2 Days Until Rapture
I woke up with a massive headache, for the umpteeth time.
I groggily look around, and realize I'm in the back seat of a car. The sky outside the window is light grey, and my heart stops for a few moments. How long was I out?
"You're finally awake." Detective Q says from the front seat. Somehow, I'm still on edge.
"What happened?"
"A group of Jakkar's men attacked our camp. They had machine guns and explosives, we were no match. I saw you unconscious and I scooped you up, drove us away as fast as possible. This was a few hours ago."
I blinked. "Where's everyone else?"
Something left Q's mouth, but it came out as a distorted, muffled beat.
"What?"
There it was again. But this time I knew it was my brain. I close my eyes and clear my mind, focusing on the hum of the engine, and the subtle bumps in the road.
"One more time."
"They're dead. Jason."
My mind purges all thoughts, all emotions. My stomach aches, causing my entire body to fold over itself. I grip the edge of Q's seat. "Did you see them?"
He nods. "They were all taken down by a single RPG. The mercenaries moved in and shot them all dead, one by one."
I stare at his face in the rearview mirror. I read his facial features, his blinks, his swallows. No signs of lying, but just one emotion was visible in the corners of his mouth and the flinching in his cheeks. Guilt. From abandoning them.
So it's true.
Sam. Nijah. Circe. . . Dead. And I wasn't able to fucking save them. I shutdown my mind, I don't want to think about anything. So I submit to my raw instincts.
I sit up straight in my seat.
"Take me to Jakkar."
* * *
"I count over 50 in the compound."
Q looks up from the scope on his sniper, which he got from the trunk of his hummer. "What's the plan, kid?"
I look up from the log we were hiding behind and get the lay of the land.
The military compound is nestled at the very bottom of a grassy valley, covered with thousands of pink flowers. Barbed wire fence surrounds the perimeter, but most of the soldiers seem to be situated near the center, around a giant HoloJet like plane. That must be where the nuke is.
"I found Jakkar." Q says, looking down his sights. "He just entered the large tent on the western side."
"I see it." I say, standing.
Detective Q looks up at me. "So what's the-"
"Plan? You want a plan? Fine. Here it is: cover me." With that I take off at a jog down the valley.
* * *
Five minutes later, I reach the eastern side of the compound.
I climb the fence with easy, using my leather jacket so get over the barbed wire, and drop down on the grass. I walk towards the first building, which must've been an old barracks, and press my back against the wall. I edge towards the corner and take a peek around it, looking deeper into the compound.
Soldiers and more soldiers. Great.
I feel a slight drizzle begin to come on, and notice that morning fog from the valley is slowly creeping across the compound. That'll work.
I take a deep breath and turn the corner, walking straight for the first group of soldiers. There's three of them, all congregated against another building, using a barrel as a makeshift table to eat breakfast. They don't notice me until I'm right on them.
"What the-" I crush his trachea with a quick chop to his throat, dropping him to his knees. In the same second, I kick the barrel against the shin of the one beside him, causing him to instinctively bend over, then grab him by the back of the head and slam it against the edge of the metal barrel, crushing the cartilage in his nose. The third one finally reacts, taking out his sidearm and aiming it at me. I let go of the unconscious soldier and bat the pistol out of my face, the round going wide, reach in with my left pulling a pin off one of the grenades on his hip, crushing his ribs with my right fist, then step back and watch as the soldier explodes, taking half the wall with him.
I take out my automatic pistols and step into what must be the mess hall. No one in here has weapons, so it's a massacre. Head shot after head shot, sometimes having to tear through someone's bullet proof vest. Less than 50 seconds after the breach, there were 20 dead bodies.
Footsteps come up behind me, and turn to face three soldiers with assault rifles.
"Freeze!" One screams, before exploding into bloody chunks. The other two look confused, not realizing Q just sniped the shit out of their friend, and I capitalized.
I scoop up a plate off the floor as I sprint and fling it at the closest guy's face, the ceramic disk shattering against his forehead. When I get near, I jump, pressing both my knees against his chest while knocking him over, crushing his chest when he fell on his back with me on top of him. I roll, coming to a knee, twist and fire a single shot into the face of the remaining soldier, his body ragdolling to the floor.
I run down a small alley between the mess hall and another building, and run into another soldier as I exit. I slam my fist into his jaw and kick his knee out, crushing his face with my own knee in a shower of teeth and blood.
I tear across the compound, shredding through whatever forces are left, with Q offering support from the valley side. Eventually, I reach Jakkar's tent.
"He's here, Boss!" One of two guy's by the entrance yell inside, but get no response. I realize that these two were part of the mercenary gang on the train, and my hate for them somehow increases even more.
I unsheathe my sword and walk up to them.
They immediately unload their weapons at me, but I deflect all of them with my blade, the one of two that got through merely bounce off my jacket. Once they realized their weapons were useless, they charged at me, accepting their fate I suppose.
Shink, shink.
Their severed bodies fell behind me, and I didn't look back. What I was looking for is in that tent. And as if on cue, Jakkar emerges.
I sprint and tackle him back inside, not wanting Q to take my chance of killing him away. We land on a small table covered in maps, the legs snapping under our combined weight. I pin his arms to his sides with my legs and mash his face to a pulp, my knuckles bloodying in seconds. Jakkar's face swells up and turns bright red, his eye patch falling off during this. Just when I hear his cheek bone crack, a feel a hand on my shoulder.
I whip around, about to destroy who ever it is, when I see that it's Detective Q.
"Jason, the nuke! It's been activated, only your DNA can turn it off!"
The bloodlust hampers my cognitive functions, so I'm not processing how Q got to me so quick, or who even activated the bomb in the first place, but next thing I knew I was standing in the cargo hold of the HoloJet, beside a nuclear bomb the size of an RV. The familiar hand shaped scanner thing glowed on the face of it, welcoming, begging me to give it my blood.
So I did.
I feel the prick and it buzzes, and suddenly the entire cargo hold is bathed in an eerie blue light. The monitors on the console blink and come to life, the word "Armed" displaying on all of them, followed by a countdown of 12 hours. I feel like a child, mind numb and incomprehensive.
"Thank you, Jason." Q says from the entrance of the hold, but it isn't Q that I see. It's another monster, blue and scaly, with talons the size of kitchen knives and folded wings made of glowing metal. But it speaks, and I hear Q's voice. "Now I can complete your mother's mission."
The air around the creature turns bright red, and I'm sure I'm on some sort of drug, until I see the light is coming from a source. Jakkar, fully healed from the beating I gave him, is running over from the tent, a fiery beam firing from eye socket I emptied over 8 years ago. The beam melts Q's skin, and the monster roars in pain, spreading it's wings, and takes off into the morning sky.
My mind tries to understand what's happening and what I know, but the two conflict so much I feel physical pain, so I just shut everything down, all of it. I collapse to my knees, holding my head.
I hear the hold door close.