, living or dead, fearing to see someone they knew or to get recognized.
Despite his best efforts, Dan was acutely aware of what framed his path. The screams and cries from all were getting under his skin. The dead children he saw by the granary came into his mind.
What was he doing, helping a Leper kid who did nothing to deserve such honors? Dan was overcome with doubt and, weirdly, deja vu.
"Are we all sure we want to see this through?" he asked.
"Ah, what's the worst thing that could happen?" asked Tom. "If we get busted, we can say we had no idea who the kid was."
"You think you can sell this, huh?" asked Dan. "Am I the only one who's fidgety?"
"No, you aren't," said Sonya. "But can you have a tortured and murdered kid on your conscience? Even if he's one of the Lepers?"
Dan looked at the kid who was watching the surrounding scenery with his adult eyes. The boy looked at every body on the ground and did not shy away when he came across a gruesome death. Instead, he lingered on each one and tried to reach his hands to the grieving people in his useless attempt to comfort them. This gesture stuck with Dan as he tried to picture giving the kid away to the Church. He could see the kid reaching his small hands back to him, looking at him with confused trusting eyes, oblivious to the horrific fate Dan had just signed him up for.
"Dammit," said Dan under his breath and hugged the kid tighter.
Suddenly, a cry of frustration came from the left:
"Have you found my daughter?! Aren't you tired of doing nothing today?!"
A bishop, dressed in all white like others from the Church, was acting unlike his colleagues. He was erratic and angry, running along the rows of dead bodies, getting in the faces of the guardians and coroners while his colleagues were giving him disapproving looks.
"Sir, she's still listed as missing in action," said a female guardian in blue armor. "Her last known position hasn't been reached yet."
"Then go reach it!"
"We can't. We have orders—"
"Fuck your orders!"
"All our medical personnel has already been deployed. We can't—"
"If she's dead, if she can't be revived, so help me Gods, I'll rip your worthless heads off!" yelled the bishop.
He left the guardian be and turned to the lines of bodies. He looked familiar, although Dan could not pinpoint where he had seen him before. The bishop was in his fifties, of average height, with long gray hair tied in a ponytail. He had a sharp triangular face, a short gray beard, and a mustache. He rubbed his hooked nose and then looked directly at the five of them with his icy-blue narrow eyes.
His stare sent chills through Dan, and he looked away.
"Hey. Hey, you! Stop!" yelled the bishop.
The bishop ran on the other side of the row of corpses, keeping up with the team.
"Great," whispered Dan.
Dan tried to hide the child more, even though it was impossible to do a better job at it.
"Gods dammit, I said stop!" yelled the bishop.
The bishop found a gap in the bodies and got in Artur's way, halting the group. The bishop got hidden behind Artur, so Dan peeked to see what was happening.
The bishop looked up at Artur.
"You're Artur Huber," stated the bishop, drilling him with his icy stare and nodding several times angrily. "Junior Camp, Company 16, Blue Unit."
Great. The bishop was only in their faces because he recognized them. Just awesome. Dan cussed himself to hell and back. Why in the world did they raise their facemasks? To take a breather? They'll now get plenty of fresh air flying off the Wall.
"Sir, we are on official business here," Sonya jumped into the conversation with a confident and authoritarian voice. "Please, step aside."
"I'm not talking to you," said the bishop to Sonya while not taking his eyes off Artur. "Where's Anna Berg?" he asked and then yelled at the top of his lungs. "WHERE IS MY DAUGHTER?!!"
Artur could not utter a sound.
"You're the slimebag that dates her!" yelled the bishop with venom. "I know you, Artur Huber! Where's my daughter?!"
Artur was still. Then, suddenly, he broke down crying. He held his head with his metallic hands, then started hitting himself and had to be stopped by Sonya.
"What?" asked the bishop. "What's this idiot doing? What happened to her?!"
"Sir, Anna Berg died in action," said Sonya in a hollow voice. "Along with the entire unit. We're the only survivors."
"When? How? Did you help her?! Why didn't you help her?!"
"She couldn't be revived, sir," said Sonya. "I'm sorry."
"How the fuck do you know?! Did you see her die?! I bet you were too busy saving your own ass!"
"I saw her die," said Sonya. "I saw it personally. I'm sorry."
The bishop suddenly quieted down. His angry demeanor changed. His whole body, firm with determination a second ago, went soft. His back slouched, his hands went limp, and his lips shook.
"No," he said quietly, shaking his head and taking a step back. "No, it can't be. You must've seen it wrong."
"I saw it too," said Tom.
Artur did not say anything. He was hit with wave after wave of grief, sobbing in one moment, getting his stone mask on in the other.
"No," the bishop was still shaking his head. "No."
Then, suddenly, he erupted in an agonizing scream. His fists clenched, the veins on his forehead and neck bulged, and his face went red. He screamed again and again, each scream slicing Dan's heart. Tom and Artur were crying. Sonya held back as only Sergeants could. The bishop's voice gave, and he collapsed on his knees, the pain taking him whole. The scream turned to hoarse wailing as he grabbed his gray hair and pulled it, rocking back and forth on the ground. He then fell on his back, looking up at the cruel and indifferent Mirror Sky.
The boy reached his hands forward, trying to comfort the bishop, but Dan put him closer to his chest.
"I'm sorry," said Sonya, producing a dry sniff. "I'm sorry. The Patriarch is waiting for us. We have to go."
She called a deacon nearby to help the bishop, then turned and led Dan and the others to the Pyramid. Dan empathized with the cadets, who lost all their friends. He empathized with the bishop's pain, too. The bishop lost his daughter, most likely his only daughter, a part of himself. He raised her from the moment she drew her first breath. He shared many moments with her for many years: happy, sad, serious, silly, meaningful, and frustrating. Now, the last memory of her would stretch into eternity and taint all others – her death.
Dan looked back at the bishop. The preacher was now a man with his soul torn apart, each piece burning in agony.
Anna's dad would never be whole again.